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Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter is short and sweet. I'm a little stuck as to where to move from here, taking it slow and gentle and praying I can get it right and actually move it on. Thank you to all who take the time to continue with this story. Your support is very important to me.

This chapter is unbetaed so I apologise now if it reads like crap.
Chapter Twelve

When she reached her front yard, Buffy stopped in the dark and stared up at her bedroom window. She could have sworn she’d left it wide open, being that the thing emitted the most teeth-clenching screech whenever she slid it up. It was nowhere near wide open now. On a sigh, the Slayer jumped up and caught hold of the tree, swinging up to the roof below her window, leaving her then to slid through the gap like a human slinky and roll to the floor. As soon as she stood, Buffy knew she’d been duped. The window hadn’t slid down of its own accord. The pane had been lowered on purpose.

“Care to explain where you’ve been? Why a young girl has been wandering the streets at this time of night?”

Joyce Summers sat in the chair by Buffy’s bed, her face carefully clear of the anger that Buffy knew simmered beneath the surface.

“I…um…thought it was a nice night for a walk?” Buffy knew the excuse was doomed the second it rolled from her lips and wished she could drag Giles up and force him to confide in her mother about the nasty things that went on in the dark in Sunnydale.

Joyce took to her feet, and swayed ever so slightly before fixing Buffy with a piercing mom-glare that, unfortunately, wasn’t so new. “Young lady, you are grounded.” She took a breath, anger making her shake along with whatever alcohol had filled her glass tonight. “You will go to school and come home immediately after. You will not go out with friends, and your friends will not come over here. Until you can learn to not give me a heart attack every single day, you’re to stay in this room. Understand?”

Rather than feeling devastated at such a punishment, Buffy felt a tremendous sense of relief. Not having to front up to Giles every night; trying to ignore how much her introverted response to Spike’s connection to her was hurting her friends. Not having to face the vampire population of her town and have the vast majority of them eye her strangely and slowly melt into the night’s shadows rather than face her and her stake.

Not having to walk the darkness alone, suffering Spike’s absence like it was a gaping wound in her heart.

It all seemed to be of the good, rather than make her want to rail and scream about the injustice of parental rights to punish their teenagers.

Buffy nodded, trying to look suitably chastised and surly at the same time, but collapsing to her bed the second her mother trounced from the bedroom. Tears stung at her eyes and Buffy willed them not to fall, feeling a twinge in her gut for the constant source of weakness that made her want to mourn Spike’s absence. It was only now, with her mother’s unsteady footsteps receding down the hall, that Buffy realised what this confinement would mean.

The one thing she’d been avoiding like the plague since Spike blew her from his life, leaving her alone as he reclaimed the night without his dark princess at his side. It had to give him a tortured sense of pleasure that he’d left behind a semi-broken slayer to guard the Hellmouth.

Above all else, Buffy wished she could deny the truth of that. That she was strong, collected, the Slayer.

Long, endless hours faced her and Buffy released the tightly wound emotion that balled inside her, making her suffer the escalating pressure of fear and failure. Sobs rushed out of her, hard and raw, and Buffy buried her face into her pillow, the cells of her body feeling tight, anxious and hot. She hated this, hated Spike, but was so torn and conflicted that her own body rebelled against her heart and her brain. Nothing felt right anymore; nothing felt simple. She’d unloaded some of it onto Willow, but even an oblivious Chosen One could see how much use that likely wouldn’t be. Her friend looked even more confused and bewildered than Buffy herself was, which meant one thing. Resoundingly clear, Buffy would have to deal with this on her own.

She just hoped she could work out how.


~*~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He never noticed until he was right up close that every girl he stalked was the Slayer. Blonde hair, green eyes, cute and pert in all the right places. For the first time ever, being the slayer likely saved each and every one of their lives.

An annoyed growl rumbled from his throat and Spike kicked a can in the sidewalk with disgust. Fuck, he was starving. Two weeks without feeding was taking its toll. Two weeks of not seeing her was doing his head in. Two weeks of failure to make a plan was going to get him killed.

Down an alleyway, hidden from passers-by, Spike heard a yelp and then the sloppy slurping of a vamp feeding in the dark. In the blink of an eye he was there, his mouth salivating at the smell of freshly spilled blood and before he could process what he was doing, he tore the vamp away and latched onto the bleeding throat, groaning as the hot source of life flowed into his mouth. The body dropped at his feet when he finished, allowing the haze of hunger to abate slowly and the fog to clear from his head. A furious vampire stood before him, ready to strike, and just as he charged, Spike sidestepped and snagged a broken sliver of wood on the floor of the alley and threw it with frightening accuracy at his brethren’s heart. The thwarted vampire turned to dust and Spike shook, wondering at his inability to keep his most basic needs met and thoroughly losing the plot. Wasn’t the first time he’d killed a fellow vamp; was the first time he’d stolen his dinner, though.

A build up of frustration and self-disgust rushed through him and Spike slammed his fist into the alley wall, again and again until the agony of broken bones countered his other agony of staying away from Buffy. He didn’t want to go back; couldn’t if he had any sense. The Slayer might have been suffering some kind of traumatic amnesia regarding his evil self and her destined role in his destruction, affording Spike infinitely more control over her than normal circumstances would have warranted. Under the normal expectations of a slayer meeting a vampire. By now she’d have taken her friends and her watcher aside and revealed exactly what Spike had done to her, and he doubted he’d be able to achieve a quiet re-entry into town. Not that that was anywhere near his style anyway. No bloody way. If he was going back to Sunnydale, it was with the Desoto’s engine roaring. With the pedal to the mettle and a Welcome to Sunnydale sign nicely flattened under his car. He might have Buffy’s gang try to turn him out, but what chance did they really have against a monster like him?

Of course, there was no way he was going back to Sunnydale, or Buffy.

Was there?


Chapter End Notes:
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