Sweet Dreams
Chapter Four: Alike

I'm not doing this again, she told herself. I'm not going to sleep and dreaming those goddamn dreams. I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling the love for some brooding guy and I am most definitely not spending another night chained to a wall by a bleached blonde. Not going to happen!

She wrenched open her closet and dragged her suitcase out, opening it and piling her clothes in. There was a knock on the door and Vicky sighed.

"Use your damned key, Alicia!" she yelled.

The knocking persisted and Vicky straightened up. Fine, she thought. If I'm not hanging around, then I might as well tell the girl I can't stand her.

She opened the door and started to talk but noticed this wasn't the girl with dark hair and legs the length of a giraffe's neck.

"Willow?"

"Uh, yeah," Willow answered. "Can I uh, can I come in?"

"You're not a vampire, are you?"

"What? No! No, definitely not a vampire!"

"Then I guess I can't stop you," she pushed away from the door and sat down heavily on the bed.

Her shoulders slumped forward, a small nagging voice in the back of her mind that sounded remarkably like her mother, told her to "Sit up straight, dear. Now offer your guest a drink and be polite. Oh, when did you become so uncouth, Victoria darling?"

When I became some sort of telepathic dream person, Mother, she replied mentally and slumped even further forward in a gesture of rebellion.

"This is probably really weird for you," Willow was saying. "And I want you to know that we - my friends and I, I mean - are really good at weird. So, we were wondering, how do you know us?"

"I thought you'd babble more," Vicky commented. "Look, I have these dreams -"

"Dreams?" Willow asked. "Are you, like, a witch? 'Cause maybe it was the effect of a spell…"

"I'm not a witch," Vicky told her. "Up until a week and a half ago, I didn't believe in witches or vampires and the thought of a Slayer never crossed my mind! These aren't dreams, Willow, these are memories. I saw Xander ask Buffy out. I saw the summary of the great Buffy and Angel story, and I was in love with the guy. He's not even my type! I'm not even attracted to him and I was in love with him! It affects me. I saw Spike tie Buffy up and tell her he loved her and I wanted to punch his lights out. I've never so much as swatted a fly!"

Willow stared at her, her eyes wide. She knew so much. She knew the names of people Willow knew. This girl knew about things Willow might not know. This was… It had to be some sort of spell.

"Would you come with me to the shop?"

"Memories, you say?" Giles asked.

"That's what I said," Vicky answered, eyeing the assembled 'Scoobies' warily.

"Well, we'll certainly look into it," he reassured her.

"Great and until then, I should, what?" she asked.

"Did you see everything?" a small voice asked before Giles could answer.

Vicky looked at the teenager, curled in a chair to the left of Spike. His arm rested lightly on the back of her chair.

"Yeah," she answered shortly. "Everything."

She really didn't want to get into this because when she looked at these people, she knew them. She wasn't going to stick around and become their dead heroine.

"Just," she started, then stopped and turned her gaze from Dawn back to Giles. "Just make it stop, ok? I've got things to do and I can't do it while I'm living this other life. I just want some sleep of my own."

Giles looked slightly startled by the girl's cold tone. He chastised himself for thinking… For thinking what exactly, Rupert? he asked himself, that she was Buffy? That she was your Slayer?

It was true; this Victoria girl did bear a passing resemblance to Buffy. When she spoke, the things she knew, remembered, felt… It was as though she were Buffy.

But that cold voice had brought him back to his senses. His Slayer was dead and this chilly girl was somehow dreaming Buffy's memories.

He intended to stop it.

"We'll do everything we can to get rid of it as soon as possible," he assured her.

"Please do."

She picked up her bag and walked past them without so much as a goodbye or a backward glance.

"She wasn't… very friendly," Tara said.

"Friendly?" Spike scoffed, not hearing the bell over the door ring again. "Bloody ice bitch, that was."

"Thanks. Coming from the guy who couldn't keep a lid on his emotions if he tried, I'll take that as a compliment."

Spike turned and eyed the girl who lifted her keys from where she left them on the counter and didn't answer.

She wasn't always so unfriendly. She didn't mix well with others, that was always true, but she was usually quite amicable. What was it about those people that made her dislike them so much?

It wasn't that she disliked them, even, she just wanted to make sure she didn't get too close.

She didn't want to become chums with them. She didn't want to respect Giles. She didn't want to be Dawn's sister.

She didn't want to be Buffy Ann Summers.

Spike watched as Dawn curled between the two witches, her head in Willow's lap and her feet on Tara's. He smiled grimly and raised his hand in farewell.

He strode down the street, his head bowed and his fingers searching for a cigarette in the leathery depths of the pockets of his duster. He really hated this town. You couldn't lose someone without some little girl turning up and raking up the memories. What he really wanted was out. He wanted out of Sunnydale. Out of the Scooby gang. Out of Dawn's life.

He knew it was selfish, but he was a vampire, it wasn't like he cared.

But there was the problem, he did care. He cared about Dawn; he cared about the witches, the ex-demon, even Xander, just a little. And he respected the bloody Watcher.

Leaving really hadn't crossed his mind because of his promise to protect Dawn. But it was crossing his mind now. Had set up permanent residence and he blamed that Vicky bint.

She was so much like Buffy. She looked like her, she knew things she knew, felt things she had felt and when she wasn't being deliberately cool, she sounded like her.

And Spike wasn't sticking around to see if he'd fall in love with her. She might look, sound and feel like Buffy, but she wasn't. So she wasn't good enough.

So why were his feet moving towards the UC Sunnydale campus?

Vicky was reading, reading meant she wasn't sleeping and that was good. Alicia, tired of her roommate's mood swings had gone to a party. Vicky wasn't exactly a party person. She was a loner and she was going to stay that way. She wasn't about to become part of the Scooby gang. It wasn't going to happen. Not if she had anything to do with it.

The knock of the door interrupted her thoughts, making her realise she hadn't been reading the book at all. She got up, tugging the purple pyjama vest down and her purple plaid pants up. She opened the door and glared at the vampire.

"Uh, Vicky," Spike said.

"What do you want, Spike?"

"Can I come in?"

"I don't - " she sighed in defeat, thinking she might as well hear him out before she threw him out and pushed the door open, walking away and sitting on the bed. "Come in."

"Thanks," he nodded and walked in, hesitating at the foot of her bed.

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to say sorry," he started. "For calling you -"

"The ice bitch? You've never said 'sorry' for anything in your life. Anyway, I'm not about to apologise for what I said. What are you really here for?"

"I'm leaving Sunnydale?"

"And you thought you'd tell me because…?"

He paused. Why was he telling her? It wasn't like she cared. In fact, by the way she spoke and acted with him, she had pretty much decided to hate him. Buffy had always acted like she hated him…

"Because I thought you might wanna come."

The words tumbled forth before he could stop them. Once they were out, he was sort of glad. Maybe if she said yes, something could grow between them. She was so like Buffy, it would be like she'd never gone.

"Why would I want to?"

"Because… That way you wouldn't have to hang around the Hellmouth and have the dreams."

It was a pathetic attempt at nonchalance and she obviously wasn't falling for it.

"Spike, no offence meant here or anything, but I don't even like you that much."

"You said you saw," Spike protested. "I thought you'd come 'cause you understood."

"I did see it, but it's her I understand, not you," Vicky said. "I still don't like you. Look, if some guy chained me up and threatened me, I wouldn't exactly be leaping into your arms either! Did you even consider flowers?"

"I didn't mean to -"

"But you did," she told him bluntly. "So you can understand my hesitancy to run off into the sunset with you. I don't like you enough for that. I'm the ice bitch, remember? And even if I did like you enough to go with you, what would be the point? She's gone, Spike, but she's still in your gut, in your throat. You made a promise to protect Dawn until the end of the world; it's not the end of the world, just your world. You're still drowning in her, Spike. And you always will be."

He looked up at her, she wasn't glaring, she wasn't looking at him with pity. Her face was impassive.

"Go home, Spike," she said. "Then tomorrow, get up and go see Dawn, because she's the reason you aren't going anywhere, however much you want to."

She was right. Spike stood and walked over to the door. He paused.

"Thanks."

"That's ok. Just make sure Giles gets on with the dream killing so I can go back to ignorant bliss."

He nodded and left. He felt somehow better. Her words causing others to ring in his ears.

"I'm counting on you, to protect her."

"'Til the end of the world."