Sorry that I have been gone for so long, a lot of stuff has happened with me this year and I had a slight case of writer's block. But school's out now so I should have some time to write. The story will be done soon although I'm still lost on the ending, if you guys have any ideas just email me, it would be nice. Feedback would be nice too. Well….enjoy!!!!!

--

Chapter 8

Truth

When they all arrived at the house Tara was waiting for them in the kitchen.

"Hey Will."

Willow was out of it, she seemed to be in some kind of daze but as soon as she heard Tara's voice she quickly snapped out of it.

"Oh….hey Tara. How's Dawn?"

"She's fine, up in her room. She said that she wanted some time to herself. She's been up there for awhile now."

Then, Xander and Giles walked into the kitchen.

"Well Will," Xander said. "I'm gonna head on home, I'm beat and I'm sure Anya must be wondering where I am."

Tara was suddenly reminded. "Yea, she c-called earlier asking for you."

"You see? Bye Will." He gave her a hug and he leaned in closer and whispered: "Don't worry, everything is going to turn out fine." She nodded.

"Well I have to leave also, I'll see you tomorrow" Giles said. Then they both headed for the door.

"So how did it go?" Tara asked. Willow looked up at her, she didn't want to relive what has happened earlier but she knew that she had to.

"Oh…..ummm, not good."

"What happened?"

"Well we went to try and stop Xander from doing something stupid, but by the time that we got there he already finished with Spike."

"He killed Spi-"

"No no, nothing like that. He just kicked him around, accusing him of killing Buffy."

"So…..did he?"

"Well not exactly." She paused for a moment thinking about how to say it. "Apparently Buffy showed up right when Xander was about to kill Spike. I don't know what happened exactly because Xander was kinda vague on the details, but she's alive."

"But the spell. It said she was dead." Tara was completely shocked. Nothing like this had really ever happened before, especially with this kind of spell.

"Ya, I thought that too but Xander told me that Spike had mentioned something about the person not wanting to be found. But to tell you the truth, I think that that's a load of bull abd there's something else that's really going on that we don't know about."

Right then, Willow turned around to see Dawn listening on the stairs. It's what she did best. She seemed pretty upset by what she had heard and ran back to her room, Willow went after her.

"Dawn!"

"I don't want to hear it!" she slammed the door shut to her room and threw herself onto her bed.

"Dawn come on." Willow quietly entered the room and sat down next to Dawn. She noticed that she was crying.

"So what did you hear?" She was hoping that she didn't hear everything, she wanted to be able to explain a few things to Dawn.

"Just enough to know that Buffy's still alive. I told you guys but you didn't want to listen. Where'd you see her? Is she ok?" she was sitting up in the bed now hoping for some good news.

Willow looked down for a second, avoiding Dawn's eyes and took a deep breath. "Dawnie, I don't think Buffy is coming back."

"W-What do you mean she's not coming back? She's my sister! She has to come back!" tears began to fall down her face.

"Well when Xander was at Spike's crypt she showed up. She must be staying there."

And less then a second after the words had come out of her  mouth, Dawn was out the door and headed towards Spikes'.

Xander was exhausted. "Can't we ever have a normal day around here?" he muttered to himself. He entered the apartment and took off his jacket. Anya was sitting on the couch anxiously waiting for him, it looked like she was there for a while. Before he was even able to get a word out, "Xander! Where have you been?"

"Ahn, not now. You know where I've been. It's the only other place I go when I'm not at home." Xander quickly realized what he said and corrected himself. "Well not exactly, I went to Spike's."

She quickly felt sorry for being so aggressive with Xander so she went over to him.

"Oh honey, I'm sorry. I just don't want anything bad to happen to you." She noticed the bruise on his face. "What happened to you?" He pulled his face away from her hand as she went to touch it, it was still a bit sensitive.

"Nothing happened. I just got in a little fight with Spike. No biggie."

"Spike? What where you doing over there? I know that you hate him with a passion but there's no need to torment the poor guy. I mean it's not like he can do anything."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Yea, well I went over there to see if he would tell me something about Buffy. I found out a lot more then I thought that I would."

"But you guys fought. How's that possible when he's got the chip?"

He lightly touched the bruise on his face. "Didn't seem to stop him, with every punch he fell back with pain but he just got back up. But the thing that really matters here is that Buffy is still alive, even though she does seem a bit….different."

"Where'd you see her?"

"I was about to drive a stake through Spike but Buffy intervened. She threw me around and told me to leave her alone." He seemed hurt by that and went to go sit down on the couch. "I don't know but something has changed about her. She seemed…..evil somehow."

"Well being turned into a vampire will do that to you." Xander shot her a look. "Hey I'm starting to side with Dawn on this one. The lil' squirt must be right. Spike probably did turn her, it's the only logical explanation for all this. I mean the guy is madly in love with her and you and I both know what love can do to a person." She sighed. "It can make you do some crazy things." Xander leaned in to kiss Anya.

Just then, there was a rapid knocking on the door and Xander got up to answer it. When he opened the door there stood Willow, flustered and out of breath.

"Wil what's wrong?"

"It's…..Dawn. She…..ran of…..to Spike's." she said between breaths.

"What? Why?" he was confused.

Willow took a minute to herself to slow down. "She found out about Buffy."

"We need to get her. Come on we'll take my car." Xander and Willow headed out the door and down the hall to go get Dawn.

"BYE!" Anya yelled down the hall, she sighed and closed the door.

Dawn raced out of the house and down the street. "I've gotta go see Buffy." She thought, "I need to make sure that she's o.k. I have to bring her back home, I NEED her!!" So many things were going through her head that she couldn't think straight. The only thing that was going through her head was that she needed to get to Buffy.

Xander was speeding down the sreet and Willow was gripping her seat, she was praying that they'd atleast make it to the cemetery in one piece.

"Dawn can't find Buffy. She's not the same Wil….she's dif-."

"Different?" Willow interrupted. "Ya, I kinda figured that out, but you never told me what happened in there with Spike and Buffy."

"Look, it's not important so don't worry. All you need to worry about is getting to Dawn on time."

"There's Spike's crypt." She murmured to herself as she looked ahead in the distance. Her body was becoming tired and she was pushing herself. "Just a little bit more."

When she approached the door to the crypt she stopped and listened for any voices, hopefully Buffy's. She was pressing her ear to the door so hard that her head started to hurt. Then suddenly she heard someone giggle and she automatically knew who it was. She looked back to see Xanders' car pulling up to the entrance so Dawn threw the door open and she was disgusted by the sight in front of her.

"Buffy?" she whispered, she was in so much shock that she could barely speak. "W-What's going on?"

"Dammit Dawn!! Didn't you ever learn to knock?" she quickly covered her naked body and got off of Spike. Dawn looked away as Spike covered himself as well.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy said.

"I came to get you." Tears began to form on her eyes. She hugged Buffy very hard. "Oh Buffy. I thought that I had I lost you again."

"Yes you did." She looked down upon her sister.

"What are you talking about?"

"You think that I want to go back to that shit hole? All I had were problems and I'm tired of everyone's constant whining and depending on me for everything. I don't want to go back to that!"

Dawn had a hurt look on her face. "Buffy what are you talking about? We all love you….I love you!" she reached out to touch her sister but her hand was slapped away.

"Don't touch me you little brat."

"Buffy what's wrong with you? Why are you acting like such a bitch?"

At that second Buffy smacked Dawn. She knew she was bleeding because she could taste the blood in her mouth. She held her face in total shock and began to cry.

"Look around you little girl. I've got everything I can possibly need right here. I've got Spike, a place to sleep, and plenty of bl- I mean, food."

"Can't you just come home?" Dawn asked. "I need you Buffy."

"Ya, you and everyone else. Let's leave it all to Buffy because she knows what to do, she's got super powers."

"That's not true!"

"All these years I've been having to look out for everyone else and make sure they wouldn't get killed because you guys were always in my way."

"But that's what family is for. To look out for eachother."

"Ya well I'm sick of it. I'm staying here with Spike whether you like it or not. And you guys better not come and try and drag me out of here because I'll kill you."

"Are you listening to yourself? What's wrong with you?" Dawn was stepping closer to her sister, looking intently into her eyes trying to see deeper inside. "You've changed. What happened to you?"

"You just said it yourself little one, I've changed. I'm a new person and I love it." She leaned forward so that Dawn and Buffy were face-to-face and she vamped out.