Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters. They all belong
to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox… I just borrowed them
– thanks!
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Takes off after "Hell's Bells".
Comment: There is only one thing that could redeem Spike in Buffy's eyes – or not? And would he want it?
Feedback: Yes, please. I continued this story because of the feedback. It's my fuel!
Distribution: You want it? Take it! Just let me know.
********************************************************************* *****************
Previously on 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer':
Halfrek to Spike: "William?" – he looks back inquiringly. Halfrek to everybody at Buffy's birthday party: "All you have is time… and each other." Joyce Summers to Buffy: "You know the divorce had nothing to do with you. Your father loves you." Buffy's nightmare when her father tells her: "It was you." One of Buffy's birthdays, flowers from her Father, and a letter, Joyce's voice from the off: "Something came up. It's all explained in the letter." Angel to Buffy: "After the Ascension – if we survive – I am going to L.A." Willow to Oz in his van: "When are you going to leave?" Oz: "Pretty much now." A helicopter hovering over the ground, Riley is sitting in there, Buffy shouts up to him, but what we hear is Riley's voice from the off: "If we can't work this out, I am leaving… tonight." Buffy to Spike in the hallway of her house after the Social Worker left: "Why can't you just leave?" Xander to Anya: "I can't." He turns and leaves.
Cut to Buffy, Dawn and Willow sitting in the Summers' living room, obviously feeling bad.
********************************************************************* *****************
"Why do men always leave?" Dawn asked after a while of silence.
"Oh, Dawnie, no", cooed Willow. "You mustn't think that!"
Both Summers' sisters eyed her suspiciously. "What? I mean, not all men leave. Ok., your father left your Mom, but – and forgive me that I will say that even before I say it – but he seems to be a real jerk, not even showing up for the funeral, and Angel left Buffy, but only for your own good, and you told me that he may have a point, and… and ok., Oz left me, but, but that was kind of good, too, because subsequently I figured out that I was gay…"
"Subsequently?" Dawn asked, eyebrows raised.
The redhead babbled on, very willow-like: "… and that was why he left that second time, so again, good reason, he is not really to blame, and… and… even though Riley left Buffy, but he was just an immature wimp by then, and now, now he's married", Willow cringed as Buffy interjected:
"But not to me!"
"Ok., bad example, but still, a man ready to commit!"
The Summers' sisters obviously weren't convinced.
"Ok., perhaps I babble, and my examples might be somewhat off-target, but I still have a valid point: Not everybody you'll get involved with will leave you! There are still some people who will stick around…"
"For example?" Dawn asked, still unconvinced.
"For example Tara."
"Who moved out…", Dawn pointed out.
"… and is very manly, in her flowing skirts!" Buffy added.
Willow defended herself: "Ok., she left me, but only for a while. She is still sticking around. And we even talk again."
Buffy smiled a sad little smile at her. "Will, I think it's great that you two start to work things out. But perhaps this is really because she is a woman. Look at us: Much more prone to talk things over, we double-Xs. I really think the missing leg of the Y-chromosome makes for some deficiency in the relationship skills of the earthbound male."
"There are men who stick around." Willow knew she sounded lame.
"Yeah, in general, people call them stalkers."
"Spike doesn't stalk you anymore", Dawn protested immediately. "He even brought a date to the wedding!"
"Just to make me jealous!" Buffy snorted. She knew that she had made a mistake when Dawn wanted to know:
"Why would he want to make you jealous?"
"Oh, uhm, I just mean… well, he tried everything else. So I guess he figures this is his last resort."
Willow smiled to herself. Aloud, she repeated: "See, there are men who stick around!"
"Spike is not a man!" But Buffy's protest was drowned by Dawn who started gushing over Spike, momentarily thrown back to the time when she'd had a crush on the vampire:
"Oh, guess you're right… He was with this Drusilla-chick for over a century, wasn't he? Even though she's a lunatic and all, and she must have driven him nuts, and he still stayed with her, and tried to help her get better, and… ow!"
Buffy had pinched her into the arm. "Don't take Spike as a leading example for a good man, 'cause he's not!" Her voice had risen angrily.
"Whatever!" Dawn stood up and headed for the stairs. "But he protected me all summer, and he is my friend!" Half crying, she stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to her room.
"Great", Buffy sighed.
"She's just a teenager, Buff. Leave her some dreams. Don't let her become cynical too soon."
"I don't want her to have the wrong ideals, fall for the wrong men, get her heart broken… I want to protect her from the things I had to go through, Will."
"You can't", stated Willow simply.
Both stared sadly into the air in front of them.
**************************************************************************** **********
Buffy and Willow were sitting around the table at the Magic Shop, trying to figure out what to do next. They had come up with nothing so far. Anya had vanished from Sunnydale completely, as if the Earth had swallowed her whole. Which wasn't a good idea to begin with, and even worse when you were living on the Hell Mouth.
"That is so not like her, keeping the shop closed this long", Willow shook her head in disbelief, trying hard not to drink in too much of the witchcrafty books and artefacts. 'Stare on the table', she told herself, 'stare on the table!'
"Where could she have possibly gone?" Buffy frowned deeply. "It's not that she has any other friends, besides us…"
Both girls stared at each other, eyes growing wide. "Halfrek!"
"What's with her? What has she to do with…" Xander's voice trailed off from the open door into the cool Californian night.
"Xander…" Willow tried, anxious to make him feel better.
"We… ugh… we didn't hear you come in", Buffy knew that her reply was even lamer.
"You think that Halfrek has something to do with Anya's dissappearance?"
"No…", both girls said in unison, but that didn't make their reply any more convincing.
"Guys! We have to do something. If Halfrek took her away, to a demon dimension… We have to find her. I have to tell her that I love her. I have to get her back!!!" Xander was short of crying.
"But how, Xander? You know I cannot do a location spell…"
"Ask Tara! Would you, please?" He stared at his best friend, begging silently. Willow nodded slowly.
"But… can Tara do that?" Buffy asked. "Locate someone in another dimension?"
"It's dark magic, and she might need your help to keep her grounded here, but for starters, we know where to look – D'Hoffryns dimension. I still have his amulet which could guide us, sorta magical map thingy. I really think she could pull it off…" Willow's eyes started to glow longingly. Such things were exactly the kind of spells she had always wanted to try.
"Will…", Buffy's voice was firm, trying to bring her friend back to this plane. The redhead snapped out of it immediately.
"Sorry", she mouthed. Buffy nodded a reassuring "It's alright." She understood. Better than Willow would ever know.
Xander cleared his throat. "Okay, that's one thing, but what if she is not there? Or Tara doesn't get through, or whatever. We need a backup plan!"
The girls looked at him, eyebrows raised. Xander paced through the shop, thinking. His gaze travelled along the shelves, but there was no answer. Then his eyes fell on a magical urn that Spike had used as an ashtray once, to Anya's complete and utter indignation. The picture welled up before his eyes, and he swallowed hard. Then his features cleared. Happily, he turned around:
"Buffy, why don't you ask Spike to hit the demon bars and ask around?"
"No!"
The other two looked up at her, surprised at her violent rejection.
"Why not?"
"I… I don't want to bring him into this. He will just make snide remarks at your expense all the time, Xander."
"I don't care. He has all the right of the world to do this. I deserve it. Hell, I deserve a lot more punishment than bleaching remarks from Mr. Peroxide!"
Willow giggled a little, relieved. At least, Xander seemed to get his humour back.
"Xander, I'm sorry, but I can't ask Spike for help." Buffy looked stricken. "It's… it's personal."
"Why, Buff? You ask him for help all the time!"
The slayer sighed. She stood up and started to imitate Xander's pacing. What was more important, protecting her reputation, or making them understand why she couldn't go to Spike for help anymore? She had planned to tell Willow anyway. Only, not yet. Not as long as her best friend was still so shaken by her own addiction. But Buffy knew that she needed help, too. Meeting Spike at the Wedding that wasn't, with this girl he had shlepped around, had shown her that it was going to be a lot harder, a lot more hurtful than she had ever thought. If she wanted to go through with it, she needed her friends' help. And after all, she thought, showing them that she, too, had a problem, might even comfort them. 'It'll show them that they are not alone in their misery', she rationalised.
Willow and Xander had watched her silently. Now they stared at her when she came back to the table and sat down. She took a deep breath. Her hands went through her hair to loosen it, to loosen the best way to formulate an explanation. The sentences must be stuck somewhere in her brain. The slayer sighed. 'Just say it already', she chided herself silently.
"I can't ask Spike because", she paused, thinking: 'Oh god, why is this so hard?'
Another deep breath, then Buffy blurted out: "I can't becauseIbrokeupwithhim."
"What?" Xander's face was one single question mark.
"She can't ask him for help because she broke up with Spike", repeated Willow, helpful as always.
"I heard that, Will. Hence the 'What?'" Xander looked back and forth between the two girls.
"But isn't that understandable? If you just broke up with someone, you wouldn't want to go back there and ask them a favour, would you?" Willow said to Xander. Then she nodded into Buffy's direction with what she hoped looked like an understanding smile.
"Broke up? As in having had… something to break up to begin with? Buffy? With … Spike?" Xander stared at the slayer who was by now bright-red in her face.
"Xander, chill. It's Spike!" The ex-witch started to get angry.
"Exactly! Whatever happened to the 'Eww! Spike!' we so happily agreed upon before?"
"Hence the breaking up…" Buffy offered. But she didn't manage to get Xander's mind off what had happened before the break-up.
"Buffy… You – and Spike?" He just stared at her. Then he turned to Willow: "And why are you so cool about this? Did you know that?"
Willow shook her head. "No… not… not really, but…", she stammered, not wanting to give away the fact that Spike had told her, and that the two of them had come up with the idea to make Buffy jealous to get them back together.
Xander interrupted her, sighing with relief. "Oh! I got it. Haha. You're not Buffy. You're the Bot, and Willow didn't tell me that she reactivated it, and this is just a joke to make me…" He stopped as Buffy and Willow shook their heads.
"Xander, I'm sorry. When we do have less pressing problems, I promise that I will try to explain. Right now, all you need to know is that I can't ask Spike for help, okay."
Xander sighed. He fell into a chair heavily. "Honestly, Buff, I don't even know if I want to know why you had a… whatever, with Spike. I'm… I don't know. I really try to concentrate not to shout at you, and say nasty things about you and undead guys."
Buffy glared at him. Xander didn't bother. He just took a deep breath and continued: "But that's not the issue right now. I just don't understand why you can't ask him for help."
"Yeah, pet, why not? Come on, ask me for help. For old times sake I might even let you add the standard 'or I'll stake you good and proper'-tune. Come to think of it, you could also just pay me, like in old times."
He smirked at her with that grin that made her knees go weak, and she still didn't know if because of anger or some completely different feelings. Buffy was glad she was sitting. She settled for another oldie but goldie: "Spike, what are you doing here?"
"I needed some burble weed, and it's the first time in days the shop was open!"
"What happened to coming through the sewers and nicking it from the basement?" Buffy asked, trying to mask her embarrassment.
Spike gave her a dirty look. "I don't do that!" All three of them looked back at him with the Scoobies' trade-marked 'who are you kidding'-look. He shrugged: "There's nothing left there."
"Ah", said Willow for the rest of the gang.
The bleach-blond vampire remained unfazed. He reached into a duster pocket for his cigarettes. Deciding not to notice the glares, he lit one and flopped down on the stairs: "So, what's the what? Which big nasty are we a- chasin'?"
"There's no we."
"Bloody hell, woman, would you give me a break?"
"I think she just did!" Xander started to enjoy this. There might be an upside to this, he decided: He knew one more thing to poke Spike with verbally.
If looks could kill, the brown-haired boy with the cold feet would have been drained dry by now.
"Spike, I'm sorry, but I won't ask you for help anymore. It wouldn't be fair", Buffy said quietly.
"And since when do you give a damn about fucking fair, huh?" Spike growled. "You knew bloody well that I was in love with you last year, and still you came runnin'. Not that I mind, ey. But what's so special about now?"
"I told you: I can't continue using you."
Spike stared back at her, but she avoided his eyes. The room was bathed in an uncomfortable silence for a while. When the vampire finally spoke, his voice was ice-cold. "Suits me. Spares me from hangin' around the whelp!" With that he rose, stumped out his cigarette, and with a swing of his duster was gone.
The Scoobies stared after him, still silent. Finally, Willow dared to speak up, timidly: "He is right, Buffy. You used him before even though you knew he had feelings for you. Why do you ca… Oh!"
Buffy looked back at her, tears swimming in her eyes.
"What?" Xander looked back and forth between the girls. "What 'oh!'? I don't have an 'oh' to oh!"
The girls remained silent.
"Tell me already, what is so special about now?" He stopped with a thought. "Oh, wait, I got it. It is 'cause this time it would be for me, and not for the holy slayage, right? Damn, Buffy, I helped you a zillion times, so you could jump over your own pride to help me for a change!"
"Xander, shut up!" Willow snapped at him.
"But…", he lifted his hand in reproach towards Buffy. The slayer jumped up from her seat.
"Xander, that is not it, and you know that. This was completely uncalled for!" With this, she ran to the bathroom.
Xander blinked and looked back at Willow, his face blank.
She explained: "This time is different because this time Buffy cares."
"Huh?"
"Xander, do I have to spell it out for you, or will you just open your eyes?" Willow sighed, exasperatedly. "Buffy cares for Spike. She doesn't want to hurt him because she is in love with him."
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Takes off after "Hell's Bells".
Comment: There is only one thing that could redeem Spike in Buffy's eyes – or not? And would he want it?
Feedback: Yes, please. I continued this story because of the feedback. It's my fuel!
Distribution: You want it? Take it! Just let me know.
********************************************************************* *****************
Previously on 'Buffy, the Vampire Slayer':
Halfrek to Spike: "William?" – he looks back inquiringly. Halfrek to everybody at Buffy's birthday party: "All you have is time… and each other." Joyce Summers to Buffy: "You know the divorce had nothing to do with you. Your father loves you." Buffy's nightmare when her father tells her: "It was you." One of Buffy's birthdays, flowers from her Father, and a letter, Joyce's voice from the off: "Something came up. It's all explained in the letter." Angel to Buffy: "After the Ascension – if we survive – I am going to L.A." Willow to Oz in his van: "When are you going to leave?" Oz: "Pretty much now." A helicopter hovering over the ground, Riley is sitting in there, Buffy shouts up to him, but what we hear is Riley's voice from the off: "If we can't work this out, I am leaving… tonight." Buffy to Spike in the hallway of her house after the Social Worker left: "Why can't you just leave?" Xander to Anya: "I can't." He turns and leaves.
Cut to Buffy, Dawn and Willow sitting in the Summers' living room, obviously feeling bad.
********************************************************************* *****************
"Why do men always leave?" Dawn asked after a while of silence.
"Oh, Dawnie, no", cooed Willow. "You mustn't think that!"
Both Summers' sisters eyed her suspiciously. "What? I mean, not all men leave. Ok., your father left your Mom, but – and forgive me that I will say that even before I say it – but he seems to be a real jerk, not even showing up for the funeral, and Angel left Buffy, but only for your own good, and you told me that he may have a point, and… and ok., Oz left me, but, but that was kind of good, too, because subsequently I figured out that I was gay…"
"Subsequently?" Dawn asked, eyebrows raised.
The redhead babbled on, very willow-like: "… and that was why he left that second time, so again, good reason, he is not really to blame, and… and… even though Riley left Buffy, but he was just an immature wimp by then, and now, now he's married", Willow cringed as Buffy interjected:
"But not to me!"
"Ok., bad example, but still, a man ready to commit!"
The Summers' sisters obviously weren't convinced.
"Ok., perhaps I babble, and my examples might be somewhat off-target, but I still have a valid point: Not everybody you'll get involved with will leave you! There are still some people who will stick around…"
"For example?" Dawn asked, still unconvinced.
"For example Tara."
"Who moved out…", Dawn pointed out.
"… and is very manly, in her flowing skirts!" Buffy added.
Willow defended herself: "Ok., she left me, but only for a while. She is still sticking around. And we even talk again."
Buffy smiled a sad little smile at her. "Will, I think it's great that you two start to work things out. But perhaps this is really because she is a woman. Look at us: Much more prone to talk things over, we double-Xs. I really think the missing leg of the Y-chromosome makes for some deficiency in the relationship skills of the earthbound male."
"There are men who stick around." Willow knew she sounded lame.
"Yeah, in general, people call them stalkers."
"Spike doesn't stalk you anymore", Dawn protested immediately. "He even brought a date to the wedding!"
"Just to make me jealous!" Buffy snorted. She knew that she had made a mistake when Dawn wanted to know:
"Why would he want to make you jealous?"
"Oh, uhm, I just mean… well, he tried everything else. So I guess he figures this is his last resort."
Willow smiled to herself. Aloud, she repeated: "See, there are men who stick around!"
"Spike is not a man!" But Buffy's protest was drowned by Dawn who started gushing over Spike, momentarily thrown back to the time when she'd had a crush on the vampire:
"Oh, guess you're right… He was with this Drusilla-chick for over a century, wasn't he? Even though she's a lunatic and all, and she must have driven him nuts, and he still stayed with her, and tried to help her get better, and… ow!"
Buffy had pinched her into the arm. "Don't take Spike as a leading example for a good man, 'cause he's not!" Her voice had risen angrily.
"Whatever!" Dawn stood up and headed for the stairs. "But he protected me all summer, and he is my friend!" Half crying, she stomped up the stairs and slammed the door to her room.
"Great", Buffy sighed.
"She's just a teenager, Buff. Leave her some dreams. Don't let her become cynical too soon."
"I don't want her to have the wrong ideals, fall for the wrong men, get her heart broken… I want to protect her from the things I had to go through, Will."
"You can't", stated Willow simply.
Both stared sadly into the air in front of them.
**************************************************************************** **********
Buffy and Willow were sitting around the table at the Magic Shop, trying to figure out what to do next. They had come up with nothing so far. Anya had vanished from Sunnydale completely, as if the Earth had swallowed her whole. Which wasn't a good idea to begin with, and even worse when you were living on the Hell Mouth.
"That is so not like her, keeping the shop closed this long", Willow shook her head in disbelief, trying hard not to drink in too much of the witchcrafty books and artefacts. 'Stare on the table', she told herself, 'stare on the table!'
"Where could she have possibly gone?" Buffy frowned deeply. "It's not that she has any other friends, besides us…"
Both girls stared at each other, eyes growing wide. "Halfrek!"
"What's with her? What has she to do with…" Xander's voice trailed off from the open door into the cool Californian night.
"Xander…" Willow tried, anxious to make him feel better.
"We… ugh… we didn't hear you come in", Buffy knew that her reply was even lamer.
"You think that Halfrek has something to do with Anya's dissappearance?"
"No…", both girls said in unison, but that didn't make their reply any more convincing.
"Guys! We have to do something. If Halfrek took her away, to a demon dimension… We have to find her. I have to tell her that I love her. I have to get her back!!!" Xander was short of crying.
"But how, Xander? You know I cannot do a location spell…"
"Ask Tara! Would you, please?" He stared at his best friend, begging silently. Willow nodded slowly.
"But… can Tara do that?" Buffy asked. "Locate someone in another dimension?"
"It's dark magic, and she might need your help to keep her grounded here, but for starters, we know where to look – D'Hoffryns dimension. I still have his amulet which could guide us, sorta magical map thingy. I really think she could pull it off…" Willow's eyes started to glow longingly. Such things were exactly the kind of spells she had always wanted to try.
"Will…", Buffy's voice was firm, trying to bring her friend back to this plane. The redhead snapped out of it immediately.
"Sorry", she mouthed. Buffy nodded a reassuring "It's alright." She understood. Better than Willow would ever know.
Xander cleared his throat. "Okay, that's one thing, but what if she is not there? Or Tara doesn't get through, or whatever. We need a backup plan!"
The girls looked at him, eyebrows raised. Xander paced through the shop, thinking. His gaze travelled along the shelves, but there was no answer. Then his eyes fell on a magical urn that Spike had used as an ashtray once, to Anya's complete and utter indignation. The picture welled up before his eyes, and he swallowed hard. Then his features cleared. Happily, he turned around:
"Buffy, why don't you ask Spike to hit the demon bars and ask around?"
"No!"
The other two looked up at her, surprised at her violent rejection.
"Why not?"
"I… I don't want to bring him into this. He will just make snide remarks at your expense all the time, Xander."
"I don't care. He has all the right of the world to do this. I deserve it. Hell, I deserve a lot more punishment than bleaching remarks from Mr. Peroxide!"
Willow giggled a little, relieved. At least, Xander seemed to get his humour back.
"Xander, I'm sorry, but I can't ask Spike for help." Buffy looked stricken. "It's… it's personal."
"Why, Buff? You ask him for help all the time!"
The slayer sighed. She stood up and started to imitate Xander's pacing. What was more important, protecting her reputation, or making them understand why she couldn't go to Spike for help anymore? She had planned to tell Willow anyway. Only, not yet. Not as long as her best friend was still so shaken by her own addiction. But Buffy knew that she needed help, too. Meeting Spike at the Wedding that wasn't, with this girl he had shlepped around, had shown her that it was going to be a lot harder, a lot more hurtful than she had ever thought. If she wanted to go through with it, she needed her friends' help. And after all, she thought, showing them that she, too, had a problem, might even comfort them. 'It'll show them that they are not alone in their misery', she rationalised.
Willow and Xander had watched her silently. Now they stared at her when she came back to the table and sat down. She took a deep breath. Her hands went through her hair to loosen it, to loosen the best way to formulate an explanation. The sentences must be stuck somewhere in her brain. The slayer sighed. 'Just say it already', she chided herself silently.
"I can't ask Spike because", she paused, thinking: 'Oh god, why is this so hard?'
Another deep breath, then Buffy blurted out: "I can't becauseIbrokeupwithhim."
"What?" Xander's face was one single question mark.
"She can't ask him for help because she broke up with Spike", repeated Willow, helpful as always.
"I heard that, Will. Hence the 'What?'" Xander looked back and forth between the two girls.
"But isn't that understandable? If you just broke up with someone, you wouldn't want to go back there and ask them a favour, would you?" Willow said to Xander. Then she nodded into Buffy's direction with what she hoped looked like an understanding smile.
"Broke up? As in having had… something to break up to begin with? Buffy? With … Spike?" Xander stared at the slayer who was by now bright-red in her face.
"Xander, chill. It's Spike!" The ex-witch started to get angry.
"Exactly! Whatever happened to the 'Eww! Spike!' we so happily agreed upon before?"
"Hence the breaking up…" Buffy offered. But she didn't manage to get Xander's mind off what had happened before the break-up.
"Buffy… You – and Spike?" He just stared at her. Then he turned to Willow: "And why are you so cool about this? Did you know that?"
Willow shook her head. "No… not… not really, but…", she stammered, not wanting to give away the fact that Spike had told her, and that the two of them had come up with the idea to make Buffy jealous to get them back together.
Xander interrupted her, sighing with relief. "Oh! I got it. Haha. You're not Buffy. You're the Bot, and Willow didn't tell me that she reactivated it, and this is just a joke to make me…" He stopped as Buffy and Willow shook their heads.
"Xander, I'm sorry. When we do have less pressing problems, I promise that I will try to explain. Right now, all you need to know is that I can't ask Spike for help, okay."
Xander sighed. He fell into a chair heavily. "Honestly, Buff, I don't even know if I want to know why you had a… whatever, with Spike. I'm… I don't know. I really try to concentrate not to shout at you, and say nasty things about you and undead guys."
Buffy glared at him. Xander didn't bother. He just took a deep breath and continued: "But that's not the issue right now. I just don't understand why you can't ask him for help."
"Yeah, pet, why not? Come on, ask me for help. For old times sake I might even let you add the standard 'or I'll stake you good and proper'-tune. Come to think of it, you could also just pay me, like in old times."
He smirked at her with that grin that made her knees go weak, and she still didn't know if because of anger or some completely different feelings. Buffy was glad she was sitting. She settled for another oldie but goldie: "Spike, what are you doing here?"
"I needed some burble weed, and it's the first time in days the shop was open!"
"What happened to coming through the sewers and nicking it from the basement?" Buffy asked, trying to mask her embarrassment.
Spike gave her a dirty look. "I don't do that!" All three of them looked back at him with the Scoobies' trade-marked 'who are you kidding'-look. He shrugged: "There's nothing left there."
"Ah", said Willow for the rest of the gang.
The bleach-blond vampire remained unfazed. He reached into a duster pocket for his cigarettes. Deciding not to notice the glares, he lit one and flopped down on the stairs: "So, what's the what? Which big nasty are we a- chasin'?"
"There's no we."
"Bloody hell, woman, would you give me a break?"
"I think she just did!" Xander started to enjoy this. There might be an upside to this, he decided: He knew one more thing to poke Spike with verbally.
If looks could kill, the brown-haired boy with the cold feet would have been drained dry by now.
"Spike, I'm sorry, but I won't ask you for help anymore. It wouldn't be fair", Buffy said quietly.
"And since when do you give a damn about fucking fair, huh?" Spike growled. "You knew bloody well that I was in love with you last year, and still you came runnin'. Not that I mind, ey. But what's so special about now?"
"I told you: I can't continue using you."
Spike stared back at her, but she avoided his eyes. The room was bathed in an uncomfortable silence for a while. When the vampire finally spoke, his voice was ice-cold. "Suits me. Spares me from hangin' around the whelp!" With that he rose, stumped out his cigarette, and with a swing of his duster was gone.
The Scoobies stared after him, still silent. Finally, Willow dared to speak up, timidly: "He is right, Buffy. You used him before even though you knew he had feelings for you. Why do you ca… Oh!"
Buffy looked back at her, tears swimming in her eyes.
"What?" Xander looked back and forth between the girls. "What 'oh!'? I don't have an 'oh' to oh!"
The girls remained silent.
"Tell me already, what is so special about now?" He stopped with a thought. "Oh, wait, I got it. It is 'cause this time it would be for me, and not for the holy slayage, right? Damn, Buffy, I helped you a zillion times, so you could jump over your own pride to help me for a change!"
"Xander, shut up!" Willow snapped at him.
"But…", he lifted his hand in reproach towards Buffy. The slayer jumped up from her seat.
"Xander, that is not it, and you know that. This was completely uncalled for!" With this, she ran to the bathroom.
Xander blinked and looked back at Willow, his face blank.
She explained: "This time is different because this time Buffy cares."
"Huh?"
"Xander, do I have to spell it out for you, or will you just open your eyes?" Willow sighed, exasperatedly. "Buffy cares for Spike. She doesn't want to hurt him because she is in love with him."