Chapter Seven

Giles opened the door and stepped back to let Cordelia enter first.  She blew her bangs off her face as she walked into the kitchen.  "It's hot tonight."

His worry-antennae went up.  "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, it just feels hot."

Giles dropped his keys on the counter, then got her a glass of water.  "We shouldn't have gone for a walk."

Cordelia eyed him in bemusement.  "If you don't want me to get exercise with that particular activity, I can think of another one."  She moved against him and kissed his collarbone.

"Is it safe to do that?"

Somewhat confused, she murmured, "It's been four days."

"I mean, with the baby in there.  It won't hurt it, will it?"

She snorted.  "Just how big do you think you are, Rupert?"

Bright red swept from his neck to the tips of his ears.  "Cor, from the outside, it, um, doesn't look all that, uh, far away," he managed, flustered.

"It's fine."  She sucked on his earlobe, but he pulled away.

"I need to make a phone call first."

"Now?"

"Yes, I…..think I should call now."

"Rupert, you won't hurt the baby.  Truly," she emphasized.

"I'll only be five minutes."

Cordelia swept the hair off her face again, this time in frustration, as he left the kitchen.  "The next time I go to the doctor's, I'm dragging you in with me to get your testosterone checked!" she yelled after him.

"One bloody phone call, Cor!" she heard him shout back before the door to his study closed.

What he heard was a cupboard bang and something muttered.  He waited until it was quiet before sitting at his desk in front of the phone.

Giles didn't need to get Mendi's letter.  He could see the number before his eyes as clearly as the window across from him.  However, knowing the number and being able to dial it were, at this moment, unrelated things.  He couldn't move his hand to the receiver.

Eventually he ended up leaned forwards, forehead in his palms and eyes closed.  It was the position he was in when he heard the door open behind him.

"Rupert?"

He counted to ten before raising his head.  Cordelia stood at the side of the desk.

"I was going to make you tea, but you've been a real bastard lately, so you can make your own.  Who did you call?"

He didn't reply.  "Ok," she said.  She pulled up a chair and sat across from him.  "Who *didn't* you call?"

After a few moments, he lifted up his blotter, extracted an envelope, and gave it to her.  "I found it under the door when we got home."

"Tonight?"

"From Long Beach."

She glanced at the outside briefly before pulling out the letter and reading it through.  "Why didn't you tell me when you found it?"

He shrugged tiredly.  "Do you know the name?"

She nodded as she put everything back under the desk pad.  "He was here when you were all vampish.  He was at the mansion with us too."

Her casual tone threw him.  "What did he do?"

"Prayed a lot.  You don't remember?"

"I remember some things."

She grabbed his hands, to keep him from engaging in any of those dozen fiddly habits he had.  "Tell me, Rupert."

"I wasn't very pleasant to him."

Cordelia regarded him thoughtfully.  "And?"

"I can't…..it's a blank spot."

"You don't have to call him."

"No, I don't," he said quietly.

She was silent for a minute.  Then she said, "You were pretty violent at the mansion, Rupert.  You didn't even know us.  Buffy tied you and Rabbi Mendi knelt beside you and prayed for, like, hours.  It was weird, though."

"What was?"

"He untied you.  *He* wasn't afraid.  Actually he seemed, well, sad," she decided.  "Wesley said he'd done stuff like that before, so I doubt you were the first one who wasn't pleasant to him."  She paused again before adding, "He said you were fighting him, that you wanted to die."

She glanced up to see a desolate expression on his face.  "I don't recall," he said.

"Call, Rupert."

"Cor, I---"

"Call."  She pushed the phone towards him.  "I'll dial," she threatened as she picked up the receiver.  He watched her in horror.

"It's ringing."  She pushed the phone against his ear.

The other end picked up.  "Hello?"

Giles knew the voice.  A spike of abrupt, horrible recognition went through him, confirming the gory phantasm of his memories.

"Rabbi Mendi," he said.  He swallowed hard and continued, "It's Rupert Giles."

"Mr. Giles, I am happy to hear from you."  The tone gentled.  "You found my letter?"

"Yes, I did."  Beyond that, he couldn't think of anything to say, especially with Cordelia watching from a foot away.

"I know you are a busy man, but would you come and see me?"

"Actually, I should have called you long before now," Giles admitted.  With that, Cordelia kissed his forehead and left.  "I have no excuse."

"It was better to give this some time," Mendi said.  "Do you remember me, Mr. Giles?"

"I think so."

"Are you free tomorrow evening?"

"Yes."  Giles closed his eyes.  "Yes, I am."

---

Buffy tried to hold an I-told-you-so expression, but her eyes were too wide.  "I knew Wes liked you, Will.  He got all twitchy when I started talking about you in a bikini."

Willow gaped at her.  "When you what?"

"I said I wanted you to buy a bathing suit that was skimpier than the one you have now, and he got all nervous.  It was sweet."

"When was this?" Willow asked uncomfortably, sitting up on her bed.

Buffy rolled until she was on her back.  "The night the two of you got stoned at the Bronze."  She shot a sideways glance at Willow.  "Xander and I knew something was up in Long Beach when you guys were making all those phone calls."

"But they weren't--" Willow took a breath.  "He was easy to talk to.  I wasn't thinking about him like *that*."

Buffy rolled to her stomach and grinned.  "So, when did you start thinking about him like *that*?"

"I don't know," Willow smiled bashfully.

Buffy lowered her voice.  "And?"

"And, what?"

"How far have you let him go?"

Willow swatted Buffy with a magazine.  "Just kisses."

Buffy sat up, but she looked thoughtful now.  "How *does* he kiss anyway?"

"Very nice."

"Really?  I wouldn't have thought so.  He looks like he's ready to bolt at every noise."

"No, he's romantic."

Surprised, Buffy glanced over, but Willow was looking down at the bedspread, a flush over both cheeks.

"I don't think 'very nice' exactly covers it, Will," Buffy said teasingly.

"It's *wow*."

"*Wesley*?"  Both of Buffy's eyebrows went up into her hairline.  "So I wouldn't lose money if I bet on more smoochies happening this afternoon?"

Willow's smile faded.  Buffy peered at her.  "What's wrong?"

The other girl shrugged.  "What is it?" Buffy nudged.

"Do you think that I'm….."  Willow shifted, then looked up.  "Do you think that I'm…..wanton?"

Buffy stared at her, almost in a panic at trying to keep from giggling.  Willow looked very serious.  "You?" Buffy finally asked.

"It's just, you know, with Oz and everything."

The urge to laugh disappeared.  "Oh, Will," Buffy said softly.  "The two of you broke up a month ago.  This hardly makes you *wanton*."

"Oz is the most wonderful guy I ever met.  I mean, until Wesley….." Willow trailed off.

Buffy patted the other girl's arm.  "Will, you haven't met too many guys."

"I feel guilty."

"Then don't go out with Wes."

"But he's wonderful, and he makes me feel special, like I'm--"  The smile returned to her face.  "Like I'm a lady."

Buffy thought for a moment.  "Will, if Oz were to call and ask what you were doing this afternoon, would you lie?  Or would you tell him that you were going out with Wes?"

"If he were to ask?  I wouldn't lie."

"Then I say go out, enjoy the horses, and have big smoochies."  Buffy rested against the headboard.  "It must be nice having a glut of wonderful guys.  I'd like to have that problem, but they're all getting taken."

Willow wiggled up beside her.  "What do you mean?"  Then it dawned on her.  "Oh."

"It's awfully quiet from Giles' end of town.  I think I'll drop by the museum this afternoon and see how he is."

"Are he and…..are they back from their vacation?"

"They should be.  Giles said they were only going for a week," Buffy said.

"Tell him I say hi and I hope he's feeling better.  Oh, and we're sorry we crashed in on him in that park and Xander didn't mean to insult Cordelia and--"

"Do you want to write all that down?" Buffy asked.

"Just the hello part then."

"And that you would say hello yourself but you're too busy snuggling with Wesley behind the stables."

"Buffy!" Willow exclaimed.

"Oh Will, please let me tell him.  This is so big!"

Anxiously, Willow said, "Don't say it in a bad way."

"I'll leave out the snuggling and you undoing Wes' shirt."

"And the kissing."

"Which leaves me with a picnic basket and a couple of horses.  Joy."

"I don't want Giles to get the wrong idea."  Willow still sounded worried.

"Not possible in your case, Will," Buffy said quietly.  "Maybe in mine, but not yours.  Besides, he won't want to hear about more than the horses.  Giles is highly embarrassed by all things that require the participants to be less than ten feet away from each other.  In fact, twenty feet is better, with a big brick wall in between and lots of armor."

Willow gave Buffy a doubtful look, but said only, "Help me pick out what I should wear.  Do you think jeans will be ok?"

---

The main rooms of the Sunnydale Museum were well-lit empty places.  School trips didn't fill them, travelling exhibits encountered no public interest to delay their journey through, and the practically unused floors shone constantly like gray glass from lack of wear.  The security guard a.k.a. janitor, ticket taker, and bored tour guide, often spent his entire shift hunched over a small portable television in the back parking lot, and no one noticed.

The back rooms were different - dark, perpetually gritty with dust, and traversed by staff and students doing placements.  It was impossible to go down a hallway without knocking a kneecap against a wooden freight box, or without being in the way of a group of people in a hurry.  The Museum paid for itself from what they did here.  Research grants descended like flocks of crows on the oddities that turned up courtesy of the hellmouth and what it attracted.  A Curator's dream.

Or would have been, had any ever survived long enough to reap the honours.  None of the staff spoke of the alarming number of Curators the Museum chugged through, but the total was well known anyway, evidenced by the extreme lack of staff interest whenever the top job came open.  When Giles had inquired about vacancies in June, the position was thrown in his lap before he had a chance to pull his credentials out of his suit pocket.  As he settled in his office that first day, every single staff person came at some point to see him.  It was hardly courtesy, and he knew it.   The purpose of the visits was to size him up before heading off to the lunch room to place a bet on his estimated span of survival.  He'd guessed about the office pool, and confirmation (garnered from a half-wit of a student) left him feeling rather flattered when he discovered the heavier odds were on him being around long enough to earn a vacation credit.

He was standing at a window, listening to the muted sounds of "The Price is Right" from the security guard's television, when his secretary buzzed to let him know that a "Miss Summers" wished to see him.  He winced at her frosty tone, which had been particularly chilled as of late.  The job came with a remarkably efficient secretary, a spinster who knew every crook of the Museum better than the resident mice.  But she was, even on her 'friendliest' days, so emotionless that he had sharpened a stake, just in case, despite having seen her walking from the parking lot in direct sunlight.

Lately, though, Giles would have found an ice peak on an Alp a lot more warmer.  A discreet check of the office pool this morning had confirmed his suspicions.  She'd lost her money, having only pegged him for a month.  And she'd bet heavily.

Buffy slipped into his office while his back was turned, and he startled upon seeing her, not having heard her.

"What's the deal with Miss Fungus?" Buffy asked.

"Fungal," Giles corrected and added with a stab of perverse indulgence, "Menopause."

Buffy blinked at that.  She studied him for a moment before glancing at the various chairs in his office and picking one that didn't look too old.  The furniture never changed, but she checked every time, perhaps hoping he'd splurge on something that looked like it wanted to be sat on.  "Willow says hello and, before you ask, no, I don't want tea."

He pulled his chair around to the side, not exactly near hers but at least in a position that didn't put his desk between them.  The awkwardness remained, and something else, something treacherous.  It came from his side, Giles knew, for Buffy hadn't changed.  She wasn't happy over his relationship with Cordelia, a still mainly undiscussed issue, but it wasn't enough to account for this.

"How's Willow doing?"  Giles didn't know the whole story there, other than a few comments about parents and Oz, and he didn't have the right to ask beyond a polite inquiry.

"She's doing better.  A lot better."

Giles noticed Buffy's tension, barely repressing some kind of news.  Good news, he suspected.  Maybe Oz had come home.  Buffy wouldn't have dropped hints if the latest events had been anything horrible.  "I'm glad."

"She has a new boyfriend.  You know him."

Not Oz then.  Still, it wasn't his business.  "Did you take that exam?"  Buffy had enrolled in pre-college courses, home study, but she'd stuck to it apparently, if her griping was any indication.

"Yes, I did, and passed.  Don't know how, but I did.  Sociology sucks."

None of her classes had ever not-sucked, so Giles let the complaint slide.  "Good for you."

"This guy Willow's seeing?  You know him and not in a casual I-passed-him-once-on-the-street way."

"Xander," he offered, shrugging.

"Nope," Buffy teased.  "Come on, Giles.  You can do better than that."

"I wouldn't pry.  I trust Willow's happy."

"Giles!"  However, he really didn't like this game, and she knew it.  He ended it by sitting back in his chair and resting his cheek on a propped-up fist.

"It's Wesley," she said glumly.

From Buffy's point of view, there was no reaction.  In a trillionth of a second, it occurred to him that Wyndham-Price's was the only name left, Willow often accompanied Buffy to the Watcher's house for training, and that how people came together had always mystified him anyway.  Buffy's revelation had come in the next trillionth, after he'd already made the surmise.

"He's taking her horseback riding this afternoon," Buffy added, still hoping for a response.

"Which leaves you behind," Giles said.

Surprised by his words, Buffy said, "Well, that's ok.  I mean, she's happy, so I don't mind.  What about you?  What's up in your end of the woods?"

"Excuse me?"

"To be blunt, I didn't plan to run into you in Long Beach, but you didn't give me a chance to tell you that.  Instead, you jumped all over me before stomping off.  What's going on?"

"Xander bothered me," Giles said unwillingly.  He'd encouraged Buffy's natural tenacity when it involved tracking vampires, but this was the other side of that coin.  If she had a question, he knew there was no way in high water she'd let it go.

"He and Cordelia have a lifetime of sniping between them.  No big deal, you know?  So, what gives?"

"Buffy, it's private."

"Oh," she said, her voice dreadfully quiet.  "You've trusted me in the past.  I never told your secrets."

"This isn't about that, and I've never stopped trusting you."

Buffy eyed the span of floor between them, then looked up at him.  He gave nothing away.  His expression was sea-green neutral.  That's what she called it anyway, after a Crayola crayon the same colour as his eyes.  The neutral part came in after years of witnessing his self-control, an almost iron-tight and endless aspect of him.

"Did you and Cordelia break up?"

He shook his head slowly.

"Back to guessing games," she muttered, suddenly realizing that she didn't like them much either.  Buffy pulled her chair forward until her knees were between his, and waited.

At length he said, "Cordelia's pregnant."

He felt her legs twitch, but, inexplicably, she said, "There goes my theory about the armor."

"Pardon?"

"Congratulations," she said, but a swirl of terror threatened to engulf her.  She'd felt this once before, when she was five and fell off a dock into cold water.  It thundered over her ears and filled her vision with dark nothingness.  When she opened her mouth to scream, water filled it.

She must have paled because Giles grabbed her shoulders.  "Buffy!"

"Nothing," she said, but she let him pull her to him.  His arms tightened, pressing the prickly fabric of his jacket on her face.  She had a hundred things to scream but her mouth felt full of water.

'Not more!' she thought.  Just as she was beginning to think she could share Giles with Cordelia, here was another sheer mountain in her way.  He would choose his child over her.  Ten times, twenty times, she would need him and he'd be with his child instead.  And those times would add up, run into each other.  Little losses becoming large ones, and the moments would become one long gone.

"You're leaving me," Buffy said, so quietly it was a whisper in his shirtfront.

"No, I'm still here," he murmured.

"When?" she asked, meaning, 'How long do I have left?'

"March."

A baby.  Cordelia having a baby.  Cordelia having *Giles'* baby.

"If you want to tell Willow, that's fine," he said.

But she was thinking, 'How?  How do I tell her without crying?'

She hid her wet face against his chest.

---

The horses expressed an interest in the cherries, so Wesley tied them to a rather beaten wooden fence.  It was the only thing available and wouldn't hold them, if they decided to get determined, but so far they were content to graze in the warm sunlight.

Willow watched them lazily as she hoarded the basket of cherries.  Her fingertips were pink and she had pits in the grass beside her, but she didn't care.  The wine might have had something to do with it.  Wesley had brought a bottle of Vindemia and she was on her second glass.

Or maybe it was that this date had gone better.  Willow hadn't ridden for ages, but she hadn't forgotten how - the reins felt as natural to her as her computer mouse.  Wesley had shown up in jeans, thus allaying her fears that she'd underdressed.  And she'd gotten him to talk.  He had a sense of humour, and a knowledge of plants that bordered on her own.  She'd studied the botany with an eye for spellcasting, but he had for healing.  He'd noted the foliage as they'd passed - fennel for bronchitis, gum plant for hay fever, wormwood for anemia.

When he went on a little spiel about Tibetan dietary therapy, Willow asked, "Is this part of Watcher Training?"

He'd blushed and admitted, "No, it's, ah, Buddhist.  My own interest," then changed the subject by pointing out a place where they could have lunch.

Willow licked some juice off her fingers and glanced at Wesley sitting at the next tree over.  Glasses off, legs stretched out before him, and finishing a chicken salad sandwich, he looked more indolent than she did.  He was well-settled in that spot.

How could she get him to come nearer to her?

"Wesley," she said.  "Are you sure you don't want any cherries?  They're sweet."

He cast a significant glance at the number of cherry stones around her.  "Are you willing to share, Miss Rosenberg?" he teased.

"If I don't, I'm going to end up with a stomach ache."

"We can't have that."  He picked up the wine, which *he'd* been hoarding, and came over.  She brushed a spot free of pits for him.

"This is not what I expected," he said as he picked out some of the fruit.

"You mean, today?"

"No, no," he said quickly.  "The Hellmouth.  When I first came, I had an idea it would be unceasingly dark, even during the day, but here we are, riding in the sunshine."

"I lived here for fifteen years before I knew it was a Hellmouth."

He turned to her, his face so close that she noticed gold flecks in his brown eyes.  The proximity caught her breath.

"You escaped the bad?" Wesley asked.  "It didn't touch you?"

"I didn't go out at night very often and it seemed that accidents happened to a lot of people, but I didn't know about vampires.  I bet most people here don't know we have them."

"Modern man and his ways."  He smiled slightly.  "So blind."

"Blind," she repeated softly.  "That's true.  Not seeing things right in front of your nose."

He didn't have that grease in his hair.  She supposed that it came off with the suit.  Without it and his glasses, and without the weight of years spent fighting demons, he looked almost her age.  And it hit her again - the Council had sent this young inexperienced man because they'd wanted Buffy to die.

She turned away as anger rose in her throat, not wanting him to see it.  The horses had moved almost to the ends of their tethers and were looking over the fence at an overgrown field long untended.  A bee buzzed by her ear and it occurred to her that it, and a few birds overhead, were all she could hear.

"We're really alone out here," Willow said.

He didn't answer right away.  She looked back at him to see a line of worry on his brow.

"We should start back," Wesley said

"It's ok.  I feel ok with you."  She touched the worry line, the first of many he'd get in a profession that would turn him into an old man before his time.

He unconsciously leaned into her caress.  His was an isolating profession as well.  Touching, being touched, it happened so rarely, not encouraged and scarcely found.  All of a sudden, she understood that too.

Willow guided his mouth to her own.  His lips opened and his tongue stroked hers amidst the cherries and warm wine on his breath.  That strange coursing fire returned, travelling through her stomach and sparking lower down.

She felt his hands go over her arms and around her back, his embrace not so wavering now.  But when his touch came around the front, he paused.  She shifted, kissing him, and finally felt his palm sweep up over a breast.

He moaned when she did.  Then he raised up, looking at her, wanting permission.

"Miss Rosenberg……"

"Yes," she said.  His mouth returned, his hands were on her, bringing back that wild lovely feeling.

She explored under his sweatshirt, discovered another shirt, cried in frustration, but it came free and she found skin, muscles moving under her fingers and a brush of hair over his raggedly moving chest.

That's when she began to fall.  She panicked and clutched him, then found the ground under her back, cherry pits and grass and tree roots.  He covered her with his body, but just slightly, the barest touch, hovering over her, and she wondered at it.  Why so far away?

She pulled him down and found out.  Despite denim and two sets of zippers, she could feel his hardness between her legs.

Wesley broke the contact, rising up and strewing apologies.  It was beastly of him.  How dare he?  Had he hurt her?  Willow looked up at him, bewildered and hurt, the connection between them gone.

He shuffled back several feet and knelt, his arms braced on the ground in front of him.  Willow sat up, facing him, and asked, "Why do men treat me this way?"

He frowned.  "Because you're beautiful, and I've no right to lay hands on you."

"I'm not.  I'm not beautiful.  If I was, men would want to touch me.  Instead, they always….."  She swallowed.

"You are. You're radiant," he said, then added quietly, "You've, you've put me on my knees."

"Me?"  It was said in such a small voice.

"I'm finding it difficult to understand why you'd allow me to….." he stopped, caught by the sight of her huddled in a miserable ball.  She looked as bad as he felt, and he'd done that to her.  But she'd said yes.  More than once.  Said yes to him.

He went back to her, lifting her chin to kiss her, a deep hungry kiss as he laid her back down, that shining hair spreading over the grass as he lowered himself on her.  He ran his mouth over her cheeks, down her neck, descending farther until he encountered her shirt, but she was helping him now.  The garment somehow disappeared out of his way and he had nothing to stop him from taking a breast, the puckered nipple on his tongue.

He drew it in, sucking gently, and, encouraged by her whimper, he moved to the other breast, capturing it between his teeth.  He felt her hands on him, trying to extract him from his shirts.  He sat up to get rid of them both, saw her green eyes watching him, a mysterious expression on her face.  Then she wiggled, rubbing her thighs over his hips, the friction dragging the denim back and forth over his groin.  She ran a palm over his stomach but stopped just before the clasp of his jeans.

He put a hand over hers, directing her down.  She cupped the bulge and he groaned in pleasure and agony.  She traced him, her fingers running down under his legs, then back up while he thrust against her.

She said something.  He could hardly hear her through the pounding in his ears.  Was she saying stop?  But, no, it was *his* name, a dusky word rolling off her tongue.  His name, calling to him.  He laid back on top of her, feeling her warm body quivering under his, a woman's body, soft and enigmatic.  Kisses became whirlpools.  He wanted to take her, claim her, push into that thicket between her legs until he touched bottom.

"Dearest, I want you," he breathed into her ear and felt something move against his cheek.  Wesley turned, found that she was smiling at him, a happy smile though still shy underneath.  She lifted up and he glanced down, saw she was undoing her jeans, awkwardly tugging them off before taking his hand, guiding him now.  He felt her fur, the curve of her mound, and pressed into hot wetness and the edge of her opening.  He rubbed little circles until he discovered a swelling nub.  She cried when he touched it, and he nearly froze in fear.  He didn't know what to do.  It had been so long.  He couldn't remember.

But she was leaning into his touch, wanting more kisses, encouraging him.  He caressed her vulva as gently as he could with his trembling hand.

Her arms slipped down and he realized she was going after him now, fumbling at his pants, but he couldn't help her unless he let go.  She got the button open but couldn't get the zipper down.  "Wesley," she gasped, but he'd made a path between her swollen clitoris and the entrance of her sex, and was massaging it over and over.  Her gasps became incoherent, intensifying into high-pitched moans.  All of a sudden, she pushed hard against him and held the position, but her sex was pulsing ferociously.  He stared at her in awe, feeling her orgasm in his hand.

After a time, she relaxed, resting back down in the grass.  When she opened her eyes, he asked tentatively, "Was it all right?"

"Yes," she managed breathlessly.  "Oh yes."

But he was still holding her, shaking.  Willow moved his hand away and said, "It's, um, sensitive."

"Oh.  Sorry."

But she was smiling.  She touched the front of his jeans and said, "I can't get it to….it's stuck."

He opened his pants, wincing for it was getting painful now.  He glanced down as he pulled his member free, saw the glistening auburn curls so close, so very near that it took a momentous effort not to let himself go into them.  He hadn't dared hope for this, and had no way to protect her.

She reached down and began to stroke him, but her touch was almost fearful.  "Like this?" she asked, looking beautifully innocent despite what she was doing to him.

At this point, he would be grateful for whatever she might do.  He was overly aroused, excited by the feel of her body against his and the smell of her sex on his fingers.  It wasn't going to take much.

"It's…..it's….." he tried.  "Harder."

She encircled him, caressing up along the underside to the tip, and that did it.  He groaned loudly and shot an astounding amount of seed over her stomach.  When his crisis eased, he hugged her, uncaring, for the first time in his life, about the mess.  Then he remembered, she was so small, and he loosened his grip.  But she nestled to him, not so fragile, exploring him, tangling in his chest hair, a nip of her white teeth on a nipple.

He felt the heavy fullness of desiring her start again, an twinge in his groin.  "You're mine…..my own," he mumbled in her hair.

A breeze wafted over them, welcome against the sweat, but gumming his sticky semen.  His handkerchief…..no, he didn't have one.  Wesley groped around, found one of his shirts, and wiped her gently with it.  Willow watched him, amused and surprised too, all his primness fallen away as he tended to her.  Astonished at herself as well, that she could lie here and let him do this, no embarrassment at an intimate action more revealing than the blind abandoned movements during passion.

His eyes met hers, amazing her further.  His gaze so naked, implicit with trust that it was all right to open so much in a look.  All those times they'd been with the others, his expression had given nothing away, had revealed nothing.  Irises reflecting muted brown, no hint of anything in his heart other than quiescent abstract dedication to duty.  But this was something just for her, a light and heat and shared secrets, things known only to the two of them.

She kissed him.  She had the right to now, the right to touch him, a claim of her own.  They'd gone so far, so fast, but it felt ok, it *was* ok if that look he'd given her was any indication.

But the kiss broke.  Why?  Willow looked and saw that he was smiling while simultaneously trying not to, not wanting to lose contact with her lips while his were curving upwards.  She laughed, which only made his smile get wider.  He gathered her back to him and she squeezed him, letting him know it was all right to hold tight.  He went onto his back, rocking her up on top of him, and leaned up to take her mouth again with his.

---

Rabbi Mendi asked Giles to meet him at his home, which gave Giles an image of an old cottage or ivy-covered apartment.  Mendi's house was, however, a modern split-level, situated in a pleasant cul-de-sac, trees and hedges and a large driveway in which was parked a mini-van.

A teenage girl was presently washing it, spraying water from a hose over the roof rack to the chagrin of a second girl squealing out of sight.

"Leah, I'm going to get mom if you don't stop!"

The girl with the hose laughed and was preparing another blast when she caught sight of Giles.

Taken off guard, he double checked the address.

"Are you here to see dad?" she asked.  The second girl peered around the vehicle.

"Y-yes.  I'm Rupert Giles."

"He said someone was coming."  She turned towards the house and screamed, "DAD!  Some guy's here to see you!"

A dark haired woman opened the screen door at the front of the house.  "Leah, stop yelling."  She smiled at Giles.  "Hello.  Are you Mr. Giles?"

"Yes, madam."

"Please come in.  My husband is in the back.  This way."

He followed her down a hall, stepping over rollerblades and an uninterested spaniel.  She took him through a kitchen and porch, then out the back door into the evening sunlight.  "He's just there," she said, pointing at what showed of her husband around the edge of a large rosebush.  "Would you like some coffee or tea?"

"No, I'm fine.  Thank you."

She went back into the house, and he stood for a moment on the stoop, gathering himself.  Then he stepped onto the grass and asked, "Rabbi Mendi?"

"Oh, hello!"  Mendi came around the bush.  "Mr. Giles, I am glad you came.  I was just contemplating this sweetbriar."

Giles came forward but stopped a few feet away.  He had a terrible feeling about this meeting, dread and shame balling together in his bowels.  Yet Mendi seemed pleasant enough, a tall man with graying hair showing under his yarmulke and, at present, some pruned branches in his hands.

"My mother planted this when my eldest daughter was born, and it has bloomed beautifully for fourteen years.  This year, however, it seems to be dying.  I think an insect is eating at it, perhaps at the roots."  Mendi turned to Giles, but, if he noticed the distance between them, he gave no sign.  "Do you know anything about gardening?"

"I-I'm sorry.  No."

He gave Giles another kindly look before gesturing at the house.  "Would you feel more comfortable inside?  I believe the mosquitoes are starting to come out."

"W-whichever you prefer is fine with me."

Mendi studied him for a few seconds before leading the way inside.  "I have a study, one room in this home that is my own.  I used to have two rooms, one with a few tools and a workbench, but I've fathered all daughters and have discovered, over the years, that it is easier to let women have what places they will.  So now I have, remaining to me, just the one room and, hopefully, none of my children want it."

Giles didn't know what to say to this, so he opted to follow Mendi silently.  The study he was led into was a large room at the back of the house, windows on two sides and bookcases that ran almost to the ceiling.  As he stared around at the books, Mendi said, "I like to read.  Do you?"

"Yes," Giles replied quietly.  "I don't often have the time."

"Not in your calling, I imagine."  Mendi offered an armchair to Giles, then poured them both glasses of whiskey.  Giles took his in surprise.

"The Lord made whiskey as well as water," Mendi said as he took a seat.  "This town owes you, Mr. Giles, though few know it."

"Owes?" Giles repeated uncertainly.

"You did go down into the Hellmouth, which was extraordinarily courageous.  It has been fairly inactive ever since."  When Giles didn't say anything, Mendi prompted, "What is it?"

"I've never thought of myself as particularly brave."

"But you willingly descended, you went into Rapture."

"That state is difficult to avoid.  I…..don't have to try very hard," Giles admitted.

"Regardless, Mr. Giles, the fact is that you went *in*.  Quite beyond the duties of a Watcher.  You must love your Slayer very much, to have done it."

"But not courage."  Giles gazed down into his glass.  "Necessity."  When Mendi didn't say anything, he looked up.  The other man was studying him thoughtfully.  "Rabbi, I owe you, well, apologies don't begin to start."  He took a breath.  "What I said….."

Mendi interrupted.  "You remember?"

"Some.  Enough."

"Do you want to remember all of it?"

"Dear Lord, no."

Mendi nodded slowly.  "You could blame it on a demon."

"No," Giles put a hand to his forehead.  "No, it was me."

In the quiet that followed, Mendi commented, "You can say *that*, yet not believe you're a brave man."  He leaned back in his chair.  "I'm asking you again.  Do you want to remember it?"

Giles frowned, unsure.

"I will put it another way," Mendi said.  "Mr. Giles, how have you been feeling?"

Giles felt a surge of irritation and he hurriedly put his drink down, for fear he'd snap and throw it at the man.

"I appreciate that you did not shatter the glass.  I never seem to be able to find it all.  There is always a shard, somewhere," Mendi said in a calm voice.  "Mr. Giles, how have you been feeling?"

Giles' hands were shaking.  He clasped them in his lap.  "Why should I tell you?"

Mendi didn't react to the caustic tone.  "You are under no obligation to say anything, or even to stay here.  I hope you will tell me, though."

"Why?"

"It is some small way of repaying you."  Mendi smiled, lines appearing on his face with it.

'Old prying man,' Giles thought.  He didn't want to be here, didn't want these empty platitudes, this thrill-seeking curiosity.

"My one daughter, she is going out tonight with a friend, to a party at a house where there will be boys.  There will be parents there, of course, but boys too.  *My* innocent daughter and some of those boys, well, I know what they are thinking, but my daughter is excited, looking forward to music and games.  Now, two months ago, I wouldn't have conceived of letting her go, and those boys would have been the least of my concern.  You see, Mr. Giles, this party will end after the sun goes down."

Giles stayed quiet.  He could hear the rustle of Mendi's sleeve against his chair, footsteps in the house, one of the children's likely, from the way they were scampering, the click of the dog's nails on the kitchen floor.

"Can you hear your own heartbeat?" Mendi asked suddenly, and Giles jumped.  "You should be able to," Mendi continued.  "I can't hear mine, but I don't have that swirling in my blood."  His tone dropped, sounding almost sad now.  "You are part demon and have been since you were a young man.  Do you think it goes away so easily?  Do you think you can keep it down?  Are you afraid you will kill someone, someone who loves you, who trusts you enough to be right beside you?"

Giles looked away in horror.  Mendi went on as if he hadn't noticed.  "Part demon.  Part human.  Those terms may be irrelevant.  It is all you and, sometimes, it would be so easy to lash out."

"Stop….." Giles tried.

"You're angry at me.  You're afraid of me.  You would do anything right now to make me shut up, and you don't understand why.  I seem to have done nothing to you, Mr. Giles, but I *did* do something to the demon.  That is what you are feeling.  Demon, human, there is no separation.  They are together."

"Enough!"  Giles got up, went to the window, saw his hands on the sill in fists that he couldn't uncurl.

"You love your Slayer, and you loathe her.  You are afraid of her, and you desire her."

Giles swung around.  "How *dare* you?"

But Mendi was shaking his head sorrowfully.  "Me?  No.  This is what *you* said.  These are your words."

Giles was afraid to move, afraid, if he lifted a foot, he would go over to that old man and…..he closed his eyes.  'Filthy bastard,' throbbed over and over in his head.

"You are Miss Summer's Watcher."

It took several minutes and all of his breath.  "I'm not.  Anymore."

"You are claimed to her, are you not?"

"Yes."  Giles opened his eyes slowly and found Mendi waiting on him.

In a subdued pitch, Mendi said, "I believe I can help you."

---

Chapter Eight