Giles ascended the stairs quietly, fearful that he might wake Jenny up. He padded across the hallway, and as he approached her bedroom, he stood outside silently. He saw the light from the hallway creep into her room, illuminating her bare back as she laid in bed, twisted in the sheets, a visible space next to her where he had been laying before he had gotten up to get a glass of water. He could here the faint hum of her computer on the desk next to the bed and the rhythmic beat of the clock near the door.
Giles stood there for a moment, replaying the last few hours in his head, a small smile played across his face: They had been at school earlier in the evening. He had invited her to come by his flat that night when Jenny suddenly admitted what she had been working on. She told him of the curse and her computer program and as always, he was astounded at what her technology was capable of. She decided she could finish her work at home, so they both went her place that night to discuss everything in detail.
As they began discussing the curse, the intimacy of the moment made itself known: he was there, she was there, it was the middle of the night, and they were alone. Right then, he no longer wanted to be the watcher, who must put his slayer's feeling before his own. He didn't want to have to constantly be planning for every possible worst case scenario when he got up in the morning. He didn't want to worry about cataloging demons and vampires and be on alert for what goes bump in the night. No, right then, he just wanted to be the fuddy-duddy librarian who was over at his girlfriend's, who was a computer science teacher.
His sudden move to kiss her and tell her that he loved her was met with equal vigor and passion. They made love and for the first time in a long time, he felt happy. Even as the world was crashing around them with Angelus, he felt love and was loved.
He had slipped from her – their – bed and moved downstairs to get a glass of water, loving how her apartment was strewn with floppy disks and other computer parts he didn't know what were for. As he sipped from his glass, his blissful revery slowly became penetrated with reality. The fact of the matter was that Angelus was out there. Lurking, stalking, hunting. And even if they were to vanquish the demon, there would always be another threat. Another monster that would want to kill them for one reason or another. And as Giles watched Jenny lay there, staring at the women he loved, he couldn't help but feel a sliver of disappointed. He wished he could give her a world free of danger, a world where he knew he could always protect her. But he couldn't. His life would always be filled with danger and the great possibility that each day on this Earth may be his last. And he hated the thought of dragging her into it. To cause her any heartache or harm was an unbearable thought.
Giles stood at the door frame, admiring the beauty of his lover, thinking of her quick wit and sassy remarks and felt as though he were luckiest man on the Earth. He then thought that every day, he might be contributing to getting her killed, and felt like a scared child. He took a deep breath and silently entered the room and crawled into bed. He wrapped his arm around her waist and she shifted in her sleep until his body safely spooned hers against his. Giles never felt such inexpressible joy and crippling fear before at the same time until that point. But as she lay soft his arms, and his mind drifted to sleep, all he could think about was her telling him that she loved him. And even with the threat of weight of the world, really, that was enough for him.