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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And we are together finally…"

-"We Are Together," Indigo Girls.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Buffy luv?"

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

"This is all your fault you know!"

"Now Buffy, I did offer…"

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

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

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

End part One…

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

~~~~~

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

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

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

"….and I thought we agreed."

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

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

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

~~~You're going to love me

like nobody's loved me~~~

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

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

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

~~~~

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

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

~~~~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

~~~~~

"Buffy, I…"

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

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

"Please, Buffy, you have to…"

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

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

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

"Buffy luv…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you?"

The quiet words surprised Rupert.

"Er…do I what?"

"Love me."

Pause.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~~~~~

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

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

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

"No, luv, this is what I want…"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Meep!"

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

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

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

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

It worked.

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

* * * * *

If heaven existed, it surely had something to do with a warm, fuzzy bed, sunlight, and something to cuddle.

Something to cuddle? Eh?

Buffy's body squirmed deeper into the body warmed bedding as her mind attempted to come back on-line and sort through the images flying through it..

Well, first things first, body and extremities check. Head? The blonde head peeking out of the covers shifted. Check. Torso? Check. Legs? One slim, tanned leg kicked out, met cool morning air, and wisely retreated back into the cocoon of warmth. Check. Arms? Yep, Buffy wiggled her thumbs to make sure. Check. Wait…there was a definite sore feeling to her…to her…

Oh…god…ohgodohgodohgod….what had she…

//I had sex with Giles. Giles sex…and//

//And Giles will be in momentarily with pancakes.//

Buffy slapped her forehead with her right hand, then burrowed under the covers in the hopes that she'd wake up again, in her room at home, freaking over what had to be weirdest prophecy dream to date. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ignore the way she felt.

Her skin felt different…it felt charged, like there was an electric field running beneath it. And when she'd thought to herself just now about Giles and sex…she didn't just hear Giles' thoughts, she'd heard his voice in her head. Her mind might be having problems dealing with the combination of her former Watcher and sex, but her body had reacted to hearing his thoughts with a zing of…well, glow in her mid-section, a glow which was quickly spreading to the rest of her body.

//This is ridiculous…I wanted to make love to Giles…to Rupert, and I did, and it was great, and why am I freaking out now?//

"Because you've just done something so radical your brain can't quite catch up with your what your body knows. Now, untunnel yourself from those covers and eat your pancakes."

Buffy felt a light kiss on the very top of her head before a body made a slight depression in the bed next to her body. Uncocooning herself, she flopped back on the pillows at the head of the bed, primly putting her hands at her sides as Giles settled the breakfast tray over her lap.

"There we go, chocolate-chip pancakes," he took a moment to shudder in horror, "orange juice, and a bit of sausage. The perfect breakfast for any growing Slayer."

She glared at Giles. It wasn't fair, he was being entirely too calm about this whole thing.

"Ok, calm-man, I eat, you explain about the unimakey thingy. And use small words so that I can actually understand what you're talking about.

Giles leaned over Buffy's feet and propped himself up on one elbow, putting his head on his hand. He helped himself to a link of sausage, earning a fierce glare from Buffy who was gobbling up the rest, before beginning to explain matters in more detail.

"Well, luv, what you have so charmingly coined the 'unimakey thing' is actually called Unification. In the Chronicles of Navros…"

Buffy rolled her eyes at the mention of yet another one of the holy books o' Doom and Destruction for Buffy.

"The process is laid out in some detail. You may not know this," Giles paused to pointedly look his lover in the eyes, "but Slayers and their Watchers have existed for untold millennia. In fact, they existed prior to the inception of the Council. At one time, a Slayer found her Watcher by a…a…biological imperative, I suppose. Both Slayer and Watcher would feel a pull from outside their bodies to mate with someone, to find some other being that they would recognize instantly as belonging to them. Oftentimes, these relationships were of a sexual nature, though they never lasted long due to the usual life expectancy of a Slayer. The few records of the times before the Council mention that when a Slayer and Watcher joined, their life forces were matched, were linked for all time."

Giles face became somber, his lips compressing into a thin line. "When a Slayer and Watcher joined their bodies, their life forces became one. If the Slayer died, so did her Watcher, and vice versa. When the Council formed, it quickly realized that allowing Slayers and Watchers to complete the Unification ritual would be detrimental to their purpose. After all, someone has to live on to create more little Watchers. So, the Council began to breed Watchers specially, weakening their need to find their mates. Every active Watcher has for centuries also been given a special serum to inhibit their body's recognition of a potential mate and their Slayer's recognition of the rightness or wrongness of their Watcher."

"Wait a second…does that mean this could have happened with Wussley?" Buffy's mouth made a moue of disgust as she contemplated 'mating' with Wesley.

"No, as I said prior to last night's lovemaking," Buffy blushed, "Unification only occurs if the Slayer and Watcher are meant to be matched. Before the Council interfered with the process, only one possible Watcher existed for any possible Slayer, but when the Council began to play God, the process became skewed. More Watchers than Slayers existed, and the serum didn't help matters either."

Buffy eyed Rupert shrewdly. "Were you given this serum?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and answered her. "Yes, I was, though I do believe now that my natural magickal abilities gave me the ability to see through the haze caused by the serum. This would explain some of my attraction to you…not that I wasn't already attracted to you, but I don't believe that I would have been so willing to 'make' you love me when…" he paused, hesitant to bring up Angel's name in such an intimate setting.

"When Angel handed me off to you…I feel like a baton or something."

Bother hesitancy. Giles had, after all, known for some time that hesitancy and the astonishingly beautiful goddess in his bed would never see eye to eye.

"Fine, when Angel so kindly gave you to me," he said sarcastically, moving up to lay beside Buffy now that she had finished her breakfast and set the tray on the floor next to the bed. After taking her hand in his, and running his lips along her knuckles reverently, Giles continued his long explanation.

"The Navros books contain the only extant tale of Unification being achieved since the Council began tampering with genetics. A Slayer by the name of Maria Cristina Giovanni and her Watcher, Marcos d'Assisi, disappeared during a tremendous battle against the demon Ekryans. When a new Slayer was not called, the Council sent men to investigate the supposed deaths of Maria and Marcos. They were discovered in the town of Assisi, living as man and wife. The Chronicle does not, however, explain exactly what happened to Maria and Marcos. It only mentions that Maria died, followed by her Watcher. After scouring the countryside for any possible 'offspring', the Council left. There hasn't been a Unification for almost seven hundred years."

"And this is all we know? No long, drawn-out, really boring list of what exactly this thingy does to the participants? Surely, somewhere in that Navy book they said something about, oh I don't know, sudden psychic bonding?"

Though she didn't realize it, as she spoke, Buffy's hand trailed through Rupert's soft brown hair, unconsciously enjoying the feel of her fingers against his skin. The heat from his flesh distracted her for a moment, as she lost herself in the sensation.

"If you'd kindly stop petting me, just for the moment, I'd be happy to continue my explanation." Giles looked up at Buffy, amusement evident in his sparkling green eyes.

"Uh? Oh, sorry." She sheepishly removed her hand and put it back in her lap, reflexively grasping the comforter.

"Alright, now, in response to your question, there are only two things we know for sure about Unification's effects. The two unified partners' lives are linked; when one dies, so does the other. And they have 'sudden psychic bonding'. That's really all we know, and it's quite possible there isn't anything more to add. Well, I should say that I'm not entirely sure how strong our link will be; after all, the gene in me that would have recognized you has been weakened through centuries of genetic meddling, though it's entirely possible that my magickal abilities will give us an edge." As he spoke, Rupert's face lost some of its sparkly joy. //Lord, please don't let me lose her…//

"Hey, it goes the other way too, ya know!" Buffy stopped when she realized how that sounded.

//Giles…Rupert…I'm so sorry, I don't know what to feel, I feel weird and tingly and happy inside, and well, on top of the fact that that's never happened before…it's happened with my Watcher, meep much?//

The flurry of thoughts flooded her lover's mind and he mentally reeled under the emotional combination of joy and fear and disgust roiling in Buffy's mind. Joy because her body at least knew what love felt like; fear because her last experience with love wasn't the most positive; and disgust because this joy came from changing the steadiest, least judgmental relationship she'd ever had. Rupert closed his eyes as he softly kissed the pad of the blonde's palm, nuzzling the center. He smelled vanilla, sandalwood, and the faintest hint of sex. Sex with him. At that thought, a wolfish grin broke out on his face. //Mine,// he thought with satisfaction.

//Hey, cave-boy, that also goes both ways.// Buffy slid down to kiss Giles, capturing his lips with hers. She inhaled deeply of sweat and sex and that clean, warm smell that was just Giles. Her tongue plunged deeply into the warm cavern, seeking out its secrets.

//We belong to each other, together, always. And besides…you're really good in bed//

She smirked as they sunk under the covers to once again lose themselves in the sweetness of the other.

~~~~~

The day dawned sunny and bright as Wilhemina Giles woke up, wincing as the sunlight streaming through her window hit her eyes. She shifted onto her back and gazed up at the large poster of Jim Morrison looming over her bed. Yeah, he was before even her mom's time but he looked so good in leather pants.

According to her digital bedside clock it was precisely 8:33 a.m. and in exactly 9 hours and 27 minutes, she would be walking down a small dirt path to a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the arms of her honorary fathers, Angel and Wesley. There were times when her life was completely unbelievable and this was one of them. It happened often when she woke up in the sunlight, temporarily blinded by the intensity of the warmth. For a moment, nothing existed but sunlight, sleepy contentment, and warmth. Not a trace of the darkness which often tinged her life remained.

Last night, when Willie had found that can of formula, she recalled the first time that she had really grieved the loss of her parents. They had done everything they could do to make her happy and they had given her the best adopted family anyone could ask for. Willow had told her volumes about Buffy's humor and strength and her occasional short-sightedness and selfishness. Angel had shared his own cherished image of Buffy as the only human woman he ever loved. From Oz and Xander, she had received a variety of tales from high school. Cordelia had, in her own indomitable fashion, given Willie her exact opinion of her parents - Giles as Mr. He Can Be Trusted and Buffy as Ms. I Like To Kill Things. Spike had bragged on about defeating her mom time and time again, turning his head away when he choked, blood tears springing to his eyes.

None of those images, none of those memories, however, had really meant anything to Willie. It's hard to transmit all the power, love, faith, hope, laughter, joy, and strength you shared with two people through words. Willie'd been smiling and nodding at the lot of them for years. At 18, though, they were finally real to her.

When she was 18, she had looked three seats over to where Drew Chase-Harris sat somehow managing to take up more space than one teenage boy ever should, trying to pretend that he wasn't dozing. Then, at that exact moment, Willie had known that her parents loved her because Drew loved her. And she loved him. It made sense. Hard to explain how realizing that you love a boy makes you realize your parents loved you, even though they had been dead and gone for 16 years, but she had known. The past had sat right with her on that sunny afternoon, smiling and nodding.

Her mom and Dad might be on the dead side, but Willie still had more parents than she knew what to do with sometimes. She had Willow to help her with Calculus. Cordelia for needed and un-needed fashion advice and Xander for drinking milk and eating HoHos in front of the TV with on Saturday morning. Angel for keeping in shape, Wesley for learning arcane and modern languages and knowledge, Oz for an appreciation of the wild in all of us, Anya and Spike for a reminder that there is something human in nearly everything…and Buffy and Giles for love.

Yeah, she knew that she was lucky. After all, it wasn't every girl who had her very own supernatural cheering squad.

Willie groaned, flinging back the covers to reveal her pajama-clad body. Spike had bought her the pajamas for her last birthday - they were decorated with hundreds of smiley faces with little fangs dripping blood. They were kinda hard to explain her friends who didn't know that "that hunky blonde dude" was a vampire with a wicked bad sense of humor. As she leaned over the side of the bed, hunting for her fuzzy white and black cow slippers, she heard a low cackle come from just below her window. She grinned and flung herself back on the bed.

"Oh, no, whatever will I do? It's the devious Drewman, come to steal me away from my sweet intended!"

"Muwahahaha, you have no choice my sweet! I shall take you away from this place, and you'll never see the insipid Andrew again! Not even when we visit for Christmas and Hanukkah!"

Willie snorted and rubbed her face with one hand. He really was such a dork.

"Drew? You do realize you're insulting yourself, right?"

"No, I thought I was insulting Dad…you never play along, partypooper."

"I just hate to see you make a fool of yourself…though you're still adorable."

"Adorable??! That's all I get? Man, maybe I'll go take back that tux…think Anya would run away with me?"

"Not likely, I think you're pretty much stuck with me." Willie twisted a lock of hair with one finger, her face suddenly serious. "Love you."

The voice from below the window didn't hesitate a second. "Love you more."

~~~~~

Willie Giles and Drew Harris had fought from the first time they met. She had wanted to play war and Drew had wanted to read a book. She won, but sat down with him the next afternoon to read.

They had both been three years old.

Call it kismet, call it fate, call it a severe case of May-December romance, as Willie was wont to do, but they had been best friends since the beginning of time, and it hadn't stopped yet.

And today, they would be married, on the spot where her parents' ashes had been scattered.

~~~~~

"Do you have all that blue and old crap? Suppose' to be important, so I've heard anyway. Wouldn't want you and Tweedy to have a bad marriage all because of a lack of blue."

Spike stood behind Willie, gliding the zipper to her silk dress up her back. The dress was a cool looking ivory silk gown, sleek and simple, in a modified 30's style. Cordelia had disappeared, muttering about checking on her men. Anya was already at the beach "checking out the incoming guests", of which there weren't really any, and Willow was sitting on the duvet in Willie's room, bemusedly watching the scene before her.

10 minutes earlier, a flustered looking Spike had strode in, his only concession to the day a white silk shirt. He had pushed Willow aside, plopping the computer programmer down on the duvet and taking over getting the bride ready. Willow had managed to worm the info out of Spike - he'd been off annoying Angel, Wesley, Xander, and Oz as they gave Drew a good talking to. Apparently, Spike had threatened the young man with immediate decapitation if he so much as touched his Mina (Spike liked it better than Willie), to which Drew had cockily responded, "Touched? Is that what they called it back when? Been there done that…I saw Willie naked before I knew what seeing a girl naked meant, and I've touched it all." Last seen, Drew had been backed in a corner by four very fierce looking men as Spike had backed away in snit because they wouldn't let him join in.

Willow Osbourne groaned as she rose from her resting place. Never get pregnant after forty, ever, ever, ever.

"Spike, she has the blue garter, her mother's cross, Angel's claddagh ring, and the daisies you gave her that she'll carry. Relax." When the vampire continued to hover behind Willie, she finished with, "Now," in a voice usually reserved for her children.

"Oh, sod off, I'm just bein' all careful. If the twit's going to shackle herself off to Tweed Junior, she's gonna go lookin' like a bloody empress."

"William, stop calling him any strain of Tweed, you know his name well-enough, and if you don't, I'll tell Anya you like her."

The look of horror plastered on the cocky vampire's face was payment enough.

Willie briskly took one last look in the mirror. Ready steady.

"Let's book. Time to catch Drew and get hitched before something goes all Hellmouthy on us."

The girl strode out of the room, and down the hall, leaving a heavily pregnant Willow and a muttering Spike to follow her. Knocking on the door at the top of the stairs, she entered when she heard, "Go away, I'm getting great manly advice about how to control your woman," then a thud, and Drew's injured voice saying, "Don’t injure me or my betrothed might injure you."

Willie swung the door open to reveal Angel, Xander, and Oz sitting on a smallish couch, and Wesley standing next to Drew. The room stilled when the unusually elegant looking Ms. Giles halted on the threshold. All traces of careless humor slipped from Drew's face as he drank in the sight of his lover. This was really, really it.

He held his hand out to her, she grasped it firmly in her own, and he pulled her to him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Wanna get married?"

"Oh, sure, why not. I'm all dressed up, I've gotten marital advice from both the living and the living dead, and you are kinda cute after all." Drew's smile crooked up at one end.

The two lovers strolled from the room, arm in arm. The collected remains of the Scooby Gang looked at each other in a combination of amusement and warm fuzzies, then followed.

On her way past the base of the staircase, Willie's hand lightly touched her parents' wedding picture before walking outside into the warm, early evening California air.

~~~~~

"Do you both promise to love and cherish each other, keeping each other close to your thoughts always, through every day in your lives together?"

Cool sea air rolled over the small collected company. Willie and Drew stood together at the point of the cliff, hands clasped.

"We do."

The simply clad priestess/Unitarian Universalist minister turned to the 'parents'.

"Do you promise to watch over this couple and to do everything in your respective powers to aid them in a happy and fruitful life?"

A chorus of voices rang out: some choked with tears, some joyous, some deep and rough, some gentle and airy.

"We do."

~~~~~

"Buffy Anne Summers, do you take Rupert Thomas Giles to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

Angel leaned his head back to stare into the seemingly endless ceiling of the small chapel. Life had a funny way of working out exactly the way you both did, and did not, want it to work out. Even as he had told Giles about his plan, in the back of his mind he had still cultivated a plan to ruin his own plot. Surely Buffy wouldn't fall in love with man who looked so much older than her, than Angel. Surely Buffy wouldn't love someone else the way she had loved Angel. Unfortunately, though these things had rushed through his head, he had known that Buffy and Giles would marry, would be happy, would find something together that Angel had helped create. The knowledge had shredded his heart into hot, painful strips of flesh, but the pain could not erase what Angel had known and still knew at the pit of his being.

Rupert had completed Buffy where Angel could not. The elegantly handsome Englishman had walked in the sun with her, given her a child, and made her short life so full that Buffy had been prone to tears because of the seemingly undeserved happiness.

22 years after having given his soul's love to the man he most admired, Angel felt content. It wasn't fair that Buffy hadn't seen her daughter go out on her first date, or to the Prom as Prom Queen, or laughed at Willie's face the night after Drew first kissed her. Giles hadn't been the forbidding presence scaring off high school boys for a 100 mile radius, the person who gave Willie her first driving lesson, and he hadn't listened to her questions about what guys really wanted.

Life wasn't fair. If Buffy and Rupert had never come together, Willie would not be joining her life with another's, but Buffy would still be dead. Slayers don’t live long enough for the "Old Slayers' Home." Statistically, they die young, alone, and in pain. Buffy died young, but because of Rupert, she broke the mold. She died with her husband, in his arms, and she felt no pain because she had Rupert to hold her.

They were together. Always.

The soft strains of an old Billie Holiday tune broke Angel's reverie, and he smiled as Willie leaned up to kiss her new husband.

Things hadn't turned out so bad after all.