tamingthemuse | Prompt #172 - Irenic - spikesdeb - BtVS

Title: Can We Rest Now?
Author:

spikesdeb
Fandom: BtVS
Rating: G
Prompt: #172 - Irenic
A/N: Set Season 7 'Beneath You'. Dawn has mixed feelings about Spike's return, but her shock and confusion are nothing compared to Buffy's. Contains dialogue from 'Beneath You' sourced from buffyworld . com. Many thanks to

seductivembrace for her editing, and for the suggestion of where to slot certain parts of the story. I've mucked around with it since she sent it back, so any errors are all mine!
Disclaimer: I can't claim to have any rights to Spike, Buffy or any of the characters, more's the pity. But I do love them.
Word count: 2222

CAN WE REST NOW?

Dawn felt very adult. She'd considered the situation, decided that she didn't like it, and had come up with a solution that would be beneficial to everybody. All that she needed to do now was implement it without somebody getting stake-happy, and the other somebody getting dusty.

Seeing Spike had really freaked her. She'd spent almost every day since he'd vanished debating how she'd react when he came back. At first, she'd been heartbroken to think that her friend – no, he was more than that, always had been – could do something so vile. Then she thought and thought about it, and she could almost see how it would happen. Buffy wasn't the easiest person to get through to at the best of times. Spike was used to mixed signals and charmingly naive sometimes in his pursuit of Buffy. Many times Dawn had seen him with a bruise that he reasoned away as being part of a slaying incident, and he wasn't lying, Buffy's matching swollen knuckles bearing testament to that fact. No doubt slayer/vampire making out was a little bit more than kisses and tense silences. She'd bet that there was some fighting involved, and though she didn't want to think about exactly what went on between them, she could totally understand if Spike misinterpreted Buffy's very firm 'no' as another step in the dance between them.

Dawn had even tried to raise the issue with her sister – but the stony silence and death-glare that her query received had put her off trying again. She'd just mulled it over now and again while Spike had been gone and tried her best to stay mad at him because it seemed the sisterly thing to do.

But she wasn't, really. She missed him.

Buffy's friends were another thing that made her crazy, the way they thought that their way was always right and anything else was wrong. Willow had been too distracted with her own stuff to be involved much, thankfully, what with trying to atone for murder and almost ending the world, and Giles had his hands full making sure her eyes stayed out of the black zone. But Willow was on her way back, and would probably be happy to join Xander in his perennial 'we hate Spike' club.

Xander was always ready to stick the knife in where Spike was concerned, and any lingering crush that Dawn had on him disappeared with every snarl that marred his face. Buffy never mentioned Spike. That didn't fool Dawn, though. The avoidance was too complete, like Buffy was making an effort not to think or speak of Spike even when doing so would be completely appropriate.

And now Spike was back in town and Buffy was being all peppy and bouncy, and wouldn't meet his eyes. Dawn wished she'd had a camera to record the succession of emotions that rippled over Buffy's face when Spike appeared in the doorway all cocky and dressed in unfamiliar blue She could have proved to anybody, even Xander, that though Buffy said she was fine and whether Spike was back or not meant nothing to her, quite the opposite was true.

She was bothered, and very, Dawn knew. She was fighting herself to keep on hating Spike just to prove a point, and so as not to disappoint her friends.

Dawn cringed when she remembered the threats she'd hissed at Spike earlier that day should he so much as look at her sister again; she'd been in shock and had no clue how to react. Her first instinct had been to run to him and clutch him to her, make sure he was real and not going anywhere ever again – but then she'd caught sight of Xander's hooded eyes, filled with loathing and disgust, and faced with Buffy's obvious distress, felt compelled to fulfil the role that she was expected to play.

She'd sounded convincing, she had to admit. But she hadn't meant a word of it. She knew Spike would never intentionally hurt her sister. All she had to do now was help Buffy to let herself believe it, and stop Buffy's friends from taking the moral high ground and all would be right with her world.

What she needed was a plan, a way to bring about a reconciliation between the two most important people in her life. And fast – as Buffy and Spike were off tracking some monster or other and Dawn dreaded to think what was going on as they patrolled the streets alone. She just prayed that the urgency of catching the dog-napper would distract them from any personal stuff until Dawn had time to put her plan into effect.

ooo0ooo

Buffy raced after Spike, following his trail until she found herself in a cemetery – nothing new there, then – and making the deduction that he must be in the church lit by flickering candlelight over in the corner. Odd place for a vampire to hole up in, but then Spike's actions since she'd discovered him in the basement under the school and then earlier on with the babbling and the mood changes was hardly normal. There was something not right about him, other than the usual not right that was Spike, and Anya knew something she was sure. The fight between Anya and Spike was something that Buffy would get to the bottom of, but later. Right now, she had to find out what Spike was up to, make sure that he wasn't a threat as he clearly knew something was coming, and him quoting the line from her dream had shivers going down her spine. She was trying hard to forget the look in his eye when he'd realised he'd skewered Ronnie and not a demon; it was sheer horror and compassion and regret, and it reminded her too much of the last time she'd seen him.

He'd said he was sorry then too.

ooo0ooo

Dawn was waiting up for Buffy when she slinked back in early that next morning. She hadn't been able to sleep until she knew her sister was safe, especially after Xander's colourful description of the fight, and the blood that he had on his shirt, even when he swore that it wasn't Buffy's. When Buffy sat in the kitchen, accepting Dawn's offer of hot chocolate, she tentatively asked the question, “and Spike? Is he...Xander said he was a bit whacked out.”

“Spike's fine,” came Buffy's staccato reply.

He wasn't, fine not at all. Then again, neither was she.

When she'd finally caught up with Spike, she'd pushed on the heavy door to enter the church. It was like something out of a horror film, no doubt about it, all shadows and arched windows and religious regalia. Wooden pews were lined up on both sides of the aisle, and a huge gothic cross occupied the centre of the far wall. Buffy started towards the front of the church, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Spike spoke from behind her, holding out the blue shirt he'd worn earlier. She turned, her eyes fixed on his bare chest and the criss-cross of angry red lines that had healed a little since she'd glimpsed them in the basement. Spike dropped the shirt and started off again with the babbling.

“It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide.”

An absurd conversation, of sorts, ensued. Spike was on edge, pacing, circling around her, Buffy alert to his every move. Insane vampires were not the best companions she'd found.

She'd reached out to touch the healing scars on Spike's chest, and he'd jumped backwards, flinching away from her.

“Hey, hey, hey! No touching. Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark.” He nodded, in answer to his own question and continued, his hands now reaching for the zipper to his pants and tugging it down. “Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. Get it hard; service the girl.”

Buffy was horrified – was he really going to...? She reacted instinctively, batting his hands away from his groin. Spike grabbed at her throat but Buffy broke his grip and grabbed his shoulder, throwing him across the church to land heavily on the wooden pews that splintered beneath him.

She had to know what was going on, why he'd come back, what all the babbling was about. The scars. “This is all you get. I'm listening. Tell me what happened.”

Spike spoke softly, matter-of-factly. “I tried to find it, of course.”

Buffy was puzzled. “Find what?”

“The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... “ Spike started to cry, his voice breaking, Buffy staring at him in alarm. “God, I can't... Not with you looking.”

In a fluid moment, Spike stood and walked towards a window, his back to her, looking back over his shoulder and speaking softly. Buffy struggled to hear, and struggled even more to understand. “I dreamed of killing you.”

Alarmed now by Spike's calm tone and the icy threat of his words, Buffy bent and picked up a splintered piece of a broken pew, arming herself against any attack. She backed off as Spike started pacing, his words now coming out softly, finally slotting into place in her mind.

“I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending? Angel—he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time.”

Buffy stood still as he circled her, warily holding the stake, disbelief warring with shock, and finally understanding as he continued, standing behind her. “The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.”

And now she knew; all of the odd behaviour, the looks, the scars. “Your soul.”

Spike chuckled. “Bit worse for lack of use.”

Buffy steeled herself and turned to face him. Somehow, the vampire she was trying desperately to hate, now had a soul. The insults she hurled at him over the years about the lack of a soul rang in her mind.

Her voice shook a little as she asked him, “You got your soul back? How?”

Spike spoke earnestly. “It's what you wanted, right?”

Spike walked away from her, towards the altar, still murmuring. “And—and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I— and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath—beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go... go... to hell.” Spike glanced back over his shoulder to look at her.

Buffy was stunned. Was he really saying that he'd got his soul...for her? Was that even possible?

“Why? Why would you do that—“

Spike tutted. “Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev— to be a kind of man.” He turned his head away and walked towards the cross that occupied the centre of the altar. He spoke again, quoting, “she shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved.” He stopped, inches away from the cross, staring at it. “So everything's OK, right?”

Buffy was stunned, even more so when Spike stepped forward and draped himself over the cross, his neck laid against it so that it touched his entire chest. The smell of sizzling flesh made her gag, and she was rooted to the spot. She almost missed the rest of his speech, her eyes misting over.

“Can—can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?”

In silence, Buffy felt the tears slide down her cheeks. She was stunned. That somebody would do this – for her? She didn't know what to feel. But she knew she couldn't leave him there, burning.

She’d pulled him off the cross after his startling revelation, oblivious to her own tears, one thought churning over and over in her mind.

Spike had gotten a soul for her.

Not willing to leave him in the church, and risk him doing more damage to himself, she’d headed back to the only place she could think of. The school basement . She'd left him in there, clad in his usual black again, and rocking back and forth on his heels as he crouched. She'd been tempted to bring him home with her, but she wasn't ready for that – and she was sure that nobody else was. Dawn in particular had apparently threatened to burn him or something, or so he'd told her earlier in the day.

“What did you say to Spike?” Buffy asked as they sipped their drinks. “He said you were going to set him alight?”

Dawn shrugged, deflecting the question. “Oh, that. Yeah, was a joke – think he took me seriously. Crazy vampire.”

Buffy smiled tightly. If only she knew. “Yeah. Crazy. Poor guy.”

Dawn couldn't believe what she'd heard. She didn't even think that Buffy realised she'd said it. But it gave her hope that maybe there was a way to bring about a reconciliation.