Title: Grievances
Author: Princess Twilite
Summary: Lessons in aching. not everything is happily ever after. G/A, X/A.

Author Notes: Dedication: Rach, Tonya, and TopazAngel. Happy *late* holidays!
Beta Reader: Karen, because she's the only one that can put up with my shit.

Story Notes: Timeline: AU Season Seven
Warning: This story is heavy with erotic undertones. It is by no means a PWP, but sexuality plays a key role in this piece, connects a very important theme about human weakness. If you're too young, don't read it.

Disclaimer: Joss-verse characters do NOT belong to me; they are his and those darn affiliates. No money exchanged hands in the writing and distributing of this work of pure fiction.

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(Present Time)

Not everything is happily ever after. You have known this since you were a child, but still it shocks you past the point of words to think that THIS one thing you've wanted in so long, has been taken from your very hands. God, you're grip was so tight, so SURE. You had been so sure of your hold on her.

But she had never been yours, and this is the crux of your problem.

She was always waiting to be his again, looking toward the doors for some way back in, some way back to him. And you are only someone who got in the way of them, who wanted more than you could have, and in the end was left with nothing. Without him, without her, and now you are on your way to somewhere else.

Just, away.

You stare at the airport surveillance camera and wonder why you feel so tired.

People mill about you, rushed, chaotic, but you stand still. You wait for your plane to arrive in silence, the kind that lays down on itself and folds over. Your brain wants to be quiet; still you cannot help but think back and ponder your idiocy. Oh, you were such a silly fool to think, to expect there might be anything beyond the game with you and her. Bloody hell, it hurts your heart though. You want more than that, more than this.

A child screeches and runs past you, and you barely blink. Waiting is like that, you think, a thick molasses that burns to move but never does.

Your plane arrives and you gather up your baggage. Your suitcase smacks against your leg and you wince. You feel like an exile, tossed away by the hard look in Xander's eyes and the shocked one in Buffy's as you tried to STEAL Anya away.

You were not yourself in their eyes. You were somebody else that they didn't like very much at all. A thief, you are nothing more. And you're not a successful one at that.

You had wanted so much more from her, and been ready to give everything you've made for yourself up, just to have her.

Now it is gone anyway.

It is the final boarding call. And no one yells your name from behind you as the stewardess checks your ticket. There is just the chattering of a young mother with her little boy as she tries to calm him for the ride.

(One week earlier)

Anya put the broom back into the closet, slamming the door with a gusto that belonged solely to her.

"Done," she said firmly, and turned to grin at Giles where he sat at the counter, henpecking at a calculator. "Done," she said again when she strolled toward the cash register, louder, when he didn't respond. Giles held up a finger and she huffed, taking a seat on the stool next him.

"I heard you," he said, when he'd pushed the calculator aside and marked a number down on the budget sheet.

"Then the proper thing to do is then to respond."

Giles looked at her, his brow scrunched up.

"Numbers, Anya - they distract me. I apologize for forgetting my manners."

Anya shrugged, hiding a small smile behind her hair as she turned away and ran her fingers over the keys on the register.

"Isn't it strange?" She asked softly. Giles watched her closely.

"Isn't what strange?"

"This," she said impatiently, gesturing around them, to the cleaned up shop. "Being here."

"I suppose," Giles replied slowly, looking toward the freshly furbished shelves and smiling slightly. "A good strange. It's nice to be back." Anya glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and then shook her head.

"Why did you go to England anyway?"

Giles startled at the question, nearly knocking the calculator from the counter. He re-situated himself and then stared off into the distance.

"I thought it was best," he answered cryptically.

"Best for whom?" Anya demanded. "Yourself? Things go wrong when you're not here. You're the glue that keeps everything together. "

Giles turned his head toward her slowly, meeting her eyes. They were a bright, liquid color that he'd noticed was becoming brighter, and more self assured by the day. Something strong and thousands of years old moved behind that gaze, like she was just discovering it existed within her.

"Thanks. I think."

"It was a compliment," she assured him and touched his wrist briefly. Giles looked down at his sleeve, but she'd already pulled away and was up, off her stool and walking toward the back room.

"Anya?"

"I'm going to get my jacket," she called from behind the doors. Giles stood and cleared his throat. She returned a moment later, stuffing her arms into a light brown, leather coat and tugging it firmly over her shoulders. "I'm going to head home, but first -" she came toward him and Giles blinked as she grabbed onto his collar and tugged him close. His lips parted slightly. Her eyelashes were very long up close. There was just a splash of freckles below her eyes that disappeared further down her cheeks. "You are NOT leaving again, because I will hunt you down. Everyone needs you here. You've abandoned us for England three times now; it's not going to happen again. Understand?"

Giles felt himself nodding, even though he had solid plans to leave in a few months after things were settled again.

Anya smiled brightly and let him loose. Giles sat heavily on the stool she had vacated and stared at her in bewilderment.

"I'm glad we cleared that up," she said happily, smoothing her hands down her jacket. His eyes followed the path of her hands, past her breasts and down toward her hips. She turned, unaware, and walked in that way of hers, toward the doors. "See you tomorrow Giles, bright and early."

Then she pushed the door open, slicing off a pound of the wind and letting it inside. It closed behind her with a snap, and a piece of paper flew up and off the counter. Giles watched it float toward the floor with the serenity of a specter and then glanced toward the window.

She was gone.

Bright and early came... well, bright and early. The sound of dawn woke him, birds chirping and motors starting for those who went to work early. He rolled over onto his stomach with a groan and peered up at the digital clock through a face full of pillows.

Five A.M.

Giles closed his eyes on a sigh, and stayed that way for a long moment, wading in and out of sleep as the tide desired. But eventually, when his brain began clanging that sleeping time was up, Giles pushed himself up with his arms and sat on the edge of his bed. Gray light swept over the room.

He cracked his neck, yawned, and prepared to start the day.

Giles was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth when the phone rang. He looked into the mirror with his blue, foamy mouth and shook his head, resigned. Giles toweled off his mouth after spitting most of the toothpaste out of his mouth and went to grab the phone off the hook on his bedside table.

"Rupert Giles," he answered.

"Very stern," said a firm, pleasant voice from the earpiece. Giles felt his eyebrows rise.

"Anya? What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" She seemed startled, her voice hopping. "Why should something be wrong? Did something happen?"

"NO, Anya -- but it's early, so I thought," Giles ran a hand over his face, and didn't finish what he was saying. There was a brief silence on the line, before she spoke.

"Oh. I see. It IS early isn't it? Well, you're awake anyway."

"What do you WANT, Anya?" Giles asked as he reached for the comb at his bedside.

"I thought that'd be obvious," Anya said. Giles dropped the comb and nearly knocked the lamp off of the table. He cleared his throat discreetly and bunched his fist up in his lap.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Coffee, Giles," she muttered impatiently, "where did you put the coffee in the shop? I can't find it and I'm going to die if I don't have a cup soon."

Giles let out a breath as he glanced at the clock again, Five-twenty.

"You're there early," he observed. "Excited?"

"Coffee, Giles," Anya growled. "Coffee!"

"I didn't bring in any yet. I'll stop by a store on the way over, all right?"

"Be quick," she said roughly, and then hung up. Giles took the phone away from his ear and eyed it uneasily before setting it back into the cradle. Rising light caught his eye. He sat still for a second, stomach clenched as he stared hard out the window, where the sun rose over the town's buildings.

Red. Orange. Yellow. It pushed the gray away.

So beautiful it hurt to watch.

Anya took a deep breath beside him, blowing it out harshly between her lips. Her hair was pulled back into a clean bun that sat on top of her head. He watched her from the corner of his eye, a slow, tight excitement in his gut.

Day one, here they came.

"Are you ready?" He asked, standing at the door. He held the sign aloft, waiting for her answer. Anya bit her lip and pressed her palms against the flower printed skirt she wore that cut off just above her knees, leaving her long well shaped calves bared to the casual, or not so casual eye.

"Do I look okay?" She asked, with her fingers fluttering as she picked imaginary lint from her tank top. Giles turned his head and looked at her, eyebrow quirked. He paused in his reflexive assurance and REALLY looked. The sun peeked in, burnishing her skin a light gold and flashing over the severe line of her hair.

"You look lovely," he told her huskily. Anya grinned a little and ran her hands over her outfit one more time, patting her hair carefully before nodding to him.

"I'm ready."

Giles shifted his eyes off of her and flipped the sign around.

"We're open," he said quietly. They stood for a moment, at the door with their back to the shop. And then they stood some more.

"That was anti-climatic," Anya laughed a moment later when they were still staring at the door as if expecting the turning of the sign would amount to a rushing of feet toward the store.

"Yes well, we can't expect customers to just pour in now can we?" He said seriously, but then he laughed a little himself. They glanced at each other meaningfully, then away. "Okay, you're right on this one."

"I'm always right," she confided, bumping her shoulder against his. There was a soft, joyful light in her face.

Giles nodded and shifted uncomfortably before bumping her shoulder in return.

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied. Anya stared at him oddly for a moment before shaking her head and walking behind the counter like a soldier on a battlefield, prepared for a massacre.

Giles looked once more toward the sign.

Open, indeed. Like a window was open to the rain.

It was the scent of lemon that kept distracting him from recording the artifacts features. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose where it was most sore. The scent seemed to cling to his nostrils, pervading his senses with the seducing art of a siren.

Giles pushed the glasses back onto his face and further up on his nose, tucking them close to his face as he leaned back over the miniature weapon. It had a detailed carving of a beautiful woman on its handled and was rumored to be the lost blade of a long-dead king. A king who was rumored to have been married to a very powerful witch.

But still... there was that scent of lemon.

Giles looked up from the artifact, toward Anya who sat at the cash register with an utterly bored expression on her face. He smiled vaguely as she leaned forward, heaving a sigh and resting her chin in the palm of her hand. She stared toward the door hopefully.

They'd had a few customers, but not a steady flow...

She was swinging her leg, back and forth. Her skirt moved up slight centimeters on every back swing, revealing a toned, pale thigh that clenched minutely. Her toes, encased in a brown, insubstantial sandal, brushed the floor, dragged along it.

His mouth went dry.

Giles tore his gaze away, aware that his breath was catching in his throat and somehow, his heart had taken to pounding in his chest. He stared blindly at the blade before him, at the shape of a seductress engraved into the wood.

Then he forced his grip on the pen to become tighter and brought it down on the note pad firmly, pushing everything else out. He pressed out everything but the scent of lemon that still haunted him. He hated lemons, and yet the scent tantalized him, tugged at his stomach and made him hungry.

"I'm bored," Anya complained a moment later, startling him by plopping down in the chair next to him.

"Oh?" He asked dumbly, despising the way his stomach flipped.

"Yes, today hasn't lived up to my expectations." She looked down at her hands, and then up at him and into his eyes searchingly. "I thought there would be more business. That the customers should be eager and panting in anticipation to return."

Anticipation.

Giles folded his lips together briefly and then leaned his arms on the table, toward her. His expression was earnest.

"These things take time," he assured. "It's not magic, it's marketing, even if we sell magic -- not everyone is going to know right away. EVEN with that not-quite-small ad you put into the paper. And the ones that DO... might not necessarily be the type to patron a magic shop."

Anya nodded, and then with a sigh, reached up and jerked the tie from her hair. The thick ropes of blonde strands fell down around her face with a light draft of air that brushed his face and against his nose.

He backed away from her like he'd been slapped.

"What?" She asked, concerned.

"Nothing. I just - do you wash your hair in lemon juice?" A line appeared between her brows at his question. She didn't seem to know how to answer it.

"I use a shampoo with a lemon scent, yes." At his nod, she asked, "why?"

"I just--I smelled it and was curious."

"O-kay," Anya shook her head. "Giles, you're acting strange today."

"Am I?" He asked casually, with just a hint of a smile. "I hadn't noticed."

Giles looked up when the bells above the entrance of the shop clanged together. Buffy came in first, smiling at him from beneath a pair of large sunglasses, and Xander was behind her, holding the door open, his face slightly drawn from exhaustion.

It always seemed to be that way these days. As much as Xander smiled, there was a quiet, tired line that hung between his eyes. Giles followed Xander's gaze. It landed on Anya, of course, who was flipping through a catalog of magical potions idly. She looked as cool as ice, unharmed by the sunlight that dripped in through the windows and melted over HER.

She didn't lift her gaze like she once might have. Xander frowned with just the slightest tilt of his lips downward. Everything between them had become as subtle as the shifting of day to night.

"Hey," Buffy said to Anya and Giles, tugging her sunglasses from her face and waving her hand. The glasses bounced around wildly, with the constant energy of the Slayer behind them. Anya smiled at Buffy in response, finally lifting her head. It was the small, real smile.

"Hello Buffy," Giles replied, dipping his head. Buffy walked over and took a seat across the table from him, flicking her bangs out of her eyes.

"We just stopped by to see how things were going on the first day back open," Buffy explained. Giles nodded, but his gaze was pulled toward Xander who walked casually to where Anya sat behind the counter. He wore paint-stained jeans and a t-shirt that had suffered the same fate.

"Hey," Xander said softly.

Anya met his gaze with her own, unreadable.

"Hi, Xander, how are you?"

Giles drew his eyes away, frowning, and found Buffy looking at him curiously.

"Sorry, Buffy, what did you say?"

"Nothing, you just," Buffy closed her mouth and turned her head to see Xander standing uncomfortably at the counter, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets. Then she looked back at Giles, "you seemed distracted."

"I am," Giles muttered before he could stop himself. Shaking his head to clear it, he smiled calmly at Buffy. "It's been a slow day so I've been trying to record a few back-logged artifacts."

Buffy nodded, turning her nose up at the musty book in front of him.

"Whatever pushes your buttons, Giles, that's what I always say." Buffy told him with her patent spirit.

Anya tapped a pencil against her mouth, watching the door close behind a customer with a skirt longer than her body. It was nearly caught inside the shop, but 'Daisy' as the woman called herself, had tugged it free at the last moment.

Giles suppressed a grin, and looked meaningfully toward Anya.

What a bloody nag, his gaze said.

But hers was far away, on some other time, some other place.

"Anya?"

She startled, jerking and nearly running into a shelf and tipping it over. Anya caught herself at the last moment, regained her balance and steadied a wobbling vial.

"What?" She asked at last, turning to him with a slight flush spreading across her cheeks. "Sorry, I -"

"Anya." She sighed at his stern voice, and her bangs fluttered with the puff of air. Giles waited for her to explain her sudden melancholy, why her face had gone taut and pale.

"Do you think Buffy and Xander are having sex?"

Giles blinked, cleared his throat, and then blinked again.

"Buffy and Xander?" Giles shook his head. "I uh, I doubt it seriously Anya." He stopped talking and took a deep, fortifying breath, bending slightly at the knees to catch her eyes. "Would that bother you overmuch? You've said that you're over him."

Anya opened her mouth to answer, but the ringing of the phone interrupted her.

"I'll get that," she said in a rush, clearly relieved. She pivoted on her heel and walked away from him. Giles curled his thumbs into his pant's pockets and tucked his chin tiredly to his chest.

Anya turned the final set of lights off, nearly bouncing with energy as she walked over to Giles who was counting the register money and tallying up the day's cash flow. She nearly knocked him over when she bumped into his shoulder. A quarter fell out of his hand and rolled across the counter.

She smiled brightly when he sighed at her, breath heavy with irritation.

"I'm not tired," she complained. "And the store's closing. It's been a good day. We should do something."

She still smelled vaguely of lemons.

"I don't know. I AM tired, Anya."

"You're just saying that to get out of spending quality time with me," Anya accused, pointed a finger at his nose. Giles fought to keep his eyes from crossing. Her finger nail polish was clear, the nails blunt and round. She was such a paradox, he thought, so full of stunning contradictions. "You're willing to spend quality time with everyone else, so why not me?"

Giles looked at her for a long moment. What exactly did she mean by quality time? The type of time he would spend with Xander? Or, perhaps, the type of time he would spend with someone he was increasingly interested in?

"Well," he began after a moment of silence where she watched him with an eager expression teasing him with the possibilities. "I believe there is a place down the street where we might go for coffee. Sit and talk. I've been meaning to," he said, but was interrupted by her gasp of horror.

"Coffee? Giles! We may be old, but we're not THAT old," Anya exclaimed and then laughed at his confusion. He wasn't quite sure what she had meant by that last statement. Was there a compliment buried somewhere beneath the words? "Dancing, Giles." Anya said dryly. "You are going to take me dancing."

Giles' eyes widened.

"Dancing?" He asked, a little shocked. He hadn't been dancing in more than five years. Not out, at least. Anya was already moving eagerly for their coats. "Anya!" She tossed his jacket at him, grinning wickedly before making an exit that Marilyn Monroe would have died for. The door swung closed behind her, the bells jingling, and he was left with the jacket squeezed tightly between his fingers.

Dancing?

The club was a furnace of bodies sliding together, slick with sweat and alcohol. Giles and Anya sat in a dark corner, just outside the reach of the strobe lights that flashed over the tangled limbs, sparking the glitter on faces and the shiny satin of shirts. Anya was looking toward the dance floor, tapping her fingers along with the beat. She was somehow mysterious in the lighting. The club was thick with the stringent cigarette smoke, and it swirled around her hauntingly.

Her expression was a combination of the wistful and the excited.

The music was loud, and not very good, but the beat was okay. Giles tapped his foot quietly against the floor as he watched people lose their breath and keep on going, like they were dying to be let out of their skin. It said something about the quality of life today, he supposed, that no one could wait to escape from it. A woman caught his eye on the dance floor, winked at him and smiled broadly. Her hair was wildly curled, a fiery red, and long, silver earrings dangled and flashed at him from beneath the tangle. Giles blinked, and then winced when a shoe kicked him beneath the table.

"Ouch! Bleeding Christ!"

He glared at Anya where she sat, sipping her Long Island Iced Tea with an air of quiet dignity. A small smile curled up the edge of her lips, the only telling sign that it had been HER foot slamming into his shin. Giles reached down and rubbed his hand across his sore leg.

Anya turned her eyes toward him for just a moment, and there was something sly and female there. Then her gaze was facing the dancing floor again and she had turned her whole body away from her, crossing her legs in a slow motion meant to draw a man's attention. Giles grit his teeth, fingers clenching on his shin as she swung her leg deliberately from side to side, moving with the beat.

Women. You can't live with them; you can't torture them as well as they do you.

Wasn't that the story behind Adam and Eve? Never trust something that was as shiny as an apple and tasted so sweet.

God, but it would taste so sweet.

"So you wanted to talk to me about something?" Anya asked innocently, over the din of the music and interrupted Giles' obvious perusal of her thigh. He jerked his gaze up, fighting the natural flushing of his cheeks and leaned back in the booth coolly, dragging a finger along the stem of his wine glass. Anya's eyes flickered, but remained steady on his.

Not so unaffected then, not so cool and composed.

He knew what his look were saying: Is this a can of worms you want to open, Anya? Is this something you really think you can handle?

She turned toward him again, and her shirt tightened across her breasts with the motion. The move wasn't calculated, like the one before had been, the difference was obvious. Whatever had motivated her a moment ago, was now just a shaky ghost that he was already missing.

"I do," he answered finally, making no move to speak louder. Anya looked frustrated and leaned forward, turning her ear toward him and gesturing at it with her finger. She wore small jeweled earrings, he noted, classic and elegant. "I said," Giles moved closer, sliding to the edge of his seat and he could put his mouth close to her skin, to that tiny lobe of soft flesh. Lemon was again all that he could smell. "That I do have something to speak to you about. But it can wait for another time. Would you like another drink?"

Anya pulled back, and there was something bright in her eyes. It made his heat swell dangerously and Giles fought a cough down. It wasn't polite to choke on your own heart in company.

"Why Rupert," she teased, her chin tipped down companionably. "Are you trying to intoxicate me to take advantage and devour me?"

"Would it work?" Giles deadpanned and Anya laughed in delight, leaning back and looking at him like he was suddenly more than she'd known. It wasn't a bad way to be looked at, Giles thought, not a bad way at all. Anya shook her head, as if shaking off some thoughts, and then motioned to the waitress that was walking past looking rundown and a little pissed off. The waitress rolled her eyes and came to a stop at their booth, her pen tapping quick and rushed against her pad.

"What'll it be?" She asked, trying to smile at them. Anya grinned back, bright enough that the waitress blinked a few times before her smile became real. Maybe a little strained, but it was there, and it wasn't false.

This was Anya's gift. As much as she annoyed, she had the power to make anyone feel like they mattered even if in the long run, they really didn't. Giles just watched her for a moment, the way her hair teased the side of her face and the way her nose moved when she talked.

Odd, the things he noticed.

"Vodka, straight," Anya said, and then turned her gaze to Giles, who was about to interrupt and ask if that was wise. "He'll have the same." Giles mouth hung open for a minute, before he snapped it shut with a clink of his teeth and frowned sternly.

"Anya."

The waitress shook her head, jotting down the order. Behind her, the mass of human bodies paused for a moment as the music changed to something less techno and they worked to get back in sync with it.

How many people would be having sex tonight that weren't him?

"All right, sweetheart," the waitress said, tucking the pad into the waistband of her short, black skirt. "You just make sure you keep an eye on that glass."

The smile moved slowly off of Anya's face like a raindrop drying and she nodded at the waitress. They shared a look, it seemed. Female to female. And then the familiarity was gone, and the waitress was walking off, pushing her way through the crowd with her too-big heels and something like knowledge swinging with her hips.

"What was that about?" Giles asked, this time over the music. Anya blinked as though she were coming out of a spell and glanced back at Giles. She shrugged, shoulders up near her ears for a brief, endearing second.

"Just a little friendly advice," Anya explained. "Sometimes bad things happen in places like these. A woman has to be careful." Giles nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He had known that, but a part of him was saddened that she had to know it as well, no matter how old she claimed to be and actually was.

To be a woman, to go through this entire scene... it just didn't seem worth it somehow. He was glad to be here with her, just in case. Cave man or no, the idea that someone would slip something into her drink sickened him down deep where few things could touch. Darkness settled thick, like the dust of years between them.

If someone ever did that to her, he'd...

Their eyes met and Giles felt a quickening, this time deeper and it nearly stole his breath. He was thankful when she looked away, and became lost in the music again, seemingly satisfied with the quiet of his company.

A few moments later, the waitress came back, politely distant as she sat down two shot glasses onto their table. They clinked, glass on wood. Giles paid her and she left as silently as she had come. Anya picked up her glass and nodded for him to do the same. One, two, three, he chanted to himself and gulped it down the same time as she did.

It burned on its way down and filled his stomach with fire. And tasted BAD. It seemed Americans still hadn't learned a thing about liquor since he'd been gone.

Anya gave a little cough, and pressed a hand to her chest, just above her breasts.

"Wow," she laughed, her voice a little breathy and eyes watering. "Been a while since I drank vodka. It used to go down like silk." Giles smiled and set the shot glass back onto the table. Settling down, he thought. She was getting soft.

Anya looked toward the dance floor, lips flattening, and then back at him again. A bad feeling grew in Giles' stomach as she continued to look at him as though he were a horse she was bidding upon. "Let's dance," she said abruptly, in that strange, tightly laced way she had of speaking.

Oh. God. No.

Anything, but that.

"Absolutely not," he said firmly, shaking his head. "I may have come here, but I have no intention of going out THERE! It's pure chaos." He tossed a hand toward the dance floor in emphasis. People were stumbling around drunkenly, having the time of their life while destroying a few brain cells in the process.

"What?" She frowned, nose wrinkling. And then she nodded, a glittering smile lighting up her eyes. "You can't dance."

"I do believe I can," Giles replied grimly, staring hard at the scratched up table. Kate Loves Kenny, the wood divined. 'For how long?' Giles wondered. "I can dance quite well, thank you. I'm simply not experiencing the urge at this moment."

Anya pouted, a small frown forming between her eyebrows.

"Giiiiles," she drawled, "I'm getting bored. Don't be a stuffy, tight-ass. It's fun to sit and drink with you, sure, but I came here to dance. And I'm going to dance with YOU."

There was this way she had about her, of getting any damn thing she wanted. Maybe the effect was only on him, but effective it certainly was. He looked toward the dance floor, trying desperately to keep his resolve. When he looked back at her, the taut, nearly needy expression on her face knocked that resolve to dust.

Vampires beware, he thought darkly. She'd only have to look at you.

Resigned, he slid from the booth and stood with his hand in the air, palm up. There was something about the way he held it there, waiting, that hurt to think of. It wasn't an area of thought he was about to approach any time soon.

A smile lit her face again, and she placed her own palm in his, strangely hesitant as she did so. Giles felt something simply click inside of him as he wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her to her feet. The skirt pressed against the curve of her thighs with her momentum and her hair tipped beautifully and the lights. He turned his back on her so his face wouldn't reveal him, and led her out onto the dance floor.

The music was still loud. It was still achingly bad, but when he finally found a hole in the pile of dancing, crazy people, he slid them into it and pulled her close enough to feel her breath on his neck and just barely the brush of her breasts against his chest.

Giles found he was masochistic that way.

And then he danced. And no, he wasn't the best dancer in the world, but neither was he the worst. Giles had learned to fight early in his years as a young man and the techniques he'd been required to master had given him the ability to move with ease.

She danced with him, like something sinuous and serious about getting to hell fast. The music pumped and he could understand its appeal when her hips thrust along with the fast beat, stunning him when he could feel, in detail, the curve of her pelvis against his thigh. His hands gripped her lower back, where the shirt was beginning to stick against her skin as she started to sweat from exertion. They gyrated to the song's rhythm.

Oh he knew it was bad, to do this, to push the level of their intimacy up a notch. Friends did not dance like this, unless they were friends who kissed. And they had never really been friends.

Her hair brushed against his cheek as they moved against each other and her arms came up around his shoulders, locked there by her fisted hands. She was a pair of handcuffs snapping together at her wrists. Her cheek pressed near to his, skin radiating heat and the scent of lemons began to overwhelm him. Bitter. Sweet. Something you'd like to suck on for a long time, but was never sure if you had enough strength to handle it.

Anya's thighs slid against his, long and hot through the fabric of his pants. Giles sucked in his breath when his pelvis brushed against her stomach.

This wasn't exactly proper.

Anya rolled her body against him, her torso leaning back and away from him, her neck gleaming white under the surrealistic lighting. Her head tipped back and he nearly fell with her as she swung up and around in an arching half circle, attaching back onto his body like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

He was so sick of being proper. And it had been so long, wasn't he entitled to something more than then the self-imposed solitude he'd inflicted upon himself?

Giles gripped her lower back tighter, kept her body flush as he met her eyes. Her face was a vivid flash of red, a small bead of sweat hung suspended above her lips. Her tongue swiped out to catch it, and the action stung his gut, made it twist dangerously as she began to move again, while their gazes remained locked together.

The music went on and on, a never-ending stream of harsh drumming and electronically generated beats mixed together in a sound that was nearly ugly, but all about sex. Then again, sex wasn't always pretty.

The twist of limbs and flailing bodies didn't matter anymore. Giles barely noticed them. His attention was on her; on the way she closed her eyes and fit so snugly against him. Everything inside of him was burning, dying for more contact. When she shook her hips again, the lure of it was irresistible. He bent down at the knees and hitched their hips together in a nearly brutal meeting. She paused, startled mid-dance. Her eyelashes fluttered open, and she looked at him through hazy, shocked eyes.

Giles bit the inside of his bottom lips and moved against her again, dragging his hands down until they cupped her hips and moved them for her. Her lashes fluttered again, and her fingers uncurled to dig into the back of his neck. Anya's lips parted, and then she began to move on her own, dragging her body against him.

Her breasts pressed into his chest firmly and Giles' nostrils flared. Something violent rose up within him, an urge to drag her out of the club and push her against something hard, push INTO her hard. Instead, he just gripped her hips firmly and lost himself to the feel of her body moving, dancing, and teasing him into an insane state of desire.

Insane, because nothing would ever come of it and he was about to DIE with that knowledge.

They didn't surface for a long time, but when they did, it was Anya that pulled away. Giles found himself gasping, his hands reaching out to drag her back into the place he had found she fit perfectly. Who cared if they were arrested? Anya laughed wildly and held both palms up as she stepped back, breathing harshly through her mouth.

Giles grimaced, and dropped his grasping fingers. He became aware of where they were, aware that they had practically been participating in heavy foreplay on the dance floor. He became aware of WHO they were.

HE cared if they were arrested.

"I... Anya, I have to apologize," he stuttered out, struggling for words to make up for the fact that he'd been pawing at her like a pubescent teenager with hormone problems. How did one deal with this situation?

If it were anyone else, he'd ask her to go home with him. But she wasn't anyone else, and he wasn't about to do that. What was it they said about good intentions?

"No," she yelled over the music, interrupting him. "I'm just thirsty!"

Giles stopped fidgeting, blinked, and then smiled.

"I see. Well then, shall we?" He offered her his arm and she put hers through it. Elbow hooked around each other's, they walked back to the bar. It was a clumsy walk, because her elbow kept knocking against his ribs, but after the initial pain of contact, he decided it was worth it.

Anya slipped out of his grip half way there to go to the bathroom. She hurried, as though her bladder was suddenly Niagara Falls. Giles shook his head and ordered another round of Vodka from the bartender, who was more than a little gay and seemed to pay a particular interest to him.

Well, Giles thought with wry amusement, tonight was certainly his night.

Anya laughed somewhere near his shoulder, shoving a few drunk men out of her way to get to his side. He wondered if she was laughing at him, but didn't really mind either way. He was having fun, and now that he was, he realized that it didn't happen NEARLY enough.

They both drank at the same time again, and slammed their glassed back down on the counter. Anya didn't cough this time, just grimaced a little and tipped her head to the side, looking at him through a curtain of soft hair that he found himself envying for the lips they were touching.

Her eyes were slits that watched him move close to her. Giles reached out and very gently, plucked the chunk hair out of her face. Anya's eyes widened at the very gentle gesture from him in a public place. Strange, considering what they had been doing on the dance floor, that she would suddenly seem nervous.

Giles stepped back, smiling tightly.

"Another round," he told the bartender who had been watching them with a sad, resigned expression on his young, handsome face. Another round, Giles thought, he just might need it. Anya scooted closer to his side, and their shoulders touched. Lightly so, but he found himself focusing on that small contact like his body was breathing from wherever she touched.

The music didn't seem to matter, was just a hollow noise that filtered through a big box that he didn't care about. Which was saying something; because music was something he was a very picky connoisseur of.

Deep inside, he began to grow uneasy. As though someone had pressed a button and a warning sign flashed before his eyes. Giles shook it off, and dragged her back out toward the dance floor, away from the short blonde man who had slowly been working his way toward her side.

The music this time, was so slow he wasn't sure if they should even be moving. But she moved close to him and wrapped her hands around his neck. Very decisive, she was. Giles brought his arms low and tried to hold her neatly and not as dangerously as he had before.

The tingling moved through his veins, as seductive as tall glass of water during the hottest hours of California, when the sun was high and the fan was on low.

Her skin was hot, like that sun, but not nearly as dry. The shirt clung to her in all the right places, like a snake hugging its prey. His eyes shifted over her, in constant movement like he was hungry, but he couldn't be. The lights moved over them slowly, forcing everyone down a notch and into that deep place where the heart could ache with just a note from the guitar.

Giles shifted her closer, unable to stop himself and felt her cheek burning his shoulder through the material of his shirt. It singed him, left a mark he worried wasn't going away any time soon when his stomach began throbbing and his head spun. Giles swallowed and turned his head to the side, pressed his cheek into her hair and wished for...

Something he shouldn't wish for.

The world was a tilt-n-whirl ride, spinning before them as they stumbled out the door. It knocked against the cement wall with all the power of a gunshot. He wondered briefly who was wounded. The thought flitted out, vague.

Anya was giggling, clinging to his side and a gust of cool air nearly knocked them both over. It lifted up the edge of her skirt, just the tip, and she shivered. Her knee caps wobbled he noticed as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder to warm her, nearly knocking them both over once more. The sound of her laughter was making him drunk, or it could be the amounts of liquor they'd consumed in between bouts of dancing.

He let go of her to look for the car.

Where the HELL was the car?

Giles shook his head and started when he felt Anya's small fingers wrap around his own. He looked down at her softly and she nodded toward the direction of the car. Giles sighed, relieved.

They managed to get to the car without falling to the ground and stood there, staring at the doors like they were something foreign and unrecognizable.

"Hmm," Giles hummed, scratching his head. "I don't think I can drive."

Anya nodded and giggled again, squeezing his waist before slipping out of his arms. He protested, but she stopped him by raising her hand as though asking for something. Giles raised his eyebrows in return, his own question.

"Give me the keys," she slurred, her pink tongue darting out as though her lips were unbearably dry.

Giles shook his head, and then gripped his skull when the world tilted off kilter.

He HATED when the world did that.

"No," he managed, swaying a little on his feet. The parking lot tipped before his eyes and he saw exhaust pumping from the pipe of a car as it passed them, its lights blinding and cruel. "You're drunk! You can't drive in your con- your con- you can't drive."

Anya looked at him oddly before smiling wildly, teeth flashing as she grabbed onto him tightly. There was something beautiful and crazy in her eyes. Giles grinned foolishly, beyond delighted, then frowned when he felt her fingers slipping masterfully into his jacket pocket just as she slithered away from him again.

"An-ya!"

"What?" She pouted, unlocking the back door. Giles looked on in confusion. He really didn't see how she could drive from the back seat. "I'm not gonna drive, silly." Anya explained when she had taken a seat and was staring up at him like he should be doing something. Something IMPORTANT.

For the life of him, he couldn't think what that could possibly be. But god, her legs were awfully pretty weren't they? It might be nice to just reach out and touch them, to rest his hand on that soft patch of skin above her knee. He still wasn't over the fact that her kneecaps wobbled and the sweet feeling that rose in him at seeing it.

"No?" He responded dumbly, because his lips felt heavy and he was gripping onto the door, letting it hold him up.

"No," she said firmly and grabbed onto his hand, pulling him into the back seat with her. Down on top of her in fact. He tumbled in with her, banging his shin on the bottom of the car. "Oh!" He grunted, staring down at her groggily. Her cheeks were flushed red with color, heavy flags painted across her skin and he could feel her knees parting beneath his own.

It was an incredible feeling, the type that would drag you to ground to feel again and again. Giles fell into the cradle of her thighs, and gasped as their bodies collided. Hard against soft against everything he hadn't let himself imagine.

So this was her idea of a good time, he thought dimly, fascinated by the shape and color of her ear. It certainly wasn't boring.

He heard her make a sound, something soft that drifted from her throat and out of her mouth. It burned the side of his face, where his cheek was pressed up against hers.

Hot, was all he could think, hot.

It was like the feeling of water evaporating from your skin, on a summer day at the beach, when there was nothing to do but FEEL your flesh heat and dry.

Giles' feet hung out the door, but he couldn't feel the chill of the night, too caught up in the enormity of being on top of Anya. Blinking fast, he lifted his torso up and dug a space for his elbow between her arm and her side. Her eyes were wide open and on his, a type of innocence but not quite and her mouth sat loose on her face. It was as tempting as the devil's big fingers in the middle of a rainstorm.

'Come inside,' they whispered. 'I'll keep you dry.'

A kiss would change everything.

He remembered that it hadn't before, but knew that now it would, as swift as a ghost moving through the room can make someone scream, kissing her would be his downfall.

Giles wasn't completely sure he cared.

A smile drifted across those lips and Giles lost it, swooped down and kissed her like a maddened creature, burning a trail inside of her mouth with his tongue and teeth. She lashed out with her lips, pushing his tongue away so that she could put her own into his mouth. Giles gave a whimper, a sound he had never before heard from his own throat.

The kiss was hard, un-pretty, and somehow held the taste of danger. Giles was seduced by it, fell in head first, toward the waves her tongue created in his mouth, in his stomach as he pushed her down into the seat and gave a convulsive thrust of his hips. Sweetheart, he wanted to call her. Luv.

Too busy though, and he never called anyone Luv.

She moved beneath him, lithe and yellow in the slant of the streetlight on her face, obscured by the shadow of the bucket seats at their sides. The inside of her knees pressed tightly against the flesh of his thighs, dug in hard enough to bruise, and her panting breaths were washing down his throat, puffing from his own nostrils.

Giles couldn't stop breathing, air stabbed through his lungs, up and out.

Stop breathing, he ordered himself. If he breathed, he couldn't go on kissing her.

His elbow banged against hers, and it set off a singing sensation in his arm. It just added another layer to his already sizzling nerves. His shoe fell off, landed on the pavement outside the door. His head was whirling as he continued to kiss her and the fingers of his free hand massaged her side, hungry for her skin.

If he listened hard enough, he would hear the sound of yelling as someone was thrown from the club, but he wasn't listening to anything beyond her heart beating as he pulled away from her mouth and buried his face in the skin between her shirt and her chin.

They should stop, but he couldn't stop drinking her in. He couldn't!

She gave a little moan and arched into his fingers, breathing harshly through her nostrils. Giles kept his eyes open as she took his glasses off, kissed the bridge of his nose sloppily and ran her fingers through his hair. His glasses fell onto the back of his neck, chilly metal rims, and then off to the side somewhere. Anya sighed heavily, as though she were letting loose something particularly heavy inside her heart, and kissed him again, as though it were the last time she'd ever kiss anyone.

He wondered how many she'd kissed, than shook the thought off. There was a particular someone he didn't care to let invade his brain at the moment.

She was kissing him NOW.

Giles felt his shoulders tighten when she reached down and wrapped her fingers around his hand, pulling it up and setting it atop her left breast. He bit his bottom lip, watching her closely as he palmed and molded the heavy flesh, so warm even beneath the layers of her shirt and bra.

Something electric moved through the air, like the sky before a storm. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, angry and ready for something more than touching. But god, it felt so good to touch and he wasn't ready to STOP.

Holding his breath, watching her eyes flutter closed; Giles slid his hand up beneath her shirt, slipped his fingers under and past the wire of her bra. He touched the bare skin of her breast with just his fingertips.

She smiled and wiggled against him in delightful, stirring ways.

Gaining confidence, he shifted on top of her, letting her take more of his weight as he cradled her breast fully, felt the nipple harden against the center of his palm. He cupped her weight, tested its heaviness and bent down again, this time to kiss her just beneath the chin.

She gave another one of those sighs, this one sweeter, edged with her arousal.

He laughed, raucously, and licked a trail down the long column of her throat. The throat that had taunted him out on that damn dance floor, the one that was always so seductive without its owner even realizing the power she held... over him.

Sweat waited in the shallow grooves of her collarbone and he licked it away.

Her torso jerked like he'd plucked a viscous string. So he licked her again and she twitched a little more, this time with her hips, creating a lovely rhythm that he immediately felt himself responding to. Urgently, like this wasn't the first time he'd thought about it.

"Giles!" Anya growled, grabbing his attention by sinking her nails into his scalp and dragging him away from her sweet skin. He tried to shake off her grip, too hungry to stop now, but she held on tightly, forcing his gaze to hers. "Just do it," she whispered with lust moving behind her eyes. "Just fuck me."

Giles shuddered, his nostrils flaring out as something skipped wildly in his stomach, a flare of heat shooting toward his groin.

And as he watched in amazement, her lips curled back and her small hands pushed on his chest. Shakily, Giles got to his knees, bending his head in an uncomfortable position so he wouldn't bump his head on the car ceiling. "Close the door," she told him and Giles chest puffed out at the suggestion he read in her eyes. Quickly, expertly, he straddled her and moved farther into the car. Then he turned and slammed the door shut.

The noise rang, hollow metal, like a lock snapping into place.

Silently, he faced her again, waiting.

They should stop, but he couldn't stop aching for her. He couldn't!

Anya licked her lips, lips that he had bitten and savaged with his own in such an vital possessiveness that he now felt astounded and not quite drunk, more lost in the storm brewing in her eyes. The light fell across her, like blinds that moved when she whispered, shifted, moaned. Her tiny, capable fingers reached out and plucked at the button of his suit pants.

She was impatient, ungentle. That said something, but he closed his ears against it. There was no need to hear when she felt so good.

Giles' hips jerked forward as her knuckles brushed his erection, standing out in sharp relief against the fabric. She grunted something that he couldn't hear and then tugged his zipper down. He swallowed and shut his eyes as she slipped her hands inside the part in the cloth and ran her palms over the side of his hips, forcing his pants and underwear down over his arse. She cupped his rear briefly before her fingers slid away from him again.

His eyes opened to slits when he heard rustling. Anya had lifted her legs and bent them against her body. The skirt slipped back, toward her stomach, revealing more skin than he thought he could take sanely. Naked, he thought, he would see her naked. A throbbing, like an inexperienced drummer setting up a chaotic rhythm, built in his gut. Her hands were beneath her skirt and she was tugging her panties up her thighs. Giles began to sweat; it dripped down the back of his neck from his hair.

Fire burned and it burned IN him.

The panties were a scrap of purple lace and for a severe moment, Giles wondered if he were simply fantasizing. If he had somehow stumbled into a vivid dream that he would spend months obsessing about and picking apart. Oh, he would smile, but ache for it when she walked into the room. And then Anya lifted her legs higher and the panties came off one leg, fell to her ankle and away as she spread her knees open in a nearly obscene manner.

It was all the more sexual, for the fact that she wanted him to see her. Something base moved through the moment, as elemental and old as meat being chewed off of a bone. Torn, ripped away until the white, hard skeleton was revealed.

Her scent, beyond lemons now, deeper, filled his nostrils.

This was not a dream. It was a gift.

They should stop, but he couldn't stop looking at her. He couldn't!

Giles didn't know what to do with his hands. He felt clumsy, like an oaf offered the taste of the sweetest wine, the most fragile, tender flower. And the petals peeked out at him while she waited, moist and ready for him.

Him, he thought. And then, his.

Her words echoed, in a fingerprinted part of his brain: Just do it. Just fuck me.

He dragged his gaze away from between her thighs and met her eyes.

They were deep, unreadable, and somewhat frightening.

He knew -- god, he KNEW this was wrong. But that wasn't going to stop him, he realized as he leaned forward over her and spread her with his fingers, testing her wetness. She arched back, a soft moan escaping her lips as her eyes slammed closed. The light left her face, blocked by his shadow, blotted out.

He took it away.

Her neck taunted him again, ivory, so Giles leaned against her and bit it, which caused her to squeal and then laugh, smacking lightly at his shoulders.

Laugh!

Oh Jesus, he loved that laugh. It was rich, full, deep throated, and sexy. A man could spend his entire life searching for a laugh like that. And here it was, indeed half a lifetime in, tempting him past control, driving him crazy.

Her panties had been purple, he thought. And now they were brushing against his ankles as he contorted above her, trying to get comfortable, but beyond needing anything except her in this strange, surreal moment.

Liquid, he thought, liquid.

His finger slid inside of her, and he had to grit his teeth against the hot gasp she made as he pushed his finger deeper, pressing inside of her. He stretched the channel, gauging her reaction while he tried to check himself. It was getting too hard, his erection brushed the back of her knee and she was breathing as though locked in a small room without any air. In fits of pleasure, she threw her head to the side. Who was she, he wondered?

Who was she really, because he wasn't sure anyone had ever known.

They should stop, but he couldn't stop touching her. He couldn't!

"Do it," she ordered, seconds later as she wriggled free from his touch, with her eyes ablaze and her hands slipping between them to grip his penis. Giles flinched, ground his teeth together and let himself be pulled further into the cradle of her thighs. "I can't wait anymore."

"God," he heard himself say, pray, growl. "I'm sorry -- I can't either, I..."

"Shh," she hushed, and fit him inside of her.

Click; there was that goddamn click!

Her panties had been purple---

Her cheeks had been red---

Her skin had been ivory---

Broken, completely drunk on her, he gave in and lunged.

Clack, clack, clack.

Giles woke to an annoying sound, like someone snapping a pencil next to his ear. Immediately, he became aware that he had an armful of a warm, soft body and a backache the size of a full moon. Blinking his eyes open, he stared blearily around him. He was in the back seat of a car, that much was clear.

And his mouth tasted like the worse side of a drinking binge.

Clack, clack, clack.

Frowning, Giles stretched his neck to the side and looked for a face to go with a body. He could make out her shape indistinctly in the shadows, and then the beam of light fell over her face.

Anya.

Giles' heart jumped, from his chest to his stomach and up again as the whole night came rushing back to him. It swarmed into his head, bats flapping and telling him what they had done. His head began to ache as he moved, a serious throbbing bent on driving him insane with every beat of his heart.

Clack, clack, clack!

What WAS that sound? Giles craned his head around; looked toward the window where it was wet with a rain he hadn't noticed falling. An object he recognized as a flashlight was tapping impatiently against the window. Beyond it was a stomach and a chest covered in stiff, blue cloth.

On the chest, there was a nice, shiny badge.

Oh god, no! This just put a nice little ribbon on the entire evening. At least he'd had the sense of mind after having sex with Anya to pull up and button his pants.

Anya.

She slept soundly beside him, curled beneath his arm as though she were using him for a cover. Not that she really had much choice in the matter with small, crowded confines of the car. His legs were scrunched up until he was nearly in a fetal position and his arse was hanging off the side of the seat.

Clack, clack, clack!

All right, already!

Groaning, Giles dragged himself free from her arms even as her fingers clutched at him and she grumbled bad naturedly. He reached over and gripped the cold handle, rolling down the window. The beam of the flashlight moved in and shone on his face. Giles couldn't see the officer's face, the light blinding him beyond his natural sight impediment.

"Having fun, sir?" The officer asked as he ducked down to get a good look at just what was going on. "I was expecting teenagers."

"Yes, well," Giles cleared this throat. "As you can see, we're not that and we'll just be on our way."

"Hmm," the officer tapped his flashlight in his hand. Drops of rain dripped down the front of his uniform. "What exactly are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Giles, though he'd never admit it, had been in more situations like this than he cared to count. He thought quickly, and figured lies were best mixed in with the truth.

"We were in the club," he explained, "and we had a little too much to drink, so when we came outside to find the car, we realized we couldn't drive home---so we figured we'd sleep some of it off before we tried."

Giles smiled after the little speech of inebriated responsibility and hoped it looked sincere. The officer, clean-shaven, looking young himself nodded after a long moment and tapped the hood of the car.

"Well, go on then, and next time just call a cab."

"I'll remember that," Giles said, holding in the breath of relief until the kid had walked away, swinging his flashlight like a baton. "Brat." Shaking his head, he rolled the window back up, accidentally jarring Anya's shoulder with his elbow.

She was sleeping the sleep of the dead, well the REALLY dead anyway.

Hand shaking, he reached out and ran his finger gently along the curve of her face. Anya sighed and shifted in her sleep, turning toward him and blinking hazily up into his face. A small, feline smile curled her mouth.

Of course that simple touch would wake her when roughness wouldn't. That said something about what she responded to. Then he realized that he was trying to know more of her than she'd given him permission to and stopped his thoughts in their tracks.

"Hello," she murmured. Giles smiled in return, softly as he pulled his hand away. "What time is it?" She asked.

Giles glanced down at the watch on his wrist, moved into the glow of the streetlight and tried to read it. With a wry grimace on his face, he turned his wrist in her direction. She nodded and gripped it, bringing it close to her face. Giles felt her breath feather over the back of his hand, and a shudder worked up his gut that he fought to suppress.

"Ugh," she grunted as she pushed his hand away and fought to sit up. She grabbed the side of her head and closed her eyes for a minute, steadying herself. Giles wanted to help her, but wasn't sure she would welcome his touch. After all, they hadn't exactly played cribbage hours ago. "It's nearly five in the morning," she told him after a moment of holding her temples between her palms.

"Yes," he replied, as if she had asked a question. Glancing out the wet windshield, he saw that the sky was still dark, but beginning to lighten by minute shades. Only this morning, he'd known something important was coming by the sunrise, felt the rise of a warning in his chest.

He wanted her now. Strongly.

When he turned back at Anya, he saw that she had been watching his profile closely, with intense concentration. His lips turned up slightly, but she looked away quickly, down at her hands, which were gripping her kneecaps as though they'd fall off if she didn't hold them on.

Giles knew that for some obscure reason, he would always remember that her knees wobbled when she was cold.

"Do you regret it?" Giles asked, touching her hand briefly before pulling away to sit on the opposite side of the seat. They were slick, the seats, with rain that had fallen in through the open window. She raised her gaze, but her eyes were too thick to read, though he tried.

She reminded him of a woman he'd known as a twenty-year-old boy. A woman, who had always said everything she meant, even if it broke someone's heart and that heart, had been his. Giles tried to force air through his lungs as he waited for her response.

First loves were always the worst. He wondered briefly about the third.

"No. No, Giles, I don't regret it," Anya said this and nothing more.

Giles nodded and after grabbing his glasses from the floor, reached for the handle and opened the heavy car door and stepping out into the cool air. He realized he was only wearing one shoe when he stepped into a puddle with his cotton-covered foot. The splash and the seeping, cold wetness made him look down.

Staring into the puddle, at his own reflection, his shoulders slumped.

"Great," he muttered. "Wonderful."

The ride to her house was uncomfortable, like there was a tree branch sticking through the roof of a house, and no one could miss it but they weren't allowed to talk about it. Giles cleared his throat several time, with the intention of saying something, but her eyes would nervously flit in his direction and he found himself without words after all.

He turned on the music, to something low, thick, and heavy.

The blues, he thought, how appropriate.

Still, it hummed as merely an accompaniment to Anya.

The sound of her clothes rustling against her skin was excruciating. It was as though having sex with her had turned on a sensor in his body, and now he was attuned to every time her thighs brushed together or she made a little sound in her throat. Aware that her panties sat behind his seat, aware that if he left them there, she wasn't going to grab them, far too embarrassed, and he'd get to keep them.

There was something strange and urgent inside of him that wanted to. It was a dark part that he didn't want to explore. He wasn't the type to keep souvenirs.

He should have stopped, he thought as the car came to a stop outside her apartment building, he should have pulled down her skirt until he could no longer see and left it at that.

If Xander ever found out.... Giles blinked, and turned toward Anya who was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her nails on her forearms. She stared straight ahead, making no motion to get out. By the way her lips moved, barely noticeable, every few seconds, he could tell she wanted to say something to him.

If Xander ever found out, Giles would never be forgiven.

"Anya," Giles started, but she turned quickly to look at him, her hair flashing over her face as she reached down and fumbled as she tried to unlatch her seat belt. Giles stopped her hands with his own. His palm swallowed her fingers. "Please?"

Her eyes turned up toward his at the plea, and a breath of air left her that made her bottom lip flutter. Giles found his gaze drawn there, irresistibly hooked by how she tasted, even beneath the vodka and salt.

"Would you like to come in for coffee?" She asked, when he remained silent. Giles watched her lips move and felt himself stir before he could help it. Pulling back, taking his hand away, Giles nodded. "You had wanted some earlier," she explained, as if she must, as if he would think she had some other motive.

Behind her, the building framed her. From the ceiling of the porch, a flowerpot hung, waving gently in the breeze. A single drop of water fell, glinting with coming light.

Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was more than that.

"Anya - Okay." Giles said, placating her. She bit her lip and released her seat belt with a hiss of fabric against rubber and turned to open her door. He watched her get out and slam the door behind her, walking quickly toward the building's front steps. Then he got out as well, and locked the doors behind him, hoping that the cold metal could cool the heat in his head.

Over the hood, he watched her walk away, her shoulders so straight and sharp he began to worry that someday she would leave him bleeding.

Then he followed her, down the walk and up the stairs. Through the door and up yet more stairs. Hallways were long and somehow nagging.

'Don't you do it,' they said in an angry voice. 'You know what's going to happen!'

Inside her apartment, he stood uncomfortably by the door with his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks, standing on the balls of his feet. He hadn't been here more than a few times, and never for long. Oddly, he felt like he was an intruder inside Anya's space.

And there WAS a great deal of space, wasn't there?

Just miles of carpet, and small pieces of furniture placed randomly on top of it. That said something about the woman itself, Giles realized. She wasn't about surface; everything she had was on the inside.

Under lock and key.

He could hear her in the kitchen and took a few steps further into her apartment, like he was going deeper in a pool of water, testing the temperature, and peeked around the corner.

The kitchen was light blue and white, a checkered maze where he had a feeling she didn't spend much time by the fast food take-out boxes shoved into the rubbish pale.

Anya was at the counter, lit by the bright fluorescent lights, pouring water into a percolator. Her back was to him, and he could see the tension in how tightly she held onto the coffee pot. Her knuckles were white, and the bones stood out starkly against the skin surrounding it.

Giles took a deep breath, the type that burned your throat on the way up, and stepped through the archway, forcing himself closer to her. It was as though something was repelling him, saying: stop, stop, stop.

Because they were never going to do it again, right?

Think of Xander, he told himself. Think of Anya and the blooming friendship you might have already destroyed. Think of anything but how much you want her.

Anya turned when she had flicked the 'on' button to the kitchen appliance and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him standing behind her, somehow dark in the bright kitchen. He saw the way her mouth pulled back and she sucked in air, like she would have screamed, if it hadn't caught in her throat.

The window was open, just a crack, and it tipped up the curtains in a way similar to that of a woman's slip when it clung to her tweed skirt. Seductive, eerie, like a movie made to be in color but meant to be black and white.

"Giles!" Anya reprimanded, thrusting her hands down over her hips. "Don't do that!"

Don't, it was the word that broke him. Because he couldn't NOT kiss her.

That was as far as she got before he grabbed the side of her face with both hands and dragged her mouth up to his. He felt her stumble and fall against him, her breasts crushed against his chest as he pulled her closer and held her tight enough to break her in two.

As long as she'd been alive, she was fragile now, human.

He forced himself to remember that, and loosened his grip in increments that he could stand, until he was holding her gently while kissing her like she was a glass to drink from and it was OKAY to kiss her.

It wasn't, but she didn't seemed to mind. Her lips were just as desperately hungry, her hands were just as forceful, and when he began tugging her clothes off, she nodded her head sharply enough to snap her teeth together. Her hands worked on the buttons of his shirt and slid it off with the ease of experience.

The percolator hummed, spit, and the smell of coffee filled the room.

He wasn't drunk now; everything in him was harshly awake that it hurt.

A twinge went off in his stomach, but that was just silly. They didn't come to each other untouched and there was no reason for his jealousy of anyone that had ever laid so much as a single finger on her. Giles kicked off his shoes, the wet one made a squishing sound when it landed somewhere far off, and she began unsnapping his fly.

Cool air brushed over his skin, and it rose up to her touch like an orphan begging for sustenance. He needed her. The realization was so sudden and so terrifying after how relationships had always been for him, that he found himself as off balance as he had been as a drunken fool.

Anya laughed outrageously as they fell to the floor when he tripped over himself while taking his sock off.

"Smooth move," she said, grinning.

"Ah, yes, it is at that. The sock didn't beat me, you see. It's in your living room somewhere." Giles wiggled his toes for emphasis, and Anya giggled in her throat, grinning so wide that he had to blink in order to clear the sudden dizziness from his head.

Again.

He kissed the smile on her face and wrapped his arms around her rib cage, sliding his hands beneath her, tugging her body into his and looking directly into her eyes as he teased her mouth with his own.

Eyes that told the story of a time before time meant anything.

Tongue on tongue, it was hard to breathe.

The rug on the floor dug into his bare knees as he pushed slowly inside of her, and he worried for the tender skin on her back, but tried to protect her by lifting her body clear off the ground, while thrusting steadily and placing a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose.

Foreplay, god they needed some of it, but it was so hard to wait.

She didn't seem to mind.

It was much more like making love than he had intended it to be. How could one make love on the floor? It hadn't seemed possible, but here he was, doing just that.

Anya's eyes drifted close, her head arched back, and her hair brushed over the carpet. He felt flush, heavy, and too full. Suddenly, he knew what it was to drown. It wasn't a safe feeling; it was like falling into a well and still thirsting for more.

Always more, but there was no way to ask for more than a romp in bed.

After all, it wasn't like they were in love. Really.

Yes, drowning. That was all. Because of passion, pleasure, and loneliness.

He gave himself over to the relief in her sex and couldn't for the life of him figure out how he was supposed to breathe and want her at the same time. It was a contradiction, it seemed, because now he COULDN'T breathe and needed to.

God, the carpet was rough, and it burned his skin when he pressed his face down into it to muffle his shout, lost in the sensation of having Anya wrapped around him. Soft. Hot. Slick, and so good he knew it was better to burn than gain wings.

'What the hell is going on?' He asked himself. And there was no answer in sight, nothing beyond the pale skin of her cheek as he found himself brushing his nose against it and inhaling her in the way of lovers.

Giles glanced up when the bell over the door jingled. It was an annoying, pans-in-the-morning-that-your-mother-banged-together sound, for an aching head. And of course, the sun was shining winningly, laughing at his hangover.

All and all, he hated his life with a heated passion that astounded him.

Anya was nervous and twitchy in a way that made him wish he hadn't laid a hand on her. And in another, completely opposite way, made him wish he'd laid his hand on her more often. Maybe she would have been used to it, and he wouldn't feel so eager to just have her look at him like she had the night before, BEFORE the night before, actually.

Like there was something, a maybe something.

The light shone in his eyes and for a moment, he was unable to see who entered. They were just shadows shaped like small humans, stepping in through the door. And then the one in front took another step, and the light moved behind her, blocked by her body and face.

Buffy. Her hair was growing long again, but she kept it trimmed neatly at her shoulders. She seemed to have something against letting it get any further down. Willow was behind her, holding a bag on her shoulder and glowing pale and red in the sunshine. Willow always glowed, no matter how hard-worn she was. Giles felt a blur of pride rush through him before he could shake it off.

They smiled at him, wearing similar, fall-accented outfits. Buffy must have dragged Willow shopping again. For some reason, the Slayer was dead set on bringing their friendship back to where it had been years ago. It wasn't a bad thing, just a little obvious and persistent.

Willow, herself, looked a little run down, but other wise she seemed to be well on her way to recovery, if not getting over the death of her lover. Which was something he could relate to. One never fully recovered from that type of loss. Wiping the memory of Jenny from his eyes, Giles slipped his glasses off and rubbed at his face.

The door closed with a snap behind Willow, and the red head flinched a little, startling enough that her shoulders jerked before she could help it. That was another thing, he thought as he put his glasses back on. The world seemed like it terrified her. The physical power of it, she had once confided to him, she understood just what it was all about now.

Giles sighed, wished she saw what he did when he looked at her. The strength, the power that was GOOD. Hope was a tricky thing; it popped up in the oddest times. And it could be crueler than having no hope at all.

Giles returned their smiles briefly, before closing the cash register drawer and strolling casually past Anya, who sat at the table taking a break, reading an old book and trying to pretend he wasn't there, to welcome two of his favorite girls.

Two. There were more than two. No, there were four. And it wasn't Dawn that was haunting him with her silence. Anya sat quietly at the table, watching them as Buffy gave Giles a hung, and Willow stood apart, tapping her fingers on her thighs. She chewed on her lip, looking around.

This Willow couldn't stay in one place for long.

So many Willows, Giles thought sadly, so many faces.

But even though it concerned him, it wasn't the strongest thing on his mind. No, but he wished it was. He could feel Anya's gaze like a physical touch that wasn't gentle or careful. It smacked him upside the head in a way Anya might literally do if he pressed the right buttons. Giles wanted to glance back at her, but figured that might be too obvious.

Everything seemed too obvious now, like he was a guilty lecher who had stolen the girl from her innocent bed. From someone else that she belonged to. But she was far from innocent, if the way she had ridden him was any indication.

"Hey, Giles," Buffy greeted happily, the hug nearly squeezing all the air from his chest. Oh god, he hoped she wouldn't squeeze his stomach too hard, or she might be in for a very unpleasant surprise in the form of him vomiting all over that new outfit. You'd think by know that Buffy would know when she was over-using her strength, but it wasn't exactly her strongest point when it came to being a Slayer.

"Hello Buffy," he replied, a little too dryly and she blinked at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Willow wander over to where Anya was sitting and tap her on the shoulder. Anya straightened like someone had shot a bullet into her back and then covered it by smiling winsomely. It was a very obvious, fake smile meant for cheesy sex films or someone you didn't really like. But on Anya, it meant that she was trying to hide something and not succeeding very well.

Giles recognized this, but hoped they hadn't.

"...so it's really big and pimply, and we were wondering if you knew what kind of demon it was. I thought it was a Pubanga, but when I tried to chop its penis off it just bled and cried a lot then ran away."

Giles eyes went round behind his glasses.

What? Certainly she hadn't said what he thought she had. Giles took a good, long look at her open face. Oh yes, she had.

"Um. I-I'll check the books," Giles stuttered out, quelling an extreme urge to hold his hand guard over his privates. Buffy grinned at him, raising an eyebrow as if she knew what he was thinking. Damn it, did she have to be so bloody perky when he felt like his head might fall off at any minute?

But at least she was perky and not staring blankly at him like she had so many times in the past year. It was a vast improvement.

"You look tired," he heard Willow say, left of his ear and turned slightly to see Anya shifting uncomfortably in her seat. It took a great deal to make Anya uncomfortable. Usually it was a notion she didn't understand, something human that she hadn't yet come to accept, such as death.

"Oh, yes. I am, very much," Anya replied distinctly, in a sharp tone that brooked no compassion or argument. Willow stared at her hard, as if searching for something. Willow, ever perceptive, seemed to come up short. Was she a scout for Xander? "I went dancing last night. I'm very worn out."

Giles broke out into a secret smile, still watching. Worn out? Well now, that was nearly a compliment. Giles found himself watching her, letting the silly grin take his face over like a possession of his spirit. He jerked when he heard Buffy clear her throat pointedly. When he turned back toward her, she was looking at him like he'd sprouted a horn. Or two. Again. At least she wasn't trying to kill him this time.

"What are you smiling for?" Buffy asked, a light suspicion trailing in her voice. She glanced from him, to Anya, and then to him again like there was some puzzle she'd picked up on and just HAD to piece together. "You look like the cat who ate the canary."

Giles tried not to conjure any images up at her words and quickly wiped the smile from his face. It was difficult, considering.

"I'm just glad to be home," he said at last, and it wasn't a lie. Buffy nodded, though there was still a faint trace of curiosity that lingered on her face like a puddle after a hard rainfall. She was anything but stupid. They stood together for a moment in silence. He noticed that she was still looking at him, like he was a lab rat and she the mad scientist.

"What happened to your face?" She asked, pointing and suddenly Giles felt the burn of a blood rushing toward his cheeks. Oh no, it wasn't THAT noticeable... was it? His hand immediately came up to the stretch of rug burn near his mouth. Anya had reassured him that it just looked like a small outbreak of a rash.

Anya had lied.

He opened his mouth to answer, but found that he didn't have an easy lie on the tip of his tongue. Giles could practically FEEL Anya's attention burning into him, pleading with him not to slip up. He looked at her from the corner of his eye. Her expression remained blank. Quiet, she seemed to say. Careful. There is so much to lose.

WHY?

He knew why, but didn't have to like it in the slightest. Keeping it quiet was the same as saying it was wrong and band. Even though he KNEW it was, Giles shook his head at the thought of treating it that way. He wanted her. WHY did that have to be wrong?

"I was overtired this morning," he explained, heart vibrating like the trunk of a tree being chopped down. His chest shook with it beneath his button-up shirt, but no one noticed, after all it only shook a little, enough to cause him distress and yes, a little resentment that she wasn't doing some shaking of her own. How could she be so calm and collected when in the past, it would have been him? "I burnt my skin with the razor." Buffy's eyes narrowed and she was about to speak when the bell above the door went off again.

Jingle-jingle, it only took that to gather everyone's attention.

"Everyone seems to be tired this morning," Giles heard Willow say as she looked toward the door. He flinched, visibly, when he saw who walked in with a cheery grin on his face. Large as life, and twice as loud, it was Xander.

Welcome to the sideshow, he thought. I'll be your host today.

A knife plummeted deep in his gut, if for no other reason than the fact that he had been with the woman who Xander had once wanted to be his wife. The pictures of the almost wedding burned through his brain like a slideshow.

Anya in her wedding dress, nervous and lovely.

Xander might still consider Anya 'the one', if the softening of Xander around Anya lately was any indication. She obviously hadn't noticed it, or cared, either way it didn't change the fact that it was there and Giles KNEW it was there.

Guilt made breathing hard, but it had to be done. As did living, eating, moving on from day to night, letting the hours pass. The world didn't stop because he had done something horrible, it didn't stop long enough for him to rectify his guilt and get past it all.

So yes, he would breathe.

One dry rasp of a breath after another, he calmed himself down enough that no one even knew that his palms were sweating and that his nostrils were burning angrily. Was the guilt visible? Lines from Edgar Allen Poe tickled his tongue as Xander let the door slam behind him and he nodded his head to Giles. Oh hell.

"Hey," Xander said to them all, with the door behind him like so much past, but his eyes were traveling past them like a magnet was drawing them away. He looked for something or someone that Giles KNEW now, better than before. From the inside, out.

Oh god, I'm sorry, he thought, watching the way Xander's face lit, just a little as he caught sight of Anya still sitting in the chair. She was looking down at the pages of the musty, yellowed book but Giles had a sneaking suspicion were blurring before her eyes as awareness struck.

He thought he could hear the beat of his heart, thumping loudly.

He thought Xander could hear it.

Then he just thought, oh god. Because there was an unpleasant pang in the vicinity of his heart when he considered that just Xander's VOICE could make her react like that. The room seemed to quiet, just a little, to slow down and become a molasses where every sensation stretched out.

The beating of one's heart became an agony.

Xander walked slowly over to Anya and Willow and Buffy left Giles in the middle of the store to go look for the proper book. No one noticed that they had pretty much abandoned him, the surrogate parent that they only wanted around when they needed help. No, he wasn't frustrated, just pissed off. He felt like a third wheel, or worse, a fifth. He shoved his fidgeting hands into his pants' pockets and turned his head to the side, just the slightest because he couldn't bare to watch.

A hard wind thrust itself against the shop; rattling the windows so suddenly the stillness after was eerily reminiscent to the quiet of a graveyard. Where things were buried. Not so different, Giles nearly growled, things were certainly buried and hidden now. A new skeleton shoved into the closet with its bones shiny and freshly dead.

But it had felt good, so good...

He caught the sound of their quiet voices, like the raking of leaves in the next-door neighbor's yard. They were subtly intrusive into your life, even if they didn't mean to be. Giles felt his ears prick, unnaturally sensitive to everything about them.

"Hi," Xander said to Anya, his voice soft and somehow persuasive. He stood near her shoulder as though he wanted to know what she was reading. Giles knew the trick well, had become a master of the lean in and sniff. Xander must be addicted to the scent of lemons. How could he not be? Having lived, loved...

Giles swallowed, a stone of an ache in his throat.

... Woken with the scent for so long. Years.

In an odd way, Xander had more experience with women that Giles himself had. After all, though there had been many women, there had never been one for more than a year. And now... there still wouldn't be. She wasn't his.

"Hello," Anya replied, just as soft but without the same inflection. There was nothing persuasive about her with her clean, pressed clothes and her metal straight back. Her hair was tied back into a severe bun, glittered at Giles all the way across the store. At her voice, Xander shifted on his feet, a quick shuffle that rasped his pants together.

So it was like that. Good.

Giles shook his head, confused. No. It WASN'T good. What if Xander wanted her back? Oh, hell, he hoped the boy didn't. Because when he turned his head to the side more, felt the creak in his neck snap out like an angry, let himself watch them together, he realized he wasn't quite ready to give her up. He realized that he might not be any time soon, even if she wasn't really his in the first place.

The bells jingled again, set the throbbing in his head to work double-time, a furious rush of blood that blackened his vision for a moment. He made a silent resolution to never drink again. Giles raised his hand to his temple, pressing a finger there. Go away, he demanded.

He didn't pay the customer any attention as he perused the shelf, because he had a feeling he was talking more to his heart than anything else. The truth... it burned, always, like the lashing of a whip on skin.

It was LIKE being lashed by a whip, to watch, to see, to hear and be near Anya and Xander. It was like old times, except things were very much not the same.

Xander was being dashing, young, and handsome in all the ways he should be to make up for lost time. He touched Anya's shoulder, the tips of her hair briefly, not long enough for her to even know it, and he sat very close while she read. Too close. Giles fingers hit the keys of the cash register too hard as he rang up the male customer, under-charging in his distracted state. Xander was sitting far into the personal territory Anya had about herself like a constant mosquito net.

It was like a car wreck, Giles thought grimly as he slipped back behind the counter. Though it was horrible and made his gut clench and release with the spasms of sickness, he couldn't bring himself to look away. He watched them even as he counted and re-counted the unique knick-knacks spread across the counter charmingly, trying to occupy his brain. But the counter was too plain, too white, and he needed something to distract him from the distraction.

There was nothing. Nothing.

Even the sun seemed to dim, and the sky darkened outside with a strange, unnatural foreboding gray. It settled over Sunnydale, still wet from the night's rain. Giles looked out the window, saw the buildings as the clouds, turned dusky, dull colors, shaded them.

The streets had been black and slick from the storm when he woke at eight and dragged himself from Anya's warm, seductive bed. Her scent had stayed with him the entire careful drive home. Everything had seemed loud, the colors of morning dangerous.

In the back, behind his seat, the purple scrap of lace remained.

Giles shook himself out of the memory of how he had reached behind his seat, trying to find it but unable when he heard Anya's chair screech against the floor as she pushed away from the table. The sound was like someone suddenly yelling when their had been Church-like quiet. There was something cold and withdrawn on her face as she quickly walked away from Xander who looked bewildered and more than a little angry.

A fight, they had been fighting.

A thread of hope wound its way around his torso.

The floor glinted madly up at them; so shiny and clean it reflected their tiff in full, blinding color. Giles found himself sighing in relief, and immediately sick with himself. Who was he becoming? This wasn't LIKE him. He had never felt jealously so intensely, like an emotion weighting down his shoulders and hanging from his limbs. His fingers felt thick as he leaned against the counter, wishing things back to normal.

What kind of friend was he?

And wasn't he supposed to be the father figure? The prominent male role in these half-children's lives?

Yes, he was doing such a fine job of that! Forgetting for a moment that the night before he'd had the love of Xander's life in the back seat of a car. Then on the floor of her kitchen and then at long last, in her bed with the springs squeaking, her breath in his ear and her nails in his back. Giles closed his eyes, clenched them tightly enough that pink stars flashed behind the lids. He wouldn't remember. He WOULDN'T!

Pulling himself back away from the thoughts, Giles watched Anya walk into the shelves of books, presumably looking for Willow and Buffy who could be heard talking too loud, in obvious disagreement. Her walk was precise, every step calculated and considered. He raised his hand, rubbed his finger along the rug burn that sat near his mouth. Calculated, considered, and still she'd slept with him. His skin stung and he remembered how she had kissed it gently when she rolled over onto his chest that morning, all soft skin and dry, hungry lips.

Remembered that she had barely spoken a word to him today when she showed up at work, except for to tell him that no one could ever know what had happened. To which, he'd readily agreed. Because honestly, right then he had felt the same. It was a dirty secret that would cause more chaos if anyone found out than if either had murdered someone. And they both had.

He still did FEEL it was safest to keep it quiet, and yet---something was different. The balance had shifted and he felt out of control, a puppet on strings. A dance, it was all a carefully planned dance.

Bloody hell, he was infatuated with the girl. And she wasn't a girl, was she? He didn't know what or WHO she was, and yet she'd let him inside of her. Had looked into his eyes, gaze glassy as she came.

Physically, he reminded himself. She had given him no more a right than that. She disappeared around a bookshelf and Giles was forced to stop watching her, instead looked down at the too-pale counter, frightened of and for himself. What was happening to him that he was losing his tightly held control so quickly?

And then, because he couldn't help it, he looked at Xander. He found Xander staring at him, his eyebrows drawn together. Those eyes that Giles feared could see straight through his skin, past his ribs where his heart bounced.

Thump. Guilty. Thump. Guilty. Thump.

It pounded in his ears, a constant reminder as Xander's brown eyes searched his own. For what, he didn't know.

"Yes, Xander?" Giles asked, trying to mask his frustration. But his eyes were hard; he could FEEL them turning blank and solid even though he told himself to not look at Xander in such a way. Xander hadn't done a thing wrong. There were only two guilty parties in the room.

"Is that rug burn?" Xander asked, gesturing toward Giles' face.

Giles flinched again, but this time it was his heart. As though someone had taken an ice pick and shoved it in. Sorry, he thought, skin flushing angrily. I never should have touched her, but now I'm gone. I can't change it.

"I apologize," he wanted to say. But of course, he didn't. Instead, he explained again how it had happened. Instead, he lied.

Giles was able to trap her briefly, in the back room when she strutted away from the research party to get a book that had recently came in. A part of him understood that she was trying to get away from the total absorption of Buffy, Willow, and Xander. There was a clique within a family there, and no one would ever be let inside. Not even him. He got up a moment later, mumbling something about helping her find the book

He noticed Buffy's eyes lift from a page of text and avoided them. Buffy knew too much, saw too much, and was in general too much.

The door swung shut behind him, loud enough to jar her up from her kneeling position at an open, cardboard box. A piece of hair fell across her face, shielding her right eye like a swinging curtain. The other eye was wide, waiting for some stick to break in two.

The lighting of the room was murky at best, a cloud of dust circled in the bits of light, shattering the air between them. The scent was of wet paper and too many yesterdays to count.

Anya stood still, a rabbit caught in a trap.

He was sure she wouldn't appreciate the analogy.

"Is this to be a secret, then?" Giles asked, though he knew the answer. They'd spoken of it before, but he couldn't help wanting the answer to change even though he knew the consequences. He wanted to be the one that swept her off her feet and past the boundaries of common sense and reasons.

It slapped the ego and the heart that he wasn't.

"A secret?" Anya responded as if she wasn't sure what he was talking about. A line appeared between her eyebrows, and her mouth was set in a straight, forbidding line. Giles ignored it.

"What's going on between us," he said sternly, with a mouth full of chalk. "Is it to be a dirty secret?"

"Oh," just a breath that whispered out across her bottom lip before she sucked it into her mouth and bit down. Her eyes watered, very subtly, before she quickly blinked them away. "Giles, it's not like that. Not dirty, I promise you."

He nodded, but made no move forward to touch her.

His palm itched, in the center where he couldn't scratch it with his thumb.

"Then what is it, Anya? Can you tell me that much? I made love to you last night, three times. That's more than I've made love to any single woman in years." Giles winced when he realized he'd let that slip from his mouth. He didn't need her to know that.

Anya's face grew solemn; her throat worked up and down as she searched for the words to explain to him what it is they were doing. Slowly, with deliberate care, she walked toward him. There was a slight swing to her hips that he tried to ignore.

"I don't want to stop this," Anya murmured, touching his shoulder briefly before drawing her slim fingers away. His skin burned where she would have touched if not hindered by his shirt. There was a fine tremble in her hand; so minute he might not have noticed. But he did. She licked her lips, looking him in the eyes urgently. "But if anyone ever finds out, it might hurt someone, it might---"

Giles nodded, gnashing his teeth together as he fought a wave of jealousy.

He hated being jealous, always had.

"Xander, you mean," he said bitterly, almost shocked by the level of anger he felt toward a child-man he thought of as a son. The boy he had watched grow, get left behind WITH him, fall in love, grow up, and then do a little falling apart of his own. Damn it, his chest ached. "Are you still infatuated with him? I could have sworn you said you were free from that at last."

Anya's mouth opened and closed. Once. Twice.

Giles felt the anvil swing and hit him in the gut, just as the bells at the front door of the shop jingled again. They had wanted business, hadn't they? Now, he just wanted people to go away.

Anya shook her head and moved to pass him. Giles gripped her shoulders, harder than he meant to. His fingers dug in as he stared with frustration into her eyes. Hers flickered, left, right, avoiding his own. Eventually, with a sigh, he stepped back, releasing her.

She turned quickly from him and fled the musty back room as if the devil were on her tail, leaving the door to slam closed behind her.

Thump.

It sounded like a guilty heartbeat.

It was too long until they left, many minutes stretching together in an aching pattern of ticking seconds. Hours. There were so many hours of watching Anya closely but discreetly. Occasionally, he would feel her eyes on him and catch them with his own. She would look away, blushing as though they hadn't done things the night before that had left their body aching today.

Xander tossed out his usual jokes and innuendo but Giles found himself unable to laugh fully and Xander noticed the change. The smile that classified Xander became less so, like it was strangled away by a masked criminal. A thief. God, he knew, Giles thought, even though it was impossible.

"Are you mad at me?" Xander had asked at last, when Giles had snuck toward the back of the shop, perversely pleased that no one had noticed him leaving the group. A small section of his brain had hoped that Anya WOULD see him, and then follow him. The irony of Xander having been the one to follow did NOT amuse him.

Giles had been shocked at the question and had nearly dropped the glass sphere he was holding. So that was it. Xander thought Giles was angry with him. Though there was a certain amount of relief, it didn't make him feel any better.

"No, Xander," Giles said reassuringly. "I'm not mad at you."

Xander nodded, looking down at his hands clenching together in front of him. A pale line stuck out on his skin, angled around his left nostril. Xander was upset, truly, like there was a niggling worry in the back of his brain that wouldn't go away and couldn't be scratched.

"You just seem..." Xander couldn't continue, shook his head with his hair flopping about since he'd let it grow longer, and shut his mouth. He seemed lost, staring at Giles for some sign of what was going on. Giles could very well imagine the bad, insightful feeling in Xander's gut.

'I know,' Giles supplied silently, when Xander gave up. 'I seem different.'

After a few uncomfortable seconds, Xander had forced a smile back onto his face and said a quick: never mind. Then he had slapped a hand on Giles' shoulder and strode away. They were still there an hour later, closing the books and leaning wearily on the table while clientele filtered in and out at an unsteady pace.

Giles became closely acquainted with the clock, having stared at it so much that evening.

When they all finally filed out, the door closing behind them like a seal on a can on worms he wasn't prepared to open, Giles immediately looked in Anya's direction. She was helping a customer in the back, pointing up at the top shelf and talking rapidly, her hands moving animatedly. He frowned, having waited for hours, a few more minutes felt like unnecessary torture.

When the customer came to the counter with her purchase, Giles hurried her along not so subtly. She stared at him like he had gone insane when he tossed a special tube of powder into a small paper bag and all but threw it at her.

Giles didn't care one iota.

He followed the lady to the door, almost amused at the way she looked over her shoulder at him, keeping an eye on his whereabouts, scared that he was following her. When the door closed behind her, Giles smiled, a little dangerously and flipped the sign over. The door locked with a loud, heavy click. He didn't feel like himself, not even close. He felt hungry, malnourished.

He felt like he hadn't touched her in weeks and his hands were much too light and empty. He NEEDED to touch her.

Anya came out from behind a tall shelf, looking fresh, young and alive. Her smile faded like the gloss leaving a magazine as she seemed to notice they were alone, realize that they would have to deal with what they'd done together. He saw his name form on her lips, but she didn't say it. Her eyes flickered briefly toward the door and a frown pursed her mouth, pulling the strings of her face severe.

"We're closing early?" She asked in confusion, putting her hands on her hips.

Her nails were clear, which said something about her. Because her toe nails were painted a wild, ruthless red. God.

Giles strode toward her, intent enough that she backed up a few steps in surprise. He grabbed onto her wrist with a tight hand. Her skin was soft, like the bottom of a petal on a daisy. Her bones were small, so breakable that it terrified him. Made him want to pull her into his arms and crowd her into some safe corner where she couldn't get away and do the things they did EVERY day.

He pulled her into the back room even though she tugged with her arm to be released, to the spot where they had spoken earlier. His skin was flushed, stretched and aching for her hands to spread across it. "Why are we closing early?" Anya insisted, voice brittle and eyebrows raised as he closed the door behind them, breathing fast. Giles turned and shook his head, his throat as dry as the dust littering the boxes in the room.

"I want you," he muttered darkly, as though it were an accusation and not a question and stepped forward, gripping her shoulders and pushing her roughly into the wall. Her heard the hollow sound of her body connecting with the wood and leaned down to kiss her, those plump lips that had teased him all day. Giles paused, lips an inch away when there was a startling flash of fear in her eyes.

It was the kind of fear that pulled a man's stomach out through his belly button.

Her uneven breath taunted him.

Animal. Crook. Traitor.

Then she threw all of those away by reaching up and wrapping her arms around his neck, trying to climb up his body as if he were a tree and his mouth were the richest of apples. Her knees thrashed against his, her shoes jammed into his shin, and her nails dug crescent moons into his shoulders.

Eat the apple, Eve said to Adam. It tastes so good.

Giles helped her eagerly by hitching her thighs around his hips and dragging her body up so that he could plunder her open mouth with his tongue. Sweet shivers traveled from his spine to his groin. Touching her... he was... touching her. A groan of relief and desire broke free from his throat, the sound an echo of an apple falling.

Kissing her, wanting her, needing her -- he was terrified.

He was just plain terrified, but that didn't stop him as her hands urged him on and his heart nudged into his throat, wanting more than anything, to have her.

Giles went to her that night, because she hadn't come to him and he found he wasn't able to wait for her to do so. The lock on her door was easy enough to pick. He'd have to make sure she bought a better one, or buy her one himself if she wouldn't. He walked softly through her apartment, slipping his shoes off and setting them carefully onto the floor.

His feet sank into the carpet, quiet.

All night he'd thought of her, of how it would be to have her in his bed. Not sex, though that was a hunger as well. He wanted... more.

Eventually, he had been unable to take the quiet and jumped from his bed, dragged his clothes on and walked purposely out his front door. If she wouldn't come there, he'd go to her.

Her door made a soft creak as he pushed it slowly open, slicing the room wide by glimpses of shadows and pale moonlight. She lay on the bed, the covers pulled up around her chin as she snuggled down into the mattress, fast asleep. Giles wanted to be capable of hating her for that sleep, but he couldn't.

Giles moved silently into the room, nearly catching his shin with the edge of her dresser before he maneuvered around it and came to stand by her side. Her face was pale and tired, but he couldn't stop himself from leaning forward and gently running his fingers down the side of her face.

She stirred, but it wasn't until he sat down on the bed, causing the mattress to sink in at the middle that she woke. Anya bolted up in bed, saw a big, dark shadow looming over her and immediately opened her mouth to scream. Giles covered her mouth and all that escaped from her lips was a muffled UMPH as he pressed his fingers tightly against her chin. Her breath fluttered out quickly across his knuckles, hot and terrified.

"It's just me," Giles whispered, again and again until her body un-tensed and she melted into the mattress. "It's just me."

Anya nodded, quicksilver as she helped him pull the covers down and away from her body so that he would have space to maneuver. He slipped beneath them and on top of her before tugging the blankets back up over their bodies, so that the sweat stung and made their skin itch with arousal. The blanket scratched their ankles, far from gentle on suck sensitive, tantalized flash.

It took a single kiss from her, with her shiny mouth, to make him feel like a fallen man. He couldn't get enough, felt dizzy when he inhaled the scent of her, dug his nose into the valley between her pale breasts. He bit her buttons with his teeth, trying to undress her while his hands pressed and massaged her thighs.

"What are you doing to me, Anya? I'm bloody addicted!" Giles gasped into her mouth, felt her swallow his air and his words. He tugged on her pajama bottoms, feeling the wash-roughened cotton beneath his fingertips. He wished he could see them, look at them, but he wanted what was beneath more. "I tried to stay away tonight. I tried so hard..."

They made love, slow, hot, like butter on popcorn.

And it was inside of her, that he made his worse error yet. It was inside of her, that he made a mistake beyond what he had already. The feel of her slick flesh clenching around him, her sweaty skin sticking to his as though she wasn't going to let go, the scent of her neck, her hair, her sex... it all wrapped up inside his head, overwhelmed him with desire.

Thick, silver, desire now had a color and a weight.

"I love you Anya," he groaned in a voice so rough it sounded like a bear was speaking. He felt her jolt and his unshaven jaw rasped against her throat. Giles swallowed and stilled inside of her, kissing her jaw slowly with his closed lips. "You've made me -- oh god, Anya. I'm-"

Her fingers dug into the front of his shoulders, pressed him back so that he was holding himself up with his arms, body held away from hers, only connected at the spot where their hips joined and locked. Her eyes were shaped like a cats' were in the flood of the moon, a strange, dark color that he couldn't determine, could not be logical and reserved about.

His stomach ached with each throb of his heart, his arms trembling. He didn't WANT to be raised away from her, but her hands were insistent, keeping him away even as his erection stayed firmly inside of her. Anya made no move to push him out of her body, but held a hand over his heart.

He knew what that meant, even before she said it.

"You're not," she told him in a chilly voice. Like HE had been the one to dump a bucket of ice on her passion, turning her throat a frozen blue place where no heat could break through. Her face was pale and stung his eyes. "This isn't love, Giles." There was emphasis on his last name. And even though Giles had gotten used to being addressed by that alias, his stomach clenched, rebelled at it being used against him so jarringly. "You only want to fuck me, and that's okay. I like having sex with you. I want to fuck you as well."

Anya smiled a little, as if a small matter had been solved.

He wondered what she would say if he said: "Anya, shut up. You're wrong." Because honestly, he was starting to wonder if he really did love her after all, though the words HAD been spoken in the heat of the moment. If that was why he just couldn't let her go, couldn't stop even though he knew it was wrong, if that was why everything about her drew him to her. Her breasts sat high on her chest, nipples peeking up at him as though to mock how he enjoyed her sexually.

It was the worst moment of his entire life, and he could say that honestly. The type of moment that made you want to throw up and cry at the same time. He felt the tears burn in the back of his eyes. The worst moment, being inside the woman he loved--LOVED--and having her tell him that it meant nothing. Having her believe it.

Instead of arguing, like he might have once when he hadn't been burnt by love so many times already, he nodded and bent to take her nipple between his teeth, biting hard so she wouldn't think he cared enough to be gentle.

"It's not just sex," he told her, sometime later when he couldn't sleep and the blankets were too short for him, leaving his legs to stick out at the end, bare and cold. The bed was too small and he felt crowded into a space where he didn't fit, not even close.

Anya was already asleep and didn't hear him.

He made sure he wasn't touching her in anyway, because the contact with her made his skin flinch, made him angry at her rejection. Giles stared at the ceiling, hating Xander for what he had broken.

"This game is boring," Anya muttered when Giles killed her rook, chuckling at her expression when he did so. "I don't like it."

Giles looked up from the chessboard, his concentration on what her next move would be broken. Anya was staring hard at the antique chess pieces, a tight frown knit between her brows. She was the perfect image of frustration, her bottom lip stuck out in a sexy little pout.

His heart skipped a single, electric beat.

The light was turned low to make the room cozier, an intentional seduction that she had planned and he had turned the tables on her by pulling out a chessboard from the bag he had carried with him into her apartment. Her seduction had been more than a little spoiled. This victory was Giles' to rejoice over. He'd turned the tables on her and brought their time back to how it had been once, non-sexual.

Not to say there wasn't a certain zing in the air, but the worst edge of it was taken off by the fact that they HAD been friends before, if not close ones, and playing this game had made him realize that. He hoped she had as well. Friends didn't fuck. They made love.

"Chess is a game of strategy," Giles responded, reaching out to run a finger over her queen. "Of careful planning, of entrapment." Anya's eyes followed his movements; a slight flush stained her cheeks. "If you want to win, you have to know how to get what you want."

Giles shook his head when she turned her eyes down, stared at the pieces on the board as if they were going to disappear any second. A sigh whispered through his throat, so quiet she wouldn't be able to hear it even if she wasn't a board's width across from him.

"Really?" Anya asked quietly, as though the game were not familiar to her. She was wearing fuzzy, blue slippers and matching silk pajamas. An odd thing to wear for a seduction, but she must have known it well, because it was the perfect thing to wear in the seduction of HIM.

"Mmm-hmm." Giles felt somewhat lethargic, leaning back on his side of the couch. The chess pieces rattled on the board, but didn't tip over as the cushions shifted under Giles' weight. Step two, he thought. Time to share. "I was in love once," he murmured with subtle intensity. Anya's eyes popped up to his own, her face a mask of shock, as though she had never considered that he COULD fall in love.

His pride took a small whack upside the head.

"You have?" Anya asked with her mouth parted in silent surprise. Giles nodded, picking up the teacup that sat on the table beside the couch. He took a long sip of the hot, rich liquid and then set the small, porcelain cup aside with a slow breath that hurt his stomach.

To think of that love, of her thick hair and almond eyes punched him in the heart in a way he didn't care to admit to.

Anya shifted closer to him. The pieces rattled on the board again, but still didn't fall. She had tied her hair back in a messy bun when she found out he wasn't going to be touching her as quickly as she would have liked, and he eyed the way hair stuck out, like chaos, from the hair tie. Whenever she shifted, her hair color would change, reach out and hold onto him. "Tell me about her," she whispered, eyes dark with the wanting to know.

She wanted to make his pain go away, he realized. She must have been able to read it etched all over the lines of his face.

How could she think he wasn't in love with her? He wouldn't have had sex with her if he hadn't; the consequences were much too severe for it to be otherwise. Besides, if he had been given a choice in the matter, he wouldn't have fallen in love with Anya, but it wasn't like he could very well HELP it.

"Her name was Jenny, she died--"

"Angelus," Anya whispered. "I know. Xander talks so much about--" She cut herself off, like a radio had suddenly changed stations and she was getting nothing but the static. "I'm sorry," she said at last, with tenderness, meeting his eyes with something extra in her own. Compassion. Sorrow. The air buzzed with the emotions. He bit hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from saying that wasn't what he wanted.

But it was a start. "I know that it's hard to lose a loved one," Anya said with a flush of emotion across her face. He thought of how she'd lived without loved ones for so many years, and then has to face once again, the terror of caring. Her eyes were very bright, lit by the low light. Her mouth was heavy in her face, where she'd bitten it during the game and then again when she'd considered the woman he loved.

"Yes," he replied, voice tinted with his heart. "It is."

Enthralled by her, Giles placed a hand on the back of the couch to steady himself and then slowly leaned over the board. Her eyes became wide, saucer-like at the softness his gaze revealed. He touched her lips gently with his own, a prelude to many soft hours that night.

A fire rushed through him, but this time he was able to bank it and pull back, watching her carefully. His motion on the couch had caused the board to tip at a slight angle. His king tipped and slid off the board, taking the knight and the queen with it. Neither paid attention to the sounds of the pieces hitting the carpeted floor.

"We should get away together," Giles suggested, half-whispering in the gossamer stillness of the moment. The silence was easily broken, so thin. "Go somewhere this weekend. Some place quiet and less populated."

Anya pulled back, away from him. Giles had expected that and let her fall easily out of his grip. He could have kept her there, held onto her face and made her look him in the eyes, but he didn't think that would be a wise move. It was all about the strategy.

"I don't know--" Anya muttered edgily, sitting far from him. The couch stretched between them like a vast desert and Giles quelled the urge to move across the space and use physical seduction to persuade her. She had to make this decision on her own.

"Think about it, Anya. It's really a wonderful idea. We can get away from Los Angeles for a little while, away from all the people and they're annoying habits." Anya's eyes glinted a little when he said that, with something like laughter. Giles continued on, smiling, confident that he could make her see how great it would be. "We might go up to Colorado, see the mountains and rent a cabin. It's lovely this time of year. You'll love it."

"What about---"

"The Magic Shop?" Giles interrupted and at her sharp nod, continued, "I think we should be able to leave that with Buffy and Willow. Buffy had wanted a job anyway and we can hire on a few new workers, because we NEED to. More and more people in Sunnydale are awakening to the fact that they don't exactly live in a safe neighborhood anymore."

Anya bit her lip, sucked it between her top teeth and stared hard at him, nervous.

"Well," she said finally, a soft, happy resignation in her voice. "I have been wanting to take a short vacation. It might be nice." Giles nodded, was about to speak when she rushed on, talking over him. Her cheeks were red. "Giles, I'm sorry about the other night. I was very harsh with you. Cold. I didn't mean to be... that's a lie. I did mean to be. I'm still sorry, though."

He ignored the words he didn't want to hear and focused on the others.

She'd said yes without saying as much.

"Just leave it all to me," Giles told her, grinning in a way that hurt his mouth. In a way that he hadn't grinned in a long, long time. "I'll take care of everything. I promise." Anya smiled back at him, reached out and stroked a finger along his cheek very gently. He leaned slightly into the touch, showing her that he liked it. "Maybe I WAS a little hasty in professing my feelings to you Anya," Giles murmured and she stilled, looking him in the eye. "Maybe I was, but I do feel something for you and I'd like to figure out what that is."

Silence. It was the tight, hard kind that could not be broken by anyone but her.

"I believe you, Giles. I believe that you have feelings for me."

And that was enough. For now.

Anya pulled away from him and looked down at the board, noticing for the first time that several of the important pieces were missing. "Checkmate!" She shouted laughingly and pumped her fist in the air. All she was missing was the foam hand and she'd be a regular chess fan, hopping about as she was.

"Yes," Giles responded quietly, so that she couldn't hear. His words were an unintentional echo. "It is."

It was the worrying that was the worst.

Had he gone too far? Were his words somehow not enough?

It was the fear that choked him.

What if he had pushed her away? What if a single week was all he ever had of her?

He wasn't sure he could take it.

Anya hadn't come in at her usual hour, and considering last night's conversation, Giles' stomach was jumping, aching like he had a particularly bad ulcer. Every time the bell above the door made a sound, Giles would find his gaze jerking in that direction so fast his neck would scream out in protest.

It wasn't her. Ever. Only customers who asked too many questions, wanted too many things, and had too much free time on their hands.

She hadn't called to say she'd be late.

She hadn't called at all and the silence of the phone was speaking loudly to his ears.

He stared out the window as he dialed her number, out at the cars passing. Some went by slow, others went by as if the world were going to end any second. Sometimes it was. While he listened to the phone ring, over and over again, a woman who wore a long skirt and an even longer face walked by the shop. There were things Giles thought he would never understand.

It was hot outside. Who needed a winter hat when the sun was baking down on the sidewalks and making them crack with the dry heat?

The phone rang once again, until the answering machine clicked on.

"Hello," he heard Anya's voice say in a singsong tone. "I'm not here right now. Or I'm ignoring you which means I don't like you, so why are you calling? If I like you, leave a message. If I don't, do not leave a message. Thank you and have a nice day."

There was a beep and then a space of silence where Giles couldn't think of a thing to say. His throat felt as dry as the sidewalks. Another beep sounded, a bookend to his inability to speak, and Giles slowly lowered the phone back into its cradle. His palm was sweating.

It really shouldn't ever be as hot as it was. Hot enough that stepping outside was like moving into a vacuum of heat, where all the air was stilled and sweat was the only water available to you.

Giles kept one eye on the clock throughout the day. As each hour passed, he grew increasingly worried. What if something had happened to her? If Anya was anything, she was responsible. She should BE there by now.

The phone rang at exactly 12:45 PM.

He jumped at it, hating how his hand shook as he lifted the receiver to his ear.

"Hello," Giles said, keeping his voice even and pleasant. "You've reached the Magic Shop, how may we be of service to you today?"

"Giles?"

Oh, god. Anya. Giles lungs should have deflated in relief, but instead they ballooned further. Painfully.

"Anya! Where are you? It's half past noon!"

There was a pause on the other side of the line, a long one where he could hear her taking slow deep breaths. Giles closed his eyes, waited for the inevitable blow to the chest. Behind his eyelids, maybe he'd be safe from it, maybe it wouldn't hurt QUITE so much.

"I'm not going with you," she whispered at last, and her voice was a mere dry rasp like she didn't want anyone else to hear what she was saying. An image of Xander flashed through his head, like so much white-hot heat that sweat rolled down the side of his face. Was Xander there beside her, half a room's length away? "I'm sorry," she said softly, so softly that her voice had the effect of whiplash sneaking up on him out of the blue. "But --- something very important has come up."

Right. He was sure he knew EXACTLY what had.

"What?" Giles heard himself growl and realized he had opened his eyes and was glaring at a man who had just walked in wearing a baggy shirt and jeans. The man did a quick double take at Giles' expression and pivoted on his foot, jerking the door open and leaving. A gust of heat wafted in, burned Giles' face, turned it an angry red as he listened to her.

"He came by this morning, after you had gone," Anya said in a hushed voice. He could hear the trembling. 'He came by this morning and you're no longer allowed to,' is what she meant. He knew it as surely as he knew his blunt fingernails were digging dangerously into his palm. This time it was HE who left the crescents on his skin.

"Xander," said Giles, voice low and empty. He heard Anya trip up, stop speaking and then swallow. All the time, he stared dispassionately at the back room where the door was propped open so that when he was back there, he could keep an eye on the customers. He could see, very clear, the wall they had made love against.

Made love? No, fucked, as she said.

"Yes, Xander," Anya admitted and there was a startling disquiet in her voice, like she KNEW what Giles' was feeling. "He says he's still in love with me Giles. And you know what you said to me last night about missed opportunities..."

"I wasn't talking about HIM!" Giles burst out, shoving his arm out in a wild arc that knocked the glass figures off the counter. The broke jarringly on the floor, shatter bits of painted glass flying everywhere. The cracking, broken sound didn't abate for seconds later, and he was left with the sound of her silence in his ear, and his own uneven breathing. "I was speaking about me."

Please, he begged silently. Don't take her too. Not when he'd just found her.

"I'm sorry, Giles," Anya spoke eventually, when it became obvious that he wasn't going to say anything more. Giles gripped the phone hard to his ear, his knuckles turning white. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be. He'd fallen in love with her, and yet again, love was prepared to burn him. "But I can't---DO this with you anymore. I love Xander. I'm sorry, but I want to work it out."

Giles was shaken by the intensity of her words.

No, he thought, no.

"Don't hang up," he pleaded, in a way that was not of himself. But nothing he'd done had been recently. He'd been a man in love. Now he was a man in love with someone who couldn't give a damn.

The dial tone shocked his ear, jump-started his heart into overdrive.

Slowly, with very careful fingers, he set the phone down onto the counter.

The beeping sound followed him all the way out of the store, which he hadn't bothered to lock. He just... couldn't yet. Locking it would take too much time and might mean something in the long run, that he refused to contemplate.

Out in the heat, he felt as cold as if he were swimming in a river during a European winter.

She wasn't at her apartment.

He knew because he'd knocked for ten minutes and then unlocked the door with the ease of experience. He didn't need a bloody key to do it, either. Anya's neighbors, luckily, were either gone or didn't give a damn.

Inside, he found nothing but remains of their breakfast and coffee.

There were two coffee cups sat at the kitchen table, one still half full. He had a feeling that one was Anya's because when she was nervous, she couldn't drink very much without becoming sick. He touched the side of the cup. The drink was long cold.

He felt horrible, like someone had plowed a truck through his middle and kept backing up over his heart. Surely this wasn't the end, he could do something, anything---and that would be sabotaging a relationship he knew Xander desperately wanted.

Giles found it hard to care anymore.

He didn't dare go into the bedroom. He'd either see the after-effects of Xander's love making, or his own... either, he wouldn't be able to take just then.

They weren't at Xander's, because he'd repeated the process and found only pictures of Anya and Xander splayed out across the living room floor like a homage to being lovers. Giles picked up a picture, where Xander had his face buried in Anya's hair and a huge smile split her face. And then dropped it like he'd been burned.

He wasn't going to think about that. There was still a chance.

There was!

He had gone so long without love, been so long alone and gone through so much to just give love up when he was able to find it again so unexpectedly. He deserved some semblance of happiness, and Anya gave that to him. It was Anya that he WANTED.

The only other place he could think of was Buffy's.

He drove there like a man possessed by an unearthly creature. And maybe he really was because he certainly didn't remember much of the drive, just that he had to go and go FAST.

Giles strode up the walk and through the front door without bothering to knock, just let it slam behind him with all his frustration. It banged shut and popped back open with the force of Giles' shove. Buffy came running from the kitchen, slayer-mode and stopped in her tracks abruptly when she saw it was him. A small smile appeared on her face.

God, she knew and she was HAPPY that Anya and Xander were back together.

Happy. Giles looked around, searching for said happy couple.

"Giles! What are you doing here?" Buffy asked, catching his gaze. Giles couldn't say it so he didn't, just walked past her. His feet took him toward the kitchen where he heard the light sound of laughter.

It was Anya's laughter, heady and thick, like tea mixed with honey. The kind he had searched for. The kind he wasn't about to lose.

Dawn must have been at school, because Xander and Anya were alone, sitting at the breakfast table with their heads bent close together and the sunlight pouring over them in a way that cut a hungry man in two with the spoon that fed him. Giles felt the blow deep, deeper than before because now it was right in front of his eyes. Anya was happily sipping another coffee. She must not have been nervous anymore.

"Did you hear the news?" Buffy asked from behind Giles. He saw Anya pause mid-sip, swallow hard and turn her head away from Xander, and then she looked at him. Really LOOKED. Giles watched as she paled, and shook her head minutely.

No, her eyes were saying. Giles, NO!

"What news would that be?" He asked in a voice near dead, like someone had hollowed him out with a shovel and was too busy digging his grave to care if there was anything left of him after the pain began to chew on his heart. Giles glared at Anya, and she began to look terrified, like she was about to lose something she couldn't bare to lose.

Well, he knew the feeling.

Xander shifted uncomfortably under the obvious tension Giles was exerting toward them. He slid his arm around Anya's shoulder and gave a small cough and an even smaller smile.

"We're uh... back together," he explained to Giles, unaware that THIS was the cause for the older man's tight, angry mouth. "Well, at least we're going to give it a try." Xander laughed a little, and to lighten the mood, joked, "she just can't wait to put her hands on my sexy body."

Anya's eyebrows dragged together, like the fault lines of an earthquake shifting and Giles KNEW that she understood the line had been crossed. That Xander had said something so wrong without knowing it that the room might as well be on fire for all the hell that would burn them both.

Sunshine was the irony, the heat of the day that could be so acutely felt if one wasn't shivering from the fear of oncoming disaster. Buffy felt it coming and stood silent, waiting for whatever it was to come out.

"Over my dead body!" Giles burst out, face a fire engine red that left no doubt. He MEANT it.

"Giles! What the hell are you---" Buffy screeched, but Giles had already stepped forward and dragged Xander out of the chair by the back of his neck, turning and shoving the large, younger man against the wall. Xander knocked his skull against the wood and a clock fell of its nail, shattering onto the floor. Splinters of wood nicked Giles' shin as he forced Xander's shocked frame up the wall, holding him by his collar, until his feet hung off the ground.

No small feat.

"Stop!" Anya yelled and Giles jerked his gaze toward her, a hard look blistered across his face. He thought of what they'd done together, the things she'd whispered in his ear and nearly snarled at the thought that she was going to give it all up and run back to Xander, the absentee groom.

"Is this the man you WANT, Anya?" Giles growled, pulling Xander back and shoving him against the wall again for emphasis. "The one who NEVER treated you right, who always left you behind, who---oh yes--- left you at the bloody ALTAR?!"

The sun changed angles, burned his eyes and he could barely see her, but knew the expression on Anya's face was begging him to stop and stop now. Steam rose from her coffee cup.

It was hot still, though she seemed to have grown cold.

Buffy stood frozen at the entrance between the living room and the kitchen. Her shadow fell across Giles' feet.

"What the fuck, Giles? Stop it!" Xander demanded, beyond shocked, beyond hurt at the words coming out of Giles' mouth. Xander's face was a series of broken lines, all coming together to paint a picture of angst. Giles couldn't stand it. This was a man he had considered his son.

His son had stolen the woman Giles himself loved.

It was like a bad soap opera.

Giles slammed Xander back against the wall when the boy's hands came up to try and force the fingers holding him away from his shirt.

"He doesn't DESERVE you!" Giles yelled angrily, staring hard at Anya who had begun shaking, holding onto the kitchen table as if nothing else could hold her up.

A part of him said simply: Stop. Stop now, before it's too late for it to be explained away as over protectiveness. But he couldn't stop, couldn't NOT fight for her, found a moment of utter clarity.

Anything. He'd do anything to keep her. To keep the sensation of rolling over and finding her silent, sleeping face on the pillow next to his. He'd do anything to have the freedom of caressing the skin between her legs. Absolutely anything to keep her scent ingrained in his pores and ONLY his.

"What's going on?" Xander gasped, like he'd only just realized that Giles was staring at Anya like she was the only piece of food left in the world. Like she was IT. Giles snapped his gaze to Xander, eyes brilliant and exhaustive.

"Don't do it, Giles," he heard Anya whimper, near tears. "Please don't do this to me."

He wanted to be able to walk away. But the simple fact was that he couldn't. Not without doing everything in his power to take her with him.

"I've been sleeping with Anya for the past week," Giles said slowly, deliberately, loud enough that both Buffy and Anya could hear the clarity and absolute ruthlessness in his voice.

There was a reason he'd been named 'Ripper.'

"I don't have plans on stopping any time soon," Giles continued with a hard smile dragging across his cheeks. Xander looked sick, like everything was registering too fast. Giles felt the boy's heart stutter and trip beneath his forearm where he held him roughly against the wall.

There was stillness in Xander as the words sunk in, as everything registered and burned its way through his brain and into his soul. Then, suddenly, with unnatural force, Xander pulled his hands up quickly and brutally shoved Giles away.

It was a movie that wouldn't stop playing, a horror that wouldn't stop coming. Anya's face was shock-white, her lips trembling as she raised her hand and covered her face with her hands.

A fist swung out. Xander's. It landed powerfully against the right side of Giles' jaw, sending him stumbling backward and knocking his glasses off. They fell to the floor, slid across it with the sound of hissing metal. Giles stared down at them, and then wiped a trail of blood from his mouth and looked back up at Xander.

Buffy took a step forward, jerked from her statue-imitation, but it was too late to do anything because Xander threw one last, horrible look of betrayal at Anya and then stalked from the room and out the kitchen door. Birds chirped loudly, irritating, until the door slammed behind him, slicing them a piece of silence so thick with surrealism that Giles found himself wondering if he'd done the right thing.

He looked toward Anya, who stood very still, pale, and quiet in the sunlight. There was something ghostly about her, like the very thing that kept her going had been stolen from her. A second chance. Giles moved forward quickly, so that she couldn't evade him. She didn't try, seemingly struck mute and immovable. He took a hold of her shoulders, holding them firmly as he pulled her close enough that it was an echo of their first real dance.

"Come away with me Anya, please." Giles whispered to her as Buffy watched, a look of depression and disappointment written on her face. It was a look that said: How could THIS man do such a thing? How could Giles betray Xander? The facts do not computer. "Don't do this---don't go back to him. Give me a chance to show you that there are better things FOR you than him."

Anya stared at him blankly.

"I thought you cared for him," she replied dully. Giles sighed in frustration and gripped her shoulders tighter, between frantic fingers.

"I do. But, I just---"

"Let her go," Buffy ordered, interrupting him. Giles turned, locked gazes with the Slayer. Buffy stood firm, legs spread apart with her arms cross over her chest. Her eyes were cold, like stone. "She doesn't want to be here."

Slowly, turning to meet her empty eyes, Giles fingers eased their grip on Anya. He watched her, silently hoping, until without warning she turned and dashed for the door. More birds. More silence. Giles' head hung low on his neck, his chin dipping down toward his chest as he ran a hand over the back of his scalp.

His heart throbbed, twisted, and god, it HURT.

Giles wanted to say: ouch.

Giles wanted to bend at the waist and cough his heart up into his hands.

But all he could do was stand shocked, trying to breathe, trying to understand. He'd just asked Anya to be with him, asked her to once and for all make up her mind, and she had.

Through the pain and the fierce burn of tears, he heard Anya scream Xander's name like a wild thing. Giles turned toward the window, drawn like a victim to the image of their attacker. Through the window, he could seem them, framed in the curtains, like a play whose lines were never heard. Anya ran after Xander, who was half way down the street. She grabbed him by his muscled arm and spun him around.

They yelled, right in each other's faces, like they could die with words.

He wished he could hear. He WANTED to hear. Needed to. But all he could do was watch, wait for some sign of what would happen. All he could do was watch as Xander gave Anya one bitterly hard look and pivoted away from her, stalking angrily down the street. Her shoulders dropped, sagged down and then began to shake. He was her hands lift up to her face, but he couldn't SEE her expression.

Giles didn't need to.

She was crying like she would never stop.

"Burned yourself with a razor, huh?" Buffy asked sarcastically from his side, where she watched Anya's heart break all over again. Giles neck popped as he shifted his head to look at her. Her face was far from blank, in fact, it blazed with a banked fury that wasn't healthy for a Slayer who must control those urges. "How could you do this to Xander, Giles?! How? Both of you?"

Giles didn't answer, couldn't. There was nothing to say beyond the words: I love her. And no one seemed to care that he did, so he didn't bother to say them again. He just looked back at her, watch her gaze turn into searing blades. "You're supposed to be better than that," she accused, voice rising violently. "You're supposed to be a good fucking human being!"

With that, Buffy tossed her head, tilted her chin in the air and walked away, off to somewhere in her house where she could cool off in peace.

Giles gaze was drawn back to the window, irresistibly dragged there.

Anya stood, now unmoving, looking off in the distance.

The sun was high in the sky and a child rode on his bike down the sidewalk, standing up and pressing the pedals down hard so that he would go faster. Cars were lined up, parked on the sidewalk like there was something important going on.

A wake, maybe?

Because then, with the picture of her in his head, of Xander and her together, what they'd done with each other began to click in his head. A button that had been pressed to late, where nobility came in a second after it should have.

"No," he whispered. But there was no going back.

Beyond the burning of heartbreak, there was a vast empty land that waited to swallow you whole if you stepped beyond the bounds of pain into something more, something barren and aching with the lack.

A piece of him died right there, staring at Anya from Buffy's kitchen window as a piece of HER slipped out of existence, was forever lost. He wanted her so badly, SO badly. And look what had happened because of that passion! Look what they had done, and then look what HE had.

Xander would never forgive him.

Anya would never forgive him, or herself.

Buffy would forgive him, but it would take a longer time than any one person could stand to be not forgiven for. Giles sighed and rubbed a tear off of his cheek. The sun shouldn't have been shining, it seemed somehow wrong. It should have been a cold day on the day hell froze over.

Giles had fallen in love with Xander's lover. And Xander's lover and fallen into bed with Giles.

It should have been, like he should have stopped them before they started.

But it wasn't.

(Present Time)

You know the taste of heartbreak. It is familiar to you, like an old friend, you can shake its hand. You know the size of pain; you can gather it in tweed and wear it around your shoulders like a faded jacket.

A man sits beside you. He tries to talk. Offers you his peanuts, but you're not hungry. You sit very stiffly as the captain goes over the instructions, telling you that since your in seat number twelve, you have the responsibility of opening the emergency door in case of problems.

You watch them hold up the oxygen masks and explain how to use them.

And then the plane's staff is moving up and down the aisles, making sure everyone's seat belt is in place. You know it doesn't matter, because you feel half-dead anyway. What's a plane crash going to do to you? But you buckle up anyway, to give the stewardess some peace of mind.

The captain makes a joke that no one laughs at, but for a few polite passengers and then the plane is coasting down the runaway. It goes faster, faster, faster---the terminal passes before your eyes, behind the cracked lenses.

A souvenir, you think, of seven years you'll never have back and can never return to. Run away, little boy, you think and that's how you feel. You are like a child on the run, with barely a suitcase packed and no plan of going anywhere but where you always go when you say goodbye.

The plane lifts up, and you get that aching, tearing away sensation in your stomach. Almost like you're going to throw up your heart or someone else's.

Your fingers dig into your thighs and the guy beside you stares at your tired face.

You think, un-amused, that tonight is most certainly your night.

You think about life, about the things you choose to do that don't keep the world from turning, the things you've done that break three hearts... You think of her, of how much she needed to be loved and how easily she accepted yours. How easily you let yourself be fooled into thinking she might return it. You look out the window and watch the ground getting further and further away and know that no one is watching you leave; no one is watching the plane rise into the air.

No one in that airport smells like lemons and you know that you're not coming back this time.

You know that some things just end like this.

Unhappily ever after.

End.