Buffy was looking into Spike’s eyes for a while thinking. They were laid next to each other on the bed and had been since their last love making session an hour ago.
She held the sheet to her breasts as she sat up and turned to him. “Spike?” she said seriously.
Spike sat up quickly and mirrored her posture. “Buffy?” he said in a teasing manner, making fun of her stern tone.
“I need to ask you something.” she continued.
“Fire away, kitten.”
“The first time you kissed me…you said it was because of Dru, and I…”
“I was lying, pet.” Spike jumped in, seeing her insecurity and now taking her very seriously.
“Why?” she asked looking for answers.
“Because I didn’t want you to know how I felt about you, so I blamed it on her.” he admitted.
She was quiet for a little while and then she mumbled out, “So you don’t…”
“Miss her?” he asked.
Buffy nodded.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Spike looked annoyed.
“I’m not trying to start anything.” she said to reassure him, “I just want to understand…You were together for a long time, but you didn’t miss her at all after you broke up.” She looked at him with confusion, waiting for him to explain.
“I did miss her.” he confessed, wanting to be honest. He hung his head and continued, “I missed her so much at first that it hurt,” he looked back up at her, “but by the time I moved in with you I’d come to terms with things.” He noticed that Buffy didn’t look satisfied with that answer, “Don’t get me wrong, Buffy, I loved Dru, I did. But we separated for the right reasons. It’s hard to be upset over that. The love had gone. If it was still there maybe I would miss her more, but it isn’t.”
“How can you just stop loving someone like that?”
“I…I don’t know.” he said casually, not really wanting to talk about this. It wasn’t because he had a problem with it; he was just worried about how Buffy was going to feel afterwards. The Ex-story was never an easy thing for a girl to listen to. She obviously wanted to know what he had to say, but wanting to know something and actually knowing it were two different things. “I guess we probably thought we loved each other more than we actually did…” He paused, then confessed gently, “No, that’s not true.” The question stumped him for a while, as did how best to answer her. He didn’t want to upset her, but he didn’t want to lie either. After a while he continued, “You’re right Buffy, you can’t just stop loving someone if you have those kind of feelings for them, but it’s complicated. There’s stuff you don’t know.”
“Then explain it to me…Please?” she begged.
He sighed. “Sometimes some things happen, and you can’t take them back. Sometimes you mess things up, and you just have to accept it. I accepted I’d messed up and she didn’t love me anymore because of it.”
Buffy stayed silent, he was being cryptic and general and she didn’t know how to react.
“It doesn’t matter, luv. It’s in the past. I’m with you now, okay?” he cupped her cheek and smiled at her, kissed her briefly and then got out of bed to get dressed.
Buffy stayed in bed while he got ready for work, she pulled her pillow from beneath her head to lay it at her side and she hugged it close. She was confused; she felt like he wasn’t telling her something. He’d tried to make her feel better by saying he was with her now and it didn’t matter, but that just left her feeling even stranger. In part his words did comfort her, but they were tainted by her guilt at what they were doing. They weren’t a normal couple, how could they be?
The time they’d had had been so wonderful, she was the happiest she’d ever been, but it wasn’t perfect, because she had to make a continued effort not to think about the little things that could ruin it; their family, friends, anyone who knew them who found out what they were doing. It was fine when they were alone and ignored everyone and everything else, but they couldn’t live like that forever.
She came out to say goodbye, but she felt like a zombie, totally consumed by something she wasn’t fully aware of. Something was niggling at her mind, and wouldn’t let go, and it wasn’t the usual stuff, it was that thought again that he was hiding something. He left, but her worries didn’t, and she couldn’t think of anything else all evening.
When Spike came home Buffy heard the door click. She knew she had to confront him again before she drove herself crazy.
“Hey.” she said coming to stand in the kitchen doorway.
“Hey, kitten.” Spike said softly, almost whispering, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No.” She smiled to reassure him, “I was up.”
Spike shrugged off his jacket and hung it up.
“I erm…”
Spike turned round to her when he heard her speak up, but she faltered anxiously.
“I…brought the mail up from downstairs.” she said gesturing to the table next to him, “There’s some letters for you.”
He smiled briefly at her and went to pick them up.
Buffy became more nervous, not only at the prospect of what she needed to bring up, but she was made even more uncomfortable by Spike’s avoidance. He hadn’t looked at her much since he came in, as if he knew she wanted to talk about this again. In the end Buffy knew her only option would be to just bite the bullet and get it over with, so she did.
“What did you mean you messed up?”
“Huh?” Spike said still going through the mail in his hand.
“This morning, you said you messed up with Dru.”
“Did I?” he said throwing down the letters onto the table and finally looking over at her properly.
“Then you said you understood why Dru couldn’t love you after that.” Buffy said not giving up even though he was obviously trying to dodge the conversation, “What did you mean?”
Spike looked a little lost for words. He wasn’t shocked, he just wasn’t saying anything back to her, and it didn’t look as if he was planning to either.
“Spike?” she pressed.
“Yes, luv?”
“I want you to tell me what happened with you and Dru.” she said bluntly, cards on the table. She was tired of going over the little things on her own, she wanted him to explain what she didn’t understand, and this time she definitely left him lost for words.
“I…”
“Spike, please. I feel like you’re hiding something from me.”
“I’m sorry, kitten. I don’t want to do that.” he said softening up, “It’s just…I don’t want to drag all that Dru stuff into this thing with us.” He walked towards where she was and took her hands, interlocking their fingers. “This is new and fun, and everything’s going so well, I don’t want to taint it by talking about me and Dru. Me and Dru were different, and I don’t know if you’ll understand what happened, and I don’t know how you’ll take it.” He had been looking down at their hands but he suddenly looked up at her and said, “I don’t want to ruin this.”
“Spike…” she sighed turning away from him and removing her hands from his. “I feel like I’m lost here, you say stuff about relationships and love and you think I don’t understand…And maybe I don’t, maybe I’m finding this really hard, being in a relationship with you, but you aren’t helping me out by hiding things from me.” She didn’t turn back to him; instead she sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m new at all this, but one thing I know is that we need to be honest with each other. I don’t need to know everything about your past; it’s up to you what we share, but this is different. This isn’t something you just aren’t saying, this is something you’re purposely keeping from me.”
“I want to share everything, Buffy. I really do.” he said sitting down at the table as well.
“Then please talk to me.”
She looked into his eyes with a desperation that hurt him, but he stayed silent, unmoving. He knew she was upset, he knew she wanted answers, even more than that she wanted to know that he would give her those answers, and that she could trust him, but he didn’t want to talk about this. He was too afraid to be honest about this.
Buffy was extremely hurt by his unwillingness to let her in, and his obvious deception. She couldn’t stand that he’d admitted he’d been keeping this from her, and she felt stupid that she’d practically begged him to tell her and he’d still refused.
“Fine.” she cried out, standing up, not knowing how to deal with her frustration, “If you want to keep secrets then that’s fine!”
As she walked away his hand reached out and grabbed her. She swung back around and he finally said something.
“I cheated on her.”
Buffy was stunned. “You what?”