From now on, I will be utilizing the save button much more so that this never happens again. Enjoy ; -D
Sunnydale, 1992
“Buffy, dear?”
“Yeah, Giles?” Buffy turned the television off when she heard her stepfather’s voice calling for her from the dining room.
“Your mother got the pictures back from our trip. I thought you might like to look at them with me,” Giles replied, a warm smile on his face.
Buffy sat down in a chair next to him and propped her chin up with her elbow. “Sounds good. What’dya got?”
He made a big show of taking the 4 X 6 photos out of their envelope, waving them around like they were the newest best thing ever.
“Let’s see here. This one is of…” he trailed off as he squinted to see what was in the photo. “I suppose I’ll need my glasses then. Don’t ever get old, Buffy, then you’ll be as blind as old Giles here.”
Giggling, she shook her head. “You’re not old, Giles. Well, not that old, anyways.”
Reaching over, he pinched her nose lightly in a teasing gesture.
“Okay, this one is of… the plane? Bloody hell, who took that? It must have been your mother. I swear she is the only person on the planet who finds planes and airports as fascinating as the Grand Canyon.” He chuckled a bit before moving onto the next picture.
Buffy remembered when she had first met Rupert Giles. It certainly hadn’t been all warm and fuzzy between them. She had instantly resented him for trying to take her mother’s attention away from her, like the boyfriends before him had done.
But no matter how hard she had tried to push him away, he just kept coming. Unlike her mother’s previous beaus, though, Giles seemed to genuinely want to get to know her and to spend just as much time with her as he did her mother.
Over the months, she couldn’t help but to open up her heart to him. She wanted desperately to have some sort of father figure in her life and at some point she realized that she could depend on Giles to be that person.
“Ah, yes.”
Her attention turned to the photo his was looking at. Her mother and Giles were standing on either side of a young man, their arms resting on each other’s shoulders. They were all grinning widely as if they were all sharing some sort of secret that no one else knew.
“This is my nephew, William. We stayed with him in London for a few days,” Giles told her.
“I didn’t know you had a nephew.” Buffy took the picture from him and studied it.
Gile’s nephew is cute, was her first thought. He wore small, silver-framed glasses that seemed to magnify his bright blue eyes. Dark blonde curls framed his face which had high cheekbones and a straight nose.
He nodded. “Yes, he is my sister, Anne’s boy. He is really the only family I’ve got now besides you and Joyce.”
Frowning, she set the picture down. “What about your sister?”
“She passed a few years ago,” he replied, his voice taking on a sad tone. “I have some distant relatives, but no one I would be jumping to go see.”
He lifted an arm to place around her and gave her a solid squeeze. “Hopefully, he will be able to come out a visit us soon. He is studying his last term at Oxford now.”
“Wow, he must be really smart,” Buffy said, looking at the photo again.
“Yes, he is a very bright young man. I had hoped to bring him with me to America after his mother’s death, but now I’m glad he’d made the decision to stay.”
Las Vegas, 1997
Buffy watched William move about the apartment, setting his keys on the table beside the door and turning on lamps that made the room glow brightly.
The ride over to his apartment had only taken minutes and after he had placed the bike in a storage behind the building, they’d made their way up familiar cement steps to apartment 6D.
He hadn’t said a word since they had left The Blue Temple and she was starting to worry that he was angry with her for coming.
Exiting the kitchen, she noticed he had a glass of water in his hand and he held it out to her when he reached the couch. “’ere, luv. Drink this and then you can explain why you’ve come all the way to Las Vegas.”
Frowning, she took the glass and gulped down half of its contents. He didn’t sound happy. Not happy at all.
He was sitting across from her on the soft black leather couch, his body turned to face her. A hand was perched on his hip as he waited for her to explain herself.
“I really am just passing through. I was kinda hoping that I could crash here for the night, you know, instead of getting a room,” she told him, the guilt washing over her for openly lying to him.
Well, it isn’t really lying. I am just passing through and I would have to get a room if he decides to kick me out, she reasoned.
His expression told her that he wasn’t buying the story. “Somehow, ‘m finding it very difficult t’ believe that.”
She didn’t believe her either. It was true that she was a horrible liar which was one of the reasons she found her father’s accusations of lying so ridiculous. If she had been lying to him, it would have been made painfully obvious by her lack of talent in that venue.
“So, why do they call you Spike?” She decided that instead of trying to convince him, it would be best for her to switch gears and change the subject.
His blue eyes narrowed as he folded his arms over his chest. “That is not a story for young girls such as yourself, pet. Maybe when you’re a little older…”
“So, can I stay here or what?” She set the glass on the dark cherry coffee table and waited for him to tell her no.
Instead of saying anything, though, he stood up and left the room.
“Okay, that was kinda rude,” she muttered under her breath.
While she was debating whether or not to wait for him, he came back into the living room.
“I made up the bed for you. You can sleep in my room tonight and I’ll take the couch,” he told her, snatching up her glass and taking it to the kitchen. “The bathroom is down the hall if you want t’ wash up before you go t’ bed.”
Picking up her duffel bag from where she had dropped it earlier, she wandered down the hall to the door at the end. Flicking the light switch on, she set her stuff down and tried to decide if she wanted to jump in the shower. The bus had been grubby at best and sitting on it for five and a half hours, she was sure some of the grime had rubbed off on her.
She stripped her clothes off and fiddled with the faucets of the shower before reaching an acceptable temperature. The water sluiced over her cold and tired body, washing away all of the dirt and worry she’d been carrying all day.
Her thoughts turned to William. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man who had so captured her before. The gentleness that he given her at the funeral seemed to be gone being replaced by a hardened attitude.
They hadn’t discussed if she would be staying the next day, but she already knew she wouldn’t be. If his previous reaction was any indication about how he felt she could confidently say he would not be put out by her leaving.
Sighing, she stepped out of the shower and dried herself off with a plush black towel. Her teeth were brushed, her hair combed through, and her pajamas put on before she cleaned up her mess and left the bathroom.
The couch had already been made up and William was stretched across its length. He’d changed his clothes to a soft white t-shirt and faded black sweats.
“I really appreciate you letting me crash here,” she said to him before turning towards the bedroom.
“No problem,” he replied.
“Thanks.”
“Oh, pet?”
She twisted her body to look back at him. “Yes?”
Sitting up, he folded one knee to bridge over the other and rested his arm on top. “I really hope that you can find it in yourself t’ tell me the truth in morning ‘cause I can’t really say I appreciate being lied to.”
Spike watched her sleepy hazel eyes widen for a moment before she disappeared into the bedroom.
He’d had some time to cool off his raging anger and now he could begin processing the recent events. Truth of it was that he wasn’t really angry at her or even at her lying. There must be some reason she felt the need to throw him some bogus excuse and until he found out why she wouldn’t be leaving.
Rubbing a hand through his platinum blond hair, he realized that the real person he was angry at was himself. His uncle had once made him promise that if anything had happened to him that he would take care of Buffy and Joyce. He failed and the guilt was killing him, had been for some time now.
Sure, he had convinced himself that she was okay living with her father, but deep down he knew that he still should have been there for her. And now there was reason to believe that her life hadn’t been all peaches and cream with daddy dearest and he’d let it happen.
He wasn’t sure how to get through to her. Obviously playing the concerned adult role wasn’t going to work with her. What ever she was hiding, she didn’t want to say. But why? How bad could it possibly be?
Flipping on the television, he tried to clear his mind. This would take some tact which he historically was quite short on. He was the speak-first-think-later type and that usually got him in trouble.
He didn’t want trouble with her. All he wanted was to help her, it’s what he’d promised her and damned if he was going to back down from that.
She had grown too much in the three years since he’d seen her. He recognized it from his own personal experiences and his heart ached for her. Quite frankly, it sucked not to be able to enjoy your childhood and he knew first hand.
Whether she was aware of it now or not, she was already looking like an adult. What ever it was that she’d gone through was wearing heavily on her physically and even the way she carried herself was much too mature for a sixteen year old girl.
BBC America was running a marathon of Month Python and he settled himself in to watch some of it before he fell asleep. It was three o’clock and it was still too early for him to sleep. He was used to not getting in until after dawn.
After he got things straightened out with Buffy, he’d have to get in touch with Cordelia. They had some serious things to discuss and not all of it revolved around that idiot Luke.
It was possible that Buffy would be staying with him indefinitely and some changes had to be made to better suit a new routine.
He just hoped he wouldn’t have to fight Buffy all the way through it.