She'll never tell him, by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: PG
Timeline/spoilers: before and during Storyteller
Disclaimer: All Joss
Feedback: yes please, at dutchbuffy2305 @yahoo.co.uk
She was a woman of few words. Spike understood that now.
He was happy to be allowed, no, expected to be at Buffy's side at all times. He was never more than a few feet away from her these days, and often closer. He stood at her shoulder during their war councils, took her back in a fight, all without words, without needing them. Nothing had ever been said, but he felt he knew where his place was. By her side, just behind her, guarding her back. They communicated with a few sparing glances, everything perfectly understood. Such trust between them now. They seldom even touched, it wasn't necessary.
At night, when it was finally time to leave her for a few hours, when everyone else was sleeping and they had walked their rounds, they just nodded at each other in complete accord and went to bed. He went down to his basement, fell asleep without a thought and woke up eager to be with her in this silent communion. He met up with her in the morning, always at the exact moment she was coming down. Magic.
She'd never tell him, he'd thought. And when she started opening up, softening towards him, turning their silent partnership into something else, it was so gradual that he didn't even notice it the first week or so. Maybe she didn't either. Suddenly, when one day she put her hand on his shoulder briefly before turning away, he looked back and saw they'd been going somewhere, that they were halfway into a process he hadn't realized had been going on. He looked at where they were going and it took his breath away. He saw from her brief unnecessary glance the next morning that she knew, too. Had she consciously started it? Or had it surprised her as well? He probably wouldn't ever find out.
The week after that was like the slowest journey in the world. Every inch they stood closer when surveying the troops, each one-second-too-long glance was a tiny step forward. If he hadn't been possessed of an absolute certainty that they would arrive at their destination he couldn't have borne it.
And then there was the night that she didn't say goodbye to him at the foot of the stairs. Without saying a word, without a glance at him, she took his hand and gently drew him towards the stairs. They went up together, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if they had never done otherwise. She did have her room back to herself, something that had made him dizzy with anticipation a few days ago.
They did have to be silent of course, so, no fireworks. Well, duh, to borrow a phrase from her. Why compare Times Square at New Year's Eve with, for example, the Gulf of Mexico? No fireworks there, you might say, but there were endlessly rolling waves, a sound so deep and booming it made the marrow of your bones quiver, and the further you went in the deeper it would become. Few words were spoken, but they managed to communicate perfectly nevertheless.
She didn't tell her friends and troops of course, that wasn't like her, but he knew she wouldn't deny it when asked. They didn't try to hide anything, but during the day they acted the same as they had since he'd started living in the basement. The general and her most trusted lieutenant. In the morning, they'd arrive in the kitchen together, silent, side by side, as always. Nobody said anything about it, and he did wonder about that. He saw the little boy capture their entrance on video, but didn't anybody see he wasn't sleeping on the cot anymore? Maybe they were just more discreet and understanding than he'd given them credit for. He'd expected Harris to say something about 'screwing the vampire again', but he didn't. He caught him and the demon girl washing his sheets one afternoon though, and it was pretty obvious why they needed to, so maybe he did know. He didn't think Harris'd be willing to use his bed, otherwise.
It made him not care about the chilling looks he received from the Principal. Let him flirt with Buffy, let him play at being her ally. Let him ask nosy questions. Buffy was his, and nothing the man could do would make him feel threatened.
She'd never say it maybe, never use words, but she told him every night.
END