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zmediaoutlet · 4 years

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in support of Black Lives Matter, @largoindminor donated $50, and requested 'Hannibal/Will, first kiss’. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

It’s a different life, after the fall. Quieter. Still. The sun rises and spills over the earth like a slow pale tide, ebbing against the house where Will watches, waiting.

Canada. Not an exotic escape, like before. Woods and rivers. Snow, most of the time, and the summer a relief of blooming life when it comes. The house is on a patch of land that used to be farmed and that has gone wild in disuse, and around it there are stands of new trees struggling up, and flowers Will doesn’t recognize that bloom in spring, and birds that call in the morning. Like home, or at least the home that was. This is home, now. It has to be.

Summer now, with the days thick with sunlight. He fishes, in the river that curves by, a mile from the house. The dog waits on the shore, watching the birds. He breathes with the rhythm of the water and it’s peaceful--until it’s not. A tug--the line, caught--a salmon, desperate, and Will hauls in the line, gets it in his hands. Massive, struggling, its muscle working and terrified under the thin layer of skin. When he kills it he’s quick, and it lays still in his arms. He lays it on the rocks by the shore. The dog is warned off with a look. A thing that was alive, now dead. He doesn’t mind anymore that he finds it beautiful.

He stays by the river for another hour, sitting. He pets the dog behind the ears. Tiny ecstasy. The river flows east and the woods are full of birds. Life, soaring. He wishes he could enjoy it.

Dusk, or near to it, when he starts the walk home. The dog follows, smelling the fish in his bag. He’ll cook it tonight, he guesses, and it will taste like--nothing. He’s been trying to learn to cook properly, in hopes that spices and herbs and technique will do the trick, but everything he eats is reduced in his mouth to--protein, carbohydrate. Calories. Necessary to sustain life but nothing to care about. He can’t go to a psychiatrist anymore, can’t risk it, but he’s wondered. Is it something that’s changed in his brain chemistry, after the fall? When he woke up alone in a hospital bed with a new name, did the doctors know that this essential human thing in him was lost? Could it be fixed? Does he want it to be?

A mile, walked slowly. Dusk falling in a muffling blanket over the woods. He opens the gate to the property and the dog rushes home, eager for the kibble waiting, the guts of the fish it’ll get as a treat, and Will walks slower up the path between the weeds, because after all, what’s waiting for him.

“Will.”

He looks up.

Hannibal, standing on his porch. Almost unrecognizable--impossible--until he’s not. His hair has fallen over his forehead, and he’s not in a suit but in a thin sweater, sleeves pushed up at the forearms--jeans and boots--and there’s a bag beside him. He watches Will from the shadow under the porch and then takes the two steps down, offering his palm for the dog to snuffle into, never taking his eyes away. In the dusklight Will can see his expression in perfect clarity.

“Where have you been?” he asks.

A year. A year, here in this house that he was told was his. He pretended to amnesia and the doctors were useful, supplied him with his new name and his fake job and his keys and his phone, which had two contacts in it--his, with an address that led him here, and another under the name William Blake with a phone number, which he never called. If Hannibal wanted to speak to him--

But Hannibal’s here, now. “I had to take care of things,” he says. His voice. Rich as the dusk. The dog abandons him, thoroughly sniffed, and wanders off into the grounds to chase something else. Hannibal folds his hands in front of himself, neat. “Loose ends.”

Matter-of-fact and not an apology. Will nods, looks away into the shadowed trees. He wonders how many of those loose ends were tied up with murder. It’s a relief, in a way, to not care. “One last loose end to tie up, then, I suppose,” he says, and lets his bag and rod fall on the path.

Hannibal glances at the mess. Looks up again. “I would rather not,” he says. “If I do not have to.”

For the first time in a year, Will feels--surprise. An uncertainty. “I thought--” he says, and closes his mouth. He reviews, recatalogues. For the first time in a year he closes his eyes and there on the path among the wild-grown things he thinks--of a fall, of the wind rushing. The ocean, the painful crash. Blood, spilling everywhere, and what it must’ve taken to make sure he didn’t die there on the rocks, and afterward Hannibal thinking not of storing him away to be dealt with later but of--

“Safekeeping,” he says. He feels it. Deep in his chest. A space, tender as a bruise. He opens his eyes and Hannibal’s focus on him is absolute. It should be terrifying and isn’t. Never will be, ever again. “You could’ve picked somewhere with delivery.”

A tiny upturn of his mouth--Hannibal, smiling at him. It floods through Will like drowning did. “Why order delivery when you have me as a cook?” he says, light, and Will steps forward almost blind and Hannibal cups his face, leans down over him, thumbs tracing his cheekbones in sweet symmetry--and he says, soft, “You will have me, won’t you, Will?” and Will nods helplessly, and Hannibal leans down and presses their mouths together.

Soft, precise. The world condenses into a space of breath. Will parts his lips and Hannibal tilts his head further back, pressing inside--brush of tongue and a taste of--of nothing, and Will feels a surge of heat behind his eyes. It should be salt, and skin, and the infinitesimal differences in body chemistry that would make it Hannibal’s kiss and no one else’s. He pulls back--half a breath--and Hannibal cups the back of his head, holds him in place. When he looks his face is being searched, every part of him scraped open and bare--like he hasn’t laid himself like an offering, like he hasn’t transfigured at an atomic level to be the man Hannibal made him--and Hannibal says, “Oh, Will,” with an intense and mortifying compassion--and then Hannibal leans in, and bites him.

Will flinches, is caught. Grabs into Hannibal’s shirt, feels the pressure increase. His bottom lip between Hannibal’s teeth, and Hannibal bites harder, and harder, and Will’s muscles spasm involuntarily--and when the blood bursts forth he makes a strange sound he can hardly hear, but Hannibal groans, and lets go, and when he lifts his head again his mouth is a dark red, his teeth stained.

Will’s panting. He touches his lip. Not bitten through, but cut on both sides, and he looks at the blood on his fingers and then slides his tongue over the wounds inside. Salt, is the first thing he tastes. Salt, and bitter metal. Cloying, almost--too intense, and vivid, and immediately his mouth feels coated, his tongue flinching from the flavor. He looks at his fingers, and licks them clean, and his own skin is--”Is this what it’s like for you?” he says, and looks up.

Hannibal smiles at him, quietly. “When it matters,” he says, his hands still on Will’s skin and his face a promise, and Will leans up and kisses Hannibal and makes his blood his answer.

#fffb #largoindminor #hannibal #hannibal/will #my writing

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jennycalendar · 5 years

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very really married (14/15)

read it on ao3!

i'm just going to pretend that i didn’t almost forget to post this extremely important update today. that’s what’s going to happen.

The moment Giles realized what the Codex said, he felt as though some final, vital part of him had shattered. Losing Jenny had always been an inevitability, but losing Buffy—he couldn’t contemplate it. This bright, brilliant child who stared death in the eye and laughed on a daily basis…he could not lose her too. Not so soon after he had broken Jenny’s heart.

He would check his translations, he decided, even as the earth shook and broke under his feet. He would check and double-check and triple-check and demand answers from Angel, and he would not tell Buffy about any of this until he had found a foolproof way to keep it from happening.

Everything in the Codex comes to pass, said a thoroughly unhelpful voice in the back of his head. Giles leaned against the checkout desk and stared at the semi-wrecked library, dazed by how rapidly it all seemed to have fallen to bits.

Giles threw himself into research. Buffy came in, the next morning, and he could barely register her presence through the haze of cross-referencing and recataloguing and attempting to repair the damage done by the earthquake on top of everything else. He was on autopilot, thinking only in terms of conjugations and typos and misprints—maybe the Codex meant fall, not die? Fall was more general, certainly, and could mean anything from death to the loss of Giles’s good opinion—but no, no, it translated to she will die—had he calculated the date incorrectly?

“Rupert,” said a voice. “Rupert.”

“Quite busy,” said Giles, not looking up from his books. “Library’s closed. Come again later.”

“I’m playing the wife card,” said Jenny firmly.

That made Giles look up. “Please don’t,” he finally managed.

Jenny flushed, ducking her head. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. I guess if you’re living in a hotel, you don’t really get to play the wife card anymore, huh?”

“No, Jenny, I just—” Giles exhaled, frustrated. Why on earth couldn’t she have done this before Buffy’s impending death? “I am under a lot of stress,” he said. “I don’t think now is the time for you to—to reenter my life.”

“So I’m a stressor?” Jenny looked a mixture of indignant and hurt.

“You are someone I love who I hurt very deeply,” said Giles, “and I am terrified I will hurt you again. Please, Jenny, I-I am in no condition to even attempt at tactfulness—I am tired, and I have quite a lot of work to do—”

“I know,” said Jenny. “I thought that maybe I could help.”

This took Giles aback. “I’m sorry?”

“Buffy checked in with me today, and she said you seemed pretty seriously out of sorts,” said Jenny tentatively. “And I knew it had to be pretty bad if Buffy was concerned enough to check in with me about it, and—and the only things I could think of that might upset you enough to keep them secret all had to do with death and destruction and—”

“Buffy is fated to face the Master,” said Giles.

Jenny blinked. “The who now?”

“The Master,” said Giles unsteadily. “He is a very powerful vampire who trapped himself underground a very long time ago, and he has taken a particular interest in Buffy since her coming here. I discovered a prophecy yesterday that suggested—” He swallowed, then shook his head. “That explicitly stated Buffy would face the Master, and that she would die tomorrow night.”

Jenny studied him for a long moment. Softly, she said, “I’ve never once seen you so undone.”

“How can I not be?” said Giles helplessly. “She’s my—” He didn’t quite know how to describe what he felt for Buffy. Slayer seemed too clinical a term, suddenly; he would have been able to send his Slayer to die without hesitation. “I care very deeply for her,” he said. “And she is only a child. Sending her to die at the hands of a master vampire is, is something I could never do.”

“Your predecessors didn’t seem to have much of a problem with it,” said Jenny a little coolly.

It was then that Giles realized that Jenny had almost certainly read the same Watcher diaries as he had. Not only had she found out of his calling from a secondary source, she had received her only information about it from callously indifferent, utterly detached idiots, all of whom had prioritized their mission over love, family, and the life of the girl they had been charged with protecting. “I am not my predecessors,” he said. “I have no intention of letting a little girl die for the sake of the world, not if I have any way of stopping it.”

Jenny nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Then let me help you.”

“Are you sure?” said Giles uncertainly. “You said you wanted distance—”

“Yeah, well, I think I can put that aside until we figure out how to stop this prophecy from going down,” said Jenny, giving him a small, tired smile.

Not for the first time, Giles was struck by how very remarkable Jenny was. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Jenny hesitated, then reached out, awkwardly squeezing Giles’s shoulder. Giles, who hadn’t been touched since the nightmare incident, couldn’t suppress a startled gasp, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You weren’t lying about…everything, were you?” she said. “Not about—not about hating computers, or, or liking tea, or—”

“Loving you?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“I lied about being a Watcher, Jenny, but that is the only thing I lied about,” said Giles quietly.

For a brief moment, it seemed as though Jenny might kiss him; her eyes flitted down to his mouth, and she leaned in very slightly. But she seemed to think better of it, letting her hand drop and stepping back, and Giles found himself longing for the days when she would grab him and kiss him just to make a point or make him squirm. “Let’s, uh, get back to the Buffy thing,” she said somewhat loudly. “Where did you get the prophecy from?”

“Angel, actually,” said Giles.

Jenny looked startled. “Seriously?”

“Yes, he, he was very helpful,” said Giles awkwardly, raising his hand to straighten his glasses. “He did save my life last week.” Jenny drew in a sharp, pained breath, and he blinked. “Are you quite all right?”

“Your hand,” said Jenny.

Giles raised the hand in question, remembering belatedly that he had sustained a rather bad burn from his attempts to shut off the gas valve. But there hadn’t been time to doctor it properly—there never did seem to be time for that sort of thing. “Oh,” he said, and grinned a bit sheepishly. “Quite a lot better than it looks, actually. I can hold a pencil—”

Jenny looked as though she was about to cry. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Um, we should—we should really start in on the research. Can you maybe call in Angel and see if he can help us out?”

“Certainly,” Giles agreed, both bemused and concerned by Jenny’s reaction. The burn certainly would be healing better if he’d paid proper attention to it, but there truly wasn’t time to do such a thing when one was focused solely on the care and keeping of one’s Slayer. “If you could double-check my translations?”

“Sure,” said Jenny. “Sure,” and picked up the Codex, hurrying it out of Giles’s office. Giles watched her go, feeling a rather confusing blend of emotions, and then turned back to the phone. Angel wouldn’t be able to go outside till sunset, but calling him at least gave Giles something to do.

Angel arrived only a few minutes after sunset. Upon seeing him, Jenny stiffened, but her eyes were wide with an almost childlike curiosity. “Angelus,” she said.

Angel turned, studying her thoughtfully. “Ms. Calendar,” he said. “Buffy mentioned you, once or twice. You’re Giles’s wife?”

Jenny hesitated. Then she said, “My family’s kind of the reason you have your soul.”

It was a mark of how surprising the news was: Angel looked visibly taken aback. “What?”

“I, um, moved to Sunnydale to watch you,” Jenny hedged. “Technically. I feel like I should tell you because literally everyone else knows at this point and it feels weird for you not to? My family really wants to make sure you’re perpetually suffering. It’s kind of their thing.”

“Is that your thing too?” Angel asked carefully.

Jenny seemed to seriously consider the question. “I feel like I don’t know you well enough to make that assessment,” she said.

This seemed to satisfy Angel. “Okay,” he said. “Well. Nice to meet you. Giles, is this why you called me down?”

“Actually, um,” Giles picked up the Codex, now triple-checked by both him and Jenny, “there is something else about which we needed to inform you.”

Angel directed a slightly wary look at the Codex. Smart fellow. “Okay,” he said again.

Jenny stepped forward, placing a quiet hand on Giles’s elbow. “Um, Rupert and I have gone over the Codex…quite a few times,” she said. “And we—should I tell him?”

“I think that would be best,” Giles agreed. He wasn’t sure if he had the emotional energy to break the news to another person.

Gripping Giles’s elbow as if trying to support herself, Jenny continued. “We went over the Codex,” she said, “a-and we came across a prophecy regarding, regarding Buffy. And the Master.”

Angel stared blankly at him. Slowly, he said, “You’re not trying to tell me—”

“The Master will rise,” said Giles unsteadily, “and tomorrow night, the Slayer will die by his hand.”

Angel’s expression didn’t change. “Check it again,” he said. “It’s got to be wrong.”

“We’ve spent the last five hours checking it against all of Rupert’s prophetic volumes,” said Jenny quietly. “If we’re wrong, then so is this entire library.”

“There’s got to be some way around it—”

“Some prophecies,” said Giles, “are mutable. Buffy herself has thwarted more than a few of them. But there is nothing in the Codex that does not come to pass.”

“Then you’ve been reading it wrong,” said Angel fiercely.

“I wish to god we were!” Giles shouted, completely and finally losing his temper. “But there is no other way to interpret it! Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master, and she will die!”

“Have you—” Angel began, but the rest of his words were cut off by quiet, unsteady laughter.

Giles looked, horrified, over Angel’s shoulder. He knew that laugh, though he had never heard it in quite that cadence, and his stomach dropped when he saw Buffy standing in the library doorway. “So that’s it, huh?” she said. “I remember the drill. One Slayer dies, the next one gets called. Wonder who she is.” She turned to Giles, eyes almost too bright. “Will you train her, or will they send someone else.”

“Buffy,” said Jenny softly.

“They say how he’s gonna kill me?” Buffy’s voice broke. “Do you think it’ll hurt?” Angel moved forward to hold her, but she jerked back before he could reach her. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted at him, then turned accusing eyes on Giles and Jenny. “Were you guys even going to tell me?” she asked.

“We were looking for a way to stop it,” said Jenny.

“Here’s how,” said Buffy, shaking. “I quit.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Angel.

“No, I think it should be,” said Giles.

Buffy, Jenny, and Angel all turned to stare at him. “Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning note in her voice. “Remember all those prophecies we checked? Buffy’s supposed to be the only one—”

“I think I’ve had rather enough of this,” said Giles, not really to anyone in particular. “I think I am thoroughly bloody sick of having to live in a world where the people I care about are put deliberately in harm’s way just by virtue of cosmic chance. And I think I am entirely done sitting passively by and letting it happen.”

Buffy looked suddenly frightened, anger and misery forgotten. “Giles,” she said. “What are you—”

“Buffy, you are not going to face the Master,” said Giles. “Don’t worry yourself about it. It simply is not going to happen.”

“But you said—”

“I don’t care what I said,” said Giles. “If it comes to pass, it will come to pass no matter what we do about it. The least I can do is make sure I have done everything I can to stop it from happening.”

He couldn’t quite understand why Buffy didn’t look comforted, or why Jenny had gone ashen, or why even Angel looked a little concerned. All he knew was that preparations needed to be made, battles needed to be fought, evil defeated—

With a sudden sob, Buffy raced from the room, not looking back.

Giles didn’t have time to worry himself about what Buffy thought of him. He had plans of his own to finalize. “Jenny, thank you for staying, but I believe I would like to be alone right now,” he said. “Angel, the same applies for you. If you would just—”

“Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning look in her eyes. “If you’re about to do something stupid—”

“I am going to research,” said Giles, because it was true. He needed all the information he could to go after the Master.

“Then I’m going to help,” said Jenny. “That hasn’t changed.”

“I can help too, if you want,” said Angel uncertainly.

“This is married-couple stuff,” said Jenny flatly. “Thanks, thought.”

Angel got the hint. Quietly, and without protesting, he left the library.

“Wow,” said Jenny. “Buffy really picked a good boyfriend, huh? That guy takes directions like nobody’s business—”

“If you’ll look online, Jenny, I think I shall turn to my books,” said Giles loudly. He didn’t really feel like making conversation when Buffy’s life was at stake, and especiallywhen Jenny was smart enough to figure out what he planned to do from only a few context clues.

Jenny hesitated, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay,” and hurried to the computer.

They spent the entire night researching, and then some. Jenny called in sick the next day, and napped in Giles’s office when Snyder came around to ask Giles, in accusatory tones, where exactly Ms. Calendar was. Giles caught up on sleep only when he began to feel dizzy, and only in short fifteen-minute naps; he was a strange mixture of anxious and driven, and couldn’t bring himself to sleep for longer.

They heard over the intercom about three students found dead in the AV room, but by this point Giles was too tired and too resigned to mysterious deaths to really take much notice of it. It did sting, however, to notice that Jenny’s reaction was similarly minimal, save for a small flinch and an indrawn breath when it was revealed that Willow had found the bodies.

Buffy came in around sundown, wearing an oversized leather jacket over a long white dress. Prom was that night, Giles realized. Somehow, she looked older and harder than he remembered; the news of the prophecy seemed to have aged her beyond her years. “Hi, guys,” she said.

“Buffy,” said Giles. “Good. Stay here with Jenny. You’re not going down to fight the Master tonight.”

“Who else is gonna?” said Buffy simply. All the vindictive fury of the night before was gone, no sign of it remaining.

“I am,” said Giles.

Buffy didn’t look at all surprised by this pronouncement. Jenny, however, did. “No, you’re not—” she began hotly, storming forward.

“You’re right,” said Buffy. “He’s not.”

“There isn’t anything you can say to talk me out of this—” Giles objected.

Lightning-fast, Buffy moved forward, landing an uppercut to Giles’s jaw. Right about then was when everything went black.

Giles came to with Jenny slumped against his side, a bruise blossoming on her cheek. His jaw stung. Looking around, he saw that Buffy was gone, and he felt a rush of complete and utter panic. “Jenny,” he said, shaking her. “Jenny—”

“Rupert,” mumbled Jenny, nuzzling into his side.

“Jenny, Buffy is gone,” said Giles thinly.

That woke Jenny up. “What?” She blinked, then raised a hand to her bruised cheek, wincing. “Shit. She knocked you out, and then she said she was going to go down before anyone else got themselves hurt, and I said I wouldn’t let her, and then—uh.” She winced again. “That’s when it gets kinda fuzzy.”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” said Giles, already standing up. Jenny tugged, hard, at his arm, and he shook her off. “Don’t try and talk me out of this,” he began, crossing the room to grab a broadsword.

“Rupert, you’re going to get yourself killed—”

“Hell of a way to go, isn’t it?”

“You’re scaring me,” said Jenny. Her voice broke. “Please. We need to figure out what to do about the apocalypse before we go running off after Buffy.”

“I’ll let the children handle the research,” said Giles. “You can stay with them and supervise. I need to—” He swallowed. “I need to find Buffy.”

“And what happens if the Master takes you down?” Jenny demanded. “You’re the only other person with supernatural experience—”

“Go find Angel, then,” said Giles flatly. “I’m sure you can talk him into saving the world for Buffy’s sake.”

“Rupert—”

“Jenny,” said Giles. “This is my fault. I am going to go fix it.”

“How the hell is this your fault?”

Giles stared at her for a long second. Then he said, “I don’t know, but I think I should like it to be,” and turned to hurry away.

“Okay, genius,” said Jenny, and grabbed his arm, harder this time. Giles turned, a retort at the ready, but all intelligent thought left his mind when he saw the way she was looking at him. “It’s clear to me,” she said, “that there is absolutely no talking you out of this idiot idea, because when you get an idiot idea in your head, you cling to it like it’s one of your precious volumes. But I am not letting you charge down there without thinking—”

“Try and fucking stop me,” said Giles, attempting to shake her off. It didn’t work quite as well this time.

“Let me finish, asshole!” snapped Jenny, cheeks red. “I am not letting you charge down there without thinking, so I am obviously going to have to come with you.”

Just like that, Giles’s fury was gone. “No,” he said. “Jenny, no, that is out of the question—”

“It’s not up for debate,” said Jenny fiercely. “If you’re going down there, I’m going too.”

“You’ll get yourself killed—”

“What, and you won’t?”

“I can’t lose you,” said Giles, his voice breaking. “It’s bad enough to know I’ve broken your trust, Jenny, I cannot lead you to your death—”

“What’s going on?” said Xander uneasily.

Giles and Jenny turned. Xander and Willow were standing in the middle of the library. “We came to tell you that the faucet at my house started running blood,” said Willow, “but, um, it looks like you two are…” She squinted at Jenny’s bruised cheek, then at Giles’s jaw. “Trading punches?”

“No, that was Buffy,” said Giles without thinking, then winced. “A-and anyway, we really must be going—”

“Where is Buffy?” Willow asked, a note of worry in her voice.

“Somewhere,” said Giles. “Don’t worry about it. Jenny, why don’t you stay with the children and brief them on the situation?” Before Jenny could respond, he finally managed to shake free of her grip, hurrying out of the library without looking back.

He heard running footsteps behind him, and turned, infuriated. Sure enough, Jenny had sprinted out of the library after him. “No,” she said. “You are not getting off that easily. First of all, lead me to my death? As if I would follow you anywhere! If anything, I’d be leading you, because you clearly don’t even know where you’re going! Second, you are not throwing yourself into a suicide mission just because you feel like I’m never gonna trust you again, because that is so fucking stupid and you seriously need to get your priorities straight. Third—”

“She’s just a child, Jenny,” said Giles, a catch in his voice. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting into, and she’s down there all alone.”

“I can’t—” Jenny scrubbed a hand across her face, shaking. “I can’t lose you,” she said. “Do you get that? I can’t lose you on the same day the Master kills Buffy. You’ve been the one constant in this fucked-up town, and if I lose you—”

Giles stepped forward, almost unconsciously. Jenny looked up at him, eyes bright and wet.

“Wait,” said Xander from behind them. “Wait. Buffy went after the Master?”

It suddenly and unpleasantly occurred to Giles that the time they had spent arguing was time during which Buffy might have already gotten herself killed. “Yes,” he said. “She did. And Jenny and I are going to go down and find her.”

Xander didn’t relax. Neither did Willow. “Do you guys seriously think that’s a good idea?” she said.

“Well, I definitely don’t think Jenny should come with me,” said Giles, “but I think I’ve wasted enough time trying to talk her out of it, and lord knows that is a futile endeavor.”

“We’ll go and get Angel,” said Jenny. “He’ll know how to get us to the Master. You kids need to research anything and everything that might lead us to where the Hellmouth’s gonna open up.” Her eyes were on Willow when she said, “I trust you know your way around the library?”

“What if you guys get killed too?” said Willow, voice wobbling.

“Counterpoint: what if we don’t?” Jenny stepped forward, pulling Willow into a tight hug. Over the top of Willow’s head, she said to Xander, “And if you follow us down there, I will kill you myself. Capisce?”

Xander didn’t look very happy about this, but he nodded. “You guys better bring her back alive,” he said.

Giles didn’t know how to make that promise. “Come on, Jenny,” he said instead. Without a word, Jenny let go of Willow, falling into step with him as they hurried out of Sunnydale High.

They arrived at Angel’s apartment in record time, thanks to some utterly reckless driving on Jenny’s part, and burst in without knocking. Without preamble, Jenny informed Angel, “Buffy went after the Master.”

Angel blanched. “He’ll kill her,” he said, horrified.

“That’s what we’re intending to stop,” said Giles matter-of-factly. “You know the way to the Master’s lair, I assume? We’ll need someone to take us there.”

Angel hesitated, studying Giles. Then he said, “You love her, huh?”

The Rupert Giles who had left England with thoughts of an obedient, dedicated Slayer would have balked at such a foolish question—or perhaps he might not have. Perhaps, Giles thought, this sort of love might have been in him all along, whether or not he had known it. “Very much,” he said.

Angel seemed satisfied with this. “He’s underground,” he said. “I can get you there.”

The tunnels were dark and dank, and Giles couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible a place this was for bright, brave Buffy to meet her end. Buffy had been nothing but light and youth, and the thought of her rotting away in some moldy enclave—

“Hey,” said Jenny, very softly, and he felt her hand slip into his, their fingers entwining. Belatedly, Giles realized that he was crying, and scrubbed hastily at his face, doing his best to regulate his breathing. Lord, and in front of Angel—

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Okay,” said Jenny, bumping her head against his shoulder. “Well, maybe the hand-holding isn’t to help you.”

Giles wanted rather badly to appreciate the possibility of a reconciliation with Jenny. He wanted rather badly to return to the time when it was Jenny’s leaving that had had him absolutely miserable. Then, at least, all the people he cared about had been alive, and there had been no chance of anything but that—

A bright light shone from a tunnel up ahead, and a ripple passed through the air. Instinctively, Giles knew what had happened; dropping Jenny’s hand, he ran.

“Giles, it’s too late, he’s gone up!” Angel was shouting after him, but Giles was running down the slippery tunnel, turning the corner, clambering down and into the Master’s lair and Buffy—

Buffy was lying, facedown, in a pool of water. Giles half-fell down next to her, pulling her clumsily out and into his arms. She was cold and wet, her hair falling in lank tendrils around her face, and she wasn’t—and she wasn’t—

“She’s not breathing,” said a voice that didn’t sound anything like his own. He could see Jenny and Angel scrambling to reach him, and turned his attention back to Buffy, her eyes closed. She had been so still and calm, when last he saw her. Always, she had been loud and lighthearted, never carrying herself like she was battle-worn. God, had he been foolish—thinking that her destiny didn’t weigh on her, thinking that she didn’t take it seriously, what had he been thinking? Buffy, dead—Buffy, dead and gone—

“Not breathing,” said Jenny, “does not necessarily mean gone for good.” She pointed to Angel. “We’ve got a walking, talking example of that right here.”

“The prophecy—”

“Fuck the prophecy,” said Jenny fiercely. “If she drowned, then there’s a chance. Do you know CPR?”

“Yes,” said Giles dizzily. “Yes, I—” He removed his jacket, setting Buffy’s—setting Buffy down on it as gently as possible, and was reminded of a time, months ago, when he had done just this in a science laboratory. He would do anything to protect this girl, he knew, and he knew that she could beat incredible odds— “Prove me wrong,” he whispered, and began the compressions, counting clumsily. He felt certain that he wasn’t strong enough, precise enough, enough—

Rescue breath. One, two.

“Shut up,” he heard Jenny saying to Angel, and he tried not to think about Jenny, or Angel, or Buffy, or the apocalypse around them, or how much time he might be wasting, trying to bring back a dead girl just because he loved her—

Rescue breath. One, two.

And what would he tell her if she was alive? That he loved her? He felt sure that she would laugh it off, and the thought of her laughing it off—of her laughing—made Giles smile, despite himself. She would laugh it off, and then she would give him that bright, sweet grin, and something would solidify between them—something not quite Watcher-Slayer, he supposed, something more along the lines of—she had a father, he knew, but—

Buffy coughed, and spat up a rather impressive amount of water all over Giles’s sweater vest.

“Oh my god,” said Jenny, and laughed, punching Angel’s shoulder. Angel winced. “Oh my god—”

Giles pulled back, taking Buffy’s hands in his. Buffy blinked up at him as if not quite sure who he was, coughed again, then sat up, staring at Giles with wide eyes. “Giles?” she said in a tiny voice.

“Buffy,” said Giles, and almost started crying when she pulled him into a crushing hug.

After that, the apocalypse really did feel like nothing at all. The Master was defeated, the Hellmouth beast retreating back from whence it came (Xander would inform everyone, proudly, that he got a good few hacks in with Giles’s battle-axe), and Cordelia Chase had somehow managed to destroy a respectable number of vampires with a rather expensive car—along with some school property, but Giles was off the clock and really didn’t care all that much anyway. He had more important things on his mind.

“—and then I flipped him through the roof,” Buffy was informing Xander and Willow, who were listening with rapt, adoring attention. “But you guys saw that part, obviously. I’m pretty sure almost everybody saw that part—Giles, you saw me flip him, right?”

“I did see you flip him,” Giles agreed, grinning. “You did excellently tonight.”

“Aww, you’re just saying that ‘cause I died,” Buffy teased, leaning into Giles’s side with cheerful ease.

“Absolutely not,” said Giles emphatically. “Never assume I praise you for anything other than your stellar achievements.”

“You know what?” said Buffy to Willow. “If this is how he acts after I die, I’m gonna die every day for the rest of my life.”

“Um,” said Willow, “logistically—”

Giles took this moment to tuck his jacket a bit more securely round Buffy’s shoulders. “I won’t have you catching cold,” he informed her. “That long in sewer water—it’s a wonder you’re not ill already.”

“You’re such a helicopter Watcher,” said Buffy, snuggling into the jacket. She buried her hands in the pockets, then stopped, a strange expression on her face. “Uh, Giles?” she said. “You, uh—want your jacket back?”

“Keep it,” said Giles. “Just till you’re a bit drier—”

“No, Giles, I really think you should take your jacket back,” said Buffy, and directed an extremely significant look first at Jenny, then at the left-hand pocket of Giles’s jacket.

“Wh—” The penny dropped. Wincing, Giles took the jacket back, took out the ring box as subtly as he could, then firmly tucked the jacket back round Buffy’s shoulders. “You still need to stay warm,” he said.

“It’s totally ruining my look!” Buffy protested.

“As you would say to me, deal,” said Giles, smoothing down Buffy’s hair. She grinned. “I really would have gone down there in your stead,” he informed her, grateful that the loud music of the Bronze muffled his words from the rest of the group.

“I know,” said Buffy, and her grin softened into the trusting little smile that, a very long time ago, Giles had seen directed at Jenny. “You did come running after me.” She reached forward, hugging Giles. “Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “You’re the best Watcher I’ve ever had.”

“The bar was set rather low, then, wasn’t it?” Giles quipped, hugging her back.

“Shut up,” said Buffy, pulling back to just keep smiling at him.

“Hey, uh, Buffy?” Angel was shifting from one foot to the other, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Um—if you’re not too busy—there’s a nice song on, I thought maybe—”

“Why, Angel, are you asking me to dance?” said Buffy, sounding positively delighted by the concept. She hopped up, giving Angel a big, smitten grin before turning back to Giles. “Love you,” she said, as easily and effortlessly as if she hadn’t had to think about it at all.

Giles found himself a bit overcome and had to polish his glasses. Buffy didn’t seem too surprised by this. “I—I love you too,” he said, though he supposed he didn’t really need to say it for her to know it. There wasn’t much else that could have motivated a Watcher to fight against a recorded prophecy.

Buffy’s smile was just as bright and sweet as Giles had imagined it to be—more so, in fact, now that he was seeing it. Tucking her arm into Angel’s, she let him lead her onto the dance floor.

“You know what?” said Willow. “Let’s cut a rug. Xander, you wanna come dance?”

“Uh, Will, I don’t know—” Xander began.

“Not with each other,” said Willow, rolling her eyes. “It’s gonna be a fast song soon!”

Xander considered, then grinned, following Willow into the crowd.

It took Giles a moment to realize that this left only him and Jenny. About to stammer out some excuse and head home alone, he opened his mouth, but was cut off when Jenny held out her hand. “Dance with me,” she said.

Heart pounding, Giles stood up. “All right,” he said, and took her hand, following her lead.

There was an empty space by the refreshments, and that was where Jenny draped her arms around his neck, looking up at him with all the affection he had been so afraid of losing. It left him all but speechless. “So you were a total stubborn idiot tonight,” she said. “Really reaffirmed some pressing questions.”

“Oh?” said Giles.

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “It was kinda hard for me to picture you as a Watcher till I saw it in action, you know? All those diaries I read had Watchers as self-serving bastards who talked about their Slayers like commodities, and that just…” She trailed off. “That didn’t fit with the guy I fell in love with,” she said. “But this night really, really does.”

Giles stared at her. Slowly, he said, “I don’t—I don’t entirely follow—”

“I love you, Rupert,” said Jenny, and oh, Giles had never dreamed hearing it from her might ever feel like this. Now he understood why she had looked at him like he was a treasure, after Angel; the head-to-toe feeling of being loved, of being known in one’s entirety and still being loved, was overwhelming. “I was so scared,” she said unsteadily, “that you made yourself up as some kind of a cover story. And it made so much more sense than this sweet, annoying, ridiculous librarian just falling into my life completely by accident.”

“I never lied about the important bits,” said Giles quietly. “I never could.”

“I know that now,” said Jenny, giving him a small, wobbly smile.

The slow song had transitioned into a fast one, but they remained swaying quietly to the music, Jenny in Giles’s arms. Jenny Calendar, well aware that her husband was a Watcher, somehow looking at him with just as much love as she had when he was just a clumsy librarian. Giles couldn’t comprehend how lucky, how happy he was.

“And I would never dream of lying about loving you,” Giles whispered. He needed to make sure she heard it, properly, with no secrets or hurt separating them. “I—I don’t know how I can possibly express—all the things I want to tell you, now that I can—”

“So save a few for tomorrow,” said Jenny, her smile widening. “We’ve got more than enough time for you to butter me up.”

Giles let out a watery laugh. “More than enough time?”

“All the time in the world,” said Jenny.

“Wait,” said Giles. “So—”

“Yes, Rupert, I want us to get back together,” said Jenny, looking up at him with that exasperated amusement that he had missed so much. “What does it take to get that through to you?”

“Possibly a formal dissertation,” said Giles, not very seriously, which made Jenny start giggling as he leaned in.

There was then a series of very loud cheers. Well aware that the children were almost definitely watching their reconciliation, and that he was most certainly going to be teased by his audience if he continued the kiss he had initiated, Giles…was distracted by the flutter of Jenny’s eyelashes, and her slowly-spreading smile, and kissed her anyway.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cordelia was saying to someone in the background. “Those two are weird. But they’re at least weird together, you know? Less trauma for the rest of the dating pool, probably.”

“Cordelia, please shut up,” said Buffy.

Jenny broke the kiss, resting her forehead against Giles’s with a happy sigh. “I love you,” she whispered again.

Giles felt as though his sheer, dizzying joy might send him flying off into space. “I love you too,” he whispered back, struck with the knowledge that he got to say those words, and mean them, for as long as their marriage lasted.

That line of thought reminded him of something important. Keeping one hand on his wife’s waist, he fumbled in his pocket. Jenny looked somewhat bemused by this. “Rupert, what—” she began, and then stopped, breath catching in her throat, as Giles opened the ring box.

“Wait,” said Cordelia. “But they’re already married!”

“You’re a little behind the times, sweetie,” said Xander, and attempted to pat Cordelia’s shoulder. Cordelia stepped very hard on his foot.

“I can’t really go down on one knee,” said Giles, giving her a small, apologetic grin. “Partially because I feel fairly certain I fractured my kneecap in the sewer—”

“—after this, we’re going to the ER,” Jenny informed him in a somewhat wobbly voice, directing a shaky smile at the engagement ring.

“—yes, of course, dear, but please don’t detract from my point,” said Giles.

“Are you seriously correcting me in the middle of this?” Jenny asked, raising her eyes to Giles’s—and oh, her eyes were full of love.

“Of course,” said Giles, his grin becoming more smitten than nervous. “It’s rather our MO, isn’t it?” He removed his free hand from her waist, using it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She turned her face into his hand, smiling back up at him. “Jenny, I love you,” he said softly. “No part of this arrangement was what I ever imagined, but I don’t think I could ever have anticipated falling into the life of such a terrifying, stubborn, bitingly intelligent woman completely by accident. It’s me who’s the lucky one, darling.”

Jenny preened. “You can say that again.”

“And I want to,” said Giles. “And I will. Every day, and every week, and every month, and every year. Jenny, will you—” He stopped, realized the problem with proposing to the woman he had already married, and rather wished (for the first and hopefully last time) that he had listened to Cordelia Chase’s snide side commentary. “Um.”

“Take your grandmother’s engagement ring and not divorce you till death do us part?” said Jenny helpfully, looking very much like she was trying not to laugh. “Because I will definitely do both of those things.”

A very long time ago, Rupert Giles might have cared about the fact that proposing to his fake wife in the middle of an American high school prom was absolutely not what the Watchers’ Council would call respectable. A very, very long time ago, he might not have grinned, tears in his eyes, as Jenny donned his grandmother’s engagement ring, draped her arms back round his neck, and kissed him like it was their wedding day, the children starting up a new round of cheering.

“Are we seriously cheering on a couple of newlyweds deciding not to get a divorce?” said Cordelia. “Someone better explain this to me at some point.”

“She’s right,” murmured Giles, pulling back just enough for his lips to still brush Jenny’s as he spoke. “This whole affair is horribly unromantic.”

“Just my style,” Jenny whispered.

Giles smiled, soft and slow. “Mine too, I think,” he said, and leaned in, tenderly kissing his wife.

#fic #very really married #SO NOW ALL THAT'S LEFT IS THE EPILOGUE !! WOW #full disclosure i did in fact spend much too much time reworking the ending...i felt it was not sappy enough

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