Chapter 7.
"Buffy honey is that you?" Joyce called out from the kitchen.
"Hey mom! How was your day?" Buffy strolled towards the sofa and slumped into it sighing loudly.
"A lot better than yours by the sound of it, what's wrong sweetheart?" she questioned, leaning in to stroke her distressed daughters hair.
"Just a rough day mom, nothing to worry about promise," she feigned a smile.
"And definitely nothing that won't be cured by a movie night with Willow and Xander! Chick flicks, popcorn, sodas, more movies and popcorn, did I mention the popcorn?" Buffy jumped out of the chair and hugged her mother.
"Which means I better get ready! Don't wanna go and miss anything!" with that she headed towards the stairs.
"Buffy, you haven't forgotten Wesley has invited us all over for dinner tonight have you honey?" Joyce asked, knowing it was quite apparent she had.
"Oh mom, do I have to?" Buffy whined.
"Yes young lady you do! Now go get ready, we have to leave in an hour."
"Great!" Buffy thought to herself as she slammed her bedroom door. "Sabotage my social life why don't you!" she threw her bag to the floor.
Wesley had been a friend of the family for many years, and it was partly due to him that the Summers girls had found themselves in Sunnydale. Joyce didn't want to move somewhere where they knew nobody at all, she felt it would be too much upheaval for her daughters, but also too lonely for herself. She decided if she was going to be rebuilding her life, she might as well do it someplace where there was a friendly face. Wesley was indeed that friendly face. There had never any romance between them, the mere mention of anything like that had the two girls gagging, but they had to admit that he was always there for their mother. Without him Joyce really wondered whether she could have managed to get Sunnydale High to accept her eldest, let alone the help he had offered in finding her a job.
Buffy had completely forgotten she had agreed to go over to dinner that evening and stomped around her room, picking up various items of clothing and throwing them down again. She ripped open her closet and rummaged ferociously through the rail.
"Dawn!!" she screamed.
"Dawn, what did I tell you about borrowing my clothes?"
The teenager appeared at the bedroom door and stood pouting with her arms crossed over her chest.
"I haven't touched your stuff!" she snapped back.
Buffy looked at her younger sister and glared.
"You're wearing my blue sweater! I wanted to wear that!"
"Tough!" Dawn spat back, and slammed the bedroom door.
The relationship between the two sisters was strained at the moment to say the least. Dawn resented having to leave her friends and change school, as far as she was concerned it was all Buffy's fault. If Buffy had just kept her mouth shut then her parents would still be together, and she wouldn't have to be living in this lame ass town.
Buffy returned to her closet and pulled out a white lace blouse and a pair of tailored jeans.
"This will have to do I guess," she mumbled as she did the buttons up on her blouse.
The door to her bedroom flew open, and a cordless phone was flung into the room landing on the rug with a bump.
"Its Willow for you, be quick I want to call Marcia!" the teenager rasped.
Buffy bent down and retrieved the telephone, sending a vicious glare to the younger girl leaning on the doorframe.
"Willow, I gotta call a rain check tonight I am so so sorry!" Buffy pleaded.
"Hey Buffy its no big!" she replied trying hard to disguise the disappointment in her voice.
"Yeah I gotta go have dinner with my Moms friend, its kind of a family thing, It'll be dead boring and absolutely no fun of any kind will be had I promise!" Buffy continued.
Willow laughed, "Well so long as it's all no fun Buffy tonight, I guess we will let you off. You wanna hang out tomorrow though? I can show you around town if you like."
Buffy smiled, "Hanging sounds cool, I'll call you about ten tomorrow then. You guys have some big fun for me tonight though yeah!"
Buffy made sure the call was disconnected, before throwing the phone back at her sister who shrieked as it struck her on the knee. She then started to pull a brush through her thick blonde hair, careful to get all the snags out before pulling it into a neat ponytail. A quick slip of lip gloss over her lips and she was ready to go.
It was almost half eight as the SUV pulled up onto Wesley's driveway.
"Only 30 minutes late! Wes will be impressed," Buffy smiled to herself, knowing that the Summers women were not exactly renowned for their good timekeeping.
Wesley lived in a very nice area of the town, his house wasn't as large as Buffy had expected, but did have a very English look about it, which was a little out of place amongst the other buildings in the road. She had to admit she was looking forward to seeing him again, it had been quite some time since they had actually been in the same room together. He had been pretty busy with his company, running around helping her mother recently, and Buffy, well she had a lot of her own problems to be dealing with.
As they approached the front door it was flung open, and Wesley bounded down the pathway.
"Joyce you look fantastic, Elizabeth, Dawn, come on in, make yourselves at home." He was prone to be more than a little excitable and Buffy wondered if he was going to burst. She often wondered how he had managed to retain such an extremely posh English accent, despite living in America most of his life.
"Elizabeth, how is Sunnydale High treating you?" Wesley questioned.
The blonde cringed. 'Please god no, not the school interrogation, let me at least get through the front door first!' she thought before answering brightly.
"Schools just great Wes thanks." She beamed an Oscar winning smile in his direction.
Wesley grinned back, "Excellent, that's really wonderful Elizabeth, I knew you would just fit right in."
"I was speaking to William earlier and he said you were doing really well in class."
Joyce smiled towards Wesley, "He did, well that's nice to know isn't it Buffy?"
Buffy looked around confused.
"He did? He who? Huh?" Buffy stuttered.
"Superb, well you two can have a good chat about it when he gets back from the Chinese, I am cooking take away tonight ladies, I am afraid the company is occupying all my cooking time these days."
Buffy sat back into Wesley's rather large couch and surveyed the room, its was so Wesley, lots of ornaments and strange looking artwork, and more books than any sane person would ever have the time to read. Now her mom had got the job managing the art gallery in town, Buffy assumed their house would soon be full of weirdness disguised as art too.
"Oh joy!" she thought out loud.
Having to ditch her new friends for an evening with Wesley was one thing, but for an evening of fun school chat with one of her teachers, now that was just cruel.
"Who the hell is William?" she thought crinkling up her forehead as she did so.
After a few minutes she had it narrowed down to three. It wasn't actually that hard, most of her teachers were women, so that really ruled them out of the equation just leaving Mr. Barratt her English teacher. Buffy was fairly confident that he would never describe her as doing well in class, she cringed remember the days earlier embarrassment. It was either Mr. Collins her Math teacher, or Mr. Pires who did Spanish.
'I suck at Math and Spanish!' She let out a groan, 'Oh please let it be Mr. Pires, at least I have the excuse of never taking Spanish before, and he is pretty cute too.'
Buffy was snapped out of her daydream, by the sound of banging coming from the front door.
"Elizabeth, would you mind terribly answering that for me." Wesley shouted from the basement where he was proudly showing Joyce his wine collection.
Buffy headed for the front door, the person on the other side was banging constantly.
"Hang on, hang on!" she shouted and flung the door open.
She stood in the doorway mouth open for what seemed like an age, snapped out of her stupor as the impatient man spoke.
"Hello, loaded with very hot bags here pet, any chance of you moving your pretty little ass out of the way?"
She still stood mouth agape so he pushed his way past her.
"Bloody women!" he muttered as he made his way to the kitchen.
"You reckon you could shut the door and help me sort this lot out?" he shouted through to the pretty blonde.
The door slammed so hard the walls shook and Spike smiled to himself. He was getting under her skin and he knew it. He had to admit he had been a bit slow putting two and two together where she was concerned. When Wesley had been talking about his friends daughter that might need some help settling in to school he had always referred to her as Elizabeth, it was only when Wes had been getting some old photos out earlier than the penny had dropped. The girl he was supposed to take under his wing was none other than Buffy Summers.
Spike could feel the girl glaring at him and turned around sharply.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she snapped, her eyes piercing into him.
He smiled sweetly and returned to dishing out the Chinese food.
"I live here love, have done for the last year. I am surprised the nibblet never mentioned me."
Buffy stared back blankly.
"You are surprised the whatlet didn't mention you?"
She didn't have to wait long for her answer. Dawn bounced into the room and flung her arms around him. He gave her a big bear hug and lifted her onto the worktop.
It all started to make sense now. Her mother had said that Wesley had a lodger but it had slipped her mind. It also explained why Dawn was always more than happy to go over to Wesley's with her mother, she had a crush on him.
"Nibblet, you fancy helping me dish up, big sis here seems to think it's beneath her," he chuckled.
"Dawn, go help mom set the table," Buffy snapped. Dawn huffed and stormed into the dining room.
She turned back to face him.
"I guess you think this is really funny huh?"
She didn't give him a chance to answer before continuing.
"Making fun of me at school, laughing about me with your friends when you know I have to come here and be polite, and be Nice Buffy tonight." She hardly paused for breath.
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
Spike smiled, she was adorable when she was angry.
"What the hell are you looking at?"
"You." He replied as he stared straight into her eyes.
She looked away, "Well stop it! Don't look at me, not ever!"
She grabbed two plates from the sideboard and moved to make her way to the dining room, but as she tried to exit the kitchen he barred her way, putting his hands firmly on her shoulders.
"Buffy wait!" he spoke gently. "I was trying to help today, it just came out all wrong, and I didn't mean to make you feel stupid." There was honesty in the softness of his voice.
Buffy stood rigid. "Well maybe you should have told that to Cruella!" she replied.
"Cruella? Oh you mean Dru, ignore her pet, she's just being a bitch, she wasn't too happy after the other day in the hallway."
She was looking at the floor avoiding any sort of eye contact so he reached up with his hand, putting it underneath her chin and slowly raised her head so he was looking directly into her eyes. Her skin was flushed and he couldn't help but notice that she was trembling. He ran his hand up the side of her face and captured a stray strand of long blonde hair, replacing it behind her ear never breaking eye contact. She took a sharp intake of breath and he removed his hand taking a step back.
"Look I am sorry about today Buffy," he spoke gently. He leant in close to her and whispered in her ear, "Can you forgive me?"
In her mind Buffy was screaming "No, no, no." So she was almost as surprised as he was when she leant into him and whispered, "I already have."