Prologue
“Aahhhhhh!”
“Buffy, Buffy, wake up.”
Slowly the Slayer opened her eyes, sweat tinting her brow. “Dawnie?”
“Yeah, you had one of those dreams again it seems.” Slowly she took a washcloth and began cleaning her sister´s face.
“I did.”
“Again about...you know – him?”
Buffy was sitting upright in her bed by now. “Yes, he, he and Angel, no Angelus...on their way.”
“Here? But he´s not evil again, is he? I mean, he said he loved you and all that?”
“I don´t know, I honestly don´t know.” Exhausted Buffy sank back in her bed a far away look on her face. “Maybe I pushed him away – too far - and now he´s...”
“No, Buffy, he tried to ra-“
“Don´t say it! Don´t!”
“I just meant that it wasn´t you that went over the edge first, but him.” But Buffy wasn´t listening anymore. She was staring out of her window in the clear night sky, lost in her own world. Slowly Dawn turned around and left her sister´s room. Buffy had been acting like this for a few months now and it only got worse. When she was awake she seemed lost to all reality, just staring into space. It got worse at night, when she patrolled. She got careless, not watching out for herself. Giles went with her once, but said that she had to learn for herself, she wouldn´t get killed, she wasn´t that careless, but in his opinion she just needed a wake-up tussle. So he went back to England leaving everybody again, believing Buffy would cope, with whatever was bothering her.
But he hadn´t seen her sleep. Her dreams started about a month after the bathroom incident. Almost every night she woke up, screaming. She never told Dawn about these dreams, but she didn´t need to. A few weeks after the dreams started Dawn went to Buffy´s room to put a shirt back that Buffy had lent her. That was when she heard what had happened. Buffy was murmuring in her sleep that Spike shouldn´t touch her, then she started screaming “stop” over and over again. Dawn got so shocked that she let her cup of chocolate fall down, which she held in her other hand. Buffy woke up from the shattering of the porcellain, not remembering a thing about her dream.
That´s how Dawn found out. She didn´t tell anyone, but she suspected Xander knew something. He got even more protective over Buffy than he was before and never mentioned Spike in Buffy´s predence, although as soon as she went out of ear-shot he always stated how good it was for everybody that the vampire wasn´t there anymore. One part of Dawn shared Xander´s opinion, but the other part wasn´t so sure. Willow was on the loose and nobody was there to stop her. Her sister could still hold her own in a battle, sure, but loosing her best friend was taking it´s toll on her and Xander, or Giles for that matter? The last one wasn´t even on the same continent anymore and the other one was too childish even for Dawn´s liking.
She just hoped that something would happen, to change her sister and soon. Quietly she closed Buffy´s bedroom door behind her.
TBC...