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Chapter Thirty-Two

His gaze drifted over his bedroom, unfocused and moving from one object to another as the door clicked behind him. His back pressed into it, his palms flat to either side of his body and pressing into the smooth wooden surface. He let out a sigh as he closed his eyes and his head dropped back with a gentle thunk.

Something in him eased—released. A tension in his shoulders washed away.

After he'd woken up it had taken a while to get sorted, to allow his memories to settle and adjust; William's—his. Sure, he'd recalled it all last night in a brilliant instant—the moment he regained control of himself. It hadn't been instinct entirely that had led him to continue with Buffy... It's just... like bloody always... He was a moth drawn to that perpetual flame. His heart ached with it, thinking about last night. How she said his name... how she...

And then his body flexed again, eyes widening as it hit him.

"I love you..."

How long had he waited to hear those three words? Three innocent fucking words... He exhaled loudly and wiped a hand down his face as his heart hammered in his chest. Jesus. No, why was he acting surprised? The bloody confession she laid out to William played in his mind. Lies? To break the curse? Anything to save the world? It wouldn't really throw him to find that out, given what she'd done after he'd gotten his ass handed to him by Glory. That was one of many moments he'd burned into his memory when he'd been grasping at straws like a luck-struck fool. At least until the heat between them had kicked up after she'd come back from the dead.

And fuck him if he hadn't just... taken what he could god damn get. Like a git.

He told himself when he'd left for Africa that he wasn't just doing it for her. He was doing it for himself. He had—still was—disgusted with himself. With them. He'd promised himself he'd walk away; he needed clarity, some fuckin' time to breathe and see the situation for what it was. And Spike had never really done that with any of the women he'd loved—Dru or Cecily. He'd never taken a long look at himself, his own worth.

He'd recognized that he'd never considered himself worth much in his human life, and with Dru he'd just assumed it was better to roll with the punches; after all, love was meant to last forever, especially when you were immortal. It was a given they'd have fights, hurt each other, bleed for each other, and walk away from one another—only to return to each other's arms. And yet... in all of that he'd never questioned whether it was healthy.

And why not? His parents had been happy. He'd had a decent example. He blamed it on youth, inexperience, and Dru. Angelus had ruined her before he'd ever had a chance. He also blamed it on the fact that he was a fucking vampire. Vampires, characteristically, were not supposed to be good people. It wasn't because they were demons; it was just the very nature of vampires as a separate species. In all his unlife he'd never met another that was capable of what he'd been capable of. Love? Sure. Vampires were more than capable of love just as much as they were any other emotion. But... the capacity to know right from wrong? To treat the one they loved with respect? Value? Compassion?

No.

In the early days it had been his hate driving him, his anger at what he'd once been—needing to be someone entirely different. He'd killed blindly because he'd been hurting—reeling from the life he'd left behind. Dru, really, had never fully been able to mend the insecurities he never could shed. Even now. Not that she'd ever tried, really. After that... he'd grown accustomed to it. The more you did it, the easier it was to pull your heart away from it—to kill without caring about the screams, the tears, the agony that reverberated from a human being. Any creature.

He'd just assumed he'd been made wrong.

And then... Buffy...

He sighed. Long. Hard.

She'd made him recognize the humanity he'd long ignored. And he'd fought against it—through blood and ashes. He told himself the whole time that he was a damned vampire, not a weak ass dog ready to wag his tail at her beck and call.

It had been both difficult and incredibly easy to fall for her. And yet...

His felt his chest tighten again; a burn came to his eyes and he forced down the tears. Christ, how he hated himself. For hurting her, for letting her hurt him, for letting the both of them hurt each other over and fucking over again.

Through the desert in the darkness he'd let his agony abate long enough to make good on the promise to really think it all through. In the end of it all he'd realized he was worth it; he had no control over whether Buffy wanted him or not—in her life or otherwise. And so, he'd decided he'd get his soul, to get his shit together, and to go back. Not as her lover, not as her doormat, but as someone to help when shit hit the fan in Sunnydale. He'd find work and he wouldn't answer to her anymore. Make a deal with some of the smarter employees at the hospital who knew about his kind; get his blood just before it expired. Not pig swill.

"I love you..."

Her voice whispered in his mind, reminding him that she'd said it that after he'd come back to himself—after the spell, or whatever, was broken. He could keenly recall her skin under his hands, her warmth radiating into him, the way she'd clung to him—cried. Something within him softened. Broke.

No... she'd never been like that before... had she? His smile was bitter, rueful, as he looked up at the ceiling. Their lovemaking had always been... distant, leaving Spike feeling more like an overblown sex toy than a lover. The problem had never been in how much she poured into him: all the pain, the hurt, the fear, and need to feel human again. No... the problem had always been in knowing she made it clear with both her words and her body language that he was nothing to her, that he never would be—that their lovemaking didn't even deserve the normal camaraderie and friendship that came from people even when they weren't in love. And he knew why.

She was afraid.

He'd comforted himself with that, thinking she needed time. But the longer it went on... the worse it had gotten for the both of them. Patience hadn't helped; if anything, constantly giving into her had only made it all worse. He became a drug for her; one that she hated.

And he'd grown weary of being someone's fix, weary of being unable to reach her.

He choked on a laugh at that, recalling his conversation with Riley just before Captain Cardboard had left. Damn, he couldn't even blame him now. He understood. Angelus had just fucked her up for everyone, hadn't he? Angel had too. She'd given everything to him, every ounce of her innocence and goodness. Now she just couldn't get fucking close to anyone, not even her friends. At the time when Riley had been torn to bits that Buffy wasn't letting him know about her mum he'd seen it as an opportunity to dig the wound deeper because he'd been jealous. Looking on it now... he recognized that, yeah, she should have called Whitebread. She should have let Riley in; that's why it didn't work out.

That's why it didn't work with them.

Why it would never work with anyone.

Buffy had to learn to let people in.

And he... he had to learn to quit hating himself. To get over the parts of himself that he'd thought were shit.

Though... he should probably get dressed first, he noted as he looked down at himself. Get his faculties together and figure out how to get home. Buffy had been hanging around that bloke that looked an awful lot like Giles... Blackwood... Christopher Giles—Kit. Probably Rupert's great-grand-something. He'd know how to fix this mess and get him back to the twenty-first century.

Spike pushed curls out of his face, all at once cursing the lack of his platinum color-tone and gel as he stepped towards the wardrobe along the far wall. As he opened it up and looked at the selection, it occurred to him that he might actually need his valet. But Fredrick had been left behind, his sisters' maids as well. Why, he couldn't remember... but he supposed he could either ring someone up, deal with another person, or, he could try to get dressed himself...

"Fuck... I hate cravats." The words left his mouth in a grumble sort of mutter as he leaned into the open doors of his wardrobe and stared at everything hanging up. "And bloody monkey suits... What I'd really like is my jeans," he went on.

"Um..."

Spike whirled at the sound, blinking as his eyes met with ones a darker shade of blue than his own. Her brow, thin and black, arched upward at an almost unnatural curve. Hands were on her hips and raven-black curls were pulled back tight in a ribbon.

Reggie.

For a moment he gawked, unable to really form words for three reasons: one, when had she slipped into his room, two, what was she wearing, and three... she was his baby sister. A baby sister he hadn't seen...

William had seen her, but Spike hadn't exactly had that experience firsthand. Not more than the memories anyway. And it just... it just wasn't the same. So he stared, forgetting that he'd been baffled by her ninja-room-entering skills and by the stable-boy sort of clothing she was wearing—brown slacks, vest, and a white linen shirt looking one size too big for her frame. The Victorian gentleman in him, William, wanted to tease her to go change, all the while knowing she'd just scoff at him and laugh—telling him they were in the country and, like usual, it didn't bloody matter. Cheeky girl that she was, she'd say that too—the bloody. Not giving a whit.

But Spike, the modern man, really didn't care what she was wearing. "Reg..." he murmured.

Gods... sisters. How he'd hidden this part of his life—from Dru, from Angelus, from Darla. From everyone. The night he'd done the unspeakable to his mother in some vain attempt to make her life better, easier, Reggie had been out for her coming out with Lily—a coming out he had was supposed to escort her to. He hadn't even know Lily was in town until he'd seen his mother that night, had spoken to her alone. But after... after he'd... Spike visibly swallowed, unable to help himself.

Somehow they'd never found out. Not even Dru. He'd always counted it as a blessing. If Angelus had ever found out he'd left family behind... He hadn't even risked looking in on them over the years. He had just silently prayed that Lily had taken Reg to Scotland, that they both—along with his nephew—had lived out their lives happily without him about to muck it up.

All of a sudden Reggie stepped up close to him and peered at him, eyes narrowing. Spike straightened and took a step back. But she followed him until the backs of his legs hit the bed and he fell into the cushioned mattress under him. "Reg—what are you—."

"Shhh!" she hushed him, still peering. Her hands moved to her knees as she bent forward quite close to his face. His own eyes narrowed, but after a moment he just rolled them.

"What?" he finally bit off as her darker blues moved in a sort of reading... pattern. What in the devil was she looking for?

In a flash she grinned and straightened, laughed and took a seat next to him with a bounce. "So Buffy did it, right? You're you again?"

"What—."

"I assumed since you were staring at me as if I were a ghost looking near tears, and, that you weren't reaching for a shirt to cover your chest up for 'propriety's sake'," she said with a roll of her eyes, "that you were, you know, Spike again. Correct?"

"Shit," he snapped, standing up. He tore a white shirt out of the wardrobe and pulled it on.

Reggie was laughing again. "You also rarely curse. Then there was the comment about monkey suits and 'my jeans'." She stood, hands behind her back, as she came towards him.

"Maybe I should ring for a valet."

"You didn't want to?"

Spike ran a hand through his hair. "Not so much, no. Still sortin' it all out." His gaze went to hers then, just after the last button was don close to his chest. "How... how in the hell do you know?"

"Damn, your accent really is different. Buffy mentioned something about it, but it's just so strange." When he pinched the bridge of his nose in agitation, she explained. "Well... I found out about Buffy by accident. Remember the night our mother..."

"Yes." How could he forget?

She nodded, rubbing her arms. "I went to get her and Kit. And... in my haste I may have barged into her room when she wasn't in her guise..." She smiled. "I wasn't happy about it, as you can imagine; however, she told me the truth. About her being the Slayer and... the two of you."

"The two of us...?"

She nodded, her smile turning a little sad as she shifted from one foot to the other. "About you both being from the future and such." Spike felt like Reg was leaving something out, but he didn't push it for now. "She had a PTB agent show me some things to make sure I believed her. I... wanted to tell you, but they said if you found out before the curse was broken... well... it would end badly for the world."

Spike frowned. "It's always the end of the damned world, isn't it?" he muttered. But he didn't have the heart to be upset, not about this. Not at her. "Does Lily..."

Reggie nodded. "She was told some time after I was." Her brow knit. "Were you aware our late brother-in-law was a watcher?"

"Fuck no," he blurted before he could stop it. Jesus, really? And now Lily was getting wrapped up in another one. Sad part was, he'd liked Wulf. Hell, he liked Kit. He wasn't exactly the jackass Rupert had been, or any of those other council prigs.

Reggie was chuckling again.

"Sorry," he muttered, realizing his mouth had gotten the better of him again.

"No, it's wonderful." She was grinning like an idiot. "I've never seen you so expressive. It's... refreshing, Will." Spike nearly froze when she wrapped him in an embrace. "I was a little terrified, you know?" she said into the fabric of his shirt. "I saw bits of you in the visions Miss Maclay showed me... so I had a good idea of who you were. As Spike..." She squeezed him tightly once. "But... it's nice seeing you like this. Happy."

Was he? Happy?

As Spike wrapped his arms around Reggie and placed his chin on her head, sighing—again, he thought, 'Maybe'.

He would be.

Somehow.

And then he blinked. Wait... Spike pulled away from her, hands on her arms and he created some space between them and locked his eyes on hers. "Did you say Maclay?"

"Yes."

"Tara Maclay?"

"Hello, William."

AN :: I know it's early, but this kind of hit me. I'm sure you're not disappointed. I know it was a lot of introspection on Spike's part, but I needed to set some things straight. I hope that's alright? (Feedback is appreciated.)

Now some of you might take issue with me not painting Riley had a 'bad guy' in Spike's mind. Don't get me wrong, Riley shouldn't have been to those vamp whores. However, with that being said, with my rewatch-through of Buffy (which is still ongoing) I came to a few conclusions. The biggest one being that she should have told Riley what was up with her mom when she went to the hospital. After some critical thinking on my part, I personally believe that—while Riley did some serious shit wrong too—that it wasn't entirely his fault. Buffy was keeping him at a distance, too afraid to be vulnerable with him. I personally believe that because she'd been so badly burned with the Angel/Angelus thing—not his leaving, but with the good to evil shit—that she refused to allow herself to let anyone in too close. Even her friends. This escalated when her mom died, when Dawn was taken, and when Buffy found herself facing an enemy that seemed impossible to defeat. It got even worse when she was brought back from the dead. And we saw this result when Spike became her outlet, her dirty little secret.

Riley isn't so much the important part, but he was a major boyfriend after Angel; one that she didn't allow herself to be vulnerable with. Being the slayer became everything for her; even if she let her guard down for a moment... poof in her mind. Spike recognizes this; he has to in order to continue healing. There other things he realizes, as you read. But I'll delve into that more later. For now, I just wanted to explain why my reasoning is different from a lot of writers in this fandom and pairing. Often, writers take the route that Riley was a complete asshole and it was all his fault; but let's be fair—it takes two to tango in a relationship.

Thanks for reading, as usual ^_^.

—Blade