Chapter 6
Spike stared at the empty plate at the dining room table. “What is that for?” he finally asked.
“It’s called a dumb supper.”
“A what?”
“A dumb supper. It’s a way to remember Mom.”
His eyes widened. “You want to do that?”
Buffy frowned and placed the dish of English muffin pizzas on the table. So inelegant. So not Mom. “I do,” and she placed two pizzas on “her” plate.
Spike stared at it. “Where did you read about it?”
“On a Wiccan website.”
“Oh.”
She sighed, “It’s stupid, you’re right.” And she started to clean up the plate. Spike jumped up and grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“No, luv, it’s not stupid. I just…it surprised me that’s all.”
“Coming from me, you mean?”
“Why do you always assume that I think the worst of you?”
“Cause you do, don’t you? I’m the one that hurt your wife by not talking to her. I’m the one that wouldn’t come to the wedding, I’m the one that took off to the other side of the country to be away from her, and from you…Why wouldn’t you think the worst of me? I’ve seen the hatred in your eyes.”
He shook his head, releasing her. “You’re wrong, Buffy. I don’t hate you.”
“Just dislike me strongly?”
He shook his head again. “No, I don’t. You goad me into things. Or at least, you try. Why? Why do you do that?”
That question knocked her for a loop, he could tell. She faltered, her eyes dropping to the floor, her head shaking, her hand placing the plate back down. “I…I don’t know.”
“I think you do know,” and he started to reach for her, to touch her and make her look at him, but he stopped himself. Why, he didn’t know.
“Can we eat now?”
She sounded so defeated and so scared that Spike felt the fight leave him. Baby steps with Buffy, he was learning. And really, he should have known this. With all that he’d seen of Joyce trying to deal with her, Buffy never took well to demands on her being made. He remembered quite a few times when Joyce would be frustrated with her for Buffy retreating from her and she’d mutter, “Just like her goddamn father.” It was possibly the only time Joyce swore; when she was talking about Buffy or Hank.
He stared at Buffy, seeing her again, in a new light. How horrible it must be to be like the man that you love, but hate at the same time. Or did Buffy hate him yet? Did she still harbor some belief deep down that Hank would still love her and take care of her as any good father would? Or had she abandoned those thoughts? Had she really not only lost one parent, but two?
“Yeah, we can eat now,” he acquiesced.
********
The night had been a success all in all, Buffy noted as she and Spike sat side by side on the porch swing, watching the little trick-or-treaters hit the last few houses on their way home.
Buffy smirked down at the forgotten fangs and empty candy wrappers between them. “I liked your fangs,” she told him.
He grinned, “I liked them too until they got in the way of eating.”
Buffy giggled. “I also like the black on black ensemble you got going there.”
“Well,” Spike mused, “I find black is not only slimming but when you have a lot of black clothes, you don’t need to worry about separating them in the wash.”
“God, you sounded like a chick just then.”
Spike burst out laughing. “Watch it, luv. So, why Wonder Woman?”
Buffy shrugged, “She was my hero when I was a kid.”
“How so?”
“She fought the bad guys. She was a powerful woman that still had love in her heart no matter how many times the bad guys tried to beat her down. She came back every time with her hair in place, and a smile on her face. She didn’t have a big bag of tricks, but she got the job done. She had this innocence about her and she saved those silly humans…those mortals that constantly seemed to get themselves in trouble. She always saved her man, too.”
“That’s quite a list of reasons.”
“When I was about seven or so, my mom and dad and I went hiking and I didn’t think I’d be able to do the trail. It was too hard, or so I thought anyway. My dad, he talked to me the whole way about Wonder Woman. Asked me questions and got me to get through the rough terrain by asking me what Wonder Woman would do. And sometimes, he’d make me her bracelets and tiara out of construction paper and I’d run around the house pretending to be her.”
“And now you are her,” Spike said softly.
Buffy laughed bitterly, “I’ll never be her.” She stood and gazed off in the distance for a minute, seeming to be lost in some memory or thought. She passed by him, heading into the house. “I’m going to change now, I’m getting cold.”
*********
October 31, 2005
Buffy thinks I hate her. I don’t. It’s funny because for a long time I thought I did hate her. Thought she was nothing more than a spoiled brat. It wasn’t fun to see Joyce hurt because she failed to get through to Buffy when it was obvious that Buffy didn’t want to get through to.
I get it now though, and it’s actually incredibly sad to see. I didn’t think it was possible in my grief to feel someone else’s grief, and to have it affect me the way it has.
I want to hug her. I want to find a way to reach her and it’s like sometimes she’s right there, ready to unburden herself, and then she just draws back. I don’t know what it is. I don’t get why I care if she does or if she doesn’t. Maybe because I see something desperate in her. I see that if she doesn’t let go of the things she carries so deeply inside her, she’s going to explode one day and it’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be a mess.
It could be that I can relate, too. I can see a lost little girl inside her and I feel like a lost little boy.
The nights were the hardest, Spike knew. He wasn’t sure how Buffy dealt with them, and in fact, she’d been quiet since her phone call to Hank, but the nights for him were the worst. It was the prime time for him to remember, lying in the big bed all alone, not feeling the warmth of Joyce’s body next to his, not feeling the familiar dip in the bed, not having someone to fight for possession of the covers with. All the things that were bothersome – like the stealing of the covers or her late night trips to the kitchen – were things he missed. Things that he’d wished never bothered him, things he felt guilty for having had bother him.
Staring at the clock, he found it was one in the morning and doing quick math, he figured he’d been in bed for about two hours now, just tossing and turning. Maybe he needed some of that leftover candy and some milk, time to see what the late night snack fuss was all about.
Stepping out into the hall, he heard it, the sound of Buffy sobbing. It was a sound that he seemed to be as in tune with as he had been with the sound of Joyce’s voice, her laughter and her tears.
Taking a deep breath, and feeling suddenly nervous, Spike rapped on her door lightly. When he failed to get a response, he slowly pushed his way in and found her in the center of her bed, clutching a book to her chest and lost in her anguish.
Uncertain, he stepped forward. “Buffy.”
“What?” she replied, and he was surprised to get that.
He came closer and stared down at her.
She looked up at him. “What?”
“What – what is that?” he pointed to the book she clutched.
“Photo album.”
Yeah, those fuckers were dangerous. He felt like a git just standing there, hovering over her and so he followed his instinct and lay down next to her, facing her.
She stopped crying, looking at him, surprised. He felt for a minute that maybe he should get up, his heart was racing like it never had before, but he stayed, reached out and touched her arm.
And she started again. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Crying.”
“Well, it’s something you need to do obviously.”
“When will it stop, Spike? I just want it to stop.”
“It will, baby, it just takes time.” Where the endearment came from, he didn’t know, but he was glad that she hadn’t picked up on it, or at least, he hoped she hadn’t. Not that Buffy would let something like that go necessarily.
Her next move stunned him. She reached out to him and balled his shirt in her fists. She looked up at him imploringly, desperately. “I need to tell you…”
“Tell me what, luv?” he asked, his heart racing erratically.
“Everything.”
“Let it out; tell me what you need to.”
“I feel like I have this beast inside me. This demon. I feel like I’ve had it for so long and I’ve lived with it for so long and now its coming out of me and I don’t know what to do and how to deal with it.”
“What kind of demon, Buffy?” he asked gently; stroking her arm slowly in what he hoped was a comforting manner.
“It’s the demon that tells me I don’t fit anywhere, that I’m alone, that I’ll always be alone. And it’s all my fault, I see that now and it’s hard to…” she cried harder, “It’s hard for me to admit that I fucked up and that I put my love where it shouldn’t have been, but I couldn’t help it, you see? He’s my father and we were happy once upon a time.”
“That’s not your fault, Buffy that he chose alcohol over you and your mother–”
“I know that it’s not my fault, it’s not that…it’s that I was wrong about following him to Boston and denying my mother for so long. I knowit. I know. And I hate that it hurts and that I know I fucked up…I know my mom loved me, I know she did, I just hate that I was so awful to her when she tried so hard and I want to just …I want to just die. It haunts me that she died thinking I hated her when I didn’t. My pride wouldn’t let me tell her she was right and I was wrong, I couldn’t come to her and you and admit that I’d failed again.”
“Buffy, baby, you didn’t fail–”
“I did! I failed my father, I failed my mother and in some weird way I failed you too. I’m sorry I was so awful to her, I’m sorry that you got the brunt of that. I’m sorry she’s dead now. I’m sorry for it all. I want to be a good person, I do, and I’m afraid I don’t know how to be one. I lash out, I get so angry and I don’t know where to put all the rage inside me… I can’t keep my mouth shut sometimes and I hate that about myself. I have such a temper and I just fly off the handle and I want to be better, I want to, I just don’t know how… I don’t know where I fit. I don’t know where I belong…I just don’t know… I just feel so lost, Spike, and I’m tired, I’m just so tired…”
Her vulnerability, her tears, the entire rawness of seeing her so open and in touch with herself, had Spike in tears. She was like an open wound that kept getting picked and picked away at, and all she wanted to do was heal. He knew; knew all too well how that felt.
Gathering her close in his arms, Spike held her close, stroked her back and her hair, letting her let it all out and even allowed himself to cry a little too. If she noticed this, she made no mention of it, and just allowed him to comfort her the way she so desperately needed to be comforted.
Soon, both were asleep.