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When Rupert Giles received his invitation for Anya’s wedding—even in his head, he couldn’t think of it as Xander and Anya’s wedding without a jagged, angry jealousy—he first got very plastered, then woke up with a throbbing hangover, and then realized that he was going to have to send some sort of response or it might look suspicious. Knowing Anya, she might fly all the way to England to demand his presence at her wedding—and then what would he do? Something stupid, he knew, because time spent away from her and the children had made him heartsick and lonely. Seeing a familiar face—seeing Anya’s familiar face—might just be enough for him to be honest with her about what she made him feel.
And he couldn’t have that.
He studied the invitation card, its florid, gilded borders, the elegant cursive reading Xander and Anya, a picture of the happy couple holding each other and looking deeply into each other’s eyes. Giles had an extremely strong urge to set the bloody thing on fire, but that didn’t really seem like a proportionate response—or a mature one, for that matter. He was a grown man, for Christ’s sake. A grown man, and he should be able to get over his foolish infatuation.
Something had to be done, Giles thought. He had to be confronted with the fact that Xander and Anya were in love, that they were getting married, that Giles had no chance with Anya and never would. Breaking his own heart by attending Anya’s wedding was vastly preferable to pining away for the rest of his life. It would hurt, but if he wanted Anya in his life, he would have to recognize that her heart belonged, first and foremost, to Xander.
He began to pen his RSVP.
Anya didn’t come to greet him at the airport. Giles strongly suspected that this had to do with the kiss, and the awkwardness that had entailed afterwards, but it still stung a bit to be greeted by a somber Buffy, a sullen Dawn, an awkwardly cheerful Willow, and a blissfully oblivious Xander. Somehow, Sunnydale seemed worse than he’d left it.
“Where’s Tara?” Giles asked.
Dawn’s face twisted. Willow’s smile fluttered a little, and she said, “I think you’ll see her later in the wedding party—”
“Willow and Tara broke up,” said Dawn loudly, glaring furiously first at Willow, then at Giles. “Because of all the magic stuff.”
Giles felt this was reasonable. It must have shown on his face, because Willow’s smile was now all the way gone. “Don’t give me another one of your speeches about magic, Giles,” she said thinly. “You’re only here for the wedding. We’re here all the time.”
Buffy looked up at Giles with a note of satisfaction.
“Yes,” said Giles, finding himself wishing that no one had come to greet him at the airport at all. “Well. I’m going to head to my hotel, I think. It was very nice to—”
“You don’t want to spend time with us?” said Dawn, sounding genuinely injured.
“I’d hate to subject you all to my speeches,” said Giles.
“Don’t play this game with us, Giles,” said Buffy flatly. “Don’t act like we’re the ones who don’t want you here. You’re the one who left, and you’re just gonna have to deal with the fact that you’re not coming back to anything nice. If you decide not to spend time with us, that’s on you.” With that, she turned, hurrying down the hall, weaving between travelers and families until Giles could only make out a distant flash of blonde hair.
There was a long, strained silence. Awkwardly, Xander said, “Good to have you back, man.”
“I think,” said Giles, “that I shall see you all at the wedding,” and headed in the opposite direction for a good fifteen minutes before he realized that he had no clue where he was headed. Anywhere, he thought, was better than having to be face-to-face with the children he had left. He had thought it might be easier, coming back—he had thought that they would be less angry, and perhaps a bit more understanding of what had made him do what he did. And yet it was as though he had stepped directly back into the shoes of the Rupert Giles who had been facing Buffy in the training room, telling her he had to go.
No. Not exactly. That Buffy had been a little less solid and settled in her anger. This Buffy didn’t seem anywhere near ready to understand him, and didn’t seem very interested in trying.
It was then, as Giles was mulling over this unfortunate chain of events, that he walked directly into Anya. It wasn’t exactly a collision; they noticed each other just in time, and stopped, both of them staring at each other with wide eyes.
Neither of them had talked since the kiss.
“Rupert!” said Anya, high-pitched and blushing. “I mean—Giles!”
“Hello, Anya,” said Giles, and it was taking every iota of his Watcher training not to fall into a stammering mess himself. “I assume you’re here greeting other wedding guests?”
“Yes, a demon friend of mine is coming in from the East Coast today,” Anya agreed, hugging her bundled-up jacket to her chest. She looked nervous, of course, but also luminous with joy, as though she couldn’t quite help her soon-to-be-married happiness from overflowing. “I’m sorry I didn’t go with the rest of the Scoobies to meet you, but—well. I’ve seen you in the last few months, and I haven’t seen Stacy in a really long time. I figured I would see you at the wedding, you know, seeing as you finally decided to abandon your self-imposed isolation and—”
“I did, and you will,” said Giles, cutting Anya off. It was incredibly difficult to stand here, her more beautiful than he remembered, her so visibly delighted at the concept of marrying another man. “I thought in-person congratulations were in order, rather than a perfunctory flower arrangement. We were business partners for quite a while.”
“Is this another poorly-orchestrated attempt at taking the Magic Box from me?” said Anya. “Because, mister, I will remind you that you did sign it away as a silent partner, there is legal documentation—”
God, Giles loved her. “Far be it from me to step in and run a shop you’re clearly excelling at managing,” he said, a small smile beginning. “I’ve been receiving the profits I’m entitled—”
“—obviously you are, I wouldn’t cut you out of your own store—”
“—and they’re sizable,” said Giles. “I am extremely proud of you.”
He meant it. Anya had a good head for business, and it gratified him to know that the Magic Box was being run by someone as capable and knowledgeable as she. It surprised him a bit that Anya looked somewhat startled by this; her lingering blush deepened, and she stepped forward so that they were almost toe-to-toe. “You know I’ve really missed you?” she said, almost timidly.
Oh, lord. “Anya, you’re getting married,” said Giles before he could stop himself, more of a reminder for him than for her. This close, the urge to lean down, to take her face in his hands—
But his reminder had been the wrong call. The genuine vulnerability in Anya’s expression vanished, replaced by a deeply affronted expression. “Excuse me?” she said. “Do you think—do you really think I’m trying to hit on you right now? The day before I get married, Giles, is that how little you think of me?”
Coming had been a mistake. Giles was starting to wish he really had gone with the perfunctory flower arrangement. “I only meant—” he began helplessly.
“I know what you meant,” snapped Anya, her blush now less of a blush and more of a flaming, angry red. “You thought that just because we locked lips months ago, I’d be pining for you like some ditzy little shopgirl. Well, news flash, Giles, I’m not some ditzy little shopgirl, and I don’t fall in love with every man who kisses me!”
This had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Giles drew in a shaking breath, then said, “Anya, I—I only meant—”
“I don’t care what you meant,” said Anya. “If that’s what you really think of me, I don’t want you at my wedding.” Turning on her heel, she made to storm away, very clearly realized that she was heading in the wrong direction, and turned back around to stride past Giles instead.
Giles stood there for a good five minutes, feeling rather like someone had punched him very hard in the stomach. Trust him to cock it all up within two minutes of seeing Anya; this was exactly why he had initially intended to stay as far away from the wedding as possible. The thought of the woman he loved marrying Xander bloody Harris of all people—
He froze. He played back his thoughts. And Giles, struck by the sudden and terrible realization that he was head over heels in love with a woman who was getting married the next day, slumped helplessly against a nearby column. It was lucky that Anya didn’t want him at the wedding; he couldn’t go to the wedding of a woman he was in love with. It had been different when he had believed his feelings an absurdly persistent crush, but this—
Giles swore, quietly, in a few different languages, and headed to baggage claim, tears stinging his eyes. He would drop by for the wedding reception the next day, he decided, and then he would go to England, and then he might just never return.
Xander called his hotel room the morning of the wedding. “Giles, are you coming?” he asked, hopeful and a little anxious. “Ahn told me last night you two had a little misunderstanding, but I don’t want you thinking that that doesn’t mean you can’t come to the wedding. You mean a lot to both of us, so…please, if you’re still around, please come.”
Something about the cadence of Xander’s voice, the genuine honesty of his statements—it made Giles feel sick. Here was a boy who looked up to him, respected him, and Giles had gone and fallen in love with his soon-to-be-wife. It was despicable. “I really wouldn’t want to make Anya uncomfortable,” he said awkwardly.
“Oh, she’ll get over it,” said Xander immediately. “You know Ahn. She’ll get all up in arms for a few minutes when she sees you, but she’ll get over it. Seriously, Giles, you flew across the ocean for us, that’s—”
But the fiercely hurt look in Anya’s eyes—the way Giles had squandered a rare, honest moment between them—didn’t seem like something she could just get over. She had made a request that Giles wanted to respect. “I’ll think about it,” he said, just to get Xander off the line.
“I know that voice,” said Xander. “That means you’ve made up your mind already. You know what—” There was a rustle, some angry whispering, and then the line was silent.
“Xander?” said Giles uneasily.
There was no answer for a few seconds. Then, thinly, Anya said, “Giles, Xander wants me to tell you that you’re absolutely welcome at our wedding, because he’s known you since high school and whatever silly spat we’ve had can be resolved on our own time. You’re important to him.”
Giles felt his hand tighten around the receiver. “Anya,” he said levelly, “if you don’t want me at your wedding, I should like to respect your wishes.”
“It’s not—” Anya made an upset, frustrated noise, then said, “I did miss you, Giles. Not in the way you seem to think I did, just—I liked having a business partner, and a friend, and someone who would listen to me talk about all the demonic history taking up space in my brain. And it hurts to know that you think I missed you in a different way, because that means that you think I’m the kind of person who would be able to betray Xander like that, and I’m not. I’m not that person, Giles.”
It took Giles a moment to respond to that. “I understand,” he said quietly. “I was—I was jet-lagged, and—” He swallowed. “Anya, I really don’t think it would be a good idea for me to attend your wedding,” he said.
“Is it because you think I have feelings for you?” Anya sounded genuinely hurt. “If that’s what it takes for you to come to my wedding, I’ll tell you with absolute certainty that I don’t have even a single feeling that isn’t professional—”
Well, Giles thought, my heart is well and truly broken, so at least I accomplished that much. “Do you want me there?”
“Yes,” said Anya. “Okay? Yes. I missed you. I think we were both kind of tired and some wires got crossed. I really want you to be there, Giles.”
“Then that’s enough for me,” said Giles, unable to keep the soft warmth out of his words. It would hurt, he knew, but if it was what Anya wanted—if she wanted him there—
“Thank you,” said Anya. He could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m really looking forward to seeing you in a place that isn’t a terribly crowded airport.”
“Likewise,” Giles agreed. He hesitated, then said, “I’ll see you there, then?”
“I’ll be the only one in white,” said Anya brightly. “Pretty hard to miss.”
She hung up.
“Not,” said Giles quietly to the dial tone, “that I wouldn’t notice her in any color.”
Giles took his time getting ready, hoping that he’d arrive late enough to miss the vows. He spent a good half hour compiling a convincing list of excuses—so sorry I’m late, traffic was terrible. My apologies, I misplaced my glasses. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’m madly in love with the bride, and the thought of watching her marry someone else makes me feel vaguely sick. He ended up leaving the hotel about forty-five minutes after the wedding should have started, and the drive to the lodge took an extra half hour, making it extremely likely that he’d missed both the wedding and a solid chunk of the reception. Confronting a disappointed Xander would be difficult, he knew, but he had disappointed the children enough that it was beginning to get a bit easier. Anya would be impossible to face; he would try and manage as best he could.
He arrived to chaos.
The wedding scene was entirely dismantled, the guests gone and the better part of the main room positively wrecked. There was no sign of Buffy, or Willow, or any of the children, and as Giles looked around, he found himself progressively more nervous that he had missed some sort of terrible battle in his deliberate delay. But no, there was no blood, only debris and half a chair and Anya crying into the fluffy skirt of her mussed white dress—
Oh.
Oh, no.
Giles ran across the room, practically tripping over his own feet as he fell to his knees in front of Anya. She didn’t look up, only curled further inward as her sobs increased in humiliated volume. “Anya,” he said desperately. “Anya, what on earth—”
With a shuddering breath, Anya raised her head to look at him, then fell clumsily forward and into Giles’s arms, burying her face in his neck and continuing to cry. Giles hugged her back, tightly, bewilderment giving way to a painful ache. The last time Anya had fallen apart this visibly and viscerally, Joyce Summers had been dead. “Is it Xander?” he asked. “Is he—”
Anya let out a shriek into his shoulder.
That didn’t seem quite like a bereaved fiancée, Giles realized. There had been raw anger in that scream. He looked around the room more carefully this time—no signs of blood, save for something that looked more demonic than human. No signs of guests, though the food on the buffet table had clearly been sampled. A new possibility was occurring to Giles, one that he didn’t like at all: someone, something, had successfully ruined Anya’s wedding, and Xander and the rest had left her alone to clean it up.
Carefully, and without letting go of Anya for even a second, Giles stood up, stooping very slightly to pick her up bridal-style (and wasn't there some irony in that?). She turned her face into his chest, settling into his arms, and whispered, “Get me out of here, Giles.”
“Where—”
“I don’t care,” said Anya. Her voice shook. “Just get me out of here.”
Shifting Anya’s weight in his arms, Giles walked slowly back down the aisle, taking in the wreckage one last time. He couldn’t help but feel some sense of guilt—he should have stopped this, he could have been here in time to at least try—but now didn’t seem like the time to focus on anything but Anya. Anya, left here all alone, in the wreckage of the normalcy she had so desperately craved. How could Xander possibly have been so cruel?
Xander wasn’t cruel, Giles amended. Thoughtless, and foolish, but never deliberately cruel to those he loved as much as Anya. Whatever had happened here, it had been idiocy, but the hurt it had dealt Anya hadn’t been intended. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.
Reaching the car, Giles awkwardly unlocked the door, placing Anya and skirts gently down in the front seat. She looked up at him, makeup smudged, hair in lank, messy tendrils, and Giles couldn’t stop himself from reaching down to squeeze her shoulder. “I’ll take you to my hotel room,” he said. “Is that all right?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” said Anya. “Thank you.”
Giles closed the door, crossing over to the driver’s side and getting in. He turned on the radio, and was immediately met with a soft, crooning love song, at which point Anya took off one of her shoes and began to hit the radio with it. “Anya, please—” he began.
“SHUT UP!” Anya shouted at the radio. “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP—”
In his attempt to protect the car radio, Giles’s hand caught a rather painful blow from the high heel. Wincing, he turned the radio back off, then turned to a somewhat repentant Anya. “This car is a rental,” he said, as patiently as he could when his hand had been assaulted by bridal footwear. “If you want me to change the station—”
“I don’t want to hear a single love song for the entire rest of my life,” said Anya, glaring at the radio with tears in her eyes. “Which, thanks to you idiots, is now probably barely fifty years.”
Giles decided not to respond to that with one of the many sardonic comments that came to mind. Though usually the repartee he shared with Anya had the ability to invigorate them both, he strongly suspected that now wasn’t the time for it. He turned on the radio, changed the station to an unassuming news broadcast, and started the car.
Rupert’s hotel room was small—very clearly meant for only one person, with only one bed. Upon noticing this, Rupert went a little pink, and was halfway through some stammery ridiculousness about sleeping on the floor when Anya informed him that he was being stammering and ridiculous and could obviously sleep with her. Rupert turned bright red at that, and perhaps Anya might have been mortified too if she hadn’t been so goddamn tired.
She got out of her wedding dress in the bathroom, at which point she had to re-remember the lacy white lingerie she’d bought in preparation for their wedding night. She’d had so much fun at Victoria’s Secret, telling the saleslady it was for her husband-to-be, imagining the way Xander would blush and smile, imagining getting to be a bride like all the fairytales she’d always wanted to believe in—and now she was in a tiny hotel bathroom, stripping down because she couldn’t stand the thought of wearing her failure any longer.
Getting the wedding dress off hadn’t helped as much as she thought it had. Now Anya was looking at herself in the mirror and thinking the only person who’s going to see this is Rupert.
And—
Anya blew out a soft, frustrated breath. Though she honestly hadn’t been hitting on him, Rupert’s stumbling, gentlemanly rejection in that airport might not have made her feel quite as terrible if she hadn’t been thinking about him so much. And when Anya said him, she didn’t mean the him she was supposed to be thinking about—not Xander, who kissed with clumsy adoration. No, Anya was thinking about Rupert, who had dipped her like an old-timey Hollywood movie and kissed her in the middle of the shop they’d built together.
Something about that moment had felt like Anya’s life had clicked into place. Sure, some of that was probably the amnesia, but…some of it might not have been. Because after Rupert had left, Anya had stopped calling him Giles in her head; she had liked the way it felt to call him Rupert. No one else used that name, probably because it was a slightly terrible one, but…once it had become Giles’s name, it had become kind of a nice name to say.
Of course, she still had to call him Giles out loud. Anya and Rupert had been engaged, but Anya and Giles were halfway-friends at best and bickering ex-colleagues at worst. Him getting her out of that terrible wedding hall had been a compassionate gesture, but still a professional courtesy.
She had to keep reminding herself of that.
There was a knock on the door. “Anya?” Rupert called.
Anya looked at herself in the mirror, looked back down at the wedding dress, decided she’d rather deal with some minor embarrassment than put that stupid thing on again, and opened the door, noting with some satisfaction that it took Rupert a good two seconds to remember to look away. “I am not wearing that dress,” she informed him. “If I’m not getting married, I am not wearing that dress any longer than I have to.”
“Um, noted,” said Rupert, who was blushing. “Might I offer you my jacket?”
Anya waved a dismissive hand, squeezing around Rupert to tug one of the sheets off of the freshly made bed. Draping it around her, and adding a few artful tucks here and there to make it look at least a little slimming, she turned back to Rupert. “There,” she said. “Decent. And I don’t have to wear an oversized tuxedo jacket, either, so I’d say this is a pretty good day.”
Rupert gave her a small, worn-out smile. “Would you like anything?” he asked. “Room service?”
He was looking at her with such gentle compassion, and it made Anya’s stomach hurt. As badly as she wanted to, now wasn’t the time for her to explore whatever she was feeling for him—especially not when the thought of being with her had spooked him enough to make him not want to come to her wedding. And it sucked. She wanted somebody to cuddle her and kiss her and tell her everything would be okay, and her usual somebody had just left her in the lurch without even a little bit of hesitation.
She’d never seen Xander that certain about a decision before, not since he proposed to her. That hurt too.
“I kind of want some ice cream,” said Anya honestly, sitting down on the bed and turning on the TV. “Maybe cake. Maybe—maybe an ice cream cake.” Sleepy in her sadness, she snuggled back into the pillows. “Mostly just somebody to hold me,” she mumbled, and closed her eyes.
There was a long silence in the room. Then Anya felt the bed shift, and Rupert’s hand reached out to take her own. He wasn’t a very tactile person by nature—Anya knew this, because he always stiffened up when she threw her arms around him—and so him taking her hand like that was pretty much the equivalent of a big bear hug. “I can get you all of those things, if you like,” he murmured. “Though I don’t know if—”
Anya decided to help him with his gesture. Rolling over, opening her eyes, she nestled herself into his large frame. He smelled nice, like cologne and clean laundry, and with her head on his chest, she could feel his heart pounding. “Do people cuddle you a lot?” she asked, letting her eyes flutter shut again.
“Not often,” said Rupert. His voice sounded a little shaky.
Anya didn’t really like that thought. Rupert was much too soft not to be cuddled. She thought she might tell him so, when they both weren’t so damn tired, but for now— “I don’t want any cake,” she told him, her words slowing and softening as she began to drift off to sleep. “Please just stay here.”
“Always,” Rupert whispered, but later, Anya would decide that she had dreamed that bit. As badly as she wanted it, no one ever stayed for always in her life. Xander Harris stood as a testament to that fact.
She woke up to find it dark outside, Rupert’s breathing steady and even, his arm warm and solid and resting on her shoulder. She had never seen him sleep before, and turned her head to get a better look; he had taken off his glasses, and looked somehow much younger in sleep. More vulnerable, Anya thought. Xander was much the same, though he was such a young, gentle boy already—
Thinking about Xander made her stomach hurt. Anya tugged herself free of Rupert, inadvertently untangling herself from the sheets, and found herself standing once again in that horrible, lacy wedding lingerie. She wanted to start crying again, but…god, she was just so tired, even after sleeping long enough for night to fall.
She wanted to settle herself in Rupert’s arms, the way she had before.
Rupert stirred on the bed, and she saw him reaching for the spot she’d been. “I’m still here,” she said, gripping her elbows; she tried to smile when he looked up at her.
“Are you all right?” Rupert asked gently.
Anya wanted to be angry enough to yell at him for asking that. She used to be so angry when people asked her stupid questions. Xander’s friends had always looked at her with an infuriating condescension—the dumb little ex-demon who didn’t know the nuances of being human—and their questions had always been simplified, it seemed, for her benefit. But Rupert had held her as she cried, and stayed with her until she woke up, so she just sat back down on the bed and settled herself back into his arms.
“Do you need anything?”
Anya raised her head to look at him. “Do you ever think about that time we were engaged?” she asked. “And if you say that wasn’t us, I will enact swift and brutal vengeance.”
Rupert hesitated. “Anya,” he said quietly, in a tone of voice she hadn’t heard before from him. There was Pissy-Shopkeeper Rupert, and Dear-Lord-Please-No-More-Sex-Talk Rupert, and Am-I-The-Only-Smart-Person-Here Rupert, but this… “I don’t know if now is the right time to talk about—”
“You keep on asking me what I need,” Anya countered. “This is what I need. If I can’t get answers from Xander, I figure you’re the next best thing.”
Rupert looked like Anya had hit him. “I can’t be your next best thing, Anya,” he said. “All right? I can’t—I took you out of that wedding hall because I think very highly of you, and I hate to see you hurt so badly by a man who doesn’t know what he’s missing. But I can’t be your replacement Xander.”
Anya stared at him, horrified. “I’d never!” she said, voice going high. “Rupert, I’d—you’re not a replacement anything!”
“You were in love with Xander for years,” said Rupert, giving her that little Watcher smile that meant she’d just broken his heart but he sure as shit wasn’t going to admit it. “And it hasn’t even been a day since you were left at the altar. I can’t imagine you’d be wanting to talk about our kiss if Xander hadn’t left you, and I don’t—”
Oh, that was it. Anya had had it with men trying to explain what they were feeling, and what she was feeling, and what was best for her. Grabbing the front of Rupert’s tuxedo jacket, she pulled him into a hard, fierce kiss, intending entirely to pull away and start shouting at him once her point was made.
Except the moment her lips touched his, Rupert melted. Those hard, stiff Watcher-edges softened, and a man who had always avoided physical affection pulled Anya fully into his arms, kissing her back with an almost desperate fervor. And this was not like kissing Xander, or even kissing amnesia-Rupert in the Magic Box—this was so far from both of those things. This was its own fucking galaxy.
Anya moved to straddle his lap, directing his hands to her waist, cupping Rupert’s face in her hands and feeling positively punch-drunk in the rightness of whatever this was—when Rupert pulled back, eyes wide and afraid. “No,” he said. “Anya, please—”
Anya stared at him, feeling a slow, creeping humiliation. “What is wrong with me that men don’t want me?” she asked, meaning for the words to come out loud and furious, finding them small and heartbroken instead. “What am I doing that’s so—”
“Anya, I—” Rupert tried to shift her off his lap, hesitated, then took her hands in his instead, looking down at them with this exhausted sadness. “I love you too much,” he said to her hands. “I can’t possibly be the—the distraction you need right now.”
“Bullshit,” said Anya. “Everyone keeps telling me that they’re not good enough for me, and you know what? That is so not their decision to make! I’m not asking you whether or not you’re good enough to be with me right now, Rupert, I’m just asking you whether or not you want to be with me, because that seems to be the one question that nobody I’m in love with is able to answer! It’s all oh, Anya, I love you, but you’re so perfect and I don’t want to hurt you—well, news flash, I love you too!”
Rupert jerked his hands back from Anya. All of a sudden, he looked angry, and for some reason that was exactly what Anya needed to see. “This has gone far enough,” he said. “I care deeply about you, Anya, I know you’re hurting, but you cannot use me to vent your frustrations about your failed marriage. And don’t you dare look into my eyes and tell me you love me like it’s something you mean for me—”
“Wait,” said Anya, heart pounding.
“No!” said Rupert, jerking away from her and nearly falling off the bed. He clambered to his feet, gripping the headboard to keep himself from topping over. “I can’t, Anya,” he said, sounding for all the world like he might burst into tears himself. “I can’t be with you in the way you need me to.”
“Rupert, please—” Anya felt herself beginning to cry again, and hated it. “Please please don’t leave me, I’m sorry I kissed you if it upset you so much, I just—” She buried her face in her hands, trying to regulate her breathing, and raised her head only when she was calm enough to speak. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “And I don’t have anybody else I trust enough to turn to, and I thought—being with you feels so right, and kissing you always makes me feel better, and that didn’t have anything to do with Xander, okay? That was just me. Just Anya.”
Rupert didn’t move. But he also didn’t run away.
“I don’t just want you here because I’m scared of being alone,” said Anya unsteadily, realizing the truth of the words only as she heard them aloud. “I want you here because you make me feel better. You always have.” She sniffled. “You made a place for me in your shop,” she said. “You hired me because you thought I could be helpful, just as me, and I don’t think you even knew how much that meant to me, but you did it anyway, and—”
Rupert sat back down on the bed, facing her. “Anya, I love you,” he said, serious and intense.
Anya stared, then laughed, a relieved, tearful sound that startled both of them. “Oh, well, that’s wonderful!” she said, sniffling. “Because I think—I think maybe I love you too? Maybe? I’m really not sure, it’s been a really long day, but—” She heard Rupert’s sharp breath at her words, saw that he had begun to shake, and reached out to gently take his hands, kissing the knuckles. “It’s okay,” she said. “Okay? I promise I’m not—whatever this is, I really don’t think this is just me needing a warm body or a listening ear or whatever.”
“Yes, well, that possibility seems much more likely than you just inexplicably loving me back,” said Rupert unsteadily.
“No, it—it doesn’t,” said Anya, shaking her head. “Really, it doesn’t, because…” Trying to articulate something she was only just realizing was really difficult. “Xander taught me everything I know about being human,” she said. “He’d tell me when I was doing something wrong, and I’d change it for him, because you all have been humans a lot longer than me—percentage-wise, at least. And I love him very much for that, you know?” She sighed. “He made me feel normal,” she said. “He made me feel happy about being normal.”
Rupert’s face had tightened. “I really am very tempted to give that boy a severe talking-to at some juncture,” he said, with the cool, conversational air that meant he was feeling a little murdery. “Anya, I-I must admit I haven’t always handled your eccentricities with patience, but the way you look at the world…it’s refreshing, and new, and very much your own. Putting that aside would mean putting the most essential parts of you in a drawer.” He looked down at their joined hands, then back up at her, and the expression on his face was so tender that Anya almost couldn’t breathe. “I’m shamefully glad you didn’t marry him,” he said. “I want to see the sort of person that Anya Jenkins turns out to be when no one’s telling her she’s a bit too blunt.”
Anya leaned forward and rubbed her nose against his, watching his eyes flutter shut, watching the shy smile spread across his face. He really did love her, she realized, had loved her, painfully and pining, for probably way longer than necessary knowing him— “See, that’s kind of why I think I maybe love you,” she murmured. “You say these nice things about everyone, but you don’t say them because other people tell you to say them, or because you think you should say them, or because of some complex societal structure that I really still don’t understand in the slightest. You say them because you mean them. I’ve been alive a really long time, and I can count on one hand the number of people who’ve said they like me just the way I am.” She contemplated. “Well. More like one finger, and it would probably be just you telling me that you like me just the way I am—”
“I love you just the way you are,” Rupert whispered, ardent and shaking.
Anya tugged her hands free of his, then reached up to gently caress his cheek. “I think you’re right about me needing time,” she said, “because this Xander thing is messy and it still really, really hurts, and I don’t want to just jump into a new relationship headfirst before I’m all the way over the old one.”
Rupert’s eyes had closed again, his face turned towards Anya’s touch.
“But it’s also because I think you’re too important to screw up,” said Anya. That was a little bit harder to say. It felt weird—usually being honest wasn’t at all difficult—but she guessed that having her heart stomped on and her dreams crushed had made her a little more wary of honesty. “Did you know, I-I thought about that memory spell engagement every day, no matter how hard I tried not to?”
Rupert’s eyes opened, and he gave her another one of those beautifully shy smiles—tentative in his happiness, Anya thought, which really just meant that she’d have to get used to making sure he knew she wasn’t going anywhere—before reaching for her and pulling her back into his lap. “Tell me,” he said.
Anya smiled too. “Well,” she said. “I thought a lot about how when I woke up and didn’t remember anything, I looked over at you and thought oh, gosh, I hope he and I are dating. And then I looked down at that engagement ring and just decided that it had to be you I was engaged to. And that was what I’ve been thinking about since then, because that time I spent around you, I was just so happy. You were so nice to me, and so shy about it, and we were honest with each other, and after months and months of Xander brushing me off and being all weird and insecure and not talking to me at all about what bothered him—” She shifted a little on his lap, straddling him again, then draping her arms around his neck. Rupert leaned back against the headboard, and she hesitated, then said, “Can I kiss you again? I promise I’ll keep talking afterwards—”
“Those are the two best sentences I have heard all day,” said Rupert, giving Anya this big, infectious grin, and Anya felt a rush of butterflies. She leaned in and kissed him again, soft and slow and so much less urgent, and now Rupert’s hands rested on her waist with an easy certainty.
“I do love you,” she whispered against his mouth, and Rupert pulled back, but this time it was to trail slow, careful kisses down her neck and throat. She hummed happily, tangling her hands in his hair, enjoying the feeling of his undivided attention. “And if you listen to me this well when we’re a few steps away from having sex, I think I really will have to lock you down, because there are some business matters that I know you’re going to be annoyed about—”
“Anya,” said Rupert, that wonderfully familiar thread of irritation in his voice, “kindly do not attempt to use our fledgling relationship as a bargaining chip to further your profits.”
“Well, you said you love the sort of person I am, and that is the sort of person I am—”
She felt Rupert laugh against her neck, and he raised his head to kiss her again. “Quite,” he said. “So. You said you would keep talking.”
“Yeah,” said Anya, attempting to piece together where she’d been before that delicious kissing session. “Um. I guess what I’m getting at is that that spell and that kiss just wouldn’t leave my head. And it made me feel terrible, because I was marrying Xander, and I knew he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—only I’m not so sure about that, now.” She looked down at Rupert, who looked steadily back up at her, meeting her eyes without any hesitancy. “I think I want someone who knows what they want,” she said softly. “And I don’t think Xander did. And I don’t think I did either, for a while, which was why we were so in love.”
“Oh, Anya,” Rupert murmured.
Anya gave him a small, wobbly smile. “It’s still gonna hurt,” she said. “And you might have to wait around a little, because I think I need to take things slow after this.”
Rupert’s eyes widened. “After—this?”
“Well, yes,” said Anya, and was surprised at the tender note to her voice. She’d never heard herself sound like that before, not without practice. “I think tonight we’re going to have sex, and it’s going to be really wonderful, because we’ve both been waiting around too long to wait more for the sexual component of our relationship. I don’t think I’m good at waiting for sex.” She shifted, pointedly, on his lap. “And I can tell you aren’t either, at least right now.”
“Fair enough,” said Rupert, his voice dipping low.
Anya reached up, placing her hands steadily on Rupert’s shoulders. Everything about him felt solid and safe, like being wrapped in a warm, certain blanket—and she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t the type to propose to a girl at the end of the world, or hide his engagement until he felt like talking about it. He might complain bitterly, but he always listened to her, and he was always there.
“I’ve been very lonely, Rupert,” she said.
“As have I, dearest Anya,” Rupert whispered, and kissed her, and this—this felt right. This felt good, and safe, and Anya hadn’t even had to fight for it. He saw her and loved her, without her having to change even a little bit, and Anya was starting to think she might love him just the same.
“I hate the thought of leaving you here,” Rupert said quietly.
Anya, quite comfortable in the afterglow and in Rupert’s arms, was having trouble thinking anywhere past the now. “Why, do you have to use the bathroom?” she asked.
She felt Rupert’s gentle laugh. “England,” he elaborated.
Oh. Well, that took all the fun out of the moment. “So maybe you stay here with me,” said Anya hesitantly. “Or maybe I go with you. Something like that.”
“Something like that,” Rupert echoed.
“Buffy really misses you,” said Anya. “And I don’t think she’s doing better, so your whole leaving-to-make-her-stronger thing kinda backfired—”
“It wasn’t—” Rupert sighed, beginning to absently rub circles on Anya’s back. He was quiet for a little while before speaking, and she liked that about him. He chose his words with care. “I love Buffy very much,” he finally said. “Too much. Had I stayed, I would have so easily, so happily done anything and everything she asked, because seeing her in this much pain is unbearable to me. But she is first and foremost the Vampire Slayer, and rest is not a luxury she can afford—”
Anya scooted up to kiss him mid-sentence, just so that the horrible sadness in his voice would maybe be a little less. “So just to be clear,” she said, “I do understand your reasoning, but it would make way more sense to stay with her if you want her to be safe. She’s been sad, and lonely, and not making a whole bunch of safe decisions. I think she really needs you.”
She felt Rupert scoff. “You weren’t there at the airport,” he said. “I fear whatever goodwill she harbored towards me is long lost.”
“Not lost,” said Anya. “You just have to earn some of it back.”
Rupert rolled onto his side, rubbing his nose against hers. “Is this just so you get to keep the Sunnydale branch of the Magic Box?” he teased, gentle and loving.
Anya smiled. “Well,” she said, “that is an appealing benefit. But despite her penchant for siding with my ex-fiancé, I quite like Buffy, and I don’t enjoy seeing her this miserable.” She leaned in to brush her lips against Rupert’s again, smiling a little at the way he still melted into the kiss. “I know it would be nice to run away with you,” she said softly. “We’d never have to have a terrible conversation with Xander about us, or deal with whatever lingering trauma Buffy’s resurrection has caused, or do any of the heavy lifting. But thus far, avoiding my problems has only led to bad stuff for everyone. I think that for once, now’s the time to be honest instead of just running away.”
Rupert sighed. “I very much dislike how much sense you’re making,” he said. “It would be very nice to run away with you to England—and very easy to convince myself into believing that it’s the logical option—but I think I’d always know that I’d done something wrong.” He tugged Anya closer. “I think I have done quite a few things wrong,” he murmured. “Leaving the way I did…”
“Well, yes,” Anya agreed. “It was very foolish. And now you aren’t even going to be able to run your own magic shop, because I’m in charge and that won’t change.” She felt Rupert laugh again, and grinned too, buoyed. “We can still leave if you want!” she reassured him. “Just…later. After I know Xander’s going to be okay, and after you know for real that Buffy is.”
“God, I never do seem to be able to break this town’s orbit,” said Rupert tiredly. “Here’s hoping it doesn’t kill me.”
“I really will kill it if it even tries,” Anya informed him, snuggling closer. “But what’s important is that wherever we go, it’s you and me, right?”
Rupert made a noise between a laugh and a sob, then kissed her hair. God, Anya could kick herself for letting him pine away this long—she didn’t like the thought of him hurting, for such a long time, and her not knowing about it. “You and me,” he echoed, and she’d never heard him sound so smitten, not even with that rare encyclopedia she’d tracked down for him.
Anya grinned. She ranked above research material, and that boded extremely well for their relationship.
“So,” said Buffy, looking levelly at Giles over the kitchen counter. “You and Anya.”
Giles didn’t know what to say in return. He knew his actions had been reprehensible, but he wouldn’t take them back, and so he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for them. “I—”
“Do you love her?”
It seemed like Buffy’s face had changed, ever so slightly. She was looking at him with a kind of exhausted understanding—as though she too knew what it was like to make choices that seemed entirely out of one’s control. Giles found himself wondering what exactly had transpired between his leaving and the wedding. “Yes,” he said softly. “More than I ever thought I could again.”
Buffy nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Well, the timing’s kinda sucky, and there’s a solid chance that Xander might kill you, but…” She trailed off, then smiled, the first smile she had given him since he had told her of his leaving. “If you honestly love her, I think that’s kind of good.”
“Oh?”
“She deserves someone who won’t leave her at the altar,” said Buffy. “And…” She trailed off. “I get why you left me,” she said. “I’m still pretty pissed, but I like to think I’m doing better now that I’ve learned to stand on my own. But Anya’s not the kind of person who gets better when people leave her, and I think you know that enough not to do it to her.”
Somehow, hearing that from Buffy hurt more than anything. “Buffy,” said Giles shakily. “I didn’t leave you to, to spur you into action—”
Buffy gave him a small, wry smile. “I mean, how else was I supposed to interpret it?”
“I left you because—” Giles exhaled. It was harder to be honest with Buffy in the same way he had been honest with Anya. It felt as though there was too much at stake for his words to be anything but perfect, and sometimes honesty wasn’t that. “Seeing you like this—seeing you so miserable in a life you hadn’t chose—it was too much for me. I would have done anything you asked if I thought it might alleviate your burdens even slightly.”
Buffy’s expression was opening up, eyes wide and soft and childlike in the way they had been right after her resurrection. “Really?” she whispered.
“Of course,” said Giles softly. “You mean the world to me.”
Buffy sniffled, scrubbing her hand awkwardly across her face. “Then why—um.” She was crying. “Then why did you leave me? If I meant that much, why didn’t you stay?”
“I love you too much to lose you again,” said Giles simply. “I was afraid you might never recover if I took on all your burdens, and then—”
Still crying, Buffy got up, then crossed the kitchen to give Giles a gentle, tentative hug. Giles hugged her back, as tightly as he could, because Buffy was much stronger than she looked. He pulled back, and she said, “Are you and Anya staying?”
“Tentatively, yes,” said Giles. “For as long as you need us.”
“I’ve been doing bad things,” said Buffy. “Making some really crappy choices—”
“We’ll talk it over,” Giles reassured her. “I promise.”
Xander stared at Anya, white-faced. Then he said, “So what, was this—”
“Xander,” said Anya, “think, for one second, about what you’re about to say before you say it. Because I think you’re about to insult me, or insult Giles, just because you’re hurt, and you have every right to be. But you don’t have any right to hurt people back.”
Xander’s eyes glittered with tears. “Ahn, I love you,” he said, which was definitely better than him yelling about Giles, or Anya, or both.
“I love you too,” said Anya, and meant it. A part of her probably always would. “But I was ready to get married, and you weren’t, even though it was your decision in the first place. You knew I was scared you would leave me, and then you left me right when you’d finally convinced me to trust again.”
“Anya—”
“Xander, you broke my heart,” said Anya, not so much angry or hurting as she was trying to make him understand. “You did what was easiest for you without even thinking about what it would do to me, and you never told me how scared you were of getting married. We could have talked about it, but we didn’t.”
“Can’t we talk about it now?” said Xander helplessly.
And for a moment, Anya really wanted to. But then she thought back on all of Xander’s empty promises, and placating kisses, and how as much as she loved him, he still didn’t know what he was doing. And that was okay. It just didn’t work for her anymore, not when she knew what she wanted. “I’m always gonna love you, Xander,” she said, “but this is over. And I’m sorry. And Rupert and I will do our very best to keep things as professional as pos—”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to hang with you guys at the Magic Box for a little while,” said Xander, short and sharp. “Maybe a long while.”
“I understand,” said Anya. Some part of her really did ache. There were parts of her life with Xander that she was going to miss so much; he had pretty much been the cornerstone of her new human life. She knew a clean break had to happen, but she wished it didn’t have to hurt. “If it helps, we’re not—I mean, he and I are taking things really slow.”
“Good to know you can do that with someone,” said Xander bitterly.
The remark stung, but not as much as it used to. “I’ll let you have that one,” said Anya lightly, and turned to leave.
“Anya?”
Anya turned back around, waiting.
Xander swallowed, then said, “I really did want to marry you.”
“I know,” said Anya softly. “But you should have proposed when you were really ready to follow through on it.”
“Yeah,” said Xander. “Yeah. I kinda think Giles will, if he ever does.”
Anya felt herself smiling without thinking—because, yeah, Rupert would. Not that he’d propose any time soon, but if he decided to, he’d mean it with all his heart. And that was really all she’d ever wanted from somebody: that they’d love her just as much and as honestly as she loved them. “Thank you, Xander,” she said. It still felt too raw and hurting to reach out to him, so she gave him a little wave goodbye, and then she left.
Rupert was waiting out in the car, staring straight ahead and looking extremely tense. When he saw her, he immediately relaxed—or maybe he just looked only slightly tense. Anya wasn’t sure. She got into the car, and he said, “How did he take it?”
“I told him he didn’t have any right to hurt me about it,” Anya informed him. “The conversation was relatively civil after that.”
“Oh,” said Rupert. He still looked pretty miserable.
“Rupert, it isn’t like you chose to fall in love with me,” said Anya, frustrated beyond belief that she couldn’t effortlessly soothe him. She’d been able to with Xander so easily—but Rupert wasn’t Xander, and that was important to remember. “And you weren’t even the one who kissed me, remember? You’ve been a perfect gentleman about this whole affair, and I did my very best to communicate that to Xander—”
“It isn’t entirely accurate,” said Rupert, finally looking up at her. “I’ve wanted you for years, Anya, and never made even the slightest attempt to alter or ignore those feelings—”
“Years?” said Anya. Her voice trembled.
Rupert smiled, almost reluctantly. “Can you blame me?”
“No,” said Anya. “No, and that’s the point,” and she leaned across the car to cup his face in her hands and kiss him. So maybe that didn’t qualify as taking things slow, but now that she was allowed to kiss him, she wanted to do it all the time.
“Oh, likewise, darling,” Rupert mumbled, and Anya realized with a blush that she’d been thinking out loud. “I really would like to kiss you senseless, but—perhaps not outside your ex-fiancé’s apartment? It seems rather unkind.”
“See?” said Anya pointedly. “If you really were a boorish pig who seduced me without any thought for Xander’s feelings, you wouldn’t be conscientious enough to point out our unfortunate location.”
“Anya—”
“Rupert,” said Anya. “Love yourself at least half as much as I love you.”
Rupert pressed his lips together, then said, “You are making it entirely difficult for me to not kiss you right now.”
“Start the car!” Anya laughed. “We can go to the Magic Box and kiss in the rare-books area. I bet that kind of thing probably turns you on—”
“No comment,” said Rupert.
“Oh,” said Anya, absolutely delighted, “now that we’re in a relationship, you have to listen to me talk about my sex life.” She considered, then giggled again. “You are my sex life!”
“Shockingly, that’s rather the most romantic thing you’ve said to me,” said Rupert, in that dry, rolling-his-eyes voice Anya was more accustomed to. But she looked over at him, and saw, for the first time, the tiny, smitten grin on his face; she took his hand in hers, and kissed the knuckles.