[Reviews - 37]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 2778 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry for the delay on this! I was away on holiday for most of August. I think there's only one more chapter after this, and I'll try to get it done in a timely fashion! Many thanks to PaganBaby for beta reading, and to xoChantelly for her help whilst I was writing.
Chapter Two

Buffy sighed, stirring the remains of her coffee and staring into the crowd, eyes unseeing. Her flight had been delayed due to poor weather conditions, and now she – along with the other however-many passengers headed for L.A. were sitting, bored, in the various cafés and restaurants the airport had to offer.

It was probably all a scam anyway: tell the customers the flight was delayed to get them to spend their money on overpriced food and drink.

Buffy sighed again, wondering when she had become so cynical, then put the thought directly out of her head. She knew exactly when it had been, and she didn't want to think of it. Not now, when she had a thousand other thoughts whirling away in her mind, the predominant one being that Spike was back.

She was on her way to see him, and the thought of it scared her half to death. Since booking the flight, Buffy had envisioned how the reunion would go hundreds of times, each time different.

In some, she got angry with him for not telling her he had returned. In others, they sat and talked and fell into uncomfortable silences. But the most frequent, and the most telling, were those in which she would run into his arms, and be swept into the classic movie-kiss, music rising to a crescendo in the background.

Buffy marvelled at these daydreams, wondering when she’d regressed to her sixteen-year-old self again. God… the last time she’d had thoughts like that was back when Angel had been her world, her everything.

Her dreams about Angel had been a constant back then, and now she was thinking about Spike in a similar way – though everything was more intense, more real than it had been when she was a teenager in the first flush of love.

Buffy didn’t know what to think, anymore. She didn’t know what she was going to find when she stepped off the plane in L.A., whether Spike would even want to consider pursuing a relationship. His last words to her had been a rebuttal of her feelings, what if he still felt the same?

What if… and the thought caused an almost physical pain in her chest, what if Spike didn’t love her anymore?

She glared at the coffee cup, and pushed it across the table with a frustrated sigh. Turning everything round and round in her head wasn’t going to help.

“Information for passengers travelling on the BA278 London Heathrow to Los Angeles, this flight has been delayed for a further fifty minutes. Please listen to announcements for more information.”

“Stupid plane,” Buffy muttered to herself, and stood up to throw her coffee cup in the trash. She sat back down at the table, now devoid of mess, and took a magazine from her purse. Might as well kill the time with celebrity gossip.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

Buffy glanced up to see a frazzled looking woman standing beside the table, mocha frappuccino clutched in her hand, her blonde hair spilling loose from its barrette and slight make-up smudges beneath her eyes.

“Sure,” Buffy replied.

“You’re a sweetie,” the woman replied. “I swear, trying to find somewhere to sit in here was like trying to raise the Titanic.”

Buffy smiled, and nodded. She wasn’t really in the mood to make small talk with a stranger, but it would be rude to ignore her completely. It seemed that she didn’t have to worry, as the woman took out a cell phone and soon had it pressed against her ear.

Buffy tuned her out, focusing instead on the hum of the crowd and whether Britney was back with K-Fed.

She tried to concentrate on the glossy magazine in front of her, and was halfway through an article about eyelash curlers when the blonde woman’s nasally voice rose to an even higher pitch.

“And oh my God, Jess, his hair is so soft! I know, right? You wouldn’t expect a man,” the woman paused, and glanced around furtively, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Okay, a vampire, who uses bleach like that to have such soft hair. But it was! And oh… those arms. Sweet Lord, I thought I was going to die!”

Buffy stared, the words ‘bleach’ and ‘vampire’ having caught her attention. It couldn’t be… could it?

“Well, he seemed kind of growly. You know? But he was so polite and answered all my questions. Yeah. Yeah. No… no! His accent is not put on for the camera! Yeah, totally British. So sexy. Uhuh. Yeah. Yep. Okay, sweetie, I’ll tell you everything later. Love ya!”

The woman set her cell phone down on the table, and took a sip from her frappucino. Buffy hesitated for a moment, but swiftly decided that she had to know if the woman had been talking about Spike.

“Excuse me,” Buffy said, touching the woman’s arm to catch her attention. “I couldn’t help overhearing… you were talking about someone. A man. With… bleached hair?”

“Oh he’s not just a man, honey. He’s an Adonis. I’m Lynn, by the way.”

“Er, right,” Buffy muttered, deciding that if it was Spike that this woman – Lynn - had been talking about, she didn’t like her, not one bit. Especially as she seemed to know how soft his hair was. “His name didn’t happen to be Spike, did it?”

“You’ve heard of him? You have to join my fansite. Isn’t he just the sexiest man you’ve ever seen? I bet he knows a thing or two about pleasing a woman, if you know what I mean.” Lynn’s words were expelled in a rush, her face red with excitement.

“More like a thing or a thousand,” Buffy muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Buffy said, blushing. “When you were talking to your friend, it sounded like you’d actually met Spike.”

“Oh yeah, I just did! He was even better looking in real life than on those videos.”

“Just?” Buffy repeated. “As in, just now?”

“Uhuh, on the airplane, I sat next to him the whole way over here,” Lynn said, smiling. “I think we were really making a connection by the end of the flight, you know? And there was definite interest, if you catch my drift.”

Buffy clenched and unclenched her fists, her mouth a thin line and a hard glint in her eyes. The thought of this woman being all over Spike, and him being a willing recipient of Lynn’s affections, was not a pleasant one. She took a deep breath, and tried to school her features into something resembling a smile.

It seemed that Spike had come to England, and if she wanted to know where he was headed, she needed to keep this woman talking.

“Did he happen to mention where he was going?” And couldn’t he have arrived here before I forked out five hundred pounds for the flight?

Lynn frowned a little, then beckoned Buffy closer with a coral-painted fingernail. “Sweetie, I don’t think he’s the sort of guy who’d want groupies following him around London.” She laughed. “Otherwise don’t you think I’d have gone after his sweet-self?”

“So he didn’t say anything? Nothing at all about where he might be headed?” There was a slight tone of desperation to Buffy’s voice, and she gazed at Lynn with anticipation.

“Well…” Lynn sighed. “He did mention something about going to see Andrew. You know, the guy who puts the videos up for him?”

“Andrew.” Buffy’s mouth thinned. “Right.”

She pulled her cell phone from her purse, and dialled quickly, Lynn watching curiously.

“Andrew, it’s me,” Buffy said. “Yes, I am supposed to be on the plane. Yes, I got your note about bringing you back some Lucky Charms, but I don’t think I’m even going to L.A. anymore anyway. Why didn’t you tell me Spike was coming to see you?” She paused, listening. “Well, he is. Apparently.”

Next to her, Lynn had started to flap excitedly. “Oh my god, oh my god, you know him? And you’re talking to Andrew? The Andrew? Oh my god, oh my god!”

“No, that’s someone Spike met on the airplane,” Buffy ignored Lynn, answering Andrew instead. “Yes, I’m sure. Listen, when he gets there – make sure he doesn’t leave, okay?”

She paused again, listening to Andrew speak, when she heard the doorbell of her apartment ring. It was soon followed by the sound of Andrew’s footsteps and the click of the front door being opened. There was a high-pitched, “Spike!”, and then a loud clunk as the phone was presumably dropped to the floor.

Buffy pressed the ‘end call’ button on her cell, and put the phone back in her purse. She needed to get home, as soon as possible.

As she started to walk out of the coffee shop, Lynn grabbed her arm in a surprisingly strong grip.

“Wait! Was that really Andrew you were talking to? How do you know Spike? Do you know him know him?”

Buffy sighed, deciding she’d have to answer Lynn’s questions as quickly as possible if she wanted to get out of the airport anytime soon.

“Yes it was Andrew, and Spike’s my…” she paused, frowning, wondering how to describe what Spike was to her. ‘Ex’ was too cold and clinical, and all the other words her mind came up with sounded far too cheesy and over the top. “Spike’s my… well, he’s… Spike.”

Sudden comprehension dawned on Lynn’s face, and her mouth dropped open. “Oh! You and he…” she winked and nudged Buffy in the arm.

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Listen, I have to go. I have to see… speak… I just have to go.” She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and strode purposefully towards the exit.

“Give him my love!” Lynn called after her.

Buffy smiled. Oh, she’d be giving him some love, all right.

Just not Lynn’s.


Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed, please let me know with a review!



You must login (register) to review.