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Limber (who enjoys the beach in winter, apple orchards, BritFlicks and feedback)
Disclaimer: Whedon and ME own characters, universe, etc. The only thing that’s
not theirs is possibly New Hampshire.
“Taco. How I’ve missed you.”
Dawn sighed and bit deeply into her tortilla, the hot food steaming in the chill air. She was perched in the back of the van, doors flung open wide to the moonlit California morning. Mexican food, finally. After months of scorning the Taco Bells of New England, the taste of REAL Mexican seemed close to ambrosia. Dawn envisioned her favorite taco restaurant in Sunnydale; only two hours away now, and then she’d be there. Well, she corrected, she’d be home. Which wasn’t the Mexican restaurant, but hey. She’d get there soon enough, too.
Spike stalked back into view, fiddling with one of his blood bags. Dawn watched him struggle impassively as she chewed, too happy about eating real Mexican food again to care.
“How the hell did you do this?” Spike growled as the blood on his hands made the bag slip in his grasp. Dawn smirked at him and turned to rummage in the far corner of the van’s interior. Over the past 24 hours, she’d come to appreciate the huge, empty space of Spike’s new mode of transportation. Obviously designed for cargo rather than passengers, it became the perfect place for Dawn to curl up and doze as Spike blew through state after state. Occasionally, he’d mention the posted speed limit, but only if he could then claim to be going at least twice as fast. But usually, Dawn just slept, all curled up on the burgundy shag-pile carpeting, Fugly wrapped tightly around her, the stretches of straight highway soothing her to sleep.
She found what she was looking for in the van and turned around again. Spike was standing a few feet away, trying to dig his blunt nails into the top seam of the bag. A plastic straw crinkled angrily where he clenched it in his teeth, and Dawn deftly swiped it. “Hey! I was getting somewhere with that!”
“No, you were making a mess – god, you are SUCH a boy.” Dawn beckoned him closer and he grumpily complied. Delicately holding one corner of the plastic pouch, she twisted a small screwdriver through one of the flexible walls, leaving a neat rip in the bag. “It’s just like those Capri Sun juice boxes – well, I guess they weren’t really boxes, more like pouches – but they were just about the coolest thing around when I was in kindergarten.” As Spike watched on, she crimped the bottom of the straw into a point, jammed it through the slit, and squeezed experimentally.
“OI! Careful, you!” Spike jumped back as a stream of red spouted from the straw, missing him by inches. Dawn rolled her eyes and held the bag out to him with one hand. He took it, warily sipping through the straw, then drinking deeply.
“Thanks,” Spike muttered.
“It’s not completely altruistic – keeps you from dribbling blood out of the corners of your mouth.” Dawn smiled, but Spike didn’t respond. Worse, he began to walk away from her again, pacing out to the edge of the rest stop to stare out at the hills. Dawn’s smile faded.
He’s been doing this for the whole trip, she thought. Saturday had been fun, sure. But as Sunday wore on, the banter and joking had gotten sparser, sharper – sometimes a little too sharp. Actually, she got the feeling that Spike would’ve liked her to be asleep the whole way. And that wasn’t a good feeling to have. Dawn crumpled her taco wrapper slowly, thinking as she crushed.
He’d been so nice to her at the beginning of the trip, and then he’d just steadily gotten more irritable. And even now, after hours of reflection, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what she’d done wrong! She’d been wicked patient about bathroom breaks, she’d offered to share her fries from Burger King, and she’d been really intelligent about the motel check- in. Donna Williams and her brother Spike – the hotel clerk hadn’t even blinked at her 14-year old act. She’d taken care of all of it, letting him stay in the car until the last possible moment when he had to dash from car to room. She thought he’d wake up refreshed. Instead? He’d woken up just plain foul, not to mention determined to finish the trip by Monday.
Dawn sighed. Four AM on Monday, and he was practically inaccessible. Surly, tense. It was as if every mile that brought them closer to Sunnydale…
“Oh. Duh.”
Spike looked up. Even after eating (Dawn refused to think of it as “feeding”), his face had a drawn cast to it. “What?”
“It’s Sunnydale. That’s why you’re all weird. And here I was thinking that you just hated me.”
Spike’s head dropped momentarily, his face twisting. Dawn sighed.
“Spike, you’re acting like…” Dawn searched for the proper metaphor. “Like Superman approaching the source of all kryptonite.”
“Stop talking like Harris.” Spike slouched over to her and leaned against the van. “Besides, bit, this can’t exactly be a surprise to you.” He twisted a lit cigarette in his fingers, focusing on the smoke as it curled up into the air. Dawn watched him play with it.
“Stick o’Death.”
“Not really a problem here.” But he took only one more pull before tossing it away. “No, Dawn. I’m not filled with joy at the prospect of the old stomping grounds.”
Ah. So this is when we have the talk. She took a deep breath as inconspicuously as she could.
“It’s because of Buffy, isn’t it.”
Spike jolted a little at the name. Only a little, so that it would have been imperceptible to anyone else. But Dawn was watching for his reaction, and he didn’t disappoint.
“Dawn..” Spike coughed and paused, looking out on the lightening sky for a few moments. He cleared his throat. “There’s things that happened between me and your sister.” He stopped again. Dawn waited, but he didn’t continue.
“LOTS of things happened between you and her. But you’ve changed, right? And she’s kinda changed, too…” Her voice was pitched high in her ears. Hopeful. She winced away from it.
“Love… I don’t think I can change enough to fix the damage done.” Spike shook his head, his profile silhouetted in the fluorescence of the rest stop lights. Dawn wished vainly for more light, so she could see the expressions on his face. Then again, Spike had never been able to hide his emotions well; they permeated every aspect of him. The way he spoke, the way he moved, the way he held himself apart. And right now, Spike’s whole body was radiating shame, regret, and most surprisingly - resignation.
“Spike, whatever happened between you two, you’ve been gone two years. Maybe if you tell her where you’ve been all this time…” She stopped, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Okay, then. Now or never.
“Maybe you could tell me first.” He didn’t move, and she rushed to fill the silence. “I mean, you could tell me whatever parts of it you want, and I could tell you if Buffy wouldn’t like it, or maybe help you figure out how to say it…” She trailed off. I sound like a total child, she realized. Too eager, way too eager. Dawn blushed and waited, too embarrassed to speak again.
Spike stared out at the horizon, studiously avoiding Dawn’s eyes. The silence stretched out, far beyond simply uncomfortable, approaching the kind of “you’re over the line” silences she sometimes got from Buffy. Oh, crap. Crap crap crap. Dawn’s heart began to pound in her chest, panicking. She’d been so close, and then to lose him because she took a stupid chance…
Suddenly, Spike moved. Dawn flinched away from him, her active imagination working overtime in the dark and cold, and Spike’s eyes widened briefly. But he didn’t rebuke her – he just settled against the wall of the van, facing her. Gently, he nudged her through the quilt with his boot.
“I know you’re trying to help, bit, but if I see Buffy, I’ll just have to – muddle through. If she asks, I’ll tell her anything she wants to know.” He glanced at Dawn, who flushed again. Then he cleared his throat.
“But I’ll tell YOU now, if you want to know.”
“Oh!” Oh. Oh, lord. Dawn’s already-jumpy pulse skipped and her face fell. Caught.
Spike watched the emotions flicker over her face, quiet amusement tugging at his lips. When it came to asking the more difficult questions, Dawn tended to hide behind others. Not hard to do, with the pushy lot she grew up around, he realized. Even now, as her expressions telegraphed the internal war of wills she was settling, she was still holding back. But he wasn’t about to let her hide behind Buffy this time. Not with this sort of question. He knew that she thought of herself as too polite to pry into the business of others, but now…
“Oh, tell me!” Dawn blurted out, then quickly clapped both hands tightly over her mouth. Spike laughed at her expression of horror, and Dawn peeked out at him from between splayed fingers, her muffled voice barely audible over her giggling. “I mean, I’d like to know, please, if you wouldn’t mind, and I’ve really got to get a filter fitted between my brain and my mouth. Sorry.”
“Love, if it’s any consolation to you, I think that certain thought’s been brewing for a while.” He raised an eyebrow. “How long did it take you to figure out how to phrase it?”
“Oh, Alicia and I figured that out way back, the night after the movie.” Dawn rolled her eyes expressively. “You were quite the topic of conversation.”
“I’m sure. And what took you so long in asking?”
Dawn snorted. “Oh, you think it’s easy to make it look like I’m not being nosy? ‘Hey Spike, so there’s this subject you’ve been mysteriously avoiding? Tell me all about it.’ I had to wait for the perfect opening!” She sobered a little. “Besides, I really do mean it. Sure, I want to know what you’ve been doing, but hey – sister.”
“Yeah.” Spike fished a can of Coke out of his blood cooler and tossed it to Dawn; she opened it and took a sip without even a comment about its proximity to the other liquids. Not even a grimace. “Speaking of your sister…”
“Mmmmm – you want the Sunnydale update?” Dawn turned to face him, mirroring his pose. She suddenly tensed and looked out into the darkness. “Not to change subjects or anything, but should we be worried about getting vamped here? Or, in your case, re-vamped. Heh.”
“No, ducks – this is about the point when you start seeing ‘Hellmouth or Bust’ signs.” He shrugged. “It’d be like heading to New York, but stopping at the last exit on the New Jersey turnpike. Bit of a letdown.”
“Riiiiight.” Dawn was still a little twitchy, so Spike elaborated.
“If any vamps see us, which they won’t, they’ll think you’re dinner. And though I’m sure you’re absolutely delicious, Dawn, it’s just not worth the effort for another vampire to take you from me. It would likely make me angry.” As he spoke, he allowed his face to slowly change, and by the time he stopped speaking he was in full vampire mode.
Dawn studied him. “How perverse it is that I feel better now you’ve done that?” She shook her head, and he chuckled, letting the face recede.
The sun was far from rising, but the sky was beginning to turn from black to blue. Dawn squinted at the horizon. “I think my knee is bruising that color.” Spike smirked.
“So,” Dawn sighed, settling back again. “What’ve you been up to?” She set the empty Coke can down beside her and pulled the quilt up to her neck. Like a bedtime story at a sleepover, she thought. Well, boy, and vampire, but whatever.
Spike began to play with his lighter, not looking at Dawn, just watching the flame. It was hypnotizing. Orange-blue flare, again and again.
“I went to Africa – guess that’s the most important part. Went because… well, honestly love, because I was very angry. A whole lot of it was because I’d fought with your sister, but even more of it was because I was just lost. You live a hundred years doing one thing and doing it well, and then you’ve got nothing. Not a pretty feeling.
“So I got angry and completely misdir – uh, actually, I’ll keep it in the mindset I had then, right? Right. So, I pretty much wanted Buffy dead.”
“Again?!?” Dawn groaned. “Seriously, Spike. Time for a new angle.”
“Yeah, I know, I know. But I did mean it, at the time.” Spike casually passed one hand over the lighter’s flame, and Dawn lurched forward and smacked his hand away. “Hey!”
“Don’t do that,” Dawn scolded.
“People do it all the time, it doesn’t hurt at all…” He dragged his index finger through the flame, briefly cutting the fire in two. Dawn gasped and snatched his hand in one of hers.
“That is IT!” She crawled over beside him, sucking the air in through her teeth when she inadvertently knelt on a bruised area. He stayed still as she curled up next to him, wary of bruising her again with a careless movement, and soon found her clinging tightly to his arm, imprisoning his right hand. She winced briefly as she settled, then turned to glare at Spike.
“Spike, for a centurion, you can be really dumb.” He opened his mouth in protest, but she cut him off. “Humans? Made of 98% water. That’s why the flame trick doesn’t hurt us. But YOU?” She poked him in the sternum with one finger. “You and your ilk crumble to highly flammable dust when you die.”
“My ‘ilk’? Any reason you’ve gone all archaic, or has someone been telling you to build an ark lately?”
Dawn ignored him. “You can light the lighter. You may not turn yourself into an undead torch.” She suddenly grinned up at him. “You can do that later, on your own time, when I don’t need you to drive me home.”
“As long as we’re all sure that your own particular needs have been considered,” he growled back. She stared back at him, full of mock- sternness. He slouched a little more against the wall until she was able to rest her head on top of his shoulder, all the while flicking the lighter on and off. On and off. On and -
“Keep going.”
Oh, right. “So I went to this demon - don’t ask how I knew of him – and I told him to de-chip me, turn me back into something worthy of the title ‘Bloody’.”
“It was that easy?”
“Hell, no. There were all kinds of tests, the kind of meaningless torture that can have no real point – think ‘Fear Factor’ a million times over.”
“You had to eat BUGS?” Spike snorted at the horror in Dawn’s voice.
“Niblet, I’m figuring that the wee small hours are probably NOT the time to tell your hyperactive imagination about my trials.”
“Oh – gotcha, good call, tell me those tomorrow. Go on. After the totally icky test?”
Spike scowled. “Well, love, turns out that I wasn’t properly focused before I took the damn thing. While my head was saying that I wanted to kill the slayer and all her nearest and dearest, with elaborate plots and diagrams and aplocalypses bouncing ‘round my head like sodding sugarplums, my mouth was doing its usual shorthand. In effect, I said something about Buffy getting what she deserved.” The lighter was dying out a little, and he shook it violently, nearly dislodging Dawn with the motion. He flicked it open again and it sputtered to life, renewed.
“Okay, ‘what she deserves’… What the hell does that mean?” Dawn said.
“Well, I meant it to represent bloody misery and devastation. A very simple, yet vivid word picture, if you will. Unfortunately, the Powers That Be had a different take on it.”
“Which would be…?” Dawn didn’t trust the Powers at ALL. Spike could feel her stiffening up, her suspicious little mind running circles. Good girl, a part of him commented. He pushed the thought aside and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“As far as I can tell, bit? It means that she deserves one less rampaging, insane vampire on her hands. ‘Cause after the tests, I became the cool, calm specimen you see before you.” He spread his hands wide, smirking.
“But the chip…”
“Ah,” Spike nodded. “That’s the Out of Africa part of the story. You okay for more?”
“Hit me.”
“Left Africa, returned to the States to gather together some things from various sources, and headed north.”
“North? Why?”
Spike snorted. “Well, we’ve your sister in the States, then Drusilla below the border. And as far as I know? No one hates me in Canada.” His forehead suddenly creased in concentration. “Wait, hold on – there’s some sort of lair in Vancouver. Hmmm. Just remembered that.” He shook his head. “Must’ve been pretty out of it to forget them.”
“You were out of it?”
“You have no idea, bit. Crushed hopes, along with some of the nastier side effects of the demon-encounter in Africa. I was a tad – depressed. I got about as far as Minnesota.”
Dawn laughed. “A haven for disgruntled vampires, I’m sure.”
“Then you’d be bloody mistaken,” Spike grumped. “You ever seen the mosquitoes in that state? Wouldn’t be able to find a victim worth draining after the bugs got to them.”
“So then what? You snuck across the heavily fortified border under cover of darkness?” Dawn was beginning to enjoy the story, now that the killing- Buffy part was over.
“Actually? I ended up spending some time with Oz. Willow’s wolf.” He enjoyed this part of the story, so missed the reaction of the girl beside him. “Turned out to be a not-bad bloke… not to mention, he’s been reading up on the philosophers. Damn intelligent little beastie. You know, Red sure knows how to pick ‘em. Though,” he amended, “Oz and Tara do have a lot of the same traits. Like, they think the same. Oz told me all about his little encounter with our good witch…” Dawn gaped at him. He chuckled.
“What? He said she’s lovely, and I can’t disagree. ‘Course, it took a little time and perspective for him to figure it out.” He suddenly ducked his head. “Not that it was all talk about you lot, you understand. You may think the bloody world revolves around you, but…”
“Spike.”
“What?” Dawn swallowed audibly. Spike looked at her, his concern growing. “Dawn? What?”
Dawn pulled away and turned to face him, sitting Indian-style across from him, quilt tight around her shoulders. She shivered as a chill swept through her, but she had to tell him. Had to get this part out now, before he used her name in the present tense again.
He gentled his voice to a concerned rumble. “Dawn. Tell me.”
“Spike – that’s one of the things that happened. Tara.”
Spike tensed. Then he said, quite unconsciously, “She’s dead.”
Because she was. Every ounce of instinct in him had been on alert, and he hadn’t even noticed until it was too late. Dawn’s reactions, her tenses, her scent, her posture – now he knew what to look for, Tara’s death was written all over her. And it was old death, at that; the kind that had been around so long that Dawn had stopped fighting it, that she now accepted it. And yet, he surprised himself with his own blunt statement, and startled Dawn a bit. He stared, dazed.
“Oh. Okay.” He breathed. His chest rose and fell, which was comforting, if unnecessary. Dawn watched him, wondering what was going on in his head. She didn’t feel the ache of Tara’s death anymore. She’d cried so much… two years had dulled the more violent images, of blood and blankness and too much light and silence. But watching Spike as he stared off, concentrating on something far away, she felt the need to explain. Explain why she wasn’t crying. She felt guilty, being so quiet and calm. One of them should be crying. Shouldn’t they?
“She died just after you left – only days after you left. And she was really, really happy. She and Willow were together again, and she was living in the house, but then someone shot her.”
“A gun.” Spike made a disgusted, laughing sound at the back of his throat. “Stupid, stupid…”
“Yeah. But it was quick,” she stammered. “And when I found her she wasn’t in pain, I don’t think there was any pain at all… I stayed with her. Just in case.” Dawn tugged very gently on his bootlace, not wanting to draw his attention, just wanting contact. As if she’d be able to feel rage, or pain, or sadness – whatever emotion that Spike was bottling up. He stared into the distance, breathing, quiet. But all she felt was his bootlace.
Suddenly, she heard his head lift, and when she looked at him he was staring right at her. “She loved you, bit. She loved you to pieces.” He was saying the words forcefully, like he could convince her. “She would’ve made a wonderful mum, and that’s part of what she felt for you. I saw it.” Because that’s what she’s left behind, he thought. The ability to feel that kind of all-encompassing love and forgiveness and - an image of Tara rushed up from his memory, laughing, beaming. As long as Dawn carried a part of her, they’d all be okay. “She was family, and she loved you.”
“I know,” she said. It was simple and true. Tara had been something inexplicable to her, the perfect transition person between mother and sister, the one who knew exactly what to say… Dawn shook herself before she could tumble into reverie.
Spike had to strain to hear the next words she said. Dawn practically breathed them, shyly. “You know, sometimes I think about what it was like talking to her, or helping her around the house, or going to the movies. And when I snap out of it, it’s like she was there. Right next to me.” She blushed a little. “I don’t really mention that too much, though. Anya would call me insane, or maybe send me to a shrink. So…”
“I won’t tell,” he said simply. Then he smiled, just barely. “Love, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s still looking after you. Not at all.”
A truly brilliant smile lit up Dawn’s face. “Thanks,” she whispered. Spike continued to smile at her, and suddenly she felt more relaxed than she had in days. Gingerly, she curled up in the space beside him, closing her eyes, happy.
The rest of the conversation can wait, she thought as Spike’s fingers gently swept her hair back from her brow. The rest of the conversation would be difficult, after all, and she was tired. The pent-up nervousness at her estrangement from Spike had kept her awake a lot more than he knew, a gnawing feeling in her stomach, and now the need to sleep deeply was sweeping through her relentlessly. Spike continued to run his fingers over her scalp - soothing, repetitive brushings that made her head feel light and sleepy. She yawned once, and realizing she was on the brink of sleep, struggled up to the surface of her consciousness for one last statement.
“Spike?”
“Yeah?”
“Tara watched over you too, more than you knew.” She paused, and Spike momentarily wondered if she’d drifted off. “She always thought of you as – one of us.”
A breeze swept through the trees, beginning to break up the heavy smell of night with lighter scents of daylight. A bird began to chirp in the trees above, a high trilling that cut through the air sharply.
“Well, love, let’s hope she’s watching over us still.”
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