**PART TWO**
CHAPTER EIGHT:

"Come on Dawn." She eyeballed the staircase with impatience painting hot streaks from her cheeks to her temples.

"Relax, Love."

"Easy for you to say. You don't have to go see Dawn's principal."

He came up behind her; his hand smoothed over her hair and tingles of sensation permeated through her scalp. The tension draining out of her for a moment as she dissolved against him.

"You're the Slayer. You shouldn't let no bint in a matching twin-set get to you."

"She could do stuff."

He was obviously amused for she could hear his smile before he spoke. "Like what?"

"Like..." The words dissipated into the billowing blend of calm and tension as she concentrated on the cooling progress of his lips and hands. "She has the power of the Detention and the Expulsion."

"Oh, evil! She must be stopped." A short burst of laughter blew against her cheek and infected her with a giggle or two. "That's not what you're worried about, though."

(How does he always know?)

The giggles fizzled out into the warming air around them and she nodded. "She could be... make -"

"Make you feel bad. Tell you that you're a bad parent."

Tensing at the words, she felt his arms stiffen around her. She couldn't understand it, but there was almost something empathetic about it, as if - (I really need to stop with the over-analysis.)

He fingered at the scarf that covered her healing scar and she shivered at the sensation of his touch and his whispered words: "I could bite her."

She closed her eyes against the swarm, only for them to snap open in delayed reaction. "No... You don't -"

He chuckled his head leant in to kiss the covered bite mark. "Don't worry, my teeth are all yours."

The urge to roll her eyes struck her, but she lacked the energy and she waned against him once more only to be jolted by high pitched ringing. Making a small noise of frustrated irritation she stepped out of his arms to answer the telephone.

"You should really stop picking arguments with angry walls." Dawn smiled with a small circular motion of her head taking in the new bruises and healing cuts on Spike's face.

Her answer was a glare that held no ice. His pursed-lips pulled into a smirk and then a one-sided grin as he shrugged.

"That was Giles. He sounded..."

"Giles-y?"

Buffy rolled her eyes at her sister, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah, but kinda like he has something very unpleasant to tell me. I don't know, it just gave me the wiggins."

"Maybe the world's ending." Dawn said with such supreme nonchalance that Buffy had to blink a few times before replying.

"You've been living on the Hellmouth too long, missy."

Dawn grinned. "Guilty."

"We'll get back to that matter later."

"I didn't do... " She began to protest, only to be stopped by Buffy's unyielding expression. "Bye, Spike."

"Bye, Bit."

"Start walking and I'll catch up."

Dawn shot Buffy another scowl before slinking out the door and striding away down the Revello Drive.

"You know, I like her more and more every day."

She turned to him, a wry smile lifting one side of her mouth. "Be nice."

"Aren't I always?"

"Funny that when I think 'Spike', 'nice' isn't the first word that comes to mind. 'Nice' doesn't even figure in the top twenty."

(Oh no.) He was advancing on her again, in slow and steady footfalls that echoed through her. "Then what is the first word you think of?"

"Uh -" She pre-empted him, hauling him into a kiss that melded their smiles together.

His lips, still slightly swollen from last night, were light on hers, parting her lips with soft teases until any thought of pain gave way to the sensations swaying them against each other and tugging at something inside of her. Then they were at her neck, cool fingers pushing away her scarf and touching at the tender skin and gently tapping out jolts of stimulation.

She gasped as his lips closed over the scar, arching into him with an anxious urgency. She heard something, a non-slayer sense perked at some stimulus. Something wasn't right. Was he laughing at her? No (Then what is that noise? That smell?)

Everything ceased with the realisation. Everything falling away until only instinct remained. She pushed him away with enough force to knock him back a few paces onto staggering feet.

Knock him back into the safety of the house's shade.

He stared at her, his eyes fogged with incomprehension until he noticed it too. The sizzling had ceased, but his skin was still smoking in places, grey mists of mortality rising from reddening marks on his hands and one side of his face.

And he laughed, properly laughed, grinning up at her with an expression she'd never seen before. On anybody.

She smiled, her body flushing with relief. (Relief?) Her brow furrowed with the implication. She had possibly saved his life and she was relieved.

Allowing the 'moment' to eke itself out for a few more seconds as they stared at each other, she waved before reaching in and closing the door.

She shivered. The air was charged around her. Nitrates fizzling and bustling against each other. There would be a storm, she reasoned, with thunder and lightening enough to rend the sky into tiny fragmentary remnants of what was once blue. She squinted up into the calm azure for a moment before the tinkling of that damned bell signalled her arrival at the Magic Shop.

Humming. Anya was humming. Little notes of instrumental synchronising with the fluttering of her pink feather duster. So content was she in her task, that she didn't even notice Buffy's entrance. Buffy frowned. Maybe Anya was lost to her capitalist instincts, or perhaps she had some kind of potential customer radar that Buffy, having no money on her, didn't figure upon.

Giles was distracted too. His fingers pressing into the bridge of his nose as he sighed over a pile of books.

There were vibes. Vibes outside in the ionic charged atmosphere, and in here too as Silences jittered and rebounded against each other. She worried for a moment that if she spoke her voice would carry no sound and instead would splinter into a thousand tiny tendrils that Silences would use as ribbons for some parade.

Thankfully Giles looked up and motioned to her before she had the chance to test the theory. She sat down at the table and glanced briefly at the books.

"Right, you're here. Anya?"

"Hmm?" Anya spun round, eagerly gripping the duster in between two sets of fingertips.

"There's not much else to do here. You may as well go."

Anya's gaze flitted to the till and back to Giles. She obviously didn't like the suggestion very much. Her eyes were wide, panicked almost. "But the money. I have to take care of the money..."

Giles nodded, he understood her well enough by now. "I'll do that Anya -"

"...Count it up and sort it out into neat piles, and put it into those cute little bags with the dollar symbols on them, and take them down to the bank..."

"Anya -"

"The money needs me, Giles."

"The money will be fine." Giles took a deep breath as if he was going to heave a particularly heavy sigh, only to pause and rethink. "How... how about I put it all in the safe and you can come in early tomorrow to do... what you do."

Anya glanced at the till again, her face the picture of conflict for a moment as she weighed up Giles' suggestion. A beam of consent lit up her features as she settled. "That would be agreeable... boss."

"Good." Giles let out half-a-sigh of relief. "Now get your things together and you can get home to Xander."

Anya nodded, beam still unwavering. "He will be happy to see me home early. We can go to bed and he can show me just how happy he is to see me." With one more hummed note of satisfaction as she waved the feathers over the sun leeched pages of a row of old volumes, she nodded once more and scurried behind the counter.

Buffy laughed despite her deflation. Giles was blushing, even though he should be infinitely used to Anya by now.

"Are you going to talk about Dawn being bad now?"

"Anya -"

"Or about Spike? I don't mind staying to talk about him."

"Anya. Please... just go."

Giles placed a comfortingly steamy coffee in front of her and she smiled as her hands enveloped the cup, the warmth seeping though into her hands. Smiling at her memories.

"How did it go?" Giles asked as he sat opposite her, shifting a few books to make room for his tea.

"Okay... I guess. The principal she was all kind reason. I didn't like her." She smiled wryly up at Giles. "At least with Snyder, you knew were you stood."

"Yes, quite." A small smile lifted his lips as he lifted the stringed tea bag out of his cup. "What did she have to say?"

Buffy blew out her cheeks and shrugged. "Oh, you know, lots of cleverly disguised lecture-y type things. Basically Dawn's been skipping school and not been doing teacher-y-pet thing like her homework-or even any work."

"Ah... I-it's understandable really, after your mother..."

Buffy looked down as her fingers began to turn the cup within the sphere of her grasp. "Dawn made some protests about things being better since Sp-" she cut herself off and glanced at Giles who acquiesced her with a nod. "The headmistress seemed to agree that her-how did she put it? 'Her progress has picked up of late, though not enough to be entirely convincing.'" Buffy groaned and slumped forward, her head resting on a still warm hand.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded and then shook her head, her eyes closing to in an effort to squeeze the tension out of her face. "Giles, she said stuff... stuff about social services, a-about taking Dawn away from me." She looked up at Giles, her eyes glassy and panicked. "I can't let that happen. She needs me, I need her... she's special."

"Yes, she's The K-"

"No. Not just that, she's my sister... she's me"

Giles nodded, his hand reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "Yes. I know. It won't come to that, I'm sure."

"Could you... could you... have-talk to her?"

Her eyes were wide in appeal but Giles shook his head.

"I think that's you job now, don't you?"

"It's just... so hard."

"It's never easy, Buffy."

"Actually there was something-a number of things I had to tell you. But perhaps now is not the right time."

(Uh oh.) Buffy slouched, her eyebrows lifting in defiance. "Come on Giles. You can't get all curious on me and then keep quiet."

Giles let out a small laugh of acknowledgement. He knew her too well. "No, I suppose not. It's just I don't really know where to start -"

"How 'bout at number one and work through."

Another laugh, (what's he so nervous about?) "Very well. First of all, Angel called back -"

"Angel?" Buffy repeated in a surprised squeak.

"A while ago actually. Just with... everything, it slipped my mind."

"Mine too." She smiled and so did Giles.

"He wanted to check, see i-if... Spike had turned up."

Buffy's chest swelled with the effort to draw air. She hadn't realised she was holding her breath. She reached out for the potential comfort of her empty coffee mug, but it was cold now. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth."

"What?!" The coffee mug skidded along the tabletop as she pulled back, the scraping sound cutting into the tension in her gut and she cringed against it.

"Well when I say the truth, there may, in fact, have been a few... exclusions." A flicker of smile danced around Giles' eyes and Buffy laughed. "I told him that you dealt with him. That he did indeed show up wanting your blood..."

A swarm of warmth flushed Buffy's cheeks and her fingers shot to the scarf around her neck, she tried to cover up the gesture, but it was too late.

"...and it would appear that he got it."

"Giles, I-I... this is..."

"We've been here before, Buffy." Giles sighed and she dropped her eyes away from his disapproval. "Not too long ago, either. Well you're still here - and breathing no less - so am I to assume that Spike is dead, uh deader?"

She inhaled deeply as she looked up. He may be ashamed of her, but she realised that she wasn't ashamed of herself.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"It was training."

"Training?" Giles asked with the air of someone who really didn't want to be here having this conversation. He took off his glasses and absently rubbed at the lenses with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Yes, training. You should be pleased - you wanted me to get back to it a-and he was more a challenge than Xander's dummy an-"

"Buffy, you don't have to explain yourself to me. I-in fact, the way this is going, I would really rather you didn't."

Buffy took a moment to see the hook she was being let off and smiled in relief. Giles nodded to her, a motion that said it all. That she was her own responsibility and that he trusted her. Silences hopped on to the table and provided a dance interval as she drifted into the melee of her thoughts. "You think Riley was right about me?"

Giles frowned, not expecting to hear that name. "In what way?"

Buffy shifted in her seat, slumping down even further. "What he said - when Dracula... about me being some kind of Vampire groupie?"

Giles cleared his throat. "I don't think he was one to really judge, considering the circumstances in which he left. Besides, Dracula had you under thrall... Did Spike -?"

She guffawed, humour shining in her eyes. "No..." she drew out the sound with incredulity (does he even know how to do that?) But then she deflated again; repeating the word more quietly as her eyes fell to stare at the invisible, spider-webbing patterns she was drawing on the table.

"I don't know if I can keep doing this."

"Doing what?"

"Giving myself to Vampires."

Giles leant forward to clean away the cups. "As I said... there were circumstances, thralls -"

"No, Giles." She pulled herself to sit upright, forced herself to look him in the eyes. "I don't mean The Master, or Dra--I mean giving myself to Vampires."

"Oh."

"Yes... 'oh'."

TBC