“Hey.”
“Buffy,” Spike breathed into the phone, his tone reverent. It made Buffy smile. Hopping onto the reception desk, she earned a glare from Bea.
“Whatcha doin?” she asked, swinging her legs back and forth.
“I’m watching TV. You?”
“I’m sitting on the reception desk, watching Bea glare at me.” Lifting her head slightly from the phone, she said to Bea. “Don’t you have room checks now? I can hold down the fort if you want. I think I’m good at spotting the loons.”
She smiled when Bea glared harder and Spike laughed raucously into the phone.
“You like to torment her,” he said fondly into the phone.
“So do you, I noticed.”
“She is a bit prickly isn’t she?”
“Pretty much, yeah. So, how are you?”
Silence.
“Spike, you still there?”
“Just a little surreal that you’re asking how I am.”
Buffy giggled. “Well, it’s not like your feelings cease to exist because of where I am. It’s really not all about me.”
“I know that, but…”
“But you feel bad telling me how you feel, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t feel like you can tell me.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?” she asked, clearly confused.
“Getting into my head.”
Buffy laughed. “Honey, if I had been in your head all this time, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he drawled, chuckling nervously.
“Oh?”
“Another time,” he promised.
“I’m going to be okay, Spike,” she told him softly.
“Buffy,” he sighed. “I…when can I see you, luv?”
“Tomorrow? How does that sound?”
“Give me a time and I’ll be there.”
“With bells on?”
“For you? Anything.”
Spike came in with bells all right, “Santa’s bells” she called them. The gold kind that made a distinct and clear ring when shook. Buffy beamed up at him and hugged him, playing with them on their string over his shoulder. It distracted her from how wonderful it felt to be in his arms. He was safety personified despite how muddled the feelings attached to him were. It was interesting to say the least – she lost her head with him, and yet found it at the same time. Love, she concluded, was a funny thing.
“Did I ever tell you the Polar Express story?” she asked him.
He pulled back slightly, grinning. “No.”
“Well, see,” she began and sat on her bed, on her hands. “I believed in Santa for a really long time. Abnormally long.”
“How old were you?” Spike asked, settling down next to her.
“Ten,” she admitted sheepishly.
He laughed, “You got teased didn’t you?”
“Mercilessly. I think it was more out of stubbornness at that point than real belief.”
“You? Stubborn?” Spike said in mock shock, placing a hand over his heart.
She nudged him with her elbow. “So, we read the Polar Express in class and I loved it. I came home and told my mom how at the end of the story the little boy remembers his trip because he has leftover in his hand, a bell. A bell like this,” she held up the bell, “that reminded him of Santa and that his trip was in fact real. So, that Christmas, my mom hunted for a bell like that to keep me believing.”
Spike grabbed a corner of the string and tugged on it. “How long did you continue believing after that?”
“For about an hour until my father told me he had been with my mother when she’d gotten the Archie comics dolls I’d wanted.”
“How did that make you not believe?”
“The note said those dolls were from Santa. In all fairness, he was nursing a hangover,” and she rolled her eyes. “I didn’t have the heart to tell my Mom after she’d tried so hard to keep me believing, so I told her next Christmas that I just stopped believing.”
“That was kind of you,” Spike whispered, his fingers caressing her hand just slightly. “Buffy, are you going to come home once you leave here?”
She looked up at him, “There wasn’t even a segue to that question, points for just coming out with it.”
“It’s been on my mind,” he confessed, meeting her eyes.
“No, shit, really?”
“I don’t want to push you into going back to Sunnydale, but--”
“I’m going back to Sunnydale, Spike. Boston is not my home anymore – scratch that – it never was my home. Sunnydale is…it could be my home, I think.”
He frowned, “You’re not sure.”
“I’m not sure about a lot of things. I’m trying this new ‘One day at a time’ plan. See, before I would just try to shove things out of my head to get over them. I thrived on Denial. It was always go, go, go so I didn’t have to think, think, think. But now, I’m trying to think and then go. I’m not that coordinated, so this should be interesting.”
“Kitten, not to be a selfish git, but where do I fit into all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean where do I fit in, in your life? Is there a place for me?”
She looked up at him solemnly. “Spike, there will always be a place for you in my life. I told you I don’t like anyone more than you, and I never will.”
“Buffy, God, I … I love you so much,” he said hoarsely, grabbing her hand and squeezing it, staring at her intensely.
Buffy could feel the need and want radiating off him, and she wanted nothing more than to reciprocate and fall into his arms, and pledge her undying love; yet it wasn’t time yet. Steps were being made everyday and even though Miss Instant Gratification wanted to throw caution to the wind, she couldn’t do it. When she was sure she wouldn’t have guilt and doubt soon after, she would love him like no other.
“Spike, can we just take that one day at a time, please?” Staring down at their hands that were entwined, she smiled, “See? It’s already part of my repertoire. ‘One day at a time.’”
“We can do that, kitten,” Spike whispered. Clearing his throat a second later he said, “So, tell me. How’s therapy been going?”
January 13, 2006
I don’t know how to be. I don’t know how to act. It appears some of the weight Buffy had been carrying around is lifting, but I don’t know what to do to help. Do I make it worse for her? She says she needs me, but what if I am not what she really does need? I’m sure Dr. Giles would have told me to get the fuck out of dodge if I were making things worse.
She told me briefly about her therapy sessions and I couldn’t help but think that balloon activity was something her and I could both benefit from together. I’m even thinking of making my way to Boston Common and just doing it on my own. There’s so much I need to let go of too. My revelations about my marriage for one, guilt for another for those revelations being another.
I don’t think of Joyce when I’m with Buffy. I am so consumed with Buffy that she’s all I can see, hear, and feel. Does that make me obsessed with her? Do I care? I’d never felt this way for anyone, and my mum had told me once upon a time that everyone has that one person in their life they’d lay down their life for. Buffy is that person for me. One day I’ll tell her that.
It’s only after that I think of Joyce and wonder what she’s thinking—if she knew that this would happen, if she wants it for us, or if she is disgusted. Of course I’m not going to tell Buffy my thoughts; she doesn’t need it, it won’t help her.
I’m thinking my next course of action is selling the house. Buffy asked me once upon a time if I should do it for all the memories it held and I’d scoffed at the idea. Now I’m thinking it’d be better for us. A fresh start. It won’t help her state of mind to be in the house that is her mother while we’re trying to…
Trying to make a go of it? Is that what we’re doing? Christ! I don’t even know.
Would it be running away to leave? Or would it be the best for both of us? I don’t want to ever look back one day and have it be that we both ran because they impaired our relationship.
I just need some guidance here; I don’t want to do the wrong thing, for either of us.
Chapter Twenty eight
His eyes were aglow with passion and Buffy felt her desire for him soar. Pulling her to him, Spike growled just before his lips covered hers in a wholly ardent kiss that left her breathless and dazed.
In the next instant, she was on her back, on a bed. Spike was lying between her legs, peppering reverent kisses down her neck, heading towards her still clothed breasts. In fluid movements, her shirt and bra were gone and Spike was expertly suckling at her, causing her center to clench with need. Her nails raked down his back, spurring him on and when he reared up, disposing her pants and thong, she reached for him, needing to feel him against her, inside her. Needing to know that this was real and it was okay.
He made love to her with his mouth, circling her clit with his pointed tongue and driving it as deep as he could in her center. She came, screaming his name and he lunged up, penetrating her core with a deep driving thrust, causing her to scream again. Where his clothes had gone so fast, she did not know.
“I love you,” she murmured to him, cradling his face in her hands and kissing him sweetly, languidly, but with no less voraciousness.
He was driving deep within her, touching her heart, her soul, filling her completely. His eyes bore into hers as his thrusts sped and grew harder. “I love you,” he whispered and that was all it took to drive Buffy over the edge, taking her with him.
Panting, Spike rolled them onto their sides as they came down from their climaxes, and held her close. Their sweat slickened bodies entwined until Buffy didn’t know where one began and the other ended.
Sensing a presence at the door, Buffy turned and started when she found her mother, standing there, expressionless, and staring at them. It was then she realized that they were in her bed. Correction: Their bed and their room.
“Mom!” Buffy managed to call out before Joyce vanished and the door slammed shut.
Buffy’s eyes popped open and she broke immediately into a cold sweat. Swallowing hard, she rolled over, burrowing under the covers and trying to get her breathing under control. Shutting her eyes tight, she fought back the tears that threatened to spill.
One step forward, three steps back, she thought. It was just a dream, you moron! Just a dream. You had an emotional day and it’s normal, completely normal for you to have a dream like that. Your subconscious is just playing a practical joke. An evil practical joke. Just let it go. It’s okay for me to love him. Mom doesn’t hate me, she doesn’t. She doesn’t.
Spike came inside Buffy with a gush, filling her with his seed, and making her his.
Peering down at her, he found her sobbing her heart out. “Buffy,” he started, his heart breaking at her tears, feeling he’d just done something terribly wrong by her.
“Now look what you’ve done!” a voice said accusingly.
Looking up, he found Joyce standing by their bed. “Joyce--” he started, stunned. He needed to tell her he was sorry, he needed to tell her that he didn’t know it would happen, but that it had, and he loved Buffy – but she vanished before he could get another word out and then he woke up.
Sitting up in bed and flicking the bedside lamp on, Spike rubbed his face with his hands, willing himself to snap out of the dream induced haze. It was just a dream, he told himself. Getting up he strode to the bathroom to relieve himself and splash some cold water on his face.
When he crawled back into bed, he stared at his phone, itching to call Buffy, but knowing he couldn’t. He knew it was better for her to be there while she healed, but he hated that he couldn’t reach out to her. All he wanted was to hear her voice to anchor him back to Earth. That was selfish of him, wasn’t it? He wanted to hear her voice to make him better.
He blamed the dream he’d just had. Dreams that fucked with your head, made you blur the lines of what was real and what wasn’t, and evoked feelings inside you that you were grappling with already, bringing them to the forefront.
He really, really hated that. His waking life was full of enough drama – did he need that in his dreams too? Especially when the beginning of his dream had been erotic and perfect—he had after all been making love to Buffy. And therein laid the problem, apparently.
Sighing heavily, Spike grabbed his journal and began to write.
“You have your letter for your father?” Giles asked when he met up with Buffy later the following afternoon for her session.
Buffy nodded, her hands stuffed in her deep pockets, her journal jutting out as she held it firmly in her grip.
“You look tired,” Giles observed as they made their way out onto the grounds.
“I am,” Buffy murmured, staring at the dirty snow mounds.
“Did you have a bad night?”
Choking back a sob, Buffy nodded.
“Can you tell me about it, please?”
Buffy stopped and turned to him. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” she said, her voice trembling.
Giles placed a hand on her arm gently. “Buffy, you can tell me. I’m your therapist and I’m here to listen, not to judge.”
“I dreamt I was having sex with Spike,” she blurted out.
His startled expression served to make her giggle. “Thank you,” she told him, “I needed that.”
He cleared his throat and took off his glassed, cleaning them with his scarf.
“That’s not a really good idea,” Buffy mused, “Scarf is scratchy. That’ll screw up your glasses.”
“What happened in the dream to upset you? Was that it?” he urged, putting his glasses back on.
Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head.
“Then?”
“When we were, you know, done, I felt a presence there and I looked over and saw my mom in the doorway. It was then I realized that we were in her bedroom. Their bedroom and in their bed. She didn’t say anything; I couldn’t even read her expression. I said, ‘Mom’, and she vanished.”
“It upset you to see her like that.”
“Well, yeah! Thank you from the department of the obvious. I was in bed with her husband!”
“Spike is a widower, Buffy. She’s gone.”
Bursting into tears, she exclaimed, “I just thought that it was going to be okay from here on out! I thought after yesterday I was getting better and that it would be better. Then I have a goddamn fucking dream and I’m right back where I started!”
“Buffy, come, sit down here,” Giles said calmly, leading her to a bench and extracting tissues from his pocket, which did not go unnoted from Buffy. Wiping at her eyes and snot, she waited for his guidance that he gave so effortlessly. Sure he had the training, but she was ever envious of those that just seemed to have their shit together. She wanted her shit together. It reminded her of those girls in elementary school that never had a hair out of place, never wore an outfit more than once, and always had the best lunches. She always thought their lives were so easy for those reasons, while hers floundered because she always had hair out of place, she didn’t always have a new outfit to wear every week, and she always had the worst lunches – the school lunches.
“Breathe,” he instructed and she inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Listen, dreams like that are part of the process. You did a lot of work yesterday in the way of releasing these burdens and starting to come to terms with them. Buffy, this is a process. Did you think you would be healed overnight?”
“I wanted to be,” she whispered. “I felt good after our session and I wanted to hold on to that. I thought I was going to.”
“There are setbacks in any kind of regime, Buffy. There are good days, and there are bad days. The point is to make those bad days bearable by finding ways to cope. You’re not going to walk out of here never having a bad day again, and never having something upset you again. That’s just not realistic.”
Buffy nodded, “I know. I guess I just hoped.”
“What did the dream mean to you?”
“Well, it made me feel very strongly about never having sex with Spike in their room on their bed.”
“What else?”
“I didn’t know if she was upset with me or not. I wanted to know if she was upset with me. How am I going to move forward with Spike if I can’t get past this, Giles? I just want to…I just want…”
“Say it.”
“I just want to move forward with Spike,” she whispered. “The door shutting, I want that to mean that now that she knows, we can close that door and move on. But on the same end, I can’t move on if she hates me for it.”
“Buffy, she’s dead and you might never know what she thinks. You have to come to terms with the fact that you might never know. Sometimes answers are not readily given in life.”
“I hate that.”
“Don’t we all. Listen, if you’re looking for symbolism here, then have you forgotten the snow that fell yesterday when you released your letter and balloon for your mother?”
Buffy nodded, “I did forget,” she admitted guiltily.
“Because you’ve trained yourself to focus on the bad rather than the good.”
“I have.”
“So, name something else for me that’s good.”
“I saw Spike.”
“And how is he?”
“You mean you weren’t spying on us this time? He was good. He was concerned about where I was going after I left here.”
“And?”
“I told him I was going to go back to Sunnydale. I think I want to get a place of my own though.”
“That makes sense. Did you tell him that?”
“Not about my own place. I think he’d be upset by it.”
Giles nodded, “Perhaps. But you have to do what is going to help you. Taking care of yourself first is imperative. Spike can come after.”
Buffy chortled, “What happened to giving of oneself to another?”
“You can give to another, Buffy, but not at the risk of losing yourself and your needs. Then you’re not really giving anything to anyone, but rather running on empty. You’re in a precarious state of mind right now and you can’t afford to be running on empty.”
“You know, Giles, I think you’re spot on with this shrink gig.”
“Why thank you,” Giles said dryly and Buffy giggled. “Do you have your letter?”
“I do. But I don’t want to read it.”
“Oh?”
“I want to send it.”
“Oh?”
Buffy giggled. “Yeah, I want to send it. That’s my way of releasing it. He needs to hear what I have to say. Even if there’s a chance he won’t read it. I won’t focus on that. In my head, he’s going to read it.”
“You know, Buffy, I think that’s a novel idea.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
Buffy beamed up at him, proud of herself.