Sweet Bit
Disclaimer - Chapter 1...that's all I'm going to say. Notes - Right now, I'm too tired to come up with something to put in the author note section so I'll settle for this: Author's Notes can sooo go to hell right now!
~*~*~*~
Ch 4 - Saturday, Oh Saturday
10:23pm - Friday night
Almost needless to say, Lydia ended up with that leather jacket she had wanted. Buffy hadn't exactally caved in, though. She had gone out of the store claiming to need to use the restroom and when she came back she found that Spike had bought the jacket while she was gone. Buffy should have known that giving him money earlier hadn't been a good idea. When the trio had gotten home, Lydia was passed out in the seat she had been previously sitting in. Now, however, she was half sitting, half lying down. To be honest, her position didn't look all that comfortable, but if it suited her, it was fine with them. After Buffy pulled into the driveway, Spike got out and took the small child out of the car. She had groaned in a tired manner, but she never actually awoke from her slumber. Spike, for one, was glad for this. He figured that at ten thirty, it would be hell trying to get her back to sleep if she were to wake up again.
Spike carried her into the house and up to Dawn's room, where she was staying for now. He lay her down on the bed and stood there for a moment. She looked so sweet and adorable like that. He leaned down and kissed the girl on the forhead before turning and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
About thirty minutes later, when Dawn walked in the front door, Spike decided that he should probably warn her. "Dawn,"
The teenager turned to look at him, "Yeah?"
"There's a small and...if awoken, possibly vicious child in your bed."
Dawn frowned. She had stayed at a friend's house the night before. "I leave for one night, and look at everything that happens! You suddenly come up with a seven year old daughter and she is currently occupying my bed." She shook her head, "I should stick around more. Weird things happen when I'm gone." She muttered as she made her way up the stairs.
~*~*~*~
2:38am - Early Saturday Morning
Lydia had awoken in a strange place. Well, it wasn't really that strange; she had slept here last night. However, it took her a few minutes to realize just where she was. After this was done, she was suddenly encountered with the memory of the dream that had awoken her. She had been with her mom and dad in the dream. Then, they disappeared. That was really all that she could remember. Her parents had been there and gone, and in an instant, she was standing there, in the vision of her mind, all alone and lost.
She could feel the tears coming to her eyes. This was actually really uncharacteristic for her. She had cried about three times since she had gotten here. She figured it was the fact that she was missing her mommy and daddy. Or...the daddy that she thought knew since she was technically with her father. She let the tears slide down her cheeks but she wasn't going to stay in here for any longer. She threw the blanket back off of her and slid out of the bed. She walked towards the door, but not without stepping on someone else that was in the room. Lydia had almost screamed at the somewhat loud, "Ow!" that had seemingly come from the floor, but she withheld the urge. She leaned down and saw that it was the girl from the mall earlier. "Sorry..." She whispered and continued on her journey to exit the room.
Dawn rubbed her hand, which the child had stepped on. "Couldn't she see that someone was trying to sleep here?" Then she realized something. "My bed! It's kid-free!" With that, the teen girl got up and practically jumped into her bed, thankful for not having to sleep on the floor anymore.
Lydia slowly and blindly made her way towards her destination. She finally reached the end of the hallway and realized that this was going to take forever. She had to get down the stairs now. Then, she would have to find the door to the basement and go down those stairs. At least the stairs that led from the first story of the house to the second had a bit of moonlight shining in on them. The basement stairs wouldn't have any light for her at all. She sighed and continued her way slowly descending the stairs.
Lydia was glad to find that she made it down the first flight of stairs that she had to get down with success. As she drew nearer to the basement door, she groaned inwardly and decided how she would get down the next set of steps safely. When she finally reached the door to the basement, she opened the door and got down on her knees. She felt around for the first step and sat down. She slowly scooted her way down, so as not to fall, trip, wake her father and end up with a broken neck. It took a few minutes, but Lydia finally got to the bottom of the stairs and she felt her feet touch the cold concrete. Before actually getting to the point of standing, she drew her feet back for a moment. Lydia finally rolled her eyes at herself and took charge of her situation. She stood up, on the freezing concrete and ran as quickly as she could to her father's bed. She had to figure out which side he was on before she climbed into the bed. She nodded when she figured it out and climbed into the bed on the side he was on. Spike was more or less actually towards the center of the bed, but Lydia climbed into the bed on the side which he was facing.
Spike was beginning to wonder if being a light sleeper was such a good thing after all. He felt something moving next to him and couldn't help but let his curiosity to get to him. He slowly opened his eyes and let the adjust to the darkness. This didn't take long, and he quickly saw the small figure that lay next to him. How long had she been there? He figured not long, but he could actually have been wrong, though since he was such a light sleeper, he doubted this. Spike wondered if she were awake when he heard something. That something sounded an awful lot like a sniff of someone who had been crying. There were a few times when Spike could almost swear that this girl was not his child. However, then he would remember that she was only seven years old. "Lydia?" He whispered, so as to not wake her if she was asleep.
"Daddy? Did I wake you up?"
"No, pet, I was already awake." He lied. Actually he'd been having a pretty good dream before she climbed into bed with him.
"Oh." She said simply, quickly wiping the tears that were pouring from her eyes away. Lydia soon found that this was a very useless thing to do. The tears she would brush away would only be replaced by fresh ones. "Daddy...I know you said that...that crying doesn't..." She sniffed, "Doesn't get us anywhere but...but..." She let out a sound that wasn't far from a whimper. "Daddy, is was bad! It was really bad!" The child said, crying into the sheet that she had wrapped around herself.
Spike frowned. What the hell was the kid going on about? "What was so horrible, luv?"
Lydia sniffed a few times and tried to stop her tears in another futile attempt before saying, "The...the dream..."
Spike had thought that her saying anything at all would have clarified things. This statement actually managed to confuse him even more. "What dream?"
"The one I just had."
"What happened in your dream, pet?" Spike asked, sitting up. He pulled her into his lap.
"Me, and you, and mummy were all standing there. Then...mommy disappeared, just...poof! And she was gone. Then...the same thing happened again, but it was you instead of mummy. And...then...I was left all alone...and confused...and...and..." That was all she managed before she lay her head on her father's chest, letting the tears come still. "I know...that I'm not supposed to cry but...daddy...it was mean and unpleasant and...I don't think I could take that...being all alone and everything...it's just..." She didn't finish her sentence.
Spike sat there in silence for a moment. He closed his eyes and pulled the girl closer to him. He knew that he had told her before that crying got you nowhere, but how could you tell a child to not cry after they dreamed that their mother and father just disappeared suddenly? Spike didn't know if other people--parents, actually--could do this, but he knew he wasn't about to tell his seven year old daughter that she wasn't supposed to cry over the dream. "Lydia..."
She looked up at him, her cheeks tear-stained now. "Hmm?"
"You know it was just a dream, right?"
She shook her head a little. "Not really...It kind of happened like that..." She muttered, but suddenly remembered that he wasn't supposed to know.
"What?" Spike frowned. Had the child gone nuts?
She shook her head again, "Nothing..."
"Alright..."
After a few moments of silence between the two, Lydia declared that she was tired and she climbed out of her father's lap, getting next to him in the bed. Spike didn't think she had gone to sleep just yet and decided that he couldn't stand it any longer. He just had to ask her. "What's your mother's name, pet?" There was no answer and Spike knew that Lydia had fallen asleep. She really had been tired. He smiled and lay down himself. "Good night, Sweet Bit." He muttered into the child's hair as her kissed her on top of the head before closing his eyes and hoping for a quick slumber to engulf him soon.
~*~*~*~
6:08am - Saturday Morning
Lydia had been lying in the bed for a few minutes, fully awake. She had been trying to figure out what she was going to do. At first, going back to sleep seemed like a good thing, but she found that this would take too long for her liking. So she had been lying there for about ten minutes. She sighed and sat up, looking around the basement-room. She grinned when she saw the television set that was on the wall opposite the bed. She hopped off the bed and ran over to the tv, turning it on and flipping the channels until she found whatever it was she was looking for. She stood there for a moment, checking the volume. She shook her head. It wasn't loud enough, so she turned it up a bit. It would have been a bit, had she not accidentally turn the volume dial a little far. She clapped her hands over her ears for a few minutes before realizing that it would be she who had to turn it down. She did this quickly, but she only turned it down to the point of it not completely blaring, however, it was still fairly loud. She grinned and ran back to the bed, climbing up and jumping up and down on the bed. "Daddy! Daddy! Wake up! Wake up!"
Spike groaned but didn't actually show signs of being awake.
"Daaadddy! Wake UP!" Lydia shouted, leaning down towards her father's ear.
Spike sat up immediately, due to the extremely loud sound in his ear. "What the bloody hell?"
"Didn't Buffy say that you couldn't talk like that?" Lydia asked, sitting on her knees with her head tilted slightly to the side.
"What--Oh. Right. Forgot about that. And to be honest, I kind of forgot you were in here. Wait...why were you yelling in my ear?"
"Be-caaaause! You wouldn't wake up! I had to get you up somehow, didn't I?" Lydia rolled her eyes.
"But...why did I need to get up, it's--" He glanced at the clock that was on the bedside table, "Six in the damn morning, child!"
"So?" Lydia asked indignantly. After a moment's pause, she repeated what she had said only moments ago. "Wait...I thought you weren't supposed to talk like that." Now she sounded confused.
Spike shook his head. "Lydia...luv, why did you wake me up at six in the morning?"
"It's Saturday." She said simply, as if he should know why otherwise.
Spike frowned. "I thought that you were supposed to sleep in on the weekends."
"No, silly! You get up early!"
"But...why?"
Lydia rolled her eyes. "You're really bad at this parenting thing. Saturday equals Saturday Morning Cartoons, duh!"
"Right...of course." Spike fell back onto the pillow, hoping the girl would let him lay there and "watch" the cartoons.
"I don't think so, mister! You've gotta sit up, or you'll be falling asleep in the middle of everything. Then you won't understand anything."
"I'm not going to understand anything anyway, sweetie."
"Yes you will. I'm going to explain the basics of all the shows in the comercials." She beamed up at her now sitting up father.
"Great." Spike managed through clentched teeth.
~*~*~*~
10:00am - Late Saturday Morning
Spike couldn't believe that he had actually managed to bear through it all. He had actually handled four hours of cartoons. Four hours, that was, of actually spending time alone with his daughter--Or at least that's how he tried to look at it. He was still trying to understand how he had sat through four hours of bad dubbing and annoying little high pitched voices. Maybe he would never understand it, but he really hoped he would have to do it again. Spike had the feeling that he was going to have to do this every weekend. This sucked. Saturdays used to be cool, now...they would suck! Life has a funny sense of humor, you know?
Lydia had gone upstairs to get something to eat for breakfast when the cartoons had ended. Spike heard the door open as well as someone coming down the stairs very slowly and carefully. He soon saw the small form of his daughter with a paper plate which had what looked like two slices of chocolate cake on it. She was holding the plate with both hands and walking down the stairs very slowly, so as to not drop it. She finally got over to the bed and set the plate down. "Breakfast?" She asked, grinning.
Spike couldn't help but laugh. The child was absolutely priceless. "Who gave you the cake?"
"Some guy...I think he said his name waaaassss....um...." The little girl's eyes darted from left to right as if she were physically searching her brain for the guy's name. "Xander!" She shouted, nodding. "Yeah...that was it."
Spike rose an eyebrow. What the hell was he doing here? Spike shrugged and watched Lydia as she climbed up on the bed once more. After she had gotten situated, the plate between the two, Lydia looked up at her father. "Are you going to eat any of it?"
"I'm actually not all that hungry, pet."
"Oh." Even though it was only over a piece of cake, the child seemed quite crestfallen.
It was almost as if she had been hoping to please her father coming back with cake and all. Spike was a little surprised when he looked back that he picked up on the girl's disappointment as quickly as he did, but he quickly said, "Then again...." All whilst looking at the cake.
Lydia brightened slightly. "You're going to eat it?"
Spike nodded. "Yeah...I am."
"Were you lyyying before when you said you weren't hungry?" Lydia sing- songed the one single word.
"No...no, I wasn't lying. I really wasn't hungry, but then..."
"You saw me eating and you got hungry?" The seven year old suggested.
Spike nodded, "Yeah, something like that."
~*~*~*~
2:08pm - Saturday Afternoon
Lydia had gone upstairs for awhile and played dolls with Dawn. It was almost like Dawn had been wanting an excuse to pull the old dolls out and play with them again. So, Dawn hadn't been totally grudging and hating playing with girl. Lydia put the doll she had in her hand down.
"What's wrong?" Dawn asked.
"Is there anyone else that could play with us, Dawn?"
"Not unless you can get your dad to play. Everyone else is gone right now."
"Oh." After a moment, she picked up her doll, a few random accessories, and grabbed Dawn's hand. "Come on, let's go downstais."
Dawn greabbed the doll that had been lying next to her and allowed the girl to pull her along. "I realy don't think that your dad is going to play dolls, Lydia."
"We'll see." She said, grinning as she looked over her shoulder at the older girl.
The pair loudly made their way down the stairs that lead to the basement. They were equally shocked when they didn't see Spike. Lydia shrugged and the girls sat on the floor and continued their game. The two girls had only just started playing again when Spike appeared. Where exactly that he had come from or previously been, they didn't know, or care. "Hi, daddy!" Lydia waved a bit at the man.
Spike could hardly believe what he was seeing. "Lydia, what are you doing?"
"Playing dolls, silly. Can't you tell?" She motioned towards the dolls she and don had in their hands as well as the car and a few other things they had brought down with them.
"Yes...I can see that's what you're doing, pet, but I can't understand why?"
"Because I wanted to and Dawn said that she'd play with me."
Dawn looked at Spike very seriously and said, "Just because the girl has a leather jacket, doesn't mean she can't play dolls."
"If I had anything to do with it--"
Dawn cut him off, "But ou don't. Plus, she's a seven year old girl!"
"Yes, but if I did have anything to do with this--"
"But you don't, so there's no use in thinking about what you would do under different circumstances." Dawn was not backing off of this one. She was determined to win this time.
"Fine, but there won't be anythign else that she does that I can't control." He then preceeded to mutter to himself, "I'll make sure of that."
Lydia looked at Spike, then to Dawn, and back to her father again. "Can you two please stop talking about me as if I'm not in the room?" She asked in a manner that only a young child could.
"Sorry, Lydia." Dawn said appologetically.
The platinum blond man kneeled down next to his daughter and ruffled her hair. "Won't happen again, Sweet Bit." Spike said, glancing at Dawn, almost as if he were trying to one-up her.
~*~*~*~
Disclaimer - Chapter 1...that's all I'm going to say. Notes - Right now, I'm too tired to come up with something to put in the author note section so I'll settle for this: Author's Notes can sooo go to hell right now!
~*~*~*~
Ch 4 - Saturday, Oh Saturday
10:23pm - Friday night
Almost needless to say, Lydia ended up with that leather jacket she had wanted. Buffy hadn't exactally caved in, though. She had gone out of the store claiming to need to use the restroom and when she came back she found that Spike had bought the jacket while she was gone. Buffy should have known that giving him money earlier hadn't been a good idea. When the trio had gotten home, Lydia was passed out in the seat she had been previously sitting in. Now, however, she was half sitting, half lying down. To be honest, her position didn't look all that comfortable, but if it suited her, it was fine with them. After Buffy pulled into the driveway, Spike got out and took the small child out of the car. She had groaned in a tired manner, but she never actually awoke from her slumber. Spike, for one, was glad for this. He figured that at ten thirty, it would be hell trying to get her back to sleep if she were to wake up again.
Spike carried her into the house and up to Dawn's room, where she was staying for now. He lay her down on the bed and stood there for a moment. She looked so sweet and adorable like that. He leaned down and kissed the girl on the forhead before turning and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
About thirty minutes later, when Dawn walked in the front door, Spike decided that he should probably warn her. "Dawn,"
The teenager turned to look at him, "Yeah?"
"There's a small and...if awoken, possibly vicious child in your bed."
Dawn frowned. She had stayed at a friend's house the night before. "I leave for one night, and look at everything that happens! You suddenly come up with a seven year old daughter and she is currently occupying my bed." She shook her head, "I should stick around more. Weird things happen when I'm gone." She muttered as she made her way up the stairs.
~*~*~*~
2:38am - Early Saturday Morning
Lydia had awoken in a strange place. Well, it wasn't really that strange; she had slept here last night. However, it took her a few minutes to realize just where she was. After this was done, she was suddenly encountered with the memory of the dream that had awoken her. She had been with her mom and dad in the dream. Then, they disappeared. That was really all that she could remember. Her parents had been there and gone, and in an instant, she was standing there, in the vision of her mind, all alone and lost.
She could feel the tears coming to her eyes. This was actually really uncharacteristic for her. She had cried about three times since she had gotten here. She figured it was the fact that she was missing her mommy and daddy. Or...the daddy that she thought knew since she was technically with her father. She let the tears slide down her cheeks but she wasn't going to stay in here for any longer. She threw the blanket back off of her and slid out of the bed. She walked towards the door, but not without stepping on someone else that was in the room. Lydia had almost screamed at the somewhat loud, "Ow!" that had seemingly come from the floor, but she withheld the urge. She leaned down and saw that it was the girl from the mall earlier. "Sorry..." She whispered and continued on her journey to exit the room.
Dawn rubbed her hand, which the child had stepped on. "Couldn't she see that someone was trying to sleep here?" Then she realized something. "My bed! It's kid-free!" With that, the teen girl got up and practically jumped into her bed, thankful for not having to sleep on the floor anymore.
Lydia slowly and blindly made her way towards her destination. She finally reached the end of the hallway and realized that this was going to take forever. She had to get down the stairs now. Then, she would have to find the door to the basement and go down those stairs. At least the stairs that led from the first story of the house to the second had a bit of moonlight shining in on them. The basement stairs wouldn't have any light for her at all. She sighed and continued her way slowly descending the stairs.
Lydia was glad to find that she made it down the first flight of stairs that she had to get down with success. As she drew nearer to the basement door, she groaned inwardly and decided how she would get down the next set of steps safely. When she finally reached the door to the basement, she opened the door and got down on her knees. She felt around for the first step and sat down. She slowly scooted her way down, so as not to fall, trip, wake her father and end up with a broken neck. It took a few minutes, but Lydia finally got to the bottom of the stairs and she felt her feet touch the cold concrete. Before actually getting to the point of standing, she drew her feet back for a moment. Lydia finally rolled her eyes at herself and took charge of her situation. She stood up, on the freezing concrete and ran as quickly as she could to her father's bed. She had to figure out which side he was on before she climbed into the bed. She nodded when she figured it out and climbed into the bed on the side he was on. Spike was more or less actually towards the center of the bed, but Lydia climbed into the bed on the side which he was facing.
Spike was beginning to wonder if being a light sleeper was such a good thing after all. He felt something moving next to him and couldn't help but let his curiosity to get to him. He slowly opened his eyes and let the adjust to the darkness. This didn't take long, and he quickly saw the small figure that lay next to him. How long had she been there? He figured not long, but he could actually have been wrong, though since he was such a light sleeper, he doubted this. Spike wondered if she were awake when he heard something. That something sounded an awful lot like a sniff of someone who had been crying. There were a few times when Spike could almost swear that this girl was not his child. However, then he would remember that she was only seven years old. "Lydia?" He whispered, so as to not wake her if she was asleep.
"Daddy? Did I wake you up?"
"No, pet, I was already awake." He lied. Actually he'd been having a pretty good dream before she climbed into bed with him.
"Oh." She said simply, quickly wiping the tears that were pouring from her eyes away. Lydia soon found that this was a very useless thing to do. The tears she would brush away would only be replaced by fresh ones. "Daddy...I know you said that...that crying doesn't..." She sniffed, "Doesn't get us anywhere but...but..." She let out a sound that wasn't far from a whimper. "Daddy, is was bad! It was really bad!" The child said, crying into the sheet that she had wrapped around herself.
Spike frowned. What the hell was the kid going on about? "What was so horrible, luv?"
Lydia sniffed a few times and tried to stop her tears in another futile attempt before saying, "The...the dream..."
Spike had thought that her saying anything at all would have clarified things. This statement actually managed to confuse him even more. "What dream?"
"The one I just had."
"What happened in your dream, pet?" Spike asked, sitting up. He pulled her into his lap.
"Me, and you, and mummy were all standing there. Then...mommy disappeared, just...poof! And she was gone. Then...the same thing happened again, but it was you instead of mummy. And...then...I was left all alone...and confused...and...and..." That was all she managed before she lay her head on her father's chest, letting the tears come still. "I know...that I'm not supposed to cry but...daddy...it was mean and unpleasant and...I don't think I could take that...being all alone and everything...it's just..." She didn't finish her sentence.
Spike sat there in silence for a moment. He closed his eyes and pulled the girl closer to him. He knew that he had told her before that crying got you nowhere, but how could you tell a child to not cry after they dreamed that their mother and father just disappeared suddenly? Spike didn't know if other people--parents, actually--could do this, but he knew he wasn't about to tell his seven year old daughter that she wasn't supposed to cry over the dream. "Lydia..."
She looked up at him, her cheeks tear-stained now. "Hmm?"
"You know it was just a dream, right?"
She shook her head a little. "Not really...It kind of happened like that..." She muttered, but suddenly remembered that he wasn't supposed to know.
"What?" Spike frowned. Had the child gone nuts?
She shook her head again, "Nothing..."
"Alright..."
After a few moments of silence between the two, Lydia declared that she was tired and she climbed out of her father's lap, getting next to him in the bed. Spike didn't think she had gone to sleep just yet and decided that he couldn't stand it any longer. He just had to ask her. "What's your mother's name, pet?" There was no answer and Spike knew that Lydia had fallen asleep. She really had been tired. He smiled and lay down himself. "Good night, Sweet Bit." He muttered into the child's hair as her kissed her on top of the head before closing his eyes and hoping for a quick slumber to engulf him soon.
~*~*~*~
6:08am - Saturday Morning
Lydia had been lying in the bed for a few minutes, fully awake. She had been trying to figure out what she was going to do. At first, going back to sleep seemed like a good thing, but she found that this would take too long for her liking. So she had been lying there for about ten minutes. She sighed and sat up, looking around the basement-room. She grinned when she saw the television set that was on the wall opposite the bed. She hopped off the bed and ran over to the tv, turning it on and flipping the channels until she found whatever it was she was looking for. She stood there for a moment, checking the volume. She shook her head. It wasn't loud enough, so she turned it up a bit. It would have been a bit, had she not accidentally turn the volume dial a little far. She clapped her hands over her ears for a few minutes before realizing that it would be she who had to turn it down. She did this quickly, but she only turned it down to the point of it not completely blaring, however, it was still fairly loud. She grinned and ran back to the bed, climbing up and jumping up and down on the bed. "Daddy! Daddy! Wake up! Wake up!"
Spike groaned but didn't actually show signs of being awake.
"Daaadddy! Wake UP!" Lydia shouted, leaning down towards her father's ear.
Spike sat up immediately, due to the extremely loud sound in his ear. "What the bloody hell?"
"Didn't Buffy say that you couldn't talk like that?" Lydia asked, sitting on her knees with her head tilted slightly to the side.
"What--Oh. Right. Forgot about that. And to be honest, I kind of forgot you were in here. Wait...why were you yelling in my ear?"
"Be-caaaause! You wouldn't wake up! I had to get you up somehow, didn't I?" Lydia rolled her eyes.
"But...why did I need to get up, it's--" He glanced at the clock that was on the bedside table, "Six in the damn morning, child!"
"So?" Lydia asked indignantly. After a moment's pause, she repeated what she had said only moments ago. "Wait...I thought you weren't supposed to talk like that." Now she sounded confused.
Spike shook his head. "Lydia...luv, why did you wake me up at six in the morning?"
"It's Saturday." She said simply, as if he should know why otherwise.
Spike frowned. "I thought that you were supposed to sleep in on the weekends."
"No, silly! You get up early!"
"But...why?"
Lydia rolled her eyes. "You're really bad at this parenting thing. Saturday equals Saturday Morning Cartoons, duh!"
"Right...of course." Spike fell back onto the pillow, hoping the girl would let him lay there and "watch" the cartoons.
"I don't think so, mister! You've gotta sit up, or you'll be falling asleep in the middle of everything. Then you won't understand anything."
"I'm not going to understand anything anyway, sweetie."
"Yes you will. I'm going to explain the basics of all the shows in the comercials." She beamed up at her now sitting up father.
"Great." Spike managed through clentched teeth.
~*~*~*~
10:00am - Late Saturday Morning
Spike couldn't believe that he had actually managed to bear through it all. He had actually handled four hours of cartoons. Four hours, that was, of actually spending time alone with his daughter--Or at least that's how he tried to look at it. He was still trying to understand how he had sat through four hours of bad dubbing and annoying little high pitched voices. Maybe he would never understand it, but he really hoped he would have to do it again. Spike had the feeling that he was going to have to do this every weekend. This sucked. Saturdays used to be cool, now...they would suck! Life has a funny sense of humor, you know?
Lydia had gone upstairs to get something to eat for breakfast when the cartoons had ended. Spike heard the door open as well as someone coming down the stairs very slowly and carefully. He soon saw the small form of his daughter with a paper plate which had what looked like two slices of chocolate cake on it. She was holding the plate with both hands and walking down the stairs very slowly, so as to not drop it. She finally got over to the bed and set the plate down. "Breakfast?" She asked, grinning.
Spike couldn't help but laugh. The child was absolutely priceless. "Who gave you the cake?"
"Some guy...I think he said his name waaaassss....um...." The little girl's eyes darted from left to right as if she were physically searching her brain for the guy's name. "Xander!" She shouted, nodding. "Yeah...that was it."
Spike rose an eyebrow. What the hell was he doing here? Spike shrugged and watched Lydia as she climbed up on the bed once more. After she had gotten situated, the plate between the two, Lydia looked up at her father. "Are you going to eat any of it?"
"I'm actually not all that hungry, pet."
"Oh." Even though it was only over a piece of cake, the child seemed quite crestfallen.
It was almost as if she had been hoping to please her father coming back with cake and all. Spike was a little surprised when he looked back that he picked up on the girl's disappointment as quickly as he did, but he quickly said, "Then again...." All whilst looking at the cake.
Lydia brightened slightly. "You're going to eat it?"
Spike nodded. "Yeah...I am."
"Were you lyyying before when you said you weren't hungry?" Lydia sing- songed the one single word.
"No...no, I wasn't lying. I really wasn't hungry, but then..."
"You saw me eating and you got hungry?" The seven year old suggested.
Spike nodded, "Yeah, something like that."
~*~*~*~
2:08pm - Saturday Afternoon
Lydia had gone upstairs for awhile and played dolls with Dawn. It was almost like Dawn had been wanting an excuse to pull the old dolls out and play with them again. So, Dawn hadn't been totally grudging and hating playing with girl. Lydia put the doll she had in her hand down.
"What's wrong?" Dawn asked.
"Is there anyone else that could play with us, Dawn?"
"Not unless you can get your dad to play. Everyone else is gone right now."
"Oh." After a moment, she picked up her doll, a few random accessories, and grabbed Dawn's hand. "Come on, let's go downstais."
Dawn greabbed the doll that had been lying next to her and allowed the girl to pull her along. "I realy don't think that your dad is going to play dolls, Lydia."
"We'll see." She said, grinning as she looked over her shoulder at the older girl.
The pair loudly made their way down the stairs that lead to the basement. They were equally shocked when they didn't see Spike. Lydia shrugged and the girls sat on the floor and continued their game. The two girls had only just started playing again when Spike appeared. Where exactly that he had come from or previously been, they didn't know, or care. "Hi, daddy!" Lydia waved a bit at the man.
Spike could hardly believe what he was seeing. "Lydia, what are you doing?"
"Playing dolls, silly. Can't you tell?" She motioned towards the dolls she and don had in their hands as well as the car and a few other things they had brought down with them.
"Yes...I can see that's what you're doing, pet, but I can't understand why?"
"Because I wanted to and Dawn said that she'd play with me."
Dawn looked at Spike very seriously and said, "Just because the girl has a leather jacket, doesn't mean she can't play dolls."
"If I had anything to do with it--"
Dawn cut him off, "But ou don't. Plus, she's a seven year old girl!"
"Yes, but if I did have anything to do with this--"
"But you don't, so there's no use in thinking about what you would do under different circumstances." Dawn was not backing off of this one. She was determined to win this time.
"Fine, but there won't be anythign else that she does that I can't control." He then preceeded to mutter to himself, "I'll make sure of that."
Lydia looked at Spike, then to Dawn, and back to her father again. "Can you two please stop talking about me as if I'm not in the room?" She asked in a manner that only a young child could.
"Sorry, Lydia." Dawn said appologetically.
The platinum blond man kneeled down next to his daughter and ruffled her hair. "Won't happen again, Sweet Bit." Spike said, glancing at Dawn, almost as if he were trying to one-up her.
~*~*~*~