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~*~ Chapter 14 – Reunion ~*~

Dawn had asked Connor to come see the solicitor with her. She had no idea what was going on, and her worry was increasing with every hour.

They arrived fifteen minutes before the appointed time, relieved to see it was indeed a notary’s office. At least it wasn’t some trap.

The solicitor welcomed them and they went to his office immediately.

They sat down in front of him. He opened a folder and retrieved some paper from it. “Can I see some identification, Miss Summers?”

“Y…yes.”

She took her bag, looked for her wallet and handed him her card.

He put it in front of him next to the folder. “Miss Summers, Miss Annigan told me you had become friends a few months ago when you had arrived in Seattle.”

“That’s correct,” Dawn said, having no idea what was going on.

“A few days ago, by mere chance, Miss Annigan came to see me. Of course she couldn’t know that she would be the victim of that unfortunate accident. But she was a very provident person, and didn’t want to take any risk. So she came to ask me to make some changes in her testament. And you, Miss Summers, are the beneficiary of those changes.”

Dawn suddenly understood. “You mean she…she’s leaving me an inheritance or something?”

The man smiled knowingly. “Exactly.”

“Oh…I didn’t expect that. That’s very nice of her.”

“She liked you a lot,” Connor pointed out.

“Yes, but still. She had no obligations…”

“Don’t you want to know what your inheritance is?” asked the solicitor with a smile.
Dawn laughed. “Oh…Of course.”

“Well, as written on this official testament, read and signed by Miss Mathilda Annigan on the 28th of November 2002, you, Miss Dawn Summers, are inheriting the sum of 25.000 $.”

A huge silence suddenly fell on the office. Dawn and Connor were watching the man like he had suddenly grown two heads – although they would have probably be less surprised then.

Dawn put her hand on her heart and opened her mouth, but no sound came out of it.

“I can see that Miss Annigan never talked to you about this. I understand your shock. Of course you’ll have to sign some papers, and I’ll have to explain how it works. But these things take time, so I’d rather have you back when I have all the papers. Call me when you find your voice back, and we can make another appointment.”

Dawn nodded. “Alright,” she finally said. “T…Thank you M. Edmond.”

And the new heiress left with her boyfriend.

They walked in silence for a moment, the Dawn stopped and looked at Connor.

“Did I hear him well?” she asked him.

“Well, if you heard 25.000 $, yeah, you heard well. Looks like Miss Annigan’s was hiding a lot of money under her mattress.”

“I had no idea she had so much money. I mean, 25.000 $ for me! How…what…I mean…” She laughed nervously. “Do you realize what it means?”

“To be honest…not really. Looks like a big sum of money, though.”

He still had trouble evaluating that kind of thing. As long as there was food on the table, a roof above their heads and a smile on Dawn’s face, he was happy. But judging by Dawn’s expression, that sum looked like something rather important.

“Well, for instance I could buy you at least 15 suits like that guy was wearing.”

He frowned. “I don’t think I would enjoy wearing that.”

She laughed, the implication of what just happened slowly sinking in. “That means we can move out! That means we won’t have to worry about money for a long, long time!”

“Does that mean you’re gonna be happy again?”

She reached out to him and took his hand. “The money doesn’t make me happy, Connor. You do. But the things we’ll be able to do with it, yes, that will help a great deal. Starting with searching for a new place.”

He took her in his arms. “If this is what you want, then we’ll do it. I don’t care where we live, as long as we are together.”

She kissed the tip of his nose. “I agree. But together-in-a-nice-place is better than together-under-a-bridge, right? Although we’d better wait for that appointment with that solicitor. And I don’t know if he realized I was a minor. I don’t know if it’s important or not.”

He pulled back a strand of hair behind her hear. “Always the voice of reason, my Dawn,” he said tenderly.

“I still can’t believe she did that. She barely knew me. It’s the most generous thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.” Except maybe for Buffy jumping off that tower to save my life, she thougt.

“I told you, she liked you a lot. Like a daughter.”

“Wow. I can’t wait to tell Buffy about this,” she said without thinking.

Connor frowned. “Buffy?”

“Uh…my sister. I mean I wish I could tell her.”

“That’s not what you said. You said you couldn’t wait to tell her.”

Dawn sighed. Why was she lying to him about that anyway? “I…I called her. The other day. And I wrote her a letter. Connor…”

She took his hand but he pulled it back. He was suddenly pale.
“You miss her. You want to go back in Sunnydale,” he said, looking totally crushed by the idea.

“No! Of course not ! Connor, there’s nothing I want more on this planet than to stay with you, I swear. But I always had this special relationship with my sister…and even her friends…and I miss them, yeah. I needed to hear her, to let her know I was alright. Don’t you want to let your dad know you’re ok? Don’t you think he must be worried?”

Connor laughed bitterly.

“I highly doubt it. You see, I didn’t really know that perfect family life you miss so much…I thought I had found that here with you,” he added, his voice slightly trembling.

Heartbroken, she slipped into his arms and held him tightly. “Connor, we are family. We’re together, and that will never, ever change. I swear.”

They held on to each other, then Connor pulled back.

“I just want you to be happy, Dawn,” he repeated.

“And I am,” she whispered. “I am.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hey Buffy.”

“Hi Angel.”

“Spike.”

“Angel.”

The atmosphere in the Hyperion lobby was suddenly very tense. Cordelia went to hug Buffy. “Hey Buffy. Nice to see you. Hi Spike,” she said, a little colder. After all the last time she had seen him he had tried to kill her and had tortured Angel mercilessly.

She introduced the newcomers to Fred and Gunn.

“Hi,” said Fred, cheerful as always. “I had two rooms prepared for you,” she said.

Buffy smiled back. “Thank you. But one will be enough.”

Spike shot her a surprised glance. Angel tensed, and Cordelia, who was standing next to him, could swear she heard him growl. She rolled her eyes.

Fred leaned to Gunn and whispered, “Did we miss an episode?”

“I think we missed a lot of them.”

Angel took Buffy’s bag. “I’ll show you your room, then,” he said, taking the stairs, assuming Spike and Buffy were following him. “How was the trip?”

“Good,” Buffy said. “Not much traffic.”

Cordelia called them back before they vanished upstairs. “Fred and I prepared dinner. Can we meet down here in thirty minutes?”

Buffy and Spike agreed and Cordy and Fred retreated to the kitchen. “Wow,” said Fred, “What’s going on between those three?”

Cordelia sighed. “Do you have the next six months free? Honestly, I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Upstairs, Angel led Buffy and Spike into one of the rooms.

“Here you go. I figured we could leave for Seattle tomorrow evening. We’ve got a good 20 hours ride.”

“Tomorrow is good. Thank you, Angel.”

“See you downstairs.”

And with a last suspicious look, he left.

Buffy put her bag on the bed and took some clothes and products out of it.

Spike wandered around the room. “Nice place.”

“Yeah. A little too big, maybe. But it seems they are all living here. Except for Wesley. Oh, we have to call him before we leave.”

Spike came back to her and put a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why don’t you go talk to him?”

She looked at him, confused. “Who? Wesley?”

“No. Angel. You haven’t seen each other for some time. Don’t tell me you’ve got nothing to say to him.”

Buffy smiled, surprised and touched. He wasn’t certainly thrilled by the idea of sending her to Angel’s room, even to talk…yet he encouraged her to do so.

“I love you,” she simply said, kissing him deeply.

“I know, love. Now go.”

She left, and came back a few seconds later. “Do you know where his room is?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The door was open and he had seen her arrived, but she knocked nonetheless.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

She walked in the room, looking around. “Cordelia told me which room was yours.”

And she was probably very pleased to do so, Angel thought.

She took a picture from the dresser. “Is this Connor?”

“Yeah…when he was a baby. About eight months ago.”

She smiled slightly. “Right…The Young and the Restless.”

“What?”

“Nothing. So, you don’t have more recent picture of him?”

A cloud passed over his face. “No. We didn’t really have the time…or the opportunity. I’m afraid I still have lot to learn at being a good dad.”

“Same here…raising a teenage is a lot more difficult than stopping an apocalypse,” she chuckled.

“Talking about apocalypse…how are things in Sunnydale?”

“Good. Uh, except maybe that I lost my house. I live in a small apartment near Main Street.”

“With Spike.”

A heartbeat. “Yes…with Spike.”

Another silence, as if he was painfully swallowing the news. He sighed. “This is probably going to end in a fight, but I have to ask. Why Spike? I thought you wanted a normal guy.”

“Well, I tried Mister Normal Guy, but it didn’t really work out, so…Spike has changed, Angel.”

He nodded. “Is it because of the soul?”

“Not really. I…I had feelings for him before he got it. And he’s been helping us, and taking care of Dawn, and loving me without it. You know, the guy who killed my friend Tara had a soul. He nearly destroyed everything.”

Angel didn’t say anything, waiting for her to go on. He didn’t really want to know what had occurred between her and Spike, to be honest. But he felt that she needed to explain it. She didn’t need his approval. Whatever his reaction may be, she would stay with Spike anyway. That was obvious by the way she was looking at him. Like she needed to breathe and he was the bottle of oxygen. But she needed Angel to understand.

“So…Things just happened between Spike and me. Complicated, sordid. Then it became really ugly and he left. He went to Africa and fought that demon in order to get his soul. For me. Because he loves me.”

And her face lit up when she said those words.

“You love him,” Angel said finally.

The question was useless. If Buffy didn’t love Spike, she wouldn’t live with him.

“Yes. I love him. I fought it for a long time, with misconceptions and stupid prejudices. While he was gone, I realized I needed him. Not to fight demons. Just to be with me, by my side. I had never wanted anything so much in my life.”

“Like you’ve never loved anyone so much?” he asked, but once again it was not really a question.

She smiled softly. “Angel, what do you want me to say? That I still love you? Of course I do. I always will. With Spike, it’s just different. He’s my equal. We were meant to be. We belong to each other.”

“He’s your soul mate,” he said, suddenly realizing that all that she had just said was applying perfectly to himself and Cordelia. And that if Buffy needed to tell him that, he needed to hear it. After seven years, they could finally acknowledge the fact that they had both moved on, and that there was nothing wrong about this.

“Does he make you happy?”

A wide smile spread on her face. “Pretty much, yeah.”

He nodded again, smiling this time. “Then it’s all that matters. Even if it has to be Spike.”

Relief washed over her and she hugged him. “Thank you, Angel. It means a lot to me.”

He held her, surprised to feel only tenderness and friendship for that girl he had once be willing to die for. He never thought their love for each other could one day just be gone. Not really gone, he corrected. Just buried deeply in their hearts, as a memory to treasure. But nothing more than a sweet memory.

“How come you didn’t find anyone yet?” she asked him. “I know there’s the curse and all that, but are the girl in L.A completely blind?”

He smiled, cleared his throat in embarrassment. His time to confess. “Well, actually…there is…that is, Cordelia and I…”

Buffy’s eyes opened wide. Her turn to swallow the news. “Oh. But you can’t…”

“No!”

“Well, you did with Darla, apparently.”

“Yeah. I had had a bad day.”

“But you didn’t revert…”

“No. No chance to find perfect happiness there.”

“But with Cordelia…”

“It would probably be, yes.”

“Well…if you’re happy, then it’s all that matters to me too,” she finally said, and he could see she was sincere. They hugged one more time, when a noise at the door interrupted them.

Spike was there. He smiled to Buffy. “If you’re hungry, pet…they’re waiting for us downstairs.”

His tone was even, his look confident. He would not show to Angel how he hated to see his Slayer close to him like that. Even if he trusted Buffy.

“Ok. I’ll go wash my hands. I’ll meet you there, sweetheart,” she said to Spike, kissing him quickly on the lips.

She left the two vampires alone.

“You’d better take good care of her,” said Angel finally.

“I already do, mate,” Spike answered.

“So, dating Buffy, having a soul…do you always have to do the same thing as me?”
For one moment Spike was tempted to be cruel and answer ‘the difference between your soul and mine is called shagging’, but he refrained himself. And that would be disrespectful for Buffy.

Damn soul.

So he didn’t react to that, preferring to watch his grand sire from head to toe as he asked, “Didn’t you put on some weight?”


TBC...





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