Buffy
Chapter 1 – Any Dream to Me
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.
Buffy, paint your pictures ‘bout how its gonna be
By now I should know better, your dreams are never free
"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…
Oh, Buffy, you always do this every time I get back on my feet.
"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.
Oh, Buffy, you can always sell any dream to me.
So, I do what I always
do. I pack up and go to get her. Because maybe this time….
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.
And Buffy sings as soft as the California Rain
Comin’ down easy on a window pane
"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.
Buffy sings warm as a late night summer breeze
Hummin’ some faraway tune to the willow trees
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…
Everything is all right
cause Buffy’s singing me to sleep tonight
~~~The End~~~