"So we still have one day left in the city, and it is your birthday. What do you want to do with it?" Joyce asks her daughter.

"I don't know," she says fidgeting and looking at Giles.

"It is your day, we can do whatever you want," he encourages.

"Well, I want to go shopping, but I know that you won't like that. We can a museum or something."

Giles smiles at her, "I would love to go shopping with you."

"That's a lie," Buffy says with her eyebrow raised, "Seriously, you can go to the museum while Mom and I go shopping. I really don't mind."

"While I don't exactly relish the idea of spending the entire day shopping, I do want to spend time with you," Giles says.

"How about we split the difference. We go to the museum in the morning, and we go shopping in the afternoon," Joyce says.

-Later-

"Has anyone ever told you that you make a really good museum guide?" Joyce says.

"No," Giles says.

"You were a museum guide before weren't you?" Buffy asks.

"No, I was curator of a museum," Giles corrects.

"Those things are different?" Buffy asks unwrapping a sucker, and popping it into her mouth.

"Just a little bit," Giles says with characteristic understatement.

-Even Later-

There Giles is sitting on the little chairs they put out for the men shopping with girls. He is holding not one, but two purses. Another man takes a seat next to him, and gives him a little nod of sympathy.

Buffy walks out and spins around in something way too tight.

"What do you think?" she asks.

"I think if you tried to fight in that, the seams would pop," Giles says.

"But it's cute, right?" she asks.

"It would be cuter if you could breathe," Giles says while frowning.

Buffy rolls her eyes and returns to the dressing room.

"Mine's a swimmer," the man next to Giles says.

"I'm sorry, what?" Giles says.

"My daughter…she's a swimmer. What is yours? A boxer or something?"

"She is more on the martial arts side of things," Giles says.

"Anne is sixteen, how old is yours?" the man asks.

Giles feels like he should explain that Buffy is not really his daughter, but he is bored, and he doesn't want to end this conversation in the awkwardness of the one last night at the ice show. So he just smiles and says, "She just turned eighteen yesterday."

"Oh, so you're almost done then."

"I don't like to think of it like that," Giles says.

"Sure, she'll graduate soon, and then you'll send her off to college."

"It went fast," Giles says.

"It always does," the other man says.

Joyce comes out of the changing room awkwardly wearing a maternity dress. "Am I too old for this?" she asks, pulling at the sparkly fabric.

"No, you look amazing," he says, standing up and letting the purses fall to the floor.

"I suppose all maternity clothes are going to be too young for me," she giggles.

"Well, if you think so, I'm sure we could find a very attractive mumu in that store you said was for old ladies on our way in here," he teases.

"Thanks a lot!" Joyce says, acting just like her daughter does when offended.

"Well, if you don't ask stupid questions you aren't going to get stupid answers. You look amazing, Joyce, no matter what you put on."

She blushes scarlet, and rushes back into the changing room.

Giles sits down, and accumulates the purses around himself again.

"You've got another one on the way," the man next to him says.

Giles nods. Now he feels even more awkward for claiming Buffy as his own. He'd thought of her like a daughter, almost since he'd known her. Now, when he was really going to be a father, it felt a little wrong, like his love for her was stealing something from his own flesh and blood.

-A month Later-

Joyce is on Giles's lap, hands are roaming, tongues are dancing, and suddenly he starts to laugh.

She pulls away and glares at him while still sitting on his lap.

"I'm sorry," he says, still giggling.

"I can't even begin to tell you what you do to a woman's self-esteem when the man she is with laughs at her when they are in the middle of making out."

"It's just…our relationship started when we were turned into teenagers, and here we are, months later, making out in the back seat of my car parked blocks from your house."

"You're right," she says, climbing off his lap and moving to sit next to him on the seat, which is quite the ordeal considering how small the back seat of Giles's car actually is.

"I didn't mean…damn that thought for occurring to me right now!" he explains.

"No, Giles, we are grown-ups. We should have a grown-up relationship. Why don't you spend the night at my house?"

"Maybe because your daughter doesn't know that we are dating? How on Earth were you planning on explaining my presence at the breakfast table?"

"Ok, so maybe you don't spend the night, or drive right up to the house. We still sneak around a little bit, but I don't see any reason why we can't enjoy a bed."

"Why don't we go to my place?" Giles asks.

Joyce bristles, and then is silent for a long second. Giles isn't sure if he stepped over a line, or if he's ever going to find out exactly what is wrong with the plan.

"I don't like the idea of leaving her all night. I mean, sometimes one or both of us gets home so late that we don't actually get to see each other. Still, if I were to just not come home one night, I would worry that would be the day she came in stabbed or with some head wound. Besides, I don't even know if I could sleep well without being able to get up and check on her."

If Giles had had the luxury of a million guesses that never would have made the list. He knew that Joyce loved her daughter, and he knew that she worried about her. He just never knew that she actually took action to make sure that her daughter was safe.

He'd kind of figured that had been his job for the last three years.

"Alright," he says. He knows that it's a stupid plan, but for the first time since he entered into this relationship with Joyce, he's sure about it. He isn't sure if it's forever, or love, or anything, but for the first time he knows that it's real. That he and Joyce mean something even if there was no Buffy and no baby.

-Later-

When you fight evil all the time, you wouldn't think that things that go bump in the night would cause you much concern. After you saw the world almost end a couple of times, you would probably not worry about shapes in your closet or sounds in the house.

The thing that everyone who averts apocalypses knows, however, is that most of them start with a bump in the night. So when Buffy hears a creak of a board in the hallway, she immediately jumps out of bed, grabs her under-the-pillow dagger, and launches into the hallway.

The figure makes a grunting sound that doesn't exactly remind her of evil demon. It does remind her of someone though… "Giles?" she asks.

"Yes, can you get off of me?" he asks.

Buffy stands up quickly, and offers Giles a hand up. He pushes himself off the floor, and she isn't quite sure if it's because he can't see the offer for help in the dark, or whether he doesn't want to take help offered by someone who just assaulted him.

"Is there some sort of demon loose?" she asks.

"Everything is all right, go back to sleep," he says to her like she is some sort of small child that has just wandered out of her bed.

"The world isn't ending?" she asks, still confused.

"Of course not," he says, as if the thought of that happening never occurred to him.

"Then why are you in my house in the middle of the night?" she asks.

He looks downright sheepish, and suddenly a thought occurs to her. "You're dating my mom!" she practically shouts.

"Shh!" he says, pulling her into her own bedroom and shutting the door to keep the sound out. "You are going to wake her up."

"How long have you been with her?" Buffy's hand flies to her mouth. "Oh my gosh! The whole thing when the candy made all of the adults go nuts! It didn't make you go completely nuts! It just made you forgot to hide your crazy from me."

"No, Buffy, your mother and I didn't start dating until after we found out that she was carrying my baby."

The smile crawls off Buffy's face. "So this is convenience?" she asks.

"No," he smiles. "I don't know what it is yet, but it's real," he tells her.

"You don't have to sneak around, Giles. I don't want to be something that gets between you and my mother."

"Let me assure you Buffy. You are never going to be a reason that this relationship goes slower. You are the closest thing I have to a daughter, and that makes the fact that I'm with your mother even easier."

"So do we hug now?" Buffy asks.

"I'm uncertain," Giles replies.

"Let's try it," she offers.

After a few seconds of embrace, they both pull away. "So we're not hugy people, that's ok," Buffy says.

"It's the thought that counts," Giles says. He quickly opens up the door and starts heading down the hallway. Then…he pauses. Now that Buffy knows about the two of them there is really no reason why he shouldn't spend the night. Or at least no reason so long as Joyce is ok with it.

He opens the door to her bedroom, and she rolls over to look at him. "Did you forget something?" she asks in a tired sounding voice.

He closes the door. "Buffy ran into me on my way out. Well, actually she tackled me."

"Did you get hurt?" Joyce asks sitting up and obviously prepared to start applying bandages. What a hell must it be to live with a slayer when you aren't in the inner circle? You have no idea what danger is coming or how big it is. All that you can do is repair the damage after it happens.

"I'm fine, but she knows that we're together," he says.

"How did she take it?" Joyce asks with a worry wrinkle creasing her forehead. He's never seen the wrinkle on her before, but it's old and deep like it's gotten lots of exercise.

"She's rather taken with the idea, actually," he says pushing up his glasses.

Joyce blinks at him.

"I figured since we didn't need to sneak around anymore, I would spend the night. Of course, if you'd rather I didn't…" he says quickly.

She taps the bed beside her, and he begins to undress.

"Sex with Rupert was very different than sex with Ripper," she acknowledges.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"What? Oh, you're misunderstanding me. The time with Ripper was exciting, but that was mostly about breaking the law, and being in public. To be honest it was all a little quick to be completely satisfactory," she says, causing a blush to come onto Giles's cheeks. "Tonight was very different. It was slow, and soulful, and a whole lot more like making love than having sex."

He catches her eye trying to figure out if she meant the part about love as something more than a compliment to his bedroom skills. He wonders if she's "there" yet, because he isn't, not yet. But if he has to, he'll lie to her for a while, because he's pretty sure he'll get to "love" eventually.

"Thank you," he murmurs, slipping between the sheets.

"Would you rather have young Joyce?" she asks.

"God, no!" he says, and she raises her eyebrows.

"When I'm around her I do stupid things like steal and beat up cops just to impress her. Older…err…less immature Joyce," he says, carefully checking his words, "Is a lot easier to impress. All I have to do is treat her with the respect that she deserves," he says, whisking away hair away from her face as he lies facing her.

"Rupert, sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had never gotten pregnant," she muses.

"Then we both would have missed out on something pretty awesome. Well, two somethings," he says, moving a hand to her stomach. "Us, and this baby."

She scoots forward, and cuddles into his chest. He scoots an arm around her to get comfortable, and they drift off to sleep together.