The phone rings incessantly and I fumble to try and find it. Moses rolls off my chest and I curse beneath my breath at being woken when it’s still dark. It’s probably Angel with some mission that couldn’t wait until a decent hour.

“Hello,” I mumble into the receiver as I stare bleary eyed at the clock that says five AM.

“Spike?” Her voice is like sunshine to my sorry soul and I feel the quiver of anticipation begin in my heart and quickly spread like wild fire through the rest of me.

The tears are already forming but then they are never really gone.

“Hello, Luv,” I whisper back to her. Wondering what catastrophe has brought her back to me. It’s been almost three years since I died in that cave and almost two years and six months since I was brought back because somebody decided I deserved a second chance at being human. And it’s been two years and four months that Buffy and I play this game. Is she done baking? Are her cookies for me or for Angel? Is she ready to settle down or does she still need to fly? And I almost laugh because I was just letting go again.

“It’s been bad these last few months. We’re in Vegas of God all places. Dawn and Xander just got married in this little wedding chapel. Damn them. Make me go all sentimental.” She says in that annoyed little voice of hers.

“So, you decide to give me a ring?”

“Yeah, hey, Baby, I’ve been thinking about a trailer by the sea. We could go to Mexico…you, the cat and me. We’ll drink tequila and look for sea shells. Now doesn’t that sound sweet?”

I rub a hand over my face as I listen to her words. Three times in two years we’ve gotten together. Spend days together or there was that time that it lasted almost three months. Time spent making love, sharing dreams, having fun and then it all hits again. We look at each other and remember the pain, the ones who died and all the things we lost that day and she slips away again; trying to find that normal that will never come. How can you ever be ‘normal’ when you have buried girls in your backyard, your entire history was wiped away in a single moment and you’ve looked out over hell? It will always haunt her and I will always remind her. So, this game continues, can’t live with each other and can’t live apart. We’re the only ones who understand the other and it leaves us in a hellish position of never being able to truly let go.

And every time she leaves again, I spend days in tears before I pull myself together. After the last time she left I got myself a cat, Moses, some alley creature I stumbled across one night when I was out on an all night drinking binge. Nothing seemed to matter. Until I tripped over this scrap of gray fur that was in more pain than me and well, Moses, he became my reminder of a promised land that never comes and…

“Yeah, baby, sounds real sweet,” I finally answer her.

“How’s Moses?”

She hasn’t even bothered to ask how I am. Just the damn cat but dutifully I answer her.

“Moses, he’s just fine but he used to think about you all the time. We finally took your pictures down off the wall. Buffy, how do you always seem to know just when to call?”

And as usual she doesn’t apologize. I’ve never given her any reason to think that she should. I’m love’s bitch after all and in the end it’s always her that I’m a bitch for.

“Get your stuff together. Bring Moses and drive real fast. I swear this time it’s gonna last.”

And for a moment I lay there in the dark and let her dreams wash over me. And I think about her, about touching her again, and I laugh as I decided to dream along with her again. Was there any real question of me refusing her?

“Yeah, we’ll go. I’ll love you in the sunshine; lay you down in the warm white sand. And who knows, maybe this time things will turn out just the way you planned.”

Buffy laughs that silly little giggle that was never heard in those last days in Sunnydale and I’m glad that I can give her that.

So, I do what I always do. I pack up and go to get her. Because maybe this time….

TBC

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Chapter 2 – California Rain

It’s been two years since that morning Buffy called me from Vegas. She hasn’t left yet but sometimes, sometimes, like this night I feel the restlessness in her. And I wonder why I’m not good enough to give her everything she needs. My dreams are tucked away in a corner of my soul, I’m too afraid to even look at them. Afraid that they’ll disappear like I know she will one day. I just don’t know why this time it’s lasted so long. Maybe nothing else to hang onto now that Dawn was married and didn’t need her anymore. I don’t want to just be convenient to her. I want to be her everything; like she is to me.

It’s the middle of the night and I watch the rain from the old couch in our living room. I hear her moving toward me but I don’t turn around as I wait for her. Buffy puts her arms around me and runs her fingers through my hair.

“Baby, let me dry your eyes,” she croons in my ear. “You mean by now, you still don’t realize that everything I want is what I got. So, stop thinking about all the things you’re not.”

I want to believe her. I really do. Everyday now she tells me how much she loves me and it’s me that is too afraid to let go and let her in. There are just too many good-byes between us and I’m always afraid that there’s going to be a next one.

There’s a trailer by the sea down in Mexico. We dreamt about it a lot but we never did go. After I picked her up in Vegas, we returned to Los Angeles for me to finish packing and I never did. The days slipped away as I continued to work with Angel for Wolfram and Hart. Eventually she started taking classes again. We took a chance and moved to a little house on a side street here. It’s got hard wood floors and a big front porch and trees all around the place. We’ve been slowly adding personal touches to the place as time goes by and we become a little more secure. I don’t think we’ll ever get to Mexico but I guess some dreams are better from afar, that’s just how things are.

“Come back to bed, Spike,” she whispers, tugging on my hand.

I follow her back to our big brass bed with the quilt we found in an antique shop one Saturday when we had nothing better to do. She holds her arms out to me and I curl into her. Listening to her heart beat and to her still humming some tune, I begin to drift to sleep. One of these days I’m just going to have to realize that life is everything God meant it be. But for now…

~~~The End~~~
Spuffy Fic
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