Atonement
by Murray
Chapter 2The Summers Home Four Hours Later
Her eyes puffy from crying her heart shattered. She hugged Mr. Gordo to her as she lay on her back in her bed. She had played over the scene in her minds eye for the hundredth time. Spike in full demon face crushing the beefy bikers fist in his hand. Feeling no pain but looking as if it was a total surprise to him. From her hiding place near the front of the bar she heard Spike say in a voice filled with remorse a single word, "Run." She watched as the biker took his advice and ran for all he was worth cradling his ruined right hand in his left.
She saw his demonic face slip away to be replaced with his human mask. Not for the first time did she wonder, which face was his true self. The demon or the human and not for the first time she wondered if it mattered. Her emotions where stretched so thin these days. Here in her room she could admit to herself she loved that stupid vampire more then she had ever loved Angel. Here she could lay bare her emotions and face the truth. Tears streamed down her face, her chest rising and falling as she struggled to get her emotions under control. "I love him so much and he hurt me like no one ever has before." She spoke softly to Mr. Gordo. The only witness to what she felt was her betrayal to the human race. Her heart and soul belonged to a vampire. Her head snapped up and she shouted out to the empty room, "I can't do this, I can't. I can't love him." The words echoed off the cold walls of her room as she followed it with, "I can't live without him, God, I love him so much." Mr. Gordo just looked at her as she smiled weakly. "It's not fair."
In the hallway Dawn leaned against the wall and listened to her sister. She had listened to Buffy cry for the last two hours and she couldn't help but feel her own heart breaking. She found out the hard way from Xander that Buffy was almost raped by Spike, a day before Tara was shot and killed by Warren. The bastard had shot her own sister, Willow was able to save Buffy by teleporting the bullet out of her and healing her, but poor Tara was already dead and there was nothing that could be done about that.
Dawn had lived through those hours of hell with her sister. Almost died in the Crypt with her, as Xander's love for Willow saved Willow and the world from what could be referred to as, "The End of Days". She had bonded with her sister that morning in a way that they had never bonded before the two sisters finally admitting that they needed one another. Each finally accepting the other for what she was.
It wasn't as if Dawn meant to eave's drop on her sister, but she couldn't help it. She was woken from a sound sleep at 2:00 a.m.; the sounds of her sisters tortured cries filled the upstairs of the Summers' home. She had gotten out of bed meaning to go to her but froze just outside the door when she heard for the first time that her sister was in pain over her love for Spike.
To say Dawn was confused would have been an understatement. Just the night before Buffy had told her what Spike had tried to do to her in the upstairs bathroom. She listened to her side of the story and it filled her with revulsion. To her Spike had always been this dark enigmatic hero in a black leather duster. He was her protector. He had protected her from Glory, almost died at the Hell Goddess's hands. He was many things but a rapist, she had trouble wrapping her fifteen year old mind around that concept, but listening to her sister retell the tale and relive the moments. She'd no choice but to revise her opinion of the bleached blonde vampire she called friend.
Dawn's biggest problem was what to do when and if she saw him again and deep down she knew she would see him again. It was inevitable Sunnydale was just not that big a town. Part of her wanted to stake him for what he did to her sister and another part of her wanted to shake some sense into him and demand he tell her why he would do something like that to someone he loved.
Now was not the time for introspection however and she brought herself out of her thoughts. Now was the time to help her sister deal with what had happened. She had been asleep when Buffy had come home from patrol so she had no idea that Spike was even back. Taking a deep breath she steeled herself and knocked on her sisters door. "Buffy?" She called out in a small shaky voice. "Can I come in?"
She heard movement behind the closed door and then it opened upon a sight of a Buffy whose face was streaked with tears. She looked as if her very heart had broken. "What happened?"
Buffy threw herself into her sister's arms and sobbed out, "Dawny, he's back!"
She held her sister in her arms and stroked her short blonde hair in a soothing manner, "Shhhh Buffy, it's alright. I'm here you don't have to go through this alone." She held her sister at arms length and looked into her tear stained puffy eyes. "I am not going to let him hurt you again."
Buffy looked into eyes too wise for their youth and laughed weakly, "When did my baby sister grow up?"
"About the same time you had me help you defeat all those demonie things in the crypt the other night."
"Dawn, I don't know what to do."
She took her by the hand and led her downstairs to the kitchen and then placed her on a stool and started a pot of water boiling to make cocoa. "Buffy tell me what happened okay?"
Again she looked at her younger sister and sniffed once and then proceeded to tell her what happened earlier that evening. As she told her the story, Dawn made them both cups of cocoa with the little marshmallows. By the time the story was done the cups where empty and Buffy had to admit to herself, her sister had helped just by listening.
"Buffy what does it mean?"
"I'm not sure Dawny, I felt his heart beat, I could hear his lungs working as he breathed and," she said the rest in a small voice almost afraid to voice what she really thought. "It is almost as if he has a soul."
"But what he did to you was still wrong. I mean even I know that. You're not going to forgive him are you?"
She sat there in silence, her eyes on her hands. That in it self was answer enough.
"You can't forgive him Buffy? Can you?
"Dawny it is more complex then that."
"Buffy!"
"Dawn, I.". She almost choked on her words as tears began to fall from her eyes, "I need him. I don't know if I can survive without him."
She yawned as Dawn said, "Come on sis, time for bed."
She rolled her eyes at her younger sister and said, "Yes, mom!"
Both girls stood and went up stairs to try and sleep. Buffy was exhausted from the emotional roller coaster she was on for the last seven hours or so and Dawn had a lot to think about.
Buffy lay down in her bed as exhaustion overtook her. Her head barely hitting the pillow before the merciful arms of sleep took her.
Dawn stuck her head in the door, seeing her sister asleep she walked in quietly, covered her in a blanket, turned out the light and went back to her room. Shutting and locking her door behind her she shook her head and said softly, "Spike, what have you done?" Her lips set in a tight line she made up her mind. Opening her window she crawled out and scaled down the trellis that was situated to the left of her window. As she neared the ground she pushed off and flipped over once in the air landing catlike in a crouched position, without a backward glance she muttered to herself, "Cool," and took off at a sprint to find Spike.
---
As she entered Sunnydale Memorial Cemetery she quickly found his crypt and in true Summers fashion kicked the door open and yelled, "Spike, you and I need to talk."
In the lower depths of the crypt the sleeping vampire shot awake instantly and muttered, "Bloody hell, doesn't anybody ever knock?" Rising off his bed he slowly climbed the ladder, as his head cleared the hole in the ground that led to the upper level it was greeted with the flat of Dawns foot. Not prepared for it he fell to the ground with a thud and a curse. "Bloody chit, are you crazy?" He screamed up at the hole in the ceiling above him.
Without thought Dawn descended the ladder and kneeled down beside the bleached blonde vampire. "Stay down Spike, you and I are going to have a talk about what you did to my sister."
Touching the back of his head feeling for blood, "Niblet, whatever you think you know you're wrong." He said trying to get up and she struck him with her fist in the nose knocking him back down.
He growled and let slip his human mask for his demonic one and then instantly shifted back again. "Niblet."
"Don't call me that you lost that right when you tried to rape my sister, you bastard." Her face red with anger, her eyes narrowed challenging him to deny it.
His left hand came up and wiped a tiny trickle of blood from below his nose, "What is it with you Summers women always goin' for me nose." He raised himself up on his elbows half expecting her to punch him again, when she didn't he said, "Can I get up now or are you going to hit me again?"
"I'm not sure," She said the anger still present in her voice as she looked into blue eyes laced with emotional pain. Disgusted and not sure what she was seeing in those eyes she rose up to her full height and began to pace.
Seeing his chance he slowly rose and moved to the foot of his bed sitting down on the corner of it. His eyes never leaving her moving form, at this moment she looked so much like her sister. Moving around like a caged animal. He had hoped to avoid seeing her for a few days. Hoped he could put this particular confrontation off until he had things sorted out with Buffy , but often what one wants and what one gets are two different things. "Dawn you have to know I would never hurt her."
"Bullshit you manipulative bastard, I know what you did. You tried to rape her." The emotional pain hit her full force at that moment as she continued in a small voice the anger almost gone from it, "I thought you loved her, I thought you loved us. You promised to protect us, Spike. You promised! You said you wouldn't let any harm ever come to her again when she came back from Heaven." Tears flowed freely down her face as she looked at him, giving him that trusting look that only he received from her. Her chest heaved with the effort, "You promised!"
Ashamed and disgusted with himself he looked away from her and took a deep breath to steady himself when he looked back at her his own eyes were brimming over with tears. So filled with guilt he couldn't even form words.
Dawn's own choked voice spoke out, "How could you do that to someone you love?"
His voice think with emotion he began, pain evident in his voice, "I have no excuse, Niblet. I don't even know how to explain what I did to you. I can't even explain it to myself, I had no right to put her through that, but you have to know that I love her with all my heart. I swear to you I will never harm either one of you again. Never! I would sooner walk out into the light of the sun then harm her again."
"We trusted you." She moved towards him and collapsed in his arms curling up in his lap. "She trusted you. She loves you and you did that to her. How can she or I ever trust you again." She clung to him like a small lost child, begging him to explain and make it better her face pressed against his chest, feeling him breath and hearing the beating of his heart for the first time.
He stoked her hair, for a moment a part of him sang out hearing that Buffy loved him, then the moment passed and he muttered over and over, "I'm sorry, God I am so sorry." The guilt evident in his voice, "I am going to make this right, Niblet, I don't know how yet but I am."
Turning her tear stained face up to look into his eyes she saw the love and devotion he held for her and her sister in his eyes. Saw his nostrils flair and felt his chest expand as he inhaled much needed air. "Spike are you breathing?"