Carefully To Tread

Part Two

Buffy doesn’t bother knocking this time she just enters quietly. She finds him sitting in the same spot, still clutching the nearly empty bottle.

“Spike, we need to talk.” She approaches him cautiously.

“Not sure we do, luv.” He says, his voice a touch more gravelly than usual. “Think we’ve said everything, yeah?”

“No, Spike, we haven’t said nearly enough.” She squares off with him and he doesn’t respond, only stares.

Buffy studies him. She can see that he’s been crying. And she admits to herself why. Why he said no, why he walked…or ran…away. Her eyes are open. Why hadn’t she understood this before? He’s said ‘it’ so many times she’s lost count.

He’s in love with her.

Buffy looks at him and notes the fear in his eyes...and the longing. She realizes for the first time that the fear bothers her more than the other. She walks towards him and crouches down at his feet; sitting a few inches from him. He straightens up, preparing for who-knows-what, but looks over her head, unable to meet her eyes at such close proximity.

“Spike.” Buffy reaches a hand towards his leg, but withdraws it. “I’m…sorry.” He turns to her, unsure if he heard her correctly. Is the Slayer apologizing for something?

“For what?”

“For not...believing you.” She thinks she sees a smile forming on his lips, but it vanishes.

“Don’t apologize for that, Slayer, because you’ve always believed me. You just didn’t want to.” The honesty in that statement stings. She can’t even think of how to respond, but he doesn’t give her the opportunity.

“If you want to apologize, apologize for something you’ve actually done. Apologize for bein’ too hard on yourself. Apologize to Dawn for not letting her in. She’s your sis, and she loves you more than anythin’…more than anyone.”

“More than you?” She asks softly and the question startles him into silence. He swallows and then shakes his head and looks away.

“What do you want from me, Buffy?” His voice is slightly above a plea, but it effectively fills the room.

“Nothing.” She matches his tone.

“Well that’s bloody obvious, isn’t it?” The bitterness takes both of them by surprise, him more so. He sighs. “I'm not going to…to do…what you want me to do.”

“And what is it, exactly, that you…think I want you to do?” She lifts her chin. He runs his gaze along the length of her body and then meets her eyes with the most openly pained expression she’s ever seen.

“You want me to help you feel…something.” She doesn’t respond, but he hears the rapid thump of her heart beat in his head like a war drum. “I won’t. I can’t.”

It’s these last words that confirm what she’s been denying all this time. Spike is just a man. A man in love...and she’s been using him a like an emotional crutch with no regard for his feelings at all.

It had been all too easy for her to pretend he didn’t matter, that he was incapable of being hurt by her actions. It was almost an afterthought for her to follow him out into the street and suggest…what she had suggested.

But now.

Now she sees that there is more man in this being than monster and she can no longer deny that it has been this man that she’s turned to when she’s been at her lowest.

Buffy curls her legs up, moving closer to him…close enough to touch…and rests her hands on her knees, her chin on her hands, and looks up at him with eyes wide open.