"Lost & Found" ~ Part 4

SPOILERS: Set post-"Chosen" in my own little Joss-comic-free AU.
RATING: FR-M [mature situations, angst]

DISCLAIMER: Without Prejudice. Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters and concepts are copyright ©1997-2002 20th Century Fox, WB Television, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN Television. No Infringments of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. While certain places herein are based on real geographical locations, the details are drawn purely from my own imagination. No resemblance to any real place and/or its populace intended. My original characters are not based on any real people, and no resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is intended.

Part Four

Giles stirred groggily from sleep, waking to the oddest of alarm clocks--a flock of bleating sheep. Blinking open heavy eyes, he squinted at the brilliant morning sunshine diffused over the condensation-covered windows of the Range Rover. The opaqueness made it impossible to see out--or in--but the presence of the sun was reassuring in itself. There was no sign of the storm that had so irrationally overwhelmed his common sense.

It took him only a moment to realize where he was, and with whom he was. He gazed down at the matted crown of gold hair, poking out the top of the sleeping bag and resting so contentedly against the warmth of his bare chest. As he drew a deep breath against the weight of the petite body resting on his, a hundred and one questions instantly formed on the tip of his tongue.

The slight rise and fall of his chest was enough to cause Buffy's head to jolt up in alarm. As she returned from guilty slumber, he could feel the immediate tension in her body, so when her concerned eyes lifted to his, he greeted her with a lazy, forgiving smile.

"Good morning."

Relaxing, letting her chin drop onto his sternum, Buffy blew the disarrayed hair out of her eyes before answering. "Hey . . . guess I must've dozed off." She stretched, graceful and cat-like, making him bite back a groan at the skin-on-skin contact. "How do you feel?"

Pausing, Giles assessed his body's various responses to the question. He felt toasty warm, but not hot, snuggled under the sleeping bag with Buffy in the crisp morning air; there was a slight twinge in his lower back that told him he'd stayed too long in one position; and he had an appetite worthy of the best All-You-Can-Eat restaurant Britain had to offer. The other typically male response he was simply going to ignore, and pray to whatever god would listen that Buffy didn't notice.

"A little stiff," he answered, then blushed at the unintentional innuendo.

As Buffy's concerned expression started to change to understanding, Giles attempted to derail that particular train of thought by alleviating the very real twinge in his back. He pulled his knees up fast, which before he realized it, propelled Buffy further up his chest and put her lips kissable-close to his own. Worse, she was now straddling a very delicate spot. Realizing his error, he gave her a self-conscious smile, which she returned knowingly, before obligingly moving off him, shifting her weight onto the felt-covered air mattress at his side.

With a sigh that said she was not yet ready to give up the tranquility of the moment, Buffy snuggled close again, one knee still hooked over his legs, one hand resting over his heart, happy to lay with him in the sunshine filled warmth of their private little world. "Mmm, you're so cuddly warm, I could stay here all day."

Giles shifted a little more, the awkward intimacy and Buffy's 'touchy-feely' display of affection putting him well outside the bounds of his personal comfort zone. There was a hole in his memory where he couldn't remember what he'd done, or with whom he'd done it. He recalled enough of the preceding night to put some of the pieces together--the thunderstorm, the boyhood terror, the insufferable cold--although he had no recollection of Buffy returning from her quest to find him, or why they now seemed to be sharing some sort of 'morning after' glow.

Opting not for the first question that came to mind but certainly one on his list of Top Ten, he asked, "Are we . . . naked?"

Buffy's cheek swiveled on his shoulder to give him a coy look. "You noticed that, huh."

He tried not to blush again. "Yes, well . . . "

It was one thing to think his fondest dream had come true and he'd finally make sweet love to the woman who had stolen his heart. It was quite another, not to mention an insult to the lady in question, to admit he remembered nothing of it.

Buffy giggled in amusement, clearly on the same wavelength. "Relax, Romeo. Difficult as it was, I refrained from having my wicked way with you while you were off visiting Never-Never Land." Her mischievous manner abruptly turned serious. "You almost died last night. I didn't think you were ever going to warm up."

"Hypothermia?" Giles asked, thinking that might account for his memory lapse. If he'd gone into shock--

"Severe hypothermia," Buffy confirmed. "We were both drenched to the skin, so the clothes had to go." She was suddenly very annoyed. "That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, Giles! Why didn't you just get inside here? All warm and dry and safe? You almost gave me heart failure when I found you like that!"

Not yet ready to explain, Giles instead opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could, someone tapped on the sun-diffused window from outside the Range Rover.

"Are you all right in there?" tap-tap-tap "Professor Giles?"

Giles flushed with embarrassment. "Oh Lord," he whispered, "that must be the landowner. He's probably come to check on us, since we didn't call in when we arrived yesterday."

Buffy squealed softly. "Embarrassing, much?"

She pulled away from him, taking the only source of cover with her. Shuffling toward the rear gate, which inadvertently made the vehicle bounce tellingly on its suspension, she modestly wrapped the entire sleeping bag around herself. This left Giles to deal with the man outside armed with nothing but his dignity, which, in truth, was greatly diminished by his smiley-faced boxer shorts.

He shot her a look of pure exasperation.

"Thank God the windows are fogged," Buffy whispered, looking at each one in turn. "Maybe he'll just go away."

"Yes, because I'm sure that will make him think we're not in here. Along with the way you're bloody bouncing around in the back!"

"I am not bouncing."

"Professor Giles, is everything all right? Or should I summon help?"

"Talk to him already!" Buffy insisted. "Get him to leave."

"Me?" Giles asked incredulously, indicating his less-than-dignifying underwear. "You're the one wearing the sleeping bag!"

"But you're a guy. He's a guy. You both have . . . guy parts."

Frowning, Giles opened his mouth to ask what the hell that had to do with anything, but he never got the chance. The door behind his shoulders opened, and he and his pillows spilled out of the Range Rover backwards. Luckily, he managed to catch himself before we went arse-over-head into the mud. Still, the end result left him horizontal, halfway out the vehicle, clutching the doorframe and looking up into the astonished face of the local sheep farmer.

Giles cleared his throat, and donned a pleasant smile. "Mr. Llewellyn . . . I presume."

It took some doing, but Giles eventually managed to placate the landowner's righteous indignation over the shameful acts he wrongly assumed had taken place on his property. After he'd calmed down sufficiently, Llewellyn agreed to help, although he made it obvious that it was only because he wanted a lying, adulterous, reprobate off his land as quickly as possible. The notoriety of 'Professor Giles and the Shagmobile' was destined to fuel the community gossip mill for some months to come.

A walkie-talkie call and five very long minutes later, a teenager riding a smoke-blowing motorcycle came up the hill in a noisy roar. The grazing flock of sheep parted in a rush, giving the attending black and white collie something to do, as the boy pulled to a stop beside his father to deliver some dry clothes in a ratty paper sack. For Giles, there was a pair of baggy corduroy pants, a scratchy wool sweater, both of which reeked of sheep and dung, and some knee-high Wellington boots with a hole in one toe. Buffy, nose wrinkling at the odor, elected to stay wearing her sleeping bag without even looking in the sack.

After the landowner and his son left, with the sheep, Giles held his breath and pulled on the clothes. They didn't fit, and they made him smell as if he'd slept in a barn all his life, but they were warm and dry, unlike the sodden pile he scooped up from the mud just outside the Range Rover's rear tailgate. A search, directed by Buffy from the back window of the vehicle with an annoying 'getting warmer,' 'getting colder' commentary, finally turned up his glasses, allowing Giles to finish the task he started last night--changing the flat tire.

An hour and a bit later, they were back in their Cardiff hotel rooms, which they had reserved and paid for, but not slept in. There, they parted company and went to their respective rooms, each taking a hot shower and dressing in their own clothes, before meeting downstairs with their luggage and checking out.

Despite being mid-morning, they unanimously decided food was their next priority. Since it was her first time to Wales, Buffy wanted to try the local cuisine. Her breakfast plate arrived with plump pork sausages, fried cockles, bacon, and traditional laverbread. Giles, having experience on his side, opted for a nice, safe, English breakfast of eggs, bacon, grilled tomato, and Bubble 'n' Squeak.

They ate in silence, first because they were hungry, then because Giles noticed that Buffy had withdrawn from him again, just like she had a week ago.

He had hoped things would be back to normal between them now; better even, if the fleeting moments of closeness they'd shared in the back of the Range Rover just hours ago were anything by which to judge. While he knew Buffy's motivation for the actions she had taken last night had been born of lifesaving necessity, it was going to take a lot for him to forget the warmth of her bare skin on his, the scent of her rain-washed hair, and the way her breath tickled the hair on his chest as she slept in his embrace. Even now, a tremor of excitement chased through him at the thought of her in his arms again. It had been a long time since he'd felt those emotions for anyone, and evidently, given Buffy's remoteness, a long time before he would do so again.

Therefore, her sullen silence, he deduced, meant her quest had not gone according to plan. Had she discovered something about herself that she wasn't overly pleased to know? Or had she just finally figured out how truly unnecessary he was in her life these days? He meant what he'd told her earlier--she wasn't a prisoner in his world; she was free to leave England whenever she wished.

Yet despite his good intentions, Giles couldn't stand the thought of ever letting Buffy go. Right then, he decided that if he couldn't take her as a lover, then he would do whatever it took to keep her as a friend. The platonic love of friendship was, after all, better than no love at all.

Watching her poke warily at the laverbread, as if it were something about to leap up and attack, Giles decided to use food as an icebreaker for some overdue conversation. "It won't bite you, Buffy."

"What is this stuff?" she asked, still poking.

"In Welsh, bara lawr.'"

"And when it's at home?"

"Laverbread."

"Bread?" she asked dubiously. "There's supposed to be bread here?"

Giles chuckled a little. "Actually, no. Despite the name, there is no 'bread' in 'laverbread.' Although sometimes it's dipped in oatmeal and fried, so perhaps that's where it's derived."

"Masquerading on the menu is so not fair." Buffy glanced longingly at his plate as he pushed some potato-and-vegetable patty onto the end of his fork. "I could've had what you have." She grimaced at her plate. "Instead I have this. What the heck is it anyway?"

"Boiled seaweed," he said, eating a mouthful of crispy, golden, potato cake.

The look Buffy gave him was priceless. "Eww . . . "

"You wanted to sample the local cuisine; this is something of a Welsh delicacy. Although I can't say I've ever cared for the taste of it myself," Giles admitted, cutting another morsel. "The Bubble 'n' Squeak is rather good, though."

"Sure, go ahead. Rub it in."

Pausing with his mouth open and his folk halfway there, he looked down at the skewered crispy potato square, then, completely on the spur of the moment, reached across the table and offered it to Buffy. Surprised at first, a lighthearted smile crossed her face as she leaned towards him, opened her mouth, and allowed him to feed her.

Watching her lips slowly close around his fork and take the food from him, Giles thought it was the most erotic thing he'd ever seen. It did unmentionable things to him, things he had no place imagining while in public. With effort, he mentally squelched the images running rampant through his head, before other parts of him got as equally out of control.

Looking back at his breakfast, he knew it was pointless to torture himself with thoughts of Buffy in that context, because it was clearly never going to happen. Despite the wonderful way they had started the day together, he didn't even register as a distant blip on her love radar, because she simply could not see past his well-built Watcher facade to notice him as potential boyfriend material.

'Good Lord, Giles, you're too old to be anyone's boyfriend?'

"That's really good," Buffy remarked, swallowing.

"Yes."

"Although it doesn't hold a candle to Mrs. Pendleton's. Mrs. P. makes the best vegetable hash browns this side of The Pond."

"Bubble 'n' Squeak," Giles corrected with a teasing smile, loading up his fork again.

Buffy shrugged, watching him eat. "You say 'tom-art-o,' I say 'tom-ate-o.' Whichever way you slice it, she's a great cook. We're lucky to have her."

"As you well know, she came with the house," Giles chided playfully. His grin widened. The banter was back and he didn't want it to end. "I'm certain that woman's cooking was the major contributing factor to my predecessor's ever-expanding waistline."

Buffy giggled. "Quentin Travers?"

"None other. If not for his untimely demise, I'm convinced he would have dropped dead from a massive coronary brought about by cholesterol-clogged arteries sooner rather than later. I shall have to watch myself--" An incoming call on his cellphone interrupted him. Putting down his cutlery, Giles fished it from the holster on his belt, checked the caller ID, then looked at Buffy in apology. "It's Collinson. I'm afraid I really should take this."

"Collinson from work?"

Giles nodded. "He wouldn't call unless it was urgent. I'm sorry."

"No problem. You can make it up to me by . . . handing over the rest of your Bubble 'n' Squeak!"

He surrendered with an affectionate smile, and barely had time to flip open his mobile phone before Buffy's enthusiastic fork lunged across the breakfast table.

Richard Collinson was a second-generation Watcher whose father had died in the London bombing. Dedicated to his job, but not to the outdated traditions and protocols of the old establishment, he had been Giles' right hand at the new Council for over a year. In that time, he had more than earned his plum title of Assistant Director, and his handsome six-figure salary. With Giles out of the office, every aspect of the day-to-day running of the Council fell to Collinson, with all problems, big and small, eventually landing in his lap. The man had proven himself capable on numerous occasions, so receiving a call from him, now, immediately put Giles on edge.

After a few words of greeting, he listened quietly as Collinson reported of an overnight break-in at Council HQ, which had been relocated to the London dockland, within walking distance of the tube station at Canary Wharf. The glass and steel high-rise was newly constructed and modern, a new start for a new era. It blended seamlessly with the other businesses and corporations in the area, inconspicuous to even the most discerning eye with its 'forest for the trees' approach. The only downside of the location was that it was as vulnerable to the same criminal intent as the neighboring buildings, although with its superior security, larceny rarely became an issue.

This time, however, Collinson didn't think the perpetrators were of the harmless human variety looking for cash or computers to sell, because whoever they were, whatever they were, they managed to slip through the lobby, past the mystical wards to the third floor medical facility, without tripping any alarms. The thieves were clearly after drugs, although, Collinson said, they were still running an inventory to determine what had been stolen.

Hanging up with a thoughtful frown for some of the experimental compounds found in Medical, Giles looked up to find Buffy already studying him, her fork dangling from one hand.

"Trouble?" she asked, popping the last morsel of Bubble 'n' Squeak into her mouth.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Giles said evasively. He didn't like to burden Buffy with the administrative side of the Council any more than was absolutely necessary, and he certainly didn't want to make his problem her problem, at least not until he conclusively determined who or what was responsible, and what they'd taken. If it did turn out to be a human thief, then the police would deal with it in due course. If not, maybe then he'd voice his concerns to her . . . but that was still just a 'maybe.' "Still, we should probably head back to London as soon as possible."

Buffy nodded, pushing aside her breakfast plate with the untouched laverbread. "If it saves me from the seaweed, I'm good to go."

They arrived home at Tyndall Manor shortly after two o'clock. Mrs. Pendleton made tea while they took their overnight bags up to their rooms, and had the Chatsford pot waiting on its silver serving platter, in its usual spot on Giles' desk, when they returned downstairs to the drawing room. Having expected them home sometime that day, she had baked scones earlier, which also awaited them, topped with raspberry jam and a hearty dollop of clotted cream. Entering together, Buffy and Giles spied the waistline-expanding, artery-clogging offering, looked at each other, and broke into companionable smiles.

Giles, sitting in his armchair, licked the last of the jam and cream from his fingers and put the plate aside. Reaching for his tea, he blew a cautious breath across the hot milky surface, which afforded him a furtive glance at Buffy over the rim of the bone china cup. She sat opposite him, curled up in one corner of the studded-leather, scroll-arm, burgundy-colored sofa, picking fastidiously at her scone in a worried, bird-like fashion. Her cooling tea was on the antique end table beside her, untouched. Her body language told him there was something on her mind, something that she really wanted to tell him but didn't know how or where to begin.

Suddenly believing that he knew precisely what, Giles panicked. She was leaving. Leaving England. Leaving him.

He swallowed a mouthful of tea, trying hard to accept what Buffy had to say before she said it. England wasn't her home, and he should not expect her to stay any longer than she already had. Of course she wanted to return to America, to Dawn and her friends. Why wouldn't she, when he offered so little in compensation for her to stay? No, when she told him, he would be sad, but smile understandingly. Like a good friend, he would help her with her travel arrangements, and he would take her to the airport. He would even hug her as she left him, and tell her to come back soon for a visit.

But he would never, ever let her see how much she broke his heart.

"Giles, I need to talk to you," Buffy said suddenly, although not unexpectedly. When she put down her scone, his last spark of hope faded. She was serious. She was leaving. "About me . . . about us."

He gulped down some hot tea, scalding his throat, finding himself grossly unprepared to handle her decision. "Oh?"

"Last night, when I was out on the moorland, I kinda . . . well, I realized something." She smiled shyly, her gaze darting away from his. "Which I guess was sorta the whole point of the quest thingy."

"Yes," he agreed, reduced to monosyllables.

Buffy looked down at her hands, wringing them. "Um . . . I know this is probably gonna sound as if it's coming from outta left field somewhere, but it's not. I think it's something I've known subconsciously for a while now." Gathering her thoughts and her courage, she looked across at him, capturing his hesitant eyes in a somber gaze. He stopped breathing, waiting for the inevitable bombshell. "See, I realized that I--"

The shill ring of his cellphone stopped her from saying the words he didn't want to hear. Sloshing his tea over his hand, Giles jumped to answer it, snatching it from his belt holster before the third ring. To say that Buffy looked utterly dismayed that he had chosen a telephone call over her was something of an understatement. There was real hurt in her eyes as he flipped open the phone and held it to his ear.

It was Collinson again. Giles only half-listened as his associate reported that the alleged Council break-in had been revealed as nothing more than one very crafty cat crawling through the air conditioning duct system before tripping the alarm in Medical. At that moment, Giles could care less about the break-in, either way. All he could hear was the sound of his heart thumping wildly against his chest, as he stalled for time, watching Buffy watching him.

"I see," Giles said into the phone.

"So there's no real need for you to come in to HQ this afternoon," Collinson said. "Enjoy the rest of your day off, old man, and I'll see you in the morning."

"Yes, I will." Collinson hung up. With the phone still to his ear, Giles' next words were to empty, dead air. "I'll be right there."

He pressed the OFF button under the pretense of ending the call, looked at the keypad, and then speed dialed his driver, who, like Mrs. Pendleton and the other staff, resided in Tyndall's servant quarters--a small apartment building situated just behind the manor house. He told Peter to have the car around front in two minutes, sharp. Keeping his gaze diverted from Buffy's, Giles hung up for a second time.

"You're going into work?" she asked, quietly shocked. "Now?"

"I have to. There's been a break-in." Giles stood before she could object. He knew he was simply postponing the inevitable, but he just couldn't handle hearing what she had to say.

He glanced at her, readying an apologetic smile for his pending departure, but the expression of absolute hurt on her face cut him to the quick. He was undoubtedly a bounder and a cad.

"But . . . I wanted to talk to you."

"We'll talk later," he promised falsely, head down to avoid eye contact and already turning for the drawing room door. "Tell Mrs. Pendleton not to hold supper for me."

There had been many times in his life when Giles had proven his courage in the face of unfavorable conditions or insurmountable odds, but this wasn't one of them. The heels of his boots echoed off the flagstone floor, as he walked the length of the main hall towards the front door of Tyndall Manor, fast as his long strides could carry him. He didn't look back as he grabbed his coat, but he could feel Buffy's wounded gaze boring into his back from afar. He was wrong; he wasn't a bounder or a cad. He was a coward, and at that moment, he was doing what cowards did best.

Giles was running away, because he just wasn't brave enough to hear the woman he loved say goodbye.