And now that all's been said –

The telephone rang.

Rupert Giles looked up, annoyed, from the Forster novel he was rereading and stared at it. Blasted contraption. Clearly, an evening of peace was a bit too much to ask for when one lived on the Hellmouth.

He set down his book, careful not to bend the pages, and reached for the telephone. It was Buffy, no doubt, probably intent upon informing him about yet another fleet of vampires running rampant amongst the poor, unsuspecting citizens of Sunnydale.

Giles was very sick of vampires.

He picked up the phone and uttered a reluctant "Hello."

"Hi, Rupert." The voice that answered him was female, but warm, sultry, and rather unlike the clear, youthful tone of his Slayer.

. . . He, on the other hand, certainly was not sick of Jenny Calendar.

"Oh," he said rather lamely, and listened to the light sound of her breathing on the other end of the line. She really did sound quite nice when she breathed.

. . . Though when breathing, she wasn't actually saying anything.

Which probably meant that he was supposed to say something instead.

Oh. Right. Yes. Telephone conversation. He was perfectly capable of that.

"Oh!" he said again, louder this time. "Hello, Ms. Cal . . . Jenny."

Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

"Hey," she replied, and he could hear a smile in her voice. "You're really into the whole prolonged greeting thing, huh?"

"Hmm? Oh! Yes. Right."

Rupert Giles may have been a middle-aged librarian with minimal social skills and an over-abundance of tweed in his wardrobe, but if there was one thing he could pride himself on, it was the ability to create a coherent sentence.

Now, he seemed to have had that mercilessly torn away.

There really was no hope left for him.

Jenny, however, didn't seem to mind this. She laughed to herself before asking, "So, what are you up to?"

"Not much. . . reading," he replied, and congratulated himself silently on being able to make it through a response without stammering or using the word 'oh' when it really wasn't necessary.

She laughed again. He wondered vaguely if it was healthy for a sound to be that beautiful.

"You read too much, Rupert," she informed him. "You need to live a little."

"You're not the only person to have told me that," he said, laughing shortly. "As a matter of fact, you're not even the only person to have told me that today."

"Well, you know we're going to have to do something about that," she replied, and there was a sparkle of coquetry in her voice.

"Yes," he agreed, rather gravely. "I fear we are." He paused, something just occurring to him. "We?"

"I think so," Jenny said, and her tone was almost reminiscent of a purr.

Well, this was certainly unexpected. Vampires and other assorted dark forces, he was quite used to, but it wasn't often that beautiful women purred at him. As a matter of fact, there was something almost unnerving about the situation.

Though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Um," he said intelligently, and found himself blurting out (thoroughly without his brain's approval), "Why did you call me?"

Yes. Definitely an idiot.

"Because I like your voice," she responded easily, as though this was a question she faced often.

"Oh," he said. (There was that damned word again.) He felt his cheeks heat up. Oh, dear. He was blushing at a phone call. At least she couldn't see him. "Well . . . thank you."

"-but if you don't want to talk to me," she continued lightly, "I suppose I could--"

"No, no, no," he said hastily. "That's not it . . . that's not it at all. I'm just . . . really not used to beautiful women calling me because they like my voice."

"Get used to it," she instructed him.

He realized that he was grinning to himself. "All right."

"So," she said, "Are you up for a second date anytime soon?"

"Oh, yes," he said at once. "Yes. Absolutely."

"Great." He could tell somehow that she was smiling. "Because I think I've got something in mind."

"Really?" he asked, interested. "What?"

"Hmm," she said teasingly, and silence lingered for a moment. "I think I'm going to keep it a surprise."

"A surprise?" he repeated weakly, and found himself remembering her telling him a few weeks before about how she'd spent her summer at a festival where the participants had danced naked.

"Mmm," she confirmed. "A secret. It'll make it more fun."

"You know," he said quickly, "You don't have to keep it a secret, if you don't want to. I mean, I really don't mind knowing."

Or at least, he didn't think he did.

With her, he could never be quite sure.

"Rupert, I thought you said that you were going to live a little."

"No," he replied, "Actually, you said that. I just agreed with you."

"Oh, come on," she cajoled. "You did agree with me. You can't back out now."

"Can't I?" he murmured faintly.

"Nope," she informed him brightly. "And don't worry. I promise it doesn't have anything to do with computers."

Computers . . . he hadn't even thought of that.

"It's more the naked solstice festivals that worry me," he confessed.

"Rupert, relax," she instructed laughingly.

"That's what I read for," he replied.

"Dear God," she said, feigning concern, "You're just one huge pile of nerves, aren't you?"

"You try being a Watcher to a teenage girl who won't listen to you," he said dryly. "It's just a bit stressful."

"Okay, okay, I suppose I can't blame you," she admitted. "But," she continued teasingly, "There are other ways to relax."

Excellent. He was blushing again. "I . . . I don't suppose I know of any."

"Well, it's lucky that I came along, then, isn't it?" He believed she was purring again.

"Y-yes," he agreed, "Very lucky."

"You know," she said coyly, "I-- oh, call waiting. Could you hang on a second?"

"Of course," he replied at once, deciding that this might actually be a good thing. He needed a moment to gather his wits about him.

Or perhaps more than a moment.

He distractedly stared at the clock on the wall as he waited. Ten seconds . . . fifteen seconds . . . twenty seconds . . . thirty . . .

He furrowed his brow. Who could she be talking to? (Forty seconds now.) Whoever it was, they were holding quite the conversation. Perhaps it was a family member. Mothers could get quite chatty. Or perhaps (he gulped) it was another boyfriend. Maybe a past romantic interest that she'd gone out with a few times and then had lost contact with. He was probably American, and young and handsome like that ruddy Brad Pitt character that Buffy and Willow were always giggling over. But surely Jenny wouldn't be interested in him, would she? Because really, one who went to football games with British librarians couldn't have a taste for handsome Americans, could they? After all, if she was dating him then she either preferred variety in the men that she saw, or she simply wasn't interested in Mr. American Movie Star Type. Yes, yes, that had to be it. She was probably turning him down right now. "You know, Brad, I really am sorry, but I just started seeing the socially inept librarian that works at Sunnydale High with me, and . . ."

Wait. There was something horribly wrong with that statement.

There was no way that any woman in her right mind would utter such words.

Which could only mean . . . Oh, God. She was accepting an invitation to some fancy French restaurant right now. Brad was saying something debonair and charming and she was positively enamored and wondering why she'd ever wasted time on that silly Rupert Giles-

"Rupert?"

She was back. He resisted the urge to sigh morosely. She would no doubt be canceling their surprise date anytime now.

"Yes?" he asked glumly.

It's perfectly all right. You should have expected this. Just handle it graciously; it's probably for the best, anyway. At least this way you won't have to go out on any secret dates . . .

Though, he realized miserably, he had actually been quite looking forward to it.

"Sorry," she said, and he felt his heart sink. All right. This was it. She was apologizing.

"Telemarketer," she continued. "God, I hate them."

"A telemarketer?" he repeated, and felt glorious relief wash through him.

"Yeah," she said, apparently annoyed. "She wouldn't shut up about And-It's-Gone Stain Remover. Let me tell you, I was tempted to smash the phone."

"Oh, yes. Hate them," he said, though supposed his halfhearted proclamation was rather unconvincing, as he could feel himself grinning broadly.

"You sound cheerful," she remarked. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing," he said earnestly. "So, when are we going out? We are still . . . going out, aren't we?" he added.

"Yeah, the last time I checked," she replied. "I still have to look into some things. I'm thinking Tuesday."

"Wonderful," he said, smiling.

"Oh, yeah," she agreed. "I'm going to get you to loosen up."

"In one evening?" he asked. "I think you may be a bit too confident about this."

"I wouldn't be so sure," she replied. "Rupert Giles, I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this week you had an email address."

"If you truly believe that, you're in for a rude awakening," he told her.

"You underestimate me, Rupert."

A warm silence surfaced for a moment, and still he felt acutely aware of her presence, even if that was only a voice on the other end of the telephone line. Perhaps he was being foolish - perhaps it was because he didn't have much experience with relationships as of late, but he found himself believing, against his better judgment, that this was more than just dating and a flirtatious phone call. There was something he felt with her, something very subtle that seemed even to change the very air around them, that he hadn't before with anyone else.

It was foolish, of course. She was wrong for him in so many ways. She was young and bold and vibrant and funny and seductive, not to mention that she probably knew what HTML was. (He was quite sure that he would never understand the mysteries of modern technology.)

There was something illogical about the entire affair, and perhaps, he mused, that was what made it so perfect.

After all, love was said to make one . . . how had he heard Willow put it sometime ago? . . . do the wacky.

Though it wasn't expressed quite eloquently, he felt that the general sentiment was what he was aiming for.

"Rupert?" she asked. "You still there?"

'Yes' would have been an entirely adequate answer. It would have been absolutely fine. And yet he didn't say 'yes'. Instead, he found words spilling from his mouth entirely without his brain's consent.

"I like you," he said, urgently. "Very much."

A stunned silence met the unintended proclamation.

The word idiot, he decided, had been invented simply for one's use when referring to him.

"I'm sorry," he said at once, "That was . . . that is, I didn't . . . I don't . . . well, I do, but-"

"Rupert," she cut in, her voice soft and oddly soothing.

"Yes?" he asked weakly.

Oh, now you get it.

"I like you, too," she said calmly. "Very much."

. . .

"Oh," he finally said, and resisted the sudden urge to laugh in relief. "Well . . . good."

"Yeah," she agreed. He knew that if he could see her right now, there would be a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Anyway," she continued, rather reluctantly, "I suppose I should probably go - I had just gotten out of the shower when I called you. I'm just sitting here in a towel."

He also knew with a rather fixed certainty that if he could see her right now, he'd be a most unflattering shade of crimson.

"Ah," he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. (Unfortunately, nonchalance was hardly an attribute belonging to him.) "All right, then. Yes, well, I suppose I'll be seeing you tomorrow morning--"

"Dammit!"

"What?" he asked, rather taken aback.

"Oh, nothing," she responded. "Sorry. The towel slipped."

He blinked.

"Oh," he said awkwardly. "How . . . how very unfortunate."

"Mmm," she replied, and he suspected that she was stifling laughter. "Goodnight, Rupert."

"Goodnight," he echoed, and listened as she hummed to herself a little before a 'click' announced that she'd hung up.

So. (He set the telephone down.) Jenny Calendar . . . in a towel . . . talking to him. She was probably dressing about now. He found himself wondering, idly, what kind of nightclothes she wore; what her bedroom looked like.

It occurred to him, rather suddenly, that the possibility that he would find this out was fairly plausible.

Smiling to himself, he lifted his book again and continued to read, not knowing how many more evenings would be spent this way.

After all, it seemed that soon he'd have much less time to himself.

And really, he wasn't complaining.

Fin