Title: Time Apart
Author: shelley
Summary: Buffy has what she wanted
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all
Author's Notes: This was written for the first line challenge, for Wisdomeagle

He’d said he wanted time apart.

At first she’d been hurt, but between one heartbeat and the next that hurt transformed into resentment. Who the hell was he to say what their relationship was and what it wasn’t? She was the Slayer, he was her Watcher; she called the shots.

Except she wasn’t the Slayer any longer. She was one of thousands of Slayers, only her experience lifting her out of the horde.

And considering how many girls had survived the closing of the Sunnydale Hellmouth and then moved to Cleveland, she was losing that distinction by the day.

And Giles wasn’t her Watcher any longer. He was one of a handful of surviving Watchers, and thousands of girls and women could call him “theirs” now. She had lost her exclusivity clause.

So she’d told him, “Fine!” and exulted at his injured look.

That sense of victory faded when he nodded once and walked away without another word.

He had his Council and his army of Slayers and his fight against darkness; she had… Rome.

It wasn’t time that was apart; it was Buffy.

END