Summary: Dawn and Spike forged an unbreakable bond through the decades as the Slayer wove in and out of their lives, never quite the same after her resurrection.

N is for Niblet

"...But as I turned to walk away

A tear fell from my eye

For all my life, I'd always thought

I didn't want to die

I had so much to live for

So much left yet to do

It seemed almost impossible

That I was leaving you

I thought of all the yesterdays

The good ones and the bad

I thought of all the love we shared

And all the fun we had

If I could relive yesterday

Just even for a while

I'd say goodbye and kiss you

And maybe see you smile

But then I fully realized

That this could never be

For emptiness and memories

Would take the place of me

And when I thought of worldly things

I might miss come tomorrow

I thought of you, and when I did

My heart was filled with sorrow..."

-Excerpt from: When Tomorrow starts without me by David M. Romano

He wanted a nice, stiff drink. Hell, he wanted the whole sodding bar. But he refrained. For her. She'd wanted him sober at her bloody funeral. She'd insisted on it, actually. And planned it for the night.

As he unfurled himself from his car, the salty sea air blew soothingly through his loose platinum curls. He couldn't be bothered to gel it back. Not tonight. Probably not tomorrow night, either. He cringed at the long line of cars parked along the small cemetery drive. She deserved the crowds to gather there and mourn her. She deserved for the world to stop. To take notice of her loss of her.

But he didn't want to see them.

He didn't look at Buffy as he walked up the grassy knoll. Hadn't seen her in a decade or two and hadn't wanted to now either. He saw the children, red-faced and puffy-eyed. And their children, not understanding the significance of the event, ran up to rarely-seen family and giggled their hellos.

Then they saw him. "Uncle Spike!" Cherub-faced Gage came running up to him with a wide grin, and arms stretched out. He had Dawn's large, blue eyes and dimpled grin. Spike swept the five-year-old up in his arms, clutching him tight. The sprog mellowed and wrapped his pudgy arms around the vampire's neck. He fought back the tears burning in his eyes as his other arm wrapped around Gage's mum, Tara. Dawn's look-a-like.

He dropped a kiss to the top of her head as she tucked herself into his side. "I'm sorry, luv."

She sniffled. "Me too."

William looked more like his father, who preceded Dawn in death by two years. He came up and settled a hand on Spike's shoulder, giving it a hearty squeeze and him a tight smile. "I see she banned you from the bottle too."

Spike snorted. "Planning to get pissed just as soon as this is over."

William nodded, and his lips twitched into the beginnings of a smirk. "It's a date." The proceedings began, and Spike listened listlessly as person after person took their turn at the podium and looked down upon the open earth below them.

Tara was unable to finish her eulogy, and her brother gracefully stepped in and picked up where she had left off. And then it was her turn. He turned away.

Buffy's voice was brittle as she cleared her throat and began to speak. He didn't look at her. Distracting himself by lifting Tara's little girl, Isabella, into his arms. She'd finally noticed him.

"Dawnie...well, she was a force to be reckoned with. And I should know." A smattering of chuckles could be heard throughout the assembly. "She, um, she wanted me to read a poem. It was one of her favorites. It's...it's by Robert Frost." She cleared her throat, and he still didn't look, but he could help but listen to her wobbly voice.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;"

His eyes flitted up to her, finally. Startled to find her already looking at him. Blue clashed with green. Bright emerald pools of emotion. He looked away.

"Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,"

His breaths were short and sharp and, he reminded himself, entirely unnecessary. Her voice was cracked and fading in and out. His hand itched to reach for her. But he didn't.

"And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

He ached, and he raged, silently, of course. Because, of course, she chose that sodding poem. And then the crowd was parting, and William was prodding him forward while Tara gave him a watery smile. He heaved a sigh and loosened his hold on Isabella.

He was numb as he wove through the crowd. At the podium, he got his first good look at the mahogany casket she was encased in, sealing away her beauty. Her light. He tore his eyes away and settled them on Tara. Her eyes were willing him to be stronger than she'd been. He smiled. Or he tried to, anyway.

"When I met Dawn an eternity ago," he began with a nostalgic smirk. "She was an opinionated, loud motor-mouth who didn't have the good sense to fear the monsters in the dark." He waved a hand around the moonlit cemetery. "Clearly, that never changed." The crowd tittered even as he sobered. He went on, detailing his favorite memories of his niblet, making them laugh. Making them cry. And just when he thought he'd break, he came to his close.

"Dawn loved poetry, studied it in college, and continued to absorb it in all her years after. You have already heard one of her favorites. She asked me to share one of mine." The shadow of a smirk crossed his features. "I always favored Bukowski, m'self." He pulled himself up, straightening as he looked out over the gathering.

"The short poem

like the short life

may not be best

but generally

it's

easier.

This is a short

poem from a

long

life

Sitting here

looking at

you

Then

leaving."

And so he did. He thanked them for coming, for listening. Then he hurried over to her kids and pulled them into one last hug. Told William he'd take a rain check on their bar date and left. The tears started flowing the moment his car was in sight.

Luckily for the other late-night drivers, he didn't need to be able to see to drive.

~BTVS~

The knock was hesitant when it came. He was tempted to just stay where he was. To keep the room quiet and dark, to pretend he was out. Or that he'd never been there at all. But then he reminded himself that she'd lost someone too. Her sister. Yet still, she lived. As unchanged by time as he was. So he sighed, and he unsteadily pulled himself to his feet.

He ignored the clink of his empty bottle as it rolled across the floor. He didn't look her in the eyes when he opened the door. Just reached out and accepted her into his arms. As helpless in the face of her sorrow as he'd ever been. "I'm sorry." She always was.

He always was too.

He didn't want to let his bitterness overcome him. "Shouldn't you be seeking comfort from your brooding other half?"

Oops.

She tensed in his arms, and he let her go. He stepped away, turned toward the window, and ran a hand through his messy curls. Her voice was small when she replied. "He's in LA. There was a...job." He refrained from snorting. Kind of.

"And it couldn't wait?" Who was he kidding? Angel never could.

He didn't need to see her to know she shrugged. He could hear it in the soft rustle of fabric, in the extra puff of breath. "I think...I think Dawn would have preferred it this way, anyway. You know they never got along...not even after all these years."

It was true. Dawn once told him she only had room for one souled vampire in her life. And he was it. She'd tried, his niblet, to embrace Angel when her sister had determined he was the one for her. Spike had faded from her life for a long time after that. Then she'd shown up in the middle of the night at his hole-in-the-wall apartment in some no-name town that he couldn't remember the name of. He'd never expected that she would track him down. She just always could.

He was laughing, it wasn't a real laugh, but it wasn't entirely fake either. His companion for the night was just this side of intelligent, and she amused him. And she was a hellcat in the sack, which definitely added to her appeal.

He groaned when someone started banging on the door. He yelled at them to shut up and told- Miranda, was it?- to hold that thought as he pulled on his pants and sauntered over to open it. Every thought of wiling the night away in the warm embrace of a very willing woman faded when he met the wide tear-filled blue of the girl on the other side of the threshold.

She attached herself to him, her arms locking behind his waist and her head tucked in against his shoulder. He gently guided her further into his apartment. "Spike? Who is it?" Monica giggled as she walked out of the room, now fully clothed.

Dawn startled and looked up. First at Melissa and then at him. "Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...interrupt."

Spike was already shaking his head. "You didn't, bit." He looked up at Marissa, somewhat apologetic, and nodded toward the door. "Sorry, luv."

Surprise flashed over her face. And insult. "Is this your-"

"Sister," Dawn said firmly. "I'm his sister." She looked back up at him. "And I can come back later."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be daft, Dawn." He looked back at his date. "Dawn here traveled a bit of a ways, so…." Thankfully the daft bint took the hint that time.

"Oh, well, I hope everything is okay." She grabbed her jacket and held her hand out. "Nice to meet you, Dawn. I'm Melinda." Oh yeah, that's right.

Dawn raised a brow and slanted a look at Spike as she took Melinda's hand and shook it. He shrugged and nodded when Melinda invited him to call her. He wouldn't. The door closed behind her. Spike grabbed his shirt from where it had ended up slung over the lamp.

Dawn crossed the apartment and stared out the window. "How did you find me?"

She smiled and turned back to face him. He shifted uneasily. Her smile was somehow both pleasant and predatory at once. Did she learn that from him? It seemed like a him-thing.

"I never lost you."

He rolled his eyes. Bloody, red-haired witch. "Everything okay, niblet?"

She snorted through a fresh round of tears, and he realized it was a fairly stupid question. "I hate him."

Alarm raced through him, and he tensed. "Who? Did some prat break your heart? What's his name? I'll happily tear the wanker's throat out."

She giggled, hiccuping on a sob. "No, things are going well with my boyfriend." Her eyes narrowed. "You'd know that if you ever bothered to come around."

Oh, bloody hell.

"It's been years, Spike! Years! You never even call anymore!" He didn't blame her for being angry. He deserved it.

He shrugged and held his hand up defensively. "I email."

Crossing her arms and tapping her foot, she scoffed. She was the image of her big sis. "Like once a year. Maybe." Her voice dropped to a disturbingly low octave. "Dear Bit, 'ope all is 'ell. I'm- inser' random, vague location 'ere. Miss you. Spike."

Her voice returned to normal. "That's pathetic even for a postcard. You know there isn't a word limit on emails, right?"

He shuddered, appalled, and pointed at her. "First off, never imitate me like that again. That was bloody awful." She giggled again, but the accusation was still heavy in her piercing gaze. "Secondly...we're living our own lives now, Dawn." He felt incredibly tired all of a sudden. He slumped down on his couch. "Now, whose throat do I have to rip out?"

A genuine grin stretched across her features. "Angel's."

He really, really didn't want to talk about this. "Oh?" But he was also just the tiniest bit curious.

Dawn sighed and sat down on the chair across from him. "She's not happy, Spike. He can't make her happy."

"I think it's been well proved that I can't either, bit." He sighed. "Buffy's a big girl. She's made her decision. It's not my place to interfere."

"I tried to like him for her. I really did. But I just don't know what she sees in him!" She jumped back to her feet and paced. "All he does is brood and tell us how we should do things! I stayed last weekend with them for Spring Break, and oh my god! He was just so…." Her arms flailed as she searched for the word. "Condescending! I think I chipped a tooth from grating my teeth!"

Spike shrugged, slightly amused despite himself. "That's just Angel, pet. Angel, Angelus, Liam, a trait shared by all incarnations of that git." He cocked his head and studied her. "And this is what had you traveling halfway across the world with tears in those baby blues?"

She pouted, and he smiled fondly. "I just miss you. Angel's useless at helping me with my homework, you know. You'd think someone as old as him would, like, know stuff. I wish she had chosen you. I hate her for being so stupid."

He opened his arms, and she stopped her dizzying movements to settle into his embrace. "Don't hate big sis for her tragic taste in men, pet."

Her petite frame shuddered with a laugh, and her words were muffled against his shirt. "What's that say about you?"

He grinned and puffed his chest out with pride. "That there's an exception to every rule." He smiled into her hair as she let loose another peel of laughter. He sobered a bit and cringed at his own words. "You should cut her some slack, luv. If Angel's who she wants... you should try finding room for him. It'd make things a lot easier for all of you."

She shook her head, still not looking up at him. "I tried. But there's only room in my life for one vampire with a soul. And it's not Angel."

He couldn't help but be warmed by her words. He tightened his grip around her, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. Maybe he'd tried to be better about keeping in touch.

He snapped himself out of the heart-rending memory. "I know," he murmured, still looking into the starry night. He sighed. "Why are you here, Slayer?"

She moved a bit, and he could see her reflection in the glass then. He looked into her glassy eyes, knowing she couldn't see him. He ached again. She bit her lip and shuffled nervously. She always seemed unsure when she was around him. How the tables had turned. "I just wanted to make sure you were...okay."

He snorted, and she smiled softly. "I know, stupid question. It's just...you missed the wake. Tara and Will were worried.

He shook his head. "No, they weren't." Those kids knew him better than most. They had never expected him to stay past the funeral. Dawn hadn't either.

She gave a reluctant tilt of her chin. "Okay. I was worried."

"Not your place to worry about me, Slayer."

She sighed. "Spike."

He turned toward her then, and she immediately took a step back at the fire in his eyes. "I'm fine. You should go back to Angel now. You're good at that."

Hurt warred with guilt in her mossy gaze. He turned away from her again. He couldn't look at her if he wanted to keep some semblance of control, especially with the whiskey still coursing through his veins. Her voice was small and soft when she broke the silence again.

"I said I'm sorry, Spike."

"Well then, everything is okay, innit?." It really wasn't. "You should go, Slayer. I'm knackered."

He walked over to the large bed in the center of the room and collapsed on top of it. He felt her hesitate for a long moment. Her eyes watched him not look at her. Finally, she sighed and murmured something that could be goodbye or goodnight. He sighed in relief when the door clicked shut behind her.

You're coming to my graduation party, right?" Dawn asked him as she lay on her belly on the floor. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and bopping up and down in the air. He was sprawled out beside her, his back against the couch, one knee bent and the other stretched straight. The arm resting on his knee held a book. "I mean, I know that you can't come to the ceremony since, you know, sunlight and all. But I made sure to plan my party for after sunset."

He shook his head. "You shouldn't have, bit."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course, I should have. Besides, I might not have passed like half my classes without you...so really, it's a party for you too!"

He snorted. "Let's not go spreading that around, yeah? Got a reputation to uphold and all."

The door burst open, and they glanced at the blonde whirlwind that flew through it. Spike's stomach dropped immediately, and Dawn shifted uneasily. "Oh, uh, Buffy! I wasn't expecting you until next week."

"Yeah, I know. I-" The Slayer stopped short when her eyes lit on the vampire in the room. "Spike." There were too many emotions in that single word. Trying to suss them all out would just give him a migraine, and he was long past those days.

He kept his eyes shuddered when he looked at her with a curt nod. "Slayer." He smiled tightly at Dawn and picked himself up off the floor. "I'll see you later, bit."

She rose along with him, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "But you will come tomorrow night, right? Please?"

He'd allow himself an eternity of suffering to make the worry in her eyes disappear. He leaned over and brushed a kiss against her cheek. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Or to avoid a certain ex. But he kept that part to himself as he walked out, careful not to brush against the Slayer, still frozen in the doorway.

He had tried that night and all the next day to talk himself into disappearing from town. But he could easily picture the heartbreak in his best girl's eyes when he never showed and felt like a right git for even contemplating it. So, with a sigh and vain hope that Angel wouldn't be showing his very punchable face, he entered the bowling alley rented out for her graduation. She had told him she'd wanted something normal and cheesy.

He had told her he wasn't wearing the sodding clown shoes.

She saw him almost immediately. Her face lit up with happiness as she catapulted into his chest. "Thank you for making it!"

"Told you I would."

She looked at him in a way that reminded him that she knew him better than that. "But you thought about leaving."

He reached back and scratched at the back of his head. "Well, yeah," he conceded. "But I couldn't do that to you. Not tonight."

She squeezed him tighter. "Thank you." He rolled his eyes and squeezed her back. No one could make him melt faster than she could. His eyes unwillingly found Buffy, sensing her eyes on him. Not even her big sis.

Laughter and chatter filled the air, and Spike smirked and shook his head as he sent the latest of Dawn's friends off after enduring another terrible pickup line. "You seem to be a hit with the ladies." The smirk fell from his lips.

He sighed and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Not all of 'em."

"Spike…." She was fidgeting with her hands, twisting her fingers around themselves. It suddenly occurred to him that she was nervous.

"Why are you here, Buffy?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, confusion passing through her bright eyes. "It's my sister's graduation."

He rolled his eyes. "No, you daft bint. Why are you here?" He pointed to the corner he had relegated himself to and cocked a brow.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "I just...don't want it to be like this between us."

He was bone weary. His exhausted eyes studied her before he decided it was too much energy. "Too bad, sweetheart. You don't get to have everything you want."

Dawn, his knight in bloody armor, saved him from further conversation. She shot her sister an anxious look before grabbing his hand and pulling him out of his corner. "Come play a game."

He chuckled. "You'll regret it."

"I just rescued you! And! I'm a college graduate!"

He shook his head with mock solemnity. "There is no mercy in competition."

Hours later, he was walking Dawn home. He didn't know where Buffy had scarpered to. He didn't care. "They broke up," Dawn's soft words broke the silence. "It's why she came earlier than I expected. Angel didn't want to come. Said he felt too uncomfortable around me."

"Wanker."

She smirked. "Well, I mean, that was my goal when I started shutting him out a couple years ago." She hesitated and continued, "I don't think it'll last, though. The break-up."

He didn't either. "Then why mention it?"

She shrugged. "In case she comes to you. In case she tries to…."

"Use me?"

Her answering smile was guilty. "I love my sister. I'd die for her just as quickly as she died for me. But she's all kinds of messed up."

"Aren't we all?"

She threaded her arm through his. "You're trying not to be. You're trying to be healthy and move on, and...she isn't there yet. I just-" She shrugged. "Don't want to see her bring you back down."

He pulled her in tighter to him. "Not planning on letting her, bit."

And he hadn't. Buffy had sought him out the next night, but he didn't open the door that time. And after she left, he did too. Stole away into the night, dropped a postcard to Dawn, and stayed away for the next couple of years. Buffy had returned to Angel as expected.

He answered the phone with a curt, "What?"

It didn't dampen her squeal. "Guess who's getting married!"

"I'll kill him," he growled.

"Relax, Spike." She giggled. "Buffy already gave him the what's for when he asked her permission." She scoffed. "Like I need permission!"

He snorted. "Yeah, well, the Slayer isn't me. I have weapons on my face."

"You're face is a weapon."

He grinned at that. "Damn straight. A devastatingly handsome one."

"You're coming, right? It's in ten months...which gives you plenty of time to haul your ass overseas and walk me down the aisle!"

His stomach dropped. "'Fraid a big pile o' dust won't be much good at that."

"It's going to be an evening ceremony, Spike." He could almost hear her eye roll.

"You've got to stop planning everything around me, bit."

"Shut up." She giggled again. "Don't forget to buy a tux!"

He stared at the receiver as the dial tone rang through his small apartment. "Bugger."

Ten months later, he walked Dawn down the aisle to stand beside her luminous sister and placed her hand in her future husband's. He narrowed his eyes at Henry, who smiled pleasantly back. Spike respected it enough to ignore the hard swallow the young man choked down. Then Spike nodded at the boy and kissed his niblet on the cheek.

Three hours later, he was in a sodding coat closet with a handful of Slayer. She attacked him with the same fervor she always had. Burning him up inside and out. He idly wondered if they were heard. And when he made her scream like a banshee, he knew that they were.

Afterward, as they fixed their clothing, she looked up at him with those fathomless eyes. "I miss you."

He ran his hand through his loosened hair. She liked to yank on it while he fucked her with his tongue. "Let's not kid ourselves here, Slayer. You'll go back to him. You always do."

She wrapped her arms around herself defensively. "I just keep thinking things will work out."

He tilted his head as he squinted at her. "You know the definition of insanity, pet?"

She shook her head, the beginnings of a smile on her lips. "It's been a long time since you used one of your British pet names on me."

He ignored her. "It's doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

She sighed and looked away, but not before he saw the beginnings of fire in her gaze. "You don't understand us."

Unsurprisingly he felt the fire rising within him too. "No," he agreed. "I don't."

She didn't try to stop him when he opened the closet door and stalked out. And he was glad for it. Really. He was.

It was her fault for never being able to really choose. Oh, she'd make choices, sure. She chose Spike when she found out he was alive. They'd had a solid year of love, fights, and shags between them before Angelus got his flighty soul anchored, and suddenly her options opened up. And she tried to flit between them. Tried to have her sodding cake and eat the bloody thing too.

Dawn hated her for a while until Spike talked her round. He never failed to notice that the younger Summers treated him more like family than she did her own sister, though. Some of that resentment never faded, had lasted 'til her dying day.

"She's like that Frost poem. In fact, do you think he was a time traveler? Oh! Or a prophet?"

He glanced at her incredulously, popcorn halfway to his mouth. "The hell you on about, bit?"

Dawn looked pointedly down at her four-year-old. "Language, Spike."

"Yeah, Uncle Spike! Language!" the little boy mimicked.

He morphed into his demon face, and William giggled and threw popcorn at him. Dawn was watching him in amusement as his golden eyes returned to blue. He glared accusingly as he pointed to the thoroughly unthreatened child. "Look what you've reduced me to."

"Shut up, Spike," she said fondly. "But, really. I remember reading that poem in school and thinking. This is Buffy."

"Oh?" He wasn't really all that interested.

"Yeah, I tried reading it to her once. She was all, 'I don't think you can call Angel the less traveled path-'"

"Maybe as far as shags go," Spike cut in. She swatted at his shoulder but otherwise ignored him.

"And I was like, 'I know, Buffy. That's the point! The first path was actually scarier than the second because he couldn't see where it led. So he took the second, safer path. And convinced himself it was the less traveled.' But she just...never listens."

"Dawn?"

"Yeah, Spike?"

"Can we just...not talk about her tonight?"

She smiled guiltily, an apology in her eyes as she leaned her head against his shoulder and played the movie. "I'm sorry."

"I know, niblet."

Long after Tara had been born, when Buffy would have been nearing her fortieth, they realized what Spike had already suspected. She was as ageless as the day she returned from the grave. Dawn had called him, teary, and told him the results of Willow's spell. Had raged at him when he wasn't surprised.

"She'll be able to toy with you forever now."

He'd acted insulted like he was above that kind of manipulation. But she knew the truth as well as he did. Angel made a rare appearance at Tara's tenth birthday party- planned for the evening, as always- beaming and proud. The weight of loving a mere mortal lifted from his broody shoulders.

"Hey, Spike."

He tamped down the irritation that immediately rose within him. "Angelus."

His sire's sire rolled his eyes but didn't try to correct him. Guess you could teach an old dog new tricks after all. "Did you hear the good news?"

"You're planning to introduce yourself to the sunshine?"

He didn't rise to the bait, just continued to stand there smiling that goofy grin and tracking Buffy with his beady little eyes. "Buffy is immortal."

He rolled his eyes. "Good news, is it?"

Angel narrowed his eyes. "Of course it is."

That's when the girl in question nervously decided to make herself known. "Hey guys, whatcha talking about?"

"Your beau here was just telling me the wonderful news," he replied dryly. He jabbed a thumb at the poof. "Congrats on an eternity with this wanker."

He saw the shadows in her eyes. He knew Slayers too well, knew her too well, to believe she was as happy about this development as her honey bear. Well, that and Dawn had told him about how she'd shown up at her house, balling her eyes out.

She conjured a smile anyway, a mockery of the sun-filled one she used to shine with. "Yeah, thanks."

He snorted and rolled his eyes, slipping past her and searching out the sullen teenage William. He bet that he could get him to play some video games.

They'd had their dalliances over the years. Buffy'd break up with Angel and seek him out. Sometimes, she'd catch him in a moment of weakness, and he'd let her in. Not long after Tara's birthday had been one of those times. He'd always had a soft spot for a crying woman.

They were together for several months that time. Buffy was sunlight and honey, happy to be herself in the beginnings of their old relationship made new. Dawn was cautiously thrilled, but Spike kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When it did, he actually hadn't been expecting it.

"Buffy, luv?" He'd been requested to help one of the Slayers on the Scotland Hellmouth and had left her behind to manage the uptick in demonic activity in their town. The apartment was dark, and he immediately had a sense of foreboding. Her smell seemed a little fainter than it should have.

He heard a knock at the door and knew who it was before he opened the door. She was crestfallen, a tub of ice cream in one hand and a bag of blood in the other. "She went back to him, then?" He said it like it was a question, but it wasn't.

"I hate her." Yeah, he did too. He stepped out of the way and allowed her entry. She flipped the lights on and opened the curtains and windows. And his lips twitched when he realized she was trying to air out the Buffy smell.

"It was nice of her to stick around and say goodbye." He was bitter, so sue him.

She stepped up to him and grasped his face between her bitty hands. "You deserve so much better than her." He shook his head, but she cut him off before he could argue. "Maybe you didn't once upon a time," she acknowledged. "But you didn't have a soul then, and you went and got one to make up for it." She scoffed. "The shit she's put you through-"

"Language, bit."

"Sometimes I wonder just how much Willow messed up when she did that spell." Her blazing eyes met his. "I don't think my sister ever fully returned from that grave."

Sometimes he wondered the same. He sighed. "Dawn…" But he didn't really know what he meant to say.

"No. Don't argue. I have to believe that to love her. I have to believe that a part of the person she was when she died for me never made it back. Because if I don't, I don't know how to justify how she treats you, me, or my kids. Like we're toys that can be picked up and put down whenever she pleases."

It had been a long time since he'd seen her rage like this, and it soothed him, calling on him to put his devastation and grief aside. He pulled her into his arms and wished that he'd never fallen in love with her sister in the first place.

Buffy had tried to call him a few weeks after she'd disappeared, but he'd never answered. Never saw her after that. Not until tonight at the funeral. Dawn and Henry had stopped inviting her to most family functions, choosing to keep Spike in their sphere instead. He had argued against it, but Dawn was more stubborn than any of them. She'd relented only enough to agree to invite Buffy to the things she knew he'd be unable to attend.

So, sometimes, he stayed away extra long to ensure that the Summers sisters had a chance at amends. He didn't fool Dawn, but she never really called him out on it. Twenty-odd years since he'd seen Buffy, but Dawn had begged him to come to the funeral after discovering the cancer was terminal.

"She can't not be there," she said casually. Like they were talking about a day at the beach rather than her funeral. He hummed his agreement. He didn't want to talk about this.

"And you can't not be there. Obviously."

He smiled a smile that he didn't really feel. "Not like you'll be there to notice, bit."

"No, but Will and Tara will be. Little Bella and Gage, they'll notice."

He groaned and slumped back in the torture device the hospital dared to call a chair. "So this is how it'll be, eh? You'll keep me tied to her with your spawn and theirs for eternity?"

She smiled a beautifully sad smile, lines crinkling around her aging eyes. "She's family, courtesy of the monks. But you're family courtesy my choice. My family loves you, and you love them. Don't bother to pretend otherwise, William. You don't need me to ask you to stay in their lives. You will anyway."

"Confident li'l bint, aren't you?"

"In you? Always."

He allowed his sorrow and dread to briefly consume him. "I think the wrong sister was made immortal."

She snorted and waved a hand. "Buffy can have that burden. I've lived a good life. Would I have liked an extra thirty or forty years? Sure. But I got to watch my kids grow and have their own children. I got to love you as much as you deserve-"

"More than."

"And now I get to join my husband in heaven." Her eyes were saddened. "I do regret that Buffy will never get to go back. But- not that I'm hoping you dust anytime soon- I do hope I get to see you there one day too."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't hold your breath, niblet."

She smiled like she knew a secret that he didn't and grabbed his hand. "Promise me you'll come to the funeral. And give a eulogy. You know that Tara won't be able to get through hers. Buffy's will be short, I know it. Hell, someone else wrote half of it. You know me best. You can eulogize me best. Promise me you will."

"Bloody hell, Dawn." He choked back tears, his throat sore from the effort. "I promise." He was helpless to do anything else.

She smiled like she'd won the lottery rather than a death sentence. "Oh! And read one of your favorite poems."

"Even if it's Bukowski?"

She laughed, a tinkering sound that reminded him of a younger version of her.

"Good night

and I said

good night

and I got in my car and drove off

and the worm laughed

all the way home."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Morbid bitch."

Her hand tightened around his. "I love you."

The tears did come then. "You have no idea, bit." But her eyes told him that she did.

She died three days later. And now it was a week after that. She was safely tucked away beneath the earth, and he was more alone now than he'd been in fifty years. He called Tara the next night and told her he'd be sailing away for a while. She wasn't surprised. After all, she was her mother's daughter and loved him nearly as much.

"Call me weekly."

"Asking a bit much, aren't we?"

Her voice was teary. "I was originally going to say daily."

He chuckled. It grated like glass. "I 'preciate your restraint."

He sailed away, back to London, where the weeping skies matched his moods, and he called her weekly. He flew back for important events. William's wedding, the birth of his twins. Bella's high school graduation, and then Gage's.

He lived like that for twenty more years. With them, but apart. He was embraced by the next generation as easily as the last, and he loved them just as much. It was after flying back home after celebrating Tara's fiftieth birthday that he found his door propped open.

He smelled her before he saw her and heaved a sigh. She was curled up on the chair he kept near the window when he walked in. As beautiful as ever. "What are you doing here, Slayer?"

When she looked at him, he saw something in her gaze that he hadn't seen in decades. A spark that he'd thought had permanently died when she had. "You know it's been like forty years since we really talked?"

His brow raised in surprise. "I do, yeah." That was how he'd planned it, actually.

"Do you think I came back wrong?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, aside from the obvious un-aging of Buffy-ness."

He hesitated, then swung the door closed. "It's occurred to me."

She held up a piece of paper. "It occurred to Dawnie too." He didn't tell her that he already knew that. "I didn't want to believe it. But, at the same time, I really did." She sighed and ran a hand through her golden locks. "It would explain a lot. Like why I stayed with Angel, chose him over and over and over again even though we both knew we were terrible for each other." She paused in her rambling and looked him over. He remained stubbornly quiet.

"Turns out Dawn was looking into it. Hard." His surprise must have shown because she smiled slightly, looking like a question had been answered. "A witch came to me a couple of years ago. Told me she'd been trying, and mostly failing, to look into the circumstances of my resurrection. That Dawn had enlisted her mother decades ago. And she had taken over the research after she'd died."

She chuckled. "She could have asked Willow, I think. But maybe she thought that Wills would have denied the possibility of any other side effects. Maybe she would have." She shrugged a dainty shoulder.

Spike finally found his voice. "And did she crack the spell?"

She nodded and turned back out to the window. "I didn't come back wrong, no more wrong than Tara-" she looked back at him. "The original Tara, Willow's Tara," she corrected. He knew who she was talking about. "No more than she said I had. Just a cosmic sunburn, right?"

He sighed, disappointed. "I'm sorry you didn't get the answer you wanted, Slayer."

She shook her head. "Oh, but I did. I didn't come back wrong, no. Just...blocked. Like a piece of me was locked up and couldn't break free." She looked back at him and stood. She looked tiny in her oversized gray sweater. "Before I died, I was afraid I was losing the ability to love. That I was doomed to be stuck in my Angel fueled loop forever. When I was brought back, it's like the fear of that loop was brought back with me and trapped me there. Unable to grow and love outside of who I was before my resurrection. Oh, there were moments in time when I'd break through.

That last year with you in Sunnydale. And that next year, after I found out you were alive. But there was something beneath the surface that always wanted to drag me back down. And it won. Every time, it won."

"What are you saying?"

She picked at a loose thread on her sweater. "The witch got rid of the block. And I- I guess I'm more me now than I have been in, like, what? Fifty, sixty years?" She snorted, her pain palpable in the air. "I made my sister hate me, missed out on an entire life with her. And still, she tried for years to find an answer to a problem I didn't even know I had. I barely even know my nieces and nephews." She waved a hand toward him. "And I repeatedly fucked up the one thing that grounded me in those darkest moments."

He tilted his head in confusion. He was sure his heart would be thudding painfully in his chest if it could beat. "Every time I thought I'd go crazy and take the easy way out...that's when I could leave Angel and come to you. But then he'd call or hunt me down, and I'd be pulled right back into that fucking loop." Her eyes were tear-filled when she looked back up at him.

"Then I found out that there was no easy way out. Not for me. I never wanted to die more than I have these last few decades. Not even when I was fresh out of heaven."

His heart broke for her, and he couldn't keep from closing the distance between them and swooping her up in his arms. "I'm sorry, luv."

She shook her head against his chest. "No. You never have to apologize to me, Spike. I owe you every apology and then some. So I'm sorry. For everything. And I don't expect your forgiveness, but you deserved an explanation."

She pulled away and swiped at her tears. "I would have come sooner, but...I left Angel after she removed the block and went away for a while. I needed...I needed to learn who I am now. And to come to terms with the horrible person I became."

He was truly, honestly, speechless. She looked nervously away from him, and he finally moved into the kitchen. "Feeling peckish?"

Her curiosity peeked, and she timidly followed him. "You have human food?"

He scoffed. "'Course I do. Never know when one of the kids are gonna drop in and disturb Uncle Spike. Even learned how to make one of those bloomin' onion things The Bronze sold pre-troll."

She chuckled and slid into a chair. Spike felt her eyes on him as he puttered around the kitchen, making pancakes. When they were done, they ate in silence, but for the first time in a long, long time, it wasn't uncomfortable. When she was done, he offered her the guest room, and she retired to it with a gentle smile and a grateful glint in her eyes.

He slumped back on his couch and wondered where they went from there.

Spike didn't remember falling asleep, but when he woke up, Buffy was sitting across from him, just watching him as sunlight streamed through the cracks in the curtains. "You okay, Slayer?" he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Dawn asked me to read the Robert Frost poem at her funeral, you remember?"

Of course, he did.

"'Course I do."

She smiled faintly. "Then you read yours, and it...resonated with me. So I started reading poetry. I think—I think I was trying to find a way to be close to her and to you. You guys had that bond over literature, and I wanted to capture that too."

"Did you find one you liked?"

"Oh, I found many. But there was one...one in particular that stayed with me. Even now. By Lang Leav."

He cocked his head and invited her to recite it. She smiled sadly and did.

"If I could, I would erase every trace of myself from

your memory. You would lose all recollection of

loving me.

You won't remember why you stopped."

His heart was bloody shards on the floor. "I don't think any of us are actually capable of stopping loving you, pet."

Her smile was tremulous. "You should be. I don't deserve it."

He laughed lightly and shook his head. "I thought the same thing about myself once upon a time."

"What changed your mind?"

"Your sister. She told me that maybe I didn't deserve it once, but I'd made up for my past mistakes since."

"She was right."

He nodded. "Well, I have to believe that if a monster with a body count that spans continents can find a way to deserve the love of as pure a soul as Dawn, then a champion for good who made some lousy decisions through no real fault of her own can easily find her way back into the hearts of those she loves."

"I should have fought harder."

He slowly shook his head. "You didn't even know you had an enemy, luv."

"I should have. I knew something wasn't right."

"Stop blaming yourself, Buffy. It's time to let go and move on."

"To what?"

He smiled. "To whatever your heart desires."

She sniffled. "My heart desires you. It always has...my head was just being really stupid for, oh, you know, a lifetime."

He hesitated at her bold announcement. She shuffled back in the wake of his silence, got up, and paced toward the kitchen. "I want to believe you, Buffy. I really do."

"But I've made it impossible."

"No, not impossible. Just...difficult." He stood up and stopped her pacing by placing his hands on her shoulders. "But then, nothing with us has ever been easy. And the best things in life rarely are."

She gripped his forearms. "What does that mean?"

He studied her, seeing a side of her he'd never seen before, not directed at him. Not even when she was trying to fight her way out of the loop, she'd been stuck in. "It means that we should take it slow. That you should get to know your family again, let them know you. The real you."

"And you'll be…?"

"Right here."

She leaned into him and breathed in a shuddering breath. "Okay," she agreed. "Okay."

Three years later, after tearing down the remains of their old relationship and building one anew. After she'd proven her love and unrelenting faithfulness. After Angel had come and Spike had watched her send him off in satisfaction.

After she'd inserted herself in the lives of Dawn's children and their children. Welcomed, first with caution and more than a few threats about her treatment of their favorite Uncle Spike. And then, after time grew on, as they saw, for the first time, the way the sun shined through the Slayer, welcomed with open arms. Embraced as though she hadn't spent half a life at an arm's length.

So three years later, they lay twined in bed, her head pillowed on his chest as he rubbed mindless circles on her shoulder with his thumb. They were just beginning the next chapter of their lives together. And eternity together if they chose. He wondered if Dawn knew that her secret life's mission had succeeded in the end.

He hoped, somehow, she did.

"Tell me a poem," Buffy sleepily requested.

"Which one?"

"Whichever comes to mind first."

He smiled, good ol' Bukowski.

"She's mad, but she's magic.

There's no lie in her fire."

When he didn't continue, she picked her head up. "That's it?"

He shrugged. "Short an' sweet."

She snorted. "Just like you."

"Oi!" She squealed as he flipped them and attacked her with teeth and tongue. "Who you callin' short?"

Her answer was lost somewhere in her giggles, and he grinned against her skin as he thought of the happy turn their lives had taken.

"...I promise no tomorrow,

But today will always last;

And since each day is the same,

There's no longing for the past.

You have been so faithful,

So trusting and so true;

Though there were times you did some things,

You knew you shouldn't do.

But you have been forgiven

And now at last you're free;

So won't you come and take my hand

And share my life with me?

So when tomorrow starts without me

Don't think we're far apart

For every time you think of me,

I'm right here in your heart."

-Excerpt from: When Tomorrow starts without me by David M. Romano