The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

Disclaimer: The characters and world of this story belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I'm not making any money off either this site or the story itself. In this case some directly-quoted dialogue also belongs to Drew Goddard.

This was written for Marion in the Every Slayer Needs a Watcher ficathon. Spoilers for the Faith arc of the Buffy comics, but steps have been taken (by me, speaking in unnecessary passive voice) to make the story accessible for those who haven't read them. To that end, the dialogue in italics is taken straight from issue 9 and is Drew Goddard's, not mine. Thanks to Antennapedia and Fuzzyboo for beta reading.

Feedback, while never required, does help feed the Muse. As always, it's sahiyaATgmailDOTcom or simply follow the link at the end to the fic at my LJ and leave a comment.

Giles couldn't remember anymore whether it had happened in the fifth dingy motel or the sixth. It was after they'd left California and started to make their way across the flat, never-ending desert of Nevada, but before the bus had broken down outside Carson. The night had been sweltering - he did remember that - a dry heat that had left him feeling desiccated no matter how many bottles of water he drank. That motel had at least had a pool, though he'd had the thought that if polio were still a possibility he'd not have gone anywhere near it.

That night he'd been swimming laps. Back and forth, keeping his head above water. It had been a week and a half (if it was the fifth motel) or two weeks (if it was the sixth), and Giles knew they couldn't just keep driving indefinitely. They needed a plan. A base, if nothing else. A way to find out where the other slayers were - how many there were - and a place to train them. People to train them. People to train the people to train them. Giles grabbed hold of the side of the pool; it was ten o'clock, but the concrete was still warm to the touch. He leaned on it, resting his head on his hands.

This was never going to end. Ever.

He hauled himself up on the side of the pool, spurning the ladder, and then climbed to his feet. He had three minutes, five maximum, before the desert air sucked all the moisture out of him again and he ended up no cooler than he'd started, so he padded back to his room with its rather unreliable air conditioning, towel-drying his hair and hoping for the best.

He hadn't expected to find Buffy there, lying on his bed, arms spread out and an ice cube melting in her exposed navel. She'd claimed the air conditioning in her room was broken, but later, when they had ended up there together, it had worked just fine. He didn't know why she'd lied to him to begin with, or rather, he supposed he did, but hadn't wanted to admit to himself that they'd grown so distant that she felt she needed an excuse to be with him.

"Put some clothes on," she'd said, throwing a recently purchased Pea Soup Anderson's t-shirt at his head. "I want a margarita."

"We should really talk about -"

"After the first margarita."

Of course they hadn't talked about anything after the first margarita, which was obscenely large and also disturbingly blue. Hell, halfway through it he'd forgotten everything he'd wanted to say about finding a base somewhere that wasn't Cleveland, because directing this operation, whatever it was, off a hellmouth was a bad idea. He didn't ask her where she wanted to live or what sorts of facilities she thought might be necessary for the basic running of things. Instead he found himself noticing how brown her skin looked against her white top, how thin she'd grown this last year, how tired she still looked even though she claimed to have done nothing but sleep since Sunnydale. He found himself remembering how much he loved her, how the size and shape of his love for her had terrified him at times, exhilarated him at others, and now - well, he didn't know. A bit of both, probably.

It had been late by the time they arrived back at the hotel. Lights were still on in a lot of the girls' rooms, and Giles wondered if he shouldn't check on them. But then Buffy, weaving slightly because she'd ordered a second margarita, reached out and took his hand, drawing him down the corridor to her room. She keyed herself in with her card and then stood there, holding the door open and looking at him. He'd felt the pull of their bond then, though whether it was something mystical or simply years of knowing her and loving her - in life, in death, in moments of great triumph and great despair, always quietly but not quite secretly - he didn't know and didn't care. Whatever it was had tipped the scales abruptly in favor of exhilaration, and he'd stepped inside.

A few motels later the terror came calling. He'd almost been waiting for it, knowing the exhilaration couldn't last, not long. It happened late one night while she slept in his bed, head on his shoulder, legs tangled up with his. He woke, and everything he'd been keeping at bay crashed in at once: she was too young, he was too old, he was her Watcher, she was his slayer. And worse yet, they were all his slayers now, every single one of them, and he could not let this happen. It would distract them, it would set a dangerous precedent, it would give them all the wrong ideas. The girls were impressionable and he had to think about appearances.

The next morning he'd been on the phone to Robson, speaking seriously for the first time about properties in isolated regions of the UK. There was a castle in Scotland, Robson said. The family that owned it was Watcher stock going back generations. They'd all been wiped out in the explosion, but he'd speak to the widow, see what he could do.

"A castle?" Buffy said when he told her later, in his room in the eighth (or possibly ninth) motel. She was lounging on his bed with her shirt unbuttoned, drawing patterns on the skin of her bared stomach with ice from the bucket on the bedside table. Giles was forced to stare at his hands while he spoke. "Really? That's kinda cool."

"Er, yes, I suppose. There'll be plenty of room at least, though I don't know that it will be terribly comfortable in the winter. We'll see what we can do magically for you, though."

"For me?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, all of you, really. I think we'll make that the main training base and deploy teams to other locations. Cleveland, for instance. Other known hellmouths - there aren't any in the UK but there's one near Moscow. I thought I might lead that team, actually. My Russian is passable, or it could be -"

"Wait, Giles." Buffy sat up and gestured, frowning. "Go back."

"I was thinking our main bases for now would be Cleveland, Scotland, and Russia," he said, pretending ignorance. "I think we can leave Faith and Robin in charge of Cleveland, I was hoping that you and Xander might be willing to head up our training base in Scotland, and I -"

"You're coming to Scotland," Buffy said flatly.

"Er. No. I'm not."

"Giles, what the hell?"

"I think it would be best -"

"I think it would be best," she said, "if we didn't tiptoe around this like it's not about the large amounts of sex we've been having. I know we're doing the whole 'let's not mention it' thing, but you know," she shrugged, "call me crazy, because I 'm gonna mention it. We've been sleeping together, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I had," Giles said tightly. "And I'm quite happy to be a comfort to you in this time of -"

"Yeah, you're so happy you're sending me to Scotland while you go to Russia."

Giles removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Buffy hadn't bothered to close her shirt yet and he found it distracting. Which was probably her intention. "Buffy, I didn't want to resort to such tactics, but I am the de facto head of the Council, and -"

"And I'm the head slayer," she said, standing, "and I finished taking orders from the Council years ago. Don't you pull rank on me in this, Giles. Don't you dare."

He looked up at her. She was flushed and furious. He wished he didn't find it so bloody arousing. "Buffy, what did you think this was?"

For a second, he really thought she might hit him. Her hand came up, a blur of motion in the periphery of his vision, but then she stepped away and turned it into an exasperated gesture. "I don't know, Giles. I don't know. But I know that I thought we'd at least talk about it."

"We're talking about it now."

"No, we're not. You're giving me orders. And, by the way," she added with a humorless laugh, "fuck you."

He stood. "Buffy, the arrangements are made. I'm sorry you're unhappy about this, but there are practicalities to be thought of."

"Practicalities," she repeated, eyes narrowing. "Is that some weird British slang for, 'I'm scared shitless so I'm gonna shove Buffy away again'?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Hard as it may be to believe, Buffy, but not everything is about you."

"And I repeat: Fuck. You."

He turned away from her, gathering up the maps and file folders, shuffling loose paper into piles without looking at it to see what it was. He'd have to go through it all over again eventually to get it sorted, but he couldn't look at her anymore. He could not look her in the eye and do this. "I'll let you know the travel arrangements later today or tomorrow. We're done now."

There was a long pause. Then she said, her voice very low and even, "Yes, we are."

She didn't slam the door on the way out. She didn't scream at him later on either, as he'd feared she might. She sent Xander to deal with him instead. She avoided him entirely after that, until two weeks later, when he turned around in a Starbucks in the San Francisco airport and nearly collided with her. "Buffy!" he said, nearly spilling coffee all over both of them. "Shouldn't you be in security by now?"

"Probably." She looked up at him. He could not imagine a greater contrast to that moment in the hotel, when she'd stood over him, angry and beautiful and utterly in control. Her eyes were wide now, and faintly red rimmed, as though she'd cried sometime in the last few hours. She was not crying now, but her hands were twisted together. "I have to ask, Giles. Willow told me it was better not to, and even Xander said I had to just let it go, but I have to ask. Didn't it mean anything to you at all?"

Giles glanced around. The coffee shop was half-full and the teenage girl behind the counter was eyeing them curiously. "I don't want to do this here, Buffy."

"No," she said, "you don't want to do it at all. So, fine. We don't have to, not really. Just tell me - didn't it mean anything?"

Of course it bloody well did. "It - it was - Buffy, what good does this do either of us?"

"Right," she said, turning away, but not before Giles saw the tears. "Bye, Giles."

When next he heard her voice, more than a year later, it was over a tinny mobile connection, and she was telling him to shut up.

*~*~*

"Shut up, Giles.

"Buffy?"

"Her. You're working with her and you didn't even tell me?"

"I . . . I can explain later. Please, lives are at stake."

"Yeah, like mine. Your Femme Nikita just tried to stuff me down a pool drain."

"What?"

"Faith and her new droogs 'ported me into the middle of a British invasion, but Will conjured up my ticket home."

"And you left Faith behind? Buffy, you have to put Willow on the line."

"Not until you tell me exactly what the hell is going on."

". . . No. I don't want you to be any part of this."

*~*~*

The flat in Bath wasn't home, not really, but Giles had rarely been so glad to see it. It had been the longest two hour drive of his life; Faith had clearly been exhausted once the adrenaline wore off, and she'd dozed in and out, leaving Giles to his own thoughts. Not a nice place to be at the moment. Covered in the blood of a man he'd killed, and replaying the conversation with Buffy over and over, knowing how she'd taken his words, uttered in desperation and impatience, imagining all the things he could have said instead. The phone rang once while he was driving; Willow - Mobile, it said, but he didn't answer. He didn't know what he'd say if it were Buffy. It rang until it rolled over to voicemail, and then, perhaps thirty seconds later, it beeped shrilly to let him know one had been left. Faith twitched in her sleep and then subsided.

He didn't want to listen to that voicemail. He wanted a shower, some aspirin, and a sleeping pill more than he'd ever wanted anything.

But first he had a slayer to see to. He'd failed Faith in Sunnydale, he'd realized recently. She didn't seem to hold it against him, at least not anymore, but he was determined not to let it happen again. He'd got her into this and she'd held up her half of the bargain. Now it was his turn.

He woke her once he'd parked and hustled her into the flat. Over her protests that the cuts and bruises were "no big," he made her go upstairs and wash and change while he gathered up the first aid kid and made a pot of tea. Her injuries likely weren't anything particularly severe, but he wanted to see for himself. And if he were honest, it wasn't entirely about her either. He wanted to be a regular watcher for a few minutes, to take care of one slayer rather than dozens, to have that intimacy again. Buffy's voice over the mobile, as furious as it had been, had set off a craving in him, one that training scores of slayers hadn't even come close to stilling. He wasn't sure that helping Faith would do anything for it either, but he had to try.

She came downstairs dressed in yoga pants and one of his t-shirts - the Pea Soup Anderson's shirt, actually. He had to suppress a bitter smile. Instead he drew her over to sit at the kitchen table and went to work on the cuts on her face and neck, cleaning each one carefully and placing a plaster over it. At first it was clearly an indulgence, but by the end she'd gone still and quiet; her eyes had drifted shut.

"There you go," he said quietly, at last. "All patched up."

"Yeah?" She lifted a hand to touch her face. "And what about you, Giles? Who patches you up?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine, Faith, but thank you for your concern."

"Huh," she said, and plucked his glasses off his nose before he had the chance to protest. "Yech, warlock. You drive back with these things like this?"

Giles blinked. The spectacles were indeed splattered in blood. He'd not really noticed until now. Faith went over to the sink and ran them under the water, scrubbing them clean with a tea towel.

"Here," she said, handing them back.

"Thank you," he said, accepting them. He put them on. "That's much better, yes."

"No big. But I mean it, Giles. Who puts you back together?"

He looked up at her, squinting tiredly. "I do, Faith."

"Not B?" she said.

"No."

"'Cause I thought that whole thing after SunnyD did the big sink was -"

"You thought wrong," he said, quietly but firmly. "Now, if it's all right with you, we were both up all night and -"

"Yeah, sure, five by five. You should get some sleep. I'll see you later."

Giles fled upstairs. He knew he should have stayed with Faith a bit longer, made sure she was doing all right with everything, but he couldn't. It had been pleasant, those few moments with Faith, but they had not stilled the craving. Nothing would, he thought, not until he was back with Buffy, if indeed that ever happened. He wondered if perhaps it might not have been the complete disaster he'd imagined; if perhaps they might not have made it work. Probably not. He was not optimistic about his chances for happiness and saw no reason to ruin hers, such as they were.

He picked up the phone. One missed call. He rang his voicemail and hunched over on the edge of the bed, bracing himself for it.

It was Buffy again, of course. "I have no idea what that was about," she said, and he could hear that she'd been crying, though she wasn't at present. "And you know what, Giles? I don't fucking care. I don't care. You've chosen her and that's just fine with me. I hope you're so fucking happy together that neither of you can stand it, but when she goes psycho and smothers you in your sleep, just remember I told you so." Click.

He flipped the phone shut and covered his face with his hands. He knew he should stand up and undress, get his bloodied shirt and trousers off and change into something comfortable, but he couldn't move.

It was a long time before he finally did, not until he heard Faith come up the stairs and go to bed. At that point he finally unbent, kicking off shoes, socks, trousers, and pulling his shirt over his head. Most of the clothing was a lost cause, so he didn't even bother throwing it in the laundry. He just let it lie where it fell and rolled over to bury his head under his pillow.

He slept poorly. He dreamt of the spell he'd uttered that night, but instead of Roden bursting into bloody pieces in front of him, it was Buffy. "What did I do, Giles?" she asked, gasping as the spell demolished her from the inside out. "Just tell me -"

The third time he woke gasping and covered in sweat, he decided it was time to give up. He padded downstairs, made tea, and sat staring at his mobile. It didn't ring and he didn't pick it up. What could he say, after all?

You could try the truth, you great git, a voice in his head that sounded - very oddly - like either Spike or Ethan pointed out tartly.

He could. But he doubted she'd listen.

*~*~*

"Congratulations, Faith, on a most honorable discharge. I've secured you a new identity, as well as a one-way ticket to -"

"Thanks, but I'm not ready to punch-out just yet."

"I thought you were done with bloodshed."

"I am. But there are gonna be other Gigis out there. If I stopped stabbing and started, I don't know, playing social worker to the slayers, maybe I could help walk a few bad girls back from the brink."

"Hmm."

"You think it's a lame idea, right?"

"On the contrary. I was wondering if I might be able to join you."

"Appreciate the offer, but I think I'm done taking orders, even from guys I dig."

"Actually, given your post recent performance, I was envisioning more of a partnership between equals."

"Wouldn't me and you starting a two-man band go down lousy with your main girl?"

"I'm afraid I wouldn't know. Buffy and I . . . aren't on speaking terms at the moment."

"Then I guess we're on our own."

"It would appear so. But perhaps we can be on our own together."

*~*~*

Another motel, another pool, this one indoors, which meant that the chlorine stung his eyes even if he kept his head above water. But it was November and too cold to swim outdoors, even in Texas, where they were this week. They were heading south tomorrow to San Antonio, where there was purportedly a slayer who kept slipping out of their grasp.

It had been a month since that night. A month of silence. A month of remarkable discretion on Faith's part, though they were living in very close quarters and she had to know something was bothering him. She'd not asked, to his surprise and relief. Probably she didn't want him prying into her affairs and so kept out of his. He appreciated it, even if it did make him feel a bit lonely. "On their own together" was what he'd said, and it was exactly what he'd got.

He missed the camaraderie of those early years in Sunnydale. Missed Willow and Xander. Missed Buffy something fierce, with an almost physical ache in his chest. Faith's presence, while distracting in many ways, could not compensate for that. They had been four parts of a whole once: head, heart, hands, spirit. And now they were together without him.

He had always been an outsider, though. As was proper. He was the adult, after all. And in many ways, he'd chosen his exile - several times over now, really.

This did not make it less painful.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shoved off of the wall, stroking along in the silent darkness of the empty pool until his hands touched the side again. He surfaced with a gasp - and found himself looking up at Faith. She'd rolled her yoga pants up to her knees and dangled her feet in the water. Her toes were painted dark red, he saw, looking down at her feet, washed to a watery white-blue by the water.

"Yo," she said.

"Uh, er, yes. Yo. How was your patrol?"

"Deader than dead. This is a sleepy little town after dark, nothing for the vamps to snack on." She smacked one palm with a closed fist. "Wanna stake something, Giles."

"I'm sure San Antonio will offer more in the way of exercise."

"Hope so. Cleveland was a shithole, but I got used to making regular kills."

"You could come swimming if you want," he said, "burn some of that excess energy."

"Nah," she sighed. "Not the same. Plus, swimming laps? It's like running a goddamn treadmill. You go and you go and just don't get anywhere."

"Sometimes that's its advantage."

"I guess, if you're into that sort of thing. Which, no offense, I'm not."

He shoved away from the wall, swam away, did an open-hand turn, and came back to her. She watched him. He felt vaguely unnerved by it, though not in the same way he'd felt unnerved the first few days, when he'd worried that she wanted something very specific from him. Now he was fairly certain that wasn't the case, but what she did want remained unclear. Faith had always been something of a X-factor, a wild card, but one he'd been willing to play when it suited him. Now he had the feeling she was the one dealing. He wondered if she was stacking the deck, and if so, to what ends.

He surfaced again by her feet. This time she didn't let him take off again. "Giles, did you know my first watcher? Like before, when you were in Jolly Ol' before coming to SunnyD?"

She said "first" as though she'd ever had a second. He wondered if she considered him her watcher, or if it was Wesley she thought of. He'd never thought of himself as belonging to her; he'd been Buffy's for years by then. Faith had never stood a chance. "No, unfortunately. She was rather younger than I, if I remember correctly, so we weren't at school together. Charlotte Gregory was her name, wasn't it?"

Faith nodded, lips twisting in what might have been a smile. "Yeah. Called her Charlie. Drove her crazy." Her lips untwisted and she grinned, albeit only briefly. "I thought about her a lot when I was inside. How things would've been different if she hadn't been killed so soon after I got my powers. I barely had time to learn anything - I mean, she worked with me before, but I don't think she ever expected me to get called."

"Statistically, the chances of any one potential being called were fairly small."

"Yeah. But when I did, suddenly there was all this pressure. I kinda freaked. I was pretty fucked up even then, before all the other shit went down. My mom'd gone and drank herself to death only a couple months before."

"Good lord," Giles said. "I didn't know that."

Faith shrugged. "Charlie was way more there for me than my mom'd ever been anyway. I moved in with her. She took care of me, made me eat my Wheaties and go to school."

Giles raised his eyebrows. "I was under the impression you'd dropped out some time before you arrived in Sunnydale."

"Uh, no," Faith said. She kicked her feet out. "I was talking ten kinds of shit when I first got there - not that I ever stopped. I'd heard about B, knew I was never gonna be her, so I decided I'd be, you know, way too cool for it. Not that I was ever on the honor roll, but Charlie would've kicked my ass if I'd talked about dropping out."

"I see." He sighed. "Well, I'm sorry I was such a piss poor replacement." Not that it could ever have gone differently.

"Yeah, you were," she said flatly, "and Wes was worse, but whatever. That's not the point."

Giles raised his eyebrows. "What is the point then?"

"You and B. That's the point. I don't care what's happened, Giles. I know you guys were boinking after Sunnydale, and my guess is that one of you has shit for brains and freaked out. Am I warm?"

Giles glared at his hands gripping the side of the pool. "More or less."

"Thought so. I won't bother asking who the shithead was, 'cause I don't think it matters. But fix it, Giles. Fix it before you can't."

Giles shook his head. "I think we might have reached that point already."

Faith crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah? You dead?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"She dead?"

"God," Giles breathed, and he could swear his heart stuttered to a halt, "I hope not."

"Then it's fixable. And you'll do it. Because I'd have given anything, Giles, and I mean fucking anything, to have someone look at me the way you looked at her. In fact," she added, "I did give anything. Or, I guess, everything."

Giles was silent. "Faith," he said at last, "I was - that is, if I fix this, it might mean that you and I - well -"

"You'll be on the next plane to Scotland. Yeah, that sucks for me. But maybe next time you won't be so goddamn mopey."

Giles felt his eyebrows go shooting up. "I have not been mopey."

"Oh, like hell. It's been like taking a road trip with fucking Eeyore. Call B or I'll dunk your head." She pulled her feet out of the pool and levered herself up. "But don't you dare tell her this was my doing."

"Wouldn't think of it," he said, and caught the towel she threw at him.

He dried off slowly, pulled his shirt on and draped the towel over his neck, and went upstairs. Faith made it sound easy, but he knew that - if he decided to do it - it would be anything but. What could he possibly say to Buffy that would make her believe him? How could he convince her to pick up the phone, much less listen? She'd made her mind up, he thought. That much was clear from her voicemail. She'd made her mind up about him, and about him and Faith, and once Buffy Summers decided to feel self-righteous and martyred -

No, that wasn't fair. Much of this was his fault. Most of it, really, going back to his decision to send her to Scotland. But a war was coming; they all knew it. It would be bad and she would be on the front lines, as always. Faith's simple question - Is she dead? - had sent him reeling, and now all he could imagine was getting a phone call in the middle of the night from Willow or Xander.

There were some things you could never forgive yourself for, Giles knew very well, even if other people eventually did. He'd made a few of those mistakes, and if he hadn't managed to make peace with them, he'd at least managed to climb out of the great dark bloody hole eventually. But that particularly hole - that one there would be no way out of. He'd lived in a world without her in it, and it was bleak and terrible, but he could live there. A world where she had died thinking he didn't care, thinking what they'd had meant nothing to him, thinking that he'd rejected her - that world wouldn't be livable for very long.

And if things went well and they somehow both made it - again - then . . . well. Who knew? Maybe this time the exhilaration would hold out.

Faith was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, eating crisps out of a packet and watching a Seinfeld rerun when he finally keyed himself into their room. "Want me to take a walk?" she asked pointedly.

"No." He sat down on the end of his bed. She muted the TV and crossed her arms over her chest, clearly prepared to make her argument all over again. "It has occurred to me," he said, rather slowly, "that Buffy and I haven't done very well over the phone recently."

"Yeah, that's kinda like saying Chernobyl was a couple of leaky pipes."

"Yes, I know." He sighed. "Do you think you could get along on your own for a few days if I left you once we get to San Antonio tomorrow? You could come with me, I suppose, if you -"

"Ah, no, Giles," Faith said. "Appreciate the invite, but if you're looking to get back in B's good graces, dragging me along ain't the way to do it. It's cool. I'll hang out, see if I can make inroads with our slayer." She paused, some emotion he couldn't quite read tightening her jaw. "And then - aw, shit, Giles, you know you're not coming back."

Giles looked down at his hands. "You're assuming she'll want anything to do with me.'"

"Bullshit. Make a big dramatic scene, take the blame for all the shit you two've done to each other, let her feel self-righteous and vindicated, and she'll get over her snit real quick. "

"Faith," Giles said with exasperation.

"Yeah. Sorry. I know this was my idea but damn if it wasn't one of my stupider ones." She wouldn't look at him.

Giles sighed. "I am sorry."

"Whatever. It was always gonna happen. Me and my stupid mouth just sped things up."

"On the other hand," Giles pointed out, "if I manage to put things right, there might be places for both of us in Scotland."

"Whatever," Faith snorted, reaching for the remote. "That castle ain't big enough for me and B. I'm not looking for a seat at the cool kids' table."

Giles sighed again, very quietly. "Right," he muttered. "Well, we'll work something out."

"Whatever," she said again, and increased the volume on the TV, putting a full stop to the conversation. Giles watched her regretfully for a few seconds, while she very deliberately did not look at him. Then he flipped open his mobile to arrange next day plane tickets to either Edinburgh or Glasgow, whichever got him there sooner.

*~*~*

Two days later, the taxi from Inverness dropped Giles at the foot of the road leading up to the castle. He felt utterly disgusting; the processed airplane air had somehow seeped into his pores, he hadn't had real food in over twenty-four hours, and he desperately needed to shave. If he was hoping to sweep Buffy off her feet, and he still wasn't sure he was, this probably wasn't the state to do it in. But he didn't expect her to be in that sort of mood either, so perhaps he was simply saved from making a fool of himself. He shouldered his duffel bag and trudged up the path, tilting his head back to see the castle better - it was the first glimpse he'd had of it in person, though of course he'd seen photographs. It was impressive, really, all hulking black and medieval against the gloomy sky of a Scottish autumn. He thought Robson might have chosen it for that very reason; of all the options they'd had, and they'd had a few, this was definitely the most dramatic.

There were two girls standing guard atop the ramparts, Giles saw, and shaded his eyes for a better look. One of them, obviously having spotted him, disappeared from view. He waved at the other, who lifted her crossbow in a salute. Impossible for him to tell at this distance if he knew her, but it seemed she knew him.

He paused below the steps leading up to the main entrance. Should he knock? Just let himself in? The former would feel ridiculous; the latter, very rude. This was her territory, and so he would let her decide how far inside he got to come. He shifted his bag to his other shoulder and waited.

He didn't need to wait long. The heavy oak door, which was probably at least a few hundred years old, was slammed back with all the force a small, blonde, pissed-off slayer could manage.

"Buffy!" he heard Willow and Xander yelp in unison, and then there she was, glaring down at him just like she had that morning in the motel when he'd informed her she'd be coming here. She stopped several steps above him and crossed her arms over her chest. She was quivering with - well, Giles was certain there was anger there, and it was very near the surface so he'd best watch himself, but there were other things as well, simmering just below.

"Good morning, Buffy," he said softly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't 'good morning' me, Giles. What the hell are you doing here?"

He let the bag drop to the ground. "Well, I believe that's up to you."

She snorted. "Right, because you've left everything else up to me so far. Where's Faith? Hiding in the bushes, waiting to nail me with a crossbow?"

Giles shut his eyes briefly and shook his head. "Buffy, you have every right in the world to be angry with me, but Faith has done nothing."

"Like hell. You weren't there, you didn't see -"

He held his hands up. "I will explain everything, I swear. I - Buffy, I didn't mean it to sound the way it did before. I was trying to protect you - all of you," he added, looking around her to Xander and Willow, "and I obviously did a very poor job of it."

"No shit." She frowned. "Faith's not here?"

"Faith is in San Antonio. Which is where I was until yesterday. Two days ago. Lord," he pinched the bridge of his nose, "I can't remember now. Buffy, you can be as mad at me as you wish, only please may I come inside and have a sandwich?"

He looked up just in time to see her face soften reluctantly. But then her lips thinned and she said, "No."

He felt himself blanch. "No?"

"No." She thumped down the last three steps, picked up his bag, and tossed it up the stairs to land at Xander and Willow's feet. "That castle is overrun with girls. We're going for a walk."

"Er - all right," he said.

"We'll see you later, Giles, okay?" Willow said, picking his bag up by the strap - and thank goodness there wasn't anything breakable in it. "Lunch is at one."

"This way," Buffy said, pointing, "I don't want to run into Dawn."

Dawn. That reminded him. "Buffy, I know I've been a bit out of the loop, but I've been hearing some quite strange things -"

"Yeah, she's a giant. Slept with a thricewise, I'm pretty sure. Will's on it." She heaved a sigh. "So you know, it's not like you've been my only problem lately."

"Yes," he said, following along a few steps behind her. "I do apologize for that - for my, my lack of communication and then botching it when I finally did."

"Yeah," she said. He finally spotted their destination - a pile of rocks, boulders, really. They looked like they might have been put there deliberately at one point, but a single in-drawn breath was all it took to tell Giles that their magic was long gone. Buffy hitched herself up onto one, and Giles leaned against one just across from her - close, but not inside her personal space. "You screwed that up pretty good."

"Yes, I know." He looked at her. "I must say, I'm surprised at how calmly you're taking this, after everything."

She shrugged. "I'm not, I just - I don't want to believe the stuff I've been thinking about you," she said simply. "Willow and Xander keep telling me I'm crazy, but, God, Giles, what was I supposed to think?"

"I'm not sure, exactly." It was time to tell her everything. He drew a deep breath and proceeded to do so. About Genevieve and Roden and what they'd been doing; how he'd known they needed to be stopped at any cost; how he had not wanted to involve her in an assassination and so had enlisted Faith; and, finally, what he and Faith had been doing this last month. She let him speak, though he knew there were a few times she wanted to interrupt. But she held her tongue. It was more than he'd expected of her, if he were honest with himself.

He'd underestimated her. He wondered when he'd started doing that.

When it suited you, a snide voice in the back of his head answered.

"You should've come to me," she said, when he was wound down at last.

"I know. I simply . . . I didn't want you to be part of something like that."

She nodded. "And the rest?"

"The rest?"

"Us, Giles. You and me. After Sunnydale. You and me and your deer-in-headlights impersonation. Which you're doing again. Don't tell me you came all this way to apologize for a bunch of BS that would've never mattered if -"

"I love you."

She stared. "O-kay. Wasn't expecting that."

He shrugged. "It's true. Of course it's true. I've loved you for years, Buffy, and it bloody terrifies me."

"Good," she said bitterly, "because it should. I mean, you've seen where the Buffy-Love leads."

"That's not what I meant and you know it." He shoved his hands in the pocket of his coat and looked away, out over the moors, rolling away to the gray, white-capped ocean. "I love you, but I'm not sure we should do this."

"Great," she said, and if he'd thought she'd sounded bitter before, it was nothing compared to now. "You love me but you're gonna leave just like everyone else. You know, I'm so fucking sick of men who decide to take off for my own good."

"That's - it's not -"

"Yeah, it is, Giles." There were tears in her voice. He felt an answering lump in his throat, but he knew better than to try and close the gap between them to offer comfort. He'd end up sprawled on his back in the mud, most likely. "You say you've loved me for years, but things haven't been right, not since Willow brought me back. Four years now, things haven't been right. I thought, after Sunnydale, that maybe we'd be able to figure it out, but dammit, Giles, how is that supposed to happen if you're not with me?"

It was a fair point and one that Giles didn't have the answer to. "I - I - I -"

"Giles, just come back," she said. "Just come back." She swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Xan and Will and I aren't the same - it's not the same without you. Just come back. We don't have to - it doesn't have to mean anything between us. I think it'd be pretty dumb if it didn't, but it doesn't have to. Just don't - don't leave again." She took a deep breath. "I hate it when you leave," she muttered on the exhale. "It makes me do stupid, stupid things."

"Oh Buffy," he said, and knew he had no choice. The craving he'd ignored for so long - for his slayer's presence, for the balm of her mere vicinity - was stilled at last. A month with Faith had not done it; five minutes with Buffy had. What else could he do? "Yes," he whispered.

She raised her head. "What?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes. Of course yes."

She did not break into a grin as he had expected. She eyed him rather warily and said, "Really?"

God, what had they done to each other? He sighed. "Yes, really. At least until duty demands otherwise."

She slid off her boulder and stepped up to him, nudging his knees apart to stand between them. She took both his hands in hers. "It won't," she said quietly. "Because I make the rules now and rule number one, Giles, is that you're with me. All the other crap - screw it. Just screw it. Whatever happens, it has to be better than what we've been doing, doesn't it?"

"Yes," he said quietly, squeezing her hands. He felt a quiet certainty unfold within him then that she was right; whatever became of them, together would be better than apart. "I believe so. I do believe so."

Fin.