Chapter 27
“Hey.”
“Buffy,” Spike breathed into the phone, his tone reverent. It made Buffy smile. Hopping onto the reception desk, she earned a glare from Bea.
“Whatcha doin?” she asked, swinging her legs back and forth.
“I’m watching TV. You?”
“I’m sitting on the reception desk, watching Bea glare at me.” Lifting her head slightly from the phone, she said to Bea. “Don’t you have room checks now? I can hold down the fort if you want. I think I’m good at spotting the loons.”
She smiled when Bea glared harder and Spike laughed raucously into the phone.
“You like to torment her,” he said fondly into the phone.
“So do you, I noticed.”
“She is a bit prickly isn’t she?”
“Pretty much, yeah. So, how are you?”
Silence.
“Spike, you still there?”
“Just a little surreal that you’re asking how I am.”
Buffy giggled. “Well, it’s not like your feelings cease to exist because of where I am. It’s really not all about me.”
“I know that, but…”
“But you feel bad telling me how you feel, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t feel like you can tell me.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?” she asked, clearly confused.
“Getting into my head.”
Buffy laughed. “Honey, if I had been in your head all this time, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he drawled, chuckling nervously.
“Oh?”
“Another time,” he promised.
“I’m going to be okay, Spike,” she told him softly.
“Buffy,” he sighed. “I…when can I see you, luv?”
“Tomorrow? How does that sound?”
“Give me a time and I’ll be there.”
“With bells on?”
“For you? Anything.”
********
Spike came in with bells all right, “Santa’s bells” she called them. The gold kind that made a distinct and clear ring when shook. Buffy beamed up at him and hugged him, playing with them on their string over his shoulder. It distracted her from how wonderful it felt to be in his arms. He was safety personified despite how muddled the feelings attached to him were. It was interesting to say the least – she lost her head with him, and yet found it at the same time. Love, she concluded, was a funny thing.
“Did I ever tell you the Polar Express story?” she asked him.
He pulled back slightly, grinning. “No.”
“Well, see,” she began and sat on her bed, on her hands. “I believed in Santa for a really long time. Abnormally long.”
“How old were you?” Spike asked, settling down next to her.
“Ten,” she admitted sheepishly.
He laughed, “You got teased didn’t you?”
“Mercilessly. I think it was more out of stubbornness at that point than real belief.”
“You? Stubborn?” Spike said in mock shock, placing a hand over his heart.
She nudged him with her elbow. “So, we read the Polar Express in class and I loved it. I came home and told my mom how at the end of the story the little boy remembers his trip because he has leftover in his hand, a bell. A bell like this,” she held up the bell, “that reminded him of Santa and that his trip was in fact real. So, that Christmas, my mom hunted for a bell like that to keep me believing.”
Spike grabbed a corner of the string and tugged on it. “How long did you continue believing after that?”
“For about an hour until my father told me he had been with my mother when she’d gotten the Archie comics dolls I’d wanted.”
“How did that make you not believe?”
“The note said those dolls were from Santa. In all fairness, he was nursing a hangover,” and she rolled her eyes. “I didn’t have the heart to tell my Mom after she’d tried so hard to keep me believing, so I told her next Christmas that I just stopped believing.”
“That was kind of you,” Spike whispered, his fingers caressing her hand just slightly. “Buffy, are you going to come home once you leave here?”
She looked up at him, “There wasn’t even a segue to that question, points for just coming out with it.”
“It’s been on my mind,” he confessed, meeting her eyes.
“No, shit, really?”
“I don’t want to push you into going back to Sunnydale, but–”
“I’m going back to Sunnydale, Spike. Boston is not my home anymore – scratch that – it never was my home. Sunnydale is…it could be my home, I think.”
He frowned, “You’re not sure.”
“I’m not sure about a lot of things. I’m trying this new ‘One day at a time’ plan. See, before I would just try to shove things out of my head to get over them. I thrived on Denial. It was always go, go, go so I didn’t have to think, think, think. But now, I’m trying to think and then go. I’m not that coordinated, so this should be interesting.”
“Kitten, not to be a selfish git, but where do I fit into all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean where do I fit in, in your life? Is there a place for me?”
She looked up at him solemnly. “Spike, there will always be a place for you in my life. I told you I don’t like anyone more than you, and I never will.”
“Buffy, God, I … I love you so much,” he said hoarsely, grabbing her hand and squeezing it, staring at her intensely.
Buffy could feel the need and want radiating off him, and she wanted nothing more than to reciprocate and fall into his arms, and pledge her undying love; yet it wasn’t time yet. Steps were being made everyday and even though Miss Instant Gratification wanted to throw caution to the wind, she couldn’t do it. When she was sure she wouldn’t have guilt and doubt soon after, she would love him like no other.
“Spike, can we just take that one day at a time, please?” Staring down at their hands that were entwined, she smiled, “See? It’s already part of my repertoire. ‘One day at a time.’”
“We can do that, kitten,” Spike whispered. Clearing his throat a second later he said, “So, tell me. How’s therapy been going?”
********
January 13, 2006
I don’t know how to be. I don’t know how to act. It appears some of the weight Buffy had been carrying around is lifting, but I don’t know what to do to help. Do I make it worse for her? She says she needs me, but what if I am not what she really does need? I’m sure Dr. Giles would have told me to get the fuck out of dodge if I were making things worse.
She told me briefly about her therapy sessions and I couldn’t help but think that balloon activity was something her and I could both benefit from together. I’m even thinking of making my way to Boston Common and just doing it on my own. There’s so much I need to let go of too. My revelations about my marriage for one, guilt for another for those revelations being another.
I don’t think of Joyce when I’m with Buffy. I am so consumed with Buffy that she’s all I can see, hear, and feel. Does that make me obsessed with her? Do I care? I’d never felt this way for anyone, and my mum had told me once upon a time that everyone has that one person in their life they’d lay down their life for. Buffy is that person for me. One day I’ll tell her that.
It’s only after that I think of Joyce and wonder what she’s thinking—if she knew that this would happen, if she wants it for us, or if she is disgusted. Of course I’m not going to tell Buffy my thoughts; she doesn’t need it, it won’t help her.
I’m thinking my next course of action is selling the house. Buffy asked me once upon a time if I should do it for all the memories it held and I’d scoffed at the idea. Now I’m thinking it’d be better for us. A fresh start. It won’t help her state of mind to be in the house that is her mother while we’re trying to…
Trying to make a go of it? Is that what we’re doing? Christ! I don’t even know.
Would it be running away to leave? Or would it be the best for both of us? I don’t want to ever look back one day and have it be that we both ran because they impaired our relationship.
I just need some guidance here; I don’t want to do the wrong thing, for either of us.