Days in the Sun
Driving
13th March 2002
“Stop the car.”
Buffy complied quickly, parking on the side of the street, wincing at the tone of Spike’s voice. He got out of the DeSoto, and she could only guess that he was checking the paint damage on the passenger side. It wasn’t her fault, after all. How was she supposed to see exactly how far she was from parked cars when the windows were painted black? It was hard enough to see the road through the tiny clear spot on the windshield.
He had been teaching her to drive for the last three days, right after sunset. Her mom was staying home with the babies. The first night, he had been truly patient, and she had driven around Sunnydale for two hours. The night before, after an hour and some teeth grinding on Spike’s part at the way Buffy treated his car, they had gone home early. And tonight, Buffy had only been driving for ten minutes when a metal noise alerted them that she had gotten too close from a car parked on the side of the road, right after he had warned her for the third time.
Buffy was startled when Spike opened the driver’s door. She looked up at him, and his face was a mix of annoyance and a tiny bit of anger. She was very aware of how much he loved that damn car. Sometimes she even felt some jealousy toward the bloody thing.
“I’ll drive,” he said simply.
Buffy undid her seatbelt and slipped into the passenger seat without a word. Only a couple of minutes after he had started the car again did she break the silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I’ll be more careful next time. It’s just hard to see through the paint.”
His eyes didn’t leave the road for a second.
“There won’t be a next time,” he replied almost absently.
“What do you mean? I need to learn to drive!”
“You’re not driving my baby again.”
Crossing her arms, Buffy started sulking. She was back to her teenager years, with her mom refusing to let her drive after she had merely scratched her car. Still fuming, she didn’t notice they weren’t on their way home until he stopped the DeSoto.
“Come on, luv,” Spike said, more gently, as she still wasn’t moving from her seat.
Pouting, she got out of the car, to find herself in a dealer’s lot. Already, a salesman was approaching them, a very obviously fake smile plastered on his lips. She looked at Spike questioningly as he came to her, and he shrugged.
“I guess it was stupid to expect you to learn how to drive when you can’t even see the road,” he said with a half smile. “So, what kind of car do you want?”
December 3rd 2017
“Come on Dad, you said you’d teach me!”
Spike sighed and extracted himself from his wife’s arms. They had been watching the Monty Pythons on telly when Lisa bounced in the living room, ready and eager to take her first driving lesson. Buffy snickered at him as he shook his head at the excited teenager.
“I wouldn’t have minded going,” she said too sweetly, “but according to certain persons I am barely fit to drive, let alone teach someone.”
Having nothing to reply to her teasing, Spike did the next best thing – he stuck his tongue out at her, and she giggled.
“Of course, we’re taking your car,” he threw at her before closing the garage’s door behind him, shutting out her protests.
September 6th 2019
“But Dad!” William pleaded once more. “”It’s not like you use it during the day! And school is not that far!”
“Exactly,” his father answered, unyielding. “It’s not far at all and you can go by foot. Or go with Lisa. But you’re not taking the DeSoto.”
How to explain to a man born in Britain during the Victorian era that for a junior to go to high school in his sister’s red with black dots Beetle, license plate reading “LADYBUG”, was not only uncool but also insulting? And so unfair when there was that car in the garage, license plate “BIGBAD1” so very rarely used during the day, and that he could have driven to school and back.
“I promise I’ll be very careful,” he insisted again. “I’ll take care of her, you won’t even know I’ve been driving her.”
He had heard more than once Spike refer to his car as ‘she’. She was the fourth lady of the house. And William thought he had found the correct way to win that battle, because his father seemed to be softening.
“It’s just that it’s such a gorgeous car,” he played along, and in truth he liked the line of the DeSoto. “She deserves to be seen, don’t you think?”
There. He had him. That faint smile, that little light in these clear blue eyes…
“OK,” Spike consented with a sigh. “But only to school and back. I warn you, I’ll be checking her every day, and at the smallest scratch you lose your wheels.”
William grinned madly, nodding at everything Spike was saying. School was just the first step. If he played his cards right, he wouldn’t be driving his mom’s minivan, license plate “CHOSEN1”, ever again.
November 6th 2023
With a sigh, Spike climbed on the passenger side of the custom painted Beetle on his eldest. During the summer, Jay had managed to get her authorization to use her car to learn to drive. The baby of the family could be quite convincing when she wanted to. Of course, if she had still been a baby, she wouldn’t be learning to drive. And yet, there she was, excited about her first driving lesson.
Once again, Spike had ruled out Buffy as an instructor. In truth, her driving was good, better than he would admit to her, it was too much fun to tease her about it. And despite all his sighs and complaining, he didn’t really mind teaching the last of his children to drive. He would feel better later, when she was on the road alone, knowing that she had learned with an experienced driver. A very experienced driver. After all, he had learned when cars were still so rare that they attracted curious stares when they didn’t scare people.
Having buckled her seatbelt, Jay looked at him, expectantly as well as nervously.
“First thing to remember,” he told her with a serious face, “is that in this country people drive on the wrong side of the road.”
Like Buffy, Lisa and William before her, Joyce Anne laughed, her nervousness
melting away.
The characters and names used in these stories do not belong to me. All copyrights remain with Fox and Mutant Enemy. No profit is made from this fanfiction.