Disclaimer:  I don’t own or profit from BtVS

Spoilers:  Ted

A/N:  I wrote the next three chapters, only to confirm later that Ted took place earlier in the season before Innocence.  Well, that’s my total bad.  I thought about rewriting them, but decided I really liked the conflict he created.  So he stays.  Please, please, forgive the lapse in continuity.  Besides he’s such a douche.  I wish I could work it so Spike eats him.  Get started on that electro shock therapy a little early.  LOL.

A/N:  Got a sister?  Yeah.  This should bring sweet, sweet memories flooding back.  I’m still missing chunks of hair….the bitch.  And if my girls don’t cool it I’m going to ship them to Abu Dhabi, ‘cause mama needs a break….and a mojito.

Remember When

Chapter Seven

“I’m telling you, Will.  I think he’s starving.”

Dawn paused outside her sister’s barely cracked door.  She couldn’t see inside, but she had no problem hearing the muffled phone conversation.

“You didn’t see him.  He’s covered in burns, and his skin is all chalky.  He looked kinda skeletal.  I don’t think Dru is feeding him at all.  And then there’s the wheelchair.”

Dawn bit her lower lip and leaned closer, careful not to jar the door.  She knew from other eavesdropping escapades that Dru was some vamp hobiscuit.  Which meant this was Slayer business.  Dawn loved hearing Slayer business, especially when it was clear Buffy didn’t want her knowing about it.

“Yeah.  I think his back is broken or something.  I know I shouldn’t feel bad about it.  I mean, hello.  Evil Vampire.  But I kinda do.  He just looked so sick, Willow.”  Dawn was startled at the amount of sad longing in her sister’s voice.  Buffy was usually with the snark when talking about vamps.  Unless it was Angel.   Then it was all with the emo.

Dawn wondered whom they were talking about.  She knew Angel was all grrr now.  Buffy sat her down and they had a long, intense conversation about how Dawn wasn’t ever to trust Angel if she saw him.  She was to run, hide, scream and use all the dirty tricks in the book if he came for her.  Then Buffy stood her up and made her practice those dirty tricks until she whined with exhaustion.

The look in Buffy’s eyes really scared her.  Not because Angel was all with the scary, and the blood-drinking, and full time bumpies.  No, what scared Dawn was Buffy’s look of utter terror at the thought of Angel getting ahold of her.  It made something cold and slick slither around in her tight belly.  Angel was serious business because Buffy was scared, and Buffy was never, ever scared.

“There’re hold up in the old factory down on Cannery Street.  The one that used to bottle shampoo back in the 70’s.”

Dawn knew where that was.  All the kids used to dare each other to go inside.  That was until kids started not coming back out again.

“Yeah, I totally thought I was going to get tetanus just walking inside.”  Buffy giggled.  There was a pause, and then Buffy spoke so softly Dawn had to strain to hear.  “What am I going to do about Spike, Wills?  He’s in real bad shape.  I know he’s a vampire, but no one should be treated like that.  I-I just can’t go help him.  I can’t let my guard down, ‘cause I feel sorry for him.  I do that, and I end up a Slayer snacklet.  Besides, Angel---Angelus is there now.  I don’t think I’m up to fighting him just yet.”

Dawn was so angry she could stomp holes in the floor.  Buffy lied to her.  She told her that Spike was dead.  What a big, fat, honking lie!  He was alive.  Alive and hurt and Buffy wasn’t gonna do a darn thing about it.  First she tried to kill him, then she crippled him, and now she was gonna leave him to suffer.  Why?  ‘Cause he’s a vampire?  When was Buffy going to figure out that Spike was so much more than that?

“Little girls should be in bed,” a deep, masculine voice intoned from behind.  Dawn whirled around, clutching her copy of Charlotte’s Web to her chest protectively.

“Buffy was going to read to me,” Dawn stuttered.  She didn’t like her mom’s new boyfriend.  There was something definitely creepy about him.  Buffy assured her he wasn’t a vampire, which wasn’t as reassuring as you’d think.  At least, if he was a vamp, Buffy could dust him.

“I could read to you.”  He stepped closer, and Dawn backpedaled, expecting to hit the door.  Instead, she ran into something soft and warm.  Buffy wrapped her arms around her from behind, and she felt instant relief.

“It’s our sister time.  You know, girl talk and all that.”  Buffy’s tone was barely civil and Ted scowled at them.

“Not to late, you both have school in the morning.”  He turned to walk away, but Buffy’s words froze him.

“You aren’t our dad, you know.”

He looked at them, his broad teeth flashing white in the darkened hall.  Dawn sunk further into her sister’s embrace, totally wigged by his creepy smile.

“Not yet.”  He jauntily strode away, disappearing down the stairs to have cocktails with their mother.

“Creep,” Buffy muttered as she pulled Dawn into her bedroom and firmly closed the door.  The cordless handset was carelessly discarded in the center of her bed, and at the sight, Dawn felt all her goodwill towards her sister melt away.

Buffy wasn’t prepared for a missile smacking her square in the face.  She bent at the waist, cupping her nose as she glared at the copy of Charlotte’s Web at her feet.

“What was that for?” she snarled from behind her hands.

“You lied to me.  You’re a big, fat liar-pants.”  Dawn waited for Buffy to straighten, before knuckle punching her right in the boob.

“Y-oww!  You little brat!”  Buffy shoved her sister hard.  Thanks to all the bed was behind her.  Dawn landed on the mattress with a squawk.  “What’s your problem?” Buffy screeched.

Buffy ducked just in time to avoid getting thunked in the head with the cordless handset.  The phone sailed across the room and crashed into her vanity.  Glass tinkled as tiny perfume bottles, lipstick and pretty hair accessories exploded.  As Buffy straightened, she could smell the alcoholic stench of too much spilled perfume. 

Both girls froze in a moment of collective horror.  Mom was gonna kill them.  Thankfully the vanity mirror was intact.  Buffy slowly turned towards her sister, fully intending on going Terminator on her ass.

Dawn knelt in the center of the bed, her apple cheeks flushed a spotty red, and her hands were fisted along her thighs.  “You told me Spike was dead!” she accused.

Buffy stilled.  All her rage spiraled away, and in its place was a whopping helping of guilt.  What the crap?!  Could she not keep a secret from her sister for more than two seconds?  Sure, sneaking out of the house every night right under her mother’s nose, no problem.  Keeping the uber important secret of Spike’s resurrection from her sister?  Yeah, right!

“I thought he was dead,” Buffy said quietly.  She moved towards her sister, intent on pulling her into a comforting hug, only to have her heart hurt when Dawn scrambled towards the other side of the bed.  Standing with the buffer of the bed between them, Dawn hunted for more missiles to hurl off of Buffy’s nightstand.

“Oh, yeah?  When were you gonna tell me he’s alive?”

Buffy stopped in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself in a lonely hug.  “I wasn’t,” she confessed.

Dawn stopped scrambling to look up at her with big, betrayed eyes.  “Why?” she sobbed.

Buffy flailed her hands, pacing in the small girly space.  “Don’t you get it, Dawn?  We’re enemies.  One day he’s either going to kill me or I’m gonna kill him.  I’m not ready to die yet, Dawnie.  I gotta look out for you.”

“Spike wouldn’t do that,” Dawn defended petulantly.

Buffy hardened.  Angelus’ grip on her heart tightened and squeezed, trying to wring all the love out of it.  “He’s a vampire.  He’ll do it.  And he’ll love every second of it.”

Dawn’s lower lip quivered, and Buffy’s belly clenched in response.  She felt sick.  She felt like she just ripped innocence a new one, then stomped it ragged on the ground.

“Girls!”  Buffy and Dawn jumped as their mother slammed into the room.  “What is going on in here?”  Ted loomed from behind, still obscured in the shadows of the hallway.

“Nothing,” the girls chimed together, unconsciously moving around the bed so they could stand together as a united front.  Joyce saw their action, and it settled her conscience somewhat.  Most of the time she felt like a failure of a mother.  She was unable to provide a father for her girls, she had almost no understanding of the mind of her oldest daughter, and was constantly shuffling her youngest off to other people’s homes while she went out of town to keep her small business afloat so she could feed and clothe them all.  She needed help, and Ted fulfilled that need, even if the girls didn’t like him.  He would grow on them.  He would be a good influence.

It was when she saw her girls standing together, even if it was united against her, that she felt some alleviation of her inner turmoil.  At least her girls had each other.  At least she raised them right in that regard.

“Who’s Spike?” Ted rumbled from behind.

The girls drew closer, clasping their hands.

“N-nobody,” Dawn stuttered.

 “He’s a dog,” Buffy added.  Seemed reasonable.  Spike was definitely a dog’s name.

Joyce lifted a brow.  “A dog,” she deadpanned.

“Yeah,” Dawn piped up.  “He, like, sniffs out evil doers and stuff.  Like a superhero dog.”

Both Buffy and Joyce looked at Dawn like she had gone insane, abet for different reasons.  Spike, a superhero?  As if.  Seeing the suspicion in the adults’ eyes, Buffy leapt to the forefront with seventeen years of deceiving authority figures under her belt.

“He’s a character in a series of books we’ve been reading.”

“Oh.”  Joyce was mollified.  “And why is it necessary to get into a screaming match over a character in a book?”

“Because Buffy told me he was dead!”  Dawn snarled, tossing her sister’s hand away.  “A-and I was really upset about it.”

Buffy propped her hands on her hips, and rounded on Dawn.  What the hell was the matter with her sister?  This thing with Spike was just unnatural.

“Why?  You only met—read-- him twice.”  Buffy could see the baffled look on her mother’s face from the corner of her eye.  “I mean we’ve only read two books in the series.  There’s no reason to be so attached.”

“Well, I’m attached.  You shouldn’ta told me he was dead.”

“I really thought he died--- in the last book we read,” Buffy finished lamely.

“Now, I find out he’s alive!”

“Well, you know fiction.  Nothing ever stays dead,” Buffy was darting little looks at her mother and Ted.  Dawn was going off the rails, and the cat or the erm…vampire, was going to be out of the bag.

“All right, that’s enough.  I can’t belief you two are fighting about some fictional character.  What are you?  Five?  Next you’ll be telling me Spongebob really does live in a pineapple under the sea.  Dawn, brush your teeth and go to bed.  Buffy clean up this mess,” Joyce pointed fiercely at the vanity; letting both the girls know that their destructiveness hadn’t gone unnoticed.  “Finish your homework and go to bed too.  I don’t want to hear another peep out of you two for the rest of the night.  Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mom.”  They caroled, relieved there would be no further punishment for the destruction.  Thank Gawd the mirror hadn’t broke.

Joyce whirled to leave, nearly bumping into Ted who was still staring at the girls speculatively.  She felt a shiver slide down her spine, and she glanced over her shoulder to see what he was looking at.  Buffy and Dawn moved together again, their hands tightly clasped as they stared her boyfriend down.

“Let’s go finish our drinks downstairs, Ted.”  He shifted his gaze to her, his slow, easy smile spreading over his handsome face.

“That sounds great, Joyce.”  He offered his arm and escorted her downstairs.

When the adults were gone, Dawn jerked her hand away from Buffy and rounded on her.

“You thought Spike was dead.  Fine.  I get that.  But now what are you gonna do about it?”

“What do you mean?”  Buffy hedged.

Dawn propped her fists on her hips.  “I heard you say he’s all sick and stuff.  Someone needs to take care of him.”

Dawn’s words gallivanted Buffy into action.  Her hands flew up to enunciate her words, and her mean Slayer face was firmly in place.  “Oh no.  There will be no caring of the evil vampire.  That’s what his little nest is for.  I’m sure he’s got some vampy minions running around bringing him townies.  He just looks bad right now ‘cause he’s still healing.”

Dawn’s eyes narrowed.  “You said that hobiscuit wasn’t feeding him,” she reminded, using Buffy’s vocabulary to describe the female vampire who hung out with Spike.

“First of all, don’t use that kind of language.”  Buffy wagged her finger in front of her nose, and Dawn barely resisted the urge to snap at it.  “Secondly, it’s none of our business, but they’ve been together for like a hundred years.  I’m sure she’s taking care of him.  Now you need to go brush your teeth and go to bed before we get into more trouble.”

Dawn stomped her foot, and spun on her heel.  At the doorway, she glanced back at her sister who was standing in the center of the room, lost in thought.

“You know.  You told me that a Slayer’s job was to help people.  To save them.”

Buffy grimly looked her sister straight in the eye.  “That’s right.  I help people.  Not vampires.”

Dawn scrunched up her face.  “You’re just being stupid.”  The words were meant to be hurtful, but they sounded sad to both their ears.

After she brushed her teeth, Dawn crept quietly passed her sister’s room.  The door was firmly shut and the pop strains of Brittany could be heard as Buffy did her homework.  At the head of the stairs, she paused to listen to the soft murmurs of her mother and Ted as they talked over cocktails in the den.  Staying close to the wall, she tiptoed down the stairs, and edged around the doorway into the dining room.

While brushing her teeth, Dawn had come to a resolute decision.  It was risky.  Way risky.  Total lockdown, grounded till the first year of college, no dessert for life, risky.  Not to mention what Buffy would do if she got caught.  The key to success would be in the not getting caught.

Ted’s brown sport jacket hung over the back of the chair where he had placed it before dinner.  She darted sly glances over her shoulder, as she searched the pockets for his billfold.  She pulled two crisp twenties out of his wallet, before replacing it.  Then she crept to her mother’s purse and pulled out a ten and a five.  Quickly, before she got caught, she slid back up the stairs into her room.  She cracked open her piggybank and counted out eleven dollars and forty-eight cents.  It was every penny she had.  She knew in the morning, before school, she could sneak into Buffy’s room, and plunder her stash under her mattress.  At last count, her sister had thirty-four dollars.  All in all it was a pretty good haul.

Dawn hoped it was enough.