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Thank you guys for the tremendous support you've given this fic. I was a little afraid to post it b/c of the major angst, but it was an idea that just wouldn't leave me alone. If you have the time and the patience to stick through this one with all the angst, I think you'll find it worth your while. At least, I hope so!! Oh, and just a note, pretend that the songs buffy is singing are what she wrote, not just doing covers of. Makes the whole story more in depth that way. :) Enjoy!

Chapter Three

Buffy flopped herself back into her couch with a heavy sigh. “Wes, are you making dinner?” She called to her boyfriend as she flicked on the TV.

Wes came out of the kitchen a moment later and studied her. “You all right?”

“Yeah, why?” She stiffened.

“You look a little tired and stressed. Have a rough day at
work?”

“Little bit, yeah.”

“Troubled teens?”

She rolled her eyes, “everyday there are troubled teens. Just goes with the territory of being in high school. It just seems that there can be this incredible lull where no one wants to talk to you because god forbid you actually TALK to some—“ She stopped, remembering her conversation with Spike that day and how she’d told him she didn’t want to talk to him about their issues. He was in pain, she could tell that much. It brought out feelings in her that she had thought that were long gone.

“Buffy?”

She looked up at Wes, “huh?”

“You were telling me about lulls and then you just stopped talking in mid-sentence.”

“Oh I did, didn’t I? It was just a really busy day. Felt like I got slammed all at once. Thankfully Robin senses when I’m strung out and he let me take a long lunch. How was your day?”

Wesley grinned at her and pushed at her to sit up. She sat up, “massage?”

“I think you need it. Am I right?”

She nodded and closed her eyes as Wesley’s hands began their magic. “Does your extra tension have anything to do with seeing Spike last night?”

Buffy froze and moved away from him. She turned so she was looking at him. “No. What makes you say that?”

He gave her a look, “Buffy, come on. Be honest with me. You had a relationship with the man. You were going to have his child. You can’t tell me that seeing him didn’t make you feel something.”

“Yeah, it made me disgusted with myself.”

“Disgusted? Why?”

“Because it made me remember how young and stupid I was,” she stood up and started for the kitchen. “Were you making dinner or do you want me to?”

Wesley followed her. “Buffy, if you want to talk about it, I’m here to listen.”

“You know I’m really tired of people wanting to talk and not listening when I say I DON’T WANT TO!” Buffy shouted at him.
Wesley was taken back and Buffy felt guilt. It wasn’t his fault she was so messed up. She came around to him and put her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Forgive me?”

“I won’t push you if you don’t want to talk. I just. . . you were very quiet when we came home last night. Buffy, after everything you’ve told me about you and Spike and your past, I can’t conceive that you can see him for the first time after ten years and have that history with him and not feel anything. I don’t want it to be something that festers inside you until you explode.”

“Now you sound like my psychologist.”

“Well, I can’t help that. I love you Buffy. You know that right?”

She looked up at him, “I do know. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for loving you Buffy. That was just simply unavoidable.”

“No, I mean thank you for being here, for putting up with me when I’m acting like a raving lunatic.”

Wesley pressed a kiss to her lips and pushed some hair away from her face. “Let me take you out for dinner. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds like just what the doctor ordered.”


“How has your week been Buffy?” Dr. Tara McClay, Buffy’s psychologist, asked the following day, beginning their weekly therapy session.

Buffy sighed heavily. “Not good.”

“What happened?”

“I ran into Spike this week.”

Tara’s eyes widened. “Spike? THE Spike?”

Buffy nodded, “the one and only. Thank God.”

“What happened? Did he come to see you?”

“No, it seems that he’s moved to L.A. and happened to have
stumbled into the bar that we were playing at.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, I did. Unfortunately,” she frowned, looking away.

“Why unfortunately? Haven’t you wanted to know how’s he’s been?”

“Wondering is one thing, having it right in your face when you least expect it is quite another. I didn’t have time to prepare.”

Tara gave her a sympathetic smile, “you can’t prepare for running into an old friend like that Buffy.”

“Old friend?” Buffy let out a short laugh. “That’s funny. ‘Friend’ is not exactly what I’d use to describe Spike.”

“Then what word would you use?”

“Depends on which Buffy you’re talking to.”

“For fun, let’s try the sixteen year old Buffy.”

“He was my world. My love, my life. Everything to me. I fell in love with at first sight, but you know all that.”

“Tell me again,” Tara encouraged.

“He was the bad ass senior, and I was the lowly sophomore. He was the cool British transfer that everyone wanted to know. I was such a little mouse then. I didn’t ever think for myself, I let others control me and dictate my every move. I didn’t trust myself enough to make decisions or make the right choices. Not until I met Spike anyway. He FORCED me to make my own decisions and make my own choices even if I ended up falling flat on my face while doing it. He always said that there was no such thing as a wrong choice because every choice you make builds you as the person you are and prepares you for the next step you have to make. God, I sucked it up. I started to defy my parents and let me tell you that was a bold move in the Summers household.”
“Because your mother and father were very controlling of you.”

“I couldn’t make a move without them telling me what I was doing wrong.”

“And Spike gave you courage.”

Buffy nodded, “he did. It felt like he woke me up from this slumber I was in. Made me see things differently and it was like a drug. How could I have not fallen for him?”

Tara smiled warmly. “And then?”

“Then my parents ordered me to stop seeing him. Said they’d transfer me if I continued to see him. I listened and I told Spike what they said and he told me that he wouldn’t hear of it. That he loved me and I loved him and we were going to be together and that’s all there was to it.”

Tara handed Buffy the tissue box as Buffy continued, “so we saw each other at school and I came up with shoddy excuses to see him after that. A sleepover here, study night there. Movies. . . you know anything.
He was my first everything.” Buffy stopped and wiped her tears away. She took a deep breath. “The first time we had sex was when. . . when I got pregnant. When I told Spike about it, he was shocked at first and then so happy. He wasn’t as scared as I was because he had it all planned. He’d graduate in May and go to Sunnydale University all the while finding me the best tutor so that when I gave birth to our child, I could still finish high school. From there, we’d both apply for university in England. We’d move there, get married and find an old sweet apartment to raise our child and hire a nanny to take care of our baby while we went to class. He made it sound so real and so doable that I fully believed that it was going to happen. I could practically TASTE it. You know when you want something SO BAD you can SEE it, you can FEEL it? That’s how I felt. I could see our apartment that he described, I could see everything.
The night that we made these plans was the last time I saw him. It was drizzling outside and it was dark and cold. I had on this huge jacket and a knit hat. Spike drove me to the end of my road and he promised that the next day was when we’d confront our parents and not to worry and to make sure I got sleep because it was going to get a little bumpy. I woke up in the middle of the night having the worst cramps I’d ever had and the bed was full of blood.
My mother freaked out, my dad stayed calm. She was yelling and all I could think of was my poor baby and Spike and how I needed him. I managed to call him just before the ambulance came. Everything was a blur after that.
All I remember was that I needed Spike. I needed him to hold me and tell me that our dreams were still going to come true and that we’d still be together. I needed to know that he still loved me even though I’d lost our baby.
Instead, my mother came to tell me that if I saw him again, she’d get him arrested for ‘raping’ me. Even though I wanted him, even though it was consensual. She transferred me out of Sunnydale High faster than I could blink and Spike and his father went back to England.
Now he wants to talk. I saw him yesterday morning on my way to work and he wants to talk to me about everything. He thinks we have a second chance to make it right again. To heal and close the chapter so that we can move on. I told him no. God, I’m a fucking high school counselor trying to help kids from making these kind of mistakes every day and I can’t even help myself.”

Tara came over and held her patient—and her friend—as she sobbed out her memories. “Buffy, I can understand how this pains you and how hard it was for you to have to deal with all that. But Buffy, Spike’s right. You have a second chance here to put all that behind you so that it doesn’t eat at you any longer. When you came to see me you talked to me about breaking free from old patterns and making amends with your past. You wanted closure from it. Now you have a chance to do it, he was standing right in front of you and wanted to talk. Why wouldn’t you want to talk to him and get that closure?”


Buffy left her session that day feeling emotionally drained and not wanting to be in the presence of anyone. Even though she hardly ever drank, she was seriously contemplating it now. And Tara wondered why she didn’t want to talk to Spike. Just talking ABOUT him caused memories and feelings to resurface that she just wanted to bury. WithOUT his help.
In the end Buffy decided to stop and get one drink. Just a nice wine to calm her nerves. She found a nice little bar at the end of Tara’s office and wandered in. Sitting down in the corner, she ordered a glass of red wine and she pulled out the notebook she always carried with her in the hopes of writing some lyrics. She was working busily when a dark shadow loomed over her.

“Hey pet.”

Her head snapped up and in one flash of his calling her ‘pet’, she saw the bad boy all in black smirking down at her as she sat on the grass outside of Sunnydale High reading a book.

“Don’t call me that,” she reprimanded him firmly.

He faltered a bit and then sat down. “What are you doing?”

“Writing. What are you doing? You just seem to be popping up everywhere I go.”

“Don’t you think that’s a sign?”

“That you should move back to Seattle? Yes.”

He shook his head, a grin playing on his handsome face. “No, that maybe we need to talk. That maybe the universe is saying we HAVE to talk.”

Buffy closed her eyes and let her head loll back onto the booth. She looked back at him to find him watching her intently.

“Ok, fine. We’ll talk. I really can’t do it right now though okay? I’ve had a long day and I’m wiped.”

“You okay luv?”

“Don’t call me that either. I’m fine. I don’t need your concern.”

“Old habits die hard.”

“Get over it,” she snapped and then instantly regretted it. Tara would slap her hands as if she were a child if she heard her now. This was not constructive at all. And what place did she have to tell Spike to get over anything? She was just as bad.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“I understand Buffy. Can I call you Buffy?”

She shot him a withering glare and he shrugged.
“How about tomorrow night? The park a couple blocks over? Can you meet me there say around five?” She finally suggested on a weary sigh.

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Great. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go home and find my back massager.”

“Back Massager?”

“Wesley,” she told him absently and gathered her things.

“You happy with him Buffy?” Spike asked softly.

She looked up at him, nodded. “I am. He’s. . . stable and kind and he knows everything there is to know and he’s still there.”

“Do you love him?”

“Did he give you the ‘I’m her boyfriend’ speech the other
night?” She smiled at the thought.

“He did, but that’s not why I’m asking.”

“Oh, I see. You’re asking so you can put your mind at rest that I found a nice man to love me. Well, consider your mind put to rest then. I have. Night Spike.”

Sliding out of the booth, she didn’t hear the faint “night Buffy.”





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