by She's a Star
Disclaimer: Buffy isn't mine. Duh.
Author's Note: I watched 'Prophecy Girl' this afternoon, and decided that Giles's 'I'm not dancing' proclamations at the end of the episode were far too endearing not to write a fic about.
. . . So I did.
This is my second attempt at writing Giles and Jenny, and first at everybody else, so I suppose OOC-ness isn't exactly as forgivable, but . . . forgive me anyway?
"I'm not dancing," Rupert Giles repeated again, pulling open the door to The Bronze and allowing the rest of their group to enter.
"Yeah, we caught that," Jenny Calendar muttered dryly, rolling her eyes.
"Giles, can you dance?" inquired Buffy Summers, looking rather amused at the prospect. She was in a good mood, Jenny noticed, considering the fact that she'd died less than an hour ago. Then again, when one had a handsome young man staring adoringly at them nonstop throughout the evening, it seemed inevitable that the mood should lighten.
Even if that handsome young man happened to be a vampire; the vampire, to be more specific, that Jenny was supposed to be making sure lived in eternal misery.
He didn't look very miserable at the moment. As a matter of fact, the guy looked positively giddy.
No, she thought firmly. I'm not dwelling on that tonight. For all I know, Buffy could just want to be friends and break the poor guy's heart, soap opera style.
. . . Okay, it was slightly unlikely, but she was grasping for straws here.
"Somehow I doubt he's the club-hopping sort of guy," Xander Harris responded thoughtfully, eyeing Giles. "That's just not our G-man's style."
"I fear I'll have to harm you if you ever call me that again," Giles said irritably, but Jenny could tell that he was holding back a smile.
"Aww, but it fits you so well!" Xander protested.
"Xander, leave him alone," Willow Rosenberg ordered, grinning.
Cordelia Chase rolled her eyes, scoffed, and made her way over to a group of fellow cheerleaders.
"Oh, we'll miss you, too!" Xander called sarcastically after her, sitting down at one of the unoccupied tables. The rest followed suit.
"You're an affectionate bunch," Jenny commented.
"What can I say?" Xander asked with a shrug. "We love her, she loves us; it's enough to inspire one to burst into the Barney theme song."
"The what?" Giles asked blankly.
"Oh, right," said Xander. "I forgot." He turned to the others. "You know, he might be smart about books and stuff, but when it comes to pop culture, he makes Pee Wee Herman look like Alfred Einstein."
"Albert," Willow corrected him.
"That's what I said."
"Rupert," Jenny said, studying him skeptically, "Do the words 'I'll never let go, Jack' have any significance to you whatsoever?"
Giles considered this for a moment.
"No," he answered finally. "I can't say that they do."
"God," Jenny said, shaking her head in disbelief, "That is truly the saddest thing I've heard all day."
"Where's Buffy?" Xander asked, craning his neck in order to look out into the crowd.
"Dancing," Willow replied; sure enough, Buffy and Angel were standing in a rather secluded area of the room, swaying slowly back and forth and gazing into each other's eyes. Jenny doubted either remembered that there were about a hundred other people surrounding them.
"Oh, the joys of being young and in love," she murmured, smiling.
This seemed to have an effect on Xander, who stood up rather jerkily and grabbed Willow's hand.
"Come on, Will," he said, pulling her away from the table. "We'll dance circles around them."
"Okay," Willow replied rather unsurely, taking one last fleeting glance at the table before she and Xander joined the countless other couples out on the dance floor.
Er. Whoops?
"Did I just do something wrong?" she asked Giles.
Giles sighed. "I think that Xander has a bit of a . . . a thing for Buffy."
"An unrequited thing," Jenny determined, glancing at the dancing couple.
"I'm assuming so, yes."
They lapsed into silence, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye. So. She was at the prom with Rupert Giles.
Can't say I would have expected it, she thought wryly.
He wasn't that bad, actually. At least, not as bad as she'd thought he'd been when they'd first met. As a matter of fact, she'd almost kinda liked him ever since he'd made that ridiculous speech about books being better than computers because they smelled.
That had been sort of romantic, actually.
In a . . . weird way.
Not that she really cared, of course. She just found herself getting along with him better than she'd originally thought. It wasn't like she had a crush on the Sunnydale High librarian or something equally insane.
Ha. Yeah right.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked, immediately putting an end to her reverie.
"Nothing," she replied quickly. "I wasn't thinking about anything."
. . . Well, this was excellent. Not at all obvious or anything.
"Oh," he said. "You just . . . seemed as though you were very deep in thought."
"No, not really," she said off-handedly.
Right. That was better.
"We're the only people who aren't dancing," she remarked.
"We're the stuffy old teachers," Giles replied, smiling a little. "We aren't supposed to dance. Besides," he threw in as an afterthought, "I'm not dancing."
"Excuse me?" she asked, feigning offence. (It seemed to be the quickest way to start up an interesting conversation.) "Did you just call me old?"
"Oh!" he said hastily, and she sensed a serious stammering fest coming on. "Oh, no, no, not at all. I was just-"
"Relax," she cut in, smiling. "I was just kidding, G-man."
With utmost dignity, Giles responded, "Shut up."
"That's charming," she commented sarcastically. "You know, you're kind of cute when you go all flustered like that."
. . . Oh, God.
Dammit.
She was flirting. Flirting with a librarian who was afraid of computers because they didn't smell.
And now she'd gotten him even more flustered.
. . . And even more cute.
No! she instructed herself furiously. Stop! You're here to keep an eye on Angelus and teach kids about computer science! Not to start some torrid affair with Rupert Giles!
She decided upon thinking this that the expressions 'torrid affair' and 'Rupert Giles' really didn't belong together in the same sentence.
Though perhaps if she had something to do with it . . .
STOP!
"Maybe we shouldn't dance," she said brusquely.
"Were we going to?" he asked, looking rather befuddled.
"I mean, what will people think? They'll probably think that we're . . . together, or something." Okay, she was rambling. "You know how kids are about stuff like that. 'Oooh, Ms. Calendar and Mr. Giles are dancing together. They must be having some torrid affair'." Damn – had she just said that?
"Ms. Calendar," Giles said, a bit nervously, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah – no!" Okay. She could talk her way out of this. "No, not really. You know – traumatic night, what with Buffy dying and that nasty three-headed thing nearly killing Willow and me, and all the vampires, and-"
"Would you like me to drive you home?" he offered, furrowing his brow in concern.
Oh, great. It was just like him to go all sweet and chivalrous when she was attempting to not think about the whole 'torrid affair' thing.
. . . Though the gesture really was more 'sweet courtship' than 'torrid affair', and she could probably handle that.
"I've got my car in the parking lot, actually," she said. After all, there was no point in rushing into the whole sweet courtship thing.
"Oh," he said, and looked almost hurt. "Yes. Right. I'd forgotten."
Okay. Now she felt guilty. She really, really didn't like this man and the effect he had on her. It was downright creepy.
"But you can escort me there," she continued, giving him what had supposed to have been a small smile that somehow morphed into a grin.
Yup. She definitely didn't like this. It wasn't often that people had her grinning from ear to ear for no reason in general.
"Love to," he replied, smiling back.
"Great," she said, standing up and sliding out from behind the table. He followed her, and they were near the entrance when Xander and Willow came bopping toward them.
"Where are you guys off to?" Xander asked, his head bobbing to the beat of the song in a way that Jenny somehow doubted would cause Buffy to realize her sudden undying adoration for him and leave Angel on the spot. "We haven't even gotten Giles to dance yet!"
"I'm not dancing," Giles repeated yet again.
"You know what, Xander?" Jenny said, as though about to reveal the most brilliant discovery known to mankind, "I really don't think he's dancing."
"Afraid I can't, really," Giles said, sounding anything but regretful. "Ms. Calendar isn't feeling well – I'm escorting her to her car."
"Oh," Willow said, and cast a quick look at Jenny, who immediately focused her gaze on the purely fascinating gold balloon to her right. Damn that girl for being so smart. She no doubt thought there was something going on.
Which there isn't, Jenny felt compelled to add silently.
"Well . . . see you guys," said Willow, and made her way after Xander, who had bounded over to Buffy and Angel and cut short what looked to be a very nice kiss.
Giles held open the door for her (you don't like him. You don't. He's boring and stuffy and just because he makes the occasional chivalrous gesture doesn't mean that – oh, screw it.) and she gave him another slightly-too-warm smile as they stepped out into the dark. The pulsating music from inside followed them across the parking lot.
"You do that every night?" she inquired sardonically.
"No, actually tonight was slightly more eventful than the others," Giles said with a faint smile. "A bit unlucky, really, that you got to witness it."
"Nah," she said, shrugging. "It was more fun than what I had planned."
"What was that?"
"An I Love Lucy marathon," she told him, "And gripping as the prospect of six straight hours of Lucille Ball is, I think I preferred the vampires."
He laughed.
"What?" she asked, not able to hold back a smile as she elbowed him lightly.
"It's just . . . I honestly can't picture most women preferring vampires to being safe in front of the television."
She couldn't resist a rather sultry smirk as she replied. "I'm not most women."
"I gathered," he responded faintly.
"But, you know, the evening's not over yet," she continued nonchalantly.
"Oh, really? What's been left out? Goblins? Phantoms? Werewolves?"
She shook her head.
"Well, what, then?"
"You," she said pointedly, and nudged him, "Still haven't danced."
"I thought I made it clear that there would be no dancing involved for me," he replied quickly.
"Oh, come on, Rupert," she wheedled. "No one's watching out here."
"That's not the point," he said stiffly.
"What is the point?" she persisted.
"It's dangerous," he said shortly. "I'll probably wind up doing some severe damage to your feet."
"Okay, I've been warned. I won't sue," she said. "And besides, there's something very appealing about dangerous men."
He laughed shortly. "Not when you wind up on crutches because of them."
"Oh, come on, Snobby," she urged. "Live a little."
She fixed the most cajoling expression on her face that she could muster, and there was a moment of uneasy silence.
"Oh, fine," he capitulated at last.
She couldn't resist a quick laugh of triumph, which prompted a look of annoyance from him.
"Sorry," she said hastily. He didn't reply, but there was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Okay, then. You're going to dance," she continued, grinning rather wickedly at him. "I . . ."
Not entirely conveniently, the pulsating beat of the dance song that had filled the air ended, replaced by the gentle opening notes of a piano.
"Oh," she said, glancing in the direction of The Bronze, "It's a slow one."
"If you don't want to –"
"Oh, no," she cut him off, and grabbed his arm. "You're not getting out of this that easy."
"It was worth a shot," he replied with an apologetic shrug.
"Okay," she said, and took his right hand in her left. An odd sort of tingle seemed to run through her fingers, making her acutely aware of them. Jenny Calendar wasn't exactly one for romantic clichés, but she supposed those could definitely qualify as sparks.
"There we go," she murmured, and glanced up at him. He was staring at her strangely, as though he hadn't ever quite seen her properly before now. It wasn't a look he'd bestowed upon her before, that was for sure, and it was probably a good thing, since she doubted it was healthy for someone's heart to beat this fast.
"Now you put your other hand on my waist," she instructed; a shiver ran up and down her spine as she felt his fingers press lightly against her hip. This, however, wasn't an aah-I'm-surrounded-by-vampires shiver, nor a the-apocalypse-is-approaching shiver. It was a nice shiver.
"And we're almost there," she announced as she placed her other hand on his shoulder. "Think you can handle it?"
"It's . . . not as bad as I'd expected," he responded as they began to sway slowly back and forth.
"Told you," she teased, and met his eyes. Immediately, something in the air chose to change. The music from The Bronze seemed to fade as everything else drifted off out of focus. Everything except him – him, she could see very clearly. His face: his eyes, his lips. Oh yeah, the lips were very clear . . .
"Rupert?" she asked, very softly.
"Yes?" She liked the way he was looking at her; he seemed . . . enchanted, almost. It wasn't often that she was enchanting.
She leaned a bit closer to him and murmured, "I think this is the part where we ki-"
"Hey, Ms. C!"
Xander's voice cut through the romantic little haze that had fallen like a very unwelcome, very unwanted knife.
She jerked away from Giles, disentangling her fingers from his and taking a few steps back, just for good measure. This, however, didn't change the fact that Xander had just seen them dancing, and seconds away from a potential lip lock that she really wished had gone on uninterrupted.
"Oh," Xander said sheepishly, looking back and forth between the two of them, "Sorry. I can just go back inside. Let you two crazy kids have your fun," he added, winking at them.
"There was no fun," Jenny said abruptly. "There was . . ."
"An eyelash," Giles said helpfully.
Well, gee, that was original.
"An eyelash?" Xander repeated skeptically. "Oh, come on. You can do better than that, G-man."
"Xander," Giles said warningly.
"Fine, fine," Xander said, "I'll get back inside. The only reason I came out was because Ms. Calendar forgot her purse." He handed it to her, and she slung it over her shoulder.
"Thank you, Xander," she hissed through gritted teeth.
"Any time," he replied, grinning. "You can just continue . . . what was it? Oh, yeah - walking her to her car. And good luck with that eyelash."
And with that, he made his way back into the building.
"Kids," Jenny commented, watching the door swing closed behind him. "Gotta loathe them with a fiery passion."
"Oh, yes," Giles said, "I quite agree."
They exchanged a quick smile and continued on their way toward her Volkswagen. She suddenly found herself wishing that she'd parked around the block.
"So," she said, and the word lingered in the air.
"So," he repeated.
She liked Xander, she really did, but truly felt that in a situation such as this, she was perfectly justified in damning him to hell.
"Here we are, then," Giles said, nodding toward the car.
"Yeah," she agreed, rather reluctantly, and began to fish through her purse for the keys.
"Thank you for handling this so well," Giles said. "I know it's all been very exhausting, and you've probably learned by now to start avoiding us all-"
"Why would I do that?" she cut in, and smiled at him. "It's been great, Rupert. Thanks for an enchanting evening."
He gave her a rather skeptical look.
"What?" she demanded. "I'm serious!"
"Enchanting?" he repeated, unconvinced.
She met his eyes and remained silent for a moment: it seemed to fluster him, but he didn't look away.
"Enchanting," she confirmed.
"Y . . . yes, well," he said, stammering a little. "Actually, parts of it were very . . . enchanting."
She grinned at him. "Enchant me again sometime?"
He looked a bit taken aback. There was something very addicting about making him squirm.
"Certainly," he finally responded.
"Great," she said, swinging open the front door of her car and climbing inside. "Goodnight, Rupert."
"Goodnight," he echoed.
She put the keys into the ignition, gave him one last wave which he returned almost dazedly, and pulled out of the parking lot.
Oh, yeah.
Definitely enchanting.