Forever and a Day by Lilachigh
Chapter #5 - Chp 5 Miles to go.....
 
Forever and a Day by Lilachigh

Chp 5 Miles to go….


I do realise that there have only been 4 real chapters but no 2 got posted twice and I thought it safer to leave it alone as I was having such problems with my comuter at that stage. All the story is here. There isn’t a chpt missing.


The A3 road south from London was as busy as usual on a wet Friday January evening . Spike braked and cursed violently as an elderly gentleman who probably never drove from weekend till weekend, pulled his little car out in front of theirs at a steady twenty miles an hour. Which was a pity as they were travelling at sixty!

Buffy glanced at her lover and smiled slowly. She was still finding it odd that when she looked for him, he was there. All these months she’d played a little game with herself.
‘I’ll walk round that corner and he’ll be standing in a doorway.’ ‘If I don’t step on any cracks on the way home, he’ll phone me.’ ‘If I let Dawn have that last piece of cake, God will send him back to me.’

Well, she’d often eaten the cake, had stepped on plenty of cracks, but still, there he was, sitting beside her, driving, swearing, thumping the steering wheel in time to an old rock band playing on the radio. So maybe God had been listening, after all.

OK, this was far removed from the place Willow had pulled her out of all those months ago, but it was a pretty good heaven of its own. ‘Don’t think I’m complaining in any way, but it would be nice to get there in one piece!” she commented. ‘Boring, probably, in your eyes, but nice.’

Spike grinned. ‘Are Giles and Willow keeping up with us?”

Buffy swivelled round to peer out of the rear window. There was no sign of Giles’ red car. ‘Nope! I think you lost them when you decided to break all the speed restrictions as we came past Guildford!”

Spike shrugged. ‘It was the sight of that gold cross on the top of the cathedral, pet. Still vampire, you know. Crosses make me nervous. Bloody hell!” He stamped on the brakes again then accelerated and rolled down his window to yell at another car as they zoomed past.

Buffy moaned theatrically. The dark night outside filled the car with cold air. There was the smell of snow and frost. Winter still had a tight grip on the land.

Spike pulled the car into the slow lane and reached over to pat her knee. ‘Sorry, pet. Just enjoying myself driving in England for the first time in ages. Got used to you colonials using the wrong side of the road, of course, over the years, but it’s great to get back to the right way of doing it!’

Buffy picked up his hand and kissed it swiftly. Even a silly little gesture like that turned her stomach with happiness. She stared at his palm. There wasn’t a blemish on it and he’d told her in graphic detail all that had happened to his hands since their goodbyes in Sunnydale.

The breath he didn’t need hissed between Spike’s lips as her warm mouth rubbed against his skin. He was having to concentrate now on the road and she giggled as she licked each of his fingers in turn, nibbling at the tips of them. She listened to the groan that broke from him and bent over to examine the interesting sight of his jeans tightening across his crotch.

‘Don’t you dare!’ he muttered thickly. ‘Keep your seat belt on, Slayer!”

Buffy leant back in her seat and carefully placed his hand over her breast. It closed lovingly for a second, then reluctantly went back to the wheel.

“Tease!”

“Coward!”

He glanced across at her, then, at the expression on her face, he swerved the car off the road, onto a parking layby and turned off the engine. ‘What’s the matter, luv? You looked as if you were about to cry.”

She smiled at him. ‘Stupid vamp! I just can’t quite believe we’re together again. It’s like a dream. I keep pinching myself to make sure I’m not asleep.”

Spike switched off the radio, undid both their seat belts and pulled her into his arms. She expected him to kiss her passionately, to possess her ruthlessly, completely, his hands and mouth hard and fast.

But he didn’t. He held her, his face buried in her hair, for a very long time. It had started to snow, gentle flakes that glided down onto the glistening road. The inside of the car was quiet and peaceful, and as Buffy rested her face against the smooth cotton of his T-shirt, she realised that this was what she’d needed more than anything.

Sex between them was magnificent and overwhelming and always would be, but this silent togetherness, holding, being, belonging, was what her soul craved. And from the tension that slowly began to ebb from his body, it was obvious that Spike felt the same way.

After half an hour, they reluctantly drew apart and without a word, drove on. “Tell me again why we’re heading in this direction,” Spike said at last.

“Willow and Giles worked out some sort of flow chart, or glow chart, or something,” Buffy said. “Whatever they called it, what it really amounts to is a map of Europe with all the sightings from the Elliott diaries marked on it. Apparently that shows that whatever is coming - this plaguey thing - has been travelling in a straight line for centuries. And so it’s due to show itself around the little town of Emsworth in Hampshire. Or along that part of the coast, at least.”

“And we’ll be there to meet it. Sounds like fun, pet. Although quite how you know a plague has arrived, beats me. What’s Red going to do? Have us wave bottles of disinfectant around every time the wind blows? How do you fight something you can’t see?”

“We’ll find a way. We always do. Giles and Willow make quite a team on the thinking front, and hey, you and me together, can you think of anything we can’t defeat?”

Spike grinned. “Well, when you put it like that, Slayer - ”

Buffy was peering at her map. “Hang on, I think we turn off to the right at the next junction,” she interrupted.

Spike glanced down. “Not unless you want us to eventually end up in Cornwall, sweetheart,’ he said dryly. ‘Your map’s upside down!”

“Oh! Well, duh! Yes, I know it is, but that’s how I read maps. I never get lost,” Buffy said loftily. “You ask anyone, Dawn, Xander, Giles, map reading is one thing I’m really, really good at....”

An hour later, Buffy realised with a sinking heart that she was going to have to deal with a very dangerous situation. One that was going to take all her cunning, skill and diplomacy. She knew she might have to revert to blackmail, even offer physical favours to contain the situation. She was confronted by a hungry, angry male and had no sensible solution to the problem.

They were completely and utterly lost and it was her fault!

“If you say, ‘I told you so’, one more time, I swear I will stake you!”

Spike glared down at the woman he had loved deeply up until half an hour ago when they’d driven down an English country road in the dark for the third time only to find themselves back at the same junction.

With enormous patience - the type that made Buffy want to smack him - he said, very slowly as if he was talking to a small child, “Bloody hell, we’ve driven down this road three times, Buffy. There is no where else to go. We are lost. Forsaken. Adrift in the middle of Hampshire without even a flask of blood to keep out the cold. It is bitterly cold, it’s snowing hard, it’s dark and I need a drink.”

Buffy rolled down her window and peered out at the sign as a flurry of snow hurled itself into her lap. “Stupid country,” she muttered under her breath, “It says Emsworth on that arm of the signy thing and it’s pointing down the hill.”

Spike thumped the steering wheel. “And we’ve driven down that hill three times, Slayer!”

“I wanted to ask that men we saw, but you wouldn’t let me. Remember?” Buffy shivered. The heater in the car wasn’t working and the snow was falling faster now. Her coat, that had seemed so smart and warm in Rome, didn’t seem to be keeping the English winter out very well.

Spike’s anger disappeared as if it had never been. ‘“You’re cold,” he said and wrapped his arm round her, pulling her into his embrace.

“And you’re going to make me warmer?” she sniggered, running her hands under his leather coat to where the cool cotton T-shirt was smoother under her palms.

“There are ways,”’ he muttered, “but I’d be happier if we were indoors before I showed you them!”

‘I’m sorry I got us lost,” Buffy admitted. “You were right; the map was upside down.”

Spike grinned. “Hey, a first. The Slayer admits to being wrong. Wish I had a bloody tape recorder. OK, my turn, well, if I’d stopped and asked the way right at the beginning of our detour, we might be there by now. I bet Giles and Willow are in their hotel right now, toasting their toes in front of a roaring fire.”

“They’ll wonder where we are. They’ll be worried.”

Spike laughed and hugged her tighter, drifting his lips across her blonde head. “No, Buffy. Willow will think we stopped to get - er - reacquainted, shall we say.”

Buffy smiled to herself. Reacquainted. What a marvellous word. She still felt weird and woozy when she let herself realise Spike was alive. That he was here, she was touching him, holding him, feeling the strength and power of those arms holding her safe.

“OK, Slayer, on we go. Before the snow buries us completely. I don’t like the look of this storm . It’s getting worse. I don’t want us out in it much longer. So this time we’ll turn left and head up the hill, away from what the signpost says. You know, before the Second World War, the country people round here changed all the signposts round to confuse the Germans if they invaded. I don’t think some of them have ever been put back correctly!”

He started the car and they drove up the hill into the driving snow. Slipping and sliding on the ice, the car crested the rise and began the perilous descent on the other side. Spike was beginning to get worried. This little car had no chains, no heater and the snow was getting worse by the second.

OK, he hadn’t been back in England for a very long time, but he remembered how bad their occasional winter storms could be and how completely surprised and unprepared people were when it happened. If the car broke down out here in the depths of the countryside, it could be very nasty. He needed to get Buffy into shelter and fast.

But even in the middle of his worries, he could feel the joy singing through his blood. He was back with Buffy. They were together. Nothing could stop the happiness he felt right now.

“Spike - look, a light!” Buffy pointed out through the windscreen where the wipers were failing now to cope with the thick wet snow.

Spike peered out and eased off the gas, coaxing the little car down the final slope, heading for the dancing golden light. “God, Slayer, I’d forgotten the one thing you can always rely on in England. Even in the wildest parts, you’ll find a pub.”

“Look out!” Buffy’s yell came too late. The passenger wheels broke through a coating of snow and ice and thumped into a deep ditch. The car tilted over to Buffy’s side and Spike was thrown hard against her.

“Bleeding hell. Buffy, you OK?” He managed to push open his door which was slanted above him. He scrambled out, his boots sinking into the snow, then reached down to help her unclip her seat belt and half pulled, half dragged her out of the car.

She looked dazed and rubbed at a cut on the side of her head where blood was trickling down. Spike leant forward and licked at it without thinking. Slayer blood! The power roared through him and he swung her up in his arms and ploughed through the snow towards the light.

He could see now that the pub was very old; small and thatched, with the sign hanging outside creaking violently as the storm raged. The light they’d seen from the top of the hill was a single candle burning in the window.

Spike put Buffy down gently. “How do you feel?”

Teeth chattering she said, “O-o-ookay, I think. Can we get inside?”

Spike tried the door but it was locked. He pounded on the nail studded oak that had been old when Charles I had been executed. “Hey! Is anyone there? Let us in?”

“There’re no lights on,” Buffy said, stamping her frozen feet in the thin fashion boots that were already soaked through.

‘Power lines must have gone down in the storm,” Spike said and thundered on the door again. ‘It’s a public house. There must be someone there. It’s way past opening time.”

Buffy swayed as a gust of snow hit her with all the venom of a striking snake. She couldn’t remember ever being so cold before. “Should we go back and shelter in the car?” she yelled above the wind. “At least we’d have a bit of shelter.”

Spike licked his fist. He’d hit the door so hard, one of the nail heads had pierced his skin leaving it bloody. He knew the car would give her no shelter from the freezing cold. He would be fine but he knew if Buffy was out in this all night, she’d be lying frozen to death in his arms by morning and there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

He crashed his bloody fist on the door again and suddenly there was the sound of a bolt being drawn, the large metal handle turned and the door opened. A small girl of about eleven stood there, holding the candle. She was wearing jeans and a green woollen jersey that was far too big for her. Big round spectacles made her look like a rather sweet sleepy owl.

“Hi, sweetheart. Can we come in? Cold out here. Are your parents around?”

The girl moved back into the pub and Spike and Buffy followed, groaning with delight to get out of the storm. She banged the door shut behind them, then lifted the candle high. “We’ve no lights,” she said.

“Can see that, pet,” said Spike, grabbing Buffy’s hands and chaffing them roughly to get the circulation going. “You’re not on your own, surely?”

“No, Jack’s here, too.”

“Mum and Dad out shopping and cut off by the snow, I reckon,” Spike muttered to Buffy. “What’s your name, pet?”

“Mandy.” She put the candlestick down on a table and with swift, sure actions, struck matches and lit three more candles.

They were standing in the pub bar; a low ceiling, darkened by years of cigarette smoke, was crossed by heavy black oak beams that still showed the slashes from the axe that cut them hundreds of years before. The light gleamed off a highly polished copper bar cover and brass coal scuttle and fire ornaments either side of a huge brick fireplace.

Buffy threw off her coat and kicked off her boots. “Hi Mandy, I’m Buffy and this is Spike. Our car came to grief just a few yards down the road. It’s in a ditch. Can we use your phone to ring a garage?”

Mandy shook her head, her eyes round behind her glasses. “The land line’s not working and my mobile’s got a flat battery. Can’t charge it with no electricity. Sorry. Shall I light the fire for you?”

Spike perched on one of the bar stools. “That would be great, pet. And don’t worry. We’re perfectly harmless. Do you think your Dad would mind if I helped myself to some whisky? I’ll put the money in the till.”

“Spike!” Buffy hissed, then stopped, suddenly silent. The door to the back of the pub had opened and a small boy of about nine or ten with bright red hair stood there.

“Go away!” he said angrily. “Go away now. We don’t want you here.” And his words were given a lot of weight by the shot gun he held precariously in both hands.


to be continued










to be continued