A/N Thanks for reviewing - it means so much! I really like writing this fic, and I hope you enjoy reading it! I'd be very grateful if you keep reviewing, it makes me smile :D. This is where the Spuffy romance begins to kick off.

PS. Spike is not a vampire. He is a human. Whether or not he stays like this is a mystery to you readers...

We'll Meet Again

Chapter Three

Buffy sat eating breakfast, shovelling in her porridge hungrily. She caught her mother's eye and slowed, reluctantly, looking sheepish. She drank the milk in the glass beside her plate, and excused herself, drifting into the living room, dreamily. It had been a strange night. Normally Buffy's dreams consisted of the events that had happened in whatever book she had read that day, or what she had heard on the wireless, but last night somebody new made an appearance. William.

Buffy shook her head, frustrated, and instead chose to look out of the front window. Today was not so nice. The sky was a gloomy grey, and she could hardly see the sun behind the murky clouds. That was the only thing Buffy disliked about Britain – other than the war. The weather was so unpredictable. Buffy thought it might be nice to live somewhere exotic, like India, where it was always so hot. It would have to be without her mother, of course. She couldn't live with Joyce constantly harping on about the use of a parasol in such hot weather.

A sudden flash of blue woke Buffy from her Indian daydream. The postman had arrived in Buffy's road – but he had completely missed out her house. She opened the window, and called out.

"Excuse me! Mr Postman!"

The young man, who had a handsome, good-natured looking face grinned at Buffy, and shook his bag in a proud manner. "Hullo, Lizzie," he said, for this was his own fond abbreviation of her name. "I've got no letters for you today."

The friendly smile disappeared from Buffy's face almost immediately. "Oh," she replied, sadly. "Not even a small postcard from Billy?" The postman shook his head. "O.K. Thank-you very much."

She closed the window, quietly, and the Postman continued his walk to William's house. She had been desperately hoping for news from Billy in Germany. It had been a while since her collection of letters had been added to. Her last one had been during Christmas. It was February now, and he hadn't written for her birthday back in January. Buffy was sure he hadn't forgotten – it was probably just so tiring in the army that there was no time for birthday messages. Still, she was worried.

Her mother entered the room and this point, and Buffy rose from where she had reclaimed her seat on the sofa, politely. Joyce nodded, and both mother and daughter sat, Buffy bored, and Joyce engrossed in her sewing.

"There was no post today," Buffy informed her mother. "Jim passed straight over us to next-door."

"The Boones?" asked Joyce, thoughtfully. "I shouldn't think anyone would care to write to them, they're very anti-social people indeed. Anne – Mrs Boone – was very impolite when I went and said hello all those years ago when they first moved in. You would have thought I was asking for a hundred pounds!"

Boone. So that was William's surname. Buffy repeated it over and over in her head. It was unusual, and she knew nobody else with a name like it. Then again, William was unusual, and she knew nobody else like him.

"And the boy, he's very sullen; a strange boy. I'm surprised you could keep up a conversation with him, yesterday. I don't really approve of you talking to him…" Joyce stopped. "What are you going to do now, Elizabeth?"

At once, Buffy looked around for a book to bury her head into. Joyce frowned on boredom – insisted there was no excuse. Buffy couldn't find one, or any other pastime to indulge in, and instead declared that she was going outside.

Joyce harrumphed. "Really, Elizabeth," she said. "We have barely been in the same room for more than five minutes since Billy left. Don't you find the outdoors dull?"

"Not at all, Mama," Buffy insisted, and her mother waved her away.

"Do as you please," she replied, surrendering. "But keep in the shade; I couldn't bare it if you became one of those freckled things you see on the streets." Buffy bit her lip at her mother's impertinence. Sometimes she almost forgot her place and was on the brink of telling her mother to become more open-minded.

But instead of retorting, she bent her head and made her way into the dreary morning air. The gentle zephyr kissed her cheeks, and she disobeyed her mother, heading straight for the heart of the garden, where the sun would hit once it emerged from behind the clouds. She looked over to her neighbour's house, to see it that the curtains were closed downstairs, and the upstairs looked dark. Buffy wondered if Anne Boone thought the blackout extended to the daytime. She looked away, sadly.

"We'll meet again… don't know where, don't know when," Buffy sang sweetly, and flawlessly, thinking of Billy. "But I know we'll meet again some sunny day."

"You always seem to be singing," remarked a cool voice, and Buffy leapt up, heart hammering, her face a brilliant red.

"Oh, William!" she cried, with a hand to her chest. "You made me jump!" She dropped her voice to a whisper. "I can't talk to you long…" She trailed off, ashamed of the explanation.

"…because Mama wouldn't approve?" he finished for her. "It's O.K, us East-Londoners do get the brush off sometimes – we're common, aren't we? I knew it was a mistake moving to this part of London, but Mum was dead set on spending her inheritance from Gran on a nice house. We didn't realise she was so bleeding rich, or we would have bled her dry before she popped her clogs…"

"I don't think you're common," said Buffy, truthfully. "I like you, even if you do have a funny accent." William laughed, and it made Buffy's spine tingle. His chortle was full of mirth and good humour, and it made Buffy want to sing again. She wandered closer to the fence and to William, thoughts of her mother vanishing into thin air.

"Cockney accent," he explained. "I guess it didn't sound so different back in the East End, but down here with all you higher-class people…" He pondered. "What was that you were singing? Sounds familiar."

"We'll Meet Again," declared Buffy. "It's my favourite, ever since I heard Vera Lynn sing it on the wireless. But you weren't meant to hear it."

William grinned. "Nah, it was good," he said, causing Buffy to blush again. "I wish my Ma had a voice like that. It would have made those nursery rhymes sound much better when I was a tot." He looked up at the sky, and Buffy was grateful that the penetrating eye contact had been broken. "Horrible day, innit?"

"It's nowhere near as nice as yesterday," she replied, glancing at the gloomy clouds. "Look at that black mass over there!"

"Wait, that's…" began William, and Buffy's pulse began to quicken.

"Not clouds," added Buffy, and with that, the air raid siren rang through the streets, and both Anne and Joyce came running out of their respective homes, calling their children.

"Quick, William!" cried Anne, and he ran to his mother. "We'll have to run to the bomb shelter down the street!"

"Stay in ours!" Buffy offered in her panic, to her mother's disapproval, but both the Boones were climbing over the white picket fence into the Summer's garden and together the four neighbours clambered into the small building at the edge of the lawn. Once Joyce had sealed the doorway, Anne rushed to embrace her, kissing her cheek gratefully. This seemed to soften Buffy's mother.

"Thank-you," Anne gushed, as the first crash sounded, and shook the ground. "William and I may have been dead by now." Joyce nodded, speechlessly, and gestured for Anne to join her on one of the beds, as William and Buffy sat on the other. The silence was an opportunity for Buffy to observe his mother.

She was tall and slender, and with long, blonde hair that curled around her face. She had a hooked nose, but her eyes were kind, and her cheeks flushed. Altogether she was a graceful woman, if not a little haughty.

A second crash sounded, and Buffy grasped William's hand in fright. To her surprise, he did not pull away. Instead, he extended an arm around her, and pulled her tighter. "It's O.K," he whispered in her ear, whilst Joyce was snooping around for something for the thrown-together family to eat. "We'll be fine."

"What about my father?" hissed Buffy, and she felt as if her senses were on fire as the ground shook for the third time. "He's down the mines!"

"He'll be safe underground," replied William, and Buffy snuggled closer to his warm chest. Her fast breathing slowed, and the tears in her eyes disappeared as she lowered her lids. As the minutes that passed turned into hours and the all-clear did not sound, the Boone and the Summers family sat still in the shelter that was still intact.

An hour later, the heavenly sound of the all-clear rang through the streets, and Anne and Joyce stirred from their stiff positions in the cramped shelter. Joyce unlocked the door and pushed it open, exhaling the fresh air that met them, and the slight stench of smoke. Somewhere near had been hit.

"Elizabeth?" William tried to stir Buffy, but she lay still on his chest. She had fallen asleep in her terror. "Elizabeth, wake up. It's fine."

A soft snore answered him, and he moved his other hand to squeeze her fingers. He heard a slight crunch as he did so, and he uncurled Buffy's hand to find that she was holding a piece of paper tightly in her fist. He unravelled the piece of paper and read the inked words.

Hullo Buffy, its Billy here! Being run off our feet here in the trenches, but there seems to be a good atmosphere buzzing about – seeing as it is Christmas. Tell Mama I love my red knitted socks, I'm the envy of the whole platoon! Dawn sent me this awful balaclava, I look ridiculous in it (!) though I've told Mama to tell her I'm grateful. It's a miracle anything can be sent to us, we're on the move so much. We're heading up to Northern France soon, so I'll write when I get there. Shouldn't take us more than a month to get there.

All my love, Billy xxx

To his disgust, William found he was crying. He brushed away the wet hurriedly in time for Buffy to rouse from her slumber, and sit up confusedly. "Is it over?" she asked. "Have we had the all-clear?"

William scrunched the letter up in his fist again, and nodded. "Yep," he said, and he handed her the paper. "Here, it fell out of your pocket," he lied, and Buffy took it from him with a frown.

"That's odd," she replied. "I thought I was holding this." William froze. "It must have just been my dream."

"William!" Anne called, and Buffy moved herself off his lap instantly.

"I'd better go," said William, and he waved goodbye.

"Goodbye, William," Buffy whispered sadly. "Thanks for looking after me."

"It was no problem," stated William, cheerfully. "Goodbye, Buffy."

It took the time of William leaving the bomb shelter and climbing back over the white picket fence for Buffy to realise what William had just called her.