While her mother was downstairs sitting on the kitchen floor, comforting the one she had unintentionally yet cruelly victimized, Buffy lay facedown, sideways across her bed, her face buried in her crossed arms in front of her, sobbing quietly.
It did not occur to her just then to wonder at the oddity of that fact – that her mother was so concerned about the traumatized vampire, and so angry with her for traumatizing him. Really, all her mother had observed was a single blow – really not that unusual of an action for a Slayer to take toward a vampire. True, her mother knew that Spike could not fight back – but she was under the impression that it was for entirely different reasons than it actually was.
If Buffy had been thinking clearly, her mother’s behavior would have clued her in to the fact that there was more to the situation than she was aware of – given her some hint of the friendship that had been kept a secret from her to this point. But, in her own guilt and shame over her violence and cruelty toward Spike, she subconsciously *expected* the accusation, the anger, she had received from her mother.
She was not surprised by the horrified reaction her violence had received – as she was horrified by it herself.
It still all felt so surreal, so distant and strange to her – and yet at the same time, painfully real and intimate. She remembered clearly every single word she had spoken, every cruel way in which she had hurt Spike, during the moments when she had not been in control of herself – and the most frightening part was that in a way, she had the odd sense that it *had* been her doing and saying those vicious things to the defenseless vampire, that she had rendered helpless by the thoughtless, reckless action of claiming him as her own.
Her own *mate*.
God, that single concept alone was still mind-boggling!
As if matters were not complicated enough, in addition to the powerful possessive rage that compelled her to keep Spike under her control – to prove any time her claim was even slightly challenged, that he was undeniably *hers* -- there was the tender side of the bond that joined them as mates, the link that made her want to protect and cherish him above all others. She was utterly horrified every time when she would come to herself in the wake of a violent attack on the vampire, resolving that no matter what, it *would not* happen again.
And yet it did – over and over again.
And her guilt was intensified not only by her normal sense of morality, but by the manufactured feelings that she now had for Spike, due to the mating claim that bound them.
They *were* manufactured feelings – right? Only there because of the claim?
Like everything else in her life at the moment – Buffy simply did not know. She was confused and afraid, and felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life. Her fear and pride, and the strange force within her had all worked together to keep her silent about the true nature of her dilemma when she had had the chance to reveal it to her Watcher and friends.
Now, no one but her really knew the extent of her fear, her confusion and helplessness in the situation she was trapped in – and now even her own mother saw not what she was going through, but what she was *doing* -- and was disgusted by it.
She just lay there, crying softly, facedown on her bed, the picture of despairing, dejected misery.
Or, the picture of over-dramatic self-pity, as it appeared to Dawn, standing in the doorway of her sister’s bedroom, casting a narrow shadow over Buffy’s prone form.
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” she snapped in a voice that trembled with derisive anger. “You’re not the one who just got the crap knocked out of him for no good reason!”
“I *feel* like I did,” Buffy mumbled without raising her head.
Dawn smiled sweetly. “Well if you *had* -- there would have been a *very* good reason,” she assured her.
Buffy looked up at her sister blankly, showing no reaction to her snide remark, wondering vaguely why Dawn was so angry with her. She knew that it was the struggle between her and Spike, just before she had hit him, that had drawn Dawn downstairs to see what was going on – so all the girl could possibly have seen was the same typical Slayer behavior her mother had seen – that single punch.
Of course, Buffy remembered suddenly, the very thing that had set off the possessive force within her was the revelation that Spike had confided in Dawn about what had been going on between them. So perhaps Dawn had a bit more of a reason to be upset with her than she had thought at first. She wondered suddenly why Spike would have confided in the teenager about the very adult situation he had found himself in.
Something was trying to fight its way through her fog of depression and despair, a fact trying to make itself known to her, as she began to wonder, finally, about the strangely easy, casual manner Spike seemed to have with her family. But the truth was, at the moment, she did not even feel like she had the energy to try to figure it out.
She could not even bring herself to care.
“Go away, Dawn,” she muttered, her voice muffled as she lowered her head back down into the comforting cradle of her arms. “I don’t feel like talking about this right now.”
Dawn’s eyes widened in disbelief at her sister’s dismissive words – and then narrowed again in an angry challenge. “Well, that’s just too bad! Because you’re *going* to talk about this, whether you like it or not!” she declared as she stormed into her sister’s room, her arms crossed over her chest in a gesture of determination.
“Dawn – just leave it,” Buffy insisted in a tone of weary, overwhelmed impatience, raising her head but not opening her eyes to face her sister. “You don’t have the first clue about what’s going on. You don’t know anything about this, so please just go away and leave me alone.”
“Spike told me…”
“I don’t care *what* Spike told you,” Buffy snapped, suddenly looking up at Dawn with tears that could not mask the defensive irritation in her eyes. “You have no idea what I’m going through right now!”
“Yeah. I can imagine,” Dawn said dryly, her arms slowly uncrossing and her hands going to her hips as she gave her sister a disgusted looked before commenting calmly and clearly, “It must be such a nasty bitch to be – well – a nasty *bitch*.”
Buffy’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened in disbelief at her sister’s shocking words. She was not used to hearing Dawn use that kind of language, anyway – and to hear it in the midst of such a heated personal accusation – she was struck speechless for a very long moment. And as she stared into her sister’s cold, furious eyes, Buffy realized two things.
The first was that somehow, Dawn knew a lot more about the situation than she had assumed. And the second – was that she *cared* a lot more than Buffy ever would have guessed.
“Just how much did Spike tell you?” she asked, her voice barely over a whisper, and full of a suspicion – and a fear – that only seemed to intensify the anger in her sister’s eyes.
“Why do you wanna know?” she demanded in a trembling, accusing tone. “So you know how hard to hit him later?”
Buffy flinched, although that had been the furthest thing from her mind. “Dawn,” she whispered, shaking her head, unable to meet her sister’s eyes. “That’s – that’s not fair. If he told you anything – he must have told you that I didn’t mean to…”
“He told me,” Dawn interrupted, a bitter note to her voice as she recalled how her friend had defended his abuser. “He was sure to make it very clear that it wasn’t your fault. That you didn’t *mean* to hurt him.” She paused, her teeth worrying her lip for a moment as she considered her next words. Finally she went on, “I’m just not clear on which part he was talking about. The part where you smacked him down in the kitchen a few minutes ago – or where you beat him up in an alley last night…”
She paused, her hard, piercing glare forcing her older sister to meet her eyes as she concluded coldly, “Or the part where you decided to make him your *slave*, when he was already helpless – just because you *could*. Did you *mean* to do that, Buffy?”
“I made a mistake, okay?” Buffy burst out, her voice shaking and on the verge of losing control, as she stood up, turning her back on her sister and walking toward the window, trying to put a little distance between herself and the painful truth her young sister was stating, her arms crossed over her stomach defensively. “I made a big, stupid mistake…but I’m paying for it…”
“*Spike’s* paying for it…” Dawn corrected.
“*I’m* paying for it, too!” Buffy nearly shouted, whirling around to face her sister again, eyes blazing with frustrated pain and anger. “You don’t have any idea how – how scary this is! How scared I am and how confused and lost and – and…” She struggled for control, turning away again as a wave of tears rose up in her throat and her eyes, and she finished in a lost, lonely whisper.
“…how bad this hurts.”
Both girls were silent for a long moment. Buffy was trying desperately to regain control of her emotions, and Dawn was unsure of how to respond. She had seen Buffy only as the bad guy in this situation, the person who was hurting her best friend – but there was no denying the sheer agony of emotion in her sister’s voice, her expression, as she studied her unexpectedly vulnerable face, her tear-filled eyes and trembling mouth.
“No one has any idea,” Buffy whispered finally, shaking her head, a desolate, aching despair in her voice.
After a long moment, Dawn spoke in a much gentler voice than she had used with her sister thus far. “That’s not exactly true,” she reminded her pointedly.
Buffy looked up at her, surprised by her words. When she said nothing else, Buffy looked away again, taking in what she had just said, remembering with a pang of guilt that Spike certainly understood what she was going through – and yet, he probably felt every bit as alone as she did. She wondered suddenly if she had been going about this whole thing all wrong.
Why should either of them have to be so alone in this hurtful situation?
Since discovering the dangerous alter ego that she had developed as a result of the claim, she had been struggling with how to act around Spike, what was the appropriate way to treat him. Besides that one tender encounter they had shared the night before, she had spent most of the time she had had when she had been in control, avoiding him, trying desperately to keep from hurting him.
But was she hurting him simply by staying away?
Whether she liked it or not, she had irrevocably bound him to her. Their connection to each other was something that was not going to go away, no matter how badly she wished it would. She wondered suddenly, if perhaps her avoidance and failed attempts to distance herself from him were only making things worse.
The claim was eternal; he needed her desperately, and she hated to admit it, but she needed him, too. And yet, she realized with an aching empty feeling inside – in a way, she hardly knew him. They had spent most of the time that they had known each other trying to kill each other – or at least professing to – and since he had become unable to hurt her, she had hardly spoken to him except to tell him to shut up.
She frowned, troubled and thoughtful.
Eternity was a long time to spend with a stranger.
*Maybe it’s about time I actually started getting to *know* Spike – my mate,* she realized in an unexpected moment of clarity.
“Buffy?”
Dawn’s quiet, questioning voice drew her back to the moment, and she looked up at her sister with startled eyes.
“You have to find a way to stop this, Buffy. You can’t keep doing this to him,” the younger girl insisted. There was more compassion in her voice for her sister now – but her tone was still unyielding. She refused to just stand by and watch as Buffy destroyed her friend, little by little.
“I know that,” Buffy agreed in a whisper, her eyes downcast. “Giles is working on…”
“Breaking the bond, I know,” Dawn finished for her. “But – I don’t really get the impression that the bond is the only thing going on here, do you? And what good does it do if he breaks the claim – if while he’s working on it, you end up killing Spike?”
Buffy cringed at the voicing of the very real fear that had been in the back of her mind. A few months ago, “killing Spike” would not have seemed like such a terrible idea to her. They *were* mortal enemies, after all. But now, the very thought struck a cold sense of terror deep into her heart.
It stunned her, the power of the feelings for him that flooded her at the thought of losing him – ironically, at her own hand. A protective affection filled her, and her eyes widened in surprise at the power of the emotion.
*That’s not going to happen,* she thought with a fresh determination. If she had to abase herself, had to admit everything, before her friends and her Watcher – no matter what she had to do, she was not going to *let* that happen.
“That’s not going to happen.” Her mother’s voice from the doorway, speaking her thoughts, startled both girls before Buffy could respond aloud to her sister’s question.
As Joyce stepped through the door into Buffy’s room, her arms crossed over her chest and a determined set to her lips, she added firmly, “I’m not going to let it.”
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