Chapter 7 of How Many Days by Xionin

Title: Almost There – (Chapter 7 of How Many Days)
Disclaimer: Joss doesn't play with his toys anymore. Someone has to, dammit!
Rating: R
Pairing: Buffy/Spike, Dawn/Other, Willow/Giles, Willow/Other
Summary: Post-Season 7. This is a sequel to 'Don't Stop the Dance'
Distribution: Anywhere you like, just let me know.
Feedback: is welcome. ~Xionin (xionin@beautiful-freak.com)
Thank you: Pam and Maribel: my wonderful betas. You're both too wonderful for words.

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As their wings go dark - up against the sun
and their shadows pass - over everyone
and time unfolds - to a beating drum

I throw my clothes on a burning chair
I paint my eyes with the cold night air
the dreamer shouts - to an empty room

and the sun will shine
and the rain will pour
we radiate for evermore
and the world will turn - Andy Summers

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

=Almost There=

"Dawn?" Colin approaches her carefully but she only glances up at him, cursorily, before returning to the volumes before her.

"Do you know of any demon that can make itself appear like someone else? Someone...dead?"
The faint smell of decades' past perfumes the air as Dawn opens cover after cover of dusty books, searching.

"What's happened?" Colin's eyes squint and his voice is low and calm. He has been in the presence of Dawn's episodes before, but none of them ever caused him to fear her, or for her. But the anger vibrating through her frame is palpable and he doesn't know how it will manifest itself when it seeks its release. He wants to head off any explosion before it has a chance to build. He just doesn't know how.

"I need to find a demon...something...something that can fool you into thinking it's someone else." She slams shut the book in her hand, pushing it away harshly, apparently not finding what she seeks. Dawn stands up, the chair toppling over from the force of it, and goes to the shelves at the other side of the room, pulling down delicate archives as if they meant nothing to her. Colin rushes to her side to head off any damage.

"Dawn...please-" he crouches down and gathers the texts in his arms, placing them on a nearby table for safe keeping. Turning back to her he follows behind as she walks down the rows, looking at each spine. "Dawn stop." He places a firm hand on her shoulder and she spins around.

Her eyes have gold in them, yes, but they are not glowing; pulsing with the inner light they usually do when she is in this state. Instead, her eyes are only tinged with gold and her normal baby blue can be seen through the layer, making them appear almost green. Bright green. Colin gasps and takes a small step back which he immediately forces himself to regain. She frowns, wondering what could be the cause for such a strong reaction. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open as she imagines what he must be seeing.

"Am I all golden?" She is suddenly pulled out of her wrath as her fear replaces it. Upon hearing the shaky tone of her voice, Colin's protective instincts take over and he takes her arms into his hands pulling her close to him.

"Sorta, yeah." His voice adopts a soft tone, intimate. She squeezes her eyes shut and he feels her tremble against his fingers.
"It's different though." She looks up at him.

"D-different...how? How different?" The panic is beginning to rise in her voice. "Different scary?"

"No. It's-" he takes her face in his hands, the pads of his thumbs caressing her cheeks soothingly.
"Wait...you...you're you."

"Huh?" Her brow crinkles in confusion. He notes how cute it is when she does that before his mind goes back to the matter at hand.

"I mean, normally...when your eyes go...uh...golden, you're not you. But now you are. You, I mean."

"Oh...yeah, I am. What does that mean?" She automatically leans into his touch as he smoothes down her hair, calming her.

"I don't know, but it has to be good...I would think." He attempts a small smile. "Do...do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"Dawn!" Giles' voice interrupts them as he frantically calls from the foyer. He and Willow speed into the room just as Colin clears his throat and stands back from her, not wanting them to find them in an unseemly position. Ever the gentleman. "Oh, there you are. What's this about Buffy?"

Dawn walks past them, ignoring their reaction to her eyes, and closes the door to the library. Turning around she gestures towards the table. "Sit." They all do.

"Dawnie, your eyes...are you-"

"I'm fine. All me. All Dawn. Listen, we have a much bigger problem than my eye color."
She shifts uncomfortably, unsure how to reveal what she had seen without going into detail. "I...shit, I don't know how to say this."

"Dawn." Giles softly reprimands her choice of words.

"Sorry...it's just...it's Buffy."

"Did something happen to her? D' you guys have a-a fight?" Willow's concern with Buffy is seconded by her fear for Dawn.
Her eyes, which have been known to turn gold when she is having an 'amulet moment' are not that color now. Instead
they are a bright green. Green can only mean one thing, and it is not of the good as far as Willow is concerned.

"I...I was going upstairs to tell her...something...and I heard her...with...someone."

"Who?"

"Spike."

"What?" Giles takes off his glasses and eyes the young woman incredulously. Willow stares, mouth agape.
Both of them stare in shocked silence.

"Who is Spike?" Colin looks around the group in confusion.

"Long story, Colin." Willow offers before turning back to Dawn. "You said you heard her with him? H-how?
Some sort of spirit or ghost?"

"No, it's not a ghost. I mean...it could be but...Giles, can ghosts...um...make themselves solid?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, can a ghost make itself...touchable."

"No, not to my knowledge. Wait, are you saying you touched it? Er, Spike?"

"No, not me..."

"Buffy did?" Willow asks.

"Yes...she really did." Dawn wrings her hands in nervous frustration.

"Dawn, I'm sorry...I don't understand." Giles scratches his head. "You heard Buffy with Spike...how do you know she touched the...Spike?"

"I...saw them."

"You actually saw Spike?" Willow shouts inadvertently. "Sorry..." she lowers her voice. "You saw Spike. You actually saw him?" Dawn nods.

"Who is Spike? Why would he be a ghost, is he dead?" Dawn's sudden glare makes Colin very sorry to have asked the question.
"I'm sorry, but I want to help and I don't understand what's going on."

"That makes two of us, Colin," Giles says without taking his eyes off of Dawn. "You say you saw Spike?"

"I did. I heard them in her room. Well...I didn't know it was him at first, but then I heard his voice. That's when I opened the door and..."

"And?" Dawn looks at Willow imploringly. "What? Dawn?"

"They were...they were having..." She blushes furiously.

"Oh dear lord." Giles shakes his head half in disbelief, half in disgust. "I don't understand this. Dawn, are you absolutely sure you saw this?
It wasn't just another of your...er...episodes?"

"No!" Dawn's embarrassment turns quickly into anger as she rises from the table and glowers over the older man.
"It was Spike, it even smelled like him." She holds out her arm in Willow's direction to stop the woman's next question.
"Don't ask how I could smell him. The point is, he...or something doing a very good impersonation of him...was there. In bed. With Buffy."
She pauses a moment to allow them all to absorb the information.

"You think it's a demon or do you think it really could be a-a haunting?" Willow asks Giles.

"Thing is...I know that nothing about that...thing...was Spike. It just wasn't."

"Dawn, how can you know that?" Willow eyes her closely.

"It wasn't." She begins pacing in a small circle, recalling every detail. "For one thing, it didn't even recognize me.
I looked into its eyes, and there wasn't even a flicker of a connection. And Spike and I were connected...somehow.
We had a bond. With that thing there was nothing. And then it fled. Spike would never run away. Not like that. Not from us."

"Dawn...where is Buffy now?" Giles asks, trepidation lowering his voice. Dawn turns away exasperated.

"I left her in her room I had to get away from her, I..."

"What." Willow uses a tiny part of her will to make Dawn face her fully. "You what? Finish that."

"I couldn't...I couldn't stay in the same room with her, I was...angry. I was...it hurt." Colin stands and moves towards her. Willow shakes her head imperceptibly, making short eye contact with him. He retreats, against his instincts. Giles rises as well. They are all watching Dawn struggle with the emotions playing out across her features.

"I was...I felt jealous. Oh...god. Oh god. I felt betrayed! Like she...like she betrayed me. Oh god...Willow!"
Dawn doesn't fight the tears as they come and this time Colin steps up and wraps his arms around her,
turning her to him and holding her; letting her cry into his chest.

"What the hell is going on?" Colin's anger and protectiveness makes Willow smile inwardly. Colin so obviously loves her and she's going to need all the love and support she can get. And very soon, from the looks of things. She steps away from the group and closes her eyes, extending her essence outward. They all feel it and turn to her. Dawn's tears slowly come to a stop as Willow's spirit fills the room, spilling out under the cracks of the doors.

Giles moves over to the doors and opens them. A soft breeze of an exhale leaves the room. It is Willow's power. She sends it throughout the house, seeking, searching for Buffy and for any trace of Spike.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upstairs Buffy sits curled up on the floor, her flesh still tingling from the feel of his hard body over her.

What had just happened? For the past month she's lived in a comfortable medium. Her days filled with purposeful duty; her work with the council and caring for Dawn. And her nights with a passion she'd long thought lost from her forever.

Buffy's never been a fan of cowardice and suicide, to her, is the coward's way out. She never really understood that kind of despair, even during the year after she'd returned from the grave. She was depressed, yes. More than a little bitter, surely. Never suicidal, though, never that.

But he is gone. And she doesn't know if he's coming back. And if he doesn't come back...
What point is there in going on?

Now she understands how someone would just want to lay down and give up; to not have to deal with a pain that is so strong it leaves a thick, foul taste on your tongue. So heavy it weighs you down like a ton of bricks; bricks with sharpened nails embedded in them that slice you open...forcing you to bleed, to feel weak and useless.

And she is so very weak.

The moments without him are an empty void, tolerable only because of the love she feels for her friends and family. She lives for those hours in the dark night when he comes to her; lays her out like so much malleable clay and molds her into the woman she was when he was alive.

His touch...god, his touch. She cannot live without it.

So she sits on the floor of her room, not wondering how to explain herself...and him...to Dawn and the others, but hoping against hope that he will return to her. The candles are waning, though, and she knows he won't be back. Not tonight.

Maybe not ever.

And that...that she simply cannot live with. She is so tired. So very, very tired.

A slow, strangled tear slips down her cheek; a last gasp at emotion before she becomes numb. Suddenly an energy, one filled with love and compassion, envelopes her. She raises her head from her knees.

"Spike?" She whispers.

"No, Buffy. It's me. Willow."

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A/N: Oh my goodness, I must apologize profusely for not updating this sooner. And I know this is a short update, but I had to find a breaking point before the next chapter...which is a doozy. Much thanks to you all for being so patient. I'll try not to let RL get in the way again. :]

Thanks so much for your feedback as well. I absolutely adore hearing from you!

~Xio