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"Cordy, Spike here can you please push back Monday's meeting. I am not going to have the reports done till Tuesday"

Something was off.

Buffy couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something just didn’t feel right. As she stood in the kitchen on another Saturday morning she should have been over the moon. She had spoken to Angel about staying on permanently in New York and he was fine with it. She had rung Lorne and had a job interview in two days time. Even Spike was being nice to her. Everything was falling into place. She had a future, something to keep her moving forward and not looking backward. She hadn’t even thought about Riley in days. In short, everything was just fine.

But something was off, something she felt was missing, something she couldn’t quite define.

“Are you finished with the milk?” Spike asked. He had just returned from his morning jog and from the look and smell of him, it had been a long one. His dark grey sweats hung low on his hips and the white NYU t-shirt clung to his abs.

“Sure,” she placed it on the counter rushing to get out of the small kitchen for reasons she did not know.

“Where’s the fire?” Spike asked as he made his way past her.

“No where. I just want to get into the shower before you,”

“No need to rush love, I am a gentleman after all. Ladies first,” his stare unnerved her. See this, this was the problem. Gone was their usual sparring and somehow it had been replaced with what?

“So what are your plans for today Buffy?”

Polite conversation?

“Umm I don’t know I was thinking of maybe taking a walk later,” she picked the lint off her robe. “Or maybe seeing a movie.”

“All alone?” she looked up to see Spike looking at her oddly.

“Yeah well all my friends are kind of, you know, in Sunnydale. So yeah all alone,” Did he always have to make her feel like such a loser. What did he think she was doing day after day here in the apartment? Making friends and influencing people.

“Okay, well have a good time. I hear the new Tom Cruise film is ok,”

“Great I might try to catch it then.”

“I could come with you if you wanted some company.”

Buffy could not be more shocked if it started raining frogs. “Its ok you don’t have to do me any favours.”

“No favour. I don’t have anything better to do except work and that can wait,”

Buffy stood still unable to fathom the words coming out of Spikes mouth. Work could wait?

“Are you feeling ok?” she asked before thinking.

“I’m fine Buffy. Now, hurry up and get ready before I change my mind and decide that my monthly reports are more exciting,”

****

“So who won?” Buffy asked as she and Spike made their way out of the cinema.

“What. are you kidding love?” Spike knew Buffy was no dummy and the movies plot was very very simple. “The good guys won, like always.”

Buffy giggled and it warmed his heart just a little. “I meant between work and the movie which was better?”

“The movie was average so if I had to put them up against each other work would have edged ahead but add in the company factor and the movie wins hands down,” He was surprised by his own words and more so that he meant them.

The impromptu trip to the movies had been both great and confusing at the same time. He had no motive in asking her, it wasn’t a date. Sure he paid for her ticket despite her protests, but she still didn’t have a job and movies were expensive.

More surprising to him was the good time they had had. No fights other than what size popcorn they were going to share. The silence between them was awkward yes but those moments were few and far between. He was not expecting it but he was having a really good time.

Not that he didn’t enjoy Buffy’s company before, but that was more the fighting and snapping at each other he was enjoying. This was different, this spending time with her and doing something other that fighting each other. He liked it.

He looked back not realising that Buffy had stopped a few feet before she seemed rooted to the spot and looking at him as though he had sprouted a second head.

“Buffy are you coming or not. I am hungry and the diner round the corner does a killer cheeseburger. Best in town,”

****

“So are you ready for the big interview on Monday?” Spike asked before he took a huge bite out of his cheeseburger. Buffy smiled as she watched the sauce spill out and dribble down his chin. Spike had always been the messiest eater she had ever seen.

“I think so, I don’t have much to show Lorne. All my books are back in Sunnydale,” she frowned as she remembered exactly where they were.

“So call your mom. I’m sure she can FedEx them here. They may not make it for Monday but you can try.”

“They’re not at Mom’s anymore. They’re at home with Riley,” a look of shame fell upon her.

“So ask the pillock for them back,” Spike replied as if that was the easiest thing in the world to do.

“I don’t think I can. At least not right now. I don’t want to hear his voice, you know? I’m trying to forget it all happened.” She picked at her fries, her appetite leaving her. “And I don’t want to call and have her pick up the phone. It would be too hard. I have cried too many tears over him. I don’t want to do that anymore,” she added quietly, concentrating on keeping those very tears at bay.

“Buffy you didn’t do anything wrong, you have every right to call him and ask for your stuff back,”

“But I must have done something wrong Spike. He left me, not at the altar but pretty close to it. He chose someone else over me. Men don’t plan a life with me they practise what their life is going to be like then move on. Riley did it with Sam, you did it too.”

The look on both their faces was one of shock and pain. Spike knew she didn’t mean to say those things to hurt him but he could tell it had weighed heavily on her mind.

“Buffy, please…” he reached over the table for her hand but she pulled it away and stood up.

“No, please I don’t want to get into this not now. Not with you. Thanks for the movie but I have to go now,”

Spike didn’t see her leave as he was too busy banging his head on the dinner table cursing himself for being such a bastard.





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