[Reviews - 537]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 3789 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Dear Saturdays,

Quit being so dang busy, please.

Thank you,
Suzee

;)
Chapter 29

“Wait up,” Spike called softly after Dawn before she could make it to the kitchen.

“I’m not going back in there,” she argued angrily. “In fact I’m never talking to any of them again. I don’t care what any of you say,” she said stubbornly.

“You really think I’m here to tell you to go talk to the whelp?”

“Then why are you here?” she asked.

“Figured you might need…I don’t know. Wanted to say, though, that I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”

”What do you mean?” she was trying to act mature and not cry.

“I should’ve been here for you and your mum and sis a lot sooner. Sorry it took me so long. You shouldn’t have been left alone with all that for so long.”

It was Dawn so of course his reaction was gentler than it would have been with anyone else, but Spike still surprised himself with how well he dealt with it when Dawn practically threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around him as she cried.

“Shh,” he murmured, “Don’t worry pet. Nothing to worry about now, yeah? Don’t have to do anything but be you; let Spike take care of the rest.”

“Are you going to leave once you get Buffy better?”

”What?” he wasn’t sure which surprised him more, her thinking he was going to leave or that she was so sure it was going to be him to heal her sister.

“Are you only staying until she gets better? Until someone else can take care o me again?”

“I’m always going o be here to take care of you, pet. Always.”




“Were they ever my friends?” Buffy asked quietly. The notion truly paining her.

“I think they were, Buffy,” Anya said. “I think that maybe in the beginning it was that you were Buffy and you happened to be the Slayer and—“

“Then I became the Slayer who just happened to be named Buffy?”

“I wish I could tell you that I didn’t believe that, but…I think Willow’s getting more interested in magic and so that makes her…I think that she sees people, at least that have something to do with the supernatural, as what they are ahead of who they are…does that make sense? I don’t think she ever saw me as anything other than a former vengeance demon…”

“Like it’s her new thing so everything’s centered around it right now?”

“People can be stupid when they’re young,” Anya explained and Buffy was reminded that of the four people in the house right now, she was the youngest by at least one hundred years.

“Is it pathetic that the only people who can still see me as a person aren’t technically ‘people’—at least not according to some people, not mean I mean, but some people…I mean you were a vengeance demon, Spike’s a vampire, and Dawn’s this mystical ball of energy.”

“Or perhaps when it all comes down to it, people that haven’t…who don’t have a personal connection to the otherworldly stuff…sure Willow can do magic, but she’s not a full blown witch and…”

“And I’m never really going to be a normal girl,” Buffy laughed, but it soon turned to tears.

“Maybe we just know more of what it’s like,” Anya suggested. “I know it’s not great, but…you do have me and Dawn—and Spike of course.”

“That is great because…I’ve been seeing…Giles and Xander can be so judgmental…I don’t know if it’s because of Angel or what but…I just always thought that Willow…”

“I think Xander tainted her. I believe she’s been his friend so long she doesn’t know how to choose anyone over him even when deep down she knows he’s wrong.”

“I guess everyone…or almost everyone, grows apart from their high school friends—especially when their lives are becoming so different….I guess it’s just hard to have it be so sudden and so…”

”With them deciding you’re dying?”

“Yeah, that. I’d have thought…Even now if some demon had to be killed in order to save one of their lives—even if I had to find out which one…I’d still do it because of the last five years.”

“For as much as you deal with death, Buffy,” Anya said very thoughtfully, “and maybe because of it, I think you know a lot more about life than most people.

“Not to sound like a bitch, but, you’re a lot smarter than I ever gave you credit for being.”

“That doesn’t make you sound like a bitch, Buffy. Willow and Xander just acted like I was a sex obsessed, immune to tact, not especially bright person—or in Willow’s case, demon. They were your friends so at first you took their opinions as what was true.”

“But I shouldn’t have taken so long—“

“I noticed that you would look oddly at Xander whenever he would tell me to shut up. You were just figuring out what to do. That you’ve done it at all is enough.”

“I think you and Spike are way too forgiving.”

“Or maybe we’ve just been around long enough to know that it’s not worth it to stay angry with people for what they didn’t do or because they didn’t do it sooner; that it makes your life much more worthwhile and enjoyable to take everything you can get when you know it’s offered sincerely.

“I’m never helping Dawn with her homework again.”



It was several moments later when Dawn seemed to think of something, “You’ll take care of me because you knew I couldn’t do all this.”

“It’s too much for any one person let alone a teenage girl to handle on her own.”

“And Giles said…I have to ask him something before he leaves. Come with me?”

No way was he leaving Dawn alone with the bastard ever again, let alone right now. “Let’s go, ‘fore he leaves and all.” He followed her silently as she all but raced down the hall and out the front door. He had enough thought to pull it shut behind him, not wanting Buffy to hear whatever it was Dawn and Rupert were going to have to say to each other.

Girl’d heard enough to last a lifetime already.


Giles was getting into his car when a teary eyed Dawn, with Spike right behind her appeared on the porch calling his name. For a moment he thought that she was going to forgive him…

“If you’re so sure that both my mother and sister have ‘diminished mental capacities’ then why did you leave me here by myself to ‘take care’ of them?”

Realizing her had no good answer, Giles simply finished getting into his car and drove away.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said sadly, turning back around to face Spike, sighing in relief when he wrapped an arm around her and hugged her to him. Reaching for the door he suggested to Dawn that they go inside and see how Buffy was doing.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” she said quietly and Spike had a feeling he was going to have two sad girls on his hands for a while.


“You had so better help me with my homework! These two suck when it comes to history; they’re always telling me how ‘it didn’t happen like that’ or ‘he was a right wanker’. Seriously, if I followed what they said,” Dawn continued and Buffy realize she hadn’t known Anya had been helping her sister already; she knew Spike had, but not Anya… “If you follow their version, Lincoln was a vampire who went around lamenting the failure of civil rights and Napoleon, well Anya never shuts up about him.”

“Lincoln is a vampire, least he was!” “Napoleon was a very interesting man,” Spike and Anya refuted at the same time.

And Buffy realized that just maybe everything would be okay.




TBC........please, please, please review? I do love them so :) and yay for the nominations this story got this past week :-D (I might just have to actually finish a new story for you now, huh?)


and if you didn't know--which I don't think most of you would--that Lincoln thing Spike said has to do with: http://ciley.livejournal.com/181234.html ...a very interesting little ficlet if I do say so myself....which I do :P





You must login (register) to review.