Title: Caught Between Two Lovers
Author: Pattyanne
           snapkik@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: None of the characters
belong to me.
Feedback: Yes, please!
Summary: Set early season 2. A retelling
of Spike and Buffy's first meeting. For
the purposes of the story, Angel does not
exist, and Spike is a bit....different.

AN:  Sorry about the French translation. I had
to go with the the one I found on the net, cause
(like a flipping moron) I accidentally deleted the
better translations I had sent to me.  So, please
forgive....


Part Thirty-four.....

Quiet Moments


     ~~~~~
"Oh, my love
The evening light is catching colors in your eyes
Take another glass of wine
And lay your body next to mine.."
      ~~~~~

"I was tied to a chair once by an invisible girl."

William leaned back against the headboard. "An invisible
girl?" he echoed. "Oh, this I have to hear."

Buffy pulled the sheet up and draped it over her naked
body. "Well...her name was Marcie and she went to my
school. I guess she didn't make very many friends, and
she felt kind of...ignored. So..after a while she began to
fade out and then...poof. Invisible."

"All right, but why did she tie you to a chair?"

"Oh, because she was nuts," Buffy shrugged. "She
decided to kidnap me and Cordelia...that's the girl Xander's
going with...you saw her earlier, remember?"

"The dark haired beauty?" he smiled. "I remember her from
before. The night we met."

Buffy punched him lightly on the arm. "Enough with the noticing
other girls...especially my friends."

William chuckled, pulling her close. "Other girls?  Do you mean
to tell me there are other girls on the planet?"

"Ha-ha," Buffy replied smartly. "Anyway...she tied us both to
a chair and she was about to do some custom plastic surgery
on Cordelia..."

"She didn't hurt you, did she?" he interjected.

"No," she shook her head. "I managed to get loose after she
made the first cut on Cordy. I figured out where she was standing
and I kicked her in the stomach. She fell down and a piece of
curtain or something fell on top of her. Then I could see her
and....that was that."

Buffy picked up the can of whipped cream and sprayed some
onto her finger, then sucked it off. "This is really good," she said,
spraying a portion of the cream into her mouth.

"Glad you like it,"  William murmured, scooping a stray smear
of the dessert topping off her chin. "Any other adventures in bondage
you'd care to share?"

"Oh...let me think," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I guess there was
the time I was supposed to be sacrificed to a demon by a bunch
of frat boys...but, technically, I wasn't tied up..."

"Well, that's good to..."

"I was chained up," she finished.

"Good God," William muttered, shaking his head. "You might want
to think about writing some of this down someday, angelface. Your
life would make a wonderful television program."

"Yeah, right," Buffy snickered.


     ~~~~~
"Tell me all the things you've done
Since you went away this morning
These quiet moments make my day
We must never let them slip away.."

       ~~~~~

"How are you doing in school, sweetheart?"

"So-so," Buffy said, avoiding his eyes. "It depends on which
one of my teachers you're talking to."

William's mouth turned up at the corners. "What's your
worst subject?" he asked.

"Oh, gosh.." she pondered, "let me think. Well, there's math,
which I already told you about. Next, I guess, is biology. I
don't much like it. I do enough hacking things up as it is."  She
thought for a moment.  "I'm really good in P.E.," she added,
brightening up. "I can out jump and out run everyone in my class."

"I'm not surprised," he said. "But, you have an unfair advantage
over the rest of your class."

"That's not  MY fault," she said.

"True," he admitted. "So...you study math, biology, and...."

"P.E."

"P.E.," he repeated. "Is that all that occupies your days,
school girl?"

Buffy made a face. "Conversational French is a nightmare."

"Is it?"

"Yeah," she said fervently. "Who needs it, anyway? I'm not
likely to run into any French speaking vampires, am I?"

William pulled her down until she was laying flat on her
back. He bent his head, and whispered, "Vous savez que
vous etes la fille plus belle au monde, et que je t'aime avec
tout je suis?  Vous etes ma vie...que vous etes mon amour...je
vous aime."

Buffy stared up at him, speechless.

"Now," he said, smiling. "If you had learned your lessons properly,
you'd know what that means."

There was a long pause.  "You wouldn't want to do my
homework for me, would you?" she asked.

"No," he said. "But I'll help you with it."

"Tell me what you said."

He kissed her, nuzzling her cheek. "Do you know that you're
the most beautiful girl in the world, and that I love you with
everything I am. You're my life...you're my love...I cherish
you."

Buffy almost melted into the bedclothes. "That's so
romantic," she sighed, placing one small hand on his
cheek. "Um...what do you know about biology?"

     ~~~~~
"People everywhere the same
So busy they don't get together

      ~~~~~

"Do you speak any other languages?"

"Human or demon?"

"Whichever."

"A few," he replied, wrapping his arm more firmly around
her.

Buffy craned her head back to look at him. "Like what?"

"Italian. Spanish. Some Russian. Little bit of Greek."

"Greek?  Say something in Greekish," she requested.

William laughed, squeezing her tight.

"Greekese?"

"Close enough," he said. "Thelo na se gamiso."

"What's it mean?"

He shrugged, half smiling. "Means I want to fuck you,"
he said, then waited for the all over body blush he
expected.

And he got it.

Hesitating for only half a beat, she skipped off in
another direction. "Is that part of the vampire
package...knowing different languages?"

"If it is," he said, "then I'm not aware of it. I learned
long before I was turned."

"You mean at school?"

William nodded. "I didn't really go to school, not
the way you mean," he explained. "I was tutored
by an Oxford scholar until I left for University."

"What?" she asked. "You mean you never went
to school with the other kids? You...you didn't go to
dances and...stuff?"

"I attended dances, but they had nothing to do
with a school."

Buffy was almost ready to cry. It sounded to her
like a lonely childhood and adolescence, and it
broke her heart. "What did you do for fun?"

"I wrote poetry," he answered. "Terrible...TERRIBLE..
poetry."

"Really?"  She was excited. "I wrote a poem for my
mother when I was in third grade. It got printed in the
newspaper on Mother's day."

William played with her hair. "You like poetry, then?"

"Oh, yeah," she nodded, trying to sound as though great
poetry was nothing new to her. "I love it."

He sighed, and smiled at her with all the love in the world
shining in his eyes.

"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright,
Meet in her aspect, and her eyes,"

Buffy couldn't take her eyes off him as he spoke.  If there
had ever been a voice created for the purpose of speaking
such words...it belonged to him.

"Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace,
Which waves in every...golden...tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear, their dwelling place."

His finger traced the curve of her cheek, then
moved down to touch her lips.

"And on that cheek, and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent."

It was probably the single most romantic moment in her
life.

"That was NOT terrible poetry," she said firmly. "Who
told you it was terrible?"


     ~~~~~
"So these quiet moments make my day.."
      ~~~~~

William fell over onto his back, laughing. "Well," he
said, when he was able to speak, "you're right about that,
angel. It's not terrible poetry. It's also not mine."

"Oh," Buffy said, her cheeks stained his favorite shade of
pink. "I thought..." she shrugged.

"No," he said tenderly, shaking his head. "Lord Byron wrote
that particular piece."

"He a friend of yours?" she asked.

"No, sweetheart," he replied, stroking her hair. "He died long
before I was born. However...I have been told that we had a lot
in common."

She narrowed her eyes. "By who?"

"Never mind," he said quickly. One subject he really didn't
care to discuss with her was any similarities between him and
George Gordon...mostly claimed by ladies of his acquaintance,
and a female vamp or two who had known them both.

Anxious to smooth over her mistake, she rolled onto her
tummy and hovered over him. "I know some poetry, too," she
informed him. "Want to hear it?"

He smiled. "Absolutely, I do."

Although she took a deep breath before she began to speak,
she didn't have any real trouble calling up this particular
verse. After failing an exam in English due to lack of reading
the study material, her teacher had made her copy it out on
a sheet of notebook paper ten times.  She cleared her throat.

"What now, the radiance that was so bright
Be forever taken from my sight
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not,
Rather find strength in what remains behind."

Without missing a beat, he picked up where she
left off.

"In the primal sympathy, which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death;
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And, oh, ye fountains, meadows, hills and groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves."

Buffy propped her head on her hand. "Do you like that
one?"

"Very much," he nodded. "Wordsworth."

She smiled and snuggled closer. "Tell me more."

     ~~~~~
"Just to sit with you
And drift away..."
      ~~~~~


TBC......