When Buffy finally arrived at the Espresso Pump, 5 hours later and not quite able to walk straight, Willow was already there sitting at a table and sipping a latte.
“Buffy!” The redhead cried happily as she caught sight of her friend.
Speeding up her pace, Buffy arrived at the table and wrapped Willow in a warm hug.
Willow pushed the extra cup of coffee she had procured for her friends over to her.
“It’s a double mocha with an extra shot of espresso.” Willow told her.
“Yum!” The blonde grinned. “That’s my favorite.”
“I know. I hope it’s not cold though.”
“Yeah, about that…Sorry I’m late.” Buffy apologized, hoping that the blush that stained her cheeks at the thought of why she was late wasn’t too obvious.
“It’s okay. I got your text letting me know.” Willow fixed her eyes on her friend nervously. “But…are you okay?”
“Yes! Of course, I’m totally of the good…a thousand gallons of good. That’s me…good…Buffy.”
“Really? Because when you babble, I can think it’s only of the bad.” Willow posited.
Buffy racked her brain for something to say.
“Xander!” She shouted, a little louder than she meant too. A few other patrons looked around at the disturbance, and she stared into her coffee, red-faced.
Willow glanced around wondering if her male friend had entered the café but as she didn’t see him she frowned.
“What about Xander?” Willow asked.
“I’m upset about him. How mad he was with me the other night. It’s…hard. We were friends once.”
As she spoke, she realized it really did hurt her, the way that one of her closest friends had treated her. Because of everything that had occurred since his verbal torrent of abuse toward her, she hadn’t really thought about it.
But it was painful in the worst kind of way.
“Buffy, Xan can be like that sometimes. You know, he finds it hard to forgive and forget. You just have to give him time. I’m not trying to make excuses for him, but he feels like you abandoned us. Like you abandoned him. And he’s hurt, so like a little boy he’s acting out. But he’ll get over it.”
“Will he, Will?”
“Yes! All his life, Xander has been…left behind. Like in 5th grade, way before you ever came to Sunnydale, he was best friends with this boy called Jesse. The two of them were inseparable. And then one day Jesse told us that his family was moving away to the East Coast. Xander was devastated but they used to write each other every single week, but one day the replies stopped coming. Xander never knew why. ”
“That’s awful.” Buffy murmured with sincerity.
“And it’s not just that, Buffy. There’s other stuff too. He keeps it all bottled up inside, because that’s the Xander way. But he’s hurting. He’s spent his whole life with his parents not giving a darn about him. And then Jesse…And now…”
“…and now me…” The blonde finished trailing off sadly. “He’s not the only one who’s lost things though.”
“I know, and I’m not trying to excuse what he said to you the other night. But I’m just trying to make you see why he says these things.”
Gulping down her cold coffee, Buffy nodded. In all honesty, she had only raised the subject of Xander to try and stave off Willow’s probing questions, but now it had dredged up a whole other set of issues that the teen didn’t want to face.
Avoidance, thy name is Buffy.
Willow coughed lightly to draw her friend’s attention back to her.
“So now that you’ve avoided the elephant in the room for the past thirty minutes, are you ever going to tell me what’s actually wrong? I know it’s not just that you’re upset about Xander. Because whatever this it, it’s been going on for months. And see this? This is my resolve face.” Willow pasted on a stern look. “I’m not going to let this go. Buff, maybe I can help you. I want to help you. I’m not gonna get all judgey, no matter what it is.”
Heaving a sigh, Buffy searched Willow’s face, wondering if she could confide in her friend about what had happened with Spike.
Once upon a time they had told each other everything. They were like sisters and shared their secrets accordingly.
But this thing with Spike, even before they had gotten together, had been a secret that lodged in Buffy’s heart and never seemed like something she could tell to anyone else.
Nevertheless, things were different now. She and Spike were together, at least in body and spirit if not in words. And she knew that if she was to tell Willow then a huge burden would be lifted from her. Right now she felt like the secret of her love for Spike was bubbling inside of her and if she didn’t release it then she would simply explode.
But telling Willow would let the cat out of the proverbial bag. And what if someone else found out then somehow? Spike was in his thirties and she was in her teens. She didn’t think that most people would take kindly to the local Judo instructor bedding jailbait.
Particularly when said jailbait was his dead wife’s daughter.
Then again, she was pretty sure that Willow would keep it to herself. That didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t somehow find out though.
Taking a deep breath, she made her decision.
“Will, I have something to tell you.” She kept her voice purposely low, leaning in toward her friend.
Willow frowned concernedly at the petite blonde. Willow wasn’t a stupid girl. She had long suspected something was wrong with her friend, but she really didn’t know what it was.
At first, when Buffy’s mom had gotten married to Spike, Willow assumed that Buffy was just mad at all the changes that were taking place. Buffy had no control over the things that were happening, and whenever anyone brought up Spike, or the marriage, Buffy became distant and snappy.
But as time passed, and Buffy began to isolate herself more from her friends, Willow’s worry about her deepened.
“What is it, Buff? You know you can tell me anything.”
“It’s about Spike.” Buffy sighed, resting her head in her hands. She didn’t want to see the look of disgust that would inevitably form on her friend’s face once she knew the truth.
Buffy was having sex with her stepfather.
Somehow she didn’t think Willow would be all on board that train.
“Okay. Phew!” She blew out the air clogging her lungs. Suddenly Buffy felt hot, suffocated and like things were closing in on her. Sharing her feelings had never been a strong point of Buffy.
Repression had always been the answer.
But right now she needed the support of her friend…her best friend.
Mustering all her courage, she began.
“Wills, I know you’re probably not going to approve. I’m still not even sure that I approve.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “But a while ago, I started having feelings for Spike.”
Buffy saw Willow move to interrupt but stopped her by raising her hand.
“Wait! Please just let me tell you. I need to get this out, Will. When I first met him, I knew that I liked him. But he was dating my Mom, and I was so mad about it. Mad at him, at Mom, at the whole world. But most of all, I was mad at myself. Because I knew that it was wrong to fall for my own stepfather.
I couldn’t face being around other people. I kept thinking that somehow someone would guess the truth of how I felt and what I was thinking, like it was just written all over my totally guilty face. And I figured if you did find out somehow that you would wig. So I distanced myself from you guys. And it hurt me more than you could know. But I felt so much like there was something wrong with me, and that I was all screwy inside.”
Willow chewed on a pale fingernail, looked curious yet concerned.
“So you two…had an affair?”
“No! Nothing happened with me and Spike while Mom was still…here. He just saw me as ‘Joyce’s Stepdaughter’ I guess and I thought that was all it would ever be.”
“I guess it’s more than that now…?”
“Since Mom…it’s been so hard. The cops still have no idea what happened. They don’t even have a motive, let alone a suspect. All they have is a vague description from a few witnesses and that’s not exactly getting them anywhere. The pain of losing her, and knowing that still no one is being punished for what they did to her…it was ripping me apart. It still is. And Spike, he was there and he was hurting, just like me.
I’m not gonna go into details, because, you know, there’s such a thing as oversharing…but the other night when I left the Bronze with that guy, Angel, he attacked me.”
“Spike attacked you?!” Willow gasped in horror.
“What? No! God no! I meant Angel attacked me.”
“Oh my God!” Willow bellowed. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“He tried. He was going to…to rape me.” Buffy watched Willow blanch, becoming even paler than normal. “But Spike…he found us. He beat the hell out of Angel. He saved me, Wills.”
“He came looking for you in the Bronze. How did he even know you were in trouble?”
“He has some kind of history with Angel. It’s a thing. He found out the guy was in town and went kinda nutballs. Which I guess is lucky for me. But anyway, he stopped anything bad before it happened.”
“I see.”
“Then we went home, and some…stuff happened. We talked and then….we kinda…made love.” Buffy confessed, her blush matching the color of her best friend’s hair.
Willow flushed a similar shade of red when she heard the confession.
“You had sex with Spike?!” She blurted out.
“Holy crap! You had sex with your stepdad?!” A voice echoed from behind.
Buffy and Willow spun round to see Anya standing there, her mouth gaping open in shock even as her eyes sparkled inquisitively. The currently-brunette girl eyed the other two curiously.
“Well?” Anya asked.
“This is very not good.” Buffy sighed.
Why was nothing in her life ever simple?
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the second of a double update today. Please read Chapter 16 first as I have just added that one also.
Please enjoy.
Please enjoy.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading and please review. :)