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Part Two
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Giles woke up to a foreign feeling against his fingertips. What was that? Soft, too smooth and warm to be his sheets...he slid his hands slowly, experimentally, and it came to him. It was Buffy. Sometime during her fitful sleep, she had turned her back to him, but he still held her close, spooning himself against her. His hands had slipped under her shirt, and now rested against the smooth taut skin of her stomach. He stopped rubbing immediately. He shuddered at his forbidden...and unpure...thoughts. He was not allowed those pleasures with a Slayer. It just wasn't done.
Buffy turned to face him as she came to.
"Giles!" she said plainly. Their foreheads were touching and she was still tangled in him.
"Yes. Good morning," he greeted his bedmate awkwardly.
Suddenly the old Buffy seemed to be back and kicking. "Well, you got me out of my clothes and into your bed like you wanted," she teased, and he blushed furiously. A girlish giggle escaped her throat.
"You make it sound so lewd," he said, feigning disgust, but there was a smile in his voice. She laughed.
"Hey Romeo, are you going to let me go so I can get up and scrounge up some breakfast?" she asked, still smiling.
He blushed again and immediately let her go. As she slid off the bed he caught a glimpse of simple white underwear and rolled over to bury his face in his pillow and sigh.
* * *
Buffy was oblivious, as usual, to the undying affection of all those who surrounded her. 'But perhaps,' Giles mused, 'Her very inability to comprehend the fact that she draws people to her is what draws them in the first place.' He snapped out of philosophical state and focused on the task at hand. He had to find out who this little girl in the dream was, and why she was haunting Buffy's rest.
Several books and prophecies later, Giles had no solid information on Buffy's dream. Nothing said anything about the image of a child. Only one possibility presented itself, and it had nothing to do with vampires.
"Buffy...I think I know what your dream meant."
"Really?" she asked, hopeful.
"The girl, I think...well, I think she's...you."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, just think of the way you described her to me last night. Blond, bright blue eyes, beautiful...just a younger version of you. And as for you running from her for so long...I think I know what that meant too. I think you need a break, Buffy. From everything. I think the little girl symbolizes your childhood, and how it was stolen from you because of your destiny as a Slayer. It's like your subconscious is protesting the loss of its innocence so early. The thing is, I'm not really sure what to do about it. I mean, how can we get back what you've sacrificed because of being a Slayer?"
"We can't, Giles," the girl said sadly, strangely resigned to her fate. "I can't have those things back. I can't be 8 years old again, and play on the swings instead of training. I can't be thrilled to be able to wear makeup for the first time, because when I was that age I was already responsible for the fall of many of the undead. I can't be a normal teenager, tired from partying and peacefully asleep in her own bed at night, because instead I'm in the arms of my Watcher, crying for lost time. Ironic, isn't it?"
She sighed, and Giles was taken aback by her speech. It sounded so carefully thought out...as if it was in the back of her mind every single day of her life. Good lord, what had being a Slayer so young really done to her?
"Buffy, I'm so sorry," were all the words he could manage.
"Don't be sorry. It's not like anyone could have done anything about it. Besides, I'm here for a reason...at least I know my place in the world. That's more than some people have."
Where had this cynical, painfully mature Buffy come from? This was one hell of a nightmare.
Buffy rose. "We'll figure out something. Don't worry."
"Are you sure you want to leave? Will you be Ok?"
"It's nothing I can't face in the light of day. The darkness makes it harder. Thanks for...holding me...last night."
"Never hesitate to come, Buffy. I'll always be here."
"I know," she said, and she let herself quietly out of his front door.
Giles sat with his back against his door for a long time, finally giving in to tears over the loss of the girl, and the emergence of the haunted, lost woman. She had faced her demons, she had turned and looked her lost childhood in the eye, and then she had left it behind for good. Last night, she had broken free.
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