~*~
Part 2
~*~
 
Buffy couldn't see the pair now sitting side by side at her mother's grave.  Couldn't hear them either, but that was because they had grown silent, deep in their own separate thoughts.
 
She was surprised at how close her sister seemed to have become to the annoying vampire.  Sure, Dawn had always had a soft spot for Spike, but this was something more than Buffy remembered from before... before...
 
She wished she weren't so damned angry all the time.  It seemed the only moments when she didn’t want to lash out at her friends and family were when she escaped into Spike's company.  From the day she gasped and clawed and struggled her way out of that coffin, she had only been able to feel bits of peace with him.  'I belong with the dead; that must be why.'
 
'He seems to think I can be loved back to life.  I think he must have watched too many of those dopey soap operas.'  That was Spike, though, if she gave it much thought.  Seemed he had two settings--"kill" or "love”--and his impulses for both were pretty much equal.  'He loved Dru longer than anybody I've ever heard of.' Weird as it seemed being coupled with psycho Dru, the love Spike had shown for his Dark Princess had been real.
 
'Wonder what that would be like?  To be loved that intensely by someone who never leaves?'  Buffy used to be like that herself, loyal to the end and filled with love.  When had that died?  Now all she felt was numb--well, numb with a double side order of angry.  She'd been trying to drown that anger with buckets of her abundant numb for weeks and so far it was keeping her from doing violence towards her nearest and dearest. 'So, hey, win!'
 
'So tired!  Just getting up each day and slapping a smile on my face takes too much energy.'  She was sick of the hopeful looks on everyone's face.  Looking, always looking!  Needing, constantly needing. What did they want to see anyway?  'They want to see me happy.  See me grateful.  They want the old Buffy back.'  The old Buffy lay in that grave her little sister and her vampire sidekick were sitting next to.  'I can't do this, Mom.  I can't deal.  I just want to go to sleep and not wake up.’ She felt a tear slip down her cheek in an all too familiar and frequent path.
 
Her mom had been her anchor.  Much more than a good mom and her friend, she had been the only true normal and constant in Buffy's life.  Even her little sister was originally a glowing green ball of energy.  None of her friends except Xander had any claim to normal and his years with her had made that iffy.  She had no safe harbor after her mother died.
 
'Well, I have felt a little safe in that stupid crypt lately,' she grimaced as the thought crossed her mind.  'See, nothing normal, not even what I call a safe place.  Maybe a crypt is normal for someone supposed to be dead.'
 
Willow was so smug and self satisfied.  She was acting like she was not only the best thing since sliced bread, but as if she had invented bread in the first place!  Every time Will asked how Buffy was doing and didn't get the kind of response she felt was owed, the frown lines grew deeper.  'I don't know why she's so proud.  She didn't even have sense enough to dig me up before dragging me back here.'
 
It wasn't just Willow that made her angry.  Tara and Xander hadn't even suggested Willow look to see where Buffy really was or if she wanted to return.  They had assumed she was in hell!  'Why would they think my soul was in hell?  My body was right there in the grave, so I didn't just jump dimensions.  Why would my soul be in hell?'
 
Anya and Dawn weren't exempt from the ire either.  Anya was no amateur; she knew more than a little about magic and dimensions.  She had been a demon for a long time and had to know about the negative side of resurrections.
 
And then there was Dawn...needy Dawn...loving Dawn...frightened Dawn...abandoned, orphaned Dawn.  She looked at her little sister and instead of the overwhelming love she used to feel all Buffy saw now was an anchor.  Dawn was the one thing that tied her to this life. 'If I wasn't back here, who would save her every bloody Tuesday?'  Buffy wished she could feel something, anything, other than the anger and despair that were her constant companions.
 
She had tried to lean a bit on Giles, like letting him handle Dawn after the vampire boyfriend incident.  He made it pretty clear that he didn't want to be Buffy's leaning post. 'How am I supposed to know how to be a parent to a teenager?  Giles has been doing it for me and the whole gang for years; he's been good at it.  Why does he suddenly want to abandon me like my real dad?'
 
Maybe the worst part was being angry at herself.  Being Depresso Girl with a walking death wish who only finds peace with her ex-mortal enemy had to say something about her, something not good.  'Maybe that's why heaven didn't want me.'
 
 
 
***
 
 
"So why don't you come see me anymore?" Dawn turned her Bambi eyes on Spike.
 
Spike didn't want the girl he'd come to love to know that he had been pretty much forbidden to visit her by Buffy.  Better he just give the reasons Buffy had given to him, even if his heart knew it was all bollocks.  "You're human, Bit, case you've forgotten.  Not even a mystical Key anymore.  Need a nice, normal life with nice, normal people around you.  Don't need to be hangin' ‘round cemeteries and crypts with an old vamp likely to corrupt you."
 
"That is so lame, Spike!"  Dawn stood up and glared down at him.  "You used to care about me.  I know you weren't faking it.  When Buffy was gone and no one else could even look at me, you were there telling me it wasn't my fault she was gone."
 
He couldn't look at her.  He could hear her tears and that was bad enough without having to see them.  "Still care.  If I didn't, I'd not put what's best for you first."
 
Dawn sniffed back a sob.  "You took care of me, made me feel safe and like I mattered.  You never looked at me like you wished I had been the one to not come back from that tower, like I shouldn't be."
 
It was all Spike could do not to pull the tearful girl onto his lap and console her as he had many a time during the dark days of summer.
 
"Sure, Willow and Tara moved in, but nobody even wanted to look me in the eye for a long time.  Tara cooked and Willow magicked the house clean.  They should have let Anya take care of the bills, I guess, since it looks like that got forgotten just like me."  She wished Spike would at least look at her.  "You were the only one who saw me, who made sure I knew I mattered.  That seemed glad I was alive."
 
"They're all happy you're alive, Bit.  You're a right piece of sunshine," Spike tried to reassure her. 
 
"So why did you stop caring?"
 
He couldn't do it.  Buffy would likely run a tree branch through him but he just couldn't let his Niblet think she didn't matter.  "Never stopped caring, never will.  Just tryin' to do the right thing by you.  Knowin' what that is may not come natural to me.  Hard on me too, Bit." He stood and gathered the drippy girl to his chest as he had longed to do again for so long now.  "Don't have to be right there to love you."
 
"But it's like you've forgotten all about last summer."
 
"Remember that line in the TV show we binge-watched?  “Robin of Sherwood”, bloody brilliant, that was; kept us both watchin' till we'd seen 'em all."  Dawn nodded and smiled at the memory.  "Remember when Robin said, 'nothin's forgotten, nothin's ever forgotten'?  Well, that's true. When you love someone, you never forget, even if you never see each other again."
 
"Wait," Dawn sounded panicked, "Are you trying to tell me you're going away?"
 
Spike shook his head, "No!  Not gonna leave.  I stay till I'm forced out or dust."
He placed a gentle kiss on Dawn's head.  "Just want you to know that it doesn't take my bein' in your pocket to mean I think 'bout you, care 'bout you, love you."
 
God, how he wished Buffy would let him at least drop by from time to time!  It was harder than he had ever imagined being kept away from this girl. 
 
"We kept each other sane this summer," Dawn reminded him.  "You and me.  We were the ones blaming ourselves for Buffy being gone."
 
"Told you then, wasn't your fault!" Spike shook her gently.  "I was the one broke my promise.  I was the one didn't get the job done.  I'm the one didn't check to make sure that bugger Doc was dead good and proper.  I'm the one didn't take the bastard down with me when I fell from the bloody tower."
 
The two now silent figures clung to each other in shared guilt and memories of grief.
 
*** 
 
Buffy was near to tears herself listening to them.  She'd been so sure she was right to insist Spike stay clear.  Seems the peace she felt in his company was something Dawn had also felt while she was dead.  'I've ripped her from her peaceful place just like they ripped me from mine.  I didn't know they were that close.  I never wondered what it was like for them with me gone.'
 
Had she really done to her little sister what had been done to her?  Had she pulled Dawn from her place of peace by keeping her away from what looked to be her closest friend? Something broke deep inside Buffy at that thought. Perhaps it was a bit of the ice she had carefully packed around her heart since her rising.
 
Whatever had happened to draw those two together was strong and important.  'Maybe I should let Spike drop in sometimes.  Dawn might stop walking around looking as sad as I am.'  Buffy felt a small stirring of the old feelings of love and care for her little sister.  It was a start.
 
'Funny how easy Spike could be to talk to,' Buffy remembered how he had been the only one she had told the ugly truth to.  'Back a week and the only one I could be honest with was the one we all tried to push away for years.'  Maybe it was because she knew he had nothing to do with the resurrection.  Maybe she knew he could take it.  'No, that's not it.  I didn't even tell Angel where I'd been and he had nothing to do with it either.'    Maybe it was because she didn't care as much if she hurt Spike with dark truths. 'That's not it either.  Guess he can just be easy to talk to and, in some weird way, I can trust him.'
 
She'd given Spike a powerful weapon to use against the Scoobies, people he mostly hated.  All he had to do was tell them where she had actually been, why she was so sad being back and it would devastate all of them.  'I knew he wouldn't do it though.  He promised and he's good at keeping his word,' she thought in surprise. 
 
She turned her ears again to the two murmuring beings standing at her mother's grave and wished she had enhanced hearing not for the first time.  At least Dawnie had stopped crying, but from the looks of her face. the waterworks had been heavy while Buffy had been lost in thought.  'Spike's shirt must be sopping.'
 
 
***
 
"So, thought we were here to visit Joyce, share a meal?" Spike prompted.
 
"Yeah," Dawn brightened. She pulled out a slightly crushed box from the bottom of her bag. "I brought wings, extra picante like you like them."
 
Spike smiled and took the box from her.  "Never could get Joyce to see the true beauty of extra cayenne pepper."
 
Dawn laughed at the memory of one time when Spike had brought wings on a visit with her mom and her while Buffy was off at college.  "Mom's ears turned bright red when she took a bite," she giggled.  "I never saw her drink do much water in my life!"
 
"Coughed a fair amount too," Spike grinned. "Game lady, your mum.  Always willin' to give a bloke a chance."
 
"You know she looked forward to you dropping by.  She was kinda lonely when Buffy headed off to college and it was just me and her there all the time."
 
"She was proud of Buffy, don't forget that," Spike reminded her.  "Always hard when the chicks leave the nest, so I've been told."
 
"Still she loved you dropping by."  Dawn swatted playfully at Spike's arm, "She knew you stole those flowers you'd bring.  She always felt guilty taking them until I lied and told her you just stole them from graves on the way over."
 
Spike looked affronted, "Never give grave flowers to a lady like Joyce!  Stole 'em from the best florist in this hell-hole of a town!"
 
"She just liked having a grownup to listen to her sometimes.  I never cared about all the art stuff she wanted to share, but you two could make it sound interesting, just like you did about that painting down in Mexico."
 
"I 'preciated her listenin' skills too.  Bloke needs an ear from time to time, one without a stake tucked up somewhere hidden."
 
Dawn swallowed her bite of hot wing and looked around carefully, "Do you think Mom's here with us, Spike?"
 
"Not really." He felt guilty seeing Dawn's crestfallen face.  "I think Joyce is gettin' fed fat grapes by angels--the real kind, not that ponce in L.A. She's up in heaven, just like a fine lady like her deserves.  Not gonna hang around a graveyard mixin' with the evil undead."
 
Dawn looked a bit less upset with the image of her mom being pampered in paradise.  "Think she knows we're even here?"
 
"Now that I do think," Spike said reassuringly.  "She'd never stop lovin' you either.  Like I said before, don't have to be right there.  Wouldn't want to pull her away from such a nice place, would we?" 
 
Buffy noticed the pained look on Spike's face as he made the comment and knew he was thinking about her as he said it.
 
"I'd love to see her again and hug her, tell her I love her.  But, no, you're right.  I'd never want to drag her back here, that would be selfish."  Dawn shuddered as she remembered having thought to do just that in the immediacy of her grief when her mother had died.
 
"Least you'll get to see her again," Spike said softly.  "Not gonna happen for an evil creature like me."  He hugged Dawn tightly and blinked back tears he had no intention of showing in front of the girl.  "You're gonna have to give my hug to her yourself a long time from now when you get there with her.  Maybe give you a list of a few others."
 
"Maybe you'll get to do it yourself, Spike.  You're not really evil much, haven’t been for a long time.  At church, they say everybody can be forgiven for anything," Dawn looked up at him with hope in her eyes.
 
Spike, on the other hand, looked rather bleak.  "'Fraid I lost all chances of that a few hundred killin's ago or more."
 
Dawn folded her arms in front of her and gave him a determined look, "Well, I refuse to believe that! I won't give up on you and I won't let you give up on yourself either."
 
Spike let out a short laugh, "You do that, Bit. Who knows, if an evil sod like me can win the love of a pure soul like you and the regard of a fine lady like Joyce, I might just live long enough to at least try for that forgiveness."
 
Buffy was startled at the idea that Spike, who still claimed loudly and often to be evil, might actually want forgiveness, much less realize he needed it to begin with.  Then again, the whole conversation she'd been listening to had been one surprise after another.
 
She had already had to grudgingly admit that Spike was capable of love, maybe not healthy romantic love, but it was clear he had the whole friendship kind of love down pat.   ‘Actually, it’s more like family.  He’s acting like a brother to Dawn,’ she realized to her shock.