Watcher-Slayer Bonding by Rainne

Summary: Giles and Buffy get a little push. Takes place during the summer after season one (post-Prophecy Girl).

Buffy straightened her dress as she followed her father and his newest secretary/girlfriend into the swanky L.A. restaurant. She was incredibly uncomfortable at having been forced into this dinner with a woman she neither liked nor particularly wanted to like, but her father had been adamant that she be nice to Janet and so she had, grudgingly and with a great amount of unpleasant facial expressions, dressed nicely and accompanied them to "this really awesome new Italian place," as the secretary/girlfriend in question had enthused while attempting to bond with Buffy.

She was on autopilot, lost in her thoughts, as she followed her father and Janet to the table at which the maitre d' was seating them. She remained on autopilot through ordering drinks and dinner from the extremely nice waitress, which explained (at least to her) why she didn't notice him until after the appetizer arrived and she was looking around the restaurant in a desperate attempt to avoid seeing her father and Janet act like a couple of giddy teenagers. It was, in Buffy's opinion, rather ick-worthy.

And then she spotted him, and froze with a piece of bruschetta halfway to her mouth. Giles? What was Giles doing in this place? He should be in Sunnydale, cross-referencing and reading musty books and making little notes on index cards, not sitting in Luca Miglio's and having lively conversation with - her eyes narrowed - a very attractive young Eurasian woman with sparkling almond-shaped eyes and a bright smile. Buffy remembered her bruschetta and bit into it fiercely, trying unsuccessfully to tamp down the strong surge of jealousy she felt. It wasn't fair. Especially since he was now saying something to her very quietly, a soft expression on his face as he reached across the table to take her hand in his own.

She had made no secret to herself that she had the hugest of crushes on Giles, and could even date and very nearly time the moment she'd developed said crush: when he was carrying her in his arms after Amy's psycho mother had cast a vengeance spell, trying to kill the Slayer. He had been so strong, and she had felt so safe, that she lost her heart to him in those moments. And here was this woman, only a few years older than herself, sitting at a small table in a quiet corner, sipping red wine and laughing at whatever jokes and stories he was telling her, and lively recounting her own.

That should be me, she growled fiercely in her mind. He's my Watcher. I want to be where she is.

And then she realized her father was speaking to her. She blinked and turned her attention to him. "Sorry, Dad. What?"

He looked concerned. "Are you all right? You looked very... well, out in space somewhere."

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Sorry. I just saw someone I knew, and it kind of surprised me. The librarian from school, Mr. Giles, who's so nice to me."

Hank turned a bit in his chair and saw the older man and the young woman with him. Nice bit of girl he's got with him, was Hank's first thought. Man's got taste. He turned back to his daughter. "Well, Buffy, why don't you go over and say hello to him?"

Buffy blinked, and a slow grin crossed her face. "Yeah, I think I will. Excuse me." She laid her napkin on the table and stood.

Giles nearly roared with laughter. "Oh, bloody priceless," he stated. "I can just see it."

She smiled. "It was great. Really." She smiled. "I really, really enjoy going to school there."

"I thought you might, Claire" he said warmly. "It's one of the best art schools in the United States."

"Not just that, Daddy," she said softly. "I like being close enough to come and see you. I've missed you, you know."

He reached across the table and took her hand in his. "I've missed you, too, darling," he said softly.

Then her eyes shifted suddenly. "My goodness," she said in startlement, flicking her eyes back to his. "I believe if that girl had laser eyes I'd be dead right now."

She shook her head. "Don't look. We're being stared at. There's a girl at a table over there" - she nodded slightly in the direction she meant - "who's looking at me as though she'd like nothing better than to rip me limb from limb right now. I either look like someone she hates, or you look like someone she's dating." She laughed. "Could be either." Claire put the girl out of her mind, deliberately ignoring the death-stare she was getting, and moved on with the conversation. "So, how's that Slayer of yours?"

"Oh, doing very well," he said, smiling. "She's very impressive. Capable, inventive. Self-centered as you would not believe. There was a prophecy regarding a Master vampire and his Anointed One rising - she kicked up a tantrum because it interfered with her dating schedule."

He nodded. "She did. Handed me a pager number and said, and I quote, 'If the apocalypse comes, beep me.' And out the door she went."

He shook his head, a bit of a smile playing on his own face. "She's been raised that way, really, Claire," he said finally. "She's an only child, and her parents were socialites - she was raised to think the world revolved around her wants. But she's a joy, as well. Bright, friendly, caring, generous. She has friends who call themselves the Slayerettes - yes, I know," he nodded at her incredulous expression. "I know. Believe me. They became involved by accident, and just sort of stayed. But I can't truly complain - that same Master vampire killed her a few weeks ago, and one of those friends who had followed her to his lair was able to revive her. She-"

"Hang on, Daddy," she interrupted him suddenly. "We're about to be interrupted."

The blonde girl with the evil eye was approaching their table. She was a pretty girl, Claire thought, and wondered what on earth was going on. The girl arrived and cleared her throat discreetly. "Giles?"

Claire blinked. Surprise, indeed. This was her father's self-centered little Slayer?

Buffy smiled weakly. "I... I didn't really want to interrupt," she began, and Claire was hard-pressed to prevent a smirk from spreading across her face. The little bit had wanted to interrupt more than she could possibly say. "I saw you, and my dad said I should come over and say hi."

Giles turned to see Hank Summers looking across the restaurant at them and raised a hand in greeting. Hank smiled and raised his own in response, then returned to his date. Buffy's face twisted into a sour expression, which Giles noted as he invited Buffy to draw up a chair and sit for a moment. "What's wrong?"

"His newest secretary-slash-girlfriend," Buffy responded acidly, indicating the woman with her father. "Bitch." Then she blinked, her eyes shifting to Claire briefly. "Sorry."

"Not at all, Buffy," Giles assured her with a small smile. "I've forgotten my manners. Allow me to introduce you. Claire, this is Buffy Summers, my Slayer. Buffy, this is my daughter, Claire. She's attending school at the California Institute of Art in San Francisco, and she's here on holiday visiting me."

His daughter? Her expression gave away her surprise before she could put on her blank face. "It's very nice to meet you," Buffy said automatically, putting out her hand.

"Likewise, Buffy," Claire responded, taking the Slayer's hand and shaking it. "My father's been telling me stories about you and your... Slayerettes?"

Buffy grinned a bit. "I know it's kind of against the rules," she acknowledged. "But I figure if I have to be the Slayer, I'm gonna do it my way."

One of Claire's eyebrows raised. "You are a firecracker, aren't you?" she commented mildly. "I wonder how the Council will respond to that."

Buffy shrugged and changed the subject. "You're an art student? What's your specific major?"

Claire nodded. "First year," she said. "I haven't really chosen a direction yet, but I'm strongly considering computer arts, mostly because Daddy hates them," she added with a sly grin in her father's direction.

He took on the stuffy Watcher face that Buffy knew so well, and began to defend his books. Claire waved a hand at him. "Don't fash it, Daddy, it's perfectly all right." She turned a conspiratorial eye towards Buffy. "Does he wear full tweed?"

Buffy turned and gave him the full force of her thousand-watt smile. "Sorry, Giles."

Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw the waitress bringing food to her father's table. "Oh, I gotta go, dinner's here. It was nice to meet you, Claire, and great to see you, Giles."

"Enjoy your dinner," Giles said as Buffy slipped out of her chair and returned to her father's table. He turned his gimlet eye back on Claire. "Did you have to encourage her?"

Claire was grinning widely, her eyes sparkling. "She's charming, Dad! And she's got quite the crush on you."

She raised one eyebrow at him, and for a moment she looked just like his own grandmother when he was particularly thoughtless as a boy. "Honestly, Father," she scolded him. "Can't you see it? She's dead gone on you. That's why the death-glares earlier - she thought I was your girlfriend." She leaned forward, eyeballing him. "And you're gone on her, too, aren't you?"

His face was outraged. "Claire Elizabeth Giles! She's three years younger than you are!"

"So were you, when you and mum got together," She responded sharply. "Who cares how old she is? She's over the age of consent, isn't she?"

"That's what you think," she responded with a sly smile. "I daresay she'd give her eyeteeth to prove you wrong on that charge."

Claire flipped through the Los Angeles telephone directory in her hotel room. Her father had gone on back to Sunnydale after their most-educational dinner experience, but she'd elected to stay in L.A. for a few days, claiming that she wanted to do the tourist thing and see all the tacky things with a chum of hers from university who lived there in town. She arrived at the page where the "Summers" listing began, and groaned. There had to have been three hundred listings. Then she firmed her resolve. "I haven't got the Third Eye just so I can look pretty," she said aloud, as her great-grandmother had often told her as a child when she was lazy about learning to use her talent. She grabbed the hotel pad and pen and wrote out the alphabet on it, then closed her eyes, focused on the image of Buffy's father in her mind, and poked.

Opening her eyes, she saw that she'd chosen the letter H. She shrugged. It was a start. She moved to the "Summers, H." listings and sighed, deciding she needed to narrow it down a bit. A moment later, she knew she needed an "Ha" name. There were only ten of these, if one discounted the listings with simply an initial H.

She picked up the phone and dialed. When the other end was answered, she spoke apologetically. "Hello. I'm not certain if I've reached the right Summers or not. I'm trying to reach Buffy Summers."

On her sixth try, she struck paydirt. A female voice picked up the phone and she said her lines and waited. "I'm Buffy," the voice responded. "Who's this?"

"I was wondering, if you're not too terribly busy, if we could get together tomorrow or the next day. Just you and I."

Claire rolled her eyes. The girl wasn't going to make it easy on her. "Well, I'd like to talk to you about something. It's to do with my father."

"Well, I thought perhaps we could meet at the La Brea Tar Pits around noon? I've never seen them. And then we could perhaps have a bit of lunch and maybe some shopping?"

"Shopping sounds good," Buffy said, and Claire could hear the grin in her voice. Score one for the British girl.

Claire flopped onto the bed and grabbed the remote control, flipping through channels until she found a rerun episode of Xena. She smiled as she watched the dark-haired warrior kick butt and take names. Poor Daddy, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. You're not going to know what hit you.

The two girls met at the tar pits as planned the next afternoon. They spent a friendly half-hour looking at everything, and then hopped into Claire's vintage Karmann Ghia to go find something to eat. "Nice wheels," Buffy commented as the older girl maneuvered them into the traffic.

"Thanks," Claire said. "My gran bought it for me, when I finished school." She signaled a left turn. "Anyplace special you want to go and eat?" At Buffy's negation, Claire grinned. "D'you like Mexican?"

Buffy raised one eyebrow. "How bad?" she asked, a bit nervously, but as Claire outlined her idea, she couldn't help but grin back.

A few hours later, the girls parked in front of the large, dusty window of Lucinda's Cafeteria in northern Tijuana. They walked in together and asked for the table directly in front of the window, so that they could keep an eye on the car. Seated and food ordered, Claire decided playtime was over. She leaned her chin on one hand, elbow on the table, and drilled into Buffy's eyes with her own. "You've set your cap for my father," she stated unequivocally.

"You heard me," Claire replied evenly. "I knew it when you kept giving me death-stares in the restaurant last night. You thought I was his date, and you wanted to slay me. I could tell."

Claire grinned. "I'm not so sure," she responded slowly. "Now. How bad d'you want him? And be honest with me. If this is just a little schoolgirl crush you've got, I'm not going to help you. But... look, my father's a Watcher. His father was a Watcher. His grandmother was a Watcher. I know Slayers. It was a lucky draw for me I didn't have to be one myself; my uncle Reginald had three kids before I was ever born, and two of them are going to be Watchers, so I didn't have to - I was given the choice. But I know Slayers. I'm nineteen years old, and you're the seventh one's been called since I was born. You're the fourth I've known personally. And you'll forgive me for bringing this up, since Dad tells me you found it out the hard way already, but Slayers... they've notoriously short lifespans. And I know Watchers as well. Those who bond to their Slayers the way my father's bonded to you don't live once their Slayer is dead."

Claire shook her head. "There are a lot of things Daddy'll never tell you. That's one of them. You see, in Watcher training, the first thing they teach is not to get emotionally attached to your Slayer. The longest-lived Slayer in history lasted twenty-six years from the date of her Calling. The shortest barely made it three months. Those Watchers who either don't have time or refuse the bonding? They outlive their Slayers. Some of them have even gone on to train a second and, in one instance, a third.

"The Slayer who lasted twenty-six years? Her name was Theodora. She was married to her Watcher when she was seventeen years old. Her Watcher, James Giovanni, was forty-seven. They had three children. The youngest was fifteen when Theodora died. James Giovanni lived three months after Theodora died, and then he fed himself to a vampire."

"You need to understand the power of the bond. My father won't tell you because you're a rebellious little chit and he doesn't want to drive you away. The Slayer who bonds to her Watcher lives longer. There is no record of any bonded Slayer dying in the first ten years after her Calling." She eyeballed Buffy. "You almost made it two. Nice going, that."

"And be happier besides," Claire responded. "Let me tell you about the four Slayers I've known. The first one I met when I was seven. She'd been the active Slayer for eighteen years at that point. She and her Watcher had embraced the bond. I never saw a happier couple. She died when I was ten. The six Slayers after her had Watchers who, for whatever reason, did not see fit to complete the bond; or else they refused it themselves." She narrowed her eyes at Buffy. "The one just before you was that way. She was like you - rebellious. Didn't like it, wasn't having it. And bond with her Watcher? Absolutely not. She lasted twenty-two months... the longest of any of them."

Their food arrived and they paused, waiting for the server to leave. Once he was gone, Claire leaned forward across her plate. "There's one other thing. My father's already opened himself to the bond."

Claire nodded. "He tried to pretend he hadn't, but I could see it in him last night. You see, I've the Second Sight. My great-grandmother had it, she trained me how to use it, and I can See things with it. I Saw that bond last night. He's opened to it, completely. And I could See it reaching for you.

"All it needs is for you to reach back." And with that, she tucked into her food.

They deliberately turned the conversation to lighter topics as they browsed the bazaar after eating, but once they were back in the car and heading toward the California border, Buffy returned the conversation to the topic of the Watcher-Slayer bond. "What happens if I accept the bond?"

Claire drew in a breath. "In general, you'll be more efficient - better at what you do. It'll be easier for you to learn new things, because you'll have the awesome brainpower of your Watcher supporting you along. In specific? I don't honestly know everything. I know that there's a ritual involved and I know that sex is involved, but beyond that, I haven't been able to find out a lot of details."

Buffy turned suddenly in her seat, studying Claire's profile with narrowed eyes. "Why are you being so helpful? If I were you, I'd be threatening to slay me right now."

Claire grinned. "Then I suppose we'll both be glad you're not me, shall we? Because if you were me, then I would be you, and I've no desire to be the Slayer. Even if it does come with a great deal of perks. You know, if you make it to eighteen, they have to pay you. And the Council is quite wealthy."

"Oh, yes." Claire smoothly crossed three lanes of traffic to exit for gasoline. "As for why I'm being so helpful, I'll tell you. My father needs you, and he loves you. It's not my place to stand in the way of his happiness - or yours, for that matter. Certainly, if I thought you were chasing him for money or something ridiculous like that, I'd put my foot down. Quite forcefully, and probably in the middle of your arse. You may be the Slayer, but I fight dirty." She grinned and winked. "But you love him. I can see it. And he loves you, as well. He as much as admitted it last night in the restaurant. Like I said, he's already begun the Bonding process, whether he knows it or not. If you died tonight, I doubt he'd be alive by the time I got to Sunnydale. He needs you. And you need him.

"And there's one other reason." She paused, biting her lip, and then turned to face Buffy fully. "It's to do with my mother." She stopped again. "Let me get the petrol - we need to be getting you back to L.A. before your father has a heart attack. As it is he's going to be furious with us for going to Mexico."

Buffy snorted as Claire got out of the car. "Yeah, right. I doubt he even notices."

Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the highway, and Claire was trying to find the best way to begin her story. "My father and mother were very much in love. My mother's name was Tien Duc Than and she was a refugee from Vietnam who came to England with her family shortly after the American troops finally vacated and left the place to the Viet Cong. They were married only a few weeks into their acquaintance, and I came along about a year after that. But my birth was difficult, and it left my mother very weak. She died of a fever when I was two. My father went rather mad afterwards... he calls them his 'Ripper days' when he thinks back on the time. I don't imagine he's said much to you about that time. He likes to try and forget it.

"He carries a lot of guilt, you see, because he left me to be raised by my uncle Reginald. From the day my mother died until I was eight years old, I never saw my father except in photographs. But I was so happy when he came back. I could just remember him, you see, although it was more impressions than anything. I remember his big hands, holding me... he used to sing to me when I couldn't sleep." She paused a moment, remembering, and then shook her head.

"Moving on... He came back when I was eight. He was different - sad. He took me with him to London as he was working there both as a Watcher and as curator at the British Museum. I went away to school - Benendon, in Kent, if that means anything to you - when I was eleven; pretty standard for English children. I'd come home on the holidays and he'd be sitting there by the fire, reading a book. He'd look up when I came in and say, 'Oh, Claire, it's you,' as though I'd not been gone a term, but only popped round to see one of my chums. It was never any different. I loved it. But he was always so sad..." Her voice trailed off momentarily as she saw something in her memory's eye. She sighed. "I could see her ghost standing behind him, touching his shoulder. She was always there.

"But last night, Buffy, when I walked into that restaurant and saw him sitting there, waiting for me, she was gone. There was life in his eyes last night. And then, Buffy... when you came and sat with us and we teased him so about his tweed, I saw the sadness go away. For the first time since I was two years old, the sadness left him. You did that." She stopped, bit her lip, and finished in a rush. "That's why I'm helping you, Buffy. Because you make the sadness go away."

Buffy was silent for a long while after Claire finished speaking, turning things over in her mind.

Buffy paused, one foot on the stair, shopping bags in hand, and turned to see her father standing in the door of his study, tie undone around his neck and a glass of scotch in one hand. "I've had bad news," he began, and she immediately knew what was coming next.

Sure enough, his next words were, "I've got to go to Germany tomorrow on a business trip."

"Well, but Buffy, you could come with me, if you wanted. It's only three weeks," he offered.

Three weeks in Germany with you and the beach-bronzed Bitch Goddess? I think emphatically not. She shook her head. "No, thanks." Her feet carried her up to

her room, where she placed her bags on the bed and went immediately to the telephone. Her call was answered on the third ring.

"It's my dad." Buffy related her brief conversation with her father. "But I'm not ready to go back yet. Can I maybe -"

"I'll be there at seven-thirty tomorrow morning to pick you up. We'll go to my place in San Francisco."

Buffy groaned. "Oh, let's not and just say we did, okay?" They hung up, both laughing, and Buffy began packing her bags. Once she was done, she picked up the phone again and called her mother. "Dad's bailing on me," she said simply.

"No, I'm gonna spend some time with a friend of mine, if that's okay. She's picking me up in the morning since Dad's flying out to Berlin tomorrow afternoon. He tried to get me to go with him."

"Don't worry, Mom. I'm not that stupid. I heard the fights, remember? I know what he said."

Joyce sighed. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I just don't know what I'd do if he took you off somewhere."

Buffy smiled slightly. "Not going anywhere. Claire's picking me up in the morning and we're going to San Francisco."

Buffy blinked. "Oh. Remember Mr. Giles? It's his daughter. She's a little bit older than I am, going to an art school up in San Francisco. I don't know the number there yet, but if you need to get in touch with me, you can call him and get it. Okay?"

"We will, Mom. Love you." Buffy hung up and then grinned at Mr. Gordo, who sat innocently on her bed. "Sweet."

Claire was at the Summers' door as advertised at seven-thirty the next morning. Buffy was sitting on the front steps, her bags around her, waiting anxiously. "My dad's not up yet," she explained as she came down the steps quickly, moving as fast as she could to jam the bags into the tiny trunk of the Karmann Ghia. They didn't all fit, so she had to put one in the back seat with Claire's overnight bag. "He might try to stop me from going."

As though her words had summoned him, Hank Summers stepped out the front door, looking for the newspaper. He blinked. "Buffy?"

"Morning, Dad," Buffy replied, one foot in the car. Claire helpfully started the car and put it in gear in preparation for a mad flight out of the neighborhood. "Have fun in Germany. I'm going to San Francisco with Claire. Mom said it was okay; I called her last night. Love you!" She dropped into the seat and slammed the door shut. "Drive!" she exclaimed, and Claire put pedal to metal, peeling away from the curb and down the street before Hank could even take two steps toward the car.

Giles rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. Eight twenty-five a.m. He'd fallen asleep with his nose in a book again. "Yes, Mrs. Summers," he said reassuringly. "What a coincidence that you should call. I just saw Buffy a few nights ago."

"Yes, actually. I was having dinner with my daughter in Los Angeles and we happened to be at the same restaurant as Buffy and her father."

There was a long pause, and then a short, humorless bark of laughter. "I'm not sure which of us is being set up, Mr. Giles, but I can smell it coming."

Joyce sighed. "Buffy called me last night to tell me that her father was going to Germany and that she, not being stupid, had declined to go. She said she made alternate plans to spend a couple of weeks with a friend whose name I wasn't familiar with. She told me who her friend was and said that she didn't know the number in San Francisco, but that I could get it from you."

Giles was beginning to feel a suspicion deep in his gut that he knew which of them was being set up, and it wasn't Joyce. "Why would I know her friend's number?" he asked, fairly sure he already knew the answer.

He thought briefly. There was really not much to be done. The chips would fall where they would fall. "No, I don't think that will be necessary. Claire has always been responsible with others, if a little reckless and thoughtless on her own. Buffy will be quite safe with her. My concern is more along the lines that... well, my family is very old and has several ties to the British nobility, and has acquired a rather large stock of money. Claire has her own trust fund from my grandmother and she was in large part raised by my brother, who spoiled her and his own children outrageously. She's more money than she has sense, and I'm just a little worried about some of the things she might do."

He sighed. "The fact that she's taken such a strong interest in Buffy tells me that she's most likely adopting her as a sort of surrogate little sister. Claire is very generous; she likes to give people things to make them smile. The two of them will undoubtedly empty a mall somewhere. But my main concern is that Claire is the type of person who would think it outrageously funny to buy Buffy a car or take her off to Australia for a couple of weeks."

Giles rubbed at his temples. "That's not the sort of thing my daughter would consider an obstacle."

"Yes," Giles responded, removing his glasses to clean them with his handkerchief and then replacing them on his head. "Quite."

Claire ran the message machine back to the beginning and yelled down the condo's hallway toward her guest room. "Oi! Your mum's tipped off my dad! C'mere!"

Buffy came out of her room and up the hallway to Claire's computer room. Claire pushed play on the answering machine and a voice came out, full of righteous British wrath. "Claire Elizabeth Giles, I don't know what you're playing at but you had better watch your step. I know Buffy's with you and I know what you've been thinking about and I'm telling you to let things alone. And for God's sake, behave." A click, and Claire stopped the machine, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

"Oh, me too," the English girl replied. "Shall we call him at three a.m. and ask him to send bail money?"

"Oh, let's don't," Buffy replied. "I still have to train with him and he'll take it out on me."

They had been in San Francisco for three days when Buffy made up her mind. Standing in the middle of Golden Gate Park, she turned and looked at Claire. "I wanna do it," she said firmly.

"Not my type, luv, sorry," Claire responded automatically. Then she blinked. "Sorry - you meant the ritual, didn't you?"

Buffy paused. "Should we warn him first? Ask for permission? It seems kind of..."

Claire shook her head. "No worries, luv. If he doesn't want it, the bonding'll fall flat."

They took the Kharmann Ghia up into the Castro. On a quiet little side street there was a shop with a sign out front bearing the legend "Merlin's Cupboard." Claire led Buffy up the steps and into the dim, smoky interior. The whole store smelled of Indian incense, and Buffy breathed deeply. "Oh, I love that smell."

"It's nag champa," Claire replied. "We'll get you a box, shall we? It's lovely stuff." She moved toward the far corner of the front room, where an ancient woman was seated in near-regal splendor on a very comfortable-looking chair, a blanket over her lap.

Her long hair was white as snow and her skin wrinkled with the weight of years, but her smoke-gray eyes were sharp and her voice was strong when she spoke.

"Welcome," she said softly in an accented voice. "Claire, it's lovely to see you again."

"Thank you, Grandmother," Claire said softly. "This is my friend, Buffy." Claire leaned over to Buffy. "Call her Grandmother. It's respectful."

Buffy nodded and took a step forward. "It's nice to meet you, Grandmother," she said quietly.

"And you, as well, mystical child who bears the mark of Sineya. It is my honor to meet the Chosen One. You are the one who draws the line in the sand, who tells the evil where it may not tread. You are the only defense of humanity. For that you have my gratitude."

The woman smiled. "I see with the eyes of the Otherworld, Chosen. The shadow of death dances behind you, but he does not stalk you; instead he honors you and does your bidding. He had you once and let you go, and he will not have you again for many years.

Fear not for yourself, for one comes to relieve you of your greatest burden." She stopped. "Well!" she said suddenly, briskly. "It's been a long time since the

Claire took Buffy by the arm, squeezing it in order to warn her to say nothing. "We thank you for your words, Grandmother. We'll do our business now with your daughter."

"Yes, go," the woman said quietly. "The Bonding must be completed. You'll find everything you need in the blue room."

"Thank you, Grandmother," Claire said, pulling Buffy off to the back of the little shop.

Looking around, Buffy found the place fascinating. Each room was painted and decorated in a different color. The front room had been black; there was purple, orange, yellow, white and red. In the back of the red room, Claire pulled open a door and stepped back, gesturing that Buffy should precede her up the staircase within.

The stairwell was gray and featureless, and Buffy had the strange feeling that she was walking between worlds as she ascended the spiral. At the top, two doors confronted her: one blue, and one green. She reached for the handle of the blue door.

The room within was done in soothing shades of blue. There were comfortable chairs scattered about, two of which were within a circle which had been painted white on the floor. At five points on the circle stood candle towers, slender metal rods which placed each candle at roughly shoulder-height. Buffy stepped toward the area, intrigued, but Claire pulled her back. "Not yet. Just... wait here."

The older girl moved about the room to the different cupboards and shelves, taking various items and placing them on the table in the center of the circle. Herbs went into a brazier, oil into a tiny stone cup, water from a hidden tap into a silver chalice. A goddess statue came out of a wooden cabinet. The end of a stick of incense went into a tiny hole drilled into the tabletop.

Buffy jumped when the door opened behind her, admitting a small woman similar in feature to the old woman who had prophesied to her downstairs. "Bright blessings, Chosen One," the woman said softly. "My mother told me that you were here. She said that you are performing a bonding?"

Claire came around the corner, a book in her hands, and started. "Oh! Priestess, I didn't hear you come in." She looked at Buffy. "Buffy, this is the High Priestess Amaranth of the Snake Circle Coven. Priestess, this is -"

Buffy's face scrunched up in confusion. This was the third time that name had come up. "Um, my mother's name is Joyce," she said somewhat apologetically.

The priestess smiled. "You are the ultimate daughter of Sineya, young one - you are the Chosen One. As she was the first, so are you now."

Everything was ready in the circle. The priestess stepped inside and turned to face Buffy. "For what purpose come you here this day?"

Buffy blinked and realized the ritual had begun. She wished someone had told her what her lines were. "To... to complete the bonding between myself and my Watcher."

"I speak for him," said Claire from Buffy's left. "I know it is his will, for I have seen it with my Sight."

"Come within." The priestess gestured to Buffy, and the Slayer stepped across the white line, feeling a strange tingle of power as she did so. The priestess lit the herbs in the brazier and took up the cup of oil, anointing Buffy's forehead, eyes, nose and lips. She then gestured to the Slayer to be seated in one of the chairs. She stood before Buffy and laid gentle hands atop the blonde head. "Clear your mind," she began. "Empty it of all things but him. Bring him into your consciousness, into your being. Find him. Seek him out in the dark places of yourself and bring him into the light."

Buffy closed her eyes and focused on Giles, to the exclusion of all else. She dove deep within her psyche, seeking anything that had to do with him: the warmth of his touch when he cradled her against his body while she was dying of Catherine Madison's spell; the joy in his eyes when she came back from facing the Master, alive; the pride on his face when she excelled at anything; the love he held for her that he felt so strongly but could not say.

And suddenly, HE was there. It was just a spark, deep inside, but it was there, and it was HIM. She reached with her soul and pulled him to her, feeling HIM wrap around her. "Found you," she whispered to him.

He sat bolt upright on the sofa, where he had been napping with a book on his chest. The book, unheeded, fell to the floor. He gasped for breath. "Buffy," he said softly, and suddenly, he heard her voice in his mind and her touch on his soul. Found you.

Instinctively, he reached back to her, seeking that place within him that was HER. He found it quickly, shining like a beacon in the depths of his being. "Found you back," he said, roughly, and he took her into his own soul.

"Oh, God!" Buffy gasped, her breath hitching, her body arching under the priestess's hands. Suddenly her eyes went blank and her body slumped backward in the chair.

"The book does not know everything," the priestess said, with a quiet laugh. "The Bonding is all but complete. They are together now, in the Otherworld, and they will accomplish the final stage together."

"You mean they're -" Claire paused, looked down at the book, and looked back up at the priestess. "Oh, my - the book didn't say anything about that!"

She was in his arms. Nothing really mattered besides that. It was warm here, and safe - a vast nothingness that went on for eternity and contained only them.

For a long time, possibly minutes, possibly centuries, they simply were. Then he spoke. "Was this your idea or Claire's?"

She thought about it. "Both. She knew about the ritual, but I was the one who decided I wanted to do it."

She thought about that, too. It was hard to think, this close to him. She didn't want to think. She only wanted to feel, to be. "She said..." she paused. "Oh! She said that it wouldn't work if you didn't want it."

He nodded. "True. All right, then - I forgive you. You knew I'd say no, didn't you?"

They were, for a long time. And then suddenly he turned her to face him. She was different somehow, and he wanted to know how. She looked at him. "You're younger," she said softly, at the same time as he said, "You're older."

She wondered at that and thought about a mirror. There was a mirror. They both looked into it and faced two people in their late twenties, both sure and mature and adult. She wondered again, thinking about the mirror going away. Obediently, it went. "This is strange," she commented.

"I've been here before," he said softly. "It responds to you, to what you want. It's like... a little pocket of thought."

He shook his head. "Time has no meaning in this place. Days, months, years... age, youth - none of them exist on this plane. This is eternity."

"Oh." She was still facing him, and her eyes were drawn to his mouth. His sensuous lips called to her, and it seemed a crime that they should be unkissed. She leaned forward and kissed them.

Her kiss did not surprise him, though he felt a distant wonder that he should be so blessed by the gods. Instead, he wound a hand in her hair and kissed her back.

"I know." He smiled and touched her through their bond. "Do you feel that I love you?"

She felt, reaching through the bond to touch him in return. She nodded and smiled a bit. "Yes."

"You have me, my love," he whispered in her ear. "Do you feel my skin beneath your hands?"

She felt it. He was warm - so warm. She realized with a sudden flash that they were both naked; had in fact been naked since arriving. She drew a hand down his chest, feeling the crisp hairs there tickling her palm. He drew her towards him, kissing his way from her mouth to her jaw and down her neck. Arriving at the place where her pulse beat, he first licked, and then bit at her skin. The tiny pain sent an electrical shock through her body. "Oh!" she exclaimed, and then, "Giles..."

That was all he needed. Her voice moaning his name so breathlessly, telling him that she wanted him; that was all he needed to hear. He gently pushed her onto her back and began to slowly kiss and lick his way down her body. Her nipples tightened painfully under the ministrations of his magnificent tongue, his powerful hands brought up goosebumps all over her body. He drew further down, kissing her ribs and her stomach, thrusting his tongue into her navel in a parody of fucking that took her breath away and made her moan his name again.

He brought his hands down between her legs, parting her thighs and trailing his fingers up them toward the hot, wet secret that no man had yet touched. He pulled back from her, gently touching her outer lips with one reverent finger, and she writhed beneath him, her body begging him for more. "Giles..." she breathed again, and he smiled.

"Yes, Buffy," he whispered back, and he leaned down to her. His fingers gently parted her nether lips and he licked her in one long, slow movement from cleft to clit, using the tip of his tongue to tease the hard little nub. She gasped and reached blindly toward him. He smiled and delivered another long, teasing stroke. Her hips rose toward him and she gasped again. He leaned in for a third stroke, and then had mercy on her - he stopped teasing. He began to lick and suck in earnest, lapping up her hot nectar and then sucking her clit to make her give him more. She came in his mouth with a cry that echoed throughout the nothingness they were surrounded by.

He smiled, licking her gently as she came back down, and then faster again to take her back up. She clawed at the not-ground beneath her, her body undulating, her voice loud with whimpers and cries of his name. He sucked her clit, and then stuck his tongue deep into her core, wiggling it vigorously inside her. The sensations were too much and she came again, calling his name.

As she came down this time, he rose up above her, kissing her gently and smiling into her eyes. "Was it good, my heart?"

"So good," she whimpered, reaching up with one heavy arm to touch his face with butterfly fingers. "Love you," she whispered.

"Love you back," he said softly, his voice rough, as he leaned down to kiss her again.

She felt the head of his cock tease at her entrance and raised her hips in invitation. He groaned and slowly slid the tip in, knowing that she was a virgin and wanting to be careful - not wanting her to hurt. He pressed further in as her arms came up to wrap around his shoulders, feeling her fingers tense suddenly when he encountered resistance. He leaned down to kiss her again and pushed hard, tearing through her innocence and marking her as his. She gave a sharp cry of pain and he froze, holding perfectly still as she breathed deeply for a moment, her eyes squinched shut, and then she breathed out, and her eyes opened.

He was struck by them - he had never seen eyes so green before. They pinned and held him as he looked deep into them and saw her. She smiled then, and he slowly sank the rest of the way into her until their bodies met. Her eyes fluttered closed and she gave a

small moan. "Oh... yes..." She reached up and wrapped her hand around his neck, pulling him to her for a kiss that burned her name in his soul. "Giles. Now."

He braced himself on his elbows and began to thrust, setting a slow rhythm that she matched easily. It seemed hours that they lay there, he thrusting into her, she meeting him with her hips thrust for thrust, neither of them tearing their eyes away from the

other. Then suddenly something shifted, like a sleeping tiger rolling over and opening one eye to confront the world. She felt it move within her and reach up to move through him as well. Imperceptibly at first, their rhythm changed. There was suddenly more force behind his thrusts, and she began to make tiny whimpers at the back of her throat each time he buried himself in her. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his hips, granting him deeper access, and he responded by quickening his pace even more. Before long she was giving full-throated gasps.

He was close; he could feel it coming on him like a stampede on the African savanna. He slid one hand between their bodies to gently rub at her clit; she responded by wrapping her arms around him and burying her nails in his back. "Oh, God, Giles... yes... oh, yeah..."

"Come for me, Buffy," he growled into her ear. "Come for me, my sweet one, come!"

"Oh, yeah, Giles... oh, God, yeah... Oh..." and suddenly it was there. She screamed his name, a throat-tearing, full-voiced scream as her body surged into orgasm. Her muscles clenched and spasmed around his cock and he gave himself up to it as well, calling out her name and thrusting deeper still as his balls clenched and he shot his hot seed into her body.

They lay there for a long time, his head buried in her shoulder, her arms wrapped around his neck and her hands stroking his hair. The sweat dried on their bodies and she thought about a blanket to cover them, even though it wasn't cold. There was a blanket then, soft and blue, settled gently across them. He still didn't move.

She knew he was awake, but he didn't want to move, didn't want to speak, for fear of losing the sanctity of this moment, as they lay together, still physically joined, in the radiance of post-coital bliss. She was okay with that, content simply to lay there and hold him close, feel the beating of his heart.

Finally, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. "I love you," he whispered.

He looked uncertain, needing to say something but not sure how she would take it. He felt her query through the bond and knew that he could say whatever had to be said - she would understand. "You know that we can't... do this... out there."

He sighed. She did understand. And he smiled at her next comment. "We can always come back here, though, right?"

He nuzzled into her neck, nipping gently at her skin. "Yes, my love. We can come here together."

She arched her neck, giving him better access, and moaned softly when he caught the sensitive place where the Master's fangs had been buried in her throat. Her body gave a long, slow undulation beneath him and he felt himself harden within her. She smiled, rotating her hips gently - she felt it, too. "We don't have to leave here just yet, do we?"

He smiled back. "No," he whispered. "Not just yet." And he captured her lips again.

Buffy's eyes slowly opened and she blinked at the room around her - it was the upstairs room at Merlin's Cupboard, painted in its soothing shades of blue. She was reclined in one of the chairs inside the sacred circle. Neither Claire nor the priestess was anywhere to be seen.

Did I dream that? she asked herself, doubt beginning to fill her. Did I just fall asleep and dream all that? She could feel tears welling up in her eyes at the thought that what she'd just experienced - the joy of the bonding as well as the passion of love - had all been a farce concocted by her subconscious. But just as she was about to let the first tears fall, she felt a sudden warmth within her, and heard a soft voice in her mind. *No tears, my love. It wasn't a dream. This I promise you.*

She could feel him smile. *It's really me. And I'll always be right here if you need me. Go and find my scamp of a daughter and have fun in San Francisco, my love.*

*Can I... will I...* she paused, suddenly shy, but felt his wordless encouragement and went on. *Can I... see you... tonight?*

His laughter bubbled across their connection. *Of course, my heart. Whenever you wish.*

Buffy looked across the table at Claire and simply shook her head. "There's no way I can describe it," she said. "It was... it was... wow."

They were silent for awhile, sipping mochas, and then Buffy stood suddenly. "I'm having a wicked shoe craving."

"Well, then, by all means, let's go relieve some unsuspecting proprietor of his entire stock." Claire stood as well, tossing her empty cup into the trash, and the two of them walked out of the coffee shop and into the mall. They looked back and forth and chose a shop nearby. As they turned toward it, Claire suddenly had an idea. "Hey, Buffy, d'you want to go car shopping with me?"

Claire's laugh bubbled up, sounding just like her father's. "You let me worry about the affording," she said as they entered the shoe store. "And your lack of a license is not a problem for me."

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Watcher-Slayer Bonding

By Rainne

Copyright © 2003

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