Buffy didn’t know why she’d been such a bitch to Spike, he had been her rock since her return and to repay him she had crushed him. All the guy ever wanted was a measly crumb, yet she couldn’t even give him that. She was so incredibly screwed up, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She knew she didn’t love Spike, but she also knew that she had majorly lustful feelings for him. And wasn’t that how love usually started out anyway? But no, this was Spike she was talking about. SPIKE. The not-so-big-bad-anymore. He was an evil THING… Or so she had thought. But he had played guardian to Dawn while she’d been gone, when there had been nothing in it for him. He’d fought side by side with the scoobies, killing demons for the good guys. She sighed. Things used to be so simple: humans good, vampires bad. When had the black and white merged into such a murky grey? Spike had no soul, how could he claim to love her? And even if he did, what did that mean? Angel had loved her AND had a soul and he had broken her heart. But Spike wasn’t Angel.
“Gah, my brain is so going to implode if I keep arguing with myself,” Buffy muttered, massaging her temples with a sigh.
She made her way across the road, towards the magic box and was just reaching for the door handle when it was yanked open by Willow, who pushed past Buffy to get out in a hurry, saying a quick “Can’t stop, got a big fat list of things to do, see you at home!” as she went.
Buffy closed her mouth, recovering from hurricane Willow, and went straight through the shop, with a quick wave to Anya, into her training room out the back. Giles would be there soon and she was looking forward to the company of the only other person left (aside from Dawn) who hadn’t played a role in her resurrection and who wasn’t judging her every word and move to be sure she had come back “normal”.
* * *
“Maybe this map is in gibberish,” Willow mumbled, frowning as she turned the large diagram around in her hands.
She didn’t know which was the right way to read it or even which direction north was in. She had the ingredients for her spell in a small knapsack slung over her shoulder and thought that with the help of a map, finding a nice clearing in the woods on the outskirts of Sunnydale would be a cinch. She hadn’t realised how naïve that notion was until now. She scrunched the map in her hand with an exasperated sigh.
“And locater spell it is,” she conceded.
It revealed that she wasn‘t far from the clearing at all.
“Ha! I knew I was close, can’t fool me Mr Map!”
She finally pushed the last of the undergrowth aside and stepped into the clearing. It was perfect for her spell. Willow smiled with self satisfaction, strolling sedately into the centre of the grassy patch. She unpacked the candles, photos and other various ingredients, then removed the obsidian from her neck, breaking the gold clasp that attached the leather to the gem stone. Lastly, she took out the spell book, opening it to the truth revealing incantation.
Following the basic directions, Willow used the oils on the candles, rolling them both in the nutmeg and mugwort and lighting the wick of the white one. She cleared her throat.
“For Buffy and Tara.
Moon and tide save help me now,
I seek the truth here not yet found,
For underneath the fog there lies,
new possibilities for I,
So let this night be unlike others,
And let the noble show their colours,
And let the meek and cowards run,
For now the moon seeks out her sun,
And by the power that is three,
So as I will it, so mote it be.”
After saying the incantation, Willow held the obsidian over the flame, mentally counting to ten. She then balanced the pictures of Buffy and Tara on the top of the candle, so that they would both catch alight. She watched on a little forlornly as the pictures began to burn. They were nice shots. One of Buffy who had been laughing at Xander doing the funky chicken at the bronze, taken over two years ago, right before Xander had left for their last summer before college. She looked happy and more carefree than Willow had ever seen her look, before then or since. So much had changed in a couple of years.
The picture of Tara had been taken not long after they had first befriended one another, before they had become lovers. It had been of both of them, at one of their last Wicca Group events (before they had decided that the whole thing was bogus and that if they had to attend another baking drive, they would be forced to shoot themselves). Willow had ripped the picture in half to remove her own image from the spell’s path.
Satisfied that the photographs would continue to burn after she left the site, Willow put the unused oils and herbs back into her bag with the spell book and hurried back into the forest.
If she had looked back one more time, she may have noticed the scrunched up map she had left behind and the way Tara’s picture was sliding off of the candle as the flames licked and curled around it. Then she may have seen the rapidly burning photograph fall onto the ground beside the map of Sunnydale, spreading it’s flame onto the balled up paper diagram.
But she never looked back.
* * *
“Do you wanna just order a pizza?” Buffy asked Willow, wrinkling her nose at the black goo she was now scraping out of the pan and into the rubbish bin. From this little experiment she had concluded that some cooking ventures were doomed before they even began.
Willow didn’t answer.
“Hello, Wil? Anyone home?”
Buffy waved her hands in front of her friend’s face in a bid to bring her back to planet earth.
“Sorry Buff, guess I’m a little distracted,” Willow apologised.
“Everything ok?”
Willow watched Buffy scraping the base of the pan repeatedly. It looked like she might put a hole in the sturdy metal any moment now.
“Yep, all is fine and dandy in the world of Willow, no bad there…”
Buffy looked at her friend with mild disconcertion.
“Right, ‘cause you always refer to yourself in third person, Sméagol.”
Willow jumped off the kitchen stool suddenly, realising what the time was. She had to get back to the clearing to complete the last steps of the spell and throw the truth-telling wheels in motion.
“Wow, gee, is that the time? Real sorry Buffy, but I have to go… do this thing… for one of the girls from the Wicca group I used to go to, you remember the one…” Willow rambled as she gathered up her knapsack for the second time that day.
Buffy narrowed her eyes in response.
“You mean the one full of wannabe witches who baked pastries as a means of finding their inner spirituality? The ones you said were all a bunch of frauds? Sure, I remember. What exactly would you be helping one of them with?”
“Oh, she just wanted my help with this thing she’s trying to do-”
“What th-”
“Ok, gotta run, save me some pizza, k?”
Willow was out the door before Buffy could even begin to comprehend what might be going on with her friend. She was acting pretty sketchy and if Buffy didn’t have so much on her own plate, she might have been more concerned. As things stood, she picked up the phone to call Dominos.
“Hi, I’d like to place an order for delivery…”
* * *
Willow tripped ungracefully on a small shrub and stumbled into the clearing.
“Man, am I glad no one was around to see that,” she grumbled to herself.
She made her way over to the two candles, seeing that the first one had burnt out. Considering the fact that there was no breeze and she had been gone slightly longer than the intended seven hours, she assumed it had burnt all the way down. It looked like it had. She saw the pictures were now nothing more than a few small pieces and a pile of ashes ‘like a dusty vamp,’ she randomly observed.
Satisfied that all had gone as it should, Willow lit the smaller, blue candle, murmured the all important words “the spell is cast” and held the obsidian in the flame for three seconds. She then blew out the candle and left it alongside the other one, with the obsidian next to them both and the remains of the photographs scattered around the area.
Willow grinned to herself triumphantly, as she vacated the site once again.
“Ladies, it’s time to get your truth on.”
* * *
Oh I can hear you breathing
You’re picking up my scent
You’re trying to hunt me down
In the hope that I’ll give in
But I know these tracks
Better than I know you ever could
You’re breathing down my neck
But it will only make me win
Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years
Still the darkness draws us deeper
In just like a trap
But now I’ve got you here
I’ll never lead you back
For the garden’s end
Is where wilderness begins
You dug a hole for me
That I’ll bury you in
And if you raise the dead now
I might lead you back
And if you cut your hair
I might leave a map
Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years
Nobody noticed you
But now they’re on to you
You say you’ll have the last laugh
But the winters coming
And the snow will cover tracks
And I’ll be watching
Because I’m hunting you
And nobody’s buying it
Not after all these years
But somebody’s noticed you
And now I’m on to you
Lyrics are from “The Garden’s End” by Sarah Blasko
The pile of ash next to the tree outside Buffy’s window continued to grow, along with the number of cigarette butts. She peeked out once more, rolling her eyes when she saw that Spike was still there, looking up into her darkened room. She didn’t know why she was trying to be inconspicuous. She knew he could see her.
“Geesh, stalker much?” She mumbled, turning her back on the window and climbing back into bed.
She had just began her descent into the land of nod when there was a ‘taptaptap’ on her window. Her eyes flew open in annoyance.
“Go. Away.”
‘Taptaptap.’
“I’m trying to sleep Spike, get away from my window and go find someone else to annoy.”
‘Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap… taptaptaptaptaptap tappedy tap.’
Buffy flew out of bed with an aggravated growl, yanked the window open and reached her arm out into the cold night, grabbing a handful of Spike’s duster and pulling him into her room. She deposited him roughly on the floor and slammed the window down before turning to face him.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” She spat at him. She was about to punch the smirk right off of his face, but he held up his hands in a gesture of peace.
“Sorry luv, tryin’ to get some shut-eye? Didn’t mean to interrupt Slayer, if you wanted to get some sleep you shoulda just said so.”
Anticipating her reaction to his sarcastic teasing, Spike raised his arm and blocked her incoming fist. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him as he tried to read her. The sound of Buffy’s alarm clock giving a small beep to indicate midnight startled them both back to reality.
“What do you want, Spike?” Buffy asked again, this time without the malice.
“You.”
No one was more surprised at the blatant honesty of his reply than Spike himself.
Buffy gulped, not ready for this kind of straight forward honesty. Why couldn’t they just dance some more? She looked at him, unable to hide her surprise.
“Huh?”
Spike sighed and opened his mouth to try again, with a more subtle approach.
“I meant to say that you’re drivin’ me bloody insane slayer. You’re around every soddin’ corner, couldn’t get away from you if I wanted to. In my head 24/7, you are. I’m always wonderin’ if you’re doing ok, what I can do to make it better. Always picturing your damn goldilocks and wanting to touch you.”
Buffy’s eyes were like saucers and Spike knew his probably didn’t look much different. He growled in frustration.
“That wasn’t what I was planning on sayin’ either! What the bloody hell is goin’ on?!”
Buffy cocked her head to the side, watching his struggle.
“You think about my hair?”
“’Course I think about your sodding hair Buffy, it’s always bouncin’ around, all shiny and golden, like something out of a shampoo commercial,” Spike mumbled.
Buffy felt the corners of her mouth twitching and couldn’t hold back the laughter that had evaded her since her mother had died. Spike wasn’t sure quite how to take this sudden outburst. He scratched his head in confusion, on the verge of making some cynical comment, when it suddenly occurred to him that Buffy was actually laughing. Buffy, laughing. The two words hadn’t belonged in the same sentence as of late. Whether it was at his expense or not was irrelevant, it was just nice to see her smile. He’d forgotten what a stunning smile she had. It made him smile - something that also didn’t happen very often, unless you counted smirking.
When she had pulled herself together, Buffy looked up at Spike once more.
“Sorry for the laughage, that just sounded so funny coming from the so-called ‘Big Bad’.”
Spike cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Hey, I am the Big Bad, slayer, don’t be forgettin’ that. I’m so bloody bad, I could just… kiss you. I mean I could… oh, balls. Can’t seem to say anythin’ right.”
“I think the real problem here is that you can’t seem to say anything wrong.”
Whoa, where had that come from?! Since when did she ever admit that anything Spike said was right?
“Come again luv?” Spike had to hear that more than once to believe it.
“You heard me. What’s with you, bleach boy?”
“What’s with me?! What’s with you?! Here I am, pourin’ out my soul-”
“You don’t have a soul,” Buffy was quick to point out. “And what’s up with me is that I’ve been dead for three months. My friends pulled me out of heaven and nothing feels right. The only emotions I can seem to connect with are pain and detachment, I have to avoid my friends to get any peace and quiet and the only person who makes me feel anything at all is a neutered vampire - who doesn’t have a soul.”
Buffy gasped. All of a sudden the honesty wasn’t so amusing. It was like it had been taken from her with force. Things she would normally omit had just tumbled out of her mouth. Private things. This was so not natural and sooo not with the good.
Spike pounced on her words eagerly, his eyes gleaming.
“So you admit it now? Got a bit of a jones for the Big Bad, ‘ey? ‘Cause I make you feel, do I, Buffy?”
Buffy backed away from him, afraid to open her mouth again. This was ridiculous, they should be trying to figure out what was going on!
Her mouth opened of its own accord. Buffy shut her eyes to lessen the blow as much as possible.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Oh boy, was she in a whole lot of trouble.
[Reviews - 50]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 2723 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey all, hope you're enjoying it so far =). Of course, you could be sure to review so that I know for sure =P.