At the sharp, snapping comment, Spike twisted his head just enough to give a brief nod towards the girl standing in his doorway.

"'Bit."

"You brought a skanky ho to the wedding. That was so not the thing to do." Still wearing her hideous green dress, Dawn stalked into the crypt, stopping directly in front of the chair he lounged in.

Spike frowned and took another slug of tequila. "Yeah, I figured that one out."

"Well, why didn't you figure it out before you brought the vamp tramp?"

He frowned deeper. "Because I'm a vampire, Dawn, the evil undead. I don't know right from wrong."

"Bullshit."

The harsh expletive issuing from that little mouth shocked him. "Watch your mouth."

Dawn laughed, a hard sarcastic sound. "See, you do know right from wrong."

"Dawn, I'm not going to get into this with you," he sighed, shifting his gaze from her angry face to the bottle in his hand.

"If you keep doing stupid things like this, she's never going to like you."

Ignoring that pointed comment, he took another drink, as Dawn crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

"Well?"

Spike growled and glared back up at her. "You're a pushy little thing, you know that?"

"I'm a teenager. It's in the manual."

"When I was a teenager we were to be seen and not heard."

Dawn snorted. "Yeah? How'd that work out for you?"

"Dawn..." Exasperated, Spike rose to his feet and stalked towards the stairs to the under crypt.

"Hey, we're not finished here."

"Go home, Dawn. She's never going to like me regardless of what I do or don't do. I'm the bad guy. Murderer, torturer, plunderer, evil doer of...er...dark deeds."

"Uh huh, so that's why she's sleeping with you?"

Spike nearly tripped over his own feet as he skidded to a stop and turned back to face her. "Wh...wha..."

There was a look of pure glee on Dawn's face, as she scoffed, "Oh, come on, do you really think I'm that much of a child? Up until a few nights ago she spent almost every night out, and she wasn't patrolling the whole time. When she patrols, she's usually home by one. Plus, all the smoldering looks you two give each other kind of give it away."

"I don't smolder."

She grinned and he growled again.

"You're dreaming, Dawn. Your sister would never let me touch her."

"Because you're an evil doer of dark deeds." She gave him a clearly disbelieving look. "You love her, right?"

Spike sighed heavily and slumped against the wall. "You know I do," he finally admitted. "This is pointless, Dawn."

"You love her, you've been sleeping together, tonight you bring a skank to the wedding, so I figure you screwed up somehow, right? Had a fight? Did an evil deed?"

"...All of the above."

"So, make it up to her, say you're sorry."

Lifting his head, Spike looked at her again and for the first time saw the need in her eyes. He asked softly, "Why do you want this so much, Dawn?"

The girl dropped her eyes, her arms tightening around herself in a hug, as if to ward off a chill.

"Dawn?"

"...You'd protect her," she finally whispered. "You won't let her go away again." She sank into his chair and stared at her feet.

Emotion welled in him and Spike felt the bitter prickling of tears in the corners of his eyes. Slowly he pushed off from the wall and walked to where Dawn huddled in the chair. Crouching down, he peered up into her fear-filled eyes.

"Dawn, luv...I can't save her from herself, no matter how much I want to. She doesn't want that."

"You could try," she cried passionately.

"I have been. She...she doesn't love me. For her, what we're doing is wrong. It...hurts her."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't," he replied, his voice full of compassion.

"You're not evil, Spike. Something evil wouldn't have rocked me to sleep when I cried for my mom and my sister. Something evil wouldn't have risked his life for me."

"But, I'm not good either," he murmured. "Not good enough for her."

A sneer crossed Dawn's face. "Well, nobody'd be good enough for Saint Buffy."

"Don't talk about her like that," Spike snapped back, his voice cold.

"She treats you like crap, Spike."

"I *am* crap, Dawn." Rising to his feet, he began to pace, angry at the whole situation. "I am a demon. Okay, much to my disgust, I'm not all bad anymore, but I can't live down my past. I killed, Dawn, thousands. I did it for food, for fun. There's a reason I'm called Spike." Marching over to a pile of crates, he grabbed a railroad spike from the top one and spun back around to face her. "I used these to impale my victims, to play with them, to rip them to shreds while they begged for their lives."

Dawn paled, but kept her eyes locked on him, whispering, "That was in the past. You can't kill anymore."

"And if the chip goes away? What do you think will happen then, girl?" he asked pointedly.

She nodded at the spike in his hand and pushed herself to her feet. "Would you put that through me, Spike? Could you?"

He swallowed hard and lowered the spike. "You know I couldn't."

Her smile of triumph was short-lived as his eyes blazed into hers. "But, could I put it through some random stranger? Would I feed off hot human blood again?"

"...Would you?" Dawn asked a bit desperately, taking a step towards him. "Could you?"

"...I don't know," he finally admitted.

"Your demon wants to kill. Right now it can't, but you're more than your demon, Spike."

"You sound so positive, Dawn. How can you be?" The eyes that met hers no longer glowed with anger, but held something...softer...needier.

Reaching out, Dawn took the spike from his limp grasp and ran her fingers down the rusty length. "You love my sister. You know that she knows killing humans is wrong, so you won't kill humans."

Spike shook his head. "It's not that simple."

"Sure it is." She gave him a brief, but chipper smile. "You make a decision not to be evil, not to kill, and you try to stick to it because you have a good reason to stick to it."

"Buffy will never love me."

"That's not the reason, Spike. It's part of it, but, mostly it's that through Buffy you're learning what's right and what's wrong. The man inside you is becoming stronger than the demon."

"I did something evil, Niblet, and Buffy dumped me. She was right to dump me."

"You made a mistake. We all do. It's only human."

Shaking his head, a bit amazed at her logic, Spike could only smile. "It would have been so much easier if I'd fallen in love with you."

Dawn's face screwed up and she poked him with the blunt end of the spike. "Euuu, I'm only fifteen."

He chuckled. "In a few years, luv. I'm not a cradle robber."

"Well, see, that's a good thing." She grinned at him.

"You're determined, aren't you."

"I think in a weird way you'd be good for her, if she'd let you be and stop being blind to the good stuff you've done. Buffy still sees things too much in black and white. You're grey."

"Grey, huh?"

"Everyone is," she continued. "Even Buffy. Just got to get her to admit it."

Spike looked intrigued. "And how are you going to do that?"

Dawn shrugged. "Dunno, but I'm determined. She's miserable. She was a bit less miserable most days after not coming home at night, so you were doing something right." Her hands flew up to prevent him from commenting. "I don't even want to *think* about what you were doing because that's too gross. It's like the thought of my mom having sex. Blech."

Chuckling, Spike plucked the spike from her hands and tossed it over his shoulder. As it clunked off the grungy wall, Dawn made a face.

"You have to find a job and a place to live, a real place."

"Hey, I never said you could micro manage my unlife."

"Do you want Buffy to come back to you?"

Scowling, he scuffed his toe in the dirt. "You're going to turn me into a ponce, aren't you."

"I don't know what that is, but you could do something like night security or unload stuff on the docks, or, hey, work the night shift at the Double Meat with Buffy." Dawn grinned wickedly.

"Over my very undead body...well, the last one." Spike sighed heavily. "Security, huh?"

"Yeah, well most robberies are committed by demons and you can hurt them, so you'd be an asset."

"Think I could afford one of those satellite dishes then?"

"Sure, and a bigger fridge for your blood."

Spike tried one last protest. "Getting a job in the human world would ruin my reputation."

Dawn gave him a pointed look. "What reputation? The one where you kill your own kind? Spike, you can't go back to being a badass demon. Do you really want to?"

"...No," he muttered.

"Buffy's more important to you, right?"

"...Yes."

"Then make her see that you're not the evil undead anymore, that you can really change."

A memory struck him and a fleeting sorrow passed through him. "I once said that demons don't change."

"You know that's crap, Spike. It's so obvious you've changed for the better, and it's not just the chip and it's not just because you love Buffy. They may have been why you started to change, but they're not going to be why you continue."

"Why then?" he asked, a bit bemused by her passion and determination.

"Because it's the right thing to do."

 

The End

 

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