Domestic Shadows

By SinisterChic & MsQuey

A/N: This story follows cannon up until our Heros' final battle with the First. From there on, for the sake of this fic, the plot line is completely AU except for the fact that the Scoobies and Potentials still kick the First's evil ass and Sunnydale collapses in on itself. Just forget that Spike ever died . . . or that he ended up at sodding Wolfram & Hart with that poof Angel. (Sorry, channeling Spike. evil eyebrow grin)

Disclaimer: Neither SinisterChic nor MsQuey own any of the original characters of BtVS. They intend no copyright infringement and humbly ask that those that do own them do not sue them . . . You wouldn't get much anyway. They do however claim ownership to any and all original characters introduced within this story.

Chapter 5

Buffy opened her eyes the next morning when Rebecca squirmed beside her. The coverlet had slipped off the little girl's shoulder and so Buffy gently pulled it back up. It was then that she realized that Spike's side of the bed was empty. Panic caught in her throat, and she thought, maybe he's decided to leave after all.

And then she heard a gentle cough. Looking up, she saw that it had come from him. He was sitting in a shadowy corner with his knees drawn to his chest. "Spike?" she began, but he stopped her with a finger to his lips, then a glance at the sleeping child who lay in a bunch next to her. She grimaced at her thoughtlessness and lowered her voice as she got up slowly from the bed. "Why are you over there," she asked, crossing to him.

He pointed to her window. The shades were up, letting the morning sun shine in unhindered. "It was getting a little hot," he said with slight smirk. "I would have gone down to the basement but I didn't want you to think," he said, looking down at his hands, "or the girl, that I'd split."

Buffy frowned. He chooses now to start reading my mind?

"I think we would have figured it out," she said, sounding a little more defensive than she had meant to. She sighed. "C'mon. Let's go into the living room so that we don't wake her up."

"Right."

Dawn was already up and eating a bowl of cereal in front of the TV. When she saw her sister and Spike coming from Buffy's—room both looking rumpled, she arched her brow.

"Good morning, Dawn," Buffy greeted after a very big yawn.

Dawn didn't say anything, but looked suspiciously from one to the other.

"What's on the tele at this time of the morning?" Spike picked up the remote from the coffee table/weapon's chest and began flipping through channels. Dawn didn't move a muscle but continue with the mildly accusatory look she was giving them.

"Dawn, what's with the gawking," Buffy asked, finally giving in.

"You're sleeping together again, aren't you?"

Both of their jaws dropped. "No!" Spike exclaimed immediately.

"Of course we're not!" Buffy chimed in.

"Yeah, right," she said as she got up with her empty cereal bowl and headed toward the kitchen. "Sure. I believe that. Just like I believe there's no such thing as the Boogey Man."

Buffy glanced at Spike, deciding that the truth was the best route to take in this particular situation. "Okay, yes. Technically we were sleeping together, but it was just that—sleeping."

"Yeah, the little girl had a nasty dream," Spike defended. "She didn't want us to leave."

Dawn didn't look convinced, but shrugged and disappeared into the kitchen. "Whatever. It's not like it's my business anyway."

"That's right—," he called after her. "You're bloody right it's not your—" Buffy cut him a look as if to say, You're not helping!

"Well we can't let Dawn think we're doing somethin' we're not."

"Ever heard the term, 'Me thinketh thou protesteth too mucheth'?" She asked sitting down on the couch next to him.

Spike looked at her incredulously. "Oh you completely butchered that. Were you that busy in high school that you couldn't learn your Shakespeare properly?"

"So not the point, Spike," she retorted, rolling her eyes with a sigh. "Never mind." Spike shrugged and returned to flipping through stations. "But just for your information," Buffy said, unable to resist the temptation, "I seem to recall that you were one of the biggest pains in my ass keeping me from my school work."

Spike cut her a look, "Oh please! I bet it was your Broody Pants that did most of the distracting." Spike made his eyes glaze over and in a high pitched voice said, "Oh, Angel! I really need to go. I have a test in history tomorrow." Then he changed his expression by furrowing his brow and spiking up some of his hair. "No, you must stay with me Buffy. My soul, it's tortured. Only you can—"

"Bite me, Spike." Buffy huffed, playfully elbowing him in the ribs.

"Don't think that's what he said, pet. Although," and this time he braced himself for the jab, "I always did wondered about him," which inevitably followed.

"Damn, woman. That hurt," he said a little more forcefully than he'd intended.

"Oh, it's not like you didn't deserve it," she snapped back. "You're lucky I didn't use any serious force."

"Like your super-nagging ability?" Spike leaned forward, angry, getting in her face. "Or your ability to bring every man to his breaking point?"

Pain and offense burned in Buffy's eyes. "Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?"

Spike snarled in frustration and was about to –

"I'm sorry!" A surprised Buffy and Spike turned and saw Rebecca, standing at the corner, a very scared and sad expression on her face. "I'm sorry, Mr Spike, Ms Buffy!"

It took a second for Buffy to figure out what she was talking about but then she went to the child and knelt down in front of her. "What do you mean, sweetie?"

The little girl shifted from one socked foot to the other, but wouldn't look at Buffy. "You were fighting about me, weren't you?"

"Of course we weren't, Rebecca," Buffy said, reassuringly placing a hand on her little shoulder.

"Now what put an idea like that in your wee little head?" Spike piped up from behind them.

"Because that's what my mommy and daddy used to do... every time I saw stuff."

Buffy and Spike exchanged looks of understanding. Her parents must have fought over what her visions had meant about their daughter. Buffy especially knew what that felt like. She remembered her own parents fighting about her dreams of past slayers before she'd been chosen to be the next of them.

"Oh." She said, suddenly feeling very guilty about fighting with Spike when there was an impressionable child in the house. A child they were supposed to protect. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. We weren't fighting about you at all. We were—," she turned and gave Spike a pleading look.

"We were just fighting, pet." He said, approaching them and getting down on one knee beside Buffy. "Sometimes adults fight. About stupid things. We say things we don't mean," He glanced at Buffy, "and then we're sorry for them later."

It was an apology, and it surprised Buffy so much that her voice faltered when she said, "That's right."

Rebecca looked tentatively from one adult to the other. "So you weren't fighting about me?"

"Nope," Buffy said, smiling reassuringly at her.

"Not a bit," said Spike.

Then the child broke out into a toothy grin and clapped her small hands together. "What's for breakfast?"

There were happy, if not chaotic noises coming from the kitchen as Dawn and Rebecca whipped up a batch of chocolate chip pancakes a few minutes later.

"I'm gonna go have a smoke in the basement," Spike said pulling his lighter and cigarettes from the pocket of his leather duster that hung on the coat wrack by the front door.

"And I am so in need of a shower," she said in turn, getting up from the couch. Spike had almost reached the basement door when Buffy added. "But when I'm done, we really need to talk about making some decisions."

He partially turned toward her. "I suppose we do."

"Careful. Don't burn your arm on the pan." Dawn said, enjoying not being the one talked down to for the first time in her life.

Rebecca stood on a chair and licked her lips as she carefully let the batter drizzle from a measuring pitcher onto the crackling frying pan. "This is going to be yummy!" she exclaimed happily.

Dawn laughed. "I know I'm looking forward to it." She leaned down and whispered, "Buffy never cooks, so unless I do it, we never get pancakes."

Rebecca giggled at the secret. "Chocolate chip pancakes are my favorite. My mommy used to make them for me every Sunday, but she never let me help."

Dawned frowned but the little girl didn't seem to notice. It made her wonder if Rebecca was old enough to really understand that her parents were gone. Forever. Dawn knew what it meant, having lost her mother some years earlier. She didn't envy the child the day that she would finally realize that her parents weren't coming back.

"Dawn?"

She snapped out of her reverie to see Rebecca looking up at her curiously.

"Will you send me something pretty from England?"

Dawned stared at her, completely puzzled. Suddenly it seemed to become apparent to the little girl that she had said something that she shouldn't have and she looked away quickly. "Why do you think that I'm going to England?"

"I, I don't know," she said, seeming very interested in the bubbles that were forming on the tops of the partially cooked pancakes. "Aren't you?"

The odd thing was that Dawn had been thinking about going to England. After she graduated she wanted to go help Giles and the others with the new Slayer Academy. She knew that she could be useful there, but at the same time knew that Buffy wouldn't be willing to go with her. She desperately wanted to go, but Buffy needed her more than she would ever let on. How could she leave her? And here Rebecca not only knew about it, but was talking as if it were a done deal.

"I haven't decided yet, Rebecca," she finally answered as she flipped the pancakes over.

"Oh."

"Do me a favor and keep this a secret between you and me. Okay?" Dawn smiled widely, trying to cover up her uneasiness. Rebecca seemed to buy it and smiled back.

"I won't tell."

Said the psychic kid, Dawn thought as she scooped the finished pancakes off the pan and onto a plate.