spring taut again. No doubt to be dashed all over later, Spike mused. Isn't that how it generally works? Sooner or later, the inevitable disappointment.... But on further reflection, he could admit that he'd always been a slave to that hope, and wasn't likely to change. He even used to revel in his own dogged determination to maintain that sliver of an inkling of a dream, no matter how impossible its fulfillment. So, he'd hope, and follow any last possibility until it was, at last, well and truly obliterated, because he really couldn't do anything else.
That acknowledgement brought a certain fatalistic peace with it. Spike closed his eyes, and sleep flitted about the edges of his consciousness, though his mind wandered for some time before it claimed him. When he awoke on their arrival at LAX, he couldn't remember much of the ground that he'd mentally meandered -- an image here, a memory there. But hope, however ill-fated, had forged an idea, one that he remembered very clearly.
It wasn't anything that he could act on today. But, eventually, Angel would turn his back on that cellphone of his, and Spike would capitalize on the opportunity to examine the numbers in the speed dial -- check and see if any of them were international -- say, to Italy! Nope, not today, but sooner or later.... |
