TITLE: Coming Back 2/?
DISCLAIMER: Once again, I own none of this. It's Joss' sandbox. I snuck in to play while he wasn't looking. Shh.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I love Kes. She strokes my fragile ego and tells me it's all good. Many thanks must go to her for help with Anya.
~~~
Dawn was bored out of her mind. She and Anya had been patrolling for nearly two hours and nothing had happened; this certainly wasn't what she expected for her first patrol, and to be honest, she was disappointed. All summer long she had trained diligently with her older sister, learning the ins and outs of slaying. Every night she would ask if this was the night she got to patrol. Buffy would only say soon before she was out the door leaving Dawn at home with Anya, who had moved in after Willow had gone to England.
At first, Dawn hadn't liked the idea of Anya moving in, infiltrating the Summers' household, afraid that she would somehow ruin the new bond that was being built by the two sisters. Dawn couldn't have been more wrong. Having Anya around had been great, she was teaching Dawn the secrets of online trading so she could invest some of the money she made helping Anya pack up orders for TheMagicBox.com. When Buffy was out patrolling, they would spend their time watching movies - Anya had developed a liking for grand movie musicals ever since their own musical extravaganza. There were also down sides to living with a vengeance demon. She ate those foul cheeses that made the whole refrigerator smell, and Dawn had to be very careful not to use the W word.
"Did Buffy tell you what time they'd be home tomorrow?" Dawn asked, breaking the silence that had hung in the air since they had stopped to talk to Clem. She had been hopeful that he might have some kind of news, any news that might lead to some slayage, or an update on the whereabouts of Spike. But he had nothing to share, on either aspect - not that she had actually asked him about Spike, she couldn't do that.
"She didn't say. She just said I had to make sure you were out no later than 1 o'clock."
"Oh."
Buffy and Xander had driven down to LA to meet Willow and Giles at the airport. They figured it was easier to go down the night before and get a couple of hotel rooms than for Xander to make a four hour round trip drive, because Buffy drive? Three words came to Dawn's mind at that idea - no and thank you. With Buffy being away from the hellmouth for nearly 24 hours, Dawn got to patrol, not that it was worth it. Maybe something would happen to Willow and Giles' flight, nothing disastrous of course, she'd hate for something to happen to Giles. She just wanted something simple to happen; maybe they could miss a layover - anything that would keep Buffy and Xander in LA for an extra night.
Dawn frowned, glad that she'd kept that idea to herself when she realized the implication, and she instantly regretted the thought. It wasn't that she wanted something bad to happen to Willow, not really. It's just that she was still so angry at Willow, so hurt that Willow had tried to kill everyone who loved her.
Maybe she was still so angry because she didn't have the chance to be angry at Willow upfront. Giles had made the suggestion that Willow accompany him back to England, where she could be properly trained, insisting that it the best possible solution. Buffy had agreed with Giles, but Xander would have none of it, so after Giles had finally succumbed to Anya's pestering about getting to the emergency room to be checked over for internal injuries, Xander and Buffy fought.
"She needs to be here, with people who love her and will help her," Xander had said, as he, Buffy and Dawn sat in the kitchen the morning after Willow's attempt at bringing about yet another apocalypse. Dawn sat on the counter with her sister on one side, and Xander on the other, watching the verbal sparing like it were a tennis match.
"Cause we helped her so much before," Buffy had countered, and that's when Xander lost it.
"Maybe if you weren't so busy fucking the dead, you would have been more help," he had screamed it at Buffy, right in her face.
Before Dawn knew what had happened, she'd slapped him. Took a swing and hit him right across the mouth, and in that moment, she understood why her sister had been afraid to say anything about sleeping with Spike. As she sat there waiting for Buffy to yell at her and send her out of the room, all Dawn could do was stare at her hand; blood smeared on her fingers. She'd hit Xander; Xander who had just saved them, saved the whole world actually, Xander who she'd had a crush on for years, Xander whose gift it turned out was love not death like her sister's. When she finally looked up at him, she was relieved to see wasn't the one who had drawn blood - not really, she'd just reopened wounds that Willow had caused.
For several moments there was stunned silence, until finally Xander had looked at Dawn, telling her that she needed to go to her room and let him and Buffy discuss this privately. And Buffy told him that Dawn wasn't going anywhere, she was part of the team, and she needed to know everything that was going on. In the end, after Xander had stormed out of the house in anger and when Giles had returned from the hospital, he and Buffy had gone to the witch's room and offered her the choice; Willow didn't hesitate in deciding to go
Now Willow was coming home, and Dawn wasn't really sure how she felt about that. On one hand, Willow was a major part of her life, having helped take care of her when Buffy had been dead and Dawn kind of missed that. On the other hand, Willow had nearly killed her in that car accident when she'd been strung out, and she had tried to erase the spell the monks had used and turn her back into a mystic ball of energy when Dawn had only been trying to help her after Tara's death. She didn't want to be bitter, but she couldn't help it.
"This bites," Dawn sighed, absently mindedly twirling a stake between her fingers as they walked down Revello drive towards their house.
"Technically, it doesn't," Anya corrected. "If something was biting, we'd at least have something to stake."
"I just mean that this has been a truly disappointing patrol," Dawn sighed. "It's my first one and all, I was just kind of hoping it would be more exciting. If it was still summer, I might understand it being slow, Buffy says summers are the off-season on the Hellmouth, which I so totally don't get. It's not like vampires go on summer vacations."
"But they do," Anya told her. "They go wherever the people go. I noticed it a lot back when I was a vengeance demon. The first time around. I'd see them all the time whenever I'd get called to the hot vacation spots - you know, Club Med, Belize, Graceland, wherever - all because some woman had found her boyfriend sleeping with some trampy cocktail waitress. I'd always end up in some dark nightclub, listening to horrible dance music, watching people dance so close they looked like they were having sex - in fact, they may have been. I'd listen to some poor woman pour her heart out, crying into her highly over priced, watered down cocktail, making some stupid vengeance wish; like hoping he'd get herpes or some other disease. No imagination I tell you, not like the old days when the wishes had been for leprosy or…"
"No offense," Dawn interrupted, "but - Eew."
"None taken. Not everyone is cut out for a career in vengeance," Anya said with a cheerful smile as she patted Dawn on the head. It was an awkward gesture that left Dawn feeling more like a puppy than a sixteen-year-old girl.
"What I don't understand," Anya continued, "is why more vamps aren't out looking for Buffy, trying to get a piece of her. You know, now that everyone knows about her and Spike."
Dawn rolled her eyes. Anya had blabbed to Halfrek about Buffy and Spike one night, and Halfrek had turned around and told a friend, who had told another friend and so on. Dawn would be surprised if Buffy's name hadn't ended up on the bathroom wall at Willy's next to the words 'for a good time call'.
"Do you know how lucky you are that Buffy didn't kill you for that?" Dawn asked with a grin plastered to her face
"I don't see what the big deal is," Anya shrugged. "If she would have just talked to me instead of being all repressed and walking out of the room any time I mentioned Spike and sex, I wouldn't have had to go to Halfrek. So, it really is all her fault. I thought once we got over the awkwardness of what had happened, we'd be able to bond over the fact that we both shared sexual relations with him. You know, share stories about the orgasms, compare notes on performance technique. I was eager to ask her if at any time when they'd been having sex he'd ever done that thing where he…"
Dawn cut her off, "Okay, scarred for life now."
"With that attitude, you're going to end up as repressed as your sister, Missy."
"Not repressed," Dawn stated, "just not wanting the image of Spike and my sister having sex, It's bad enough I had to see you two on the internet."
"I wish someone had thought to get that on tape," Anya sighed.
Dawn groaned and shook her head; she loved how Anya never seemed to worry about what other people thought of her. How she spoke so freely, always saying exactly what was on her mind, even if it was about Spike and sex, which Dawn so didn't want to be thinking about.
Having Anya around was almost as fun as having Spike around, almost, but not really. Anya didn't like it when Dawn would turn the sound off when watching movies and make up her own, often very offensive dialogue like Spike used to do. She also didn't let Dawn paint her toenails with experimental colors, preferring instead to pay someone to paint them red every other week.
Dawn missed Spike, but she didn't let anyone know. She should hate him. He'd left her, after saying he was there to stay, and promising to protect her till the end of the world. Where was he when Willow had tried to kill her? And what about what he had done Buffy? She should hate him for that, shouldn't she?
"You miss him, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"You're thinking about Spike. I can tell." The older woman said.
"What, you can read minds now?" Dawn laughed.
"No, it's just, your eyebrows do this funny thing when ever you're deep in thought…"
"They so do not!" Dawn protested.
"Yes they do," Anya said firmly. "And whenever you think about Spike, you get this sad lost look. And when I brought up his sexual performance you got all skittish… you're in love with him!"
"I so am not!"
"It's okay if you have a crush on him. After all he is very sexy, with those cheekbones and eyes and that tongue and the way he…"
"Eew! Anya, he was my babysitter."
"Oh, it's perfectly normal for teenagers to develop crushes on authority figures." Anya assured her. "It happens all the time, I used to get many calls from young girls who had fallen in love with their teachers; after all, puberty is such a confusing time. You have all those hormones coursing through your system, you get breasts and hair grows in funny places. You start to notice that thinking about a boy makes you all tingly and squidgy feeling. It would be highly out of the ordinary for you not to start thinking of Spike in a sexual manner."
"Oh god," Dawn moaned.
"And you know, the age difference isn't that bad. You're about the age Buffy was when she met Angel, and Spike is something like a hundred years younger than Angel, and much, much more handsome. Not to mention he would be a much better choice for you than some high school boy, seeing as he has so much more experience. It's so important that the first person you sleep with have experience, that way you'll enjoy it."
As her cheeks began to heat up with embarrassment Dawn found herself wishing that an interdimensional portal would open up under her feet and rescue her from the formerly former vengeance demon's insistence that Spike was the ideal candidate for Dawn's deflowering.
"After all," Anya continued, seemingly oblivious to Dawn's discomfort. "Losing her virginity is a very important step in a young girls life. Did you know in some cultures there are festivals and rituals to go along with the event? Suitors are hand picked by the girls families and the events are often witnessed by the entire village."
Dawn blanched as she imagined the Scoobies handing her over to Spike, and then calmly sitting to watch as Spike ceremoniously laid her out on the tomb in his crypt. She scrubbed her temples trying to rid her self of the unwelcome visions creeping into her mind; Spike kissing her, his tongue trailing up her neck, his hands pushing their way into her jeans...
"Eew! God Anya, shut up. Yes, I miss him. But I'm not in love with him," Dawn admitted, after a minute of silence she added, "Is that a bad thing?"
"That you're not in love with him?"
"No, that I miss him."
"No."
"I feel like I should hate him," Dawn said, "after what he did to Buffy. I feel like I'm betraying my sister or something when I miss him."
"She doesn't hate him, neither should you."
"How do you know? She doesn't talk about him, and it's not like she has just come out and said as much."
"No, I just can't sense a need for vengeance coming off her and she's never made any kind of wish. Never asked me to make his penis fall off, or even cover it with boils." Anya sighed wistfully, and Dawn suddenly wished she had never asked.
"Weeping boils all over the penis is a classic. That's how I got my start in vengeance, you know. And I am proud to say I was quite good at it. I managed to raise it to an art form; no other vengeance demon could do boils on penises quite like me. I mean, it's one thing to just slap down a bunch of oozing pustules; it's an utterly different thing to carefully position each boil and… never mind. The point I am trying to get across is, that if Buffy wanted some form of vengeance against Spike, I would know."
Anya's news should have been a revelation, should have eased all the guilt Dawn was carrying around about not hating Spike on principle, for Buffy. Instead it fanned fires of resentment towards her sister; suddenly it became Buffy's fault that Spike had abandoned her; and she really didn't want to hate her sister, not after the summer they'd had. They had bonded, really bonded. And sometimes, like the night that Buffy had let her guard down and allowed a few details of her relationship with Spike slip, Dawn felt almost like she was Buffy's girlfriend and not her younger sister.
"Your eyebrows are doing it again," Anya pointed out.
Dawn gulped, grinned sheepishly and blurted out the first thing she could think of that wouldn't betray her true feelings, "I just wish he would come back."
Instantly her hand flew to cover her mouth. "OhmygodIdidn'tmeanit."
"It's okay," Anya said sweetly, attempting to comfort Dawn. "I can't do anything about that one. No vengeance there."
"Thanks," she said to Anya with a sheepish smile. "Thank you for being honest with me, even if it does mean that you have managed to scar me for life, causing emotional trauma that will put me into therapy for many, many years to come, which Buffy will make you pay for, by the way. But thanks for being you, demon and all"
The look on Anya's face was priceless, like no one had ever appreciated her frankness before - and they hadn't, not really, Dawn thought. Xander had always seemed to be ashamed of her, always embarrassed by something Anya had said or done. Suddenly Dawn felt something she had never even considered before, genuine respect for the demon. She hugged Anya closely.
As they parted, Dawn thought she saw Anya wiping tears from her eyes.
"We should get you home," Anya said with a smile. "I can guarantee that Buffy will be calling at 1:05." Noticing the frown forming on Dawn's face, she quickly added, reassuringly, "To check up on me, make sure that I have you home on time."
Arm in arm, they continued on their way home. Just as they were approaching the house, Dawn became aware of a figure, a decidedly masculine figure with a large bundle in his arms, on the other side of the street heading in their direction.
"Anya, does that look like a person he's carrying?" Dawn asked in a whisper, giving the stake in her hand another whirl. Maybe her first patrol wasn't going to be a bust after all. As he got closer, Dawn could see that the bundle was actually a girl, a girl who was wearing a dress much like the one she had loaned... "Oh shit, Janice."
Anya grabbed her before she could take off running across the street.
"What are you doing?" Dawn asked her voice filled with frustration.
"I don't think that's a vampire, Dawn. Look at the way he's holding her."
Anya was right. Whoever it was carrying Janice wasn't doing it like she was dinner, but had her cradled in his arms as though she was some kind of precious cargo. But Dawn could tell something was wrong with Janice by the way her head was slumped against the stranger's chest and her arm hung limply.
"Okay, now you can go over there," Anya told her. "Now. Go. Shoo."
"Hey," Dawn called out as she crossed the street, with Anya following her. She had expected the man to stop, but he kept on walking towards Janice's house four blocks away. She was just inches from him so she reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Hey! Listen, that's my friend, and… oh."
He turned around slowly and Dawn's eyes widened in shock as their eyes met, she heard a shocked gasp escape Anya's lips.
"'Lo Bit."
"Just so we are clear," Anya stated. "I didn't do this."