Spike stared up at his mother, all trussed up in her sleek black bathing suit, her delicate features hidden by gigantic black sunglasses. She wore what Spike thought was akin to an umbrella on her head, but was really a ginormous straw hat.
“Are you wearing oil?” Spike asked, noticing how her skin was glistening.
“Well, I am out in the sun,” she said as if he should have known that already.
Spike rolled his eyes at her and sat up.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” she scolded him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Addie slid her sunglasses to halfway down her nose. “You’re pushing your luck.”
“What are you gonna do? Threaten to put me on the rock with Prometheus again?”
She scowled at him and knelt before him, taking her glasses off and placing them on the blanket. Her blue eyes bore into his. “I’m worried about you,” she said seriously.
Spike started to laugh.
“I don’t know why I bother to try and talk with you.”
“I suppose it’s because you love me.”
She pursed her lips together.
“What?”
“Do you have to talk in that British accent? You’re not British!”
Spike scowled at her. “Dad is, remember?”
Addie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been around enough people that don’t—you know what?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Why do you torture your poor mother?” she demanded.
“Because I know you mother. You plan to interfere.”
“I’m not here to interfere. I’m here to give you some advice.”
“This should be good,” Spike muttered.
“You’re so fresh!”
“I wonder where I get it from.”
“You know,” she huffed, “You could pretend to be happy to see me.”
Spike sighed heavily. “Mom, I love you, you know I do. But I know you. You were checking up on me. You were snooping on me weren’t you?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Come on, Mom.”
“Fine,” she said, letting out a gust of air. “I visited your uncle and happened to see you in his crystal ball.”
“Meaning, you conjured me up in the crystal ball.”
“I wanted to see how my boy was doing!”
“And? How am I doing?”
His mother looked positively forlorn. “Oh honey, you’ve fallen in love with that girl.”
“I thought something like that would make you happy,” he said dryly.
“How can it make me happy when you’re so miserable?”
“I’m not miserable, mother.”
“I heard you. That vile woman was yelling at you!”
Spike shook his head, “Mom, she yelled at me because she asked me about my childhood and I wouldn’t tell her anything.”
“Why not? You had a wonderful childhood! You’re not going to get into how I coddled you—“ She stopped abruptly and Spike waited for clarity to hit. “Oh.”
“Exactly. ‘Oh.’ How am I supposed to tell Buffy that I’m really immortal, I live on Olympus, and my uncle is the God of Love?”
“Can’t you just … make stuff up?”
Spike sighed, “I’m not a good liar.”
“You never were.” Addie made it sound as if it were a tremendous character flaw.
“It concerns me that you make that sound like a bad thing. Mom, I do love her, that’s the thing. Everyday it gets harder and harder to lie to her. I don’t want to lie to her. I want to. . I want to . . . “
“What honey, what is it that you want?”
“I want to be with her. I want to make her like you made Dad.”
Addie’s crystal blue eyes widened, “You want to make her immortal?”
“Yes, I do,” he said resolutely.
“Oh, honey—“
“Don’t tell me it can’t be done. I know it can be. Dad is proof of that. Hell, so is Aunt Psyche!”
“I know but dear, you were sent here on a job. You’re not the one meant for her. She’s meant to be with another mortal,” she reached out stroked his arm soothingly.
“Then I want to be mortal. I want to be who she’s meant to be with.”
“Spike, dear—“
“I just need some time.”
“Time for what?”
“For her to fall in love with me.”
His mother smiled gently. “Oh honey, I think she already is.”
“Mom, you think everyone is love with me—“
“Can I help it if I think my son is wonderful?”
He smiled at her, “Thanks, Mom.”
“What would you like me to do, honey?”
“Nothing. I want you to go back home and do nothing. You say nothing. Not even to Dad. I don’t need it getting back to Uncle Eros that I’ve fallen in love with my charge and want to make her like me. That’s the last thing I need. He might take me off the case, wipe out our memories,” Spike shuddered at the thought, “I couldn’t take that.”
His mother patted his knee affectionately, “I won’t say a word.”
“I mean it mom. You can’t say a word.”
She put her sunglasses back on. “You really have no faith in me at all.”
“I know you.”
“Give me a kiss now. Your father thinks I’m out having lunch with Artemis. Now talk about a woman who needs a man—“
“Mom,” Spike sighed.
“Fine, fine. Come on, give me kiss.”
Quickly, Spike leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Goodbye mother.”
“I love you dear, be careful.” And with that, she was gone.
“And I want another woman to please in my life,” Spike muttered. “And I better go about making my other woman happy before I am sent out to the rocks to have my liver poked out on daily basis.”
This was one of those days when Buffy wished she had a girlfriend to talk to. Just someone to vent to about what a pain in the ass men were. All she wanted was to learn about the man she was – she was --- she screamed into her pillow—the man she was falling in love with. Oh hell, who was she kidding? She was more than halfway there already.
How the freaking hell had he managed to do that?
She blamed him, naturally. His stubbornness, his persistence, his way of seeing into her soul, of knowing her heart and the uncanny way he had of breaking down all her barriers, and while she felt so overwhelmed and frightened by it . . . it also felt so freeing. She felt with Spike that she could just let go. She’d never just let go. She’d always held on and tried to be what she needed to be for every man she’d been with. Tried to be what they wanted her to be, what she thought they wanted her to be. How was it possible that her whole business was setting couples up and emphasizing to them that they just needed to be themselves when she herself failed to do the same thing?
Until Spike.
He got it all, the poor guy. All the insecurities she’d already had since, say, adolescence topped off with all the insecurities she’d accumulated from past relationships. And he just took it. He took it all and was still there.
She shook her head; it did not excuse his refusal to tell her anything about himself. She bit her lip and lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, a horrible thought entering her mind.
The door flew open and Spike sauntered in. “Buffy—“
“Spike, wait,” she said and held up her hand.
He took pause. “What?”
“If you were abused, you don’t have to tell me. I understand how something like that can be hard –“
“Abused?” he asked, knitting his brows together.
“Yes, you know, by your parents.”
“Buffy, I wasn’t abused--“
“And if you think you have to lie to me to protect yourself, I want to let you know that you don’t have to.” She took a deep breath. Take the leap, she told herself. Do it! “I’m falling in love with you anyway.”