Chapter Text
Riley closed his book and looked over at Buffy. He sighed, "This isn’t going anywhere is it? This relationship. No further I mean. This is all there is? This is all there’ll ever be?"
He got up from the couch and walked over to Giles’ desk where Buffy sat researching for an English paper. As Riley approached she looked up from her work.
"If Giles was here, you’d be sitting closer to him than you are to me. If Giles was here you’d be asking his advice and his opinion about your paper, but you’re ignoring me".
He reached out his hand to stroke Buffy’s hair. She would have answered then but Riley turned to face her, squatting next to her, their eyes level.
"It’s all right, really. At least, I think it is. I’ve seen this coming…or I think I have. I knew something was coming…I just didn’t want to see what it was…I just didn’t want to see where this was heading, where we were going…or where we weren’t going".
Riley tilted his head slightly to the side and smiled his half smile at Buffy.
"I’m right, aren’t I? About us?"
Buffy took her time, looked at him and then nodded.
"I’m right too, aren’t I? About Giles?"
She shook her head slowly.
"It’s not … It’s not that easy…It’s just…" Buffy sighed "It’s just sooo complicated with Giles", Buffy stammered and then stopped.
"Riley, I…"
"Shhh, don’t. Let me finish. That night at The Espresso Pump, the last night before Giles went away, you were talking to him about something and you were upset. He kissed you and then you kissed him back. You held each other Buffy. I hadn’t seen that coming but I saw the way you looked at each other. You didn’t need the words, you knew how each other felt. It was plain for anyone to see. That’s when I really started to think about how close you two had become over the summer while I was gone…when I went home."
Buffy tried to protest but he held up his hand to silence her.
"I’m not saying anything physical happened between you, but when I came back you two operated as a single entity, not two individuals. I saw it when you were sharing a joke, watching a movie, out patrolling. I hadn’t imagined Giles patrolling with you until I met you out the night I came back to Sunnydale. You know, I didn’t ever see him as a threat to us, because he was never a threat to you, only to me. I knew you’d worked with him for years, I knew you were fond of him, I knew he’d meant a lot to you, that he still did, but that’s changed. It’s shifted focus somehow hasn’t it?
No answer.
"When Giles first said he was going away, you were stunned. You actually told him he couldn’t go, that he’d promised he wouldn’t leave you. Willow and Xander were upset, but you were inconsolable. And now, why do you want to stay here while he’s gone? Why is it so important to you that you stay in Giles’ apartment?"
Again, no answer.
"Buffy, please, look at me. I’m right, aren’t I? About Giles?"
Buffy looked into Riley’s eyes, nodded and looked away.
"I guess…", she shook her head slowly. "No, that’s not fair".
Buffy took a long shaky breath. "Yes, you’re right…about Giles I mean. I feel so much for him, it’s more than him being my mentor or our friendship, I can’t explain it because I know, but it’s like an ache inside me. Sometimes it’s a good ache and sometimes it’s a not so good ache. But Riley I don’t know what he feels for me."
"You’ve got to be kidding", Riley whispered.
Buffy lay in the dark. It was so quiet now that Riley had left. He was such a decent man, such a nice human being, so understanding and tolerant of her. And he was so right, about her, about the summer, about Giles. Even trying to be brutally honest with herself, she hadn’t realized how far reaching the changes over summer had been.
Sighing, she wriggled back against the headboard and sat up in Giles’ big bed.
The summer had been wonderful. As usual demonic activity had all but ceased. The Initiative had been stood down to a skeleton crew, which gave Riley the opportunity to travel home to see his family. He’d wanted Buffy to go with him, but she hadn’t been sure she was ready for that. At home in Sunnydale there had been the regular research parties for the gang, visits to ‘The Bronze", video fests and late breakfasts at Giles’. Then Xander and Anya went off for their holiday break away from ‘fighting the evil’ and Willow was invited to a special Summer School for ‘brainy people’ run by The University of California in L.A., and Spike drove her. Much to Buffy’s consternation that just left her and Giles. How she wished she’d gone home with Riley!
But then Giles asked her to assist him part time at the Museum. So she spent 2 hours each day unpacking or packing artifacts, filing, general odd jobs and making tea (Giles assured her his secretary didn’t know how). It was mundane work but it paid a small salary and allowed Buffy to do whatever she wished in the afternoons as well as leaving time free for her and Giles to do cursory patrols at night.
Coinciding with Buffy’s working at the museum was the visit of a junior curator on a work experience tour of regional museums. Buffy had been on her guard with him since they had been introduced. She felt he stood a little too close, that he too often needed to work with her on the same task and that he took any opportunity to air his knowledge in front of her. Giles sensed her disquiet and asked her if there was something wrong.
"What is it about him that makes you feel uneasy Buffy, is it your ‘spidey sense’?"
"No Giles, it’s nothing like that. I don’t think he is of the evil, he just gives me the creeps. And if he tells me how clever he is or asks me to lunch once more I’ll scream!"
Giles started as he heard that and a wave of what?… Foreboding?
No, not quite foreboding, but a wave of an indefinable something came over him.
"You know sooo much more than he does Giles, you don’t have to prove how smart you are to anyone, people just know and why does he keep asking me to lunch? He knows I always have lunch with you, why would he think I’d change that?"
Giles looked at her in wonder. She was just so lovely and she truly couldn’t see herself apart from any other young woman of her own age. Buffy’s lack of vanity was one of the traits Giles found so endearing about her.
"Perhaps Richard thought he might liven up the end of your working day, give you a lunch break away from your old boss"
"Huh! liven up? More like bore me to death. I’d rather have lunch with you any day, no one can fill your shoes for me Giles, don’t you know that?"
Giles was speechless. Buffy smiled at him, for him. Just for him.
Seeing his disbelief Buffy slipped one arm around his waist, leaned into his chest and gave him a quick hug. She released him almost in the same instant stepped back and looked up into his face.
"You’re special to me Giles. No one can ever take your place Watcher mine!" With that said Buffy stood on her toes, reached up and kissed his cheek. "My Giles", she murmured. They looked at each other seriously for a moment, then with a smile, each for the other, returned to their work.
Included in one of the new shipments were some particularly ugly carvings with quite demonic faces.
"Eeww, gross!", Buffy grimaced as she unpacked one particularly hideous face.
Overhearing her comment Giles chuckled and glanced up at her from his own unpacking. "What have you unearthed Buffy that has elicited such a response?"
His colleague Richard Swinton, who was Giles junior by about 20 years, smiled at Buffy commenting, "Pre-Columbian artifacts may not be to your liking Buffy, but you should make an effort to appreciate their artistic merit as well as their cultural importance".
Buffy looked up from her work, blinked and replied, "Mr Swinton, I don’t underestimate the cultural importance of any indigenous art but I’m afraid your idea and my idea of artistic merit are poles apart. Anyway, I think these masks are Early Minoan, not Pre-Columbian."
The following silence was deafening.
"Well done Buffy. It’s not always an easy distinction to make", Giles smiled at her.
The junior curator fought to regain his composure as he suggested to Buffy, "With all this knowledge you have Buffy, you must come and work for me when I’m curator of my own museum."
Just as Buffy declined his offer Giles made a territorial gesture of an arm across Buffy’s shoulders explaining, "I think, Richard, you will find that Miss Summers, has allegiances and loyalties that keep her here in Sunnydale."
While Buffy was puzzled at Giles’ response she was, never-the-less, pleased to lean into Giles’ familiar embrace.
It wasn’t until Buffy completed her morning shift that Giles suggested that as it was such a lovely day that they purchase sandwiches and juice and sit outside on the lawn to eat. After eating a while in silence Giles asked,
"Buffy, would you go, could you be tempted to leave here, to leave us? Only over the summer of course. I know you would come back to college and slaying and your friends?"
Buffy stopped in mid chew. How, after all this time, could he still doubt her? But she couldn’t resist.
"I think I would go, I think I could be tempted to leave here, but it would have to be a pretty good offer. The incentives would have to be just right."
Giles’ heart fell to the pit of his stomach. He wondered from where the intensity of that feeling had come.
Buffy smiled and slowly shook her head at him as she continued, "Yes, the incentives would have to be just right. If you were to ask me to follow you away or if you were to ask me to go with you, to leave here with you, of course I’d go. What would be left here for me if you weren’t here? So, yes Giles, I would go, I could be tempted to leave here, but not to leave you, to be with you."
Giles reached over to Buffy and cupped her face in his large hand wiping away the lone tear that streaked her cheek. "My Buffy".
She turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm. "My Giles."
They spent the remainder of their lunch break sitting on the lawn, backs against a tree, discussing where they would go if they could leave Sunnydale. As they returned to the Museum Giles casually draped his arm across Buffy’s shoulders and said, "If you would care to wait until I finish my day we could drive home together."
Complementing Giles’ gesture, Buffy slid her arm around his waist, "Thanks Giles. I’d like that. Maybe we could have ice cream on the way?"
"Mmmm", was his only response.