Line, Arc, and Angle

by Minxy

Dawn's anger at Spike leads her into danger, clarity, and a whopping big surprise. Third and final installment, following "The End of the Line" and "Lines Get Crossed."

Line, Arc, and Angle

by

Minx Trinket

Disclaimer cliché: Just think of it as really sincere flattery, Mr. Whedon.

Rating: Aw, this one's only PG. Sorry guys! No hot vamp-on-Platelet action. Not that kind at least.

Spoilers and continuity: If you haven't seen 'em all, don't read this! This story takes place, oh, call it 39 and 3/4 days after "The Gift." It completes the trilogy (such a grand word for a bunch of six-page stories!) of "The End of the Line" and "Lines Get Crossed," by yours truly.

Summary: Dawn's anger at Spike leads her to into danger, clarity, and a whopping huge surprise.

Soundtrack notes: On the off chance that any of my readers are from The Bay Area or just happen to frequent drag shows, I'll mention that my song for the last scene (OVERLAP from EXT.-GRAVEYARD-NIGHT to INT.-SUMMERS' KITCHEN-DAY, as they say in the biz) is The Kinsey Sicks "Begoña's Song" from their first album Dragapella. As for the rest of you, I apologize that I couldn't snag an appropriate sample lyric. Let's just say that it's a haunting, four-part harmony acapella number that says, in effect, "I loved you but you're dead and I don't want to go on but I know if you could you would tell me to dance and to dream and to love and to 'celebrate life.'" Sounds familiar, no? I'll post some lyrics in an update if I can find them. (Hey, Trampy my ol' friend, don't get your panties in a bunch. It's free advertising.)

A NOTE ON THE ENDING: No, it's not a cliffhanger. Yes, that's the last thing I'm writing in this series. What will happen next? I imagine Spike will drink heavily and Dawn will be smiling a lot for a while.

Dedication: To my favorite Hoo, who passed on the idea from her scholarly friend about "Restless," "The Gift," and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. (Look out for flying metaphors!)

REVISION NOTES: Thanks to Dani_Kin for the advice and inspiration.

            Spike slid into the darkened house just before 4 AM and found Willow asleep on the couch, head thrown back onto the arm and drooling a little. He tiptoed up to her, crouched beside her, and looked over her shoulder at the book in her lap. "Mmm, hemoglobin!" he said, and she started awake with an "Eep!" and swung the book at him. He dodged and laughed. "Sorry Red. Fella's got to get his scares in where he can these days."

            "Well, I see you're feeling better," she said sourly.

            "Yeah," he shrugged. "Walked it off. How's the Nibblet?"

            "She feels bad, I think," Willow said, "but in that pissed-off teenager kinda way. She didn't want to talk to me, so…." Willow tilted her head at him. "Don't suppose you want to talk to me?"

            Spike inspected his nails. "'Bout what?"

            "Well, in case you haven't noticed," she said, gesturing to herself, "kinda the local expert here on Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Y'know, werewolves, women, other people's boyfriends? Maybe I could help."

            "I don't think she's in love," Spike sighed. "Poor kid's just lonely."

            "I didn't mean Dawn."

            He glared at her, defiantly. "It's just another job, Red. I owe her one is all."

            "You're not as good a liar as you used to be," Willow said quietly. They held each others' eyes for a while, and Spike wondered what it was about these Scooby women, shining their bright truths into the dusty corners of his heart. He could hide nothing from them. "But, Spike, she is just a kid, a messed-up half-grown-up. And she's not B--"

            "Don't say it," he growled. "Don't tell me things I already bleeding know."

            "Do you know it?"

            "Better than the lot of you," he said. "I could find her heartbeat among a million others. I know her dreams, and sometimes I even know her thoughts before she thinks them. Most of all, I know the last thing she needs is to fall in love with a miserable sod like me." Spike stood and headed for the stairs. "I'm gonna go check on her."

            "Okay, but, Spike?" Willow fixed him with a mock-stern stare. "No funny business," she said with a finger waggle. He snarled at her and continued up the steps.

            When he reached Dawn's door he knocked quietly and, getting no response, tried the doorknob. It was unlocked, so he opened the door just far enough to stick his head into the room.

            "Hey, Li'l Bit," he whispered. "Are you--"

            The sentence fell away unfinished. He knew, from the chill in the room, from the smell, that there was no one in there at all, just a bed full of decoy pillows and the curtains whipping in the breeze from the open window.

            Spike tore back down the stairs.

            "What is it?" Willow asked him.

            "She's gone," he snapped. "Prob'ly gone out the sodding window again. Don't call the cavalry just yet, though. I'll try to track her by scent." He stormed across the room to Buffy's old weapons chest, which was still tucked behind an armchair.

            "But where would she go at four in the morning?" Willow asked.

            "I dunno. Maybe she--" He stopped dead as he threw open the chest and looked inside.

            The bag of stakes was gone.

            "Shit," he muttered.

            "What?"

            He looked up at the witch. "She's gone patroling."

            Dawn hefted the heavy bag into a more comfortable position on her shoulder and fingered the safety on her "Holy Chipotle," the pepper spray blessed as holy water. (It was her own invention, and the idea had gotten her buco browny points with the Scoobies and an impressed eyebrow raise from her sister.) Her arm was falling asleep and she was getting a twinge across her back, and she thought, I don't care if you leave me. I can do this without you.

            The graveyard seemed pretty quiet. Dawn didn't have her sister's Slayersense, but growing up with a stealthy tease of a big sister she'd had to develop a keen sense of when someone was, say, hiding under her bed, or in her closet, or behind a huge old obelesk like that shaggy-haired vamp over there was just now.

            "But, but," Willow stammered, "that's not, like, huge, right? I mean, you've been training her, and, and, taking her on patrols and stuff, right?"

            "Yeah," Spike said, hefting his favorite axe to his shoulder. "Thing is, she hasn't actually managed to kill anything yet."

            "Oh God," Willow choked.

            "Now might be the time to call in the troops," he said, heading for the door. "Get everyone searching the graveyards."

            Dawn tried to look casual and not to look like she'd spotted him or like she was carrying a big bag of pointy sticks. She got as close to the monument as she dared, and then, using one of Dru's old hunting tricks that Spike had taught her, she crouched down on one knee as if to tie her shoelace, laying the spray right next to one foot and putting the bag next to her other knee.

            That was the cue the vamp needed. He lunged from behind the stone and Dawn swung the pepper spray up and around, spraying it right into his face. The vampire howled and gurgled at the double burn as his skin began to bubble and melt off his face. He staggered back, clawing at his own eyes, and Dawn's hand darted into the bag for a weapon.

            She jumped to her feet and found a good, stable fighting stance, but the monster had already semi-recovered and was coming at her blind, arms flailing. She batted them away, trying to get within staking distance, but the vamp landed a punch to her left kindey and sent her sprawling across the wet grass. She got halfway to her feet but the vamp leapt and knocked her onto her back, landing on top of her. She brought her knee up hard between his legs and he rolled off of her, yelping. She rolled onto him and drew back her arm for a good, hard staking. The vamp arched his back and knocked her off, but she managed to stumble to her feet. He lunged at her, still on his knees, and with a banshee howl she leapt to meet him, stake held high. He knocked her arm back, grabbed her shoulders, and sank his fangs, deep, deep into her neck.

            Gasping, Dawn froze as stars of pain shot through her and the world swam grey before her eyes. No! she thought, and then shouted: "NO!" and brought her arm around in a wide, blind arc, driving the stake through the vampire's back.

            He fell to dust.

            Shaking, Dawn dropped the stake onto the ashy little pile and clutched at the wound in her neck. When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in blood.

            She swayed a little. Blood. The blood, portal opening. Running, leaping, falling---

            "Buffy!" she sobbed, and fell to her hands and knees, weeping.

            Spike crashed through the graveyard-- the graveyard-- for the second time that night. "Dawn!" he shouted. "Dammit, DAWN! Where are you?" There wasn't a lot of ground to cover in the tiny cemetary, and it was barely five minutes before he came upon the bag, the spray, the sad little pile of ashes and the dusty stake. That, and the smell of blood. Dawn's blood. He saw one bloody handprint on the ground, then another, and he knew exactly where she was headed. He ran.

            Dawn dragged herself onto her sister's grave and curled up, arms wrapped around her knees, on the soft young turf. She was still shaking all over, and her skin, her whole body felt cold, except for the bite, where warm, wet stickiness oozed slowly from her neck and dripped into the ground. Out of the numbness of her mind the words arose: Alone, dying. As her life dribbled out of her and into the welcoming clay, Dawn thought she felt a shudder run through the earth beneath her, and she shut her eyes as a wave of nausea hit. She could hear a distant thumping, like her pulse in her ears, then a second rhythm joined it, louder, faster, and then a crash of breaking bushes.

            "DAWN!" Spike cried, and he slid on his knees across the slick grass, gathering her into his arms. "Dawn! Nibblet! Talk to me, baby, please! Say something!"

            She forced her eyes open, the pounding noise surging and then fading away. "I'm all right," she choked. "I'm all right." Spike sobbed with relief, took her face in his hands and covered her forehead in kisses, kissed the tearstains on her cheeks.

            "Oh, God," he whispered. "Thank God," and he pressed his forehead to hers, their tears mingling on her skin.

            "I got one, Spike," she whispered. "I got 'im."

            "I know, I saw," he said gently. "You done good, Nibblet. Real good."

            Sniffling, she asked him, "Can we go home now?"

            Spike sat on the kitchen counter, smoking and staring through the open window at the bright, sunlit back yard. He could barely feel the cigarette between his fingers, and he had to concentrate very hard not to drop it. He brought it, shaking, to his lips, took a long drag, and lowered it again, blowing the smoke slowly out the window into the world. The voices of the Scoobies, scattered throughout the house, seemed distant and tinny to his ears. The songs of the birds outside seemed false and useless. There was only one sound, one beat that mattered. He shuddered, feeling again how close her heart had been to stopping. Never again, he thought. I won't let anyone hurt you again.

            He heard Dawn's bare feet slapping on the linoleum as she walked in, but he didn't turn to look at her.

            "You alright then?" he asked.

            "Yeah," she said. "Willow cleaned me up good."

            "Good," he said, and took another drag.

            "I'm sorry, Spike," she whispered.

            "Why'd you go out there, Bit?"

            "I thought…" she began, and choked. "I thought I was gonna have to from now on. 'Cause I thought you were really gone this time."

            Spike squeezed his eyes shut against the tears. "Glad to be rid of Bloody Uncle William, were you?"

            "No!" she cried, "No! I never want you to leave me."

            Despite the leaden fear in his gut, he felt himself smiling. "Well then, I never will," he said simply.

            Dawn took a few steps toward him. "Good, 'cause I, uh, I kinda had this, well…" she said, "this epiphany thingy, about you and me. You know. Lying there bleeding and all, it kinda happens."

            "It does," he agreed. "What was yours?"

            "I think I figured out what went wrong, why we were so mad at each other all of a sudden. I think, maybe, the problem," she said slowly, "the reason things got so screwed up with us isn't because we miss Buffy. I think what's wrong is we were both trying to be Buffy."

            He turned to her slowly, examining the earnest calm on her face. "Sounds about right," he said at last.

            "You don't have to be her, Spike. She's not the one I need around."

            Spike swallowed. A million words and none fought for his tongue, a million ways and none to tell her how much he loved her.

            Dawn cracked the smallest of smiles. "Crazy, huh?" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I mean, you being all kind and noble and fatherly? What's up with that?"

            Spike chuckled and replied in the same tone: "Yeah, and you, a sex-kitten demon killer? Not bloody likely."

            Dawn laughed, and Spike tossed his cigarette across the room into the sink. He held out his empty hand to her. She glided across the room and put her hands on his shoulders. He rested his hand on her waist. She looked deeply into his eyes, smiling.

            Spike had, finally, had an epiphany of his own. He saw his life from a whole new angle, and he knew now that what he felt for Dawn was every bit as stong, as real and binding as what he'd felt for Buffy or Dru. The difference was it wasn't the burning, consuming need he had felt for those other women. His love for Dawn was like a refuge, a quiet pool, a summer morning with the world stretched out before before him in endless, infinite possibility. He looked deep into her eyes and he caught a glimpse of his own, long-prodigal soul. He trusted her keep it safe.

            Dawn leaned forward and kissed Spike on the cheek, the corner of her mouth just catching his own. His hand twitched, wanting to pull her closer, pull her inside and never let her out again. "Bit…" he began.

            "I know," she said. "Not now."

            "Yeah, but," he stammered, "maybe not never."

            Sighing, Dawn rested her head on his shoulder and gazed out the window. "I'm good with that." she said.

            "Good, he said quietly, stroking her hair. "Good."

            Together, they watched the wind playing in the leaves for a time, both of them still but for the motion of his hand in her hair, both of them feeling, for the first time in so long, at peace.

            As they watched, a figure clad in white seemed from nowhere at all to billow up, circle down, come to rest within the trees. Dawn lifted her head. "Did you see that?" she asked, and looked at Spike.

            His mouth fell open as he stared at the figure coming toward them across the lawn. "The blood…" he whispered.

            Dawn broke from his grasp and flung herself out the back door, down the steps and onto the lawn, stumbling to a stop barely three feet from the impossible person who was standing on the grass, smiling at her.

            "B-Buffy?" Dawn whispered.

            Solid and alive, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, held her arms out to embrace her little sister and threw back her golden mane of hair, laughing.