“Why the hell not?” he said raising an eyebrow.
She sighed, “Because too much has happened?” she suggested calmly, “Because I can’t forgive you for walking out on me?…Because I can’t trust you?” She paused, part of her not even wanting to say the last sentence, because she knew how much it would hurt him, “Because even looking at you hurts me more than you could ever understand.”
His heart clenched in his chest, he’d asked, and she’d given him her answer. But it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“I didn’t do the right thing, Buffy. I know now I didn’t. But I can’t undo it.”
“I know that.” she sighed sadly.
“I wish I could, but I can’t.” he said looking down into his lap, “God, Buffy I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am for what I did to you.” Then he looked up, “But I also can’t apologise for it forever.” When he studied her face she didn’t look shocked, but he presumed she was underneath the façade, so he explained himself, “As much as I know that I’ve hurt you, no amount of saying sorry or grovelling can ever undo it, or change it, or make it better.”
“I know that too.”
He looked across at her, feeling she finally understood.
“But I don’t think the same as you, Spike.” she said almost resentfully.
He immediately sensed the dramatic change in her voice. “And how’s that?” he asked steadily, waiting for her response to see what she really thought of him.
She kept her lips tight and her face expressionless as she began, “I don’t think that just because something won’t make things better means that it’s a waste of time.”
“I never said that…”
“– I don’t think its okay to give up on something, to not try. That just because it won’t change anything to say you’re sorry, that you should be able to get away with everything that happened.”
This time he kept quiet, because she was upset, ready to burst, he could see it as clear as day and he felt it was better just to hear her out for once.
“You gave up on us, you didn’t try. All I wanted was for you to try, for you to fight for us. But one little thing happens and you run away.”
“It wasn’t one little thing, Buffy. I forced myself on you.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Spike, that day. I don’t know what happened…You scared me, and I…” she trailed off unable to find the right words. “But you didn’t…”
“I still find it hard to look in the mirror.” he said interrupting her thoughts.
She searched for the right thing to say, anything to say, “Spike…” Part of her wanted to hurt him, part of her wanted to absolve him. She settled for neither. “The part that hurt the most wasn’t what you did. It was that I let you do it.”
It hurt so much to hear her talk about it, more than he ever thought it would.
“It made me feel so weak.” she finished.
“When I looked at you afterwards,” he said opening up, “it was if I’d robbed you of something.”
She looked across at him, “You did.”
“What was it, Buffy? What did I really do to you?”
She looked away nervously and shook her head, “I don’t know...” She paused, “You shattered the illusion I guess…I thought you were perfect,” she corrected her self, “that we were perfect.” She turned to him again, “We weren’t.”
“No one is.” he said back.
“No, but I don’t think I understood that then.”
There was a silence, and although it wasn’t uncomfortable, it wasn’t welcome either.
“I’m sorry, Buffy.” he said breaking the quiet, “I hate that I did that to you…God, the way that you looked at me after…like I’d…”
“Like you’d what?” she asked softly when he couldn’t bring himself to finish.
“Like I’d broke you.” he admitted painfully.
She nodded, understanding.
“I couldn’t cope seeing you like that. Facing you. I thought every time I looked at you I’d remember what I did.”
“And that’s why you left?”
He nodded.
“Do you…” She shook her head and stopped speaking as if she no longer thought it was important.
“Go on, pet.” he encouraged, urging her to finish her sentence.
She almost laughed, feeling suddenly stupid, but this time she said it anyway, “Do you think about it every time you look at me?”
He paused, “Only when you look at me like you are now.”
Confusion marred her features.
“Scared.” he clarified.
She shook her head and her eyes flittered to the floor, “I’m not scared of you, Spike. I’m scared of where this is going.”
“What do you mean, luv?”
She took a deep breath, “I’m waiting for you to say you’re here because you’re ready to be my brother again.”
Spike couldn’t help his dazed reaction, it confused Buffy that he could be so shocked when they were his own words she was throwing back at him.
Like a bad penny turning up he remembered the letter he had left behind. “I would never say that to you again, Buffy.”
“You’ve said it before.”
“So have you.” he countered.
She stayed quiet.
“Buffy, I know when I left I said those things, but it isn’t how I really feel, and if you knew me at all you’d realise that. I was just too messed up to think straight.” he said trying to reassure her.
“I know at the start you were so sure what we were doing was right,” she continued, “but it’s because you were so sure that hearing that hurt so much. I thought if even you were saying those things, what would other people say? I trusted you to know what was right and wrong, Spike. I trusted that if you’d left me it was the right thing to do, so I thought we should be over.”
The words he dreaded slipped from her mouth and hit him hard.
“But then I thought what gave you the right to make that decision for me?” she said almost fiercely, “Why were you always the one I let decide everything; why couldn’t I be stronger?” she said getting more and more worked up, “And that’s what I’ve been doing, Spike, making myself stronger; making my own decision, like I used to before you came and turned my world upside down.”
“I’m glad, kitten.” was all he said.
She just stared for a while, “That’s it?” she asked.
He shrugged, “You’re right about what I did, but I wanted you to be your own person, Buffy. I never wanted anyone to control you, least of all me. I just wanted you to be happy.”
“You don’t get it, Spike.” she cried, rising to her feet in the middle of the room, “You don’t get what it felt like. I’m strong now, but I wasn’t then. You were meant to be the strong one, you told me I was the one running scared, and then you were the one who actually left.” she said bitterly, “You were meant to be my rock, you were meant to keep me strong and then you left me, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“But I couldn’t be your rock, luv. I couldn’t be your strength, that had to be yours. It had to come from within.” He sighed, preparing himself for what he was about to say, “Look, Buffy. When I came back in your life I had all this guilt.”
“Guilt?”
“For not being there for you; for not being in your life. I wanted to make up for it all. I wanted to help you, but when I came here you were already making a life for yourself. I think I got in the way too much, and I think you let me. You started to rely on me too much and you forgot all about yourself and what you needed for you…and maybe so did I…People in love, they need each other, they depend on each other, but they’re still two separate people. And all I am is one man, Buffy. I have flaws, then I had more than a few, and I couldn’t be your everything. It was too much pressure. I knew I wasn’t good enough.”
“I know that’s not how a relationship works, Spike. But don’t you think it’s a pretty hard lesson to learn the way you taught it to me?”
“That wasn’t the reason I left, I didn’t want to teach you any kind of lesson. I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to stop the hurt, Buffy. I wanted it to go away…for both of us.” he said pleading with her to understand.
“Things don’t just go away because you run from them.” she argued, “You taught me that...Leaving didn’t erase what happened. It only made it worse.”
“And I know that now.” he finished, “Guess we both needed to learn a few things.”
Buffy didn’t say anything back to him, but she thought about that for a while.
“I’m sorry.” he said. No excuses, no expectations. It was clear and honest, and straight from his heart.
She felt the tears roll down her face and said the only words that came to mind, “Me too.”
Suddenly she couldn’t stand being in that room with him. It all became too much and she ran, but before she even got to the hallway he’d gotten up from his seat and stopped her. She felt his hand on her arm, gently pulling her back to face him.
“Don’t leave, Buffy.” he begged, “I couldn’t bare it.”
She broke down then. She’d felt it coming, that’s why she’d tried to leave, but now she couldn’t hold it back any longer. “I don’t know what to do, Spike.” she cried, “I just don’t know what to say.”
Without thinking he quickly pulled her into his embrace, and her arms fell into place on his back, gripping onto him like her life depended on it.
She found herself wanting to snuggle closer into his shoulder. “I’ve wanted you to come back for so long that this doesn’t seem real.” she confessed, “I don’t know what to do or say. I don’t know what to feel. It’s like a dream and I don’t know if I want to wake up or keep dreaming.” She felt him hug her closer, “All I know is that everything got better in my life after you left, everything’s turned out the way I’ve always wanted it to…but nothing’s made me happy…and I don’t think anything but you ever can.”
Spike stood there absorbing every word she was saying, listening intently.
“I’ve tried to forget you, Spike. Everyday I’ve tried, but I can’t. I’ve been strong, and I’ve been true to myself, but everything’s so hard without you here.”
“I’m here, Buffy. I’m really here,” he whispered into her hair, “and this time I won’t ever leave you unless you ask me to.”
She pulled back and looked up at him, “I don’t want you to go. I know I should, but I don’t. I still love you, Spike. I never…” she was suddenly lost in his eyes. He was so close to her, so close.
His breath blew out warm and erratic over her quivering lips. She couldn’t help but shiver as she became more affected by his proximity. It felt like her whole body was shaking violently, her head was certainly swimming.
“Buffy.” he whispered.
That one breathy sound spoke a thousand words, and she knew what he wanted, what they both needed to happen next.
“Spike, this doesn’t change the big picture here.” she said shutting her eyes to block him out, but it didn’t help. He was firmly in her head and her heart and all around her right now.
“I know, but…” he finished gasping for air, unable to continue in the thick fog he felt himself wading through because of her being so near to him.
He leaned his forehead against hers and tried to muster some strength, “Do you remember what I said to you the first time we made love?”
Buffy closed her eyes for once giving in and letting the memory wash over her completely without trying to stop it, painful though it was to recall the time when they were so much together that they were almost one person.
“I told you that none of the reasons we shouldn’t be together mattered.”
A tear slipped down her cheek and he leaned back far enough to bring his right hand to wipe it away.
“All that mattered was what we wanted, and we wanted each other. Right now I want you, Buffy, I need you. And I think you want me too,” he said desperately staring at her, cupping her face and willing her to look up at him, “and if you do nothing else matters. Friends, family, if they love us they’ll accept us.”
She finally looked up at him again, tears sparkling in her eyes.
“But all I care about is me and you.”
She searched his eyes and knew that he was telling the truth.
“That’s enough for me, Buffy.”
She leaned forward without hesitation and pressed her mouth gently onto his and they stayed like that for a few seconds.
“That’s always been enough for me.” he whispered onto her lips before she kissed him again.
As his tongue slipped into her mouth and her hands clutched onto the hair at the back of his head she felt like she was home, and so did he.