Dawn

Dawn was done with her math final. All the problems had been calculated, she’d shown her work to the best of her ability, and she’d emailed her final answers to her teacher. Dawn was really enjoying home school. It allowed her to travel with her sister and stay up on her classes so she could maybe even graduate early from high school.

She half-skipped down the hall to the apartment that she shared with her sister. It was the latest in a series of tiny apartments that they occupied in Buffy’s world tour of slayer organization. They’d been doing about a year and a half now, and they had a rhythm.

Dawn’s smile dissipated when she pushed into the tiny living room and saw that Andrew was cuddled up on the sofa under her favorite cozy blanket. Her rhythm with Buffy did not include the last of the nerd trio. He was lost in a video game – something with dragons and magic – and he wasn’t supposed to be here. Dawn had been looking forward to having the apartment all to herself.

“Andrew!” she shouted because he was wearing noise-cancelling headphones. He’d been kicked out of the last place he lived for being too loud, so Buffy let him stay with them but had threatened him with his life if he didn’t play his games with the headphones.

Andrew startled so hard at the sound of his name that he fell off the sofa and landed on his butt on the floor, the headphones askew on his head, the video game controller on one side of the room and his cell phone on the other. He clambered to his feet. “Dawnie bear!”

Dawn ignored his nickname for her; she’d long since figured out that he didn’t listen when she told him that she didn’t appreciate his unending stream of monikers. Only her sister and Spike were allowed to have nicknames for her, and Spike was long dead, burned up in the hellmouth. She pushed aside the bit of sadness that rose in her chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the airport?”

Andrew was supposed to be on a plane to South Africa to join Xander in his work there. The Scoobies had been taking turns housing Andrew. Dawn almost felt sorry for him, but the notion of having a moment alone was way more appealing.

His eyes grew round, and he searched for his phone, not finding it and instead picking up the controller and TV remote. “What time is it?” He punched buttons, turning off the game system.

Dawn checked her watch and tapped the glass with one finger. “You better get to the airport. I think your flight leaves and soon.”

“Crap! And it’s an international flight!” He paused, his face going dreamy. “Andrew Wells – international jet setter – headed to South Africa on an outbound plane to meet with the – with a capitol ‘T’ – Slayer’s best friend who is on a mission to organize the Slayers and push back the forces of darkness on a global scale. . .”

“Andrew,” Dawn interrupted.

He smiled and sniffed one armpit. “I should take a shower first.”

Dawn wrinkled her nose as if noticing for the first time that the living room smelled like unwashed male and leftover unrefrigerated food. She tried to remember where she put the Febreze and her favorite ocean-scented candle. They were probably in the miscellaneous boxes that were stacked in the corner of the dining room. “Better hurry.”

“Yes!” Andrew perked up and darted toward the bathroom.

Dawn sighed and then took in the mess around her. First, she folded her favorite blanket, noting a stain of some sort on one side. She’d have to wash it. Then, she cleaned up the takeout boxes, food-crusted plates, and soda cans before turning to Andrew’s suitcase in the corner. He’d been living out of it, and she felt the tug of almost-compassion again. She gently closed the bag and ran the zipper around the edge to seal it shut. Then, she spied Andrew’s cell phone face down just under the corner of the cheap TV stand.

She picked up the phone, which unsurprisingly was the newest cell phone with a keyboard. She intended to tuck it into the outer pocket of the suitcase, and then, she noticed something on the screen. It was a text message from someone labelled, “Her Vampyre.”

Dawn frowned and pushed a couple of buttons until she found the text. Her frown melted into a look of confusion as she read the other messages – and there were a lot of them – between Andrew and Her Vampyre. She sank down onto the sofa, and the truth washed over her as she read the earnest questions in Her Vampyre’s texts. Andrew’s responses were usually vague and/or overly dramatic, which is when a strong sense of familiar irritation seemed to infiltrate Her Vampyre’s replies. That and the British cursing clued her in.

The shower in the next room turned off, and Dawn made a split-second decision, shoving the cell phone under the sofa cushion where she perched and trying to look innocent. Andrew burst out of the bathroom, tugging a T-shirt over his head. He rushed to the suitcase and pulled up the handle.

Flustered, he smiled at Dawn as he stuffed his wallet in his jeans pocket. “Thanks.” He glanced around the room, an expression of desperation on his face. “Have you seen my cell?”

Dawn winced out of guilt, but Andrew missed it. “I found it by the TV and put it in your bag along with the charger.” She actually had no idea where the charger was and would have to buy one later. She handed him his printed flight itinerary that had been on the table by the front door.

“Thanks! I’m off!” he announced with flourish. “Hold down the fort until I return, mon petite clé.”

Dawn sighed at the garbled French nickname. “Don’t worry. I got it covered,” she said before holding her breath as she watched him theatrically exit the small apartment.

After he left, she kept herself busy by picking up the apartment, loading the dishwasher, taking out the trash, and starting a load of laundry that included her favorite blanket. She scrubbed the bathroom, ate lunch, and took a long bubble bath. Wearing her most comfortable leggings and a long T-shirt, she lit a vanilla candle (the ocean-scented one was still missing) in the living room and retrieved her warm blanket from the dryer.

Now, she was sure Andrew wasn’t coming back, so she let herself face the hidden cell phone. She would have scribbled down the number and then called or texted from her own phone, but the cell Buffy bought for her was buried under the rubble of Sunnydale. So, Dawn had to borrow the one that was available.

Finding the texts again, she took a deep breath and typed a message before she could talk herself out of it. Her heart thundering in her chest, she pushed send. The message appeared on the tiny screen: “Spike? It’s Dawn.”

She wanted to type, “It’s your Bit, your Nibblet. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you for so long. Why haven’t you contacted us? Is it because of how I treated you? Buffy misses you. I miss you.” But she didn’t. She’d for sure cry if she did. She pushed these thoughts out of her mind.

Instead, she stared at the screen and waited.

* * *

Dawn stirred on the sofa as she felt a gentle hand pushing hair off her forehead. She made a small sound at the touch and felt her blanket being pulled up to her shoulders. Then, her brain reminded her of the cell phone that had been sitting on her lap, and her eyes flew open, adjusting quickly in the dim light.

Her sister squatted next to her, a tired smile on her face, her blonde hair pulled away from her face in a low bun. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“No worries.” Dawn tried to surreptitiously feel around on the blanket for the cell phone, worried that Buffy had found the small device. Her right hand closed around the metal wedged between her butt and the back of the sofa. Phew.

“Andrew left, I see.” Buffy stood and sloughed off her leather jacket, draping it over her arm.

Dawn laid her head on the sofa pillow, her arm angled under her head. “He did. He almost forgot, but I got him gone.”

Buffy glanced around the tiny living space. “Thank god. And you picked up and it smells so much better!”

“Yeah. It was pretty gross.”

“The bathroom?” Dawn knew that Buffy liked a bubble bath or long shower after a day of slayer duties.

Dawn grinned. “Scrubbed. I took a bath though.”

Buffy’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Perfect, Dawnie. Thank you so much.” She headed toward the bathroom but then paused and glanced back at her sister. “How was your day?”

Dawn just wanted Buffy to go forth to her bubbles. The cell phone felt warm against her back side. “It was good. Math final done. Check that one off the list. How was yours?”

Buffy yawned. “Good for you. You’ve really been on top of the school-age. Proud of you. And my day was the same old. Reassuring and educating new slayers and wrangling the old ones into submission. Via phone is hard. But the slayer that’s in-person here is harder.” She rubbed her temple. “I miss. . .” She shook her head. “I miss everyone.”

“Me, too.” This was the closest she came to talking about Spike. Dawn wished she could help her sister open up about it. She didn’t seem depressed or like she was falling apart, but Dawn knew that Buffy had emotions she was holding back. Dawn heard her sister crying in her bedroom more than once in the middle of the night.

Buffy pointed toward the bathroom. “I think the shower’s calling my name. Too tired for a bath.”

“Okay. Good night.” Dawn reached up to turn off the lamp by her head.

“Love you, Dawnie,” Buffy murmured as she entered the bathroom and flipped on the light.

“Love you, too.”

As soon as Buffy shut the door with a soft click and the room was swathed in darkness, Dawn produced the cell phone and jogged it to life, her heart pounding again. There was a message from Her Vampyre. It simply said, “Hi, Pigeon.”

Tears filled her eyes and blurred out his words. The tears rapidly turned to sobs, which she worked hard to keep quiet. She hid the phone back under the blanket. She told herself the hiding was in case Buffy heard her and came back to check on her, but in reality, it was because she was scared to see his words again. Was it really him? What was she going to say back? She couldn’t reply. Not yet. Not until she knew what the hell to say to him.

Dawn pretended to be asleep when Buffy finished showering and peeked in on her one last time before retreating to her bedroom. Then, Dawn laid awake for hours until exhaustion overtook her brain, and she finally drifted into dreams.

* * *

Dawn didn’t look at the cell phone again until the next morning. She’d given herself the day off after the math final, and Buffy had graciously dropped her off at the Galleria with a credit card for lunch and the warning to window shop only. Dawn was older and wiser and knew better than to buck this. . . not completely. They really didn’t have any money to spare, and Giles was still fighting a load of legal red tape to get access to the Watchers’ Council funds. Buying food in the food court was a splurge.

Still, Dawn was determined to enjoy herself and wandered through the halls, gazing into the windows of the closed stores and side-stepping eager elderly mall walkers. She paused for a long time to study the Christmas tree in the ice skating rink. It was only the end of November, but the towering tree was up and decorated in sparkling red, gold, and silver.

The rest of the mall was frosted with holiday trimmings, and though Dawn only ordered an oatmeal and glass of ice water at the Starbucks, she noticed that they were already serving the holiday beverages. She eyed the peppermint hot chocolate on the billboard as she waited for her oatmeal. Then, on impulse, she got back in the line and ordered a grande with whipped cream and extra sprinkles.

After her order came out, she sat at one of the tiny tables and found herself setting aside the oatmeal and studying the hot chocolate. She ran her finger through the whipped cream and then sucked the sweetness off. Taking a tentative sip of the hot drink, she fumbled one-handed in her backpack and pulled out the cell phone.

The message was still there. Whoever was on the other end of the line hadn’t texted again.

She took another sip of the hot chocolate and conjured up the image of Spike in her house in Sunnydale. He always liked the hot chocolate and marshmallows, but most of all, he enjoyed the company of her and her mother when Buffy wasn’t around.

Her fingers found the tiny buttons on the keyboard, and she started typing another message without thinking, “Where are you?” Then, she erased the words and tried again, “Spike, where are you?” Including his name seemed to make it more real, and whoever was on the other end would have no doubt who the message was for. Before she sent the text, she started over a third time, “Spike, it’s Dawn again. Where are you?” She had no idea where he could possibly be. He could even be in another dimension for all she knew. Was there cell service in other dimensions? She wouldn’t be surprised.

She couldn’t let herself go beyond that in text or thought, so she pressed enter and shoved the phone into her depths of her bag. Suddenly tired for some reason she couldn’t elucidate, she sank back in the chair, holding her cup of hot chocolate in both hands.

She was halfway through the hot chocolate (which was now cold from the melted whipped cream) when a muffled ping sounded from her backpack. Her hand moved of its own accord, retrieved the phone, and opened the new message.

“I don’t know if that’s a question I should answer.”

Now she was pissed. What kind of game was he playing? Setting aside her hot chocolate, she fired off, “What the hell does that mean?” Then, she immediately regretted it. The words felt too harsh like the time she promised to set him on fire in his sleep. So, she hastily amended, “Because I care about you, you idiot, and if you’re alive, I want to know.”

The next text came more quickly than the last, and Dawn imagined that he was somewhere out there, holding the phone at the same time she was. “Haven’t been alive in a very long time.”

Dawn emitted a sigh of frustration and rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t hear or see her. “Undead, whatever.”

“You rolled your eyes, didn’t you, Bit?”

She briefly looked around even though she knew it was crazy and that he wasn’t actually there to witness her facial expressions. “No.” Then, she added, “Yes.” When he didn’t reply, she repeated, “Where are you, Spike? Are you here on Earth?”

“What kind of question is that? Of cour” The text abruptly ended mid-word and without punctuation, and then, another text came before she could panic, “Know why you’re asking, and the answer is yes. I’m here. On Earth. In California actually. City of Angels.”

“L.A.? Why?” Dawn’s mind flashed to a time six months ago when Buffy had had a long and tense meeting with Giles, Faith, and Xander regarding goings-on in L.A. Willow had been out of reach, and it had had something to do with Angel. Buffy and crew had allocated several slayers to help out with the situation, but they’d had to focus on another crisis in South America at around the same time – something with bug demons. To her dismay, Dawn had stayed with her father in Spain and felt completely out of the loop.

Spike didn’t respond for a long time, and Dawn stood, tucking the uneaten oatmeal in a sack and then into her backpack. She was standing by the trashcan and about to throw out the remainder of the hot chocolate when the phone beeped again.

She plunked down in the closest chair, her bag strap slipping off her shoulder. Spike’s new message read, “I was helping Angel with the pickle he got himself into.”

Dawn made an incredulous face. “You? Helping Angel?”

“Yeah. Not exactly something you’d expect, right, Bit?”

She raised both eyebrows at the screen and typed, “Um, no. Not in a million years.”

“Angel’s not such a bad bloke nowadays. He grows on you.”

She snickered. “Like what? Mold?”

“Not a zombie, Pigeon.”

She laughed out loud and ducked her head when the older couple nearby glared in her direction. “Ha ha.”

“The city’s still a mess but not as big a mess as I heard Sunnydale is.”

“Sunnydale’s a crater.” Dawn felt anxious for some reason then. She didn’t really know it was Spike on the other end of the line. “How do I know it’s really you and not some demonic force that’s going to suck my brains out through the phone when I go to sleep?”

“You have quite the imagination, Bit, but I understand.” A moment’s pause. “We broke into the Magic Box, and we found out about who you really are. Together.” Another pause and then, “I helped you steal that damned egg from the Ghora demon. And” A longer moment passed. “We hung out all summer after big sis died.” Dawn noticed this was his first mention of Buffy.

She smiled at the memories. “What’d we do that summer?”

“We avoided the Scoobies, Rupert, and the bloody ‘bot like the plague. You made me bake cookies in the middle of the night – only chocolate chip and never oatmeal raisin, and you liked it when I brushed your hair after your shower.” These were all true.

“Why’d you do it?” Dawn had always wondered but never asked. Somehow, the passage of time and the geographical distance made it easier for her to put the question out there.

“Because you needed someone. And it’s not because I promised Buffy.”

Dawn smiled because at the time, she’d felt loved for her. She still did. “I know that you did it for me. I never believed what Xander said.”

“He always did have his head up his ass.”

Dawn giggled and ignored the sighs of dismay. She didn’t care. “Okay, I think I believe you.”

“Was reasonable to ask. Can’t be too careful. Now, Bit, where are you?”

She played coy. “In a shopping mall. Having hot chocolate. Well, it’s cold now.” She realized this made no sense. “The hot chocolate is cold.”

“Miss having hot chocolate with you and your mum.”

This validation that they’d shared something she’d so recently been thinking about made her heart warm. “Me, too.”

“What city?”

Dawn wasn’t sure she should tell him, but she realized that she had to. This was Spike. “Houston.”

“Why the hell are you in Texas?”

She couldn’t get around talking about Buffy. “Buffy has been travelling to different cities all over the world. She helps get the slayer team up and going, and I go with. We spent a long time in Rome, and we’ve been here for a few months.”

There was a long pause, and Dawn waited on pins and needles. Finally, he wrote, “How is she?”

Dawn contemplated how to word her answer. “She’s fine.” She frowned. This was not all she wanted to say.

“Good.”

She dashed out, “But not fine.”

“What do you mean, lil Bit?”

Dawn didn’t really know how Buffy felt because she wasn’t exactly Miss-Shares-a-Lot regarding emotions, but Dawn could infer. Her words came out in a rush and harsher than she intended. “God, Spike, what do you think? She’s sad. Really sad. She doesn’t talk about it, but she is.”

“What’s she sad about?”

The angry feeling that surged up made her clinch her jaw, and she blinked back tears. Dawn tried to decide if the question was Spike being oblivious or uncaring or just plain dumb. She decided on oblivious. “Duh. You. Being gone. Why the hell would you not tell us you came back?” She felt like typing, “I’m hurt, too, you know,” but she didn’t.

An eternity passed while she anticipated his reply.

Then, “I’m sorry I hurt you, Pigeon. It wasn’t my intention.”

Now, the tears spilled over her cheeks, hot and fast, because maybe he wasn’t so obtuse. “Well, you did.”

“We. . . you didn’t exactly. . . I didn’t know how much you cared. And I should have. I’m sorry. I know words don’t mean much.”

Dawn swiped away the tears with the back of her hand and sniffed. “They do, actually. They mean a lot.” She hesitated only a moment and added, “Buffy appreciates words, too.”

“I don’t know about that, Bit. My moment’s passed.”

That’s it. He officially reregistered for his idiot card. “No, it hasn’t. She cries at night over you. You should really talk to her because if she finds out that you’ve been talking with Andrew all this time and even came to Italy without telling us, your moment might as well have passed.”

“How did you get the boy’s phone?”

She bit her lip. “I sort of stole it.”

“Back to the klepto bit again, eh?”

Dawn decided he was teasing. “You know me.”

“But really. How did you figure it out?”

“He left his phone out. He got a text message from ‘Her Vampyre.’” Dawn almost laughed while typing that last part because she could picture Spike’s face when he read her message.

“Bloody hell.”

“And a bunch of other expletives, right?”

“Right.” A few seconds went by. “Do you think she’d even want to see me?”

Dawn knew Buffy would be pissed at her for telling Spike anything, but Dawn was the little sister. Little sisters were supposed to do stuff like this. “Yes. She totally would.” She poked around on the keyboard, searching for the italics button. “I want to see you, too.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

Dawn didn’t even have to think about her reply. “Already did a long time ago.” She smiled and added, “Though jury’s out on your latest shenanigans.”





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