Chapter 6

"Okay, let me get this straight," Willow said, plopping down on her bed next to Buffy. "You two went swimming, naked, and nothing happened?"

"Besides a few kisses and not-so-subtle-but-I'm-trying-to-be touches? Nope," Buffy answered, popping a grape into her mouth with a large smile on her face.

"But Spike's...a man and men are known to only be interested in one thing. I'm thinking a naked Buffy probably wasn't the easiest thing for him."

"He's actually the one who said no." Buffy covered her face with her hands and let out an embarrassed cry. "I attacked him."

"No!"

"Yes and now I'm too ashamed to even talk to him." She removed her hands and looked at Willow. "He told me he wanted to wait. That we would learn together and teach each other. Romantic and sweet, right?"

"He wanted to wait? But he's not..." Buffy nodded her head to confirm Willow's unfinished sentence. "He told me that's where...ooh! That little...oh god. He isn't being jerky about your non-virginal status, is he?"

"Not at all, which is also irritating. I thought men were all about conquering and being the first and blah blah."

"Maybe he wants to be the first nice guy in your life," Willow pointed out.

Buffy sighed heavily. "I can deal with the emotionally abusive guy, I can even deal with the naive guy...but I don't know if I can deal with the nice guy."

"Is he trying too hard?"

"It makes me sound like a bitch if I say yes, right? Like it totally gives credit to those theories that women like men who treat them badly. I don't but I seem to be able to deal with them better. Compliments and lovey-dovey behavior put me on edge."

"Does he know this?"

"No..."

Willow immediately saw the look on Buffy's face and she shook her head. "No way. Uh-huh. Count me out. I've learned my lesson of meddling with you two and I'm not-"

"You owe me!"

"No, I don't, Buffy. I've already helped, remember? If it weren't for me, you two would still be bantering back and forth until Sunnydale imploded with all the sexual tension you two create. I'm out."

"Will..." Buffy dragged out her name and flashed her puppy dog eyes in her best friend's direction. Willow huffed and rolled her eyes in response before crossing her arms over her chest. Buffy sat up and saw Willow had resorted to her own resolve face and knew that she wouldn't be able to con her into helping. "Fine, be that way."

"So you attacked him?" Willow giggled as Buffy turned red again.

"I'm a slut," she grumbled, throwing herself back on the bed in an overly dramatic fashion. "I actually suggested that the quicker we get it over with the easier the next time will be."

"Was this before or after he said the thing about learning and teaching?"

"After. I said he could teach me then and he quietly told me no before he pushed me away, hoisted himself out of the water and got dressed. Did I mention that it was the second time he pushed me away? God, I am so embarrassed."

"You saw him naked?" Willow's mouth dropped open and she could feel her cheeks burning.

"Great ass," Buffy answered and the two fell into a fit of giggles. "What am I going to do, Will? He had to have known I was ducking him at school today. How do you say stop being so nice and understanding to someone?" Buffy closed her eyes and rolled onto her stomach. "He gave me his t-shirt to dry off with. It's the littlest gesture and yet it made me feel..."

"All warm inside?" After a few moments of silence, Willow, swallowing her nervousness said, "Buff, you have to talk to him. You'll get nowhere fast if you're going to cocoon yourself away each time something a little on the heavy side happens."

"I'm not."

"Sure." Willow's face expressed her disbelief in Buffy's statement but she let it rest for the time being. One way to get on Buffy's bad side quickly would be to call her on the way she was behaving and Willow had no intentions of dealing with a grumpy Buffy.

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Spike was at the end of his tether. He'd had enough. He wasn't going to be bandied about at her whim. He wasn't going to sit by and watch her walk away every time he tried to talk to her. He had stopped trying come Wednesday. Two days later, a mere week from their first "date", and he hadn't heard hide nor hair from her.

He watched her walk to her locker, seemingly lost in her own world. Element of surprise worked in his favor. As long as she didn't know he was coming, she couldn't run away. For Spike, the time for her to run had ended.

Spike stood behind her, waiting. For what, he wasn't sure of yet but he felt he had taken the first move too many times already. Plus, he knew that he'd get enough of a thrill once she saw him in such close proximity. He refused to say anything, though. He would sit none-too-patiently for her to turn and acknowledge his presence.

"Hey, Spike!" Xander called from down the hall and Spike saw Buffy's fingers turn white around the door to the locker. Her shoulders visibly tightened as well and he rolled his eyes in annoyance. So much for surprises. Spike looked over to Xander and shook his head and made an indication for him to not bother them. Xander took the hint and stopped from coming any closer.

Buffy slowly turned around and brought her eyes to meet his. "Hi."

"She speaks."

She lowered her eyes and shuffled her feet. "I've been-"

"Busy, right." Spike placed his hand on the locker next to her, effectively boxing her in. "Let's try something else, shall we?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"For starters, the truth."

"I have been busy, though." Quickly looking at him and seeing the disbelief in his eyes, she sighed. "Okay, maybe not that busy, not like a queen bee busy but maybe one of those little worker bees?" She looked again and saw that his stoic expression had not changed. "So, I'm mortified by my behavior and ignoring you. Whatever. I was the tramp of Trampidor."

"Now you're just being silly," Spike teased softly, running a finger down her jaw line.

Her eyes snapped up at him and he could see the fire in them. "You're the one who asked, I'm telling. And don't tell me I'm being silly!"

Spike took a step back and cocked his head to the side, trying to size her up. She rolled her eyes in response and turned around to face her opened locker. She began to slam her books around, trying to find anything to ignore the burning sensation down her back.

"Killing your books won't help." She shrugged and continued on. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to turn her back around only to be met with resistance. "Why are you being like this?"

"Why are you acting like you care?"

"Not acting, Buffy. I do."

"Don't." She slammed her locker shut, wrenched her shoulder from his grasp and ran down the hall, leaving Spike to look after her retreating form in confusion.

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"Talk," Xander commanded as he sat next to his friend outside of the school. He grabbed a fallen a leaf from the ground and twirled it between his fingers.

"I don't want to talk," Buffy told him. "It's no one's business anyway."

"I'm not entirely sure what's going on but to the casual observer, it would seem as though you and Spike just had a lover's quarrel. That's weird because last time I checked, you hated each other."

"We were sort of seeing each other."

"Were and sort of?" Xander hated this part. Being the best guy friend to the girl you had a crush on since the day she moved here is not the easiest of things to do. He didn't want to hear how much she had seen of Spike but he couldn't help the incessant curiosity as to why no one knew about it.

"For about a month, we've been, you know..."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be oh!" Xander's eyes bugged out and he did his best impersonation of a fish out of water.

"Ew, Xander, not that. I wouldn't talk about that other thing with you because that's plain creepy."

Xander exhaled and his lips twitched in an embarrassed half-smile. "Not that I need to justify my train of thought but you said 'you know' in your shy, innocent voice and one thought led to another and-"

"And we all know you have sex on the brain 24/7. I'm not surprised by your conclusion jumping, Xander," she interrupted, a small smile playing on her lips. She nudged her shoulder into his arm playfully and he couldn't help but grin back.

"So do you want to talk about it?" Xander asked, reluctantly.

"I have to walk over and get Dawn. Wanna come with?"

"Spending time with Buffy Summers? Only a fool would pass that up." Buffy opened her mouth to say something when Xander quickly cut her off. "And no me being a fool comments are allowed." Buffy snapped her mouth shut and smiled. He hoisted himself off the grass and held a hand out for her.

They walked in silence for a while both lost in their own thoughts. Buffy contemplated asking Xander about Cordelia and his relationship with her. Buffy had always considered herself to be like Xander in that department, as neither one trusted people right off the bat and they both seemed to wait until the trusted party destroyed it. She wondered how Xander let go of that and let Cordy in or if he had at all. On the outside, it looked as if they were your average teenaged couple but maybe Buffy had it wrong. Maybe they didn't get on as well as she thought. Anything was possible with those two. No one expected the queen of the school to date one the dorkiest guys. When it came to them, you had to expect the unexpected and that's why Buffy stopped giving Xander such a hard time about his romantic choice. Scratching Cordelia's surface had been like a archeological expedition. There was so much there under it. Watching her wall crumble over the last several months had been strangely rewarding to Buffy. She knew everyone put those walls up; she was as guilty as anyone on that front.

But the real question that plagued her mind was, how do you even begin to chisel away at it to let someone see the other side?

"Xander?" He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. "When you and Cordy...when you two got together, was it hard? What I mean is, was it a struggle to let her in knowing she could hurt you? Or trying to break through her hard exterior? Did you ever think it was too much of a hassle, that it wasn't worth it?"

"Buff, that's the beauty of it, though. Everyone knows Cordy and I have our differences and we fight like cats and dogs but getting to know her...that's the pay-off. It makes it worth it."

"Oh." She took a deep breath and continued on. "It's just...we're kind of similar in how we deal with people, don't you think?"

"Sure."

"So when you decided to open that piece of you up to Cordelia, weren't you petrified that it would backfire?" Her eyes never left the sidewalk as she walked and she was nervously flicking her fingers, needing to do something with her hands. He patted her gently on the shoulder in effort to give her some comfort but if she noticed, she gave no indication.

"It's Cordelia...of course I was worried. Scared to death, actually. Since our relationship started with groping in broom closets, I figured the ball could drop at any moment."

"But it did, though. There was that whole debacle with her bitchy friends."

"Yeah, but she did the right thing in the end."

"Uh-huh, if you consider her sticking with you the right thing," Buffy joked. "I don't know...I'm not exactly letting people in girl and my experiences with men leave little to be desired."

"Putting aside my own personal feelings here, I'm going to tell you that they weren't worth your time. Granted, I may be a little biased here but it's how I see it." A shy grin formed on his lips. "You tell Cordy that and I disavow our friendship."

"My lips are sealed." Buffy thought for a minute, biting her lower in lip in concentration. "Okay, here's the thing. I like Spike. I really like him. He makes me laugh, he surprises me, he's passionate and I don't mean that in a sexy way, although-"

"Got it," Xander interrupted quickly.

"But sometimes that scares me."

"Sometimes?"

"Fine, all the time. I'm scared of him all the time and because I'm afraid, I cut myself off and then I'm bitchy Buffy. I'm going to end up alone with fifty cats and kids tping my house on Halloween."

"Sounds like a bright, shiny future for the Buffster."

"I'm very self-aware," she said, her voice more cheerful than she felt. " I hate how I know exactly how I'll be and I know that I don't want to be that way but since I don't know any other way to be or I'm too afraid to be the way I want to be, I don't do anything change the way I am. And does any of this make sense?"

"Strangely, yes," he smirked. "I want to tell you 'buck up, champ, you'll be fine' but I can't."

"Good because I think I need tough love."

"As we've established, we're not the over sharing type so if I'm a bit," Xander made a flittering motion with his hands, "it's because I'm not very good at this." Buffy nodded in understanding. "You have to make a choice, Buffy. You either let go and fall or you don't. I'm not saying it might not hurt but it's the risk you take. I keep wondering when my other shoe is going to drop. When Cordelia Chase will wake up and think what the hell am I doing with that Xander Harris? But until that day comes, I do what I can to make sure it doesn't."

"And if it does?"

"If it does, I'll grin and bare it, like I do with everything else life throws at me. This is living, Buffy. It's messy and painful, you'll get no argument from me there but it's what we have to do. If we didn't take those risks, grasp those moments, what's the point?"

"Moments," Buffy muttered softly to herself. She wrapped her arm around Xander's waist and looked up at him and smiled. "I kind of love you right now."

"Well, I'm easily lovable." Buffy halted their walking and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "And huggable."

After she released him, they began walking again in silence until they reached the front of the elementary school. They found Dawn sitting on the brick wall, reading a book. She looked up at her sister and her eyes went wide when she saw that Buffy had brought Xander with her. She hopped off the wall and ran over to them, smiling brightly.

"Took you long enough."

"Sorry, grown-up talking time. You're not dead or anything so don't start with the guilt trip," Buffy warned.

"Hey there, Dawnie," Xander greeted cheerfully, giving her a quick noogie. She giggled like an eleven year old with a crush would and averted her eyes. "Let me get that bag for you." She handed it to him and he dropped to the ground, sighed and dramatically wiped his brow. "See this is why I don't bring any books home."

Dawn laughed too loud and too quickly and Buffy looked at her like she had grown three heads. "Are you alright?"

Dawn sobered considerably and narrowed her eyes at her sister for interrupting her and Xander's moment. "Fine. Let's go."

"She's so grateful," Buffy whispered sarcastically in Xander's ear. He grinned in response, following the two Summers girls' back to their house.

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Her lights were out in her room. She couldn't be doing what she was if they weren't. He'd be able to see her. He might be able to see her now but she was holding onto hope that he couldn't. She watched him walk around his room, putting things away, changing CDs, sitting at his desk and writing. She wondered what he was writing as it would eventually aggravate him to the point of tearing it out of the notebook, crinkling it into a ball and throwing it across the room. She watched the tenth ball of paper fly and stifled her giggle. It had been the same repetition of movements for the last hour. Scribble, scrunch, toss and up out of his seat to pace and change the music and sit again, scribble...

At this time last week, they were already halfway through their date. Talking, getting to know one another with the idle chit chat that comes with it. She had felt guilty that she knew nothing about him and he had lived next door to her for two years. That was when the idea of the question game hit her and she couldn't wait to get back to his house in order to delve a little deeper. There was still so much she didn't know and she hungered for the knowledge. Of him. To know him. Their first kiss had only been a few weeks ago and she knew his lips better than she knew the man. She knew that wasn't right. It wasn't how relationships were formed. At least not the kind she wanted to try and have with him. Willow had been right. There was so much more to him than what met her eye. She saw that now but she had made a mess of everything.

She didn't think an apology would get it done this time. Nor could she climb into his window with her inhibitions gone. Attacking him had occurred to her but seeing as her embarrassment over their first naked encounter had resulted in her being irrationally cold, she didn't think that was a good plan. Talking, she decided, was her only viable choice.

And, boy, did she suck at the talking.

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He knew she was watching. Let her watch, he thought smugly. Stupid bint. She was under his skin, crawling around in him, making him itch to touch her again, talk to her, apologize for doing nothing. And he hated it. Hadn't he promised himself after Dru that he wouldn't let another girl run him around again? He tried to dismiss the fact that it was BUFFY. His dream and nightmare rolled into one. He had made a vow to himself to not be swept up again. Yet, here he was writing a letter thinking this was the best way to get to her because trying to talk to her hadn't gone so well.

Everything he wrote made him feel like a ponce. He continually ended up declaring feelings that he didn't want to. Why couldn't he just go next door, pound on the door until she let him in and force her to listen? He had also come to the conclusion that simply grabbing her and kissing her with all that he had wouldn't work, either. Their skinny dipping escapade from the previous weekend can attest to that. He didn't know how to communicate with her. Dru might have been off her rocker, but she would always tell him when he did something wrong. Granted, they were more thinly veiled criticisms than anything else but at least she didn't give him the cold shoulder with no explanation.

Should he have just said the hell with it and taken her in the spring? No. It would have defeated the whole purpose as to why he waited in the first place. Blame the eternal romantic in him that believed that although most of life was shit and you never got what you wanted, sex was something to be cherished. A tad on the Puritan side, he knew, but it was just the way he felt and nothing had dissuaded him from that.

Well, until Buffy, that is.

He growled and ripped another page from his notebook. He left his chair and stood at the window. He could only see the clump of hair that escaped from the pillow she had over her head. He sighed and pulled the shade down. This wasn't going to work. Letters wouldn't help, either. Damn her and her stubborn nature, he thought. Two years of pining and he was better off having never known what it was like to know her.

Spike went around his room, picking up the discarded paper balls and cursing the day they moved here. Particularly his father. If he hadn't insisted on moving to this hell hole of a town, Spike never would have set eyes on his next-door neighbor and he would be happily living in ignorance. Perhaps when it came time to fill out the college applications, he'd concentrate on going home. He could try to convince Anne that they were better off in England, that life here didn't work out as well as they hoped. His useless cad of father wasn't coming back and there was no point in waiting around for him to return.

He stopped what he was doing and stood to his full height. Not waiting, he thought. Isn't that exactly what I'm doing for her? That ends right now.

Smiling smugly, he threw on a t-shirt and headed down the stairs and out the front door. She didn't know what was in store for her when-

"Hi."

Spike looked up from the ground, surprised to see her standing on the lawn between their houses. He nodded his hello and looked her up and down. The fact that she made the baggy knit pants and tank top she was wearing look amazing really irritated him. It bothered him so much that he thought the best way to let her know that was to grab her and kiss the hell out of her.

He broke away and stared at her, his fingers wrapped around her upper arms. She looked at him, wide-eyed, before a smile flashed across her mouth and she latched onto him again.

They both knew they should be talking, knew they should quit kissing and they both thought the same exact thing...

Talking was way overrated.

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