William forced a smile and extended his hand to the couple, fighting the urge to roar his frustration. Friend, she says. Friend Is that all I’ve ever sodding be? I’m Brandon’s father and her sodding friend. I don’t want to just be her friend, dammit!
Sam stared at him, studying him closely and William stared back, daring her to say anything negative about their situation. Unconventional as it was, Buffy and Brandon were still his – even if Buffy wasn’t about to own up to that – and he would defend it.
“So, what are you guys up to?” Sam asked as Riley shook Spike’s hand cordially.
“We were just taking a walk,” Buffy explained. “You?”
Sam smiled, “Same. We were thinking about having some lunch. Have you guys had lunch? Would you like to join us?”
Buffy tossed a nervous glance in William’s direction. “Oh, well, I don’t know if Will has to--”
“I’m completely free,” William chimed in before she could dismiss him. I am not going to be shoved aside. I am not going to be someone to be ashamed of, Buffy Summers.
Buffy nodded, “Okay, well, he’s free. We’re free.”
The foursome set off, heading toward an exit to the park and William draped an arm around Buffy’s shoulder, a silent statement that he wasn’t going anywhere and wasn’t about to shooed off.
Buffy felt bad. Guilty. An emotion she didn’t take kindly to. It made her not only angry at herself, but at William too. Why didn’t he just yell at her or something? Why was he making nice with her new friends and doting on her like a devoted lover? His eyes though, his eyes when they fell upon her spoke upon a different story altogether. His eyes told her that she was going to get it later.
Bring it on, she challenged him in her mind. What the hell did he expect? Sure he told her how he felt, but what did he think? She was just going to fall in his arms and start touting him as her boyfriend? He wasn’t, plain and simple. The fact was she hadn’t even committed to anything because she was not yet sorted on it all. Was she not allowed her doubts and worries still?
If they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you, her mind reminded her, sounding very much like her mother. Buffy rolled her eyes. Okay, so it wasn’t that she did it with him, in order for that to have happened, there would have had to have been some knowledge of Cecily. She’d been in the dark. Completely. So, for that reason, she couldn’t fight off the feeling that what had happened had been done to her.
What happened to forgive and forget? her mind argued, that voice sounding very much like her. I might forgive, but I will never forget and maybe I haven’t really forgiven yet. Maybe. Or maybe I just say that because my heart is on the line here and he’s already broke it once…
Looking over at him, she found him watching her intently. Their eyes met for a brief minute and she looked away, shying away from sinking into the depth of emotion swimming in his eyes.
“So, how did you and Buffy meet, William?” Sam asked, a devilish smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Buffy opened her mouth to answer, but William beat her to the chase. “We met at a club,” he told her, feeling Buffy kick him warningly under the table. He grinned at her innocently. “She was the prettiest girl there.”
Buffy smiled weakly at him and turned to face her friends. “We’d actually known each other for years and had lost touch for a while. We reconnected that night and we talked. We talked all night long.”
William nodded, “All night long. She kept me stimulated for hours.”
That earned a kick to the shins and William fought not to let it show.
“Forgive my being nosy, but if you’re Brandon’s father, then there must have been more going on than talking,” Sam inferred, leaning forward, her elbow on the table and her chin resting in the palm of her hand.
“Sam, really,” Riley admonished, “That’s none of our business.”
“But they’re just so cute together! I’m not sure what happened, but I can’t see why they’re not together. Or, are you and its still all new and don’t want to define it?”
“Something like that,” Buffy muttered.
“Our relationship is unconventional, Sam,” Spike said slowly. “It’s hard to define, but it makes it a lot easier to define when one isn’t running away from it.”
“Funny,” Buffy said sarcastically, her temper flaring. Slapping her leg in faux humor, she turned to William. “You know what else makes it easier to define? When one isn’t still married,” she said pointedly and then turned to find Riley’s mouth hanging open and Sam looked somewhere between shocked and amused. Shit, she thought.
“So, you two have an interesting story as to how you got together too, huh?” Riley observed dryly.
“What?” Buffy said, knitting her brows together.
Sam laughed breezily and swatted her husband on his arm. “Riley and I met much in the same way. At a club. Though we didn’t have stimulating, uh, conversation all night long. We had sex.”
Buffy nearly choked on her Coke, and William, ever the gentleman, gently patted her back.
Sam continued on, oblivious. “It was a really great night,” she said fondly and looked over at Riley, smiling from ear to ear and looking very much a woman in love. “The kicker of it was,” she said, turning back to William and Buffy, “was that we were both in relationships.”
Buffy’s eyes bugged and William leaned forward. “Really?” he inquired, utterly enthralled. “What happened?”
“Well, we fell in love that night. Sure, it was supposed to be a one-night thing, but it turned out to be so much more than that. In between all that great sex was some really great talking.” She giggled, “So I guess there was stimulating conversation as well.” Taking a breath, she shrugged, “We did what we had to do.”
“Which was?” Buffy whispered, feeling the image she’d had of the perfect couple start to perfectly crumble around her.
“We broke it off with our significant others,” Sam said simply. “It took me a bit longer to do it, but I finally did. From then on, we’ve never been apart. We’ve been together – how long now, babe?”
“About three years.”
“Three years?” Buffy squeaked.
Sam nodded. “And two years of wedded bliss.”
“I—I—can I ask a question?” Buffy spoke up in a daze.
“Sure!” Sam chirped.
“H-have you e-ever heard the saying ‘if they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you’?”
“Buffy, Christ,” William hissed.
“Shut up,” she snapped at him and he held up his hands, rolling his eyes in annoyance.
“Well,” Riley began, “Do you believe in love at first sight, Buffy? Do you believe in true love?”
Buffy nodded slowly. “I do,” she said weakly. “But… true love is pure and, well, isn’t true for the pure?”
Reaching across the table, Sam put her hand over Buffy’s. “Honey, there isn’t a perfect formula to where you find it. There isn’t a perfect time, place, rhyme or reason to it, it’s just there. You can’t predict when it’ll happen and you can’t pick who it’ll happen with. Before Riley, I had always been a wild girl. I partied hard and went through men like water.”
“Honey,” Riley admonished her once again, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“I never thought – and I certainly didn’t want -- to fall in love,” Sam went on. Looking at Riley, she smiled. “And then I met Ri, and that all changed. And Ri, well, he was a good boy. Like a freaking choir boy. He’d had two serious girlfriends and only had sex with them.”
“Sam, honestly--”
“It’s okay, babe,” Sam said quickly. “My point is he never did something like that. He never would have conceived of it. But he met me, and he felt something for me. We knew it was special and couldn’t turn away from it.”
“Why did it take you longer to do it then?” Buffy asked softly.
“Cause I was afraid of what it meant. I was afraid that it was a fluke, but it wasn’t. It was real, and Riley didn’t give up on me.”
Rubbing her forehead with her fingertips, Buffy nearly whined, “I need some air.”
“You feeling all right, luv?” William asked softly, stroking her back.
She nodded slowly, “Yeah, I’m all right.”
“Why don’t you go out and get some air, hon,” Sam offered, “William will go with you, Riley and I got the bill and Brandon. It’s okay, really, go.”
Buffy nodded and slid out of her chair, heading for the door to the little diner. William’s hand fell on the small of her back and once outside, Buffy took a great big breath, leaning against the front of the diner.
“What happened, luv, hmmm?” William asked, standing before her and pushing some hair from her face.
“Why are you being so nice to me now? In there you seemed to want to throttle me.”
He grinned, “Oh, I still want to throttle you, but it can wait. Tell me, what’s wrong?”
“I just realized that all my notions and notions on love, purity and truth don’t really have any glue that holds them together. Sam and Riley seem like the perfect couple; they don’t seem like the kind of couple that…that…”
“That got together much in the same way we have?”
“We’re not together, but yes. I always say that there are lots of gray in the world, but I never really live in the gray because I want so desperately for there to be black and white. Gray makes things difficult. Black and white is final and there’s no room for debate. It just is. The grays can be tricky, and I look at Sam and Riley and I think – I thought—they were black and white. Like Willow and Oz. She’s a good girl, he seems like a good boy ergo good girl and good boy get together and everything is perfect.”
“Not always the case, luv. Nothing is ever perfect. Nothing is ever as it really seems. I got the impression as well from Sam and Riley that there were the cookie cutter version of boy meets girl, but they’re not. They have a story, an unconventional sort of story. Do they seem unhappy to you? Buffy, maybe the way they got together was imperfect from those notions you have in your head, but they’re not imperfect for one another. You’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to not see they adore one another.”
Buffy nodded, “They do. I see it. I just thought that…”
“You thought that because of how we met, of how we conceived Brandon and continued our relationship isn’t something that can work, and isn’t something that is real and pure. And don’t tell me we don’t have a relationship – a friendship is a relationship. Buffy, you told me once before that you wanted to believe that with all the lying, backstabbing and treachery in the world there were pure souls that had a fighting chance. What’s to say we’re not those pure souls that stumbled and fell a few times before getting it right? What’s to say we’re not good people? What’s to say that we don’t deserve love, the kind of love you read about, and the kind of love that you teach in those novels of yours? You keep thinking that kind of love is for other people, but not you, not me, not us. Buffy, I thought I loved Cecily, but I didn’t. Not the way I love you. I did some rotten things to her, to me, to you, to myself…and I’m sorry for them all. A part of me even feels sorry for her despite of all the things she’s done to us.”
“You do?”
“I do,” he said nodding. “Because I gave into what she wanted and she wanted me. I became her trophy husband to go along with everything else that was just handed to her. And when I didn’t want it anymore, I cheated on her. Sure, she’s a bitch, sure she was a horrible wife, but I should have just gotten out instead of doing what I did. I made my bed, and I lied in it for a long time. And now I’m currently trying to get out of it. I don’t feel worthy of you, Buffy, and I don’t feel worthy of what we could have, but I’m not going to give up on it. I can’t. I love you too much, I love Brandon too much and I want this new life too much. I’m not going to waste my time thinking I can’t have what’s meant for others. I’m going to take it, I’m going to cherish it, and I’m never going to let it go.”
Straightening, Buffy stood tall and faced William head on. “Do you think we could…date?”
He blinked, “You want to date?”
“Yes. I have my reservations still, William, and sure our relationship isn’t conventional, but there’s no reason why we can’t do some things conventionally, is there?”
William smiled slowly and broadly. “I reckon there isn’t a reason why we can’t. I suppose there are a lot of things to learn about one another still. We’ve gone through a lot of changes over the past few months, yeah?”
“So… do you want to get together tomorrow night? I could ask Willow do babysit.”
“How about we ask my parents instead? Brandon has two grandparents that are chomping at the bit to get to know him.”
Buffy smiled, “Okay,” and she held out her hand to shake on it.
Chuckling, William shook his head and instead tugged her in his arms. “Let’s seal that with a kiss,” he said huskily and covered her lips with his, making her toes curl.