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| Sooner or Later, Part 4 of a series, cont'd |
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| "D'ya understand then, why I didn't know how, or if, or...how...." "Spike, you leaving Rome was one of the most unselfish things you've done. Aside from the whole world saveage, that is...." She smiled at him again and reached out to cup his cheek. "Besides, I kinda got a feeling a while back that, just like me, gone might not mean gone." "You got a feelin'? Like your Spidey-sense? By the prickin' of your thumbs?" He was teasing her, feeling a bit euphoric from her touch, and the sheer unreality of her being here with him. "Well, there were dreams...a whole bunch of them. I started paying attention, and...well, it just seemed like you weren't that far away. Turned out I was right." She took her hand from his cheek, but before he could feel the loss too keenly, he found his own, which had been alternating between sitting in his lap and fidgeting with the gearshift, lying between the warmth of both of hers. She was speaking very earnestly now, leaning towards him in her urgency. He had to remind himself to focus on her words. " -- remember anything?" "What? I mean, remember -- what, exactly?" "Just anything. Between that day and when you reappeared in LA? Thoughts...sensations...anything?" "Nothin'. Like I said, it seemed like I was down there one second," he nodded his head in the direction of the pit, "an' I was standin' in Angel's office the next. 'Cept...eh, that's nothin'." "What's nothing?" "Nothin'. I mighta felt like I was fallin', 's all. Like I said, nothin'." Buffy said nothing for a bit, just closed her eyes and smiled. Spike was used to Buffy being closed off, but easy-to-read in her very defensiveness. This was more enigmatic. She wasn't really trying to hide, so that what was going unsaid was much tougher to guess at. "Luv, you wonderin' what part of the netherworld I was at? Which afterlife I scored? 'Cause I got nothin' --" "No, it's not that...I just wondered how many of my guesses were right." "And...?" "Some. Maybe most. So, tell me." "Beg pardon?" "Tell me...it's been a year. I know a little. But I don't know it like you'd tell it. I--," for a moment, the old, self-conscious version of herself returned, and her gaze slid away from him, and her cheeks flushed just a bit, before she cleared her throat and looked him in the eyes again. She gave his hand a squeeze, and continued, "I've missed you. Talking. Listening to you talk. So...tell me?" So, he told her. Just about all of it. He left out the bit about the Shanshu prophecy, not certain that he believed it anyway, and uncertain how to convey the implications. He hesitated to confess to test-driving his corporeality with Harmony, but his awareness of her mussing the sheets with the Immortal for weeks or months -- still?, he paused to wonder -- made him commit to full disclosure. Still, he hurried past the details, knowing that it was stupid to feel guilty for it, but helpless to escape the sense of having perpetrated an infidelity. She asked him the occasional question as his narrative continued. At times, he'd fall silent and thoughtful, and she'd wait patiently for him to pick up the thread, or begin a new one. As he neared the end, describing events of the previous few days, Buffy nodded knowingly, so that he raised an eyebrow at her. She correctly read the request to explain. "Giles called this morning...er, last night...well, while I was waiting in the airport in Rome, and said it seemed that something major was going down in LA, but it was too early to determine what. There were words...metaphysical energy...disruptive vibratory events.... You know how excited he gets. I got the gist of it." "So, d'they know you're here?" "Maybe someone suspects. But I didn't mention it. Just said I wanted to be alone for a few days, and I was going to a spa. Which I will do before I go back, so it's almost not even a lie!" He laughed then, and pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead. "What was that for?" "I've missed you...so much. You don't know how many times I started to come to you. I even tried to phone you once. It wasn't pretty." "I can imagine. I don't see you as much of a phone guy." "Not much." "So, big battle against big evil. You're still here. How'd it go?" He sighed. He'd been waiting for that one. "Angel? Dunno. We all got separated in the fighting, I passed out, and when I came around, it was like it'd never happened. Sorry, pet." She shrugged, "S'okay. Not your job to keep tabs. Just to take care of you, and hope it all turns out okay. Guess you were surprised to come out of it, huh?" "Eh, I'm like a cat wi' m'nine lives. Not too surprised to wake up dead or alive, anymore!" It was her turn to arch her eyebrow at him. "Alive?" "Phht. You know what I mean." |
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