There was no Hellmouth in Italy.

You'd think that would be enough to make any retired Slayer happy--well, semi-retired--but somehow knowing the closest source of pure, unmitigated, semi-annual evil was four thousand miles away in Okhotsk didn't turn life into kittens and roses. Three slayers in the past fifteen years had cleaned out most of the older vamps in the European Union. Salernas, perched in the foothills jutting out into the Mediterranean, had the lowest per-capita death rate of any city in the country. When she first arrived, Buffy had treated herself to light patrols and long, glorious hours of sleep. She'd eaten pasta alfredo, al fresco, and aldante. Her personal "number of people led to their deaths" since leaving Sunnydale was a satisfying none at all, thank you.

She hadn't so much as seen a vampire. Hadn't foiled any demonic plots, or strung any hellbeasts up by their own entrails. Had, in fact, kicked not a single ass in three months.

It kind of itched.

Buffy clomped down to the breakfast table on just one more all-too-beautiful day, slumped into the chair next to Dawn, buried her face in her arms and said, "The ocean smells wrong."

Dawn mumbled around a mouthful of toast, "Sea."

"Huh?"

"Mediterranean." Chew. Swallow. "Sea."

"Maybe that's why, then." Buffy snatched a piece of toast off Dawn's pile, faster than a human sister could slap her hand away. "Also, it's sunny. Again."

Dawn rolled her eyes. She'd gotten far too good at that since they'd moved here. "When was it not sunny in--gee, what was our old town's name? Oh, that's right...SUNNYdale."

Buffy considered arguing more, realised she sounded three, and asked, "Have you finished your homework?" Because that question always meant she'd won.

"It's Saturday."

Except when it was Saturday.

Dawn flipped a page in the huge volume in front of her, writing a hieroglyphic on a jam-smeared index card. "Are you going to your Italian course today?" she asked.

Buffy tried to slump more. She nearly fell out of her chair, so she settled for pouting. Again, three. Dammit. "Posso bene pazzesca passo," she tried.

Snicker, and toast crumbs went everywhere.

"What? What'd I say?"

"Um. No. Nothing. Yeah, you're doing great." Dawn stood up and grabbed her book. "I'm gonna go finish this outside. Because of the, you know, sun."

Buffy looked at the leather cover of the book, worked in gold-inlay snaky-looking letters. "What are you working on?"

"Oh, one of the books Giles rescued from the Council. Slayer lore, but then, what else, right? He's coming next week, so I thought I'd show him my translation...he says he might talk to my dean, get me into some more language courses--"

"Giles? Is doing what?"

"Helping me get into Watchering stuff. You know--"

"No, he's--Giles is coming here? Next week? Since when?" Buffy bit her lip to stop her questions. Dawn practiced her eye-roll again.

"I told you he was coming."

Buffy shook her head, blank. Giles was coming here? After everything they'd said to each other--after all she'd done in Sunnydale? The way she'd treated him?

"Buffy. He's bringing you more Slayers to train."

"Oh. That." She rubbed her suddenly sweaty hands on her jeans. "Why didn't he tell me himself?"

"I don't know." Dawn frowned. "It's just a visit. I thought you guys were okay again. I told him he could stay here. You better not be mean to him."

"I'd never--" Buffy stopped before Dawn could roll her eyeballs right out of her skull. "I mean, it's fine. I want him--I mean, I don't want him not to stay here. Here is fine. Here is wonderful. Here is--"

"Babbling now." Dawn quirked an eyebrow. "Jeez, you'd think he was your boyfriend or something. It's just Giles."

Buffy blushed, as if she'd been caught at something. Like thoughts that linked "boyfriend" and "Giles". The kind of thought you couldn't have when you were boinking the undead for the sole purpose of finding your way back into living--more the kind of thought that slipped into your head after having three months of nothing much else to think about. And a very nice thought it was...

It was probably for the best that she'd have something to do when Giles brought the new slayers to train.

"Then I realised it had actually been translated from Middle Sumerian, so of course the ancient Hebraic text I had was useless!"

The sound of Giles' laughter brought Buffy bouncing down the stairs to the front hallway. The smile on his face seemed to change him completely--the desperate worry of Sunnydale was forgotten, if only for this moment. Dawn was dragging his suitcase inside, grinning.

"So you cross-referenced the Icelandic runes with the bas-reliefs of Indo-Slavic Mesopotamia?" he asked.

"Nope. Turns out it was actually a dialect of Inuvalit."

Giles laughed again. Buffy stood at the bottom of the stairs, uncertain, not wanting to interrupt him, but when he looked up, the smile was still in his eyes.

"Buffy..." he said. "You--you look, uh, marvelous."

She smiled nervously. "You too."

He gave a slight shake of his head, pushing away the compliment. "Italy's been good to you." He turned to Dawn and took his case. "The girls should be along in about half an hour...I came ahead to see if you were truly able to accommodate us. I don't want to impose--"

"No--" Buffy stopped. "Well, how many of you?"

"Fourteen, and me."

She winced--she'd thought her days of sharing her bedroom floor were well past--but Dawn's narrow-eyed glare convinced her that objections wouldn't be taken well. "That's--that's great."

Dawn shook her head and sighed. "So glad we made it over that hump. Now I'm taking Giles' stuff to your room. You get the couch."

Buffy took in a breath to shriek that, by the crater that was Sunnydale, she would never sleep on a couch again...and then let it out in a rush. Giles. In her bed. All...sleepy and sexy and naked...

Shut up, brain.

But somehow her brain was stuck on the fact that maybe, if she played her cards right, she wouldn't be stuck on the couch after all.

The fourteen newest slayers piled out of their various cars, hauling luggage and staring at the modest house like it was a shrine. Buffy smiled awkwardly at them and led them inside, trying to ignore the feeling that she was so much Slayer Idol for them to gape at. She showed them all where Dawn had decided they'd sleep, then offered them food, rest, or a trip to see the sights.

"Can we--can we watch you train?"

Buffy couldn't even tell which one of them had spoken--they were all so alike, wide-eyed and eager. When had she ever been that willing to embrace her destiny? They looked like a pack of refugees from a Girl Guide summer camp.

Giles came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She tried not to shiver too noticeably. "Actually, Buffy and I are looking forward to watching you all in action, as it were. Seeing your individual personalities in hand-to-hand contact will enable us to train you more efficiently. So, if everyone's ready, we can head to the gym."

The gym was nothing more than the refurnished basement, or unfurnished, as made more sense. The walls were padded and the weapons locker was well-stocked, but it had a different feeling from the library or the Magic Box. Buffy didn't really like training down here--in fact, she never did when there was no one to remind her to keep up her skills. It just felt so empty when she was down here by herself. Even fourteen other slayers couldn't fill it.

But the moment Giles stepped out of the dressing room, the place was real in a way it hadn't been in all these months. Buffy stared at him, trying to figure out how, with one step, he'd made the gym into their space. He didn't look the same as her old Watcher--the tweed was gone, and so was the more casual wear from his businessman days. He was wearing sweats, like most of the girls, and yet--well--

Buffy lost her train of thought when he started leading the girls in warm-up exercises. He got them started on some basics, then sat down on the bench along the wall.

Buffy sat next to him, unscrewing the cap on her water bottle. "What do you think?"

"Hmm." His eyes never left the slayers, all moving in sync.

"They're all kinda the same--was I like that when I started?"

"Hmm? No. You were--unique." A ghost of a smile haunted his face for a moment, then he frowned as one pair stumbled. "Perhaps you can show them--I believe the phrase is--'how it's done'?"

"Um--"

"You have kept up with your training, haven't you?" Giles gave her a sideways glance. Buffy bristled at the teasing look in his eyes...or tried to. It was made a little difficult by the fact that a) she hadn't; b) he knew it; and c) the teasing was just too damn cute.

Instead of answering, she got up slowly and stretched right in front of him, holding eye contact the entire time. Because it was even cuter to watch his pupils dilate and his face redden--just enough.

And all that pasta had done nice things to her figure.

The thing about training--the basics, anyway--was that after seven (oh, god, had it really been that long?) years, it was as familiar as the song you get stuck in your head and can't banish until suddenly you realise you've been singing "I'm a little Tea Pot" for two weeks straight.

Well, it was sort of like that.

The moves came easily, anyway, because she knew he was watching. No, because she knew he was Watching. He was the one human being who knew exactly who and what she was--the man who was destined to be at her side forever. Buffy closed her eyes as she worked through the ritual of strike and counterstrike, punch and block and kick, as surely as if she were dancing in his arms, feeling his hands lead her body through the steps.

She completely forgot about the other slayers until she stopped; and when she remembered she wasn't alone in the room with Giles--as she had been, so many times--she felt like she'd given away something incredibly private. It was weird. And when she looked up, she saw it in his eyes, too--if they'd actually been alone--

The I-haven't-killed-anything-in-forever itch was back worse than ever. Buffy scrunched up her shoulders to banish it, but it just wouldn't go.

"Here," Giles said. "Let me get that." He gestured her closer, then began massaging the tension out of her back and neck. She could feel the scratchy-twitchy feeling fading into his fingers like magic.

"Everyone, thank you for your work today," Giles said softly to the others. "I think we'll return tomorrow...until then, you all have leisure time."

Buffy listened as the room emptied, until there was nothing left in the world but the soft movement of Giles' hands up and down her back, catching every now and then on her bra strap.

She wondered what he'd say if she offered to slip into something more comfortable.

Instead, she found herself asking, "Do you wanna watch a movie with me tonight?"

"You know, this is something Dawn doesn't remember?" Buffy sighed as she brought the large silver bowl of popcorn to the couch. "It's something I always shared with my mom. It's so--I don't know--special, something that was just ours."

"Oh, Buffy." Giles shifted on the couch. "I don't want to take that away from you. I don't need to--"

Buffy waved away his words. "No. I want you here. It's no fun by myself, and Dawn hates old movies." She sat down next to him on the couch--if a little too next to him, then who was here to notice, or care? "And I made too much popcorn for just me." Feeling him relax a bit, she pressed her advantage and snuggled closer, leaning onto his chest, and resting her head on his shoulder. He started to stutter, but she shushed him. "Movie now. Talk later."

Throughout the movie, she made sure the bowl of popcorn stayed put, so that she could reach casually into his lap and swirl the kernels around--to get an even coating of butter on them--before bringing them to her lips.

It would have been a lot sexier if the little skin-bits didn't get stuck in her teeth.

When the credits rolled, she didn't move. She felt glued in place, Giles' chest rising and falling under her head with each breath. Maybe he'd fallen asleep. Maybe he was too embarrassed by her closeness to say anything. Maybe--

"Buffy?"

"Yes?"

"What movie did we just watch?"

Buffy thought back. "Um--I--well, I put it in. And then I pressed play. There were characters...they did stuff..."

She felt him nod. "That's about what I remember, too." A sigh, and she could hear so much in it...amusement, tenderness, resignation, elation, excitement--

Normally, she didn't get that much from people's sighs. But Giles was a very eloquent sigher.

She twisted around, not losing an inch of contact with him. The popcorn bowl, empty, clattered to the floor. This close, in the TV-flickering darkness, she could see everything his sigh said in his eyes.

"Giles..." It was only a whisper.

"Hrrmm?" The rumble of his chuckle under her hands filled her with a sweet anticipation.

"I have no fucking clue what the movie was."

And she knew he was still smiling when he kissed her.

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April 2, 2004