Chapter 19
Spike stayed in his room, avoiding Buffy and Joyce while they got ready for the day. He didn't leave until they had left for the day, and he had the house to himself. All night he dreamt about kissing Buffy. He wondered what she would have done if he had knocked on her door. Would she let him in? Did he even want to be let in to her world?
After he had breakfast, he wondered back upstairs into Buffy's room. He was curious about those letters. Maybe if he read a few of them, he could understand exactly what was going on in her head. Or maybe not; he never understood her anyway.
The letter he pulled out was written just two days after the first one, according to the date. The ink ran in a few places, and the paper looked rumpled, like she had balled it up and thrown it away. He could picture her rummaging through the can and straightening out the paper, trying to make it look presentable again.
Spike, Fine, I'm glad you are gone. You aren't worth all of the trouble, all of this heart break. You think you know me so well. You think you can fix this? This will never be fixed. I will never be fixed. She wrote another paragraph, but scratched it all out. At one point, the paper had even ripped under the force of her pen. Then at the bottom of the page two simple, small words caught his eye.
Come home.
Spike closed his eyes. He wished things had been different. He never planned on staying away for so long. After she had come back, he knew he could never live without her again. He knew he never wanted to live without her again. Now he didn't really want to live with her at all. But his heart still ached for her. He should have stayed and helped her. He shouldn't have gone. She needed him, and he ran.
Spike shook his head, no, he didn't just run away. She knew what happened to him that summer, and everything he did for her and..
".Dawn! What are you doing?" Spike shouted up the stairs.
"I'm getting ready!" She yelled back.
"Your date is here!"
Willow came out of the kitchen, "What's all the shouting about?"
"Just letting Dawn know her friend is here," he said, throwing a cold look at the nervous boy standing on the front porch.
"You didn't even invite him in?" Willow asked. "And you could have gone up to get her."
"Didn't want to leave the boy by himself," Spike explained. "And I'm not going to invite into the house. Are you daft?"
Willow looked at the young man apologetically, "Dawn will be down in a minute. In fact, I'll go up and check on her."
"So," Spike said, turning his attention to the boy, "What's your name?"
"Harold..sir."
"Harold, tell me about yourself."
"Um..I'm a Senior."
"And your dating Freshmen?"
"No.I mean, yes, I mean..I really like Dawn."
"Sure you do Harry." Spike took a step out the door, and Harold backed up to the edge of the porch. "Touch one single hair on your head, and I'll rip out your throat." Spike smiled and his eyes flashed yellow, "Are we clear?"
"Yes, yes sir. Clear as day."
"Good man. Now, where do you plan on going tonight?" Spike asked as he stepped back into the house.
"We're going to see a movie, and then out to dinner with some friends."
"That's nice, be home by 10:30 or.." Spike didn't have time to finish his threat before Dawn came downstairs, with her hair carefully braided and her make-up carefully applied. She looked so mature that Spike was startled for a moment. He had been watching this little girl for the past five months, and all of a sudden she was a young woman. Spike was not happy about the latest development.
"10:30," Spike reminded the girl as she hurried past him. "Ten thirty!"
Dawn smiled at him, acknowledging his request, but didn't promise anything. Spike growled as he shut the door behind them, then pulled his coat on.
"Where are you going?" Willow asked.
"Patrolling."
"You're going to follow them, aren't you?" Willow accused.
Spike shrugged, "So? Someone's gotta keep an eye on them."
"Spike, you don't need to watch her constantly. She can take care of herself," Tara said softly.
Spike sighed and fished for a cigarette. "Can I go out and buy some fags?" "Spike, just relax. You've trained Dawn how to fight, she can take care of herself," Willow assured him.
Spike threw himself down onto the couch without removing his duster. "What are you two up to tonight?"
Willow and Tara looked at each other nervously. Spike could hear their heartbeats increase slightly, but he didn't pay any attention to it. They probably had a night of "spell casting" planned. Didn't matter, it wasn't any of his business. "We're going over to Xander's," Willow said, "You know, watching movies."
"Sounds like fun," Spike said, but he wasn't paying attention to them anymore; he was distracted by Jeopardy. Willow and Tara exchanged a look and then quickly fled the house.
"Don't wait up!" Tara said as she shut the door. Spike grunted in response.
Spike was engrossed in a Lifetime Movie special when 10:30 rolled around and Dawn did not. At 10:45, Spike was frantically roaming the streets, looking for her. He knew that the cemeteries and the forests were both popular places for teenagers to hangout, and hence, popular places for vampires to feed.
Spike decided that when he found the kids, he wouldn't kill Dawn, but he would kill the little bastard she was with. He began devising ways to punish her for scaring him like this. Little bint, 10:30 meant 10:30. Not 10:45, not 11:00. 10:30. He knew she wasn't a stupid girl, so why was he out wondering the streets of Sunnydale looking for her?
It had started to rain pretty hard while he was out, and he decided to check one more cemetery before heading back to the house. Maybe she was there, getting ready for bed, blissfully oblivious to all the trouble she was causing. He almost didn't hear the voices that were lost in the clap of thunder, but he caught the tail end of Willow's nervous giggle.
He frowned, maybe they were patrolling. Without him. In the rain. Without weapons. Fuck. Spike didn't have time to be babysitting the fucking Scooby Gang tonight, he had to baby-sit a 16 year old girl.
"Look, we just need to go back to Buffy's house and get the rest of the ingredients," Willow assured them.
"I thought you said that was the last of the Urns," Xander said.
"Well, it is. But I think we can do something else..."
"Maybe we should just leave it," Tara shouted to be heard over another roar of thunder.
"No!" Willow shouted back, "I'm not leaving her."
Spike was torn. He knew there was something wrong with them, but he also had to check on Dawn. He decided to beat them home, see if Dawn was safe, and then go back. To her grave. To see what the stupid children had done, what kind of damage they had caused.
Dawn, fortunately, was home waiting for him, when he burst through the door, wet and angry. "How long have you been home?" Spike demanded.
"Since, uh, eleven," she said in a small voice.
"Go to your room, you're grounded," Spike said, not looking at her. He was rummaging in the chest for something he could use as a shovel...and a weapon.
"You can't ground me," Dawn said defiantly.
Spike looked up, vamped out, his fury barely concealed. "Dawn, I'm not playing tonight. Go to your room."
Dawn stood by the couch, lip quivering, and Spike stared her down until she turned and ran up the stairs. He closed his eyes. He didn't mean to treat her like that, but something was seriously wrong. He could feel it in his bones. This storm could be the result of whatever those children were playing at...but he thought something much worse than a thunder storm was going on.
He was holding Buffy's favorite axe and smoking a cigarette when they all opened the door. "Spike!" Willow exclaimed. "Are you going out?"
"Yep."
"What for? We already patrolled tonight," Xander stated.
Spike flicked his cigarette past them, out the door. "But that's not all you four did tonight, is it?"
"What.what do you mean?"
"What did you guys do?" Spike demanded, his voice and face hard. Suddenly they were all reminded that this was not Dawn's wet nurse, it was a master vampire. A very, very angry master vampire.
"Look, Chip Boy, I don't know what you are.."
Spike lunged for him and pushed him against the wall, holding the axe up to his throat. He ignored the pain in his head, fury completely overriding everything. "What did you do?"
"Apart!" Willow shouted, and Spike was flung away from Xander.
Spike picked himself up and grabbed the axe. "You better hope I don't find anything, and I mean anything, at her grave."
"And what if you do?" Willow challenged.
Spike didn't answer, just smiled. The coldest smile any of them had ever seen, and then he was gone in the torrent of rain. Gone to look for the..
'.Slayer anymore,' The third letter said. I don't want to be The Slayer, and I don't want to be here, and I don't want to be Dawn's sister, and I never want to see you again either. I never wanted to be your girl, damn you! Never nevernever never never never never never..
With every line he read, his heart broke. Fuck. What a mess. How did she pull through this? She made it beautifully, and now she was...she was amazing, like she had always been. God. But coming back changed her in a very basic, fundamental way. She wasn't the woman he knew anymore. Nobody knew her, and he cursed her friends every day she was back, from the moment he found...
*** ..her. He had to find her. He could feel her. He ran through the cemetery to the woods, where her grave was hidden from the monsters and the citizens of Sunnydale. The rain was falling so hard now that he could barely see, but he didn't need his eyes to find it. He knew the path to her grave by heart.
He arrived within minutes of leaving the house, and he thought that some tears were mingling with the rain. He hoped he was wrong. He was almost ready to pray to the God who didn't want him that he was wrong. Maybe they had done it wrong. Maybe they didn't have the right spell. Maybe the broke the Urn. Resurrection spells were notoriously difficult and tricky, and there was no guarantee that it would work. But even worse, there was no guarantee that it would work properly. Something could still dig itself free from Buffy's coffin tonight.
Spike stood still, above her grave marker, straining his ears to hear her heartbeat, or breathing, beneath the dirt. But he couldn't hear anything over the storm, and so he had no choice but to start digging.
As he used the axe to clear the dirt, he shouted her name, over and over. "Buffy! Buffy, luv, can you hear me?" Oh God, Buffy.
The more dirt he scooped out, the harder it rained. There was no doubt in his mind that the powerful magics they were playing with had caused the storm. Which meant that Buffy was probably waiting for him, clawing herself out of her own coffin, getting her beautiful, petite hands bruised and bloody. How could they do this and leave her?
He almost cut off her hand with the axe before he saw it. The second he saw the bloody fingers, he threw the axe away and began clawing at the ground frantically. "Buffy! Buffy hold on! I'm coming."
He didn't realize that Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya had caught up with him, and were frozen at the sight that was before them. Spike looked like an animal, using whatever he could to remove the dirt and reach Buffy, even his teeth. His face was going back and forth from vamp to human, and Willow understood that this was a result of his emotions. She considered helping him, but realized she might get her lungs torn out for her trouble.
"Buffy! Can you hear me?" Spike yelled frantically.
Buffy's response was a muffled scream, and he finally grabbed her hand and began pulling her from her grave. She finally pulled free from the dirt, the coffin, and the afterlife, and both Spike and Buffy fell back. Spike clutched her to them, and even in the rain, the rest of them could hear their sobs and gasps for breath. "What did you do?" Buffy cried, over and over, "What did you do?"
Spike didn't respond, just clutched her tightly to his chest. He was scared to let her go. Scared that this was a dream, a nightmare, and any second he'd wake up and she'd be back in the cold ground. "What did you.."
*** ".do?" Buffy had asked them that when he had pulled her from the ground. It's a question he never had an answer for. Did he somehow wish her alive? Could he have done something to stop them before they went that far? Could he have stopped the powerful witch? He should have tried. One more thing to feel guilty about. It was his fault she died and his fault that she didn't stay dead.
Spike stayed in his room, avoiding Buffy and Joyce while they got ready for the day. He didn't leave until they had left for the day, and he had the house to himself. All night he dreamt about kissing Buffy. He wondered what she would have done if he had knocked on her door. Would she let him in? Did he even want to be let in to her world?
After he had breakfast, he wondered back upstairs into Buffy's room. He was curious about those letters. Maybe if he read a few of them, he could understand exactly what was going on in her head. Or maybe not; he never understood her anyway.
The letter he pulled out was written just two days after the first one, according to the date. The ink ran in a few places, and the paper looked rumpled, like she had balled it up and thrown it away. He could picture her rummaging through the can and straightening out the paper, trying to make it look presentable again.
Spike, Fine, I'm glad you are gone. You aren't worth all of the trouble, all of this heart break. You think you know me so well. You think you can fix this? This will never be fixed. I will never be fixed. She wrote another paragraph, but scratched it all out. At one point, the paper had even ripped under the force of her pen. Then at the bottom of the page two simple, small words caught his eye.
Come home.
Spike closed his eyes. He wished things had been different. He never planned on staying away for so long. After she had come back, he knew he could never live without her again. He knew he never wanted to live without her again. Now he didn't really want to live with her at all. But his heart still ached for her. He should have stayed and helped her. He shouldn't have gone. She needed him, and he ran.
Spike shook his head, no, he didn't just run away. She knew what happened to him that summer, and everything he did for her and..
".Dawn! What are you doing?" Spike shouted up the stairs.
"I'm getting ready!" She yelled back.
"Your date is here!"
Willow came out of the kitchen, "What's all the shouting about?"
"Just letting Dawn know her friend is here," he said, throwing a cold look at the nervous boy standing on the front porch.
"You didn't even invite him in?" Willow asked. "And you could have gone up to get her."
"Didn't want to leave the boy by himself," Spike explained. "And I'm not going to invite into the house. Are you daft?"
Willow looked at the young man apologetically, "Dawn will be down in a minute. In fact, I'll go up and check on her."
"So," Spike said, turning his attention to the boy, "What's your name?"
"Harold..sir."
"Harold, tell me about yourself."
"Um..I'm a Senior."
"And your dating Freshmen?"
"No.I mean, yes, I mean..I really like Dawn."
"Sure you do Harry." Spike took a step out the door, and Harold backed up to the edge of the porch. "Touch one single hair on your head, and I'll rip out your throat." Spike smiled and his eyes flashed yellow, "Are we clear?"
"Yes, yes sir. Clear as day."
"Good man. Now, where do you plan on going tonight?" Spike asked as he stepped back into the house.
"We're going to see a movie, and then out to dinner with some friends."
"That's nice, be home by 10:30 or.." Spike didn't have time to finish his threat before Dawn came downstairs, with her hair carefully braided and her make-up carefully applied. She looked so mature that Spike was startled for a moment. He had been watching this little girl for the past five months, and all of a sudden she was a young woman. Spike was not happy about the latest development.
"10:30," Spike reminded the girl as she hurried past him. "Ten thirty!"
Dawn smiled at him, acknowledging his request, but didn't promise anything. Spike growled as he shut the door behind them, then pulled his coat on.
"Where are you going?" Willow asked.
"Patrolling."
"You're going to follow them, aren't you?" Willow accused.
Spike shrugged, "So? Someone's gotta keep an eye on them."
"Spike, you don't need to watch her constantly. She can take care of herself," Tara said softly.
Spike sighed and fished for a cigarette. "Can I go out and buy some fags?" "Spike, just relax. You've trained Dawn how to fight, she can take care of herself," Willow assured him.
Spike threw himself down onto the couch without removing his duster. "What are you two up to tonight?"
Willow and Tara looked at each other nervously. Spike could hear their heartbeats increase slightly, but he didn't pay any attention to it. They probably had a night of "spell casting" planned. Didn't matter, it wasn't any of his business. "We're going over to Xander's," Willow said, "You know, watching movies."
"Sounds like fun," Spike said, but he wasn't paying attention to them anymore; he was distracted by Jeopardy. Willow and Tara exchanged a look and then quickly fled the house.
"Don't wait up!" Tara said as she shut the door. Spike grunted in response.
Spike was engrossed in a Lifetime Movie special when 10:30 rolled around and Dawn did not. At 10:45, Spike was frantically roaming the streets, looking for her. He knew that the cemeteries and the forests were both popular places for teenagers to hangout, and hence, popular places for vampires to feed.
Spike decided that when he found the kids, he wouldn't kill Dawn, but he would kill the little bastard she was with. He began devising ways to punish her for scaring him like this. Little bint, 10:30 meant 10:30. Not 10:45, not 11:00. 10:30. He knew she wasn't a stupid girl, so why was he out wondering the streets of Sunnydale looking for her?
It had started to rain pretty hard while he was out, and he decided to check one more cemetery before heading back to the house. Maybe she was there, getting ready for bed, blissfully oblivious to all the trouble she was causing. He almost didn't hear the voices that were lost in the clap of thunder, but he caught the tail end of Willow's nervous giggle.
He frowned, maybe they were patrolling. Without him. In the rain. Without weapons. Fuck. Spike didn't have time to be babysitting the fucking Scooby Gang tonight, he had to baby-sit a 16 year old girl.
"Look, we just need to go back to Buffy's house and get the rest of the ingredients," Willow assured them.
"I thought you said that was the last of the Urns," Xander said.
"Well, it is. But I think we can do something else..."
"Maybe we should just leave it," Tara shouted to be heard over another roar of thunder.
"No!" Willow shouted back, "I'm not leaving her."
Spike was torn. He knew there was something wrong with them, but he also had to check on Dawn. He decided to beat them home, see if Dawn was safe, and then go back. To her grave. To see what the stupid children had done, what kind of damage they had caused.
Dawn, fortunately, was home waiting for him, when he burst through the door, wet and angry. "How long have you been home?" Spike demanded.
"Since, uh, eleven," she said in a small voice.
"Go to your room, you're grounded," Spike said, not looking at her. He was rummaging in the chest for something he could use as a shovel...and a weapon.
"You can't ground me," Dawn said defiantly.
Spike looked up, vamped out, his fury barely concealed. "Dawn, I'm not playing tonight. Go to your room."
Dawn stood by the couch, lip quivering, and Spike stared her down until she turned and ran up the stairs. He closed his eyes. He didn't mean to treat her like that, but something was seriously wrong. He could feel it in his bones. This storm could be the result of whatever those children were playing at...but he thought something much worse than a thunder storm was going on.
He was holding Buffy's favorite axe and smoking a cigarette when they all opened the door. "Spike!" Willow exclaimed. "Are you going out?"
"Yep."
"What for? We already patrolled tonight," Xander stated.
Spike flicked his cigarette past them, out the door. "But that's not all you four did tonight, is it?"
"What.what do you mean?"
"What did you guys do?" Spike demanded, his voice and face hard. Suddenly they were all reminded that this was not Dawn's wet nurse, it was a master vampire. A very, very angry master vampire.
"Look, Chip Boy, I don't know what you are.."
Spike lunged for him and pushed him against the wall, holding the axe up to his throat. He ignored the pain in his head, fury completely overriding everything. "What did you do?"
"Apart!" Willow shouted, and Spike was flung away from Xander.
Spike picked himself up and grabbed the axe. "You better hope I don't find anything, and I mean anything, at her grave."
"And what if you do?" Willow challenged.
Spike didn't answer, just smiled. The coldest smile any of them had ever seen, and then he was gone in the torrent of rain. Gone to look for the..
'.Slayer anymore,' The third letter said. I don't want to be The Slayer, and I don't want to be here, and I don't want to be Dawn's sister, and I never want to see you again either. I never wanted to be your girl, damn you! Never nevernever never never never never never..
With every line he read, his heart broke. Fuck. What a mess. How did she pull through this? She made it beautifully, and now she was...she was amazing, like she had always been. God. But coming back changed her in a very basic, fundamental way. She wasn't the woman he knew anymore. Nobody knew her, and he cursed her friends every day she was back, from the moment he found...
*** ..her. He had to find her. He could feel her. He ran through the cemetery to the woods, where her grave was hidden from the monsters and the citizens of Sunnydale. The rain was falling so hard now that he could barely see, but he didn't need his eyes to find it. He knew the path to her grave by heart.
He arrived within minutes of leaving the house, and he thought that some tears were mingling with the rain. He hoped he was wrong. He was almost ready to pray to the God who didn't want him that he was wrong. Maybe they had done it wrong. Maybe they didn't have the right spell. Maybe the broke the Urn. Resurrection spells were notoriously difficult and tricky, and there was no guarantee that it would work. But even worse, there was no guarantee that it would work properly. Something could still dig itself free from Buffy's coffin tonight.
Spike stood still, above her grave marker, straining his ears to hear her heartbeat, or breathing, beneath the dirt. But he couldn't hear anything over the storm, and so he had no choice but to start digging.
As he used the axe to clear the dirt, he shouted her name, over and over. "Buffy! Buffy, luv, can you hear me?" Oh God, Buffy.
The more dirt he scooped out, the harder it rained. There was no doubt in his mind that the powerful magics they were playing with had caused the storm. Which meant that Buffy was probably waiting for him, clawing herself out of her own coffin, getting her beautiful, petite hands bruised and bloody. How could they do this and leave her?
He almost cut off her hand with the axe before he saw it. The second he saw the bloody fingers, he threw the axe away and began clawing at the ground frantically. "Buffy! Buffy hold on! I'm coming."
He didn't realize that Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya had caught up with him, and were frozen at the sight that was before them. Spike looked like an animal, using whatever he could to remove the dirt and reach Buffy, even his teeth. His face was going back and forth from vamp to human, and Willow understood that this was a result of his emotions. She considered helping him, but realized she might get her lungs torn out for her trouble.
"Buffy! Can you hear me?" Spike yelled frantically.
Buffy's response was a muffled scream, and he finally grabbed her hand and began pulling her from her grave. She finally pulled free from the dirt, the coffin, and the afterlife, and both Spike and Buffy fell back. Spike clutched her to them, and even in the rain, the rest of them could hear their sobs and gasps for breath. "What did you do?" Buffy cried, over and over, "What did you do?"
Spike didn't respond, just clutched her tightly to his chest. He was scared to let her go. Scared that this was a dream, a nightmare, and any second he'd wake up and she'd be back in the cold ground. "What did you.."
*** ".do?" Buffy had asked them that when he had pulled her from the ground. It's a question he never had an answer for. Did he somehow wish her alive? Could he have done something to stop them before they went that far? Could he have stopped the powerful witch? He should have tried. One more thing to feel guilty about. It was his fault she died and his fault that she didn't stay dead.
