He studied her, how at peace she looked, how soft in repose. The lines that marred her face--the frown lines, the worry lines, were gone. Her skin appeared soft, gentle and once again he thought beautiful.
Spike didn’t know about Buffy, but once he’d drifted off, he had been out for the count. That hadn’t been the case since Joyce had passed.
He watched her as her eyes fluttered open and he held his breath, hoping that she wouldn’t be upset with him for falling asleep in her bed.
She surprised him by smiling shyly. “Hi.”
He smiled back, “Hi, pet. How do you feel?”
“I feel better, I guess. Still tired, but…better. Thank you.”
“For?”
“For letting me get that all out. You didn’t have to stay.”
“I fell asleep, you don’t mind?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Weird huh? I mean I think I …” she took a deep breath. “I think I needed that.”
“To be held?”
She blushed to a flaming red and he bit back the grin that formed. God, that was adorable. “Yeah,” she said softly. “The nights are the worst for me.”
“Me too, Buffy, me too,” he agreed on a sigh.
“Does it feel weird for you?”
“What?”
“Sleeping in another bed.”
He shook his head, “No, I actually slept like a rock.”
Buffy smiled. “So did I. And now I’m hungry.” She flung the covers off her and looked down at him. “I can make something for breakfast if you’d like?”
Spike smiled, “Sure, pet.”
Joyce’s things lay in boxes in the hallway. Buffy stared at them, the cardboard cartons haphazardly thrown together with no pomp or circumstance – noted in black marker across the side: Joyce. Just simply ‘Joyce’. It didn’t seem right to Buffy that an entire life fit into a few boxes. It didn’t matter how many boxes they had, none of them embodied her, and none of them spoke of the things she was or did.
“Not the articles themselves, not by just looking at them,” Spike explained when Buffy voiced that disturbing thought out loud. “But when I pick up her gardening hat, I think of all that time she spent in the garden tending to her flowers. To the outside observer, a straw hat, but to me, the hat she religiously wore until it was nearly in shreds because it was her ‘gardening hat’. Do you know how many times I tried to get a new hat for her and she refused?”
Buffy looked up at him. “I got her that hat.”
November 1, 2005
Spike and I put mom’s ‘boxes’ in the attic. Along with the rest of the stuff from relatives past, from my childhood, and just general junk never bothered to be disposed of. Things we look at and say, “My God, do you remember when we used this last?”
All her things in a box as if she never existed. All her things secreted away so we – what? Don’t have constant reminders that she existed? So we can’t touch them and access them. All those things that Spike saw on a daily basis are gone from his sight. It’s as if as soon as someone dies we all rush to get rid of everything so we can speed up the healing process and move on. So we can live our lives. So we can quicken the process of getting over it.
I fear forgetting, and I fear remembering.
I thought today that it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t around for the past five years, I have memories to sustain me well enough already—maybe more would just torment me. I had the briefest of moments where I felt no guilt, no pain. Where I felt blessedly free of all that shit. I counted seven minutes that it managed to last. Maybe I could work out a plan where I try to get that back every day and extend the time a little bit more—7 minutes each day until it spans the whole day.
“Have you thought of moving?” Buffy asked later that evening as they sat outside on the porch again, Spike having made them tea.
“Moving to--?”
“A new house free of memories. A new town.”
“Memories aren’t something that dissipates with a new residence. Memories are things you take with you inside.”
“Thank you Deep Thought Guy, I’m just saying that maybe it’d hurt less if every time you turned around there wasn’t something else to remind you…even if you did take her stuff up the attic, this house was hers, you know?”
“She’d be with me even if I left, Buffy.”
“When did you move here?”
“From London?”
“No, from Guatemala.”
“When I was eighteen.”
It was on the tip of her tongue and in the forefront of her mind: Joyce was his age when he moved. She was then happily married with a kid already.
“My parents and I moved here – to the land of opportunity --and I went to Sunnydale University.”
“What did you study?”
“Art and English.”
“What were you doing before you met my mom?”
“Nothing. Muddling through life, taking odd jobs, just sort of hanging out and not doing much with myself.“
“Why didn’t you do anything with your degree?”
“Well, when you go into Art and English, you’re pretty much slinging burgers. I wasn’t into being a reporter, didn’t really want to be a teacher, and there wasn’t much in the way of art. I wanted to write and that’s not an easy task to undertake – at least not the getting published part --so I was a well-read burger flipper.”
Buffy giggled. “And then?”
“My parents died and I had to make my own way and grow up.”
“And then you met my mom.”
“Yes, shortly after my parents died,” Spike said softly.
Silence, then. “Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“Never mind.”
“That’s not bloody fair. What were you going to say?”
“Nothing, it’s not the right time to ask such a question, forget it,” and she shook her head.
“Buffy?”
“Yes?”
“Were you going to ask if I’d sleep with you again?”
She turned to him and said honestly, expressionless, “No.”
She could have sworn he blushed, “Then what were you going to say?”
Buffy stood, suddenly feeling that the open space of the porch wasn’t open enough for her. Something felt off in their conversation, something not quite…right.
“I was just going to ask if you ever thought about remarrying. But it’s only been a week and I realize that’s not a … tactful – is that the right word?—question.”
Spike smiled up at her. “I think that’s the right word. I don’t take offense to it, Buffy. I just don’t have an answer to that. Where are you going?”
“To bed. You’re taking me to the gallery tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, be ready by eight.”
“Yes, sir,” Buffy saluted and practically ran off.
Spike sighed heavily wondering if he would be able to get any sleep that night. One night in Buffy’s bed did not mean that was the only way he was going to get any rest; it was a fluke that was all. It was a moment in time where he was able to provide much needed comfort to the girl and in ways she didn’t realize, she gave him comfort as well.
November 1, 2005
Our bond is going beyond grief. When Buffy cried in my arms last night, I understood how she felt, and what she was saying in feeling lost, like she didn’t know whom she was or what she was doing.
I hadn’t realized until our discussion this evening that I realized how much of my identity was tied up in Joyce. I went from being a student to a husband. I lost my parents, who were the world to me and I found Joyce.
Did she replace them? Did she ‘parent’ me? Was she the missing link that I needed at that time? Who am I now that she is not here? Who is Spike, truly? Who is William? Who am I now that I’m not a husband? Who am I?
Am I thinking too much?
Chapter Eight
November 12, 2005
Spike is a slave driver, but I don’t mind. I like the keeping busy. It takes my mind of things and gives me a focus on something other than my mom, my shitty father and my shitty life. I like getting my hand in something that later is going to be viewed by the public. Spike lets me be creative, he listens to my ideas and he even takes some of them. Those he doesn’t take, he at least takes the time to explain to me why it wouldn’t work, so I feel as though I’m learning something.
On our way home today, he wanted to stop off at the bookstore, he said something about not having really sat down with a book in a long while and that he missed it. I read a lot in Boston, but hadn’t picked up a book since I left Boston, so I went in with him and bought “Prozac Nation” by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Reading about a depressive, that’s just what I need. Spike shook his head at me and asked “Something you want to tell me, pet?”
Where does he come up with this endless supply of pet names? And do I like them? I do, but…but at the same time, it doesn’t make me special. It just makes me one of many that he’s called “pet”, “kitten” and “love”. And he most likely called my mom “baby.” How weird is that? I should ask him to stop. I want to be special; I want to stand out—and not just with him, but to someone. I want to feel that I am worth it and when someone calls me “love”, it’s because I’m their love. Is that too much to ask?
“Hello.”
Buffy turned to the voice that she assumed was saying hello to her in line at the Espresso Pump. She and Spike had what he called a “row” in the gallery because she wanted to hang a piece one place and he wanted to hang it another. Her creative reasoning was that the particular piece flowed better where she wanted to hang it, and from Spike’s perspective, it disturbed the flow. She called him a jackass, he called her a bitch and she told him she was going for coffee, because “only on some kind of drug can I deal with you”.
She’d cooled off when she’d left and felt guilty for having yelled at him. In fact, she’d felt dread about it. She thought, Crap, what if he doesn’t like me anymore? What if he’s done with me? That fear twisted inside her gut, twisting and turning and churning. She’d marched back to the gallery ready to say she was sorry and when her hand touched the cool metal of the door, and she received an electric shock from it, she stopped. How crazy was she? They’d had an argument but it didn’t mean he hated her. Not that he really liked her, mind you, but that feeling that he’d somehow leave her, abandon her was so strong within her, it made her shake.
On shaky legs, she’d forced herself to get a coffee, and as a peace offering, one for Spike as well.
She looked up to see a dark haired man with broad shoulders, warm chocolate brown eyes and spiky hair. His smile was sweet and inviting. Then she looked over her shoulder to see if he was talking to someone behind her.
“I said hello to you,” he assured her.
She looked up at him, swallowing hard. “Hi.”
“I’m Angel,” he held out his big hand and she took it uncertainly.
“I’m Buffy.”
“Nice to meet you Buffy. I’ve never seen you in Sunnydale before. You just move?”
She smirked. What a line. “Well, I used to leave here up until five years ago.”
“Did you go to Sunnydale High?”
“I did.
He frowned, “I graduated in 1994, when did you graduate?”
She smiled, “1998.”
“That would be why then. Where’d you go when you moved?”
“Boston.”
“Did you like it?”
“I’m back home, aren’t I?”
Angel chuckled, “Fair enough.”
“Can I help you ma’am?”
Buffy wrinkled her nose at the clerk behind the counter. She hated being called ‘ma’am’ at twenty-five. What were they going to call her at thirty? Granny? “Hi, I’d like an iced cappuccino and a latte, light on the cream.”
“Double fisting it?” Angel joked when the clerk scampered off to fill her order.
Buffy laughed easily. “No, the other one is for my…” Jesus, what did she call Spike? Her friend? Stepfather? – no way—her boss? Yeah, that could work.
“My boss, it’s for my boss.”
“Where do you work?”
“At the Summers Art Gallery at the corner—have you heard of it?”
“I have, nice place. Can’t really afford anything there, but it’s nice.”
Buffy chuckled. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My mom owned it.”
“Oh, really? That must be nice.”
“Well, she’s dead now.”
Angel paled, the clerk placed the coffees on the counter and Buffy started to laugh. The way she said it, or what she said, possibly both, are what incited her mirth. Plus the look on Angel’s face. She felt sort of crazy for having laughed that way – he would probably think she was cold and unfeeling, or just a straight up nutjob, but hey – she was.
“Sorry,” she told him after she’d paid and was gripping the coffees in each hand. “Just the look on your face and I tend to sometimes have a morbid sense of humor.”
Angel cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear about your mom.”
“Eh, it’s all right. You didn’t know her.”
Light and breezy, Buffy, light and breezy. What was she supposed to do, after all? Go on a diatribe about what a great mom she was, how she’d been a miserable daughter to her, and how her death had turned her world upside down in so many ways? No one wanted to hear that crap.
“Uh, if you want to wait a minute, I’ll walk you back to work?” Angel offered.
“You don’t have to--”
“I want to.”
Buffy shrugged, trying to appear calm and slightly indifferent. Isn’t that what guys liked? She wouldn’t know, she hadn’t had much experience in dating. Men found her to be too independent. Which was funny considering she felt she came off as too needy.
“So, you must work somewhere glamorous. You’re wearing a suit,” Buffy observed as she and Angel strolled down the street to the gallery.
“I’m an associate at a law firm.”
“So, not glamorous?”
“Hardly. I work all day, sometimes all night…I have demanding clients and attorney’s. I’m waiting until the day I’ve sufficiently proven myself and can become partner.”
Buffy knew all about wanting to prove oneself. She felt as though she’d been trying to do that all her life. “You will, I’m sure,” she said, even if she didn’t really know that he would. For all she knew, he was a slacker that didn’t really do much of anything.
“Thanks.”
“Well, this is where I stop,” Buffy chirped and stepped up on the doorstep to the gallery.
“So, uh, can I take you out for dinner sometime?” Angel asked shyly.
Buffy smiled. He wanted to date her after she’d laughed for his condolences? Maybe he was a nutjob too. “Sure,” she said calmly, thinking that maybe this was a sign of things to come. Of good things to come.
Angel smiled and dug in his pocket, extracting a pen and business card.
“So, how many women’s phone numbers you have in that pocket anyway? Talk about being prepared,” Buffy laughed.
Angel chuckled, “Really just a fluke, I swear.”
She was tempted to ask him to fork over all the cards in his pocket, but then decided that might creep him out. She dictated her number and he handed her one of his cards, assuring her he’d call that night. Buffy thought, I’m not going to hold my breath, though she really hoped he did.
Entering the gallery, she nearly knocked into Spike who was standing there, scowling, looking past her and through the window.
“What was that all about?”
“What were you doing? Spying on me?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged and took the coffee she offered him. “Thanks, pet. Now, who was that?”
“Angel.”
“What the bloody hell kind of name is that?”
”That’s rich coming from Spike.”
He glared at her, “Point taken.”
“He’s…just…a …lawyer.”
Spike raised a brow, “Take your time getting that sentence out.”
“Shut up. He asked me out.”
His expression darkened. “Oh?”
“Yeah, look, can you not make a big deal out of it? Please? Stop scowling! God, you’re not really my stepfather ya know,” and she pushed past him, heading for the back.
Spike sighed, “Yeah, I know.”