Chapter Four
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“I just know he’ll do something again,” Buffy told Spike worriedly, near tears as she sat in on his plush black sofa. She cupped hot tea in her hands, which was dangerously close to dropping, since Buffy couldn’t seem to calm herself.
Spike stood across his living room, turning off his blaring Sex
Pistols CD, and instead putting on some Frank Sinatra. One of
Buffy’s favorites.
She smiled up at him gratefully, though shakily,
as she looked up at him with wide – eyes.
“Best drink that up before it gets cold, pet,” he
told her as Frankie’s soothing voice wafted around the room
softly.
Instead, she set her mug down and buried her
face in her hands, her elbows propped up on her knees. She
resembled a gargoyle, the way she was perched on the
edge of his sofa, all wound up and ready to fight or flee at
the slightest indication. When she looked up at him again,
tears tracked her face, her mascara running down her
cheeks in black streaks. She was a gargoyle alright, Spike
thought, a gargoyle trying desperately to protect her heart.
She was still the most beautiful woman he’d
ever seen, and was convinced, he’d EVER see.
And she was in love with his best friend. How
many years had he pined for her? And for what? To sit by
and watch her from afar, to pine, to long, to yearn, but to
never have, to hold or to touch –not unless he was holding
her as she cried her despair over her mistrust of Angel due
to his betrayal of their marriage.
“Tell me, Spike, please,” she now begged him.
“We’ve done this song and dance before,
Buffy,” he sighed, settling himself in the stiff olive colored
chair across the room from her.
“And you told me to ask Angel. I did, remember?
I did and that’s why I’m so fucked right now.”
“You’re not fucked, Buffy. He’s been honest
with you. He told you, while sobbing his soddin’ eyes out,
you told me. He’s remorseful, he’s regretful; he’s all those
things good husbands who cheat on their wives are
supposed to be. You’ve been doing so well—“
“Doing well?” she laughed bitterly and the sound
sent chills up Spike’s spine. “I haven’t been doing well. You
know that. I come by here almost every day and tell you how
not well we’re doing. How can you say that?” she demanded
of him, turning her worry into anger and directing it at him.
“You haven’t opened his mail with the steam
from boiling water in a while—“
“Doesn’t stop me from wondering about it until I
have to ask him. Then he gets frustrated and upset and then I
in turn feel guilty when I have nothing to –“
“Sounds like the lot of you need counseling,”
Spike remarked dryly.
She glared at him. “Just . . . tell me. You
wouldn’t last time, but please tell me now.”
“Buffy,” he said, leaning forward and meeting
her eyes. “He is not having an affair. He is only out of town
for business. Only business. He has not had contact with her
or any other female. He will come back the day after
tomorrow and he will not have slept with anyone else.”
Nodding, she reached out and grabbed her mug,
this time taking a sip. She sat back into the sofa now, her
expression blank. “We don’t make love anymore,” she told him
softly, looking down at her hands.
Spike sat still though he certainly did not want to
venture down this road. He just let her talk. He always let her
talk and would offer support where he could, hug her while
she cried. What else could he do? What he wanted to do and
what he could do were two different things entirely.
“He tries, but when he touches me, I think of
what he did. I think of his hands touching HER. Of his lips
kissing HER. I wonder--did he kiss her the same? Did he
touch her the same?”
“You think too much,” he muttered before he
could stop himself.
She cast hurt eyes to him.
He rolled his eyes, “Oh don’t look at me like that.
You know I can’t stand---“ he broke off and jumped up from
his seat, turning his back to her. “I can’t stand to see you hurt
Buffy. Can’t stand to see you cry. You came to me when you
suspected and you’ve been coming to see me ever since.”
He stopped, not wanting to reveal too much and yet wanting
to bare his heart and soul to her in the hopes of gaining some
peace, of setting free what was caged inside him.
Her tiny hand on his back, warm and comforting
made him tense. “Spike,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I
didn’t—“
She was cut off because Spike didn’t want her
apologies. Didn’t want to hear how she didn’t know, but she
loved him as a friend because she loved Angel.
Because she married Angel. She was Angel’s
wife.
As if he could ever forget. As if she ever let him
forget when she would cry on his shoulder.
So instead of letting her let him down easy,
which was sure to be hard, he kissed her.
************************************************************************
“Do you believe in fate, Spike?” Buffy asked the
next morning as he joined her outside on the porch. Lindsey
was busy playing in her sandbox and Buffy sat watching
her, though her mind was a million miles away.
Spike lit up the cigarette hanging from his mouth and Buffy frowned at him. Well, she figured, at least it wasn’t in the house or anywhere near Lindsey.
“This have anything to do with your ‘gut
feelings’?” he asked, taking a drag.
She sighed, “Can you just answer the
question?”
“I think we make our own fate,” he said.
“So you don’t think there’s a reason behind
things?”
“I think we make choices based on what
information is available to us at the time.”
“That gave me nothing.”
“What can I say? Fate and destiny and all that
rubbish is just that. Rubbish. It’s a trumped up way for
everyone to make excuses for the shitty things they’ve done
or to make up excuses for the shitty things done to them. It’s
not fate or destiny that makes these things happen. It’s
people making choices every day.”
“And coincidences?”
“Just that. Coincidences.”
“So say this Fred is the love of Angel’s life—“
“Here we go,” he drawled and took another
drag.
“Shut up and listen. Say Fred is the love of
Angel’s life; the one he’s meant to be with and has been
made to be with. His DESTINY. So then fate brought her here
and when they saw each other they just knew. It clicked.
The heaven’s aligned and the stars lined up and everything
fell into place. It was your destiny to meet her and bring her
here. It was your destiny to bring the split aparts together.”
“Been reading Plato, luv?”
“The question is,” she continued, ignoring
him, “What is my destiny? What is yours? What is Lindsey’s?
There has to be something for us to be going through this.”
“Bit greedy of you don’t you think?”
“It’s karma, Spike. You do know what karma is
don’t you?” she asked, trying to keep her temper at a
minimum. He really could be infuriating sometimes.
Most of the time.
“Yes, I bloody know what karma is. Put
something out there in the universe, bad or good, and it
comes back to you.”
“What goes around, comes around,” she mused.
“So if you believe in karma, how do you know
this isn’t our karmic debt we’re payin’ off right now?”
Buffy froze, eyes intent on Lindsey. “No, that can’t be.”
“Why not? Angel cheated on you, you cheated on him.”
She turned her head slowly and glared at him. “I went through hell—“
“Yeah, I know. I was there remember?”
“And Lindsey? What did she do wrong?” Buffy
continued on, her temper and voice rising.
“She’s caught in the crossfire. She’s paying for
her mother’s and father’s sins.”
“You’re full of shit,” Buffy said angrily. “What
about you? What are you paying for, Spike?”
“My debt’s been paid off sweetheart,” Spike
drawled.
“Pray tell, when was that?”
“When you married Angel instead of me.”
Her breath caught in her throat, she was unable
to speak at that, all she could do was stare at him.
“Far as I see it, whatever I did to deserve that
kind of hell, it’s been dutifully paid off already. However, I
wager some more is due to me any time now. But this, I
know, is not it. If you want to believe in destiny and fate,
Buffy, then here it is, right here.” His eyes met hers and bore
into her very soul.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I met Fred, right? I brought her here, and now
Angel and her are gone. You know what I got out of it?”
She stayed silent.
“I got you.”
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