Dawn’s Gift
By Barb (Once Bitten Spike)
“Hey, Spike.”
The vampire looked up in surprise. He was unaware that anyone or anything else was near, so deep were his thoughts. A thing like that could get you killed. So what. Like it really mattered. “Isn’t it a bit late for you to be out, Nibblet?”
“No one will miss me.” She came to sit on the stone floor beside Spikes’ chair.
For the first time since he’d heard it a moment before, Spike realized that Dawn’s voice was dull, and lifeless. He patted the arm of the chair and scooted over a bit. “Get up here. Now.”
Dawn peered up at him through her hair, which was as void of animation as her speech. She let her head drop back down, and hang, her hands in her lap.
Spike took in her overall condition, her hair hanging in greasy strands, it and her clothing looking like they needed a good wash, and he shook off his own funk. “I said, NOW.”
Dawn’s head snapped back up, and she looked, wide eyed, at him. He’d never spoken to her in that manner before. His threats to her had always been empty, and they’d both known it. But looking into his eyes at this moment, she could easily see that he could be a formidable enemy. She got to her feet and slid into the old chair beside him, but didn’t return his questioning gaze, instead staring off around the crypt as if she found it interesting.
Spike looked down at the sneaker-clad feet that Dawn had drawn up into his chair and smiled a little, for the first time that day. She was wearing a pair of Buffy’s shoes, and he could tell that they were a little too small. Then his mind wandered back to the thought that nothing else in this world was ever going to matter to him again.
Buffy was gone. End of story. No witches spell would ever bring her back, and all of his pleading and prayers to a God he was sure had forsaken him had gained him zero. The curses he had hurled upward afterward, had probably lowered his status with the powers even further, but he was past caring. There was no point in remaining here. In this town. In these memories. In this life. He was unsurprised to learn that he was completely calm about it. His thoughts had taken him to a conclusion that he’d had before, but never had acted upon.
This time, he was serious. It was over.
As he looked fondly down on Dawn’s borrowed shoes, her shoes now, the pain from mental wounds that might never heal, returned full force to his weary, sleep deprived brain.
Unbidden, it filled his mind again, the sound of Buffy’s tiny body hitting the brick laden ground not far from where he had lain trying to recover enough to move.
The sound had haunted him for seven days.
Spike covered his ears with both hands, as if the act would block out the sound in his brain, forgetting that Dawn was even there. His tears fell anew, through eyes tightly squeezed shut, and his mouth opened in a soundless cry.
Without thinking about it, Dawn put her arms around him and hugged his trembling body to hers as tightly as she could.
Spike went rigid in her arms, at first unwilling to accept comfort from any human, ever again. Then, remembering that she was as destroyed as he, he returned her embrace, putting into it all of the love he would have poured out to her sister, if she’d allowed it, and had there been time.
For a second there was only the sensation of love, and the knowledge that neither cast any blame on the other for what had occurred.
And then the tears came again, and both of them sobbed together, holding onto each other like a lifeline, which Spike knew it was, for him at least.
After a moment, both became a bit self-conscious, and Spike, feeling Dawn’s discomfort was the first to pull away.
He wiped at his eyes and nose, made a face at the back of his hand, and wiped it on his jean-clad thigh.
Dawn snuffled, hiccupped, and looked up in time to see him wiping the snot on his pants. She stifled a giggle. Mortified, she ducked her head again. What kind of a sister was she? To laugh, when Buffy would never laugh again?
Spike put one finger under her chin, and lifted her face up to meet his blue-eyed gaze. “Nothing like a bit of mucus to remind us we’re alive. Or undead, in my case.” Spike gave her a watery smile, and she returned it. “Now then, Little Bit. Suppose you tell old Spike just what brings you out into a cemetery at night, in a town where a Hellmouth yawns beneath us.”
She looked up at him, the tears drying on her face, and said in a voice that was hoarse with the strain of the past few months and days. “They hate me.”
For a moment he was clueless, and tried not to show it. He brought one arm around Dawn and scooted her closer to him so that they were both sitting together in the seat of the chair, and laced the fingers of his hands together forming a protective circle around her. Hoping to make her feel secure, he was rewarded when she laid her head trustingly on his shoulder. He bit his tongue to prevent an ‘Angel/Poof’ related joke from popping out of his mouth. The girl didn’t need bloody jokes, she needed comforting. And he had loads of experience in that department due to his years with Drusilla. “Who, Luv. Who hates you?” He expected her to say something about her school chums, but he knew that she hadn’t been to school in some time now.
“Everybody. All of them. And I can’t blame them, because I hate me too!” Her voice was rough and filled with self-hatred.
A terrible suspicion began to grow in Spikes’ brain, and with it anger. But before he asked a horrible question, he found himself kissing the girl on top of her head, and laying his cheek on it. “Dawn. This whole bloody Glory thing. You didn’t cause it, and you didn’t make the decision that ended Buffy’s life. She did that. And if she were here right now, she’d kick your bleedin’ ass for sayin’ that.”
Dawn sniffed, but otherwise remained quiet.
Spike sighed, his voice catching on his next words. “Buffy was never very far from death. It stalked her from all angles, and she’d already outlived most of her peers. And I should know about that, because I killed two of them.” Spike felt her stiffen in his arms, but to his surprise, she stayed put right where she was.
Silent for a second, she breathed, “I know. Buffy told me about it.”
“Did she, now?”
“Yes. The same night she told me about the bondage party under your crypt, with Drusilla.”
Damn it. No wonder she’d given him the big freeze with the rest of the group, that day in the Magic Box. “Well, I can understand how that would make you less than fond of me, but you seem to have gotten over it.”
Dawn looked up at him for a moment. “It cured me of having a crush on you, but after I thought about it, I knew that Buffy was telling me as many bad things as possible, just to scare me away from hanging with you. And I think to maybe scare herself away, too.”
“Oh?” It figured. The wrong little bird had fallen for him.
Dawn gave him a scathing glance, and laid her head back down on his chest. “Stop pumping me for info. You knew that she felt something for you, even if she might never have admitted it.”
Right on target. He’d certainly told Buffy that very thing, hadn’t he? But he realized that she’d led him, perhaps purposely, away from his original line of questioning. “Okay. So I’m goin’ to be bleedin’ dense, here, and just come out and ask you. Who hates you?” He prayed that it was just a schoolmate.
Dawn, knowing that she shouldn’t say it but powerless to stop herself, the pain overwhelming her, stuttered it out, crying again, her tears falling on Spike’s clasped hands. “The Sc…Scoobies,” she sobbed. “They blame me for everything, I know it!”
Spike looked upward, and sneered. Another prayer, wasted. He waited until her crying slowed, and moved one hand to smooth the hair from her brow, then moved the hand to the top of her head, and stroked her, like a person would soothe a cherished pet.
Two minutes of that, and Dawn was asleep, confirming Spike’s suspicion that she hadn’t slept in quite a while. As he held her there, his thoughts turned to her little revelation, and he was suddenly at war with his demon. That part of him had no problem with just racing over to Dawn’s home, where he knew that Willow and Tara were staying temporarily, and flashing some fang.
He wanted answers. His demon knew how to get them.
His demon also had an unfortunate habit of getting his ass in a sling, which Spike wanted to avoid, at least until he heard someone else’s take on the situation.
Hell! If he hadn’t let them all tell him that Dawn would be all right, that they’d see to her, and he could check on her in a few days, he wouldn’t be so out of the loop.
He’d let his shock and utter devastation at Buffy’s loss, plus his need for time to heal physically, prevent him from being there when Dawn had obviously needed him.
He’d made a promise to a lady, had failed to protect her sister, and now had made it even worse.
Since when did he let anyone tell him to make himself scarce?
He should have told them all to bloody well sod off, and stayed in the thick of things, where he saw now he’d been desperately needed.
Guilt crowded into his thoughts, then. And there was more than one kind of guilt to reflect upon, which made it all the worse for guilt was a feeling that Spike was fairly unaccustomed to dealing with. There was the obvious one, for the urge he’d had to blow off going after Glory, for the few minutes it would take to grab Buffy and shag her silly.
At the time he’d thought he might just buy the farm, after all, and there was that little nagging suspicion that Buffy would have joined him, gladly, at least for the few minutes they had left, alone. There was time, as they’d stood there, looking at each other on the staircase in her house. She couldn’t have been too certain about her own future at that point, either. But he’d settled for a speech about being grateful that she’d treated him like a man, and not a monster. He’d meant every word of it, was glad he’d said it, but would always wonder…
And as he remembered the look in Dawn’s eyes, as he was unable to save her, and was thrown off the tower by that infuriating little demon, he closed his eyes in pain.
The whole thing might have ended happily.
If Doc had gone off that Tower, there wouldn’t have been enough time to do the ritual, and Buffy’s sacrifice would not have come to be. But if he continued to think like this, his demon would win, he’d do something stupid, and follow it up with something even worse. He knew now, that he did have a purpose for living; at least at this moment, and for now, it was enough.
He slowly extricated himself from Dawn’s embrace, grabbed a blanket from atop the stone coffin he often slept on, and wrapped her in it.
She didn’t stir as he lifted her up, and carried her out of the crypt and began walking toward the Summers’ home. Not surprising, as exhausted as she was.
Someone, possibly several someones, had some explaining to do.
Willow slowly swam back to consciousness from a deeper slumber than she thought possible under the circumstances. She had been dreaming, and the images were still at the forefront of her mind, as well as the noise, the sound of the Troll hammer as it bashed Glory’s skull into mush.
Willow’s dream was much more satisfying than the actual event had been, with a lot more damage, and maximum squishage.
The noise continued until finally it penetrated her brain that someone was pounding on the front door. She got out of the bed and paused, in spite of her urgency, to look around her. She had slept in Buffy’s room, after repeated requests to Dawn that she take it, but the teen had glumly shook her head and refused. So she and Tara were bunked in here, and Dawn had stayed in her own room. Willow wished that she’d tried harder to get Dawn to sleep in here, because the memories associated with this room were mainly happy ones for the red head, but now, it was just too sad. If not for the presence of Tara, she couldn’t have withstood it.
She looked down on the form of the girl in the bed, and smiled. She had decided that at least one of them would get the rest she needed, and had worked a spell that caused Tara to sleep so deeply each night that a brass band might not have awakened her. She needed to heal, and get over what Glory had done to her mind, in spite of the fact that she seemed her old self.
Willow jumped as she heard what sounded like someone kicking in the front door.
Glancing down at her teddy bear pajamas, she decided there was no time to worry about it, and grabbing a baseball bat from behind the door, she turned and ran from the room and down the stairs. She didn’t know what she had expected to find, but an angry vampire holding a blanket wrapped figure was not among the choices. She dropped the bat, in surprise. “Spike?”
“Well it’s not the bloody paper boy, now is it?” He pushed past her and headed for the couch where he deposited the sleeping Dawn, who had barely stirred through the whole thing.
Willow was still unaware of the identity of his burden, and came to look down at the slumbering figure in the dim light. Spike reached and turned on a lamp, and the witch gasped. “Oh, shit! I mean, Oh my God, Dawn!”
Spike took off his leather duster and laid it across a chair. “I think she’s worth a shit, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Obviously, we have a little problem.”
Willow frowned up at Spike. She often had trouble deciphering his meaning, and now was no exception. “How the hell did you end up with Dawny?” She settled for direct and to the point.
Spike sat down on the edge of the couch, still unwilling to stray very far from his charge. Willow remained standing, feeling suddenly nervous, as if she were on the witness stand. After casting a tender glance Dawn’s way, Spike looked up directly into the witch’s eyes. “Someone around here is making Dawn feel very persona non grata.”
Taken aback, Willow stammered. “S…Spike. I don’t know what to say. Well, yes, I guess I do, but…what do you mean?”
He came up off the couch to stand nose to nose with her. Then he noticed Dawn stirring a little, and grabbing Willow’s hand he all but dragged her around the corner and into the kitchen, ignoring the twinge in his brain that told him that he must have been hurting her a little.
Willow winced from his grip, and tried to pull away but suddenly found herself pulled up against him and backed against a counter. She began to get angry, now, and knew that she could easily send Spike flying if she chose to, but something in his demeanor stopped her, for the moment, although being so close to this vampire still caused her to sweat, and she wasn’t too sure it was all caused by fear. “Spike. We’re on the same side, you and I. Remember? Now back off and let me breathe, and we’ll talk.”
He pressed even closer. It wasn’t often that he had the chance to toy with someone, and he’d forgotten how good it felt.
Willow arched her brow at him. “I can move you, you realize that, right?”
“Really?” He smirked. He had no doubt of that, but didn’t budge.
Willow glanced at the windowsill where a potted plant sat, and narrowed her eyes a bit.
Spike followed her gaze, and watched, as it wilted. “Big deal. So your gonna wilt me?” The plant, pot and all, exploded, sending dirt and bits of clay all over the room. Spike backed up.
Willow smiled at him. “That’s better. Now what the hell are you doing with Dawn at this late hour?”
“Little Bit came to see me at the crypt, she did. Must have climbed out the window after you and your lover Wicca nodded off.”
Willow frowned. That trellis on the side of the house had to go.
Spike moved to the cabinet and began searching for his pacifier, the hot chocolate mix, talking as he looked. “The Nibblet is convinced that you and the rest of your merry little band hate her guts.”
Willow’s mouth dropped open and just hung there as she tried to think of a reply.
Spike passed her on the way to the sink, and closed her mouth with one finger. “Gonna catch a fly like that, Pet.”
Willow found her voice. “That’s ridiculous! I love Dawny. I would never, never…wait a minute.” She came to lean on the counter beside the vampire who was spooning way too much cocoa into his cup, along with half the marshmallows as well. “Spike, where would Dawn get the idea that we are angry with her? She can’t possibly think that we…” She paused as she reviewed the last few days in her mind. The funeral, at which half the town showed up to everyone’s surprise, the worries about what would happen next, and the aftermath of just dealing with the reality that Buffy was dead. The paralyzing grief.
She began to remember little things, then. Dawn trying to joke a little with Tara, and Xander telling both of them to quiet down. He’d had a headache, but Dawn didn’t realize that at the time. And one bigger occurrence that she herself had caused, only yesterday. Dawn had been going through the leftovers in the fridge and tossing what was getting old, but stuffing a lot of it into her mouth with gusto. Willow had admonished her for it, saying that she didn’t see how anyone could stuff their face like that. She’d left out the ‘after what we’ve been through’, but it was clearly implied. She’d only really meant that it wasn’t good to cram down all of that food, or at least she’d thought so, at the time.
Dawn had stopped chewing and just stared at her, her eyes haunted, and Willow had realized that something was wrong with her, but before she could say anything else, the girl had dropped the bowl she was holding which shattered on the floor, and ran from the room and up the stairs.
Willow now wondered if that had been the first food that Dawn had eaten since Buffy’s death. As she thought more on it, she couldn’t remember having seen the poor kid eat much of anything, just pushing the food around on her plate at meals.
Spike sipped his cocoa, and watched, as tears began to fill the witch’s eyes. In spite of his former anger he knew, deep down, that Willow cared very deeply for Dawn, and he had his own soft spot for the redhead. “Oi now, none of that.” He sat down the cup and put his arms around her, giving her a comforting, hard hug, and releasing her. “No time for your guilt party just now. We have to convince Dawn that none of us blames her for what happened.” He looked at Willow, his eyes suddenly piercing hers, and rooting her to the spot. “And we all have to mean it.”
She sniffed back her tears, and swallowed. She knew what he meant. Every last one of them had thought, at least once, that if not for Dawn, Buffy would still be here. And somehow, in their day-to-day interaction with her, they must have let those feelings slip enough to show.
She recalled then, Giles’ pain, the pain of losing a cherished daughter. He had been so lost and had holed up for a few days after seeing to the necessities, and what had Dawn thought about that? That he was avoiding her, blaming her, of course.
Xander had been like a zombie all week, rarely speaking unless spoken to. Anya had wisely kept her mouth shut, thank God.
All of their reactions had been similar, and to a guilty child, had been as glaring as actual accusations would have been, and twice as powerful due to Dawn’s fertile imagination.
“So what do you think we should do?” She wiped one tear away that had slid down her cheek.
“Well, I’m as guilty as the rest of you lot. As far as she knew, I was off wallowing in my self pity, and blaming her for the whole thing.”
Willow smiled and reached to pat his arm, as she watched his hand shake when he put the cup down on the counter. “You didn’t know. We didn’t know. But I guess we should have.”
Pleased more than he could say by her use of the word, ‘we’, he smiled back at her. “I’m glad I came over here tonight. I should have come sooner.”
Willow looked down at her bare feet. “That was our fault. Or mine, because I should have known that Dawn needed you, too.”
“Well, it’s under the bridge, now, and while there’s time left tonight, I’m gonna go to the cemetery, see Buffy and her mom. I need to talk to them for a bit.”
He started to brush past Willow, but she stopped him and startled him by hugging him to her, firmly. She drew back and completed his surprise by kissing him lightly on both cheeks.
He responded by putting one hand at the back of her head, and kissing her fully on the lips, a soft kiss, brotherly, but not quite.
They stepped apart, both looking about the kitchen nervously.
Spike smiled. “Well, I’ll be goin’ now. Tell Dawn, when she wakes up that I’ll be back tonight.” The time had flown and it was nearly four a.m.
Willow said, softly. “You’re welcome to stay here, if you’d like.” She blushed brighter than her hair. “I mean on the couch, or in the basement, of course.”
Spike grinned, enjoying her discomfort. It was good to smile again. “Thanks for the invite, but I’ve been spending a lot of my nights with Buffy and Joyce, right up until light. And tonight I have some more things I want to tell them, as well as an apology for being so bleedin’ dense.”
Willow was touched. “What will you say?”
Spike drew himself up with some of his old bravado. “That the ‘big bad’ is back, and on the job, I suppose. And some other stuff, I guess.” He didn’t see the point in telling her that he’d spent most nights since Buffy’s burial, lying on her grave and sobbing until first light made him leave, and that he had planned to make this night his last one. His plans had changed.
They were going to get through this, the lot of them. His thoughts of leaving the planet had vanished, and as it often happened, the cause was Buffy related.
Willow smiled as she watched the vampire whom she’d grown to admire, respect, and love as a friend, gently wash out Joyce’s cup and place it on the drainer. “Hey, Big Bad. Thanks for doing the dishes.”
He grinned back at her, and nodded, then tiptoed softly out of the kitchen and paused to look down on the snoozing Dawn, reaching to brush the hair from her face. She smiled in her sleep.
Then he was outside, and on his way to keep his appointment.
He had a job to do, and he would keep his promise to the lady after all. He would watch over her sister, and keep her safe, until the end of the world. And he too, would be brave, and live in it.