Catastrophe
by
Princess McPhee
Disclaimer: I don't claim. Not mine. Bow to Joss Whedon.
Author's Note: Feedback may decide whether I finish this, so please tell me if you loved it, hated it, or somewhere in between!
Summary: An AU version of the events after 'The Weight of the World.'
Rating: RATING CHANGE: PG-13
Things went back to 'normal' pretty quickly. Spike and Dawn mended their fences in a few days and some heart-felt talks, but Buffy was still a little standoffish. Spike supposed he didn't have a right to expect anything else from her, though. Not after the stunt he'd pulled, leaving and all.
Still, he missed being around her. She didn't need as much help anymore, and he felt a little useless sometimes. Her therapy was switched to earlier in the day, and Gunn, Wesley and Cordelia started taking turns picking her up and dropping her off, because the sun was still out at that hour.
Dawn got the cast taken off and replaced with a walking brace two weeks after Spike returned. He immediately took her to the local community center and watched her pick out classes to take, part of the agreement they'd made about him staying at the Hyperion, and in her life. She decided on a drawing class for the moment, and when Spike pressured her to pick up at least one more class, she told him that she planned to take tae kwon do as soon as her leg was healed. He begrudgingly agreed, and they left the center.
"You like to draw, Niblet?"
"Yeah. I'm not very good, but I like it."
Spike shook his head. "Peaches is a bloody-good artist. Could ask him for pointers, if you're interested."
Dawn shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't have the best memories of Angel and drawings together."
Spike let out a burst of slightly bitter laughter. "Guess you wouldn't, pet."
Hopping into the car as agilely as possible while sporting a toe to knee brace, Dawn changed the subject smoothly. "What do you like to do, Spike?"
He shrugged. "When I was human, I used to write."
"What?"
"Poems. Terrible stuff, really. You know how I got the name 'William the Bloody'?"
Dawn wrinkled her nose. "Do I want to hear this?" She asked.
Spike smiled, but sobered quickly. "I was a 'bloody awful poet', according to several people I knew at the time."
Dawn guffawed and bent over, unable to stay straight in the midst of her laughter. Her body shook and sound exploded from her throat, throwing her slight form around with the force of it. Spike waited patiently.
Eventually, when she could look at him without bursting into fits of hysterics again, she wiped her eyes and pursed her lips, trying to stay calm. "Sorry, Spike."
He shrugged. "Most people found it funny back then, too."
Sobering instantly, Dawn realized she'd hit on a raw nerve without meaning to. "I didn't mean to make fun of your poetry, Spike, really. I just always thought that you did something terrible and evil and deadly to get your name, not write prose!"
Spike smiled a little. "S'okay, Bit. Guess it is kind of funny, now that I think about it." He smirked a little.
"Do you write anymore?" Dawn asked suddenly, out of the blue.
Spike glanced over at her, his hands going tight on the wheel. "Why?"
"'Cause I'd like to read some of it."
Spike looked straight out the front window again for a long moment, thinking it over. He'd never let anyone read his poetry again after that day with Cecily, but he'd continued to write well into his vampire years. Cooped up in Sunnydale, harnessed by the chip, he'd started again in the past couple of years.
No one that was still alive, or undead, had read his work as far as he knew, with the exception of Drusilla. For all of the emotional torture Angelus had visited on the young Spike, he'd steered clear of the poems. For what reason, Spike didn't know, but he'd been grateful at the time, and still was, a little, under the seething hatred he felt for his grand-sire's alter ego.
Darla however, had been a different story.
Sick of Dru whining at her and Angelus while they had been trying to get something done, her suggestion that the insane vampiress turn a childe had been off-hand, something she'd never expected would actually happen. And when Dru had turned William, she'd still shrugged her shoulders and assumed that a few years with only Drusilla as a master would have him dust in no time.
But it turned out, William had had a bit more spunk than Darla had assumed, and survived the required four years to exit fledgling-hood. Bitter and angry with him for causing trouble, taking Angelus' attention, and just plain existing, she'd taunted him with everything she could think of, including his poetry. Will had stopped writing in a hurry, and burned all of his previous works.
And to this day, something inside him screamed at the idea of sharing his work. All people had ever done was laugh at him when he read his precisely proper, sometimes overly British poetry to them in a heart-felt tone with the weight of his strongest emotions behind it. But this was Dawn. She wouldn't laugh at him, would she?
He glanced at her, saw her waiting patiently for an answer. She met his eyes with her dark, deep chocolate ones, and he didn't see any humor in them, not any indication that she might never let him live it down if he read his work to her, like the others wouldn't, he was sure. "Maybe."
Seemingly satisfied with his answer, Dawn nodded.
The rest of the ride back was quiet. When they got there, Buffy was at therapy, and Gunn had gone to pick her up. Angel was out, hunting as usual, though because of the time of day, it was in the sewers.
Spike had driven Dawn to the community center in an old, beat up car he'd purchased for almost nothing from a local used car dealer. A hundred and twenty years and a curiosity the likes of Spike's, he'd learned a little something about car mechanisms. After fixing it up, he'd painted all the windows black and scrubbed out holes just small enough that he could see through them, but they didn't burn him horribly.
He'd hidden the car several blocks from Angel Investigations, knowing that Buffy would never let her sister go out in the likes of it. But he wanted to be around Dawn, and he needed a little independence at times, too. Besides, he was good driver, and practiced at driving with blind spots. Lots of them. There really was no other way for a vampire to get around during the day.
Plopping himself down on the couch, Spike sighed in boredom. Dawn flung herself in a chair across from him, and heaved an echoing sigh.
"What'd you wanna do, pet?"
"Don' know."
"Monopoly?"
"No."
"Cards?"
"Scrabble?"
"Sure."
Dawn threw herself from the chair into a standing position and Spike chuckled at her dramatism. Then he followed her into the kitchen, where every imaginable board game was stacked on the chair at the end of the table, and helped her pick Scrabble from the bunch, without knocking the rest over.
The first thing Buffy heard when she came into the hotel was her sister's piercing whine. "Spiiiiikeeee!"
The vampire clapped his hands over his ears dramatically. "Ouch! Watch it, Niblet. I've got better hearing than you do, you know." He smiled at her to soften the reprimand.
She didn't look at all sorry, anyway. Pouting, she slumped in her chair equally dramatically. "No fair."
Spike pretended to look over the game, checking to make sure what he'd done was legal. "Looks fair to me."
"That's not what I meant!"
The vampire grinned. "What did you mean, then? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's what fair means."
Dawn threw her hands into the air and growled softly, managing it remarkably well considering she didn't have the vampire vocal cords that Spike did. "Spike!"
Buffy smiled softly as she watched this exchange. Coughing lightly to announce her presence, she walked slowly over towards where the board game was set out. "Hey, guys."
"Hey, Buffy!" Dawn greeted her cheerily. "Spike signed me up for drawing classes!"
"That's great."
Leaning over a little, Buffy raised her eyebrows when she saw the Scrabble board. Dawn blushed a little, but Spike just smirked. Looking from one to the other, she lifted an eyebrow and pointed at a particular word. "And just who came up with that?" She asked.
Dawn blushed a little harder and sunk into her chair, hoping to become invisible. Dashing that hope as quickly as it had arisen, Spike grinned and gestured towards her. "The Niblet did, love."
Buffy's gaze transferred to her sister. "And where did you learn a word like that, Missy?" Her tone wasn't angry, in fact it was more towards teasing, but her eyes said she wanted an answer.
Dawn couldn't blush any harder, so she just sunk farther under the table. "I just knew it."
"You 'just knew it'?" The eyebrows went up again.
Pulling herself up, Dawn got a little indignant. "What? It's not like I'm a little child, anymore Buffy! The word isn't exactly out of circulation, you know!"
Buffy just shrugged and nodded indifferently. "Guess not." And with that, she headed off into the kitchen, determined to find something to eat that wasn't of the liquid, red, viscous nature.
Dawn looked at Spike, and when the older vampire smirked a little embarrassingly at the fourteen-year-old, she looked back at the Scrabble board. Then, sighing, she picked up the scorecard and stared forlornly at it. The only good score she'd gotten the whole game was with 'blowjob'.
Dawn's first drawing class was a complete disaster, at least according to the teen. "I can't draw!" She moaned. "I don't know why I signed up for it. I've never drawn anything in my life that isn't a stick figure or a diagram."
Spike smirked indulgently and took the paper from her. True, it could use some work, but anyone with eyes could tell what it was supposed to be. "Your teacher had you drawing a bloody tennis ball?" He asked, amused.
Dawn rolled her eyes. "He said we had to start somewhere. I said, couldn't it be somewhere with a little more substance, but he said tennis balls were 'perfect'."
"Well, he probably does had more experience teaching people to draw than you do, Niblet."
Dawn rolled her eyes again and reclaimed her drawing, but didn't speak until they were safely inside the car.
Driving unusually carefully down the side-street they were on, Spike kept throwing glances at the teen, unsure of how to bring up what he was hoping to talk about. As it turned out, he needn't have worried.
Dawn looked over at him on the third glance, rolled her eyes, slumped her shoulders and sighed. "Alright, what is it?"
Spike played dumb for a moment. "What's what?"
Dawn's gaze grew sharper. "Whatever it is you want to talk to me about. I'm not stupid, you know."
Spike smirked and shook his head. "Nope, you definitely aren't," he conceded. Then, getting slightly more serious, he turned his attention back to the road. "School starts in three weeks."
Dawn nodded, and sighed. "Please don't remind me."
Spike looked over at her, a little surprised, and sure that it was evident on his face. "Last time we talked, you were adamant about not going."
Dawn looked down at her lap. "That was before you threatened to leave if I didn't," she mumbled.
The vampire started a little. "I didn't say that!"
Dawn looked up and met his eyes. "You implied it," She answered.
"I did not-" Spike took a moment, and looked back through his conversation with Dawn. "I guess I could see where I might have implied it," He conceded grudgingly.
The teenager looked confused. "Then you didn't mean it?" She asked.
Spike shook his head. "I want you to go out and be with people your own age," He explained. "But I know that school might be right bloody hard for you right now, so I didn't mean to tell you you had to do that."
Still confused, Dawn pursued the issue. "Then why did you mention it?"
"What, right now?"
Dawn nodded.
Looking away from her earnest gaze and back at the road, Spike answered a little more slowly than normal. "I was hoping you would consider it."
"But I don't have to go."
"Not unless your sister says you do."
Dawn shook her head. "She said she's going to be... home enough that she can homeschool me without any trouble." Spike heard the catch in the teenager's sentence at the word 'home', and his heart ached for her. She shouldn't have had to go through so much at such a young age.
"Okay, Niblet."
Dawn looked over at him, and her gaze seemed to compel him to catch her eye for the brief moment he could while driving. "Do you want me to?"
Spike nodded. "I know you want to be part of the gang, but I think that it would be good for you to have a life outside of demons and slaying," He said. "Your sis used to have that with the Whelp... and Red." They both paused for a moment, then the vampire forged ahead. "You should have some friends your own age, too."
Dawn seemed to consider it for a long moment. Then, sighing as though the weight of the world were on her shoulders, something that Spike painfully recalled, had been true not too long ago, she nodded.
"Yes?" Spike asked.
She nodded again.
"Yes to what? Yes, you'll go to school?"
She nodded a third time, still silent.
Spike dipped his chin, and smiled briefly at her. "Alrighty then, we'll register you in the morning."
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