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You guys are awesome!!!!!!! Thank you for all the feedback.

ABOUT DAWN'S CHARACTER: I realize that I'm making Dawn more insightful than she really is, but that was one of the things I didn't like about her on the show. She acted so...11ish, when she was really a teenager. At least when I was 13/14/15 I was more mature than how she acted in season 5, so I kind of wanted to change her that way. (kinda makes her less annoying too). However, to keep her character intact from the show, I tried extra hard for her to be more innocent ( in this chapter, but in fact it is here that she matures a lot!

I think that when Buffy comes back, I'll change the point of view...to either omniscient or Buffy's POV. What do you guys think? Please review! Well, here's chapter 3!!!!!

Chapter 3

We were still bound together in that hug for a while. But I never regretted it. For the first time in my life I felt warmth radiating off of Spike.

He slowly pulled away, and wiped away his tears as I scrambled to wipe away mine, as well.

"Want something to eat?" I asked.

"Comes from the girl who hasn't eaten anything in four days..eh?"

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. I didn't want him to know that I wasn't eating...because I didn't want to explain why I couldn't eat.

"Oh come on now. Glenda came running to me the other day 'bout how you hadn't eaten for three days. So I said 'Alrite' and that I'd come right over to fix my girl up."

I giggled. "Your girl?"

Spike stroked my cheek as he spoke, "You are my girl. To protect. To love. When you are near me, I can feel her close by too." He looked away for a moment and then looked back at me. "You bloody Summers women. Even your mum. Can't stop loving you all...my girls.

I nodded sweetly and so he said, "Right then. So what would you like today. I can whip up something real great for ya."

I gave him a whimsical look.

"I can, you know. Cook. I'm a bloody good cook too. And if you poke fun at me for being a pansy I will tear you to pieces, so none of that now."

I held my stomach in pain from laughing so hard...imagining Spike wearing a chef's hat and apron tossing a salad or frying eggs.

"I'll just have cereal." I managed to say in between laughs.

"In the night? Well okay. It's a start."

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I ate that night. Even though it was just cereal...and the weird thing was I wasn't feeling bad about it. And I wasn't feeling bad about not feeling bad either, but now I'm just confusing all of us.

I was thinking about why that was so...why I wasn't feeling so horrible for eating. I really couldn't come up with an answer.

"Spike?"

"Yea"

I looked at him and his eyes were focused on the TV. He was paler, if that was possible...but I could tell he was a lot skinnier...like he hadn't eaten...well, in his case drank any blood.

"Spike. Have you eaten or drank anything?"

He kept his eyes focused on "Passions" and said in monotone.

"Don't have to worry 'bout me, Niblet. I'm fine."

"You haven't."

He turned to look at me most definitely annoyed, but trying to hide it.

"Spike, you can't just make me eat and then be all broody and not eat yourself. That's so cheating."

"Look, Dawn. I don't need a little girl taking care of me. I am over a hundred and twenty. I can bloody well take care of myself!"

By then he was yelling. He stood up and started pacing around the room blabbering to himself, like a crazy man.

That was it. I was tired of his yammering. If he was going to be like Angel all night, I wasn't going to stand for it. I needed him. I needed him to be there with me. Otherwise...I'd be...alone.

"Spike, if you don't eat something...then I don't know what will happen to you!"

He crouched in the corner of the room and spoke, his voice clearly raspy from the outburst. Tears were evident in his eyes and there were wet trails down his cheeks.

"Yea, so what of it?"

"Spike, will you stop being so sarcastic and mopey for a second and listen?"

I slowed down a bit, toning down my voice so I didn't have to shout over him

"Ok good. Listen, I know you are really hurt, and torn apart...the love of your life being torn away from you. I understand that! I do...It's happened to me twice, in less than a year! And that's what I guess...keeps us friends, keeps us together...the fact that we understand each other. I won't let you go away. I won't let you leave me...not by staking yourself, or turning into a living skeleton...or taking a shower in holy water...or walking out into the sunlight...just don't get any ideas."

Well, I was kinda heading in the wrong direction with the whole suicide thing, but I found my way back on the road.

"You might be a soulless monster to everyone else, but to me you are the vampire who in many ways learned how to be more human than many men...who learned how to love without a soul, and defy the nature of his kind by helping the side of good. Because you may not know it, but if I took this chip out of your head right now, you wouldn't kill me."

His eyes suddenly shot up to meet mine. He was still crouching on the ground.

"I would," he replied, trying to convince himself of being a monster.

"You wouldn't!"

"BlOODY HELL I WOULD!!! Because...because...I let her die. I should have saved you...and I failed....so she had to die!" he said weeping. "That just makes me a whole different monster. A creature meant to fight...failing in the job that mattered to him most. That just makes me worse than a monster...It makes me...makes me ............pathetic. Wasting useless buckets of salt over her...end."

And it took a while for all he was saying to seep in to my brain, because it was really a lot to handle. I was really in shock. I thought Spike was just feeling horrible for her dying. Period. But he was blaming himself for her dying!? If there was anyone to take the blame it was me! I wanted to shout at him 'ME!! BLAME ME!!'.

Everything was in slow motion at this point. For the past two months I had been feeling myself mature after every experience, being more reasonable, knowledgeable...letting every event make me come out a smarter and better person.

And that epiphany and sudden maturity happened to me right then.

I realized that I was being such a dumb-ass trying to blame myself for Buffy's death, because that wasn't the solution to anything. Blame wasn't going to bring Buffy back. Blame was just going to make my life worse, and everyone else's worse too. It was here I felt myself grow as I knelt before Spike.

I stated slowly and comfortingly, "Spike, blaming yourself for her...for Buffy's death...well, let me put it this way...it's stupid."

Well....at least it started out comforting.

He turned his head to look at me, confused.

"No I mean, you aren't stupid..........actually......you know what........you are! You sit here crying because you thought that you're the reason she died?! If anyone is to blame her, I AM!"

Spike opens his mouth to rebel but I cut him off.

"But I'm not to blame because no one is! Buffy was the slayer. Her responsibility was to protect us from evil things, and the slayer package didn't exactly come with a long life guarantee. So none of us should be put to blame over this. It's not about fault...it's about honoring her life. Living ours out the best we can...how she would want it. You have to promise me you won't go blaming yourself. I'm promising you right now that I won't blame myself."

I looked into his eyes and he back in mine. Now there was the Spike I knew.

"Yea." He sighed in defeat, as I tossed him a bag of blood. He then looked back up at me. While squinting his eyes at me, he questioned, "So, lil' bit...when did you act all grown up...when you're still so young?"

I smiled back and said, "Guess it's a Summers thing."

We really sat there, basking in each other's smiles, no matter how lame it sounds. Because this was the first time we were smiling, without faking that we were truly happy. It was like a burden had been lifted off of us. Not only because Buffy would have wanted us...well at least me, to be happy, but because I felt like I was with someone who I could truly be happy with.

I suddenly had the urge to do something, that I hadn't done in two months.

Unsure of his reaction, I cautiously asked him, "D-do you think we could visit them?"

He looked back at me, amazed by the fact that I was even slightly hesitant to ask him that and answered promisingly, "Of course we can."

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As we left to go to the graveyard he started, "So back there in the house...did you say I was like Angel and then call me broody??'

I just smirked at him and ran ahead giggling madly.

"Hey missy, get back here!! I am going to bleedin' hunt you down till you say it to my face...and then...there's no tellin' what I'll do to you!!" he yelled while chasing after me.

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End of chapter.
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This chapter isn't really too dark I presume. Please tell me how you liked it.

Next Chapter: Visiting Buffy and Joyce's Graves.