So, Buffy was dead.
Spike had lifted her from the rubble and carried her, cradled like a child in his arms, back to her home, and they had laid her on the couch where her mother had died. Then, they’d found somewhere quiet and secluded and dug a grave for her.
Then he and Willow had simply stayed with Dawn, their house, recently bought, standing empty.
And life had somehow gone on. The sun rose and set. They cooked and cleaned and paid bills and made love, and just... didn’t fade away. It seemed, often, to Giles, though, that they should have. That maybe, in some ways, they had. That he had.
The others went out every night, fighting the vampires, trying to clean up the demons that had spawned from the brief opening of the portal.
He couldn’t fight, of course. Not now. Walking or standing for long periods of time was about as energetic as he could currently hope to get.
He was at the dining room table now, with a collection of texts before him. Dragon-slaying, he was finding, was rivaled only by fishing for tall-tales. Unfortunately, tall-tales did very little to aid him in figuring out how one actually goes about slaying a dragon in a practical manner, with an eye towards safety.
He was tired, and he was aching with all of his being for a drink. Just one drink. God, this was killing him.
He groaned and rolled his shoulders back, reached behind himself to press his thumbs into the small of his back. Pain was his most constant companion lately. The fiery tangle that centered over his spine just above his hips, and snaked up either side of his back, settled into a low, constant tension in his neck, an ache that never faded from his temples.
The door opened.
A few moments later, Willow walked in. She was dangling a stake and a cross from one hand, and she utterly *reeked* of magic. But what could he say? It was necessary.
“One dead dragon,” she said, and her voice carried the same exhaustion he felt.
“Dead?” he said.
He should have felt exultant, or at least relieved, but instead what he felt was something like anger. Like jealousy.
The dragon had been his. Should have been slain by the knowledge he’d give them. It was all he had left.
All he said was, “The others?”
”All ok. I’ll... I’ll tell you about it later, ok?”
She pulled out one of the other chairs and turned it towards him, and then dropped into it, her limbs splayed with the disregard of one too tired to have the energy to arrange them.
They were silent. They sat, facing each other, not really looking at each other, in the pale yellow light. Then, she slipped out of her chair, down to her knees on the floor, and inched forward until she was between his legs. He breathed in sharply, deeply not in the mood, but then, instead of touching him, she merely leaned against him, her head turned to the side, resting on his stomach.
And then, Eric shifted inside him, and she slipped her arms around him, and he saw a small smile on her lips, and he understood.
Understood several things, actually. He understood that she was listening to Eric, and he understood the peace she was drawing from it.
He slid his hand into her hair, gently held her close, and loved the warmth of her skull under his hand, the softness of her cheek against his stomach. Loved the child inside him, and loved her arms around him.
And he understood then that everything would not be all right.
Because everything already was.
The End
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