Chapter 24
Chapter Notes: thank you, thank you, thank you!
“What?” Buffy whispered, staring up at him wide-eyed and in disbelief.
Spike reached out, cupping the side of her face with one hand. He gazed into her eyes, his expression soft, and his eyes tender. “I’m in love with you, Buffy Summers,” he said deeply. “I have been for some time now and–”
She shook her head, and pulled his hand from her face. “You can’t be.”
“I am,” he frowned. “Why are you upset by this? I thought you’d be happy to know that you’re not alone.”
“What about my mom?” she demanded.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not right! Just because you say you feel the same–”
“What do you mean because I ‘say’ I feel the same, I do! And your mom…she’s not here, Buffy.”
“Yeah, thanks Sherlock,” she said dryly, and then threw up her arms. “Hence the goddamn problem!” She started pacing, fidgeting once more. She pointed at him accusingly. “You were the one married to her and now you sound so callous about it. God!”
“You think you’re the only one that’s had a hard time of it, Buffy?” he demanded.
“Excuse me, but visitation is over now.”
“This is not a good time to call visitation over!” Spike bellowed to Beatrice, who had just entered the room, undetected until she spoke. “We’re in the middle of something right now, Bea, can you give us a few?”
“I’ve already given you more than a ‘few’,” Beatrice snapped. “It’s time for Buffy’s therapy session.”
“This is fucking therapy! Tell Dr. Giles to get his ass in here if he wants to fucking help.”
“Spike!” Buffy exclaimed and put her hand on his arm.
Looking down at her, into her brilliant green eyes that were wide with uncertainty and fear, he immediately calmed. His breathing slowed to a normal pace and he kept her gaze.
“Do you need to be locked up too?” she asked lightly.
Spike laughed nervously, “If it meant I could be close to you–”
Buffy moved her hand off his arm and shut her eyes. Shaking her head, she whispered, “Don’t say that.”
“Why? Why can’t I say it, Buffy?” he begged.
“Because it’s not real! You’re just…just transferring what you felt for my mom onto me!”
“No, I’m bloody not and if you’d listen to me you stubborn chit–”
“Did you just call me a shit?”
Spike let out a roar of impatience and soon two, what could only be security guards by the size of them, came into the room. Spike sighed, defeated, and held up his hands. “I’m going,” he told them. Looking down at Buffy he vowed, “This isn’t over.”
In a moment of inspiration, he leaned down and kissed her. Just lingering enough to be considered more than just a peck. “I do love you.” he whispered and headed out the door, followed by the burly security guards.
Buffy touched her fingers to her lips, the sensation of his kiss lingering blissfully. “I love you too,” she whispered and a shiver ran through her.
********
“You’re not crying today,” Giles observed.
Buffy turned her head slowly to him, after having been staring off into space contemplating reality and fantasy. Had Spike really told her he loved her? Had that been real? Or had that been fantasy? Though she hadn’t imagined in her fantasy that he’d be telling her whilst she was locked up, and in her fantasy she wouldn’t have such a reaction to that proclamation. In her fantasy life, she would throw her arms around him and kiss him senseless. So, yeah, that had to have been reality.
Reality blew donkeys.
“No, I’m not,” Buffy said finally. Hell, as long as they were both stating the obvious.
“Did you have a nice visit with Spike?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘nice’.”
“What would you call it then?”
“Informative.”
“How so?”
“I told him I loved him, Giles. It just came out. He was pushing and pushing me to tell him what was bothering me and I’m…I’m a horrible liar. I really am. I can’t lie to save my life and I couldn’t sit there and have him ask me all that was bothering me and not at least let him know there was a missing link to it all. Not that what I told him wasn’t enough, cause hi, full plate here with the mom dying and the dad being a prick. Oh yes, and a hefty side of guilt for multiple things.”
“Why don’t we start with that guilt? What do you feel guilty for exactly?”
“That I didn’t make amends with my mother before she died for one,” she began to tick off on her fingers.
“Buffy, there is nothing you can do about that now. Spending your time beating yourself up over it will not help; it will only make you feel worse. Do you think your mother would want you to spend your life in regret and self-pity?”
“No…”
“I want you to do something for me in your journal. You ready? Listening?”
“I am.”
“I want you to write her a letter. Tell her everything. All of it. I know you have anger toward her, and I want you to get that out too. The next time we meet, I want you to read it to me.”
“You know,” she mused thoughtfully, “I did something similar to that with Spike once.”
“Oh?”
Buffy nodded, “I told him how I felt, unloaded on him as if he were my mom.”
“And how did that go?”
“It felt good, actually. For a little while anyway.”
“Then each time you do it, it will get better and better. I think for that day we’ll schedule our session outside, what do you think?”
“Isn’t freaking cold out there!”
Giles smiled, “I think some fresh air would do you some good, don’t you think?”
Buffy sighed, “Yeah, actually, it really would.”
“Tell me some more about your visit with Spike.”
Buffy heaved a heavy sigh, filling her lungs to capacity, “He told me he was in love with me too.” And she expelled the air, staring at Giles, waiting for the disgust to register across his face.
The disgust never came.
“Oh? And how did that make you feel?”
Buffy burst out laughing. “You know, I’ve been waiting for you to say that! Is that like the first thing they teach you in shrink school? Well, this is even more surreal now that you actually said it.”
“Well?” Giles prompted.
“I felt…” she looked down at her fidgeting hands. “Relieved.”
“How so? Give me some more here,” Giles encouraged.
“Well, it’s always pleasing to learn you’re not alone in having feelings for someone. It was nice to know that all this time he was right there, feeling for me too.”
“Anything else?”
“I thought maybe there was something wrong with him for it.”
“Why? Because of your mother?”
“Partly, yes. Like it’s not really me, but maybe I’m a substitute. And then I felt guilt, felt as though I were stealing my mother’s husband from her.”
“You tend to think everything is your fault,” Giles said, frowning. “You blame yourself for things you have no control over. Spike recognized something in you that spoke to him. He loves you for who you are.”
“How the hell do you know? You didn’t know her, you barely know me, how do you know that I don’t remind him of her and that’s what draws him to me?”
“Part of my job is to read people, to hear not only what they’re saying, but what they are not saying. To watch them, observe them, and read the signals in their tone and body language. Buffy, transferring as you’re accusing him of would in this case be simulated. It wouldn’t have reality attached to it. He’s invested in your world. He’s worried for you, and his feelings are most definitely real. You’re not stealing your mother’s husband. Buffy, she’s dead. She’s gone and Spike is a young, virile man–”
“Do you want to date him?”
Giles continued on, ignoring her. “He has to move on at some point. Do you want him to be alone for the rest of his life?”
“No. Well, yeah. I want him to be alone if he wants to be with anyone else.”
“Anyone else that’s not you, correct?”
“Right.”
Giles smiled. “Your father put a lot on you at a young age. He held you responsible for putting his marriage with your mother back together. That was not your place to do that, Buffy. You are his child, not the one ordained to clean up his messes. That’s him. It was his place to fix what needed to be fixed and your mother opted to not make the choice to be with him again. You didn’t fail him, Buffy, and neither did she for that matter. No one failed here, except for perhaps your father for having strayed to begin with. People stumble; fall, and sometimes, they even get back up. Some don’t. Some don’t stand on their own two feet once they’ve gotten up and use others as a crutch. Your father stumbled and fell, and while he did clean up his act, he leaned on you to make things the way he wanted them, and on his terms. You are not the failure here, Buffy, he is. He failed you as a father.”
“Giles!” Buffy exclaimed, now crying, hunched over and hiding her face.
“Let it go, Buffy, let it out,” Giles encouraged. “You need to. You have kept it in for far too long. You have let him brainwash you into thinking that it was you. It’s not you. It’s him. It was not your job to fix him or his marriage to your mother. That was not your job and it was not your fault.”
His words tore into her brain like a scalpel, needling inside, and planting themselves there. It wasn’t that she fully felt it or accepted it, but she saw the truth in it. Saw that perhaps he was right, and that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t to blame for everything. It was both freeing and frightening.