Part Three
One Week Later
Willow sat down cross-legged in front of him and said: "They're not haunting you, you know."
"What?" Spike raised his head, and looked at her askew.
"They're not here," she said, gesturing around them. "Not out here, inside your head or anywhere for that matter. They're all at peace now. And have been for years. Decades."
"You don't know that," he said, a sob choking up his voice in a manner Willow knew all too well.
She offered him her trademark Willow smile, part comfort, part reassurance, part innocent trust in the world and fate. Her smile hadn't changed in years. "Witch, remember? I did a sweep spell to detect spirits. None here. You're all clean."
"But I see them, they're all here, and they're all—"
"It's not them," she said confidently. "It's all in your mind. But…" she bit her lip. "You need to get out of here. You need to get away from the hellmouth. I was right. Its energies are affecting you."
"Then who's pointing at me?" he demanded, ignoring her last statement.
"What?"
"Who's pointing at me right now?" Spike demanded desperately. He stood up pinched the bridge of his nose to keep the tears from falling. "Then who's looking at me and yelling and telling me to—"
"Spike," Willow stood alongside him and reached out to touch his arm in comfort. He flinched away from her touch.
"You want to know what it felt like?"
Willow nodded, unsure what he was talking about.
"Was like myself, from century ago appeared and learned everything I did. And… I think he cried for me, Willow.
"No, not for me," he amended. "Because of me. Back then, I didn't have a thing going for myself. Was a bloody awful poet – s'where the nickname comes from, William the Bloody they called me. Wasn't too rich, or too smart, but--" He looked at her desperately, entreatingly. "I was a good man."
"Oh, Spike." She had to physically stop herself before trying to touch him again. Willow had been coming to visit him almost every day for the past week and despite her questioning, he hadn't said a word about the soul. He had told her what had happened with Buffy, and why he went to Africa, but had never talked about how he got it or what it felt like.
"S'all I had going for me. I was a good man. And now s'like I woke up after a long sleep and… and I'm not a good man anymore."
Willow felt her own tears start to fall down her cheeks.
"Imagine that, eh? You going to sleep one night and wake up the next morning with the knowledge that your murdered half of Europe and there's not a bloody thing you can do to change any of it. Because it's too late. It's always too damn late."
"It's not," Willow insisted.
He looked at her in confusion.
"It can't be too late, ever. Until it's over, I have to believe that we can change, and we can make up for the things we've done." Willow was silent for a moment, surprised at her own words, and even more surprised to realize that she believed them. She smiled a little more broadly at Spike. "Come on, get your stuff, we're getting out of here."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That evening
"Hey, Will!" Xander called out, dropping his keys onto the front table as he entered the apartment. Willow was at her usual position at the kitchen table, surrounded by arcane books and her trusty laptop.
"Xander," she greeted him nervously. "Um, I think you need to know—"
But Xander had already seen the black and white figure resting on his couch. On his couch. He seethed. "Willow, what is that doing here?"
"Shhh!" Willow grabbed his hand and lead him into the kitchen. Xander followed reluctantly.
"What is Deadboy doing sleeping on my couch?" Xander demanded angrily.
She shushed him again. "Xander, be quiet. You won't believe what I had to do to get him to go to sleep. I don't think he's really slept or ate in weeks."
"Well, excuse me if that doesn't touch my heart." Xander headed back out towards the living room, but Willow stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Look, I needed to get him out of the hellmouth. It's doing something to his mind, making him crazy, and this is the only place I could keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't go back."
"And why are we supposed to care whether his mind gets warped or not? Excuse me if I don't feel like harboring a would-be rapist in my apartment!"
Willow narrowed her eyes dangerously. "And what about a would-be serial killer? A would-be mass murderer?"
He looked confused.
"Xander, I tried to end the world. I did my best to hand a gruesome, violent death to billions of people. To children, to babies, without a thought or a care about any suffering by my own."
"That's different—"
"What, because you stopped me? Because I feel remorse? Well, news flash, Spike feels remorse, too. Probably more so than I can even comprehend." She shook her head. "Look, I know this isn't really my place to tell you this, but do you know what Spike did after he realized what he'd almost done?"
"What, regretted that he didn't go through with it?" Xander said acerbically, earning himself another glare.
"He went out and got a soul. He earned a soul, Xander. And that's why he's different. That's why he feels remorse. The least he deserves from us is the benefit of a doubt."
Xander sunk down onto a kitchen stool. "Deadboy has a soul?"
"Can you stop calling him that?" Willow asked, and then realized she was getting sidetracked. "Yes, he has a soul. And a chip. So you really don't need to worry about him."
"This doesn't change anything," Xander said defensively.
"Look, I know this is your apartment and I really have no right to ask you to accept him staying here, but he has nowhere else to go. Neither do I."
Xander stared at her for a moment and then shook his head, sighing loudly. "Just make sure he doesn't get blood on the furniture."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Next Morning
Xander let out a loud yawn as he twisted open the living room blinds. He headed towards the kitchen but halfway there he stopped and sniffed. There was the putrid smell of something… burning. He whirled around quickly and saw Spike, shirtless on the couch. Just sitting there. Sitting there as the bright light coming through the slats in the blinds burned horizontal lines into his alabaster skin. Xander watched, frozen in place, as the vampire's flesh began to blister and smoke.
After a moment, something snapped inside of him and he sprinted across the room to yank the blinds shut.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.
Spike just shrugged and Xander peered at him, taking a closer look at his chest. Not only was it covered in horizontal burns but even in the dark Xander could make out criss-crossing lacerations marring the pale skin.
"What the--" Xander stuttered in confusion. "You do this to yourself, don't you? Man, that is so… wrong."
Spike laughed a little, maniacally. "Mate, I'm wrong. Told me so yourself coupla times, if I remember."
"You've really gone crazy, you know that?"
He laughed again, a strange cackling that almost made Xander pity him. The thought of feeling sympathy for Spike angered him, though, so he lashed out.
"So this is your great atonement? You get a soul and lock yourself up in a basement until Willow finally takes pity on you and drags you out? Is that how you want to earn your forgiveness? Because, news flash, it isn't working."
Spike turned to him with startlingly clear eyes. "There's no forgiveness out there for me." He laughed then. "No forgiveness, no rest, no… why the bloody hell did I do it?" he demanded, standing up and storming across the room to the window. "What's the point? Get a bloody soul? Why? Doesn't help. Just makes it worse. I didn't want to feel anymore and now all I do is feel."
Xander was beginning to grow uncomfortable at the tears welling up in the Spike's eyes. He inched backwards, towards the kitchen.
"I understand it all now," Spike said softly, staring at the blinds. He reached out one hand and started to separate the slats to peer through. At the sight of smoke, Xander slapped his hand away angrily.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Xander demanded, genuinely disturbed. Spike turned.
"I see it all so clearly now," Spike said softly, meeting Xander's eyes. "So clearly."
"What?" Buffy demanded, turning sharply in the passenger seat to face Xander. "Tell me I just heard you wrong because I thought you just said—"
"Spike's staying in my apartment. Yeah, yeah, I know. Of course, it wasn't my idea, but Willow didn't want to leave him down in the hellmouth, what with his shiny new soul and all."
"What?" It was Dawn's turn to be shocked. "Xander… did you just say soul?"
"Yeah. My new roommate: Soulboy Jr." Xander shook his head, as if he himself still didn't believe it.
"Spike has a soul," Dawn repeated.
Xander nodded.
"Why?"
Xander frowned at her in the review mirror. "Why what? He just… does. There's no why."
"Was he cursed or did he do it deliberately or what?" Dawn asked. "And why did you let him into your apartment? He's dangerous."
"Well, besides being a little crazy in the head, and with a new unhealthy draw to early morning sunlight, he seemed fine to me." Xander tapped the steering wheel. "Well, not fine, exactly, because we're still talking about our favorite peroxided pest here, but Will can take care of him."
"That's what Buffy said," Dawn muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Buffy asked sharply.
"Nothing."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Later that morning
Buffy drew a circle on the top sheet of her post-it note pad. Then she drew a line coming down, branching into two even legs at the bottom. She pulled her ballpoint pen across the paper to make arms, spread outward, and then drew a stout cross behind her stick-figure.
She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a yellow highlighter. She squiggled its broad tip around the top and back of the circular head. Then she cocked her head back to look at it.
Pants, she decided. It needs pants. She grabbed the black pen and was about to add a pair of tight jeans, when a voice came from behind her.
"Didn't know you were religious."
"I was just, uh…" She yanked the top post-it note off the pad and shoved it into her khaki pants pocket. She faced the principal with a sheepish smile. "Just waiting for my next appointment."
Principal Wood looked at her seriously. "You better take a seat, Buffy."
"I am sitting."
The principal's plump blond secretary Mrs. Thomas peeked in from behind him. "Nobody's here to blame you, Buffy. But this is serious. You need help."
"What?" Buffy demanded, whirling around in her chair. What was going on? What had she done wrong? Was this about the soda machine incident? Well, it had legitimately swallowed her dollar bill, there really wasn't any—
"We know he's alive. It would appear that you've been hiding him and you've lied to us," Principal Wood continued seriously. He reached up to take his glasses off, but, not finding anything there, lowered his hand in confusion.
"What? Who's alive? What are you talking about?" she demanded, pushing her chair back into the wall as she stood up. Spike. It must be Spike. But how could they even know? And why would they even care? "It's not what you think," Buffy said weakly, backing into the wall.
"I hope not. Because I think you're harboring a vicious killer," Ms. Maple, the tardy window processor, said, crowding into the small cubicle doorway.
"This isn't about attacking Buffy," Mrs. Thomas chastised Ms. Maple. "Remember, 'I' statements only. 'I feel angry.' 'I feel worried.'"
Buffy felt a case of déjà vu whirling around in her stomach. Where had she heard this before?
"Fine. Here's one. I feel worried – about me!" One of the janitors, whose name still eluded Buffy, shoved his way into the crowded cubicle.
"But he's better now," Buffy said absently, still trying to place this scene.
"Better for how long, Buffy?" Ms. Maple demanded, her thin lips set in a prim line. "I mean, did you even think about that?"
"What is this?" Buffy asked angrily. "I don't need an intervention here."
"Oh, don't you?" Principal Wood raised his dark eyebrows. "You must've known it was wrong seeing Angel or you wouldn't have hidden it from all of us."
"God!" Buffy exclaimed. She finally recognized the scene. It was the intervention Giles, Willow and Xander had staged for her when they had discovered that Angel was back. "Stop it! Can't you see you're acting out a scene? This isn't you. You have no idea what you're talking about."
"What gives you the right to suck face with your demon lover again?" the janitor demanded.
"Shut up! Just stop this!" Buffy yelled.
"What, you just tripped and fell on his lips?" Ms. Maple demanded acerbically.
"No!" Buffy yelled.
"Buffy, I feel that when it comes to him, you can't see straight," Mrs. Thomas said in an attempt at comfort. "And that's why we're all going to help you through this."
"God! I don't need help! Just stop this stupid reenactment thing! Stop it right now!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That afternoon
"Buffy." Anya enunciated the slayer's name carefully, staring at the short blonde standing outside her apartment doorway.
"Anya, look, I know you probably don't want to see me, but I need to talk to you."
Buffy took a step forward, but Anya didn't move away to let her enter. "Are you back for some more verbal abuse? Or perhaps a little demon slaying? Convenient, since you know where I live and all."
"What?" Buffy frowned in confusion. "You don't really think I'd be here to kill you, do you?"
"Why don't you tell me what I'm supposed to think," Anya prompted her. Buffy sighed wearily.
"Anya, is this about that night? We had an argument, that's all. I'm just here to see if you know anything about the demoney-possession thingy."
"Oh, is that all?" Anya's grip on the doorknob tensed. "Well, then, I suppose everything is okay. Why don't we just kiss and make up and we'll be the bestest of friends. Not. Did you forget that I'm not in your exclusive little Scooby club anymore?"
"Anya—"
"No." Anya stomped her foot down. "Good-bye, Buffy."
She shut the door in the slayer's face.
Buffy was sitting at the kitchen table, poking at her bowl of salad when she heard the front door bang open.
"Buffy!" Dawn yelled. Buffy cringed at the sound. Why did everyone have to be so loud when she had a headache? She sighed and raised her eyes.
Her sister burst into the kitchen, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy. "What's wrong?" Buffy immediately demanded, jerking to action. "Are you being chased?"
"No," Dawn said between gulps of air. She dropped her backpack onto the kitchen floor with a thud. Buffy figured it wasn't the time to nag her about picking up after herself.
"Then what's wrong?" Buffy asked, headache forgotten as adrenaline surged through her veins.
"Out—outside." Dawn pointed towards the door, leaning forward to catch her breath.
Buffy gave her a small frown and walked towards the front window in the living room.
"Oh my god," Buffy said, taking a step backwards from the scene. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Is that our mail carrier?"
"And the gas meter inspector lady," Dawn said breathlessly, coming up behind her.
"Wow, um…" Buffy cocked her head.
"It's got to be the possession thing, right? They're reenacting something?"
"Um, yeah, I guess so," Buffy said, staring outside so she wouldn't have to meet her sister's eyes.
"I mean, why else would they be humping against our tree in broad daylight," Dawn continued. "Though it's kind of disturbing that that happened at all in our front yard."
"Yeah…" Buffy agreed noncommittally.
Dawn cocked her head with a small frown. "That can't be too comfortable. With the tree bark and all."
"It's not too bad--I mean, not that I would know," Buffy amended quickly. "I would just imagine, you know, what with the… one probably wouldn't notice the scratches on one's back until later."
Dawn shot her a strange look but didn't say anything. Then her eyes widened in horror. "Is this rape?"
"What?" Buffy demanded, whirling around to face her sister. "No, of course not."
"I just mean…" Dawn explained, her voice trembling. "They're being made to do things that neither of them wants—isn't that like the definition of rape?"
"Um, I guess so normally, but this is a little different—" But before she could finish her sentence Dawn had already sprinted out the front door. Buffy followed her more slowly and watched as her sister ran up to the uniformed couple in the front yard.
"Stop this!" Dawn screamed, her voice high and panicked. "Stop!"
When she didn't get a response from the mail carrier or the meter inspector, she reached out and tried to yank the mailman back. "Stop this!" she screamed again.
The mailman, a middle-aged man with graying brows, turned and frowned at her, but didn't stop pumping into the meter inspector, whose uniform pants were unbuttoned and pooled at her thighs.
"Stop right now!" Dawn cried, trying again to pull him off. Buffy, noticing how agitated her sister was, approached the unlikely couple, gripped the blue cloth of the mailman's shirt, and pulled him backwards and away from the woman. She shoved him back several feet across the yard.
"Hey!" the mailman cried out, and then stared at Buffy and Dawn in confusion. "What's going on?"
"Oh, my Lord." The meter inspector lady hurried pulled up her pants and buttoned them. "Please excuse me." She ran in the other direction.
The mail carrier watched her run, and then quickly picked up his fallen mailbag, stuffing stray letters back in, and hurried away from the yard, fly still hanging open.
Buffy turned to Dawn, noticing hot tears streaking down her reddened cheeks.
"Dawnie, honey, are you okay?" she asked, trying to make her voice as soothing as she could. She put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Dawnie, it's over. We stopped them."
Dawn wiped away her tears quickly and looked at her sister. "I know, I just… It's okay." She visibly tried to calm herself as pushed past Buffy back into the house.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One week later
"You want to go to Homecoming with me?" Dawn repeated incredulously. She gripped her locker door as if it was her lifeline, the sharp metal edges cutting into her palm.
"Uh, yeah," Brian said, and gave her a quick smile. "I mean, we had fun at the Bronze that one time and I was thinking, you know, we might have fun at the dance together." He looked at her intently. "Unless you didn't have fun?"
"No, no. Fun was had. Lots of fun." Dawn forced herself to smile, thoughts whirling around her mind. Brian was asking her to Homecoming. She looked into his light blue eyes and suddenly noticed how much they looked like Spike's. Bad. Bad thoughts. "I'd, uh… sure."
"What?" he asked.
"I mean, yeah, sure, I'll go." She tried to smile again, but was afraid it must have turned out more like a grimace. Brian didn't seem to notice, though, because he smiled back broadly. "Of course I'll go. Fun. It'll be fun."
"Great. We'll talk later okay? This is my last year here so my parents want to go all out with a limo and everything."
Dawn nodded, trying to mentally record everything he was saying so that she could go over what it meant later. Right now it sure felt like English wasn't her first language.
"I'll see you around." He gave her another smile before turning and walking back down the hall.
Dawn exhaled, trying to relax, though her heart was pounding in her ears. She looked down at her hand, and slowly extracted it from her locker door. Beads of blood rose on her palm where the sharp edges had cut her. She felt similar drops start to well in her eyes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That night
"Now you'll die!"
Buffy raised her eyebrows at the vampire's last words before he collapsed into ashes. She shook her head as she leaned down to pick up her stake.
"They never do get any smarter, do they?"
Buffy turned around to see Anya, who must have just teleported there, standing behind her in the empty, dark graveyard.
"Yeah, well, I guess with the lack of blood flow to the brain…" Buffy shrugged. "What's up?"
"We're even."
"What?"
Anya strode towards her. "Look, here's the way I figure it. You were mean to me, and then I was mean to you, so we're even now, right? We can just forget about the whole thing."
"Um… okay." Buffy stuffed her stake into her waistband.
"So how are you?" Anya asked, smiling broadly. Buffy raised her eyebrows.
"Fine," she said, and began to move forward through the tombstones. She had seen an obituary that morning for Locker. Or Lacker. Lackert. That was it.
Anya strode around her and stood in her way. "Now you're supposed to ask me how I am."
"I am?"
"That's the way it's done. Or so I've been told." Anya suddenly looked unsure of herself. "Do you not want to know how I am?"
"No, I do. How are you, Anya?"
"Good." She smiled, pleased with herself. "Well, not good actually, but that's how you're supposed to answer. Good or okay or fine. All acceptable responses."
"Anya, stop. What's wrong?"
"You know the 'possession thingy' you talked about?" Anya wrung her hands. "Well it just happened to me and I didn't like it."
"What happened?"
"I was at the police station, helping this officer out with a wish. It was quite brilliant really—"
"Anya," Buffy interrupted. "Really not needing the details."
"Oh, right." Anya seemed to catch herself. "Anyways, we were taking a shortcut to the station through this alley and suddenly she throws me on the ground and starts punching me!"
Buffy flinched. No, no, no… this wasn't happening.
"Can you believe it? But I think she was possessed because her eyes were suddenly all glazed over and she was calling me a soulless demon—I have a soul, she should have known that."
Buffy nodded wordlessly.
"It was so terrible. It must have been some kind of domestic abuse because I really felt like I loved her the whole time she was punching me—and, let me tell you, it hurt like hell!" Anya shook her head. "We vengeance demons heal quickly, but we still feel pain, you know."
"You… you said you loved her?" Buffy asked hesitantly.
Anya nodded. "I wish I knew who had been in that position in the first place, because I'd be happy to grant her with as many wishes as she wanted. She has a need for vengeance if there has ever been one."
"Oh," Buffy said. "Well, you said she called you a demon?"
"Could have been a figure of speech." Anya waved it away. "I figure it was probably a husband and wife. You know, it's this kind of thing that got me into the vengeance business in the first place. People who are hurt by the people they love? That's the worst kind of pain."
"Yeah," Buffy agreed distantly, her stomach roiling.
"So I need you to stop the reenactment spell."
"Um, we're trying," Buffy said, trying to focus her blurry vision. "Willow's researching around the clock and I guess Sp… Spike's even helping her too."
"Well, they better fix it soon, because it's not fun."
"No," Buffy agreed quietly. She stared down at the cold night grass under her feet. "No, it's not."
"Giles!" Willow exclaimed into the receiver. Spike, seated across the table, surrounded by arcane chronicles, looked up in mild curiosity. "No, now is fine. Spike and I were just—yes, I said Spike… No, not like that. Spike," she hissed, covering the mouthpiece. "Can I tell him?"
Spike shrugged. He didn't care.
"Giles? You should sit down for this… No, no one's back from the dead… Yes, I understand why you might think that… No, I'm not offended. Giles. Spike has a soul." Willow met Spike's eyes and waited a beat. Then frowned. "Of course I'm sure… no, I'm not even sure if the curse would work on any vampire besides Angel. But, no, he sought it out last summer… Yeah, pretty amazing, huh?" She gave Spike a thumbs-up sign, which he ignored and turned back to his books. Willow frowned. "Yeah, we're actually having a 'spot' of trouble with our latest big bad. It's like this spell. It's making people re-enact things from the past… That'd be great. Yeah, it's not showing up on any of the magick detection spells I've done.
"No, things are good." Willow settled back into her chair. "Spike's been helping a lot. Who'd have guessed he knew so many archaic languages?... Definitely… No, he's staying here with us. With me and Xander… Um… yeah, sure. I guess so." She leaned across the table and handed the telephone over to Spike. "Giles wants to talk to you."
Spike raised his eyebrows but took the receiver without a word. "'Lo," he said.
"Spike, I trust you are doing well?"
What the bloody hell? "What is this about, watcher?" he demanded into the phone.
"Well, in light of this recent revelation… I must admit, I am a bit shocked."
"Yeah, well, I s'pose I've finally joined the ranks of poofterdom. Anything else you wanted?"
"Willow said you sought your soul out. What would have made you finally want to do something like that?"
"Figured it was time for a change, s'all." Spike laughed hollowly. "Couldn't be soulless forever, now, could I?"
"How are you… how are you dealing with it, Spike? It must be unimaginably hard, remembering everything you've done these past hundred years."
"No, it's fucking peaches and cream. Now tell me what you want to know so I can get the bloody hell off this stupid contraption."
"Spike," Giles said patiently. "I just wanted to tell you that if you needed any help, you can feel free to come to me."
"Oh, thanks for that. Thanks a bloody lot for that!" Spike yelled and slammed down the 'off' button on the telephone. He saw Willow cringe from across the table and he sighed.
Buffy was making her way straight upstairs, beeline to the bathroom, after she got home from slaying, when she heard quiet sobbing from Dawn's room.
She flashed back uneasily to the day she found Dawn huddled in the corner staring at Tara's body and she immediately rushed uninvited into her sister's room. Glancing around quickly, she took inventory. No dead bodies. Check. Dawn's not hurt. Check. Nothing triggering her spidey sense. Check. She turned to her sister.
Dawn was seated on her bedspread, clutching a red-black formal dress in her hands. Of course, Buffy thought irritably before she could stop herself, Dawn would cry on dry-clean-only material.
"Dawnie, what's wrong?"
Dawn sniffled. "Nothing. It's all right."
Buffy gave her a sympathetic smile, and lowered her stake. Hiking up her detestable Doublemeat palace pants, she sat down at the foot of her sister's bed. "Okay, what's really wrong?"
"Brian asked me to homecoming," she confessed, and choked back another sob.
Brian? Buffy wracked her brain. Dawn was talking like she should have known who he was. She had probably been talking non-stop about him for weeks. And Buffy probably hadn't even noticed. There was nothing left to do but confess: "Who's Brian?"
"Oh, no one." Dawnn laughed a little maniacally and Buffy was brought back unpleasantly to the memory of crazy-soul-having-Spike's laughs. "Okay, not no one. Only the senior basketball star that I've been crushing on since like the first day of school."
Damn. Buffy probably should have known that. Well, better late than never. "The one you were dancing with at the Bronze?" Dawn nodded. "Well, isn't it a good thing, then, that he asked you?"
"Yeah, it would've been, like two weeks ago." Dawn laughed again and Buffy cringed.
"What happened a week ago? Did someone else ask you?" Buffy asked. She hoped not. That would mean that there was yet another thing she had failed to notice in her sister's life.
Dawn frowned at her. "You don't remember?"
Buffy tried to jog her memory. "Your birthday party?"
"The… bathroom."
"Oh. Oh!" Buffy got it. Kind of. Not really. "But what does that have to do with Homecoming? We'll take care of this weird possession demon, that shouldn't have to interfere with your social life. Especially not with the cute basketball hunk."
Dawn sobbed again, holding up the material of the dress to her face.
"Dawn?" Buffy reached out and stroked her sister's shoulder. "Tell me what's going on."
"You don't understand, do you?" she asked through her tears. "Buffy, the bathroom. I was there. I know what happened."
Buffy was struggling to catch up to her sister's thought process, but to no avail. "Dawn," she said carefully, "What happened there was terrible and I'm so sorry that you had to know about it. But it was between me and Spike—it doesn't have anything to do with you."
"It has everything to do with me," Dawn argued. "I wasn't just acting it out. It was like it was me. I felt everything he felt. And everything he did to you. And…" she took a deep breath. "Everything you did to him."
Oh, God, no. She yanked her hand away from her sister. "Everything?" Buffy asked in a small voice, dreading the worst.
"No, not details, or any pictures or anything, just… feelings, emotions… Everything he must have been thinking about at the time." Dawn shook her head. "You didn't know that was a part of it?"
"No." Buffy shook her head. "It, the possession thing, hasn't happened to me. At least not yet. I mean, Xander said it was pretty intense, but…"
"Yeah, that's the word for it." Dawn looked back down at the ragged material of her dress, fingering it intently.
"I really am sorry you had to go through that. You, of all people, shouldn't have had to. I'd do anything to take it away," Buffy said.
Dawn nodded. "I know, but… it's too late… and now I know."
"Know what?"
She looked upwards, her watery eyes meeting Buffy's. "What people do to each other."