Father of the Brat

Disclaimer: I don't own anything affiliated with Buffy. It all belongs to Joss Whedon. I just borrow it. I'm not making any money from this, it's purely for fun.

Buffy sighed, staring at her coffee as she stirred it for what seemed to be the hundredth time. She hadn’t moved from her seat since she’d come into the diner and gotten a table. By now, she was sure her coffee was cold but she stirred anyway. Her food sat on her plate, half-eaten and just as cold as the coffee.
She fought the urge to look down at her watch, knowing full well that she’d only looked a few minutes ago. Glancing at her watch wasn’t going to make time move faster.

She was on her lunch break and she knew that she could go back early and get a head start on the paperwork that was currently sitting on her desk but she couldn’t seem to make herself move. The paperwork wasn’t enough of a motivation and it definitely held no appeal to her. Except for the fact that if she did go back and start filling in the paperwork, she wouldn’t have to think of Spike and Dawn and the night she couldn’t seem to forget no matter how hard she tried.

“Buffy.”

Buffy glanced up and froze when she saw Spike standing next to her table. She licked her lips as she took in the sight of him.

“Spike. What are you doing here?” she blurted. Spike smiled a bit.

“Well, it is a diner, so I think it’s safe to assume I came here to get something to eat. I’m meeting Xander and his new bird for lunch,” Spike replied. Buffy frowned.

“Xander’s bringing his new pet to the diner?”

Spike laughed, shaking his head. “No, I meant his new girlfriend actually. Anya.”
“So, that was what? The British way of saying girlfriend? You guys call your girlfriends birds?” Buffy shook her head at the thought.

“I wouldn’t call you a bird,” Spike said, interrupting her thoughts, his voice lowering. Buffy bit her lip to keep from saying anything. She fought back the urge to ask him what he would call her because she couldn’t afford the answer right now. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to stay away from him and that’s what she needed to do. She and Spike wouldn’t work out. Maybe things would be good for awhile but in the long run…

Well, she didn’t need anymore complications in her life. She’d gone through the painful break-up scene before and it just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Still, the question must have shown on her face because Spike continued to speak. “I’d call you something else entirely, luv. I’d call you beautiful.” He looked down at her as Buffy finally spoke.

“Spike…”

“I’d call you mine,” he finished, interrupting her. Buffy let out a breath at those words.

“Spike, we can’t,” she said, her voice soft. Spike glanced away, shaking his head before looking back at her.

“Give me one good reason, luv. One good reason why we can’t be together.”

Buffy looked up at him, her mind racing. She wasn’t about to tell him it was because she was afraid that like Riley, he’d find someone else and move on, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her life. So she said the first thing that came to her instead. “Dawn.”

Spike sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t use your work as an excuse, Buffy. Dawn’s fine with us seeing each other. And you know how I know? I asked her.”

Buffy frowned. “You what? Spike, she shouldn’t be brought into this. She’s a teenager who’s still trying to adjust to living with the father she hadn’t met until just recently.”

“Not that recently. Buffy it’s been weeks now. Dawn and I are doing fine.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Then I suppose I just imagined the other night last week when you came to me because Dawn was missing?”

“You know you didn’t imagine any of that night, Buffy,” Spike replied softly. “But we’re fine now. We’re both doing what we said we would and things are going better than they were.”

“It’s only been a week, Spike. You need to wait a while longer before just assuming that one talk made everything all better. It’s going to be hard. You guys are going to fight still and you’re going to have to talk. One week of everything being okay doesn’t mean that it’s going to stay that way.”

Spike made a sound of frustration as he slid into the seat across from her. “That’s your problem, luv. You want me to see that it’s not always going to be good, that it’s not always going to be okay. I know that already. Do you know why? Because nothing ever does. If everything stayed okay, then maybe I’d have gone after you on prom night or I’d have talked to you after that the way I wanted. Maybe me and Dru would have had something more than just a fling and Dawn could have grown up with the both of us in her life. Maybe Dru wouldn’t have gotten killed by some prat who thought driving drunk was the best bloody idea he’d ever had. But that’s just the way life goes.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “And frankly, I’m glad it worked out this way, Buffy. Because yeah, Dru and I were good together. But if it all hadn’t happened the way it did, then you wouldn’t have come back into my life.”

Buffy stared at him, unsure of how she was supposed to respond to that. “Spike,” was all she could manage.

“Maybe we’d have run into each other somewhere else at another time, maybe we wouldn’t have. It didn’t happen that way and did you ever think that maybe there’s a reason for that?” Spike kept his eyes on her as he spoke, practically willing her to acknowledge the feelings between them.

“I never took you for the type of person who thought about that kind of stuff. Fate and all that,” Buffy said. Spike shrugged.

“I’m not all the time. But it’s not something I’m going to rule it out. And don’t change the subject.”

Buffy sighed. Somehow, she should have known that that wouldn’t work. Spike never was the type of guy that was easily fooled.

“Don’t push it, Spike. I can’t think of this, I can’t think about you and me and wonder if we’d be good together. You think that I’m using work as an excuse but I’m not. You wanted a reason and I gave you one.”

“Work? Why the hell would your work get in the way of us?”

“Because I’m supposed to stay neutral, Spike. I’m supposed to be evaluating your case objectively and do you really think that I can do that if I’m involved with you?”

Spike snorted. “Maybe you hadn’t noticed Buffy, but you’ve been involved with me from the start almost. You and me, we’ve never really been all that objective when it came to each other.”

“I’ve tried to be.”

“And it didn’t work.” Spike leaned back in the seat, shaking his head. “Just do one thing for me, Buffy. If you can look me in the eye and tell me there’s nothing there, then I’ll leave you alone. We’ll only talk if it has to do with Dawn. But if you can’t, then I think we’re going to have to have a talk.”

Buffy took a deep breath, staring at Spike. She knew what she felt and she knew what she had to do about it.

“There’s nothing,” she said quietly. Spike sucked in a breath, looking as if she’d punched him in the stomach. Buffy stood and looked down at Spike, fighting back the urge to take it back. “Goodbye, Spike.” Before he could respond, she turned and walked away, stopping only to pay her check. Spike watched as she walked away from the diner, away from him.

She never once looked back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dawn frowned as she studied Spike out of the corner of her eye. He’d been acting different. Oh, he’d tried to hide it and he probably thought that he was doing a fantastic job of it too.

He was really lousy at it actually.

The past week hadn’t been too bad. She and Spike hadn’t even really fought. They’d teased each other endlessly over their different tastes and they’d even started to get closer thanks to all the things they had in common.

And now, for no reason that she could see, there’d been a change a few days ago. She was pretty sure it had something to do with Buffy, she just didn’t know what. She just knew that when she had suggested giving Buffy a call and inviting her for dinner, Spike had said no. It was the first time he had said no without even trying to see if Buffy was free for the night. She’d asked just a few days ago and Spike had called Buffy only to get her machine. He hadn’t left a message, had tried to call her at work instead and she’d been out.

Of course, it hadn’t occurred to him to try her cell phone until later and by then it had been too late anyway.

Maybe it was the stress. Either way, Spike was down and Buffy had something to do with it and Dawn thought it was about time she did something about it.

Dawn glanced over at Spike again as she casually reached over and picked up his cell phone.

“What are you doing, Dawn?” he asked, not even looking up from the book he was reading.

“Seeing what games you have on here,” she replied, the lie falling easily off her lips. She bit her lip as she began to scroll down, searching for the name of someone she knew could help. She hadn’t actually met Spike’s friends yet since they’d been more focused on not killing each other or anything but she’d heard him talk about them and she had a feeling that one call from her would do the trick.

She let a small smile cross her face as she reached the name Xander. Spike had been friends with him forever. Quickly she hit “Details” and watched as all his information popped up.

It was a good thing she was so good at memorizing numbers.