Title: Love in the Time of Malaria
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Rating: FRC, Giles/Xander
Word Count: 1800
Disclaimer: Not mine! Joss's! Mutant Enemy's!
Summary: The thing about malaria in the twenty-first century was that it didn't actually kill you - it just made you wish you were dead.
Author's Notes: Written for my own prompt in the Giles H/C Ficathon: Xander; gen or pairing; post-Chosen, Xander is either injured in the line of duty or catches random tropical virus #298 while in Africa. Giles takes care of him. Profound apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez for corrupting the title of his book. Unbeta'd.

The thing about malaria in the twenty-first century was that it didn't actually kill you - it just made you wish you were dead.

This passed through Xander's mind as they loaded him onto the council jet. It was almost the first coherent thought he'd had in days, something that wasn't, Too hot or Too cold or I'm gonna be sick. So he shared it with Giles, who was suddenly, miraculously there in the cool, dim, climate controlled plane. Xander didn't know why he was there or how he'd gotten there - well, probably on the jet itself, but the why, that was a big question mark. Xander really didn't care, though. He hadn't expected to see Giles till he got to London.

He wondered if he was hallucinating. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had that particular hallucination.

Giles smiled when Xander said it, the thing about wishing he were dead, but he looked really worried. He slid his cool, dry hand into Xander's sweaty one, and if this was a hallucination then it got extra points for realism. "You'll start feeling better very quickly, I promise," he said and squeezed Xander's hand.

Xander felt a sharp pain in his arm and looked down to see a big needle sticking out of it. He felt something cold rush in, just beneath his skin, and blinked. "What . . . ?"

"An IV. Mostly saline," a nurse explained. She hooked a bag of something onto a pole by Xander's head. "You got good treatment, but you're a bit dehydrated. And I assumed you'd want something for the pain."

"Oh yeah," Xander said, eyeing the needle with a lot more warmth. Already he felt kinda floaty. Floaty was good. The hospital staff had been nice but they'd been seriously short on, well, everything but the exact minimum that was necessary for the funny, one-eyed foreigner not to die on them. The headache wasn't blinding anymore and he wasn't puking all over the place (not least because there was no way there was anything left for him to puke), but he'd take the nice floaty feeling. And Giles's hand was still holding his. That was nice, too. Better than nice. If Xander hadn't had malaria, he'd probably have found a better word for what that was. He was starting to think this probably wasn't a hallucination after all, though, and that was good. Good. Nice. Malaria didn't do much for his vocabulary.

"Thank you, Sarah," Giles said. The nurse smiled at them both and left, though she couldn't go far, Xander guessed, 'cause the council jet was nice but it wasn't Air Force One. The engines roared to life and the jet started moving, taxing down the runway - more of a dirt road really. Giles's hand went away. Xander opened his eyes, but Giles was just strapping himself in. He took up Xander's hand again right after, smiling at him in that worried sort of way. Lacing their fingers together even.

"Giles," he mumbled, even though the floaty feeling was rapidly becoming a sleepy feeling.

"Shh," Giles said, stroking his hair back from his forehead, and then the engines got really loud and the jet lifted off. Xander's eyelids felt like they weighed a ton, and even though he wanted to keep them open because he was afraid that if he closed them he'd wake up in the hospital and Giles wouldn't be there anymore, he couldn't. He pried them open for one last bleary glimpse before the drugs pulled him under.

He woke up still in the jet, which was still in the air. Giles was napping in his seat, head tilted back and his mouth open slightly. Not drooling at least. He woke when Xander went to sit up - or tried to sit up. A wave of dizziness and nausea made him give up pretty fast. Giles's hands on his shoulders urging him to lie back were totally unnecessary, but Xander wasn't going to tell him that.

"Where are we?" he asked when the world stopped spinning.

"Over Morocco, I believe. We should be in London in a couple of hours."

"Oh."

Giles settled back in his seat. Xander's hand crept towards his, and he smiled and picked it up again, in both of his this time. "How are you feeling?"

"Um." Xander squinted. "Better, I think. My head still hurts. Malaria, wow. I don't recommend it. Definitely not fun-filled. Kinda action packed. I barfed on the street. Then I passed out. How'd you know I was sick?"

"You have me listed as next-of-kin," Giles said. His thumb was stroking over Xander's palm. "It took them awhile to contact us, or I'd have been here much sooner."

"You didn't have to come. I mean, you could've just sent the plane."

"I wanted to come," he said quietly.

"But you're really busy. I mean, every time I call your secretary says you're in a meeting or something. Buffy said she practically has to pencil herself in to get an hour with you. You shouldn't've taken all this time to -"

"Xander," Giles said firmly. "You were ill and I wanted to be here. Please, don't trouble yourself about the rest."

"Okay," Xander said, letting his head fall back into the pillow. "Won't argue with you, big guy. Head hurts too much for it anyway."

Giles sat up. "Do you need any more -"

"No, no. Though if you had something that wasn't gonna knock me out, I wouldn't say no." Giles gestured and Sarah appeared again, this time with a couple of white tablets and a giant glass of water. Xander swallowed the tablets and most of the water, then turned over onto his side, snuggling back down into the blankets. Giles plucked at them, drawing them up. Xander found a cool part of the pillow and sighed in contentment. He still felt pretty awful, but at least he was comfortable. "So what's in London?" he asked at last. "I mean, besides the obvious. More hospitals?"

"Not unless you feel you need it. I thought you might stay with me, actually. Buffy offered to have you as well, but she and Dawn lead a bit of a more, er, fast-paced life than - than I thought you might want at first. I have a guest room. You could come and go as you please, of course. Or," Giles added, looking suddenly nervous, "or I could arrange a flat for you -"

"No, hey, bunking with you sounds like just the thing." He looked down at their hands, still clasped together on the clean, white linen. "Missed you, Giles."

"I missed you, too, Xander," he said softly.

"No, I mean, I missed you a lot." Xander let out a long breath and was suddenly glad his brain was a bit fuzzy around the edges. He'd promised himself, during a rare moment of non-delirium in the hospital, that if he didn't die, he was gonna do this. And he wasn't going to dance around it for weeks either, he was really going to do it. "I realized some stuff while I was gone, and then when I got sick . . ." Xander sighed in frustration. He really didn't want to say this lying down and looking pathetic. Not that there was much he could do about the pathetic part. "Is there a way to put this bed up?"

"Oh, er, yes." Giles fussed with some controls and the top half of the bed rose up slowly. "All right?"

"Yeah, thanks." Xander licked dry, cracked lips, and reached for the water. He allowed himself two gulps, no more, because he couldn't put this off. If he let it go until they were back in London he'd never say anything at all. "When I got sick," Xander said, tightening his hold on Giles's hand, "I - I really wanted you there. A lot. I kept having these dreams that you were, were there, really, really vivid dreams, and then I'd wake up and you weren't there and I -" cried like a baby, no, no, he couldn't say that, "- and it wasn't the first time. I mean, it wasn't just because I was sick. I'd been thinking about you a lot lately and -"

"Xander," Giles interrupted, very gently, "whatever it is, just say it."

"Right. Um." God, this was hard. Maybe Xander should have waited. Because now, when Giles rejected him, in that same gentle voice, Xander wouldn't have anywhere to go to get away from him. "I think I'm in love with you," he said at last. "And I don't - I don't know if - if -" He broke off because Giles's hand had gone away. Xander stared at his own, alone on the blanket, and gulped air. Great. He'd fucked this up, and now Giles was - was unbuckling his seat belt, oh God, he was going to leave and Xander would have the rest of the flight to lie here and think about how he'd ruined everything by opening his big, fat mouth.

This was what Xander was thinking. So when Giles got up and sat on the edge of his bed, Xander almost fell over in shock, or would have if he wasn't already sitting down. When Giles cupped Xander's face in his hand, and the thumb that'd been stroking his lifeline earlier suddenly rubbed over his cheek, he almost fell over again. "Giles?" he whispered.

"Hush." To his utter shock, Giles's lips brushed against his forehead. "We can talk about it in London, once you're better. We have lots of time."

"But - but you -" Xander reached up to touch his hand. "You came because you wanted to?"

He nodded, fingers curling around the back of Xander's neck now. His hair had gotten way too long the last couple of months, but he was sorta glad now that Giles was stroking it. "I did. I missed you, too, Xander. Very much."

". . . oh." Xander closed his eyes. He sighed. "That feels good."

Giles chuckled softly. "I'm going to lower the bed, all right?"

"Yeah, good idea." It felt good to be lying flat again, but not as good as Giles's hand felt stroking his hair. That felt better than Xander thought anything ever should. "We'll talk later?"

"Yes, I promise. Go to sleep."

He woke when the plane touched down. There was morning light streaming in the windows, a little watery and gray. Xander raised his head and saw Giles sitting across from him, one hand gently caressing Xander's knee. Xander pushed himself up, just enough to see out the window. Not that there was much to see, just tarmac and a big ugly building. England. He turned to smile at Giles, who returned it tiredly and said, in the same soft, tender voice he'd used before, "Welcome home."

Fin.