He was hunched over the phone in the chemistry lab, trying not to let Buffy hear the panic in his voice.
“Dammit, Ethan, she’s *dying*.”
“Didn’t last very long, did she?”
“You bloody--”
“Language, language. What will the children think?”
“Ethan--”
“Oh, relax.”
The door burst open and Giles jumped and yelped, dropping the phone and reaching for a weapon he realized at the last moment he didn’t have.
“I’m right here,” Ethan continued, turning his cell off with a beep, and looking far too amused.
Giles stood up and gathered his last remaining shards of dignity.
"You and I are having a talk when we get home."
Ethan only smiled.
"Goody."
"What?" Buffy said, dazedly.
Giles resisted the urge to groan.
"Nothing."
He went to her side and stood by the table, watching Ethan shuffle the spell components and feeling like a useless coward. He hadn't cast in nearly twenty years, but he could have done this. It would have meant touching the magic inside him again, though, feeling the rush and the power, and he wasn't sure--
He shook off those thoughts and laid his hand on his Slayer's shoulder. She turned her eyes up to him, and for the first time, mixed in with the pain and the fear, he saw real trust there. And he had to wonder if he was worthy.
"It'll be all right," he told her, squeezing gently, and she smiled.
Behind him, Ethan was chanting. Magic rose through the room, tugging on bits of loose paper and fluttering along the flag in the corner. He could feel the hair on his arms standing on end. The electric tingle sang along his skin.
And then Amy's mother broke down the door and all hell broke loose, and at some point his head must have met up with a wall, because the next thing he really knew was that he was on the floor.
He opened his eyes to find Ethan kneeling on one side of him and Buffy on the other.
"Honestly, Rupert," Ethan said, "You're more prone to head trauma than anyone I've ever met."
He sat up slowly, and the room wobbled and then settled back down.
"You ok?" Buffy was asking.
"I'm fine, thank you," he said, trying to blink away the blurriness, and then realizing he simply wasn't wearing his glasses, "And you?"
"Peachy!" she chirped. "You guys totally saved my life! And you!" This last directed at Ethan, "You totally broke that spell! You're like a god!"
This was a fortunate choice of words, for Ethan was almost automatically fond of anyone who compared him to a deity, and Rupert's life would be so much simpler if Buffy and Ethan were fond of each other.
"Well, I have my moments," Ethan was saying, with startling self-deprecation. Then he added, "Many of them, actually," and Rupert felt the world right itself again.
"So, how do you guys know each other, anyway?" Buffy said.
"Er."
Ethan merely waited, with a look of interest.
"He's--" The pain in my neck, the thorn in my side, the love of my life. "My partner," he said, and then, before Buffy could surmise that Watchers worked in teams, which would set Ethan off on a tirade of truly epic proportions, he added, "My life partner."
Ethan smiled.
Buffy blinked.
"Oh. Um... oh."
The End
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