After Tara and Spike left, Dawn ran up to her room, claiming she was tired and wanted to get ready for bed. Actually, she was so wired she didn't think she'd sleep at all that night. She just wanted to get to her room so she could write down everything she'd seen in her diary.
As she sat at her desk and opened the book, she sighed as she remembered the old diaries that she had destroyed when she was going through her "I'm Not Real" crisis. She had even asked Willow at one point if there was any way to get them back. Willow had smiled sadly, and said that there were whole libraries of books that she'd like to un-burn, but that it just wasn't possible.
Now, as Dawn started to write, she figured it was all for the best. It was actually kinda . . . therapeutic, to have burned those diaries. She had sounded like such a dweeb sometimes.
She was interrupted by a knock at the door, and a voice. "Dawn? Can I come in?"
Buffy. Now . . . what could she possibly want? Dawn thought wickedly. She was pretty sure she knew what Buffy wanted to talk about. She just wasn't sure whether she wanted to tease her mercilessly or just tell her to go find Spike and kiss him till his hair curled. "Sure. C'mon in."
Buffy came in and sat on the bed, and gave her a half-smile. "I figured you'd go right to the diary. But after we talk, I'd like you to try to get some sleep. We've all had a rotten couple of weeks, and I can't believe you're not ready to collapse. I know that I want to crawl under the covers and not come out until summertime, at least."
Dawn gave her a mischievous look and said, "Oh? And miss your date with Spike tomorrow night?"
Buffy blushed furiously and squeaked, "Dawn! I do not have a date with Spike! I have a date with you and Tara and Willow . . . and Spike." The last came out with a bit of a sigh.
Dawn grinned again as she heard that sigh. "C'mon, sis, admit it. You like him. Even if the other Scoobies would have a problem dealin' with that, I know what Spike is really like. You can be honest with me."
Buffy looked down at her shoes, and Dawn saw her lip quiver. "I've been so terrible to him. And I don't know what to do." Suddenly she looked up at Dawn, and there was that weird gleam in her eye again. "Dawn? You know what Spike is really like? How 'bout you tell me all about it?"
Dawn was taken aback. "What? You know all about him. He's . . . Spike."
"Dawnie, I only know about him in a kicked-his-ass, stomped-on-his-heart kinda way. Look, I know how much you were with Spike while I was . . . away. You were the reason he stuck around. And I don't think he'd believe me if I said, 'Pour out your heart to me for, like, the zillionth time, 'cause I promise this time I'll listen to you.'
"So please, Dawn. Tell me what I need to know."
Buffy waited, and watched Dawn think about her request. She had that funny wrinkly thing between her eyes that meant she was really thinking hard about something. Then she said, "Buffy? I've got a bit of a problem. I kinda swore to Spike that I'd never tell any of the Scoobies about something that I think you need to know.
"As it was, I think he only told me 'cause he was really, really drunk, 'cause the next day, he made me swear never to tell again. And told me that if I ever broke that promise, he'd tie me up and leave me in the cemetery. At night. Naked."
Forcing down the automatic, furious response at Spike even thinking about a naked Dawn, Buffy thought for a moment. "I really don't like the idea of helping you break a promise . . . but I think I can get you off on a technicality. Willow told me one time, 'You're the Slayer, and we're the Slayerettes.' I guess if you assume that 'the Scoobies' is just another name for 'the Slayerettes,' then, as the Slayer, I'm not really a Scooby!" she finished brightly, proud of herself for having thought of it.
Dawn gave her an impish look. "No, you're Scooby Doo himself. 'Ruh-roh! It's a monster!'" She laughed.
Buffy grabbed a pillow and whacked her sister with it. "Jerk!" A brief pillow fight ensued.
As soon as things calmed down, Buffy said, "So spill."
Dawn sighed. "Okay. How much has Spike told you about what he was like before he was a vampire?"
"Not much. He's implied, once or twice, that he's always been 'the Big Bad,' but he's never really given me any details." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure I really wanna know, if he was, like, Jack the Ripper or Mack the Knife or something like that."
Dawn fidgeted a bit. "Well, it was nothing like that. He was just, well, William the Bloody."
Buffy felt her mouth tighten. "So, since you're obviously dying to tell me, what disgusting thing did he do to get that nickname?"
"He wrote bloody awful poetry."
Buffy thought she would fall off the bed from laughing.
Dawn was mortified. She should've known she couldn't trust Buffy with this! "Buffy! Stop it!"
Buffy was still slapping the bed and giggling helplessly. "Spike! Poetry! Spike! Hahahaha!"
Dawn glared at her and said, "Remember when Missy Davenport laughed at you when you were in your Dorothy Hamill outfit?"
Buffy's giggling suddenly turned into coughing and choking. Then she looked up at Dawn, and managed to look gratifyingly mortified. "Um. Oh. Ooops. I . . . I did it again, didn't I?"
Dawn only glared at her some more and said, "Now you know why Spike never told you. If he'd seen you laughing at him like that, he'd have staked himself."
Buffy shook her head. "It's just so . . . weird. I mean, Spike, who calls Angel 'the Poof' and uses English cursewords like punctuation . . . a poet? This is maximum wig-time. It's a nuclear wig-bomb!"
Dawn nodded sympathetically. "I know, I couldn't believe it myself -- though I did manage not to laugh at him, butthead -- and he ended up telling me the whole story."
"What whole story?"
"That he was completely, totally in love with this girl, and he wrote her poetry and did everything he could to prove he loved her . . . and she totally dissed him. She broke his heart, and he took off and ran right into Drusilla! And before he knew it, he woke up without a pulse."
Buffy made a face. "God, that sounds awful."
Dawn went on. "Yeah, from what he told me, this Cecily girl would've made Cordelia look pleasant. The last thing she said to him was, 'You're beneath me.' How totally bitchy is that?"
Buffy didn't answer -- she just sat there, white as a ghost.
"Buffy?"
"Oh my God, Dawnie . . ." Buffy whispered. "I said that to him."
Dawn couldn't believe her ears. "When?"
"Before . . . before he told me he loved me. He was going on about this theory he had, that all Slayers have a death wish, and he was saying he'd be sure to be there the day that mine caught up with me. And he was acting all cocky, and . . . leaning towards me, like he wanted to bite me -- I guess he might've been trying to work himself up to kiss me.
"Anyway, I just got so mad I hit him. Knocked him on his butt. And I said that even if this death wish ever did catch up with me, he wouldn't be the one who got me. And then I said it. 'You're beneath me.' When I walked away, I was actually kinda happy 'cause it looked like I had really gotten to him with that one. And I guess I did, didn't I?" she added mournfully.
They sat together in silence for a while.
"I don't understand. How come he doesn't hate me?"
Dawn muttered angrily, "Don't ask me. I'm pretty mad at you myself."
"I guess I've earned it. But please, Dawnie. I've got to make this up to him, somehow. This is just . . . too much! I don't know how I can make things right with him if I don't even know how he can put up with me in the first place!"
Buffy thought Dawn 's glare softened . . . just a little. "He loves you, Buffy. It's that simple. You forgave Angel for what he did when he was bad, didn't you?"
Buffy sighed. "That was different. Angel and Angelus are like, two different people." At least, that was what she had always told herself. It was the only way she could deal with her conflicting feelings regarding Angel. "I'm still the same Buffy who said all those things to Spike."
Dawn shot back, "Is he the same Spike that called out the Order of Taraka on you? People change, Buffy. That's what this is all about. Spike wants you -- wants all of us -- to believe that he's changed, that he's not the same person he used to be.
"I believe him. I guess that's why I like Spike more than I ever liked Angel. Angel always seemed the same to me . . . at least, when he was Angel."
Buffy took a moment to digest all this. Then she made a face at her younger sister. "When did you get to be so smart?"
Dawn stuck her nose in the air. "I've always been smart, and you know it!"
They both laughed a little, and then Buffy sighed. "What am I gonna do, Dawnie?"
"Do you love him?"
The question caught Buffy off-guard. "Maybe. I dunno. I care about him. I don't want to hurt him anymore.
"But he just gets so . . . Spike-ish all the time! It's like he knows exactly what to say to push my buttons! He acts like it's fun to get me mad at him."
Dawn laughed. "It is! I've had loads of fun playing the same game!" She demonstrated by whacking Buffy with a pillow. That led to another pillow fight.
Dawn continued, afterward, "See, Buffy? Fighting doesn't have to be fighting, when it's with someone you care about. Try playing with Spike in the same way. Push a few of his buttons, and get him all 'grrr,' and even have a fight with him. He likes fighting.
"Just make sure you use your fists instead of a stake. And I mean with the words, as well as the physical stuff. Rag on him about his hair, or his coat, or something like that. Leave the feelings stuff out of it. And if you ever tell him I told you about the poetry . . . "
"I get it, I get it." She took a deep breath, and let it out. "All right. I think that's about as much as I cane take. Any more and my head's gonna turn inside out."
Dawn snorted. "Like that would make a difference. I always said you used too much hair color -- it must've soaked into your brain."
Buffy stuck out her tongue. "Brat."
"Airhead."
"Spaz."
"Shrimp." Dawn laughed as Buffy sputtered over that one. "I've been waiting to use that one ever since I noticed I'm taller than you."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Now I know I've had enough! I give! Just go to bed and get some sleep." Then she smiled wickedly, and Dawn suddenly knew her sister had one more shot to throw. "We've got lots of stores to visit tomorrow, and things to return. And if they won't take 'em back, we're gonna figure out how you can work off the cost."
Dawn fell facedown onto her pillow and groaned.
Buffy didn't sleep well that night. She kept having this dream where a woman with dark, curly hair kept saying to her, "You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.
"You're beneath me.
"You're beneath me."
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