WAITB1

What am I To Be?
By Phoenixstitch 5/18/2001

I didn´t start out for this to be an after Glory story, but I guess it had to come out. This starts several weeks after the end of 5th Season. It deals with the characters trying to pick up the pieces of their lives in the aftermath of what has happened to them with Glory plus being part of Buffy´s very dangerous life. This is being written before seeing "the Gift" so bear with me if this isn´t exactly by the show.
Rating at least PG-17 for language and adult situations. But if you can watch the show you can read this.
Characters: Lots of Buffy/Spike, Dawn, and the rest of the Scoobies.
Disclaimers: Yeah, you know the drill. Just borrowing, and trying out ideas and not trying to infringe on anyone.
Comments, gripes, etc.: Vickey/Phoenixstitch -- vbmacky1@yahoo.com
If you want this for your site give me a holler.
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Part 1

Looking outside at the beautiful, sunny, normal Summer´s day while she was finishing up drying the dishes, Buffy was enjoying the sheer bliss of being able to do just normal things like housework without the crisis of the hour on her head. After being wound up tight for months she was finding that getting back to normal was in some ways harder than she thought it would be. There was still the aftermath of Glory having turned all their lives upside down, and then some to yet deal with. She was glad that Dawn was finally safe. Giles was still recovering as was Tara, and slowly was everyone else. Shell shocked was the best way to describe everyone after what all they had been through with the Hell Goddess. After dealing with Glory, Buffy didn´t think anything could faze her otherworldly wise anymore. What were run of the mill vampires and demons after that?

Speaking of vampires brought to mind that Spike had been noticeably absent from hanging outside her house since they had all split up, and gone their separate ways after the battle three plus weeks ago. Not that she didn´t mind his being gone, but this just wasn´t normal for him not to be in her face, or annoying her. Buffy sighed in frustration as thoughts of Spike usually made her very confused, and upset because of his fixation on her. Just why did the idiot have to pick her to be in love with? She so did not need this, or any thoughts about him in any touchy feeling, damn he´s sexy kind of way. She had made up her mind that vampires were completely off the possible boyfriend list—permanently. At least she was finally over Angel now. She just wasn´t going to start thinking about Spike in any romantic way.

She wondered if Dawn had seen Spike recently, and not told her? Her sister did not keep her up to date on everything she did since she was now free to have a social life, and her own friends. Since school was now out Dawn was taking advantage of the fact when she wasn´t in summer school making up missed work. Even with the girl now having human friends to hang with, Dawn still considered Spike her best friend. For some weird reason her now very real sister continued to hang out with the peroxide pest. Buffy couldn´t figure out a way from really discouraging her from doing so, but she couldn´t forbid it either after all he had done for them all.

But now that she had started thinking about him she couldn´t get him out of her mind. Putting the last dish up Buffy wandered into the living room where Dawn was playing a video game on the TV instead of studying like she was supposed to be doing. "That doesn´t look like you´re studying for your history test," Buffy commented, and received a shrug from her sister.

"I´m taking a break—geez, Buffy. I used to see you do the same thing when you were high school, so lay off," Dawn told her, continuing with killing the demons on the screen with a machine gun and lots of blood.

Buffy´s mouth twitched in annoyance, and she bit back the response she was going say. Instead she got to the point of why she was standing there. "Okay, whatever. It´s your funeral. Speaking of which have happened to run into Spike recently? I´ve noticed he hasn´t been hanging around—not that I don´t mind, but it is sort of weird even for him," Buffy said trying to keep her cool.

Dawn stopped her game, and grinned up at her sister. Buffy felt like a deer in headlights as her sister enjoyed her discomfort. " I told him it´d work. That you would notice him not being around."

"You set this up? You told Spike to do this to bug me?" Buffy questioned, trying to keep her temper under control.

"Yeph. Though it wasn´t supposed to bug you. He was just trying to be nice, and give you space. He said you needed time to yourself after everything. He´s still worried about you, and the way you snapped. He doesn´t want to add to your misery, he told me."

"So you have been going over to his crypt, and seeing him?" Buffy questioned, trying not to explode.

"Not his crypt, his new apartment. He moved. He got tired of some of his old pals dropping in on him and trying to tear both him, and his things up. And if he was going to have visitors like me, he wanted it to be at least a little nicer. He´s even gotten a job," Dawn relayed, enjoying Buffy´s astonished looks.

"Huh? Spike´s got a job, and an apartment? When did this all happen, and why didn´t anyone tell me?"

"About three weeks or so ago, right after we got back. Right now the only other ones that know are Willow, and Anya because he had to get Willow to help him set up his computer equipment. He swore them to secrecy because he wanted to surprise you that he did this all on his own. He´s doing on-line tutoring for the university, and they pay him, and furnish the equipment," Dawn explained. "He´s real serious about changing, Buffy."

"He´s tutoring people? How? I didn´t think he was that smart to be entrusted with other people´s heads," Buffy replied, hurt that her friends and sister knew what was happening with him, and she didn´t. She sank down on the couch to let all of this register in her head.

Dawn looked back at her sister exasperated, and shook her head. "See you´re already ditzing him. For your information he used to be a teacher at a private college when he was human. He used to write poetry and stories too, but hadn´t managed to get published yet before he ran into Drusilla and Angel. Spike is not dumb by any means," Dawn told her defending her friend. "He´s even going back to using his real name, and Angel helped him get the paperwork done so he exists as a real person now."

"Angel helped him? He actually talked to Angel without a big fight?" Buffy asked stunned.

"He said it took some persuading to get Angel to believe he was sincere, and not playing him. Cordy talked to Willow on the phone, and she explained everything that had happened with Glory, and with him. Angel believed Willow, and after that Angel went ahead, and got Spike´s papers he had been keeping for him since he left Sunnydale," Dawn told her.

"Gee, I really have been out of the loop haven´t I?" Buffy asked trying to comprehend all of Dawn´s news.

"I would have been too if I hadn´t come over when he was moving, and I helped him. It was that day I was going over to Susan´s, and you freaked because you couldn´t find me?" Dawn reminded and apologized to her sister.

"Yeah, I remember, so you were helping Spike instead?"

"Yeah, it wasn´t a big deal. He´s got a cool place over by campus. It´s down in the basement, and he´s actually renting it—not like the crypt. Had to to get the job, and the computer. He wants to be respectable, he says. Anya´s showing him how to do on line investing like she´s been showing Tara and Willow. He´s doing pretty good at that," Dawn said with a flip of her hair.

"So is that where some of games, and junk have been coming from?" Buffy suddenly questioned, understanding the source of some odd things that Dawn had supposedly borrowed´ from her friends recently that had been showing up.

Dawn looked embarrassed. "Yeah, Spike wanted to. He knew money was tight with us, and wanted to do something nice for me. It´s no big deal really."

"That is a matter of debate, young lady. You´ve been sneaking around my back seeing him, and he´s giving you gifts. It´s just another way for him to try, and get to me through you. He´s using you, Dawn. You can never trust a vampire, you ought to know that by now," Buffy said angrily. "You and I are going to go over there to where ever he´s holed up, and you are going to return everything that he´s given you right now," Buffy told her standing up.

"Fine! He knew you´d be this way. Can´t you just accept that he´s changed, Buffy? That he actually wants to be good now?"

"No! I wouldn´t believe he´s changed if he swore on a stack of bibles. He´s up to something—I just know it, and he´s not going to use you to do it!" Buffy said determinedly. "Now, get all the stuff he´s given you and let´s get this over with!" she ordered Dawn, who just shook her head sadly at her sister´s stubbornness.

Fifteen minutes later Dawn had finished her gathering and stood defiantly by the front door with a large trash bag full of stuff. Looking through the bag, Buffy was shocked. There were clothes, books, video games, CD´s, beauty stuff, and some costume jewelry. It was quite a haul.

"You let him buy you all this?" Buffy questioned, looking hard at her sister.

"Willow and Anya helped too, especially with the clothes," Dawn mumbled, not really wanting to involve them, but she knew she better come clean.

"Willow and Anya helped—this just gets worse and worse," Buffy grumbled. "All right, let´s get this done," Buffy added as she stormed out to the SRV that had been her mom´s.

They got into the car, and Dawn gave her directions to Spike´s apartment. Other than an occasional direction question, the ride was done in icy silence between the two sisters. Buffy was still fuming, and Dawn was slouched in her seat sulking with her arms folded, and ignoring her older sister as much as possible.

Dawn told her where to park, and they got out of the car. Though Buffy wished she had changed clothes and put more coverings on to deal with Spike. Short shorts, and a halter top that barely covered her was not great for a business meeting which she considered this. He d seen her in shorts before and dresses that covered less, then why was she suddenly caring what she wore around him? It was only Spike, right? Dismissing further thoughts on the subject she looked at where he had decided to move to. The older looking red brick apartment building was just off campus on one of the quieter residential streets. Buffy recognized the place. Some friends of Riley´s had lived here for awhile so she knew where she was. "Where?" she asked Dawn who was looking at her sourly still.

"Towards that end, second door on the right," Dawn told her taking the lead across the sparse grass lawn, and finally to the sidewalk until they came to the steps leading down into the basement level apartments. "Down here," Dawn told her, walking down the short flight of concrete steps into the cool and dimly lit recesses of the hallway.

Dawn stopped in front of a battered, and in need of new paint door match 6B, and knocked. Buffy stood to one side trying to maintain her cool so she wouldn´t explode immediately on the vampire. It took about five minutes before they got a response. "Yeah, who is?" came the muffled voice from inside.

"It´s me, Dawn," she told him and after a moment they could hear locks being undone, and the door opened.

"Hey, kind of early for you to be coming around, Nibblet. Thought I told you to call, and warn me," Spike said standing there his hair wild, barefooted in a pair of cutoffs, putting on a t-shirt for his unexpected company, not seeing Buffy yet.

"I would have, but," Dawn trailed off glancing Buffy´s way to try, and warn him.

"I didn´t give her a chance," Buffy said glowering at him stepping into his line of sight.

"Oh shit," he managed to squeak out before Buffy had him by the neck, and held against the door. "Hi, Slayer," he tried to say.

"Hi Spike," she replied, shooting him black looks. "Nice place."

"I see she finally told you," he glared back at Buffy, hurt and angry. Dawn was standing behind them looking down at her feet mortified at her sister.

"Hey, this wasn´t my idea. She made me," Dawn told him, shifting uncomfortably on her sandaled feet, feeling really bad for the vampire and wishing her sister wasn´t such a hardnose bitch.

"I understand. Not your fault. Knew it´d be this way, no matter what I bloody did," he told the girl. Then he turned attention back to Buffy, and tried to keep his eyes on her face, and not trail down into her cleavage. It wasn´t helping that she was wearing so little, and he had just rudely awaken from a very pleasant, erotic dream about her, and ice cream. He sighed wanting to get this macho part of their usual meetings done with. "So you done with the theatrics, slayer? Want the nickel tour?" he asked disgustedly waiting for her to release him, and get her hands off his throat.

"I didn´t come her to see your place. I came here because you been running around with my sister and my friends behind my back and giving her stuff. You´re really low you know that?" she growled at him, stepping back letting him go.

"You would think that, wouldn´t you? I was just trying to be nice to her. And I know you don´t got the money for extras. Willow told me that. I was just trying to help is all," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "I mean it´s my money, I can spend it on whom ever I want to. I´d spend it on you if I could," he added wishing he could be more honest with her. She didn´t know, and wasn´t going to know that he was doing this all for her, and Dawn. He had an arrangement going with Giles through Anya to add his extra money from working and investments to what Giles was giving her from the Watcher´s Council funds because he knew that she´d never accept any money directly from him.

"What you´re trying to pay back for all the money you´ve been sponging off me and the group?"

"Yeah, that too. I know you don´t want to hear this, Buffy, but I have changed. Fighting side by side with the lot of you, and damn near losing you, and kid made me do a lot of thinking. I can´t be what I used to be. I´ve gone to far over to the white hat side. I don´t want to go around hurting, and killing people any more. Lost the stomach for it when I started seeing people as individuals, and not bloody happy meals ripe for the taking."

"Pleazee, you expect me to buy this crap?" Buffy shot back at him, disbelieving everything he was saying.

"Up to you then," he shrugged, knowing this was all useless, but he was still going to try. "I used to think it was all about youmaking you see that I could be good, and I wasn´t any kind of threat to you, and yours because I had the misfortune to fall in love with your ungrateful ass. Now it isn´t all about you, it´s about others, and what I can do for them to make their lives better in some small way. And I´m actually getting friends, human friends that accept me for myself."

"But you´re a vampire, a demon," Buffy protested.

"So? This is Sunnyhell—you think they are really going to notice that much, or care as long as I don´t try to bite them?"

"Then they´re idiots."

"Maybe, but the point is that other people do treat me like a person, not a thing to be killed on sight. Same with your friends. We are all starting to get along because they know, and see I´m trying to be different. I´m remembering what it was like to be human, and I like it. Like feeling this way. I´m just sorry I´m not fitting into your world view any more," Spike told her.

"But you still don´t have a soul," Buffy reminded him.

"Doesn´t seem like that makes such a difference when my sire can go, and do what he did to those lawyers, and then Dru, and Darla, and a whole bunch of other people this last year," Spike shot back, not really wanting her to know about what had been happening with Angel, but she did need to know.

"Huh? What lawyers? What? You´re talking about Angel?" she questioned shocked.

"Yeah, Mr. Perfect, soulboy. Yeah, that´s right you never get to hear all the gruesome details of what he´s been up to playing demon hunter. Cordelia, and Wesley filled me in, after Dru gave me the short version during her visit. I wanted to see if it was true, or Dru was off her nut again," Spike told her seriously. "Take it the poof didn´t talk shop when he visited?"

"No, he didn´t," Buffy replied, quietly, looking down at her feet.

"Figured as much. But the point is, luv, there ain´t that much difference between him, and me any more. He just gets a bout of automatic depression because of the curse if he screws up. Me, I know when I do mess up without a curse all on my own. Actually, I think I got the better deal."

"But you still have a chip—if that goes it´ll be business as usual with you," she argued back.

He looked at her sadly, "believe that all you want, luv, I´m through arguing. Now if this chat is concluded I´ve got work to get back to," he added, making a motion to go back into his apartment.

"You´re impossible, you know that. I came here to give you back all the things you´ve been giving my sister. I don´t want your help. I can make it on my own," Buffy told him getting back to the original point of this trip to his place.

"I see," he said raising a scarred eyebrow, but his expression stayed neutral. "I can´t take them back. She might as well keep them. But since it offends you so much I´ll make you a deal, I´ll just ask you the next time I want to give her something, will that fit your sense of honor?" he queried, looking at her, and wishing she wasn´t being such a total bitch.

That floored her. He was trying to reasonable, and work out a compromise. This was just getting too strange, and she needed to go rethink everything. "Yeah, that´ll work," she grudgingly agreed handing the sack back to Dawn.

"Good, now I´ll be going back to work unless you want anything else?" he asked, standing so she really couldn´t get a good look inside his place. This wasn´t like the crypt where she could barge in any time she wanted to, and he was letting her know that right now.

"No, that was all. Come on, Dawn," she told her sister, letting her know they were leaving. "I still have to run by, and see Giles, and go to the store," she added, and then walked away towards the steps and away from him..

"Bye Spike, sorry about her," Dawn told him as she hung back long enough to apologize to him.

"She´s your sis. I´m used to it. But I´m not going to let her get to me, or give up what I´m doing because she can´t see beyond her bloody nose. Just take care, and let me know how things are," he asked her, and she nodded, giving him a quick hug, then ran to catch up with her sister waiting in the afternoon sunlight.

Once they were on their way back to car Dawn had to ask her, "why do you hate Spike so much? What is your problem?"

"You wouldn´t understand. He´s been a pain ever since we met. Why won´t he just leave town, and get out of my life?" she asked, not to anyone in particular.

"He ain´t going to no matter what you do to him. He wants to prove that he isn´t going run like everyone else has on you. He still loves you, you know? That´s why he hangs around, plus he said something about a promise that he made to our mom to watch over us. I just wish you´d just give him a chance, and you two could be at least be friends—not whatever it is that you guys are," Dawn said climbing in the SRV, and buckling up her seat belt.

"That´s never going to happen," Buffy told her as she fixed her seat belt. "Too much pain, and I don´t think I can ever really trust him."

"You trusted me, and mom with him, and he protected all of us against Glory. What is it going to take? Maybe he would be better off with someone who could actually care about him—you sure don´t. He´s so damn lonely. He doesn´t even hang out at the Bronze any more, and just drink like he used to."

"He´s not?" Buffy asked surprised as she headed the car to the Magic Box.

"Nope. He´s not drinking hardly at all because he spends most of time home on the computer, or else doing patrols after he knows you´re in for the night."

"He´s patrolling?" Buffy questioned, staring at her sister, trying to understand. "Why?"

"He said he wanted you to get a break, and he needs some exercise."

"He wanted to give me a break? How long has this been going on?" Buffy asked.

"Since before Mom died, he started doing them off and on. Since Glory all the time. He´s just been making sure to stay out of your way."

"What-- he doesn´t think I can still do my job?"

Dawn just shook her head, "No, he just wanted to help, and do something useful. He knew you wouldn´t understand."

"Gee, you just seem to know everything going on with him. How come?" Buffy asked.

"Because unlike you, he, and I can talk about almost anything, and he doesn´t treat me like just a kid. We´re friends."

"What about kids your age? I thought you were trying to make friends?" Buffy questioned, afraid of what Dawn was going to say.

"I´ve been trying to hang with the kids from school, but being your sister is not a plus. Most people are scared to get close to me because of you. Or their parents, or older brothers, or sisters know of you, and that´s an automatic go away kid because I might be a target for the local nasties. Which I am. The demons in this town all know I´m the Slayer´s little sister, just like they know all your friends. They know what happened to Glory, and that has them all scared for the moment," Dawn told her, looking miserable.

"I didn´t think it was that bad," Buffy replied, beginning to understand Dawn´s view for a change.

"You got lucky with Willow and Xander being your friends right off the bat, and then you had Angel watching over you, and Giles as your Watcher and mom—me, all I´ve got is Spike."

Buffy made a face, but she could see Dawn´s point again. "Okay, I´ll lay off Spike. But you have to try, and make some normal friends," her sister told her, her tone softening in sympathy of being on the outside of normal life, and having to live with a secret identify and life no one else had to deal with.

"I´ll try for all the good it´ll do," Dawn agreed with a weary sigh because her sister still didn´t know how hard she was trying to be normal and it just wasn´t working too well. Before she had found out she was the "Key" everything had been sort of cool with other kids because she didn´t really know how different she really was outside of having a sister that did weird things. Now she was herself part of the weirdness, and unlike Buffy couldn´t fake being normal though she did try to.

The rest of the trip the conversation died down to nothing as each sister was lost in her own thoughts.

End Part 1

To be continued---