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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay this is where the bit of Buffy/Other starts to come in. I did warn you guys that it was in here so please be kind. I promise nothing too graphic and there is a reason it's in here so you're gonna have to trust me. With that being said, go on and give it a read and let me know what you think. As always a huge thanks to my wonderful beta, you're the best! Kuudos!
CH 3

“I’m sorry William, but she’s not here,” Joyce informed her son-n-law. It was funny how she forgot that they were still married. She had wondered why neither of them had filed for divorce, but she figured that they just weren’t ready to admit that it truly was over.


William didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that she wasn’t there. A small apart of him wanted to hold her, to touch her, to tell her that he still loved her and that he would do anything just to have her back again, but there was the bigger part of him that knew he just couldn’t do that. Not just because he couldn’t bring himself to do it, but because she wouldn’t let him. She had made her choice. She chose her dreams over him and that was just something he couldn’t compete with.


The look in his eyes must have told Joyce his true feelings because she was wrapping him in a warm hug instantly.


“William I know you must still be hurting, but you really need to talk to Buffy.”


William pulled out of Joyce’s arms as if she had burned him. That was the first time he had heard her name since he had left Sunnydale eight years ago. It was like a knife to the heart. It cut him deep to his very soul. He slowly backed away with silent tears streaming down his face.


“I-I have to go,” he mumbled as he continued to back away from Joyce as if it would make it all go away.


“William wait,” Joyce pleaded, but before she could reach him, he had taken off down the street.


William ran, ran as fast as his legs would carry him. That’s what he always did when it came to Buffy. When she had told him she was leaving without him he had run to England. He made sure he was as far away from her as possible hoping that maybe the distance between them would make the hurt go away, but in actuality, it had only made it worse.


William ran until he could taste the blood in his lungs. He stopped, gasping and coughing, coughing so hard that he threw up.


Standing there clutching his gut, he dry heaved what little was in his stomach from the day before. He wiped his sweat soaked brow and began the long walk back to his father’s house.


**************************************************************************************


Buffy Summers stretched lazily in her large hotel bed and let the warm California sun warm her skin. It had been so long since she had been back to the west coast and it felt nice. New York was nice enough, but it would never replace that place in her heart that sunny California held.


Buffy was about to get out of bed when two strong warm arms pulled her back and securely into their tight embrace.


“Hey darlin’, where’s my good mornin’ kiss?” Lindsey McDonald drawled in his smooth mid-western accent.


Buffy smiled and placed a sweet kiss to his lips. “Sorry, thought you were still asleep,” Buffy apologized.


“Well I wouldn’t complain if you woke me up,” Lindsey replied suggestively as he let his hands skim across the exposed flesh of her stomach.


Buffy quickly pulled out of Lindsey’s arms, pulled down her thin camisole, and pointed a finger at him. “Oh no you don’t mister. We have lots of work to do before tonight, and you and I both know that if you get that started neither of us will leave this room till well after noon,” she scolded.


Lindsey held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, you win,” he relented. Sitting up in bed, he swung his legs over the side and looked up at Buffy with a grin curling at the edge of his lips.


“God I love you,” he admitted with a twinkle in his eyes.


Buffy felt the raw panic she always felt when Lindsey told her that he loved her. Sure she cared about him and they had been together for over five years now, but she had vowed to herself that she would never love again, not after what had happened the first time.


Lindsey could see Buffy retreat back within herself. It hurt him beyond words that she couldn’t bring herself to say it back. They had been together for five years and she still keep that part of her heart to herself.


“I’m gonna go get a shower,” she replied softly and left for the bathroom without another word.


Lindsey watched as Buffy walked away from him and shook his head. He loved Buffy with all his heart, but he didn’t know if it was quite enough for the both of them.


When he had discovered Buffy six years ago playing in a small bar in Manhattan, he had instantly fallen in love. The way she poured out her soul into her music was something he hadn’t seen in a long time. When he had approached her after her set, she had instantly told him she wasn’t interested and simply walked off not even giving him a second glance.


Lindsey went to that small bar every night in hopes of catching what he new would be the next greatest hit.
He had all but given up after a week of not seeing her, and then on his last attempt, she had showed.


Lindsey was determined that he was not going to take no for an answer, so he took a different approach this time, more business like. Game face in place, he walked up, stuck out his hand, and introduced himself as the talent manager for M&R records.


Buffy had at first thought it was a pick up line until he pulled out a card and handed it to her telling her that if she was interested to come by the studio and show them what she had. That’s when she got her chance to make her dream a reality.


After a year of trying to convince Buffy to go out with him for dinner, she had finally broken down and agreed to ‘just dinner’, and they had been together ever since.


It was hard at first getting Buffy to open up to him about herself, but after some time she explained why she kept her past in her past. She had told him that she had married young but needed to go and find herself before she could live someone else’s dream.


Lindsey knew that Buffy was still married, but he had learned the hard way what happens when you push the subject of her filing for divorce.


It was their three year anniversary and Lindsey was planning on proposing. He had arranged for a big romantic evening and then after dinner he was going to pop the question. Everything went as planned except when Lindsey asked Buffy to marry him, she ran out of the restaurant, leaving him on bended knee.


Lindsey had run after her and demanded to know why she had reacted like that. All Buffy had said was that he knew why and then stormed off down the street.


The next day Lindsey went to her apartment and tried to find a way to make Buffy see that he loved her and that he would do anything to spend the rest of his life with her. When he had asked again why she wouldn’t marry him, she had cried and screamed that she was still married.


Lindsay let his temper get the better of him and screamed that she needed to just get divorced and be done with it already.


Buffy had told him to get out and never come back again. It was months after that until she had finally agreed to talk with him over coffee.


Buffy had agreed to take him back if he promised to never bring up marriage until she was ready. And now here they were today after all this time still doing the same song and dance. Lindsey telling Buffy that he loved her and Buffy claming up and acting like he had said he’d killed a preacher.


With a heavy sigh, Lindsey got up off the bed, walked over to the desk, and started going over the itinerary for that night’s concert. What else was there for him to do?


Buffy stood under the hot stream of water letting it wash away all the tension in her body. Why couldn’t she tell Lindsey that she loved him? There was only one answer that she could possible think of, William.


William had been her first love, first kiss, first everything. William Randall Giles had been her older brother, Angel’s best friend since they were in kindergarten. He was two years older than her so he had always looked at her as Angel’s bratty sister until Buffy’s sixteenth birthday when he’d given her her first kiss. That’s when everything had changed.


The night of William’s graduation Buffy decided to give him her most precious gift, her virginity. They had made promises of being together forever and that he would go to collage at UC Sunnydale so he could be close to her.


Everything was perfect. They stayed together while Buffy finished high school and on the night of Buffy’s graduation they ran off to Vegas, got married at some cheesy Elvis chapel and spent their honeymoon night at the ‘Heartbreak Hotel’.


Neither of their parents’ were surprised when Buffy and William came home and said that they had gotten married. They just thought that they would have at least had a wedding that didn’t have an Elvis impersonator as their witness.


Things were going just how they had both dreamed. Both Buffy and William were enrolled in college. William was almost done with his degree and Buffy had decided to major in music. They both were living out their dreams until the day that William told her that they were going to move to England so he could work for his stepfather’s firm.


Buffy had explained to him that she wanted to finish her degree and then make it big in the music industry. If she moved to England then she would have to give up everything she had worked so hard for.


William asked her if she could put it off for a few years, just until he got settled into his career enough that they could come back to the states and he could start a firm of his own.


Buffy had told him that she had come too far to give up her dreams and that if he couldn’t find something here in the states, then he was going to England alone.


William had begged and pleaded with her to reconsider and to give the idea of moving to England a chance, but she had flat out refused and left the house to go to her mother’s.


Buffy felt the water begin to run cold as she stood in the shower lost in thought. How had everything gone so wrong? Buffy closed her eyes and replayed the fateful night in her mind. The night she threw her happy life as she knew it away.




**Flashback**

Eight Years Ago


“Buffy please don’t do this,” William begged. He could see his life crumbling around him as his wife stood there, face void of all emotion.


“I’m sorry William, but I have to find out who I am before I just become your wife,” Buffy explained trying to mask the hurt that was clenching her heart like a vise.


William felt his anger bubble to the surface. “So what, you’re just gonna throw the last two fucking years of our marriage away like they never happened,” he snapped at her.


“Well maybe if you weren’t so damn selfish none of this would be happening,” Buffy snapped back, face red with rage.


Spike looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Me?! I’m being fucking selfish? What the hell do you think you’re doing? Telling me that I either stay here or you’re leavin’ me. If that’s not the fucking pot calling the kettle black,” he retorted snidely.


“Oh, so it’s okay to tell me to give up everything I’ve worked for to follow you to do what, go play in step daddy’s office,” she snapped. She knew it was a low blow, but she was pissed off and really wasn’t too concerned with being nice.


Spike looked at her aghast. “You know what Buffy? I’m sorry if I want to make sure I can provide for my wife, really I am, but if that’s what you really think of me, then you know what, fucking stay, I really don’t care either way anymore. Just remember, when your little dream blows up in your face, don’t say I never said I fucking told you so,” he ground out through clinched teeth and then turned and walked away and never looked back.


Buffy stood there as silent tears ran down her cheeks as the only man she had ever loved walked out of her life. She stood there until he was completely out of sight. Then with what felt like might be her last breath, she whispered, “I’m sorry William, I’m so sorry.”


**** ****


Buffy stood under the now cold water shaking violently. She wasn’t quite sure if it was from the icy water or the emotions that were wracking her to her very core.


Buffy turned off the shower and grabbed the terry cloth towel that was hanging next to the shower. She wrapped herself in its warmth and rubbed her arms trying to fight off the chill that seemed to have seeped into her bones.


Pulling a comb through her hair, she walked out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed with a far off look in her eyes.


Lindsey turned to look at Buffy and frowned. He had seen this look all too often. He could always tell when Buffy was thinking about her past. It was if the light that shown so bright in her eyes just turned off to leave her normally vibrant emerald eyes a dull washed out green.


Lindsey reached out his hand to hold hers. When he felt her small icy fingers in his hand, he furrowed his brow.


“Baby your hands are like ice,” he pointed out as he brought her hand to his mouth and blew on them, trying to warm them up.


“I guess I stayed in the shower too long,” Buffy replied in a distant voice.


“Yeah I guess so,” Lindsey replied in a mournful voice. She still wasn’t going to tell him what was bothering her.


Buffy got up and went to find something to wear. She had a long day ahead of her and it wouldn’t do her any good to let her mind get bogged down with painful memories. Like flipping a switch, Buffy plastered a smile on her face and asked chipperly, “So what’s first on the agenda today?”


Yep, there was his Cleopatra, queen of denial. With a shake of his head, Lindsy ran off the day’s plans as Buffy got dressed.


“You have to be in Sunnydale at four so you can do autographs and then at five there will be a small meet and greet where they will have a Q&A session, so be prepared to answer any of the latest tabloids,” he informed her with a knowing look.


“No problem.” Buffy assured him. “So will I have time to go by my Mom’s house before the concert or will I have to have her make an appointment for that,” Buffy asked dryly.


“Sorry darlin, you have to hold off goin’ to your mom’s till after the concert. From six to seven-thirty you got warm-up,” he explained.


Buffy let out a huff. “Fine, I guess I’ll call my mom and tell her I won’t be over till tomorrow afternoon, ‘cause you and I both know I won’t get out of there till late tonight,” she commented knowingly.


“That’s the price you pay to be the star you are,” Lindsey pointed out going back to his paper work.


Buffy felt the hurt creep back into her heart. The price she had paid. It was a price she would never be able to forget, not for as long as she lived.






Huge thanks to MidnightGirl, Dee, DaniD, Nicki, daisy, vitalis, guzu, Brat, chrissnicole, Kimber, Pam S, caatje, lacey, jt, and jenny for the amazing reviews! I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate them. You guys rock! Kuddos!!!!!!





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