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Chapter Two

Spike felt as if he were in a cloud from the night before. Seeing Buffy again after so long made him contemplative, reminiscent and depressed. One half of him wanted to see her again so they could talk, maybe find a way to make peace with the past while the other part wanted to leave things be. What would be the point in bringing up the past?

Well, to heal obviously.

So, it was in a thoughtful daze that Spike stood in line at the local coffee shop waiting for his extra strong coffee to be done so he could somehow cut through the fog in his brain from lack of sleep.

"Hey Marty, usual please."

His head snapped to the side. There she was again. She looked relaxed and comfortable in her jeans and shirt, her purse slung across her shoulders. Her hair bouncy and free, her face almost glowing.

She looked over to him and appeared surprised to see him there.

"Hi Buffy," he said to her, smiling as best he could.

"Hi. Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah, fancy that."

Grabbing his coffee that was finally done, he paid and stood there, unsure of what to do. She took the decision out of his hands.

"See ya," she said brightly and promptly turned away from him to accept her coffee.

He gave her a nod and went on his not-so-merry way. He stopped outside with his coffee and a paper under his arm. He looked longingly down the busy street, knowing he could continue on in ignorance and put this behind him. That was the problem though. So much had to be ‘put behind him' with no closure, no peace and always wondering in the back of his mind. No, he wasn't just going to go. He was going to talk to her. She came out and nearly walked right into him.

"Spike," she breathed and took a step back, mindful of her coffee.

"You on your way to work?"

She nodded. "You?"

"No prospects yet, but I'm not worried. What do you do these days Buffy?"

"Lots of things. What about you? What have you done with yourself?"

Okay, so she wasn't exactly forthcoming with the information. He fought the urge to yell ‘fucking tell me SOMETHING!'

"I'm a journalist Rock journalist specifically. I just came from Seattle to see what good I could do here. What do you do?"

She tilted her head to the side, "you moved here from Seattle? I thought you were back in London."

The words hung heavy in the air. He swallowed the lump in his throat her words had caused to form. "I was there after. . . but I came back to the States a few years ago and settled in Seattle. I got tired of it and figured LA might have more to offer me."

She nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. "But you don't have a job lined up?"

"Not yet."

"Little risky isn't it?"

He shrugged, "you know me. I take chances."

Her cheery and yet distanced neutral façade came to a screeching halt. Her expression darkened and her green eyes became cold. "Yeah, I know. I don't take chances anymore myself. Grew out of that phase. If you'll excuse me," and she started to walk past him.

"Buffy, can we talk?" He asked, surprised by the slight whine with a hint of desperation in his voice.

She blinked, "we are talking."

"No Buffy, you know what I mean."

She looked down and then up at him, squinting from the brightness of the sun. Shielding her eyes, she frowned slightly. "I don't know if that's such a good idea. It was nice to see you again though."

"Was it? Was it nice to see me? Because seeing you. . . I don't know if it could exactly be described as ‘nice.'"

She glared at him, "gee, thanks."

"It's hard Buffy, you know what I mean. Isn't it hard for you?"

"It's the past. Move on, live life to the fullest, leave the past in the past and well, you get it. That's what we're supposed to do right?"

"The angry girl I saw up on stage last night didn't seem as if she'd completely gotten over it," he countered. He just wanted her to at least admit something. Something. . . just SOMETHING.

"A lot of the things I sing about have nothing to do with you
Spike. Good to see you've gotten over being completely self-absorbed."

That stung. "That's not true Buffy, and you know it. I loved you. I loved our baby."

She took a few steps back as if his words had packed a punch and the force of it made her fall back a few.

She stared at the ground for a minute, her mouth in a firm line before she took a deep breath and looked back up at him, her back ramrod straight. "I have to go Spike. I'm glad that you're doing well and as you have seen, I'm doing well too. Let's just. . . let that be enough all right?"

He shook his head, "I don't know if I can do that Buffy. Too much happened for us to just go our separate ways like this."

"We managed for the past ten years," she told him, whatever anger she had been trying to contain came back now, full force. "If you were so goddamn curious about what happened to me, you could have called or written or anything. But you didn't."

"I wasn't ALLOWED to! If I remember correctly your MOTHER told me that if I contacted you in ANY way I'd be arrested on statutory rape. You knew I had to go. I was SENT away. What did you expect me to do?"

She shook her head and looked down again. "I don't know," she muttered. "Just a school girl fantasy. There was all that time after, I thought. . . but you didn't. It's dumb and it's pointless now."

Spike was suddenly hit with the fact that she wasn't really talking to him right now, this was something she told herself, something she kept telling herself. "Buffy. I didn't because I didn't want to hurt you. I thought by staying away it was the best for you."

She looked up at him and nodded, "and for you, right?"
Now he looked down. "Well, yeah."

"I don't hold that against you William. I did once upon a time, but not anymore. I had to grow up and get over those teenage fantasies that you would come back on your stead and whisk me away to your kingdom where we'd live happily ever after." She stared into her cup of coffee. "Things like that don't exist and I know that now."

He moved closer to her, the urge to hold her suddenly overwhelming. "I loved you Buffy. I loved you so much it hurt," he slapped a hand over his heart. "I would have done anything to make it all better for us. Maybe that's why we've seen each other again. To make it better."

She gazed up at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. He moved to wipe them away when she moved away from him, quickly. She was shaking her head. "No, I don't want to do that Spike. That means having to reach back and remember. I don't want to remember. I live on a diet of denial and it's been working for me. I want to keep it that way."

"It's not right Buffy, it's not right and you know it."

"What do you want from me?" She exclaimed.

"I want to TALK to you. I want to know what you were going through, if it was the same as me. If you needed me as much as I needed you. If you loved me, if you hated me, if you blamed me the way your parents did. I want to know what made you finally leave their home and move here to LA. I want to know if you've loved since then. If you still dream of the big house with the white picket fence. If you thought of me. If you still hurt. If you can still have children. I want to know ABOUT you Buffy."

"I don't want to talk about it!" She yelled at him. "All of that stuff hurts too much to remember. I just want to forget it happened and live my new life. That old Buffy? She doesn't exist anymore. She was a wimp and she was dumb. She still believed in fairy tales and that love healed and conquered all. This Buffy standing here before you? Me? I DON'T. I grew up. I had no choice."

"I took it from you. Your innocence," he whispered, unable to look, at her.

"I was there too, William. I wanted you too, remember?"
He looked up at her, his own eyes brimming with tears now. "I remember," he whispered. "We have a second chance Buffy—"

"I have a boyfriend. There is no second chance for us."

"No, I mean. . . We have a second chance to fix the wrong things and make them right."

She shook her head, her bottom lip quivering. "No we don't. In order for that to happen, I would have to have my baby back."

"Our baby," he whispered fiercely.

"Our baby died the night we did," she said mournfully and wiped at her tears furiously.

"We needed each other that night," Spike told her.

A sob escaped her before, "I can't do this" and she bolted. Spike stood there and watched her go, feeling the life drain out of him the way it had that night so many years ago.

FLASHBACK

"What's happening? Why can't I see her? Is she all right?" Spike was frantic as he tried to get around his father and get to Buffy. She had called, frantic and in excruciating pain before she was rushed to the hospital. She'd called him in secret, telling him she had to go now because something was wrong with the baby.

"You son of a bitch! You stay away from my daughter!" Joyce was screaming, Hank, her husband, trying to keep her back.

Spike was in a blind panic, he didn't care that Joyce was mad at him, didn't even care if his Da was mad, he just knew that his Buffy was hurt and she needed him. She was scared, he knew she had to be scared. And he was so frightened by the thought that something had happened to her and to their baby. They hadn't even had a chance to tell their parents yet. He hadn't had a chance to give her his mothers ring and propose to her properly. He promised her he'd be with her every step of the way and now, now everyone was keeping him back.

"Mrs. Summers, please—" His father tried to stay calm through the screeching woman before them sobbing about her baby.

"You keep away from her. Do you understand? You keep away from her or I'll have you arrested," Joyce was yelling as a kind doctor directed her away to calm her down.

Hank, with his jaw clenching, came up to them. He stared Giles down. "Listen to me all right? Things got out of hand and it went too far. I told your son and I told Buffy that they weren't allowed to see each other. You agreed Rupert."

"I didn't know, Hank. I didn't know that they were. How was I supposed to know when you didn't either?"

Hank held up a hand and closed his eyes. "Keep your son away from her. They aren't to see each other anymore, understand? I don't even want them walking by each other in the halls of Sunnydale High. We're taking Buffy out of school. We're sending her to a private school—"

"She hates private schools. I'll leave her alone, just don't—" Spike pleaded.

"Shut UP!" Hank bellowed sharply. He took another deep sigh. "Keep him away from her Rupert or I will press charges. She's a minor. He's not. I can get him good. Understand?"

Rupert nodded, jaw clenching. Hank started to walk away.

"Our baby," Spike whimpered. "That's my child too!"

Hank spun around. "Your baby is dead. Buffy lost the baby."
END FLASHBACK

At that moment, Spike felt the urge to crumple to the ground and sob just as he had done that night. The last time Spike had seen Buffy was when he'd dropped her off a few yards away from her house so that her parents wouldn't see her sneaking in. He never got the chance to comfort her; they never got the chance to comfort each other. It was something he thought about for many years. Which was why he couldn't live on the same diet of denial. He needed to heal and understand why. And he needed Buffy in order to do just that.





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