CrossingShadowRiver 16/?, 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 plays hostess while Spike explains further to the bewildered Tara what the situation is and what they need from her. While she waits for the kettle to boil her thoughts drift off. She's not sure whether things are moving too fast or too slow, but she feels strange, suspended between currents tugging her in different directions.

What if, a little voice whispers in her head, what if we don't rescue Buffy? Maybe Spike will allow himself to be comforted, maybe he will finally see that Dawn is the sweeter, gentler sister. No, she's not thinking this. She wishes she wasn't thinking this. It's just that ever since she went to, well, visit Spike, she's been feeling that it's been touch and go. He said no, but only barely. And then he kissed her. The way he keeps avoiding her eyes and the way he doesn't want their legs to touch could mean he's revolted, or very much tempted and too decent to want to go for it because of Buffy.

She shakes herself out of these pointless thoughts and goes out to get Indian takeaway and blood. They need to be alert and fit. Tara picks at the spicy food, clearly uncomfortable in their company, but when they start talking about tackling the thrall or the disinvite, she changes completely. She becomes the Tara they knew, wise and motherly, displaying that calm low-key certainty.

Tara refuses to try doing anything with the thrall. She says she doesn't know enough about vampires and the nature of thrall to even begin, and she's not taking chances with a pregnant woman and a vampire. Her glance barely rakes Spike, but Dawn notices it and sees Spike wince. Yeah, he's a vampire too, and Tara doesn't know him well enough to get the finer points of good and bad, souls and demons. Fair enough.

At first Tara thinks there isn't a way to break the disinvite. An invitation to a vampire can only be extended by the inhabitants of the house or apartment.

"Can't you do anything? It's my house too. We've been living there for months," Spike says.

He keeps jumping up and pacing up and down the room like a dog who needs to be walked, until they beg him to sit down. Then he wrings his hands, worries at his hair, makes aborted attempts to start smoking, driving Dawn crazy.

Tara shakes her head. "Those are the laws of magic concerning vampires. Nothing I can do."

"Can't you cheat a little?" Dawn asks. "I'm her sister, and I was made out of Buffy in a magical way. If I manage to get in again, couldn't I invite Spike?"

"Made out of Buffy? What?" Tara asks.

They have to take the time to explains this to her, but it's hard when everything feels so urgent.

Tara doesn't look very calm and in control anymore when they're done explaining. "You all are just weird. Really weird. I wish I'd never met you. But I think I have something that will do the trick. We can do a kind of spell where you declare yourself to be of one body with your sister. It's used when we need a substitute for an important ritual, if for example the participant herself is unable to come due to ill-health or death. I'm not going to do it by night though, that would be tipping the balance towards evil in its favor. Especially since our team isn't exactly made of purity and light."

"You talking about me?" Spike protests. "I'm good! I have a soul."

"Not just you," Tara says. "but yeah, you. I can feel your demon struggling and fighting to get out."

"Kept him under control so far," Spike says tightly.

Spike uncoils his body in one of his violently quick moves, returning as fast to stillness. Tara starts and leans away from him a little more. Tara's face is serious and contemplative, she seems innocent of other meanings, but Dawn's heart misses a beat or two. What exactly is she implying?

"We'll wait for daylight if we have to, but isn't there a way around it? Really don't want to wait another night," Spike says. "Time is crucial for Buffy and the baby."

"I definitely don't want to confront the evil vampire by night," Tara says. "I'll do the spell on Dawn tonight, and tomorrow at sunrise we'll be ready to enter the house."

Tara's eyes rest briefly on Spike's face, without actually meeting his eyes. "So you know what to do to kill the beast, Mr. …Spike?"

"Oh yeah."

"Good. We'll have to assume he can enthrall any of us, but only one person completely at one single time. That's what I gather from your story, anyway, Dawn."

Dawn nods. "Yeah, Buffy attracted his attention so I could escape."

Spike's brow furrows.

"I think she could do that because he was busy enthralling me, Spike. It was pretty much impossible for me to move a muscle."

Spike nods, jaw muscles standing out in bunches. Poor Spike. She can only hope he wasn't treated to the same X-rated spectacle she was.

"Well," Tara continues, "it had better be me or Dawn he enthralls, so you can kill him. How close do you need to be to him?"

Spike shows her his stake. "I need to shove this straight into the bugger's heart and he'll crumble to dust."

Tara's face twists in distaste. "Right. None of my business how you evil folk kill each other," Dawn imagines her thinking.

"We need something of Buffy's. Spike?"

Spike looks agonized and helpless, vaguely patting his pockets as if something that belongs to Buffy would be hiding there.

"I'm Buffy's," he says to Tara, only half joking. "Would that do?"

Tara throws Dawn and unreadable look. "I don't think it would a good idea to bind you two together," she says slowly.

Dawn feels a flush spread all over her body, tingling harshly, and she keeps her eyes on her hands in case she meets Spike's. She's almost sure Tara was referring to the thing between them, that may or may not exist only in her imagination. Tara can apparently spot this right off, and she doesn't even know them. She reruns the words inside her head for a second time and she she's sure Tara meant exactly that. Dawn's got nothing else on her conscience, after all. In a way it's good, a confirmation of her hopes about Spike. After he put her out of his room last night, those had been pretty much dashed. And the thing is, she wasn't really surprised, he's always been all about Buffy, but now things are looking up. He kissed her today, and Tara suspects something between them. It's a start.

Spike throws her a look she would have interpreted as anger a minute ago, but now she knows better. It's lust. Ha. The bones in his face stand out sharply, and she can just see him itching to start pacing again. Eventually they settle on a cross necklace that Buffy loaned to Dawn a long time ago that she's never returned.

"Anything else we need to bring? Is there first aid stuff in your house, Spike?"

"Yeah," he says. His voice is thick with some emotion. "Buffy wasn't looking so good. Maybe some food and drink?"

Tara looks at Dawn. "Can you pack some nutritious stuff?"

Dawn realizes she's very much in awe of this adult Tara, in spite of her look of poverty and her bad hair. She's so calm, so self-assured without being dominant. Tara still makes her feel like a child, in spite of her twenty-eight years.

"Spike," Tara says, "I hope everything you need for the birth is in the house? Birthing mattresses, birth cord clamps, baby clothes, diapers?"

Spike gapes. "The baby isn't due until next week," he says. "We didn't have everything bought yet, there was time enough for that."

Dawn feels a pang at the repeated 'we'. Spike and Buffy are a 'we' together, an entity she doubts Spike and she will ever form, in spite of her rising hopes in that direction.

Tara sighs. "And when have babies ever arrived at their expected time? I'll make up a list for you, Dawn. Is there a place where you could get that stuff at this time of day?"

Dawn looks at the clock. "I can try."

Dawn and Spike each perform their appointed tasks. By the time Dawn returns with the extra food for Buffy and the herbs and candles Tara requested, Tara's preparations are well underway. She's cleared the tiny living room of furniture, which now stands stiffly and uncomfortable close against the walls. She's drawn an incomplete circle on the carpet with kitchen salt and has set out several plastic bowls.

"Dawn," Tara greets her, preoccupied. "I could only find this Tupperware stuff. You got any pottery bowls somewhere, or wooden ones? Both would be better for the magic than plastic."

"I don't think Tamsin's much of a cook," Dawn says.

Tara sighs. "You are both such unnatural creatures, it'll be hard enough to draw on Mother Earth as it is. And now plastic bowls."

Dawn thinks of pointing out that Tara's dress is polyester, but she decides not to. She finds unused stainless steel bowls for her, still in their pretty wrapping. She sits down in the middle of the circle, trying to be relaxed and concentrated on helping Buffy as Tara instructs her to. Tara fills the bowls with various herbs, and sets down seven candles inside the salt circle. She lights them, and finally closes the circle with more salt. Dawn sees it's fancy gray Sel de Mer, typically Tamsin. Doesn't cook, but does own up market salt.

Tara starts chanting. Spike has been relegated to the kitchen and fidgets, seated on top of the kitchen table, gnawing on his fingernails. Dawn yawns. It's been an enervating couple of days and nights, and she has a hard time staying awake.

Dawn's head falls forward, waking her, and she snaps her eyes open guiltily. Tara is sitting straight across from her, silent and completely relaxed in her cross-legged position. Dawn has a crick in her neck and cramps in her thighs. She looks around for Spike. He's still in the kitchen, but now seated on a chair with his elbows on the table, his head cradled on his arms. Dawn can't tell if he's asleep or not.

"Are we done?"

Her voice sounds odd in her own ears. Has she really been sleeping, and for how long?

Tara nods. She doesn't smile a whole lot, Dawn notices. Is it their fault for being so unpleasant and against nature, or is it a natural gravity? The original Tara smiled often, from nervousness, to placate, to take the sting out of the things s she said. This one is past that, she guesses. Tara scatters the salt in one part of the circle with a wipe of her hands. Dawn rises creakily and steps out. She stretches, attempting to get her stiff body back into its natural shape.

"So when I wake up tomorrow I'll be Buffy?"

Tara still doesn't smile. "If everything has gone well, you'll be able to convince the house magic that you are Buffy. You don't have to be convinced of it yourself.

Spike rises with a clatter of chair legs from his place at the kitchen table, scratching his head and looking creased and squinty-eyed from sleep. He's very cute like that. He catches her eye when he stretches luxuriously and frowns, turning away from her. Ouch. Dawn wishes Tara hadn't made her loaded remarks.

TBC