It's Not Enough
By:  Morrigan

A/N:  Ok, here we go.  Dawn finally gets her say.  Thanks again to the remarkable Blacknblue2 who really performed a miracle on this chapter.

Please, please, please leave a review and tell me what you think about this one.  It would mean the world to me.  Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer:  All character belong to Joss Whedon and ME.  No turkeys were harmed during the writing of this fic.



Dawn hadn't bothered turning on the light.  She figured it was fitting, being down there, in the dark.  It made her feel like she was back to sneaking out to meet him, just like in the past.  The way she had remembered, while upstairs in her room.

She felt her way, gingerly, down the stairs and slowly navigated her way through, until she reached Spike's cot, where she settled down to wait for him.

She wondered if he was going to be mad at her.  She really hated the thought of him being angry with her, any more.

For a brief instant, she considered going back upstairs and sneaking back into her room, but she pushed it away just as quickly.  It would be too late, now.  He would know she had been there.

Vampires have that yucky trait, where they smell out where people have been.  No, leaving now would just make it worse.  He'd probably think she had been snooping around or something.  After all, she had been known to do that, in the past...

'No backing out now, Dawnie,' she thought, to herself, as she settled down to wait.

By the time Spike entered the room, Dawn wasn't even aware of him being there.  She had fallen fast asleep.  But he was aware of her.  He sensed her presence the moment he stepped through the door.  But, he continued on, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, heading straight for the basement shower, the only tell-tale difference, being that he grabbed a clean pair of jeans off of the stack on his dresser, on his way through.


*  *  *  *  *


"Dawn...  Nibblet, wake up...  C'mon, now..."

Dawn stirred a little, but didn't wake.

She was dreaming.  She was leaning over a pond, trying, desperately, to catch a little fish with a net.  She couldn't seem to catch it, but it kept coming back to her, as if playing a game, which made her all the more determined to get it.  Then it started to rain.  Sprinkling, really.  The light rain droplets sending little ripples out over the water, making it harder and harder to see just where the fishy was.  Suddenly, the surface bubbled, and something started rising through it.  It looked like...  A merman?

Dawn looked down at her tiny fish net and back up to the glistening torso of the creature, that has risen before her, in awe.

"Wow!"  Was all she could think to say.  He was gorgeous!

He reached out to her,  "Dawnie!"  He said.  He said her name!  And Dawn knew that she should probably run, but she felt glued to her spot, completely flabbergasted, and not a little excited, by him...  But, why did he sound British?  Was she in England?

Surprisingly warm, damp fingers grazed over her cheek as he said,

"Get up.  You're in my bed!"

"What!?"

Spike watched, with tempered curiosity, as Dawn startled, and opened her eyes.  Her groggy eyes regarded him with confusion as reality gradually came back to her.

"You're in my bed," he repeated, as his hand left her face to run his fingers through his damp, towel tousled hair.  "And," he looked down at her, with feigned disdain.  "I'm not a fishy."

"Oh!"

Dawn's eyes widened in horror, as she sat up, scooting over to give Spike room to sit down.

'I was talking in my sleep!'  She thought, then wondered, mortified...  'What else did I say?'

Spike remained standing.  He had regained his usual dismissive air that he had recently begun to use in her presence.

"Needed a break from all the noise up there, eh?"

He nodded in the direction of the stairs, before continuing.

"Well, t's all clear now.  Little tykes all tucked safe n' sound in their beds, and all, so you can shove off now.  I need to catch me some kip."  

Dawn glanced around the basement, which was now illuminated by nothing more than the soft glow of the space heater, placed a few feet away from the cot.  She figured Spike must have turned it on more for her benefit, than his.  He was pretty much immune to changes in temperature, after all.  But then...

Remembering something strange about Spike's touch, just a moment ago, she ignored his dismissal, and without thinking of how strange her actions would seem, she reached out and grasped his hand in hers.

"Oi!" he yelped, pulling his hand away, and tucking his thumb back into the belt loop of his jeans.

"No touching, Bit!"  Don't have time for games n' such. I'm beat.  Now, just...  go."

"You're warm!" Dawn remarked.  "How did you do that?"

Her eyes sparkled, with childish curiosity, in the reddish light.

"Gads!"  She wasn't going to leave.  Realizing that it was useless to continue trying to persuade the youngest Summers into running along, Spike shook his head and sat down on the edge of the cot beside her, in defeat.

"Shower, Dawn."  He answered her.  "Hot water.  Nothing more."

Dawn's grin was wide with happy fascination, noticing goose bumps running across Spike's back, as he turned away from her to turn the heater more in his direction.

"I thought vampires weren't supposed to feel the cold?"  Dawn wondered, aloud.

Spike rolled his eyes, but leaning closer to the heater, as he replied, "We do an' we don't."  We feel it.  Just not the same way you do...  Usually."

His eyes darted back to Dawn.  She was sitting cross legged now, leaning forward in anticipation, for his explanation.

"T's like..."  He searched his brain for a suitable comparison, before he continued.  "Well...  It's sort of like..."

He turned to Dawn, shooting her an irritated expression.

"Does this really matter, to you?"

"Uh-huh," she replied.

Spike thought it looked as though her face would crack from smiling.  Like those big fake put on smiles that waitresses always wear.  What he didn't know, was that he wasn't that far off from the truth.  Dawn truly was curious.  But the smile she wore was forced, to hide how nervous she really was.

"Right then...  Ok...  This is probably going to sound a little weird, but I suppose you could compare it to something like...  a turkey."

"A turkey?"  Dawns smile faltered a little, one brow rising up in a pretty good imitation of the vampire sitting beside her.

"Well, yeah.  A frozen turkey is dead.  It don't feel nothin' at'all.  But if you put it on the counter for a while, it feels about the same temperature as the rest of the house.  You put it in the oven and it's right hot when you take it out.  Leave it on the counter 'gain and it gets all room temperature like, again, and so on and so on.  You get it?"

He looked at her questioningly before concluding,  "The blasted bird doesn't care how hot or cold it is, because it's dead already!  But, it takes on the temperature of it's surroundings and holds it for a while."

"So..."  Dawn furrowed her brows together while looking at him, intently.  "You're a turkey?"

Spike smirked at this and folded his arms over his chest.

"Not likely!"  He exclaimed.  "You're the only bird sitting here, at the moment."

But Dawn could definitely see some of his defensiveness drop away from him, as he turned himself around to sit cross legged on the cot, to face her.

'Ok...  This is good...'  Dawn thought, before continuing with her questions.

"Alright.  I get the point.  But, if you don't care about the cold and such, then how come your skin reacts to it, with the goose bumps and stuff?"

Spike shrugged.  "S'pose it's because un-like said turkey I'm un-dead.

He chewed his lip, apparently in thought and his blue eyes gleamed mischievously as he asked  "What suppose, would happen if I turned a turkey and see what it does?  Wouldn't that be a bloody riot, come thanksgiving!"

He wiggled his brows at Dawn as she lost herself to giggles, imagining them all sitting around a pristine table, getting ready to eat, as the un-dead turkey came to life and began thrashing around.

"Buffy would freak!"  She declared, through her giggles.

"Right sure she would, Bit!"  Spike agreed.

He had to admit, if only to himself, that he was rather enjoying her unexpected company.  He just wasn't sure why she was really there, since he knew she didn't trust him.

"Yeah," Dawn continued, "But, hey!... usually the turkey on the table has no head.  We'd have to find a way to get around that, because, dusty turkey...  No fun!"

"Yeah."  Spike nodded.  "No fun at all."

Dawn's laughter subsided as she noticed that Spike had gotten serious again.  She looked down to her lap, tucking her hair behind her ears.  She steeled herself for his rejection, as she brought her eyes back up to meet his.

"Spike...  I...  I wanted...  I want to tell you that I'm really sorry....  for how I've treated you.

She stopped there, waiting to see his reaction.

Spike was, for the moment, just as quiet as she had become.  This certainly wasn't what he had expected.  He cared deeply for Dawn.  She had a big heart and carried a fierce loyalty to those she cared for.  But she was also a child who was fueled primarily on selfish emotions.  This meant that she wanted those people to include her in every aspect of their lives and when things didn't go her way, she would protest loudly with tantrums and complaints.  She usually insisted that any fouls on her part were due to the injustices others had forced upon her.

Apologies were not, in Spike's experience, in Dawn's portfolio of behaviors.

"Rubbish."  Was Spike's reply.  He waved his hand at her, dismissively.  He wasn't too comfortable with this new turn of events.  "Nothin' to be sorry for."

Dawn's heart sank, as she watched him tilt his chin up defensively.

'He is mad at me.'  She thought.

She watched the muscles in his jaw twitch while he fumbled around, inside his jacket, which had been lying beside the cot, for his smokes.

"Yes, there is!"  She corrected him, her fingers twisted in the worn blanket she was sitting on.  "I was so horrible!  You came back...  And I missed you so much!...  But I was so mean to you!"

"Yeah, Well..."  Spike fiddled, awkwardly, with his pack of smokes.  "I prob'ly deserved it."

He figured he did, after what he had done to cause his departure to begin with.  The two of them sat in silence, for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, Dawn mustered up her courage again to continue.

"No, you didn't, Spike."  She shook her head and gestured to him, weakly, before dropping her hand back down to her lap.  "It's obvious, after what you did, that you felt bad enough about that all by yourself.  And I knew it too."  I just..."

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked back up into Spike's eyes.

"I was just so angry at you for leaving me.  I know that I was just a kid to you..."

Spike's eyes darkened and he opened his mouth to say something in return, but she carried on before he could get a word out.

"But you were my best friend.  You were the only person who ever made me feel like I was really here!"

Spike closed his eyes as he heard her heartfelt words.  He could smell the heartache coming off of her, as real as day.  He wasn't prepared for this.  He knew that she carried a youthful inquisitiveness about his former life and that she thought it was cool to be able to hang around a vampire.  Kids are like that.  But he never realized that she had cared that much about him.  And her choice of words had struck a chord in his heart.  He recalled himself speaking words very similar to Dawn's sister, once.  Because Buffy may have insisted that he was an evil thing...  But she made him feel alive.

Spike reached out to her, then.  He wiped her tears from her face and held his hand under her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye as he softly told her.  "You're not just a kid Dawnie.  You're my Nibblet," before gathering her up into his arms, holding her to him as she cried.  Her tears of worry now turned to those of joy from knowing, at last, that she had her friend back and would never ever do anything to lose him again.


*  *  *  *  *


Spike and Dawn stayed down there until the sun came up.  Not that it made any difference, down there, in the basement.  They talked about all sorts of things, neither one of them in a rush to be alone now.  Each one taking comfort in the other's company, and catching up on each other's lives, or un-lives, as it were.

When it was finally apparent to Dawn that she was dead on her feet and really did need to get some rest, she gave Spike one more hug before turning to head back up the stairs.

As Spike watched her turn to go, he thought about some of the things Dawn had poured out to him tonight.  About how she felt so alone all the time.  How she felt left out of all things going on.  All the big secrets and the plans and so on.  And this gave him an idea.

At that moment, he decided that he wanted to share something with her.  Something that he had carried back with him, after retrieving his soul.  Something that no one else in the world knew about.

Dawn had just reached the top of the stairs when he called out to her.

"Hey, Bit!"

She stopped, and turned to look at him with a little sleepy smile on her face.  Spike stood up and held out his hand to her.

"C'mere.  There's something I want to show you."

Curious, as to what he had in mind, she skipped down the steps, taking his hand and following him as he led her toward the bathroom.

"Right then.  Now, go inside there,"

She gave him an odd look, before stepping inside.  Seeing nothing unusual, she turned back to him and asked,

"Now what?"

Spike was standing just outside the doorway, grinning from ear to ear and bouncing on the balls of his feet, obviously anxious for her to see whatever it was that he was trying to show her.  He pointed to her left and said

"Look there."

She did, and all she saw was the mirror.

"What do you see, Bit?"

He had stopped hopping and was now rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"I don't see anything
unusual, Spike.  Just the mirror."

"Yes..."  Spike agreed.  "And what's in the mirror, Pet?"

Dawn's face softened and her eyes seemed a little sad as she looked at her reflection.

"I see me.  Me and nothing else."

Dawn looked at the white marble sink.  She heard Spike step in behind her, and felt his hands come up to her shoulders, holding her there.  She didn't bother looking up, because all she would see was herself and no one else, and that was always sort of creepy.

"You aren't looking hard enough, nibblet."  Spike whispered in her ear.  "Look
again."

"There isn't anything in here Spike," she protested, but looked up anyway.  And the rest of her words melted away as she took in the sight of herself in the clutches of a smirking wickedly hot looking vampire.

As she watched, he leaned in close to her ear, winked at their reflection and whispered,  "Boo."