Several hours later, well-laden down with shopping bags Buffy and Willow stopped for a coffee. "Gosh, I think I'm a little out of practice. Maybe I'll head home and help Giles get ready."

"Sure, no problem. Do you want me to invite Faith?"

"Um, I guess."

"Can I ask you a question Buffy?"

"Sure." She picked absentmindedly at her bagel.

"Is everything okay with you and Giles? Things have been kind of weird lately between you, sort of tense, but this morning it was like the past seven years hadn't happened."

"Everything's great, better than it's been in a long time. We've been spending a lot of time talking and things have gotten a lot better."

"I'm really glad Buffy. Well, I'll let you get back to him, I'm sure you still have all sorts of watchery/slayery stuff to talk about. I'll see you later."

"Later Will." Buffy watched her friend leave. She was the happiest she'd been in a long time. She just wanted to go back to Giles and finish what they had started that morning. Leaving her coffee on the table she gathered up her bags and went home. "Giles? I'm back. I'm just gonna go up and change then I'll be down to help you get ready for dinner." She had gotten a cute new outfit that she thought he'd like.

Giles came out of the kitchen when he heard her voice, "Buffy?" She was already upstairs changing.

She changed into one of her new outfits and came back down. She twirled for a moment in the kitchen, "what do you think of my new outfit." The tight tweed dress hugged her curves dangerously, stopping just above her knees. She had finished with a pair of vertiginous open-toed slingbacks.

He looked her up and down, "it's very nice." Really it was more than nice, but he wasn't about to admit to her that all he could think about was taking her up to his room and doing things to her that until this morning he had never allowed himself to think about.

"Did you see? Tweed, your favorite. And look," she put on a pair of reading glasses, "now I totally look the part of the sexy librarian."

"Quite," he took his glasses off and began polishing them with his handkerchief, "Listen Buffy, I think we should think about what happened this morning."

"Okay." She should've known he was going to do this.

"Okay? You're not going to fight me on this?"

"Why? Come on," she grabbed a soda from the fridge, "let's go into the living room."

He followed through to the living room. "You said something this morning."

Suddenly she was nervous, "a lot of things were said this morning. A lot of things were done this morning," she smiled at him mischievously.

"Hmm, yes, about that," he started polishing his glasses again, a nervous-habit she was finding quite endearing. "I know that you were just dealing with your sadness and trying to make me feel better."

She pulled back, she had thought that her feelings had been made perfectly clear. "No Giles, I wasn't. I was telling you the truth."

"Buffy now be serious, you can't possibly love me. I'm old enough to be your father."

"I heard you this morning Giles, you called me your girl. I felt you how you touched me, how you looked at me." She could feel her fear rising up in her, oh God, what if she'd made a horrible mistake?

"Buffy, my feelings aside, you'd be ruining your life. You are young, and beautiful, and vivacious, you deserve a chance to have an exciting life. Can't you see what a mess I'd make of things?"

"What I see is a man who knows me as Buffy, the woman, not the Slayer. Someone who's stuck by me and loved me no matter how stupid I've been."

"That will always be true but I'm sure there's someone else out there who will look on you that way. I will not force you to be part of a relationship that you only turned to as a way to escape sadness."

He was still polishing his glasses only now she was finding that to be perfectly infuriating. She grabbed them from his hands and put them on the table. "Damn it Giles, why are you telling me this?"

"Buffy," she was so beautiful when she was angry, it was all he could do to keep from kissing her right then, "I don't mean to make you angry, I just want you to know..."

"Giles, just tell me, tell me now. Do you love me? Don't think about how it affects me, only think of how you feel. If you don't love me as any more than a daughter tell me now and we'll never speak of this again. I'll let you go back to England and I'll go back to Chicago, and we'll do our best to move on with our pathetically lonely lives." She had started crying again, not in anger or sadness but frustration.

"Buffy, I," shit, she's crying again. Why can't I just tell her the truth?

He was stopped from answering right away by Buffy pressing her lips to his. "Tell me you don't love me," she kissed him again. "Tell me you don't need me." She was kissing him all over his face, "tell me now you think we're not perfect for each other. Tell me you don't love me as I love you."

"Oh, fuck it," any objections he might have had were forgotten. He pressed her back on the sofa and kissed her passionately. "My darling, darling girl," he kissed her cheeks and her lips, tasting her tears. "I love you, I need you." He kissed her passionately until he had to come up for air. She smiled at him, her lips bruised and swollen from his kisses. Reality was beginning to return as he looked at her, "Buffy..."

"If you even try to tell me that didn't mean anything so help me I'll..."

He held up his hands, "no, no, but I do have something to tell you."

She pushed herself back up and looked at him expectantly, she could tell it was something important so she took him seriously. "What is it?"

"Well, I know that we have things to work out, but," he was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. "Christ, can't we ever have a moment's peace?"

She laughed, "answer the door, I'm going to change. I imagine I look a bit," she paused, thinking of the perfect British word, "disheveled." She stood and positively bounced from the room and up the stairs. I can't believe he loves me. I can't believe I love him. I haven't been this happy in years.

He went to the door and opened it, smiling at Willow and Xander. "Come in, dinner will be ready in a bit." He felt like he was grinning foolishly and wondered if they could tell what a burden had been lifted from him.

"Excellent, we brought you this," Xander held up a bottle of wine. "So where's the Buffster?"

"The Buffster, is upstairs, changing again."

"Women always with the outfit changing. I'm not sure I've ever seen Kristin in the same outfit more than once."

"Maybe she's some sort of shape-changing demon. Have you seen her closet? Maybe she doesn't have any clothes at all?" Buffy came down the stairs in a pair of jeans and a v-neck sweater that just showed the swell of her cleavage above the collar.

"What? She's...no, stop it. She's a girl. A normal girl. No demon, no shape-shifting, a girl."

"Relax Xander, I was just joking," Buffy gave him a hug. "Hey Will."

"Hey Buff, long time no see," she laughed at her joke.

"Well, I'll just go and check on dinner," Giles left the room with the bottle of the wine. He couldn't help but feel that if he stayed so close to Buffy he wouldn't be able to stop from taking her in his arms. He was happy to be with her but he didn't know what Willow and Xander would say and he didn't want them to know until Buffy agreed that it was the right time.

Willow stared after him, wondering at the strange look on his face. Things sure had been different since Dawn's wedding. Everyone seemed happier. The more she thought about it the more it made sense. Buffy was happy again, so of course everyone else was happy. "What are you thinking 'bout Will? You look so serious."

"Just thinking. You look even happier than you did earlier today."

"Well, I feel happy. This is the new and improved happy Buffy."

"So what's happied up the Buffy?"

Buffy looked toward the kitchen, Xander was too oblivious to notice, but Willow saw it. "Oh, you know, things are just finally looking up." There was knock on the door. "I'll get it." She went to open the door. "Hey Faith."

"Hey Buff, how ya' doin'?"

"Good, how are you?"

"Oh, you know me, five by five. Hope you don't mind," she held up a six-pack of beer, "I'm not much of wine drinker."

"No it's fine, you can put it in the kitchen. No Robin tonight?"

"Nope, just the original gang. Giles in there?"

"Yep, he's in domestic mode. Don't interrupt the cooking, 'cause I can't fix anything."

"Cool," Faith made her way into the kitchen.

"Dinner's ready, let's all sit down." Giles put the food on the table and sat at the head. Buffy sat across from him and the others between them. Everyone offered their compliments to Giles for the food, although Buffy stayed quiet. She was a bit embarrassed to look up at Giles, it felt like they had some great secret from the rest of their friends. When everyone except for Xander had finished eating they lapsed into scattered conversation.

"So Giles I hope you're planning on staying here for a while; I could get used to this type of food." Xander pushed his chair back from the table and patted his distended belly.

"Actually, it's funny that you mention it," he had tried to tell Buffy earlier but they were interrupted. She was looking at him across the table, a question in her eyes. He cleared his throat, "I have a ticket for Friday night."

"Friday?" Everyone was astounded. Xander had stopped chewing his food and his mouth hung open.

"Close your mouth Xander, that's exceedingly unattractive." He looked across the table at Buffy, but she was inscrutable as she looked at her plate. "I, um hadn't planned on staying this long, my ticket was originally for the morning after the wedding but I changed it this morning."

Willow looked at him sadly, "but that's only two days away! Will you promise to visit more? I mean it feels like we just got the gang back together."

"Um, well I was planning on coming back as often as possible." Why isn't she looking at me?

Everyone began speaking at the same time, asking him what he was going to do. Telling them they were going to miss him. Silence fell when Buffy stood up, "I'm...just, I'll be..." she couldn't make a coherent sentence. Giving up she tossed her napkin on the table and fled from the room.

Willow and Xander looked at each other, wondering what exactly was going on. Faith just sat and silently smirked at her plate. "Will you please excuse me for a moment?" Giles stood and wiped his mouth on his napkin before leaving the table. He walked calmly after Buffy even though every fiber of his being was telling him to run after her. He knew it was a mistake to tell them, to tell her like that, but it was against his nature not to be direct about it.

Buffy was sitting on her bed in her room. She had left her door open because she knew he would follow her. She heard him as he stood in the doorway. "Do you know what I was thinking at Dawn's wedding?" He sat on the bed next to her and shook his head. "I saw how happy she was and all I could think about was how I would never have that." He tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. "I gave up on the whole happily ever after, two kids and a dog, white picket fence, a long time ago. I'm not normal, I've never had a normal life. I just thought, maybe for one moment things were going to work out." She put her head in her hands.

"I tried to tell you earlier, but, well we got interrupted." He clenched his hands on his knees.

"I know," she said it quietly, calmly.

"Buffy, I'm not leaving you."

"Sure doesn't feel that way." She sniffed.

"No, I'm not. I'm going back to England, to put things in order, then I'll come back, we can have a home here. Then we'll see what happens. Buffy I love you. After everything we've been through today, I'm not going to give you up." He put his arm around her, drawing her close.

"No Giles." She heard his declaration but realized that she couldn't be selfish this time.

Shit oh shit I've mucked everything up. "Buffy, what do you mean?"

"I've figured a lot of things out this week. I haven't felt this happy in forever. Maybe we need a chance to figure some stuff out."

"How long?" He couldn't help but think she was using this as an excuse to push him away.

"A month, maybe two," she was giving him an out, just in case.

"And then?" He tightened his grip convulsively.

"And then we'll see." She rested her head on his shoulder. "One thing I know is that I don't want to make my home here."

He could understand that. "Buffy, I don't want this to be the end."

"Then it won't be." She wished she was as certain as she felt.