Buffy/Mr.William The New Year

[pepperlandgirl]

The first thing Buffy did when school started on January 2 was go to the registrar's office. She absolutely could not sit through one class with him. He had come to her house once during Christmas vacation, and called her once. Both times she made it clear that she didn't want to talk to him or see him, and so he gave up.

She put all of her Christmas presents, even the phone, in the back of the closet, under some old clothes and other random garbage. She also hid the few shirts that she had stolen from him, and anything else that reminded her of him. She couldn't bring herself to throw the stuff out, but she couldn't spend another second looking at them.

When she got her report card, she didn't feel very triumphant. With his help, she had pulled all her grades up to Bs. Except in his class. She got an A. She threw the report card into the fire place without a second thought.

January was a cold, bitter month. They didn't get any rain, but the sun never came out. It was over cast constantly.

To distract herself from the pain, she threw herself head first into school. As long as she avoided the library, she could concentrate on her homework, and she worked hard every night, and on the weekends too. Her mother was extremely impressed, and she granted Buffy more freedom.

Buffy spent her extra time in her room.

Her new English class sucked. Also, transferring fucked up her whole schedule, and so she didn't even have any classes with her friends. She never gave much thought to what a good teacher Mr. William was until she was covering the same ground in another class. She felt like shouting "I read this 3 months ago!" The only upside was that it was easy to pass the class, since she had already done the work.

Buffy hadn't realized how much she had grown to rely on Spike until he was on longer a part of her life. She had grown distant from her friends, and the few boys she had been stringing along at the beginning of the year were no longer interested in her. She was unbearably lonely. She missed the sex--the really really good sex--but she missed just spending time with him. Teasing him, laughing with him, laying safe and warm in his arms.

She missed his "come fuck me" smile, and she missed the way he sighed her name. She missed the way he liked to be called Mr. William, and the way he brushed against her in class, accidently on purpose.

By the end of January, she was tempted to forgive him, to do whatever necessary to get him back. He said he loved her, right? He had insisted that it wasn't what it looked like, though the memory of seeing him with Dru still hurt--a lot.

Willow, sensing something was wrong, did her best to cheer her friend up. Including setting her up with a date for the Valentine's day dance.

"I don't want to go to the stupid dance," Buffy insisted.

"You need to get out of the house. You've been all gloomy gus since Christmas," Willow insisted. "Besides, Angel really likes you."

"What's he doing back in town, anyway?" Buffy asked.

"Cordelia said he's taking the semester off, and he's been asking about you. Look, we're going as a group anyway, you won't have to be alone with him."

Buffy sighed. She didn't want to go to the dance, she didn't want to date again, she didn't want to have anything to do with the opposite sex at all. But Willow insisted, pointing out that it would be a night of free entertainment--Angel would pay for the whole thing--and she would get to pick out a new dress. Shopping did make her feel better. So she ultimately agreed.

~*~

There was a big, gaping hole in Mr. William's life and his class. Nobody sat her desk, and the empty seat mocked him. She changed classes so quickly that her name was still on his roster until the end of January. Every day he almost called her name in class. Every night he almost called her on the phone. He stopped himself though.

He didn't realize it was true until he blurted it out on Christmas, but he did love her. Should have told her sooner. SHould have told her about Dru. Should have called her. Or maybe he should have avoided her all together. Lots of "should haves" and "if onlys" and "what the bloody fucking hell have I done?".

He put the random objects she had left around his house in a box, brought it to school, and hid it in his office. She never came by for it.

Mr. William saw her in the hall occasionally. She would walk by like she couldn't see him, and he would walk by pretending that he wasn't really looking at her. He kept an eye on her grades, and was rather pleased to see that during the first month of the new semester, she was kicking ass. Buffy was bright, though sometimes she didn't act like it, and he was proud of her.

He started writing again, poems and short stories about her. Knowing that she would never see it--or anybody else for that matter--he poured his heart into it. The objective part of him knew that it was better than anything he had done in years, but that didn't make him feel better.

In the first faculty meeting of February, Snyder informed Spike that he would be acting as a chaperone at the Valentine's day dance. Spike wasn't thrilled by this--he hated having to get dressed up and he hated the loud, blaring music--but it was a noble way to spend Valentine's Day. If he couldn't have fun, he might as well get paid to watch the kids have fun.

It occurred to him that Buffy could be there, and with a date, but he would just have to deal with it.