Title: Going Everywhere But Here
Rating:PG13
Prologue
Five Years Ago
"So, you're really going? You're just gonna up and leave Sunnydale, leave me, after everything?" Buffy asked the young man sitting on the porch step beside her. It was a clear cool night, and as she looked up at him through her lashes, he could see the moonlight reflected off her unshed tears.
Seeing a girl on the verge of crying had always been hard on Spike, especially when he was the cause of it, but damn it- this was not his fault. He couldn't help that the one night they had spent together meant way more to her than to him. It wasn't his fault that the one female friend he hooked up with happened to be rather clingy. He had to get out of there fast. He still had to finish packing 'cause NYU waits for no man.
"You know I have to, pet. Don't look so glum. We're friends, but we've never really been close. In a few weeks, you won't even remember me. Maybe I'll see you sometime when I'm home," he said as he quickly got up from his seat and walked away before she could say anything else.
Chapter 1
Present
Sunnydale
He was wrong. In five years, Buffy hadn't seen Spike once because he hadn't been home a single time. After he got on the plane to New York, he never looked back and probably never gave her a second thought.
He was also wrong when he said she would forget him. She thought of him hundreds of times each day, every time she looked at the small figure currently drowsing in her car's passenger seat. Dawn's long straight hair and distinctly stubborn streak told everyone she was Buffy Summers' daughter, but only Buffy knew for sure where her piercing blue eyes came from.
The car pulled up to the house on Revello Drive that Buffy had grown up in and that now her daughter would grow up in. She got out of the car and quietly shut her door. She walked around to the other side, got Dawn out, and carried the four year old inside.
After putting her to bed to finish her nap, Buffy went to her bedroom to change out of the clothes she had worn to her job as a secretary. She looked around the room that she now called her own. After her mother Joyce died suddenly of an aneurysm a couple years back, Buffy moved her things into the house's master bedroom and converted her old room into a playroom for Dawn.
At one time, she had big dreams for herself. She was going to go to college, but she had had to drop out to take care of Dawn. She wanted a good job, but without a college degree, her job answering the phone and filing at a local law office was as good as she could hope for. She had wanted to see the world, but now she would be happy to have more than a few dollars left in her checking at the end of the month. Now, she didn't have any dreams for herself left; all of her dreams were for Dawn's life. It may not be the life she had envisioned five years ago, but it was the life she had, and it made her happy.
Dressed in more child-friendly clothes, Buffy walked downstairs to the kitchen and started cooking supper. When the chicken strips were done, she put them on plates and went up to her daughter's room. The pastel walls with their fluffy painted clouds were a lot different from the wallpaper her Joyce had up when it was just a guest room. She walked over to the bed and gently woke up the little girl.
"Come on, sleepy. Dinner's ready. I made your favorite," she said as she led her down the steps and to the kitchen. Watching Dawn eat made Buffy smile wide, and it once again reminded her how good her life really was.
New York
He didn't know if he had been right or not. He didn't know how she was or what she was doing because he'd never been back. He didn't know if she ever gave him a second thought, but he had. Almost everyday since he got off the plane at JFK International, he had thought of the girl he left behind. Buffy might not have been the one that stayed in his bed the longest, but she was the one that had stayed in his mind forever.
NYU had been a new horizon for him. A place to completely leave behind the boy named William he had been and embrace the man named Spike he had become. College breathed life into his somewhat dull existence up until the day that changed the course of his life.
He had been singing at an open mike night after loosing a bet with some of his new buddies. After leaving the small stage to a surprising chorus of applause, he was approached by a representative from a record label. From that moment on, he was a rock star on the rise.
Five years passed by in a blur for him in an endless precession of women, booze, travel, and still more women. His life was full of everything he could ever want, but his heart was empty. He had things, but he had no one.
Spike looked around his spacious flat in upper Manhattan and realized that there was nothing there that would let someone know a person lived there. Sure it was furnished and lavishly decorated, his designer had seen to that, but there was nothing personal in it. There were no photos, no magazines, not even a phonebook. He stayed there when he wasn't on tour, but it wasn't home. The only place that came to mind when anyone mentioned home was not the rolling hills of his native England but the golden town in California he left far behind.
That was when he knew it. This life might fit him, but it wasn't everything he needed out of life. What he needed were friends, family, and the blue Pacific Ocean. He picked up the phone and dialed his manager. He told the man to book him a flight to Los Angeles. He'd be back in New York soon, but for now, he was going home.
Author's Note: I hope everyone likes this. I know what I have so far is kind of short, but it will be a semi-lengthy story when it's done. I know what I want to do with it next, however my college classes are getting stressful right now so the next chapter might be about a week. Until then please let me know what you think of it so far. Thanks.