rating: PG 13, angst, heartache
Disclaimer: I do not own anyone from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Distribution: any lists that I send this to, WLS, QPC, Bite Me, Cat, Feen, Soulmates, WWW - anyone else please ask
note: set in AU season 6.
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Willow couldn't settle into a single mood. Either she was feeling ecstatic that Spike had gone to all the effort and time of finding her, and hopeful that they could rebuild things, to tangled knots of fear that it was just a game, to despair that he was settling, to dread that things wouldn't work out. It would have been easier to figure out what to do if she could stay in any single emotional state. Spike was here, wanted to be back in her life. Probably a lot more than just 'in her life', if she were to be honest.
Willow was still trying to figure out if things could work. If she could be around him without seeing him and Buffy, without feeling that she was the second choice. If they could rebuild something, even if only the friendship that had helped her through Tara. The one thing that she was certain was that she would be trying to find out. The idea of sending him away... Well, Spike probably wouldn't go if he really cared, or at least not for long. And if he just nodded and left, indicating that he hadn't really cared at all... No. That would be too horrible. But if he stayed, if she let him back in and he cheated again, if he shattered the fragile remnants of her heart again...
Well, Anya was always saying that vengeance helped the healing process. And if a second betrayal left her too devastated to deal with happy people everywhere, D'Hoffryn's offer might still be open. She could probably make a frightful vengeance demon if Spike betrayed her again. After he was a cinder and whatever miserable tramp that he'd been with was... No. She didn't want to dwell on ways to destroy a hypothetical cheating woman who should never exist. At that rate, she might as well go back to Sunnydale and blow Buffy back into the afterlife. Would the afterlife be as enjoyable on the return tour? No. No thinking about Buffy either.
She was going to plan for a hopeful future, one with joy and smiles instead of pain and betrayal. She'd admitted that she wanted to try again. But how to start over? She couldn't just undo the past five years, or go back to last fall and leave Buffy dead. How could they start over?
Wait... Maybe she couldn't undo the past few years, or the past few months, but maybe they could start over in a different way. They could see movies together, and go for walks talking about everything and nothing. Maybe catch a couple concerts, or a play. They could do all of the friends that might become more things that they'd done at the beginning, before they'd quite been willing to admit that they'd gone from friends to a couple. If he could be her friend again, if she could trust him that far, then... maybe there would be hope for more?
Willow turned the idea over in her mind, trying to figure out if there were any gaping flaws, and failings of logic. Considering the past, he might have an advantage in knowing how she'd react, but would her own memories of him give her a similar insight to him? How much of the Spike that she'd known was real, and how much was simply what he'd wanted her to see? Would he try to… yes, he probably would try to use the time to convince her to let him back in. Part of her was actually hoping for that, and part of her was afraid. Afraid that he just wanted somebody, and that she was convenient, that she already knew his secrets, and he had nothing more to fear.
She hated the way these doubts kept after her, nagging and prickling, leaving her unhappy, worried and miserable. Willow wanted to believe him, wanted to think that he loved her, that he'd just made a mistake, that it would never happen again. But she didn't want another broken heart. She'd tried the logical method, making lists of the reasons 'for' and `against' taking him back, but that really hadn't helped. And how do you measure `kisses make my toes curl and tummy tingly' against `I shattered inside at sight of Them'? She would have to see if he could regain her trust.
Friday night found her outside, sitting by the campus pond. She could see the stars reflected in the water. They looked so serene, so calm. It was almost easy to understand how ancient people could think they controlled everything. She could remember when she was a little girl, sitting on the balcony of her room, trying to identify all of the constellations. She could remember how the Jenner's big tree had always cut the Little Bear in half.
"Should I worry about you looking at the stars?" Spike's voice was low, and there was a faint sound as he settled beside her on the grass.
"I used to try to find the constellations, before. Back in Sunnydale, when I was…oh, I think I was seven. My dad and I would sit on the balcony, and he'd point them out. There's Cassiopaia, and Orion. Over there is the Big Bear, and the Little Bear. Our neighbor had a tree, and I could never see all of the Little Bear from the house." Willow pointed out the stars as she identified them.
"Stargazing in Sunnydale? Not very safe." He pulled out a cigarette, his feet shuffling. He could have been trying to find a comfortable position, or just feeling fidgety.
"I know that now. I didn't then. When I was seven, I believed my father when he said there were no monsters in the darkness." Willow glanced over at Spike, noticing the way that he was playing with his lighter – flicking the flame on, twisting it sideways and snapping the lid closed with a flick of his wrist. "It's probably a small miracle that nothing ate us."
"Yeah. There are a lot of demons though… they don't care too much for kids. Not enough hormones for some, others…well…" He shifted his position, leaning his elbow on his knee as he glanced at her, not quite looking into her eyes. "Some compare kids to veal – more tender, and the flavor's different."
"Veal…" Willow blinked, part of her unsurprised, and another part horrified. "Did you… I mean… before, when you didn't have…"
"No. Not kids." Spike murmured, now staring at his boot. "I enjoyed a bit of struggle, and you just… it's not the same. I never quite got the appeal of eating kids."
He paused again, lighting the cigarette, taking a deep breath, and then exhaling, almost like a dragon breathing smoke. "Darla said it made me soft, not going after the kiddies. So, I had to try to prove that I wasn't. I… that's when the railroad spikes came in."
"Oh." Willow wasn't quite certain how to react to this. It seemed so personal, as if… Actually, it probably was comparable to her talking about pointing out constellations with her dad. "Did they ever… Were you ever… I don't know how to put it without sounding judgmental."
"Out with it, Red." He touched her knee, the nail polish almost entirely chipped away. "I never had trouble before figuring out if you were trying to be critical."
"Was it ever enough for them? Did they ever think that you'd done enough, accomplished enough to belong? To measure up to what they wanted in a childe?" She was looking at him now, watching the moonlight turn his flesh to porcelain, and his hair to a tousled mass of ivory.
"You asking if I could measure up, or if you could?" There was something, not quite bitterness, not quite understanding in his voice.
"Both. No, you might have a better idea if you were enough for them than I do." Willow sighed, curling up and half wrapping around her own upraised knee.
"For Darla… I measured up the night I killed my first Slayer. For Angelus… He'd got his soul back by then, and nothing was good enough anymore, or bad enough. Nothing made him happy. Not the Slayer, not Darla, not being together again. For Dru… some nights I was enough, and some nights only her daddy would do, and I wasn't... could never be him." He sighed, head hanging lower. "Sorry. I never should have… damn it, I know how it feels to be… to not be the one in the person who's everything to you's arms."
"And yet…" Willow' mind wanted to turn screaming back to Spike and Buffy, and she shuddered. "No. We're not going to talk about that tonight. Nothing about blonde Slayers."
"Right." He sighed, unnecessary in someone who didn't breathe. But Spike had always shown so many living habits – food, alcohol, boredom, soap operas… "I never met whatever expectations Angelus or Angel had for me. Then again, they kept changing. For Darla… yeah, after I killed the Slayer. Parted company with her shortly after that, so I don't know how she'd think of the later years. But it didn't… It didn't feel like it was enough."
"I wasn't enough for my parents either." The whisper was barely loud enough for Willow to hear, even though the words slipped from her own lips. "My grades weren't good enough, didn't have enough activities, too many injuries… They didn't even come to graduation, which turned out to be safer but…"
"They were idiots." His arm slid around her shoulders, and he pulled her closer, as if he wanted to shelter her from the world. "You're smart enough to do anything, and as for after school activities… what about saving the bloody world?"
"Like I could tell them about that." Willow snorted, feeling her muscles relax a bit as he leaned into Spike. "They'd have to be there, and to actually listen. I tried to tell them once, about the magic, about having a boyfriend. Mom tried to burn me at the stake. All she could remember the next day was something about me dating a musician."
"I'll listen to you. Any time, about anything." Spike stroked her cheek, and leaned his head closer, smelling her hair.
"I miss that. Having someone to listen to anything, I mean." Willow sighed, and leaned her head back, looking up at his face. "I think… I want us to try to start back at…well, not our beginning, but where a lot of people start. Movies, walking together. Spending time, rebuilding a friendship."
"I'd like to be more than your friend, Red." His words were soft, longing.
"I know." She reached out, her fingers hovering over his eyebrow, uncertainty fluttering inside of her. "But anything more… That takes trust. You broke it before, when... Before. So, I've put a lot of thought into this. Hours of near ulcer inducing thought. If there's any chance to get back the way things were, I have to know that I can trust you again. The best way is to remember why I trusted you then, to rebuild out friendship. We were friends before we became lovers, and that was part of the reason why it happened."
"Patience isn't my strong point." He traced the outline of her lip with his finger, and rested his forehead against hers. "Never has been."
"The only way that things will be good again is if my heart can trust you. That… you can't just decide to trust or distrust someone. Is what we had, what we could try for again worth taking that much time?"
"You're worth it." His words were full of emotions, hope, insistence, pleading, impatience…
"Then I need a way to get in touch with you. A phone number, an address… something." Willow could feel herself smiling. "Otherwise, how can I ask you if you'd like to hang out?"
"Well…." Spike hesitated for a moment, his eyes getting a distant, almost unfocused look. "It's not the best place. Then again, it's actually a motel room, so that probably puts it over the crypt. Got something that I can write on?"
As he scrawled a number and the motel name on a page, Willow jotted down her own number, thinking that this was actually far closer to the way most people started dating than anything that she'd ever tried before. "Exchanging phone numbers… This really is like starting something new."
Spike chuckled. "This is actually the first time that I've tried something like this. Exchanging phone numbers… We never did that in Sunnydale."
"You didn't have a phone at first. Then you were with Giles, and then… you were with me." Willow shrugged, and glanced at her toes, feeling nervous and uncertain. Part of her was screaming that this was a bad idea, that he'd only let her down again, hurt her again. Another part was already imagining them walking in the moonlight, holding hands and kissing.
"Willow? Promise me something?" Spike sounded serious, and his fingers were resting on the back of her hand.
"What?" She looked at him, her mind trying to figure out what he could be thinking.
"Promise me that you won't leave me chained up in someone's bathtub again?" He had pleading note in his voice as he made the request.
Willow started giggling. "I think I can manage to avoid doing that again. But it wasn't my idea back in Sunnydale."
"Good." He smiled, and moved to his feet in a casual graceful flow. Holding one hand out in an offer to lift her to her feet, he spoke. "Can I walk you back to your place?"
For a moment, Willow considered his question. With a smile, she let him help her up, and savored the feeling of his hand around hers. "I guess you can do that."
They walked to her apartment in silence. She kept stealing little glances at him, and was pretty certain that he was glancing right back. He hadn't quite let go of her hand, though his grip had loosened and shifted. It reminded Willow of the times before, when she and Spike would go on patrol together, just spending time.
Eventually, they came to the steps of the building, and he reached out, brushing his fingers over her cheekbone. "I'll be waiting to hear from you, and I just might call you."
She watched as the night swallowed him up, and only then turned to walk inside. This was going to be easier and harder than she'd thought.
The End