Disclaimer:  I don’t own or profit from BtVS.

Spoilers: Surprise

A/N:  Thank you so much for your reviews.  You are all so generous.  I’m very happy that you are enjoying the story so far.  I know it’s lacking in Spawn interaction at the moment, but hang in there!  I’m planning some very lovely scenes soon.

Remember When

Chapter Five 

Buffy was having a Slayer dream.  She knew it was a Slayer dream, because of how the weight of the air lay on her skin, grounding her in the moment.  It was heavy with ozone and made the tiny hairs on her body stand on end.  Normal dreams always felt light and insubstantial, they flittered back and forth between various impossibilities.  Slayer dreams were weighted with possibility, while being littered with impracticalities.  It made it difficult to tell the difference between reality and dream.  Especially this particular dream, because frankly her upstairs hallway just didn’t open up into the Bronze, and it made her question her instincts.  The devil was in the details her mom liked to say. 

Willow with a monkey almost threw her.  That was kinda plausible.  Willow was just the kind of girl to have a French monkey whose pants had been thieved by a hippo.  Buffy just shrugged and turned away.  ‘Cause that’s just a whole barrel of monkeys she didn’t want to be involved in.  Heh, barrel of monkeys.

Buffy came to an alarmed standstill.  Besides the stage stood her sister in a cute green and white dress with knee socks and patent leather shoes.  Her hair was done up in two braids, and she looked to be only five or six.  Buffy took a step closer, the instinct to protect running rampant inside her chest.  The need to look after her little sister was a constant hum in the background of her mind, but the surge of protectiveness she felt while seeing her sister so young and vulnerable was almost shocking.  A spark ignited in her mind, screaming the imperative to place Dawn’s safety above all others.  To see her guarded against the monsters that wanted to take her away.  That wanted to squeeze her into a hole and twirl until her frail human body broke apart and the fragile light of her soul extinguished.

“I’m a gift,” Dawn chirped sweetly.

Spike rolled up next to Dawn in a black wheelchair with red accents.  She would have rolled her eyes at his flare if she weren’t so suddenly heartbroken.  Spike wasn’t family.  He was dead.  She killed him.

“A right shiny one, you are.”  He turned his head, meeting her gaze.  His face softened, as if he was sad for her.  “What about the Golden Rule, Slayer?”  His voice was gravely.  It sounded like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of grave dirt.

Buffy shook with the intensity of it.  Sweat beaded under her arms and along her spine, making her tank top cling uncomfortably to her skin.  It took her a minute to realize that the Dawn she was looking at was a replica of the family photo mom had on her nightstand.  It was a picture of the whole family, including their dad.  It had been taken when they still lived in L.A.  When they were still a happy family. 

Family.  Family was important.  Nothing should ever come before family.

“Huh?”  She frowned at him.  He took Dawn’s tiny hand in his big one.  He looked at Buffy like she disgusted him or maybe it was disappointment in his clouded blue eyes.  She opened her mouth to tell him to get away from her sister, but someone called her name from behind.

She turned around.  Angel stood at the edges of the crowd, and all thoughts of her sister and Spike were forgotten.  The love she felt for Angel crowed all other emotions to the edges of her consciousness, pushing it out of her mind until her thoughts were only filled with him.  She loved him with an intensity that was breathtaking.  She felt the responsibility of her calling strongly.  She was a hero.  A savior.  A guardian.  But for Angel she would give it all up in a heartbeat if he’d only ask.  She would easily sacrifice herself for him.

“It’s him or Snack Size,” Spike called.  She felt an elemental tug behind her heart.  She intuitively wanted to turn around and hurry back to Dawn.  Her little sister shouldn’t be out in public where she could be seen.  She started to pivot, but Angel smiled and her heart melted.  She floated towards him as if walking on air.  That’s how she always felt around him.  As if she was in a beautiful fairytale, made into reality as a reward for all her sacrifices as the Chosen One.

Drusilla glided in from the peripheral, looking beautiful and predatory in her black, gauzy dress.  Buffy panicked.  She raced towards her lover, calling out to him, but it was too late.  Drusilla plunged a wooden stake through Angel’s back with malicious glee.  Buffy reached for him, but as he disintegrated into dust her fingertips passed uselessly through his. 

Even as she awoke screaming, she was shoving her sheets in her mouth to stifle the sound.  She hunched around her blankets, hugging Mr. Gordo to her chest as she sobbed in agony.  She didn’t know what she would do if she lost Angel.  She loved him so much.  Until she met him, she had been so lonely in her calling.  Now she had someone who understood what it meant to be the Slayer.  Someone to occasionally help her, support her, and guide her when she felt lost.  She couldn’t lose him, she just couldn’t.

She calmed herself, forcing herself to reach back into the dream and analyze it with a Slayer’s rationality.  It was hard.  She had so many emotions swirling around her.  The ache in her chest at the thought of losing Angel was prominent, but there was also a tingle of breathless excitement.  If her dream was accurate, then Spike was alive.

Of course it was still a big possibility that he was dead too.  Not every aspect of a Slayer dream was prophetic.  He could merely be a symbol her subconscious used to remind her to look out for her family.  That was something she never needed to be reminded of though because it was always in the forefront of her mind.  Although, the urge to protect Dawn had been surprisingly vivid in her dream.

She threw back her heavy down comforter and silently made her way across the hall in stocking feet.  She eased open her sister’s bedroom door and crept inside, the Mickey Mouse nightlight casting the room in a faint bluish glow.  Dawn still slept with it even though she was almost a teenager.  Buffy frowned.  Dawn should have grown out of the need for a nightlight by now.  Buffy had stopped needing one when she was about nine or ten.

She sunk down on the edge of the bed, silently looking at her sleeping sister.  Dawn was curled up on her side, one hand tucked beneath her chin, her long brown hair tangled across her pillow.  She looked so grown up compared to her dream, yet so young and innocent at the same time.

Was the reason Dawn still needed a nightlight, because she knew monsters really were real?  That there were things that went bump in the night.  Adults were also so adamant in belying children’s fears.  Mom’s favorite consolation was that there was nothing in the dark that wasn’t there in the light.  But that was a lie.  Oh, it wasn’t a conscientious lie.  Her mom just didn’t know any better.  But her and Dawnie knew better.  There were things in the dark, that weren’t in the light.  Things like Spike.

Buffy smoothed a tangle of hair away from Dawn’s brow with a trembling hand.  Since she told Dawn about Spike’s death there had been a distance between them that Buffy felt acutely.  They had always been close.  Surprisingly so, given their age difference.  When mom first brought Dawn home from the hospital, Buffy had looked down at her and had known instantly that Dawn belonged to her.  Dawn was hers to protect, hers to love.  Now that love was endangered, because Dawn couldn’t forgive Buffy for Spike’s death.

What if Spike was alive?  What if her dream was a foretelling?  Did it mean she would have to fight Spike again?  Kill him again?  Could she live with telling her sister a second time that she killed her favorite vampire?  Worse, what if she hesitated while fighting Spike and he killed her?  Who would watch over Dawn then?

Buffy withdrew from her sister’s bed, reassured that she was still safe for the moment.  Her feelings swirling around Spike and her sister was ambiguous.  She needed to concentrate on something she could fight.  The real threat was Drusilla.   There was no doubt she was still alive and from her predatory actions in the dream she was completely restored to power, and gunning for Angel.  Drusilla couldn‘t have him though.  Angel was hers, she thought grimly as she entered her bedroom to dress in the gray light of the early dawn.  No one messed with what was hers.

88888

God, it still hurt everywhere.  The burns weren’t raw and seeping anymore, but blisters still covered most of his body.  He needed nourishment; he needed Sire’s blood.

Drusilla hummed as she swayed in the center of their bedroom.  She held Miss Edith to her chest, listening to whatever secrets the sodding doll whispered in her ear.

“Luv,” Spike croaked from the bed.  She either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him.  “Dru,” he called louder, and she stopped swaying, pinning him with amber eyes.  He held out his hand, palm up, trying desperately to look like a lover beckoning his lady to bed, instead of an invalid begging for help.

She floated over to him, her midnight gossamer skirts billowing behind her.  When she was weakened she had been an ethereal beauty, at full strength she was a stunning, black goddess.  Her smile was cold as she placed her hand in his.  He was used to her iciness.  There had never been warmth between them.  Even love couldn’t warm dead flesh.

He brought her hand to his lips, kissing the back of her wrist.  He caressed her silken skin with light brushes of his chapped lips, slowly rotating her wrist until he could see the lines of her blue veins.  His demon rushed to the forefront, but he controlled the urge to sink his fangs into her.  She had been so flighty lately.  Refusing to let him feed, while ranting at him about pixies and sunshine.  He needed to coax her, caress her, convince her to nourish him.

Her other hand cupped his skull, her fingers furrowing through his hair.  Permission received, he sunk his fangs into her veins, his eyes rolling back as the sweet tang of her blood rushed into his mouth and down his throat.  The blood was just as cool as her body.  Warm blood only came from warm beings.  Living, breathing humans who heated their blood just by the benefit of a beating heart.  But Sire blood was sweet and sustaining.  It gave him strength and healed his wounds.  For the barest of moments he thought about what the Slayer’s blood must taste like.  Hot and thumping with power unimaginable.  It would heal him far faster than Sire blood.

Drusilla yanked her wrist away with a shriek, his fangs slicing furrows in her soft flesh.  He tried to hold onto her, but he was too weak.  He snarled with the loss of healing blood.  Just one sodding meal!  That’s all he was asking for.  To be healed so he could hunt on his own.  Why was it so impossible for her to care for him just a little?

“Dru,” he gasped, hating the pleading in his voice.  She didn’t look back at him.  Her blood dripped unchecked onto the ground, forming scarlet rosettes.  She stared at the drops blankly.

“Blood roses.  That’s what we need for my party.  Blood roses strewn into the garlands.”  She floated out of the room, Spike seemingly forgotten in favor of her party.

Spike clenched his eyes shut, his shoulders curling away from the headboard where he was propped up in agony.  He heard movement in the room with him, and he opened his eyes hoping to see that Dru had returned to him.

Dalton walked out of the shadows, his eyes respectfully averted.  In his hands he held a brown paper bag.  Spike heaved a despairing sigh.  If it hadn’t been for Dalton he would have starved to death before now.

His minion pulled out a bottle of blood from the bag, and quietly went about pouring a goblet for Spike.

“This was all I could get at Willy’s.  The last of the money you gave me is gone.”  Spike accepted the glass with a nod.  Without being able to hunt, Spike had no way to obtain cash.  The last of his money had been used to buy himself human blood from Willy’s to help his healing.  Now that the money was gone, there would be no way for him to get blood, and he refused to ask any of the other minions for assistance.  They all suspected how weak he was, but if they knew for sure there would be nothing to stop them from killing him to take his place as master.  Not even fear of Drusilla.  They had all seen how little she thought of him.  It wasn’t that she didn’t love him of course.  It was that she’d never had to play nursemaid before.  She truly didn’t understand how weak Spike was and what he needed from her.  Her inability to understand looked like indifference to the rest of the minions, placing him into a tenuous position.

“I’m sorry I am such an unworthy minion, master,” Dalton said quietly.  Spike hazarded a glance at him from the corner of his eye.  The vampire was standing next to the bed, his head hung in shame.  Normally, Spike would send his minion out to bring him back a fresh kill to feed from, but Dalton had never been a very good vampire.  He was loyal.  He was intelligent.  But a crap vampire. The sod didn’t have the instincts to hunt humans.  He fed himself on dogs and cats and other such vermin. 

Dalton expected a scathing put down from his master, but all he received was silence.  It made him feel even lower.  His master was good to him.  Better than the mistress.  He knew his mistress was insane, but he still didn’t understand why she didn’t heal the master’s wounds.  Why she was so cold and uncaring.  He knew it was the way of vampires, but he knew his master was different.  Just like he was different.

“You’ll be taking delivery of the last piece two nights from now?”  Spike asked.

“Yes, master.”

“You remember what I told you.  Take delivery outside the Bronze.  Make sure you get her attention.  Drop it and run,” Spike ordered.

Dalton nodded, moving the bottle of blood closer to his master so he could reach it.  It was more to keep his hands busy than anything.  He was a fidgeter.  Especially when he was nervous or confused.

“Master, may I ask,” he paused waiting for Spike’s slight nod.  “Why are we helping the Slayer?”

“We aren’t helping her, you sod,” Spike snarled.  “We’re helping ourselves.  What the fuck do you think would happen to us if Big Blue burns all the humans away?  Think you and I are hungry now?  Just wait until there’s no humans to feed on.” For some reason whenever he imagined the Big Blue Smurf wrecking havoc on the humans, he thought of Snack Size.  She’d be one of the first to be burned up.  All that humanity seeping out of her would be like a bleedin’ beacon to something like the Judge.

Dalton nodded.  His master wasn’t like other vampires.  He thought about consequences, not just his immediate satisfaction.

“That bint can’t help, but be a champion.  She’ll take the arm far from here, and Big Blue will never get his coming out party.  Yeah?”  God.  He fucking hated her.  The self-righteous bitch.  If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t be in agony.  He wouldn’t be a cripple.  He wouldn’t be faced with reality of his lover’s disinterest.  Her inability to love him.  He shook his head.  Drusilla couldn’t help being what she was.  A true vampire.

“Yes, master.  I’ll do as you command.”

“Damn right you will.  And Dru’ll be none the wiser.  Just need to keep up the charade of wantin’ to end the world a while longer.”  Spike flashed fang, and Dalton backed away, his eyes lowered.  He heard about a blood delivery being made at the hospital.  Perhaps he could take a couple of other minions and get some blood for his master.  He needed to become a better vampire.  Not for himself, but for his master.  Because his master needed him, and it felt good to be needed.  Even if he was just a soulless vampire.