TITLE: Beneath You

AUTHOR: AJ Hofacre

RATING: mild PG-13 for language

SUMMARY: While surfing around, I came upon a website that just happened to have the name of the second season 7 episode. They called it 'Beneath You,' and in my frame of thinking, that is so something that Spike would say to Buffy since her whole ego-trip in season five, so this story is just a little plot-filler on that.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me except my brain, and I'm not even sure that's mine either. My parents have been looking at me pretty funny lately...

DISTRIBUTION: Whoever so pulleth the sword from the stone... whoops, doesn't fit. Uh... Ask and ye shall have? Go ahead and take it. Just let me know before hand :)

FEEDBACK: oh, please, ever so much. I crave it like an junkie craves a fix. Or like my BF craves a Moffatts CD fix. It's kind of funny watching her go through withdrawal.
 
 
 

Rain, rain, go away...

Actually, it should stay for quite a while. As long as it wanted. The state that never received thunderstorms certainly had a whopping number of them right now. He flinched slightly as a roll of thunder... er, thundered. Then smiled slightly when the arch of lightning struck. The figure in the window let out a yelp at both.

Staring into the living room window of the Summers' house, he felt he could finally understand what his darling little huge-fucking-stick-up-her-ass bitch had convinced herself of: He wasn't allowed to be a part of her life. He wouldn't ever be a part of her life. It was unheard of. She'd had her fun with him, then tossed him away like a dishrag. Eugh. Thoughts that all too closely identified with Angel's original human self. Huh. How about that? Buffy was the female version of Galway's own Liam. That was nothing short of creepy.

He figured he deserved it now. After all, he had nearly raped her. Well, in his mind, he was trying to convince her to love him, but his actions (please see last year's Bondage Fun with Buffy and Dru as a reference), as per usual made him seem like the evil, heartless fiend that she reminded him that he was so many times.

It wasn't fair, really. Buffy had done worse things to him over the years. She'd dropped an organ -- not just an organ, but an entire church balcony -- on his head. She had set Angelus free, and in turn, the stupid prick had stolen Drusilla from him, so in a kind of branched out way, he blamed her for that, too. When the bloody Initiative had first planted the chip inside his brain, he had swallowed his pride and had gone to the Scoobies for help. Not only had Buffy openly contemplated letting him starve and burn, but she had tied him to a chair and left him in the middle of that Indian attack -- and in direct path of that bear (excuse the full body shudder) -- to get killed. And then the little bitch had convinced Giles to chain him up in the Watcher's bathtub. He was positive that she got off on making him miserable.

The stupid cunt had gone on to beat him up countless times for no reason at all. She had constantly made jibes and barbs at his expense, which truthfully had only fueled his hatred and anger for her. So he really couldn't understand how in the hell he had managed to fall in love with her. Weird fluke, maybe. Anyway, when he'd finally admitted it to her, she had banned him from her home, when he'd been trusted inside for years before he'd even had the stupid chip.

Okay, he hadn't helped things much by chaining her up, but if the stupid bitch had just listened to him, FOR ONCE, instead of condemning him as an evil disgusting thing, and saying that he couldn't love when she knew damn well better than anybody that he was capable of more love than any human being she had ever known, then he wouldn't even have had to resort to using Dru as an example and taking things too far. Stupid bloody bint.

He wasn't even going to revisit the boundaries that she'd crossed over the past year with him after her resurrection. It hurt too much.

He was positive that she was keeping herself from loving him, even now when they hadn't seen each other in four months. He supposed that this was the reason that things had taken a physical root, and he'd attempted to rape the woman he loved. It wasn't that he didn't feel guilty about it. He did -- all hell be damned, he did. He regretted it more than anything he had ever done in his existence. He had never even contemplated raping someone before, and because he was a big enormous git and lived by his emotions, he had nearly raped her. The sounds of her sobs and screams and the feel of her struggles were still haunting him at night.

Well, anyway, she had a right to hate him now, he knew she did. And oddly, he was okay with that. Buffy's relationship with him wouldn't be a relationship if she didn't hate him most of the time. And he knew that she cared about him, no matter what she told herself or anyone else.

The only reason he had come here tonight was to find his goddamn duster. He had left it on the banister of the stairs before he'd left, and he knew that the bitch had probably thrown it in a garbage heap or something -- he would really kill her if she had, that coat had sentimental value attached to it! -- but it was worth a try to see if he could spot it anyway.

Okay... okay, so he'd wanted to get a little glimpse of her, too. Could he really be blamed?

Memories of her filled his mind. He knew that one thing she had adored when she'd come to get her fix was his coat. He'd allowed her to try it on one night, just for the hell of it, and the image of her dancing and whipping around in the way-too-big-too-heavy-all-around-huge duster still stuck with him. She had been acting like such a child that night, and it had been absolutely adorable and heartwarming to see.

Now how the hell could he be a heartless monster if the joy on her face at letting her borrow his coat had warmed him from the inside out?

He was laying low, otherwise. Buffy had no doubt informed her friends about their little misadventures in the Summers' bathroom, and Xander probably hated him even more than he usually did. If he wasn't careful then he'd probably meet his death at the whelp's hands, and that was something that he had solely reserved for Buffy. If Spike was ever going to die, he would make sure that he died honorably, at Buffy's hands. But for now, he wasn't planning on letting her discover that he was back for a while yet. It was better to just stay out of the way and contemplate how to make her feel guilty for the things that she's done to him.

Hey, he wasn't going to be the only guilty one. Buffy wasn't the innocent victim in all this. She wasn't the evil bad guy either, but she had done her fair share of being the cruel one. For five years, he had allowed her to beat on him, being able to retaliate the first two years, but being a victim of her hostility for the last three. And it wasn't just her physical blows to him that broke his heart. Her words were equally as cutting, as vicious, as bad as the worst thing he had ever done to her.

His mind called up a scene outside of the Bronze last year. It was the night she had asked him about how he'd defeated his first two Slayers. And a visible flinch, a roll of pain swept over him as he recalled the words she'd said to him after his ill-fated attempt at a kiss:

"Suppose it's true. Suppose I do want to dance. It wouldn't be you, Spike. It would never be you. You're beneath me."

She had made him cry that night, he remembered. Words so angry, and hate-filled and cutting, words that he hadn't heard since the night of his reBirth one hundred and twenty-one years ago, words that he'd thought he'd left behind him...

And that bitch had brought them right back up again with icy glee at his expense. Maybe she hadn't known how badly she'd hurt him by saying those three words, but he definitely knew that she'd gotten a sense of victory and merriment at rejecting him so brutally, so openly, to his face.

She had always treated him with a sense of disregard. When he'd become chipped, she had dismissed him as a threat, instead choosing to think of him as a clipped puppy. Not a one of the bloody Scoobies believed he was still dangerous after that stupid piece of metal had been installed in his brain. But they were sadly mistaken. Spike could have burnt the town down for years now, and he hadn't chosen to do such a thing at all. Instead, he had chosen to help them fight the 'good fight,' and they had never even realized how badly he had lost any image of respect in the demon world after his alliance with them.

He was just grateful now that the creepy green-eyed wish-granter had taken the chip out when he'd reinstalled Spike's soul. Spike wouldn't be killing innocents -- hadn't killed innocents for three years, and hadn't wanted to until Buffy had rejected him all over again last year. He figured Demon Guy knew it wouldn't be a fair fight between the others and himself if Spike wasn't allowed to defend himself from harm. He'd only figured out that the chip was gone when he'd gotten flat-ass drunk one night, and struck up a bar fight with a native that had actually had the gall to openly make fun of his curling blonde hair.

Oh, Christ, he realized. He'd been defending his hairstyle over there. Ew, he had channeled Angel for a brief two minutes.

He hadn't killed the guy. Rather, the little twit had jerked one curling lock right out of his head and Spike had struck him at the pain it had caused. The worst he had done was break the poofter's arm.

Anyway. His self-righteous little pet was meandering around the living room, puttering about... oh, she was looking for something. By the looks of it, she was alone. Sigh. Tonight wasn't the night to find his precious coat. It was lost to him until he revealed himself to his ex-lover. Which he wasn't planning to do... but it wouldn't hurt to give her a little shock.

Buffy groaned out loud. "Dawn, where did you put my purse?!" she yelled upstairs.

Whoops. That was right. Dawn was spending the night at a friend's tonight. She was alone in the house, since Xander had taken both Giles and Willow in, housing Giles until the Watcher finally (if ever) found a temporary home, and helping Willow cope with Tara's death, and Warren's death at her own hands.

She spotted a splotch of leather behind the living room couch and her eyes brightened. She darted for it, kneeling on the couch and stretching her arm behind it until she grasped the black shoulder strap of her genuine leather purse. She checked it over, searching the insides and out for any missing contents. It was better being safe than sorry. She had a new job now, and what with the reopening of Sunnydale High School -- her Sunnydale High School, the one and only, not the cheap imitation copy that Dawn had gone to for her freshman year -- it was probably of the good that she was being so careful with her valuables. Hoodlums who were not Dawn could have ransacked the damn thing anytime they wished at the opening ceremonies.

<Oh, God, > she groaned mentally. < Did I just use the word 'hoodlums'? I'm using Giles-Speech! Crap! So incredibly of the bad! >

Oh, that was better. She was back to Buffy-Speech.

She sighed as she yanked the thing over the back of the couch, satisfied that nothing had gone missing. Well, the only things in there were a pack of Tic-Tacs, a mini-notebook, a stake and two vials of Holy Water -- she doubted any young whipper-snapper would find those of value unless there was a new vampire-slaying force out there that she had no knowledge of.

She used the 'whipper-snapper' punch purposely this time.

Holy fucking hell, that was gross, that was gross, that was gross! As if she wasn't already mega-wigged by bunches of other creepy-crawlies (she dove into melees of vampires and demons head-first and usually came out unscathed, but when it came to spiders, she ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off), of course there would be one sitting right there on the wall that was --

Well, okay, one that was no bigger than a pea, but it had eight legs, it crawled, and it was not a little bundle of cute, so it equaled gross!

She jumped back, equally startled when that stupid thunderstorm made its presence known again with a loud rumble that shook the house on its foundation. She had never liked thunderstorms, had always been extra scared of them since she was a little girl and had seen what one had done to a house in Texas on the television.

She moved to the window and pushed away the drapes slightly, worrying her lower lip. She hoped Dawn was okay. Then she shook her head for not having confidence in the sixteen-year-old. Dawn had been through a hell of a lot worse than a thunderstorm in the past two years.

She jumped back again slightly and gasped when the lightning accompaniment revealed a figure standing in her lawn. Another crack, and she saw that the figure... was Spike.

Her heart leaped up into her throat. She hadn't seen him since that awful night in her bathroom. She'd gone to his crypt to enlist his help in protecting Dawn, and had discovered to her (characteristically ignored) heart-constricting disappoint that he had been the latest of a Buffy-Relationship Gone Bad to skip town.

She hadn't allowed herself to think of him, and had forbidden anyone from even mentioning his name the entire summer, especially Xander (who had gotten way too into the self-righteous power trip that Spike's mistake had infused in him).

Well, that was to say, she didn't think of him until she was alone. It was kind of hard not to think of him when she dug his beloved duster out of the back of her closet and wrapped it around herself, breathing in the comforting, lingering scent of spice, cigarettes, alcohol, earth, peppermint, and Drakkar Noir.

Although the first four were for obvious reasons, the last two she remembered specifically. She had once told him that she adored hard candy peppermint swirls, since they reminded her of her grandmother and the years before her destiny had literally called, and as a special treat, he'd surprised her with a bag full that he'd been keeping hidden in an inside pocket. It turned out that he liked them, too. Another thing they had in common that she'd forced herself to ignore.

And he'd managed to discover that she adored the scent of Drakkar on his very own, going out and nicking a bottle of it to wear specifically in her presence. She remembered countless times when she'd watched him spray it on himself every evening especially for her.

Dammit, and now she'd gone and done it. The tears were starting to well up, and the thought came unbidden to the forefront of her mind: I miss you.

And she did. She really, really did. He'd become a huge staple in her life, and it hurt her to realize how big the void he'd left actually was. Going over to the crypt with Dawn to check up on Clem, she always found herself wondering if that day would be the day that she'd see him again. She'd find him curled up in his ratty old chair, his legs splayed apart, one arm wrapped around his stomach, the other arm hugging the remote control that Dawn had given him to his bare chest, watching some funky movie on his little television set before he turned to see her, smiled broadly, and began complaining about the cruddy reception because the cable company was too damn cheap to wire the cemetery for the good stuff.

If she hadn't had more self-control, she would have earnestly begun to cry.

The thunder rolled and the lightning struck again, but this time when she looked, the man she'd denied her love to was nowhere to be found.

Her heart constricted again. It had been an illusion. She hadn't seen him at all.

It had just been nature's way of making her face up to the lies she'd told herself.

Spike wasn't going to come back. He would never be there anymore, to give her that tiny, knowing smile before holding a peppermint up to her face to make her grin and tell him what was wrong. He wasn't going to be there to laugh in genuine mirth when she donned his duster and danced around like a little sprite on way too much caffeine. He wouldn't be there to give her the hard, cutting truth, when he knew she didn't want to listen, but also knew that it was something she needed to hear.

He wasn't going to be there to tell her he loved her no matter what she said and did.

He wasn't going to be there.

She wiped at her eyes and went up to bed.

Hmph. Talk about being a screw-up.

Spike looked up at the sky, his face being pelted with the drops of rain. He hadn't known that she would be crawling around in front of the window at that exact moment. And it broke his heart to see the stunned look on her face when she'd seen his silhouette.

That singular look had swiped away any of the hostility that he'd been feeling for her since he'd come back from Africa, and it wasn't fair. He wanted to be mad at her. He wanted to stop loving her, he wanted to hate her, he wanted things to go back to the way they were before all this horrible bull had happened. He wanted to forget that he'd ever been in love with Buffy Anne Summers. He wanted to forget how beautiful she was when she smiled, and how incredible she was when she took action, and how fierce and protective she was of her loved ones, and how amazing she was when she was fighting, her motions like devastating poetry. He wanted to forget how much being in love with his enemy had destroyed his life.

She looked more beautiful than he'd ever seen her tonight.

He'd forgotten how much he'd missed her.

He sighed and continued on down the road to his crypt, shoving his hands in the pockets of his soaked black jeans. In a last ditch effort to push away the heart-wrenching feelings digging into his heart, he called up the image behind the Bronze again, then shook his head.

"Am I still beneath you, Buffy?" he asked the sky.

It would really help if she could hear him, or if the sky could answer. Instead, the rain just kept coming down. And Spike kept walking.

He doubted he would ever get an answer.

Buffy had every reason to hate him, but he had more than enough reasons to hate her, too. And yet, as much as he tried -- he could try all fucking night, and it still wouldn't get him anywhere. He couldn't stop loving her. And loving her hurt him so, so much. Why couldn't he stop?

He'd been convinced that the chip had been doing this to him, that his demonic nature had been suppressed for so long that it gave rise to other feelings, other emotions, that as a soulless demon, he should not have had access to. But it wasn't the chip, and that much was obvious, because the chip was gone, but his feelings weren't. He still felt short of breath (figuratively) whenever he caught a glimpse of her lovely eyes.

And he'd believed before, with all the mess surrounding his grandsire, that all a soul would do was give you guilt and remorse. If that was so, then why had he felt so horribly guilty before he'd even received his restored soul? What did that say about him? What did it mean? Had he had his soul all along, and the visit to the wish-granter had just brought it back to the forefront? What was so different about him, that he could feel love, hate, sorrow, passion, tenderness, guilt and remorse above all other vampires, whereas they didn't? Had his soul been carried over when Drusilla had turned him?

What was wrong with him?

He had always felt he was an aberration in the vampire world. The only time Angelus had ever been proud of him during his vampire existence was the revenge tactic that had won him his very name. Angelus had no longer seen him fit to be a vampire after that. He was different, because whereas Angelus and Darla simply held each other's company as a form of convenience, Spike had truly loved Drusilla. Drusilla hadn't truly loved Spike, and he'd known that, but he'd felt that his love for her had been enough for the both of them the first hundred years.

The only thing that had ever gained him respect in the vampire world had been his slaughter of the two vampire Slayers. That had been done to both spite Angelus and to hopefully gain the smallest iota of pride from his sire. Spiting him had worked, but earning a piece of pride from the Scourge of Europe was a thing that would never again occur. As much company as he carried, Spike was as alone as could be determined. He'd been much too different from the other, more sinister vampires.

The one and only time that he'd met his great-great grandsire, Joseph, the Master, the 600-year-old vampire had taken an instant disliking to him, and had denounced him to his face before his court, Darla and Angelus at his side. Drusilla had been the only one to take up for him, due to their affection for each other, but it had been clear that she was amused by the proceedings.

To his own family, Spike had been a nothing, and had only shown promise because of the Chinese Slayer that he'd killed at the time.

And then, there had been Buffy. He'd fallen in love with the well-known killer of his kind, when he knew full well that the only reason she let him live with the chip in his head was because he couldn't defend himself. He'd tried everything he could think of to make her like him, he had even given up his all-black attire for one evening in hopes that she would possibly notice him and acknowledge him as something other than an annoyance, a hindrance, and a reluctant ally. She had rejected all of his efforts, and when she finally had accepted him into her body, it had only been because of the devastation that her resurrection had caused her. And her final rejection after that had hurt worse than before.

So in his human life, he had been rejected by Cecily because he was simply not enough of a man. Drusilla had eventually rejected him in favor of their Sire because Spike had not been enough of a vampire. The vampire world rejected him because he felt human emotions. And Buffy rejected him because he was neither man, nor monster -- he was a thing. An evil, disgusting, soulless thing.

He just wasn't good enough for anybody, was he?

He snorted to himself. < Like to see her try an' call me soulless now. >

It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.

Angel's soul was a curse. It made him work harder to achieve redemption, so he could keep his soul and maybe one day become human. Maybe Spike's soul -- which was without a doubt his -- was a good thing. Maybe his curse was becoming a vampire. Because if Drusilla hadn't sought him out and turned him, then he wouldn't have lived this long. And he wouldn't have met Buffy.

And he wouldn't be an outcast. Because that was what he was. Nothing but an outcast. Too demon to be a human. Too human to be a demon. He just didn't fit in anywhere.

Now he knew how Angel felt, and for possibly the first time in a century, he respected the trials that his grandsire had gone through. Spike was still different, though. Yeah, he had his soul and everything, but Angel had it easy. Angel had something to work for. And all Spike had was love for a woman who scorned him. A woman that he could never really, truly have. A love that would never be requited.

Yeah, Angel definitely had it easy. Compared to him, anyway.

Spike pulled open the door to his crypt and slipped inside. This year was going to be absolute hell.

No doubt about that.
 
 

TBC

TITLE: Beneath You

AUTHOR: AJ Hofacre

RATING: mild PG-13 for language

SUMMARY: While surfing around, I came upon a website that just happened to have the name of the second season 7 episode. They called it 'Beneath You,' and in my frame of thinking, that is so something that Spike would say to Buffy since her whole ego-trip in season five, so this story is just a little plot-filler on that.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me except my brain, and I'm not even sure that's mine either. My parents have been looking at me pretty funny lately...

DISTRIBUTION: Whoever so pulleth the sword from the stone... whoops, doesn't fit. Uh... Ask and ye shall have? Go ahead and take it. Just let me know before hand :)

FEEDBACK: oh, please, ever so much. I crave it like an junkie craves a fix. Or like my BF craves a Moffatts CD fix. It's kind of funny watching her go through withdrawal.
 
 
 

Music had to be the most eclectic thing on the planet. There was just so much to choose from. Peaches, for one reason or another, adored that classical stuff -- Tchaicovsky, Tartakoff, Mozart, Beethoven. Dawn was the typical teenage girl, enjoying most of the music in the pop genre -- she idolized the Backstreet Boys, he remembered (hey, he'd spent enough time around her last summer to be subjected to that torturous noise of twenty-something males wailing in high octaves about L-U-V and all that). Except that Dawn's enjoyment of music wasn't limited to just pop and that was why he adored her. She shared Spike and Buffy's enjoyment of rock, alternative, and punk.

Okay, so Buffy hadn't been that keen on punk, but he'd been getting her there. The Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and all the rest, they were the classics. And once, he'd even caught her humming along to one of their songs (to which she'd promptly denied doing so).

Anyway. He was riffling through CDs at the local f.y.e. And his natural thought processes took over almost immediately, wondering what kind of name 'f.y.e' was for a music store, and why the hell they'd bought out Camelot Music, anyway. Bloody bastards.

He was looking for three CDs, specifically. "Linkin Park," which had belonged to Dawn. She'd allowed him to borrow it, but she'd never gotten it back because he'd left so abruptly.

Besides. Clem had sat on it. The big hulking behemoth.

The other one was Buffy's, "Our Lady Peace" CD, which had also had the misfortune of being crushed beneath Clem's big, floppy-skinned bum. He'd had to nick that one, because she'd put up such a raucous about letting him borrow it. He hadn't understood what the big deal had been, she hadn't even been listening to it that much. He doubted that she even realized that it was still missing now.

A man on a mission for "Our Lady Peace," "Linkin Park," and... something else that he wasn't certain about getting yet. He was skimming the new releases, hoping to God that he could find something worth listening to where the lead vocalist didn't just scream nonsensical words.

This was good. He was focusing on something that wasn't Buffy. Well, okay, it had something to do with Buffy, but the blonde little firebomb wasn't possessing his thoughts as he did it. He was just trying to find replacements for the CDs that he'd borrowed.

'Course, he wasn't exactly sure how he was going to get the CDs to them. He had contemplated leaving them in the mailbox with a small 'Goodbye, forever' note, but that was too dramatic.

Also, stupid.

Plus, he was pretty sure Buffy would maim him if she found out that he'd taken her CD, then had accidentally gotten it destroyed. Stupid Clem.

Another good thing. He was focusing on Buffy beating the shit out of him for something other than their re-- er... that 'R' word that he wasn't even going to come near again for the rest of his bloody life.

He frowned. Wait a minute -- he shouldn't be thinking of Buffy beating the shit out of him, full stop. He'd had enough of being her personal punching bag, her faithful, heel-licking little puppy. She wasn't going to bring him down anymore, she wasn't going to make him feel useless, she wasn't going to use him as a walking, talking dildo anymore. He'd wanted a relationship from that bitch, he'd given her everything that he'd ever been, and he'd even given her everything that he'd ever hoped to be, because of her, and she had just rejected him.

He was going to do whatever it took to get over her. He knew it couldn't work. He'd known that when he'd fallen in love with her. Images of her smiles and sounds of her laughter had eaten him from the inside out, night after night, and at some points had almost succeeded in reducing him to agonized, heart-wrenching tears. He was in love with a woman he wasn't supposed to love who would never feel anything but hate and revulsion for him.

He supposed that it was finally sinking in.

He wouldn't stop loving her -- oh, no, he couldn't do that. He'd tried everything he could to stop loving her -- he'd thought it was the chip's fault, for Christ's sake -- but the end result was that he loved her all the more. No, he wouldn't stop loving her.

But he was going to stop trying to get her to love him. Because it wasn't going to happen. He knew that. Finally, he knew that.

Buffy was a diamond in the rough, there was no question there. He was certain that she had touched the lives of anyone and everyone that she had ever come in contact with. And he knew that she would find someone who would love her for who she was -- as much as the thought of someone else loving and touching his princess revolted him.

"Fuck," he snarled out loud. After a moment, he looked up and realized he was being stared at. Whoops. That was probably one obscenity that shouldn't have been uttered in such a public place. A few teenagers a few rows down began snickering, and Spike shot them a menacing look, combined with a threatening growl. They gaped at him, then took off. Spike snickered to himself.

Hey, he wasn't going to hurt them. But he'd never sworn to himself that he wouldn't scare them once in a while. He wasn't Angel, after all.

Oh, speaking of Angel. Funny thing, that. He'd stopped by L.A. on his way back to Sunnydale, and he'd gone sniffing around the old Hyperion where his sire had taken up residence. He'd figured that maybe the original Soul Train could give him some advice, since he had absolutely no bloody idea what he was dealing with here.

Yeah, problem was that nobody had been there. Nobody except some young black guy, who looked awfully familiar in one way or another, and a sweet-faced young brunette with a hint of a Southern accent. The two had told him that Angel, Cordelia (the cheerleader that had dated the whelp the year he'd been Sunnydale's Big Bad, he recalled), and Angel's son (?!) Connor were all missing.

He hadn't been able to stay, and he'd actually been reluctant at the idea of leaving his grandsire MIA, but he'd helped the best he could, following Angel's familiar scent down to some place called Point Dume. Or something. Anyhow, it was all up to them after that.

Over the speakers in the shop, a song by Michelle Branch suddenly came on, and Spike started. His eyes widened as he recognized the song and the lyrics. He hadn't been that in tune  < ha, bloody ha, good pun, mate > with the song in the first place -- he'd been more hopeful towards getting Buffy to give him a second glance after that whole mistaken identity thing that Red had pulled -- but he knew well enough that it had been the song playing live at the Bronze that very night.

Closing his eyes, the images came to him slowly, one by one -- her open rejection of him at the bar, simply by turning her head. His hurt pride, forcing him to stalk away from her and toward the Bronze doors. Sensing her presence behind him and turning to see her running for him, unshed tears glistening in her eyes. Pulling her protectively into his arms and whisking her into that corner, that bloody sacred corner that they'd marked as their own. His quaking fingers trailing down her soft, smooth, trembling cheek, and the desperation on both parts as their lips met --

He let out a soft cry and bowed his head.

It wasn't fair.

Well, well. They decided to visit again tonight. How lovely. More torment. More torture. He'd figured that earlier that evening at the music store had been the most of it. Obviously he was wrong, because they were now, once again, plaguing his dreams.

"Tell me you love me."

"You were amazing..."

"Tell me you want me."

"I love you."

"I can't love you."

"I'm using you."

"Let yourself love me!"

"I'll make you feel it!"

"Ask me again why I could never love you!"

Ask me again why I could never love you, she says as she holds her bathrobe up against her, almost as if it would protect her. Her eyes filled with tears, so uncaring, so hateful. And he without a clue as to what he's just done until he sees her face. And his guilt and horror overwhelms him. He gulps out loud, stares at her in shock, then runs out the door.

Spike woke up slowly, his eyes filled with tears. Oh, god, what had he done? What the hell was so wrong with him that he'd nearly raped the woman he was in love with?

Actually, he could answer that question easily. She'd led him on. She'd used him so many times, she'd taken and taken so much from him, taken everything that he'd freely given her, and he'd finally wanted something back. And what he'd wanted had been her heart. A heart that she refused to give to him.

He sat up and wiped his eyes, then rested his head in his hands. She cared about him, he knew she did. It hadn't been just wanton lust. She had to have cared about him. Just a little bit. She had to.

Ask me again why I could never love you. Why she could never love him? Or why she didn't want to? He'd shown her his passion for her, his love for her, how deeply she made him feel, how much she'd changed him.

And it frightened her.

She didn't want to love again, because loving meant losing, and not only that, but how would it have felt to explain to her friends that she'd fallen in love with another vampire? Xander already had him on his hate list as it was and Willow would probably have fainted, the poor dear.

Then, on top of that, was the fact that he'd been soul-less. Having a soul meant so much to the bloody bint. Why could she not understand that a soul wasn't what made you love someone? He had even explained it to her, back when he'd been pining after Dru, and Buffy had been nattering on and on and on about Angel. "Blood isn't brains, children. It's blood, screaming inside you to work it's will." Didn't really matter if the blood was borrowed or not. It was still inside of you, making you risk your bloody neck for something you shouldn't even be associated with.

A soul was there to chastise you for the doing wrong things, to provide direction and guidance for... for things that he had done, for things that Angel had done. Angel had been far worse off, because he'd killed so many more people than Spike had even fought with, and Angelus had done it just for fun at times. He'd had his soul for slightly more than eighty years, having gotten it only a decade or two after Spike had been turned.

No, dammit, no! He was NOT gonna sit there and contemplate his shitty lot in life. He wasn't gonna brood like Angel. His sire had done enough of that in the past one hundred some years for the entirety of North America. Spike was going to deal with this in his own way.

He grunted and stood up, snatching his pants, sliding them up his narrow, lean hips, then yanked on a shirt before fastening the clasps on the jeans.

Sighing, he marched toward his door and slammed it shut. Clem would more than likely show up later to consume whatever food he had in there, so he wasn't worried.

He was going hunting.

Cool, smooth limbs shifted under her, unable to do more than rub against her ample body. Her head rolled back in ecstasy, her eyes closed in the most extreme representation of absolute bliss and pleasure. Her head moved forward again, and looking down at him, her stance and posture took on that of a predator's, riding him slow, but hard.

Because that was what she was. She was a predator. And he was her prey.

Well... for now.

He gazed up at her from beneath half-lidded eyes, jerking slightly and letting out a soft groan as she plunged down particularly hard. She raised her eyes to his arms, handcuffed above his head. How was it that he could exhibit total and complete trust in her, having no doubt in his mind that he would, one way or another, come out of this alive?

A desperation to be closer to him, to truly feel skin-on-skin, pleaded with her, and she leaned forward, sliding her hands up his arms, up the smooth alabaster of his skin. She noticed the way his eyes darted back and forth between her face and her heavy breasts, looming closer and closer to come in contact with his cold flesh just.... there.

He gasped and thrust under her once more, and she situated her body fully above his, her hands reaching his cuffed wrists and squeezing possessively, her body pressing tightly against his own. Beneath her, in only the most pleasurable sense of the words. Dead wrong that he was beneath her. In fact, they were definitely on the same level. She matched his ferocity, his passion, his strength. She would even go so far as to say that they were One and the same.

A tightening in her feminine muscles alerted her and suddenly, she arched, her head tilting back. And as if on cue, he began to growl, to rumble, his body arching in much the same way, though as she came down, his eyes locked on hers at his orgasm.

They moaned in unison.

She lowered herself once more, her nipples still erect, brushing over his chest and against his own, before she moved her lips to his.

BAM!

Buffy shot up, eyes wide, looking around frantically.

"Buffy? Are you here?" Pause. "Willow? Buffy?"

Buffy's eyes brightened. Dawn!

"I'm upstairs, Dawnie!" she called.

Dawn had stayed at her friend Alexia's house last night, she remembered. Obviously, the girls had gone to school together this morning, and Dawn hadn't bothered to call home to let her know. Ah, she'd let her get away with it this time.

Buffy had fallen asleep out of absolute exhaustion last night, combined with the Headache of All Headaches. That, and the apparition that she'd seen that had looked remarkably like her ex-lover... like Spike... had left her in a bit of a daze.

Also, she'd been enjoying that particular dream she'd been having. The one and only time she'd ever been daring enough with Spike to handcuff him during their Destructo-Sex sessions. She still couldn't get over the fact that he'd had total and complete faith in her, that he hadn't been worried that he'd end out the night with a stake through his heart, or a brutal snap-kick to his head. How could he have been so trusting, knowing and experiencing how hateful and selfish and caustic Buffy could be and had been in the past?

Maybe that was one of the things that she hated about him. She had thrown her all at him, unleashed verbal torment, physical hatred on him, denounced him more times than she could count, and yet he still came back to her. Even before she'd made the über-bad mistake of sleeping with him.

Not that he wasn't a good lover. Strike the good from the record and replace it with phenomenal. It was just that she shouldn't have turned to him for physical comfort to seek some sort of feeling. She'd warped his feelings, knowing that he loved her, and still, she had used him. She just hadn't been able to stop, and all it had taken for her to stop was Riley's discovery of her in Spike's bed.

She'd been ashamed of him.

Of course, she'd had good reason to be. Her (married!) ex-boyfriend had just discovered her in bed, naked, with her so-called mortal enemy-turned-lover. She was supposed to hate his immortal guts and be the prime figure in his death, if it ever happened. And instead, she was sleeping with him. And because of that shame she had felt when Riley had found them out, she had blown up Spike's home, stomped on him, then broken his heart, breaking up with him the morning after. The verbal blow she'd dealt him -- calling him William when she apologized -- had been the final nail in the coffin. She had denounced him from her life as both human and vampire. Her actions, and his hurt and confusion were what had driven him to seek comfort in Anya's arms.

She supposed she'd deserved that retaliation blow most of all. She had dumped him, then told him to move on, when it was obvious that he could do anything but. And it hurt her when she thought back on it now, because she believed that he loved her, that he was utterly devoted to her. He couldn't move on, because after her, there was nothing to move on to. He might as well have wished for his death to claim him.

Thinking back to that last night in each other's arms... that had been the first time they'd made love. The real first time. The first first time had been spur-of-the-moment sex. All the other times, they were fucking each other sideways and up and down the walls and floors of his crypt. Spike had tried many different times to add his love and tenderness to the mix, but Buffy would become rigid and unresponsive.

It was her shock and hurt at the thought that Riley had managed to move on, and had found a wife only a year after he'd left her, and she was still right back where she started, fucking the evil, soulless thing. It was her fear of not being loved that had pulled her to Spike that night, < when you knew damn fucking well that he loved you, you cold bitch, > her inner thoughts accused. She had finally allowed him to shower her with his love and affection, and they had truly made love, much to Spike's delight.

And then the world went boom.

She'd broken up with him, and he'd been clueless, unable to understand why. Why had she given herself to him so lovingly, so passionately, so intimately, so... sincerely, in that way, then told him to shove off, treating him like he was no longer welcome?

Buffy pouted as she jogged down the steps, rushing desperately to see her sister. Dawn was the best thing in her life at the moment. She had worked so hard to maintain the level of trust and understanding that now stood as strong as a cemented wall between them, and she was not about to do one thing to collapse it.

She knew that Dawn thought about Spike probably as much as she did. Spike had been her guardian, the only thing she'd really had left when Buffy had died the second time. They had bonded over their grief, and it had brought them closer than they had been before. Dawn hadn't been able to clutch on to the other Scoobies -- because, well, facing it, Giles had become pretty much withdrawn and sullen, not talking to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. Xander and Anya had been occupied in comforting each other, after Buffy's loss, and so had Willow and Tara.

Spike had adored Dawn, like she was his very own flesh and blood. He had held her in a higher regard than any of the other Scoobies, save for Tara, not simply because she was his beloved's younger sister, but because the girl had treated him like a human, like he'd mattered, and hadn't simply tolerated him because of his love for Buffy.

How sad was it that her little sister's best friend had turned out to be a heart-broken, chipped-up, 121-year-old Master vampire, who had a well-known fondness for Passions, bourbon, kitten-poker, spicy buffalo wings, and Bloomin' Onions?

Oooh, that reminded her. Spike was gonna be pissed when he found out that the actor who had played Timmy on Passions had died.

She hopped down the staircase and threw her arms around Dawn, smiling. "Hey, Dawnie. How were classes today?"

Dawn's lower lip poked out about a foot. "Stupid. Mr. Carney is way too brutal on the math assignments. Pages 281 to 283, one through fifty, all? And it's Algebra Two, which makes it even worse! I barely remember Algebra One!"

Buffy mimicked her sister's pout. "Aww, poor baby. Not to fear, Dawnie. With Giles still here, maybe we can figure out a way to get you through it all, okay?"

Dawn frowned. "But what about -- Oh, right. Willow's still Silence Girl, and you sucked at any subject that wasn't lunch or gym."

The Slayer glared at her sister, rapping her lightly on the arm. "Hey! I'll admit, I wasn't good in high school, but I still managed to graduate, didn't I? Plus, I got to blow the school up while I was doing it."

Dawn grinned. "Does that mean I get to blow up Sunnydale High when I graduate? Sort of make it a Summers tradition. You know, just in case Sunnydale's new Mayor wants to take a bite out of the senior class again."

Buffy snorted. "I'm glad you wanna follow in my footsteps, but let's not get too hasty, right? Besides. Taxes wiped us out this year while they were rebuilding the new one. I don't really want a repeat in the next four years."

The teenager sighed. "Fine. No ka-boom for the school yet." She shrugged. "'Sides, I really don't feel like relocating again. 'S enough that I had to go to that other cruddy high school, an' anyway, it'd pretty much blow."

Buffy laughed. "You'll get your chance, Dawn, I promise. If some big ugly is threatening the school and the senior class, you have full permission to help me blow it up again, kay?"

Dawn grumbled under her breath. "That sounds like the kind of compromise you would make. Spike would have let me blow it up on my own!"

Silence.

Buffy glanced sideways at the sixteen-year-old. By the look on Dawn's face, the girl had realized what she'd just said, and was hoping to high Heaven and some form of God that Buffy hadn't noticed. Buffy took a deep, calming breath and cleared her throat.

"Dawn," she began brightly, "why don't you go put your things in your room, and we'll go get... ice cream or something, okay?"

Dawn smiled, obviously relieved that Buffy hadn't called her on her slip-up. She nodded happily. "Okay! That sounds great. I'll do that."

< Stupid, stupid, stupid! > Dawn berated herself later on that night. < I just HAD to mention Spike, didn't I? How could I be so stupid? Did I not remember how bad Buffy wigs everytime she hears his name? >

Oh, boo. Now she felt worse.

Buffy had finally trusted her in the cemetery by herself, although she was still never allowed out after sunset, unless one of the Scoobs was with her.

Maybe Buffy figured that as long as she was checking on Clem, or going to visit Mom or Tara's grave, then it was all right. Buffy had put her trust in Dawn, and Dawn didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize that trust. No more sneaking out for her. Sneaking out equaled unhappy Buffy, and that in itself could turn out to be almost apocalyptic right there. Beware the pissed off Slayer.

Well, considering she'd already visited both Mom and Tara (with hunker-loads of flowers), she figured she might as well check up on Clem. They'd sort of lost track of him after Willow transported them to the Magic Box from Rack's old place, but later on they'd found him cowering in the alley next to the magic store by a dumpster. Poor guy; he'd been scared out of his wits. Buffy had needed to haul him up from behind the dumpster and propel him back to Spike's crypt.

She didn't know how she felt about visiting the crypt anymore, when it wasn't Spike she was intent on seeing. The vampire had a soft spot in her heart, true, but she'd been devastated when she'd found out that he'd left because of what he'd attempted to do to Buffy. Dawn didn't really know whether to feel angry at him, or sorry for him, or to just plain miss him. Well, yeah, she missed him. That was a given. She'd needed him the summer that Buffy had died. He'd filled in the void that losing her sister had left, mostly because he was feeling the exact same things. Unlike the rest of the group, she had fully believed him when he said he loved Buffy.

Anyway, Xander had taken full responsibility of harboring the anger field toward Spike. Willow wasn't in any condition to feel anything more than numbness. Anya sympathized with Spike, since she had realized exactly why he'd complied with sleeping with her. They had sort of been in the same boat, after all -- Xander had dumped her, and Buffy had just dumped Spike. And since Anya was a demon, she could sense Spike's pain and aggravation and hurt over the relationship.

Dawn guessed that she could feel Buffy's feeling about it, too, but chose not to tell. Because true to her nature, Buffy would promptly deny any of it.

Sighing, she moved up the steps to the crypt before pushing open the door. She made a decision -- she was mad at Spike, and she felt sorry for him as well because of what Buffy had put him through, but it didn't matter what else, because she missed him like hell. He had always been a part of her life in some way, ever since the very first time he'd ever come to Sunnydale, and being incredibly angry at him for attempting to rape Buffy didn't cancel out her Spike-missage.

Now, if the jerk had only kept in contact with them to let him know how he was doing.

"Clem? Are you here?" she called out, stepping through and hopping over the step inside the mausoleum. The upper level of the crypt was empty, and so she frowned, pushing deeper into the candle-lit crypt.

Wait, candle-lit? Clem never lit the candles like this. He'd preferred the half-decent lantern that Spike had managed to rummage out of the dump two years ago to the candles that Spike had insisted remain lit. She shrugged it off. Oh, well. Maybe Clem had come to his senses. The candles placed strategically all over the crypt gave more light than that shoddy lantern anyway.

A sudden thoguht sparked her. Maybe he was downstairs, or rummaging through the tunnels past the blown-up bedroom? A small whimper from the lower level confirmed her thoughts and she smiled slightly, descending the ladder that served as a make-shift staircase.

"Clem?" she called out gently, in case the big blob was asleep in the ruins of Spike's bed. Well, there was someone on the bed, yeah, but it was not Clem. She felt her heart jump into her throat, and she moved closer, standing at the foot of the bed.

It couldn't be.

It could just be a really good impersonator. But did anything ever really go like that? She knew it was him. The defining features gave it away. The pale, pale, almost transluscent skin; the hard sculpted muscles that she shouldn't have known about but had seen more than once when she'd snuck out to visit him during the Glory spiel two years ago; the arched, sort of cross-shaped scar accenting his left eyebrow; the platinum-silvery-white color of the curls of his hair, making it plainly obvious that he hadn't touched up in a while. His roots had nearly taken over his head.

God, it was really him. He was back.

And he looked like he was in immense pain. He whimpered again, his right side twitching slightly, and his body spasmed. A soft, agonized moan ripped out of his lips, and he jerked again, flipping onto his side. He wasn't covered by any blankets, but he was shirtless, and at least he was wearing his jeans.

"Spike?" she whispered, staring at him like he was a personal message from the gods. Hah. Hardly. But still, metaphor. It worked.

He moaned again, and his body shuddered as he burrowed his face under his pillows. God, it hurt. Why did it have to hurt so much?

She moved closer, reaching out her hand to touch his arm. "Spike?" she said again, her warm fingers brushing against his unnaturally cold skin. At the moment of contact, Spike shot straight up in game face, snarling and growling in fear, his gaze shooting around the crypt. Dawn jumped back, her eyes wide. When Spike's gaze wavered and locked on her, his game face almost melted off, and his soft blue eyes gazed up at her hopefully.

"Nibblet?"
 

TBC

Bitty. His precious Little Bit was standing right in front of him.  He wasn't dreaming; his little darling was really there.

He tentatively reached for her. "Bitty... oh, god," he whispered. Something indiscernible flashed in her eyes, and suddenly he was met with a one-two jab to his jaw. He grabbed his face and cried out in surprise and (surprisingly) pain. That had really hurt! Apparently, Buffy had been teaching her sister a couple of things.

"Ow! What the hell d'you do that for, Nibblet?" he yelped, shocked.

Her lower lip trembled, and the look in her eyes screamed betrayal. "Don't call me that," she said, her voice shaking.

He frowned, tilting his head in confusion. "Dawn?" he tried again.

She shook her head furiously. "You weren't supposed to come back; that's the rule. Whenever a guy leaves, he's not supposed to come back. You just can't follow the rules, can you? Why did you come back? Everything was going right for once, and then you have to burst back on the scene! You can't leave well enough alone, you screwed up, and I hate you!"

Spike flinched and he stared at her, his little Dawn, in hurt. Guilt overcame him and he reached for her again, shaking his head. "No, Dawn, please -- "

"NO!" she shrieked, squirming away from him. "Don't touch me! I know what you did to Buffy! You're a liar, you promised you would never hurt her, and you lied! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

Spike sat up, allowing her words to permeate his senses. His heart was breaking as he stared at the tiny girl, and finally he looked down, unable to face her angry accusations and hate-filled litany.

Dawn's eyes had been steadily filling with tears, from everything at once -- the shock of finding him back home, the relief that he was all right, and the anger at what he'd tried to do. But as she stopped screaming and looked at him -- really looked at him -- everything else faded except her relief.

She burst into the tears that she had desperately tried to hold back, stumbling forward and dropping next to him. She threw her arms  around his neck and buried her face into his shoulder, sobbing against his bare skin. "I missed you, Spike," she gasped. "I missed you so much!"

Spike swallowed hard and sighed in relief, grasping her to him tightly. He hugged her hard and kissed her forehead and cheek. "My Bitty, my little Nibblet," he murmured gently, stroking her hair soothingly. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, baby. I didn't wanna hurt you, I didn't."

Dawn's weeping only increased. "How could you leave us, Spike? We needed you! Warren shot Buffy and Tara, and Tara died! Willow went all Psycho-Wicca and killed Warren, tried to kill me, tried to kill Buffy, nearly killed Giles, destroyed the Magic Box, and tried to end the world! We needed you -- I needed you, really needed you, and you weren't there!"

Her little hands clutched him tighter, and he complied, holding her closer. "Shh, Dawn-luv, be still. Don't cry, baby, don't cry," he murmured, kissing the top of her mahogany head.

Christ... Tara was dead? And Willow had killed someone, and tried to end the world? He'd never have thought... Oh, damn, Glinda was dead. That sweet, quiet little witch was gone. Dawn had been immensely close to Tara, and her loss must've devastated his Nibblet. Dawn had been right -- she had needed him, and he hadn't been there. < Just pour on the guilt some more, I don't mind, > he thought grimly.

Eventually, Dawn's tears died down, and she carefully pulled away, peering up at him shyly as she wiped her eyes. "Sorry," she mumbled sheepishly. Suddenly, she smiled, and her gangly little arms were around him once again. "God, Spike, I missed you so much! I'm so glad you're back!"

Spike favored her with a gentle, loving smiled, hugging her back tightly. "Suddenly, so am I. I missed you, too, Pidge."

She pulled back again and scrambled onto the burnt mattress next to him, putting her hands over his. "Oh, god, so what happened? Where'd you go? Did you bring me back something?"

Spike snorted. "All right, I know you mum taught you that asking for prezzies was impolite. But as a matter of fact..." He trailed off and Dawn squealed in delight. Spike chuckled and glanced around the lower level, standing up and striding toward the remnants of his dresser. Fiddling with the drawer, her slammed his fist down on the top, then jerked it open.

Reaching inside, he pulled something out in his clenched fist before turning to face her. "I went to Africa, an' I was sort of taken in by a tribe. I had a talk with the shaman of the whole lot, an' I guess he sensed you were on my mind at the time or something, cuz he gave me this to give to you." He opened his palm and grasped the ends of a hematite necklace with an opal stone in the center.

Dawn's eyes lit up and an awed smiled blossomed. She reached for it, holding it up in the dim light. "Spike, it's so pretty! Thank you so much!" she gasped.

Spike smiled gently. "It was nothing, Bitty."

If anything, she beamed even more. "So when did you get back?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. 'Bout three days ago, maybe."

"Have you seen Buffy?"

Dawn winced as soon as the words spilled from her lips. A clouded look and an unmistakable presence of fear and guilt had settled on Spike's face, and he'd instantly grown nervous, turning away from her. Swallowing, he shook his head 'no' quickly.

Silence reigned for a bit, until Spike squeezed his eyes shut and turned back to her. His eyes opened and Dawn's heart bounced at the pain she saw in them. "Don't tell her I'm here, Dawn. I don't... She doesn't need me around to muck things up for her," he replied. "It's just best for me to stay out of her way."

Dawn made as if to protest, but sighed at the look of solid resolution in Spike's eyes. "I don't... want to lie to her... But I won't tell her you're back. I promise, Spike."

Spike offered her a tight smile, nodding. "Appreciate it, luv."

"Of course, Spike. Anything, you know it." Dawn stayed quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Um... why did you go all the way to Africa?"

He sighed, pointing a finger like a shotgun at his head. "The chip, pet. I went to get the chip out."

Dawn's eyes widened fractionally. "A-and did you? Get it out?"

Spike nodded slowly, frowning, looking slightly distracted. "Yeah... it's out."

The teen instinctively shifted backwards. She regretted it the instant she looked up at Spike and saw the hurt look on his face. "You think I would hurt you?"

Dawn shook her head quickly. "No, Spike, no, of course not!"

Spike sighed and sat down on the floor in front of her. He glanced up at her, giving her a troubled, but sincere look. "Dawn, I'd never hurt you, chip or not, soul or not, vampire or not. You're my Nibblet; you mean too much to me. An' if I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it by now. You know I'm not a patient man."

 Dawn slid down to the floor, crawling close to him and sitting at his side. "I'm sorry, Spike. I know you'd never hurt me. I guess it was just... basic reaction or something. Everybody was always going on about how you'd attack the first person you came across as soon as the chip was gone, and -- " She blinked, and stopped her sentence short. Then she glanced at him. "What did you say about 'soul or not'?"

Spike looked at his scuffed combat boots, and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a mischievous smile. He peered up at Dawn, his grin broadening. "Luv... can I tell you something real important?"

It was raining again. She was beginning to get used to it, since it hardly ever rained in SoCal. It was actually nice to walk outside and see that the sky was pissing.

She stopped and rolled her eyes. She was seriously disturbed if that was how she thought of rain.

She was out on the back porch -- out of habit, really. Something had drawn her to it, though she'd tried to avoid it with every ounce of sheer will she had. The back porch was her and Spike's place -- she'd first told him about her mother there. He'd originally come to shoot her, and she figured she might have deserved it now. Had she actually been that cruel to him in the alley? Had that really been her speaking?

Well... yeah.

She'd regretted it later, when he'd shown her compassion. He'd allowed her to cry, and hadn't tried to tell her that it would all be all right, even though he had known that it had been what she'd wanted to hear. What he had done -- he had just sat there next to her and listened to her as she poured her heart out to him. He'd offered her his shoulder to cry on, hadn't insulted her or laughed at her, and had told her that though she was the Slayer, she was still human. She sighed quietly as she recalled his words.

"I know you can run 'round and protect the world from all sorts of nasties, but your mum's another matter. She's human, dealing with a human problem; her problem. And I know you wanna do something about it, protect her from it, but you can't. All you can do is just be there for her. Believe me, it's the best thing you can do right now."

Maybe it was just for the fact that he'd been the only one there, and she'd felt the urge to blurt it all out. Riley had been God knew where at the time, probably with his vampire sluts and Spike, though she thought him to still hate her immensely at the time, had actually sat there and did what she'd needed the most -- he'd been a friend, without judgment or pressure.

Now that she thought back on it, Spike had been there a lot. He hadn't been entirely concerned about Riley, feeding his blood to vampire whores, but he'd been concerned about how she'd feel if she never found out. He'd led her to that place out of some sort of duty to her. Now that she thought back on it, yeah, Spike had seemed especially smug at seeing her ex-boyfriend get caught red-handed (so to speak) and it was probably an underhanded knowledge she'd felt from it that had caused her to lash out at him when they'd gotten outside.

Or maybe it was the feelings of betrayal that just loved to reside in her year 'round; whenever she had a boyfriend, at least. Goddamn Riley.

How long had she been out here? She had absolutely no idea. It was around one in the afternoon, and it looked like midnight. Which would be a bad thing, if the vamps in Sunnydale ever decided to come out of their hiding places.

Xander and Giles had discovered, upon capturing the only fledgling that had happened to be out two weeks ago, that all the underground creatures were freaked. Not just terrified of the Slayer, who had popped right back up out of her grave (for the second time, according the vampires that Buffy hadn't gotten to in the last six years) and was slaying with a vengeance, but Xander as well, since he had been the one to stop Darth Rosenberg.

Modesty was not a word in Xander's vocabulary at the moment.

Dawn had come home acting odd that day. She'd been on her regular Mom/Tara/Clem tour, Buffy knew. Dawn refused to say anything other than meeting a vamp while coming home, and taking care of him, just like Buffy had shown her. Buffy shrugged it off, figuring Dawn must not have wanted any attention for it, and even though she was proud of her sister for taking care of herself so well in a vamp sitch, she backed off and stopped asking questions. Dawn had looked extremely grateful for that.

< Odd, > Buffy thought. < Modesty usually isn't her thing. It's like she and Xander swapped or something. >

Oooh, freaky. Maybe Xander and Dawn had switched bodies, like that time three years ago when -- < Stop thinking NOW. >

That was NOT a place she should be going to right now. Although she couldn't help wondering how her so-called "sister" was doing these days. It had been at least two years since she'd last seen her, and at the time, it had been kinda hard to talk shop when Faith had switched their bodies and the Watcher's Council was trying to kill Buffy.

Enough about that, she was off the subject. Wait, what was the... Oh, Dawn, right. She was immensely proud of her younger sister. Dawn was a quick learner, and had managed to somehow inherit all of Buffy's prowess and agility, though she was nowhere near being a Slayer. Which was a Good Thing in Buffy's eyes. Her sister already had to deal with supernatural phenoms in everyday life. It would be much, much worse if Dawn was a Slayer and the Night-Bumpers caught wind of that. But she wasn't, so Buffy really had no reason to have a wiggins.

Dawn had shown her the most beautiful necklace she had ever seen before. Smooth black stone with a large white stone in the center of it. Hematite and opal, Dawn had said. Her friend Michelle had gone overseas recently and had brought it back for her. Strange, however, that when either one of the Summers girls touched the necklace, the opal stone began to glow either a bright, vivid green (in Dawn's case) or a shimmering, blazing red (in Buffy's). Buffy hadn't noticed before, because the changes had been so subtle, but she figured it out after she'd stared at the opal long enough. Michelle had brought back some sort of enchanted necklace without realizing it. They'd have to research this.

Silence. Nothing outside except that splattering of raindrops on her coat and the porch. No thoughts inside her head. Nothing but calm serenity.

It was okay to miss him, wasn't it? She could admit that to herself. The jerk had managed to weasel his way into her life, and she'd ended up caring about him a little... okay, a lot. She'd cared about him a lot. And then he'd left. Just like the rest had. Only this time, it truly, truly was Buffy's fault. She had finally succeeded in driving him away.

Attempted rape had been a shocking blow to her, something that she'd never had to experience, and Spike must not have known how to deal with it either. When Clem had informed her that Spike had taken off, Buffy had felt her heart drop. The one who was supposed to stay (no matter how much she'd told herself that she'd wanted him out of town), had actually left. She had counted on him to be there... she'd taken advantage of his feelings for her. And she'd still expected him to be there, even after she'd broken his heart and had tried (numerous times) to win hers back.

She sighed. She had the absolute shittiest luck with men. In some sense, Spike was right with what he'd said about her that night at the Bronze. She had been a Slayer too long, and she had begun to think she was immortal. And not only that, but she had begun to think that she was too good for the likes of anyone, except for whoever she blessed with her gaze.

She'd had her flings before she'd been Called (like Andrew Henson on her front porch, when Mom accidentally caught them necking and ended up grounding Buffy for a month). Then there had been Angel. And when she'd had to kill Angel, and she'd come back from L.A., she started up a tentative relationship with Scott Hope. That had been a flop when he'd dumped her right before Homecoming.

She'd ended up right back to where she'd started with Angel, even after Spike's warning that they could never truly be together because it would eat them alive. So when Angel left, she'd memorized his plea for her to live a normal life and find a normal boy that could take her into the sun. And plop went Parker Abrams. Stupid womanizing asshole.

She'd found that so-called normal boy on her very first day of college, when she'd accidentally dropped a stack of books on top of Riley Finn's head. But Riley had turned out to be not-so-normal as well. And if she was honest with herself, she had treated him like Rebound Guy.

She hadn't really loved him, not like he'd loved her. And that relationship went kablooey several times, such as when he'd slept with Faith, believing her to be Buffy and not having one iota of common sense about the difference of character. Such as when he hadn't wanted to give up the chemically-enhancing powers that Doctor Walsh had pumped into his system because he'd been so freaked that Buffy wouldn't love him anymore without them. Such as when he'd spent the nights letting vampire chicks suck blood from him, then had the absolute gall to give her an ultimatum to choose her feelings.

Then there was Angel again, but it had just been a small kiss (okay, a kind of carried-away kiss) that they'd shared the night of her mother's funeral. But before that, she'd discovered that Spike was in love with her, and had overreacted horribly.

The overreaction was justified when he chained her up next to Dru -- really, he could have found a better way to discuss it with her. But it felt beyond shocking that someone who supposedly hated her was actually in love with her. She really had been thrown -- Spike's admission of attraction to her had brought her own feelings for him to the forefront and she'd had to fight like hell to push them back into the dark space of her mind, where they belonged -- never to be admitted, never to be acted upon.

Oh, she was a bitch, and she knew it. She'd been cruel to him, even though she'd seen the obvious pain and desperation in his eyes as he pleaded with her. He really didn't want to love her, and it was eating him up inside. The truth was that she'd felt a jolt of shock when he'd said he would stake Drusilla for her. Drusilla had been his lover for the better part of his first century as a vampire, and even when Buffy had been hopelessly head over heels for Angel, she had seen the true love that the peroxide blonde had carried for Dru.

When she'd brought Angelus back, and she had found out that Drusilla had been fucking him instead of remaining loyal to Spike, she got the sense that Drusilla had just been using Spike as a form of protection. He had been so devoted to her that he would have gladly dove into a melee of rabid demons to protect her. The only thing Drusilla had seen Spike as had been a toy, a pet, a protection factor. And it seemed like Spike's love for her had amused the vampiress.

Yet he had still loved her, even after she had made it quite clear that she hadn't wanted to be with him anymore. And torn between his love for Dru, and his love for the Slayer, Buffy had come out on top. He had threatened to kill the woman he had loved for a hundred years, in favor of a woman that rejected him.

It had been kind of sweet. In a really sick way.

A shiver ran straight down her spine to the small of her back, and a warm tingle began to flood her stomach. She looked up, her eyes darting all around her. She knew that feeling. In fact, she knew it better than the sensation that she'd had when Angel had been around. This feeling was stronger, more familiar, more... intimate. This feeling was Spike.

This feeling was gone.

She frowned and stood up, and the rain began pounding down harder, drenching her. Her purposely curled hair, which had grown down to her shoulders over the summer, soaked through and began clinging to her face and neck. The wind whipped the remaining strands around her head, and for a second she felt like she'd become a Gorgon-like creature -- Medusa, specifically, without the actual snake-for-hair part.

Okay. She knew she'd felt him. She knew that she'd felt Spike somewhere near. But he was gone now, so there was no way she could prove that. Unless she was just going nuts. The other night, she thought she'd seen him, standing in her front yard during the thunderstorm. And now she was sensing him when he was very obviously not there.

She frowned. < Maybe I need to go see a shrink. >

Hah. Spike would've gotten a kick out of that. She shook her head and sighed, turning to go inside. She could've sworn he'd been there, watching her, like he used to.

Through the kitchen -- where Xander found us having a not-so-innocent moment; into the hallway -- where he told me I could 'blow out his candles' for my birthday. Which I would have done if it hadn't of been for the gang; past the living room -- there's the couch that stole his poor, beloved Zippo for about a week; up the staircase -- he left his duster hanging right there on the banister; into her bedroom -- where he carried me the night that I got drunk, nodding hello to Giles with a tight smile on his face, brushing his hand over my cheek, then pressing a soft, barely-there kiss to my forehead before leaving.

This was the bedroom where nothing had happened between them, because she hadn't allowed it. This was the bedroom where he'd told her to start growing up the week that she'd been hit with that toxin from the demon, making her believe she was in a mental institution. The bedroom where he'd told her about Riley, both in concern for her well-being, and in hopes of getting rid of the Hulk. The room that he must have practically lived in the nights that he'd stayed to take care of Dawn when she'd been dead. When his pain had gotten to be too much.

She smiled slightly as she sat down on her bed. She still couldn't believe that he had actually kept track of how many days she'd been gone. "Hundred and forty-seven days yesterday. Uh... hundred and forty-eight today. 'Cept today doesn't count, does it?" She wondered if Angel would have kept track like that. Or Riley, if he had even known that she'd been dead. Her father... definitely not. The idea was almost laughable with Parker, and besides, they had never gotten close except in the very physical sense, which she still shuddered to think about.

She'd been standing at the window when Xander, Anya, and Spike had had the confrontation in her front yard the night she'd come back. And she'd heard the fury, the hurt, the betrayal that had laced Spike's voice. And she'd heard the smug tone that practically oozed over Xander's holier-than-thou voice when he'd asked about Spike's love for her. She'd remembered the wavering in Spike's voice, had seen the tears shining in his eyes, had seen him crying against the tree in the front yard even before Xander and Anya had come out there. She'd known that his tears were both of betrayal and heartache.

She'd known in an instant by looking into Spike's eyes then, that if he had known, if her friends had even had the decency to tell him about the spell, that he wouldn't have allowed them to carry on with it.

Actually... according to Willow, the spell had never even been completed. She shouldn't have been brought back. So... why was she back? Giles had told her that being the Slayer was her duty, but what the hell did that have to do with anything? She'd done her goddamn duty! She'd done it, and she'd finally been at rest, and then she'd been yanked right back into it again. But why in the hell was she back?!

She let out a frustrated growl and threw herself backwards, her head thumping to a rest half on sweet, dependable (and in desperate need of a wash) Mr. Gordo, and half on her fluffy, Comfort pillow. She squirmed out of her jeans, and slipped under the covers, grabbing Mr. Gordo and cuddling him close with one arm, and snuggling against the Comfort pillow with the other.

Three guesses as to who she wished the pillow really was.

Shit. That had been way too close. He had just barely gotten away -- Buffy would have found him easily if he'd just stayed in the hedges for two seconds longer.

Spike had just been coming by to check up on things. He'd been doing it since the night he'd come back, the night he'd first seen Buffy in the living room window. He hadn't known that Buffy would be sitting right there on the bloody porch steps. Damn, he'd saved his flammable hide just in time.

What in the hell had she been doing, sitting outside in the rain?! That dozey, brain-dead little bint, she could end up with bloody pneumonia or something! If he hadn't remembered that he was supposed to be staying out of her way, he would've gone inside and smacked some sense into the girl for endangering herself that way.

Wait -- she was the Slayer. Pneumonia was nothing to her. It was like the common cold, and Buffy didn't even get sick. He scowled at himself. He was being protective and mothering. The soul was already turning him into Angel, and he'd only had it for four months. Hmph. Angel had been a poof before the soul anyway. Psychotic, but an absolute nonce.

He made his way around to the front of the Summers' yard, leaning against his old tree as he looked up toward Buffy's bedroom. He could see her silhouette as she moved around, getting ready for bed. Suddenly, she dropped completely out of view, and the lamp went out. He grunted, satisfied. She seemed to have gone to sleep without any trouble tonight. Bitty was right; Buffy was doing well. He was positive that he'd know if she was just putting on another act.

He'd sworn to himself that he wasn't going to pursue the Slayer anymore, and he was trying to hold himself to that. It was easy right now, since he was hiding his presence from her. But he knew that the minute she discovered he was back -- and she would, he had no qualms about that -- he was gonna fall all over himself like a bloody pansy to prove himself to her.

Oooh... she was gonna be really pissed when she saw him again.

When was he gonna stop being so goddamn pussy-whipped?! Every single woman he'd ever been involved with had all had perfect control over him -- until Buffy came along, and he still had problems trying to establish himself in her eyes! Dammit.

He shook his head and wished to God that he'd gone out to buy (yes, actually buy) some cigarette packs before he'd come here. Hmph, it was pointless smoking right now, anyway. It was raining hard enough that any smoke he'd been puffing on would've been put out in an instant. Looking up at her window again, he let out a deep breath. This was territory that was way too familiar to him. He had to get out of here.

"G'night, sweetling," he murmured. Frowning to himself, his eyebrows furrowed, he turned and walked back to the crypt.

Stupid soul. Making him feel all lonely. He didn't need anybody. He was fine with being by himself. Preferred it, in fact. Compared to being with his psychotic Dru for a century plus, being alone was a revelation, a blessing almost. He was happy being by himself, honest to... well, someone, he was.

< Liar. You're getting to be quite good at that, you know. Before, you couldn't lie to save your own life. Or maybe that was just when you were lying to other people. You seem to be quite the expert at lying to yourself. >

Maybe it was just him, but that had sounded uncomfortably like Angel and Dru's voices intertwined. Angel and Dru intertwined. Oh. Oh! Ew, ew, he had the visual stuck in his head now! Crap. His nausea would start up in a bit, he knew it would. Well, he was at the crypt now, so it didn't matter. He was alone here, nobody would mind, nobody would see. Bob's yer uncle.

His nausea never came, so he just shrugged it off and crawled onto the sarcophagus again. He really had to go searching for a new bed soon. After sleeping on it for a full year, stone was just not a substitute.

He heaved his blanket collection onto the surface and spread them out, then grabbed his brand new pillows and tossed them over it. Stripping down to nothing, he hoisted himself onto the makeshift bed and pulled the comforter over top of himself, curling into a ball underneath it. Sighing, he closed his eyes, and instantly fell into a deep sleep.

Alone.
 
 

TBC....
 

"Damn you, die you overgrown wastebasket!"

Punch, block, parry, parry, thrust, stupid goddamn Fierloquel (pronounced fear-lock-well) demon wouldn't go down! He'd been brawling with the massive sack of stupid for about a half hour now, and not only was the fighting not going anywhere, but the smell was definitely getting worse.

Fierloquel demons had never been particularly bright, which was why Spike had been almost elated when he'd found the moron making an attempt to create a teenager goodie-bag out of two little chits stupid enough to walk home alone that night. Spike had barreled down the street and attacked the bastard, shouting at the girls to run home, before he'd dragged the Fierloquel into Weatherly Park. The problem with Fierloquels was that they sort of had a caveman complex -- basically, although they were stupid and mostly mute, if they were threatened, they killed first, and asked -- or rather, hand-signed -- questions later.

And they fought extremely well, using their nauseating smell to their advantage. The Fierloquel was around seven feet high, well taller than Spike by about two human heads, and its skin was a pale, sickly yellow. Pustules covered the arms, and shag-carpet hair covered the parts of the arms that weren't covered with the pustules. The eyes, however, were the most disturbing, since they were the most beautiful feature on the ugly beast -- sparkling ruby with glints of sapphire and silver. The nose was long and hooked, drooping slightly over the mouth, which was filled with four rows of gnarled, snubbed down teeth. And if someone had been standing in the middle of a city dump, surrounded by all the nasty goodness of soiled diapers and year-old luncheon meats, the Fierloquel still would have smelled worse. Spike was convinced that these bloody bastards crossed his path, just for the fun of nauseating him.

This was not turning out to be a fun fight.

Feary really was descended from a long line of stupid demon cavemen. He let out a high-pitched squeal, which (due to his being mute) was the only sound he could actually make, then swung a big, hairy fist at an exceedingly slow speed toward Spike's head. Spike ducked down low, then darted behind the behemoth before running toward the Fierloquel and vaulting over him, grasping his head between his calves and flipping Feary over onto his back as he landed.

Finally getting the stodgy piece of crap down for once, he stalked over and snatched up a battle axe that had been thrown about two feet away since the beginning of the encounter. Hoisting it over his head, he swung down and embedded the sharp, steel blade directly into the demon's solar plexus. Feary let out another high-pitched squeal, flailing about until all at once, he stiffened and flopped back onto the ground. The body began melting into a pile of green goo and Spike, with an alarmed grimace on his face, quickly began backing away from the toxic-like substance.

Shuddering, he turned around and stalked out of the park.

Turning off of Embly Road, he had barely gone two blocks when he saw the towering figure of the brand new Sunnydale High School. He gave a soft snort and shook his head. So that was what Dawn had been rambling about. All her whining and bitching -- he'd thought that the case had been something even worse.

Nothing much had changed about the school. Well, obviously, it was new. It was bigger, too, with a larger campus outside the main building. But all in all, it was only subtle changes. It really looked like the original high school. Well, before Buffy had blown it up.

He sighed and shook his head again. This town was completely asinine. They'd rebuilt the high school right over the exact location of the Hellmouth all over again. It was like a cursed burial ground. Dawn was gonna be into something deep this school year, into and maybe involved in some things that not even Buffy herself had needed to deal with during her three years here.

Of course, Dawn was a bright little girl. With her smarts and Buffy's strength, plus the rest of the cavalry trotting along, maybe they would actually be able to keep the Hellmouth completely under control.

He grumbled under his breath and stalked back home.

Was it wrong for her to feel giddy? Cuz she was. Giddy.

Spike was back! And she still couldn't completely believe it. The night she'd dropped in to see Clem had been so surreal. And she was still reeling from Spike's news.

He had a soul... had he gone to get it purposely, or had someone tricked him? Either way, he had a soul now, and Buffy would never be able to use her regular, tired, stupid old 'soulless demon' excuse ever again. Because according to Spike, the soul was el permanente, not a curse. He was stuck with it.

She still wasn't entirely sure how to feel toward him. She had missed him -- there was no doubt about that, she wouldn't have cried so hard those first few nights after he'd left if she hadn't. But she was still angry at him for what he'd attempted to do to Buffy. If she had to choose sides, she was on Buffy's, all the way. The Slayer was her sister -- her blood kin.

But Spike was... he was Spike. He was the one she'd discovered was a closet nerd when she'd nicked one of his very old journals and she wasn't ever going to tell him that she knew about that because he would probably kill her for it. The same Spike that had nearly gotten himself killed by a god to keep Dawn's identity a secret, and time and time again when the teenager's life had been threatened. The same Spike that got nervous and embarrassed and bumbling whenever Dawn had mentioned any gooshy feelings that she had harbored for the vampire before she'd realized how in over his head he was for her sister.

He was the very same Spike that she'd had that never-to-be-requited and never-to-be-mentioned-out-loud-ever-again crush on. Her extra fangy, ridgy-foreheaded, way too over-protective older brother. He had been the one to stay up at nights with her and watch The Simpsons, Roseanne, and Mama's Family with her, no matter how ridiculous he'd thought the last two were. And he'd been the one to comfort her when the pain of losing Buffy the summer before had gotten to be unbearable.

So she couldn't be too mad at him.

Uh-oh. Buffy was giving her a Scrutiny. It had become one of those capitilized things early on in the summer, when she and Buffy had started talking, and Buffy couldn't make sense of half of what she said.

"What?" Dawn asked.

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Are you okay? You've got one of your loopy looks again. What did they serve you for lunch?"

Dawn scowled. "I packed today."

Buffy's eyes widened at the same time that her brows furrowed, and the result was one very alarmed-looking Slayer. "What the hell do we have in the fridge?" she asked, jumping out of her chair at the kitchen island to check.

Dawn rolled her eyes -- honestly, if it weren't for the fact that Buffy's roots were showing, Dawn would think that her sister was a natural blonde. Either that, or the bleach seeped into her brain. And that reminded her: Hah! She'd said that to Spike once, and the look he'd given her had been the funniest thing -- a glare that bordered three-ways on confusion, anger, and amusement.

"Buffy, there was nothing wrong with my lunch! Jeez, I'm just feeling extra... tired today. I guess."

Buffy tilted her head, pawing through the fridge for anything that could pass as actual food. Ew, moldy cherries. How long had those things been back there? "Extra tired?" she asked, grabbing the sliced bread, a jar of strawberry jelly and the peanut butter before she kicked the fridge door closed with her foot. She faced Dawn as she set the things down on the counter. "Tired from what? Is it your Chem teacher? If it is, I could have a talk with him. Your Trig teacher's being pretty lenient after our talk, isn't he?"

Dawn grinned, standing up and moving toward the island, snatching a banana from the basket. "Well, Buff, it's kinda hard not to be lenient when you're threatened with bodily harm, before watching an abnormally strong fellow staff member squish your favorite paperweight in her bare hands."

Buffy, her head still lowered, peeked up at Dawn from under her lashes. "He told you about that, huh?"

"I saw the blatant terror in his eyes when I walked in. It was like Martha Stewart was just confronted by Mohammed Ali or something."

Buffy shuddered. "Ew, Martha Stewart." She twisted open the peanut butter jar and grabbed two slices of bread, generously slathering them with the gunk. "You know, Anya says that she's evil."

Dawn reached over and grabbed a knife, cutting her banana into slices before snatching more bread, and the peanut butter jar from her sister. "Martha Stewart, really? I always knew there was something creepy about her. She always seemed way too... peppy during her Halloween shows."

Buffy nodded as she spread on the jelly, then slapped the two pieces together, taking out a bite. "Yup. Ahn says she's a demon, that's like all, one with the Blackness or something. She lives for the wicked evilness and stuff."

Dawn grinned. "It figures."

After Dawn finished creating her banana, peanut butter and strawberry jelly masterpiece, she and Buffy moved on to the living room and crashed down in front of the TV. In an unconscious movement, Dawn tossed her feet onto the table, grabbed the remote, and flicked the TV on, changing it quickly to the History Channel, where History's Mysteries was on. Buffy nearly choked on her PB&J. The episode was on unholy and mystical beings -- witches, goblins, unicorns, Courtney Love... and vampires.

Dawn couldn't say what had told her to change it to that particular station. She never watched the History Channel -- she was 16, it was just something that a teenager in California did not do. But something had spoken to her, and while she was aware of Buffy's reaction to the show, she couldn't bring herself to change it. Besides, it was funny as hell watching an episode on things that people didn't think were real, talking like they were experts on the whole thing. Pfft.

Buffy fumbled as she reached across Dawn for the remote. The teenager's hand shot out and grabbed Buffy's wrist. "Hey!" she protested. "Leave it alone, Buffy! Come on, it's funny! These people think they're brilliant when it comes to this stuff!"

"No!" Buffy yelped. "It's enough that they get in my face all the time whenever I'm patrolling, I don't wanna watch them on TV!"

"Oh, get a sense of humor, Buffy! Xander would think this was hilarious, and Spike would probably be rolling around, laughing on the floor!"

Oops. Buffy was quiet, her jaw hanging slightly open, and it didn't take long for Dawn to realize that she'd slipped up and said the 'S' word again.

Buffy's shoulder jerked slightly, as though she were having a muscle spasm, and the Slayer looked down. She took a deep calming breath, then looked at Dawn again. "Dawn, go to your room, please."

Dawn looked at her sister in disbelief. "What?! But all I did was say his name! You're making me go to my room for that?!"

Buffy stood up. "Dawn, you know I'd appreciate not hearing that name anymore, and --"

"Buffy, that's not fair! All I did was say his name, it's not like I cursed or something!"

"Dawn!" Buffy spun around and glared at her younger sister. "In this house, that name is a curse! Do not ever say it again, in front of me, to yourself, don't even write it in your diary!"

Dawn stood up, almost livid. "You're the one who said we had to open up to each other, Buffy! Like it or not, he's still a part of our lives, whether he's here or whether he isn't! I can practically see your brain oozing with him, you think about him all the time whenever you think I don't notice! I know you're mad at him, and I know he hurt you, but I also know how much you miss him! I miss him, too, Buffy, no matter how mad I am at him for what he did, he's still Spike, and I still miss him and love him!"

The younger Summers broke off, gazing at her sister pleadingly. "Buffy, please. Tell me what I'm missing. Fill me in. Let me know what on earth is going on because at the moment, I am completely clueless! You promised me that we would actually start talking to each other now, and we have been -- but whenever it comes to Spike, you want to run away and hide! Talk to me, please, Buffy!"

Buffy looked away, then sank back down onto the couch. Putting her face in her hands, she leaned forward on her elbows and took a deep breath, then sat back. Dawn sat down next to the Slayer, noticing that Buffy's eyes were filled with unspilled tears.

"I don't know what you're going to think of me, Dawn. You know the place I was in last year. I felt like I was trapped, and I couldn't get past what Willow and Xander did, bringing me back and everything." Buffy shook her head. "I felt like I couldn't feel, like part of me, the part that knew how to be happy, and loving, and cheerful, was left behind when they pulled me back. And because I couldn't feel..." She permitted herself to give Dawn a shamed, sideways glance. "I let myself sleep with Spike. So that maybe I could."

Dawn stared at Buffy blankly. "You... used him," she stated quietly, lowering her eyes.

Buffy cleared her throat. "Yes," she whispered. "I used him."

The teenager sat up slightly and let out a deep sigh. "Oh," she murmured. "Is... that why he did... what he did?"

Buffy bit her lower lip, gazing at the coffee table. "That was... part of it. It was also because I told him that I didn't love him. He sort of got a little desperate after that." Her hand lowered and began unconsciously massaging her thigh, where his beseeching, pleading hands had bruised her four months ago.

The teenager glanced back up at her. "So this was both your faults. He's the one who got all fondly and pushy, but you're the one who pushed him to it. And you were trying to push the whole thing off on him."

The Slayer didn't look at her sister. "Yeah, I... did."

"Nice, Buff. Real nice. You're supposed to be the grown-up, and instead, when you screw around with the man who loves you, and make him go all apeshit on you, you play the evil vampire wild card. Yeah, it was Spike, but he didn't have a soul. He couldn't control himself the way you can. You pushed him to the edge like that -- you made him go insane with wanting you to love him."

The Slayer looked up at her sister, her expression manifesting disbelief. "Dawn, wait a minute. I know I screwed up, but Spike is in the wrong here, too. Why are you defending him like this?"

Dawn glared at her. "Because he was there for me when you died. He took care of me, played with me, protected me, and he loved me. He didn't treat me like I had no real knowledge of the world. He gave me the facts straight, and he treated me like an adult, which, by the way, I'm becoming, if you would ever take notice."

The teenager sighed and shook her head. "Did he ever ask you anything in exchange, Buffy? I mean, I know your relationship was based, like, solely on sex, but was there ever anything else he asked of you? Besides that? I bet that every single time you went to him, he was hoping that you might give him a chance. That you would finally see him, and notice him, and, and maybe, just maybe, love him, like he loved you. Am I right?"

The blonde remained silent for a while. Closing her eyes, she knew that Dawn was right. Huh. Her sister was gonna grow up to be Sigmund Freud. The world was a scary place. "He... He never asked for anything. Except for me to give him a chance." It hurt, admitting it out loud. It meant that she really was the cold-hearted bitch that Spike had seen her for. She had used someone that loved her, chip and soul be damned, since those weren't factors in his affections for her, and then she'd broken his heart.

Spike had called her on it -- several times, in fact -- but he'd never pushed it when she'd refused to answer. He must've realized early on that he wouldn't get much out of her except for sex, so he forced himself to enjoy her company -- any small bit of her company at all -- instead. Taking what he could get, just for the chance to be near her, even if she did use him as a responding dildo.

It was completely her fault that Spike had attempted to rape her. She'd ruined him, destroyed his heart and mind, until all that she'd left within him was his desperation to be with her and an animal's need for a mate. They might have actually been able to have something, if it hadn't been for her. She'd ruined it all. The thought forced the tears out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Dawn had remained quiet since Buffy had spoken, staring down at her hands, folded placidly in her lap. After a second, the teenager leaned back against the couch and sighed. Looking over at Buffy, she tilted her head. "What would you do if he came back?"

Her voice sounded longing and pleading. Buffy hated having to dash the girl's hopes. She stood up and licked her lips, swallowing hard. "He's not coming back, Dawn. He's been gone for four months already. And you know the routine. Once they leave, they never want to find their way back."

Dawn maintained her Pollyanna attitude. "Spike's different. What if he does?"

Buffy managed a small little smile. "I know he's different. And I think I'd be in my Bohemian Rhapsody element if he did. But..." She looked down as she headed toward the steps. She stopped at the bottom, looking towards Dawn again. "He's not coming back, Dawn. They never do."

Dawn watched silently as Buffy made her way up the stairs.

And then she smiled.

"I still don't get it."

Spike rolled his eyes. "What's not to get?"

Dawn shrugged weakly, giving him a tiny, sheepish grin. "Everything?"

Spike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Such as...?"

Dawn sat up, kneeling above her book. Her right hand rose to accompany her words. "Okay... like the Puritans. They wanted to separate from the Church of England, cuz the king and everyone was holding them back. But then, they came to America, and they believed all sorts of ridiculous things, and in their own way, they were holding everyone else back, too. So if they were just doing the same stupid thing as the Church of England, what on earth was the point of breaking away from it?"

Spike scratched his ear slightly, sitting up on his bed in order to peer down at Dawn, who was sprawled on the ground. "That's the thing, pet. The bloody Puritans thought that they were right, an' the church was wrong." He frowned. What could he use to explain it more easily to her? "It's like all that rot that's going on overseas, y'know, with the bin Laden bull. He and his radical Muslims think that they're right, am' everyone else is wrong. Not all Muslims act like that, mind you, but the deal with that wanker is that he believes that America is nothing but a huge lot of white devils."

The teenager's nose wrinkled up. "White devils? But we're not... I mean, there's Muslim people here, too. And... and, Jews, and Hindus and lots of people. And they think we're all satanists?"

He snorted, shaking his head. "Something like that. Anyway, I don't know what the deal is, I think they believe they were sent by the Almighty Himself to carry out the final judgment, or something, for all the wrongs that America perpetrated against them. An' so they decide to destroy the World Trade Center. Huge buildings, millions of people working in them, lots of races an' ethnicities, and it wasn't just a symbol of America, it was a symbol of the whole world. So when they hit us, they were carrying out an attack on the rest of the world as well. An' they call the attack a... a holy war."

Dawn sighed. "So basically, what we have isn't just a failure to communicate, but a bunch of morons who think that they're God's chosen people, and that they were sent by Him to, like... punish people that treated them badly? And it's all just a load of crap because they think we're the evil ones? What did we ever do to them?"

Spike shrugged. "Don't really pay that much attention to history, Bit. I just know that the government is fucked, an' so are our nippy, brand new friends overseas."

Dawn smiled. "Because America isn't gonna take this lying down."

Her companion smirked. "Exactly. It's kinda like when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor."

His eyes began to get that faraway look in them, and Dawn grinned, sitting up. Woohoo! Storytime!

"Dru an' I were hiding out somewhere in Portugal at the time, an' we were freezing our bloody asses off 'cos, you know, it was December an' all, an' we were in an area not far off from the Mediterranean, so with the breezes coming in off the sea, it was like diving head-first into a SnoCone or something. So even though we'd just eaten enough homeless people to stave off the hunger for three weeks in advance, I stood up an' said, 'It's too bloody cold, I'm sick of this, let's go find us a nice little villa.' So we packed up, an' pushed our way into this little place by the ocean, an' just as I was snapping the owner's neck, this report comes in off the radio they were listening to.

"It's all in a mix of Spanish and Portuguese, an' since Dru only knew Italian an' Russian at the time, she was all quaking an' crying, cuz she didn't know what was going on. 'What're they saying, Spike, what're they saying?' she's asking, an' I says, 'Hush up a bit, pet, an' lemme listen.' So I stay quiet for a few minutes, so I can hear the whole report, only I have to turn up the radio by then, on account of Dru was wailing, wavering right on the edge of a bloody hysteria cuz she thought the world was ending again.

"So when I got the information, I tell her that the Japanese invaded America an' bombed Hawaii, an' that FDR declared war. An' the one thing that he said, it's always gonna stick with me, 'cos they had a little excerpt of it in the news report; but he says that the Japs 'have awoken a sleeping giant,' an' that was when I knew that the Allies would win the war. He sounded like he was ready to tear into them himself, if he hadn't been bloody incapacitated in that wheelchair. Poor sod, I know how he felt."

This was one of the best things about Spike, one of the things she loved the most. He was always so colorful with his stories, and he had actually lived through some of the world's biggest crises. And aside from that, whenever he told a story, he tended to get side-tracked, and would go rambling off on several different subjects at once before he remembered what the heck he'd been talking about in the first place.

Spike came back to himself after a bit, then glared as he realized that Dawn had managed to push off about ten minutes worth of studying, all to hear a story. "Nibblet," he started, using his warning voice.

Dawn's eyes went wide, and she 'eep'ed. "I know, I know, I'm sorry! I just wanted something to take my mind off of studying, just for a little bit. History is grating on me, Spike, and I know it isn't exactly your thing, but at least you're getting me somewhat interested in it, you know?"

Spike rolled his eyes, fighting (and losing) the battle to keep a smile off of his face. "Okay. You get off easy, this time, but only because you're actually learning something, here." He cocked an eyebrow and peered down at her. "You are learning something, right, Bit?"

Dawn smiled brightly, stood up, and hugged him as tightly as she possibly could. "You bet!"

Spike chuckled, hugging her back before he pushed her gently away from him. "Good. I want you to keep your grades up, Bit. You don't have the excuse of a Hellgod being after you anymore, no more dilly-dallying with your schoolwork."

Dawn nodded dutifully. "You betcha. I'm Study Girl this year."

Spike snorted again, yawning slightly as he looked at her. "Speaking of, Study Girl, where are you actually s'posed to be? Not here, I know that."

He had to give her props. At least she had the decency to look sheepish. "Uh... Janice's?"

Spike made the noise of a buzzer. "Wrong answer, pet. Try again."

"My room?"

"Do not pass 'Go,' do not collect any pity points from me, cuz you ain't getting them."

"Xander's?"

Spike looked horrified. "Is that what you're torturing yourself with these days?!"

Dawn giggled a bit. "Okay... I'm supposed to be studying at the library. At least, that's what Buffy thinks."

Spike tilted his head. "An' what is Buffy going to say when she doesn't see your pretty little nose buried in the middle of a History book in some dank, rustic-smelling library?"

Dawn frowned. "I don't know... I've gotten away with it before..."

The door of the crypt slammed open from upstairs, and footsteps -- very familiar footsteps to Spike's ears -- clacked above their heads. "DAWN!" a voice called.

Dawn's eyes widened. "But not this time," she whispered.

Spike swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down maniacally with the action.

"Oh, shit," he muttered.

Dawn's sentiments exactly.
 
 

TBC....
 

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