AUTHOR: Sandra Pascoe

RATING: FRC

DISCLAIMER: The characters don’t belong to me - they belong to Joss and the powers that be … except the hole punch which belongs exclusively to Giles.

DEDICATION: This is for Eaglewolf who has been awake at the most ungodly hours of the morning studying. Ewie, take a break, grab a cup of tea, sit back, relax and put your feet up for a while.

NOTES: A short tale of love from Giles’ hole punch.

I can remember our first meeting as though it were only yesterday. The others, the stapler, the paperclips and even the pens, who were notoriously fickle and changed hands at a rate of knots, were practically quivering with excitement, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the new librarian. I was dreading it. The others were all fairly new, you see, whereas I had been there some considerable time. They were all shiny and in full working order. I was dull, my paint chipped and flaking; my paper guide had long since disappeared so that operating me was a matter of pure guesswork and, worst of all, my plastic base was battered and loose-fitting with a worrying tendency of spilling little bits of paper all over the floor. What use could I possibly be?

I was sitting there, feeling sorry for myself, when the drawer opened and there he was, gazing down at us with a slight smile on his face. It seemed like an eternity before he reached down and picked me up. I was certain that my time had come, that I was going to be tossed into the bin without a second thought. He turned me over, his strong, gentle hands caressing me as he examined me from every angle and then, to my complete and utter disbelief, he chuckled and then put me back in the drawer. Could it be possible? Would he keep me? He did and, before long, I found myself with a new plastic base complete with paper guide. Well, I say "new" - it wasn’t really. I think my moral, upright and orderly librarian had pinched it from another department but I didn’t care.

We soon fell into a routine, Giles and I - yes, it didn’t take long to discover his name. He would take me out of the drawer first thing in the morning and I would usually stay beside him for most of the day. Occasionally, he would reach out, gently touching me as if to reassure himself that I was still there. I ignored all the insults and irritating comments from the stapler, the snide remarks from the pens and the infantile giggling of the paperclips. I may have still looked battered but Giles cared for me, he looked after me and that was all that mattered.

I was there during all the late night research sessions; I watched over Giles when he fell asleep at the table through pure exhaustion and, because of him, I survived the hellmouth and the vampire attacks. There were some very bad times in the library and the worst of all was when Giles disappeared. I waited in the drawer in agony: where was he? What had happened to him? The not-knowing was terrible. Of course, Giles returned but, when I saw him I wondered how on earth he was still standing. He was limping, his face battered and bruised and his hand trembled as he reached out to me. The fingers on his other hand were strapped up. I am unsure what happened to him. No-one really talked about it and I only know that he had been tortured. It took a while for him to recover but, slowly and surely, he did and we fell back into our usual routine.

I felt comfortable and trusted Giles completely. So-much-so that when a new librarian turned up, an irritating chap called Wesley, and began ordering a lot of new equipment, I knew that Giles wouldn’t abandon me. Sure enough, even when a shiny, new, larger hole punch arrived, Giles still used me, still kept me beside him. I kept faith with Giles even when I heard them all discussing blowing up the library - I knew he wouldn’t abandon me. He stopped at the table before leaving the library for the last time. He looked down at me and then quickly picked me up and put me in his pocket.

There are times when I miss the library but what I have now is infinitely better. I live with Giles now, you see. I sit on the table next to his chair. He’s always coming and going during the day so it’s the evenings I like best. Sometimes he’ll get out his guitar and sit beside me, singing quietly with that beautiful voice of his. Other times he’ll be researching and I’ll generally be perched beside him on a pile of books. Whatever he does, he never forgets about me, never forgets that I’m there.

I now know what true happiness is. Happiness is someone to watch over you, someone who cares, someone to protect and love you. Happiness is … curling up with a pot of tea and a hot librarian.