Title: Coming Home 2/6
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: PG-17
Summary: Sometimes home isn’t a place.
Spoilers: post season 7
Note: If the chapter breaks seem a little weird, it’s because I wrote this as one unit but had to break it up for my beta.
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
He propped himself up on his elbow and watched her and whether it was the continued annoyance of the bright sunlight streaming onto her face or the fact that she could feel his gaze upon her that woke her, she would never know.
“Good morning,” he told her with a soft smile.
“Good morning,” she responded, blushing at his rapt gaze.
“How do you feel?”
She looked serious. “Like I was worshiped. Like I was loved.”
“You were, Buffy. I do worship you. You are my fatal weakness, my Achilles heel, my drug of choice. I love you with every fiber of my being. I will never let you go away from me again.”
“I belong to you,” she agreed. “It’s funny. All those years, striving to find something, that elusive dream, and you were there all the time.”
“I waited as long as I could, Buffy.”
“Thank you for waiting, Giles. I’m so glad I didn’t miss this.”
He leaned over her, stroked her hair back and kissed her softly. Before too many moments had passed his kiss grew passionate and he made love to her again. Afterwards, he gently pulled her body against his and spooned her. She fit inside his arms like she had been born just for him. Maybe she had been. Half-an-hour later she rolled to face him. “We have to call in sick or something, Giles. I was supposed to teach at least two classes this morning and there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that today.”
He grinned. “I think I had a Council meeting. Bloody waste of time, if you want my opinion. I intend to do much more interesting things today.”
She smiled back at him happily. “Did any of these plans include eating? Because a hungry Slayer is a sad sight.”
He began kissing a line down her chest and belly. “Some of my plans involve eating.”
She stopped his progress by pulling him back up her body. “I’m not going to be able to walk as it is, Watcher-mine. And I was thinking along the lines of food.”
He pouted at her and it was adorable. She gave him her resolve face and he finally sighed and slid out of bed grumpily. “Oh, all right. We can take a short break. You may have the shower if you like. I’ll call in to the Office and let them know we won’t be attending to, ah, duties today.”
She stood up and stretched her body like a sleek panther. He wanted to stroke his hands over her and feel the fantastic smoothness of her supple body, the glide of the muscles under her soft skin. He growled and took a step towards her, but she was learning and leaped away from him with a giggle as she ran to the bathroom. From behind the relative safety of the closed door, she asked him to find her clothes from the night before.
Giles grinned and walked around his apartment finding a garment here and there. He pulled on his underwear and gathered his own clothes at the same time. Walking back to the bedroom, he dumped all the clothes in the chair and proceeded to strip the bed and remake it with clean linen.
Buffy stepped out of the shower ten minutes later wrapped in his robe. “I hope you don’t mind, Rupert. I needed something to wear.”
“Why would I mind? Everything I have is yours.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Go shower and I’ll fix us something to eat.”
He felt so wonderful! Buffy was his at last. He wasn’t going to wake up and find this was another disappointing dream. He showered and soaped himself, yipping when the water found a spot on his back where she had marked him with her nails. He let the warm water cascade over him for a few minutes before turning it off and stepping out. He got out his shaving accoutrements and began that process. Ten minutes later he wiped a cloth over his face to remove the last of the soap. Rubbing a hand over his chin, he pronounced himself satisfied.
Giles could smell good things in his kitchen so he quickly slipped into a pair of jeans and a soft pullover shirt before heading in to see what Buffy had concocted. She had become a fair cook, he admitted; a far cry from the girl who found preparing anything other than orange juice a challenge.
She dished up the food and laid the table. He sniffed appreciatively as he came through the door. “Something smells very good.”
“Scrambled eggs, toast, fried apples, and some ham.”
He was practically salivating. “I didn’t realize how hungry I actually was. That sounds excellent.”
They were both hearty eaters and the breakfast feast soon disappeared under their forks. She leaned forward.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today? After we clean up, I mean.”
“I’ll make the calls to get us out of work today and we can go for that picnic I promised you last night. There are some rather nice sights to see within a relatively short drive from here. Would you like that?”
“Mmmmm,” she agreed. “It sounds heavenly. No training, no Slaying, no studying, just relaxing with my man. Yeah, I believe I would like that a whole bunch.”
“Am I your man?” He suddenly felt like he needed reassurance.
“You are the only man,” she told him. “I just wish I had realized a few lovers ago. I wish I could come to you clean and new. Instead of all bedraggled with the remains of failed relationships all over me.”
“Buffy, love, did you suppose I was a virgin last night?”
She looked surprised. “No, there’s no way. Nobody gets that good just on imagination alone. I’d say you’ve had practice and lots of it.”
“That’s right, I have. I, like every other person on this planet have blundered my way through my personal relationships, hoping for the best and rarely getting it.”
“You haven’t made mistakes like I have, though.”
“You think not? Why do you suppose Ethan has dogged my footsteps for twenty-five years?”
“You and Ethan Rayne? Really?”
“Yes. Are you repulsed?”
“Who am I to cast stones? Were you in love?”
“Perhaps. It’s been so long and it ended so very badly, I really don’t know if it was love or simply fascination.”
She pursed her lips. “So, you’re bisexual?”
“No, I’m hetero. My relationship with Ethan clearly proved that my leanings were in another direction entirely.”
“Then why?” she flopped her hand back and forth in a rather vulgar gesture.
He sighed. “I was very young. Several years younger than you are now, but probably at least a decade younger mentally. I was a total innocent.”
Buffy looked, not exactly skeptical, but not entirely sure whether or not to believe him.
“I assure you, it’s quite true. Watchers are brought up in rather isolated circumstances, you see. And my parents were strict. I didn’t meet anyone outside of our household till I was ten. I was raised in virtual isolation on our country estate. There were no other children, no pets, though we did have horses because father thought riding was a necessary skill for a Watcher. You never know where you will have to travel or how you will have to get there, so riding was permitted. At any rate, I was isolated, culturally, emotionally, physically—cut off from virtually everyone. When I was sixteen, my father decided I was old enough to go to college.”
“College at sixteen?”
“I was already years ahead of most lads. I studied hard, worked incessantly. My father had impressed on me the necessity of constant vigilance. If I slowed down, my Slayer would die and it would be my fault.”
“Giles, your dad sounds like a real bastard. Sorry if that offends you.”
“No, you are quite correct. He had one love and she died at seventeen because he couldn’t protect a Slayer from her fate. He blamed himself. His marriage to my mother was arranged and in due time produced me. He vowed that I wouldn’t be weak; I wouldn’t fail. My Slayer, he said, would live.”
“You realize that he was nuts, right? A Watcher teaches, he prepares, he researches, but he can’t hold back death.”
He smiled at her softly. “No, but sometimes fate grants him another opportunity.” Reaching out, he stroked her hair. “At any rate, I was a very lonely and sheltered young man. I was terrified of girls and only slightly less frightened of other boys and I was so very tired of studying. I was sitting in the library one day, and a young man I had seen around the school came and sat at my table. It was Ethan. His father was a politician of all things, and had sent him off to get a bit of polish. Ethan started talking to me and before I knew it, I had told him how very lonely I was. I didn’t even realize what I had revealed. He took me under his wing; introduced me to people, young people, women even. I was petrified but he showed me how to talk and act like a normal human being. Maybe I did love him for that. When he made advances, I was too innocent to say no. He promised me that he loved me and I thought it would be all right.” He paused.
“You have no idea how driven young men are by the thought of sex, Buffy. And I was so alone. I had never been touched by another person in my entire life and I wanted it, even if it was with another man. When Ethan found out I knew magic; had a gift for it, he made me teach him. He walked a very narrow line between good and evil and he leaned very heavily toward the dark side. He drew me in and we had wonderful times together. He introduced me to a small group of his friends and we began practicing magic. We drank, smoked dope, partied, fornicated like bunnies and were generally the picture of irresponsibility. I loved it. Ethan asked me to find something more for him. I researched and found Eyghon. You know how that turned out.”
She held his hand strongly in her own. “I believe things happen the way they do for a reason, Giles. If you hadn’t gotten the experience of, well, living, at that age, when you became my Watcher you would have been like Wesley, well intentioned, trained up the wazoo, but as useless as roller skates on a fish. I might have grown fond of you, if I’d lived long enough, but I wouldn’t have loved you, or have fallen in love with you.”
He kissed her hand and held it against his cheek. “After Eyghon, I left Ethan and that sort of life. I had been gone from my studies for two years, but they were probably the most influential of my life. I reverted to my former status as a mild-mannered bookworm and managed to put the thought of having any life but that of a scholar out of my mind. I met women occasionally and sometimes I even let myself have a brief affair. Generally, when they found out I had no intention of committing to a real relationship, they left me. Olivia was from that time period. Six years younger and as lovely as a song.” He sighed.
“Do I need to be jealous of Olivia again?”
“Again?”
“What do you think that whole outburst when I was nineteen was about, Giles? I came over to see my Watcher and found him with another woman. I was so pissed! Olivia is real lucky I didn’t really understand why I was so jealous or she’d have skid marks on her ass from where I bounced her down the sidewalk.”
He smiled at her imagery; he couldn’t help it. “Ah, no. There’s no reason to be jealous of Liv. We are friends who occasionally had sex because we knew the other person was safe.”
“Safe?”
“Yes. Olivia is very much in love with her husband, Joseph. He was a race car driver till one race turned out badly and his car went out of control. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Olivia still needs the occasional human touch, but she doesn’t want the commitment of an affair. Who better than a friend who understands and shares her needs and desires?”
Buffy nodded. “I see. What are you going to do if she comes around again?”
He sighed. “Olivia made it plain that our liaison was at an end when she left Sunnydale after the Gentlemen. I was too frightening for her. She told me she was sorry because she really did like me, but the world I lived in was too terrifying for her. Besides, for the first time in my life, I’m in a relationship that I do want to commit to and I have the distinct impression that my significant other would object to letting me service Olivia’s needs.”
Buffy looked momentarily outraged. “Damn right she would.”
He laughed and pulled her hair lightly.
She looked thoughtful. “Would you have committed to Jenny? I know you loved her.”
“I did love her, but I would never have married her. We would have probably had a torrid affair and then, when she got too close, I would have backed away.”
“Harsh. Is that what you’re going to do with me?”
“No. We are committed to each other to death and beyond, Buffy. I couldn’t have stayed with Jenny because you are my destiny.”
“I guess I can live with being destiny girl again, as long as I’m yours.”
He enfolded her in his arms and simply held her. He pulled back slightly and just looked at her. “You know, something occurred to me just now.”
“What?”
“My father was right, in a way. My Slayer did live. The first ever in the world to escape her fated end.”
“Yeah, except for that part where I died twice.”
“The point isn’t that you died, but that you came back, love. You are so magnificent, even death couldn’t stop you.”
She snorted derisively. “Please, Giles. I was so screwed up that I couldn’t butter toast.”
“You had the right to be, ah, ‘screwed up’ as you say. Instead of bolting back to England when I found out where you had been, I should have contacted the Council and gotten you skilled psychiatric therapy. I was a terrified fool.”
“I know why I was messed up, but why were you?” This had been an ongoing puzzle for her. It was totally out of character for this man to have simply abandoned her when she was so desperate for help. She had never been able to figure out what was going on in his mind to make such a terrible decision.
He looked ashamed but met her eyes anyway. “If I had stayed one more night, I would have seduced you. I could have done it easily enough. Every night, I thought of how to go about it. I would have come to your room after one of your nightmares. Under the guise of comforting you, I would have crawled into your bed and I wouldn’t have left till you were mine. I realized I couldn’t take you like that—not while you were so far from well.”
She was silent, unsure of what to say. She knew if he had come to her that way, she would have taken him, used him, and eventually hated him for it.
When she said nothing, he continued on, desperation in his voice. “You don’t know how I burned for you. I could barely keep my hands off you during the day, but the nights—ah, the nights were temptation straight from Hell.”
She slowly raised her hand and stroked his side. “You did right, Giles. I never thought I would be able to look back at that time and say that, but you did the right thing. Because you left, we can have now. If you had taken me then, I’d have ended up hating you.”
The tension that had built in his body suddenly relaxed. “Why don’t we go for that drive, my dear? We’ve had rather enough serious talk for now, don’t you think?”
She grinned. “I’m always willing to put off the hard stuff for enjoyable things, Giles. You should know that after all these years.”
“Go get dressed. I’ll get my wallet and keys and meet you in the hall.”