CHAPTER FIVE

“So tell me what you’ve found out, Xander?” Giles says in the Magic shop one evening. All of the Scoobies, except Buffy, have gathered for a hastily called together meeting. It seems there is some concern about Buffy’s behavior as of late. She has not been around as much. Given the fact that her mother has just died, this is not unusual. Even so, things seem a little bizarre, a little off-kilter in other respects they have set her friends to wondering.

“Well, I know she’s been going to a butcher’s shop every day. But not to the one on Elm. It was closed by the health department last week.”

“How do you know this?” Giles asks.

“They used to have the best sausage links. Linked their own. Gotta love a butcher who links his own sausage. And he had this giant meat grinder. When I was out of work, I’d go down there and watch him grind up meat all day. It’s was like Pink Floyd’s The Wall live, without the suicide-inducing music

.”

“Yes, but how do you know about Buffy?”

“Try to stay focused, honey,” Anya encourages from his left.

“Oh, Buffy. Right. Well she’s been going to this butcher on Main Street. Not as entertaining as the one on Elm, but his lamb chop prices can’t be beat.”

“And what’s she been buying?”

“Well, here’s the odd thing. Pig’s blood. By the gallon.”

“She was carrying a butcher’s bag when Willow and I saw her a couple weeks ago,” Tara says.

“So, either she’s planning on getting all Carrie on some high school prom or---

“She’s supplying a vampire with blood,” Giles says.

“Spike!” Willow gasps.

Giles removes his glasses and massages his eyes. “I wasn’t going to share this, since it was told to me in confidence. But as her friends, you should know.” He takes a breath. “Spike has been looking after Dawn in the evenings.”

There is a collective hush. This bit of information is not a shock, somehow. Someone had to be taking care of Dawn while Buffy was at school or on patrol. She couldn’t be there all the time. What were we thinking, they all seem to be saying to themselves.

“There’s something else,” Xander says. “Anya and I were going through the graveyard the other day.”

“We were going to put flowers on Joyce’s grave. Marigolds and snapdragons. Which don’t look like dragons after all,” Anya says.

“And we walked past Spike’s crypt. It didn’t exactly have that lived in look. The door had been ripped off and everything inside had been destroyed. Even poor Spike’s beloved TV.”

“I suppose some demons or some of his own kind could have been seeking some sort of revenge on him,” Giles says. “I would like to think he’s left the area. Or has left this world all together. But I think we have evidence that says otherwise.”

“Oh, my God!” Willow says. “Do you think that…” she can’t finish.

“I think Will speaks for all of us,” Xander says. “Buffy’s got a new bunkmate.”

It’s too terrible for Giles to even fathom. And in his head he is already writing his letter of resignation to the Watcher’s Council which will surely be asked for if he doesn’t volunteer it.

“I suppose this is all my doing,” Giles says. “I’m her Watcher, for Christ’s sake. I should have been keeping better tabs on her.”

“We should all have been paying more attention to her. I mean, her mother just died. She should have her friends around her. She needs us,” Willow says.

“Well, we can sit here all night and damn ourselves for not being more aware of her situation, or we can decide to act,” Giles says.

“I suppose we could just ask her. ‘So, have you seen Spike lately? Maybe somewhere in the confines of your house, slurping blood slushies on your sofa late at night?’” Xander offers.

“As her Watcher, doesn’t she have to tell you everything?” Tara asks.

“I am the recipient of privileged information in that regard,” he says. “But she is entitled to her secrets.”

“But this is a biggie,” Willow says. “I mean, Spike? The guy who chained her up in his crypt and built a creepy shrine to her? I know if I had a stalker, I’d want him sleeping under my roof.”

“Clearly she is not capable of rational thought at this point and time. And clearly, we have to confirm our suspicions before we act on any of them. Since she has told me he is coming over in the evenings to watch Dawn, I won’t go over there tonight. But I will go tomorrow afternoon. If he’s there then…” He wants to finish by saying, “I’ll kill the bastard.” But he keeps this to himself.

“But I haven’t been out at all for such a long, long time, Buffy,” Dawn pleads as she follows her sisters around the kitchen. Presently, Buffy is loading up the dishwasher with a dozen or so mugs, all stained with blood, all found in the living room that day.

It seems there is going to be a slumber party that evening and all of her friends are going to be there.

“Dawn, you get out of the house every day. It’s called school,” Buffy says tiredly.

“But that’s school and school is work and stuff and this is going to be fun. You know that girl, Amelia? She’s the one who got her tongue pierced? Well, anyway, she went to an *NSYNC concert and she totally taped the whole thing. She says she’s going to bring it.”

“Mmm…a fourteen-year old who indulges in body piercing and bootlegging. Just the kind of person I want my only sibling to hang out with.”

“You let me hang out with Spike,” Dawn says.

Buffy slams the door of the dishwasher, nearly knocking the thing out of the wall. “That is by necessity, not by choice,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Oh, please, Buffy, please! I wanna go soooo bad. If you let me go, I’ll…I’ll do the dishes for the week.”

“No,” Buffy says.

“I’ll…I’ll clean your room…do your ironing?…wash all your clothes?…shine your shoes?” she keeps asking to her sister’s repeated denials. “Buffy, why can’t I go? Give me one good reason why I can’t go!”

She had plenty of good reasons. The biggest one she couldn’t say aloud because the thought of it terrified her. Glory will find you… A group of giggly teenagers would be no match for a god’s vengeance, even if they were blasting boy band CD’s at excruciatingly loud levels.

Just then the basement door opens and Spike enters the room. “Coming through,” he says. “Just going for a bit of blood from the fridge---Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes, go away!” Buffy intones.

“Spike, Buffy won’t let me go to a slumber party tonight!” Dawn says.

The minute she says this, Buffy knows she has lost her grip on the situation. Permanently.

Spike regards Buffy with that wolfish grin that she has come to despise, but completely expect whenever he senses her chips are down.

“Aw, Buffy! A slumber party? What with the itching powder and the sleeping bags and endless rounds of ‘Truth or Dare’ and all. Buffy, you could do your sister more harm than good by denying her this completely necessary rite of passage. Well, she could be permanently ostracized. Made out to be some sort of pariah. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you, Slayer?”

“It’s going to be all my friends will be talking about on Monday. If I don’t go, I’ll just die!”

But Buffy hasn’t given up yet. “Dawn, it may not be safe for you there. You know that.”

“But it’s just a block away. You could be there in seconds if something happened. And nothing will happen.”

“Yeah, Slayer. Nothing bad ever happens at slumber parties. Except for the occasional mass murder by a deranged psycho on the loose. But that only happens in pictures, right? Anyway, you’d make short work of the likes of Michael Meyers and Leatherface.”

“Buffy, please! Please!” Dawn says, bunching her fists under her chin.

Why is it that here lately everyone has been asking me please?

Of all the nightmarish situations flashing through her mind, the one that’s paramount to just about everything else is the fact that if Dawn goes, she will be left alone with Spike. And she hasn’t been alone with him since that night on the porch when she…

What if Glory does find her? What if Glory finds her and takes her away? What if life as I know it ends tonight? What if Spike tries something with me while she’s away? What if I let him…

The memory of his kiss is still so fresh in her mind she can tap into it without even trying. It seems to still be on her mouth, the touch of his lips, the heady fragrance of tar and blood. The hardness, the familiarity…the desire that had the power to nearly peel her off all inhibitions and left her wondering even now, “What if…?”

“I’ll call you every hour. I’ll call you the minute I get there and after minute after,” Dawn says.

“That’s a little excessive,” Buffy concedes.

“Come on, Slayer. You remember what being a teenager was like, don’t you? It wasn’t that long ago. Now for me, it has been a long time. But I know if I were a teenager now, I’d want to be with a lot of squealing girls in their nightgowns on a Friday night.”

Buffy glares at him. This is a look he is accustomed to and expects.

“Please, oh, please, oh, please!”

Buffy has had enough. She hates to lose. But she hates to play the bad guy as well. There’s a part of her still trying to reason and not be the harsh disciplinarian. It doesn’t quite feel like her role yet to have the final say. Her sister’s happiness hinges on what she will say. She wants her sister to go and have a good time, forget about things for a while. But what if…what if…

“All right,” Buffy says finally. Dawn gasps in delight, but Buffy has to leave her with a warning. “But! Only on the condition that you come home first thing in the morning.”

“Aw, Buffy!”

“You know the alternative.”

Dawn accepts these terms, reluctantly, but still rewards her sister’s brand of generosity with a kiss before she dashes up the stairs to pack a bag for the evening.

Buffy is suddenly aware of the fact that she is alone with Spike. He stands across the room, leaning against the counter, his arms crossed, his eyes, not quite fixing her with a piercing glance, but laughing at her.

“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” he says.

She sighs. “Get out of my sight, Spike.”

He laughs and gathers himself up for a trip to the fridge. He opens the door and reaches for the paper carton of pig’s blood inside the door. He shakes the container from side to side and listens with dismay to the near-emptiness inside.

“I’m almost out of blood, Slayer,” he says.

“Then maybe you should go to the butcher shop and get some then. Maybe sometime, say, around noon tomorrow when the sun is at its hottest?” she says.

“Or, I can go for something a little more homegrown,” he says, twisting off the cap of the container. “Something with a bit more kick to it, a bit more flavor.”

She stiffens. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, observing the tiny slurp of blood left at the bottom. “I’m in a house with two living, breathing females. Two females with nice, long necks, just bursting with bloody goodness.” He takes a swig of her blood. A little dribbles from his mouth and he wipes it away. “Mmmm…doesn’t even compare to the delicacies at my fingertips here at chez Summers.”

She instantly begins cataloguing the weapons that are at her disposal in the kitchen. The table leg could be snapped off in a pinch, it’s jagged edge just sharp enough to plunge into his chest. There’s a wooden spoon in the right drawer by the sink. That could be used. There’s a broom in the pantry. It’s made of wood…

“Of course, I can’t really do anything about it myself,” he says. “Not until I say good-bye, Mr. Chip. But, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Little Bits and I have become quite chummy lately. We talk, we laugh, we have all sorts of private jokes. She tells me about her friends at school, the boys she likes, the teachers she hates. She has come to rely on me, Buffy. She trusts me. Maybe even loves me a little. I’ve told her I’d do anything for her. And I think she feels the same way. I was thinking, maybe, maybe one of these days, she might do something very special for me.” He is moving now, across the floor. His eyes fall on the jar of utensils by the sink. There is a knife there. He fingers the handle before he takes it into his hand and holds it in front of him like some maniacal Shogun. “She could use this. Open up a vein on her wrist. Or in the crook of her elbow. Let me have a drink A long, quenching suck. Not quite long enough to do her any real harm. I’d stop before I killed her, though. At least, I think I would. But after all this time of living on pig’s blood, who knows what I would do once I had a taste of what I really crave.”

The horrific vision of what he has just presented is performing in her mind. She can see Dawn writhing on the sofa---that sofa---with Spike’s head nestled deep in her arm. She can hear his pleasure and Dawn’s willing pain. Here, just minutes before she was thinking about what she could smash up to make a weapon. And here he’s holding a real one, against her.

“I hate you,” she says in a low growl.

“Really?” He is approaching her now, with the weapon in tow. “Because that’s not what I was sensing from you the other night. “You remember, don’t you? We were outside. It was cold. You were shivering, crying all alone. And then I sat beside you. And in a short while, you were shivering and crying in my arms.” He is standing right in front of her, a breath away. “And then you took these lips,” he says as he touches his thumb to her mouth. “These eager, pouty lips and put them right on mine. You remember that, don’t you? You remember old Spike’s lips moving across yours, his tongue exploring your mouth, your tongue finding out a few things about his? It really happened, Buffy. You can deny it all you want, but in the end, you know what happened. You remember.”

His face is coming towards hers. His lips are almost touching hers again.

But then Dawn’s voice intrudes.

She is calling from the upstairs, “Buffy! Can I borrow your cow pj’s for the night?”

Dawn’s voice seems more than a little out of place, a cheerful little trill in an angry toccata.

It takes her a while to respond. And when she does, she is ashamed that her voice is so filled with emotion it’s quaking.

“Sure, Dawn, go ahead,” she says.

“Thanks, Buffy! I love you!” her sister says.

There is a slight, sickening smile on Spike’s lips. He has backed away from any challenge now. And the knife goes back where it was before.

He picks up the container from the counter. “If you need anything, you know where to find me,” he says. And he departs for the basement.

Buffy is alone in her room. It’s just a little past eight o’clock. Dawn has been at the slumber party for an hour and has called, twice, to say she’s fine and not to worry. But she does worry. She can’t stop worrying. Even as she puts on music to distract her, her mind cannot concentrate on anything but her sister a block away, and the vamp in her basement.

Here we are now going to the Eastside

I pick up my friends and we start to ride

Ride all night, yeah, we ride all day

Some may go along and some may stay

She wants to get out so badly her skin is crawling. The door to her room is closed. Locked. She doesn’t know why she locked it. The only other being in the house could get it, easily. Her left hand is twisting knots in her hair. Her right hand clutches a stake.

Spike is lying on the mattress down below in the basement. It’s pitifully too small for him and his feet hang over the side. He doesn’t know what time it is, but he knows Dawn’s been gone for a while. He’s heard Buffy speak to her twice on the phone in the kitchen. He wishes he had some music to distract him. He heard a song Buffy was playing the other day and it’s been stuck in his head ever since.

Here we are now going to the Westside

Weapon in hand as we go for a ride

Some may go along but some may stay

Watching out for a sunny day

He wants to get to her so bad his skin is crawling. He knows she’s probably in her room with the door locked. But she knows he would be able to break it down, easily, if he wanted to. In his left hand he holds a lit cigarette. His right hand is relaxed against his heart.

Buffy turns the music up. As she is walking across the room, she feels the vibrations on the floor from the speakers. She has put the song on repeat. For some reason she hasn’t been able to get it out of her head lately. She has played it so much that now it seems like she’s listening to a part of her soul. She stretches her arms over her head, lifting her shirt. The cool air from the open window meets her bare skin and she shivers. The stake is still in her hand and though she has seen it there so many times tonight it seems rather out of place, since she’s in a house with a de-invite spell on it so tight not a bloodsucker in town could slip one toe in. All except one. And he is already there. She cannot forget for one minute that he’s there.

He gets up from the mattress and moves across the room, his lit cigarette still in his hand. He hasn’t taken a puff in a while and there is a long column of ash forming. He walks around carefully, making it a sort of game to see how long the ash will remain before it finally falls. The paper shrivels as the ravenous orange mouth of the flame devours it from the inside out. Eventually he tires of this, takes one last puff, and snubs it out under his boot. Now it’s time to see what Smiling Bob is up to. That’s what he’s named the snowman Buffy has stored down there. Presently, the plastic yuletide ornament hangs from the ceiling, suspended by a garland of tinsel. He bats at this ghastly piñata, watching it swing by its neck, back and forth.

Her biggest mistake was letting her guard down, allowing him to kiss her, she knows. What was she thinking? She knows what she was thinking. The things people do when they’ve permitted themselves to be lonely too long. When he kissed her that night, she wanted it. And for the next few days, she wanted it. She wanted that defiance, that detour from her nature that she had to make occasionally to remind herself that she was still human. That night with his longing for her in the air, and eventually on her lips, she had to respond to that need. It was puncturing her deeper than his teeth ever could, draining her, making her so weak that she had to give in. But it wouldn’t happen again. Not after what he said about Dawn. Not after she was reminded that even with that chip, the evil that stole his soul so long ago was still potent. Even Vesuvius still blows smoke now and then, she remembers. Tonight he didn’t merely blow smoke. He breathed fire.

She should have told him to leave right then and there. It was her house. She could have called Willow and Tara, had the de-invite spell reactivated right away. Why didn’t she think of that? Thing is, the words “Get out of my house, Spike!” didn’t even occur to her.

Do I want him here? For some, sick reason, do I want him here? I needed him…to take care of Dawn. But he could hurt her. He could kill her…

He has begun punching the snowman, with soft blows, just barely enough to set the thing swinging. But every punch grows steadily more forceful, as he thinks, with mounting intensity about what all this is doing to him, being more or less at Buffy’s whim. A glorified babysitter for Glory’s much sought-after key. At first his very being had convulsed in joy at the thought of living every moment under her roof, in her world. But where is he? He is in a dank hole in the bottom of her house, hitting a snowman. He can touch her. The air all around her can touch her, but he can’t. He can breathe that same air, but he senses every minute he does, she is despising the fact that they have to share it. He can’t even go near her without her transmitting venomous thoughts of hatred with her eyes.

Why does she keep me here? Why doesn’t she just bloody well tell me to leave?

He throws another punch at the snowman and he hears a crunching noise and his fist feels the stale, hot air of the inside of the snowman. He looks down and sees his hand is submerged in the side of the thing. But the snowman still smiles. This angers him. He rips the snowman down from the ceiling and hurls it across the room.

“She’s playing a game with me. She’s toying with me. She knows how I feel about her.” He walks over to the snowman, lying with its wounded side exposed to the light. “She knows I love her! She knows I love her! Stupid, bloody bint!” He launches his booted foot into the snowman, squishing it in half. He kicks again and again, the plastic giving way, disintegrating, becoming nothing but rubble.

He bends in two, panting, his hands on his thighs. He rises steadily, trying to catch his breath. He looks at the smashed remains of the snowman and goes for another kick.

“I need a drink,” he says.

Buffy has had enough of her room and she goes down into the kitchen. There’s some Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer. A spoonful, maybe two. Whatever is left, she wants it. And she wants it badly enough for her to encounter…

“Spike!” she says in an extended gasp, though she had expected to see him there, in her kitchen, out of his basement confines, into her direct view again sometime that night.

He bends quickly, sorting through the various bottles stored under the counter next to the sink. Buffy hears him mumbling…”Vinegar…olive oil…something called Southern Comfort, bloody hell and…” He emerges, triumphant. “Yes!” he hisses. “Cooking Sherry! Now, that’s the stuff!”

“You’re raiding our liquor cabinet?” Buffy asks.

“Liquor cabinet? Is that what you call it? Didn’t your mother ever drink? I would if I had been her,” he says. But he’s not meaning to start something with the Slayer now. He mutes all impulses to continue on with any further insults. He glugs down a few sips and grimaces. “Bloody hell, how long has this been here?”

“Mom liked to cook,” Buffy says, “But not that often.”

He takes another swig. “Lucky for you.”

Buffy digs the ice cream out of her freezer. Finding a spoon, she begins to eat, taking the carton with her to the upstairs.

Before she can get way, Spike beckons to her.

“Hey, wait. What’s the rush? Talk to me,” he says. The liquor is going straight to his blood-deprived head.

She halts any further steps, holding her ice cream, her spoon suspended over her next mouthful.

“Talk to you about what?” she asks.

“Sit down and talk to me, you bloody bint,” he says. “Isn’t that what we ever do these days? Just talk to each other? Fight with each other?” He takes another drink of the sherry. “Toy with each other?”

“I’m going up to my room,” she says defiantly, though she knows there’s more ahead.

“No, wait!” he says, taking another brief drink, “I want you to hear what I have to say.”

She puts a hand on her hip. “About what?”

He starts to laugh. “Look at you. Are Slayerly and the like. Protecting yourself. Always.”

Buffy has two things in her hands: a spoon and her ice cream. Her stake is upstairs, on her bed. She expected him to be there, in her kitchen, this night. But somehow she forgot her stake. Even though…

“You know why I first fell in love with you?” Spike asks.

She doesn’t want to hear the answer, but she stands by, sifting her spoon through the quickly melting ice cream. “Why?”

“Because,” he says, “I thought you were so different. An anti Dru. You were kind where Dru could be cruel. But I learned that wasn’t so. I have learned that the opposite is true, but I wasn’t willing to accept it. Until now. You are just as cruel as Dru was, only more so. If Dru tortured her victims, she eventually showed them some end to their torment. You don’t. You just keep on torturing. And I’m your latest victim. Your latest tease. You keep me in your basement because you can. Your’re exacting control over me. It’s all about control. How you control yourself. How you control me. It’s always and everything about you. You’re keeping me here because you know I want you. You know I love you. But here, in your own house, you can have me on your own terms. And that’s how you’ve always wanted it between you and me. On your own terms.”

She is still in her position on the floor, still too consumed in digging away at her ice cream. She has not eaten a bite.

“You know it, Slayer,” he says, grabbing her by her shoulders. “You’ve loved me from first glance. We identified each other as mortal enemies and did nothing about it. How many times did I have the chance to kill you? How many chances did you have to kill me? And we never did. We never killed each other. And that’s why we’re standing here at odds together, wondering why we’re in the same house, wondering why we’re not fucking or killing each other. It’s either or between us. But you see, a few nights ago, I felt how much you needed me. I felt your lips caving in around mine. Your desire…your fear…” He smiles down at her. “It was all there in your kiss. I’ve never felt a more potent kiss in all my life. It was intoxicating. I haven’t been able to sleep it off since.”

He is holding her face in his hands now. Her fingers are getting chilly around the ice cream carton and she feels it slipping from her grasp. His breath is scented with her mother’s cooking sherry and his lips are coming near.

But then there is a sound. It’s the phone.

“I’ve got to get that,” she says slowly.

“All right,” he says.

When she still lingers there, he leans in close and whispers into her ear. “No one’s stopping you.”

She sets down the ice cream on the counter and picks up the phone. Her voice is trembling when she speaks.

“Hi, Buffy,” Dawn says. “Just checking in. ‘Cause I said I would. Even though now everybody here thinks I’m some kind of freak ‘cause I keep calling my sister.”

Buffy tries to steady her voice as she watches Spike pace around the room, his arms folded, building up more ammo for the next round.

“I’m glad you called,” Buffy says.

“You all right, Buffy? You sound weird.”

“I’m fine,” she says. She doesn’t sound very convincing, even to herself. “I’m just tired, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Is Spike there?”

She stares over at Spike and her mouth instantly goes dry. Something is going to happen…Dawn, come home because something is going to happen between us and you’re the only one who can stop it! “Yeah, he’s here.”

Spike knows he’s being talked about and gives a little smile, flexing out the muscles in his face.

“Can I talk to him?” Dawn asks.

Buffy hands the phone over to Spike. “She wants to talk to you,” she says.

Spike takes the phone and nestles it under his chin. “Hey, Little Bits,” he says. “You havin’ fun?”

“Oh, my God, yes. You would not believe…You’d be going crazy here, though. Everyone here likes *NSYNC more than I do. Amelia’s even thinking about getting an *NSYNC tattoo. Well, not really the whole group. Just Justin Timberlake’s face.” She giggles a little. “On her butt.”

“Sounds like a fitting place for that arse,” Spike says.

“I thought you’d like that,” Dawn says.

“So you’re all right, Little Bits? Not homesick or anything, are you?”

“Homesick? I’m just on the next block! Geez!”

“Well, have a good time then, luv. Try to get some sleep. And have sweet dreams of Justin Timberland.”

“Timberlake!” she squeals.

“You can tell me all about it in the morning,” he says.

“All right. Tell Buffy not to worry.”

“Will do.”

As Buffy witnesses the easy exchanges between her sister and Spike, and the affectionate smiles that keep reoccurring on his face throughout the conversation, a thought occurs to her: He wouldn’t hurt her. He might say he would, but I don’t believe he could.

Spike gives the phone back to Buffy. “She doesn’t want you to worry.”

But she is. Very.

She wants to make her escape now. She has her ice cream and her spoon again and is on her way to the stairs.

“You know, Buffy. If this is how you treat all the blokes who go two-for-two on your four poster, it’s no wonder you’re alone on a Friday night,” he says to her as she’s leaving.

Now she is on her way up the stairs. She doesn’t stop walking until she’s safe in her room with the door locked. She sits at her desk with her ice cream and her spoon and eats angrily. She doesn’t want what he said to interfere with her enjoyment of the last few bites of the pint, but it is. She tries to drain out the words in her head by going over to the stereo and turning the song on again. Loud. It’s neighbors calling because the kids can’t sleep loud.

The music is rattling the pots in the kitchen. Spike is still here, bottle in hand, pacing. He continues to drink. There is almost nothing left now. He hears the music and he has heard it so many times it feels like he’s listening to a part of his soul…

The bottle flies across the room and crashes against the stove. He’s done. This is all he can take. This is where it ends.

And this is where it begins.

She doesn’t hear him coming down the hall. She is standing in the middle of the room when it happens. There is a thwack as Spike’s boot connects with the door and it comes splintering open. The music is so loud she can’t hear her own gasp when she turns in the direction of the noise.

He is standing there, pulsating with anger. His jaw is set in a fearsome clench. The stake lays on the bed. But she does not try to reach for it.

He steps up to her. His breath is coming down on her face in heated drafts, stirring the stray hairs at the top of her forehead. His hands are on her, clutching her, pulling her close. There is nothing in her that tells him she’s going anywhere but where he’s going next with this.

His lips are now on hers. Her hands go to the back of his head. She wants this. Her verbal protests against having any feelings for him amount to nothing when she’s kissing him. Her needs are all too clear when her mouth is engaged with his.

His pelvis is moving slowly against hers. She reaches for his backside, drawing him closer. He groans through the assault on her mouth and clutches at her. His hands are cold through the fabric of her tee-shirt and they are moving, down, to the hem of the shirt. The action of his removing her shirt is too quick to even calculate. She wraps her legs around him. He staggers with her attached as they lumber over to the bed. They do not part, once. She is lying under him now. The bra is the next to go, pulled off in one easy tug. Her breasts are tiny, like little scoops of white snow. He kisses them as his hands endeavor to remove her drawstring pants. Her hands are quick to remove his shirt and it comes off like a flap of black skin. And then she finds the zipper of his jeans. The music is still pounding, but she can hear his boots land on the floor. As he’s kissing her, the tip of his finger makes the rounds, exploring the outside of her underwear. And then inside. Without so much as a warning, his fingers are inside her. And this is where she cannot lie as well. His fingers are slippery with the dew she is making as she cries out his name.

His mouth goes to her breasts, then to her stomach. His tongue traces the area below her navel and she flinches. His fingers are still inside her. One has found the right spot and she moves her hips over the bed to the rhythm of his strokes. Then his mouth his there. His tongue. His teeth. She moans as he devours her, spreading her legs, running her hands through his hair.

Her thighs are beginning to shake around his head. The music is still playing, but in the air, all around, her sounds are rivaling the volume of the tune coming from the speakers. The building pleasure is causing her to quake and she grabs for the headboard, holding tight. Just as she’s about to let everything go, just as she thinks she can take no more, he is inside her. Her eyes fly open to the sight of his face, right over hers. His mouth is wet. His chin glistens with her moisture. He bends to kiss her and she tastes herself.

He is deep inside her. She watches his face. His expression convulses with each thrust. There is a tender look, then the fierce look of a beast. He is watching her as well, the desirous, hungry look in her eyes. Her tongue running along the rim of her bottom lip. She puts her lips together to say his name and he lowers his head so that he can hear her, so he can know that at this moment, she wants this more than anything in the world.

The sights around her are dissolving into prisms of light. Even when she closes her eyes, the colors are still there. She squeezes her eyes shut. She squeezes him with her inner muscles and he shudders as he takes the Lord’s name in vain and then screams her name. She clenches him again and she watches his face break out in pain, then absolute joy and he screams her name again.

He plunges himself inside her and exits, slowly, withdrawing almost completely. But then he is inside her again. His motions quicken. His breath falls on her face, his voice falls in her ears. She grasps him firmly as he enters one last time. His stomach jerks against hers as he empties himself inside her.

The song has now played about ten times. And now that they are lying in each others arms, the music in an intrusion. But neither makes a move to silence it yet. He is still inside her. It’s not enough to just lie beside her. He has to be a part of her.

Finally he rolls over and gets to his feet. She watches him walk across the room to the stereo. The music stops. And there is silence. In the sudden hush, they are aware of how hard they are breathing. Like geldings after a derby. He returns to her side and buries his head between her breasts, kissing her once before settling there to sleep.

She lays there awake for a while as he tumbles into slumber. She bends to kiss him once before snapping off the light. In the darkness and in the quiet, her thoughts are too numerous to count. But of all the chaotic uncertainties plaguing her, there is one thing she can sort out and put in the definite category.

She has never been so screwed in all her life.

CHAPTER SIX

Buffy awakes. When she is coming into consciousness again, she is murmuring her lover’s name. But he is not there.

It’s a shock, not seeing him there. She calls him name, loudly this time.

“I’m out here, luv,” he says from the hallway.

She reaches down for her tee-shirt and for her panties and puts them on swiftly. She is out in the hall now, searching for Spike who is looking through her linen closet. He is fully dressed. Black tee, black jeans, black duster…why?

“What are you looking for?” she asks.

“A blanket,” he says.

“For what? Are you cold? I can warm you up if you are,” she says, grabbing him from behind and latching onto his ear, kissing him there.

“No, I need a blanket because I’m leaving.”

“I told you I’d go get the blood for you,” she says.

He sighs. She doesn’t like this sigh. And she doesn’t like the face he presents to her next as he turns around in her arms. He can’t look at her as he tells her again, “I’m leaving.”

At first she takes this as a joke and is prepared to laugh with him. But then she sees the seriousness in his eyes.

“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

“I’m leaving now, Buffy. I’m going away.”

His words from last night trickle down into her head as she remembers, potently, when he took her again at 3:00 in the morning. “Oh, Buffy, I need you so much,” and then, “Buffy, I need you always.”

“Why?” she says, hating the stammer in her voice. “Why are you going away?”

“Because I have to,” he says.

“That’s not a reason!”

He sees the tears swimming in her green eyes. She will not acknowledge them, but he will. Oh, God, I wish there were a better way to do this...

He takes her face in his hands, running a thumb across her cheek. “Slayer,” he says.

She pulls away from him, wishing she had more clothes on, wishing she hadn’t taken them all off for him now that he’s saying these things.

“So that’s it? You fucked me and now you’ve had your slayer fix. So you’re leaving?” she flicks away the tears on her face, hoping that he’s seeing her pull back the hair that has fallen in her eyes.

“No, Buffy. And I was afraid you’d take it like this,” he says, approaching her, his hands reaching for her.

She turns away. More tears are coursing down her face.

“Well, how else should I take it?” she says, trying hard not to sniff. I guess you thought laying the Slayer would be this big major deal, and now you’re disappointed because I’m just like all the other girls you’ve had your dick in.”

Finally he grabs her and spins her around in his arms so that she is facing her. Her nose is red and her eyes are pouring tears and he’s never hated himself so much in his life.

He leans in close and places his lips on her. He feels her lips trying to separate, stubbornly, but eventually they comply. He has her up against the wall and he is made keenly aware of the fact that she is wearing very little clothing. He can’t extract the thought from his head that a few doors down her bedroom door is still hanging by a thread on its hinges and the bed is still unmade. His hands caress the curves of her backside and all he can think about is that bed. Apparently, the bed is on her mind too because she whips one leg around him and begins grinding softly into him.

When their lips finally part, her eyes are still closed and her mouth is still open. He puts his forehead up against hers. “Buffy, I love you more than anything in the world. And you’ve got to believe it’s killing me to have to leave you. After last night…God, it was all I could ever wish for. The fact that I was lying so close to you and you were not turning me away. The fact that I could reach over and touch you and you touched me back. You gave yourself to me, Buffy. And it was more wonderful than I could have imagined. And then when I awoke this morning, you were right there. I must have spent the better part of an hour just staring at you and trying to make myself believe that I was really there with you. For all these years, we’ve hated each other. And just one night, we loved each other, completely. You do things that the Bionic Woman would have to be reprogrammed for. But as good as it was, I woke up this morning, a smile on my face, and a song in my heart, and I knew that something was amiss.” He kisses her again because he senses that his voice is about to break. “Buffy, we could never make this work,” he says. “You know it. Things could never end up at the happily ever after stage between you and me.”

There is logic in this and she has known this all along, but after last night, after he held her, made love to her, she wants to believe that he loves her and wants to be with her. There were promises in his touch last night. He told her that he loved her before. But last night he showed her how much he did. And she woke up in love with him.

“But why do you have to go now?” she asks, not quite willing to give up yet.

“Because if I stay any longer it will be impossible for me to leave. It’s nearly impossible for me to leave now,” he says, pulling her closer.

They are embracing and Buffy knows he is speaking the truth. She has come to this same conclusion herself, but she has not scheduled her acceptance of this until a few days later. Or a few weeks later. Anytime but now.

This wasn’t the cowardly exit of another Parker telling her she had been used and discarded. This was a deep and abiding apology. He did love her more than anything in the world. That was not an exaggeration. She could feel it in his arms.

“Oh, God, Buffy. If I could make it work…if I could twist the neck of this thing and make it work, I would. I would. You remember what I told you at the Bronze, don’t you? About what makes you different from the other slayers? Your family. Your friends. Not me.”

In the clutch of vulnerability, she clings to him, whispering heavily, “I do need you.”

He pulls her away. He wants her to see the reality of things, and not what lust and anger have presented for her and have made real.

“You don’t need me. Not to do the sort of thing you asked me to do for you. You can protect Dawn all by yourself. And if this Glory bird ever shows her face again, she’s no match for you. There’s not a being in any dimension who’s a match for you.”

She supposes this should flatter her. But she’s too wounded now. She is dealing with the pangs of a definite goodbye and it hurts so much she wishes the Slayer powers extended to muting emotions at will. But she is just a young woman, after all, in that respect. A young woman with feelings exposing them to a creature who’s not supposed to have feelings. But he does. For her.

In the linen closet, she finds a blanket that’s tough enough to withstand the harsh rays of the sun against any vamp.

“This belonged to Angel,” she says, holding it, caressing the fibers. “He left it here.”

When he takes it, he gives it a sniff. “Still smells like the poofter, too.”

She chooses to ignore the blunt cut against her former lover because she’s caught up in the oddness of her feelings for that blanket and whom it will be protecting now.

She follows him down the stairs. His steps are quick. It seems he can’t wait to leave. But it’s not that way at all. He just wants to get the pain over with, doesn’t want it to linger on her face. He can’t stand to look at her when she’s in pain.

At the door, she wonders where he’s going. And he doesn’t know.

“I’ll hide out in the sewers until dusk,” he says. “Then I’ll plan my next move.”

“You’ll let me know,” she says, hopefully.

He grabs her hand and kisses her knuckle. “I’ll let you know.”

She doesn’t know if this is entirely true, but she relies on the hope that she will hear from him. Somewhere.

He takes her into his arms one more time. There are lions in his grasp. And she tries to tame them all, hoping her whip will change his mind.

“Dawn will be crushed that you didn’t say good-bye to her,” she says over his shoulder.

He squeezes her still tighter. “You say good-bye for me.”

“I will.”

She knows the door within his reach. He knows it too. And the pair struggles with this final moment. He loves her. She does too. But she won’t tell him that. Instead, in a whisper, she tells him something that sounds like a confirmation of her love for him.

“Thank you,” she says. “For everything.”

“Oh, Slayer,” he almost groans. “It’s been worth it. In spades, my love.”

As he is about to depart for the door, he turns to her one more time. He wants to see her, just one last time, and to say this.

“Buffy, with each encounter with a Slayer, I’ve taken something with me. With the first, there was the scar,” he says, pointing to his eyebrow. “With the second, I took this duster,” and he smooths the lapels on his coat.

“And with me?” she asks.

There is that slight, smug smile that she has grown to love. “We had last night,” he says.

It is early morning and Dawn is due in at any time. The sun is hot already and Spike secures the blanket around him as he walks out onto the front porch. She follows his racing form all the way down the street until she sees him no more. Since she doesn’t observe a burst of flame, she assumes he’s all right and that he’s found his way to the sewers without complication.

Buffy goes into her room. She is still crying an hour later when Dawn comes home and wonders what’s wrong.

It’s about noon when there is knock at the door. Buffy is sitting up in her room, by her window. It takes her forever to get to the door. Her movements are slow. She’s feeling ancient, drained and she is wearing a blanket draped around her shoulders, even though it is sunny, bright and warm outside. She holds the blanket around her for security.

For some reason, Giles is the last person she expects to see at the door. It’s been weeks since she’s seen him, it seems. It’s almost as though she’s forgotten what he looks like.

There’s concern on his face. There is intention in his visit. And it’s not just to say, “Hello, how are you doing?”

She gives him a hug, and the blanket slips away from her shoulders. Underneath she is wearing just the panties and tee-shirt she put on that morning when she awoke alone. She feels Giles stiffen in her grasp and she wonders if he can smell Spike on her. She can. She can still feel his touch, his kiss, his presence inside her.

She knows she looks a mess. Her hair has not been combed and her eyes are puffy and red. But she wants him to see this, see the hurt. Then maybe he will understand when she tells him what has happened in the past two weeks.

“Buffy, I was just…in the neighborhood…” he is moving through the living room, cautiously, peering behind the furniture. “And I just thought…thought I would…see how you are…”

She follows him into the kitchen. He trying for stealth, but his curiosity is pathetically obvious. Especially when he looks in the fridge. And later when he goes to the basement door and turns the knob.

“He’s not here,” Buffy says.

“Who?” he says.

She smiles at his attempts at concealment. “You can look down there, but you won’t find him. At least I don’t think you will. I haven’t checked in the last five minutes.”

“But he was here?” Giles asks.

She nods her head slowly. “Yep, he was here.”

“For how long?”

“Almost since the funeral.”

“Oh, Buffy…” there is disappointment in his tone. “For God’s sake, why?”

“I told you that day in the magic shop,” she says as she sits down at the table. She remembers the incident with the chair. And then the table. The fridge might work, though, she remembers him saying. His little quirky words keep coming back to her. Some of them make her smile. Some make her regret. All make her ache. She wraps the blanket around her.

“You told me that he was to be coming by in the evenings to look after Dawn, not becoming a member of the household,” he says accusingly. He is standing over her with a deep scold on his face.

“That’s how it started out. But things happened. He kept getting attacked by vamps because, apparently, his association with me isn’t making him Mr. Popularity with the other undead. So I realized if he was going to be around to take care of Dawn, I had to take him in.”

“You were protecting him,” Giles says.

“Yeah,” she says.

Now Giles sits down across from her, slowly, with all sorts of questions running through his head. It’s as though he’s trying to sort out which ones he has to know and which ones he doesn’t want to know, but will find out about anyway. He’s preparing himself to know the truth and it’s not going to be pleasant.

“But now he’s gone. Well, not totally gone. He’s probably down in the sewers right now. That’s where he said he was going to think about things.” She lays her head on her shoulder and sighs. “Dawn cried when I told her. She accused me of kicking him out.”

“Did you?”

Hardly, she thinks. “No. It was his own decision. Not mine.”

“Well, what was it that finally convinced the bastard that he’s not wanted here?”

Buffy says nothing. She only stares at Giles. Suddenly he can see her broken heart and her loss. He has seen this look lingering in her eyes since her mother’s death, but the sadness in her eyes is new, recently acquired. But there is confirmation of all his fears in her eyes as well. The biggest one comes blindingly clear to him.

“Buffy, did you…”

She doesn’t want him to know everything. She’s not obligated to share everything with this man. But she thinks he should know that whatever happened is over.

“Giles, there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already beaten myself up about a thousand times over in these past weeks. So don’t even start. All you have to know is that he’s gone. Completely. And I don’t think he’s coming back this time.” She runs her hands through her hair. It’s sticky with old perspiration and smells, wonderfully, of him. “I always send them packing at some point. I guess he was just getting that part over with before we could get any further.”

Giles’ face has now gone from mild shock to disbelief. Presently, there is a look of acceptance growing on his face and she is relieved. She hopes he won’t ask her anything more, because she’s too tired to come up with answers.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

She smiles, a little. “I don’t know. I’m feeling like I just left Bizarro Buffy world or something. Like I just saw another side of myself that I didn’t know existed. And this Buffy did everything I would do, except one. She let someone into her life who probably shouldn’t have had an invite. She fought with all her might to keep him at arms’ length, but eventually…things happened. Things got complicated and the world inside the Summers’ house got a little too small.”

This summation suffices for Giles. He is not there to accuse her of anything anymore. He is there to comfort her.

“Where do you think he’ll go this time?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” She has thought about this. Probably L.A. She’s thinking L.A. because Angel is there and she sent him away wearing one of Angel’s old blankets. He’ll want to tell Angel all about what happened. “Hey, Poof, your ex wanted me to return this to you. And by the by, I slept with her. You were spot on about the smelling-like-vanilla thing. She’s the sweetest spice in the rack,” she can hear him say.

“Something tells me he’ll be back. Sunnydale is too much of a playground for him,” Giles says.

She wants to believe this. She has kept saying to herself that there’s always a possibility he’ll reconsider. He’s made similar exits before. Not quite like this one, but he has turned his back on Sunnydale in the past with every intention of never returning. But he always finds his way back.

“If he does come back, it won’t be for a long time. He’ll move around for a while, try to be the Big Bad somewhere else where there are already too many Big Bads and he finds himself outnumbered. I know somehow Spike will always be a part of my life. And I can honestly say, I’m OK with that now.” She hears her words and nods in agreement with herself. “Yeah. I’m OK with that.”

Le fin