Spinning the Wheel 08 – Research Girl

"You want me to do what?" Willow raised her eyebrows quizzically.

"Come on, Will. It's not a big deal. It's not like you have never gone sneaking into other people's personal files. Just a peek." Buffy almost whined.

She sat cross-legged on her friend's bed in the dorm at UC Sunnydale. Tara was sitting beside her, her nose stuck in a big book but she was halfway paying attention to the conversation between her lover and her friend. The way she smiled and frowned on occasion gave her away.

"But that was back in my nerdy days when we had nothing better to do on Saturday night's. I'm not doing that anymore, remember? I have my own life to sneak into." She swelled her chest proudly and was almost slipping into the well-known Willow-resolve-face when Buffy hit her with the hurt-best-friend-puppy-eye-look that had always done the trick before.

And it did this time, too.

Willow sighed heavily, reluctantly giving in. She turned towards her laptop on the desk, hitting a few keys.

"So, what do you want to know?" she asked when the computer had connected to the internet.

"Everything you can find expect nude pictures, I guess. I want to know about his accident." Buffy scooted closer to Willow to look over her friend's shoulder.

"You really sure, Buffy? I mean, do you really want to know? Might be… nasty."

"I don't want to but I have to. There is something else than just an accident and I have to know about it. It can't go on like this with the hidden stuff that I keep tapping into. If I want to get along with him I have to know what's behind all this." the blonde explained firmly, a serious expression on her face.

"Okay, your choice." Willow shrugged and opened one of her favourite sites. So much for the 'I don't do that anymore'. "What's his name again?"

"Last name's is Rayne."

"Wasn't his first name said in court?"

"I was too busy not to panic to pay attention. Can't you find it with just the last name?"

"Hey, I'm still me. But it might take longer then with the full name."

Willow started typing in the name and waited for the results to show up.

"Hm… there are some obituaries so I guess that's not him." she mumbled to herself. "Aha."

"What?" Buffy jumped to her feet and stood behind Willow.

"Here's something about a William Rayne... ah, no, that's just a cd-review. False alarm. Sorry."

"Cd-review? Spike was in a band before. Take a look at that." The two girls read over the article on silence. "Yeah, that's him." Buffy confirmed and Willow changed the name in the search-field.

There were less results this time but the very first one caught Buffy's eye immediately. "Click on that." She pointed at the url of a local newspaper. The site took some time to load when it was done Buffy gasped in surprise.

Accident on Interstate; Two injured, one dead
On October 27th the Interstate between Sunnydale and San Barth became the scene of a fatale accident.
The road had been wet from a few days rain when two cars, a blue Honda and a black DeSoto crashed into one each other. The driver of the Honda walked away with a broken nose, several bruises. He wishes to stay anonymous.
The driver of the DeSoto William Rayne, singer of the local punk-band 'Bad Evil Things', had been trapped in the car for about 3 hours until fire fighters could free him. Currently, he is in a coma in a local hospital in Sunnydale. Doctors say that he was seriously injured. "His nerves and muscles have been damaged and he may never walk again," so said Dr. Ruth Webber.
The young woman – apparently William Rayne's girlfriend – in the passenger seat, actress Drusilla Pryce, died in the accident.
The reasons are still unclear but 'the wet street is a huge factor', says police officer Daniel Montgomerey. The police hope to get more information when Rayne wakes up from the drug induced coma.

Buffy sank down in the bed, re-reading the article.
As Willow scrolled down on the site, a picture became visible, showing a horribly deformed car with shattered windows and some fire fighters in the background. Beside that there was a picture of the young woman she knew all too well.

"That's the woman in the pictures." Buffy mumbled more to herself than to her friends.

"What?" Willow asked, facing the blonde who became more and more pale as the seconds ticked by.

"She… Spike had pictures of her on his windowsill, all face down. I guess she's… she was his girlfriend. God." she sighed and buried her face in her hands.

That wasn't exactly what she'd expected to find out. She had guessed from his behaviour the other day and the days before that there was something else behind all this than just the accident, than just the fact that he had to sit in a wheelchair. But this…

Buffy couldn't even think the thought to the end. He had lost his girlfriend or so it seemed and that wasn't something to bear easily. A beloved person had been torn away from him.

Buffy remembered losing her cousin Celia when she was little or how her dad went away a few of years ago. It was nothing compared to the thought of losing somebody you really loved. That must be hell.
And he had been in that accident, too, he must have… oh no, don't think it. And now, he had to live with it. That must be hell.

"Buffy? You alright?" Willow asked after a while, placing a hand on her friend's arm.

Buffy snapped out of her reverie and blinked. "What?"

"Are you alright? You look a little pale." the redhead had a worried frown on her face.

"Yeah, it's just... I didn't expect that. I mean, I knew he was hiding something with all the defensiveness and the pictures turned face down. I just didn't know it was so bad. That's… awful." she sighed again, shaking her blonde head.

"What are you going to do now?" Tara asked suddenly and Buffy turned around to face her. The shy girl looked at her with real concern.
That's what she liked about Tara. They didn't know each other that well but the young woman had some kind of ability to always sound warm and kind and knowing.

She looked down at her feet for a moment, then shrugged.

"I don't know. I can't tell him that I know it. He'd freak out and he has every right to, I mean I wouldn't be happy if anybody was looking me up on the internet." Willow quirked her eyebrows at that but remained silent and Buffy didn't notice. "All I can do it pretend I don't know anything and play along. Maybe now I can avoid the danger and we can get along the rest of the ride."

"You want to lie to him and think it'll make things better?" Tara asked. Although her words indicated it, she didn't sound judging. She never did.

"It's not lying. It's... not telling everything I know. You can't call that a lie, right?"

Willow and Tara both looked at the blonde and Buffy's gaze shifted between them.

"Oh don't look at me like that. You both know that I can't tell him." She jumped to her feet and threw her hands up in defeat.

"Than why have you asked for these information in the first place? When you won't tell him you know anyway?" Willow tilted her head and looked at her best friend with a questioning frown.

Buffy sighed. "I don't know." she shook her head. "I just.. don't know.. I mean, you should see him. The way he talks sometimes like nothing matters anymore, like he doesn't care. He's really lonely, no friends, no family. But in the next moment he's shouting at me, wants me to leave. That's why I can't tell him. He'll throw me out and my probation will be screwed."

"That's the only reason? Your probation? It's not that you might like him, is it?" the redhead had to hide the amused smile when Buffy's eyes widened in shock and she blushed all too visible.

"Like him? Why should I like a man with Rocky Mountain-issues who's a total wreck with no social life and a really weird attitude and mood swings and who has a totally stupid nickname? And have you seen the hair?" she rambled and threw up her hands to emphasise her point.

The two lovers had to stifle a giggle seeing Buffy like that. Tara buried her nose in the book again and Willow turned towards the computer again.

"Here is some other stuff about him. You want to read it here or shall I print it? Or are you totally interested?" Willow teased but Buffy didn't seem to get the hint.

"Printing will be okay. I'll take it home then. I have some reading to do plus I'm still grounded, remember?" she slipped into her jacket and waited for Willow to hand her a small pile of print-outs.
"Thanks. See you guys tomorrow then?"

"Of course. And have fun with those." Willow smiled and shot a knowing glance at Tara out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh I will." Buffy replied sarcastically. "Thanks for the help."

"Research girl to the rescue. It's no prob."

"Bye, guys. See you tomorrow." With that the blonde closed the door behind her and left the two girls alone.

"She likes him." Willow said more to the screen in front of her nose than to her lover on the bed.

"Of course she does. Haven't you noticed? She was totally into all the hateable stuff about him but she never mentioned that he has to sit in a wheelchair. Like she didn't care. That could be a good thing."

Buffy kicked the doors shut with the heel of her boot, threw her purse on the chair in front of her dressing table and flopped down on the bed. She flipped through the pages Willow had given her and she couldn't tear her eyes from them.

On her way home she'd read some more articles on the accident, one had gone more into the unpleasant details than the last one. She'd shaken her head over that one and put the page aside.

Now she was reading one of the cd-reviews. The headlines were pretty promising. "Punk is back in the Nu-Rock world", "Punk's not dead" or "North London rocks California" were just a few of them.
And the articles weren't bad either. They all talked about a great quality of song-writing and huge musical potential. There was even a concert-review including a picture of Spike – unmistakably marked by his bright blond hair – and four other guys up on stage.

Buffy looked at the picture for some time. Suddenly the song he had showed her was back in her mind, the guitar riffs and his low and somewhat sensual voice.
And then it came to her. "The lyrics of the song. They were about her, about this woman in the pictures, they just had to be. It all fits together. The description of her."

Buffy's fingers darted over her lips. Why hadn't she figured it out earlier? Sometimes she was so stupid? Not seeing the woods in the middle of the trees. That's what had brought back all the emotions and the memories he had talked about.
The blonde sighed heavily over the picture of him crying.

Reluctantly she went over to the next page. It was a print-out from a site called poetryslam.com Buffy had never heard of it, which was no wonder since she wasn't all too much into written words weather it was for college or for fun.

Why did the computer come up with stuff like that? Yeah, right. Spike had said that he was making his money with writing, poems and short stories. But this one must be one of those he didn't get paid for. Or it wouldn't appear on this internet site, right?

Buffy pulled her legs beneath her and settled back to read the print-out.

Wind

Leaves scattered over blue.
Sky spreading over green.
Hills rolling down in slopes.

Pick up papers, trash, leaves.
Touch my face, my hair, my limbs.
Pick up paces down the hill.
Faster, longer steps carry me with you.

All I want is to run with you.
I want to walk, run and stumble.
I want to trip and roll down the hills.
All I want is being able to fall again.

Tears stung in Buffy's eyes when she finished reading the poem.
It wasn't the best poem she'd ever read and there wasn't much to compare but she knew what was behind this poem.

Anybody else who stumbled across it would click it away without a second thought but she knew the author. She didn't know him very well but what she knew was enough to understand the meaning of those few lines.

Buffy sniffed and tried to force the tears back when her door was flung open suddenly.

"Hey, big sis. Whatcha doing?" Dawn had a huge grin plastered on her face.

Buffy looked her in slight shock. Her heart was pounding from the sudden intervention. She swallowed the tears and tried to look as big-sister-like as she could manage.

"It's called knocking, Dawn." she grumbled but failed completely to impress her sister.

"What's wrong?" the younger girl asked, sensing Buffy's emotions all to well.

Although they were arguing most of the time like sisters should, sometimes Dawn was more grown up than Buffy was willing to admit.

"Nothing." she snapped. She didn't want to share right now. She didn't even know why she cried in the first place but she didn't want to dig into that hole any further.

"Yeah, right. So what the nothing that's ruining your make-up?" Dawn asked again and closed the door to Buffy's room behind her.

Buffy's hand rose to her face and her finger came away with a bit of black mascara. Great, her make-up had giving her away.

"It's really nothing." she shifted on the bed to make some more space for her little sister to sit down beside her.

"What's that?" Dawn grabbed the paper in Buffy's hand and studied it with a concerned frown. Buffy didn't answer right away letting her sister read the poem first.

"That's so sad. Who wrote it?"

Buffy sighed, reluctant to answer. "You remember the guy I hit? That's his."

"The one with the Billy Idol thing? Yeah, I remember."

Buffy smiled at the picture. She hadn't even thought about that although she was usually the one with the high score on pop-culture references.

"He wrote that?" Dawn asked after reading it again.

"Yeah."

"God, he seems depressed, huh?"

"That's so much of an understatement, believe me."

"Hm, my teacher in creative writing would love this. I bet I can learn something from him. Can I meet him?" Dawn grinned with excitement and it took Buffy a moment to shift gears for this new turn.

"What? No, you can't meet him. He's my probation-task. Community Service, remember? Plus, he's not a tourist attraction. What would that look like? 'Hi, this is my little sister, she wanted to see you.' Like he's some sort of ancient dinosaur bone." Buffy snorted and shook her head.

"Okay, then not. But maybe you could invite him over some time. Your birthday is coming up soon." With that Dawn rose and went to the door. "Oh, can you ask him where his ideas come from? Can you do that for me? To save me from failing." She gave her older sister some of her huge grins almost no one could resist.

"Maybe, I don't know. We don't talk that much. We'll see." Buffy shrugged, the thought already brought pictures of a pretty angry Spike into play.

"Thanks." And Dawn was gone.

"You're welcome." Buffy mumbled to herself, picking up the paper again.

Invite him over? To her birthday? Wasn't that a bit rushing into things. They didn't know each other that well to invite him over. That would be…
He wasn't the most social person in the world and she bet her left arm that it would be a disaster having him in her home.
No, she couldn't do that. Never.

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