Jake shook his head. "No, I'm a friend."
"I'll be sure to tell her you stopped by, Mr. - what was your name?" Spike asked.
"Jake. Jake Morgan." Jake replied. "Don't bother. I'll call her on her cell. I thought I'd surprise her, but I guess that's a bust. I'll see her tomorrow anyway. Thanks!" He said on his way out the door.
"You'll see her tomorrow, will you," Spike said to the empty gallery. "Well isn't that bloody fantastic."
"Customer left already? I heard the bell." Dawn came out of the back carrying a wrapped package.
"Not a customer. A Jake. Looking for your sister." Spike turned on his heel to face her, "Know anything about that?"
Dawn fidgeted. “Uh, she might’ve mentioned something earlier today.” She set the package behind the desk. “He’s Xander’s friend.”
Spike stepped closer to her. “So you do know something. Xander’s friend, huh, taking time out of his busy day to stop by and see Buffy because…?”
“Becausethey’regoingonadatetomorrow.” Dawn mumbled.
“What was that? Didn’t quite catch it.” Spike leaned in towards her.
“Oh, this is stupid. BECAUSE…THEY…ARE…GOING…ON…A…DATE!” Dawn said, loudly and slowly and shoved him lightly in the chest to back him off.
“Well, isn’t that neat. Hiding anything else swept under the rug there, Dawn? A husband and five kids maybe? Nasty drug habit? Secret long-lost twin, perhaps?” His voice rising, he said, “And you didn’t mention this, WHY?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Dawn snapped back, getting in his face, “Maybe because I was busy talking about who YOU ‘dated’,” she imbued this word with all the scorn she could muster, “LAST NIGHT!”
Spike massaged his temple and leaned back on the desk. “Right, ok, point made. Sorry for yelling. Care to spill now?”
Dawn considered staying angry for a split second, but decided that wouldn’t be productive. Besides, he seemed to have returned to the land of the sane for the moment.
Dawn ticked off the things she knew on her fingers. “Met him at the bar last night. Xander’s friend. Date tomorrow. All I know.”
“Yeah.” Spike seemed at a loss for words, “Must like him, going on a date and all.”
Dawn sighed. “Spike, she doesn’t even know him. Xander introduced them. They’ve spoken a few words to each other and danced once. Right now, he’s an excuse for a shopping trip—” she stopped abruptly.
“Likes him enough to buy a new dress, huh. Bloody fantastic.” He repeated to himself. “Girl’s got a closetful of clothes, but no, none of them good enough for this ponce.”
“Spike, she didn’t think she had anything to wear to an opera, that’s all.” Dawn said, “She told me so on the phone earlier when she said she was taking the afternoon off. She uh,” Dawn hesitated, “took the day off tomorrow too. Long-ish ride to L.A. and they’re having dinner first so…”
“Oh fine, she meets somebody and she’s too good to work all of a sudden. Run the sodding place into the ground, but wait—” He used his Buffy voice, “no problem! We have Spike; he’ll mind the store while I play dress up and run off to L.A. with some guy I barely know.”
“Spike, get a grip.” Dawn said. “Besides, I think the not coming in tomorrow part is her way of dodging you one more day, not—”
“Yeah, dodging me. One thing she excels at these days.” Spike said bitterly. “Hey, she takes off tomorrow and has the prospect of an entire Spike-free weekend!”
“Also, I wouldn’t talk, Mr. I’m so sick I had to stay home this morning, but really I’m not, I’m dodging my ex!” Dawn shot him a pointed look. “You’re both cowards. You’re perfect for each other. Meant to be. Soulmates to the last. You two are also going to be the death of me, you know that right? You can bond at my funeral and declare your undying love over my coffin. It’s probably not good to get tension headaches at age eighteen, you know? Probably all kinds of stress related damage you’re inflicting on me RIGHT NOW.”
She folded her arms and turned her back on him, but continued speaking more calmly, her voice laced with disdain. “You might care to remember that I am on your side.”
Spike snorted. “You’re her bloody sister; you’re not allowed to be on my side.”
Dawn faced him again. “I’m on her side, too. She just isn’t bright enough to have figured that out yet.”
She reached behind the desk for her backpack. “This was fun and all, and I’m sure we’ll be revisiting it tomorrow, but I need to head home and finish an English paper on a book I haven’t read yet.”
“What book?” Spike asked.
“The paper’s on themes in Yeats. The book’s a collection of poems—”
“No name on this collection, yeah?” Spike laughed.
“Ok, so I haven’t even looked at the title since I picked it up! Thus, the trouble and late night panicky studying and hopefully, if I’m lucky, wee hours of the morning frantic writing.” Dawn made a face.
“And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,
And all the burden of her myriad years.”
Spike put his arm around her. “Know a little Yeats. There’s a bit in that one about warring sparrows, figure that’s your sister and me. Sure you’d get an A with that interpretation. Also, a line about the curd-pale moon and white stars, they’re probably blanching at how late you’re gonna be up.”
She pouted and turned pleading blue eyes on him.
“I suppose, considering you’ve used the time that you haven’t spent on that new boyfriend of yours attempting to mop up the messes created by your sister and me, I could be persuaded to help you out.”
Dawn scowled at him. “Be persuaded to help! You ought to be down on your knees begging to write the damn thing for me, with all the trouble you two have been lately.”
Spike freed his arm to applaud her. “Oh, well done. Nice try. Tell you what,” he fell to his knees dramatically and grabbed her hand in both of his, “Please Dawn, please allow me to help you with your poetry paper in penance for my recent misdeeds that have caused you such grief.”
Dawn couldn’t help it, she giggled. “You’re gonna write my paper then and let me get my beauty sleep?”
He was standing again, with a single lithe move. “Noooo.” He drew the word out and caressed it lovingly. “That would be cheating.” He put his arm around her and started for the door. “I,” he said patiently, “am going to mentor you into writing a brilliant paper of your very own.”
“How do you even know this stuff, anyway?” Dawn asked doubtfully.
“Hey, I went to college. I’m well rounded.” Spike protested.
“Spike, you’re sharp and pointy and anything but well rounded.” She giggled again. “Especially now. You haven’t eaten since lunch, right? Does your penance include a free dinner out for the injured party?” She wheedled.
“Thought you were going to be up forever and we had to start right off!” Spike said.
“It could be a working study dinner!” Dawn amended hastily.
“Yeah, sure, lead on, Bit. Best call your sister and tell her you’ll be spending the night with someone who isn’t me.” He opened the door for her and they headed out.
“Good plan. You know you need a new couch, yours is too lumpy. I think the penance should include you sleeping on the couch and letting me…” Her voice trailed off in the distance as they walked down the road.
Buffy woke up in darkness. “What the-” She rubbed her eyes and sat up. ‘What time is it?’ She turned on the light and looked at her watch. ‘10 o’clock! How on earth did I sleep that late? Dawn was supposed to be home hours ago.’
She wandered into the kitchen groggily and poured herself a diet coke. She noted that the refrigerator now contained one additional can of diet coke and two expired non-fat yogurts.
‘Time to hit the grocery store,’ she thought, ‘Guess we’ve been eating out a little much lately.’
She searched a little more and unearthed a lone granola bar in an otherwise empty box in the cupboard.
“Ok, what’s wrong with you?” She asked the granola bar. “Dawn systematically scarfs down everything edible in the house and you’re left untouched?” She peered at it suspiciously and more closely and, “Oh, you’re that flavor she hates. That’s alright then.”
Peeling the wrapper off, she munched on it somewhat testily, noting the lack of blinking on the answering machine side of the room. “I’m going to have to kill her. I’ve told her she has to…oh,” There was a notepad on the machine. It was blinking after all, just covered up. However, it was not the friendly, helpful, ‘I have a message’ kind of blinking, more the ‘you lazy girl you forgot to delete the messages as you went along and now I’m completely full and how do you expect me to function properly if you don’t free up any room for new messages’ rapid jittery blinking.
“Great. Wonder who else tried to call.” Buffy deleted a few messages and considered going through all of them. There were still one or two mixed in from her mother and she didn’t want to delete them by mistake. ‘Have to get those off of there,’ she thought and made an executive decision to worry about that later.
“Ok, so the machine is full. If Dawn were going to be late, she’d then leave a message on my cell, which is…” She found it in her purse in the living room. “Off! Of course.”
She dialed in and got Dawn’s message. She also got a message from Jake telling her when he’d be by to pick her up and what the plan was.
She moped for a minute. Since she’d slept away the afternoon and early evening it was unlikely she’d be able to get back to sleep for any length of time. She resolved to try.
She went to the bookcase and found the most sleep inducing tome her mother had owned. She could swear the first fifty pages described the surroundings and the clothing each character wore down to the buttons, this before anyone spoke a single word. ‘Yeah, that’s the stuff. Need some strong literary sleeping mojo tonight.’ Book in hand, she climbed the stairs.