Buffy was hesitant to say anything because William seemed so distant and unlike the boy she'd spent so many hours with in the library. He'd always been somewhat quiet and slow to warm up to conversation, but now she could almost feel the wall he'd erected between them as he remained very businesslike, counting off repetitions. Before, each day, he would gradually relax until he was actually joking and she thought, enjoying the back and forth banter that always seemed to develop between the two of them. Now, he spoke little and his face was so devoid of emotion she couldn't tell anything from it.
'But he was laughing with his friends earlier…' she thought, 'Maybe it's just me he's not comfortable around.' A thought struck her and she groaned mentally, 'Oh God, maybe he thinks I'm stalking him, showing up at the hospital and then here. Great, now I'm crazy little stalker girl, that's just fantastic.'
He demonstrated the exercise he wanted her to do next and handed her the small barbell.
She took it, fingers brushing his, and looked up at him from the bench on which she sat. "William," Buffy said softly, "How is your mother?"
He stilled. "The same," he said tersely. "Thanks for asking." He gestured for her to start the exercise. "No, that's not quite it, like this-" he held her wrist and turned it slightly so that she would have the proper angle.
Buffy sighed. "I'm sorry, I hope she's out of the hospital soon."
"Yeah." William said, "Look, after this, you can just head over to the treadmill. You've pretty much got the weights down. May want to do a half hour walking. Let me know if you need any help starting a program." He turned to go back to the desk then thought of something else and said frowning, "What did Mr. Crawford say about the locker room? Far's I know, there's only the men's…"
Buffy tried to keep her face equally as uninformative at his obvious desire to get away from her as quickly as possible. "Ummm, he said I could use the private one down there," she pointed. "I told him I didn't have anything valuable and he said I could stash my stuff in there, shower and change…so, guess I'm all set." She managed a smile, which William didn't see because he was looking somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. "Thanks for helping me."
"No problem. It's my job." William broke away at this point, relieved to be escaping the tension. He didn't want to talk about his mother. The job was supposed to help him forget that she was lying in a bed surrounded by strangers, feeling ill. He certainly didn't want to stay with Buffy, combating confusing feelings in addition to the ones he was already suppressing.
Every time she touched him he felt a little jolt go through him at the contact. 'No point thinking about that, mate. She's for the O'Connors and the Finns of the world. Wouldn't be lookin' at you.' He felt a twinge of anger at thinking she'd ever belonged to Angel, the way he'd treated her, but he quickly brushed it away. She hadn't broached the subject of her classes yet or what she really wanted here. He wouldn't let himself wonder.
He rolled his eyes; she was so out of place here it wasn't funny, in her tight pink tank top that had something silvery and glittery written across the front. It was in a difficult to read script, the silvery message light and intricate and he hadn't wanted to stare so he still didn't know what the bloody thing said. It was like those sodding bumper stickers you had to be a foot off the bloke's bumper to read. Dangerous. He'd spent most of the time trying not to look at her, but in doing so had noticed all the other gym occupants taking good long stares at that tiny shirt and her form fitting black leggings…he got irritated all over again. What was she doing here?
On his way to the desk, a man asked for a spot and he went over to him, grateful for the interruption from his thoughts.
'Well, at least I got a workout,' Buffy sighed to herself and headed for the treadmill.
A short time later, William noticed a few men standing around near the far wall of the main room. They were laughing but something about their expressions struck him as wrong. They were dressed and looked ready to leave the gym. One of the men looked around and William glanced down a moment to remain unobserved. The man drew what looked like a pocketknife out of his jeans pocket, another shoving him, grinning, towards…William took only a second to realize where it was the man was being pushed toward - the dimly lit hall where the private bathroom was located. The man had his back to him, already inserting the tip of the knife into the door and rattling it when William came up behind him. William fought down the immediate flash of rage that shot through him and said, quite calmly, "What are you doing there, mate?"
The man shot up, goofy grin sliding off his face, replaced by sullen defensiveness, "Nothing, just having a bit of fun."
William's nostrils flared. "Yeah, well, go have your fun elsewhere. This isn't the place. Might get into some trouble here."
The man looked to the knife in his hand and back at William, flexing his impressive arm muscles pointedly and said loudly. "Yeah? How’d you figure that?"
William shrugged at him, continuing to keep anything threatening out of his voice, but it still rose noticeably as he said, "Gym's got rules. That-" he pointed at the door, "depending on what you were doing, might also be a crime of some sort. That's what I figure."
The man pondered this silently, and then clicked the knife closed. "Yeah, not worth the trouble," he mumbled. He didn't look back as he left the hall.
William stood there, straining to keep his cool, staring after the knife wielding would-be what? Peeping Tom at best. Rapist? He didn't think the man would be so bold, certainly not joking around with his friends about it, but he didn't want to think about it.
The door opened and Buffy peeked out at him with wide green eyes, her hair still tousled and wet, street clothes rumpled as though she'd pulled them on in a hurry. "I heard…" Her voice was shaky, "I heard the doorknob rattle and then…" She clutched the doorknob tightly, "I thought someone was going to come in and then you were talking to someone-"
William stepped over to her and awkwardly rubbed her arm soothingly, "It's ok, pet. I don't think they'll be doing that again." He sighed at her, "But you can see why I said this isn't really the place for you."
Buffy was suddenly near tears. She hadn't accomplished anything but making William's job more difficult and had somehow attracted unwanted attention of the worst sort. This had been such a bad idea…but…
Her eyes were glassy, but she wasn't crying, and she raised them to his with new certainty, "I want…I want you to teach me how to defend myself." She paused, "When Angel had you pinned in the hall and later-" her voice lowered, "when he had me pinned in the closet," she ignored the way this shattered his impassive mask and replaced it with sheer fury, "and then when you were all fighting at the Bronze…I felt so helpless. There was nothing I could do." She frowned, "Nothing. Nothing but stand there and take it or stand there and watch. I'm tired of not being able to do anything," she said angrily, "I'm tired of being small and being pushed around and," she said softer now, pleading with him, "being hurt. I want to be able to defend myself," she repeated, "to be able to do something." All of her life she'd felt either shielded or pushed around by the men around her, she wanted to grasp some control, take back some power, do something, anything to feel a little less vulnerable.
William took in her earnest plea for a moment, hand resting on her shoulder lightly. "Well, first thing you need to know is you don't attack, you run. You see an opportunity, you take it and you run…that's the safest thing to do, yeah? Doing something like stepping in between us at the Bronze wouldn't have been safe at all, no matter what you knew how to do. You run."
"Yeah, I already know how to run!" She said, irritated that he wasn't taking her seriously, "Didn't work too well with Angel and tell me where I was supposed to run just now? Huh?" She started to turn to grab her stuff and leave in a huff, but he held onto her shoulder gently, holding her back.
"Didn't mean I wouldn't help you," William said gruffly, "that's the first thing to know is all, you have a bad situation, first see if you can run. Then if you can't, there are other things to try so you can get free enough to run."
"Then you'll help me?" Buffy asked him. "You'll help me learn self defense?"
"Of course he will!" George Crawford said cheerfully, stepping in front of them and clapping William on the back, "Be glad to give you hour long classes, often as you like and if you'll just step this way, Miss Summers, we can discuss the rate." Buffy grabbed for her things in a hurry and shot a last look at William, still standing in the doorway, as Mr. Crawford firmly escorted her to his office.
Buffy escaped the office, still dazed at Mr. Crawford's spiel. She'd signed up for a run of twelve classes with William at an exorbitant rate. 'I hope he'll see some of that money,' she thought, frowning doubtfully. Then she saw something that deepened her frown. William was standing at the desk and a dark haired girl was teasingly ruffling his hair and leaning in to whisper something to him. She stopped and studied the girl and as she did, Drusilla turned her head slightly, revealing her face and Buffy recognized the singer from the week before. The one William had left with. She felt an irrational urge to yank the girl's hand out of William's hair. Slender and graceful in a dark blue dress, Drusilla pressed into his side lightly and slid her hand down William's back. Buffy's lips firmed and she stalked over to the desk.
"New friend, William? We haven't met." Buffy said coolly.
William started and looked at her, "Oh, this is Drusilla," he said, "Mr. Crawford's daughter. She got me the job here."
Smile never wavering, Drusilla turned and favored Buffy with a haughty onceover and seemingly finding her lacking said, "Who is this, my Spike, a little friend from school?"
Buffy fumed silently as William said again irritably, "DRU…I am not a DOG."
"Rrrrowf, rrrruff," Drusilla barked playfully at him, hanging on his arm.
He rolled his eyes at her.
"Does she do other tricks too, William? Or just the one." Buffy's icy voice dripped with a disdain he'd never heard from her before and he looked at her, puzzled.
"She's-" he stopped, looking back and forth between the two girls and thinking Buffy had never resembled one of her stuck up friends more than this moment, her pretty face arrogant and cold and Dru, Dru was smiling like she was playing the best game ever.
Caught between Buffy's glare and Dru's glee, he opted for flight. "Erm, Buffy, how are you getting home?" He asked, "If you're taking the bus, let me walk you to the stop. I can take a five minute break." Dru pouted slightly, and cast her eyes to the ceiling, but released his arm.
"Oh yes, little girls shouldn't run around unsupervised." Drusilla said, smirking at Buffy.
Buffy wanted to say she could take care of herself just fine, thank you, but she remembered the earlier incident and bit down her instinctive response. "Sure, thanks," she said, flicking her ponytail over one shoulder, chin in the air, "Pleasure meeting you, umm, whatever your name was." With that, she strode to the door and William was left scrambling to catch up.
"Dru, what've I told you about hanging around here?" Mr. Crawford said, coming up behind her.
"Oh," Dru tapped her long, slender fingers idly on the desk, "not to," she said absently, "Daddy-"
"YES. NOT TO." A vein in his temple throbbed visibly. "SO-"
"Daddy, what's that girl doing here?"
"She's a paying customer Dru! Unlike you!" Mr. Crawford said loudly. "Why?"
"I don't like her." Drusilla pouted. "She shouldn't come here again."
"Tough. She's going to be paying a pretty penny for lessons with young Will and maybe she'll bring in a few more of her friends. That type lets money run through their fingers like water. She does that and it'll bring me a nice rise in the profits every month." A fond gleam entered his eye at the thought of all the possible money to come.
"But I don't want her here." Drusilla said again.
Mr. Crawford snapped out of his avaricious daydream abruptly and said in a dangerously low tone to his only daughter, "If you don't want to see her, DO AS I TELL YOU AND DON'T COME IN HERE!" With that, he stormed towards his office.
Drusilla didn’t bother to watch him go as she settled on the stool to wait for William’s return.
Please review if you have the time :) Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, they're fun to read and they do inspire me to find the time to sit down and write. I appreciate it!