Part III

Someone was in his crypt. He had fallen asleep in his chair but he’d definitely heard someone sneak into his lair. For one slightly mad moment Spike thought it was Buffy. Then sanity returned. The door was still on its hinges, and Buffy wasn’t slamming him into a wall while threatening him with a stake. No. Couldn’t be Buffy.

Harm maybe?

Bollocks. If he’d had any idea how annoying Harmony could be, he never would have become involved with her - not that Harm didn’t have her uses. She was a terribly lovely, nubile, blonde thing. If she sat on his lap and caressed his neck and face and... other parts that could use caressing, he wouldn’t turn her away.

With a slight smile curving his lips upward Spike opened his eyes and saw Dawn sitting on the floor munching Cheetos and watching his television.

"This show is crap," Dawn said as she licked orange stuff off her fingers.

Banishing all erotic thoughts from his head, Spike glared at her. "Never been warned that sneaking into a vampire’s lair, much less watching his telly and eating his snacks, is dangerous? And that show isn’t crap. It’s Passions."

"It’s crap."

Yeah, Spike had to admit it was crap, unredeemable, unwatchable crap, which was why he loved it. Whoever wrote the drivel was a worse writer than he had ever been. And considering how exquisitely awful ‘William the Bloody’s’ writing had been, that said a lot.

Dawn tilted her head slightly. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Probably not. Since you can’t hurt people."

Spike sighed and noticed that muted sunlight streamed through the etched glass transom over the door to his crypt. It wasn’t dark yet so he wasn’t going anywhere. Crossing his arms he said: "Shoot."

"Why exactly do you have a television but not electric lights? I mean, if you have the electricity?"

"Vampires don’t like a lot of light. There’s the ‘bursting into flames’ issue."

Dawn shook her head. "I don’t understand that either. If you don’t like fire…"

"I like fire fine. I simply prefer not to BE on fire."

"Whatever. I still don’t understand why you’ve got like a hundred candles in here. If that isn’t a fire hazard then what is?"

He couldn’t deny the logic of her statement, but he had an explanation. "Fire is danger. It’s exciting. Electric lights? Bah. No romance in them."

Dawn still frowned.

"What now?" he growled.

"How did you ever get anyone to run electricity to a crypt?"

"Bloody hell, did you come here just to annoy me?"

Then Spike frowned. "Why ARE you here?"

She stood, wiping her hands on her jeans, leaving an orange tinted trail on her pants. "I didn’t finish what I came to do last night."

"Which was what? Become someone’s dinner?"

"No, to test if I’m a Slayer."

That got Spike’s attention. He almost laughed, except he could tell that the child was quite serious.

Spike shook his head. "Pet, it doesn’t work like that. It’s the Chosen One, not the Chosen Siblings. One Slayer. Last I looked, the one holding the job isn’t dead."

"But there are two. Buffy AND Faith."

"Far as I know, Faith’s not dead either. Just locked up in the state penitentiary. And even if Faith finally has shuffled off this mortal coil, you wouldn’t be the Slayer. Never heard of Slayers coming in matched sets, and I’ve made it my business to know about Slayers."

Dawn looked at him searchingly. "Have you known many Slayers? Besides Buffy and Faith that is."

"Known a couple." No need to tell the child that he’d killed them. Spike asked: "Whatever gave you this cockeyed idea anyway?"

"It’s not a cockeyed idea!" Dawn protested. "And maybe I am a Slayer. It’s the only thing that makes sense."

Spike shook his head. "Then nothing makes sense. You aren’t a Slayer."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do."

"But-"

"No, buts. I’m old and grouchy and you just broke into my crypt. Stop asking stupid questions."

She glared at him. "If I’m not a Slayer then why are Mr. Giles and Buffy so worried about the Council finding out about me?"

Spike leaned forward. "What do you mean? Those priggish Watchers already know about you now."

"Not everything. Buffy and Mr. Giles are hiding something. Something about me."

"Like what?"

"They’re hiding it from me too. But I heard them talking about it with Mom. They said there was something about me that they had to keep from the council. It has to be that I’m a Slayer. What else could it be?"

That was a question, Spike thought. He looked intently at the child. She looked like an ordinary young girl to him but then that’s the way most Slayers started. Only Dawn couldn’t BE a Slayer.

He’d been telling her the truth - which was really very good of him because he was quite talented at lying - when he said that Slayer status didn’t run in families. Far as he could tell, the powers that be must have decided if a family had to sacrifice one daughter to protect the world, then it wasn’t fair to ask them to sacrifice two.

Dawn didn’t look convinced.

"Alright then." Spike sighed as he stood. "I think I can solve this question once and for all."

Dawn stepped back. "You aren’t going to hit me like you did Tara are you?"

He frowned. "No, I’m not going to hit you. Besides when I hit the little witch I was just trying to prove she wasn’t a demon. If I hit her and it hurt me, she had to be human. A human witch but a human just the same. And no, I don’t need to hit you to prove you’re a Slayer. It doesn’t work that way. What I was going to suggest is that you hit me." His gaze lifted sharply. "That’s why you were in the graveyard last night, wasn’t it? You were looking for some vamps to dust. Didn’t work out so well, did it? So now you’re lookin’ for a vamp with training wheels."

She fidgeted. "Well, yeah. Sort of. You won’t kill me if I mess up."

"So hit me."

Dawn balled up her fist and just stood there... and stood there, and stood there. "Close your eyes," she told him. "I can’t hit you when you’re looking at me."

"Bloody hell."

"Just do it, okay. Please?"

Bollocks. He always had been an easy touch where birds were concerned, even if it was only a fledgling like this one. He closed his eyes, and Dawn socked him in the jaw. He opened one eye. "That it?"

Dawn blinked. "Didn’t that hurt?"

Spike shook his head. "Want to try again?"

She hit him in the stomach.

It still didn’t hurt. He studied her. "Have we learned our lesson now?"

She looked downcast. "I’m not a Slayer?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Well maybe if I hit-"

Spike interrupted her. "The rest of my anatomy is strictly off limits. Vampires don’t hurt easily, but we aren’t impervious to pain and some parts are more easily injured than others."

Seeing the frown marring her pretty little features, Spike felt an odd sensation move through him. Compassion? "Look, little snack, slaying isn’t that good a deal. Short shelf life. You don’t really want to be a Slayer."

"Then what am I?" she asked.

"A fourteen-year-old girl as far as I know."

Dawn shook her head and looked confused. "Then what are Buffy and Mr. Giles hiding about me?"

"That, Nibblet, I do not know." He glanced toward the window. It was now dark outside. "Bloody hell."

"You don’t have much of a vocabulary do you?"

He rolled his eyes. "Beg your pardon, Miss. My gaze drifted toward yonder the window and I find myself somewhat vexed by the discovery that twilight is upon us thereby necessitating I escort you to your humble abode."

Dawn’s eyes widened at his plumy accent. "Do that again."

Falling into the now familiar Cockney cant he had adopted since his death, Spike quipped: "Don’t need t’. Don’t want t’either."

There was a knock on the door.

Dawn instantly looked more alert. "Buffy?" she asked.

"Phfaw! Unlikely," Spike scoffed. "The door’s still on its hinges. Slayer doesn’t knock. She barges in. It’s probably only Harm."

"Harmony!" Dawn squeaked. "She chained me to a wall once."

"Don’t worry about Harm. I can keep ‘er in line."

Spike walked to the door, opened it, and didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to breathe - he was a vampire after all - but he couldn’t have breathed even if he wanted to.

Dru stood there with her long dark hair and an anachronistic wool cloak draped over modern clothing. It had been so long since he had last seen her. Years. It was like a ghost, a memory, a dream had suddenly walked back into his life. It felt unreal, and she looked... she looked...

"Pet!" Spike cried, pain arcing through him as he reached out to touch her. "What has happened to you?"

Drusilla wavered on her feet and fell into his arms. Spike scooped her up in a strangely graceful move as her long cloak enveloped them both and swept dust off the floor. He carried her across the room and gently laid her down as Dru turned her blinking gaze toward Dawn.

"What is that?" Dru pointed to Dawn.

"Nothing. A girl," Spike told her. "No one."

Dru’s bewildered eyes looked at him, cutting him to the quick. "Are you sure?" Again she looked at Dawn and hissed like a cat. "Away with you, you unnatural thing."

"Hey!" Dawn protested. "Who’s the vampire here?"

Hesitantly, Spike touched Dru’s face, her poor ruined face. "Love, what happened to you?"

Dru grabbed his hand between both of hers. "I hurt, Spike. I hurt all over, and you didn’t even do it to me."

"Dearest, who did do this? Tell me and I will kill them where they stand," Spike ardently vowed as he threaded his fingers through her singed hair. "Love, who did this?"

Her dark eyes grew large and looked guileless.

"Not Angel. It wasn’t Angel."

Dawn snapped. "Of course it wasn’t Angel. Angel’s good."

"Dawn!" Spike bit out.

"What?"

"Shut up." He turned back to Dru, holding her hand in one of his while the other remained buried in her hair. "Dru, dearest?"

She closed her eyes. "Wasn’t Angelus either. This was someone different. Someone new."

Spike did his best to concentrate on Dru’s words, to divine their meaning. Under the best of circumstances it was difficult to follow the weird streams and eddies of the logic behind her riddles, but he couldn’t think straight. He was painfully distracted by the burns on her once ethereal face. If Dru was human he would have taken her to the hospital, but she wasn’t human. All he could do was wait and hope that her burns weren’t enough to finish her-that and kill the bugger who had done this to her.

"I thought Daddy had come home." Dru looked as confused as a small child who had awakened from a nightmare but didn’t know what was real and what was dream. "Such a pretty home, dark and dank and filled with death. Soldiers littered the floor with blood and goo. Such a pretty scene."

"Yes, dearest. I understand." Spike still gripped her hand.

"He sat there waiting for us."

"Who’s ‘us,’ Pet?"

"Grandmummy. My daughter."

Dawn shook her head. "She’s nuts!"

Spike ignored the child, and concentrated on his injured love. "Darla is dead, Pet. She has been for quite some time."

Dru smiled. "I know she is. I killed her."

"No, Pet. That’s not how it happened."

"I did kill her, Spike. I did. I held her and drained her and brought her back. It was glorious. Grandmummy came home, and we had such fun. We feasted on lawyers and champagne. They tasted fishy and salty, like caviar."

"Darla?" He couldn’t help but be shocked. Dru sometimes became confused about time, but something about her insistence caught him. After all, Angel had been killed once, sent all the way to hell, and HE had come back. Could something similar have happened to Darla as well? "Are you sure, Pet?"

"Oh yes. Very sure. You can see ‘er too if you want."

Never sure if Dru was gazing into this world or into another, Spike glanced around the room. "Is she here?"

Dru’s eyes grew huge. "Nooooo. She is in the city of angels... in the city OF Angel."

Spike nodded. That would make sense. Darla had always been obsessed with Angel. She had created her own dark prince and had raged against the night and the gypsies who had cursed him with a soul, changing Angelus into the enormous poof Angel. If by some evil twist of fate Darla lived, she would be on Angel’s trail.

Spike’s gaze sharpened and he allowed himself to see the pattern in Drusilla’s words. Angel.

"Angel did this to you." It wasn’t a question.

Dru shook her head. "Not Angel. Not Angelus. Someone different. Someone gray."

"Gray?"

"Not dark. Not bright. Not anything but bitter and cold... like fog in London or mist rolling in off the North Sea. A shadow."

"Angel’s shadow," Spike growled.

"Not An-"

"Not Angel. I heard you, Dru." He had heard and begun piecing it together. "He’s still got his soul, right? So he isn’t Angelus. But if he decided to dirty that soul he wouldn’t exactly be Angel either, would he?"

Dru laid her hand on Spike’s cheek as she nodded. "He sat in shadows and gave such a look. I thought Daddy had come home. Then he dropped his cigarette. Fire, Spike! Fire! Everywhere. It hurts! It burns!"

Spike cradled her against his chest, rocking Dru like a father would a child. "It’s alright, Dearest. The fire is gone." He caressed her cheek, and slowly she calmed, coming as close to sanity as she ever would. "The danger is over, Love," he reassured. "You’re safe. You’re with Spike now."

Dru smiled. "You only hurt me when I ask you to."

"That’s right, Love."

"I didn’t want Daddy to hurt me again... " Dru drifted off to sleep. At least Spike hoped it was sleep. There was little way for him to know. She had no pulse or breath, but then vampires never did. On the other hand she was not dust so that had to mean something.

Dawn crossed her arms. "I don’t believe it."

Spike was actually surprised the child was still there. "You heard Dru as well as I did."

Dawn shook her head. "I heard her say a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense, and I heard you blame Angel. Well, Angel wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t set anyone on fire. Angel is GOOD."

"Except when he’s is tryin’ to destroy the world."

She glared at Spike. "That was Angelus not Angel! And it was only because of that stupid curse the gypsies put on him."

Spike stood and approached Dawn in a menacing way that had sent people screaming for over a century. "Listen, brat," he growled. "I don’t want to go over Angel’s history in gory detail. Let’s just say there’s a lot o’ stuff about the poof that you don’t know and leave it at that."

"If Angel hurt her, it’s because she’s evil!" Dawn said defiantly.

Spike paused, standing half shrouded in shadow. "She IS evil, Nibblet. I thought you knew that. Just as I am evil."

"You aren’t evil anymore."

"I see you have a lot to learn about me, and Angel, and what constitutes evil. But I don’t have time to teach you. It’s time for you to go home."

Spike made it to the door before he glanced back to where Dru lay. He felt more than saw her move. But it reminded him that Dru could wake at any moment and, for a myriad of reasons, he could not leave her alone. Spike looked down at Dawn. "I can’t go with you. I’ll stand here at the door and keep watch until you make it out of the graveyard. If trouble pops up, I’ll take care of it. But it’s early yet. Most vamps aren’t early risers."

When Dawn stepped over the threshold, Spike said: "Wait!" He went to a chest in the corner then returned and handed Dawn a stake. "For luck," he told her then handed her a bottle of water.

"What’s this?" Dawn asked.

"Holy water. It’s come in handy a time or two in the past."

"Uh... thanks, I guess."

"Go home," he instructed abruptly.

"Okay."

"Straight home."

"Okay! I heard you the first time."

Spike stood in the doorway watching the girl walk out of the graveyard into the relative safety of the street with its glowing lights. He didn’t go inside when she left his sight. With his preternatural hearing Spike listened for Dawn’s footsteps long after she had left. He wanted no doubt that Dawn had safely found her way home. When sufficient time had passed he returned to his crypt.

He stood over Dru, watching her rest. How many decades had he done that? Stroked her long dark hair and held her slender body curled against his own as he breathed in her scent of vanilla, sandalwood and antique rose. Dru hadn’t been warm, but she’d been a comfort, a constant, a presence he had not known he could live without.

Sometimes it felt as if Dru was as much a part of him as his hand or arm. When she had left him, it was as if she had cut out some vital organ, leaving a gaping wound. His heart had almost bled dry.

It had been years since Spike had watched Dru sleep. Years since she had left him standing on a street in Brazil. Dru’s sudden reappearance after all this time frightened him and he was not a creature that was easily frightened. It was just that as Dru lay there so mangled and ill used, Spike remembered the oath she had once made him swear.

They had slept in a room overlooking the river Arno as it snaked through Florence, Italy, though when Dru had begged for his promise, shutters had blocked the view. Sunlight had bled through the slats permitting tiny rays of heat and danger to creep across the floor as they lay entangled in one another’s bare limbs.

"You’ll kill me one day won’t you?" Dru had asked.

"What?!" He’d been shocked. "Course I won’t kill you."

"But you have to. There is no one else."

"Love, I promise you. I will never, ever kill you."

She had pouted. "So you don’t love me? Not even a little bit?"

Spike had frowned. "Bloody hell, what do you mean?"

"If you don’t kill me, who will? An angry mob? Some strange Slayer?" Dru had shaken her head. "Angelus killed me the first time. I didn’t like it. Not at all. Don’t want ‘im killin’ me again. He didn’t love me."

Spike had stroked her hair. "You’re immortal, Dru. You never have to die again."

She had looked at him with terrifyingly insightful eyes. "All things die, Spike. Even the things we wish wouldn’t." Dru had sighed and risen from the tangled sheets. "If you won’t kill me, I’ll ask Darla."

"No," catching her hand, Spike had pulled Dru away from the burning rays of light and into the safety of his arms. With his fingers lightly tracing the smooth, alabaster skin of her shoulder he had sworn: "When the time comes no one will touch you but me."

Dru had smiled. "You’re the only one who loves me."

"You know it, baby."

"And you promise to kill me?"

"If that’s the only thing that will make you happy."

Laying her palm flat against his naked chest, Dru had cooed: "I knew I was right to choose you." Then she placed her ear where her hand had been. "Such a strong heart you have, Spike. Sometimes I think I can still hear it beating. Thump. Thump. Thump. Steady and constant and sure. A strong heart. A good heart." Dru had lifted her head and smiled. "That’s why I had to kill it."

That night had been over a hundred years before this one, but the promise hurt Spike as much today as it had then, so he concentrated on watching Dru breathe. It was habit overcoming lack of need. It meant Dru wasn’t dead, and if Spike had any choice in the matter she would stay that way.

After the incident in Prague where he had saved Dru, he had nursed her back to health. He would do so again. That is what he had always done. That was why Angelus had allowed him to live. Angelus had told him that late one night on the isle of Capri in... oh... sometime in the late 1890s.

The night had been a clear deep blue with a fat round moon shining almost as brightly as the sun. The Mediterranean had glittered beneath the white cliffs where he and Angelus had sat watching a naked and laughing Drusilla play in the surf below.

"That was a stupid thing you did in Naples," Angelus had complained. "How many times have I told you to keep to the shadows? Do not attract attention to yourself."

"I like attention," Spike had told him.

"Don’t I know it. Tell me, Spike, why do I let you live?"

"Because you like easy kills and don’t want to challenge someone who might have a shot at beating you." Spike had then shot his grandsire his most obnoxious grin.

"I could take you. Make no mistake about that." Angelus had said it without inflection before gazing down to where Dru stood shimmering in the moonlight. "I let you live because of her. Someone has to look out for the mad creature, and I don’t have the time or the inclination." He had looked at Spike. "But you do. That’s why I allowed you to be made. That’s why I allow you to live."

And that’s all Angelus had ever said on the subject. Not long after that Angelus had been cursed by the gypsies and given a soul. He had become Angel and disappeared from their lives. Spike hadn’t missed him. At least he not until Dru had extracted her deadly promise.

Spike wasn’t sure how, but he had always known the promise had something to do with Angel. Dru had gone into some odd trance then looked at Spike demanding that he be the one to kill her. It had frightened him then. It frightened him now... because Dru knew things. She could see the future. It was part of what had driven her mad. But Spike was determined that this was one promise he would never have to keep.

Besides, Dru hadn’t killed him, had she? Well, yes, technically she had. She had killed William the Bloody on a night long ago, but he hadn’t been thinking about that. Spike was thinking about being left alone on a deserted street in Brazil.

He had offered his heart to Dru for the millionth time. "Just tell me what you want," he had begged.

"I want the Slayer dead, Spike."

But he couldn’t do it. No matter how many times he had tried, he simply couldn’t do it. Not her. Not this Slayer. Not then. Not now. Not ever. When Drusilla had confronted him with that fact, Spike had protested and rationalized, but Dru had seen straight through him. She always did. And then she had said he was ashes to her.

Drusilla, the cornerstone of his existence, had walked away leaving him alone in the dark.

Months later Spike had cried on Willow’s shoulder.

"She wouldn’t even kill me!"

Willow had looked shocked by his words, but Spike had meant them. "She just left me," he had confessed. "She didn’t even care enough to cut off my head or light me on fire. Was that so much to ask? Some little sign that she cared?"

Spike had sat with his head in his hands. "It was that truce with Buffy that did it. Dru said I’d gone soft; wasn’t demon enough for the likes of her. I said it didn’t mean anything. I was thinkin’ o’ ‘er the whole time."

Actually what he had said to Dru had been: "Yes, I made a deal with the Slayer. But you were shaggin’ Angel AND bringing about the Apocalypse to end life as we know it. So? Every couple’s got their ups and downs, Love."

But Dru had ignored his pleas and left him for a Chaos Demon who was all brawn, slime and antlers. After that his life’s path had become a circuitous one that lead him back to Sunnydale and to an infatuation with the Slayer that he could not seem to kick, though God knows he had tried.

Now Dru was back. She was tired and injured and there had been a hint of hopelessness in her voice and Spike couldn’t help feeling that she’d come home to demand that he fulfill his horrific promise.

Well, it wouldn’t work. He’d do whatever he had to do to save her.