Part 4:

The next morning, Dawn is late coming home from Amelia’s after she promised Buffy that she would be home by 7:00 am.

“You’ll never make the first bell now,” Buffy warns as she follows her sister through the kitchen.

“I’ve already showered and everything. I just came in to get my lunch.” She reaches in the fridge to grab an apple.

“That’s all you’re going to have?”

“I don’t have time to make a sandwich.”

“I could make you one really quickly.”

“Forget it. I’ll pick something else up in the cafeteria.”

“Then you’ll need money.”

“Got some in my backpack.”

Spike shuffles drowsily into the kitchen then, one eye open, scratching his head. His black tee shirt has been hastily thrown on and his jeans are zipped but unsnapped. He yawns and stretches, trying to focus.

“Morning,” he says hoarsely.

Dawn looks at him for a brief second before turning her head, stuffing the apple into the front pocket of her backpack. “Well, I’m outta here so you two can start the ‘Can-Fuck-Me Derby.’ Looks like Spike is already at the gate.”

“Dawn! You’re…you’re GROUNDED!” Buffy yells.

Dawn’s mouth expands to the size of a serving platter. “What!”

“I said, you’re grounded! If you’re going to talk like that, you shouldn’t be allowed out of the house.”

“You can’t ground me!”

“Sorry. I’ve got the guardianship, the money paying the rent for the roof over you head and your allowance. So, that makes me pretty grounding-worthy.”

Usually Dawn would turn to Spike in a case like this and she has to force herself not to.

“But…but…”

“Dawn, don’t argue with me. You come straight home from school. And no library tonight.”

Dawn fluffs out her cheeks, looking at once as though she’s about to say something and explode. Finally, she turns and bounds out of the kitchen. Upon leaving, she slams the door.

Spike is laughing as he leans against the doorframe. “‘Can-fuck-me-Derby.’ That’s brilliant.”

“No! Not brilliant! Disturbing. You know what Mom would do if she heard her using language like that?”

“Exactly what you did, pet.”

Buffy sighs. “Dawn wouldn’t even be saying things like that if Mom were alive.” “Darling, she’s angry right now. It’ll pass.”

“Yeah,” she glowers as she folds her arms. “Like a kidney stone.”

That afternoon, Dawn returns from school later than usual. Spike is alone, still smarting from the injury he received last night, so he’s crashed out on the sofa watching Judge Judy.

She expects to see him there. But when he rises from the sofa she instinctively hugs her backpack to her as her eyes deaden to a leveling glare.

“Hello, Nibblet,” he offers softly, muting the TV.

She says nothing and heads straight for her room, slamming the door behind her. It seems this is going to be his running commentary. And though it hurts Spike that his little confident and former partner in petite crimes isn’t speaking to him, he’s not going to let it bother him. He’s too accustomed to this behavior from Summers women and he knows that every time they slam a door on him, they’re secretly begging for him to come in.

But he hopes the invite will come soon. It’s lonely on the other side of the door.

Two days into the grounding, Buffy realizes that she has put more of a restriction on herself than she has on Dawn. And her little sister knows it.

Buffy and Spike are sitting at the kitchen table late one night. The TV is blaring in the den and it’s been bothering Buffy for an hour. Her entreaties for Dawn to turn it down have gone unheeded.

“Dawn! One more time. Turn that noise down or I’m coming in there!” Buffy bellows from the kitchen.

The decibels are reduced somewhat, but not to any level that Buffy would call listenable.

Buffy lets out a rush of heated air and tries to settle back into what she’s working on.

“The Blandrratta from Southeast Asia,” Spike says.

“Oh, yeah. That guy.”

“You were a bit slow on your response the other night to the streaming mucus he sicks up. And believe me, you don’t want that goop gettin’ anywhere near you. Causes nasty burns that go right to the bone.”

“But I killed him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, pet, but you had to use two weapons, one I had to throw to you.”

“I know I should have used the axe first, I know. You told me. But when I did get him with the axe…you have to admit that was pretty cool when he broke open like an egg.”

“It was inspiring, love. But I’d like to see you not rely on your weapons so much. You’ve got the strength in your arms and in your hands to take on any demon that worms his way into Sunnydale. Now take what I did with the Ger’acht the other night,” he positions his hands, about to demonstrate when the TV suddenly blares again. His mouth goes to one side.

“Dawn! You’re busting eardrums again!” Buffy warns.

“You think I want to listen to all that disgusting stuff about demons and mucus?” she calls back.

“Then go to your room!”

“But I’m watching this. It’s the last episode of the Real World.”

“I can tell you what happens, Dawn. The seven strangers tell each other they’ll keep in touch, they go their separate ways, and they never see each other again. Now either turn it down or turn it off!”

It doesn’t stop.

“Sweetheart, she’s just trying to get a rise out of you,” Spike counsels. “Just let it go.”

“She’s going to get more than a rise out of me in a second.”

“What I was saying. About the Ger’acht demon. You’ve got to get him into a vulnerable spot—

The volume slips up a little.

“—get him on the ground. I’ve seen you handle a troll hammer. A giant his size shouldn’t throw you. So you get behind him---

And still the volume climbs.

“You place two hands on either side of his head---

The volume is now all the way up.

“And you SNAP!”

Buffy springs to her feet, off and running to the den. The volume is adjusted to a mere whisper. And she returns triumphantly with the remote control. She sits down in a huff, shoving the remote under one of the books on the table.

She smiles brightly. “I’ve snapped a demon’s neck before. You don’t have to give me pointers on that.”

A smile creeps across his face as well, as he glances over at the den, seeing Dawn slumped in defeat on the sofa, her arms crossed, her brow lowered against her dark-eyed glare. These little battles always amuse him. While sparring, the two sisters are so adorable he could hug them silly.

“I could have taken that Gerack demon,” she says petulantly. “In three easy moves.”

“No, no. Ger’acht.”

“Ger-OTT,” she bites out.

“It’s acht. Like acht tung.”

“It doesn’t matter that I can’t pronounce ‘em. As long as I can kill ‘em.”

“I don’t know, Slayer. Some demons are a bit peevish about their names.”

“Are they…William?” she coos sweetly.

“Hey! What did I do to deserve that?”

“Nothing, William. Nothing at all,” she says in a sing-songy voice.

“You know I don’t like that…” he says “Buffy Anne…little Buffy Anne. What a cute name for a little sprite such as you…” He tickles her playfully under her chin.

“Stop!” she says, really asking for more as she clamps her chin down on his wiggling fingers.

“How did widdle Buffy Anne grow up to be Big Bad’s widdle honey bun?”

“I don’t know. Just one of the hazards of the job, I guess.”

Dawn is paralyzed with horror on the sofa, watching the two loves birds carry on. Sometimes it’s just too much to take. She’s only glad that they usually restrict these shows of pukey affection to the times when they’re semi-alone. This was the kind of human right’s abuse Amnesty International should know about.

As she’s watching them, Spike takes a wayward strand of Buffy’s blond hair and removes it from her face. She reaches to touch his face and Dawn knows that this is usually the wind up for a kiss. But they just keep staring at each other, still touching each other, still with those simple smiles on their faces. They both seem to become simultaneously aware that a silence has descended on the apartment and that they are being watched. Dawn switches her gaze to the TV, watching a Real World roomie lug an oversized duffle bag down a staircase, signaling that his life in a goldfish bowl is about to end.

Spike’s lips travel lightly over Buffy’s brow as he whispers, “We were talking about demons.”

“I thought we were talking about us,” she says back.

“Same difference, love.”

She chuckles a little as she feels him nuzzling her cheek. At just that simple touch, she’s excited enough to grab him and impale herself on him right there at the table. But Dawn is watching from the other room, and listening more intently now that the sound has been turned way down.

“We may have to bend the rules a little now that she’s grounded,” Buffy says sharply into her ear.

Spike raises an eyebrow. “Can you be quiet?”

“Never. With you.”

“Then we had better get back to demons…” he licks the shell of her ear, at last taking a nip at the tasty lobe that dangles ring-free. “…before the cock crows.”

Her face feels flushed, so she knows she has to pull away. The area between her legs is throbbing so much she can almost detect movement beneath her two-toned denim hip huggers. He shoves a book in front of her, resuming his instructor stance and moves his chair away.

“There,” he says, pointing to a picture of a particularly hairy demon on page 65. “Seen one of those before?”

Her mouth flies open in mock recognition. “Cousin Craig!”

“Now you just want to be silly. I’m trying to be show you ways to prolong your Slayer existence beyond the score and five years you got and you’re wanting to be the giggly school girl.”

“I got it bad, I got it bad, I got it bad…I’m hot for teacher,” she sings.

“Slayer, please. Focus. Now.”

“All right,” she concedes bashfully, looking at the picture again. She takes a breath. “Haldron demon.”

He narrows his eyes. “You’re certain?”

She takes another look. “Yeah. That’s a Haldron all right.” She shivers a little. “I remember that hair. It was like hacking away at a shag carpet that moved and smelled like cedar.”

“And how do you kill it?”

“Well, that time I used---

“Na ah ah! How do you kill it now?”

She rolls her eyes and smiles. “I’ll snap its neck.”

“Good girl. But dismemberment and strangulation would have been acceptable answers as well.”

Dawn is watching them again, while absent-mindedly switching channels, not able to settle on one particular thing. Finally, towards the upper end of the channel scale, she glimpses the sight of an exposed female breast and wonders if Spike has ordered the porn channel without anyone knowing about it. She leans into the TV, turning the sound down for once using the button at the bottom of the console.

“In arousal,” the announcer says, “the female nipple becomes quite hard. The flesh of the breast becomes firmer. Her genitalia swells, becoming engorged with blood. The inside of her vagina becomes slick with moisture, in anticipation of the sex act. There will become a point at which the female desires penetration, but often that is not enough to bring about her release. Often times, other means of stimulation must be utilized. Which brings us to the clitoris, the sometimes elusive band of nerves at the opening of the vagina which is particularly sensitive during arousal. It is the counterpart to the male penis, but miniscule in comparison. The clitoris can be stimulated during penetration if the penis is slanted against it; otherwise it can be stroked by the tongue or by the finger to achieve the pressure that builds and builds, bringing about the female orgasm.”

Dawn snaps off the TV and sits there in the darkness for a minute, hugging her knees to her chest. There is a memory forming in her mind, one that she has been trying to annihilate since the time it became an aural play in her mind. Listening from the other side of her sister’s bedroom, hearing Buffy moan…the bed squeaking, the headboard slamming against the wall…Spike grunting, growling, hissing…Dawn knew what they were doing. She knew how they were doing it. The picture came alive in her mind, formed by the sounds. Naked flesh, skin on skin, exposed parts…her sister’s nipples hardening…(she didn’t want to think of that!) and the suckling noises Spike made as he tasted them (Oh, God, she didn’t want to think of that!). That picture. She couldn’t destroy the negative. She saw it over and over again. She saw Spike’s hands all over her sister, she saw her sister’s hands on him. And she saw her own hand go somewhere else, saw it and didn’t feel it until it got there. And she found that elusive little band of nerves, all her own. And she sang along.

Embarrassed even now, she gets up and runs down the hall to her bedroom. Once in her room, she slams down on the bed, shoving a stuffed animal out of the way, so tired of being the little girl. She had her period years ago. She kissed her first boy even before that (she never told Buffy that, but she did tell Spike just because he was teasing her one day). And she had her first “release” that time in the night when the couple who used to quarrel and come to blows coupled and blew away the night with each other’s sighs.

It is time again.

She lies down across her bed in the darkness, hearing nothing from the couple but the occasional, “No, you can’t fight it that way. You have to use strangulation or--- and Buffy interrupts always, “By snapping its neck.” It’s a constant refrain. Spike wants her to snap the demon’s neck. He always wants her to snap the demon’s neck. If she uses a weapon, she’s weak. She has to snap the demon’s neck, snap it so that it lies lifeless beneath her. She can only do this when he is watching. He has to be watching her because if he isn’t watching then she may get killed before his eyes. Before his eyes. Before their eyes. Before her eyes. She saw them before her eyes, even though they were in the next room. Behind the wall, before their eyes saw her as something else beyond the girl, the girl was growing and the girl was…

Coming.

She lies down, panting, hating herself all again, but feeling as though she has just opened a valve that has emptied everything that has made her mad and wandering. She hears the couple laughing and the sounds of chair legs being scraped against cheap linoleum. She turns over on her side, hugging her pillow close, waiting for them to bring on the night, and the assurance that she won’t hear that headboard pound against the wall ever again. Dawn must not know and Dawn must not hear. But Dawn does know and she hears. And she sees. Even when she closes her eyes against what night brings her, she sees.

And she picks up the stuffed toy and hugs it close, drifting off to sleep.

The next day, Dawn is coming into the apartment when she hears sounds signaling that her two housemates have forgotten she was coming home early on Friday.

She is already in the den when she hears grunts and groans coming through the open door of Buffy’s bedroom. She thinks about turning right around and fleeing, but then she hears something different; the sound of breaking glass. Her heart stills; Oh, my God…they’re fighting.

She runs to the bedroom door to find Spike helping Buffy off the floor which is covered in a tapestry of glittering glass. The frame of her mirror hangs empty.

“Oh, God, love. Are you all right?” Spike says tenderly.

She chuckles a little. “Mom always said don’t pretend fight in the house.”

“I didn’t mean to throw you like that.”

“Well, that’s where you and I differ, I guess.” Her hand still clamped in his, in one swift move, she lifts his black-clad form from the ground and flings him onto the floor. Dazed, he lifts his head as she straddles his chest. “What was that about me being a little slow on the uptake?”

“Obviously said a little out of context,” he says. “But not quite wrong.” Pressing his hands to her shoulders, he pushes her off until she does a backward roll onto the floor. Springing to his feet, he dances like a bantam weight, waiting for her to stand again. On her feet, she presents him with an undercut that he laughs off, returning a jab to her jaw.

“Hey! I thought we said no facial bruising!” she protests.

“You started it!”

One leg leaves the ground and connects with his side. Spike’s eyes bug out of his head as pain causes him to convulse and squat down on the floor.

Buffy’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh, my God! Spike! Your side! I forgot…”

He waves one hand as if to say, “It’s nothing.” But his face is losing the precious little color it has.

“Here, Spike. Can you stand?”

“Not right now. Give us a second,” he breathes.

“Let me see it. Is it bleeding again?”

“I don’t think so.”

She lifts his tee shirt. No, there’s no new blood, but it still looks angry. “Maybe I should bandage it up again.”

“It’s fine, Buffy, really. Just let me lie here for a while.”

“Aw, sweetheart,” she sits of the ground, gathering his prone form into her lap. Gently, she begins to stroke his hair as waves of pain continue to cascade down Spike’s stricken face. She bends to kiss him. “Maybe we should restrict the training to the training room and use the bedroom for…you know…other things.”

“I don’t like the training room. Giles is always hanging about. And when the training gets serious, I can almost hear him saying to himself, ‘Just stake him and get it over with.’”

“You’ve been training me hard lately, Spike.”

“You need training, love. Round the clock. I’m only doing it because the thought of you being unprepared for a situation terrifies me.”

“Do you think I’m slipping or something?”

“No. I think you’re fighting better than ever. Says the man on the ground, smarting from a Slayer kick.” He looks up at her searchingly, touching her face. “I don’t want you to lose. Ever.”

“Well, I don’t want that either.”

“When you go out on patrol each night, part of me want to run to the cemetery before you and nuke the place so you don’t have to face any of those beasts.”

“You can’t do that, you know. First of all, you don’t have any nuclear weapons and secondly, those Perpetual Care people would be really pissed off if you destroyed their cemetery.”

“I know I can’t do that. I can’t fight your battles for you, love. That’s your sacred birthright, not mine. But darling…” she is kissing the tips of his fingers, a gesture which is bringing a light mist to his eyes as he speaks to her. “Just don’t ever lose. If I lost you…”

“I can’t promise something like that.”

“Then promise me that you’ll always rely on me to help you, then.”

She smiles, kissing him lightly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be slaying until I’m 85 and putting runs in my support hose with every kick. And you’ll be my studly younger lover, holding off the baddies while I search for my dentures.”

“Now, that’s how I like to hear you talk, Slayer. Except for the part about the dentures. You take better care of your teeth than anyone I know. Floss, rinse, brush, waterpik…”

“The better to nibble you with, my dear,” she says, descending on his face and biting his upper lip playfully.

He whips a hand around the back of her head and brings her face closer to his. Their lips close tightly over each other’s mouths. It is usually at the sight of their tongues slicing against each other that Dawn turns her face but today she sees something else and she is caught completely off guard. Maybe she has seen it before but has viewed it disguised as something else. Lust, obsession, or the insatiable greed of early affection. Today before her is a display of the triumph over the unattainable. In each deep kiss she sees the couple take a separate plunge and emerge together, whole. She sees also, in the twisting of hands in hair, the clutch of desperate need, of holding on, of fear of loss. Whatever has brought these two warring hearts together is causing their perfect closeness, an enviable match of twin Cupids who found their idealized Psyches in each other. And is a brittle, ethereal bond that could break like a web with the careless opening of the door or the stroke of a finger, but it is just as durable, and just as wondrous that creatures such as these could have built something so perfect.

Dawn turns away, walking slowly to the kitchen. As she moves away from the pair, she hears Spike say, “I love you so much. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I won’t. And I love you too,” Buffy returns. “But we’d better stop. Dawn will be home soon.”

“Yeah. Day five of the Nibblet/Spike stand-off.”

“Oh, honey. Eventually she’ll talk to you. We had a fight when I was seventeen and she swore she’d never talk to me again and it was three weeks before she did. She’s stubborn, that’s all.”

She remembers that day. And she also remembers what brought about the resolution. Her mother, coming to her on an otherwise bright day threatened by rain. She remembers her mother’s halo of blonde hair and the worried concern on her face as she took Dawn’s hand and explained to her, slowly, and in words that were delivered as sympathetically as possible, “Your sister is special. She is the chosen one. And I can’t exactly tell you what it means, but I do know that it makes her life a little harder than most teen girls’.” Dawn had been handed that rhetoric in various forms over her childhood and it always seemed like favoritism to her. But this day, she remembers that her mother’s eyes filled with tears that she didn’t try to hide and she uttered these words with downcast eyes as the tears spilled over onto Dawn’s Barbie duvet. “Her life may be short, Dawnie. She may not live to be…old. She may not even live to be twenty-five. So you have to love her now, Dawn. Because she may not be here for us to touch and love for as long as we want her to be.”

The minute she was called, Buffy began dying.

It scared Dawn to death to think about her sister being anywhere else but where she was, in the next room, in the next neighborhood, in the library with her friends. She thought about life without her and couldn’t. Because in all her imagined happiness of the future, Buffy was always right there. She projected her first date…how jealous Buffy would be that her date was so much better looking than her first date had been. She thought about her first formal dress…not nearly as dowdy as any of Buffy’s had been (and the one she has picked out for the Homecoming dance is far more risqué than anything Buffy ever owned, save a few suggestive halter tops). She thought about graduation, getting class protector (natch. Runs in the family), going to a REAL college, (not UC Sunnydale, Harvard on the Hellmouth), going away, but always staying close to her sister and her mother who would always be there.

Her mother was gone. And Buffy, though sometimes shouldering the world while slathering mustard on Dawn’s sandwiches in the morning, has remained a constant. When her life was threatened by a hell bitch hell bent on taking her away from this realm, Buffy protected her, almost to the point of suffocation. But in that time, the sisters had shared something not many sisters have the privilege of knowing; that unconditional love comes not from blood shared or blood shed---it comes from the inner knowledge that love is the one precious element of the earth that cannot be split in two, cannot be cut, given a carat weight, clarified, and sold, cannot be even defined and displayed on a chart with an abbreviation dreamed up by men in white coats in sterile labs. It is there. And is fragile and weightless, but boundless and strong.

Her love for Buffy would always be there. It was always these outsiders who cut into their lives who baffled her. The Scoobies love her because she is Buffy, their friend, and they would do anything in the world to help her, even putting their lives in danger and sacrificing normalcy for the state of the unknown which is the Slayer’s life. Giles loves her because he is her Watcher, and as the name implies, is duty-bound to provide the aid and guidance necessary to keep her alive and Slaying. But Spike…

There is no reason for him to love Buffy as he does. Dawn knows that in the time he was stricken with the Initiative-implanted chip which dictated his behavior for nearly two years, he had to side with the Slayer, or die. The quick impulses and rapid-fire responses were zapped by a piece of micro-sized technology deep in his brain. Under the direction of the chip, he had lived a fairly brutality-free life, except for the occasional “spot of violence” before bedtime, mostly consisting of killing his own kind for the sake of it. And in that time he had come to know Buffy and had come to love her. And though he has been free of the chip for months, the love remains, even more pure, even more distilled of anything anyone might conceive of as being a vampire’s bid for real eternal life.

Dawn knows Spike loves her. He sees it in everything he does. At night when they think no one is watching, the two of them bent over books at the kitchen table---there’s that action. It could be the unconscious touching of hands or the way Spike will tuck a stray hair behind her ear. Or that look from yards away. That look. The one that says, “She’s mine,” not in a possessive or gloating way, but one that reminds the lover that the person in view is the one that would make his heart beat if it could, makes his unlife complete, makes his purpose in this world a little more defined.

They are both killers. Buffy may soften the title with the term slayer, which she prefers, but at the end of the day, she has killed things. And he has killed thousands, multitudes, whole small towns, a soulless bin Ladden with a “been there, done that, want to do more” attitude. Spike has never once said he was sorry. But for there are times that he cries, and Dawn hears this too, and she wonders, she wonders, is he thinking about it all? Is he thinking about the innocents he has put in their graves? Is he thinking about the children who have no one to call Mommy and Daddy because one night he woke up crazed with thirst? Is he thinking about them as he covers Dawn in a blanket at night after she’s fallen asleep on the sofa and whispers, “I love you, Nibblet” as he places a kiss on her forehead (she hears that. Sometimes she just pretends to be asleep so that he will go to bed and she can watch what she wants to watch on TV).

She has felt his love as well. She’s felt all the love contained in the small space they share…as a family. Dawn saw her parents’ marriage combust, wither and fade before her eyes. She had never seen the passion. She had always viewed herself as the last chance baby, the one that would solidify her mother and father’s togetherness. She failed them, she has always told herself because in her life she had grown up with nothing but accusations and arguments between the two of them. Buffy would always take her hand, lead her away to play in the backyard. And when the arguments grew intense, Buffy would lead her little sister out of the neighborhood to the swings. Dawn would dare her sister to swing her higher, higher. Behind her, Dawn would hear muffled sobs, but in front of her there was only blue sky.

Here, in her house, for the very first time, there is passion. Not the passion of anger and lies, but the passion of truth and goodness. There is a sense of worship between Buffy and Spike, a kind of kinship in which they are disciples of each other. Spike does not feed; he feeds on her soul. Buffy does not threaten him, nor is she threatened by him; there’s always a hand to tuck that stray hair away from her face and to show her that there are other ways of dealing with demons.

He wants to keep her here, Dawn thinks as she walks to the back door. Does it matter that his interests may not be in the greater good? He’s doing all he can to make sure Buffy stays as she is--- his girl, his love, his warmth, his salvation. The love of his life revisited every time he looks into her eyes.

But even as Dawn knows this, she knows something else. Their frantic togetherness. It is not forever. Something will happen. She opens the back door. The web of a long-gone arachnid stretches at the separation of the door from the frame. It expands, but it does not break. She slams the door shut, testing the elasticity of the weaver’s work. It springs back, not exactly as it was, but still in one form. A few of the strands have broken, but it is still a marvel. What creatures can do…

“Dawn?” Buffy’s voice sounds automatically from the bedroom.

“Yeah, Buff,” Dawn answers, smiling still at the durability of the web.

Buffy appears at the kitchen door, Spike close behind her. Her sister’s face is full of curiosity. “Why did you come in the back way?” she asks.

She looks at the two of them. She sees Spike’s face. The hangdog expression. She has caused that. He’s not willing to meet her gaze, but she is looking at him. And them. She can’t look at one without looking at the other.

She smiles now at the two of them, feeling the same weight of tears her mother must have felt the day she said, “Her life may be short…”

“Just testing something,” Dawn says.

Dawn wakes up out of a dead sleep, thinking that it must be morning. She turns her face to the alarm clock. 2:45!

Her mouth feels dry. As long as she’s up, she may as well get up and get a drink.

Padding out into the hallway, she hears canned laughter. Coming into the den, she sees Spike slumped in his favorite chair with the reflection of the TV on his pale face. She tiptoes past, thinking she has been un-detected, but as she rounds the bend to the kitchen, she hears his voice.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

So much for her attempt at stealth. “Um, I was sleeping fine. Something woke me.”

“I hope it wasn’t me. I’ve been trying to keep quiet. Bob Crane’s not making it easy for me, though.”

“Is that always on or something?”

“It will be. Straight into Sunday. It’s a Hogan’s Heroes Fandamonium Weekend, love.”

She manages a smile and goes into the kitchen. Fumbling in the dark for a glass, she props open the fridge for a light. She grabs the milk and puts it on the counter beside the glass. She opens another cabinet and feels for the canister of Nestle Strawberry Quick.

“Make one for me too, Nibblet,” Spike calls.

She reaches for another glass.

Dawn carries the two glasses carefully into the den, realizing that the one in her left hand is a little too full. She sips at it as she hands the one in her right hand to Spike and heads over to the sofa.

Spike chortles at something Sergeant Shultz has just said and takes a sip of his Strawberry Quick. Dawn tucks her legs under her and rifles through the Hershey Miniatures in the candy dish.

“The Krackles and Mr. Goodbars are all gone,” Spike says. “Buffy finished them earlier. Didn’t even offer me a peanut, the selfish bint.”

“You know what helps the plain ones,” Dawn says. “Peanut Butter.”

“Now you’re talking. Go get it.”

She dashes for the kitchen and returns moments later with the peanut butter and a knife. Spike is already unwrapping his miniature Hershey bar in the anticipation of the peanut butter.

“Crunchy or smooth, love?”

“Crunchy, of course,” she says, as though he should know better.

“Sweet!”

Dawn slathers her miniature with a generous helping of peanut butter, noticing that Spike is employing no such etiquette. He’s a dipper. Dawn crunches thoughtfully as the show breaks for a commercial. It’s one of those retro commercials for the ’68 Mustang.

“Ah, the year Ford ruined the Mustang,” Spike says disdainfully, shaking his head as he takes a bite of his candy. “I nicked a ’65 once. Smooth as silk ride, it was. What a gem.”

“What happened to it?” Dawn asks.

“Dru drove it into a canyon. She was always jealous of that car. So she destroyed it,” he says, licking the peanut butter from his thumb and index fingers. “She almost got the staking of her unlife for that.”

Dawn clicks her tongue and dives in for more peanut butter. “You don’t have to worry about Buffy doing something like that. She won’t go near a driver’s seat.”

“Strange, isn’t it? Going head to head with the undead doesn’t even make her flinch, but a car…” he trails off, not knowing how to finish. “I’ve even offered to teach her.”

“You’d let her drive the DeSoto?”

Spike chokes down his candy bar and begins to cough. “I’d sooner let Harris paint my toenails! I’d get a loaner car for that exercise in futility. I love Buffy dearly, but my DeSoto is sacred.”

Dawn takes a sip of her milk and goes for another Special Dark. “You know, I’m going to be driving soon.” She looks over at him. Spike is fully engaged in devouring his own Special Dark/Jiff Crunchy combo. “You gonna teach me?”

“If you like. About twenty hours of behind-the-wheel with an unlicensed driver like myself. You’ll be good to go.”

When he smiles at her, she feels the whip of what she said to him last Sunday night come back and hit her in the face. And yet, he’s acting as though nothing ever happened. She feels this is deliberate on his part. The old kill-them-with kindness ploy. He’s still a killer after all. Well, she’s not going to let him get away with that.

“Spike,” she says after a long silence. “Um…a few nights ago, I said some things that I really didn’t mean to say to you.”

He hears the note of seriousness in her voice and pauses, turning the wrapped miniature over and over again in his fingers. “No, you did mean what you said. And I probably did something to deserve your terse words.”

“No. Travis’ not calling me…that has nothing to do with you. And everything to do with me.” She swallows a lump in her throat slowly, along with a hunk of chocolate and peanut butter.

He knows all week she has been hurting silently behind that locked door. And he knew eventually it would open. He supposes he is a fool to be so welcoming to her return. Summers women. Can’t resist ‘em, can’t teach them that the word like should be used only in similes and expressions of affection.

“Oh, yeah? What’s wrong with you?” Spike asks.

“Plenty.”

“Look, Nibblet. If you think our little picnic here in the middle of the night is going to be the setting for an impromptu pity party, I rescind my RSVP. You know how I feel about you going on about how ugly you think you are. It’s rot and you know it.” “I’ve been waiting for him to say something to me. He just won’t. It’s like I’ve gone on invis all the sudden.”

“If Travis isn’t seeing you for the beautiful young girl you are, then he needs to do something about that hair of his getting in his mug all the time.”

“And the homecoming dance is coming up in a week. I was really counting on him asking me. But I think he’s already asked Jill Carlesco.”

“Jill Carlesco? Miss Silicon Valley of the Dull?” he says, only slightly embarrassed that he knows so much about Dawn’s classmates. “Now what little respect I had for the boy is completely gone.”

“Well, I don’t know if he’s going with her or not. But they were walking down the hall looking really chummy. Not holding hands or anything, but she was doing the chest-touching thing and I’m sure he was thinking about doing the same thing to her.”

“You know what that says to me? That says all Travis wants is a Barbie doll to play with. Not a girl with any substance like yourself.”

“He’s not like that. I mean, when we went out on Friday night we talked about…stuff. Real stuff. Guns in school. Terrorism. Politics. It was, like, having a real discussion. He’s really intelligent. He knows a lot about everything and I know a little about some things, so most of the time I just nodded and smiled, and said ‘Exactly! I’ve been thinking the same thing!’ I don’t know. Maybe he thinks I’m dumb.”

“Hey, who got that Final Jeopardy question right the other night? The one about the Boxer Rebellion?”

“Well, I did.”

“And I lived through the bloody thing!”

“So maybe I’m too smart for him.”

“Dawn, you can’t sit here and second guess yourself all night and it won’t do a damn bit of good. Besides, I saw how he looked at you on Friday night.”

Dawn gives him a sideways glance. “Seriously?”

“Well, as much as I could see under all that fringe. But I did see something that resembled…” Lust was too strong of a word. Arousal was far too advanced. What did he see that night? “heightened interest,” he says, finally.

This momentarily cheers her. She thought she had seen something in his eyes as well. And there was such an easy chemistry that the two of them just slipped into like yesterday’s blue jeans. When the night was over there was such promise, there was such a hope of continuance. It was just her first date and it felt like the first of many. Now there was such uncertainty she looked around at the apartment, thinking she would be spending many nights doing just that for the rest of her high school career.

“Did he look at me the way you look at Buffy?” she asks sheepishly.

“How’s that, love? Can’t look in a mirror and haven’t captured it on video.”

“You know! Like you just want to take all of your clothes off in front of everyone and go at it like baboons?”

“I should hope Travis isn’t looking at you like that!”

“OK, OK. Maybe not quite like that. But I do hope that one day I’ll have the kind of thing that you and Buffy have.”

“I had to wait over a century to find someone like your sister, Nibblet.”

“Being human, I don’t have that long to wait. If I were still the Key, no problem. But most guys like girls who are curvaceous and cute, not green and glowy.”

“You’re young yet, love. You’ve got time. You don’t have to do it all your first year in high school.”

“I guess I’m just…lonely. I mean, it’s great hanging out with you and Buffy and all, but I just feel like I’m ready to…grow up. I don’t want to be this little girl everyone thinks I am. I’m not ready to be an adult just yet, but I hate being treated like I’m a stupid kid who doesn’t know anything.”

He hears the pain in her voice so acutely for a moment he feels absolutely helpless. He can protect her from just about any demon out there, but he can’t do anything to fend off the one fiend she’s finding herself set upon by now---the devil that is adolescence.

“Well, I don’t think you’re a stupid kid,” he offers.

She smiles and reaches over to touch his hand. “I know. And that’s what I always liked about you, Spike. You never act like certain words should be spelled in front of me because I just wouldn’t understand. You’ve always treated me like an equal. Well, maybe not like another vamp, but…you know.”

“I know, pet. And you know why? Because you were the first person connected with your sister who treated me like a…you know.”

“Well, I did have a crush on you at first,” she says bashfully.

“No! On me? Aww…I’m flattered, Bit.”

“Oh, come on! You knew!”

“No, I didn’t! Honestly.” But he did know. And he thought it was adorable. But he never would tell her that.

“But then I thought about the age difference and all and thought, ‘Well, maybe you’re more Buffy’s type.’ So I let her have you.”

“Well, that was mighty charitable of you. And much appreciated.”

“And I hope you’ll always be together. Because I’ve never seen Buffy so happy.”

There was that always be together thing again. Such a nice thought. Such a great hope. Such a dream.

“She’s my world,” he says quietly. “My whole entire world.”

The bedroom is silent when he enters, except for the sounds of Buffy’s deep slumber. Over on her beside table he sees that it is now 4:30 in the morning. He walks over to the curtains to make sure they’re shut tight and they are, then he makes sure the door is shut as well.

She is sleeping on her side with one arm draped over his pillow. Her mouth is slightly open and her shoulders are bare. She is lost somewhere. But he thinks he can find her.

Slowly be begins to undress, laying all of his discarded clothing on the chair beside the bed. Once he is stripped bare, he lifts the covers gingerly and slides in, gliding gently against her warm body. He kisses her and he hears her start to stir.

“Mmm…you smell like peanut butter,” she says, as though still in a dream.

“Yeah. The Nibblet and I had a little late night nosh,” he responds.

“So I take it you guys have patched things up?”

“She’s not staring stakes at me anymore, at least.”

“Well, good. I’m glad.” She nestles her head on his chest and drifts back into sleep. He feels the soft fibers of her nightgown against his flesh. So warm…He clutches at it lightly, bunching the fabric in his hands, lifting it slowly.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“Just want to feel you against me, love. Can you move a little? I can’t get it off you this way.”

She raises herself just enough to allow him to pull the gown over her head, and then she falls back onto his chest. Her breasts lie against his side. So warm…One hand drifts over and covers the nipple, stroking it lightly. It is flaccid and loops around his fingers like soft rubber. But that warmth…it is still a marvel to him that she can be so warm. His hand covers the entire surface of her breast now, cupping it, feeling it,

squeezing it ever so slightly. He kneads it in his hands, caressing the soft flesh. She makes a little sound, but she doesn’t move and doesn’t direct his hand away from where it is. Perhaps she is too deep in sleep. Perhaps she would see this as molestation. But as he’s thinking this, he hears her say,

“That’s nice.”

He kisses her lightly down her cheek, down her neck, down her chest until his mouth pauses before the light pink fireball at the center of her breast. He latches on nimbly at first, aware that the touch of his cool tongue may awaken and anger her. We’re not supposed to be doing things like this when Dawn is in the next room. But within minutes she is mewling as his mouth pulls at her nipple and his tongue circles the toughening little peak. With his free hand he covers the second one, drawing his fingers lightly over the neglected nipple. If he could put them both into his mouth at one time he would and know the silken pleasure of both simultaneously. He breathes in her scent, suctioning her supple flesh as he does. Her hands are pressing against him, not to turn him away, but in a kittenish prodding to continue. He knows that she is barely conscious. She is caught between drowse and desire, it seems, as her hands scale his naked form, but her eyes remain shut and her lips stay silent.

But now her arms are encircling his head, pushing him closer. There are words coming from her mouth. Sweet words, little coos, little utterances of affection and need. Her breath cascades down on his hair and he is bathed again in warmth. He purses his lips more tightly around the nipple as she writhes against the pillows, his name a whisper she hisses in the darkness.

The edge of his incisor involuntarily draws itself sharply against the areole and in its jagged path he picks up the decidedly metallic taste of blood. She gasps and flinches against him and he lifts his head. She is fully awake now. He watches as she leans over to snap on the bedside lamp so that she can examine the ribbon of crimson unfurling on her white flesh.

“Oh, God, Buffy…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to hurt you…” he begins tentatively, wondering if what he’s saying has any validity, to himself or to her.

She draws a finger over the little wound, her face in jigsaws. She looks up at him, her eyes still puckered by sleep, but slowly taking on recognition. He expects her to get up. He expects her to tell him to get up and get out. He expects anything except what follows. She curls a hand around the back of his head and forces him to her.

At first she keeps a hand clamped on the back of his head, but at length the touch becomes tender and comforting. The blood flows in little beads into his mouth and he allows each one to roll around on his tongue. What was it about Slayer blood? Was it the fact that it was so forbidden and so rare? Or that it was naturally the most exquisite tasting liquid in the world? Before it was the taste of murder and victory. Now it is the taste of love and desire. But there is precious little of it. Even as he suckles, the wound is closing, healing quickly from Buffy’s Slayer energy. He laps up as much as he can, conscious of the fact that this may be the only time he’ll have this opportunity to be so connected with her.

At last he unseals his mouth and wipes the corners with his tongue. She is still running her hands through his hair, still nurturing him. And she is smiling in the loveliest way.

“You all right, love?” he asks softly.

“Yeah. You?”

“Never been better,” he says, nuzzling the area between her breasts, hugging her close. He then looks over at the wound, seeing that it is still seeping a little. “You need a band aid, pet?”

“No,” she says, reaching over for a Kleenex and then turning off the light. “It’ll be fine.”

She lies down on her side, allowing him to spoon up against her. At this moment he can’t be close enough to her. And he has never been more in love. He clasps the Kleenex against her breast, holding it there tightly. The blood is almost a memory now, almost all gone.

He kisses her behind her ear. “We’ve all got the same blood now, love.”

“Yeah,” she says sleepily. “You know what that means.”

“What?”

“It means you have to help put Dawn through college now.”

He laughs a little. “That’s going to cost Xander a lot of paychecks.”

“You’re a pig, Spike…” she says, halfway to dream land.

“Oh, sweetheart! You haven’t called me that in ages.”

“Did I ever tell you how much I loved pigs?”

“Just this one.”

There is nothing more said between them. Spike pulls her closer, nuzzling her hair as he buries his head into his pillow. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to sleep now. But he doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to ever move from this warmth, this happiness. He listens to her drift off and her soft breathing performs a lullaby for him. And soon he is fast asleep as well.

Part 5:

The next afternoon, Buffy is busily preparing for her shift at the Bronze. It’s a Saturday night and she’s expecting a crowd. She gathers up everything she will need; her tip purse, her Advil and her stake.

“Spike, there’s a Stouffers in the freezer for Dawnie and for you,” she reaches into the fridge and extracts a carton of butcher’s blood, swishing it from side to side. “Don’t get them mixed up.”

“Got it,” Spike replies. “When will you be home?”

“Two, three. I dunno. I have to close tonight.”

“Are you patrolling afterward?”

“Hell no. The only thing I’m going to be patrolling tonight is my bed.”

“Mmm…promise?” Spike asks, encircling her waist and kissing the side of her face.

“Honey, you know how I am after a Saturday night. If I can drag myself home by my knuckles, I’m doing well.”

“You want me to come pick you up?”

“No, that’s all right. I can manage.”

He takes her into his arms, squeezing her tight, noting that there’s a wince in her return. He pulls her away gently, looking down at her breast. “Is that…painful?”

“Just a little tender. It’ll be all right, though.”

“You’re still OK with what happened last night?” he asks softly.

“Yes, honey. I told you I was. It was just a little love bite, that’s all. My boobs are a little sore anyway. It’s almost that time of the month.”

He arches an interested eyebrow. “You mean it’s almost time for Buffy to make her special blood pudding for her special fellow?”

“In a couple days. And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, DON’T! That’s disgusting.”

“Aw. It’s such a shame to let a tube of cotton soak up all that bloody goodness.”

“Sorry. And if I ever catch you going through the trash in the bathroom looking for a snack, you’re couching it for a week.”

Buffy looks down at the assortment of drinks on her tray and tries to identify the syrupy brown drink coagulating in a clear tumbler.

“What the hell is this?” she asks, pointing to the libation in question.

“Manhattan,” the bartender barks back.

“Manhattan what? Sewer run-off?”

“Just serve the drinks, Buffy! If they say anything about it, then they can talk to me. I don’t need your lip too.”

She sighs and shoulders the tray, walking over to table six. They’ve already had quite a few. Maybe they won’t notice.

But on her way back to the bar, she notices something. Someone.

Off in the corner, near the heavy fire exit door that leads to the alleyway, she sees him. He is sitting by himself, the blond curtain of hair obscuring his features. He is nibbling at a platter of buffalo wings, regarding each one thoughtfully before sucking off the meat and grease from the spindly little bones. He’s not so much a dipper as he is a coater. He immerses each wing into the ranch dressing, making sure it’s all white before he devours it.

So this is how Travis spends his Saturday nights? Buffy wonders, making a note to keep an eye on him. Single white boy, pre-requisite presence of vamps out for a nip-and-suck. Open season.

As she returns to the bar, she hears an exaggerated spit take from table six. “What the hell was that?” he explodes

“Table six needs another Manhattan. And one not made from whatever you put in it when you couldn’t find the right bottle behind the bar,” Buffy says.

The bartender glowers. “All right, Carla. Would you go and get a bottle of sweet vermouth from the storeroom?”

“Sure thing, Sam.” She stops short, curiosity making her ask, “What did you put in instead?”

The bartender swipes a rag over the top of the bar. “Sambuco.”

“Eww!”

“What? It’s sweet.”

Back from the storeroom, Buffy notes that the usual coterie is assembling. The band has not arrived yet, but the stage is being set up. Tonight’s entertainment is provided by What’s My Age Again, a Blink 182 tribute band from Fresno. She had to read the flyer three times before realizing it was not meant as a joke. She can scarcely believe Blink 182 has been around long enough to earn its own tribute band.

The bartender mixes the drink correctly this time. As he’s straining the cocktail into the glass, Buffy looks over at Travis again. He looks like a big Blink 182 fan. Maybe he’s here for the band. He’s almost finished with his buffalo wings and he doesn’t seem anxious to leave.

“Here,” the bartender says. “Tell them this one’s on the house.”

“Yeah, or I imagine it will be in your face,” she says, taking the drink. She walks over to table six with her most innocent smile on her face, realizing she will probably take the heat for the bartender’s sloppy mixing. “Sorry. Bartender goofed. He thought you ordered a Bronx Zoo. Wrong New York borough. Bartenders are notoriously bad with geography.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that a black figure in fishnet hose is now lurking by Travis’s table. At just once glance of the jet coatdress and spiked heels…well, she doesn’t have to look much further. She knows. It’s her business to be perceptive and intuitive. But for the moment, things are all right. Travis is ignoring the woman, wiping his fingers and munching on the celery garnish.

“Buffy!” the bartender calls.

She walks over distractedly, still aiming her stare at the goings-on at Travis’ table.

“Table ten just complained that they’ve been wanting to meet you all night and were wondering when you might make an appearance,” the bartender says.

“I was just over there. They said they were deciding,” she answers.

“That was a half an hour ago. They’ve decided already.”

She sighs. Table ten is all the way across the room. She weaves through the crowd as quickly as she can. Hopefully they’ll want something simple, like a pitcher of beer. But no, they all want mixed drinks. Damn, those Sex And the City women, Buffy thinks. Do they have to be such trendsetters? It used to be so simple. Beer, wine, maybe the occasional scotch and soda. Now it’s all Candy Apple Martinis and Cosmopolitans. She can bet she’ll be having to make another trip to the storeroom after this drink order.

Back at the bar, she angles for a look at Travis table. Yep. She should have acted while she had the chance. The table is empty. And the fire door is swinging shut.

“We’re out of triple sec,” the bartender says. “Could you---

“Not now,” she waves, walking away. She begins to sprint. She has plenty of time, she says to herself. They couldn’t have gotten that far. She lunges for the door. Out in the alleyway, she looks to the left, then to the right. Then she hears the wail of a teen-aged boy whose voice hasn’t settled on its adult pitch yet. It’s coming from over by the dumpsters. Typical. She often thinks she should hang a sign over the garbage saying, “This space for restaurant and vamp use only.”

She walks over casually to the pair, extracting the stake from her pocket. She pats the woman gently on the shoulder. The vamp whips her head around. Her mouth isn’t painted with Travis’ blood yet. Buffy’s just in time.

“And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson,” Buffy says. And she plunges the stake deep into her back.

As the dusty remains of the vampire scatter on the pavement below, Travis’ form slumps and falls hard. Buffy catches him right before his head connects with the asphalt.

“Whoa, you all right there, Travis?” Buffy says, holding him just inches from the ground.

The boy wears a dazed expression as he tries to put the pieces in place. Buffy can almost hear his thoughts…strange woman…took me to the alleyway…she was very strong…

“What happened to the lady?” he asks slowly.

“Don’t worry. She’s gone.” Buffy helps him to his feet, wary that those long, spindly legs may not carry him just yet.

“That was so weird. She just came up to the table and started talking to me, asked me if I wanted to go somewhere with her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. And then all of a sudden I couldn’t take no for an answer. It was like she hypnotized me or something.”

“Yeah, you got to watch out for the drive-by hypnotists in this town. They do more than make people cluck like chickens.” Buffy relinquishes her hold slowly, making sure that Travis is capable of standing on his own now. “Well, I gotta get back to work. And you better go home.”

“That’s probably a good idea. Besides, I hate the band that’s playing tonight. I heard them when I was in LA last year. They should call themselves, what's the Chord Again?”

“I’ll be sure to get out my ear plugs then,” Buffy says.

As she begins to walk away, she hears Travis call to her. She turns and sees that he has made no attempt to walk in the other direction.

“Um…I was wondering…How’s Dawn?” he inquires sheepishly.

“She’s fine, Travis,” she answers, irritation grating her voice. “Hey! I got an idea. Maybe you should ask her that yourself!”

He looks down at the pavement. “I wanted to call her all week. I really did have a good time with her last Friday night.”

“Oh, really? Because she’s under the impression that you didn’t. Could be all the phone calls that she hasn’t been getting at home and the cold shoulder she has been getting at school.” Buffy folds her arms.

“I do like her, Buffy. She’s smart and funny and so pretty. I mean…wow…when I saw her in those jeans…” When Buffy’s protective instinct begins to surface in the form of her hands going to her hips and a furrowing of the brow, he stops. “Point is, I like her. But…but…”

“But what, Travis?” Say it, you coward! My boyfriend scares you.

“I just don’t know how to tell her…and she’s been kinda distant too. Like she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

Buffy doesn’t know if she should be sharing this information of not, but she’s going to, just so he knows he has made a big idiot of himself in front of her sister. “You don’t have to tell her anything. She overheard you talking in the library last Sunday.”

Travis’s eyes flash fear under the wedge of unruly blond hair. “She did what?”

“She heard you talking to your friends in the library about your date. Something about the fact that you think my boyfriend might be a graveyard smash?”

Travis exhales a breath. “That’s not even the reason I haven’t called her.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, according to Dawn you made it perfectly clear to your friends that that was the reason. And perfectly clear to her as well.”

“I wouldn’t let the fact that your boyfriend gave me the creeps keep me from seeing Dawn. No offence.”

“None taken. When I first met him I wasn’t exactly charmed by his presence either.” His first words to me were in the form of a death threat. Not exactly what I would call a come-on line, she finishes in her head. “But why would you even say something like that in the first place?”

“Because…I didn’t want them to know the real reason.”

“Mind sharing what that real reason is?”

“Yes,” he says. “Because it will hurt Dawn. And I think I’ve hurt her enough.”

“What the hell is it, Travis? Does she smell bad? Does she have onion breath? Does she snort when she laughs? What?”

“It’s my parents, all right!” he shouts out.

Buffy narrows her eyes. “Your parents?” And then she knows. All too well. Travis had to make a trip to the wrong side of the tracks and his parents want him to stay on the right.

“They’re such snobs. They always have been. And I hate it. It hate it because I don’t want to be anything like them. They’re always so quick to judge, so quick to put other people down because they don’t drive the right car and live in the right neighborhood. Mom drives all the way to LA to get her hair done still. And she won’t go near the shops in town. She says they’re all so declasse. And they’re so strict. You know one time they grounded me for a week because I said ‘fuck’?”

“Shocking,” Buffy says, wondering if she is too strict. But she doesn’t have to wonder about the other matter. She is not a snob. And she is definitely not déclassé.

“I didn’t want my friends to know that my parents told me not to see Dawn anymore. How would that make me look to them?”

“OK, so you lied and made up stuff about my boyfriend instead. And saying that you’re afraid of a guy who’s almost a head shorter than you makes you the big man on campus?”

“He is kind of short, isn’t he?” Travis shakes his head, as though realizing they’re getting off the topic. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to hurt Dawn. But I didn’t see a way to avoid it. I guess I really screwed this one up, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. In more ways than one. You don’t know what’s been going on in my house this past week. Spike and Dawn are extremely close to each other. I don’t know if Dawn told you this, but at the beginning of the year, our mother died.”

“Yeah, she told me that. And I’m sorry.”

“Well, thank you. Anyway, I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly I had to be a parent to a fourteen year-old girl. Not something a twenty-year-old usually faces. I needed someone to look after her and to help her through her grief, since I needed to cope with my own loss. Spike was there. He was more than there. He took over as surrogate parent, brother and confidant. And the two of them developed a close bond. He would do anything in the world for her. He sees himself as her protector, a role he takes very seriously. Sometimes too seriously. So if he came off a little too shielding over her, that’s why. But when Dawn heard what you said in the library, she withdrew from him. They’re OK now, but what you said made for some really tense moments in the apartment.”

“I really, really didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Well, you did. So now what are you going to do? Keep hiding behind all the lies or come up with something that resembles an apology? Saying you’re sorry would be the gentlemanly thing to do, not to mention the non-snobbish thing to do.”

There is a look of honesty shining from his face. “I would like to talk to her.”

“All right, then. Why don’t you start by giving her a phone call, letting her know you’re alive and a real dork for saying what you said in the library.”

“I’ll go call her now. Is she at home?”

“Yep. Hanging with Spike watching Hogan’s Heroes.”

The fire door opens and the bartender sticks his head out into the alleyway. When he sees her, his reaction is one of complacency. “Buffy, this happens every night. You run from the bar and out into the alleyway. Isn’t this one a little young for you?”

“I’m coming. Keep your pants on,” she answers tiredly, adding to herself, “for the sake of humanity.” She turns to Travis. “That’s me getting a verbal warning, Travis. Gotta go.”

“OK,” he says. “Oh, Buffy…?”

“Yeah?”

“Your boyfriend…he’s not really what…what…he’s not…a monster or anything?”

Buffy considers this for a moment. Suddenly a memory materializes in her head. She thinks back to last night. She sees him again at her breast, his mouth hungrily tugging at her nipple as she nursed him with her blood. She hears the snarls as he drew the nourishment into his mouth. The bite was just a prick, but it startled her, reminded

her that the man she shares her bed with does have needs that go beyond what she can give her without putting her life at risk. She allowed him to suckle and there was such a sense of communion in the taking of her blood. There was nothing erotic in the touch of his mouth on her breast. There was nothing sensual. She was giving him life and she thrilled to the sensation of his lips becoming warmer as her blood filled his veins. “Now I ask you, Travis,” she says at length. “Would I leave my baby sister at home with a monster?”

Travis shrugs. “I guess not.”

She turns on her heels. “Then there’s your answer.”

It’s almost 2:30 a.m. when Buffy cracks open the door to the apartment. All the lights are off, but the TV is on with the sound turned down to an almost inaudible level. Buffy tosses her keys noisily onto the table beside the door and Spike automatically turns and puts a finger to his mouth. He indicates that Dawn is asleep at the foot of the sofa. He springs up and meets her in the middle of the room, drawing her tired form into his arms for a welcoming hug.

“How long has she been asleep?” she asks over his shoulder.

“About an hour. After swearing that she wouldn’t because of what happened earlier. Brace yourself, love. The Travesty phoned tonight.”

She draws away from him slightly. “I know. He said he would.”

He arches an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

“I saw him earlier. We talked, got some things out in the open. I encouraged him to do the same with her.”

“She locked herself in the bedroom while they were talking, but they were on the phone for a good two hours. And when she came out she had a big smile on her face. Seems he’s invited her over to his house tomorrow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and she’s a bit worried that you think she hasn’t paid enough penance for being creative with swear words and that you won’t let her go.”

“Oh, I think she’s learned her lesson,” Buffy says. “She can go if she wants.”

“She can? Dammit! And she asked for my help in convincing you and all.” He

snaps a pair of blunt teeth over her earlobe. “I was looking forward to that part.”

“I guess I’m getting soft in my old age,” she says. “Besides, I’m too tired for anything but eight good hours of shut eye right now. I’m turning in.”

“What about the Nibblet? Should I carry her to bed?”

“Nah, she’ll be all right where she is. Just let her sleep.”

“Then can I carry you to bed?”

She extends her arms gratefully. “That you can do.”

Part 6:

Part 7: