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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"Chapter Thirty Seven - br / br / She should be glad to have had the extra day from Tuesday to Saturday. Unfortunately, it hadn't really helped her. She seemed to have writer's block when it came to how she was going to tell him. With all of the other things she written, the feelings just seemed to take over her hand and words wrote themselves. She knew what she was feeling, so why wouldn't the words write themselves? No matter how much she tried to make them come out, they just wouldn't. Was it some sort of sign? Had she taken a clear dream and put her own spin on the meaning?br / br / No, it was there. It just wasn't coming out. What was she going to do? Riley would be there any minute to…/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"A quick knock as the door opened had Buffy cursing / br / "Guess I asked for that," She / br / Riley quickly cast a glance behind him to see if she was talking to or about something / br / "Sorry. Case of speak of the devil and he shall appear."br / br / "Um, I'm not quite sure how to take that?" Riley half / br / "Not personally? It's not you, it's me?" br / br / That didn't seem to make him look any / br / "See! That's my problem! I can't say anything right! I've been working on this stupid thing since Tuesday and you know how many words I've got? Zero! That's how many! Z-E-R-O, zero! No matter what I try, the words just don't come out. And anything I do write, sounds like something off of Roger Rabbit." Her initial gusto had deflated like a balloon until she visibly caved into herself in frustrated defeat./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Maybe you're just trying too hard?" Riley helpfully suggested. "I mean, the rest of it just kind of came on its own, right?"br / br / "So, what, I'm just supposed to sit back and wait for my brain to figure out what to say?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Well… yeah."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""No! No, no, no, no, no, and no! I can't say 'no' strongly enough here." Buffy started pacing back and forth across the narrow room. "I have to do this right! If I don't say this just right, Spike is going to die again thinking that I didn't love him." br / br / "Buffy, am I missing something? When did Spike die?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Of course Spike died, he's a vampire." Buffy tossed out off-handedly. "But he died closing the hellmouth, and at the last minute I said it.. I told him I love him." She was now looking squarely at Riley. "And he didn't believe me! The stupid insufferable idiot said I don't love him. How could he not believe me?!" She asked, then resumed her pacing./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Buffy? Are you feeling ok?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"She paused to once again give him the look that asked if he'd gone insane at some point. br / br / "No! I'm not feeling ok! In less than an hour I'm supposed to go on stage and tell Spike that I love him. The dream was pretty damn clear. If I don't get this right, he won't believe me. I'll move on with my life and never see him again. And he'll never know I meant it."br / br / "Dream?" Riley asked, looked slightly less confused./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Yes, I had another Slayer dream." She waved a dismissive hand in the air./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Slayer dream?" He repeated her words./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Yes! The Slayer…" she stopped mid-sentence and looked at him squarely as the truth dawned on her. "Oh… I never… oh."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Are we talking like, the band 'Slayer'?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"All she could do was stand there fish mouthed, trying to figure out a way to tell Riley the long, long, story of her secret life as a Slayer. In the end, she settled for direct./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""My whole life, I've had to battle monsters, and most of the time I lost. But in my dreams, I'm the Vampire Slayer, The Chosen One, the one girl in all the world with the strength and stamina to defeat the monsters. And I do."br / br / "Ok, that makes a sort of sense, as coping mechanisms go. But that doesn't explain why you're acting a little weirded out right now."br / br / "The dreams, Riley… they always have a meaning. It's my brain trying to make sense of everything and showing me what I need to do, right?" She paused to see if he was following her. He appeared to be, so she proceeded. "I had a dream Wednesday morning, and in it I finally told Spike that I loved him. Only, I was too late. We were all about to die and he needed to know so I told him, and I meant it, I really did, but he didn't believe me. And it means that if I don't get this right and tell him now, then he won't believe me."br / br / Riley looked to be processing everything she'd said. She hoped he understood. br / br / "Wow. Um, ok, I'm really not sure how to respond to that." Well, at least he was / br / "Me neither, and that's the problem!" Buffy flopped down in the chair again./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Ok," Riley said again. "Do you want to skip tonight? Try again Tuesday?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""No," She was sure of that much. She had to do it sooner rather than later. "I can't let it be too late again." She looked up at Riley, hoping to convey her urgency./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""So you do it tonight." Riley knelt down in front her to, so that he was eye level with / br / "I can't! I haven't written anything!" That almost sounded dangerously close to a whine to her own ears./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""You will." He seemed so confident./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""And if I don't?" She hesitantly asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""You will."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""How can you be sure?" How *could* he be so sure?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Because it's you," He smiled. "Buffy, you are like no one else in the world. Your passion is like a fire that burns so bright it blinds. And yet sometimes you are so certain about what you want to do, you get this calm that makes everything else around you melt away. You can do this, Buffy."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"She smiled. In another time and another place, if she had been a different person she could have loved him. In time, if she tried, they could have maybe even been happy. But she was who she was. This wasn't their time. And her place wasn't with him. br / br / "I'm sorry," The words slipped out, as her hand cupped his cheek. br / br / His hand came up to press gently against her hand on his check, as hundreds of emotions played across his eyes. Finally, his other hand cupped the back of her head, as he pulled her forward and placed a tender kiss on her forehead./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""I know," He replied. "Now, let's go tell ass face you love him."/p
/div
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"Chapter Thirty Seven - br / br / She should be glad to have had the extra day from Tuesday to Saturday. Unfortunately, it hadn't really helped her. She seemed to have writer's block when it came to how she was going to tell him. With all of the other things she written, the feelings just seemed to take over her hand and words wrote themselves. She knew what she was feeling, so why wouldn't the words write themselves? No matter how much she tried to make them come out, they just wouldn't. Was it some sort of sign? Had she taken a clear dream and put her own spin on the meaning?br / br / No, it was there. It just wasn't coming out. What was she going to do? Riley would be there any minute to…/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"A quick knock as the door opened had Buffy cursing / br / "Guess I asked for that," She / br / Riley quickly cast a glance behind him to see if she was talking to or about something / br / "Sorry. Case of speak of the devil and he shall appear."br / br / "Um, I'm not quite sure how to take that?" Riley half / br / "Not personally? It's not you, it's me?" br / br / That didn't seem to make him look any / br / "See! That's my problem! I can't say anything right! I've been working on this stupid thing since Tuesday and you know how many words I've got? Zero! That's how many! Z-E-R-O, zero! No matter what I try, the words just don't come out. And anything I do write, sounds like something off of Roger Rabbit." Her initial gusto had deflated like a balloon until she visibly caved into herself in frustrated defeat./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Maybe you're just trying too hard?" Riley helpfully suggested. "I mean, the rest of it just kind of came on its own, right?"br / br / "So, what, I'm just supposed to sit back and wait for my brain to figure out what to say?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Well… yeah."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""No! No, no, no, no, no, and no! I can't say 'no' strongly enough here." Buffy started pacing back and forth across the narrow room. "I have to do this right! If I don't say this just right, Spike is going to die again thinking that I didn't love him." br / br / "Buffy, am I missing something? When did Spike die?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Of course Spike died, he's a vampire." Buffy tossed out off-handedly. "But he died closing the hellmouth, and at the last minute I said it.. I told him I love him." She was now looking squarely at Riley. "And he didn't believe me! The stupid insufferable idiot said I don't love him. How could he not believe me?!" She asked, then resumed her pacing./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Buffy? Are you feeling ok?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"She paused to once again give him the look that asked if he'd gone insane at some point. br / br / "No! I'm not feeling ok! In less than an hour I'm supposed to go on stage and tell Spike that I love him. The dream was pretty damn clear. If I don't get this right, he won't believe me. I'll move on with my life and never see him again. And he'll never know I meant it."br / br / "Dream?" Riley asked, looked slightly less confused./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Yes, I had another Slayer dream." She waved a dismissive hand in the air./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Slayer dream?" He repeated her words./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Yes! The Slayer…" she stopped mid-sentence and looked at him squarely as the truth dawned on her. "Oh… I never… oh."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Are we talking like, the band 'Slayer'?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"All she could do was stand there fish mouthed, trying to figure out a way to tell Riley the long, long, story of her secret life as a Slayer. In the end, she settled for direct./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""My whole life, I've had to battle monsters, and most of the time I lost. But in my dreams, I'm the Vampire Slayer, The Chosen One, the one girl in all the world with the strength and stamina to defeat the monsters. And I do."br / br / "Ok, that makes a sort of sense, as coping mechanisms go. But that doesn't explain why you're acting a little weirded out right now."br / br / "The dreams, Riley… they always have a meaning. It's my brain trying to make sense of everything and showing me what I need to do, right?" She paused to see if he was following her. He appeared to be, so she proceeded. "I had a dream Wednesday morning, and in it I finally told Spike that I loved him. Only, I was too late. We were all about to die and he needed to know so I told him, and I meant it, I really did, but he didn't believe me. And it means that if I don't get this right and tell him now, then he won't believe me."br / br / Riley looked to be processing everything she'd said. She hoped he understood. br / br / "Wow. Um, ok, I'm really not sure how to respond to that." Well, at least he was / br / "Me neither, and that's the problem!" Buffy flopped down in the chair again./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Ok," Riley said again. "Do you want to skip tonight? Try again Tuesday?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""No," She was sure of that much. She had to do it sooner rather than later. "I can't let it be too late again." She looked up at Riley, hoping to convey her urgency./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""So you do it tonight." Riley knelt down in front her to, so that he was eye level with / br / "I can't! I haven't written anything!" That almost sounded dangerously close to a whine to her own ears./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""You will." He seemed so confident./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""And if I don't?" She hesitantly asked./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""You will."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""How can you be sure?" How *could* he be so sure?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""Because it's you," He smiled. "Buffy, you are like no one else in the world. Your passion is like a fire that burns so bright it blinds. And yet sometimes you are so certain about what you want to do, you get this calm that makes everything else around you melt away. You can do this, Buffy."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"She smiled. In another time and another place, if she had been a different person she could have loved him. In time, if she tried, they could have maybe even been happy. But she was who she was. This wasn't their time. And her place wasn't with him. br / br / "I'm sorry," The words slipped out, as her hand cupped his cheek. br / br / His hand came up to press gently against her hand on his check, as hundreds of emotions played across his eyes. Finally, his other hand cupped the back of her head, as he pulled her forward and placed a tender kiss on her forehead./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: dotted windowtext 3.0pt; padding: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;""I know," He replied. "Now, let's go tell ass face you love him."/p
/div