Summary: All her life Elizabeth has done exactly what everyone expects of her. Now in her first year of college, she discovers the vast possibilities in life. But can she escape the ghosts of her past and find the courage to explore the new paths before her...including the affections of an infuriating young sophomore named William 'Spike' Giles?
Rating: NC-17
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Elizabeth had always hated emergency rooms. The cold white tile, nurses walking about at a clipped, frantic rate, hurried but seemingly uncaring at the same time, not fully able to comprehend the depth of pain and fear in the eyes of those waiting…or perhaps able to comprehend, but not able to respond in the environment where the chaos could so easily consume them.
Before Elizabeth even had the chance to shiver, a cloak of leather was wrapped over her own jacket and a strong arm was around her shoulder. She allowed her head to curl into the crook of Spike’s throat with something akin to awe. How could he know her well? Know her feelings even before she did? How could he possibly be this close to her, and…?
Her introspection was cut off when one of the nurses came out to usher them small Westing House group through the hospital maze. Elizabeth had to force herself to focus on the woman’s words.
“…A nasty cut…not too serious…shock the worst…”
It was all good news, but it was still terrible. That something like this could’ve happened to Oz and Willow, two of the nicest people she’d ever met… It was just incomprehensible.
The nurse cleared aside one of the pale green curtains that partitioned the in-patient rooms from the bustling corridor. “We should have their release papers ready in a few minutes,” she informed Tara, who had used her position as Willow’s significant other to take charge of the group. “I’ll give you Mr. Osborne’s prescription and further instructions then.”
Tara nodded and ushered her friends inside.
Elizabeth gulped at the stunned, weary expressions on Oz and Willow’s faces. The two were sitting side by side on the hospital bed, both still clad in the clothes they’d worn out that evening although Oz now sported a left arm wrapped almost entirely in gauze. Willow was holding his free hand, and together they just stared off into the white wall, their eyes still looking vacant and shocked.
“Willow…” Tara whispered with a little sob.
The sound of her girlfriend’s voice seemed to break through the cloud that surrounded Willow’s mind, and she turned to see them in surprise. “Tara, baby?” she whispered back hopefully.
In an instant, the two of them were in each other’s arms, sobbing and making all sorts of silly promises that people make in tragic situations.
Oz watched the spectacle before him, pulling back to the here and now as well.
“How you feelin’, mate?” Spike asked cautiously, settling himself back against the wall and really wishing that he could have a cigarette.
Oz gestured to his arm. “They’ve got me on painkillers,” he said simply. “It still hurts, though.”
“How did she…?” Devon ventured with a slight shudder.
“Knife,” Oz said simply. He blinked and frowned. “Despite how easy it looks in the movies, it hurts like a bitch to try to block a knife with your arm.”
Spike managed to crack a small smile at that. “Better’n trying to use your eye,” he joked lightly, index finger of one hand flicking upwards to brush over the scar tissue there.
A weak ghost of a smile flittered across Oz’s lip. “Yeah, no freaking that the blood in my eye meant that I was half blind,” he agreed, recalling the previous year’s emergency room event.
“How bad is it?” Xander spoke up for the first time in a soft voice.
Oz sighed. “It’ll heal,” he said simply.
“What I want to know,” Cordelia said, arms crossed and eyes flashing dangerous, “is what happened to the skank who did this?”
“Yeah,” Anya agreed with deadly intent, “I feel a spell of vengeance coming on…”
Oz shook her off. “They took her to the psych ward,” he insisted. “She was kind of…”
“Nuts?” Jonathan provided.
Everyone stared at him in disbelief.
“Well, she was!” he insisted, blushing horribly.
Embarrassed by proximity, Andrew started blushing, too.
Oz nodded numbly. “I guess the whole arson thing should’ve tipped me off about that,” he agreed.
“The nurse said you two are OK to be released soon,” Tara finally pulled back from the fierce embrace she and Willow had shared and glanced around the room. “Do we have any idea what’s going to happen to Veruca?” she ventured softly.
“If you ever want to sue…” Anya began.
Oz shook his head. “The police have her. We’ll worry about pressing charges later.”
The nurse entered at that moment, and paperwork was filled out, instructions given, and all the while Elizabeth clung to Spike like a lifeline, burying herself in the comfort of his warm embrace. When he finally pulled her chin up to inform her that it was time to go, she just gave him a soft nod and made the trip back to the dorm in silence…
* * *
“Luv?” Spike asked softly after they’d returned to their room and curled up together on his bed. His long fingers ran through her hair soothingly.
She placed an absentminded kiss against his still-clothed chest.
“Luv, what’s wrong?” he asked softly before rolling his eyes at his own idiocy. “I mean, besides the obvious, obviously.” He frowned for a second at the contorted nature of that sentence before shaking it off.
She managed a weak smile in response. “Just feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment,” she sighed, curling her body around his further. “Or completely dumbfounded. In a really bad way.” She shuddered slightly, and he tightened his grip on her. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in a situation like this,” she admitted in a soft whisper.
“No one does,” he agreed wearily, shutting his eyes for a moment and breathing in deep, inhaling her scent, her essence, and letting it calm him. “You just do what ‘as to be done, an’…”
“What has to be done?” she demanded. “I mean, what can I possibly do?”
“You went to the hospital,” he pointed out. “Put up the united Westin’ House front.”
Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully. “You know, I think that’s the first time all of us have been together in one place all semester. And the time before that was when Faith left…”
“Disaster brings people together,” he decided.
She bit her lower lip. “Well, no, actually, it was finals,” she amended her assessment.
He cracked a smile. “See? What’d I tell you? Disaster.”
She giggled slightly at that as well and batted one hand at him playfully before sobering again. “God, now I feel guilty because I’m glad it wasn’t us.”
“’m not,” he retorted. “Besides, ‘s not like ‘ve got some crazy ex-girlfriend who would…” He trailed off in abrupt realization. “Dru’s in Europe,” he provided as a worried afterthought.
She smiled at that and then rolled her eyes. “God, how do you do that?” she wondered, propping herself up on her arms so that she could look down at him.
“What?” he asked curiously, looking up at her through the curtain of her golden hair.
“Make me feel better about everything,” she clarified.
A smirk curled across the edges of his lips. “If you wanted me to make you feel even better…” he began suggestively.
She swatted at his chest playfully. “Stop it,” she pouted. “I’m trying to be all morbid and mopey.”
“And ‘m trying to get laid,” he countered.
She looked down at him curiously then, as if she were discovering something for the first time.
The intensity of her gaze caused him to squirm slightly, making him nervous. “Luv?” he ventured forth softly.
A fingertip to his lips hushed him, and he sighed at the contact. With a soft smile, Elizabeth let her fingers drift across his face, following the sharp line of one cheekbone until she reached the scar that trisected one eyebrow. She stroked along the white scar lines gently, watching as his eyelids fluttered closed at her attentions. His lashes were long and dark, curled more than was typical for a man, soft and gentle in contrast to the angular planes of his face. She was struck once more by his unique beauty…
“You’re a good man, William,” she finally put words to all the thoughts that flitted about her mind on ephemeral, gossamer wings.
A genuine, dimpled smile lit up his face at that. “No, ‘m not.” He was lying through his teeth, and they both knew it and were incredibly amused by it. “’m all bad, baby.”
She giggled and then blushed when his eyes opened and those sapphirine orbs fixed on her once more. “You’re my bad boy?” she teased lightly.
“The badest,” his voice rumbled in agreement before that light she’d come to identify as love took hold of his face. “And all yours, Elizabeth,” he agreed shyly.
She smiled and bent her head to steal a kiss from his lips. He really was just too tempting when he did the cute, shy thing, especially when combined with that puffed up bravado that was so incredibly Spike. Her tongue parted the lips of her wonderful, living contradiction, and she thrust deep inside his mouth.
Contented to let her take the lead, he laid back and enjoyed himself, encouraging her to further plunder his mouth and pulling her body over so that she was covering him more completely. He sighed when she pulled back to nibble at his lip and took a gasping breath in the brief reprieve allotted him.
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut tight, savoring the taste and feel of him. God, what had she ever done to deserve him? He was sweet and powerful and funny and exciting and smart and fun and… He was just so wonderful, and he loved her so much, and…
She felt a pang in her heart.
He deserved more. He deserved a woman that could really and truly be with him, a woman who loved him just as fervently as he loved her. He deserved a strong woman, one that would fight for him instead of turning away like a coward. Most of all, he deserved happiness.
This wasn’t a man you had a cheap fling with. He was a forever sort of man, the one you married and stuck by through the good and the bad and…
“Elizabeth, you’re crying,” Spike brushed aside the tear that was threatening to spill from the corner of her eye. His fingers were shaking slightly as he caressed her face. “What’s wrong, luv?” he pleaded with her. “Tell me.”
“You’re a good man, William,” she repeated.
He frowned. Her voice sounded lost now, distant. “An’ you’re a good woman,” he insisted.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” he hissed vehemently.
“No, I’m not,” she insisted. “I’m weak and…”
“Never,” he countered. “Never weak. You may not see it, pet, but there’s such strength inside you… ‘S just waitin’ for you to realize it.” He smiled and pulled her down to his chest. “’S part of what I love ‘bout you,” he admitted softly, stroking her hair.
She sighed, her worries pushed to the back of her mind for now. “You’re doing it again,” she informed him somewhat cryptically.
“Makin’ you feel better?” he deciphered her meaning.
She smiled. “Can you read my mind or something?” she wondered.
He pondered that for a second before smirking. He closed his eyes and put his fingers to his temples as if in a telepathic trance. “OK,” he joked, “’m pickin’ something up… ‘Spike is the sexiest man alive. I love his big, thick—’”
“Spike!” she squealed in horror, cutting him off with a pillow to the face before he could finish that statement.
“What?” he protested with false innocence. “’S what you were thinkin’! That, and ‘I want your big, thick—’”
“Eek!” she squealed over the word, hitting him with the pillow again.
“ ‘—inside me right now’,” he went on merrily in the background. “ ‘Since, truly Spike’s the God of Sex, and—’”
“Ego much?” she shot out, hands on hips.
“Much,” he agreed with a grin. “Although my ego’s nowhere near as big as my—”
“Spike!” she screamed in mortification once more before shutting him up the only way she knew how and crashing her lips down upon his…
* * *
“A bit off our game today, are we?” Spike taunted lightly, watching Elizabeth fall to the mat on that cute little ass of hers once more. “Or maybe you’re just too busy thinking about my big—”
“God, are you ever going to shut up about that?” she demanded, blushing horribly as she scanned the dojo to make sure no one else on the team was listening to them. Kendra’s eyes were very studiously not looking in their direction from where she was supposedly spotting two of the newer students. Elizabeth’s face turned even redder.
“Not as long as I keep getting such entertainin’ reactions,” he countered gleefully, bouncing on his toes lightly as he waited for her to take up a defensive stance once more.
Elizabeth shook down the slight dizziness that just looking at him, hopping about with energy, caused. Wearily, she shook her position once more, and they exchanged a quick bow.
Elizabeth successfully dodged Spike’s first attack and circled around counterclockwise. It was always a good strategy since her boyfriend hopelessly favored his left side. However, where she usually would’ve attacked with effective accuracy, her blows all landed a second too late and were easily blocked. If she hadn’t felt so tired, she would have undoubtedly been frustrated.
“Gotta do better’n that, luv,” he countered cheerfully, happily unaware of the effort their usual sparring was taking her.
Elizabeth forced herself to focus and finally caught his ankle after a rather effective feint, causing Spike to tumble down onto the soft padding.
He held his hand up as she approached, ceding the point. “That’s my girl,” he said with a fond smile, obviously delighting in her ability to thoroughly kick his ass.
She managed a weak smile of her own, her mind dimly aware that he was being cute and Spikish and that she should be smiling as a result. And that if she didn’t, he would know that…
“Elizabeth?”
His voice was concerned and close. How had he gotten that close without her knowing about it? He had just been on the mat, and now he was standing beside her and looking worried, and… Why was it getting so dim in here? And why did she feel…so…dizzy…?
Spike lunged forward with lightning-quick speed, catching her as she slumped on her feet. He let out a little gasp of fright when he realized that she was unconscious.
The spectacle had caught Wesley’s attention immediately, and he raced over to where his top student seemed to have collapsed. “What happened?” he demanded, reaching them just as Spike laid Elizabeth out on the mat.
Spike shook his head, barely containing his panic as he felt for her pulse. “She just fainted…”
* * *
The first thing Elizabeth was aware of when she woke up were the gentle fingers that caressed her forehead. They felt so perfect that for an instant she entertained the notion that she’d died and gone to heaven. Continuing to focus upon the warm hand, she soon noticed another touching her, this one gripping her own hand tightly within its grasp. She sighed. She felt safe and comfortable and surrounded and… Lazily, she opened her eyes.
“Hey, cutie,” Spike whispered softly when he saw that she was awake.
“Spike?” she whispered a bit hoarsely. Strangely, his presence didn’t detract from the unreal notion that this was heaven in the slightest.
“Who else?” he asked rhetorically, resuming his stroking of her hair. “How you feelin’, kitten?”
She shifted slightly and winced. “Kinda drowsy,” she admitted. “What happened?”
“Passed out right in the middle of practice,” he provided, shifting in the hard wooden chair he’d moved over beside the cot.
Elizabeth blinked at her surroundings for the first time. “Where…?” she began tiredly.
“Nurse’s office,” Spike explained.
Elizabeth groaned and felt her head spin. “I really fainted?” she repeated in disbelief.
“And you’re bloody lucky this isn’t the first time,” Wesley’s severely displeased voice cut in from the doorway. He cast Spike an annoyed look. “I told you to call me when she woke up.”
“She just woke up five seconds ago!” Spike retorted.
But Wesley’s attention had already turned to Elizabeth. “You gave us all the fright of our lives in there today,” he informed her matter-of-factly, “which is bad enough in and of itself…”
“Hold on, now,” Spike turned on him. “She’s sick. Cut her a break.”
“Yes,” Wesley said, looking down at her crossly, “sick of her own devising.”
Spike frowned at that, confused.
“When is the last time you’ve eaten, young lady?” Wesley slipped fully into annoyed authority mode.
She frowned. “I-I…”
Spike’s brow furrowed. “You skipped lunch?” he inquired.
“And breakfast,” she admitted meekly. “And I kinda didn’t eat dinner last night…”
Wesley shook his head. “Ridiculous students and their complete disregard for their health,” he muttered under his breath.
“You ‘aven’t eaten since lunch yesterday?” Spike repeated incredulously. “And you came to practice because…?”
“Because you always yell at me when I don’t eat,” she shot back.
He sighed wearily. “’m just suggestin’ that maybe collapsin’ from low blood-sugar levels isn’t the wisest thing,” he pointed out.
She sulked. “Yes, I was stupid,” she agreed, “but I was working on my math all through dinner last night, and then this afternoon…” She trailed off with a shrug.
Wesley let out a weary sigh. “Go home and eat,” he instructed. He shook his head again. “Bloody ridiculous…” he swore under his breath, leaving the two of them alone.
Elizabeth sat up suddenly, pushing Spike aside in his efforts to help her. She felt incredibly uncomfortable to be alone with him right now because she knew what was coming.
“We should get you somethin’ to eat before we discuss this,” he delayed the inevitable for a little longer.
Elizabeth nodded numbly and let him wrap his arm around her waist and help her back to the dorm. Their closeness didn’t bring her the comfort it usually did, however, because she could feel the concern and anger buried deep down inside him, just waiting for her to be better before he let it out. It wasn’t really that great an incentive.
Five o’clock on a Friday evening wasn’t a prime time for dining college students, and the two of them entered a cafeteria sporting only a dozen or so students. None were at the Westing House round table.
“Go, sit down,” Spike suggested softly. “’ll get your food for you.”
She flashed him a weary, grateful smile and handed him her dining card before walking over to the table and slumping in her favorite seat. She was still feeling a bit tired and dizzy and welcomed the rest very much. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that she’d pushed her body a bit too far. This feeling really wasn’t at all pleasant.
“Here you go, kitten,” Spike said softly, suddenly at her side.
She managed a small, grateful smile and turned to the tray in front of her. The forced moderation she’d been exhibiting lately vanished with her current hunger, and she dove into the dining hall tortellini like it had come from a fancy Italian restaurant.
Beside her, Spike ate silently, watching her obvious hunger with slight concern…and even more so since he knew she’d been fighting against it so often lately.
Elizabeth had gotten halfway through the canned peaches before he spoke.
“You tryin’ to starve yourself to death, or what?” he asked a bit harshly.
She turned to look at him with a weary sigh. “I was stupid, OK?” she retorted a bit testily. “I got distracted. It won’t happen again.”
“I should hope not,” he agreed, a bit of the British stuffiness he fought so hard to escape coming through in his tone. “But you know that’s not what ‘m worried about…”
She refused to look at him. “Oh?” she tried to sound casual.
“Elizabeth.” Spike turned her chin to face him and fixed her with a serious gaze. “What’s with these strange eatin’ habits you’ve picked up lately?”
“There’s nothing strange about them,” she insisted.
One eyebrow quirked upward incredulously. “Oh?” he said, obviously unconvinced. “’Cause it seems to me like you’ve been eatin’ as little as possible. ‘m surprised you haven’t collapsed before now the way you’ve been picking at your food.”
She turned back to her peaches and set about on the task of finishing them off. “I’m just on a diet, OK?”
He blinked. “A diet,” he repeated. “This diet involve starvin’ yourself to death?”
She glared at him. “I’m not starving myself!” she exclaimed in a hissed whisper. “I just need to drop a few pounds.”
He looked her up and down appreciatively. “And these not-so-unsightly pounds hafta go, why?” he pressed.
“Not-so-unsightly to you maybe,” she sulked.
“And your handsome boyfriend’s opinion doesn’t matter?” he tried to tease gently.
She rolled her eyes at him. “It matters,” she assured him, “but…”
“But what?” he pressed. “You know you’re beautiful to me just the way you are. Hell, I like the curves. Gives me somethin’ to hold onto when we—”
She smacked him playfully, but she was smiling.
He grinned in response. “To tell the truth,” he admitted, “first time I saw you, I worried a bit that you were too skinny. But then you plumped up nicely an—”
“Plumped up?!” she repeated in complete horror.
He frowned confusedly.
“That’s absolutely the most horrible thing you could possibly say to a woman!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry, luv,” he assured her, wincing slightly now that he thought about it. “What I meant was that when I met you you were absolutely, perfectly beautiful, but you’re even more absolutely, perfectly beautiful when…” Elizabeth’s arms were crossed over her chest defiantly. “Oh bugger!” He sighed. “Blew it, din’t I?”
“Completely,” she agreed with a sigh, turning back to her tray and studying the piece of chocolate cake there with longing.
“Doesn’t make me wrong, though,” he pointed out.
She bit her lip. “No,” she agreed, realizing it was ridiculous to refuse to eat while they were having a conversation about her refusing to eat. Plus, chocolatey goodness…
“’m worried about you, luv,” he admitted softly. “You’ve been tense lately, and ever since…” He trailed off.
“What?” she challenged him to say it, looking him right in the eye.
“The stress, and the eatin’, and the way you’ve been actin’…distant, even from me,” he began, “it seems like it all started back when your father came to visit. Wanker,” he felt obliged to add under his breath.
Elizabeth refused to look at him. Not like it would help, of course. Spike was observant enough that he would still be able to puzzle out what was going on in her head. Sometimes it was irksome just how well he knew her.
“What if it did?” she countered somewhat sullenly.
“Then, maybe,” he suggested kindly, “’s time you actually did somethin’ about it…”
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