Chapter 25: Mac and Cheese

Dawn stepped out of Graham’s closet, and leading Graham out before shutting the door behind her. She had to be extra careful now to make sure that she shut the door behind her all the time. She stared at the closet door for a moment before turning to face the boy.

“I’m so sorry,” she said trying to keep her tears back. She usually prided herself for being strong, for not letting tears fall too often, but for some reason today, with all that happened the last few days, and possibly from lack of blood, she was just too emotional.

Graham sighed. “Have you set me free?” he asked. “Or should I expect to find myself tied to a post or a chair again soon?”

Dawn shook her head. “You’re free. I won’t come after you again. And I’ll make it so no one else does either. I am sorry. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. You were the only one I knew who could get us the answers we needed.”

“I’m in the army Dawn, I’m trained to deal with interrogation.”

“Doesn’t make what I did to you right,” Dawn answered.

“You’d thought I’d betrayed you. I understand that,” he said. “I didn’t.”

“I believe you. I believe that you didn’t know that I was one of the demons you were tracking. I believe you thought I was totally innocent. Too bad I wasn’t exactly innocent.”

“I should have heeded Riley’s advice,” Graham tried to joke. “Never get involved with a Summers’ girl.”

“Wise advice,” Dawn sighed sadly. “Spike says that occasionally. Too bad he’s marrying one.”

“You know what?” he continued, “I’m glad I did get involved. The dimension hopping not withstanding. You’re a special girl Dawn. I didn’t want to break up with you. I had hoped that after the project you’d forgive me for breaking your heart.”

“The project is over now…”

“The explosion finished that off.”

“Right,” she responded, disappointed with his response. Dawn knew that she was still in love with him, but with everything that’d happened, she was pretty sure that any relationship with him would be wrong right now. Still she had hope that maybe some day...

It was time to get back to normal now though. Normal didn’t involve boyfriends whom you once kidnapped and had tied to a chair. Unless you were Buffy.

With quick steps, and before she lost her nerve, Dawn stepped towards Graham and planted a kiss on his lips. Then, equally quickly, she opened the closet door again, disappearing from his room.
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Buffy knew she was worried about Dawn. Even as she tried to concentrate on feeding the people in her house, burning the mac and cheese she was making in the process, she wondered if she was going to have to mount another rescue attempt.

Then Dawn entered the house through the back door. Tears were running down the teen’s face. Forgetting the new pot of mac and cheese, Buffy rushed to hug her little sister. The tender moment lasted only as long as they remained in the kitchen alone together. Nate entered the room, breaking up the hug. He immediately wanted to know what had possessed Dawn to do what she did.

“I don’t have to answer to you, Nate. Graham was my hostage. I kidnapped him. I decided I wanted to set him free. It’s over. I won’t have his freedom on my conscience.”

“I hope you know what you’ve done.”

“I do hope he takes your gesture in the proper spirit,” noted Giles, behind Nate. “I hope he doesn’t go straight to the military.”

“He won’t,” Dawn noted, resolutely. “He wouldn’t do that.”

The men watched in silence as Dawn brushed past them and made her way upstairs. Buffy knew that she needed time alone. Buffy wanted to have some words with her men folk.

“You two are possibly the most unfeeling, gits. Have you no feelings? Do you not know just how hard this has been for her? You don’t seem to realise that Graham was her first real boyfriend. Giles, you know just how torn up I was when Angel turned on me. You couldn’t have the same compassion for her?”

“Like that situation, Buffy, I might remind you that Graham’s organization threatened to destroy us all,” Giles responded.

“Watchers have never been known for their compassion towards the hearts of the young,” Spike mentioned in passing the door, on his way down to the basement. “Bit say she did laundry? I thought I heard about laundry and finding a head?”

Buffy nodded, only to groan when the smoke detector went off yet again, announcing the burning of Buffy’s second pot of mac and cheese.

“Oh please, Buffy,” came Tara’s voice from the living room, “let me make dinner?”
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Full from Tara’s mac and cheese, the assembled Scoobies, minus Amy and Dawn, sat around the dining room table, staring at the bag that Dawn had found on the front porch. They all eyed it with distrust.

“I think we should take it outside and burn it,” Xander offered. “It was left here during the house incident. It can’t be full of the good.”

“We shouldn’t open it in the house,” Willow mentioned.

Giles nodded.

“The question is, who left it?” Nate asked.

They all looked around the table, each of them unable to answer it.

Well, except for Buffy. She knew. But with Nate and Molly there, she didn’t want to go into too much detail. Her, I’m from the future thing was still well hidden from then, she thought. Buffy stood up from her chair and leaned forward, looking around the table. Then, Buffy pulled the bag forward, its leather sliding easily across the table. She grasped the sides of the bag and forced it open, earning a gasp from the people sitting around the table.

“You were certain that it was safe?” Giles asked his slayer, once it was clear that nothing vicious was going to pop out of the bag.

“Yes,” Buffy answered. “I knew.”

“How?” Xander asked.

Buffy didn’t answer, she just raised an eyebrow at him, an unspoken dare to challenge her.

“Right,” Xander said, resting his back against the dining room chair.

“Oh!” Willow exclaimed clueing in as Tara smiled.

“You could have just mentioned that little tid bit when Dawn was convinced that mmm cookies’ spawn was in there,” Anya griped. “Now she’s got me saying it!”

“I seem to be out of the loop,” Molly muttered. “Nothing new there, though.”

Buffy shot a sympathetic smile to the junior slayer and pushed the bag towards the watchers. “You two probably want to check all this stuff out. Just let Molly and I know when you want to do the thing.”

“The thing?” Giles questioned.

“Yeah. This is slayer stuff. Robin Wood dropped it off. His mom was the Slayer Nikki Wood. She was a Slayer in the 1970s.”

“Ah, bugger, the one I offed?” Spike groaned.

“The very same. Don’t worry about it, Spike,” Buffy continued, looking at her fiancé, “he’s not going to take revenge. Or if he tries, he’s going to regret the decision.” Buffy smiled. “What I suggest,” she continued to the rest of the group, “is that, Tara and Willow set up some wards over the house, just the basic, warning bells and whistles, Giles and Nate, you can do the watcher thing with the bag of slayer goodies, Xander, you can make up beds for those that don’t normally live here. Molly, go to bed.”

Molly slapped her hands down on the table and stood up. “That is something I can do.” The British Slayer walked out of the room with a weary trudge.

“She’s a good kid,” Spike remarked.

“Yeah, she really is,” Buffy remarked with pride.

Xander followed Molly up the stairs for fresh linens and the two witches set about to cast some protection wards.

“And what are we to do, love?” Spike asked, catching Buffy’s eyes.

“You, my darling vampire, are going to feed, and then you’re going to bed too. No late night TV watching. I’m going to the high school tomorrow to pick up Dawn and Molly’s missed assignments and then we are going to talk about the Slayer goodie bag,” Buffy explained.

“Don’t you think that you should get some sleep too?” Giles asked, holding open a book and flipping through the pages.

“Oh I will, when everyone is settled.”

“I call the couch!” Anya declared.

Buffy glared at her friend.

“What?”

“You have a place in Arashamahar that you can go to! You don’t need to take up valuable bed space here,” Buffy countered.

Anya pouted. “But I want to be with Giles, on the couch….”

It was then that Xander thumped down the stairs and back into the dining room. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, and pray that there is an ample supply of ear plugs in this house.”

“They’re in the medicine cabinet upstairs,” Spike said, chuckling to himself. “Even I need them when I want a peaceful mid day vamp nap.”

“That was only that one time, and seriously, it wasn’t Dawn’s fault. She didn’t know you were home!” Buffy protested, defending her sister.
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Buffy walked into the school’s administration office and asked to see the principal with a big smile on her face. Even after a year being in her past self, she still felt weird knowing things and yet knowing that she shouldn’t know. Like the fact that she knew the secretary’s name was Brenda and that she was getting married in a month.

Robin Wood appeared smiling at first, but when he saw Buffy, his smile disappeared.

“Thanks for the bag you dropped off, by the way,” Buffy said following him to his office.

“I figured it was yours now.”

“Oh, it is. But I thought you wouldn’t give it up without a fight, or at least some hair pulling,” Buffy noted.

Robin ran his hand over his clean shaven head for a moment, and it took Buffy the time to watch that action before she realised her mistake. Instead of apologising, realising that she would just make it worse, Buffy shrugged.

“I came to get Molly and Dawn the assignments that they’ve missed. We’ve had quite the harrowing couple of days, but they are ready to start thinking about coming back to school. That is, if things stay the way they are right now.”

Robin exhaled harshly.

“Oh, don’t you tell me that if they can do homework, they can come back to school. Molly is a slayer, who’s been going above and beyond for a while now. She needs rest. And Dawn probably needs another blood transfusion. I’ll be keeping them both home until I am certain, as their guardian, that they are healthy enough to come back.”

“Are you threatening me, if I call children’s aid?” Robin said with that authoritative principal voice of his.

“Did you hear me threaten you?” Buffy asked sweetly.

“It was implied.”

“Implication is a matter of interpretation. Now, homework.”
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Dawn was sitting at the breakfast table, staring at her toast, coated with peanut butter, instead of eating it, when Buffy returned from the school. Buffy plunked down her history textbook next to her glass of orange juice.

“You didn’t,” Dawn groaned.

“I did. And after I get some blood into you, you are going to read chapter 5 and make detailed notes,” Buffy informed her sister.

At the other end of the table, Molly looked at Dawn with sympathy.

“Oh, I got you homework too,” Buffy informed the Slayer. “You have a science lab to do, and a short narrative story to write and four pages of algebra.”

“All she gets is history notes?” Molly whined.

“No,” Buffy laughed. “But we must not stress out she who needs blood,” Buffy mocked whispered.

“I think that’s a bloody brilliant idea for any person, not just of the female gender,” Spike growled, walking into the dining room, bleary eyed. He passed Buffy and placed a quick peck on her cheek before heading to the kitchen.

Buffy turned her attention to her sister and caught the teen’s eye. “Finish your breakfast,” Buffy ordered before heading into the kitchen following Spike.

“I’m worried about her,” Buffy noted, whispering as she and Spike hovered around the fridge. “She doesn’t look, well, like Dawn. It’s a mope fest in there.”

Spike stood behind his slayer and wrapped his arms around her in a protective gesture. “Give her some time, love. She’s got to be hurting. And you are right, she does look drained. She’s had her heart rebroken.”

“How did you get so smart?” Buffy asked playfully, turning around and giving Spike a kiss.

“Must be that great Oxford education.”

Buffy knew that Spike was truly concerned for Dawn, but he was trying to keep her calm. This whole keyness thing was something that they were all still getting used to and if Dawn kept it up, she was going to need transfusions of Buffy’s blood for the rest of her life.

But what if I die? came the Slayer’s next thought.

Spike felt Buffy go rigid in his arms for a moment and knew that something was wrong.

“Love?” he asked softly.

“What if I die?” Buffy whispered back. “Dawn needs my blood.”

“You aren’t going to die, Buffy,” Spike said firmly. “You’re going to live until this body is 122 years old.”

“You don’t know that. I’ve changed the past. I’ve messed up the future. Nothing is certain.”

“I am certain.” Spike leaned in and kissed her, cutting off anymore predictions of doom.

They were still kissing when Dawn came in to put her plate in the sink. Unfortunately for Dawn they were making out in front of the sink, so the Key just rolled her eyes and set her plate down on the island before heading upstairs to be one with her pillow.
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Tbc…