TITLE: Beauty 7/7
AUTHOR: Lily2332
DISCLAIMER: They’re not mine, don’t sue.

For lost. You put almost as much into it as I did.

She'd heard a saying before, about people feeling as though they'd been 'run through the wringer,' and Buffy felt a kinship with whomever had coined that phrase as she opened Giles' front door. She'd put off returning for as long as she could, but now she felt that her heart was numb enough to take whatever she’d find, or not find, inside.

The first rays of morning light had driven her here, but when she opened the door, she found that the darkness no longer brought her comfort. Instead, it seemed oppressive and old. She had an urge to yank the curtains open, to fill her Watcher's home with the sun. Anything to make it day, to make this night of worry come to an end.

She closed the door behind her, intent on acting on that impulse. She walked quickly, breaking the silence with the sound of her rustling clothes and aggressive footsteps as she closed in on her goal. A sense of victory overwhelmed her as she placed her hand on the drapes, and, aware that Giles should be here for this milestone, she felt slightly sickened, knowing that she had somehow gained this power by his possible loss.

But creeping into her awareness was something that began to thaw the numbness she'd worked so hard to achieve. She turned, raw viciousness transforming her face into something dangerous.

Her eyes swept over the darkened room, searching for whatever had her not only on guard, but in full battle mode. Something caught her eye, and she took a step toward the couch.

"Giles?"

His eyes were hard and cold as he regarded her, not smiling nor speaking. She could tell he’d been fighting by the swollen areas on his face, as well as the few dark lines where he'd been scratched or cut. But it appeared that he wasn't concerned with any of that. He was calm, and seemed to be waiting. He sat patiently, one arm lying stretched out along the back of the couch, a crossbow in his lap.

He didn't acknowledge her, and she wondered if he even saw her with those empty eyes. He turned his attention to something in the corner, leading Buffy to do the same.

Somebody was sitting there, obscured by the darkness, and when Buffy approached the figure, all she could see was the top of a blonde head, slumped forward in either sleep or unconsciousness.

She looked to Giles, who didn't blink. His expression was one of indifference at best.

"Are you angry?" she asked him, thinking about the previous night's events.

There was a sudden movement in the corner, and Buffy gasped as she met a pair of glowing eyes that she recognized immediately as those of a vampire. Sunday.

Despite being tied up in a Watcher’s home and facing the Slayer, Sunday exuded casual relaxation, not showing any fear whatsoever as she tossed her hair back. From what she'd seen, Buffy wasn't anything to be afraid of. The Slayer's scarred face alone was proof that she, Sunday, was superior in strength and skill.

Buffy took offense to Sunday’s lack of fear. Yesterday, if she'd been faced with this situation, she would've ran straight into Giles' arms. But after the night she'd been through, it was more of an irritant than a fright.

"You did this?" she asked Giles uncertainly. He nodded, and she wondered what exactly he'd gone through to bring her back this bounty.

She sat beside her Watcher on the couch, ignoring the vampire for now. "I don't understand," she tried to get him to look at her by moving to sit on the coffee table directly in front of him. "Why did you do this?"

He shifted his legs to make room for hers between them, then looked at her. With one smooth movement, he pulled a stake from somewhere in his jacket and held it up in front of her.

She looked at the stake, then at Giles. Her Watcher's quiet intensity was a little unnerving. He pushed the weapon at her until it touched her chest, and she took it without looking down.

"I don't understand," she repeated, trying to find an explanation in those emotionless eyes.

"It's for you, Buffy," he told her, nodding toward their prisoner. "I won't pretend that I know how an attack by one vampire has somehow taken your spirit and bravery, but I've done all that I can to make things right for you again."

Buffy again turned her attention to Sunday, and felt nothing. Not a flicker of anything resembling terror or hurt.

Giles saw the frown forming as her eyebrows scrunched together in thought. "What is it?"

She didn't know, not at first. The thoughts were coming too quickly for her to grab and make sense of them. She shook her head in frustration.

Then, she began to understand. It wasn't the vampire in the corner who had taken her surety and self-confidence. Her decline into her dark little world had begun the moment that she found Giles with Olivia, and had been completed when she realized that with her ugly, scarred exterior, he would never love her the way that she needed him to.

She could dust Sunday right now, and nothing would change. The thought was beyond disheartening. She felt as though she might cry.

"Buffy," he said gently. "I know it's frightening, but I'm right here." He didn't understand.

"You think I care about this?" she asked sadly. He watched her as she got up, made her way to the vampire, and untied her. It had to be a fair fight, or there would be no meaning in it. Once they stood facing one another, Sunday brought out her game face, and Buffy shoved the stake into the vampire's chest without moving from her spot on the floor. "There," she told him, still facing the empty chair.

"Nothing is different, Giles."

"But…you've defeated your enemy. You've proven that you are the same Slayer." He didn't understand. He couldn't, because while he thought he'd easily interpreted every tear, sigh, and angry sob that she'd displayed, he hadn't seen the private side of her pain.

Everyone is willing to share something of themselves, something personal, with at least one person. Buffy had opened herself up to Giles in the weeks that she'd been with him, and he'd listened eagerly, sometimes astounded by the depth of her feelings.

Sometimes, late at night, on the occasions when he held her loosely against his chest, and she knew that she could stay there as long as she wished, she came close. As his fingers absently stroked her face and back, she'd imagined what she would say. "I know I made fun, that I said you were old, gross…but I was wrong, Giles. I love you. I need you, and when you sent me away, I thought I would die." She would turn her face up toward his, and he would wait for her to say what she so obviously wanted to, but she could never go through with it.

Now, none of that mattered. Standing there, in the dark, with the stake still in her hand, and the knowledge that today she'd be walking out into the sun for everyone to see her, everything felt surreal enough for her to do what she'd wanted to for so long.

"She wasn't my enemy," Buffy said, her voice quiet but steady.

He waited, sensing that there was a lot more, sensing the enormous importance of what was happening with her right now. He could see the struggle going on, and couldn't imagine what she was thinking.

"My enemy was…you," he snapped to attention, his eyes wide. "No, that's not fair, not true," she amended guiltily. "It wasn't your fault. You sent me away, and I let you believe that that was the reason for my non-bathing, non-daylight tolerating funk, but it wasn't you sending me away. It was why you sent me away."

Giles sorted through every possible reason that Buffy might think he had. He came up with nothing.

"And what, in your opinion, is the reason I sent you away?"

He was so blind, she thought. As blind as she had been for so long.

"I'm sure you had a lot of reasons," she forced herself to continue, but it was hard. The closer she got to saying it, the more difficult the words were to speak. "But seeing you with Olivia-" She saw him beginning to protest, knowing that he was preparing to hear the same old story. "Wait!" she interrupted, "Let me finish."

She went to him and sat on the couch, next to him. They both sat facing forward, instead of at one another. She was pleased that the scarred side of her face was away from him.

"Seeing you with Olivia hurt," she said, continuing to stare at nothing. "I could see that you two were…I was-I wanted it to be me," she finished, bracing herself against his reply as she waited.

"I don't understand," he said, understanding perfectly, yet not able to believe her.

"Yes you do," she replied. "You just don't want to. Don't want to hear it, because it might be awkward to hear that I've loved you, you'll think back to all the times you held me and cringe, thinking that I misinterpreted what was going on. Then you'll have to tell me that I don't know what I want, that I've had too much of a shock, or something like that. You'll say that you're too old, I'm too young, and that we should talk about something else now."

Again, she waited.

"I would never say any of those things," he told her with complete seriousness. "Ever."

Now she looked over at him, and saw him wanting to come close, but hesitating for her sake. She'd been so unpredictable.

"What would you say, then?" She tried to make it easy for him for a change.

He hadn't expected that, but grabbed the opportunity. "I would say…that I was afraid I'd never see my old Buffy again, and how enormously gratified I am to see you with that…" He brought his hand to her cheek, turning her face toward him. She regarded him shyly. "That lovely, vivacious, fearless expression."

"And for you to love me," he continued, "is far better even than what I have just mentioned. I would've been content to have you here, and for you to not be mine, but when you kissed me…" He shook his head at the memory of how confused he'd been.

"What? What happened?" she asked anxiously, desperately wanting to know.

He thought for a few seconds. "I was no longer content," he answered "I couldn't pretend anymore, that I didn't love you in that way, and want all those things."

"You love me?" she asked, knowing that he'd said it but having to ask again.

"Yes."

Of all the times she'd imagined this, or imagined scenes similar to this, she'd turned her face to him, asking him, daring him: "Even like this, you love me?" But now that she was here, she didn't need to. He didn't need to tell her that she was beautiful, she could see it when he looked at her.

She smiled.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked, pulling her even closer until she was in his arms, where he wanted her. Where he'd always wanted her to be.

"I'm…Buffy," she replied.

"Oh, and who were you before?" he asked, watching her lips, anticipating how he would kiss her in a moment.

"I was…" she shook her head as she thought about the person she'd almost become. "It doesn't matter, Giles. I'm me again."

And then she kissed him.

END

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