Part 4: From These Walls

Aloha from the open road! I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post card--didn't that tiger in the picture look just like Miss Kitty Fantastico when she's hungry or nursing a grouch? Anyway, I'm all guilt-girl for making you worry, hence--isn't hence a great word?--this note to let you know I haven't pulled a Thelma. But I'd consider sending the Desoto over a cliff if it meant we could rent something with air conditioning. Hello! Non-vampire onboard! Sweat glands here!

Buffy paused, her pen hovering over the cheap, motel stationary.

She wouldn't tell Willow the whole story, how they'd traveled through Death Valley in the grip of a heat wave. How the windows were wide open and the humidity still thick enough to make breathing uncomfortable. Buffy had squirmed in the passenger's seat and glanced over at Spike, who looked like the poster-boy for some miracle deodorant.

"Why couldn't we have done something less weathery? What's wrong with a nice, cool wine-tasting tour of the Napa Valley?"

He laugh had resonated like a gong, lingered like windchimes. "A little to frou-frou for us love, wouldn't you say? Besides, I've tasted every wine there is."

Well, bully for him. Buffy had pouted, but gradually become aware of the waves of coolness radiating off him. The hotter the weather, it seemed, the cooler he got. In a temperature way, not a Fonz way.

She wouldn't tell Willow how she slid across the seat and wedged herself between the vampire and the steering wheel. Both were hard and unyielding, one pressed to her front and the other to her back. He was like a giant ice-pack, but, of course, that was the great deception of his nature. Inside, he burned with a fierce passion. It filled the place where a soul no longer dwelled.

The car hurtled through the night, and Buffy, straddling Spike's lap, bent and whispered in his ear "We went from ground to sea level within ten miles. It's doing strange things to my cooling system. You should lift the hood and check."

"I'd have to pull over for that, Pet. That what you want?" He was grinning up at her innocently, but that too was a deception. Buffy shook her head.

"God, no. We'll have to play it by ear." She bit down hard on his lobe.

Spike yelped and the car swerved dangerously. Spike had one hand on the wheel and the other down her shorts and they'd almost crashed. And wasn't that the whole allure, the hook, the irresistible attraction of dark creatures. Passion so consuming you might not survive it.

Buffy gnawed on her pen, remembering Willow's reaction to that first phone call.

"Buffy, " She'd squeaked. "Where are you?"

"A phone booth. Listen, Will, I'm with Spike…"

"Oh my Goddess. Is he using rope or chains? Can you get away?"

Buffy bent back to her letter again.

It was pretty sudden, one of the Big Moments that Whistler talked about, the defining ones that actually define us. Remember that poem about the two roads that diverged, Will? To one side lay the fairer path, to the other the fair unknown. The bloke--did I really just write 'bloke'!!!--can't choose where the roads go, only how he'll be on the long walk. Or maybe I just needed to put on my boogie shoes and go, to see something of the world I died to save.

You still got that paper bag, handy, Will? You've probably guessed by now, we're not playing board games in those motel rooms while we wait for nightfall. And its okay if you're not okay with that yet. I'm not really okay with that yet. Mostly because I know it won't last. I want forever, and no man--alive, dead, or in-between--can give me that. Love, death, and the dance…he lumps them all together, thinks their synonymous. And who would know better? Death is on my heels, at my side, and in my bed. It's in the driver's seat, fiddling with the radio.

Two days ago, they'd eaten in another McDonald's.

Watching out of the corner of her eye as Spike unwrapped his burger, Buffy had waited. But all he did was set it down and bend his head to read the colorful mat on the plastic tray. Buffy heaved a hopeful sigh and squeezed dressing onto her salad. Anymore fast food and she'd go home looking like a sexually-satisfied hippo.

Spearing a tomato wedge, she glanced up at him.

He was doing it again. With the burger.

Taking tiny nips out of the patty, sliding his tongue under the lettuce, lapping at the sauce like a blissed-out albino kitten. And the look on his face, the same look he wore when he…

"Stop that!" Buffy threw down her fork. Only Spike could make consuming cholesterol sexually intriguing.

"What?" He was the picture of pious innocence. "I have to eat. I'm a growin' boy."

"You are not growing." And definitely not a boy.

He purred. "Oh, but I am, Love." He deliberately dropped a napkin into his lap. Buffy ignored that, with effort.

"Just…eat."

Like a bored child, he dropped the burger and reached for the carton of fries. Buffy averted her eyes until she couldn't bear it any longer. She pounded the flimsy plastic table, almost overturning their trays.

"Cut that out!" He was eating the fries one at a time, licking the ketchup of each with long, slow swipes of his tongue. She grabbed the potatoes and dumped them in a nearby trash can, leaving Spike's hand hovering where they'd been.

When she sat back down, he'd moved contentedly on to her yogurt sundae. She noticed something sticking from the pocket of his duster. She reached in and pulled out a handful of ketchups and sugars and straws.

"What is this for?" She was truly bewildered.

He shrugged. "Might need 'em."

Buffy resisted the urge to make him put it all back. She wasn't that much of a do-gooder. And she was very, very tired.

Snatching her sundae back, she noted that he'd eaten all the topping off, even chased the hot fudge drips to the bottom of the plastic cup. He still had the spoon in his hand, and was licking the plastic more intimately than he'd licked the fries. At least he hadn't twisted his straw into a phallic shape this time.

Buffy fled to the ladies room, only to see a pair of Doc Martens appear outside the door of her stall a few minutes later.

"Spike, I'm peeing right now!" she yelped, trying to control the splashing sounds long enough to tell him to get lost.

"Oh, sorry." And just like that, he'd done a one-eighty, gone from pest to penitent, from a native of himself to a stranger in the land of mortals. In that regard, Anya was his spiritual sister.

She finished her letter and added a big happy face to the bottom, then frowned. He's insipid, clearly human…She added some pointy fangs and shook the cheap pen vigorously beneath the drawing, creating inky little blood droplets.

Yeah, she was a sick woman. The devil's mistress.

The object of her neurosis appeared in the doorway of their room, yawning. Daylight was evaporating, throwing long shadows onto the hood of the Desoto where Buffy sat, writing home and soaking up the last of the afternoon sunshine. They were moving on toward autumn now. She was glad to live where she did, in a state where fall and winter didn't murder all the warm-weather flowers.

He was sleep-tousled and curly-headed, fresh from dreams she probably didn't want to know about. That first week, driving near Santa Susanna pass, he'd mentioned spending time there in the swinging 60's.

"Didn't the Manson family hang out there?" She'd asked it in all innocence.

He'd nodded. "Yeah. Ol' Charlie. A decent guitar player. We jammed a time or two."

Buffy shuddered.

Maybe if she knew what he looked like in his wilder days…cutting a bloody swath through London, Paris, and New Orleans….high on dope and the blood of hippies…dancing in a subway car with her own spiritual sister. Maybe then, it would be real, not distant and fantastical, like tales of her own birth, like her mother's childhood and the creation of Dawn.

He stepped into the parking lot, swaggering toward her in that rolling way that reminded her of jungle cats and drugstore cowboys, of James Dean and snake oil salesmen. Buffy shoved Willow's letter into the back pocket of her jeans and rose up on her knees, putting another dent in the hood of Spike's car. She held out her arms to him.

He took his time getting there, fingertips dancing along the metal of other people's cars. Buffy wondered if he was thinking about stealing one. With air conditioning. Finally, he stood in front of her, shirt hanging open, pants haphazardly buttoned. No wonder the cleaning ladies love him. Buffy ran her finger along the fault lines of his face, over his forehead. Then, just because, she jabbed a finger into his ear.

"Ouch!" But he was smiling. It was all part of the game.

He leaned forward, whispered, "Hullo, Pet," which was a little silly considering his lips were already on her throat. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and he lifted her off the car. They spun around once, bathed in the glow of the vacancy sign. She remembered doing this in the backyard, next to her dead mother's flower beds, with the scent of Willow's cigarette wafting off the Johnson's hedge

"Hi, Spike, " she said, which was very silly since she was wrapped around him like a Jenga piece.

"We should get going."

"Where to, Ducks?"

She frowned. "I don't know."

"Oh, there. Of course."

Where were they going? Home, eventually. To the crypt, and Revello Drive and Willy's bar, to the Bronze and Willow, and the re-wooing of Anya. To Dawn.

Buffy wondered if the summer had changed her, too.

******************************************************

Willow plucked the mail from the box as she let herself in.

Making her way to the kitchen, she tiredly dropped her text books in a heap on the floor. Her notes spilled out onto the tiles, pages and pages of neat, highlighted lettering. She dropped onto a stool, looked at them sadly. It was a mistake to take so many summer courses, just so that she could graduate a few months earlier. But her inner geek insisted.

Sorting through the mail, Willow's fingers fell on a letter addressed to her, in Buffy's round hand. She examined the envelope, which was wrinkled like someone had rolled on it. So not going there. She tore it open, and her eyes softened as she read it through. Good. Buffy was alive, still human, and not in jail. She hadn't become Bonnie to Spike's Clyde.

And she sounded…happy. Her letter and calls were like a road song celebrating the gypsy life.

At least somebody was healing. Willow rubbed tiredly at her face. Tara was drifting away from her, and Willow could only watch her leave. She'd moved fully out of Willow's shadow into the light of self-confidence and awareness of self. Tara was like an angel, meant to fly. But still…

Willow remembered something Spike said years ago, during that long, devastating summer after Glory.

Willow didn’t want Tara to…shag. Except with her, of course.

She looked at the messy pile of notes and bit her lip. It couldn't hurt, just this once.

There.

Her whispered incantation not only reorganized her papers, but took out her spelling errors and put it all in chronological order. Nice. Slipping back into magic was comforting, like putting on slippers after wearing pumps.

Another incantation and the fridge door flew open. A carton of yogurt hovered above the shelf before shooting toward Willow. She ducked and it crashed into the wall, splattering strawberries and milk across Joyce's wallpaper. Willow sighed.

*************************************************

Xander shuffled from one foot to the other. The hallway outside Anya's apartment smelled like floor polish and rosewater. The building she'd moved into after the break up was ritzier than his. Very chi-chi. Appropriate lodgings for an ex-demon of independent means. The Magic Box was doing very well, probably because people knew not to go in there unless they meant to buy. Anya did a John Mcenroe if they tried to leave empty-handed.

God, he loved her.

He shifted the flowers he'd bought and knocked with a confidence that was patently false. He thought of Buffy and Spike-- finally, he could do it without Maalox on hand--getting their groove on all over the southwest and felt kind of pathetic. Just then, the door swung open. Anya stood there, hands on hips.

And she wasn't alone.

Xander felt his hackles rise and his hair stand on end. His back straightened and his chin went up. One hip shot to the side. He wanted to bare his teeth like an angry dog. Was this what it felt like to be Spike?

The man standing behind Anya was young, professional, and very, very worrisome. Xander hated him instantly, from the top of his dark, perfectly coifed head to the tips of his Italian loafers.

"Xander, I wasn't expecting you." Anya had that tight, false smile on. The one she'd worn when he suggested Bonanza for her birthday dinner. She gestured to the Trump-wannabee. "This is Carlos Jones."

Anya leaned forward confidentially. "He's a banker, thus his own bank account is very large."

Xander was still hovering in the doorway. Jones had his hand extended, smiling insincerely. He smirked like Conrad Birdie in Armani. "I just wanna be sincere…'' Xander stared at the impeccably manicured hand. He suspected the look on his face resembled the one Spike had worn that first time he tasted pig's blood.

Finally, he placed his palm on Don Juan's for the briefest of seconds before withdrawing it.

Anya looked smug, but an undercurrent of hurt ran beneath it all. "Carlos is Latin. He was not raised by alcoholics. We've had sex."

That was all she wrote. Xander flung the pink flowers down onto the pristine white carpet lining the chi-chi entryway of Anya's chi-chi new pad.

"I'm tired of apologizing for that! It wasn't all my fault, either! If you hadn't hurt that man, then he wouldn't have come and showed me such terrible things. Scenes from my nightmares, An! Our house was a mess and Buffy was dead and I hit you with a frying pan and Buffy was dead and our kids were straight out of the Exorcist and Buffy was dead and…" he dragged in a breath. "This will get your attention if nothing else…we had no money, Anya!"

She stared at him. "It's always about Buffy isn't it, Alexander?"

He was so not going there. Stooping, he picked up the dropped bouquet. Anya turned away.

"I'm allergic," she said, though they both knew she wasn't.

Carlos stared at them, open-mouthed. "A frying pan? When?"

Xander turned and fled.

"Who the hell is Buffy?" he heard Carlos ask.

TBC