She should be glad to have had the extra day from Tuesday to Saturday. Unfortunately, it hadn’t really helped her. She seemed to have writer’s block when it came to how she was going to tell him. With all of the other things she written, the feelings just seemed to take over her hand and words wrote themselves. She knew what she was feeling, so why wouldn’t the words write themselves? No matter how much she tried to make them come out, they just wouldn’t. Was it some sort of sign? Had her taken a clear dream and put her own spin on the meaning?
No, it was there. It just wasn’t coming out. What was she going to do? Riley would be there any minute to…
A quick knock as the door opened had Buffy cursing herself.
“Guess I asked for that,” She deadpanned.
Riley quickly cast a glance behind him to see if she was talking to or about something else.
“Sorry. Case of speak of the devil and he shall appear.”
“Um, I’m not quite sure how to take that?” Riley half smiled.
“Not personally? It’s not you, it’s me?”
That didn’t seem to make him look any happier.
“See! That’s my problem! I can’t say anything right! I’ve been working on this stupid thing since Tuesday and you know how many words I’ve got? Zero! That’s how many! Z-E-R-O, zero! No matter what I try, the words just don’t come out. And anything I do write, sounds like something off of Roger Rabbit.” Her initial gusto had deflated like a balloon until she visibly caved into herself in frustrated defeat.
“Maybe you’re just trying too hard?” Riley helpfully suggested. “I mean, the rest of it just kind of came on its own, right?”
“So, what, I’m just supposed to sit back and wait for my brain to figure out what to say?”
“Well… yeah.”
“No! No, no, no, no, no, and no! I can’t say ‘no’ strongly enough here.” Buffy started pacing back and forth across the narrow room. “I have to do this right! If I don’t say this just right, Spike is going to die again thinking that I didn’t love him.”
“Um, Buffy, am I missing something? When did Spike die?”
“Of course Spike died, he’s a vampire.” Buffy tossed out off-handedly. “But he died closing the hellmouth, and at the last minute I said it.. I told him I love him.” She was now looking squarely at Riley. “And he didn’t believe me! The stupid insufferable idiot said I don’t love him. How could he not believe me?!” She asked resuming her pacing.
“Buffy? Are you feeling ok?”
She paused to once again give him the look that asked if he’d gone insane at some point.
“No! I’m not feeling ok! In less than an hour I’m supposed to go on stage and tell Spike that I love him. The dream was pretty damn clear. If I don’t get this right, he won’t believe me. I’ll move on with my life and never see him again. And he’ll never know I meant it.”
“Dream?” Riley asked, looked slightly less confused.
“Yes, the Slayer dreams.” She waved a dismissive hand in the air.
“Slayer dreams?” He repeated her words.
“Yes! The Slayer…” she stopped mid-sentence. “Oh… I never… oh.”
“Are we talking like, the band Slayer?”
All she could do was stand there fish mouthed, trying to figure out a way to tell Riley the long, long, story of her secret life as a Slayer. In the end, she settled for direct.
“My whole life, I’ve had to battle monsters, and most of the time I lost. But in my dreams, I’m the Vampire Slayer, The Chosen One, the one girl in all the world with the strength and stamina to defeat the monsters. And I do.”
“Ok, that makes a sort of sense, as coping mechanisms go. But that doesn’t explain why you’re acting a little weirded out right now.”
“The dreams, Riley… they always have a meaning. It’s my brain trying to make sense of everything and showing me what I need to do, right?” She paused to see if he was following her. He appeared to be, so she proceeded. “I had a dream Wednesday morning, and in it I finally told Spike that I loved him. Only, I was too late. We were all about to die and he needed to know so I told him, and I meant it, I really did, but he didn’t believe me. And it means that if I don’t get this right and tell him now, then he won’t believe me.”
Riley looked to be processing everything she’d said. She hoped he understood.
“Wow. Um, ok, I’m really not sure how to respond to that.” Well, at least he was honest.
“Me neither, and that’s the problem!” Buffy flopped down in the chair again.
“Ok,” Riley said again. “Do you want to skip tonight? Try again Tuesday?”
“No,” She was sure of that much. She had to do it sooner rather than later. “I can’t let it be too late again.” She looked up at Riley, hoping to convey her urgency.
“So you do it tonight.” Riley knelt down in front her to, so that he was eye level with her.
“I can’t! I haven’t written anything!” That almost sounded dangerously close to a whine to her own ears.
“You will.” He seemed so confident.
“And if I don’t?” She hesitantly asked.
“You will.”
“How can you be sure?” How *could* he be so sure?
“Because it’s you,” He smiled. “Buffy, you are like no one else in the world. Your passion is like a fire that burns so bright it blinds. And yet, sometimes you are so certain about what you want to do, and you have that calm that makes everything else around you melt away. You can do this, Buffy.”
She smiled. In another time and another place, if she had been a different person, she could have loved him. In time, if she tried, they could have maybe even been happy. But she was who she was. This wasn’t their time. And he place wasn’t with him.
“I’m sorry,” The words slipped out, as her hand cupped his cheek.
His hand came up to press gently against her hand on his check, as hundreds of emotions played across his eyes. Finally, his other hand cupped the back of head, as he pulled her forward and placed a tender kiss on her forehead.
“I know,” He replied. “Now, let’s go tell assface you love him.”
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