Chapter Four: A Little Learning
The room was dark, but he could tell that he was in a hall, walking far away from the walls, and that nothing was in his path. The ground was soft to his bare feat, mostly because of the thick layer of dust, and the air smelled slightly musty, as if he was the only living thing to have been in it for a long time. Well, he wasn't exactly living.
In the few days he had spent back in Sunnydale, in his own crypt, with so many memories floating around it, he had felt panic come over him that he couldn't fight. It had driven him out and away, with the few small possessions he owned that he didn't want to part with. He had found the most secluded, darkest place to live. A place that felt like home to him. The sewers under the school.
They had been cleaned out a bit, signally that a few human lives had been here, but the dust had just been moved, not cleaned up. They had cleaned up a bit of the smell though, and killed some of the rats and others creatures living down there. But they hadn't made it safer, they'd just opened it up for more dangerous things.
In the past few days of being there, he had killed more demons than he had all summer. And unlike the sense of pride and accomplishment it had used to give him, this time, Spike only felt like he was repaying something. He felt like the good that he did, in some way, compensated for the bad that the demon in him had done.
There was one thing, however, he somehow knew that could never be righted, not by extinguishing all the demons in the world; not by ridding the Earth of every last evil on it. The only good that he wanted to do for a particular reason, he could never do in this sewer. But this was where he felt safe, where he felt normal. With her he always felt like he was wrong, unworthy.
More than ever, she seemed like some sort of angel that opened up to a monster. The best gift he could have ever asked for had been granted to him, and just like an overexcited child with a toy, he had broken it. He had closed off any feelings she would ever have for him, and in turn, he had destroyed what he was.
He didn't know weather to be pleased or saddened by his new transformation, didn't know if having feelings and a conscious was something good, or just another road block in his path to evil. But that indecision was because he didn't know what he wanted to be, who he wanted to fight for: good or evil.
Spike knew he would always be a warrior, it was what he was there for. Not to be some love-struck poet or a slave to his emotions, but a fighter. Weather it be good or evil that he ended up fighting for, if he was just standing on the sidelines, he knew he would never be satisfied.
But it used to be so simple. He was a demon, he didn't have a soul, he had to be evil. But then like a wild dog, he was caged and tamed. He fell in love, just like a pet does with its owner, and he had changed. He then had a new thing pulling him: love for someone good had made him want to be good.
Spike ducked through the opening in the brick wall, and turned to his left. In the dark, he fumbled around with the items on top of a table, and then lit up a match. The room was suddenly illuminated, and he looked around at it.
In the corner he had a few scattered blankets piled atop each other, far away from any of the wetness on the floor. He had three candles about the room and he had a few books in the corner. He had an old desk that he had found on the side of the road. It had a single drawer, and the only content in it was a single picture. A picture of the woman that made him want to fight evil, instead of fight for it.
He had tried so hard in the beginning not to care for her, tried to convince himself that what he felt was just an obsession. He had been caged, and he was growing fixated rather than developing feelings. But the human left in him argued that he wasn't meant for evil, that this was a sign he was to be more.
Too many emotions had nearly driven him crazy. He finally snapped, and when he did, he turned on the last person he would have ever wanted to hurt. Hurting her hurt him as much as it did her. He had wanted to go and comfort her, but he had to remind himself it was his fault she was in pain at all. That's when his little trip came.
Like all his decisions before, he didn't know why he was going. He knew it was to find an answer, which side to turn to, how to spend the rest of his existence. It had been good or evil all along, but when he got there, when he was finally faced with which he wanted, he learned neither of those questions mattered. The question was did he want her, and the answer was yes. And she needed, she deserved, to have only good in her life, and that would be all he'd be for her.
But now he didn't know any more. He knew he loved Buffy, and that he wanted her, but he didn't know if he was capable of being what she needed. For the first time, it was more about her than it was about him. He had been selfish before but he had a new outlook now.
As he thought about all of this, the demon in him had to chuckle. He sounded like a lovesick sap, just the very thing he never wanted to be. It made half of him sick, while the other half just admitted the truth. He was lovesick. And he didn't know what to do about it.
" Need any help?"
Willow glanced up to see Buffy in the doorway, smiling at her. She had missed that smile so much; the smile of her best friend, caring for her for no reason.
" Oh, Buffy, most of the packing done, but you can pick up something and carry it around a lot, just so passers by will think you're helping?"
Buffy smiled wider, letting out a little chuckle. She reached down into the last box Willow was unloading and pulled out a small ceramic figure of a cat. It was a gift Buffy had given Willow for her 18th birthday, it was one of Willow's favorites. Buffy walked over and sat it on the dresser.
" Weird to be back?" she asked, feeling that these sort of questions were inevitable.
Willow smiled faintly as she folded a shirt and put it in a drawer. " Oh yeah, weird in the frightening and nerve-wracking sense." Willow sighed and sat down next to Buffy on her bed, used to spilling her feelings after a summer of doing just that with Giles. " I just don't know about the room, I thought it would scare me and make me feel that sinking feeling again..but it doesn't. It feels like a room. A place to sleep, get dressed, put on makeup. Not a place where you." Willow let her sentence trail off, still finding many things hard to say.
" Will, I know it's hard. My mom, she.she was here. On the couch, in the living room. I didn't think I'd want to go back in there. But you learn that it isn't the room that you don't like, it's the memories. They open up wounds. But as soon as your cuts heal, it's all better again. Or at least, it gets easier."
" Yeah, I hope." Willow looked down at her hands, watching them just lay in her lap.
Buffy reached out and put her hand on Willow's shoulder. " Willow, I wouldn't lie to you about something like this. I know last year was just sort of our web-of-lies extravaganza, but this is too.personal to be something that I wouldn't give you an honest answer. With all things, it just takes a little time."
Willow looked up at Buffy, her green eyes filled with tears. " I know Buffy. When Oz left, after time I moved on. Even before Tara, it got easier eventually. But it's the pain you have to go through before it gets easier that makes it so hard. I just want it to stop, you know? For the time to have passed and it to be easier already."
" I know." Buffy didn't know what else to say. She understood Willow's pain, she had lived through it several times. She had dealt with it in many different ways, and each had gotten her through it in the end. But she couldn't have done it without her friends, so she suddenly decided that no matter what, all she was going to be was a friend for Willow, just one big barrel of support.
" You know I'm here for you, Will. Whatever it is, whenever you need me, I'll always be here for you."
Buffy reached out and wrapped her arms around Willow, pulling her into a hug. She knew it was the only thing that was really going to help, rather than a lot of words that would undoubtedly just bounce off of Willow's emotional shield. Contact was something that Willow could feel and know was going to be there for her.
" Hey, there are group hugs going on without me?" Xander asked, coming through the door. Willow and Buffy both quickly wiped their tears away and smiled up at him.
" Well then join in the embracing- thing, Xan Man," Buffy said with a smile. Xander happily squeezed himself down on the bed between them and wrapped an arm around each.
" Ah, this is the way life should be.me, squeezed in between to beautiful girls. Life is kind to the one and only Xan Man."
They all smiled to that, glad that someone felt that life was being kind. " Share some of that enthusiasm over here please?" Willow asked.
" Of course." Xander's solution to this was to put both arms around Willow and squeeze her tightly.
" I said share enthusiasm, not upper arm strength," Willow groaned.
" Oh, sorry. A little over-zealous there. But that's enthusiasm at its greatest!"
" I like it better when enthusiasm isn't crushing my ribs."
This got another grin from the three, and they all spent the next hour talking, lounging on Willow's bed, discussing everything that came into their minds, lapsing into group hugs now and again, and finally getting so tired, the three fell asleep right next to each other.
Dawn eased her door open slowly, not making a sound with her soft tennis shoes on the carpeted floor. She walked past Willow's room soundlessly, looking in to see Willow, Buffy and Xander all still fast asleep, their heads each leaning on another's stomach, happily cat-napping.
Dawn smiled at this, loving the feeling she got to see them all together again. It had been too long, and too much pain and stress on everyone. With those three together again, being friends again, she knew that things would be better, save the occasional appearance of a demon.
Dawn walked down the stairs slowly, letting her footsteps lightly touch the floor. Not single creak echoed through the house as she made her was to the closet, got her coat, and then slowly went back to the door to turn the knob slowly and carefully, not making a sound.
" Going somewhere?" A soft British voice came from the living room, and Dawn squealed and in shock and nearly tripped down the stairs. She caught herself at the last moment and looked up to see Giles sitting on their couch, reading a book.
Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes, her heart still beating a bit fast. " Lurking? Not very British of you-aren't they usually a little more respectful of privacy?"
Giles raised his brow at her over his glasses. " Oh, I wasn't lurking. I was reading, you know, opening a book and looking at the words on the page to get a mental picture. And I wasn't intruded on privacy, this is where I am to sleep for the next week or so, you were the one barging in on me. Albeit, quietly."
Dawn shrugged in shame, and walked the rest of the way over to Giles, to sit next to him as he lied his book down. Giles looked at her, a stern, fatherly looked creasing his face. " Was there somewhere you were going? Or were you sneaking to the door at 8:00 at night for some other reason?"
" Well.it is good exercise.walking." Dawn sighed at the own lameness in her lie. " Okay, I was maybe.going to meet a friend in the park."
Giles looked at seriously, his voice going lower and more concerned. " Dawn, I thought we'd broken you of this habit. Buffy informed me your stealing had gotten under control, and that you didn't try and sneak out anymore. Now here you are.sneaking out. You know, it really leaves me to believe that you lied when you said you didn't do it anymore."
" I know, but it's not what you think. I'm not off to do any of the delinquency that I---know other people my age do," Dawn corrected herself quickly. " I was just off to meet a friend at the park, we were going to study."
" Study? In the dark? Outdoors? In Sunnydale?" Giles removed his glasses from his face, a sure sign that something was bothering him. He looked at Dawn as if she had told him she'd seen a ghost-and no one else had ever said that to him. " Dawn, have you not lived here for seven years? You do know the kinds of things that live here, do you not?"
" Oh, I know; but she drives. We were going to sit in the car with the lights on, listen to some music, and try and do math." Dawn looked everyone in the room but at Giles, suddenly realizing how bad that sounded. " Okay, maybe not the best plan, but hey, whoever said teenagers were the smartest breed of man?"
Giles smiled slightly, slipping his glasses back onto his face. " And I take it Buffy knows nothing of your little get together in the park? Does she even know you're.study partner?"
" Oh yeah! They met. Bianca was here a few nights back. I think Buffy liked her.Bianca said she thought Buffy was cool.which is so way out there. But yeah, they know each other. See! Not some teenage boy with raging hormones that I'm off to.do things with. Just a girl." Dawn's eyes widened a second later as she realized how that sounded. " That I'm not going to be doing anything with..except studying," she added.
" Dawn, this is very unsafe behavior. There are many other much better places to study. If you have homework and want to do it with this.Bianca, then bring her back here, you can work in a home, with a Slayer on hand."
Dawn sighed. " She's probably already at the park. I can't call her now." Dawn smiled and looked up at Giles. " Can you drive me there? We can tell her to come back here!"
Giles looked back over at the clock and then nodded. " Yes, let's go. We'll be quick about it, hopefully be back before they wake up." Giles looked up the stairs as they walked to the door.
Dawn smiled, following his gaze. " It's nice, huh? Having them back to normal."
Giles nodded, not smiling. He seemed happy, but at the same time there was an expression on his face that she didn't recognize. Then he opened the door and Dawn bounded down the steps and out to his car. They sped to the park, pulling up next to Bianca's car.
" I'll be right back. She said she'd meet me over by the swings, it'll just take a sec."
Giles nodded to her as Dawn hopped out of the car and walked through a few scattered trees to the playground equipment. She looked around, seeing no one. She debated weather or not to call out, but then she discovered she didn't have too.
A soft scream came from the distance, and then the sound of a struggle. Dawn took only a second to scream for Giles before running towards the noise as quickly as she could. She only had to run for less than a minute before she came upon a few headstones, signally the beginning of a graveyard.
She looked around for a moment before noticing movement to her right. She automatically noticed Bianca's bright red hair and red shirt. She was being attacked from two sides by two large demons with horns protruding from their heads. Dawn looked around for a weapon, but seeing nothing but tombstones panicked.
She could barely fight herself, let alone without a weapon. If she ran over to Bianca to help she would most likely be killed, along with her friend. If she waited for Giles to come, Bianca might already be dead by then.
Suddenly, one of the demons lunged at Bianca, who had just managed to barely fight them off with a large stick. They fell to the ground, blocked by a mausoleum so Dawn could no longer see them. The other demon too quickly disappeared, when Dawn made a decision to test her luck. She couldn't just let Bianca die.
She ran as hard as she could in their direction, still hearing the fight from out of her line of sight. She was just barely around the side of the small building when something stopped her, pulling her backwards where she landed on her back. She was suddenly grabbed and pulled to her feet to come face to face with one of the demons. Her eyes widened as he grinned at her, revealing a row of sharp teeth.
She yelled and tried to pull out of his grip, using some of the defense moves Buffy had taught her. But he was too strong, she wasn't budging from his grasp. He started to drag her along when suddenly she was grabbed from behind again and went flying backwards. She landed hard, hitting her head on the ground.
Her vision spun and her hearing fluttered, but she could make out the noise of fighting and see two bodies moving slightly. There was yelling, and then suddenly, silence. The sound of footsteps came to her in her semi- consciousness and she looked up. She could just barely make out the figure of a person, she was sure of this because it was too small to be anything else. It had light coloring but other than that, she had no idea. Then a British voice came to her, asking, " Are you all right?"
Dawn closed her eyes. " Yeah, Giles, I'm fine."
There was more silence, when the sound of running footsteps came, then heavy breathing. Dawn opened her eyes to see a clear view of Giles leaning over her, his face worried. Then he asked again, "Dawn, dear Lord, are you all right?"
Dawn looked at him confused, but nodded. " Yeah, Giles, I already said, I'm fine." Dawn put her hand to her head when it spun as result of shaking it back and forth. Giles looked at her confused, when she suddenly realized something. " Oh my God! Bianca! Is she okay?"
Giles looked around before running off a little ways. He came back, supporting Bianca under her arms, helping her walk. He sat her down next to Dawn and Dawn turned to look at her. " Oh, are you okay?" she asked her friend right away.
Bianca looked completely bewildered, but otherwise unharmed. " Yeah, I'm cool. But these two big guys jumped me.they must have been wearing costumes or something. They had horns." Bianca looked at the two before shrugging. " Totally fake."
Giles and Dawn quickly jumped in to agree with her. " Yeah, they were obviously just young hoodlums, but they might come back."
" Yeah, with friends," Dawn added.
" Yes," Giles agreed, hurrying both girls to their feet. " In which case we should get home quickly, before they return."
Giles cast a troubled glance behind him as he ushered the girls through the graveyard and back towards his car, wanting to get them safely away before any more " hoodlums" jumped out at them. He didn't know why they'd left the first time, but he didn't want to wait and see if they came back.
Spike watched them as they walked away, one girl on each side of Giles as he supported them. They walked very slowly, but every once in a while, Giles cast a look behind him, and Spike could just see his eyes wandering over to the shadows where Spike stood secluded in the trees.
He had just been making his way back to the school after stopping at the local butcher. It was one thing that hadn't changed, even after his change. Before, when he couldn't kill humans thanks to something else deciding, he had to get his blood from another source. Now when he had made the choice on his own, he still had to get his blood from the same source. No matter how human his thoughts were, his heart still wasn't beating.
Another thing that hadn't changed: caring about Dawn. He had heard the other girl scream, and out of some new impulse, had run to see what it was. He'd seen her being attacked, but hadn't run to help her right away. Mostly, because he wanted to see if Buffy would come out of nowhere to help first, and secondly because the girl had been doing pretty well on her own.
Then he'd seen Dawn off in the distance, coming running out. At first he had thought she was Buffy, then he got a better looked. It amazed how much more she had grown to be like her sister in just one summer. It hadn't taken long for her to rush to the girl's rescue.
But when he saw that Dawn was in trouble, he immediately gave up his hiding place to run to her aide. He was about to kill the demons, when the girl blew some sort of whistle around her neck. Another demon, different than the others came running from the trees. He quickly clobbered the demons with the club in his hand and dragged them off.
Spike hadn't taken long to think over this, too concerned about Dawn, who had hit her head when he pushed her out of the way. He asked her how she was, and he called her Giles. That's when he heard footsteps, and Giles was running towards them. Spike fled to the bushes, and that's where he was now.
He watched them disappear out of sight, still wondering about the girl. When the demons had been attacked, she'd been fine, but then she had been injured and confused when Giles went to get her. Not only that, her fighting skills were above normal for a teenage girl, and she hadn't seemed too frightened over the appearance of monsters.
All Spike could think was that this friend that Dawn knew was more than she appeared. Much more, and Spike was going to stay close, because no amount of change would make him stop caring for the Summers women.
The room was dark, but he could tell that he was in a hall, walking far away from the walls, and that nothing was in his path. The ground was soft to his bare feat, mostly because of the thick layer of dust, and the air smelled slightly musty, as if he was the only living thing to have been in it for a long time. Well, he wasn't exactly living.
In the few days he had spent back in Sunnydale, in his own crypt, with so many memories floating around it, he had felt panic come over him that he couldn't fight. It had driven him out and away, with the few small possessions he owned that he didn't want to part with. He had found the most secluded, darkest place to live. A place that felt like home to him. The sewers under the school.
They had been cleaned out a bit, signally that a few human lives had been here, but the dust had just been moved, not cleaned up. They had cleaned up a bit of the smell though, and killed some of the rats and others creatures living down there. But they hadn't made it safer, they'd just opened it up for more dangerous things.
In the past few days of being there, he had killed more demons than he had all summer. And unlike the sense of pride and accomplishment it had used to give him, this time, Spike only felt like he was repaying something. He felt like the good that he did, in some way, compensated for the bad that the demon in him had done.
There was one thing, however, he somehow knew that could never be righted, not by extinguishing all the demons in the world; not by ridding the Earth of every last evil on it. The only good that he wanted to do for a particular reason, he could never do in this sewer. But this was where he felt safe, where he felt normal. With her he always felt like he was wrong, unworthy.
More than ever, she seemed like some sort of angel that opened up to a monster. The best gift he could have ever asked for had been granted to him, and just like an overexcited child with a toy, he had broken it. He had closed off any feelings she would ever have for him, and in turn, he had destroyed what he was.
He didn't know weather to be pleased or saddened by his new transformation, didn't know if having feelings and a conscious was something good, or just another road block in his path to evil. But that indecision was because he didn't know what he wanted to be, who he wanted to fight for: good or evil.
Spike knew he would always be a warrior, it was what he was there for. Not to be some love-struck poet or a slave to his emotions, but a fighter. Weather it be good or evil that he ended up fighting for, if he was just standing on the sidelines, he knew he would never be satisfied.
But it used to be so simple. He was a demon, he didn't have a soul, he had to be evil. But then like a wild dog, he was caged and tamed. He fell in love, just like a pet does with its owner, and he had changed. He then had a new thing pulling him: love for someone good had made him want to be good.
Spike ducked through the opening in the brick wall, and turned to his left. In the dark, he fumbled around with the items on top of a table, and then lit up a match. The room was suddenly illuminated, and he looked around at it.
In the corner he had a few scattered blankets piled atop each other, far away from any of the wetness on the floor. He had three candles about the room and he had a few books in the corner. He had an old desk that he had found on the side of the road. It had a single drawer, and the only content in it was a single picture. A picture of the woman that made him want to fight evil, instead of fight for it.
He had tried so hard in the beginning not to care for her, tried to convince himself that what he felt was just an obsession. He had been caged, and he was growing fixated rather than developing feelings. But the human left in him argued that he wasn't meant for evil, that this was a sign he was to be more.
Too many emotions had nearly driven him crazy. He finally snapped, and when he did, he turned on the last person he would have ever wanted to hurt. Hurting her hurt him as much as it did her. He had wanted to go and comfort her, but he had to remind himself it was his fault she was in pain at all. That's when his little trip came.
Like all his decisions before, he didn't know why he was going. He knew it was to find an answer, which side to turn to, how to spend the rest of his existence. It had been good or evil all along, but when he got there, when he was finally faced with which he wanted, he learned neither of those questions mattered. The question was did he want her, and the answer was yes. And she needed, she deserved, to have only good in her life, and that would be all he'd be for her.
But now he didn't know any more. He knew he loved Buffy, and that he wanted her, but he didn't know if he was capable of being what she needed. For the first time, it was more about her than it was about him. He had been selfish before but he had a new outlook now.
As he thought about all of this, the demon in him had to chuckle. He sounded like a lovesick sap, just the very thing he never wanted to be. It made half of him sick, while the other half just admitted the truth. He was lovesick. And he didn't know what to do about it.
" Need any help?"
Willow glanced up to see Buffy in the doorway, smiling at her. She had missed that smile so much; the smile of her best friend, caring for her for no reason.
" Oh, Buffy, most of the packing done, but you can pick up something and carry it around a lot, just so passers by will think you're helping?"
Buffy smiled wider, letting out a little chuckle. She reached down into the last box Willow was unloading and pulled out a small ceramic figure of a cat. It was a gift Buffy had given Willow for her 18th birthday, it was one of Willow's favorites. Buffy walked over and sat it on the dresser.
" Weird to be back?" she asked, feeling that these sort of questions were inevitable.
Willow smiled faintly as she folded a shirt and put it in a drawer. " Oh yeah, weird in the frightening and nerve-wracking sense." Willow sighed and sat down next to Buffy on her bed, used to spilling her feelings after a summer of doing just that with Giles. " I just don't know about the room, I thought it would scare me and make me feel that sinking feeling again..but it doesn't. It feels like a room. A place to sleep, get dressed, put on makeup. Not a place where you." Willow let her sentence trail off, still finding many things hard to say.
" Will, I know it's hard. My mom, she.she was here. On the couch, in the living room. I didn't think I'd want to go back in there. But you learn that it isn't the room that you don't like, it's the memories. They open up wounds. But as soon as your cuts heal, it's all better again. Or at least, it gets easier."
" Yeah, I hope." Willow looked down at her hands, watching them just lay in her lap.
Buffy reached out and put her hand on Willow's shoulder. " Willow, I wouldn't lie to you about something like this. I know last year was just sort of our web-of-lies extravaganza, but this is too.personal to be something that I wouldn't give you an honest answer. With all things, it just takes a little time."
Willow looked up at Buffy, her green eyes filled with tears. " I know Buffy. When Oz left, after time I moved on. Even before Tara, it got easier eventually. But it's the pain you have to go through before it gets easier that makes it so hard. I just want it to stop, you know? For the time to have passed and it to be easier already."
" I know." Buffy didn't know what else to say. She understood Willow's pain, she had lived through it several times. She had dealt with it in many different ways, and each had gotten her through it in the end. But she couldn't have done it without her friends, so she suddenly decided that no matter what, all she was going to be was a friend for Willow, just one big barrel of support.
" You know I'm here for you, Will. Whatever it is, whenever you need me, I'll always be here for you."
Buffy reached out and wrapped her arms around Willow, pulling her into a hug. She knew it was the only thing that was really going to help, rather than a lot of words that would undoubtedly just bounce off of Willow's emotional shield. Contact was something that Willow could feel and know was going to be there for her.
" Hey, there are group hugs going on without me?" Xander asked, coming through the door. Willow and Buffy both quickly wiped their tears away and smiled up at him.
" Well then join in the embracing- thing, Xan Man," Buffy said with a smile. Xander happily squeezed himself down on the bed between them and wrapped an arm around each.
" Ah, this is the way life should be.me, squeezed in between to beautiful girls. Life is kind to the one and only Xan Man."
They all smiled to that, glad that someone felt that life was being kind. " Share some of that enthusiasm over here please?" Willow asked.
" Of course." Xander's solution to this was to put both arms around Willow and squeeze her tightly.
" I said share enthusiasm, not upper arm strength," Willow groaned.
" Oh, sorry. A little over-zealous there. But that's enthusiasm at its greatest!"
" I like it better when enthusiasm isn't crushing my ribs."
This got another grin from the three, and they all spent the next hour talking, lounging on Willow's bed, discussing everything that came into their minds, lapsing into group hugs now and again, and finally getting so tired, the three fell asleep right next to each other.
Dawn eased her door open slowly, not making a sound with her soft tennis shoes on the carpeted floor. She walked past Willow's room soundlessly, looking in to see Willow, Buffy and Xander all still fast asleep, their heads each leaning on another's stomach, happily cat-napping.
Dawn smiled at this, loving the feeling she got to see them all together again. It had been too long, and too much pain and stress on everyone. With those three together again, being friends again, she knew that things would be better, save the occasional appearance of a demon.
Dawn walked down the stairs slowly, letting her footsteps lightly touch the floor. Not single creak echoed through the house as she made her was to the closet, got her coat, and then slowly went back to the door to turn the knob slowly and carefully, not making a sound.
" Going somewhere?" A soft British voice came from the living room, and Dawn squealed and in shock and nearly tripped down the stairs. She caught herself at the last moment and looked up to see Giles sitting on their couch, reading a book.
Dawn sighed and rolled her eyes, her heart still beating a bit fast. " Lurking? Not very British of you-aren't they usually a little more respectful of privacy?"
Giles raised his brow at her over his glasses. " Oh, I wasn't lurking. I was reading, you know, opening a book and looking at the words on the page to get a mental picture. And I wasn't intruded on privacy, this is where I am to sleep for the next week or so, you were the one barging in on me. Albeit, quietly."
Dawn shrugged in shame, and walked the rest of the way over to Giles, to sit next to him as he lied his book down. Giles looked at her, a stern, fatherly looked creasing his face. " Was there somewhere you were going? Or were you sneaking to the door at 8:00 at night for some other reason?"
" Well.it is good exercise.walking." Dawn sighed at the own lameness in her lie. " Okay, I was maybe.going to meet a friend in the park."
Giles looked at seriously, his voice going lower and more concerned. " Dawn, I thought we'd broken you of this habit. Buffy informed me your stealing had gotten under control, and that you didn't try and sneak out anymore. Now here you are.sneaking out. You know, it really leaves me to believe that you lied when you said you didn't do it anymore."
" I know, but it's not what you think. I'm not off to do any of the delinquency that I---know other people my age do," Dawn corrected herself quickly. " I was just off to meet a friend at the park, we were going to study."
" Study? In the dark? Outdoors? In Sunnydale?" Giles removed his glasses from his face, a sure sign that something was bothering him. He looked at Dawn as if she had told him she'd seen a ghost-and no one else had ever said that to him. " Dawn, have you not lived here for seven years? You do know the kinds of things that live here, do you not?"
" Oh, I know; but she drives. We were going to sit in the car with the lights on, listen to some music, and try and do math." Dawn looked everyone in the room but at Giles, suddenly realizing how bad that sounded. " Okay, maybe not the best plan, but hey, whoever said teenagers were the smartest breed of man?"
Giles smiled slightly, slipping his glasses back onto his face. " And I take it Buffy knows nothing of your little get together in the park? Does she even know you're.study partner?"
" Oh yeah! They met. Bianca was here a few nights back. I think Buffy liked her.Bianca said she thought Buffy was cool.which is so way out there. But yeah, they know each other. See! Not some teenage boy with raging hormones that I'm off to.do things with. Just a girl." Dawn's eyes widened a second later as she realized how that sounded. " That I'm not going to be doing anything with..except studying," she added.
" Dawn, this is very unsafe behavior. There are many other much better places to study. If you have homework and want to do it with this.Bianca, then bring her back here, you can work in a home, with a Slayer on hand."
Dawn sighed. " She's probably already at the park. I can't call her now." Dawn smiled and looked up at Giles. " Can you drive me there? We can tell her to come back here!"
Giles looked back over at the clock and then nodded. " Yes, let's go. We'll be quick about it, hopefully be back before they wake up." Giles looked up the stairs as they walked to the door.
Dawn smiled, following his gaze. " It's nice, huh? Having them back to normal."
Giles nodded, not smiling. He seemed happy, but at the same time there was an expression on his face that she didn't recognize. Then he opened the door and Dawn bounded down the steps and out to his car. They sped to the park, pulling up next to Bianca's car.
" I'll be right back. She said she'd meet me over by the swings, it'll just take a sec."
Giles nodded to her as Dawn hopped out of the car and walked through a few scattered trees to the playground equipment. She looked around, seeing no one. She debated weather or not to call out, but then she discovered she didn't have too.
A soft scream came from the distance, and then the sound of a struggle. Dawn took only a second to scream for Giles before running towards the noise as quickly as she could. She only had to run for less than a minute before she came upon a few headstones, signally the beginning of a graveyard.
She looked around for a moment before noticing movement to her right. She automatically noticed Bianca's bright red hair and red shirt. She was being attacked from two sides by two large demons with horns protruding from their heads. Dawn looked around for a weapon, but seeing nothing but tombstones panicked.
She could barely fight herself, let alone without a weapon. If she ran over to Bianca to help she would most likely be killed, along with her friend. If she waited for Giles to come, Bianca might already be dead by then.
Suddenly, one of the demons lunged at Bianca, who had just managed to barely fight them off with a large stick. They fell to the ground, blocked by a mausoleum so Dawn could no longer see them. The other demon too quickly disappeared, when Dawn made a decision to test her luck. She couldn't just let Bianca die.
She ran as hard as she could in their direction, still hearing the fight from out of her line of sight. She was just barely around the side of the small building when something stopped her, pulling her backwards where she landed on her back. She was suddenly grabbed and pulled to her feet to come face to face with one of the demons. Her eyes widened as he grinned at her, revealing a row of sharp teeth.
She yelled and tried to pull out of his grip, using some of the defense moves Buffy had taught her. But he was too strong, she wasn't budging from his grasp. He started to drag her along when suddenly she was grabbed from behind again and went flying backwards. She landed hard, hitting her head on the ground.
Her vision spun and her hearing fluttered, but she could make out the noise of fighting and see two bodies moving slightly. There was yelling, and then suddenly, silence. The sound of footsteps came to her in her semi- consciousness and she looked up. She could just barely make out the figure of a person, she was sure of this because it was too small to be anything else. It had light coloring but other than that, she had no idea. Then a British voice came to her, asking, " Are you all right?"
Dawn closed her eyes. " Yeah, Giles, I'm fine."
There was more silence, when the sound of running footsteps came, then heavy breathing. Dawn opened her eyes to see a clear view of Giles leaning over her, his face worried. Then he asked again, "Dawn, dear Lord, are you all right?"
Dawn looked at him confused, but nodded. " Yeah, Giles, I already said, I'm fine." Dawn put her hand to her head when it spun as result of shaking it back and forth. Giles looked at her confused, when she suddenly realized something. " Oh my God! Bianca! Is she okay?"
Giles looked around before running off a little ways. He came back, supporting Bianca under her arms, helping her walk. He sat her down next to Dawn and Dawn turned to look at her. " Oh, are you okay?" she asked her friend right away.
Bianca looked completely bewildered, but otherwise unharmed. " Yeah, I'm cool. But these two big guys jumped me.they must have been wearing costumes or something. They had horns." Bianca looked at the two before shrugging. " Totally fake."
Giles and Dawn quickly jumped in to agree with her. " Yeah, they were obviously just young hoodlums, but they might come back."
" Yeah, with friends," Dawn added.
" Yes," Giles agreed, hurrying both girls to their feet. " In which case we should get home quickly, before they return."
Giles cast a troubled glance behind him as he ushered the girls through the graveyard and back towards his car, wanting to get them safely away before any more " hoodlums" jumped out at them. He didn't know why they'd left the first time, but he didn't want to wait and see if they came back.
Spike watched them as they walked away, one girl on each side of Giles as he supported them. They walked very slowly, but every once in a while, Giles cast a look behind him, and Spike could just see his eyes wandering over to the shadows where Spike stood secluded in the trees.
He had just been making his way back to the school after stopping at the local butcher. It was one thing that hadn't changed, even after his change. Before, when he couldn't kill humans thanks to something else deciding, he had to get his blood from another source. Now when he had made the choice on his own, he still had to get his blood from the same source. No matter how human his thoughts were, his heart still wasn't beating.
Another thing that hadn't changed: caring about Dawn. He had heard the other girl scream, and out of some new impulse, had run to see what it was. He'd seen her being attacked, but hadn't run to help her right away. Mostly, because he wanted to see if Buffy would come out of nowhere to help first, and secondly because the girl had been doing pretty well on her own.
Then he'd seen Dawn off in the distance, coming running out. At first he had thought she was Buffy, then he got a better looked. It amazed how much more she had grown to be like her sister in just one summer. It hadn't taken long for her to rush to the girl's rescue.
But when he saw that Dawn was in trouble, he immediately gave up his hiding place to run to her aide. He was about to kill the demons, when the girl blew some sort of whistle around her neck. Another demon, different than the others came running from the trees. He quickly clobbered the demons with the club in his hand and dragged them off.
Spike hadn't taken long to think over this, too concerned about Dawn, who had hit her head when he pushed her out of the way. He asked her how she was, and he called her Giles. That's when he heard footsteps, and Giles was running towards them. Spike fled to the bushes, and that's where he was now.
He watched them disappear out of sight, still wondering about the girl. When the demons had been attacked, she'd been fine, but then she had been injured and confused when Giles went to get her. Not only that, her fighting skills were above normal for a teenage girl, and she hadn't seemed too frightened over the appearance of monsters.
All Spike could think was that this friend that Dawn knew was more than she appeared. Much more, and Spike was going to stay close, because no amount of change would make him stop caring for the Summers women.