Anya's heart did a little somersault when she caught the nervous smile that made Giles look about twenty. It was such a happy, shy sort of nervous, rather than the 'bad news' sort of nervous she'd become used to with Xander. She could feel all these warm glowy feelings welling up inside her, knowing that it was her who made him look like that. She couldn't wait for him to come to her and her heart beat even faster when his smile widened at her eagerness. She threw herself into his arms, forcing him to drop his suitcase and the other passengers to part, like a stream splitting in two to flow around a boulder. The crowd occasionally bumped and jostled at them, close as they were to the doors where the arrivals were admitted into the lounge, but she barely noticed. She knew she had to make the first move. She had to let him know that he had no need for any uneasiness. Non-verbal communication, she found, was often the most convenient way to convey her point of view.

His lips were warm and firm as she remembered them and his body had a pleasing solidity as she slid her hands under his leather jacket and let them glide over his back, until she could clasp his shoulders. There was surprise at first, his arms hanging loosely by his side for just a fraction of a second, followed by acquiescence with him cradling her gently as though she might break, and then came the passion, a gentle thumb brushing her cheekbone as his other fingers pushed into her hair, the caress of his lips becoming more proprietary, his other hand pressing against the small of her back as if it were possible to close the non-existent gap between their bodies. She could feel his body begin to respond to their ardour and, as though that were some sort of cue, the arm holding her to him loosened and he shuffled back slightly. He lifted his head and the fingers in her hair tilted her head back so that when she opened her eyes in response to the broken kiss her eyes looked directly into his.

"I think, perhaps, we should—" His voice was cut off as he was wrenched from her arms, the meaty slap of flesh on flesh following an instant later. With a sudden coldness in her chest she realised that the lounge had almost emptied. There were just a few stragglers and, of course, Xander, Willow, Buffy and Dawn.

Her eyes were drawn from one to the next and, as she looked along the line of women, each of them staring at her, defiance won out over all her other emotions. Xander's grunt of expelled air brought her attention back to Giles. Youth and the element of surprise had availed Xander little in the face of experience and fortitude. Though a reddening welt marred Giles' cheek, it was Xander who doubled over, letting Giles bring his knee up into the younger man's face as his hands pushed Xander's head down. The fight was over as quickly as Xander had started it.

Willow rushed to Xander's side as he slumped into a heap on the ground but Buffy and Dawn continued to look at Giles with that horrified, condemning expression on their faces.

Any concern Anya might have felt for Xander evaporated with those looks, and she stepped up to stand next to Giles and take his hand in hers.

Xander spat a mouthful of blood onto the carpet of the airport lounge and looked up at both of them as if the very sight of them turned his stomach.

It was like a poker through her heart but Anya stood her ground.

"I should have expected it from you, shouldn't I?" Xander spat, his eyes meeting hers with a hatred so intense it could only be fuelled by love. "I should have known you'd find a way to get your own back. The car was just the beginning. You didn't even wait a minute, did you? You were on your way to his bed that same night."

Giles' tone was cold, his words so precise and polite that they burned like bare flesh to metal at minus twenty centigrade. "Any right you might ever have had to make that sort of remark to Anya ended the second you left her alone at that altar to deal with the aftermath of your inadequacy. Consider this fair warning that if I ever so much as hear of you talking to her in such a manner again you may look forward to pain such as you have never previously experienced."

"Giles, it's alright," Anya soothed with a whisper, her thumb brushing tenderly against the back of his hand, her eyes only occasionally leaving his to check the reaction of the others. "This isn't about Xander. It has nothing to do with wanting to hurt him... At least, just in an incidental bonus sort of way that turns out to feel more like getting hit in the stomach with a medicine ball. It has to do with respect and affection and a powerful attraction that's been there for months. It has to do with knowing that you won't make promises that you can't keep or try to change me into something I'm not. It has to do with maturity and understanding and compassion and experience... And hope.

And, yes, Xander, we shared a bed that night. We shared a bed and he read to me and held me and let me cry out all the tears that I'm going to cry over you."

"That's it? Game over, on to the next guy? That's all I mean to you?"

Willow tugged at Xander's sleeve and looked uncomfortable, as if she would get him to back down if she could.

"What did you expect, Xander? I love you but did you really think I'd be waiting at the apartment in my wedding dress in case you changed your mind? You hurt me. You humiliated me and rejected me in front of everyone we know. And now you think what?"

"I thought maybe we could... date. I guess I was wrong... at least, you get to date. So, tell me, how long do you think a guy that age is going to be able to keep up with you?"

Giles stepped forward and his gaze moved from Willow to Buffy and Dawn. "Get him out of here now, or I won't be responsible for what happens," he warned them.

Xander continued to throw out questions as Buffy pulled him up and she and Willow began to forcibly steer him toward the exit. "I mean we all know he hadn't been getting any for the last year, so I guess he's been hot to trot, but do you really think that'll last? You'll kill him within a year." he shouted over his shoulder.

Dawn hung back, letting the others get ahead by some way before she braved Giles' icy glare to approach Anya. "Look, I guess things kind of caught us all by surprise and I get now why Giles said he'd make his own way to his hotel and call us once he was settled. I just wanted to say that I get what you said before and, if it makes you both happy, then I don't have a problem with it."

She switched her gaze to Giles, whose expression had softened considerably after hearing her words to Anya. "Buffy's on the early shift tomorrow. Maybe you can call mom then and talk to her about the whole back-from-the-dead thing?"

"Tell her I'll give her a ring if I'm over the jet lag," Giles offered with a subdued smile.

"Thanks," Dawn replied, darting forward to wrap her arms around first Giles and then Anya before looking over her shoulder to find the others nowhere in sight. "Welcome back! I gotta go..." She backed off a couple of steps with an apologetic smile and then gave them a wave and turned on her heel to jog in the direction the others had gone.

Anya was surprised to find that the teenager's acceptance went a fair way toward making things feel better, but not as much as the arm that draped itself around her waist and drew her into Giles' side.

"I'm sorry. I should never have given Buffy my flight number." He picked up his case and began to steer them toward the exit from the lounge.

"I don't care," Anya answered, surprising herself with the truthfulness of that statement. "They know. When Xander kept making excuses not to tell people we were engaged, it was like he was ashamed of me and it made me crabby and irritable. I don't want to be crabby and irritable with you and I don't want you to think that I'm ashamed to be with you, so now everybody knows and if they don't like it, then that's just tough."

Giles let out a relieved sigh. "I'd rather it was out in the open, too," he admitted, "but I wish I could have spared you the unpleasantness."

There was a queue at the car rental desk and Anya used the time to get a proper look at Giles' cheek. "It's going to go all puffy if we don't get back to the motel soon and get some ice on it."

"Motel? You're not staying at the Sunnydale Motor Lodge," Giles asked in surprise.

"I wasn't sure how long it would be before I found an apartment and the other hotels in town weren't very economical for more than an overnight stay."

"And did you find an apartment?"

Anya nodded. "It's in the same complex where you used to live, but over on the other side. They said they'd be in touch once they checked my references, but since you've been on a plane..."

"They haven't been able to get a hold of me," Giles finished for her. He turned her to face the front of the queue again, and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his uninjured cheek against her hair. Anya relaxed back into his embrace with a feeling of cat-like contentment. "We'll get your things and move to one of the hotels for tonight and in the morning we'll go over to the letting agent's office and sort out the references."

"We don't have to move—"

"Anya, I don't have any expectations as to what might happen between us tonight, but let me assure you that even if I knew now that I'd be doing nothing more than giving you a goodnight kiss, we'd still be doing it in more salubrious surroundings than that fleabag motel."

"What if I expect a lot more then kisses?"

"I'd ask if you were sure..."

Anya nodded, smiling as she twisted her head and caught a glimmer of the nervousness he'd shown when she first saw him in the arrivals lounge.

"...And then I'd book the penthouse suite at the best hotel in town."

For some time Anya leaned back bonelessly in his arms as they waited and then something Xander had said returned to her mind and she stood upright, turning in Giles' arms. "When did you last have a medical?" she asked.

"October," Giles replied, knowing exactly what had prompted her concern. "And you needn't worry. My heart was in perfect working order."

"That's good. Reading in bed was nice but orgasms are fun, too, and necessary, if we ever wish to procreate. What about dogs? Do you like dogs?"