Chapter Three

"Are you boinking her again?"

The question made Spike spit his coffee clean across the kitchen island. Could only have come from Dawn. Well maybe Anya, but that faintly accusatory tone, the teenage disdain, definitely his Niblet. And Anya had never deliberately timed her inappropriate questions with such embarrassing precision.

He'd been dreading this conversation, knew Dawn would have waited till he had no hope of rescue.

"Where did that come from?" he asked carefully, turning round to face her.

Dawn took a step closer, a predatory gleam in her eye. "You weren't anywhere to be found when I woke the potentials, yet here you are. D'you want me to repeat the question?"

God she'd grown up in his absence. Not just height wise, though she had a good inch on him now. He didn't know, any longer, how to talk to her

"There has been no boinking," he answered stiffly. "Not that I can see how it's any of your business, Bit."

"My business when you turn evil again and murder us all in our sleep."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Did I mention I'm now immune to guilt trips and emotional blackmail? You know that's never gonna happen, you're just being nosy."

Dawn hopped up on the kitchen counter with an unrepentant grin, immediately changing tack. "Duh! Teenager here. I have a God given right to stick my nose in anywhere it's not wanted. Especially when it's about my sister. So spill."

Spike tried to hide that deer in headlights feeling, knew it would only get worse if she scented blood.

"You've heard my thoughts on the subject many a time, pet. In my perfect world there'd be nothing but boinking. I suspect your sister has other priorities."

Time to divert with a serious question. "Would you mind?"

"I'd mind if you hurt her," answered Dawn promptly. "I'd threaten to stake you but I hear there's a queue."

Well at least there was one thing he could say with certainty. "I wouldn't hurt her. Know you've heard it before but it's never going to happen again. Fucked up though it is you're my family, little as you might want me I'll never hurt either of you again."

"You don't know that."

Challenge or just cynicism?

"Damn well do. And you didn't answer my question."

Another shrug. "She got happier, after you left. It took a while but she got better."

The words stung and he knew they were meant to, but verbal dig out of the way she seemed to be seriously pondering the question.

"She missed you. You could tell cause she never mentioned you. She kept giving me all these feminist lectures about how no always means no and all men are idiots. When I asked about you she said, and I quote, 'it's complicated.' I want her to be happy, but it's still twisted, that she could want to be with you after what you did to her."

"Don't think she does, was hypothetical is all."

"In that case I don't mind a bit," said Dawn, with a not entirely kind smile. "You're way easier to get info out of than Buffy, anyway."

"Sorry Bit, you want gossip 'bout your sister you're gonna have to ask her."

"Yeah?" There was a threat in that short word. "So if you're not sticking it to her, why were you in her room? All night."

"You take that back," Spike sputtered, much to Dawn's amusement. "You can't say things like that, s'not right. Just kipped in there is all, she had a bad dream."

Dawn opened her mouth and Spike was truly afraid of what she might ask next, so he carried right on talking. "It's not like that, you dirty minded little tramp."

And it really hadn't been, but he was thinking of the morning after and the words didn't ring true. "S'all perfectly innocent, we're friends now and... Bloody hell! I'm playing right into your hands, aren't I?"

"Like a fly in a web."

He snorted. Outwitted by a chit of a girl who mixed her metaphors. "You're wasting your time. There isn't anything to find out, and I can't tell you what your sis is thinking cause I don't know. I'm never going to be the happy ending for Buffy, I know that, but I love her and that's never gonna change either, don't need to know all the answers just yet. Love you too, for what it's worth, know I made a lousy job of that as well."

"Too right. And don't think you're getting round me with big sad eyes, you're playing the master." But she very nearly smiled, and didn't try all that hard to hide it.

"I'm not playing. You ever gonna forgive me?"

"Not my place to," said Dawn flatly. "It's not like we're friends."

And on that petty note Dawn flounced out of the kitchen.

********

Buffy couldn't sleep.

She wasn't frustrated, absolutely not, but she'd half expected Spike to join her again tonight and when it became clear he wasn't going to she had to lie awake and wonder why not.

They'd been getting on well enough in the morning, hadn't they? After the obligatory angst and before they were interrupted, and it felt to Buffy that something had changed. Like they had unfinished business, but he didn't come.

Had he been waiting for an invitation? She'd hardly had time to gather her thoughts during the day.

Or a worse thought, was he waiting for her command?

Buffy tried to remember the exact details of their conversation, marathon in length by their standards. Seemed she'd talked an awful lot. Had she coaxed out a new, fun-having Spike? Or given him to think she required his services?

It was almost unbearable to believe he'd touched her because it had been expected of him, because he thought that was why she wanted him around. But she'd hardly been guarded in her reactions to him, that was what she wanted and Spike had always been good at anticipating her needs.

But it wasn't enough that he would give Buffy what she wanted, she didn't know if she could reciprocate, especially when she didn't know what it was.

He'd kissed her and told her that he loved her, Spike had never lied about such things and it wasn't fair to doubt him now.
So Buffy lay in the dark and doubted herself.

She could ask him, if he was here, but then if he'd come they probably wouldn't be talking and that was her fault too. She'd pushed too fast and tempted him too soon and now he was probably avoiding her in case she was mad at him.

Why wasn't telepathy included in the inventory of slayer skills?

Maybe he was mad at her? Thought she was treating him as a convenience as she had done last year, and maybe he wasn't wrong.

If the apocalypse could hold off for a couple more weeks maybe they could find a minute to talk. She was getting better at the talking, and not just motivational speeches. Hell, it could be fun, gossiping and teasing like she'd done before she got so lost.

But it didn't seem fair to tease Spike when he was sensitive to her every word, she didn't know how to regain the easy bantering relationship they'd shared before the sex. She needed him to talk but didn't know how to ask the questions without also dictating the answers, if he knew what she wanted him to say then she couldn't trust he wasn't just saying what he thought she wanted to hear.

He'd said he still loved her and she had to trust that. Maybe it was unfair to expect him to share his thoughts when she'd shut him down so often in the past, and she'd pushed too hard already.

Maybe it was just her turn to lie awake and wonder what the hell was going on in his head.

Karmic retribution.
********

A strong hand diverted Spike's course to the basement door and he found himself facing Buffy in the hallway.

"What's up, Slayer? New instrument of the first? Andrew been cooking again?"

"No, nothing apocalyptical." Buffy hugged herself, glanced into the empty kitchen. "I just wanted to talk to you, you've been all avoidy."

"I've been busy," he corrected. "With fifteen adolescents you won't let me kill.."

Spike looked at her more closely. All the signs of trouble were there in her body language, arms wrapped round a nagging worry she didn't want to share. He sighed. "Out with it, Buffy."

"Out with what?"

"Oh don't give me that. I can read you like a book. Just don't know what bizarre idea you'll have got into your head to worry about today."

He half expected a standard denial, but instead Buffy laughed.

"I do not have bizarre ideas. I have legitimate concerns, even if I'm not sure what they are, and I like frequent reassurance. You may have noticed I don't have such a good affect on people I share a bed with."

Spike wished for the millionth time in their acquaintance that she was easier to read, for all his boasting the print was still a little fuzzy. Concerns in which direction? Was this the 'don't make too much of it' talk or the 'am I still beautiful?' question. Knowing his Slayer she could worry about both simultaneously, and a hundred and one other things besides.

"You had a good affect on me, used to be evil, remember?"

He reached out to tug a lock of her hair and she leaned into his touch with a smile. "That's an interesting way of looking at it. Don't remember it being that simple."

Spike pulled her into a hug. "It's simple now. I'm not brooding, I'm not plotting evil, I haven't gone off you and I don't want anything from you, does that cover everything? I'm here for whatever you need, pet, and nothing's going to change less you want it to." He rubbed her shoulder, trying to will her to relax. "Hate to think I'm another headache for you when you've got so much on your plate."

"You're not a headache! Hey, maybe I just needed a hug."

Was Spike's turn to laugh as she wrapped her arm round his waist and snuggled closer. "Talking and hugging? Who are you and what have you done with my Slayer?"

"Oil! Update, bleach boy, not me that's been making with the meaningful silence just recently. When you're not stammering."

"Oil yourself! That was last week. I'm back to being my loud, obnoxious self I promise." Spike reached down to pinch her bum before making his escape to the cellar.

"You little..."

"Sorry love, can't stop," he called over his shoulder. "If I don't get back down there and supervise you're going to be down a pommel horse, so chill out, yeah?"

Spike paused and turned to wink at her from the safety of the cellar doorway. "Doesn't it make you scared when I'm the responsible adult?"