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| You Know Not the Day, Nor the Hour..., cont'd |
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| It was a couple of hours later that soft footfalls on the basement steps broke his concentration. He looked up from his work to see Willow hesitating at the base of the steps. "Hey-a, Red." "Hey-a, Spike. You didn't come up for dinner, so I brought you some blood. Gotta keep your strength up, after all!" Spike stood as she approached him, accepting the warm mug with a nod, and taking a sip or two. "Thanks, Red. Din't realize how late it was. I'd best get ready to patrol with the kiddies." "Whatcha workin' on?" Willow curiously surveyed the paraphernalia he'd spread out on the small table in the basement corner. "Let's call it a little insurance policy." "Huh?" Without replying, Spike set the mug down, and picked up a stick of sealing wax. He dug for a moment in his pocket, extracting his lighter. He lit the candle stub that sat next to the folded pages he'd evidently been laboring over. He deftly passed the wax stick through the flame several times, then smeared a softened glob of wax across the open edges of the paper. He then wrapped a narrow string in both directions around the squared paper, crossing them in the still-soft wax, and pressing them in with his thumb. Willow watched with silent interest as he finished this task. Finally, he looked down at her, and clarified, "an insurance policy. Red, I don't know exactly what's comin'. But if Buffy survives it, and I don't --" and this time, if it's a matter of one of us, by God, it will be me.... He took a breath before continuing, "please give her this." "But, Spike..." "No 'buts', Red. With any luck, when this is all over, I'll ask for it back, and that'll be that. But if not...just make sure she gets it." Dampness glittered in Willow's eyes as she took the letter and tucked it into a pocket. The gentleness in her gaze as she looked at him humbling, and he looked at the table in embarrassment. "Spike...I-- I'll hold this for you, 'til you ask for it back. But," she faltered then, and reached up to cup his cheek for a moment. His astonishment at her caress was evident, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Willow continued, and her hand fell to his shoulder. "I want you to know I'm sorry that we only saw the bad in you for so long. I mean..." Her voice dropped to a whisper, "I understand now that none of us is all good or all bad." She cleared her throat, and her voice strengthened again, "and I just wanted you to know that we all know now how hard you were trying, even when we didn't give you any encouragement. And, I know that love can change someone for the better, and loss can change them for the worse...." An answering dampness had risen in Spike's eyes, and he didn't entirely trust his voice. So he reached out and gave the witch a fierce, quick hug. She squeezed him back, chuckling through her emotion and discomfort. Okay, didn't see that coming, she thought. The vampire released her, cleared his throat and blinked quickly. "Well. Thanks for lettin' me know. Not a word of this to anyone else though -- I gotta keep those Slayerettes thinkin' I'm all vicious and such." They smiled at each other with understanding. Then, Spike's tone softened again. "and I want you to know how sorry I was at losin' Glinda. She was real good people. 'N so are you-- you din't deserve to lose someone like that...Now you get outta here so I can finish my cuppa and get my Big Bad on for the freshmen up there." Willow sniffled and dragged the back of her hand across her eyes as she turned for the stairs. Several minutes later, Spike joined the rest of the patrolling party in the kitchen. "You were hidden down there for a while...what's up?" Buffy's tone was casual, but her sideways glance was rich with piqued feminine curiosity. "What? A body's got to immerse himself all day and all night in teenage girl-y hormones and nail polish? Just gettin' a bit o' me solitude." The slayer raised a questioning eyebrow at him, but let the matter go. ~ / ~ Willow had tucked the letter into the back of the drawer in which she kept her particular private momentos of Tara. She knew it would be safe there -- that no prying eyes would stumble across it accidentally. She was terribly curious as to just what it might contain, though she was quite certain that she knew the tenor of it. She'd hesitated when she'd put it away, considering the handwriting on the outside. It simply read, "Buffy," but the letters were swoop-y and in a hand that she would never have associated with rough-and-tumble Spike. Just goes to show, she'd thought, how right the Victorian education system had been to teach penmanship. As much as she had wanted to know what Spike had written, she'd never have tried to find out. And, she realized, she had to hope that she never would know; that The First would be neutralized, and Spike would take his letter back, and that would be the end of it; that Buffy wouldn't find herself in the position to grieve another loss. Whatever Buffy tried to pretend about her feelings for Spike, Willow knew they were much deeper and more complex than she'd ever admitted -- to herself or anyone else. And if Spike were lost, Buffy would grieve -- and would feel that she had to do so in secret. So, she'd put the letter away, and then lit a second candle on her side table. Ever since Tara's death, she'd kept one burning as a memory to her. Something like a continual prayer -- a prayer for exactly what, she couldn't have said. Now she lit another one, as a prayer for all the rest of them; that they'd all somehow survive the struggle to come. And then, she'd sighed sadly, and gone downstairs to whip up a batch of cookies for the hungry young warriors when they returned. |
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