Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from BtVS.

A/N: Yeah, I suck. But I finally hit on the right mix of premenstrual angst, self-loathing, and family drama to write this. So…YAY!

The Dawning

Chapter Three

Spike squatted just outside the open back door of the Summers' residence, watching with awe as his daughter managed to cram not one, but both her big toes into her mouth. Dawn reclined in her bright yellow bouncer, and when she wasn't batting at the pink butterfly plushie suspended from the arched handlebar, she practiced for a career in gymnastics by bending her tiny body in half to suck on her toes.

"I'm sorry I can't invite you in, Spike." Joyce moved around the kitchen, cleaning up the paraphernalia from the hot cocoa they'd shared. Spike had sat outside, right at the threshold, drinking his cocoa while she sat at the island, Dawn between them.

In her heart, Joyce wanted to believe Spike wouldn't hurt them, but that didn't stop the stutter of hesitation she felt upon finding him at the back door. A tiny tendril of fear. Fear of what he was, for what he was capable of doing. Forbidden from inviting in the vampire, she didn't dare take Dawn outside for him to hold either.

That wasn't her call. It was Buffy's.

"No worries, Joyce. I'm not here to pit you against your daughter."

Somehow that made her feel even worse. As if lines were drawn and sides chosen. She genuinely liked Spike and didn't want to be on any side but that of family. She wanted that family to include Spike, but as long as Buffy's disapproval hung like a dark cloud, a small wriggle of concern remained for Joyce.

She knew from experience there were plenty of bad people out there who were parents. Parenthood didn't translate into sainthood. Nor did did it have some magical ability to cleanse the soul. Or in this case, to gift one to a soulless monster.

"Have you spoken to Buffy lately?"

"Not since that night."

Joyce placed the last mug in the drying rack, rubbing her free hand across her brow where a sharp pain etched itself in a jagged line behind her eye. The one good thing to come out of the Initiative's attack was finding out about the tumor. Left untreated it could have killed her. Now, all she had to worry about was the occasional sharp pain brought on by stress or bright lights.

"She just needs some time," she assured him, trying to inject calm into her voice.

"Time," Spike snorted derisively. "That woman needs a heart."

"That's not fair," Joyce rejoined softly. She glanced at Spike, who squatted outside the door. The way he watched Dawn was almost predatory. Joyce didn't feel an ounce of fear for her grandbaby's safety, but the way he watched Dawn made her think he was just waiting for the opportunity to grab her up and run. And that thought very much terrified her. Another reason she hadn't taken a step outside with Dawn in her arms.

"You know what's not fair?" he snarled, thrusting both his hands in his hair, resting his elbows on his knees. He continued to stare at Dawn, not bothering to glance at Joyce as he spoke. "Not being able to hold my child. The only one I will ever have."

"I know. It's a hard situation." Joyce picked up the hand towel to dry her hands, more to have something to fuss with than actually needing it.

"Not much of a situation when it's one-sided."

"I think there's just a little more to it than her being stubborn."

"No, you're right. It's about her being ignorant and too stupid to learn." Spike looked stricken as soon as the words left his mouth. He cast a sideways glance towards Joyce, but couldn't quite meet her eyes. "Sorry, Mum. Know she's your daughter and all but…"

"She's driving you crazy?" Joyce felt a twist in her heart. When she was a kid, just dating Hank in college, she used to think that driving your partner crazy was part of being in love. That love should be a great drama played out on the stage of some grand sweeping romance. Now, heartbroken and divorced, she wasn't certain that love needed to be so grand. So loud and reckless. Maybe it could be gentle. Slow and strong. A bit like good tea instead of bitter coffee.

"Yeah. Somethin' like that." Spike looked sheepish, ashamed to be so caught up in baby-mama drama at his age.

But maybe not, Joyce mused. Spike certainly played to the crowd during his courtship with Drusilla. If anyone was the master of grand, sweeping passion and romance it was Spike.

"It's not about her being ignorant, you know? In some ways if that were true it'd be easier. An ignorant person can be taught to see reason – or in most cases a certain biased side. If she were ignorant of who and what you are then you could blind her, like Angel blinded her, but the truth is that she sees you. All of you."

"Then she's not looking very closely," he groused bitterly.

"But she is. You're just mad that's she choosing not to blind herself to the whole truth of who you are. She's not just seeing the man you are today, but the man you were yesterday. And…I think she's even trying to see ahead to the man you might one day become, but it's hard."

"I've changed. I've become something…something I can't even explain." Spike looked longingly at his daughter.

"I understand that, and I'm positive that Buffy understands it too. You aren't the man—or should I say monster—that you used to be."

"But it's still a part of me," Spike admitted.

"It is, and it's a hard thing to get past." Her pause was heavy in the room, the silence echoing around them. "You've killed a lot of people, Spike."

"I have." Spike's solemn gaze stayed locked on Dawn. More than admitting his sins to Joyce, he confessed them to his daughter.

"Lots of people like me," continued Joyce. "Like Giles. People who had families. Sons and daughters. Lovers and friends. People just living their lives. You killed them and left their loved ones to grieve."

He cast her a sideways glance from beneath the veil of his long lashes, looking at her for the first time since they began. The action – so startlingly handsome, so carelessly predatory – caused Joyce's hands to tighten on the towel, wringing it until her knuckles whitened. Seeing him crouched in the yellow kitchen light, with his duster pooled behind him and the shadows from the back yard grasping at his edges, shocked her with a moment of crystal clarity. More than a predator, Spike was a monster.

"I daresay you've even hurt a lot of girls. Girls like Buffy. Maybe even younger." Her words were barely a whisper, choking in her throat as she breathed them out. Spike's face constricted, his Adam's apple working hard as if he was going to protest, but no words came.

"Maybe it wasn't even something you wanted. Maybe it was something forced on you, but it was something that did happen." Her pulse spiked; her breaths came in pants. It wasn't fear that gripped her, it was knowledge. A certain dread of understanding exactly what her daughter had been trying to say for the past weeks.

Spike planted his elbows on his bent knees, digging his long musician's fingers into his slicked-back hair, face hidden from her.

"Killed more than men and women too, I suspect. Children? Babies like Dawn?" Joyce still whispered, her agonized face pale.

"Yeah," Spike croaked. "I did those things. But…"

"You're trying to do better. You are doing better. Living like a man for the last year instead of a monster."

"But a year of being a man hardly erases three lifetimes of being a monster," Spike added, agonized at the truth of it.

Even knowing, finally understanding, somewhat if not truly, what a monster he had been, Joyce still wanted to comfort him. To give him hope in his darkest hour. A light to guide him to his redemption.

"That's where the future comes in. Buffy is trying to see through the past to the man you could be, but it takes more than turning a blind eye, being ignorant of what you were. It means forgiveness and acceptance."

Spike sat back on his heels, his hands cupped in his lap. He stared sightlessly at them, curling his fingers as if he could still feel the warm blood of his many victims slipping through them.

"That's really the worst part, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" he cocked his head to look up at her.

"Well, if I understand it correctly, you can't even ask for forgiveness. Not really in the sense that you mean it. You haven't a soul. Forgiveness becomes meaningless if you don't feel regret for your actions."

Spike jolted forward off his heels, kneeling like a penitent in the doorway, his blue eyes intense as he stared up at Joyce.

"I do have a soul," he ground out, forceful and penetrating, even without his voice raised above a growl.

"There's my soul." He pointed a finger at Dawn, who had been unusually quiet. Her blue eyes, so like her daddy's, trained with equal intensity on him. A two week-old baby shouldn't be able to see clearly beyond their own hand, but neither should they be able to giggle like she could.

"I don't feel regret like a human but when I look at her I feel something. A tightness in my chest, an ache in my heart, and I know. I know with a hundred percent certainty I will never do anything to make her look at me with shame or hatred. She's my everything. For her I'd pull out my fangs, whip myself bloody, and drown myself in holy water before I'd ever hurt her. For her I'll be a man, even if her mother will never see me that way."

Silence hung in the air. Joyce had nothing to say. What was there to say after such a declaration of devotion?

Spike knelt in the doorway, breathing hard, loosened curls hanging over his eyes. After long moments, he pulled himself to standing, situating his duster around his shoulders.

"Spike, I—"

"S'kay, Mum. There's nothing to say. I know what I have to do."

"What's that?" Joyce's heart stuttered.

Spike pinned her with a stare, eyes filled with such a wealth of conviction that it took Joyce's breath away.

"What else, but see to my daughter? Buffy might try to push me away, but she's forgotten something important. I'm loyal to the bone. I'll always be here for Dawn. No matter what."

Joyce opened her mouth, but the expression on Spike's face stopped her. He cocked his head to the side, listening, his demeanor becoming cold and angry. Without another word he whirled around, disappearing into the shadows effortlessly.

"What was that about?" Joyce glanced at Dawn, who had gone back to cooing at her toes. Just then the front door opened and closed.

"Mom, I'm back!"

Buffy strode into the kitchen, unzipping her jacket. She smiled at her mother, eyes searching for Dawn. She came to a dead stop, staring at the open back door, her jacket half unzipped.

Instantly, her smile disappeared, replaced by the cold, hard indifference of the slayer. Only Joyce, her mother, could see the anger and pain beneath.

"He was here! You let him in?"

"No!" Joyce defended, feeling a little scared of her daughter.

"But he was here."

"He just wanted to see his daughter, Buffy. Have a heart. It's been two weeks and he hasn't even laid eyes on her."

Buffy's face hardened to artic levels. "That's right, Buffy the bitch doesn't have a heart."

"Buffy, I didn't say that!" Joyce gasped, tears glittering.

Raising her hand to ward her off, Buffy strode towards the open door, zipping her jacket back up. "It's okay, Mom. I can live without a heart as long as Dawn's safe."

"Buffy…" Joyce watched as the darkness claimed another one of her family. Heartbroken, she squatted next to Dawn, unbuckling her and pulling her out of her bouncer. Hugging her granddaughter close, she stood inside the doorway, peering out into the night.

"What are we going to do about your parents, little pumpkinbelly?"

Dawn looked at her with big, solemn eyes, then giggled.

8888

Buffy caught up with Spike in Restfield, tackling him from behind and taking him down to the ground. Spike flipped around, thrusting her off him in an action so sudden it caught her off guard.

As they kipped to their feet, it occurred to Buffy that it had been over a year since she and Spike had fought. Not since that afternoon on the college campus. Since then the only touches she'd received from Spike had been loving, caring ones.

She briefly wondered if she was ready for this. In the two weeks since giving birth to Dawn her body had strengthened, but there were occasional twinges in her abdomen that caught her off guard. It posed no problem for her nightly patrols. But Spike was no mere fledge.

Spike was a master. To defeat him, she needed to be at the top of her game. Something she wasn't even close to being after months of pregnancy.

His fist slammed into her face, and her cheekbone exploded with pain. It seemed the days of gentle touches were done. Back to what they did best. Anger. Fighting. Violence.

Buffy thought of the questionnaire she'd had to fill out at the doctor's office. The one that asked her if her partner abused her. She vividly remembered checking off no in the box while watching Spike warily, wondering how it had come to be that a vampire, the wrong one at that, was standing at her side waiting to see a sonogram.

The memory made her heart hurt.

Buffy should have settled easily into their violent dance; instead she was caught off balance by it. Almost repelled by it.

That in itself roused her guilt. Her self-disgust.

She felt wrong. Not in the sense of how she felt when Giles robbed her of her strength for her Crucimentum, the wrongness of being trapped in a weakened body. Nor did she sense that Spike's punch wronged her. In a way, she felt she deserved his backlash of anger at her behavior.

No, she felt that she was in the wrong. And that only made her irrationally, irrevocably angry. Because she wasn't wrong. For once she was right. For once she was leading with her duty rather than her heart.

"You can't just come around whenever you want, Spike. You aren't welcome."

Spike toed off with her, his angry face thrust into hers. "I'll come around whenever I damn well please, Slayer. I've a right to see my daughter."

"No you don't! Disgusting vampires don't have rights."

"That may be so. But they don't have children either. So I'm thinkin' that makes me the exception to the rule."

"I don't like it. I don't want you around."

"I don't give sod all what you like. I don't dance to your tune anymore."

Rage danced across Buffy's eyes, as jagged and sharp as lightening. "Whose tune are you dancing to, Spike?"

Spike looked taken aback for a moment, before a cold, lecherous grin spread across his face. "Jealous, Buffy? Afraid I've got a bit of fluff on the side? Well, too bad." He ran his hand down his chest. "This body isn't yours to toy with anymore."

"You're a pig."

"I may be a pig, but I'm not the one who squeals when stuck."

The air reeked of copper and they both glanced down. She had her stake pressed above his heart, deep enough to make his blood run.

"I should dust you. Get rid of you for good. Bring some peace into my life," she sneered.

He pressed himself into her stake, looking deep into her eyes. "Do it!" he challenged. "Take me out of a world that has you in it. Take me out of a world were I starve on pig's blood though I have the ability to hunt. Do you know how much every day hurts just to exist? To want something so badly, but deny yourself because you want something else even more? Something that you can never, ever have? To strive for love only to have it thrown in your face? So, yeah, Buffy. Kill me. I'm begging you."

"Don't lie to me. I know you're out there hunting. Killing. It's disgusting. I'm disgusting for letting you touch me. For letting loose another monster on Sunnydale and not doing my duty."

"I'm not hunting! Why do you refuse to believe that?"

"Because you're a liar, Spike."

Angry, he thrust his face into hers. "I. Have. Never. Lied to you," he enunciated carefully.

She thrust him away, her pulse racing at his nearness. His eyes took on an evil, lecherous glint. "Not like you, Buffy. Pretty little liar, you are. Disgusted by my touch, are you? Bet you're dyin' to put your hot little hands all over my body. Come on, then. What's stoppin' you?"

"It's called self-control. Something you lack." His words, his scathing anger, deepened the ache in her heart. Even though she was disgusted by him, she still wanted him. Still craved him in a way that went deeper than sex. In a way she refused to admit to herself.

It should be unbelievable to her that he denied himself the pleasure of feasting on human blood only because of his love for her and Dawn, but she couldn't quite make herself believe it wasn't true.

Her defense rested on Spike's lack of control. Believing he could control his demon meant believing he had the self-control to live like a man. It meant starting to understand, if not forgive, his past because he was striving to be better.

Spike spun away from her, unearthing a tombstone and flinging it into a tree, where it shattered with a loud crack.

"You have no idea the extent of my self-control," he screamed, his face mottled with rage. Buffy had never seen such a thing on a vampire, hadn't even known it possible.

"You should have restrained yourself," she snarled in a forced whisper. "But you didn't. And I know you killed the rest of those men."

"They were a threat, Buffy. To you and our baby," he begged. He begged her to understand. Begged her to believe in him.

Buffy turned her face away. If she looked at him her conviction would falter. "There are a lot of threats in the world, Spike. You can't kill the human ones."

"I can if they're goin' to hurt my family!"

"No, you can't!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the ghostly statuary and decrepit tombs. Mist rose from the ground, transporting them outside of reality. A moment in time where only they existed. It was a desolate and lonely place, made even more so by each other's company. No longer were they as one. They were divided. Enemies facing off across invisible lines of anger, bitterness, and betrayal.

"So, Miss Perfect, you're trying to tell me that you wouldn't eliminate a human threat to our baby?"

"No, I wouldn't."

"You're so damned certain."

"I am certain. I had someone, someone really evil, literally under my foot. It would have taken nothing to crush her like a bug. No one would have known, except me. I knew it was wrong and I didn't do it. Couldn't do it. Because it's wrong," Buffy's voice broke.

Responsibility weighed her down, swamping her in the cold, black, inescapable mire of duty. Being a hero meant being something more than human. Something inhuman. A weapon without emotion. She'd learned long ago that her personal feeling had no place in her life. Duty, responsibility, morality were her cornerstones.

The millstones around her neck that were slowly crushing the life from her.

Once she had eschewed duty for personal gain. For love. And because of it the world had suffered. Now she had something in her life that was even greater than her love for Angel. Dawn was her everything. Unlike Angel, who she'd sacrificed to save the world, for Dawn Buffy would let the world burn.

That selfishness, the selfishness of choosing her child above all the other children in the world, meant that Buffy had to give up everything else that could give her comfort. It meant sacrifice.

It meant giving up Spike.

Having Dawn and Spike? That would tempt the fates to turn their inhuman, merciless eyes upon on her and punish her for daring to grab for happiness.

"No, you just left a mess for your watcher to clean up for you."

Her face a mask of ice, she spoke through frozen lips. "He was wrong."

"Self-righteous bint. That's all you are."

She struck; he countered. Around and around they went, their blows becoming more violent with every passing moment. Both of them were bloody, panting for air, nursing bruises.

Buffy lost her stake early on, and was subtly leading Spike towards a tree where she hoped to find a branch when she tripped on a chunk of tombstone that Spike had shattered. Spike leapt, following her down, struggling with her until he had her pinned beneath him.

Top of her game she was not.

His hard breaths cooled the sweat on her neck, reminding her how easily he could end her life. Instead, he pulled back to stare down at her, endless blue eyes glittering with emotion far deeper than hate.

"I love you, Buffy. I know you can't understand it or bloody well don't want to. But all I've ever wanted was for you to be my girl."

All of Buffy's rage and helplessness, her feelings of wrongness spiraled out of control. She couldn't accept his words. She just couldn't. There was more at stake than her desires. When it came to the world, to the safety of others, a slayer's heart had to be disregarded.

No matter how much she wanted to grasp at happiness with both hands.

"There's nothing clean and good in you. I'm not your girl. I could never be your girl," she raged.

The look that came over Spike's face froze her heart. It was like watching the death of love itself. Cold, breathless, then blank-eyed.

"I could kill you right now," Spike whispered in her ear, in a voice so sensually evil, she barely recognized it as his. "Drain you dry, take Dawn and run. Who'd stop me? Your watcher? Joyce? No one, that's who."

Her breath caught in her throat. She struggled against him, but he had her pinned with his full weight. He wrapped her hair around his wrist, keeping her neck taut against his lips.

"You'd kill your baby's mother?" she gasped, disgusted.

He shook her, his fangs sliding along her permeable skin. "Shut the fuck up! When are you going to learn, Buffy? This isn't just about Dawn. It never was. This is about you," his voice broke over the words, and Buffy felt her heart break with them. "I'd never kill you. Not now, not ever. Because I love you."

"Stop saying that!" she cried. "Soulless vampires can't love." She choked on the words, forcing herself to believe them.

He pulled away so he could look down on her face, a mirthless smile on his lips. "Doesn't matter what you believe, Buffy, because I'll never say those words to you again. So hold them tight, throw them away, do what you want. Just remember. I would have given you everything that I am if you'd only let me."

He pressed her into the ground as he leapt away. She scrambled to her feet, clutching a broken limb she found at the base of the tree. He was in her face as soon as she was standing, without so much as a flinch at her weapon

"It doesn't matter what I do or how I try. You'll never believe me. I wish I could leave you. But I never will." She opened her mouth, but he cut her off. "No! I'm not staying because of Dawn. Though God knows she's my reason for living. I'm staying for you. You're a fucking bitch, Buffy, but I'm yours always."

"If I'm such a bitch," her voice caught, eyes glittering with tears as she forced the words out of her ravaged throat, "if I'm such a hateful woman, then why? Why love me? How could you possibly love me?"

The words ended in a plea, her eyes wide and searching. His smile was soft and fleeting as he brushed the backs of his knuckles against her bruised cheek. "How can the depthless night not love the joyous day?"

Buffy's brows scrunched. "What?"

Spike dropped his hand, looking defeated in away that had nothing to do with his fatigue and physical injuries.

"Love can't be explained, Buffy. It's not something to be classified and catalogued. It just is."

Buffy jerked away from him. "Sounds like a fairytale, Spike. Happily ever after is a lie. I should know."

With that she turned on her heel and stomped away, never once looking back.