Disclaimer: All hail Joss

Author’s note: Massive huggles to my great beta, Bloodytearsoflife.
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Chapter 55 : Lost and Found

The light from the open door of the church struck Buffy’s pendant, which hung lightly from Dawn’s neck. Scenes from Buffy’s slayer dream and Dawn’s death flashed through her mind. She had one thought: she wanted the pendant off of Dawn’s neck and around her own.

In fact, her fingers were itching to grab it, regardless of Dawn’s feelings. Buffy breathed deeply, calming the urge.

Dawn giggled at something the boy said and blushed a deep pink.

“Who’s the boy?” Anya whispered to Buffy. “I didn’t think Dawn was allowed to date demons.”

“She’s not,” noted Buffy emphatically.

The Slayer stepped out of the shadows and into Dawn’s vision. The teen gasped.

“Buffy?” exclaimed the key, raising a hand to her mouth.

The boy that had been such a distraction to Dawn only moments before was forgotten as Dawn beheld her supposedly dead great, great, great grandmother, looking very much alive and seventeen again.

Of course, Buffy thought it was closer to eighteen now that she’d been human for several months.

“It’s me, all alive and everything,” Buffy said, shrugging. “Got stuck in that amulet thingy and got zapped back here.”

Dawn nodded, swallowing with a gulp.

“Hug?” asked Buffy tentatively.

Dawn erupted into a smile and stepped towards the slayer, her arms wide.

The boy behind her futiley tried to get her attention. No response to his words, and his pleasant demeanour changed, his voice turning harsh. He lunged and pulled Dawn back from Buffy, his hand around her wrist in a hard grip.

“Ow!” Dawn protested, the pain from his grip radiating up from her arm. She turned towards her now former...whatever he was and glared, trying to yank her hand away from him, with no success. “Let go!”

The boy shook his head ‘no,’ his eyes glaring down not at Dawn but at the pendant around her neck.

Buffy’s dream flashed in her mind. It was all the same, except this was a teenager, not a priest. And Spike wasn’t there.

The boy was lifting his hand to take the pendant off Dawn’s neck when Anya finally decided to make her presence known.

“Hey!” the vengeance demon shouted into the cavernous church, startling the boy and Dawn. “That pendant belongs to Buffy and me! You can’t have it.”

Anyanka stepped towards the boy, repelling him away from Dawn. Now free from the boy, Dawn cradled her hand, the swelling around her wrist making it look like it was not an ordinary bruise.

A snarl came from the boy’s lips, as he attempted to lunge back at Dawn and the pendant.

“You don’t seem to be getting it!” shouted Anya at the boy. “You aren’t a demon anymore. Move on!”

Swiftly, Buffy moved over to Dawn and removed the pendant from her granddaughter’s neck, placing it around her own. Suddenly Buffy felt whole again. This was the way she was supposed to be.

“Make a wish Dawnie,” whispered Buffy, eager to try out the pendant.

“I wish Alan Telton had a broken wrist instead of me,” intoned Dawn, looking at the boy.

Buffy shifted into the demon face she hadn’t worn in what seemed like years. “Wish granted.”

There was a crunch, and the boy grabbed his arm, cradling his now broken wrist. “You evil bitch!” he screamed.

“It runs in the family,” Dawn commented, turning her back on the boy and finally giving Buffy a hug, her wrist perfectly healed with her wish.

“Who is he?” Buffy asked her friend as the boy cried on the tile floor pathetically.

“A mistake,” admitted Anya. “I made him a vengeance demon, then he sided with the First, so I de-demoned him. He wasn’t too thrilled. He wanted your pendant, ‘cause I smashed his.”

“Ahhh,” responded Buffy knowingly. “Can he leave?”

Anya looked back at the former demon on the ground and sighed. “Probably, but I think he’s going to cry for a little while longer. I think it would be easier if we left,” Anya told the girls. “And don’t you try to do anything to get a pendant again, Alan! If you do, it’s decapitation for you buster!” With a poof of smoke Anya disappeared from the church.

Buffy took Dawn’s hand and stepped towards the exit of the church, happy for the first time since she came back from the Hellmouth.

“I thought he was such a nice guy,” commented Dawn sadly. “Why is it whenever I try to date I end up with demons or vampires?”

“That runs in the family too, I guess,” answered Buffy. “Maybe one day you’ll find a nice vampire or demon to settle down with.”

Dawn laughed. “I know a vampire that is going to be really happy that a certain demon is back.”

“I certainly hope so,” Buffy responded, stepping through the church doors and into the sunlight.
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The Key and the vengeance demon walked up to an old brick building in what had used to be a working class part of town. Now of course, the houses were restored and well kept. This house though, looked like it was original.

Dawn stepped up to the door and turned suddenly, a pleading look on her face.

“Please don’t tell Spike about Alan. He’ll be mad. He’s been extra careful about everything since we left Sunnydale. He thinks that the ‘bloody Immortal’ is going to eat my brains or something.”

Buffy nodded her head, promising not to tell. Dawn was alive, no need to make Spike worry now that the danger was over. Silently she vowed that she would be looking over Dawn with added care. This teen was a slippery one.

With a smile, Dawn turned the key in the lock and opened the front door.

“Spike! I’m back!” she shouted into the darkened house. “And I brought a friend.” Dawn shut the door to the house, blocking out the light from outside.

“I thought I told you bit, we are in bloody hiding...” started Spike as he came around the corner to come face to greet the teen, only to come face to face with the smiling eyes of the woman who had been haunting his dreams. “Cecily...?”

Buffy bit her lower lip and fluttered her eyelashes. She hadn’t anticipated being this nervous about seeing him again. “Hello William.”

“I ran into her on Gracechurch Street! Isn’t that weird?” explained Dawn.

If the vampire hadn’t been distracted by the vision in front of him, he would have known at once that it was a lie, but at the moment he was mesmerized by the blond standing before him.

Buffy watched his eyes attentively. He always had his emotions so clearly displayed there. There was suddenly a change, his eyes darkened, and flashed gold for a brief second. Buffy knew at once that he’d convinced himself that he didn’t believe that she wasn’t the real thing.

“Dawn, go upstairs,” ordered Buffy, her voice suddenly harsh. “Don’t come down until Spike calls for you.”

The teen looked between her guardian and her recent rescuer and rolled her eyes.

“It’s never easy between you two is it?” the teen muttered as she ascended the steps to the second level of the house.

“It never is,” responded Buffy after Dawn had left the hallway. Her eyes fastened on to Spike, never breaking contact. This wasn’t going to be pretty, but she had to convince him. They’d both been paranoid about Dawn’s safety for too long. She knew that if she were in his position, she wouldn’t believe this either.

“Who are you?” he asked, starting to circle her.

Buffy broke off eye contact as Spike circled, and resisted the urge to keep her eyes fastened on him. He was the hunter here; she needed to convince him that she wasn’t a threat.

You know who I am, she responded through their link, startling him.

“I am yours,” she said aloud. “Your mate, your wife, your lover, your best friend.”

“Buffy’s gone,” he stated with conviction.

Buffy turned her head and made eye contact again. She could tell he was close to crying, but was fighting back the tears to face the threat she posed.

“I am alive,” she said softly. “I was sucked into the amulet Liz gave me. I was spat out at Wolfram and Hart in LA. It’s taken me months to get to you and Dawn.”

“A likely story,” he grumbled.

“It’s the true story. You’ve got to know that it’s impossible to kill me, Spike. Didn’t you see what happened to D’Hoffryn?”

“Demons in multiple dimensions know about that little spectacular,” he countered.

“True enough,” she responded. “I know this is cliched but ask me something only I would know...maybe that would convince you.”

“Strip,” he ordered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Strip,” he ordered again.

Buffy looked into his eyes, trying to see the wheels turning in his head. He stared straight back at her, unbelieving, ready to strike.

Slowly, Buffy nodded, she understood. Her hand travelled up to the zipper of her jacket and started to pull it down, keeping eye contact with her mate. She knew what he wanted. No clone, no facsimiles would have the same scars she did from their sorted history together.

She hoped that Dawn heeded her order to stay upstairs. When she’d originally said it, her thought had been that she and Spike were going to fight, a bloody messy fight. Dawn didn’t really need to see that at all.

Buffy pulled her jacket off her body and let it drop to the floor of the hallway. Dawn didn’t need to see this either. Buffy pulled her tank top off over her head, revealing pale white skin, a pale blue lace bra and her newly returned pendant.

Spike’s eyes flashed as he spied the pendant but he made no comment. His eyes travelled to the scars on Buffy’s neck, his marks from when he tasted her demon blood so long ago.

Buffy pulled on her belt, and slid her leather pants down her legs, not getting any reaction from the vampire still fixated on the scars on her neck. She stood before him clad in matching bra and panties, waiting for his next order.

Eventually, his eyes travelled the length of her body and fixed on another set of scars, on the inside of her thigh. Buffy felt herself get wet, remembering just what had happened the night Spike had bitten her there. She blocked out what happened afterwards. It was traumatic enough to have to the Immortal stalking her offspring, she didn’t want to remember every detail of what he did to her.

Spike stepped closer, his piercing eyes inspecting every inch of her body. His nearness produced another wet reaction, coating the crotch of her panties. He was so close there was no way he couldn’t smell it.

He’d always loved her scent, said that it was distinctive, hers alone. Wouldn’t that help her win her case?

Spike’s nostrils flared and the hard look in his eyes softened for a second. Only a second though. Buffy rolled her eyes, annoyed with how long this was taking.

“Bite me and get this over with,” she said, breaking the silence.

Spike looked taken aback at her suggestion.

“Look, if I’m the real deal you will know by taste, if I’m not...well you’ll know that right away too.”

He looked as if he was pondering the idea for a moment, then, without warning, he struck, imbedding his fangs into the marks on her neck. He drank deeply, no doubt trying to uncover any deception.

Buffy let her eyes roll back into her head. She’d missed the sensation of him drinking from her. In her ecstasy, she heard her name, muffled, from his lips, and felt his arms wrap around her body.

“Stupid vampire,” she responded, leaning into his touches.

Took him long enough.
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tbc...