The New Chick
"So they just keel over?" Ryan asked, shoving diner food into her mouth as if she hadn't eaten in about three days. "Splat?"
"Pretty much," Roman shuddered.
"Yeah, the same thing's been happening in Sunnydale. No one knows why, and then I got some tip from this demon dude I know that it's been happening on the East Coast too. So, I figured I'd investigate. Find out who's doing this. You know, so I could send them a fruit basket or something," she laughed slightly, but her audience didn't find it nearly as amusing. "Although," she continued. "The cops may technically call it running away," she performed air quotes to accentuate her point. "So who were those dudes you were rumbling with in the ally?"
So Dawn took a deep breath and explained the Initiative. Who they were, what they've done in the past, and their current theories on what they have planned for the future. Ryan, needless to say, wasn't pleased.
"Let me get this straight," Ryan growled over her coffee. "This whole time there has been a covert government agency dedicated to exterminating vampires with plenty of funding and the latest technology at their disposal while I HAVE BEEN CHASING THEM AROUND WITH A STICK?!?"
The other diner patrons turned and stared at them. "Are they all this angry?" Roman asked nervously. "I've never met one before."
Spike nodded. "Pretty much."
"Ryan," Dawn tried to reason.
"I don't want to hear it. Can I have one of those?" she snapped her fingers at Spike. He looked at her with a bemused expression.
"One of these?" he waved his pack of cigarettes in the air.
"Yeah."
Spike snorted. "A slayer with emphysema. That's rich," he tossed her one from his pack.
"Save me the lecture, Johnny Rotten. I've been smoking these since I was 13. It's not like I had a career as a track star planned out or anything. How was I supposed to know some painfully British dude was gonna waltz in and tell me I'm the Slayer. Cause the other girl quit. Quit. I asked if I could quit, and he said not until I'm 25 or dead. And they prefer dead."
"Excuse me, but would you mind taking this outside?" the diner manager suddenly asked them. "You're making people nervous."
"She's making *you* nervous," Davis remarked.
"Ugh, whatever," Ryan snapped as she got up from the table and stormed outside.
"Can we kill her yet?" Nell asked on their way out, which earned them dubious looks from the already edgy manager.
"Relax. Any one of us can take this bint out with our eyes closed if need be," Spike shrugged.
"Which won't be necessary," Dawn added wearily.
"Besides, in some cases a slayer's a useful ally. Especially considering by the natural order of things she and the Initiative should be best mates. It's lucky for us they don't play well with others."
They filed out of the restaurant to see Ryan pacing maniacally in the alley, puffing on her cigarette with a renewed ferocity. "I don't get this," she said to no one in particular. "These guys are assisting my cause and I have to stop them? On top of everything else?"
"You don't have to do anything, Ryan," Dawn attempted to calm her down. "It's just if they're hurting people, I'd like to know. Plus, I also kinda happen to think that this is cruel and unusual. Even to do to vampires."
Ryan huffed scornfully. "Yeah, we wouldn't want to be politically incorrect," she scowled.
"Listen, sweetheart," Nell piped up. "You're either with us or you're not. If you're not, I say start running."
"Please," Ryan sneered, flipping her stake out of her pocket like a gunslinger at high noon. "I'll give *you* a head start."
"That's it," Nell growled and advanced on her. Spike stepped between them.
"Cool it, ladies. Not in front of the children," Spike smiled at Dawn. She pretended to resent the remark, but it was obvious she was grateful to him.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ryan snapped, clearly at her wits end. "Are we friends now? Are we giving each other casual orders? Cause I have one for you…" she pointed her stake at him like a mother pointing her finger at a child.
Spike rolled his eyes and quite easily snatched the stake away from her and brandished it at her own neck, game face in full glory. "I'd watch where you point that thing, girlie. I've killed two slayers who shit bigger than you and tangoed with many a hell of a lot tougher than that. Nell would end you. So would any of us here. We're not the mullet-sporting squatters you contend with back in Sunnydale, all right? We're the real deal and you're out of your depth." He shook his face back to normal and removed the stake from her neck. She made a clumsy grab for it but he put in his pocket. "I'll be hanging on to that, thanks. Are we all cleared up now?"
Ryan nodded quietly, the first show of humility Dawn had ever seen the girl demonstrate. It was so easy to forget how powerful Spike really was. "Good. Now that we're all buddies, what would you say our first plan of action should be?"
Dawn shrugged. "Well, since we're pretty certain the Initiative has something to do with it, we can really start investigating," she suggested, easing into the Daphne role in the Scooby Gang after being Scrappy for so long. "But we might as well head in for the night. The sun'll be up soon. You need a place to stay, Ry?"
"She's not staying with us," Roman jumped in.
"Like I would anyway," Ryan snapped. "I don't have a death wish."
"Not yet," Spike muttered under his breath, but Dawn and Nell were the only ones to catch it. Dawn elbowed him as Nell snickered.
"I'll get a hotel room or something."
"All right," Dawn started scribbling something on a napkin. "This is our number. Call me tomorrow, OK?"
"I can't believe you live with these guys."
"Call me," Dawn insisted.
Ryan nodded and then backed out of the alley, refusing to take her eyes off the vampires until the last possible second, narrowly avoiding a street light. When she was gone, Davis started laughing hysterically. "Did you see that chick's face when Spike got all Bad Cop on her? That was priceless, man! Serves her right. She killed my buzz."
"I gotta admit, Spike, for my first encounter with a Slayer she was kinda disappointing," Roman agreed.
"Well, don't get too comfortable. She's brand new. When they're at their peak they'll kill ya before you know what happened."
"And you killed two of them?" Nell asked. "Or was that bullshit?"
"No, I killed them. Come on. We gotta go home," Spike said quickly as he turned towards the apartment. Dawn noticed Nell and Roman having one of those insider conversations with their eyes. Spike really has shrouded himself in mystery since he got here. She wondered why he was suddenly so modest.
"You really should call Buffy," Spike insisted again during he and Dawn's frequent early morning discussions.
"I'm telling you, she won't come."
"If you called her right now and said "Buffy, I'm in trouble," she wouldn't come?"
"No."
"Come off it, Dawn. You're full of shit and you know it. This new girl knows nothin' about nothin'. She won't last two rounds with the Initiative, or my roommates. How long has she been doing this, anyway?"
"Less than a year."
"Less than…Jesus. Buffy has been retired for less than a year and you're saying she's already left it completely behind her?"
"I…can't…call…her," Dawn said as she flung her hands around in mock sign language. "Why can't you get that through your thick skull?"
"Cause I know the Summers women better than that. You show up in New York all by yourself with nothing but 200 bucks and a pack of Jolly Ranchers, Buffy suddenly "retires" which, to my knowledge, is completely unprecedented, you refuse to call her and you've been tight as a freaking clam about why you left in the first place. For fuck's sake, Dawn. Give me some credit. What the hell happened?"
"Giles is dead, OK!?!" Dawn suddenly blurted out, her voice already beginning to crack. "Is that explanation satisfactory enough for you?"
Spike's stomach lurched, not so much with grief or shock, but with the clarity of dozen puzzle pieces coming together. That really did explain a lot. Dawn almost immediately began to cry and he let her, sitting in silence while she attempted to compose herself. He knew it was killing her to cry in front of him, and he dared not make a comment. When it looked as though she pulled herself together, he asked "How?"
"How do you think?" she shot back bitterly, wiping an errant tear from her cheek. "Got hit by a bus? Slipped in the shower? A demon killed him. Buffy was there. She couldn't stop it. I don't even know exactly what happened because she won't talk about it. Not to me, not to anyone. She doesn't talk about anything anymore. She's totally dead inside. It's like…it's like I lost them both. I'm tired of losing people."
Spike sighed. He knew the feeling. "And what about Red? And what's his name?"
"There comes a point when simply too much shit has passed between people for them to sit comfortably in a room together. We tried to keep it together. We really did. We needed each other, was what we kept telling ourselves. But we needed to get away. Being together was too painful. Brought up to many bad memories. So I got the hell out. No one even knows where I am. I don't want them to know."
"You know you're sister is probably having a fit."
"I doubt she's noticed."
Spike shook his head. "Dawn, you're 20 something years old and you still sound like you're 14."
"You're one to talk. You've been a fucking teenager for 200 years."
"Hey - I've been a teenager for 192 years. For the last 8 I've been babysitting my roommates. We all gotta grow up sometime, Lil' Bit. I'm not gonna sit here and say that you haven't been through some harrowing shit, cause you have. But all the running in the world ain't gonna make your mum and Giles any less dead, or your sister any less upset." He grabbed the phone from its cradle and slid it across the table to Dawn.
"You know," Dawn said as her voice started to shake again. "You were the last person I expected a lecture from."
"Luv, I don't care what you do. That was always the beauty of our relationship. You could tell me you were planning on robbing banks for a living and I wouldn't care. You wanna wait tables and hang with my retarded roommates for the rest of your life? Peachy. Who the hell am I to criticize my own lifestyle choice? But I sincerely hope you have enough sense in that gigantic head of yours to realize I am not exactly a role model."
And with that, he left the kitchen and went to his room. Dawn looked at the phone and sighed. Buffy always said the most infuriating thing about Spike was that he was always right. She took a deep breath and reached for the receiver.
"So they just keel over?" Ryan asked, shoving diner food into her mouth as if she hadn't eaten in about three days. "Splat?"
"Pretty much," Roman shuddered.
"Yeah, the same thing's been happening in Sunnydale. No one knows why, and then I got some tip from this demon dude I know that it's been happening on the East Coast too. So, I figured I'd investigate. Find out who's doing this. You know, so I could send them a fruit basket or something," she laughed slightly, but her audience didn't find it nearly as amusing. "Although," she continued. "The cops may technically call it running away," she performed air quotes to accentuate her point. "So who were those dudes you were rumbling with in the ally?"
So Dawn took a deep breath and explained the Initiative. Who they were, what they've done in the past, and their current theories on what they have planned for the future. Ryan, needless to say, wasn't pleased.
"Let me get this straight," Ryan growled over her coffee. "This whole time there has been a covert government agency dedicated to exterminating vampires with plenty of funding and the latest technology at their disposal while I HAVE BEEN CHASING THEM AROUND WITH A STICK?!?"
The other diner patrons turned and stared at them. "Are they all this angry?" Roman asked nervously. "I've never met one before."
Spike nodded. "Pretty much."
"Ryan," Dawn tried to reason.
"I don't want to hear it. Can I have one of those?" she snapped her fingers at Spike. He looked at her with a bemused expression.
"One of these?" he waved his pack of cigarettes in the air.
"Yeah."
Spike snorted. "A slayer with emphysema. That's rich," he tossed her one from his pack.
"Save me the lecture, Johnny Rotten. I've been smoking these since I was 13. It's not like I had a career as a track star planned out or anything. How was I supposed to know some painfully British dude was gonna waltz in and tell me I'm the Slayer. Cause the other girl quit. Quit. I asked if I could quit, and he said not until I'm 25 or dead. And they prefer dead."
"Excuse me, but would you mind taking this outside?" the diner manager suddenly asked them. "You're making people nervous."
"She's making *you* nervous," Davis remarked.
"Ugh, whatever," Ryan snapped as she got up from the table and stormed outside.
"Can we kill her yet?" Nell asked on their way out, which earned them dubious looks from the already edgy manager.
"Relax. Any one of us can take this bint out with our eyes closed if need be," Spike shrugged.
"Which won't be necessary," Dawn added wearily.
"Besides, in some cases a slayer's a useful ally. Especially considering by the natural order of things she and the Initiative should be best mates. It's lucky for us they don't play well with others."
They filed out of the restaurant to see Ryan pacing maniacally in the alley, puffing on her cigarette with a renewed ferocity. "I don't get this," she said to no one in particular. "These guys are assisting my cause and I have to stop them? On top of everything else?"
"You don't have to do anything, Ryan," Dawn attempted to calm her down. "It's just if they're hurting people, I'd like to know. Plus, I also kinda happen to think that this is cruel and unusual. Even to do to vampires."
Ryan huffed scornfully. "Yeah, we wouldn't want to be politically incorrect," she scowled.
"Listen, sweetheart," Nell piped up. "You're either with us or you're not. If you're not, I say start running."
"Please," Ryan sneered, flipping her stake out of her pocket like a gunslinger at high noon. "I'll give *you* a head start."
"That's it," Nell growled and advanced on her. Spike stepped between them.
"Cool it, ladies. Not in front of the children," Spike smiled at Dawn. She pretended to resent the remark, but it was obvious she was grateful to him.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ryan snapped, clearly at her wits end. "Are we friends now? Are we giving each other casual orders? Cause I have one for you…" she pointed her stake at him like a mother pointing her finger at a child.
Spike rolled his eyes and quite easily snatched the stake away from her and brandished it at her own neck, game face in full glory. "I'd watch where you point that thing, girlie. I've killed two slayers who shit bigger than you and tangoed with many a hell of a lot tougher than that. Nell would end you. So would any of us here. We're not the mullet-sporting squatters you contend with back in Sunnydale, all right? We're the real deal and you're out of your depth." He shook his face back to normal and removed the stake from her neck. She made a clumsy grab for it but he put in his pocket. "I'll be hanging on to that, thanks. Are we all cleared up now?"
Ryan nodded quietly, the first show of humility Dawn had ever seen the girl demonstrate. It was so easy to forget how powerful Spike really was. "Good. Now that we're all buddies, what would you say our first plan of action should be?"
Dawn shrugged. "Well, since we're pretty certain the Initiative has something to do with it, we can really start investigating," she suggested, easing into the Daphne role in the Scooby Gang after being Scrappy for so long. "But we might as well head in for the night. The sun'll be up soon. You need a place to stay, Ry?"
"She's not staying with us," Roman jumped in.
"Like I would anyway," Ryan snapped. "I don't have a death wish."
"Not yet," Spike muttered under his breath, but Dawn and Nell were the only ones to catch it. Dawn elbowed him as Nell snickered.
"I'll get a hotel room or something."
"All right," Dawn started scribbling something on a napkin. "This is our number. Call me tomorrow, OK?"
"I can't believe you live with these guys."
"Call me," Dawn insisted.
Ryan nodded and then backed out of the alley, refusing to take her eyes off the vampires until the last possible second, narrowly avoiding a street light. When she was gone, Davis started laughing hysterically. "Did you see that chick's face when Spike got all Bad Cop on her? That was priceless, man! Serves her right. She killed my buzz."
"I gotta admit, Spike, for my first encounter with a Slayer she was kinda disappointing," Roman agreed.
"Well, don't get too comfortable. She's brand new. When they're at their peak they'll kill ya before you know what happened."
"And you killed two of them?" Nell asked. "Or was that bullshit?"
"No, I killed them. Come on. We gotta go home," Spike said quickly as he turned towards the apartment. Dawn noticed Nell and Roman having one of those insider conversations with their eyes. Spike really has shrouded himself in mystery since he got here. She wondered why he was suddenly so modest.
"You really should call Buffy," Spike insisted again during he and Dawn's frequent early morning discussions.
"I'm telling you, she won't come."
"If you called her right now and said "Buffy, I'm in trouble," she wouldn't come?"
"No."
"Come off it, Dawn. You're full of shit and you know it. This new girl knows nothin' about nothin'. She won't last two rounds with the Initiative, or my roommates. How long has she been doing this, anyway?"
"Less than a year."
"Less than…Jesus. Buffy has been retired for less than a year and you're saying she's already left it completely behind her?"
"I…can't…call…her," Dawn said as she flung her hands around in mock sign language. "Why can't you get that through your thick skull?"
"Cause I know the Summers women better than that. You show up in New York all by yourself with nothing but 200 bucks and a pack of Jolly Ranchers, Buffy suddenly "retires" which, to my knowledge, is completely unprecedented, you refuse to call her and you've been tight as a freaking clam about why you left in the first place. For fuck's sake, Dawn. Give me some credit. What the hell happened?"
"Giles is dead, OK!?!" Dawn suddenly blurted out, her voice already beginning to crack. "Is that explanation satisfactory enough for you?"
Spike's stomach lurched, not so much with grief or shock, but with the clarity of dozen puzzle pieces coming together. That really did explain a lot. Dawn almost immediately began to cry and he let her, sitting in silence while she attempted to compose herself. He knew it was killing her to cry in front of him, and he dared not make a comment. When it looked as though she pulled herself together, he asked "How?"
"How do you think?" she shot back bitterly, wiping an errant tear from her cheek. "Got hit by a bus? Slipped in the shower? A demon killed him. Buffy was there. She couldn't stop it. I don't even know exactly what happened because she won't talk about it. Not to me, not to anyone. She doesn't talk about anything anymore. She's totally dead inside. It's like…it's like I lost them both. I'm tired of losing people."
Spike sighed. He knew the feeling. "And what about Red? And what's his name?"
"There comes a point when simply too much shit has passed between people for them to sit comfortably in a room together. We tried to keep it together. We really did. We needed each other, was what we kept telling ourselves. But we needed to get away. Being together was too painful. Brought up to many bad memories. So I got the hell out. No one even knows where I am. I don't want them to know."
"You know you're sister is probably having a fit."
"I doubt she's noticed."
Spike shook his head. "Dawn, you're 20 something years old and you still sound like you're 14."
"You're one to talk. You've been a fucking teenager for 200 years."
"Hey - I've been a teenager for 192 years. For the last 8 I've been babysitting my roommates. We all gotta grow up sometime, Lil' Bit. I'm not gonna sit here and say that you haven't been through some harrowing shit, cause you have. But all the running in the world ain't gonna make your mum and Giles any less dead, or your sister any less upset." He grabbed the phone from its cradle and slid it across the table to Dawn.
"You know," Dawn said as her voice started to shake again. "You were the last person I expected a lecture from."
"Luv, I don't care what you do. That was always the beauty of our relationship. You could tell me you were planning on robbing banks for a living and I wouldn't care. You wanna wait tables and hang with my retarded roommates for the rest of your life? Peachy. Who the hell am I to criticize my own lifestyle choice? But I sincerely hope you have enough sense in that gigantic head of yours to realize I am not exactly a role model."
And with that, he left the kitchen and went to his room. Dawn looked at the phone and sighed. Buffy always said the most infuriating thing about Spike was that he was always right. She took a deep breath and reached for the receiver.