NOTE: I could not have written this chapter without Taryn's invaluable assistance. She has an amazingly deft touch with Xander that I sadly lack. Any out-of-character statements that remain are completely my responsibility, however.

Part Seven

Giles wasn't out of it for very long, but he continued to lie on the ground for a while after he woke up. He wanted to take a moment to make sense of things, and if everyone believed him still unconscious, well, that was hardly his fault, now was it?

Willow was in a corner sobbing hysterically while Dawn and Buffy tried to comfort her. There was no sign of Tara, and Giles presumed that that was the reason for Willow's tears. Xander and Anya were standing almost directly above him, screaming at each other.

"I didn't know, Xander! I never would have slept with another man if I had known that I was really engaged to you." Anya had a point. She was insanely loyal, and Giles was certain that neither he nor any other man would ever have had a shot with her if the ex-demon had been in full possession of her faculties. Not that he had ever dreamed of attracting her attention before, but still...

"It's not about that, Ahn," her true fiancé was saying angrily. "It's about the fact that when I was with Willow (or thought I was with Willow), all of my lusty thoughts revolved around you, but you never looked at me. Not even once! And you just couldn't keep your hands off of Giles! I knew that Willow wasn't the one for me, but you were doing just fine. Every five minutes it was 'fee fi fo fum, I'm having sex with the Englishman'." Xander had a point as well. If Anya was really loved Xander as much as she claimed, then there should have been some sign of it during their group amnesia. There had been no such signs, not even the smallest indication.

"But I couldn't cheat on my fiancé," Anya protested. "Or the man that I thought was my fiancé, or whatever we want to call Giles. That would be wrong! And would call for future vengeance!"

"What am I to you, Anya," Xander asked with cold curiosity. "Am I just a guy that you say you love because I was the first one to sleep with you after you became human? Are you in love with me, or is it really all about The Sex?"

"Of course not, Xander," Anya said hotly. "How could you ask that?"

"Be honest," the young man urged. "I need to know. Cause I can't marry you if that is all that is going on with you."

Anya started to cry, for the second time that day. "Are you breaking up with me, Xander?"

Xander sighed. "I don't want to," he said earnestly. "I love you, Ahn! Do you even get that? I don't love you because you sleep with me; I love you for being your tact-impaired self. But I need to know you love me for me, too. I need to know that you love the goofy, loud shirt-wearing, Babylon 5 plate collecting carpenter, not just his... tools. Maybe back in your day, marriage, love and... tools were all the same thing, but it shouldn't be like that. We deserve better than that. I don't want to see you regret marrying me twenty years down the line when my tools are all rusty. Not that I don't take good care of them. But our marriage has to be about more than that."

Well, the boy didn't need much, did he? Giles felt that it was time to intervene, before Xander said something that he couldn't come back from. Giles stood up slowly, rubbing a bump on the back of his head that he had acquired when he fell. Xander looked chagrined, but he didn't apologize. The Watcher was profoundly grateful for this lack of courtesy; he felt guilty enough already. "How do you know that she wouldn't have come to her senses about me, Xander?"

Anya gave him a brilliant smile, and Xander scowled. Giles fought down a plea to his partner to stop helping him. A moment later he wished that he had sent out that plea, for Anya lightly touched his arm and said, "Rupie's right, you know."

"Rupie," Xander spat out. "You're still calling him Rupie! Do you care to tell me all the times and places that you've called him Rupie, Ahn?"

Giles felt himself going cold, and leaned in close to the boy. Hissing quietly, so nobody else could hear, he said, "You have every right in the world to hate me, Xander. I'm not even sure I would respect you if you didn't. But you watch your tone when you talk to Anya."

Xander jerked away from Giles and his eyes blazed with something not entirely sane. At one time, Giles had been heavier and better trained than Xander, but he was nervously aware that that was no longer the case. The carpenter could tear him apart, if he chose. The fact that Buffy was ushering Willow and Dawn into the training room in order to give them some privacy filled him with both gratitude and dread.

That dangerous gleam unexpectedly died from the younger man's eyes, however, and Giles released a tense breath that he hadn't been aware he was holding. Xander ran his hands through his hair and said, "You're right. Ahn, I'm sorry. You just... it's just... look... it's like this." Xander took a deep breath and began again. "I don't think I even realized how much I loved you, until today. Giles has been my friend for years, the only man I ever knew that I could look up to, and all of a sudden I want to rip out his spine. Not because he did anything wrong, or because you did, but because I'm crazy enough for you to actually be a bit crazy over you."

Giles nodded; he understood Xander perfectly. Anya didn't, however. "So you're more in love with me because I made you jealous? That doesn't make any sense! That's the sort of human stupidity that kept me far too busy for far too many years," she said with asperity.

Xander took her hands, and looked into her eyes. "You're not getting it. It isn't about jealousy, or not really. Those last few days showed me a reality where you weren't mine, and never were, and I hate the thought of that. More than you'll ever know." Xander closed his eyes, and braced himself. "I, I have a confession to make. I've been asking myself whether getting married is really the right thing for us to do. I've been wondering whether we shouldn't postpone the wedding or maybe call it off."

"What," Anya screeched in protest. "Alexan–"

Xander cut her off. "I was scared that I was too young to get married. Too young to be sure." He opened his eyes at last, and stared deeply into hers. Giles felt like an intruder, but he was afraid that the noise of his departure would break their moment. "But Ahn, now I know. It's you, and it's always going to be you. My time with Willow proved to me that I don't want anybody else, and your time with Giles proved to me that I can't stand the thought of you with anybody else. I'm sure now, sure about us in a way that I never have been before. I want you, and I want you forever. For the first time I can say this and really mean it: our wedding day can't come soon enough for me."

"Oh, Xander," she said wetly. "Let's go home and have some orgasms."

Xander grinned, and then his smile faded. "Sure, but we'll have to, um, make a stop on the way. We need to pick something up."

Anya frowned, a little confused, then her face brightened. "Is it a surprise for me?" she asked excitedly.

Xander turned a very deep red. "Sorta. A necessary, not so pleasant surprise." It was obvious he wasn't getting away with that explanation when Anya put her hands on her hips and stared at him. He took a breath and continued quickly. "You need a new diaphragm. Will, um, Willow's been kinda... using yours... for the past few days."

Giles couldn't fight down a disgusted flinch; that really was quite revolting. Anya, however, was far more vocal. "You mean that she erased all our memories, and then she got to have sex with you as a reward? In our bed? For an entire week? And she used my diaphragm to do it? If that doesn't call for vengeance, I don't know–"

"Ahn!" Xander shouted. He calmed his voice, and tried again. "Anya, it wasn't for the entire week, just until we broke up." He glared at her, to remind her that he wasn't the only one who had strayed, but she glared right back. Trying to change the subject, Xander asked, "What were you using last week anyway? I know that you don't like condoms and Willow had your diaphragm, so what..." Xander trailed off, clearly reading the shock and panic evident on both Giles and Anya's faces. "You didn't use anything, did you?" He suddenly grabbed Giles by his shirt and threw him onto the table. "Did you, you bastard," he screamed, hands going for the older man's throat.

Before things could progress further, Buffy ran over and pulled Xander off of him. Giles thanked the Powers that Be for her Slayer hearing. If she hadn't heard Xander's scream from the back room, the boy could have hurt him very badly before he came back to his senses. The Watcher sat up with as much dignity as he could muster and gingerly rubbed his throat. "No, we didn't. I didn't have any--" Giles glanced at Buffy, and suddenly realized how little he wanted her to witness this conversation. "Any, um, any, uh, you know. I didn't have any. And Anya didn't appear to have anything there of, erm, of that nature, so we assumed..."

Xander still looked incredibly angry, but he was starting to calm down. "I get it. I don't like it, but I get it."

"Well, I don't," said Buffy.

Giles prayed that Buffy would forget this incident and remain in ignorance, but prayers such as those were never answered on the Hellmouth. A fact that Anya rammed home to him once again when she opened her mouth. "Giles and I thought that I was on some form of long-term birth control, so we didn't–"

"Oh," Buffy interrupted rapidly. "You mean...? Oh. I mean, I know you guys, and you thought you were, and it's understandable, but..." She gave Giles a cold, hurt look, and then muttered under her breath, "oh."

Giles watched Buffy as she angrily stomped away, and he mentally swore at himself. Had he called himself a soochnei seen earlier? He was a durak. When Buffy gathered the other girls and ushered them out the back entrance, Giles decided that the only term that could ever begin to describe him was yob tvoyu mat' zhopnik.

Giles' self-flagellation was interrupted by Xander's voice, sounding surprisingly calm. "Well, I guess we should talk about worst-case scenarios here."

"Wor- worst-case," Giles asked. On the Hellmouth, that phrase could mean anything.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Like what's going to happen if Anya really is pregnant?"

Shit. He should have thought of that possibility immediately; he was disgusted with himself that he hadn't. Actually, he was disgusted with himself anyway. Just how much of a mess had he made of their lives just because he couldn't keep his fly closed? "Well, I would be there, of course. I–"

"Wrong." Giles looked up at the cold voice, and saw Xander staring at him with glittery eyes. "That's not at all that way it will happen. You won't be there."

Giles took a deep breath, and reminded himself that Xander was the aggrieved party here. Still, he couldn't completely swallow his hurt and anger at Xander's outrageous statement. "Of course I would be there for my child," he gritted out. "Surely you know me well enough to know that I would never abandon such a responsibility."

"Yeah," Xander grunted out. "I know you wouldn't. What I am saying is that no baby of Anya's will ever be your responsibility. Every kid Anya ever has will have Harris for a last name and will call me daddy, no matter how he came to be. He'll eat Pop Tarts for breakfast, play baseball instead of cricket, and tea will never pass his lips. EV-er." The young man leaned close to Giles, and the menace rolled off him in waves. "And if you don't think that you can accept that, then you had better stay the hell away from my family."

"Now, just one damn minute! I–"

Before Giles could really begin expressing his outrage, Anya derailed his train of thought with a solid punch to his arm. When he turned towards her to protest, he saw that she was giving Xander an equally vicious jab. Both men let out astonished "Ow's" simultaneously.

Anya was unmoved by their expressions of pain. "That's enough! Yes, I know that you are both very manly men. Both of you have already proven to me that you have large amounts of testosterone. There's no reason for you two to do this."

Giles started to protest this assessment, but Xander beat him to it. "There's every reason to do this. This isn't a pissing content, Ahn; this is me, taking care of my family the best I can. I wasn't planning on marching in the preschool parade anytime soon, but if you are pregnant, then I will love that child with everything that I have." Xander turned away from Anya, and stared at his closest male friend, and current rival. "But it needs to be our family, not ours with Giles' helpful suggestions. Things can be tough for newlyweds if they already have a kid. The last thing we need is Giles butting into our lives every five seconds, handing out parenting tips and pointing out all our screw-ups."

Xander was absolutely right. Young marriages seldom fared well in the face of constant interference; he could easily damage their relationship without ever intending to do so. He nodded slowly and deliberately, maintaining eye contact with the younger man until Xander nodded back. "And if I respect your family dynamics? Will there be a place for me then?"

Anya bubbled out a happy "absolutely," but Giles ignored her and continued to stare at Xander, however. It was his answer that he needed.

Xander stared back at Giles, and then nodded. "The kid will need his Uncle Rupert," the boy said lightly. "Actually, no one needs an Uncle Rupert--unless he's really, really rich--but an Uncle Giles would be kind of cool." It was clear that the joking tone was forced, but the look in his dark eyes assured the Watcher that he was sincere. "After all, Anya doesn't have any relatives, and I sure as hell don't want the little guy meeting any of mine. If he's to have any male role models other than me, it would pretty much have to be you."

Giles gave a slight grin, but inwardly he was rejoicing. Xander was quite adept at holding grudges, and Giles had assumed that his young friend would not forgive him for a very long time, if ever. And yet, the distinct lack of bitterness in Xander's tone indicated that the young man had done exactly that. Giles suspected that the carpenter would monitor future interactions with Anya fairly closely for a while, but Xander clearly wasn't going to cut the Watcher out of his life altogether. Giles wondered if the boy's generosity was based in the maturity that he developed when he found a career, or whether it reflected the fact that Giles' friendship was just as precious to him as his friendship was to Giles. Or perhaps it was the boy's innate loyalty that prevented him from truly hating anyone he had once loved.

Whatever the cause for Xander's forgiveness, the Watcher was deeply, deeply grateful for it. He stared intently at his friend, trying like hell to express his gratitude without being forced to speak it aloud. Unfortunately, both men forgot about Anya, and she shattered their silent communion. "I don't understand why Giles just has to be a honorary uncle. He should be part of our family!"

"Uncles are part of families, Anya." Xander made no attempt to hide his confusion. "As long as he doesn't get in the middle of our marriage, Giles will always be family."

Giles felt a warm glow at this declaration, but it was quickly snuffed out by Anya's response. "That's the part I don't understand. He should be part of our marriage! I know that neither of us love him–certainly not like we love each other--and he doesn't love either of us, but still..." Anya trailed out, as she felt both men staring at her. She furrowed her brow, and then finished defiantly, "I think it would be nice."

"Of course it would be nice to have Giles come over for occasional visits." Xander had the cautious look of a man navigating a minefield. This wasn't the first time Giles had seen him wear that expression when trying to decipher one of Anya's more outrageous statements, but this was the first time he had ever been involved. "That's what you're talking about, right Anya? Dinner every once in a while, and sometimes a video?"

"No," Anya said with irritation. Obviously, she felt that Xander was being deliberately obtuse. "I'm talking about sex."

"What?!?" Both men were shocked, and it was impossible to say whose voice cracked higher on that yelp.

"Giles doesn't have the same stamina that you have, Xander, (he is nearly fifty, after all) but he is very, very good. It's clear that he has a lot of experience and skill! You could learn a lot. Also," Xander stuffed his hands over his ears, but Anya continued on unheeding. "Your penis is a bit longer, but his is thicker. The two of you together would be just perfect," she finished with a small sigh.

Giles was incredulous. "You want both of us in your bed?"

"Not just my bed," Anya replied sulkily, obviously feeling insulted. "It would be nice for the two of you too. I've heard all about Ethan, so I know that you're bisexual. I think you'd like Xander. He has a very nice ass, and..."

"Stop! I'm not hearing this! We're not talking about a..." Xander let out a shaky laugh. "I can't even say it!" When it looked like Anya might say something, he put a quick hand over her mouth. "No, I don't need you to say it either. Ever, ever again. Because it will NEVER happen!" He put his arm around his fiancée and began steering her out the door.

Giles felt an insane and uncharacteristic urge to give Xander a suggestive grin and tell him that it was a pity. (Especially when a guilty glance at the departing couple confirmed that Xander did indeed have an attractive bum.) Remembering the look on the younger man's face, however, Giles decided to save that joke for later. Before he went out the door, Xander turned to look back and gave a theatrical shudder. Giles decided that jokes about that last conversation would not come until much, much later. Their next incarnation, perhaps.

With a heavy sigh, Giles began cleaning up his store. So absorbed was he in this task, that he didn't notice Buffy slipping back in. He had no idea that she was there, in fact, until she tapped him on the shoulder. Ignoring his startled jump, Buffy said quietly, "We need to talk."