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Is there some meaning to this life?
What purpose lies behind the strife?
Whence do we come, where are we bound?
These cold questions echo and resound
through each day, each lonely night.
We long to find the splendid light
that will cast a revelatory beam
upon the meaning of the human dream.
Courage, love, friendship,
compassion, and empathy
lift us above the simple beasts
and define humanity.


--The Book of Counted Sorrows


Really, I know I gush over my Beta--Fetching Mad Scientist--she so deserves it Wendy you rock my face off! ♥

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Eleven days. It’s been eleven days and already it was a lifetime ago since he last heard her speak. Every day he was afraid... afraid that he would forget the sound of her voice; forget the way she filled out those snug leather pants she seemed so fond of—forget the way she smelled, like sunshine and sugar and vanilla. Every day Spike worried that he would forget the golden fire that was his Buffy.

But every day he avoided the house where she used to live, her pictures hanging everywhere and never allowing him to forget that the shining light that was Buffy Summers, had gone out. And so, he avoided that side of town for the last eight days, preferring the solitude of his crypt and the oblivion that he sometimes found in drink.

Every day, when he was too exhausted to stay awake or would drink so much that he would pass out, every day he would dream of her and of that night, and every night he saved her.


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Tara walked slowly down the stairs, her delicate features drawn up in a worried frown as she carried a tray that housed a congealed grilled-cheese sandwich, a dish of sliced pears and a small dish of soupy ice cream. Walking into the kitchen, she set the tray down on the center island, sighing in sadness.

“Hey Sweetie. Dawn still not eating?” Willow asked quietly.

“No. I-I don’t know what else to do Will. She can’t keep this up m-much longer before her body turns on her. She’s b-barely eaten anything since the-the funeral,” Tara responded sadly, her stutter becoming more prominent under duress.

“I’ve tried making all of her favorite things. I even tried peanut butter and salami sandwiches and—and she just lies there in her pajamas and she hardly says two words to me. I don’t know what else to do.”

“I know. I-I know. Giles tried to talk to her last n-night and that didn’t work either.”

“Anya offered to make the lasagna that she made for Dawn’s birthday last time and Dawn turned her down. She loved that lasagna! She had two whole plates at dinner, and then later for her midnight snack she had more and now she won’t eat anything. What do we do, Baby?”

“Has Spike been around? M-maybe we could get him to talk to her… she seemed to respond to him more than the rest of us…”

“I’ve not seen him much since the funeral. That is a good idea though,” the redhead replied, nodding her head. Moving to the doorway she turned back to Tara, asking, “Keep an eye while I go look for Spike?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Quickly walking back towards her girlfriend, Willow gave her a soft kiss, brushing her lips lightly against Tara’s mouth and rubbing her nose gently with her own before stepping back and moving down the hall. A few moments later, Tara heard the front door open and close gently and she raised her eyes to the ceiling above, hoping that Spike could do what the rest of them could not.


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He really shouldn’t be here. Looking around he saw various demons milling about. Some had horns while others had fangs. One even had an extra set of arms and a shaved head with nothing but a long black ponytail like some sort of old-school samurai… except with the extra arms and there was an aged looking one with skin the colour of dirty mustard, pustules oozing on his face—and Oh God, was it looking at him?!?

Nope. Being here wasn’t one of his better ideas.

Still, he couldn’t manage to work up more than a mild apprehension at he moved to sit at the bar, hoping to nurse a beer or two before it was almost time for the Magic Box to close. He just couldn’t stand the thought of returning to the empty apartment nor was he able to stomach the thought of sitting there at Scooby Central while their tiny, blonde leader was lying in a box six feet under. He absently asked for a longneck when the bartender moved in front of him, still preoccupied with thoughts of Buffy, as his heart wrenched in his chest.

Twisting the cap off the beer set in front of him, Xander drank it down with the ease of water, draining it in a few long pulls before asking for another.


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“Spike? Hello? Anyone home?” Willow asked, pushing the crypt door open when her knocking went unanswered. “Helloooo??”

Looking around she counted at least a dozen empty liquor bottles strewn all over the place and at first she thought she might have accidentally walked into the wrong crypt when she noticed a worn black duster flung across the top of the stone sarcophagus.

'Awww, Spike. Well I guess we know what you’ve been up to this past week.’

Side-stepping beer bottles and pushing others out of her way with the toes of her sneakers, she moved towards the hole in the floor to the lower level. Bending down she called out once more a bit more loudly than before.

“Spike? Spike are you down there?”

A muffled voice came back faintly at first.

“Who—what—who’s there?”

“Spike it’s me, Willow. Can I—I need to talk to you. Are you okay down there?”

“It’s the middle of the soddin’ day, Red. Whad’dya want?”

Blinking in confusion, she hollered back down to him, “Um, last I looked which was about two minutes ago, it was sunset. Can I come down there or maybe could you come up here, please? I kinda need to talk to you Spike. It’s about Dawn.”

Pushing himself upright, he blearily shook his head, trying to clear it at the mention of his Bit’s name.

“Yeah. Give me a minute, Sabrina. Gotta make myself decent.”

Climbing from bed, he grabbed the first pair of jeans he could find and slipped them on before climbing the ladder bare-foot and bare-chested, worry beginning to take root in his stomach as to what was so important about Dawn, that the redheaded Wicca had trekked out here all by her lonesome.

“What’s wrong with the Bit?” he asked as soon as his head cleared the hole to the upper level.

“She’s having a really hard time right now, dealing with everything. I mean yeah, her sister died, but it’s really bad right now. She’s hardly come out of her room for the past week and has barely eaten anything since before Buuh—the funeral. I don’t think she’s sleeping much either, at least not at night—she has a lot of bad dreams and won’t let us comfort her or anything. She just rolls over and faces the other way. We’re getting kind of worried about her.”

Her blue-green eyes took in the gaunt form of the vampire in front of her and she could see that he had been doing pretty much the same thing and she frowned, her forehead creased with worry.

“Spike? Are you ok? We’ve not seen you since… awhile. You don’t look very well.”

“I’m fine Red. You tried talking to the girl?

“See, that’s just the thing. She’s pretty much monosyllabic. We talk to her, but she won’t talk back—t-to anyone. She kinda just sits there hugging her teddy bear and ignoring us.”

His gut clenched, worrying that she went the way of Buffy when she was kidnapped.

“She’s catatonic then?”

“No. No, nothing like that. She’s here. She’s just not here, here. She responds a little bit; like she’ll shake her head sometimes when we ask her yes or no questions, and she does get up to go to the bathroom and stuff but she hasn’t done much of anything else. She just won’t talk to us or shower or eat and she’s starting to look kind of like—well, kinda like you right now…”

He looked down over jutting ribs and a stomach going concave and admitted that he was not looking his best, but his body could handle it better than Dawn’s could. If she starved herself, it could lead to all kinds of bad things and guilt rose like bile in his stomach.

“Give me a minute to finish getting some clothes together and I’ll walk back with you.”

Willow’s marbled eyes shone in relief and she nodded quickly, moving to stand by the crypt door to wait for him.

“Thanks Spike. We didn’t know what else to do.”

Nodding, he turned and dropped back down to the lower level and hurried gathered a somewhat clean tee shirt and tugged it over his head before snatching up his scuffed boots, sitting down on the edge of the bed to tug them on, his worry for Dawn leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.


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He stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the house where he grew up and suddenly decided that paying his Mom a visit was a bad idea but before he could turn and walk away, the front door opened, his Mother in the doorway.

“Alex? Alex what are you doing standing out there on the sidewalk?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Xander ambled back up the walkway.

“Hi-i Mom. I just, kinda wanted to say hi—see how you were doin’.”

“Hi Sweetie. Now’s not a good—“

“Jess! Jessica! Where the hell are you, you lazy cow? Jessica!

“Ah. I see. Dad started a bit earlier than usual—“

”Who are you talking to? Either go outside or invite whoever in the hell it is inside—the AC is running!

Stepping out on to the stoop, Jessica Harris, nervously shut the door behind her only for it to be wrenched open a moment later.

“What the f—oh! What do you want? Shouldn’t you be off in your shiny, new apartment pretending to be a man so that girlfriend of yours doesn’t go looking for a real one?”

His gut seized, the sneering tone of his father’s voice hitting harder than the insults themselves and he forced himself to act nonchalant while his mind wondered how he could be related to two people who held the title of parents, but were as foreign to him as any stranger on the street.

“You know what, you’re not worth it.”

“Yeah, I pretty much said the same thing on your sixth birthday when you started bawling over some stupid clown. Clowns! Happy, painted people with floppy shoes and red noses and you pissed your pants like a baby!”

Jessica stood there with tears rolling down her face, trying to pacify her drunken husband with a comforting hand on his arm and he shrugged her off, knocking her into the planter beside the doorway and she lost her balance, sprawling into the flowerbed on her side.

“Mom!” Xander started forward when she held up a placating hand.

“I-I’m okay,” and she pushed herself first to her knees and then stood upright, brushing the dirt from her skirt before giving her son a nervous smile. “See. No harm done.”

He stood there, trembling, his hands knotted into fists at his side as he stared at his father, hatred swirling in his dark eyes as tears of anger welled from deep within.

“What? What are you going to do you pissant? You think you’re man enough to take on your ol’man? Come on then, crybaby. Let’s see what you’ve got,” and Anthony Harris began to laugh, waving loose fists around his head.

Breathing hard, Xander tried visibly to control himself when his eyes fell on his Mother standing behind his pathetic excuse for a Father, watching as she sadly shook her head, her eyes pleading. Looking back to his father, his lip curled up in a sneer, his fists uncurling at his side as his shoulders stooped in defeat, and he turned, walking away and shaking his head, his voice heavy with disgust and disappointment. “You’re still not worth it.”

“Coward!”

His father rushed off the stoop, a wild swing catching Xander in the side of his neck as the drunken man barreled into him, knocking him to the ground and Xander felt the bite of the concrete abrading his palms and then his chin as he sprawled across his stomach on the sidewalk.

Lying there, his humiliation rose with each passing second while his father stood over him laughing mockingly; spitting at him before he turned and walked back up the sidewalk, shoving his wife into the house before slamming the door closed.


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Dawn ignored the soft knocking on her door, sure that whoever it was would eventually give up and simply walk away, leaving her to herself.

She hurt. She hurt so much that it felt like her body was just one huge mass of raw, exposed nerves sitting atop a live wire with currents of electricity constantly pulsing into her until she was numb with the pain, so when the knocking grew louder and more persistent, she just couldn’t bring herself to give a damn.

Finally the door was flung open and as Spike strode forcefully into her room as she continued to stare blankly at the ceiling above her, a tattered teddy bear cradled absentmindedly in her arms.

“Nibblet? What’s goin’ on here, Pet? Red tells me you’re not coming out of your room much.” His tone belied the anxiety he was feeling as he stared at the unmoving girl curled up on her bed.

Still she stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the soft-speaking, accented voice or the vampire that it belonged to as he stood over her, watching her intently. She didn’t see the worry in his blue eyes or the dark shadows beneath them nor did she see deepened hollows beneath increasingly prominent cheekbones; how his lips were dry and cracked and pulled into a frown as he stared at her.

“Dawn? Talk to me Pet, please. You’re not looking too well.”

Sitting down beside her, Spike grew more anxious as she seemed to not hear a thing he said, her eyes unblinking as she stared at her ceiling and he thought Red might have made a mistake and that Dawn had gone somewhere else in her head.

“Dawn? Come on Sweetness. Look at me. Please?”

Reaching out, he ran trembling fingers down her arm and started as she jerked, pulling away from him.

“Dawn? Nibblet, please!” his voice shook, emotions bubbling over as she continued to remain silent.

Grabbing her forearms, he shook her lightly, her body bouncing gently on the bed as his worry kicked up another notch into desperation and he called out more forcefully, “Dawn!”

Finally her eyes turned to look at him and they were as flat and as blank as the ceiling she had been staring at.

“Why is there a stranger in my room?”


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AN: Just giving fair warning right now as the next chapter is the angstiest of all - TISSUE WARNING - and then the following chapter will still be kinda owie, but less so and then things will lighten up considerably as they rebuild their lives.