After Joyce's death Ben was killed so no more Glory. Spike still helped Dawn get the stuff for her spell. Angel decided to spend the night at the Summer's home instead of heading back to LA.
Dawn ran down the stairs when she heard the door bell, excitement and joy filling her small frame. "I worked!!" She shouted in her head. She opened the door to see her mother. "Mommy!" Dawn yelled a huge grin on her face.
Joyce seemed to look at her youngest daughter in confusion, then disgust. "YOU are the THING those monks sent. You are a made up lie. Where is my real daughter?"
"B-b-buffy is out patrolling. B-but you told me I was your daughter now, no matter what! I love you mommy!" Dawn began crying.
"You are evil, a gross creation, not human, you need to die!" With that Joyce grabbed Dawn by the throat and threw her out into the yard. "Who would ever love YOU? Unnatural thing!! You aren't worthy of being called daughter!! You aren't worthy of excisting!!"
Angel and Buffy came around the corner just in time to see Joyce charge Dawn. "DAWN!" Buffy screamed.
Buffy's scream was just enough of a distraction for Dawn to use the few skills she had to kick her mother's possessed corpse off of her. "I am sooo sorry Mommy." She then pulled the picture of her mother out of her pocket with shaking hands and tore it in half. The corpse collapsed on the ground then seemed to shimmer before disappearing. Dawn looked down at where her mother had been and wept.
"Dawn what did you do?!" Screamed Buffy.
"How could you do this Dawnie!" Angel came closer.
Buffy fell to the ground hysterically crying. "Angel, she brought mom back and then she killed her, how could she?" Buffy turned to where her mother's corpse had disappeared. "Mommy…"
Angel grabbed Dawn and began shaking her, in his anger he vamped. "What did you think would happen? Huh, little girl? The dead don't come back right! Look what you have done to your sister!!"
"I just wanted my mom back, I need her!" Dawn's voice shook from emotion and the pain in her arms where Angel was gripping her.
"Dawn this is black magic! Do you want to be evil? Is that it? Spending too much time with Spike?" Buffy looked up at her sister. "How could you do something this selfish? What you did is the worst kind of bad!!"
Angel threw Dawn to the ground and gathered up a shaking and near hysterical Buffy. Dawn spoke quietly, "It has nothing to do with Spike."
Dawn was terrified. She got up and ran. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going she was just running. Running away from what she had done, running away from Angel, and running away from her sister.
After a while she realized she had run right to Spike's crypt. She was about to turn around and leave when he open the door. He looked at her tear stained face and quickly gathered her up in his arms. "I'm sorry Platelet."
Suddenly pain shot into Spike's brain. "What the bloody hell! I wasn't hurting you was I?" Concern rippled from him, a hug shouldn't have hurt her.
"I think Angel bruised my arms when he grabbed me, even my shirt rubbing against the skin hurts." Dawn looked down on the ground tears still streaming down her face. "Sorry it hurt you. I can't do anything right!!"
"Angel? Why the bloody hell did he do that for?" Spike was incensed. No one hurts his Nibblet, well except him, possibly, when she got older.
"Mom came back, but she was wrong and Angel and Buffy saw. They saw me rip the picture too. She, she was so mean! And Buffy and Angel told me I was stupid and Buffy said it was black magic and asked if I was trying to be evil and Angel threw me down and went into the house with Buffy. S-so I just ran, I didn't mean to come here I just ran!" Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Bollocks! What the hell do they know. You aren't evil Bit, and they had no right to treat you like that!"
"M-m-mommy said I was useless and disgusting and evil and a thing then Buffy said I was trying to be evil. Then she tried to blame you. I told it had nothing to do with you. I'm just a problem for everyone, no point to me except to destroy the world!" Dawn was hyperventilating at this point and Spike came back over and rapped her in another hug, avoiding her bruised arms.
"You aren't evil Bit, you are just a pawn in this bullshit. Those fucked up monks created you but they didn't think of what they were doing. Putting all this pressure on a human girl, it's worse than what the Slayers have to deal with. You lost your mum, whether or not she was your mum doesn't matter, your memories say she was. You wanted her back, and I helped you with that, this is my fault little luv, not yours." He gently cupped her chin and thought of the horrendous mistake he had made twice now, trying to give life to dead or dying mothers.
"Don't say that! If Angel or Buffy find out you helped they will kill you!!" Dawn was suddenly terrified of loosing the one person she trusted. "Spike you're my only real friend, I can't loose you too!!"
Spike was taken aback but to know that this precious human girl thought that much of him boosted his ego. "You won't Bit, you won't."
"She won't what Spike?" Came Angel's booming voice.
"She won't loose me, Peaches, and what the hell did you do to the kid's arms?" Spike growled.
"I didn't mean to, Buffy was hysterical, Dawn brought their mother back. Buffy had to watch her break the spell!"
"And what you thought it would be easy on Bit to do that? You thought terrorizing her was a good plan? Maybe Angelus is a little closer to the surface than you say. Sod off Peaches she is staying here for the night!" Spike growled.
"Look Spike this has nothing to do with you! The girl is going home and face her sister, she owes Buffy an explanation!" Angel began to stalk forward but stopped for a moment seeing this frail girl clinging to his Childe. The girl was murmuring into Spike's chest, "I'm no good." Over and over.
"She is no state to deal with a brassed off, hysterical Slayer. She. Is. Not. Leaving." Spike had vamped and was now growling deeply. "As for why she did it, she missed her mum! Don't be daft!"
"How did you know what do to Dawnie? Where did you get the information to do it?" Angel tried to keep his voice calm.
"Willow showed me the book. She, she magicked it off the shelf so I would find it, I just wanted my mom!" Dawn was near hysterics again.
"Good enough, now you are coming back to the house, come on! Now!"
"OK" Dawn answered with her head down. She slowly disentangled herself from Spike. "Thank you Spike."
"Peaches you hurt her again and I will stake you, that's a promise." Spike growled, then returning to human guise, "Don't you worry Bit you ever need me you know where I am."
With that Angel led the girl away. Spike waited until they were out of sight and took an alternate path to the Summer's home.
"Buffy I found her!" Angel called as they walked into the house. Dawn walked solemnly behind him.
"DAWN! Where were you? You can't just run away from your problems!! I know you are young and I know you aren't that strong, but you can't just try to use magic to fix things you don't like! Mom's dead, twice now! You have to stop acting like a five year old!!" Buffy rambled when she saw Dawn.
Dawn just stood there, all tears having fallen already. She was hopeless and broken and hurt far too deeply for her sister's words to make it worse.
"Angel and I are going patrolling. I want you in bed missy!! Tomorrow you are leaving with Angel and going to LA. You will be safer there and I think that Angel will be able to control you better than I can." Buffy left no room for argument. She was shipping Dawn off, getting rid of her just like Dawn always knew she would.
Dawn climbed the stairs to her room shaking. She was going to go live with Angel? She was terrified. She was deep in thought about this as she opened her bedroom door and saw Spike sitting on her bed.
"Did you hear?" She asked him. Her voice was so flat that it sent chills up Spike's back.
"Hear what Bit? I popped in the window just before you came in."
"Buffy is sending me to LA."
"Well maybe living with your father will be good for ya." Spike moved to the window and lit up a smoke. He didn't like the idea of the Bit living with that wanker but it was better than the Slayer given the Slayer's state of mind lately.
"Not going to live with my father, she is sending me to live with Angel." Dawn voice wavered a bit, like she couldn't really believe her sister would do this to her. "She, she said that she couldn't handle me and he c-could."
Spike shuddered involuntarily. The thought of this delicate girl living with Angel was disturbing and he wouldn't wish that on anyone, even Harris. Being the impulsive vamp he was Spike decided he would give the girl an out. "If you don't want to go with him tell me, I will take you out of the country Pidge, I'll take care of you. But it is your choice, either way looks like you are going to be leaving Sunnyhell and becoming the charge of a vampire. So you want to go with Champion, soul having, bad haired Angel, or you wanna go with Big Bad me Bit?" Spike smirked and raised an eyebrow.
He watched as she looked at him stunned. He knows it isn't fair, she should be with her family, but big sis is sending her away anyway. He is curious to see if she will defy her sister, and Angel, for that matter, and leave with him. He would take care of her, teach her lots of useful things, make sure she was always safe. "I can't promise sunshine and trips to the mall Bit but I can promise you will be safe."
"Well if I have to choose between Angel and you, I will always pick you Spike, if you mean it. My stuff is already packed, Buffy was sending me away tomorrow with Angel. She already packed my bags." Dawn looked up at her best friend hopefully.
"Well then Bit let's go, we can take the sewers to the crypt gather my stuff and then take the sewers back over to Willy's to grab blood. The DeSoto is parked outside of Willy's." With that Spike grabbed the two duffle bags he spotted on the floor and hopped out the window. He looked up expectantly. Dawn climbed down and they both headed for the sewers and a new life.
Angel walked into the house and immediately realized no one was there. Buffy was still shaken from the mother incident but realized that Angel sensed something. "What's wrong Angel?"
"She's gone again. The house is empty." Angel growled lowly. He was in Dawn's room in a flash. He could smell one thing above all others in the room "Spike."