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Annie
“Dawnie, you’re gonna be late for school if you don’t get down here right now!” Willow yelled, hoping her voice would carry from the kitchen, through the hallway, up the stairs and still hit the teen with some force seeing that she seemed to be taking longer than forever to get herself ready.
“Okay, okay!” she heard Dawn’s voice and then the rapid thumping of her feet on the stairs a few moments before she entered the kitchen, her back pack slung across one shoulder and a slightly thoughtful expression on her face.
Willow had opened her mouth to start the lecture she had heard Buffy give the younger one about a hundred times, but she cut herself off as Dawn sat down at the breakfast-table in the middle of the kitchen, looking at her with eyes that were holding a dozen questions.
Willow sighed before smiling a little.
“Okay, let ‘em rip,” she said and Dawn grabbed the glass of orange juice Willow had poured for her, taking a sip before starting.
“Do you think they’re all right?” she asked, worry for both her sister and her friend streaking her eyes.
“Yes,” Willow answered her, and she was sure of it too.
“Do you think they’ll be back soon?”
“I don’t know…”
“Do you think it’s a Big Bad they’ve got to deal with?”
“Could be, yeah.”
“Do you think they’ll have to fight?”
“Probably.”
“Do you think the world is about to end over where they are and that the Birth of Fire is just another name for the earth opening up and swallowing everything?”
Willow frowned a little, but smiled.
“I don’t think so, Dawnie, but I mean, you never really know.”
“Do you think Buffy is being so awful to Spike because she might actually like him and she doesn’t know how to deal?”
Silence.
“What?”
***
The rain gently pattered against the windowsill as Buffy slowly opened her eyes. It took her a moment or two to remember where she was and then she drew a deep breath, trying to shake her sleepy brain into thinking mode.
She wondered what time it was.
Then there was a knock on the door and she pulled her covers over her head, suddenly remembering what had happened the night before and the sense of him… She felt a pleasant shiver run up her spine at the thought of it and she growled a:
“Come in.”
Hoping against hope that Spike wouldn’t be his usual smug, insufferable self. Sometimes it was so damn unfair that he could read her like that.
“Morning, Ms. Summers,” a voice that she didn’t recognize said and she pulled the covers down a little, peaking out into the room.
A young girl in a black dress and white apron was moving towards the window, and then she opened up the curtains, letting the cold and gray daylight flood the room she turned towards Buffy.
“My name is Gina,” she said with a smile. “I’ll be helping you this morning.”
Buffy looked at her, not entirely understanding what the girl was talking about.
“With getting dressed,” the girl said as a response to Buffy’s confused expression.
“Oh!” Buffy said, almost starting to laugh. “Of course.”
It felt a little more than weird to get out of bed and have someone in the room who immediately came up to her and helped her pull the nightgown over her head. Then Gina fetched the same dress Buffy had used the day before and Buffy almost moaned at the thought of cramming into it again. Then she shrugged, not much to do about it, her own dresses weren’t arriving until later and, well, she couldn’t exactly use the clothes she had arrived in.
After half an hour of correcting and lacing, buttoning and straightening she was finally ready.
Gina grabbed a brush but Buffy stopped her, smiling kindly.
“I can do that,” she said and Gina seemed to hesitate a moment before nodding, giving a little courtesy and then walking to the door.
“Thanks,” Buffy called after her and the girl smiled with another nod and then left the room.
She started to brush her hair in front of the mirror; thinking she needed to get another haircut and starting to contemplate if she should cut it all off again or just trim it and let it grow.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” his voice suddenly rang from the doorway and she whipped her head to the side, looking at him startled.
Then she sighed, shaking her head and turning back to the mirror.
“What is?” she asked, starting to brush again.
He left the doorway, moving silently into the room.
No, stay away! she thought.
But this time at least her heart wasn’t getting the better of her as she focused her gaze in her own, stubbornly continuing her movement with the brush.
“Your reflection,” he said, his voice low as he stopped behind her, placing his hands on her hips and putting his face above her right shoulder.
“Spike, get off,” she protested, keeping on with the brushing but not being able to help looking at the place where his eyes should have been in the mirror. Now there was nothing but the room behind her.
He suddenly placed a hand on the one of hers that was moving the brush, stopping it and then gently taking the brush from her.
“Spike…” she mumbled, feeling something close to jelly start filling her knees.
He put a hand up, stroking it over her hair before he raised the brush with the other, letting it follow the first.
“You know, you’d think that a reflection would be the sign of someone being alive,” he said silently. “But I don’t think so… What makes a man a man?” the last sentence so low she almost didn’t hear it.
And his hands kept moving over her head.
“I still can’t believe you cut your hair just to piss me off,” he then said, voice still deadly low and her eyes widened a little.
“I did NOT,” she protested harshly, not quite sure why she couldn’t just move away from his touch.
Junkie, junkie, junkie, her mind chanted.
Then he stopped, removing his hands and handing her the brush back.
“Did you think it would drive me away? That I bloody loved you ‘cause of your stupid locks?” he asked and she didn’t want to look in his eyes, she didn’t want to listen.
“Did you really believe that it’d be that easy?” he asked now and she closed her eyes, trying to shut his voice out. “I guess so,” he mumbled and she heard him turn away, moving back to the door. “Breakfast is ready,” he said and with that she knew he had left.
God, I need to get this over with quickly so I can just not have him around me anymore! she thought angrily.
It was so much easier not to think about him, well, hardly think about him, well, almost not think about him when he wasn’t so close the whole frigging time! And what was with the touching thingy he had going on? And what was with the stand-still-as-a-statue-and-pretend-it’s-raining thingy SHE had going on? Why the hell couldn’t she get passed this, passed HIM, and move on?
Wait, she HAD moved on, she was just a little on the relapse and that would all be turned around once she could stay as far away from him as possible again.
Yes, all would be fine, just as soon as this whole Birth of Fire thing was over and done with. And until then she would just have to focus on everything they’d have to do to research the Fire thing, and not on anything that had to do with him what so ever.
“Yes,” she said to herself, looking down on the brush and feeling the sensation of his hands running through her hair. “That should be easy.”
***
She hardly looked at him when she came down to the breakfast table, but she greeted both Jacob and Sarah with that blinding smile of hers, which she seemed to have rediscovered in the past twenty-four hours. He was happy to see it back, finally, but the way she was using it this morning…
Well, he recognized the drill immediately and sighed.
Fine, if that’s the way she wants it, then fine, he thought, taking another sip out of his cup, which was filled with steaming tea and making sure to not look at her.
Buffy started spreading jam on a piece of bread as Sarah poured her some tea as well.
Silence was settling among the four when Jacob said:
“Any strategies as to where you think we should start first?”
He was looking at Buffy and Buffy chewed a piece of the bread she had just prepared, running different courses of action in her head. Then she swallowed and answered:
“I think we should see if we can find any kind of low-life who would sell his soul to make a few dollars…I mean, pounds, and see if we can get some information from the people on the streets. Usually an incantation of the multitude that this one seems to be, being in a prophecy and all, takes more than one person to say it for it to work… We should see what the rap on the street is about that as well, the lord person, IF he’s our Big Bad here, might have some un-loyal friends,” she finished, picking up her cup and bringing it to her mouth, sipping the hot liquid carefully and waiting for a response from the others.
Silently Jacob mouthed: “rap on the streets”, to Sarah with a completely lost expression on his face. She smiled, patting his arm with a look ensuring him a full explanation later, before turning to Buffy
“Sounds like a good idea,” she said. “But how do we FIND these low-lives?”
“Leave that to me, precious,” Spike said, turning his full attention on Buffy as he added: “It’s what I do best.”
Buffy still refused to meet his gaze, she simply put her cup down and picked her half finished bread piece up, looking at it as though it was the most important thing in the world.
God, how she got on his nerves sometimes!
“Really?” Jacob asked sounding rather fascinated. “Tell me, William, how does it work?”
Spike turned to the man with a gleeful smile, then answered:
“Well, first I have to tap into the cosmos vortex that seem to hold all the little links between demon and demon untangled. Then I just wait until I’m close enough to be able to breathe down the other ones neck and before you know it, low-life bagged, gagged and ready for delivery. Usually to the Slayer but I’ve been know to do a little side work…just for the fun of it...” He knew he was drifting over the line, pushing her buttons, but he thought the hell with it, she just kept pushing his without even giving him, literally, a second glance. He continued: “And even though it doesn’t rank high on the being-a-good-neighbor scale I just can’t seem to help myself. There was this time I had gotten my hands on these bloody horrific eggs and… No, wait, I should let Buffy tell this story, I think she’d do a much better job. How about it, pet?”
Buffy turned a cold stare at him before rising.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice hard, before she took a step around her chair and left the room.
He sighed.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled getting to his feet.
“William, maybe you should leave her alone for a little while,” Sarah said, the pain in her voice cut through him as he turned to her, what was even worse was the blame in her eyes.
“But, I…” he began but she rose, shaking her head.
“No ‘buts’, Will. I think you just seriously hurt her and I honestly think you’ll only make the cut deeper if you run after her now, especially in the mood you seem to be in this morning,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you to cause any more harm, now go up to your room and I’ll come in a little while with your breakfast, and then we can talk.”
He looked at her, feeling like she just slapped him in the face saying HE hurt BUFFY.
“You don’t know her,” he once more tried to defend himself. “I can’t HURT her, Sarah, only make her so bloody angry that she wants to fight me and when she’s pretty much taken my face off she backs away. ‘Cut deeper’?” he asked, disbelieving. “I couldn’t hurt her even if I tried, she doesn’t feel a bloody thing for me, and she never has.”
This brought a faint smile to Sarah’s face.
“Well then, you are doing an incredible job with the NOT trying to make her feel, aren’t you?” she asked sadly.
He was about to answer her when she raised a hand, telling him there was no use.
“Just go up and wait in your room, I don’t want you drinking your breakfast down here, the servants already have too much to gossip about,” she declared. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
He looked at her and then reluctantly turned and walked out of the room.
***
The door opened and closed. He didn’t turn around. Sarah’s scent, still so familiar; had hit his nostrils even before she touched the handle.
She stood quiet for a moment before walking up to him with a small sigh. He was looking out through the window, looking at the street where he had played as a child before he became Drusilla’s childe, where he had gotten to know every nook and cranny and where he had fallen and scraped arms and knees and bled… He had bled in London a lifetime ago and here he was, back in all his glory with no time passing and once more, bleeding.
“Because of her,” he grumbled.
“What?” Sarah asked, now stopping at his side and reaching down a thick mug filled with the red string of life, which was the only thing he had to hold on to.
He suddenly loathed it. Loathed it its thickness and copper taste, loathed it its life and the way it held its unforgiving clutches around him, loathed it for the curse that it was.
“Nothing,” he murmured, waving for her to take the mug away. “I’m too bloody mad to eat,” he said.
“Mad? For what reason are you mad, Will?”
“I’m not mad, on second thought, I’m bloody furious.”
“Why?”
The calm in her voice almost affected the boiling emotions inside of him more.
He wanted to scream at her, shake her, hurt her, scare her and make her see that he wasn’t that boy she knew and loved and trusted, that he wasn’t William anymore in any way! He wanted to make her see him the way he truly was, the way he would always be now. He wasn’t anyone but the demon inside of him. He was Spike and he wanted to scream at her that she had been a fool all this time to think that she saw her old friend in him. He wasn’t there! The only thing provoking emotion to show in his eyes was the reflection of that bitch of a Slayer and now he had had enough of it.
He was so sick of tiptoeing around that wench, bending to her every need and want and waiting for her to toss him one friendly glance, one kind word.
That wasn’t him, that was something he couldn’t define, something that he didn’t even want to define; he wanted it gone.
He stood from the chair so hastily that it hesitated but a moment before tipping over, the back of it hitting the floor with a pang. He didn’t even flinch but turned to her, she had put the cup aside he noticed before he grabbed her by the shoulders, staring at her.
She looked back at him, coolly.
“Why are you furious, William?” she asked silently and he stared at her.
Then he shoved her away, letting go and walking with big steps towards the door.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “Don’t try to find me. I’ll be back tonight.”
She watched him go. After a minute or so she took a step forward, bending down and lifting the chair up, putting it back in its place.
“You do that, Will,” she sighed. “You do that.”
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