A/N I had this proofed by the fantabulous April before Christmas then got confused and thought I'd already posted it so it sat around for the holidays doing nothing. Very much like teh lazy bear herself who concentrated on pigging out on Christmas choclate and drinking wine and did absolutely no writting. Bad!
More fab news in the land of P&W. It got nominated at Loves Last Glimpse for a couple of things but considering I'm up against the likes of Patti's Make My Day, Kantarya's Fevered and Kallysten's master piece Baby Steps I'm not gonna hold my breath for a prize. Still its fantastic to find myself in such company.
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She isn't sure if she finds the silence of the low-lit infirmary room comforting or troubling. Would the rhythmic beeping of an ECG monitor ease her worries with its grating lullaby? Probably not. And she needs no electronic trill to tell her Spike is still with them: he isn't dust and that is proof enough.
This won't kill him. Head still attached, no pesky splinters in the heart; sure, he's a mess, but this won't kill him. Somehow, though, that knowledge doesn't quell the sea-sick worry in her gut.
He's unconscious and for that at least she's grateful. Perhaps he'll stay that way until he's healed, until the jerry-rigged IV can pump enough stolen blood bags into him to heal his mangled body. Her own body aches in sympathy with his, stinging gouges and hastily dressed wounds sending out painful reminders that she too should be resting.
"Hey." Angel's soft voice doesn't startle her, despite that she hadn't heard him come in. She doubts there's enough adrenaline left in her exhausted body to muster up anything resembling a start.
"Hey." My God, was that her voice, so hoarse and lacklustre? She doesn't take her eyes off her vampire. She doesn't really want to deal with Angel now; she has a vigil to keep.
"How you doing?"
"Same." She lets her fingers ghost over the healing cuts on Spike's exposed forearm. "He hasn't woken up, but I think the blood's helping. The minor stuff looks like it's healing at least." She shakes her head and removes her hand. "I think he'll be okay. I just hope he doesn't wake up until he's healed up a bit more."
"That's great." His voice is softly amused, warm and affectionate as it wraps around her tired mind. "But I was asking about you."
"I'm fine." There is a briskness to her own voice that she hadn't expected, an almost dismissive curtness.
"No, you're not." He hasn't moved from the doorway, but suddenly he is oppressively close and his presence has ceased to be a comfort. Now she just wants him to leave. "You're hurt."
"Giles patched me up." She doesn't look at him and she knows she isn't being fair, but she's tired and sore and desperately worried for Spike. "I'm fine." And it strikes her that she's been using those two words as a shield for half her life.
"You need to rest," he insists gently. "Come to bed."
"You go. I need to stay here." She can be dogged when she has a mind to be.
"Buffy, don't be silly. What you need is to sleep." There's a slight exasperation to him now that he is perfectly entitled to feel. He's entitled to be confused and worried and jealous. She's supposed to be his girl and she can't even look away from her vampire for a moment to acknowledge him. "Buffy, there's nothing you can do here."
And just like that it is suddenly time to do it. She's been stalling, waiting for a good moment, just the right time so that she could soften the blow of their break up. But now, in this worst possible of moments, when they are both hurt and weak, she finds she can't hold off an instant longer.
"That's not why I need to stay." She doesn't doubt that he will understand exactly what she is not saying. He's far from stupid and he knows her as well as anyone does. "I'm sorry." The finality of it is at once heartbreaking and relieving, and she's certain he hears it all in her voice.
"Buffy?" And she hears in his voice, too, that this is agony for him, that he resist this knowledge even as he can't help but know. "Buffy, please, let's talk ab—"
"No, Angel." She shakes her head, eyes still riveted to Spike's disfigured face, still so handsome in her eyes, even through purple bruises and swollen lips. "There's nothing to say except that I'm sorry."
She hasn't looked at him once since he came into the room. She didn't know she was such a coward. But even without looking she knows that he is crying silent tears that seem to scent the air with salt, drowning out the pungent stench of antiseptic and stale blood.
"You love him." A fact, not a question, and all she can do is nod and tangle her fingertips in his bright blond hair.
"Yes," she murmurs, a breathy confession, an excuse—maybe even an apology.
"How long?" There is, she thinks, a sickness in all of us that makes us do this. Makes us pick at scabs and wobble teeth and court the pain of knowing every detail of a lover's defection.
She lets out the breath she'd been holding in a long defeated sigh. "Long time. Before…"
"Before us?" So few words to communicate such an awful lot of hurt.
"Yes." She looks at him now, faces his pained, betrayed eyes, his tear-stained face. "I'm sorry. I thought…" She scrunches up her face against the flow of unmeasured words and tries again to explain better that which she knows to be unexplainable. "I really thought it would always be us. I swear I did."
Suddenly a handful of words and heavy telling silences are not enough, and the words come in a jumbled stream of explanation. "I think I was still clinging to the dream of us. All those years I was so busy looking for you I just didn't see him coming. I honestly believed it was gonna be us." It is suddenly important to her that he know he had not been second choice, that when he had stood before her in that bright Roman sunlight, she had truly believed that she had finally been granted her happy ending.
She frowns and bites her lip. How can she explain to him that in her naivety she hadn't been able to see beyond that sunlit reunion kiss, that like a fairy tale princess she had believed the story ended there. Truth was, that's where the story should have begun, but she'd had no script for it and the ad-libs of life had not gone as she'd expected.
How can she tell him that she no longer believes in soul mates, that she has come to understand that love is not the perfect union of two hearts but a daily struggle of joyous and ignoble compromise? That she has grown to know that there can be more love in a raised voice or wounded jibe than in all the moonlight and roses in the world.
Would he understand what she now understands: that the true measure of love is that it endures, not just through easy, sun-filled days, but though harsh and angry reality. That in the moments that he makes your blood boil with rage, or when every little thing he does grates on your nerves, even in the moments when you utterly hate him, still you know you must love him, still you are only a look, a word, a touch away from love.
She has identified in the long hours of insomnia that have plagued her since Spike's death the very instant at which she first knew that she loved him, even as she had buried the knowledge beneath a torrent of denial.
It was not a huge moment as she would have expected. Not the first time they made love, not when he took the worst of Glory's torture for her or gave her the strength to face the First. It was not in the jealousy of watching him sleep with Anya or the pain of his failing as he pressed her into the cold tiles of her bathroom floor.
It was instead in a moment of mundane irritation on an inconsequential night just days before Warren had tried to make her believe that it was she who had killed the unfortunate Katrina.
He'd followed her on patrol again. Had interfered in a fight she was perfectly capable of handling, and had pissed her of royally with a spiteful comment about her choice of fragrance: "eau de doublemeat." He'd been annoying her to the point where she was ready to punch him and risk igniting the fire she was so carefully trying to control, when his mood had done a sudden one-eighty and he'd asked with obviously feigned nonchalance if Dawn had gotten through her history test okay.
She, of course, had forgotten about the test entirely, had once again neglected her sisterly responsibilities and not remembered to ask Dawn when she had bounced in from school that afternoon. Naturally, anger at her own shortcomings had turned to annoyance at the vampire, even as her heart had warmed with his capacity for consideration, and she'd punched him once hard in the nose and flounced off without a backward glance.
An inauspicious beginning for a love that would eventually eclipse even Angel in her heart, but a beginning none the less.
"I'm sorry, Angel." No, she won't be able to make him understand, and even if he did it would hardly bring him any comfort, so she keeps her explanations to herself and offers him only her regret and wishes that her eyes were not so dry when his are wet and red.
"Buffy." His voice is stronger now but rising with emotion, and she prays silently that he will let it go. "You deserve better than him, better than this."
Probably, but she wants nothing more. "So do you, Angel." And she is sincere in that sentiment, believes it deeply. A man such as Angel, who has done so much to become the man he is, deserves at very least to be loved without exception. "Can we talk about this tomorrow when we're not both so tired?"
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A/N No time to thank the lovely people who reviewed personally so just a sloppy big new years kiss to all and a Bear hug to boot.
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