*
"Dawn, I'm not sure I can take much more of this," Spike's voice was anguished and kind of echo-y, as though he was speaking into the phone with his head buried in his arms. Which it probably was, Dawn supposed.
"No no no, you have to listen to this part!" she shrieked, bouncing on the bed excitedly. Alicia and Kirsten giggled at her from across the room, waving their spoons at her and making kissy-noises through their Ben & Jerry's.
All three girls had piled into Dawn's bed on Saturday at noon, or as Alicia referred to it, "early". The rest of the day had been dedicated to an excruciating, detail-by-detail breakdown of Dawn's date with Sean the night before. With the exception of a single pilgrimage to the dining hall for supplies, consisting mostly of ice cream and Doritos, they hadn't budged since. Eight hours on they were still in their pajamas, about to start watching "Empire Records", when Spike had made the huge mistake of calling. The full magnitude of his error was beginning to sink in, though…
"Bit. We've been on the phone for almost half an hour. I now know Sean's middle name, the history of his hometown in Oregon, the brand of aftershave he wears and, repulsively, the way he kisses goodnight."
Dawn shrieked in outrage. "He's GORGEOUS!" She turned to Alicia and Kirsten. "Spike says Sean's kissing is repulsive!"
"Right on, Spike!" shouted Kirsten, nearly losing control of her mouthful of ice cream. Dawn growled at her playfully.
"Spike! Ask her about the sex!" Alicia crowed.
"What?!?" Spike was suddenly all ears, and Dawn heard his chair squeak as he bolted upright.
"Ask what they did in the caaaaaaaaar!" Alicia sang, Kirsten joining in on the last word. Both girls collapsed on Alicia's bed laughing as Dawn shushed them frantically.
"No, they're kidding! They're kidding, they're drunk, they're completely high on sugar." Dawn scowled at her friends, but they were laughing too hard to notice.
"Dawn…" Spike's voice had a warning tone to it, and she hurried to repair the damage.
"All we did was kiss in the car, NOT IN THE BACK," she hollered at Kirsten and Alicia, who were practically falling off the bed by this time. "And he was a perfect gentleman."
"Hmm." Spike didn't sound convinced. "And you were a perfect lady, of course." Oh.
"You might say that…" Dawn trailed off coyly, and Spike groaned on the other end of the line.
"No, no, don't want to bloody hear it. Call your sister, she'll take it from here," he said, and Dawn's stomach lurched a little. Call Buffy?
"Well, she usually calls me, something to do with the rates," Dawn hedged, but Spike caught the unusual tone in her voice. He hesitated .
"She DOES know that you were out on a date last night?"
Dawn bit her lip. "Uh, no."
There was a silence on the other end of the line. "Oh." Then, suddenly, it all came out in a rush.
"That's the kind of thing that sisters like hearing about. And knowing your sister? She'd want you to call." Spike said it quickly; it sounded awfully formal coming from him, Dawn thought. Then again, she realized, Spike didn't talk about Buffy much at all if he didn't have to.
"I guess," Dawn said glumly. She fiddled with the fringe of her blanket. He was right, of course. Buffy wouldn't just want to know - she'd be really hurt if she found out later from someone else. But her phone calls home always made her feel a little bad afterwards... She sighed. "Okay, I will."
"Good." Spike abruptly sounded businesslike. "Right, love, I'm off. You'll give a call before you go back to Sunnydale, right?"
"Oh!" Dawn exclaimed, suddenly remembering. She darted a look across to Alicia. "Spike, Alicia's boyfriend's coming to pick her up on Thursday… can I come over to your place for the afternoon and early evening? I don't want to interrupt the loooooooove-fest!"
"You skank!" Alicia screeched, giggling madly. "Now Spike's going to think I'm a total ho!"
"Alicia's a HO!" sang Kirsten.
"Good on you, Alicia!" Spike called through the phone.
"Spike says good for y – HEY!" Dawn suddenly registered the double-standard. "So it's okay for Lise to get the lovin', but not me?"
"Yes."
"Biased judge," Dawn groused. "That's it, you've insulted my boyfriend and now you're ganging up against me. This phone call is so over."
"That's all it took?" Spike exclaimed. "Let me write that down…"
"Shut UP!" Dawn tossed the DVD over to Kirsten, who scrambled to start the movie. "So I'll see you on Thursday, right?"
"Whenever you get sexiled, Bit." His tone changed a little, becoming more serious. "And Dawn?"
"Yeah?"
"Call your sister."
"Hey, Buffy?" Dawn sat in the hallway outside her room, pulled up tight against the wall. The dorm was pretty empty, what with it being a Saturday night. As nasty as it had been, Dawn was glad that she and Spike had worked everything out on Thursday; he'd been the one to suggest she spend the rest of the weekend with her friends, brushing off her offer to keep her promise and meet him on Saturday night.
She could hear Kirsten and Alicia inside the room, singing along to the movie, and sighed to herself. Totally separate lives. Alicia and Kirsten on the other side of the door, Buffy and Sunnydale on the other end of the line. And then Spike, who half-existed in both. Like living in overlapping dimensions – how could he do it so easily, while she struggled so much?
"Dawn!" Buffy sounded surprised. "Is everything okay?"
Suspicious as ever, Dawn thought. "Yeah, everything's good." Pause. "I thought I'd let you know I had a date last night."
"Oh, sweetie! That's great!" Buffy squealed excitedly into the phone. "What's his name? What's he look like? Tell all, kid."
"He's about six feet tall, really sweet, really smart – he's got kinda sandy-blonde hair, but it's cut really well," Dawn sighed happily. "He brought me ginger ale because he thought I was sick… He's gorgeous, Buffy." She settled comfortably against the wall and began to ramble, listening to the delighted exclamations of her sister echo down the line.
Dawn never knew how Buffy would be on one of these phone calls. Sometimes she seemed to strain to be like their mother, the tone Dawn privately labeled 'Stepford Mom'. She'd use the same phrases, ask the same questions, and Dawn always hung up feeling kind of sick. It was like her sister was on autopilot, set for 'Dawn'. But at other times, Buffy was her usual giggly self. It was the strangest thing.
"So, will Sean be staying at school for Spring Break, too?" Buffy asked in a confidential tone, and Dawn winced guiltily.
"Uh, no! He's going back to Seattle."
Buffy was silent for a moment. "Dawn, I'm sorry. I wish I could come out there for the week, but I've got work."
"Yeah." Dawn stared at the brickwork across from her. Buffy hadn't even asked if Dawn might like to come home for the week; once she'd decided to get her sister out of Sunnydale, Buffy hadn't turned back.
"Xander!" Dawn could hear the door slam shut on Buffy's end of the line. "Dawn's got a boyfriend!"
"Hey, hey!" Xander came on the line, all brotherly insinuation and goofiness. "Will I need to be breaking any legs?"
"No, Xander, he's really nice." Dawn rolled her eyes. As much as Xander hated Spike, they sure acted alike sometimes. She switched the phone to her other ear. "How's construction?"
"Ah, constructing." Xander brushed off the question, as he always did.
"And is everything okay at home? Nothing earth-shattering?" She knew that was coming dangerously close to taboo vocabulary, but Xander was usually more lenient with that sort of thing than Buffy.
He cleared his throat, choosing his words carefully. "Nope, the crew's working fine, everything coming in well under schedule, no sick days – all-around goodness." Dawn let her breath out as she decoded: there had been no close calls, and Buffy hadn't been injured recently. She and Xander had been using the same method of passing information for months - she was pretty sure that Buffy knew what she and Xander were really talking about, but they hadn't gotten into any trouble. Yet.
Then again, the reports had all been the same, so maybe Xander wasn't as reliable a source as Dawn thought. This sudden realization stunned her, and she automatically replied, "Good, good," the paranoia in her mind running a million miles an hour. She didn't even notice the awkward silence she'd caused until Xander cleared his throat loudly.
"So. Dawn, nice to talk to you, only go out with the boyfriend with a crusty old chaperone, and I'm going to go grab a shower before dinner." He paused. "Back to you, Buff." Dawn heard Xander pass her off, and she mentally geared up for the final stretch, closing off the suspicions that had suddenly cropped up in her brain.
"So Dawn – you'll be okay at school for the week, right? There will be faculty there, and other kids around…" Buffy asked worriedly.
"Oh, yeah," breezed Dawn – this part was straightforward at least. "JP's here for most of the holidays, and I think there are some Chinese kids who live in the next building." She scanned the hallway. "Oh, and there's some girl from Maine who'll be here most of the time, but I think she'll be in her room with her boyfriend. Busy."
"And I'm suddenly glad that YOUR boyfriend will be a continent away," Buffy commented wryly, making Dawn smile.
"Any more tough exams?"
"Uh, not really, it's just the easy stuff now. Smooth sailing. As JP would say, 'easy as cake'."
"Well, good luck." A metallic rattling noise on the other end of the line caught Dawn's attention, and she suddenly hazarded a question.
"Going out on patrol tonight?" She couldn't hang up without trying for a little news, she thought desperately. The rattle ceased abruptly, and Dawn held her breath, waiting.
Buffy paused. "Yeah, Dawn. Aiming for an early night, though." She had a hint of warning in her tone; Dawn was lucky to get that much out of her sister, she knew.
"All right. Be careful." Dawn chewed at her lip, imagining Buffy packing up for a night out on the town. Coat, makeup, purse, flamethrower…
"Always am. Don't worry about us. Love you." And she was gone.
Dawn stared at the phone. Alicia and Kirsten had stopped singing inside, and were talking over the movie in excited voices. The rest of the hallway was quiet. Dawn stood up and looked at her door.
Then she turned, walking quickly down the hall, through the two sets of double doors, past the elevators, and stopped in front of room 418. She knocked gently on the door and waited.
But no one answered.
The phone began to beep insistently in her hand, and Dawn stared at it for a moment before realizing: she hadn't hung it up. She suddenly seemed to realize where she was standing and flushed red. She spun about and darted down the hallway, skidding across the tiled floors as she ran back to her own room, where her normal, ordinary friends were waiting.
Brian opened his door just as she ran past his room. "Dude, was that Dawn?" he asked, looking behind him to where Kofi and Sean sat, playing video games.
"Where?" Sean jumped to his feet, but by the time he looked out the door, there was no one there at all.
"And I was totally going to tell Sean everything, Spike!" Dawn lay on the bed in Mr. Bruckert's office, gesticulating madly at the ceiling. She'd been desperate to talk to Spike since Saturday night, but it never felt right, talking about Hellmouthy-stuff on the phone. Maybe she'd been watching too many CIA movies.
"Insane! I didn't even know what I was doing until I was knocking on his door." She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at the vampire, both eyebrows raised high. "I think it's a side effect of repression."
Spike groaned at her. "What did I tell you about applying high school psychology to real life?" He fished another maraschino cherry out of the container at the side of his chair. "It's a rotten habit, might as well leave it to the so-called professionals." He tossed the candy-red fruit into his mouth nonchalantly, one eye on the television.
Dawn grimaced. "Spike, how many jars of those have you eaten your way through so far?"
He looked down at the plastic tub ruefully. "I have no idea, pet, didn't count when I found them in storage." He snatched the lid off the desk and screwed the container firmly shut, giving it a final tap before shoving it into one of the filing cabinets. "They're addictive, though."
"Guess we're lucky that vampires don't get fat," she mused, smiling brightly at his snort of disgust.
"But you didn't tell him, right?" Spike's response was a little delayed, but they'd been conversing like this all afternoon – jumps and starts, overlapping topics and distracted replies. Time didn't really seem to matter today. Dawn sighed.
"No – he didn't answer and I booked it." She shifted a little, pulling herself further upright. "But isn't it kind of unfair that everyone else gets to share with someone, and I'm the only one stuck with all the secrets?" She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. Spike turned and looked at her.
"You think the others don't have it rough?" He seemed serious, and Dawn listened carefully as he continued. "I'm not even talking about the Scoobs – I mean EVERYONE. Sure, most people wouldn't get institutionalized as quickly as you and your friends," he smiled a bit to lessen the sting, "but everyone's got problems. Everyone, Bit." He turned back to the television.
"Now who's Mr. Pop Psychology?" Dawn muttered. Spike made as if to throw one of the cherries at her, but then realized he'd put the container away and settled for snarling. On the television, Oprah and Dr. Phil agreed with each other about something. Dawn fidgeted.
"Buffy doesn't know I'm flying back tomorrow." She said it all at once, nearly shouting in her effort to get the whole sentence out.
That caught his attention. "What?"
"Buffy thinks I'm staying here for Spring Break, at school. But I found a really good fare and got the ticket ages ago, it's for the whole week…" she trailed off weakly. "I thought I'd just show up."
Spike considered her for a moment. Then he shut off the television. Dawn sucked in her breath, ready for a lecture, but Spike was just looking at her.
"Okay." He said it simply, like there wasn't much else to be done about it. "What's the problem, then?"
Dawn exhaled in one big whoosh. "Well… she never said I COULDN'T come home, but…"
Spike nodded. "You're not supposed to be anywhere near Sunnydale. She's decided."
"Yeah!" Dawn's forehead wrinkled, and she stared at her hands. "She didn't even ask me. It was like, 'Hey Dawn! Dad and I figured out a way for you to finish high school in New Hampshire! Isn't that great?'"
Dawn slumped further down. "And I wasn't exactly having the easiest time at school, some of the girls were being REALLY bitchy, so I thought sure, why not." She looked up at Spike helplessly. "I didn't know that she wouldn't let me come home."
"Ah." Spike shifted uncomfortably, unsure of whom to champion. He understood Buffy's intent, but she did tend to act a little heavy-handedly…
Dawn was picking at the lining of the cot, teasing the cotton fibers from the material in sharp yanks. "Spike," she started, and then stopped suddenly, focused again on her petty vandalism. Spike waited.
"Spike, I don't think they're telling me when bad things go down at home." Dawn's voice was rough, and she kept her head down as she spoke. "I thought Xander would tell me if Buffy got hurt, or if something went wrong, but…" She stopped pulling at the cot and instead, brought both hands to her lap. She looked lost, thought Spike.
"Xander's been telling me that everything's fine for almost nine months now," she said dully. "Can you EVER remember Sunnydale being fine for that long, Spike? I can't." She sighed deeply, and Spike realized that she felt betrayed. True, in a way – if Buffy and Xander really were keeping things from Dawn, they were effectively cutting her out of the family.
He scratched his jaw with his thumb. "Dunno what to tell you, Bit."
But Dawn was done with being emotional. "Nothing to tell, really," she replied coolly, straightening her shoulders. "I'm flying out tomorrow, I'll land in daylight, get a taxi back to the house and wait, I guess… They'll just have to deal." They both looked at the blank TV screen out of habit for a couple of minutes, neither speaking.
Then Dawn suddenly twisted towards Spike, looking at him pensively.
"Spike, are you ever going to go back to Sunnydale?"
Spike leaned back grimacing, as though he'd been waiting for the question. He pulled one booted foot onto the edge of the bed and rested his arm on it, staring at his hands.
"Don't think so, love." He answered quietly and seriously, and Dawn leaned against the wall, watching his profile.
"No offense, but it's a huge coincidence that I even ran into you." He picked at his hands absently. The worst of the burns had healed well, and now only white calluses remained. Spike turned to look at her.
"If I'd seen you first, I'd've left town," he told her honestly. "New England's about as far from Sunnydale as I could get, if I wanted to keep my U.S. contacts up. And I needed those," he chuckled. Dawn didn't quite follow, but nodded mutely anyway. Spike gave his head a shake, then grinned at her.
"So, plain answer? No. I'm not going back."
Dawn processed this, then reached out and pulled at the sleeve of his sweater almost shyly. "But you'll be here when I get back from Sunnydale, right?" She cleared her throat. "I mean, you won't sneak away while I'm gone."
Spike watched her, but she didn't want to make eye contact. He smiled.
"No, love. I'll not leave without telling you." He rumbled the words low in his throat, letting them resonate, and Dawn grinned up at him brilliantly.
"Thanks," she whispered, curling up on the bed beside him, head pillowed on the bunched-up blanket she'd wrapped herself in only a week before. Spike hesitantly reached out a hand and brushed his fingertips lightly through her bangs, delicately pulling the shorter wisps away from her face, tracing her hairline. She murmured happily and edged closer to him, making his throat catch.
She seemed so tiny, too young to worry about everyone else's problems. And he would try to prevent her from shattering under the pressure, no matter how long she needed him to be there for her.
Hell. He had all the time in the world.
TBC
