*~*

“Buffy?”

Buffy wiped the water off her face, blinked her eyes open, and looked toward the curtain and the Dawn-shaped silhouette backlit in it.

“Knock much?  I’m kinda naked here, Dawn.”

“I know, sorry.” Shadow-Dawn started moving away.  “I just—never mind, I’ll go.”

“Wait—” Buffy peeked around the curtain just as Dawn reached for the door handle.  “Dawn!  Come here.”

Dawn stopped but didn’t turn, instead bringing her hand from the doorknob to rub at her eyes, but the tears she tried to hide slid down her cheeks unchecked.  The dull ache in Buffy’s chest throbbed harder and she tried again to swallow that stupid lump in her throat.

“Dawnie, hey, come here.”

Dawn kept her head down, the cascade of hair preventing Buffy from seeing her sister’s face as she came forward to lean against the edge of the shower.  Her slim body shook, but the falling water hid all but the sound of a single pained sob.  Buffy reached out with a wet arm and wrapped it around her, and Dawn launched herself forward, heedless of the drenched shower curtain or the shampoo suds, and buried her face in Buffy’s shoulder.

Her throat lump threatened to choke, and Buffy bit her lip and fought back the tears already blurring her vision.  She couldn’t keep Dawn from the truth this time, no matter how much she wanted to stuff her into a cupboard until the doctors could fix their mother, but she could be the strong one — and that, at least, was a role she was used to.

Dawn sighed and whispered, “I’m just so scared.”

“I know, Dawnie,” Buffy said, and Dawn pulled back, leaning her head against the edge of the shower while the tears fell freely.  “We’re all worried.”

Dawn nodded but said nothing, staring now at her painted fingernails. 

Buffy tucked a strand of hair behind Dawn’s ear.  “We can’t let Mom know that, okay?  We have to be strong for her right now.”

“You mean like happy thoughts and stuff?”  Dawn’s watery gaze met Buffy’s and she scrubbed at her eyes, a hint of a smile stretching her lips.  “I think I can do that. Buffy?”

“Mmhmm?”

“She will be okay, won’t she?”

For once in her life, Buffy wished she had the power to control the universe and everyone in it, if only to make her words come true and drive away the sorrow in Dawn’s eyes.

“Of course she will, Dawn.” The band around her chest tightened and she clenched her fist behind the curtain.  “Don’t you for one minute stop believing that.”

Buffy’s voice must have carried the conviction her heart lacked.  Despite the quiver in her lip and the tears that hadn’t quit, Dawn’s smile widened and she reached out to stoke Buffy’s wet hair.

“You’re all wet and cold!” she said, eyebrows turning in.  “Oh, that’s my bad, isn’t it?  Do you have any hot water left?”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie.  There’s enough.”

Nodding, Dawn moved away from the curtain and hopped up on the counter to wait.  Buffy finished up before she really did run out of hot water, wrapped herself up in the towel Dawn handed to her, and crossed the hall to her bedroom.

Spike didn’t even twitch when she returned, and though she wanted to linger and watch him sleep a while, the day was waiting.  Buffy quietly dressed, adjusted the drapes to keep the light out, and headed down to the kitchen.

By the time Dawn trudged down the stairs after her turn in the bathroom, Buffy had gulped down a mug of strong coffee and scraped together a mostly edible breakfast of French toast and bacon.  The bacon was a little too crispy and the toast a little soggy, but Dawn cleaned her plate and said a quiet thank you.

“Do I have to go to school today?” she asked, placing the dishes in the sink and glancing at her backpack by the door.

“No, we should both go be with Mom,” Buffy said.  “I just wanna—”

A loud knock from the front door interrupted her train of thought.  Buffy glanced at Dawn and then moved toward the entrance to the kitchen in time to hear the front door opening.

“Hello?  Buffy?”

The sound of Riley’s voice stopped her in mid-step and she stood frozen in place as Riley started up the hallway toward her.

Oh, God!

An explosion of adrenaline roared through her body and Buffy took two panicked steps back, pulling in a gasping breath when her back hit the edge of the island. The contact burst through the moment of panic but the itch in her legs urging her to flee refused to settle, and she dug her fingernails into her thighs to keep herself from running out the back door. 

Riley stepped into the room, nodded at Dawn and smiled hello to Buffy.

“But I thought...”

Buffy spun around in time to see Dawn’s eyes flicking rapidly between herself and Riley, and an extra pain blossomed in Buffy’s gut for having unwittingly dragged Dawn into the middle of this.  Dawn caught Buffy’s gaze and opened her mouth to speak, but Buffy shook her head as subtly as she could manage while her heart thundered like a freight train, and Dawn snapped her jaw shut.  Buffy turned away to avoid her sister’s narrow-eyed stare and greet the oblivious Riley.

He smiled nervously, hands busy fiddling with his bunched-up sweater, and Buffy couldn’t figure out why he should be the anxious one when she was hiding a naked vampire in her bed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call last night,” Riley said. 

Right.  He didn’t wait and he didn’t call.  Buffy exhaled the breath she was holding.

Riley shrugged his shoulders and glanced behind Buffy. “But I see you two made it home safe and sound.”

Buffy uncurled her fingers from her jeans and tried to match his nonchalant shrug. “Yep, all safe and sound, that’s us.”

Buffy swallowed, fearing Riley would see right through her forced cheerfulness and wondering if babbling like an idiot would distract him or clue him in further when Riley came forward, cutting off her internal argument as he folded her into a hug.  He wrapped his arms around her before she could figure out a way to avoid it without rousing his suspicions.  He was still technically her boyfriend, after all, but with Spike upstairs and Dawn glaring holes into the back of her head, Buffy didn’t know whether to hug him back or let him crush her into an unmoving Buffy-shaped ball of uncertainty.

Even without the Initiative enhancements, Riley’s hold was strong and Buffy allowed him to squish her into his chest.  Things could be awkward later, when they didn’t have an audience and her mother didn’t have a brain tumour.  She squeezed her eyes shut and pretended that the arms that once felt so warm and comforting wrapped around her weren’t now so cool and confining. 

Riley loosened his hold and brought his hands up to grip her shoulders, his smile having shifted from nervous to something resembling pleased.  “Can I do anything?  Maybe give you a ride to the hospital?”

Buffy had the feeling that it made her a spectacularly bad person to accept Riley’s offer but she nodded her head anyway and excused herself upstairs for a last minute trip to the bathroom.

Her heart beat loudly in her ears as she walked by her closed bedroom door, not daring to go inside and tempt fate.  Her skin tingled from the proximity to his presence, both her slayer’s reaction to a nearby vampire and Buffy’s reaction to Spike.  It was no coincidence that the warmth seeping into her body at the thought of him asleep in the room beyond quelled her jittery nerves and soothed the twisting in her belly.  She was in deep and she knew it.

When she finished in the bathroom, Dawn was waiting for her outside the door.

“Buffy—”

Buffy held up her hand.  “Not now.  Please, Dawnie, not now.”

Dawn caught her bottom lip in her teeth and nodded slowly.  “I just don’t understand.”

“We’ll talk later, okay?  I can’t—”

“Whatever,” Dawn said, and Buffy was surprised at the hot flash of anger in Dawn’s eyes.  “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

Oh, Dawn, Buffy thought, following her sister down the stairs, I hope so, too.

Riley held the door open for them when they reached the foyer, and with a final glance up the stairs, Buffy pulled it shut and locked up.  She felt Dawn’s eyes on her the whole short ride to Sunnydale Memorial and wondered if things could get any more awkward.  Riley filled the silence with bits of conversation and she struggled to settle her nerves long enough to focus on his words.

Riley sighed as he pulled into the parking lot.  “Are you sure you’re okay?  You look like you haven’t slept properly in days.”

Maybe because I haven’t?

“She was up pretty early,” Dawn said, before Buffy could curb her inner sarcasm long enough to form a response.  “Lots of tossing and turning.”

Buffy whipped around to meet Dawn’s raised eyebrow and triumphant smirk.  “I guess neither one of us slept very much,” she said, glancing at Riley, who was nodding as though he understood completely.

“You should let me help.” He stepped out of the SUV to open Dawn’s door and waited for Buffy to make her way around the vehicle.  “Anything you need, just let me know.”

“I’m going inside,” Dawn said, pushing past the two of them and storming away.

Riley watched her go and looked back to Buffy.  “Is she always so cranky in the morning?”

“No, she pretty much reserves that for the days when her mother’s in the hospital.”

So much for curbing the sarcasm.  Riley had the good sense to look apologetic, though he didn’t say the words.

“So, how can I help?” Riley turned to face her, reaching for her hand and smiling when she let him.  “I want to be there for you, Buffy, you just have to tell me what you need from me.”

And isn’t that the million dollar question?

The wriggly little knot of guilt pulsed in her gut as he laced their fingers together.  “Could you help the gang patrol tonight, so I can stay with Mom?”

Riley nodded his head with enthusiasm that didn’t match the slump of his shoulders or slight furrow in his brow. “Yeah, of course, anything.”

He pulled her forward into an embrace, clutching her to him so tightly she felt as if she would break if he so much as squeezed.  Her arms trembled as she circled his waist and her pulse beat loudly in her ears.  Riley’s fingers stroked her back and she fought not to withdraw from his touch, her mind whirling as she struggled to comprehend the sudden, urgent need to keep Riley at a distance.

The feeling ran deeper than the simple desire to keep him from the truth.  No, the road had taken a drastic turn over night and Buffy didn’t recognize the scenery anymore.

“Thank you,” Riley whispered, his breath hot and jarring in her ear. “Thank you for letting me help you.”

As he kissed her goodbye and drove away, one thought repeated itself in Buffy’s mind.

Shouldn’t I be the one thanking him?

When she pushed open the door to her mother’s room a few minutes later, Dawn was in bed with her, picking at the dry-looking bran muffin on the breakfast tray and chattering as only Dawn could.  Though she glanced up at Buffy with slightly narrowed eyes as she came in, all signs of the snarky, suspicious teenager had vanished. 

“Dawn was just telling me that you made her a nice breakfast this morning,” Joyce said, reaching out for a hug.

Joyce’s arm trembled where it lay across Buffy’s shoulders, and that little sign of weakness was enough to make Buffy want to burst into tears.  But if Dawn could do it, so could she, and Buffy pulled her lips into what she hoped was a pleased grin.

“It wasn’t as good as yours,” she said, sitting at the edge of the bed.  “Dawn probably can’t wait until you get back to active breakfast-making duty.”

“No, no it was good!  She tried really hard, Mom,” Dawn said, snuggling into Joyce’s shoulder.  “See?  Buffy’s doing a real good job of looking after me, so you won’t have to worry about me while you work on getting better.”

“Yep, I have it all under control.”

Joyce sighed and smiled tiredly, trailing her palm down Buffy’s back.  “I have the smartest, most wonderful daughters in the world, don’t I?”

Dawn giggled and tossed a piece of muffin at Buffy.  “Sure do!  But you forgot we’re also good looking and honest.”

The barb flew over Joyce’s head, and Buffy struggled to keep her smile even.  She had hoped to get through today without dealing with Dawn’s planned confrontation, but that was looking less and less likely. Dawn was as bloodthirsty for secrets as vampires were for, well, blood, and she raised her eyebrows at Buffy as if to remind her that she most certainly had not forgotten.

The long day ahead looked impossibly longer, and Buffy sighed as she laid her head on Joyce’s shoulder.  Buffy might be strong when it came to dealing with demons, but it was going to take a different kind of strength — the kind of strength her mother held, the kind she feared she lacked — to deal with life.

Buffy just hoped she could get them through this in one piece.

*~*

“This is called oxycodone,” Dr. Kriegel said, showing Buffy the bottle of round white tablets.  “They’re pretty potent, but then those headaches she has are pretty powerful.  She can have one every four hours if she needs it, just be sure to watch her breathing.”

Buffy nodded, thankful for the drug information sheets the nurse had passed to her.  She would have to look them over carefully when they got home because her attention kept wandering away from what the doctor was saying to Dawn, sitting with her book in the hallway and staring at it without having turned a page in minutes.  Dawn was playing cool but that crazy security guard really rattled her, so much that she hadn’t even dropped a hint about Buffy’s secret since the nurses led the man away.  His claim that Dawn wasn’t real hit too close to the truth for comfort, and Buffy didn’t want to let Dawn out of her sight.

“Miss Summers, are you listening?”

Buffy turned back to face the doctor.  “Yeah, sorry, just checking on my sister.  Potent.  Headaches.  Got it.”

Dr. Kriegel nodded and showed her another bottle of somewhat larger round white pills.  “This is dexamethasone.  It’s used to reduce the swelling in your mother’s brain and has to be given three times a day — breakfast, afternoon, and bedtime.”

Buffy nodded again, and Dr. Kriegel passed over yet another pill bottle, though these tablets were small and yellow.

“Haloperidol.  It helps minimize symptoms of delirium — times when she seems confused or says things that don’t make sense.” He waited until Buffy nodded before continuing.  “One at bedtime, but you could give one during the day if you felt she needed it.”

“I-I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Buffy said, staring at the bottles, wondering if this was how their days would go from now on — endless piles of anonymous pills, none of them meant to fix what was wrong, only hiding the problem so it was harder to see. She felt nauseous just thinking about it.

Dr. Kriegel passed her a wallet-sized brown envelope. “With this type of tumour, there’s a chance she could have a seizure.  Should that happen, call an ambulance and give her these two pills once she is awake enough to swallow them.”

Buffy’s head nodded but it felt as though someone else were driving. Dr. Kriegel continued speaking, his lips moving but with no sound coming out.  Headaches.  Tumour. Delirium. Seizures.  All of a sudden the little room felt too hot, too confining.  She jumped up from the chair, which clattered backward and startled Dr. Kriegel and the two nearby nurses.

“Miss Summers, if this is too much—”

Buffy took a deep breath and jabbed her fingernails into her palms.  “No, no it’s fine, I, uh, just remembered I have to make a call.  An important call, before we go. So I’ll just go and, ah, do that.”

Dawn looked up when she rushed by, and Buffy hoped her forced smile seemed convincing enough that nothing was wrong.  The payphone hung at the far end of the corridor, and she rested her head against the metal framing a moment before dropping in her quarter and dialling the number.

It rang, and rang, and rang before Buffy realized what she was doing.  She started to pull the receiver away from her ear when the line connected, though she heard only the faint hum of background noise coming through the speaker.

“Spike?”

“Buffy.”

Of all the stupid—

“What are you doing answering my phone?” she said, the words rushing out before she could stop them.

On the other side of the line she heard a faint sigh.  “You’re the one who called me.”

“I did, didn’t I?” She let out a breathy chuckle as the shard of anger faded.  “I wasn’t sure you’d still be there.”

“Just got back,” Spike said.  “Patrolled a while, killed a few nasties. Figured you’d be busy, what with the hospital and all.  How’s Joyce?”

Buffy couldn’t deny that the fluttery feeling in her chest, the good kind of fluttery that made her head a little dizzy and brought a smile to her face, had everything to do with the notion that Spike had thought to go patrolling for her.  Riley latched onto that bone like an overeager puppy — almost.  She didn’t quite understand his look of disappointment — but he still had to be asked.  Spike, as he had the night this whole mess started, just seemed to know.

“She’s, well, she’s tired, and going kinda stir crazy in here.” Seeing Dawn watching from down the hall, Buffy gave her a little wave and turned so the telephone box hid her face from view.  “We’re bringing her home to wait until she has her surgery, so, um—”

“Want me to make scarce, then?” 

In her mind, Buffy saw Spike’s shoulders slump and disappointment cloud his eyes, and she wanted to squeeze the resignation right out of him.      

“No, not scarce, just... I don’t know who’s gonna drive us home, but don’t go far, okay?  In case I need you?”

“Need me, hmm?”

She could picture the grin now, the one where he showed just a hint of teeth, and the silky rumble of his voice spread a swirling wave of warmth through her belly and straight to her womb.  She needed him, all right.  There was little doubt of that.

“You know you have an ego the size of a barn, right?” she asked, certain he could hear the way her breath quickened.

“Not just the ego.” He chuckled quietly, and when he spoke again he replaced the cocky tone with a softer one that stirred her heart as much as the other stirred her arousal.  “You get her home, Buffy, and I’ll see you later.”

Buffy couldn’t begin to describe the soothing wave of comfort and relief that notion brought to her. “Promise?”

“Promise. Bye, love.”

The line clicked dead and Buffy leaned against the wall beside the phone box, still holding the receiver to her ear.  Without Spike to distract her, the sounds of the hospital filtered back into her awareness, as did Dawn’s unwavering stare as she walked slowly down the hallway toward Buffy.  Buffy hung up the phone and sighed, telling herself this wasn’t going to get any easier by delaying the inevitable. 

“Was that him?” Dawn asked, raising an eyebrow and tossing her head in the direction of the payphone.  “You know, the guy you’re boinking who isn’t Riley?”

Buffy cringed at her sister’s choice of words, and reached out to set her hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “Dawn—”

Dawn pulled away and set her hands on her hips.  “Well it’s true, isn’t it?” she asked, lifting her chin and shaking her head as she spoke.   “I didn’t hear anything, by the way, just talking.  I figured out the rest on my own.  I’m not stupid, you know.”

Buffy resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut and avoid the hurt and accusation in Dawn’s eyes.  “I never said you were.”

“Whatever.  Is he going to be there?”  Dawn tightened her arms around her stomach and looked down at the floor.  “Because I wanna be prepared if I run into some strange guy on the way to the bathroom or something.”

The words hit her like a hard punch to the gut, and Buffy took a step back, struggling to calm her sudden shortness of breath.  “I-is that what you think?  That I—with some stranger?  When Mom—?”

But it did look that way, Buffy realized, from an outsider’s point of view.  It was a logical assumption when Dawn only had one tiny piece of the story to work with, and Buffy felt like an even bigger failure at life for setting such a horrible example for her sister.

“Buffy?”  Dawn’s voice held a bit of a waver now.  “Are you okay?”

Buffy gripped Dawn’s shoulders tightly enough that Dawn couldn’t pull away.  “It’s not like that, Dawn, it’s not.  I-I can’t explain it—I don’t even really get it myself.” 

She released her hold when Dawn flinched, and stepped back further before she could do any more damage.  “All I know is it’s the only thing that makes any sense right now.”

Dawn nodded, though she kept her arms wrapped firmly around her middle.  “Who is he?  If it’s not a stranger, then...?”

Buffy knew by the heat in her face that her cheeks were already a deep red, and the prickly lightheaded feeling that followed only made the temperature beneath her skin unbearable.  Dawn waited, an eyebrow arched expectantly.  Buffy let out a breath and took the plunge.

“Spike,” she said, the word coming out as a barely audible whisper.  “It’s Spike.”

The world didn’t end.  No lightning struck, no earthquakes rocked the ground beneath them, no plagues of locusts swarmed the hallway.  Only the soft thud of Dawn’s book landing on the floor broke the strange calm that settled around Buffy’s confession.

Dawn stared at Buffy with a slack jaw and very wide eyes, not looking away even as she knelt to retrieve her fallen book.  “You—Spike?”

Buffy nodded quickly, afraid that saying anything more about it would break the spell.  “I have to finish talking to Dr. Kriegel,” she said.  “Can you go help Mom get ready to go?”

But Dawn only stared and repeated, “Spike?”

“Spike.  Dawn, please?”

“Mom,” Dawn said, with a little shake of her head, which seemed to clear some of her daze.  “Right, okay.”

She headed toward Joyce’s room, but spun around before she had gone more than half way.  “Oh, my God, Buffy!  This is like—” But she stopped, took a deep breath, and nodded once.  “Mom, right. But you so have some explaining to do later.”

Dawn continued on and Buffy looked back toward the nurses’ station and Dr. Kriegel who was waiting where she left him.  Telling Dawn was easier than Buffy imagined it would be — Dawn almost seemed excited by the idea, once the shock had lifted — but she had a feeling that this particular confession would be the exception, not the rule.  Telling herself to shelve her relationship woes for a little while longer, Buffy picked up the telephone to call for a ride home. 

“First things first, Buffy,” she said aloud, tipping her head up to stare at the ceiling as she waited for Giles to answer.  “Take care of Mom, then worry about everything else.”

But she really doubted that life could ever be that simple.

*~*

 

About Timelines:   This chapter, which immediately follows chapter 8, begins in the morning before episode 5.09 Listening to Fear.  The second half of this chapter is a missing scene during that same episode, and timeline-wise occurs just prior to the scene where Buffy and Dawn take Joyce home from the hospital.   She hasn’t had her surgery yet and will be waiting at home until her surgery date which is two days away.