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When Dawn woke up the next morning – in her own bed for the first time since Spike had come home – she immediately headed downstairs to find he sister, a sense of nervous excitement fluttering in her stomach at the thought that today, they would carry out their plan to prove once and for all, beyond all doubt, that Xander was the one who had hurt Spike.

And from there, she thought with grim satisfaction – they could proceed to the punishment.

“Buffy?” she called loudly as she made her way down the stairs. “Where are you?”

Her sister did not answer – but as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw the answer to her question – Buffy and Spike, nestled close together on the sofa, talking quietly. Dawn opened her mouth to repeat her greeting – and then hesitated when she noticed the solemn, intense expressions on their faces.

She had no idea what they had been talking about, but she suddenly thought better of interrupting the conversation.

She turned silently on the stairs, making her way cautiously back up them, trying not to draw their attention in the process – but failing in the attempt.

“Morning, Dawnie,” Buffy’s unusually soft voice stopped her, and she turned back toward her sister and her friend with a sheepish, apologetic smile.

“Morning,” she replied a bit awkwardly. “It -- *is* still – morning, isn’t it?”

Glancing at her watch, Buffy smirked. “Just barely.”

Dawn’s curiosity got the better of her, now that she had her sister’s permission to be there, and she asked a bit uncertainly, “Is – everything okay, Buffy?”

Buffy’s smile was a bit wavery, as if she was either on the verge of tears, or had just finished crying, as she nodded and reassured her, “Yeah. Everything’s great, Dawnie. We’ve just been – talking – catching up a little – you know?”

“Uh…*huh*.” Dawn replied with understandable skepticism, considering the fact that when she had gone to bed the night before, Spike had not really been all that capable of carrying on a normal conversation, let alone one involving his almost completely forgotten past…

Her eyes suddenly widened with hopeful excitement. “Wait – are you saying – does he *remember*…?”

Buffy’s nod was punctuated with a brilliant smile. “Yes,” she replied. “He’s remembering a lot of things – you know, in bits and pieces,” she clarified with a shrug. “But – Angel helped him a lot last night…”

“Whoa…what…*Angel*?” Dawn was not quite sure how she felt about the older vampire who had played such an important part in her older sister’s life – but she was stunned that Buffy would have allowed him to spend much time with Spike at this point.

Her sister could be very possessive when it came to things like this.

“It’s a long story – I’ll fill you in – but…he’s talking a lot better…and he’s remembering things…”

“And also,” Spike broke in softly, to the surprise of both girls, a slightly ironic smile of amusement on his face, “he’s – sitting right here.”

“Oh my gosh!” Dawn squealed in a sudden, breathless rush, crossing the distance between the foot of the stairs and the couch in an instant. “Spike, you’re really back! Oh, wow, this is *so* cool! I can’t believe…”

Her excited outburst suddenly broke off when Spike flinched slightly at he sudden approach – and then immediately winced at the hurt expression on her face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, shaking his head in disgust at his own reaction. “So sorry, love…I just…I mean…I’m just a bit…”

“Confused,” Buffy supplied for him softly, the expression on her face tender and sympathetic as she ran a gentle hand through his tousled hair in a reassuring gesture of comfort. “Overwhelmed.”

Spike nodded, looking down at his lap and swallowing hard, trying to control the emotions that had been engulfing him all morning, in the wake of so many old memories, all of which seemed so very new to him. Without another word, Buffy pulled him gently into her arms, holding him for a few moments, soothing him.

Dawn stared at them for a long moment, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes, but setting her jaw against allowing them to show, as she turned and started toward the kitchen. “I’ll just – I’m just gonna get…”

“Dawn,” Spike’s voice was slightly raspy with tears – but so much more like the old Spike she remembered than she had heard him sound yet. As he spoke, he reached out and caught her hand in his, without pulling away from Buffy’s embrace.

Dawn turned to see him looking up at her with wide, pleading blue eyes. “Need you, Dawnie,” he assured her softly. “Please – don’t be mad – don’t go…”

Touched by his simple plea, and the sincerity she saw in his eyes, Dawn immediately relented, turning back toward him fully and moving in close, putting her arms around him so that he was surrounded on all sides by the loving embrace of “his girls”.

The feeling of safety, certainty, in the midst of his confusion, was almost more than Spike could take – but it filled him with a sense of relief and reassurance, and he clung to both girls, his head bowed, as he allowed his tears to flow silently, unchecked, down onto his lap.

“Shhh,” Buffy soothed him, one gentle hand at the back of his head, cradling his head close to her chest. “It’s all right. I know it’s got to be so confusing, Sweetheart. So many memories – and so many new things – and it’s gotta be so hard to even tell which is which right now…”

Spike nodded firmly, without saying a word, sniffling back tears as he indicated that her assessment of what he was experiencing was pretty much right.

“But I want you to know this, Spike,” she whispered, yet loud enough that Dawn could hear her, too. “We love you – more than you can possibly imagine. And – I know a lot of those memories aren’t good – especially – a lot of your memories of *me* -- and if I could take them back, I would – you have to know that…but I can’t…”

Buffy paused, resisting the impulse to meet her sister’s narrowed, questioning eyes, over Spike’s bowed head – focusing instead on getting her message through to him.

“…I just want things to be better, from now on. I just want to – to help you get better Spike, and I promise not to ever hurt you again, Sweetie. I want you to know that – all that’s happened to you – you *didn’t* deserve it. It was *not* your fault – and I’m *not* going to let it happen again. You’re safe here. Me and Dawnie – we won’t let anything happen to you, anyone hurt you…after tonight, no one will ever touch you again that you don’t *want* to touch you, okay?”

Spike nodded gratefully, eagerly accepting those reassuring words, as the last of his tears died away, and he pulled slowly, awkwardly away from the two girls, leaning back against the sofa with a slightly self-conscious little half-smile, his sapphire eyes luminous with his remaining unshed tears.

Dawn was startled at the depth of concern and affection she saw in her sister’s eyes, as Buffy drew back, smiling warmly and reassuringly at Spike as she stood up from the couch.

“You gonna be okay here for a few minutes?” she asked him, nodding with him when he responded in the affirmative. Turning her eyes to Dawn, Buffy said, “Let’s go get some breakfast, Dawnie.”

The younger sister did not feel all that great about leaving Spike alone in the living room, right after such an emotional scene, but when she glanced uncertainly at him, he smiled up at her, his fingers tapping the remote control on the arm of the sofa beside him, in a meaningful little gesture that was encouragingly like the old Spike – and she realized with pleased surprise that he really would be okay while they were gone.

Once they were alone in the kitchen, Dawn turned on her sister.

“Okay – so what the heck happened while I was asleep?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyebrows raised in expectation.

“Angel said he could help Spike – being his sire and all,” Buffy told her, breaking eye contact as she moved to the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs. “So I let him. And – and it seems like it really helped a lot. This morning, he came to me – talking almost like he used to…and asked me about…before…”

“He called me ‘love’,” Dawn recalled with a slow nod, her eyes lighting up with hope. “That means he’s got to be remembering a little, right? Because none of us use that word like that – not even Giles.” Suddenly she frowned, looking back up at Buffy as she asked, “What *about* before?”

“He *does* remember,” Buffy chose to address the first comment, and thereby avoid the second one. “Quite a bit – only, it was all fragmented before. Just bits and pieces that didn’t make sense to him. So – he wanted to know – basically, everything. I sat down with him and told him the whole story, since we met him – and then, some of his own memories started to fall into place, you know? He started getting back -- *more* than bits and pieces.”

Dawn’s eyes widened at the impact of what Buffy was saying. “Thus the huge emotional outburst scene in the living room,” she guessed.

Buffy nodded, turning back to face her sister for a moment before cracking an egg into a pan on the stove. “Times like, six or seven,” she informed Dawn in a slightly weary voice. “Every now and then, something I would say would – would hit him just so, and it’d bring back a ton of stuff, all at once…and some of it was a little – hard to deal with. It’s been off and on tears all morning.”

Dawn frowned thoughtfully, as she began counting off on her fingers, “The chip…Mom…you – leaving…hmmm…” She looked up at her sister with a falsely bright smile, though her eyes were glittering with a dangerous warning. “That’s only like *three* emotional outbursts worth of stuff you could have told him about…I wonder what the rest were all about?”

Buffy studiously ignored her, focusing on the eggs she was flipping out of the pan and onto a plate on the counter.

“What exactly did you mean in there, about all those ‘bad memories’ of you, Buffy?” Dawn asked her, in an almost frighteningly soft voice – and Buffy could not bring herself to turn around and face her.

Much to Buffy’s relief, she was saved from the requirement of answering, by a sudden knock on the kitchen door.

“Wow, they’re early,” Dawn remarked, frowning in surprise at the unexpected interruption.

“No, it’s late,” Buffy pointedly corrected her, still not looking at her as she went toward the door. “It’s already 1:30, Dawnie. You’d better go in the living room and check on Spike, because he’s probably a little scared already, hearing the knock and not knowing who it is. I’ll let them in, and I’ll let you know when your breakfast is ready.”

Dawn glared at her back for a moment, muttering, “Fine,” as she turned and walked out into the living room.

Silently, she added to herself, *But this conversation is *not* over, Buffy…I wanna know what it is that you’re not telling me…*

***********************************


Anya and Giles were at the door – surprisingly, together, Buffy noticed.

“Hey, guys,” she smiled as she stood back to let them in. “Sorry about my state of – um – pajamas,” she shrugged as she returned to the stove, and laid a few strips of bacon in the pan. “We got kind of a late start this morning. We had – kind of a late night.”

“That’s okay, we did, too,” Anya shrugged, and the Slayer noticed that her smile seemed extra bright this morning, and for a change, not the least bit false.

Buffy raised her eyebrows skeptically, looking with confusion between the beaming Anya, and the blushing Giles, who was emphatically clearing his throat in the vengeance demon’s general direction.

“Separately, of course,” Anya added, giving the Watcher a questioning look that was all too obvious. “*Separate* -- late…nights.”

As she was prone to do with most disturbing or unpleasant facts that threatened to make themselves known to her – Buffy blocked it out.

“So we’re prepared to carry out this plan, then?” Giles asked her, focusing firmly on her face, not looking at Anya at all. “All present and accounted for?”

“Not yet,” Buffy replied. “Angel’s not up yet.”

At Giles’ look of alarm and surprise, she clarified, “He spent the night – in the basement! Come on, Giles, I wouldn’t be that stupid twice! He just stayed because he was up late with Spike, and…”

Buffy gave up when she realized that her explanations were not serving to make her Watcher feel much better at all.

“It’s a vampire thing,” she waved it off as she put the finishing touches on Dawn’s breakfast and set it on the island counter. “Anyway – he’ll be up before Xander comes over. He doesn’t get off work until five, anyway. In short, we’re not ready now – but we will be.”

********************************

In spite of Dawn’s not-so-subtle pressing, Spike did not tell her what she wanted to know – the worst of the memories he had just regained involving his past relationship with her sister. He knew that she was concerned, and very protective of him, and wanted only to be sure that no one – not even Buffy – hurt him...but in his opinion, that was all the more reason for him to keep his mouth shut.

The last thing he wanted was to cause trouble between the two most important people in his life.

Actually, at that moment, Spike really wanted nothing more than to be alone – and much to his relief, Buffy had called Dawn into the kitchen at that moment, to eat the breakfast she had prepared for her.

He loved the girl very much, and was grateful for her comforting presence – but at the moment, he just needed to *think*.

The amount of information that he had taken in, both from Buffy’s recounting, and from his own recovering memory, was staggering – and he really just wanted a little bit of time to allow it to sink in.

As Buffy had told him the story of how their relationship had progressed, from mortal enemies, to friends, to not-quite-lovers – it had all gradually come flooding back to him. In a way, it felt like a very vivid dream – a movie of someone else’s life, that he had seen, but was not really a part of at all.

And in another way, it was painfully, excruciatingly real.

Buffy had reassured him, promised him that she loved him, that she had been wrong to hurt him the way that she had, that she no longer meant the cruel things she had said to him over and over again – but a part of him had a hard time believing it.

A part of him could still hear, too clearly, very similar words being spoken by another voice – telling him how worthless and vile and bad he was, how unworthy of anything but suffering.

And Spike had no idea which voice was telling him the truth anymore: Buffy, when she said that she loved him – or the other voice, when it said that he could never deserve that love.

All he knew was that he desperately *wanted* to believe Buffy’s voice, when she told him that she wanted to do nothing but love him and protect him, that she would never allow anyone to hurt him again.

*Stupid,* Xander’s voice echoed in his head, derisive and full of mocking disgust. *Don’t you get it? This is her perfect chance! I told you she’d get sick of your stupid, annoying mistakes – that she’d see how bad and worthless you are – and give you back to me! That’s all she’s doing, Spike! That’s how this day is going to end – she’s going to give you back to me!*

Spike shuddered at the thought, and forced himself to play Buffy’s promises over in his head, clinging to them like a lifeline – desperately reassuring himself that she had meant the things she had said.

*She loves me – she wouldn’t hurt me – she loves me – please – oh, please, Buffy, please *love me*!*