“But it’s been two weeks, Giles! And he won’t even talk to me.”
“He’s... working things out, Willow.”
He gently caught her arm and steered her *around* the hood of the car, diverting her from her apparent planned course, which seemed to involve plowing straight through it. She bumped up against his side and distractedly slipped her arm around his waist and he smiled and hugged her shoulders, keeping her close as they made their way up to the dorm and she continued to angst.
“But, but! He needs to, like, get over it already! I mean, it’s not like you’re some skanky old man I met in a bar or, or, online or something! You’re you!”
He kissed the top of her head and didn’t comment. It was a beautiful day, and almost all was right with his world, aside from one Hellgod and one obstinate young man, and he wasn’t letting any of that drag him down at them moment. Her hair smelled wonderful, her arm was holding him tight. And today, they were moving her things from her dorm to their new home.
“Stop patronizing me,” Willow muttered, but without much heat.
“I wouldn’t dream of patronizing you, dear,” he said, cheerfully.
They reached the door to her dorm and she slipped out from under his arm long enough to unlock it with her student ID card and open the door.
Walking into these buildings was always a strange experience for him. So much youth. This was their world, and these were their peers, and they all looked so *young*. Oddly, the high school hadn’t provoked nearly the same feelings. On the other hand, back then, he hadn’t been *sleeping* with any of them, he supposed.
Willow bumped back up against his side and hugged him close as they walked.
Giles didn’t miss the disgusted look they got from a boy they passed in the stairwell. He pretended it didn’t bother him.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Willow asked as they reached her floor. “Deep thoughts?”
“You,” he says, because it was as close to the truth as he felt like getting, and because he knew it would make her happy.
“Aww!” she said. “That almost makes up for the patronizing thing earlier.”
“I wasn’t--”
She unlocked her door and tilted a skeptical brow at him.
“All right, perhaps a bit.”
“See?” she said, as they walked into her dorm room, “I told you things would be easier once you just started admitting I’m always right.”
He kicked the door shut gently and then grabbed her arm, pulled her to him. Held her a bit tightly and mock-growled, “Always?”
She just grinned up at him.
“Ok, maybe eighty-five percent of the time?” she offered.
Her body was close and warm and he felt himself beginning to react. Let go of one of her arms with one hand so he could slide it down to the small of her back, press her against him.
“Make it seventy-five and we’ll have a deal,” he said.
Her arms curled around his back.
“Eighty.”
He let her go abruptly, stepped away.
“No. No, that will never do.”
He took the moment of mock-rejection to look around the room. Good lord, but she wasn’t kidding about her roommate. Crosses and angel figurines and bible quotations. Amusing to think of a Wiccan sharing a room with her. Although he could see why Willow might be uncomfortable.
Willow’s half of the room, in fact, barely looked lived in. Which made sense, since she’d been spending most of her time at his place.
Then she was back against him, cuddled close.
“I guess I can settle for seventy-five,” she said, as his own arms went around her again, almost automatically.
For a while, he just held her. Thrilled, all over again, that this amazing woman was his. God, he loved her so much. He held her tighter, tucked his head down to kiss her hair. Whispered his love to her. Felt her happy sigh move them both.
“You too, baby,” she said, into his chest, like she was speaking directly to his heart.
The emotion, the closeness, stirred his cock, and for a moment, in a way he hadn’t in a while, he hated the entire pregnancy thing. Damned the way his swelled stomach held her away from where he really wanted her.
But then, as though she’d read his mind, she slipped one of her hands between them, curled it around him.
“Mmmm,” she said, and he dropped his hands down to her ass, her thighs, rubbing her where he knew she was sensitive.
“You know my roommate could come back at any time,” she said, still stroking him.
He grunted softly as his cock got a little harder.
“Somehow, I knew that wasn’t going to deter you,” Willow said, sounding amused.
“Well, from what you’ve said,” he said, as he ducked forward, held her by the shoulders and kissed her ear, her jaw, and she giggled, “Might do her some good.”
“Giles!” she said, still grinning.
“Get on the bed, pull down your jeans,” he said, right beside her ear, then he considered what he’d said and added, “But not in that order.”
She was still laughing breathlessly as she unbuttoned and unzipped, and pushed her pants down to her ankles. And, god, no matter how many times he saw her like that, no matter how many times she proved she wanted him... it would never, never get old.
She draped herself over the bed, knees bent over the side, and looked at him. One of her hands was rubbing circles on her stomach and he could see the peaks of her nipples, poking out against her shirt.
The surge of desire shoved him a few steps across the room, close to her, standing between her legs. Her gaze was steady on him as he went down to his knees. He watched her eyes until he closed his own, leaned in and nuzzled her heat through the thin cotton of her panties.
She made a complex, wordless sound, and her hips tilted up a little.
He licked her, tasting salt, smelling musk. God, he loved her. Loved this.
He pressed in hard, teeth and lips and tongue, until the fabric was soaked and she was moaning, rolling with a hard, desperate rhythm against him. Until she groaned, “Rupert, please, please...”
And he yanked her underwear down, gasped, “Hands and knees,” and then staggered to his own feet, cock aching with every movement. He watched her scramble into position as he yanked his own clothing just out of the way enough.
The mattress squealed and shifted alarmingly as he crawled on, but then it steadied and he was on his knees behind her, her hips in his hands, and nothing else mattered because he was burying himself inside her and her back was arching and she was crying out in pleasure. Pressing back against him.
“Yes, god, yes,” he gasped.
When he glanced to the side he saw her bookshelf, with texts for classes like Psychology 101, Introduction to Drama, C++. And the thought hit him, then, that he was fucking her in her bed in her college dormitory, and bloody hell, there had to be something extremely kinky about that.
But apparently, it was a kink that worked for him, because he bowed over her back as much as he could, and pressed in deeper, speeding up his thrusts.
She’d always come easily in this position, and he didn’t even have to touch her before he felt her shudder, tighten, gasp.
“Love you,” he said, “I love you.”
She felt so damn good.
For a while, he slowed his pace, just felt her around him. Looked at her, slatted sunlight falling through venetian blinds across her pale back.
He had to close his eyes as he came, too afraid that if he didn’t, it would kill him.
Then they eased down onto their sides, facing each other, her body folded around his, their legs tangled together, just to be touching. Her eyes were bright, looking straight into his own, and she was gently stroking his hair with her fingertips.
Then, even as she looked so sweet and so harmless, she dropped the bombshell.
“Hey, Rupert?”
“Hmm?” he said, still running his hand happily along her side, counting all the colors in her eyes.
“You wanna marry me, right?”
Shock did not even begin to cover it. He stared, and went numb.
“I- I mean, do you? Want to marry me? You do, right?”
Her eyes were wide and hurt, and he dug deep into his strength reserves and found the ability to speak. Or at least, to stammer.
“What- what brought this on?”
She propped her self up on her elbow, and rubbed his chest as she spoke, but didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Well, nothing, really. I mean... I mean, I just thought... I love you, and... you love me, and we’re moving in together, and there’s the baby, and stuff. I thought... why wouldn’t we? I mean, you do love me, right? You keep saying you-”
God, he never wanted her to doubt that.
“Of course I do. With all my heart, Willow. But-”
“But what?”
“Willow, are you sure?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I simply mean- have you even given this any thought? Before this precise moment?”
He would love to know where this came from. And if it was a who, who it came from, so he could kill them.
“Well, yeah. I mean, a little. I- I used to write ‘Willow Rosenberg-Giles’ all over my notebooks in high school. Well, that and ‘Willow Rosenberg-Harris.’ And sometimes ‘Willow Rosenberg-Cusack.’ But that’s all over now, I swear!”
“That- wasn’t precisely what I meant.”
That *really* wasn’t what he meant. And was, in fact, slightly disturbing.
“What’s there to think about?”
“Good heavens, Willow. There’s scads to think about.”
Now she was simply beginning to look annoyed.
“Such as? And don’t even start with the age thing, ok? I’m sick of hearing about it, already.”
He struggled to find a place to start, to organize his spinning thoughts.
“Willow, we’ve only been... involved so to speak for about two months. And even in that time... things haven’t exactly gone perfectly smoothly.”
“Well, yeah, but... we’ve known each other for five years. And all that not-smoothness is in the past. It’s done. Not going to be an issue anymore. It’s over between Tara and me, you know that.”
“That’s not all that I’m... referring to. I simply mean... marriage is a very intense, long-term commitment. It’s about spending the rest of our lives together. That’s decades, with any luck, of just the two of us. Are you positive that’s what you want? Are you sure we’re even prepared for that?
“Not to mention how your parents might react. Aside from the obvious fact that they’ll probably not be overly enthusiastic about your choice of partners, there are also very real social and legal factors involved in marriage. You’d no longer be their dependant, and you’d be an independent adult, which means they’d be perfectly justified in no longer paying your college tuition, for one thing.
“And the fact that I’m so much older than you *is* a factor, Willow, much as you may be ‘sick of hearing about it.’ There’s a very good chance I will leave you a widow at a relatively young age. Or, worse, that you’ll be forced to spend some of the best years of your life caring for a senile old man.”
Her face had fallen during this speech, but she managed a comeback, albeit a weak one.
“Oh... oh really? Well, if this is all such a bad idea, why are we even together now, then, huh?”
“Because, god help me, I can’t resist you. But, please, *please*, Willow, give this some serious thought.”
“Well, couldn’t we at least, you know, be engaged? While I think? I don’t even need a ring or anything.”
“Willow-”
She sat up, suddenly, kneeling beside him, looking somewhere between adorable and obscene half-naked the way she was. There was an edge of desperation in her voice as she said, “Come on. Look, see, I’m on my knees and everything. Rupert Giles, will you marry me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t- Willow... Willow, don’t. I just-”
“Fine!” she shouted.
She was stumbling out of the bed, nearly falling on her face. She jerked her pants up, and zipped them, and began to shove stuff into a box. Then she stalked out the door.
He flopped over onto his back.
“Bloody hell.”
***
She managed to keep up the hurt and angry routine for almost three days before she finally gave in and things went back to normal. He felt terrible about it, of course. A part of him that sounded very much like his father was berating him. After all, the woman he’d been shagging for weeks, whom he loved and whom he shared a home with, had asked that he marry her, and it seemed, if nothing else, incredibly rude to turn her down.
But at the same time, their relationship *was* new, and was still shaky, and rushing into a lifetime commitment just seemed terribly unwise.
He was convinced he’d made the right choice.
And then, two weeks later, Joyce Summers died.
***
She was tucked under his arm on the couch, and they were both staring into the empty fireplace. These past few days had been a nightmare, and being near him sometimes seemed like the only way to find an oasis of sanity in the chaos.
“Yes,” he said, suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“Huh?” she said.
“Yes, I’ll marry you. If you’ll have me.”
This was the kind of statement that should have knocked her clean off the couch. She supposed it was the cushioning of days of numbing shock that made her hardly react at all. She pulled back, enough to look at him, but he was still just staring.
“Really? Wait. No. This is one of those... grief-does-weird-things-to-people moments, isn’t it?”
He finally looked at her, and reached up and touched her face, very softly.
“No, actually, I think it’s more of a suddenly-realizing-life-is-short moment.”
“Oh. Ok,” she said, softly, watching him watch her, “So... like... like, when?”
Because weddings took time, and there was the whole thing with Buffy and Dawn and how it would seem disrespectful to their grief to announce it too soon, and then there was the whole birth-of-the-baby thing, and the whole Glory thing, not to mention figuring out how the heck she was gonna tell her parents-
“Tomorrow?” he said. “I’d say today, but I doubt there’s anywhere short of Las Vegas we could get a license at this hour.”
The clock ticked loudly in the silence, and neither of them moved.
Finally, she spoke.
“Ok.”
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