The Master is dead, and they all survived. Giles and Jenny celebrate.
Giles hovered next to the bed, hesitating. "You all right? Both of you?"
Jenny stretched against the pillows and laughed. "Yes, he's kicking like a maniac."
"She is as relieved as I am."
Relief didn't encompass the half of it. God! It had been madness to allow her anywhere near the library tonight, madness to have allowed her to stay in Sunnydale at all. She might so easily have been injured. Or worse. Now that they were home, and safe, and the adrenaline had faded, it sank into him. How could he protect her? She would consider it an insult if he implied she was not capable of protecting herself. She'd been on the Hellmouth longer than he.
Giles hovered, and scrubbed the back of his head with a hand, and wished he did not feel so helpless.
"Can I get you anything? Warm milk?"
She stretched out a hand and tugged at his jacket. "Just you, Rupert. Get into bed. Need you now."
Giles obediently undressed and slipped in next to her. Her kisses soon had the effect they always had on him. From the very first moment, when she'd handed him a cup of eggnog at the faculty Christmas party, and her fingers brushed his, he'd been drunk with need for her. She had satisfied his need, over and over. Even now, five months along, she was eager for him. As her nausea had faded, her libido had soared. She'd had to coax him over his nerves and fear of harming the baby, but he'd yielded at last. He'd made love to her more often in the last two months than he had with anyone before in his life. Jenny claimed the sex was the best she'd ever had, thank you goddess for the hormones. Giles was simply thankful. Thankful now that all of them had lived, that the Hellmouth was closed, that the Master was dead, that he was embracing his wife, lips on the back of her neck, hand splayed over her belly, bodies joined.
Sex after a battle had always been the best sex for Giles, though it was not something he'd ever said aloud. Fighting and surviving and winning, breathless triumph, followed by a tumble with whoever was nearby and willing. The danger sharpened every sensation. The dizzy terror of his decision to face the Master instead of Buffy. The fear during the battle. The relief afterward, the secret tears when he'd seen that they all lived, even Buffy for whom he'd feared most. And what did it mean that he'd been so ready to die in her place, he a man with a wife and a baby on the way?
But she'd prevented him. They'd all lived. His wife was here, in his arms, safe. For now. He kissed her shoulder and was grateful she could not see his face.
giles/jenny mature
477 words; reading time 2 min.
on 2007/11/26tags: c:giles, c:jenny, genre:angst, season:01, f:btvs, p:giles/jenny, s:watchers_child