Blocker
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Chapter Four
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
Tara had gotten what she came for; confirmation that she had made the right decision in leaving Willow. She'd also accomplished her second goal; to help Spike see his situation clearly.
She should get up and go.
Why didn't she want to?
Probably because she was so tired. She hadn't slept at all last night and it was now… she had no idea what time it was. Down here in Spike's bedroom, you couldn't see outside and her internal clock was off kilter because of the lack of sleep.
She yawned just as her stomach rumbled and Spike laughed.
Oh, yeah, and she hadn't eaten all day either.
"Sun's set," he said after concentrating for a moment. "Wanna go get somethin' ta eat?"
She looked startled and he added, "With me?"
With Tara's half smile and nod, they stood and while Spike put on his tee shirt and boots, Tara stretched.
"Did you sleep at all last night, luv?"
"No. I was too upset and confused."
"What made you come down here?"
He had a strange look on his face; it was clear he really wanted to know.
"My mother told me to come."
"Don't remember a mum when yer family visited." Then he thought about what she'd said. "Your mother knows about me? She sent ya ta see a vampire?" Tara had gone out into the stone and packed-earth corridor and Spike followed her. "Why couldn't ya just talk it out with her?" After a moment he added, "Not that I'm complainin', pet. Was nice havin' the company. And someone to talk to about my own… situation."
They were heading up the ladder now and Tara waited until Spike had followed her up before she answered. "I couldn't talk to her. She's dead."
That seemed to answer the question and Tara headed for the door, but Spike just stood there looking bewildered. When she got to the door, she noticed that he wasn't beside her and she turned and found him staring at her. "You talk to the dead? Present company excluded, of course. Never heard Red mention that you were a medium. You could-"
"No," she explained. "I did a spell asking for guidance and she, I'm pretty sure it was her, whispered to me that I should come to you."
Spike couldn't help but feel proud of that. Not just that someone needed him, but that even beyond the grave, someone thought he was worth something. Beat the bloody hell out of the unappreciative sods in Sunnydale - and London.
When Spike had closed the crypt door behind them, he held out his arm like the gentleman he used to be and Tara smiled and hooked her hand on his elbow.
As they walked toward the cemetery gate, Tara asked, "Where are we going?"
"Mexican?" he asked.
She shook her head, "Too gassy." But she quickly added, "Unless that's w-what y-you w-want?"
Spike stopped and looked at her. "Why the stutter, luv? Thought we'd gotten past that."
Tara took a breath and blew it out and then, instead of testing her nerves and trying to speak again, she just nodded. Being with Spike, having him act so warm and kindly toward her, was… disconcerting. Not scary, just strange. And when he'd held out his arm for her to take it, she'd felt a funny little flutter in her stomach.
Spike continued on past the mausoleum and went on. "Good. Now, where were we? Oh yeah. Um, Chinese? Thai? Italian?"
"S-sunnydale-" she stopped and tried to quiet the fluttering before starting over. "Sunnydale has a Thai restaurant?"
"No, but Brookside does."
"That's twenty miles away. How are we going to get there?"
"So Thai it is." Spike led her out of the cemetery and into the quiet neighborhood that sat alongside it. At the second house, he stopped and turned toward a small red convertible that sat next to the curb.
Tara was aghast. "Giles's car?"
Spike was smiling, an act that was contagious. "Didn't you hear it had been stolen the day before he left the first time?"
"No. You didn't steal this car, did you, Spike?"
Spike looked rather awkward, and quickly added, "Well, he wouldn't have given it to me, would he?"
Tara held her tongue. He might have. If Giles saw a need, he just might have. After all the help Spike had been last summer… But she was smart enough to keep that thought to herself.
Spike turned on the radio and they found they had absolutely no musical tastes in common. He wanted Linkin Park, she wanted Sarah McLachlan. So he turned it off and asked her if she'd ever read Delta of Venus.
"Ew - Spike, how could you stand that book!"
Spike glanced at her and then his eyes went back to the road.
"We talking about the same book, luv? Anais Nin?"
"I couldn't get past the first chapter! There's that guy having sex with little girls. And then there's the incest - ugh! I couldn't read it."
Spike grinned. "Yeah, that part was a bit strange, but you've got to get past the first chapter. Lots of good reading in that book." He gave her a suggestive leer that made her laugh.
"If we're talking erotica," Tara said, thinking it over, "I prefer Selena Kitt."
"You have naughty Mother Goose fantasies I should know about, pet?"
Tara laughed. "Maybe, but I'm not ready to share."
Spike concentrated on the road again, thinking. Did 'not ready' mean she would be willing to share sometime in the future? He shook away his thoughts. The chit had just broken up with her girl, had come to him for help and here he was making suggestive conversation. Maybe he wasn't really attracted to her and naughty thoughts were just the way his brain worked.
He remembered her stroking Red's hair one day in the watcher's abode. He thought about how she had stood up to her family, even though she was clearly terrified of them. He thought about her behavior the other night when they'd all lost their memories. How calm she'd been; how brave she was.
He glanced over and saw her glancing at him and they both looked away quickly. Nope, it was her.
They rode in silence for the next five minutes. She was very calming. Spike didn't feel like he had to prove himself to her like he had always felt around the slayer - Buffy. But he wasn't going back there again. What was it with him and women who were in love with his sire? Was there some kind of vampire therapist you could go to for that?
"Spike?" she finally said, breaking the silence as they passed the 'Welcome to Brookside' sign.
"Yeah? Oh hell, should have run that sign down with Rupe's penis-mobile. I'll get it another time." He turned his attention back to her. "Yeah?" he said again.
Her thoughts went off track and she forgot what she'd been going to say and said instead, "You'd destroy municipal property just to dent Giles's car?"
He made a U-turn and went back past the sign and then made another U-turn so that he was in position to -
"Aaaaah!" Tara yelled as they ran over the sign and then she started laughing as she checked to make sure no police cars were in sight.
"No, I destroy welcome signs because it's fun!"
She really couldn't argue with that, much as she would have liked to. It was wrong, yes; but he was right, it was also fun. When had she turned into such a rebel?
Probably about the time she started cavorting with vampires.
They pulled into the parking lot of the Mai Thai and Spike rushed around to her side of the car to hold the door open for her. She'd never seen this side of him, but she liked it. Not that she wasn't a liberated woman, but having someone show these small courtesies pleased her.
She hadn't thought she'd ever feel happy again after last night.
He held the door to the restaurant open for her and she smiled. Who knew Spike was such a gentleman? Probably not Buffy. Buffy would probably find it more annoying, coming from Spike, than endearing. She wondered if any of the others had ever seen this side of him. She thought about how Dawn always insisted that Spike was just as good, if not better, than the rest of them. She'd always assumed it was just Dawn crushing on Spike, but now she wasn't so sure.
He pulled out her chair when they reached the table and she noticed that he seemed to do these things effortlessly - without thinking. He wasn't trying to impress anyone; this was just who he was. She started thinking about Spike as someone very different from who Willow and the others had always said he was.
How could they have gotten him so wrong?
Tara ordered Drunken Fried Rice and Spike ordered Pra-Goong, extra hot. That sounded good to Tara and she added 'extra hot' onto her rice.
"You like hot food, pet?"
"Love it. I could drink Louisiana hot sauce out of the bottle. It always made my brother mad that I could eat hotter peppers than he could. He's so competitive. I'm not usually, but it was always nice to watch him come in second best at something."
Spike didn't want to comment on the fond remembrances of her family. In his mind, she was best shot of the whole lot of them and bringing them up in casual conversation was almost enough to ruin his appetite. So he moved on to their mutual appreciation of spicy food.
"The Bronze needs to make their hot wings hotter-"
"You can order them hotter," Tara interrupted. "Just tell them to make them nuclear and they come out almost hot enough."
He liked her being so open and warm with him. He hadn't had someone just be friendly to him in… ever, now that he came to think about it. Clem was all right but Clem was friendly to everyone. He just didn't have it in him to be mean.
While waiting for the food, Tara unwrapped her utensils and found a plastic spork wrapped in a cheap napkin. She had to laugh. Who ate Thai food with a spork?
"Did you know," Spike asked in a serious voice as he took the spork, "that your President Clinton, in a speech, used the spork as a symbol of his administration because of its dual nature; what he neglected to mention was that it's impossible to eat with." With those words, he broke the 'tines' off the top.
Tara laughed. "Did you know that you can buy titanium sporks?"
Spike was incredulous. "Yer shittin' me."
Tara shook her head. "Nope, saw them in a catalogue once."
"Hey," Spike was thinking now, "Maybe people could get a whole bunch of 'em and plant them in the lawn to scare off burglars."
Tara laughed again. It was odd, but it was just this morning when she thought she would never laugh again. Maybe it said something about her relationship with Willow if she could have fun again so quickly. Then she noticed the sparkle in Spike's eyes. Or maybe it was just Spike.
They found, when their food came, that they really did have things in common. They both liked slasher films and making fun of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They both thought Giles was too stuffy but meant well and neither of them understood Xander's sense of humour. They agreed that Anya was doing well for someone who hadn't had to follow human rules in more than a thousand years. They seemed to have silently agreed not to mention either Willow or Buffy.
Spike told her about being turned and Tara told him about deciding to leave her family.
When the check came, Tara tried to pay her share but Spike wouldn't hear of it.
"I invited you, I pay," he told her.
"So next time I'll invite you," she countered.
As he put his wallet back in his pocket, he informed her, "I pay then too."
This chivalrous streak of his really was quite sweet.
They fell into companionable silence as they neared Sunnydale, with Tara trying but not succeeding at covering her yawns. Spike really didn't want to give up her company but the chit hadn't slept last night, so he headed the car in the direction of the Sunnydale campus and McKenzie Hall, where Tara had told him she was staying.
The silence was getting uncomfortable and Spike could tell that something had changed when Tara blurted, "We pulled her out of heaven, Spike…"
He took one hand off the wheel and put it on top of hers and squeezed and held on. "I know, luv. I know." And as he smelled the salt of her tears, he turned left on Copper Beech Lane and headed back toward Restfield Cemetery instead of going straight on to the college. One thing he never could leave alone was a crying woman - he always had a weak spot for a damsel in distress - and besides, what Tara needed now was someone to take care of her. She didn't need to be alone in an empty dorm room.
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