CHAPTER SEVEN
Buffy pulls into her usual space at Sunnydale Heights and immediately notices the late model Honda Civic in the third space reserved for their apartment. It's after eight on a Friday night and such a sighting is not unusual at this hour or on this day of the week. By the time she enters her apartment and sees that a bottle of merlot has been uncorked on the kitchen counter and there are sounds of laughter coming from the living room, she comes to the conclusion that the other woman in Spike's life has come for a secret rendezvous.
Spike has not tried to hide the fact that this woman is second only in his affections for Buffy. They have known each other for almost a decade and Buffy is perfectly fine with their relationship. As a matter of fact, it's comforting for her to know that Spike connects with another human being, as much as he connects with her, with certain limitations.
She sees the woman curled up on the sofa next to her husband and crosses her arms. The woman's hair is brown and thick and is held back by an elastic band, a reminder of her younger and more childish years that she won't relinquish, though she blew out twenty-one candles on her last birthday cake. Her face is maturing, waning from the full moon of adolescence into something more refined, but still completely youthful. She is enjoying one of the perks of her age, swilling deep red wine from a tumbler usually reserved for milk and orange juice in the morning. Buffy's husband is having the same and the two of them are laughing together there on the sofa. Daniel is there too, providing the entertainment for the evening. It's his usual repertoire of half finished knock-knock jokes and attempts at singing Frere Jacques.
"Sunny lay matina, sunny lay matina. Din din don. Din din don," Daniel finishes.
"My son the bi-lingual," Spike comments proudly as he applauds. "Too bad it's French. Never could stand the sodding Frogs. But it's true what they say about Frog legs. They taste just like chicken."
"You know what he's going to ask now," the woman says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
"Daddy, you eat frog legs?" Daniel asks, true to form.
"A few times I did. They're a delicacy in France." And he actually has fed from the amphibian and the human kind and they both taste like chicken.
"What's a delicacy?" Daniel asks.
"Means something you could just eat up!" the woman says, scooping the little boy from the floor and feigning to be dining on his leg. "Munch munch munch!"
"Oh, stop. Stop!" the little boy begs through giggles.
The woman gathers him up in her lap, crossing her arms over his small chest and kissing him on his cheeks. "I've missed you, Little D."
"I told you not to call him that," Buffy intones. "It'll stick and before you know it we'll all be calling him Little D. And his name is Daniel."
The woman smiles as she hugs the child tightly. "Hey, big sis."
"Hey little sis," Buffy says, returning the smile.
Yes, Dawn is home.
In the kitchen, with a second bottle of merlot opened and being poured, Buffy lifts her glass for a fill.
"I didn't expect you until Thanksgiving," Buffy says, taking of sip of the wine, with guilt in her gut. "This wine is supposed to be for Thanksgiving dinner, by the way."
"Oh, come on, Buffy. I'm legal now. And I need something to cleanse my palate of all the Beast Light I drink at school."
"Hopefully not too much. That stuff's lethal."
"Hey, I go to the occasional frat party. And that's all they serve. I go to Discount U, remember? Besides. I didn't have much to do this weekend. Nothing much was going on. Just thought I'd come home and see how you were doing without me." Dawn takes a deep sip of her wine and afterwards her eyes are not only bloodshot, they're sad.
This tells Buffy that Dawn's most recent boyfriend is now the most recent ex in Dawn's life.
"Roy didn't work out?" Buffy asks.
Dawn takes another sip of her wine. "Roy cheated on me."
"No!" both Spike and Buffy express at the same time.
"Yeah. He was doing some girl in the north annex of the dorm. But I'm OK with it. I think we were just about done anyway. I mean, I never imagined that I would end up with someone named Roy."
"Yeah, but at one time you imagined your perfect happiness with someone named Travis," Spike says. "Don't know where you were going with that one."
"Oh! I saw him on TV! On C-SPAN!"
"I had no idea C-SPAN aired showcases on poofs," Spike sniffs
"No, Travis is a Senate page now. Or at least he was during the summer."
"That bloody wanker. I'll bet he didn't include kidnapper on his resume for that job."
"He's still really sorry about that." Dawn sees that Buffy and Spike are both looking at her as though she has just admitted to spending a two- day spa treatment with Saddam Hussein. "What, I've just talked to him! Through IM. Nothing else. We haven't seen each other face to face since I was in high school."
"But you're talking again?" Buffy asks.
"Travis is Travis. He's not his parents. That's something I have to remember. And that's something you guys have to remember. Travis never would have done what he did if it weren't for his crazy parents. Actually, his mother was the crazy one. His Dad's all right."
"You Summers women," Spike smirks as he takes a drink of his wine. "So bloody forgiving of your men. Dr. Phil would have a damn field day with you. The co-dependency and all."
"Spike, I said I was talking to Travis again, not moving in with him or making wedding plans." Dawn steadies her glare at her sister. "Everyone deserves a second chance."
There is so much Buffy can say in retort. Spike has committed many unforgivable acts, but never to Buffy. Sure, a decade ago he wanted to kill her and sure, he plotted to bring down the Scoobies by turning them against each other at one time, but he never harmed Buffy's family. Buffy can withstand the blows of the creepiest demon that wriggles out of the Hellmouth, but she cannot bodily replace the members of her family and bear the blows for them. Spike may have been a threat to Joyce when viewed by an uninvited Angel, but never in a million years, which vamps have, would Spike have harmed her. Flowers delivered to her door after her mother's death with no card confirmed that. And he has guarded Dawn, always. Buffy invited Spike into her house to protect Dawn and he did so because, she thought, he adored Buffy. Turned out he loved Little Bit as well, which meant the world to Dawn because she was so lately realized as The Key and uncertain about her life as The Key. And it meant the world to Buffy because she knew then it wasn't all about her.
Travis stole their child. His conscience intervened before the child was sacrificed, or else Spike would have eviscerated him and, Buffy thinks, she would have as well. Buffy cannot forget the sight of the empty cradle. The imprint of the baby's head. The child was gone, taken.
Buffy is ready to voice her opinion when she hears it in the words of her husband.
"Travis did a terrible thing," Spike says, massaging his wife's shoulders. "I forgive about as easily as Joan Rivers lets a knock-off fly on the red carpet of the Oscars. I'd break him into ten easy pieces if he showed up today. Do you really think he's worth a second chance?"
Dawn takes another drink. "He's really sorry." "Come on, Dawn. Are you sure you're not rebounding off a bad relationship with Roy?"
And there's that protective instinct. Buffy saw it a little when Spike was first living with them, when the threat of Glory was great and he was as strong as the Slayer. The night he talked to Dawn on the phone when she was at the sleepover. He was her big brother for life in that one conversation.
And Dawn is still seeking his guidance. She is hypnotized by the sweetness of Spike's tweak of her chin. He's never touched her with anything other than loving hands.
"You'll do the right thing. It's in your blood. You don't have a choice. You'll do the right thing because it's in you," Spike tells her.
"Because I'm the Slayer's sister?" Dawn pouts.
"No, because you've got good sense, you idiot. Familial ties have nothing to do with you making good choices. You're your own person."
"Spike's right," Buffy concurs. "You are your own person. I didn't say that enough when you were growing up, but you are. And I trust you to do what's right. Always."
"Aw, Buffy, that's sweet!" Dawn goes for an ultra-hug and almost begins to sob.
"And you are cut off from anymore alcoholic beverages tonight, Dawn," Buffy tells her little sister.
"Am I getting to schmaltzy?" Dawn asks over her sister's shoulder.
"No, you're getting too drunk. And I'm still your big sister."
Dawn told Buffy and Spike that she was visiting only to allow her sister and her brother-in-law a little time together, outside the house, without having to worry about Daniel. They chose for their date a familiar place, far from their current living space. A place set back in time, so that just by entering it they felt the flush of history staining their faces.
Now, with moonlight streaming through the open window, both naked on the floor, the hardwood floor they are rolling on doesn't seem to hurt as they climax simultaneously.
Afterwards they lie together under the tartan blanket which served as the spread for their picnic of Buffalo wings, blooming onion and potato skins, all purchased from the local Outback on the way to their date. All of that devoured, Spike buries his mouth in his wife's neck and kisses her as she pulls the blanket up around her shoulders.
Buffy sighs contentedly. "I had forgotten what this was like."
Spike stops mid-kiss. "Oh, come on. Just this past week we did it on the bathmat outside the shower, the kitchen table, the sofa. Almost in the lift, but some fool kids got on. What more do you want?"
"Not the sex, silly," Buffy says, wrapping Spike's arm around her and settling her chin down on his chest. "What it's like to stare out this window."
"It is a nice window. Nice view. The tree outside seems a bit larger than it used to."
"I can't believe that it's been six years since I had a bed here and I would lie on it and dream about a life like my neighbors," Buffy says, letting her fingers run the length of her husband's arm. "I would see them come home with their briefcases. You know, they'd be bringing work home with them. But there would be weekends when they wouldn't have briefcases. They'd have suitcases already packed and they'd put them into their cars and drive away. I'd just think about what that would be like. To be carefree just one weekend out of the year. I've never had that. Ever. Not since I was fifteen."
"You're not feeling carefree now? This is our night off."
"Our night off," Buffy laughs. "There are vampires rising while we lie here."
"Yeah, and we'll get them another night. We always do." Spike dips his head to her breasts and laps at her right nipple. "This is our night, pet."
"'As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in the world to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.'" Buffy says.
Spike lifts his head from his wife's breast and exhales a defeated breath. "Fine. I want some nookie and all you want to do is talk shop. That 'she alone must fight' doggerel is crap and you know it. You've known it since you first got your feet wet here in Sunnydale. With yappy Xander, latent lezbo Willow, Uncle Tom Giles. And let's not forget, the least likely candidate for Up With People, your ex, Angel."
"So you're saying, as far as Slayers go, I'm weak? That I need other people's help to be successful? If you want nookie, insulting me isn't a way to get it," Buffy says, rolling over on her side and away from Spike.
"Oh, for Christ's bloody sake, Buffy. All I'm saying is that you're the first Slayer in centuries to get it, you little, but always adorable, prat." He sweeps a hand over her shoulder, a gesture which she rejects in a shrug. "It's rubbish for one girl to stand against the evils of the world. That's why so many before you died before the quarter century mark. You're the first one to say, 'Hey, I need a little help in this.'"
"I never forged my own weapons, I never slept on a bed of bones."
"You're feeling inadequate when you fought a god. A god, Buffy! Surely you've read mythology. Men who've fought gods have been turned into constellations, to remind stargazers of their vanity. You fought a god. And lived to tell about it. And you're a star because of it." He kisses her still furrowed brow. He kisses her again and murmurs against her forehead. "I married you."
"Little helpless Buffy who needs legions of people to help her fight evil because she's not like the Slayers who came before her."
"I married you because I love you. I married you because I wanted to become one with you. I married you because I didn't want you to be the 'she alone' and come up against the likes of me one night. Forget the Big Bads of the world. The real opponent of the Slayer is the one who wants to make himself a legend by bagging the Slayer. I know. I know."
And she does know. And she is more than a little disturbed every time he brings the subject up, which isn't often. Sometimes months go by before she'll be sitting across from him at the kitchen table and he'll be critiquing a move she made in the graveyard and he'll liken it to what caused the defeat of the Chinese Slayer (whose name he never knew because he didn't speak Chinese) or the New York Slayer (Nikki, he thought, but he is always unsure about the spelling). He wants to keep her alive. He loves her with all the intensity of the sun, which he will never know. He knows and loves her.
She turns to him, traces the trench under his cheekbone with her thumb, sees the predatory glare that can be viewed as that of a hunter, but if he is on the hunt tonight, it's just for some confirmation that she will love him always as he does. She remembers the first time she ever saw that look and remembers how she felt. She saw it the first time when she was in chains and the thought of him loving her was repulsive to her. But now there's something else that's occurring to her. Something that's making her giggle. The first time she ever lusted for him.
"You probably don't remember this," Buffy says, laughing still. "When you were first living here. You took a shower one time. You left the door a little bit open. And as I was passing by, I saw you getting out of the shower. And I just about died."
"Why? Because I was so abhorrent you didn't want me near a place where you were naked at least once a day?"
"No. I just..." Buffy has to laugh again because it all seems silly now that she had such thoughts about her now husband at one time. "I was mad at first because you were naked and if Dawn had been the one walking down the hall and looking through the open doorway, she would have seen her first naked man. I thought, how dare he! But then you moved the towel away from...you know. And I saw how big you were. And for a while all I could think about was, 'I saw Spike's penis. I saw Spike's penis.' And I didn't think eww. I though ahh."
"So you were impressed," Spike says, peering under the blanket and congratulating his little corporal for his early, unheralded reconnaissance mission. And he sees that it's up for another tour of duty.
"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't be? But I wasn't a good judge. I mean, I'd been with Angel and I didn't see much of his, because we only had that one time. And Parker. Well, I don't even want to talk about him. And Riley, he was just such a Wonder Bread Guy I expected to see colored dots on his, but there was nothing special ops about his undercover agent. But God, when I saw you...I almost thought that if we ever did fuck, you'd kill me."
"You thought I'd kill you," Spike says, positioning himself between her legs. "By fucking you. Spike would off Slayer #3 by fucking her."
"I didn't think that literally. But I just thought that as big as you were and as little experience as I had, you'd be a challenge."
"And when I did fuck you?" Spike asks as he spears her in one long, satisfying stroke.
Buffy gasps at the sudden invasion. Her eyes meet his. She sees that same look in his eyes. He claims her all over again; just like he did the night they made love for the first time in this very room. No matter the officiating minister who made them man and wife, no matter the bling that shows the world they are married, they were coupled forever the first time they lay together. "You were just right," she says, letting her head loll back. "Goldilocks found a bed that was just right."
The bed is gone. They are making love on the floor and it is as perfect and true as the first time. Maybe even better now because they don't have to think about it. It just happens. And in the craziest places.
Even home.
Afterwards when they are clingy, exhausted and dizzy in each others arms, they don't speak for a long time. Hours of recreating memories have left them speechless about anything going on in the present and for a while they are so locked in the past that Buffy is breathless thinking of the intensity of the first time she called Spike William in the heat of passion. But as this phantom presses down on her, she is aware of others strolling the hallways. Just down the stairs is the room where Spike and her mother sat uncomfortably and for the longest time trying to make small talk. In that same room, a few years later, Buffy found her mother dead. In another room Buffy once pressed a wooden spoon to Spike's chest and nearly killed him. And in this same room, Spike threatened to take blood from Dawn, meant nothing of it, and fucked his future wife in the room where they are now, all in the same night.
"Honey," Buffy says after a long time with Spike nuzzling her neck. "I don't think I want to live here again."
"You don't?" he asks, smoothing her hair.
"No, because I want a place where we can make memories all our own. Just having Dawn home these past couple days, it's like it was before she went to college. With the inquisitive child figured in. But it all fits. I don't think we would fit in this house, not because it's too small, but because it already has too much in it." She lifts her head and her lips connect with her husband's. And after the kiss, as they still remain close, Buffy tells him, "It doesn't matter where we live, as long as I can go to sleep with you every night and wake up next to you every day. That's still the best thing."
"You know, I've never gotten over the guilt of not being there when you woke up after the first time," Spike feels compelled to say.
"Get over it," Buffy says, kissing him again. "You've more than made up for it."
Buffy and Spike get home late, or late for the two of them since they've been married with child, with the clock aiming towards the right side of 11:00 pm. In high spirits as they cross the threshold, they are immediately quieted by Dawn's grave expression.
"Guys, we have a problem," Dawn tells them as they enter the apartment.
"Is Daniel OK? Is he sick?" Buffy asks, sending her purse to the floor and willing herself not to ask, "Is he gone?"
"Daniel's fine. Now. But he wasn't about two hours ago."
"What happened?" Buffy and Spike ask together.
"Holy shit," Dawn says, pressing her palms against her denim clad thighs. "Don't freak out, but remember when we were having the big discussion about Travis in the kitchen last night? He heard the word kidnap and he wanted to know what that meant."
"Oh God..." Buffy says. "What did you tell him?"
Dawn puts her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and shrugs. "What I could. That it means someone takes someone away."
"And, of course, he asked if he had ever been kidnapped," Spike asks.
"Yeah," Dawn replies, staring shyly at the floor. "But when I told him what it meant, he knew that he had been kidnapped at one time. He heard enough of the conversation."
"Was he upset?" Buffy asks.
"No, not really. Because I told him something."
"Oh God, Dawn." Buffy gasps. "If the V word came up or the S word came up---
"No, no, nothing like that. I told him that he would never be taken from us again because we love him and we'll keep him safe forever. But you know, he didn't keep asking why he was taken. I didn't know what to tell him. So I just said that he was so cute someone else wanted him to be his son and it didn't work out. You two took him back and everything was fine."
"But did he believe you?" Buffy asks.
Dawn's lips form a straight line. "He stopped asking me about it fifteen minutes ago. He wanted me to tell him everything would be OK and I told him everything would be OK until he went to sleep," Dawn says in a voice reminiscent of the spirits Buffy and Spike visited that night at the old place. The brown irises of Dawn's eyes are suddenly adrift in tears and she looks skyward as she pretends she's not starting to cry and fans the telltale moisture away with her hands. "But I know one thing. I'm not going to talk to Travis again. That talk I had with Daniel brought it all back. How angry I was and how angry I still am that Travis used me to get to Daniel. I love that little boy. I love him so much. And I can't imagine what my life would be like without him these past five years. As much as I get irritated with his questions and as much as I dislike having to share my old room with him, he's just the best kid."
Buffy and Spike don't have to be told that. They couldn't have asked for a more loving and dutiful child. They have to offer smiles to each other in silent congratulation of a job well done.
"But, oh well," Dawn says, collecting tears in the crook of her index finger. "How was your night? Did you guys have fun?"
"Yeah, we did," Buffy says, catching her husband's hand. She gives Spike a sly wink.
That wink makes plain what their evening entailed, much like the pink robe did in the aftermath of Buffy and Spike's afternoon delight while Dawn was at school. She now feels that she's really home.
"Where'd you guys go?" Dawn asks.
"Oh, we found a place where there were some spooks," Spike says, his gaze locking with his lady love's.
"So, on your night off, you were ghost-busting?" Dawn asks.
Buffy looks deep into her husband's eyes. She almost giggles again remembering the story she told. But she almost sobs again remembering the vacant stare in her mother's eyes as she lay in the living room of the house they cannot afford and have decided they couldn't live in again. Oh, how Dawn cried when she found out...
"You can't kill ghosts, Dawn," Buffy says. "They linger on, good or bad. But sometimes they do show us the way."
Buffy pulls into her usual space at Sunnydale Heights and immediately notices the late model Honda Civic in the third space reserved for their apartment. It's after eight on a Friday night and such a sighting is not unusual at this hour or on this day of the week. By the time she enters her apartment and sees that a bottle of merlot has been uncorked on the kitchen counter and there are sounds of laughter coming from the living room, she comes to the conclusion that the other woman in Spike's life has come for a secret rendezvous.
Spike has not tried to hide the fact that this woman is second only in his affections for Buffy. They have known each other for almost a decade and Buffy is perfectly fine with their relationship. As a matter of fact, it's comforting for her to know that Spike connects with another human being, as much as he connects with her, with certain limitations.
She sees the woman curled up on the sofa next to her husband and crosses her arms. The woman's hair is brown and thick and is held back by an elastic band, a reminder of her younger and more childish years that she won't relinquish, though she blew out twenty-one candles on her last birthday cake. Her face is maturing, waning from the full moon of adolescence into something more refined, but still completely youthful. She is enjoying one of the perks of her age, swilling deep red wine from a tumbler usually reserved for milk and orange juice in the morning. Buffy's husband is having the same and the two of them are laughing together there on the sofa. Daniel is there too, providing the entertainment for the evening. It's his usual repertoire of half finished knock-knock jokes and attempts at singing Frere Jacques.
"Sunny lay matina, sunny lay matina. Din din don. Din din don," Daniel finishes.
"My son the bi-lingual," Spike comments proudly as he applauds. "Too bad it's French. Never could stand the sodding Frogs. But it's true what they say about Frog legs. They taste just like chicken."
"You know what he's going to ask now," the woman says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
"Daddy, you eat frog legs?" Daniel asks, true to form.
"A few times I did. They're a delicacy in France." And he actually has fed from the amphibian and the human kind and they both taste like chicken.
"What's a delicacy?" Daniel asks.
"Means something you could just eat up!" the woman says, scooping the little boy from the floor and feigning to be dining on his leg. "Munch munch munch!"
"Oh, stop. Stop!" the little boy begs through giggles.
The woman gathers him up in her lap, crossing her arms over his small chest and kissing him on his cheeks. "I've missed you, Little D."
"I told you not to call him that," Buffy intones. "It'll stick and before you know it we'll all be calling him Little D. And his name is Daniel."
The woman smiles as she hugs the child tightly. "Hey, big sis."
"Hey little sis," Buffy says, returning the smile.
Yes, Dawn is home.
In the kitchen, with a second bottle of merlot opened and being poured, Buffy lifts her glass for a fill.
"I didn't expect you until Thanksgiving," Buffy says, taking of sip of the wine, with guilt in her gut. "This wine is supposed to be for Thanksgiving dinner, by the way."
"Oh, come on, Buffy. I'm legal now. And I need something to cleanse my palate of all the Beast Light I drink at school."
"Hopefully not too much. That stuff's lethal."
"Hey, I go to the occasional frat party. And that's all they serve. I go to Discount U, remember? Besides. I didn't have much to do this weekend. Nothing much was going on. Just thought I'd come home and see how you were doing without me." Dawn takes a deep sip of her wine and afterwards her eyes are not only bloodshot, they're sad.
This tells Buffy that Dawn's most recent boyfriend is now the most recent ex in Dawn's life.
"Roy didn't work out?" Buffy asks.
Dawn takes another sip of her wine. "Roy cheated on me."
"No!" both Spike and Buffy express at the same time.
"Yeah. He was doing some girl in the north annex of the dorm. But I'm OK with it. I think we were just about done anyway. I mean, I never imagined that I would end up with someone named Roy."
"Yeah, but at one time you imagined your perfect happiness with someone named Travis," Spike says. "Don't know where you were going with that one."
"Oh! I saw him on TV! On C-SPAN!"
"I had no idea C-SPAN aired showcases on poofs," Spike sniffs
"No, Travis is a Senate page now. Or at least he was during the summer."
"That bloody wanker. I'll bet he didn't include kidnapper on his resume for that job."
"He's still really sorry about that." Dawn sees that Buffy and Spike are both looking at her as though she has just admitted to spending a two- day spa treatment with Saddam Hussein. "What, I've just talked to him! Through IM. Nothing else. We haven't seen each other face to face since I was in high school."
"But you're talking again?" Buffy asks.
"Travis is Travis. He's not his parents. That's something I have to remember. And that's something you guys have to remember. Travis never would have done what he did if it weren't for his crazy parents. Actually, his mother was the crazy one. His Dad's all right."
"You Summers women," Spike smirks as he takes a drink of his wine. "So bloody forgiving of your men. Dr. Phil would have a damn field day with you. The co-dependency and all."
"Spike, I said I was talking to Travis again, not moving in with him or making wedding plans." Dawn steadies her glare at her sister. "Everyone deserves a second chance."
There is so much Buffy can say in retort. Spike has committed many unforgivable acts, but never to Buffy. Sure, a decade ago he wanted to kill her and sure, he plotted to bring down the Scoobies by turning them against each other at one time, but he never harmed Buffy's family. Buffy can withstand the blows of the creepiest demon that wriggles out of the Hellmouth, but she cannot bodily replace the members of her family and bear the blows for them. Spike may have been a threat to Joyce when viewed by an uninvited Angel, but never in a million years, which vamps have, would Spike have harmed her. Flowers delivered to her door after her mother's death with no card confirmed that. And he has guarded Dawn, always. Buffy invited Spike into her house to protect Dawn and he did so because, she thought, he adored Buffy. Turned out he loved Little Bit as well, which meant the world to Dawn because she was so lately realized as The Key and uncertain about her life as The Key. And it meant the world to Buffy because she knew then it wasn't all about her.
Travis stole their child. His conscience intervened before the child was sacrificed, or else Spike would have eviscerated him and, Buffy thinks, she would have as well. Buffy cannot forget the sight of the empty cradle. The imprint of the baby's head. The child was gone, taken.
Buffy is ready to voice her opinion when she hears it in the words of her husband.
"Travis did a terrible thing," Spike says, massaging his wife's shoulders. "I forgive about as easily as Joan Rivers lets a knock-off fly on the red carpet of the Oscars. I'd break him into ten easy pieces if he showed up today. Do you really think he's worth a second chance?"
Dawn takes another drink. "He's really sorry." "Come on, Dawn. Are you sure you're not rebounding off a bad relationship with Roy?"
And there's that protective instinct. Buffy saw it a little when Spike was first living with them, when the threat of Glory was great and he was as strong as the Slayer. The night he talked to Dawn on the phone when she was at the sleepover. He was her big brother for life in that one conversation.
And Dawn is still seeking his guidance. She is hypnotized by the sweetness of Spike's tweak of her chin. He's never touched her with anything other than loving hands.
"You'll do the right thing. It's in your blood. You don't have a choice. You'll do the right thing because it's in you," Spike tells her.
"Because I'm the Slayer's sister?" Dawn pouts.
"No, because you've got good sense, you idiot. Familial ties have nothing to do with you making good choices. You're your own person."
"Spike's right," Buffy concurs. "You are your own person. I didn't say that enough when you were growing up, but you are. And I trust you to do what's right. Always."
"Aw, Buffy, that's sweet!" Dawn goes for an ultra-hug and almost begins to sob.
"And you are cut off from anymore alcoholic beverages tonight, Dawn," Buffy tells her little sister.
"Am I getting to schmaltzy?" Dawn asks over her sister's shoulder.
"No, you're getting too drunk. And I'm still your big sister."
Dawn told Buffy and Spike that she was visiting only to allow her sister and her brother-in-law a little time together, outside the house, without having to worry about Daniel. They chose for their date a familiar place, far from their current living space. A place set back in time, so that just by entering it they felt the flush of history staining their faces.
Now, with moonlight streaming through the open window, both naked on the floor, the hardwood floor they are rolling on doesn't seem to hurt as they climax simultaneously.
Afterwards they lie together under the tartan blanket which served as the spread for their picnic of Buffalo wings, blooming onion and potato skins, all purchased from the local Outback on the way to their date. All of that devoured, Spike buries his mouth in his wife's neck and kisses her as she pulls the blanket up around her shoulders.
Buffy sighs contentedly. "I had forgotten what this was like."
Spike stops mid-kiss. "Oh, come on. Just this past week we did it on the bathmat outside the shower, the kitchen table, the sofa. Almost in the lift, but some fool kids got on. What more do you want?"
"Not the sex, silly," Buffy says, wrapping Spike's arm around her and settling her chin down on his chest. "What it's like to stare out this window."
"It is a nice window. Nice view. The tree outside seems a bit larger than it used to."
"I can't believe that it's been six years since I had a bed here and I would lie on it and dream about a life like my neighbors," Buffy says, letting her fingers run the length of her husband's arm. "I would see them come home with their briefcases. You know, they'd be bringing work home with them. But there would be weekends when they wouldn't have briefcases. They'd have suitcases already packed and they'd put them into their cars and drive away. I'd just think about what that would be like. To be carefree just one weekend out of the year. I've never had that. Ever. Not since I was fifteen."
"You're not feeling carefree now? This is our night off."
"Our night off," Buffy laughs. "There are vampires rising while we lie here."
"Yeah, and we'll get them another night. We always do." Spike dips his head to her breasts and laps at her right nipple. "This is our night, pet."
"'As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in the world to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.'" Buffy says.
Spike lifts his head from his wife's breast and exhales a defeated breath. "Fine. I want some nookie and all you want to do is talk shop. That 'she alone must fight' doggerel is crap and you know it. You've known it since you first got your feet wet here in Sunnydale. With yappy Xander, latent lezbo Willow, Uncle Tom Giles. And let's not forget, the least likely candidate for Up With People, your ex, Angel."
"So you're saying, as far as Slayers go, I'm weak? That I need other people's help to be successful? If you want nookie, insulting me isn't a way to get it," Buffy says, rolling over on her side and away from Spike.
"Oh, for Christ's bloody sake, Buffy. All I'm saying is that you're the first Slayer in centuries to get it, you little, but always adorable, prat." He sweeps a hand over her shoulder, a gesture which she rejects in a shrug. "It's rubbish for one girl to stand against the evils of the world. That's why so many before you died before the quarter century mark. You're the first one to say, 'Hey, I need a little help in this.'"
"I never forged my own weapons, I never slept on a bed of bones."
"You're feeling inadequate when you fought a god. A god, Buffy! Surely you've read mythology. Men who've fought gods have been turned into constellations, to remind stargazers of their vanity. You fought a god. And lived to tell about it. And you're a star because of it." He kisses her still furrowed brow. He kisses her again and murmurs against her forehead. "I married you."
"Little helpless Buffy who needs legions of people to help her fight evil because she's not like the Slayers who came before her."
"I married you because I love you. I married you because I wanted to become one with you. I married you because I didn't want you to be the 'she alone' and come up against the likes of me one night. Forget the Big Bads of the world. The real opponent of the Slayer is the one who wants to make himself a legend by bagging the Slayer. I know. I know."
And she does know. And she is more than a little disturbed every time he brings the subject up, which isn't often. Sometimes months go by before she'll be sitting across from him at the kitchen table and he'll be critiquing a move she made in the graveyard and he'll liken it to what caused the defeat of the Chinese Slayer (whose name he never knew because he didn't speak Chinese) or the New York Slayer (Nikki, he thought, but he is always unsure about the spelling). He wants to keep her alive. He loves her with all the intensity of the sun, which he will never know. He knows and loves her.
She turns to him, traces the trench under his cheekbone with her thumb, sees the predatory glare that can be viewed as that of a hunter, but if he is on the hunt tonight, it's just for some confirmation that she will love him always as he does. She remembers the first time she ever saw that look and remembers how she felt. She saw it the first time when she was in chains and the thought of him loving her was repulsive to her. But now there's something else that's occurring to her. Something that's making her giggle. The first time she ever lusted for him.
"You probably don't remember this," Buffy says, laughing still. "When you were first living here. You took a shower one time. You left the door a little bit open. And as I was passing by, I saw you getting out of the shower. And I just about died."
"Why? Because I was so abhorrent you didn't want me near a place where you were naked at least once a day?"
"No. I just..." Buffy has to laugh again because it all seems silly now that she had such thoughts about her now husband at one time. "I was mad at first because you were naked and if Dawn had been the one walking down the hall and looking through the open doorway, she would have seen her first naked man. I thought, how dare he! But then you moved the towel away from...you know. And I saw how big you were. And for a while all I could think about was, 'I saw Spike's penis. I saw Spike's penis.' And I didn't think eww. I though ahh."
"So you were impressed," Spike says, peering under the blanket and congratulating his little corporal for his early, unheralded reconnaissance mission. And he sees that it's up for another tour of duty.
"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't be? But I wasn't a good judge. I mean, I'd been with Angel and I didn't see much of his, because we only had that one time. And Parker. Well, I don't even want to talk about him. And Riley, he was just such a Wonder Bread Guy I expected to see colored dots on his, but there was nothing special ops about his undercover agent. But God, when I saw you...I almost thought that if we ever did fuck, you'd kill me."
"You thought I'd kill you," Spike says, positioning himself between her legs. "By fucking you. Spike would off Slayer #3 by fucking her."
"I didn't think that literally. But I just thought that as big as you were and as little experience as I had, you'd be a challenge."
"And when I did fuck you?" Spike asks as he spears her in one long, satisfying stroke.
Buffy gasps at the sudden invasion. Her eyes meet his. She sees that same look in his eyes. He claims her all over again; just like he did the night they made love for the first time in this very room. No matter the officiating minister who made them man and wife, no matter the bling that shows the world they are married, they were coupled forever the first time they lay together. "You were just right," she says, letting her head loll back. "Goldilocks found a bed that was just right."
The bed is gone. They are making love on the floor and it is as perfect and true as the first time. Maybe even better now because they don't have to think about it. It just happens. And in the craziest places.
Even home.
Afterwards when they are clingy, exhausted and dizzy in each others arms, they don't speak for a long time. Hours of recreating memories have left them speechless about anything going on in the present and for a while they are so locked in the past that Buffy is breathless thinking of the intensity of the first time she called Spike William in the heat of passion. But as this phantom presses down on her, she is aware of others strolling the hallways. Just down the stairs is the room where Spike and her mother sat uncomfortably and for the longest time trying to make small talk. In that same room, a few years later, Buffy found her mother dead. In another room Buffy once pressed a wooden spoon to Spike's chest and nearly killed him. And in this same room, Spike threatened to take blood from Dawn, meant nothing of it, and fucked his future wife in the room where they are now, all in the same night.
"Honey," Buffy says after a long time with Spike nuzzling her neck. "I don't think I want to live here again."
"You don't?" he asks, smoothing her hair.
"No, because I want a place where we can make memories all our own. Just having Dawn home these past couple days, it's like it was before she went to college. With the inquisitive child figured in. But it all fits. I don't think we would fit in this house, not because it's too small, but because it already has too much in it." She lifts her head and her lips connect with her husband's. And after the kiss, as they still remain close, Buffy tells him, "It doesn't matter where we live, as long as I can go to sleep with you every night and wake up next to you every day. That's still the best thing."
"You know, I've never gotten over the guilt of not being there when you woke up after the first time," Spike feels compelled to say.
"Get over it," Buffy says, kissing him again. "You've more than made up for it."
Buffy and Spike get home late, or late for the two of them since they've been married with child, with the clock aiming towards the right side of 11:00 pm. In high spirits as they cross the threshold, they are immediately quieted by Dawn's grave expression.
"Guys, we have a problem," Dawn tells them as they enter the apartment.
"Is Daniel OK? Is he sick?" Buffy asks, sending her purse to the floor and willing herself not to ask, "Is he gone?"
"Daniel's fine. Now. But he wasn't about two hours ago."
"What happened?" Buffy and Spike ask together.
"Holy shit," Dawn says, pressing her palms against her denim clad thighs. "Don't freak out, but remember when we were having the big discussion about Travis in the kitchen last night? He heard the word kidnap and he wanted to know what that meant."
"Oh God..." Buffy says. "What did you tell him?"
Dawn puts her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and shrugs. "What I could. That it means someone takes someone away."
"And, of course, he asked if he had ever been kidnapped," Spike asks.
"Yeah," Dawn replies, staring shyly at the floor. "But when I told him what it meant, he knew that he had been kidnapped at one time. He heard enough of the conversation."
"Was he upset?" Buffy asks.
"No, not really. Because I told him something."
"Oh God, Dawn." Buffy gasps. "If the V word came up or the S word came up---
"No, no, nothing like that. I told him that he would never be taken from us again because we love him and we'll keep him safe forever. But you know, he didn't keep asking why he was taken. I didn't know what to tell him. So I just said that he was so cute someone else wanted him to be his son and it didn't work out. You two took him back and everything was fine."
"But did he believe you?" Buffy asks.
Dawn's lips form a straight line. "He stopped asking me about it fifteen minutes ago. He wanted me to tell him everything would be OK and I told him everything would be OK until he went to sleep," Dawn says in a voice reminiscent of the spirits Buffy and Spike visited that night at the old place. The brown irises of Dawn's eyes are suddenly adrift in tears and she looks skyward as she pretends she's not starting to cry and fans the telltale moisture away with her hands. "But I know one thing. I'm not going to talk to Travis again. That talk I had with Daniel brought it all back. How angry I was and how angry I still am that Travis used me to get to Daniel. I love that little boy. I love him so much. And I can't imagine what my life would be like without him these past five years. As much as I get irritated with his questions and as much as I dislike having to share my old room with him, he's just the best kid."
Buffy and Spike don't have to be told that. They couldn't have asked for a more loving and dutiful child. They have to offer smiles to each other in silent congratulation of a job well done.
"But, oh well," Dawn says, collecting tears in the crook of her index finger. "How was your night? Did you guys have fun?"
"Yeah, we did," Buffy says, catching her husband's hand. She gives Spike a sly wink.
That wink makes plain what their evening entailed, much like the pink robe did in the aftermath of Buffy and Spike's afternoon delight while Dawn was at school. She now feels that she's really home.
"Where'd you guys go?" Dawn asks.
"Oh, we found a place where there were some spooks," Spike says, his gaze locking with his lady love's.
"So, on your night off, you were ghost-busting?" Dawn asks.
Buffy looks deep into her husband's eyes. She almost giggles again remembering the story she told. But she almost sobs again remembering the vacant stare in her mother's eyes as she lay in the living room of the house they cannot afford and have decided they couldn't live in again. Oh, how Dawn cried when she found out...
"You can't kill ghosts, Dawn," Buffy says. "They linger on, good or bad. But sometimes they do show us the way."