He comes across her on the street, and freezes, taken aback because she looked so...

So the same. Little Bit hasn't changed one little bit.

But her face breaks into smile at the sight of him, and she runs forward to hug him.

"Spike," she sobs against him, and he can feel her smile on his chest. "You came back."

"Looks that way," he answers. "So..."

She pulls away, and stares at him suspiciously. "So...what? Was this it? Are you leaving again?"

"No," he says, shaking his head. "Not right away."

She smiles once more, and grabs his hand up in hers. They're heading towards the park when he finally speaks again.

"So," he says, mainly to fill the gap. "So...what's happened?"

Dawn's smile is gone now, and she's somber once more. "Mom and Buffy both said that they wanted Giles for my legal guardian before they died. So I was with him for a couple of years, until--"

She stops, chokes on the words. He looks at her. The girl is nobly struggling to keep from crying, it seems.

"He's gone," Dawn says shortly.

He nods, not pursuing the subject. "The witches?"

"Tara still lives in Sunnydale. Took over the magick shop after Giles -- I mean...Willow left. Went to LA to help Angel and his gang. Last I heard, she was moving into Cordelia's place."

They've reached a secluded spot in the park, in some copse of trees. Dawn continues hollowly, anticipating his next question. "Xander and Anya are doing pretty well, actually. Well, once the shock wore off. Their daughter's gonna be a Slayer. They weren't happy. But they're coping, and Buffy -- their daughter Buffy, I mean -- she's training."

Spike nods again. The both of them are silent for a few moments. They don't meet each other's eyes.

Until Spike kicks her feet out from under her and pins her to the ground. She screams. He pays her vocalizations no heed.

"And you, Niblet?" he asks casually. "What's new with mini-Slayer?"

She stares at him innocently for a few moments. He rolls his eyes.

"Don't insult us both," he says quietly. "The chip's still in."

Dawn's eyes narrow a bit, and she considers him for a moment. Finally, she continues, in a much harder voice.

"You ditched us the night after we buried Buffy. You didn't see what happened next. The first new moon after she died, I woke up about two in the morning with these pains like you wouldn't believe shooting through me. It felt like a gazillion knives were ripping me apart from the inside. My screaming woke Giles up. He said I was glowing, bright green. From what I can figure out, each time those pains got worse, I began to glow brighter, 'cos he said it coincided with the volume of my screaming.

"The point is, when it stopped, I wasn't the Key anymore. The worlds had been sealed and Glory was gone. The spell was broken. The Key," she spat acidly, "wasn't needed anymore. Everyone in a certain radius was affected, and I had people I'd known for five years looking at me like I was a stranger. Hell, I was a stranger. Buffy, according to the papers, had been kidnapped and was presumed dead. Other than that, there was no evidence that anything that happened... happened.

"So I ran away. Went to LA. God, was that a hellhole. Of course, every place is a hellhole when you're emotionally destroyed. But that's not the point. The point is, on my first night there, when I was still just wandering around and crying like an idiot, someone found me. And she was so sweet. She pulled me to her and she held me like no one has since Mom died. And she let me just cry on her."

Dawn just...looks at him as she explains. He can't tell what she's feeling. If anything.

Finally, she continues. "So, there I was, basically wrecked. And then, you know what I did?"

He thinks he knows what's coming, but he asks anyway. He's always been something of a masochist, after all. "What?"

She grins -- something ugly and hard and angry. Her face melts. Her eyes grow yellow, her brow sprouts hard ridges. Her teeth grow out. She reaches a leg up, wraps it around his waist, and flips the two of them over so that now, she's in control.

She leans down, and whispers in his ear. "I took a leaf out of your book. I got over it."

Her tongue lingers there for a few moments, caressing his earlobe. She smiles against his neck, traces her fangs along his jaw.

He doesn't offer her anything, but she doesn't seem to want anything more. Dawn looks into his eyes once more. Whispers to him, "I always wanted to do that."

She de-vamps again, stares at him hard. He kicks out, rolls the two of them again, so that she's beneath him once more.

"You've still got your sister's eyes," he says softly, not caring about the pain which is evident in his voice. Much to her amusement, he leans down, kisses her gently.

She shakes her head. "Spike," she says, as a pair of hands yanks him off of her, "I already told you. I'm over it."

Drusilla sinks into Dawn's arms without so much as a look at Spike. Dru's much taller than Dawn, but she somehow seems to fit into the girl's embrace as well as she once fit into his. For one moment, the two women share a gaze which he recognizes, because it used to be one he shared with Dru. It's a gaze which speaks of only each other, and of the magic only the two of them will know.

Without another word or look at him, they walk away, and he is left alone once more, only an hour after sunset.