Let Me In

by

Kelsey

Disclaimer: Joss Whedon's. Who apparently has recovered a little from 6th season's disaster ground, but I still wouldn't want to be.

Author's Note: There are run-on sentences galore in here. It's intentional, so don't write me about it, okay?

Summary: Dawn knows that Spike's back, and feels excluded by the Scoobies. Set early S7, Dawn POV, S/D friendship.

Rating: PG

They still treat me like I'm a little child, and no matter what I do, there seems to being nothing that can change their minds. Poor little Dawnie, no Slayer powers, no Wicca powers, no vampire strength, not even any wimpy human brawn like Xander. Just the tall, gangly teenager who's good at research and must be protected at all costs from the world.

They're starting to let me in. I think if something big happens this year, I might be allowed to help. But it will always be from behind a computer or a huge book. And I'm good at it, it's a good way to help, I'm not saying it isn't. My part in the Scoobies may well be to sit behind a computer and read ancient texts. And Buffy's training me a little, showing me how to protect myself, but I can't help feeling I'm still left out. Probably because I am.

Last year, my best friend tried to commit an unspeakable act with my sister. It just about tore my heart, but of course I sided with her. 'Spike, get out of here,' I said. 'Spike, I don't know you anymore,' I told him. 'Spike, I don't want to know you anymore.' I spat. Everyone applauded, and I fell apart inside, my own pain and my pain for my sister combining inside of me until it was almost unbearable.

Then he left. Gone, don't know where he is, probably not ever coming back, didn't say good-bye, left on the wrong foot, just about everything wrong with leaving that could possibly go wrong. And it broke my heart a little more, and then sealed it up. Spike: bad. Buffy: good. No more thinking about it, Dawnie. Don't want to go crazy, do you?

I have some friends of my own at school, friends that I go shopping with and tell about my latest crushes and pretend to divulge my deepest, darkest secrets to. But can you imagine what it's like for me, having no one to tell the truth? Buffy is the most wonderful big sister in the world, but she's a lot older than me, and there are things I can't tell her. I need someone who knows everything, that I can share everything with. Tara was that person, for a long time. I was making friends with Spike while she was around, but we weren't quite that close yet. Then, Buffy died and Willow fell apart and I was with Spike like twenty-three hours a day and we grew together. I didn't plan it, it just happened.

And then Tara died and Spike left and now I have people whom I can talk about monsters and demons and weapons with and people who I can talk about color-clashing outfits and popularity and cute guys with, but nobody that I can tell about how scared I get sometimes, and how awful it is to be sixteen, and how I still miss my mother every minute of every day and I have to bottle it all up inside and it hurts all the time.

And Buffy knew that. She didn't like it, but she knew that Spike and I were best friends, that I felt I could share anything with him and he wouldn't judge, and that he would protect me from everything and that I could tell him I was scared shitless and he wouldn't think I was weak. She knew that he and Tara were special to me in a way that no one else could be, and even though Tara was gone and couldn't ever come back to me, she still didn't tell me when Spike came back. And I just want to tell her how she made me feel, how I wouldn't have kept Willow from her when she needed her best friend and how I love Spike just as much as Buffy loves her, and how I'm confused about what I need to do with him, after what he did to her, but that I want to forgive him the way she forgave Willow this summer, and mostly just that I can't believe that she didn't tell me.

She goes to see him every day, takes him blood and talks to him when she thinks they're alone. Spike talks to me sometimes, but when she's there he's so incoherent that she never suspects I'm really listening. He has a soul now, and she's forgiven him, even if it will never be anything more than a truce between them, and yet, she still won't tell me that he's back, won't give me back the security I've been craving all summer since Tara died and Spike disappeared and Willow went crazy.

I spent my free period in the basement with him every day, just sitting there. At first, he wouldn't let me touch him, he was afraid that he couldn't control himself, but I told him I didn't care, that even as a demon, he could never hurt me, and eventually he relaxed. So I sit there for an hour every day with his shaking body in my arms, and sometimes I talk, and sometimes I sing, and occasionally he talks, but there's always this almost palpable connection in the air between us.

He took care of me for so long, I thought that Buffy would understand. He's hurting now, and it's my turn to take care of him, and she won't let me! It hurts more than she could possibly understand, that she didn't tell me about his presence, that I couldn't come to him when he first arrived, because I didn't know he was here, because she didn't tell me. He's my best friend and I'm his, he told me so, and it's my job to be there for him like we were for each other the summer Buffy was dead. And like he was there for me when my mother died, and like I tried to be there for him when he was being torn apart by the way Buffy treated him last year, even though I never knew why he was in so much pain, until it all came out much, much later.

And that's why I know that as much as they're giving the appearance of letting me, Buffy and Willow and Xander and the others will never truly accept my presence in the Scooby gang. I'm destined to always be the little girl who needs protecting, the helpless child.

"Dawnie?" Spike's getting better. Sometimes, he even makes sense. It's satisfying that he's coherent around me and still speaking in gibberish when Buffy's here. Petty, but satisfying.

"Yes?"

"How... how was English class, pet?" His voice is shaky, but his eyes are clear and I can tell he knows who he's talking to and where he is.

This is how it's supposed to be. He remembered that, even if he has a hard time keeping his thoughts together right now. I smile.

"Well, Mr. Hersheroff has the most boring idea on where Romeo and Juliet came from..."

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