Traditions

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did, they would be happy, and I would be a rich student, instead of a poor one.

Summary: A Spike and Tara Christmas piece.

A/N: Written for tinpanalley, as part of my 2007 holiday ficathon. She asked for Spike and Tara, with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as the prompt. Words from that book are Dickens’, and not mine.

Listening to the rough cadence of his voice, Tara kept her eyes closed. It was easier to see the story in her mind that way, to picture the characters. Spike’s accent lent a certain authenticity, which is why she always insisted that he be the one to read it.

And no matter how many times she heard the story, she never grew tired of it.

The first Christmas they had spent together, she’d asked if he would read it aloud. The book had been a favorite of hers as a girl, and she tried to read it every holiday season; it was a good reminder of what the holiday meant. That first Christmas had been difficult for both of them, so far away from the people they had loved once upon a time.

Spike had humored her that first year, and the year after that—and the year after that, too. This year, he’d pulled out the slim volume without being asked, and Tara knew they had established their own tradition.

“…and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.  May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

She kept her eyes closed, letting the silence be, allowing the story to hang in the air. “Thank you.” It was what she said every time.

“My pleasure.” His response was always the same.

Her eyes fluttered open to look up at him. “Did you talk to Dawn today?”

“Called her earlier,” he replied.

“How is she?”

“Good. She wants to visit over the New Year. Told her she could.”

“What did Buffy say to that?”

“Dawn said she didn’t care what her sister thought, an’ that she was a grown woman.” Tara could hear the smile in his voice. “I didn’t argue with her. You know how stubborn she can be.”

Tara entwined her fingers with his, where his hand rested on her abdomen. For a moment, she allowed herself to remember what it had been like—to leave Sunnydale with Spike. She had been running from Willow and what had been done to her; Spike had been running from Buffy and what had been done to him.

They had both been so bruised, although Spike’s wounds had been external as well.

Somehow, they had built a life for themselves, separate from the Slayer and the Scoobies; new rituals were a part of that.

“Do you miss her?”

“Dawn?”

“No. Buffy.” He never spoke her name, and Tara wasn’t sure why.

His lips brushed against the top of her head. “No. How could I?”

Tara released his hand, twisting in his arms so that she was sprawled on top of him, her chest pressed against his. They had been reclining on their threadbare, second-hand couch that she’d covered with a tapestry found at a flea market. He was warm from the heat of her body, his eyes dark with memories that she could almost see.

“You really don’t?” she pressed. “I would understand.”

He sighed, and she wondered at the humanity of him, and at the beauty of him. He had been a friendly face, and a free ride out of town, but he’d turned into something that was so much more.

“If I’d had a chance of havin’ with Buffy what I’ve got with you, I might miss her,” he admitted. “But she was never goin’ to take a chance on me.” He paused. “What about you? Do you miss Willow?”

“I miss what we were at one point, but not what we became,” Tara admitted. “I love you.”

Every time she spoke those words, he seemed to light up on the inside, just as he had the first time. “Love you, too.”

His lips met hers hungrily, and Tara returned his kiss with a fervor that was no longer strange to her. After all, this was also their tradition.