Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen

Purgatorio: Rejection of Sin

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - March 2005

The demon turned, his face bursting into a ball of flame. His neck seemingly detached from his shoulders, the demon's eyes flared red. Buffy's foot lodged into the concrete, her heel slamming so hard that the pavement cracked. "Oh oops," she said lightly, yanking herself out with a thud before swinging once more for the demon. Then the crack deepened.

Buffy didn't notice at first and went on swinging away with her stake, fire bursting from the demon's face as it got angrier and angrier. Each step he took made the crack widen, the pavement slowly opening, a ravine splitting away as they battled. One more step backwards and Buffy shoved him hard in the chest, a couple of moments went by, a couple of thundering footsteps rocked the concrete. A small earthquake erupted from somewhere vaguely below them. Buffy stopped fighting, the demon stopped fighting too; and the two of them stood in boring, waiting silence until the earth rocked just that little bit more, and Buffy dealt a final, fateful blow. The demon was winded as he flew high into the air, his legs flailing as he slipped into the crack, his fingernails gripping the edge.

Buffy took three steps forward, twirled her stake around her fingers and tucked it neatly into her boot. Approaching the crack, she gave the demon a stare and said, "burn in hell," before kicking his fingertips over the edge. She watched his angry body fall she smirked, kicking the remnants of once laid gravel into the crack she sighed loudly and turned around. He was standing at the end of the path.

"Must you always follow me," Buffy said as she walked towards him. His feet were in boots tonight, thick black ones that he almost always wore. His duster lay limp at his sides as his shoulders slumped, concerned.

"I'm worried about you." He said bluntly, watching as her face fell from a belated smile into a frown. She was angry, she was still angry. Still so furious at everything. Maybe it was a bad night for slaying, maybe she was on her period. Maybe it was a dozen other things that Spike could imagine when he put his mind to it. Maybe it was, he knew it wasn't. He face said it all, the extra wear, the thin scar on her cheek, the new wrinkle on her forehead. He could read her like a book.

She scoffed at him. Her eyes flicking to the small space of ground between their feet and dark shadows. She wouldn't meet his gaze, he knew if she did she wouldn't be able to lie to him and everything would come streaming out. For some reason she didn't want that, she wanted it all to bubble up inside her until she couldn't take it anymore. She wanted to be angry with him, she wanted to be angry with the world. "I'm fine," she eventually replied.

"Buffy you are far from fine," he continued, "you're not you, you're some kind of shell of you, I dunno." He shook his head and bowed away from her a little. "I can't watch you shrink into yourself, I what happened was a lot, what hap-"

"What happened?! We don't talk about what happened." Buffy interrupted, her cheeks flushing as she gestured erratically. Spike had seen her in many moods, this particular one he'd seen plenty, recently it was almost always. And then sometimes it wasn't there at all, they had a good night, or they headed to a bar. He lived for those moments, the ones where they would skulk around in the dark and make noises deep into the night. But they had been few and far between since her birthday.

"No we don't. But we should." He ended the conversation swiftly by taking a turn and storming away from her. He was angry too. He didn't want to be treated like sewer scum anymore, he had some honor at least, he had a soul. He wasn't a reckless monster, he thought he deserved some credit for that.

Dawn knocked three times before standing back in the hallway and waiting. The door swung open with a few clicks of the locks and Tara's kind face emerged into the space. "Hey, are you and Willow up for a little Scooby meeting?" She said brightly, happy that this was the first meeting Giles was letting her lead himself. She'd rung him last night with the news that he was moving to San Francisco the next month, news she wanted to share with everyone. Spike had also come mysteriously knocking on her door last night, after Buffy hadn't come home from patrolling on time, but that wasn't unusual. Apparently there was something he wanted to talk about.

"Well Willow's not actually here, she's at her Wicca group meeting, but I'll happily come along." Tara replied, jetting back into the apartment for a few things before following Dawn down the hall.

When the small group had settled themselves into Dawn and Buffy's living room, Dawn stood at the front and gave them the news about Giles. She was met with smiles and a small cheer from Xander on speaker phone. Then he and Anya gave an update on the New Sunnydale site's progress; apparently the recreation of Buffy's old house on Revello Drive was finished and did they want to come down next weekend to have a look? They did. Well Dawn did. Spike said that he wouldn't mind checking out what they'd done with the basement, he was quite attached to the old place.

Buffy wasn't actually present at this meeting, much to the others' surprise. They watched as Spike stood up from his perching spot on the arm of the couch and prostrated himself in front of the group. "I'm worried about Buffy," he started to say, but then pausing as he tried to get the wording right. "Since her birthday, you guys all know what happened right?" He waited to see if anyone replied.

Anya piped up from the phone, "yeah she did something stupid." The gang could hear Xander in the background saying 'An? Really? Is that necessary?'

"Yeah anyway, doesn't matter what we think. Something happened to her, something happened inside her I mean, she's changed. She's just so angry, there's so much she's not saying. It's freaking me out, and I'm supposed to 'reformed evil' or something." Spike said, he even did the little bunny ears around the 'reformed evil' - a term Anya had coined and was using to refer to about half the group now. As Spike was talking, Tara got out her phone and texted Willow, we need to talk.

"Why didn't you tell me Buffy was struggling? And about what really happened on her birthday?" Tara said when Willow walked through the door. It'd been an hour since the meeting, an hour Tara had spent ruminating on what Spike had said, on Dawn's blase approach to the whole thing. She'd started to think about what Willow had actually done in the last few months.

Willow felt attacked, she had no idea what had caused this, no idea what she had been walking into. Tara hadn't been this angry with her in a long time. In truth she thought her girlfriend was keeping stuff held down so she didn't upset her. "I didn't think you guys were that close, I didn't think she was that shaken up about it. She hasn't talked about it since," the redhead brushed off.

"Goddesses Will, don't you use your brain. How many times has Buffy kept things to herself?" She started counting, "more than I can remember, she keeps stuff held up inside her until it all bursts out, or she fades away. You do the same thing, if I remember rightly." Tara was shouting now,

"That is so unfair!" Willow screamed. She sounded like a brat, like someone who didn't care about anyone, she watched Tara's face scald, a vein above her eye popping a little bit as her blood boiled. They were grown ups now, or at least it was about time they started behaving like they were. Tara wanted to get out this pattern - rut - that they'd fallen into. Always making sure Willow's feelings weren't hurt, making sure she didn't go bad again, she was started to resent her, and in her own inner hatred of herself she believed Willow needed to grow up.

"I care about Buffy, and I care about you. I love you, so much and I can see that Buffy's hurting, but you don't see it. She's your best friend, how can you not see it?" Tara shouted, after a few seconds passed them by in silence, she whispered. "I think you stopped looking." She couldn't be bothered to look for other people's hurt, couldn't be bothered to imagine that anyone other than her was going through pain. How could she be that selfish? That wasn't the Willow she'd fallen for.

"I was going through a lot too. How am I supposed to notice every little detail of everything Buffy does? When did that become my responsibility?" Willow replied like a child, she was mad at Tara for assuming she didn't care. But she was also mad at herself, as the words left her lips she slipped back, sitting down at the table, her head falling into her hands. They were all going through a tough time, it was a new year, they were in a new city. Yes they had each other, but how much of each other was really there, how much of their shared past was splitting them up?

*Flashback* San Francisco, the world without shrimp - January 19th 2005 What really happened on Buffy's 24th birthday?

Dawn raised her arm, the axe twisted professionally through her fingers. She'd been training rather a lot lately and her skills were finally taking, she knew the art of slaying, she had studied it for years. She knew every move to advise a slayer to make in hand-to-hand combat. Leo was helping her study all the different demon types, but having grown up with Buffy's defeats of many of them, she knew what their weaknesses were. She was training alone in an old warehouse the Watcher's Council owned, it was shabby and old, but it gave her the safe space she needed to fight. Leo had just left, he said he had a test to study for. He'd been sparring with her for over two hours already and it was about time they stopped for a break. She sent him home with a promise to text when she got back as the evening was quickly setting in.

The only noise bouncing around the large space was the thick groans Dawn made every time she hit one of the three punch bags they had on the warehouse floor. A loud grunt fell out of her mouth, then the next thing she knew she was lunging her fist forward, the frame of the bag tipping ever so slightly before crashing to the floor. The sound echoed all around her, she stopped everything and just stared at the punch bag lying on the floor. It was her first triumph. She didn't see the vamp creep in behind her...

Buffy sprung into action, pulling herself out of the shadows of the warehouse and running across the concrete floor. "Dawnie get down!" She cried out, but Dawn ignored her. A bubble of fury popped inside her as she felt a string of betrayal. She hadn't known Buffy was here, hadn't known she was watching, spying on her. She wasn't a little kid anymore.

"I can handle this. I don't need you." Dawn said, she picked up the discarded axe from the floor and swung it mercilessly. "Aren't you supposed to be out with Spike somewhere, celebrating your birthday?" She continued, calling after her sister. Buffy pulled a stake from her boot and followed Dawn outside the warehouse.

"I came to see how well my sister is training. Leo texted me, he said how much you've improved. I think he wanted me to tell you how proud I am." She managed to get out before they were met with the vampire. He was standing by a tree, as if waiting for them to fight him. Dawn charged at him, the axe missing his heart by a few inches and lopping off one of his arms. The vamp cried out, an annoyed frown forming as he hit back, punching Dawn in the face. She staggered backwards as Buffy flew towards him.

At once the vampire turned his arm launching as slashed a thick, sharpened nail into the side of Buffy's face. The thin slice bled, a line of red drawn into her cheek. She brought her hand up to her face to check the damage, her mouth gaped open a little in shock as Dawn picked herself up off the ground. "Buffy, you're hurt, get back," she cried out, picking up her axe once again and aiming again for the creature of the night. He cackled, gloating over his quick defeat of a slayer, he underestimated Dawn, the teenage sister of the slayer. Oh yes, he'd seen the news recently, and their faces were all over it. 'Heroes of Sunnydale, now residing in San Francisco.' He'd come here especially for this, he'd come for the challenge. And the slayer was taking a backseat, he didn't care about honour, he was going to kill her and it was going to be easy.

Dawn's latest swing of the axe also missed which only frustrated her further; but least she had finally got Buffy to listen to her. The vampire snarled, Dawn snarled back - baring her teeth. Leo had told her that was a sign of disrespect, a sign that she was not to be messed with. The backlash from the swing pushed Dawn to the floor, whilst she was clambering to her feet, he lit a cigarette. He took a few quick puffs of the tobacco before throwing the stub at the rotting wood near the edge of the warehouse.

There was a blast from the log pile, a single explosion of fire that should've scared Dawn half to death, but didn't. Buffy was frozen, she didn't know what was happening, she wanted to charge at it, defeat it. But her feet weren't moving. The back wall of the warehouse was the next to go, flames licking up the side of the wood before either of the Summers women knew what was happening. Dawn abandoned the axe and turned sharply, the vampire was walking - almost drunkenly - near to the edge of the fire, maybe he had a death wish, maybe he was just big-headed, either way Dawn didn't care. She pushed him, a hard shove in the back so that he stumbled into the blaze.

"Ahh darn it!" Were his last words as his three seconds ticked over, then his body crumpled into dust.

Dawn called for Buffy and threw her axe into the bushes, but Buffy was nowhere to be seen. She'd disappeared into the dark, retreating as soon as the fight got real, got dangerous. So Dawn called the fire department and stayed until they'd hosed a big black smoke mark into the back wall of the warehouse. "What were you even doing here kid?" One of them asked her, a burly man in his fifties, his visor lifted and his eyes guarded as she shrugged and replied that she'd just been walking by.