Nightmares

Disclaimer: I got 'Storm Front' on audio book for Christmas but other than that, no closer to owning anything Spike-like. (It's an awesome book btw.)

Summary: Restless sleep and bad dreams all around. Mystical perhaps?

Reviews: Please. Reviews inspire the muse. Thanks! Readers rock but reviewers RULE!!

A/N: I totally love all the reviews this fic is getting. Y'all are so awesome! Little Illy: Thank you. Your comments are greatly appreciated. Just gotta tell you, it's a mystical thing. All will be made known. ;-) This fic seems to want to stop on short chapters, guess that's going to be the way of it.

I have been called 'rude', 'fiendish' and 'naughty'. (Blush) Y'all say the sweetest things.

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Buffy tossed and turned in her bed. Sleep was being more elusive than normal. She had gotten used to interrupted sleep in the last six months. They had moved to an apartment with a split floor plan so that Buffy's disturbed sleep would not keep Dawn awake. She pounded her pillow in frustration, knowing that the instant she closed her eyes again she would see him. Her hand tingled where the flames had engulfed it.

"I love you."

"No, you don't. But thanks for saying it."

The words echoed through her mind. She'd finally told him she loved him and he hadn't believed her. Part of her wanted to think that he'd only said that because he was trying to get her to leave him, but another part knew that he wouldn't lie to her.

"See you Saturday night."

"What's Saturday night?"

"I kill you."

She smiled a little as their first meeting drifted through her thoughts. He'd never been able to kill her. But then, she admitted to herself, she'd never been able to kill him either. She thought he'd always be there. Annoying her, fighting with her, beside her and just being the infuriating pain in the ass she fell in love with. It had taken her so long to realize that what she felt for him was love. She'd tried comparing her feelings for Spike against the feelings she'd had for Angel but couldn't. Her love for Angel had been first love, sweet and innocent. Her love for Spike had been an adult love, all passion and fire. It had taken her so long to understand that she loved him even before he'd gotten the soul. Then it was too late and he was gone. The shock of seeing him in the paintings had been almost more than she could take. Angel had taken the paintings to his hotel. She and Dawn were going there tomorrow to look at them again and see if there was more they could tell from them.

She drifted into a restless sleep hoping that the next day would bring some answers.

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Dawn laid in her bed wide-eyed. Her system was still in overload from the startling discovery of the paintings. Her heart pounded with the hope that Spike was indeed out there somewhere. But then again, her brain argued with her heart, if he was out there why didn't he come back to them? It wasn't as if they were hiding.

After the collapse of Sunnydale, Giles had driven the bus here to Los Angeles. They had taken refuge in the hotel with Angel and his crew. Principle Wood had spent several days in the hospital but had survived quite well. All of the new slayers that had gotten injured had healed quickly thanks to their newly bestowed slayer abilities.

They spent a couple of weeks recovering but soon after that people began leaving. Giles had decided to return to England to reform the Watchers Council. As the only surviving member, aside from Wesley who'd also been fired, he inherited the entire assets of the original council. The older man had immediately put Buffy on retainer as senior slayer and paid her a fairly generous salary for training the new slayers in whichever part of the world she decided to live in.

Buffy and Dawn had stayed in England with Giles for a couple of months before going on to Rome. But both girls had been homesick for California so after only a month they'd moved back to the sunshine state. Angel had helped them find an apartment close to the old neighborhood so Dawn could attend the school system she'd been in before the move to the Hell Mouth. They all realized that the memories were not real but it didn't make them any less important to the teenager. She wanted familiar surroundings. Her best friend had been taken away from her and she needed to be near where she'd seen him last.

Dawn had been astounded by the level of compassion that Angel had shown for her grief. She had been under the impression that Angel hated Spike. It was true to an extent but, as Angel explained it, Spike had been family. Both Summers girls had been shocked by the grief Angel had displayed. Buffy told Dawn later that Angel had felt Spike die. Because the death was mystical and had been so painful to the blond vampire, the Sire had felt it. Buffy nor Dawn had ever bought into the story that Drusilla had Sired Spike. Xander had told them of the night they'd all fought Spike for the first time. How Spike had expressed his disgust over Angel's affliction of his soul.

"You think you can fool me? You were my Sire, man. You were my… Yoda." Had been Spike's words.

Dawn had come to understand as she got older that in order for there to be so much hatred between the two vampires there first had to have been deep caring. So, in his own way, Angel had become important to Dawn. His connection to Spike had been the initial reason but as the weeks passed, Dawn had come to appreciate the elder vampire in his own right. Unfortunately, he would never replace Spike in her heart.

Dawn turned over in her bed, tired and in desperate need of sleep but unable to keep her eyes closed. Finally, after hours of restlessness, she drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Dawn found herself in an unfamiliar place. She could not discern exactly where she was. Frantically looking around, she saw a man standing in the shadows near a wall. She started toward him but slammed up against an invisible shield. He moved into a patch of light. Happiness suffused her as she recognized him. Spike. She pounded on the partition but he turned away from her.

"Sorry, Bit. Can't stay. I've been abandoned. Have to make my own way. It's getting late." His voice faded as he moved back into the shadows away from her.

"Spike!" The sound of her own cry woke the teenager. Tears coursed down her face as the nightmare lurked in her mind. She pulled her blanket further up on her shoulder and resigned herself to a sleepless night.

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Angel sat in the lobby of the Hyperion gazing at the trio of paintings they had purchased. Wesley had surprised him with his swift action in acquiring the canvases. The dark vampire inspected the largest of the pieces. The duster hanging on the chair and the scuffed boots were classic Spike. They were as much a part of him as his black jeans and his smirk.

He noticed the time, how late it was getting. The girls would be over in the morning. He wearily trudged up the winding stairs and made his way to his room. He undressed with uncharacteristic sloppiness, leaving his clothing scattered on the floor. Crawling into his bed, he forced his fatigued body to relax. Sleep was slow in coming.

The pain hit first, then the burning. He could feel it. He'd been over a hundred miles away but he had felt it. His Childe was burning up from the inside. It wasn't a quick dusting. It was slow. Incinerating the ubervamps while eating away at the slim body of the blond vampire. The guilt that plagued Angel every day for the past six months chased him every night in his dreams. He should have been the one wearing the amulet. He was the champion of the Powers That Be. Instead, he'd listened to Buffy and returned to LA. Angel had an uncomfortable feeling that if he'd been wearing the amulet the end result would have been very different.

A cold feeling swept over the master vampire. He heard it again. That voice. The one he'd heard whisper in his ear that bad day six months ago. "Thanks for letting me die, Sire."

Angel woke up with a shudder.

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"I love you."

"No, you don't. But thanks for saying it."

He sat straight up in his bed. The sheets were rumpled and twisted from his nightmare. He raised a shaking hand, stared at it for a few seconds expecting to see flames and then scrubbed it across his face trying to banish the visions from his mind. Happy that, for once, he woke up before the worst of the pain began. Inhaling deeply, he settled back down on the pillow and closed his dark blue eyes. He didn't know why he had these nightmares. He just wanted them to stop. The female voice he heard in his dreams every night made him feel unsettled. He felt he should know that voice. A sigh echoed through the bedroom as he drifted back to sleep, praying to whoever may be listening that the nightmares would not return. They ignored him.