Author's Chapter Notes:
I forgot to say so, but THANK YOU to Alyx...I love being added to people's fav author lists...

Info on the next update: Tuesday's update will either be posted late Monday if I can or late Thru/Friday when I get back in town...The next update of Just a Thing will also be posted late Thur/Friday...as for the updates in the next few weeks after that..well I'm still figuring those out. I'm going to be out of town a lot over the next 4 weeks and am trying to figure out how the updates fit in there...but...the story's not over yet ;-)
Chapter 23

Buffy's lunch with her mother was relatively painless; Joyce had accepted her apology for not asking William about lunch--Buffy decided it was easier to apologies even if she had tried than to argue with her mother all during lunch.

But now it was time to go home and Joyce's last words were still echoing in her mind. "Buffy," she'd said, "William isn't your father--or anyone else for that matter," and Buffy knew who it was her mother was implying. "Don't treat him like he was."

Well, it was too late for that, wasn't it?

Or was it really? Was her mother in fact right and she needed to give Spike--no, William—a chance?

Maybe, just maybe she could start--even though it would be hard--by apologizing for what had happened the other night. It would at least be a start. As long as he didn't give her a reason to think that he was like...was like other men in her life, then she could maybe try to patch things up a bit.


Did the world just hate Buffy Summers?

Because she was definitely starting to think so. No sooner had she made her decision to apologize to William did she arrive home to find...this.

"What are you doing?"

Spike looked up when he heard her question, obviously having not noticed her coming into the house. "I'm...." He hadn't prepared for this; didn't know what to say to her.

"I'm going home." Simple and straight to the point--not the nicest way but it was the best he could come up with. Besides, he wasn't sure he wanted to be nice.

"To England?" Buffy was shocked, more shocked than she thought she ever had been; the question was the first thing that came to mind--irrational and irrelevant as it was.

"Not quite that far, just back East--where I was before coming out here," He'd gone back to closing the second suitcase; most of his things still hadn't been moved out to California so there wasn't much to take back with him.

"You can't go," Buffy said after several moments of silence, watching his back as he prepared to leave.

"That so?" he asked, and she couldn't hear any kindness in his tone.

"Yes," she answered cautiously, becoming incredibly unsure when he turned around and glared at her like he couldn't bear to look at her much longer.

"And why is that, luv?" He practically spit out the last word.

Buffy didn't answer for at least a minute, leaving the two of them just staring at each other.

"That's what I thought," Spike laughed wryly.

"Wait! Spike," she tried again when he started to carry his suitcases from the room, "I…" She still couldn't say it for a few more moments and he started to leave again before she finished: "I'm sorry for the other night."

"Sorry?" he asked, not sounding even remotely believing. "Sorry that you treated me like your bloody fuck toy or sorry that I won't be here to get you off anymore?"

Buffy drew back at his cruel words. "That's not what I mean--"

"Oh really? So what exactly was it you were trying to show me the other night?" He gave her a few seconds to answer and when she didn't seem to be saying anything, he continued. "Face it, the only reason you want me here is so that you can give your 'customers' a more, shall we say pleasing performance. I'm just that little bit better than a nice bit of battery operated plastic--that's why you want me here."

"No, it's not," she argued.

"Really? Then what is it?"

"I...you...because," she tried, but he interrupted her.

"You can't do it, can you? You can't tell me I'm wrong and you want to know why? Because I'm not bloody wrong, that's why. Now," he walked around her as he talked, "I'm going to leave and you're going to go back to pretending to be the good little girl those naive parents of yours still think you are."

"You didn't tell them?" she asked, amazed at just that little fact.

"Tell them what?" he asked angrily, hating this whole conversation. "Tell them that their perfect little Buffy is all but whoring herself out night after night for a little extra, completely unneeded spending money? That she'll jump the first warm body that becomes available?" He ignored the look of hurt that came across her face; he was mad at her. "You want me to tell them that?"

"No," she replied shakily, "And that's not..."

"Save it, princess. You're one fucked up bird and I'm not going to let you go round playing your mind games and...you can't go around mess with guys heads and breaking their hearts. It just doesn't work like that."

"I'm not...it's just," she tried to say something, anything to explain herself.

"You know what," Spike said as he reached the main door, "don't even bother. You obviously don't have your shit together--I'm not sticking around to deal with it."

Buffy knew she must seem like a complete idiot, but once again she couldn't come up with anything to say. At least not quickly enough, Spike was out the door and gone before she'd said anything. And what she did made her seem even more pathetic: she sank down to the floor and cried.

It was cliché and girly and...stupid, but she couldn't help it. She had said she was sorry, something she hadn't done in a long, long time. And it hadn't been enough. And what he said....she knew she was fucked up, but hearing someone say it...hearing Spike say it...

So she cried and she cried.


Spike hadn't meant for things to go like that. Actually, he hadn't really expected them to 'go' at all—Buffy was supposed to be gone with her mother until well after he left. True, it was the coward's way out, but he was just so angry with her and he knew that he was going to blow up like that. But he didn't, hadn't, wanted to.

His leaving might upset Buffy a little if she'd just come back to find him gone, but Buffy really did have a talent for denial and he knew she'd find a way to blame it all on him. But now...now she had all of those cruel words rolling around in her head. God, he'd called her a 'whore'--well, almost, but still...

What had he done?

She really would be better off without him around. In his ploy to win her heart and prove that she had his, he'd gone and fucked it all up. He'd hurt the girl.

Yes, she would definitely be better off without him.


TBC.......please review..........and also, please don't hate me...

also, I probably should ask before doing this..but Brat has a new website: http://www.freewebs.com/myheartisyours and so does Facingthesun http://www.freewebs.com/facingthesun that I made for them...see, that's why I should ask....





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