For notes, warnings and disclaimers, see chapter 1

Chapter 25: A Battle Plan for a Wedding?
(Giles's POV)

I'm terribly nervous, I'll freely admit that much. I'm sitting in Joyce's kitchen and I have no clue as to what am I supposed to say. There's so much riding on the outcome of this little encounter... the fact is that whether I like it or not we are basically playing for both Buffy's and Faith's lives... and to make matters worse there's no way I can tell Joyce the whole truth.

"I'm guessing by your fidgeting that the girls paid you a visit as well?" she asks with a smile as she sits across the island from me.

"Buffy talked to you too?" I ask, shaking my head.

"Faith, actually," she corrects me. So this was an orchestrated maneuver... why am I not surprised?

"What did she say, exactly?" I ask.

"She was trying to be subtle in telling me that maybe what happened between us was not such a bad thing," she says with a smile before going on. "Faith has a lot of very nice qualities... being subtle is not one of them."

"I'd say. I got Buffy and I think the message was basically the same. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if she gave us her blessing or our marching orders."

"So, what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know," I say, not knowing how to bridge the real issue, "how do you feel about it?"

"I'm not sure. I hadn't really given it much thought until Faith came up to me. To be perfectly honest I was trying to pretend that none of it had happened. Nothing against you, mind you, it's just that the whole thing is so..."

"Bizarre?"

"That's one way of putting it... not to mention that Faith decided that it would make a good leverage to try and get me to change the house rules... especially the 'no sex' part."

That most definitely sounds like Faith, so I ask, "what did she say?"

"Just that if we are going to use the fact that we had reverted to being kids to explain why we did what we did, then it's not fair for us to say that they can't have sex because they are kids... I hate to say it but I'm having a hard time finding a flaw in her logic, even if I don't agree with it."

"So, what are you going to do about it?" I say with a smile. It's good to see that what Faith lacks in terms of a formal education she more than makes up for in sheer smarts.

"I still don't know... I'm open to suggestions."

I think it over for a while. I know this is not going to be easy for Joyce to hear but I think it has to be said... and she has come a long way these past few weeks.

"I think maybe you should give in... with some restrictions, of course."

"You do?" she asks, more than a little surprised to see me side with Faith on the matter.

"Yes, it is most definitely something I wouldn't agree with under normal circumstances but the fact is that the circumstances are far from normal to begin with."

"What do you mean?"

"To be perfectly blunt, I don't think it's realistic to expect Faith to change her lifestyle in such a drastic way, so the end result of trying to forbid her from being sexually active in the first place is going to be that she will have no choice but to try to sneak around behind our backs and that could turn out to be far worse in the long run."

"And what about Buffy?" asks Joyce, forcing me to say what I had hoped to avoid.

"In Buffy's case I'm afraid we are dealing with an entirely different scenario. With Faith it's not realistic to expect her to stop being sexually active... with Buffy we are probably on the other end of the spectrum where it wouldn't be healthy to encourage her to wait."

"I'm afraid I'm not quite following you."

"I think we have to face the fact that we are dealing with one girl who was probably sexualized long before she graduated from preschool and one who has never had a sexual encounter that can possibly be described in anything remotely resembling a positive light. The situation with Faith is apparent enough, Buffy's on the other hand requires us to take a closer look to try and see where she's coming from."

"Where she's coming from?" asks Joyce. I know this is the one issue she is still trying hard not to think about but there's no way out of it right now.

"Try to forget about the fact that she's your little girl for a moment and think about what Buffy's sexual encounters have been like up until now. They basically range from Angel turning evil on us, to being coerced into having sex with the owner of that diner, to her time on the streets. I don't like it, but I think that by trying to forbid her from having sex we are in fact allowing her to put off dealing with the whole issue for at least a year and that delay could easily come back to haunt her."

"So you are saying maybe I should just give in?"

"No, not give in but maybe try to set some guidelines that can hopefully steer both of them towards a behavior that can possibly be described as 'closer to healthy'. For instance, especially when it comes to Faith, you could set some rules along the lines of 'yes to sex as long as it's not casual sex'... and even then you should probably keep in mind that chances are that for Faith that just means asking a guy's name before she sleeps with him."

"I'm just not sure I can handle it," she admits, not that I blame her. I would be uncomfortable myself with the whole scenario if I were living under the same roof as Faith... which I suddenly realize may soon be the case.

Shaking my head to try and dispel the mental image I say, "I understand that, and in the end the decision is yours, if it makes you uncomfortable then by all means, say 'no'. What I said was just my take on the whole situation... I could be mistaken."

"It is all so complicated. I keep hoping that one day all of this is just going to disappear, even though I know it's never going to happen... I know their pasts will always be with them and it makes me so mad."

"Being there for them is the only thing we can do," I say. I understand where she's coming from, I know what we are up against and I know it's not going to be easy but I know I'm not going to give up on them and neither will Joyce... and that brings me back to the other half of our little situation.

"So, now that the 'easy part' has been taken care of... what do you think of the girls' attempt at matchmaking?"

"I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, though I can tell you that it is a sad day when talking about Faith's request to have sex under my roof is 'the easy part'."

"I know what you mean," I say.

"So, what do you think?"

"I'm not sure, I've been thinking about it and I have some things I'd like to discuss with you, but it's not easy and it's probably not what you have in mind," I warn her.

"Okay, I know I've said this before but what do you mean?"

There's no way around it so I just blurt it out, "will you marry me?"

"Now I'm sure I don't understand," she says... not that I blame her.

"I know that sounds more than a little strange and is almost certainly not what you were expecting, but please hear me out. Buffy will be turning eighteen in four months, for reasons I can't really explain right now, that will put her in danger. I'll do my best to minimize the threat, I promise, I'll do everything in my power to keep her safe, but the truth is that things may get more than a little complicated after that... and that in turn could jeopardize Faith. The fact is that currently her custody status is temporary and we have no way to change it... I know it's not what you were expecting but I think if we were to get married we could legally adopt Faith before Buffy's birthday and that would serve to protect her."

"Protect her from whom?"

"The Council," I say reluctantly. I know Joyce is not one of their biggest fans and I'm hoping that that will be enough to help her see how serious the threat is.

"Why am I not surprised that they are behind this, whatever this is?"

"Will you at least consider it?" I say, hoping that she won't push for any additional information, even though chances are that she will.

"What aren't you telling me? I mean, I agree that legally adopting Faith to keep her safe from the Council's clutches is a good idea even if there weren't an immediate threat, but there's something else going on here, you basically said that much."

"Something is going to happen, I won't deny it and I can tell you that it won't be pleasant. To keep Buffy safe I'm going to have to walk a very fine line between my duty to the Council and my duty to her... and I want you to know that if it comes to it I will put Buffy first. The thing is that if it comes to that the Council could very well try and have me removed from the country, to have me taken out of the girls' lives permanently and that would leave them in a position to assign a new watcher to them."

"So you are thinking that if we were to get married that would basically take care of most of the leverage the Council currently has on you?"

"Yes. They wouldn't be able to force me to leave and they would find it a lot harder to try and gain legal custody of Faith if she is our daughter. I won't lie to you, things are likely to get difficult for a while, but I think this may be the best chance we are going to have to keep them both safe."

"You are really worried, aren't you?"

"Yes... in these past few weeks I've learned some things about the institution I've served all my life that are more than a little disturbing. The Council was supposed to support the slayer, but the more I think about it, the more apparent it becomes that it has become a threat to the very slayer it was supposed to support. I just want to make sure they won't get their hands on either Buffy or Faith."

"Okay, I'll marry you. I never thought I'd be in a situation such as this, but I trust you. I wish you could tell me more about what's going on, but I understand why you can't."

"Are you sure?" I blurt out, totally surprised by the fact that she's actually saying 'yes'.

"For Faith... at least for now. There may be more there somewhere down the road or there may not, but I won't put Faith in danger while we try and figure it out. You've said it yourself, we've only got a few months to work things out, and going by what you just told me it's not like we can turn to the Council for help to speed things up. That means we are going to be cutting it close as it is... so I'm guessing we'll be going to Vegas?"

"Yes, it may not be the most romantic thing but we really don't have time for anything else."

"I'm not worried about the fact that it's not particularly romantic, I'm more worried about the possibility that a Vegas wedding will attract too much attention from the INS."

"I don't think we should worry too much about that. There's nothing particularly remarkable about us. We are in a similar age range, we move in similar circles, my legal status is not currently under investigation and we can easily demonstrate that we've known each other for two years. Besides, people know we grew very close over the summer when Buffy was missing so that should work on our behalf. If anyone should ask why such a rushed wedding we can give them some sort of variation of the story we gave the counselor a few weeks ago. We can say that one of the main reasons why we decided to make our relationship official in such short notice was because we wanted to give Faith a sense of belonging by adopting her legally and that we had to get married in order to do that. As for the Vegas wedding, well that's just a formality as far as we are concerned, but it was something that we had to do as soon as possible because Faith is not allowed to leave the country with us prior to her situation being legalized and we are hoping for a big wedding in England over the summer. That should be enough to explain a seemingly rushed wedding in a rational way to even the most paranoid bureaucratic minds."

"You've really given it a lot of thought, haven't you?"

"Yes, well, I do realized how much is riding on this," I say, not willing to admit that I haven't been able to sleep wondering how this whole scene was going to play out.

"Well, that certainly takes care of one of the problems. The second one is how to make sure Faith's adoption is final in less than four months. It may not be my first choice --or my second or third for that matter-- but I think the best thing we can do is to give Hank a call. I won't go into details with him, obviously, but he is a lawyer and he may be able to recommend us a good attorney that specializes in family law in Massachusetts. I really wish we could do this without getting him involved, but I think he's our best bet right now."

I agree, seeing how neither one of us would know where to begin looking for someone to help us through this and we really don't have time to shop around.

"Luckily I don't think Cristina is going to object, so hopefully that will speed things along," I say.

"Well, at least that's something," says Joyce, shaking her head in disbelief. "I just can't believe we are really going to do this. So, what are we going to tell the girls?"