Buffy didn’t come out of her room the next day, apart from to go to the bathroom, and if Giles hadn’t crossed her path on one of those trips she would have happily gone the entire day without speaking to a soul. However given the situation with Giles she couldn’t allow her problems to get in the way of his, and when he asked her what was wrong she lied and told him she was ill. He reminded her about his first appointment with his new counsellor and she promised to be there for him, but her heart fell a little.
It was only a couple of days away and she honestly didn’t know if she could pull herself together by then. She also knew she had no choice, and she hurriedly ended the conversation afterwards and scuttled back into her room to hide beneath the covers.
She didn’t realise another day had passed after that until she heard a soft knock on her door and looked over at her clock to check the time. She’d slept through dinner, the whole night and part of the morning.
She didn’t say a word, but the door pushed slowly open. She couldn’t hide her shock to see Dawn on the other side.
“Are you alright?” she asked Buffy. It seemed genuine enough, but there was a slight hint of unwillingness behind it.
Buffy combed her hand through her hair, but didn’t sit up. When her fingers got caught in some knots she realised it was probably a lost cause. “I’m fine.” she said, but her voice betrayed her. She didn’t know it until then, but she was on the verge of tears, her eyes were watery and her voice wobbled and strained to stay normal.
Dawn took a step into the room closing the door behind her, and came to sit on the bed, glaring as she did so. She wanted answers and she wasn’t trying to be mean or impatient, but it came off that way a little.
“It’s nothing.” Buffy said unconvincingly, seeing that Dawn wasn’t going to leave.
“Buffy.” Dawn sighed, tired of all the secrets and lies, “I’m still your sister. I can tell there’s something wrong and I know you’re lying to me.”
Buffy sat up in the bed, tears still threatening to spill at any moment. “I can’t tell you about this, Dawn.” she said. It was as honest as she could be right now.
“You can tell me anything.” Dawn replied without thinking. She hadn’t put much thought into the phrase; it was just something you said to your sister when she was upset. It all became clear how little she’d thought of it when Buffy answered back.
“You know that’s not true.”
Dawn thought hard about that and saw Buffy was right; she’d made that impossible. She’d put up a wall between them and told Buffy what was and wasn’t acceptable; she’d judged her and made her feel judged. Buffy may have been the first one to lie, but Dawn had done her part in making her afraid to tell the truth since then. She sighed again, realising her mistake. “What if I told you you could.” She paused, “What if I just sat here and listened, no matter what you said.”
“Would you really do that?” Buffy asked. She didn’t want to hope that she was serious, but she knew if Dawn agreed everything would flow out and she wouldn’t be able to stop it, so she’d better be prepared.
Dawn nodded, unable to speak. She wanted so desperately to be an adult, to make her mother proud of the woman she was becoming. Even though she was sure Joyce would have never approved of this whole thing, she wouldn’t have made Buffy feel alone and rejected, and she wouldn’t have stood for Dawn doing that either. She didn’t have the strength to promise Buffy that she would listen a second time, so all she could do was nod and sit there silently this once.
“Its S…” Buffy stopped herself, she couldn’t even wrap her lips around his name without her chest aching. She didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, but Dawn didn’t push her either so when she’d calmed herself she began again. “I just miss him so much. I don’t know what to do with myself.” she confessed. “Back in New York, we had some problems, and he left…you know when he went on tour with his band?”
Buffy looked to Dawn who nodded. Of course she knew about the tour, but she hadn’t known the two of them had been together before it began.
Buffy continued, “He’d left me then a few weeks before, but it was different. I made the most of it, because we both needed the space; he sorted out his life and I sorted out mine and I did things, but this time…The last time I wasn’t sure if we were right, if I really should be with him, so I was confused, and now…this time I knew, and I…This time all I can be is miserable, because I know we should be together, and we can’t…” She was still struggling, she opened her mouth to say things and then when they came out they sounded different; they sounded harsher. They sounded as if she was feeling sorry for herself and blaming Dawn for everything, in short they sounded like Spike’s words.
For the first time she saw his side of things as clear as day, because deep down she hadn’t realised she felt exactly the same. She’d done this all wrong; she should have been there for him not just expected him to be there for her. She should have been his partner; they should have done this together. Maybe then Dawn would have understood and she wouldn’t have to be saying these things so badly.
She knew now that Spike’s feelings towards Dawn were her feelings as well. She’d fooled herself into believing things were better this way, but they weren’t, because she couldn’t even tell Dawn how she felt about Spike without trying to make her feel guilty. She couldn’t express how heartbroken she was at not being with him, because the other side of the sword was that Dawn was breaking her heart by not accepting it and letting them be.
“I want to tell you…” She was gasping for breath now, her tears falling freely and her body wracked with shakes. “I want to tell you how it feels, I want to explain if…if you want to know, but I can’t.”
Dawn reached out and brushed a piece of hair out of Buffy’s face. She’d never seen her sister in such a mess, not even over their mother. That wasn’t surprising, because Buffy usually kept it all inside; knowing this she moved closer to her, so that if she felt like she could she’d be able to reach for her and hug her.
Buffy made no moved to wipe the tears from her eyes, there was little point given how fast they were coming. “He was my everything, Dawn, and I can’t explain that, but now he’s gone I feel like I have nothing. I’d never been in love before. Sometimes I didn’t understand it, and sometimes it was awful, but it was all I had…” she trailed off, her sobs taking over her voice for a while.
Dawn had never been in love either, was this what it was really like? If so it couldn’t be worth it, could it? To be this miserable? She wanted to ask her about it, unbeknownst to her like Buffy had asked Spike the first time he’d talked about Drusilla.
It wasn’t something that Buffy could answer; much like she’d had to Dawn would have to find out the answers to these questions on her own, through her own experiences. It didn’t matter right now anyway, because Dawn couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She was overwhelmed by what was pouring out of Buffy, it was similar to how she’d felt talking to Spike the other night before he left.
There was obviously something here that she didn’t comprehend, that she possibly couldn’t comprehend. For the first time Dawn felt truly guilty, though she didn’t fully know why. She had judged the situation without understanding it, that’s all she could glean from her feelings right now. Later when she was alone she would realise the rest, that she felt guilty because she was the cause of all this pain. All Buffy and Spike had done was try and be there for her, and when they needed her she had dismissed their feelings. She had driven a wedge between them and she had done nothing to stop it, or even considered what she was doing until it was too late.
Her mind wandered across the hall to Spike’s empty bedroom. All she could think to do was hold Buffy as she cried, and as she did she remembered the night Buffy had done the same for her when they’d fought about their mother. She knew it was different, because that night there had been nothing Buffy could do; she couldn’t bring back Joyce or truly bury Dawn’s fears. Right now Dawn wasn’t as helpless, it was something she could fix, though she just sat there, unable to sort through her thoughts and find the right thing to do. She knew then that she had so much more to learn.
She wanted her mom to be here and explain it to her, but really Dawn knew better. If Joyce had been here she would simply have given her that blank look she gave. She wouldn’t have spouted advice, and the only answer she would have given would be, ‘You know the right thing to do already, Dawn.’
The next day Buffy came down from her room, she wasn’t as scared to as she’d thought she’d be, and when she turned into the living room and Dawn looked over at her she felt something shift even more in the right direction.
Dawn was sat on the floor in her pyjamas with a bowl of cereal in her lap, staring at the TV. Giles was sat on the chair to her left; he hadn’t gotten ready that day either, which was very unlike him, but he looked almost comfortable for Giles.
Dawn’s eyes followed hers to their father as she picked up the remote and turned up the TV. “We’re having a pyjamas day.” she said in answer to Buffy’s silent question about Giles’s attire. She paused for a while and still without looking up she said, “I got you that tatty, purple blanket out of the cupboard. I know you like that one to snuggle up in when you watch TV.”
She said it as if it wasn’t a big gesture, but Buffy knew that it was. Without arguing she walked over to the couch where she’d put the blanket, and laid with her legs stretched out to the side. She shook the blanket a little and settled it over herself, only her fluffy bed socks poked out of the end.
Buffy didn’t know what they were going to do tomorrow, and she didn’t know if she was going to stay here and defer her last year of college yet, but she knew some things; Giles wasn’t going to go back to work this year, he couldn’t, not with everything else; Dawn wasn’t going to pass all of her exams, because she hadn’t done the work and she’d missed too much school. She knew they weren’t the perfect family, she knew that, you couldn’t call them that anymore, but what was so great about perfect anyway?
Buffy woke up hearing a knock at the door. She didn’t know if she was the lightest sleeper or her body simply knew she was the only one in a fit state to answer it, but when she looked around Dawn and Giles were still dead to the world.
At some point she’d won the battle with Dawn and had been allowed to go get ready. She could spend the morning in her yummy sushi pyjamas, but after midday she had to put something else on, she never felt right otherwise. Giles was usually the same, but he was still in his ‘dressing gown’ having been won over by Dawn’s puppy dog eyes.
The day had been lovely, and although Buffy’s heart ached to think that it was unlikely she knew if her mother could see them she’d be proud of them all today. They’d truly been a family, arguing, laughing, teasing; she hadn’t felt so weightless and free in ages. She knew there were still two missing pieces, one that would never come back, and one that might, but they were doing the best they could and it had been a long time since they could all honestly say that.
Buffy started to get up when instead of another knock she heard a key turning in the door. She stood straight up, but her body and mind refused to work for a couple of second, and before she could understand what was happening she heard the door open and close and big black boots stomped in from the hall. Spike was attached to them.
They stood apart, staring at one another, but before she could speak or even move she heard Dawn and Giles. They’d woken at the sound of the key as well, but she hadn’t realised it until now. They were both standing, Dawn first having to shove a million cushions out of her way which she’d surrounded herself with earlier.
Spike smiled at the sight and looked over to his father, “I wondered if I could stay the night?”
Despite the way they’d left things Dawn was the first to move towards him. She ran full pelt and slammed into his side, her arms wrapping around his middle. “I missed you.” she confessed into his leather.
Spike knew a part of him would never forgive Dawn if things with Buffy stayed the way they were now. He knew even if he could one day move on, find someone else and be anything near happy he could never forget that the girl his arms had swayed the woman he loved into leaving him. But he couldn’t ever lie and say he didn’t miss her, he knew that families aren’t always something you’re born into, but his was. They truly were a family, and she was his sister. He didn’t like her or respect her right now, but he loved her. “I missed you too, Lil’ Bit.” he said.
Giles was coming around, not only from the nap, but also from the shock. His smile couldn’t stop itself from spreading even as he asked the question he feared to, “How long are you here for, son?”
“Just tonight and some of tomorrow,” he said regretfully as Dawn detached herself from his side, “then I have to fly back.”
He looked over at Buffy; no one had noticed how awkwardly she had stood there throughout the exchanges, apart from him. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from glancing at her every chance he got; taking her in with his eyes as if she was a glass of water in the desert. He’d been deprived of what he loved and now she was within reach again; despite everything that was going on between them it was refreshing.
Buffy noticed how happy he was to be home, she could see it. But she couldn’t join in, even though her body flushed with relief to be near him. There was still so much to say, so much unresolved, and it needed to be done with one way or the other.
She didn’t know where she pulled it from, but she found a little strength from somewhere inside her and looked up to meet his eyes. He smiled at her, he didn’t avoid her gaze, and although she wasn’t certain that what they had to talk about would be a happy conversation she did feel some reprieve from her worries that he didn’t hide from her just then.
Whether they were on the same page or not, whether in this crazy mess that life had thrown at them they’d gone too far down the wrong path she didn’t know. But what she did know was that the feeling she’d had the other day that she needed some kind of partner in this, whether romantic, emotional or whatever, they were still valid. What had changed was the fact that Spike was now ready to be that person for her and she for him. And when she looked at him, to the door and then stood to get her coat he understood; he made their excuses to Giles and he followed her out into the night.
She felt his footsteps beside her, and although he made no move to speak or touch her, he was right there with her with every step. It made things so much easier and so much harder at the same time.