She did mean it.
She did.
Did she?
Yes.
Yes, she definitely said what she meant to say because she meant it. She never would have said something as important as that if she didn't mean every word. Maybe she didn't mean it in the way he thought she did but she did, all the same. She meant it.
She loved him
Loves him.
Loved?
It was too much. Too much to be comprehending right now, so soon after... after... everything. She was trying to understand, maybe make sense of what she just did, what she just saw, what Spike just did. How he saved the world. How now he was gone.
No! It was too much, it was too hard. She wanted him to not be gone. She was glad, so glad, that the world was still here but, it just wouldn't be the same without Spike in it. And for a moment, just the briefest of moments, she hated the world for taking him from it. Not from her, but from the whole world.
And she did mean it, she knew she did, she wouldn't have told Spike that she loved him if she didn't. She wasn't in love with him, no, too much had happened to him, to her, to them, for that to be true. She wasn't in love with him, but she did love him, very much. He warmed her heart, yes, that's exactly what he did when he would look at her, into her, with his deep sapphire eyes. He warmed her.
And now... now it was gone.
She wanted to deny it, pretend that he was on the back of the bus, hiding. She wanted to pretend that she would see his sapphire eyes again. But she wouldn't. He was gone. It made her afraid that he was gone, because she might forget.
After her mother passed away, it was like everything reminded her of her mom. Every smell in the house or picture on the wall brought up a memory long forgotten. Every day was just a reminder of her mother and how she wasn't there. But then, days became weeks which became months and then, a year had passed, and it all began to fade. And it was terrifying. She wanted to be reminded of what her mother smelled like in the morning, or the expression on her face when she had done something to make her proud, or when she laughed, or when she cried. But it was simply gone. It went with time, and she was afraid, that soon, she wouldn't remember her mother at all.
Was that what was going to happen to Spike? He turned to ash and it would hurt... for a while. And then, he'd simply be gone. She had nothing to remember him by, not a picture not a smell, nothing but her memory. But that wasn't enough! She wanted more, a piece of him for her to have, for her to remember. She knew he smelled of leather, but leather wasn't enough. There would be the hint of tobacco and, if you stopped and took the time to smell it, there would be a touch of blood mixed in. But there was something else.
The gel he used to slick back his bleach blonde hair that would be curly if he didn't use it. But what was it? What was the brand? What was the name? What was the smell?
Buffy felt her chest tightening in panic as she realized she couldn't remember his hair gel. She always knew. Especially after he had started staying in their basement, he kept some in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She saw it every time she reached for the shaving cream. She could picture the bottle, the colors and swirly letters... but what was the name? It was too soon to forget! She didn't want to let him go. He had become too much a part of her job, a part of her life, a part of her being. She had just lost a piece of her that she could never, ever get back?
How do you live without a piece of you?
She knew you could. She did it every day. After Angel left... but it was different, it was in LA and it was there whenever she really needed it.
She lost a piece of her when Mom died, when Tara died, hell, she even lost a little when she found out that Jonathan was dead. But somehow now, it wasn't the same. Maybe it was just because it was still so new. The loss, it was fresh death brushing against her shaking fingertips, a wound that had not yet closed. She clenched her fists and felt her nails digging into her palms and once again, she was afraid. She was afraid that her memories were already fading and that she'd let him go and he'd just be. he'd just be...
Gone.
Is was so simple, so still, so permanent that she hated it and she wanted to scream. She wanted to yell and scream and cry and hit and make the world know that she was pissed. Mostly she wanted him to know how she pissed she was that he was gone. How simple her anger was that the world couldn't have him anymore.
She wanted him to know how angry she was so that he would know how much she meant it when she said she loved him.
~*~
Dawn sat in the back of the bus. She was alone. She always seemed to end up alone. But this time, it was her own choice, she wanted everyone to just be away. To be outside of her personal space. She didn't want to feel anyone or anything. Numbness was key to remaining calm, at least until it was safe to cry.
Xander was crying. She saw him, sitting next to Willow a few seats ahead of her with his head in his hands. She had her arm around his back, her fingers tracing delicate circles over his shirt. Willow was trying to help but she knew, probably best of them all that when you lose your soulmate, nothing that anyone can say will make it better. That's probably why she wasn't saying anything at all. She simply sat by his side with her arm around him, letting him know that he wasn't alone.
Not like Dawn.
While watching Willow and Xander, she thought of Tara, and Anya, and how they were gone. Her eyes traveled slowly from the redheaded witch to the potentials- new slayers that were scattered about the bus. Some were resting, crying, tending to others, but for once, all were quiet.
And Dawn's eyes fell on Kennedy, who was watching Willow sitting with Xander. She wondered what Kennedy was thinking with such an ambiguous look on her face. She looked somewhere between relieved and sad and angry, but not really any of them. Knowing Kennedy, thought Dawn, she's probably angry that Willow isn't sitting with her.
Obnoxious, arrogant bitch.
It wouldn't last, Dawn decided. It could never last between Kennedy and Willow. They weren't meant for each other the way Xander and Anya were or the way Tara and Willow were. And though Dawn knew that Willow was meant now to find someone knew, Kennedy wasn't it. She wasn't the one. She could never be Willow's one. But Dawn remained silent on the matter, it wasn't her place, and it would just play itself out.
Dawn found herself watching Xander again as he cried. She wondered for a brief moment why he hadn't been crying before. Why he waited till hours after what had happened. Why he hadn't, like she had, broken down immediately after learning that he had lost. But she just owed it up to the trauma of everything. Of the having to cope with your entire town, your entire history being lost before you can realize, or possibly understand the loss of one person in your life. So now, he cried. It was simple, and it was painful, but it was something.
It wasn't numb.
Dawn found herself not being able to watch anymore. She couldn't see Xander weak. She couldn't see him unhappy or grieving, not the way he was, so she watched Giles driving for a few minutes and wondered how he was doing. He seemed... fine. But that was Giles, she had never seen him really show emotions the way her other makeshift parents did. He didn't rant or rave or cry out. He was reserved British guy and Dawn knew that she wouldn't have it any other way. To her, he wasn't human, he was above that. He was above all that emotional nonsense that normal people dealt with. He was strong, like a rock.
It's how any doting daughter would think of her father.
She was startled when she heard a loud, shuddering cough coming from the front of the bus. Everyone looked in that direction for a short moment before turning their attention back to whatever they were doing. It was Wood coughing so violently from the front of the bus and Dawn watched Faith cringe as if the agony were her own. She whispered a few inaudible words to the recently unemployed principal and he smiled bravely. It made Dawn like him more.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Andrew lean forward sheepishly, look into the aisle, and turned back into his seat. Dawn felt a swell of sympathy for him. He watched Anya die, and now he had no one to hold or to hold him. In the short moment in which she saw him, he had an "I want my mommy" sort of face. And Dawn couldn't help but feel sympathy. He was like a lost little boy who hopefully, with their help, was finding his way.
The next person who her eyes fell upon frightened her terribly. She wanted to look away but could not. The lonely girl sitting in the mid section of the bus quietly, expressionlessly, and with an eerie calmness about her, sent a chill down Dawn's spine.
She had said one word since Dawn had seen her after Sunnydale got sucked into the Hellmouth, and that was "Spike." Dawn wondered if she was missing him. She had smiled at the hole in the ground before turning and marching wordlessly onto the bus. She knew that this was her sister grieving, and that was okay. But, as childish as she knew this was, she wanted big sis to hold her, say some comforting lie, and rub little circles on her back. But instead, Dawn sat away from her, alone. Leaving big sister alone with her thoughts, probably no more pleasant than her own.
Maybe...
Maybe they could be alone together.
Dawn stood from the seat she was sitting in in the back of the bus and found, though she barely believed it, her legs were supporting her enough so that she could walk. Even the soft rustling of her clothes brushing against the pleather-wannabe seat drew the attention, for a moment, of at least seven pairs of eyes. None of them any that she desired to see on her. Willow was still comforting Xander, Faith was still tending to Wood, Giles had to keep his eyes on the road, Buffy's mind wasn't even on the bus with them, and Anya and Spike, they were just...
Gone.
By the time Dawn started walking down the aisle, nobody was watching anymore. Nobody was interested, nobody cared. And Dawn was damn glad of it. She didn't want a bunch of slayers with their keener than a normal person's eyes following her as she walked, making her more self-conscious and self-aware than she already was.
When she reached her sister's seat, Dawn stood beside it for a long moment, just to see if there would be a response, but nothing. Her eyes were focused on something far away in the distance. It was something that Dawn couldn't see, something that probably wasn't even there.
Since Dawn found herself standing beside the seat with no reaction whatsoever from anyone, she figured she might as well sit down. Besides, her legs felt like mush and were bound to give at any moment. She sat down, and Buffy still didn't acknowledge her presence. This made her angry. This feeling that was now growing in her went beyond anger to pure and absolute fury. If nothing else, she needed right then to be recognized by her sister. At one point she had been the most important thing in Buffy's life, and now she was just another girl.
Dawn hated the feeling. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to be just another girl.
She was about to get up and walk back to the end of the bus when to her surprise, Buffy took her hand and squeezed it tight in a wordless, bodiless embrace. Dawn's eyes moved to Buffy's face but Buffy couldn't seem to make herself look back. Dawn didn't mind, it was enough that Buffy was showing her that she knew she was there.
As far as either of the girls knew, they could have been sitting like that for hours just holding each others' hands. Hell, they could have been half way around the world by the time Dawn finally spoke.
"They... they're really gone, aren't they?"
Buffy didn't have to ask what she meant. She turned her head and looked at Dawn, whose usually bright green eyes, now dull from sheer exhaustion, were full of tears.
"Yes," Buffy answered plainly, with a slight dip of her head. "They're gone."
"Oh God," Dawn moaned, her chest tightening and her throat burning with unshed tears. Buffy squeezed her little sister's hand as reassuringly as she could in such an unsure time.
"Do you think-" Dawn began, not sure if she wanted to finish her question. But she knew she had to. "Do you think it hurt? Do you think he was in a lot of pain."
Buffy cocked her head to the left slightly and felt her heart aching for Dawn as she began to cry upon asking her question.
"I don't... I don't think so. Knowing... knowing Spike, he wouldn't admit that it hurt even if it did. But I think, I think it was quick, for both of them."
At this point, Dawn leaned her head forward against the seat in front of them and put her hands up to her face as she sobbed relentlessly into them. Buffy, overwhelmed by her unending desire to protect Dawn, wrapped her arm around her baby sister. She tightened her hold on the girl as Dawn cried into her lap.
Dawn, feeling Buffy's arm around her, leaned into her sister for support. She wanted to be in control, she wanted to not being crying, but the tears were flowing from her like rivers. It hadn't been four hours since it had happened and already she felt a hole in her where Anya and Spike had been. Mostly, she felt Spike's hole. She and Anya were never all that close, and though she loved her because of her love for Xander, it just wanted the same. Her relationship with Spike. As neglected at it had been for the past year, was still something very special to her. Something that could never be replaced.
And now, he was gone.
"I already feel him gone, Buffy! Oh God!"
"Shh..." Buffy tried to calm her sister's sobs that violently racked her entire body. "It hurts, I know."
Dawn, though she was heartbroken by her fresh loss, felt comfort in Buffy's arms. It was what she wanted. She wanted to be held, to be converted, to be treated like the child she still was. Though, due to circumstances out of her control, she had been forced to mature at an early age, she was still only seventeen. She wanted to be taken care of. She still had growing up left to do that she wanted to actually live through. Now she could, and this only made her cry harder.
As Buffy watched Dawn crying in her lap, her own eyes misted over. She thought of all the things that her sister had done for her over the past few years, of all the sacrifices she had made and the hardships she had endured. She was so damn strong. She lived through more than most people ever will in what technically was only three years.
Buffy ran her fingers through Dawn's long, brown locks. "You are so brave, Dawnie."
Dawn just held on tighter to Buffy, not sure of how to respond to that. She didn't feel brave. Especially not right then at her most vulnerable.
"Dawn, I just... God, I am so... if anything had happened to you..." Buffy shook her head at her stuttering, she wanted to say the right thing. Tell Dawn how much she means to her. How much it means to her that she's on that bus with her, crying into her lap.
"Dawn. You are the most important thing in the world to me. I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to you. I love you so much."
Dawn sat up, her long hair falling into her tear streaked face. She looked at Buffy, who now also had tears falling from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around the slayer's neck and held on as if her life depended on it.
"I love you, too."
"You're the world to me. You have no idea"
Dawn's sobs continued to shake her body.
"I'm sorry I've been so distant. I didn't mean to push you away. I'm so sorry, Dawnie. I just, I did what I had to do. You know that. And I know I don't have to explain it to you. If I had to do this whole thing over, I'd do it the same, I would. Except, I would have told you more, about how you're always in my thoughts, and my heart."
"And him? Is he?"
Buffy took a breath, calming herself. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute from the question. She didn't want to face the ramifications of her emotions showing themselves so soon after he...
"Of course he's in my heart."
Dawn nodded, taking this in. "Buffy?"
"Yes?"
"What... what happened... just before?"
Buffy didn't hesitate to answer, her pride of his bravery shining in her. "A great beam of sunlight burst from him, he was pinned in his place. The vamps dusted, girls ran. I went to his side, he said he could feel his soul, that it was really there. Oh God, and that it kinda stings. I told him to come, that he had done enough, but he said that he wasn't. He had to finish. Faith tried to get me to leave but I wouldn't. I begged him to come with me, but again, he refused. So before I left, I took his hand, let him know that I was with him. That he wouldn't be alone in this, not really. I wanted to pull him with me but... I know as well as he that he had to do this. It was for him to finish. So I... I told him..."
"What?" Dawn prompted eagerly.
"I told him... that I love him. I was so scared for him but I wanted him to know that-"
"You meant it? Right? I mean, you, you wouldn't have said it if..."
"No. I meant it. With every part of me I meant it. He... he reached a part of me that no else could ever reach or understand. And I loved him for it."
"What did he say."
Buffy felt tears coming to her eyes again. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "He didn't believe me."
Dawn looked down and played with her the material of her shirt. What could she possibly say to that?
"Oh."
"It... it's okay though. I think he knows now. I think he'll just know. You know?"
"How? How could he know?"
Buffy shrugged, and smiled a smile that she thought Spike would appreciate as she mumbled, "his final destination."
Dawn shook her head in confusion. "Huh?"
Buffy laughed, again, with Spike consuming her thoughts. "Karma."
~*~
END
~*~
She did.
Did she?
Yes.
Yes, she definitely said what she meant to say because she meant it. She never would have said something as important as that if she didn't mean every word. Maybe she didn't mean it in the way he thought she did but she did, all the same. She meant it.
She loved him
Loves him.
Loved?
It was too much. Too much to be comprehending right now, so soon after... after... everything. She was trying to understand, maybe make sense of what she just did, what she just saw, what Spike just did. How he saved the world. How now he was gone.
No! It was too much, it was too hard. She wanted him to not be gone. She was glad, so glad, that the world was still here but, it just wouldn't be the same without Spike in it. And for a moment, just the briefest of moments, she hated the world for taking him from it. Not from her, but from the whole world.
And she did mean it, she knew she did, she wouldn't have told Spike that she loved him if she didn't. She wasn't in love with him, no, too much had happened to him, to her, to them, for that to be true. She wasn't in love with him, but she did love him, very much. He warmed her heart, yes, that's exactly what he did when he would look at her, into her, with his deep sapphire eyes. He warmed her.
And now... now it was gone.
She wanted to deny it, pretend that he was on the back of the bus, hiding. She wanted to pretend that she would see his sapphire eyes again. But she wouldn't. He was gone. It made her afraid that he was gone, because she might forget.
After her mother passed away, it was like everything reminded her of her mom. Every smell in the house or picture on the wall brought up a memory long forgotten. Every day was just a reminder of her mother and how she wasn't there. But then, days became weeks which became months and then, a year had passed, and it all began to fade. And it was terrifying. She wanted to be reminded of what her mother smelled like in the morning, or the expression on her face when she had done something to make her proud, or when she laughed, or when she cried. But it was simply gone. It went with time, and she was afraid, that soon, she wouldn't remember her mother at all.
Was that what was going to happen to Spike? He turned to ash and it would hurt... for a while. And then, he'd simply be gone. She had nothing to remember him by, not a picture not a smell, nothing but her memory. But that wasn't enough! She wanted more, a piece of him for her to have, for her to remember. She knew he smelled of leather, but leather wasn't enough. There would be the hint of tobacco and, if you stopped and took the time to smell it, there would be a touch of blood mixed in. But there was something else.
The gel he used to slick back his bleach blonde hair that would be curly if he didn't use it. But what was it? What was the brand? What was the name? What was the smell?
Buffy felt her chest tightening in panic as she realized she couldn't remember his hair gel. She always knew. Especially after he had started staying in their basement, he kept some in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She saw it every time she reached for the shaving cream. She could picture the bottle, the colors and swirly letters... but what was the name? It was too soon to forget! She didn't want to let him go. He had become too much a part of her job, a part of her life, a part of her being. She had just lost a piece of her that she could never, ever get back?
How do you live without a piece of you?
She knew you could. She did it every day. After Angel left... but it was different, it was in LA and it was there whenever she really needed it.
She lost a piece of her when Mom died, when Tara died, hell, she even lost a little when she found out that Jonathan was dead. But somehow now, it wasn't the same. Maybe it was just because it was still so new. The loss, it was fresh death brushing against her shaking fingertips, a wound that had not yet closed. She clenched her fists and felt her nails digging into her palms and once again, she was afraid. She was afraid that her memories were already fading and that she'd let him go and he'd just be. he'd just be...
Gone.
Is was so simple, so still, so permanent that she hated it and she wanted to scream. She wanted to yell and scream and cry and hit and make the world know that she was pissed. Mostly she wanted him to know how she pissed she was that he was gone. How simple her anger was that the world couldn't have him anymore.
She wanted him to know how angry she was so that he would know how much she meant it when she said she loved him.
~*~
Dawn sat in the back of the bus. She was alone. She always seemed to end up alone. But this time, it was her own choice, she wanted everyone to just be away. To be outside of her personal space. She didn't want to feel anyone or anything. Numbness was key to remaining calm, at least until it was safe to cry.
Xander was crying. She saw him, sitting next to Willow a few seats ahead of her with his head in his hands. She had her arm around his back, her fingers tracing delicate circles over his shirt. Willow was trying to help but she knew, probably best of them all that when you lose your soulmate, nothing that anyone can say will make it better. That's probably why she wasn't saying anything at all. She simply sat by his side with her arm around him, letting him know that he wasn't alone.
Not like Dawn.
While watching Willow and Xander, she thought of Tara, and Anya, and how they were gone. Her eyes traveled slowly from the redheaded witch to the potentials- new slayers that were scattered about the bus. Some were resting, crying, tending to others, but for once, all were quiet.
And Dawn's eyes fell on Kennedy, who was watching Willow sitting with Xander. She wondered what Kennedy was thinking with such an ambiguous look on her face. She looked somewhere between relieved and sad and angry, but not really any of them. Knowing Kennedy, thought Dawn, she's probably angry that Willow isn't sitting with her.
Obnoxious, arrogant bitch.
It wouldn't last, Dawn decided. It could never last between Kennedy and Willow. They weren't meant for each other the way Xander and Anya were or the way Tara and Willow were. And though Dawn knew that Willow was meant now to find someone knew, Kennedy wasn't it. She wasn't the one. She could never be Willow's one. But Dawn remained silent on the matter, it wasn't her place, and it would just play itself out.
Dawn found herself watching Xander again as he cried. She wondered for a brief moment why he hadn't been crying before. Why he waited till hours after what had happened. Why he hadn't, like she had, broken down immediately after learning that he had lost. But she just owed it up to the trauma of everything. Of the having to cope with your entire town, your entire history being lost before you can realize, or possibly understand the loss of one person in your life. So now, he cried. It was simple, and it was painful, but it was something.
It wasn't numb.
Dawn found herself not being able to watch anymore. She couldn't see Xander weak. She couldn't see him unhappy or grieving, not the way he was, so she watched Giles driving for a few minutes and wondered how he was doing. He seemed... fine. But that was Giles, she had never seen him really show emotions the way her other makeshift parents did. He didn't rant or rave or cry out. He was reserved British guy and Dawn knew that she wouldn't have it any other way. To her, he wasn't human, he was above that. He was above all that emotional nonsense that normal people dealt with. He was strong, like a rock.
It's how any doting daughter would think of her father.
She was startled when she heard a loud, shuddering cough coming from the front of the bus. Everyone looked in that direction for a short moment before turning their attention back to whatever they were doing. It was Wood coughing so violently from the front of the bus and Dawn watched Faith cringe as if the agony were her own. She whispered a few inaudible words to the recently unemployed principal and he smiled bravely. It made Dawn like him more.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Andrew lean forward sheepishly, look into the aisle, and turned back into his seat. Dawn felt a swell of sympathy for him. He watched Anya die, and now he had no one to hold or to hold him. In the short moment in which she saw him, he had an "I want my mommy" sort of face. And Dawn couldn't help but feel sympathy. He was like a lost little boy who hopefully, with their help, was finding his way.
The next person who her eyes fell upon frightened her terribly. She wanted to look away but could not. The lonely girl sitting in the mid section of the bus quietly, expressionlessly, and with an eerie calmness about her, sent a chill down Dawn's spine.
She had said one word since Dawn had seen her after Sunnydale got sucked into the Hellmouth, and that was "Spike." Dawn wondered if she was missing him. She had smiled at the hole in the ground before turning and marching wordlessly onto the bus. She knew that this was her sister grieving, and that was okay. But, as childish as she knew this was, she wanted big sis to hold her, say some comforting lie, and rub little circles on her back. But instead, Dawn sat away from her, alone. Leaving big sister alone with her thoughts, probably no more pleasant than her own.
Maybe...
Maybe they could be alone together.
Dawn stood from the seat she was sitting in in the back of the bus and found, though she barely believed it, her legs were supporting her enough so that she could walk. Even the soft rustling of her clothes brushing against the pleather-wannabe seat drew the attention, for a moment, of at least seven pairs of eyes. None of them any that she desired to see on her. Willow was still comforting Xander, Faith was still tending to Wood, Giles had to keep his eyes on the road, Buffy's mind wasn't even on the bus with them, and Anya and Spike, they were just...
Gone.
By the time Dawn started walking down the aisle, nobody was watching anymore. Nobody was interested, nobody cared. And Dawn was damn glad of it. She didn't want a bunch of slayers with their keener than a normal person's eyes following her as she walked, making her more self-conscious and self-aware than she already was.
When she reached her sister's seat, Dawn stood beside it for a long moment, just to see if there would be a response, but nothing. Her eyes were focused on something far away in the distance. It was something that Dawn couldn't see, something that probably wasn't even there.
Since Dawn found herself standing beside the seat with no reaction whatsoever from anyone, she figured she might as well sit down. Besides, her legs felt like mush and were bound to give at any moment. She sat down, and Buffy still didn't acknowledge her presence. This made her angry. This feeling that was now growing in her went beyond anger to pure and absolute fury. If nothing else, she needed right then to be recognized by her sister. At one point she had been the most important thing in Buffy's life, and now she was just another girl.
Dawn hated the feeling. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to be just another girl.
She was about to get up and walk back to the end of the bus when to her surprise, Buffy took her hand and squeezed it tight in a wordless, bodiless embrace. Dawn's eyes moved to Buffy's face but Buffy couldn't seem to make herself look back. Dawn didn't mind, it was enough that Buffy was showing her that she knew she was there.
As far as either of the girls knew, they could have been sitting like that for hours just holding each others' hands. Hell, they could have been half way around the world by the time Dawn finally spoke.
"They... they're really gone, aren't they?"
Buffy didn't have to ask what she meant. She turned her head and looked at Dawn, whose usually bright green eyes, now dull from sheer exhaustion, were full of tears.
"Yes," Buffy answered plainly, with a slight dip of her head. "They're gone."
"Oh God," Dawn moaned, her chest tightening and her throat burning with unshed tears. Buffy squeezed her little sister's hand as reassuringly as she could in such an unsure time.
"Do you think-" Dawn began, not sure if she wanted to finish her question. But she knew she had to. "Do you think it hurt? Do you think he was in a lot of pain."
Buffy cocked her head to the left slightly and felt her heart aching for Dawn as she began to cry upon asking her question.
"I don't... I don't think so. Knowing... knowing Spike, he wouldn't admit that it hurt even if it did. But I think, I think it was quick, for both of them."
At this point, Dawn leaned her head forward against the seat in front of them and put her hands up to her face as she sobbed relentlessly into them. Buffy, overwhelmed by her unending desire to protect Dawn, wrapped her arm around her baby sister. She tightened her hold on the girl as Dawn cried into her lap.
Dawn, feeling Buffy's arm around her, leaned into her sister for support. She wanted to be in control, she wanted to not being crying, but the tears were flowing from her like rivers. It hadn't been four hours since it had happened and already she felt a hole in her where Anya and Spike had been. Mostly, she felt Spike's hole. She and Anya were never all that close, and though she loved her because of her love for Xander, it just wanted the same. Her relationship with Spike. As neglected at it had been for the past year, was still something very special to her. Something that could never be replaced.
And now, he was gone.
"I already feel him gone, Buffy! Oh God!"
"Shh..." Buffy tried to calm her sister's sobs that violently racked her entire body. "It hurts, I know."
Dawn, though she was heartbroken by her fresh loss, felt comfort in Buffy's arms. It was what she wanted. She wanted to be held, to be converted, to be treated like the child she still was. Though, due to circumstances out of her control, she had been forced to mature at an early age, she was still only seventeen. She wanted to be taken care of. She still had growing up left to do that she wanted to actually live through. Now she could, and this only made her cry harder.
As Buffy watched Dawn crying in her lap, her own eyes misted over. She thought of all the things that her sister had done for her over the past few years, of all the sacrifices she had made and the hardships she had endured. She was so damn strong. She lived through more than most people ever will in what technically was only three years.
Buffy ran her fingers through Dawn's long, brown locks. "You are so brave, Dawnie."
Dawn just held on tighter to Buffy, not sure of how to respond to that. She didn't feel brave. Especially not right then at her most vulnerable.
"Dawn, I just... God, I am so... if anything had happened to you..." Buffy shook her head at her stuttering, she wanted to say the right thing. Tell Dawn how much she means to her. How much it means to her that she's on that bus with her, crying into her lap.
"Dawn. You are the most important thing in the world to me. I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to you. I love you so much."
Dawn sat up, her long hair falling into her tear streaked face. She looked at Buffy, who now also had tears falling from her eyes. She wrapped her arms around the slayer's neck and held on as if her life depended on it.
"I love you, too."
"You're the world to me. You have no idea"
Dawn's sobs continued to shake her body.
"I'm sorry I've been so distant. I didn't mean to push you away. I'm so sorry, Dawnie. I just, I did what I had to do. You know that. And I know I don't have to explain it to you. If I had to do this whole thing over, I'd do it the same, I would. Except, I would have told you more, about how you're always in my thoughts, and my heart."
"And him? Is he?"
Buffy took a breath, calming herself. Her heart was pounding a mile a minute from the question. She didn't want to face the ramifications of her emotions showing themselves so soon after he...
"Of course he's in my heart."
Dawn nodded, taking this in. "Buffy?"
"Yes?"
"What... what happened... just before?"
Buffy didn't hesitate to answer, her pride of his bravery shining in her. "A great beam of sunlight burst from him, he was pinned in his place. The vamps dusted, girls ran. I went to his side, he said he could feel his soul, that it was really there. Oh God, and that it kinda stings. I told him to come, that he had done enough, but he said that he wasn't. He had to finish. Faith tried to get me to leave but I wouldn't. I begged him to come with me, but again, he refused. So before I left, I took his hand, let him know that I was with him. That he wouldn't be alone in this, not really. I wanted to pull him with me but... I know as well as he that he had to do this. It was for him to finish. So I... I told him..."
"What?" Dawn prompted eagerly.
"I told him... that I love him. I was so scared for him but I wanted him to know that-"
"You meant it? Right? I mean, you, you wouldn't have said it if..."
"No. I meant it. With every part of me I meant it. He... he reached a part of me that no else could ever reach or understand. And I loved him for it."
"What did he say."
Buffy felt tears coming to her eyes again. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "He didn't believe me."
Dawn looked down and played with her the material of her shirt. What could she possibly say to that?
"Oh."
"It... it's okay though. I think he knows now. I think he'll just know. You know?"
"How? How could he know?"
Buffy shrugged, and smiled a smile that she thought Spike would appreciate as she mumbled, "his final destination."
Dawn shook her head in confusion. "Huh?"
Buffy laughed, again, with Spike consuming her thoughts. "Karma."
~*~
END
~*~
