Chapter 46

There was a slight noise directly outside her doorway. Looking over her desk, she saw a piece of folded white paper that she almost instantly recognized. Furious, Dawn stood and grabbed at the paper, ready to tear it to tiny shreds. As her hands were about to move, a pressure somewhere within her conscious stayed her hand. Sighing, she sat down and stared at the note before opening it.

It was a few moments before she could get her breath. She closed the note with shaking hands only to open it a moment later and read it again. Only a few eloquently written lines made her feel as if she was about to come undone at the seams. He was declaring his love for her, she realized. Not yet ready to forgive him for sleeping with Faith, Dawn rose and started to Will's office. Gathering her strength on the walk up the few flights of stairs, she was ready to pick a fight she could win.

Without knocking, she opened the door to his office and strode in, throwing the note on his desk as she did so.

"Is this for real? Like, really real? Because I need to know if you're just trying to save your ass or not."

Setting his pen down, he looked at the woman standing before him. "It's for real, Dawn. Really real."

She sat down and crossed her knees, straightening her skirt as she did so. "You love me. I don't believe it. Will…I keep wanting to call you Spike. Do you know that? Every time I address you, I have to stop myself from using that name. I still see you as the bleach blonde bad-ass that took a beating to keep me safe from Glory. Will, I want you. I think you are incredibly hot; I have crushed on you since the first days I met you. But…love?"

Leaning forward, he put his hands flat on the desk to keep from hitting it. "If you don't love me, what rite do you have to have any opinion about who I sleep with?" His voice rose as he spoke, his mind could not comprehend the contradictions this woman seemed to be full of.

"I want to be with you! I don't want to look at you and imagine another woman all over you! But I don't want to fall in love, either."

"Why the bloody hell not? It's fun, it's crazy, it makes you hurt like no other. I love being in love!"

"Hah! You have the hurt part right! If I fall in love with you and you leave me, what then? What do I do with myself then?"

He sat back and tilted his head at her. She was afraid of love, which he thought odd at first. His mind worked quickly through the past few years, though, and realized where that particular pathology could have come from. He suddenly thought her avoidance of love wasn't all that strange.

"Dawn…look…I've been hurt too. I've had very, very bad relationships. I don't need to tell you that; you were there for some of them. I don't want that with you, I want something real for once. We're good together, you know that. And I don't want to be with you without moving on to something more. I don't want to have sex and go out to dinner and forget about each other the rest of time except when we want to have sex with other people. That's insane."

"It's not! I want an exclusive relationship that won't get to serious or demand too much. Is that too much to ask?"

"Yes." He answered without hesitation, "men have been asking that of women for a long time and it hasn't been accomplished yet. I can't love you and not say it. I can't love you and not expect the same in return."

She was annoyed with him. She hadn't chosen him to love; she hadn't decided to seduce him so he would fall in love her. She considered this turn of events to be very unfortunate. "Why are you so difficult? We were so good for a while. It was fun and there was no pressure. We were doing great!"

"And then you dumped me! And when I slept with someone else you exploded! Explain that."

"I…" She took a breath and paused. She had very little explanation for that, in fact. "I want you all to myself. I'm selfish. And I only dumped you because you want something I can't give."

"You can't have only part of me, Dawn. I'm not that guy anymore. I have actual feelings now."

Her voice became very soft. "You had feelings before. I remember how much you used to feel."

Ignoring that last sentiment, he decided to take a different tact. Standing, he walked around to the front of the desk and sat on the edge a few inches away from her. "Dawn, I love you. I have been falling in love with you since the first time we slept together. Sorry, love, but that's how it is. You're great, perfect actually. I can't let you go. If you won't be with me I will be forced to chain you in my basement."

"You don't have a basement."

"I'd have to build one." He crossed his arms and stared at her. She didn't understand his humor, which he had counted on for getting him out of such deep water. "Dawn, get it through your skull. I don't want a limbo, I want something real."

"Real hurts people. Look at Buffy and Angel! Look at you and Buffy! Love makes people nuts, it makes them hurt people."

"No. Angel's demon made him hurt Buffy and everyone she was close to. My demon made me hurt Buffy. Angel ran away from Sunnydale to keep from hurting her again. His love for her made him leave in order to keep her safe. My love for her made me travel half way across the world and get a soul. Love is not a bad thing, Dawn."

"I don't want anyone to love me like that. Love that intense is not for me."

"Love that isn't that intense isn't love at all. If a person isn't willing to die for their partner, then they aren't in love. I am willing to go around the Earth a thousand times for you. I'd die for you. Dawn, you have turned into such an amazing woman. Who could give you up for any reason?"

Standing, she made a loud grunting noise that Will assumed meant she was angry. "Will! Listen to me! You're not listening to me! I don't love you!"

"Of course you do."

"You idiot!" Turning towards him with her hands on her hips, she looked at him with a look very clearly meant to convey that he was stupid and she was annoyed with by that. "How else can I say this to you? Do you want it in Latin, Sanscrit? Should I write it down?"

"You love me. You've loved me since you were fourteen. You love me." He looked so sure of this that she started to believe it for a moment. Only a moment, though.

"I can't handle you. We play on my terms or we don't play at all." Turning, she started for the door.

He grabbed her arms and spun her around to face him before she could reach the door handle. "You'll destroy me. I can't live without you. You're the voice in my head every morning and every night. In less than a year, I have completely fallen in love with you. I have chosen to love you entirely and for no other purpose than it makes me happy. I want to make you happy too. Give me that chance."

Frozen in terror, frozen from her own fear of letting go and letting someone in, she shook her head infinitesimally. She couldn't let herself be so controlled by another person, be so influenced by another human being. If she couldn't use her body to her benefit, get want she wanted and have a clear opening to the first escape route, she didn't want anything to do with the relationship.

Pulling from his grasp with the last bit of strength she had left, she shook her head again and turned from him, fleeing the office as fast as she could. Her breath caught and she felt as though she was going to suffocate if she spent another second in Will's presence. Once in her own office, she closed the door and leaned against it, trying to catch her breath.

Sitting down again in his chair, Will reached for the note and the lighter he kept in the top desk drawer. His days of smoking on the roof with Angel were long over, but he had kept the memento. Lighting the folded piece of paper on fire, he watched it burn until it reached his finger tips; only then did he drop into the trash can. Sighing, he watched the other papers catch fire.

A twisted smile came to his lips as he watched the waste paper basket turn into a burn barrel. He let the papers blaze for a minute or so before deciding to suffocate the flames. Setting his brief case over the top to stop the oxygen flow, he waited a while before lifting the case. Smoke billowed from the basket and into the room. The charred side of his briefcase smelled like something akin to burning flesh.

Looking up, he watched the smoke detector start to blink red. Within seconds, the sprinkler system in his ceiling had activated, soaking the entire room. Within seconds, he was drenched with cold water. Staying in his chair, his eyes bore into the waste basket as he watched the remaining ashes of his letter disintegrate under the spray of the water.

It was another second before someone had rushed into his office. One harsh word was enough to send whoever it was running. Whoever it had been, Will surmised, had called the security system, because a few moments later the water was off and his phone was ringing. Assuring security he was fine in a few coarse words, he hung up the phone and stared out over the city.

The wet shirt sticking to his body and the smell of burnt leather and paper reminded him he was alive and made him wish he wasn't all at the same time.