A subtle change
That I never understood
Came about
The closer we became
The more anger
And resentment followed
When she smiled
I was envious
When I laughed she was angry
We broke up
We were young
It was my fault
Her fault
Our fault
Or blame it on the times we lived in
When Yesterday Was Today~ Edmund Siejka

Chapter 3

Snyder seemed to enjoy silence. He relished in it. Buffy decided it was because it made most people uncomfortable, in the same way Snyder himself did. Despite how much she wanted to, she didn't disrupt the eerie quiet that swamped her.

Spike was late.

Was she surprised? Not in the least. Did it still annoy her? God, yes. A little part of her had hoped that if they both behaved during this meeting, Snyder would reveal that he was just bluffing over the counselling session and that they could both go about their day as normal. But now, with Spike nearly fifteen minutes late, she knew it was a lost cause. With a barely stifled sigh, she relaxed back into the crinkly leather chair, and resigned herself to watching the clock ticking.

After exactly two-hundred and forty-seven ticks, she caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, then heard the ugly clomping of heavy boots. Snyder shook himself a bit, and Buffy sat up in her chair. Spike entered the room in the same way he did everything- loudly.

He shoved open the door and let it swing closed behind him. He sniffed and dumped himself in the seat beside Buffy, and the chair swung a little with the force he put into it. He inclined his head towards her in greeting before turning back to Snyder who was looking at him in expectation. They stared at each other for a moment- Spike in confusion, Snyder in revulsion, until the former realized what was wrong.

" Oh, right, sorry- m' car wouldn't start, had to walk."

If Snyder accepted that or not, Buffy didn't know. His look of loathing didn't leave either way. He simply stood and beckoned for them to follow.

She tuned out the usual comments and threats Snyder issued as he marched them towards the counselor's office- his usual speech about how they were worthless and unworthy of the air they breathed was getting old. What frustrated her the most was that, in Snyder's eyes, she was the same as Spike.
Trouble. A problem that needed to be dealt with.

They weren't the same- Spike actively looked for chaos, he worshiped it. It was probably why he was with Drusilla for three years.

In Buffy's case, chaos just seemed to worship her.

Finally they stopped outside a shabby looking door. "Guidance counselling" was written across the round window in chipped print. Buffy met Spike's eye, and he winced comically. Well. At least he wasn't looking forward to this anymore than she was.

"You'll talk in here until the bell rings. If I don't get a satisfactory report, you're in here again, same time next week." Snyder said, spinning on his heel. Buffy and Spike watched him leave until he disappeared around the corner. They stood in uncomfortable silence.

"Wanna ditch?" Spike said hopefully, already bouncing where he stood. It was like he was constantly buzzed or something.

"And get detention for the rest of the week? No thank you."

He didn't look surprised.

"Well then," he said, pushing open the door, "After you Slayer."

"Ah- Ms Summers and Mr Pratt. Please, please take a seat."
Spike groaned. The counselor had the wide-eyed, eager look of a young teacher who still believed they could "make a difference." Give it a year, and the students of Sunnyhell would knock that enthusiasm right out. He shot glance at Summers and, in fairness to the Slayer, she looked almost as annoyed as he felt.

"Now, I know you probably don't want to be here." Ms Wilson said with a condescending smile.
Spike rolled his eyes, reaching for the glass of water beside him.
"But I really think I can help you work through this... resentment. Now, Principal Snyder said there's always been this animosity between you, and that he fears it will... come to a head on the school grounds. I want to know what you think is the root of this, and then maybe I can help you work through it. Any ideas?"

He nearly got me killed, Buffy thought, glaring at the ugly pattern on the green carpet.

She took my best mate away, Spike hissed in his mind, taking a swig from the glass.

Wilson took their radio silence in her stride.

"Some would think that there would be a... natural sympathy between you. Maybe I'm wrong, but you're both outsiders in this school- Buffy you only arrived two years ago, and Spike you're from an entire different continent. One would think you'd... band together."

Buffy and Spike made identical pff noises. Wilson didn't seem to notice.

"Maybe you did at the start- is that what started this? A bad breakup?"

Spike choked on his water. Buffy burst out laughing, hysterical at the very thought. The laugh lasted a little bit too long and ended up sounding a little bit too forced. It faded away into an awkward cough.

"No," Buffy said shaking her head wildly, "No, no, me and Spike? No, nope, never. No."

Spike turned to her, his expression more incredulous than hurt.
"Five 'no's Slayer? Really? Y'know, you're coming on a little strong there."

Summers simply glared at him.

Wilson jotted down a few notes onto her pad, and looked back at them in interest.
"Okay, so a lot of hostility here, huh? Now can either of you give me one good reason for it. Just say it, we're all free to say what we feel in this room."

Summers sighed, leaning forward.
"Well... I guess it's because he smells like a crack-house. "

Two could play at that game.
"It's that dozy look she always has. Distracting is what it is." He said shuddering.

"He has the most disgustingly filthy mind, I've ever had the misfortune to come across"

"She always acts all 'holier-than-thou', as if she's not in the exact same place as me."

"He blames the world for the issues, even though he literally brings it on himself."

"She's such a raging bitch, that she couldn't even keep a bloke as masochistic as Angel."

Buffy froze, and the blood rushed to her face so fast that Spike felt he had maybe gone too far. Maybe.

"Take. That. Back." She hissed, gripping the wooden armrests so tightly that her knuckled were stark white. Spike gulped.

"Make. Me." He snarled, leaning forward and pushing into her personal space, in that way he knew she hated.

Wilson gave a small cough, and they both suddenly remembered that there was a third person in the room. Her head had been flying back and forth between them during their 'discussion' and she had been writing down notes so fast that Spike was surprised her pen wasn't smoking.

"Okay so it seems we've found some mutual ground here- Who's Angel?"

"My ex..." Buffy muttered staring at the ground again.

"And what happened?"

"He left." Buffy answered the same time as Spike said "he changed."

Wilson nodded thoughtfully.
"So you were both close to this guy. Spike, when exactly did he 'change'?"

Spike was about to answer with "When he got into the Slayer's pants.", but at the last second opted for the truth.

"When he got his girlfriend killed in a car wreck."

Two years earlier...

Why the fuck was his phone ringing?

He could barely hear the shrill sound of the landline over the roaring storm outside. Spike groaned into his pillow, rolled over and checked the number flashing. Unknown Number said the screen.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He yanked the phone out of its stand, and answered it roughly .

"What the actual hell do you want?"
He was met with dead silence, except for the sound of rain hitting off something. Spike waited for a couple of seconds, but no one spoke.

"Who is this?"

The caller swallowed nervously and then spoke quietly.
"It's me."

"Angel? What the bloody fuck man?"
There was silence until Angel let out what, if Spike didn't know any better, he'd call a sob.

"I didn't know who else to call... everything's ruined, over, gone... She- She's dead. I think she's dead. I- I killed her. It's my fault."
Spike shot out of the bed, the hairs on his neck prickling. Not Dru. Please God, not Dru.

"Who mate? Who's d-dead."

"Darla."

With him being the awful bastard that he was, Spike began to sigh in relief, but swallowed it quickly.
"What happened? Where are you?" He whispered, pulling on clothes as fast as he could single-handedly.

"I don't know man, we were driving and I could barely see with the rain, and I- I lost control I guess. I went into a pole or something."

There was quiet again for a moment until Angel let out a shaky sigh.
"Spike- Will, I was drinking."

And the penny dropped. Angel was calling him to help cover it up.

"Angel, I don't have a licence yet, I won't take the fall for you."

"I'm not asking you to, just... just can you ring her father? I'm not able- God, I can never look at him again can I? My fault, all my fault..."

Spike had never seen, or rather heard, him like this before. Angel was actually scared. Hurting. It sounded like he was... ashamed? Regretful?

Sorry?

"Look I'll call her father, but you need to ring for an ambulance or something, she mightn't be dead mate, just call 911 'kay?"
There was silence again, then the sound of Angel pushing more coins into the slot.

"It's her neck Will... she's dead."

Angel hung up abruptly and Spike listened to the hollow beeping of the phone for a while. It seemed to match the frantic thumping of his heart.
Darla... dead?

Finally he psyched himself up for the next phone call.

"Master? Yeah, it's Will. Listen, you'd better get down to the hospital, there's been an accident... Yeah Darla... Look, it seems pretty bad..."

That was the last time Spike heard from Angel.

He knew that whatever corrupted lawyers that his parents had would get him off everything, and they did. Angel was landed with some community service, and that was the end of that. Nice and neat. Sad, always unfortunate, but quickly forgotten, just like all the shady things that happened in this town.

He knew that Darla's father had left Sunnydale. He knew that hardly anybody turned up for the service, except for him and Drusilla. Dru took an odd sort of morbid delight in the whole thing, taking her own sweet time getting ready, carefully picking out her laciest black gown, her most extravagant jewels, curling her hair in old fashioned papers.

Angel didn't show.

After three months of radio silence, Spike had all but accepted that he must have skipped town. He'd lashed out at Dru, who refused to accept that "Daddy" had abandoned her.

"He'll come back to us, Ms Edith whispered to me that he will. He'll come back with all that wonderful hurt and he'll set fire to the moon and the stars and the shadows and he'll dance in the sunshine. Sweet William will dance in the sunshine too... Someday."

Spike just wandered over to the Bronze, hoping the pounding music would distract him from the pounding in his head, when he saw him. No, them.

He was sitting at the bar, smiling, chatting up some sunny blonde who looked about the same age as Spike. She was twirling the straw in her drink around her finger, glancing up at him shyly through her eyelashes. Spike just presumed it was the same old Angel, taking an innocent for a ride, until he noticed that Angel looked just as shy as she did.

They were laughing together.

It was everything that was perverse in this universe. Spike just glared at them, until something must have alerted Angel to his presence. He glanced over at Spike, and immediately leaned down to the girl, whispering to her, and drawing his coat around her shoulders. He practically marched her out the door without so much as a second glance.

She changed him.

He did his community service, he got a job, he stopped drinking. He picked her up from school most days, and he'd kiss her hello, and she'd laugh like she didn't know the things he'd done, to him, to Dru, to girls younger than pretty little Ms Summers. Like everything about him wasn't wrong, wrong, wrong.

Angel made Spike the monster he was. He'd driven Drusilla past the point of insanity. He'd torn this town apart, and it ended with the blood of Darla dripping from his fingers.

All the things he done and he was rewarded with something that looked an awful lot like redemption.

And Spike finally learned what Angel had been trying to teach him for years.

True, pure, burning hatred.

"You resent him and Buffy. You were his friend, brother even, and he turned to a complete stranger for comfort instead of you." Wilson said softly, folding her arms on the table and leaning forward. Spike's grip on the glass was becoming painful.

"It's okay to feel anger Spike, but it's not okay to take it out on other people-"

She stopped with a gasp when Spike crushed the glass, water and sharp splinters hitting the floor. Blood soon followed, staining the carpet, like ink on paper.

He stood up slowly. He felt both women staring at him, and he made the mistake of looking at Summers. There was something that looked sickeningly like pity swimming in her watery eyes.

"We're done." He growled, and he swung out through door.

The silence that filled the room was ironically deafening. Buffy was still staring at the carpet, but now with sick fascination. The glass splinters glittered like diamond shards. There was a dark green patch where the water had spilled, and there were specks of muddy brown where Spike's blood must have dripped. Buffy didn't know why, but felt like she was going to cry and be sick at the same time.

"Did you know?" Ms Wilson asked, trying and failing to keep her voice professional, "About what happened with Darla? About Angel changing?"

Buffy nodded, ripping her gaze from the sparkling chaos on the floor. The bell rang and she pulled herself up from the chair, stepping over the glass and blood.

"I just didn't know Spike cared."