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Maybe Someday. Chapter 9.
Turns out, that one of the things I *can* do when I'm practically asleep is edit fic, so I was sort-of busy yesterday... the result being this chapter ready to post. Also my parents are coming next week, so LJ access will be severely limited for a while. Anyway, enjoy...
Our dear boys slept the day away, but what was Buffy doing in the mean time?
Previouslies here.
Hugs and smooches to my most wonderful beta![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathyh.
Feedback will be savoured and enjoyed like you wouldn't believe! :)
Chapter 9
Buffy woke slowly, head fuzzy with sleep and body warm and heavy. Mostly she felt like drifting off again, never mind how late it was... she could tell from the angle of the shadows that it was at least midday. But as she turned over, last night came tumbling back and she sat up, all thoughts of sleep forgotten!
Spike! He’d been there - alive! And talking to her and kissing her and she’d dumped The Immortal and Angel had been there too and this weird demongod and... it hadn’t all been a dream, had it? She glanced around, trying to find something tangible to reassure her. Then her eyes fell on the bedside table and she saw his card. He’d scribbled his phone number on it last night, telling her to memorise it and then burn the card... something about the number being top-secret and the cellphone having lots of spells on it. She couldn’t really remember it all, as she slowly turned it over in her hands. On one side it just said ‘SPIKE’ in big capital letters and underneath was the number - he had surprisingly neat handwriting. On the other side it said ‘Angel’s Avengers’ in pretty cursive.
Spike had a card... how weird was that? When she’d asked, he’d just shrugged and said that it was Angel’s idea. But somehow it just threw into sharp focus how things had changed. She sighed and tried to think it all over, one thing at a time.
Spike was alive.
She could feel part of her saying that of course he was alive... he was the most annoying vampire she had ever come across and he had refused to die on so many occasions that it made perfect sense that he should somehow come back to life.
And she was happy. Yes, definitely, absolutely happy. But... she frowned. Trying to analyze her feelings was something she’d been purposefully avoiding for months now... it was part of the reason she’d been dating The Immortal.
Only now it seemed that her life had finally caught up with her and she’d have to do some serious pondering. So, she was happy and... angry. Angry that he hadn’t called or told her in any way that he was back. Especially angry that apparently Andrew of all people had known, when she didn’t. Hm, she was going to make him pay for that somehow. Of course there was the fact that -
He couldn’t stay.
It was like getting a fabulous present for Christmas and then being told that it would have to be returned. And it hurt. He was leaving just like every other man ever had. But.... she frowned. Why wasn’t she more upset? She stared at the curtains and the golden light sneaking in through the folds and she couldn’t work it out. And then it hit her. He wasn’t leaving because of her. He was leaving because he had a job to do. He wasn’t leaving ‘for her own good’ like Angel had, or because he felt inadequate and un-needed like Riley or because ‘she needed to grow up’ like Giles. It had nothing to do with her. And he would have stayed if there hadn’t been that apocalypse. He’d been scared still, but so was she... and she was certain that she could have made him stay.
So what now? He was here only for a week - less even because tonight he’d go out with Angel. So that left what? 6 short days. And she had to go to the big Slayer-meeting Sunday... well she could arrive late for that. It was going to last 3 days anyway. And hey - she was Buffy, Head Slayer! She could do what she wanted.
A small smile on her lips she mused on the coming week. Spike had asked her out on a date. That was good. She wanted to do things - she wanted to go places - she wanted - she wanted... she wanted happy memories! She wanted to do fun, stupid things like staying out dancing half the night or going to a fair and winning all the prizes at the shooting stand, she wanted to go to a small romantic restaurant and spend a whole evening losing herself in his eyes, wanted to take stupid pictures in a photo-booth... photos! She needed photos! She would have to go shopping and buy like a million rolls of film. She wanted enough pictures for a lifetime. Maybe she could even borrow a videocamera from somewhere. There was sure to be one at the Council. Oh, and she was going to dress him up too...
One of the things she had most enjoyed going out with The Immortal had been how everyone would stop and look at them as they entered a place. Of course, she knew it had been mostly him and his fame, but she wanted that feeling again on her own merit. And she knew that with Spike at her side, they would be able to make people stop and stare, although no one would know who they were. Maybe she should dye her hair a shade lighter, so it would match his better? Well, she would go by the hairdressers and see if Antonio could squeeze her in.
She dug out a note pad and half-chewed pen and began to write a shopping list...
When she’d filled most of a page with must-have items, she started to wonder if there was anything she’d forgotten - she wanted to go patrolling with Spike one night... maybe do some training too... training! It was Monday! A glance at the alarm clock next to the bed showed that she was already 10 minutes late for her regular training session with the younger slayers.
Cursing under her breath, she jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. She grabbed the phone and quickly dialled the number for the Council, but no-one picked up, and she was left with the answering machine. Which meant that Johnson wasn’t there. As resident watcher he’d probably taken over training since she was late. Getting out her little address book, she found Johnson’s cellphone number and after waiting for a long time finally got through:
“Johnson? It’s Buffy! I’m so sorry, but I got home really late last night and overslept and tell the girls just to start by themselves if you haven’t started training with them already!”
There was a chuckle at the other end. “Buffy, don’t worry. We had - ah - an incident this morning, and about half the building is flooded. So the training schedule has been scrapped for the time being. I left you a message on your answering machine a few hours ago.”
Buffy glanced down, and noticed that she had two messages waiting. “Oh. Well, about patrolling...”
“Yes - I was going to mention this, apparently there was a marked increase in demon-activity last night -”
Buffy grinned. “Oh, good! Do you think it’ll last?”
“Good? What - I really don’t know, the girls just said that the town seemed restless.”
Buffy suddenly realised that she was famished and decided that talking about demons was really not something she could be bothered to do. “Listen - I’m going to get some breakfast. When you put the patrol-lists together this week, put me down for Wednesday. Alone.”
“Alone? Are you sure that’s quite safe?”
She had to stop herself from laughing out loud. She’d saved the world numerous times, but in this new world of many slayers, people kept treating her like one of the newbies - and of course she wouldn’t be alone, really.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve done this a lot longer than any of the other girls, remember - and that includes Faith, who killed 5 Groxlar Beasts on her own just last week, if the reports are accurate! OK?”
Johnson, obviously feeling foolish, admitted that of course she was right, and she hung up. Oh - messages!
She rewound the tape and pressed play. Giles’s voice came out of the speaker, but he didn’t get further than: “Buffy, em, I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation -” before she turned it off. Yup, it was Monday. It seemed that even the evils of this world took weekends off, since the number of times a problem arose on a Monday was staggeringly high. Why did Giles still insist on reporting everything to her? Yes, she was one of the most experienced people in the New Watcher’s Council, but most of these ‘incidents’ took place much too far away for her to be of any use. She sighed. It was like having some private news-channel that kept turning itself on. Thankfully she could turn it off too!
She tried to call Dawn, but only got her voice mail. She left a message saying that she had some news to tell her, and would try to pick her up at the station on Thursday.
Now for some breakfast, and then some shopping! Oh, life was good!
******
Later, with numerous shopping bags stacked high inside the door, she was sitting beside the phone, watching it impatiently. Why had he been so vague when he mentioned calling? Couldn’t he just have said ‘6 o’clock’ and she’d have known where she stood? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this impatient for someone to call. Searching back through the years, she could only think of the huge mistake that had been Parker. But that had hardly been the same - she didn’t remember this many butterflies for a start. As she stared at the phone, trying to use whatever powers she had to *make* him call, there was a tiny voice at the back of her head, that kept getting louder, until she couldn’t ignore it any longer. It said: “You’re falling in love Buffy, and falling hard! You were falling for him for a long time, and if he hadn’t died...”
Then the phone rang and she jumped.
“Spike?”
A low laugh, that sent chills up her spine. “Yes, it’s me. We’re heading out in a minute, as soon as the sun goes down. This shouldn’t take too long - how about I give you another call when we’re done?”
“OK,” she replied rather breathlessly, while the thought that he had the perfect voice for phone-sex traitorously snuck into her head. After an exchange of “See you later” she hung up, feeling oddly shaken.
Returning to her former thought, she tried to work it out - was she in love? She loved him, yes, but she also loved Xander and Willow, only that was of course different. And she still loved Angel, but there was a distinct lack of butterflies when he was around. But Spike... she swallowed. She could see his face as clearly as though he was standing in front of her, every detail vivid. She wished he could be there that instant, because suddely she needed to kiss him desperately. Needed him to hold her, to reassure her that he was really alive. She wanted to inspect him, to imprint every little nook and cranny of his body on her memory, and to stir the passion that lay waiting so close under the surface... she closed her eyes and lost herself in a world of memories. The things he could do with his hands and his mouth, the look in his eyes when - she shivered involuntarily. It was more than lust, it was... letting herself be close, but not afraid. Oh God, she was in love and he was going to leave...
She forced herself to snap out of it, but before she put the shopping away she should probably listen to the message she'd been ignoring whilst waiting for Spike to call. Sighing she pressed play. “Buffy... Johnson tells me he spoke to you, so I know you’re there. Now, I have gathered some more information and come to the conclusion that the best thing to do-” Grumbling she turned off his voice and deleted the whole message. She really, really didn’t want to know about Council business. At first she had conscientiously listened to every message, but as the months had passed, she worked out that the only ones she needed to pay attention to were the ‘problem-solved’ ones. Andrew’s stay had only reinforced this, since he would talk day and night about every single little problem he heard of. She had sent him packing at the first opportunity.
Oh - she needed to put the blood in the fridge.
*******
It was near midnight before Spike called again, voice tense and tired, telling her just to go to bed - things were *not* going to plan, and they might spend the whole night trying to find out what had happened to their contact and working out who the guy had worked for.
Although she didn’t feel tired, she fell asleep quickly, and only reluctantly got out of bed at 5 am when there was a persistent knocking on the door. Halfway there she woke sufficiently to realise that it must be Spike and hurried her feet along. Even the obligatory nightmare-scenarios that flitted through her brain didn’t prepare her for what awaited her when she opened the door. Spike was leaning against the door frame, barely able to stand up straight, and covered in blood and disgusting bits of demon-gore, looking as though he was about to faint. When he saw her, however, his face lit up in a tired smile:
“Buffy - Guess what! Angel ‘n the Blue Wonder have buggered off to Napoli! Won’t be back for days! It’s just you’n’me, pet!” He grinned, tried to stand up straight, but had to reach out to steady himself on the doorframe.
Heart in her throat, she gently helped him in, stomping down on her initial impulse to freak out.
“What happened? How hurt are you?” she asked as she sat him down in a chair (the sofa had been very expensive, and she really couldn’t afford the dry-cleaning bills on top of eveything else).
“Oh, I’m not hurt,” he said, trying to shrug nonchalantly, but she sent him a look that told him to stop being an idiot.
“But I’m not!” he insisted, “’M just... tired, and I don’t think I’ve eaten since the day before yesterday.” He frowned and then winced, as the frown caused a small cut on his forehead to open up again. “Most of the blood isn’t mine. Had to kill about a million stupid demons tonight, and the last lot exploded when they died. Bloody inconsiderate!”
Having cleaned his face (ignoring his complaints), she looked him over in greater detail and realised that he was right, there was no major damage anywhere. He still looked exhausted and she tried to think what she should do with him. Well, he needed a good clean and his clothes were filthy. She made up her mind.Taking his hand, she led him to the bathroom and told him to wait, returning moments later with a laundry basket and some towels.
“Now, you put all your clothes in here, and yourself in the shower! I’ll take your coat - we can sort it out later. When you’re clean and dry you come in my bedroom - I got some blood today, I’ll have it ready. OK?” She smiled brightly, divested him of his coat and left the bathroom, leaving Spike with a look of stunned bewilderment on his face.
Moments later she heard the shower turn on and she grinned as she put the blood in the microwave.
She was waiting for him in the bedroom a little while later when he came in, a towel wrapped around his middle. She noticed that his hair was already mostly dry, but fuzzy and sticking out in all directions, and he looked unbearably cute. She patted the bed next to where she was sitting and he cautiously sat down.
“Sit down mister and get under the covers”, she said, and he did as he was told, obviously too tired to argue. “This is...” he started saying, but she handed him the mug and told him to drink. He practically inhaled it, and she could have sworn that he seemed less pale now. “More?” she asked and he nodded, as he sent her a tired and grateful smile.
When she came back from the kitchen however, he was already fast asleep. The effect of the tousled hair was to make him look very young and vulnerable somehow, and she suddenly found it hard to remember that he was also a fierce fighter - a champion no less.
Maybe... maybe that was the difference between him and Angel. Angel always looked the hero. He was naturally tall and imposing; even asleep he looked the part - dark and mysterious. Whereas Spike was... what was he? He was like a chameleon, changing every moment, a new facade for every situation. But underneath it all... underneath it all there was just a young man who loved her more than was good for him. How old had he been when he was turned? What had he been like? What had made him stand out from the crowd to such an extent that Dru had chosen him and spent 120 years by his side? Well, tomorrow she’d start the great inquisition.
Silently she made sure that all curtains in the flat were covering the windows properly, before snuggling up to her vampire. And Dawn had called her silly when she insisted on a king size bed... Spike smiled in his sleep as she put his arm around her and laid her head on his chest. It was so soft and still, and she knew that six days would never be enough... six years wouldn’t have been enough. Surely there was some way to make him stay? He’d said something about a prophecy that could apply to either him or Angel. If only she could find a way to determine who it was going to be... because it was much more likely to be Angel, wasn’t it? And then Spike could stay with her. Thus reassuring herself she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 10
Our dear boys slept the day away, but what was Buffy doing in the mean time?
Previouslies here.
Hugs and smooches to my most wonderful beta
kathyh.Feedback will be savoured and enjoyed like you wouldn't believe! :)
Chapter 9
Buffy woke slowly, head fuzzy with sleep and body warm and heavy. Mostly she felt like drifting off again, never mind how late it was... she could tell from the angle of the shadows that it was at least midday. But as she turned over, last night came tumbling back and she sat up, all thoughts of sleep forgotten!
Spike! He’d been there - alive! And talking to her and kissing her and she’d dumped The Immortal and Angel had been there too and this weird demongod and... it hadn’t all been a dream, had it? She glanced around, trying to find something tangible to reassure her. Then her eyes fell on the bedside table and she saw his card. He’d scribbled his phone number on it last night, telling her to memorise it and then burn the card... something about the number being top-secret and the cellphone having lots of spells on it. She couldn’t really remember it all, as she slowly turned it over in her hands. On one side it just said ‘SPIKE’ in big capital letters and underneath was the number - he had surprisingly neat handwriting. On the other side it said ‘Angel’s Avengers’ in pretty cursive.
Spike had a card... how weird was that? When she’d asked, he’d just shrugged and said that it was Angel’s idea. But somehow it just threw into sharp focus how things had changed. She sighed and tried to think it all over, one thing at a time.
Spike was alive.
She could feel part of her saying that of course he was alive... he was the most annoying vampire she had ever come across and he had refused to die on so many occasions that it made perfect sense that he should somehow come back to life.
And she was happy. Yes, definitely, absolutely happy. But... she frowned. Trying to analyze her feelings was something she’d been purposefully avoiding for months now... it was part of the reason she’d been dating The Immortal.
Only now it seemed that her life had finally caught up with her and she’d have to do some serious pondering. So, she was happy and... angry. Angry that he hadn’t called or told her in any way that he was back. Especially angry that apparently Andrew of all people had known, when she didn’t. Hm, she was going to make him pay for that somehow. Of course there was the fact that -
He couldn’t stay.
It was like getting a fabulous present for Christmas and then being told that it would have to be returned. And it hurt. He was leaving just like every other man ever had. But.... she frowned. Why wasn’t she more upset? She stared at the curtains and the golden light sneaking in through the folds and she couldn’t work it out. And then it hit her. He wasn’t leaving because of her. He was leaving because he had a job to do. He wasn’t leaving ‘for her own good’ like Angel had, or because he felt inadequate and un-needed like Riley or because ‘she needed to grow up’ like Giles. It had nothing to do with her. And he would have stayed if there hadn’t been that apocalypse. He’d been scared still, but so was she... and she was certain that she could have made him stay.
So what now? He was here only for a week - less even because tonight he’d go out with Angel. So that left what? 6 short days. And she had to go to the big Slayer-meeting Sunday... well she could arrive late for that. It was going to last 3 days anyway. And hey - she was Buffy, Head Slayer! She could do what she wanted.
A small smile on her lips she mused on the coming week. Spike had asked her out on a date. That was good. She wanted to do things - she wanted to go places - she wanted - she wanted... she wanted happy memories! She wanted to do fun, stupid things like staying out dancing half the night or going to a fair and winning all the prizes at the shooting stand, she wanted to go to a small romantic restaurant and spend a whole evening losing herself in his eyes, wanted to take stupid pictures in a photo-booth... photos! She needed photos! She would have to go shopping and buy like a million rolls of film. She wanted enough pictures for a lifetime. Maybe she could even borrow a videocamera from somewhere. There was sure to be one at the Council. Oh, and she was going to dress him up too...
One of the things she had most enjoyed going out with The Immortal had been how everyone would stop and look at them as they entered a place. Of course, she knew it had been mostly him and his fame, but she wanted that feeling again on her own merit. And she knew that with Spike at her side, they would be able to make people stop and stare, although no one would know who they were. Maybe she should dye her hair a shade lighter, so it would match his better? Well, she would go by the hairdressers and see if Antonio could squeeze her in.
She dug out a note pad and half-chewed pen and began to write a shopping list...
When she’d filled most of a page with must-have items, she started to wonder if there was anything she’d forgotten - she wanted to go patrolling with Spike one night... maybe do some training too... training! It was Monday! A glance at the alarm clock next to the bed showed that she was already 10 minutes late for her regular training session with the younger slayers.
Cursing under her breath, she jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. She grabbed the phone and quickly dialled the number for the Council, but no-one picked up, and she was left with the answering machine. Which meant that Johnson wasn’t there. As resident watcher he’d probably taken over training since she was late. Getting out her little address book, she found Johnson’s cellphone number and after waiting for a long time finally got through:
“Johnson? It’s Buffy! I’m so sorry, but I got home really late last night and overslept and tell the girls just to start by themselves if you haven’t started training with them already!”
There was a chuckle at the other end. “Buffy, don’t worry. We had - ah - an incident this morning, and about half the building is flooded. So the training schedule has been scrapped for the time being. I left you a message on your answering machine a few hours ago.”
Buffy glanced down, and noticed that she had two messages waiting. “Oh. Well, about patrolling...”
“Yes - I was going to mention this, apparently there was a marked increase in demon-activity last night -”
Buffy grinned. “Oh, good! Do you think it’ll last?”
“Good? What - I really don’t know, the girls just said that the town seemed restless.”
Buffy suddenly realised that she was famished and decided that talking about demons was really not something she could be bothered to do. “Listen - I’m going to get some breakfast. When you put the patrol-lists together this week, put me down for Wednesday. Alone.”
“Alone? Are you sure that’s quite safe?”
She had to stop herself from laughing out loud. She’d saved the world numerous times, but in this new world of many slayers, people kept treating her like one of the newbies - and of course she wouldn’t be alone, really.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve done this a lot longer than any of the other girls, remember - and that includes Faith, who killed 5 Groxlar Beasts on her own just last week, if the reports are accurate! OK?”
Johnson, obviously feeling foolish, admitted that of course she was right, and she hung up. Oh - messages!
She rewound the tape and pressed play. Giles’s voice came out of the speaker, but he didn’t get further than: “Buffy, em, I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation -” before she turned it off. Yup, it was Monday. It seemed that even the evils of this world took weekends off, since the number of times a problem arose on a Monday was staggeringly high. Why did Giles still insist on reporting everything to her? Yes, she was one of the most experienced people in the New Watcher’s Council, but most of these ‘incidents’ took place much too far away for her to be of any use. She sighed. It was like having some private news-channel that kept turning itself on. Thankfully she could turn it off too!
She tried to call Dawn, but only got her voice mail. She left a message saying that she had some news to tell her, and would try to pick her up at the station on Thursday.
Now for some breakfast, and then some shopping! Oh, life was good!
******
Later, with numerous shopping bags stacked high inside the door, she was sitting beside the phone, watching it impatiently. Why had he been so vague when he mentioned calling? Couldn’t he just have said ‘6 o’clock’ and she’d have known where she stood? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this impatient for someone to call. Searching back through the years, she could only think of the huge mistake that had been Parker. But that had hardly been the same - she didn’t remember this many butterflies for a start. As she stared at the phone, trying to use whatever powers she had to *make* him call, there was a tiny voice at the back of her head, that kept getting louder, until she couldn’t ignore it any longer. It said: “You’re falling in love Buffy, and falling hard! You were falling for him for a long time, and if he hadn’t died...”
Then the phone rang and she jumped.
“Spike?”
A low laugh, that sent chills up her spine. “Yes, it’s me. We’re heading out in a minute, as soon as the sun goes down. This shouldn’t take too long - how about I give you another call when we’re done?”
“OK,” she replied rather breathlessly, while the thought that he had the perfect voice for phone-sex traitorously snuck into her head. After an exchange of “See you later” she hung up, feeling oddly shaken.
Returning to her former thought, she tried to work it out - was she in love? She loved him, yes, but she also loved Xander and Willow, only that was of course different. And she still loved Angel, but there was a distinct lack of butterflies when he was around. But Spike... she swallowed. She could see his face as clearly as though he was standing in front of her, every detail vivid. She wished he could be there that instant, because suddely she needed to kiss him desperately. Needed him to hold her, to reassure her that he was really alive. She wanted to inspect him, to imprint every little nook and cranny of his body on her memory, and to stir the passion that lay waiting so close under the surface... she closed her eyes and lost herself in a world of memories. The things he could do with his hands and his mouth, the look in his eyes when - she shivered involuntarily. It was more than lust, it was... letting herself be close, but not afraid. Oh God, she was in love and he was going to leave...
She forced herself to snap out of it, but before she put the shopping away she should probably listen to the message she'd been ignoring whilst waiting for Spike to call. Sighing she pressed play. “Buffy... Johnson tells me he spoke to you, so I know you’re there. Now, I have gathered some more information and come to the conclusion that the best thing to do-” Grumbling she turned off his voice and deleted the whole message. She really, really didn’t want to know about Council business. At first she had conscientiously listened to every message, but as the months had passed, she worked out that the only ones she needed to pay attention to were the ‘problem-solved’ ones. Andrew’s stay had only reinforced this, since he would talk day and night about every single little problem he heard of. She had sent him packing at the first opportunity.
Oh - she needed to put the blood in the fridge.
*******
It was near midnight before Spike called again, voice tense and tired, telling her just to go to bed - things were *not* going to plan, and they might spend the whole night trying to find out what had happened to their contact and working out who the guy had worked for.
Although she didn’t feel tired, she fell asleep quickly, and only reluctantly got out of bed at 5 am when there was a persistent knocking on the door. Halfway there she woke sufficiently to realise that it must be Spike and hurried her feet along. Even the obligatory nightmare-scenarios that flitted through her brain didn’t prepare her for what awaited her when she opened the door. Spike was leaning against the door frame, barely able to stand up straight, and covered in blood and disgusting bits of demon-gore, looking as though he was about to faint. When he saw her, however, his face lit up in a tired smile:
“Buffy - Guess what! Angel ‘n the Blue Wonder have buggered off to Napoli! Won’t be back for days! It’s just you’n’me, pet!” He grinned, tried to stand up straight, but had to reach out to steady himself on the doorframe.
Heart in her throat, she gently helped him in, stomping down on her initial impulse to freak out.
“What happened? How hurt are you?” she asked as she sat him down in a chair (the sofa had been very expensive, and she really couldn’t afford the dry-cleaning bills on top of eveything else).
“Oh, I’m not hurt,” he said, trying to shrug nonchalantly, but she sent him a look that told him to stop being an idiot.
“But I’m not!” he insisted, “’M just... tired, and I don’t think I’ve eaten since the day before yesterday.” He frowned and then winced, as the frown caused a small cut on his forehead to open up again. “Most of the blood isn’t mine. Had to kill about a million stupid demons tonight, and the last lot exploded when they died. Bloody inconsiderate!”
Having cleaned his face (ignoring his complaints), she looked him over in greater detail and realised that he was right, there was no major damage anywhere. He still looked exhausted and she tried to think what she should do with him. Well, he needed a good clean and his clothes were filthy. She made up her mind.Taking his hand, she led him to the bathroom and told him to wait, returning moments later with a laundry basket and some towels.
“Now, you put all your clothes in here, and yourself in the shower! I’ll take your coat - we can sort it out later. When you’re clean and dry you come in my bedroom - I got some blood today, I’ll have it ready. OK?” She smiled brightly, divested him of his coat and left the bathroom, leaving Spike with a look of stunned bewilderment on his face.
Moments later she heard the shower turn on and she grinned as she put the blood in the microwave.
She was waiting for him in the bedroom a little while later when he came in, a towel wrapped around his middle. She noticed that his hair was already mostly dry, but fuzzy and sticking out in all directions, and he looked unbearably cute. She patted the bed next to where she was sitting and he cautiously sat down.
“Sit down mister and get under the covers”, she said, and he did as he was told, obviously too tired to argue. “This is...” he started saying, but she handed him the mug and told him to drink. He practically inhaled it, and she could have sworn that he seemed less pale now. “More?” she asked and he nodded, as he sent her a tired and grateful smile.
When she came back from the kitchen however, he was already fast asleep. The effect of the tousled hair was to make him look very young and vulnerable somehow, and she suddenly found it hard to remember that he was also a fierce fighter - a champion no less.
Maybe... maybe that was the difference between him and Angel. Angel always looked the hero. He was naturally tall and imposing; even asleep he looked the part - dark and mysterious. Whereas Spike was... what was he? He was like a chameleon, changing every moment, a new facade for every situation. But underneath it all... underneath it all there was just a young man who loved her more than was good for him. How old had he been when he was turned? What had he been like? What had made him stand out from the crowd to such an extent that Dru had chosen him and spent 120 years by his side? Well, tomorrow she’d start the great inquisition.
Silently she made sure that all curtains in the flat were covering the windows properly, before snuggling up to her vampire. And Dawn had called her silly when she insisted on a king size bed... Spike smiled in his sleep as she put his arm around her and laid her head on his chest. It was so soft and still, and she knew that six days would never be enough... six years wouldn’t have been enough. Surely there was some way to make him stay? He’d said something about a prophecy that could apply to either him or Angel. If only she could find a way to determine who it was going to be... because it was much more likely to be Angel, wasn’t it? And then Spike could stay with her. Thus reassuring herself she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 10
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Kathleen
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Well, it's that old thing of 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!'
Thanks for commenting. :)
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Kathleen
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Although there is a certain sort of denial going on already... they're going to have fun, dammit, even if it kills them!