"It was a mistake."


"What was?" Spike was once more at the wheel, driving them into the night. Buffy looked out the window. They were pointed south, away from LA. Maybe back to Mexico; she didn't much care, she'd let Spike decide where to go. In imagination she was seated beside Dawn on the coach cabin if the plane, middle seat, holding her hand. They were both going to live with Aunt Arlene. Maybe that's what she should've done from the first. If she had, everything would be different. Buffy's heart was raw as if their mother had only just died that morning, as if there was all that horror and grief still to go through, to endure all over again.


"I shouldn't have contacted her."


"You think it would've been better if she never knew what became of you? An' who would look after launching her? That Sunnydale lot can barely see to themselves. Your aunt, at least, is a proper grown-up. If she's anything like yer mum."


Buffy glanced at him. "I never figured you for caring about who's a grown-up."


"World needs a few, for special cases like this." Spike put his hand out, wanting to draw her against him. The traffic was rush-hour heavy, leaving LA; he had to ride on the brake.


Buffy wasn't ready to allow herself the easy comfort of his embrace. She stared at her cut-up hands. They were already half healed, and she wished they hurt more. "She might have been safer, all the same ... if I'd left her alone."


"Safer. In Sunnyhell?"


Angel hadn't let her see Dawn again, after their last encounter. Apparently Dawn hadn't objected to that separation.


"At least she was used to it, she knew how to navigate." The whole thing kept playing out in her mind. Dawn's anger, how she'd come at her. Broken the mirror, thrust the blood-slick arch of her hand into Buffy's fangs. Goading. Was that really deliberate? Or just the tantrum of a frightened kid, perversely demanding what she feared the most?


She didn't want to tell Spike what she was thinking.


Spike was quiet for a while, his arm still stretched out, undemandingly, across the seat back, the hand resting relaxed behind her bowed head.


After a while, he said, "She won't."


Buffy jerked. "Won't what?"


"Won't—do what you're worryin' about."


"Really." She'd already become accustomed to his ability to guess her mind.


"Hardly anyone does."


She focused at the red taillights ahead of them. "Is that true? That can't be true."


"I've compared notes with enough of our kind to know," he said. She felt grateful for his tone, which was genial, gentle. Unalarmed. "She won't put her head in any lion's mouth."


"You and I aren't ... too glamorous to her? Too much of a draw?" Buffy tried to laugh. She could hear Dawn's strident plea again, like it was trapped inside her head: Bite me. Go on. Go on.


"To join us? D'you really think that's what she wants, all else aside, to be an undead kid sister for the next hundred years?"


"Is that what she'd be?"


Spike glanced at her then. "What—you think I'd ever lay so much as my little finger on her? Like I lay it on you? Oh, sweet. Your poor mind's racin'. Better give yourself a rest. Promise you, things won't seem so pear-shaped tomorrow."


"You never thought of her that way? While I was dead? I mean ... for the future. You knew she wasn't always going to be fifteen."


Spike didn't reply. She realized that this meant not that he wouldn't admit thinking of it, but that he was insulted she could even ask the question.


"You're right," she murmured. "My mind is racing. My mind is ... it's wild fire."


"Dawn's young, yeah, and you an' me will never get old. So we've all got the luxury of time. You'll reconcile. Year or two—will be like nothing, 'cept she'll be wiser, an' steadier. An' you, love, will be cooler too."


It occurred to Buffy, hearing him, seeing how confidently he handled the car, handled her distress, and both their futures, that he was happy. Not at her misfortune. But happy that events, which he'd already amply and sincerely mourned, had brought the Summers sisters under his protection, a protection he felt equal to bestowing. It was a purpose equal to his particular abilities, to the sharp focus of his limited ability to be kind, which, while not wide, went so very deep.


It was more than many people managed, souls and all.


She was still afraid that her sister would try to get herself turned. Afraid that Cordelia would, after all, call up Xander, or that Wesley would contact Giles. Afraid that Dawn's disappearance would somehow lead to them being found out by Willow. Afraid that no matter what, Dawn would always blame her for what she'd become. That, despite Spike's assurances, she'd crossed over to this on purpose. Let herself be turned: sought it, even.


Her worst fear, always. Maybe that meant it was actually her greatest wish?


Fearful too that she wouldn't be able to do what she'd undertaken, stay on the right side of the line, go on into a future that added potential infinity to the uncertain.


She turned back to him. Spike's profile was tinged yellow from the lights curved high above the roadway. He looked out straight ahead, chin up. "Is that what happens? Is it what happened to you? That you cooled?" Even as she said it, she felt the absurdity of the question. "You? Never cool."


"Always burnin' me," he acknowledged, nodding as if he was glad she'd guessed some riddle he'd posed her. "I only meant, you'll control it better."


"I don't want to stop being on fire for you."


That earned her a sidelong double-take, but no remark. Surprised at herself, she reached back for his hand, brought it down over her shoulder. Spike curled his cool fingers caressingly around hers.


For the rest of the night as they rode, Spike let her keep up her thoughtful silence. An hour before sun-rise, he pulled in to a motel parking lot. In the room, with the a/c cranked up high, they drank blood from the supply Angel gave them, with whiskey chasers. Buffy kicked off her boots and stretched back on the bed. Spike undressed for her. He was waxy pale in the dark. She reached for him, drew him down on top of her, liking the smooth rub of his nakedness against her clothed skin. His mouth tasted of their meal, and of his own particular flavor, which she'd come to crave. Buffy kissed him slowly, moving her head to try different angles, different depths. He stretched over her like a big cat, languid in its perfect control. She prodded his thighs apart with her knees, so his lengthening cock was pressed between their bellies. All around her, she could scent the past presences of the people who'd used this room, their sleep and sex and worries, like a ghost cloud hovering over the much-used bed.


She drew back from Spike's plaint mouth. "Do vampires ever have homes? Or do they always just roam, forever and ever?"


"Want to put down somewhere an' stay?"


"I'd like a place that smelled like ... just us."


He chuckled.


"Where could we have that?"


"We'll look around. Find it soon."


She kissed him some more. A neediness washed over and over her, threatening to swamp her with grief. Her eyes prickled. Spike felt the emotion plucking at the corners of her mouth, tugging them down. "Don't you get scared, Spike?"


"Yeah. Have my moments." He nuzzled her cheek. "It'll be right, Slayer."


"What if it isn't?"


"Think the worst has already happened to you. More than once, yeah? To us both. Still here, aren't we? Survivors."


Buffy let herself dive down on that, pulling up her dress, opening her mouth, submerging into desire. He went into her slow and full, pulling her in close, covering her.


Did Dawn believe she'd done it on purpose? In order, without conscience, to have just this?


And was it true?


Afterwards he lay in her arms, his head pillowed on her breast, and she could feel his fatigue. It wasn't so easy for him as he made it look, to keep it all up.


What if she couldn't love Spike enough?


That wasn't a question she could ask him. Buffy stroked his tensed back, until at length he released a sigh, and slept.






~END~