For RAGAnne, Rinso, and Taste Like Special.

Chapter 26

"Buffy, can you help me with the pie?" Joyce called in from the kitchen.

"Slayer's duty never ends," Buffy said, smiling at the others in the room.

Spike, Dawn, Faith, the Scoobies—they were all here. It was Christmas, between Buffy and Spike's engagement and marriage. Buffy stood from Spike's lap, kissing him softly on the lips. He grinned up at her just as Buffy heard Xand and Faith start to bicker behind them, something about how long a fight between Frankenstein and a slayer would last. Buffy glanced over her shoulder as she headed out of the room, Dawn still admiring the gemstone earrings Willow and Tara had given her while the witchy couple whispered to one another. Anya was tearing the plastic wrap off of some board game Giles had given her, and Giles was being all paternal and sipping on hot cocoa in one of the armchairs. Buffy finally dragged her butt out to the kitchen, where her mom had four different pies set out on the counter.

"So how do you think we should divvy this up?" Joyce asked. She was holding a silver pie server, looking between the different pies—apple, pumpkin, lemon meringue, and the mince pie Giles had brought.

"Hey! You promised me chocolate mousse pie!" Buffy pouted.

Joyce cracked a smile without looking up. "It's still in the fridge. I figured you and Dawn would want that one all to yourselves."

Buffy beamed, sprinting forward and kissing her mother on the cheek. "You figured right." She wrapped her arms around Joyce in a side-hug. "Just start slicin' and I'll bring 'em out on plates. Believe me, we bring them the pie and they will eat."

"When did you become such a philosopher?" Joyce tilted her face toward Buffy, smiling.

Buffy woke up, again.

For the first minute it always felt like things were normal. Then things started to rush back to her. Buffy would try to get back to sleep as reality started seeping in, but once that process started it didn't stop until she was sick to her stomach. Spike slept next to her, his face mashed into his pillow. Buffy got to her feet, shaking her head and trying to calm her heart down. Even with the vampires, even after having killed Angel, even after finding out her sister was molded from a ball of energy, nothing had ever felt this surreal before.

Her mother was gone. Despite with Spike's future knowledge, despite her mother getting sick, it'd never seemed like a real possibility. Buffy had just thought of it like she'd thought of Glory: they'd kick the ass of whatever came their way and everything would be fine.

When her hands started shaking, Buffy decided she could either pace a hole in the floor and wake Spike in the process, or she could go get some fresh air. She headed downstairs and out the back door. It was chilly at night, unusually chilly for Sunnydale in early April, but Buffy was only wearing a thin silky tank top and shorts. The cold was good, kept her grounded, helped calm her down. She sat on the back steps.

"Buffy?"

Her head snapped up at the small voice. She hadn't noticed Dawn leaning against a tree with one of the big quilts wrapped around herself.

"Dawnie? What're you doing out here?"

"Couldn't sleep." Dawn walked away from the tree, shuffling over in the wet grass and finally taking a seat next to her sister. "Bad dreams. You?"

"Good dreams," Buffy whispered. She curled her fingers around the edge of the step she was sitting on.

"Even worse," Dawn said. "Those are the ones that don't get better 'cause you wake up."

Buffy nodded, staring at the tree. She felt Dawn wrap one side of the blanket around her big sister's shoulders. Then Dawn snuggled up to Buffy's side, the both of the wrapped together in the quilt. It reminded Buffy of when she'd walked in on Dawn discovering she was The Key. Spike said that last time it'd turned out much worse, that Dawn had set a fire and cut herself and run off. This time... Something was different. Between them. Buffy had heard Dawn tell Harmony mid-hostage situation that she felt like she didn't matter. Buffy had made an effort, starting that night in the cave, to be a better sister. And now they were so close. They had that, at least. And the others, too. Buffy found her thoughts swirling a lot lately, memories creeping up on her that she'd thought were long forgotten. So it didn't shock her when Spike's words came to mind, from the night she was staked and they rushed her to the hospital:

That's the trick of the thing. This gig wears ya out. You need lots of reasons to keep goin'. The family you've got.

Buffy and Dawn leaned on each other, cheek to cheek, appreciating the chance to be silent and have the other person just get it. Not try to help, not try to fix things, but just deal. Sometimes it was just what the doctor ordered.

XXXXX

Spike and Faith decided they'd be in charge of patrols. Rupert had the funeral arrangements and helping Red sort out the finance paperwork for the house and such for the Summers women. Red, Harris, and Lady Vengeance were on Glory duty: research in the musty books, plus checkin' out the newest coroner's reports and the hospital's admitted, try to track the bitch down, know where Dawn should avoid goin'. The Scoobies on Glory duty were also searching for any other weapons they could stock up on before the window opened to take the Exalted Barmy One down. That time was coming quickly, and Spike just hoped they had enough time to recover before then. Tara's duty was keeping the Summers women in fighting form, which mostly amounted to getting them to eat and do their everyday routine requirements.

Spike and Faith were trudging through one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, looking for anything big and bad to get a piece of. It'd been fairly quiet since Joyce passed. Spike felt like all of this was sprialing out of control, like the Powers had just sent him back to torture him. Given him what he'd wanted—Buffy's love—and any minute they'd tear her away, leave him here to spend an eternity without her. That train of thought sent him down a very dark path, one where he wondered if this was actually hell, payback for every evil thing he'd ever done.

"Oh," Faith said. "Here we go."

As they continued their stroll, Spike saw what Faith was talking about. Big ol' Chirago Demon. It looked like three Clems smashed together and it was impossible to find its face. Thing probably outweighed all the ladies of the Scooby gang put together. Still, Faith charged it without much in terms of seconds thoughts. Spike rolled his eyes, charging in after her. She lifted her special knife to stab at one of the demon's squishy folds as Spike vamped. When she pulled the knife out, the Chirago turned (or seemed to—hard to tell with no real face) and seemed unharmed.

The Chirago grabbed her by the throat with a grimy clawed hand and lifted her in the air. Faith got a couple of good kicks in on its torso, her combat boots cracking something. Then Spike punched the demon in the torso as hard as he could and it released Faith. From the ground, Faith sliced at the thing's ankles. It roared, which surprisingly sounded like its singing voice. It kicked Faith in the face, sending her skidding across the ground. When she jumped to her feet, three gashes lined their way down her face, dark blood shining in the moonlight.

The smell of the Slayer blood triggered something in Spike. He hadn't spoken much about what'd happened to Joyce, 'cept once, briefly, to Tara. He'd been on full support task, tryin' to balance being around for his Slayer and the Bit when they needed him, buggering off when they needed that.

But the truth was Spike was tired. He felt like enough of a failure as it was. Wasn't about to let anyone else get hurt on his watch, not unless he was too dusty to do anything about it. Spike growled, facing the Chirago again. He reached forward with such force that his hand went through the demon's front. Spike wrapped his fingers 'round something inside the Chirago that felt important and then tore it out. The demon fell so hard to the ground that it caused a minor earthquake in the cemetery. Spike looked at the goopy intact throat in his hand, then dumped it onto the demon. He shifted back to his human face, spinning about.

"You alright?" he asked Faith. Her skin was still glistening with blood.

"Nothin' some chicken soup can't fix," she said. Her eyebrows lowered and she jerked her head toward Spike. "Uh, you?"

"Peachy." Spike stalked in the opposite direction of the demon's body, back toward the exit from the cemetery, back toward Revello Drive. He needed to be with his girl. If Buffy would let him into bed, that was. 'Cause he was pretty sure his hand was going to reek of demon innards for a week.

XXXXX

Buffy sat next to Dawn at the kitchen counter. Dawn was pretending to work on some homework, but all she had written on her paper was her name and the date. Tara stood in front of the stove, stirring something that smelled amazing. Buffy wasn't sure they'd remember to even eat if Tara hadn't been cooking for them all the time. Willow finished sticking some papers into a cardboard envelope, then handed the whole thing to Buffy.

"Okay, so that's all the bills Giles and I put together from the past month, including from the hospital and the gallery. I sorted them with the ones with the closest due dates first. I also have a sheet in there with your salary against monthly expenditures, and even without Spike's offer to start selling demon parts to Anya for Magic Box inventory, you're still in the black."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Which is..."

"Of the good," Willow said, her smile small.

"Thank you, Wills. I can't tell you how much it means..."

"Literally the least I could do, Buffy. I just wish..." She wrinkled her nose. Buffy reached out and grabbed Willow's hand, squeezing, comforting them both. Willow leaned forward suddenly, throwing her arms around Buffy for a quick hug. "If there's anything else I can..."

"We're good." Buffy released her friend, turning to Dawn next to her. Dawn was drawing a tree in the margin of her paper. "For now, I think we're good." Buffy had been trying to figure out something to help, but there wasn't really an article in Cosmo for "Ways to Help Your Little Sister Deal with Finding Your Mom Dead." And with everything else... It was a lot for one girl to handle. Buffy could relate.

"Alright. Well, I'm off to The Magic Box then. We came across something yesterday about the other two gods in Glory's hell dimension. Something about some demon god type thing named Sweet, and then another one that was all 'shall not be named.'" Willow walked over to Tara, kissing her on the cheek. "Anyone need me to grab anything while I'm out?"

Buffy shook her head. "Spike and Faith should be back from patrol any minute. Maybe... Maybe we'll go out or something. What do you think, Dawnie?" She stroked back some of Dawn's hair. "Anywhere you want to go? Ice cream, maybe?"

Dawn let the question hang in the air unanswered. Willow, with one more sad look at Buffy, headed for the front door. They heard it open and shut before Dawn spoke.

"Buffy, can I ask you something?" She dropped her pencil.

"Sure, honey. What's wrong?" Buffy, to keep from freaking, played with the edges of the envelope Willow had given her. She was glad Wills had offered to help, and wondered if she could convince her to do their taxes while she was at it, if she asked nicely and bought her mochas for the next year.

"Um, you've had dreams about, like, The Master and Angelus and stuff, right?" Dawn finally looked up, her eyes ringed with purple from how tired she was.

"Before and after going up against them, yeah." Sometimes Buffy would still wake up in the middle of the night convinced she was sensing Angelus outside her window, even though it was just Spike next to her. "Why?"

Tara ladled out three bowls of soup. She brought one each to the Summers women, then retrieved the last one for herself. Dawn brought the bowl closer to herself, using the spoon to swirl around tortilla strips inside.

"It's Glory," Dawn whispered.

"G-g-Glory?" Tara said. She stood on the opposite side of the counter with her bowl of soup, then took a spoonful of it.

"Yeah. Since... since she tried to brain suck me at the hospital. It's starting to scare me. I thought it'd go away after a week, maybe two. But it's been a couple of months now, and it's only getting more vivid."

"How often do you have these dreams?" Tara asked as Buffy ran her hands through her own hair and took a deep breath.

Dawn shook her head. "They're not dreams, exactly. Not always. They're like... Daydreams. Really real daydreams."

Buffy's eyes widened so suddenly they stung.

"That's not normal, is it?" Dawn winced.

"On a hellmouth, normal is relative," Buffy said. "But.." She glanced at Tara sideways.

"I can look into it," Tara said. "With Giles and Willow, and maybe Anya might know something. But... I mean, sometimes a daydream is just a daydream, right? And you've been through so much recently, the both of you..." Tara shrugged, ducking her head.

It couldn't be real. If it was something Glory could do, talking to Dawn long distance like that, she would've done it in the last timeline, and then Spike would've warned them. It was weird, sure, but it could be Dawn trying to deal. Buffy knew the likelihood of things not being worst case scenario on the hellmouth were about nil, but they had to hold onto that unless Tara and the rest of them proved otherwise.