Rushing up the stairs, after slipping her phone in her pocket, she burst through Spike’s room to find him still in bed, on his side, watching for her.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asked.
He pouted, “You left.”
She smiled softly, “Stop pouting.” Coming over, she sat down beside him on the bed. “How do you feel?”
“Like a marching band is inside my head. They’re really loud and they’re making my brain turn to mush.”
“Or. . . too much to drink,” she said lightly . “Water?”
Maneuvering himself to a sitting position, he grimaced, “Yeah, I think I need to hit the loo.”
She wrinkled her nose, “Are you gonna puke?”
“Let’s hope not.”
Meeting back in his room, she handed him Tylenol and water. “Do you want something to eat? Something greasy maybe?”
He turned green at the mere thought and Buffy had to giggle at the expression on his face.
“You trying to kill me?” he grumbled.
“No. Why don’t you lie down and get some—“
“Stay with me.”
“What?” she asked, blinking.
He set his glass down and looked up at her. “Will you stay with me? Please? I –I just want to talk. Or not. Just. . . whatever. Will you?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded, “Yeah, I will.”
Depositing her cell on his nightstand, she crawled back in bed and faced him. They lay there, staring at each other the mid-morning sun bursting through the shades at the corners, leaving the room dim, but not dark.
“Thank you for coming for me,” he whispered.
“You know I would do that for you,” she whispered back and reached out, pushing some errant curls back against his scalp.
Grasping her hand in his gently, he kept his eyes trained on her and kissed her fingertips. “Pet, I – I’m such a bloody fuck – up.”
“No, you’re—“
“Don’t say I’m not,” he groused. “You’ve been telling me that in all sorts of ways since you got here. You think it too.”
“I was angry with you,” she asserted.
“Yeah, you were angry with me because I’m such a bloody fuck – up!”
“No, Spike,” she said, starting to sit up.
Reaching out, he halted her movements. “Don’t. Look at me.”
Nodding, she lay back down, “You’re not a fuck up. You just . . . you’ve made poor choices that had some consequences you weren’t fully aware of until recently. I think you’ve always known your wild lifestyle had to catch up with you at some point, and I think you’ve always known that you weren’t exactly happy with your lifestyle. Maybe. . . Maybe Harmony hurt you more than you thought she would…it seems everything unraveled around that time.”
He shook his head slightly, as well as he could with his head on his pillow, “No. It wasn’t Harmony. I never cared for her that way. Not really anyway. She was. . . amusing at best. In an annoying kind of way. I don’t know what she was, really. She just was, if that makes any sense. She doted on me, I guess, and that’s what . . . that’s what I wanted. Thought I wanted. Thought I needed. But it wasn’t her that caused …this.” He met her eyes. “It was you.”
She made a face, “Gee, thanks.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound bad. It’s not bad. Well, I mean it’s not exactly pleasant, but if you didn’t come and basically put the bloody mirror up in front of my face, I never would have realized.” He shut his eyes and sighed, “I’ve made a lot of wrong bloody calls,” he murmured, and then opened his eyes, gazing at her intently. “How have you been able to stand me? How have you been able to be in my life and tolerate it?”
“Because I know the person you are inside. The real person you are inside,” she said simply.
He looked disbelieving. “How have you been able to see that?” he asked, incredulous.
“Because you show him to me. You’ve got a brain up there, William Giles,” she said, tapping his head lightly with her fingertips, “and a heart in there,” she said tapping his chest lightly. “You just hide them well at times. A lot of the time. You’ve never really let anyone in.”
“I let you in,” he whispered, his eyes ablaze with flooded emotion. “I let you in though.”
“Yeah, you have. Sometimes you still try to hide from me too.”
“Because it frightens me,” he said, averting his eyes from her, “frightens me how well you know me, see through me – and you’re still here. But I’m afraid to . . . . “ he was struggling to find the right words, “I’m afraid to show you all of me still because what if you hate what you see? What if you hate me and then leave me.” He shook his head, “I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t—“
“Spike, stop. Look at me.”
He looked up at her, trembling—despite how he tried to hide it.
“I got a lot of you last night. I saw a lot of the things you needed and wanted without you even having to say a word. Just the fact that you wanted me by your side even if you were capable, though not perfectly, at getting yourself to bed. You felt alone last night, I know you did. You were upset by whatever happened over at Sam’s and you drank yourself into oblivion. Not the best way to cope with things, mind you, but you did it nonetheless. The fact that you wanted me to stay here with you—“
“I did need you,” he admitted hoarsely. “Buffy, I . . . I need you like I’ve never needed anyone. I’m a right wanker and I don’t deserve you. You’re so. . . good, an angel and I’m –“
“Spike no,” she cut him off, shaking her head, “I’m not an angel. I’m a human being that makes mistakes just like anyone else and I’m not always perfect at admitting when I’m wrong or doing anything about it when I know I am.”
“But you never would have done the things I’ve done – you never would have been a weekend mother. You wouldn’t whore yourself out to anything that moves and smiles in your direction just for the thrill of it all –“
“It doesn’t matter what I would or wouldn’t do—“
“Yes it does,” he said forcefully. “Because I’m dirt.”
“No, you’re not dirt. You’re feeling quite sorry for yourself and nursing quite a hangover, but you’re not dirt. I wouldn’t be friends with you, if you were dirt. I’d have turned tail a long time ago if I thought you were dirt. Spike, you have it in you to be the man you want to be, I know it. I’ve seen him. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, it matters now what you do.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What do I do then?”
“I can’t give you all the answers. I will hold your hand, and I will stand by your side, but I won’t do the work for you. You have to do it.”
“I have to talk to Sam.”
“That’s a good first step.”
“And Alicia.”
“That’s another good step.”
“Can I tell you what happened yesterday now?”
She smiled, “Of course.”