Title: Remembrance is Permanent

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Jenny/Giles

Genre: Romance/Angst

Summary: No matter what position she's been put into, her mistakes and doubts and cold body now lingering on his bed, nothing will ever make her forget just how much he meant to a girl like her. Spoilers for Season 2's 'Passion'.

A/N: My first venture into the Buffy verse. Just started watching the series a month or two ago, I'm currently on the third season, and completely adore it. Jenny's death has been bugging me for a while now, probably because I loved her character so much and was eager to see if anything more would happen between her and Giles. I wanted her to have a final say, and even though this is mainly my own internal ramble, I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Seeing herself, lying unmoving and exposed on his bed, never a picture she would've expected, being taken away while he just stood there and watched, speechless, head heavy and too disoriented and in shock for tears to come sliding out, was agonizing.

Jenny Calendar was dead. She was gone, deceased, nothing more than a dead body soon to be buried in the ground, hopefully grieved over and then left to rot in the dirt. It was inevitable, maybe had been for a while now, her falling out with Buffy and the gang and of course Giles foreshadowing the end of one thing and the start of another. How can she be expected to think back now though? She never gets to say goodbye, she just stands there, a ghost, a shadow on the wall, invisible to him, oblivious to her fixated gaze on his haunted face.

It was over for her but that wasn't what disturbed her. It was the look on his face, the way that time seemed to stop around him, the moment his eyes locked to her unmoving ones. It was knowing the pain that he would not only feel at that sight, but for the rest of his life that shook her, that made her grieve in her own silent way at her sudden death.

He never gets to say goodbye either.

The truth smacked her in the face like the brutal sound of a gunshot; he had loved her, he had cared for her, even when taking Buffy's side those numerous times he had dreamed solely of her. It made her smile even now, so close but yet so faraway. If only she could take his hand, comfort him.

Jenny had always felt protective of Giles, hovering over him like a mother-hen when he was vulnerable. When they were both in danger she had thought of him first upon waking, crawled over to him despite her disoriented state and assured him with a single gaze that he was fine just like she was. When Buffy had knocked him down she was there for him as well, realized how much her heart sped up whenever she was watching over him, feeling a strange magic surge up within her with his head held in her capable hands.

It felt so real to her, her heart beating alongside his, grounding her and in his own way protecting her, keeping her sane and glued to his world. The library that felt like home, the way he smelled of the old, musty books kept there. It drove her insane because it was what she secretly wanted.

To sit alongside him, pouring through books and complaining about them. About how she should be at a computer and not in his dank, allergy-ridden palace of books and history. But just looking up every once in a while, confirming he was there, nose buried in a book, it was sometimes all she craved out of life.

Jenny Calendar had finally found her place.

Being disconnected those last few weeks felt like withdrawal to her, it was the most painful suffering she had ever had to endure. She accepted it though, and worked hard to gain both his and Buffy's trust back by helping Angel. She knew it was the only way because even if she and Giles never made it, never faced what they could have it would be worth it, just to see him staring straight at her, into her eyes and into her heart, aware that what he felt wasn't temporary, that would be beautiful in itself. Knowing that if she pushed hard enough this time, he might push back.

Now she's just being a sap though. Since when did she start liking that insufferable librarian in the first place?

She wanted to show so much to him, share with him a part of her world she had been thrown into headfirst at such an early age. Jenny wanted to have him witness that magic wasn't just a physical thing but emotional as well, that it wasn't so much a practice as a way of life, a mindset, something the heart and soul could latch onto in order to find beauty and meaning and love.

But things were never that simple.

The truth had been set in stone from day one, people like her weren't meant to bring outsiders into their world, she could have never loved Giles the way she would have wanted to. There would always be something holding her back, a physical entity that pushed her away from him whenever she felt the urge to get close.

She would accept this but she would never forget, how many times the snooty librarian made her smile and laugh and give her hope, just that minuscule flicker of hope that never left her, not even when she knew the risk she was taking by helping Angel, not even when the vampire was chasing her throughout the halls of the school. When thoughts were screaming across her head as she ran and ran and ran, urging her, scolding her, cursing her, the one clear image in her head was Giles, the one thing that she would never regret about being here, about helping Buffy, was him. He was the one person she couldn't shake.

So in the end it didn't matter, the mistakes she had made that she still felt proud to have made, the lingering doubts in her mind that always held her back from Giles, her death didn't mean anything because she would never forget.

Never forget the man who stole her heart from day one.

FIN