"I got an A!"
"On the Macbeth assignment?"
"Yep!"
Dawn was beaming. Huh. Who would have thought she'd do that good with what he told her. He'd been helping with her homework whenever she asked. It had been fun to see how she warmed up to literature she had claimed was lame. Plays and sonnets that he had always loved. He had enjoyed explaining things to her – it had done him good, taken his mind off the slayer. Those days he drank way less than usual. Dawn plopped down in his armchair and looked up at him still beaming.
"Actually it might have been a little too good - my teacher asked me if my parents had helped with it. She's new, she doesn't know about mom."
Spike's face fell.
"Dawn, I'm sorry..."
"No, that's OK. I told her my dad isn't living with us and my mom died last year, so... "
She didn't look too upset, so he tried for a lighter tone:
"So that shut her up?"
"Yes it did."
Dawn sobered.
"In my mind I gave her a different answer though."
"Like what?"
"Like 'I did have help. From a friend who's really good at this stuff'."
Spike felt a rush of pride. She considered him a friend. And she thought he was good at something. Something else than providing muscle or intel when needed. He shook it off. This was something good. He decided to hang on to it.
"So, what's the next assignment?"
Dawn frowned.
"Stupid."
He just gave her his trademark head tilt.
"She wants us to write our own poem."
"And you don't like that?"
"I don't know. I just don't think I can do it. And what if the class laughs at me, and anyway, what should I write about?"
"Do you still keep that diary of yours?"
"Started a new one a while after the whole key thing, why?"
"I bet there's something in there that would make a good poem. What did she say about the style she wanted?"
"She said we could do whatever we wanted, it didn't have to rhyme or anything. But how is that a poem then?"
Spike smiled, thinking how much poetry had changed since his day. Maybe he should take her to a poetry slam some day. It had taken him a while, but now he liked the modern stuff. Wild, dangerous, quick, and often very powerful – all of a sudden he felt like putting pen to paper himself. God how long had that been...He realized Dawn was still waiting for an answer.
"Why don't you just try and find something that you would like to write about – something that would be OK for people to know. Give it a try, and if you like, we can have a look at it together before you hand it in."
She still looked skeptical, but then she shrugged with the resignation typical for students all over the world. She knew she would have to do it anyway, so why not do it his way.