Part Four

The walk back downstairs was quiet as both were still shaken from revisiting their lowest moments. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Buffy gestured awkwardly towards the kitchen.

“Are you hungry, maybe?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

“I’m fine.” As wonderful as it should have been spending time with this new, gentler Buffy, Spike was ready to go back to the basement. Her support was awe-inspiring, but the memories of just what he’d done to her were still vividly imprinted in his mind. Pushing them back, pushing himself to do anything but cower on the floor was exhausting. He was almost ready to choose tied up and alone.

“But if you…extra blood should help with the healing, right?” She smiled softly but couldn’t hold eye contact. Instead, she let herself catalog his injuries. The bruises on his face were almost gone, but he’d managed to open the cuts on his chest again. She could see the droplets of blood making the t-shirt she’d given him stick to his wounds. The internal stuff was harder to gauge, but she’d seen his cringe getting up from the floor and knew that walking was still difficult for him. He still had a ways to go before he’d be back to normal.

Spike looked over at her and fell in love. It was probably the thousandth time he’d fallen in love with her, but it didn’t make the experience any less shattering. He was simply stunned by the person she was. She was all the things that he could never be. She was strong in ways he had never realized a person could be. Her strength didn’t come from her muscles or her magic or even her charm. Buffy’s strength came from her will to do to what was right. Spike knew that Buffy would do what was right, intrinsically right, even if it wasn’t right for her. He knew that she was helping him because she thought it was the right thing to do. He suspected that she wished it weren’t the right thing to do. He wasn’t sure it was.

He wanted to make it the right thing, though. For her, he wanted to be worth helping. More than anything, Spike wanted to be the kind of person that she could be sure of. He’d do anything to make her proud and deep down, he knew that that was the problem. Buffy would only really be proud if he wanted to do the right thing. Period. Full-stop. She wanted him to want to do the right thing not because she did, but because it was right.

Spike didn’t think he could ever love the right thing as much as he loved her. He’d always choose her and that was simply one of the many reasons that he knew she couldn’t choose him.

He nodded slowly. “I could do with a bit extra. How about you? Have you eaten today?”

Buffy frowned slightly as though the question confused her and Spike knew that she just couldn’t remember. She’d been forgetting to eat more often lately. It was just one more sign of how bad things were getting.

He followed her to the kitchen and watched as she reached into the freezer for a bag of blood and then into the cabinet for a mug. When she headed towards the microwave, he stopped her with a gentle hand over hers. She jumped.
“Sorry.” He pulled his hand back as though he’d touched fire. “I’m…sorry. I…” He nodded towards the blood in her hand. “I can do this myself. Why don’t you fix yourself some cereal or some such?”

“I don’t…mind. If you want to sit down, I can do this. You’re hurt.” She couldn’t quite look at him just then, but Buffy was determined. She had decided to take care of him and she wasn’t about to let her nerves stand in the way.

“Wouldn’t want to face off against a demon army just yet, but I can handle a microwave, surely.” He grinned.

It was the smile that did it. Buffy wasn’t sure how he managed to say so much with a smile, but he did. He had dozens of different ones: soft smiles, sexy smirks, flirty grins. He could convey love, anger, almost anything with a single look. But this was her favorite one, this was the smile that said let’s have a little laugh at ourselves. It was meant to tease her but with a solid helping of self-effacement.

She found herself smiling back. “All right, but if we have some kind of microwave demon I don’t want to hear about how I left you all weak and helpless to fend for yourself.” She handed him the blood and decided that a bowl of cereal did sound good.

Spike tried not to stare at her while she selected a box from the cabinet. Buffy being kind he could explain to himself. Buffy flirting was another matter altogether. He told himself not to read too much into her response. She probably hadn’t meant anything by it. Still, he felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the hot mug he was lifting to his lips. He felt like a man being flirted with.

The lighter mood held through their quiet breakfast together and Buffy announced that she was ready to veg in front of the television. Spike nodded agreeably, but didn’t say anything out of fear that his eagerness to spend more time at her side would be obvious and unwanted.

He stood in the foyer while she adjusted the curtains and blinds. He was sure that she had never looked more beautiful.

“All right, I think we’re good for some smoke-free viewing now.”

He walked in eagerly, only to come to an anxious stop by the coffee table. The couch was the only seat with a decent view of the screen, but he wasn’t sure that she’d want to sit next to him. Sure she’d slept beside him the night before, but then he’d gone and brought up the attack.

Buffy pointed to the couch. “Do you want to lie down maybe? It’s probably easier on your ribs.”

It would be. Sitting up hurt like hell. “I’m fine. I can sit, if you want to share. Or…or we could pull over the…”

Buffy shook her head and sat down. She pulled a pillow onto her lap and patted it.

He gawked.

She sighed. “I can sit somewhere else, if you want.”

He answered quietly, his eyes focused on the carpet. “You know I don’t.”

She patted the pillow again.

When William was sick or heartbroken, his mother had often cradled his head on her knees. She’d patted his hair and called him her little prince. Spike had almost forgotten how much he still missed his mother. He stepped woodenly towards the couch, dropped tiredly onto it, and aching to go to a home that hadn’t existed in more than a century, he laid his head on the pillow.

Buffy looked down at him but couldn’t see his face since he was turned away. It was, she figured, for the best; looking into his eyes that closely would be more intimate than she was ready to get. She was only a little surprised to find herself wanting to run her fingers through his hair. Only a few moments earlier his touch has startled her enough to make her jump, but already the almost overwhelming desire to touch him had returned. She didn’t have time to wonder why or if it meant something; she was too busy trying to resist. She tried to tell herself that she had insisted that he lay on her for practical reasons. It would be more comfortable for him and she would be able to keep a close eye on him even if she got drowsy. It was totally logical. She was really good at justification. She reached for the remote and turned the television on.

Cartoon animals whizzed across the screen and a jaunty tune blared just a little too loudly. She turned the volume down without asking. He’d be able to hear it clearly even if it was too quiet for her.

She flashed back suddenly to one of their gentler moments. She’d slept with him. Once, she’d gone to him and instead of ripping at his clothes she’d simply curled up on his lap and cried herself to sleep. She’d been even angrier than usual when she’d woken shortly after dawn to find that he’d simply held her all night and watched a television that seemed to have no sound. After that she had avoided him for days. It was a display of weakness. It had shamed her even more than the sex had.

She put the remote down and settled her hand a few inches from Spike’s head. Her fingers itched to bury themselves in his curls. She frowned and tried to concentrate on the cartoon. Buffy liked cartoons, they generally had a simple black and white world view. There was a good guy and a bad guy. Everyone knew who to root for. She wished that her own life was that simple. Besides, she thought, in cartoons the character could die and then be back in the next episode. It was only natural that she felt a certain affinity.

This was one of her favorites, but she couldn’t focus. Frustrated, she grabbed for the remote.

“In the mood for anything particular?” She tried for a casual tone as she began flipping through the late morning television offerings. Familiar music made her pause. She smiled. “Ooh, I love this movie.”

On the screen Patrick Swayze gestured sexily for his costar to come dance with him on a log.

On the couch, Spike scoffed.

“Hey! It’s romantic.”

“Sure, but they’d never last. Got nothin’ in common. I’d give it six months until she leaves him for some boring lawyer or doctor type.”

Buffy frowned. “The whole point is they fall in love despite that whole being from different worlds thing.”

“Yeah, until she realizes that he’s got nothing goin’ for him aside from pulling off the tight pants.”

“Why are you being so grumpy?”

“I’m not. I’m just saying that this movie is ridiculous.” He reached up and pulled the remote out of her hand.

Buffy was too surprised to protest. He’d barely been speaking since she’d brought him home; she didn’t understand why Dirty Dancing would agitate him enough to cause the sudden verbosity. She stared at him openly.
He quickly turned through several channels before stopping with an abrupt snort. “Here. This one’s more realistic at least.”

Her eyebrows went up as she looked curiously at the television. “The King and I.” She laughed. “It’s more realistic that the King of Siam falls for a tutor.”

Spike shrugged. “Based on a true story, if memory serves.” He shook his head. “The point isn’t whether or not they’re in love. The point is, loving her, it kills him. Love brings down the King.”

Buffy struggled to remember the end of the movie. She was sure she’d seen it as a kid. She knew that it didn’t have a happy ending; that was why she and Willow always stopped watching after the big dance number.

It dawned on her then, suddenly, what had brought this on. Spike was feeling bitter or trying to at least. As pessimistic as his words were, she couldn’t quite buy it. He was hurt, that she understood, but she knew Spike better then he thought she did. He was a romantic. He wouldn’t just give up, not even if it looked like there was no hope. Spike didn’t give up on love. Buffy knew that there would be changes now that he had his soul back, but she knew that his ability to love wouldn’t be one of them. It was too big a part of who he was to be lost. He loved wholly and openly, despite all obstacles. Buffy didn’t think she could ever love like he did. She wished she could, that she could be as brave as he was, that she could risk as much as he did. It simply wasn’t who she was.

She sighed. “Maybe we should just stay with the cartoons.” She didn’t know what to say. It hurt her to think that she had convinced him that love only led to pain, but she didn’t think that she was the one to convince him otherwise. She wasn’t so sure that it didn’t. She just knew that she wanted him to believe. Buffy wanted Spike to believe in love enough for both of them. In that moment, she knew that what she really wanted was for him to hold her hands and to give her that earnest look of his and to promise her that they still had a chance. She wasn’t brave enough to take it, but the thought of losing it tore her up inside.

“Sure.” The winds left his sails and Spike wondered why he had even opened his mouth. It was frustration mostly. The moment he had settled onto the couch, all thoughts about his mother had fled and he’d been completely taken over by her. Buffy’s scent, her warmth, the sound of her heart beating and her stomach gurgling. It had immediately overwhelmed him. He was hard in an instant and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t move, at best that would mean giving up his chance to be close and he didn’t even want to consider worse scenarios. He flipped back to the cartoons before reaching up to hand back the remote.

She took it and settled it back on the side table. She pretended to watch while her mind tried to wrap itself around its own discovery. She wanted Spike to love her.