They say that you can never go home, and in some ways that is true. It didn’t feel like home to Buffy anymore, although it still retained that innate feeling of security that she once enjoyed there. However, she figured that feeling of safety was mostly caused by her Mom’s home cooking. After living on celery sticks and raw cucumber for the past year, a home-cooked steak was heaven for her.
One definite advantage to the small town was that despite her fame, she was able to walk the streets more freely in Sunnydale. The paparazzi didn’t seem to hound her as much as they did elsewhere. It was like they were somehow terrified of small town America as if it was paparazzi-kryptonite or something. Buffy couldn’t understand it, but she didn’t question what she was thankful for. She could even head to the store without her cap in place and leave there photograph-free.
Unfortunately, it was on one of those store-bound outings that she saw it. The headline splayed across the front of US Weekly that made her feel sick to her stomach. Although this time the headline wasn’t an exposé of her bedroom activities, it felt like an even harder punch to the stomach than if it had been.
“Spike Pryce and Cordelia Chase: A Match Made in Hollywood.”
The damn headline was sprawled across the front cover of that stupid goddamn rag with a small photo of the pair of them clutching each other’s hands. For several moments she had to swallow convulsively when she almost spit up in her mouth.
Without thinking, she grabbed for a copy of the magazine and flicked to the story, soaking up the details of the apparently enamored couple. Seemingly, they met at a restaurant almost a month ago and found love at first sight. They had been joined at the hip ever since. There were even some accompanying pictures of the pair walking down the street with matching sunglasses and, even more sickeningly, matching grins.
“Didn’t take long, did it?” Buffy hissed to herself. “Guess ‘love’ isn’t worth much these days.”
Buffy had met Cordelia Chase several times over the years and they pair had never gotten along. The sultry brunette was one of those classic beauties who looked down on everyone around her. Buffy figured that if she looked up the word: ‘snob’ in the dictionary, she would find a perfectly posed picture of Cordelia right next to it.
The thought of Spike dating the bitchy brunette filled the pit of her stomach with violent nausea and for a moment she thought she might gag right there in the middle of the store. Taking a deep breath she managed to calm herself, and chant her usual mantra that she didn’t even care about Spike at all, so this really didn’t make a difference.
Except that she did care. She admitted that to Tara, and even to herself. But right now, not caring was the only way to get through the pain.
So that was what she was going to do.
Against her better judgment, Buffy found herself paying for the copy of the magazine along with the rest of her groceries, which included several pints of ice cream. Hey, if she was going to torture herself, she was prepared to do it in style.
The next few days were spent in the last stop to Mopeville. Buffy was officially depressed and even her Mom’s hugs couldn’t get through to her. She thought about calling Tara but dismissed the idea quickly. No doubt her therapist would be forthcoming with the rationalization and Buffy wasn’t ready to rationalize. Instead, she preferred to mope and fester.
She couldn’t exactly explain why she was even so upset. Her first reaction was that it was just anguish about the fact that she never seemed to hold down a steady boyfriend, while love fell into the laps of people like Cordelia Chase and Spike Pryce.
When she was having a moment of clarity, however, she did acknowledge that she was a little jealous. Spike had confessed his love to her only a couple of months earlier and yet he’d apparently already moved on with someone else.
Well, at least she had ice cream, which was a lover that would never leave her. Buffy actually couldn’t think of many bad things about ice cream. Well there was the getting morbidly obese part if you ate too much, but right now she didn’t care about that.
The only thing that bothered her about the frozen treat was when she was all out of it. After a week of moping in her pajamas, watching soppy old movies and chowing down on her comfort food, she finished the last of it and felt like crying.
“Mom!” she shrieked, affecting her best pout. “Mom!”
Joyce Summers came careening into the room, worried that Buffy had suffered some terrible accident from the timbre of her voice. When she saw her daughter was just fine and sitting sprawled on her bed she groaned.
“I thought the aliens were invading from your yelling,” Joyce reprimanded her daughter. “What’s wrong?”
Buffy wordlessly held up the empty ice cream tub, eliciting an eye roll from her mother.
“Did you eat all that junk already?” she said in a motherly tone. “That’s not like you Buffy.”
“Why can’t it be like me?” Buffy retorted petulantly. “Why can’t I do something crazy or stupid for once? Why the hell do I always have to be perfect and faultless?”
Joyce held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not criticizing you, sweetheart. It’s just unusual for you.”
“Yeah, well I’m trying to be insane-o girl right now,” she laughed in a way that sounded like she’d barreled right past insane-o right into Crazy Land.
“I’m not sure that I like it.”
“I never asked for your opinion, Mother,” Buffy said coldly before shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know how to deal with your mood swings, honey. I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong with you.”
“Lack of ice cream,” Buffy replied glibly. “You can help with that if you run to the store for me.”
Joyce shook her head. “No, absolutely not. I’m not going to enable you, Buffy. I’ve read books about depression and other things like that and it’s important not to allow you to sink deeper.”
“Please!” she begged her mother. “I can’t go out there right now.”
However, Joyce was holding firm and absolutely refused to pander to Buffy’s needs. The older Summers lady was sick of Buffy whittling her days in her room, enveloped in a toxic state of perpetual sorrow. So if Buffy wanted more mopey-time food, then she would have to damn well get it herself.
“I’m sorry, Buffy. I’m your mother and I love you, but you’re a grown woman now. You need to learn to handle the world yourself,” Joyce said as gently as she could. “Perhaps you could contact Dr. Maclay. I’m sure she can help you.”
Buffy sighed. “Maybe,” she replied distractedly, sorely wanting to curl up in bed with some much needed comfort food.
When her mother finally left her alone, she lay back on her bed staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
How did it all turn into such a mess?
And when did Spike Pryce gain this kind of power over her emotions?
Standing alone in the aisle, staring at the ice cream, Buffy sighed. There was too much choice. One of her main problems was that she often found herself with too much choice and she ended up making the wrong decision.
Well from here on in things were a-changing and the revolution begins with ice cream.
“Hmm, Triple Caramel Chunk or Chocolate Fudge Brownie?” she muttered to herself.
“Personally, I fancy the Fudge Brownie, pet.”
Buffy spun round at the sound of the voice. Her mouth gaped open as her shocked eyes clashed with Spike fierily intense gaze.
“Hello, Cutie,” he said with a smile.
Buffy opened her mouth to reply but found that she seemed to have suddenly forgotten how to speak English.
Running into Spike was the last thing she’d wanted to do. She had that unnerving feeling that he was stalking her.
In spite of the potential stalkage danger, she couldn’t deny that he looked delicious, good enough to eat, even more so than ice cream and so she was suddenly self conscious of the old sweater and sweatpants that she was wearing. Forgetting about her ice cream she marched out of the store with Spike hot on her heels. When he grabbed her wrist to halt her she whirled on him with blazing eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here, Spike?” she asked with a frustrated hiss.
“Shopping,” he replied smugly. “I know you’re not Southern California’s answer to Einstein, but surely even you can work that one out, love.”
“I don’t mean in the store. I mean here, in Sunnydale.”
“Fancied a holiday, love. Surely you can’t have something against a bloke getting a bit of a break from grafting.”
“You just decided to take a vacation?” she said snidely. “In my town?”
“Uh, yeah. Lovely little place this is. Feel right at home here.” He grinned.
Buffy gritted her teeth. “Really? Shouldn’t you be with…oh…I don’t know…Cordelia Chase?”
She wanted to pretend that the rumors of Spike and Cordelia didn’t bother her, so she affected her best nonchalant face as she stared at him.
However, he saw right through her masque. “What? Are you jealous, Kitten?”
“Ha!” she scoffed, a little too quickly and winced on the inside at her overt lie. “As if I’d be jealous of you and that skanky ho. I just figured you’d want to be with her seeing how you’re so in love.” She wanted to retch and heave, but settled for her trademark eye roll instead.
“Cordy’s got a job in New York for the next week,” he told her, lighting up a cigarette and blowing out an insouciant plume of smoke in her direction.
Buffy waved a hand with annoyance clearly written on her features. “Rude much?”
“Come on now, love. You know I can get ruder.”
She made a sound of disgust in the back of her throat and pushed past him. “Go back to LA, Spike. You got a girlfriend now and…just go.”
Okay, this was not how the plan was supposed to go, he thought with a slight hysterical panic. She should be falling at his feet right now, not sending him away.
At her blatant rejection, his attitude shifted. “Just spend one afternoon with me,” he begged.
“And I think I speak for everyone, and by everyone I totally mean me, when I say: ‘huh’?”
“Nothing untoward.” He flicked some ash from the head of his cigarette. “Just you and me, something to eat, maybe talk a walk or catch a movie. As friends. That’s all I’m asking for and if you don’t want to know me after that, then you can kick my ass out of this bloody town. Okay?”
Buffy raised a perfectly manicured digit to her lips and began to nibble on the end of it. Nail-biting was a habit that Buffy thought she’d given up years ago, but apparently Spike had the ability to bring out the worst in her.
She couldn’t believe that she was actually considering spending the afternoon with him. Firstly, he’d gone all stalker-boy on her, showing up on Sunnydale and following her to the store. And to make matters worse, he was dating Cordelia Chase. So nothing could happen between them.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finally told him.
“Come on, Summers. We have a few things to say and we really need to chat them out.”
“We got nothing to say, Spike.”
“Of course we do, pet. We can talk about all the fun we’ve been having since we last saw each other. Hey, want to hear about all the bloody fun I had doing community service because I knocked out your ex-honeypot, while I was defending you?”
Buffy could hear the slightly accusatory tone in his voice as he spoke and relented in her coldness a little. Guilt over the way she’d reacted to him that night took another bite out of her ass. With Tara’s help she’d come to recognize that Spike’s feelings for her made him protective over her. Instead of channeling his actions into anger, she’d managed to learn how to channel them into gratitude.
She licked her lips and finally plucked up the courage to say what she’d been marinating on since the night of the after party. “I appreciate what you did for me with Riley.”
Spike smiled a genuine smile. “I did it because that bugger shouldn’t even get to stand within a thousand miles of your light.”
Buffy held back a laugh. “Well, thanks. I get that you thought you were being all white knight-y. But I don’t actually need to be saved, you know. I can take care of myself.”
“Ooh, now I’d love to watch you…taking care of yourself.” He licked his lips and caressed the soft curves of her body with his heated gaze.
“Don’t get any ideas, buddy!” she murmured. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
“Last time we touched, you were very interested in my ten-foot pole,” he jeered.
“Conceited much?”
“You love it,” he grinned.
“You remember I didn’t actually touch your…boy parts, right?”
“Unfortunately I do remember that little tidbit. Maybe we should rectify it.”
“I don’t think so, Spike.” She shook her head, hating the fact that his suggestion provoked a warm flush of moisture to coat the lining of her panties. “We can’t do that right now.”
“Right now? So you mean maybe…someday?”
Buffy was about to give him that little crumb he seemed to be begging for when the image of Cordelia Chase filled her mind’s eye. God, he had a girlfriend and he was flirting with her!
Apparently he still hadn’t changed.
“Yeah,” she said snidely. “Our first date can be figure skating in hell. It’s never gonna happen. You just don’t change do you Spike!”
“What are you…?”
“You got a fucking girlfriend and here you are flirting with me. Every time I think maybe you’ve changed, maybe you’re less of a raving asshole than you used be. And you always manage to prove me wrong. Well here’s a newsflash for you, buddy. Cheaters like you don’t interest me. So you can get the hell out of here and crawl back to your slut, okay? ‘Cause I’m not interested in you.”
Buffy’s anger was taking over her body. She wasn’t sure why it was having such a profound effect on her but it was like the fury was controlling her instead of the other way around.
She wouldn’t let him hurt her again.
“Don’t say that!” he yelled, grabbing her forearm desperately, trying to pull her to him. The blonde struggled in his grip, cursing him. With hysterical fever rising inside of her gut, Buffy’s hand snapped back, clipping him across his face. The slap wasn’t hard but it stung.
In more ways than one.
Before the shocked blond could respond, Buffy jogged away, leaving Spike in her wake. His hand shot up to his face to make sure that nothing was broken but luckily everything still seemed intact.
Nevertheless, he cursed under his breath. Phase One of his jealousy plan had gone about as badly as a plan could go. Maybe he should have listened to Clem’s objections. His friend had been hounding him with reasons not to do this for the past couple of weeks, ever since he formulated the little plan.
Still fingering his stinging cheekbone, Spike sighed. “Know you’re buggered when the only positive to a plan is that you didn’t end up with a wonky schnozzle,” he muttered under his breath before sinking down to sit on the curb.
Okay, so the first part of the plan had pretty much bombed. But he wasn’t giving up yet.
He had another trick up his sleeve.