Chapter 48 ½
It was still dark out when Spike’s careful movement around the bedroom woke Buffy; and she wasn’t even in his room. The night before he had told her he had something to do very early the next morning and that she might want to sleep in her room.
She hadn’t really wanted to, but the fact he even suggested it had her curious so she agreed. Apparently, though, he was still going to wake her up, if only by accident.
“What’re you doing?” she asked sleepily, still not fully awake.
“Oh did I wake you?” he looked very apologetic and…caught?
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “Not that the night stalker routine,” she continued, “isn’t interesting and all, but…what are you doing snooping around my room at,” she looked at the clock, “God, Spike, it’s only twelve after four. No one’s awake now.”
“I was going to surprise you,” he lamented, seemingly annoyed with himself. “But apparently I’m a bit too noisy. And ‘Night Stalker’, pet? Not exactly in here to kill you.”
“I wasn’t meaning the actual guy I just meant night stalker as in one who stalks during the night. Now again, what are you doing?” she was still lying down and it was hard not to fall back asleep.
“Oh right,” Spike seemed to realize for the first time that he still had not answered her question. “Well, uh, get dressed.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Said it was going to be a surprise; not going to be much of one if you know what it is, now is it?”
“I think I like surprises that don’t require me to get up at four in the morning, better.”
“Just wait until you know what it is, then you can decide if you want to yell at me or not.”
“Fine,” she agreed, “anything special I need to wear?”
He didn’t even think for a second before answering, “Jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and this,” he threw her hooded sweatshirt onto her bed. Buffy looked at him strangely but finally agreed, “Right then, I’ll go make some coffee for you, let me know when you’re ready.” And he left her room, leaving Buffy—still very puzzled—sitting on her bed.
Twenty minutes later, Buffy came out of her room dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a pink cotton long sleeved shirt, carrying her sweatshirt. She’d tried to wake up enough to put on some make-up but one try and she knew any attempt at putting on any eye make-up would likely have left her blind so she’d just gone with some lip gloss; her hair was pulled back in a high, loose ponytail.
“Good morning,” she muttered sarcastically. She did smile slightly, though, when Spike traded her a cup of coffee for her sweatshirt—a big cup of coffee.
“Morning to you too, luv,” he was still in a much better mood than she was. “To be fair,” he said after a few moments of watching her drink her coffee, “I was planning on letting you sleep some more, didn’t want to wake you up so early.”
“When were you going to wake me up?”
“’Bout four forty,” he answered.
“Yeah, see, that still starts with a four. In Buffy land that’s bad.”
“I’m sorry, pet,” he apologized sincerely. “If it’s not worth it—the surprise—then you can…I don’t know what but you can do something to me, okay?”
At the moment, knowing that she could get him back if whatever it was he was planning turned out to be crap, was very comforting.
“Okay—and believe me if you got me up this early for no good reason, I will think of something.”
“I know you will. Now you want some more coffee to take with us?” he’d noticed she had finished her cup.
“Might as well.”
“Please tell me we’re almost there; and not only because all this coffee is starting to make me have to go to the bathroom. I’m starting to think of things I can do, you know.”
“Expected you would be,” and he had expected it, when his girl got grumpy she got grumpy. “We’ll be there in two minutes.”
“We’d better,” Buffy settled back into her seat, sighing.
“’Community Recreation Center’,” Buffy read off the sign when two minutes later, true to his word, Spike pulled them into a parking lot.
“You coming?” he asked, getting out of the car.
“Spike,” she said after she’d followed him out of the car, leaving her empty coffee cup behind, “it’s like five thirty in the morning, I do not want to do anything that’s going to be classified as ‘recreation’.”
“Just trust me on this one, huh?”
Buffy looked at him dubiously for several seconds before relenting somewhat and giving him a small nod, “I’ll try.”
“Fair enough.” He took hold of her hand and waked with the rest of the way into the building. If Buffy didn’t know better, she’d say he looked…excited.
“Spike?” Buffy asked very, very slowly once they’d gotten inside the building and she’d taken a look around.
Now instead of excited, he looked nervous and worried. “So it’s kind of stupid, but I just thought—”
Buffy interrupted him with a kiss, surprising him with both its suddenness and its intensity—so much so that he was wondering if they couldn’t find somewhere a little more private if only for a little while. But one look at her face had him changing his mind back again. Buffy looked happy.
“You are such a dork,” she joked. “Thank you,” she said sincerely after another quick kiss, laughing when she evaded his attempts to prolong it.
“So you think it will be fun?” he asked watching Buffy look at the ice rink, pure glee evident on her face.
“As long as you don’t make fun of me...and as long as everyone else doesn’t.”
“Well then I guess it will be because I promise neither of those will happen.”
“You do realize you can’t promise for other people, right?”
“Won’t be anyone else,” he explained simply.
“What do you mean?”
“Mean it’s just us. I rented out the rink for us so it’ll be just the two of us.”
Buffy had just figured that they were early and that was why no one else was there; she had not even thought of…Spike had rented out the rink. For them. Just them. He seriously had to be the best boyfriend ever.
“Is this you doing some psychological thing with me…about how I wanted to be an ice skater before I got all jaded or whatever?”
“Actually, no,” he revealed. “Does work for that too, though, doesn’t it? We’ll pretend,” he decided, “that’s what I was going for—makes me look more…deep.”
“More deep?”
“Deeper,” he fought the urge to stick his tongue out at her and wondered how in the hell it was that she even was able to make him want to do so. He was a grown man for God’s sake. “Come on, let’s go get some skates.”
“Pet, you’re not going to fall,” Spike coaxed.
“Ice skates, William, ice. Know what that means? Means they’re for ice not cement floors.”
“Buffy, luv,” he said patiently, “I got over here, didn’t I?”
“Well then you must be some sort of superhero,” she joked. “Why don’t I give you a medal?” Buffy refused to get up from her seat.
“When was the last time you were on roller-skates?”
“Roller skates? Probably never. Roller blades on the other hand…”
“Yeah, alright, I get it. I’m some sort of old, dorky superhero—would you just get over here.”
“Quit making it sound like I’m being mean,” she pouted.
“Kinda bordering on it, pet.”
“No I’m—I am, aren’t I?” she asked desolately.
“You know I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I didn’t know you could. Come on,” he urged. “Coming over there, taking off my skates, carrying you over here, going back, putting ‘em back on, and coming back over here really doesn’t sound that appealing.”
“You would really do that?”
“Well yeah,” he answered before starting to walk off the ice rink, but stopping when Buffy stood up. “So how’s that work?” he asked as she walked towards him, biting her bottom lip and looking nervously at her feet.
“Don’t know. It’s early; I’m weird.”
“Well you’re here,” he took hold of her hands and helped her step onto the ice, keeping his feet wide and steadying her when she started to wobble a little.
“I am. And how do you know how to skate, mister?”
“Unlike California, England does have winter.”
“California has winter,” she protested. “It gets cold!”
“Buffy,” he said seriously, “fifty degrees isn’t cold.”
“It is too,” she still didn’t give in, “Especially when it’s all rainy and everything’s damp and ewwy.”
“Ewwy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The fact that it can only rain proves it’s not winter—snow is winter, pet—“
“So you’re saying it never rains in the winter in England?”
“Well, no, it does, but—“
“See!”
“—But when’s the last time it snowed here?”
“I think it snowed once when my mom was little,” she answered weakly.
“I rest my case. Now can we stop arguing over whether or not California has winter and get to the skating.”
“See,” she said thoughtfully, “I was thinking that if I asked enough stuff that you’d forget about the skating thing.”
“You don’t want to do it?”
“It’s not that...I don’t want to fall,” she finished quietly.
“You’re not going to fall, luv. I’m going to teach you.” He waited for her to nod in agreement before beginning. “Now, just stand there, like you would on rollerblades.”
“Sorry about that,” she apologized sincerely
“Nothing to worry about. Now...you can do this, Buffy; don’t be so nervous—it’s just you and me.”
He was right; sure she felt self conscious and was sure she was going to fall on her ass at least a dozen times, but…it was only her and Spike. She didn’t have to worry about looking stupid in front of someone—if he hadn’t been put off by everything she had done so far she was pretty sure her looking stupid learning to ice skate wouldn’t do it.
“It just…it feels kind of funny.”
“You’ll get used to it. Now I’m going to let go of your hands, okay? I’m staying here but I’m letting go.” She stood on her own for a good ten seconds before he spoke again. “See, you did that great.” He slowly skated a few feet back from her, “now I want you to walk over here.”
“Uhm, William? We’re on ice and I’ve got these things called skates on,” she trailed off.
“I know that,” he said. “It’s the easiest way to get going; just go slow.”
“Like I’d try to go fast,” she muttered. Buffy slowly inched her way across the few feet of ice, barely moving her feet off the ice. “Hey! I did that!” she exclaimed in happiness when she reached Spike.
“That you did. Let’s try a bit more and then we’ll try just some skating.” This time he had her go a good ten or twelve feet.
“I could so be Michelle Kwan! This stuff’s easy.”
“You’re a natural, luv.” She really was very good and learning very quickly, “ready to try a trip round the rink with me?”
“I think it’s whether you’re ready to go with me or not,” she didn’t wait for Spike, starting her way around the rink, a huge smile on her face. “Come on slow poke!”
“Are we going to have to leave soon?” Buffy asked; it was nearing eleven.
“Nope.”
“Okay…when do we have to leave?”
“I have it rented until three so we’ve got a good bit more time.”
“Three?! Seriously?” They’d been on the ice since a little before six—or at least he had.
“Three,” he repeated. “And whenever you want something to eat, let me know; I’ve got a cooler with some sandwiches in the car.”
“You have everything all prepared don’t you?”
“Wanted the day to be as good as possible.”
“And you have succeeded very well—or however that sentence should go…You did a perfect job; there, I’ll say it like that.”
“Thank you, Buffy.”
“So I’m guessing that place is by the hour?” It was nearly four and they were just pulling onto their street.
“You guessed right,” he didn’t elaborate.
“So it must have cost a lot to rent it for like nine hours,” she said hoping it would prompt him.
It didn’t. “Not too much,” he didn’t tell her that it had actually been ten hours, five until three.
“Okay…well thank you very much. Even if I don’t think I’m going to be able to move my legs for a week, it was a lot of fun—and now I know I can ice skate.”
“That you can—and very well.” The contented smile on her face made everything he had paid more than worth it—even the amount he’d had to pay to jump over the open skate times. Really, what was twenty four hundred dollars when Buffy was happy and they’d had a day that, no matter what, she would never forget? Besides, he had a big pile of money off in the bank, was about time he used some of it.
TBC………..
*I looked up the price of an ice rink rental and snow in California and I think winter temperatures, so hopefully the internet didn't lie to me on those things :)
a/n 2: for anyone wondering/caring, I haven't forgotten my little 113 Times series...I've just fallen really behind on it. I'm going to try to catch that up soon :)
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Author's Chapter Notes:
So this is Chapter 48 ½ only because I thought I might screw up renumbering the last few chapters (why I thought that when there are only four or so, I have no idea).
I'm trying, trying, trying to get the new story ready so I can maybe overlap the first few chapters of it with the last few of this...we'll see how that goes......if it doesn't work, I'll just have to end this one by begging people to read the next one ;-)
Thank you for all the reviews and i hope everyone enjoys the chapter
I'm trying, trying, trying to get the new story ready so I can maybe overlap the first few chapters of it with the last few of this...we'll see how that goes......if it doesn't work, I'll just have to end this one by begging people to read the next one ;-)
Thank you for all the reviews and i hope everyone enjoys the chapter