Slow Good-Byes, Silent Hellos

By Annie

2003-03-04

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After that little while had passed he moved his arms and slowly got her to slide to sit by his side instead. She raised her head and looked at him questioningly as he reached up his hands and unlocked her arms from around his neck. A look of sudden protest flashed in her eyes and she was about to voice it when he said:

"I'll be right back."

Holding her gaze he made sure that she trusted that statement, and as she seemed to relax he got to his feet and walked into the kitchen. Heating up some water he got out a bag of soup-mix and when the water was boiling he poured it into a mug before adding the latter. Retrieving a spoon he stirred it as he re-entered the living room.

He had no idea what game she was playing now, but she looked too fragile to argue with and he felt almost sick from the worry in his chest. If she hadn't been eating...

"Here," he said, stopping by her and reaching down to hand her the steaming food.

She looked up at him, then shook her head a little.

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry," she replied.

However, the look in his eyes told her that there was no way he would accept that and so she sighed, defeatedly taking the mug and settling back against the cushions as he took a seat beside her. To oblige his expectant eyeing of her she took a small sip of the hot soup and had to admit it did taste quite this side of wonderful.

"Ain't everyday a girl eats gourmet," she murmured wryly and a small smile graced his lips, though the seriousness lingered and she wished she could somehow lighten it up just a little.

It seemed like that was a lost cause, and she sighed.

"This was really good," she now continued, taking another sip. "What'd you do with it?"

"Oh, the usual," he answered. "Water, bag, pour, stir...that kinda thing."

"Really?" she asked. "Amazing. I thought you must've put some extra sesonings in there or at least..."

"Buffy," he interrupted gently and she smiled tryingly.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to be all mood-change-y. Just wanted to... I don't know," she grumbled, taking a mouthful of soup and deciding to just keep quiet for a few minutes.

He rested his eyes on her, letting them glide over the soft lines of her face. He knew them all by heart, of course. But he sure did love them in the flesh. Closing his eyes for a second he shook his head and then he got to his feet.

"Where are you going now?" she asked with another rather insecure smile. "To get the bread or...?"

"I can't stay," he replied and she swallowed, blinking as her smile immediately faded.

"Well, where are you gonna go?" she asked, putting the mug down on the coffeetable as she rose as well, facing him.

"Far, FAR away from home," he answered and she struggled down the wave of pain she felt at those words. "I shouldn't have come at all. I'm sorry," he added, turning from her and walking into the hall.

She stared after him, then followed.

"You don't have to apologize, you came 'cause Dawn asked you to come. I know there's nothing you wouldn't do for her," Buffy said and he turned back to her, eyebrows rising.

"You know that isn't why I returned," he stated and she swallowed again, this time harder as she rested her eyes in his.

"So...why did you?" she asked slowly.

He observed her for a few seconds at that question and then he grabbed the knob of the front door and twisted it as he replied:

"It doesn't matter."

"So, why are you leaving?" she blurted out, taking a step toward him as he was about to walk through the door.

He glanced back at her, then hesitated before he turned partially to her, letting the knob go.

"Can you offer me a good reason why I should stay?" he asked back and her eyes grew slightly.

He turned fully to face her and she took an involuntary step back as her heart began to pace faster in her chest. She knew then that she couldn't let him go away again. Never seeing him again... She couldn't even think it. Drawing a breath she nodded as an answer to his previous question, hoping that when she opened her mouth something persuasive would come out - because in that moment her mind seemed to lock up and all she could think was how much she needed him in her life.

"I need you," she almost whispered, clearing her throat as she caught up to the fact that she had to put some more weight behind those words than that and then she repeated: "I need you."

His eyes had softened at that first admittance - but now they grew searching as he took a step forward.

"Why?" he demanded and she bit her jaws together at the rush of nervousness fanning through her.

"Because I need your... help," she answered him, voice almost shaking as tears of held back anxiety rose in her eyes. "'Cause I need you here to help me."

"Like before?" he asked and she nodded. "I can't do that, Slayer," he murmured, shaking his head a little as the bitterness poured into his feautures. "Not anymore."

"But you CAN!" she disagreed as he once more turned to the door, pausing at the growing distress in her voice and then looking back at her. "You always could. I'd see you and things felt... different. You made them come into a different light, Spike. You can still do that! Please..."

He blinked, looking into her tearstinged eyes his heart ached with her.

"We can't ever go back to that, and you know that, Buffy," he replied slowly, closing the door and turning back to her - noticing the light of hope suddenly burning in her eyes at his gesture he bit back that very emotion inside of himself.

He had to keep a cool head. No matter how much he needed her too he couldn't lose sight of why he had left in the first place.

"I couldn't be around you 'cause seeing you began to be only painful," he continued, needing her to realize why he had to go again. "And I couldn't take it... Being away from you causes me just as much hurt... but it's numbing, and not cutting me up from the inside. I live around you, Slayer. I live through you... Without you there's no life - just a big, empty..." he trailed off, feeling as though he was drifting outside what he wanted to convey. "But seeing you is like dying over and over and over... Maybe being in a state of constant death is better," he finished, watching her tears trail down her cheeks for a moment before he clenched his jaws together. "Your need is misplaced," he now said and her eyes grew wondering. "You have a whole buncha friends who can make you feel that way. They'd gladly die for you, the whole lot, on any given day. You don't need me in order to know that."

"But that's not what I mean," she shook her head, taking a step forward and standing before him. "That's not why I need you."

"Then why?" he asked, mercilessly holding her gaze. "Why do you want me to stay? Thirty minutes ago you wanted me to leave. What's changed in thirty minutes?"

Buffy reached up to wipe away her tears as she looked up at him, then sniffled before replying almost deperately:

"Nothing's changed!" As he raised his eyebrows she corrected herself with a small shake of the head: "Everything's changed... Dammit, I'm just so...confused and I... I just don't want you to leave again. Spike...please. Do I have to have a reason for not wanting to let you go again? I just...I can't let you," she stated, reaching up her arms and wrapping them around his neck before stepping into him and burying her face against the side of his throat.

He put his arms around her, holding her tightly to him before shaking his head and getting her to unwrap her arms as he took a step back.

"You can't do that," he said. "You can't use your bloody advantages like that, it's too unfair."

She blinked at her tears.

"Do you still...?" she trailed off, surprised by how much she felt she had to ask him the question, and finally giving into it as she finished: "Do you still love me?"

He looked at her, taken aback and then his gaze became filled with that incredible warmth as he answered:

"No matter how far I am from you. No matter what happens, Buffy, I will always love you."

She swallowed the sob rising, and then she wrapped her arms around herself as she closed her eyes with relief. He looked at her, not at all certain what to make of the question or her reaction to the answer.

"I thought, if anything, that was obvious," he mumbled and she opened her eyes to rest them in his.

"I just..." once more trailing off she searched for the right words, this time they failed to reveal themselves and she grew quiet.

"I love you," he said with just as much silent conviction as he had the very first time he stated that and she stared into his eyes. "And that's why I have to leave you."

"No," she protested, grabbing one of his hands when he made as to walk back up to the door. "What do you want me to do?" she asked, once more having his gaze in hers. "Do you want me to beg? 'Cause I will. I'll do anything. I'll get down on my knees right here before you and BEG you to stay here. You can't leave, Spike," she said, a sob escaping her and the tears trickled gently. "Please. Please, don't leave me again."

"Why?" he once more demanded, only this time with more force as he grabbed her upper arms and looked her deep into the eyes with such a questioning gaze that she almost lost her breath at what to answer him. "Why do you want me to stay so badly that you're willing to sink this low? You never beg for anything, Slayer. WHY are you doing it now?"

Her hands grasped his arms back as she blinked at the tears and she had the expression of a deer caught in the headlights of a car on her face. Her eyes were huge and shiny with the salt wetting them. She looked as though she had come to a dead end and even though she had been able to escape the head lights she still would have no refuge from the hood of the car.

"Because...because I felt it," she answered him, voice low and he blinked, not comprehending. "The...numbness," she elaborated. "I felt it..."

He swallowed. That wasn't what he had expected her to say. What had he been expecting her to say? He wasn't sure, but this hadn't been it.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, voice as low as hers.

"It's like its inside of me...eating at me," she answered slowly. "And it doesn't matter what I do - it doesn't stop. It didn't. It never stopped...until I saw you standing down here... And I'm so scared, Spike. I'm so scared that if you leave again it'll just swallow me... and I'll be gone. And I won't ever come back again."

He didn't say anything straight away, merely eyed her with another one of those proding gazes and she held onto his arms tighter, afraid that she otherwise would fold to the floor like a moistened peice of paper.

"What can I do?" he finally asked silently. "I can't stay here, Slayer."

Her fingers were hurting him even through the leather of the duster as they clasped his biceps, but he hardly noticed the ache.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, releasing the hold he had had on her arms and then moving one hand to place it by her cheek, sliding his thumb over it and drying away some of the streaks her tears had created; as though they wished to make a map over the rivers of her eyes. "But I can't stay because you're scared."

He pulled out of her grip, letting his arm fall along his side before he turned from her and walked up to the front door, feeling as though he was in a daze. His whole being rebelled against what he was doing and it took every last shred of his willpower not to stop himself, turn back to her and tell her all right. Tell her that there was nothing he wouldn't do for her as long as she asked him. And now she was asking him to stay. But it would eventually drive him out of his mind to see her and have her see him and still not... No, there was no way he could do that.

"Then stay," her voice sounded gently from behind him, "because... I love you."

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Wow! wendy, albie, Cherry Vampire, Kat, Sally-Jo, PineTranio, Burning- Toast, wolf116, Tinks, angelmeg, spikeisahottie1011, Emo, Tamara, learyl, Rashaka, Charlie and BlueFern - thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! I must be doing something right with this, I take it! ;) Your support is lifting me way high, thanks so much!

Rashaka, I HAVE to respond to what you wrote. I admit - writing on a review- receiving basis is tacky, childish and very green of a writer who has been posting for almost a year. But I'm in a real slump with my "me"-writing right now, well, on the review-receiving bit that is. And though I love the story I'm currently writing for "me" and posting for my readers, and though the readers I do have on it that are really sticking with it are just fabulous at making me feel good about putting it out there, I just really needed that little boost of having a pretty big flow of feedback on a story. I usually deter from ASKING my readers for reviews, particularly on a story I know for certain I will finish no matter what. However, this is not one of those. I write this for "us" (writer and reader) as a unit, hence I will continue to write and post it until it is finished, and enjoy doing so because if I didn't like it myself - of course - I couldn't develope the idea at all, but only if I know my readers are enjoying their part of the unison - the reading part. So, I might have phrased it wrong on the last chapter - I don't mean to say "unless you don't want me to stop you'd do best at reviewing!", I wanted to say "if you do want me to continue this, if you don't wish it to end here, please, let me know and I'll hear that request." I dunno if that rectifies it in any way, but I just wanted you to know my motive before you judged me too heavily. Anyways, thanks for your positive part of the review, I'm glad you're liking this story!

And yes, I have to write, you happy with leaving it there? We've had the admittance from her now, right? Is there more to it? Please, let me know and I WILL hear that request. Thanks a lot, y'all!

A.M.L, Annie.