Spike & The Schoolgirl ch 1
She stood outside the door of his basement apartment, the nervous shuffle of her loafer-clad feet digging into the blisters obtained from trekking across four airports, two bus terminals and a taxi stand since she left Italy yesterday morning. Impetuously travelling across two continents and an ocean, Dawn now stood in the cool, dark hallway, her heart racing in a mixture of excitement, nervousness, and trepidation. She thought briefly of the reprisals that would have followed if she had told anyone of her plans beforehand—Buffy would have thrown a fit and forbidden her to leave the country, Willow would've called her 'Dawnie' and pled with those entreating eyes and escalating whine for her not to go; Giles would've cleaned his glasses till they broke.
Dawn, however, consulted no one but herself in preparation for this surprise reunion. In the sliver of dusky mirror that had hung in her tiny, ancient dorm room, Dawn had given her new look a covert test-run, preparing in advance for the impression she wanted to make. Sultry, sophisticated, mature—this is the Dawn she hoped the vampire would see when he opened the door. Dawn hoped that Spike's image of her in little-girl braids and a blue football helmet would be replaced with someone more glamorous, confident, and alluring—someone who could pretend to be all those things that, in this moment, seemed to elude her.
She blinked against the heaviness of the drugstore mascara she applied in the taxi, fluffed her full, dark locks, accented with a few highlights from the strong Italian sun, and rolled over the waistband of her plaid skirt before tying the white shirttail at her waist. Dawn added no perfume, though, knowing that to him, she had a scent all her own--anything else would only seem artificial to his keen senses.
She wished for a sexier outfit, a silky red dress, maybe, some high heels, though not too high—towering over him might seem a bit awkward, she reconsidered. Lacy underthings, a small scrap of a thong, a strapless bra that would make her breasts spill over in a tantalizing display of the curves she acquired since she had seen him last would be a far cry from the simple white cotton briefs and brassiere issued from the St. Francis of Assisi Girls' Convent School. Dawn dropped her small carry-on bag to the grubby hallway tile to reach inside her bra and adjust her breasts, so they might appear as voluptuous and desirable as possible—no small feat in underwear also designed for nuns.
She had been practicing what she would say to him—'Hey, sexy, fancy a shag?'…, 'Just happened to be on the continent and thought I'd drop by'…, 'You jackass, why couldn't you call to tell me you were alive?!'-- though Dawn had yet to decide how to greet the vampire that up until recently she thought was dust underneath the rubble of Sunnydale. And then, soon after she learned of his return from the undead, "the great Poofter" (as she had taken to calling him [courtesy of Spike's influence, of course]) led him into yet another suicidal battle against the senior partners of Wolfram and Hart and the throngs of demons that descended upon LA.
Fortunately, Willow's coven had tracked the sudden influx of demon activity from surrounding dimensions. Though that immigration of evil forces also spilled over into Europe (seems that some demons had a preference for the Old Country), keeping Buffy and her new recruits rather busy, Willow and several of her sister Wiccans converged on Assisi, and after much research on harnessing the power of the Key, Willow and her sister witches pierced Dawn's tender flesh, spilled a trickle of her blood into their magicks, and prayed to the goddess that the portal they opened would be strong enough to draw the worst of the demons, in whatever corner of the globe they may be, and send them into one of the more sparsely-populated hell dimensions. As the witches called forth the names of the battles being fought, each scene shone in the rippling circle—Istanbul, Berlin, Prague—Dawn watched, transfixed, as images of Buffy and her sister slayers in battle flowed before them. Sighs of relief and prayers of gratitude were heard as many of their enemies were pulled back from the fighting, back into the glowing portal, crackling with an emerald electricity.
When Willow called on the great goddess to reveal the battle in the City of Angels, Dawn scanned the scene intently, desperate to find her vampire, her friend, whom she had so callously threatened with a tortuous death not long before he burned to save them all. Amid the thousands of demons amassed to destroy the city, Dawn finally spotted the blonde-haired figure dressed in black, fighting as he bled, as he suffered, believing that after dying twice, after years of loving, death, and then, redemption, that this was it—the last dance, the big finale. Ironically enough, Peaches was at his side.
The witches held Dawn back, their chanting voices growing hoarse as they tried to be heard above Dawn's plaintive cries. She pled to jump into the portal and give aid to her vampire even while her hand tried to staunch the flow from her wound. As the gateway pulled at the invaders, as the numbers of the enemy started to thin, Dawn's tears began to wash away the blood, and the image below was once again a scuffed wood floor, and Dawn was surrounded by the circle of witches glancing from one to the other, their faces awash with a mixture of hope and trepidation. A small, terrified sound echoed from the doorway, where Dawn found her roommate clutching a small chain of beads, beseeching God for protection.
The school allowed Dawn to expedite her studies, and certainly allowed Dawn's roommate, Maria Lousia to be reassigned to a nearby convent school when panicked ramblings about demons, witches, and vampires became distracting. Dawn was quietly given her diploma six months early and her trust fund released when she turned 18, the state of California forcing Hank Summers to pay back child support for a child that in reality, he had no part in producing, though to this day, he remained vaguely guilty over his absence in her life.
So here she was, with a vague message sent to her sister via Andrew and a small knapsack containing a handful of possessions and certainly no clothes any more revealing than what she currently wore, Dawn stood outside the vampire's door. As a child, she would burst into his crypt, the day's triumphs and woes on her face, seeking solace from the outsider, the one who understood her acting out, her transgressions, the one whom she later rejected without mercy or just cause.
What do you say after over a year apart, to someone whose absence left a gaping hole in your heart? She had hours on the airplane to rehearse—indignation, a casual hello, an irresistible seduction. She tried to play them out in her head—which would result in her favor? Which would cause him to send her away?
Dawn moved another step closer, her palms sticky with nervousness. She wiped them on her skirt and bent to retrieve her bag. Her heart beat hard in her chest. Another step and she knew he would be able to hear the internal hammering through the thick door, would pick up on her scent. Would he remember it from over a year ago, between death and resurrection? Could he identify the rhythm of her blood, the susurration through arteries and veins? One more step and she would have to knock or else the choice will have been made for her. With one more deep breath, her knuckles met the door. Her breath, her blood was no longer under her control. She could hear his booted footsteps grow closer, could hear the moment that her invisible sound and smell reached his senses, the rushing steps and the bolts thrown back in rapid succession. And then—
The door opened to a sea of watery blue.
"Spike…"