Disclaimers, etc., in chapter one.

HAPPINESS
by wisteria
wisteria@smyrnacable.net


Chapter Three


+++++

"That won't bring you happiness
Happiness is hard to come by
I confess I'm bad at this thing happiness
If you find it share it with the rest of us
With the rest of us"
--Grant Lee Buffalo

+++++


New Orleans, Louisiana. 11:37 p.m. Café du Monde.
Mixing with the masses tonight.

It's all very, very strange. He's been cooped up in
the backwaters of Sunnydale for so long that coming
back here to hang amongst the tourists is odd, even
though he and Dru lived here for a couple of years
back in the '50s. Back during jazz and crumbling
balconies and the high life for vampires before Anne
Rice shoved her bloody foot in. Such a romantic
place, those days. No neon or boozers.

But it's also normal. That's the most daft part of
it. It's Buffy and him now, sitting at a table in a
restaurant, just like normal people. They could be
anyone. Newlyweds. A guy and the girl he just
picked up in a bar. Brother and sister, even.

And it's boring as hell.

She asked him last night if he wanted to be human.
Well, he thinks, if this is humanity, I'll give it a
pass. The New Orleans magic of old is long gone,
replaced by the almighty tourist dollar.

Buffy stirs her hot chocolate. Spike has chickory
coffee, himself. He used to like chocolate when he
and Dru would come to this century-old restaurant
back then, but Joyce's death spoiled it for him.

"What would your mum think about your being here with
me?" he finds himself asking.

She looks up from where she's tracing patterns in the
mound of powdered sugar from the beignets. "Um..."
she begins, then her voice trails off.

He follows her gaze as she looks around the patio,
examining the chattering masses. Friday night, and
it's packed. Some bloke is staring at the chair, his
brow raised as if he could intimidate Spike into
leaving. Spike smirks and sits back in his chair,
daring the man to just try it. The standoff quickly
bores him, so he turns back to look at Buffy, who
seems to still be pondering the question.

Finally, she says, "I think she'd be alarmed, even
though she knows I can take care of myself."

"Alarmed about what?"

"That I'm here with you."

The answer hits him like a slap, although he'd
somehow expected it. "I thought she liked me."

"I dunno. Maybe she did. But the last time we
talked about you, it was after you did your stupid
tie-me-up-and-force-me-to-love-you tazer fiasco."

Oh, right. That.

Buffy continues, "She thought you were bad news."

"Do you think I'm bad news?"

He chews on his lip as he waits for her answer. She
takes her own sweet time, of course, so he reaches
over and grabs one of her beignets, eating the
doughnut in three large bites.

She looks up at him and suddenly breaks out in a
grin. "You."

"Me?" He coughs from swallowing too quickly.
Powdered sugar coats his hands like snow, even in the
sixty-degree temperatures of mid-November.

And then she laughs.

As he absorbs the sound of her laughter, all other
noises melt away until the chattering classes at the
other tables don't exist. He wonders why they don't
all stop and listen to her, drinking in the sound of
her laughter with their coffee.

"You. Sorry." She bursts out with another peal of
laughter. "It's just hard to think of you as bad
news when you've got powdered sugar all over your
face."

His eyes widen. "Bloody hell," he grunts, then he
reaches over and yanks a napkin out of the old-
fashioned holder. He scrubs at his face and tries to
decide whether to feel embarrassed or bemused.

He decides on the latter, because he made her laugh.
She laughed and he caused it and the grin on her face
makes her beautiful. He can love her and be whomever
she wants him to be. Her laughter makes him think
he's good news, not bad. It's an odd feeling.

She nips that in the proverbial bud, 'course.

"Seriously, though," she says. "Yeah, you're bad
news. Vampire, hello? Not the kind of person a good
girl should be hanging out with."

"And you still think you're a good girl, then?"

"I'm better than you are." She stares at him,
wearing her self-righteousness like a coat, and takes
another sip of her hot chocolate.

Anger coils in his gut. Yeah, she's better than him,
but damn it, how the hell can she be mean to him when
he's done so much for her? He took her away from it
all, didn't he? He kept his promise to her and
protected Dawn all those months, without any hope of
a reward from her. Didn't he? He listened to her
when she needed someone to talk to.

That counts for something.

Doesn't it?

He tells her this.

She stares at him, hands gripping the porcelain cup.
Her face is carefully drawn into passivity, but he
knows that's not what she's feeling.

He concludes his spiel with, "Why do you think I did
all that, Buffy?"

She finally looks away from him. Her arms shiver and
he wants to give her his coat to keep her warm, then
he pushes that thought away. She's better than him,
right? She's above trivial things like the chill.
Damn it.

"I don't know," she murmurs.

"Yes, you do!" He clutches his own coffee cup, lest
he feel the temptation to hurl it at her. Goddamned
chip would probably go off at something stupid like
that.

"I didn't do it because I'm bad news." He pauses so
his next words will sink through her candy shell. "I
did it because I love you."

Shell's unbroken, of course. "No you don't. You
only think you do."

I give up, he thinks. I bloody well give up. It's
times like these when he wishes the chip weren't in
his fucking skull so he could slap her around until
he knocked some sense into her.

He stands and shoves his hand in his pants pocket,
then he pulls out a twenty. He slaps it on the
table.

"Believe what you want, Buffy, but it's the truth."

He stalks away, maybe thirty feet, but he can't stop
himself from turning to look over his shoulder.

She's up out of the chair, following him, and the
vinyl of the seats isn't even cool before another
couple has taken them.

Buffy catches up to him halfway down Rue Ste. Anne,
alongside the women telling fortunes by candlelight
at cheap card tables. The cathedral looms in front
of them, all tall spires and threats of badness. He
makes a sharp turn, away from her, and passes through
the gates to Jackson Square Park.

It's quiet at nearly midnight on a Friday. This
surprises him. He finds a bench and sits down. If
they're going to talk like he suspects she wants to,
he needs to be sitting down. Less chance of feeling
the temptation to smack her that way.

She sits down next to him, but still three feet away.
He stares straight ahead.

"Okay, fine," she begins. "You love me. That
doesn't mean anything."

Don't hit her, he reminds himself. He clenches his
hands into fists. "Yes, it does. It means
everything to me. And it has to mean something to
you, or you wouldn't have kissed me. Twice."

"I was sad. I wanted to feel something."

He chuckles, but it's nothing like her peals of
laughter earlier. Harsher. "Oh, right. You really
do have yourself convinced of that. I applaud your
emotional fortitude."

She doesn't say anything. He thinks she turns and
looks at him then, but damned if he's going to give
her the satisfaction of looking back.

"You're here with me," he continues. "Me. Not those
friends of yours. Why would you be here with me if
you didn't feel at least *something* for me?"

"You were there. Available." She stops, as if
weighing her words, and he hopes like hell she has
the bloody sense to think carefully. Then she says,
"You listened to me and I could talk to you."

"You still can, you know. What on earth have we been
doing for the past four days? Talking, that's what.
And kissing, but I'm sure you've already rationalized
that too. Right?"

"I kissed you because I wanted to."

Aha! A breakthrough.

"Yes. You did. You wanted to kiss me, and I'd wager
you want to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss
me. Am I right?"

"In your dreams, Spike," she says. But he turns to
stare at her and she doesn't look convinced. It's a
start.

He stands up, but it's okay now because the urge to
strike her has passed. He moves around in front of
her. "Look, one of these days you're going to figure
out what you do want from me. And you're going to
realize that I'm not bad news anymore and I'm never
going to do anything you don't want me to. Because
you know what, Slayer?"

She doesn't respond, but the look in her eyes tells
him she's at least listening.

"Somewhere, deep down, you know that I'm all you've
got. You know that I'm the best thing for you right
now because you can talk to me and I'll listen to
you. I may be dead, but I've got an entire body full
of love for you, and I'm not going anywhere. Last
summer proved that." He softens his voice. "No
matter how much you tell yourself that I'm bad for
you, I'm not. And I will never, ever leave you, even
when you push me away."

She closes her eyes, and when she does speak, her
voice is small. "Whatever," she mutters, but he
thinks just maybe his words sank in.

He holds out a hand to her. "The park's about to
close. Let's get out of here before we're locked
in."

She stares at his hand for a few moments, but she
doesn't take it when she stands up.

"I want to go home," she says as they walk back to
the gates.

"Okay, we'll go home tomorrow morning. But first, I
want to show you something."

She still doesn't take his hand, but she walks next
to him out the gate and up Rue Ste. Anne.

She's still with him, and it's a start.

Isn't it?


+++++


They walk together out in the open. It's a strange
feeling, to be on a busy street with Spike, of all
people. Sure, they've been together in the Bronze,
but that's a familiar locale. The French Quarter is
not.

"You don't travel much, do you?" he asks, and she has
to strain to hear him over the noise from the
partying crowds close by.

She shakes her head then realizes he's not looking at
her. "Nope," she says instead, her voice a notch
louder than usual.

"Didn't think so." She can hear him laugh. "Me, I've
been all over the world. Had plenty of time to do
so."

The crowd thickens as they near Bourbon Street, and
it occurs to her that she should grab his hand to
keep from getting lost. She hates crowds. But then,
the last thing she wants to do is hold his hand and
let him think they share more intimacy than she wants
them to.

Just as quickly as the masses appear, they thin out.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"You'll see."

Great. Enigmatic Spike. Her not-so-favorite flavor.

As strange as it is to believe, though, she's more
calm now than she has been since she came back. Even
with the chaos all around her, everything feels very
normal. She's almost two thousand miles away from
Sunnydale, and even though New Orleans is probably
even more haunted than home, she feels in her element
but unthreatened.

They walk past the opening to a courtyard. Through
the black and lacy cast-iron gate, a voice calls,
"Spike?"

Normal? Spoke too soon.

"What are you doing here?" the voice says, and Buffy
turns around to look. The voice belongs to a man
who, along with the woman next to him, is decked out
in the latest in Goth fashion. Really, these vamps
took stereotypes far too seriously.

"Butler. Long time no see," Spike replies in his
best Cockney swagger. He pauses. "And Katherine."

She quirks her lips and lifts an eyebrow. "It's
Katrina now."

A woman flirting with Spike. Lovely. Buffy bristles
and rolls her eyes, glancing around for something
wooden.

Butler nods toward her, and he makes an exaggerated
show of sniffing. "Haven't seen you around here in
decades. And what's with the human? Did Drusilla
dump you again?"

"First answer: she's just a girl I met. Second
answer: none of your goddamned business."

Just a girl? His answer puzzles her. Before she can
work it out, Spike adds, "And no, Butler, she's not
your dinner or mine, so bugger off."

He sounds menacing, and the other vampire backs away,
hands up. "Whatever you say. Just keep off our
turf, or Katrina and I will be calling our friends."
The hint of fear in his eyes gives him away.

Spike glances at her, a look of warning on his face
as if to say, 'Don't dust 'em. Just let it go.' And
she finds she wants to let it go. This is supposed
to be a vacation, isn't it?

They turn away and continue walking in the same
direction they'd been going. A block later, Spike
mutters, "They know better than to mess with me. Dru
and I nearly brought the town down last time we were
here."

She stares at the latticework balconies on the
opposite side of the street. "Is that supposed to be
comforting to me? I could take them down too."

"Sure you could," he replies, something like
affection in his voice. "But they're not worth the
effort."

They walk another three blocks in silence, pretty
much as they've been since they left Houston. This
part of the trip has surprised her; Spike's not
normally given to silence, to say the least.

Finally, he says, "Here we are."

The intersection they cross is near-deserted at 3:30
in the morning. "What's this?" she asks as they
approach locked gates.

"A cemetery. Saint Louis Number One."

She rolls her eyes again. "A cemetery, huh? How
very you, Spike."

"Hush. I want to show you something."

"Last time you said that to me, you took me to see
Riley in that vamp crack house." Time has passed and
the pain has faded, but Spike turns to look at her
over his shoulder, a stricken look on his face. She
bites her lip and glances away.

The gate is locked tightly, so Spike laces his
fingers and gives her a boost over the wall. She
drops over the side. When her eyes adjust, the wind
is knocked out of her.

Hulking eight-foot-high stone surrounds her.
Oppressive, like the grave.


+++++


He drops to the ground, impact jarring his long-dead
bones. A glance behind his shoulder reveals her
following behind him as he navigates the labyrinthine
cemetery alleys.

"Stick with me," he whispers. "You can get lost in
here, and it's not very safe at night."

"I can take them," she says with defiance.

Spike grins at her. "I know you can, but stay
close."

He takes a chance and grabs her hand. If she
protests, he'll just say it's to keep from getting
separated, but they both know what it's all really
about. She shocks him by letting him take it. A
frisson of electricity shudders through him. It is,
as they say, A Moment.

As they walk, he says, "The city's actually below sea
level, easily given to floods. So, a couple of
hundred years ago, the people started burying their
dead above ground in these tombs." He continues his
history lesson, but he doubts she's listening. The
marble looms like a miniature city surrounding them.

Around a corner and down an aisle, then he mutters,
"Ah, here it is."

Marie Laveau's tomb. The Voodoo Queen of New
Orleans. He tells her this and she shrugs, so he
decides to ignore her for a bit.

Reaching down for some of the snuffed-out candles, he
pulls out his Bic and lights them. Spike holds one
in his hand as he reaches up with the other to trace
the smudged-out inscription.

"XXX" is scrawled all over the tomb in crayon,
marker, and something which could conceivably be
blood. Mardi Gras beads and pearls hang from a small
abutment. Dead flowers, trinkets, and candles litter
the base like offerings.

"Did the witch--" since the resurrection, he hates
saying Willow's name, "ever mention her?"

Buffy shakes her head, and he turns away. Spike
continues, "She died before I did. Too bad, 'cause I
would've loved to have met her. Remarkable woman,
that."

"Is that why we're here? To visit some voodoo
queen's grave? There are plenty of graves in
Sunnydale, you know."

He turns to look at her. "You wanted to get out of
town, so I brought you here. Remember?"

Buffy bites her lip and says nothing.

"Quiet. Figures."

He leans back against the tomb opposite and slides to
the ground, off the aching legs that really shouldn't
be aching because he's past such things but there it
is. She does the same, and he's surprised to notice
how close to him she settles herself.

"What's it going to take for you to be happy,
anyway?" He asks, still staring at the tomb. A gust
of breeze ruffles the beads hanging from the front.

"I thought you said you knew."

"I said no such thing. All I said the other night
was that things will be right peachy when you figure
it out for yourself."

She laughs, a hollow sound. "As if that's ever going
to happen."

They're both silent for a minute, then he takes a
risk. "I know what'll make you happy."

"Please enlighten me." Her voice is bitter and still
hollow.

He turns to stare at her. She looks immeasurably
sad, miles away from happy. "You need to get over
yourself, you know?"

Hollowness gives way to incredulity.

He pushes on. "Everything's all about you. Who left
you. What your friends did to *you*. How you're
going to cope. And while all of those are important,
they're not everything. What you need is to quit
looking at yourself as a victim. Yeah, you were
treated horribly and such, but it's happened and it
isn't going to go away." He stops to register her
reaction, but she's still quiet. "You need to start
looking at everything you do have and figure out how
to let it be a good thing for you."

That old skeptical look floats over her face. He
does love that about her.

"Like you, you mean?"

Trust her to get to the blunt heart of the matter,
though without a bit of pointy wood this time. But
that's not the issue, and damned if he can figure out
how to get through to her.

"Well, yes, like me. But also the Bit, your friends,
your life. Yes, your lot in life is dreadful, I'll
grant you that. Slayers aren't exactly the most
blessed people on earth. But you have something all
those others don't."

She's getting angry now. "Like those other two
Slayers you killed? What do I have that they don't?"

Spike growls, wanting to get into game face and smack
her around a bit just to get through to her. "You're
missing the point! The others -- all they lived for
was the kill. Ironic, that. But you have a life.
Not just in the literal I've-got-a-pulse-again way,
but you're an actual person, not just a slaying
machine. And the sooner you realize that, the
happier you're going to be."

"Oh, and I assume you're the one who's going to make
me happy, then?"

He should've given up a long time ago. No getting
through to her at all.

"Forget it," he mutters.

"Yes, lets."

But then, he knows this isn't the last of it. He's
just sick of going round in circles with her when she
doesn't even bother to listen to what he's saying.

She doesn't get up and walk away, though. It's a
start, at least.

They sit together, tension sparking like the
flickering candles. She leans over and picks up a
piece of folded paper at the base of the tomb, then
reads it aloud.

"Marie, please use your powers to make Chris love
me."

Buffy chuckles derisively. "Having to cast a spell
to get someone to love you? How pathetic is --"

She stops short. In their world, such things do
happen.

She leans forward and reads a few more papers, her
fingers tracing the beads and dried flowers lined up
as offerings.

Turning to face him, she says, "God, did you bring me
here to cast a love spell?"

"No!" Then he realizes how she'd interpret that, and
says, "No. Didn't even cross my mind. Honest." He
closes his eyes and leans his head back against the
marble. "I just thought you'd like it. You wanted
to get out of town, and this was the farthest away I
could imagine. Always wanted to come here again.
Seemed just your speed."

Time seems to shift in the muggy air.

She sits back again, then she leans over into him,
her head on his shoulder.

He stiffens and purses his lips, completely smacked.

"This doesn't mean I like you, you know," she
murmurs.

"I know."

They sit together like that for longer than he can
count minutes, muscles still.

He nearly bolts to his feet when her hand begins to
trace patterns on his knee. He looks at her out of
the corner of his eye, but she's still staring at the
crypt in front of them.

She's tired, he tells himself. She's lonely and
depressed and it means absolutely nothing.

"I make you want to be alive," she mutters. "That's
nice."

Oh, shit. She heard that?

"This is nice," Buffy continues. "It's calm and
warm. It's almost like heaven."

He wonders if she even feels the chill in the air or
hears the cars outside the cemetery walls. He shifts
a little and the blinding heat of her body assaults
his left side.

"Do you know what you're saying?" he can't help but
blurt out.

"Mmm, yeah." He thrills at her half-moan. "Right
here, I can forget about everything."

Like who you're with? he thinks. Maybe that's it.
She's pretending he's someone else. Maybe Angel.
'Course, thinking about Angel only pisses him off,
and this moment here with her is supposed to be good,
right? Right.

"Kiss me," she says.

"Okay."

As he turns to do so, he realizes this is the first
time he's been the one to instigate it. Then again,
she told him to, so this doesn't really count. Then
he feels her lips on his and decides that what the
hell, it does count.

They're slow kisses. Soft. A hint of tongue and
powdered sugar from the beignets he'd bought her at
Café du Monde before they headed over here to the
cemetery. They're the kind of kisses he would have
written poetry about back when he was human.

He feels human, too. His heart isn't beating but it
almost feels like it is. His whole body thrums with
something that feels very, very alive.

It's like Beauty and the Beast, he thinks as she
pulls slightly away and plants a soft kiss on the
corner of his mouth. All the beast needed was love
to make him a man. 'Course, he still has no
delusions that this is anything but loneliness and
her need to feel alive again. But a man can dream,
right?

"Thanks. This is good," she murmurs against his
mouth. "You're good at this."

They sit together and kiss for a little while longer,
soft and slow. With kisses like these, he can tell
himself they are romantic, even if he knows that no
romance is involved on her end.

Mid-kiss, she stills. When he opens his eyes to look
at her, he finds hers closed. Long, even breaths.
She's fallen asleep.

At least she hasn't left him. Yet.

He looks over at the tomb opposite them, and he
whispers, "Thank you."


+++++


A boot shoved against his back wakes him up. Great,
he thinks. She back to playing Kick-the-Spike. So
much for that thaw he'd imagined.

"Get up! Let's get the hell out of here."

Male. American accent with a hint of German
underneath. Royally pissed off.

He hoists himself up on an elbow, his body smarting
from the joy of sleeping on paving stones for the
first time in years. "What?"

Eyes adjust to the sight of the vampire looming over
him. The bloke's still in game face. Charming. The
ones who stayed fangy all the damn time annoyed the
bloody hell out of him.

"It's gonna be sunrise in about twenty minutes, so we
need to get out of here now."

This presents two options: go with the idiot or stay
and make a bonfire.

Even without looking around, he senses he's alone.

"Where's the woman?" He fails at keeping the panic
out of his voice. "If you got to feeding off her,
I've got a century's worth of uglies to work on your
doomed arse."

"What woman?" The other guy genuinely looks
confused.

Ah. That would explain it.

She split.

Chalk another point in her column. Kiss then bolt.

He'd admire her technique if he wasn't so furious
with her, or if he didn't love her so goddamned much.

Stumbling to his feet, he follows the other vampire
out of the cemetery, the hulking tombstones all the
more medieval-ish in the predawn darkness. "Who are
you, anyway?" he asks.

"The name's Fritz."

Spike couldn't help but laugh. "What the hell kind
of name is that, poof?"

Fritz stops short at the intersection and waits for
the light to change. It's a sad, sad day for
vampires when they comply with jaywalking laws at
bloody 5:30 in the morning. Spike swaggers across
the street, and he hears Fritz clomping along to keep
up, yelling out, "I saved your ass! Give me a
break."

Eye rolling doesn't do much good when the recipient
of derision isn't even looking at you, but Spike does
it anyway.

Once Fritz has caught up, he says, "And you are...?"

"The name's Spike," he mutters, aping the other man's
lightweight American accent.

Fritz freezes. "Oh, um, honored to meet you."

Well, that was a welcome ego boost. Nice to know the
name still commands some respect from *somebody*
these days.

They turn a few corners then Fritz opens the gate to
a courtyard, holding it open for them to slip inside.
"Twenty bucks."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Fritz grins, but his eyes still look somewhat awed.
"I rescue you from certain burning at sunrise, and
you pay me twenty bucks. I've got a pretty good
business going in it, what with the bars here that
get vampires all drunk and forgetting of things like
sunrises. But I guess for someone like yourself, I
could waive the fee."

So here we have a vampire who helps others. If he
didn't know better, he'd think it was Angel's bloody
influence. Just what he needs.

Last thing he wants was the other vamp's charity, so
Spike reaches in his pocket to peel a twenty from the
rest of the casino winnings.

The money's gone.

A wave of searing pain that has nothing to do with
chips hits his head.

He searches his other pockets, but nothing.

Finally, his fingers close on a slip of paper in the
inside breast pocket. He pulls it out and squints to
read it in the absence of ambient light.

It's Buffy's handwriting.

He feels a chill wash over him.

Spike crumples it up without reading it, then he
tosses it to the ground. It rolls a bit and rests
against a jasmine plant.

Fritz just stands there, staring at him.

A discarded real estate sign is propped against the
wall, calling out to him. Spike picks it up and
tears away the paper from the wooden stake.

Before Fritz' face can even register what's
happening, he's the not-so-proud recipient of a
wooden bypass operation.

The dust settles at Spike's feet.

He looks down and notices the wad of money left over
from the other vamp's do-gooding.

Gas money. Bribe money. Blood money.

He has to get out of town.

She already has.

Kiss, then leave. Again.


+++++


She stares out the window as the pilot announces the
Grand Canyon is visible below. Of course, it would
have to be from the other side of the plane. You
spend a very valuable $500 on an overpriced last-
minute plane ticket, and you don't even get a good
view. Figures.

Giles once told her that part of being an adult was
learning how to face the music. Four days ago he
chose to face the music of leaving. It's the same
damn music that everyone she loves listens to.

Lesson learned. Don't love anyone.

Easy enough.

At least this time she got to be the one to leave.

She doesn't love Spike. Hell, she doesn't even know
if she likes him. She thought she did in these past
couple of months since her resurrection. Then he had
to go and screw it all up by acting the way he did.
He's not supposed to be nice. He's supposed to be
evil. She can deal with him on that level.

Damn him. Damn everyone.

She still feels just a tiny bit guilty, though, for
nicking the money off Spike. It wasn't a good thing
to do, but he won it by gambling, and that's not good
either, is it? She'd meant to leave him half of it,
but she got caught up digging in her backpack for a
pen and paper that she totally forgot. It's too late
now. Eh, he's resourceful. He'll figure out a way.
She thinks there are some more casinos in New Orleans
for him.

She wonders what would happen if she got off the
plane in L.A. and just kept going. She still has a
good chunk of money left after the airfare. She
could take another plane, or a bus to save some
money, and go someplace new. Start off fresh.

Of course, the last time she took a bus out of town,
look how that turned out. Can't stay in Los Angeles,
since she gets the feeling that being in the same
city with Angel is a world of bad. She wouldn't even
know how to talk to him anymore.

Then, against her will, her thoughts turn to all the
people she'd be leaving behind. Willow and Xander,
her best friends for five years now. Tara, who she's
starting to be fond of, if not yet love. Anya. Well,
she might not miss Anya all that much.

Dawn.

Easy to think of her as an honest-to-God little
sister these days. Dawn needs her too damned much.

She can't leave them any more than she can leave this
life. Again.

They must be so worried about her.

She stares out the window at the empty desert below.
It's the same desert she and Spike drove across a few
nights ago. She wonders what's going to happen to
him. Will he get back to Sunnydale eventually?

She knows in her gut that he will. Of all the guys
she's kissed over the years, he's the one who has
stayed even after she showed him her worst. Riley
stayed after they first kissed, but he eventually
left too.

Something's going to happen soon. She knows it.
When he comes back, he's going to be the one to kiss
her. Problem is, something nagging deep down in her
gut wants it.

She sighs and tries the breathing trick again. If
she could just sleep the rest of the trip away,
things would be better when she opens her eyes.

They have to be.


+++++

END

wisteria@smyrnacable.net


NOTES: The idea for this story began as I was
sitting at Café du Monde on a similar November
evening, while on vacation. My deepest thanks go out
to Melissa and Ophelia for beta.

Marie Laveau was a real person, the "voodoo queen of
New Orleans". I visited her tomb -- it's a magical
place. If you'd like to learn more about her, please
visit
http://www.yatcom.com/neworl/naborhud/treme/stlouison
e/marielaveau.html

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the story!