"We'll take Dawnie to the plane, and we'll get out of here."


Spike nodded. She couldn't make herself break away, even as she was completely aware of Dawn standing just outside the room; her erratic heartbeat, her audible breathing, the aroma of her simmering misery. She just had a few hours to reassure her sister that her world really wasn't coming to an end.


And—


"Plenty of time for us," Spike said, with a little smile that showed he'd plucked her thought out of the ether. "I'll make myself scarce for a bit."


But as he walked out, Dawn caught his arm. "Tell me—"


Spike stopped. He looked at her sister with a little smile, almost vague, like he couldn't quite think who she was, though he'd seen her before.


Dawn's expression was grave. "Tell me, Spike. Like ... like you used to."


Buffy couldn't help it. "What are you talking about?"


Her sister hung stubbornly on Spike's arm, wouldn't look away from him. "I want you to tell me."


"What, sweet bit?"


"You know—" Clearly she didn't want to have to prompt him too far.


He seemed to cast back. "That these hard times won't last forever? That you'll grow up all right, an' be a happy woman?"


This was stunning. "Is that what you used to say to her?"


"I'd say all sorts, to buck her up." Spike turned his distant smile on her now. "We used to be so sad, both of us, when you were gone. We talked about it a good deal, didn't we, Dawnie?"


Dawn shook her head. She'd dropped Spike's arm, and now she turned away, as if she'd accosted him by mistake. She looked embarrassed.


Spike moved around in front of her. "Not so much to be sad about now, though. Things're different. Better, in a way, if you'll look at it."


Dawn's expression darkened. It was hard to look at her, at her gathering rage. She turned away from Spike again, her motion deliberate, snubbing. Only then did Buffy notice that Dawn was wearing the silver crucifx, hanging down inside her blouse, glinting between the buttons. "For you."


Buffy stepped forward. "Dawn, I know it seems—"


"There's no way I don't just get left behind, is there? By myself. You're together now, and I ... have to do this all alone. In a place I don't know, with people I don't know."


Buffy struggled to find the right words to contradict this, even though it was true.


"I thought you understood that it's the only way. The only way that all of us can hope to stay safe."


Dawn gave her a look of quite adult contempt. "Oh, I understand."







Even though it was mid-morning by the time they went up, Buffy hoped that Dawn would sleep. She'd admitted to not having slept for a couple of days. But she didn't—wouldn't—and neither did she seem to want to talk. She smouldered, with the TV on, in the room with its hotel bed and musty hotel drapes that Angel had lent them.


Buffy's few attempts to talk—to create a space they could nestle into together, by offering up reminiscences of their shared childhood, memories of their mother, that even as she pronounced them felt flat and inauthentic—went nowhere. Dawn didn't say so, but they both knew most of the memories were false, and hanging over them was a new feeling, that Dawn gave off like an odor, that now she was undead, Buffy was false too—a false sister, a false friend.


At one point, Buffy went into the bathroom. She was glad she couldn't see herself in the mirror; in her imagination, her eyes were too black holes, her face the grey of old ash. She turned the water on full to mask her crying.


Dawn burst through the door without knocking. Buffy glanced around; she hadn't meant to milk sympathy, but if that was the result—


But Dawn's face was rigid with disgust. "Tell me you didn't do this on purpose."


"What?"


"Not that I'm going to believe you!" She surged forward, hands upraised. Shoved Buffy back against the sink. "You hate me and you hated your life and all you wanted to do was leave!"


This assault, though it was so miniscule and human, still stirred her demon, which was ever on the alert for violence. The cartilage crunched beneath her skin as it rushed up, and she flexed to repress it. Dawn saw the eyes flash, the brow thicken and retract—she gasped, and hit out again. This time the demon surged. Buffy heard a scream, and the glass behind her smashed. Shards penetrated her neck and scalp, as her vision was obscured altogether by something brown whipping across her eyes.


When she could see again, Dawn was on her knees, holding up a hand cupped around a red offering. She thrust her hand against Buffy's mouth; she tasted the blood. It rushed through her, a bolt of brightness.


Dawn was crying. "Bite me. Go on. Just do it." Her tall body pinned her against the sink; her bleeding hand pressing into Buffy's mouth like a gag. She tasted her sister, swallowed her, her own hands gathering the sharp mirror shards, squeezing them so the glass shredded the skin.


It seemed like forever before Dawn fell back, holding her wrist, staring wide-eyed at her torn hand, the broken glass, and finally at her. Buffy wasn't sure what she was seeing—she couldn't feel her own status; all her sight was suffused with red, all her strength bound up in just staying still.


Then Dawn was gone, and Angel and Wesley were there. Neither one spoke to her, or if they did, she couldn't hear. Her head pounded from the inside—how could it pound like that, when her heart was still? She wished she could drink acid, to erase the flavor in her mouth. Angel pressed her down to sit on the side of the bed. He took her hands, uncurling the fingers that were scored and sticky with blood; more blood welled, and a sort of answering roar of hunger swelled in her belly. She struggled against the cloud in her mind—it was like being drunk, it was worse than that.


Her hands throbbed. They looked wrong in Angel's. She wanted to say so. She could hear, in the other room, the glass crunching.


Then Spike said, in an oddly equable tone, "All right then, fuck off, you." And there he was, kneeling before her, taking her hands. That had happened before.


"You didn't do it," he said. "Let it go now."


"Let it—?" Only then did she feel that her demon was up, her lip ground against her fangs. She tasted her own blood more than her vanished sister's.


Spike tsked, over her hands, her face, the rivulets running down her neck. "You're like an hors d'ouevre platter. How'd that happen?" With a fingertip, he drew up a drop from beneath her ear, and sampled it. She stared at him.


"Dawn's all right," he said, pitching his voice as if he was on a bad phone line.


She managed to nod. Her sense and senses were coming back now, the fog clearing. She felt each individual sliver of glass, could see clearly the mess of her hands.


Wesley emerged from the bathroom, with a dustpan. "You two will leave at dusk. We'll see that Dawn gets to the airport."


Buffy leapt up, went for the door. But Angel was still there, out in the corridor, and he blocked her like a wall. "Don't you think you've had enough for now?"


She could hear her sister, sobbing. Smell her grief—it was close, it was behind one of these doors. But as she felt it, Buffy knew the others were right.