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Thanks everyone!!
Never speak disrespectfully of Society. Only people who can't get into it do that. ~ Oscar Wilde


Buffy settled in the limo feeling a wave of homesickness wash over her. She wanted to go home and have the comfort of her bed and blankets. She wanted the comfort of her apartment, to have that ‘I’m home and safe’ feeling wash over her and calm her rattled nerves.

She was not a weak woman by any stretch and yet, at that moment, she felt weak. And stupid. Colossally stupid. It seemed the mishaps she’d had over the course of the night had done nothing to show her how she belonged with Spike in Spike’s world, but how she very much didn’t. Spike and Buffy alone fit like a hand and glove, Spike and Buffy in his world – his reality – was like oil and vinegar. Somehow, she became a bumbling idiot in the face of reporters and celebrities.

How did that happen? What happened with Wesley was so innocent. All she did was bend down to get his damn cufflink. . . and Faith…God, Faith! She should have kept her mouth shut. She should have just ignored the woman and gone to find Spike or Fred. She should have just . . . She was supposed to just take that? She was, wasn’t she? She was supposed to just let Faith say all the nasty things she wanted, let the whore flirt with her boyfriend, and just spend the entire night in silence. And why? Because somehow it was all for the greater good.

“Buffy, what happened?”

Buffy looked over at Spike who was watching her intently. He didn’t appear mad at her, but he didn’t seem happy either. His expression was blank, though his voice harbored an edge.

“Do you think that was my fault?” she asked, suddenly feeling as if she on trial. By her boyfriend. No, that wasn’t right.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you’re thinking it aren’t you? Did you actually believe that display she put on?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

“You do believe I attacked her!”

“I didn’t say that, but she did have a scratch on her face, Buffy—“

“You don’t have to say it. Your silence speaks volumes!”

“Baby, relax, just calm down—“

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Don’t patronize me William, and don’t call me baby!”

“Then tell me what the fuck happened!” Spike shouted.

Glaring at him, Buffy pressed the intercom button to talk to the driver.

“What are you doing?” Spike demanded.

“I’m going back to the hotel.”

“Like hell you are!”

“I am!”

“Why? So you can run and cry and Angel’s shoulder about what a dick I am? I’m asking you a simple question Buffy and you’re blowing it into something else, accusing me of accusing you. Which, you say I don’t have to say anything and it makes me look guilty, but you’re looking pretty guilty yourself right now, Buffy!”

“I didn’t do anything! She came out and was mouthing off to me and yeah, I mouthed back to her. I wasn’t going to just stand there and let her make me feel like shit about myself just because she’s some fucking celebrity! I don’t care who the hell she is! And you know what? I don’t care who the hell you are either! I felt like I was nothing to you tonight!”

“I explained to you why—“

“Yeah, you explained to me why I had to keep my mouth shut. Why I couldn’t talk, why I couldn’t do anything unless you approved it. What was I supposed to do? Just stand there and tell Wesley ‘fuck you, find your own damn cufflink’? And what was I supposed to do when Faith stood there and insulted me? Taken it? I don’t think so, William. Maybe I need the rules. Yeah, that’s it. Maybe you can make up a book for me to tell me what it is I can or can’t say and what it is, I can or can’t do. I can’t be helpful and I can’t defend myself so what the hell can I do?” Pressing the button, Buffy nearly shouted in the speaker, “Driver, please stop at the—“

Spike lunged across the seat, “Don’t do it. You take orders from me,” he told the driver, and flicked the intercom off.

Buffy glared at him, “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You’re angry with me,” Spike said evenly. “You tell me not to run and to face my problems head on, Buffy. So, I’m going to make you do the same. You’re not going to run from me everytime we have a disagreement. You want to have an adult relationship, then we’re going to have an adult relationship. Starting right now.”

The last thing Buffy wanted to do was cry, and yet, that’s what she found herself doing. And when Spike tried to take her in his arms, she pushed at him. “No,” she said forcefully. “I don’t want your caring now.”

“Buffy, please, listen to me. I didn’t tell you those things to make you feel bad about yourself. I was trying to make you understand what I was trying to do. Why didn’t you say anything then if it still bothered you?”

“Because it made sense at the time. Because until that—that--tramp attacked me and you – you didn’t do anything except yell at a few reporters that were hounding me – it—it made sense! She made me feel like crap, she made me feel like nothing and I’m not,” hiccup, “I’m not nothing. I’m,” hiccup, “I’m Elizabeth Anne Summers and I’m successful and smart and—and—just because I don’t fit in your world doesn’t mean that I’m a nobody. What am I supposed to do? Find the other nobodies in the crowd and only talk with them so it doesn’t get back to the press? Am I supposed to say ‘Hi, I’m nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too?’”

“You could if you were Emily Dickinson.”

She glared at him, wiping furiously at the tears that dribbled down her cheeks. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“I’m trying to make you feel better, I’m sorry. I—“

“Don’t try to make me feel better. You’re just making it worse!”

Sighing heavily, Spike raked a hand through his hair. “I – You’re right. This is hard, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” she took a shuddering breath. “Do you want to let me go to the hotel now?”

Reaching out, Spike dragged her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “No, I don’t want you to go to the hotel. As hard as this is, it’s for the best don’t you think? We need to do this and not hide. We’re both good at hiding. I don’t want to hide from you, Buffy. I want you to be able to talk to me, and I want to be able to talk to you. I don’t want a repeat of Sam.”

“I don’t fit in your world,” Buffy said softly. “I wanted to. I wanted to prove to you that I could do it. That I could fit in. I wanted to prove to them that I was good enough to be with you and you know what I realized? They’re not good enough for me.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Spike murmured. “They’re not. That world. . . it’s as hard and as fake as it’s seductive. You’re hard pressed to find anyone worth a damn. Wesley is about it, honestly. Buffy, I …I went about it all wrong. I fucked up. I was so concerned with trying to protect you and not letting them get to you that I made you feel as though you were nothing. You’re not a nobody, Buffy. Not to me. To me, you’re everything.”

“I just…I just felt like she won. I didn’t get to defend myself and you didn’t…why didn’t you defend me?”

“My instinct was to get you out of there. I didn’t want to add more fire to the flames. The look on your face…You look overwhelmed and scared. I didn’t think, I just reacted. I had one thought and that thought was to get you away from those piranhas. I spent all of tonight just wanting to keep you from getting on their radar so that you weren’t touched by it, weren’t disrupted by them. I didn’t think that by doing that I was only making you feel as if you didn’t matter. I don’t want you to feel that you’re not significant, that you’re not an intelligent woman—“

“I know I am when I’m with you alone, but I just felt that I couldn’t do anything right by you tonight,” Buffy explained, much calmer now.

“Look at me, luv,” Spike said softly, putting a finger under her chin and making her look at him. She did so with some trepidation. She wasn’t used to this kind of intensity. She avoided relationships for this reason, and now she was in the thick of it and felt as though she didn’t know the moves. She could talk a good game to others, but when it came to actually doing it herself, she fell short.

They really were perfect for each other.

“I’m sorry I made you feel as though you couldn’t do anything right. I’m sorry that I put so much pressure on you that you felt you had to not only impress everyone around you, but me as well. I was just . . . I’m just…Christ, Buffy. I’m so afraid to lose you, to scare you off, to have my world scare you off that I made it worse for you instead of easier. I just want to keep you from all that crap so that it doesn’t change you or harm you.”

“She slapped me.”

“What?”

“She slapped me across the face and then pulled my hair. I tried to shove her off of me and ended up scratching her across the face in the process. I’d finally managed to get her off me when the camera’s started going. She made it seem as if I’d attacked her. Yeah, I admit, I mouthed off, but I couldn’t just stand there and let her belittle me like that.”

“As well you shouldn’t. I’m sorry she did that, Buffy. Faith is. . .well, she’s a nasty woman. Bitter and jaded, not to mention spoiled. She’s used to getting what she wants and she’s always tried to get me everytime I’ve crossed paths with her. Frankly, she scares me.” He chuckled nervously and Buffy smiled slightly in response. “She likes to cause scenes and I should have said something to her. I was hoping that she’d stop if I just ignored her. I should have learned however that ignoring her only makes her worse.”

“I want to go home,” Buffy whispered, burying her face in his chest, not really knowing anymore if she meant home to Boston, or home with Spike.

“We’re almost there, luv. Pet, please, please don’t be mad at me. Don’t…don’t hate me. I love you, Buffy. I love you so much and I’m sorry I made you feel as though you had to prove something to me and to them in order to be accepted. Please just know that—“

“Spike, stop, please. I just want to put tonight behind me right now. I kind of want to stick my head in the sand and forget it happened. To quote Scarlet O’ Hara, I don’t want to think about it today. I want to think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Nodding, Spike held her closer to him and kissed her forehead. “Do you still love me?” he asked, and she could hear the fear in his voice.

She looked up at him, “I do still love you. I’m sorry I was such a brat. I’m sorry I tried to leave . . . that was my first instinct. I talk a good game, Spike, but I’m really not good at any of this.”

“Then we have a lot of growing to do together don’t we?”

Buffy nodded and buried her face in his chest once again. Before she felt that her biggest fear of getting involved with him was his track record with monogamy and string of women, and now, well now she felt as though she had a whole other set of fears to contend with. Some vacation this is turning out to be.





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