GRAND GESTURES
by perletwo
Dawn was waiting for her just inside the front door when she got home, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. "Buffy! You got a present!"
Her eyebrows lifted. "Present? What kind of present?"
"We don't know," Joyce said, coming in from the kitchen with a large flat parcel in hand. "A messenger dropped this off from Benedict's off about an hour ago, no message."
"Openitopenitopenit!" Dawn was still bouncing. Buffy led them into the living room and set it down beside her on the sofa, ripping into the brown paper. "Ooooh, so exciting!"
Inside was the blue leather coat she'd admired at the department store, in her size. The one she'd mentioned to Spike the night before.
"Who's it from?" Joyce asked sensibly.
"No idea," she said, thinking, {{Well, obviously he just stole it.}} "No card..." In the folds of tissue paper she found a sales receipt.
"Aha! Buffy's found a clue!" Dawn chirped. "Does it give a credit card name?"
"They paid cash..."
"And you've really no idea who it's from." Joyce looked shrewdly from the jacket to her daughter.
"Nope. Secret admirer, I guess. Maybe the Watcher's Council finally decided to make sure I look stylish when I Slay..." She took the package upstairs, pleading exhaustion.
Spike made his way up the tunnel ladder into the Magic Box, intending to research the train massacre.
Inside he found Demon Girl choked nearly to death by a young vampire, and the Watcher being drained by an elder vamp. A buzzing started along the base of his neck.
"OI! Wot's this about?!"
The dark head bent over the Watcher's neck lifted at the sound of his voice. "Hello, my Spike," Drusilla purred.
Spike froze. "Let 'im go, pet. If anyone's gonna eat 'im, it'll be me, an' in my own good time. I owe 'im."
The whole of his mind focused on Buffy. {{***FIND ME,***}} he projected with all his might. {{***I NEED YOU. COME TO ME.***}}
Upstairs, Buffy tried on her new coat. It felt warm and comforting, almost like an embrace...She paced the floor, trying to decide what to do. Keep it or send it back?
{{I should go and throw it in his face,}} buzzed the voice in the back of his head. She squelched it firmly.
She closed her eyes, trying to empty her mind, think of something else, anything else. Unbidden, an image of the Magic Box popped into her head, clear as day.
{{Giles. I'll confide everything to Giles, and we'll figure out a spell or something to undo this bonding thing,}} she thought. {{Don't know why I didn't just do that last night.}}
"MOM! I'm going up to the Magic Box to see Giles, okay?" Buffy yelled on her way out the door. She wasn't sure why she was running, but the mission suddenly felt terribly urgent.
Dawn wandered through the entryway, snack in hand, and saw the blue coat draped over the bannister. "Hey Mom! Buffy forgot her new coat, I'm just gonna go after her with it!"
"I want my family back, my William," Drusilla purred, dropping Giles. "I find I am no good at all without a family around me..."
"You want me to go wi' you to L.A., Dru? Get the poofter?" Spike asked softly, approaching her slowly. "I can do that. Got nothin' holdin' me here, God knows."
Dru snarled, an animal sound of rage. "NOT you! I see it. The Slayer, all 'round you. You stink of her. You're not my Spike anymore..." She whimpered, and the fury ebbed as quickly as it had risen.
"Dru -"
"I'm making a new family instead," she singsonged. "You remember my little girl, don't you, Spike?" She beckoned, and the girl choking Anya dropped the ex-demon and came to her Sire's side. It was the girl he'd brought her the night of the raid on the high school, the night he met Buffy.
"This is my Sheila. And this one," she nodded to Giles, "will be my Watcher now too."
"Over my dead body," came a voice from behind her. Sheila exploded into a cloud of dust, a stake falling to the floor in its midst. "Or yours," Buffy added. "Works for me either way."
"Or *his,*" Dru replied, turning slightly so Buffy could see Giles trapped in her embrace. "Works for *me*...but not for *you,* I'll wager. Step over here with my Spike, so I can see you both."
Paling, Buffy complied. "Let him go, Drusilla. He's no threat to you."
"Oh but he is. But he won't be much longer," she said, slicing open a cut on her wrist. Buffy and Spike looked at each other helplessly, then back at Dru. Behind her they could see Dawn approaching through the plate-glass window.
"I take it you were responsible for the slaughter on board that train, Dru?" Spike asked quietly, trying to distract his Sire.
"Of course...a girl's got to eat, doesn't she?" With that she turned her attention back to Giles.
The doorbell chimed, breaking the tension. Buffy and Spike both leapt for Dru. Dawn screamed, rousing Anya slightly.
"DAWN! The window!" Spike yelled, and unfreezing quickly, Dawn yanked on the pull-cord for the windowblinds, flooding the room with sunlight. Spike grabbed Giles and dragged him behind the counter, feeling his hand and cheek catch fire as he hurried for shade.
The shrieking, struggling body locked in hand-to-hand combat with Buffy incinerated in a ::whoosh:: of flames, leaving a pile of ashes at the Slayer's feet.
"SPIKE!" Dawn cried, rushing to beat out the fire eating away at his skin.
Suddenly seeing what her sister was doing, Buffy felt her heart squeeze tight inside her chest, and thought for a moment she might faint. Then she ran to the table, tossed aside the cut flowers from their vase, and doused Spike with the water in it.
"Thanks ever so, Slayer. Was get'n a bit warm in 'ere," he said, giving her a painfully lopsided grin that made her heart turn over. "Speakin'a bits, Bit, that was nice timin' there..."
"Buffy forgot her coat," Dawn said weakly, passing Buffy the garment as she sank to a sitting position on the floor. "...ohh myy..."
"You okay? 'Cause, you know, Mom's gonna kill me if you're not okay," Buffy said, just as weakly.
"Wowww. I've had my quota of excitement for today, thank you..." Behind her, Anya groaned and crawled over to them.
"RUPERT!"
"...owwwtch...please stop shouting..." came a moan from beneath Spike. Buffy and Dawn looked at each other and giggled.
"Well, he's conscious," Spike said wryly, putting a hand to Giles' wrist. "An' his pulse is a li'l weak, but definitely there. She di'n't drain 'im all the way, pet, but we best call a doctor anyway."
"On it," Buffy said decisively, and reached for the phone.
"...Buffy? What are you doing here? Is it...something...about...the train...?"
"Yeah. But it's not important right now, Giles," she said affectionately. "We got them. Just rest now. We'll tell you all about it later."
"...we?..."
"Just relax, pillock. Annoy your Slayer another time," Spike growled.
Just after sundown, Buffy slipped quietly into Spike's crypt. She found him curled up on his side on the sarcophagus, a bottle of whiskey on the floor beside him. His head lifted when he heard her enter.
"Here t'gloat, Slayer? Started the vict'ry party wi'out you, 'm'afraid..." She shook her head, and he snorted. "Lemme guess. You tol' the Watscherrr ev'r'thin' an' he an' the li'l witches 'ave cooked up a spell to break our bond?" She blushed and stepped up to the side of the stone box.
"Giles is in hospital, getting a transfusion. They say he'll be fine. Anya's much better, and bitching about her bruises. Dawn told her to think of it as an excuse to buy new silk scarves, and she perked right up." She ran her fingertips over the rapidly-healing burn scars on his cheek. "I just...wanted to see how you were."
"Bloody awful. Thanks f'r askin'. I'n't this the par' where you runalon' 'ome?"
Buffy shook her head. "All day...at the Magic Box with Anya, and later at the hospital, with Giles...all I could think about was you. Worry about you." She sat down on the edge, settling into the crook of his body. "It was like I could feel you hurting. And I don't mean from the burns."
He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. "She was my Sire," he said softly. "The whole point of my existence for more than a century. Knowin' she's gone forever, an' I 'ad a 'and in it..."
"Why, then? Why'd you step in like that, when you knew what you were telling Dawn to do would do to you?" Buffy's fingers drifted lower, running along his shoulder.
" 'Cause I knew losin' the Watcher'd kill you," he said. "We're bonded. What you feel, I feel. Your loves an' concerns are my concerns. An' vice versa."
Buffy shook her head again. "I don't know if I can get used to this," she muttered. But she curled up on the sarcophagus beside him, cuddling into his arms and laying her head on his shoulder. Spike shuddered; the cool silk of her hair was resting against his cheek, soothing the burns.
They fell asleep like that, easing each other's hurts until daybreak.