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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you so much everyone!!! :)
One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.~Oscar Wilde


"How did you get in my apartment?" Buffy asked, thoroughly confused as she flicked on the light, illuminating Spike and his anger.

Oh, this'll be fun, she thought, on so many levels.

"Where have you been?" he demanded, sitting on her couch, looking rumpled, but about ready to pounce.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why were you out with Riley?"

"How did you know I was out with Riley?"

"He came by."

"Came by...here?" Buffy asked, surprised. "Why did he come by here?"

"He said something about apologizing for dinner -- why were you out with him?"

"When did you get here?"

"Luv, will you please answer my questions?"

"Be happy to once you start answering mine!" she exclaimed, frustrated.

Spike sighed, ran a hand through his curls and stood. "I was going mad trying to get through to you."

"Why were you trying to get through to me?"

"You know why, Buffy. It's the reason you've been hard to get a hold of all day. You been avoiding my calls?"

She shook her head, "No. I left my phone at home."

"And you didn't think to come home to get it?"

"So sorry that my entire life doesn't revolve around you," she said sarcastically. Though I never did get work done today and I did spend all day thinking about you, so it would seem that my life does revolve around you.

"Buffy, I know you saw them," he said calmly.

"How did you get in my apartment?"

"Funny, thought the most important explanation would be the pictures."

"They are. I'm just sort of afraid to hear that one and while you're standing here in front of me, in Boston, and it is almost three in the morning, my mind can only wrap around so many things at one. So, that's the one I am focusing on now. How did you get in my apartment?"

"I had a nice chat with your landlord. Turns out his daughter is a fan of the show."

"So, you used your fame," she finished, rolling her eyes.

"Comes in handy, you have to admit."

"Mmm. On some things. What time did you get in?"

"That's a bloody long story. After I tried calling your office and your receptionist hung up on me--"

"She hung up on you? She not a fan of the show?"

“You’re a bloody riot, you know that Summers?”

“So after the receptionist hung up on you...”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d had enough and came out here to see you. In person. Wasn’t going to spend all day and night worrying that you’d believed those rags, though I know you did.”

“How do you know I did?” she asked, trying for nonchalant and failing miserably. She could tell by the look he gave her.

“Am I completely daft?”

“Jury’s still out.”

“So, I left. Didn’t even pack a bag, just hopped the next flight – which was longer than I’d expected. Had what was supposed to be a short layover which turned into an almost two hour layover, so I must have left at about eleven my time and arrived here at about eight, eight-thirty my time.”

“Wow, you’ve had a day and a half huh? That three hour thing is just trippy isn’t it?”

“Buffy, I don’t care about the sodding time difference here.”

“I know.”

“Do you?

“What?”

”Do you care about the time difference?”

“No.”

“Where have you been all this time? I know you couldn’t have been with that moron if he was coming here to apologize – and don’t think I’ll be pressing you about that later – where have you been?”

“Willow’s. I went to Willow’s. I didn’t want to be alone, really.”

”And you couldn’t have called?”

“I tried...once. You hung up on me.”

Spike sighed heavily, “Oh that. You were beeping in just as Randy was letting me know what he found out in regards to the pictures.”

“Oh?”

“Seems that all but one were taken three months ago.”

“All but one, you say?” she said hesitantly, biting her bottom lip.

“Buffy, do you remember the night we had phone sex?”

“Considering it was just last night, yes. God, it’s only been a day since that happened? It feels like five!”

“That night, you asked me what I’d been doing—“

“And you said, ‘Oh, nothing,’” she said in a lackadaisical tone, imitating him, but not quite. “Yeah, I remember. Because now that ‘oh nothing’ has turned into ‘oh something’.”

“Do you believe in me, Buffy? Did you believe what they said, or did you have faith in me? Any faith at all?”

Buffy looked away from him, pursing her lips together.

“You had none,” he said matter-of-factly. “I knew it.”

“I wouldn’t say none.”

“Then what would you say?”

“I’d say…some.”

“Define some.”

“Hey, look, I don’t think I’m liking this interrogation here too much. You still haven’t told me how one of those pictures are recent and what you were doing that night.”

“I had gone out with Xander that night. I was missing you and I…I was feeling housebroken.” He looked down, looking guilty and all the things he should as far as Buffy was concerned.

“I make you feel housebroken? What are you my dog now? Are you my dog?” she spat. “Were you also in heat that night? Were you looking for someone’s leg to hump? Jesus Christ, Spike, I make you feel housebroken? How do you think that makes me feel? Fanfuckingtastic, let me tell you. Is it a chore to be with me? Is it that much work? I don’t tie you down, Spike. You chose to be with me. If you feel that I’m holding you back and not letting you live your life, which sidebar, was so wonderful to begin with, then there’s the door.”

“Buffy, would you stop and hear me out?”

“Yeah,” she said crossing her arms across her chest and stomping one foot. “This should be good. Please, by all means, go ahead and dig yourself out of this hole.”

“God, you can be such a bitch sometimes, you know that?”

“Me? Me? How would you like it if I told you that you made me feel housebroken? How would you like it if I told you that essentially, I hold you back, cause that’s pretty much what it means, and that I had to go out and what—prove that I was still…virile?”

“Virile?”

“Oh, shut up, you know what it means.”

“I know it sounds bad pet, but it wasn’t like that. Not completely,” he said, trying to bring the calm back.

“Oh only half? I feel better,” she said rolling her eyes.

“Buffy, since you’d left, I’d spent the time I wasn’t with Alicia, sitting around missing you. I was feeling antsy. Before you came out to see me, I was going out and doing things. You know me, I can’t stand still, and I can’t sit still. Then, when you came out there, things were happening right and left and so much was going on. It was crazy still, just as crazy, if not more crazy than before. When you left, it was so . . . quiet. There were no signs of life. You weren’t there and I felt…alone.”

“You were doing well with the explanation there at the beginning, and now you’re pretty much back at sucking,” Buffy informed him.

“I felt alone without you, not alone as in I needed to replace you. No one can do that, Buffy. No one. You …God, don’t you know that you mean everything to me?” he said desperately, throwing up his hands.

She looked down, silent.

“So I went out. I went out with Xander and this girl came over and started hitting on me. Asked me if I wanted to go to her house –“

“Spike—“

“Let me finish.”

Clamping her mouth shut, she nodded and gestured for him to continue.

“She hit on me and Xander was encouraging me to go for it—“

“Oh, he’s gonna die,” Buffy threatened.

“So, he’s sitting there encouraging me to go for it, and you know…I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it and aside from that it all seemed so… pathetic. She was pushy and,” he wrinkled his nose, “it was just all wrong. I gave her some tips so she wouldn’t come off so much like a tart.”

“Such a good Samaritan,” Buffy said dryly.

“The point is, if I had been with any other woman Buffy and an opportunity like that presented itself; I would not hesitate to jump on the chance. The old me would have done it in a heartbeat, you know that. But, because I have you, because I love you so damn much, I couldn’t do it and I didn’t want to do it. I left the club, left and let Xander have at it. I went home to call you, and it was all right. I’m not housebroken, Buffy. I’m happy.”

“And then? When did you learn of the pictures?”

“The next morning. Randy called me. I was on the phone to you as soon as I heard. He brought them over and I pointed out to him the girl that I’d talked to the night before –“

“What was her name?” she asked suspiciously.

“It was… shit, I don’t remember,” he said, shaking his head. “Randy is looking into it all.”

“Someone has it in for you?”

“I think so.”

“I thought that as an alternative too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was looking at the pictures at work and it just seemed funny that all these magazine had the same exact picture. That never happens in any two, never mind four or five. It just felt like something was amiss.”

“So because of that you decided to give me the benefit of the doubt?”

She said nothing again.

“How do you think that makes me feel? Buffy, I have to ask you…do you really love me?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“But you don’t trust me.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. “Let me finish. If you can’t trust me, how do you expect to have a relationship with me?”





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