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Chapter 39:

Spike had a hard time sleeping ever since he moved back into his crypt. For the first time he was aware of the fact that everything around him was dead, and still, and quiet. He'd gotten into the habit of leaving the TV on, just so there would be other voices around him.

He knew the reasons he had to return. He had even argued for them, still it was hard after the months he had spent living in the Summers' house to live alone in his crypt again.

He had moved in with the Summers women for two reasons. The obvious one, the reason that had initially been told to Dawn and the other Scoobies was to help Joyce while she was ill. The secondary reason known only to himself, Buffy, and Giles was to help protect Dawn from Glory.

Buffy had not been happy to find out that Spike had been right about all their memories of Dawn being fake. She'd been even less happy to find out that a group of monks had decided to simply shove a little sister into her life and expect her to guard said sister.

But Buffy was the Slayer, and she quickly accepted the new duty that had been thrust upon her. Besides, as she had told Spike when he'd tried to convince her that her sister wasn't her sister, she knew Dawn wasn't evil. She knew that Dawn belonged.

But once Joyce had recovered from her surgery, they could no longer pretend that her health was the reason he was staying there. Scared that his presence might tip off Glory to the fact that the Key was in the Slayer's house, he had moved out.

The crypt now felt quiet and lonely. He had grown used to the sounds of the three Summers women. He had grown used to being part of a family again.

"Poor little William," an all too familiar voice called from the sewer tunnels. "They've left him all alone. He thinks she'll love him. Thinks she'll trust him, but it doesn't matter they all fall down."

"Dru?" he called into the darkness.

The shadows seemed to part like curtains to let her through. Drusilla always knew how to make an entrance. Burns marred her beautiful pale face, but her eyes sparkled with stolen life. He could smell the sweet perfume of fresh death on her and it called to him.

Pale arms snaked around his neck as his Dark Princess pressed herself against him.

"What happened?" he asked, ghosting his fingers over her scarred flesh.

"We had a great party, Grand-mummy and I." She laughed with joy. "She's not Grand-mummy, she's my little girl now. I made her, and I'll love her forever, but she went away." Her smile turned into a frown and she whimpered.

"Darla burned you?" he asked.

"No, we thought it was Daddy, but it wasn't. He let us have our party, though. Knocked them all down, all but two. But then he tricked us, he burned us. Why is it never Daddy?" Tears spilled down her alabaster cheeks.

Habit overtook Spike and he brushed them away, gently bringing her cheek to rest against his chest. He rocked her as if she were a small child, comforting her.

"Hush, now, luv. You'll be fine. Angel won't come for you here."

After a few moments she stopped crying and began to purr softly.

"I've missed you, Spike. Have you missed me?" She pulled back a little to fix him with her eyes.

"I did miss you, Dru, but it's been too long." He tried to pull away from her, but she held him tightly.

"We'll be a family again. You're my knight not hers," she insisted.

"No, Dru," he told her firmly. This time he forcibly broke away. "You can't just come back and expect me to follow you around like a puppy. Not anymore."

"No, you're her dog now. But she doesn't give you scraps."

She slipped down the shoulder of her dress, exposing more of her breasts. She opened her arms and approached him, running her hands over his chest.

"Come back to me, you belong to me. There is only blood and tears for you here, and they will not make you laugh. They will dig you open, and toss you aside. Shhh, they will not tell their secrets."

He listened to her, trying to determine what among her ramblings were prophecies, and what was merely an attempt to get him back.

That's when it occurred to him. He could chain her up, get Buffy, and prove his love. He would stake Drusilla in front of Buffy and then she would know that he was good. She would take him back.

"There is nothing here but the tower for you," Drusilla accused him.

The look in her eyes told him she knew what he was thinking.

"Death and ashes. Death and ashes. It bleeds, and they all turn away," she ranted.

Drusilla looked him in the eye. She took two steps back, and then she ran back towards the sewer tunnels she'd come from.

He was on her in an instant. Tackling her to the ground. Insane shrieking filled the air, as the two vampires struggled. It didn't last long. Drusilla was still recovering from her burns, and Spike was the better fighter. As much as it still pained him to do it, he beat her until he could drag her to the chains that hung along one wall of the crypt.

He chained her, double checked to make sure that she could not pull free. Then he grabbed a cell phone from next to his bed, careful to shield it from Drusilla's eyes.

It embarrassed him to own a cell phone, but Buffy and Joyce had insisted that if he was going to help protect Dawn, they needed a way to keep in touch with him, and there was no way to get a regular phone line to his crypt.

He moved to the upper level and flipped open the phone. Hitting the speed dial he called Buffy's phone. It was bad enough they made him carry the damn thing, it was somehow worse being part of their family calling plan, but Joyce insisted that it was more economical for her to pay the phone along with phones for the girls, than for him to have his own.

He called Buffy and asked her to meet him at his crypt as soon as she could. While he waited he listened to Dru. He was fairly sure that a lot of what she was saying was to just to keep him from staking her, but some of it was most likely prophecy, and Spike had learned it was always best to listen and remember what she said.

He heard the door to his crypt open and rushed up to greet Buffy.

"Spike! What is it? What's happened? Is it Glory?"

"Easy, luv. Didn't mean to frighten you. It's nothing to do with Glory. Just want to show you something. Do you have a stake?" he asked.

"What?! You had me completely panicked. And of course I have a stake!"

He held out his hand and she handed him the wooden stake, glaring at him the whole time.

Dru took up wailing below.

"What's that?" Buffy asked.

"A present," he told her as he beckoned her to follow him to the lower level.

"No, no, no, no, no," Drusilla was moaning over and over again.

"Drusilla?" Buffy asked wide eyed as she saw the chained vampire. "What the hell is going on, Spike?"

"What do you think, pet. She came back. Wanted me to go with her. But I wouldn't. I wanted to show you, luv. Show you that it's over."

He approached Drusilla with the stake raised.

"Whoa! Hold on," Buffy ordered him. He paused, confused. This wasn't the reaction he'd anticipated. "Let me get this straight. You're going to stake your ex-girlfriend because. . ." She waited for him to finish for her.

"To prove I love you. To prove I'm not evil anymore."

Drusilla began to laugh. "She doesn't see. But she will when the worms have her eyes. Scratch, scratch. Scratch, scratch."

"Yeah, okay," was Buffy's only comment on the insane vampire's ramblings. "Look, I get this. Kind of, but killing your ex-girlfriend to prove you love me, kind of creepy. Besides, I know you love me."

"No, you don't," Spike insisted. "If you knew how much. . . You wouldn't doubt me, pet. Not if you knew."

"Eyes on the inside, do you feel the worms when they bite?" Drusilla asked.

"I do, and can we either stake Drusilla or move somewhere else, really hard to have a serious conversation here."

"Just like that? You want me to casually stake my sire? You won't even admit that it means anything," Spike argued.

"I didn't say that," Buffy insisted. "I get it. But I mean, it makes a girl wonder; if you move on from me, will you come back to kill me for your next girlfriend?"

Spike roared in frustration and threw the stake against the wall. "Maybe I should just let her go and see which one of you kills the other first. Hmm?"

"Oh, yes, I like that plan," Drusilla chimed in.

"You see," Buffy said with frustration. "This is the point. I know you don't mean it, but why would you even say that? I can't. . . I can't talk to you when you're like this."

With that Buffy headed back up the ladder to the upper level and the door.

"Wait, luv," Spike called after her. He grabbed her arm to slow her down. "This went all wrong somehow. Please, I'm just trying to. . ."

But Buffy broke free from his grasp and opened the crypt door, stepping out into the sunshine.

"I'll see you later, okay?" she asked. But she didn't wait for him to follow. Instead, she walked off into the afternoon sun where he couldn't follow, leaving him behind, and alone.





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