CrossingShadowRiver 13, by dutchbuffy2305

Rating: R

Timeline: About ten years after season 5 of AtS; sequel of sorts to Crossing into UnchippedTerritory.

Author's note: As ever, thanks to my dear betas, meko00, ayinhara, LadyAnne & mommanerd.

Author's website: http:home.planet.nl/dutchbuffy2305

Feedback: Yes, please, to

Dawn creeps up the stairs to Buffy's apartment. She can't say why she's being so stealthy. It's broad daylight; she'll hardly be in any danger from her sister or the other Spike. Spike's never harmed her before, why would he now? She's the one who always loved him, soul or no soul, chip or no chip. Well, she actually has only a few memories of him without the chip or the soul, both of them consisting of Spike talking to her mother. They're far from scary memories; they're comforting, actually, reminding her of Joyce and more innocent times.

Strangely enough, the door is open. Dawn hesitates on the threshold. Should she go in? That seems weird; she doesn't want to intrude on any of the things Buffy and Spike generally get up to. She can't imagine things being much different even with another Spike.

She dithers until she remembers herself standing in front of another door last night and she tells herself to get a grip. She touches the door with a diffident fingertip and it swings inward soundlessly. She steps over the threshold and enters the flat. The air smells stale and unpleasant, a strange mix of sweet and salty odors. Spike and Buffy sex smells maybe? Yuck.

The door to the kitchen is open and she peeks inside. A stray sunbeam lightens up its rented blandness. The herbs in their little pots on the windowsill are dead, and the counter is heaped high with used crockery. After Mom's death Buffy turned painfully neat, as if proving over and over again she could run a household. This is not like her.

Dawn turns back to the hallway. She hears a strange slow shuffling. "Buffy?"

Her sister enters her line of vision. She looks terrible. Her hair is dying seaweed, her robe splotched with last week's meals, hanging open over her giant belly. Dawn really didn't need to see the grossness of that. Her face is sunken and haggard. Her nose seems twice its usual size and you could make tea from the dark bags under her eyes. Her hands are like claws.

"Dawn?" Buffy's voice is a croak. "Run! Get away from here! Get help! Quickly!"

Dawn just gapes, unable to take in what exactly she should she run from. Escaped-from-the-ward Buffy or what? The evil smell?

Buffy's eyes bulge and her mouth works but she's stopped speaking. What the hell is wrong with her? She could be a little more glad to see Dawn if she needs help, right?

A liquid laugh sounds behind her and turns her spine into a column of ice. Now she wants to run, but her body turns on its own accord towards the menace, which she knows from horror movies you should never do. Something in her jacket pocket vibrates and gives off heat. She thought she'd put her cell in her handbag. Oh, wait, it's the locator device Willow gave her, that's remained silent all these weeks. Wow, how useful to know that Spike is within five feet of her, like she didn't already know that.

In the doorway to the bedroom stands the weirdest, scariest apparition she's ever seen. It ouldn't be so bad if it was just another demon; it's the looking like Spike bit that gets her. Its fried white poodle hair stands up in uneven tufts over its head; the face is shrunken and discolored and the bones of the nose and cheekbones threaten to pierce the skin, so thin and tight is it over the skull. Its grinning dark blue lips reveal two rows of broken brown teeth and he shows her the horrible slug in his mouth in a very Spike-like smirk.

"Pretty girl," it burbles.

Dawn steps closer to it, however much she doesn't want to. Is it forcing her somehow?

The hands it stretches toward Dawn are a horror in themselves. There are fingers missing and white bone is showing. And the smell. A sweet stench of decay, mixed with rotting kelp and dead fish. The awful hand travels up her sleeve, murmuring appreciatively over the soft fabric of her jacket. It shoves her hair aside and rips at the neck of her sweater. It comes even closer, sniffing and grunting. Dawn feels something cold and slimy lap at her throat and she screams, but it's only inside her head. No real sound comes out. She looks at Buffy, who's staring at her with the whites of her eyes showing. Now what? Buffy's supposed to rescue her, she thinks hysterically, not the other way around.

The Spike creature humps his hips against her and she breaks out in goose bumps all over her body. God no, please, no. He continues to lick her neck and Dawn keeps expecting him to bite her, but so far, he hasn't. She's never going to daydream about Spike biting her again.

He lifts his head and his hand strokes her hair. "Still my sweet little Nibblet."

Dawns bursts into tears from relief and fear and hopeless compassion. It really is a Spike. He knows her. She's safe, she knew he wouldn't hurt her. What has happened to him, poor thing? She grabs his hand and kisses his cheek, determinedly not paying attention to its spongy texture.

"Let me talk to Buffy for a moment, Spike. We're sisters, remember? Sisters talk."

Spike shows her his blackened gums, a distant relative to real smiling, and Dawn almost falls when he releases his hold on her neck. His hand shoots out to her hip and steadies her. It travels down her groin, back to her belly and up to her breasts. He sniffs his hand and his eyes film over. "Pretty girl. Give me babies?"

Okay, not that close to the original, obviously. She doesn't know if he's a vampire or a zombie, but he's in no position to give anyone babies. He's pathetic.

Buffy sinks down on the floor. She gasps and draws in big shuddering breaths. "Awn. Grunt Willow. Elp. Grunt Willow."

Yeah, obviously Willow would be a good choice to call for help now. Jesus. Poor Buffy. How long has he kept her prisoner? Thank God that she's still pregnant. Her mind steers away from imagining what would happen if Buffy did have the baby.

What's Buffy doing now? Buffy rakes her nails down a crusty wound on her neck. It starts bleeding and the smell hits Spike in an obvious physical way. His head whips around and he shuffles forward, sweeping his head from left to right like a lion scenting his prey. His tongue comes out and licks his lips. Dawn stares in fascination at his back. It's bluish gray and white strips of rib are showing through. Pieces of meat shake loosely in his buttocks and arms when he walks. He's disintegrating before her eyes.

He pushes Buffy backwards and opens her legs. His head bends to her neck and Dawn feels the sudden release of his attention like an elastic band snapping back in her face. She bolts without looking back at Buffy and zombie Spike. She can imagine what they're doing, thank you. She has to find Spike. Call Willow.

She's crying hysterically and cabs veer away from her as soon as they see her face. It starts raining, icy dirty April rain, drenching her hair and ruining her pretty velvet jacket. She finally manages to locate a tube entrance and drags herself home.

She stumbles inside and wrestles with her jacket and her sodden shoes. She starts with a shriek when Spike's voice says quietly, "Hey Dawn."

The thing in her jacket pocket, supposedly a locator device for Spikes, stays quiet. It means something but she can't think what. She pushes all memories of last night out of her mind and throws herself on Spike's chest as if they're still older brother and younger sister. He recoils slightly but when she just babbles and wrings his shirt, he relents and takes hold of her.

"What the matter, Dawn?" he says resignedly.

He thinks it's just some girly crisis, Dawn can hear it in his voice.

"Spike, I saw Buffy. I saw that other Spike. It's thrall, Spike, it's thrall. He enthralled me, and then Buffy saved me, she let him drink from her."

Spike's face is a study in emotions, first impatience, then mounting anger. His fingers clench on her upper arms becomes so hard she screams briefly.

"Sorry," he says.

Dawn rubs her sore arms. "It's fine, you can bruise me any time."

Spike doesn't seem to take this in the spirit she intended, he looks annoyed, even.

She goes on hastily. "We have to save her, Spike. We have to kill him. He's killing her. And the baby. She could have gone for the stake while he was enthralling me, I think, but she attracted his attention to save me."

She wishes she wasn't looking at his face now, because written in large capitals it says on his forehead, Buffy should have saved herself, not you. Yeah, great, that's a feeling she remembers seeing on everyone's faces only too well, back when Buffy died. Actually Spike was the only person who didn't make her feel it. She's finally managed to drive him away from her camp, she guesses. Isn't she allowed to love, like everyone else?

Spike flinches at something and runs his hand through his hair. He pushes her aside and jumps up to pace. He'll think of something, he always does. He'll save Buffy and then…well, she doesn't know what then.

"We need magic help, Dawn. There's no way we can get in otherwise. Well, you could, but you won't be able to kill him. Obviously."

He thinks he won't fall under the thrall? Well, he's a vampire, he should know about things like that.

"Right," Dawn says and goes for her handbag. "I'll call Willow. She'll know a spell to break through the disinvite barrier."

Spike's hand clamps down on her forearm. Dawn looks at him reproachfully and he relaxes his hold. Great, another bruise. How does Buffy stand all that strength? She hasn't even heard or seen him approach. Vampire speed is so creepy.

"Not Willow," he says in a dangerously calm voice that makes Dawn curl up and shiver inside. "She's mixed up in this somehow, I'm convinced of that."

Dawn gapes. She hastily shuts her mouth when she catches his eyes on her face. She must look a sight, with her sodden hair and blotchy crying face, just when she wants to look both alluring and capable, like Lara Croft. She checks out her breasts. Close enough, especially now that Angelina is showing her age in Tomb Raider VI.

"But why can't I call Willow?" she protests, even while she's putting down the cell phone in automatic compliance. "Buffy said to call Willow."

Spike frowns and runs his hand through his hair again. It stands up in little contorted spikes now, a bit like the other Spike's hair, but his is shinier and healthier, and much more attractive. She doesn't mind the bulging in his biceps when he does that either. Spike catches her look and gives her a glare.

"Did Buffy really say that? What did she say, exactly?"

Dawn thinks hard. "It sounded like 'call Willow', but it was more like grunting. 'Ung Willow'."

"So it might just as well have been, 'not Willow'?"

"Well, yeah, but…why do you think Willow might be mixed up in this? She's Buffy's friend!"

Even while she says this, she thinks of her own meeting with Willow a few weeks ago and the ambiguous feeling she had about it. Maybe Willow really isn't Buffy's friend anymore. The device. It only reacted to the otherworldly Spike, not to this one.

She fishes it out of her jacket pocket. "Look, Spike, it's silent when it comes near you, but it started to buzz like mad when I was near creepy Spike." A brief shudder of disgust wracks her at the visceral memory of his hands testing the breeding capacity of her body, his slimy tongue tasting her neck. "So Willow must have set it on him, and so she must have known about him. Right?"

"Figures," Spike says slowly. "Someone with magic must have done the disinvite. Buffy couldn't have done it on her own. I saw the demon that slipped me the Mickey Finn, or whatever, today, leaving her Council office when I went in to see her. Kept me out of the running for a few weeks. Wasn't sure about it, because why would she, but I said something about her messing around with the dimensions, and she looked guilty as hell. And then she denied that there could be another Spike in London, or this world, without her knowing it. She must have known somehow I couldn't get Buffy to check her story. I didn't say I'd met him, obviously. And she used the Wesley Emergency Hologram again, which always makes me want to wring her neck."

"Ew," Dawn agrees sympathetically, even though she doesn't harbor tender feelings toward Wesley, or even any feelings besides vague disgust. Not that she ever really met him, but the Monks meticulously inserted even dweeby old Wesley into her memory.

"So, what's the plan, Spike?"

Spike just stands there with his hands on his hips, looking taut and muscled and dangerous, but not particularly full of brilliant ideas. She wants to nudge him and say, come on, Spike, have a plan, be the hero, but she guesses he must be used to taking his lead from Buffy. As if Buffy's ever Idea Girl, even in her best moments. Buffy and Spike are so alike; their ideas form only at the most critical point of a fight, traveling straight from their spines to their hands, without any interference from their brains. Dawn sighs. It's clear which one of them is going to be the Giles in this scenario, and it's not the one with the bulging biceps. She adds black-rimmed glasses, a bun and a clipboard to the Lara Croft picture in her mind. There's no need to let Spike know about her change of role. Let him sweat a bit.

TBC