The paragraphs in this chapter that are written in bold are intended to be 'flashbacks'.
The Bonds You Break - XXXIII
'Between sisters, often, the child's cry never dies down.
"Never leave me," it says; "do not abandon me." - Louise Bernikow
There was only one thing prevalent in her mind and so Buffy pushed onward, fuelled by her desire for revenge alone. The blow had been a devastating one and the resulting misery that it had dealt Buffy had momentarily threatened to overwhelm her.
"Please, Buffy… say something…" Dawn pleaded, struggling to stem the flow of her tears. She sniffled pathetically and Willow immediately abandoned the couch in order to move to the girl's side. She rather hesitantly wrapped an arm around Dawn's waist, unsure as to which party required most comfort. Buffy appeared to be lost in her own thoughts, her expression oddly vacant whilst one hand maintained a permanent residence over her stomach. It seemed as though she were struggling with the very comprehension of what had been stolen from her.
"Buffy?" Willow attempted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Despite the wealth of emotions that warred within her, it had not taken long for Buffy's sheer fury to emerge victorious. She could scarce believe the treachery spewed from the mouth of her own sister; the one being in the world for whom she had willingly laid down her own life.
"How could you?" Buffy hissed, her hand dropping abruptly to her side and her fingers curling into a fist. Willow tensed visibly, preparing to intervene with magic if necessary should the Slayer suddenly lunge. For the time being, Buffy had to be considered a potential threat at least until her rage had subsided.
"I'm so…" Dawn began, trailing off into a series of broken sobs as Buffy snarled in warning. Her eyes narrowed to feral slits and her hands formed claws at her sides.
"Don't you dare tell me you are sorry or I will not be responsible for my own actions," she spat, devoid now of almost all traces of her humanity.
Buffy's feet pounded the sidewalk but she barely registered the sound of her heavy footfalls at all. She passed a group of teenagers at the corner of the street who were laughing noisily and sipping from rather suspicious looking cans. A portable stereo blasting a thumping bass rhythm rested on the wooden bench and a collection of empty cans littered the ground at their feet. They turned to eye Buffy with obvious wariness as she moved toward them, then silently but hurriedly they cleared a path through their midst. The expression of the approaching blonde was murderous and, despite her size and deceptive beauty, there was not a one among them that felt brave enough to test her sanity that evening.
"You knew," Buffy accused, jabbing her finger in Dawn's direction and taking a step forward. Dawn straightened up a little, bracing herself for the impact of what she knew was to come. She flashed Willow a grateful look before gently shrugging off her arm. This was a battle she knew she must face alone. Willow hovered by the coffee table, her fingers flexing in readiness and her eyes darting from the face of one sister to the other; all she saw there was an all consuming sorrow.
"You knew that I thought I was pregnant and you didn't tell me," Buffy said, her eyes flashing dangerously. She twisted her neck from side to side and Willow recognised that she was pouring every effort into practicing self restraint.
"I tried to," Dawn promised, her voice growing a little stronger with conviction, "you don't know how many times I wanted to tell you. I just couldn't find the words."
Buffy moved passed the gang of teens without incident and continued on. Her strides were long and even, and Buffy anticipated that she would reach her destination in record time. Every last ounce of her energy was now focused on one thing. She intended to make someone pay for this horrible turn of events, and she knew exactly who that someone would be. Buffy cracked her knuckles in preparation and ran her tongue along her dry lips.
"Bullshit!" Buffy roared causing Willow to jump. Dawn simply closed her eyes and turned her head a little as though physically shying away from her sister's wrath. She knew that she deserved every last shred of Buffy's anger but the ferocity of it shocked her.
"I don't know how to make this right," Dawn said quietly, her gaze dropping to her feet. She clasped her hands in front of her body and chewed on her bottom lip as she had done in times of stress ever since Buffy could remember. The Slayer suddenly faltered, struck by an image of the lonely and terrified little girl that stood before her. Despite her own pain, Buffy felt a surge of anger towards the one who had stolen her baby sister's innocence and heaped such responsibility on her shoulders in one fell swoop.
Buffy had known beyond all doubt how she could make it right; she intended to remove the complication. She would do what she knew her mother would have wanted had she been alive. She would make him pay for cheating her and Angel out of a child, and ruining her sister's life in the bargain.
"Please don't hate me, Buffy," Dawn pleaded, her eyes shining with fresh tears which she managed to check for the moment. Buffy opened her mouth but a response failed her.
"Dawnie," Willow said gently, beckoning the girl towards the couch now that it appeared Buffy had regained some degree of composure. "We need to talk about this, sweetie. Decide what's best for everyone involved. Let's try work through the… er… options."
Dawn nodded wordlessly but something crossed her expression for the briefest of moments that alerted Willow to the fact her decision had already been made. Buffy also remained silent, her features clouded by deep contemplation.
"I think that we should all…" Willow began, stroking the crown of Dawn's head soothingly as the girl lowered herself onto the couch and sagged.
Buffy's growl emerged so suddenly that neither Willow nor Dawn had adequate time to react.
"Where is he?"
Buffy reached the centre of Sunnydale barely five minutes after leaving her home. She assumed that she must have run a degree of the journey but her mind was in such turmoil that she could not even be certain of this.
Darkness had fallen, but the town was bustling as always with throngs of people lining the sidewalks as they waited to gain entry to the cinema or one of many charming bistros that Sunnydale offered. Buffy scanned the crowds relentlessly, her eyes narrowed in order to sharpen her focus. She watched as a young couple walked towards her, each with one hand resting on the handle of a pram. They wore such blissfully content expressions that Buffy once more felt the sharp stab of loss in her stomach. Her resolve only strengthened. Then, just when she had been poised to move onto the next street in her search, Buffy saw him. A flash of platinum in her peripheral vision alerted her to his location and Buffy took off in a sprint before she could even be sure that it was indeed him. Buffy shoved through the crowds, unconcerned by the cries of alarm and annoyance that her flying elbows yielded.
He had his black leather-clad back to the road as he leaned over a collection of buckets dotted along the sidewalk outside the florist. He lifted a bouquet of orange flowers that Buffy was unable to identify and appeared to deliberate over them for several seconds before sticking one hand in the pocket of his duster to locate his wallet. It was this exact pose he was locked in when the first blow was landed.
Buffy's fist connected with Spike's left temple and immediately his features contorted to that of the demon. The bouquet fell from his hand and Spike whipped around to face his assailant. His expression was thunderous and he snarled as he prepared to lunge in the direction of the attacker. Spike simply blinked in surprise as he found himself almost nose to nose with a very enraged Slayer.
"Buffy?" he queried, cocking his head to one side as he regarded her. As Buffy delivered the second blow to Spike's face, breaking his nose in the process, the reason behind the assault suddenly dawned on him; Buffy knew.
"Buffy, now just calm down a minute…" Spike began, holding both hands out in front of him in surrender. Buffy was slumped over slightly, breathing erratically, her wild blonde mane partially obscuring her face. She glared at Spike and without allowing him to continue, spun towards him with a roundhouse kick that sent him sprawling backwards into the shop awning. Spike grunted as his body connected with a metal pole that buckled under the impact. He rolled as he dropped to the sidewalk, dodging the foot that Buffy aimed at his throat with only millimetres to spare.
"Bloody hell!" Spike choked out, spitting blood onto the tarmac and staring askance at the Slayer. "Don't you think you're being just a little bit unreasonable?"
"Unreasonable?" Buffy growled in a voice that was not her own. She spat each separate syllable of the word with great distaste, as though its meaning was one that escaped her.
"I know how you must feel, Buffy," Spike said quietly, shaking his head and allowing the features of the vampire to melt away. Buffy paused, her hands raised in a defensive stance that did not fail to draw the attentions of the crowd milling around them. Spike wiped at the trickle of blood seeping from his lip with the back of his hand and gazed at Buffy warily as he continued.
"I promise you, I love Dawn and I would never do anything to hurt her. No harm will come to her for as long as I still walk this earth. I didn't plan this… hell, I didn't even want… well, I just mean that I've never felt this way about anyone else before… not even when I was alive."
Buffy appeared to consider the speech for a pause, which Spike used to begin righting the buckets that had been overturned during their tussle. He straightened up and regarded the Slayer, who stood before him with a strange smile contorting her lips. Spike's mouth dropped open in realisation as Buffy suddenly lunged forward and head butted him.
Spike stumbled backwards again, struggling for his feet to find purchase on the pavement as Buffy came at him with everything she had. A series of powerful blows landed on every inch of his exposed body and Spike simply continued to fall back, unable to defend himself against the onslaught. He had never seen the Slayer so riled and, as he strained unsuccessfully to escape the beating he was being dealt, fear invaded Spike's mind. Buffy suddenly seized the lapels of his jacket and raised Spike several feet into the air, grunting mildly with the effort. It was almost to Buffy as though she were watching herself in a dream, carrying out actions that she was powerless to alter. She was faintly aware of Spike gasping and the screams of women in the crowd surrounding them, but she could make sense of little else in her mind. Buffy drew Spike towards her and then abruptly flung her arms out straight, releasing the vampire from her grip at the same time. Spike's body flew backwards at impossible speed and, as he connected with the outer wall of a bar he flew through the brick sending clouds of dust and rubble into the atmosphere.
Inside the bar patrons froze, some with drinks raised half way to their lips and others with pool cues poised mid-shot. The lone bar tender stared at the broken man lying bleeding on the linoleum and the towel he had been using to wipe down the counter fell from his hands. In that moment, the survival instincts of every person in the bar seemed to kick into action within a fraction of a second. There was a stampede of bodies racing for the door as Buffy stepped through the enormous hole she had created in the wall. Spike groaned and pushed himself painfully backwards across the tiles, leaving a trail of crimson staining the floor in his wake. Buffy's satisfaction peeked and Spike gazed up into her eyes, shocked by the lack of mercy within. Buffy's lips set into a grim line and she reached into the waistband of her trousers, whipping a stake into view. Spike's heart sank and he relaxed his body against the ground, defeated and willing to embrace his demise.
"Why?" he choked out, his eyes tearing as Dawn's smiling face flashed through his mind. It all but broke his cold, dead heart that he would never now get the chance to tell her exactly how deeply his love for her ran.
Buffy sneered at the vampire and delivered a harsh kick to his gut before she responded. Her voice was cold and surprisingly dead itself.
"As if you don't know," she spat, bending down on one knee to draw herself closer to Spike. "You make me sick. You have ruined our lives… me, Angel, Dawn… that child…"
Spike blinked quickly, not fully comprehending Buffy's warped explanation of why she was preparing to end his un-life. Buffy paused, her hazel eyes suddenly growing wider and filling with shock.
"You don't know…" she murmured, for the briefest of moments seeming like the old Buffy had returned and taken control of her body. Her head whipped up and she glanced over her shoulder as the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance growing nearer.
"Know?" Spike demanded, pushing himself up on one elbow and wincing as his ribcage throbbed. He counted at least three cracked ribs and potentially a fracture to his collarbone, but for now he ignored his injuries as best he could.
"Dawn…" Buffy whispered, her eyes shining with unshed tears in the florescent lighting, "she's pregnant."
It took a moment for the words to register themselves correctly in Spike's brain but when they did, his blue eyes grew as wide as saucers and his breath escaped him in a hiss of disbelief. Then, slowly, his features softened and his lips formed the most beautiful smile that Buffy had ever seen; it was the smile of a man seeing the world for the first time in all its amazing clarity.
"I'm going to be a dad," Spike said softly, enjoying the sound of the words as they rolled so easily off his tongue. In less than a second, Buffy's features clouded over once more and she focused her gaze upon Spike's bruised but beaming face.
"No," she spat coldly, "you're not."
The stake whistled as it flew through the air, giving Spike little time to react beyond managing to squeeze his eyes closed and await the impact. Yet the agony of the tip of sharp wood piercing the chambers of his heart never arrived. Spike opened one eye in surprise as he heard Buffy cry out in a mixture of pain and anger. He was just in time to witness the stake she gripped combust into blue flames that devoured the wood hungrily. The stake dropped from the Slayer's reddened hand and formed a pile of ash at her feet.
Spike opened both eyes now and struggled to draw himself into a sitting position. Both he and Buffy turned their gazes simultaneously to the enormous hole in the bar wall where Dawn stood framed with Willow by her side. Dawn's arm was outstretched and one trembling finger still pointed at Buffy, making it clear as to whom had been responsible for the spell that had led to the incineration of beloved Mr. Pointy. The sisters regarded each other for a while, silent and unmoving despite the growing cacophony of emergency sirens around them. Something passed between them in that moment that Spike could not accurately put into words. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the moment ended. Buffy sank to her knees onto the cold, hard floor of the bar and at the same time Dawn turned on her heel.
With her head bowed, Dawn faded into the growing crowd without a single backward glance as Buffy dissolved into tearless sobs that echoed hauntingly through the night.