Chapter 5:
Jennifer Giles stopped cutting up vegetables on her cutting board in the kitchen when she heard the front door open and then slam shut. She smiled, that noise could only belong to her little boy.
“William?” she called.
“Ya?!” he yelled back, clearly not wanting to take the time to travel down the hallway and into the kitchen to answer her properly.
Jenny rolled her eyes when she didn’t hear him mosey his way to her, so, she decided to go to him. She found him standing half way up the stairs, waiting for her response so he could be on his way.
“Your home awfully early, thought you were spending the rest of the day with Drusilla?” Jenny asked.
“Ya, well, change of plans…something’s come up.” He said quickly. Even though he loved his mother, Spike wasn’t willing to share his love life with her. The woman washed his underwear up until he was fifteen years old, for god’s sake; he had to draw the line on his privacy somewhere.
“You two have a fight?” she asked in that concerned motherly voice.
“Something like that…” he muttered as he fidgeted where he stood. He eyed the top of the stairs, hoping his mother would take the hint and let him go.
However, she didn’t.
“Well come down here in the kitchen and I’ll fix you some cocoa and you can have some of last nights left over chocolate cake.” Jenny waved him down the stairs and went back into the kitchen, expecting he would soon follow.
Spike sighed when she was out of sight, “I must be the biggest ponce in Sunnydale…drinking cocoa and eating cake with my mom…”
And with that said, he stomped back down the stairs and joined Jenny in the kitchen.
*~*~*~*~*~
“Are you sure you’re not mad?”
”For the fiftieth time Buffy, no, I’m not mad.” Angel reassured.
After Willow and Buffy’s little conversation out around the school parking lot, Angel drove up to the curb near the girls and told his girlfriend to hop in. He didn’t seem mad, jealous, or highly emotional as she opened to door and got in, he was very calm and relaxed as they drove through her neighborhood and parked in front of her house.
A few houses down Buffy could see Spike’s black car parked in front of his house.
“Are you mad at Spike?”
”Noooo…” he raised a brow, “Should I be?”
Buffy had to admit that no one was at fault here, well, that is not one specific person was to blame. The student body as a whole in her eyes was still obviously the guilty party, but what could she do about that? Stand up on a cafeteria table and shout out ‘I am not going to marry Spike Giles!’ and demand everyone take the poll again? The scene she would have made there would have been worse than the attention she got from the senior poll.
“No….” Buffy shook her head and looked down at her small hands on her lap, “I mean he’s probably livid about this too…”
“Maybe…”
Buffy snapped her head up, “What?”
“What?”
”’Maybe?’” she repeated, “You don’t think he’s disgusted by this too?”
Hearing from Giles and Willow that Spike cared about her was one thing, but hearing it from her own boyfriend was another.
Angel shrugged, “You two do fight like an old married couple…”
“Ya…the keyword there is ‘fight’…” Buffy pointed out, “Fight, as in no pleasant conversation at all.”
Angel smiled and shook his head at her stubbornness, “Whatever you say Buffy, but deep down in your heart I know you hold something special for Spike. Something I can’t even touch.”
Buffy was taken back by that, “What do you mean?”
Angel sighed; he didn’t know how to explain something that he himself didn’t understand. “When you and Spike fight, when I watch you fight, I feel a little jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“The way you guys fight, its friendly and quick witted…it’s not dangerous.”
Buffy turned her head from him and glanced back down the road at Spike’s car. She remembered earlier that morning when Spike kept locking the door every time she tried to pull on the handle.
“When you and I fight, all I feel is dread and all I hear is alarm bells ringing in my ears. Every fight we have I feel it will be our last…that maybe we won’t make it past that last one.”
”Angel you know that’s—“
”Silly…” he finished for her, “Ya…I know, but it’s just how I feel Buffy; I’m trying to be honest with you.”
Now that Buffy heard everyone’s point of view, from best friend to boyfriend, she had some serious thinking to do before she talked to the man in question herself.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Spike scrapped the rest of the chocolate frosting off his plate and onto his fork before setting the silverware down. He was clearly now just playing around with his food and not thinking about digging in to the last bit of sugary goodness on his fork.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset honey…” Jenny said as she took his plate and fork away and sat it in the kitchen sink.
“Mum, I just told you Dru broke up with me.”
“Yes, and I still stay no use crying over her…but I meant about Buffy and the poll.”
“It’s crazy is what it is…now things are going to completely awkward between us. I’ll probably have to switch schools now.” He grumbled.
“Change schools when you have three weeks left?” she laughed.
“Have you forgotten my high school reunion? 10 year reunion…20 year reunion…mum, this poll did more damage than you think.”
”No honey, YOU think it has done more damage…I don’t see it making headline news around the neighborhood yet…it’s all in your head honey. Besides, wasn’t it you that said a month ago that ‘You have to bloody shoot me to go see those bunch of high school wankers in 10 years’.” Jenny said, impersonating her son’s accent.
“First off mum, don’t do that again.” Spike remarked on her impression, “And second, ya…I did say that…but I don’t like having to fear going to my own reunion if I wanted to. I might be a successful rock star in a couple years and would like to show off my fame to all those gits that said I’d never amount to anything…especially Snyder, if he’s alive…” he muttered under his breath, “And I don’t want to have to hide under the table when our class president goes up to the mic and announces, ‘Hey, remember that nit that was named ‘Most Likely to Marry Buffy Summers…’ well he got the Grammy for Best New Artist.”
”What’s wrong with that?” Jenny laughed, “Thought you wanted to Best New Artist?”
“Ya, I do!” Spike exclaimed, “But did you happen to catch that little… ‘he was remember for being Most Likely to Marry Buffy Summers thing’?”
Jenny rolled her eyes as she went back to chopping vegetables for dinner.
”That’s what I’ll be most likely be remembered for mum!”
“Oh William, stop being so dramatic…”
”I’m not being dramatic…you said for yourself that when you went to da’s reunion he was called Ripper by everyone at the party.”
”Ya, so…he likes that old nickname…” Jenny shrugged with a smile, she secretly liked it too.
“Well…I guess that’s different then…” Spike scratched his head, he had to think of a new example.
”I know what you’re saying honey…you don’t want that poll to live down in history and come back and nip you in the butt.”
”Yes!! Thank you!!” he exclaimed when he realized his mother finally got it.
Jenny turned around, “Well, despite what you think or say, I feel that you could do a whole lot worse than Buffy Summers.”
Spike blinked a few times and straightened up on the stool he sat on, ‘What’s this now?’ he thought to himself.
“When you two were kids you were so cute together…bickering back and forth like you do now…well, it was more cute than how you do it now…” Jenny commented with a smile as she opened a cabinet to get some bowls and plates. “I believe you even gave each other little kisses…”
’She knew about that?! Oh god, who else knew?!!’
“No we didn’t!” he denied.
Jenny smirked at him and raised a brow, “You use to run off and play flashlight tag in the backyard until I had to practically drag you in to go to bed…you use to have water balloon wars and squirt gun fights…”
Spike looked down at his hands, he couldn’t deny those times.
“I don’t know what happened to you guys…but around thirteen you stopped doing those things…” Jenny sighed, “Must have been puberty…”
”Ya…” Spike got up from his stool and walked down the hallway, “Or it must have been my big mouth…”
TBC…