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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for those that are sticking it out even if they do hate me and Buffy lol
Chapter 26

Spike rolled over in bed and rubbed his eyes. Another morning, another hangover. He remembered writing for a long time in that bookshop the night before. Then, when he felt his heartbreak start to overcome him yet again, he'd taken off to a nearby bar and proceeded to get falling down drunk. Thankfully, his downstairs neighbor Andrew had been there when the bartender demanded he call someone or he was putting him in a cab. At that point Spike hadn't been sure he even remembered how to get home.

Buffy was gone. She'd left a note saying she was staying at Willows for a while. God, he missed her. He knew the heart was an organ and that as an organ it was incapable of actually feeling emotion, but his heart was aching so much it felt as if he was having a heart attack.

"What am I going to do?" he asked himself aloud.

"Well, you're not going to be drinking again anytime soon," a voice replied.

Spike shot up in bed. Andrew was standing in the doorway, sipping what
looked like orange juice. "You're still here?" Spike asked incredulously.

"Yeah, a little thing called alcohol poisoning had me a little concerned last
night mister," Andrew scolded. "Do you know how many times you threw
up? I think you threw up twice for every drink you imbibed."

Spike winced. "Thanks Andrew, but you really didn't have to stay."

He shrugged, "What can I say? I'm a giver."

Spike couldn't help but chuckle at that. It hurt his head to do so. He winced
and clutched at it.

"I put a glass of water on your nightstand and some aspirin. Like I said,
I'm a giver."

"Thanks," Spike said uncertainly.

"Is this about a girl?"

Spike raised an eyebrow as he popped the pills and took a long drink of
water. "Yes," he said once he'd put the cup down.

"Your roommate?" Andrew asked and practically bounced in the room,
settling himself on Spike's bed.

Spike eyed him warily, feeling this was somehow too close. "Yeah," he said
slowly.

"It's not like I'm super intuitive or anything, you just kept slurring her
name. I think you added a few more ‘f's' and ‘y's' to her name thought. It
kept coming out like ‘Buffffyyyy'. It was comical in an annoying drunken
way."

"I don't know what to say to that," Spike said carefully.

Andrew shrugged, "Nothing you can say. So, what'd she do? Should I refer
to her as an evil bitch? You did last night a few times."

"No you may not call her that. She might be an evil bitch, but she's my evil
bitch."

"Ha! You've got it bad. What's that like?"

Spike stared at Andrew, wondering if he was for real.

"Yes, I'm really that odd. Answer me now please."

Spike sighed, not sure why he was about to open up to Andrew, but at least
someone was here to listen to him. "Well, it feels like my soul has been
sliced through and my heart—"

"Has been pureed?" Andrew finished andthen sighed dramatically. "I've
never felt that way, but I can't wait to."

"You can't WAIT for that?" Spike asked incredulously.

"Yes, because it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved
at all," Andrew chirped.

"That's horseshit. I'd rather—" he stopped, thinking of Buffy's sweet smile,
the way she felt in his arms, the way she made him laugh. Would he really
wish to have given all of that up in exchange for how he was feeling at the
present moment?

"You were saying?" Andrew prompted, batting his eyelashes and looking
at him knowingly.

"Oh shut up," Spike grumbled.

"Grumpy bear! So dish. I want to know what happened. I promise to only
tell Warren and Jonathan and no one else. Well, except for a few people at
work, but I will change the names to protect the innocent."

Spike couldn't help but laugh. "At least you're honest."

"I am! Now tell me how she done you wrong."



*****************************************************************


"I'm being selfish, aren't I? And controlling. I'm telling him how to live his life; I'm telling him what to do, aren't I?" Buffy asked Willow over coffee in the morning, on the brink of tears.

Willow stared off thoughtfully and stirred the cream into her coffee. "Well, I can see how it would seem as if you are being selfish and controlling. And yet . . . "

Silence.

"Care to finish that thought because I'm minutes away from checking
myself into the fifth floor of the hospital."

"And yet, I can see how you're not being selfish."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad I waited for that profound and
insightful statement Nurse Rosenberg. All right, that's it. Call your psych
friends, I'm checking myself in."

"I think the fact that you know you're crazy is a step in the right direction."

"Is it?"

"At least you know that letting William go is the single most insane thing
you've ever done. Well, aside from actually wearing the Joey Lawrence
from ‘Blossom' t shirt Xander dared you to in the seventh grade."

"I'll make sure to put that on when I check myself in. I figure that'll be my
shoo in."

Willow sighed. "Buffy, you told me that when William started changing you
felt neglected because he did it without you. You were hurt by that, I
remember. You wondered why he couldn't have done those things with
you. And I remember you telling me he told you that sometimes it takes a
person outside of your. . . realm, if you will, to see the changes you need to
make. Which makes perfect sense. You then told me that he said he did all
those things for you and because of you."

"Right."

"Well, when making life changes, one should do it for themselves and not
for anyone else. When you start doing that shit, you end up resenting the
person you made changes for in the first place. Because what if it's not
where you want to be? What if you want something different? Then you
end up living your life by someone else's standards and that's where
resentment takes root and thrives. I don't think it's selfish to say you want
William to be ‘Spike' for HIM and not for you. I think its only controlling
when you tell him HOW to do that."

"Like when I told him to date other girls?"

Willow nodded slowly. "Yes, that could be considered controlling," Willow
said diplomatically. "Perhaps you could have said that you wanted to give
him time to discover himself."

"I did, later, in a way."

"Is there a time limit on this self discovery?"

"No, but I really didn't think that part through."

"Damn you!"

"Well, I can't have all the answers. Even though it was my bright idea." She
sighed heavily. "See, when this whole thought process came to me it was
because I was afraid he'd grow bored of me and want to try other girls. It
was all about his sexual exploration and wanting to take it outside me. But,
then its expanded since then into him exploring more than just that. Now
it's that I don't want to hinder his growth. I told him once that he was right
in not wanting others to hinder him self discovery and change because they
could put a different spin on it, maybe they wouldn't like something that he
felt strongly about changing and influence his decision. I could be that
person. And, because he loved me, maybe he'd do what I wanted him to do
instead of what he wanted to do. Then I'd just be holding him back.
I fell in love with William. I fell in love with Spike, but I never got to know
all of Spike because William was still in the process of becoming Spike. He
wanted to explore with me all that he was inside, and I wanted that too. But
it got me thinking later that. . . let's take his hair for example. I never would
come up with the idea for him to bleach his hair. He did that on his own. Now if he had approached me about that, I would have told him it wouldn't look good."

"You would have wrinkled your nose."

Buffy chuckled, "Exactly. So then knowing William, he probably wouldn't
have done it. Now what other things would I have stopped him from doing?
Hair is a small thing, but what if there are others he came to me about and
I just wrinkled my nose about it? Not to say that everything he'll change I'll
embrace even without me, but he should be able to do things like that
without me there to hinder him or keep him as the William he so
desperately wanted to change to begin with. I love him Willow. I do so very
much and I know that I hurt him," her eyes welled up in tears. "But I can't
help but think I did right by him too. I have a good feeling about this."

"It's just. . . I hear a lot of ‘maybe's' and ‘perhaps' and ‘what if's'. You don't
know that these things would have happened, Buffy. You don't know that
he wouldn't have gone out and changed his hair despite what you said."

"True, but. . . when it comes to changing things in your life and figuring out
the things you want to do with it and how you want to live it, no one knows
better than you what's going to work and what will fit. I just don't want to
hinder any of that for him. I can't predict what'll happen with him and I'm
not putting a time stamp on anything or telling him how to do anything.
That's the whole point."

"And what about you? What have you learned?"

Buffy sighed heavily. "That my ‘shoot first, apologize later' way of life has
got to end."

***************************************************************
Andrew was nodding thoughtfully and rubbing his chin as Spike spilled his story about what had happened with Buffy and what she had told him. When he was done, Andrew just studied him thoughtfully.

"What?" Spike asked impatiently.

"I'm just wondering what you'll do."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how are you going to handle this? Are you going to wallow in self
pity and drink yourself into oblivion every night which is most definitely
NOT what she wants for you, or are you going to do something productive
with yourself?"

Spike stared at him, stunned.

"It seems to me you have a choice here," Andrew said standing up and
looking down at him. "You can wallow in this and self destruct or you can
find out just what kind of strength the Spike in you has. Wallowing isn't
going to get her back and self destructing isn't going to do you any favors.
However, if you figure out what you want to do with yourself, you could
find out about things you never knew you were capable of—and like the
great man Frankie, you can belt out that you did it your way. So, what are
you gonna do?"





**A/N: I won't be able to update for a couple days as I'm going on vacation. I'll update quickly when I get back! :)





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