Site: http://www.geocities.com/devilpiglet

***************************************

Buffy stared, disbelieving.

She had dishpan hands.

Okay, so maybe in the larger scheme of things lately, this wasn’t top priority. She had recently broken the heart of her evil (Are you sure? her rebellious brain questioned) undead sometime-ally; her little sister was riding the Sunnydale Metro Express to juvenile delinquency; freaking Xander had just left Anya at the altar; and…what else? Oh, yeah: she was flat broke despite holding two very messy and potentially lethal full-time jobs.

But her hands…cracked and careworn, making her afraid to look in the mirror for fear the rest of her would the same…this somehow seemed more devastating now than anything than had gone down in the last few, frantic weeks.

Anything? BadBrain piped up again, and Buffy slammed a dinner plate into the soapy water. The dishpan hands were her own fault, she knew. Buffy resolutely washed her hands each time she dusted a vamp or cleaned a grease trap. Yes, her mother would be very proud. Obsessive cleanliness (Transference issues? BadBrain asked innocently) surely made up for her many screwups with Dawn and the fact that the bank had very nearly foreclosed on the house.

She’d barely scratched the surface of her twenties, Buffy thought resentfully, and what was she doing? Standing over a kitchen sink with a leaky faucet, scrubbing dishes and blowing ineffectually at the wayward strands of hair that kept pushing their way into her eyes.

Might as well put on the faded floral apron, house slippers, and air of suffering and complete the picture. What picture? Hmm…something starring Sissy Spacek as a destitute farm widow, maybe.

Great, now BadBrain was rambling.

BadBrain was very much on her shit list these days, for a variety of reasons. BadBrain complained bitterly about housework; She had little patience for Her friends’ various emotional crises; She cared less every day about staying on the good side of the manager of the Doublemeat.

She kept Buffy awake at night with images of finely chiseled limbs and blue eyes; with the sounds of flesh meeting flesh amid groans of pleasure, and words of love whispered in a sex-roughened accent. She missed him.

She was allowed to admit that, wasn’t she? She’d done the right thing, after all. Sent the bad (in all the right ways, mmmm) bloodsucker packing, taken one for the team and all that. Even if it was a team she was heartily tired of playing on. And he’d made it easy on her, hadn’t he? With his silly scheme (‘I can get money…This place’ll kill you’)….was she just supposed to overlook that?

Like you did for Willow? Who endangered Dawn in a way that Spike never would, not in a million years? Willow’s black mojo almost makes you an only child - again - and she gets to crash in Mom’s old room. Spike has a relapse, and you kick him to the curb with the teary self-righteous act.

Excellent choice, BadBrain concluded. Looks like it’s working for you. (Snicker.)

“Grrrrrrr…” Buffy whirled around, searched for the source of the menacing growl and found that it was her. She shut off the water and peered out the window over the sink. Dusk was approaching. Time to get Dawn settled in and then head out for patrol.

***************************************

Dawn’s footfalls sounded loud and stumbling to her own ears. She imagined her pursuer could hear the crack of every twig and bramble, every branch that slapped Dawn’s face as the girl fled, terrified.

She’d felt safer, ridiculously, when she’d entered the cemetery, but Dawn knew she was fooling herself. She was being hunted, systematically, by a relentless predator - one who knew this ground intimately.

Dawn willed her feet to run faster.

***************************************

Spike heard the harsh pants of exertion before they reached his door.

He’d been lying in bed, debating whether or not he had the energy to get up and and scavenge the place for another bottle. He’d been keeping close company with Johnnie Walker Black, and wanted his buddy back for some more quality time. What else to do, anyway? He wasn’t much for sleep these days - it was starting to show, too - so getting pissed was the next obvious choice. Since killing, maiming and exsanguinating were out, at least.

He sniffed the air, hoping to suss out friend or foe. But it was saturated by the stench of alcohol, and he could only detect the faintest whiff of a human nearby.

Someone coming, he thought with uncharacteristic detachment. Let them come. His home was trashed, and the remnants of his love life made the crypt look like Buckingham Bloody Palace. So let the Queen herself come.

Instead it was the Little Princess, tearing inside as if the hounds of hell were on her heels. Dawn burst through the door, long limbs flailing, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste. Poor kid hasn’t grown into her own body yet, Spike thought in liquor-blurred sympathy. Then he saw her face.

“What’s wrong?” He caught her before she went skidding across the smooth stone floor. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, girl, what’s wrong with you?” Her face was bruised, and her matted hair stuck to small superficial cuts on her face. Identical cuts dotted her bare arms. He didn’t want to think about what the rest of her might look like. The whisky fuzz was wiped from his brain as if it had never been.

“Dawn!” Could she speak to him? She had to speak to him. “Tell me who did this to you. Tell me, sweet. Was it a demon? Some nasty for the Big Bad to take down? Dawn, talk to me…”

“Buffy,” was all she could gasp out. “Buffy, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy…”

Oh, God. Not again. He felt that awful thing in the pit of his stomach, that sick clenching that started the moment he saw Buffy’s body lying at the bottom of a tower amid construction rubble. Not again. “What happened to her? Dawn?”

“Buffy, Buffy, Buffy. Buffy….”

He nearly screamed in frustration. Years with Dru, though, had taught him how to siphon information from even the most incoherent source. He took Dawn’s hand - gently, carefully - and led her to the nearest sarcophagus. With his help she perched atop it, and took deep, shuddering breaths. He waited, about to crawl out of his own skin, and then she spoke.

“She was fine,” Dawn said dully.

“Who was? Buffy?” Dawn nodded.

“She made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner and told me to go study for my Bio quiz. When I went upstairs she was running hot water for the dishes.”

Spike recognized shock when he saw it, and the kid was treading perilously close. He wanted to take her to a doctor, do the smart thing and hand her over to someone who could help her more than a clumsy amoral vampire could. But he had to know if it was safe first.

“Like, an hour later she knocks at my door. Which - Buffy never does that. Hello? And when she comes in, she’s all - all -" Dawn gestured down her body - “covered in blood. Just…covered. And she’s smiling. Oh, God…”

Dawn brought her knees up to her chest and buried her face in the hollow created there. Spike could hear the hitching sobs, the building hysteria. He was still clueless, however.

“She was talking, but not talking, not really…about Willow, and Xander, and Tara. She wasn’t making sense; they were crazy, awful things she said…And she hit me.”

“Buffy hit you?”

“She knocked me off the bed. It hurt. And then she was standing over me and I was kicking at her but she wouldn’t stop coming and she was on top of me and I couldn’t move and I was kicking…I don’t know how I got away but I ran down Revello to Baker and she was right behind me. I ran all over the neighborhood. She just kept cutting me off, everywhere I turned. I lost her just before the cemetery -“ Dawn was babbling, the words pouring out of her like sludge from a gutter. At least that’s how it sounded to Spike.

“Stop talking nonsense,” Spike hissed. “This is some made-up story to get your sister into trouble. Did a boy do this to you? Some little wanker you snuck off with?”

“No!”

Give me the bastard’s name. We’re going to march you straight back home and then I’m going to sort this out.” He pulled her off the sarcophagus, Dawn resisting all the way.

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“The ‘Bot, then. Got her circuits fried and went all HAL 9000 on you.”

Dawn shook her head frantically. “I thought - but there’s no way. She’s in, like, a million pieces. Willow keeps her in a box underneath the basement stairs. I saw it when I did laundry yesterday.”

Spike pressed white-knuckled fists to his eyes. “No.”

“You’ve got to do something, Spike. Make her right again. Please, Spike.”

Before he could answer, a feather-light sigh echoed off the walls of the crypt. “Once again,” came the sweet, mildly exasperated voice, “there’s something wrong with Buffy.”

Spike and Dawn turned. Dawn cowered behind him while Spike took in the apparition that had appeared at his door.

Buffy wasn’t covered in blood, she was drenched in it. It adorned her skin like scarlet warpaint and made the white gleam of her smile seem unnaturally bright. She moved toward them sinously, all catlike grace and rapacious intent.

“Pet,” Spike said with practiced ease. “Kid sis and I were just having ourselves a little talk. She’s been catching me up on all the news.” Please, Buffy. Yell at me for corrupting your sister, threaten to stake me, remind me how I’m a filthy evil creature that you can never love.

But she didn’t say anything. She merely lunged for Dawn.

Spike blocked her successfully, and then it was time for the rough ‘n’ tumble, so terribly reminiscent of their ferocious shag sessions. Grunts, bodies slamming, the crunching of bones and furniture. Except this wasn’t his Buffy, and he wasn’t sure how this encounter would end.

She was straddling him now, and in his brain, Lust was having a throw-down with Survival Instinct. Buffy sensed it. Giggling playfully, she bucked against him.

“Ready to go?” she asked. “I don’t mind an audience.”

Jesus.

He tossed her off him, then stood in the middle of the room, watching her. She lifted herself up cautiously, using the wall as leverage. Soon enough, though, that casual confidence returned, and she ran one blood-slickened hand through her hair. Undaunted, she moved to him again.

“Come on, lover,” she smiled. “Get down with the sickness.”

He stood immobile, rooted to the spot as surely as if she’d nailed his feet to the floor. She moved closer, and despite his growing dread Spike felt every fiber and sinew of his being rejoice at her nearness. BuffyBuffyBuffyBuffy…even his dead blood joined in the singing.

“Talk to me, love. Tell me what’s happened and we’ll - we’ll fix it.”

“Later,” she answered. “First I have to…” She made another grab for Dawn but Spike sidestepped her. He waited, feeling more helpless with every passing second.

“Let me have her,” Buffy whispered seductively, trailing her fingers along his bare chest. “Just let me finish this one little thing -“ she flicked an amused glance at Dawn - “and then we’ll be together. It’ll be so good, Spike, so very, very good. You remember how it can be between us, don’t you?

“And the killing,” she went on. “I know you miss it, baby. I know you crave it like you crave blood. Like I crave you. We can burn this town to the ground. Spike,” she said earnestly, urgently. “Spike, I get it now. I was such a little fool before, so wrong, so bad to you, my baby.”

Spike cocked his head, torn. Encouraged, Buffy continued.

“I didn’t understand how the blood - their blood - pulls at you, pulls ‘til all you can think of is ripping their throats out, watching the life drain away -“ The mania in her gaze flared and then faded, replaced by a a sexy pout. “Baby, don’t make me do it alone.”

He swallowed convulsively.

Behind him, Dawn whimpered.

Spike didn’t recognize his own voice when he finally spoke. “Get out. Turn around now and I won’t come after you. You have my word. But if you try to touch Dawn, I will cut you down. I promise you, on the graves of those other two Slayers, I will not stop until you’re in pieces. Your choice, Buffy.”

The words were like bile leaving his mouth. This wasn’t right, this was all wrong. He should tie her down, beat some sense into her if that’s what it took. He shouldn’t let her leave his sight.

But Buffy was strong; so very, very strong. He could fight her, and maybe hold his own. But he couldn’t protect Dawn at the same time. And that’s who Buffy really had eyes for.

She seemed to be engaged in some sort of internal struggle as she studied him. He waited, fists clenched at his sides and ready to fly. There was a broadsword behind the sarcophagus, he thought to himself, but the axe was downstairs. He’d have to get Dawn on her way, into the sewers, before he and Buffy began their battle in earnest -

“Have it your way, then.” Buffy’s tone was brittle, full of false lightness. “I hope you two are very happy together.” Those eyes, those eyes that were Buffy’s and yet not, locked again on Dawn. “Be seeing you, Dawnie.” Spike turned in time for Dawn’s choked gasp. He wanted to comfort her but now was not the time. He looked back at Buffy.

“Go,” he ground out. She bestowed one more sexy little smile on him, then sauntered to the front door of the crypt and then out to the fathomless night beyond.

When he was sure she was well and truly gone, when she was undetectable to his heightened senses, he let out an unnecessary breath. He rubbed his hands over his face, once, and permitted himself a single brief moment to shut his eyes and rail against the injustice of it all. Then he opened his eyes, blinked away that stinging - it was nothing, dust in his eyes - and walked over to Dawn.

She was shell-shocked, trauma making her face slack and limbs rubbery. “Dawn.” He shook her but she didn’t respond. “Dawn!”

Her head whipped up to stare at him.

“Buffy?” She jerked out of his grasp and began a jerky, blink walk to the door through which Buffy had disappeared. “We have to go after her, Spike, we have to find her -"

He caught up to her, yanking her roughly back from the threshold of the crypt. “Don’t be daft.” He cursed himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Gently now, he went on, “We can’t risk it, Dawn. She’s -“ he groped for words. Where was William’s sugary pap now? In the end he settled for brutal honesty. Hell, it always worked with the sister.

“That’s not Buffy.”

They stood there for long moments, Spike gripping her arm tightly, Dawn struggling for control. Then the tears broke, as he knew they would, and she was sobbing violently in his arms as he gathered her up like a limp rag doll. He rocked her until the spasms subsided, then pulled back and wiped the tears from her face as best he could.

“What - what - where’m I gonna….” She trailed off, taking enormous hiccuping gulps of breath.

“We have to get out of here. Out of Sunnydale. Do you understand, Dawn? Do you get that we have to leave?”

“The others…”

He nodded. “I know.”

Part 2:

***************************************

Spike was rarely accused of being practical, but over a century of un-life some lessons he’d learned had stuck. His and Dru’s penchant for making themselves unwelcome had taught him the art of timely escape. He kept a getaway bag at the ready, crammed full of necessities, small valuables that could be sold easily, and those odd little items that life on the road demanded.

He’d stowed the bag when he moved into the crypt and then forgotten about it; it was the only way he was able to resist the temptation to rifle through it when he was hard up for smokes or blood. And he’d shown admirable restraint, hadn’t he? Not even a little nip, all this time.

Well, pretty much.

When he’d seen, up close, Buffy’s new life at that benighted burger joint he’d been ready to dump the bag and all its contents on the counter of the first pawnbroker in town. Screw his escape clause; if the trinkets he’d collected over the years could buy Buffy out of that hellhole it would have been worth it times ten.

But, of course, she’d brushed him off. Let him shag her sideways in the alley outside, but help her? Forget it.

The upshot being that his stash remained untouched, for an occasion such as this. Now he shot a glance at Dawn. He hadn’t exactly been planning on taking a teenaged girl along for the ride.

“Dawn?”

She turned her terrified face to his.

“Can you - is it safe to go back to the house?” He steeled himself against her stricken expression. “We’re going to be traveling for…a while. You’ll want your things. Clothes and such.”

Finally, the slightest dip of her chin. “Okay.”

He bundled her into the car and pressed the duffel into her hands, more to give her something to hang onto than any other reason. She gripped the bag’s handles fiercely, knuckles whitened.

He gunned the engine and headed for Revello Drive.

Dawn was in and out of the house before Spike finished his first cigarette. Of course, it took him longer than normal to smoke it. What with the shaking hands and all.

He made a path for Harris’ apartment. He’d actually been there a few times, over the summer, when old grudges were forgotten in favor of the shared masking of grief. Anya had sniffed something about biologically inherited male repression and disappeared into the bedroom while Xander and Spike parked themselves on the couch and watched ESPN or TV Land.

He’d heard demon girl had taken off after the non-nuptials, so Spike assumed she’d been spared whatever carnage had been wreaked by this new incarnation of Buffy Summers. That left Harris, Willow and Tara.

Thinking about all this made his head hurt. There was a reason vampires didn’t play well with others. Even for the chipped variety, of whom Spike was the single unhappy representative, concern for the wellbeing of Humans Who Are Not Buffy Or Dawn was a struggle.

He never made it to the apartment. As Spike made the left turn onto Waverly Dawn spied the blue-red pulse of police lights down the street. “Look!”

The Magic Box was now just another Sunnydale crime scene; yellow tape cordoned off the front door, although there was nothing left worth stealing. The shop was a burned-out husk. He parked several yards away and got out. One look at Dawn told him she would stay put. He kept the car, and her little white face peering anxiously out the window, in his sights as he approached what was left of the store.

The acrid smell of fire and damp, that pungent, peculiar mix so characteristic of tragedy, asaulted his senses. He stepped gingerly around the debris and the more sharp-eyed of cops and approached a female EMT.

A few minutes later he was back in the car. He sat for a moment, mouth set in a grim line. “They were all inside. Just them, though. No customers.” He suspected Buffy had gathered them there, but that wasn’t something he was about to share with Dawn. “They were…attacked, then the place was torched.”

“Are they…?”

“They were alive when the ambulance left.” He exhaled slowly, weariness pushing the useless breath from his lungs. “We really have to go now. ‘Kay?”

But she had retreated into herself, shrinking back against the battered leather upholstery and fixing her gaze somewhere in the distance. He started the car again and drove off.

***************************************

A roaring filled her ears, unintelligible sounds of rage that spiraled higher and higher. She tried to hang on, tried to assert control-

“Bitch,” Buffy hissed. “You think you can trick me? This is my house now.”

The cabbie frowned and watched her in the rearview mirror. “Ma’am? You okay?”

She smiled, dazzling and golden. “Sorry. Just talking to myself.”

***************************************

On their way out of town, half a mile from the on-ramp to the 5, Spike screeched to a halt. He stared up at the vision - for how long, he didn’t know - then peeled off.

Behind them, the broken remains of the BuffyBot hung crucified atop a telephone pole.

He drove for a day and a night. He and Dawn were both too wired to sleep so he funneled the nervous energy into making tracks from Sunnydale. God, he would emphatically not miss that town.

Dawn was stiff and still in the passenger seat for the first few hours. He couldn’t blame her; he felt ill at ease himself and it wasn’t a sensation he’d had very often in the last century. Not since the late, unlamented William, at least. Since then he’d felt terror, confusion, gleeful rage, humiliation (in the form of a stupid emasculating hateful blighted chip in his head), a second heaping of humiliation that made the first serving seem like apple cobbler (in the form of un-asked for, unrequited infatuation with the bleeding Vampire Slayer, of all women), intense, all-consuming love (see second heaping of humiliation, previous), mind-numbing grief, cautious elation, passion that brought down walls and bruised even the stolid strength of a crypt, and heartbreak all the more painful for its inevitability.

But awkwardness was a new one.

“Angel,” Dawn said abruptly.

Spike frowned. What, was he going to have to compete with the poof for the rest of his years? Even now, even as he spirited her away from the horror that Buffy would have visited upon her, all Dawn could think of was Angel. He wondered what kind of monk-memories those two had of each other. Oh, she’d probably swooned over him as a child, with his martyrdom and Neanderthal build and noble love for her sister. Fine, then.

“You want me to take you to Angel?” He tried to keep his voice steady. Who was he to begrudge her this, if it would give her comfort?

Dawn stared at him like he was wearing his fangs on the outside. “No,” she said. “We need to call him. Or something. If she’s on the warpath, he’ll be her next stop. L.A.’s within driving distance, even for someone as road-impaired as Buffy. Hell, maybe whatever’s inside her made her a better driver.”

For a moment Spike was speechless. She sounded so…cold? No, because he could hear the agony behind her words, could sense the herculean effort not to break down again, maybe forever this time. She sounded…authoritative. Strong and clinically blunt because nothing less would penetrate either of their grief-addled brains.

Like Buffy during the Glory Days.

He reached over the DeSoto’s wide bench seat and gave her hand a tentative squeeze. “Right then. We’ll pull off at the next exit.”

They ended up calling not only Angel, but Giles as well. That, at Spike’s insistence.

They stood edgily outside a Carl’s Jr. two hundred miles from Sunnydale, and far too close for Spike’s tastes. The always well-meaning Joyce had provided her younger daughter with a calling card in case of emergencies, and Spike figured this qualified. Although he was momentarily distracted by the thought of walking up to the fast-food counter and requesting eleven dollars in quarters so that he could make a pay phone call overseas. Or they could just call Giles collect, and wouldn’t that chap the old man’s hide?

Well, once he heard about Buffy, maybe not so much.

He took a long, desperate drag off his cigarette before Dawn thrust her gaily-colored backpack at him. He rifled through it for Giles’ number in London while Dawn dialed information and asked for Angel Investigations, Hollywood.

His Sire had been disbelieving, accusing, and for the remainder of the conversation, monosyllabic. Spike lost patience almost immediately, feeling he’d done his duty, and handed the phone to Dawn. She assured Angel that she was uninjured and in Spike’s company by choice. The rest of her side of the conversation had been short and cryptic, but Spike suspected that Angel had been pressuring her to ditch his progeny at the first opportunity. Under Spike’s rapidly darkening glower, Dawn said her hasty goodbyes and hung up. Then he’d handed her Giles’ number.

At least the Watcher took the news like more of a man, in Spike’s opinion. Spike knew beyond a doubt that there was some repressed British emoting going on the other end of the line - he’d witnessed enough of it in his abbreviated lifetime to recognize the signs from four thousand miles away - but Giles remained fairly composed. He demanded to know where Spike and Dawn were headed, but Spike was implacable in his refusal to tell him. He promised periodic updates, and eventually Giles acquiesced. He had precious few alternatives, didn’t he? With Dawn’s help, Spike described the events in Sunnydale, and Buffy’s…condition…in as much detail as possible. Giles assured them he would investigate the cause but he didn’t sound optimistic.

“The myriad influences she could have been exposed to, from - from the supernatural to the seemingly banal - are simply too numerous to document. Good God, man, even if we could account for each of the last forty-eight hours before Buffy exhibited this psychosis, we still -"

“Rupert,” Spike interrupted. “Domestic dime, here, mate. Me ‘n’ the Bit, we’ll be in touch.” He replaced the phone in its cradle and then they were back on the blacktop.

***************************************

Xander woke first.

His first thought was the same one he had had for the last two weeks: OhmyGod! I left Anya at the altar! The panic at that realization would surge like the tide and then recede, and he would start another day.

This time, though, there was no relief after the memory of his non-wedding faded. Instead, just a sense of familiar, growing dread, and the promise of something even worse than his most recent screwup. Something bad…

The struggle toward full consciousness was a long, arduous one. Pain waited on the other side of the curtain, of that he was sure, and he briefly considered slipping back into oblivion.

But the screams - Willow’s shrieks of terror, Tara’s wordless pleas for mercy - they echoed in his head even now. And above all that cacaphony was laughter that he didn’t want to recognize, but did.

His eyes felt like someone had caulked them shut, and when he he finally pried them open the harsh white light of the room sent lightning bolts of agony through his body. He manfully supressed a groan, then realized there was no one nearby to notice. He let loose like a girl.

Speaking of girls…he had misplaced a few, hadn’t he?

Xander looked around. Hospital. Yeah, he’d run this play before. Harris gets his pansy ass whipped again, in a vain attempt to help the utterly not-needing-of-his-help Buffy -

And then it all came roaring back, and he felt suddenly, violently ill.

He lay there for a moment, replaying the scene in his head. Buffy had phoned, insisting that they all meet at the Magic Box. Like, now, she’d finished shrilly, and he’d shrugged on his jacket and gone. If Buffy asked him to jump…

On the way, he’d seen Tara waiting on the corner of Waverly and Seventh and pulled over, asking if he could drop her somewhere. Turned out they were headed the same place - Buffy had called her as well. And Willow had been in the shop when they arrived.

Thank God, Xander thought dully, that it had been closed since the wedding that wasn’t. The Scoobies were alone.

Defenseless.

Buffy had breezed in, with her usual air of determination and ass-kicking sexiness. A small part of Xander would always pine after Buffy, despite time and maturity and Significant Others and…

…And what happened next.

He couldn’t think about it. He just couldn’t. He’d always been the weak one, hadn’t he? No one had made any bones about that, least of all him. He closed his eyes and his mind against the images of blood, of wide, arcing swoops of a sharp and shining blade. Of himself going down first, because as a man he was the physically strongest of the three. Tara and Willow were skilled witches, and therefore formidable in their own right, but they would need time to align their powers against Buffy. They would not be able to join forces in time to restrain her, and Buffy knew that.

Because she was their friend.

He’d watched from the floor as Willow dropped to her knees, still pleading with Buffy to tell her what was wrong, what had happened. A split-second later Tara had fallen alongside her erstwhile lover. Crimson stains spread along a jumble of peasant blouses and soft feminine flesh.

The scrape of a match, that awful rattle of laughter that seemed to assault his ears even now. Then blackness.

And now here was at Sunnydale Memorial, if he recognized that particular reviled shade of green that adorned the walls of the room. Xander swallowed nervously, summoned up all the courage lurking inside him and attempted to wiggle his fingers and toes.

Success. His digits, at least, were intact.

Time for a more thorough assessment of the damage. Almost unwillingly, he began to lift the thin, overwashed cotton sheet that covered him -

And it was time for another girly scream. His arms were swathed in bandages, wrist to bicep. Idiot.

“Defensive wounds,” said a voice from the doorway.

His head jerked up at the sound, and he stared in stunned bewilderment. “Anya?”

“On your arms. The doctors said they were defensive wounds. All those years I gave them, and I never knew they had a name.”

“Anya…” Xander couldn’t seem to gather his thoughts. “You look good,” he said finally. She looked great, although perhaps that was just the two weeks of separation talking. She was fresh and clean and fully dressed, and so had Xander beat on three fronts.

She strode across the room and opened the curtains with a ruthless vigor, ignoring Xander’s whimper as the room was flooded with sunlight.

“Willow? Tara?”

“Willow woke up a little while ago. Tara…hasn’t. She’s in the Critical Care Unit. The doctors say it’s too early to tell if she’ll recover. They say there’s always hope.” Her eyes suddenly fixed on his. “Is that true? Is there always hope?”

“An…”

“Because I don’t think they should just lead people on, if there isn’t.” Her voice was thready and a little too strident as she walked around the room, purposefully studying the bland prints and plastic furniture.

“I think they should just be honest, and say that there are some things you just can’t recover from.” Suddenly running out of steam, she sank down in the chair next to his bed. She scratched at the unfortunate orange vinyl upholstery, and didn’t look at Xander.

“How…” Xander shut his eyes briefly. Too many possible endings to that question. He settled on the one at the forefront of his mind. “How did you find us?”

At that she did look up, and there was a flash of the old Anya. “How did I find you? You were in my store.”

Technically not true, but they’d had that conversation before with decidedly mixed results. He did not feel up to tackling the issue again.

“I know, An, but the shop’s been closed since…you know. I’ve been by, looking for you.”

“Of course you have. Why do you think I closed it? But my presence has still been required. We have customers overseas, shipments arriving every day. Retail is a demanding vocation, Xander.”

“So you’ve told me. And I thought I told you that you shouldn’t go to the shop by yourself at night. It’s not safe.” The words were out of his mouth before the irony sunk in.

Anya didn’t seem to notice. “Did you see what they did to the place?” she asked, and there was something too terribly heartbroken in her question. “It’s all burned up.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could have stopped it.” And he did, if only to remove that sorrow from her face.

“I know I shouldn’t be sad, because there’s too much to be sad about already, but Xander…I worked so hard at it.”

“I know, sweetie.”

She swiped at her eyes. “I should go. There are policemen here, they want to speak to you.”

Panic rose in his chest. What the hell was he going to say? “I - I’d really like to talk to Willow first. If she’s up to it.”

Anya regarded him steadily. Apparently a thousand years observing human nature counted for something. Or maybe she just knew his ‘Oh, shit, what do I do now’ face, because she seemed to understand his dilemma.

“Willow’s already told them she doesn’t remember anything. In case you were wondering.”

“Uh, yeah. I was. Thanks. Anya!”

She turned, hand on the doorknob.

“Will - When will I see you again?”

She seemed to give this some thought. “The next time you get stabbed, burned and knocked unconscious, I suppose.”

He mustered a smile. “So, next week, then?”

She gave him a little half-wave and walked out the door. She never asked about Buffy, he thought, before closing his eyes again.

***************************************

Spike dashed into the motel room, kicking the door shut behind him. He shook himself lightly, a reflexive action anytime he got more solar action than he was used to. He rubbed his eyes, gritty with lack of rest, and studied Dawn.

She stood uncertainly in the center of the room, backpack hanging forlornly from a single shoulder. He wanted to go to her, whisper soothingly that everything was going to be okay.

He didn’t know where to begin.

“You must be knackered,” he said at last. “Why don’t you wash up,” he gestured to the bathroom, “and then have a lie-down. We’ve made good time, we can stay here for a while.”

“What about you?”

He laughed humorlessly. “Was thinking I might do the same thing myself.” They’d been driving for two days. He’d purposefully waited to stop, until sheer exhaustion would force them both into slumber. It seemed to have worked - the thoughts of Buffy that plagued him ceaselessly had retreated momentarily.

Dawn nodded, her back still to him, and entered the bathroom. The door clicked shut softly. He sank down on one of the room’s two twin beds, fully intending to change his clothes, get under the covers. Or at least take off his shoes.

But when Dawn emerged from the bathroom she could see that he was sleeping. He did not fall into the deep, rhythmic breathing that living people did, she noted, but his very stillness was its own indication.

She looked at the other bed, tidily made despite the ratty blankets that covered it. It was empty and inviting, and surely Spike would hog the pillow and accidentally elbow her and dream about gross stuff, like winning a lifetime’s supply of blood from The Vampire’s Clearinghouse.

She gently but forcefully nudged him over, until there was enough space for her to lie down. He grunted and opened his eyes, but didn’t say anything as she settled herself next to him. She curled up on her side, and soon fell into blessed unconsciousness.

***************************************

Willow set the phone down with a strength that was probably unwarranted. Xander, splayed out across the foot of her hospital bed, noted the appearance of her resolve face. Wonderful.

“Giles says that Dawn’s safe, and that she’s with Spike.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Xander broke in sourly.

“And, he says he doesn’t know where they are or where they’re headed.”

Xander snorted. “Figures. How much help is he supposed to be, off in merry olde England? He should never have left.” Inadequate pain medication and the inability to perform the simplest of tasks with his useless arms were making Xander cranky. He knew he was being self-centered, knew that Willow must be wracked with worry over Tara and that Giles was mourning Buffy as a father would a daughter. But until he got hooked up to a Demerol drip, the rest of the world could just go to hell.

If Buffy was lost to them, how much better did they deserve?

“He’s been trying to reach Angel, but there’s no answer,” Willow was saying. “And as for Buffy…” Willow’s resolve face wavered, just a bit. “No one’s seen her since last night. She attacked Dawn, but Spike intervened. Or something. Then she disappeared.”

“Are you sure Spike didn’t just take off with her? I can’t see him passing up an opportunity to do a Bonnie and Clyde with the girl he’s been perving after for a year and a half.”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Willow said pointedly. “Except that Spike wouldn’t hurt Dawn.” I don’t think.

“So he just let her walk out the door, in all her newly homicidal glory?”

“We’re hardly in a position to throw stones, Xander.”

He grunted, examined the hem of his nubby bathrobe and wished for the thousandth time today that this was all a bad dream.

***************************************

This is like a bad dream, Spike thought.

He was slumped against the wall of their motel room, eyes on the window, the door and the sleeping Dawn. Giles filled him in briefly on Slayer lore. Until recently, Spike had only been interested in Slayers as potential trophy kills. Now he was learning more about them than he ever wanted to know.

“No new Slayer has been called,” Giles informed him.

. Spike took a long drag off his cigarette and tried to pay attention. After a while, all these arcane facts took on a sheen of similarity.

“Right,” he’d answered. “But isn’t there another one out there already? This Faith chit? Maybe that’s why nobody else got Chosen up. Y’know, Rupe. Heir and a spare.” He smiled grimly. The Slayers: their own little royal family.

“Faith is a Slayer, yes, despite her incarceration for the foreseeable future. But Buffy’s line remains intact.”

“How come no new Slayer came to Sunnyhell when Buffy died, then?” Spike didn’t really care, to be honest.

Giles sighed. His exasperation crackled over the line, but he he spoke again his voice was patient. “When one Slayer died, another is Chosen. That will never change. But the Council of Watchers, among their many other duties, also has discretion to not seek out the Chosen One. For reasons they did not share with me, they were satisfied with Faith as the sole Slayer. Regardless of what the Council decided, however, I would be aware if Buffy’s -“ he coughed suddenly, “Buffy’s death triggered a new Slayer. As I said earlier, no new Slayer has been called. Buffy is still alive.”

“Fine, then.” Spike ground out the cigarette. “Do you propose we just sit around and wait ‘til we see her on the evening news?”

“I know this is difficult, particularly for a man of your…impulsive nature. But pursuing Buffy now would only endanger you, and consequently, Dawn. We’ve been able to track her movements roughly, and they indicate that she is able and traveling independently. You understand that we are in a delicate position - we might have more success using the Council’s resources, but they have already proven that they have no compunction about putting down a rogue Slayer. And Buffy…Buffy was never one of their favorites.”

Spike already knew all this, knew that he was doing the right thing. It sucked. No wonder he never developed a taste for it.

“I’m not going to stay away forever, Watcher.”

***************************************

Buffy Summers was dreaming.

Then the noxious, choking darkness rolled in again, covering her like an oil slick until she was no more.

***************************************

Dawn knelt next to Spike.

“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “Soon it will be over.”

He just shook his head. “It’s just…it’s all so messed up. Wrong.”

“I know.”

“Is she a demon?” A heartbreakingly hopeful expression appeared on his face. “I can kill her if she’s a demon.”

“She’s not a demon.”

“I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

“Now you’re exaggerating.”

“I didn’t know there was evil like that out there. I mean…I thought I knew, but…”

Dawn took his trembling hands in hers. “It’s okay. It’s been canceled. This is the last season.”

He exhaled slowly. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Dawn walked over to the television, where Ally McBeal was having another wide-eyed romantic crisis while dressed inappropriately and practicing law that would get her disbarred in most states. With a decisive click, the screen went black.

Spike sat back on the bed, seemingly drained. Dawn eyed him speculatively. There was something she’d been meaning to ask him, and now that he was all over vulnerable from ‘Ally’ it was her best chance. She crawled up next to him.

“Were you really going to just dump me at Angel’s?”

Spike’s eyes opened and a small crease furrowed his brow. After a week of way too much quality time with Dawn, he should have become accustomed to her non sequitur subject changes. This one, however, threw him.

“I give up. What are we talking about?”

“The first day. You asked me if I wanted to go to Angel’s.”

“Hell, Dawn, you were the one brought it up. I thought you wanted to stay with him.”

“And you would have let me? Dropped me off on his doorstep and waved goodbye? Maybe if I was lucky it’d be at night, and you’d actually get out of the car.”

Spike had probably said or done something recently that warranted this conversation, but he was too tired to figure out what. Which meant almost certainly that he would find himself in this uncomfortable position again someday. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it…God, wasn’t he the poster boy for that truism.

He snorted loudly. “Not a bloody chance. Hand you over to the brooding wonder? The guy who could start snacking on you if he sees a laugh-out-loud episode of ‘Friends’? Oh, but I’m the unstable one.”

Dawn felt a rush of relief at that, followed immediately by guilt. Stupid emotions. How could she be happy about anything, with Buffy still missing? She knew that if it weren’t for her, Spike would be out there now, hunting for her sister. Instead he was saddled with Dawn.

“Guess you got the short end of the stick,” she said, with a vain attempt at lightness.

Spike stared at her again. Maybe it was some kind of adolescent hormonal thing, he thought uneasily. “Now what are we talking about?”

“Ending up with me instead of Buffy. C’mon, I mean…you can’t tell me you wouldn’t rather be -“

“Don’t,” Spike said shortly. “You don’t know as much as you think you do.”

She plucked at the bedspread, seemingly intent on the play of her long fingers over the garish magenta flowers. “Shouldn’t we be out there helping her?” Dawn asked in a whisper.

Shouldn’t we be out there helping her? It was a question he’d asked himself at least twenty times a day since their flight had started. He was alternately tormented by images of the suffering Buffy might be experiencing, and the suffering Buffy might be inflicting on an unsuspecting populace.

He’d spoken with the Watcher about this. He’d found Giles surprisingly good to talk to, someone with whom he could share his otherwise unuttered fear for Dawn, for Buffy. For himself. The older man felt that there was no benefit that could be gained from confronting Buffy before they had more information. Which would be any information, Spike thought in frustration.

Yeah, he answered silently, we should.

Weeks passed, bleeding into one another in their sameness. Drive all night, almost every night. Find the most respectable looking motel off the highway and book a room. They rarely stayed anywhere more than twenty-four hours, just long enough to shower, eat, and fall into bed. Spike had spent much of his unlife traveling, in not-always-commodious conditions. He was accustomed to the pace and the draining weariness of being constantly on the move. He knew it was harder on Dawn. He tried to keep her busy, with books and crossword puzzles and pilfered CDs. It was nothing close to what she needed or deserved. But at the end of the day, he was no more than Spike, the disgruntled, impractical vampire.

Dawn studied the letter critically as Spike unlocked the motel room door, juggling paper bags. “A little help, here?”

“In a second,” she answered distractedly. “Spike, how do you spell ‘machete’?”

He set the bags down on the rickety bedside table and began unloading the contents. “Writing to the Watcher again?” She wrinkled her nose. “He actually sent me back my last letter, marked up with a red pen.”

“I know. I got an earful about neglecting the most fundamental aspects of your education in favor of ‘teenybopper rags and abhorrent television programming designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator.’” Spike gave her an appraising glance. “Sound familiar?”

“Oh.” Dawn bit her lip. “I might have mentioned how we’ve been watching ‘Temptation Island 3’.” Note to self: edit this week’s letter. She rose from the bed and joined him in pawing through the groceries. “Ooh! Lunchables!”

“Clever, ain’t they? Couldn’t pass ‘em up. M-A-C-H-E-T-E.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

“Just my way of further contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

Dawn watched as Spike attempted to make himself comfortable on a bed that was too small for him, and peeled back the cellophane covering of a manufactured meat product that he seemed to find more amusing that appetizing. She remembered the past weeks, the stretches of days and nights that he had stayed awake while she slept, or pretended to. She noticed how much thinner he had gotten without a steady supply of blood, and wondered at how he must scramble now to find sources of food in these tiny backwaters they’d been frequenting.

“Buffy would be so proud of you.”

His head whipped around and he gaped at her, stunned. It was almost funny, really.

“What the - what put that thought into you head?”

“Everything. Stuff.” She shrugged. “Well, it’s true.”

“Uh-huh. I think she’d feel about the same Giles does. And there’d be more hitting involved. Kneeing in delicate places, possible staking. That sort of thing.”

“You’re doing what she asked you to,” Dawn persisted.

“Asked me? Was that before or after she tried to turn you into mince? ‘Cause I must not have been listening, what with the all the psychosis in the room. Distracting, that.” He knew he sounded harsh and told himself he didn’t care.

Dawn glared at him, but his moods no longer intimidated her. “Don’t be all humpy,” she said, and Spike winced inwardly at hearing his own slang out of her mouth.

“Before. When Glory was macking on her Dawn-shaped Key and Buffy took us over to your place. Remember? With my mom?”

The too-brief moments of companionship he’d shared with Joyce. The warm feeling that had taken up residence in his gut, at the thought of being protector rather than predator, and the ensuing self-disgust.

“I remember.”

“I heard what she said when she left us there. She said you were the only one strong enough to protect us.”

He couldn’t prevent a small smile from breaking through. “I guess she did at that.”

“She couldn’t have planned it better herself, if she’d, you know, been herself…” Dawn trailed off. Silence reigned.

“Do you think we’ll ever see her again?”

Dawn’s small voice pierced him in places he thought were dead and immune. He would happily die for good if it would take this hurt away from her, this raw open wound that festered between them because there was no healing for it. Buffy was still out there, somewhere.

“Yes,” he said, and his words were surprisingly steady to his own ears.

On impulse, Dawn scooted over and threw her arms around his neck, nearly upending the Lunchable tower he was building.

“Watch the biscuits, will you? For crying in a bucket…” He set his construction down and hugged Dawn tightly.

This was still so new to him, this…touching, without agenda or pretense. Marathon shagging with superhuman warrior-women, he knew. Spontaneous hugging, though, put Spike entirely out of his depth. But he loved it, secretly and with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. Dawn’s easy warmth fed an addiction he didn’t know he had.

“You’re going to be taller than me soon, you know that?”

She nodded, her head bumping his chin, and reached across him to retrieve the Lunchable. She began eating it, starting at the top with a triangle slice of rather violently pink ham. “And then, you’re going to try to make me do stuff, like go inside the Del Taco and tell them they forgot the Fire Sauce, and I’m going to lay the smack-down on you, ‘cause I can.”

The mental image that conjured up was so absurd he started to laugh, and Dawn joined him. They fought over the cold cuts and spilled crumbs on the sheets, and instead of watching television they played poker. Two hours later Dawn was asleep, her exhalations probably startling truckers zooming past on the highway fifty feet from their door.

Spike moved the desk chair in front of the door and wedged it there, shut off the cheap lamp that stood between the narrow beds, and closed his eyes.

The bloody bitch haunted his dreams.

He couldn’t stop replaying that night, that final, fateful night. He’d lie there, determined that today, this day, he wasn’t going to do it. And then the loop would start, and he was helpless to do anything but watch. Bloody masochistic, it was, even for Spike, for whom pain and love were hopelessly intertwined.

And the crazy thing was, he didn’t have anything to feel guilty for. Not this time. After Buffy had taken her swan dive off that tower, his punishing mind had been driven by the few moments before - when he’d been within a hair’s-breath of saving Dawn, and instead got beat down by a wizened little gremlin of a guy. Oh, yeah. Major self-flagellation over that one, and well-deserved at that. He’d taken his licks for it, and would have continued to had she ultimately not clawed her way out of the grave.

After that, the words ‘lick’ and ‘Buffy’ had a whole new connection.

Tonight more than ever, he was compelled to re-examine those final moments. Something Dawn said earlier, he was sure. But he couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t wrap his mind around the essential detail that eluded him. Because there was something he was missing. One hundred and twenty-some years provided plenty of opportunity for introspection. His brain was trying to tell him something.

Think, you stupid git! Think!

Waking up. Dawn’s tears. His love’s name, whimpered endlessly, and all the while Spike being afraid for Buffy, when he should have been afraid of her. The panic, the mad rush to take the girl and make her lead him to Buffy. Not fast enough, mate - that clever Slayer was already at his door, smiling in a way he’d never seen her smile before. The kind of smile he imagined others might see on him. It had looked wrong, so wrong, and in that instant he knew that Dawn had been utterly truthful with him. Thank God, Spike reflected now, she’d eventually had the sense to come to his place, rather than -

Whoa. Back up a mo’. Slowly, slowly…

’She just kept cutting me off, everywhere I turned. I lost her just before the cemetery.’ Now that stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Since when did Buffy lose her quarry? And on a route that was so well-worn by her tiny feet? There was no way she got to the gates of St. Ambrose’s, scratched her head, and tried to figure out where little sister had run off to.

Think, Spike. Hell, pull William out of retirement if you have to.

‘She just kept cutting me off…’

Thank God she’d had the sense to come to his place

‘You’re the only one strong enough to protect them.’

‘You’re doing what she asked you to.’

He sat straight up in bed, realization applying a hot poker to his spine. Oh, he was a stupid git, no question.

Buffy had chased Dawn, all right. Chased her right into Spike’s arms.

Not-Buffy had already worked over the others. No Scoobies to the rescue by the time she got to Dawn. And it was all falling into place, now. How she had left Dawn for last; those precious few minutes so that Dawn could stammer out her amazing, horrific tale. And their final showdown in his crypt. Spike was not so arrogant as to think that he had been destined to win their confrontation. Buffy was nothing if not a ruthless, relentless opponent. But…perhaps destiny had a hand in some of that night.

It wasn’t Buffy working the controls. Once he’d accepted that, it only seemed natural that she had been overtaken completely and utterly. That the old Buffy - the real Buffy - was no longer in residence.

Now he was unsure. No, that swaggering creature that had come for Dawn was not Buffy. Neither was the one who aroused his bloodlust with a few well-chosen words. That was some some rank swill poured into a familiar chalice. But the timing, the sequence of events…it couldn’t be ignored.

She hadn’t been able to break free, so she’d done the next best thing: taken the reins, briefly - milliseconds, maybe - and steered as best she could before the interloper noticed the change in direction.

Oh, my girl, he thought. My dear, sweet girl.

***************************************

One month to the day after she had left Sunnydale, Buffy Summers stepped into the International Terminal of O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. She shook out her lengthening honey hair and eyed her wrinkled pants with distaste. Nothing like traveling to make you look like you’d just climbed out of a garment bag, she thought.

It had taken her longer than she’d expected to make her way east, but she’d had a few stops to make first. Nothing like a visit with old friends, was there? Oh, that look on Angel’s face had been priceless, absolutely priceless. And Cordelia - if Buffy didn’t know any better, she’d think that the ex-cheerleader was setting her pompom for the vampire. An icy smile broke across Buffy’s face.

She’d moved on too. As they’d both learned, when blood splashed the floors of the old hotel. That well-stocked weapons cabinet had been a bonus.

She sauntered over to the Departure monitors. Her plane was on time, and boarding in ten minutes. Just long enough for her to get freshened up. When she entered the ladies’ restroom it was deserted. Good. She wasn’t much of a people person these days.

She stood over the sink, letting the water run as she dug into her purse for lipstick. When she looked back at the mirror, the figures of three black-suited men stood behind her.

She whirled around, adopting a fighting stance. “If you’re looking for a good time,” she said, “you’ve come to the right place.”

She launched herself at them, and reveled in the fight. Spike had disappointed her, taking the little one and running like a dog when all she wanted was an equal partner. But these boys…they would do nicely.

Porcelain smashed into shards, the metal doors of the stalls clanged and dented as the four of them charged around the bathroom. Buffy would have been happy to go on, but suddenly the men stopped, moving jointly to restrain rather than subdue her. Buffy followed their gazes to the doorway.

Another man stood there, slight and trim in a tailored suit and graying hair. He eyed her speculatively, and with a certain degree of approval. Buffy felt blood trickling from her lip. Her tongue darted out to lick it clean.

The man smiled.

“Miss Summers,” he said politely.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Maybe,” she winked at him. “People have had a hard time believing it, though.”

“I’m well aware,” he replied. “You’ve done some extensive damage. We really didn’t expect you to be so…proactive. It took us some time just to catch up to you.”

Her laughter died. “Who’s ‘us’? I don’t take orders from the Council anymore, if that’s who writes your checks.”

The man shook his head and stepped closer. “Not at all. My name is Rodger Kehoe.” He nodded to the suits, who backed off and released her. Buffy straightened and eyed him warily.

“Do give me the benefit of the doubt,” he chided her. “After all, you can thank me for your newfound freedom.”

“Really?” Hmm. She’d wondered, off and on, just what had prompted her..conscience? essence?…to shrug off like a discarded snake’s skin. Not that she missed it.

“Yes. We thought you’d be an excellent specimen. And you haven’t disappointed. No, not at all.”

“Thanks for thinking of me,” she said. “But,” she turned to the mirror again and ran her hands down the length of her body, conscious of the mens’ eyes on her. “I’m afraid you didn’t quite finish the job.”

“Is that so?”

“Just the other day,” Buffy went on, “she tried to walk me into a police station. Points for effort - she’s a persistent thing. I’m trying to keep a sense of humor about all this, but she’s starting to piss me off. It’s like…” she searched her mind, then brightened. “It’s like just when you think you’ve got the mouse caught in the trap, it turns up in the cupboard again. So annoying.”

He extended a hand to her. “I think we can do something about that.”

***************************************

Spike had seen enough.

Maybe it was lack of sleep; maybe it was the fact that they were parked in yet another bleached-out, dying highway town. Maybe it was his new godforsaken, bittersweet hunch that something of Buffy was left in that savage shell. Whatever the reason, Spike’s patience had worn down to the thinnest possible shred. He’d been wracking his brain for the last twenty hours, wondering how to share his suspicions with Dawn. But the spectacle she was putting on now warranted a different conversation entirely.

He grabbed her arm and half-dragged her, protesting, out of the gas station-cum-convenience store. In one had he held a plastic bag of lousy, nutritionless food; in the other he towed Dawn across the street to their motel.

“What?” Dawn whined.

He didn’t say anything, merely steered her into their room and gave her a rough shove inside.

“Manhandle much?” she snapped. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is you making eyes at some inbred, glue-sniffing petrol jockey who’d love to teach jailbait like you a few things.”

“I was not making eyes! God, we were just talking!”

“Oh, sorry. I must have just been imagining the way you were twirling your bloody hair. If it makes you happy, you got his attention. And if he comes sniffing around here, I’ll get his attention. Understand?”

“You can’t do anything anyway You’ve got -"

“I can do plenty. All it costs me is a headache.”

“What, are you going to be the only person I talk to for the rest of my life?”

“Not at all. Nuns, elderly shut-ins - they’re all fair game.”

She stamped her foot. “Stop making fun of me!”

“Stop acting funny.”

“I’m sick of being shut up in these stupid nasty motels with you! I want to have a life! And if I want to talk to a guy, then I’ll do that too!”

Spike’s jaw clenched, and he stalked forward, got right up in her face. “You’ll have a life when I decide it’s safe. Until then, little girl, you and I are stuck together for better or worse. Things are gonna get a hell of a lot worse if you don’t start behaving!”

“I hate you!” she screamed.

“Good!” he shouted back. “I hate you too! And the next time your bitch of a sister goes off the rails, she can take you with her!”

She pushed past him and into the tiny bathroom, slamming the door behind her. He heard the lock turn and then the water running, affording her the only privacy that could be had given their circumstances. He scowled and kicked the TV stand. An unsightly crack appeared and the thing lilted drunkenly to one side, but the wanton destruction of property left him strangely cold. Finally he slumped against the bathroom door, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling.

He was no good at this.

He wasn’t a fool, despite all evidence to the contrary. He knew Giles was right in his distrust of Spike as Dawn’s de facto guardian. He was strong, yeah - the only one among them who could hold his own with Buffy in a fight - but when it came to the day-to-day responsibilities of caring for a teenaged girl, he was at sea. He was a bad influence on her, he could see it: the nocturnal schedule; the diet of television and transience; their whole fast-food existence - cheap, dirty and utterly lacking in value.

A part of him - a very large part - had wanted nothing more than to join Buffy in her rampage. They’d create a thing of terrible beauty, he knew. They’d bring carnage to depths unplumbed even by he and Dru.

And Spike would be back to doing something he was good at.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before the door opened and he fell backward in a manner not befitting an authority figure. As he propped himself up on the cold, cracked tiles of the bathroom, Dawn surveyed him. Finally, she scooted down at his side.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper.

“Me too.” He took her head in his hands and kissed her forehead lightly. They sat in silence for several minutes.

“What if it happens to me, too?” Dawn asked.

“Huh?”

“The way she - changed. What if it’s going to happen to me?”

“It won’t.”

“The monks made me out of her, Spike. We’re the same. If it’s in our blood, or our brains or whatever -"

“Let’s see,” Spike said. “Dawn, insane and wishing for my dusty death. Well, how the hell would I even be able to tell the difference?”

She punched him on the arm. It reminded him of Buffy.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Next stop we make, we’ll stay in a real hotel. Someplace nice. And we’ll get a suite, with plenty of space. Giles says he’s gotten our IDs in order, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Dawn sat up. “Really?”

“You’re not exactly an ideal roommate, you know. Chip’s been getting quite a workout the last few weeks and that’s just over the snoring.”

“It’s not snoring, it’s breathing. You’re just not used to hearing it.”

It was snoring, and Spike knew this because he had lain awake many nights back in Sunnydale, listening to Buffy breathe. Buffy slept the sleep of the exhausted, the sexually satiated and the emotionally ravaged. But she had nothing on the bone-rattling racket that erupted form Dawn Summers.

“Fine. If we get a place with rooms and doors, then I won’t have to put a stop to the breathing, will I?”

“Oh, this is going to be so cool. We’ll have to wait ‘til we get to an actual city, you know, one with a stoplight and everything, but still…”

Spike stood, reaching a hand out to her. She took it and followed him out of the bathroom. The phone on the bedside table rang shrilly. Spike shut his eyes briefly. Another depressing chat with the Watcher, in which nothing was learned and no solution made itself known. As a true Sunnydale native would put it, yay.

He let Dawn answer it. “Hi, Giles. How are you?” She toyed with the phone cord. “Mmm…mmm-hmmm. We’re okay, I guess. I didn’t know Texas was so big. I feel like we’ve been here forever.” A beat. “Largest…oh. I didn’t know that. Learn something new every day, huh? Even when you’re not in school,” she added pointedly. Spike smirked and settled himself on the bed next to her. Let her torture the Watcher for a while; he was wrung out.

“Spike? He’s not doing too well, actually.” Spike raised his scarred eyebrow, a move that had driven countless women wild but, sadly, had no effect on Dawn. “What? No, nothing like that. I think his squirrel and jackrabbit diet is making him crabby,” she confided. “Yow!” She dodged Spike’s half-hearted grab and tossed the phone at him. “Here. Giles wants to talk to you.”

Spike took the phone and moved to the open window, where he could smoke without getting kicked in the shin by Dawn. “Yeah?”

“I’ve been happy to avoid this topic, but I suppose it’s time I inquire as to how, exactly, you two are surviving. In terms of money, and, er, sustenance.”

“If it makes you feel better. I thought I’d hit rock bottom when I was tied up in your bathtub being fed from a straw. Now I’m mugging truckers for cash and living off roadkill and restaurant leavings. Happy now?”

“Not by any stretch of the imagination. Allow me to change the subject. I have news.”

Spike stood up straighter, the cigarette in his hand forgotten. “Talk to me.”

“Two days ago, a gentleman at O’Hare Airport in Chicago reported seeing a young woman with an axe sticking out of her carry-on bag. She matched Buffy’s description and had a one-way ticket to Heathrow.”

Buffy did always have the best weapons, Spike thought wistfully. “She was coming to see you.”

“It would appear so. Airport security investigated the man’s sighting, but the woman left the airport without getting on her scheduled flight.”

“Left?”

“They have her on videotape, getting into a stretch limousine with four men.”

“She was taken, then.” Spike felt his worst fear confirmed. They’d abandoned Buffy, and now -

“No. She seemed…quite content to be in their company. While I obviously don’t know the details of their encounter, I would wager that these men have something to do with what happened to Buffy. If we’ve been able to track her, so have others.”

“And unlike us, those others are with her at this very blasted second. Damnit, Rupert, I told you we should have gone after her.”

“How? In her current state she’s clearly beyond reason. Would you have Dawn wait in the car while you tried to wrestle her sister, her only family, into submission? Truss her up in the trunk and beat her back to sanity?”

As a matter of fact, it closely resembled the plan Spike had come up with since his epiphany last night. It still sounded pretty good to him.

“I understand your disappointment. Believe me, I feel the same. But our position has improved. We have more information now.”

“We have bugger-all now!”

“Spike, listen to me!” Giles’ voice practically reverberated through the phone line.

“This all came to light today - when the group returned to the airport. They boarded a private jet, circumventing the standard security checkpoints Therefore the airport police weren’t able to detain them in time. They were en route to California. Los Angeles.”

Ten minutes later Spike hung up, feeling both giddy and fearful. He turned to see Dawn watching him intently. She knew. Of course she knew; his little one was as quick as they came.

“Buffy…?”

“Pack up,” he told her. “We’re heading back.”

***************************************

Tara slipped away that evening.

Willow sat by the bed long after it was empty, her white fingers gripping the sheets.

“Will?” Xander poked his head in. They’d been discharged for weeks, but visiting Tara had kept them at the hospital nearly full-time.

She didn’t answer. He approached cautiously, settling himself on the bed.

“Don’t sit there!” Willow cried.

Xander stood up. “Willow, you’ve got to leave. They need…they need the room.”

Willow turned her red-rimmed eyes up to his.

“I’ll never forgive her for this.”

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