The front door closed, immediately followed by Xander's usually jovial morning greeting. There had barely been a pause between the knock on the front door and his presence in the entranceway. Willow and Tara had already left for the day, saying something about checking in on Tara's friend/surrogate father at the hospital and Buffy had been hoping to have a few minutes of quiet time before Dawn came clomping downstairs.
Vain hope.
"Morning, Xan," Buffy rasped in greeting as she poked her head out from the kitchen. She had just put the tea kettle on to boil and seeing as she wasn't expected at the shop for another two hours, she hadn't even thought about getting out of her bathrobe and slippers yet.
Xander made his way into the kitchen and set a stack of envelopes and the morning paper on the island. "Got the mail, paper boy threw the paper into the flower bed again, by the way. It's a little funky."
She gave an exasperated sigh as she pulled a mug down and plopped a tea bag into it. "Figures— give the kid with the worst aim the paper route."
"Yikes, Buff, you don't sound so good,"
She took a tea bag out of the box and plopped it into her cup. "I'll be fine, it's just a little congestion. I'll get my tea and a shower and I'll be totally fine before my shift starts."
"Some OJ couldn't hurt."
"Oh my God, you sound like Dawn!" Buffy groaned as she began sifting through the mail. She paused, taking one of the envelopes and setting down the rest, opening the one in her hand with curiosity. She blinked several times before looking up at Xander dumbly.
His brow furrowed. "What is it?"
"I eh—" she cleared her throat with a cough, "—it's a check… from the insurance company." A thrill of overwhelming relief ran through her at the sight of the check. More specifically, the amount printed on it, and she made a mental note to deposit it before she went to work.
"Really? Can I see that?" Xander asked, interrupting her thoughts.
Buffy handed it over hesitantly, as though the check might dissolve if it left her hand, jumping slightly as the kettle started whistling. Xander leaned against the countertop, looking it over while Buffy fixed her tea, her mind still reeling from the thought that she could actually pay for the repairs without having to starve everyone in the house.
"Buffy… You do realize this more than covers the plumbing job right?"
"Eh no, this just pays for it. It's based on the estimate your guy gave me, it should be—" She cut off with a sneeze.
"Bless you," Xander muttered, handing the check back to her, grinning. "Well yeah but that estimate was made before he was able to get a price cut on some of the materials and factored in the free labor, supplied by yours truly, not to mention the time saved. You should be getting the final bill in a day or two."
"Seriously?"
"I imagine it probably cut a couple hundred off your bill. You should at least be able to replace the lamp and get yourself a coffee table that isn't being held together with duct tape and a prayer," Xander replied, just as Dawn came into the kitchen with her book bag.
"Ready?" Dawn asked Xander before she caught sight of her sister. "Wow, you look like crap, Buffy."
"Gee thanks," she sniffed.
"Don't forget there's orange juice in the fridge, you need some serious Vitamin C. Oh, and I had Tara get you some honey, it's in the cupboard," Dawn continued.
"I'm just a little stuffed up, I'll be fine," Buffy grumbled but reached for the cupboard to pull out the honey anyway.
"I told you you were going to get sick, but you didn't believe me. Just wait until you get your good money news, then you'll—"
"Okay, now you're giving me the wiggins. Buffy has a cold and the insurance check literally just came," Xander said, interrupting her.
Buffy scoffed into her teacup. "I've been expecting to hear from the insurance company since the guy was here, it's just a coincidence, and for the last time, I'm not sick! I'm just a little stuffed up," she pouted, adding honey to her tea and taking another sip.
"That's a really weird coincidence," Dawn countered, shrugging her shoulders. She picked up the newspaper, turning straight to the horoscope section. "Let's see. Ohh this is interesting. 'Close friends will soon share exciting news'. That's a fun one!" Dawn grinned and turned to Xander. "Anya's not pregnant is she?"
Xander's shocked stammering had barely begun before Buffy cut him off.
"Oh, my God, Dawn! Don't you have something better to do, like go to school?" she exclaimed, color rising in her pale cheeks.
Dawn cast a glance at the clock and the look on Xander's face. "I was just kidding, yeesh, let's go, Xan!"
(*)
The Magic Box wasn't exactly teaming with customers, but there had been a steady flow (or more of a trickle) all morning and well into early afternoon, much to Buffy's chagrin. Despite her protestations earlier, she couldn't deny the fact that a dam seemed to have broken somewhere in her head and her nose had sprung a leak. She kept having to stop what she was doing to blow her nose, which didn't seem to help in the slightest.
Buffy was just fixing the candle display while Anya was checking out a customer when a sneezing fit overtook her. The customer and Anya both snapped their attention to her offering a polite "Bless you!" in unison but were both taken aback when the sneezing didn't stop.
The wide-eyed customer gathered her bag and scurried out of the store sending the bell tinkling merrily. Anya stood back with her arms folded in front of her chest, waiting for Buffy's sneezing to finally come to an end.
Buffy pulled out a tissue, blowing her nose yet again, and looked up to see Anya eyeing her sourly. "You shouldn't be here."
"I'm fine," Buffy tried to say with some hint of confidence but it came out in a stuffy moan.
Oh yeah, that's really convincing… She scolded herself with an internal wince.
"If you're fine then I'm a flamingo," Anya huffed, grabbing a can of Lysol disinfectant spray and making her way around to the displays. "Go home before you get the whole town sick."
"But I'm—"
"Super humanly healthy, yeah, yeah, yeah… well you can just take your superhuman sickness home and get some rest," Anya answered waspishly, her arms shifted uncomfortably and her rigid stance softened a little before she added, "I'll let you try to make up as many of the hours as you can— AFTER you are feeling better. Deal?"
Buffy swallowed painfully, her throat was starting to feel raw. "Thanks, Anya," she croaked.
(*)
"I'm home!" Dawn announced as she closed the door behind herself when she got home from school that day. "Where is everyb—" she stopped short when she saw Buffy sprawled out on the couch in her yummy-sushi pajamas, a blanket draped haphazardly over her with a box of tissues clutched to her chest, and the narrator of some documentary on the pyramids on TV droning in the background.
Dawn stood blinking for several seconds at the odd sight before shaking her head. "I knew she was getting that cold," she muttered under her breath as she set her bag down, heading into the kitchen to get an orange. As she started to peel the fruit, a pink post-it note next to the fruit bowl caught her eye. It was from Willow explaining that she and Tara wouldn't be there for dinner and they didn't know what time they would be home.
A shiver ran down her spine at the prospect of relative freedom. She chewed on an orange slice while mulling over the possibilities. All day at school, she had been thinking about her horoscope from that morning's paper saying that she would be presented with a rare opportunity but warned against the temptation to break the rules.
She had originally thought it was talking about the fact that the mean girl in her class had left her purse behind in the bathroom and she had resisted the urge to throw its contents into the toilet, but now she was starting to wonder if this was what it had meant. She finished her orange, tossed her orange peel away, and decided she should probably do her homework before even considering anything else.
As it happened, her homework took less than a half hour and the nagging temptation to use this time to her advantage was wriggling around in her mind. The thought of going over to Janice's house or the magic shop or maybe even the arcade… they all seemed like tempting options. She bit her lip, thinking and glanced over at the larger bag of treasures she had bought during the big Halloween sale and decided that instead of giving into temptation to leave the house she should stay home. But it didn't mean she couldn't do what she wanted; at least until Buffy woke up.
Dawn dumped the bag out onto her bed examining the covers of the two books she had bought, as much as she wanted to dig right into the intriguing astrology workbook that promised to be a complete guide to birth charts and included several fill-in-the-blank charts, graphs, and questionnaires, she was even more drawn to the book of birthdays. It was a thick book with in-depth astrological information for every day of the year. She was excited to see what the book had to say about everyone she knew.
She had found her assumed birth date when she was debating her purchase in the store. The extremely accurate (for better or worse) description of her had made the air catch in her throat; it was almost as though the monks had created her based on its description alone and she knew then that she had to have the book.
She flipped through the pages looking for Buffy's birthdate and finding that it didn't seem to fit well at all. Some things did, sure, but it wasn't the seamless description hers had been. She chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully and proceeded to look up Janice's. Once again, the description seemed to match.
Interesting…
She moved on to her mother. Spot on.
Willow— The book described the intelligent, bubbly redhead she knew but also cautioned against a dark side she had only ever seen the vaguest hints of but had to wonder if it was possible given some of the things she knew she was capable of. Like bringing her sister back from the dead.
The thought made a shiver run down her spine at the thought and she tried to push it out of her mind by moving on to Tara and then Xander, both of whom had the same freakishly accurate description as her own.
Dawn tapped her pen in agitation trying to figure out why Buffy's was so far off until she remembered something she had read about those on the cusp and decided to take a look at the day after Buffy's birthday. The results were staggering, like finding the other half of her sister staring back at her from the page and it made her wonder even more about birth charts, and how much a person was influenced not only by their sun sign but also their moon, rising and so on.
There was so much to learn and she felt like she was only scratching the surface. She wanted nothing more than to dive into the deep end with both feet and pulled the astrology workbook toward her.
Dawn had no idea how long she sat in her room reading and had already started filling in the first exercise when her stomach growled loudly pulling her out of her intense concentration. She glanced at the clock, stretching her arms above her head.
It was well past dinner time.
Dawn paddled downstairs where her sister was still on the couch, she looked like she must have woken up at some point because she was now curled up in a little ball with the blanket wrapped around her tightly like a cocoon. Dawn stood watching her for a few seconds, debating if she should wake her but then thought better of it. Knowing Buffy, she probably just needed some serious rest and she would be back to butt-kicking in a day or two. With that thought in mind, Dawn proceeded into the kitchen and made herself a big bowl of cereal.
She had taken no more than three bites when there was a tapping sound at the back door that made Dawn's head snap up. Her shoulders relaxed almost immediately when she saw Spike smirking back at her before letting himself in.
"What's the word, Little Bit?" Spike drawled.
"I'm not that little…" Dawn snorted, taking another bite of cereal.
"That can't be your dinner. Thought you had a whole house of caretaker types to make sure you get fed and watered," he said, trying to look through the doorway to see any signs of life. "Where's big sis anyway? Thought I'd see her on my way over but I—" he trailed off suddenly looking mildly confused and shook his head as though it wasn't important.
Dawn shrugged. "Tara and Willow went out, Buffy is fast asleep, doing her caterpillar impression on the couch."
"Come again?"
"Anya sent her home from work sick. I didn't feel like getting killed so I let her sleep and figured cereal was quick, easy and wouldn't make a big mess. See, I can be thoughtful," she answered, munching away at her makeshift dinner.
Spike rolled his eyes. "Can see that, yeah, you're all heart."
"So what are you doing here anyway?"
"I eh… not sure really…" he furrowed his brow a little. "I had been out doin' a bit of a patrol, keepin' up the skills n'all and next thing I know, I'm standing in the back garden there." His confusion from earlier had returned and he turned to look out the back door. "Don't remember walking this way, to be honest."
An odd moment hung in the air for a breath, but just as quickly it disappeared. "So yeah, I'm here then— You eh, got any papers for me to look at?"
Dawn swallowed. "Nope, not right now. I'm all caught up. I was just getting ready to go back upstairs to do some fun reading before you came in."
"Taken' advantage of the quiet time, are you?"
"Big time, kinda loving it," she grinned.
Spike shucked off his duster, laying it on the stool next to Dawn before making his way over to the stove. "Right, well don't let me cramp your style, Niblett," he said, grabbing the kettle and taking it to the sink to fill with fresh water.
"What are you doing?" Dawn asked thickly around a mouthful of cereal.
"Making a bleeding Victoria sponge, what's it look like?" he huffed, setting it on the burner and flicking it on.
Dawn blinked at him dumbly, finished her meal, and shook her head in indifference before sliding off her stool to rinse her bowl. "Ah huh… anyway, I'm going back upstairs. Have fun doing— whatever… not my fault if Buffy breaks your nose when she wakes up."
"Don't you worry 'bout me, I'll handle Big Sis," he replied, opening the refrigerator door and rummaging inside.
Dawn rolled her eyes, retreating to her room where she could submerge herself back into her books without interruption.
Spike pulled out a package of boneless chicken breast, carrots, celery, and a lonely parsnip that looked like it had been forgotten but by some miracle was still good. Then he pulled out garlic, onion, and a cutting board. He had just set everything out when the teakettle began to whistle and he pulled it off the heat before it could wake Buffy.
While the tea steeped, Spike got to work cutting the chicken, garlic, and onion and threw them into the bottom of a large pot to sauté. He stirred the pot and went into the living room, setting the teacup on the end table and sat lightly on the couch in the space next to Buffy's curled-up legs. He couldn't get over how small and childlike she looked at that moment. Before he knew what he was doing he found himself leaning forward to brush a few stray hairs from her forehead, feeling for a temperature with the back of his hand.
Buffy stirred at the touch of his cold fingers with a quiet moan, eyes fluttering open to look at him, brow creasing as she focused on his face. "Spike? What are you doing here? Where's Dawn?"
Spike chuckled. "Easy Slayer, girl's fine. She's doing a bit of reading. Said you were feelin' under the weather so I thought I'd see what I could do to help out."
Buffy shifted herself within her blanket to face him a little better. "Huh?"
He twisted around to grip the teacup by the upper rim with his fingertips and set it on the very dubiously "repaired" coffee table. "It's a bit hot still but I figured you could do with a cup."
Her posture relaxed as she moved to sit up, reaching for the cup to take a sniff. "What's in this?"
"Honey, squirt of lemon-" he watched as she sipped, "-bit o'whiskey," he finished with a smirk.
Buffy coughed lightly. "Yeah, got that," she sputtered.
Spike patted her knee, standing up from the couch. "Drink up, I'll have your dinner ready in about a half hour."
"I'm not really that hungry."
"You'll need your strength to beat this thing, pet, think you can handle a bit of chicken noodle?"
Buffy took another sip from her cup, eyeing him. "It takes a half hour to open a can of soup?"
"Now I know you're sick, because if you could smell anything you'd know I'm not cutting corners. You deserve better than that rot out of a sodding can," he countered, heading back into the kitchen, leaving Buffy to drink her doctored tea.