Chapter 28 – Decisive Moment
The sound of the clock ticking in the hallway outside their room was the loudest sound in the cold cavernous place that he called home. It was just a moment in his life, yet Spike could feel everything shift in those few seconds after he confessed to Buffy. He waited, his body tensed for the dark lonely days, which were so characteristic of his life. There was no way Buffy would stay with him. He didn’t deserve the light she carried within her soul. After all, he was already condemned to hell. Cast there by the unloving hands of his parents and trained well in the rules by the love of his best friend and former wife.
Spike didn’t deserve the hope Buffy gave simply by being herself.
Pride in his debauchery somehow overpowered him. It was a foolish thing, but pride was all he had left. He lifted his chin as he waited in vain. She didn’t run away. She didn’t look at him as if he were the lowest being that ever existed. Instead, she waited patiently. He wasn’t sure if she was hoping that it was a lie, or if she thought, he was playing a joke. It seemed to be a standoff worthy of heaven and hell itself.
“I know,” he repeated, shifting his shoulders back in an attempt to be more worthy of her decision.
“Tell me the truth,” she demanded finally, taking a step back. “All of it.”
“Which parts? The lies and deceptions leading to that night? Do you want to hear details? That while I was working on my book, she was out fucking another man?” Spike turned his head away to stare out the window. He took a deep breath hoping it would keep the tremor from his voice. No weakness. It only led to the place where you were most vulnerable. In his case, it was his heart, it always had been. “Maybe you want to hear about identifying the still warm corpse who was once my wife. “ He swung his gaze back to look into his present wife’s eyes. “Or maybe how the press and the police were questioning me before I could even comprehend, much less accept, what had happened? What exactly do you want to hear, Buffy?”
“Oh William.”
Buffy’s voice was full of pity for a man he knew had died when he was still young and dreaming of a life filled with family and love. It made his stomach churn in revulsion. Not because a part of him still wanted it, but because it could never be.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” she continued. “If I could make the pain go away, I would.”
“No, you wouldn’t. If you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t have betrayed me.”
It was easier to be defensive. To pretend he was the one who was right, instead of the one who was grasping at the last shreds of his soul.
“Maybe I did betray you.” She gingerly sat on the end of the bed with her feet tucked beneath her, while her fingers absently rubbed her forehead. “There’s so many things I don’t understand…guess I’m just an idiot. I just love you so much,” she worried her bottom lip before turning to look at him again.
“I don’t think you understand what love is,” Spike retorted, his hands fisted on his hips. “Guess I was wrong to marry a kid who wants things her own way.”
“Quit making excuses and looking for a way out of this marriage. If you want out just say so.”
Yet, he couldn’t say it. He didn’t want out. His heart demanded that he stay so he stood there looking down at the woman who held heaven in her hands like an oasis in the desert. For a moment, he considered making love to her in hopes that it would make this night disappear from their lives. Inside of her heated, welcoming body, he could feel like the man he wanted to be.
“Please, just tell me who did it.” Buffy was staring up at him with hopeful innocence. “You said you know. Tell me.”
“Why? So you can leave me with righteous indignation, pointing fingers as you run to the press to ruin me?”
“No. I would never do that to you. All I want is for there to be no more secrets between us. You said you know. Tell me so we can find a way through this together.”
It came as a prayer, at first barely heard but louder with each word. “The night Drusilla was murdered, the five of us, me, Xander and Cordy, Giles, and Jenny, were all in my living room, looking at one another and wondering which one of us did it. Giles finally took control.” Spike smiled at the memory. Despite the tragedy, it was one time in his life that he felt like he truly belonged. “He did his whole stuffy Englishman routine. The walking around with his hand in his pocket, the cleaning of his glasses before he finally said something.”
“What did he say?” Buffy prompted when Spike hesitated in imitation of his friend and mentor. She wasn’t as patient as they’d been that night. Lost children looking for direction, or hope, just like Buffy was at this moment.
“Giles looked at each of us, and said that we were the most likely to do it. We had the most reasons, especially me. He told us we were never to confess. Not to each other, to anyone, not even aloud to ourselves. If it were our sin, then the guilt alone would keep us company. To save our asses we were to protect each other, because if one went down then we all would in one way or another. We would never tell our suspicions or anything we might know to each other, the cops, or the press. And we’ve kept our word to this day.”
Buffy hopped off the bed, and pinned him to the spot with eyes blazing. “That’s it? You know who murdered Drusilla? No, you don’t! You have no idea at all because you’re all idiots!” She threw her hands wide. “Did you ever think that your vow of silence was protecting someone else? That maybe none of you did it. Did any of you confess or agree with Giles that you did it.”
“It was one of us.”
“Was it you?”
“Buffy…don’t ask me that, please. I promised that I would never confess if I did, or implicate one of them.”
“That’s bullshit.” Buffy turned away from him, crossing her arms so that he could only see her backside.
Angry and frustrated, Spike grabbed at his hair, pulling at it until it stood up in small thatches. ”This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” he moaned. “Why? Why? Why is this happening to me?” Suddenly, she was there, wrapping him in her arms.
“It’s okay. Shhh, it’s all right.”
“No,” Spike screamed, trying to push her away. He’d thought it was Drusilla for a moment, with her soft cooing way of comforting. It had been a hard lesson, but one he learned quickly. It had only been a lure, so she could strike with the speed of a viper, leaving him filled with her poison. Yet, he always came back for more. “I can’t take this…can’t do this. She’s gone. Don’t you understand that? Let it go.” His hands clenched unbidden beside him. “I don’t give a shit about what happened. She’s dead. The world is better off without the conniving bitch and all her bloody selfish whining.”
Still she didn’t back away from him. He didn’t understand why she still held him. Curiosity and wonder made a slight wedge in his overloaded emotions. He inhaled deeply, holding it until she made a move, a gesture, anything to show where this fight was going to head. He was the one who gave first when she moved. He believed she was ready to give up, but he saw her hand, stopped midway to his cheek. Comfort was his if he would only accept it. She waited until he relaxed, and then softly stroked his face until he looked up.
“All right. I won’t do anymore digging, but you have to promise me something.”
“What?” Immediately he was tense again while he waited for the ultimatum that he knew was coming. Buffy smiled, soft as the rain on a spring morning. Love overflowed from her eyes in a soft stream that made him ache from the wanting. God, he wanted to believe in her and the strength of the love they shared. There were so many scars around his heart that he wasn’t even sure if he ever could. Why hadn’t Buffy just stayed the sweet innocent he’d first met? Why couldn’t she just have been happy to stand on the pedestal he’d put her on? It was so hard to breathe. “What is it you want from me?”
“I just want you…all of you. Not just the parts that you want to give me. Not just the parts that escaped unscathed somehow from your first marriage. I want all of you; heart, body and soul. I want to feel it’s just us when we make love. I want us to fight for our dream of the happily ever after. I want us to have a real marriage…a forever thing with our house…and babies…and…”
Spike turned from her to stare out the window. How could he tell her that he could never give her what she wanted? Her dream, no, his dream of that kind of forever could never happen. He shrugged his shoulders, unable to form the words that would only cause more unhappiness.
“Please talk to me,” Buffy pleaded, pulling on his arm so that he would turn around.
The woman he loved was realizing fairy tales didn’t exist. He watched the hope slowly driven from her eyes. Desperation taking its place as the seconds ticked by in silence. His silence. It was an irrefutable fact. Life wasn’t fair. She was already familiar with that lesson from the losses she’d suffered. She thought he would bring her dreams to reality and he couldn’t do it. Finally her eyes filled with tears as her heart broke.
“Don’t you want that too?” Buffy cracked, her voice stumbling over a sob as it welled from deep within. She sounded almost broken. “I said I’d give you what you want. Why? Why can’t I have what I want?”
When he didn’t answer or even look at her, she pounded on his chest in an effort to storm her way through to his heart. He grabbed her wrist. Twice she’d believed in love and twice she was wrong. One day she would be like him. He swallowed back the rest of his shame, and gave her what she craved.
“Buffy, I don’t think I can give you what you want.”
“Why not?” She yanked back, but he still held onto her, unwilling to let her go. “You can’t or you won’t? Why did you marry me? Why, if you didn’t really want marriage…a family?”
“I saw you that first morning at breakfast,” he whispered, pulling her into his arms. For only a second, she fought him before she gave up and took the comfort that he offered. He played with the silky length of her hair. “You were everything I didn’t have anymore. You were light, and purity, and beauty. I was so selfish to take you to my bed…to my home, but I wanted to touch your light so badly. To feel the warmth of the sun for the first time in what seemed like centuries. You gave me hope. I love you. The way you giggle, the way you eat ice cream like it’s going out of style, the soft snores in the middle of the night, and god, I love the little noises you make when you cum. That’s why I married you.”
Buffy tilted her head so that could look up at him. “You don’t want our own home, and a family?”
“I do,” he closed his eyes so that he couldn’t see the disappointment in her eyes. “Luv, I’d love to have babies with you, but…we tried, Dru and me. She never conceived. Not even a flicker of a chance in almost a year. She said she’d been pregnant before me so it had to be me.”
“And you believed her? God Will, she lied to you constantly, why the hell would you believe her that time? Plus, she was cheating on you with almost everyone you know, how would you even know if it was your baby?”
“Look, I know I’m a bloody fool, you don’t have to tell me again. I just wanted to believe her…I hoped that a child would change her…make her softer. Maybe we would’ve made it work.”
He was crying now, too. Wanting to disappear, he let her go, and he sank to the floor, wrapping his arms around his legs so he could bury his face against his knees. Everything hurt. He was a fool. He knew it, but he’d hoped that somewhere along the way that he could rewrite the past. Like a scene in one of his books that didn’t sound right. Just delete a moment here or there, add in something else so the past would be more pleasant and Drusilla would love him the way he’d loved her.
“Will, she had a problem.” Buffy knelt beside him. “Nothing you could have done, no amount of love, or a baby could have changed that as long as she didn’t want to change. I’m here. I don’t want or need anyone else. Why can’t you let me love you? Why won’t you let go?”
“I want to. I can’t. It’s me.” He finally confessed an echo of what he’d always known. “I was beneath her just like I’m beneath you.”
“No, you’re not.” She pulled him into her arms, and he let her rock him like a mother would a child. He could feel her desperation in the trembling of her hands and the rapid beating of her heart beneath his ear. “We’ll find a way through this. I do love you. I want to spend my life with you and if we can we’ll have those babies.”
It was too much to hope for, but Spike couldn’t help but let a little light into his broken soul. He placed a hand on her stomach. It was too wonderful of an idea. All he had to do was trust Buffy and her words of undying love. It was so simple.
Wasn’t it?
to be continued…
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