“Ohmygod. It was the best. The best movie I’ve ever seen.”

“This week.” Spike mumbled to Buffy, and it was so true, she had to smile. Dawn’s favorites were known to change almost nightly.

“I can’t wait ‘til the next one. How can they expect us to wait an entire year?” she wailed dramatically. “It’s evil. Do you think they’re demons, Buffy? Evil demons? You could slay them.”

“Do you two plan these things?” Buffy asked, looking from Dawn to Spike and back again. “There will be no more of the asking me to slay musicians and movie type people when you’re annoyed with them by suggesting they might be demons. Besides, if I slay someone important, it would probably only delay the other two films even longer.”

The movie had been a good idea, she thought, even though she’d been overruled on which film to see. She’d been pushing for Oceans Eleven, looking forward to the salty goodness of George Clooney and Brad Pitt on the same screen at the same time. Not to mention the side dishes of Matt Damon and Andy Garcia. Any film with that much eye candy was bound to help lift her out of her still-stewing-and-somewhat-steamed-and-increasingly-strung-out Slayer bad-moodiness.

But Dawn had been talking about The Lord of the Rings for weeks, and Spike had quite blatantly sided with her. Buffy had never read Tolkien’s classic, but the story had been engrossing; filled with humor, drama, and wicked fight scenes. She was also thinking Rivendell looked like a great place to take a long, lazy vacation, which she could so use. Especially if it involved hours of uninterrupted - and dreamless - sleep.

“They’re all made,” Dawn grumbled. “They just want us to wait in agony.”

“Tormenting the masses. My kind of people,” Spike contributed.

It was just a turn of phrase; a sort of joke, Buffy told herself, probably designed to get a smile out of me. I am in a halfway good mood for the first time in days, and way more relaxed than I’ve been all week. I am not going to start up with the analyzing every tiny thing Spike says and does again. I’ve been doing enough of that this week, and I’m sick of it. I also don’t want to think about Willow’s spell - the one Giles was kind of concerned about and that no one seems to know very much about. And I don’t want to keep wondering if that spell had consequences - if it’s still affecting me. I’m even more with the sick of that!

The movie had been good. Dawn and Spike were both in good moods, and she had survived a first interview this afternoon at the Wellness Center with the tawny haired and frighteningly beautiful Lynn ‘Call me Lynx, everyone does’ Alexandra; an interview during which she thought she’d actually managed to come across as relatively intelligent and capable.

I am going to enjoy the rest of the evening. Period.

“Who did you think was hot? Aragorn? Oh, yum. Those eyes, those cheekbones. Like you, Spike. Or Boromir? So brooding and dark?”

“Like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

Huh? The under-the-breath aside from Spike to Buffy confused her, but the conversation went on before she could ask for an explanation.

“Or - oooh, oooh, Legolas…” Dawn drew the name out blissfully.

“Didn’t really go for any of them,” Spike admitted, and tipped his head thoughtfully as though trying to decide between the three men. “Gimli, though...”

Buffy eyed him and he shrugged.

“Don’t be jealous, love. I think it was just the ax.”

Dawn snickered, and Buffy smiled.

“Let’s go for ice cream,” she blurted out. “Okay?”

Spike's face softened, and he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Anything, love.”

Her breath caught at the warmth of his expression, and she jerked her eyes away.

“Dawn?” Her voice squeaked a little.

“Yeah, how about you, bit? Mountains of sugar topped with a cherry?”

“Oooh! Yeah. And M&M’s, too, right?”

Dawn continued talking about ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ while they walked to the ice cream parlor and placed their orders.

“What was up with Galadriel saying the dawn was terrible?” she grumbled, tapping her foot as they waited for their ice cream.

“I think she said beautiful and terrible.”

“Still - terrible. What’s terrible about dawn? I don’t like my name being taken in vain like that.”

“Well, the ‘dawn’s early light’ can be a bit iffy for me if I get caught out in it.”

“Good thing you’re fast, then.” Dawn grinned at him. “And know where all the entrances to the sewer tunnels are. Oooh, and that whole mithril thingy? It would totally stake-proof you!”

“Rather be staked than be caught unliving and wearing that nancy-boy thing.”

“Maybe it could be redesigned,” Buffy suggested dryly. “Into a t-shirt.”

Dawn snorted in agreement. “And spray painted black.” The sisters smiled at each other.

Conversation slowed as soon as Dawn’s mouth was occupied with ice cream. Her blue eyes were flitting around the room, and Buffy knew she was checking out the boys and the clothes the other girls were wearing. Her own eyes kept returning to the vampire seated next to her sister, who had passed on anything to eat. She watched him as he watched her; watched as his eyes stared at her mouth as she licked at her ice cream cone. His gaze grew more and more intense until she realized she was - altering - the way she was eating the treat.

Oh. My. God.

Buffy felt herself flushing wildly, and she ignored his very satisfied smirk as she got up and dropped half the cone into the trash. If he kept looking at her like that while she was eating, she’d never put on the pounds he and Giles wanted her to gain.

Which could so be a good thing.

“Finished?” Spike drawled out, brows rising. “Was it - good?”

Buffy's eyes darted to Dawn, who was thankfully checking out a group of guys that had just come in. Desperate to distract Spike, and herself, Buffy began talking about the movie again. To her relief, he followed her lead, and the two of them started breaking down and analyzing the different battles scenes, discussing the weapons chosen by the various characters and their usefulness against the enemies they’d encountered. Axe, bow, sword, Legolas’ magical, never-empty quiver.

Dawn’s attention wandered back to them, and as she took in the turn the conversation had taken, she stared at them, amazed. She shook her head, her mouth curved around her spoon.

“Ggg, unackkmmmuh.” The girl frowned, removed the spoon from her mouth, and tried again. “God, one track minds much? You see the fantasy movie of the decade and you’re talking weapons? You two are the weirdest people I have ever met.”

~*~

“Oooh, homework,” Dawn muttered when they come in the door.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said it was done, young lady.”

“Relax, mom.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “It is. I only have to read a couple of scenes from Hamlet. Once I get my mind into Shakespearian English mode, it’ll be a piece of cake. Perfect in-bed assignment.”

“Well, okay,” Buffy relented. She accepted Dawn’s kiss on her check.

“I loved the movie and the ice cream. Thanks. Night, guys!” She was almost radiating happiness, andher contentment deepened Buffy's own.

“Night, sweetie.”

“Night, bit.”

They watched her go up the stairs.

“Do I act like a mom?” Buffy asked, a little plaintively.

“Don’t look like one, love,” he answered her real question.

He tossed his duster over the back of the sofa, and followed Buffy into the kitchen.

She came to a halt just into the room, grimacing at the overflowing sink. “Eeeww, more dirty dishes. Ever since the dishwasher broke down, it’s like the magical never-empty sink or something. I’m the Slayer. Shouldn’t I get some sort of Get-Out-of-Housework-Free-for-Life card or something?”

Despite her griping, she started stacking dishes and running water into the sink.

“It came in the post the other day.” Spike didn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t I tell you? Once I’ve had my chance to see you doing the hoovering in nothing but the pearls and high heels, I’ll get it to you.” He smirked at Buffy’s semi-glare. “Tara in bed, d’you think?” he asked, hopping onto the counter and watching as she started swishing a sponge over plates encrusted with the remains of Dawn’s surprisingly tasty tuna casserole.

“No. She finished finals yesterday and left this morning to stay with her friends, Annalore and Ginny, for Christmas.”

“Yeah, she mentioned she was going out of town,” Spike said. Since Tara and Willow had so many of the same friends, Doe Eyes had been worried that holiday parties might get awkward if Red decided to come out of her room and attend some. Of course, the plans had been set down before Harris learned that Willow was going to be out of town for several weeks, cruising in the Caribbean with her parents, who seemed to have suddenly discovered they had a daughter. “I didn’t think she was leaving until Saturday, though.”

Even though Dawn was upset about Tara being out of town for the holidays, she seemed to understand her reasons, and Spike thought the change of scene might do Tara some good. She put on a good front, but they all knew she was hurting.

“Oh, she caught a ride with that Karen Boles girl - you know, her ‘study buddy’ that was here cramming with her the other night? - so she took it. I don’t think Tara really likes to drive much.”

“I’m guessing she caught that from you.”

Buffy tipped her head. “You think? I’m hoping it will rub off on Dawn, too, so I never have to get car insurance for a teenager. I hear it’s, like, a lot of money.”

Spike thought it would be best not to mention that he’d already given Dawn a few private lessons, and that his girl was wildly enthusiastic about getting her license. “When you get that job,” he said instead, “You’ll be sittin’ pretty.”

“Ha. No, I won’t. But it’ll help.” She screwed up her face in one of those adorable Buffy expressions. “Do you think I have a chance? You know, to really get it?”

“Who could they find that’d be better than you, love?” he assured her, and was rewarded with the upward curve he noticed at the corners of her mouth.

As usual, her smiles pleased him. She’d been moody and withdrawn for the last several days, and not particularly communicative about why, and he was happy to see her more relaxed tonight. She’d been wound so tight…

The Watcher had noted it, too, and had asked Spike if he had any idea what was going on. He didn’t. Nor did Dawn. She’d told him that she thought Buffy and Xander had had some kind of argument the other night, after the Chinese dinner at the Magic Box, but his girl didn’t have any other details. He hadn’t seen Buffy and Harris in each other’s company since then, and even the normally chatty Anya had been close-mouthed.

He was trying to ignore the fact that, as well as holding herself aloof from the Scoobies for most of the week, Buffy had been a bit detached from him as well. Further, their ‘alone time’ had been severely curtailed. Dawn had been fighting a cold earlier in the week that had kept her home from school for two days, and Buffy had been home, too, doing the Florence Nightingale routine. Today, the much dreaded job interview had kept her occupied.

There had been that ride on the motor bike, though. “Can we just ride all night?” she’d asked. “I need to feel the wind in my hair.” Long, lovely hours with his Slayer’s body pressed up close to his back had followed; her breath warm on his neck, and her hands touching him in ways that made it a challenge to keep the bike upright.

Some Scooby spat was at the bottom of her moodiness, he assured himself. There’d been a number of them over the years, and like they had, this one was bound to blow over. Always bloody did, didn’t they? The Watcher had been insistent that Buffy needed her friends about, and even though Spike was willing to bow to the other man’s insights into their Slayer, he still wasn’t convinced that the Scoobies weren’t more trouble than they were worth. The man could be completely off his bird at times - I’ll make a Watcher of you yet - where the hell had that come from? - but generally, Spike thought he was a relatively bright bloke.

He had come round about the job, though. If all the dithering she’d done about what to wear to and what to say at the interview was anything to go by, Buffy obviously wanted it, which was enough for him. He frowned slightly, wondered if lack of dosh was the reason for her interest. The prats on the Council had better come through for his girls, he thought, visualizing a visit to Council Headquarters in order to do some ‘persuading’. ‘Course the sodding chip made that impossible. Bloody thing was bound to put a crimp in his style.

Spike leaned back against the cupboards, pleasure filling his eyes as he watched his lady.

<< You’re so bloody beautiful. >>

Buffy didn’t respond, or even give him one of those ‘No, I’m not, but please don’t ever stop telling me I am’ looks out of the corner of her eye, which was her usual reaction.

<< Slayer? >>

Nothing.

Spike frowned.

~*~

She started to get a little restless under his unwavering gaze. Why was he frowning like that?

“Stop staring.”

His expression lightened. “Can’t help it, pet. I never get tired of looking at you.”

“Spike...”

He slid off the counter, and walked over to her, a slow stroll, his eyes locked on hers. “You and me all alone down here, our girl all tucked up in bed...” His tongue curled against his teeth in that annoyingly appealing way of his, and Buffy could feel her insides starting to melt.

He wasn’t evil anymore. She knew it.

She tore her eyes away from him, and looked down into the sink as he came up behind her, and placed a hand on the counter on either side of her body. I will not look at him. Not, she told herself quite firmly, until the dishes are done. Then I’m gonna jump him. She was successful in not glancing his way, but it didn’t matter. She could feel him. He wasn’t even touching her, and she could feel him in every cell of her body.

His mouth moved, not touching her, but hovering just over her ear, and it made little prickles of awareness run up and down her body. God, she loved how he did that... She felt the shiver, felt the goose bumps rising on her arms.

“Never stop wanting you, either,” he whispered huskily, and her entire body jerked in reaction. “Want you now. Wanna be deep inside you. Wanna feel you, all hot,” his mouth was directly over her ear, “and tight,” the other ear now, “and wet around me.”

“Ow!” She’d been staring into the sink, but she hadn’t really been seeing anything, what with her eyes glazing over with total lust and all. They focused now, though, on the blood welling up from the cut on her palm. Ow, knife! Stupid sharp, pointy thing...

Automatically, she turned on the faucet, and raised her hand to the stream of water to clean out the cut. But Spike’s hand locked around her wrist before she could complete the action, and he turned the faucet off.

For a second they were frozen in place, and then his low growl rumbled into the still air around them.

She didn’t protest, didn’t even make a sound, as with slow, deliberate movements, he turned her in his arms, and brought her hand up to his mouth. Slow, so slow. His eyes stayed locked on hers, and she could see the hunger in them, the flames of desire flickering in their blue depths.

His tongue came out and licked up her wrist where the blood from the cut had formed a slight trickle.

He drew back, that tongue carrying her blood into his mouth, and his eyes fell shut as he groaned with pleasure.

His bent his head to her again, and his mouth found the puncture wound, small, not serious, on the mound of flesh at the base of her thumb. His eyes burned on her face as he closed his mouth around it and began to suck.

Another sound of pleasure escaped him, and his free hand slid around her waist and drew her closer, drew her body tighter to his, and he began to rock his hips against her as his mouth continued to draw blood.

Buffy couldn’t seem to move, or speak, mesmerized by his actions.

The cut closed, and as he turned her palm to his mouth to press a deep kiss into it, Buffy felt an urgent need to tear the cut open again, make it deeper, invite him to sink his fangs into her flesh, and drink from her until he was sated.

Oh, god…

He dropped her healed hand, and brought the hand that had been holding it to her hip, moving against her with blatant desire. He bent his knees just a little and positioned the hard ridge of his flesh against her where she would feel it the most, and he began to thrust in a slow, rocking rhythm. He was moving almost mindlessly. His eyes closed, and his face was stamped with the intensity of his passion.

“So good, so strong. The taste of you. I’d almost forgotten. God, better, even better.”

His hands had closed tightly on each of her hips now, and he was rubbing against her harder, totally lost in the sensation. He was going to rock against her like this until they both climaxed.

And she was going to let him.

She felt her own eyes drifting shut. She wanted them closed so that she could concentrate on pleasure only. She’d never imagined she’d find him tasting her blood so… so…

So good.

“Wasn’t enough. Never enough. But I can feel it, even that little bit.” His voice was hoarse. “Your power. Your blood. Never thought I’d taste it again. Oh god, love, I’ve missed it so much.”

Missed it? Missed it? Buffy froze. Her pleasure vanished, and something else filled her. Shock - at the pleasure she’d been feeling; the longing to give him more, more, more. The shock was replaced by horror. What was she doing? And what did he mean - missed it?

Spike didn’t seem to notice. He just kept moving against her.

“What?”

The single word got no reaction.

She pushed against him; pushed him away, as anger, and a sick kind of dread began building up in her.

“What did you say?”

His eyes opened at last, but he looked almost drugged, his blue eyes hazy.

“Hmmm?”

“You wanna tell me when you tasted my blood?”

~*~

“What?”

“When, Spike?” Buffy’s demanding tone finally dragged Spike out of his Buffy and Buffy’s blood induced rapture.

“What?” he repeated, aware now.

“Did you drink from me when you knocked me out and chained me up with Dru?”

Her stormy expression and the accusation, issued in a snarling tone he hadn’t heard from her in months started a flame of anger.

“You did, didn’t you?” she pressed when he didn’t answer immediately.

“I did not drink from you when you were unconscious!” The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious. Panic started to wind through him, joining the anger.

“When, then? Funny thing, Spike. I usually remember when a vampire bites me!”

“Yeah? I’d have thought you’d’ve started losing track by now!”

“You -”

“Every vamp - every male vamp, that is,” he sneered, “You’ve ever known on a first name basis has had a taste.” This had long been a sore spot with him. She was his, damn it. “Why should I be the only exception?”

He went down hard under the fury of her fist, sending one of the kitchen chairs crashing into the wall, but he quickly rolled back to his feet.

Even though he could feel the tension that often led to an explosion of some kind building in him, he tried to forcibly calm himself, and used a more reasonable tone. “I did not drink from you when you were unconscious,” he repeated.

“When, then?” She was advancing on him, obviously preparing to strike again. “When?”

“It was when you were, after you...” he began. He still couldn’t talk about her death. Could hardly think of it without wanting to die himself. And how could he explain the bit’s part in giving him her blood? Their relationship had been so much better since Buffy had come back, and he knew how much that had meant to Dawn, to both of them. He wasn’t gonna do a sodding thing to drive any type of wedge between them.

She stopped, and he could see how rigidly she was holding her body. “When I was dead? You drank from my dead body?” She sounded horrified beyond words.

“No!” he shouted, denying it furiously. God, was she always going to have the ability to make him lose his temper so quickly? Make him say things wrong and fuck everything up with his mouth?

But she didn’t seem to believe him. “How could you do that? How?” She tore her eyes away from his, and her head went back. She seemed to be looking to heaven for help. “Why wouldn’t you? You’re a vampire. It’s what you do, isn’t it?” Her harsh tone attacked him. “Poor Spike. Can’t drink from the living anymore, so he’s sucking away on the newly deceased.”

His mind raced to the night of her death, replaying the sight of her body slamming into the ground so close to his own, remembering his devastating pain, the wrenching, mindless agony, like all the fists of heaven and hell beating him into the ground. He couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t...

His face twisted up in anguish. “You can’t know what it was like. If you…”

But Buffy didn’t seem to even be listening to him. She had gasped suddenly, and the sound effectively cut off his words. The horror on her face intensified so much that it almost seemed she’d been smiling a moment before.

He couldn’t quite grasp what she had just said, and he was temporarily stunned into silence. How could she…? That she would think for one moment that he would ever turn her warm flesh cold; that he would… He felt a livid fury building within him, and unable to control it, he let out a roar of rage.

Involuntarily, Buffy took a step back, and he jumped at her.

“You. Bloody. Bitch.” His voice was grating, furious, and his fist lashed out, connecting with her mouth, hard.

He drew his fist back to strike again when the shocking revelation hit him, wiping out the strange mixture of horror and pleasure he was feeling from hitting her.

The chip hadn’t fired.

Buffy righted herself, and pressed the back of her hand to her bloodied lip. His fist dropped to his side, and they stared at each other with almost identical expressions of shock, as the realization of what had just happened, and the accompanying implications came to both of them. But then Buffy’s face started to dissolve into horror, and Spike’s into something else.

Time froze. Buffy's mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

Dawn’s tone was firm, even demanding, but her eyes were huge, and her arms were wrapped protectively around her stomach in the pose she often took when she was scared to death. When she was expecting to hear news she didn’t want to hear. News she was afraid to hear.

Spike took in her defensive posture as she hovered in the doorway. He could feel her fear, could, as always, almost taste it in the air. And as it always did, it drove deeply into him, touching something inside that made him want to take on or do whatever was necessary to ease it, to make that fear go away.

Instinctively, he stepped toward her to reassure her; to give comfort as he had so often in the last several months.

“Dawn, no!” Buffy threw her body in front of her sister’s, and whirled toward Spike, blocking his approach. “Stay away. Don’t you ever touch her again, or I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

Spike went still.

He stared at Buffy, at his Slayer, standing between him and his girl. Her chest was heaving, her body poised to attack, and her eyes were fixed on his face, dark with feral warning.

She didn’t - she couldn’t - she couldn’t think…

He couldn’t move. He didn’t think he could - he couldn’t - oh god, no...

This was even worse than her thinking he might have tried to turn her. That she could think for one minute that she needed to protect his girl from him; that he would ever touch a hair on Dawn’s head…

He felt it starting.

The pain began to bloom first in his chest, in his unbeating heart, deep and black and crushing. He could feel it spreading, starting to twist into his guts, wrenching and tearing at them. Merciless, excruciating pain. He’d felt it a thousand times since her death. More.

The fists were back, beating on him again. Pummeling him. Beating him down, down. Beating him back down where he belonged.

Dru’s taunts, and those of Angelus and Darla, heard so often in his dreams for weeks now pounded through his head, repeating endlessly. His mouth opened a little, and the only sound that could be heard in the room was the sound of the gasping little breaths he was taking, as pain squeezed his body. She would never trust him. He could see it in her eyes, in the lines of her body. Nausea began to spasm in his stomach. Always known it, hadn’t he?

The moment seemed to stretch into hours.

Spike took a step back, away from her, and his face changed as his shoulders straightened. His eyes, which had been burning with betrayal and agony, cleared and cooled. The gasping breaths ceased, and he stopped breathing altogether. Then the harsh planes of his face seemed to almost smooth over, as his expression evened out.

Bland.

Blank.

Empty.

Blue eyes left Buffy, and went beyond her to Dawn. She was staring at him in horror, and her eyes were begging him for reassurance.

“Get out.” Buffy’s command was hissed.

He didn’t look at her - the Slayer - again. His eyes, cold and remote, held Dawn’s. He tipped his head to the side just a bit, taking her in.

Memorizing.

Then he turned and moved, smooth and silent, to the door leading onto the back porch. Without another word or glance, he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

~*~

The Summers sisters remained frozen in place.

Dawn spoke first, and her voice was shaking. “What have you done?” She began to take heaving, sobbing breaths. “What have you done?”

Buffy didn’t reply, didn’t even look at the younger girl. Instead she strode determinedly into the living room and began searching the bookshelf.

Dawn followed her, tears spilling down her cheeks. “What have you done?” she demanded again.

Buffy tried to ignore the question. “Help me find the book with the de-invite spell.”

Buffy took a deep breath and turned to her sister. “I-I tried to pretend for awhile, that’s all. I made myself ignore the fact that Spike is a demon, that he doesn’t have a soul, and that it could be a huge mistake for me to trust him.”

Something seemed to snap inside Dawn, and she launched herself at her sister, her hands curled into claws.

“You bitch!”

In an instinctive move to protect herself from Dawn’s fingernails, Buffy tossed up an arm, which resulted in her knocking Dawn back several feet. The girl slammed into the wall, hitting her head hard on the wood of the doorjamb. She cried out at the pain.

“God, Dawn!” Buffy was horrified. “Are you okay?”

Crying, Dawn slapped Buffy’s helping hands away. Though drenched with tears, her eyes went cold and hard as she straightened up, and Buffy knew she’d never forget the expression in those blue eyes.

“I hate you!” Dawn gritted out, her voice thick with emotion. “I friggin’ hate you!”

Buffy watched her sister fly up the stairs, and her body jerked as the slamming of her bedroom door literally shook the house. She pushed her hands into her hair, and for long minutes she clutched her head and tried desperately not to cry. Then, grimly, she forced herself to return to the bookshelf, and resumed her search for the book that held the spell she needed.

Her eyes burned.

Her lungs burned.

She couldn’t focus.

Couldn’t think.

Couldn’t breathe.

Had to breathe.

Because she couldn’t take any chances with her sister’s life.

Not any kind of chance.

So she would do what she needed to do. What she had to do.

Her damned duty.

She always did.

~*~

With the ease of long practice, Dawn jumped down the last two rungs of the ladder.

“Hey,” she said quietly. She knew it must have been a really bad fight for Buffy to threaten to have him de-invited again. She didn’t know what had happened. She’d only heard some yelling, and a crash. Enough to make her leave her room to check things out. On her way down the stairs, she’d heard one of those kind of growly-roar noises Spike made sometimes when he was angry or fighting, which had made her hurry toward the kitchen faster. But she still didn’t know what had happened, and she certainly didn’t understand why Buffy had jumped between them and threatened Spike.

They’d looked so upset, so stunned. Dawn wondered how bad it really was. She told herself that they’d had plenty of fights before. Geesh, they’d tried to kill each other. She’d spent most of the night, between bouts of crying and coming up with ideas of how to kill Buffy, trying to reassure herself that it would blow over, that everything would be back to normal in a day or two. Maybe a week, she revised mentally, thinking again of the expressions that had been playing over Spike’s face, and Buffy’s cold voice afterward.

Dawn had never hated anyone the way she hated Buffy right now. Just the thought of having to actually lay eyes on her sister, or of being forced to speak to her, made her feel sick. She’d been sick - twice - during the night. She hated hurling, and the fact that she had just increased her anger with her sister. Plus, she still had a headache from slamming her skull into the wall.

Buffy again.

It seemed she was back to being the Bitch Queen. She should have known that the new improved sister - the one who’d actually seemed to care about her - was too good to be true.

Getting out of the house with Spike’s coat so that she could use it as an excuse to stop in and check up on him had been quite a feat. But she was afraid he was hurting a lot, and she didn’t think she could concentrate at school without seeing him.

“Hey, pet.” His voice sounded calm, but he barely glanced at her.

“You, um, left your coat at our house. I thought I’d drop it off on my way to school.” She smiled, deciding to try to tease him a little. That usually worked. “Geesh, Spike, I didn’t think you could walk down the street without that coat. How’d you manage to forget it?”

She lay the duster down on the edge of the bed.

“You know how it can be, luv. Trouble with your sis. She yells, I yell. I leave.” His voice stayed uncharacteristically flat. “You’ve seen it all before.”

“Oh yeah,” Dawn rolled her eyes, before flopping down on the bed companionably. Except, Dawn thought, not lately. She really didn’t think she’d seen the two of them fighting and bitching at each other since Buffy had come back from heaven. There had been some arguing, but it hadn’t been nasty and cruel, like it had been before Buffy died.

Just act normal, she told herself. Normal.

“Whatcha doin’ anyway?” she watched him take a couple of shirts from his dresser and toss them on the bed next to a pair of jeans that already rested there alongside a slim leather portfolio with papers sticking out of it. Her eyes went from the small pile of possessions to Spike, then back again. Fear coiled in her stomach. “Spike? Spike - what are you doing?”

“Nothin’ for you to worry about, bit. Just have a little somethin’ to attend to - be gone for awhile.”

“Gone? But… How long?”

“A week or two, maybe a month. ’m not sure.”

“A month! But you never go anywhere. Where - where do you, I mean, where are you going?”

“Headin’ to L.A. Got business there.”

“Business?” The word conjured up pictures of a board room with a long polished table and men in suits. Trying to picture Spike in this setting was like playing ‘What’s Wrong with this Picture?’ “What kind of business?”

His eyes met hers, cool, steady. Worse, detached. “Personal business.”

“But Christmas is only a few days away. You’ll be gone for Christmas.”

His eyes didn’t waver. “I’m a vampire, Dawn. Evil. I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Dawn clambered off the bed, gangly teenage limbs combining with emotional pain to make her awkward.

Oh god, oh god. He was lying.

She knew it. He didn’t have business in L.A., and he wasn’t gonna come back. He was going to leave them. He was going to leave her. Nausea began to churn in her stomach again.

No, no, no.

~*~

Spike stopped her as she backed toward the ladder, his voice pinning her to the spot.

“You know, I’ve been thinkin’. Coat’s not really mine. I stole it. From a Slayer. By rights I guess it would belong to B-your sis now.” He picked up the bundle of worn black leather, stroking his hand over the fabric once. His eyes lifted from the coat and met Dawn’s. “Why don’t you give it to the Slayer?” Acknowledgment of his defeat, a leather sword of surrender. “If she doesn’t want it, you can hold on to it, keep it ‘til I need it again.”

“Your coat?”

Her voice squeaked, the way it did sometimes when she was upset. He knew how much she hated that, how she usually tried to control it. It made her feel awkward and young, and she was tired of appearing that way. She wanted to seem more grown up. It was one of her big ‘things’ right now. Normal, and not a kid. It seemed to him her life sometimes revolved around those two goals.

“You want me to keep your coat for you?” she went on. “B-but you love that coat.”

The comfortable friendliness with which she always spoke to him was gone. Fear had entered - her voice, the room. He could feel it permeating the air. Smell it.

Dawn’s fear. Again.

He knew he couldn’t change it, couldn’t make it go away.

Not this time.

“Not the point, is it, pet? Lovin’ somethin’? Doesn’t make it yours.” He crossed the room to her, and pushed the duster into her hands.

Dawn’s tight grip on the coat telegraphed her fears. “Maybe you did - steal it, I mean. But it was a long time ago - right? I mean, I don’t know when it happened, but - But it’s yours now - it’s - like it’s part of you.”

“Yeah,” he acknowledged, staring at the black leather clutched in her hands. “It’s a part of me.”

Spike looked up into her face, and his eyes softened for a moment, his lips twisting into something that he hoped might bear some resemblance to a smile. Best effort. Should count for something. Should, but wouldn’t. His hand reached out and touched a strand of her hair, letting it slide through his fingers, before withdrawing.

His girl.

She’d been his girl.

“You have such beautiful hair,” he murmured, letting his eyes run over it. “Prettiest I’ve ever seen.” His smile changed, gentled, became genuine. “Take care of yourself, bit.”

He turned away. Walking back to the bed, he scooped a small duffle bag up off the floor and shoved the few personal possessions he’d laid out into it. His hands smoothed the comforter on the bed, erasing the wrinkles Dawn had created. They only lingered for a moment. There, that was better. He looked around the room, making sure everything was in order. Neat and tidy. His mum had run a tight ship in their house. Sometimes her edicts lingered.

Spike heard the door upstairs bang against the wall and knew Dawn had gone. Blue eyes, touched with regret, went to the opening that led upstairs, but skittered to a halt when they caught sight of the pile of black leather the girl had dropped at the foot of the ladder. For a long moment, Spike stared at the coat. Then he shouldered the duffle bag and left the crypt through the passage leading into the tunnels.

Spike’s duster lay where Dawn had let it fall.

~*~

Where there is much light,

the shadow is deep.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Author’s Notes

Awakenings is done! Awakenings is done! Woo-hoo!!!! Snoopy dancing at Mary’s house!! Join me!

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year! I had so hoped to get this out before Christmas, a holiday gift to those still with the story, but illness, and the accompanying drug induced brain fuzziness, kept that from happening. (If interested, see personal tale of woes for further excuses explanation on delay.)

Before I say one more thing - huge thank yous to Kumiko Yada for her incredible generosity! Kumiko, you were a life-saver. Thank you so much!

It was a long update, so just a couple of quick notes:

The final scene of Awakenings was written long, long ago, months before Seeing Red aired. (Sometimes it actually scares me to realize how long I’ve been working on this.) I was almost screaming at the television when the duster got left behind in that ep. But, after giving it a lot of thought, I decided to go ahead and keep that part of my story intact.

The chip issue, however, I totally stole. I felt that the only thing that Buffy could do that would completely devastate Spike was question his devotion to Dawn by implying he might be a danger to her. I hope I’ve successfully set up the characterizations so that Spike's reaction rings true, and doesn’t seem completely contrived.

Journeys just won its 45^{th fan fiction award. I feel truly honored. (And grateful and shocked, etc.) Thank you so much to everyone who has nominated it, voted for it, and participated in judging it. I’ve met so many wonderful people online in the Buffy fandom, and I just cannot tell all of you how much your support and encouragement has meant to me.}

Next up: Part Three - Revelations.

All together now: One. More. Time. Woo-hoo! Awakenings is done!