Chapter Nine

Buffy had been full of apologies again when she stopped by Joyce's office on the way to class. They'd had a long talk about her relationship with Will and the fact that she was, for all intents and purposes, a grown woman closing in on her twenty-first birthday. Joyce had finally agreed that as long as Buffy checked in at some point during the evening, her parents would not panic when she didn't make it home.

"I'm not sorry that you have someone like Will in your life, Buffy. You know how much I—we like him. But, like it or not, you're not the average young adult and your father and I can't help but be concerned when we don't know where you are."

"I said I was sorry," Buffy said with a trace of a pout. "And I've promised to check in. I don't know what else you want me to do."

"Just be happy, Buffy. That's all I've ever wanted for you. For you to be happy. Oh! And careful... "

Buffy interrupted quickly before Joyce could begin a conversation about anything that would be embarrassing to them both.

"Got it covered, Mom. Seeing the doctor tomorrow."

"Oh. Well, okay then," Joyce said with relief.

She'd had a short, private talk with Will. If he was embarrassed to be talking to his girlfriend's mother about the fact that her daughter was sleeping with him, he managed to hide it well. He made it very clear that, while he liked and respected both her parents, Buffy and her wishes came first with him, and as long as she wanted to sleep in his bed, he was going to have her there. He promised to let Joyce know if there was any sign that Buffy was slipping away, and to encourage her to keep her twice monthly appointments with her doctor.

"I love her with all I am, Joyce," he'd said quietly. "I'll never do anything to hurt her or let her do anything that might cause her to hurt herself. And God knows I don't ever want her to slip back to that place where so many horrible things happened to her."

Joyce had nodded and sighed. "I know you don't, Will. I'm trusting you to take care of my daughter. I can't tell you how happy we are that she has you in her life. It's just...we worry."

"Of course you do," he soothed. "As well you should. I can only imagine the nightmare those years were for you and Hank. I'm going to do my best to see that she is too happy in this world to ever think about going back to that one. I promise you."


~~~~~~~~~


With Joyce running interference with Hank, who finally admitted that Buffy was old enough to move out on her own if she thought she needed to in order to see her boyfriend when and wherever she wanted, her parents gradually got used to the idea that she would be spending more time with Will than with them. On those rare nights when Will was hanging out with Sean or other friends, Buffy came straight home from work and spent time with her parents, catching them up on work and school. Normally, however, she came home in the morning—usually in time to have coffee with her mother and father—took a shower, changed her clothes, packed up whatever she expected to need for the rest of the day and night, and went off to class and work.

In spite of the joy brought by having a sane, happy Buffy around, Christmas that year was a fairly subdued affair. With Buffy and Will both working long hours and being tired at the end of the evening, they were spending most of their time at his apartment, staring mindlessly at the TV until one or the other of them fell asleep. Buffy did her best to get up early enough to spend some morning time with her parents, but the holiday season was nothing like what she remembered from her childhood. Balancing a boyfriend, his family, her family, and a very busy job left little time to actually enjoy the season. She was just grateful that classes were over for the semester and she didn't have exams adding to the stress.

By mutual agreement, they hadn't bothered with decorations at the apartment, choosing instead to spend as much time as possible with their families and allowing them to provide the Christmas trappings. Between their parents' homes, and a mall that had been decorated since before Thanksgiving, the urge to decorate the apartment they slept in just wasn't there.

On Christmas Eve, they had a pleasant dinner with Will's mother, Jane, and her husband. Long before that, they had welcomed Buffy into their lives in a way that almost brought tears to her eyes. When she'd worried aloud that they wouldn't want her dating their son if they knew about her past, Will laughed.

"Told Mum about you a long time ago, love."

"You did?" Buffy's eyes darted around the kitchen, as if expecting Jane to come in and order her out of the house any minute.

"I did. And she's fine with it. She likes you and she thinks you've been good for me. Settled me down, so to speak."

"You should have told me she knew," Buffy said with a pout.

"Why? So you could worry yourself into a tizzy every time you came over here? You know you would have been watching for...I don't know what, but you'd never have relaxed."

"I suppose you think you're smart," she muttered, smiling in spite of herself.

"Know my girl, don't I?"

Buffy slept in Christmas morning. She and Will had both agreed that she needed to spend Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning with her own family. She woke up at 10:00 a.m. feeling rested and content. Joyce met her at the bottom of the stairs with a cup of hot chocolate and a hug.

"Merry Christmas, honey," she said. "We thought you were going to sleep all day."

"Are you complaining?" Buffy asked. "It could be worse, you know. I could still be getting up at six and making you two come downstairs with me to open presents."

Joyce laughed and followed Buffy into the living room where Hank greeted her with a smile and a kiss on the cheek.

"There's my little girl," he said. "All ready to see what Santa brought?"

"Uh, Dad..." Buffy said. "You do remember that I'll be twenty-one next month, don't you?"

"Just kidding you, honey. Ready to open gifts?"

Shaking her head at her father, Buffy sat down and sipped at her cocoa.

"You guys go first. I want to see if you like what I got you." Her pride in having been able to buy them gifts with money she'd earned herself was clear, and they happily complied.

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


Moving some of her clothes to Will's, a few things at a time, just seemed like a sensible thing to do, as did buying a new toothbrush, deodorant, and other necessities that were annoying to pack and unpack every day. Gradually, Buffy was having fewer and fewer reasons to go home in the mornings.

Time passed, and they were dressing one morning when he said casually, "What would you think about making this official, luv?"

"Making what official?" Buffy stopped in the process of pulling on a new shirt that Will had given her for Christmas.

"Living here. With me. You may as well be my roommate, as much as you're here."

"You mean move all my stuff in? Change my address and all?" She stared at him, her heart beating faster.

"Well, yeah. I think that's what I mean." He stopped pulling on his socks and walked over to her, tipping her chin up. "I love you. I want you with me all the time. Twenty-four, seven. I want us to be officially living together. Significant others, or whatever it's called."

"I love you too," she said slowly. "But I don't know how my parents—"

"How much do you see them now, Buffy?"

"Well, it depends on how late I get up... Okay, you're right. I only go home to change clothes and do laundry. Point taken." She frowned. "But they'll be hurt anyway. They didn't have me there for all those years, and now here I am living somewhere else again."

"But this time, they know how to reach you, and you know who they are," he argued. "You can call them, drop by whenever you want. We could plan to have dinner with them every weekend, if you think that would keep them happy."

"You really want to do this, huh?" she asked, slipping into the arms he was holding out.

"Don't you?"

She rested her head on his chest and nodded. "I do. I want to be with you all the time, too. I want us to grow old together and—" She stopped, afraid she'd said too much, but he pulled her in more tightly and dropped kisses on her head.

"Do you mean that? About wanting to grow old with me?"

"I think so. I guess I shouldn't have said that, huh? It makes me sound like I'm husband-hunting or something and that's not really what I me—"

"Hush," he said, releasing her. "Stay right here. Don't move."

While Buffy stared at him in bewilderment, he ran to his closet and rummaged in the pocket of his dress coat. He came back, holding his hand behind his back and watching her anxiously.

"I wasn't going to do this until we'd been officially living together for a few months, but...." He brought his arm around and extended his hand to her. Nestled in it was a small box from the jewelry store located in the mall. "I don't have much; you know that. Can't offer you a good living yet, but if you don't mind sharing your life with a starving writer...." He opened the box, exposing the small but beautifully set ring within.

Buffy gasped and stretched her hand towards the box, wanting to touch it and afraid to.

"For me? You got that for me?"

"Don't see any other formerly crazy bints standin' here do you?" he asked, his shaky voice belying the sarcasm in his words.

With a trembling hand, Buffy took the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger.

"It fits me!"

"Yeah. Had to guess at it, but I was pretty sure I was right. You have such delicate little fingers." He picked her hand up and kissed the palm; then closed it into a fist. "Will you marry me, Buffy Summers?"

Still staring at her hand and the stone glittering there, she felt tears filling her eyes. She raised them to his and nodded silently before flinging herself at him.

"Is that a yes, then?" he laughed, catching her and breathing a sigh of relief as she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

"Yes," she squealed into his ear. "Yes, it's a yes. I will marry you, William Patterson."

Wriggling until he let her go, she dropped to the floor and ran to grab her cell phone from her purse. Will watched with a bemused smile as Buffy used vocal ranges that could make ears bleed to tell Joyce her news. He frowned as Buffy's excitement dipped and her face became less happy as she listened to her mother.

"I know it is, but—" She shook her head as though the woman on the other end of the phone could see her. "We love each other, Mom. I'm not 'jumping into' anything. We... we're going to live together and I thought you'd be happy that we're not just shacking up."

Obviously Joyce changed her tactics as Buffy's face cleared and her enthusiasm returned. "Oh yes, Mom! Of course you'll be involved. It's not like we're going to run off and get married tomorrow. You'll have plenty of time to plan it. And we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other better. Okay. I'll come by tonight for sure. Bye. Love you. "

"Not the response you were hoping for?" Will walked up behind her and put his arms around her from behind, dropping his head to kiss her on the ear.

"It's okay. She was just surprised and worried that I was latching on to you without knowing what else is out there." She glanced up at him slyly. "I don't, you know—know what else is out there. Maybe I should—"

Will gave a growl that would have done credit to one of her imaginary vampires and tightened his embrace. "Maybe you should just forget that whole idea. Unless you want to be visiting me in jail—where I'll be after I take out any other man who even looks at you."

Buffy giggled and turned around to face him. Her expression turned more sober as she met his eyes. "I don't need to try anybody else. If I learned nothing else from being Buffy the romantically-challenged-vampire-slayer, I learned that a good man is hard to find; and when you find one, you don't let go."

"Just so we're clear," he muttered, his dignity offended by her giggles.

"We're clear," she said, going up on her toes to brush her lips across his. "And now, I have to get to class. And you have to get ready to go to work. I'll see you this afternoon. 'kay?"

"Alright, love. Off you go. Get that education so you can support your poor, starving artist of a husband."

"You're not starving," she said with quick loyalty. "You just don't make enough with your writing to quit the day job."

He shrugged and nodded. "True enough. Someday though..."

"Maybe you can sell my story? Or the other Buffy's story? You could make it into a book and nobody would ever know... well, some people would know, but it's my story, so...."

"Maybe," he agreed. "We can talk about it later. Right now you need to get yourself off to classes."

"I mean it," she insisted. "I know that Dr. Swinson thinks she's going to write me up and get famous off my story. I'd rather you did it."

He shrugged. "I doubt the good doctor is planning to write a fantasy novel."

"Well, just in case, you should do it first."

"It's not a half-bad idea, pet. Now that I think about it. But it would have to be sold as a collaboration. I'd never try to take the credit for your imagination—might even sell it as your own story 'written with' or something like that. I'd be more of a ghost writer."

Buffy smiled as she realized that he was actually considering her sudden burst of inspiration.

"You'd be a ghost?"

"Ghost writer, love. I've done it before. It helps pay the bills. Someone else's story—my ability to put it into readable prose. Sometimes I get my name on it, sometimes I don't."

Buffy frowned. "That doesn't seem fair. After you—"

"Sometimes I don't want my name on it," he said with a wry smile. "Trust me, it doesn't hurt my feelings at all." He shrugged. "I see it as being paid for a service I can offer. It's got nothing to do with anything I write on my own. Those few little stories that I've sold are good for the ego, just not all that helpful with the bottom line."

"I like your bottom line the way it is," she said, running hands over his ass and giggling at her own boldness.

"Aren't you turning into the cheeky one?" he laughed, giving her a quick grope. "I must be a bad influence on you."

"On that inappropriate and very distracting note, I'm off to class. See you later."

"Drive safely, love."

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