Disclaimer: Joss, he is the Master of this Universe, I just play in it.

Author’s note: BTL is fab and beta’d this chappie for me. *hugs* THanks to Tasha, Jane, Marzbar, Kat and Karyn for the great reviews
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Chapter 3: Worried? Shop!

“So I’m getting a car for Christmas right?” asked Dawn for like the 50 millionth time. The teen reached to turn up the radio, her eyes leaving the road and the whole vehicle swerving on the desert road.

“Eyes on the road!” shouted Spike, his hands gripping the dashboard of the Ford Explorer.

“Yeesh! Chill already!” muttered Dawn. “It’s not like there’s anyone else out here...”

“For which I am supremely thankful,” answered the vampire, whose pallor seemed a shade lighter.

“Hey! You were the one that was all ‘Nibblet I think you are ready for the road’.”

“That parking lot was starting to appear in my dreams,” Spike grumbled. “Stay on this side of the yellow line, Dawn!”

Dawn rolled her eyes as she swerved back into her lane.

“Are you gonna fight with Principal Wood?” asked Dawn, changing the subject from her poor driving.

“Why would I do that?” Spike asked back. “Not like I haven’t caused enough suffering in the man’s life.”

“Are you saying that you would have not killed his mother if you knew he existed?”

“No, good fight it was and all. Didn’t know Slayers ever had bits of their own.”

“Do you think Buffy and you will ever have kids? Besides me that is...”

“You are more than your share of a handful Nib. Gotta wait for your littl’uns now don’t we?”

Dawn scrunched up her nose. “I don’t think having kids with Andrew is such a good idea, I mean he’s a great guy, love him to bits, but totally in a friend way. I don’t know, his DNA, the human race might be better off if he doesn’t reproduce.”

“Don’t know about that Bite Size, I want grandchildren.”

Dawn laughed, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
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It was unreasonable. It was unwarranted, stupid and completely irrational, but Buffy was worried. This was the first driving lesson Dawn had taken without her in the car and Buffy was near panic. It was silly, Dawn was with Spike, safe and...with Spike. And yet every fibre of her being wanted to be in that car with Dawn and Spike, making sure that they didn’t crash, that they didn’t get pulled over, or any other odd series of events that could happen.

She had arrived home from her history class, to find that the pair had left the house, the Ford Explorer gone from the driveway.

The plan had been to do a short lesson before picking up Willow and Tara at the airport. They were coming home today and Buffy had planned a whole reunion with family night, complete with board games, cake, and Tara and Willow sneaking away to sleep off their jet lag.

And now Spike and Dawn were gone with the car, throwing her whole plan out the window. Just what was she supposed to do now? Buffy looked at the stack of textbooks piled on the island in the kitchen. She had meant to take them up to her room to get them out of the way, but now...Now she had nothing better to do than study. It was completely groan worthy. She didn’t feel like studying. She didn’t feel like cleaning. She didn’t feel like being a grown up. She certainly didn’t feel like her 123 years.

“Anya!” Buffy called out into air, hoping to get her demon friend’s attention. “I’m going shopping!”

Suddenly Anya teleported into the house, smoke swirling around her, practically bouncing with glee.

“Did you say shopping?”
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“I think it’s completely unfair. So what if I’ve been lax in going for the kill? I’m not on the payroll anymore. I do what I do, because it comes naturally,” complained Anya.

“Well, I for one am glad that you haven’t been all nasty with the killing,” replied Buffy holding up a blouse from the rack before her. “Not that I’d kill you anyway, but there would be that sense of obligation and general grr for the fact that one of my friends was on the list of the must be made dead.”

“Well,” started Anya, walking over to a nearby rack of belts and scarves, “I was the cause of puppy murder...poor puppy,” she noted sadly. “So have you decided who’s gonna be your maid of honour?”

Buffy gave her friend a look.

“You were mine...I think that should be taken into consideration. I have so many ideas for your bachelorette party.”

“Anya,” Buffy said gently, “Dawn’s going to be my maid of honour. She is my sister...”

“But she’s a minor, and can’t be expected to have the same experience. Let me do it! Please?”

“You can be bride’s maid in charge of events Dawn can’t plan?” offered Buffy. “But you have to discuss it with her! I’m not getting in trouble over this.”

Anya nodded enthusiastically.

“Any idea who the best man/demon is going to be?” continued Anya.

“None, which is scary. I’m just waiting for Spike to announce that he’s got some cousin that’s going to show up to do it and then try to drain Dawn on the dance floor. You know he has a cousin that’s married to a regurgitating frovlax demon?”
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Buffy stepped out of the change room, sporting a pair of leather pants and turned to inspect herself in the mirror. Turning, she glimpsed Dawn staring back at her.

“Where the hell have you been?” asked the angered teen.

“I might ask you the same thing!” retorted the not quite a slayer.

“You weren’t at home when we came back...”

Buffy whirled around and pointed a finger at her. “When you came back from the driving lesson that you were supposed to wait for me before you went on!”

“Spike’s all worried.”

“He is not,” explained Buffy, her hands still on her hips, tilting her head, furrowing her brow in concentration. “He’s eating at the moment.”

“He told me to go look for you! Why wouldn’t he be looking for you too?” asked Dawn.

“Cause he’s hungry?” suggested Buffy. “And you two left me! So Anya and I went shopping!”

Anya stepped out of a change room stall. “Dawn! Your voice is rather loud and angry. We have been enjoying shopping goodness. You are being loud and irritating voice, ruining the happiness.”

“We have to go pick up Tara and Willow from the airport,” muttered Dawn. “It’s time to come home Buffy.”

Buffy sighed, giving Anya a disappointed look. Dawn rolled her eyes and opened a stall door, disappearing into another dimension.

“I wonder what the store’s security staff is going to think about that?” asked Anya, turning to head into her own stall.

“Spike’s gonna get it when she gets home,” Buffy noted, stepping back into her own stall.
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Dawn stepped into the kitchen from the back door and glared at her biological father/future brother in law/sister’s mate. Spike looked up from his glass of blood quizzically, an eyebrow raised.

“Thought it’d take you longer than that,” he admitted.

“She was at the mall,” Dawn snarked. “And just why was I the only one looking for her?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “You were all excited about being able to look for your sis with the dimension hopping, didn’t want to spoil your fun, Nibblet.”

“Sure...” she intoned, disbelievingly. “You knew that she was fine, thanks to your mating claimyness, and you didn’t think to tell me? Spike!”

Spike chuckled. “She’s on her way home, and then we can go get the witches. And you can tell them just how evil I really am,” he continued with a grin.

“If by evil you mean lame, then totally,” she replied exiting the kitchen.

There was a puff of smoke and Anya teleported into the kitchen.

“And just what the bloody hell makes you think you can teleport into my kitchen without so much as a knock?” Spike spoke up, almost given up on the idea of eating anything before leaving for the airport.

“You think I was getting into a car with death on wheels? I don’t care if she’s had a hundred so years to learn how to drive. Your mate is a menace in that car. And she drives like an old lady.”

“She is an old lady, demon girl. And ‘sides, you shouldn’t be one to cast stones. Not so young yourself. And she doesn’t drive that badly.”

“Her improvement over the past hundred years is marginal. It was safer to teleport.”

“You’re bloody immortal Anyanka,” he noted with incredulity. “Makes little difference if you get banged up in a car crash now don’t it?”

“So? Doesn’t mean I want ugly bruises and wounds marring my body. I have a date this weekend and I don’t intend to be all limpy and sore for it either.”

The back door opened, allowing Buffy to step into the kitchen.

“You have a date? Why didn’t I hear about this before? There wasn’t a point during the two hours of shopping bonding that you couldn’t slip it into conversation?”

Anya shrugged.

Spike peered over at his mate curious as to how she arrived home so quickly from the mall.

“So spill already! I want details!” continued Buffy.

“You can get details in the bloody car,” interrupted Spike. “Nibblet! It’s time to pick up the witches!” Spike called out into the house.

“I can drive right?” asked Dawn, stepping into the kitchen through the back door.

There was a collective groan from the three other people in the kitchen.
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“I feel like a bloody sardine!” moaned Giles, from his spot pressed up against the passenger side rear door of the Ford Explorer.

Buffy looked back into the back seat, and grinned at the four bodies pressed together in the back seat. They had taken the Explorer because more people could fit into it, and the fact being that Xander’s car had an unfortunate incident involving a furry brown demon in heat the other night, this was the only way they were all getting to the airport.

“Xander! You’re squishing me!” shouted Dawn, wriggling to get more room. “Spike pull over! I want out!”

“Not bloody likely, Bit,” responded the vampire.

“Did anyone think just how we are going to get 2 more people into the back of this car?” asked Xander.

“I vote big butt Xander gets thrown in the trunk,” suggested Anya from against driver side rear door.

“Why are you even in the car Anya?” asked Xander annoyed. “Demon like you can teleport all over the place. Why sully your demon status with human modes of transportation?”

Anya stuck out her tongue at Xander.

“Hey!” protested Buffy from the safety of the front seat. “There will be no fighting! This is a happy time, and there will be no ruining of the happy time! Tara and Willow are going to be tired and cranky from their flight and you two,” she noted glaring pointedly at the formerly engaged, “are not going to make me regret taking you to the airport to greet them. You got me, Xander?”

“Hey! She started it!” whined the carpenter. “You always take Anya’s side.”

“That’s cause Anya and Buffy had shopping fun this afternoon,” explained Dawn.

“That’s right,” added Buffy. “Xander, you should take me shopping too. This girl needs a new pair of shoes,” she exclaimed happily.

“Oy!” barked Spike. “You don’t need new shoes. You’ve got a thousand of them!”

“And we spent all that time looking at pants...Buffy you should have told me you wanted to go shoe shopping!” replied Anya.

“Oh I needed a new pair of leather pants too Anya.”

Spike snorted.

“You be quiet, Mr. ‘I’ve got ten sets of the same outfit’.”
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Buffy stood behind a large ‘Welcome Home Willow and Tara’ sign, her back pressed longingly against her mate’s front, Dawn to her right, bouncing up and down as each passenger from the flight passed by the small congregation of Scoobies.

“I don’t see them!” Dawn moaned.

Buffy craned her neck trying to see over the stream of passengers. Without warning, Spike grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up onto his shoulders. From her new vantage point Buffy could see very clearly all of the passengers as they herded out of the gate.

“Not fair Spike!” whined Dawn.

“Hey! I’m shorter than you...You tall person you,” countered Buffy, from her post atop Spike’s shoulders

“Is that Willow?” asked Xander eager to see his friend, a red head passing by on the other side of the crowd.

“No, Xander that isn’t Willow. It’s that nice lady from whom I purchase fresh herbs to stock at the Magic Box,” Anya replied. “Her son lives in England.”

Xander stared at his ex fiancée for a moment.

“Oh! I see them!” exclaimed Buffy over the tops of her family, and waving her arms ecstatically.

Slowly, Tara and Willow approached the group of well wishers, smiling, but suppressing yawns, only to be massively group hugged. There was greetings and ‘missed you’s, Dawn rambled on about her driving skills for a while, while Xander tried to tell Willow about everything that had happened that summer, even though they’d already discussed everything in detail over that invention called the telephone.

Spike stood off to the side, having let Buffy down from her perch, and watched with envious eyes the Scooby huggage that was taking place before him. His girls were happy now that their favourite witches were home again.

Imperceptively, Tara broke away from the group and hugged the vampire with a smile on her face.

Awkwardly, Spike looked down at the blond hugging him. The blond that wasn’t his mate.

“Uh? Glinda?”

Nervously, Tara backed away and smiled. “Missed you Spike.”

Spike smiled back, to find himself wrapped in his mate’s arms again, her hundred watt smile lighting up the small corner of the airport that they were standing in.
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Luggage picked up from the circular conveyor belt, the Scoobies stood trying to figure out transportation details. Dawn wanted to ‘key’ home, Anya could teleport, but with luggage and extra bags that still meant that the rest of them were going to be squished just like they had been on the way to the airport.

“I’ll find my own way home,” noted Buffy, drawing some interesting looks from the crowd. “Seriously! I can get home on my own. This is Sunnydale? Everywhere can be walked to?”

After some hemming and hawing Buffy’s proposal was agreed to, leaving Dawn, Anya and Buffy standing in the lobby of the airport.

“Well good luck with the walking,” noted Dawn heading for the nearest door.

Anya and Buffy watched the teen walk away, waiting for her to be out of sight before speaking.

“Are you ever going to tell them that you can teleport yourself?” asked Anya.

Buffy shrugged. “It’s just never came up.”

“This isn’t coming up?” questioned Anya, before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Buffy clapped her hands loudly, creating a flash of light, and disappearing from the airport lobby.
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tbc...