Chapter Text
~ Chapter 3 ~
“You hunt the girl and hurt her same as when you don’t have that soul you’re so fond of wavin’ around. Only thing different is you leave the girl alive, just broken.” Spike landed a solid fist into Angel’s midsection. “You go off to play hero of your own story but make sure you saunter back whenever it looks like she might just survive to remind her of all she thinks she’s lost. Make sure she can’t move on only for you to prance back to L.A. like the great Poof you are and get back to your own movin’ on.”
Angel sidestepped a well aimed uppercut and lashed out with his knee to Spike’s groin. Spike grunted but absorbed the blow. Seemed being filled with righteous anger worked a wonder as a pain killer.
“Can’t claim those are the acts of love,” he accused. “They’re the acts of a predator, a cat playin’ with a mouse. Can’t tell me that the cat loves Mickey.”
Angel swiped at the blood trickling into his eye and snarled in response. “You can’t love, Spike. You have no soul.”
“Yeah, so says the expert on both,” Spike countered and moved in for another blow.
“Enough!”
At Buffy’s barked order Spike dropped his arm to his side immediately. Angel, fully enraged by now thanks to Spike’s home truths and with his demon in the fore, took the opening to get in a cheapshot.
“I said enough!” Buffy grabbed Angel’s arm before he could get in another.
The rest of the gang were huddled on the front porch watching the spectacle having heard the whole fight along with Buffy.
“He started it,” Angel whined.
Spike swiped at the blood dripping from his forehead but stayed silent. He had the feeling that anything he said would only cause him to lose whatever regard Buffy had for him already. Seemed he always lost out to the great poof.
Buffy, however, was glaring at her ex having spared only a glance at Spike. There was more fire in her eyes than Spike had seen since before she took that dive off of Glory’s tower.
“Angel you need to go home. Sunnydale hasn’t been your home for a few years now. Your life and interests are all in L.A. It’s pretty clear your concerns are more important than mine. That’s probably the way it should be. We’ve been over for a long time.”
“Buffy you got it all wrong!” Angel shot her his very best wounded puppy look. “I didn’t explain what happened right. That’s why I followed you home. I realized you didn’t understand.”
“I understood perfectly.” Buffy wrapped her arms around her stomach as if to hold herself together. “You were busy with your own trouble there in L.A. and didn’t think we might need help here for the annual apocalypse. Then when you found out I had died you were too … how did you put it? Devastated … yeah … to be able to offer to help out here. You needed to go chant mantras and stuff. What part of that didn’t I understand?”
Angel looked a bit sheepish with everyone’s eyes on him, some with clear disapproval. “Well yes … er … no! You make it sound so selfish and trivial! I was devastated, you have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you love that much.”
Buffy blinked several times and looked at him in amazement. “Really? Really? Just before I died I buried my mother or had you forgotten that?”
“Of course I remember Buff, I came to comfort you.”
“And then left again even though I begged you to stay.”
“I couldn’t. You know that.”
“Funny how others can stand to be around me even if they can’t have me in their bed.” If Angel could blush he would have been scarlet. “Some people can love me and not even count on a kiss but they stay and have my back,” she shot a side glance at Spike.
“Spike?” Angel looked gobsmacked as did Spike but for different reasons. “You’re seriously comparing me with that moron? Our love with whatever it is he thinks he feels?”
“Spike acts like someone who loves me. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck … I’m calling duck.”
“Yeah well that idiot just …”
“I’m not discussing Spike with you Angel. This is about you and how you don’t have anything to offer. Your place isn’t here, hasn’t been for a long time. Go home.”
“Buffy there’s this prophecy I want to tell you about. It’s part of my destiny…”
“You’re right, you have a destiny and it has nothing to do with me or mine.”
“But it does!” Angel looked desperate. “Once I’ve fulfilled all the things I have to do to prove myself I’ll Shanshu.”
“I’m not caring much about your horseshoes or whatever this prophecy thing is. I’m pretty well done with prophecies all together. They never work out the way you expect them to anyway. Besides I’m not too interested in putting my life on hold until you do this whole proving thing. I’m not going to live for centuries like you already have.” Buffy sighed heavily. “Like I said, you are my past.”
“And Spike is your future?” He looked agast.
“I didn’t say that. I’m doing good just to figure out today. Maybe Spike will be in my future, maybe not. I really don’t know. What I DO know is that what we had is over. We aren’t the same people in any way. I don’t know you, Angel, and if tonight is any indication I don’t think I want to.”
“You don’t mean that,” Angel huffed completely affronted.
“You should get going if you want to get to your home and loved ones before sunrise.”
“Buffy you’re my loved one.”
Buffy raised an eyebrow while Spike snorted in disbelief.
“But you’re not mine, now any longer. You were a teenage girls fantasy but I haven’t been her in a long time. Longer than even I knew I guess. I’m a grown up woman with grown up woman’s responsibilities. Maybe it’s time for you to grow up too.”
Angel looked at the sky, calculating the time before the sun would make an appearance. ‘Once I Sanshu and Spike has messed things up like he always does she’ll be mine again,’ he reasoned. “Fine. You know where to reach me if you need me.” He shot a longing look back at Buffy as he headed for his car.
Buffy and Spike looked at one another in silence neither sure just what to say to the other for a moment.
Since the evening’s drama appeared to be at an end the Scoobies, Giles and Dawn retreated to the house. None of them were particularly anxious to test Buffy’s mood. No one could remember her ever really being angry with Angel before. Hurt yes but not angry. No one was sure just what that meant or who else might be on the wrong end of her displeasure.
Buffy turned to face Spike fully. “You made some good points there Spike. Don’t know how you can but it’s pretty obvious you can love and that you do love me … and Dawn.”
“Been sayin’ that for quite a while now. What makes you finally believe me?”
“My mom used to say that actions speak louder than words. Your actions have been pretty much screaming at least since Glory used you as a pinata. I just had to actually open my eyes to see … or maybe that’s my ears to hear. Open something anyway.”
Spike looked dumbfounded. Of all the things he expected from this night’s confrontation the last thing he would have anticipated would be for Buffy to finally accept that his emotions were real. Suddenly his look changed to complete and utter awe as Buffy continued.
“Thanks for everything you did for Dawnie and for the gang while I was dead, Spike. It matters.”
She felt a bit odd seeing the way he was looking at her just because she had bothered to thank him. It bordered on worship and she wasn’t sure how that made her feel.
“Don’t need to thank me Buffy. I’m sorry I didn’t do right on that tower. If I had you’d have been here takin’ care of ‘em yourself.”
Buffy remembered Spike’s confession right after she had been resurrected. Seems he was still blaming himself for her death. “And you’d probably have been there helping. Look Spike, I can’t say I love you. I can’t say what I feel, not sure if I feel anything much at all about anyone or anything right now to be honest. Mostly I just feel overwhelmed.”
Spike shook his head as if to clear it, “Anything I can help with?”
Buffy let out a short burst of laughter, the first he’d heard since her return. “Any career advice? Giles gave me a check to help but it won’t do more than let me tread water a bit longer. There’s a stack of bills in there,” she pointed towards the house, “big enough to bury me all over again and I don’t think I can dig my way out of that grave.”
Spike cocked his head to one side and looked like he was in deep thought.
Finally he grinned, “How do you feel about digging? Seem to remember a nice pile of shiny’s that might fetch a decent amount. Might even put you and the Bit through Uni and then some. Pretty positive could slay that pile of bills that’s got you troubled.
Buffy blinked and then remembered something about a whole treasure that Spike had uncovered a couple of years earlier. “I’ll bring the shovels.”
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Spike quoted.
“Really? Casablanca?” Buffy giggled.
“Not gonna start singin’ the bloody Marseillaise,” Spike vowed.
Buffy gave him a chuckle and headed towards the house clearly expecting him to join her.
“I saw that film when it was first released, pet. Yours isn’t the first generation to do movie quotes you know.” He bumped his shoulder into Buffy’s good naturedly. “Now about that excavation plan……”
~fin