Spinning The Wheel 05 - Retrospective

"You're what?"

"I'm moving out. I can't do this anymore."

"You can't leave me, I need you."

"I can do what I please. Pull over. I want to get out."

"No, you won't. Explain it to me. Why do you want to leave? I don't understand."

"And that's my point, darling. You don't see. All you see is your music and the band. Your eyes are not on me anymore. Not like they used to."

"Luv, that's not true. I still have eyes for you, always will. I love you, baby."

"No, you don't. Pull over."

"I won't. We talk this out. Everything will be all right. I swear."

"No, it won't. Nothing's gonna be all right. It's over. Accept that."

"Luv, you can't just…"

"Watch out!!"

CRASH!!!

Spike awoke with a short scream. He was shaking all over, beads of sweat had formed on his forehead and chest. He had to bite his lip to keep it from shaking. Tears stung his eyes and he was close to screaming.

He flopped back on the couch. One of his legs dangled uselessly from it but he refused to get into a more comfortable position since he couldn't feel it anyway.

His heart was racing, slamming furiously in his chest. He covered his widened eyes with his hands, forcing them shut and the tears back to whatever horrid place they came from.

The dream. There it was again. Like every night, or at least every night that he could remember. The dream that haunted him for three years now, that was stuck in his mind, on the back of his eyelids for the rest of eternity. The dream that wasn't a dream. The dream that was real, that was his past.

Why couldn't he just die from a heart attack on one of those nights? That would make everything a whole lot easier.
In death he wouldn't need to feel the guilt, the pain and the loss. It was all too much. He couldn't bear it any longer. It would either drive him insane or he would kill himself.

No. He wouldn't. He had tried once but failed, couldn't perform, couldn't end his own miserable existence. He remembered sitting in the bathroom in the tub, the knife already in his hand, the blade itching against his vulnerable skin. Blood had trickled down his wrist already but he couldn't go further. He couldn't finish it.

With a furious roar he'd tossed the knife through the room, the cold steel blade clattering on the tiled floor.
He'd sat there for a while until the bleeding stopped. He had cried that day, so hard that he thought he could never stop, that he would rather cry himself to death than bleed.
He was even more pathetic than he'd ever thought, not been able to off himself.

Spike grabbed the pillow from under his head, pressing it down on his face, the soft material soaked up the sweat and the tears.

He couldn't breath and he wouldn't. He would end it now.

He stayed like that for almost a minute. Until the natural survival reflexes kicked in and he threw the pillow down on the floor.

More tears spilled down his cheeks as he cried in the dark. He just couldn't do it.

And suddenly he saw Buffy's face in front of his inner eyes, the look of concern on her face when she asked him about his family and friend and when he'd told her that he was alone.
She really did care then, in that tiny moment.

And he had felt comfort in that look. It wasn't like the mocked concern most people gave him, it was real, it felt real at least. He had felt the spark of warmth in her eyes. That had been like a ray of sunlight after long months of a bristling cold winter. It felt like a piece of ice started to melt slowly, the water running down into the earth, feeding the small seeds stored deep down.

He had never believed that this would ever happen again, and as it did now, he tried to push that thought away.
He'd seen how this girl was. She wasn't different from any other person. The flicker of concern had just been there for a second. Like a twenty-year old mall-girl would really care about a guy like him. A wreck, a cripple, a totally useless member of society.

With that thought in mind, he picked up his pillow again, tucking it under his head. He shifted into a more comfortable position and fell asleep almost immediately. The crying and the thoughts about Buffy making him unbelievably tired.

The dream didn't come back and he was glad about it. He nestled deeper into his pillow, unaware of the flicker of Spring spreading inside him.

Buffy lay on her side, the blanket wrapped around her thin form. The alarm clock on her bedside table was blinking '3.27'. She had been awake now for what? Two and a half hours trying desperately to get some sleep, but the sleep wouldn't come.

After Spike had left, the blonde had been to the gift-shop Rupert Giles owned. He was a friend of the family ever since they moved here from Los Angeles. Buffy's mother had an art gallery and over that they came in touch.

After she'd collected all the stuff she needed for her birthday party in two weeks, she went home, trying to finish a very urgent paper for her sociology class. She'd found it hard to concentrate on what she was writing and it took her three attempts to finally get it done.
It wouldn't be her best work but at least she had something to show.

Now, she was lying in her bed. She was tired but she couldn't sleep. She was staring out of one of her window, the moon threw a pale light into her room and bathed it in silver shadows.

The talk this afternoon spun in her head. She couldn't let it go, couldn't forget how hopeless hopeless Spike's words had sounded, how much pain he had shown in his eyes. He was lonely and how he'd explained it bothered her more than she thought it would.

He wanted to be alone. He had even driven friends away. He had a talent in that, no doubt, but she couldn't understand why. Nobody wanted to be alone by choice.

She remembered all too well when her farther had left. Though her mother and her sister were still around she'd felt lost, left alone. A part of her family was gone and as it seemed would never come back.
In a way she was glad about it, her dad had disappointed her, had destroyed her picture of a perfect family. When she was little, she had the nightmare that he'd come back and tell her that it was her fault, that she had driven him away. Now she knew better , but it was still nagging in the back of her mind.

So she had some kind of image of what it must feel like to live alone, not to have anybody to talk to. But why did he choose that? There had to be a reason and she knew that it wasn't just the fact that he was in that chair. There had to be something else.

She'd sensed some kind of loss in the way he looked at her. His gaze was open for her in a way she'd never experienced before. But why loss? Well, he had lost the ability to walk but that couldn't be it.
As he said, he could get used to that. There was something else, Buffy was sure.

But she was just as sure that she could never ask him. First, he wouldn't tell, second, he'd be horribly mad at her for asking.
She had trouble finding the right words in his presence anyway but that was a topic she could never touch without fearing he would rip her head off.

Buffy felt a pang in her heart as she remembered his look. It was burned into the back of her mind ever since then.
Deep inside here, something was stirring. She couldn't figure it out yet, but suddenly, she cared. She wanted to know what it was all about, why he acted and reacted the way he did, why he choose to be alone. She wanted to know what he had been like before the accident and what had changed his life so profoundly.

With a disgusted grunt, Buffy turned on her back. No, she wouldn't start caring now. She just wanted this to be over, didn't want to know why he was such a bastard. She didn't even like him, so why was she giving any thought about him.
She pushed the thought as far as possible back into the depth of her mind so they wouldn't bother her anymore and let her sleep a little.
She had classes tomorrow and she didn't want to look like some kind of dead girl walking.

Avoiding the pictures and the little amount of concern that was bubbling up inside, exhausted her. And slowly, she drifted off into sleep.

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