A/N: Thanks for the reviews!

Fool Me Once
Chapter 4

The sound of his crypt door banging open awakened the very hung-over vampire slouched in a worn-out old chair. "Wha' the bloody hell issat?" he slurred, blinking in the sudden light and trying to focus his blurring eyes. The figure was moving closer, but the glare of the light streaming into the room from the door behind them blurred their features. The profile was familiar though: slender frame, long hair, impatiently crossed arms—

"Dawn." Spike sat up and winced, a hand going straight to his aching forehead. "What the bloody hell are you doing here, Bit?" The sight of the girl sobered him up substantially, but the pounding of his head wouldn't subside as easily.

"Ditching school," she said, hopping up onto a sarcophagus and smiling at the irate vampire before her. "Buffy said I could go if I wanted, but I really didn't feel like it, so I came here instead." At the vamp's unchanging expression, Dawn raised her hands in a gesture of innocence. "What?"

"What?" he echoed, moving through the shadows to close the still-open door. "Lying to your sis, bit?"

"Well, sorry," Dawn snarked, raising her eyebrows. "Since when were you all prim and proper and Mr. After-School Special?"

"Since your older sis threatened to stake me with a million splinters if I was to encourage evil mischief from you," he answered, settling himself down onto the coffin next to her and raising an eyebrow. "Now off to school, you young impressionable nibblet, you."

The teenager rolled her eyes, ignoring Spike's command and reaching into her pocket. "Just let me do your nails first!" she whined, upon producing a small bottle of black polish. "Please?"

Those big doe eyes and pleading smile were too much for the vampire. Begrudgingly, he turned to sit cross-legged on the stone coffin, evoking a squeal from the teenager before him. "Just the nails, and then you're off to your sis," he said warningly, eliciting another eye roll from the girl.

"Please, Spike, like she wants me around anyway," she said aloofly, taking his right hand in her own and carefully covering his thumb nail with the black polish.

"Why do you say that, pet?"

"Because she doesn't!"

The attitude of cool indifference melted away quicker than Spike expected, and he was momentarily caught unaware of what to say. "But what makes you think she doesn't care?" he said evenly, letting the teen focus on her painting of his nails. When she was quiet for a moment, he gently pressed, "Dawn?"

"Can I tell you something?" she said in a small voice, without looking up from the hand she held in her own. She returned the brush to the bottle of polish but still kept her gaze focused away from his. "I… I think there's something wrong with me, Spike. Like, I'm different or something." Spike said nothing but waited for her to continue. "At the hospital today, this guy… a crazy guy, I dunno. He looked at me and said that there was no data, or something like that. It happened before, too." She looked up, then, a strange expression on her face. "At the Magic Box. Some guy, he said I didn't belong here." Her voice gained a pleading quality as she said, "I belong here, don't I, Spike? There's nothing wrong with me, is there?"

"Of course there isn't anything wrong with you," he said comfortingly, involuntarily reaching up with the hand she wasn't clinging to and brushing a strand of hair behind her ears. "Well, except for your Li'l Big Bad attempt. I'm not buying it, Nibblet. You just aren't evil enough to do it right."

"Like you are?" she retorted, a welcome smile coming to her face.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh come on, Spike, you are so whipped over my sister!"

The funny choking noise he made when he jerked back was almost enough to drive any thoughts of their previous conversation from her mind. When the indignant expression refused to leave his face, Dawn bemusedly shook her head. "Don't try to deny it, Spike, I know you like her."

"She's the Slayer! Last time I checked, vampires don't run about making moon eyes at the one chosen to kill 'em."

"So you're telling me that you don't have a thing for her?"

The question allowed no evasions. Spike narrowed his eyes at the girl before him and tried to make his voice as menacing as possible. "Little girls would best mind their own business when in the company of evil, evil men."

The resulting squeal resounded through the crypt and caused Spike to clap his hands over his ears. "Spike loves Buffy, Spike loves Buffy!" Dawn chanted, to much avail of the peroxide blond vampire. "Oh come on, don't be so embarrassed. I totally saw this coming."

"What are you on about now, Nibblet?"

"When Willow's spell went all kerflooey!" Dawn said, gesturing wildly with her hands to illustrate the explosive nature of the alleged magick. "You know, the one that made you and Buffy…" She trailed off, obviously contemplating the perfect word to use.

"Snog like bunnies?"

"Yup," she agreed. "The second I saw you two like that, I knew you were gonna fall for each other. I mean, you guys are so meant to be!"

"Yeah, well I wouldn't count on that, pet," Spike said dismissively, standing up and brushing off his jeans. "You'd best be off to school, love, or I may just find a redwood slammed into my chest."

Dawn pouted for a spell, but stopped when she saw that Spike was all business. "Can I come over and… hang out after school?"

Reluctantly, he shook his head. "I'm doing evil things then, love; you'd best head to the hospital this afternoon." Dawn nodded and began to head to the door, but stopped when Spike called her name.

"Yeah?"

"Would you… tell your mum I say hello?"

Dawn smiled gratefully at the embarrassed vampire. "Yeah, I will." She reached out to open the door, but turned once more before leaving. "And Spike?"

"What is it, Bit?"

The teenager smirked at him mischievously. "I won't tell anyone about how you're all in love with my sister, either." Before he could respond, she was out the door and into the sunlight.

Spike headed toward his refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of blood, taking a quick drink from it to ease the dull ache in his head. He had managed to get her mind off of it, but there was just something off about what Dawn had told him. Even though the men that had spoken to her seemed nothing more than run-of-the-mill loonies, it was too much of a coincidence for them both to target her.

Slayer be damned. He wasn't about to let his nibblet suffer unduly. Pulling his duster on, the vampire headed down to the lower level of his crypt and into the tunnels, heading straight to the Magic Box to find out what was going on.