Chapter
2.17
Saturday, May 18th, 2002
"I so need a shower." Buffy pulled a strand
of mud splattered hair down in front of her eyes. Their patrol,
after they had dropped off Brandon at his father's house, had
proved to be considerably more detrimental to her clothing than
their encounter at the bus station earlier that evening.
"Uh-huh." Spike agreed with her, but it didn't
deter him from continuing to hold one very muddy hand in his own
rather cleaner one.
"You could at least have helped."
"I held your coat. I'm still holding your coat.
And with the cheering... I like to think I gave you some very constructive
advice."
"Well, maybe if I'd known what goolies were and
my feet hadn't been mired in nine inches of mud, then I could
have kicked him in them."
"I did everything but wave pom-poms. 'Sides if
I'd joined you in all that mud neither of us would have ended
up bothered about catching our semi-aquatic friend... And I can
definitely help with the shower thing."
"Gross. What is it with men and icky stuff?"
"So the idea of me all wet and slippery does
nothing for you?"
"Soapy bubbles slippery? Maybe. Stinky, muddy
slippery? That's just stinky."
"Not even a little bit?" Spike's lower lip curved
into a slight pout.
"Can it, Id-Boy. You are not going to get me
all hot and bothered when my two hundred dollar boots are oozing
mud out of the seams and making squelching noises every time I
move. And I smell."
"C'mon, love. You could be encased in Fyarl snot
and smell like beef dripping and I'd still want you. At least
it's not as bad as the smell of those veggie burgers you used
to cook."
"I didn't think we told you about the burgers."
"What didn't you tell me about the burgers?"
"That they were veggie."
"Puh-lease. I have got a nose." He half-towed
her the last few yards before the turn for the path leading to
the front door.
"But Willow analysed them and everything. We
thought they were human."
Spike snorted his amusement. "I suppose on the
Hellmouth stranger things have happened, but it really didn't
occur to you to ask the one person you know who could tell you
exactly what human flesh smells like. I spent hours next to those
bloody vents waitin' for you to sneak out the back. I think if
they were servin' up long pig, I might just have mentioned it
to you... after I emptied the freezers. If nothing else it might
have got you to quit."
"Hey. It's not my fault we weren't big with the
talking."
Spike gave her a quizzical look.
"Okay, yes, it was my fault we weren't big with the talking."
As they approached the front door Spike seemed
to slow. "Look, love. Why don't you head on upstairs and get in
the shower, rinse off what you can and then run yourself a nice,
hot bath with plenty of bubbles?"
"I thought you were volunteering for back scrubbing
duty?" It was Buffy's turn to pout.
"Let's just say that something came up... other
than the obvious. Leave the door from the bedroom open and if
I don't come up before you finish, I'll just be out back."
"I'm guessing this isn't a slayer something?"
Buffy almost whispered.
"Not an ooglie-booglie in sight, but if I haven't
got it sorted by the time you get out the bath, it might turn
out to be a Buffy something."
"You need a kiss for luck?" she asked, even as
she raised herself up on tiptoe.
"Always." Spike's hands cupped her face unmindful
of the mud splatters that adorned it, as he drew her into a deep
and tender kiss, still tinged with the copper of her very special
blood. Spike pulled his keys from his pocket and opened up the
front door for her, draping her coat over the banister at the
bottom of the stairs before he backed out of the door, pulling
it gently closed between them and finally breaking their locked
gazes.
"Hey, sweet pea." Spike took a seat on the back
step of the porch leaving about a foot gap between him and the
girl with the red-rimmed eyes and tear-damp cheeks.
He glanced briefly in her direction before gazing
off into the darkness as he spoke, giving her the privacy to cry
or pull herself together as she wished. "It's the quiet times
that get you. When there's people around and stuff to do, you
can pretty much lose yourself. I mean, you don't really forget,
not for more than a couple of minutes at a time, but you can pretend
you do." He pulled out his pack of cigarettes, looking to the
girl for permission before he lit one. Then, after a second's
consideration he held the pack out, quick to play the gentleman
and raise his lighter to the tip when Tara accepted one and put
it to her lips.
She coughed slightly as she took the first deep
breath into her lungs, but with the second she blew a series of
delicate smoke rings that drifted off and upward into the night
sky, widening as they moved away from them until they dissolved
into nothing.
"How did you know?" she asked, tilting the hand
that held the cigarette to demonstrate what she meant.
Spike shrugged. "Father like that, make any kid
with a lick of spunk like what you've got want to rebel a bit,
but you're not the type to do anythin' hurtful. So smoking, maybe
a bit of pot, nicking that brother's bike and clearing out for
the day to leave them to wash their own skivvies an' cook their
own dinner. I mean that's why you learned, isn't it? The only
way you could get out of that house free and clear where he couldn't
find you. 'M I right?"
"That obvious, huh?" Tara gave him a watery smile.
"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
You're one of the strongest people I know. And the most wonderful
thing about you is you never let it make you hard. I bet your
mother must have been really something."
Tara's smile softened. "She was. I mean, my father
he tried to break her, to curb the demon as he called it, but
she never let him. She was beautiful."
"An' so's her daughter." Spike shuffled a little
closer and brushed away the last traces of her tears with the
ball of his thumb, using his clean hand. "I meant what I told
junior tonight. All you girls are special, but if we're talking
on a straight personality thing, much as I love Buffy, you outshine
her by far. You know who you are and what you believe in. You
have a purity to you that should drive a demon like me to despair,
but instead I can't help but love you for it. I took a beatin'
for the Niblet that time, but what you gave up was far worse an'
yet people seem to forget about it. Great wet sod that I am, you
remind me of me mum. An' in a way that's what this all comes down
to, your mum, Joyce, mine maybe, if Buffy's right, and Red's."
Tara gave the vampire a curious glance. "I don't
get you."
"Red turning out like she did. There was bugger
all you could do to stop it. The behaviour patterns were all coded
in way before you arrived on the scene.
The only thing her parents ever told her was
bad was coming second in anything instead of first. They never
paid attention to anything she did unless it was shoved under
their noses, so she was never punished for anything, hence the
idea that cookies make everything better and if you can hide the
evidence then no one needs to know if you screw up. She was only
ever praised for excelling at things. It's no wonder when she
got into magic that all she could think about was learning to
be the most powerful witch around. It never even occurred to her
that magic's different from chemistry or physics, that you can
know too much and not enough at the same time.
They never let her close. They never loved her
the way your mum loved you, or Joyce loved Buffy an' the Niblet.
An' so she never really learned about being happy because you
can make the ones you love happy. Her only happiness was in pleasing
herself an' she never hurt for them or got hurt by them, because
one way an' another, it's the people you love that hurt you the
most.
So, when dog-boy upped an' left, she just didn't
have a clue. She couldn't see that these things just have to be
borne one day at a time, so she tried to make it go away. An'
she's never changed. Whenever anything hurts she just tries to
magic it better. An' if you ask me that's why she brought
Buffy back. It's just that she's got so damn powerful there's
nothing much as could stop her these days.
Factor in Harris and the fact that the stupid
wanker basically let her do his thinking for him for eighteen
years till Anya appeared on the horizon, and I'll admit that Buffy
probably helped that along a bit, too, so that she thought she
had the god given right to make decisions for everyone because
they're just stupid sheep and she's the shepherd an' you have
her benevolent dictator syndrome covered, or theoretically benevolent
anyway.
As soon as she picked up her first magic book,
it was a foregone conclusion that one day she'd push things too
far."
Tara obviously considered most of what he had
said, but balked at the last statement. "I don't know. It changed
after the resurrection spell. She changed."
"Consequences, pet. There's always consequences.
You ask something huge like you guys did and the price is goin'
to be huge as well, but Red was too damn sure of herself to believe
that."
"Maybe I should have talked her out of it." Tara
looked guiltily at the vampire, knowing that if she had he would
never have found the happiness that was now his. "Maybe I should
have told Giles."
Spike gave her a rueful half smile. "I have every
faith in you, pet, but with the best will in the world you couldn't
have stopped her. She'd have been out with the Tabula Rasa crap
as soon as she thought you weren't on side. An' selfish bugger
that I am, now that Buffy's back and happy, I can't say I'm too
fussed about what Red's set herself up for. I mean there was a
couple of times when I knew where Buffy'd been, an' she was stuck
in that bloody awful job, an' I just couldn't seem to get through
to her, that I would have quite happily strung the bitch up for
bringing her back and then ignorin' her like she did. But now
she seems to be happy."
"She is happy, you know. And it's because
of you. I mean the stuff with Dawn and you being kidnapped and
everything, it all gets to her, but her aura. You can tell that
she's basically content, more than content."
"Well, I guess, if it's workin', then this frog's
goin' to have to keep doin' his damnedest to convince her he's
actually a prince."
"Or maybe we all need to convince the prince
he isn't a frog," Tara responded.
Spike shook his head and drew deeply on a cigarette
that had half burned down unnoticed between his fingers while
he talked. "I try not to kid myself, pet. I'm not a good man,
and she deserves way better than I can give her, but I think I
have it in me to make her happy an' if that's all I do for the
rest of her life, then maybe I won't have made such a hash of
things after all."
"Don't you see? If Willow had cared a quarter
as much about making me happy as you care about making Buffy happy,
then we probably wouldn't be having this discussion."
"Probably not, Puss Cat, but I happen to think
that the reason you an' Red didn't make it, other than her obvious
character flaws, is that all them goddesses of yours have someone
special in mind for you, but it just isn't their time, yet."
"And why would you think that?"
"Because it would be a sin to put someone as
loving and beautiful as you in this world and then not give her
someone who can really appreciate her." The vampire placed a chaste
kiss on the girl's forehead.
"Now, how do you fancy washing the taste of that
cigarette out of your mouth with some cocoa? I'm led to believe
that there's some chemical in chocolate that's the same as your
brain produces when you're happy, so not only does it taste nice
but it's medicinal, too."
Tara looked over at the vampire, as she rose
to her feet letting him slip an arm around her shoulders to guide
her back into the house. "Did you have little sisters when you
were growing up?"
Spike shook his head. "Only child. Father died
when I was young and after that there was just me and mother.
She never remarried. If I had had though, I'd have wanted one
like you and one like Bit, a dove and a wild thing, both with
hearts as big as the sky."
"Did anyone ever tell you that you've got the
soul of a poet?" Tara asked.
Spike smirked at the irony of the comment. "No,
love, I don't think they ever did."
Buffy looked around the room that had been hers
for years. It looked so different with her mother's furniture
instead of hers. Tara's knick-knacks, few as they were, adorned
the room's surfaces and the blankets that Buffy had covered the
windows with had finally been taken down when the sun dropped
behind the houses opposite. It had taken them all most of the
day, barring a couple of hours for the visit to the tailor and
for Spike's coiffure, but now everyone was in their new homes.
"Seems strange, doesn't it?" the Wiccan asked,
nodding not only to what was now her room, but also the house
across the street. Some phone calls to determine which stores
actually sold beds and other basic furniture from stock rather
than ordering them in, had resulted in some rushed shopping on
Wes's part before he was due to drop off the U-haul trailer at
their nearest branch, but he now had most of the basics covered.
There hadn't been anything arranged the previous night, but somehow
everyone from the two houses and later Brandon, too, had ended
up pulling together, first to get Wes settled in, then to move
Buffy's things into the master bedroom and get Tara's things from
the dorm.
Spike had sent Buffy out with Wes on one of his
trips to pick up a bookcase and a desk and chair for Tara's room
as a surprise gift, mindful of the fact that the Wiccan's end
of year exams must be fast approaching and she would need a proper
place to study. The desk she had found had a matching chair and
a tooled, maroon, leather top, which had obviously been lovingly
cared for as not a single blemish marred its surface despite its
age. It was made from a rich dark wood that matched her mother's
bed. Once, it had graced the office of the local bank manager,
before homogeneity became the order of the day and it was sold
off simply because it didn't tie in with the latest theme. It
was a little on the large side and the room seemed slightly overcrowded
but homey as a result. She had had to settle for a plain pine
bookcase, but she thought the Wiccan would prefer the natural
material to a more finished looking product made of melamine.
Actually, she knew that she could have brought back a wooden orange
box for the girl to store her books in and Tara would have been
pleased at their thoughtfulness, which was part of why Buffy was
so pleased to find something like the desk, which she knew the
Wicca would love.
Funnily enough, even though Buffy and Wes had
been the ones to unpack the furniture from the trailer Tara had
known without asking, exactly whose idea the gift had been, and
the first of many tearful hugs had been for her freshly bleached
and trimmed male housemate.
"Good strange, I hope," Wes commented as he and
Spike made their way back into the room each carrying several
cans of soda, which were swiftly passed out between the room's
occupants though Spike didn't bother.
"Definitely good strange," Buffy answered for
all of them before moving to stand where Spike could wrap his
arms around her like an animated stole. "For the first time since
mom died, it seems like we're a family. All of us." Her gaze rested
on Tara in particular and Spike's arms tightened into a hug for
an instant in acknowledgement of her words, knowing that they
were meant for him, too. She lifted her free hand and wrapped
it over his before turning to Wes. "And of course it's a novelty
to have neighbours who don't avoid us, let alone ones we'd call
friend. and I'm not just saying that because of the spa we found
hidden away in your back yard."
"It's only mostly because of the spa they
found hidden away in your back yard," her fiancé teased.
"Spike. Stop it. He might believe you."
"I think he's already had some pretty fair indications
of how much he's appreciated round here, pet. He's bright enough
to work out when I'm just yankin' your chain."
"That would be most of the time, I believe,"
his fellow Englishman responded.
"See... Now, who's first for the shower? 'Cause
I make it about an hour an a half to go before we're all due at
Lily's. An', Wes, do us a favour and take the kid across to yours
when you go. That way, I can concentrate on gettin' ready without
havin' to worry about what state of undress him and the Niblet
are in. She can ring an' let him know when she's decent again."
Tara glanced round the room, seeing both couples
seemed reluctant to part. "I guess I'll take that first shower."
"Then, I guess we should all give you some privacy
to get ready." Wes was the first to excuse himself from the room,
but the others soon followed, dispersing to make their own preparations
for the party.
Spike drew Buffy into their new bedroom. "Happy?"
he asked indicating her furniture that now filled the room.
Buffy's reached up with a fingertip that was
damp from the condensation on the soda can she had been holding
and traced the outline of his lips. "Let's see, today's been quite
the day. I've got a wonderful man who has shown he can be nearly
as considerate to my friends as he is to me. I'm going to have
a wonderful dress and so are all my bridesmaids, assuming, of
course, that Willow is speaking to me again by then. I have my
loved ones around me and a night with friends ahead. I think that's
enough to make anyone happy. Providing Xander doesn't do anything
to mess things up tonight."
"I have a feeling Anya will be keeping him on
a tight leash. I don't think you need worry."
"Then, yeah, Will," she replied pushing him gently
backward until his legs pressed against the side of their bed
and he pulled her with him as he tumbled backwards. "I'm happy."
She nestled her head against his shoulder curling up on the bed
next to him like a contented kitten until it was their turn for
the shower.
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