Chapter 34
Buffy fell asleep in the closet. After she’d rung Giles, she’d lain back on a pile of clothes and shut her eyes to relax and gather the courage to exit her bedroom and see Spike. Well, apparently, she’d fallen asleep. She’d kicked her closet door open during the night and sun was currently streaming in her bedroom. When a ray hit her eyes, she groaned and shut the door. With some maneuvering she rolled to her side and curled in a ball.
Then, she started to laugh maniacally. I’m hiding in a closet. I called my therapist in a closet. I slept in a closet.
“Giles?” she greeted him, shaking, when she’d rang the night before.
“Buffy, what’s going on? You don’t sound right.”
“Let me see…can you hear this?” she held the phone out the door to see if he could hear Spike pleading with her to let the door open.
Putting the phone back to her ear and closing the door she said, “Well?”
“Buffy, what happened?”
“We had a blow-out. I told him I didn’t want to live here anymore and he told me that he didn’t want to either, and that we’d get a place together where we could start new and all that crap, and it just unraveled from there.”
“How so?”
She launched into what was said and by the time she was finished, she was crying again. “Should I come back, Giles? Should I come back there? Maybe I’m not ready to be here, yet. I’m in a fucking closet. How is that normal?”
“Buffy, take a deep breath and relax.”
“I want to come back, can I come back?” she was pleading as hard as Spike now.
“Buffy, this is a bump in the road.”
“No, this is more like a pothole that blows out your tire.”
“Breathe, Buffy.”
“I am!”
“Not well. Do it with me.”
He led her through some calm breathing and soon, she felt calmer than she had.
“Buffy, listen to me. Here, the same problems are still there. Here, you’re just not facing them head on like you are now. It’s all right. Don’t give up when a challenge comes your way like this. You did the right thing by stepping away from the situation. Now that you’re in a calmer place, think about what you want to say to Spike to try and make him understand where you’re coming from. You tell him that you don’t want to yell, you tell him you want to talk calmly with no shouting, and you stay firm with that. If he yells, you stay calm and tell him that you are not going to yell and you are not going to be snippy with him. You cannot control him, but you can control you and how you react.”
“Okay,” Buffy murmured, bringing her legs up to her chest and dropping her forehead to her drawn up knees. “Do I have to go out there and see him now? I really don’t want to.”
“If you don’t want to discuss it tonight, then don’t. But you should let him know you will discuss it at some point.”
“Okay.”
“Buffy, your reasons are your reasons, you can’t make him understand it, you can’t make him like it, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel guilty for feeling as you do, and that doesn’t mean you have to do as he wants because of that guilt you feel.”
“Things were going so well, Giles,” she whimpered slightly.
“It’s an adjustment period for both of you right now. He’s under stress and you’re under stress. Cut yourself some slack.”
“I’m trying. I just can’t help but feel I shouldn’t have told him like that.”
“Stop beating yourself up. You told him when the subject was brought up and that is fine. Buffy, you just left here yesterday. Remember – crawl before you walk, walk before you run. You’re trying to run here and you need to just walk.”
“I think I’m trying to do hurdles here, never mind just running.”
Giles chuckled, “Why don’t you get some sleep, all right? Tell Spike you’re going to bed and that you’ll talk with him in the morning.”
“Everything looks better in the morning.”
Everything looks better in the morning when you hadn’t slept in your closet, Buffy thought as she stretched her legs out. What the hell have I become that this is how I deal with things? I get mad at my mom, I run to Boston, I get upset over having feelings for Spike, and I stay in Hawaii and then trek off to Boston to face my father. He shuns me and I check myself in the loony bin. Spike freaks on me and I hide in my closet. . . I can hear Giles now, telling me to not beat myself up for this.
It was hard not to though when looking at the pattern. Shades of gray, she reasoned. There were shades of gray here. It wasn’t all black and white. All right, I need to get out of this closet.
Crawling out carefully, Buffy stretched her arms over her head, grimacing when several bones in her body cracked. Feeling a slight cramp in her legs and a crink in her neck and lower back, she entered her bathroom and started a warm shower. This was what she needed. Once she was cleansed, she would go find Spike and try to be calm about things. She just hoped he wasn’t in a foul mood.
********
Spike jerked awake, the sound of the shower jarring him from sleep. He blinked and rubbed his eyes as he gazed across the hallway, staring at Buffy’s closed door. He’d fallen asleep sitting up in the hallway, waiting for Buffy to leave her room.
He sighed heavily and climbed to his feet. He was stiff and achy, cold and hungry. In short, he was in a rather foul mood. Heading toward the bathroom, he decided to take props from Buffy and take a nice warm shower, maybe after that, he’d feel a bit better and ready to have a chat with her about the night before.
All right, so going off the way I did when she’d just got home was probably not wise. She didn’t need that. I knew she’d been tense the closer we got to California. I knew she was having a hard time with coming back. And as per usual, she wouldn’t talk to me about it.Spike rubbed his scalp harder at the thought of Buffy closing off from him again. But I can’t expect her to talk to me all the time about stuff. Some things she does need to work out on her own without me coddling her. And she did talk to me after about what was bothering her, but…goddammit, I don’t want to be without her now!
Rinsing himself from his shower and stepping out, briskly drying himself, Spike felt a bit better. Physically anyway. We’ll chat it out, come to a decision together, and I won’t yell at her like that again. I’ll listen to her side, and she’ll listen to my side. Maybe I can convince her to move in with me…but I have to find a way to be okay with it if she chooses not to.
Throwing on his clothes quickly, Spike made his way out of his bedroom and down the stairs, noting that Buffy’s door was now open. Coming into the kitchen he found her opening a yogurt.
She looked up at him, timidly. That’s not my girl, Spike thought sadly. My girl is not timid.
“Hi,” she said cautiously.
“Hi, luv. How are you this morning?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “I’m all right. How are you?”
“Buffy…I’m sorry for yelling at you like that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about my plans. I didn’t know when a good time was. I kept putting it off because I was afraid that you were going to react like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You got some things out,” she said shrugging, “obviously you needed to.”
“I didn’t want to do that to you.”
“I just went in my closet and called Giles.”
“You went in your closet?” he sputtered, flabbergasted.
She nodded, “Yep. I find it reflective. It’s my own little nut hut.”
In spite of himself, he laughed. “Oh, Buffy.”
“Look, I do want to talk about this with you, but I’m friggen starving here. Can we talk after we eat, please?”
Spike nodded. “Sure, pet, we can do that.”