Returning

For Anneliese. Buffy/Gawain and Returns.


King Arthur (see 24 and 35):


41, Returning

The first time she takes off in the dead of the night she only tells Lancelot where she goes because he wakes as she is about to slip out the door. She lifts the scythe by way of explanation and he nods, ordering her to return safely with a mere glance. She nods and fades into the night. He will cover for her with the others.

She comes home just a breath before dawn two days later to find all of the men around a fire, talking in low voices, waiting for her. As soon as they catch sight of her and make sure that she’s alright, they take their leave. The next time there’s only one of them awake, keeping silent vigil while she is out fighting the forces of evil.

Form the third time on it’s always Gawain sitting by the dim light of a dying fire, scanning the night for her figure. When she sits down beside him without making a sound, he has a warm drink for her and shares his blanket. They sit there until sunrise without saying a word. Then they get up and get on with their lives. It’s a ritual and she knows if Lancelot weren’t so cocky and Gawain wouldn’t act like an annoying sibling most of the time, there’d be trouble. But there isn’t.

It take her almost a year to work up the courage to ask why he always waits up for her.

He wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulls the blanket tighter around the both of them and answers, “You always return. I like returns.”

She smiles faintly as her head drops onto his chest and she feels herself falling asleep. “I just can’t stay away.”

The last thing she hears before slumber takes her is a voice roughened by tiredness or maybe emotion.

“Please keep coming back, Buffy.”

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