Spike was crawling out his skin. He’d had enough. He couldn’t take it anymore. It seemed the world was conspiring against them, and since he hadn’t heard from Buffy, he had to assume she’d not only seen the pictures, but also believed what those articles were saying.
She didn’t trust him.
He’d had it. He was throwing in the towel. Grabbing his keys, he marched out the door.
Buffy sat at her desk, feeling numb. She’d done minimal work that day – not at all up to par with her usual load she pulled off. She simply didn’t know what to think. Willow had tried to take the magazines with her on her way back to work, but Buffy wanted them. Why, she wasn’t sure. She thought maybe by having them around she’d be struck with some kind of genius and she’d look at one and be able to dispute them all.
So far, not happening.
Now, she was clacking her pen on her desk, the repeated motion and noise just lulling her into a further trance. Her mind reached back over the past few weeks. From the time she’d decided to visit Spike in L.A., all the way up to the time she’d returned.
She’d witnessed his metamorphosis, seen how he’d changed right before her eyes, and seen how upsetting it had made him to realize how his behavior had affected those around him. The hurt in his eyes when he’d realized how deeply he had really hurt her when he’d brought that Laura bimbo in and lied to her about it, hadn’t been faked. And his genuine concern for Alicia hadn’t been faked either, nor the steps he was making with Sam.
The way he’d loved her. The attentiveness, the way he’d wanted to protect her, the statement he’d made and all those little things he’d done to make sure she was happy and felt safe. How hard he tried at their relationship; how adult he could be, how he kept her from running – had he felt like running the whole time? Had the strain been too much? Had the separation done him in? Was it a publicity stunt? No. Randy wasn’t one to make him do silly things like that. Why would he? Spike was fully capable of doing them on his own without being asked.
That wasn’t being fair was it?
She felt almost as if she had asked for this. Hadn’t she been telling Willow that she had been essentially waiting for this? Was it because she was afraid to stay in the relationship – because now that’d she’d made the decision to move, that move was dangling in front of her promising all sorts of changes and upheavals – and Boston, her beloved home was dangling behind her, feeling already gone and she hadn’t even left yet.
She really sucked at change. And, she’d be the first to admit it. She remembered growing up when her mother would change something about the house – added a new feature or decoration, or simply took one away – Buffy would dislike it just because it was new and different. Sad? Perhaps. But it was just the way she was. She correlated it to the time she moved when she was just a teenager from the home she’d grown up in a sleepy Massachusetts town, to bustling, busy Boston. She’d been fourteen and the upheaval at that age had been traumatic. From then on, any change created an acute sense of loss. However now, Boston, the city she’d once hated because she’d had to leave her home, was now the place she loved and considered her home.
She realized of course the thought process that led her to the decision to leave. Spike. She’d planned to give it up for him, because she considered him her home and needed to be where he was. It didn’t make it any less hard however.
So what was the thought process with him? Had the sudden change in his lifestyle caused him to go into some kind of shock and disorientation? Had he suffered some kind of post-traumatic stress and fell back on his old ways as a result?
Or was something else amiss entirely? It did seem strange that all magazines had all the same pictures. That hardly ever happened. Well, it happened, but usually the pictures were of different angles in different magazines, not all the same exact pictures.
Pulling them out once again, she spread them out before her and studied them. Yep, all of them were the same. Even the stories were similar. And the magazines themselves, well, they weren’t reputable. US Weekly was pretty reputable, but Star? OK? Not so much. Those rags were also knows for stirring up trouble and then getting sued for that trouble because the tale they’d woven had been all a fabrication. Most of the time from people who’d seen something out of context and woven a tale around it to make that celebrity look particularly bad. Take her incident with Wesley for example. Star had made some pretty lewd suggestions as to what she’d been doing, and had fabricated a tale in which William Giles’ date had found some fun on the side. Any idiot could have seen – sort of – where that was certainly not happening, but to sell magazines...
The one she was really stuck on though was US Weekly. A seemingly reputable magazine. Unless they’d gotten the pictures and the others copied them –hello, law suit—or had gotten wind of the story and the photographer had been paid a hefty sum to get them.
It was almost frightening the way the demise of a relationship seemed somehow planned or instigated by the media at just the outset of it. No wonder these celebrities never lasted long under such scrutiny. No wonder some sued left and right and ran from the paparazzi. They were driven by money and seemingly nothing else. You had to be made of tough stuff, and your relationship had to be made of even tougher stuff to last under the pressure of it all.
With that in mind – Were those pictures true? Or was something definitely amiss? Just as she was about to pick up her phone, when someone came strolling in her office carrying at least two dozen red roses in front of them.
Moving the flowers aside, Buffy stared at the person before her wide-eyed. “Riley?”
“Hi Buffy. Wanted to ask you something,” he said, and actually seemed nervous.
She sat back and eyed him suspiciously. “And you thought bringing me flowers would soften me?”
He smiled, his dull blue eyes twinkling, “I was hoping.”
She cocked her head and studied him, “What is it?”
“Would you accompany me to dinner?”
Sighing, Buffy gazed at the phone, and then up at him. “Riley—“
“Just as a send off Summers. Don’t want you to leave with bad blood between us.”
”Oh give me a freaking break –“
“I mean it. I really do have a lot of respect for you, Buffy. I think you’re one of the best. Besides, I’ll make it worth your while.”
She narrowed her eyes, “How?”
“I have connections in L.A. I can help you.”
She sighed. What could it hurt? “I just have to make one phone call.”
“No problem. I’ll wait out in the lobby for you,” he said and placed the flowers on her desk.
Picking up the phone, Buffy tried Spike. It went immediately to voice mail. If she had an eight ball for this situation she was sure it would say: Outlook does not look good.
** Don't despair my little chickadees! :)**