My head hurts a little right now…but never fear! I feel like writing, and where there's a will, there's a way, or at least a fresh pot of coffee! That's all I need, really, and then it's a simple matter of typing way into the wee hours of the morning. Enjoy!
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One More Try
Part 11
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Laying on Spike's bed, soaking in the comfort of his presence and his smell thick in the bedding, I was totally unaware of tiredness creeping through me and causing my eyelids to grow heavier and heavier until I fell away from the world of wakefulness that I had been in. One second, it was as though I was simply taking long breaths, letting my tears subside, and then as if it had happened while I was blinking, I opened my eyes again to the sound of Spike's door opening slowly. For a moment, I was utterly confused, of course. I thought that it must be Jet coming to check on me, but how had he known I'd gone to Spike's room instead of my own? I hadn't heard him calling out my name…
"Faye?" Spike's voice brought my awareness to a sharp peak. Not only was I awake, I realized that I must have fallen asleep, and I was completely embarrassed to have been caught sneaking into Spike's room by Spike himself. What could I possibly say to explain myself without giving away too much? "What…are you okay?" My eyes must have been wide with terrified panic. I'd been caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and my still slightly groggy mind was casting about uselessly for some sort of explanation that Spike would accept for why I was sleeping on his bed. And then I really looked at him, and all concern for my own situation evaporated immediately.
"You're bleeding!" I exclaimed, almost falling over as I jumped out of bed and rushed to him. Sometimes, like when I was still half-asleep and more concerned with the blood clotting over the right side of Spike's face than with appearing graceful, I forgot that I was indeed very pregnant and in no real condition to be jumping around. "What happened? I missed the mission…I must have lost track of time…Let me see it." I was trying to pull his face down while he was trying to grab my shoulders to settle my balance.
"It's nothing, I was just a little careless." Spike tried to brush away my questing fingers, but I wasn't about to be shoved aside easily. "Why are you in here? Were you sleeping?"
"That's not important. Sit down and let me go get my bag…" I rushed out of the room as quickly as my condition allowed, not wanting Spike to see the guilty blush that stained my cheeks as his questions reminded me of something other than his bleeding face. I hadn't meant it as a distraction, but at least while I was treating him, I figured that I could avoid his questions easily enough. He'd likely forget the whole thing after he'd had a bit of sleep, so I seemed to be in luck. Arranging my face into my best busy and irritable expression, I returned to a slightly mopey looking Spike complete with my medical supplies.
"Hey," he began, but I wasn't about to let him get a word in edgewise.
"I take it you got the guy, then? Turn him in already?" I asked in a brisk voice as I set about scrubbing the dried blood from the side of his face. He made a slightly impatient noise, but it wasn't as though I really cared if he was going to be a baby about my avoidance of the topic. It was none of his business, as far as I was concerned.
"Uh, yeah, he wasn't too tough." Spike answered.
"Says the man with blood all over his face." I teased lightly as I worked at the blood surrounding the real wound, a split over his eyebrow that wasn't entirely deep, just extremely messy. "What did he do, smack you with a baseball bat?"
"No, he had shit aim, so when I cornered him after he'd run out of bullets, he tried to take me out with a good swift crack to the head, but it didn't really work out the way he planned." Spike smirked slightly, obviously pleased to have proven the bounty wrong. "You should've seen him when I finished calming him."
"Spike, you know, just because some guy mars your beautiful face, that's no reason to go crazy." I teased him as I pressed a rag soaked in antiseptic to the inch-long wound. Spike's mouth twitched slightly, but I couldn't tell if it was from the sting of the liquid or the irony of my advice.
"Oh really?" he asked, raising his eyebrows before immediately learning that he shouldn't do that when one of them had a deep split just above it. "I seem to remember you clocking some guy for almost hitting your face with a throwing knife."
"Well…that's different." I smiled slightly, remembering the incident clearly enough. "You don't need your face to get by in the world. I do." There was a long silence as I pulled out a pair of butterfly stitches, applying them to his wound carefully. "There you go." My voice was more serious for some reason. The atmosphere in the room had been light enough a few minutes ago, but now it felt like a lead weight pressing down on me.
"You know…you shouldn't think that." Spike finally spoke up as I was closing the antiseptic and putting it back in my bag.
"What?" My voice wavered slightly, and I knew that I couldn't possibly meet Spike's eyes right then or I'd likely burst from the tension between us.
"You know what." His voice was impatient, and I felt a bit guilty for putting him off once more. "We've been through this, Faye. You're not just…you can't keep…we all care about you, you know. It's not because you have a pretty face."
"That's why I can't leave." I told him, zipping the bag closed and sighing slightly. "You guys are the only people in the world who give a shit about Faye Valentine. People see me, and all they see is my face, my body. They don't care what I have to say, what I do with my life, where I'm from, what I've seen, where I'm going. Guys…just want to see how fast they can get me to do whatever they want. Girls just want me to go away. It's not that way for you. You get respect. No one respects some slut in skimpy clothes, no matter how hard she can kick."
"Faye…" Spike's my hands with one of his, and it struck me how much larger his hands were. They seemed almost clumsy, but I knew better. "Don't get so down on yourself. It's not like that."
"Please…just don't." I shook my head. "I know how people see me, Spike. You don't have to force yourself to pretend it's a lie."
"Faye, what the hell do you care about other people?" Spike's voice was a little angry, a little impatient, and I wasn't all that surprised. I was shooting down everything he said even though he was being nice to me, which was rare enough. Well…it wasn't that strange anymore, but I guess I thought that he didn't want to get in a major battle with anyone carrying his child. Go figure. "They're just people."
"Easy for you to say. They don't see you as a worthless piece of trash." I insisted, but he snorted derisively at my assertion.
"You'd be surprised. Just because I can kick someone's ass, that doesn't make me Mr. Popular." Spike told me, the bitterness in his voice causing me to look up for the first time since I'd put my things away. He offered me a slight smile to let me see that he wasn't really angry with me, and I felt his hand squeeze mine slightly. I think that was about the time that my heart leapt out of my chest and I died. "But you know what? You think I got this far in life by worrying about how a bunch of strangers see me? I don't give a shit about other people. They've got their lives, and I've got mine."
"You're like that with everyone." I told him. "It's not easy for normal humans to block out the whole world."
"I don't block out the whole world." Spike tilted his head slightly, frowning. "Just the parts that don't matter to me. You should know that by now."
"I should?" For some reason, my eyes felt as though they were very wide at that moment, and I didn't think I could possibly look away from the piercing gaze that Spike had fixed on me.
"Idiot." Spike's voice was soft despite the insult. "You wanna know something? You know more about me than anyone else, and you still act like you can't wrap your mind around some of the simplest things." My mind was going into overload then. I was almost positive that his thumb was stroking my palm softly, that or he had some sort of nervous tic I didn't know about. And then he hits me with something like that? I knew that some of the things he'd told me Jet didn't know anything about, but still…
"Even Julia?" I couldn't stop my voice from shaking as I managed the question that immediately came to mind. This was one of the very few times I brought up Julia in a manor that wasn't condescending or taunting. I think it shocked both of us, and Spike was struck speechless for a few moments.
"You're not Julia." He answered after a while, dropping his gaze and pulling his hand away awkwardly, fiddling with the cloth on his pants.
"I know." My voice was utterly deflated, and I felt like I should just leave, but I was feeling stubborn. "Did…did she know about…things?"
"Some stuff, I guess so." Spike answered, still a bit uncomfortable. I couldn't blame him for being hesitant to talk about her in front of me. I'd abused the topic enough times that he was likely feeling very defensive. "But…you know. She wasn't my friend, she was my lover."
"You guys weren't ever friends?" I didn't know a lot about how Spike and Julia decided that they needed to start sneaking around behind Vicious' back, as I didn't really want to romanticize the story any more than it already was.
"Well…kinda." Spike shrugged. "But not like…not like Jet or you." It was so nice to hear that I had some piece of Spike that Julia hadn't touched yet, I felt like I might burst. I wanted to do something to show him how much it meant to me, but I didn't know how to express my gratitude in words, so I simply reached forward and squeezed one of his hands softly.
"Do you…do you think that you'll ever be over it?" I didn't want to sound too hopeful; I hated being vulnerable.
"Sometimes I think that I'll die if I can't see her again." Spike answered after a pause, glancing up at me and licking his lips. "Sometimes I go a day or a week without even thinking about her, and when I realize that…I feel like such an ass."
"You think…she can see you?" I asked, unsure whether I was feeling nervous or sympathetic.
"I hope not all the time." Spike actually winked at me then. My face exploded in color as my eyes widened in embarrassment.
"What do you think she thinks about…um…" I patted my stomach gingerly.
"Honestly?" Spike considered it for a few moments. "I think she wouldn't care that much. She was never…never really jealous or anything. Maybe she'd even be glad that I'm happy."
"This…makes you happy?" I had a lump in my throat the size of a full-grown cat, I was sure. I couldn't breathe or swallow. Spike shrugged and reached forward, touching my swollen stomach almost as though he were gingerly petting an animal that might bite him.
"I don't know what it makes me feel." He told me after a while.
"You make me happy…some times." I couldn't believe I'd said that, and I had to add the last two words as though they were a way of taking everything else back.
"No, I just piss you off." Spike chuckled slightly. Obviously, he thought I'd been joking.
"Turnabout's fair play." I laughed nervously. How I'd escaped that one, I wasn't sure. And then, with a resurgence of embarrassment, I realized that his hand was still on my stomach.
"Weird to think about, isn't it?" Spike was staring at the bulge, and I felt extremely self-conscious. "Who'd have thought…the two of us having a kid? Bizarre."
"Yeah…bizarre." I wanted to live in that moment. It was almost like we were a couple, sitting there talking about our baby, even if it wasn't in the most…couple type of way. "I…I should go to bed."
"Faye?" Spike stopped me from leaving with his voice. "Thanks." I didn't know what he was thanking me for. I couldn't begin to think clearly when he looked at me like that.
"Yeah…yeah." I paused at his door, hesitating a second longer than I probably should have. "I was scared. When you left alone tonight, I was scared you wouldn't come back. I felt…kinda better in here. I'm sorry, I won't do it again." I couldn't look at him as I spoke. It was too embarrassing, and yet…I felt like I should be able to admit that after the conversation we'd just had.
"It's okay." Spike answered. "I knew you were worried already. I just wanted to hear you say it."
"I hate being at a disadvantage." I told him, smiling sheepishly and shaking my head as I looked back at him. He stood up and moved toward me. I was rooted to the spot.
"You aren't." he assured me. "Sometimes I think that…never mind. I'm just tired. I need to shut up."
"Yeah…me too." I blushed and nearly ran out of the room. What was he about to say? I couldn't sleep that night.
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"Reading that damn book again?" Spike offered me a slight smile as he sat next to me on the couch. It had been a couple of weeks since the embarrassing scene in his room, and we seemed to think that if we just pretended it never happened, we could still talk to each other without our faces catching on fire.
"What? Am I disturbing you?" I asked him, shooting a dry look in his direction.
"Nah, you're okay." Spike flipped on the television and immediately began going through the channels while slumping back on the couch lazily.
"Excuse me?" I raised an eyebrow at him after several minutes of this.
"What?" He didn't even look at me, continuing to channel surf with his feet up on the table.
"I'm reading." I told him. This made him glance at me, and he gave me a look like I'd grown another head.
"Yeah?" he seemed to be very confused as to how that statement was relevant to anything.
"So turn it down or turn it off." I indicated the television, it's thin screen glowing and flickering with the images chasing across it.
"You could just read somewhere else." Spike told me, turning back to flip through the channels again. That did it. I slammed the book down in my lap.
"You aren't even watching anything!" I flung out a hand, waving it at the television to show that he hadn't decided on a channel yet.
"Oh yeah? Well you've read that book about thirty times already! What's the point?" Spike turned to face me, back stiffening.
"Have you even picked this book up once?" I asked him angrily. I'd been purposefully leaving it laying around for him to look at for months now and I was almost positive my thoughtfulness had gone completely unnoticed.
"Whatever, like I need to." Spike snorted and rolled his eyes. "It's like, your fucking bible or something."
"At least I don't worship the mind sucking TV!" I gestured angrily at the screen in question.
"Like you don't watch TV?" Spike asked angrily. "You're just pissed that I'm not being as crazy about the kid as you are! I don't need some book to show me how to raise a baby. I can figure it out on my own perfectly fine."
"Oh really?" I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms, a considerable task considering the stomach that was in my way. "What would you do if the baby was crying in the middle of the night and you found it was running a fever when you went to check on it?"
"Okay, first of all," Spike began ticking things off on his fingers. "I wouldn't even check on the damn thing if it was gonna cry in the middle of the night. I'd make you get it. And even if I did check on it and something was wrong, I'd just give it to you."
"Your parenting skills are amazing, Spike, let me just tell you that right now." I told him sarcastically. "What if something happened to me? Would you just throw our kid in a dumpster or something?"
"Maybe." Spike turned back to the television. Obviously, he was now teasing me. That, or he wanted to die.
"You're such an idiot." I rolled my eyes and picked up my book again, trying to ignore the fact that he was now turning up the volume in an obvious attempt to make me strangle him. "I'm going to shoot you."
"You can't hide a gun with that stomach." Spike replied without any worry.
"What? That didn't even make any sense." I snorted. "I'm buying you some books so you can learn how to come up with a witty come back. First you'll need to learn to read of course."
"Oh yeah? Well I'm buying you some fucking Midol so you'll stop being such a bitch all the time." Spike shot back.
"That was weak." I retorted, rolling my eyes again. "You're stupid."
"Oh, that one really hurt." Spike wasn't even paying attention to the TV anymore. "I'm gonna go cry in my room now so I can learn how to be as cool as you."
"What the hell's wrong with you today?" I asked him angrily. "Did Ed eat all your Lucky Charms or something?"
"Shut up, like you don't eat them too." Spike was very touchy about his choice of breakfast foods, although since we could rarely afford good cereal, it was almost understandable. He turned back to the television, rolling his eyes at me in irritation. "You're such a fucking bitch some times."
"You're such an idiotic prick all the time!" I shot back. "I don't know why I even offered to let you take part in raising my child. You're completely irresponsible, you'd probably put liquor in it's bottle to make it go to sleep faster."
"That works?" Spike quirked an eyebrow and glanced at my book. "That's pretty fucking clever. Maybe I should read that."
"Oh, shut up, you asshole." I grumbled. I couldn't believe I was actually in love with this man.
"You shut up." He retorted in a classic move of Spike Spiegel maturity.
"You started talking first." I pointed out. He did, after all.
"I was being nice. You're the one that started bitching at me about stupid shit." Spike contested.
"I wouldn't have started anything if you weren't being a pain in the ass." I shot back. "You know what I think?"
"Do I care?" Spike gave me a deadpan look.
"I think that you'll be a bad influence on my baby. I don't want you anywhere near it." I wasn't really serious, but I just wanted to win the argument.
"It's my kid too." Spike reminded me.
"Oh, is it?" I made my eyes go wide, looking as utterly confused as I could manage. "Are you really sure?"
"Don't pull that shit." Spike snapped, looking a lot angrier than he had at any other point in the argument. He actually tossed the remote aside. "You know it is."
"Do I?" I asked him, taking no end of pleasure in seeing him get so upset about something that only three months ago he himself had suggested. I set the book aside and began examining my fingernails casually. "It's not like you're the only man I've ever slept with, and after all—hey!" I was cut off when he grabbed the hand I had been admiring and yanked it toward him to get my attention.
"Don't." There wasn't a lot of light in the room, but I could still see that his eyes were deadly serious. "Just don't."
"What are you…" I faded off, feeling extremely confused and nervous at the same time. For some reason, I kept seeing flashes of that scene in the hallway, what seemed ages ago. When Spike had kissed me. Was he going to kiss me now? Why was he getting so out of hand about something so stupid? Of course the baby was his, I had already told him it was. I mean, it was almost…almost as though… "You're jealous." I was just as shocked to realize it as I was that the words had escaped my lips.
"No I'm not." The words were lame, and they lacked any sort of conviction. "I'm not."
"Oh really? Then why do you care whose kid it is?" I asked him, trying to ignore the fact that his face, so close to mine, was making me tremble. And the way his eyes were boring into mine, his jaw clenched tight with anger and determination, it was making me feel light-headed. "My…wrist hurts."
"Sorry." He released me immediately, his eyes dropping before he nearly fled the room. I know, I know, it was a cheap way to get out of the situation, but I was panicking! What was going on between Spike and I lately? First he's protective, then he's jealous? Almost possessive…like maybe…maybe…
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The End (Of Part 11, That Is)