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Chapter 7: The Return
Spike walked around the house feeling unsettled. He could walk around now, not very well and he didn't even dare to try fighting, he'd probably fall on his arse and get staked for it too. There was no one inside the house. He hadn't attempted to leave yet. It could be because he was weaker than a newborn baby (although he was getting stronger as the days went by), or because Dawn would kick his arse if he even thought about leaving in his state and he wouldn't be surprised if she actually managed to do him some good damage. "Like her bleeding sister, that one."
He sat in the wing chair in the corner of the room. He didn't like keeping his blood in the Slayer's kitchen fridge. It just seemed a bit ominous. She was the Slayer and she was keeping blood to satiate a vampire.
There was a knock on the door. Spike looked at the curtained window, wondering briefly if demons now made house calls to the Slayer. He didn't feel like getting up. The four girls had house keys so it wasn't them. The whelp had already made a short visit this morning before going to work and Anya was at the 'Magic Box' so he couldn't think who it might be. He would have looked out of the window but he didn't want to risk an ashy sunburn.
Sighing resignedly, he got off the chair and made to open the door. The door swung open, Spike just stared at the person on the threshold for a long moment before he spoke. "Hadn't you left? What are you doing back here? Didn't like England?"
Giles just stared at the vampire for a long time. "Did I enter a different reality? Because if so, I liked the old one. What are you doing here Spike?" Giles asked before he pushed past the bleached blond undead and entered the dining room.
Why did he always go in that room first? Spike wondered. "I'm planning on killing the Slayer and I would like to stake out the place first. You know how it is." He rolled his eyes at the retired watcher.
It was then that Giles saw Spike's slow deliberate steps. He walked as if stepping wrong would cause intense pain. "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but what happened to you?"
Spike threw him a look before entering the kitchen for his blood. "I don't know what you're talking about." He said, voice loud enough for Giles to hear.
Giles got off of the wooden chair and walked to the doorway of the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe. "Why are you walking like that and why are you living here?" He eyed the packet of blood in Spike hands as he poured it into a mug and stuck a straw into it.
He shrugged. "I don't think that is any of your business. You left remember, technically, this is all your fault anyway and if you want to know the real answer, ask your Slayer."
Giles stared, glaring at the vampire and he glared right back. "I'd leave watcher" he looked towards the window. "but I can't."
Giles shrugged and sat at the dining table again. "It would be a nice and final way for you to go."
"It would at that, but then who'd be here to annoy you and your lot. Assuming that you are staying, that is."
Giles didn't respond to that, how could he answer that question when he didn't know the answer to it himself. "Where are they anyway?"
Spike looked at Giles confused, was he going mad? "Giles take a look at the clock, it's one in the afternoon on a Tuesday morning. They are either at school or working. Did you think that I actually offed them?" Spike smirked around his mug.
Now that Giles came to think about it, he hadn't been worried about that at all. Subconsciously, he supposed that Spike really wasn't a danger to them anymore. In the time that Giles had known him, Spike had helped more than he had killed. Giles shrugged. "No."
Spike didn't know whether to be happy or annoyed by that so he pushed it from his mind. "You can come back at half three, Dawn should be home by then. Buffy gets home at six and the witches come in when they want, they don't have a set timetable. Or you could stay and watch 'Passions'. Timmy's lost and eye."
"It's a bleeding doll!" Giles said under his breath.
* * * * *
Dawn opened the door and called out her usual greeting. "SPIKE!!! I'm home, where's my food."
"Make your own bleeding food." The voice came from the dining room. "I swear, once I can walk, I am out of here."
"You can already walk." Dawn offered while putting her coat on the coat rack, hanging her keys up and dumping her bag into the nearest closet. She turned into the dining room to join her favourite person and let out a scream. "Giles!!!" She yelled before rushing at him and hugging him.
"Dawn…can't…breathe. I'm sitting on a chair for god's sake." Dawn blushed slightly and let him go.
"You never said that you were coming back! Why didn't you tell us?" Dawn sat across from him and saw Spike leaning against the wall. "I didn't see you there Spike. Feeling any stronger?"
Spike shrugged nonchalantly "I'm in the 'comes' part of 'comes and goes'."
Dawn nodded and Giles answered Dawn's question. "I didn't know that I was coming until just before I bought the ticket and then I got on the plane."
Dawn nodded again but stopped suddenly and eyed Giles suspiciously. "What's happened? What evil is about to end the world?"
Giles put on his glasses, having just cleaned them. "I wasn't aware that there was one."
"You mean that you just bought a ticket, got on a plane and came here on a whim?" Dawn laughed. "Giles, that isn't like you."
"It doesn't matter. What I want to know is why you have a vampire living in your house. And more importantly, why it's that vampire." Giles nudged his head towards Spike.
"I'm glad that that vampire isn't around to hear you talking about him." Spike said sarcastically. "He might think that you didn't like him or something."
Dawn rolled her eyes at him and returned her gaze to the ex watcher. "Oh it's nothing. Buffy just beat him, broke his legs, got reprimanded and now must house him until he is fit enough to be returned to the innocent and unsuspecting, I use that term lightly, public. Nothing less than she deserves if you ask me."
"I didn't ask you." Giles said. "Why did she do it?"
Dawn rolled her eyes again. "Don't ask me to delve into the inner workings of my sister's mind Giles. There's no good there."
"I still don't understand why you have to have him live with you. Doesn't he have anywhere else to go?" He said simply.
Dawn stood up, incensed (which wasn't really an unusual sight) and Spike smiled slightly. She was murder when she was like this. "Giles stop it! He is standing right there and he doesn't deserve for you to treat him like that. Spike was the one person I could talk to when I was upset last year. He was there for me when I had no family left and he didn't leave me like all the other men in my life. At least he can stand to look at me unlike my actual father."
Giles opened his mouth to speak but Dawn cut him off. "You may not like him but then you don't actually have a say anymore do you?" She turned and left the dining room, running up the stairs to start on more homework.
"Can't say the girl doesn't have spirit." Spike said shrugging. "If you want the biased and abridged version, I suggest you ask Buffy." And he too left the room.
* * * * *
Giles was standing in front of the TV trying to find something good on it. "Blasted country. They never have anything decent on!" All that was on were reruns, game shows and talk shows. "I can't believe that so many people can have such ridiculous problems." He muttered.
Giles was staring at the TV in disgust when the door opened and in walked Buffy, Tara, Anya, Willow and Xander. He turned and smiled at them. They were looking at him with their mouths open. "Looks like everyone's here at the same time, saves me having to search for each of you in turn."
Buffy was the first to get her bearings (which really isn't surprising) and she did pretty much the same thing that Dawn did, rushed him. Tears rolled down her face as she hugged him much harder than Dawn had. She was the Slayer after all and most of the time, she forgot her own strength. It wasn't until he was turning a tiny bit purple that Xander coughed slightly and said "Uh…Buffy, human, breathing can become an issue."
Buffy smiled and reluctantly let him go. "How long do we have?"
"Excuse me?" He said, slightly forced.
"Until we all die from the evil you have come to warn us about?"
"There is no evil Buffy, I jut wanted to hear you're voices again. I missed you all so much."
"You couldn't have called? Don't they have phones over in England?" Anya said distractedly. She wanted to know if he was going to take her store away. "You can't have the 'Magic Box'." She said
Giles rolled his eyes at her. "However will I cope?"
Buffy was missing something, she just couldn't put her finger on it. Then it struck her. "Giles…" She said slowly. "did you happen to dust my house guest?"
"You mean Spike? No I didn't, although I would have liked to." Buffy's eyes hardened slightly and the smile fell a tiny bit. She hitched it back up but now it just looked forced so she stopped.
"Where's Dawn?" Tara asked.
Buffy hadn't even thought about her sister. Slightly guilty, she asked. "Where are both of them?"
Giles shifted uncomfortably. "Dawn's not very happy with me. She was when she saw me but I was a little rude to Spike, for obvious reasons, and she shouted at me, ran up the stairs and I haven't seen her since. Spike went up there to help her with her homework. Something about Shakespeare."
Buffy smiled a genuine smile again. "She's grown kind of attached to him. He helps her with her homework and she helps him walk. They do practically everything together so I can't argue. He does look after her." She said fondly.
While Buffy was talking, everyone hugged Giles in turn, even Anya who said to him again "You can't have the store. You left it to me."
Giles could tell by the look in Buffy's eyes that her sister wasn't the only one who had grown fond of the peroxide ridden vampire. He had his suspicions that she wasn't the only one either. Willow and Tara got a look when he was mentioned too. 'How did he do it?' He also didn't want to ask what Buffy had done to get her landed with him it the first place.
* * * * *
Spike sat on Dawn's bed, putting her homework down. "It's good, it should definitely get you top marks."
Dawn's smile lit the whole room up and on some level, it literally did. "Thanks." She did look slightly troubled though.
"What is it niblet?"
Dawn looked at him without moving her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh come on. Buffy's just gotten home and you're not even going to bother and go down to talk to her, ask her about her day and what's for dinner?"
Dawn started picking the stitching on her bedcovers. "I don't know, I just don't wanna go down and see Giles again."
Spike chuckled. "Dawn, he's probably not going to be here for very long, isn't it best if you go down and socialise, eat something so you don't disappear."
"But what he said to you…" Dawn trailed off.
"What he said about me and I can take offence for the wrongs done to me myself, it's not necessary for you to, and I am sure that I deserve it after what I've done." Spike smiled and it was genuine. He didn't normally smile like that.
"He had no right. You hadn't even done anything to him. And he should respect his elder." Dawn said, scandalised.
Spike chuckled again. "But he looks older than me. Can't argue with that now can we?"
Dawn laughed along with him. "Are you going to come down and join in on all the nasties that are going to be thrown around. Especially now that Buffy's home."
Spike shrugged. Sure, I can take more of the Spike Bashing. Look…Dawn…I" Dawn realised that what Spike was about to tell her was significant so she looked up, wanting eye contact. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
She looked shocked, angry and upset, all at the same time. "You can't leave. Don't leave me. Please Spike." Tears welled up in her eyes. "Everyone always leaves me, I thought you were different. I defended you in front of Giles and now you tell me that you're going? Why? Was it me?"
"Dawn." Spike put a hand on her shoulder to calm her. "You sound as if I'm leaving the country or something. I'[m not. I'm just going back to my crypt. That's all. Remember, 10 minute walk from here and if you're Buffy on a 'Kill-the-Spike' mood, 2 minutes walking real fast."
Dawn smiled through the tears on her face. "I just feel like you're abandoning me. I know it's stupid and that I'll see you whenever I want, no matter what Buffy says. I guess that I was just a little bit overwhelmed and rightfully upset."
"Look Bit. I shouldn't have been here in the first place remember? It was Rayya who put me here and Buffy's duty to keep me. That's not true anymore and I don't need looking after. I am perfectly fit to go. I'm sorry."
Dawn hugged him. "I'll come and see you everyday."
Spike ruffled her long hair. "You know I'm going to hold you to that."
* * * * *
Dinner had finished fairly painlessly. Everyone was in the lounge watching more of the 'blasted TV', Buffy and Spike were sitting in a corner where no one could hear them if they spoke. Spike had said that he needed a word with her.
"What is it Spike? Need more blood? Didn't eat enough of my food, want some more?" Buffy asked.
"No, I just wanted you to know that I'm leaving tomorrow. Giles obviously doesn't want me here and I am fine to go back now.
I've told Dawn and now I'm telling you."
Buffy looked at him and her eyes got hard. "Fine, great. At least now you'll be out of my way. I'm sure that you're fine now, you can walk and that was all you were supposed to stay here for anyway. You don't need my help anymore. And the whole blood thing, kinda gross to be sitting near my good vegetables." She got up and sat down next to Tara, not looking at him again for the rest of the night.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
That was not a pivotal chapter but it needed to be done. Sorry. The good stuff comes next. Can't wait.
Review please and please don't flame. Thank you for reading it.
Pure-HP