Timeline: Post-Chosen, unspecified.

Pairing: Spike/Buffy

Summary: A short ficlet (re: 630 words) in Spike's POV, reflective on Buffy and his relationship. The closest thing to fluff I think that I've ever written.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, don't sue ;-)

Sometimes.

During the course of our not-quite-a-relationship, the word had become like a balm to my non-existent soul.

At first, when I’d ask her what I meant to her, I’d receive a nasty fist to the nose. Before my body even hit the ground, she’d be out the door and runnin’ as fast as those tiny legs could carry her. But as the months wore on, she’d begun to – well I suppose the phrase “warm up” wouldn’t be accurate. Buffy was many things during that time, but warm wasn’t exactly one of ‘em. But I think that she’d maybe begun to despise me a bit less.

Bloke’s gotta have his fantasies right?

As I was saying, as time passed she stopped denyin’ me my crumbs, guess she figured she was already layin’ naked in the general vicinity of my bed, so what harm could it do? Don’t get me wrong, ‘s not like she was screaming her undyin’ love for me from the crypt-tops, but she’d begun to respond less often with fists and feet, and more often with that one beautiful word.

Sometimes.

It became the closest thing we had to an inside joke. A little aside at the Magic Box when the Whelp or Red would ask her something and her eyes would catch mine as she responded.

Sometimes.

The only way I could ever tell that maybe, if I waited long enough, and I was patient enough, I’d get to hear those other words I was after. Bloody pipe dreams, I know. But at the time, it made my dead heart swell. To see that little twitch of her lips when I’d ask and she’d answer.

Sometimes.

And there were these other, more secret moments. When she was flitterin’ between awake and asleep, when she’d allow herself to curl up next to me for a moment, let me almost, but not quite, hold her. When her eyes were glassy and her limbs heavy with exhaustion that the word would breathe between her lips like some silent prayer delivered for my ears alone.

Look, I’ve never claimed to be a half-decent poet, but I try alright?

Don’t rightly know if she was even aware of those times, never mentioned ‘em to me, not even after I won back my soul. And it seemed like she’d all but forgotten the word during the time when we were preparing to battle the First. Everything was cut out in great big swaths of blacks and whites then. Couldn’t confuse the troops with maybes and perhaps. By that point, I’d all but pushed the memory from my mind, was hard enough being bathed in her scent day-in and day-out in that cramped up house, no need to force extra torture sessions on myself. The soul was doing a bang-up job of that already.

But in those last few nights, when I finally had her in my arms, I’d begun to crave the sound of the word again. Wanted so badly for her to give me just a little bit more, I’d long ago put a stop to any loftier goals, but I thought if I heard her say it one more time that everything would work out.

I wonder now, if she even remembers saying it that final time, she was boneless and exhausted by the time she fell asleep in my arms that last night. Her voice barely audible as her arms wrapped around me and her face nuzzled into my chest. Barely more then a breath of air, but it rattled me like nothing else ever had.

So you ask me now if I believed her in the end, when our hands were engulfed in flames and her eyes shone with unshed tears. If I believed her when she told me she loved me. Well, there’s your answer.

Sometimes.

~End