Spike had arrived a little early tonight and Dawn convinced herself that that was a good sign. Since the Scoobies and Spike had killed the dragon a few weeks ago, she thought he seemed to be relaxing just a little, becoming a little more open to the idea of joining in with the others. He hadn’t actually done any joining in yet, but sometimes it seemed like he might. Soon. Maybe. She hoped.

He did hang around more. If she wasn’t in bed when Willow and Tara got home, he stayed until she was. And she knew he sat outside her bedroom window on the roof almost every night. Maybe every night, she wasn’t sure. Keeping watch, he’d told her. Even though it was a little weird, she kinda liked it. It made her feel safe, and protected.

She knew that Spike was working out almost daily in the training room now, and that he and Giles spoke fairly often. Their talks seemed to be private conversations, though, because neither of them would elaborate on them even if she asked. Of course, he still hadn’t spoken to anyone else, or even done anything to acknowledge anyone else’s existence, but talking to Giles was a start – right?

Dawn sighed. Maybe she was just getting good at deluding herself. She felt a wave of sadness wash over her, when she’d felt optimistic just a moment before, and she wondered when things would ever be easy again.

“Giles wants to talk to you for a minute in the training room,” she told Spike.

Spike’s head cocked slightly to the side, and he took a step closer to her, lifting her face with a single finger under her chin.

“Everything okay, bit?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s just –” her voice trailed off and her eyes slid away from his blue gaze, but not before he was able to read her expression.

He took a breath. “Yeah,” he agreed with what he could see in her eyes, “I know.”

She looked back at him. “It’ll get better, right?” Please tell me it’ll get better, she begged silently, and now it was Spike’s eyes that left hers, as his face went blank.

“Someday, pet.”

They stood there for a moment, not touching, avoiding each other’s eyes, but somehow seeming comforted by each other’s presence.

Dawn took a deep breath and forced a smile.

“I think Giles has some important news. He’s asked me three times in the last ten minutes if you were here yet.”

“I’d best see what he wants then.” Spike touched her chin again. “As soon as I’ve talked to the Watcher, we’ll leave. So, what’ll it be? Poker? A movie?”

Her eyes lit up a little. “10 Things I Hate About You?”

“Again?”

“Pleeease,” she begged. Heath Ledger was so hot! God, if a guy ever sang to her like that, she’d – well, she’d probably die of embarrassment. But it would still be unbelievably cool.

Spike rolled his eyes, but nodded. Anything that made Dawn laugh was fine with him.

~*~

When he got back to the training room, Giles was nowhere in sight. With some longing, his eyes went to the chess board that had taken up permanent residence on a small table in a corner of the room. He had to acknowledge that the Watcher was a careful but innovative opponent. Not that Giles could beat him. Well, not often, anyway.

Spike wandered about the room, touching various pieces of equipment. He removed a saber from one of the weapon racks and slashed it experimentally a couple of times through the empty air in front of him. A vision of Buffy fighting Angelus back at the mansion just before she’d sent the older vampire to hell flashed through his mind. He accepted the accompanying increase in the pain that was so much a part of him now.

God, she’d been magnificent!

A small sound had him swinging about, and he brought the saber up instinctively, even though he was expecting the Watcher.

He stared, disbelieving. Something hit him hard in the chest, and vaguely he realized it wasn’t anything physical. Just for a moment, he was sure his heart had begun to pound in thunderous cadence. The saber clattered to the floor, falling from nerveless fingers.

“Buffy.”

She was standing less than fifteen feet away from him. After a few moments of stunned immobility that seemed to draw out forever, he moved toward her with infinite slowness, afraid that if he moved too quickly she would melt away, a mirage.

“Buffy.” His voice conveyed all the awe and wonder written so clearly on his face, the uncomprehending joy.

And then he was there, just in front of her, less than a foot separating them. She hadn’t moved or spoken, but her eyes were locked on his, and he was losing himself in their depths. Her eyes. Open. Alive. Oh god, alive.

His Slayer was alive.

“Ahhh love, hello.”  His left hand hovered, oh so close; then touched her hair, the merest brush of his fingertips.

“Ahhh, love.” His hand moved, fingertips stroking over the length of her hair, still barely touching. His right hand came up, and again, there was that hesitation before he touched her, so afraid she would disappear if he moved too fast, believed too deeply.

“Buffy.” All his love poured out in the soft utterance of her name, and his roughened fingers curled gently and cupped her cheek.

“Ah – gah –” Spike jerked away from her, crying out in revulsion. He fell backwards, landing in an undignified heap of leather and scrambled in horror away from her, pushing with his heels and hands, desperate to get away.

From her – from it. The bot. Oh god, it was the fucking bot!

He was making horrible noises in his throat – gagging, gurgling sounds as he lurched to his feet awkwardly and tried to move, to coordinate his feet to walk, to run, to get him the hell out of there.

His arms curved over his stomach and chest, a useless gesture of protection, and he kept making those awful, gut wrenching sounds as he doubled over. His head turned, and he caught sight of Giles, who was standing just inside the doorway, his mouth hanging open in horror. Spike’s mouth twisted in a face tied up in agony, and his wild blue eyes screamed his betrayal at the Watcher, his shock at the ruthless and deliberate cruelty.

Spike stumbled toward the door to the alley, his usual careless grace completely gone. Instead, he appeared to have almost no control over his limbs as he made his way across the room, seeming to arrive at his destination more by luck than purpose. He crashed against the door and it flew open, throwing Spike to the ground outside, where he landed on his knees, vomiting violently.

He could hear voices behind him, could hear yelling and his name being shouted. But it was all just a jumble of angry sound, and he was far beyond trying to sort it out, or even to care.

Stomach empty, he surged back to his feet and started to move, to get away, to run. Away. Away from them, away from – it.

Run. Run.

He ran, using all his preternatural speed. He’d never run so fast.

And it could never be fast enough.

~*~

He reached his crypt only seconds later, but by that time, Spike’s emotions were lurching violently about, a maelstrom of pain and anger, of hurt and betrayal and a hopeless, helpless emptiness. He tore out of his duster, tossing it aside. He couldn’t do – this – this mockery of living, this empty existing. He’d been a bloody, fucking fool to think for one moment that he could.

The searing pain and loneliness that tore through his body every bloody minute of every bloody day had taken on greater degrees of intensity, feeding themselves off the encounter with the bot. He could feel screams rising in him, desperate for escape. Scream, just scream. Start and never stop. Scream and scream until someone dusted him just so they no longer had to hear it.

Raging, out of his mind with pain and anger and the ever present, overriding guilt, he morphed into his demon and went on a wild rampage, smashing everything he could lay his hands on. Every item in his crypt fell before him, furniture; statuary; even his telly was crushed to pieces. He smashed and bashed and broke until nothing remained sizable enough to attract his attention, and when that point came, he unleashed his fury on himself, viciously punching his fists into the concrete walls over and over and over as he, at last, felt the screams come. Primal and animalistic, his tormented roars carried out into the night air, echoing eerily around the graveyard and beyond, terrible and haunting to hear.

Finally, a long time later, Spike collapsed to his knees, spent. His head fell forward as he heaved in unnecessary air.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t keep – existing. The only thing holding him in this world was Dawn and it was sure as bleedin’ hell she’d be better off without him. Hello, vampire? What in bleedin’ hell had ever possessed him to give his word to the Slayer to protect little sis?

Why had Buffy even asked him? Told him she was counting on him? Had she been insane? Completely off her bird?

He was a fucking demon.

A. Fucking. Demon.

His head came up slowly, jaw tightly clenched as his eyes narrowed. Cold, cruel fury was crashing off of him in waves.

He needed to kill something. Anything. A light appeared behind his eyes as his lips pursed with purpose. He needed to kill. And he knew just who he was gonna go after.

Long tongued little weasel of a demon.

Doc.

Spike hadn’t been able to get a single line on the creature he considered his most hated enemy, but tonight – tonight he would tear the town apart. If Doc was still anywhere to be found in the city limits of Sunnydale, tonight would see an end to his miserable existence. During the last few weeks, as he’d told Giles, Spike had hunted down Glory’s remaining minions. With Slayer blood flowing powerfully through him, he had made their last moments agonizing for them, and he had gloried in their fear and terror, had let their blood run like rivers over him in victory. But none of the pain he had subjected them to had elicited any hint of Doc’s whereabouts. Other sources had proved equally useless. And Doc had remained elusive.

Spike pushed up to his feet in a smooth, powerful motion. His body was once again under his command.

His mouth twisted in a mockery of humor as he opened the refrigerator. How had it managed to escape his destructive rampage? He reached a horribly mangled hand inside and pulled out the last remaining bag of Buffy’s blood. He still didn’t know if he’d be able to drink blood not laced with hers, but it made no difference. Fate would always work its’ will. He couldn’t do a damn thing to control or alter that. The last few years – and more – the last few months, had made that pretty bleedin’ clear to him.

With reckless defiance, he sank his fangs into the bag and drained it.

Sonofabloodybitch!

No kiddie cocktail tonight. This was the hard stuff, straight up.

He staggered under the power, feeling the heady rush shoot down his arms and legs, and up into his brain, racing into every nerve and muscle in his body. Even as he watched, his hands began to heal. The aphrodisiac properties of her blood stormed to his groin as never before, leaving him rock hard and hungry.

Spike put a hand to the wall, leaning on it as he struggled to assimilate the sensations and gain control of himself. God, so much power! He took a fierce pride in the knowledge that the blood of his Slayer was so incredibly strong, so potent. She’d been a bleedin’ miracle, his Slayer. Perfect. From the top of her shining head down to the very last corpuscle of her blood. Perfect.

He flung open the door, hot for the hunt. Once he located Doc, he knew that it would boil down to ‘kill or be killed’.

And that was fine by him.

The door banged back against the wall and Spike stopped short, frozen in place by the sight that greeted him.

Had they sent it after him? Was this some kind of soddin’ punishment they’d come up with? He was responsible for the Slayer’s death – he knew that. Were her friends now planning to seek revenge by torturing him to death with the most horrible mental pain they could dream up? Couldn’t they just bleedin’ stake him and provide satisfaction all around?

Please?

The bot smiled at him.

“Spike! You’re here!” She breezed past him into the site of mass destruction that had been his home only a fit of rage ago. Spike closed the door and leaned against it as he fixed his eyes on her. Narrowed, dangerous. She turned back to him, oblivious to his mood, and her smile slid into a look of anxious concern.

“Are you okay? You were walking funny when you left the Magic Box. I thought you might be mad at me because I didn’t talk to you. I couldn’t,” she informed him. “Willow hadn’t finished connecting everything inside me yet, and my voice didn’t work. Then, after you left, she was muttering and trying to finish repairing me, while everyone was yelling a lot. Dawn – she’s my sister – we’re both very pretty – hit Giles. Giles yelled at Willow. It was all very confusing, and upsetting. So I left.”

She walked over to him and reached up to touch his face.

“I was worried about you, and I wanted to see if you were alright.” Her hand stroked down his cheek, and her fingers traced the curve of his lips as the concern on her face became laced with affection. “Are you?”

Spike grabbed her, lifting her off her feet as he turned and slammed her against the crypt door. And then he was on her. His hands, his mouth, his entire body, getting as close as he could as quickly as possible. He sank his hands into her hair, holding her head in a vise like grip as his mouth savaged hers. There was nothing gentle or playful in him as there had been before with her – with it. This time there was just need, raw and desperate, taking him over and riding him hard. He grabbed one of her legs, lifted it and wrapped it around him as he positioned himself against her, grinding, thrusting his rock hard shaft against her in an obscene parody of lovemaking.

He came almost immediately. The short, intense orgasm, the first one he’d allowed himself in months, didn’t even give him pause. Certainly, it didn’t do anything to dampen the need raging in his body.

“Fuck,” he muttered against her mouth, still thrusting violently against her. “Again. Now.”

Orgasm number two.

He tore his hands out of her hair, and reached under her, grabbing the perfect globes of artificial flesh he found there and hauling her harder against him. He writhed against her responsive body, grinding himself against her, harder, harder. More. Blunt teeth bit hard into her neck.

He came again.

“Spike! Oh, you feel so good.” The bot was gasping for unneeded air, just as he was. “I want you. I wanna feel you inside me, right now, deep and hard. Please,” her voice had taken on a carefully calibrated desperation. “Please, Spike.”

He wanted it too, ached to bury himself in her over and over through what remained of the night, to feel her eager hands and mouth on his body. Buffy’s blood was rushing through his veins, and he was still unbelievably hard, still half crazed with the need to come again. And again, and again, and again. He wanted to sate himself with her, to find the kind of release he hadn’t had since his Slayer’s death had seemed to steal, not sexual desire itself, but the desire to assuage it, from him. The bot was here, right here. Willing. Wanting.

And looking so much like her.

Wouldn’t be so wrong, would it? To take comfort, find blessed relief, perhaps even some peace in a body that had been built for him, made for him? No one would be hurt. And who would ever know?

As soon as the desire crystallized, his mind was filled with the memory of Buffy’s reaction to the bot, the unaccustomed shame she had made him feel for having had the mechanical substitute for her created. Spike kissed the bot again, desperate to shake off the attack of conscience. Despite his efforts, he knew it was too late. The memories had washed over him, and he knew he wouldn’t have sex with the bot again. His fists slammed furiously against the door of the crypt, next to the bot’s head, and he released a roar of frustration. Why? He thought as a kind of helpless anger fill him – why do I still care about her opinion of me? She’d gone. Dead.

He was such a soddin’ git.

He’d already gone far too far. Three orgasms in less than five minutes. And not a bloody piece of clothing even disturbed. He could almost see the look of disgust on his Slayer’s face.

The anger that had fueled him since he’d left the Magic Box was falling away, leaving only the oh, so familiar emptiness.

Was this never going to end?

“I’ve missed you so much,” the bot moaned, her hands crawling up under his shirt, stroking across the hard planes of his stomach. Apparently his fists missing her head by inches and his angry roar hadn’t had any effect on her libido. “Tell me you’ve missed me too.”

He froze, stilling the robot under his hands, his hoarse, tight voice commanding her to silence. Then he drew her closer, his arms wrapping around her as he buried his face in her neck. He was still achingly hard, but the desire to do anything more about it had weakened, beaten into submission by his dead Slayer’s past recriminations.

He just held her in silence for a few moments, trying to bring himself under control. Seeing the bot – so like his Slayer – and hearing her voice again, seemed to have torn something apart inside him. He hadn’t thought he could be any more emotionally devastated.

Wrong again.

When he spoke again, his voice was soft, hushed, and drenched with loneliness, hitching unevenly. “I miss you too, love. Miss you so much.” His voice broke. “Miss you...so much.”

He tried to stave off the relentless prick of tears he could feel in his eyes as he slid down the bot’s body, his face pressed to her, his mouth open and moving over her shoulders, her breasts, sliding over her stomach. He buried her face against her abdomen as he knelt before her, his arms wrapping fiercely around her thighs. A desperate need for warmth, for Buffy’s touch, writhed through him, destroying him. He pressed his mouth between her legs, against the heart of her.

Words he would never, ever, utter to, or within the hearing of, any being, living or undead, made their way out of his mouth.

“Please, love. Please… I need you. Need you. You were the only light, everything….” He turned his cheek against her and let, finally, the tears come. Soulless sobbing, almost silent, and filled with a world of pain.

Buffy had never been his, but she’d been there. A presence in his life. And just her presence, the knowledge of her existence had somehow been enough. Their verbal sparring, the satisfaction of knowing he was the thorn in her side, having, toward the end, the chance to watch her back... It had been enough. But now – now, there was nothing, and he didn’t think he could continue to exist in a world without her in it.

“Show me.” His head tipped back, and the cry came from his heart, going out to whomever or whatever might hear the pleas of a creature like him.  “Show me how to go on without her.”

Silence reverberated off the walls of the stark chamber in answer to his heart wrenching cry, an endless echoing nothingness. As ever, fate was mocking him.

Spike’s head fell back against the bot in defeat, and he ground his forehead into her abdomen.

Buffy…please…please…

He didn’t even know please what. Just…please.

A moment passed, and the silence was broken.

“Spike?” An anxious pounding came on the crypt door. “Are you there? Let me in, Spike.” She sounded like she was crying. “I need to talk to you. Please?”

It was Dawn.

~*~

Spike pushed away from the bot and rose, staring at the door.

Bloody hell.

He couldn’t deal with this right now. Couldn’t deal with Dawn, with anyone who might be out there with her. He could barely deal with himself. He wasn’t in control, wasn’t...

What if he hurt her?

He dashed at the tears on his face before looking at himself. Even though the power in Buffy’s blood had healed his hands, they were still covered in his own blood, dried now. And his jeans were drenched in – other bodily fluids – that Dawn didn’t need to know a bleedin’ thing about for a good ten years. Maybe longer.

“Spike?”

He looked toward the small chest that held his clothing. ‘Course it was gone, smashed to pieces, and most of his clothes were strewn about, some shredded by his demon’s claws.

“Spike, please!” She was definitely crying.

There was no help for it. He opened the door.

“I hate them!” she sobbed and fell against him, forcing his arms to close around her. “I hate every one of them!”

Spike held her, but, despite all the time he had spent with her in the last several weeks, there still remained a degree of awkwardness for him whenever any but the most casual physical contact with her came into the picture. He was never quite sure where to put his hands, how to touch her. It was different if he was comforting her from a nightmare. Then, the comforting embrace, the soothing hands came naturally. This wasn’t so different, was it? Just because she was completely awake and angry rather than scared? He allowed his arms to enfold her, stroking her back gently with his right hand and lifting his left up to stroke it over the length of her beautiful hair. Dawn nestled closer in to him.

How much had she seen, he wondered?

“They were testing it! Testing it! On you! How could they? They wanted to know if a vampire would be able to tell it wasn’t really Buffy. How could they do that to you? Hurt you like that? I hate them! I friggin’ hate them!”

Guess she’d seen enough.

“Bit, listen to me,” he began, but Dawn cut him off angrily, alerted by his tone.

“Don’t you dare make excuses for them. They had no right to do that to you. No reason. It was hateful and cruel. God. How could they?”

She yanked herself out of his arms, fully intending to storm around the crypt in a full blown Dawn Summers tantrum.

“Why would you even think of...” her voice broke off as she looked around. “Oh. My. God. Spike, what happened? Did someone attack you? Are you okay?” Her eyes flew over him, taking in the dried blood, the dark stains on his pants. “You’re hurt!”

She moved toward him, but he held out his hands, warding her off.

“I’m fine, luv. Fine,” his voice soothed her. “Just let me clean up a bit, change clothes. Okay?”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Right as rain. I promise.”

Spike sorted through some of the rubble in the general vicinity of the spot his chest had once occupied and came up with a clean, or relatively clean, pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He dropped down through the hole in the floor and changed. Have to grab a shower somewhere later, he thought. Right now he needed to get Dawn home. He knew the Scoobies would be worried about her, and no matter what the state of his always strained relationship with the soddin’ lot of them, he wasn’t gonna do anything to bugger up his chances of stayin’ close to his girl.

“Can I talk now, Spike?” he heard the bot call out. “Dawn wants to know why I’m here.”

“NO!” he ordered frantically. No telling what the bloody bot would say.

He was back upstairs in a flash. Dawn and the bot seemed to be facing off. Dawn’s arms were crossed and she had that angry, fed up expression on her face that Spike had seen more than once this summer. It was usually directed at someone not in the room with them at the time – most often her absent father. The bot was smiling her usual cheerful smile.

Spike went directly to the robot, taking her upper arms in his hands and speaking with calm force. “You will never, ever, tell anyone anything what was said or done here in my crypt tonight. Do you understand me?”

The bot nodded and leaned in to kiss him. His head reared back in rejection and the bot frowned, looking confused.

“Just don’t talk at all,” he gritted out, and the bot nodded in compliance.

“What happened with the bot, Spike?” Dawn asked, and now that look was directed at him. Any second now, she’d be tappin’ her foot.

“Nothin’,” he insisted.

“Did you have sex with the robot again, fang boy?” she demanded.

“No!”

Dawn glared. “Did you?”

“No. Dawn, no. I didn’t.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? “It was something else, and I –”

“What?”

Bleedin’ –, sometimes she sounded just like her sister!

“Tell me!”

She was obviously on an emotional roller coaster tonight, and was just looking for another reason to go ballistic.

He stared at her, locking his eyes firmly on hers.

“I put my arms around her – around it,” he corrected. “And I cried.”

Silence screamed around the crypt.

Dawn didn’t think she’d ever been so shocked in her entire life. Well, maybe when she’d found out she was the key. That had been pretty shocking. And when Janice had told her about the existence of, er, blowjobs – and by the way, major eeeww – that had been another big one. She had seen Spike cry. At the base of the tower on – that night. Just that once. So she knew he could cry. But for him to admit to doing it again... That was almost beyond shock. It went into the whole new realm of mega-shock. Uber-shock.

They stared at each other, blue eyes on blue eyes. Then Dawn’s eyes flooded with tears again, but this time, they were tears of sympathy, and she tried to blink them away as she moved back into his arms to hug him.

“You smashed up your own crypt when you got back here tonight, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, bit, I did,” he admitted, his hands stroking over her hair this time without having to think about it first. “Had some steam to let off.”

“I didn’t see everything that happened at the Magic Box. I just saw you falling out the door. You were hurling again, and I got so scared. Spike, you’re not gonna go into another vampire coma thing, are you? ‘Cause I know Buffy’s blood must be almost gone and I don’t have any more, and I don’t know what else we could do if we need more, and...” Words were coming out almost too fast to follow, as fear joined her previous anger and pain. “I just can’t lose anyone else. I just can’t. Promise me you aren’t going to die.” Her hands clutched the fabric of his t-shirt. “Promise me.”

So she was doubly upset. Angry with the Scoobies for using him to test the bot, and scared because she’d seen him heaving his guts out in the alley and was wondering if that would mean what it had meant the last time.

“I’m gonna be just fine, bit,” he reassured her. Not for anything would he suggest otherwise.

She calmed a little. “I could always give you some of my blood if you need it. It’s Summers blood. Buffy’s blood, really...”

“Shhh. Don’t say another word,” he hushed her, feeling something tighten almost unbearably in his chest as a result of her offer. He’d never take her up on it, of course, but just the same...

“You know it should have been me. I was the one who should have jumped. I was supposed to jump. It was supposed to be me. How can you still like me, when it’s my fault she’s dead? How can you even look at me?”

Spike pulled away from her and took her shoulders in his hands, holding her firmly as he put his eyes directly in line with hers.

“We’ve been over this bit before, Dawn. No one has ever, will ever, blame you for what happened. Ever.” He allowed his tone to mellow out. “And how could I not like you? You’re my girl, right?”

Her own eyes were very serious as she met his, and he could see the lingering pain and guilt in them. Then Dawn took a deep breath, closed her eyes as she blew it slowly out, and forced a smile as she raised her eyes again to his. It wobbled a bit, but then held.

“Right?” He pushed.

“Right,” she confirmed at last.

“Right then. And now I have to get you back home.” His eyes flashed her a warning when the mutinous look began to reappear and he knew she was about to protest. “People will be worried, bit.”

“Okay. But I still hate them all.”

“Can’t really fault you there, snack size,” he said, lightening the mood considerably. For some reason, that particular nickname usually seemed to elicit giggles from the teen. It didn’t tonight, but he could almost feel some of the tension leave her body. He grabbed his coat, told the bot to come along, and they went out into the night, shutting the door firmly on Spike’s destroyed home.

~*~