Becoming Me:
Hope is a Thing With Feathers
by Evangeline
Spike dropped into the lower level of his crypt, angrily picking up an empty liquor bottle and hurling into at the wall. Groaning, he ran his long fingers through his bleached hair, upsetting the slicked back curls.
Why did he even bother with Buffy? The girl was disgusted by him and what she was doing with him, or so she claimed. Laughing ironically, he mentally berated himself. Oh yeah, Buffy really loved him, which is exactly why she turned his crypt into one of her attempted dinners.
"Yeah, that explains her visit," he chuckled to himself. "She didn't say, "It's over," she said, "I love you, Spike." He let out another choked laugh before dropping onto the charred remains of his bed. The red silk sheets had large holds where the fire had burned through. Those were his favorite sheets. Sighing heavily, he turned towards the large wooden chest. It was partially burned through on one corner. How much of his world had the fire claimed?
Snapping over the latch, he lifted the curved lid, feeling his stomach sink. If he was lucky, he might be able to save a few photographs. Everything else was virtually untouched. Pulling out the pictures, he sat back down on the bed to sort through them.
Tossing aside the first few, he smiled at one particular photo, one of his family, his mother, father, and the original Nibblet, Rosalyn. It was black and white, like all of his photos, and worn yellow at the edges from years of handling, but it was untouched by the fire. He started another pile on the bed. The next picture was of his first love, Cecily. Her brown locks curled gently at her shoulders and around her heart-shaped face. The fire had worn a large whole near the corner, but it was salvageable. He continued through the pcitures. He would have to throw away most of them, but they were, after all, just pictures of cities he had visited with Drusilla.
Still, he was pained to throw out one picture in particular, a close-up of Rosalyn. She had looked so pretty that day. Only fifteen at the time the picture was taken, she smiled shyly at the camera, uncharacteristic of most pictures of the time. Her long chestnut locks were pulled back into an intricate web of braids so as to keep them away from her beautiful blue eyes and rosy cheeks. He closed his eyes, reminiscing. Rosalyn was always so full of life before the fever caught her.
He placed the bad photographs on the nightstand, making a mental note to find a box so that they could throw them out. Walking back over to the trunk, he did a once-over of the rest of the contents. Everything else seemed fine and undamaged.
Glancing again at the photograph of Rosalyn, he decided he wasn't going to let the picture go. He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil before settling down to copy the photo. His skillful fingers slowly but surely recorded Rosalyn's young face in gray. He was so entranced in what he was doing that he didn't even hear anyone enter the lower level of his crypt.
"Who's that?" someone whispered playfully near his ear.
He jumped, dragging the pencil jaggedly across the paper. "Bloody hell, Nibblet! Don't do that!" He placed the pink rubber end to the paper to erase all evidence of his surprise.
"Sorry," she grinned mischievously. "But you were really out of it, and it's not every day I see you surprised."
"Why are you wet, Dawn?" he asked seriously, ceasing his erasing.
"It's raining outside, Spike. A big thunderstorm started while I was only my way here so I ran the rest of the way."
"What are you doing here in the first place, Bit? Isn't it past your bedtime?" he accused pointedly.
"I didn't feel like staying in the house. Buffy's been acting all mopey since she found out Rily was married. " Spike silently stored away that little tidbit about Captain Cardboard, letting her continue. "What happened down here?" she asked, finally noticing the room.
"Nothing, Nibblet."
"Yeah, that's what I thought because it really looks like nothing." She gave him a pointed look. "Buffy did this, didn't she? God, Spike! Why do you let her do these things?"
He shrugged and contined on his drawing. "I can't help it, Nibblet."
"So, who is she?" Dawn asked again, sighing. "And why are you drawing her?"
"Well, sweet pea, this was the original Nibblet, my lil sis Rosalyn, and I'm drawing her because this photograph was ruined when my place got blown to hell." He gestured to the wrecked room.
"She's really pretty," Dawn commented. "How old is she here?"
"She's fifteen, like you," he told her. "You remind me of her."
Dawn smiled at this, settling herself across from him on the bed, picking up the discarded pictures to look through. "Tell me about her."
"Well, petal, Rosie was born when I was six years old, and I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, besides my mum, of course." Dawn grinned and held up his family picture. "Swore to myself I'd take care of her. Rosie was so smart, even for a woman. She liked art, like you. She would set out some flowers to paint, and I would read to her, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, it didn't matter, anyone. She caught scarlet fever when she was sixteen." He frowned. "It got so bad that we couldn't even afford to buy the medical attention she needed because my father had died a couple years before. I watched her while she was in pain. She died in the early morning as I read to her." He stopped talking and pulled out another sheet of paper.
"I'm sorry, Spike."
He shrugged. "It was a long time ago."
"What were you reading?" Dawn asked again, nosily.
""She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways" by Wordsworth." He snorted. "Fitting, I guess."
"How?"
He recited as he drew. ""She dwelt among the untrodden ways/ Beside the springs of Dove,/ A maid whom there were none to praise/ And very few to love:/ A violet by a mossy stone/ Half hidden from the eye!/ --Fair as a star, when only one/ Is shining in the sky./ She lived unknown and few could know/ When Lucy ceased to be;/ But she is in her grave, and oh,/ The difference is to me!"" He snorted again. "That was her favorite poem. She liked the whole Lucy series."
"My English class is working on poetry right now," Dawn said, trying to steer the conversation away from Rosalyn. "We have to do a big report on a poem complete with a critical analysis. My poet is Emily Dickenson. We get to choose our own poems."
"That's a good choice," he murmured, his pencil skimming over the paper. "What poem are you doing?"
"I think I'm going to do "Hope Is a Thing with Feathers." It's pretty and it rhymes."
Spike smiled at her playfully, a grin reserved only for his Nibblet gracing his handsome features. "Oh really?"
"Yes! "Hope is a thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without words/ And never stops at all.""
"Well, that didn't rhyme," Spike stated.
"The other stanzas do, but I can't remember them. And the only reason the first stanza doesn't sound like it rhymes is because I don't have a stupid British accent like yo-"
Dawn was interupted as the door to the lower level snapped open and Buffy dropped in, shaking a dripping black umbrella.
"Thanks for bringing the rain in, Slayer."
Buffy barely awknowledged him. "Dawn, what are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Talking to Spike, what's it look like?" Dawn shot back.
"Dawn, it's late," Buffy sighed.
"I used to do this all the time over the summer, when you were-away."
"Well, it's not the summer anymore, and it's still late. You need to be in bed."
"Spike would have walked me home!" she protested.
"Dawn, let's go now," Buffy said firmly.
"Fine!" Dawn snapped and turned back to Spike. "I'm sorry."
He smiled softly at her. "No worries, Sweet Bit. For you." He turned around the sheet of paper for her to see.
Gasping at her own face, Dawn squealed, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight hug. "Thank you!" She kissed his cheek. "You didn't even tell me you were drawing me!"
Grinning, he reached into the trunk and pulled out a leather-hide folder. Emptying the contents, he slipped the drawing in. "So you don't get it wet."
She smiled at him before following Buffy up the ladder. "Bye Spike, I'll see you later."
He smiled to himself at his unbelievably Sweet Bit. She made everything worth it. There was no way he could leave now.
He turned back to his crypt and sighed.
"Hope is a thing with feathers, huh?"
~finis~
I am thinking about making a series out of this. This is my first Buffy fic although I've written plenty of other fics (anime). Am I any good? Please R&R.
*All standard disclaimers apply.
