CHAPTER FIVE
 
 
Buffy was quiet until they reached her house, then said, “If that really freaked you out and you don’t want to—I’ll understand. It’s okay.”
 
He pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine, staring straight ahead over the steering wheel. “I get the feeling you’ve had way too many dates that ended with the guy running away.” He turned to face her. “I don’t want to be one of them, Buffy. I like you. Aside from being beautiful, you’re funny and bright, and I want to spend more time with you. But I’d also like to know what I’m getting into. Is that fair?”
 
She sighed. “It’s very fair. Just not something that usually goes well for me.” She glanced away for a moment, then back to look at him from the corner of her eyes.  “But hey, you’re Spike’s… something or other… so you’re probably made of tougher stuff than most men.”  She met his gaze full on and smiled. “I’m game if you are. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll get freaked out and think I’m some kind of madwoman. Or, you’ll hang around and learn to hate me because of what I am and what that means sometimes.”
 
He raised a tentative hand and cupped her cheek in a gesture so familiar it almost brought tears to her eyes. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been so ‘game’ for anything. And I can’t imagine hating you.”
 
“Wait till you get to know me better,” she said, holding his hand to her cheek until she realized what she was doing and let go. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
 
“Don’t be. It was fine. I touched you first.”
 
“You did,” she said with a smile. “It was… nice.”
 
He wiggled his eyebrows at her, saying with mock lasciviousness, “I can do better than ‘nice’.”
 
She laughed and opened her door.  “I’ll just be you can,” she said as she got out. “Are you coming in?”
 
“I certainly am. And even if I wasn’t, I’d be walking you to the door and trying for a goodnight kiss.” He was out his door and by her side before she’d even moved away from the car.
 
They walked to the door of the house in companionable silence, stopping abruptly when it was thrown open.
 
“You’re back too early!” Joyce said. “Did you have a fight? Did something go wrong?”
 
Buffy shrugged and glanced at Bill who shrugged back.
 
“Not really. But I had to stake some vamps in the parking lot, and it kind of spoiled the mood for a while. We just decided to talk about slayer stuff here instead of in a bar.”
 
“Oh. Well, that’s good, I guess. I’ll just be up in my room watching a movie.”
 
With that, Joyce whirled and ran up the stairs.
 
“Well. I’m not sure if I should be flattered that she wants to give you time alone with me, or offended that she doesn’t want to have to make conversation with her English teacher.”
 
Buffy laughed. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I just chalk hard-to-explain behaviors up to being a teen-ager and wait for them to go away.”
 
“A very reasonable attitude,” he agreed. “You’d make a good school teacher.”
 
Buffy shuddered. “Been there – sort of. I was a high school counselor for part of the year when my sister Dawn was in high school.”
 
“You were?” When she raised her eyebrows at him, he said, “I didn’t mean to imply that you… I mean I really don’t know, do I? You could have a PhD for all I know….”
 
“It’s all right. Your instincts are good. I don’t have any credentials or training – and I never finished college. But Sunnydale, especially that last year when things started falling apart… if you needed somebody for a job and you had a warm body – emphasis on ‘warm’ – you took them.  The principal thought I did a good job of handling a… an incident… and he asked me to fill in as counselor.”
 
“You said ‘that last year’, you mean the one just before Sunnydale was destroyed?”
 
“That’s the one. What would you like to drink?”
 
“Not ready to discuss it yet. Check. I’ll have a beer if you’ve got one, otherwise, whatever you want to serve me.”
 
Buffy peered into the refrigerator and made a sound of approval. “Here we go. There’s one more in there and then you’re out of luck.”
 
“Out of beer,” he said, taking it from her with a smile. “Not out of luck.” His expression made his meaning clear, and Buffy blushed her appreciation as she popped the top on her Diet Coke.
 
“If nothing else, you’re going to be good for my ego,” she said, in acknowledgement of the implied compliment.
 
“I try.  So….” He followed her back into the living room and settled at one end of the sofa. “….no questions about Sunnydale. Why don’t you ask me questions?”
 
“I can do that. Let me see… I’ll try not to get too personal.  How about, where did you go to school? Did you plan to be a teacher?”
 
“Well, I presume you don’t mean high school – although it’s not very far away from here. I went to USC for my undergrad and to Stanford for my masters.  Years apart, by the way. And no, I didn’t plan to be a teacher. My dad wanted me to go into business with him, so I majored in business with a minor in English Lit.” He paused. “I worked for him for a few years, got married to my college girlfriend, tried different aspects of the business, didn’t like any of them. It was… okay… but I was bored and decided to take a break.”
 
Buffy waited expectantly as he stared at nothing for a few moments. When he didn’t continue, she said, “So you took a break, and…?” He gave her a rueful look.
 
“I told my wife I needed to find myself, bought a motorcycle, and took a trip up the coast. It was going really well until I got close to the Canadian border and a deer that I’m pretty sure had a moose for a father—” He paused to grin at his own exaggeration. “Anyway, a very large deer jumped out in front of me and we both flew up into the air.” He paused again. “Gotta give credit to the helmet I always hated to wear. It saved my life. Barely. I woke up a month later, in a hospital bed with my mother crying in a chair beside me. They’d had to bring me back to life at least once, so I wasn’t really expected to wake up. Seems I’d cracked my skull pretty hard and been in a coma since the accident. Which probably was just as well, given how many broken bones I had too. At least I missed most of that pain.”
 
He gave himself a small shake and smiled at her.  “Anyway, skipping over rehab and PT and the almost full year it took me to feel like myself again, it was like I was starting all over. I’d done so much reading when I was on the mend that I realized where my true passion lay, and I decided to get a masters in English.  Which doesn’t exactly lend itself to lucrative paid positions, so I ended up teaching and found I’m pretty good at it. My wife didn’t think much of it though, so she divorced me for ‘not being the same man she married’.”
 
“Wow. You were really lucky. I mean, not the getting divorced part, but surviving that accident.”
 
“I’m sure you’ve had injuries that were just as hair-raising,” he said, blinking when she gave a wry laugh, then coughed until she was red in the face.  “Something I should know?” he asked.
 
Buffy shook her head. “Nope. Definitely not something you need to know. But to answer your not-quite-a-question, yes, I’ve had some pretty serious injuries. It’s part of the job, and why we come with rapid healing and high pain thresholds.”
 
“Interesting, if a bit… scary. Not that I’m frightened!” he hastened to add. “Not me. Nope. Not even a little bit.”  He sighed. “You’ll let me know when I say things that make it sound like I want to bail on you, won’t you?”
 
“If you promise to be honest with me if or when you’re thinking about it, I won’t have to, will I?” She challenged him with her eyes, trying to keep her expression blank.
 
“That’s true, I guess. Okay. Let’s make a deal. I promise to tell you upfront if I’m thinking I need to find somebody less….”
 
“Scary?” Buffy offered, forcing a smile.
 
“I was going to say, less intriguing and complicated,” he almost growled as he shook his head. “Where was I? Oh yeah, I promise to tell you if that’s what I’m thinking about doing, and you promise not to assume it is what I’m thinking every time I seem taken back by something that you have to admit is a little out of the ordinary.”
 
“Oh…” Buffy shut her eyes briefly. “That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing, isn’t it?” She sighed, knowing he was right. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just—”
 
“You were just trying to protect yourself from being hurt… again… I’m guessing. I get that. I do. But I’m not like those other fools who didn't see the amazing woman beneath the Slayer, and I’m not going to let myself be frightened away by the fact that she could break me in half.” He smiled at her until she relaxed and smiled back. “Now, do we have a deal?”  He held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation, Buffy took it.
 
“We do.” They held the handshake, Bill gradually increasing the pressure until Buffy began to squeeze back. With a laugh, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
 
“Was that a test?” She glared at him and took her tingling hand back.
 
“Not really. I just was curious what you’d do. If you’d pretend you couldn’t match me.”
 
She shook her head. “A long time ago, I probably would have. I would have thought I had to protect your ego.  Not anymore. I am who I am. Take me or leave me.”
 
“I’m guessing that’s not quite the invitation it sounded like,” he said with a wistful leer.
 
“No. Not quite, anyway.” She smirked at his hopeful expression. “Weren’t we talking about you?”
 
“We were,” he sighed, sinking back on the couch. “Although I’ve forgotten where I was.”
 
“You were getting over your accident, and deciding to get a masters in English, which led to teaching, which led to…?”
 
“Ah. Well, which led to not much. I’ve been working at the same school for the past five years, worked in a different city for ten years before that. I came back here to work because my father had died and I wanted to be where I could keep an eye on my mother… and I write a little in my spare time. I don’t make a lot of money, but then, I don’t need much.” He grimaced. “I’d like to convince my mother of that. She’s sure I’m starving, and she’s always giving me stuff. I won’t take money from her, so she gives me gift cards by the barrelful.”
 
“Feel free to share,” Buffy said, her smile letting him know she was kidding. “If there are any for shoe stores you can’t use…”
 
“Shoes. Duly noted.  So, what else do you want to know about me? That wreck was pretty much the highlight event of my life up to this point.”
 
“I’m not sure I’d call it a highlight, but I know what you mean. Let’s see… you write a little? Like what?”
 
He squirmed uncomfortably. “Did I say that? I didn’t mean to. I mean…you know… English major, so I dabble in poetry. Nothing publishable, trust me.”
 
Buffy tried to school her face into a blank mask, but she’d obviously failed.
 
“Buffy? Now what? Don’t tell me your ex wrote poetry?”
 
She gave a weak smile. “Not saying a word.” With a quick subject change, she asked, “How long have you done martial arts? Didn’t you say you work at a dojo?”
 
“Ah, that’s one of those things that was different after the accident. I’d never been very interested in physical stuff – team sports or things like that. But after rehab and PT I was used to using my body and making it do things for me, so I looked around for something to do that was pretty intense but not a team sport, and I came up with Aikido. Turns out I have a talent for it, and I try not to miss more than a day or so at a time.”
 
“I’ll have to come watch you sometime.”
 
“I’d like that. You might want to work out with us… not sparring, obviously, but just running through the katas.”
 
“You don’t want to spar with me?” She blinked innocently, a smile twitching her lips.
 
“I’m not a complete idiot,” he laughed. “You’d clean my clock and then none of my students would listen to a word I said from now on.”
 
“Probably true,” she sighed. “But Joyce could use some practice when we don’t have any trainees here. Maybe she and I could work out there sometimes?”
 
“We can probably find a way to do that. The owner pretty much lets me do whatever I want as long as I cover my classes.  Which I have to do tomorrow,” he added, looking at his watch. “As much as I’d like to stay here longer, I have to get up before dawn tomorrow to open the studio.”
 
“Then you should probably go,” she said, noting that he hadn’t made any move to actually get up, but only had moved a little closer to her.
 
“I should.” He stared at her. “I really should.”
 
Buffy stared back, her mouth suddenly dry. Without either of them saying another word, they moved together to share a tentative kiss. Bill’s lips, while warm, felt so much like Spike’s Buffy almost gasped. When she didn’t pull away, the tentative kiss became more exploratory and intense. Still touching nowhere but at their mouths, they groaned simultaneously, startling them both into pulling away.
 
“That was….”
 
“Dammed right it was.”
 
He pulled her closer, and began another kiss, this one not even remotely tentative. Buffy’s head was spinning, even as she put her arms around his neck and allowed him to pull her onto his lap. No one had kissed her like this in almost twenty years. Visions of Spike and William swept through her mind as she fell into the kisses. Not until Bill’s hand slid under her shirt to caress the bare skin on her back did she come back to herself and realize what she was doing. With a small whimper, she pulled her mouth away and took a deep breath, letting her head hang against his chest.
 
For several seconds they remained still, her on his lap, his hand now on her waist as they both recovered their normal breathing. She raised her head to speak at the same time he did.
 
“I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry,” they said together, then laughed.
 
“Okay, let’s be honest. I’m not even close to being sorry about that. Any of it. I feel like I’ve been kissing you forever, and at the same time, like I just discovered something wonderful. But I shouldn’t have—”
 
“Not your fault. I was all over you. And I am sorry. Not that I don’t want to kiss you, but I want to know I’m kissing you, not imaging you’re… somebody else.”
 
“Is that what happened?” He released his hold on her and allowed her to move off his legs and onto the cushion beside him. His body was stiff, and Buffy raised eyes shining with regret.
 
“I don’t know. I knew I was kissing you at first, but you felt so much like… Joyce’s father….”
 
“Why don’t you just say Spike? I felt like Spike to you.” She could hear bitterness in his tone.
 
“You feel like Joyce’s father,” she repeated.  “And—”
 
“I thought Spike was Joyce’s father.”
 
“In a way… he was… is…”
 
“Buffy.” Bill’s fists were clenched. “What’s going on here?”
 
“Okay, remember our deal? I won’t panic that you want to run away, if you promise not to make a plan to do it without telling me I’m freaking you out. Okay?”
 
He put his head against the back of the sofa and sighed. “I don’t think I could leave you if I wanted to right now. And not just because it would be hard to walk in my current condition.” He turned his head to meet her embarrassed gaze. “Sorry, that was crude.”
 
She shrugged. “I’ve heard worse. And did I mention ‘sorry’?”
 
He waved his hand and leaned forward. “I’ll live. So, explain to me please, how there is a difference between Spike – who is Joyce’s father – and her actual father… who is not Spike?” His brows drew together. “I’m really having a hard time with this one.”
 
“Well, to start with, you’ve got to understand that I actually met Spike when he was a little boy…” She paused and shook her head. “Let me start over. Sometimes, there are… portals… that go to other worlds, dimensions, or times. Maybe all of the above, I don’t really know. Anyway, I chased a demon through a portal one time when I was a really young slayer and ended up in Victorian England for a few days. And I spent those days….”
 
By the time Buffy had finished explaining about meeting young William Pratt and then meeting Spike well over a century later, Bill was resting his head on the back cushion again. “So, Spike and I had a rocky start, but eventually we ended up together and saved the world a bunch of times. And I—we—thought we’d be together until… well, until I either got killed for real or died of old age. So when he just dusted… after not nearly enough years of being full partners in everything… I didn’t know what to do with myself. We’d both… okay telling you we’d both died a couple of times already and it didn't stick probably isn’t going to help. Forget that. The point is, I was a mess. I was hoping he’d find a way to come back to me, but I also had a pocketful of dust and ashes to prove that he couldn’t.” She glanced at Bill’s blank face, then back down at her hands twisting together on her lap.
 
“I don’t know what you believe in… but my world is overseen by The Powers That Be —or as Spike called them ‘The Powers That Think They Can Fuck with Everybody’.  You can think of them as whatever you want – God, Good, Evil, whatever – they try to keep the balance, and they’re very powerful. I guess I was screaming at them… I was pretty upset that they would let something like that happen to me… again. So, they gave me one day to go back to Spike, before he was vamped, but after he was an adult.”
 
She glanced at him again. “You actually look more like William than Spike, most of the time.”
 
“Makes sense that I’d look more like human William than a vampire,” he said without looking at her.
 
“Yeah. I guess so.” She sighed. “Anyway, I think you can figure out where I’m going with this. I ended up in that same field with grown-up, but still young and innocent William, and I seduced him into making love to me one last time – not for him, of course, but that’s how I saw it. I really wasn’t thinking about anything but having a chance to say goodbye and to hold him when I could appreciate that it was never going to happen again. I spent the night with him and then I came home.
 
“The Powers wiped his memory of it, so it didn’t interfere when we met later when he was a vamp. And I didn’t know anything about it when we met because it hadn’t happened yet in my timeline, and… this stuff gives me a headache. I’m not very good at explaining time stuff. But that’s what happened. I made love with William because I was mourning the man–vampire– he was going to become some day, and I came back pregnant. I didn’t plan it, didn’t even figure it out for a while, but I had my daughter and life was worth living again.”
 
“Holy shit.” He brought his head forward and gave her a look filled with longing and sadness as he touched her chin. “I feel like I’m ruining your life again… just by looking like this man you loved so much.”
 
“No. No, you aren’t. I just have to… we need to take some time. I need to know that it’s you I want, and not a substitute for someone I’ll never have again. Does that make sense?” Buffy’s eyes were swimming in the tears she’d not been able to suppress while telling her story. He took a deep breath and leaned away from her.
 
“Of course it does. I just don’t want to be adding to your pain. I don’t want to run away from you – quite the contrary – but I will if that’s what’s best for you and Joyce.”
 
Buffy shook her head. “Maybe it’s stupid or selfish of me, and maybe it’s not the best thing for you, but I don’t want you to run away. I just don’t want to… I don’t want to kiss you like that until I’m sure I want to be kissing Bill Patterson.”
 
“I want that too, Buffy. I’d like to think I’m not the kind of man who would take advantage of a woman’s feelings for somebody else just to…. but I wouldn’t swear I’m not. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to walk away from kisses that do that to me.”
 
The whole time they’d been talking, his hand was cupping her chin and his thumb was rubbing lightly along her cheekbone. When they both realized what he was doing, he dropped his hand just as Buffy pulled back.
 
He stood up and held out his hand to her, dropping it as soon as she was on her feet. They stood only a few inches apart, not making eye contact.
 
“So, I’m just going to go home, take a cold shower, and try to get some sleep before I go to work at the dojo.”
 
“Right. And I’m going to… to go to bed and sleep so I can get up tomorrow and think of some magical way to keep dating you without trying to jump your bones.”
 
“Okay, that thought is going to take more than one cold shower… maybe I can just sleep in the bathtub…” He adjusted himself without even trying to hide what he was doing, glaring at Buffy when she laughed at him.
 
“Sorry,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry. You should just go now. Before you decide you’d rather kill me.”
 
“It could come to that,” he muttered, walking to the door. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. “I suppose a goodnight kiss is out of the question?  Right,” he answered himself when she gaped at him. “Bad idea, Bill. Shut up and go home.”  As he left the house, Buffy moved to the doorway. 
 
“Drive carefully.”
 
“I’ll call you tomorrow. We can do this. I’m just going to haunt you until you think you know me well enough to—”
 
“I’d like that,” she said. “I mean, the call me tomorrow. The haunting not so much maybe.”
 
“Goodnight, Buffy.”
 
“Night, Bill.”