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Buffy was not sure how to handle the mess she had made worse with William. As if things were not delicate enough, she had gone and single-handedly destroyed him. Looking back on her actions, on her words that had cut him when she meant to scratch, she felt horrible. The only justification as to why she was so hard on him was because she wanted him to feel the raw ache and pain she had felt when he had left her alone.

Perhaps she had meant to cut after all.

The only way to describe how she felt now was guilt. Pure, unadulterated guilt. She had been so caught up in her own anger and grief that she had forgotten that William was a human being, and as such did have feelings. Feelings he masked well, but feelings nonetheless. His admission as to why he had not woken her spoke of those feelings. Those feelings he wanted to spare her from facing and dealing with in the light of day. The day after the burial, when an injury as harsh as that hurts the most.

It did not mean, however, that she did not want him there. She rather needed him there. He was the only familiar face she knew. The only one that she could share her anguish with. She was not looking for sexual comfort; she was looking for someone to relate to.

Looking up at the clock in Ella’s room as her niece napped – with Willow’s help – Buffy stood and flicked on the baby monitor and grabbed the other one to give to Willow on her way down to the kitchen. She had a plan.

Crossing the way to the playroom for Ella, she found Willow arranging Ella’s toys and books in the buckets. “Hi, Willow. Here’s the monitor. I’m just gonna head down to the kitchen and fix William something to eat.”

Willow smiled up at her. “Sure thing, Buffy.”

“Thanks.”

Humming lightly in an attempt to calm herself, Buffy quickly prepared – to the dismay of the cook – scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. The cure-all for any hangover certainly. Setting up a tray, she placed a tall glass of OJ on it with the food, a tall glass of ice water and three Tylenol.

Heading up to William’s room, she held her breath before placing the tray down on the floor and knocking lightly on William’s door.

“What?” he barked.

“Mail, sir,” she said simply, trying to disguise her voice by putting her hand over her mouth so he would let her enter.

“Come in.”

Mustering up her courage, she twisted the knob and pushed, then quickly bent over and picked up the tray, entering William’s dark as a tomb room.

“Buffy?” he asked, and she could barely make him out through the dark, squinting at her.

“It’s me.”

After a beat, soft light from his nightstand lamp shone the path to him. He looked a mess. His hair was rumpled with wayward curls, his eyes appeared red from where she stood – so they must be bad—and he looked paler than marble. “Come to finish me off?” he asked her, frowning. He gestured to the tray, “Put arsenic in that?”

She shook her head, biting back a retort, and moved forward, keeping her focus on him. Placing the tray on his lap, which was covered by a black silk comforter and from what she could see, he had black sheets and pillowcases to match. The carpet was cream colored, and the drapes were red and thick, which accounted for the extreme darkness in the light of the afternoon sun.

“I like to have a big breakfast after a drunken night. I find it helps. I put some Tylenol on the tray too, in between the water and OJ,” she explained, gesturing to the tray as she stood before him.

He looked up at her warily, “What is this?”

“Breakfast?”

“You know what I mean, Buffy.”

“It’s an apology. I tried spelling out ‘I’m sorry’ with the bacon, but they were uncooperative.”

He cracked a slight grin and then, seeming to catch himself, shook it off. “Look—“

“Can I just say something, William?”

He stared at her for a minute and then nodded briskly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lashed out on you like I did. I’m sorry I didn’t treat you like a human being with feelings. We all deal with grief in our own way and I wanted you to be like me. It doesn’t work that way. People are not robots and you cannot make them do what you want, or feel the way you want them too. I’m sorry if I seemed as if I was patronizing you. I was stuck in my own little bubble of pain and I failed to see that you were indeed going through something too. I just…. I just want to start over. For Ella’s sake and for ours. Can we do that?”

He blinked a few times as her words and actions sunk in. When she had come into his room he was expecting another round of “let’s tell William how many character flaws he has” not breakfast and never an apology.

Part of him wanted to hurt her, cut her down make her feel as vulnerable and small as she had made him feel. One look at the breakfast tray and the person holding it and his anger towards her melted away, Truth be told while Buffy infuriated seemingly every fiber of his being he could never be angry at her, hate her. He could never hate someone he ….

“Well William? Can we?”

He could see the regret in her eyes. He never wanted to be the reason she hurt. She had already felt more pain than she needed too. They both had. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps together they could heal. It would definitely be something new for him.

“We can do that,” her smile warmed his heart. He frowned as she got up off the bed.

She let out a breath that he was sure she had not been aware she was holding. The big sigh of relief. “Thank you, William.” Their eyes locked for a minute and she started to fidget slightly, and her eyes darted around the room. She was uncomfortable suddenly, he surmised. Interesting that he had that kind of power over her. “Well, I will leave you to it,” she said finally and started to turn to leave, except he did not want her to leave.

“Stay,” she turned back to him at him to give her reason to. He was coming up blank. He did not have a reason other than he wanted her to stay. “I don’t think I could do it on my own.”

Buffy’s heart raced at his words the intensity of his stare alone caused her pulse to race. She was in trouble big time. “D-do what?”

“Eat this breakfast.”

“Sure, I can do that,” and she let out another big breath she had been holding as she sat down on the bed. At this rate she would need a paper bag to breathe into.

After a few minutes of eating in the most comfortable silence, the two of them had ever had. Buffy could see the cloud of worry descend upon him. Instead of forcing him to open up though, she waited, hoping he would.

“Buffy, I have something to tell you and I don’t know how you are going to react.” He sat back against the headboard.

“Yes, you do.” Buffy answered back. “You know I am not going to like it,” she crossed her arms ready for a fight.

“Well yeah, I have to go back to London tomorrow,” he searched her face for some kind of reaction.

“Work,” she seemed to be processing the information

“Yeah, my case load has doubled since... the accident and I need to be there.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Of course I am coming back. Do you think I would just leave you here alone?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she knew it was a low blow.

“Are we back to this again? I admit it I screwed up, but to be fair I was a little out of my depth. It’s not every morning you wake up with a beautiful woman in your bed. Not everyday your sister dies in a car accident. I made the wrong decision, one I will be paying for it would seem for a very very long time.” He ran his hands through his hair in pure desperation.

“William, I’m sorry.”

“Stop it, when you apologize, its not as though you wipe the slate clean to hurt me again. I do not know many things in this world Buffy, what to do, what to say. When my father died, it was sudden like Dru. I was all set to go backpacking around the world, see the world, and live a little. It was taken from me. I had to take over the firm straight away. I had an hour off for the funeral, that’s it. When mother was sick, I worked to keep things going so that Dru could look after her,” his tears caught him by surprise as they flowed freely down his cheeks.

He felt Buffy’s arms around him as he sagged into her embrace. Letting go of the tension, guilt and pain. It took him sometime to figure the sobs that he could hear were his own.

“It’s okay William. Let it out. We will get through this.” Buffy’s voice soothed him. He lifted his head from her shoulder and looked into her eyes. He wanted to feel anything but this, he wanted to feel her.

Buffy became very still as she watched his expression change from grief to desire. She had seen the look on his face many times during their night together. As his hand slipped behind her head, she knew the outcome, and she did not reject it as she thought she might, instead she welcomed it. That alone frightened her more than anything did, and yet there she was closing her eyes as he drew her in. God, he had her under some kind of spell. In addition, just as their lips touched the bedroom door flew open.

“Ella is awake.” They sprang apart so quickly the tray went flying onto the floor. Willow stood in the doorway with Ella on her hip. Looking at the mess in front of her.

Buffy looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She looked between the mess on the floor and William trying to figure out which was the bigger disaster.

“Thank you Willow, I will take her.” William had recovered more quickly and crawled out of bed. He strode across the room and took the baby from her arms.

“Buffy, Are you ok?” Willow showed genuine concern on her face, as did William.

“Yeah, fine, I had better go and get this cleaned up,” and with that she ran out of the room.





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