Willow looked up from her book when Dawn knocked on her door. “Hey, Dawnie,” she said. She smiled at the young girl who barely spoke to her much. “What was all the yelling about?” Willow could tell something bad happened. She had just stayed in her room, trying to study during the yelling, but she didn’t get much studying done.
“Buffy’s having sex with Spike,” Dawn announced, from the doorway. “Just thought you had a right to know. She is using and abusing him. That’s why neither of them has been around.”
Willow looked at Dawn as the smile fell from her face and tilted her head as she sat up on the edge of her bed. She ran through what Dawn said and started laughing. “That’s funny,” she said, covering her mouth. “Buffy would never sleep with Spike. They are just friends.”
“Willow, I’m serious,” Dawn said, folding her arms. “Buffy just told me. She said she’s having sex with Spike, but she doesn’t love him.”
“That doesn’t sound like Buffy,” Willow replied. “Are you okay? You don’t look too good. I know Spike is your best friend.”
Dawn nodded and stared at the redheaded witch. “He was, and I’m going to be fine,” Dawn responded, in a dark voice. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Willow stood, grabbing Dawn’s arm before the teen could leave the room. “Dawn, we have to talk to Buffy.”
Dawn pulled her arm free. “No,” she said. “I don’t have anything more to say to either of them. You can talk to her. I’m going out. I’ll go to the Magic Box. See if Anya needs some help.” Dawn left, rushing down the stairs, and slamming the front door closed.
Willow sighed and went downstairs to talk to Buffy.
Willow saw Buffy coming out of the kitchen and paused on the steps. How were they going to deal with this? “Hey, Buffy,” she said, trying to keep her voice gentle, unsure of Buffy’s mood. She didn’t want to be on the receiving end of an angry slayer.
Buffy bit her lip noticing Willow’s uncertain stare. “She told you,” she said, realizing where Dawn had gone after leaving the kitchen, and crossed her arms.
Spike, having heard the witch coming down the stairs, exited the kitchen and stood near Buffy, but he didn’t touch her.
Willow nodded in response to Buffy’s lingering statement. She reached out to touch Buffy, but the Slayer flinched away, backing into Spike, who rested his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay, Buffy,” Willow said. “You’re not really sleeping with Spike, are you?”
Spike glared at the witch. “Am I that bad of a guy?” he growled. “Why does everyone find this so bad?”
“Maybe because you tried to kill us a whole bunch of times, and you had a creepy obsession with Buffy. You’re a vampire, and, oh, you’re kind of mean. The list can go on,” Willow answered. Turning her attention back to Buffy, she asserted, “Buffy, please tell me Dawn’s just upset about some teenager thing.”
Buffy’s body trembled with small shakes, and Spike gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze to soothe her. “I was,” she confessed. “But, we’re stopping and fixing things by starting over. I was going to tell you, Will. I was. I just wanted to talk to Dawn first.”
“Pet,” Spike said, causing her to look at him. “Breathe. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
Willow put her hands on her hips, sticking her pointy elbows. She didn’t like what she was seeing before her. “Why are, or were you sleeping with Spike?” she demanded.
“Why is that your business?” Buffy retorted, turning a little angry now. “Willow, I’m sorry I lied to you, but you don’t understand what I was going through. I needed…I needed to get away. I just couldn’t be perfect Buffy for everyone anymore. I wasn’t okay with what happened, and I was tired of pretending to be okay. Spike just let me be unhappy. He didn’t ask me for anything.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, Buffy realized how true they were. Spike never asked her for anything, except maybe to love him back.
“She needed something to abuse,” Spike muttered, moving away from the Slayer to lean in the doorway to the living room.
Buffy felt his loss from her side immediately, and wanted to deny what he’d said, but she couldn’t. She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Abuse?” Willow replied, incredulously. “Buffy doesn’t abuse people.”
Spike ticked his head to the side and icily accused, “That’s right. I’m not a person, right, Willow. Just a vampire. You just said so yourself. So, I guess this,” he gestured to his still swollen face, “this is not abuse then.”
Willow studied his face and the guilty expression on Buffy’s face. She calmly asked, “You did that to his eye…his face?”
Buffy took a shuddering breath. “Yeah, I did that to his face,” she responded with shame. “I didn’t just decide that I’d beat Spike up, though. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“I’m sure Spike had done something wrong, right, Buffy?” Willow asked hopefully. If Spike had been up to his usual evil ways, then the world made sense again. Buffy shouldn’t be ashamed of beating up the vampire.
“No, he actually was trying to help me,” Buffy answered softly.
Nothing was making sense. Willow looked at Spike whose face was healing, but still very swollen. “You let her do that to you?”
Spike shrugged. “I couldn’t let her turn herself in for something that was an accident,” he said. “Didn’t quite work. She’s never listened to me before, and it was stupid of me to think that she would this time.”
“Wait, you tried to stop her from going to the police?” At Spike’s nod, Willow pressed, “and, Dawn is upset because?”
Spike sighed. “Nibblet’s upset because I wasn’t around after you lot brought her back. She thinks Buffy took me away from her.”
Willow’s mouth formed an ‘o.’ “That makes a wacky kind of sense.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Buffy said, in defense. She felt as if everyone was ganging up on her. Granted, she knew she deserved it, but she didn’t want it all at once. She didn’t in good conscious want to hurt Dawn.
“Didn’t mean what, Buffy? Sleeping with Spike? Beating up Spike? Or taking Spike away from Dawn?” All this was giving Willow a headache, making her wish this conversation had never started.
Spike waited for Buffy to answer. He wanted to hear what she’d say. However, all Buffy did was shrug and look completely lost. He decided once again to give her an easy out.
“Buffy,” Spike said. “We know you didn’t, but you can’t explain that to Dawn right now.”
“Well, you’re all ganging up on me like I wanted to hurt people, and I didn’t,” she insisted.
“You could have fooled the rest of us,” Spike muttered.
Buffy looked up at him with a worried gaze. “Do you want me to leave?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her middle. She didn’t actually think that Spike would ask her to leave, but it was clear that they had a long way to go to earn back some trust.
Willow looked at her friend, startled. “Leave?”
“Spike can’t leave,” Buffy said, matter-of-factly. “It’s daylight. If he wants some time to himself, I told him I would go out for a little bit.”
“Spike gets around in the sun just fine,” Willow replied, as she raised an eyebrow. “You could just give him a blanket and send him on his way.”
“I don’t want him to leave,” Buffy mumbled, as she stared the hard wood floor beneath her feet.
Spike itched for a cigarette, but he couldn’t smoke in Buffy’s house. He didn’t even need to ask her to know that, but he was getting antsy. He didn’t really want to be part of this conversation. “Would you care if I took a shower?” he asked. It would give him at least twenty minutes to himself to think about what he was going to do about his girls.
“Go ahead,” Buffy said. She had forgotten all about his wounds. He was still bleeding when he was kissing her in the living room. She saw now he was still hurting. “Do you need anything?” She wanted to do something for him. Guiltily, she realized she hadn’t really thought about how he was feeling. He would need blood and some disinfectant for the oozing cuts on his face.
Spike shook his head. “No thanks, Buffy,” he said, going upstairs with slow steps to keep from hurting his mending ribs.
Tears welled in Buffy’s eyes at how much pain he was still suffering from. She wanted to help him, but he wanted to be alone. She knew she deserved nothing less, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to be with him. She thought about telling Willow she wanted a few minutes with Spike, but she was already on fragile territory with Spike. If he wanted to be alone, she would give him that, even though it hurt her to her soul that he wanted to be away from her.
“You’re crying,” Willow said, amazedly. Buffy was crying over Spike. What had this world come to? Xander was going to freak about this. This really wasn’t the Buffy that she knew. Her Buffy wouldn’t keep secrets or sleep with soulless vampires. Angel was bad enough but now Spike?
Buffy wiped away her tears. “Sorry.”
“No, Buffy,” Willow said, smiling a little bit, trying a different approach. “Crying is a good thing. You haven’t cried in a long time. It’s good for you.”
“We should talk,” Buffy said. Buffy sat on the couch.
Willow followed her friend and sat next to her. “What happened?” Perhaps if she got to the bottom of this, she could fix it somehow.
Buffy folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve been so lonely since I came back,” she whispered, staring at her folded fingers. “You guys have all been here, but being back has been really hard on me. I haven’t been able to pull myself together. I’ve fallen so far, that I did something really bad.”
“To Spike?” Willow asked. “Something other than what you did to his face?”
Buffy nodded and sniffled. “Yeah,” she admitted. “We’ve been together since Dawn’s car accident. We first slept together the night before that. I was so scared that someone was going to find out; I told Spike that we couldn’t be together, but I couldn’t stay away. It kept happening.”
Willow bit her lip at the mention of the car accident that could have killed herself and Dawn. “Buffy, I’m sorry about what happened to Dawn. But what you’re doing isn’t about that,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping with Spike for a while. A month maybe? And you never told anyone. I’m supposed to be your best friend.”
“How can you say that, Willow?” Buffy snapped. “I wasn’t the only one involved with their own life. All you cared about was magic. You took my memories away from me and Spike was the only one I felt like I could turn to. We would have just stayed friends if you and Xander had just left well enough alone.”
“I’m confused. Spike should be happy. Not… grumpy,” Willow replied. “And what does Xander have to do with this?”
“I told Spike a lot of hurtful things that I’d rather keep to myself. I hurt his feelings,” she recalled with shame. “Called him names mostly.”
“But, you’ve always called him names…” Willow interrupted.
Buffy continued, as if she hadn’t heard. “Told him he didn’t love me. I mostly took advantage of how much he loved me, because I knew he would still love me after.”
“Spike let you get away with that much, huh?” Willow asked rhetorically. “And you what, bashed his face in the heat of passion?”
Buffy shook her head. “Spike already told you. I went to the police station to turn myself in for killing Katrina. I really believed I had killed her. Spike tried to stop me. I wouldn’t let him.” Tears slid out of her eyes, but she didn’t care. “I beat him worse than Glory did. He couldn’t move. And… and I left him there for the sun. Not intentionally, but that’s how bad I hurt him.”
Willow thought about what would have happened if Buffy had made it to the police station and confessed for a crime she hadn’t committed. Neither Tara nor Xander, much less, could she have physically stopped her, and she realized reluctantly that Spike had been the only one capable of even trying.
“You’ve really changed, Buffy,” the witch said. “I mean…I’ve seen you hit people before. And you’ve told me stories about hitting people, but this? This is abuse Buffy. Think about it, Buffy. If you told us Spike was abusing you think of how angry we would be. It goes both ways. You can’t…what you’re doing is bad. Maybe you need some help.”
“No, I don’t need help, Willow,” Buffy stressed, staring at her friend. “I need a friend. No one else has been much of one lately. Spike has. I’m sorry if that hurt your feelings, Willow, but it’s the truth. I ruined what friendship Spike and I had started to have, and I’m going to fix it. Then things will be fine.” I hope they will anyways, she thought.
“I hurt him so bad,” she whimpered. “I never wanted to do that. I didn’t. I hated myself for feeling for him. I hated everyone for what happened to me, but those things weren’t his fault. I still took it out on him.”
“He says he loves you,” the witch said, cautiously. She still didn’t believe vampires could love. Giles had always told them that. Angel could only love because he had a soul, right? It did hurt her feelings that Buffy had not come to her. Buffy had ‘hated’ her for bringing her back?
“And, I took advantage of that,” Buffy said, looking at her friend with puffy eyes. “He said we could work through everything that’s happened with us, but he doesn’t trust me. Which, I get that, I do. But, after all this gets sorted out, he may not want to be with me.” That thought made her stomach hurt. She couldn’t imagine life without Spike. After all these years of trying to get rid of him, she never actually thought about him leaving.
“Did he say that?”
“Kind of,” she replied. “He wants to believe that I want to work things out and start over, but I’m going to have to prove to him that I’m serious.”
“Are you?” Willow asked. “Do you really want to be with him? Or do you think you should just end it and move on.” She really hoped Buffy wanted to move on.
Buffy looked away from her friend and nodded. “I want to be with him,” she said. “I want him to trust me again. I promised him I would never abuse him again. I’m going to have to prove that.” She turned back to look at Willow. “And you’re not going to convince me otherwise.”
“Buffy,” Willow said, turning toward her friend. “I’m your best friend. At least, I’d like to think that I am still your best friend. The thought of you being with Spike worries me, and I can’t say that it doesn’t. I don’t think this is a good idea. You lied to us, all of us. That is not okay with me.”
“You didn’t give me any choice,” Buffy bitterly replied, moving away from Willow. “You were all so happy when I came back, and then when you found out I was in heaven, look at what you did. You tried to take away my memory of where I’d been. You and Xander, with your spells. Spike was my friend, Willow. Then, that stupid singing demon made us kiss. Then, we kissed after we got our memories back. We were fine. I was working through life until magic got involved and ruined my chance with the only man who never did anything to me.”
“You can’t blame what you did to Spike on us,” Willow flared, getting off the couch. “You did that all on your own.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt Spike, if I was just left alone,” Buffy said. “And, I don’t blame anyone but myself for the way I hurt Spike. I blame you for what you did. You messed with magic, Willow, when Tara begged you not to. And, where is she? She left because magic was more important to you than her.”
“That isn’t true,” Willow said in a hurt voice.
“Really? How come Tara is the only one that understood what I was going through then?” She paused. “Oh, I forgot. You didn’t know that Tara was helping me with my ‘Spike problem.’”
“Tara knew?” Willow whispered.
“Yeah,” Buffy admitted. “I had to tell her. But see, she doesn’t judge me. She knows what I’m feeling where Spike is concerned, because she wants me to do whatever makes me happy. And Spike makes me happy. I kept him a secret to please everyone else, because I knew that you wouldn’t approve.”
“You could have trusted us, Buffy,” Willow said. “We would have understood.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. But that doesn’t matter. Spike is going to be in my life, and I am going to work things out with him. Whether we are involved as friends or more, he is going to be around.”
Willow crossed her arms. “I wish you would have talked to me before you were sleeping with Spike,” she said.
“You didn’t give me any indication that I was allowed to talk to you about anything,” Buffy said. “Things are complicated, and I don’t want to fight with you. I need to find out where Dawn went and talk to her. She needs me.”
“She didn’t sound too good when she left. Maybe you should go find her. I’ll go if you want.”
“I don’t want you to go if you’re going to lecture me some more,” the Slayer said. “You and Xander are going to have to deal with Spike and me. I get that you’re mad that I lied, but that’s not a reason to be against me and Spike.”
“I won’t lecture you,” Willow promised. “But you shouldn’t have lied, and I’m not okay with that. But I want to find Dawn. When she is okay, we are going to talk some more.”
“And you shouldn’t have done those spells, so maybe we’re even with what we should and shouldn’t have done. We should go to the magic shop,” she said. “Xander will probably be there, and I’ll have to talk to him before Dawn gets to him.”
“Let’s go,” Willow said, heading toward the door.
“I’m just going tell Spike where we are going,” Buffy said, running upstairs. She paused outside the bathroom door and heard water running. “Spike?” She called, knocking, then peeking inside. He didn’t hear her. “Spike?” She tried again.
His head came out from behind the curtain. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Buffy said, hurriedly. “Willow and I are going to the Magic Box to see if we can find Dawn. And I’m going to talk to Xander.”
“Okay,” Spike said. “Be careful.”
“Always,” Buffy answered, and was about to leave. “Oh, Spike?”
Spike peeked out from behind the curtain. “I think you’re just nosey,” he teased.
Buffy offered him a smile. “I just wanted to tell you that you could sleep in my bed if you wanted, and there’s blood downstairs,” she said. “I found some in the fridge. You can make yourself at home.”
“Thanks, Pet,” he said, smiling at her. “Now, go find the Nibblet.”
“Bye,” Buffy said, closing the door and going downstairs to join Willow.
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