So, Happy 10th Anniversary to Buffy (the first ep first aired March 10, 1997)....
Chapter 22
“So who wants to hear what Anya said to Xander when he said that maybe he should call Angel?”
Spike was actually rather interested in the answer, but it appeared Joyce had other things on her mind. Which he figured, was only logical.
“Dawn, there are a few things I want to talk to you about with all of us here.”
“Sure,” Dawn tried to keep her voice strong but Spike could hear the fear, reaching over he squeezed her shoulder lightly before letting go. She really was incredibly brave; he’d thought so before but never had he been such a witness to it.
“Buffy, William and I have spoken with the doctor again about the MRI, my test results and everything he wants to do. We have another doctor in Los Angeles looking at things as well to see if he agrees. Once we hear back from him we’ll make the final decision, but…Dawnie, honey, how much of this do you want to know?”
“I…I don’t think I can really, uh, help decide all the major stuff because I don’t get all of it, but…I’d like to know what the doctors are going to do and everything.”
“Okay, sweetie. Right now, it’s looking like, in about five days—or as soon as this pneumonia clears up—I’m going to have the surgery. Unless the other doctor disagrees for whatever reason. It’s supposed to work much better than just the radiation. And I’ll probably do the radiation afterwards, but more than likely I’ll be able to come home and do that as an outpatient.”
Spike noticed the way Dawn’s heart rate increased when her mother said ‘supposedly’. “These are good doc’s, Bit. They know what they’re doing. With stuff like this nothing’s ever going to be definite, but they’re taking good care of your mum and she and your big sis are making good decisions.”
All three smiled thankfully at him, each for her own reason.
“Actually that was another thing I wanted to talk to you girls about. Dawn, I know I can’t put all of this on you…and Buffy, sweetheart,” she took several deep breaths before continuing, “there’s no telling really just how long this is going to take….and I hate to say it, but…you’re sick, honey and…I don’t want to leave it all to you when you’re going to have yourself to worry about as well. When I have that surgery--if I have it, that is, there are always chances with surgery and this is brain surgery. Believe me I wouldn’t be worrying you girls with this if I didn’t think it was important…I’m going to assign a medical proxy—someone that’s designated to make medical decisions for me if I’m, for whatever reason, unable to.”
“Do you just like pick them?” Dawn asked. “Or is it like…do they assign someone or something?”
“No, baby. I decide who it is and…the hospital has the form and I sign it along with the person I want to be my proxy and then two witnesses need to sign it as well to ensure that no one’s making me sign it.”
“But if you’re not going to have us do it,” Buffy said, “…..please tell me it’s not going to be Dad because—“
“No, it’s not going to be your father; even if I could find him.”
“Then who? Aunt Margaret’s all the way in Connecticut and we haven’t seen her in like 10 years.”
Buffy thought of someone else then, “Not Giles, please, mom. I know you think he’s done such a good job of protecting me over the years, but he’s always such a fuddy duddy about the rules, I think he’d do whatever the doctors told him.”
“What about you Spike?” Joyce asked in amusement, “Anyone in particular you don’t want it to be?”
“Long as it’s not anybody out there,” he pointed in the general direction of the waiting room area, “--’Cept maybe Demon Girl—or the Poof I’m alright with whoever. You’re a smart lady, figure you know who to pick.”
“Yeah,” Buffy and Dawn both agreed quickly.
“Good, so you’ll all be alright with me choosing Spike?”
“I still think maybe we should call him. I mean Buffy usually does listen to him and he knows more about Spike than the rest of us do.” Willow spoke for the first time since Spike had come to get Dawn.
“And you call her your best friend! Really! I think I’m actually rather glad you’re not my friend, Willow Rosenberg; who knows who you’d call whenever I did something you didn’t like…It’s really a wonder Buffy’s put up with you this long. I wonder if she knows you speak like this behind her back.
“Don’t talk to Willow like that,” Xander objected and that was it for Anya.
“That’s it. I don’t care how many orgasms you are capable of giving me Xander Harris—I’ve heard it’s really not that many compared to other men actually—I’m done with you. You and Willow and Giles can do whatever you want to your ‘best friend’. Just don’t feel bad when you end up hurting her.
“I know she told me to make you leave, but I’m not guessing I’ll be able to do that very well. You all can be very stubborn—and not in the way that won Napoleon his wars, now he knew how to be stubborn. You can be just stupidly stubborn. I am going to say good-bye to Buffy, Spike, Dawn, and Mrs. Summers and then I will leave. Hopefully you three don’t screw her life up too much, I don’t care what you do to your own.”
“What?!”
“So you don’t like the idea, Buffy?” Joyce asked, wondering if her daughter noticed how Spike had tensed up as soon as she asked.
“I just…with…and…he’s not a person.” Spike pulled away when Buffy said that and she shot her arm out to grab him, pulling him back. “That’s not…Don’t you two know by now that I suck at saying things?” Her mother smiled, but Spike still felt tense. Turning her back on her mother, hoping she’d understand, Buffy looked up at Spike. “People have birth certificates with birth years that don’t start ‘18’—maybe a few people do, people have passport numbers, visas, drivers’ licenses, they have things that prove they are who they say they are. They have things that can prove to lawyers and doctors and all those people that they are who they say they are. You…technically you’ve been dead for a hundred and twenty years. That’s all I mean…I don’t mean,” it felt weird to be having something that felt like such a private conversation with her mother and sister right there. But if she meant it, what did she care if they heard it, “You are a man William, I know that, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you can’t….legally prove it.” She waited for a second, wondering if he’d respond. “Can you?”
Spike was getting tired of her doing so many damn things that made him want to kiss her when they were in the room with her mother and sister. He’d never been one for waiting…at least not successfully waiting.
“We’ll be right back,” he told Joyce and Dawn before pulling Buffy off the bed and into the hallway with him.
“What are you—“
“That marriage thing, the shit about Angel—you’ve had plenty of chances to jump all over me this morning.”
“I was going to talk—“
“Right, later, yeah, well I was all good with that, figured it was what you were going to do. Then you had to go and say the bit about the bear and then—either you tell me not to right the fuck now or I’m going to kiss you because if there’s one thing I’m worse at than planning things, it’s being patient.”
Buffy’s eyes grew wide as he spoke. Truth be told she hadn’t really felt, lately, that she was really anything to look at anymore. She’d figured that Spike…she wasn’t saying his feelings for her had changed but she…
“You still want to?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s just….I look…” she trailed off, not sure what exactly to say.
Yeah, he should answer her; yeah, she hadn’t said yes, but….Had he mentioned he had no patience?
Buffy remembered what it had felt like to kiss Spike from Willow’s spell, but…there had been something artificial to those kisses. Great as they were, it wasn’t completely them…this, however, this wasn’t anything but them. Their lips; their tongues; their hands.
Buffy honestly hadn’t felt this good since she’d gotten this sick; she was pretty sure she hadn’t felt this good ever, but her mind wasn’t exactly working at full capacity at the moment. She heard Spike mumble something against her lips before he wrapped his arms around her back. Her hands, in turn, moved from holding his face, to cross behind his neck, pulling her closer against him.
“What’d you say?” she asked a few seconds later when the kiss ended, their arms still around each other.
“Said ‘bloody hair tie’. Love your hair, pet…wish it hadn’t been all pulled back like that is all.”
“I thought you said I had stupid hair.”
“Well if you’ll remember, I also said I never liked you very much anyway so that right there should tell you how truthful I was being that night. Hadn’t planned on you catching me.”
“Spike….” He knew it was coming…didn’t make it suck any less, though. “I don’t know…right now….it’s just,” she wondered if he had any idea what she was trying to say because she sure as hell wasn’t sure.
“Got it. Can’t happen again, forgetting all about it,” he sounded angry, disappointed and she hated that.
“That’s not—“
“Hey, it’s alright. I pushed you, yeah. Don’t think twice about it.”
Buffy was about ready to smack him when Anya interrupted, “Uh, Buffy? Spike?”
“Oh hi, Anya,” Buffy tried not to be hurt as Spike went back into her mother’s room without so much a glance at her.
“Are you okay, Buffy?” Who said she didn’t know how to say the right things sometimes.
“Not so much. I…I’m pretty sure Spike’s back to hating me now. “
“Well that’s because he thinks you regret kissing him. That’s easy to fix. Just tell him you don’t. You don’t do you? Because really I’d imagine…he’s a good guy Buffy and he really does love you.”
“I know,” Buffy slid down the wall and Anya looked at her for just a second before sitting next to her. “It’s just…there’s so much going on right now…stuff with my mom, stuff with me…those three idiots,” she pointed down the hallway. “Plus, whenever Angel shows up there’ll be that and….”
“And what?”
“I’ve screwed up every other relationship I’ve ever had and…I know how to deal with him when it’s just him being really nice to me and being there when I need someone, you know?”
“But he still loves you then.”
“Yeah, but…but I didn’t feel before like there was pressure on me…There’s so much going on and…when I get too stressed or scared or whatever…I’d screw it up and then he would hate me. Like forever hate me.”
“I don’t think he could do that.”
“I can be a bitch.”
“Well, yes. But so can every woman. And if he doesn’t know that about you by now, well then he’s not very bright now is he?
“What do you want from him Buffy?”
“I want him to never leave?”
“That’s a question? Shouldn’t you know what you want?”
“If you’d asked me a few months ago I would have said I wanted Spike to never come back and…it’s fast and I….and there’s so much going on…”
“Buffy what do you really want from him?”
“I want it to be how it was before five minutes ago…at least now, you know? Later I can…I know that if I…if I start something with him now…I’ll mess it up, I know I will and then….then it’ll be messed up and that will be that…if I wait…at least then there’s more of a chance of it working.”
“Not if he doesn’t know that you feel that way.”
“Yeah, I know, but…sometimes it’s hard to talk to him….which s stupid because sometimes he’s the easiest person in the world for me to talk to but when…when it’s about the two of us it’s like I get stupid.”
“Maybe you could write it out?”
“Yeah…I’ll try…I’ll try something. I have to. Hey, Anya?” Buffy dried her tears and tried to look less worried. “If someone doesn’t have legal papers—like a passport and birth certificate and all that?”
“Yes?”
“Would you know how to get them if someone gave you the information?”
“I think so, yes. Why?”
“See, my mom wants Spike to be her medical proxy but I’m not sure how much identification he has…and I don’t want that to be what messes things up.”
“Let’s go see what if anything he has and then I’ll know what I’d need to get and how hard it’ll be.”
“Thanks…Oh, Anya? What were you coming to tell us?”
“I’ve broken up with Xander. I would very much like never to see any of them again but would like to continue being your friend. And Spike and Dawn’s. I know I’m not the most conventional—“
“That’s be really nice, Anya.” Buffy had figured that her relationship with Xander wasn’t going to last the week. “Sorry this whole thing happened for you guys to break up.”
“Oh it would have happened anyway. He’s always telling me to stop talking and I find that very rude of him. And he can be very inappropriate in always choosing Willow over me. Oh, I think Willow is going to call Angel.”
”What?!”
“She says you listen to him and then they said how he knows more about Spike than you do, so…yes, I believe one of them is going to call today.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Anya smiled, finally someone was appreciative of her actions, it felt nice.
TBC.....
and I have no idea why almost half of this got cut off before......sorry :(
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Author's Chapter Notes:
depending on what happens with this thing sometimes refered to as my life, I'll either be possibly updating this next Saturday and the one after or definitely not doing so.......sorry, I know I didn't post last week either (but I did try, the site was all wonky)