Author Note: Ha ha! It's done! Chapter three at least. Two more to go and then it'll be complete. Sorry for the wait folks.
Thanks to Missy my beta, who didn't call me an idiot when I forgot a whole section, and who got it back to me quite speedily! Thank you so much.
What She Needs
Chapter 3
Willow yawned for the twenty-third time since she had entered her Psych class. It wasn't that the class was particularly boring. No, Willow was almost positive that the topic on which Professor Walsh was speaking was fascinating, but Willow for her part could not concentrate. But, she could remember how many times she had yawned since she crossed the threshold into the classroom. Life was odd.
The reason she was having so much trouble concentrating was that she was tired. She and Tara had ended up talking on the phone a lot longer than either of them meant to, because a certain Slayer had decided to stay out all night "slaying". But what Buffy called slaying, Xander called, "boffing Captain America". However, Willow was a polite young lady, so she pretended like she believed her best friend's excuse.
It was nice talking to Tara though, even if she did have weird ideas sometimes, 'Spike has a crush on me indeed.' Willow mentally scoffed, and rolled her eyes as she tried to force herself to pay attention to the Professor. There were three students standing in front of the teacher's desk They all looked vaguely worried, and more obviously nauseous, but that was a common look for the people Maggie Walsh decided to pay special attention to. Willow couldn't figure out a reason for them being there, and Professor Walsh's suddenly monotonous voice was not helping her concentrate, so Willow decided to skip paying attention just this once.
She would go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight, and tomorrow she would be reasonable, rational, and ready to pay attention in class. 'Not that I'm irrational at the moment.' She quickly added, 'On that front I am the only reasonable party in attendance.' This wasn't really saying much, since only two people were invited to this conversation.
Exhaling a sigh through her nose Willow glanced around the room, the group of three had been weeded down to two, and they were looking a little more worried. Riley was trying to be subtle about the adoring gaze he was bestowing upon Buffy. Buffy for her part, looked torn between pretending to take notes, and returning said gaze. Slouching down in her chair, Willow picked up her pen so it looked like she was participating, not that Willow was a good enough actress to convince Maggie Walsh, but it was the thought that counted, right?
Turning her gaze blankly towards the white board at the very front of the classroom, Willow concentrated on not concentrating. Her mind was blissfully blank for all of three seconds.
'He did say I was bite-able though.' The thought crept up on her of its own volition and Willow frowned at the intrusion and countered with, 'True, but he's Spike. He'd probably bite anything with a pulse.' The other voice in her head, the crazy one who wanted to think that Spike had a crush on her, considered this, and if crazy voice were a real person she would have been giving Willow a look. Willow rolled her eyes and added, 'Well except Xander.'
'He did remember what I was wearing though.' She chewed on her lower lip as the idea's Tara had put forth, and crazy voice had encouraged, began to sound more and more of a possibility. Carefully she weighed her options.
'So say he does like me. Big whoop. I'm with Tara now. I'm not going to forget I'm gay just because some handsome undead guy snaps his fingers. Besides, it's not like I really like him. I mean sure, I think he's attractive, but he's a jerk, and he's tried to kill me on several occasions.' Tapping her pen on her notebook, as if the repetitive action would do more than annoy her fellow class mates, she attempted to inject reality into this mental conversation she was having with herself.
'Fact is. There's more of an argument that he doesn't like me than one that he does. So he followed me home, and peeked over my shoulder. He was probably bored. Spike usually is bored, so that seems pretty likely. Besides that, he's always been with gorgeous women. Drusilla, for all her insanity, was beautiful. Harmony, for all her vapidity, could be called above average as well. If you never talked to her, or heard anything about her. Or spent more than 3 minutes in her presence. If you passed her on the street, for example, and you were invisible, and she was silent, you would think, "Hey now, there's a pretty lady."'
'And me, well I'm not gorgeous in the slightest. I'm cute at best. Spike, for all his non pickiness, probably would not want to attach himself to someone, who couldn't be seen with him without people thinking, "What's he see in her?" And since he's probably not drawn to me for my beauty, what else is he going to be drawn to? My eloquence? The fact that my feet are firmly planted on the side of the good? The fact that the group I associate with has foiled his evil plans time and again?' Willow snorted, at her own stupidity.
'Of course not! Spike's evil, he doesn't have a crush on me. He was being his usual obnoxious self last night. No need to read more into it than is necessary.' Training herself on the front of the class, finding it infinitely easier to pay attention now that those crazy ideas were quashed, Willow quickly copied down the notes she'd missed. Buffy had decided to gaze at Riley, so she would want to copy her notes later.
--
"So where have you been lately?" Buffy asked as she and Willow got ready for another day of college. Willow had been kind of scarce for the past week. They hadn't had nay Hellmouth-style emergencies for almost a week. There wasn't always this much space between Giles' "Oh dear's" They had all learned to view these little breaks as vacations and to take advantage of them while they could. So while they hadn't been to Giles for a research session in awhile, that togetherness was temporarily gone. Willow, however, had been somewhat predisposed more and more lately.
Willow looked startled at Buffy's question, she attempted to hide it by bending over and tying her shoes, while she replied, "Oh you know. I've been around."
"Oh of course." Buffy teased, "Around. Why didn't I look there?" Buffy finished applying her make-up, her mind starting to work as she wondered why her detail loving friend was suddenly so vague. She opened her mouth to call Willow on it, when there was a knock on the door. Willow quickly opened it to reveal Riley, before she ducked out of the room muttering something about an errand she had to run.
Buffy quickly forgot all about Willow's sudden vagueness.
--
Humming under his breath, Spike flipped through the small selection of channels available on the Watchers TV, in a repeating circuit. Without cable, though Spike had never really gotten a chance to get hooked on the entertaining invention, all that was on until 9 am, besides children's cartoons, was news. At nine Sally was on. Which he didn't really mind, since he tried to sleep until 10 at least most days, 'But would it be too much to ask for in a modern,' Spike eyed the array of weapons littering the Watchers work desk, 'supposedly modern flat?'
It was 8:57 am. The longest three minutes of the morning, had started. Spike began flipping through the few channels faster as he heard the Watcher coming out of the kitchen, carrying a mug of tea and a handful of old rags, annoying the Watcher always seemed to make time pass faster.
It at least made it more entertaining for him, anyway.
The Watcher had decided to use their down time of late, as an opportunity to maintain the weapons. The apartment had smelled like rust remover and polish for three days now. The Watcher was very precise at his weapon care. Precise as in excruciatingly slow. Down time, at least when you were siding with the good guys, lasted a very long time.
'Temporarily siding with the good.' Spike corrected, continuing to flip through the channels, he could hear the Watcher gritting his teeth as he got fed up with the repetitive sound. His days were surprisingly empty with only the Slayer stopping by on a regular basis. He almost missed bating the Boy with a few well chosen words. And things had seemed like they were just about to get interesting with the Witch.
She hadn't been by once since he walked her home.
'She's obviously to worried about how she might act to come around me.' Smiling smugly and settling on a channel as the red Sally logo swept onto the screen Spike plotted his next move.
It was Thursday, so the next day all the Scoobies would congregate at The Bronze. He would "run into her" there. She'd be sitting at her table all alone like she usually did, and he'd get back to work on cracking her. Once she got it in her head that he wasn't all bad, 'Which is a fallacy. I'm bad to the bone. I am the very epitome of evil.' he'd strike. And he'd have one very willing slave.
'It's good to be evil.' Spike thought as he settled further into his chair as a woman on screen cried about the fact that her twelve year old daughter was out of control.
--
"Right, so if I can make it up there, can we get together?" Willow paused as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. She was at her parents' house, she'd had to find a number, and then she'd just decided to use the phone there. If she'd put off the call then she would have probably chickened out.
"Because I have something important I need to tell you." Another pause before,
"Oh that's great! I'll call you back later tonight to finalize the plans. I love you. Bye." Willow hung up the phone feeling very pleased with herself. Now came the first hard part, first because there were sure to be many to follow in the near future, telling Tara.
To be continued...
Thanks to Missy my beta, who didn't call me an idiot when I forgot a whole section, and who got it back to me quite speedily! Thank you so much.
What She Needs
Chapter 3
Willow yawned for the twenty-third time since she had entered her Psych class. It wasn't that the class was particularly boring. No, Willow was almost positive that the topic on which Professor Walsh was speaking was fascinating, but Willow for her part could not concentrate. But, she could remember how many times she had yawned since she crossed the threshold into the classroom. Life was odd.
The reason she was having so much trouble concentrating was that she was tired. She and Tara had ended up talking on the phone a lot longer than either of them meant to, because a certain Slayer had decided to stay out all night "slaying". But what Buffy called slaying, Xander called, "boffing Captain America". However, Willow was a polite young lady, so she pretended like she believed her best friend's excuse.
It was nice talking to Tara though, even if she did have weird ideas sometimes, 'Spike has a crush on me indeed.' Willow mentally scoffed, and rolled her eyes as she tried to force herself to pay attention to the Professor. There were three students standing in front of the teacher's desk They all looked vaguely worried, and more obviously nauseous, but that was a common look for the people Maggie Walsh decided to pay special attention to. Willow couldn't figure out a reason for them being there, and Professor Walsh's suddenly monotonous voice was not helping her concentrate, so Willow decided to skip paying attention just this once.
She would go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight, and tomorrow she would be reasonable, rational, and ready to pay attention in class. 'Not that I'm irrational at the moment.' She quickly added, 'On that front I am the only reasonable party in attendance.' This wasn't really saying much, since only two people were invited to this conversation.
Exhaling a sigh through her nose Willow glanced around the room, the group of three had been weeded down to two, and they were looking a little more worried. Riley was trying to be subtle about the adoring gaze he was bestowing upon Buffy. Buffy for her part, looked torn between pretending to take notes, and returning said gaze. Slouching down in her chair, Willow picked up her pen so it looked like she was participating, not that Willow was a good enough actress to convince Maggie Walsh, but it was the thought that counted, right?
Turning her gaze blankly towards the white board at the very front of the classroom, Willow concentrated on not concentrating. Her mind was blissfully blank for all of three seconds.
'He did say I was bite-able though.' The thought crept up on her of its own volition and Willow frowned at the intrusion and countered with, 'True, but he's Spike. He'd probably bite anything with a pulse.' The other voice in her head, the crazy one who wanted to think that Spike had a crush on her, considered this, and if crazy voice were a real person she would have been giving Willow a look. Willow rolled her eyes and added, 'Well except Xander.'
'He did remember what I was wearing though.' She chewed on her lower lip as the idea's Tara had put forth, and crazy voice had encouraged, began to sound more and more of a possibility. Carefully she weighed her options.
'So say he does like me. Big whoop. I'm with Tara now. I'm not going to forget I'm gay just because some handsome undead guy snaps his fingers. Besides, it's not like I really like him. I mean sure, I think he's attractive, but he's a jerk, and he's tried to kill me on several occasions.' Tapping her pen on her notebook, as if the repetitive action would do more than annoy her fellow class mates, she attempted to inject reality into this mental conversation she was having with herself.
'Fact is. There's more of an argument that he doesn't like me than one that he does. So he followed me home, and peeked over my shoulder. He was probably bored. Spike usually is bored, so that seems pretty likely. Besides that, he's always been with gorgeous women. Drusilla, for all her insanity, was beautiful. Harmony, for all her vapidity, could be called above average as well. If you never talked to her, or heard anything about her. Or spent more than 3 minutes in her presence. If you passed her on the street, for example, and you were invisible, and she was silent, you would think, "Hey now, there's a pretty lady."'
'And me, well I'm not gorgeous in the slightest. I'm cute at best. Spike, for all his non pickiness, probably would not want to attach himself to someone, who couldn't be seen with him without people thinking, "What's he see in her?" And since he's probably not drawn to me for my beauty, what else is he going to be drawn to? My eloquence? The fact that my feet are firmly planted on the side of the good? The fact that the group I associate with has foiled his evil plans time and again?' Willow snorted, at her own stupidity.
'Of course not! Spike's evil, he doesn't have a crush on me. He was being his usual obnoxious self last night. No need to read more into it than is necessary.' Training herself on the front of the class, finding it infinitely easier to pay attention now that those crazy ideas were quashed, Willow quickly copied down the notes she'd missed. Buffy had decided to gaze at Riley, so she would want to copy her notes later.
--
"So where have you been lately?" Buffy asked as she and Willow got ready for another day of college. Willow had been kind of scarce for the past week. They hadn't had nay Hellmouth-style emergencies for almost a week. There wasn't always this much space between Giles' "Oh dear's" They had all learned to view these little breaks as vacations and to take advantage of them while they could. So while they hadn't been to Giles for a research session in awhile, that togetherness was temporarily gone. Willow, however, had been somewhat predisposed more and more lately.
Willow looked startled at Buffy's question, she attempted to hide it by bending over and tying her shoes, while she replied, "Oh you know. I've been around."
"Oh of course." Buffy teased, "Around. Why didn't I look there?" Buffy finished applying her make-up, her mind starting to work as she wondered why her detail loving friend was suddenly so vague. She opened her mouth to call Willow on it, when there was a knock on the door. Willow quickly opened it to reveal Riley, before she ducked out of the room muttering something about an errand she had to run.
Buffy quickly forgot all about Willow's sudden vagueness.
--
Humming under his breath, Spike flipped through the small selection of channels available on the Watchers TV, in a repeating circuit. Without cable, though Spike had never really gotten a chance to get hooked on the entertaining invention, all that was on until 9 am, besides children's cartoons, was news. At nine Sally was on. Which he didn't really mind, since he tried to sleep until 10 at least most days, 'But would it be too much to ask for in a modern,' Spike eyed the array of weapons littering the Watchers work desk, 'supposedly modern flat?'
It was 8:57 am. The longest three minutes of the morning, had started. Spike began flipping through the few channels faster as he heard the Watcher coming out of the kitchen, carrying a mug of tea and a handful of old rags, annoying the Watcher always seemed to make time pass faster.
It at least made it more entertaining for him, anyway.
The Watcher had decided to use their down time of late, as an opportunity to maintain the weapons. The apartment had smelled like rust remover and polish for three days now. The Watcher was very precise at his weapon care. Precise as in excruciatingly slow. Down time, at least when you were siding with the good guys, lasted a very long time.
'Temporarily siding with the good.' Spike corrected, continuing to flip through the channels, he could hear the Watcher gritting his teeth as he got fed up with the repetitive sound. His days were surprisingly empty with only the Slayer stopping by on a regular basis. He almost missed bating the Boy with a few well chosen words. And things had seemed like they were just about to get interesting with the Witch.
She hadn't been by once since he walked her home.
'She's obviously to worried about how she might act to come around me.' Smiling smugly and settling on a channel as the red Sally logo swept onto the screen Spike plotted his next move.
It was Thursday, so the next day all the Scoobies would congregate at The Bronze. He would "run into her" there. She'd be sitting at her table all alone like she usually did, and he'd get back to work on cracking her. Once she got it in her head that he wasn't all bad, 'Which is a fallacy. I'm bad to the bone. I am the very epitome of evil.' he'd strike. And he'd have one very willing slave.
'It's good to be evil.' Spike thought as he settled further into his chair as a woman on screen cried about the fact that her twelve year old daughter was out of control.
--
"Right, so if I can make it up there, can we get together?" Willow paused as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. She was at her parents' house, she'd had to find a number, and then she'd just decided to use the phone there. If she'd put off the call then she would have probably chickened out.
"Because I have something important I need to tell you." Another pause before,
"Oh that's great! I'll call you back later tonight to finalize the plans. I love you. Bye." Willow hung up the phone feeling very pleased with herself. Now came the first hard part, first because there were sure to be many to follow in the near future, telling Tara.
To be continued...