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Author's Chapter Notes:
READ ME: To all of my readers, I apologize for taking so long to update. Boys just complicate everything and I've let one in particular interfere with my writing for far too long. But no more! From now on, I'm determined to post at least once a week. A good goal to have, I believe.

Read and I hope you enjoy. =)
He leaned in, she tilted her head just so, and she felt her world melt away as his lips touched hers. He kissed her slowly, gently, as if he was afraid he would break her if he wasn’t too careful. Her hands, having been at her sides, now needed to touch him, so she placed them on his sides and fisted his shirt in them in a vain effort to bring him closer to her. When he placed one hand in the curve of her side and the other at the back of her head and deepened the kiss, she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could do anything but kiss him back. He pulled away and she wanted to whimper when he kissed along her jaw and down her neck. She tried to regain some oxygen as he kissed her neck, but she found she didn’t need air as much as she needed to kiss and be kissed by him again, and turned her head so their lips met once more. His lips moved over hers and she responded in kind until breathing became a serious issue. She pulled away slightly and placed her hands on his chest in order to gain something resembling balance. He had his hands on her lower back now, rubbing it absentmindedly.

“What?” he murmured.

“Wait,” she whispered.

Now that she could semi-sort-of breathe again, she felt the butterflies in her stomach. She felt like she weighed nothing at all and was pretty sure that if Spike’s hands weren’t where they were, she would have floated away in the midst of her bliss. Her knees felt like they couldn’t hold her up and when she looked down at her hands, even though she couldn’t see them, she knew they were shaking. This is it¸ she thought. This is what I was missing with Riley. She smiled then, looked at him and it hit her.

She didn’t know for sure, but she could say with almost all certainty that he was still in a relationship with Dru.

Gods, she thought. I have to know.

“Do you or do you not have a girlfriend?” she said it softly. She hated having to ask, but what other choice did she have? She couldn’t continue to kiss him until she knew he was free to kiss her back. He didn’t answer her right away, which told her enough, but when he did she found what she’d been hoping wasn’t there.

“Well,” he said in a low tone. “That ruined it.”

She was ‘the other woman.’

“Just… answer the question. Please.”

He was, again, hesitant for a moment before answering her. And when he did, she knew what she had to do.

“Yes,” he admitted.

She had to walk away.

“Okay,” she said quietly. She turned to put her hand on the door handle and went to open the door when she stopped and thought, How could I have been so stupid? She shook her head, forced herself to smile and opened the door, stepping out of the room alone. She shook her head again and laughed a little. Hearing what sounded like shoes coming her way, she looked to her right. Damn, she thought as she tried to refrain from cursing the sky while Anya eyed her suspiciously. And then, because she knew the Powers That Be had made her the butt of their jokes that day, Spike appeared behind her as he exited the storage room. A slow, mischievous smile made its way to Anya’s face and Buffy dreaded the words she knew were coming.

“What’re you guys doing?” Anya asked teasingly.

“Nothing. We were just… Nothing” Buffy responded. Well, she thought, if the quickness of your response didn’t clue her in, the several octaves that your voice raised certainly did, and, for the second time that day, had to refrain from slapping her hand to her forehead. She turned to Spike for support and knew she wasn’t going to be getting any by the smirk that seemed to be a permanent fixture on his face. Glaring at Spike, she walked away calmly; receiving an apologetic look from Anya that made her wish the Earth would open up then and swallow her whole.

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, she was still pacing. It had begun without her knowledge shortly after she left Spike and Anya and now she couldn’t stop. She walked slowly behind the psych so as not to disturb it, replaying the kiss and the conversation afterwards in her mind and she couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have stopped it. Maybe she should’ve just… let it go. No, her conscience told her, Cos’ then you’d hate yourself even more than you do now. She wasn’t very good friends with Dru, in fact she barely knew her at all, but she couldn’t bear to think what would happen if she found out. Making up her mind to quit obsessing, and to quit pacing before she wore a hole backstage, she made her way to the dressing room where she almost literally ran into Willow, who was looking at something behind Buffy. Buffy turned around to see what had captured Willow’s attention and her stomach immediately twisted into knots. Spike was sitting in a chair while their friend, Winifred or just ‘Fred’, was standing next to him and he was laughing at something Fred had just said.


“It’s too bad that he has to act like that,” Willow said quietly. Buffy looked at her curiously.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well, like he does. You know, flirting with everyone all of the time?”

“Oh, yeah,” Buffy said. “Wait, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you think he acts like that?”

“I guess it’s because he doesn’t get to see Dru very much. Must be hard,” Willow said, and shrugged her shoulders before entering the dressing room.

“Yeah, must be hard,” Buffy repeated, and took another look at Spike and Fred. Spike looked up at her, meeting her eyes, and Buffy quickly looked away and went back to “her spot”. She picked up her journal and sat down with every intention of writing in it, but was still too jittery. Her thoughts were going at a rate which her hand could not follow and she set the journal back down. She let her head fall back and rest against the wall behind her and closed her eyes in hopes to calm down her head at least enough so she could concentrate on something other than the kiss.

She had finally gotten her mind to settle down enough that it was only a dull roar in her ears when she felt someone kick her leg. She opened one eye to see who it was and smiled when she saw Willow, who signaled it was almost time for their second scene. Running through the scene for what seemed like the millionth time, a scene she could’ve done in her sleep, she looked over at Spike. He smiled at her and she prayed he couldn’t see the blush she felt rise to her cheeks before she looked away. When the scene ended, she watched with growing frustration as Spike took a seat in the chair next to “her spot”. Deciding it couldn’t be put off any longer, she faced him.

“Can we talk?” she asked. He looked up at her and smiled again.

“Sure.”

“I need to know why,” she blurted out. Way to go, her conscience commended her. Very smooth.

“Why what?” he asked her.

“Don’t play with me; you know what,” she told him snidely. Her patience with this boy was running up fast and she wasn’t in the mood for games.

“Alright,” he conceded. He opened his mouth to say something – what, she didn’t know – but didn’t have time to finish as the scenes onstage started up again. Buffy was not to be put off; she had to know and she had to know now. She sat down on the floor next to him, picked up her notebook, flipped to the very last page and wrote. She almost handed the notebook to him, but added, as an afterthought.

Willow said you don’t get to see Dru very much, she wrote, Is that why you kissed me; because you miss her? She almost handed the notebook to him then, but added, Please don’t lie to me because you think it’s what I want to hear, as an afterthought.

She waited with her heart beating so hard she was sure it would leap right out of her chest while he read it and wrote back. After a minute or so, he handed it back to her and, with shaky hands, she read.
I think it’s because I can’t stand to be alone, even if it is for a couple days. I like you. So it wasn’t for no reason. I don’t really know why I’m like this, he said, I always have been.

I won’t lie to you; she wrote back, I live you, too. And I apologize for ‘ruining it’, but I can’t kiss you while you’re with someone else no matter how much I like you. Or it.

That’s fine. I just don’t want things to get awkward now. And I want to thank you, for not letting me continue this.

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief at the second sentence. She cared about him too much, in her opinion, to lose him to awkwardness that could be avoided.

I knew if I did, let it continue that is, it would be selfish and I’d end up getting hurt, she responded. And I won’t make it awkward if you won’t.

Okay, was all he wrote. He stood up then and reached his hand down for hers to help her up. She took it, but quickly let go as soon as she was on her feet and they walked together to the stage as Ethan gave notes for the night. She lay down on the risers, feeling as if absolutely all of her energy had been drained from her. Thinking back on the events of the night, she still couldn’t believe it.

He’d kissed her.

She’d thought about it, dreamt about it, wondered what it would be like; how wonderful and breath-taking and life-altering it would be and, now that it had happened, she knew how she should’ve felt. She should’ve been happy, overjoyed and ecstatic. She should’ve felt like she was on cloud nine, even if she never understood what being on cloud nine meant exactly. Instead, her limbs felt far too heavy to move, her heart felt like it’d been ripped out of her chest then put back in by a first year medical student and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt a stronger urge to cry.

But, joy of joy’s, he’d kissed her.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

No, she realized then that it would never be enough. She could kiss him every hour of every day for the rest of her life and it would never be enough. She wanted him which, she knew, did her no good as she couldn’t have him. Sighing, she made her way to the dressing room to get ready to go home.

Sleep, she feared, would not come easy that night.


Chapter End Notes:
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