Disclaimer:  Whedon and ME own characters, universe, etc.  The only thing that’s not theirs is possibly New Hampshire.

Author: limber, who enjoys the beach in winter, apple orchards, BritFlicks and feedback.

Updates: at LEAST one a week, often more frequently than that.

If you’d like to take this story somewhere else, please email me.  I don’t mind going into others’ archives, but I DO mind having stuff hijacked.  If someone happens to see this fic (altered or intact) under any name other than mine, let me know and I’ll take care of it.

-- Base Elements –

It gets pretty cold in winter.

Not as stupid as it sounds, thought Dawn.  She stared out the window of her dorm room at the sleeting rain and let out a heavy sigh.  No way you’d find this kind of weather in Sunnydale, not in April.  The slushy rain that pelted a fresh layer of snow on the ground felt like a personal affront. “It’s APRIL!  SPRING!” she groaned, thumping her forehead against the glass.  “What is WRONG with this town?!”

“Town?  Try state!  Actually, region… I hear it’s snowing straight through to Rhode Island.”  Dawn’s roommate Alicia stumbled into the room looking like a marshmallow; her arms stuck out at perpendicular angles from her quilted jacket, her mittens glowing redly.  She’d wound a pastel scarf around her face and Dawn could just barely see a pair of bright green eyes peering out from underneath a rainbow hat. 

“Alicia, you look like you’re about to rob a…” she hesitated as Alicia began to peel off the winter layers, revealing more and more vibrant-colored clothing.  “Actually, you look like you’ve already mugged Rainbow Brite.” 

“Hey, the tart was asking for it, hoggin’ all the colors,” Alicia shrugged, hanging up her jacket.  “Besides, I thought the day needed a little more zing in it.  Not that you’re helping the scenery, Miss I-love-my-gray-sweats… We’re going to need some cheer in this place, you know.  Have you seen the weather report for the next few days?  Rain, rain, snow and RAIN!”  She leaped onto her bed, folding her long frame into a knot and pulling the covers up around her shoulders.  Her dark hair steamed slightly in the warm room, and Dawn thought again of how different Alicia was from her friends back home.  Where the Sunnydale girls had been obsessed with clothes, hair, nails, the politics of pecking orders, Alicia valued a completely different set of rules. 

In a way, Alicia reminded Dawn of Willow… well, she amended hastily, Alicia reminded her of the way Willow used to be.  A self-confident, glad-to-be-geeky, non-Wiccan-lesbian Willow. Not Willow now.  No.  Dawn shuddered slightly.

“Argh.  Sorry, I brought the cold in, didn’t I?” Alicia winced in sympathy, misreading Dawn’s shiver. 

Dawn half-smiled at her.  “I swear, next term?  I get the side of the room with the radiator.”

“Ah, you’ll have to fight me for it… c’mere, room enough for two.” Alicia threw back the pile of quilts she had pulled up to her neck.  “C’mon, it’s conference time. Step into my office.”  Dawn jumped up from the windowsill and onto the space Alicia thumped on the mattress, giggling with her friend as they scrunched up against the headboard together.  “Twizzlers on the desk, and two recently-refrigerated Cokes in my bag,” Alicia directed from her position against the wall.  Within moments, the two girls were happily sipping their sodas through Twizzlers, watching the rain go streaking by the window.

“I still can’t believe you’d never seen sleet before,” muttered Alicia.  “Barbie.”

“Ha!  You people are like the Eskimos, you’ve got so many words for snow!  Rain and snow that fall simultaneously?  Who knew?” Dawn snorted, chewing at her straw.  “In California?  You look outside, say ‘Hey, yuck, wet,’ and then stay inside until it gets all sunshiny again.”

“Good thing we broke you of that habit, you wouldn’t have left the dorm after November.”  Alicia’s teeth were turning pink from the Twizzler, and she grinned at Dawn widely.  “You might have starved – naw, actually, I’d’ve sled-dogged food to you from the dining hall.”

“Aww – so kind,” Dawn laughed.

“Hey, I do what I can.  And I think the dog’s’d be kinda fun.  But seriously?  Never, EVER go to England.  My Dad says it’s wicked rainy over there like, all the time.  Why he moved here, to my mother’s great benefit.”  Dawn waited for the inevitable question, and sure enough:  “Hey, your sister ever hear from that British guy?”

Only Alicia knew about Spike.  Not all about Spike, rather obviously, but enough to ask about him.  “No, no word.  But I told you, I don’t think she’s going to.  It’s been a couple of years now; if he’s not gotten to us yet…” she trailed off, suddenly thinking about her word choice.  If he hadn’t gotten to them.  Would Buffy even have told her if he had come back, or if he’d tried to hurt someone?  It would be just like her sister to try and cover that up.  Let Dawn think that Spike was still off, adventuring, immortal, when he’d actually been dust in the corner of the crypt for months.  Damn.  “No,” she replied decisively, shaking her head, “Buffy hasn’t heard anything.”

Alicia let the topic slide, as she did every time Spike came up.  The girl from Boston might seem brash, but she also knew when to let a conversation go.  That’s part of what Dawn liked so much about Alicia – she let Dawn talk when she needed to, but never pushed.  Very different from home.  With Buffy, it was all or nothing – either she’d not have the time to talk to Dawn about really important things, or she’d suddenly get all psychotic and demand to get the scoop on all of Dawn’s private life.  Like living with a very strong and persistent manic-depressive.  Hmmm… wonder if Buffy ever got tested for that?

“You know what?” Alicia suddenly sat up in the bed, jostling Dawn slightly.  “We should go out tonight.”  Dawn looked at her, raising an eyebrow.  “Well, yes, we are in the middle of nowhere, but hey!  Cow-tipping?”

“Oh, you’re kidding!” Dawn shrieked. 

“Yeah, I am.  It’s too cold out, they’re all in the barn.  But just you wait until spring term, missy,” she threatened.  “Nah, I thought we could take the bus into town, go see a movie?  One of the old ones they’re playing at the Empire, ‘Citizen Kane’ or something.” Dawn nodded too enthusiastically while draining the dregs of her Coke, sputtering as the froth filled her mouth.  “Easy there, tiger!”

“Gah.”  Dawn rattled the last chunk of Twizzler in her can, then gave it up for lost.  “Hey, do you think that we could ask those guys down the hall?”  She looked at her hands, embarrassed.  “I mean, they probably won’t want to come, but Sean’s pretty cool and I think Brian would be up for anything.  We can ask the usual gang, too, but I don’t think Sean’s been outside for weeks.”

“Sure!” breezed Alicia, but she leaped out of bed to shut the door before continuing.  “Actually, newsflash.  Brian?  Dating Christopher in Gilford Hall.”

“No way!”

“Yes way, Ted!  As of three days ago.”

“Whoa… actually, wait.  Makes sense.  Oh, and you humble me with your eighties Keanu humor, Lise.”

“What can I say?” Alicia shrugged.  “The man’s a god.”

“Oh, I’m not sure I can take another round of ‘Why We Should All Worship Keanu’.” Dawn crushed a pillow around her head, but it wasn’t dense enough to block out Alicia’s shouts.

“I could always go on about the New Kids on the Block!  OOOOOH, JOEY!  YOU’RE SO DREAMYYYYYYYYY!  And Danny and Donnie and Jordan….” 

Dawn could hear thumping vibrating through the wooden bedframe and she squeezed her eyes shut, taking the pillow away from her ears to yell, “I can tell you’re doing the dance moves!  I give up!  Surrender!  Look, white flag!”  She squinted at Alicia who, sure enough, was doing her patented “Right Stuff” dance moves.  “Augh!”

Alicia stopped mid-kick.  “You know?  I think I’m on a sugar high.”

“Gee, ya think?”  Dawn winced.  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you missed a New Kid.”

“Which one?”

“Jon?  Jordan’s brother, one of the Knights, I think.”

“Oh, yeah!  Hell!  I forgot Jon!”  Alicia clapped a hand to her forehead dramatically.  “I am a bad fan.”

“Given that you’re a fan of NKOTB, I’d not call you bad.  Sick, maybe.  Besides, considering it all happened ten years ago, I’m pretty sure you can blame your forgetfulness on old age.”  Dawn barely ducked in time to avoid the pillow whizzing at her head.

“Hag,” Alicia smirked good-naturedly, then turned serious.  “So, am I decent to ask boys to a movie?  Will they be ashamed to be seen with me?”  She skidded over to the mirror.  “Oh my god, look at my mouth!”  She turned back to Dawn and bared her teeth again, framed by shocking Twizzler-red lips.  “Lemme see yours,” she commanded, and Dawn snarled back.  “Yeah, you’re just as bad as me.”  She turned back to the mirror, admiring the cherry hue of her grin.  “We look like vampires!  Bwaaa, boys, here I come!  Mwaa aa aaaah!”

Dawn stared at Alicia as she rocketed out the door, already on a mission to round up a movie-going posse.  She slowly walked over to their bureau, the fuzzy purple carpet snagging gently at her toes.  Keeping her grounded.  Here, there was no otherworldly danger.  No vamp or demon or god just around the corner, waiting for you to leave your friends and take that long lonely walk to the dorm’s gated entrance.  Dawn lifted her shirt a little, traced the scars around her ribs.  Faint, silvery lines from a more deadly life.  New Hampshire didn’t have things that went bump in the night.  Though sometimes they mooed.

Since Buffy sent her to prep school in New England in the autumn, Dawn had led a different life.  Buffy proclaimed that she wasn’t to tell anyone about “the darker side of Sunnydale”, and Dawn eventually agreed.  Reluctantly, though; Buffy’s friends knew, and Dawn was pretty sure that it made life easier for Buffy to be able to talk about it.  But her sister had made a decision.  That was that.  Dawn was packed off to prep school in late August with the instructions to call every day, to stay away from cemeteries in general, and to have a good time.  But most of all?  Forget Sunnydale ever existed, Dawn thought.  Buffy hadn’t exactly said it, but she didn’t have to.  Dawn understood.

She brushed her shoulder-length hair back, letting the layers swish back across her face.  The long hair had been left in Sunnydale too, and the extra two and a half inches she’d put on since summer would be a surprise to Buffy when she saw her in a few more weeks.  Dawn rummaged around in her jewelry box and pulled out a hemp choker.  A mass of pebble-sized crystals were wedged into the weave, giving her whole outfit a tribal air.  Another Sunnydale relic, but a good one.  She clipped it around her neck firmly and reached out for her heavy woolen peacoat.

Alicia and all of her friends would never know what Dawn’s sister did.  They’d never know how many times their world had been saved, pulled back when it was teetering on the brink.  This was the world that Buffy had fought for, a completely different world from Sunnydale and its weirdness.  In Sunnydale, Dawn was never normal. She was a target or an enigma or some dumb little kid. Here?  She was just another one of the crew.  A normal, home-grown American girl, who ate enough candy to put her into a coma and affected a horribly fake Transylvanian accent to play at being deadly. 

“Yeah – just like vampires.  Bwa ah ah.”  Dawn smiled candy-pink at her reflection and laughed.

TBC

“Well, THAT was interesting…” Sean muttered, squinting at the bright lights of the multiplex lobby.  The rest of the group trouped out behind him, most with similarly dazed expressions on their faces.  Kirsten looked a little ill, and Dawn was practically twitching in irritation.

“How could she do that?  HOW could she let herself get into that situation?” she spat, spinning around to stare at the boys who were nonchalantly leaning against the snack bar.

“How what?” Brian asked, already snapped out of the movie’s thrall and studying the Coming Attractions posters. 

“Well, first she gets herself trapped, and then she passes by all kinds of weapons as she screams through the house!  Because, you know, monsters NEVER go to where all the girly screaming is…” Dawn grumped. 

“Like monster Lo-Jack – lost your victim?  Oh, there she is!  Aaaaargh ummm mung slurp,” Alicia snarled, pretending to chew on Kirsten’s arm.  Kirsten laughed and slapped at her.

“Dawn, it’s just a movie.  A suspense movie.”  Eileen’s tone was condescending, as usual, and Dawn wondered again why the hell they invited her in the first place.  Oh, yeah – we didn’t.

Eileen leaned forward a little, eyes wide, and began to speak in her kindergarten-teacher-voice.  “Dawnie, to make the movie suspenseful, they have to make the main character really, really scared.  And that means that they have to put her in scaaaaary situations.”  More sarcastic than usual, actually, Dawn thought.  Eileen’s eyes briefly flickered over to Sean, and Dawn groaned inwardly.  So that’s how we’re going to play it, she thought bitterly.  Sean raised his eyebrows a little at Eileen’s sharpness and looked back to Dawn.

“Thank you, scarcastibitch,” Alicia whispered next to her.  Then louder, “Seriously, why WOULD you go into an abandoned antique store when being chased by something?  I understood hiding in the locker; I got when she ran to her boyfriend’s house; but fleeing to an old, empty store clogged with things that scare the hell out of me when it’s full daylight?”  She turned to Brian.  “Did you see those cat-clocks lining the walls, the ones with the glowing, moving eyes and tails?  Those freak me out, man.  One time at my grandma’s…”

“And I’m sure you’d have a better idea,” Eileen interrupted sweetly.  She was looking at Dawn, apparently her chosen target for the night.  Oh, fantastic.  Alicia nudged her supportively, and Dawn snorted.

“Duh.  Anyone would.”

“Enlighten us,” Rachel chirped, mimicking Eileen’s pose unconsciously.  Such a stooge.

“All right.”  She walked over to the snack bar and rested one elbow on the counter.  Sean turned to face her, and Dawn could see Eileen’s face flush red over his shoulder.  She smiled, and spoke directly to Sean.

“I’m going to cut right to the part where she’s in the antique store, because we all know that it was a stupid idea to go in there in the first place, right?”  Sean nodded.  “Good.  So, she runs in the door and then leaves it gaping open.  Never do that.  Doors make noises when they open, and you’ll need that.  Monsters can be damn quiet when they want to, you’ll need all of the warning signals you can put together.  In fact, throwing stuff in its path is good, if it’s on your tail.”  She took a breath, considering. 

“The next thing you need is a weapon.  Now, first go for something that can wound long-range, like a crossbow or a pike or something.  There were a couple of fire pokers in there as well.  Barring that, go for something sharp, anything sharp.  I mean,” she backtracked a little, “if you know what defeats the bastard, obviously, use it.  Crosses, stakes, silver bullets, whatever.  But we had no clue what the movie-monster was, so we’re going with the general slayage here.”  Sean was grinning a little wider, and Dawn began to wrap up. 

“I’ll guess the girl had no hand-to-hand skills, from all the tripping and the running into walls.  She did that a lot, I’d think seriously about brain damage… and that’d explain the mindless antique-store choice, actually… but at the very least, she could have shattered one of the chairs.  A chair leg makes a damn fine club, and even shards of wood can be really painful when you’re poked with them.  And you want depth here, not cutting,” she warned.  “Someone can bleed a lot, but if the cuts are shallow, they’ll still live.  Shallow cuts are no good.”  No good at all.  She was momentarily distracted, and fought to keep her focus.

“You need to do maximum damage in very little time, using what you’ve got handy.  The stuff my sister comes up with…” She stopped conspicuously; the sudden silence was awkward.

“Because your sister does Do-It-Yourself weaponry all the time, right?”  Eileen coolly interjected.

“She’s… trained.” Dawn had begun to stammer a bit, convulsively swallowing her words.  “She’s g-good with the de-defense.”  Oh, hell.

“And you,” Eileen purred.  “I’m so sure that you keep a cool head every time you get approached by something nasty and creepy-looking.”  She looked pointedly at Alicia.  “I could use some tips on that, if you’re handing them out.”

“And that, my friends, was another lesson from Eileen Davidson on how to insult friends and alienate people!”  Alicia crowed jovially, sweeping an arm towards Eileen like a gameshow host.  “How do you do it, Eileen? You’ve stunned us tonight with your wit and charm, and we can only hope and PRAY that your parting gift comes to you in the shape of a speeding bus.”  Eileen paled and narrowed her eyes, but Alicia was already moving on.  She slung her arms around Dawn and Kirsten’s shoulders, smiling sweetly at the three boys.  “Boys, you know what I’m about to say, right?”

“Women’s bathroom in traditional pack formation, right?” Sean rolled his eyes.

“I still don’t get that,” Christopher murmured as the three girls marched away, leaving Eileen and Rachel to retreat to the bathrooms in the east wing of the multiplex.

“Some mysteries are better left to gentler sex,” Brian intoned wisely.  Then he reconsidered.  “Actually, after what just went down?  Screw the gentler sex crap.  Eileen and Alicia could probably rip us all new ones with words alone, and Dawn?”  He raised an eyebrow.  “I think Dawn could take me.”

“Hands off,” smiled Sean. “If she’s gonna take anyone, I’m first in line.” 

“Well, that was refreshing!” Alicia said brightly as they joined the tail end of the bathroom line.  She was still a little pink from her verbal battle with Eileen, an ongoing war that she enjoyed immensely.  “I think I won that round, how about you?”

“Oh, yeah, that one went to you.  So what’s this make the score?  Sarcastibitch 165, Defender of All that is Good and Righteous….”

“…and puppies…”

“…and Puppies, 209.”  Kirsten squinted into the mirror.  “D’you think that she’ll talk to her kids like that?”

“With The Voice?  Only if she wants to be the proud mother of the world’s youngest delinquents.  And only if she’s capable of reproducing asexually, as I sure don’t know anyone who’d get it on with her.”  Alicia suddenly noticed that Dawn was silent.  “Dawn… you okay?”

Dawn scowled at her feet.  “I froze.  I just FROZE out there…”

“Yeah, but with a little teamwork…”

“NO,” Dawn spoke forcefully, her stomach constricting.  “I shouldn’t have to rely on you to get me out of these things.  I should be able to do it on my own.”

Kirsten looked away; Alicia just looked upset.  “I – I’m sorry, Dawn.  I didn’t think that you would – I just…”  She trailed off, unsure of what to say.  She looked embarrassed, which made Dawn realize how harsh she’d sounded.  Oops.

Dawn shook her head.  “No, it’s not you, it’s from before.”  Kirsten and Alicia just seemed confused.  Dawn tried to explain.  “Back home, everyone has this thing about protecting me – it’s probably because of my Mom and being the youngest and stuff, but there’s these other things, too…” She petered out.  “I just get irritated now, when I think someone’s trying to shield me.  It’s irrational, and I’m way oversensitive about it.”  She smiled weakly.  “Don’t worry, I’ll grow out of it, I’m just being a jerk.  Sorry, Lise.”

“No, s’okay.” Alicia shrugged self-consciously.  “Call me on it if you need to.  Katie and Erin say that I do it to them, too.  I just thought they were being whiny little sisters.”  She laughed quietly.  “Firstborn thing, I guess, always bossy.  And obnoxious and loud.”

Dawn felt terrible.  She grabbed Alicia’s shoulder and turned her around.  “No, Lise, it’s really not you.  Is it, Kirsten?  I’m the one who wigged, right?”  Kirsten bit her lip, but nodded.

“Yeah – Alicia, don’t worry about it.  Dawn’s just feeling….” She looked to Dawn for the word.

“Mental.” Dawn supplied.  “I’m feeling mental.  I AM mental.”  Alicia smiled a bit at that.   “Look, I’m going to head outside, get some air.  NOT because of you,” she punched Alicia lightly on the shoulder.  “I just need to rip Eileen into little bitty pieces in my head for a bit, then I’ll be completely fine and ready to stay up late watching Molly Ringwald movies and eating popcorn.”

Alicia’s mouth hitched up a little at the corner.  “Going for my eighties weakness… cheap shot, Summers.”

“Nah,” Kirsten laughed.  “If she was really playing dirty, she’d’ve mentioned ‘FAME’.”

“Too true,” admitted Dawn.  “I’m saving that one for when I do something really bad, like kill her goldfish.” 

“You got plans?” Alicia asked, feigning shock.  But everyone was smiling, and all was right with the world again. 

“Joaquim is safe… for now…”  Dawn tried her best to look devious and slunk out the door, shooting looks over her shoulder at her girls.

Outside, the boys had disappeared.  Probably over in the arcade,  she guessed.  What is it with boys and video games?  Eileen was glowering over by the pick-and-mix, so at least she hadn’t latched onto Sean while Dawn was having her mental breakdown.  Thank heaven for small mercies.  Dawn was leaning against the tiled wall and trying to think of all the truly excellent comebacks she should’ve used on Eileen when a familiar profile caught her eye.

WHAT?!?!

No, it couldn’t be.  She jerked away from the wall violently, eyes glued to the dark-haired man striding across the lobby.  Away from her, she suddenly realized, and immediately began to trot around the perimeter to get a better look at his face.  She’d only seen it for a moment, but she could swear…. She cursed as a Tim Allen cutout blocked her path, and tried to dart around it.  But the cutout wasn’t alone; it was Tim Allen and a bunch of cutout… children?  Midgets?  A freaking FLOOR display of waist-height prop-ups. She tried to size up which one would be easiest to vault over. Damn you, little people! 

“Uh, ma’am, the theatre requests that you don’t touch the floor displays,” a redheadeded teenager warbled, nervously holding a scrawny arm between Dawn and Tim Allen.  Dawn realized her behavior had drawn the attention of quite a group of people, mostly kids and parents coming out of the Disney screening.  “Theatre security, ma’am.”  He thrust a plastic badge in her face.  WILLIAM: SECURITY.  Dawn desperately watched the dark man approach the doors and suddenly didn’t care how bizarre she looked.

“SPIKE!” 

The man froze and started to turn, but William: Security had decided to spring into action, clumsily pulling Dawn away from her vantage point.  The Disney crowds swallowed up the lone figure; Dawn called Spike’s name again, now very panicked, and abruptly slipped out of William’s inexpert grasp.  She darted around a ticket stand and began to run in the direction of the doors, unable to see Spike but certain he was there.  Don’t you dare slip away now, please don’t leave me, please don’t...

Then she was steps from the door, and there he was.  He’d stopped dying his hair; it was mussed the way she remembered, though.  His jacket was still leather, but shorter, definitely different.  It looked like he had some kind of sweater on underneath – but black still, definitely black.  And his face.  Of course, his face was the same, endlessly angular and young, blue eyes staring at her in shock.

“Nib… Dawn?”  He breathed incredulously, staring at her as though she might be an illusion, she might not be real.  He stepped back from her a pace, and Dawn’s resolve shattered.

It was as though something inside of her had unwound or snapped, and she suddenly couldn’t see for tears.  Sobs began to choke her; she wandered forward blindly, arms outstretched, terrified that he’d vanish while her eyes were filled.  “Spike, no!  Wait!” She could feel the words jumble up before they left her tongue, which only made her cry more.  “Don’t leave!”  For a few frantic moments she clawed the air blindly, desperation overriding every other emotion.  A strangled sob ripped through her as sensed the glass of the sliding doors under her fingers.  She was too late!  Too late….

And then she was enveloped by the familiar smell of cigarettes and old leather, fine-fingered hands smoothing back her hair.  An arm held her up as her legs gave out, and she buried her head in his neck, wound her arms around him tightly and gasped silently into his shoulder, too relieved and emotional to control her reactions.  She just focused on the voice that murmured in her ear over and over.

“It’s all right, Nibblet. Shhhhhhhh, now.  I’m here, love, I’m here now. I’m here.”

TBC

“Right, nibblet, come on over here.”  Dawn let Spike guide her away from the main doors, clutching tightly to his arm with both hands.  She crimped the leather jacket in the crook of his elbow reflexively, twisting the material in anxious fingers.  Leather meant Spike, and she wasn’t about to let him slip away.

“Dawn,” Spike murmured, glancing warily around the lobby at the sea of curious faces turned their way.  “What’s wrong?  Is something going on?”  His posture was familiar, Dawn realized.  He’d put himself between her and the crowd, the arm she clung to was also positioned to sweep her behind him.  He was taut and tense beside her, crackling with energy.  Despite her earlier tantrum about over-protective friends, Dawn flushed happily.  It meant that he still cared.

“Of COURSE something’s going on!” she laughed, embarrassed, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her sleeve.  “Where the hell have you been?” 

Spike’s attitude changed completely as the threat changed from external to internal.  Looking slightly abashed, he ran a hand through his hair and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.  “Later, pet, eh?”  He suddenly sized her up again.  “Hold on – who said you could grow?”

“New Hampshire?” Dawn shrugged.  “I have this theory about the energies of the…” she gave her head an unconscious shake, “…of where I grew up.  I think it vibes people into staying short.”

Spike noticed the censored statement, but let it pass. “Well, you tower over big sis, no question.  Unless she’s gotten a boost as well, or is she just striving for higher and higher heels?”  He twitched a little, and Dawn anticipated the question.

“No, she’s not here.  She’s there.”  Still.  On the other end of the phone, sounding forcefully cheerful - except for the stony silences that answered every taboo query.

“Yeah.”  Dawn couldn’t tell if Spike was disappointed or relieved.  He leaned against the wall with his cigarette packet in his hand, tapping it absently against his thigh.  She leaned next to him, close enough the feel the thudding vibrations running up his arm.  Fidgety as always.  He seemed a little distant, especially for Spike – he usually broadcast his emotions, and the sensation that he was holding back?  Bizarre.  She was so busy watching him that she jumped a little when he suddenly spoke.

“As I remember, Bit, you weren’t exactly happy to see me last time we met.”  He didn’t look at her as he said it, but his voice was low and strained.  He stared straight ahead, and Dawn suddenly realized he was nervous.  And ashamed. 

“Well, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t see you again,” Dawn replied, watching his face closely.  He sighed and tipped his head towards her.

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Yeah.” 

“I wasn’t…”

“Oh, THERE you are!”  Alicia appeared from out of nowhere, the rest of Dawn’s friends on her heels.  “We’re gonna go…. Oh!”  Spike had pushed away from the wall and become extremely noticeable.  Even without the duster and Billy Idol hair, his appearance was remarkable.  Blue eyes examined the gang of kids piercingly for one quick moment before relaxing and nonchalantly looking away.  Alicia’s eyes widened as she took him in, and then she turned to Dawn.

“Spike?” she mouthed widely. Spike caught the gesture and started a bit in surprise, and Dawn hurried to make introductions.

“Uh, yeah!  Spike?  This is Alicia, she’s my roommate at the dorm,” she rattled off, ignoring Spike’s lifted eyebrow at the mention of a dorm.  “And these are Brian, Kirsten, Sean, and Christopher.  Oh,” she added, noticing two girls standing a couple feet away, “Rachel and Eileen.  Over there.  Behind the pillar.”  Hah.

Spike smiled charmingly, winking at Alicia quickly before extending his hand.  “I’m Spike.”  He offered no other explanation, but the kids didn’t notice the omission, too fascinated by his appearance to ask. 

“New generation of Scoobs?” he asked Dawn under his breath as he stepped back to her side.  She shook her head sharply, and he nodded.  None of the Hellmouthy talk, then.  Interesting again.

Dawn suddenly realized that he was waiting for a cue to work from, and began talking quickly.  “Spike’s a friend of my family… well, of me, anyhow.  And my mom liked him a lot.  And he helped me out when things got kind of rough.”

“After she died?”  Kirsten said gently. 

“Yeah.”  Both ‘she’s, really, but the second death had been the biggie… Now that she’d gotten herself into this discussion, Dawn wasn’t quite sure how to extricate herself gracefully.  There’d be no way to explain that he’d lived with her, bought her pizza, taught her all about punk rock, and put her safety above everything else.  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, her mind too jumbled to form words.

She’s floundering, thought Spike, and he changed the subject adroitly.  “What movie were you lot at?”  He tugged at Dawn’s hair, drawing her attention, drawing everyone’s attention.  Good.  “Somehow I don’t see you all tramping in to see a Disney on a Friday night.”  Time to play big brother, it seems.

“Well, we were SUPPOSED to be going to see ‘Citizen Kane’ at the Empire in town, but it turns out they’re on a Fred’n’Ginger kick right now.”  Christopher shot a disgusted look at Alicia, who shrugged.

“Sorry!  I can’t help it if the Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned for a change… the little old ladies have spoken.”  Alicia turned to back to Spike and pointed at one of the posters.  “We went to that one, with the big shadow that’s supposed to be a monster?  But you never really SEE the monster, so don’t go thinking you’ll get some great makeup effects,” she confided.

“Really?”  Smirking encouragingly, playing up his new role.

“Screaming, running, lots of dark sets and bad things that only happen when it’s dark outside,” supplied Sean, eager to get in on the conversation.  “It was pretty mediocre, but had some pretty good scare moments.”

“And you enjoyed that?”  Spike lifted an eyebrow at Dawn slightly.

“Oh, she’s an expert,” a scornful voice drawled. Eileen had sauntered closer as the conversation went on, and Dawn scowled as the girl positioned herself next to Sean.  Eileen nudged him like she was letting him in on the joke.  “Dawn’s full of ideas on how to escape a big nasty.  Spike - you know her from when she was little, right?”

“Pretty much,” answered Spike, “you could say that.”  His tone had cooled considerably as he watched the interaction between the two girls, and he eyed the pretty blonde in front of him.  She was wearing too much makeup, but that was typical of girls her age.  And she seemed to be gunning for Dawn in a major way.

Eileen smiled her best, most innocent smile at Spike.  “Dawn says that she’d be able to kill a monster with a chair leg.  Or, a PIECE of a chair leg, to be exact.  But don’t you think that’s a little optimistic?” She said this in another version of The Voice, a just-between-us tone. 

Dawn seethed, the implication hanging in the air like an accusation.  Just like Eileen to make her sound like a greedy, bragging child, and at a time like this? In front of Spike AND Sean, no less…

Spike considered Eileen for a moment, then turned and looked objectively at Dawn.  She squirmed a little under his intense stare, but she could see his expression change gradually as he took in the definition in her arms, the balance in her stance, the long lines of muscle underneath her clothes.  He gaped at her delightedly.

“I reckon she could take almost anything at this point!  You been training with Buffy?” He was almost gleeful as he turned her around, looking her up and down like a new toy.  Dawn laughingly pushed him away, thrilled that he’d noticed.

“Yeah, she finally decided to let me in on it,” she said, showing him some of her more impressive calluses.

“Ah, I always thought I should’ve gone to work on you that summer, before everything… hey,” he stopped, backtracking.  “She lets you IN?” 

“Purely self-defense,” Dawn clarified ruefully.  Suddenly, both of them became aware of Dawn’s friends, who were desperately trying to follow the flow of the conversation.  Eileen had lost the plot completely, and Spike’s emphatic response made her jump.

“This girl could take you out with just about anything, Ellen,” he told her.  Mispronouncing her name couldn’t hurt either, he supposed.  “I doubt you lot’ve met her sister, but Buffy isn’t much to look at, either.  In a fighting-opponent sort of way, that is,” he added.  He absently fingered the scar marring his eyebrow, and Dawn’s friends abruptly noted the breadth of his shoulders, the vaguely predatory cast to his movements.  Eileen stopped smirking.

“But I’ve fought a fair few in my day, and come out on top almost every time,” Spike grinned wolfishly at the admission, but quickly focused on his point.  “Buffy could take me down almost every time.  If Dawn’s even half as good as her sister, then I’m not worried about her.”  He half-smiled at Dawn.  “Little worried for myself, more like.”

The balance of power had shifted, it was clear; with Spike backing her up, Dawn knew she was beginning to sound too good to be true.  Eileen looked at Dawn, then back at Spike; she considered the situation for a moment, and plastered a sneer on her face. 

“Nice, Dawn – I knew your family was a little off, but your friends, too?  Jeez, I’d hate to be a guest at one of your parties.  Neighbors swinging at each other, a sister who’s probably too busy to show anyhow, ‘good family friends’ who also beat each other up on a regular basis… good to know.”  She smoothed down her blouse and folded her arms.  “You know, if this is what happens to people around you, I think I’ll just take the bus home.  Might be safer.  Anyone else?” Without waiting for a reply, she spun on her heel and loped out of the multiplex, Rachel tailing her anxiously. 

“Spike, meet the Sarcastibitch,” muttered Alicia.  Spike barked a short laugh, then glowered at the girl’s retreating back.  Dawn just waited for the inevitable.

Sean sighed.  “Much as I hate to say it, I have to go after her.” 

“Oh, okay,” Dawn’s heart sank, but she tried to sound upbeat.  Hey, it was bound to happen sometime, she thought to herself.  Guess it’s not the Hellmouth after all – it’s the Summers curse.  Love ‘em, get left by ‘em…

“No,” Sean said, taking Dawn’s wrist.  “I mean, she’s got the keys to the car in her purse.  I’ll be right back.”  He squeezed gently, then jogged through the doors after Rachel and Eileen. 

The doors had barely shut after him before Kirsten and Alicia were jostling Dawn delightedly, nearly trampling Spike in their eagerness to get to their friend.  Spike snorted and retreated, joining Christopher and Brian as they mocked the events.

“Oooooh, he touched your WRIST, Dawn!” Christopher warbled in a high falsetto, affecting Kirsten’s light southern twang. 

“And you know what THAT is, right?”  Brian-as-Alicia squeaked, “It’s right next to your HAND!”

“And that means luuuuuurve!” Christopher trilled.  Both boys swooned, and Spike rolled his eyes behind them.

“HEY!  I heard that!”  Kirsten tried to look fierce, but was giggling too much to hold the expression.  “C’mon, we need to get some microwave popcorn-thingies before CVS closes.”

“What, and you can’t go on your own?” Brian asked, outraged.  “It’s right next door!”

“Yeah, but Eileen’s out there somewhere.” Kirsten shuddered.  “And once she finds out that Sean only wants the keys back…?  Safety in numbers, kiddos.”  She turned to Spike.

“We’ll be right back, but if we miss you – it was real nice to meet you.”  Spike grinned at the girl and nodded back as she dragged the two boys out of the lobby.  He was glad that Dawn had these people around her.  She hadn’t had enough friends back home.  Or was it even home anymore?  He turned around to see Dawn in deep conversation with Alicia.  Well, the question would just have to wait, along with all of the others that were streaking through his mind.  He hadn’t expected any of this to happen, but now Dawn had found him, he was going to have to make some plans.  He leaned up against a pillar, closed his eyes and tried to think.

“Well, I think he’s gonna be all over you like… like….”  Alicia stopped.  “You know, I can’t think of anything to end that phrase that’s not vulgar and gross, so I’ll just say that he luuuuuuuuuuurves you!”

“Oh, shut up!”  But Dawn was blushing pink and her smile was so wide that it was beginning to hurt.  She clamped her lips together and tried to distract Alicia before Sean turned up again.  “Shhhhh, or he’ll SO come in and hear you saying all of this and get all wigged.”  What else to talk about….. oh! 

“So, that’s Spike!  Can you believe that he could see I’d been training?  I’m so psyched, I can’t even tell you…”  But Alicia’s face clouded over at the change in topic.  She grabbed Alicia’s hand.  “Whoa – what?  What’s wrong?”

The words burst out of Alicia like she’d been waiting to say them.  “He beat up your sister?  I thought he… they were kind of…” Alicia trailed off, looking uncertainly at Spike a few feet away.  Dawn saw Spike stiffen and open his eyes.  Shit.  Fucking vampire hearing.

“Sparring partners,” she supplied.  “They never really hurt each other…”  Her mind flickered back to the last time she’d spoken to Spike, and she winced.  She looked at Spike, but he was staring at the floor fixedly.

“No, we hurt each other.”  The words were harsh and gritted out between clenched teeth.  Spike looked up sharply, and Dawn couldn’t tell which emotion was more evident on his face: rage or pain.  “We hurt each other badly, Dawn.”  Alicia stepped behind Dawn a little, as though she were trying to avoid a blast.  Spike noticed the move and dropped his head.  Screwing up again, he thought bitterly, all over again.  A new set of kids to be afraid of him.

“But she didn’t – Buffy doesn’t hate you.”  Dawn struggled to get the words out, torn between Alicia’s wariness of Spike and Spike’s obvious emotional turmoil.  “Seriously, she’s not mad.  Are you pissed off at her or something?”

“No.”  He said it quietly, and peered past Dawn at Alicia.  “Sorry, Alicia.  I’m not too good with the steady-emotions bit.”  He smiled ruefully and mussed his hair again.  The entire motion reminded Alicia of a frustrated little boy, and she relaxed a bit.

“No, I shouldn’t have mentioned it, I don’t know anything about you and Dawn’s sister,” Alicia insisted.  “As I told Dawn earlier, I can be obnoxious and loud, though tonight I seem to be on a roll.”

“Oh, you are not,” Dawn groaned, shoving her slightly.  Alicia smiled apologetically at Spike, and he shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter, don’t think of it.  Now,” he said, coming over to Dawn, “I’ve got to get out of here.”  Dawn began to object, but he cut her off, rooting around in the pockets of his jacket as he continued. 

“I’m going to give you my number, because you’re an insistent little bit and you’ll whine until you get it.”

“Too true!” chirped Dawn smugly.

Spike chuckled and handed over a strip of pink paper with a printed phone number on it.  “I’m staying at this number for now, it’s just me so call when you want.”  He tilted her chin up with one finger so that she looked him in the eye.  “And we should talk soon, love.  You let me know, right?”  Dawn nodded, eyes wide.  He smiled at her, quickly kissed her on the forehead and stepped back.

“Pleasure to meet you, Alicia – see you soon.”  He backed away a couple of steps before spinning and swiftly slipping out of the multiplex.  Dawn exhaled slowly as she watched him leave, the pink paper clutched safely in her palm.

“He’s a little intense, but nice,” mused Alicia beside her.  “Not to mention hot.”

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed.  “I always thought so.  My sister does, too.”  She turned to Alicia earnestly.  “He and Buffy never actually damaged each other, not really.  He didn’t beat her…”  In fact, she thought, it was the other way around if anything.  She tried a different approach.

“They’re both just too strong, and my sister had different priorities and different reasons and…” She sighed.  “I think they really liked each other, but it all blew up in their faces.”

“My mom used to say ‘You always hurt the ones you love’.  Sucks that it’s true.”  Alicia said sympathetically.  Dawn leaned her head on Alicia’s shoulder and nodded.  Outside, Sean was walking back towards them, his breath misting white in the cold, damp air. Spike was nowhere to be seen.

TBC

“This is hell.  I am in hell.”  Dawn twisted away from her desk to see Alicia staring glumly at her computer screen.

“Hotmail’s hell?” She could just see the familiar blue border over Alicia’s shoulder.  “You’ve forgotten your password again, haven’t you?  It’s swedishchef.  S-W-E…”

“No, I WISH I’d forgotten my password.”  Alicia pushed back so that Dawn could read the text of the email, leaning back in her chair and staring at the ceiling in disgust.

“What?”  Dawn finished reading and looked at her roommate, completely confused.  “Isn’t that nice?  I mean, it’s something to do while you’re there…”

“Are you kidding?”  Alicia viciously exited out of the program and stalked over to her bed, flopping onto it face-first.  Her muffled voice was just audible through the pillow.  “First I have to go to my grandmother’s for Spring Break, the grandmother that’s like a reincarnation of Queen Victoria, NOT the one who bakes cookies and watches ‘CSI’ with me, the other one.  And now I have to go to see ‘CATS’ with my deranged cousins who are ten years younger than me and on a total anti-American kick right now.  AUGH!”

Dawn hid a smile.  “Lise, seven year olds suck as a general rule.  And besides, it means that your grandmother’s trying to do something nice, rather than have you stuck in the middle of Nowhere, England for a week.  Graciousness to her subjects and all.”  Alicia bolted upright, outraged.

“No, it means that we have to drive five hours, from Bath to London, to watch people dressed up as cats prance around and sing.  While I try to prevent three infants from dashing off while their mad, mad MAD parents completely ignore them, as usual, pretending that they’re a young cosmopolitan couple on a night out who got stuck bringing the kids and the nanny to a show.  I’m the nanny, by the way,” she scowled.  “And then, I’ll bet MONEY that we drive back the same night!  MONEY!”  She collapsed on the bed again, groaning in anguish.

“Well, I’ll pity you as I wing it back to California,” Dawn replied sympathetically.  “Tell you what – the flight’s about five hours, so I’ll watch the worst possible movie choice.  Twice.  That way you won’t have to suffer alone.”  Alicia looked up at her, grinning.

“Hee.  What movie?”

“I don’t know the choices yet, but something like…. ‘The Patriot’.  That would cause pain.” Dawn grimaced at the thought.

“And yet, pleasure with the pain, therefore disqualifying it,” Alicia vetoed.  “It’s got Heath Ledger in it, and I’m talking about maximum distress here.  What else you got?”

Dawn thought.  “Oh – anything with Van Damme, Schwartzenegger or…” Alicia waited.  “Oh, OH!  Nicholas Cage!  Doing an accent!”

“Done!”  Alicia sat up again, visibly cheered.  “And I, in turn, shall try not to kill all three spawn.”  She looked shiftily to one side.  “…maybe just one.  They’d never miss it.”

“Evil,” Dawn chuckled, and then jumped as the phone rang.  Both girls stared at the handset on Dawn’s bed, then looked at each other.

“Sean!  Sean, Sean, Sean…”  Alicia began to warble, and Dawn frantically tried to smother her with a pillow while answering the phone. 

“Hello?”  Whoops, a little out of breath, but she still sounded pretty good.  Alicia gurgled under the pillow, and Dawn gave her a shove.

“Hey, Bit?”

“Oh, hi,” she replied absently.  “Wrong boy,” she said as an aside to Alicia, but Spike caught it easily.

“Oh, is that how it is?  Answer a bleeding message, this is the thanks…”

“NO!  No, no, sorry,” Dawn sputtered, waving a hand at a confused Alicia.  “You’re a right-boy, too, just a different sort of right-boy.”

“And in English, like the rest of the population?”  Spike’s tone was sarcastic, but Dawn could tell that he wasn’t irritated by her rude opener.  She breathed a little easier.

“In English, there’s a guy.  He might call today, and we just got a little jumpy when the phone rang.  But I DID call you, and I’m really glad you called back.”  She settled on her bed, pulling her feet up in a reverse-lotus that made Alicia wince.  “Yeah, the message - I’m sorry, but I can’t meet up tonight.  There’s this paper for a totally EVIL history professor, and he’s saying that I’ve gotten the order of the Chinese dynasties completely wrong, so I have to go and do some research at the library.”  She pouted as he sighed audibly on the other end of the line.  “I would blow it off, but it’s the last paper of the term, and the library’s only open late tonight, and it’s worth 50% of my grade, so if I don’t finish it I’ll get killed in many, many ways.”

Spike marveled at the way her vocabulary had changed.  Like any other teenager, “to be killed” once again meant “to get into trouble” and she tossed it into the conversation so casually… the young heal quick, he thought to himself.

“All right, I’ll just have to reschedule all of those terribly important and pressing engagements I’d readjusted…”

“Awwwww, SPIKE!” Dawn whined, playing the part.  She knew that he wasn’t busy, but it was nice to fall back into this banter she knew so well.  “Well, Lise and I are going to grab something to eat in town before we head to the library, you want to come?  We’ll go somewhere with fried onions, I promise.”

“Uh…” Dawn was a little surprised when he hedged.  He was usually pretty decisive…  “Yeah, fine.  But I have to pick something up at about eight o’clock, so it’d have to be quick.”

“Sure, yeah,” Dawn replied, a little hesitantly.  “UNO’s at six-thiry?”

“Sundown after seven, so you two start, I’ll just show up.  Don’t bother ordering for me.”  Spike sounded a little curt, and Dawn was afraid that she’d really upset him.

“Spike, I’m really sorry about canceling…”

“No worries, Dawn,” he answered in a gentler tone.  And then, quietly: “But we really do have to have a chat about all this, sooner or later.  It’s been a week, and there’s some… things, we have to get out in the open.”

“Sure,” Dawn creased her forehead a little.  She hadn’t meant to let it go, really, but she’d had lots of work to do, and there were here friends and Sean to spend time with before they all went home for break… Guilt panged through her.  This was obviously an important thing for Spike, and she was letting him down.  The last thing she wanted was for Spike to be disappointed in her, especially after she’d changed so much!  Spike and Sunnydale just seemed so… far away. 

“Hey, Bit?  You remember the protection-tricks the witches used to pull?”

“Uh, yeah, kinda,” she replied. 

“You’ve got a couple of those up and running at your dorm, right?”  He sounded concerned, and Dawn laughed.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Buffy helped me set up in August.  And she set up EVERYTHING.  Not that there’s anything to worry about around here,” she added, looking out the window at the pristine campus, the snow still sticking to tree branches in clumps.  No, nothing out of the ordinary ever happened here – and Dawn was getting to like it.

Spike muttered something on the other end of the phone.  “Can’t be too safe.”

“Uh, Spike?  New Hampshire.  There’s nothing to fear but cows.”  Alicia mooed at her from across the room, having only heard half of the conversation.  Dawn grinned at her.  “You’re getting scarily good at that, Lise,” she called.

“HEY!  What you trying to say?” Alicia shouted, launching a pillow at her.

“Well, don’t kill each other before tonight, right?” Spike chuckled down the line.  “Love, I’ll see you later, okay?”

“’Kay, Spike!  I promise, I’ll make the wild animal behave!” giggled Dawn, ducking a fresh volley.

“I’d like to see you try,” snarled Alicia, and all Spike could hear was screeching and laughing as he hung up the phone.

“…and I HATE ‘CATS’.  I mean, what the hell IS a “jellicle cat”?  It’s not black, not white, not a bunch of other things...” Alicia continued, digging through her pocket for the change to make up her part of the bill.  “Basically, it’s never defined.  It’s the most annoying premise for the most annoying show in the history of theatre.  And I usually LIKE theatre.”  She slid her $10.50 on the tray with Dawn’s bills and the collection of coins that made up Spike’s contribution. 

Dawn leaned against her friend, happily full, and watched Spike as he tried to follow Alicia’s train of thought.  They’d been chattering at him, rapid-fire, since he sat down half an hour before.  Sometimes they could sound like a vaudeville act, she knew, tripping over each other’s sentences and puns, barely letting others get a word in edgewise.  It had been like this since they met in September; strangers often thought they were sisters, or childhood friends.  Dawn always felt a rush when people said that.  A childhood friendship was one of many things she couldn’t claim, but Alicia made her feel like she had one.

Spike hadn’t said much of anything, between his plate of fried food and the girls’ banter.  He was grinning, though, and she could tell that he approved of the vibrant brunette sitting across from him. 

Alicia always made friends easily, Dawn had noticed.  It was just something about her, like an aura.  She wasn’t beautiful in a conventional sense, and she could never be called petite in the way Buffy and her friends all seemed to be… she was more like Dawn, the new Dawn.  Tall and rangy, more prone to cords and sneakers than miniskirts and heels. Her face was liberally freckled, giving her a mischievous appearance, and her eyes were the brightest green Dawn had ever seen without colored contacts. Lise sparkled with confidence as she chattered to Spike, gesturing easily over the remains of their dinner.  After clearing up a few of the finer points about Spike with Dawn, Alicia had clearly decided he had been given the all-clear.  The “friends of my friends are my friends” policy, as Alicia would say.

“Unfortunately, there’s no way out of it, even though I saw the show once when I was ten and honestly?  I think that’s enough suffering for one lifetime.”  Alicia tipped some ice out of her glass and sucked on it pensively.  “Hey – you must have seen it, Spike.  Don’t you agree that it’s something that should be reserved only for the torture of lawyers?”

Spike cocked his head and shrugged.  “Sorry, love, can’t remember that show.” 

Alicia nearly swallowed her ice.  “How could you possibly have missed it!  It’s been on in London for about 25 years, hasn’t it?  Plaguing audiences for a quarter of a century,” she mused, then shuddered convulsively.  “So it had to have been pretty omnipresent when you were growing up.” 

She paused.  “How old ARE you, anyway?”

“Ancient,” Spike replied, barely, through the last of his onion rings.  Ketchup oozed from a corner of his mouth and Dawn twitched a little at an unwelcome memory.

“And that would be…?” Alicia pressed, completely unaware of what she was asking.

“Oh, I think there are a couple of pyramids that have him beat, right?” Dawn interjected.  Spike growled and pointed at her.

“One of these days, little miss…”  But the ketchup was still there, and the entire sentence set Dawn a little on edge.  She grabbed a napkin and tossed it to Spike.  He looked at her questioningly.

“You got a little foodage goin’ on there, killer,” Alicia pointed to the edge of her own mouth as a guide.  Spike shot a glance at Dawn as he wiped away the red stain.  She looked at the tablecloth.  The interaction passed Alicia by completely, but even she could feel the sudden change of mood.  She cleared her throat and lifted her eyebrows, fiddling with her nails under the edge of the table.  “Well, then.”

“Indeed,” Spike sighed, then smiled quickly at the girls.  “Lovely evening, ladies, but I’ll have to be moving.”  He swung out of the booth easily, and Dawn hastened to clamber out next to him.  She reached out for his hand apologetically, and he let her take it for a moment.  Then he grimaced and began to weave through the tables away from them.

Dawn looked at Alicia dejectedly.  Somehow she’d let it all go wrong again.  She pulled at her hair in irritation, sharp tugs that made her scalp sore.  Alicia noted the gesture and slipped out of the booth. 

“We can catch him, c’mon.  Even I can feel that ended – not well,” she stated diplomatically.  Dawn looked at her.  “Move, girl!  Move!” Alicia pushed Dawn ahead of her and they ran out of the restaurant.

“Spike, wait!” Dawn was breathless as she caught up with him; he’d been walking pretty quickly, but it hadn’t been hard to pick him out in the parking lot.  His trademark pissed-off walk: head down, stiff shoulders, stalking stiff-legged across the tarmac.  He turned, exhaling loudly.

“Yes?”

“Spike, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to piss you off…” she spread her arms wide, shrugging helplessly.  “I guess I’m out of practice.”

He paced.  “It’s not your fault, Bit – but we need to talk, get stuff out and on the table.”  His eyes flickered up to Alicia, who was standing on the other side of the road, trying to be inconspicuous.  “And as much as I like Alicia, I’m thinking that she wouldn’t really appreciate the subject matter,” he said, scratching at his eyebrow significantly. 

“No, not if it’s Sunnydale stuff,” she agreed.  They both scuffed at the ground with their feet awkwardly.  “So alone, then?”

“When you like,” he shrugged. 

“Yeah,” Dawn breathed.  “Well, I have term finals all the rest of this week, but then only a few the week after,” she said more decisively, straightening up.  “And the later ones are all french and englishy-stuff, and a really easy geography quiz, more of a joke than anything; there’s not much studying I have to do for those, no formulas or anything.  I should be done with my history paper tomorrow – it’s all written, I just need to rearrange the dynasties, apparently, hence the research tonight.  But that’s not a problem.  The formulas and sciency-bits are the hard parts for me, for some reason.”  Okay - rambling, she thought, and stopped.

“Don’t want to get in the way of your studying, of course,” Spike grumbled half-heartedly. 

“But I WILL have some time over the weekend,” she wheedled, sidling over to him and tugging on his sleeve.  “And I want to meet.  I really do.  Saturday night okay?”

He slanted a smile at her, and nodded.  “Yeah, that’s fine.  I’ll find a place.”  He quirked a smile at hear.  “And am I going to get ditched for the right-boy, by any chance?”

“Hell, no!  It’s Friday or nothing for him; Saturday, I’m all yours.”  She grinned and began to back away, bouncing on the balls of her feet.  “It’s settled, then?  OH!”  She canted over sideways as she unexpectedly came up against the curb.  Spike lunged forward, but he couldn’t grab Dawn before she came down hard on the pavement.

“OW!” Dawn sucked air through her teeth, wincing.  “That HURT!” 

“Ohmigod, Dee!”  Alicia darted across the street as Spike helped Dawn sit up gingerly.  He settled her carefully on the edge of the curb, worriedly hunched over her shoulder.  Suddenly, he jolted and pulled back, and Dawn swayed a little at the sudden absence of support. 

Alicia crouched down next to her, an arm around her shoulders.  “Are you okay?” 

Dawn was leaning over to her right, scouring the angle where the curb met the tarmac.  She rooted around delicately for a couple of moments before triumphantly snatching something from the shadow.  “Ha!” she grunted, proffering a long shard of glass bottle.  It glinted wickedly, and Alicia took it from her carefully.  “I think it got me.”

“Dude, check it out now – if it’s bad, I’ll go get something from the restaurant,” Alicia promised, but she craned closer to Dawn’s leg.  “D’you think it went through your pants?”

“Yeah, feels like it.  Auuugh, new jeans and everything!  Fuck it,” Dawn winced, pulling up the denim leg.  In the glare of the parking-lot floodlights, a long gash glowed darkly against her pale skin.  She gestured behind her in Spike’s direction, too busy inspecting her leg to bother looking up.  “Don’t you dare say ANYTHING about my milky-white complexion, Spike, there’s no sun in New England – as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”  Dammit, it hurt a lot – and she hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar.  Right down her shinbone; figures.

Alicia squinted at Dawn’s leg, prodding gently with a finger.  “No, it looks bad, but it’s shallow – like one of those scrapes you get while shaving?  Bleeds like a motherfucker, but I wouldn’t worry.”  She stood halfway up and reached a hand down to Dawn.  “What Band-Aids were made for, bud.  Spike, could you throw this out?”  She held the shard of glass out expectantly, not looking.

But she got no answer.  Dawn looked behind them, realizing that they hadn’t heard from him for a while.  There was no one there, just the blinking lights of the strip mall across the main road.  Spike had vanished.

“Well, that’s nice,” Alicia said, miffed.  “I know he was in a hurry, but what the hell?”

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed, annoyed.  Thanks, then, Spike.  Her leg twinged again and she turned back around, carefully sliding her jeans leg down over the slice on her shin.  It was gushing pretty badly now.  “Lise, I think I’m going to have to get this washed out – help me to the bathrooms?”

“Duh, of course I will,” Alicia sniffed, still scouring the parking lot for a sign of Spike.  “Jeez, I still think….”

“Leave it, Lise,” Dawn said shortly, struggling to her feet.  She didn’t want to think about Spike abandoning her right now.  Alicia was immediately there, offering her arm to lean on and carefully watching the way Dawn moved on her feet. They shuffled towards the restaurant slowly, silently, and Dawn shook her head.  Life was getting complicated again.

2:00, Alicia’s clock glowed redly across the room.  Dawn turned over in her bed, her mind flitting around too frantically to sleep.  Alicia had insisted that Dawn get into bed at 12:00, first quoting her injury, then exams, and then admitting that she herself was exhausted.  In fact, Dawn estimated, Alicia’d been asleep minutes after her head hit the pillow.  But Dawn was still awake, and her 9 AM class was closer every moment.

Dawn shifted again, unable to stop an irritating sensation in her head that she was forgetting something.  Something big, her mind kept saying, something very big.  She’d been turning things over in her mind all night, from schoolwork to friendships to her calls back home, but she couldn’t pick out anything in particular.  It was the most annoying thing, watching the numbers tick by on the clock, not being able to figure out what she should be worried about.  She stared at the ceiling and exhaled powerfully.

Spike.

It was as though someone shouted his name in her head.  She sat straight up in bed as certain pieces of information suddenly clicked into sequence in her head.  Spike meeting her friends – what had he said to Alicia?  “See you again soon?”  Why?  Why did he assume he’d see her again, if he wanted to meet Dawn alone?  And why did he want to know if her dorm had been Hellmouth-ized?  “Can’t be too safe”…

She began to shake, clutching the blankets to her tight.  He wanted to meet her alone, without her friends, after not seeing her for almost two years.  He hadn’t told her where he’d been, he’d changed his appearance, he’d stated almost forcefully that he’d hurt Buffy… hurt BADLY, if she remembered rightly. 

And then there was tonight.  He’d been fine when he thought she’d only fallen down, but then he’d disappeared, just as she realized that she was bleeding.  Really bleeding.  He’d gone. On a mysterious errand that he’d apparently scheduled at the same time that they’d originally been meant to meet.  What the hell had he needed just before he saw her?  Was it something special for when he picked her up, brought her somewhere abandoned and had her alone?

Oh fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck.  “The chip.”

TBC

“And then she goes, ‘The Chip’?” Kirsten looked confused.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“No clue,” Alicia said, popping another french fry in her mouth.  “Came out of nowhere, 2 AM, no warning.”

“And she’s never talked in her sleep before?”  Sean asked, concerned.  Alicia looked at him, half-chew, and suddenly realized that Dawn could use a little loyalty here.

“Well,” she covered, “She’s never said anything before.  But you know how everyone says things in their sleep every once in a while?”  She shrugged nonchalantly.  “I have to sleep in the same room as my sisters whenever we go on vacation, and Katie once sat right up in bed, middle of the night, and accused me of stealing her duck.”

“Your sister has a duck?”  Kofi raised an eyebrow significantly.  “I thought you lived in the middle of Boston?”

“Exactly; she doesn’t have a duck, we’ve never had a duck, there is NO DUCK.  But the little weirdo wouldn’t shut up until I told her ‘okay, here’s the duck’!”  Alicia spread her hands triumphantly, as though her point was proven.

“So you gave her a duck anyhow…”  Kofi was obviously behind the learning curve on this one, and Alicia dropped her head on the dining hall table, groaning.

“No,” Sean ignored Alicia’s histrionics and tried to explain. 

“I think what she’s saying – inasmuch as I EVER understand what Lise is talking about,” and he yelped as Alicia kicked him under the table without lifting her head.  “Ow - is that the duck wasn’t the thing that mattered.  Sometimes people just say whacked-out stuff in their sleep; it has nothing to do with their lives.  Right?”  He looked at Alicia, pointedly rubbing his shin.

“Yeah, exactly.”  Alicia sighed and propped her chin up on her folded arms.  “I mean, what could ‘The Chip” mean?”

“Maybe she’s got a huge gambling debt we don’t know about in Vegas because she lost a thousand-dollar chip,” suggested Kirsten.  “She had to move from California because the casino’s got goons on her tail and now she’s masquerading as a student.  She’s really 25 and has an ex-con husband.”

“Or maybe she meant ‘CHiPS’,” Brian offered.  “You know, she’s got a secret lust for Erik Estrada and calls his name out in the middle of the ni….” He stopped, looking queasy.  “No, that can’t be it, I’ve just grossed myself out.”

“Chip, like ‘Chip’n’Dale’?” Kofi ventured.

Sean choked on his soda.  “The Chippendales?  I don’t think she’s that kind of girl, Kofi.”

Kofi rolled his eyes at Sean.  “Chip.  And.  Dale.  You know, the cartoon chipmunks?  The one with the red nose who’s always idiotic?  Chippendales, heh – where the heck is YOUR mind?”  He looked askance at Sean. “Then again, Dawn having a thing for a big, dumb animal?  Maybe you’re onto something.”

“Hunh?” 

“Ahem?” Kirsten elbowed Kofi significantly, and he dropped the subject.  “Besides, that’s Dale with the red nose - Chip’s the really irritable one.  If you’re gonna insult him, at least get it right.”

“How ‘bout this.”  Christopher leaned forward.  “Maybe she’s got a secret government chip that’s been implanted in her brain, and one day she’ll go all ‘Alias’-assassin-spy on us.”  He grinned.  “That’d be pretty cool, actually.”

“Or,” Alicia announced, rejoining the conversation, “Maybe she was having a totally mundane dream about baking cookies and she suddenly realized that she’d forgotten to add the dream-chips.”  She fidgeted a little.  “Besides, I don’t think she’s feeling too well.  She got up at around 3 AM to finish writing her paper, and when I left this morning at eleven, she asked me to hand it in for her ‘cause she was going to stay home and rest.”  She frowned at her sandwich.  “I hope she’s all right.”

“Did she look sick?”  Kirsten asked.

“No, just a little pale – I don’t think she really slept that well.  I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with the scrape she got last night, like it got infected or anything.”  Alicia sighed, playing with her straw wrapper.  She crumpled it up and tossed it on her tray in irritation.  “I’m not going to be back until late tonight, too – I’ve got play rehearsal until about ten.”

Sean swallowed hurriedly.  “D’you think she’d mind if I checked on her?”  He looked anxiously at Alicia, and she smiled at him.  “I mean, I could knock on her door when I get back from lecture, maybe bring her a sandwich or something.”

Kirsten winked at Alicia across the table, and Alicia held back a laugh.  “Yeah, she’d probably be fine with it.”  Sean nodded a little nervously.  “You can tell her that I asked you to, if you want,” she added, and he quirked a smile at her, relieved. 

Brian looked at his watch and groaned.  “All right, gang, back to the salt mines!” he announced.  He pointed at Kirsten and Alicia.  “And you two, you’re walking into trig with me.  There is no way in hell that I’m getting stuck partnered with Marcus the Mathematician again – I barely finish the first problem set and find out he’s already gone and solved cold fusion.”  He picked up his tray and strode off, the two girls tagging along behind him. 

“So,” Sean turned to Christopher, “Should I bring Dawn ginger ale?  I think that’s good for sick people…”

Christopher covered his eyes with his hand, laughing.  “Dude, you are SO WHIPPED.  And you haven’t even gone on a date yet!”  He put his head down on the table, chuckling madly.

“Not yet,” Sean said under his breath.  But he was grinning.

After Alicia left, Dawn had stared at the phone for hours, wondering what to do.  Curled up on her bed in the fetal position, she felt herself zone out, then suddenly snap back into panicky focus again and again.  The urge to call Buffy was so strong, so familiar, she found herself reaching for the phone a couple of times unconsciously.  Then she would grab her hand back as though the phone had burned her; there was no way to ask Buffy about this one, no time.  Besides, Buffy had worked so hard to send her here, had FOUGHT to make this chance possible – it would be unfair to drag her back into all of that weirdness. 

No, Dawn told herself, this is a different battle.  My battle.

The first thing she did was call information, trying to get an address on Spike’s number.  She was pretty surprised to find that Directory Inquiries didn’t hand addresses out, only phone numbers.  Hmmmm.  She tried the internet a couple of times, too, but no luck.  Finally, she decided to come back to the problem later.  As a last resort, she put the number on her Away Message.

“Know which area this number is in?  CALL ME.” Dawn read it back to herself and snorted.  Like a needle in a haystack.  She turned off the monitor so it wouldn’t distract her and moved on to the next step.

She looked out the window.  Sunny afternoon, if cold.  The snow had melted a bit overnight, and someone had been plowing all of the paths.  She half-smiled to herself.  It was pretty out.  She took one last look, then pulled the blinds all the way down, darkening the room completely.

Dawn switched on the overhead lamp and locked the door, then turned to the mirror.  The light was dim, two of the bulbs having burned out without being replaced and the third valiantly illuminating as much as it could.  Just enough light to see the state she was in.  She hadn’t changed out of the tank top and sweats she slept in, and her hair hung around her face in a tangled cascade.  Right, she thought, picking up a brush. 

With long, hard strokes she soon had her hair sleek and smooth, and expertly bound it up in an elastic band at the nape of her neck.  A few well-placed bobby pins secured any of the shorter chunks.  She pulled a length of black leather, borrowed illegally from Buffy, out of her jewelry box.  She wrapped it securely around the ponytail, tying it off in a series of square knots.  That done, she took a deep breath before pulling off her tank top and sliding her sweats off her legs.

The fuzzy inside of the sweats didn’t part with her right shin easily, having attached itself to the Band-Aids over the past few hours.  Dawn ignored the snagging material and pulled harder, taking most of the bandages off with the pants.  She bent down to examine the cut; true to Alicia’s word, it was shallow, but long.  Dawn peeled back the rest of the Band-Aids to discover the gash had completely scabbed over, thanks to all of the first aid cream Alicia had slathered on it.  She tipped some water from her Poland Springs bottle onto a tissue and gently washed off the extra blood.  When she was done, she tested her weight on the injured leg. 

A little numb, maybe, but it would do.  The wound wasn’t threatening to split, either, which was always good news.  She rubbed more cream into it, and turned to the mirror.

The scars stared back at her.  No matter how many times she got injured, nothing was as shocking as those thin lines that danced around her torso.  They never overlapped, and were all so uniform, so precise.  She turned a little to one side; as thin as she was, she would never be able to wear a bikini on the beach.  The scars were just too weird to be accidents. 

She’d tried a bikini on, once, while shopping with Janice.  She hadn’t even been able to leave the changing room.  Under the fluorescent lights the silvery lines had practically glowed, and Dawn had suddenly been reminded of gills.  That’s exactly what they looked like: gills.  Sloping up from her center, almost parallel with the ribs just below the skin.  She traced her fingers over them gently.  One day, she’d find someone who she could tell all of this to, all of the crap that clogged up her life and the lives of her friends.  And with him, she could wear a bikini and show him her scars and they’d both laugh about how she looked like a new-age mermaid.

She sighed.  Enough of that. 

She quickly changed into new underwear, picked out a sports bra.  The next choices should have been more complicated, but Dawn unerringly grabbed a pair of olive cargo pants, a close-fitting black t-shirt, and a black turtleneck fleece.  She laid them out on the bed carefully, considering them.  She’d been waiting for this, she realized.  Maybe not this occasion exactly, but something like it.  Since September, she’d always known that this would be the outfit to choose.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d seen herself going out into the night in these clothes.  Dawn shook her head.  Never went away, really, did it?  Even if you thought you’d forgotten… she shut her eyes tightly.  Enough.

She pulled on the t-shirt, carefully avoiding her hair, and smoothed it down over her scarred ribs.  The cargo pants fit snugly at her waist; she gave them a few experimental tugs, but the waistband didn’t threaten to go past her hipbones.  Thank god for hips, she thought to herself.  Hipster jeans were well and good, but to have them slide right off at a crucial moment?  Not so thrilling.

The black fleece was a relatively new acquisition.  Alicia’s cousin, Felicity, had driven over from the University of Vermont one weekend and they’d gone on a huge shopping trip at the outlet malls.  This North Face fleece had called to her immediately, with its tailored lines and pockets hidden everywhere.  Alicia and Flick had tried to convince her to buy a yellow or red version, but now, with the zipper pulled right up to her neck, Dawn knew that she had made the right choice.  The black thermal material fit like a second skin, hugging even the column of her neck close.  She held her own gaze in the mirror.  With her hair tied back so severely, the oval of her face hovering just above a sea of black, she looked a little bit deadly.  She lifted her head higher, pulled her facial muscles into an impassive mask.  Impassive and deadly.

The phone shrilled, making her jump.  Heart thumping, she picked up the handset and steadied her breathing.  “Hello?”

“Hey, Dawn?”  A chirpy, french-accented voice echoed down the line.

“Yeah?  Jean-Paul?”  She slumped against her bedpost, relief making her a little shaky.  “What’s up?”

“You’re not answering your IM.”

“Oh, yeah.”  She looked at the monitor.  “Sorry, JP, I turned off the monitor.  I, uh,” she thought quickly, “I was taking a nap.”

“Ah, sorry!  Do you want to call me back later, then?  I didn’t know…” he stopped. “Hey, it’s 5:00.  You feeling okay?”

“No, I’m just a little tired, it’s fine,” Dawn sighed, rubbing her eyes.  That much was true, at least.  “Go ahead, what did I miss on IM?”

“That phone number?”  Dawn rocketed to her feet, clutching the phone.

“You know it?” she asked, amazed.

“Unfortunately, I have to admit I do,” JP replied ruefully.  Dawn heard a quiet beeping from his end of the line.  A cell phone, maybe?  “You know that often I stay here for summer term, yes?”

“Yes - I mean, I do know that.”  Dawn paced, waiting.

“Well, that means a lot of hanging around in town, and it gets hot, and we all get bored...”

Dawn interrupted.  “But the number?”

“Yeah, well, I have it stored on my mobile, cell, whatever you want to call the phone that you carry around with you.  It’s the ice cream stand off of the highway, that big long one that makes those huge ice cream sundaes that no one can eat?”

Dawn thought quickly.  “Bruckert’s?”

“Yeah!  That’s it… they have weird hours, we sometimes call before going out there; otherwise, it’s a long trip back on the bus.  Takes about half an hour to get out there from campus.”  JP seemed to realize that he was wandering and came back to the topic.  “But Dawn, it opens in late May, early June, something of that sort.  So don’t bother ringing now, it’ll just be a machine.”

“No, no – I won’t,” Dawn replied absently.  “I won’t.  Thanks, JP.”

“Why did you need it anyway?” he asked curiously.

Dawn laughed a little.  “I just found the number on a piece of paper, was wondering if it was important.”

“Ah, okay.  Well, I have to get to rehearsal.  Is Alicia coming tonight?”

“What?”  Oh, oh, play rehearsal, of course!  “Yeah, she should be there.”

“Should I tell her that you are unwell?”

“No!  No, tell her I’m feeling much better,” she scrambled, “…after that nap.  I’ll talk to her later; tell her I might be out for a bit.”

“Okay, then!  Have a good night!”

“Thanks, JP, you too.  And thanks for the number!”  Dawn hung up the phone and looked at the clock blankly.  Five in the afternoon, and she had to get over to Bruckert’s.  She’d have to get out the door by 5:30 to even have a prayer of getting there in time.  She tossed the phone on her bed and strode over to her closet.

She reached in and rummaged around in the back of the cabinet, finally pulling out a pair of Doc Marten boots.  She yanked them on quickly, giving sharp tugs to the laces as she bound them up.  Satisfied, she knelt in front of the closet again and rooted deeper.  Out from the back she dragged a small wheeled suitcase, one of the ones her mother had always called the “air stewardess” suitcases, even long after they’d become widely popular.  She hauled it across the room and tossed it on Alicia’s unmade bed.  Taking a deep breath, she unzipped the top and laid it open.

A plain cardboard box fit snugly inside the luggage, marked with Dawn’s address in bold block letters.  The return address was smaller, but as Dawn pulled the container out and set it on her bed, the familiar logo looked up at her.

“Magic Box,” she sighed to herself.  And hidden in the back of the closet for a damn good reason, she thought.  But was she glad to have it now… She untucked the cardboard corners and folded back the edges of the box to reveal a mass of contraband that the school would confiscate in a moment, if they only knew she had it.

She reached in first for the jewelry.  A tiny silver cross, a near-duplicate of Buffy’s, given to her by Xander the summer she started training with them.  She held it up to the artificial light, tilting it to watch the delicate filigree glint. 

“Looks pretty straightforward, but up close it’s a complicated little sucker,” he had told her, fastening the clasp as she lifted the curtain of her hair out of his way.  “Reminded me of you.”  She’d worn it constantly until September, when she’d tucked it away in its little velvet box, to be hidden away.  She hadn’t wanted to be complicated any more.

Next came a charm bracelet.  That one had been her own idea, though the clerk looked at her strangely when she requested twelve crucifix charms, each of a slightly different design.  He’d explained that they’d take a while to be special-ordered.  She told him that she’d always wanted to be a nun.  The sale had been completed in record time.

She bypassed the other jewelry; she’d bought dangly cross earrings on a whim one day, thinking that they’d be a good strategy to deter bites, but a couple of days later Buffy had come back from patrol with her ear ripped and bleeding.  Apparently a demon’s claw had gotten caught on her huge hooped earring and torn it right out.  Dawn shivered.  Slayers heal quickly; sisters-of-Slayers don’t.  The earrings had gone unworn for the past year.

Next, a couple of stakes shoved in cargo pockets, one strung through the belt-loops at the small of her back.  An especially long, thin stake she slid up her left sleeve, through a hole she’d ripped between the lining and outer layers of the fleece.  She pulled it out experimentally a few times, testing the edges, but no splinters caught or snagged.  Satisfied, she went back to her stash.  She’d converted two tester perfume bottles into holy-water atomizers, and she slipped them into the pockets of her fleece.  Couldn’t hurt to try.

And one more thing.  Dawn gingerly dug to the bottom of the box, displacing all sorts of paraphernalia, until she found what she was looking for.  A tiny leather holster, with a long, sleek tube fitted inside.  She pulled the switchblade out of its holder, snapping it open and waving it about a couple of times.  A last resort, but she felt better with it; she knelt and bound the entire apparatus to her calf.  Right calf, unfortunately, but she still tugged the straps tight across her shin.  She pulled her pant leg over her switchblade and boot, straightened up, and looked at the clock.  Five twenty.  Just enough time, she thought.

She’d watched Buffy get ready for patrol for long enough to notice one thing: her sister never, ever went out without makeup.  Dawn’s friends didn’t wear much makeup in New Hampshire, but she made the most of what she had.  A little blush, some tinted lip gloss – hey, better than the usual ChapStick, she mused – and some eye makeup.  She glanced at herself in the mirror again.  Interesting.  She looked frighteningly normal, for what she was preparing to do.

She picked up her Poland Springs squirt bottle and quickly drained it, shaking out the last drops with unsteady hands.  A brief visit to the campus chapel should do the trick, she thought.  The basin just inside the doors would be more than adequate for her purposes, and Father Howard would be in the faculty dining room until six.  She exhaled a couple of times, steadying her nerves.  She felt horribly under-prepared, going out with only a squirt bottle in her hands, but this wasn’t home.  People would ask questions if they saw a girl on the street with a battle axe.  She’d have to go as she was.  Right.  She nodded decisively at her reflection, shut off the dim light and opened the door. 

She jumped back immediately, her hand flying to her cargo pocket as the backlit figure in the doorway paused, fist upraised.  She squinted, her eyes adjusting to the light, half-crouched and waiting.

“Dawn?”  Sean gasped, his hand falling to his side.  He stepped back as well, and Dawn realized that he’d been about to knock when she’d come bursting out of the doorway.  He was also clutching something to his chest, she noticed.  She was suddenly aware of her posture and straightened up, casually slipping her hand out of her pocket.

“Oh my god, Sean!  You startled me!” she said weakly, backing up some more.  The box.  She’d forgotten about the box.  She smiled at him as she quickly folded it back up, zipped it back into the rolling suitcase and slid the entire thing under her bed.  He ventured into the room hesitantly, too busy scrutinizing her to notice her actions. 

“Sorry.  I, uh, thought you were sick,” he said feebly, holding out a slightly-crushed grilled cheese and a bottle of ginger ale.  “Alicia said that it might be okay if I checked up on you,” he quickly added, blushing a little.

“Oh, I was – sick, that is – I feel a lot better now, though.  Twenty-four hour bug in half the time or something.”  Dawn bit back a grin.  He was adorable, trying to be cool… but the clock already read 5:35, and she was running out of time.  She stepped forward and took the proffered food, smiling shyly.

“That was so sweet of you – can I eat it when I get back?  I was just about to take off, there’s this thing I have to do…” she trailed off, looking at him regretfully.  Of all the nights for him to make a move.  Seriously.

“Yeah – I mean, the grilled cheese might not do so well in the fridge, but…” Sean’s brow wrinkled as he watched Dawn stow the food in the fridge under her bed, but gamely went on.  “Actually, I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”  Dawn grabbed her keys and a ten-dollar bill off her bureau and stepped out of the door.  Sean followed her out and she pulled the door shut behind them.

“I know the Empire’s only showing old musicals right now, but there’s this other theatre over in Concord – it has all of these art house movies that wouldn’t really get to the multiplex.  Not because they’re dirty or anything,” he added hastily, “They’re just a little out of the mainstream.”  He straightened up, grinning nervously.  “You want to go sometime?  Together?”

“Sure!”  Dawn bubbled.  She giggled up at him, and he exhaled, looking very relieved.

“Excellent!  You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve wanted to ask, but with everyone there…” He reached a hand forward, and Dawn suddenly remembered the stake up her sleeve.  She darted sideways, and Sean pulled his arm back abruptly and shoved his hands in his pockets.  Back to secrets again, she thought ruefully, then scrambled to make up the damage.

“No, no way I’m giving you this bug, not if you’re going to take me out this weekend!” she said apologetically, backing further down the hallway.  “But I should be okay by… Friday good with you?”

“Yeah!  Friday’s great!”  Sean beamed at her, a little confused, but happy.  Dawn gave him a final wave before breaking into a run down the hallway and disappearing into the stairwell.

“Strange girl,” Sean muttered to himself, turning and strolling back to his room.  A brilliant smile lit up his face.  “But MY strange girl.”

TBC