Snapshots of Eternity
by Slinkyspychokit


Chapter Four: Quiet
beta'd by Oracleholly


She was a vision, Spike decided as he and Buffy silently watched Dawn standing on the small terrace. In less than a year's time, the little girl he remembered had been stripped away to reveal a young woman aged beyond her years. He didn't need to see her angular face -so much like his own that it still amazed him- to know her startlingly blue eyes would be closed and her high cheeks would be splotchy from crying. He could smell her tears the same as he could smell the faded scent of a delicate perfume she'd spritzed across her wrists that morning and the faint traces of the magicks she'd used.

The scent of the magicks bothered him more than he liked. Yes, she'd used them to help Buffy through her a great deal of grief and misery. But, it hadn't been too long ago that Red had become so addicted to magicks that she'd nearly incenerated the entire earth after the senseless death of her lover. The very idea that his Niblet could suffer a similar fate terrified the Aurelian vampire. He'd have to keep a very careful eye on Dawn to be sure she didn't lose control of her chaotic neutral paower.

While he'd been lost in thought, a small sob managed to slip free from the young woman in question and he could see the slight trembling in her slender body. It tore at his hard won soul that he'd caused her this pain. He'd do anything to stop those tears from both his girls. Another emotionally shocking realization that filled his heart with joy and shame at the same time. After all the horror and bloodshed wrought by his deceptively gentle hands over the decades, after all the lives he'd destroyed and the helpless innocents he'd terrorized for the pure, unadulterated thrill of the hunt, the last thing he deserved was the love of these two miraculous creatures. He sure as hell didn't deserve their grief over his death.

Right then he made a silent vow to spend the rest of eternity doing anything and everything he could to put his small family's hearts and souls back together. It wasn't going to be easy and it wouldn't be an instant fix, but his girls were worth it.

He cast a sidelong glance at Buffy and saw that she had a soft smile, tinged with tears from all the emotional upheaval during the past hours since his arrival. Their eyes met and she gave him the barest of nods in encouragement. He didn't need a second invitation as he moved towards Dawn with catlike grace. He gave no warning before wrapping his arms around his and Buffy's mystically created daughter.

Screw false memories, Spike thought as he buried his nose in her long, brown hair. All he needed was one tiny whiff of Dawn's unique scent -an odd combination of his and the Slayer's as well as something that was the girl's own fragrance- and one moment of studying all the attributes she'd inherited from him, to know the truth of it. Dawn Summers was his daughter as surely as if he'd impregnated the Slayer and watched the babe grow within her womb. He didn't really care that a bunch of frightened monks had somehow stolen a bit of his good-looking and athletic DNA to mix in with what they'd stolen from Buffy. Dawn was the precious result and he wouldn't give that up for anything.

Dawn had gasped and gone stiff as a board the moment he pulled her back against his chest, the fact that he'd effectively pinned her arms to the side had not been lost on either of them. Her voice was a bare whisper he'd had to strain his senses to hear, but he'd understood the words. She didn't think he was real. Leaning his lips close to her ear, he whispered back, "Open your eyes, Niblet". Her entire frame shook violently and he spun her around to see the truth for herself.

Startled, she backed away and her luminous blue eyes surrepitisiously moved between the two blondes before easing a half step forward and calling his name with a shaky breath. His heart seemed to break at the fear he saw in her eyes. "Yeah, Niblet?"

"It's really you?"

'M not Father bleedin' Christmas. "It's really me," he assured her with a sweet smile.

A full step closer, her bottom lip trembling at the force of the tears she was desperately trying to hold back. "You're here with us? Not gonna leave us again?"

Oh, baby. Oh, God, what've I done to m' girls? How could he ever be worthy of them and the love they so freely offered him? He reached out and pulled her to him with a fierce determination, gathering her into his arms and enfolding Buffy against them so that their small circle was complete. "I'm never gonna leave my sweet, beautiful girls alone again," he promised them. And he'd be damned all over again if he let anything try to break that promise.

Somehow, the small family ended up back in Buffy's bed with Dawn cuddled between the beings who were the mother and the father. The air was saturated with all the emotions wrung from the females and the trio simply lay resting against each other in the now silent room. Dawn's eyes moved behind closed lids as she shut off her external senses and tuned in to that inner self that showed what her eyes could not see. That internal sense told her that the claim between Slayer and vampire had been renewed as it detected the mingled essences of her parent beings.

A low growl of warning rumbled from deep within the chest pressed against her front while the body against her back stiffened in response. She looked up to meet the startling blue eyes of her father. Anger reflected back at her from within the cerulean depths and let her know that he was not unaware of her psychic proddings. Before she realized his intentions, his fangs were buried deep in the bend of her left elbow and she couldn't hold back the initial cry of pain from escaping her parted lips. Immediately, the psychic shield between them dissolved and she was left open and unprotected from the rapid flow of thoughts, images and emotions flooding her conscious.

As quickly as it had begun, the endless procession of the psychic information crashing over and through her, receded and his fangs had been replaced by a cool tongue gently licking the tiny puntures closed. The soothing purr now vibrating against her small frame calmed her agitated heart and mind. That part of Dawn that was still a little girl desperate for a father's love and reassurances cuddled closer to him and she buried her forehead against the base of his throat.

Soon enough both Dawn and Buffy drifted off into a peaceful, restorative sleep, leaving Spike to watch over them and consider all the things he'd learned since his arrival. It was alot to take in, the knowledge that had been so suddenly revealed to him at the moment of his recorporealization inside the shiny glass and chrome tower of evil his Grand Sire had been manipulated into running.

At first, Spike had been afraid to search out his girls. His insecurities that he could never be what Buffy and the Niblet needed or deserved had kept him in Los Angeles. Then the green guy, Lorne, had overheard Spike's loud, horridly off key singing during a night of drunken sulking.

"Spike," the Pylean empath and head of Wolfram & Hart's entertainment division, had said in an uncharateristically serious tone. The very lack of a pet name centered around baked goodies had caused Spike to sober immediately. Without any lead-in, the loudly dressed demon had imparted the results of his unsolicited reading of the vampire's aura.

And just like that, Spike had stuffed his few belongings and a wad of cash he'd stashed away in a metal box beneath his bed. Surprisingly, Angel had the company jet fueled and ready for the flight to Rome where Fred had learned Buffy had taken a flat with the Bit. Shocking him furthur, Peaches had pulled his wayward Grand Childe into his arms and wished him well and sent him on his way after promising that they would keep in touch.

Now that he was here, Spike could see for himself what needed to be done. First on the agenda would be to get his family the hell away from Rome. Wolfram & Hart had a branch office here and that could only lead to trouble. And there was no way Spike was taking them anywhere that even smelled of Council. The longer he could avoid the soddin Council and Rupert Giles, the happier he'd be. Instead, Spike would take his girls somewhere sunny and tropical. Yeah, some warm little island in the tropics where they could relax and soak up the glorius rays of the sun while drinking those fruity concoctions with the tiny paper umbrellas. of course, they'd need a chaperone for their daylight excursions since Spike felt he'd finally outgrown his fascination with self-immolation.

The girls trusted Faith and Spike couldn't think of anyone better suited to the task. First chance he got, he'd see about contacting the rogue. He also needed to get in touch with the family of solicitors that had handled Spike's private holdings since his human days. It was high time he put his inheretance to work. He'd offered the money to Buffy after she'd been brought back from Heaven and was struggling to make ends meet. But, she'd refused out of her sense of pride and the fact that she assumed the mony had come from illegal dealings.

This time around he wasn't giving her the choice.


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