Chapter 21

AN-

Thank you to the 50+ people who all took the time to either email me directly, or post a new review, or hit my tag board. You are all WONDERFUL! I needed that, a lot. I was shocked when I had gotten around 10 the first few hours after posting. 40 some odd later, I'm flabbergasted. Simply in shock. For the people who don't like the story, well, you aren't the writer, and no writer has a fan base made up of every last person in the world. If I'm not pleasing you with my turn of events, click that little X in the top corner. It's a magic button, and makes the offensive material go away. Buffy and Spike/Will, in any form, are not REAL PEOPLE. They are fiction, no matter how much we'd love for them to be real. No matter hat we make them do, we deviate from the original characters. If we made them identical, then what we write would have been an episode. Any deviation from the show changes the characters. AU takes the show and flips it off before forcing it to bend over and kiss the pearly white flowers growing out its ass. Point blank, I write the characters, as I always wanted them to be. Shy, loving, and confused. If you want perfect, write it your damn self. Enjoy the story, because this is how it's going to be written. Don't like it, refer to AN number 2, listed above. Like it? Email, tag, blurty, review, etc. I love the fact that so many people out there DO like my vision. But I accept that it isn't for everyone. People have different tastes, and this is mine.

Will pulled into the parking lot to find Xander's truck gone, and the lights in the flat off. With a bit of a frown, he shut the engine off, and stared up at the flat. Without going up, he just had a gut wrenching feeling that she wasn't there.

Finally, he pulled the flowers and wine from the seat beside him, and got out of the car. Will walked slowly up to the door, and unlocked it. His feet seemed made of lead as he traversed the flight of stairs towards his shared apartment. Silence and darkness greeted him when he finally opened the door. She was gone, and it was his fault. He messed up bad, he thought.

Buffy sighed as Xander talked to the clerk at the Hyatt. It would only be for a few days, she thought. Buffy had never actually met the girl, Anya, but she'd heard plenty about her from Xander. She had a different date nearly every night, and had few misgivings about sleeping with more than a few of them.

Buffy scowled and trudged along behind Xander as the walked towards the elevator that would carry them to the 5th floor. Her thoughts were tangled, like she was trying to wade through waist deep water at a full out run.

Xander slid the small key card into the door and Buffy blinked, and tried to recall the actual elevator ride. With another grimace, she resigned herself to her muddled state of mind, and entered the large room. Xander came in behind her, and closed the dead bolt on the door.

"Ah, home sweet hotel. So, Buffster, room service?" Xander smiled a bit, but Buffy could see that he was also upset over the events, both about how Will acted, and the sudden appearance of Anya.

"Not hungry, really. I think I'll go sit on the balcony." Buffy moved past him, and opened the door to the microscopic balcony that overlooked the picturesque... well… parking lot. There were no chairs, so instead, Buffy slid down against the glass door, and blinked her dry eyes once.

It was like Parker, all over again. Ok, perhaps not as bad, she reasoned with herself, but bad enough. This time, she at least protected her body, if not her heart. Her body would be fine, but her heart, that would take some time to heal. Quite a lot of it, actually.

Xander stood inside the room looking at his best friend as she slumped against the door, and felt a stab of white-hot anger course through him. He liked Will, liked him a lot, but he loved Buffy. She had been in his world for years, and he hated the idea of her being hurt at all.

After the whole fiasco after high school, Xander had watched over her closer, watched her dates, and comforted her when they didn't work out. He had never seen Buffy throw herself so completely into a relationship, especially one that was so new.

Later, he would likely reason with himself, and claim he wasn't thinking right, but as he picked up the phone and dialed their apartment, he knew he was thinking straight. About as straight as he had ever thought in his life. Xander waited with a grim set to his face while the phone rang.

Will looked over at the phone, and felt his stomach hitch as he hurried to answer it. He knew it wasn't likely, but he couldn't help but hope that it was Buffy.

"Hello? Buffy?" He asked in a hurry, before the person on the other end could reply to the hello.

"You have a lot of nerve, Will, you know that? I don't know what the hell is going through your mind, but you just hurt one of the only girls I've ever loved. I sure as hell hope you are happy with yourself."

"Xander, mate, it's not like that. I wasn't thinking-"

"You're damn right you weren't thinking! Do you know what she's doing right now? She's sitting outside, trying to hide the fact that she's bawling." Xander glanced at his friend again, and lowered his voice.

"Where are you guys at? I need to talk to her, to explain. So stupid, really, but it was my fault, all of it."

"I don't think she wants to talk right now, and we won't be back. At least, we won't be back tonight. You have some major ass kissing to do, for both of us. You lost major points." Before Will could respond to Xander, Xander hung the phone up on him. He glanced back out the window at his friend, whose shoulders were hunched down, with her arms wrapped around her legs.

Will held the phone to his ear until it started beeping at him, and then let it slip from his hand. A feeling of cold dread clenched at his stomach. He sat down on the chair, and stared unseeing ahead. His eyes were blank, the blue nearly as pale as ice.

She's gone, and you did it, mate. Bloody good show, he thought. Leaning back, his eyes slipped closed, and an arm came up to cover them. He realized he messed up, but Drusilla had been his heart for so long. How was he supposed to learn to accept that she wasn't, now? That Buffy had silently slipped in, and taken over?

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts coming to mind, Will stood up, and with a clear mind, headed up to her room. With a sign of relief, he noticed that her room seemed to be almost completely intact still. In fact, there was very little at all missing. Even her uniform for the diner was in her closet.

With a smile, albeit a weak one, Will walked back down stairs, and went to hide in his room. He had no doubts that what Xander said was true, that he'd broken her heart. It wasn't so much even bringing Anya home, as much as he had avoided her this week, and had distanced himself.

Earlier in the week, it would have taken everything to pull the betrayal he felt from Dru and Angel out. Now, he could only wish Buffy would be back, so he could explain himself to her. That is, if it wasn't too late. But it can't be, he thought. I can't have lost her so soon.