Closed Door Conversations

Eight Night: Dawn


The next day passed by in a blur for Buffy. She only joined the others for lunch, spending the rest of her time in her motel room, chanting the chant the first slayer had taught her.

Angel tried to persuade her to join him, to talk, but she brushed him off. “Tomorrow,” she said, curtly. Hoping tomorrow would never come.

This ritual had to be performed tonight, while Spike’s sacrifice still filled the universe.

“Dawn, will you come up to see me, later tonight. Bedtime?” She asked. Dawn was still the Key! That gave her such hope.

“Sure, Buffy.” Her concern showed in her voice.

At nine or so there was a soft knock on her door.

“Hey, Buffy.”

Dawn looked around the hotel room, at the circle of earth with the bones in the middle.

“What’s going on here?”

“Dawn, I need you to do something for me. With me.” Buffy paused. “I had a dream, a prophetic dream, and I sought out the first slayer. Dawn, I can have him back.” She couldn’t keep the excitement, the joy, out of her voice.

“Spike?”

It wasn’t like Dawn hadn’t noticed Buffy’s grief over his death.

“Yes. He’s not really dead. He’s more...dispersed. Due to all the magick. Not in heaven or hell. So there’s no resurrection needed. No Osiris...Help me? Please?”

Dawn heard the pleading in her voice. A tone she had never heard in Buffy’s voice.

“Sure. What’s going to happen?”

“Spike and I will be reborn in a world a little different than this. Not a lot different. But I will be just a girl, Spike just a boy-- and you’ll still be my little sister.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah, she’ll be there, too. But I don’t know for how long. There’s death there, too.”

“But you’ll be leaving me here?”

“I don’t know. I know you’re there. Maybe we go together.”

“But maybe I’ll be here alone?”

“You’ll have Willow, and Xander, and Giles. Angel, too, will take care of you.” Buffy’s voice had that pleading sound again. “And Spike doesn’t have anybody except me. I owe him, Dawn. I owe him a lot. And I love him.”

‘She won’t choose you,’ Mom had told her. Dawn knew that Mom had told her about this situation, not about the Final Battle. Buffy had chosen Spike, in her heart.

“Buffy, would you tell me? About you and Spike? I never understood any of it. Why you kept it a secret. Why he would try to rape you...”

“All right. It’s a long story, but I think it’s right you know it.”

They both stretched out on the bed.

“First of all, I want to say something about the rape thing. I know he never intended to rape me. He had come to apologize for having sex with Anya, even though it was none of my business. I had dropped him. He was free to have sex with any one he wanted. And our history was kind of wild. Lots of times we fought, physically, before we . . .had sex . . .and I would pretend that I didn’t want it. Because he didn’t have a soul. But we both knew I really did want . . him. So the whole thing in the bathroom was confusing. He didn’t know I was hurt. I think he was expecting a good brawl, followed by some wild sex. Kind of a pattern we had . ..”

“Anyway, the whole thing started a long time ago, when he first came to town. The first time I saw him I had one big impression. That he was so gorgeous. It wasn’t fair! All that beauty wasted on a vampire who wanted to kill me, instead of a guy who would want to date me. It pissed me off! I was determined to dust him.”

“As time went by, I saw his devotion to Druscilla. Deep inside, it made me a little jealous. And fighting with him--I loved it. We were so well matched. Fighting him was a learning experience. Made me a better fighter.”

“Later on he got the chip, but I still figured he was out to kill me. Then Oz left and Willow did that spell.”

“What spell?”

“That’s right, nobody probably ever really told you much about it. Willow did a ‘My will be done’ spell, and things she said came to pass. She was mad at me for leaving her to hunt Spike down and said something about ‘If she likes him so much she should marry him’. So Spike dropped down on one knee and proposed to me. And I was thrilled. I said yes. We spent the rest of that day together. We thought we were in love. We started planning the wedding. And we kissed--especially after Giles went blind. We made out like crazy on the couch.”

“How far did you go?”

“Uh,” Buffy felt funny about talking about this with Dawn, but she was a teenager, after all. “Well, we did get to third base, but only for a minute. If we’d had the privacy we would have. . .”

“Gone all the way?”

Buffy’s face was pink. “Yeah. The physical stuff--it must have been some kind of chemistry. It was like electricity. I figured it was part of the spell, it was so powerful. Found out later that it wasn’t the spell...we just had that kind of connection.”

“Anyway, when the spell was over, Spike and I both pretended that we forgot about how it felt. That’s what we told everyone. And life went back to normal . . .except I would have these dreams, about Spike. Really hot dreams. He did, too. But I met Riley, and I wanted a normal guy, a normal life so bad.”

“But I’ll tell you something. Riley never really. . . satisfied me, in bed. Well, that time with the haunted house was good, but mostly it was a real struggle for me. And I had to be so careful not to get carried away and hurt him with my slayer strength.”

“During that time Spike fell in love with me. That was crazy. But in the back of my mind, I knew that I could have sex with him anytime I wanted, and that I couldn’t hurt him. . . and that he was incredible to look at, and to make out with But we had the whole thing with Glory going on, so I didn’t have time to really think about it.”

“But I did kiss him. After Glory tortured him, and he didn’t betray you to her. I pretended to be the Buffybot to see if he’d told Glory anything. And I found out he hadn’t, because he cared about me, and you. And I kissed him.”

“That kiss wasn’t like making out, it was sweet. . . but I knew that the electricity was still there.”

“After I came back from the dead, Spike became my confidant, for awhile. Until the song and dance demon. Spike saved me from burning, and I followed him out to the alley, and we kissed. A really hot kiss.”

“Afterward I was horrified, and terrified that I was going to give in to my desires. I tried to avoid him. Then Willow did the Tabula Rasa spell. I was Joan, he was Randy. . .and I really liked him.”

“When it was over I went to the Bronze. Spike came up to me--I know he wanted to talk about that kiss. I refused to even look at him. I saw out of the corner of my eye that he was going to leave. And he looked. . .hurt. I jumped up and caught up with him. Just a kiss, I thought. What would a kiss hurt? We ended up making out for a long time in a corner at the Bronze. He tried to get me to go somewhere more private with him, and I freaked. Ran all the way home.”

“After that I was super mean to him, trying to drive him and all that temptation away. I hit him, and he forgot about the chip and hit me back. And his chip didn’t fire. But if he hit other people, it fired. Only me--I was the only one he could hit. And we had huge fight. He taunted me about being afraid of him. He was right, and that made me so mad. I kissed him to shut him up. And it was...wow.

That’s when we ...went all the way, the first time. And it was my idea. I...uh..unzipped his pants. I know he was shocked. And thrilled.. And in love with me.”

“Was it ..really satisfying? Or like Riley?”

“It was... mind blowing. Fantastic. Incredible. For both of us. And I was horrified with myself, but I couldn’t stop. Not until Riley showed up with the wife, and the life I wanted. I didn’t really break up with Spike because of anything he’d done. He’d been good to me. But he didn’t have the soul. And I wasn’t up to the fight I would have if Xander and Giles and Angel found out. I was afraid of disappointing them.”

“Tara knew, I had broken down and told her. She never condemned me.”

Dawn knew that it was right. Buffy had not had a chance to be happy, in forever. Spike, either. And she would be with them, somehow .Would she be two people?

“You should be with him, I know that now.” Dawn said. “I wish things had been different this last year.”

“Me, too. Longer than that for me. I did a lot of things wrong where Spike was concerned. I just feel this is right. For him, for me...”

They were both silent for a while, considering the past, and the future.

“All right. What do we do?” Dawn asked.

Buffy got up from the bed and opened the desk drawer, from which she took out several letters.

“ I wrote letters to everyone--Giles, Xander, Willow, Angel. I wrote one to you, too, but I hope you won’t be here to read it. They’ll find them, tomorrow. Come sit in the circle.”

Buffy taught her the chant, and then they proceeded with the ritual, which was raw and simple and powerful, like the woman who had given it to her. They made the circle of earth, and threw the bones while chanting. The air seemed to shimmer . . . and time ceased to exist.

Buffy saw Dawn begin to glow, green. The key! She still had key power! Buffy’s heart raced with joy--it was going to work! She grabbed Dawn’s hands, and they held each other as the world began to whirl.



A/N : One more chapter to go, the Epilogue.