Dawn wasn't dumb. She peered out her window; Spike was smoking on the porch again. She knew what was going on. She wasn't like Spike's little sister or daughter or anything like that. She was his duty.

When, for that crucial second right after, he hadn't even been able to look at her – shame. When he'd looked up, grim and resolved, and held her – obligation. When his embrace had tightened… well, she couldn't quite figure that part out. She thought maybe he was just trying to do what he hadn't been able to do before. She didn't know what Buffy had said to make him act like that, but somehow it wasn't just Dawn herself, it was her sister that Spike was holding. It creeped her out. She didn't like being taken care of by the guy who was obsessed with her sister.

She sorta wished she hadn't given up her journal; she really felt like writing in it right now. Too late now, duh. She exhaled in resignation. Spike was done. Better go downstairs – he was kinda needy for an undead guy. All smoke and bluster and as bad a cook as she was. She felt sort of dumb being taken in by it, but she had to admit he was nice at the weirdest times.

After kitchen escapades that ended predictably in blackened scrapings of something definitely not supposed to be served blackened, Dawn was salvaging leftover yogurt from the sides of the container, impatient to finish and move onto her banana. She had tried to meet his eyes only once, and found such intense longing and grief that she hadn't tried again – she'd hoped he would've stopped doing that every time their eyes met by now. Maybe that's just how he looked all the time? He'd enjoyed tonight's "pot-banging gig" well enough.

"Buffy once told me she... that you were even more special than other girls your age, and she didn't know if you'd ever realize that," Spike blurted suddenly. Startled and a little bit taken aback, she looked up at his face. He looked earnest, which was a welcome change from stricken.

Unsure how to respond, she paused. Then she looked down, smiled, and gave up trying to defuse the weirdness. "Once I was teasing her about you, and she said that she didn't understand how you could be, um, how even without a soul you could be such a kind person." She looked back up at him, and he was surprised, touched. Suddenly she got a feeling in her chest, and she wasn't sure if this was about Buffy anymore.

'Spike,' she thought, 'Is this all for me?'