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It is an unfortunate collection of events. Perhaps if Willow had been genuinely inebriated, not just pleasantly tipsy, Giles would have been more willing to chalk the whole affair up to a drunken mistake, one easily (if embarrassingly) sorted in the morning. Perhaps if Willow hadn't been dressing like Jenny so often lately—the long skirts, the choppy hair—Giles might not have been noticing, sideways, how beautiful she is becoming, and feeling that rush of infuriated revulsion: at himself for noticing, and—perhaps not as justifiably—at her, for borrowing the image of his love, for encouraging the association. He is never completely certain how much of what Willow does is intentional.
It's the wrong thing to do, to blame the child in this scenario. Giles knows this. Yet Willow has never been a child in a way that makes sense to him. He never looked at her in their high school days as he is looking at her now, here and there, but there has always been a terrifying gravity to her even at her most emotionally fragile. There is something unshakably powerful about her—a certainty that she knows what's best, an ability to talk circles round you until you think the same. He was aware of it back then; he is aware of it now. Some part of him wonders if he feels this way only because she's decided that she wants him to.
At any rate: Willow is helping Giles sort the books. Giles is thinking about Jenny, again, which is a frustrating and unhelpful place for his thoughts to dwell, but it is hard not to draw parallels: Jenny helped him with computers, Jenny sorted and scanned the books while humming softly to herself, Jenny glanced up at him through her lashes and smiled as though she knew something he didn't. Giles does not necessarily want anything to happen, and is discomfited by the notion of imagining it. He wants to blame Willow for it. She has used mind-altering magic before. She may very well do it again, if she has found a way to justify it to herself.
Just the fact that he is so ready and willing to accept Willow's capacity to change the world to her liking is, in itself, concerning to Giles. Perhaps it is that he does not want to find out what will happen to him if he tries to stop her. The girl will justify anything. She can find a way.
Willow takes a sip of the beer that Giles is trying to pretend isn't there. She's below the legal drinking age in America, which makes this something technically unlawful, but there is some sort of gray area, isn't there, for drinking with a parent or with a trusted adult? If he takes his glasses off, Giles can see the blurry outline of that sort of person in the mirror. “You're looking kinda spacey,” she observes. “Penny for your thoughts?”
At no point in time has Giles ever been the sort of person to answer that inquiry honestly. “How are the books going?” he asks.
Willow shrugs. “As well as books can go,” she says. “I mean, no smudges on the scans, so that's good, right? And no demons in the Internet,” she says, smiles, and then bites her lip as though she hadn't meant to say that.
Giles is touched by her concern. Truthfully, Willow is the only person from whom a sideways acknowledgement of Jenny's existence doesn't sting. Willow loved Jenny in a way very similar to him. Possibly exactly as he loved Jenny. He hasn't asked, and doesn't intend to. “No demons in the internet,” he agrees, letting a small piece of feeling into his voice.
Willow hesitates, searching Giles's face. Then she says, with such rapidity that he's certain she is afraid he might cut her off, “You know she'd probably be really, really proud of you, right? And really happy you're doing this. And staying.”
Giles knows that this is not even remotely true. Jenny would never have forgiven him for the Cruciamentum, which is one of the things that made it so easy to do. Better to turn himself into a man she would never have been able to love than to stay that man she did love, the one who led her to her death. The man that he is now would never have gotten Jenny killed. There is some strange comfort in that.
“Thank you, Willow,” he says, because it's what Willow wants to hear. No room for the truth in a moment like this.
Willow smiles, soft and warm. Her eyes flicker to his mouth. Experimentally, she says, “And I bet she would have thought you were really sexy at the Espresso Pump last year.”
Uncharted and terrifying waters. Giles recognizes that the blurred outline of the man he is supposed to be has an obligation to step back, change the subject. He does not. He does not say anything, which is close enough to what he is supposed to do that he hopes it will suffice. Just holds Willow's gaze, eyes moving to the beer, which is still mostly full.
“I'm not drunk, Giles,” says Willow, who knows everything two seconds before he thinks it. “Just…I don't know. Thinking.”
This is another thing that Jenny would not forgive him for. Does that mean, then, that the man he has become would allow it? He sees how easy it would be to lean forward and kiss Willow in this moment. In this moment, in moments before, in any moment, the simple act of kissing Willow would have her wrapped round him within seconds. Faster even than Xander, for love of whom Willow had shattered her relationship with warm, intuitive Oz. Giles is certain that there is no choice between Oz and himself. Willow would choose him within seconds if she believed it possible.
He is thinking about this with analytic detachment. Not quite interest, only awareness. All of this is hypothetical. None of it matters. He knows himself well enough to know that he would never—
Willow kisses him.
Giles kisses her back. She is wearing cheap floral perfume, almost-but-not-quite the sweetly spicy scent that always seemed to hang around Jenny. He suspects, now, that this is deliberate: not just the way she has been dressing, but the perfume, the mentions of Jenny, the attempts to evoke feelings in him that are connected to a woman she knows he loved. He wonders if this is an experiment for her, some new step in her magical journey, a test to see how far she can push him. He finds himself charmed by her assumption that she is in any way capable of changing his mind about her.
He pulls back from the kiss. She is looking at him hopefully, but with that same wickedly anticipatory expression she gets right before an argument that she's already rehearsed in her head. She wants this to be a paradigm-shifting moment for them both, something deliciously wrong. There is something so heady about having the power to reveal she's never had power over him in the first place.
“Are you done, then?” Giles says mildly.
The smile stays on Willow's face, but her eyes flash sharp wildfire. She turns back towards the books and does not say anything for the rest of her time in his apartment.
Giles calls Tara as soon as Willow leaves. “I think you should know that Willow kissed me,” he says calmly, and without preamble. “You'd do well to speak to her about it.”
He feels no guilt when it comes to telling Tara before Willow can. Evidence suggests that Willow will avoid the conversation as long as possible, and he refuses to get himself caught up in tawdry, ridiculous, Xander-esque dramatics. She wants something romantically scandalous from him, believes herself capable of tugging it out of him, and there is something vindictive in him that is delighted by having bested her at her own game.
She is a little girl playing with fire, and she is hardly as clever as she thinks that she is. Giles intends to ensure that this time is the last time she behaves this way.
“Mr. Giles,” says Tara. She sounds like she's about to cry. “I'm—I—”
“I'm sorry, Tara,” says Giles. He does mean it. “I truly don't think it meant very much to her. I-I can't speak for—what she might have wanted—”
“I w-wouldn't expect you to,” says Tara softly.
Can he speak for what Willow might have wanted? He can almost imagine the shape of it, if he closes his eyes, but the bulk of it eludes him. What is so appealing about him that has not already been deconstructed by the lives they lead? He would have understood this behavior from her at sixteen, before she really knew him, though of course she'd never have been so forward back then, and he likely would have been a thousand times more horrified than he is right now.
If he was seriously considering this as something that he wanted, he's sure he would be wracked with self-loathing, but it is not something that is in any way acceptable to consider—ergo, he must not be considering it. Never has. Objectively she is beautiful. Of course she is beautiful. Beautiful, and smart, and more dangerous than Jenny in many ways. He has never attempted to imagine her in the myriad of ways he has imagined Jenny, and will not start now.
It's beside the point, anyway. She's acting out. Perhaps she has realized that he's seriously considering leaving Sunnydale; he wouldn't put it past her. He likes the idea of her wanting him to stay, and trying to offer herself up as an appealing romantic option. If she's a young tree, let him be the stakes and the rope; let him bend her back the way she's supposed to be. She won't like it at first, and he's sure she'll be heartbroken to learn she's hurt Tara, but it's a heartbreak that she earned. He will not allow her to delay feeling it.
He isn't Xander. He has nothing to lose.
Tara is conspicuously missing from the next Scooby meeting. Giles expected at least one of the other children outside of Willow to have known what transpired between them—possibly Buffy, as this seems like something Willow would want to cry on her shoulder about—but Buffy and Xander both seem only politely bemused by Tara's absence. Buffy even asks, with that sweetly awkward cadence to her voice of a heterosexual girl trying very hard to understand Sapphic romance, if Tara is all right.
Giles catches it, then: Willow's eyes move to his, that sharp fire from the night before blazing ever hotter. He is amused and angry all in one. He should have expected her to blame him, did expect her to blame him, but she is so absurdly intelligent that her anger at experiencing consequences arouses a similar anger in him. She should know that things like this will happen when she misbehaves. He wonders if a firmer hand with her could have been useful, but he is not her father. He is only involved in this because she dragged him forward.
“No,” says Willow. “Tara's not all right. You know anything about that, Giles?”
This is interesting. Giles hadn't been expecting her to force some sort of confrontation in front of an audience. Does she not understand how this will look if it comes forward? “Are we talking about this?" Giles asks, in that same light, mild tone of voice he used after Willow kissed him. “I had assumed you might want to keep the situation between you and Tara.”
“The situation?” says Willow hotly.
Something flares up in him, some strange impulse, and he finds himself wanting to take two striding steps forward and kiss her in full view of the children, right then and there. Not desire, surely not, only—he wants to see what she'll do, how she'll spin it to make herself poor little victimized Willow, when everything from here on out can only be something she has insisted that she wants.
He is not that man. He smiles, and waits.
“Giles kissed me," says Willow furiously.
Giles blinks a few times. He doesn't even have to moderate his reaction, ensure that it's appropriate; his surprise is so absolute that it can only help the way that this appears. “I did no such thing!” he says, more astonished than outraged.
“You did!” says Willow. “You leaned forward and—”
“You leaned forward,” says Giles sharply.
He realizes his mistake too late. The children are watching with expressions that he cannot and does not want to describe. Willow smiles, viper-venom hot and sticky, and crosses her arms like she's won, which she has. “I'm sure that's gonna hold up great in court, Giles,” she says.
Giles is now unbelievably exasperated. “For the love of God," he says. “If I had kissed you, why would I then immediately tell your girlfriend that it happened? One would think that I would wish to avoid Tara knowing.”
"You didn't tell them," says Willow, jerking a thumb towards Buffy and Xander.
Giles sighs. Turns towards Buffy and Xander, who are still watching him as though they've never seen him before in their lives. “Is it so hard to believe," he says, more to them than to Willow, "that I didn't wish to embarrass you? It's hardly an appropriate way to conduct yourself, Willow—”
“You don't get to blame me for this,” says Willow immediately. "You do not. That is so messed up, Giles." She has tears rising in her eyes, now. He is morbidly fascinated and so, so curious. “You can’t just ruin my relationship with my girlfriend and then blame me for it—”
Giles turns to Xander. Xander will be the easiest to convince. “You and Willow spent months involved,” he says, “in secret, which is why I told Tara what had happened, as there is already precedent that suggests Willow does not reveal her indiscretions. I saw no reason to mention this to you or to Buffy because I did not think Willow would want either of you to know, nor did I think Willow would want either of you to know my reasons for choosing not to tell you. I am not in any way romantically interested in Willow.”
He says this flat, hard, Watcher-impassive, the voice he uses for unshakable truth. He sees it sink in with Xander, but Buffy’s expression hasn’t changed. Her eyes move from Giles to Willow and back again. “I need to not be here,” she says.
“Buffy,” says Giles, and he can’t keep the beseeching note from his voice.
“Look, whatever’s happening, it’s—it’s weird,” says Buffy, “and I don’t want to be here for it. You guys work it out on your own time, because I don’t want—it’s weird enough when it’s Olivia, Giles, or my mom, but if it’s—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Giles knows how it ends. If it’s Willow, that introduces the possibility of Buffy, and Buffy does not want to even consider it possible for Giles to look at her in such a way. Buffy cannot even articulate her discomfort with the notion, because that would mean allowing the concept past her subconscious, and she so desperately wants Giles to be her father. He is suddenly blazingly angry with Willow for creating this whole damn problem in the first place.
“Fine,” he says tightly. “All of you clear out.”
Buffy and Xander and their interchangeable hangers-on clear out. Willow does not. She roots herself to his apartment floor and stands there, staring with scorching wet eyes. “Tara says she was already afraid I’d go back to boys,” she says, “and that it doesn’t even matter whether you and I can’t happen, because just me kissing you proves that she’s just some kind of a phase and you’re my next new experiment. And she says she doesn’t see why you’d lie about something like this, because you’re a trustworthy source—”
“You kissed me,” says Giles again, flatly.
“You were already leaning in!” Willow shoots back.
He doesn’t remember it like that, and if it did happen like that, it doesn’t matter. Fiercely, Giles says, “What about all that—that Jenny would have thought I was sexy, the dressing like her, the wearing her perfume? What am I expected to take from that, Willow? You kissed me.”
“You had no right to tell Tara,” says Willow.
“Oh,” says Giles, and laughs sharply. “And you were going to?”
Willow flinches back. Good, Giles thinks. She started it. “I’m different now,” she asserts, but it’s halfway to a plea. “I’m older. I’m a grown-up.”
“Yes,” says Giles. “I’ve noticed.”
His eyes flick up and down, taking in her long skirt, her cardigan, all the trappings of the only adulthood she knows how to emulate. He realizes when his gaze meets hers again that she’s misconstrued the way that he’s looking at her. (How is he looking at her? No, don’t answer that, Rupert.)
“I am a grown-up,” says Willow again, challenging, but he hears the question underneath. She wants the affirmation. Is that what this is? She needs to prove to herself, to him, that she’s an adult woman? And Jenny was the only adult woman she admired, and Jenny loved Giles, so that—this—
Her eyes are rapid-rushing river water, magic-sharp. She smiles in a white, triumphant flash of teeth, as though she’s won something, which she hasn’t, and to prove that to her, he lurches forward and kisses her. At this point, Giles has entirely lost track of most of what he’s trying to do, outside of a vague general sense that maybe really kissing Willow will make Willow stop wanting to kiss him, but the efficacy of this plan proves questionable. Willow kisses him back just as angry, just as hard.
No one pulls back. Possibly someone should. Probably that someone should be Giles, the adult. He opens his mouth to say something and finds Willow’s clever tongue sliding between his lips. This continues for some time before she pulls back, breathes, “Knew it,” and kisses him again, which has Giles infuriatingly weak in the knees. His hands fumble to hold her—some things don’t change—and she lets out this noise that feels more longing than sensual. It occurs to him that he is not tactile with the children very often.
Children. He knew Willow at sixteen. This isn’t—it shouldn’t—but things change, shapes change, people change, and the guilt that would belong to a remotely decent person is nowhere to be found. For once, Giles’s mind is clear. All sensation.
Willow kisses him and kisses him and then pushes him back. She’s almost crying. “You shouldn’t have done that to Tara,” she says. “And I’m—I’m not going to do to her what I did to Oz. I’m not. Don’t make me.”
“Make you?” says Giles, outraged. “You’re an adult, Willow. You can’t shift the responsibility to me when it’s convenient.”
“You told Tara,” says Willow.
“Were you planning to?”
“No,” says Willow, visibly realizes how it sounds, and says again, tremulous, “no! But that doesn’t mean—”
“What was your plan?”
Willow swallows. All small, she whispers, “I don’t know.”
“This is not a possibility,” says Giles. He steps back, removing his glasses. Blurred like this, Willow could be anyone. “I hope you’re at least aware of that.”
“Are you?” Willow challenges.
Giles finds that he is done with this conversation. He puts his glasses back on and leaves the apartment.
Willow finds him smoking in the courtyard. She sits down next to him, and with his glasses on, he sees that her mouth is kiss-swollen and her face is a bit flushed. “How does it feel?” he says, somewhat bitterly. “Being a grown-up?”
Willow doesn’t say anything. She nestles her head against his shoulder, pressing her cheek into the fabric of his shirt.
Frustrated with himself, Giles tucks an arm around her waist. She turns her face towards his. “Do you want to be with Tara?” he asks.
“I don’t think I can,” says Willow, coupled with a wistful little sniffle that, as ever, tugs at Giles’s heart. “She’s always been…she never stops worrying, because I’ve been with guys and she hasn’t.”
“I do know how that feels,” says Giles. Perhaps not something he would have told Willow before he kissed her, but now Willow is not only Willow. If he met her now, no history between them, Willow would be a young bisexual woman well past the drinking age in England. He would hesitate, meeting a woman as young as her, but if she pressed as she has, if she wanted—
Willow looks at him. Just looks.
“I was with someone,” says Giles, choosing his words very carefully. “A very long time ag—”
“Ethan,” says Willow immediately.
Giles flushes, off balance. “…Ethan,” he agrees, but only after he’s searched Willow’s face for any signs of recrimination or fear. Neither present themselves. “He didn’t…that is, he wasn’t appreciative of my, my more conventionally heterosexual desires. It was one of the many things that drove a, a wedge between us.”
“Well, yeah, that plus the crazy sadist Chaos worshipping would probably ruin a relationship pretty quickly,” says Willow, straight-faced.
Giles smiles a bit awkwardly. So does Willow. “…Willow, this,” he says, “this is not a possibility. I don’t know why you would—”
Willow cocks her head and her smile softens. “I don’t know,” she says, “I just think you should know it could happen.”
Giles kisses her. It’s a crueler kiss than the rest, comprised solely of gentle appreciation, tender history. She kisses him back, sweetly sturdy. “Tell that to Tara,” he says.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” says Willow, and kisses him again.
Through some new magic, Giles has lost the thread of his intended lesson. He was trying to impart some important information upon Willow, but he doesn’t remember it anymore. He pulls back to examine her face, searching for something of that frightened little girl he remembers, but she looks at him with steady confidence.
“You aren’t always right about everything, Willow,” he says.
“Yeah?” says Willow. “Well, I’m more right than you thought I was. That counts for something.”
“And is that what matters most to you?” says Giles. “Being right?”
Willow exhales, almost laughing, says, “You’re one to talk!” and loops her arms round his neck, kissing him with playful exuberance.
It’s so clear she doesn’t give a damn about his objections, doesn’t see them as real things, and he will pull back and tell her how real they are. He will. He is certain that he will. Giles kisses her deeply, hungrily, pulls back, and says, “Willow, if ever you wear that damned perfume after today, I’ll not go within arm’s length of you.”
Willow laughs, clear as bells, and kisses him without a single promise.