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Spike sat on the couch, every dead cell of him exuding defeat. All around him, the floor was littered with crumpled paper.

After slipping down from Buffy’s window just before dawn, Spike had gone directly to his crypt. While the glow at the horizon brightened as he crossed town to the cemetery, Spike’s spirits seemed to darken with every step. By the time he arrived at the door of his home, he was unable to shake the conviction Buffy would awaken in a state of alarm, believing she’d betrayed her calling, ready to deny her own happiness and pleasure rather than disappoint her watcher and so-called friends.

“I’m completely fucked!” he grumbled, slamming the crypt door behind him as he entered. “She’ll come to her senses and I’ll be lucky to stay undead long enough to make my way out of this stinking town.”

Determined to carry out his threat to leave Sunnydale forever, Spike descended to the lower level of the crypt to sleep in preparation for his long journey. But, after lying awake for over an hour, he dragged himself out of bed.

“Can’t catch any kip with her smell all over me,” he complained aloud. Heading for his makeshift shower, Spike did his best to scrub Buffy’s scent from his body. Emerging from the bracing spray, he rubbed himself vigorously with a towel and dropped naked onto the bed. “There, that’s better,” he said, sniffing. “I can hear myself think now.”

Yet, despite the significant reduction in olfactory distraction, Spike still could not rest. After changing his position perhaps twenty times he gave up. Abandoning any hope of sleep, he climbed out of bed again, pulled on fresh jeans and a clean t-shirt, and began to throw his few other belongings into a duffle. Reaching for his small collection of books, Spike found his journal in his hand. The next thing he knew he was sitting on his well-worn couch, pen in hand, trying to capture with poetry some of what he’d experienced in Buffy’s arms.

Now, hours later, he had nothing to show for his efforts but a head full of vivid memories he knew he’d have to spend the rest of his unlife trying to forget. “Bugger this!” he snarled, throwing the pen across the room. “I’m not going to slink away as if it was I who did something amiss. If she’s too much of a coward to face me, it will be her choice. I won’t make it easy for her by not showing up.”

Moments later, Spike was sprinting through the network of tunnels that would take him to the library.

***

Once she’d managed to drag her thoughts away from the previous night, Buffy finished bathing and dressing in record time. At some point she realized that it was still several hours before noon. “He said he’d see me at the library in the afternoon,” she thought. “With all this sunshine he’s probably dead asleep. I guess I might as well go to class and see if I can dig my way out of the ‘F’ I’ve got so far.”

Buffy arrived for class, uncharacteristically on time, and slipped into her seat before the professor’s arrival.

Later, when Buffy was leaving, a classmate caught up with her as she descended the stairs outside. “What happened to you?” she asked. “Did the angel of poetry come and hit you over the head with her magic wand? You sounded like you swallowed Professor Graham’s dissertation on meter, meaning, and metaphor!”

Buffy didn’t know what to say, but the image of Spike dressed as the tooth-fairy with a giant book of poetry under his wing made her smile a little.

“I’m Tracy,” the classmate persisted, “And you’ve really got to tell me how you got smart so fast. You are not the only one looking at an ‘F’ for this class. Maybe we could get together to study, you could give me some tips.” Opening her book bag, Tracy started to root around in search of something.

Glancing at the clock tower, Buffy noticed the time and immediately started backing away. “Uh, s-s-s-sorry, can’t talk right now,” she stammered, skipping down the stairs. “I’ve g-g-g-got an appointment and I really can’t be late.”

When she finally looked up, several seconds later, Tracy was bewildered when Buffy was no where to be seen. “Okay, be that way,” she muttered, turning to leave. “I would have helped you.”

***

Spike knew the moment Buffy entered the library, possibly even a few seconds before. Hearing her heart pounding and the rapid click of heels across the floor he could almost see the fingers of her small hand wrapped around the stake as she prepared to drive it into his lifeless heart. Ironic, wasn’t it? That same hand had been wrapped around his throbbing cock just a dozen hours earlier. But that was history now. No doubt the bitch was back and he had a decision to make.

Seated in his usual corner, surrounded by books, Spike mused on his options. “I might as well just let her end me now. What’s the point of starting each day wishing I could forget she’d ever existed? I don’t need to feel this twist of pain in my chest, every hour of every day, knowing what I’m missing and missing it for an eternity. If I just read this poem and allow myself to experience the beauty it is trying so hard to convey. If I just sit here and refuse to fight back when she comes at me…what’s she going to do? If I fought, she’d beat me anyway… I’ve always known she could best me anytime she really wanted to… But then…I have to ask why didn’t she ever want to enough? Bugger that! It’s a question for another day, and I’ve seen my last. This is it, then. I’ll let her end it here. But, isn’t this a weird place for it to finally happen - a library? What will the Watchers’ journals make of this, hey? As if they’d get it right, as if they ever get anything right.”

She was close now, just a few seconds left before she’d be within striking distance. “Should I look up and take one last glimpse of her with me to my permanent place in Hell?” he thought. “I said I wasn’t going to make it easy for her. So let’s see if she can off me with full eye contact.”

Buffy rounded the last bank of shelves just as Spike lifted his chin, locking his eyes with hers. Nearly skidding into him, she paused just long enough to drop her book bag on the table and then plopped down, straddling his lap.

“Oh my God, Spike,” she said, nearly out of breath. “You won’t believe what happened!”

“B-B-B-Buffy!” he said. “W-w-w-where’s your stake?”

Reaching behind her and giving him a quizzical look, she pulled a stake out of her waistband and held it out for his inspection.. “Right here, why? Are there vampires in the library?”

Before he could respond, Buffy stood up, still straddling Spike’s lap, as she scanned for vampires with her Slayer senses. “I don’t think there any vamps here but you,” she said, looking at him with a confused expression and settling her weight again on his rapidly hardening groin. “I don’t get it. I thought you told me you cleaned this place out ages ago.”

“No, luv, I mean, yes, I did eliminate the vamps that were preying on the Sunnydale literati,” he said, speaking slowly and watching her face closely. “I can assure you I am the only vampire here,” he said, taking a deep, unnecessary breath. “I just thought you’d want to use a stake on me after…last night.”

Buffy stared at him, initially speechless, then angry. “Why? Didn’t you believe anything I said?”

“No, it’s not that, exactly,” he responded, placing his hands on hers in an attempt to calm her. “I believe you meant it at the time. But I thought you’d feel differently when you had a chance to think about it, you know, consider what your friends will say…and your watcher.”

Buffy looked down for a moment and then gazed directly into Spike’s eyes. “You’re half right,” she said. “I don’t really know what I’m going to do about my friends…what I’m going to tell them…or Giles, for that matter. I haven’t really thought about it, not yet. But I can’t do everything just to keep them happy, not if it means I’m unhappy. I mean, what sort of life is that?”

Spike smiled. “You’ll get no argument from me, luv,” he said, shifting her slightly to make sure she could feel what she was doing to him. “I’m all for you doing what makes you happy, especially if it’s anything like what you were doing last night.”

Buffy blushed and Spike closed his eyes as he inhaled the rich scent that radiated off her skin. “Aw, no fair, Slayer,” he said, nearly moaning. “I’ve told you about that trick of yours. It’s going to take all my self-control not to take you right here.”

Buffy tried to scramble off Spike’s lap, but he held her fast. “No, don’t go,” he pleaded. “I promise to control myself. I don’t want to, but I will.”

“Okay,” she said, settling again. “But it’s Buffy, not Slayer, remember?”

“Yes. Buffy. I remember.

Once he was sure she wasn’t going anywhere he reached up to brush the hair out of her face. “What were you saying when you charged in here?” he asked, introducing what he hoped would be a less stimulating topic. “It was something about me not believing what happened. What was that all about?”

“We read a poem in class today,” she began. “It was “The Silken Tent” by Robert Frost. And I knew what it was about. I just knew. It was something you said, that I could just feel the poem. And it worked. I so rocked!”

Spike looked at Buffy with an expression of awe. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised,” he said, his voice even, “because everything about you is a surprise. But I knew you’d get poetry if you could stop working so hard and just listen. It sounds like that’s what happened.”



Tbc…………

A/N: “… Spike dressed as the tooth-fairy with a giant book of poetry under his wing …” I’m just having fun now!!! This probably seems like an odd place to stop, but I’ve been so slow to update I wanted to give you everything I’ve written so far. Please do review. ;)





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