CHAPTER 20: Dawn, Master of puppets

"Good morning, Dawnie. Slept well?"

Wearing pink fuzzy slippers and a purple pajama with little pink hearts on it, Willow walked into the sunny kitchen with a bright smile on her face. She had always been a morning person. She loved this moment of the day when everything was fresh and new, just before your problems from the previous day caught up with you and brought you back to reality.

By the look of things, Dawn was far from sharing her love of early mornings. The girl was sitting at the breakfast counter, looking gloomily at her soggy cereal through the strands of long brown hair falling in front of her face.

"Yeah, whatever." She answered, obviously cranky.

Used to the girl's unpredictable moods, Willow shrugged it off and went to the refrigerator to get the carton of orange juice. She poured herself a tall glass and downed half of it in a few long gulps.

“Any plans for today? I remember you wanted to go shopping. We could go together,” the short redhead suggested pleasantly while turning back to face Dawn.

Still not looking up, Dawn refused to answer. If anything, her look darkened even more, her eyes narrowing dangerously and her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Dawnie, are you OK?” Willow asked, finally realizing that the young girl’s mood went beyond morning crankiness.

Dawn stood up abruptly, and took her still full cereal bowl to the sink, dropping it in noisily. She turned to face Willow, fire in her blue eyes.

“You know,” She said “for a best friend, you kinda suck.”

The witch looked stunned. She blinked a few times, trying to find words. “...What? What did I do?”

“You were so busy being selfish and blabbing away last night that you never even realized that Buffy didn’t say a word, never considered there might be something wrong with her. She spent the night crying in her bed and yet you slept like a baby. Seriously.” Dawn shook her head angrily. “You know what, never mind. I’m gonna go check on my sister. Because I care, unlike other people.”

Dawn marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs, leaving behind a shocked Willow.

She knocked lightly on Buffy’s door “Buffy?”

For the longest time, there was no answer, but then she heard a muffled “Go away.”

Ignoring an order to “Go away” was almost instinctive for the younger Summers girl. She turned the knob and walked in, shutting the door behind her.

Buffy groaned and pulled the blankets over her head. “Why is go away so hard for you to understand?” She mumbled, just loud enough for Dawn to hear despite the blankets.

Dawn sat on the bed. “Oh, I don’t know... Maybe because that would mean I’d have to pretend not to care that you came back home all sad and didn’t sleep all night. And also because it’s in my job description as your little sister to annoy you.”

Buffy peeked at Dawn from underneath the blankets. “And you’re doing a bang up job. They couldn’t have sent anyone better to fill the position of the annoying little sister.”

“Probably because they made me out of you.” The young girl said thoughtfully. “That explains a lot.”

“Yeah, like why we have the same taste in clothes. That’s my sweater by the way.” Buffy commented, looking pointedly at the cream cashmere sweater Dawn was wearing.

“And it will be back in your closet by tonight. Unless you and I go shopping today, then I can change into whatever cute new clothes I’ll get.”

“Nice try missy. But I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not sad. Just tired. And just so you know, I didn’t sleep last night because I’m jet lagged. There.” She went back to her hiding place under the covers.

“Rrrright.” Dawn snorted. “There’s like a two hours time difference between here and Hawaii. That doesn’t qualify as jetlag. Buffy, I’m not deaf. You were crying.”

“I so was not. I have allergies.”

“Since when?”

“Dawn, leave me ALONE.”

“Fine. Be that way.”

Dawn stood up and went to the corner of the room where Buffy’s suitcase was still unpacked. She unzipped it and started emptying her sister’s dirty clothes, separating everything into piles of colors, whites and darks.

The blonde head emerged from the covers again. “What the hell are you doing?”

Dawn shrugged, not turning to look at her sister. “Laundry.”

“Since when?! Have you ever done the laundry before?” An incredulous Buffy asked.

“Did too. Lots of times.”

“Yeah, like twice. When mom forced you.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it. And it’s not like Willow will take care of it. You’ve been gone for two weeks with all my favorite Buffy clothes. I want ‘em back.”

“Dawn...”

The tall brunette turned around, an exasperated look on her face. “Look, I’m trying to do something nice for you here. Can you just let me? You won’t talk to me so it’s the least I can do. Just go back to sleep and get some rest.”

Dawn finished separating the clothes. She emptied the rest of the content of the suitcase, shampoo, blow dryer, make up, and found the camera. She glanced back at the still form of her sister on the bed to make sure she wasn’t looking, then put the small digital camera in her back pocket. She then grabbed an armful of clothes and left the room.

She’d bugged Buffy the night before to see the pictures of her trip, but Buffy had said that she was too tired and wanted to go to bed. She didn’t need Buffy to narrate, she could look at the picture without her there to make comments on each and every one of them. Besides, maybe she would find a clue that would explain Buffy’s mood. Most likely, she’d fought with Spike for the entire trip. Or maybe it was raining for two weeks straight. She’d see that on the pictures.

Willow was sitting at the table chewing on toast. Dawn ignored her and went to the basement to put the clothes in the washer. Once that was done, she sat on the floor with her back against the machine and turned the camera on.

When the first picture appeared on the small screen, she squinted to look at it, not sure of what she was seeing. Then she squealed loudly and hid her eyes after realizing that it was Spike. A lot more of Spike than she ever wanted to see.

The basement door opened and Willow looked down. “Dawn? Is everything OK?”

“Yeah... Just a spider. I’m fine.”

“Oh. You want me to kill it for you?”

“I said I’m fine.” Dawn snapped. “I already killed it.”

“OK.”

Dawn waited for Willow to close the basement door again before returning her attention to the camera. She made a grossed out face then clicked to move on to the next picture. She moved through the pictures as fast as she could, having no interest in her sister or Spike in their birthday suits. She stopped when she reached a picture of them kissing lovingly.

“Well that explains it.” She said to herself, rolling her eyes at how stupid they were. They probably got into some stupid fight before coming back.

The girl sighed and stood up. “That just won’t do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a place of death, Spike's crypt was usually lively. It was almost a representation of who he was: the most alive corpse there ever was. A living, talking, contradiction. But not today. When Dawn walked in, she shivered and hugged herself. The place was dark, gloomy and musky. For the first time since she started visiting Spike on a regular basis last year, it looked like what it was: someone's grave site.

Until she heard a crash coming from downstairs and noticed the soft light coming from the opened trap door.

There was a muffled curse and Dawn slowly walked to the trap door. It sounded like Spike was talking to someone, but by the one sided conversation, she could tell he was doing the questions and the answers.

"So bleedin' stupid... should have known better. The bloody bint had the nerve to look into my eyes and promise. And I believed her. Was too good to be true."

Looking down through the trap door, Dawn cleared her throat.

"Bloody Hell! What do you want? Came back to taunt me, did you? I was right, you got a lot of bloody stones, Slayer!"

Dawn squealed when she heard the noise of a bottle breaking. "Spike! It's me... Dawn. Relax. Geez."

"Go away, bit. It's not a good time."

"If I got a quarter for every time I heard that word today, I wouldn't need to ask people to go shopping with me. I'd buy my own stuff."

"I'm serious, Dawn. I'm really not in the mood."

"Yeah well, tough luck. I'm pissed too and I want to talk to you. If you're naked, you better cover up because I'm coming down and I don't want to see it... again."

She waited a few seconds before slowly making her way down the steps. She jumped the last few steps and turned to face the clearly angry vampire. Good thing she knew Spike would never hurt her, because she would be a little scared.

Spike nearly growled. "You're one stubborn little bint, pigeon."

"I know." She put her hands on her hips, trying to look more intimidating than she was. "I get that from..."

"Don't finish that sentence." Spike interrupted.

Dawn snorted. "Her name WILL come up in this conversation, so you should get used to it now."

"Dawn." The tone of the vampire's voice was almost threatening. "Go HOME."

"I came here to figure out something, and I won't leave before I do. So the faster we start talking, the faster I'll be out of here."

Spike sighed. He shut his eyes and rubbed his temples. He turned around and went to find another bottle of booze. "What do you want, Dawn?"

"I want to know what the hell happened between you and Buffy."

"That's not your concern, nibblet."

"Uh... Yes it is. She's my sister and you're my friend. It's my concern when both of you are unhappy."

He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Nothing happened. No one's unhappy. End of the story."

"Oh really?" Dawn crossed her arms over her chest. "Funny cause I saw some pictures that led me to believe otherwise."

Spike almost choked on a mouthful of Whiskey. "Soddin' hell! You saw the pictures??"

She blushed brightly and ducked her head. "I kinda... borrowed the camera."

"Bleedin' hell!" Spike rushed to put a t-shirt on, as if it would erase whatever the young girl had seen.

Dawn managed to joke despite her embarrassment. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”

The vampire narrowed his eyes at her. “Now I understand why your sister gets so mad when you touch her things without asking first.”

She rolled her eyes. “Relax. It’s not like I actually looked at the pictures. After the first one burned my cornea, I skipped through them until I reached a more decent one. And my point is: something did happen between you guys and I want to know why you’re not together right now being all happy and stuff.”

“It doesn’t matter, Dawn. Whatever happened, it’s over.”

“Oh. So you guys had a stupid fight before arriving here and that’s it? You’re giving up? Wow. You two are more stupid than I thought you were.”

“Hey!”

“Well you are. I’ve wanted so badly for the two of you to get together and just when my wish comes true, it’s over. I thought you were perfect for each other. Guess I was wrong.” Dawn stopped trying to look tough, her arms falling at her side and tears welling up in her large blue eyes. She looked like a lost little girl.

The anger drained right out of Spike. He was always a sucker for a crying woman. Couldn’t stand it. “Look, nibblet. I’m sorry you’re disappointed, but things are the way they are. There’s nothing I can do. I thought it would work out between us, but it didn’t.”

“I thought you were a fighter, Spike. All this time, Buffy didn’t give you the time of day, but you still stuck around and hoped. And now, you just give up after one stupid fight. I don’t get it. What did she do? I know she did something. She always messes up everything. It’s the blonde hair thing.”

Spike sat down on the bed, looking defeated. “I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say she promised something to me, and broke her promise at the first bloody occasion. She’ll never change and I can’t handle it.”

Anger returned to Dawn’s eyes. “Fine. If you won’t tell me, I’ll get the story from Buffy herself. Maybe you don’t think it’s worth fighting for, but I do. I won’t give up until you’re together again.”

“Stay out of it, Dawn. It’s between Buffy and I.”

But Dawn had already made her way up stairs and out of sight.

“Dawn... Dawn!”