Blurry 17/?
Author: Amanda
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, it's all Joss'
Feedback: All replies are read, cherished and given a good home.
Distribution: Please ask if you wish to archive.
Summary: Previously Spike found out that some demons that are in town were thought to be extinct, and that after being held captive for over a hundred years, they were let loose in Sunnydale. Also, while out on patrol, Buffy and Spike were being followed. Meanwhile Anya has reopened The Magic Shoppe and is also going to be after hours to cater to demons.
A/N: Thanks to Mezz for the quick beta. This has been sitting in my inbox since Sunday morning waiting for me to make changes, but I've been quite sick.
***************
Willow wandered back through the house, intent on finding Buffy. Xander had taken Dawn to Summer School and dropped her off. Spike had told her last night to come over if she had the time today to help research. She wasn't sure if he meant her at Buffy's, or at his own place. But she figured they could head over to Spike's together, if he wasn't coming here.
She found Buffy standing at the kitchen sink, furiously scrubbing. "What the pan do? Burn your breakfast?"
"What?" Buffy whirled around, the frying pan still in her hand.
"Maybe I should come back later. You know when the pan is all cleaned and put away."
Buffy looked at her hand, which was raised in the air, clutching the frying pan. It was raised like she was going to hit something. And she did want to hit something. Only problem was, the head she wanted to hit wasn't in front of her. Turning back around, she placed the pan in the sink. It was clean, very clean, probably with all the non stick finish scrubbed off. Her hands clutched the edge of the counter. Holding onto it, helped her control her temper some. "Sorry. Just trying to reign in my anger."
"You and Dawn fight this morning?" Willow slid onto a barstool, intent on finding out Buffy's problem with the frying pan, or whom the frying pan was standing for.
"Dawn and I never fight. Okay, not much. Surprisingly, mornings with Dawn aren't as melodramatic as they used to be. Evenings on the other hand.."
"So if it's not Dawn, then who is it? Did Social Services call again? I thought Giles had the Council handle everything and got them off your back."
"No. Haven't heard a peep from them. Everything in the Summers' home is all good."
"Not everything is good if you're trying to kill a frying pan."
Buffy hadn't wanted to unload on Willow. She knew Willow had enough of her own problems to deal with, but it would probably do both of them some good. Willow could concentrate on something other than her own problems and she could unload. And maybe get some advice.
"He just infuriates me sometimes. It's like he's turning into a real Watcher or something. All bookish and not telling me things. Like last night. Tells me not to worry about it right now, just get some sleep. How can I sleep when I don't know what I'm supposed to worry about the next day?"
"I assume we're talking about Spike."
"Who else would we be talking about? He's just so. ugggh."
"Is ugggh a word? And if so, what does it mean?"
"Well it means that I want to kill him. But not really kill him. He just makes me want to, with his take charge attitude of my life. He's all gung ho about research, helping me out, even working in Anya's store. But then he's all hands off mostly with me, letting me figure things out myself. He's big on this be friends first kick."
"So he's infuriating you?" Willow asked wryly.
"He's pissing me off is what he's doing. And I can't yell at him, because he's so nice while he's doing it."
"Come sit down by best friend Willow and tell me all your troubles." Willow looked at Buffy expectantly, waiting for her to sit down.
"Do we really want to do this?"
"Why not? You got anything better to do right now? Besides kill Spike I mean?
Buffy moved around the island to slide onto a stool beside Willow. "I guess not, seeing as he won't share with me."
"Like you want to research anyways. I'm researchy girl, you're kill girl and save the world girl Talk to me."
"But you've got enough on your mind right now. And now I'm putting you in the middle of this.."
"I want to help you Buffy. What happened to make you feel all ugggh about Spike?"
Willow listened as Buffy went over her night. Telling all about the demon they encountered and how she was left out of everything.
"We just patrolled then until we met you." Buffy finished up.
"So nothing else weird happened on patrol, to make Spike run away. You didn't.."
"I didn't what?"
Willow wasn't quite sure how to word this. But she had to get to the heart of the matter. All Buffy had provided her with was basic information, nothing on what really happened, or how she really felt. "Well, I mean, Buffy, you admitted that you acted a certain way towards him last year. And maybe you did something again that frightened him, so he ran away?"
Buffy tried to keep her voice calm. She'd changed, she knew she had. And Spike knew she had too. She wasn't sure she liked being questioned by Willow about her actions. Just because Willow resorted to magic when the going got bad, did not mean that she went back to treating Spike badly. "I did not hit him. Or yell at him. In fact we didn't say a word. We just held hands.."
"That's it!" Willow interrupted.
"What? I didn't say anything, so I made him mad?"
"No, you held hands with him. When have you ever held hands with him? And since when were you the hand holding type?"
"I've held hands with people. With boys even."
"Riley? I doubt that. Maybe Angel, Buffy, but that was years ago. Face it, this was something new in your relationship and it probably scared Spike. Especially considering that you're supposed to be taking this relationship thing slow."
"So I'm supposed to stand ten feet away from him and ask his permission before I can hold his hand?"
"No, I don't think that's it at all. It's just probably something new for him too. And he has such big feelings for you, that whenever you give him a crumb, he's ready for the whole package."
"And so rather than try to get that whole package, he left last night." It kind of made sense to her. She could see him get scared. Afraid that he would push her too much, too soon. Or that she would push herself too fast. So for that she was grateful, but it still didn't alleviate the frustrations she had with him over keeping her in the dark about their demon and stalker problem.
"That makes a lot of sense Willow, and I'll keep in it mind, however, I'm still mad at him for not talking to me about the demons or whoever was following us."
"Maybe he has his reasons, Buffy."
"This is a partnership and he's not acting like a partner. Just because I'm not all into research doesn't mean that I should be left out of the loop. I'm going to find out what's going on."
"Then ask him what's going on."
"So he can clam up and tell me that he'll let me know when he finds out anything? And that I should just to get some rest, be ready for anything."
"You won't know until you ask him. Then if he does say that, you can go postal on him!" Willow added cheerfully.
"He already said that this morning. I called him, to see if he'd found anything out last night."
"Vampires can be awfully grumpy in the morning. Give him a few hours."
"I don't have a few hours. I have now. Tonight is Anya's grand opening for the demon part of the shop and I have to be there. I won't have time then to worry about things. I need to know now what's going on."
"You could train. Punch a punching bag or something, take some aggression out. I bet things would look better if you did that. But I am not dressing up in the puffy suit."
"You know maybe I should kill something. That would help a lot. Take my aggression out on something."
"Sounds good to me Buffy. But you know it is daytime and there aren't many demons out then."
"Oh don't worry, I know where one is. And he's going down."
"Okay. So where are we going?"
"Spike's."
**************
It took a few minutes after she knocked for the door to open. Buffy had been about to use the key Spike had given her, when he appeared, hair all disheveled, black jeans low on his hips, black t-shirt in his hand.
Spike pulled the t-shirt on as he motioned them in, Buffy not waiting for the permission to enter. "Buffy. Willow. I was sleeping, but I guess you can come in." Spike said sarcastically, to the empty doorway. Closing the door, he turned around to find her standing in the middle of the living room, arms crossed.
"That's awfully nice of you to accommodate me in your busy schedule."
At the snotty tone of Buffy's voice, Spike's eyebrows rose. He looked to Willow for an answer, but she just shook her head at him.
"I thought we were going to meet later this afternoon." At least that is what he had thought when he'd left Buffy's late last night.
"We need to get some things straight here."
"Umm, Spike, can I use your bathroom?" Willow interjected, before things got too heated between them. She figured that she could listen from the bathroom and make sure Buffy wasn't really going to stake Spike. Also she could provide moral support from close by, but not in the way.
"Down the hall, first door on the left."
Buffy looked around the large living area that the front door opened into. It was a large space. A large space that was still very empty. She tried to concentrate on that first, so that she could calm down a little bit and not attack him. "Why don't you have any furniture in here?"
"Been a little busy, pet."
"Doing what? Research? Cutting me out of things?" And she cringed at that. It just came out and she knew her tone wasn't that friendly.
"What is this about? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"
"Maybe if I had gotten some sleep, I would have. But because of you, I sat up most of the night."
"That's my fault?"
She could hear the disbelief in his voice. And she knew what she was about the say might be the wrong thing, but she had promised to be truthful and honest. So she was laying her feelings out on the table, as much as she could. Hopefully he would understand, help her with it, and lay his out too. "Of course it is. If you had told me what we were facing, I could have slept better. Instead I had to wonder about what is going on."
"Maybe if I knew what was going on, I would tell you."
"But you didn't even want to talk about it. 'Go to bed Buffy, get some rest. I'll talk to you tomorrow.' You could have told me that you had some ideas, that maybe we were facing the Hellmouth opening or whatever your suspicions are. Instead you just cut me out. This is a partnership."
"There's no use in both of us losing sleep researching. Don't worry, next time I'll make sure that you stay up all night, while I relax. I won't try to do you a favor again." And he wouldn't, if he was going to get raked over the coals for it.
"That's not what it is. You aren't listening to me."
"Then tell me what you want."
"I did."
Spike took her face in his hands. His palms cupped her face so that the two looked eye to eye. "Buffy, look at me. I can't read your mind. Unless you tell me exactly what you want, I don't know what it is. You have to tell me."
"I'm the Slayer. I need to know what is going on, so that I can make decisions. I don't want anyone else to make decisions for me, without consulting me. It's been done before, and I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. I thought this was a partnership."
"It is a partnership. And I'm sorry that I upset you. That wasn't my intention. I was really just trying to give you some breathing room, let you get some sleep. I didn't want to take over. I really just wanted to give you some time off." He let go of her face, moving away from her. It was so hard for him to be near her, but not with her.
"But I don't get time off. I've tried that before and it doesn't work."
"So no time off for you, I get that. And I'll ask your opinion more. But you have to understand why we couldn't talk last night, while outside."
"I get that. There was someone following us, but later on last night, you wouldn't even talk to me about it. Let me know who you thought it was."
"Maybe cause I don't know."
"Well, you could have said that."
Spike took a deep breath. He'd kept everything bottled up inside of him for so long, he could feel it beginning to erupt. And he wasn't going to hold it back from her this time. Her flippant tone made him want to yell back, so he did.
"I get that now. Goddamn it, what do you want? I'm not perfect and I'm sorry that I've pissed you off. But you do that to me all the time and you don't see me throwing a fit now, do you? It's just something I put up with, because I love you."
She took that in. And realized that he was right. She was so grateful for all her shit that he had put up with. Hopefully he knew that, but maybe she needed to spell it out for him.
"Spike. I know. And I am so thankful for that. You don't know how much it means to me that you stick around through thick and thin. I wish that things could be easy for us. But they don't seem to be. But I want to make this work, I really do. And I'm trying to let you know how I feel. The only thing I ask in return is that you help me while I try to do that and also tell me how you feel." Buffy held her breath, waiting for him to respond. This was such new territory and she was afraid that she was saying the wrong thing, pushing him away.
At his nod of acquiescence, she continued on. It seemed it was the day for confrontations, or getting things out in the open. And she'd come this far, she wasn't backing out now. But it felt so high schoolish to her, discussing how they felt about holding hands.
"There's something else we need to discuss. Last night, we held hands while we patrolled. Willow thought that might have scared you. Did it? Because I know this is new territory for us and I guess if I think about it, it scares me too a little."
"You want the truth?" At her nod, he continued. "You send mixed signals. When we're together alone, you hold my hand. But in front of others, like last night when we found Willow, you don't. Here's another example from last night. When we got back home, you sat far away while Anya was there. But once she left, you sat right next to me."
Buffy hadn't realized she did that. Was it a subconscious thing? It was something she'd have to think about later. "Okay, I'll work on it. And we both have to work on telling the other one how we feel without being worried about how we'll react. Deal?"
"Deal." Spike agreed, relieved that their first fight, if you could call it that, went okay.
They both looked at each other awkwardly. Their agreement seemed they should do something to finalize it, but a handshake was too formal. And Spike didn't think they were ready for a kiss yet. He just stood, looking at her, until she broke the silence.
"Now let's talk about our demons from last night. You mentioned that they had given you something to research, some books to read?"
Spike led her down the hall to his office, where she sat on the couch. He pulled a book down from his bookshelf and gave it to her, sitting down beside her.
"He mentioned a name, Lucas Canfield. Said to check out his writings. It seems he was a watcher in London in 1917. His slayer's name was Eva Montgomery."
"And did you find his diaries?"
"One of them. It looks like there were two of them. And the one I found has some pages missing. But I did find one passage that was interesting?"
"Interesting how?"
"Well it gets me thinking that maybe we have somewhere to start with where the Imparafa demons were held."
"What does it say?"
Spike took the book back from her. He'd read the passage enough times now that he knew where to find it.
"'Eva was at the Council today, receiving some training in the Bhadic demon language. She's making a lot of progress, learning the difference in the dental and interdental sounds. While she was occupied, I decided to explore a bit. I had never spent much unsupervised time in the Council's headquarters.
"'I found the normal offices and lecture rooms on the main floors. Nothing interesting that was new to me. But the basement had always been off limits to me as a student. In the bowels of the building, it was dark and dank. The torches reflected off of metal bars. I had never seen such a thing in my life. I don't know what to think. Was there a reason this was kept from me? If I had known, just think of the educational opportunities that could have been provided to Eva.'"
He shut the book after he finished, giving it back to Buffy. "Pages after this are torn out. I think Canfield went into more description on the next few pages, which is why they are missing. This skips right into Canfield writing about is Eva's relationship with her family."
"The council allowed her to have a relationship with them? Giles always made it sound like I was almost one of the only ones that had that."
"How about non-relationship. They seemed to have a pretty tight thumb over her."
"So what are you getting at with this diary entry? You think he saw something he shouldn't have and that's why they tore out the pages?"
"Oh yeah. And he wrote about it too. I think he saw a bunch of cells full of demons. Just think of the educational opportunities for slayers, if they could learn about a bunch of different demons that are in captivity. They could figure out the best way to kill them, give them practice fighting them."
"You think the Council has set us up? With the jobs and then releasing these demons and the person following us?"
"I'm not positive, but it looks that way right now. But we can't jump to conclusions. There could a number of things that Canfield saw down there, that's just one scenario I came up with. There're still a lot of things we don't know."
"Then we'll find out together what's going on. As much as I don't like research, if they are trying to take us down, then together we can figure out how to fight them."
Willow's voice drifted to them, from behind the bathroom door. "Guys, are you done fighting now? Can I come out?"
**************
Anya surveyed her helpers lined up in front of her. They were all wearing matching red long sleeved shirts. She thought it gave them uniformity, letting their potential customers know who worked there. She'd put up with a lot of flack from Spike and Buffy on wearing the shirts, when they had first arrived. But they'd changed their minds. She was pretty sure that Buffy had somehow convinced Spike to wear the shirt. She was actually curious as to how Buffy had done that.
"Now everyone, remember our motto. 'A happy customer is a customer who spends lots of money.' Let's say it together."
Together, Dawn, Clem, Spike and Buffy all repeated with Anya. "A happy customer is a customer who spends lots of money."
"And it makes Anya happy too." Spike muttered under his breath.
"What?" Anya thought she had heard Spike mutter something. Nothing and no one was going to ruin her day. This was the day she had been waiting for. The day she was going to make the most money she had ever made in one day.
"Nothing. Just had a tickle in my throat."
"Good. Our goal is to make lots of money, so entice all these demons to spend, spend, spend, and then spend some more."
As they took their places, waiting for Anya to open the door, Spike sidled up to Dawn. "You remember what your sis and I told you, right?"
"Watch out for any red furry demons, any humans, and any suspicious demons."
And what constitutes a suspicious demon?"
"One that is too friendly, really mean, or just seems funny."
"Good going Bit. Your sister could use your help with this. She's flying blind here, so if you notice anything out of the ordinary, make sure you take note of it and let Buffy or I know right away."
Summary: Previously Spike found out that some demons that are in town were thought to be extinct, and that after being held captive for over a hundred years, they were let loose in Sunnydale. Also, while out on patrol, Buffy and Spike were being followed. Meanwhile Anya has reopened The Magic Shoppe and is also going to be after hours to cater to demons.
A/N: Thanks to Mezz for the quick beta. This has been sitting in my inbox since Sunday morning waiting for me to make changes, but I've been quite sick.
***************
Willow wandered back through the house, intent on finding Buffy. Xander had taken Dawn to Summer School and dropped her off. Spike had told her last night to come over if she had the time today to help research. She wasn't sure if he meant her at Buffy's, or at his own place. But she figured they could head over to Spike's together, if he wasn't coming here.
She found Buffy standing at the kitchen sink, furiously scrubbing. "What the pan do? Burn your breakfast?"
"What?" Buffy whirled around, the frying pan still in her hand.
"Maybe I should come back later. You know when the pan is all cleaned and put away."
Buffy looked at her hand, which was raised in the air, clutching the frying pan. It was raised like she was going to hit something. And she did want to hit something. Only problem was, the head she wanted to hit wasn't in front of her. Turning back around, she placed the pan in the sink. It was clean, very clean, probably with all the non stick finish scrubbed off. Her hands clutched the edge of the counter. Holding onto it, helped her control her temper some. "Sorry. Just trying to reign in my anger."
"You and Dawn fight this morning?" Willow slid onto a barstool, intent on finding out Buffy's problem with the frying pan, or whom the frying pan was standing for.
"Dawn and I never fight. Okay, not much. Surprisingly, mornings with Dawn aren't as melodramatic as they used to be. Evenings on the other hand.."
"So if it's not Dawn, then who is it? Did Social Services call again? I thought Giles had the Council handle everything and got them off your back."
"No. Haven't heard a peep from them. Everything in the Summers' home is all good."
"Not everything is good if you're trying to kill a frying pan."
Buffy hadn't wanted to unload on Willow. She knew Willow had enough of her own problems to deal with, but it would probably do both of them some good. Willow could concentrate on something other than her own problems and she could unload. And maybe get some advice.
"He just infuriates me sometimes. It's like he's turning into a real Watcher or something. All bookish and not telling me things. Like last night. Tells me not to worry about it right now, just get some sleep. How can I sleep when I don't know what I'm supposed to worry about the next day?"
"I assume we're talking about Spike."
"Who else would we be talking about? He's just so. ugggh."
"Is ugggh a word? And if so, what does it mean?"
"Well it means that I want to kill him. But not really kill him. He just makes me want to, with his take charge attitude of my life. He's all gung ho about research, helping me out, even working in Anya's store. But then he's all hands off mostly with me, letting me figure things out myself. He's big on this be friends first kick."
"So he's infuriating you?" Willow asked wryly.
"He's pissing me off is what he's doing. And I can't yell at him, because he's so nice while he's doing it."
"Come sit down by best friend Willow and tell me all your troubles." Willow looked at Buffy expectantly, waiting for her to sit down.
"Do we really want to do this?"
"Why not? You got anything better to do right now? Besides kill Spike I mean?
Buffy moved around the island to slide onto a stool beside Willow. "I guess not, seeing as he won't share with me."
"Like you want to research anyways. I'm researchy girl, you're kill girl and save the world girl Talk to me."
"But you've got enough on your mind right now. And now I'm putting you in the middle of this.."
"I want to help you Buffy. What happened to make you feel all ugggh about Spike?"
Willow listened as Buffy went over her night. Telling all about the demon they encountered and how she was left out of everything.
"We just patrolled then until we met you." Buffy finished up.
"So nothing else weird happened on patrol, to make Spike run away. You didn't.."
"I didn't what?"
Willow wasn't quite sure how to word this. But she had to get to the heart of the matter. All Buffy had provided her with was basic information, nothing on what really happened, or how she really felt. "Well, I mean, Buffy, you admitted that you acted a certain way towards him last year. And maybe you did something again that frightened him, so he ran away?"
Buffy tried to keep her voice calm. She'd changed, she knew she had. And Spike knew she had too. She wasn't sure she liked being questioned by Willow about her actions. Just because Willow resorted to magic when the going got bad, did not mean that she went back to treating Spike badly. "I did not hit him. Or yell at him. In fact we didn't say a word. We just held hands.."
"That's it!" Willow interrupted.
"What? I didn't say anything, so I made him mad?"
"No, you held hands with him. When have you ever held hands with him? And since when were you the hand holding type?"
"I've held hands with people. With boys even."
"Riley? I doubt that. Maybe Angel, Buffy, but that was years ago. Face it, this was something new in your relationship and it probably scared Spike. Especially considering that you're supposed to be taking this relationship thing slow."
"So I'm supposed to stand ten feet away from him and ask his permission before I can hold his hand?"
"No, I don't think that's it at all. It's just probably something new for him too. And he has such big feelings for you, that whenever you give him a crumb, he's ready for the whole package."
"And so rather than try to get that whole package, he left last night." It kind of made sense to her. She could see him get scared. Afraid that he would push her too much, too soon. Or that she would push herself too fast. So for that she was grateful, but it still didn't alleviate the frustrations she had with him over keeping her in the dark about their demon and stalker problem.
"That makes a lot of sense Willow, and I'll keep in it mind, however, I'm still mad at him for not talking to me about the demons or whoever was following us."
"Maybe he has his reasons, Buffy."
"This is a partnership and he's not acting like a partner. Just because I'm not all into research doesn't mean that I should be left out of the loop. I'm going to find out what's going on."
"Then ask him what's going on."
"So he can clam up and tell me that he'll let me know when he finds out anything? And that I should just to get some rest, be ready for anything."
"You won't know until you ask him. Then if he does say that, you can go postal on him!" Willow added cheerfully.
"He already said that this morning. I called him, to see if he'd found anything out last night."
"Vampires can be awfully grumpy in the morning. Give him a few hours."
"I don't have a few hours. I have now. Tonight is Anya's grand opening for the demon part of the shop and I have to be there. I won't have time then to worry about things. I need to know now what's going on."
"You could train. Punch a punching bag or something, take some aggression out. I bet things would look better if you did that. But I am not dressing up in the puffy suit."
"You know maybe I should kill something. That would help a lot. Take my aggression out on something."
"Sounds good to me Buffy. But you know it is daytime and there aren't many demons out then."
"Oh don't worry, I know where one is. And he's going down."
"Okay. So where are we going?"
"Spike's."
**************
It took a few minutes after she knocked for the door to open. Buffy had been about to use the key Spike had given her, when he appeared, hair all disheveled, black jeans low on his hips, black t-shirt in his hand.
Spike pulled the t-shirt on as he motioned them in, Buffy not waiting for the permission to enter. "Buffy. Willow. I was sleeping, but I guess you can come in." Spike said sarcastically, to the empty doorway. Closing the door, he turned around to find her standing in the middle of the living room, arms crossed.
"That's awfully nice of you to accommodate me in your busy schedule."
At the snotty tone of Buffy's voice, Spike's eyebrows rose. He looked to Willow for an answer, but she just shook her head at him.
"I thought we were going to meet later this afternoon." At least that is what he had thought when he'd left Buffy's late last night.
"We need to get some things straight here."
"Umm, Spike, can I use your bathroom?" Willow interjected, before things got too heated between them. She figured that she could listen from the bathroom and make sure Buffy wasn't really going to stake Spike. Also she could provide moral support from close by, but not in the way.
"Down the hall, first door on the left."
Buffy looked around the large living area that the front door opened into. It was a large space. A large space that was still very empty. She tried to concentrate on that first, so that she could calm down a little bit and not attack him. "Why don't you have any furniture in here?"
"Been a little busy, pet."
"Doing what? Research? Cutting me out of things?" And she cringed at that. It just came out and she knew her tone wasn't that friendly.
"What is this about? Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"
"Maybe if I had gotten some sleep, I would have. But because of you, I sat up most of the night."
"That's my fault?"
She could hear the disbelief in his voice. And she knew what she was about the say might be the wrong thing, but she had promised to be truthful and honest. So she was laying her feelings out on the table, as much as she could. Hopefully he would understand, help her with it, and lay his out too. "Of course it is. If you had told me what we were facing, I could have slept better. Instead I had to wonder about what is going on."
"Maybe if I knew what was going on, I would tell you."
"But you didn't even want to talk about it. 'Go to bed Buffy, get some rest. I'll talk to you tomorrow.' You could have told me that you had some ideas, that maybe we were facing the Hellmouth opening or whatever your suspicions are. Instead you just cut me out. This is a partnership."
"There's no use in both of us losing sleep researching. Don't worry, next time I'll make sure that you stay up all night, while I relax. I won't try to do you a favor again." And he wouldn't, if he was going to get raked over the coals for it.
"That's not what it is. You aren't listening to me."
"Then tell me what you want."
"I did."
Spike took her face in his hands. His palms cupped her face so that the two looked eye to eye. "Buffy, look at me. I can't read your mind. Unless you tell me exactly what you want, I don't know what it is. You have to tell me."
"I'm the Slayer. I need to know what is going on, so that I can make decisions. I don't want anyone else to make decisions for me, without consulting me. It's been done before, and I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. I thought this was a partnership."
"It is a partnership. And I'm sorry that I upset you. That wasn't my intention. I was really just trying to give you some breathing room, let you get some sleep. I didn't want to take over. I really just wanted to give you some time off." He let go of her face, moving away from her. It was so hard for him to be near her, but not with her.
"But I don't get time off. I've tried that before and it doesn't work."
"So no time off for you, I get that. And I'll ask your opinion more. But you have to understand why we couldn't talk last night, while outside."
"I get that. There was someone following us, but later on last night, you wouldn't even talk to me about it. Let me know who you thought it was."
"Maybe cause I don't know."
"Well, you could have said that."
Spike took a deep breath. He'd kept everything bottled up inside of him for so long, he could feel it beginning to erupt. And he wasn't going to hold it back from her this time. Her flippant tone made him want to yell back, so he did.
"I get that now. Goddamn it, what do you want? I'm not perfect and I'm sorry that I've pissed you off. But you do that to me all the time and you don't see me throwing a fit now, do you? It's just something I put up with, because I love you."
She took that in. And realized that he was right. She was so grateful for all her shit that he had put up with. Hopefully he knew that, but maybe she needed to spell it out for him.
"Spike. I know. And I am so thankful for that. You don't know how much it means to me that you stick around through thick and thin. I wish that things could be easy for us. But they don't seem to be. But I want to make this work, I really do. And I'm trying to let you know how I feel. The only thing I ask in return is that you help me while I try to do that and also tell me how you feel." Buffy held her breath, waiting for him to respond. This was such new territory and she was afraid that she was saying the wrong thing, pushing him away.
At his nod of acquiescence, she continued on. It seemed it was the day for confrontations, or getting things out in the open. And she'd come this far, she wasn't backing out now. But it felt so high schoolish to her, discussing how they felt about holding hands.
"There's something else we need to discuss. Last night, we held hands while we patrolled. Willow thought that might have scared you. Did it? Because I know this is new territory for us and I guess if I think about it, it scares me too a little."
"You want the truth?" At her nod, he continued. "You send mixed signals. When we're together alone, you hold my hand. But in front of others, like last night when we found Willow, you don't. Here's another example from last night. When we got back home, you sat far away while Anya was there. But once she left, you sat right next to me."
Buffy hadn't realized she did that. Was it a subconscious thing? It was something she'd have to think about later. "Okay, I'll work on it. And we both have to work on telling the other one how we feel without being worried about how we'll react. Deal?"
"Deal." Spike agreed, relieved that their first fight, if you could call it that, went okay.
They both looked at each other awkwardly. Their agreement seemed they should do something to finalize it, but a handshake was too formal. And Spike didn't think they were ready for a kiss yet. He just stood, looking at her, until she broke the silence.
"Now let's talk about our demons from last night. You mentioned that they had given you something to research, some books to read?"
Spike led her down the hall to his office, where she sat on the couch. He pulled a book down from his bookshelf and gave it to her, sitting down beside her.
"He mentioned a name, Lucas Canfield. Said to check out his writings. It seems he was a watcher in London in 1917. His slayer's name was Eva Montgomery."
"And did you find his diaries?"
"One of them. It looks like there were two of them. And the one I found has some pages missing. But I did find one passage that was interesting?"
"Interesting how?"
"Well it gets me thinking that maybe we have somewhere to start with where the Imparafa demons were held."
"What does it say?"
Spike took the book back from her. He'd read the passage enough times now that he knew where to find it.
"'Eva was at the Council today, receiving some training in the Bhadic demon language. She's making a lot of progress, learning the difference in the dental and interdental sounds. While she was occupied, I decided to explore a bit. I had never spent much unsupervised time in the Council's headquarters.
"'I found the normal offices and lecture rooms on the main floors. Nothing interesting that was new to me. But the basement had always been off limits to me as a student. In the bowels of the building, it was dark and dank. The torches reflected off of metal bars. I had never seen such a thing in my life. I don't know what to think. Was there a reason this was kept from me? If I had known, just think of the educational opportunities that could have been provided to Eva.'"
He shut the book after he finished, giving it back to Buffy. "Pages after this are torn out. I think Canfield went into more description on the next few pages, which is why they are missing. This skips right into Canfield writing about is Eva's relationship with her family."
"The council allowed her to have a relationship with them? Giles always made it sound like I was almost one of the only ones that had that."
"How about non-relationship. They seemed to have a pretty tight thumb over her."
"So what are you getting at with this diary entry? You think he saw something he shouldn't have and that's why they tore out the pages?"
"Oh yeah. And he wrote about it too. I think he saw a bunch of cells full of demons. Just think of the educational opportunities for slayers, if they could learn about a bunch of different demons that are in captivity. They could figure out the best way to kill them, give them practice fighting them."
"You think the Council has set us up? With the jobs and then releasing these demons and the person following us?"
"I'm not positive, but it looks that way right now. But we can't jump to conclusions. There could a number of things that Canfield saw down there, that's just one scenario I came up with. There're still a lot of things we don't know."
"Then we'll find out together what's going on. As much as I don't like research, if they are trying to take us down, then together we can figure out how to fight them."
Willow's voice drifted to them, from behind the bathroom door. "Guys, are you done fighting now? Can I come out?"
**************
Anya surveyed her helpers lined up in front of her. They were all wearing matching red long sleeved shirts. She thought it gave them uniformity, letting their potential customers know who worked there. She'd put up with a lot of flack from Spike and Buffy on wearing the shirts, when they had first arrived. But they'd changed their minds. She was pretty sure that Buffy had somehow convinced Spike to wear the shirt. She was actually curious as to how Buffy had done that.
"Now everyone, remember our motto. 'A happy customer is a customer who spends lots of money.' Let's say it together."
Together, Dawn, Clem, Spike and Buffy all repeated with Anya. "A happy customer is a customer who spends lots of money."
"And it makes Anya happy too." Spike muttered under his breath.
"What?" Anya thought she had heard Spike mutter something. Nothing and no one was going to ruin her day. This was the day she had been waiting for. The day she was going to make the most money she had ever made in one day.
"Nothing. Just had a tickle in my throat."
"Good. Our goal is to make lots of money, so entice all these demons to spend, spend, spend, and then spend some more."
As they took their places, waiting for Anya to open the door, Spike sidled up to Dawn. "You remember what your sis and I told you, right?"
"Watch out for any red furry demons, any humans, and any suspicious demons."
And what constitutes a suspicious demon?"
"One that is too friendly, really mean, or just seems funny."
"Good going Bit. Your sister could use your help with this. She's flying blind here, so if you notice anything out of the ordinary, make sure you take note of it and let Buffy or I know right away."