As was the norm of the previous weeks, she thought of nothing but him. His smile, his laugh, and the way she felt in his arms, the way she felt about him and how she wished so much that she could tell him and know that everything would be okay; that things between them wouldn’t change. But she knew, given the circumstances, telling him how she felt would be a mistake. He was taken, in a relationship, he belonged to someone else whom he loved, and who was she to complicate their friendship? She wasn’t entirely happy just being friends with him, but she supposed it was something one learned to live with. And thinking about it further it was… bizarre, the way she felt. It wasn’t something she was used to or something she’d felt before. She didn’t even know how to accurately describe what she was feeling. He was all she thought about, all she dreamt about, and that was starting to irritate her because she couldn’t recall any of the dreams so far. Her daydreams consisted of what his lips would feel like on hers, how his hand felt in hers and on her… She didn’t know what to do with herself. She felt like she was going absolutely, out-of-her-mind, up-the-wall bonkers and she didn’t know what to do or how to do it. Then again, that wasn’t completely true because there wasn’t really anything she could do. She kept reminding herself that he had a girlfriend, so what could she do? Nothing, she couldn’t do anything because it would go against everything she believed in and stood by, and one of the last things she wanted to do was look like a hypocrite.

In light of all of this was the reason she had decided to try to make some changes about her behavior. She had decided – with the help of her mother – that she would use the self-control that she prided herself in having to alter her behavior ever so slightly that he wouldn’t notice any difference and come to her with suspicions. So, she’d chanted her promise to herself all day long, “I will distance myself from him, I will distance myself from him,” but somehow when she saw him, she couldn’t even remember what she’d been thinking about. It was like every thing, thought or person in the world faded away when she was talking with him and when she thought about this later, it scared her. It scared her that he had so much power over her; her thoughts, her feelings, her actions… The worst part about it all seemed to be that with all of the power he had over her, he wasn’t aware of it in any way. She shuddered at the thought of what he would be like if he were, and realized that she really needed to stick to her mantra. “I will distance myself from him, I will distance myself from him,” she thought over and over and over… And then suddenly it was time to go.

She climbed into the passenger side of Tara's car and they chatted and laughed about little things, things that didn’t weigh very much on a scale of importance, on their way to rehearsal. They were a few minutes late, but so was everyone else, so it didn’t bother their director, Ethan, too much. They entered the dressing room and started to undress, as it was the first dress rehearsal, while talking with the other girls; sarcastically complimenting each other on their “oh-so-sexy” costumes that just flattered them all so well. Hers was a bright blue dress that fell two or three inches below her knees and was dotted with tiny white flowers and red apples. Her apron was a different story; it was a cream color and stopped an inch above the hem of her dress, but it was too big and she had to have Willow tie it for her. Even then, she thought grudgingly, it still didn’t sit right; it kept falling down. After removing her mismatched socks and retrieving her supper from her bag, she exited the dressing room and walked to the risers where the audience would be seated for the actual show. She frowned as she tried to find a comfortable way to sit while eating her supper without flashing her panties to the entire cast. She finally decided to sit with her knees to the side; it was uncomfortable, but better than the other positions she had given a try.

Without looking, she knew the exact moment he arrived on stage and tried her hardest not to turn and look at him. Unfortunately her hardest wasn’t enough, she felt compelled to look at him, she had to and so she did.

Lord, was he something to look at…

He stood two, maybe three, inches taller than her with broad shoulders and blonde hair that she just knew had to be bleached as his eyebrows were a dark brown. His eyes were a blue that appeared to see right through her whenever she looked into them; like he could peek right into her head and read her thoughts. She didn’t like that all too much, so she avoided long-term eye contact with him when she could. She’d had physical spats with him that she hadn’t come anywhere near winning, nothing serious of course, just the two of them playing around. She’d also been in his embrace and knew firsthand just how strong he was. He was built nicely as well; with arms that were well sculpted and an abdomen to match, what she’d seen of it was worthy melting over and she almost had.

She finished what she could of her supper, she found herself not to be as hungry as she’d been before, and returned the rest to her bag in the dressing room. She walked out to the stage where she found Willow and the others, including Tara, who Willow had been dating for the past two years, and Spike, off-stage in front of the auditorium seats. Joining them, she saw that Spike had their shared prop or “genital” as Ethan referred to them. She smiled to herself at that. “Props are like genitals,” he’d said. “You only touch your own.” She and Spike shared a cane, which only fed the innuendos and made the time off- and backstage very entertaining for them and everyone else.

As soon as she had the chance, she “stole” his top hat and put it on herself, leaving him with the cane when they all began their diction exercises. At first she and a few others stood confused as the rest of the cast chanted the diction exercises she didn’t know. They finally came to one she knew, so she chanted along with them.

“Moses supposes his toes’ are roses,” she said loudly, taking care to enunciate. “But Moses supposes erroneously…”

She looked around the room at her friends, smiling at the ones who still didn’t know what they were supposed to be saying. When they finished she laughed, as did everyone else.

“The only reason I know that one is because I’ve watched Singin’ in the Rain a million times,” she said and Tara laughed.

“I didn’t know any of those,” Tara said. “I feel so lost…”

“Don’t feel bad,” Willow said as she approached them and took her girlfriends hand. “I do, too.”

The three of them laughed and Buffy couldn’t help it when her eyes wandered, looking for Spike even though she knew she shouldn’t. She found him leaning against the stage talking and laughing with Anya. She brought her attention back to the conversation she should have been participating in between Willow and Tara. She forced a little laugh and blamed her lack of participation on a brief zoning stint. She felt a light tap on her backside and knew immediately where it had come from. She turned around to face Spike and felt her insides turn to mush. He smiled at her mock innocently while she tried and failed to glare at him. She was smiling, like she always did around him, and knew it took all of the seriousness of her glare away.

“Why?” she asked him.

“Why what?” he replied while sliding the cane up her calf, raising her dress ever so slightly. She stepped away, and then quickly stepped back towards him, latching onto the cane with both hands. He stared at her incredulously, mockingly, and she smiled as she tried to wrestle the cane away from him. Realizing her intention, he began to wrestle back all the while carrying on a conversation with Willow, who smirked at them both. He tried to twist it out of her hands, but she just re-positioned them. He tried to pull it from her, but she had the curved end, giving her an advantage he was without. They ceased for a moment, looking each other in the eyes and smiling, with the cane in their hands and resting in between them. She began to lift it, as if to wrench it away from him at the last second, but he caught her off guard by pulling it up more quickly than she was prepared for and they ended up flush against one another; her back to his front. She tried to turn away with the cane in her hands, resulting in an even more pressing situation, quite literally. Shit, she thought. She remembered now – what she’d known she would forget – the promise she’d made to herself, though it didn’t do her much good there. She was standing in front of him, no, that wasn’t right. If she was honest with herself she was nearly on top of him and would be had they been lying down. The cane was being held in front of her; her back pressed so closely to his front a single sheet of paper couldn’t have fit between them. She savored the feeling of being this close to him for a moment and sighed internally when her head told her how wrong it was to stay like that; that she had to get out of there now.

She waited until she knew he was distracted – that he wouldn’t fight her – to quietly slip away from him, taking the cane with her and feeling a little victory at having gotten away with it. She went backstage to the dressing room to retrieve her Viagra mug filled with flavored water, journal and pen. She heard Ethan announce that they would be starting in Act Three, as they hadn’t finished it in the previous rehearsal, so she wouldn’t be needed for a while. She could hear the opening lines of the act and headed to “her spot” backstage, only to find Spike walking in her direction. They joked quietly about her having the cane, “touching his genitals” and vice versa when he looked curiously at the door beside them. She had many good memories in that room as that had been the place to sit and chill out in between scenes during the last play she’d been in. He opened the door quietly, looking back at her and smiling before going inside. Every bell, alarm, whistle, and voice was screaming at her not to follow him into the dark, secluded room, but something else, something smaller and more insistent, pushed her into the room behind him. She shut the door softly and hooked the cane over the door handle.

“Holy crap, it’s dark in here,” she said and almost slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand at how stupid she sounded for stating the obvious.
She squinted in an effort to somehow see him in the pitch black of the small room as she began to babble. She couldn’t see him very well, if at all, but oddly enough she could feel him. She continued to ramble, he mumbled “Yeah’s” and “Mm-hmm’s” when appropriate and she could feel him moving closer to her. She stopped talking and swallowed, suddenly feeling very nervous. She wanted him to kiss her very badly at that moment, and she got the impression he was going to as she could now feel his breath on her lips.

And then it happened.

He leaned in, she tilted her head just so, and she felt her world melt away as his lips touched hers. He kissed her slowly, gently, as if he was afraid he would break her if he wasn’t too careful. Her hands, having been at her sides, now needed to touch him, so she placed them on his sides and fisted his shirt in them in a vain effort to bring him closer to her. When he placed one hand in the curve of her side and the other at the back of her head and deepened the kiss, she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could do anything but kiss him back. He pulled away and she wanted to whimper when he kissed along her jaw and down her neck. She tried to regain some oxygen as he kissed her neck, but she found she didn’t need air as much as she needed to kiss and be kissed by him again, and turned her head so their lips met once more. His lips moved over hers and she responded in kind until breathing became a serious issue. She pulled away slightly and placed her hands on his chest in order to gain something resembling balance. He had his hands on her lower back now, rubbing it absentmindedly.

“What?” he murmured.

“Wait,” she whispered.

Now that she could semi-sort-of breathe again, she felt the butterflies in her stomach. She felt like she weighed nothing at all and was pretty sure that if Spike’s hands weren’t where they were, she would have floated away in the midst of her bliss. Her knees felt like they couldn’t hold her up and when she looked down at her hands, even though she couldn’t see them, she knew they were shaking. This is it¸ she thought. This is what I was missing with Riley. She smiled then, looked at him and it hit her.

She didn’t know for sure, but she could say with almost all certainty that he was still in a relationship with Dru.

Gods, she thought. I have to know.

“Do you or do you not have a girlfriend?” she said it softly. She hated having to ask, but what other choice did she have? She couldn’t continue to kiss him until she knew he was free to kiss her back. He didn’t answer her right away, which told her enough, but when he did she found what she’d been hoping wasn’t there.

“Well,” he said in a low tone. “That ruined it.”

She was ‘the other woman.’

“Just… answer the question. Please.”

He was, again, hesitant for a moment before answering her. And when he did, she knew what she had to do.

“Yes,” he admitted.

She had to walk away.

“Okay,” she said quietly. She turned to put her hand on the door handle and went to open the door when she stopped and thought, How could I have been so stupid? She shook her head, forced herself to smile and opened the door, stepping out of the room alone. She shook her head again and laughed a little. Hearing what sounded like shoes coming her way, she looked to her right. Damn, she thought as she tried to refrain from cursing the sky while Anya eyed her suspiciously. And then, because she knew the Powers That Be had made her the butt of their jokes that day, Spike appeared behind her as he exited the storage room. A slow, mischievous smile made its way to Anya’s face and Buffy dreaded the words she knew were coming.

“What’re you guys doing?” Anya asked teasingly.

“Nothing. We were just… Nothing” Buffy responded. Well, she thought, if the quickness of your response didn’t clue her in, the several octaves that your voice raised certainly did, and, for the second time that day, had to refrain from slapping her hand to her forehead. She turned to Spike for support and knew she wasn’t going to be getting any by the smirk that seemed to be a permanent fixture on his face. Glaring at Spike, she walked away calmly; receiving an apologetic look from Anya that made her wish the Earth would open up then and swallow her whole.

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, she was still pacing. It had begun without her knowledge shortly after she left Spike and Anya and now she couldn’t stop. She walked slowly behind the psych so as not to disturb it, replaying the kiss and the conversation afterwards in her mind and she couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have stopped it. Maybe she should’ve just… let it go. No, her conscience told her, Cos’ then you’d hate yourself even more than you do now. She wasn’t very good friends with Dru, in fact she barely knew her at all, but she couldn’t bear to think what would happen if she found out. Making up her mind to quit obsessing, and to quit pacing before she wore a hole backstage, she made her way to the dressing room where she almost literally ran into Willow, who was looking at something behind Buffy. Buffy turned around to see what had captured Willow’s attention and her stomach immediately twisted into knots. Spike was sitting in a chair while their friend, Winifred or just ‘Fred’, was standing next to him and he was laughing at something Fred had just said.


“It’s too bad that he has to act like that,” Willow said quietly. Buffy looked at her curiously.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well, like he does. You know, flirting with everyone all of the time?”

“Oh, yeah,” Buffy said. “Wait, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you think he acts like that?”

“I guess it’s because he doesn’t get to see Dru very much. Must be hard,” Willow said, and shrugged her shoulders before entering the dressing room.

“Yeah, must be hard,” Buffy repeated, and took another look at Spike and Fred. Spike looked up at her, meeting her eyes, and Buffy quickly looked away and went back to “her spot”. She picked up her journal and sat down with every intention of writing in it, but was still too jittery. Her thoughts were going at a rate which her hand could not follow and she set the journal back down. She let her head fall back and rest against the wall behind her and closed her eyes in hopes to calm down her head at least enough so she could concentrate on something other than the kiss.

She had finally gotten her mind to settle down enough that it was only a dull roar in her ears when she felt someone kick her leg. She opened one eye to see who it was and smiled when she saw Willow, who signaled it was almost time for their second scene. Running through the scene for what seemed like the millionth time, a scene she could’ve done in her sleep, she looked over at Spike. He smiled at her and she prayed he couldn’t see the blush she felt rise to her cheeks before she looked away. When the scene ended, she watched with growing frustration as Spike took a seat in the chair next to “her spot”. Deciding it couldn’t be put off any longer, she faced him.

“Can we talk?” she asked. He looked up at her and smiled again.

“Sure.”

“I need to know why,” she blurted out. Way to go, her conscience commended her. Very smooth.

“Why what?” he asked her.

“Don’t play with me; you know what,” she told him snidely. Her patience with this boy was running up fast and she wasn’t in the mood for games.

“Alright,” he conceded. He opened his mouth to say something – what, she didn’t know – but didn’t have time to finish as the scenes onstage started up again. Buffy was not to be put off; she had to know and she had to know now. She sat down on the floor next to him, picked up her notebook, flipped to the very last page and wrote. She almost handed the notebook to him, but added, as an afterthought.

Willow said you don’t get to see Dru very much, she wrote, Is that why you kissed me; because you miss her? She almost handed the notebook to him then, but added, Please don’t lie to me because you think it’s what I want to hear, as an afterthought.

She waited with her heart beating so hard she was sure it would leap right out of her chest while he read it and wrote back. After a minute or so, he handed it back to her and, with shaky hands, she read.
I think it’s because I can’t stand to be alone, even if it is for a couple days. I like you. So it wasn’t for no reason. I don’t really know why I’m like this, he said, I always have been.

I won’t lie to you; she wrote back, I live you, too. And I apologize for ‘ruining it’, but I can’t kiss you while you’re with someone else no matter how much I like you. Or it.

That’s fine. I just don’t want things to get awkward now. And I want to thank you, for not letting me continue this.

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief at the second sentence. She cared about him too much, in her opinion, to lose him to awkwardness that could be avoided.

I knew if I did, let it continue that is, it would be selfish and I’d end up getting hurt, she responded. And I won’t make it awkward if you won’t.

Okay, was all he wrote. He stood up then and reached his hand down for hers to help her up. She took it, but quickly let go as soon as she was on her feet and they walked together to the stage as Ethan gave notes for the night. She lay down on the risers, feeling as if absolutely all of her energy had been drained from her. Thinking back on the events of the night, she still couldn’t believe it.

He’d kissed her.

She’d thought about it, dreamt about it, wondered what it would be like; how wonderful and breath-taking and life-altering it would be and, now that it had happened, she knew how she should’ve felt. She should’ve been happy, overjoyed and ecstatic. She should’ve felt like she was on cloud nine, even if she never understood what being on cloud nine meant exactly. Instead, her limbs felt far too heavy to move, her heart felt like it’d been ripped out of her chest then put back in by a first year medical student and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt a stronger urge to cry.

But, joy of joy’s, he’d kissed her.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

No, she realized then that it would never be enough. She could kiss him every hour of every day for the rest of her life and it would never be enough. She wanted him which, she knew, did her no good as she couldn’t have him. Sighing, she made her way to the dressing room to get ready to go home.

Sleep, she feared, would not come easy that night.