Spike insisted that if he was going to share pictures of his parents and childhood pictures of himself, then she had to do the same. Buffy warned him of the chance that the both of them could end up slobbering together, but Spike was insistent.
She dug up a photo album that was less of her parents and more of her, a worn, pink album that said “Baby Girl” across the front and Spike dug out a shiny, navy blue album.
“Good to know stereotypes are alive and well,” Buffy muttered comparing the albums. “My girl will so wear blue.”
Spike grinned, “I’ll remember that. And our boy will wear pink?”
“Yes!”
Spike laughed and the pair of them stretched out on his bed, lying on their bellies. Neither one bothered to delve into what was just said and the implication that if they were to have kids, it would be with one another. It was a given in both their minds, and Buffy’s only worry was whether or not she’d made a good mother. She knew Spike would make a wonderful father, but she wasn’t sure she would make a good mom, or even if she wanted to be a mom.
But, that was the sort of thing that didn’t need to be sorted out right away. There were still other things to be sorted out first, all the rest would fall into place later.
“You first, pet.”
She looked at him, “Why me?”
“Because I want to see what you looked like in nappies,” he answered, grinning.
Rolling her eyes, Buffy obliged and opened the album, wincing at the first one of her in the tub. Spike cooed and giggled, pressing a kiss to her flaming cheeks. They flipped through the album slowly, and some photo’s prompted childhood stories Buffy held in her memory and she shared them, loving how he seemed to actually want to know her stories.
When they came across a professional photo of her parents sitting next to one another on their old couch and her on their lap, Buffy fell silent.
“You okay, luv?”
“Yeah, just…just hard to think that once upon a time, things were different. In that picture right there, none of us know what’s going to happen in the future. We’re ignorant to it. I wish I could know what’s going to happen in the future so I could prepare for it, I hate when something happens and it just knocks you on your ass and you think ‘Damn, I wish I could have seen that coming.’”
“We all wish that, kitten. And unless you get struck with a sudden case of ESP, we’ll never know.”
“It sucks.”
“Life sucks.”
“I love how you’re so negative with me,” she cooed and flopped onto her back, gazing up at him adoringly. “That’s one of the many things I love about you. You don’t bullshit me.”
He shrugged, “What’s the point? You just see through the ruse anyway,” and he leaned over and kissed her softly. “Baby, did you ever send your father that letter?”
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “No.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” she began sighing heavily, “The man’s got cancer and he shoved me out of his life. He won’t read it and I thought I could play a game with myself where I convinced myself he would. Then I thought that if he really did, he might even reply and I just think at this point, it’d be another setback if he didn’t do any of the above and the not knowing would kill me. I’m thinking I’ll burn it instead.”
“Burn it?”
“I read about burning things in one of my Wiccan books. It’s supposed to be a great release.”
“If you want, I’ll do it with you.”
“Nah, I think that’s something I have to do on my own.”
Spike nodded, “I get that. You know what one of the most difficult things in life is?”
“What?”
“Grasping the idea that there are some questions that will never be answered, and some problems that will never be solved. You might never know about your dad and we’ll never know how Joyce feels about us.”
“Yeah, but I’m finally getting over that.”
Spike nodded, “I think I started to get over that when my whole other bag of issues came up.”
Buffy giggled and then rolled back over onto her belly and reached for his album. “Introduce me to your parents, William.”
His parents were first on the page, a picture of them together and Spike explained it was just before they had him, and that the picture had been taken from the chest up so that his mother didn’t have to show her big belly. His mom had medium length, honey blond hair and a warm smile. She had blue eyes, round cheeks and a long nose. All in all, she was pretty and kind looking. His father was a few inches taller than his mom, with salt and pepper hair, big piercing blue eyes, definitive cheekbones and a wide smile.
“This is Anne and William Pratt,” Spike said gesturing to the photo. “Mum, Dad, this is Buffy. The love of my life.”
Buffy blushed once more and smiled down at the kind looking people that Spike had lost and she would never get to meet. It made her sad to think of.
“Thank you for making him who he is,” she murmured, trailing her fingers on the edge of the picture. “You look like a mix of both of them. And I never knew you were a Junior.”
Spike chuckled, though she could see his eyes shimmering with tears. “Yeah, I don’t tell many about that.”
“Show me more, William,” Buffy encouraged and this time it was Spike’s turn to delve into stories of his childhood. Tears glittered in his eyes and a few times he got choked up, but it was good for him, Buffy realized. He needed to do this.
“Did my mom ever do this with you?”
“What? Go through my photo album with me?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I never wanted to. It was still too raw and fresh. Not that it isn’t now, but not as bad, you know?”
“Did you try to forget?”
“Yes, and as you can tell, it didn’t work so well.”
“Thank you for showing me. For trusting me enough to show me.”
His whole expression softened into one of abject adoration. “Of course, Buffy,” he gushed, “You’re everything to me, of course I trust you.”
Smiling tenderly, Buffy kissed him softly and they continued with the sharing.
“I wish I could have known you then,” Buffy told him once they’d shut the albums and rolled to their backs, staring up at the ceiling with hands entwined. “To see you be a little troublemaker, intent on driving your parents crazy.”
Spike chuckled, “You might not have liked me.”
“I don’t know about that. In high school, you could have gotten me liquor.”
“Seems that you and I could have gotten into trouble together.”
“If now could be any measure for how it could have been, most definitely.”
Silence fell and the pair just lie there for a while enjoying the silence and company. Spike was the first to break the silence by saying her name tentatively.
“Yeah?” she answered.
“What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
Rolling to his side, he propped his head up and looked down at her. “What happens with us now?”
“What do you want to happen?” she asked, looking up at him.
He gave her a look. “We know what I want to happen.”
“Right. Well, we agreed that we didn’t want to slide back into what we were doing either, right?”
“Right. So, maybe we could just take it slow. I don’t necessarily want to go another week without seeing you, but maybe going out with our friends more, alone or together and no sleepovers?”
“Did that just come from your mouth? Color me shocked!” Buffy teased.
Spike chuckled, “Well, I think when you’re here with me, I get lost in the idea that you’re going to stay.”
“I am staying. Haven’t we been over this?”
“I mean in the full sense of the word, as in move in with me.”
“Oh.”
“And I know what that all stems from, what it means now and I know that it’s not right.”
“Well, I mean in the future we’ll live together, but right now--”
“But right now is not the right time.”
“Right.”
“If we lived together, it would just be leaning on you and yeah, it’d be easy to slide into that, but I know I can’t.”
“Right.”
“So as a mark of my being committed to recovery, I am saying that no sleepovers for a while.”
“Okay,” Buffy said nodding resolutely.
“You know, you could sound a little bummed about that or something.”
Buffy laughed and wrapped her arms around him, bringing him down for a kiss. “I know this is benefiting us in the long run Spike and while I do love sleeping in your arms, I also want you to be healthy and happy. I will do whatever that takes because that is more important to me than anything. And why is that most important? Because I love you.”
“So do you mind showing me how much right about now?” Spike asked, waggling his eyebrows and leering at her.
Pulling him down, Buffy kissed him hotly. “You want it? You got it.”