Chapter Eighteen: Walking Partners
"Sev…?" Buffy whispers, only her head visible inside the door.
The potions professor looks up startled. Snape is surprised that she came to him, especially after three days of avoiding and ignoring him.
"Buffy, hello… um, come in," he requests, already quite uncomfortable.
"Hi, Sev. I was wondering if you wanted to go on a walk." She looks so hopeful that he can't decline.
They walk from the dungeon through the castle and then outside. Severus is nervous and is unsure why. He hates not knowing what to say to make things easy again. Were it anyone else, he wouldn't care if there was tension between them for the rest of their lives, but it is Buffy and he's found that he is strangely lonely without her.
"Buffy, about what I said… I didn't… I mean I… I want to say that I'm…" apologizing is so bloody difficult and he feels inadequate for not being able to do it.
"When I was young," she recalls, effectively ignoring his stutters, "I used to walk like this with my friends in the dark. I'd sneak out of my house and meet them down the block. That was when I'd wear my most fabulous outfits because the guys showed up sometimes. When I started dating, I'd walk with the boys and they'd try to impress me by naming the stars. They were always wrong of course, but you can't tell guys that – ruins their manly pride and all. Do you know which star that is?" She is pointing into the ebony sky to a small star to his right.
Severus has never needed to study the stars, so he is completely unsure which it is and doesn't even know any names to guess. It is times like this that he wishes he were someone else, Sinistra or even Trelawney would know this sort of thing. He wishes he knew the star, because then he could prove that he wasn't like the others, that he could understand her.
"I don't know it," he sighs, deflated.
"Neither do I," she grins, "no one ever told me the right one."
Snape finds himself oddly relieved and much more at ease with her revelation. It proves that she's not perfect like he was beginning to think.
"Do you walk like this often anymore?" What he really wants to know is if she walks with anyone else.
"No, not anymore. In Sunnydale, the nighttime walks were patrols and star-gazing loses its appeal when you have a vamp in your face. Near the end, no one wanted to walk with me anyway. Between kicking me out and the end of Sunnydale there just wasn't a lot of 'us' time, you know? Then in LA, it's no good to walk the nights. It's never quiet there and the stars just aren't the same when you've lost your walking partner…"
"Who walked with you?" From the wince he knows he shouldn't have asked but the damage is done.
"Spike. He could only come out at night, being a vampire and all. We started walking off and on after the whole 'coming back from heaven thing.' Those first few days when no one knew the truth, I'd sneak out my window like I did when my mom was still alive and we'd walk until morning. I couldn't sleep with all the nightmares about waking in a coffin. He'd tell me all about England and his days as a poet. After he died, I didn't see a point to it."
"But we're walking now…"
Her smirk is a clear sign that he's missing something major.
"Yes, you and I are walking now," she answers and links her arm through his.
By her smile he just knows that everything is all right. They're walking partners now.
"So you don't hate me for saying that…" he has to know he's forgiven.
"Sev, don't ruin it," she pleads. "Don't ruin it. I'm happy, don't ruin it."
A silence follows as he scrambles for something positive to say. He wants the night to last.
"My class seems to miss you for some reason that I just don't see. I guess that I'll just have to bring you back permanently to help," the professor teases, unsure if it came out right because it's been so long since he's done it.
Her smile lights up her whole face and that's answer enough for him. His real reason for having her there is to have her close but some of the students had asked about her so it wasn't a total lie.
"You may have to fight the others for it. There's a line a mile long to have me, you should know." She's laughing, and though it hurts because she hasn't really laughed since before becoming a slayer, it feels to good to feel again.
"I'll stupefy them all! No one will ever take you from me," he is only half joking about that.
She murmurs contently and lays her head on his shoulder.
"I like it here, Sev. It's calm here. I know that there's a big bad somewhere planning our downfall and I'm pretty okay with that, because hey that's my life, but even with that I feel calm here. Harry gave me a purpose again and you, my friend, are well… my friend," she finishes sheepishly, feeling foolish for ruining her poignant speech.
"I'm glad you here too," he confides and steers them back toward the castle. It's late and they have a class to teach tomorrow.
"Who do you miss the most?" Snape asks when they near the entrance.
"Truly… my mom. She gave up a lot for me and I loved her so much. It was just me and her for a while and it's so unfair that she died. She wasn't fighting. She wasn't the one with a destiny or weirdo powers. I miss her because she loved me and I don't know if she knew how much I loved her."
"I'm sure she knew," he whispers and squeezes his shoulder, the closest he can come to a hug on his own.
"Get some sleep," he advises, "the students will have a field day with you back. It will be loud."
She nods and with a small smile to him, she heads off to her room.
Severus walks to his own room, planning to find a star chart and memorize it. He wants to be prepared for their next walk, and he wants to tell her the name of the star she pointed to. Her wants to be what all those other boys weren't. Right. He wants to be right for her…
