Heading away from the Magic Box that evening, Dawn was so happy she wanted to skip like a little girl. The training session had been exhausting, and she ached in places she hadn't even known existed before, but it had been wonderful all the same. And she knew that she had impressed Spike -- he'd tried to hide his surprise when she picked things up quickly. And the shock on his face the first time she threw him to the floor? Priceless.
The sun had gone down, so Spike had been able to join them on the street instead of using the store's trapdoor to the sewer system. Dawn wrinkled her nose at the thought. I thought vamps all had supersensitive eyes, ears, and noses? Why would they want to hang around in ugly stinkholes all the time?
They made a side trip to Spike's crypt, to pick up his dinner. "Sorry to disappoint you, pet," he'd said to Buffy, "but I'm still a vampire. That human food I've been eating the past couple nights, it's like . . . junk food to me. Tastes good, and keeps me from gettin' hungry, but it can't keep me going. After the workout that one gave me," he said with a jerk of his thumb toward Dawn, "I need the real thing."
Buffy gave him a look. "Just as long as it's not human . . . "
Spike rolled his eyes. "It's pig, you daft bird. Fresh from the butcher shop. 'S what all the vamps in Sunnyhell have to eat these days -- if they don't want to hunt, that is. Some bloke at the hospital finally got wise and started having the blood bank deliveries treated like bank deliveries. Armored car, guards, the works. Eventually, the smart vampires learned to stay away. Being shot can't kill us . . . but it hurts like Hell." He fingered his leather duster. "Hard on the wardrobe, too."
Buffy nodded. "I'd noticed the change in security. I still watch the hospital on delivery day, but it's a lot less intense than it used to be."
Dawn piped up at that point, "Why are you only taking one bag?"
Spike looked at her. "Well, Niblet, even after a workout like that, I'm not about to make a pig of myself. Oh, sod off!" he exclaimed at Buffy and Dawn as they giggled at his unintentional pun.
Dawn continued, "What I mean is . . . shouldn't you take some extra? So you could, well . . . stay at our place now and then? Like you used to, during . . . the summer?"
Spike gave Buffy a hopeful look. "Buffy? It's your house, after all."
Buffy looked back and forth at Dawn and Spike. Dawn could feel the smile growing on her face. C'mon, Buffy, you know you want him to!
Buffy finally held up her hands in defeat. "All right, all right." Then she added, "But I have conditions, Spike."
Spike's eyes were nearly glowing as he said, "Anything, pet."
Buffy held up a finger. "One. When you're in the house, no more tough-punk vamp look. Normal clothes, with colors."
Spike looked like he was about to hit the roof. "WOT?"
"Spike, you saw what happened when Mrs. Kroeger saw you at my house. I managed to stop her report from going in," she grinned at that, and Dawn wondered just what had happened on the day Buffy had turned invisible. "But there'll be others. And no matter how important you become, Spike, Dawn is the most important person in my life."
Spike still frowned, but he nodded. "All right. I'll bring my red shirt for now, and I promise I'll try to find something else . . . civilized. But don't you go buying anything without me, luv! Your taste in clothes is too . . . pink!"
Dawn snorted. Buffy grinned briefly, but then she held up a second finger. "Two. No smoking in the house. You wanna smoke, go out on the porch."
Spike gave her a disgusted look. "Yeah, and what if I get the craving during the daytime? I go out on the porch, I'll really start smoking."
Buffy shrugged. "As you said, my house. My furniture, with no cigarette burns. My lungs, with no cancer. And I want to keep it that way."
She held up another finger. "Three. You. On the couch. Deal with it."
Spike gave Buffy a heavy-lidded look. Then he . . . strolled? Swaggered? Sashayed? Dawn couldn't figure out the right word to describe the cat-like walk he employed to move closer to Buffy, and then he whispered something in her ear. Dawn couldn't tell what it was, but Buffy turned bright red and her eyes looked like they were going to pop out. Then she gave Spike a quick nod.
"Then you've got yourself a deal, luv." Spike said out loud. Buffy blushed even harder.
Dawn ran up to them and gave both of them a hug.
On the way home, Buffy could tell her face was still beet-red. It wasn't that Spike had been overly suggestive with his counter-proposal. But somehow, the vampire she'd once thought of as the Perpetual Peroxide Pest had used that uncanny ability he had to see right through her. He'd simply whispered to her that he'd only stay on the couch until the day he and Buffy made love. "After that, luv, you'll know where I belong. In your bed. With you."
I wish vampires could blush. It would be nice to be able to turn the tables on him, just once!
Then they got home, and all thoughts of Spike went right out of Buffy's head. Willow was waiting at the door, and she said immediately. "Buffy, Giles called. You need to speak with him, right away."
Dawn watched as Buffy dialed the zillion digits that it took to call Giles' home in Bath. Idly she thought, I hope we get to visit him there, sometime. In school they said it's so lovely, with the old Roman ruins and the teashops and everything, it's where English people all go on vacation.
Buffy was saying, "Hello, Giles? What's wrong?"
"A prophecy." Sigh. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Yes, I know about Faith; I was planning to call you and see what you knew about the new Slayer."
"No, Angel wrote me a few days ago."
"Those bastards! I figured they'd try to leave you out in the cold! So what did they find?"
"They can't find her? Why not?"
"Yeah."
Then her eyes widened, and she whispered. "What?"
Dawn got scared, as Buffy seemed to sway on her feet. Spike grabbed a chair for her before she collapsed. And then she got even more scared, as Buffy started looking at her while she continued saying softly, "Giles, please tell me you're joking! It can't be, she's not-"
As she watched, Buffy bit her lip, and began nodding absently. "I see."
"Uh-huh. Spell of Recall."
She finally whispered, "Are you sure, Giles? Really sure?"
Then she set her mouth, and she barked at the phone. "Then get your English butt back here to Sunnydale, right now!"
"I don't care what Watcher tradition says, I don't trust anyone on the Council except you . . . and even you're gonna have to convince me that I can trust you with her, after leaving me like that."
"All right, Giles. If you have to. But remember, you're the only Council member welcome in Sunnydale. You tell them that if anyone besides you shows up here, they go back to England with things tied in knots. Goodbye."
Buffy dropped the handset tiredly, and looked around. "Guys, we gotta call a Scooby meeting, now."
Dawn ran up to her. "What's going on, Buffy? I know you were talking about me, so what's happening? Who's after me this time?"
Buffy only said, "Please wait till everyone gets here, Dawn. If I have to say it more than once . . ."
Dawn turned white. Am I gonna die?
Buffy saw the effect her words had had, and said, "No! Dawn, it's not like that. It's just that . . . I'd hoped that, with Glory gone, you'd be able to have . . . a normal life. Get out of Sunnydale, find yourself a normal guy, and settle down."
Dawn gave her a look. "Right, sis. Like anyone who's been baby-sat by witches, werewolves, and vampires can just go out and have a normal life."
Buffy sighed. "It's just that . . . I know that you have ambitions. And now . . . let's just say, Dawn, that I may have to get used to you being a part of the team."
Dawn was still mystified, but she nodded. "Okay. I guess I can wait till Xander, Anya, and Tara get here-"
Buffy suddenly interrupted, "Tara! Oh my gosh! Giles said I should have Tara look something up!" And she turned back to the phone and started dialing.
After Buffy's phone call, Tara said she'd take five minutes to look up the Spell of Recall and then burn bunions all the way to the Summers house.
It took her only minutes to find it:
Spell of Recall
Used periodically by the Council of Watchers to cause potential Slayers to be born. The exact meaning of the name has been lost for ages, but it is believed that, since no spell can actually create a soul, the name refers to "recalling" the souls of those who have been turned into vampires. Such souls would have a natural antipathy for vampires, and the spell would empower them, as Slayers, to take their revenge on the demons who took their lives and bodies.
"God!" she whispered. The implications . . . It explained so much.
But what could they do about it?
Buffy waited impatiently for Tara to arrive. Xander and Anya had arrived several minutes ago, despite the fact that Buffy was sure her phone call had interrupted yet another lovemaking session.
Sorry, guys, but this one can't wait for the Hormone Fairy to leave. It's too big, and Dawnie and I can't deal with it alone.
When Tara came in, Dawn immediately turned to Buffy and said, "All right, Buffy, I've waited long enough! Everyone's here. Now what did Giles tell you?"
Buffy looked around. "Guys, you'd better sit down for this one. I know I sure needed to."
Xander, Anya, and Tara all looked worried. "Is it bad?" said the former vengeance demon as everybody seated themselves in the living room.
"Well, it's not . . . happy. At least not for me." She turned to Dawn. "Dawn, we don't talk much anymore about the fact that . . . you weren't born the way everyone else was."
Dawn shrugged. "I know. I don't usually like to think about it. And ever since that night in the hospital," she held up her hand to show the faint scar there, "I've understood what you meant. Where I came from doesn't matter. Here and now, I'm your sister, even if the monks did work their own version of the Immaculate Conception."
Buffy smiled faintly. "Well, sis, I'm afraid they did one more number on you."
Dawn looked scared. "What's wrong? The spell isn't . . . temporary, is it?" She looked like she was about to panic. "Is that it? Am I gonna disappear?"
Buffy threw her arms around Dawn. She hated the way she was scaring Dawn like this, but it was so hard to make herself say the words. "No, Dawn. You're not going to disappear. But you're gonna have to be brave."
She pulled back and looked right in Dawn's face. "Dawn, Giles thinks you've been Called. You're the new Slayer."
There were gasps and curses -- of various levels of profanity -- from everyone in the room. No one was surprised when Spike was the first to come over and put his arms around the stunned teenager. And as Tara, and then Willow and Xander joined him, it became a massive group hug.
Xander was the first to speak. "You all right, Dawn Patrol?"
Dawn looked up at him and tried to smile. "I don't know. Maybe. I guess . . . I guess I knew something was going on. I had these weird dreams last night . . . and I gave Spike a real workout today."
That little statement took a whole lot of explaining.
Buffy said to her, later, "It's weird. I was just thinking earlier, when I saw you in there with Spike, that it seemed like you'd joined a family business. Guess I didn't know the half of it," she finished glumly.
This time it was Dawn's turn to hug Buffy. "It's okay. I've got one thing no Slayer has ever had before. A big sister to show me the ropes."
Buffy smiled weakly at that. "Not to mention the swords, stakes, and crossbows . . . "
"And I'm guessing from your conversation with Giles that he's coming back? To be . . . our Watcher?" It felt so weird to say it. But it felt completely natural, too. Giles was the closest thing she'd had to a father for the last two years. It had almost felt selfish at the time, since she knew Giles was leaving Buffy when he went back to England -- but Dawn had also felt like he was abandoning her. And she knew what it would mean to both of them to have him back.
Buffy looked a little grim as she said, "I don't know about him being 'our' Watcher, Dawnie. I'm still angry with him . . . like when he put me through that awful test back in high school. It'll take time before I can completely trust him again. But . . . " She paused and made a face. "He's the only Watcher I'd let within a thousand miles of you."
Xander nodded. "The only good thing about them sending another English stiff-upper-buttcheek type like that Nigel, or -- bleah! -- Wesley," he said with a shudder, "would've been watching you send him back to England without a plane." He swung his foot in a kick to demonstrate.
Everyone laughed at that. Dawn thought they all needed to laugh, for more reasons than just hers. This was the first 'full' Scooby Gang meeting -- to her mind -- since Tara had moved out. She knew she had missed the feel of the whole group being together, and she was sure the others felt the same way.
Buffy turned to Spike. "Still up to training Dawnie, Spike?"
Spike looked surprised. "I thought the Tweed Avenger was coming to take care of that."
"He said he's going to be a few days. He has to try to get the Council to agree to him being assigned to the new Slayer. They don't even know it's Dawn yet; he said something about their detection spells not working-"
"The cloaking amulet!" Anya cried. "The one Dawn took from the store! It kept the Council from finding her!" She turned to Dawn. "I hereby forgive you for half the price of the amulet, Dawn! It's worth it to have kept those snooty store-closing Watchers out of town!"
Everyone chuckled, then Buffy continued, "Anyway, he said he got the clue from a prophecy he read . . . he said it was pretty bad, but he didn't want to go over it on the phone. He said he'd fax the text and his best guesses on its meaning over to the Magic Box, just in case we see any signs over the next couple of days."
Xander nodded. "Giles and world-ending prophecies, it's just like old times."
Dawn grinned at her sister. "Only now there's two Summers girls to kick the bad guys' butts out of town!"
While everyone took turns talking to Dawn about the news, Tara got Spike and Buffy's attention and led them into the next room.
"I found the spell Giles was talking about, and I understand now why Dawn was a potential Slayer." She explained what the Spell of Recall did. "So when the monks cast their spell, they had to take a soul from the Ether to make Dawn complete -- only Gods can make souls. To do that, they needed to do the Spell of Recall, or something like it. And so, voila! Instant Slayer material."
Buffy nodded. "Yeah. I'm just glad the Council doesn't know about this. They'd be able to have their Slayers without all the unnecessary bother of raising them," she said bitterly.
Tara took a deep breath. "But this also tells us what's wrong with you, Buffy." Buffy and Spike both looked startled at that. Tara supposed that with the news about Dawn, the implications of the spell hadn't had time to penetrate. She continued, "Your soul is human, but it's been 'brought back' once already. So the spell got confused."
Buffy frowned. "Yeah, great, I'm Recycled Buffy. Wonderful. Just tell me what's wrong and how to fix it."
Tara looked at her. She still hadn't gotten it? It was so obvious! "I know what's wrong, Buffy, but I don't what to do about it yet.
"You see, when Willow cast that spell, your soul was supposed to be pulled back to your body. The problem is, since you're a Slayer, there were two bodies to which your soul had a connection. Yours . . . and the one it originally inhabited."
Buffy just looked blankly at her. Spike, however, looked like he got it. "Bloody Hell! You mean-" He stared at Buffy.
Tara nodded. "Buffy, your soul . . . was originally Spike's."
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