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Reunions / Part 13

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When Willow shook her shoulder to wake her up, Dawns eyes popped open immediately. That was a mistake. Even though there were only a few candles burning close at hand, the light they gave off was still to much and sent a lance of pain through them. She then tried to sit up with her eyes still closed, but as soon as she lifted her head off the pillow it felt like it was going to explode. A long moan of pain escaped from her lips.

“Come on Dawn, it’s time to wake up” Willow said in a cheery tone of voice. “The sun will be up in forty minutes and we have to leave before it does, so get a move on girl.”

With her eyes still closed, Dawn mumbled out “You got coffee?”

“Nope, no coffee, no cereal, no pancakes, no juice” Willow said in that still overly cheerful voice “got water, or you could have some more brandy, if you want it.”

“Your loving this aren’t you” Dawn groaned out.

“Loving what sweetie” Willow responded in a laughing tone of voice?

“Me dying” Dawn said as she gritted her teeth and pushed herself up into a sitting position. When she opened her eyes the light still hurt them but she suffered through the pain and stared at Willow with a sour look on her face.

Willow was kneeling in front of her with a big smile on her face. Dawn knew that Willow had drank at least as much as she had last night and should be feeling ready to die too. That just meant one thing, she must have taken that sober-up stuff that she makes for herself. The thought sent a shudder through Dawns whole body. She’d taken one once and the idea of ever doing that to herself again made her cringe.

“You’re not dying honey, you just wish you were” Willow said as she continued to smile at her. “Do you want me to fix you up, huh?”

Dawn drew her legs up and rested her elbows on her knees then held her head in her hands as she stared between them at Willow. “Your evil, you know that?” She said between clenched teeth.

Willow continued to smile at her for a few more moments with her eyes full of laughter, then becoming more serious she said “Not really, but we do need to get ready to leave. Spike doesn’t want us to be seen leaving the warehouse after the sun comes up. It might draw attention and put their hideout at risk. So get up girl!”

Dawn put one hand on the floor for balance and started to stand up, then stopped and sat back down. “No, I’m not going.” she said between her clenched teeth. “I’m going to stay here, with Spike. We haven’t finished talking yet.”

Willow got a serious look on her face as she asked “You sure about that Dawn? You won’t be able to leave unless Spike says it’s okay and I don’t know for sure if we’ll be coming back again tonight or not. Spike was worried about us coming back too many nights in a row, we might not be back for a couple of nights, unless it‘s safe.”

Dawn lifted her head and looked Willow in the eyes so that she would know that she was serious. “Yeah, I’m sure. We left him once, I’m not going to do it again.”

Willow studied Dawns face for a few moments and then gave her a smile. “Okay, if that’s what you want. But the rest of us have got to go now.” She got to her feet and signaled to Vi and the other girls to join her so they could leave. Once they were ready, but just before they walked away, Dawn said “Will, could you give me a couple of those things, just in case?”

A big smile spread across Willows face as she reached into her pocket and pulled out two little packets and handed them to Dawn. “You sure about this?”

“No, I’m not sure. But if the only way I can get Spike to talk to me is to get drunk with him again, I’ll do it!” Dawn replied seriously.

Willow didn’t say anything, she just shrugged off her ‘magic bag’, knelt down next to Dawn and unzipped it. She reached inside and pulled out two bottles of brandy, hesitated for a moment, then reached inside and pulled out two more. She set them on the floor next to Dawns pallet. She zipped the bag shut, shrugged it back on and stood up. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two more of the little packets and handed them to Dawn. “Just in case” was all she said.

Dawn took the packets and put them in her pocket with the other two. As she watched Willow and the other girls go through the door that two of Spikes boys had just opened for them to leave, she hoped like hell that she wouldn’t have to take any of them. But the fact that Willow had given her four of them made her think it wasn’t very likely. God, she hoped she wouldn’t have too, but she knew she would if it was the only way. Once they were through the door and it was closed again, Dawn laid back down on her pallet and within a few minutes, pounding head and all, she was back to sleep

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Willow, Vi and the other girls got back to the hotel just before seven, used the lobby phone to order breakfast from room service, then went up the elevator to their floor. As soon as they got inside their suite all of the girls headed for their rooms and took quick showers and changed into sleeping shorts and t-shirts. By the time the last one was finished, breakfast was being wheeled into the living room. Everyone wolfed down their breakfast and went off to bed, except for Willow. Someone always had to be awake and on guard on an ‘Action Team’, it was a rule they never broke. Usually Willow wasn’t included in the guard rotation, but because she had taken her ‘sober-up‘ potion, which acted like three or four double espressos on her system, she was going to be awake for hours and hours anyway. She sat down on the floor in a lotus position and pulled her ‘magic bag’ into her lap and opened it. She withdrew a half dozen small bags of ingredients, a mortar and pestle and some small square papers. She figured that if she was going to be awake anyway she might as well use the time wisely. When your going to hang around with Spike you can never have to many ‘sober-up’ potions ready.

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It was almost two in the afternoon when there was a knock on the door. Willow hadn’t ordered anything from room service and except for Dawn no one else in town knew where she was staying. She cautiously approached the door and peeked out the peep hole to see who was there. When she saw who it was she unlocked the door quickly and throwing it open she jumped into the arms of Faith.

Any animosity between Willow and Faith had died long ago at the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Over the years they had become close friends and even though they didn’t get to see each other very often they talked on the phone and by e-mail all the time. When Faith finally let go of Willow, Robin was next to take her into his arms. When Robin let her go and she had a chance to look around she saw that there were eight other young women standing in the hall watching the three of them exchanging hugs and kisses. Willow started blushing and then started laughing with happiness. She stepped back into her room and waved Faith, Robin and all the girls to come in and join her.

The noise that was made at the door and by everyone coming into the apartment had woke up the other slayers and they had all come out of their rooms to see what was going on. As soon as Vi saw Faith she let out a whoop and ran over for a big hug. Faith had changed a lot over the years. She wasn’t as edgy or closed off to other people as she had once been. Living with Robin and learning to love and be loved had opened her up to loving and trusting other people too. She was still the number two Slayer and could kick the ass of any of them and they all knew it. But where once there had been fear, and respect, between Faith and all the other slayers, now there was just respect, in major amounts.

After Buffy, and before Buffy for some of the girls, Faith was the most popular member of the Council of Watchers and Slayers. That was one of the things that Faith had been instrumental in establishing when Giles started to reorganize and reconstitute the Council. She had insisted that the Council never be in a position of superiority over the slayers again. They would either be equal partners, the Watchers and the Slayers, or the Watchers could just go fuck themselves. Buffy, from her own bad experiences with the Council when it had been run by Quentin Travers had agreed with Faith and backed her up all the way. The few dozen members of the old Council organization that had survived the purge by Caleb and the Bringers had fallen into line or had been retired into obscurity.

When they were all in the room together Willow checked out the other girls that had come with Faith and Robin. She recognized all of them by face if not by name, but didn’t really know any of them. Vi and Sara did know all of them and Ruth and Nicki both knew some of them. Everyone was talking to everyone else, trying to catch up on things and introducing each other to those they didn’t know, and Faith was in the middle of it all because she knew everyone. It sounded like a sorority house with so many girls gabbing at each other.

Willow stood next to Robin listening to all the noise and while smiling up at him, asked “How do you do it? How do you stand this kind of bedlam all the time?”

“Well, first of all it’s not always this bad, and second, I was a school principle if you remember” Robin said in his rich mellow voice as he smiled at Faith and all the other girls. “Besides, it keeps me young to be around this many young girls all the time.”

Robin Woods had been thirty years old when he came to Sunnydale to take over the high school as principle. It was now almost nine years later and he still looked almost as young and fit as he had then. Sure there were a few signs of aging, but not many. Being the Master of a dojo and training slayers to fight on the Cleveland Hellmouth for the past seven and a half years had kept him as fit as it was possible for anyone to be, who wasn’t a slayer them self. Faith hadn’t really aged either, but for different reasons of course. She still liked to wear tight black jeans with a pullover top and a jean jacket. Her hair was a little longer that it had been in the old days and she had mellowed out on the dark red lipstick. She still wore red, but not the dark blood red color she had once wore all the time.

When Willow heard someone mention being hungry she called the pizza place she had gone to the other night and placed an order for eight pizzas to be delivered with extra garlic bread and dipping sauce and plenty of cold soda and beer. She then called down to the hotel lobby and told the desk clerk that she had some friends in her apartment that were looking for rooms and asked if he could send someone up to check them into the hotel.

Five minutes later the Manager himself was coming through the door with the hotel registry book in his hand. He explained to Robin and Faith that he had small rooms that could take two girls each and larger rooms that could take four each. When asked about suites like Willows he told them that he did have one other suite like Willows that could take six people, and then there was the Presidential Suite that could take all ten of them, but it was quite expensive. When Robin told him that he wanted both the Presidential Suite and the other suite like Willows the manager was very please, but asked why he wanted so much extra room. Robin told him that there would be others joining him in a day or two and he would need the rooms anyway so he might as well get the rooms while they were available. Again the Manager was pleased and when Robin told him that they would take the rooms for a month and let him know later if they were staying longer, the Manager was almost dancing with glee as he left the room.

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When Dawn woke up later in the morning she could hear people moving around. She was still feeling hung over, but ten times better than she had earlier. As she opened her eyes slowly, to see if the light would still be painful, the first thing she saw were two little knees. She turned her head up from the pillow and opened her eyes wider. Spikes little girl Joy was kneeling on the floor, sitting back on her feet, looking down at Dawn with curiosity in her eyes. As soon as she saw that Dawn was awake she made a little cooing sound and smiled. Dawn smiled back at her and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

“Hi” Dawn said as she smiled warmly at the little girl. “We haven’t been properly introduced yet, my name is Dawn.”

Little Joy’s smile got even bigger. She reach out with one hand and touched Dawn on the knee and started cooing and making little clicking sounds.

Dawn laid her hand gently on top of the little girls hand that was resting on her knee and said quietly “I’m sorry Joy, but I just don’t understand. If your trying to talk inside my head, I didn’t hear you, sorry. My heads pretty thick this morning. You’d probably have to hit me with a hammer to get inside right now.”

The little girl looked around to see if anyone was near by or paying attention to them. She then turned back to Dawn and looking directly into her eyes made three short cooing sounds a little louder than before.

Dawn felt something inside her head. It wasn’t words or pictures, it was more like feelings of *happiness* *love* *friendship*.

Dawns eyes got big in surprise that she had actually heard/understood this time. The smile she had on her face got even bigger and she reached out to the little girl and pulled her forward into her lap where she could hug her and kiss her on the cheek.

“That was so cool” Dawn whispered into Joy’s ear. “Would you mind if I called you Joy? My mothers name was Joyce, Spike told me he named you after her.”

Joy made another cooing sound and Dawn could feel *happy* inside her head. For the next half hour Dawn whispered into Joys ear and Joy would coo and click and Dawn would have ‘feelings’ inside her head. They were still going at it when Spike walked up to them and knelt down on the floor beside them.

“You two are making friends I see” Spike said as he smiled kind of crookedly at both of them.

Joy let go of Dawn and reached out to Spike. He lifted her from Dawns lap and transferred her to his own. She wrapped one arm around his neck and leaning back a little she brushed her other hand along the side of his temple as she made little cooing sounds to him. Without the direct contact with Joy, Dawn had a little more trouble picking up the feelings inside her head, but she thought she felt *pain* *sorry* *love*.

Spike smiled and kissed her on her nose. “I’m alright Love. I’ve felt worse than this before and survived. Once I eat, I’ll be fine.” Joy wrapped both arms around Spikes neck and hugged him tightly with her head next to his and made more cooing sounds. Spike cooed back to her and kissed her on the cheek several times.

As they held each other, Dawn sat watching them and could feel the love they shared. Her own heart seemed to swell as the love she was feeling for both of them filled her mind and heart. These feelings were quickly followed by feelings of loss and sorrow.

Joy, who had been giving her full attention to Spike, suddenly pulled back from him and looked over at Dawn and made a little coo sound as a look of concern came to her face.

Spike looked at Dawn and concern was on his face too. “Are you alright Pet” Spike asked quietly?

Dawn shrugged her shoulders and then smiled at both of them. “Yeah, I’m fine. A little hung over, but I’m fine. Also, I need to pee.”

A grin crossed Spikes lips and he chuckled. “Well come on then Niblet, let me show you the rest of this place. Wouldn’t do for you to wet your knickers, now would it?” As he was saying this Spike had stood up with Joy still in his arms. Dawn hurriedly got to her feet also, but as she did her eyes started to tear up. “Now what’s that for?” Spike asked as he noticed the tears.

“It’s nothing. Nothing really.” Dawn said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s just no one else has ever called me that but you and it made me think about how much I’ve missed you.”

Joy reached out one arm to Dawn and Spike reached out with one of his and they both took Dawn into their arms and hugged her to them. Dawn wrapped her arms around both of them and hugged them back, as if to never let them go.

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