Characters: Joss Story: Me A one night stand and a very poor choice of words.

"Bloody hell," Giles groaned and grabbed his head as he tried to sit up. What happened last night? He thought back, he remembered the champagne, celebrating Faith and Robin's engagement. After that there'd been scotch, lots of scotch and Buffy. Buffy?

"Oh my head."

"Ahhhhh!" Giles cried out as Buffy rolled over. He scooted away from her, falling off the bed with a thump which brought Buffy's tousled head up from her pillow. "Buffy!"

"Giles!" Ignoring her splitting headache Buffy sat up, pulling the sheet around her, hiding her nakedness.

Giles reach for a pillow, "I'm sorry, I don't, I mean, we didn't...Oh Christ my head."

"Did we...did we sleep together? Like in the naked way?" Her question was nearly a whisper and although she knew the answer she hoped it wasn't true.

"It would appear that we, I mean judging from our appearance, I think so." He hung his head in shame, "Buffy, I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

Buffy stared at him, vulnerable in his nudity head down. Not the confident man she had come to admire, the strong, brave man she'd fallen in love with as they traveled the world. "No worries Giles, we're adults here right? I mean it was just one night. It's not like you're madly in love with me or something. I mean we work together, stuff like this is bound to happen. I mean we were drunk."

Giles' head snapped up at her comment. If only she knew how untrue that was. He loved her, deeply and now with one drunken night he had ruined everything. He listened to her ramble knowing it meant she was nervous. "Right, well perhaps we might alleviate this tension by getting dressed."

"Right of course, the nudity is so not helping." She turned away and looked for her clothes while Giles went to his bag. She tried not to stare at his broad shoulders and muscular back as he pulled his pants on. God he was dreamy. She quickly found her pants, on the desk, and underpants, on top of the lamp and her bra, under the bed, but she couldn't find her shirt.

Giles had been staring at the wall trying to ignore the reflection of her in the window as she put her clothes on. She was beautiful, perfect, sensational even. He wished he could remember last night because he had wanted to trace her curves for a long time and that had probably been his only chance.

"Um Giles?"

"Hmmm?" He continued to stare at the wall.

"Have you seen my shirt?"

He began to look around the room finally spotting the soft cashmere sweater on top of the TV cabinet. "Apparently we were in quite the rush," he took it down and handed it to her without looking. He had always liked that sweater on her, the brown accentuating her eyes, the v-neck hinting at the curves it contained and highlighting her gorgeous neck.

"So, um, do we need to, you know, talk about what happened?"

"I think you already covered it, coworkers, drunken mistake, we're both adults."

Buffy felt stung, 'drunken mistake'? She hadn't said that. Did he really think sleeping with her was a mistake? She couldn't stop the tears that sprung to her eyes. "Right, well I guess I'll go then. I don't want to keep reminding you of a mistake." The last word was spat at him. She slammed the hotel door closed behind her before he could reply.

Giles threw himself onto the bed, which didn't help matters as he was assaulted by her scent as it wafted up from the sheets. "Fuck!"