Chapter 11 –

Spike sat at his desk in his office. He had arrived at work when he and Dawn said he would. He sighed deeply, fiddling with a pencil and leaning back in his chair. His gaze drifted to the window, looking out into the daylight. He had a meeting to go to in the next half hour, something about a demon that needed the law firm to get him out of some trouble. However, his thoughts kept traveling to Dawn, and he worried about her current condition.

Dawn groaned loudly, shifting in bed, as she woke up. She sighed realizing that Spike had been right about how she was going to feel the next morning. She was going to need to call off for the night and maybe even tomorrow night. She looked at her clock, it read 11:15, then rubbed her eyes as she attempted to sit up.

She looked down at her ankle, the ice had melted and the water inside the bag was room temperature. Then she caught sight of her legs. There was a large bruise on the inside of her right thigh from the heel of her shoe gabbing her on her way off the stage, along with a scrape on the outside of her left leg. She frowned in pain, and noticed that her back side hurt as well from the fall to the floor.

She groaned again as she tried to get up out of bed. She placed her feet on the ground, attempting to stand up. "Ow!" she cried feeling the pain as she tried to avoid putting pressure on her right ankle. She hopped around her apartment getting set up for her stay in the bedroom for the day.

After she went to the bathroom, got something to eat and reloaded her plastic bag of ice, she settled back down on the bed. She turned the TV on and flipped through the channels stopping on trash television.

She sighed, looking down at her legs and ankle. She was going to have to call off from work tonight. There was no way she was going to be able to dance in this condition. The club wouldn't be open for another hour, so she wasn't worried about calling them yet.

Spike entered his apartment. His day wasn't done yet, far from it. He needed to grab a quick shower and a change of clothes. He looked around the space on the way to the bathroom. Dawn had been right, it wasn't him and he needed to change it.

Spike pulled out his cell phone, "Yeah, this is Spike. Can I get ah," he looked around, "I think five gallons of dark green paint, 3 gallons of light brown for the kitchen, another four gallons of a wine colored red and we're going to need new tile for the bathroom," he added, eyeing up the plain white tile, "But I'll deal with that later. I'm also going to need a book to use something to pick out new furniture, for all the rooms. And don't forget brushes and all that other stuff for the paint." He paused while the person on the other line took the information down. "And you can go ahead and put that on Angel's personal account." Then he flipped the phone closed. He started to move all the large furniture away from the walls in all the rooms.

A few hours later, Angel marched up to Spike's apartment door. He knocked furiously, waiting for an answer. "Come in!" Spike called from inside.

Angel threw open the door, "Spike, what happened? You said you were going to be right back."

"Uh huh," Spike responded sounding distracted by what he was doing.

"Yeah, and that was four hours ago!" He watched Spike roll paint onto the wall, than he frowned, "What are you doing? Why are you painting?"

Spike stopped, backing up to take a look at what he'd done so far. "I'm redoing the apartment."

"Why?" Spike shrugged, running the roller into the paint tray.

"Thought I could use a change, that's all," putting the roller back on the living room wall.

"I hate to be nosey, Spike, but does this have anything to do with Dawn?"

"Huh, no," Spike rolled more vigorously.

"You're sure?"

"Oh yeah," he nodded.

"Spike, you're out of paint on your roller." Spike looked at the patchy and thin rounds he had done.

His shoulders dropped, as he sighed and threw the roller down into the tray. He turned to Angel, "It's just that, I think I screwed up last night."

"Look you don't need to go into it with me," Angel turned toward the door.

"Hey, you asked." Angel stopped and turned back to face him. "She told me not to go to the bar. I didn't listen," he thought back to the events of last night, "glad I did though." Spike went back to painting the wall.

"Did something happen at the bar last night, Spike? Is Dawn ok?"

"Sort'a. She's a little banged up. She was pulled off the stage, twisted her ankle. She'll be laid up a few days."

"She was pulled off the stage?" Angel asked, "What does she do again?"

"She's a stripper, Angel, a fucking stripper!" Spike threw the roller again, this time across the room, "I mean, why is she doin' it? She's so much better than that."

"So she got pulled off the stage by a 'customer'?"

Spike nodded, "Oh yeah, then while she's bein' mauled by every man sittin' in the front row, I pull her out and rescue her to take her home. Do I get any thanks? No! I get yelled at and told to leave after I get her home. She kicked me out of the apartment, Angel!" Spike sat down on the couch, putting his head in his hands.

Angel rubbed the back of his neck, "I don't know what to tell you, Spike. Have you told her how you feel about her profession?"

"I thought I made that clear to her several times." Spike looked up at him.

"What did you say to her?" Angel asked, afraid of what he was going to hear.

"I told her she should quit her job and you could probably find her something more respectable here."

"Well, that could be why she didn't respond to your request," Angel turned away from Spike, strolling around in a circle and shaking his head. "First off, you can't tell a woman what to do, as much as we like to think we can, you can't. Second, you really can't tell a Summers woman what to do, because they could kill you." Spike sighed deeply. "You need to talk to her and listen to her and consider each of your feelings." Angel stopped talking and stared out with a faraway look on his face. Then he shook the thought out of his head and looked back at Spike. "So why don't you take the rest of the day off, the sun's going down, go talk to Dawn." Angel looked around the apartment as headed out, "By the way, I like what you're doing with place. That's a good color," he noticed the other cans of paint, "Are you doing the other rooms too?"

"Oh, yeah," Spike said over his shoulder from his bedroom as he quickly changed his clothes. He caught up with Angel and they walked out of the apartment together. "I was going to replace the tiles in the bathroom and maybe even the cabinets in the kitchen," Spike shrugged as they entered the elevator, "You know, just change everything. It was bloody boring. I just never had the urge to do it."

Angel nodded, thinking about his place, "Maybe I should do the same to mine, their should be enough money in my budget. I think I'll make a call when I get back to my office."

"Sounds great, Angel. Well I'll be off." Spike said as the elevator opened for the office floor and Angel stepped off.

"Good luck, Spike."

"Thanks, don't wait up." Spike winked at Angel, as the doors closed to take him to the garage level.