Chapter 2: Blood

"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live. "

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A few days later, Spike was sitting with Dawn while she ate the dinner Tara had left for her when Red burst through the front door, home early from a research session at the magic shop. She brandished an ornate gold amulet at Dawn and tripped over her words in her excitement, finally managing to explain that she had accidentally enchanted the amulet while she was working on another, and she thought it would repel demons with malicious intent from Dawn.

When he asked her exactly what kind of spell she was working on that could possibly affect Dawn, she had mumbled something about it using "power borrowed from Dawn's blood because it's also Buffy's blood". Spike wasn't stupid; he knew there was something big missing from her story (why was she tampering with anything that had to do with Buffy's blood, for instance). But thinking of the Slayer, much less speaking about her, still brought him that stabbing pain in his chest, and he knew Willow would never hurt her, so he couldn't quite bring himself to pry for more details.

They got their first chance to test out the talisman that night, when two newly sired vampires ambushed them behind the movie theater while was escorting Dawn to the mall to meet some of her friends. They were reckless because they were hungry, and desperate enough to pick a fight with another vampire in hopes of getting to Dawn.

To the lowlifes' shock, they couldn't get within three feet of her without encountering some sort of invisible barrier, though they kept trying, throwing themselves at the air as if they were trying to break down a door.

Once Spike was satisfied that the amulet worked as intended, he stepped outside of Dawn's protective circle and toward the vamps, stake in hand.

They backed away in surprise as they realized they were the prey now, but they were too slow for him. Most vampires were. Dodging, ducking and sliding away from their punches with little thought to style, he waited until he had a clear shot at the smaller one's chest. Then he struck hard, plunging the stake in as far as it would go. Right on the money.

His buddy turning to dust surprised the other vampire enough to make him hesitate. Too easy. Spike grabbed the vampire by the hair and swung him around to impale him on the stake held steady in his other hand. He had spun back to Dawn, making sure she was still unhurt, before he heard the whoosh behind him that meant the second vamp was dust.

Once upon a time, he'd loved the fight, the dance of life and unlife and death - craved it like he craved sex. He'd thought it an art, beautiful and compelling and meaningful. But now, it seemed so stupid. Pointless.

He watched silently from the shadows as a Dawn's friends arrived, and he followed them at a distance into the theatre and let his dark thoughts distract him from the latest insipid teen movie.

It wasn't until he was walking her back home that night that he felt a shock like ice water go through him and realized the horrible truth.

Dawn didn't need him anymore.


It was Red he told, in the end.

She was sitting on her bed with several dusty magic tomes spread out in front of her and looked up with a smile when he walked in, obviously expecting him to be Tara. When she saw it was him instead, she hurriedly gathered the books and pushed them under the bed, turning the activity into a gesture for him to sit on the bed with her, despite the fact that she'd never done anything like that before.

He opened his mouth to say that she didn't fool him, that he knew she was hiding something, and then shut it again. What did it matter what her secrets were? He was positive she wouldn't hurt Dawn, and that was all he really cared about.

"Look, Red," he began awkwardly, sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed. "There's… well, there's nothing for me here, now you've got the nibblet protected. You and your girl have been good to me, don't get me wrong, but hanging around with the rest of the Scooby gang, long term… it was never meant to work." Without Buffy. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air between them.

"What will you do?" Red asked softly, looking almost like she genuinely cared.

"I think-" He had to stop and swallow around the sudden tightness in his throat. "I think I'll do something she would have wanted, you know?"

She nodded, as if that made perfect sense. "You could help Angel out in L.A.," she suggested.

He snorted. "The goal here is to be as good a man – er, vampire, whatever… as I can be, and my dear old grandsire doesn't really bring out the best in me."

Her quick grin was replaced by an intent look. "Spike, just let me say…whatever else you were to each other, nobody can deny that Buffy believed in you. Even when no one else did." He started to shake his head in denial, but she pushed on. "Think about it - Dawn was the most important thing in the entire universe to her, and she chose you to protect her."

"Maybe," he muttered, trying not to assign her words too much meaning, not to roll them around in his head like precious gems. Buffy believed in you. Buffy chose you. Pretty thoughts, but likely not true. And now he would never know for certain. "But in any case, you've got the bit all protected now, and I'm just taking up space. I've got no reason to be here, anymore."

She reached out to squeeze his arm. "Dawnie will miss you terribly, you know, and not just 'cause you've been protecting her. You're like an older brother to her."

He shrugged. "I'll miss the nibblet, too," he said, and it was true. He'd miss her smile that was just now returning after long months of tears, her eyes that sparkled in the same way Buffy's had, her sarcastic sense of humor that always made him grin. He shook his head to clear it. "But I've got to do something. Something she would have wanted. Otherwise I'll just stake myself, because it doesn't mean a damn thing without her." He looked down to see his hands shaking, and he shoved them into his pockets as he rose from the bed.

Willow was looking at him as if she'd never seen him before. "You really did love her, didn't you," she said quietly.

He jerked back, unwilling to face either the compassion or the genuine surprise in her eyes. "With every scrap that remains of my mutilated heart." He tried to keep his voice cool, calm, but he knew he was snarling. "From now until the day I turn to dust."

He left her gaping after him and stomped down the stairs. As he struggled to overcome his emotions, scraped raw again, a memory came to him - a whisper of a rumor he had heard decades ago, of something he could fight for his right to ask for, something that would stop the whole world's disbelief of the intensity of these feelings that haunted him. A perfect, fitting tribute to the woman he had loved and lost.

He let himself out the front door quietly, ignoring a twinge of regret as he glanced back at Dawn, chatting on the phone with one of her girlfriends with her back to him. She deserved to hear him say goodbye, but he couldn't stop, not when he finally knew what he needed to do.

He started down the street at a leisurely pace, heading east. He'd always liked walking. He couldn't get all the way to Africa by walking, but it was a start.