SpikePuppet 3/?
Immensely relieved to be out of the range of Dawn's grabby hands, Spike comfortably rode in Buffy's arms up a flight of stairs and a few feet down a hallway, where she opened a door on the right, stepped inside a small room, and set him down in the middle of a bed. She looked like she wanted to linger, but then Dawn's voice came from downstairs.
"Buffy, I think supper's burning!"
"Oh, crap!" Buffy snatched up a notebook from her dresser and sprinted out of the room.
For the moment, Spike played it safe and remained where he had been placed. It made sense that Dawn and Buffy would be eating right about now. If he remembered correctly, Rome time was about nine hours ahead of Los Angeles, so it should be early evening here. With some luck, Buffy wouldn't come back upstairs for a while. Her absence gave him a neat window of opportunity to explore his surroundings. Some might call it snooping, but exploring was a more accurate term. It was his responsibility to make sure Buffy was getting along all right.
Spike gazed around the room and saw that he was the closest thing to a stuffed animal Buffy possessed; even her favorite, Mr. Gordo, was absent. The demolition of Sunnydale must have taken out virtually all of her personal items. He did see the usual complement of weapons, an Italian dictionary and language tapes, some scattered items of clothing, a few demon texts, and other miscellany, but none of those items told him anything important. He'd come here so he could find out how Buffy and Dawn were doing. This was his big chance to find out. If doing so meant digging around a bit, getting into Buffy's personal things, he would just have to do it.
Still getting used to his new limbs, which he hadn't been able to use much since packing himself into the box, Spike slid over to the side of the bed and lowered himself to the floor. Where to hunt first? He didn't see a lot of possibilities in the cramped room, which held little furniture. Buffy's dresser seemed like his best bet. He looked up at it. A few photos were taped to the mirror: Xander, with a pyramid in the background; Willow and Tara sitting together; several of the Potentials smiling into the camera. Nice, but they didn't provide the information he wanted. What he needed was to look inside the dresser.
Thick puppet fingers tugged at the bottom drawer and dragged it open. It held odds and ends of clothing. With a sigh of annoyance, Spike shoved it closed, reached for the next drawer, and again had no luck. He unsuccessfully continued until only the top drawer remained. This one posed something of a challenge; it was beyond the reach of Spike's shrunken puppet body.
He stared up at it. The more he looked, the more he had to know what it held. Despite the fact that every other drawer had contained nothing of especial interest, he couldn't rest until he had seen the interior of this one. But Spike was determined to think this problem through. He'd done enough leaping without looking lately. He carefully considered and then lit upon the obvious solution: If he wasn't tall enough, he had to elevate himself. To elevate himself, he had to stand on something. The wooden chair in the corner was perfect.
Pleased with himself for taking the time to find a reasonable answer, Spike trotted over, grabbed the chair, and toted it back to the dresser. He was right; it worked perfectly. He was easily able to pull open the final drawer.
At first glance, though, it looked like he'd wasted his time. Now, under most circumstances, Spike would not have been disappointed to find himself face to face with Buffy's underwear drawer, but today was not a typical day. Today he needed to find something helpful. He was about to admit defeat and jump back down to the floor when a thought struck him. Buffy wouldn't just leave the sort of item he was looking for lying out in the open. No, it would be hidden. A thorough search was required.
Felt hands were not the best suited for covert action, yet Spike managed. He sifted through every item in the drawer, feeling right to the back, and finally his efforts were rewarded. In the far corner was a thick, dark book with the word "Diary" imprinted upon the front.
In that moment, Spike's instinct for self-preservation deserted him. He didn't even stop to consider what would probably happen if Buffy ever found out he'd so blatantly invaded her privacy. All he knew was that he had to read the book--had to find out what Buffy had written, possibly about him. He firmly grasped it in one hand and shut the drawer with the other. After all, Buffy could return upstairs at any moment. The last thing he needed was for her to see him walking around.
Quickly and quietly, Spike set about replacing every item he had moved except, of course, for the diary. That alone, he carried back to the bed with him. He would read it while Buffy was downstairs. The second he heard her footsteps coming up the stairs again, he would shove the book under the bed, with Buffy none the wiser, and replace it in the dresser once the appropriate opportunity presented itself.
Trembling with anticipation, Spike curled up on the pillow and tried to flick open the diary to the first page. It didn't quite work out; he couldn't maneuver his fingers as well as he was accustomed to doing, so it took a good few seconds to get to the page he thought he wanted. Then it turned out that the page for January 1, 2003 was blank.
Spike attempted to growl in frustration (the noise came out sounding more like a muffled sniff) as he realized that Buffy's old diary must have gone down with the rest of Sunnydale, and she hadn't bought this replacement until at least May of that year. Naturally she wouldn't have been writing in it as early as January. Annoyed at his own stupidity, he flicked ahead several months in the book he now saw was a two-year diary. With some effort, he ended up on the first page with writing on it: June 1, 2003. The entry began, "We held Spike and Anya's memorial service today."
Spike read eagerly, soaking up the details of how he and Anya had been memorialized, how Buffy and the others had traveled across the country fighting evil, how they had eventually decided to split up and go off in their own directions. Page after page flew by, and Spike was pleased to find his name mentioned on a number of them. Buffy hadn't forgotten about him at all. She'd even felt guilty over his death, and regretful about some of their last moments together.
He had just started the Jan. 4, 2004 entry when a noise outside the room distracted him. Spike's head flew up and he panicked. He hadn't kept track of the time at all. Ages must have passed since he'd started reading. Frantically, he hurtled the top half of his body over the side of the bed, shoved the diary underneath, and hauled himself back up, just before Buffy said goodnight to Dawn and entered the room.
It was a narrow escape. Spike forced himself to remain motionless as Buffy moved around, preparing for bed. He found himself wishing he had eyelids so the act would be easier to pull off. Surely if he could close his eyes, he would look less suspicious and also encounter less temptation. Just as he thought this, however, Buffy began undressing. Eyelids or no, nothing could have torn Spike's wide puppet gaze away from his first sight of naked Buffy in longer than he cared to remember. It was a good thing she didn't think to look at him and spot his behavior,. which he was sure was nothing resembling puppet-like.
Fortunately for his continued existence, Buffy quickly donned a nightgown and moved to the door to switch off the light. Next she lowered herself onto the bed, right next to Spike, and tugged the (unresisting) puppet next to her. It was then that Spike discovered what seemed likely to be the fatal flaw in his hastily conceived plan. He couldn't move; couldn't even squirm a little into a more comfortable position. He was trapped, plastered next to Buffy. He'd forgotten that grabbiness was a characteristic she shared with Dawn. Normally he wouldn't have minded at all, but he wasn't exactly in a position to reciprocate. Well, he *could*, but the thought of Buffy's likely response should she catch her stuffed bedmate moving was enough to hold him still. He didn't want to die again. This time he had the uneasy feeling he wouldn't be coming back if he did. Still, he didn't know how he would make it through another minute next to her, let alone an entire night. He'd be bound to squirm and give himself away. It just wasn't possible to lie practically on top of Buffy and not react.
Once again, Spike forced himself to relax and think up a solution. He wouldn't have to remain in this position all night, he told himself. All he had to do was wait until Buffy fell soundly asleep and then gently extricate himself from her clasp. It couldn't be that hard.
So he waited. After a few minutes, Buffy's breathing evened out. After another few, Spike was sure she had drifted off. He'd give it a little longer just to be safe, he decided...
Spike was in a warm, comfortable place. The last thing he wanted to do was to wake up, but a persistent noise wouldn't allow him to sleep. He groaned and buried his head under the pillow in an attempt to block it out.
It didn't work; the noise resumed. This time, Spike made out words. "Dawn! Time to get up!" Buffy was yelling from nearby.
If it was time for Dawn to be up, then he should, too, Spike hazily reasoned. He sat up, stretched, rolled over, and promptly fell off the bed with a thunk to lie stunned in a tangle of stiff puppet limbs and blanket.
As if from a great distance, he heard Buffy walk back into the room. "What happened here?" came her puzzled voice before she shook the blankets, plucked Spike out from the middle of them, and carefully set him back on the bed.
All the events of the previous day came rushing back to Spike then: his puppethood, his presence in Rome, and the fact that Buffy was right there in the room with him. For a minute he had thought he was back in Sunnydale, living in Buffy's basement and battling the First Evil. Last night he'd obviously managed to fall asleep with his eyes wide open, which seemed a little weird until one realized that it must be a puppet thing, kind of like how horses were able to sleep standing up. Only Spike had overslept, missed watching Buffy getting dressed, become confused and fallen off the bed, and almost given himself away. He was wasting his big chance, he thought with disgust. Yet he had today to make up for all of his mistakes so far. He'd turn everything around; he was sure of it.
He quietly watched as Buffy collected a packed bag and walked out of the room. In the hallway, she stopped to talk to Dawn.
"Come down for breakfast as soon as you get dressed. I'll walk you to school when I go to work."
"Yeah, right," Dawn mumbled in response.
One set of footsteps indicated Buffy moving downstairs. Spike settled back and thought. He'd already known Dawn was attending school, but where was Buffy working? he wondered. Maybe he could figure that out once he had the house to himself.
He patiently waited for a half hour, when the front door slammed shut behind two pairs of feet. Spike sat up, stretched again, and felt his stomach clench with hunger. He didn't feel any desire for blood, though. Instead he had this strange craving for... milk and cookies?
end part 3