Not Dead

By RevelloDrive1630

Characters: Spike, Dawn

Rating: PG
Timeline: Summer after Buffy's death.
Author Notes: This is a flashback written for my WIP fic "Apocalypse, Again?". I hope I managed to write a fic true to canon.
Completed: March 2009.
Disclaimer: This universe was created by Joss, I just play in his sandbox.

"Spike?" Dawn stuck her head in a half-open door of the crypt. She took a look around, but the vampire was nowhere to be seen. The girl stepped inside making sure to close the door quietly.
"Spike?" she called again. There was no answer. Dawn cautiously walked through the crypt, inspecting the interior. An old armchair in front of a very outdated TV set, a stone bier, candles on windowsills, two massive sarcophagus at the back wall, a fridge in the corner.
Behind a column supporting the ceiling she spotted an entrance leading to the lower level of the crypt.
Dawn took a deep breath and started climbing down the ladder.
The darkness of the underground chamber was sparsely lit by a couple of torches and a yellow-shaded lamp, which stood by the side of a spacious bed. Across the bed the vampire lay on his stomach, his face and arms hanging down the side.
Dawn stuck her hair behind her ears and straightened her skirt. She took a bag off her shoulder and approached a black-clad figure on the bed.
"Spike."
He stirred and lifted his head, looking at the intruder from under his swollen eyelids.
"Go away," he said sluggishly and closed his eyes again.
Instead of following his order Dawn took another step towards him accidentally pushing an empty bottle on the floor with her shoe. The bottle rolled under the bed, where it collided with another one, making a clinking noise.
Dawn twitched. Spike made a growling sound and sat up. He stared at the teenager.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see how you were."
"You saw me?" Spike spread his arms. "Now, sod off."
"You look terrible," stated Dawn and picked up her bag. "I brought you some… food." She fished out a plastic bag filled with blood.
Spike looked surprised, but took it.
"From the hospital?"
"Yeah, I stole it from the emergency room," answered Dawn with some pride in her voice.
For a briefest of moments a smile curled up Spike's lips, but he quickly hid it behind furrowed brows. Nevertheless it was too late for Dawn had already noticed it and now came to sit down beside him. Spike tore a corner of the plastic bag open with his teeth and started drinking dark-red fluid hungrily. One he finished he dropped the empty bit of plastic on the floor and turned to Dawn.
"Do the witches know you are here?"
"No, I told them I went for a walk."
"And they just let you go?"
"Why not? I'm not the Key anymore and it's not like there's an insane hell-goddes and her hobbit-with-lepracy-looking minions after me now. Nobody needs me now," Dawn bit on her lower lip.
"Hey, don't talk crap," protested Spike.
"I'm telling the truth. They try not to look me in the eyes. Willow, Tara, Giles, Xander, even Anya. I can see the way they look at me. I know what they are thinking: if it hadn't been for me, Buffy would have been alive. If I had died, she wouldn't have had to jump. And everybody would have been happy, since I am not real and all. Every time they look at me I read "Buffy died because of you" in their eyes. But you don't. There's no accusation in your eyes. Why not? I thought you loved her."
"I still do," Spike corrected her. "And she loved you. You were the most precious being in the world for her. Trust me, to give your life for someone you love isn't as bad as most people think. Buffy did it. I couldn't," Spike swallowed. "I guess I don't blame you for her death, 'cause I blame myself. I promised her to protect you, 'til the end of the world… I failed. If I had only been faster or more clever, if I could have stopped the Doc, then no one would have had to die." Spike sniffed and turned away.
"She told me the hardest thing in this world is to live in it," Dawn said quietly. "I get that now."
They sat there in silence for a while.
Dawn picked up her bag and rummaged in it taking out a stack of cards.
"I brought cards. You deal."