Chapter 44: 720 Cookies
Dawn had wanted to go and talk to her sister ever since she had awoken, but, for one thing, she knew better than to enter the vamps’ bedroom – still have mental scars from the last time, thank you very much – and for another, as much as it pained her to admit it, she thought Angel was right. It was certainly better to give Buffy space and let her come back to them in her own time.
So she had tried not to think of it too much, and had gone to the UCS campus to catch up on the first three days she had missed. She earned herself a few disapproving glares when she went to her instructors to apologize for her absence, but she couldn’t just explain to them, or even her friends for that matter, that her sister had turned psycho for a while which was why Dawn had had to stay out of town. She’d had to do some serious squirming, and almost had to cry for one, but by noon she had caught up on all the classes she had missed. It was nice that she and Kit had so many classes in common; that had helped a lot. That was the good point of the day.
The bad point was still silent and sullen, walking by her side as they made their way up Revello. They had been arguing the night before – no, not really arguing, they never argued – they had been discussing Buffy’s return to the souled population of Sunnydale. Steven had been a bit too hostile for Dawn’s liking, and she had made her displeasure known. She could understand that he had been shaken by Buffy almost draining Angel, and in retrospect Dawn shouldn’t have given him any hint that Buffy had also tried to kill her. But he seemed to be forgetting something very important. It hadn’t been Buffy. It had been a soulless vampire. He accepted the difference for his father, so he would have to get used to the idea that it was the same for Buffy.
He had insisted on accompanying her to UCS, although it was clear very quickly that he didn’t feel comfortable there, but they hadn’t talked about Buffy anymore. They hadn’t talked much at all, actually, and that was driving Dawn crazy. There was always something going wrong in her life. Just in the last month she’d had Spike being mad at her, an apocalypse, Buffy losing her soul, and now Steven proving that the art of brooding was hereditary. What next?
“Will you please at least be civil toward her?” she asked just as they were coming to the front door.
“As long as she doesn’t try to take a bite out of you again,” he replied morosely.
She rolled her eyes at him. “If you can’t accept that it wasn’t Buffy, then you might as well go find Angelus and go back to LA.”
He frowned when she stressed the name his unsouled father had used, before shrugging.
“I’ll be nice. I do get that it’s not the same person, you know.”
Shaking her head because he didn’t sound that much convinced, she finally opened the door and preceded him inside. Maybe it would be easier if they referred to unsouled Buffy with another name. Buffylus?.. Nah…
Dawn could hear the sound of the shower upstairs, and she didn’t have to wonder who it was because she saw Spike as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. He gave her a small smile above the mug he was sipping from, and she returned it warmly as she walked to him. His surprise was obvious when she hugged him, and he looked at her questioningly.
“Thank you,” she explained. “For what you said to Buffy. For helping her get it back.”
His smile widened slightly, but before he could say anything, another voice rose.
“Yeah, and thank you also for not running off with her on a killing spree.”
Frowning, she turned to Steven, who was glaring at Spike from the kitchen’s entrance.
“You said you’d be nice!” she protested
“To Buffy,” he replied coldly. “You never said anything about him.”
Spike’s hand resting on her shoulder brought Dawn’s attention back to him.
“Big sis is done with her shower,” he said quietly. “Why don’t you go see her? She wants to talk to you.”
Glancing back and forth between the two men, she realized that maybe she had been wrong. It might not be completely because of Buffy that her boyfriend was upset. He hadn’t said a word about Spike, which, in itself, should have given her a clue. And she doubted anything she could say would help; Spike had to fight this battle for himself. As long as it didn’t come to an actual fight, of course.
“I won’t be far,” she said at last. “You’d better not raise a hand against each other or I swear I will kick both your asses myself.”
As she walked by Steven, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and his gaze softened a little. She would have given a lot to know what was going to be said now, but she had another appointment.
*****
The soft knock wasn’t necessary for the vampire to know someone was at the door; the slightly faster than usual heartbeat had already given Dawn away, and reminded Buffy of when she had last heard that beat going too fast. With a sigh, she invited her sister in, and the teen entered the room, slightly hesitant, but smiling.
Buffy didn’t move from her seat at the edge of the bed, the hairbrush forgotten in her hands as she vainly tried to find again the careful words she had prepared.
“Hey,” Dawn finally said when the silence had lasted too long. “Spike said you wanted to talk to me. Which is cool, ‘cause I wanted to talk to you, too. Great minds think alike, huh? So here we are. Talking.”
“Sounds more like babbling”, Buffy managed to tease despite her tight throat.
“Yeah, well, at least I am talking,” Dawn shot back with a grin.
Buffy’s eyes fell to her lap for an instant, but she forced herself to look back up at her sister. It was more difficult like this, but more meaningful.
“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “I apologize for trying…”
“Buffy…” Dawn interrupted softly. “That’s OK, you know. It wasn’t really you, I understand that. We all do. And we’re all really happy you’re back. Me even more than anyone else. I missed you.”
As Buffy nodded and tried to blink away the tears that were threatening to spill, Dawn came to her and gave her a hug.
“You want me to brush your hair?” the brunette proposed quietly as she made a show of looking over the tangled mess that Buffy had been fighting with when she came in.
Again, words were beyond Buffy and she just nodded and gave the brush to her sister, who kneeled on the bed behind her and started working on the knots, cautious not to pull too hard.
“Remember when you used to do this for me?” Dawn murmured after a few seconds.
“You always complained I was hurting you”, Buffy reminisced with a quiet smile. “But you wouldn’t let Mom do it instead of me.”
“How about that time I wanted to be blonde…”
“And you put yellow paint in your hair”, Buffy finished with a soft chuckle.
Dawn laughed quietly, never ceasing her careful brushing. For a little while they shared old memories, and Buffy’s doubts subsided. For her sister, at least, her soulless episode had not broken anything. She only hoped it would be the same with the others.
*****
Dawn’s lips barely brushed his cheek and then she was gone, leaving Steven alone with… With who? A few days ago, he would have called Spike his brother. Or, at the very least, his friend. His best friend. His only friend. The one person he would have trusted with his life. And now, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He wasn’t sure he had the right to see anything more than a vampire in the bleached blonde in front of him. Even if he wished he still could.
“So, get it out already,” the vampire said with what sounded like mild irritation.
“Get what out?” Steven replied coldly. “That I trusted you and you proved to be nothing more than a killer?”
“’Didn’t kill anyone,” Spike replied calmly. “Not recently, at least. And if you didn’t get that part, I am the reason you still have a father, a girlfriend, and a pulse.”
“But you were going to”, Steven spat, now letting his anger out. “You were going to leave with her and just kill like…”
“Like the vampire I am. Is that it? Are you angry at me because you had forgotten what I was?”
For a few seconds, Steven was taken aback. Yes, he had almost forgotten what Spike was. It was easy to forget. It had always been, even before the blonde briefly became human.
“I believed in you,” the brunette murmured. “I believed you were different. You made me believe demons could be good. And that he could, too. But it was all a lie.”
Spike shook his head and sat on a stool at the island. He motioned for Steven to sit across him, but the teen didn’t move from where he stood.
“It’s not a lie, kid. Demons can be good. If they have a soul or if they choose to be. But sometimes other choices are forced on you. What else could I have done? Stake her? You know I can’t do that. I’d stake myself first. And I wouldn’t let anyone harm her. Just like you would protect Dawn whatever happened to her.”
“If Dawn was turned and started killing people I…”
The words died in Steven’s throat just as Spike raised an eyebrow at him. That simple, wordless question made him realize that no, if Dawn was turned, he wouldn’t be able to stake her, as he had been about to say. He would try to get her a soul, try to prevent her from hurting anyone, but in the end, if it came to that, he wouldn’t be the one to stake her. If it came to that, he might be the one helping her escape. He might be the one setting a demon loose on the world. This sudden awareness felt like a nasty punch, and he didn’t realize he had moved until he was seated at the island across Spike.
“You and I,” Spike said softly, “we share more than blood. We’d both do anything for our girls. I don’t say it excuses me. But now you understand. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to any of you. But I couldn’t let anything happen to her either.”
Unwittingly, Steven nodded as he considered the man in front of him. They were indeed very much alike, he reflected. And that might have been why the idea that Spike would allow Buffy to do as she pleased had been so disturbing, even more disturbing than what Buffy would have chosen to do then. Maybe he had unconsciously recognized that, in similar circumstances, he might have done the same thing. Even if he had hated himself for it.
*****
She had known they were coming, but Anya was nonetheless startled when the basement door opened and the two blonde vampires came into the store. She feigned not to notice them and kept on giving advice to a customer about what candles were better for specific spells. Not that said customer looked like she would ever know the difference between the fake spells from the commercial book she kept referring to or real spells that could… that could take someone’s soul from them, for example. The simple thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she gave up trying to steer her customer to the proper but more expensive candles, selling her instead the cheap, smelly, and ineffective ones to get rid of her faster.
Once she had rung the sale and ushered the departing woman from the store, she allowed her gaze to search for the two vamps. They were at the research table, obviously waiting for her. Xander had managed to convince her the night before that soulful Buffy and soulless Buffy were not to be confused, but that didn’t mean she felt any better being in the same room as the vampire. She had said she would try not to make things overly difficult for her. That didn’t imply, however, that she would make things easy.
She grabbed a small crystal on a display and without warning threw it at Buffy. Although she was clearly surprised, the vampire caught it in midair, and looked at it, puzzled. Before she had glanced back up, Anya had muttered three words, an incantation, and the crystal shone in Buffy’s hand, slowly turning from clear to opaque with bits of colors. Satisfied that Buffy was indeed souled, Anya took a few steps toward the vampires.
“What was that?” Buffy asked, baffled.
“Anyanka was just checking your soul status, luv,” Spike replied with a hint of amusement.
Oh, the bleached blonde was clever. Calling her Anyanka, and reminding her that she, too, had been a demon, and had done far worse than Buffy ever had…
There was a small glint of recognition in Buffy’s eyes at Spike’s words, and she looked at him questioningly, but Anya didn’t give her time to talk. Standing in front of her, arms crossed and foot taping, she announced:
“I’m waiting. I want apologies. Extended, sincere, and very convincing. A little groveling wouldn’t hurt, either. And while we’re at it, I expect a dozen guilt cookies, Willow style, every day at four o’clock sharp for a month. Make that two months.”
Buffy looked at her, mouth gaping, the forgotten crystal still in her hand. Behind her, Spike threw his head back and laughed out loud.
*****
A few minutes after Anya’s blunt demands, Buffy had fulfilled the requirements to be reintegrated into the ex-demon’s good graces. At least the apologies part. Just thinking about the number of cookies she would have to bake for Anya… well, it could have been worse. She could have asked a lot more, and still Buffy would have tried to satisfy her. It had only been words that had hurt Anya, but really nasty ones. Chocolate chip cookies it would be. And all batches would be perfect.
She was still a bit perplexed by the crystal soulcheck thing, even more so because she remembered Spike doing the exact same thing a few weeks back. Why had he been checking if she had a soul, then? Or maybe it wasn’t her soul he had been wondering about… That definitely called for an interrogation of her Mate later.
Later it would have to be, because right now Anya was back to taking her duties as official wedding planner very seriously. She was currently writing down a list of things they had to decide on, oblivious to the facts that Spike was bored to death – bored to life? – and that Buffy wasn’t paying much attention even though she nodded at all the right places. It was somewhat amusing that the woman had jumped right back to the point they had last been discussing before Buffy had lost her soul, as if the extended, sincere, and convincing apologies had been enough to erase the last few days from her memory.
That was just fine to Buffy, actually, and it might make the transition a bit easier. She was pleased that Spike, although visibly bored, had not protested about the planning part. While she was… someone else, she remembered thinking that a wedding was really unnecessary for vampires, and she was glad her other self had not made her doubts known to her Sire. Normal vampires might not think much of marriage, but they were both anything but normal. And even if it was only a symbol, since they were already Mates, it meant a lot to her to share that with him.
The doorbell chimed, and Anya excused herself to go greet and help the entering customer. Spike caught Buffy’s gaze.
“How about we run away while she’s not looking?” he suggested, sotto voce.
Buffy shook her head and smiled. “She’ll only jump right back in next time we see her.”
“But I can’t take it”, Spike literally whined, looking at her with pleading puppy eyes. “She’s going to kill me with all her scheming and plotting and color coordination!”
“And yet we’ll have to suffer through it”, Buffy sighed.
She thought for a second, and a smile tugged at her lips.
“There’s a way to make it less painful, though,” she said in a conspiring tone. “The quicker we actually get married, the less time she’ll torture…”
She was interrupted by Spike lips roughly taking possession of hers.
“Best bleeding idea I’ve heard in a long time,” he said with a grin when he pulled away from her. “Think we can do it today?”