Chapter 7
Spike was the first to awaken, and he knew he wasn’t in his bed the minute he was conscious. Opening his eyes, he found Buffy sleeping next to him, her hands not fisted in his shirt any longer, but resting on his chest as if she needed extra reassurance that he was there and not leaving her.
He studied her, how at peace she looked, how soft in repose. The lines that marred her face–the frown lines, the worry lines, were gone. Her skin appeared soft, gentle and once again he thought beautiful.
Spike didn’t know about Buffy, but once he’d drifted off, he had been out for the count. That hadn’t been the case since Joyce had passed.
He watched her as her eyes fluttered open and he held his breath, hoping that she wouldn’t be upset with him for falling asleep in her bed.
She surprised him by smiling shyly. “Hi.”
He smiled back, “Hi, pet. How do you feel?”
“I feel better, I guess. Still tired, but…better. Thank you.”
“For?”
“For letting me get that all out. You didn’t have to stay.”
“I fell asleep, you don’t mind?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Weird huh? I mean I think I …” she took a deep breath. “I think I needed that.”
“To be held?”
She blushed to a flaming red and he bit back the grin that formed. God, that was adorable. “Yeah,” she said softly. “The nights are the worst for me.”
“Me too, Buffy, me too,” he agreed on a sigh.
“Does it feel weird for you?”
“What?”
“Sleeping in another bed.”
He shook his head, “No, I actually slept like a rock.”
Buffy smiled. “So did I. And now I’m hungry.” She flung the covers off her and looked down at him. “I can make something for breakfast if you’d like?”
Spike smiled, “Sure, pet.”
*********
Joyce’s things lay in boxes in the hallway. Buffy stared at them, the cardboard cartons haphazardly thrown together with no pomp or circumstance – noted in black marker across the side: Joyce. Just simply ‘Joyce’. It didn’t seem right to Buffy that an entire life fit into a few boxes. It didn’t matter how many boxes they had, none of them embodied her, and none of them spoke of the things she was or did.
“Not the articles themselves, not by just looking at them,” Spike explained when Buffy voiced that disturbing thought out loud. “But when I pick up her gardening hat, I think of all that time she spent in the garden tending to her flowers. To the outside observer, a straw hat, but to me, the hat she religiously wore until it was nearly in shreds because it was her ‘gardening hat’. Do you know how many times I tried to get a new hat for her and she refused?”
Buffy looked up at him. “I got her that hat.”
********
November 1, 2005
Spike and I put mom’s ‘boxes’ in the attic. Along with the rest of the stuff from relatives past, from my childhood, and just general junk never bothered to be disposed of. Things we look at and say, “My God, do you remember when we used this last?”
All her things in a box as if she never existed. All her things secreted away so we – what? Don’t have constant reminders that she existed? So we can’t touch them and access them. All those things that Spike saw on a daily basis are gone from his sight. It’s as if as soon as someone dies we all rush to get rid of everything so we can speed up the healing process and move on. So we can live our lives. So we can quicken the process of getting over it.
I fear forgetting, and I fear remembering.
I thought today that it doesn’t matter that I wasn’t around for the past five years, I have memories to sustain me well enough already—maybe more would just torment me. I had the briefest of moments where I felt no guilt, no pain. Where I felt blessedly free of all that shit. I counted seven minutes that it managed to last. Maybe I could work out a plan where I try to get that back every day and extend the time a little bit more—7 minutes each day until it spans the whole day.
“Have you thought of moving?” Buffy asked later that evening as they sat outside on the porch again, Spike having made them tea.
“Moving to–?”
“A new house free of memories. A new town.”
“Memories aren’t something that dissipates with a new residence. Memories are things you take with you inside.”
“Thank you Deep Thought Guy, I’m just saying that maybe it’d hurt less if every time you turned around there wasn’t something else to remind you…even if you did take her stuff up the attic, this house was hers, you know?”
“She’d be with me even if I left, Buffy.”
“When did you move here?”
“From London?”
“No, from Guatemala.”
“When I was eighteen.”
It was on the tip of her tongue and in the forefront of her mind: Joyce was his age when he moved. She was then happily married with a kid already.
“My parents and I moved here – to the land of opportunity –and I went to Sunnydale University.”
“What did you study?”
“Art and English.”
“What were you doing before you met my mom?”
“Nothing. Muddling through life, taking odd jobs, just sort of hanging out and not doing much with myself.“
“Why didn’t you do anything with your degree?”
“Well, when you go into Art and English, you’re pretty much slinging burgers. I wasn’t into being a reporter, didn’t really want to be a teacher, and there wasn’t much in the way of art. I wanted to write and that’s not an easy task to undertake – at least not the getting published part –so I was a well-read burger flipper.”
Buffy giggled. “And then?”
“My parents died and I had to make my own way and grow up.”
“And then you met my mom.”
“Yes, shortly after my parents died,” Spike said softly.
Silence, then. “Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“Never mind.”
“That’s not bloody fair. What were you going to say?”
“Nothing, it’s not the right time to ask such a question, forget it,” and she shook her head.
“Buffy?”
“Yes?”
“Were you going to ask if I’d sleep with you again?”
She turned to him and said honestly, expressionless, “No.”
She could have sworn he blushed, “Then what were you going to say?”
Buffy stood, suddenly feeling that the open space of the porch wasn’t open enough for her. Something felt off in their conversation, something not quite…right.
“I was just going to ask if you ever thought about remarrying. But it’s only been a week and I realize that’s not a … tactful – is that the right word?—question.”
Spike smiled up at her. “I think that’s the right word. I don’t take offense to it, Buffy. I just don’t have an answer to that. Where are you going?”
“To bed. You’re taking me to the gallery tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, be ready by eight.”
“Yes, sir,” Buffy saluted and practically ran off.
Spike sighed heavily wondering if he would be able to get any sleep that night. One night in Buffy’s bed did not mean that was the only way he was going to get any rest; it was a fluke that was all. It was a moment in time where he was able to provide much needed comfort to the girl and in ways she didn’t realize, she gave him comfort as well.
November 1, 2005
Our bond is going beyond grief. When Buffy cried in my arms last night, I understood how she felt, and what she was saying in feeling lost, like she didn’t know whom she was or what she was doing.
I hadn’t realized until our discussion this evening that I realized how much of my identity was tied up in Joyce. I went from being a student to a husband. I lost my parents, who were the world to me and I found Joyce.
Did she replace them? Did she ‘parent’ me? Was she the missing link that I needed at that time? Who am I now that she is not here? Who is Spike, truly? Who is William? Who am I now that I’m not a husband? Who am I?
Am I thinking too much?