'I know.' Ethan's mental voice seemed sad but resigned. 'I... I know.'

"Um..." Kat's voice, coming from close by and sounding worried. "Where did Ms Travers go?"

"We should–" Giles began, but then stopped, words feeling strange in his mouth after all that had happened. He cleared his throat and tried again. "We should track her down. There's no telling what condition she will be in after Vaurtain's possession."

"It... it was very complete," Ethan said quietly, not looking up from where his face was buried in the crook of Giles' neck.

"Here," Xander muttered, handing a bundle of what looked like clothes to Giles. "One of the guys had a suitcase with him. They won't be perfect fits, but..."

It took Giles a moment to convince himself to let go of Ethan sufficiently to be able to take the clothes from Xander. "Thank you," he said gravely. Then he kick-started his brain on the issue at hand. "The Slayers should search the building to see if they can find Francesca or her trail."

"On it," Kat said, turning and striding from the hall. Giles took this moment to look around. There were less people in here now, just their friends. That... was a blessing. He looked down at Ethan, whose grip wasn't lessening at all. Getting dressed would be impossible unless it did.

'Love, do you think you can let go enough for us to get dressed?' he tried gently. 'Xander is looking a bit traumatised around the edges.'

"Boy has a problem with nudity," Ethan grumbled aloud, pulling back ever so slightly, but not letting go. "Not healthy."

Giles was encouraged by the grumbling and rewarded it by dropping a chaste kiss on Ethan's cheek. "Nonetheless, shall we try to be accommodating?" he asked, pressing one of the sets of clothes into Ethan's hands.

'Rupert...' Ethan sent, his mental voice miserable. 'This is... intolerable.' But nonetheless, he sat up separately from Giles and began to sort through the bundle. "I never realised how much you must hate me, Xander Harris," he grouched as he held up a pair of unlovely trousers.

"If I hated you, I would have grabbed the plaid pants instead," Xander responded with an airy wave.

They got dressed in silence; Giles felt unable to summon up the feeling of urgency he knew Francesca's disappearance should warrant. 'Isn't winning meant to feel better than this?' It took a moment to realise these were Ethan's words in his mind and not his own.

Giles looked up and met Ethan's gaze and found himself reaching out without thought to grasp his hand. It was far from the unity for which they were aching, but any connection provided some comfort. 'Maybe it just hasn't sunk in yet,' Ethan said as if trying to find the positive, for which Giles silently thanked him.

Kat and Megan returned just as they were preparing to leave the hall. The pair looked relieved to see their Watchers dressed and standing up. "Giles, Ethan," Kat said, a grin seeming to hover around her lips. "You really should come take a look at this."

Any distraction seemed a good thing at that point, so after exchanging a questioning look, they followed their Slayers through the hallways until they got to the lobby by the front entrance.

There, in the middle of the lobby sat Gwydion. Sat, in fact, on top of a sprawled Francesca Travers, who appeared to be talking quietly to the carpet. The wolfhound was looking insufferably pleased with himself.

There was a strange hiccup from Ethan, followed by a snort. Giles quickly glanced over at him to see Ethan's mouth twitching with the beginnings of a smile, and he felt the beginnings of one tug at his own lips in response.

Ethan glanced back at him and surrendered to a fully fledged grin. "Does anybody, perhaps, have a camera?" he asked.

Giles was coming out of the bathroom when he walked into Ethan, who smiled rather sheepishly. "What? I just happened to be walking here... at the end of the landing where there's nowhere to go bar where you happened to be."

It was now several days since they had finally defeated Vaurtain, since they had experienced the complete merging of their bodies and souls. The intervening time had been spent recovering and trying to readjust to being two separate people once more. They were only now finding themselves able to venture out of immediate contact with the other for short periods. Like for bathroom needs.

"It wasn't like I was making a break for it and climbing out the window," Giles pointed out, although he also automatically slid his arms around Ethan's waist.

"I know." Ethan chuckled softly. "I didn't even realise where I was going until I found myself here."

Giles sighed in contentment as Ethan fitted against him like he belonged there. The readjusting, it seemed, was going to take a while longer. "My very own homing mage," he teased, trying to make light of the situation.

"We are getting better," Ethan insisted, snaking his arms under Giles' jumper. "I just got caught unawares."

"By my going to the bathroom."

"Well, more by my standing up without a definite objective in mind." Ethan pulled back a little, enough to meet Giles' eyes. "Be honest, dearheart. How much is this getting to you?"

"You following me to the bathroom?" Giles asked, deliberately misunderstanding.

"That bad, eh?" Ethan frowned and looked down. "I am trying."

"Hey." Giles reached out and touched Ethan's face, making him look back up. "There's no blame here. We just have to find a new equilibrium between us. A balance that works for both of us."

"I think..." Ethan started hesitantly, but then stopped and took a deep breath before continuing. He seemed more determined when he continued. "I'll be all right in the office next door if you want to go in to work."

Ethan looked like he was steeling himself to face a firing squad. "No, you won't," Giles answered with assurance and then added more softly, "And neither would I."

The steely resolve melted into obvious relief. Ethan pressed closer and lifted a hand to stoke Giles' face with gentle fingers. "And how much do you hate that? Please tell me, Rupert."

"I don't hate it," Giles replied, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch.

The wonderful fingers stopped moving. "But... your work? The Council... How–?"

"They're not you." It was an obvious, simple truth, just as the fact that he needed Ethan was one. Everything else was shifting and changing, and he was still waiting for things to settle enough for him to make sense of it all, but this much was set in stone.

Ethan stared into Giles' eyes for a few moments and then slid a hand behind Giles' neck, leaning in to start a deep and emphatic kiss.

Giles kissed him back, losing himself in the taste and feel of Ethan for a moment before reluctantly pulling back. "Why don't we move somewhere a bit more comfortable than the middle of the hallway?"

Ethan obligingly slipped his hand into one of Giles'. "Wherever you like, husband mine." They made it to the other end of the landing and then entered the bedroom without conscious decision, at least on Giles' part. Immediately, Ethan was in his arms again, lips pressed to his and a noise of satisfaction rumbling deep inside him.

'There are advantages to not being one entity,' Giles sent mentally, far too busy kissing Ethan breathless to speak aloud. 'Couldn't do this if we weren't two different people.'

'Agreed,' and even Ethan's mental tone seemed slightly breathless. 'Although I would have liked an opportunity to handle that magnificent–'

'I think we scandalised the girls enough without adding self exploration to the pot.'

Ethan's hands had found Giles' belt and were busying themselves with it. 'It was Xander's reaction I found interesting.'

Giles relinquished Ethan's mouth to trail nipping kisses down his throat instead. 'I've been trying very hard not to think about Xander seeing us. Bad enough about the girls, but Xander is somehow worse.'

"You shouldn't be embarrassed," Ethan said aloud, sounding almost affronted. "We were, hmm, beyond superlatives. Take pride in us, dearheart." Giles' trousers fell to the floor and warm hands slipped under the waistband of Giles' boxers and slid over his buttocks. 'I do,' Ethan sent as he returned to kissing.

"Yes," Giles murmured against Ethan's skin, "but you've always been an exhibitionist." He slid his hands over Ethan's jumper, directing a little magic with the words, "Texurum divid," causing the material to split at the seams and fall from Ethan's body.

Ethan looked down at himself. "You know, it comes to mind, I can't think why now, that you promised me a substantial shopping trip."

"We can see about one next week," Giles promised carelessly, repeating the unravelling spell on Ethan's trousers.

Ethan laughed, stepping out of the shreds of his clothing, and pushed Giles gently bedwards. "That's the third outfit you've turned into rags since we won the war, my dear."

"Perhaps you should give up wearing them," Giles suggested not at all seriously. Well, not very.

"Willingly. You hardly think I'd argue with that, do you?" Giles' legs hit the bed behind him, and Ethan lifted Giles' tops up, pulling them off.

Giles let Ethan push him back on the mattress and grinned up at him. "Yet you keep getting dressed when we get out of bed."

"Well, only because you seem so adverse to my nudity while Dawn's staying here." Ethan leant down and persuaded Giles' legs to part where they stuck off the side of the bed. He knelt down between them and slid flat hands up the length of Giles' belly and chest. "You know, I don't think we've been having enough sex recently." He seemed to say it with complete seriousness.

"There was that time we paused to eat," Giles replied thoughtfully, reaching up to run his hands lightly over Ethan's arms. "And of course, all that time we wasted sleeping..."

"Yes, that really was terribly remiss of us." Ethan planted a kiss at the top of Giles' left thigh. "We have a lot of vital catching up work ahead of us."

Giles caught and held Ethan's gaze. "I'd say a lifetime's worth," he said softly. Ethan's expression flickered with some intense emotion before he looked down again, kissing Giles' other thigh before trailing a wet tongue to the base of Giles' cock, where another kiss was planted. "Love you," Giles murmured as Ethan's lips then closed around him.

They had, in fact, spent a great deal of the last few days inside each other in one way or another. As they were constantly touching, constantly dealing with the memory of having been one in the most literal of senses, it was inevitable that they'd found themselves sliding as easily in and out of sex as Giles' cock was currently sliding in and out of Ethan's mouth.

With orgasms rewarding their efforts so frequently, the peaks had rounded out, and pleasure and need had merged somehow to give everything they did now an erotic or at least sensual haze. It was... well, quite wonderful actually. This was the peaceful hedonism Giles had rather fondly imagined during all that talk of holidays prior to the last battle with Vaurtain, and here they were achieving it effortlessly within their own home.

It didn't take long before he was coming yet again in Ethan's mouth. Afterwards, Giles moved onto the bed properly, and Ethan lay down beside him, saying, "You see? I knew I must have come upstairs for something."

"I won't argue with your reasons." Giles felt lazy and sated, wanting nothing more than what he had just then. He sighed contentedly, pulling Ethan into his arms and languidly kissing him.

"As rewards go, I have to say I rather like the one we're being allowed here," Ethan said, rubbing himself gently against Giles, but with no urgency to his actions. "Long may it last. Buffy tried to explain Heaven to me recently. I think I understand just a little better now."

"I've never really expected heaven out of my life," Giles mused out loud. "I've rarely enough expected happiness. As a Watcher, even the times I didn't officially have that title, all my strength and energy went into making sure there was a world where others had a chance at such things. I had my duty and responsibility and the satisfaction of beating the dark back for one more day. I always told myself that it was enough."

"Nowhere near it."

Giles smiled briefly at that and gave Ethan a kiss, but continued on, feeling like he was on a path that he had to follow. "Each apocalypse, each fight, they all leave their marks on you. Emotional scar tissue if you will, where little pieces of your soul are cut away." He grimaced. "Sometimes not so little."

Ethan stiffened and drew away slightly at that, lifting himself up on his elbow and frowning down at Giles. "All your soul is present and accounted for," he said, almost forcefully.

"Yes." Giles reached up and caressed Ethan's cheek, loving him all the more for his fierceness. "Battered and bruised and scarred, but surprisingly intact."

Ethan maintained his frown for another few seconds, but then smiled and bent to kiss Giles. "It's going to stay that way," he said, as he pulled back.

Giles returned the smile and waited for Ethan to settle back down before he returned to feeling his thoughts out. "There's a knack to surviving such a life emotionally unscathed, of course. You just have to learn not to care. I never was very good at that." He sighed deeply as the decision he'd been dancing around for days suddenly became crystal clear. "And I seem to have lost what knack I did have for it."

After a pause, Ethan said, "We'll find a way to make it work again." He moved a hand over Giles' chest. "It's like you said, we just have to find a new equilibrium between us."

"I don't think I want to make it work again."

There was another, longer pause from Ethan. Then, "Rupert, what are you saying?"

"I don't want to go back to the Council. I don't have the stomach anymore for the decisions that have to be made." Giles shook his head. "Maybe I'm abandoning my responsibilities and duty but–"

Ethan's arms tightened around Giles. "No, you're abandoning nothing. No duty lasts forever, and every soldier gets to retire from war eventually, if death doesn't take them first. Oh Rupert... Will you be happy? How will you occupy your mind?" It was fairly obvious from the fierce enthusiasm suddenly in his voice that Ethan very much supported Giles' fledgling decision.

As for Ethan's questions, there was one answer to both of them. "I have you," Giles said simply.

For a second or so, it looked as if Ethan was about to burst into tears, but then he laughed loudly. "Everything I ever wanted," he said with smug delight. "On a bloody plate. This is heaven, sod all the clouds and harps."

"You wouldn't know what to do with a harp anyway," Giles teased, basking in Ethan's happiness.

"Oh, I'm sure I could find a use for it – a mandolin cutter for large vegetables perhaps." Ethan moved, pushing Giles more properly onto his back and lifting a leg over him, so that he was straddling Giles. He grinned down. "So I finally have you completely in my power, do I?"

"Well you have my complete attention, at least." He slid a hand lightly over Ethan's thigh.

"All I ever wanted," Ethan said again, his cock thickening once more as he stared down at Giles. "You've given me it all."

"I'm glad," Giles said, staring back, feeling a sense of contentment and rightness that had been lacking for most of his life. "It's only fair. You've given me everything I needed."

Ethan snorted very softly. "That's part of it, you know. The fact that I could, that you need what I have to give. That's part of what you've given me." He gazed with great sincerity into Giles' eyes, but all the while his hand was moving, sliding over to take hold of Giles' own, which he lifted. "Of course, there is one need of mine currently unfilled," he said with a grin as he pulled Giles' hand over towards his erection.

"We should see what we can do about that." Giles closed his hand around Ethan's cock.