Title: Normal
Spoilers: Prophecy Girl
Summary: Post Ep S1 Finale - Buffy and co at the Spring Fling
Disclaimer: Not mine!
The bronze was as dimly lit as ever, music from the unseen speakers making conversation difficult if not impossible and the teenagers were spring flinging to their hearts content as Rupert Giles and Jenny Calendar sat at a small table together talking quietly.
"I'm going to go get some punch Rupert, stay here and try not to be too frightened by the lack of decorum the students display." Jenny teased and Giles glared. He watched her walk off into the crowd though and a small smile touched his lips.
"So, doin' the dance thing with Ms. Calendar I see." A voice said from behind him.
Rupert Giles spun around to smile with not a little embarassment at his slayer. "Well...um...er..." he stuttered, removing his glasses and fastidiously beginning to clean them.
Buffy smirked at her watcher as he reverted to true Giles form, as a matter of fact she would almost swear it looked like he was actually blushing. Her face breaking into a full fledged grin she reached out and took his glasses form his hands. "Easy there Giles, wouldn't wanna polish through them now." She teased, earning herself an abashed smile from the flustered watcher.
"Hey, um, listen, I just wanna say thank you, for what you were going to do before...and I'm sorry about the hitting you and everything." Buffy fidgeted awkwardly, her hands turning the pair of lenses around and around.
Giles smiled and reclaimed the glasses. "It was nothing Buffy, really, just doing my job."
"Your job isn't on the front lines Giles." She disagreed vehemently. "That's what I do, isn't that what you're always telling me when I don't wanna train, that I'm the one who has to fight the monsters, the one girl in all the world yada yada."
"Yes, well..." Giles trailed off at a loss as to what to say. Buffy smiled at his embarassment, a happy smile full of the childhood she'd just barely left behind, full of the life she had yet to live. She was so young, so damn young. How could he tell her he agreed she was too young to die, that he thought it was incredibly unfair that the universe assigned this neverending task to those who would probably die before getting the chance to live in the world they fought so hard to save. He couldn't tell her he couldn't have stood idly by and let her go off to her death after all these months. He couldn't tell her that after all the bickering and fighting and blown off training sessions that there'd been a bond formed between them; a protective urge that rose in him at the thought of her or the other children being in danger that quelled the nonsense that had been spouted at him through his watcher training about duty and what should be done in the face of letting a sixteen year old girl go out and face down evil like those idiots on the council had never seen. So instead, he patted her on the shoulder and muttered something about doing his duty and blah blah blah and would have wandered off, had Willow and Xander with Jenny between them not appeared.
"Hey, Miss Calendar." Buffy grinned mischieviously from her computer science teacher to her watcher, turning to waggle her eyebrows at Willow who grinned back.
"Buffy." Jenny's return smile was a little wicked.
"So, what are you two kids doing here?"
"Oh the usual, watching all the fun, participating in none of it." Jenny winked at Giles.
"Well yeah, can you imagine Giles doing the dance thing?" Xander put in. "He'd probably try to waltz or the electric slide or some other weirdo english dance."
"I don't know, I think Giles could pull off an electric slide. I bet he had the hair for it in his teens." Angel deadpanned from behind the group. He had appeared as usual without anyone noticing his approach.
Buffy burst out in full fledged laughter, giggling so hard she had to sit down.
Gile scouldn't help but smile at his slayer even if her laughter was at his own expense because in that moment she was exactly what she wanted to be; young and carefree and having fun with her friends, just like a normal girl. Xander pulled her up off her chair and the two did a silly little dance around each other ending with Buffy being dipped dramatically over Xander's arm, finishing to loud laughter and applause from the watching Willow, Jenny and Angel.