Title: Together

Author: Criss Moody

Date: September 18^th, 2000

Distribution: Archives of the lists that receive this, yes. Anyone else, ask nicely.

Spoilers: Basic Season 4 of Buffy and Season 1 of Angel information.

Pairing: Buffy/Giles (W/O, C/X are mentioned).

Rating: From PG-13 to NC-17. The one part that is NC-17 will be clearly labeled as such.

Content Warning: Character deaths, angst, fluffy stuff, original character, m/f sex.

Summary: Angel brings Buffy and Giles together.

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and his crew of crackheads own the characters and the concept, except for Drew and Willie, who belong to me.

Feedback: Hey, even people who have been writing for a while need it!

Notes: Mucho admiration and thanks go out to my beta, Janine Ose, who rocks my world. Any mistakes contained within are entirely my fault. Enjoy.

Prologue:

"See your nickel….and raise you a quarter."

Three figures sat around a round wooden table. A large pile of shiny pennies, nickels, quarters, and dimes sat in the middle.

"Are you quite mad, Wilhemina? Not that I won't be ecstatic to take your money, but a quarter seems a bit extravagant," the second figure, a thin pale man, sniffed as he adjusted his silver spectacles with one finger.

An elegant eyebrow raised at the use of the forbidden first name. At one particularly hard stretch of labor, Willie's mother had screamed that her father could name the baby whatever the hell he wanted to, as long as he got the kid out pronto. Her father's mother's name had been Wilhemina. Though her father had meant it as a joke, the name had gotten placed on the birth certificate and by the time anyone thought about changing it, friends and family had gotten used to calling the new baby Willie. Hell was a boy's name that was really a godawful woman's name.

"Wesley, I don't think you should rile her, you're the one with 25 dollars…in change…in the pot." The third player studied his own cards. "Note to self," he mused silently, "never play cards with the person whom you taught how to cheat at cards."

"Angel, I would greatly appreciate your support in this matter. We are the adults here, are we not?"

"Wes, last time I looked, I was an adult. And I'm the one getting married tomorrow night. And I'm not the one in debt…so," the sandyblond-haired girl of medium height who sat across from him pointed out as she fingered her spread of cards. "Put up or shut up my friend."

With a vaguely long-suffering, and mostly smug glance at the girl, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce set down his cards with a flourish.

"Two…Pair," the careful British voice enunciated the two words slowly and clearly.

"Full…House." Wilhemina Summers Giles spread out her cards on the dark wood of the table for the viewing enjoyment of her companions. She settled back in her chair, rocking back on the back legs and crossing her arms over her sweater clad chest to gloat. Wesley was so easy to annoy.

"You…." Wesley threw down his cards and pointed one finger at Angel accusingly. "You're the one who taught Wilhe…Willie how to cheat. Scoundrel!" With a sniff and a slight nod of his head the beaten man affected a familiar martyred air.

"I didn't teach her to cheat, I just…" Angel started to, once again, defend himself against charges of corruption and of just generally being a bad influence.

Willie let her chair fall to the floor. From experience, Willie knew this discussion between the 'dads' could last hours. You did…I did not…Did so…Did not…and so on. The 22 year old rose from her chair, peeled off her powder blue sweater to reveal a dark purple tank top, and set off for the pantry in the hallway with the sweater tied around her blue jean covered hips. She was pretty sure that she'd left her Billie Holiday disc up there after listening to it while packing up the bedroom.

As she hit the bottom of the stairs, she did what she always did at the bottom of those stairs, and would never do again in the same way after tomorrow. Her jade green eyes looked at her parents' wedding picture, focusing on the inscription written below: "Buffy Anne Summers and Rupert Thomas Giles, December 1999, Together Always."

A slight smile curved her lips. She continued up the steps, then stopped in the middle of the long hallway. Opening the pantry doors, Willie stepped up the three small steps to the equally small landing before the pantry. She spied the Billie CD lying on the second shelf up. As her left hand went up to grasp it, she noticed something sitting half in the shadows of the top shelf. It looked like a…can? Boot clad feet left the ground as Willie jumped up to swat the can off the shelf. It smacked against the wall, and then to the floor.

Leaning down to pick the mysterious can up, Willie saw that it was dusty, and a bit grimy. *Must have been up there for a pretty long time,* she mused, her shoulder-length, dirtyblond hair brushed the can. The wrapping on the can said "PediaCare Formula for Newborns." Newborns???

Willie suddenly sank down to the top step, now holding the can in both hands. She brought up on hand to wipe away the sudden tears. Her parents must have bought this formula when Willie was just a baby…

"And we are together finally…"

-"We Are Together," Indigo Girls.

A bare 65 watt bulb shed some light onto a small, blonde head. One hand scrambled amongst the items on the shelf above that head, obviously looking for something. A voice muttered, "Damn pantries, they're clearly built by very, very tall people who have a clear prejudice against shor…petite people. Someone should tell on them."

The slim form was precariously balanced on top of a rackety ladder that was even more precariously placed on a space of floor no more than 3 feet wide that ended in three steps.

"Luv? Have you found that extra can of formula yet?"

The blonde gritted her teeth. "Not yet, dear, be right with you."

Against the unspoken wishes of gravity and physics, the unhappy woman made an attempt to move further up the ladder. As she brought one sneaker-clad foot up to the next rung, her body over-balanced, her rear sliding back one centimeter too far. The result was less than pleasing to the ears. CRASH! THUD! SMACK! BAM!

The sweats clad figure lay prostrate at the bottom of the evil, horrible, tall people cursed pantry. Why cry out in pain? It wasn't as if this wasn't a regular occurrence. Bruises and bumps, not falling off ladders that was. Oddly enough, falling off ladders was not a regular event.

"Buffy luv?"

One hazel eye snapped open, while the other refused to join its twin. The faux cyclops glared blearily at the fuzzy, blue, tall, upside down man.

"This is all your fault you know!"

"Now Buffy, I did offer…"

"No, No, No! I mean you…as in you giants…you freaks of nature," Buffy Summers Giles brought a hand up to her head, the little elves on steroids who had set up a conga line on the back of her head finally seemed to be giving in for the night.

Giles grinned. Unfortunately, his wife of two years saw and didn't appreciate her beloved's humor. And then reason and logic decided to save the day.

"Darling, you do know that there's every chance that your own daughter could tower over you? In fact, your own parents are rather er…lengthy height wise in relation to your own charmingly petite stature." A large, callused hand came up to brush tiny strings of hair out of Buffy's eyes. The warmth of the hand and the action instantly silenced Buffy's ire. How could she have ever stayed angry with such beautiful green eyes?

Buffy arched into the touch, almost purring at the simple gesture.

"Willie will be a perfectly petite little lady." At the word lady, the former Watcher snorted, ducking his face down to hide his amusement. Hazel eyes narrowed and focused on the elegantly handsome face of Rupert Giles. But the tense jaw and the scrunched forehead quickly relaxed. This couple did not have time to waste on a common married couple spat.

~~~~~

After graduation, after the destruction of Sunnydale High School and over half of the Senior class, Buffy had lost the only man she had ever loved. Angel walked away from her and never looked back, or so Buffy thought. The slayer grieved as she slaughtered vamps and demons with a particular viciousness that summer. On a late night in August, as she dropped by Giles' to tell him about a particularly icksome purple slimy thing, a strange desire to stop outside his front window, before entering the flat unannounced as usual, struck her. Buffy paused, gazing into the dim apartment.

She stopped breathing. She stopped thinking. Her heart couldn't be far behind. Angel was sitting on her ex-watcher's couch, accepting a teacup of something from the Englishman.

End part One…

Buffy dragged a ragged breath into her oxygen starved lungs. *Oxygen good, make brain work,* thought the blonde as she tuned in her slayer hearing to eavesdrop on the two most important men in her life.

~~~~~

"She's okay? I mean…she's not…" Angel let his voice trail off as he looked into the pale brown liquid filling his teacup. Why had he asked for tea? He'd hated the damn stuff when he'd been human, and he had considerably less regard for it as a vampire.

Giles stood against the French windows leading out into the courtyard. With one hand placed on his hip, he raised his other to rub against the back of his neck. The growly, emotional tones of Billie Holliday played softly on his record player. When he'd opened the door twenty minutes ago, Rupert had put on his best "no, really, I think you're perfectly alright" face on for his young charge. But the figure on his doorstep was hardly young…and was indeed the impetus for the creation of said face.

"No, Angel, she's alive, she's performing her duties as a slayer admirably, if a tad bit savagely, and she does still remember how to smile. If, however, you mean to ask me if she misses you, if her heart still screams for you, if she still cries herself sick every night, then, yes, Angel, yes." The ex-watcher stuffed his hands into his chinos and regarded the small stain in the wood near the doors. Blood? Xander's bloody awful Kool-Aid? Lost in his reverie, Giles almost missed the vampire's next words.

"….and I thought we agreed."

Startled, Giles turned and blurted out, "What? Oh, yes, indeed, we did agree. I have no immediate plans to stray from our chosen course of action."

At his last words, Rupert's mouth twisted into a sad smile. Their chosen course of action. Their. He and this undead creature that he hated nearly as much as he loved his Slayer. No council decree or abdication could change that. Giles sighed inwardly at his favorite lie to himself; his supposed hate for Angel. He'd long ago faced his hate for Angelus, the demon, the killer. Rupert Giles could no more hate Angel than he could hate himself for allowing a demon to control his actions. Rupert's mind drifted back to the night after the prom, when Angel and he had decided upon "their chosen course of action."

Angel had come to him in the early evening as Rupert was coming home from a spot of grocery shopping. When Buffy had, shortly before the prom, admitted that Angel would be leaving Sunnydale after the Ascension, regardless of the outcome, Giles had experienced the most uncomfortable feeling of foreboding, as if something larger than demons and vampires and ascensions had just been set in motion.

The over two century old souled demon wasted no time on polite chitchat. First off, what do you say to the boyfriend of the woman that you brutally murdered and placed in his bed? Second, Angel preferred to use his words carefully. So, in short, Angel proposed marriage.

~~~~~

"Rupert? Rupert!? Are you listening?" Angel's low voice broke into Giles' memories. He walked forward and sat down in the rocking chair at one end of the couch.

"Yes, Angel, I’m listening. I…" Giles lied. Well-laid plans…, "Buffy does not seem willing to move on to anyone or anything else…"

~~~You're going to love me

like nobody's loved me~~~

Billie's timeless voice made the 'younger' man wince. He continued, "Ms. Summers has no interest any romantic possibilities at this time or any other. I suppose I'm not entirely sure our plan is as spot-on as you believe it to be."

Angel gestured impatiently with his hands, the teacup now sitting on an end table.

"Rupert, haven't you ever heard of the direct approach? You just walk up to her, grip her shoulders firmly, and kiss her till she can't breathe!"

~~~~

Outside the front window, Ms. Summers had a few problems finding her breath. And remembering why air and all that was so necessary. Her head started to float off her head. Oh, yeah. Her lungs sucked in air as she fumbled over what Giles, her Giles, had just said. *Her Giles? Where hell did that come from? Scratch the hers part, he wasn't hers, he was his, she had no hers, not at all.*

A plan. Angel talking to Giles, telling him to kiss Buffy. Hello?!? Angel, undead man, was supposed to be giving her happies, not Giles, tweed man! Before Buffy could untangle the mind-soaked knot of thoughts vibrating in her brain, Giles began to speak again.

~~~~

"Angel, I….I fear that the direct approach is not something I'm willing to try. I can't imagine what on earth got into me when I agreed to this asinine plan of yours. Buffy fall in love with me? Marry me? Enjoy a normal life with me?" Giles shook his head, looking the undead man in the eyes. "Yes, I love her, and you know I would do anything for her, but I simply cannot sacrifice what little pride I have left so that she may trample upon it. She loves you. She wants a life with you. I cannot even hope to compete with the dreams she has spun around you." The ex-Watcher's voice rose as he finished, cracking as he ended his small speech.

Angel looked down at his hands. He wanted those dreams spun around him. Everything in him screamed for that life, a life with Buffy. Unfortunately, he wanted Buffy to have a normal life more. He couldn't delude himself into thinking Buffy would live forever. Slayers aren't great candidates for the octogenarian set.

"Giles, just give it a few more weeks. Then, if Buffy still continues to ignore your overtures…well, I'll figure something out. Please?"

A wry smile stole over Rupert's face. A former vicious murderer asking him for assistance, even going so far as to say 'Please.' Now that was funny.

"Fine." A rough sigh escaped the Englishman's chapped lips. A wet tongue unconsciously snaked out to ease their pain. "You should be going. Buffy will be coming by soon. It certainly wouldn't do to have her find you here."

Angel rose silently and made his way to the back windows. He slipped out, rejoining the shadowy night.

At that moment, no man could have hated himself more than Rupert Giles did. He was playing fast and loose with the emotional well-being of the young woman whom he had sworn to protect always. He cursed his weakness and his need for Buffy's love. Lost in these morose thoughts, Giles jumped to his feet at the sound of the Slayer's voice.

"Hey, Giles! What's the story on my former honey handing me off to you?

~~~~~

~~~~~

"Buffy, I…"

"Oh, I’m sorry, I suppose whatever 'plan' you and Angel have concocted is super top secret, not to be talked about, totally the secretest of secrets. What exactly were you supposed to do? Seduce me? Make me forget about Angel? Well, let me tell you, you have been doing a rotten job Giles, really rotten. You must be slipping, you're usually so competent."

Buffy paced back and forth in front of the front door. Her lips were squeezed together so tightly white lines radiate from their edges, and her leather covered arms gripped her torso like a lifeline.

"Please, Buffy, you have to…"

"I HAVE to? I HAVE TO?!?!" Golden hair caught the low light as Buffy's head swung to confront this man. Her body, vibrating with angry tension, stopped it's pacing.

"I don't have to do anything. I quit the Council remember? I quit the orders and the secrecy and the rules. I don't have to follow orders, I don't have to keep the secrets and we both know how well I follow the rules." Turbulent hazel eyes looked Giles dead on, locking onto to the object of the confused and angry glare held in them.

Buffy's voice rose louder and louder as she continued. Giles found himself bypassing the words streaming into his ears and focusing on her eyes, glowing with unhappy tears. Suddenly, Angel's words appeared in his head, alarmingly like those horrid billboards along the roadways. "KISS HER TILL SHE CAN'T BREATHE!!!!"

The diatribe, which had started to resemble a fishwife's tirade, ended abruptly when Giles walked briskly around the couch, strode up to Buffy, grasped her firmly, and proceeded to kiss her until she couldn't breathe.

~~~~~

For the third time that evening, Buffy Summers was having an air, lung, in issue. //Maybe the third time's a charm,// she thought as Giles' tongue thrust into her mouth, plundering the wet sweetness within. That erotically invasive action made Buffy squirm and unconsciously rub her lower body against that of her former Watcher. //Oh my God, oh my God, Giles has a, a, he’s HARD! Hard because he's a guy and guys are bad at controlling those things or hard because I'm a girl and he likes girls or because he's kissing me and I'm rubbing against him?// Somehow, for some reason, none of these incoherent thoughts said anything about kissing Giles. Buffy's body was warm, her skin itched just under the skin in a way it hadn't in a long time, and a heavy warm feeling had settled in her lower body.

Giles' strong hands grasped her slim thighs, and lifting them up to his own, made his way up the staircase, careful to keep his mouth on Buffy's. He couldn't afford to lose her now. Legs with Slayer strength did most of the work, so Giles freed one hand to grasp the bottom of Buffy's fuzzy pink sweater and rip it over her head. With his other hand, he swept his hand over her bottom. Buffy felt the soft give of the bed behind her back, a feeling that slapped her in the face. She shouldn't be on a bed with Giles, kissing him, letting him kiss her. The slim, tanned face turned away from the kiss, gazing steadfastly at the lamp next to the bed. A callused hand turned Buffy's face back to its former location.

"Buffy luv…"

"No! No love! I don't want to do love, and I don't want to do this, I want…" Her weak, hoarse voice trailed off, the earlier emotions having taken their toll.

Giles' fingers tightened on their prize. "What do you want? Do you want to die? Do you want to follow Angel all the way to L.A., abandon your duty, your friends, your mother, to pursue a relationship that has caused you nothing but pain? Fine then, I give you permission to leave this bed, to leave this apartment, go, run away. I should have known you were lying all along."

A forehead wrinkled in confusion. Buffy slid her body out from under her ex-Watcher's, and scooted up to the pillows and headboard, wrapping her arms around her torso and exposed breasts.

"Lying? Giles, what are you talking about?"

Looking away from the tan, golden body of the woman he had loved almost forever, Rupert Giles sighed. This fantastic creature sometimes had the denseness of oak. With a steel veneer. He decided to take the high road and save face.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. Perhaps I really have assumed too much. I assure you that I'm not usually in the practice of accosting young girls in my charge. I apologize…," Giles bit off the rest of the sentence. No, dammit, for once he would not smile and cater to Buffy's ignorance of the true situation. //In for a penny, in for a pound,// he mused.

"You have lied about your desires. Angel left for one reason and one reason only. So that you could have a 'normal life,' whatever that may mean. Barely a week has gone by in the almost three years I have been acquainted with you that you have not loudly proclaimed your desire to be a 'normal girl.' Angel came to me and asked me to attempt to give you that normal life. A ritual exists that can bind a Watcher and Slayer together, but only if they are meant to be so bound. The details are sketchy, and no Slayer and Watcher have made a match since some time in the 12^th century. Angel thought it worth a try. He believed that I could love you like you deserved to be loved."

//Surely, her silence is damning. If she didn't already hate me for helping her former lover remove himself from her life, she must loathe me now.//

"Do you?"

The quiet words surprised Rupert.

"Er…do I what?"

"Love me."

Pause.

"Yes, I love you. I knew that this ritual had a large chance at failure, and even with unfortunate consequences, but I felt it was worth it." //If only to touch you…// "Again, I apolo…"

Two soft fingers stopped his lips from moving. "Stop talking, Giles. You always do too much of that."

Buffy reached out and deftly flipped the older man over and up against the pillows. With one swing of a leg, she straddled the still completely clothed body of this man below her. Instantly, she made a decision.

//It doesn't matter that this is what Angel wants…It matters that this is what I want…and what Giles wants…and this feels simpler than anything I've felt in years.//

"So, if we're meant to be together, this thingy will work, but if we aren't, nothing will happen?" Buffy rested her arms on either side of Giles' head.

The man below the very warm, very female body squirmed a bit.

"Yes, I believe that is essentially correct, the process, however, is called, Unifica…," Giles never managed to finish his sentence as warm lips met warm lips and a tiny, unnoticed spark leapt between their bodies.

~~~~~

Hands met buttons in a flurry of activity and soon their clothes became intimately familiar with the floor. Buffy grasped Giles' hands in hers, pressing them into the soft white bedding. She positioned herself over his cock, teasing herself by rubbing her wet channel over the straining length of the mindless piece of flesh. Giles growled at the smirk on Buffy's face as she coated his cock with her juices.

"You want something, Giles." Giles reared up and captured her puffy, kiss-swollen lips as he thrust his hips up, entering her heat in one swift movement. Her hands tightened on his, almost painfully.

"Oh, so that's what you want," she teased as she clenched her vaginal muscles around him, smiling again at the Ripperish look on his face.

"No, luv, this is what I want…"

Giles crooked one leg behind Buffy's and repaid the young woman's earlier tactical move by rolling her petite form over. The blonde beneath him writhed, trying to dislodge him, but her struggles only served to drive Giles deeper into her, and that only served to make Buffy forget why on earth she was struggling in the first place.

Leaning down to suckle at one golden breast, his hips began thrust, setting up a sure and steady rhythm, though a slow one. He switched his attentions over to the other breast as he kept up the thrusting, occasionally rotating his hips a bit.

Buffy mewled and bucked, trying to get Giles to do anything but what he was doing…it was slow…and agonizing…and she thought that she'd die from the sweet pleasure of it. A heady warmth filled her body. It wasn't like the mad rush she'd felt before, felt for Angel. No, this was very different. So many different points of pleasure combined to make her squirm and rear up under the wonderfully heavy body driving into her own. Her breasts tingled, and she could feel the cool air caress the moist, heated tips so recently given homage by her lover's tongue. A sparkling heat rose up from her tummy, spun up her rib cage and exploded behind her neck, making her entire spine quiver. Having her hands captured by Giles' gave her a wide-open sensation that would have been unnerving if her lover had been anyone other than Giles…

That was it. That was the key. She trusted Giles. She trusted him to forgive her, to be there for her, to love her, in any way she needed to be loved. Her passion-lidded eyes flew open as the epiphany hit her. Her wild green irises met Giles' and tears began to seep from her eyes.

"Luv?" Giles halted the movements of his hips. But Buffy just shook her head and bringing her legs up to interlock behind her lover's hips. That movement slid Giles back into her body fully, lodging him tightly against her body, his pubic bone rammed against her clit.

With a flash, Giles felt the muscles surrounding his cock begin to throb and contract. He gasped and his hips rammed of their own volition into Buffy's molten channel. His hands tightened on hers as their eyes met in wonderment. In Buffy's mind, a wide pink spiral spun out from her core, encompassing her, Giles, the room, everything. For Giles, he only saw and felt his love, her flesh surrounding his, her eyes wide and wonderful as they looked into his, all surrounded by a glow, a happy, completely angst-free glow.

Suddenly, in the midst of one of the most powerful orgasms in Rupert Giles' life, he started to laugh. And not just a small, behind the lips chuckle, but a full-out, come from the belly, completely uncharacteristic chuckle. Even as the orgasm ebbed and flowed, and their bodies moved in synch with a strange rhythm, Giles laughed out loud. The involuntary urge to thrust began to ease, and he slowed his hips movements in time with his laughs, bringing his chest down to rub against Buffy's.

She opened her teary eyes, a grin of her own spreading over her face as she felt the vibrations of her lover's laughter through the connection of flesh at their chests. Carefully, slowly, unwilling to break the physical connection between their two bodies, Giles grasped his love's hips and eased them over so that he could take the weight of her body onto his. She stretched out a bit on, a small yawn escaping from her passion swollen mouth. One slim leg rubbed up and down a hairier, larger one.

//Mmmm…now, if I could just stay this way, and avoid talkytalky, oh that didn't work, oh well, good show, all that English crap..or did it work? I don't know, I mean, the sex was good but…//

//Buffy, do be quiet, I'm trying to enjoy my happy glow, and your chatter is making it dissipate.//

"Meep!"

All movement on Buffy's part halted, and she lifted her head to meet her former Watcher's, and new lover's, sleepy, half-lidded gaze, her own eyes wide in shock.

"Giles?" She squeaked, her voice suddenly failing her in her second of need. "Um…was that you?"

"Yes, let's avoid the talkytalky, go to sleep, and discuss matters in the morning, shall we?"

Unable to think of a single viable, coherent reason why they should talk right then and there, Buffy laid her head back down on the warm chest it had previously occupied, and did her very best to keep her mind as blank as it had ever been during French mid-terms.

It worked.

She fell asleep to the soothing motions of her Giles' wonderfully warm, human hands caressing her back.

Page Two.