A/N: Hey guys, Sorry its taken me longer than I would've liked to get this out but its less than the usual wait which is good right? Since I'm doing my degree study at the moment, and this fic has me procrastinating waaaay to much on my assignments already, the next update won't be until my first assignment is handed in in a fortnight, and then I'll hopefully be able to continue with updates much more regular cause I'll be up to date! Anyway, on with the story, and thanks to my lovely reviewers….
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, please don't sue me cause I'm only a lowly student with just about two pennies in my pocket to last me……..
"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" Asked Xander forcefully, barely masking his anger. They were both silent.
"Well? He snapped
"n-nothing" Buffy said quietly.
"Funny, because I could have sworn I just heard you saying that you thought my wife deserves better than me, and the life I've given her." Buffy and Spike just looked at him.
"Am I correct; is that not what you were just discussing?" He paused, waiting for an answer that didn't come. "Answer me God Damn You! Answer me when I ask you a question!"
Buffy looked upset, knowing she'd been caught.
"Xander, I -"
"Don't try and take it back Buffy, don't pretend like you didn't mean it. I knew you well enough and long enough to know when you mean something." He cut her off; not wanting to hear the false statements he knew would tumble from her lips. Buffy winced, picking up on his use of the past tense.
"Xander, I'm sorry" She pleaded.
"No. You're not Buffy. I can see it in your eyes. Don't lie to me. Not now." He snapped at her roughly, quickly losing control of his anger. "Care to tell me why exactly you think she deserves better than me hmm? Why you think that our marriage, our baby are all one big mistake for her, and it's all gonna go wrong? Why I'm not good enough?" He broke eye contact and looked away from the pair of them, disgusted with their thoughts.
"Xan, I"
"Don't call me that! You don't get to say I'm not good enough for Dawn and then use pet names for me! Are you crazy?"
"No, Xander, I just," She sighed wondering how to explain this to him.
"It's just that I always hoped to give her more, to give her a perfect life. I always wanted her to have more than I did. To get to be young and experience the whole thing properly, as we were supposed to."
"And what makes you think that she hasn't? What makes you think this isn't good enough hey?"
"Xander, she's so young. She's only 23 for Christ's sake, yet she's married and pregnant! And to be honest, you're track record with relationships isn't all that hot is it? Remember Cordelia, cheating on her with Willow? And Anya? Yes leaving her at the altar is such a good recommendation for being married to my little sister! See if you screwed those up, what's to say you won't screw Dawn over?"
"I've grown up a lot since then, we both have. I'd never hurt Dawn, Never. I Love her."
"And you didn't love them?"
"That's different and you know it."
"But you have to admit that she's still so young. What'll happen in a few years when she realises that this isn't what she wanted but she's stuck with a husband and a kid, A husband that's so much older than her? What'll happen to her then?"
"That won't happen!"
"How do you know?"
"I know Dawn. That's how and it's more than you can say. What happened to you saying I was the only one you trusted with her hmm?"
"Yeah, but I meant as a big brother/father figure. I didn't meant for you to go screw her and knock her up! Honestly Xander"
"That's not what happened"
"Then what did happen, cause it sure looks that way from where I'm standing. What was it an 'accident'?"
"We looked out for each other!" He shouted, trying to make her see. He continued quieter "For a long time, after, after Sunnydale, she was so lost, so broken. And so was I, but she found me. I fell in love with her, so quickly, but I never did anything about it. Nothing! It was all her. She came to me, told me she thought she loved me and she kissed me. If she hadn't I would never have… I'd probably still be pining after her."
"So that's it, huh? She kissed you and you never though, hag on a sec, I'm seven years older than her. I should stop her. You just took advantage of the fact that she was vulnerable!"
"No I didn't. This all happened a while after, It's not like Sunnydale went Poof! And we jumped into each others arms!"
"But just because you were there for each other, you felt affection and decided it was love? That's not love Xander, that's friendly feelings."
"I know what I feel, and it's not just friendly feelings. I was there for her then and always will be. Someone had to, Cause you Damn well weren't!"
"I, uh well I…" She stuttered, unable to find a response.
"See now the tables have turned and you haven't got an answer to that have you?"
"At the time, I couldn't handle her, all of you, all the stuff I was going through at the time, I could barely deal with that, let alone everything else you guys were going through."
"Oh yes Buffy, very mature. You're going through a few things and decide that you can't find it in yourself to at least let your sister know you're alive. It's not like we would've dumped all our stuff on you and expected you to make everything right!"
"It's what you always did in the past" She said quietly.
"Oh grow up Buffy. You're sister, who you were meant to protect and care for thought you were dead. Do you have any idea what that did to her? How broken she was over you? Have you any clue to what she's been through the last few years?"
"No I don't. But then none of you have any idea what I went through the last Fourteen years!" Ever since I became the Slayer, it was one burden after another. One more thing dumped on me to cope with. None of you had any idea how hard it was for me, and yet all you did was criticise me all the time."
"No Buffy, Listen. We never dumped on you. You never got that did you. All we did was what you asked us to. We told you our problems. That's what you wanted. All we did was try to help you, try to take your burdens away. But you wouldn't let us. You thought we were just passing ours onto you. God I never understood that before. So while we were dealing with losing you, and it's consequences you were off trying to deal with an imaginary burden. God Buffy, why didn't you get it?"
"What do you mean consequences?"
"I'm talking about what happened as a result of you being dead. We couldn't hide it from the world this time Buffy. There were consequences. We had to tell your Dad. God, when he found out we almost lost Dawn." A tear escaped his eye at this point.
"What do you mean lost Dawn? What happened?"
"Your Dad decided that since she had no relatives left to take care of her, that he wanted her. He tried to take her to Spain to live with him, and his new twenty year old wife!"
"He's married again?"
"Yes, and yes she's younger than you. God we all had to fight so hard for Dawn. It almost killed her. She, she told me at the time that she'd thought about suicide. She hated the thought of going that much. See we were her last link to her past, and her future."
"So, what happened, how did you get him to change his mind?"
"We didn't. We had to get him declared an Unfit Father. Which we managed, but we also had to find a new family for Dawn. One of the conditions was that she had to be adopted into a new family."
"So, who..?"
"Giles. We haven't seen or heard from your father since he told Dawn that she was no good anyway and that the only reason he had wanted her was out of a sense of obligation. He told her that she only would have got in the way with his wife, and be a hindrance to him."
"God, he didn't"
"Yes he did, and It broke Dawns heart even more. But she made it. She had us and me. And we pulled her through. She gone on to do everything she's dreamed of. Not once has our relationship stopped her in anything. She's happy, and I'm happy, and if you can't deal with that and accept us and the baby, then you need to leave right now."
He pointed at the door as he said this. Buffy looked from his face, to Spike's, then to the open door his finger was pointing at. She sighed lightly and walked around Xander towards the open door…
A/N That's where I'll leave it for now….hehehehe. Please Review...
