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Fic: Love and Blackmail (3/3)
Yes, that's right! It's complete! *dances with glee*
But before we get to the actual chapter, I need to ask a question. I hate to be a tease about this, but I'm considering writing a sequel to this story. Starring Dawn and a certain someone who may be more than he seems (also, probably with some Andrew and Lessie love. Because I love them). I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested in reading such a story. It would probably be very plotty, focused on Dawn's Keyness and the Immortal's backstory, as well as on their romance....There probably wouldn't be much Buffy and Spike (though I'd be positively shocked if they didn't show up for at least a few cameos), either.
Again, I'm not positive that I'm going to do it, and if I do, it might be quite some time before I get around to it, as I have other obligations that are quite time-consuming.
So my question is three-pronged: A) Would your read it, B) Would you read it even if I don't actually write it for a while, and C) Would those of you who don't watch my journal like for me to notify you via PM should I ever actually post said story.
Let me know! Now, on to the story!
Title: Love and Blackmail
Fandom: Buffyverse
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
good__evil's Art-a-Thon
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: post-"Not Fade Away"
Characters/Pairings: Dawn, Buffy/Spike, Andrew, the Immortal, OC Slayer
Warnings: Dawn worship. You heard me.
Installment: Three of three.
A/N: Title and summary quote come from "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland, one of my favorite poets. Artwork by the talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amyxaphania. And many, many thanks to angearia for enthusiasm, punishment ideas (you are as brilliantly devious as Dawn), and major help in revamping (heh!) the epilogue. I honestly couldn't have done it without you.
Summary: "Love and blackmail are the gist of it." Dawn knows exactly what her sister needs in order to move on after Sunnydale--and exactly how to make it happen.
Previous chapters here and here.
Part Three
What are they doing in there? Dawn eyes the door of Buffy’s room for the twenty-seventh time, then decides for the twenty-seventh time that she doesn’t want to know. They’ve been in there for nearly an hour, ever since she and Buffy and Spike entered the flat and Spike jabbed a finger at the barstools at the kitchen counter, said, “Sit,” and followed Buffy down the hall, the door closing behind them with an all-too-ominous click (she could practically hear Andrew narrating it in her head). All of that had followed the walk from the church back to the flat. They’d made their way in tense silence, Dawn in front, Buffy and Spike behind her. She’d desperately wanted to turn around to see if they were holding hands or exchanging meaningful glances or something, but she didn’t dare (the only thing scarier than Spike’s glare? Is Buffy’s).
And now she doesn’t dare get closer to the door for fear that Spike will know it. Besides, she’s heard a couple of thumps, sounds that could either be from fighting or sex—though with these two, she’s not entirely sure there’s ever been a difference.
She’s pondering this when she hears the doorknob turning and hurriedly reaches over to the pile of magazines on the edge of the counter and grabs one at random, flipping it open to any old page and trying to look absorbed. It’s SFX. An article about the upcoming, reimagined version of Doctor Who. Andrew. She’s going to kill him.
She hears the door creak open and footsteps approaching. They’re too heavy to be Buffy’s, even at her most intimidating and authoritative. So it’s Spike, then. She hadn’t been sure which one of them would decide to deal with her, and she isn’t sure now whether she’s relieved or not. Buffy would be angrier—she’s never been happy when people stick their noses into her love life, no matter how well-intentioned the nose-sticker may be—and Buffy’s the one who can still discipline her, even if she doesn’t do it very often anymore.
But Spike….Well, they never really got back to a good place again after she went all “you’ll wake up on fire” on him, something she’s spent a year regretting and trying to forgive herself—and, all right, she’ll be honest: him, too—for. She’d told herself that he still loved her, that he’d never really stopped, but she doesn’t really know how he feels about her, and that gives her a wobbly sort of feeling, like she isn’t really sure she knows how to walk straight anymore.
She raises her eyes to meet his as he settles onto the barstool beside her.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment—a very, very long moment, during which empires rise and fall and several stars collapse into black holes—just looks at her, and she studies him for a (much shorter) moment (looking for signs of debauchery and/or violence), until she has to drop her eyes under his gaze.
Then she feels his hand brush against her hair (Spike’s always had a thing about hair), and hears him say, “Look at you, Little Bit. All grown up.”
She fears tears burning in her eyes. Maybe everything will be all right after all.
“Or not so little, I reckon. Pandora didn’t know what hell on earth she was unleashing when she let you out, Apate. Guess that means you aren’t ever going to outgrow your devious sense of mischief, are you, then?”
She jerks her head up to meet his eyes again (she missed those eyes, clear and blue and always meeting hers without flinching, even when they all figured out she wasn’t real, even when she lost her mom, even when Buffy was gone. But not during that last year. Not after what he almost did to Buffy and what Dawn said to him. His eyes always told the difference), swiping at the tear inching down her cheek. She recognizes the reference, of course—he helped her study for summer school while Buffy was gone, and he’d been invaluable in the mythology unit, William’s classical education (she’s pretty sure she’s still the only one who really knows that about him) paying off. She’d loved the story of Pandora (he made lots of cracks about her curiosity and various grisly ways he’d killed cats over the centuries), and all the gods and goddess and demons who’d come howling out of the box when the first woman opened it, but Apate, the goddess of deceit, was the only one whose name she could easily remember (fitting, he’d said. She couldn’t argue).
Maybe it’s that memory as much as anything else, a memory of a time when they were soclose and she didn’t doubt his love at all, that’s prompting her tears. But it’s her little-girl fear that prompts her words. “She’s been so unhappy, Spike. She keeps up a good front, but….I couldn’t stand to see her like that! And I knew she had to be missing you so bad, because I was, too, and…and I just wanted you both to be happy!”
His mouth quirks a bit. “So you got Andrew and your Slayer friend to blackmail that wanker the Immortal and forge false prophecies?”
She gapes at him. “How did you—“
“For all we’re blonde, neither your big sis nor I are stupid. But that’s quite the story, Apate. I want to hear all the devious bits sometime, yeah?”
She flushes again, whether from pleasure that he still cares enough to come up with some new and private-joke-related nickname or at the idea of telling him the whole story of her elaborate plan, she doesn’t know. “Yeah. Sometime.” Then something occurs to her, and she looks up again, with hopeful eyes. “Does that mean you’ll be around?” She keeps her hands in her lap, even though she kind of wants to clasp them under her chin in a way-too-cliché demonstration of hopefulness.
“Might at that. Angel’ll still need me to pop in from time to time to haul his ass out of trouble—the Poof doesn’t know which way is up without Cordelia there to tell him anymore—but London’s not so bad. Missed being able to get a decent pint anytime I wanted it. And watching Man U matches in the pubs. Might not be so bad to stick around.”
He’s trying to play it cool, but Dawn can tell he’s fighting to keep from breaking out into a smile. Now she’s really glad she didn’t interrupt whatever was happening between him and her sister behind that door, because they’re obviously headed in the right direction. She’s not so naïve as to think that they’ve figured it all out or that there won’t be lots of loud arguments ahead, but hey. It’s a start.
She leans back against the back of the barstool. “Oh, yeah. I’m good.”
“You’re good?”
“Well, yeah! My plan totally worked, didn’t it? You’re here, you’re smiling, and don’t even pretend like Buffy’s not grinning behind that door right now. I. Am. Good.”
He shakes his head, but he finally lets his grin slip through, the half-fond, half-exasperated one she remembers he used to give her when she beat him at poker or when she learned how to hotwire a car. It gives her warm fuzzies in a way nothing else does. “You’re hopeless, Niblet. Incorrigible.”
She snorts. “Like you’re not? Besides, who cares how I did it? Everything turned out all right, and the world’s finally like it’s supposed to be and—“
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bit. Know you’re given to hyperbolizing, but the world’s far from well. Still got poverty and big scary demons and loads and loads of restaurants that haven’t discovered the wonders of fried onion blossoms.”
“I know that. But everything’s been so messed up since Sunnydale. We’re all scattered and you and Anya and Tara were…and there are all these Slayers to take care of and Buffy never smiled and—“ She stops abruptly, biting her lip. She won’t cry. Not because she’s ashamed for him to see her that way (they’d both been witness to each other’s tears during that summer when Buffy was gone, and though they never really talked about it, they somehow managed to assure each other that they didn’t need to ever be self-conscious about it. That certainty, that she could break apart and that Spike wouldn’t think any less of her, had been one of the few things that got her through that summer), but because she’s told herself that she’s moved past this. Not past the memories, of course, but past that weeping and gnashing of teeth. She’s had a year to mourn; shouldn’t that be enough to get to the point where she can talk about this without falling apart? Or maybe it’s just Spike. He’s always made her feel safe enough to be weak.
“I just thought that if this one thing was right…” She shrugs helplessly and swipes at her cheeks again, this time with both hands. “If Buffy was happy with someone I love, too, it would be like when you’re little and your parents are together and happy, and you know everything will be okay.”
Spike sits silently for a moment, pondering this. Then: “Are you going to start calling me dad now?”
“Spike!” She rams her shoulder into his, and his arm slips around her, tugging her close till she can feel his laughter stirring her hair. This is right. This is what she’d been missing for years, having her big brother beside her and laughing and tugging on her hair. She’s glad she hasn’t cut it again. Right after Sunnydale, she and Buffy both chopped theirs shorter—not together, or a planned thing, but they both came home one day (they were in London then, before Rome), with it shorter. Mom had done the same thing after the divorce, and also when her own mom died, and Buffy says it’s a Summers woman way of mourning.
Since then, though, they’d both been growing it out, and Dawn knows that Spike’s glad. Besides, her hair’s always been her favorite feature, the first thing people notice about her, and it’s nice to know it’s there, even though it’s not like she’s trying to get anybody to notice her and—
Don’t go there, she warns herself furiously. If you start, you’ll keep going, and he’ll see right through you. He always does.
But as she settles back into her own seat, the words still come out, anyway: “Spike? You were evil. Really evil, not just…morally ambiguous. I mean, I never really saw it, but I know you were.”
He looks at her, one eyebrow lifted in that so familiar Spike-ly way, and kicks at his foot with hers. “You know this, Apate.”
“I know. But you loved Buffy so much that you became good—you…completely changed your metaphysical existence for her.”
He twirls a lock of hair around his finger. “Not just for her, Bit. Know that’s what it looks like from the outside, but it was always a bit more complicated than ‘love redeems.’”
“More complicated how? It looked pretty straightforward to me. Spike falls in love with Buffy, Buffy won’t have him without a soul, Spike gets a soul. The end.”
He snorts now and rolls his eyes, too. “Not bloody likely. Look, Sweet. I wasn’t good on my own. Sure, I feel for Buffy, and for you and your mum, too, a bit, and I wanted you all to be safe. But I wasn’t good. I was too selfish for that. That’s what being a demon is. All that selfishness that your conscience keeps in check? Runs free in a vamp. So here I was, wanting what I wanted, when I wanted it, but then there was big sis and you and the bloody chip, and I didn’t know which way was up. And then I went and did the one thing I thought I’d never do. Broke my only absolute law. I could have killed someone, destroyed the world, and it wouldn’t have sent me into a tailspin like that. I realized being around you lot, losing Buffy like I did had made me develop a…moral law of sorts: I didn’t hurt Buffy. And then I did, and I realized that I couldn’t be good on my own, but I couldn’t be bad either, and I really just needed to come down on one side or the other. Couldn’t live with myself the way I was. So sure, Buffy was the catalyst. But nobody changes unless they want to change themselves.”
She props up her chin on her fist as she muses on this.
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask… “Do you think anyone can be redeemed?”
“Don’t know about that. Most vamps, probably not. They don’t have souls or chips to give them enough time to start to care about something as fragile as a human, and so they don’t develop any sort of a conscience at all. But anything that has a conscience? That still feels a little pang sometimes when it gives in to the selfishness? Yeah, I’d say that anyone can be redeemed.”
She’s glad her hair’s hanging down, blocking his view so that he can’t see the lobster impression she’s doing right now, what with the blushing. “What about for love? Can someone love someone the way you love Buffy and become good? Just for love?”
“Love could be the prod, sure. I suspect they’d have to have another reason, too.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask… “Like what kind of reason?”
“Maybe they’re tired of being selfish. Maybe they’ve found themselves alone. Maybe because they’ve just been waiting for an excuse all along.”
She doesn’t even try to label the buoyant feeling that rises up inside her (it isn’t hope. It definitely, definitely isn’t). Instead, she just says, “Yeah. Maybe.”
She almost panics, though, at what he says next. “You do realize that you’re going to have to tell me why you’re asking me this, don’t you, Bit?”
“Um, yeah.”
“In a few days, when I get settled in.”
“I know.”
“I won’t forget.”
No. He never does. But that’ll give me some time to come up with something good. “We can talk about it after I tell you all the details of Mission: True Love.”
One of her very favorite things in all the world (besides watching John Hughes movies with her sister, playing around with crazy food combinations in the kitchen, and that triumphant feeling she gets when she masters some particularly complex bit of grammar in some long-dead demon language) is making Spike sputter. And he’s sputtering now. “Miss what now?”
She laughs at the look on his face, the same look Buffy gets when she tries one of Dawn’s bacon-guacamole-and-mayonnaise wraps. “I might have let Andrew name it.”
“I’m going to bite that little git!”
“No biting in this house.”
They both turn to see Buffy standing behind them looking simultaneously amused and chastising. Mom was always really good at that particular look, and Dawn wonders how they manage it. She’s also wearing a robe now, instead of her gold dress. Now that could mean she’s just decided to get comfy because she’s not going out again tonight. Or, it could mean the dress is now lying in shreds on her bedroom floor, the carnage of either fighting or….Dawn doesn’t want to know.
“Not even the little boy?” Spike asks. “Daleks? I knew those sounded familiar. Doctor Who, right?”
Buffy stares at him. “You watch that?”
“Love, the only person more British than the Doctor is the Queen herself. It’s kind of hard to avoid.”
“Whatever,” Buffy says, typical American. “And no, no biting of Andrew. I’m going to think of a suitably bad punishment for him. Like no TV for a month and making him write a letter of appreciation to FOX thanking them for their wise broadcasting choices.” She smiles proudly at Spike’s snort. “And I’m going to let Lessie patrol with Kennedy for the next month.”
Dawn gapes at her sister. Lessie hates Kennedy. “Buffy! That’s not fair!”
“And as for you, Miss I’m-Going-to-Manipulate-Everyone-with-My-Little-Sister-Superpowers, I’m thinking your clearance for the top secret ‘Slayer Files’ is gonna be revoked for a month while you focus on school—and, since you’re so fond of Daleks, you’ll also have to write a research paper, with one of those anorexia bible thingies?” Buffy waves her hand, searching for the right word.
Dawn stares at her, aghast, but Spike just rolls his eyes. “Annotated bibliographies, Slayer?”
“Yeah! One of those! On sci-fi geek culture using Andrew as a primary source. And, of course, the requisite menial labor—lots of menial labor. I’m thinking the cabinets need to be repapered, and somebody needs to sort my shoes, too.”
Dawn opens her mouth to protest this punishment—count on Buffy Summers, the one person alive who’s seen heaven firsthand to come up with a series of punishments so hellish that it puts Dante to shame—but then closes it again. There’s no way to get out of this now, and arguing will only result in more punishment. It’s the Summers way.
“Dawn, you have to learn to talk to people about things—” Buffy shoots an evil look at Spike when he makes an amused sound. “—instead of just using your powers of deception to get them to do what you want. How much easier would it have been if you’d come into my room and said, ‘Buffy, Spike’s back from the dead. Do you want me to book you a flight to L.A. so you can go find him?’”
Sure, easier. But a lot less fun. She thinks it, but doesn’t say it. And she definitely doesn’t continue that thought with, And then I wouldn’t have ever seen the Immortal really smile… No, instead she says, with just the right note of little-sisterly contrition, “Yeah. A lot easier.”
Buffy’s look tells her that her big sister sees right through her faux penitence, but says, “But it’s been much too long of a day to deal with all that right now. So Spike and I are going to go back in my room—“ She sends him a smoldering glance, and he returns it with one so filthy and loving all at the same time that Dawn has to look away. “—and you’re going to go back to yours where you will, I’m sure, call Andrew and Lessie and warn them about my wrath that will be visited upon them shortly.”
Dawn sighs as she watches Buffy grab Spike's hand and tug him along. The wrath of Buffy is not a thing to be sneezed at. But as she watches Spike pull her sister close and whisper something into her ear, as she hears Buffy giggle, as Spike tosses a wink over his shoulder and she returns it (as she thinks about Spike’s words about wanting a reason to change), Dawn thinks it was definitely worth it.
Epilogue
Yeah, this is the life. Dawn tilts back her head, letting the sun caress her cheeks for a moment, then pops the last bite of tiramisu into her mouth and washes it down with the last swig of her latte. She tosses a few Euro in coins on the tiny table and gathers up the shopping bags at her feet before tucking her yellow-paged, cracked-binded books under her arm.
She’d missed Rome; she’d forgotten how much. Sure, London is great, and she’d loved all of the last three years she spent there while completing the four year Watcher’s training program in three and still finding time for friends and her sister. Weekdays were spent listening to lectures, pouring over ancient tomes in various libraries, or trotting around after Giles for her “apprenticeship” (like her whole life thus far hadn’t been an apprenticeship in itself), but evenings meant fun with Andrew and Lessie and other friends—Slayers and watchers and others—they’d made, with the weekends dedicated to Buffy and Spike and whichever Scoobies happened to be hanging around. She’d gotten her own flat—tiny and drafty, but hers—lived through two or three disastrous roommates (ones who easily made the three or four apocalypses she helped avert during the last three years pale in comparison, and speaking of pale, having a vampire as a roommate? Not such a good idea, especially if you didn’t figure out that the roommate was a vampire until after she’s already moved in. And the other two? Human, sure, but they made vampires look uncomplicated) and one fantastic one (Spike told her from the beginning that Clementar demons make the best roommates, if you don’t mind the way they devour snack foods and the disappearing kittens; she should have just listened to him). She’d gotten her heart broken once or twice and done her share of breaking, too. She’d mastered six languages, took up fencing and yoga, developed a fondness for bad British soap operas (which she endlessly discussed with Spike, of course), and graduated with honors.
She’d been busy. So busy that she hadn’t let herself think about golden Roman days or pasta and wine or the sprawling complex of Vatican libraries full of original texts. Or about certain silver-tongued, way-too-charming-for-their-own-good—Yeah, right, Summers. Not going there.
She hitches her books up where they’re trying to slip out from under her arm and takes a turn into the strada that will lead her past the Forum on her way back to the new flat she and Lessie have just picked out, and she lets her mind wander a bit.
She also hadn’t let herself think much about the future. She’d known that there was no guarantee of which Slayer she’d be assigned to or where she’d end up—where the need was greatest changed almost daily, and she’d learned long ago that the only constant in life is change—and so she hadn’t let herself plan past “graduate top of my class.” But there had been this little niggling thought that refused to stop niggling: that maybe she’d get assigned to Lessie and they could go back to Rome and have adventures together, and she could fall in love with the city all over again, but this time as an adult, as a full-grown woman who knew who she was and what she wanted.
And now it’s happened. It’s weird, though: for all she’s finally figured out who she is, she’s still not sure what she wants. To be a good Watcher and keep Lessie alive as long as possible. To be a good sister (to both Buffy and Spike. And Xander and Willow and Andrew) and a good scholar and a good warrior in the fight against evil. Maybe get one of those bright red Vespas and learn to pick out the best wine for each meal. But more specific than that? She doesn’t really know.
But it doesn’t matter. Looking at the city all laid out, tawny and warm as it basks in the late afternoon sunshine, she knows she’ll figure it out. Whatever it is, she can get it.
She’s just passing the Coliseum when she catches a glimpse of a suit so impressively (expensively) tailored that it stands out even here, and suddenly her heart’s beating in her mouth.
Because it can’t be.
But it is.
He’s glancing down at his costs-more-than-Angel’s-big-stupid-jet watch, and he’s exactly, exactly like she remembers him.
And that? Pisses. Her. Off.
That absolute wanker! I so would see him on my very first day back in Rome! –that’s how full of himself he is—always gotta be everywhere, all the time. And just look at him: so plastic and aloof and gah! Marilyn Monroe my ass! He’s worse than a two-timer; he’s like a gaziollion-timer jerk, and I can’t believe I wasted even five minutes thinking about him since I went away!
But she has. She’ll be in the middle of a particularly difficult translation (declensions in ancient Slathian? Impossible) or dancing her heart out at some sweat-and-strobe-light London club or watching some stupid movie with Andrew (she’ll never, ever admit that she’s now seen The Voyage Home and it’s totally ridiculous whales thirteen times) and she’d suddenly, for absolutely no (good) reason at all, wonder what he was doing. Or whether there was anything under that plastic veneer at all (she’s skeptical) or if she was just imagining that grin (and no, she absolutely, positively nevereverever wondered how good he would have to be after multiple millennia of practicing—what did he call it? Oh, yeah—pleasures of the flesh).
She suddenly realizes that she’s practically trembling with fury at the memory of all that time she wasted on him (really. That’s why she’s trembling), and she hitches her books up under her arm again, preparing to march over to him and give him a piece of her mind (and maybe the stiletto heel of her boot up his ass. That wouldn’t be a bad idea).
But.
Then.
He sees her. And for one moment, his face softens, goes wistful and fond and kind of…yearn-y. And she’s clutching her shopping bag so tightly that her fingernails are digging into her palm and she’s pretty sure she’s sweating (now? Of all times? To go all glisten-y?) and she’s positive she wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line even if her life depended on it.
But she doesn’t need to. Because he’s coming to her, pushing his way through the crowds, moving more quickly than she’s ever seen him move before, like there’s finally, finally (after millennia of malaise) something worth hurrying for.
(And no, she’s not even the slightest bit gratified—thrilled, jubilant, ecstatic, euphoric—that she’s the thing that’s worth hurrying for. And she’s not so cliché as to immediately start wondering what it would be like to be his reason, the impetus for change, like Spike talked about that day three years ago—she’s never forgotten a word of that conversation—when he told her anyone was capable of change. And she’s not wondering if a fixer-upper would be worth it—it worked out for Buffy, after all—or imagining that he’d laugh if she told him that. She’s not *pondering what would happen if she asked him out for espresso and told him that it definitely wasn’t a date but that she just wants to see if he’s capable of acting like a decent human being for five minutes instead of a Ken-doll wannabe.
All that? It’s not racing through her mind. At all.)
And then he stops in front of her, close enough that she can smell him (underneath that smidge-too-much aftershave, she thinks she can catch a scent of fabric-softener-and-man, and God, does it ever smell good), but not so close as to make her feel uncomfortable. And he says, voice low and solemn even as a grin spreads across his face, “Little Venus?”
She feels her head jerk in something that approximates a negative, but she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s just denial that he’s actually here, and smiling that smile she’d half-convinced herself she’d dreamed up, and looking at her like that.
“No? Let me try again. Dawn?”
She smiles.
The End
But before we get to the actual chapter, I need to ask a question. I hate to be a tease about this, but I'm considering writing a sequel to this story. Starring Dawn and a certain someone who may be more than he seems (also, probably with some Andrew and Lessie love. Because I love them). I just wanted to know if anyone would be interested in reading such a story. It would probably be very plotty, focused on Dawn's Keyness and the Immortal's backstory, as well as on their romance....There probably wouldn't be much Buffy and Spike (though I'd be positively shocked if they didn't show up for at least a few cameos), either.
Again, I'm not positive that I'm going to do it, and if I do, it might be quite some time before I get around to it, as I have other obligations that are quite time-consuming.
So my question is three-pronged: A) Would your read it, B) Would you read it even if I don't actually write it for a while, and C) Would those of you who don't watch my journal like for me to notify you via PM should I ever actually post said story.
Let me know! Now, on to the story!
Title: Love and Blackmail
Fandom: Buffyverse
Written for:
good__evil's Art-a-ThonRating: PG-13
Timeline: post-"Not Fade Away"
Characters/Pairings: Dawn, Buffy/Spike, Andrew, the Immortal, OC Slayer
Warnings: Dawn worship. You heard me.
Installment: Three of three.
A/N: Title and summary quote come from "The Pomegranate" by Eavan Boland, one of my favorite poets. Artwork by the talented
amyxaphania. And many, many thanks to angearia for enthusiasm, punishment ideas (you are as brilliantly devious as Dawn), and major help in revamping (heh!) the epilogue. I honestly couldn't have done it without you.Summary: "Love and blackmail are the gist of it." Dawn knows exactly what her sister needs in order to move on after Sunnydale--and exactly how to make it happen.
Previous chapters here and here.
Part Three
What are they doing in there? Dawn eyes the door of Buffy’s room for the twenty-seventh time, then decides for the twenty-seventh time that she doesn’t want to know. They’ve been in there for nearly an hour, ever since she and Buffy and Spike entered the flat and Spike jabbed a finger at the barstools at the kitchen counter, said, “Sit,” and followed Buffy down the hall, the door closing behind them with an all-too-ominous click (she could practically hear Andrew narrating it in her head). All of that had followed the walk from the church back to the flat. They’d made their way in tense silence, Dawn in front, Buffy and Spike behind her. She’d desperately wanted to turn around to see if they were holding hands or exchanging meaningful glances or something, but she didn’t dare (the only thing scarier than Spike’s glare? Is Buffy’s).
And now she doesn’t dare get closer to the door for fear that Spike will know it. Besides, she’s heard a couple of thumps, sounds that could either be from fighting or sex—though with these two, she’s not entirely sure there’s ever been a difference.
She’s pondering this when she hears the doorknob turning and hurriedly reaches over to the pile of magazines on the edge of the counter and grabs one at random, flipping it open to any old page and trying to look absorbed. It’s SFX. An article about the upcoming, reimagined version of Doctor Who. Andrew. She’s going to kill him.
She hears the door creak open and footsteps approaching. They’re too heavy to be Buffy’s, even at her most intimidating and authoritative. So it’s Spike, then. She hadn’t been sure which one of them would decide to deal with her, and she isn’t sure now whether she’s relieved or not. Buffy would be angrier—she’s never been happy when people stick their noses into her love life, no matter how well-intentioned the nose-sticker may be—and Buffy’s the one who can still discipline her, even if she doesn’t do it very often anymore.
But Spike….Well, they never really got back to a good place again after she went all “you’ll wake up on fire” on him, something she’s spent a year regretting and trying to forgive herself—and, all right, she’ll be honest: him, too—for. She’d told herself that he still loved her, that he’d never really stopped, but she doesn’t really know how he feels about her, and that gives her a wobbly sort of feeling, like she isn’t really sure she knows how to walk straight anymore.
She raises her eyes to meet his as he settles onto the barstool beside her.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment—a very, very long moment, during which empires rise and fall and several stars collapse into black holes—just looks at her, and she studies him for a (much shorter) moment (looking for signs of debauchery and/or violence), until she has to drop her eyes under his gaze.
Then she feels his hand brush against her hair (Spike’s always had a thing about hair), and hears him say, “Look at you, Little Bit. All grown up.”
She fears tears burning in her eyes. Maybe everything will be all right after all.
“Or not so little, I reckon. Pandora didn’t know what hell on earth she was unleashing when she let you out, Apate. Guess that means you aren’t ever going to outgrow your devious sense of mischief, are you, then?”
She jerks her head up to meet his eyes again (she missed those eyes, clear and blue and always meeting hers without flinching, even when they all figured out she wasn’t real, even when she lost her mom, even when Buffy was gone. But not during that last year. Not after what he almost did to Buffy and what Dawn said to him. His eyes always told the difference), swiping at the tear inching down her cheek. She recognizes the reference, of course—he helped her study for summer school while Buffy was gone, and he’d been invaluable in the mythology unit, William’s classical education (she’s pretty sure she’s still the only one who really knows that about him) paying off. She’d loved the story of Pandora (he made lots of cracks about her curiosity and various grisly ways he’d killed cats over the centuries), and all the gods and goddess and demons who’d come howling out of the box when the first woman opened it, but Apate, the goddess of deceit, was the only one whose name she could easily remember (fitting, he’d said. She couldn’t argue).
Maybe it’s that memory as much as anything else, a memory of a time when they were soclose and she didn’t doubt his love at all, that’s prompting her tears. But it’s her little-girl fear that prompts her words. “She’s been so unhappy, Spike. She keeps up a good front, but….I couldn’t stand to see her like that! And I knew she had to be missing you so bad, because I was, too, and…and I just wanted you both to be happy!”
His mouth quirks a bit. “So you got Andrew and your Slayer friend to blackmail that wanker the Immortal and forge false prophecies?”
She gapes at him. “How did you—“
“For all we’re blonde, neither your big sis nor I are stupid. But that’s quite the story, Apate. I want to hear all the devious bits sometime, yeah?”
She flushes again, whether from pleasure that he still cares enough to come up with some new and private-joke-related nickname or at the idea of telling him the whole story of her elaborate plan, she doesn’t know. “Yeah. Sometime.” Then something occurs to her, and she looks up again, with hopeful eyes. “Does that mean you’ll be around?” She keeps her hands in her lap, even though she kind of wants to clasp them under her chin in a way-too-cliché demonstration of hopefulness.
“Might at that. Angel’ll still need me to pop in from time to time to haul his ass out of trouble—the Poof doesn’t know which way is up without Cordelia there to tell him anymore—but London’s not so bad. Missed being able to get a decent pint anytime I wanted it. And watching Man U matches in the pubs. Might not be so bad to stick around.”
He’s trying to play it cool, but Dawn can tell he’s fighting to keep from breaking out into a smile. Now she’s really glad she didn’t interrupt whatever was happening between him and her sister behind that door, because they’re obviously headed in the right direction. She’s not so naïve as to think that they’ve figured it all out or that there won’t be lots of loud arguments ahead, but hey. It’s a start.
She leans back against the back of the barstool. “Oh, yeah. I’m good.”
“You’re good?”
“Well, yeah! My plan totally worked, didn’t it? You’re here, you’re smiling, and don’t even pretend like Buffy’s not grinning behind that door right now. I. Am. Good.”
He shakes his head, but he finally lets his grin slip through, the half-fond, half-exasperated one she remembers he used to give her when she beat him at poker or when she learned how to hotwire a car. It gives her warm fuzzies in a way nothing else does. “You’re hopeless, Niblet. Incorrigible.”
She snorts. “Like you’re not? Besides, who cares how I did it? Everything turned out all right, and the world’s finally like it’s supposed to be and—“
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Bit. Know you’re given to hyperbolizing, but the world’s far from well. Still got poverty and big scary demons and loads and loads of restaurants that haven’t discovered the wonders of fried onion blossoms.”
“I know that. But everything’s been so messed up since Sunnydale. We’re all scattered and you and Anya and Tara were…and there are all these Slayers to take care of and Buffy never smiled and—“ She stops abruptly, biting her lip. She won’t cry. Not because she’s ashamed for him to see her that way (they’d both been witness to each other’s tears during that summer when Buffy was gone, and though they never really talked about it, they somehow managed to assure each other that they didn’t need to ever be self-conscious about it. That certainty, that she could break apart and that Spike wouldn’t think any less of her, had been one of the few things that got her through that summer), but because she’s told herself that she’s moved past this. Not past the memories, of course, but past that weeping and gnashing of teeth. She’s had a year to mourn; shouldn’t that be enough to get to the point where she can talk about this without falling apart? Or maybe it’s just Spike. He’s always made her feel safe enough to be weak.
“I just thought that if this one thing was right…” She shrugs helplessly and swipes at her cheeks again, this time with both hands. “If Buffy was happy with someone I love, too, it would be like when you’re little and your parents are together and happy, and you know everything will be okay.”
Spike sits silently for a moment, pondering this. Then: “Are you going to start calling me dad now?”
“Spike!” She rams her shoulder into his, and his arm slips around her, tugging her close till she can feel his laughter stirring her hair. This is right. This is what she’d been missing for years, having her big brother beside her and laughing and tugging on her hair. She’s glad she hasn’t cut it again. Right after Sunnydale, she and Buffy both chopped theirs shorter—not together, or a planned thing, but they both came home one day (they were in London then, before Rome), with it shorter. Mom had done the same thing after the divorce, and also when her own mom died, and Buffy says it’s a Summers woman way of mourning.
Since then, though, they’d both been growing it out, and Dawn knows that Spike’s glad. Besides, her hair’s always been her favorite feature, the first thing people notice about her, and it’s nice to know it’s there, even though it’s not like she’s trying to get anybody to notice her and—
Don’t go there, she warns herself furiously. If you start, you’ll keep going, and he’ll see right through you. He always does.
But as she settles back into her own seat, the words still come out, anyway: “Spike? You were evil. Really evil, not just…morally ambiguous. I mean, I never really saw it, but I know you were.”
He looks at her, one eyebrow lifted in that so familiar Spike-ly way, and kicks at his foot with hers. “You know this, Apate.”
“I know. But you loved Buffy so much that you became good—you…completely changed your metaphysical existence for her.”
He twirls a lock of hair around his finger. “Not just for her, Bit. Know that’s what it looks like from the outside, but it was always a bit more complicated than ‘love redeems.’”
“More complicated how? It looked pretty straightforward to me. Spike falls in love with Buffy, Buffy won’t have him without a soul, Spike gets a soul. The end.”
He snorts now and rolls his eyes, too. “Not bloody likely. Look, Sweet. I wasn’t good on my own. Sure, I feel for Buffy, and for you and your mum, too, a bit, and I wanted you all to be safe. But I wasn’t good. I was too selfish for that. That’s what being a demon is. All that selfishness that your conscience keeps in check? Runs free in a vamp. So here I was, wanting what I wanted, when I wanted it, but then there was big sis and you and the bloody chip, and I didn’t know which way was up. And then I went and did the one thing I thought I’d never do. Broke my only absolute law. I could have killed someone, destroyed the world, and it wouldn’t have sent me into a tailspin like that. I realized being around you lot, losing Buffy like I did had made me develop a…moral law of sorts: I didn’t hurt Buffy. And then I did, and I realized that I couldn’t be good on my own, but I couldn’t be bad either, and I really just needed to come down on one side or the other. Couldn’t live with myself the way I was. So sure, Buffy was the catalyst. But nobody changes unless they want to change themselves.”
She props up her chin on her fist as she muses on this.
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask… “Do you think anyone can be redeemed?”
“Don’t know about that. Most vamps, probably not. They don’t have souls or chips to give them enough time to start to care about something as fragile as a human, and so they don’t develop any sort of a conscience at all. But anything that has a conscience? That still feels a little pang sometimes when it gives in to the selfishness? Yeah, I’d say that anyone can be redeemed.”
She’s glad her hair’s hanging down, blocking his view so that he can’t see the lobster impression she’s doing right now, what with the blushing. “What about for love? Can someone love someone the way you love Buffy and become good? Just for love?”
“Love could be the prod, sure. I suspect they’d have to have another reason, too.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask… “Like what kind of reason?”
“Maybe they’re tired of being selfish. Maybe they’ve found themselves alone. Maybe because they’ve just been waiting for an excuse all along.”
She doesn’t even try to label the buoyant feeling that rises up inside her (it isn’t hope. It definitely, definitely isn’t). Instead, she just says, “Yeah. Maybe.”
She almost panics, though, at what he says next. “You do realize that you’re going to have to tell me why you’re asking me this, don’t you, Bit?”
“Um, yeah.”
“In a few days, when I get settled in.”
“I know.”
“I won’t forget.”
No. He never does. But that’ll give me some time to come up with something good. “We can talk about it after I tell you all the details of Mission: True Love.”
One of her very favorite things in all the world (besides watching John Hughes movies with her sister, playing around with crazy food combinations in the kitchen, and that triumphant feeling she gets when she masters some particularly complex bit of grammar in some long-dead demon language) is making Spike sputter. And he’s sputtering now. “Miss what now?”
She laughs at the look on his face, the same look Buffy gets when she tries one of Dawn’s bacon-guacamole-and-mayonnaise wraps. “I might have let Andrew name it.”
“I’m going to bite that little git!”
“No biting in this house.”
They both turn to see Buffy standing behind them looking simultaneously amused and chastising. Mom was always really good at that particular look, and Dawn wonders how they manage it. She’s also wearing a robe now, instead of her gold dress. Now that could mean she’s just decided to get comfy because she’s not going out again tonight. Or, it could mean the dress is now lying in shreds on her bedroom floor, the carnage of either fighting or….Dawn doesn’t want to know.
“Not even the little boy?” Spike asks. “Daleks? I knew those sounded familiar. Doctor Who, right?”
Buffy stares at him. “You watch that?”
“Love, the only person more British than the Doctor is the Queen herself. It’s kind of hard to avoid.”
“Whatever,” Buffy says, typical American. “And no, no biting of Andrew. I’m going to think of a suitably bad punishment for him. Like no TV for a month and making him write a letter of appreciation to FOX thanking them for their wise broadcasting choices.” She smiles proudly at Spike’s snort. “And I’m going to let Lessie patrol with Kennedy for the next month.”
Dawn gapes at her sister. Lessie hates Kennedy. “Buffy! That’s not fair!”
“And as for you, Miss I’m-Going-to-Manipulate-Everyone-with-My-Little-Sister-Superpowers, I’m thinking your clearance for the top secret ‘Slayer Files’ is gonna be revoked for a month while you focus on school—and, since you’re so fond of Daleks, you’ll also have to write a research paper, with one of those anorexia bible thingies?” Buffy waves her hand, searching for the right word.
Dawn stares at her, aghast, but Spike just rolls his eyes. “Annotated bibliographies, Slayer?”
“Yeah! One of those! On sci-fi geek culture using Andrew as a primary source. And, of course, the requisite menial labor—lots of menial labor. I’m thinking the cabinets need to be repapered, and somebody needs to sort my shoes, too.”
Dawn opens her mouth to protest this punishment—count on Buffy Summers, the one person alive who’s seen heaven firsthand to come up with a series of punishments so hellish that it puts Dante to shame—but then closes it again. There’s no way to get out of this now, and arguing will only result in more punishment. It’s the Summers way.
“Dawn, you have to learn to talk to people about things—” Buffy shoots an evil look at Spike when he makes an amused sound. “—instead of just using your powers of deception to get them to do what you want. How much easier would it have been if you’d come into my room and said, ‘Buffy, Spike’s back from the dead. Do you want me to book you a flight to L.A. so you can go find him?’”
Sure, easier. But a lot less fun. She thinks it, but doesn’t say it. And she definitely doesn’t continue that thought with, And then I wouldn’t have ever seen the Immortal really smile… No, instead she says, with just the right note of little-sisterly contrition, “Yeah. A lot easier.”
Buffy’s look tells her that her big sister sees right through her faux penitence, but says, “But it’s been much too long of a day to deal with all that right now. So Spike and I are going to go back in my room—“ She sends him a smoldering glance, and he returns it with one so filthy and loving all at the same time that Dawn has to look away. “—and you’re going to go back to yours where you will, I’m sure, call Andrew and Lessie and warn them about my wrath that will be visited upon them shortly.”
Dawn sighs as she watches Buffy grab Spike's hand and tug him along. The wrath of Buffy is not a thing to be sneezed at. But as she watches Spike pull her sister close and whisper something into her ear, as she hears Buffy giggle, as Spike tosses a wink over his shoulder and she returns it (as she thinks about Spike’s words about wanting a reason to change), Dawn thinks it was definitely worth it.
Epilogue
Yeah, this is the life. Dawn tilts back her head, letting the sun caress her cheeks for a moment, then pops the last bite of tiramisu into her mouth and washes it down with the last swig of her latte. She tosses a few Euro in coins on the tiny table and gathers up the shopping bags at her feet before tucking her yellow-paged, cracked-binded books under her arm.
She’d missed Rome; she’d forgotten how much. Sure, London is great, and she’d loved all of the last three years she spent there while completing the four year Watcher’s training program in three and still finding time for friends and her sister. Weekdays were spent listening to lectures, pouring over ancient tomes in various libraries, or trotting around after Giles for her “apprenticeship” (like her whole life thus far hadn’t been an apprenticeship in itself), but evenings meant fun with Andrew and Lessie and other friends—Slayers and watchers and others—they’d made, with the weekends dedicated to Buffy and Spike and whichever Scoobies happened to be hanging around. She’d gotten her own flat—tiny and drafty, but hers—lived through two or three disastrous roommates (ones who easily made the three or four apocalypses she helped avert during the last three years pale in comparison, and speaking of pale, having a vampire as a roommate? Not such a good idea, especially if you didn’t figure out that the roommate was a vampire until after she’s already moved in. And the other two? Human, sure, but they made vampires look uncomplicated) and one fantastic one (Spike told her from the beginning that Clementar demons make the best roommates, if you don’t mind the way they devour snack foods and the disappearing kittens; she should have just listened to him). She’d gotten her heart broken once or twice and done her share of breaking, too. She’d mastered six languages, took up fencing and yoga, developed a fondness for bad British soap operas (which she endlessly discussed with Spike, of course), and graduated with honors.
She’d been busy. So busy that she hadn’t let herself think about golden Roman days or pasta and wine or the sprawling complex of Vatican libraries full of original texts. Or about certain silver-tongued, way-too-charming-for-their-own-good—Yeah, right, Summers. Not going there.
She hitches her books up where they’re trying to slip out from under her arm and takes a turn into the strada that will lead her past the Forum on her way back to the new flat she and Lessie have just picked out, and she lets her mind wander a bit.
She also hadn’t let herself think much about the future. She’d known that there was no guarantee of which Slayer she’d be assigned to or where she’d end up—where the need was greatest changed almost daily, and she’d learned long ago that the only constant in life is change—and so she hadn’t let herself plan past “graduate top of my class.” But there had been this little niggling thought that refused to stop niggling: that maybe she’d get assigned to Lessie and they could go back to Rome and have adventures together, and she could fall in love with the city all over again, but this time as an adult, as a full-grown woman who knew who she was and what she wanted.
And now it’s happened. It’s weird, though: for all she’s finally figured out who she is, she’s still not sure what she wants. To be a good Watcher and keep Lessie alive as long as possible. To be a good sister (to both Buffy and Spike. And Xander and Willow and Andrew) and a good scholar and a good warrior in the fight against evil. Maybe get one of those bright red Vespas and learn to pick out the best wine for each meal. But more specific than that? She doesn’t really know.
But it doesn’t matter. Looking at the city all laid out, tawny and warm as it basks in the late afternoon sunshine, she knows she’ll figure it out. Whatever it is, she can get it.
She’s just passing the Coliseum when she catches a glimpse of a suit so impressively (expensively) tailored that it stands out even here, and suddenly her heart’s beating in her mouth.
Because it can’t be.
But it is.
He’s glancing down at his costs-more-than-Angel’s-big-stupid-jet watch, and he’s exactly, exactly like she remembers him.
And that? Pisses. Her. Off.
That absolute wanker! I so would see him on my very first day back in Rome! –that’s how full of himself he is—always gotta be everywhere, all the time. And just look at him: so plastic and aloof and gah! Marilyn Monroe my ass! He’s worse than a two-timer; he’s like a gaziollion-timer jerk, and I can’t believe I wasted even five minutes thinking about him since I went away!
But she has. She’ll be in the middle of a particularly difficult translation (declensions in ancient Slathian? Impossible) or dancing her heart out at some sweat-and-strobe-light London club or watching some stupid movie with Andrew (she’ll never, ever admit that she’s now seen The Voyage Home and it’s totally ridiculous whales thirteen times) and she’d suddenly, for absolutely no (good) reason at all, wonder what he was doing. Or whether there was anything under that plastic veneer at all (she’s skeptical) or if she was just imagining that grin (and no, she absolutely, positively nevereverever wondered how good he would have to be after multiple millennia of practicing—what did he call it? Oh, yeah—pleasures of the flesh).
She suddenly realizes that she’s practically trembling with fury at the memory of all that time she wasted on him (really. That’s why she’s trembling), and she hitches her books up under her arm again, preparing to march over to him and give him a piece of her mind (and maybe the stiletto heel of her boot up his ass. That wouldn’t be a bad idea).
But.
Then.
He sees her. And for one moment, his face softens, goes wistful and fond and kind of…yearn-y. And she’s clutching her shopping bag so tightly that her fingernails are digging into her palm and she’s pretty sure she’s sweating (now? Of all times? To go all glisten-y?) and she’s positive she wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line even if her life depended on it.
But she doesn’t need to. Because he’s coming to her, pushing his way through the crowds, moving more quickly than she’s ever seen him move before, like there’s finally, finally (after millennia of malaise) something worth hurrying for.
(And no, she’s not even the slightest bit gratified—thrilled, jubilant, ecstatic, euphoric—that she’s the thing that’s worth hurrying for. And she’s not so cliché as to immediately start wondering what it would be like to be his reason, the impetus for change, like Spike talked about that day three years ago—she’s never forgotten a word of that conversation—when he told her anyone was capable of change. And she’s not wondering if a fixer-upper would be worth it—it worked out for Buffy, after all—or imagining that he’d laugh if she told him that. She’s not *pondering what would happen if she asked him out for espresso and told him that it definitely wasn’t a date but that she just wants to see if he’s capable of acting like a decent human being for five minutes instead of a Ken-doll wannabe.
All that? It’s not racing through her mind. At all.)
And then he stops in front of her, close enough that she can smell him (underneath that smidge-too-much aftershave, she thinks she can catch a scent of fabric-softener-and-man, and God, does it ever smell good), but not so close as to make her feel uncomfortable. And he says, voice low and solemn even as a grin spreads across his face, “Little Venus?”
She feels her head jerk in something that approximates a negative, but she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s just denial that he’s actually here, and smiling that smile she’d half-convinced herself she’d dreamed up, and looking at her like that.
“No? Let me try again. Dawn?”
She smiles.
The End
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