July 2, 2003
Setting in a Starbucks in St. Louis right now. Xander and I went to the top of the Gateway Arch (in the elevator of course). It was interesting, sort of like being in airplane, but not quite as high. The people working here are giving Xander and I evil eye because we've been sitting here for hours slowly drinking our cappuccinos, and talking. Xander did get 5 chocolate muffins and managed to get me to eat one. Wasn't as hard to tempt me with it as it sounds like it was. I swear I'm going to get fat traveling with Xander. Already the waistband on these jeans I'm wearing is feeling a bit tight. Before long I'm going to have to go up a clothes size. Of course Xander will say that's a good thing. He thinks I'm way too thin. I think even Spike thought I was too thin. He'd look at me sometimes with worry in his eyes. He never said anything, but every time I caught him looking at me that way, he'd immediate suggest stopping somewhere to eat, a lot of times it was when were patrolling. I usually said no I wasn't hungry, even if I was. Traveling with Xander its, we stop three times a day and get food. Plus he's got snacks in the car too.
I actually wrote about Spike just now without breaking down and crying (although I feel myself tearing up some now) I had another dream last night. It was kind of like the other one, but I realized I loved him earlier and told him. It right was after Robin had tried to kill him. I ran after Spike after I told Robin the same thing I did in real life. I told Spike I wasn't involved in what happened to him and if Robin had succeeded I wouldn't want to go on. I might have even killed Robin if he had. Then I said "Spike I love you". And he looked stunned, but he believed me. We hugged each other tight.
Again things followed basically the same path as the other dream after that until the end. This time when I got the amulet off Spike we got out in time and even saved Anya (and Andrew). Spike seemed to be very weak after we saved them though. We got to the door and Andrew and I were holding Spike up, he could barely walk. Xander saw us and after a quick hug and kiss to Anya he raced back to the bus and grabbed someone’s sleeping bag and threw it over Spike.
Spike was only semiconscious by then so Xander and I ended up carrying him to the back of the bus where Faith had ripped out the seat and put it on the floor and Dawn and some of the girls had blocked out the windows with blankets and had made sort of a makeshift tent for Spike. As soon as we were settled in Robin drove out of the school like a bat out of hell (well out of the hellmouth anyways). I allowed my stab wound to be treated and then I crawled under the "tent" to check on Spike. He was conscious again and we held onto each other until the bus stopped.
I didn't leave the bus when we stopped outside of what was Sunnydale. I crawled out of the tent and looked though. It wasn't such a big crater, didn't suck down the whole town, just the school and for a few blocks around it. We decided to stay there overnight and check the ruins of town in the morning for anything worth saving that we hadn't taken with us that morning. After that quick look and conversation I went back to Spike and we both slept for a few hours.
After dark Xander lifted up one corner of the tent and he and Spike had one of the most civil conversations I'd ever heard them have. Xander thanked Spike for saving Anya and himself "numerous times", and apologized that they'd only managed to find one little bag of blood in all the mess in the bus, and it probably had gone bad, or "whatever old, nonrefridgerated blood does". Spike told him it was alright he could stand it- "Still better than rat". To which all the girls within earshot chorused "Eww!" It must have tasted pretty bad though, since he only drank part of it. Once most of the others on the bus settled down for an uncomfortable nights sleep I pulled the flap of our sort of tent back down and Spike and I slept some more.
In the morning I went off with everyone else to investigate Sunnydale. Spike stayed on the bus under the tent. I was going to stay with him but he told me to go ahead, there might be something at home I wanted. What was left of Sunnydale though was a mess; I don't think there was one building left standing. All the crypts in the cemeteries were destroyed too; most the headstones were tipped over also. Dawn and I found a some of our pictures in the ruins and a couple of videotapes. Most the clothes we left behind were unwearable. I think we found about 4 things apiece that weren't basically rags. The girls and Willow fared about the same. Robin's house was completely gone, and Giles came back to the bus almost in tears, out of his private library he'd only found 10 books not torn to shreds, amazingly the one photograph album he had was "unscathed". Once we got on the road he looked through it again and again with this weird dazed look on his face. Xander and Anya both fared a bit better. Almost all of Anya's clothes were dirty but otherwise okay. Xander found his hard hat and suits were okay and a few of his other clothes. He also found most of his snacks were okay, so we had food of a sort. I raided the butcher shop along with Faith and Dawn and we came away with an armload apiece of pig’s blood (going bad) for Spike.
The dream ended with us on the road
to Cleveland in the bus. I woke up and felt depressed. Spikes arms around me
had felt so real in the dream. To wake up alone in bed in a strange hotel with
only Xander's snores from the other bed greeting me, was one of the saddest
moments I've ever had.
We're headed to South Dakota tomorrow;
decided we'd go see Mount Rushmore. The way we are driving it might take a few
days to get there, but is there really any rush? We only vaguely have decided
that eventually we'll get to LA. Xander is going to see if he can find his
parents and I need to talk to Angel and maybe I might see if I can find dad. I
doubt he knows, if he even bothered to check, if Dawn and I are still alive.
And Angel... I still haven't quite figured out what I'm going to say. I don't
love him anymore, that's all I know for sure.