*
"What's wrong with her?"
Spike had managed to hold back until the door closed behind him, so as not to wake Dawn. He turned on the doctor grimly, backing the smaller man against the concrete wall of the corridor and causing the spectacled doctor to gasp. In the presence of a determined Spike, Dr. Prescott suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy for Sheila - a sensation very alien to him.
All signs of gentleness were gone. The hands that had so carefully smoothed Dawn's hair were now balled into tight fists, the knuckles bulging underneath the skin. Dr. Prescott was vaguely reminded of the way a snake eyed its prey, coiled and deadly, but perfectly still. Spike stared at him blankly, not blinking, seemingly not breathing. It was as though he could simply WILL a positive prognosis. Dr. Prescott cleared his throat and took a deep breath. He was not easily shaken, but this encounter was unnerving.
"I promise, I WILL get to Dawn's injuries, but first I'll have to ask: who are you?"
"Oh." Spike's eyes twitched to the right a little, and the doctor noted the movement carefully. A move to the right often signified that the speaker was going to get a little "creative" with the truth – this should be interesting.
"I'm a family friend," Spike decided. Inside his head, he tried to reconcile that answer with the current Spike-Summers relationships. Joyce had liked him at the end; Dawn seemed happy to see him; Buffy… well, there wasn't much he could do about that one, he guessed. Still, two out of three wasn't a horrible ratio. He looked back to Dr. Prescott. "Yeah – a friend from California."
That explanation didn't have blood ties, though. He saw the doctor's forehead crease and began to elaborate. "A family friend from California, and I'm the only one on the East Coast. I can probably tell you anything you need to know about her history, and I also have Dawn's routine down here pretty well. She goes to school in New Hampshire, she was going to fly out to California this afternoon…" He tapered off, wary of saying too much. Never a good idea, just giving away information. He shot the doctor a sidelong look, wondering if his excuse had been enough.
Dr. Prescott sighed. "Well, as you probably know, we don't usually discuss patients' condition with their friends, but Miss Summers did specifically say that you were to be kept informed." Spike nodded, relieved. Good girl.
"Did she give you any other numbers or contacts?" Spike asked hesitantly. Buffy. There was really no way around it; he was going to stay with Dawn until he knew she was all right, and if that meant being around when Buffy arrived… Well, he decided, so be it. She wouldn't be overly pleased to see him, and he wasn't thrilled at the prospect of a reunion right now, but Dawn – she was the important part of the equation. And so he'd stay. Until he got sent away, and only Buffy or Dawn herself could do that.
"Her sister, when will she be here?"
Dr. Prescott looked at him blankly. "Miss Summers told us that you were her guardian while she was in school – she asked us not to contact her family." He looked at Spike suspiciously. "Isn't that true? She didn't give us her home contact information, but it won't take us long…"
"No," Spike hurriedly covered, shooting a look at the closed door. Her guardian, eh? An interesting twist. "No, I'm her guardian. It's just never been stated that formally, I suppose." He ran a hand through his hair and bent his head to study the patterns on the tiled floor. Guardian. Buffy would love that one. Oh, this was going to get complicated.
Dr. Prescott cleared his throat and started again, the wary look still on his face. "Ah, yes. Well. To get back to your earlier question, I'd be happy to go through some of Miss Summers' charts with you…?"
"Sure, yes, good." Spike shoved his hands into his pockets, mind still racing at the implications of his new guardianship, but straining to focus on the litany of injuries the doctor was reading through.
"Well, she's managed to break her right arm; it seems like a re-break, as there's a calcium deposit around the site that would be consistent with a prior fracture…"
"Yeah, that happened in a car accident, uh, two years ago?" Spike estimated. "The girl's got no luck with cars, really."
The doctor shot him a strange look, but continued. "Yes. She's come very close to fracturing her right ankle as well, but it seems she'll get away with a severe sprain. We've taken films from different angles, just to make sure, and we've also put an aircast on her – these are all precautionary measures, more than anything," he confided. "Then there's the lacerations and bruising."
At that, Dr. Prescott seemed stumped. He took a deep breath, re-reading his charts, took off his glasses to rub his eyes, and then settled for an eloquent shrug. "Honestly, the injuries are completely inconsistent with the landing they endured, but she's got enough injuries for all the other passengers combined."
"Wait." Spike held up his hand, stopping the doctor mid-chart. "She was only driving down with her boyfriend, and that little shit's apparently on his way to Seattle. Were there other cars involved?"
Dr. Prescott shook his head and adjusted his glasses, squinting up at Spike. "I thought that we were crossing wires earlier," he said, exasperated. "What exactly did they tell you when they called?"
Spike blinked. "They said that Dawn Summers had been in an accident and I'd been listed as a contact. Why?"
"Dammit. They're always too damn vague down there," Dr. Prescott muttered irritably. He held his charts closer to his chest and looked Spike in the eye. "Dawn was involved in an aircraft incident."
Spike was still. He'd leaned forward to catch the doctor's words, but seemed to have frozen in place. Dr. Prescott wondered if he'd gone into shock, unusual as that would be. Spike's blue eyes were still focused on him, but he wasn't breathing, wasn't moving - it was like the man had suddenly turned to marble.
Then the words sunk in.
"Fucking hell!" Spike exploded. His entire body twitched as he instinctively moved back towards Dawn's room, ready to burst in and... do what? Reason returned; he'd already seen her, she was going to be okay. Car accidents happen every day, but this? "What happened? Why haven't I seen anything on the news, heard anything on the radio?"
"Well, Dawn was the only one injured to any extent," Dr. Prescott said, spreading his hands in a gesture of confusion. Apparently, he was just as stumped as Spike.
"What, she drew the short straw? How the hell does that happen?" Spike was pacing now, every fiber in him wanting to go back to Dawn and reexamine her, but also kicking himself for being so casual. What had he said to her? That she looked like hell? Oh, god.
Dr. Prescott ventured closer to Spike, wanting to soothe him but unwilling to step into his path. "I don't know, no one really knows. An engine blew…"
Spike let out a sharp blast of air; words failed him.
"One engine out of four!" Dr. Prescott hastened to add, clipboard held up defensively against his chest. He caught himself and tried to relax his posture. "It's fine, though – planes can land safely with that kind of damage, it's just a rougher flight. Usually, there are some minor injuries to all involved." He took a breath and creased his forehead again. "Usually."
Spike motioned helplessly. He leaned back against the wall of the corridor across from Dawn's room, staring in through the window. The sound of Dr. Prescott's voice droned on in the background; Spike vaguely registered the man's earnest gestures, his kind face. None of it helped.
Inside, Dawn slept on.
"Eugh." Dawn propped herself up hesitantly, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "I feel disgusting."
Spike spoke up from the chair in the corner. "You haven't slept enough, Bit. But I was going to have to wake you soon anyhow." He was stretched out in one of the hospital chairs, but he hadn't been sleeping. His eyes were fixed on the lights of the parking lot outside, his fingers laced tightly and resting on his chest. He looked… angry, actually.
"Spike? Are you mad at me?"
"What?" That caught his attention. "No, no – sorry, love." Spike rose gracefully from his seat and padded silently over to her bed. And that really put Dawn on edge. Grace from Spike usually meant that he was plotting something sly; it was like the plans in his head unconsciously translated into his movements. She looked up at him doubtfully, waiting for him to continue.
"So, not a bloody car accident." Spike grimaced.
"No. Plane. Not fun." Dawn scowled and drew the covers closer to her chest. She jolted suddenly. "Oh my god – did anyone die? What happened to the others?" How could she have been so selfish, not to have asked?
"No injuries. At all." Spike said quickly, perching on the edge of the bed. His shoulders dropped and he sighed audibly. "Only you, and damned if I know why."
"Oh." Dawn wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad. Then she recognized the root of her conflicted feelings – Summers girls weren't supposed to be the only ones hurt. They were supposed to be the ones to survive against all odds, survive apocalypses with barely a scratch… and she'd been done in by a mundane accident, the most fragile of all the passengers? It wasn't just upsetting; it was vaguely embarrassing.
"What happened, then?"
Spike cleared his throat. "Well, I got this all from the doctor, so you'll have to ask him as well, but you lost an engine on the plane."
Dawn gasped. "Oh my god – I remember that. Fuck!"
"Dawn!"
"Sorry!"
They both blinked a little, confused by the exchange. Dawn quirked her eyebrow at him, wondering if he really cared about the swearing. In response he snorted and shrugged, then looked away, embarrassed.
"Whatever. You lot had a hell of a lot of turbulence on the way down, and the pilot had to make an emergency landing at a closed military base in Massachusetts. But you were unconscious long before that, according to another passenger." Spike watched Dawn carefully as he spoke, but she seemed to be accepting the information analytically rather than emotionally. She nodded slowly, thoughtfully.
"And all of this?" She gestured at her cuts and bruises, including a long slice right under her jaw that made Spike flinch. Damn, he hadn't noticed that one earlier. Any closer to her jugular and that injury alone could have finished her. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus.
"Bit, that's the problem. You shouldn't have gotten anywhere near that many injuries. There was a guy sitting right across the aisle from you, was real concerned, had his eye on you the entire time." Spike's tone was exasperated. "He put the mask on you when the cabin lost pressure, got you into the crash position and even got you out afterwards. Nothing touched either of you, and he didn't even have to come into the hospital – the paramedics cleared him on site. You shouldn't have been able to get ANY of those." He gestured widely at her, the irritation clear on his face.
"Good to know," Dawn said wryly. She winced as her IV drip caught on the sheets and readjusted herself. "And yet, I'm the only one in the hospital right now. Excellent. The weirdness follows me."
Spike's eyes widened marginally. "You think there was something funny going on." His tone was dead and flat; Dawn was startled.
"No! No, I was looking right at the engine when it blew, I don't think there was anything mystical happening," Dawn said, almost ruefully. "It really came apart, but it looked like a movie effect – no gremlins crawling on it, no blue-flashy-energy stuff." She'd take magical intervention over human error any day.
But Spike was still tense, still focused. He leaned closer to Dawn, his eyes directed down at the bedspread. She was glad he wasn't looking right at her; sometimes, Spike could be a little too intense, and this looked like it was going to be one of those times.
"There's another little problem, something that might be more trouble than it's worth." He spoke quietly, and Dawn strained to hear him. "You now qualify as a special case."
"What, like a mental case? Or are we talking about some sort of medical X-Files, like spontaneous human combustion?" She snorted, but Spike shot her a look and she stopped. "Oh, crap."
Spike continued. "First of all, you shouldn't have been this banged-up by the landing. There was nothing around you that might have caused cuts and bruises that match the patterns on you, and this," he gently fingered the cut along her throat, feather-light, so it felt more ticklish than painful, "This is just impossible in every way, as you were in a crash position." He half-smiled, looking at her kindly. "When the doctor told me about the slices, I figured you'd taken up the family tendency to travel with blades, but not even you would try to get a weapon through an airport security point. Right?" His tone carried a hint of warning, and Dawn nodded fervently.
"You have no idea how long I was drilled in hand-to-hand before flying out here in the first place," she groaned. "I've got…" she stopped, correcting herself. "I HAD a couple of pieces in my stowed luggage - nothing too showy, just functional – but the most deadly thing in my carry-on was a hairbrush."
"Unless you were also carrying your lipgloss, which blinds enemies at a thousand meters." Spike smirked a little at her.
"Ha bloody ha."
Spike let her giggle for a moment before continuing. "But nibblet, here's the tough part – there's no way you COULD have been injured to his extent, especially when all the other passengers got clean bills of health. Some of them weren't even wearing seat belts; a stewardess got chucked around like a tennis ball and still walked out unscathed." He roughly dragged one hand through his hair, making it stick up in odd directions. Dawn absentmindedly reached out to smooth it back, her thoughts completely focused on the implications of Spike's words.
"Basically, love, they want to keep you in here and study you for a bit." Dawn's expression changed from thoughtful to suspicious, and Spike decided to plow ahead. "To make it all the worse, you've got a new condition that interests them immensely."
"What? Am I sick?" Her tone was slightly panicked, but determined. Her face set in an expression that reminded Spike of something very familiar. It was so odd; anxiety and panic and desperation that had all been schooled into something that resembled calmness. As though she were trying to reassure him that she could handle what he was about to say… And then it came to him – Joyce. She had learned that stoic expression from Joyce. Spike reached out and grabbed her hand.
"No, Bit, you're not sick." He tightened his grip on her hand; he would never let her get that ill, never let her slip away… All at once he realized how close to breaking he was himself, and he snapped out of it. The last thing Dawn needed was for him to dissolve on her. The litany in his head went on, but he focused on Dawn, earnestly explaining all he knew.
"Remember that you've already broken that bone once?" He gestured to her arm and she nodded, cradling it closer. "It's going to mend just fine, but when they took the x-rays they saw something."
"Like…? Just tell me!" Spike's drama-queen tendencies were not appreciated at times like these, thought Dawn bitterly. Then again, he didn't seem to be milking the situation; if anything, he was still figuring it all out himself.
"All right, sorry, it's this: they think you might have some sort of brittle-bone syndrome." It all came out in a rush, and Spike winced at how harsh the phrase sounded. He tried to explain.
"It's got something to do with the calcium deposits in your bones, or something. It wasn't around two years ago, last time you broke your arm, but it's something they're worried about now. It means that your bones are going to be very delicate, that they will break very easily, I don't know the technical ways to describe it. Dr. Prescott's gone off to talk to some sort of specialist about study or treatment or something, and I'm DEFINITELY not supposed to be talking to you about this right now, but I do have a reason." He paused to see if anything was sinking in. Dawn just sat there, massaging her arm in its cast. "Dawn? Love? I'm sorry to be rushing you, pet, but there's things we need to talk about."
"Yeah." Dawn shook her head, still stunned. "Yeah. Talk."
Spike looked at her doubtfully, but she just gestured for him to continue. "Right, I don't like this situation. The engine I can go along with, but the fact that everyone else got away healthy while you look like you've been roughed up by a biker gang? Especially with the guy sitting next to you…" Spike suddenly turned to stare at her. "Was he okay? Could he have done anything to you?"
Dawn's brow furrowed. "No, I think he was okay, but I don't know – he hit on me, but as soon as I told him I was 14 he left me alone. And he helped me with the mask, I remember that." She turned the thought over in her head. "No, I think he was kosher."
Spike nodded. "Fine, then. Fourteen?" She rolled her eyes. "Right." He cleared his throat. "But Dawn – I'm also a little worried about something else…"
"My Key-deal."
Spike nodded slowly, head down. Dawn sighed deeply. That was supposed to be left behind too, she thought bitterly. No more Key-ness.
"I don't want them finding anything…unusual," Spike said, "Especially when you're so far away from home. I mean, I don't know what rights a 17-year old has in these matters, but the LAST thing I want to have happen is your sister has to bust you out of some government facility." He laced his fingers again, his eyes fixed on a thumbnail.
"So what do you think we should do?" Spike looked up at Dawn as she spoke, and noted again how strong she'd become. She'd always had this quality, of course, but she'd truly grown into it since he'd last seen her. It was something she'd gotten from her sister, he guessed, but lacked Buffy's "my way or the highway" qualities. Dawn listened, balanced, weighed. And then decided, concretely and absolutely, on a negotiated plan. He breathed in relief – she wouldn't ignore his suggestions, and she wouldn't insist on a foolhardy plan. Dawn would simply negotiate the best approach, then adopt it with all her heart. Probably a defense mechanism from growing up under Buffy's iron rule, but it was a good one to have. He smiled.
"Spike?"
The smile disappeared. "We've got to leave."
Dawn nodded; she'd guessed as much. She wasn't sure what rules applied between the ages of 16 and 18 either, but she was pretty sure that she wouldn't be counted as an adult. And after any organization got hold of her… Besides, Spike seemed to have an idea of what to do. "So first, we need to get out of here." She looked down at her hand. "You have any idea if this would be attached to a monitor or alarm?"
"Your IV? No, it's not rigged…" Spike pulled the IV tower closer to him, scrutinizing the leads.
"And you were talking like we need to do this quickly."
Spike nodded sharply. "The specialist was paged as soon as they took your x-rays; he should be here within the hour. I'd like to be gone before then."
Dawn pulled the neckline of her gown away from her body and peered down the front. "Naked. You know where they put my clothes?"
Spike jumped off the bed, scanning the room. A part of him thrilled at Dawn's speed – no hand-holding here, then. As he rounded the corner of the bed, he caught sight of a backpack in the corner. "Hey – that yours?"
Dawn looked up, wincing, and Spike saw her drop the needle of the IV to the floor, still attached to the tower. Her thumb pressed the point of entry on the back of her hand hard. "I can't see from here. You eat yet?"
Spike stumbled a little. "Uh, yeah. Full up." His heart sank a little. Was she that worried? He picked up the bag and brought it over to her bed, where Dawn had begun to shred the bottom of her thin cotton gown into strips. "Are we planning to make it look like you've been kidnapped by wild dogs?"
Dawn snorted. "Dork. I'm going to use it to wrap my hand." And she was trying, true, but the cast hampered much of her movement. Spike moved to help her, and then stopped.
"I'll help, if you want…" he trailed off, and Dawn picked up on his hesitation. She also suddenly realized why.
"I wasn't worried you'd eat me," she said bluntly, extending her hand to him. She began to root through her backpack awkwardly with her casted arm, leaving him to tend the IV mark. "But I didn't want you to go all crazy because I was smelling bloody."
"Not much of a choice," he muttered, carefully twisting the cheap cotton around her fist.
"Tighter," she ordered. She stopped rummaging and looked at Spike as he bent close to her hand. She pushed him slightly and he looked up. "If it bothered you, I thought I could sew it up or wrap it in plastic – wouldn't heal as fast, but wouldn't be as noticeable for you."
"Sew it?"
"I'm pretty good with a needle," she said flippantly.
"With no anesthetic."
"Beggars can't be choosers." Dawn lifted her half-bandaged hand again, pointedly drawing Spike's attention back to his task. He shook his head a little and went back to work.
"Ha!" Dawn pulled a small bundle from her bag. She shook it roughly, and the fabric unrolled to reveal a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a cotton tank top. She grinned triumphantly. "Escape clothes!"
"You always travel with those?" Spike swivled his head, darting a quick look at the plaid pants and floral top. "Appalling fashion sense, by the way." He tucked the end of his makeshift bandage into place and smoothed the binding.
"Who wants to unpack before getting into bed?" Dawn shrugged, and pulled her hand away from Spike, flexing experimentally. "Thanks."
"Nah."
They looked at each other for a moment, considering.
"So – over the walls with knotted bedsheets, or do we dig a tunnel with pudding spoons?"
"Through the front door, and television has rotted your young mind." Spike stood up, shedding his jacket. "Get dressed; I think I saw a pair of shoes in the corner. Nike sneakers?" He deliberately turned his back to her as he went over to get the shoes, a signal for her to start changing.
"Yep, that's them." Spike could hear the rasp of her gown as she stripped it off quickly, the creak of the gurney as she struggled out of bed. "Turn and die, obviously."
"Obviously," Spike agreed. It hadn't even occurred to him, but he suddenly noticed the way he'd positioned himself between her bed and the door. No peeping toms through the plexiglass, either. They were both silent as Dawn changed into her clothes, but eventually Spike could hear her breath coming in short bursts, as though she were struggling with something. "You all right?"
"NO!" The vehement exclamation burst from Dawn, and she stared down at her top. Miserable spandex, in everything now, and her STUPID cast getting in the way again… She hopped impatiently, then made up her mind. "Spike, help? Help help help?"
"Are you decent?" He still had his back turned toward her, her shoes dangling from one hand.
"Am I ever?"
Spike chuckled and turned around. Dawn had managed her flannels just fine, but the straps of her tank top had defeated her. Currently, she had one strap dangling uselessly, the other hitched almost to her elbow. Unfortunately, her cast was proving to be a major obstacle, and any motion threatened to bring the top sliding down. Dawn grimaced at him, her hair wild and her face flushed from the effort. "Helping?"
"I don't even know where to start," Spike teased, approaching her. "How about the side that's almost on?"
"That'd be good." Dawn twisted a little, and Spike easily slid the strap over her shoulder. Dawn sighed dramatically. "Oh, SO much better. I think I was cutting off circulation in that position."
"You'll live," he responded, but silently considered. She should be careful, the ways she contorted herself. She was so used to being flexible, she might unconsciously stress a bone that could shatter… "Right, Bit, stay perfectly still for this one." He began to maneuver the strap up over her cast as Dawn held the top of the shirt close to her chest.
"You know what this reminds me of?" mused Dawn. Spike shook his head, concentrating. "Those games at amusement parks. The ones where you have to get a metal wand down to the base of a twisty metal sculpture, without touching the wand to the sculpture."
Spike chuckled. "The ones that made a horrible buzzing sound when the metals touched and you lost the game? I saw those at seaside carnivals."
"Yeah! Those! I was totally addicted to those… never won, but Buffy could do them in a second. Of course, I had no idea it all had to do with the Slayer hand-eye coordination at the time. Don't think she did, either." Dawn allowed Spike a little more slack to navigate the elbow of the cast. "But next time I see one, I'm going to try it out. I think I could do it now."
"Think you're probably right, love." Spike slid the strap into place and stepped back, looking perplexed. "Since when did those things get so stretchy?"
"Since the invention of the built-in bra."
"Ah."
"Very functional." She smirked at him, and he rolled his eyes. "And you get a prize, too!"
"I get to tie your shoes, right?"
Dawn laughed, but genuinely. He was quick, always one step ahead of her when she teased him. She perched on the bed and watched as he knelt down, his fingers deftly loosening the laces of her beat-up old sneakers. Ready to help her, without a word. Her protector. Again.
Something began to rise up in her, a sensation that she could feel from the bottom of her ribcage, a feeling that spread through her limbs and made her shiver a little. Something that would require a bit of courage to say aloud. She took a deep breath.
"Spike?"
"Mmmm?"
"You shouldn't be surprised when I try to do nice things for you." He paused in his lacing, then continued again, more slowly this time. He was listening intently. "Like the IV thing? You shouldn't be shocked that I would do something slightly uncomfortable for me so that you wouldn't be very uncomfortable. If that sentence made any sense at all." She tried a different tack.
"I know you're not used to it, but it's how I am, how lots of people are. You're my friend, and I'll do things to make you happy, anything I can." She stumbled a bit on her words, the unexpected speech coming difficultly. "Spike?"
He had finished tying her shoes and stood up. The expression on his face, though, made Dawn even more convinced that she had to say the words bottled up in her throat.
He wasn't looking at her face-on, like he usually did. The brave, fearless Spike look that she knew so well had been replaced by one she'd rarely seen before, and then only in fleeting moments. His head was slightly turned, averted, and his blue eyes were peering at her at an angle. His chin was tucked, she realized, and that was when she recognized the posture. It was a flinch. As though someone had freeze-framed him as he flinched, but with his eyes open and looking.
Hoping, she corrected herself. His eyes were hoping, but the rest of him was expecting a blow, expecting to be hurt and rejected and damaged. And against all expectations, he was looking at her and hoping… what? He looked so much like a little boy that Dawn wanted to reassure him, tell him anything to make him happy.
But he was also still Spike, and Spike could tell when she was lying. So she spoke clearly and honestly, and tried to lay open her heart so he could see how much he meant to her.
"You've always treated me like I'm part of your family. I don't know how to explain it, and you probably don't either, but it's something that's just happened. And I want you to know, NEED you to know, that I think of you in the same way." Spike didn't move, but he'd also stopped breathing entirely. Breathing had become a bit of a habit with him, having spent so much time around humans, and to see him fall out of it – it meant she was getting to him. She forged ahead.
"You're something different in my family – and I've thought a lot about this, actually. You're almost a brother, almost a close cousin, almost the cool young uncle. You're a mix of all of them, but you're also something else that I can't explain. Buffy usually protects me from stuff, so I've never associated that with a parent, but you're also kind of my protector, too.
"From everything we know, you shouldn't react to me the way you do. From everything the books and Xander and Willow and Giles say, we should be able to define you neatly, like – oh, I don't know, a panda. Or something. Likes, dislikes, habitat, routine. But they all want you to be different than us, something they can classify and define, something 'other'. I don't."
Dawn reached out and took his hand. He let her, and dropped his eyes to the ground, lips pressed tightly together.
"You're just Spike to me. You come to my rescue no matter what, you talk to me, you joke with me, you're interested in my life, you impress my friends - and those are all things that family do. And," she swallowed. "You love me."
He whispered so quietly that she barely heard it. "Yeah. I do."
The knot in her throat thickened, but she spoke through it. "Then you have to let me be your family. Let me do the same kind of things for you, even if you think it's silly. Don't be embarrassed about vampire-stuff, don't hide it from me, just teach me about it so I won't react ignorantly. Let me help you, tell me when something's hurting you, and then let me fix it. Because I love you too."
"Okay." And even though his head was still bent, and Dawn couldn't see his expression, she knew there was one more thing to do.
She gently slid herself off the bed, brushed her lips across the cool skin of his temple, and wrapped her good arm around the back of his neck, hugging him gently. In a moment, his arms were tight around her, the heavy cotton of his sweater warming up the expanses of skin her tank top left open, his chin pressing into her shoulder. And even though his face was calm and smiling when he let her go a minute later, Dawn could feel the tightness of dried saltwater on the bare skin of her neck.
Sheila wasn't on duty when Spike and Dawn left the hospital that evening. No one remarked on the couple who casually strolled across the foyer to the sliding doors, the girl's flannel pants contrasting starkly with the brown leather jacket slung over her shoulders. Her arm was only through one of the sleeves; other other arm of the jacket had been tucked into the pocket of the jacket, but a lump under the coat was obviously a cast. Her companion fussed over her, drawing the front edges of the jacket closer together as he noticed the thick sleet coming down in the brightly-lit parking lot. All night, the people coming in through the doors had been soaked through to the skin, and the volunteer at the desk wondered if the two would share the single jacket between them. Evie stopped and watched as Spike smoothed Dawn's hair back in a fatherly gesture, at Dawn as she laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. Spike slung a backpack up and over his shoulder, then held out his arm for Dawn to take. She took it, hugged his arm close, and the two headed out into the snowy rain. Evie smiled a little as Spike unobtrusively held his other hand above their heads, as though to ward off the sleet. He was already drenched, but he seemed to be laughing. She couldn't help but notice that his hand shielded Dawn much more than it did Spike, hovering inches above her head.
And with that, she filed away her clipboard and took off her apron, her shift over. She was never asked about the two runaways, even when an investigation was launched and the entire volunteer staff questioned. She knew that she was passed over due to Sheila, who proclaimed her a "stupid, know-nothing girl" and deemed her too dim to question, and she even believed it a little. But years later, when a boyfriend gave her his coat and shielded her from the snow with his hand, she smiled and remembered.
TBC
