Buffy Fic - Maybe tomorrow 5/5
Willow had seen him go outside from an upstairs window, watched as he stood, unmoving, staring about at the trees in the back garden and down at the damp grass beneath his feet. She tested the temperature of the bath water with a finger and, satisfied, let slip her robe and climbed into its steaming confines. She didn’t want to leave but she knew that she had to, the longer she lingered, the harder it would be. The warmth of the water did little to relax her but did a fine job of turning her pale flesh a rosy pink.
Giles smiled at the leaves that drifted down and stared at the branches and the trunks, the sun dappling through a break in the cloud. Something in Willow had helped to draw him out of the confines in which he used to lock himself, both his personality and his person, failing an inch at a time to be either a clean slate or an island. Books were paper, paper is of a tree - sometimes he found Willow’s flights of reason oddly grounding. He smiled at the grass as he turned and went back inside to get dressed.
Willow descended the stairs feeling slightly uncomfortable in a dress she’d worn many a time before and didn’t really know why. Giles looked immaculate in a suit a million miles from the tweeds of old.
“You look breathtaking,” he murmured with a smile that at once set her at ease and made her stomach feel light.
They took a cab all the way to the Ritz, the cost was exorbitant but Giles had stated that he’d be damned if she was to trek about town, dressed like that, in this weather followed by some sort of tangent about footwear. They rode in marked silence, he looking out a window, putting his face to his fist, like a Rodin - contemplative, thoughtful. Without thinking she placed a hand on his other one that lay spare on the seat between them. She tensed a little as he turned to her, expecting her to say or ask him something but made no move to pull away as he turned back to the rain and the dark and the old facades.
The food was exquisite, the wine flowed freely. Their reminiscences were more formal, like parting gifts. Having decided that dancing was neither of their fortes, they chose to all the same.
And so they danced long and close and slow, currents of power running through where their fingers idly entwined, where his finger tips lightly held to her back. The smell of her, the richness of fire and blood in her hair, lingered before him, the aching grace of the woman who had blossomed from the shy-eyed teenager he had met in another world.
She looked up at him, something like indecision in her eyes, he bent his head slowly towards her.
“I’m not Buffy,” she halted him with a hesitant breathe
“I’m well aware of that,” he answered as gently.
Their lips only met momentarily, enough to ignite a world of passion and hurt within, seconds that would burn for days. Her eyes glistened with hesitancy as he leant back.
“I…I should probably go tomorrow…” she stammered.
“I think that would be best,” he nodded quietly.
She leant into his shoulder and clung to him intensely.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“So am I,” she breathed back “you’re such a beautiful man,”
“Shouldn’t I be saying such things to you? Well not the man part of course…” he managed a smile.
“You’ve always made me feel that way,” she returned the smile, though it was sadder, more difficult “beautiful and special and loved,”
“Another life perhaps,” he remarked with a sigh.
“Indeed,” she tried at a sniff of a laugh though she felt like crying. “What do we do now?”
“We keep dancing.”