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Chapter Thirteen

"Daddy! Watch me!" Lindsey called to Spike as she pumped her little legs on the swings. "Watch how I can go!"

"I'm watching, poppet!" Spike called back to her.

"I'm so glad I worried about telling her the truth," Buffy said dryly, resting her chin in her hand as she watched Lindsey.

William chuckled as he looked over at Buffy on the park bench table next to him. It was the weekend after Buffy had dropped the bomb on Angel. Two days later, they told Lindsey and she had taken to it like a duck to water.

"Does that mean that Daddy is my uncle now?" she'd asked.

"Yes, honey," Buffy'd said, thinking that Lindsey didn't have to worry Angel coming around and confusing her any time soon.

"Will I see him again?"

When Buffy had told her that might not happen, it was then that Lindsey had grown upset. "Will you stay?" she asked Spike.

"Never leave you again, poppet," Spike assured her.

That had assuaged her enough, though she did still ask the random question about Angel and his whereabouts. However, she seemed ever so pleased about Uncle Spike being her Daddy; yet she sometimes would ask out of the blue if he was going to stay or go.

"She's going to have abandonment issues when she's older," Buffy surmised.

"I've a feeling things will be pretty stable here on out," Spike assured her.

Buffy turned to him and raised a brow. "You think so?"

"I think so."

"Even with the divorce?"
"Even with the divorce. It'll be all quiet like."

Buffy shook her head, "Weirdo."

Spike chuckled and reached out, tugging on her braid, "Glad you came out today."

"Why wouldn't I? It's good for Lindsey to have us both with her. Especially now."

Spike nodded. "Right. For Lindsey, of course."

"Angel never spent much time with us," Buffy said thoughtfully.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he mused.

"I wonder if he and Fred will have children," she wondered.

"Buffy—" Spike started on a weary sigh.

"When you'd come to visit, did you end up taking up most of the slack watching her?" Buffy asked, turning to look at him.

He stared at her and then answered. "Yeah, sometimes. I kind of put myself out there though, ya know? Wanted her to love me."

"She does," Buffy said and turned back to watching Lindsey. "You know what I find myself going over and over in my head?"

"Your marriage?"

"That weekend. I keep trying to remember if there were signs. Signs that I didn't want to see or just chalked up to . . . something."

"And?"

"Aside from the time they offered to get us a round of drinks. . . which happened a few times huh? Maybe there were signs."

"You were also hammered."

"Not the ENTIRE weekend."

"Buffy, it was one night."

"Not the point," she said petulantly. "Although, Angel was attentive when he was around me. More so than usual. He was over compensating probably."

"Does it really matter now?"

"Yes, it does. It does to me. I mean, there had to be SIGNS. There had to be—"

"And yet there weren't. They didn't want us to know Buffy."

She peered at him. "Are you all right?"

He sat there, ramrod straight staring straight ahead at Lindsey with a stern expression on his face. "I don't want to hear about it Buffy. I don't want to hear about how there had to be signs and when they made their plans because we just don't know and we might not ever know. I just want to spend the day with you and my daughter all right?"

"We're not one big happy family, Spike," she snapped before she could censor the thought. The stormy look on his face when he turned to look at her caused her to curse herself. "Look," she started, "I'm sorry. I didn't meant that—"

"Yes, you did. It's why you said it."

"I can't say anything right. What do you want me to say, Spike? You want me to tell you that I never loved my husband? Because I did. You want me to tell you that his leaving doesn't hurt me? Because it does. You want me to tell you that his telling me he never loved me doesn't kill me? Because it does and I can't help it. I can't help that you were walking around with all these feelings that I never knew about. I don't know what it is that you want me to do—"

"Just . . . Just go home, Buffy," he said, dismissing her.

"What?"

"I don't want to be around you right now."

"Then you go home!"

"Mommy?"

Their heads snapped to see Lindsey standing before them, fearful. "Mommy? Are you going to send Uncle-- I mean Daddy away?"

"No baby, I'm not going to send Daddy away," Buffy reassured her and reached for her daughter pulling her on her lap. But Daddy might send me away, Buffy thought.

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

Later that night when Lindsey was in bed, Buffy was doing the dishes from dinner when Spike came in the kitchen and stood in the doorway watching her.

"Come to yell at me some more?" she asked, not bothering to turn around.

"I'm sorry."

That stopped her. She shut the water off and turned to him, leaning against the sink. "Are you now?"

He nodded, solemnly. "I am." He walked in and stood before her, raking a hand through his hair. "I know that you're going through a hard time and I just. . . I just . . ." he shook his head and looked down.

"You just what?"

He looked up at her, his eyes burning with intensity. "I just want to burn him out of your system, Buffy. I want to change the past; I want to fix the future. I want . . . I want to go back to high school where I never talked to you and fucking TALK to you. I want to go back to college and change it so that you never met Angel; so that you met me first. I want to make it so that you fell in love with me instead of him. And now . . . I have you to myself—"

She opened her mouth and he held up his hands. "Let me finish. I have you to myself and I still don't HAVE you because you're hurting from Angel. Always bloody Angel and I just--" he stepped closer to her, boxing her in with his body against the sink. His eyes bore into hers and her breath caught, feeling the heat begin to rise in her body. "I just want to burn him out of you," he rasped, "I want you—" and he kissed her, hard, deep and passionately. Her hands flew to his arms, clutching him to keep from falling over from the force of his passion. He clutched at her, bringing her close to him, holding her tight. He held her as if he wanted to pull her into himself.

"Spike—" she whispered when he broke briefly for air.

"Don't," he said tensely and nibbled at her bottom lip before claiming her mouth completely again. As quickly as it happened, it stopped. He released her, leaving her standing there gasping for air and feeling dazed. "Good night Buffy," he whispered. "See you in the morning," and he was gone.

Buffy slunk down to the floor, wondering when her knees had decided to leave her. She wasn't sure if he knew, but he had just taken a little piece of her heart previously marked ‘Angel' with him when he left. She wondered how long it'd be before he had the whole thing.





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