Chapter 4

 

            Without speaking to one another, Buffy and Spike entered their dark room that had no outside window.  A strange smell met Spike’s nose, but he couldn’t quite identify it, so he decided it was a quality of the decrepit building.  As Buffy shut and latched the door behind him with a soft click, Spike flipped on the only switch he could locate along the wall.  Low light flooded the room to reveal that a single bed was the only piece of furniture in the room besides the overhead light.  Clean sheets that looked as if they’d been washed some time ago were folded atop the small mattress. 

 

            One bed.  Just bloody great. 

 

            Buffy caught sight of his expression and touched his arm tentatively.  “Spike.”  His name was a whisper on her lips. . . almost undetectable.

 

            Even though it went against what every fiber of his being was screaming, he shrugged her touch away, only deciding to hide his disdain at the last second and covering his hurt with minimal effectiveness.  Striding to the bed and ignoring her eyes watching him, he tossed his bag to the ground and started roughly choosing some sheets out of the pile. 

 

            “About what happened with my. . . the phone call. . . ,” she began waveringly. 

 

            Spike pretended like he hadn’t heard her attempt to smooth things over between them.  He didn’t want to play makeup; he’d had enough of her games to last lifetimes.  “I’ll make a pallet on the floor.”

 

            “It didn’t mean what you. . . ,” she continued bravely, standing still in the center of the room with her hands folded behind her back. 

 

            Spike jerked one of the sheets out beside him so that it fanned out a little over the mattress.  He shot her a piercing glare.  “Look.  I don’t want to deal with your personal life while we’re on this mission.  We have enough to think about and do without the soap opera of your indecisiveness.”

 

            “Angel wasn’t this petulant about what happened,” she sniped back.

 

            Beginning to arrange the sheets on the dirty floor well away from the bed, Spike lowered his voice, “I’m not Angel, pet.”

 

At his non-responsiveness, Buffy’s temper began unraveling, and she let it tumble apart, closing in on him as she spoke.  “Well, at least, *he* let me talk with him about it.  At least, *he* didn’t hide in his office for three days like a big nancy boy, not eating, avoiding everyone.  Boo hoo.  Buffy got a boyfriend.  Geez!  It’s been *three* years!  What was I supposed to do?  Hide under a rock?  Not be around other people?  Not live?”

 

As Buffy gave her brief, overly emotional speech, Spike sat back on his heels with his arms on his thighs, not centering his attention on anything other than her words.  When she finished her diatribe, Spike rose from where he had been kneeling and fastened an intent look on her. . . one filled with a melting pot of emotions. . . deep, unrequited love, raw hurt, and sharp anger. 

 

Hadn’t he always encouraged her to live. . . to grow. . . to be happy even in his soulless vampire days when he made mistakes?  He never wanted her to pine away her life, and she knew it.  And slowly, as she watched with shock and growing regret, a wall began going up, covering him. . . hiding away all the things he always so openly shared with her in the past.

 

With a deadpan voice, he said simply, “You obviously don’t know who I am.”

 

Buffy hesitated and almost reached for him, but in the end, she didn’t.  Slinging her pack off her shoulder, she stomped toward one of the doors.  “I’m going to take a shower,” she declared.

 

One hundred retaliatory comments rushed through Spike’s head, including the immature compulsion to shout Dawn’s patented “Get out, get out, get out!” at her.  However, he chose to say nothing and busily ignored her.

 

Buffy tugged on the gritty doorknob, but the door was somehow jammed.  Rather than ask Spike for help, she concentrated at her goal of taking a shower, focusing all her confusion and unresolved emotions on the inanimate object in front of her. 

 

Finally, Spike could stand her small grunts of exasperation no more.  “Need help?”

 

“No, no,” she batted down his offer.  “I got it.”

 

With one last tug, the door sprang open, and Buffy flew back a bit with the motion.

 

She took one look at the contents of the tiny room, which was definitely not a bathroom, and screamed.

 

Concerned about Buffy and alarmed about what the vampire neighbors might think, Spike hopped up from where he was feigning nonchalance.  “What’s wrong?”

 

Buffy merely pointed with a covered mouth.  Spike directly saw what she was so upset about. 

 

Inside the tiny closet was what seemed to be a ten- or eleven-year-old boy with shaggy hair.  Spike identified the source of their room’s odd smell.  Tattered, filthy rags hung off the boy’s emaciated frame, and his bare arms, legs, neck, and even his cheeks were littered with vampire bite marks.  Spike observed that although the boy was not bound in any fashion, no doorknob graced the inside half of the door.  His brown eyes were huge and sunken in his skull, and he didn’t appear to have the energy to go anywhere. . . to fight back any sort of attack. . . much less one of a demonic nature.

 

Buffy recovered enough to move toward the boy cautiously.  She reached out a hand to touch him, but he shrank against the back wall of the closet.

 

“Careful, Buffy.  We don’t know what he’s been through,” Spike warned. 

 

“We can see what he’s been through,” Buffy corrected.  She presented the boy with a small smile.  “It’s okay.  We’re not going to hurt you.  We want to help you.”

 

As Spike viewed the scene between Buffy and the boy, bitterness rose in his throat.  For some reason, seeing her help someone else made him wonder why she hadn’t stayed to help him. . . someone she’d given every indication of caring deeply about. 

 

Pushing those feelings aside, he made excuses for her.  He reminded himself that after countless years of being immersed in death and despair, she’d had little time to figure out who she was and deal with the aftermath of her own emotional destruction at the hands of the darkness, much less deal with his vulnerability upon becoming human. 

 

He understood, but he couldn’t quite forgive her.

 

After several minutes of coaxing and gentle words, Buffy helped the child to the pallet Spike had made.  She’d tried to get him to lie down on the bed, but he refused to go near it.  Spike had a feeling he knew what the boy might have suffered on the bed, but he didn’t want to frighten Buffy with too many details about it. 

 

Buffy found a nutrient bar in her pack and handed it to the boy who snatched it eagerly from her grasp and began gulping it down.  His eyes remained steadfast on her as if he was afraid she might take away the food or slap him down. 

 

As Buffy watched the boy, tears filled her eyes from the stress of the evening, and Spike patted her arm.  He wouldn’t let himself do more than that even though his instincts told him to take her in his arms or rub the tension from her shoulders. 

 

“What’s he doing here, and what will we do with him?”  Buffy asked a while later as the boy finally allowed his hyper-alertness to fall, and the need for sleep overcame him. 

 

“Didn’t Michael say there was fresh blood in every room?” Spike half-asked, half-reminded her.  “There’s probably a human in every room.”

 

“That’s beyond horrible.  I wonder if Angel has found his yet?”  Something in her green eyes begged him to let her know somehow that things were temporarily okay between them. 

 

Giving in, Spike sighed.  “Should we. . . I mean, we should go check.”

 

They went together.

 

Angel had indeed found a young woman in his closet.  She too was resting peacefully but in Angel’s bed.  As soon as Buffy saw that the woman was safe, she and Spike returned to their room. 

 

“What’ll we do about the rest of them?” Buffy asked Spike as they made up the bed together. 

 

“The rest of the humans trapped in this motel?”  Spike fastened a sheet around the edge of the mattress.

 

Buffy imitated Spike’s action on the other side of the bed.  “Yeah.  Are we going to rescue them all?  Like a jailbreak?  Dust all the vamp guests and free the slaves?”

 

“Don’t know if we can do that.  It would probably cause too much of a ruckus and blow our cover,” Spike said thoughtfully.

 

“I don’t like it,” she declared as if that changed the situation. 

 

“We don’t have much of a choice.”  Spike read Buffy’s discontent and appended, “If you want, after we finish the mission, we’ll come back here and free everyone.  How’s that?”

 

Knowing he was just placating her, Buffy peeked back at the sleeping boy with sadness and doubt on her face.  “We will.”

 

“We will,” he corroborated.

 

The bed was made.

 

“I’m too tired to shower.  Do you mind if we share?”   She waved at the bed, using body language to explain further.

 

Spike reluctantly acquiesced.  “Yeah.  Let’s.”

 

Slipping under the covers after Buffy because he turned out the light, Spike was very careful not to touch her and kept his back facing her.  Unhappily, he was on the edge of the bed, but then, so was Buffy.  Stomach in knots, he finally gave in and settled toward her.  Soon, they lay on their sides, facing away from each other, backs pressed firmly together. 

 

He thought ironically that they’d always had each other’s back. 

 

And he relished her touch more than he was willing to admit.

 

Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, he made an abrupt decision and rolled onto his back, jarring Buffy from the edge of her dreams.

 

“What’s his name?” he whispered, poking her a little with his elbow to ensure that she was well on her way to waking.

 

“W-what?”  Her voice was muffled, slightly disoriented. 

 

“His name,” he repeated.

 

“Whose name?”  She sounded a bit more coherent.

 

“The git you’re dating.  What’s his name?”

 

“Why do you want to know?”  Her voice carried a mix of slight levity and frustration.

 

He reached down beneath the sheets and swallowed her cool hand in his.  She allowed the touch.  “I just do.”

 

“His name is Jonathan,” she stated neutrally.  “He’s a psychologist.”

 

“Oh.”  He dropped her hand. 

 

She picked his hand back up and inched closer to him, noting the tenseness of his muscles at each spot her body contacted his.  “Spike.  I broke up with him.”  She was too tired to explain why. . . too tired to go into great detail. 

 

“Oh,” he said again with a lighter tone.  Despite this revelation, he still felt like he didn’t really know her anymore. . . not after they’d spent three years living separate lives.  He knew they’d both been struggling, but he was more intimately aware of his own inner turmoil than hers.  Would the gulf ever be crossed?  He didn’t know, and his thoughts and feelings were a jumbled mess.  With ease, he gave up trying to figure it all out. . . at least for the remainder of the night.

 

As he was contemplating these things, Buffy rolled onto her side again.  This time, he allowed her to snuggle closer in reassurance that things were a little better between them. . . at least until tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

            Some people had an inner clock that told them to wake up after exactly so many hours of sleep no matter how exhausted they were the previous evening.  Spike was one of those people.  Being a covert poet at heart, he was also a person who was profoundly affected by his dreams.

 

And what had he dreamed?

 

As he woke, the essence of his dreams overpowered his thoughts and feelings, enshrouding him with a warm, gentle afterglow.  His dreams had been filled with a hope he didn’t ever remember feeling. . . except before he was vamped by Dru.  The hope was of a purity that comes only with innocence or youth. . . the kind that leaves the vaguest hint of a smile on the lips all day long for no particular reason except that one’s soul is *happy*. 

 

The bubble of peaceful oblivion was shattered as he realized the source of his hope and dreams was a young woman whose arms and legs were wrapped tightly around him, tangled with his limbs as if they fit together like pieces of the same puzzle. 

 

In seconds though, the events of the last three years, the last few days, flew back into his awareness, and he was filled with the urge to push her away and storm out of the room into the perpetually dark Vampire Villa.  He had every right to do just that.

 

However, before he could, something stopped him.

 

Buffy stirred in his arms and let out a noise so faint that he almost couldn’t identify it.  Then, his brain identified it.

 

She had said his name. 

 

At first, he was inclined to dismiss the quiet sound as a figment of his imagination, but then, she repeated the single syllable, this time with more urgency and matching tension in the muscles throughout her body. 

 

A bit alarmed, Spike halfway sat up, peered down at her, and was shocked that her fair cheeks were damp with cascading tears.  His heart went out to her because despite her outward reactivity, her mind was still far from consciousness. 

 

Tenderness filled him. . . something that he hadn’t felt toward her since he’d learned about her boyfriend.  (Granted her revelation wasn’t that long ago, but it felt like months in his mind.)  Spike stroked her tears away with gentle fingertips and kissed her eyelids delicately until she quieted and slowly began to awaken from her nightmare.

 

When she opened her eyes and smiled up at him with an expression he could only describe as relief, his heart swelled with compassion. 

 

“You’re here,” she murmured with evident joy, burying her face in his chest.

            Greatly relieved that she was okay, he returned her delight, “Yeah.  Where else would I be?”

 

As soon as the words left his lips, her face fell, and sorrow touched her eyes, threatening to fill them with tears once more. 

 

With sincerity, he asked, “What were you dreaming, pet?”

 

Shying away from him, she ducked her head.  “Nothing.”

 

“No, no.  Not nothing.  You were having a nightmare and sobbing.”  He caressed her hair briefly.  “A-and you said my name.”

 

“I did?” she asked as if she hadn’t realized it, meeting his eyes with an indecisive glance.

 

He didn’t believe her.  “You did.  So tell me, what’s going on?”

 

“Y-you’ll think it’s stupid.”  Tears tinged her tone.

 

“Pet, I won’t think it’s stupid.  Granted, some of the choices you make are bloody stupid in my opinion, but your feelings aren’t stupid.”

 

She was silent for several seconds as if she were trying to decide how best to tell him the truth.  Taking a deep breath, she admitted in a rush, “Okay.  I’ve had nightmares about you for three years.  Actually, I keep having the same nightmare.  Sometimes I have it more frequently than other times.”  Then, she tacked on, “I’ve had it a lot lately.”

 

Spike was stunned.  “For three years?”

 

She nodded with a childish expression that occasionally accompanies frightening dreams.  “Uh huh.  Since I found you in the crater.”

 

“What kind of nightmares?”  He slipped his hand in hers and held it loosely.  He wasn’t sure if his gesture was meant to reassure her or himself.  Relaxing against the mattress, he laid his head against the mattress parallel to hers.  “Slayer dreams?”  Slayer dreams might mean he would face some as yet undetermined doom.  Buffy had been known to have prophetic dreams that were uncannily accurate. 

 

Shaking her head, she whispered, “N-no.  Not Slayer dreams.” 

 

“About me?”

 

“Yeah.”  She didn’t seem to want to tell him more.

 

But he had to know, “Tell me about them.”

 

She took some time to gather her thoughts, and he vaguely wondered if she were trying to decide which parts to tell him.  “Okay.”  She rubbed her thumb against his palm.  “I dream that I have that feeling I told you about.  It’s so strong in my dreams that I am often overwhelmed by it.”

 

“What feeling?”  He needed her to be explicit.

 

“The one I had in L.A. before I went back to Sunnydale to find you.”  She released his hand momentarily to straighten the arc of her golden hair fanning back behind her. 

 

“Ah.”  Her tiny hand readjusted itself until it was enfolded into his.

 

“Only this time, sometimes I go back to Sunnydale and sometimes I don’t.”

 

“So, you don’t go back for me?” 

 

            She studied his eyes, trying to get a sense of what he might be feeling.  “No.  Sometimes I do.  And if I do, I spend what feels like hours in the crater. . . trapped and searching for you.  I find all kinds of things that remind me of home. . . photo albums I lost, mom’s jewelry, my sticker collection. . .”

 

            He snickered.  “Your sticker collection?  Little decals of butterflies and hearts and puppies?”

 

            “Yeah!  And fairies!”  She mock-glared at him, pushing against his chest teasingly.  “I used to collect them.”

 

            “In what, third grade?”

 

            “Did I say it made sense?  Point is, as I’m searching, I find bits of my old life, but I can’t find you.  And I get scared.”  The confession of her reaction to her dream came out almost inaudibly.  Before Spike could ask about her fear, she changed directions, “And other times, I dream about that *feeling*, and I’m stuck in Cleveland or L.A., and I somehow know that you’re there.  So, I end up walking all over the city, searching.  Usually, I think that I almost catch a glimpse of you, but you always evade me.  Or if I do catch up to the person I think is you, it’s not you, you know?”  Tears filled her eyes, and she tried to blink them away. 

 

            Spike didn’t quite know how to respond, so he merely stroked her hair.  Then, “But you did find me, and I’m alive.” 

 

            Her eyes soft with unshed tears, she smiled and traced a short path on his forehead.  “I know.  When I wake up, I know.”

 

            They lay facing one another for a while with an amicable peace between them.  For some reason, Buffy’s profession about her recurring dream had whittled away part of the wall Spike had built between them, and he allowed himself to explore her emerald eyes for greater acceptance.  With a new boldness, she met him halfway, not focusing on anything but the blue depths before her. 

 

            When Buffy’s eyelids started to droop heavily, Spike could stand it no longer.  “Pet, can I ask you a question?”

 

            Her lids made an attempt to rise higher.  “Sure.”

 

            “Can you tell me more about that *feeling* you had?”

 

            She was evasive, “What feeling?”

 

            He swallowed the lump in his throat.  Was she going to deny him the truth yet again?  “You know, the one that led you to look for me.”

 

            Squirming a bit on her area of the bed, Buffy sighed.  “I wish I could tell you.  I’ve tried to reason it out, but nothing seems to work.  Jonathan says that sometimes. . .”

 

            Spike stiffened.  “Jonathan says what?” he interrupted without thinking.  His voice contained a mixture of hurt and defensiveness that he’d temporarily stowed away in the back of his mind.

 

Buffy seemed to retreat a bit at his abrasive reaction, but she trudged ahead, albeit a bit more meekly, “He says that sometimes people have feelings that can’t be explained by reason, by logic.  But he also says that people have a choice about how to respond to those feelings.”

 

Spike was beyond contending with her words, and he said the first thing that came to his mind, “Buffy, is he your therapist?”

 

The callousness of his disruption normally would have caused Buffy’s temper to flare, but she’d had three years of life changes under her belt, and she forced herself to remain calm and not give in to the temptation to lash back.  “No, he’s not.  I *did* see someone for counseling for about a year, and *she* worked in the same office he did.  That’s how I met him.”

 

“Oh.” 

 

“Yeah, oh.”

 

Spike was distinctly aware that the temporary closeness he’d felt with the woman before him was disintegrating, but before he could remedy the re-opened wound, the door to their room banged open.

 

Lit by only the dim artificial lights outside, Angel loomed in the doorway with a scowl and crossed arms. 

 

   

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