Title: Saying Goodbye
Author: Ness
Contact: sessa1_2@yahoo.com
Pairing: No Giles Ship (Wesley/Cordelia)
Rating: Mild PG
Warning: Angst and character death.
Spoilers: None
Summary: Cordy and Wesley share a quiet weekend.
Feedback: Um, if I asked please, would that help?
Distribution: Anyone that already has permission. Anyone else, please ask
first, I like to know where my babies are going. *G*
Disclaimer: We all know who owns 'em and it ain't me. Joss and Co. are gods in their universe; I'm just a peon in mine.
A/N #: Thanks to Gail for the beta. There were a few things I changed after she saw it, so any and all mistakes are mine – as always.

“Okay, you two – if you want to go this weekend, you’d better have your stuff in the car in five minutes or no one’s going.” 

He listened to his wife trying to get the children ready and wondered if they knew that this threat was totally idle.  Even if she was willing to make them stay home, he wasn’t.  He had plans for this weekend – plans that didn’t include his children.  Make no mistake, he loved his kids, but this weekend wasn’t about them.  It was about his wife.

He knew that she felt like she was only good for taking care of their family.  He’d watched her when she didn’t realize it, trying to squeeze into jeans that she hadn’t worn in years.  He’d also seen the frustration in her eyes when she wasn’t able to.

He intended to show her that she still had the ability to take his breath away.

***

Cordelia came back into the house after taking the children to their respective friends’ house for the weekend.  She noticed something was different from when she left, but it didn’t click with her until she’d looked down the hallway and realized how dark it was.

Why were all the lights off?  She was about to yell that question to her husband, wherever he was, until she saw the note sitting on the foyer table.

‘Come to the gazebo.’  She fingered the note thoughtfully.  It was his writing, but she didn’t have a clue what he was up to.  She was also very, very tired.  She loved her kids, but getting them ready and out the door to go anywhere was on the scale with moving an army unit, including supplies.

She sighed and headed out back.

When she got there, there was a table set up in the middle of the small gazebo they’d erected shortly after moving to this house.  The backyard was one of the reasons she’d fell in love with it.  It had a tall privacy fence along with enough room in the back for an intimate garden, complete with gazebo.

There were lit candles on the table along with a note.  ‘I love you,’ was all it said.  She turned to find him staring at her with love, and a healthy dose of lust, in his eyes. 

“You take my breath away, do you know that?” he asked quietly, almost thoughtfully.

She looked down at herself.  “Yeah, right,” she chuckled ruefully.  She wore jeans she’d thrown on this morning and an old SHS tee-shirt that had definitely seen better days.

He approached her slowly.  “You do.  No matter what you’re doing, or what is happening, you have the ability to completely stop me in my tracks.”  He reached out a hand and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear.  “I look at you and wonder just how I got so bloody lucky.”

Cordelia started to laugh again when she realized, to her amazement, that he was deadly serious.

“I thank the Universe for each moment I have with you,” he said as he pulled her into his arms.  “And I bless the day that it brought you into my life.”  He took one of her hands and lifted it to his lips and softly placed a kiss on it. 

She smiled at him.  “Not that I’m complaining, but what brought this on?”

“I simply realized that I don’t tell you enough just what you mean to me.”  He slid one hand around the nape of her neck and lowered his mouth until he was speaking against her lips.  “You have given me more than any one man has the right to expect and much more than I deserve.”  He kissed the corner of her mouth.  “You have given me fifteen wonderful years of marriage and two beautiful children.”  He kissed the other corner of her mouth.  “I am a truly lucky man, Cordelia Chase-Wyndam-Pryce, and I know it.”  Wesley whispered these last words before taking her mouth in a kiss that shook her to her foundations.  It was as though he was putting every word he’d just spoken into his kiss.  It was gentle, reverent and loving.

He lifted his head to look at her with unfathomable eyes.  “I love you.”  He lifted his hands and stroked her lips softly.

Cordelia looked at him for a moment and wondered what she’d done to have a man like him fall in love with her.  “I love you too,” she whispered.  She grasped one of his hands, turned it over and placed a kiss on the center of his palm.  “You are my world.”

“And you are mine,” he assured her. 

She pulled his head down into a gentle kiss that quickly heated.  She pulled away from him reluctantly.  “The kids are gone for the whole weekend,” she reminded him with a lazy smile.

“Yes, I do seem to recall you mentioning something along those lines,” he chuckled.

“I’m thinking we really shouldn’t let a totally clear weekend go to waste,” she said impishly.

Wesley swung her up into his arms, laughing at her squeak of surprise.  “I completely agree with you, my darling, I really do.”  He kissed her again as he stepped out of the gazebo and headed towards the house.

***

Cordelia sat in the gazebo and smiled softly as she remembered that weekend.  They didn’t leave the house two days.  In fact, they hardly left the bedroom.  You would’ve thought they were newlyweds instead of an old married couple.

She laid a hand on her swollen abdomen.  That weekend had done more than renew their passion.  She couldn’t stop a small chuckle that came with that thought.  Wesley had been over the moon at the thought of another child.  She had too, if the truth had been told, even though she knew what lay ahead during the pregnancy.  The demon half of her nature didn’t like her pregnancies, for some reason, and that meant that she spent a good part of nine months miserable. 

That didn’t stop her from cherishing this baby.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a shadow falling over her.

“Are you ready?” 

Cordelia nodded and took Angel’s hand as he helped her to her feet.  She stepped out of the gazebo into the gathering darkness and looked around at the people gathered. 

Faith had come from wherever she’d been, bringing Robin Woods with her.  Cordelia remembered how pleased Wesley had been that Faith had become the Slayer, and the woman, that she had been destined to be.  It had always been one of his greatest regrets that he had played a part, even in a small way, in some of the mistakes that Faith had made.

Cordelia glanced past the brunette Slayer to see the Scoobies enter the backyard.  Buffy led them, as usual, but without the bravado that had been so much a part of her in the early days.  She led Willow, Kennedy, Xander and Anya.  The tall man striding behind them was a welcome sight.  Cordelia needed to speak with Giles, the sooner the better.

Cordelia could sense Angel standing behind her, a sentry against anyone who might upset her.  She started to tell him that it wasn’t necessary, but she knew that wouldn’t stop him.  She watched as Faith approached her. 

“Hey, Cordelia.”  Faith stopped a few feet away.  She took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry about Wes; I’m so sorry.”  She turned away, not sure of Cordelia’s reaction to her presence, but knowing that there was no way that she could have stayed away.

Cordelia stepped closer, stopping Faith with a light touch on the brunette slayer’s arm and waited until Faith looked at her again.  “Thank you for coming, Faith.  Wesley would have appreciated it.”  She watched as the Slayer nodded once and stepped back to let the others approach.

Buffy walked up next.  “I’m sorry, Cordy,” she said simply.  “He was a good man.”

Cordelia nodded and half-listened as the others offered their condolences.  Her attention was on the quiet, somber man who waited at the end of the line.

He took her hand in his.  “Cordelia, I am sorry.”  He looked at her with sorrow-filled eyes. 

Cordelia squeezed his hand.  She led him into the semi-privacy of the gazebo.  She allowed herself a moment of quiet to collect herself.

Giles stood and waited, allowing her all the time she needed.

Finally, she spoke.  “Giles, there’s something that Wesley wanted to ask --.”  She stopped and thought for a moment.  “Well, we *both* wanted to ask you.”  She saw surprise flicker his eyes.  “Wesley and I had talked about the legacy his family had with the Council and what that meant for our family, specifically, our children.  We’d both decided that while we wouldn’t push them into the life of a Watcher, we wouldn’t deny them the opportunity if they wanted it.”  She took a deep breath.  “I won’t lie.  I sincerely hoped that neither one of them would want anything to do with the Council.  But I also agreed that they should be allowed to choose their own path.”

Giles looked at her questioningly.  She could tell he wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

“I have a favor to ask of you, Giles.  Something that Wesley was hoping that you would do for us.”

“Anything, Cordelia,” Giles said softly.

She chuckled, and for a moment, the grief lifted and the Cordelia that controlled a room from the moment she stepped into it shone through.  “You really need to learn not to volunteer without knowing what you’re volunteering for, Giles.”  She smiled at him, sadness giving the gesture a heartbreaking quality.  “You could get into trouble that way,” she finished softly.

Giles was silent for a moment.  “Anything, Cordelia,” he repeated firmly.

Tears shone in her eyes as she squeezed his hand again.  “One of our children has decided that they want to carry on the family tradition and we wanted you to be the one to train them,” she said through her tears.  “Wesley wanted you because he knew that you would protect them.  That, as head of the Council, you had the *power* to protect them.”  She looked at her children.  “You know that the demon aspect of my physiology may, or may not, manifest itself in my children.  It hasn’t yet,” she shrugged, “but that doesn’t mean much.”  She turned her attention back to Giles.  “I don’t want them ostracized, or worse, treated like freaks because of what I am.  I know you won’t allow that to happen.  We taught our children to question and make their own choices.  I won’t have someone from the Council taking that away from them; it might be the only thing that keeps them alive one of these days.”  She took a deep breath.  “If one of my children does the Watcher training, then I am trusting their trainer with the most important thing in my life.  She paused for a moment before softly finishing.  “I’d like that trainer to be you.”    

Giles stared at her for a moment before his gaze automatically drifted to her son.

“Not him,” Cordelia corrected quietly.  “My daughter,”

Giles looked at the teenage girl standing by her brother and saw the same quiet determination that had carried her father so far.  She stared back at him, daring him to deny her this opportunity.

He couldn’t.

He looked back at her mother.  “When would you like me to start?”

A single tear trickled down Cordelia’s cheek as she closed her eyes and fought for composure.  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, catching at the hopeful look in her daughter’s eyes and desperately denied the longings of her own heart.  She didn’t want to lose her child to the same institution that had come so perilously close to destroying her husband.  But, by the same token, she couldn’t deny her child what she wanted just because she didn’t want to let go.

She took another breath.  “As soon as she’s ready.”  Each word felt like a blow to her already wounded spirit.  She had just buried the man who would hold her heart for the rest of her life; now she was about to allow her daughter to travel so very far away.  Cordelia knew that her daughter would want to leave for England as soon as possible, to begin carrying on her father’s legacy.

She sighed softly and almost began crying again when Giles looked at her with such compassion and understanding. 

“I will take very good care of her,” he promised softly.

“I know you will.”  For a moment an old glimmer of joking defiance peeked through her grief.  “‘Cause you know I’ll kick your ass if you don’t.”

“There is always that,” he agreed with a quiet chuckle.

They stood together for a moment longer before Giles stepped out of the gazebo, leaving Cordelia alone with her thoughts and her memories.  She felt a sudden breeze flow through the gazebo and knew that it was Wesley letting her know that he was all right, and that she would be too. 

FINIS