Dawn is easy to find. She is sitting on the step outside Spike's Crypt- always Spike's, whoever's living or unliving in it-knees bent, arms crossed close to her body. I watch her for a minute from the shadows, bright in the pink jean jacket and pale skin, lit by the moon (so pretty, my sister, and so heart-breakingly loyal, beautifully, blindly loving), before stepping into sight and sound, into the world. Instantly she's on her feet, stake clenched in her raised right fist

"Oh," she says, when she sees. "It's just you."

"Yes, just me," I say as she flops back down on her vamp big brother's stoop.

I sit next to her.

"I know," she says, before I can, "I shouldn't be out alone at night, in the middle of the cemetery, in plain sight."

"At least you've got your stake," I say.

"Well duh."

We both stare out into the cemetery for a while.

"He's not here, huh?" I ask.

"No," Dawn says, "but he's been living here again. Blood in the fridge."

I nod, then add, "I checked Willy's. Couple of other places he used to go. Nothing."

"There was only one bag in there," she offers. "Maybe he went for more."

The crickets are muted.

"Buffy," Dawn says, looking at me. "Why?"

"I don't know," I say, and put my arm around her as she leans her head on my shoulder. "But I'm sorry," I tell her, and press my lips to the top of her head.

"Did you know he had a soul?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"No."

Dawn just shifts a little closer. "Buffy, I don't want him to leave again."

"Me neither," I say after awhile.

I did miss him. Nobody to fight with. Nobody to really stay with. And, before the messiness that was us together, he was good to talk to. He could be so patient when he wanted to be. When it suited his purposes. And gentle.

Dawn sniffles. "But you don't love him?"

I think about this for awhile. "Not the way I think you're supposed to love somebody," I say finally. "But I care about him. I want to trust me, and maybe I can now. I want him to stay."

She seems satisfied, and she wraps her arms around me and squeezes. "I love you. You're going to wait for him?"

"I am."

"Then I'll go home." She pauses. "Don't let him leave," she pleads one more time. "Please."

I smile at her, buoyed. "I'm still the Slayer. I can still kick his ass. If he tries to go I'll just chain him to something."

Dawn giggles. "Kinky," she says, and before I can admonish her she's off into the night. "See you at home!"

I lean my head back against the concrete and forcibly not-worry-about-Dawn. I guess I sleep. When I wake up, it's because Spike is standing there, blood and alcohol supply tucked under his arm in a brown bag, studying me.

"Slayer," he says, and I stand up.

"Gonna invite me in?" I ask jauntily.

He nods curtly, and moves past me into the crypt, leaving me to follow.

"Surprised you didn't waltz right in and make yourself at home."

I shrug, even though his back is turned, and shift uneasily on my feet. "I- I'm sorry about Xander today," I say, and it's lame.

He grunts. "'m used to the whelp."

He's opened the fridge, is putting away the blood, the bottles of whatever it is he's drinking these days. And, curiously, brownies and strawberry light-n-lively yogurt cups. It means he's planning on seeing Dawn again, I realize. It means he's not leaving. My heart actually leaps.

"There's something I didn't get to tell you the other night," I say, feeling stronger.

"Yeah?" he says brittlely, back still mostly to me.

"Yeah."

He finishes with the bag and crumbles it up, deposits it in the can beside the fridge. He crosses the room to what must have been his bed since I grenaded his downstairs, and sits. He looks straight at me, aggressively.

"Get on with it then." His voice is inexplicably muffled.

I clear my throat, rub my hands on the legs of my jeans. "There's, ah, there's some stuff we found out. While you were away. About me. About what happened when I-" I force through the crack in my voice. "died. When I died."

I look up at him. His forearms are resting on his knees and he's looking up at me, mouth closed and slack. There's so much space between us, I realize, in the room, in the air, in the everything. But he's watching me, his eyes are so focused, like I'm his world, and I take a step closer.

"Willow found it, she's been helping at the Magic Box to pay for all the Evil-Willow damage. Giles left it."

"It?"

"A book. An old one," I add helpfully.

"Of course."

"Anyway, Giles. We called him, he said it was a new arrival, the box had arrived just before he left the first time and he'd never gotten around to going through it with all the. . . other stuff." I take a deep breath. "I'm. . . Do you remember hearing about the first time I died?"

"Called that Kendra bird Dru killed, right?"

I feel a flash of anger, of sorrow, still. But for now, I ignore it. "It was the Master. But me, right-"

I start to pull my shirt aside to show him, but he shakes his head. Gently, he says, "I've seen it."

"Oh. Right." I shift feet, keep myself from moving. "He didn't take much, just a little. Lots of world to take over, I guess. He thralled me, then he just dropped me. I drowned. There was this pool-"

I glance up at him, and his mouth quirks, almost a smile. "I guess that's not he point." And I'm kind of smiling too, a little.

"When Xander brought me back, it was different. I was different. Stronger. More powerful. More. . . distilled. The book-- Well, the short version is that when I died that first time, the Slayerness or whatever left me. My body, I mean. It went on to Kendra, like it was supposed to." I'm wringing my hands but I can't help it. "All the books, all the prophecies, they treat the Slayer as one thing. One girl, one Slayer. Death is like an express plane trip. Same girl, just, poof! now we're in Africa, poof! now we're in LA, poof! now we're in Iceland. So Kendra was the Slayer."

"And you?"

"Pretty much what I was before. I mean, same strength, same superhero healing, but no destiny. No fate. Because that was Kendra's. And then after Kendra, it was Faith's. That's how it should've worked anyway. Except. . .except there was this. . . there were these splinters, or, or frayed edges, still in me. And this space. This space that had to be filled. Willow's still working on what it was, exactly, that did the filling. But it made me strong. And that bit of Slayerness left in me kept drawing the other Slayer to me, and me to them. Well, and to vampires."

He starts to smirk.

"In the killing way, Spike. And it worked okay. I don't think it made a difference, really. . . not until we summoned the First Slayer. And then it was like. . . .like she moved in. Or like she'd been there all along, which is what Willow's current hypothesis is, that her essence had been pulled there in that space destiny wasn't filling anymore. Calling her. . .activated it. That was when I started to hunt. But I was dealing with it. Didn't notice the change 'til Dracula showed up and rubbed my face in it. And even then, there was Dawn and Glory and Mom. And then I died."

I can't see so well in the shadows, but I think Spike's jaw clenches. Softly, his voice comes to me: "An' when the witch brought you back, pet?"

"When they brought me back, those splinter-things that had been hanging around, they weren't there anymore. Angel said Faith knew it, the moment I was gone, that she felt it. When he went to tell her, she already knew. 'B's gone, eh?' she said, 'Good for her.' She looked heavier, he said, but he didn't think much of it because he was feeling pretty heavy too. Willow things she got it back, all the destiny was hers now. And I came back free!"

I throw my arms out, almost laughing. "This was me free! Free to do whatever I wanted! To be a normal girl! Except for the superstrength and the weight of knowing everything I knew. But it was like. . . like without that whole destiny thing, without having an override, I didn't know how to deal with the rest of my life. Cause it'd been so long since I'd had to. I'd put so much away for so long, only getting to deal with it in short, really not sufficient bursts, like in LA that summer, before destiny yanked me back."

I close my eyes. This is the hard part, the part that makes my apology the other night so sincere-what I had to own up to before I could say sorry. "So all of a sudden, my time was mine. I didn't have any more excuses to put it all off. I couldn't deal. I didn't want to. So I invented responsibilities. Burdens to carry. Secrets to keep. But they were just diversions."

Spike is growling. It's an unexpected sound.

"Is that how you're explaining me to yourself, Buffy?"

His eyes glint like they always used to glint when I'd done something to make him really, really angry, and I'm so thankful to see it, to see something, looking into them, other than that soul-pain I can't get used to in him, and so drained from my confession, that it takes me a second to process what he's asked.

"W-what?" I'm surprised, I furrow my brow, push my hair, fallen forward while I spoke, behind my ears. "Spike, no. No. You're. . . I can't. . . There is no explaining you." I try a smile. It's not a good joke and I know it.

He snorts in the back of his throat. "What happened back there, Slayer? In the Magic Box, with all your little friends?"

He doesn't mean Xander. He means how I just stood there.

"I. . . I don't know!" It's the same answer I gave to Dawn, and it's just as true. I imagine I look so lost about it. I feel lost about it. "I didn't mean for it to. . . I was glad you came back," I finish, firmly, to make up for my confusion in everything else.

"Was?"

"Am. Am! God Spike! Why do you always have to. . ."

"Check?" His answer mutes me. "Buffy, sit down," he says, and gestures to the new couch. I go, sit on the edge. My knees are pressed together, my body a little hunched, my hands twisted around each other.

He stares at me for a while, or through me. Finally, his eyes focus again.

"Why did you tell me all of that, just now?" He gestures, as if to the past.

At least this is a question I can answer. "Because I wanted you to know."

He nods, at that. A little coolly, he asks, "Is there anything else you wanted me to know?"

I tense; is he kicking me out? He sees it and gives a short bark of a laugh.

I scowl.

There's something speculative in his eyes, some change. He pushes off the bed and dismisses the space between us, the space I could never cross, and sits beside me. I look away from him, at my hands, as his fingers brush my jaw, the fabric covering my neck, as they whisper across the knob of my bared shoulder. I'm breathing rapidly.

His voice rasps: "Sure there's nothing else I need to know?" his touch relearning the tender inside of my arm, my collar. The weight of his touch is like a tactile groan, halfway between restraint and surrender.

A tear drops onto my lap. I realize, with a start, that I am crying.

He notices too. His hands go away. I want to tell him, make it clear to him that isn't why, that it isn't what he thinks, but I can't bring myself to look at him. I know how dumb I'm being. I'll tell Dawn tomorrow night and she'll roll her eyes at me, because being sixteen makes things so much simpler, vampires-with-souls included.

And then he's lifting me, shifting so I am cradled on his lap.

"Shh," he says, rocking, "Buffy, love. We'll talk about it tomorrow, we'll figure it all out tomorrow."

I stutter over a sob, fasten my fingers tightly around the line of buttons down his over-shirt. It's so familiar, and somehow so good.

"Okay." I am silent a minute against his chest. Then I sniffle like an idiot, and ask, "Can I have a brownie?"

He laughs, a low chuckle, pained but happy. "Sure, love. Just not yet. Just. . . not just yet."

I think it's a good start.