Wedding Bell Blues—Chapter 5

Three days passed. Three days, and they were already snarling at each other.

Xander looked over at Anya where she stood behind the cash register, and wondered for a moment what he ever saw in her. She worshipped money, she was inappropriate at the most embarrassing times, and she had weird looking feet. Not so weird they were ugly in sandals, but how many people have black hair growing on the soles of their feet? Not too many that weren’t demons before, he knew.

Buffy looked at the couple, knowing that her sex life depended on their vows, and patted Xander on the arm. “She gets prettier every day, Xan. You’re such a lucky guy.”

“Yeah, I’m the lucky one.” He sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “Buffy, do you ever think about getting married?”

She thought of Spike, spending her days and nights with him by her side, and a wistful longing shot through her. “Yeah, I do. I hope I get to, one day. But, Slayer here, and they don’t make it to the chapel very often, I don’t think.”

“Not at all, usually. Actually, Buffy, you are the longest-lived Slayer in Council history.” Giles leaned against the table, book in hand, looking the same as he did years before in the library.

“Yeah, longest lived, except for those two pesky deaths I had.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “I want to do normal stuff someday, Giles. Get married. Have a house of my own. You know, the usual?”

“Well, Buffster, you do have a house of your own now, remember? You live in it?”

“Yeah. But it isn’t mine. It’s my mom’s. It will always be hers, no matter how long she’s gone.” She leaned her head on her fist, tears threatening again. “I miss her so much right now.”

“That’s understandable, Buffy. Wasn’t it approximately a year ago that she passed away?”

She looked at the date on the calendar, and saw that it was a year today. Guilt overwhelmed her, and tears did roll then—to think that she could forget the day her mother died. The day she had to grow up, and stop being a spoiled brat.

Her heart ached. She heard the sounds of her friends around her, but a white noise filled her ears and the sound of her blood pounding. Her mother’s blood would never pour through her veins again, never again….

She felt it pull on her, the need for him, and she got up and ran, ran all the way across town, dodging people and traffic to Restfield, to his crypt, throwing herself through the door in desperation, needing him. He jumped out of the chair when she stopped in front of him, panting for air and tears streaming down her face, and wordlessly took her into his arms.

She cried, her whole body shaking with the force of her sobs, until her knees gave way and he caught her up in the safety of his embrace, stepping back and sitting down to gather her into his arms, cradling her entire body and letting her break apart.

Break she did. She crumbled, her heart breaking as she thought of her mom and the life she’d had, what little Buffy had hung around for. She clung to him, her physical lifeline, as her mind splintered around her mother’s absence. He rocked her, humming tunelessly, smoothing her hair with his hand.

His heart burned for her, ached for her. He had lost his mother over a century ago, but the memory of grief echoed inside him. He had liked Joyce. She was a fine lady, in all senses of the word. He knew Buffy needed this, to allow her grief an outlet, and it honored him that she would come to him, need him to comfort and protect her while her guard was down.

“She liked you, you know.”

Buffy’s words were muffled, but he still picked up on them. “I did. I liked her. She was a right fine lady, rivaled the Queen. Never a question that she wouldn’t protect you, if she thought you were in trouble. Helped me enough.”

“If there was only something I could have done. To save her.”

He looked down, questioning his motive in telling her, but sensed she needed to hear it nonetheless. “She asked me to turn her. When she first got sick. I wouldn’t.”

Buffy looked up at him, eyes wide. “Why? Why did she want to be a vampire?”

“So she could stay with her girls. I told ‘er…well, I couldn’t. I don’t want to sire anyone. Don’t want to feed on humans any more. Didn’t then. I told her that she wouldn’t survive, and the demon would probably come and try to kill you because of being the Slayer, and she thanked me. Thanked me for my honesty. I felt like I condemned her. I still do.”

“I don’t know whether to be mad at you, or kiss you.”

“You can do both. I’ve seen it.”

And she found she could, because she was on his lap, his cock growing against her ass, and pressed to his chest, his face so close all she had to do was reach a little…. She touched her mouth to his, whispering against his lips. “Thank you for not turning my mother. I miss her, but I wouldn’t have wanted to stake her. I don’t know if I could’ve.”

“Welcome, pet,” he murmured against her mouth. “Love you too much to hurt you like that.”

“I know.” She silenced him then, not wanting to hear or say more. She parted her lips, and let him in, tasting him, so familiar, so loved. Her heart skipped, and he pulled away from her, concern in his eyes.

“I felt your heart skip some beats. Do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine, Spike. Shouldn’t you be pleased that you make my heart skip a beat?”

“I suppose.” He suffered her adjusting herself in his lap to a more comfortable position, which just happened to be squarely pressing her heat against his cock. He groaned, and buried his face in her hair.

“God, Buffy, how are we going to make it to this wedding? I’m tired of getting shocked every time I touch you with any kind of passion, and snogging’s great and all, but I need you.”

She snuggled against him, torturing both of them. “I know. I’m starting to have these really erotic dreams, and when I wake up, it’s worse. Xander and Anya are really snarky these days, and even Tara’s homicidal, and she wasn’t dating anyone. I don’t know—maybe Giles had the wrong idea this time. I don’t think this was just a harmless spell. I think it—changed us. All of us.”

She stood, and started pacing. “I mean, look at us. We’re all overly emotional. I had to leave the Magic Box, because they were all starting to cry because I was crying. Anya was wiping her face with the money to try to feel better, that’s how bad it was. Willow and Xander were holding each other, crying about some yellow crayon bull. And Tara—she was dusting the shelves, crying.”

“I’ve found myself getting a bit misty here the past couple o’ days.”

“And then me, today, just now. I am so not like that. To completely collapse?”

“Pet, you needed to. You really never did grieve for your mum. There was too much going on, with Glory and all, and then, well, you know what happened then.”

“Yeah, I know.” She turned to him, twisting her hands. “I know that Anya doesn’t want Xander to know about the spell, but we need to research what effects it could have had on us with the spells in the workroom.”

“You know that ‘m a doer, pet, not a researcher.”

“I’ll put Anya and Tara on it. They’re the ones that got us into this mess in the first place, they can figure it out.”