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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hey guys! I know I posted only a few hours ago, but I just felt the need to continue. Who knows? If I get a whole bunch of reviews by tomorrow, maybe i'll post again within the next day or two :) Thanks to everyone who is still reading this, even after the ridiculously long break between posts. I hope you enjoy the angst of this chapter because the next few chapters are going to be at the same level. But do not fear! Happy Spuffiness is on the way!
Spike’s leg jackhammered beneath his desk for the entirety of last period. It wasn’t nervousness this time, but rather excitement for rehearsal. This was the day he would ask Buffy out and he was pretty sure she would agree. And if she didn’t, he was sure he could somehow persuade her to see things his way.

He wouldn’t tell her the depth of his feelings yet, though. He feared she would back away if she knew what he was really only beginning to grasp.

Every time he looked at the clock, it seemed to inch farther away from 2:30. The teacher was discussing his secretly favorite subject, poetry, but he could not even pay attention. Buffy, buffy, buffy pulsed in his head with every silent tick of the clock. He hadn’t seen her all day and was itching to. He craned his neck as his mental irritation from waiting turned into physical pain.

Like a godsend, the bell rang and Spike bolted. He pictured her glowing face, happy to see him and excited to go out with him. He smiled as he ran to the auditorium, his books and papers slowly falling out of his hands. When they finally toppled over and scattered, William considered leaving them there, but realized he needed them for his classes… which were important as well.

As he collected his books and things, he realized it had suddenly become very dark. He looked up to find the cause only to find Buffy staring down at him. Spike stood up as manly as he could, but felt the air punched out of his stomach when he saw Buffy’s face in the light.

Her cheeks were splotchy and matched the red rims of her eyes. It looked like she had been crying for hours. It was Spike’s initial reaction to kick whoever made his Buffy feel this way.

“You big, bleached jerk!” she yelled between choking sobs. Spike’s confused was etched on his face.

“Me? What did I do?!” he demanded incredulously.

“You! You have ruined everything!” Buffy sniffled loudly and swiftly wiped a few new tears on her cheeks. “Y-you know, I t-thought you had really changed. I though y-y-you liked me, maybe. But now I see you and you are exactly who I t-thought you were!” Buffy wiped more tears away until she could see his face properly.

“I do like you, Buffy! In fact, I was just coming to-“

“Stop lying to me! All day, everyone I came in contact with either laughed in my face of snickered when they thought I wasn’t looking. You see, I thought it was just the usual bullshit rumors, but no, it was something much, much worse. I have been called a slut, a whore,” Buffy counted them on her fingers as she glared menacingly into the eyes of her betrayer, “a cock tease and an idiot by half the student body and I kept wondering, ‘why, Buffy? Why is this happening?’ That’s until Angel himself told me what you said to him: things that he repeated in the locker room and comments that played telephone across the student body. You fucking asshole! You lied to me and about me!”

Spike’s dumbstruck look turned into one of profound guilt.

“Buffy, I-“

“Don’t speak to me. Don’t call me. Don’t ask me for fucking help you fucking loser!” She pushed past him half crazed and crying. In one last attempt to make her understand, he did the first thing that came to his mind.

“Please, Buffy!” He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer for a kiss, but she slapped his face before he had the chance.

“Don’t you EVER touch me again,” she growled between clenched teeth. Spike’s face stung, but not as much as the turmoil in his gut. He hated himself for making her cry, but he didn’t know what else to do. Buffy lurched her arm from his grasp.

“Goodbye, Lysander!” she yelled to the growing crowd. Spike’s jaw dropped in disbelief. He saw several of his old friends snickering to one another, and his eyes began to tear. Pushing through the crowd, he found his way to his car and floored it.

……………………

Buffy wanted to leave and never come back to Sunnyhell, but she knew she needed to go to rehearsal. Unusually, she wasn’t even angry at Spike for skipping out. She felt like she needed the rest, not to mention every cast and crew member heard her little speech and would probably egg her on to see a rematch. Buffy was tired of high school and could not wait for the professional world where things didn’t get so complicated.

Fortunately, Giles had no clue what was going on, so she could rehearse in peace.

……………………

Spike had no idea where he was headed. The signs on the side of the road blurred together as he sped somewhere far away. He found it odd that on top of feeling like the biggest jackass in the world, he felt worse for skipping rehearsal.

He knew he said those things to Angel out of jealousy, but he didn’t think Angel would spread it around. He kept going over it in his head…

“I already had her.” He lied bluntly. Angel’s jaw dropped.
“What? No way.”
“Seriously. I’m only telling you this to warn you, but she has gone some problems. Like, when she starts dating someone, she becomes a total stalker. I’m talking writing on notebooks, dreams, waiting outside your house, clinging...”
“What?” he asked disbelievingly.
“She just sits outside your house, crying if you talk to other girls, never leaving. It’s the worst.”
“Holy crap! Oh, that’s ridiculous!”
“Just thought I’d warn you. Didn’t want you to find out like me.” Spike smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“No, thanks man. I owe you one.”

It seemed like a lifetime ago. In fact, had Angel not ruined everything so perfectly, Spike might have forgotten it entirely. Suddenly, it occurred to him that, from what Buffy yelled, Angel must have pinched in a bit of his own rumor spice to his story. The bastard!

The more he analyzed both his conversation with Angel and his spout with Buffy, however, he realized that it was really all his fault. He ruined everything. Angel certainly didn’t help much, but Spike planted the seeds that caused his own destruction. This always happened to him.

And then it hit him like a concrete wall. He was turning into Faith.

Not in the specifics of what she did to him, but rather that he used Buffy just like Faith used him. Faith made him believe that she loved him then left him. She made his life a living hell by spreading the rumors that confined him today.

And poor Buffy… The only girl he ever truly cared for and he left her to fend for herself. ‘What a useless git I’ve turned out to be’ Spike thought to himself.

With that in mind, Spike swerved his car around, almost flipping it in the process, and floored it back to the school. No. He would not let Buffy be the punch line. He did not want her to suffer.

But then again, he didn’t know how to make it right.

……………………

Buffy could barely focus on her lines. She stumbled and forgot important phrases throughout rehearsal. She could tell Giles was getting fed up with her, but he also knew how diligent she usually was. Buffy figured that Giles would assume she was having a particularly bad day. Which was the case.

She was also having a hard time focusing because Angel wouldn’t stop staring and leering at her. Buffy had rolled her eyes until she could simply roll them no longer. She also was tired of blaming Angel for something that Spike did, and Angel told the truth unlike Spike. She had always known the scumbag crew who were Spike’s “friends,” but Buffy told herself that maybe he was different.

And she was right. He was worse.

So, why had he been nice to her? What did he have to gain from the experience other than watching her suffer? Maybe, he just saw the opportunity and could help himself. Maybe-

“Miss Summers, I mean it in all sincerity when I say that you need to leave my stage and go home. Now.”

“What?” Buffy asked in a mixture of bewilderment and fear.

“Leave. Now. You obviously aren’t emotionally prepared for today’s rehearsal and can therefore be of no use to this cast today. I do not wish to waste time knowing you cannot focus on the task at hand. So, I say once more, go home.”

Buffy had a strong urge to stamp her foot and throw a tantrum, but knowing that Giles was right, she nodded glumly and left the stage.

“Right then. Shall we continue?” He shouted articulately.

Buffy found her backpack and jacket in a daze and walked out. She was never asked to leave a rehearsal in her life, but even then, she was sick of blaming Spike for everything. This was all her fault because she let him in. She let him play her. She deserved to be kicked out her real home and sent to her actual house.

Too bad she didn’t have a car.

Just then, she saw Angel out of the corner of her eye. Too tired to deal with the opposite sex, Buffy shook her head. “No, Angel. Not now.”

“But, you don’t even know what I’m going to say!” he exclaimed like a twelve year-old. Buffy looked him over curiously and nodded. “Right. So, I was wondering if-“

“Do you want to go out with me, Angel?” she spoke exhaustedly.

“Hellz yeah!” Buffy cringed at the random “z” in his expression, but let it go. She wrote her number on a ripped piece of notebook paper and gave it to him without facing him.

“Call me.”

“Ok, great! We’ll have a great time Buffy,” Angel said goofily. Buffy smiled a bit. Well, he was certainly a change from the constant cloud over Spike’s head.

Angel put the slip of paper in his pocket and yelled goodbye as he ran back inside. Buffy wondered if it was a good idea to bother with him, but she thought what the hell? Why not.

Buffy dialed her mother’s number, waiting to hear the wrath on the other line.

……………………

Spike decided to park behind the building in case he needed to make a speedy getaway. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say exactly, but he figured the words would come to him naturally.

He wished that he could go back in time and not say those lies to Angel, but then the great ponce would have asked out his girl. And she would have said yes! Spike couldn’t have had that. No, it was necessary at the time. But now, it felt like his world was crumbling. He needed to set it right again.

He wondered how such a tiny girl could have such a vast affect on his life.

Running up the stairwell, Spike felt a few butterflies churning in his stomach. He reached the auditorium just as rehearsal let out and searched for Buffy, but she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she had gone home early. But she had never, would never, leave rehearsal early if she could help it. He admittedly didn’t know her extremely well, but he knew her that much.

It was then that he saw Angel bouncing out of the auditorium. ‘What is he so happy about?’ he wondered. Spike rolled up his sleeves and bounded after the man who ruined everything, praying that he’d at least get to smack the guy across the face.


Chapter End Notes:
I hope you enjoyed that! Please review! Oh, and if anyone knows how to make a banner I would be eternally grateful because I have no clue :)



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