Author's Chapter Notes:
Posting chapters until I get caught up with real time posting - then it will be a new chapter every weekend until it's completed.
Chapter Three

It was only a few minutes before closing time when the steady procession of customers ended and Buffy and Will actually had time to say more than a few work-related words to each other. While he leaned against the counter, Buffy sank into a chair and took her sandals off, rubbing her aching feet vigorously.

"Note to self - do not wear heels to work anymore."

Will laughed as he lounged against the glass case, seeming perfectly fine with having worked all day and then having to come back for another couple of hours.

"Ah, but they look so lovely on you. You have perfect little feet, Buffy. You should show them off all the time."

Buffy blushed and muttered something about needing a masseuse to follow her around if she did that; looking down and completely missing the way Will's eyes roamed from her feet up her bare leg as far as he could see. By the time she looked back up, he was smiling sympathetically.

"Pay me no mind, luv. If you look around the mall, you'll find that all the experienced saleswomen here have at least two pair of shoes and they change them all the time. Even in Nordstrom, they don't spend the whole day in heels. I'm surprised Marcia didn't mention it to you."

"I guess this is the first time it's been so busy. Usually I have time to sit down or stand behind the counter with my shoes off," Buffy said. "I'll have to remember that about the other shoes."

He pulled open one of the drawers behind the counter and showed her the comfy-looking flats that Marcia had stored there. "There's room for more in here. Be sure you bring yourself something to change into every night."

"Good advice. Thanks."

"I'm here to help," he said. "Now let's get the money counted and the store locked up for the night."

Buffy watched closely as he turned out lights, checked locks and then ushered her into the mall so he could bring down the metal mesh that covered the store's entrance while it was closed. He insisted on walking Buffy outside and waiting with her until her father drove up to take her home.

"I'm really fine here, you know," Buffy said, smiling at his gentlemanly behavior, but unable to shake the confidence in her own ability to take care of herself that she'd lived with for so long in her delusional world.

"I'm sure you are, but my mother would never forgive me if I walked off and left you out here by yourself."

"Your mother?"

"Lovely woman, but a bit unreasonable when it comes to my manners."

Buffy giggled at his disgruntled expression, teasing, "So, you wouldn't be here if you weren't afraid of your mother, huh?"

"Maybe not," he admitted. "Guess I should thank her, yeah?" He nudged her arm and winked.

Buffy blushed at his blatant flirting, but was saved from having to answer him by the arrival of her father in what she couldn't stop thinking of as his mid-life crisis car. Giving Will a, "Thanks for waiting with me, goodnight," she quickly opened the car door and got in. She waved as they pulled away.

"Made a new friend?" her father said with a sideways look.

"Wha- huh? Oh, Will? No. I mean, yes, I guess he's a new friend. He works at the same store, but he's usually not there when I am. Marcia had to leave early tonight and she asked him to come in to help out."

"Did she ask him to walk you to your car, too?"

Buffy smiled at her father's gentle teasing. "No. He said his mother would never forgive him if he left me standing out there all alone, so he insisted on waiting until you showed up."

"Your mother is going to be so disappointed," he laughed.

"Well, I did go out to dinner with his friend, Sean," Buffy said. "That should make her happier."

Joyce was, in fact, quite pleased to hear that Buffy had made friends with not one, but two young men. Attempts to pick up where she'd left off with her old friends from middle school and her freshman year of high school hadn't gone anywhere. Too many of them remembered that Buffy had been withdrawn from school due to some behavior issues that caused her to be hospitalized; and even those who didn't remember what she'd done had moved on with their lives and barely remembered her.

After one too many disappointing phone calls to girls she'd once been sure she'd be friends with for the rest of her life, Buffy refused to call anyone else, telling her mother that she would have to make "new, grown-up friends" among the people she would meet at the community college or the mall.


~~~~~~~~


To her surprise, when she arrived at work the next evening, Will was still there and Buffy looked at Marcia in surprise.

"Am I fired?"

Marcia laughed and shook her head. "No, actually, I think you've learned the ropes so well that I don't think I need to be here so much. Will and I talked this morning, and he has agreed to come in a little later in the day so that he can stay here in the evenings and I can go home to my family. You don't mind, do you, Buffy?"

Buffy glanced at Will's warm smile and shook her head.

"No. I don't mind. I'm glad we can let you spend some more time at home."

"I can keep in touch from there - if anything comes up that you can't handle, I'm just a phone call away, or an e-mail," she said as she was gathering up her purse and jacket. "Okay, I'm off. Let me know if you have any problems, I can be back in ten or fifteen minutes."

"What? You don't trust us not to ruin your life's work while you're gone?" Will's voice was gently teasing and Marcia responded by wagging her finger in his face.

"If you can live with knowing you'd be taking food out of the mouths of my children...."

"Go on," he said with a snort of laughter. "We'll be fine."

With a final wave, Marcia left and Buffy quickly went behind the counter to put a small bag in the drawer. Peering over her shoulder, Will smiled when he realized what was in the bag.

"Brought some other shoes with you, did you?"

She flushed and nodded. "I did. It was a good idea. Especially if we have another night like last night."

He nodded his approval and watched her put the shoes away. However, the night remained fairly quiet and Buffy had a lot of opportunity to rest her feet. There was also plenty of time for conversation while they worked at straightening up the tables of remaindered books, and by the end of the evening, Buffy felt as though she'd known Will for years and that he was one of her best friends. He'd shared much of his life story with her, telling her all about his reluctant move to California after his father died and his mother remarried an American businessman.

"So, you don't like it here?"

"Now I do. It was just a rough first few months - being wrenched away from everyone and every place I'd ever known. But I survived it. Don't think I'd want to move back there now."


It wasn't long before they had established a regular routine for their quieter nights - Buffy going out for dinner first, sometimes with Sean who stopped by at least once a week - and then Will running out to eat and flirt with the girls in the stores on either side of theirs. When the store was busy, they kept it running efficiently, working together seamlessly without much need for conversation about what each was going to do next. It was comfortable and familiar in a way Buffy was enjoying more than she cared to admit.

As the weeks wore on and Buffy and Will became more and more at ease with each other, it was becoming much harder for her to avoid mentioning her hospitalization. She'd told Sean - who was now more of a friend-of-a-friend than a potential date - that she'd been "away" for several years, using that as an excuse for only beginning her freshman year of college at an age when most girls would have been in their junior or senior year. Now that he had given up the idea of dating her, Sean didn't seem all that curious about her past and he accepted her explanations without question.

Will, however, was much more perceptive, and that, combined with the large amounts of time they spent together, meant Buffy found herself having a much more difficult time denying that she was lying by not telling him the truth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They were just preparing to close up one night when Will accidentally barked his shin on an open drawer.

"Bloody hell!"

Her breath caught in her throat and she suddenly flashed to blonder, slicked back hair and a long leather coat. She stared at him, her eyes unfocused as she fought back the memories now flooding her imagination. While her mind filled with scenes of violent fights, spell-induced kisses, loud arguments and quiet conversations, her eyes were staring blindly at Will, who was trying to get her attention.

"Buffy? What's wrong? I'm sorry about my language, but damn, that hurt!" When she didn't acknowledge him, he touched her arm gently. "Buffy? Are you alright?"

Startled out of her reverie, she jerked in panic and flinched away from him, her breath coming in hard gasps as she looked at him with newly aware eyes. Without answering, she ran her eyes over his lean, muscular body, noting exactly how tall he was in relation to her and the grace with which he moved. She looked into his worried eyes, registering the familiar blue color and the dark lashes before moving on to his sharp cheekbones. Still without explanation, she grabbed his chin and held his head still while she stared at his eyebrows, exhaling in relief when she saw that they were both perfect - unmarred by the scar she'd been afraid she would find there.

"You're freaking me out a bit here, pet," he said softly, so as not to startle her. "Want to tell old Will what's going on?"

Her shoulders slumped and she shuddered, collapsing into a chair and putting her head in her hands. She kept shaking her head as he hovered over her, unsure of what to do but afraid to touch her again.

"Buffy? Talk to me, luv. What did I do?"

She took a deep breath and raised her head to smile at him apologetically. "Nothing, Sp-Will--" She bit her lip and continued. "You didn't do anything. I just...I need to go now. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'll...maybe I'll explain then. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed, "but you're not running out of here this upset by yourself. Let me finish up and I'll walk you out."

Instead of arguing, Buffy just stepped out into the mall corridor and waited patiently. She kept her attention sharply focused on the various posters in the shop window, reading them over and over until she was sure she could have reproduced them if needed. She kept her eyes away from Will, refusing to look at him again until they were on their way outside.

"You are going to explain this to me, aren't you?" he asked quietly as they stood waiting for her mother to pull up.

"I will...someday. I promise. I just...I need to talk to someone first...and I need to--Oh, look! Here's Mom!"

Joyce refused to acknowledge Buffy's frantic clawing at the locked door, choosing instead to get out and come around the car with her hand held out.

"Hello," she said with a warm smile. "I guess you must be Will. I'm Buffy's mother, Joyce. I want to thank you for keeping her safe every night."

"It's my pleasure, Mrs. Summers," he responded taking her hand and shaking it with just the right amount of warmth. "I'm sure she's perfectly safe here, but..."

Joyce gave Buffy a quick glance, immediately reading her agitation and decided to forgo her planned interrogation of the young man who figured so prominently in Buffy's stories about work in the bookstore. She gave him another warm smile and clicked the unlock button on her keys.

"Well, I appreciate it," she said quickly. "Even if she doesn't. So thank you. I hope to see you again sometime."

With Buffy already in the car, Joyce hurried around to the driver's side and got in, not speaking until they had pulled away from sidewalk where Will was staring after them.

"What happened?"

"I need to see Dr. Swinson," Buffy replied. "Tomorrow."

"Buffy..."

"It's okay, Mom. I'm still here. It's just that...I'll tell you about it after I talk to her, okay? It was just a flashback - I never went away, I just couldn't stop the memories and Will..."

"What about Will?" Joyce had gone into mother bear mode and was clearly ready to turn around and handle whatever the young man might have done to upset her daughter. "What did he do?"

"Nothing, Mom. Relax. You don't need to hit him with an axe or anything..." Buffy let her head fall back against the head restraint. "Oh, crap."

"I want an explanation, young lady. And I want it now. If that man did something to make you have flashbacks..."

"All he did was curse in British."

"Excuse me?"

"He said 'bloody hell', Mom. That's all he did."

Joyce was silent for a while as she digested that information. She knew quite a bit about Buffy's delusional world - both from things Buffy herself had said, and from conversations with the doctors when Buffy was younger.

"So," she said carefully, "which one was it he reminded you of? The older man - Giles was it? Or the vampire?"

"It was Spike," Buffy admitted. "He sounded just like him, and I...I just lost it. All of a sudden I was remembering stuff about Spike, things he did, things he said--"

"Wasn't Spike the one who was in love with you? Maybe it was your sub-conscious taking another look at Will and realizing that he wants to be more than just friends."

Buffy startled and her head swiveled towards her mother. "Oh my God. I'll bet that's it." The car was now parked in the driveway and Buffy leaned over to hug her mother tightly. "Thank you, Mom. Of course that's it. I mean, not that I think Will really...we're just really good friends...but it makes sense that he'd remind me of someone else who was a friend and used words like that."

"Remind you of an imaginary someone," Joyce reminded her gently.

"Right. Imaginary someone. I knew that."


Chapter End Notes:
Anyone who has suggestions about how this fic should be categorized, I would appreciate your letting me know. "Fantasy" was the best i could come up with, but I'm not sure that's the right place for it.



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