Blurry 13/?
Author: Amanda
Rating: PG, for now
Distribution: Please ask. Previous chapters are up at fanfiction.net and B/S Central.
Disclaimers: Not mine, it's all Joss'. I just try to play in his world.
Feedback: All replies are read, cherished and given a good home.
Summary: The summer after season 6. Spike's back with his soul and Willow has her
powers binded by the Council. Anya is still a vengeance demon and Xander is still
himself. Buffy has agreed to work for the council, so she no longer has to sling burgers
and Spike is helping her out by training with her. Giles has gone back to England after
leaving them all letters.
**************
"Why a poetry class?" Dawn couldn't understand it. First off, why would Buffy go back
to school when she didn't have to? And secondly, why poetry? Why not something
cool? Not that she could think of a cool class; they all seemed pretty boring to her. But it
was college and there was bound to be some type of cool class there.
"I like poetry. And besides there weren't that many choices to pick from."
"So it's every morning?"
"Monday through Friday for an hour and a half each day. I just hope it's somewhat
interesting. If not, I'm killing Spike?"
"Why Spike? It's not like he's teaching the class."
"He just kind of told me to take the class. Or encouraged. Or something. I just know it's
his fault if something goes wrong." Buffy couldn't even believe she was taking a class
and she still wasn't sure why she was. Something about setting a good example for
Dawn. She was pretty sure that her life was the example of what not to do and she
shouldn't change that now. Somehow Spike had convinced her this was a good idea.
"Spike wants you to go back to school? He actually encouraged it? Remind me to talk to
him about a speech he gave me on automatons of our society that are produced from
school."
"Huh?"
"Nothing, just something he said once. So that's it then? Slaying, training, and one class
a day at the university?"
"Community college. It's cheaper and I wasn't accepted back at SU. And no, I'm taking
another class. But you can't laugh."
"Why would I laugh?"
"Because I know you, you're my sister, and you'll laugh."
"I promise not to laugh. What is it?"
"Drivers Ed." Buffy could see the laugh start in Dawn's eyes. They lit up, full of
mischief. She remembered when Dawn was a baby, anytime she got happy, it was the
eyes you could see it in first. "See, I knew you'd laugh."
"No Buffy, I think it's great. It really is. But does this mean I don't get mom's car?"
"Yes, that's what it means."
"But I'm turning sixteen."
"And I'm older than you. And I didn't get a car when I turned sixteen."
"But you couldn't drive. I'm sure I'm a faster learner than you are."
"When you can demonstrate the proper ability in handling a car, then I might be
persuaded to allow you to borrow the car on occasion. And you're not sixteen yet.
Which reminds me about your birthday. Anya wanted to throw you this big party. Is that
something you want?"
"It might be nice, but I wouldn't know who to invite."
"All your friends."
"I'm not like you Buffy, where I have all these friends. They look at me weird, like I'm
some kind of freak. My sister's this crazy girl that people say is amazingly strong. And
who blew up the high school. Then with Mom dying, everyone looks at me strange. It's
like I radiate a vibe and people just want to stay away from me."
She wanted to move over towards Dawn and stroke her hair. But they were older now.
And problems didn't get solved for either one of them with a stroke of the hand.
Problems were solved by moving on through them, paying bills and doing homework,
like they were now. She wondered what Mom would say if she was here. Would she
reassure Dawn that she was perfect the way she was? Would she have magical words of
wisdom that would make everything better? Did that wisdom come with time or was it
issued when you held your baby in your arms the first time? She didn't have either one.
All she could do was try to be there for Dawn.
"If they don't see how wonderful you are Dawnie, then they aren't worth being friends
with. Any ideas about what you want to do?"
"I saw this ad the other day. I thought it was too expensive, but it looked like it could be
fun. It's a day at the spa. I could get my hair cut, maybe lightened; we could be
pampered. Just the two of us. But it's probably still too expensive."
"Let me see what I can do. I'll look into it."
"Speaking of too expensive. I know you can't afford another car, but what if I buy it?
Anya said I could work for her after school and on Saturday's, even during the school
year. And she might even give me a raise. I can save all my money and buy a car. Can
I?"
"I don't know Dawn. That's an awful lot. And I don't know if I like you working while
you're going to school. Saturday's okay, but during the week? I'll think about it though.
We have the summer to try and figure things out."
"You're the bestest sister."
"Can I have that in writing, so when you hate my guts next week, I can bring it out?"
"No. But I have another question. Why are you taking Drivers Ed? I thought you were
going to sell the car."
"Spike's fault again."
"You've been spending a lot of time with him. Talking time, right?" She didn't want to
pry. Well not much. But she wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know if
her big dream of them really being together could ever come true.
"We haven't talked in a few days really, not since we found him an apartment. Just
training and slaying. Don't read anything into it."
"But still, that's good. Right? Or do you want more?"
"It's okay. It's different. Not bad different, but not really good different either. I don't
know any other way to explain it."
"What do you want?"
"I guess I imagined some fairy tale, where we'd fight evil and then rush home to bed.
We'd be happy, everyone would be happy. Nobody would hate anyone else. And I did
not just say that to you."
"I do know about sex. But taking things slow is good. At least that's what Mom used to
say. You should be friends first before you rush into any relationship."
"And Mom was right. It's just so backwards from what we had before. From anything
I've had and I'm not sure how to deal with it."
"Do you love him?"
"Why are you asking that?"
"You just seem so intent on working things out with him. On having a relationship. At
least that's what it looks like to me."
"Oh."
"Do you? You know he still loves you."
"I don't know Dawn."
"Is that what you're trying to figure out? Trying to see if it will work? Or what are you
doing?"
"I don't know if I can love anyone."
**************
Willow leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. She was bored. When Spike had
suggested this, she had thought that she would have been doing all the work. Getting all
tangled in wires and cords. Loading software on the computer. She would have been in
heaven, she would have a purpose.
But instead she was lying on his black leather couch and staring at the ceiling. Though it
was a very comfortable position. And he did all the work. Quietly, without a single
'bloody' out of his mouth. She didn't know what to think. Should she be scared,
appalled, puzzled, pleased?
Maybe she should use this time instead to figure things out. Time alone hadn't been easy
to come by lately. Buffy had thought she needed to keep her company when she wasn't
occupied with training or slaying. And when she was busy, Xander was around And he
was moody and mean. He went on and on about Spike hanging around and how Buffy
must be out of her mind to allow it. She knew that Buffy still hadn't told him about her
deal with the council. And she wasn't about to do it, because she didn't want to have to
listen to him. She'd let Buffy handle that.
He still wouldn't read Giles' letter. Anya had it and was keeping it for him, but he refused
to go and get it. And Anya refused to give it to anyone else. Willow didn't know what to
do. A few nights ago, they'd sat on the couch and she thought he had had listened as she
told him they needed to be better friends. But if he had listened, she didn't know where
the words had disappeared too.
"Got it."
She sat up, grateful to have something to do besides run thoughts in her head. "Got
what?"
"Everything hooked up, software loaded. Ready to finally have some fun."
"How do you know so much about computers?"
"Who doesn't these days?"
"Well you know, you didn't have one in your crypt or anything."
"Internet cafes. And you can learn a lot from watching telly."
"Oh. You just seem like Buffy. All with the fighty and stuff. And not worrying about
this kind of stuff."
"Are you saying Buffy and I aren't smart? That we're only good for fighting?"
"No. That's not what I meant. It's just that she doesn't give much thought to those kind
of things. Research, how computers work, you know. And I just assumed…."
"Don't assume. And you don't give Buffy enough credit. She's a lot smarter than you lot
think."
"Well she did get astounding SAT scores."
"See. But you never give her any credit. Pygmalion Theory."
"What? Pygmalion by Shaw?"
"Came out of that. If you have high expectations for others, they'll live up to them."
**************
Dawn didn't know what to say. Or how to react. She didn't think Buffy really meant she
couldn't love anyone. She knew Buffy loved her. And Willow and Xander. Giles even.
So what did she mean by her statement? "You love me. Don't you?"
"Oh Dawnie, of course I do. But it's different, it's…." She didn't know how to explain it.
She shouldn't have said anything; it just came out. And now it was all wrong. Dawn
would hate her again. She had ruined the whole sisterly bonding afternoon. She could
tell Dawn was upset with her by the way her lips tightly compressed together and her
hands clenched at her side.
And she could understand why Dawn would be upset. Spike was someone Dawn cared
deeply about and she knew Dawn didn't want him to get hurt. The problem was that she
didn't want that either. But she was afraid that she might be unable to avoid that.
Dawn remembered when Buffy caught her with a vampire. She had said the situation
was entirely different than her own had ever been. With Buffy everything was always
different. Nothing was ever the same. Dawn thought she would have been used to it by
now, but she wasn't. She didn't want to get upset. But she needed to understand. She
needed to know why her sister was going to break Spike's heart again.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to still herself against lashing out and saying the wrong
thing. Instead she tried to break it down into something simple. Something Buffy could
answer. "You don't think you can love Spike more than like a friend or a relative?"
"Well no that's not it either."
"Then what is it? Spike loves you. He loves you so much. You never saw how much he
grieved while you were gone. But he never gave up, he kept on going." Dawn knew she
had reached the end of her rope. She couldn't sit back and listen to Buffy in her calm
voice, not when everything was falling apart again. She couldn't stand back and let it go
to pieces. She was going to do something. What, she didn't know. But something. To
curb her frustration, her need to lash at something, she got to her feet. They had been
sitting together in the kitchen, but she couldn't sit still any longer. Instead she paced and
tried to take her frustration out that way.
"I have feelings for Spike. Deep feelings. But I don't know if they'll ever come close to
what he feels."
"Why not? How do you know? You loved Angel and Riley even? Why could you love
them and not Spike?" Dawn knew her voice had risen. It was that screechy high pitched
whiny voice. And she hated it. She hated herself for using it. But she couldn't stop
herself. Things had been going along well. She wasn't so delusional to think that it was
going to be that fairytale Buffy had imagined. But it hadn't occurred to her that Buffy
might be using Spike again. Or that she really might not love him. She really had
believed that things were going good. That everything would work out. That there
would be some happiness, a sense of family even. Had she been naïve?
"It's not that simple Dawn. It's complicated."
"That's always the answer. 'Dawn, it's complicated.' It seems everything is complicated.
And how am I ever going to learn anything if it's always complicated and I can't find
out?"
"You want to know why? Because there's something inside of me that died a long time
ago. There's a part of me that slowly burnt out. And it's the part that loved. It was torn
out of me with Angel and it never lit a spark with Riley."
"So Angel's the cause of it all? I bet Spike would love that. Why does he always cause
you so much pain, but you still hold onto him? He's some saint in your eyes, lifted up
above everyone else. Angel left. Spike stayed. Isn't that enough for you?"
"I know that Spike has stayed. As many times as he should have left because of how I
treated him, he stayed. And I will always be grateful."
"And what about Angel? Are you just going to pretend that he's not the bad one here?
That he's not the one that's destroyed what you could have? Don't you think Spike
deserves to know how you feel? Don't you think he should know what he's getting into?"
"This isn't your concern. I never should have said anything anyway." She didn't want to
deal with Dawn's words about Angel being the cause. To think about them, meant she
would have to deal with them. Decide whether or not Dawn was right. Decide what she
wanted to do about it, what it would change.
"That's right. 'Dawn's too young to understand.' If it's not pretty pictures and flowers,
then I don't get to know anything. You seem to forget all the things I've been through
too, Buffy."
"You want me to talk to you about it, when it doesn't concern you? You want me to talk
to you about it, so you can run and tell Spike? You want me to talk to you about it, when
I can't even put it in words or understand it myself?
"I am aware of what Spike's feelings for me are. And I think he knows the problems that
I have. And if anyone gets to discuss them with me, it's the ones involved. And that's not
you. You want to be treated like an adult? You want people to confide in you? If so,
listen to what you're told and keep your mouth shut. Don't butt in where you aren't
wanted. That's being an adult, letting other people figure things out for themselves and
just standing by their side while they do so."
Buffy wanted to say more. She wanted to cry that life sucked and nothing made sense.
She wanted someone to listen to her and tell her what to do to make it better. To tell her
how to love someone. But she couldn't. She had to be the adult, the grownup. She had
to figure it out for herself.
Dawn look at her with accusing eyes. It was her fault that everything was a mess. Her
fault that she couldn't give her an idyllic life.
She couldn't take those eyes anymore. Pushing past Dawn, she made her way to the back
door and wrenched it open. Slamming it behind her, she walked away from the house.
**************
"Why am I here anyway? You really don't seem like you need my help. You're all
techno with the computer." Willow was bored. Here she was sitting on the couch, as
Spike seemed to search internet sites. All that was furnished was the office. For some
strange reason she couldn't comprehend, he didn't have a TV yet. And that meant that
something had to be wrong with Spike.
"Moral support."
"In setting up and installing software. I don't think so. I think you know a lot more than
you let on. It's not all from watching TV and surfing at internet cafes. What are you
doing now?"
"Looking for demons."
"You do know that they don't normally hide in computers. Well expect for those
computer viruses, they are a demon of sort. I bet they came from a vengeance wish."
"Research. I'm trying to find this one that Buffy saw."
"You couldn't find it in the books?"
"No. It's bugging me. Something seems familiar about her description."
"Do they really have a website for demons these days?"
"It's the council. They have some records on file; I was just searching through their stuff.
Of course, they could make it easier on a bloke and provide search engines."
"So what's this demon do?"
"Cover you in goo. Or so Buffy says. Haven't seen it. Actually no one has seen it except
for her. And it's the only thing she's seen. It's been rather quiet."
"That's good right? Makes it easy for the slaying."
"No. It's bad. Quiet is never good when you're on the hellmouth."
He had stopped searching. At least that's what it looked like from her perch on the couch.
And he just sat reading. And shaking his head. Then the whir of the printer kicked on.
"Any luck?"
"Maybe. We'll know after we talk to Buffy. But if this is it, it just brings up more
questions than answers."
Author: Amanda
Rating: PG, for now
Distribution: Please ask. Previous chapters are up at fanfiction.net and B/S Central.
Disclaimers: Not mine, it's all Joss'. I just try to play in his world.
Feedback: All replies are read, cherished and given a good home.
Summary: The summer after season 6. Spike's back with his soul and Willow has her
powers binded by the Council. Anya is still a vengeance demon and Xander is still
himself. Buffy has agreed to work for the council, so she no longer has to sling burgers
and Spike is helping her out by training with her. Giles has gone back to England after
leaving them all letters.
**************
"Why a poetry class?" Dawn couldn't understand it. First off, why would Buffy go back
to school when she didn't have to? And secondly, why poetry? Why not something
cool? Not that she could think of a cool class; they all seemed pretty boring to her. But it
was college and there was bound to be some type of cool class there.
"I like poetry. And besides there weren't that many choices to pick from."
"So it's every morning?"
"Monday through Friday for an hour and a half each day. I just hope it's somewhat
interesting. If not, I'm killing Spike?"
"Why Spike? It's not like he's teaching the class."
"He just kind of told me to take the class. Or encouraged. Or something. I just know it's
his fault if something goes wrong." Buffy couldn't even believe she was taking a class
and she still wasn't sure why she was. Something about setting a good example for
Dawn. She was pretty sure that her life was the example of what not to do and she
shouldn't change that now. Somehow Spike had convinced her this was a good idea.
"Spike wants you to go back to school? He actually encouraged it? Remind me to talk to
him about a speech he gave me on automatons of our society that are produced from
school."
"Huh?"
"Nothing, just something he said once. So that's it then? Slaying, training, and one class
a day at the university?"
"Community college. It's cheaper and I wasn't accepted back at SU. And no, I'm taking
another class. But you can't laugh."
"Why would I laugh?"
"Because I know you, you're my sister, and you'll laugh."
"I promise not to laugh. What is it?"
"Drivers Ed." Buffy could see the laugh start in Dawn's eyes. They lit up, full of
mischief. She remembered when Dawn was a baby, anytime she got happy, it was the
eyes you could see it in first. "See, I knew you'd laugh."
"No Buffy, I think it's great. It really is. But does this mean I don't get mom's car?"
"Yes, that's what it means."
"But I'm turning sixteen."
"And I'm older than you. And I didn't get a car when I turned sixteen."
"But you couldn't drive. I'm sure I'm a faster learner than you are."
"When you can demonstrate the proper ability in handling a car, then I might be
persuaded to allow you to borrow the car on occasion. And you're not sixteen yet.
Which reminds me about your birthday. Anya wanted to throw you this big party. Is that
something you want?"
"It might be nice, but I wouldn't know who to invite."
"All your friends."
"I'm not like you Buffy, where I have all these friends. They look at me weird, like I'm
some kind of freak. My sister's this crazy girl that people say is amazingly strong. And
who blew up the high school. Then with Mom dying, everyone looks at me strange. It's
like I radiate a vibe and people just want to stay away from me."
She wanted to move over towards Dawn and stroke her hair. But they were older now.
And problems didn't get solved for either one of them with a stroke of the hand.
Problems were solved by moving on through them, paying bills and doing homework,
like they were now. She wondered what Mom would say if she was here. Would she
reassure Dawn that she was perfect the way she was? Would she have magical words of
wisdom that would make everything better? Did that wisdom come with time or was it
issued when you held your baby in your arms the first time? She didn't have either one.
All she could do was try to be there for Dawn.
"If they don't see how wonderful you are Dawnie, then they aren't worth being friends
with. Any ideas about what you want to do?"
"I saw this ad the other day. I thought it was too expensive, but it looked like it could be
fun. It's a day at the spa. I could get my hair cut, maybe lightened; we could be
pampered. Just the two of us. But it's probably still too expensive."
"Let me see what I can do. I'll look into it."
"Speaking of too expensive. I know you can't afford another car, but what if I buy it?
Anya said I could work for her after school and on Saturday's, even during the school
year. And she might even give me a raise. I can save all my money and buy a car. Can
I?"
"I don't know Dawn. That's an awful lot. And I don't know if I like you working while
you're going to school. Saturday's okay, but during the week? I'll think about it though.
We have the summer to try and figure things out."
"You're the bestest sister."
"Can I have that in writing, so when you hate my guts next week, I can bring it out?"
"No. But I have another question. Why are you taking Drivers Ed? I thought you were
going to sell the car."
"Spike's fault again."
"You've been spending a lot of time with him. Talking time, right?" She didn't want to
pry. Well not much. But she wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know if
her big dream of them really being together could ever come true.
"We haven't talked in a few days really, not since we found him an apartment. Just
training and slaying. Don't read anything into it."
"But still, that's good. Right? Or do you want more?"
"It's okay. It's different. Not bad different, but not really good different either. I don't
know any other way to explain it."
"What do you want?"
"I guess I imagined some fairy tale, where we'd fight evil and then rush home to bed.
We'd be happy, everyone would be happy. Nobody would hate anyone else. And I did
not just say that to you."
"I do know about sex. But taking things slow is good. At least that's what Mom used to
say. You should be friends first before you rush into any relationship."
"And Mom was right. It's just so backwards from what we had before. From anything
I've had and I'm not sure how to deal with it."
"Do you love him?"
"Why are you asking that?"
"You just seem so intent on working things out with him. On having a relationship. At
least that's what it looks like to me."
"Oh."
"Do you? You know he still loves you."
"I don't know Dawn."
"Is that what you're trying to figure out? Trying to see if it will work? Or what are you
doing?"
"I don't know if I can love anyone."
**************
Willow leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. She was bored. When Spike had
suggested this, she had thought that she would have been doing all the work. Getting all
tangled in wires and cords. Loading software on the computer. She would have been in
heaven, she would have a purpose.
But instead she was lying on his black leather couch and staring at the ceiling. Though it
was a very comfortable position. And he did all the work. Quietly, without a single
'bloody' out of his mouth. She didn't know what to think. Should she be scared,
appalled, puzzled, pleased?
Maybe she should use this time instead to figure things out. Time alone hadn't been easy
to come by lately. Buffy had thought she needed to keep her company when she wasn't
occupied with training or slaying. And when she was busy, Xander was around And he
was moody and mean. He went on and on about Spike hanging around and how Buffy
must be out of her mind to allow it. She knew that Buffy still hadn't told him about her
deal with the council. And she wasn't about to do it, because she didn't want to have to
listen to him. She'd let Buffy handle that.
He still wouldn't read Giles' letter. Anya had it and was keeping it for him, but he refused
to go and get it. And Anya refused to give it to anyone else. Willow didn't know what to
do. A few nights ago, they'd sat on the couch and she thought he had had listened as she
told him they needed to be better friends. But if he had listened, she didn't know where
the words had disappeared too.
"Got it."
She sat up, grateful to have something to do besides run thoughts in her head. "Got
what?"
"Everything hooked up, software loaded. Ready to finally have some fun."
"How do you know so much about computers?"
"Who doesn't these days?"
"Well you know, you didn't have one in your crypt or anything."
"Internet cafes. And you can learn a lot from watching telly."
"Oh. You just seem like Buffy. All with the fighty and stuff. And not worrying about
this kind of stuff."
"Are you saying Buffy and I aren't smart? That we're only good for fighting?"
"No. That's not what I meant. It's just that she doesn't give much thought to those kind
of things. Research, how computers work, you know. And I just assumed…."
"Don't assume. And you don't give Buffy enough credit. She's a lot smarter than you lot
think."
"Well she did get astounding SAT scores."
"See. But you never give her any credit. Pygmalion Theory."
"What? Pygmalion by Shaw?"
"Came out of that. If you have high expectations for others, they'll live up to them."
**************
Dawn didn't know what to say. Or how to react. She didn't think Buffy really meant she
couldn't love anyone. She knew Buffy loved her. And Willow and Xander. Giles even.
So what did she mean by her statement? "You love me. Don't you?"
"Oh Dawnie, of course I do. But it's different, it's…." She didn't know how to explain it.
She shouldn't have said anything; it just came out. And now it was all wrong. Dawn
would hate her again. She had ruined the whole sisterly bonding afternoon. She could
tell Dawn was upset with her by the way her lips tightly compressed together and her
hands clenched at her side.
And she could understand why Dawn would be upset. Spike was someone Dawn cared
deeply about and she knew Dawn didn't want him to get hurt. The problem was that she
didn't want that either. But she was afraid that she might be unable to avoid that.
Dawn remembered when Buffy caught her with a vampire. She had said the situation
was entirely different than her own had ever been. With Buffy everything was always
different. Nothing was ever the same. Dawn thought she would have been used to it by
now, but she wasn't. She didn't want to get upset. But she needed to understand. She
needed to know why her sister was going to break Spike's heart again.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to still herself against lashing out and saying the wrong
thing. Instead she tried to break it down into something simple. Something Buffy could
answer. "You don't think you can love Spike more than like a friend or a relative?"
"Well no that's not it either."
"Then what is it? Spike loves you. He loves you so much. You never saw how much he
grieved while you were gone. But he never gave up, he kept on going." Dawn knew she
had reached the end of her rope. She couldn't sit back and listen to Buffy in her calm
voice, not when everything was falling apart again. She couldn't stand back and let it go
to pieces. She was going to do something. What, she didn't know. But something. To
curb her frustration, her need to lash at something, she got to her feet. They had been
sitting together in the kitchen, but she couldn't sit still any longer. Instead she paced and
tried to take her frustration out that way.
"I have feelings for Spike. Deep feelings. But I don't know if they'll ever come close to
what he feels."
"Why not? How do you know? You loved Angel and Riley even? Why could you love
them and not Spike?" Dawn knew her voice had risen. It was that screechy high pitched
whiny voice. And she hated it. She hated herself for using it. But she couldn't stop
herself. Things had been going along well. She wasn't so delusional to think that it was
going to be that fairytale Buffy had imagined. But it hadn't occurred to her that Buffy
might be using Spike again. Or that she really might not love him. She really had
believed that things were going good. That everything would work out. That there
would be some happiness, a sense of family even. Had she been naïve?
"It's not that simple Dawn. It's complicated."
"That's always the answer. 'Dawn, it's complicated.' It seems everything is complicated.
And how am I ever going to learn anything if it's always complicated and I can't find
out?"
"You want to know why? Because there's something inside of me that died a long time
ago. There's a part of me that slowly burnt out. And it's the part that loved. It was torn
out of me with Angel and it never lit a spark with Riley."
"So Angel's the cause of it all? I bet Spike would love that. Why does he always cause
you so much pain, but you still hold onto him? He's some saint in your eyes, lifted up
above everyone else. Angel left. Spike stayed. Isn't that enough for you?"
"I know that Spike has stayed. As many times as he should have left because of how I
treated him, he stayed. And I will always be grateful."
"And what about Angel? Are you just going to pretend that he's not the bad one here?
That he's not the one that's destroyed what you could have? Don't you think Spike
deserves to know how you feel? Don't you think he should know what he's getting into?"
"This isn't your concern. I never should have said anything anyway." She didn't want to
deal with Dawn's words about Angel being the cause. To think about them, meant she
would have to deal with them. Decide whether or not Dawn was right. Decide what she
wanted to do about it, what it would change.
"That's right. 'Dawn's too young to understand.' If it's not pretty pictures and flowers,
then I don't get to know anything. You seem to forget all the things I've been through
too, Buffy."
"You want me to talk to you about it, when it doesn't concern you? You want me to talk
to you about it, so you can run and tell Spike? You want me to talk to you about it, when
I can't even put it in words or understand it myself?
"I am aware of what Spike's feelings for me are. And I think he knows the problems that
I have. And if anyone gets to discuss them with me, it's the ones involved. And that's not
you. You want to be treated like an adult? You want people to confide in you? If so,
listen to what you're told and keep your mouth shut. Don't butt in where you aren't
wanted. That's being an adult, letting other people figure things out for themselves and
just standing by their side while they do so."
Buffy wanted to say more. She wanted to cry that life sucked and nothing made sense.
She wanted someone to listen to her and tell her what to do to make it better. To tell her
how to love someone. But she couldn't. She had to be the adult, the grownup. She had
to figure it out for herself.
Dawn look at her with accusing eyes. It was her fault that everything was a mess. Her
fault that she couldn't give her an idyllic life.
She couldn't take those eyes anymore. Pushing past Dawn, she made her way to the back
door and wrenched it open. Slamming it behind her, she walked away from the house.
**************
"Why am I here anyway? You really don't seem like you need my help. You're all
techno with the computer." Willow was bored. Here she was sitting on the couch, as
Spike seemed to search internet sites. All that was furnished was the office. For some
strange reason she couldn't comprehend, he didn't have a TV yet. And that meant that
something had to be wrong with Spike.
"Moral support."
"In setting up and installing software. I don't think so. I think you know a lot more than
you let on. It's not all from watching TV and surfing at internet cafes. What are you
doing now?"
"Looking for demons."
"You do know that they don't normally hide in computers. Well expect for those
computer viruses, they are a demon of sort. I bet they came from a vengeance wish."
"Research. I'm trying to find this one that Buffy saw."
"You couldn't find it in the books?"
"No. It's bugging me. Something seems familiar about her description."
"Do they really have a website for demons these days?"
"It's the council. They have some records on file; I was just searching through their stuff.
Of course, they could make it easier on a bloke and provide search engines."
"So what's this demon do?"
"Cover you in goo. Or so Buffy says. Haven't seen it. Actually no one has seen it except
for her. And it's the only thing she's seen. It's been rather quiet."
"That's good right? Makes it easy for the slaying."
"No. It's bad. Quiet is never good when you're on the hellmouth."
He had stopped searching. At least that's what it looked like from her perch on the couch.
And he just sat reading. And shaking his head. Then the whir of the printer kicked on.
"Any luck?"
"Maybe. We'll know after we talk to Buffy. But if this is it, it just brings up more
questions than answers."