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The Butterfly Effect	By : cousinjean Category: > Buffy/Spike(William) > Buffy/Spike(William) Views: 27632 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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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The Butterfly Effect

by cousinjean

*

Chapter Eight

***

She heard water running in a sink. Dawn must be up. Buffy considered opening her eyes to see what time it was, but the room was still dark and her pillow was so soft that she decided to roll over and burrow under the covers instead. When she tried to move her gut caught on fire and pain exploded through her, making her yelp.

A door opened, spilling light into the room, and out stepped Spike. The sight of him made her breath catch. His face and front were hidden in shadow, but the light behind him outlined his form, casting his pale skin and hair in a soft golden halo. "Slayer?" he asked. "You awake?"

"Getting there," she said, squinting at her surroundings. A nightstand beside the bed held a lamp. She started to reach for it and groaned.

"Watch it!" Spike rushed to turn it on for her. "You'll get yourself to bleeding again." He pulled her covers back and sat beside her to inspect her bandages while she took in the room. He'd brought her to a motel, obviously, and not one of the nicer ones around town. She didn't need to ask where. This looked like the place where Faith used to stay. Buffy looked down, bemused to see that she wore nothing but her skivvies and sterile gauze wrapped thickly around her middle. She watched Spike's hands gently pass over his handiwork, and thought how sexy this would be if not for the army of tiny Polgara demons currently poking at her insides. "For a while there I thought I wasn't gonna get you to stop." He glanced up at her. "Not exactly used to patching people up."

She examined his work and nodded approval. "Not bad for a first try."

"More like my fifth. I was a bit out of practice."

"Wow. Thorough."

"Yeh, well. Thought you were a goner there for a while."

Buffy shrugged. "I've had worse."

The corners of his mouth turned up and he looked at her through his lashes. "If you're trying to impress me, you're doing a hell of a good job." He tilted his head and regarded her for a moment. "Anybody ever tell you you're amazing?"

Her heart sped up, and she smiled. "You might've mentioned it once or twice."

"I better have." He brushed her hair back from her face, letting his fingers trail through her locks until his hand rested against her shoulder. His thumb traced a line up and down her neck. Oh, why did that have to feel so good? "Think I'm starting to see what I saw in you."

Buffy looked down, suddenly extremely aware of her near-nakedness. "Right now you're seeing a lot of what you saw in me."

"Oh, right." Spike pulled his hand away. "Um, sorry." He pulled the covers back over her as he stood up. "Your, uh� your pants are hanging up to dry." He pointed toward the bathroom. "Got most of the blood out of 'em, but your shirt's a lost cause." A black tee-shirt hung over the back of a chair. "Here," he said, picking it up and tossing it in her lap.

She picked it up and sniffed it, expecting it to smell like him. But to her disappointment it smelled recently laundered. "Where'd this come from?"

"I keep a change of clothes in my trunk." He perched on the back of the chair. "Keep a lot of things back there, just in case. I like to be prepared."

"Aren't you a regular boy scout?"

He flashed a grin and ducked his head, doing that bashful thing he did that was so damn adorable, all the more so because it was sincere. She was getting to him. That made her smile as she started to put on the tee-shirt. But as she raised her arms to pull it over her head, her wound protested and she hissed in pain.

Spike was there in a flash. "Here, easy now," he said, helping her with the shirt. Spike putting clothes on her. That was a new twist.

She looked up at him, careful not to let her eyes linger too long on his bare chest. "What about you?"

"Mine's drying. Couldn't get all the blood out of it, but�" He shrugged. "'S one of the advantages of wearing black. Oh, here." He went to the dresser and grabbed a brown paper bag. "Thought you should eat something. Build your strength."

Buffy opened the bag and peeked in, and was assaulted with the smell of overcooked meat from some greasy spoon. A little more greasy than her stomach could handle at the moment. "Maybe later," she said, closing the bag and setting it aside. "Pretty sure it wouldn't stay down right now. But thanks," she added hastily as his face fell. "All I've had since I got here was a slice of cold pizza. I'm scheduled to begin starving any minute now."

He nodded. "Sure." Then he stood there, looking uncertainly around the room.

Buffy settled back on her pillows. "Thanks for everything," she told him. "It's funny, you taking such good care of me. The old Spike probably would've left me there to bleed while he ran after the cross." She frowned. "Hey, wait a minute. You are the old Spike. What gives?"

There was that smile again as he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Thought about it. For about a microsecond."

"So why didn't you?"

"Uh� heh. Good question." He scratched the back of his head. "Guess all of a sudden a future without you in it seemed the less tolerable option." His hand went back in his pocket as he stared at her, apparently unsure what to make of her. "Seem to be fighting a losing battle over here, Pet."

"Tell me about it."

"What do you know about it?" he grumped.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you kidding me?" She sat up a little straighter and scooted back against the pillows. "What, you think you told me you were in love with me and I just fell into your arms? I totally wigged."

He squinted at her a moment, mouth hanging open. Then he snorted. "Figures." He folded his arms, hugging himself a little. "I, um� I didn't write you a poem or anything like that, did I?"

"No. Thank God. I mean, that would've added a whole extra layer of wig."

"Yeh," he sighed. "My poetry tended to have that effect on people."

Buffy smiled. "It wasn't that. I just was so not ready to know that about you. I had this idea of you as a hard-core thug. Then when you said you loved me�" She traced the hideous blue and orange paisley pattern on the bedspread. "I guess it wasn't totally out of the blue. I mean, looking back, there were signs. You'd already been there for me by then, way more than I had any reason to expect. But I still had this mindset that we hated each other. It took me a long time to get used to the idea that we didn't." She looked up at Spike. "I wasted a lot of time fighting just the idea of us."

He kept standing there, eyes burning a hole in the foot of the bed. "First time I saw you," he said at last, "I knew. Had this feeling in my gut that you were gonna be my undoing. I ignored it, o' course." He looked at her. "I never dreamed it would be like this."

His words echoed in her memory. "You told me once that you were pretty sure you started falling for me, even then. You said you stood there, watching me dance, and you were supposed to be sizing me up, but you were, um�"

"Entranced."

"Yeah."

He nodded. "Yeh, well, what can I say? Jailbait you's a tasty treat."

That made her grin. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning away from her with his elbows propped on his knees. He turned his head to look back at her. "She's got nothing on the grownup version, though." He smiled. Something caught in Buffy's chest and started to swell. That was her smile. The sweet, adoring one. The one she'd thought she would never see again. The sting of tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she sniffed.

"Spike�"

He turned to face her, straddling her legs with his fists as he pulled himself closer to her. "It's inevitable, innit? You and me?"

She raised a hand to his face, and swallowed. "It's not."

A tear escaped down her cheek. Spike wiped it away, but he looked confused. "Why�?"

"It took a really specific set of circumstances to bring us together. If we mess any of that up, there might never be an us."

He shook his head. "I don't understand, Love. We're here, now. Together. Why should any of the rest of it matter?"

"Spike� God. Don't do this to me."

"Do what?"

"Don't� I can't change anything. Things have to happen the way that they did, or�"

"Or what?"

"Or anything!" She pushed him away and got out of bed. Standing hurt like hell. She tried not to show it, but couldn't help clutching her side.

"Buffy, come on. Sit down." He tried to guide her back to bed, but she batted him away and hobbled over to lean against the chair. He stood back and watched her, his body tensed, frustration rolling off him in waves. "Why can't we just � would it be that terrible if we went away together? You and me, we can make our own future. Go somewhere that you don't have to worry about influencing stuff around here�"

"Don't you get it?" She put her hand on her chest. "This version of me that you find so amazing? If I don't live the life I lived, I won't exist. I won't be around to come here and run away with you. God, don't you think I�" Her head started to spin a little. She moved to sit in the chair, and looked up at him. "About six months from now, I'm going to have to send my boyfriend to hell. In three years, I'm going to come home and find my mother dead on the living room sofa. After that, I'm going to die, and then when I come back I'm going to go through the worst year of my life, and that's out of a lot of bad ones. And then I'm going to have to watch you�" Her face crumpled. She buried it in her hands.

Spike crouched before her and pulled her hands away. "I still can't believe I would just up and leave you."

"You didn't. I told you, it's not like that."

"I don't care how it is. Why would I do that? How could I?"

Buffy shook her head. "Don't you think if I could I'd change it? That I would do whatever it takes to stop all of those things from happening? But I can't. I don't get to, and neither do you!" She sniffed and leaned back in the chair, rubbing her forehead. "There's too much at stake. Please try and understand that." He just squatted there, hands resting on her knees. She reached out and stroked his hair. "We will happen. When the time is right. That's how it has to be."

He pursed his lips. "Right. Think I get it." He stared up into her eyes. "If I'm to fall in love with you properly, I have to forget that it's already happening."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Yeh," he said, nodding. "Me too." He stood up. "I have to go."

"Spike, don't-"

But he was already in the bathroom. He came back out tugging his shirt on. "You need to rest, build your strength. Get ready to take on Mudge."

"What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna find the bugger." He picked his coat up from the dresser and shrugged into it. "Sooner we get him, sooner you can get back to your life. And let me get on with mine."

He sounded angry. No, not angry, exactly. Hurt. "Spike, please don't take off like this."

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "I can't stay here, Love. If I do�." Swallowing, he turned back to her, a wistful smile softening his face. "If I find out just exactly what I�m having to give up�" He shook his head. "I won't be able to let go."

Holding herself, Buffy nodded. "Be careful."

He stared at her a moment longer. "Get some sleep, Slayer. I'll be back by sunrise." Then he was gone.

Buffy didn't know how long she sat there, wrapped up in his shirt, wishing it was him. She knew she was being selfish, wanting him. He wasn't hers yet, and he shouldn't be. Giving him more� taking more from him than he was ready to give was only going to hurt him.

But then he'd forget it all. And he still had her in his future. All hers held of him was a beat up old lighter and a heart full of memories and grief. She needed this. Needed him. Most of all, she needed to know that at some point in time, even if only for a moment, there was no doubt in Spike's mind that she loved him.

She could at least do that much before she had to leave him.

***

He needed a drink.

He'd said he was going out to look for Mudge. But instead he just drove around, not paying attention to much, certainly not to where he was going, and trying not to think, until he ended up here. Where he'd brought Buffy the night before. Or was it her who'd brought him? The first implied that he had some kind of control over what was happening to him, but he lost that with the first punch he'd thrown at her in that alley.

When he first sat down he had intended to get good and pissed so that he wouldn't have to think about what to do next. But after a couple tumblers of bourbon he started considering plans for getting control back. Entertaining thoughts of taking her away and making her stay with him. She wanted it as much as he did, no matter what she said. She'd probably stop protesting soon as he got her away. Take her someplace warm and isolated, where they could sleep through the hot days and spend balmy nights making love under the stars.

Spike grinned. He liked that fantasy. But his grin faded as he pictured her fading into nothing, like that kid in those Spielberg movies, and he waved the waitress over for a refill.

He imagined saving her. Fixing it somehow so that she didn't have to go through the things that awaited her. But every scenario he could come up with ended the same way. One wrong move could blink her right out of existence. Or just get the younger her killed. Or him killed, for that matter.

At the very least, maybe he could keep himself from leaving her. As he puzzled over what could possibly make him do that, he thought of Drusilla as he'd last seen her, lying in their bed all peaceful and reposed, trusting him to come home to her with a cure. Spike put his head in his hands and laughed until his eyes watered. How could he leave Buffy, indeed? As easily as he could leave Dru, apparently. God, what a hypocrite he was.

But that was different, wasn't it? After all, Dru would be doing the leaving in a matter of months. Nearly a hundred and twenty years they'd been together, and she was gonna throw it all away. If that meant so little to her, why should it mean so much to him?

But it did. And yet�

He loved Drusilla. He did. And yet suddenly it felt like all these years, he'd just been biding his time with her, waiting for� for someone who saw him. Really saw him, saw the man that he still was, that they hadn't been able to kill. For someone who could give as good as she got, whether fighting or fucking or� or just talking, even. Comforting each other. Watching each other's back. Taking up the other's cause. Someone who was his equal, but also his better, who made him want to be better. Someone�

No. Not someone.

Her.

Buffy.

Spike didn't know if he believed in fate. He used to, back when he was human. Thought it such a romantic notion. He'd believed he was fated to meet Dru, once. Over the years, though, he'd come to see less and less evidence that there was anyone driving him but himself, with nothing but his own will shaping his existence. But as he stared into his tumbler, he thought he could see patterns emerging, choices and opportunities that had to be more than chance, and suddenly it seemed that his entire unlife had been designed to bring him here, to her.

Probably not such a good idea to go fucking around with the design now then, was it? But God, did he really have to lose her in order to have her?

He was so lost in his thoughts, and what with his grasp on sobriety tenuous at best, it took him a full minute to realize that someone was sitting across from him, telling him something he should probably be paying attention to. He stared at the green demon for another minute before swallowing the last of his drink and setting the glass on the table. "Want to run that by me again, mate?"

Mudge sighed. "Midnight tomorrow, Restfield? You bring the cash, and I'll bring the cross."

"Uh huh. And just where am I supposed to get� how much, again?"

"Fifty grand."

Spike's eyebrows shot up. "Fifty thousand dollars?"

"No, pesos. Of course dollars, ya schmuck."

Spike nodded. "Right, then. I'll just pop down to the vampire credit union and make a withdrawal, shall I?"

Mudge laughed his greasy little laugh. "Where you get it ain't my problem. But you better get it. Same deal as before, see? Protection spell doesn't get lifted 'til I get paid. And if you bring the Slayer, the whole thing's off."

"Don't have to worry about that," Spike muttered.

"Don't I? After she killed just about all of my potential buyers earlier?"

"Bollocks. She only killed Armoto."

"And let's not forget how she threatened to torture me. Or how you were gonna help." Mudge's lip curled up in disgust. "Y'know, I'd heard how William the Bloody was all cozied up to the Slayer, but I never woulda dreamed it went back this far."

"Yeh, me neither." The waitress set a new tumbler in front of Spike. Grimacing, he picked it up and tossed back about half of its contents.

"Look, I know you got the most to lose by giving up that cross. That's why I'm coming to you all personal. I'm giving you a bargain, here. I could get twice as much selling the book and the cross together."

"I want 'em both," said Spike, staring into his drink.

Mudge snorted. "What're you gonna do with that book?"

"Not really your business to know, is it?" Spike leveled his gaze at the demon. "Bring me the book and the cross, same price."

Mudge's mouth fell open. "Same� did you hear what I said about double?"

"Do you take me for an idiot? We both know the book's worthless without the cross. Both, or no deal."

"We both also know you already got a book that's worthless without the cross. You're not the one in position to make demands, here."

Spike's hand shot across the table and grabbed Mudge around the throat. "How's this position?"

Mudge made some gurgly noises as he tried to pry Spike's fingers loose. Finally he gave up and choked out something about a kitty on an old hook. Spike loosened his grip. "What's that?"

"I already sold the book," Mudge said between gasps.

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Without the cross? To who?"

"That's confidential inf-"

That time Spike hauled Mudge up on the table before the little demon answered him. Letting him go, he slumped back in his seat, confused. "What would Eddie Izzard want with the book?"

Rolling his eyes, Mudge scrambled off of the table and moved out of Spike's reach as he rubbed his neck. "The wizard. Rayne. Said he could come up with a way to translate it on his own, or have fun trying."

Spike sighed. "Isn't that just swell?"

"Look, vampire, do you want the cross or not? If you don't it's no sweat off my hump. I can always find a buyer in some other year."

"I'll be there," said Spike, defeated.

Mudge exposed his teeth. Spike figured it was supposed to be a smile. "See there? I knew you could be reasonable."

"Eh, piss off, you ruddy little extortionist." Spike picked up his drink and slumped deeper in his seat.

"Pleasure doin' business with ya," Mudge muttered as he made his exit.

Spike started to sip his bourbon, but thought better of it. Seemed fate was leaving the decisions up to him, after all. He'd best get sober for this.

*

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The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect