CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dawn slowly ascends the stairs to her apartment at Sunnydale Heights. As she nears the fifth floor, she is aware of a nagging intuitiveness. There is something tugging at her conscience, reminding her that this day wasn't just about being in a sunny living room in her boyfriend's arms in a house situated in a neighborhood where, apparently, nothing ever goes wrong.
She remembers a time, not too long ago, when she and Spike were coming home from an impromptu trip to L.A. to buy a dress for her first high school dance. She walked the green mile to her apartment with a sense of dread and actually felt her sister's anger glowing hot from inside the apartment, even before she entered. Today she doesn't know what to expect. If Buffy were concerned about her whereabouts today, she would have called. But the phone didn't ring once while Dawn was at Travis' house. Not once.
Maybe the phone lines are down, Dawn thinks, making her way down the hall to the apartment. And then a second thought comes into her head that almost makes her gasp: Maybe she has been trying to call and couldn't reach me!
Dawn hurries to the door, fumbling with her house key.
The Key.
She looks at the gold key in her hand. She was so close to telling Travis this afternoon about her life before she was a teenager, specifically that she wasn't alive before she was a teenager. Some powerful monks, they were, able to cast a spell over the entire populace of Sunnydale and convince the denizens that she was always a part of their midst. But how easy would it be for her to tell her boyfriend that she used to be mystical energy? She wrestled with that notion all afternoon, finally convincing herself that it wouldn't be a good move until she clarified her confession with Buffy.
Dawn inserts her house key. Normally when she does this, and she is late or has gone missing or is about to be grounded for some reason, the door is opened automatically. This time, she has to go through the act of putting in the key and twisting the knob.
This is weird.
Travis skips easily up the stone steps leading to the bricked walkway of his home. He takes easy strides, hands in pockets as he heads for the entrance. The minute his hand touches the knob, the door is thrown open and his mother is standing there.
"Oh, Travis!" she almost moans as she draws him inside. "Something terrible has happened."
Samantha Singleton escorts her son into the living room where he is greeted by a clutch of familiar congregationalists. Mr. Chapman. Mr. Walliston. Mrs. Wright. Reverend Estey is seated on the sofa. And this is not an after-church luncheon.
This is weird.
Inside the apartment, Dawn observes that things are slightly askew, and not just the things tossed about during the quake.
Buffy is on the floor, sweeping up shards of whatever with a hand-held broom. Spike is over by the TV, fiddling with the knobs on the back.
Buffy lifts her head briefly to acknowledge her sister's presence.
"Oh good. You're back. Here," she says, shoving a Hefty bag Dawn's way. "Go into your room. Anything that's broken and can't be repaired gets put in the bag."
Dawn takes the bag, bunching the drawstring top worriedly in her hands. "OK."
Buffy suddenly looks as though she has caught the scent of something dead and rotting in the apartment. "You been with Travis all this time?" she asks.
"Well, yeah," Dawn says shyly. From her sister's nonchalant demeanor, Dawn quickly discerns that she has not been missed. Gone are the days when a trip to the public restroom lasting more than five minutes would warrant a countywide search. For a minute, Dawn feels very much the grown-up, but at the same time, she is crestfallen. No one cared where she was…
"Oh, come on!" Spike yells as he slams his hand against the side of the TV. "Work, sod you!"
"Yeah, that's the way to get it going again," Buffy mutters. "Slap it around a few times."
"That usually gets you going again," Spike returns.
"What did you say?" Buffy asks acidly.
"Nothing, dear. Nothing," he says, directing his attention once again to the picture tube. "Ooh, wait! I think I see something!"
"It's your own reflection," Buffy sniffs.
Spike frowns. "I'm a vampire, love. Reflections don't come standard with the package, you know."
This sort of acrimony is not completely unknown to Dawn. She grew up with it, after all, her parents' marriage a shamble by the time she was nine and completely over when she turned ten. For a long time she assumed that such animosity was not only natural, but also integral in a couple's relationship. Dawn has born witness to Buffy and Spike's more intense moments of spontaneous passion, as well as their just as intense and impulsive quarrels. But always in the heat of their arguments, there is a lilt of promise, as though their anger will diffuse and in a day or two they will once again be tugging each other's clothes off and humping in a corner when they think no one is looking. There is something different about this particular rift. Dawn can almost feel the jagged edges of it snagging the molecules of air in the room, giving her the illusion of suffocation.
"Is there something wrong, Dawn?" Buffy asks.
Dawn shakes her head. And then, "Well…I don't know," she says, continuing to fiddle with the top of the garbage bag. "Can I talk to you in the kitchen?"
Buffy sighs and rests her hands on her hips. "Yeah, I guess so."
Once they are alone in the kitchen, Dawn asks, "First of all, are you and Spike OK?"
Buffy frowns and waves a casual hand in the air. "It's just been one of those days. With the quake and then nothing new or exciting at the Hellmouth to tell us what might be wrong. We're just sort of on edge, I guess. Why? What's wrong with you?"
"Well…it's just that…um…" She doesn't even know where to begin with this. But she can see her sister's patience is wearing thin. "It's just that Travis and I are getting beyond the hand-holding stage in our relationship and---
"Oh really?" Buffy interjects, folding her arms. "And just what are you holding now?"
The teenager blushes. "Don't worry. We're still playing it safe. What I mean is, we're getting to the point where we really aren't keeping secrets from each other. And I was just wondering what you thought…or how it would be if…" She starts again. "You see, Buffy…Travis told me something about his past today and now I really think I should tell him about mine."
Buffy studies her sister carefully. "You mean…?"
Dawn nods. "I want to tell him about me being the Key."
Travis stands in the middle of the living room, equidistant from the church members, his pastor, his mother, and his father. He is the featured player now and apparently the ensemble has been waiting for his entrance for some time just so that they can continue with the scene.
"The first death has taken place," Samantha Singleton says, adjusting a crystal dolphin figurine on her coffee table as though noticing it were half an inch off from its usual position.
"Who?" Travis asks, noting his throat has suddenly gone bone dry.
There is silence from the gathering as they each pass sheepish glances. But out of the silence arises a tiny, choked voice, like that of a man, hypnotized into recalling how he sounded before adolescence.
"She went in early. Said she had a lot to do, with the sesquicentennial coming up so fast," the man says.
Travis slowly realizes that this is Mr. Walliston speaking. His lips are barely moving and his face is frozen as though he is wearing his own death mask over his features. Travis does not know whom he is talking about at first, though. Then it hits him. It's his wife, Mrs. Walliston, the church secretary, who has died.
"She said she was going to be typing and sealing envelopes all day," Mr. Walliston continues. "She asked me if I wanted to help for a couple hours before I had to go into the office, but I said no…that I'd rather sleep. I told…her…I'd r-rather sleep." He buries his head in his hands, his face showing red between his fingers.
Travis knows---or knew---Mrs. Walliston. She worked at the church for years and kept a jar full of antique ribbon candy on her desk. She hated computers and still printed out the church bulletins on her aged mimeograph machine, cranking them out one at a time. The bulletins always smelled like grapes when hot off the press, but did not taste so sweet, as Travis found out one Sunday when he drew an inquisitive tongue across the words of the doxology. Mrs. Walliston often tagged along as a chaperone on youth group trips, an embarrassing caboose of a woman in her tight fuchsia stretch pants and straw hat. Some of the kids in the church called her Mrs. Wallis-Two-Ton. Travis recalls being one of those kids.
"How did she die?" Travis asks before he can even think about the inappropriateness of his question at this moment.
"She was in the church office when the floor collapsed," Phyllis Wright says quietly, rubbing Stanley Walliston's heaving back.
"Are you sure?" Travis asks. "I mean, she could have stepped out or gone to another room or---
Reverend Estey rises from the sofa to hush Travis with a wave of his hand. "She's gone, Travis. As is most of the building. The walls remain. The basement is nearly gone. The sanctuary has begun to sink as well. It won't be long before…" The pastor cuts himself off before he can admit to himself and everyone else that their worst fears are coming true.
Travis feels a hand on his forearm. He turns to see his mother's gray eyes looking at him with what appears to be sympathy. "That's why we have to have the baby. And soon." After she speaks, her lips peel back in a feral baring of her teeth that makes Travis visibly shudder.
Travis scans the room helplessly for a compassionate countenance, but finds none. He is hopeful that his father will be regarding him with that unspoken cheer behind his dour expression. But his father is facing away from him in the wingback chair, drawing his fingers across the pink and white stripes of the upholstery as though strumming a guitar.
"I can't do it," he mutters under his breath and dropping his head.
"What did you say?" his mother says in a near hiss.
"I said I can't do it," Travis says again, this time louder and with enough courage to look his mother straight in the eye. "I'm really sorry to disappoint everyone, but I just can't take Buffy's baby.
He watches as the comprehension of his words slowly drains all the color from his mother's face. After a few agonizing moments of stony silence, she takes him by the arm. "Travis. I believe we need to talk."
Buffy's mouth has remained open for about five minutes, so long that Dawn is beginning to wonder if she should shut it for her.
"Well, Buffy? What do you think?" Dawn asks warily, already knowing the answer.
"What do I think?" Buffy flares. "I think that you and Travis must have spent the afternoon smoking crack."
"Huh?" Dawn asks, truly dumb-founded by her sister's response.
"Honey! Think!" Buffy says, rapping a fist on the top of her sister's head. "If you told Travis you were the Key then you would have to tell him why the monks sent you to me. And it wasn't just because I knew where to find all the good shopping in Sunnydale."
"Well, what's wrong with telling him you're the Slayer? I think he could handle that. He's lived in Sunnydale long enough to know that the things that go bump in the night are generally kind of bumpy."
"Dawn, being the Slayer is supposed to be a secret identity. No one is supposed to know."
"But there are people who do."
"Yes. My friends. And sometimes I wish I never told them because I am constantly having to put their lives in danger when it's supposed to be my job to protect innocent people from the demons of the world."
"OK. So they're your friends. And they've helped you save the world since high school. Maybe Travis could help you too. He is very strong," she says, remembering the muscular clutch she found herself in for most of the afternoon.
"Dawn, I have enough to do watching out for the necks of the people who do know about me. And really. Would you really want your boyfriend putting his life at stake, with a stake?" Buffy reaches out to touch her sister's arm. "I just don't think you've really thought this through."
Dawn folds her arms, defiantly cocking her jaw. "You're right. I didn't think you would react like this. But I should have known that you'd turn something so completely about me into something so completely about you."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't know why I expected you to be any different about this," Dawn huffs. "You're so damn self-centered, Buffy. 'Oh, Dawnie can't tell her boyfriend she was the Key because then he'll know all about me and my nightly cemetery visits.'" Dawn shakes her head. "So I guess the only people who can find out about you are those that can fight the good fight. Or fuck the good fuck."
A scarlet flush completely envelops Buffy's face. "Dawn!"
"Too bad for Parker you never told him about you're being the Slayer. I'm sure he would have considered bedding someone with super powers to be a real conquest. He might have even called you the next day. You know. After he was back from finding a special knife to carve another notch in his bedpost."
All of a sudden Spike is between them and the two take turns staring at him as though he has appeared in a cloud of smoke. "All right, that's enough!" he bellows. "Normally, I find your little spats amusing, but tonight I'm a mite short on chuckles. I simply cannot stand idly by while you're saying such cruel things to the mother of my child. Dawn, how dare you even think about accusing your sister of being self-centered when you, you little prat, have authored enough books on the subject to fill a bleedin' Barnes and Noble! You apologize to your sister right now, do you hear me?"
A nervous laugh escapes Dawn's lips. "Oh, come on Spike, I---
"Say you're sorry to your sister or so help me I'll reach down into your throat, tear out your vocal chords and beat an apology out of you!"
Dawn's breath is caught somewhere in her chest. Her eyes are fixed on the furious vampire whose cerulean stare is now tinged with gold. His demon is so close to the surface his skin is straining to contain it.
"I'm sorry," she says softly.
"Say it again, Dawn. And this time to your sister and not to the lino."
"I'm sorry, Buffy," she says
Buffy is still a little shaken by her sister's harsh verbiage, especially the from-out-of-nowhere Parker reference. "It's OK," she says in a slight rasp.
"Right, then," Spike says, only half-satisfied with Dawn's apology. "Now I believe your sister asked you to go tidy up your room. So I suggest that you get tidying."
The whole time, the garbage bag has never left Dawn's hands and now she holds it now like she wishes she could jump right into it and seal herself up. The Slayer and her vampire lover watch the girl skulk away slowly, her shoulders stooped and her face still plastered with an insolent scowl. Once the door to her room is shut, Spike lets out a long-held breath. He looks at Buffy. He isn't completely certain, but he thinks there may be a little gratitude trying to emerge from all the excesses of her misguided anger toward him. But she doesn't say a word to him. She was never one to wield the words "thank you" carelessly, even when warranted. To admit appreciation in a situation she thinks she could have handled is like admitting she needed someone else's help and the warrior in her simply won't have that.
Her face as inscrutable as ever, she turns slowly and heads back to her broom and dustpan. Spike joins her, bending again at the TV and hoping for a miracle.
Travis watches his mother cross the cramped space of the breakfast nook several times before she finally pauses. One of the hands that has been clutched behind her back flies away from its constraints and connects with his cheek.
He recoils, smarting only lightly, and meets her gaze with a resolve he didn't have a day ago because today he knows for certain he loves Dawn. He loves her. Even now with his mother presented so angrily in front of him, he is remembering Dawn's arms and her sweet impassioned lips against his. And what they did to put that glass dolphin figurine out of place on the coffee table…
His mother is still storming around, thinking that the closed doors will cushion her remarks when Travis can hear his parents' heated arguments from this very place from his second floor bedroom, even with the doors shut. In the next room the Congregationalists are hearing…
"How dare you!" Samantha thunders. "How dare you!"
"Mom, please! I just can't do it. It's murder!"
"Yes!" Samantha hisses. "Murder! Murder of thousands of souls! All of our souls going to hell. When Satan finally digs himself out of that hole---
"He's going to claim us all. I know that, Mom. But a baby. Daniel's just a baby."
"He is a demon!" Samantha shrieks, tearing two twin streamers of her hair completely out of her skull. "He is born from hell!"
"No!" Travis exclaims, clamping his hands over his ears.
"He is the Devil's spawn!"
"Mom, stop!" he says, squeezing his eyes shut.
"He was fathered by a vampire! A creature who spilled his seed into the womb of a living woman." Samantha twists her son's chin in her direction. "Do I have to remind you of the words we have lived by all these years?"
"No," he says reluctantly.
"Do I?" Samantha asks again, her fingernails digging into the flesh of Travis' chiseled chin.
"No!"
"Then get the child!" Samantha says, giving his chin a final pinch before relinquishing it.
He turns away from his mother, the skin of his chin still stinging. Inwardly he is looking at a gallery of faces, chief among them the plump face of his baby brother who lived for just a short time and was born from parents who were both human of species, but not nearly so in practice.
"Mikey," he says.
"What?" Samantha asks.
"Mikey. You and Dad called him Mikey."
His mother's lips tighten around a series of expletives she is holding in, Travis is certain, for the purpose of decorum. The one that is acceptable emerges as, "You bastard."
"You can't stand knowing that there is a woman out there who has a living, healthy baby," Travis says, seeing his mother begin to wilt.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" his mother says weakly.
"I think I do. And I think you know what I'm talking about. Little Mikey."
"Travis!" Samantha wails.
"You woke up one day and he was dead and there was nothing you could do about it!" Travis makes plain with an accusatory index finger.
"Travis!" This time it is his father who is saying his name, in that deep, monotone voice that has always either sent shivers or assurances through Travis. There is no happy medium between the two. He shakes his son by his shoulders. "We can't stop it!"
In his father's eyes, he sees the whole sinking hole of the sanctuary. He sees the flames licking from the depths of Hell. He sees the whole city engulfed in those flames. He sees his life gone and everyone else's. He sees Dawn and projects her own painful descent into Satan's realm and how he can stop it with the singular sacrifice of one small child, even if it is someone she loves.
"I never thought it would be this hard," Travis says, his stomach tightening as he imagines Dawn in the aftermath of the sacrifice. He doesn't know how he can face her after that.
His father loosens his grip. Within seconds he is crying. Samantha as well. The inevitable end is hitting all of them. A baby must die. Travis thinks about the last e-mailed picture Dawn sent him. Daniel was blue-eyed, blond-haired, and generous of lip, like his father. But there was something that reminded him of Dawn. Maybe the recessed chin given to pouting or the way, in the picture at least, that he peered at the world so desolately.
"He's a demon," Samantha insists through her tears. "Daniel is a demon."
He can't help who his parents are, Travis thinks sadly. No one wants this. The baby's death is a consequence of pre-determined origins. Dawn will understand this. And Buffy, being the Slayer, will understand this further. Travis says this to himself so it won't be so much a murder as it is a needful thing to seal the world off from the conquering of Hell.
"I'll do it," Travis says.