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Investigations

"Lindsey, can I ask you a question?" Buffy asked settling her hands in her napkin covered lap.

"Of course you can," he looked up from his plate and glanced at her half full
plate. "You're not going to eat anymore? You didn't eat that much, sweetheart."

She looked down at her plate and then back up at him. "I'm all set."

He frowned for a half a second and then nodded. "What is it you wanted to
ask me?"

"What was our relationship like?"

The fork that was en route to his mouth stopped. He put it down and met
her eyes. "Fun, loving, exciting—it was perfect. We were very happy." He
smiled. "And we will be again."

"Did you and Angel get along?"

"Well, he was always very protective of you. I don't think anyone is good
enough for you according to Angel. Not that that's a bad thing however. I
don't think anyone, including me, is good enough for you."

She grabbed her fork then and started pushing her food around on her
plate thoughtfully. "We had to have had problems. Did we argue a lot?"

He frowned, "We argued over stupid stuff like who was going to do the
dishes or who didn't put the towels in the hamper, but nothing serious,
why?"

"We never split up for a little bit or anything?"

"No. Buffy, where is this coming from?"

"Just wondering," she shrugged. Trying to figure out where William came
into all of this. If we had such a good relationship, then why did I stray? she
thought. If I did in fact stray. She placed her fork down again. "How long
before we moved in together?"

He smiled now. "Four months."

Her eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yep. We just knew it was right."

"How come you never proposed? Three years is a long time to be living
together and not getting hitched."

He looked stunned and just a touch uncomfortable by that question. "We
talked about it, but we also didn't want to ruin a good thing."

"Were you planning on asking me?"

"Buffy, where are all these questions coming from?" he sounded a tad
annoyed.

"I'm trying to understand our relationship is all. It's not like you tell me a
whole lot about it."

"You've never asked before."

"So now I am—Are you annoyed?"

"No, Buffy," he shook his head and reached across the table, grabbing her
hand. "I'm not annoyed. I guess just like its hard for you to talk about, it's
hard for me too. I'm sorry if I snapped at you. Sometimes it's hard to think
of what we had and how now—" he stopped. "I'm sorry."

Now she felt guilty. Of course it was hard for him too. Why wouldn't it be?
It wasn't only her that had lost things, he had too. He went from having her
with him in his house, to having her move out because she didn't know him
well enough at all to be living with him. It had to hurt him too. And he
probably didn't want to put undue stress on her by telling her about their
relationship. In fact, thinking about it did put pressure on her to hurry up
and remember when she didn't know if she ever would again.

"I'm sorry too," she whispered. "I know it must be hard for you too."

"Let's focus on making new memories. Let's not dwell on what happened or
didn't happen and just think about the present. It's like a clean slate that
we can remake our history on."

She nodded, "Yes, I like that. It's really all we can do right?" she asked
lightly, giving him a light smile.

"Right. How bout some dessert darlin'?"

"Oh, I don't really want any. I'm kind of full," she patted her tummy,
thinking how she probably shouldn't have helped herself to a bowl of mac
and cheese with Angel before Lindsey picked her up.

"Please? At least share with me?"

She took a deep breath and then agreed. "Sure."

He smiled. "Thanks."




Spike stood outside the convenience store, checking his watch for the third time and trying not to have a coronary that she was only ten minutes late. Besides, if she didn't show, he knew where she lived. He supposed it would be difficult to rid himself of the fear of losing her – literally losing her – after having spent all that time having that infernal dream and not being able to find her. Now in the dream when he stepped out in the hall to look for her, she was down the hall rounding the corner. The symbolism wasn't lost on him, but it was better than not being able to find her at all.

So now, as he checked his watch for the fourth time and stuck his hands
deep in his jeans, he was ready to go hunting if he had to again. He sucked
his breath in and was about to start for his car when he saw her. He let the
breath out through his teeth with relief. She was walking with an old man
with white hair and a slouched gait. She was laughing at something he was
saying and he found himself grinning like an idiot at the sight. She looked so
much more relaxed than the day before. She looked as if she didn't have a
care in the world. The day before it was as if she had the weight of the
world on her shoulders. He wanted to see her like this all the time; glowing
in her happiness. He wanted to be the one to make her laugh and smile like
that.

She looked up to see him and waved; a bright smile on her beautiful face.
He smiled and waved back. The old man departed after Buffy gave him a
friendly and affectionate hug and she came up to Spike.

"Hi!" she greeted him cheerfully.

He smiled broadly, feeling the urge to hug her, but not wanting to scare her
if he did so. "Hi. Who was that?" he asked, pointing to the old man who was
crossing the street.

"Oh, that's Robert. Nice old man."

"How do you know him?"

"I met him at Boston Common one day. I was sitting on a park bench just
minding my own business when Robert came up to feed the ducks. Seems I
was in his spot. We started talking and since then we've been taking daily
walks together."

"Did you know him before--?"

She shook her head, "Nope. And that's the beauty of it. I met him after."

Spike nodded, "No pressure then."

"Right. He doesn't expect anything of me."

Taking his hands out of his pockets, he lightly grabbed her wrist, making
her look at him. "Buffy, I don't expect anything of you either."

She didn't look like she believed him. "Don't you?" she challenged.

"I just want to spend time with you."

"For what, William? You know I have a boyfriend—" she stopped abruptly
and twisted her hand away from his grasp.

"I don't want to make this hard on you Buffy. If I am, tell me and I'll walk
away." Please, don't make me walk away, he begged her in his mind, please.
"Are you hungry? I could take you to the diner Angel and I frequent," she said looking up at him.

He inwardly breathed a huge sigh of relief. "That sounds great."

She nodded, "All right. Let's go then."




"Where are you staying anyway?" Buffy asked, taking a huge bite of her burger.

He stared at her, amazed by her ability to take such a large bite. Not to
mention the amount of food she could pack away. "The uh, Boston Harbor
Hotel."

Her eyes widened. "Really? I've never actually been inside there. It's
absolutely gorgeous from the outside. Is it really gorgeous inside?"

"Maybe you can come up and—forget I said that."

She gave him a pointed look. "I think I will. I asked my boyfriend if we
ever had any problems last night."

"Why?"

"To find out what made me stray."

"Aside from tight, hot body?"

She shook her head, a slight grin on her face. "Yeah, aside from that."

"And?"

"According to him, we've never had any serious problems. Never even split
up."

Spike nodded slowly.

"What?"

He looked up at her. "What?"

"You're thinking something. Tell me."

"Well, do you really think he'd tell you if there were issues in your
relationship? It's not like he wants to tell you that you got annoyed when he
spent all day Sunday watching football or it drove him crazy that you
couldn't cook or that he was too controlling or that—what?" She looked
uncomfortable. "I talk too much sometimes about things I don't know
about—what is it?"

"Just what you said. Kind of hit the nail on the head."

"How do you mean?"

"After he said that about us not having any serious problems, he said that
it was a clean slate for us."

"And you didn't question him?"

"What was I supposed to say?" she demanded.

"What he meant. Saying ‘clean slate' kind of means as if you're starting
over—"

"Well, we are, William."

"Saying ‘clean slate' has the intention that you're starting over from
something bad."

"You don't know that it means that," she waved him off, popping a fry in
her mouth and shifting in her seat.

"A second ago I hit the nail on the head. Now you're back tracking."

She eyes him warily. "I can see why you're an attorney. You don't miss
anything do you?"

"Nope. What's going on inside your head Buffy?"

"So many things. Odd really since I'm missing such a huge chunk. Just
seems the more I learn everyday about someone or something, it gets just
a little bit harder."

"I want to understand. Explain to me what its like," and he leaned forward,
giving her his full attention.

"Okay, well, you ever play that game ‘Memory' when you were a kid?"

He furrowed his brow, "'Memory'. Explain it to me."

"You know, you have these cards that have shapes or fruit or whatever on
one side and the other side there's nothing. Well, there's duplicates of the
cards with the shapes on them and you place them face down so the blank
side is up. The object is to turn over a card and match it with its mate. The
trick is to keep inventory in your mind on where the cards are so you can
go back and find the mates to each card."

"Ah, yes, I think I do remember playing something like that. And that's
how you feel? Like you're playing memory?"

"Yeah, sort of. I was never really all that good with the game and it was
frustrating when I'd turn over cards and they didn't match because I was
always a row or two off on where the mate to a card was. The person I
played with inevitably always won because I did all the work for them and
they had a great memory to remember all the cards that I flipped over for
them. So, it's frustrating because all these people have all these memories
and they keep flipping over all these cards and I can't keep up with it. I can
only go by what I know and I feel as if I'm always a row or two off and they
have all the power because they know where the cards are. They can keep
flipping them over and making matches, but I don't know where they are.
So I guess I feel because everyone else knows where the cards are, they
can make matches and I can't."

"Except some of those matches could be mismatches Buffy. Say Lindsey
flips over oranges, and he picks up an apple and doesn't show you the card,
he just tucks it away and makes you think he picked up another orange. So
there's an orange out there missing its mate. It's up to you to figure it out
by uncovering all those cards."

"But if everyone knows where they are?"

"You ask questions. And follow your gut. Always follow your gut Buffy.
Didn't you know that a large part of being an attorney is following your
instincts? If something doesn't add up, then keep asking those questions –
even change them up, vary them—until you get the answer you're satisfied
with."

"The truth."

"Right."

"So then the reason his comment of a ‘clean slate' didn't sit well with me
was because my gut didn't think it jived."

"Right."

"So then the same could be said for why I keep questioning the so called
relationship we had?"

He sighed heavily and raked a hand through his hair. "Right. How do you
feel about it though?" he asked softly. "What does your gut tell you? Not
your head. Your gut."

She stared at him for a long time, assessing him, studying him. Then she
looked away toward the counter and then back at him. "You should really
try the apple pie. It's good."

Spike grinned and agreed.





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