Chapter 8:
After skimming over the calendar the next morning, Buffy realized that she forgot how long 3 weeks really was. It was more than just 21 days; it was 21 dinners without the kids, 21 nights without story time with Sarah, 21 days of her life without Barbie’s cluttering the hallway and Lego pieces all over the living room carpet, which hurt when you stepped on them with your bare feet….21 days too long away from her children.
“Now remember, Sweetie, if you have any problems don’t hesitate to call us. You know your phone number right?” Buffy asked her little girl as she kneeled in front of her.
The camp bus was starting to fill up with children sticking their hands out the window and bouncing on the seats. They only had a few minutes to say their goodbyes.
“Buffy, she’ll be fine.” William said as he patted Matthew’s shoulder, “She has Matt there with her. He knows what he’s doing, right?”
“Can’t I pretend I don’t know her?” Matt looked up at his father with pleading eyes. At William’s stern glare he pouted and muttered, “Ya, ya, ya…I’ll help her.”
“If you ignore her you’re not going next year.” William warned.
Buffy started going through a mental check list in her head, thinking if she forgot anything.
“Oh! Poison ivy…stay away from poison ivy!” Buffy warned them both.
“What’s that?” Sarah asked as she hugged her doll to her stomach.
“Umm….” Buffy couldn’t remember herself; she looked over to William for an answer. “Do you remember?”
“Hmmm…I think its leaves of three let it be love.” William commented.
“How sure are you?”
William shrugged, “90% sure…”
For Buffy that wasn’t good enough, “Stay away from all leaves guys…” she told Sarah and Matthew.
“Love, don’t make them nervous…” William whispered.
“Okay everyone!” A camp counselor wearing a ‘Purple Moutain Camp’ shirt announced around the parameter of the bus where parents were gathered with their children, “All kids are to line up so we can check off their name and get them on the bus! Single file over here!”
“Guess that’s you guys…” William smiled at Sarah and Matt, “Come here love.”
Sarah rushed over to William, dropped her doll to the ground, and wrapped her arms around her father’s neck for a hug.
“Love you sweetie…be good…” he whispered to her.
Buffy hugged and kissed Matthew and reminded him to look after Sarah. Both William and Buffy switched kids, Matthew hugging his dad and Buffy squeezing Sarah extra tight.
“What’s our phone number again?” Buffy whispered in Sarah’s ear low enough so William wouldn’t hear. Sarah recited the 10 digits just as quiet as Buffy asked.
“Good…”
‘Now I can sleep a little bit at ease tonight…’
William gripped Buffy’s hand when he watched their two kids go up onto the bus and get lost in the crowd of youngsters. They stayed until Buffy no longer could see the bus in the distance.
“You okay love?” William asked when he noticed that Buffy hasn’t said a word yet or even cried.
Buffy gave a watery smile, “I’m good.” ‘21 days too long…’ ‘she thought as the two of them walked back to the car. Buffy stole a glance at William when he wasn’t looking, ‘Or maybe 21 days isn’t long enough.’
*~*~*~*~
After the children were gone, Buffy really didn’t know what to do with herself while William worked part time at Xander’s uncle’s mechanical shop. The job was only 4 days a week and brought some spare money into the Pratt household. William started doing it five summers ago when he was trying to learn how to fix his motorcycle, but by the end of that summer he walked away knowing how to piece together a whole car and a paying job. It was a handy talent; one that Buffy had taken advantage of when she accidentally hit a tree while driving home two summers ago. The couple thought since Buffy had a bad record in driving that it was sort of necessary for someone in the family to have car repair skills.
“Mom?” After Buffy spent a few hours in her house she was starting to get a little lonely and decided to visit her mother’s house.
“Yes?” Joyce asked while she started to fold laundry on the kitchen counter.
“What was dad like before you married him?”
Joyce eyed her daughter suspiciously, “Why do you want to know?”
Mr. Summers had been an absent part of Buffy, Joyce, and Buffy’s sister, Dawn, lives for so long that they hardly ever mentioned him. The man was a runaway from his own family even before Buffy graduated from high school and met Spike. Mr. Summers never even came to their wedding; never saw a photo of his only grandkids. To Matt and Sarah, William’s father, Rupert, was their true grandfather.
“I was just curious…” Buffy muttered as she helped fold some of her mother’s socks in little balls.
“He was warm and loving…liked his work but didn’t love it, not yet anyway.”
“So he changed once you got married?”
“A few years after I had you I would say he did.” Joyce admitted, “Providing for his family became a little bit more to him, work was treated like it was a good friend. He felt at ease with it and cared for it like it was a child.”
‘William’s not like that though…’ Buffy concluded. ‘Work was work for him…for all I know. But still, something must have changed Spike into the restrained man that he is today.’ Buffy admitted that it wasn’t a bad thing for their family, William being less dangerous and less wild. She just wished it wasn’t in the bedroom. Spike was so adventurous and daring; he thrived off of the rush he got from his audience cheering when he played in his band. He used that adrenal and put it all on her, which she liked very much.
‘If only he could be a good dad during the day and a wild husband at night.’ Buffy thought to herself. She looked up at her mom; she certainly couldn’t share these things with her mother, the grandmother of her innocent children. Buffy figured Anya was better fit for this conversation.
*~*~*~*~*
“So you want Spike back huh?” Anya asked as she leaned against doorframe of her front door.
“No! Yes!! Look, can we please talk about this inside?”
”Lesson the first Mrs. Pratt, sex is a little bit more casual and open now.”
“Open, yes, but that doesn’t make it right.”
”Right is for 60 year ladies like your mom, not for girls that have a hot husbands like us…well, you use to have a hot husband.”
”He’s still hot!” Buffy protested.
“And you’re here because…?” Anya smirked when she caught Buffy there.
“He’s still hot Anya…I still love him and think he’s attractive.”
“But more attractive when he was Spike, yes?”
Buffy looked down shyly at her clasped hands, deciding not to met Anya’s eyes for what she was about to say. “It’s not really his fault…I know he became a more settled down person when he married me and became a father, but I feel like he had to do it. I pretty much pushed all the Spike out of him when I told him I wanted him to sell his bike and…and…”
“And?”
“And when I told him to choose between the band and me.”
“You did what?” Anya was a bit surprised.
“I—I was five months pregnant with Matt at the time! My hormones were sky high. I was angry when I said it and he automatically quit a week after that. He didn’t give me a chance to explain or stop him.”
“Why were you angry at him?”
“I wasn’t angry at him…I was angry at Angel…”
”Angel? Cordy’s husband?”
“Ya…he-he came back one day, back from Harvard, telling me that my baby’s father is a starving artist, and that I’ll be left behind if he makes it big or he’ll be a burden to me if he fails.”
“Wow…”
”Ya…”
“And you, what, went straight up to Spike and say ‘decide’?”
“I-I don’t want to talk about it.”
”Obviously you do or you wouldn’t be here.”
Buffy sighed, “I gave him the impression that I didn’t want the life of a musician’s wife…that I wanted…”
”Vanilla sex?”
“Come Anya, I already feel bad enough…now can you sort of understand why I keep freaking out that he’ll leave me?”
“I’d leave you if I was him.”
”Thanks…you are being very helpful you know?” Buffy grumbled.
“I’m just being honest with you…you were selfish and wrong to do what you did…you were played by Angel, you thought what he was saying was true, you admired his success as a lawyer and turned to Spike and basically asked him ‘Why can’t you be like him?’ ”
”I know!! You don’t think I don’t know that? And here I am complaining about what he can’t give me when he truly gave up everything for me!” Buffy yelled as tears formed at the corner of her eyes.
There was a brief pause between the women, “I didn’t only take away his dream… I took away his identity.” Buffy whispered, devastated in what she had done.
‘All this time it had been me along, me to blame.’
”I don’t know about that…Spike and William, they are sort of one of the same, William’s just a bit more proper, like you said.”
“Oh come on Anya, I’m erasing Spike…I HAVE erased Spike! He’s…he’s like slowly fading away…he thinks I won’t love him if he bleaches his hair and wears the coat, but that is not true. I never wanted him to change!”
”You seemed alright with it for the last few years…”
Buffy knew Anya was right, if Cordelia had never barged her way into her life with her issues of Angel leaving her, she wouldn’t be this concerned…she wouldn’t have noticed what her husband has become. Had the transformation from Spike to William been so fast that she’d miss it completely? She couldn’t even remember the day he stopped bleaching her hair, or the day he stopped wearing his coat.
“I’ve been stupid these last few years.”
“Buffy, why waste your time fighting what he’s become? He doesn’t seem to be complaining and you just admitted to me that you still love him, so I don’t see the problem here. Well, except for the 1950s sex thing, this can be fixed if you tell him what you need.”
‘Tell him what I need…’ Buffy didn’t think that sounded right, ‘He should be telling me what he needs…’
“I got to go…” Buffy turned around and went back to her car parked at the curb.
“Go where?”
“Out drinking!”
“Wait, what?” she whispered to herself, “Buffy wait!!” Anya yelled out as she shut her door and ran after her friend.
*~*~*~*~*~
“…so Anya’s not at home either?” William asked through the phone. He was pacing around the living room, distressed, worried about Buffy’s whereabouts. When he got home and she wasn’t there he looked all over the house to find a note for him to read but he came out empty handed.
He had been calling around and found out that Buffy stopped by her mother’s house for a brief chat and then left. Currently he was talking with Xander, who also had an absent wife at the moment.
“She leave a note?” William asked.
“No man…you think they just forgot to turn on their phones?” Xander asked.
“No, well…maybe…but Buffy would call even if her phone died…she would figure out a way and call.” William said as he ran his hand through his brown hair.
‘It’s getting dark out.’ He noted to himself as he glanced outside.
“Hold on man, I got a call on the other line…might be Anya.”
“Alright.”
William sighed and sat down on the couch, he’s right leg started bouncing around like a jackhammer due to his nerves. He waited a few minutes and then was reconnected back with Xander.
“That was Anya, she’s on her way to your place with Buffy.”
”Wait, why is Anya bringing her home?” William asked.
“I don’t know…”
The doorbell rang and William, without a thought, hung up on Xander to rush over and open the door.
“Thanks Will, kind of got my hands full here as you can see.” Anya said.
“Heyyyyy you got the door open!!” Buffy drunkenly said as she leaned against Anya.
TBC….And yes, that last line was from FRIENDS, TOW Everyone Turns 30…with drunken Monica. I just love that line. So just picture Buffy saying it the same way Monica did because I just love the way Courtney Cox delivered that line.
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