Chapter 5: The Morning After
Buffy winked the rays of sun off her eyelashes as she awoke the next morning. Gasping, she suddenly sat up. "Dawn!"
"Mmmgh, is 'alright luv, the crypt offers good shelter from the dawn," a tousled, naked, groggy vampire drawled out as he turned to look at the alarmed Slayer sitting next to him in bed.
"No Evil Dead, Dawn. As in my sister Dawn. I can't believe we forgot all about her!"
"Well we were a bit tied up luv," Spike said, smiling wickedly. Buffy shot him a glance to signify that this wasn't the time. She got up and began picking up her strewn clothes. "Where's my other boot?" she poked the now fully conscious Spike who draped the bed sheets around his body as a kind of makeshift toga.
"Uhhhh . . . here," he said striding over to the far side of the crypt. "Guess I was in a hurry to get this one off, wasn't I?" Buffy smiled lightly, surprising Spike with her even-temperdness. He feared that it wouldn't take long for her to slip back into bitchy, ice queen Buffy. He wanted this new, pleasant Buffy, the Buffy that was smiling for the first time in weeks, to stay. "Here now, do you have to go rushing off right away?" He said, curling his arms around her neck and lazily placing his damp lips to the nape of her neck.
"Well it's Dawn. I have to go home to see if she's there. I don't know what I'm going to do if she's not." Buffy smiled in his arms and brushed her bruised, pulsing lips against his cold mouth before breaking apart from him.
Spike could see Buffy was genuinely concerned for Dawn and wasn't just trying to find an excuse to duck out. He pulled on a shirt and his jeans and reached for a blanket.
"Well wait for me, I want to see if Nibblet's alright."
Buffy thought she would be annoyed at the fact that she had spent all of last night and much of this morning with Spike, but she didn't. In fact, she was concerned when saw him writhing slightly under the blanket.
"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked, as they made their way up Revello Drive.
"Yeah, just getting my daily dose of Vitamin D that I never knew I needed," Spike hissed, trying to duck under any shady tree he could find. Buffy giggled slightly and Spike grinned under his blanket to hear that. He rushed up to her and took her hand and was pleased to find that she accepted it. He knew that it was being exposed to sunlight and that it would be a nasty burn, but he didn't care. He gripped it tightly and Buffy found it so sweet, if not a little strange that she and her former mortal enemy were into handholding.
"DAWN??!!!" Buffy called through the house as she opened the front door. "DAWN???!!!"
"Geez Buffy, ever heard of inside voices? Loud enough to wake the undead. Speaking of which . . . Hi Spike!" Dawn greeted Spike brightly, who by this time had let go of Buffy's hand and impishly let the zealous teenager pounce him into a hug
"Where have you been?" Buffy asked in her best stern mother hen voice.
"Ummm . . . here. Which is more than I can say for you," Dawn said putting her hands on her hips and giving her sister the best evil eye she could muster. "Well whatever, come in the kitchen first, I made pancakes."
"I found her!" Xander affirmed loudly, his mouth muffled with pancake as Dawn and Buffy walked into the kitchen. Anya was evidently feeding Xander breakfast (like literally, spoon-feeding) while Tara sat back and watched the activities of the dysfunctional couple.
"Hi Buffy," Tara said shyly.
"Hi Tara," Buffy answered before focusing back onto Xander.
"No you didn't," Dawn disgustedly replied to Xander. "I walked through the door this morning and you just grabbed me and yelled 'I found you'."
"Well somebody had to, Missy. Who knows what kind of trouble you could have gotten into from the door to the kitchen?" Dawn rolled her eyes. "Speaking of trouble," Xander said, turning his attention to Buffy, "Where the Sam Hill have you been?"
Buffy shifted where she stood uncomfortably. "Out looking for Dawn, she murmured.
"I slept over at Lisa's," Dawn said, turning to Buffy. "I left a note. It must have got lost."
"No here it is," Anya said brightly, holding up a crumpled piece of paper. "I just thought it was a grocery list." She squinted. "Spam jelly . . . open-faced . . . lettuce." She looked up at Dawn. "You really have terrible handwriting."
"All that aside," Xander interrupted, trying to squeeze information out of Buffy. "What were you doing searching for Dawn for 6 hours? There aren't that many places for a young, brooding adolescent to sulk in ol' Sunnydale."
"Well . . . I saw a lot of demons and vamps last night and lots of slayage ensued."
"You were patrolling until 7 this morning?" Anya chirped. "Didn't the pesky sun pretty much get the job done for you?"
Buffy's mind raced for an excuse. She practically felt the heat of the blinding, interrogation light that was making her cringe with perspiration. "Look you guys, I appreciate it, but you aren't my parents. After all the carnage, I felt a little thirsty and went to . . . Willy's for a couple beers."
Xander wrinkled his nose. "Willy's? You were in that dive?"
Buffy rushed to expand her lie. "Yeah . . . um it was the only bar open and . . . I just felt like I needed time alone . . . you know?"
Xander's face fell. He understood. She needed time to brood over what they had done. After all these weeks, she still wasn't over it. And instead of reaching out to them, she was distancing herself, making Xander feel like he knew Buffy less then ever. Buffy saw the hurt in his eyes and felt a tinge of guilt over what her lie implied, but she figured that to tell them she was at Willy's would be a lot less controversial as telling them were she really was. Just then Spike came into the kitchen.
"Do I smell pancakes?"
"Yup, only the fluffiest, tastiest pancakes you'll find in this part of the country," Dawn sang as she rushed to set up a short stack for Spike, drowning it in syrup.
Xander groaned. "What's the undead patron of the Billy Idol Fan Club doing here?" he whined as Spike devoured his pancakes.
"He helped with the patrolling . . . then . . . we went to Willy's and sat around for awhile." She didn't dare look into Spike eyes, but she could hear him abruptly turn to look at her. "How's Willow?" she asked quickly, rushing to change the subject.
"Can we all say 'who cares'?" Dawn muttered, adjusting the sling on her shoulder slightly. Buffy gave her a reprimanding look.
"Upstairs resting," Xander said in between mouthfuls of pancake and glaring at Spike. "Me and Ahn checked up on her and she seems better."
"Looks terrible though. Like the homeless bag lady down on Sycamore Street." Anya cut in. Tara stiffened uncomfortably.
"Um . . Ahn, I know it's too late to ask you to get your foot out of your mouth, but maybe you should concentrate on getting some pancake into mine." Xander opened his mouth expectantly.
"Look at the nancy-boy and his dowdy chamber maid," Spike mused. "She might as well be chewing your food for you as well, you stupid git."
"That's it," Xander sputtered as he stood up. "Get out before I suck up your remains with my trusty Dirt Devil."
"Oh I'm shakin' Harris. 'Fraid you'll hit me, but you'll probably get Demon-girl to do it for you, won't you?"
"She can hit pretty hard," Xander gritted his teeth, trying to churn out a proper comeback.
"I really can," Anya supplied. "And as an ex-vengeance demon, I know exactly where it will hurt the most for men."
Tara and Dawn giggled at the wackiness while Buffy tried to suppress a smile.
"I suggest you try some of those tactics on your boy. You'll be doin' a service to all of mankind to get rid of the whelp. Help you as well to get an identity apart from your bloody boyfriend, you spineless bint."
"Hey, nobody talks to my fiancée like that!" Xander rushed towards Spike, poised to finish him off with a butter knife. Spike grinned fiendishly, ready for a fight. Buffy rushed to jump in between them, placing a hand on Spike's chest to motion him to back off.
"Enough Xander." This is exactly why I could never tell them about Spike, she thought. Although how fun would it be to see the verbal showdown between him and Xander? She giggled at the prospect.
Tara up to this point was relatively silent, just watching the fun and picking at her pancakes. She was already absorbed with thoughts of Willow, who she wanted to see today badly, but couldn't bring herself to do. The moment Buffy touched Spike, Tara's eye's glazed with startled recognition. She had seen something and jumped astonishedly. She made a brief sound and felt a yelp get stuck in her throat. "Eek!"
All eyes turned to her. Xander, still holding the butter knife high above his head, asked, "Are you okay Tara?"
Even Spike himself showed concern ---kind of. "Here now, what's wrong with Red's girl toy?"
"What's the matter Tara?" Buffy asked seriously, walking up to her and grasping her arms.
"I'm---I'm----I uh. . ."
"You're not going to start with whole stammering thing again are you?" Anya rudely asked. "Because we could barely understand a word you were saying."
"I----I, um, I have to go----" Tara gasped. "Thanks for the pancakes Dawnie." She timidly looked into Buffy's worried eyes. "Yeah, I---uh----yeah." With that she rushed out the back door.