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Fourth

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After that little while had passed he moved his arms and slowly got her to slide to sit by his side instead. She raised her head and looked at him questioningly as he reached up his hands and unlocked her arms from around his neck. A look of sudden protest flashed in her eyes and she was about to voice it when he said:

“I’ll be right back.”

Holding her gaze he made sure that she trusted that statement, and as she seemed to relax he got to his feet and walked into the kitchen. Heating up some water he got out a bag of soup-mix and when the water was boiling he poured it into a mug before adding the latter. Retrieving a spoon he stirred it as he re-entered the living room.

He had no idea what game she was playing now, or if even she did, but she looked too fragile to argue with and he felt worried. If she hadn’t been eating...

“Here,” he said, stopping by her and reaching down to hand her the steaming food.

She looked up at him, then shook her head a little.

“Thanks, but...” she replied.

However, the look in his eyes told her that there was no way he would accept her not accepting his offering and so she sighed, taking the mug and settling back against the cushions as he took a seat beside her. To oblige his expectant eyeing of her she took a small sip of the hot soup and had to admit it did taste quite this side of wonderful.

“Ain’t everyday a girl eats gourmet,” she murmured wryly and a small smile graced his lips, though the seriousness lingered and she wished she could somehow lighten it up just a little.

She felt better now. Taking of his strength, partaking of it, feeling it so tightly wrapped around her, had loosened the aching knot and it seemed it had ended by declaring peace within her. A butterfly was fluttering its nervousness, though, as she felt a parting was soon to be undertook once more.

He won’t leave, she thought, eyeing him as she sipped her drink.

He rested his eyes on her, letting them glide over the soft lines of her face. He knew them all by heart, of course. But he sure did love them in the flesh. Closing his eyes for a second he shook his head and then he got to his feet.

The butterfly divided into a swarm which rose through her in sheer protest and she brought the cup from her lips, feeling herself grow rigid as she looked up at him.

“Have to go, pet,” he murmured, barely able to produce the words.

“To where?” she asked, putting the mug down on the coffeetable before rising as well, facing him.

“Somewhere. Anywhere,” he answered. “I shouldn’t have come at all. I’m sorry,” he added, turning from her and walking into the hall.

She stared after him; then followed.

“You don’t have to apologize, you came ‘cause Dawn asked you to come. I know there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her,” Buffy said and he turned back to her, eyebrows rising.

“You know that isn’t why I’m here,” he stated.

She rested her eyes in his. He observed her for a moment, and then he turned, grabbing the knob of the front door.

“Why are you leaving?” she blurted out, taking a step toward him as he was about to walk through the door.

He glanced back at her, hesitating before he turned partially to her, letting the knob go.

“Can you offer me a good reason why I should stay?” he asked back and her eyes grew slightly.

He turned fully to face her and she took an involuntary step back as her heart began to pace faster in her chest. She knew then that she couldn’t let him go away again. Never seeing him again... She couldn’t even think it. Drawing a breath she nodded as an answer to his previous question, hoping that when she opened her mouth something persuasive would come out – because in that moment her mind seemed to lock up and all she could think was how much she needed him in her life.

“I need you,” she almost whispered, clearing her throat as she had meant to put some more weight behind those words, repeating: “I need you.”

His eyes had softened at that first admittance – but now they grew searching as he took a step forward.

“Why?” he demanded.

She bit her jaws together at the rush of nervousness fanning through her.

“Because I need your help,” she answered him, voice almost shaking as tears of held back anxiety rose in her eyes. “’Cause I need you here to help me.”

“Like before?” he asked and she nodded. “I can’t do that, you know I can’t do that,” he murmured, shaking his head a little.

“Sure you can,” she disagreed as he once more turned to the door, halting at the growing distress in her voice; looking back at her. “You always could. You always did.”

He blinked, looking into her tearstinged eyes, his heart burning with her.

“We can’t go back,” he replied slowly, closing the door and turning back to her.

Noticing the light of hope suddenly burning in her eyes at his gesture, he bit back that very emotion inside of himself. He had to keep a cool head.

“I couldn’t be around you ‘cause seeing you began to be only painful,” he continued, needing her to realize why he had to go again. “Being away from you hurts, but it’s numbing, and not cutting me up from inside. I live around you, Slayer. I live through you. Without you there’s no life – just a big, empty...” he trailed off, feeling as though he was drifting outside what he wanted to convey. “But seeing you is like dying over and over and over. Being in a state of constant death is better,” he finished, watching her tears trail down her cheeks for a moment before he clenched his jaws together. “Your need is misplaced,” he now said and her eyes grew wondering. “You have a whole buncha bleeding friends who can make you feel that way. They’d gladly die for you, the whole lot, on any given day.”

“But that’s not what I mean,” she shook her head, taking a step forward and standing before him.
“That’s not why I need you.”

“Then why?” he asked, mercilessly holding her gaze. “Why do you want me to stay? Thirty minutes ago you wanted me to leave. What’s changed in thirty minutes?”

Buffy reached up to wipe away her tears as she looked up at him, then sniffled before replying almost deperately:

“Nothing’s changed.” As he raised his eyebrows she corrected herself with a small shake of the head: “Everything’s changed. Dammit, I’m just so confused and I... I don’t want you to leave again. Spike, please. Do I have to have a reason for not wanting to let you go again? I just...I can’t let you,” she stated, reaching up her arms and wrapping them around his neck before stepping into him and burying her face against the side of his throat.

He put his arms around her, holding her tightly to him before shaking his head and getting her to unwrap her arms as he took a step back.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “You can’t use your bloody advantages like that, it’s so sodding unfair.”

She blinked at her tears.

“Do you still...?” she trailed off, surprised by how much she felt she had to ask him the question, and finally giving into it as she finished: “Do you still love me?”

He looked at her, taken aback and then his gaze became filled with that incredible warmth as he
answered:

“No matter how far I am from you. No matter what happens, Buffy, I will always love you. I thought, if anything, that was obious.”


She smiled, unsure of why, resting her eyes in his. Feeling a sudden rush of gratitude.

“I love you,” he said with just as much silent conviction as he had the very first time he told her. “And that’s why I have to leave you.”

“What do you want me to do?” she stopped him from moving. “Do you want me to beg? ‘Cause I will. I’ll beg you to stay here. You can’t leave,” she said, fresh tears rising. “Please, don’t leave me again.”

“Why?” he once more demanded, only this time with more force as he wouldn’t release her gaze for anything. “Why are you willing to sink this low? You never beg for anything, Slayer. Why are you bleeding doing it now?”

His hands went to her arms, grabbing them as though he wanted to shake the truth out of her once and for all. His hold was as desperate as he felt. She would give him the reason now, or so help him. She would tell him.

Her hands grasped his arms back as she blinked at the tears and she had the expression of a deer caught in the headlights of a car on her face. Her eyes were huge and shiny with the salt wetting them. She looked as though she had come to a dead end and even though she had been able to escape the head lights she still would have no refuge from the hood of the car.

“Because...because I felt it,” she answered him, voice low and he blinked, uncomprehending. “The...numbness,” she elaborated. “I felt it...”

He swallowed. That wasn’t what he had expected her to say.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, voice as low as hers.

“It’s like it’s inside me...eating at me,” she answered slowly. “And it doesn’t matter what I do – it doesn’t stop. It didn’t. It never stopped...until I saw you standing down here. And I’m so scared, Spike. I’m so scared that if you leave again it’ll just swallow me, and I’ll be gone. And I won’t ever come back again.”

He didn’t say anything straight away, merely eyed her with another one of those prodding gazes. She held onto his arms tighter, afraid that she otherwise would fold to the floor like a moistened piece of paper.

“What can I do?” he finally asked silently. “I can’t stay here, Slayer.”

Her fingers were hurting him even through the leather of the duster as they clasped his biceps, but he hardly noticed the ache.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, releasing his grip and moving one hand to place it by her cheek, sliding his thumb over it and drying away some of the streaks her tears had created; as though they wished to make a map over the rivers of her eyes. “But I can’t stay because you’re scared.”

He pulled out of her grip, letting his arm fall along his side before he turned from her and walked up to the front door, feeling as though he was in a daze. His whole being rebelled against what he was doing and it took every last shred of his willpower not to stop himself, turn back to her and tell her alright. Tell her that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her so long as she asked him. And now she was asking him to stay. But it would eventually drive him out of his mind to see her and have her see him and still not... No, there was no way he could do that.

“Then stay,” her voice sounded gently from behind him, “because I love you.”





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