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Been Here Too Few Years	By : addielogan Category: > Buffy/Spike(William) > Buffy/Spike(William) Views: 18659 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Three Years Later�
On the one hand, Buffy was glad to know
Spike had moved on. The last thing she wanted was for Spike to keep suffering
over losing her instead of having the good life she'd set him free to live.
On the other, when she couldn't even as much
as stand in the check-out line at the grocery store without having the love of
her life's current relationship thrown in her face, things were difficult.
Spike's recently-begun relationship with
actress Eve Hart had become all the rage in Hollywood gossip, making it very
difficult for Buffy to ignore the painful reminders that Spike was no longer
hers. Even after all the years since she'd last seen him, memories of Spike and
what she'd lost still cut deeply, sometimes still even driving her to tears. It
had been especially difficult when the first album had shot Spike into
superstardom almost overnight and made it as if he was still surrounding her,
something reminding her of what she'd lost at every turn. For months, she
hadn't even been able to turn on the radio, the same song that had driven her
from the studio suddenly taunting her constantly.
Then, things had reached a lull for a while,
and although Spike had not completely left the eye media by any means, he hadn't
been quite such a focus, and she'd been able to find some relief.
Until the second album was finally ready to
be released. There'd been some delay, something about a problem with
management, Buffy had heard, though she hadn't paid enough attention to know
exactly what, but now the album was days away from hitting the store shelves
and the band was caught up in a media frenzy.
With their lead singer and
his new love interest right at the center of it all.
"Uh, are you going to buy that stuff or
not, 'cause there's a line behind you."
Buffy looked up quickly at the cashier. "Oh, sorry. I got, um, distracted for a moment by the
magazines," she admitted with a slight blush as she emptied the contents
of her basket onto the conveyor belt.
"I don't blame you for that one
bit," the woman behind her in line teased. "That Spike guy is pretty
yummy. You should check out the latest issue of Ok! He just spent a week
off somewhere tropical with that Eve Hart, and there's
lots of nice ones of him out on the beach. Boy, does that man know how to keep
in shape."
Buffy smiled even though she was really
wishing the ground would simply open up and swallow her. "Yeah, he
does," she said, thinking of just how intimately she truly knew his
well-formed body.
"That's gonna be twelve
seventy-nine," the cashier said, pulling Buffy's attention back to her
shopping.
Buffy reached into her pocket and pulled out
a twenty, then handed it to the cashier and waited for her change. When she had
that and her receipt, she gave the woman next in line a quick smile before
grabbing her bag and heading out of the store and into the parking lot.
When she got to her car, Buffy had to sit
for a moment, taking deep breaths to calm herself. It
was so tempting to start ordering all of her groceries online� They had those
no-candy aisles for parents who didn't want their children tempted�couldn't
they have a no-tabloid aisle for people who didn't want to have to see their
now-famous ex-boyfriends with a gorgeous actress draped all over them?
Really, she didn't think it would be too
much to ask.
She took one more deep breath, running her
hands through her long, blonde hair as she did before picking her keys up from
her lap and sticking them into the ignition. She didn't have time for a
breakdown now�it was Monday morning, and she had to get to work.
Buffy started the car and fought to push
Spike back out of the front of her mind.

***
*** ***
"Someone's got an admirer�" Buffy
heard as soon as she walked into work. She turned towards Kathy at the front
desk and realized she was the person the receptionist talking to.
"Me? What are you talking about?"
Buffy asked.
"Go in your office and look,"
Kathy replied with a smile Buffy had always found more than a little annoying.
Buffy did go into her office, and she gasped
at the sight of a dozen red roses in a glass vase on her desk. She plucked the
card from the bouquet and read it.
Thanks for a wonderful time Saturday
night.

�� R.
With a sigh, she dropped the card onto her
desk and walked out, going down the hall to the last door on the left and
knocking. At the response of, "Come in!" she walked inside and shut
the door back behind her.
"You know, this whole thing isn't going
to stay a secret for very long if you keep sending me flowers," Buffy
said, her hands planted on her hips.
From behind his desk, Robin Wood leaned back
in his chair. "I put them in there when no one else was here yet," he
replied. "Besides, Buffy, there's not a district policy that says the
principal can't date a guidance counselor. The only way it would be a problem
is if we decided to get married, and then one of us would have to switch
schools. I don't know why you want to be so secretive about everything
anyway."
"I don't want to be gossip," Buffy
said.
Robin leaned forward again, meeting her eyes
as he did. "And what if we take things past the couple of dates we've been
on, Buffy?" he asked. "I really like you, and honestly, I'm hoping
this can turn into something more."
"Then we'll be gossip-worthy,"
Buffy replied. She sighed. "It's not that I don't like you, Robin, because
I do. It's just I've only been here for a semester, and I don't want things to
get all awkward. Can you let this just stay between us for a little while
longer? Please?"
Robin frowned for a moment before he smiled
at her. "All right. I can do that."
Buffy smiled back. "Thank you."
She turned to leave, then stopped with her hand on the door and looked over her
shoulder at him. "And thanks for the flowers, too. They're
beautiful."
"You're welcome," Robin told her,
his grin widening as Buffy walked out of his office.

***
*** ***
Buffy hadn't been working as a high school
guidance counselor for long before she discovered another downside of being the
ex-girlfriend of a famous, drool-worthy musician�teenaged girls were big fans
of ripping pictures out of magazines and sticking them everywhere. She
could barely go down the hallway without seeing Spike's face posted in
someone's locker.
And then there were the notebooks. Buffy
thought those ones with the clear sleeve fronts should be outlawed, especially
now as Spike looked up at her from one with his damn tongue curled. Maybe she
could confiscate it by deeming it inappropriate for school. She'd always said
that look was damn near close to porn�
"Um, Miss Summers, what do you think I
should do?"
Buffy's eyes widened as she realized the
girl across from her had been talking and she hadn't heard a word of it. Crap�
"Well, what do you want to do, Amanda?" she asked, clasping
her hands in front of her as she mentally congratulated herself on a good save.
"I don't know. I mean, sometimes, when
he picks on me I want to hit him real hard, right in the face. But sometimes, I
want to kiss him. It's confusing."
Well, that was something Buffy knew she
could relate to� "Boys are
always confusing like that," Buffy told the girl. "It's like
something programmed into those Y-chromosomes of theirs."
"So what should I do then?" Amanda
asked.
"It all depends on how much you're
willing to deal with," Buffy replied. "If you make the first move,
there's a chance he'll like you back, but there's also the chance you'll have
to deal with rejection�which is never easy. And then even if he does
like you back and you do start a relationship, that
can all end badly, too. Relationships are hard work, especially when you add
them to trying to deal with school and all of that. And boys, well, with all of
their annoyingness, they can really sweep you away, too. I mean, one minute
you're determined to avoid them and all those possibilities for heartache, and
the next you're staring into those gorgeous blue eyes and believing beyond a
shadow of a doubt that this time, it'll actually be different, even when you know
it's all going to come crashing down and you'll be miserable all over
again."
Amanda blinked. "Um, his eyes are
brown�"
"Uh, right. Those were, um, metaphorical blue eyes."
"So you're saying I shouldn't ask him
out?"
"I'm saying you should weigh all the
possibilities and decide if he's really worth the time�and risk�that comes with
being in a relationship."
"That's the part I don't know,"
Amanda said with a frown. "I mean, sometimes, I think I totally hate him,
but then other times, I feel like if I don't finally kiss him, I'm just going
to die. Is that weird?"
Buffy shook her head. "Scarily enough,
no, it isn't. There's something about love�it makes you go crazy."
Amanda smiled slightly. "That's good to
hear. I was starting to think I might need to be medicated or something."
"No, you're all normal," Buffy
replied with a chuckle. "Welcome to the wonderful world of hormones."
"You're way cooler than the other
guidance counselors," Amanda said, her smile growing. "You talk to me
like I'm a real person, and not just some dumb kid. None of the other adults
around here do that�I like it."
"Thank you," Buffy said, smiling
back. "I remember what it's like to be a teenager, how hard it is when you
think no one around understands you. I want all of you guys to know there is
someone around who understands�as I serve as a living testament to the fact
that it is actually possible to survive your teen years intact."
Amanda laughed. "I appreciate it. And I
know a lot of the other students do, too. You're our favorite grown-up on
campus, you know."
"Well, I have an unfair advantage. I
don't give you grades, and when you come to my office, it's to talk all about
yourselves," Buffy teased, though Amanda's words had touched her deeply.
She wanted to give these kids what she hadn't had when she was their age and
hopefully prevent them from knowing the same sort of pain and loneliness she
had. It's why she'd chosen to go into school counseling even when several of
her professors and classmates had told her she was insane and should go into
private practice instead. For one thing, she'd never make the sort of money she
could there in a high school.
But Buffy didn't care about the money. Sure,
it would be nice if she could afford a few more luxuries, but she weighed that
against the benefits she got from genuinely helping people and knew what
she wanted to do.
"Still, we like you better than the
other guidance counselors, too," Amanda insisted. "For one thing, the
first question out of your mouth when we come in isn't, 'What
do you want to do with you life?'" She rolled her eyes. "Like
I know the answer to that at fifteen."
"You have plenty of time to figure that
out," Buffy told her. "I certainly didn't know in high school. It
took living in the real world for a little bit first in order to figure it
out."
"I keep trying to tell my parents that,
but my mom thinks I should already be working on becoming a lawyer,"
Amanda muttered.
"Well, here's what you do about
that," Buffy told her, leaning forward in her chair. "We have
second-semester activity sign-ups starting soon. Sign up for the mock trial
club, see how you like it. Maybe your mom is wrong, and being a lawyer isn't
for you at all�but you won't know until you try it on for a bit. For all you
know, you could discover being up in a courtroom is your passion, and
you'll love it. Or, you won't, but if you go ahead and test it now before your
decisions about things like this really make that big of a difference in the
long run, it'll be no harm, no foul. Catch my drift?"
Amanda's smile returned. "Yeah, I do.
That does make sense. And hey, if I'm in mock trial for a little while, at
least it'll keep my mom off my back."
"There ya go," Buffy said.
"Give a little and get a little. And if you don't like it, at least you
can say you gave it a try when your mother brings it up. It gives you a little
more room there, you know?"
"Yep. Wow, you're like, all kinds of helpful." The
bell rang loudly then, and Amanda jumped up. "Ooh, that's my lunch bell. Thanks, Miss Summers!"
"You're welcome," Buffy called
after the girl as Amanda ran out of the office.
Buffy leaned back in her chair, a smile on
her face. Maybe her love life wasn't exactly on the track she wanted it to be
on, but at least she was good at her job�even if all of the students probably
weren't as enthusiastic about her as Amanda seemed to be, Buffy knew she was
making a difference, and she could feel good about that.
Her attention turned back to her desk, and
she realized with a frown Amanda had left her notebook. Her gorgeous, sexy
notebook� Buffy shook her head, then picked it up, turning it over so Spike
was no longer staring up at her as she left her office to find Amanda and
return the binder.

***
*** ***
I know I made a big time jump, but did
anyone really want to read about them being apart with no contact at all for an
extended period of time? I didn't think so�
As for people asking how many chapters are
left, I don't know. I don't really think in terms of chapters�the story's over
when I've told all I want to tell. I've written up through fifty-two, and the
story's not finished there, so it's going to be a while. Beyond that, I really
can't tell you exactly how long it's going to be.
Please review!
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Been Here Too Few Years