FIC The Futility of Grand Gestures (5/10) (BUFFY)

[blairprovence]

Title:  The Futility of Grand Gestures
Author:  blairprovence
Rating:  PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s):  Buffy, Giles
Warnings:  Season 3, Serious Angst
Disclaimer:  All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al.
Summary:   Buffy would do absolutely anything for the people she loves.  That's a good thing, right?
Author Notes:   Completed at long last for my scheduled day on  summer_of_giles  2008.  Apologies to my flist for the mass posting.  Set after the events of Graduation, Part 1.

Part 1
Previous Part

Buffy awakened abruptly, bolting upright, suddenly tense in the shadowed room. The afternoon sun peeked dimly through the green curtains, but the wall of the building next door shaded most of it away. It was as though she were hiding in her own dark, little cave, sheltered from the world.   But she still felt so cold, so incredibly tired...and she wondered what it was that could have awakened her so precipitously.

 

Her eyes searched the gloom and lit on a shadowy male form seated in the chair next to the bed. For a moment, her heart stopped, remembering the previous evening, when the vampire who wasn't Giles had watched her in just that way from the chair next to her hospital bed. But he'd been disinvited from this place, and she could certainly handle any other foe - or friend, for that matter, though those were thin on the ground just now. She commanded her heart to start beating again and took her best guess. "X-Xander?" she whispered.

 

The figure didn't answer.

 

Quick as lightning, she rolled to the opposite side of the bed, the half-buttoned shirt tangling about her torso awkwardly.  She yanked at the material, sending buttons flying, and slapped the switch for the table lamp. A cheerful yellow light brightened the room, and her heart stopped beating again.

 

It was him.

 

Without taking her eyes from his seated form, her fingers scrabbled for the drawer of the bedside table, searching inside for a cross, a stake, a bottle of holy water...anything. Surely Giles had something there - he was nothing if not prepared.  "I-I uninvited you," she stammered as her fingers closed around something wooden. She whipped the object out in front of her; it was a beautifully carved cherrywood cross.

 

The man didn't visibly react - not to the words, to the cross, nor to her half-clothed state. Confused, she blinked at him, suddenly realizing that something was wrong. Something was missing.

 

The scars. The scars were gone.

 

Her eyes widened. "G-Giles?" she whispered, dry-mouthed.

 

The man cocked his head to one side and regarded her calmly. He was dressed in the charcoal sweater and slacks Giles had worn that last day in the library, when he'd shocked them all by stabbing the Mayor through the chest with a fencing foil.  She remembered the moment with perfect clarity - the controlled, focused rage he had exhibited had been impressive, if not exactly completely unexpected, and she and Willow had both agreed later that he had looked damned good in that outfit....

 

Buffy shook her head, commanding her mind back to the present, and to the inexplicable sight before her.

 

"Giles?" she whispered again, a hopeful note in her voice.

 

A slight nod.

 

"I don't understand..." But joy had begun to blossom in her heart nevertheless. It didn't make any kind of sense in the world, but he was there, he was alive...it was him.

 

It just had to be.

 

She could barely breathe. "Please...please say something."

 

He blinked and offered her a shrug and a slight smile.

 

"Giles, please..." And then, suddenly, it came to her - how he could be here, after she'd already met the loathsome creature that called itself Ripper, and why he wouldn't speak.  The disappointment that resulted from her realization was almost crushing. "Y-you're a ghost, aren't you? You're my Giles...only a ghost."

 

Was that a flicker of agreement in his eyes?  She couldn't see him very well - her own eyes had welled up with tears again.  "Oh, God," she whispered brokenly, dropping the cross to bury her face in her hands. "Oh, God, Giles, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I've done this to you."

 

After a moment she felt the mattress move a little, and looked up to see that he had shifted from the chair to the bed.  He continued to regard her silently, a sympathetic expression on his face. She glanced down at the mattress in momentary confusion - should it give under the weight of a ghost?

 

Then she looked up and their eyes met, and she promptly forgot all her questions.

 

He looked...content was the only word she could find to describe it. Content, the way he'd never seemed in life, when worry for her and for the world had filled his every waking day.  She had known the burden of responsibility weighed heavily on his shoulders, but she had never realized before now how oppressive his duty had been.  Unlike Buffy herself, he had never complained.

 

His clear green eyes twinkled as he looked at her, his eyebrows raised as if to ask, 'Yes?' His hair was unruly, the way it tended to become after hours of research and countless absent-minded run-throughs with his fingers.  The casual clothes gave him a relaxed air, and the light dusting of stubble on his cheeks marked him as a man of leisure.

 

"You look...happy," she murmured, knowing it was a nonsensical thing to say to a ghost, but then, what would be appropriate?

 

A slight nod.

 

His response made her feel bit bolder. If he was a ghost, he at least didn't seem to be an angry one. "Did you - are you here to see me?" For a moment, she was reminded absurdly of the game Charades. One word, rhymes with post...

 

He nodded again.

 

She scooted forward on the duvet, halting a few feet from him, and gathered all her courage to ask the one question for which she truly needed an answer. "A-are you mad at me?" She bit her lip as she waited for his reply.

 

After the barest hesitation he shook his head.

 

She regarded him silently with shadowed blue eyes. "I don't believe you," she told him softly.

 

Regret flashed across his face, and he shook his head once more, slowly, deliberately.

 

Her fists clenched. "I'm mad at me," she admitted, shivering a little from the cold that seemed to never leave her.  "I'm so mad. I made such a big mistake, Giles. The biggest."

 

His eyes met hers, and he nodded slightly.

 

Her face crumpled and she began to cry in earnest. "I never meant to hurt you, though. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that. Please..."

 

He closed his eyes, briefly, then opened them again. They were the dark color of a forest, and filled with anguished compassion. He nodded again.

 

"I'm gonna fix it," she swore to him, swiping impatiently at her wet cheeks. "I can't make it right, but I'm gonna do what you'd want me to do. I won't let him hurt anyone else while he hides behind your face. I promise."

 

He regarded her silently with an expression that looked something like pride.

 

"You want that, right?" she asked him, needing to be sure.  "You want me to...to kill him, don't you?"

 

He smiled, a sad, gentle smile, and nodded.

 

"Then I'll do it. I swear." She stared at him intently, willing him to believe her. "I swear."

 

He closed his eyes and appeared to exhale, as though suddenly released from an unbearable burden. She felt her breath hitch a little - what if that was the only reason why he had come to her? "C-can you..." her voice broke, and she hunched her shoulders, her fingers worrying the long sleeves of his shirt, "...w-will you come with me? When I go to...I mean, can you?"

 

He shook his head regretfully, then waved his hand at the walls in explanation.

 

"You have to stay here?" Buffy guessed, and was rewarded with an affirmative nod. "Oh." She was disappointed, but a little relieved, wondering if it would be that much harder to stake his body if his ghost were watching her. "Are you - do you have to stay here then? Forever?"

 

He shook his head again and pointed to his watch.

 

"Time limit, huh?"

 

Another nod.

 

"Well, can you stay here until I have to go?"

 

A smile. A nod.

 

She smiled back at him. "I'm glad." The regarded each other silently for a few moments, until Buffy felt her smile grow strained. She had no idea what to say to him - how did one go about making small talk with a ghost?  Especially one who could not talk back?  But the last thing in the world she wanted was for him to leave.

 

A moment later she noticed that his gaze had strayed, and she realized he was looking at her chest - her more-than-a-little-bare chest. Her scramble for the light had popped the scant few buttons she had fastened on his shirt, and the too large garment hung loosely from her shoulders, hiding less than it revealed.

 

He quirked an eyebrow at her, his smile becoming a bit devilish, and she couldn't help but grin back.  "I like your shirt," she told him, a part of her marveling that she could banter with him in this way.  But the limits that had constrained them no longer mattered - what they had been to one another before had changed irrevocably three days previous.

 

Her grin widened as his expression turned sardonic, as if to say, 'No, you don't'.

 

"No, I didn't," she amended impishly, as though he'd spoken the words aloud. "Tweed Man. But I like it now. And it looks way better on me."

 

He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, clearly agreeing with her.

 

Buffy scooted forward, reaching out with a tentative hand to touch his pantleg. She snatched her hand back in shock when her fingers met - instead of the cold mist her movie-educated mind had expected - the warm feel of cloth over skin. "I touched you!" she told him, shocked.

 

He laughed silently at her oh-so-obvious observation.

 

"But I thought-" she blinked up at him, her mind racing.  "But you're-" Suddenly a new thought occurred, and the disappointment that resulted rivaled the devastation of the moment she had decided he was a ghost. "I-Is this a dream? Am I dreaming you?" She'd had realistic dreams before, both the Prophecy and non-Prophecy variety, dreams so real that she would have sworn she was living her actual life - until she awakened.

 

But this felt different.

 

And if she were dreaming him, why wouldn't he be able to talk?

 

Maybe you're afraid of what he'd say... a nasty little voice in the back of her mind piped up.

 

Her lower lip trembled as she blinked back fresh tears. She didn't want it to be a dream. She wanted to believe she'd been given this one last chance to make things right with him, one last opportunity to tell him all the things she'd never told him...all the things she'd never known.

 

All the things she'd never even imagined before she lost him, before they'd lost each other...before they'd all lost everything.

 

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back the tears by sheer effort of will. It's not a dream, she decided on the spot. I won't believe that. I'm getting my chance. We're getting our chance.

 

When she opened her eyes again and saw the way he was looking at her, she could almost believe it.

 

He was staring down at her with infinite affection, his own eyes none too dry. She watched, spellbound, as he raised his hand to cup her cheek. The moment his smooth, warm palm met her skin, she let out a wounded cry and launched herself into his arms.

 

He was solid. He was real. He had to be.

 

She was sobbing so hard her whole body shook with emotion.  His palm rubbed her back in soothing circles as he cradled her to his chest. She clung to him desperately, her face buried in his neck, her fingers digging into his biceps. His embrace felt better than any she had ever known - the solid, heated warmth of him burning away the numbed iciness that had plagued her ever since she had awakened in her hospital bed to find that he was gone.

 

"Closer," she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck.  "Closer. Oh, God..." The material of his sweater was rough against her cheek, and suddenly she couldn't bear for it to be there any longer, no matter how good he looked in it. She could stand nothing coming between them anymore. She reached down to the hem and yanked the sweater upward, dragging along the white t-shirt underneath it. He allowed her action without protest, flinging the garments to the floor before gathering her to his chest once again.

 

The feel of his skin against hers ignited an inferno, each point of contact inflaming her further. "Closer," Buffy murmured still, as though it were a mantra. "Closer closer closerclosercloser..." She squirmed on his lap until she managed to wrap her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together behind him. But it wasn't yet enough - she let go of him for a brief, endless moment, stripping the shirt from her body and tossing it away before pulling him to her once again. He was bare to the waist, his touch gentle but firm, and she felt as though she were coming alive again, melting naked in his arms.

 

Buffy gave the hollow of his throat one long experimental lick, pleased when the muscles of his chest reacted to her touch. She alternated licking and biting across his torso, reveling in a feeling of growing power and in the fire that raged between them. "Giles..." she breathed as his clever hands began to map her skin.

 

Suddenly she needed to see him, needed to look him in the eye, needed to know that he wanted this surprising, perplexing thing as much as she did.  Her hands came up to frame his face, and their eyes met for the first time since they'd begun.  His pupils were dilated and his cheeks were flushed, and a small smile trembled on his lips. "I love you, Giles," she told him, without even thinking about it - or planning it, or even really knowing it was true before that moment, though it was. "I love you."

 

He nodded, bringing two fingers up to cover his mouth, then hers. I love you, too, the gesture said. She captured the tips of his fingers inside her mouth, sucking on them gently. He closed his eyes, smiling, and that was when she leaned forward and met his lips with her own.

 

Their very first kiss.

 

It was better than anything, ever.

 

"Love you," Buffy told him over and over, gasping for breath between deep, drugging kisses. "Love you, love you, love you..." Her hands skimmed his skin, everywhere she could reach, reveling in the velvet feel of it. He was fit and lean - a consequence of their rigorous training - and more than a little battlescarred.  But she thought he was beautiful, and his body felt like heaven touching her own. She wanted more. Needed more. Needed everything.

 

Abruptly, she pulled him backward on the bed until he lay half on top of her, pressing her down into the covers. His fingers and lips worshipped her body, telling her in the only way he could that he felt as she did - it was as though she could feel the love flowing from his fingertips into her skin. Her hands roamed up and down his back, meeting the waistband of his trousers. She frowned at the intrusion.

 

Buffy braced her elbows and used her legs to flip them over, until she lay on top of him, giggling at the surprised expression on his face. With trembling hands she made short work of the rest of his clothes, tossing them over the side of the bed before returning to cover his body with hers. Their movements were frantic – passion, need and desperation overcoming any impulse to go slowly.

 

Her body was on fire, the chill of the previous hours completely gone as he held her to him with impossible strength. The warmth spread outward from within, until she felt as though she were a living flame, burning bright and strong. Invincible...invulnerable....

 

Loved.

 

The power of it was almost too much for her. She collapsed onto his chest, her head swimming dizzily, her hands clutching at his shoulders. Her shaking fingers traveled upward to caress his cheeks as she managed to catch enough breath for only three words. "Don't leave yet," she pleaded with the last of her energy.

 

Buffy felt him shake his head. Momentarily content and utterly sated, she drifted off to a sleep that was, for once, dreamless.

 

Part 6