Fight to the Finish (BTVS, Book Seven)

chapter 6 - Him

Dawn and I had taken Spike to our house at night so that us and Mom could give him a place to stay instead of the basement at school.

Mom was cleaning up around the house. "You're gonna stay in the basement. Basement is still good, right? Considering what was happening at the school basement."

"Mom, our basement is fine," Dawn answered. "The school basement is bad 'cause the Hellmouthy ness of it."

Mom nodded. "Right." She looked at Spike. "Uh, we're running low on food, but I do get paid tomorrow, so we will restock. I take the first shower in the mornings, for work, and if I use up all the hot water, that's your tough luck. Are you keeping up, or do you need some kind of English to British translation?"

Spike walked closer. "I don't need anything, Layla."

Mom turned to me.  "I just don't understand when his problems became your problems. More specifically ours."

"The school basement is making him crazy," I told her. "We can't just leave him there."

"Why not?" Dawn asked. "Crazy basement guy is better than Stalking Zoey Guy." Spike looked down. "At least he toned down a lot and didn't intentionally hurt you... since starting to hook up with you. You guys aren't... you're not starting up again with the whole--"

I gave Dawn a look. "No. Okay, it's just--things are different now. He has a soul."

"Yeah, what does that mean exactly, that Spike is all soul-having?" Dawn asked.

"I don't know," I told them. "Not exactly, anyway, but he said that he got it back... by choice... for me." Dawn and Mom were surprised but impressed. "He's been through a lot, okay, and he's not gonna hurt..."

Spike walked up, touching my arm. "Zoey... sorry."

"No, it's okay," I told him.

"I'll go," Spike told us. "This can't work."

"It will," I told him. "I--it already is. Okay, you know, you've been out of the school basement for half an hour, and you've already stopped talking to invisible people."

"Bollocks," Spike told us.

"Okay, so there was that one episode in the car," I told him. "But--"

"No, bollocks to the whole thing," Spike told us. "I don't need your mollycoddling."

"It's not coddling," Mom told him. "Now go to your basement. I gotta go to work."

Mom walked away.

Spike, Dawn and I exchanged a look.

~~~~~~~

The next day, I was picking Dawn up from school, seeing her sitting on the football field's bleachers, walking toward her.

"So, what is it?" Dawn asked.

"What's what?" I asked.

"Last night, you said you weren't helping Spike out of pity," Dawn told me. "What is it?"

"It's a good question," I told her, taking a sip of soda through a straw.

"Is standing there drinking soda some kind of a Zen non-answer?" Dawn asked.

I put my sunglasses on top of my head. "No, I just... I don't know what I'm feeling. I couldn't stand him for the longest time, but now..."

"You love him?" Dawn asked.