Disclaimer:
#1
Spike: I still
like the Faith idea. How do you get a phone call through
to someone in prison?
Buffy: And like
I'm supposed to know 'cos.?
Spike: Alright,
pet. Point taken. Maybe we could write. How well do you
two get on? Could you convince her?
Buffy: Ehm. She
kind of thinks, I'm some sort of goody-two-shoes who couldn't
manage to have fun even if she did get the broom handle
surgically removed from her butt.
Spike: Ah! I
remember that phase in our relationship. She might come
round, but not as far as I did, I hope, at least not unless
I get to join the fun.
Buffy: Spike!
You're a
Spike: Pig. Bloody
hell! If this bloke Joss and all those companies own us,
can't they afford to buy you another insult? That one is
seriously tired, pet.
Buffy: Just because
I've got better things to do than sit around all day watching
Passions and thinking up new insults and nicknames for everybody
Spike: Hmph!
It's not all day.
Disclaimer: #2
Just in case I rip off
anyone's lyrics and abuse them, and then forget to say who
they are, I'll at least make it clear that no lyrics are
mine. They all belong to other people with talent.
Chapter 9
He stared into hazel eyes, and all he could
read there was confusion and pain. He wanted so much to
fold her into his arms and hold her till that hurt look
went away, but he was the one who put it there and he knew
if he didn't stand his ground now then he truly would be
nothing but her lapdog.
"It's up to you, love."
"Spike, I just can't."
He got up, and walked towards the stairs
leading down to the basement. "Tell the Niblet I'll be here
tomorrow when she gets off school then."
"Wait! I didn't mean."
Spike stood still, keeping his back to
her, determined she was not going to see him cry again.
"I need time. I can't take all this in.
I thought things would go back to how they were and now
you say they can't. I don't know what I think."
He kept his back to her, his voice soft.
"All you have to decide is whether you've entirely ruled
out all possibility of anything between us. If you have
any doubt at all, and you're willing to listen that's as
much as I'm asking. Take as long as you want to think about
it, but I'll be leaving town next Monday." He turned, making
sure, finally, to catch her eyes. "I meant what I said about
the crypt. I don't want you or Li'l Bit showing up there.
Dawn knows how to reach me if you decide you want to talk."
Buffy sat where he left her, trying to
take in the bombshell that had just hit her. For some reason,
even after he brought a date to the wedding, she'd just
assumed that Spike would be there for her, if ever she wanted
him, on whatever terms she chose to set. Now she felt as
if he were preparing to surgically remove her from his life.
She'd seen the purple shading around his eye, and the almost
imperceptible hitch in his gait that indicated some other
injury. What was it he'd said on the phone? "Didn't think
you'd care." So why was it that she'd wanted to hold
his face in her hands and place feather kisses over the
bruise? The first of three black eyes in as many weeks that
she hadn't caused. How could she even consider getting back
into that again? Yet, somehow the idea of him not being
a part of her life was almost impossible. Why was he doing
this to her? Spike wasn't supposed to set terms for her
to meet.
Why was she even considering this? She'd
come to her decision last week. Why would she want to change
her mind now? A slayer can't love a vampire, not a soulless
one anyway. It was perverse. He was evil. Or was he? And
he smokes. Can't want to be with the evil soulless bloodsucking
fiend. Can't.
Spike checked the battery and signal indicators
on his phone for about the tenth time in the last hour.
An hour in which his mind had been unable to focus on the
poker game he should currently have been enjoying. He now
owed Clem six kittens and that was only because Clem had
owed him eight before the start of the game. It was time
he quit before he ended up any further in debt. Money was
one thing, but acquiring kittens when you were on a losing
streak was a bit more difficult, especially now that it
was a fair bet that Sharkey wouldn't be giving him any more
credit.
"Fold, and cash in. I'll settle up end
of the week, Clem. Unless you fancy flat-sitting my place
while I'm away instead?"
"How long are you going for?"
"At least a couple of weeks, but it could
run a lot longer?"
"Call it a deal if you fill the fridge
with beer and leave enough fuel to keep the generator running."
"Done. We can sort out the details later
in the week. Bye, mate"
Head down, Spike headed out from the bar.
She wasn't going to ring. If she'd been going to ring she
would have rung by now. She said she wanted time but surely
he wasn't that bad a guy? All he was asking for was that
she admit the smallest possibility. Hadn't they had something?
If it hurt to see him with Jane (now he could remember her
name) then she must care, so why can't she admit it? Because
you told her it had to be out in the open and she's ashamed
of you. He filled with pain as the hours stretched out,
each extra hour seeming to indicate a lowering of her opinion
of him.
Spike wandered aimlessly down the rain-washed
streets. He wondered how he was going to cope with keeping
all this bottled up inside, knowing there was no one he
could talk to. Then again, if it was going to be a total
split then what was she going to do if he told someone?
Stake him? He didn't think so. He doubted even Buffy could
bring herself to do that, however pissed off she might be.
Maybe if she didn't ring before the weekend he'd get it
all off his chest with Tinkerbell or demon-chick. Maybe
they could form a mutual consolation society.
Spike's meandering path took him past a
liquor store and he detoured to pick up a couple of bottles
of JD and a carton of cigarettes before continuing on. It
was almost inevitable that allowing his so-called random
path would lead him to Revello Drive. When he realised where
he was, he couldn't resist checking to see if she was visible.
There was no light on in her room, but someone had lights
on in both the living room and the dining room although
through the curtains he couldn't tell who was there. He
forced himself to keep walking instead of stopping at his
favourite tree. He worked his way round the building, careful
to stay far enough away to evade even slayer senses. Then
he saw her. She was sitting on the steps of the back porch.
Sitting where they had sat together, trying to make one
decision he couldn't help her with. He kept walking, more
content now. She was still thinking about it. She hadn't
decided not to phone, or at least not yet. There was still
hope.
Buffy had been sitting on the porch for
the last two hours. She was no nearer to making a decision
now than she had been this morning, she'd thought about
seeking out advice from some quarter, but she felt as if
doing that would almost be a decision in itself. Tara would
be supportive of any choice she made and might ask a few
pertinent questions. She probably wouldn't give out any
advice one way or another but she'd seemed disappointed
when she'd originally told her about the two of them. Dawn
would almost certainly endorse any relationship with Spike,
as long as her own crush on the evil dead didn't interfere.
Xander, if she could have found him would be more than happy
to hear Spike was going to break off contact. So would Giles
and Willow wasn't even fit to make her own decisions at
the minute never mind advise anyone else. So if she chose
who to ask, then she had already chosen what advice she
was going to get. She went back indoors, deciding to have
a quick word with Dawn before she went out on patrol.
"Dawn?" She knocked on the teenager's bedroom
door.
"Come in." Dawn sat in front of her dressing
table in her pyjamas, brushing tangles out of her still
damp hair.
"If you come sit in front of the bed, I'll
do that." Dawn passed the hairbrush to her sister before
taking up a position by her feet.
"I talked to Spike today."
"Well, duh. I seem to recall passing the
phone to you."
"Okay, I saw Spike today, then. He said
he missed you, that he'd been seeing a lot of you last summer,
but now he hardly sees you at all. Do you miss him?"
"Of course I do. Why?"
"So you'd be okay if he were to meet you
at the Magic Box straight after school a few nights a week
and walk you back, maybe get you something to eat."
"Are you kidding? If you're giving me a
choice between Spike's cooking and a Doublemeat Medley I'll
take Spike's cooking any day."
"Spike cooks? I was thinking take-out?"
"He was still learning, but he says anybody
that can read can follow a recipe. He does a mean stir-fry."
For a while the only sound was the gentle
swish of the brush through Dawn's hair.
"What is it with you two? I mean what is
it you see in him?"
"You mean why don't I think he's just an
irritating wanker?" Dawn looked up to see Buffy's face.
"That's one way to put it."
"It's how he thinks you think of him."
"He told you that?"
"Well, I told him I thought he was an irritating
wanker sometimes, but I still liked him, and he said you
only ever got the hang of the first bit. He said that's
why he doesn't come round the house any more."
Buffy couldn't help the snort of amusement.
"Ever the wordsmith! So why is it that you only think he's
an irritating wanker some of the time?"
Dawn wondered where this was going. "Because
he doesn't expect me to be someone I'm not. If I was miserable,
he'd let me be miserable. Everybody else would spend all
their time trying to cheer me up, and I'd end up feeling
guilty I didn't feel better. And he doesn't treat me like
a fifteen-year-old; he treats me like Dawn. And when I was
all messed up about where I came from, it was him that said
he didn't see where I came from made the difference, it
was who I was now. It's like there's nothing you could do
or be that would make him judge you, he just accepts everyone
for what they are."
"How can you say that? What about him and
Xander, the pair of them are at each others' throats whenever
they're in the same room."
"Yeah, and nine time out of ten it starts
with Xander trying to warn him away from you, and it seems
to me that you've probably given Spike reason to think you
don't want him to listen to the warnings."
"What do you mean?"
"Little chats on the back porch, patrolling-
you never take anyone else now, grass stains on your jacket,
"He's not getting any gentler"? Do you want me to go on?"
"Oh."
"Yeah, and I wasn't the only one that picked
up on that comment either. You're not fooling anyone. Why
not just do whatever it is you're doing out in the open?
Sure, Xander'll freak for about five minutes, but he'll
just have to get over himself? He got used to Angel, didn't
he, and any idiot can see Spike's better for you than he
was."
"You're not the least bit afraid of him,
are you?"
"Only, in the way that I was glad it was
Giles doing "the talk" at Halloween, not him. He's really
cool about stuff, but when he puts his foot down he puts
it down. I know he'd never lay a hand on me.
You're afraid of him though or you wouldn't
have asked."
"Yeah, well you were around when Angel
turned. Can't you see it could be the same thing all over
again if Spike's chip stopped working."
"What are you looking for here? Nobody
comes with a guarantee, but I can see a lot of reasons why
Spike and you would work together, not least of which is
the fact that he loves you so much that he'd sooner stake
himself than do anything he thought would disappoint you
let alone hurt you. Open your eyes. Chip or no chip that
guy is even more gone on you now than he was when you got
engaged, except this time it's real."
Buffy thought about the demon eggs, she'd
been so sure he was guilty, but that was what she'd thought
when she saw him open the till at the shop, too. She'd opened
it herself after he'd gone. He'd left two hundred dollars
and a note for Anya saying that if she found it before she
got her telephone messages he was available if she wanted
to speak to someone who wasn't "Xander's".
"And if I told you those demon eggs we
were looking for were in his crypt?"
"I'd ask why he would be ringing up to
find out what type of demon it was if he's supposed to be
the evil mastermind."
"What do you mean?"
"He rang up the next night from LA to see
if we knew what type of demon eggs they were."
"Why didn't you mention this before?"
"'Cos Willow remembered and you were out
patrolling. It didn't seem important, everybody else knew,
why not tell Spike? Look I'm sure if you give him a chance
he'll have an explanation. Now are you going to tell me
what's going on with you two."
Buffy sighed. "We were seeing each other
for a while, but when I found out about the eggs I broke
up with him. Now something's going on but he refuses to
tell me anything about it. He says he can't be my friend."
"Oh. I know this bit. "You're not friends.
You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills
you both. You'll fight and you'll shag, and you'll hate
each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be
friends. Love isn't brains. it's blood, blood screaming
inside you to work its will." Didn't know you'd got to the
shagging stage?" Dawn smirked in a way that left no doubt
as to who she'd learned it from.
"Wait. How do you know about that?"
"You can't blame me if the monks gave me
a false memory about reading your diary. I memorised it,
it sort of seemed almost like poetry."
Unfortunately, much as Buffy wanted to
get upset over it her logic was sound, she hadn't actually
read the diary, even if she remembered it as if she had.
"So you dumped him. He's not interested
in half-measures. What do you do now?"
"If I say that it doesn't matter what he
says, I'm not prepared to see him openly, then nothing."
"Why wouldn't you at least hear him out?"
"Dawn, what was going on between us, it
wasn't healthy, and we both knew it, but if he hadn't done
something outright evil I still wouldn't have had the courage
to break up with him."
"And how much of what was wrong would have
been fixed if you hadn't been sneaking around?"
"A lot, but not all. I'm the Slayer. He's
the Slayer of Slayers. How twisted is that?"
"Stop looking at who he was four years
ago, or three years ago or two years ago. Look at who he
is now. All that Slayer of Slayers stuff means now is that
he's your equal. He never managed to kill you. You
never managed to kill him. Now he is or he was your partner.
You live on the Hellmouth. You don't get to have normal
and if you did get a normal guy he wouldn't be enough for
you or you'd be too much for him."
"You sound like Riley."
"Yeah, so he was a psych graduate; and
he couldn't help feeling inadequate, even though he knew
what he was doing."
"Yeah, but when Riley said that I told
him I'd be sleeping with Spike if that was what I wanted."
"And your point is."
"You're not going to give up are you?"
"Give up the chance for the two people
I care most about to be happy together? Why would I do that?
So I can watch Spike be utterly miserable
for years till I'm old enough to try for him myself?"
"Okay, I'm going out on patrol and then
I'll sleep on it and you can keep your Lolita-like mitts
off him at least till tomorrow."
That night, the dream she'd had changed
slightly. When the tiger leapt towards her it changed in
mid-leap into the form of the first slayer, who then crouched
on her chest. They each repeated their words from her vision
a year before, from the night she found out about the 'bot,
the night Spike had been tortured but had refused to betray
Dawn and her.
"You are full of love. You love with
all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire. blinding"
"I'm full of love? I'm not losing
it?"
"Only if you reject it. Love
is pain and the slayer forges strength from pain. Love.
give.forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature."
Buffy woke, roused prematurely by this
change in the pattern of her dreams. She remembered what
she had told Spike later that same night. She'd told him
she wouldn't forget what he'd done for her and Dawn. She
owed him at least a chance to make things right. She would
take the risk.
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