Buffy, are you coming down today?” Dawn stood at the firmly shut door and sighed. For the last week Buffy had been hidden away in her room. Sometimes she had heard Buffy laughing loudly and then other times she had heard weeping. Dawn was confused and angry; she felt even more abandoned by her sister, who only came out to get a snack or to use the bathroom. Studiously avoiding everyone in the house. Dawn wanted to talk to Buffy about Spike, and didn’t want to do it through a closed door.

She also wanted to talk to her sister about Tara and Willow. Both of them seemed to be walking on eggshells around each other ever since they had come back from dinner at Xander’s. Sometimes Willow-- who acted all weird and hid stuff when she came into a room, Dawn had found a bunch of dried flowers hidden in the bookshelf which she was positive Willow had hidden there. She had stolen them, crumbled them into a powder then washed them down the drain. She didn’t want to know what they were for, but she was a hundred percent sure that Willow had searched the whole room for them the other night. It scared her. She desperately wanted her sister to protect her.

“Buffy, please, I need to talk with you.” Dawn leant her head on the door and sighed.

Then she fell forward as the door clicked open; Dawn stumbled into her sister’s now unrecognisable room.

It was a study in decadence.

She gasped in surprise as her stunned eyes took in the altered room. The carpets that Xander had grudgingly collected were layered on the floor, the bed was made up with black silk sheets and littered with crimson velvet throw cushions, and the curtains were hangings that Buffy had removed from Spike’s crypt and added to the gothic decadence of the place. It smelled of spices and candle wax.

Everywhere she looked were candles, flickering in the slight breeze her entry had made. Leather bound books were piled on the bedside tables and carefully placed on the bookshelves. It was as if Spike had moved into her sister’s room. “Wow, Buffy when did you…? How?” It was a warm safe haven and the realisation dawned on the younger Summers that it was a sanctuary for her sister. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to leave. She silently wished that Buffy had let her come in here earlier, and now hoped that her elusive sister would let her.

“When you guys were out at school.” Buffy stepped out of the shadows by the window and Dawn’s jaw dropped in shock.

In ten days Buffy had changed. She had become a wraith in her own home, never seen and barely heard by the other inhabitants. Dawn had raged at her through the door at first, then curled up next to it crying for her sister and Spike. After that the apathy had set in and Dawn had sat there silently for a whole night just waiting for her, but her sister had remained in her self imposed dungeon. On the eighth day Dawn had given up and gone about her day to day business, secretly hoping that Buffy would come out. Now she wished that she hadn’t come in to her sister’s room. To see the mess she was in was terrifying to the teen. The only person she had to rely on was falling apart at the seams and there was nothing she could think of to do to help her.

The black t-shirt was Spike’s, she was sure of it, and it hung off Buffy’s gaunt frame. Her hair was stringy and unwashed and her face was pallid with dark circles under her eyes. She looked worse than the night Dawn had found her cowering under Glory’s tower. Buffy’s skinny arms were wrapped around her waist and she shivered slightly. Shifting from foot to foot, uncomfortable under her sister’s assessing gaze. Buffy ducked her head and looked at her toes, which were curled in the silk of the rugs.

“Oh my god, Buffy, what the hell have you done too yourself?” Dawn took a hesitant step forward and then halted, shock making her blurt out the first thing that came to mind. Buffy shied away from her sister and skittishly moved around to place the bed between them. Her haunted eyes peered through her hair at her shocked sibling; she was skittish as a newborn foal.

“I killed Spike…I was too slow and they dusted him, but it was my fault. I should’ve moved faster,” was all she said. Buffy slumped down onto the edge of the bed and reached for a journal. Her hands caressed the hand-tooled cover, ragged nails bruising the burnt umber leather. She had read them all obsessively from start to finish. She had learned all about William and fallen in love with the gentle poet with a heart so fragile and easily shattered by the bitch Cecily. Buffy had cried over his heartache and wished she could go back in time and save him from the cruelty of his social circle. She knew all too well how feral people could be. The Cordelia’s of this time had been pussycats compared to the idiots who teased and tormented William. She had giggled over Spike’s posturing about being bad before he was turned, and was secretly glad he hadn’t been. It added even more depth to the vampire, who she had belatedly realised she could have easily loved.

Buffy had then started on the journals covering his early days as a vampire. First meeting Angelus and the others, it had been fascinating to read about them from Spike’s perspective-- and gross. Freaky kinky sexage aside, Buffy had read between the lines and realised that even then Spike had loved deeply and had been hurt so much by Dorksilla’s screwing around. She had hated Angelus even more for his head games and cruelty. Slowly, as the years had progressed, Spike had evolved from the existence of the gentle poet and fledgling vampire. Her eyes had widened at the discovery that Angelus had hidden from fights, unlike Spike. She also was surprised to read that Angel with a soul had tried to rejoin his family in China. Even then he had been weak.

Spike’s first battle with a slayer had ended in blood and screwing. But she had sensed his respect for the Slayer through his words and his elation of becoming a master vamp. Despite the killing of her kind, she had been excited for him; his ebullience had echoed throughout his words and infected her with his pride. One thing stood out from it all, though. Spike could’ve trashed Angel in her eyes over and over with the information recorded in these diaries and he had never done it, even though he had just cause.

Then with a fascination bordering on obsession, she had read all the journals covering his arrival in Sunnydale and ending with the night before his death. The last entry had carved a hole in her soul that Buffy doubted would ever heal.

“No, Buffy don’t. It’s not your fault.” Dawn sat down next to her grieving sister and wrapped her arm around her sister fragile shoulders.

“Don’t…I don’t deserve you being nice to me.” Buffy tried to pull away from her sister and failed, Dawn stubbornly holding on like a limpet. She was determined to do something to help… anything. She wanted her sister back, not this shadow. “He should be here and I should be dead, it’s my fault. He said it. There had to be a balance and he was the balance, all gone now and I don’t know what to do. Dawnie, what should I do?” Buffy was almost childlike in her grief.

“Firstly a bath, cos damn you’re a stinker, sis,” Dawn teased and pulled Buffy up, not giving her a moment to balk at leaving the room. She kept up a line of mindless chatter about school and Janice as she pulled her sister into the bathroom and filled the tub and got her into the bubble filled water.

Buffy docilely let her sister wash her long hair and rinse out the dirty suds. It felt good to be clean. It had been so long since she had showered-- that day when the two of them had brought the boxes home. Ever since then she had been reading Spike’s journals and slowly falling in love with him. Even with the blood that painted the pages, there had been a sense of the mortal man who had just ached to be unconditionally loved, but who had never realised that dream.

She had read on, entranced as slowly Spike evolved into the vampire who had let a Hell goddess torture him into a pulp, evolved even more into the vampire who had wept over her dead body and then tended her battered fingers and knuckles after she had dug her way out of her coffin. His poetry was not the best, but it was heartfelt and scattered through the diaries of his life and unlife. Adding poignancy and depth to him, he was no longer the Big Bad vampire to her. He was William the Bloody Awful Poet come vampire with a heart bigger than the world—and he’d loved her.

Everything was so different now. She wished it had been before she had failed to save him. But at least Buffy knew now that she really loved him and railed at the unfairness of it all. She was cursed to never be happy in love, so she had created a homage to him in her room and curled in on herself and mired herself in his words – in his hopes and dreams.

“Thanks, Dawn,” she whispered and lay back in the warm water, letting it ease her tension.

“Chicken and Stars, with crackers!” Dawn exclaimed and ran towards the door, skidding suddenly to a halt and turned to face her sister. “You won’t lock me out again, will you?”

Buffy opened her eyes and looked over at the gangly form of her teenage sister and tried to smile. The corners of her lips curved up slightly and she shook her head. “No Dawn, I won’t.” She looked down at her toes, peeking shyly out of the suds and then back up at her sister. “I’m sorry,” she whispered meekly.

~~~~~~~~

The two sisters were curled up on Buffy’s bed, reading Spike’s journals. She had picked one with the least amount of icky stuff so that Dawn wouldn’t be freaked. She was sipping at the lukewarm soup Dawn had brought up for her and while nibbling on the bread Tara had baked she realised how hungry she was. Being so absorbed in Spike, she had let herself almost starve to death.

“Oh my god, did that really happen?” Dawn giggled and pointed at the entry she was eagerly reading.

Buffy glanced down, and smiled. “Yeah, he had on Xander’s shorts and this waaaay hideous Hawaiian shirt. Oh man, Dawn you would’ve peed yourself if you could’ve seen his white knobbly knees. Sooo not the Big Bad!”

Dawn laid her head on Buffy’s shoulder and kept reading.

“I miss him,” she whispered into Buffy’s damp hair.

“Me too, Dawnie…me too,” Buffy sighed.

“Tara tried to talk with me about him, but it was hard. She didn’t understand and I wanted you and you were so sad and hiding. I missed you, Buffy. I loved him.” Dawn blinked her eyes furiously, trying to clear the tears so she could keep reading.

“Sorry baby, but I needed to…”

“I know, you loved him too.” Dawn interrupted when she realised Buffy was faltering to explain herself. Buffy shot her a relieved smile, secretly grateful that whiney brat Dawn was gone and this more serious and kind version of her sister had replaced her. She still felt sick about smacking her. She had promised her mom to protect her, not whale on her.

Cocooned from the world, neither sister realised that the door was ajar and that they had an eavesdropper.