“Sorry, pet, missed that last part. You were saying?” Spike gave Buffy an apologetic look, mentally cursing himself for not paying enough attention, and letting himself get lost in his own thoughts. He cringed at the disappointed expression on her face, figuring that he was probably being the worst company ever.
“You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?”
It was more of a statement than a question, and Spike felt like a right ponce. “Sure I did. You were talking about…” He stopped, realizing that he had absolutely no idea.
Buffy sighed, giving him a tired look. “If you didn’t want to come here today, why didn’t you just say so? If you’re having second thoughts about this…”
“No!” His eyes widened as he realized what she must be thinking. “Look, I’m sorry. I just…had a bad night, is all. Didn’t sleep so well. No second thoughts. Really.”
She didn’t look totally convinced, but nodded. “Is everything okay?”
Spike hesitated, not sure of how to respond. After waking up from the nightmare, he’d failed to go back to sleep, and was now beyond tired. But he didn’t want Buffy to think that he didn’t want to be here with her. Not to mention the fact that things were still too fragile between them for him to start bothering her with the details of his miserable life. He wanted to talk to her, but was also afraid of scaring her away.
He gave her a smile that he hoped would be assuring. “Everything’s fine. Just a bit knackered. What were we talking about?”
Buffy rolled her eyes, but took the hint. “Fine, I’ll let it go for now. I was just telling you how Willow is never going to let me hear the end of that little mistake I made yesterday.”
Spike was relieved that she’d decided to let the subject drop. “What did you say to her to make her react like that?”
Blushing, Buffy was suddenly very interested in her coffee. “I… that’s none of your business!” He raised his eyebrows and gave her an amused look. “All right, it might have been something about you, but I’m not telling you. Let’s just pretend that I still have some dignity left, please?”
He chuckled. “All right.” Their eyes met, and suddenly, all he could think of was how it would feel to take her in his arms and kiss her. He wondered how she’d react if he did. She’d probably be surprised, shocked even, since she had no idea how he felt about her, but he didn’t think she’d kick him in the balls or something like that. Moving a little closer, happy that she was sitting next to him instead of at the other side of the table, he gently put his hand on top of hers. “Buffy, I…” Seeing that she was staring at his hand like hypnotized, he suddenly remembered that they were in the middle of the Espresso Pump, and quickly pulled his hand back. “Um…I think there are people waiting for a table, maybe we should go.”
Buffy swallowed, trying not to let her disappointment show. For a moment, she’d gotten the crazy idea that Spike was about to kiss her. She forced a smile, hoping that her voice would sound normal. “Yeah, let’s go before they throw us out, we’ve been hogging this table long enough.”
Spike let out a nervous laugh. “Right.” Neither of them moved. He cleared his throat. “Um… you wanna…?” He wasn’t ready to let her go just yet; he wanted to spend more time with her. Suddenly it was like the last two years had never happened, and he wanted to hold on to that feeling, at least for a little while longer. “We could go back to my place… to talk, I mean. ‘Cause there are things… that we should talk about. If you want, that is?”
Fighting the urge to jump for joy, Buffy silently counted to five before answering, trying her best not to sound too eager. “Yeah, okay, we could do that.” She wondered if it was something special he wanted to talk about, hoping that it wouldn’t be too awkward. Then again, even if it would be, she couldn’t care less. She knew that they had a lot to talk about, and figured that they’d might as well get it over with. Besides, she wasn’t ready to let him go yet.
“Great. Um… you got your car, right? How ‘bout I go first, and you follow me?” Spike was both relieved and nervous. He’d told her that they were going to talk, and he had no idea what to tell her, or even how to begin. Couldn’t he’d just asked her if she wanted to watch a movie instead? Then they wouldn’t have to talk. But no, he thought, if they would be able to start over, and move on, they needed to talk.
Buffy couldn’t help but giggle. “Spike, I do know were you live. Was there yesterday, remember?” If she didn’t know better, she’d think that he was nervous about her coming home with him. Then she realized that he was probably nervous about the conversation they were about to have. She was, too, but it had to be done. He knew how she felt now, and why she’d stayed away for all this time. She’d explained it all in the letter, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think that he’d just leave it there.
Also, Buffy wanted him to know that she understood what he was going through, with losing Drusilla, and that she wanted to be there for him, if he’d let her, that was. It would probably kill her to hear him talk about how he loved another woman, but she could be grown up about it. She’d have no choice but to accept the fact that Spike didn’t feel the same way about her, and probably never would. But she’d rather have him in her life as just a friend, than not at all. Because she’d lived through the latter for the last two years, and she never wanted to go back to that again.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at him and gave him a small smile. “All right, then. Lead the way!”
TBC