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Interlude Due (Evasione)
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"Whoa, Nellie," Buffy muttered as she lay wide-eyed in her bed upon waking. "When did the Powers start getting all Brothers Grimm with the Slayer dreams?" She shook her head and tried to clear her thinking.

"Maybe a little Scrooge Dickens tossed in just to jolly it up. I’m with Scrooge; it was something I ate!"

Buffy got up and toyed with the idea of just staying awake rather than getting yet another lesson from her subconscious or the Powers or her mom … whomever it was playing dream fairy tonight. Introspection was not her strong suit and as uncomfortable as it had been so far, she could easily see why. The truth hurt.

"Let’s see," she began to count the points on her fingers. "So far I’ve discovered that Angel isn’t the guy I always thought he was, or at least I’ve admitted to myself he wasn’t, isn’t, whatever! Riley wasn’t ‘Mr. Normal’ either and that’s of the good because I would’ve broken him if he had been. Kiss dreams of ‘Mr. Normal’ goodbye, ‘cause that’s not even what I really want." She shuddered as she looked down the trail the dream series was winding along. "I just know the next batch of dreams are so gonna feature the bleached blond menace. And I’ve been doing such a great job not thinking about him since he skipped town too!" She didn’t need to be asleep to hear her mother snort over that last lie.

"Wow…talk about fairy tales," Buffy rolled her eyes. "Maybe that first dream got me thinking of fairy tales and that reminded me of Spike calling me "Goldilocks". Naturally, I’ll have to come around to him sooner or later. Jeez, Angel may be too hot, Riley may be too cold, but Spike is SOOO NOT just right!"

Buffy headed downstairs to the kitchen to find some antidote to the inevitable next dream. Maybe bad food combinations would lead to pleasant nightmares of Roglock demons mating or something like that instead of dissecting the latest disaster in her love life history. She deliberately fixed a small plate with every bad mix possible and poured a cup of tea to wash it down.

Pickles joined Kiwi slices as Buffy rooted in the too empty refrigerator. She passed on the day old Doublemeat special with a shudder and moved on to Willow’s collection of left-over Chinese takeout boxes. Perhaps the evilness of week old Kung Po chicken would stave off dreams of sexy, irritating… and gone vampires.

She took her strange midnight snack and went to sit in the living room. Some food, tea and other thoughts to clear her mind and it would be safe to return to bed, or so she hoped.

Still, her mind went over the whole hot/cold/just right images with the three actual relationships in her past. Angel was her polar bear, all pretty to look at and cute to watch…but so deadly to get close to. Carnivore through and through, in spite of the oh so sweet appearance, that was Angel, not just Angelus.

Riley had been a basic black bear. He was a carnivore also, but they could be trained for the circus too. Deadly, on a leash, that was Riley.

What the heck kind of bear did that make Spike? Buffy thought back to the one term paper she actually researched and worked hard to produce. Yeah, that was Spike … a panda! Black and White, looking all cuddly but still dangerous. Funny diet too. Even though the panda was designed to be a carnivore, it ate bamboo mostly. It could be social with its neighbors, more than most other bears. There was even a dispute for a while about whether it even WAS a bear. Some scientists thought it was closer to a raccoon or in a class of its own and only DNA testing proved it really was a bear, after all.

"Yup, that’s Spike, not a man completely, but too much man to be a complete vampire. He eats people food and isn’t always lusting after the human blood. Confusing, compelling, cuddly," Buffy blinked in surprise at the turn of her thoughts. "No…no cuddling of missing vampires…even in my imagination."

Clearly her attempts at avoiding the Spike portion of this night’s entertainment weren’t working. "Stupid Buffy. Just stop helping the dreams along," she chided. "Think about the Droltex you gutted this afternoon and how its breath smelled like rotting fish. Think about Willow off in England learning how to be a good witch instead of one a house might drop on one day. Think about Xander needing a diet. Yeah, that will take all night! Work out Xander’s issues!"

"Whatcha doin?" Dawn’s voice made Buffy jump in surprise. "Um, Buffy, is there somebody here I can’t see that you’re talking to or have you, like, gone all psycho on me and I should start sleeping with knives?"

Dawn was only half joking. In the short time Dawn had been making her own real memories, she’d seen just about everything and wasn’t willing to exclude any possibility.

"No, not loopy, just talking to myself. What, you don’t do it from time to time? It’s a Summers women’s tradition. Learned it from mom herself." Buffy noticed the scrunched forehead of her little sister as Dawn looked at the odd food assortment on Buffy’s plate.

"Is poisoning yourself another Summers tradition? ‘Cause I really, really don’t want to find myself with cravings like that…even if I ever do get pregnant," Dawn said with a grimace. Suddenly her eyes shot open wide and she looked at Buffy in shock. "You aren’t…oh, God, Buffy, am I going to be an aunt? Please tell me Xander didn’t get lucky cause that’s just ewwwww."

Buffy felt herself blush at the suggestion. "No and hell, no. No little bun in the oven and no Xander in the kitchen…ever! Although now I’m not sure if it’s the visuals you just gave me or the stuff I was eating that’s causing my stomach to do the tumbling act."

"Wow," Dawn continued in amazement, "I don’t think I’ve ever even thought of Sauerkraut and Reese’s Cups in the same sentence before, much less on the same plate!"

"I couldn’t decide what I was in the mood for. Besides, I’ve seen some of your experiments; don’t try to tell me you’d never mix stuff like this." Buffy got up and took the offending plate back into the kitchen. "I’m just restless with the house so quiet. That’s all."

"Yeah, I miss everybody too," Dawn admitted. "It seems weird with just you and me here and you aren’t here all the time either with work and patrolling."

"Speaking of me working," Buffy latched onto the topic in desperation. Yes, talking about nice normal things with her sister might just be the ticket out of her too uncomfortable dreamland. "I’m thinking it’s time I start trying to look for some career that doesn’t involve grills and deep fryers. Lorraine is still pissed off at me for just walking out when Riley came back into town. No amount of blackmail is going to move me into management at the Doublemeat and I just can’t see us living off the pay as a regular veggieburger flipper."

"Any ideas?" Dawn hoped her sister’s plans would involve the mall somehow, since it might come with a cool employee discount along with a better wage. "I hear The Limited is looking for help."

"Therein lies danger," Buffy admitted. "My whole salary might just go into buying stuff at my own store! Buffy and temptation are not mixy."

"Well, Hot Topic’s looking too. You could maybe pierce your eyebrow or get a tattoo or something. Maybe there’s still some of Spike’s black fingernail polish…," Dawn broke off at the stricken look on Buffy’s face. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up the evil rapist, Buffy." Dawn put a consoling hand on Buffy’s arm.

Buffy jerked both her head and arm and then bit her lip. "You know, Dawnie, what happened between Spike and me isn’t as simple as Xander’s little story. It isn’t your business and I’d rather not talk about it, at least not now. Besides, Spike’s gone."

"Yeah, but he’ll be back. Spike’ll never be gone for good. He always comes back." Dawn looked at the floor instead of Buffy. "Gonna have to dust him to keep him gone."

Buffy looked at her little sister’s suddenly hard, cold face and decided she would have to do some damage control soon before Dawn started building walls around her heart just as she had. ‘Damn Xander and his big mouth’, she thought. ‘I so didn’t want to have this talk with Dawnie and now I don’t have a choice.’

"Look, Dawn, it’s late and I really don’t want to get into it now. Just know that there isn’t any reason for you to hate Spike or think you have to take sides against him." Buffy could have cried at the look of relief on her sister’s face. "Xander only got it partly right and it wasn’t his place to say anything anyway. Just don’t," Buffy sighed deeply, "don’t work up some big hate or anything, okay? If I wanted you to hate Spike--if I hated him--I wouldn’t have tried to take you to him for protection from Willow right after what happened between him and me."

Dawn knew better than to press for more, at least right then. One day she’d get the whole story out of one of them. "Okay, but if I did have to pick a side, I’d always pick you. You know that, don’t you?" She looked at Buffy so earnestly that Buffy was speechless and could only nod. "I love you, you dork."

"I love you too, even if you’re as annoying as a mosquito most days," Buffy replied as Dawn took a playful swat at her.

Both sisters yawned widely and followed the yawn with a giggle. "Guess we both need more sleep," Buffy suggested.

Dawn smiled and nodded in agreement, "Oh yeah, ‘to sleep, perchance to dream’…"

"God, I hope not," was Buffy’s cryptic reply.