Chapter Text
Giles had forgotten how much the bright light of the cameras bothered him. Jenny explained to him about lightning techniques and the effect it would have on the finished product, but he can’t help that it feels unnatural. He’s sweating a little, and he’d really rather spend the day in the library, but then he glances over at Jenny and a sense of contentment settles over him like a cool breeze.
Maybe it is fitting, to start their relationship in the place he first allowed himself to consider it.
“Rupert, Jenny,” Jackson says, his movie star smile not dimmed by any means, “it is so great to have you back.”
“It’s great to be back,” Jenny says, and Giles does his best to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. She would be happy to be back, considering she initially viewed their sessions as a little game in which she always had the upper hand.
(But the show did give him Jenny, so maybe he’s not in a position to complain after all.)
Jackson smiles even wider at that. Americans really are a special breed of people, Giles thinks, but he politely smiles back. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“We don’t have a lot of time today,” his teeth shine bright like white neon lights, and surely that cannot be healthy, “so let’s get straight to it. What happened after the last session?”
“I fear that’s a bit of a story,” Jenny says, which Giles thinks is a bit of an understatement.
“The story is what we’re here for. Why don’t we start at the beginning.” He turns to face the camera. “I’m sure you all remember Jenny’s speech. I sure do. And the kiss. Wow, what a kiss that was. As electric as though it had been the very first.”
“It was quite a kiss,” Giles says, though it doesn’t begin to compare to the kisses that followed last week. The one exchanged in earnest, and the several exchanged in passion. So far from his desperate attempt to remedy a broken heart.
“So you stayed together after this?”
Giles decides to ignore the specification. He shakes his head. “No, we did not.”
“No?”
“You see,” Jenny jumps in, “Rupert seemed very taken at the time, but then we each went home and he never called me.”
Which is true, but also uncalled for. “You didn’t call me, either,” he protests immediately.
“It was your turn,” Jenny insists, “and anyway, aren’t you supposed to be some traditional British gentleman?”
“Oh please,” Giles responds, “you’d hate it if I were.”
“That is true,” Jenny admits, “I wouldn’t have fallen for you if that were the case.”
Giles smiles at her. She smiles back. He blushes, looks away.
“So you didn’t talk? What happened then?” Jackson asks.
Jenny’s smile turns devilish, her voice as sweet as she can muster. “Oh, did I say we didn’t talk? We talked alright. We work together, do you remember that we work together?” She doesn’t wait for Jackson’s reaction. “And then it was ‘Hello Ms. Calendar’ and ‘Did you have a nice weekend, Ms. Calendar?’ when we saw each other in the hallway.”
The last name usage makes Giles look very bad, admittedly, but he can’t very well provide the context cues that would support his position. Fine. He cannot tell the truth, so he will beat Jenny at her own game.
“She likes to be called that,” he says and raises his eyebrows, “during certain activities.”
It’s a blatant lie.
Giles now happens to know facts and information, and he knows that doesn’t fall into the category of things that get Jenny off. Jenny gets off on much stranger things, such as the sight of him in his tweed jacket she’d pretended to hate and his clumsiness when using a computer and strangest of all, the sound of his voice when he’s tired.
But Jenny blushes, which lends credibility to his story.
(He now knows facts and information. He knows Jenny and knows her well. He should know by now that beating her at her own game is not in the cards. And maybe he doesn’t need to beat her, doesn’t even want to, because he likes when she rises to his challenge as though it didn’t take an ounce of effort. Hell. Maybe he just really, really likes her.)
Jenny twists it just right to make him look like the douche again. It’s well and truly remarkable. “I assumed you thought our connection was of a different sort then. Imagine how that felt.”
And she’s joking, but there’s a real sliver of hurt tucked into the folds of her elaborate game, woven into the fabric of space when she looks at him. It might take a while for that to pass. Neither of them meant to hurt the other and yet they both did and it’s something that will need to be talked about. Not now. Certainly not here. But at some point.
“I’m assuming you called him out on that,” Jackson says, and this is Giles’ moment to shine.
“Oh no,” he says, echoing Jenny’s phrase from that day, “she was so mature about it. First, she moved her computer class out of my library and when I asked her about it she threw a book at my face.”
“It was a thin magazine,” Jenny argues, “emphasis on thin. Light. And it was more shoving than throwing.”
“Fine. You shoved a magazine at my face.” Giles crosses his arms.
“Because you accused me of making things weird when you were the one making things weird.”
Jenny sounds so righteous when she says it, and of course the missing context works in her favour again. All he can do is try to counter with more examples of her actions.
“You returned my jacket through a student.” He omits the part about the slime monster, because they don’t need to relive it. He’s seen Jenny topless in far less uncomfortable situations now, so maybe he’s spoiled, but that particular scene has lost its place amongst his fantasies. There are better fantasies. Based on the much, much better reality.
Jenny comes up with a new point without taking a breath. “And you never replied to my email.”
“What email?” he wonders aloud, “And I don’t know how to write an email,” he adds in exasperation, not caring that it makes him look exactly as old-fashioned and anachronistic as Jenny first thought him to be.
“That is the problem,” she says, but all the vigour has gone out of her voice. She’s still loud, still quick to reply, so it might seem like a fight to observers, but Giles can hear all the things she isn’t saying.
She likes that he’s less tech-savvy than her, that he’s no longer afraid of making a fool out of himself in front of her. And he likes that she scolds him and ridicules him and that there’s only affection in her gaze while she does it. He’s never felt so safe with anyone. There’s truly nothing to add to that.
(As Buffy would put it: It’s so over.)
(As he would put it: Alea iacta est.)
“You definitely argue like nothing has changed,” Jackson says.
Jenny is quick to agree. “Well, he’s not gotten any less stubborn since then.”
“Stubborn?” Giles repeats, “Me? You’re one to talk, Jenny, you’re worse than stubborn, you are obstinate!”
“And you—” Jenny starts, but is interrupted by Jackson.
“As entertaining as this is, and I don't mean to interrupt, but our time is coming to an end and I want to ask you what everyone watching is wondering,” he makes for a dramatic pause, even though they all know the content of his question already, “Are you or are you not together?”
The last of Giles' annoyance vanishes in a heartbeat. He beams at Jenny and her smile back is just as bright. He reaches for her hand across the sofa, and for the first time he no longer worries about hiding the truth. Her fingertips are soft against his palm.
He doesn’t know who speaks first. Maybe they both do. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
“We’re together,” she says.
“Very much so,” he says.