Chapter 4
Buffy was stealing sidelong glances at Spike all the way down the hall and out into the parking lot. She couldn’t believe he was a dad. It was a bizarre concept. Then again, it had been a bizarre day.
Spike sighed. “What are you bloody well gawkin’ at then?” he snapped.
Buffy jumped. She had thought she was being discreet. Evidently not. “Sorry.”
“What are you staring at me for, anyway?”
“I dunno,” she mumbled, averting her gaze. “Guess I’m shocked by the whole ‘daddy’ thing.”
“Oh, an’ why’s that? Don’t think I’m capable of bein’ a father?”
“More like surprised that you were capable of spawning a kid without horns, actually,” Buffy snapped back at him.
They glared at each other for several seconds, until Spike finally unlocked the car. Their new getaway car. He revved the engine and had them cruising along the windy roads of the hills in no time. For the first time that day, an uncomfortable silence engulfed them both. Spike’s hands were gripping the wheel so tightly, they were turning white.
Buffy noted his obviously tense state, yet she couldn’t help her next comment. The way Jacinta’s life was shaping up was vaguely reminiscent of her own shitty upbringing. And somehow, all her anger at her own father fell onto Spike in that moment.
“Guys like you should be sterile.”
For a moment there was no reaction. Then Spike’s jaw ticked and he pushed his foot down on the accelerator. They swerved around the bends in the narrow road, the tyres squealing.
“Jesus, slow down you moron, do you want to get us killed?!” Buffy screeched, gripping onto the dashboard.
Spike snickered at her, his eyes on the road. “Thought that was what you wanted.”
There was a small parking bay, overlooking a miniature waterfall on the side of the road up ahead and he veered the car sharply onto it, turning off the engine and climbing out. He began to pace back and forth, working his fingers through his hair in a failed attempt at calming down.
Buffy threw open her door and stalked towards Spike, her face the very picture of rage. “What the hell was that?! You are the biggest asshole I’ve ever met. And believe, that speaks volumes!”
“What, for almost giving you what you’ve been beggin’ me for since this morning?”
“Do you know how often people are afforded the luxury of dying in a car accident?” she screeched at him, answering her own question before he had a chance. “Not very often, that’s how much. You’re more likely to end up as a brain damaged vegetable, or have to get limbs amputated or end up in a wheelchair!”
“GUESS WHAT? I REALLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK!”
Buffy’s mouth closed in shock at Spike’s outburst. He was breathing heavily, gasping for air. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out, aware of Buffy’s scrupulous gaze taking in his every gesture. “I’m not like that,” he eventually murmured, opening her eyes.
Buffy narrowed her own in confusion. “Huh? Not like what?”
“Not the kind of guy who walks out on his family.”
“Funny, that’s not what it looked like from where I was standing.”
Spike glared at her, his nostrils flaring with rage. “Shut up, you infuriating bint. You don’ know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Don’t I?”
“No! I never left her. Never left either of them. I’d never leave Jac, she’s my bloody everythin’, you know. My world. My flesh and blood. Don‘t fucking judge me, you have no idea what it‘s been like.”
Buffy began to feel sympathy for him. He looked heartbroken. “What happened?” she asked softly.
“She was sick when she was a baby. Real sick, yeah? We didn’t have the money for the treatments she needed. So one night I held up a convenience store. Got bloody caught, didn’ I. I asked Charlotte to wait for me, begged her to. They put me away for two years. Not fifteen, not ten, not even bloody five. Two years! That’s it, that’s all the sodding bitch had to wait for. I got out, came home to find her shacked up with some other bloke. Jacinta had started walkin’ and talkin’, the whole bit. Worst of it? She thinks that dick’s her father. She was callin’ him ‘daddy‘. Charlotte told her he’s her father. She told me to get out, said I wasn’t welcome. Stupid bloody poof has to be all stable job and good dad to Jac too, doesn’t he. So what do I do? I gotta do what’s right for my family, yeah? What’s right for my little girl. So I do the best thing I can for her. I walk away.”
He turned away from her, clenching his fists to try and dull the ache. The ache that never went away. It followed him everywhere.
Buffy felt her heart break for him. She really did. She couldn’t begin to imagine how awful it must be for him, every single day. She bit her lip guiltily, coming up behind him and placing a tentative hand on his shoulder.
“I-I’m sorry, Spike. I’m such a bitch sometimes, I always manage to jump in and say stupid things before I have all the facts. I’m sorry she was taken away from you, she’s a beautiful girl. I wish… there was a way you could make it right. Maybe one day there will be. She‘d be lucky to have a dad like you, someone who really loves her. God, if only my dad cared half as much.”
Spike turned back to face her, his hand covering hers on his shoulder in silent thanks. “I’m sure your dad does care, Buffy.”
She shook her head sadly, eyes on the ground. “No. He really doesn’t,” she whispered.
Spike extended a long finger towards her, tilting her chin up, until she was forced to look at him. “Despite whatever’s gone on between you and your Pops, no matter the years of crap in between, he does love you. I promise.”
“You’re wrong.”
She pulled away from him, walking back to the car and letting herself into the front passenger side. Spike sighed for what felt like the millionth time since that morning and followed her.
* * *
“Where are we going?” Buffy yawned, stretching in her seat as she realised night had fallen and they were still driving.
“Not far, luv, we’ve only been on the road about twenty minutes.”
“Huh? Where did the sun go?”
Spike laughed. “You fell asleep almost as soon as I started the engine, Buffy. I had to make a few stop offs along the way, so we haven’t gotten far.”
“Oh… so we’re still in town?” she asked, yawning again.
“Still in town.”
“So, let me ask again, where are we going?”
Spike grinned. “I got this neat little boat shed on the water. Place itself isn’t much to look at, but I’ve got my own pier and all. Nothin‘ for miles, just the fishes and the birds.”
Buffy smiled, imagining what it would be like to live that way. So… free. “Sounds amazing,” she sighed wistfully.
He nodded. “Kind of is, luv.”
“So… why are we going there again?”
He shifted in his seat. “Goin’ to wait and see if Jonathon shows up for his cut of the cash pie.”
“Oh. Right… Spike, I’m really kinda hungry,” she blurted, as her stomach rumbled ravenously.
He laughed again. “Can hear that. I picked up a few things during your nanna nap, you’ll have plenty to eat.”
Buffy frowned. “Nanna nap?”
“Yeah, you know how grandmas always seem to take naps in the afternoons?”
“Can’t say I’ve noticed, I don’t have tendencies to hang with the geriatric.”
“Well, maybe you should. Old folks got a lot to teach us, been around a lot longer than us. They got real life experience. We can learn a lot from ‘em if we give ‘em a chance.”
Buffy raised her eyebrows, thoroughly intrigued. “You’re a total weirdo, you know that, right?”
Spike grinned. “Been told that once or twice,” he replied cheekily. “Must be true.”
They finally pulled onto a narrow, beaten track in some undergrowth. It was barely wide enough for the car, leaves scratched at the windows and the roof. A couple of minutes later, the shrubs disappeared and they came out in front of a cute little shack. Spike drove along the side of the small building, parking the car on the water’s edge to make it less visible. Just in case.
Buffy gasped as she climbed out of the car and saw a small rowboat bobbing alongside the pier Spike had told her about. Moonlight was shimmering on the inky black surface of the lake. It was all so quaint and picturesque. She loved it.
Spike couldn’t seem to stop smiling at her reaction. It reminded him of the first time he’d seen it. It had been abandoned. No one owned the property. He’d spent months cleaning up, trying to make the inside as nice as possible. It had gone from an abandoned crap heap to his home. It was the first time he’d felt like he had a real home since before his jail stint. The surroundings were simplistic, but magnificently so. He completely understood Buffy’s responsiveness to this place.
“I’m goin’ to get some food happening,” he said quietly, not wanting to disturb her mood.
Buffy turned back to him and cocked an eyebrow. “You’re gonna cook for me? The hostage?”
“Even a hostage has gotta eat, luv,” Spike pointed out.
“True,” she agreed. “You sure call me ‘luv’ a lot, considering the fact that I am your hostage.”
He suddenly seemed embarrassed and Buffy couldn’t wipe the grin off her face as his turned beet reed. She laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth to stop it when he scowled indignantly at her and stalked up to the front door, disappearing inside. She was still laughing as she turned back to face the lake again, aware of the fact that her face was actually beginning to ache from the constant grinning of the past half hour or so. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had smiled before that. No wait, yes she could. It had been when Angel had taken her to a carnivale on their third date. That was over six months ago. She noted how sad and pathetic it was that she hadn’t smiled for six months. Then she shook of the melancholy that threatened to envelope her again and wandered down onto the pier. She sat on the end and dangled her legs over the edge, letting them swing freely, back and forth.
Buffy was distracted from her reverie by a loud bang coming from the small house. She craned her neck, not wanting to stand up and could see Spike making his way towards her, a tray with two bowls atop balanced precariously in one hand, a wine bottle and two glasses in the other. If this was the treatment one got when being (or pretending to be) a hostage, she’d do this everyday. She grinned at the thought, just as Spike set down the glasses and the wine bottle beside her.
“What’re you grinning like a bloody Cheshire for?”
“No reason,” Buffy replied, watching his graceful movements as he set down the tray. “Previous life in waiting tables huh?”
Spike pretended to grimace. “'S it that obvious?”
“Afraid so,” she grinned.
He took a seat beside her, letting his legs hang over the edge too. He popped open the wine bottle, pouring the dark liquid expertly into the two wine glasses. Buffy watched on, head cocked to the side.
“So, what did you bring me?”
“Well this,” he said, handing her a glass of wine “is a highly underrated Merlot I discovered a couple of years ago. Very cost effective, I highly recommend.” He raised his glass, indicating she should do the same and then clinked them together. “And this,” he went on, setting aside the wine and reaching for one of the steaming bowls “is the best sodding carbonara pasta you’ll ever experience in your life. Made by yours truly o’ course.”
Buffy didn’t want to be the thorn in his side (hey, first time for everything), but there was something he’d overlooked. “Spike, I don -”
“Made with mock meat for the bacon,” he interrupted her, anticipating what she was going to say.
She took a big mouthful, chewed it experimentally and swallowed. “You picked up vegetarian bacon for me?”
“Well, yeah, know you don’ eat the real thing,” Spike shrugged, then realised that his comment might come across as ’vegetarian bashing’ and was quick to correct himself. “Not sayin’ you should be, I respect what you’re doing, keep doing that, by the way. Just didn’t want to make something you couldn’t eat.”
Buffy put the bowl down beside her quietly.
Spike looked disappointed. “No good huh? Try not to hold it against me, it is my first crack at a vegetarian dish.”
“What? No, it’s great Spike! Seriously, I can’t cook a vego meal like this and I haven’t eaten meat since I was eight.”
“Then what’s the problem, luv?”
Buffy sighed, closing her eyes momentarily. When it didn’t achieve the gainage of perspective she desired, she opened them again. Spike was staring at her intently.
“Well, I’m not really… normal, I guess would be the word,” she began, making Spike grin. “But even by my standards, this has been a kinda… weird day. Way weird, actually. It’s just… it’s wigging me out, Spike. That’s an understatement, I’m having a total wiggins. Like, the really wiggy type. I -”
“What’s a wiggins?” Spike cut in, confused at her terminology.
“Like, freak out? You know?”
“Oh. Right.”
“So… I think this wiggy feeling is coming from the fact that this morning you held a gun at my head and took me hostage… and now you’re making me vegetarian pasta dishes and serving me wine.”
“One vegetarian pasta dish,” Spike grumbled in his defence.
“Ok, one, whatever. Really not the point I’m making here. I mean, what are we doing? Why am I still even with you? We could’ve separated hours ago. I think what I’m trying to ask, in a really roundabout way, is… do you have a thing for me?” Buffy finally blurted at the end.
Spike’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Do I have a thing for you?” He repeated dumbly. “Are you bloody serious? Are you -” he cut himself off at looked at her. “You don’t really think that I - pffft, you’re off your sodding nutter, lady.”
Buffy looked down, suddenly fixated on her bowl of pasta. She looked disappointed. This he hadn’t seen coming.
“Buffy… do you want me to?”
Her head snapped up instantly. “What?! No!” she laughed, a little to forcefully.
Neither of them were convincing each other. They both knew it. But the situation was too bizarre. How had they taken the path together that they had and ended up where they were? How was that even possible.
“Let’s just… forget the last five minutes ever happened, ok?” she begged, feeling humiliated. Was she really that desperate that she’d try it on with her kidnapper? Ugh, she was sick. It was official. She was a sick, sick, sicko.
Spike shook his head. “Buffy, we -”
“No. Don’t. Please, humour me, ok? We never had this discussion.”
Her eyes were pleading with his and he found that he couldn’t deny her. He nodded. “Eat your pasta luv, before it gets cold.”
She gave him a timid smile and picked up the bowl again, tucking into her meal. It really was good.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry it's been awhile, been busy with uni. If you like, please let me know. Your reviews turn my frown upside down after a shitty day. Thanks to all of you that have reviewed thus far. =)