Part Four

Again, I have stolen. All head tilt descriptions from this point on are courtesy of Head Tilt Headquarters: http://www.headtilt.com, my absolute favorite Spike site.

Buffy glared at the clock on the off-white wall of the kitchen as if it was the source of all her pain, and staring at it could somehow destroy it. It was now 7:12 – exactly 72 minutes since her shift ended. She stomped up to the front counter, tapped her manager on the shoulder, and pointed accusingly at the clock.

"Seven twelve!" Buffy shouted. "Oh, no wait! Now it's seven thirteen. *Seven thirteen*, Lorraine!"

"I know, I know," Lorraine said apologetically. "But Timothy hasn't shown up yet. If you leave we won't have anyone on grill."

"But I really have to go," Buffy whined. "My sister's waiting for me, and we're supposed to do something, and somebody's supposed to meet us for this something, and she doesn't even know somebody's coming, and it's this whole thing and I *so don't wanna be here*."

"I need two Doublemeat Medleys," Gina called out without turning around. "And a Doublemeat Special Value Combo, and a Doublefun Kids' Meal."

"Come on, Buffy," Lorraine said. "We're all part of the team here."

Buffy groaned and turned back towards the grill just as the back door opened.

"Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late!" A teenage boy walked into the kitchen adjusting his uniform.

"Tim!" Buffy shouted with a smile. "Tim, so glad to see you. How's everything going? That's great. Hey, Gina needs a Doublemeat Medley and a Double Value whatever and some other stuff. Bye!" She ran out the back door before Tim had a chance to respond.

*

Once inside her house, Buffy checked the clock in the living room and then dashed up the stairs. Fourteen minutes until eight; plenty of time. "Dawn!" she called as she hurried into her room. "Dawn, come here!"

Dawn appeared in the doorway of Buffy's room as Buffy was pulling on a clean shirt. "You know," she said. "You're like, twenty-one and a half now. Isn't it about time you got dressed without my help?"

Buffy looked into the mirror and tried to comb her hair into something less resembling a dead, grease-covered rat. "Dawn, last night, late last night, after you went to bed, something….someone…."

The doorbell rang, and Dawn was skipping down the stairs before Buffy had a chance to object. She sighed and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Leave it to Spike to aggravate her by being early.

"Since when do stupid vampires even have watches?" she muttered to herself as she trudged down the stairs. She stopped halfway down, puzzled by the tableau before her.

Dawn's cheerful, teasing face from earlier in the evening had hardened, and she glowered at Spike from inside the house. She was too close to the entranceway to allow him to enter without having to shove her, so he stood outside, his mouth drawn into a frown, his familiar puppy-dog head tilt in place. But he seemed more confused than hurt as he watched Dawn stand up straighter, arranging her body into a confrontational pose

She put one hand on her hip and kept her other hand on the doorway, as if preparing to slam it closed. "You're back," she said blankly.

Spike allowed a smile to flicker on his lips as he briefly wondered if Dawn actually fought vampires when she went patrolling with her sister, or if she just glared at them until they staked themselves. "Looks like it, Nibblet."

"Yeah, that nickname wasn't cute the first five hundred times," Dawn snapped immediately. "It sure as hell isn't now." Her eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down, searching for visible changes. "So why'd you come back? Was there someone else in town you forgot to sexually assault?"

Spike opened his mouth to reply, but closed it quickly. Talking was one thing he'd always been good at. Or, depending on one's perspective, bad at. It was his big mouth that usually got him into trouble, but also managed to get him out of a few bad situations. And whether he was convincing someone to join his team or goading someone into a fight, he never lacked for something to say. But now, as he stood looking at Dawn, he was speechless. If it had been Buffy there, greeting him with hostility, it wouldn't have been a struggle to find exactly the right sarcastic, hurtful, humorous, or disgustingly sweet thing to say. He was confident he actually could've wrapped up all four emotions in one run-on sentence. But with Dawn, everything was different, and the words 'I'm sorry' were emptier than they'd ever been.

Dawn swallowed hard, as if forcing down whatever emotion she was feeling and trying to replace it with anger. Still, her voice threatened to break as she said, "You want to smack me around some?"

"Dawnie…" Buffy reached out towards her tentatively. "Dawn, why don't we just go patrolling now?"

Dawn took a step away from both of them. "Go without me," she said, tossing one last fierce look at Spike. "I don't much feel like killing evil things right now."

She turned and ran up the stairway, stomping on each as hard as she could. Buffy began to follow, but when she heard Dawn's bedroom door slam, she recognized it as a sign that a conversation right now would only end in an ear shattering, "Get out, get out, GET OUT!"

"She's not really angry," Buffy said as she turned back towards the doorway. "It's just –"

But the front porch was barren.

"That's okay. I'll um…kill the demon myself," she muttered. "I have…you know…super powers."

*

"Come out, come out, tiny Pineseehc demon!" Buffy sang as she walked down a residential street that led to two of the city's cemeteries. "I have some delicious puppies for you to eat!"

She briefly wondered if Dawn was okay alone in the house. She knew her sister could protect herself, but she wasn't so sure about her emotional state. The tense confrontation was a surprise. She hadn't expected Dawn to run giggling into Spike's arms but…

Actually, Buffy *had* thought that happen. Dawn welcomes Spike back gleefully, and she's the one left on the outside, the one with all the issues and the baggage.

Except that, surprisingly, Buffy didn't feel any issues. When she'd finally made her way out of hopelessness, crawling out of a grave for the second time in less than a year (but this time, not afraid, and this time, not alone), she'd felt as if everything was new. As if she was discovering life all over again. And she found that it was simple to forgive Giles for leaving her, and Xander for leaving Anya, and Anya for abandoning her humanity, and Riley for finding happiness somewhere else. She could even forgive Willow for trying to destroy the world. But the idea of forgiving Spike for attacking her never even crossed her mind. Maybe because, without thinking about it, without weighing the reasons why or why not it would make sense, she'd already forgiven him. And she had a feeling that this unconscious absolution had something to do with the unfamiliar location of her tinglies.

"Arrrgh!"

A tall, lanky, demon with three horns on the top of its head and a large, burlap weapon bag on its back leapt out from behind a nearby house. Its green skin was scaly, and its fingers were long, tapering off at sharpened fingernails.

"Ha, ha, I was just kidding," Buffy teased. "I have nooooo puppies for you!"

"Don't want puppies!" the Pineseehc roared. He turned away from her and began walking up the steps that lead into the house. "Want in!"

The house was dark and the driveway was empty, so Buffy didn't panic when the demon kicked down the front door and barged inside. She followed it to the empty living room, where it stood in the middle of the room looking down at the couch. It picked up one of the throw pillows and, with a snarl, used its claws to tear it to shreds.

"Polyester," the demon growled angrily. It reached into what Buffy had previously thought was a weapons bag, and took out a small, beige pillow with fringe around its edges. It placed the pillow down and ran its rough hand over it lovingly. "Chenille."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, you have *got* to be kidding me!"

There was a thud from the back of the house, and the sound of footsteps. The demon yelped in surprise as two hands grabbed the sides of his head. With a snap, it fell to the ground at Spike's feet.

Spike looked down to the monster and then up at Buffy. "You were hunting a Pineseehc?" he said, scowling at her in disbelief. "Things must be slow."

"Hallie told me it was dangerous!" Buffy explained.

"Well, they can be," Spike admitted. "They see you sitting on a fake leather chair and they'll tear your lungs out."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Buffy wasn't sure if she should apologize for Dawn's behavior. And Spike suddenly seemed very interested in the corpse lying between them.

She remembered when he was first chipped by the Initiative, and would reluctantly come along on patrols just for the sake of killing something. It was easier then, because he was mostly evil and she was mostly good, and they could just hate each other. But in the years since, it had gotten much too complicated, and it wasn't just about sex. She couldn't forget the things that had happened between them. The kind things, the horrible things, the things she'd already forgiven him for, and the things she felt she needed forgiveness for.

But, she wondered, if it was a new world now, the old events shouldn't matter anymore.

But maybe "I'm sorry" wasn't exactly the phrase she needed.

Spike cleared his throat to break the silence and gestured to the demon below him. "Want me to drag the body outside?" he offered.

"Thank you," she said. There it was; that's what she had to say. She looked up to meet his eyes. "Thank you for saving my life."

Spike stifled a laugh. "Buff, it was an interior decorating demon."

"I don't mean now," she explained. "I mean before. You saved my life then." She lowered her eyes. "And not just with the whole dancing and burning and catching thing. In other ways." She remembered what she had been like when she first returned from the dead. How, even surrounded by her friends, she could feel completely alone. "I was so lost," she muttered. But she quickly pulled herself back to the present. "And I needed someone. Someone who wouldn't judge me, and didn't ask too much from me." She looked at her shoes. They were beginning to get worn around the toes. Probably from kicking too many demons. "You weren't just the nearest piece of meat; you were the nearest piece of meat who loved me. And I never thanked you for that. Nights when I didn't think I'd be able to make it, I was able to be with you." And maybe it wasn't love, she thought, but it was at least a distraction. And maybe that's all that love is, just something that distracts us from all the crap in the world. Like the way he'd been able to just touch her and make her forget how much she wanted to die.

"Back then," she continued. "Back when we were…." Leaned against a cool stone wall, your mouth over mine, swallowing my sobs. "Every night I didn't want to live anymore, and every night…you saved me."

It seemed like they stood there forever, her eyes on her scuffed shoes. She imagined she could smell the Pineseehc decomposing.

"What I really wanted was to die for you." He said, his voice oddly free from emotion. "Didn't quite work out how I planned though."

She looked up only when she heard the door close, and then lifted the demon by its thin arms and dragged it outside to bury.

(tbc)