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Relive
Chapter 5 'Meet Your Hero'
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Alisa was silent as Angel's story came to an end. He had skipped over a lot of the relationship involving Buffy and Spike but that couldn't be helped he claimed. Besides he hadn't been there for most of it. If she was every going to hear how it truly happened she would have to talk to him. It didn't make sense though either way she looked at it. Vampires didn't have souls they were demons and the human soul was condemned and trapped in hell. They didn't feel they couldn't love. That was the only part of the story Alisa couldn't grasp. After all she had little faith in love as it was. How was she supposed to believe something as impossible as that?
"I still don't believe he loved her." Alisa said slowly. "I don't believe vampires can love. I've met a lot of vampires and all of them are the same."
Angel looked at her skeptically. "Well Spike has always been different. Far more pig headed and stubborn then any of my other childer but he always had heart. He did something I was never able to. He over came his demon without a soul and I still struggle with mine."
"You're not going to tell me he's all good now. I heard the way he acted when you told him about the vision. He doesn't care. All it does is prove my point. He's a demon. He feels nothing." Alisa pushed a lock of her hair out of her eyes and got to her feet to get something from the kitchen.
"Spike's a little confused." Cordelia offered slowly. "He doesn't like to admit his softer mushier side." She swallowed. "But you can see it. He did love her and he's still pinning over her death. She changed him a lot when she loved him, when he fell in love with her. That's not something he can just walk away from. At first she was his conscience and then somehow he developed his own."
Alisa shook her head still denying it. "I don't trust you." She said taking a sip of her water and avoiding their eyes as she turned to look at Kirk. He was frowning at her giving her the look. He had always told her she was too guarded. "I'll accept your help but I don't believe much of what you've told me. I know Buffy was a good slayer in your eyes, but to me she broke the rules. She risked lives and she consorted with the enemy. In my eyes she was a failure." With those words she turned and left the kitchen not even bothering to see the rage burning in Angel's eyes as she walked away.
"I can't believe she mocked her!" Angel called after her departed form. "With everything she did. This child mocks her courage and her integrity."
"Don't blame her." Kirk said quickly. "She doesn't trust many. Sometimes I wonder if she trusts me. I took her from a normal life. I keep her from school and because of me she has no chance for a family. Her parents, she never knew and life in an orphanage isn't one full of hope." Kirk sighed and sank back into his chair. "I trust you unless the two of you do something to prove me wrong. If you can help me stop her death I'll do anything to help."
Angel calmed a bit and Cordelia took his hand in her offering him a short smile. "Well as far as we can tell whoever this is he's got to be stopped before the end of this week. By Friday it will end. We need Spike though and I'll work on him. Cordy will help you here. With the research maybe we can figure out who this is. She's seen small snippets of his power."
"What about Alisa?" Kirk asked pulling his glasses from his pocket as he prepared to work.
"She comes with me. I'll help her patrol, make sure nothing happens, and I'll take her to officially meet Spike." Angel smirked. "He'll hate the hell out of me for that one."
"Yeah I can already hear his 'Bloody Hell's'." Cordelia commented chuckling.
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Alisa stayed behind Angel as they stalked through the cemetery unwilling to let him watch her back. She didn't trust him. He was a vampire and technically would do anything to kill a slayer. She narrowed her eyes at his black coat and held her stake firmly in her fingers. They were patrolling a different cemetery tonight probably because Spike was most likely to be stalking the other.
"How do you know he's not feeding off of humans?" Alisa asked suddenly making Angel glance over his shoulder.
"I can smell him. I know he hasn't eaten off a human in a long time." Angel fell silent as he look across the cemetery. "Everything is really quiet. It's never this quiet."
"Yeah well I tend to think of non busy nights as good nights." Alisa said glancing to her left not willing to admit the lack of activity was grating on her nerves pretty badly and her slayer sense was off the scale with uneasiness.
"Well everything means something in Sunnydale. It's never just quiet. There is always a reason." Angel stopped for a moment and turned around and headed back to way he'd come. "Come on it's obvious that who ever has come to town is here and the absences are because of it. He already has a hold."
"Where are we going?" Alisa asked falling into step behind him and for once not thinking about the consequences.
"I'm taking you to meet Spike. Tonight can't be a total loss." Angel said under his breath. "I have no idea what he's up to so just be prepared for the worst. Spike doesn't have very good habits."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Alisa asked.
"I'm not so sure right now." Angel confessed. "Let's just hope he's in a good mood."
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Angel could smell the alcohol before he opened the door. It was so strong it saturated the walls and even the insides of his nostrils. Narrowing his eyes Angel laid his hand on the door and was about to open it before he turned to Alisa. He decided he'd better give her fair warning. He knew exactly how a drunken Spike could be.
"I'm just warning you that Spike is drunk, either drunk or has a huge hangover. I can't stand him when he's sober and drunk and with a hangover he's ten times worse." Angel wrapped his hand around the door and pulled it open.
"So we're going into a powerful vampire's home when we know he's pissed planning to piss him off more, right?" Alisa rolled her eyes. "I don't know how 'Buffy' ever died twice." Her voice was dripping was sarcasm.
Angel growled and walked into the dust filled crypt his eyes running over the darkness. "If I were you I would keep quiet." He knew Spike wasn't on the top floor he quickly morphed into vampire so he could see through the darkness and picked out the drop into the lower level. "There's about a ten foot drop down this hole so be prepared." Alisa only snorted in response before Angel pointed the whole out to her and dropped in.
Angel shook out of his vampire visage and back to his more human form as the light of a few lit candles caused his eyes to dilate. At first he could smell nothing but blood and booze. Not a healthy combination when Spike was involved. After a few seconds he determined that the blood was Spikes and the alcohol was pretty stale. He had been drinking for a while now. Taking a step foreword into the gloom he kicked a few bottles out of his path in disgust and tried to catch sight of the hung over vampire somewhere among the debris. Spike had done quite a bit of drinking when he had lived with him and Cordelia. He had been semi-polite about it though never really getting so drunk he mouthed off or got angrier than usual. He kept to himself when he was drunk, usually in his room or he even sometimes journeyed down to Caritas; either way though the habit slightly disgusted him.
"Spike?" Angel called into the gloom after seeing a pile of the vampire's usual attire strewn across the crypt's stone floor. He hoped for the girl's sake that he wasn't naked. That would certainly be funny, but he really doubted that Alisa or Spike would agree.
"What do you want?" A low and depressed voice asked from the darkness and Angel could feel the man's sorrow. Whether the younger man realized it our not he was calling again. He was in pain and he wanted comfort.
"Where're you at Spike?" Angel asked trying to keep his voice soft.
"I smell her with you. I hear her heart beating. Bloody hell I heard her before she came down in here. You brought the bleedin' slayer here so she could see who was supposed to 'save her'." He was sarcastic his voice still defeated but angry. "You can both go to hell." He trailed off for a moment falling into a short silence before he spoke again. "Well you've already done that haven't ya peaches." He remarked snidely and Angel bristled slightly that was still something he didn't like to talk about.
"Spike get your drunken ass out here so we can talk." Angel said rapidly loosing his patience. He never had much of a fuse when it came to Spike. Spike just knew him too well. He could push the button faster than Angel realized and before he knew it he was flying off the handle.
"We are talking." Spike said suddenly popping up from the other side of his bed seemingly out of no where, but the light of the candles just didn't illuminate the space where he had been sitting. He wasn't wearing a shirt and clutched in his blood covered fists was a bottle of bourbon.
"Is alcohol your answer to everything?" Angel asked in exasperation.
"'is my bloody best friend." Spike sneered and took a long swig draining the rest of the bottle before tossing it over his shoulder letting the glass shatter against the wall behind him. "Dramatic ain't it." He mused as he watched the slayer jump at the sound. "Kinda like a soap opera, used to like those."
"Got any more Spike, or are you done?" Angel asked as he kicked an empty bottle and watched it roll across the cement floor.
Spike appeared to be counting on his fingers but gave up after a moment and leaned down reaching his hand into something. "Well I thought I had enough to get me plastered to hell, but if I still only see two of you..."
"Two?" Angel asked raising a brow.
"If I want to pass out into a world of drunken bliss there's got to be at least four of you. That way this whole conversation is wiped from my little vampire mind and I can forget you were the last thing I saw before I went to sleep." Spike swayed slightly on his feet and grabbed hold of the bed's banister for support. "Huh...well I'm getting there. I think I just saw three of you. Maybe this time I'll get lucky."
"What happened to your hand?" Angel asked trying to draw the vampire away from his drunken talk and on to something more substantial.
"Punched a wall," He said nonchalantly and shrugged. "I think the wall won though. I broke my bloody finger." He picked his hand up and examined it slowly. "It's healing though."
Angel had the urge to ask why but something told him this probably wasn't the best time.
"That was before that soddin' mouthy bastard came in here spouting shit and trying to get me to convert to his cause." Spike said and lay back on his bed as his legs swayed under him again.
"What guy?" Angel asked his interest peeking for the first. Over his shoulder he gave Alisa a short look indicating that she ought to listen.
"First he tried to impress me with flattery. Told me how everyone knew what a huge sell out I was, 'Spike the Slayer's lapdog'. Lapdog my ass. Then he questioned my demon explained there was some big all powerful git in town. Bollocks mate." Spike trailed off into silence and they thought for a moment he might have fallen asleep. Angel was about to say something when he started again. "So I wrapped my 'Big Bad' hand around his bloody neck and squeezed. Then I staked his sorry mouthin' ass and watched him turn to dust. That was fun. Kinda like old times." He trailed off seemingly talking more to himself then them.
"What did he say about the guy Spike?" Angel asked. If this was the guy in the vision they might have a lead.
"What the hell. I don't care." Spike said viciously. "I killed him so I wouldn't have to listen to his recruit crap, nothing else."
"Did he say anything about where whatever it was was...?"
Spike sat up suddenly narrowing his eyes. "I told you mate. I staked him. I couldn't stand listen' to him so I ended his short lived un-dead life and then proceeded to get drunk off my ass."
"Always the practical one aren't we." Angel said sarcastically.
Alisa was disgusted. This was a hero. This man, this vampire, was supposed to save her. He had been in her dream he had said something, but this couldn't be the same one. She couldn't, wouldn't trust a vampire, and if she had to it wouldn't be him. He was a drunken pathetic loser. "He's supposed to save me?" Alisa asked incredulously ignoring the fact that the vampire was right in front of her. "Him! He can hardly stand."
Angel whirled around. "I told you he's difficult and more so when he's drunk." Angel ground out trying to get her to be quiet, but she'd have none of it.
"Keep talkin' not like I'm here any way." Spike said from his bed.
"Look at him. He's pathetic. He's delusional. A vampire in love with a slayer it's bullshit. Can't you see there's no way he could love? I can feel what he is from where I stand. He radiates evil from every pore."
"S'that right?"
Alisa turned to see Spike coming to his feet. He didn't sway this time and Alisa swallowed at the fire she saw in his gold glinting eyes. She backed up a step and stuck her free hand into her jacket pocket on reflex wrapping her fingers around her stake as a chill of fear ran though her.
"Spike, don't..." Angel didn't even get to finish his sentence before Spike punched him in the jaw knocking him to the ground for a second stunning him.
Spike stalked toward the young girl and lunged at her as her back hit the wall. He sneered when the smell of her fear reached him. He used to relish that smell, but now it did nothing but make his stomach twist into knots. He ignored it though and stared at her hard his hands planted on either side of her face. He morphed to vampire and heard her whimper under his hold but she didn't try to move. All of them had a death wish and this one was just begging for it. Not like his Buffy she was the only different one. He spoke quickly knowing his time was short.
"Nice of you to say I radiate evil." Spike smiled lazily his accent think in this form. "Always thought I was evil, but it was the other comment, the one about me and Buffy. You think it was all bullshit?" He didn't wait for an answer but growled. "What the hell do you know? I..." Before Spike could finish he felt something slam into his side and he went sliding across the floor.
"Dammit Spike. What the hell are you doing?" Angel growled as he watched the woozy vampire try to straighten his scrambled thoughts.
"I'm being a vampire." Spike said slowly. "I'm being what I am. A soulless, blood sucker that feels nothing and only lives for the kill. That's what I am isn't it." He looked at the new slayer with disgust. "If I had met a slayer like you a few hundred years back I would have three dead slayers on my list instead of two. You're weak and you beg for it."
"Enough Spike." Angel snarled.
Alisa could feel her breathing just start to calm. He had scared her, more than anyone ever had. She just wanted to bolt at that moment, leave Sunnydale leave her duties and run, but she couldn't. Her feet seemed to know what her duty was and they stayed planted. Her mouth was seemingly sewn shut and she couldn't think of a thing to say.
"Wanna fight, Peaches?" Spike asked and sat up half way smirking. "I haven't had a good fight in a while."
"I'm not going to fight you, Spike." Angel said shaking his head. He never should have brought Alisa to see him, not when he thought he might be drunk. He was always such an obnoxious jerk when he was plastered. "We're leaving."
"So soon?" Spike sneered. "I really hoped you would stay, you know so we could have a heart to heart or maybe swap stories, laugh like they do in those bloody awful TV dramas."
"Goodbye Spike." Angel said and stepped past the half passed out vamp and grabbed Alisa on his way out pushing her though first. When he was sure she as up there and out of ear shot he looked at the drunken blood man and frowned. "I'll be back Spike. You and I are due."
"Whatever poof." Spike said and crawled across the crypt to the bed. "Just get the hell out." With those final words he climbed onto the bed and collapsed his head falling to the side and his body unmoving. Angel sighed and yanked the passed out man up the rest of the way and laid his head on a pillow. He pulled a sheet over his sleeping body and frowned. Spike's brow was creased in worry even as he slept. There was something going on with him that he couldn't quite place, it was more than just Buffy. Promising he would come back later he climbed back up the ladder and took Alisa home. He needed to talk to Cordy and he was exhausted after talking to Spike.
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Alisa burst into the apartment scowling. Angel had gone back to his hotel after dropping her off claiming that he and Cordelia would be back the next day. The night had been a complete waste. They hadn't dusted one vampire and instead of ending the life of one who most definitely deserved it she watched him teeter around pathetically before passing out in a drunken stupor. Her dreams couldn't be prophetic no when 'Spike' was involved.
"How was patrol?" Kirk asked as she came into the kitchen. He was bent over a few books and holding a cup of coffee in his hand.
"A waste of time," Alisa mouthed slowly. "Apparently this guy as already started gathering followers and with his mass appeal he's taken all my prey."
"Did you find out where?" Kirk asked looking up hopefully.
"No." Alisa said sadly remembering her encounter with Spike. "We went to go see Spike though."
"Really what was he like?"
"He was an arrogant asshole with a serious drinking problem." Alisa confirmed and sunk into a chair beside Kirk's mess and looked through the sea of white wondering where all that paper had come from.
"Angel did say he was a little..." Kirk started but Alisa snorted.
"Don't even defend him. He pathetic and I still don't buy any of that crap he fed you. We don't need them Kirk. We've always done things on our own. Since when do we need help from someone else?" Alisa looked up after her speech to meet a pair of narrowed and angry eyes.
"Since your life depends on it." Kirk said firmly his voice just on the brink of yelling. "You could die Alisa and I can't let that happen. I'll do anything in my power to stop it." He sat back down. "I'm your watcher."
"What does it matter?" Alisa said slowly. "They'll just call another. I'm replaceable. Every slayer is. Its part of the job, you have to face the fact that you're expendable."
"The council..." Kirk started but he could already tell she wasn't listening. She'd stopped focusing on him and was running through his piles of papers until her fingers fell on a light blue book with a silk ribbon hanging out of its closed pages.
"What's this?" She asked.
Kirk sighed. The conversation was avoided again, but he didn't have the energy to fight with her. "The council sent that to me for review. It briefly mentions Spike, Buffy. They thought it might help with the prophecy."
"That's great, but it still doesn't tell me what it is." Alisa said running over her fingers over the name engraved in the front cover, 'Dawn.'
"It's a journal." Kirk said slowly. "It belonged to the Buffy's sister, Dawn. It's basically set during the time of her second death. It runs pretty steadily until about two years after the slayer's return."
"You've read it?" Alisa asked arching a brow.
"No." Kirk shook his head. "I just scanned the pages marked by the council concerning Spike and some of his actions, that's all." Alisa turned the journal over in her fingers and opened it flipping through the pen written pages briefly. "You can read it if you want." Alisa immediately dropped it. "I don't want to, but thanks. I'm going to sleep."
Kirk watched her leave with growing concern his brow creasing as she disappeared behind her door. She was slipping farther and farther away from him and he didn't know how to pull her back.
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"Come on!" Kirk called. "You have to hurry!"
Alisa tried to focus on him, tried to will her eyes to work and his image to become unblurred but he remained the same, a large blur of color and sound. "Kirk?" She whispered weakly as the sickness rolled over her weakened body in torrents. "Help me Kirk I can't get to you." She pleaded with him but he only continued to wave his arms and shout at her. His voice was stronger with each shout.
"Hurry!"
Alisa stumbled through the darkness her vision tunneling occasionally and tried to get to him. Her weapon slipped from her sweat soaked fingers and clanged against the stone floor and she tripped her feet finding an uneven patch of earth. Finally she reached him. Her body shaking with sickness and fatigue she reached out to him only wanting comfort.
"Hold on to me." He said his voice hissing slightly.
Alisa's muscles tightened under his hold and she tried to pull away but she couldn't. There was something wrong. She could feel it in his touch, hear it in his voice. "Let me go." She pleaded her voice weak and cracking. "Please."
"Don't worry." He said and before she could struggle again he pulled a dagger seemingly out of nowhere and plunged it into her stomach and twisted it. "Everything's all right now."
Alisa tried to scream as he released her but nothing would come out of her mouth as it gaped open and she fell to the ground a lifeless heap. She could feel the heated blood running down her stomach and over her hand as it continued to pour from the wound. She was dying. She blinked feeling the life slipping from her. Out of her tunneling and failing vision a black clad figure appeared in front of her. A long leather duster brushed at his ankles and the bleached blond locks on his head were almost blinding. He was smirking at her lazily his expression supposed to mirror something resembling mocking but his eyes suggested otherwise, they were deep and pooled with concern?
"I told you to watch your back." He said and pressed his hand onto her stomach. He watched as the blood seeped between his long pale fingers staining them before he looked up at her again. "Only trust what you can see." He said his voice sounding distant.
Alisa closed her eyes feeling slightly soothed by his presence. She falling in a sea of darkness and she didn't know how to pull out. The vampire's voice, mocking and soothing at the same time was gone, as well as the comfort of his hand on her wounded stomach. Suddenly the silence was shattered and something was beating around her almost like a drum. It pounded in the blackness surrounding her and she looked frantically from side to side but she couldn't determine where it was coming from.
"So you are who I am to kill." The drumming stopped and was replaced with a sinister and sneering voice. A pair of black eyes punctuated with red iris looked at her from the darkness.
Alisa shuddered and tried to scream, but like before nothing would come. The beating started again making her body shake and her head ring. Around her the world cleared for just an instant she saw the being, whatever it was, the demon, with the black soulless eyes, he was standing in a pool of red dumping the contents over his head. The dark black red liquid ran down its body and clung to its skin. Beside the small pool she saw a body dressed in white with dark flowing curls surrounding her head. Alisa focused willing her eyes to see what was impossible. As if on cue the image rushed foreword and she recognized the girl. It was her. Her eyes were wide and her lips moving incoherently. Alisa opened her mouth and screamed, this time the cries didn't die.
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Alisa sat bolt up right her body shaking even as she realized she was awake. A dull ache was radiating throughout her abdomen and her ears were still ringing with the mysterious drums. She had seen him and he had killed her. He was going to kill her. Alisa was terrified. She realized as the visions faded that no matter how much she had claimed indifference she didn't want to die. She wasn't ready. She didn't want to die. Alisa swallowed her throat raw and dry and she reached her hands up to brush her cheeks realizing for the first time that she had been crying.
Getting to her feet, Alisa tried to brush off the chills of fear that were running up her spine and decided she needed a drink to wet her throat. She exited her room cautiously checking around the doorframe to make sure Kirk had already gone to bed. If he was sleeping on the table she didn't want to wake him and have him asking questions. He couldn't know that he was part of her dream. If he thought it was the best for her he would leave and she wouldn't know what to do without him. Luckily he wasn't there and she slipped into the hallway making little to no noise at all. Just as he was rounding the small paper ridden table she spied the light blue journal lying openly on the table illuminated slightly in the partial moonlight emanating from the split in the curtains. Suddenly all thoughts of water even the wavering effects of the dream were almost forgotten and she grabbed the book and hurried back to her room.
Alisa ran her finger over the bound volume and opened the cover almost cautiously feeling as if she might be invading some sort sacred privacy she opened the book. The pages were worn and yellow and she thumbed it open cautiously making sure not to rip them or crumble the pages. Written quite clearly in dark blue ink it read.
'I burned my diaries. They recorded every moment, every waking second of my life and I found out they're fake. I never leaned over the new crisp pages with gleeful anticipation. I never cried over the events that happened one day and spilt my tears on the pages. It's a record of a life that never was, because I'm not real. The memories they have of me are fake conjured by monks using the blood of a slayer in an attempt to save the world. I'm a tool, a key. My life means nothing because I am only six months old. Six months old and I have memories of fifteen years of living. Lies, I have no mother, no sister, I never had crushes, I never even cried until today...''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (2012)
Dawn ran her slender fingers down the skirt of her white flowing dress and watched her delicately decorated fingernails brush against the silky fabric making a slight scratching noise. This was her big day. She was getting married. Dawn looked at her reflection shakily and brushed the few lone tears off her cheeks hoping they wouldn't smudge her makeup, she wanted to look perfect for Marc, but then again she was sad. She was too sad for a day that was supposed to be the happiest moment of her life. Those perfect fingers ran across her cheek and to her hair. She touched it lightly continuing to look at herself and sniffed again another torrent of tears coming on. She wanted her mother to see her; she wanted her sister to be there, hell she ever wanted her ever absent father to be there. She didn't have any biological family left and it hurt.
Giles, more of a father than her real father had been was walking her down the isle and giving her away. She was grateful for him and his generosity. She loved him like a father. Buffy had told her a long time ago that she had denounced her father. She said that Giles was more a father to them than Hank was. He hadn't come to his ex-wife's funeral. He had barely contacted them throughout those years. He was only at Buffy's funeral briefly. Giles had always been there and always would be.
'Buffy told me once she wanted me to walk her down the isle. At the time she was engaged to Spike.' He laughed a little and tucked one of Dawn's dangling curls behind her ear. 'But that scenario isn't so crazy. Buffy ended up marrying him, sort of anyway.' Giles looked nervous and ran his hand through his gray hair and smiled. 'I just hope that while I'm doing this for you I'm doing it for Buffy too. She never got her chance to do this.'
Dawn smiled and wrapped her arms around him pulling him close against her. 'I love you like a father, Giles.' She smiled and kissed his cheek. Buffy and I always knew you'd be there for us.'
Spike... That was a whole other subject after his sister's death he had left. She had been so certain he would kill himself at first. He was depressed worse than he had been when she'd died the first time only ten years earlier. Even though she'd begged him to stay it hadn't been enough after confessing that he loved her and Buffy, and always would, he told her Sunnydale was no longer somewhere he could live. Then he was gone. She hadn't seen him in two years. He wrote a letter every few years asking how she was and she even though she saw him hanging out at the cemetery on the anniversary of Buffy's death. It was her chasing shadows though.
"You look like an angel lil' bit."
Dawn froze and starred into the mirror. She couldn't see anything behind her but she knew it was him. No one else sounded like that. Almost not believing her ears Dawn spun around and almost screamed. There he was looking very much like he had two years ago. His hair was a little longer and the bleached locks were curled instead of slicked to his head, and he looked a little worn, but it was him. He was still wearing that duster his clothes all black except for a dark red shirt over his black t-shirt.
"Spike! I can't believe your here!" Dawn yelled already feeling the tears coming faster. She smiled through them and launched herself onto Spike hugging him close and breathing him in. He still smelled the same. She squeezed his duster between her fingers and almost laughed. "It's been two years. I didn't think I'd see you again."
"I know niblet." He whispered against her and returned the hug with vigor. "I couldn't let you get married without me after all I have to make sure this guy remembers my threat."
Dawn pulled back and grinned at him not caring that her makeup was smeared and running down her face or that she might have wrinkled her dress. Spike was family too. He had lived with them for a long time. He was like her brother. "I missed you so much."
Spike smiled at her and wiped her cheeks. "Look at there, all those tears. You can't cry like that on your wedding day." He wiped them away with his thumbs. "You're so grown up. Can't really call you lil' bit anymore."
"Why has it been so long?" Dawn asked. "I missed you. I worried about you."
"I had a few things to sort out, pet." Spike said and released her and crossed the room picking up a tissue and handing it to her. "I'm better though, not the best, but better."
"You still miss her." Spike didn't answer in fact he didn't even look at her. "I miss her too." A sharp knock at the door pulled her away from the door. "What?"
"Three minutes Dawn." It was Giles.
"All right. I'll be right out." Dawn wiped her eyes and looked at Spike. "Are you staying?"
"For a little while," Spike said forcing a grin on to his face. "I'm not much for churches, but I'll be at the reception." With that he kissed her on the cheek and opened the door to her room and stepped out. Dawn heard Giles gasp just before he pulled the absentee vampire into a tight hug.
"All right Buffy, Mom, I know you're watching. Wish me luck." Dawn looked toward the ceiling then back at her face. She smiled the tears gone.
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