Not My Baby

By Dira Sudis

It wasn't my baby. She wasn't my baby. Baby Dawn. She wasn't mine.

Spike gave up pounding on the door and calling her name within a minute, and smashed through shoulder-first.

And there she was, standing before the magic circle, candles lit and something simmering in a cauldron. "Dawn, no--"

She only shook her head, opening her hand to let something fall into the cauldron, and he lunged forward to pull her away. There was a flash, something bright popping up out of the cauldron, but he reached through it to grab her, only she shifted under his grasp and when the sparkly green smoke cleared, his outstretched hands were clutching a baby, with big blue eyes and reddish brown curls, wearing Dawn's powder blue t-shirt like swaddling.

Spike stared at her in silent horror for a second, and then she began to wail.

"Oh, bloody hell."

---

Spike had seen the movie, so he knew that it was inevitable that the baby Dawn would piss on him, which she did, as he was bouncing her gently and walking downstairs. On the bright side, he'd taken his duster off already, and the only casualty was his t-shirt, and hers. He went to the kitchen first, washed her up and improvised a diaper for her with the dishtowels that Dawn hated. It was bulky, and covered in dancing pigs, but it would probably do the job for a while. He took off his own damp and slightly smelly shirt, tossed it in the sink with Dawn's, and considered calling the witches and sitting tight til they fixed this. As if she'd heard him think it, Dawn screwed up her face like she might cry again, and he sighed and resumed the bouncing. No, there was no way they could do it fast enough, he was at least going to have to get her one of those mouth-cork things that would ruin her teeth. Spike got a bath towel to wrap her in from the laundry basket in the living room, swiped a shirt, not pink or sequined, for himself, pulled on his duster, and headed out.

By the time he'd walked the distance to the all night grocery, he'd figured out how to both hold on to the squirming infant and let her chew on his fingers. How he was going to shop with his hands so occupied, he didn't know. He'd have to keep it small, just the necessities. Multi-pack of brightly-colored pacifiers, yes, must have. He glanced around, but the aisle was deserted, there was just one of those fish-eye security mirrors which, hell, showed a floating towel-wrapped baby. Just perfect. He yanked his finger out of Dawn's mouth, and, making good use of vampiric speed, got the package torn open and one of the pacifiers stuck in her mouth before she managed to cry. She started sucking away cheerfully, and actually sort of smiled at him around the rounded pink plastic. He smiled back, mussed her hair with his spit-covered hand, and stuffed the rest of the package into a duster pocket. Then, next priority, down to the array of diapers, which seemed to be sized by weight. He frowned at Dawn, hefted her experimentally. Heavier than a case of beer? Hard to tell, what with the wiggling, and he had exactly fuck-all idea how many pounds a case weighed anyway. But, okay, Dawn was a sitting up, holding her head up, equipped with six teeth sort of baby, so... He squinted at the packages til he found one with a sitting-up baby who smiled with some teeth, and got those. If he was wrong, he could always make Willow go buy the right ones. Or magic them into being the right size. Or, hell, just fix Dawn. He looked around the aisle to see what else she'd need. Bottle, right, and milk mix stuff, and she'd probably want some of the jar food, since he didn't think Dawn had had dinner before he showed up. He knew she liked bananas, and carrots, but not peas, and...

In the end he couldn't steal all of it, there was just too much, and he laid in a carton of smokes to help him through the ordeal to come. He had a funny feeling that it was going to turn out Willow couldn't poof Dawn back to normal, and then guess who was going to be babysitting while everyone else was very, very busy researching a cure, somewhere far away from the screaming infant?

Dawn fell asleep as they were going home, and the pacifier fell out of her mouth, and she drooled all over her towel and his chest, but Spike had wrapped the duster over her, so she couldn't hurt that. And, so long as he never had to reveal the thought to anyone, ever, it was kind of endearing. "Just you and me, very little Bit. We'll be all right."

The dishtowels had given up their lives for the cause, and Spike threw them away outside. The diapers, as it turned out, were the right size, filling him with an unspeakable rush of pride. He put the little pink one-piece number on her, and the little socks, and she looked just like a proper baby. Spike
wondered if there was a camera about, so he could torture her with this when she'd been put back.

It was just then that the front door opened, and Willow walked in. "Spike? Is Dawn asleep?"

He let the smile spread across his face slowly. Evilly. "Oh, no, Red, she's wide awake." And then he picked up the baby and sort of waggled her gently in Willow's direction. "See? Not tired a bit. That spell she did earlier didn't have any adverse effects at all." Willow was just sort of standing there, gawping, and Spike wished even more for a camera. He set the baby down, carefully in the middle of the couch where she wouldn't roll off faster than he could get back to catch her, and headed for the door. "So, anyway, your watch. I'm off."

She spoke just as he came even with her. "Spike? What kind of sick joke--"

"No joke, Red. It was a spell. She did something, and there was smoke, and then, boom, the littlest Summers is a little littler. But hey," he tilted his head like it had only just occurred to him. "I wonder where she could have found out about such a dangerous spell. I do wonder."

"I didn't--" Willow was staring at the baby, and now she finally went into the living room. Spike followed. Willow probably didn't know what to do with babies, probably hold her wrong or something. Probably no maternal instincts at all. "This is impossible. That spell doesn't do anything."

Spike grimaced. That had been disappointingly easy. "You gave her a spell?"

"No, but maybe I hinted about one that, look, this must be something else, that spell doesn't do anything. It, it claims to transform the caster into their true form, true nature, but it just makes you into yourself. There's a little flash-bang to let you know it's really magic, but it doesn't change you into anything different. Everybody does it when they're teenagers, and then they find out that what they really are is themself and they get on with life. I thought that might help Dawn."

Spike resisted the temptation to beat his head on something hard, and instead bent and picked up the baby. She was starting to look lonely. "And you didn't think that maybe that wasn't the best spell to recommend for somebody who isn't really just herself?"

"It doesn't do any--"

"Yeah, I know, you said, so then it's kinda funny that Dawn's suddenly ten months old, isn't it?"

Willow wrinkled her super-smart little brow. "Ten...?"

"Ten and a half, really," he said, keeping his voice cool, running his hand over Dawn's back and hoping she'd go back to sleep. "Figured it out while I was buying baby accessories. Giles' notebook said something about her coming at 730, yeah? 7/30. Thirtieth July. That's her birthday, that's the day she took human form. She's been in the world, human, ten and a half months now. So the spell just corrected that little discrepancy with her age, didn't it?"

But Willow was shaking her head. "The kind of power involved, the spell just couldn't," and then she looked up suddenly, right at him. "You must have done something!"

"I did something? Oh, yeah, I did something all right! Tried to stop her turning herself into a glowing ball of energy, caught her instead of letting her crack her baby skull, which she would've done if I hadn't been there, stopped her crying and then I cleaned her and dressed her and went bloody shopping--" Dawn started to cry when his voice went up. Willow grabbed her away and tried to quiet her, but that only made it worse. Every time Willow tried to cuddle the kid against her body, she just struggled and wailed louder. After a few minutes Spike couldn't bear it, and took her back, though gentler than Willow had done. He'd known it. No bloody maternal instincts.

He turned his back on Willow and did the bouncing thing, threw in the whispering thing and the back-petting thing for good measure, and soon enough there was just a big damp spot on his chest to prove she'd ever been unhappy at all. He supposed she was finally worn out by all the excitement, because she fell asleep again, her little fist resting right over his unbeating heart and, oh. Bloody hell.

He turned back to Willow, still standing there looking crestfallen, staring at the bags of baby stuff. "It's the heartbeat," he said softly, not to wake the baby.

Willow looked up. "You don't even have one," she said, but the fight had gone out of her.

"Yeah, exactly. Babies like heartbeats cos that's what they listened to before they were born, right? Only Dawn's a bit different. Bet she didn't hear anything before she was born. Bet everything's real quiet when you're a ball of energy with no ears. Bet she likes the quiet." Willow was still staring at him blankly. "That's why she wouldn't calm down for you," he said, enunciating carefully. "She only likes me to hold her because I'm quiet."

Willow still didn't say anything, and Spike sighed. "Look, I'll take care of her, right? I'm sure it'll just be a little while. This can't be hard to reverse, right? Simple spell, not a lot of power. You can fix it in the morning?"

Willow shook her head slowly. "I don't know. The spell, it never does anything, I don't even know if there is a counter-spell."

Spike, by an enormous act of will, didn't roll his eyes. "Well, you'll find something, and you'll fix her, and I'm just saying, I'll do my part. I'll help, like I promised. I wasn't exactly thinking of nappie patrol, but I did promise, and Dawn's clearly going to need looking after."

But Willow wasn't listening. She was, sod it, crying, and Spike didn't really have an arm to spare as Dawn was somehow getting heavier in her sleep, so he just stood there til she turned and ran away, right back out the front door. Spike sat down on the couch, snuggled the brat, and wished he'd had a free hand for that case of beer. It was going to be a long, long night.

Moving with exquisite care, Spike got up off the couch, grabbed the carton of cigarettes from the shopping bag, and headed for the front door. He picked up his duster from the coat rack on the way out, but didn't even try to work out how to put it on with his arms full of sleeping baby and desperately needed smokes.

He walked out onto the front porch and sat down on the step, leaning back on his elbows so that Dawn could lie on his chest without too much holding on required, and draped the duster over her. He extricated his lighter in the process and, after a second's consideration, pulled out two cigarettes and started smoking both. Three, he reminded himself, was unlucky.

The first drag was like heaven, and Spike let his head hang back, limp, as he blew out the smoke. He was just puzzling over the iffy proposition that nicotine was a sign that God loved him and wanted him to be happy when he heard footsteps approaching. He returned the smokes to his mouth and slid both arms around Dawn-one to hold on, the other to get his hand on the nearest weapon, a throwing knife in an inner pocket of the duster.
Except it was just the Watcher. Spike let go the knife and tapped ash instead, blowing smoke as he approached. "Smoking for two now, Spike?"

Spike took another drag and shrugged. "S'pose so. If the Niblet only knew what she'd done, she'd need one herself."

Giles smiled slightly, and sat down beside him on the step, peering warily at the sleeping baby, as if she might explode in his face. "So, it's true then? That really is Dawn?"

Spike nodded. "Red call you?"

"Tara, actually. Willow is apparently... quite upset."

Spike frowned fiercely down at the top of Dawn's head. "It's not my fault, you know."

Giles seemed about to say something, but Dawn stirred and half-woke, and before he could work out which pocket the remaining pacifiers were in, she'd got hold of his finger and started chewing on it. Giles snorted. "Bloodthirsty little thing."

"Yeah. Knew there was a reason I liked her."

Giles still didn't say anything, and Spike supposed he was thinking about Buffy. Spike knew that's what he'd be thinking about, if only he didn't have his hands full of helpless baby Dawn. He was about to hand her over to Giles, see if that would stop the brooding, when she woke up for real and started crying. Spike tossed away the ends of his smokes and picked her up so he could look her in the eye. Squinting critically, he considered the squalls and
the flailing of little fists. "Bet you're hungry, Bit, is that it?"

Of course, she just kept on screaming, but he stood up and headed back into the house with his armload of leather coat and screaming baby. He'd already tossed the duster over the bannister and grabbed the shopping bags from the living room floor when Giles stepped inside, carton of cigarettes in hand like a peace offering. Spike just nodded slightly and headed for the kitchen, jiggling the little screamer against his shoulder.

Giles followed, and Spike dropped the bags on the counter and then handed off the baby. No reason to try making a bottle for the first time with a screaming baby hindering him, not when there were extra hands available. And heartbeat or no, if she was hungry, she wasn't going to shut up til she was fed.

He listened for signs of gross incompetence while reading the instructions on the formula cannister, but Giles seemed to figure out that cuddling the baby closer wasn't helping after the first try. He sat down on one of the barstools instead, balanced her on his knee, and began singing softly while rubbing her back. Spike smiled a little--the man had brains and halfway decent taste in lullabies. He popped the bottle into the microwave and joined in on the second verse, sotto voce.

They went back out on the porch, and Dawn sat on Giles' knee and held the bottle herself, more or less. Giles bummed a smoke, and they sat in companionable silence, all mouths occupied, all hands with something to do.

Spike took Dawn back when she'd finished her bottle, and burped her. Giles looked impressed. "I can see Dawn's in good hands, Spike," he said slowly, "but are you sure you're up to looking after her?"

Spike shrugged. "Nothing pressing on my calendar for this week. I mean, I was going to get drunk and brood a lot, maybe find some demons to kill, that sort of thing, but I can put it off. I don't need to sleep, and the brat seems to like me, so. It'll be all right. The rest of you lot will be better looking for a way to fix this. Maybe..." He cast about for an encouraging thought. "Maybe Anya will know something."

Giles made a peculiarly English noise of polite uncertainty that Spike hadn't heard in a while. "Anya, yes. Maybe we shouldn't tell her about Dawn."

"Oh?"

"Ever since…" And no need to say, since what, not like all their lives hadn't been violently reset together. "Anya's biological clock seems to be ticking. Audibly. If she were to get her hands on baby Dawn, I don't know that we'd be able to get her to let go."

"Oh. Right, then."

Giles sighed. "Well, I should go pay a visit to Willow and Tara, then, and get started on the research."

"Yeah, I should try to get the littl'un here to sleep pretty soon."

Giles nodded and stood and started down the walk, and Spike got to his feet, rocking the warm and sleepy infant against his shoulder. Halfway to the street, the Watcher stopped and turned back. "Spike."

He waited, and Giles didn't gesture, didn't look at anything, just said, very softly, "Thank you," and let Spike decide on his own what for.

---

Sometime shortly after midnight, Dawn was fed and dry and clean and being petted and sung to and nonetheless screaming like a banshee. Spike rummaged in one of the shopping bags, and pulled out the pamphlet book, whose title had been so ominous he couldn't not buy it once he spotted it on display.

Why Your Baby Won't Stop Crying. He just hoped that this wasn't some kind of cosmic magical Key angst, because, even if they did live on the Hellmouth, he doubted the solution to that problem would be listed in the little book.

Teething, though, teething was right there on page six.

Spike, uselessly bouncing Dawn on his hip while she tearfully gnawed on his finger, searched every cupboard and hiding spot in the house until finally, behind the good china in the dining room, he found what he had known had to be somewhere in the house. The stashed-away two-thirds-full bottle of liquor. He hadn't thought it would be tequila, but, hey, Joyce had been an interesting woman, full of surprises. He sat down on the floor, settling Dawn between his legs, and opened the bottle. He thought for just a moment about drinking it all, but there wasn't enough, in the bottle, in the city, to get him drunk enough to forget about promising to protect this little urchin, so he resigned himself to using it for medicinal purposes only. He sloshed the clear fluid over his free index finger, and swapped it for the one she was currently chewing on. She didn't like the taste, but she didn't like having nothing to chew on either, and went for it. After a couple of minutes, her crying subsided to hiccups, and soon she was sound asleep. Spike smirked as he picked her up and headed back to the couch. "Prancing lightweight."

Three o'clock in the morning, and he was lying on Dawn's bed, watching her sleep. He couldn't leave her there alone, cos she'd roll off the bed or drown in her own drool or something awful. And yeah, he did have to keep his hand resting lightly on her little belly, because otherwise it would take several more vital nanoseconds for him to notice if she should suddenly stop breathing. Plus, hell, the brat was adorable, especially now, all quiet and sleeping. He was completely mesmerized, and his brain was lining up words like cherub and cupid's bow and other poetic rubbish that would never capture this.

He sighed, dragged his hand across his eyes, and scooped her up in his arms. Time for a smoke.

Four o'clock in the morning, and the little angel was just starting to stir and cry. All through changing and feeding and rocking and having his fingers gnawed on, Spike thought out his plan. Thought of laying her down on the couch, taking his hand away, picking up a throw pillow and settling it over her gently, inexorably, and she so small it would cover her entire body. Thought of falling to the floor screaming, blind from the pain. Thought of how the chip probably had a special intensity of response for inflicting pain on tiny, helpless humans who were only crying because their sitters were too heartless to go out and buy a bleeding tube of Baby Orajel. Thought of how his screaming and thrashing would only make her cry louder.

So when she was all presentable, Spike checked that there was money in one of his pockets, and set out into the last of the night with Dawn in his arms.

Spike didn't give his route to the all night grocery a second thought until a demon he vaguely recognized from drinking at Willy's stepped out in front of him.

"Quite the kitten you've got there, Spike."

The smirk and response were automatic. "Yeah, well. High stakes game."

"Really? Hadn't heard."

Spike shrugged, and forced himself not to look around for an escape route. He couldn't fight his way out of this, not with his arms full of baby, and he couldn't drop her to fight, and if he could just talk his way out of this he might be able to get to the grocery and back to the house before sunrise. "Invitation only, I guess."

"That right. Well, maybe I'll just borrow your little stake there and invite myself."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Really, I wouldn't try it."

"Why not?" The demon moved closer, almost within striking distance, almost close enough to hurt Dawn if he was quick. "Your pet Slayer gonna come after me?"

Spike sneered. "Don't need the Slayer for this."

The demon laughed, and inched closer, and Spike turned on his heel and ran. The demon laughed louder, and pounded after him, and Dawn, who'd been silent as a sparrow hiding in a hedge all through their little encounter, set up screaming.

Spike clutched her tight against his shoulder, cursing under his breath. The bugger was only out for a bit of mayhem, no real reason to care about Spike or Dawn, but that wouldn't stop him from tracking them. He had more time than Spike did, no particular reason to be off the streets by sunrise, and of course no screaming baby to look after. Spike couldn't run back to the house, as the demon wouldn't require an invite and he didn't know if he could protect Dawn any better there than out here on the streets. Springing the demon on unsuspecting Scoobies--while they were sleeping, no less--would be only marginally better, as Spike had no idea how powerful his pursuer was.

So he ran. Up alleys, through parks and yards, down one street and up another. Went to ground one or twice, but it took close to an hour to shake the pursuit, and by then he only had time to run, flat out, back to the house on Revello Drive.

He looked back, as he was unlocking the front door, to see that the stars in the eastern part of the sky had already faded out. He slipped quickly inside, and locked the door behind them. Dawn was silent, as she had been for the last half-hour, worn out with the screaming and terror. She lay limp against him, not asleep but not moving much either, as he moved around the house, closing the curtains in each room. When he was back at the front door, he turned toward the stairs, intending to go up, but he found himself sinking to the floor instead.

For the first time since the alley, he loosened his grip on Dawn, settling her in his lap. She looked silently up at him as he waited for his body to run down from its stupid habit of breathing under stress, and he noticed that her hair was dark with sweat. God, she'd been terrified.

Not without reason, of course; he'd been running for their lives. Well, for hers, at least. He could have handled himself, but he couldn't protect Dawn.
Nothing new in that, though, and he choked back a bitter laugh. He might be able to change diapers and administer medicinal liquor like a pro, but he was still useless at keeping his promise and protecting the girl.

Her face screwed up, almost in slow motion, as if she was too tired to cry, and she began to wail. It was the in-pain cry, and a peek into her mouth revealed that the spot where the new tooth ought to be was now really, really red. And of course, useless bugger that he was, he hadn't gotten the stuff for her gums. Spike tucked his finger into her mouth and bowed his head down to hers, so that his tears ran into her hair, where they vanished without a trace.

She stopped crying.

Spike had stopped, himself, sometime before that and was just leaning there in a daze, not even trying to work out what to do to soothe her, lost in his uselessness. He snapped out of it when she hiccuped her sobs to a stop, and he picked her up so he could look her in the face. She looked a little bewildered and happy, and when he checked her mouth again, he had to smile. The tooth had broken. He kissed her forehead and stood, heading for the kitchen. "This calls for a celebration, don't you think?"

He half-woke when the front door opened, but whoever it was had a key and was bothering to use it, so he didn't actually open his eyes. He was face-down on the living room floor with his right arm wrapped around Dawn, who was sitting up against his side, enthralled in the morning cartoons or perhaps still gnawing away at the biscuit he'd found her in the kitchen. The axe he'd retrieved from the weapons chest, just in case, was still under his left hand, but clearly unneeded at the moment.

"Um," Willow, right, they must've found something. "Spike?"

"Is he...?" And Tara, good, best if Red had company.

"If he were dead, he'd be all dusty. Must just be sleeping."

Spike forestalled further speculation by taking a breath, and the exhalation came out as a sigh. Somebody needed her diaper changed, and he was guessing he knew who. He sat up slowly, shoving the axe under the coffee table and nodding a moderately surly greeting to the witches. Dawn had most of the mass of the shortbread biscuit smeared across her face. She'd gotten one of her socks off and was staring in apparent rapt fascination at her own toes, ignoring a perfectly good cartoon. There really was no hope for the child's taste in entertainment. Spike stood, picking her up as he did, and carried her over to the couch, where the diaper-changing supplies awaited.

"So, you found something then?"

A glance over his shoulder revealed both girls staring at him, nearly as fascinated as Dawn was by her toes. Bloody hell, did they think he wouldn't have figured out how to change a diaper sometime in the last twelve hours? "Ladies? Are you here to reverse the spell?"

Willow shook herself, and Tara just smiled and looked away. "Oh. Yeah. About that. Did you move anything? The spell stuff?"

Spike turned his attention back to diapering. "Nope. Too busy looking after the Niblet to clean her room."

"Great. We may be able to get the spell to undo itself, rather than trying anything else to return her to some other form, since that could be, um."

"Tricky, yes, as we all can see."

"Right." Slight pause. Spike rolled up the dirty diaper into a compact little bundle and fastened up the mostly-clean one-piece he'd dressed her in a few hours ago, which was decorated with pastel circus animals. "So, I'll just go upstairs and have a look at everything, see what I can tell."

Spike nodded as he stood, Dawn in one hand and the diaper in the other. Willow took off up the stairs, leaving him and the shy one. He headed for the kitchen to throw out the diaper and see if Dawn wanted anything else to eat, and Tara followed.

She stayed quiet while he opened the tin of shortbread biscuits and offered one to Dawn, who was only too happy to gnaw away at it and slobber everywhere, waiting until he had a mouthful of biscuit himself to say, "Has anyone mentioned that you're, like, freakishly good at this?" He kept his eyes on the baby, but held out the open tin, mutely offering it to Tara while he chewed and swallowed.

He watched her take the biscuit, watched her nibble at it, watching him right back, and thought about answering the unspoken question. He could tell her about Dru, and her love for dolls, and the funny things you learn in a century with a madwoman. He could chalk it up to screwball comedies, claim to have learned all he needed to know from those French chappies. He was staring at the top of Dawn's head as he considered, and when he looked back up he realized that he had waited too long, and Tara was now expecting some sort of revelation, and he knew that the words that threatened to coalesce in the back of his mind were best left unthought, nevermind unspoken. Spike fed Dawn another biscuit, and gave Tara a tight little smile. "Well, I always did like the Little Bit, and she always liked me."

Tara was nodding slowly, faintly skeptical, when Willow walked in, smiling. "I think we can do this."

Spike sat at the foot of Dawn's bed, holding her on his lap while Willow and Tara set up their reversal spell. She was loosely wrapped in Dawn's bathrobe, as the baby ensemble would likely get inconvenient, to say nothing of insufficient, once she was back to her usual self.

"So, one more time," Willow said, drawing symbols in the red sand, "You showed up to babysit..."

"And Dawn was up in her room, and I could smell magic."

Tara tilted her head. "You can smell it? The energy?"

"No. The candles, and the incense, mainly." He stared down at the bit as he spoke. He'd cleaned the biscuit off her face, and she was smiling up at him serenely. "I hollered through the door a bit, and then busted in, and she was standing there," the heap of clothes that had fallen off her suddenly-smaller body handily marked the spot. "I yelled at her, but she shook her head, and poured something out of her hand, into the cauldron." She had been so determined to do the thing, and now that it was done, she was just happy, like Dawn hadn't been since Spike had known her. This baby in his arms wasn't grieving her sister and mother, hadn't been abandoned by her useless father, didn't know she wasn't exactly human. "I ran to stop her, reached into the circle--"

Willow looked up. "But you didn't step inside it, right?"

"Do I look like an idiot? No." Not an idiot, exactly, that wasn't the word. "Green smoke came out of the cauldron, so I couldn't see her, but I felt her change, already had my hands on her when it happened."

Willow nodded. "Okay." She directed him to stand inside the new circle she'd made, on the spot where he'd been when he caught Dawn, and he obediently held her out at arm's length, in the same spot she'd been when the spell took effect. Tara lit the candles around them, Willow chanted a few words, and suddenly green smoke materialized all around his arms, obscuring his view of Dawn. And then he felt her change--steadied her on her feet--and that was that. She was back to her old self. Before all the smoke was gone, before he had to look her in the eye, he turned and fled.

He chain-smoked on the back porch, and listened. There was a certain amount of crying, and a lecture from Tara about not using magic to escape from your problems, which Spike suspected, from the way she didn't stick precisely to the facts of the case, had more than one audience in mind. He was on cigarette number four when Dawn finally talked her way out of the room and made a beeline for the back door. She stopped dead when she saw him, leaning on the railing, and he just raised his eyebrows at her and waited, still smoking. She stepped outside hesitantly, like she'd never spoken to him before, and didn't say anything, just stared.

"So, d'you remember any of it?"

She shook her head slowly, not the emphatic denial that would mean she was lying. Thank God.

"I just, Spike, I. I kind of, like a dream almost, I think, I. Um."

He tossed the cigarette into the flowerbed, and beckoned her closer, and she approached, moving with the intent abstraction of a sleepwalker. When she was within reach, he caught her by the shoulders and pulled her close, slouching against the railing so that she could tuck her head against his shoulder without getting into any truly embarrassing positions. She hesitated a second, and then wrapped her arms around him. He put one arm around her and let his hand rest as it wanted to, steadying her head against his shoulder. Spike closed his eyes and held her close and forgot for just a moment that her reprieve was over, that she was returned to a world in ruins from which he could not, could never, protect her.

~Fin~