When he woke some time later, Ethan was sitting on the bed beside him, one hand wrapped around his. As soon as Giles stirred, Ethan shifted, not letting go of his hand but moving so they could look at each other more easily. "How do you feel?" Ethan asked, lifting his other hand to rub Giles' shoulder.

With less effort than he'd expected, Giles moved his hand up to cover Ethan's for a moment. "Better. Fine." He looked at Ethan. "If you felt like this last night and still had the energy to be interested in sex – well, you're a better man than I am. I feel – felt – so utterly exhausted –" He struggled up so that he was sitting, glancing down at Ethan's hand and giving him a rather apologetic smile as he pulled his own free of it. "I don't think we need to stay like that permanently," he said. "Although it's probably best we don't split up for a while. Do you realise what happened out there? I'm not sure I was making much sense..."

But Ethan didn't seem capable of not touching him, sliding the hand Giles had just released up to rest over Giles' heart almost as if trying to reassure himself that it was still beating. "You said something about grounding, so I assume you meant that you channeled the auxiliary energy somehow. It wasn't deliberate?"

Giles tried to remember what had gone through his mind. "Not exactly. I felt you – you don't lose control as such, do you? You lose your focus... take in so much power..." He gave Ethan a sidelong look. "A lot of power; no wonder you've been able to do what you have. Will you be insulted if I say it's far beyond anything you used to be capable of?"

That was enough to get Ethan up and walking away from the bed, even though that hadn't been Giles' intention. Ethan didn't go far, just over to the table before turning back around. There was something about his posture that spoke of an almost unbearable tension, an inability to stay still. "Yes," Ethan said, arms folded across his chest. "Well, they... they wanted to see how much power I could generate as well as how much I could carry without exploding into little pieces. It was easier there. They had ways of making sure I didn't damage their facility."

"I'm sure they did," Giles muttered, feeling a resurgence of his intense dislike for the Initiative. Adam, Oz, Ethan – even Spike... all tampered with, in the name of what he wasn't sure, but it hadn't been for good, any of it. He bit back on his resentment and guilt.

"I know why it tired me," he said, still feeling the weight of that intense fatigue. "And why you've been experiencing such a vicious backlash; it's the price needed to balance the dissipation of all that excess energy. I think, although I can't be sure, that it'll get easier every time we try; that eventually you'll be able to override what they did to you." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried standing up. "And I'm not sure why I could do it without being damaged, or why I've been almost compelled to make contact with you, not entirely, but somehow I'm not all that surprised." He lifted his eyebrow and met Ethan's gaze. "Are you?"

Ethan hesitated and then came over and stood near Giles, hovering as if he weren't sure if Giles needed – or wanted – help. "Yes, I'm surprised," Ethan said. "Maybe I shouldn't be. But if this is the price..."

Giles moved the step needed to let him stroke his hand against the side of Ethan's face. "It's not a high one," he said, letting his hand fall away. "And it's not one I mind paying."

Perhaps the touch was too intimate; Ethan turned away again, pacing the length of the small cottage and back. The look he gave Giles was, possibly, apologetic. "You're less fun when you're unconscious."

Giles rolled his eyes but couldn't hold back a grin. "As compliments go, that's certainly one to treasure. Thank you. I think." He sat down at the table deciding that perhaps he'd stood up too soon as he felt slightly dizzy. Or possibly that was from watching Ethan prowl around. "How long was I no fun for anyway?"

"A few hours," Ethan said. He came over to Giles and crouched down beside him, looking up into his face, studying it. "It felt like longer. I could make you something to eat? Let me do something."

Giles shook his head. "Glass of water perhaps, but I'm not hungry." He gave Ethan an appraising look. "You want to do something for me? I doubt that impulse will last long, knowing you, but while it does, do you want to help me out with that translation job? It's almost done and a second pair of eyes would be useful."

It was a genuine request; Ethan knew enough to understand what Giles was doing, and pick up on any obvious mistakes, but Giles also wanted to distract him. Ethan looked tense and edgy, his earlier elation transformed into a restlessness Giles remembered of old.

Ethan looked at him a bit speculatively as he set the requested glass of water down in front of Giles, a slight frown on his face then he nodded. "Okay. Show me?"

It only took a moment or two to put everything in order so they could get to work – all Giles had done earlier was pile up the papers and books he'd been using . Ethan was so twitchy, however, that he could barely sit still, drumming his fingers on the tabletop as Giles tried to show him what he'd done so far and what was left to do.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Giles said, reaching out to still Ethan's hand by bringing his down over it hard and giving him an exasperated look. "I just don't think I'm up to trying to ground you again so soon, and I have to have this done by Friday, so I might as well work on it while I recover." He pulled a paper out from underneath Ethan's elbow and scanned it. "Not that I see why he's in such a hurry to get it."

"Were you planning on us being done here in that amount of time then?" Ethan asked casually as he began to look over some of the other papers, his thumb rubbing the edge of the book but his hand otherwise still.

"I wasn't planning anything," Giles replied, his attention more on what he was reading. "How could I? But I can work on this here as well as anywhere, don't worry." He glanced over at Ethan. "Or don't you think you can bear the boredom much longer?"

"I do know you're capable of being much more distracting than this," Ethan said, reaching out and patting Giles' hand. "But don't worry about me; I'll soldier through."

"Distracting," Giles said. "Well, it's a step up from meaningless, I suppose." He grinned at Ethan. "And I promise I'll stop belabouring that particular point when my bruised ego has recovered."

"Don't put words in my mouth," Ethan said, sliding a different book over in front of him and opening it. "You're the one that called it meaningless. And if you continue to repeat it, I may be the one that ends up with a bruised ego. Which, if I remember correctly, is a lot less fun than some other sorts of bruises." He gave Giles an arch look before glancing down at the book again. "This, on the other hand, is definitely boring. Why would anyone find this sort of thing worth translating? Wouldn't a normal protection spell do just as well?"

"I haven't really paid much attention to it as a whole," Giles confessed. "I've been focusing more on the details. It's some sort of a blessing on a dwelling place, isn't it? And as you say, there are so many versions of that, it's hard to see why anyone would need another."

The frown on Ethan's face deepened. "Especially when they're already translated and available. Still, there's no accounting for taste." After a few moments of silence, he snagged a blank piece of paper and scribbled something down onto it. "Here, let me see that." Without waiting for Giles to reply, Ethan took the page Giles had been working on.

"What is it?" Giles asked. "That's just details of the date the ritual needs to be performed as far as I can tell, and it's so vaguely worded I haven't been able to pin it down exactly." He shrugged. "There's something about bright fire, which could be a reference to Roodmass, I suppose. Come to think of it as that's on Friday it might explain the rush he's in." He rubbed his head. He still didn't feel that he was thinking as clearly as usual. "Except if he knows that then he's already translated it partially, and that doesn't fit what he told me."

"I don't know why you'd be surprised if that were the case," Ethan said. When Giles looked up at him, he was watching Giles seriously. "Do you want to lie down again for a bit? I could keep at this while you rested."

Giles shook his head. "No, or I'll never sleep tonight." He glanced around the dingy room, feeling something of Ethan's restlessness himself. "Why don't we leave this and go for a walk?" he said. "The village is about a mile away and we can get a pub lunch or something."

"Yes, please," Ethan said eagerly, standing up at once. "If you think you can keep me from shorting out everything in the pub, that is."

"You can stay out in the beer garden while I order for us," Giles promised him, rather looking forward to the idea of a pint in the sunshine with company for a change after weeks of rather lonely lunch breaks in his office or the local pub. "Assuming they have one." He stood up, pleased that he felt physically fine again, even if he wasn't up to the fiddly, detailed work of translating, and gave Ethan a deliberately suggestive grin. "And if they don't, just stay close so I can grab you if I need to."

"I didn't realise we'd graduated to public displays of affection," Ethan said lightly, although he seemed chuffed that Giles had hinted at it even in a joking fashion. "I take it you're all right to walk that far."

"A mile with the prospect of a pint at the end of it is no problem," Giles assured him. "But what about you?" He looked at Ethan, noting that his eyes seemed less bloodshot and his face less drawn. "I don't mind driving if you think it'd tire you out."

"I'd rather walk than sit in a car right now," Ethan said as they got their jackets and headed out the front door, Giles locking it behind them and pocketing the key. It was nearly noon, the sun high overhead, and it was warmer than he could remember it having been in recent days; perhaps spring had finally taken hold. The breeze from the sea smelled of salt, and there was something else in the air, a crisp green scent that might have been some sort of pine.

The dirt road crunched under their feet as they walked. Ethan's hands were in his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched as if he were colder than he should be, but he appeared cheerful enough.
 
When they'd walked for a while in silence, which, with Ethan was a rare event, Giles cleared his throat. "Buffy's alive again, you know," he said casually. "Willow resurrected her." The words played back in his head and he came to a sudden halt. "God, I couldn't say that to many people besides you and not have them label me as delusional, could I?"

Ethan turned, but continued to walk, albeit slowly and backwards. "I didn't know that she was dead," he said. "Well, I did wonder, what with you being back in London." He tilted his head to one side slightly. "You don't sound particularly happy about the fact that she's alive. Did the spell go wrong?"

Giles snorted and started to walk again. "Oh as resurrection spells that rip a Slayer out of heaven and bring her buried corpse back to life six feet under go, it went beautifully." He shook his head. "Even at your most reckless, I don't think you'd have attempted what Willow did the day, the very bloody day I flew home." He began to walk a little faster and Ethan fell into step beside him. "I had to get on a plane, jet-lagged and still stiff from those blasted seats in coach, and fly back there again," he said inconsequentially. "And I'm naturally delighted that Buffy's alive, but –" He stopped there, not sure he wanted to share his worries with Ethan, who didn't have any reason to like Buffy – not that she viewed him in a very kindly light either, for which he couldn't blame her.

"But she didn't want to come back?" Ethan asked after a moment, surprising Giles with his perceptiveness.

"No." Giles turned his head to look at the sea, restless where the waves met the shore, seemingly calm further out, where the sunlight dazzled off deep blue water. "She was happy there. This world is her hell now, and I can't – I couldn't help her with that. She needed me; she wanted me to stay and I left her."

Ethan was quiet, the line of his shoulders tense. After almost a minute, he turned his face toward Giles with an extremely strained smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Afraid you're looking to the wrong man if you want reassurance on that front, Ripper," he said, and the parallels between having left Ethan all those years ago and Buffy just recently swept over Giles.

"Leaving Buffy I did to help her –" Giles watched Ethan's face go blank as he retreated into an indifference that was as false as it was fragile. Trying to make Ethan see something he'd never shown any signs of accepting in the past, he said, "I was thinking mostly of myself when I left you, Ethan. Too young and too scared to be anything other than selfish."

"Well, I've hardly any right to complain then, do I," Ethan said, watching the road in front of his feet. "I should probably be grateful you're not saying you did it for my own good."

"You'd probably thump me if I did," Giles said, not entirely joking. "I think Buffy was tempted to, but she settled for telling me how wrong I was in great detail." The rough trail they were on turned away from the sea and began to head inland. "Like you did as I recall."

"Not really the sort to keep quiet about things like that," Ethan said.

Giles shrugged. "No reason why you should," he said. "You were angry and hurt; most people tend to get a bit vocal at times like that." The track was bordered on either side by brambles now, wild and overgrown, forcing Giles to walk closer to Ethan to avoid getting his jacket caught on the thorns. "I said plenty myself." His arm brushed against Ethan's. "Is it too late to apologise for some of it?"

"No. But I don't see why you should. It's not as if I'm likely to." Ethan had a point; Giles couldn't remember Ethan ever having seriously apologised for anything. The word 'sorry' just didn't seem to be in his vocabulary.

"That doesn't absolve me from the need to, but after all this time, to be honest I can't remember all the details anyway." Giles had, in fact, done his best to forget most of them, which might have been cowardly but was the only way he'd been able to cope in the months after leaving, and somehow it'd turned into a permanent solution. He winced. "Just that over the space of a week we got very drunk, stayed drunk, fought, usually ended up in bed, which wasn't that much different from the fighting when it came to leaving bruises, woke up and carried on fighting – God, wasn't it a relief when I finally just went?"

Ethan was very quiet, and when Giles glanced over at him again, he looked small, hunched in on himself. "No," Ethan said softly. "Well, maybe. I knew you'd go sooner or later. Maybe it was better that you left when you did."

"Do you really think we'd have stayed together?" Giles asked. It was something he'd wondered about; useless, pointless speculation as he tried to imagine the months they'd been together turning into years. "If I hadn't gone back to my training? You don't think we'd have moved on, moved apart eventually anyway?"

"I'm not sure it matters," Ethan said. "When the going got tough, you picked up and left. It's not as if I wouldn't have done the same." But it sounded to Giles as if Ethan's words were forced, false.

He glanced ahead. The track they were on was about to peter out and join a main road, bordered by hedgerows. There were no pavements and enough cars coming along to make single file the safest way of proceeding. Not an ideal way of carrying on a conversation like this. "Ethan –" He put out his hand and halted him. "You wouldn't change, you couldn't see the risks of what we were doing –" He felt the futility of it all overwhelm him and he stepped back. "Let's find something new to argue about," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "Or nothing at all. Because it won't change what we did in the past, and something tells me it's not a good idea for us to be fighting." He glanced down at his hand, flexing his fingers, remembering the way Ethan's hand had held it as the power spilled through them. "Not now."

Ethan nodded. "Always best not to take your chances with a live wire, unless you like being burned," he said, a bit bleakly. "I've never tried to claim I was anything but what I am, Rupert."

"I know what you are, Ethan," Giles said. "But if you think I offered to help you blind to the risks, you're wrong. They just didn't matter because –" He glanced around, hearing voices. A couple appeared at the end of the lane, accompanied by a large dog and two small children, and he sighed. "Let's just get to the pub."

"Right." Ethan followed him without further comment.

The pub wasn't far once they'd walked to the end of the lane – maybe a few hundred yards – but when they were still a fair distance from the door, Ethan stopped, fidgeting.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Ethan said.

Giles glanced back at him. "In what way?"

"There are all sorts of people in there," Ethan said.

"It's a weekday, off-season, in a small, not particularly popular village," Giles said patiently. "I really don't think the place will be busy, and weren't we planning to sit outside anyway?"

"You go in then," Ethan said. The nervous energy that Giles so associated with him was back, and he gestured over toward the four small tables and chairs sitting in a brick-lined courtyard to the right of the building. "I'll wait there." He looked about as capable of waiting as Giles felt of flying.

"And I'll come out with two pints and find you've reduced the table to kindling or something," Giles said resignedly. "You've got that look about you. My fault for dragging us both down Memory Lane." He glanced up at the inevitable power lines and sighed. "Sorry. Looks like I'll have to owe you that drink then."

Ethan made a visible effort to relax. "No, I'll be fine," he said. "I can do this. Trust me."

"For what it's worth, I do," Giles told him. He led the way to the tables, waited for Ethan to sit down, and then dropped his hand onto Ethan's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Want me to see if they do HSB this far along the coast?" he asked. "Or will you settle for whatever's on tap?"

"Anything's fine," Ethan said, looking up at him with something that might have been more than simple affection. "I trust you, too." Whether it was true or not, it sounded as if he wanted it to be.

Moving away from Ethan without touching him again after that admission was surprisingly hard to do, and Giles only managed it by reminding himself that the sooner they got something to eat or drink, the sooner they could get back to the cottage, where he had plans that didn't include translating texts as much as getting Ethan into bed again.

Ethan was playing havoc with his work ethic, he reflected without regret. It wasn't as if he'd had many holidays over the last five years after all.

He made his way into the bar and found that the place wasn't quite as deserted as he'd predicted, but still quiet enough that he got served within minutes and emerged with the drinks and two menus to find Ethan sitting where he'd left him, staring at a ginger cat that had appeared from nowhere and was winding its way around Ethan's ankles purring energetically.

"Is he expecting to be fed?" Giles asked, sitting down beside Ethan and passing him a menu and his drink.

"I hope not," Ethan said. He'd never been fond of animals, but now he seemed particularly displeased by the cat's presence, going so far as to shift one of the other chairs over to block its access to his ankles. "I'm not very good at sharing." It was a loaded statement, but when Giles glanced up at Ethan, the other man was taking a sip of his pint and studying the menu with interest.

Giles shooed the cat away, which worked as well as he'd expected, and scanned his own menu. "What happened to basic pub grub?" he asked, reading the flowery descriptions. "Half of this is probably reheated frozen meals." He spotted a ploughmans at the bottom of the page that would at least be fresh, with the choice of Stilton, Cheddar or Brie, and decided to go for that. "See anything you fancy?" he asked, picking up his glass and tasting the ale before taking a longer swallow when it proved to be better than he'd expected.

Ethan looked at him over the rim of his glass with a hint of a smile. "A few things," he said, taking a slow sip of bitter and then licking his lips.

"If I'm included on the list I'll let you get away with that," Giles told him, not even trying to hold back his grin. Even though Ethan's reply had been predictable, almost automatic, given his poor choice of words, that slide of his tongue was still enough to make Giles feel a shiver of arousal. "I'll even help you with your routine." With a straight face he said solemnly, "I meant, what do you want to eat?" and then arched his eyebrow expectantly.

Ethan looked at him for a moment and then started to chuckle. "No, no, I can't. It's no fun when you make it that easy." He swallowed some more of his bitter and set the glass down on the table before giving another unexpected bark of laughter. "It's more fun when you make it hard," he gasped then put his head down, cushioned on his arm, and let laughter take him.

Watching Ethan laugh without joining in was impossible, and something about the absurd, schoolboy-level repartee had Giles snickering helplessly, leaning back in his chair and laughing until he was having trouble breathing. "Oh God, I've missed you," he said finally, getting himself under control a little and wiping his hand over his eyes. "I really have."

There were tears in Ethan's eyes when he lifted his face, and he smiled at Giles fondly. "Enough to buy me lunch?" he asked.

"With spotted dick to follow," Giles assured him blandly, ignoring the face Ethan pulled.

Part Eight

Return to Home

Send Feedback