Let the World Spin by WesleysGirl Rating: NC-17 Dawn/Spike Thanks to KellyHK, SoundingSea and Windsparrow for the betas. I can't find record of who made this lovely banner -- please contact me if it was you so that I can credit you properly! The title and quoted lyrics are from the Cowboy Junkies' "River Waltz." I. Find Me A Dying River As far as Spike is concerned, the world stopped turning the night Buffy died. So when it stops for real, in a hellmouth-sized explosion that blots out the sky with debris for days afterwards, it's just another step closer to how he's been feeling. Still, he's surprised at the ache in his chest when he finds the witches dead. Red's curled up around Tara like she was trying to protect her, but there are holes through each of them. Magic's like that sometimes. Try to do too much, try to channel more than your body can handle, and you end up in tatters. Dawn's not there, but one of her little shirts -- pink, with a red heart on the front -- is, and there's blood on it. There's a handprint on the wall painted on with her blood as well, as perfectly delineated as if she'd done it carefully. There's blood everywhere, the smell of it mixing until he can't tell one from another, and he has to assume that she's dead because really, it'd be better. Spike crosses town, casually aware of the fires that seem to have sprung up from nowhere and deliberately ignoring the vamps and demons and their screaming victims. He can't help everyone. Couldn't save the one person that mattered most, after all. The watcher's flat's got a busted door. Splintered wood, and under other circumstances Spike might not look at that too closely, but as it is... he enters with caution, calls Giles' name. There's no answer, so he investigates further. Giles is in the kitchen, in little pieces. Spike goes away quickly. Xander and Anya's building is a mountain of rubble. Smaller than it ought to look, he thinks, as he considers trying to pick his way through and then gives up. If there's anyone still left alive in there, Spike doesn't think he'd be doing them any favors by getting them out. You'd figure liquor stores would be the first looted -- by the living or the undead -- but the first one Spike comes across is pristine, like nothing's happened. No clerk, of course, but otherwise you could pretend nothing's gone wrong. He strolls the aisles, picking up the first bottle of decent stuff he sees and swigging from it as he shops. He's tempted to take a whole trolley full of booze and do a right good job of it, but then he'd have to haul the bloody thing with him. Or, Spike realizes, he could just sit down in the middle of the store and get sodding pissed. Not as if he has anything else to do. Still, sooner or later someone's gonna get the same idea he did and come along, and he probably shouldn't be here when that happens. So he grabs a few more bottles, tucking two into the big pockets of his duster and carrying the other two, one in each hand. Weapon or anaesthetic, it's all the same. He should leave Sunnydale, Spike thinks as he starts walking in no direction in particular. Doesn't really have any ideas about where to go. Fuck, chances are good he's only got a few weeks of unlife left, considering what's happening. The Hellmouth was bound to have opened at some point. Shouldn't come as a surprise that it was now, without a Buffy to stop it, to save the world... Spike leans against the wall that happens to be beside him and slides down it, his duster billowing out only slightly. The bottles make a gentle clink against the pavement. He can smell gasoline and the sickly, heavier scent of flesh burning. There's the sound of breaking glass, and things exploding that shouldn't be, like houses and cars. He takes a good long pull from the open bottle and watches as three demons run past, chasing a screaming man who's bleeding profusely, leaving a dark wet trail behind him. S'almost as good as a movie, he thinks, but then there's a higher pitched scream from a street or so away, a girl's scream. And just like that Spike's on his feet and moving toward the sound before he can even think, because it's a young girl and for all his earlier convincing himself that Dawn would be better off dead, where she couldn't hurt anymore, part of him thinks it might be her. Turns out it's not, of course, but he dusts the vamp that's got the girl by the throat anyway, and she collapses to the ground in a weeping tangle of limbs. Looks a bit like Dawn other than the hair actually -- about the same height. "Go somewhere safe," he tells her roughly. Not that there's anywhere safe, but fuck, it's not like he's gonna play personal bodyguard to every teenaged girl he comes across. Spike leaves her there, crying. Never finds out what happens to her, and doesn't care to guess. * * * Three days later. Spike hasn't left Sunnydale. Keeps telling himself that he should, that tomorrow'll be the day, but somehow he can't bring himself to leave the place where Buffy died. The place where Dawn died, when he'd broken his promise to Buffy a second time. He hears rumors, but they're fewer and further between now. Vampires don't trust him, humans sure as fuck don't trust him once they find out what he is, especially since the Hellmouth blowing seems to have shorted out the chip in his head at the same time and he can eat anybody he wants to. So there aren't a lot of conversations these days. There are some folks holed up at what used to be the police station -- got themselves some kind of doctor, or so he's heard. On a couple of occasions he hangs out there, keeping an eye on the place, mostly out of curiosity. It's not until he finds out they've got themselves a girl that Spike really gets interested. Two nights in a row he can hear her crying, nestled up close on the other side of the wall. Quiet sounds, muffled. The second night, the soft sounds are followed by shrieks, a violent struggle. Spike knows it's Dawn in there just as surely as he knows what's happening to her. He storms the building, punching out one of the two blokes on guard and ripping the gun from his hands before the guy even has a chance to react. The other one shoots him, of course, but it just goes through his upper arm, a hot sear that he ignores while he blows number two's brains out through the back of his skull. Spike shoots six men on his way to Dawn, as casually as he might drop a cigarette butt onto the ground and with no more thought. She's on a narrow cot in a room that must have been a barracks for policemen on the night shift, and there's a big guy got her pinned down, shoved her thighs apart and fucking her. A vicious anger so pure that it nearly blinds him rushes through Spike like lightning, but amazingly he's got the sense to yank the guy off of Dawn before holding the muzzle of the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger. Bone shards and brains and blood explode into an arc that hits the wall with a wet smacking sound, and Dawn cringes away toward the head of the cot, twitching her short skirt down over her thighs like it's automatic. "S-spike?" she says, and her voice sounds younger than he'd remembered. "He was... I couldn't..." "It's all right." Spike points the gun at the floor carefully, not wanting to scare her any more than she already is. The numbness he's felt for days is gone, and now he feels strong again. Rejuvenated. He knows how to take care of her, and he will. "I'm here, and I'm gonna take care of things from now on. Okay?" She nods, trembling. There's lipstick on her mouth, smeared. "O-okay." Spike holds out a hand to her, and she reaches out and takes it. Lets herself be pulled to her feet, her other hand smoothing down her skirt again. Her fingers are small and cold in his. "Anything here you need?" Dawn shakes her head slightly, then hesitates and takes three steps to the side and kicks the shattered bastard lying on the floor, all without letting go of Spike's hand. "No," she says, sounding more like her stubborn self. "Let's get out of here." * * * So that's when they leave Sunnydale. Part of Spike wonders if he knew, on some level, that she was still there, still alive, and that's why he stuck around. The rest of him thinks that's bollocks, of course, but it doesn't keep him from wondering. He breaks the back window of the first decent-looking car they come across. Gets Dawn sitting in the front seat, belt on and door locked, then hot wires the car and they take off. "Are you hurt?" Spike asks her, after they've cleared Sunnydale and hit the open road. "N-no," Dawn says. She's got her arms wrapped around herself like she's cold, and Spike turns up the heat. "I mean, that wasn't the first time he... and some of the others did too." She pauses, then in a smaller voice admits, "It hurt the first couple of times." Spike wants to touch her, to comfort her, but he thinks there's nothing he can say, and that there's been enough touching. "I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you again," he promises, even though it's not a promise he'll be able to keep. Dawn nods. "Where are we going?" "Away," Spike says, then glances at her again. "Where do you want to go?" "It doesn't matter, does it? I mean, it's all going to be like this, right?" Christ, he wants so badly to be able to say no. "Yeah," he says finally. "It'll all be like this." "Then it doesn't matter." Dawn sits back in the seat and looks out her window. "Away. That'll have to be good enough." Within an hour she's asleep, curled up into a little ball like she's trying to make herself seem smaller. Like she's trying to hide. It makes something in Spike's chest hurt, knowing what she's already gone through, and what's probably still ahead of her. The pain throbs right along with the healing gunshot wound in his arm. He knows that he can't keep her safe, but stubbornly repeats to himself that he will. He's not going to let her down again. Not again. * * * Dawn wakes up when the car stops, but for the first few seconds she doesn't remember where she is, and she sits up with a gasp, her heart pounding in her chest like a terrified bird that's trying to get out. But Spike's right there. "Sorry," she says, before he can say anything that will just make her feel broken. "I was -- I'm awake." "Wanted to get you some food," Spike says gruffly, gesturing at the convenience store they're parked in front of. "Fill up the tank. Place looks empty." The store is still lit up. Dawn figures sooner or later they're going to lose all the electricity, but for now some places still have it. "Come in with me?" she asks, hoping she doesn't sound too scared as she says it. "If you think you're leaving my sight any time in the next couple of weeks, you've lost your mind," Spike says, then looks sorry that he said it, which Dawn isn't sure she gets, because actually it makes her feel better. The store's been looted -- there's broken glass all over the floor, which is sticky with something brown that Dawn tells herself is Coke. Or maybe Pepsi. The taste of a new generation, right? Spike grabs a package of trash bags off the shelf, rips it open, and hands one to her. "Take whatever's still good." What she really wants are things that convenience stores don't have -- comfort foods. So Dawn settles for half the chocolate in the store, sweeping armfuls of it into the bag and not caring when lots of them scatter onto the floor. She takes six packs of soda and boxes of crackers and canned soups and a bag of marshmallows. Breakfast cereal in those assortment packs of mini boxes, all sugary ones except for the frosted mini wheat that always gets left for last. The milk in the refrigerated section is warm and kind of starting to smell bad, so she moves on. There's bottles of wine and six packs of beer, and she takes a few of each, but then the bag's starting to get heavy and she's afraid it might rip. Spike has his bag thrown over his shoulder like some weird version of Santa Claus, and the thought makes her smile, but that feels wrong too. Everything's twisted, warped. Probably even her smile. They go back to the car, throwing the bags into the back seat where they slide, spilling boxes and things out onto the fabric and then off onto the floor. Spike fills the gas tank. They start driving again. Dawn realizes after a little while that she's hungry -- she never felt hungry in that place -- and gropes into the back seat for something. Her hand closes around a candy bar, so that's what she eats, and then another. "So where are we going?" she asks. Spike gives her a look. "Thought we went over that earlier." "No, I mean... how will we know when we're there?" The chocolate's way too sweet in her mouth all of a sudden, and she sets the last bite down on the dashboard. "We probably won't," Spike says. "Not until we've been there a while." She feels cold, even though the heat is on practically full blast. She thinks back to their house, to her warm jackets, and tries not to wonder if it's still standing. "Everybody else..." she says hesitantly, but Spike shakes his head, just once, before she can finish. "No," he says. Dawn knows that's true -- knows that they'd have been with him. Her thoughts are fragmented, leaving each sentence carefully unfinished so that she doesn't have to really acknowledge anything. They're all alone. "I didn't think you were going to come for me," she says. The car's quiet. And then, "I didn't think anyone would." But deep down she thinks maybe she did know he'd come, because there was a part of her that was waiting for him. He's safety. "I'll always come for you," Spike says. His hands are tight on the steering wheel, gripping it like he'd rather be breaking things. "You wouldn't be able to if you were dead," Dawn says reasonably. "Yeah, well actually I already am, and it's a bloody good thing." Spike's still staring out the windshield. "We'll go a few more hours, then find somewhere to stop before the sun comes up." Dawn settles back in her seat. "Okay." * * * They sleep in the same bed because Dawn wants to and because Spike can't bear to let her out of his sight. He's careful to leave some space between them, but even still he can feel her warmth seeping toward him under the blankets, creeping like the tide. It makes his chest feel tight, and something in his gut stirs, something he refuses to give any attention to. She's just a girl. She's asleep in minutes, so quickly that he wonders if she'd slept at all in that place. He doesn't even know how long she was there for, or what else they might have done to her, and he's not sure he wants to know. He'll listen, if she needs to say it, but otherwise he'd rather not hear it. Her breathing's regular, comforting, and Spike realizes that this is the most okay he's felt since it happened. Like as long as she's safe, he can breathe too. * * * Dawn wakes up before Spike, and he's quiet. He's facing her, his eyelashes dark against his cheeks, looking peaceful and young and all kinds of things he's not. She wonders if this is what shell-shocked feels like. Or maybe it's denial. Isn't that one of the stages that's supposed to happen after someone dies? She's already been through that, once with Mom and then again with Buffy, and now it's, like, the whole world that she's mourning. Only she's not because it doesn't seem real, so that must be denial. She wants to wake Spike up, because being in this quiet house that they didn't even have to break into -- because the door wasn't locked -- should be freaking her out. But it's not. She just feels kind of... numb. And it's not so bad. Slipping out from between the covers, Dawn goes to the window, but she remembers in time that letting the sunlight in wouldn't be a good thing. The house is so quiet. She creeps down the stairs to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator, then closes it again really fast because the smell is totally gross. There are crackers in the cabinet that aren't opened, so she eats those instead, and then she finds a bottle of wine. Wine goes with crackers, right? It takes longer to find a bottle opener, and she doesn't really know how to use it. The cork ends up splintering into a whole bunch of funny little pieces, but after a while Dawn gets them out. She wonders only briefly if she should look for a wine glass, then decides to drink straight from the bottle. Not like she needs to hide anything. Not like she needs to do 'the right thing', whatever that might be. The wine is a deep red, almost purple when some of it spills onto her ratty blouse. Maybe drinking out of the bottle wasn't such a good idea after all. But it makes her realize how totally disgusting her clothes are, for the first time. Dawn drinks almost a third of the bottle before she starts to feel sick, and by that time the sun is setting. The crackers help, and then not really, and she tosses them across the room at the same time Spike appears in the doorway, making her shriek. "Having a picnic?" Spike asks. "Uh-huh," she says, defiantly. She looks at him steadily as she takes another swig of wine from the bottle, daring him to say something about it. "Any good?" He strolls over and takes the bottle from her hand, drinks some, then gives it back to her. "Aren't you supposed to tell me I'm too young to drink?" Spike looks at her, then blinks, like he's realizing that she needs him to pretend things are normal. "Oh, right. Look, give me that. You're too young for wine." He takes the bottle from her again and sets it on the counter. "Beer, on the other hand..." Dawn smiles, even though it feels wrong on her face. "That's okay. It tastes gross anyway." She thinks maybe she's drunk, and she's cold again. "Do you think there's any hot water?" "Depends," Spike says. He goes over to the sink and turns it on, waits a minute. "Seems to be," he shrugs. With the prospect of a shower -- or okay, maybe a bath, because she isn't sure she could actually stand up long enough to take a shower -- Dawn's skin crawls, like a shiver. She gets up from her seat on the floor, then leans on the counter as the world spins sickeningly. The taste of wine is suddenly sour at the back of her throat. "Had too much, didn't you," Spike says, coming over and cupping her face, tilting it so he can look at her. She shivers again, and right away he lets go, stops touching her. "You gonna be sick?" "No," Dawn says stubbornly, even though she thinks the answer's more like 'yes' and 'get out of my way' and there's no way it's all about the wine, because she can feel those men's hands on her now, hurting her. "I just want a bath." She makes it into the bathroom on wobbly legs and shuts the door under her own power -- go, me! -- and starts the water running into the tub before she throws up into the toilet. At least getting it out of her system makes her feel better, even if she does have tears in her eyes and a seriously gross aftertaste in her mouth. She looks through the cabinets for a new toothbrush, knowing that the chances of finding one are probably slim to none, because even though she knows they'll probably both be dead in a few weeks unless they're really lucky -- don't think that, don't think it -- she can't bring herself to brush her teeth with someone's used brush. Swishing some mouthwash around instead, Dawn glances in the mirror and is surprised to see that, other than the bed-head hair look, she looks the same. She'd thought there'd be something different. She's not sure what. She fills the tub almost to the top and then strips off her clothes and eases into the very hot water. It stings scratches on her thighs that she hadn't even known were there, and the place between her legs (her cunt, her voice whispers in her head) aches with a raw soreness. There are fingerprint-shaped bruises on her breasts, and something else that she thinks might be a hickey. After that she doesn't think about it anymore. * * * Vampire hearing being what it is, Spike knows that Dawn was lying about not needing to be sick, because he hears her. There's something about the way she's carrying herself -- well, that, and what he knows happened -- that tells him she's more fragile than she's letting on, and it's as hard to let her shut herself in the bathroom as it was earlier that morning when all she needed to do was pee. Seems ridiculous to ask her to leave the door open, since it makes perfect sense she'd want privacy, but it's not easy to hold the words in. Feels like they might choke him. Sounds like she's okay, so Spike just leans against the door for a while, smoking and listening to the gentle ripples of the water in the bathtub as she washes up. He stubs the butt out on the floor -- not like they're gonna stay here, or like anyone else is going to -- then realizes that she doesn't have anything else to wear but what she'd had on, and who knows how long she's been wearing that. He goes through the house, all the dressers and closets, but can't find anything suitable. She's such a little thing, all wide eyes and shining hair like a doll. Spike figures there's probably something that'd fit her in one of the nearby houses. Maybe once she gets out of the bathroom, they can go looking. He waits a few more minutes, then knocks gently. "You okay?" He tries to sound casual. "Mm-hm," Dawn says. He can hear more water splashing. "You need anything? Um..." Can't actually think of anything to offer her, and knows he's being an utter ponce. "I'm fine," Dawn says, and now he can hear the irritation in her voice. It's a warning, and he knows her well enough to tell that she's not joking around. So Spike goes back to the kitchen and finishes the bottle of wine, then digs around in the cupboards until he finds the rest of the liquor stash and helps himself to a swig of cheap whisky. No way he's going to get pissed, not any time soon, but he can take the edge off at least. It's a good twenty minutes before the bathroom door opens and Dawn appears, dressed in the same clothes she was wearing before and looking like she's not thrilled about it. Her cheeks are flushed with warmth, her lower lip slightly swollen as if she's been biting it. "Do you think there's a mall around here somewhere?" Spike sets the whisky bottle down on the counter behind him and shakes his head. "No malls." "There's got to be one somewhere." "I'm sure there is, but we're not going near it. Places like that'll be death traps." He moves past her, patting his pocket to make sure he's still got the car keys. "Can check out some of the nearby houses if you want." They break into four houses before they find stuff that fits Dawn -- jeans, socks, tops, sweaters. She insists that she'd rather go without panties than wear someone else's, and as someone who's just as happy to go without himself, Spike understands. She's still going to need shoes other than the little ballet slipper things she's got on, which are looking pretty shabby, but at least she's got something more than a short skirt and a thin blouse. With Spike looking in the other direction, Dawn changes into some of what they've found, then picks up the rest in a bundled armful. "Okay." It's pitch dark when they get into the car, but Spike doesn't see where that matters. If they want to keep moving -- and if they want to keep Dawn alive, they'll need to -- she's gonna have to adjust to sleeping during the day and being awake at night. Fuck it, she can sleep all the time if she wants to, and maybe in some ways that'd be better, for a while anyway. It's a lot to take in, losing everyone and everything at the same time. He should know. He lost Buffy. She's eating another candy bar. "That gonna be your diet from now on?" Spike asks. "Why not?" Dawn sounds sullen for the first time, and it grates at him even though there's part of him glad that she's still able to be. "It's not like... I mean, I might as well get fat, right? That way I can be a good meal for whoever gets to eat me." "No one," Spike says tightly, "is going to eat you." "Please. Do you think I don't know a lie when I hear one? I'm not stupid." Spike sighs. "I didn't say you were." "Maybe not, but you keep saying things that aren't true. That you're going to keep me safe, that you won't let anyone hurt me." Dawn pauses, then reaches out and pokes him in the side. "Liar." He swats at her hand. "Knock it off." "Make me." She does it again. "I said knock it off." His voice is sharper this time, but she doesn't seem cowed, and this time when she jabs her fingertips into his ribcage Spike reaches down and grabs onto her hand. "Stop." Spike can feel her trembling, but he's not sure if it's with anger or something else. "Promise me that nothing's going to happen to you," Dawn says. "I promise," he lies. "Promise that you're not going to leave me." Dawn sounds so young, and yet like she knows what she's asking. Still a little girl, but wise beyond her years. "Promise." "I'm not going to leave you," Spike says, each word slow and careful, like the way their fingers are twisted together. They drive in silence for a little while. Then, "Why didn't we go to LA?" Dawn asks. "Because when something like this happens, last place you want to go's the big city." "But there are people there," Dawn says. "Angel." Spike sighs. "If he's not so much dust by now -- and that's a big if -- he wouldn't thank me for taking you into LA to look for him. He'd want you safe." 'Course, what Angel might want isn't Spike's concern, but he wants Dawn off this line of questioning as fast as he can get her there. "So we're just going to keep driving?" "That's the plan, yeah." Dawn slouches down in her seat, staring at the dash. But she doesn't let go of his hand. * * * Turns out that in the long run it doesn't matter that the chip's gone wonky, because Spike doesn't feel right feeding off the few people that are left. It's all Dawn's fault, of course. If it weren't for her, he'd be having a bloody feast, literally, and instead he's drinking animals' blood half the time and hungry the other half. The fact that she gets her non-existent knickers in a twist about him feeding off somebody's pet just irritates him all the more, and they end up not speaking for about a day. "Sorry," Dawn says finally, almost a full twenty-four hours since the last time she said anything. Spike just looks at her. "I know. You have to eat something, and it's not your fault that those people left their dog chained up and he was mostly dead already." Dawn shudders artistically, and Spike's pretty sure she's not faking it. "Wasn't the dog's fault either," Spike says, trying to be fair. "But I wouldn't have been doing it any favors by letting it go." Dawn nods. "I guess pretty soon most of the dogs and cats will be dead anyway, huh?" "Suppose so." "What happens then?" Spike shrugs, taking the power away from the question. "We'll worry about it when the time comes." They spend two days in a diner -- it might be somewhere in Nevada, or maybe Utah, he's not paying much attention to the signs. Dawn makes pancakes on a big gas griddle, burning half of them and putting all kinds of stupid things into the batter -- applesauce and candy bars and instant coffee powder. But she actually seems a bit happy, a bit more relaxed, and that makes it worth the added worry of staying in the same place more than one night. Of course there are run-ins with vamps, and demons, and even a handful of humans. It all becomes routine, what he has to deal with to keep her alive. Very early one morning, when Dawn is already asleep but before the sun has risen, Spike hears a noise outside on the front porch of the house they're in. He goes to investigate and finds a man standing there, nervous and apologetic before Spike can even say anything. "I saw you drive up," the man says. "You and the girl." Spike's got the front door opened a few inches. He doesn't think the bloke's got anything planned, but better safe than sorry. "What do you want?" "My car ran out of gas." The man's wringing his hands together, his face drawn in sorrow. "And my wife, she won't wake up." That doesn't sound good, but the poor guy's such a wreck that Spike feels like he ought to do something. Kicking himself for being soft enough to care, he follows him out onto the street and looks into the car that seemed empty when they drove up, where a woman's body's already starting to decompose. Anyone with a grain of sense left would be able to tell she's been dead for days, probably about three and a half or four. The smell of her decaying flesh is sickening, even to Spike. "She's dead," Spike says, not seeing the point of trying to break the news gently when he doesn't think the bloke's gonna hear him anyway. "No, no, she's just sleeping, She's always been a heavy sleeper, my Caroline. I just have to get her to wake up." "Uh-huh," Spike says, turning back toward the house. "Well, good luck with that then." A little voice in the back of his head nags at him. Why not go on back and kill him? it says. He's a miserable excuse for a life at this point -- his wife's dead, he's completely bonkers, no one would miss him, all that good blood of his is just going to get wasted... Instead of arguing with it, Spike goes back into the house and puts a chair next to the bed. Sits on it. Watches Dawn sleep. This, he tells himself, is why. * * * That's the night Dawn gets sick for the first time. Spike had thought she'd been off-color for days, but not enough that he'd said anything. She's already touchy about him being over-protective, which is a laugh since she's stuck to him like glue most of the time. But he figures that's women for you. Anyway, when he sees her stir and suddenly go kind of white next to him, and she says, "Stop the car," in a strangled sort of voice, he obeys quickly. She's out of the car as soon as it stops, bending over at the waist in the weeds at the side of the road. Spike moves to join her, aware that somebody, or something, could be hiding out, waiting for the next victim to wander along. Dawn doesn't actually throw up -- she's stubborn, fights it. She takes three steps back and leans against the car like she's exhausted. "Gross," she says. "Think it was something you ate?" Spike asks, moving closer. "Like what?" "Could be your all-chocolate diet's not agreeing with you." "Maybe it was that bread. I thought it tasted kind of funny... oh -- " Dawn turns and heaves again, but still nothing comes up. Not knowing what else to do, Spike takes her arm and guides her around the open car door, sits down himself with his feet on the ground and pulls her into his lap. She only resists for a second, then sighs and relaxes against him, laying her head on his shoulder. "You been getting enough sleep?" Spike asks, even though he knows she has. "You haven't been drinking the tap water, have you?" "No," Dawn says, and he can hear the eye-roll in her voice clear as anything. "Haven't we had this conversation, like, a million times already?" "Million and one." Spike vampfully resists going into the reasons why it's not a good idea -- they don't know where the water's coming from, some of it's been sitting in the pipes for weeks, it could be contaminated. As far as Spike knows, the doctor he thinks he shot back in Sunnydale was the last one on earth. "Maybe it's just, you know, stress?" Dawn suggests, slipping her arm around his waist. "Maybe." But the next night it happens again, and after she's feeling a bit better Dawn asks if they can stop somewhere and get something that'll help settle her stomach. The big drug store's on the outskirts of town, and it seems like it somehow managed to miss being a target for looters. "What, no one here needs salt scrub?" Dawn asks, holding up a small jar. Spike's still checking the place out, more interested in making sure no one's there than in whatever the hell she's going on about. "There, antacids are in aisle four," he tells her, pointing. "Come on, this isn't a field trip." "Even the teachers in school were more fun than you," Dawn says sulkily, putting the jar she's still holding into the red wire basket in her other hand. "Hey, lip gloss." "What would you need that for?" Dawn gives him a look and walks past him and into aisle four. "There are still people alive, right? I mean, non-undead people." "Yeah." "So I was thinking... maybe one of them's Josh Hartnett." Spike fails to see the logic here. "And...?" "And what if we find him? I wouldn't want my lips to be all dry and gross." Dawn seems to think she's being perfectly reasonable, so Spike just shakes his head and watches as she goes up the aisle. She stops and sets the basket down on the floor, taking a flashlight out of her jacket pocket and turning it on. The thin beam stutters in the dim for a second, and she smacks the butt of the flashlight with the heel of her hand hard to get it to behave properly. "We need more batteries," she says. "Think you can find some?" The store's quiet as death. Spike makes it quick, scouting out the aisle with flashlights and batteries and filling his pockets with some of each. When he gets back to Dawn, she's added some bottles and jars to her basket. "I have to pee," she says flatly. "Should have gone before we left the house," Spike says. He's trying to be funny, but she just gives him another one of those looks, perfected by teenaged girls every about five seconds after they hit puberty. He sighs. "Come on, the little girl's room's probably back this way." * * * Spike gives her some new batteries and watches as she fumbles them into her flashlight. At least he's figured out when to keep his mouth shut about some things -- Dawn hates it when he offers to do stuff for her that she can totally do by herself. She knows he's going to wait outside the door, so she goes inside and into one of the stalls, fast, locking the door and propping her flashlight on the back of the toilet tank. Her hands are shaking as she takes the cardboard package from her inside jacket pocket where she'd hidden it, and she tears the thin paper in her haste to get the thing open. The little stick is wrapped in plastic, and she sets that next to the flashlight while she undoes her jeans and pulls them down. She sits on the toilet and then unwraps the stick and, holding it in one hand and the flashlight in the other, tries to pee where she's supposed to. And of course it splashes onto her hand, which is seriously gross. When she's done, Dawn gets herself back together and carries the stick and the flashlight back out into the main part of the bathroom, setting them down on the sink, and washes her hands three times in the stream of cold water that trickles out of the tap. She dries her hands three times on stiff brown paper towels, then puts the wadded up paper carefully into the trash bin. Her heart is beating too fast, so she tries taking deep breaths and thinking about nothing, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Three minutes isn't a long time to wait, not really, but it feels like forever. * * * Spike leans against the wall and smokes while he waits for Dawn. After a couple of minutes, he calls, "You okay in there?" "Yes," Dawn answers immediately. "Jeez, can't a person pee in privacy?" He rolls his eyes to the ceiling and waits some more. Dawn's voice, when it comes again through the wooden door, is quavering. "Spike? C-can you come in here?" Spike doesn't hesitate -- he shoves the door open with his shoulder almost before she's finished speaking. She's standing at the sink, with her back to him, and when he moves to her side she startles like she hadn't realized how close he was. She's holding something in her hands. Spike takes it when she offers, looking down as his fingers close around it. It's some plastic stick sort of thing. "What's this?" "It's a pregnancy test," Dawn says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Uh-huh." Spike looks at it more closely, realizing why she's showing it to him at the same time the pieces fall into place. Her being sick, how she's been sleeping so much. And now that he thinks about it, the fact that she hasn't had her monthlies in the weeks since the Hellmouth opened. He glances up at her, not knowing what to say. "Well?" "Well what?" "Well, what are we going to do?" Dawn looks irritated and more than a little bit scared. Spike looks at the stick again, then sets it down on the edge of the sink. "What do you want to do?" he asks, stalling for time, hoping he'll be able to come up with something convincing. He's still absorbing the news. "I think we should turn back time," Dawn says, shifting her weight to her back foot, which makes her hips roll. She's still tiny, slender. You wouldn't know by looking at her. "You can do that, right?" "Wish I could, Bit." Spike sighs and reaches out to take her arm, and she lets him even though she's tense. Dawn takes a half step closer to him. "People shouldn't have to live like this," she says. "But you are," Spike tells her. "And you're gonna keep on, you hear me? No matter what happens." Resigned, she moves in and rests her face against his chest. She's warm and his arms go around her automatic-like, without any thought at all. "I want Mom," Dawn says, her voice wet with tears. She sniffles, then laughs. "Except she'd kill me if she knew." "No she wouldn't. She'd understand." Spike pulls back, holding Dawn's face in his hands so that she knows he's serious. "This isn't your fault, you know that." There are tear stains on her cheeks, but she grins a bit sadly. "Yeah, I know. I'm not stupid." He wipes away her tears and tucks her hair back. "So, it's early days yet. Might be we can find a solution to this, if that's something you want to do." Truth be told, he's terrified at the thought of somebody they don't know going inside her and scraping her out, no anaesthetic and probably no sterile conditions, but considering what she's already been through... "You mean an abortion." Dawn's not one for beating around the bush. "If that's what you want, yeah." "I don't know what I want." She pulls away, turns and picks up the torch from the sink, leaving the pregnancy test where Spike set it. "Other than to get out of here, I mean. Can we?" * * * He knows she's cried a couple of times, in the shower, or when she says she's going to brush her teeth. Bathroom door's the only one that's closed between them, for the most part, and Dawn seems to take advantage of that by using her few moments in private to shed the tears that she won't in front of him. Still, he figures it'll come sooner or later. It's not natural to hold in that much grief, not when you've lost so much. Knows that from personal experience. He lost Buffy, after all. Dawn gets it into her head that they need books. "Not because I want to, you know, keep it," she explains. It hasn't slipped Spike's notice that she refers to it like that -- it, the pregnancy -- when she has to refer to it at all. "But I should know what's going to happen. What's normal." Spike manages not to point out that almost nothing about this is normal. "So what, then? A library?" "No," Dawn says, like she's been giving it some thought. "A bookstore. Because what if somebody needs one of those books, and they go all the way to the library and I stole it?" He doesn't figure there are a hell of a lot of women left to get pregnant, let alone ones in whatever town they might stop in who'll think to go to the library for books about the condition, but again he manages to keep his mouth shut. "Just remember, there's only so much room in the back seat," Spike warns her as he finishes breaking into the big fancy shop. There's already a collection of stuff in the back of the car, and the trunk's been full for weeks. 'Course he's nearly as responsible for that fact as she is -- either of them takes a fancy to something, they throw it into the car. It hasn't really occurred to them to get rid of any of it yet. The place is sprawling, with sections for just about every kind of book imaginable. (Not much in the way of porn though.) There are calendars -- Spike wonders if they're the last years' worth of official ones that'll ever be made -- and greeting cards, leather bound journals and magazines, romance novels and dictionaries. There's no electricity, but it's just past sundown and they've acquired quite a collection of torches. "Stay with me," Spike orders, but Dawn waves a hand at him and flounces toward the back section of the shop, where a large sign reads 'Women's Health,' and he has to follow her. He grabs a book of maps along the way -- might come in useful -- and slides down with his back against the end of one bookcase where he can check it out and keep an eye on Dawn at the same time. After a while she settles on a couple of books, but by then Spike's been bored for fifteen minutes and has started looking through them himself. All kinds of creepy photos of unborn kids swimming around in their mother's wombs, diagrams of how big the fetuses are at various stages... he shudders and puts the book back, randomly picking up another one about herbs and childbearing. There's a chapter in it about herbal abortions, so he slips the book into his pocket when Dawn isn't looking. "Any time now," he says impatiently, gesturing at the small pile she's set on the floor. "Enough already." Dawn gives him a look of sheer annoyance. "Uh-huh. Who put the crabby pills in your blood?" That's when Spike realizes he's hungry. He's been going longer between meals -- Dawn got over her no-pets rule, but they're still harder and harder to find, and the bigger animals are more work. He doesn't like to leave her unattended long enough to do any real hunting. Looking back, it's been almost two days since he fed, and thinking about it makes him more aware of how deep and gnawing the hunger actually is. Something on his face must give him away, because Dawn looks worried. "Do you need blood?" Spike's pretty sure she thinks about it -- what will happen if, when, they can't find any. He's determined he'll become a walking skeleton before he'd feed from her, even if she offered, but it's not really the kind of thing you say to someone. Well, to her. "I'm all right for now," he says gruffly. "But I wouldn't mind getting out of here." "Okay, I'm good," Dawn says. She scoops up the books she's chosen and reaches for Spike's hand likes it's the most natural thing in the world, interlacing her warm fingers with his. On the way out Spike snags a big box of gourmet chocolates in a shiny gold box from a display, thinking there's bound to be a time Dawn will want them, and they step outside onto the pavement, where the car's parked crooked across a couple of spaces. And where it's surrounded by a small crowd of vampires, all armed and wearing assorted expressions of mayhem. * * * "Uh-oh," Dawn says, glancing from the car to Spike, then back again. His mind's racing furiously, trying to think. It's Dawn they really want -- though they'll settle for him if it's blood they're after -- so his first instinct, to tell her to run, is no good. A couple of them will just keep him busy while the rest go for her. There's a stake in one of his pockets at least. "Send the girl over and we'll let you go," one of them calls. Spike feels Dawn's hand tighten its grip on his. "Never gonna happen, mate," he yells back. The vampire exchange a few words, low, that he can barely make out. "Stay with me," Spike tells Dawn, and he knows she'll obey this time. "If they surround us, keep your back to me, make sure you know where they are. Understand?" Dawn nods, and he hears the books she was holding hit the ground with a muffled collection of thumps at the same time he drops the box of chocolates. Almost before he can blink they're on them, Spike's body moving to parry blows in a dance that doesn't take any thought at all on his part. He figures he's got Angelus to thank for the way instinct takes over at times like this -- a block becomes an elbow to the neighboring vamp's face, the smell of blood more adrenaline than aphrodisiac, although deep down he knows that will come too, if he makes it out of this one. He can hear Dawn's quick, indrawn breaths as she does her best to stick close to him. One of the vamps gets a hand on her wrist, and Spike turns and stakes him in one smooth move, the dust raining down over both of them. Dawn coughs and squeaks, "Spike!" as another vamp grabs her by the shoulders. Spike kicks the vamp hard, boot to the back of the knee, and the bloke makes a high-pitched sound and staggers, Dawn shoving him away far enough so that Spike can get a stake into his heart too. That's when one of the others hits Spike over the head with something like an explosion, and the world blackens briefly, a slide show paused. He's on his knees somehow, and has just enough sense to say, "Dawn -- run." * * * She runs. There isn't any hesitating about it, even though something in her chest, or maybe her brain, knows that it's wrong. It's what Spike told her to do, so Dawn does it. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest, and the pavement is hard under her ratty sneakers, and she's not sure where to go. She dodges around the side of the building and runs its length, then back behind it, looking around wildly for where to go. She doesn't think she can run far or fast enough to get away from hungry vampires -- and she's not sure how many of them were left, maybe three, maybe four -- so there has to be somewhere to hide. There are three big trash bins behind the building -- the first two are mostly paper and boxes, but the last one is lots of bags full of what's probably trash from the coffee shop part of the store, paper bags and napkins and she's wasting too much time deciding, so she climbs up and in, struggling on the edge for just a few seconds before she's inside. With the sound of her breathing harsh in her own ears, crouched on torn garbage bags, Dawn waits to see who comes for her. * * * Fear for Dawn's what forces him to his feet, though game face slips on without any effort at all. "No one ever taught you to play nice?" he asks the vamp with the heavy piece of two by four that's probably what whacked him over the head. And it doesn't matter that he's hurt, or that he's been underfed lately, because he's stronger than all of them put together, where it counts. The first two are dust in seconds, the third half a minute later, and then it's just him and number six. "Seems like you lost your friends," Spike says, trying with all his might to focus on the bloke in front of him instead of where Dawn got off to and if she's okay. He wipes his split knuckles across his mouth, and the taste of blood fills his senses. Makes him hungrier. The other vamp circles, slow, like he's got all night. Spike sure as hell doesn't. He rushes his opponent, and instead of staking him, snaps his neck. His fangs are sunk into cool flesh before the bloke's body even twitches in recognition of what's happened, and he feeds, the amount of blood insufficient but better than nothing. He drops the body to the pavement and leaves it there, stumbles a step in the direction Dawn must have gone. "Dawn!" Spike stands very still, listening for her reply, but there's none. It comes over him like a flash that he might not find her -- might never see her again or know what happened to her -- and he starts to run, his chest tight with anxiety. At the back of the building he pauses. "Dawn!" Listens again, hears a faint scraping sound. "Dawn, it's me!" He hears her voice before he sees her. "Spike?" She's hiding in the bloody rubbish bin, and Spike's relief is so acute that his knees wobble. "You okay?" He goes over and helps her climb out, and she's trembling and her hands are clutching at his coat. Spike gets his own hands on her face and tilts it upward so she's looking at him. "You hurt?" "No," Dawn says. "But... w-what about you? Are you okay?" Spike's head is throbbing, but he doesn't think his skull's busted. "I'm fine." Then, as he realizes, "What the hell is that ungodly stench?" "Stinky rotting garbage?" Dawn suggests brightly, although Spike can tell that the cheerfulness is forced. "God, it's like..." But there aren't even words for how disgusting the odor is -- mold and slime and stuff that used to be food. Thinking that a few weeks' time can turn it into something that smells like this is enough to turn him off of eating stuff altogether, Spike thinks. "Trust me, I know," Dawn says. "I was the one sitting in it, remember?" She looks down at herself like she wants to brush off the bits clinging to her clothes, but hesitates. Spike wouldn't want to touch it either. "I guess they don't have a shower in there, huh?" She glances at the bookshop. "Not bloody likely." Spike's backed up away from her a bit, looks around. There are some houses a quarter of a mile away -- one of them will do. Half an hour later, he's waiting outside the bathroom door in a house where the electricity's long dead, holding an armful of clothes. "Remind me again why we couldn't wait to go somewhere that had hot water?" Dawn asks from the other side of the door. He can hear her teeth chattering as she splashes water over herself. "Because there might not be anywhere, and no way am I driving you around in the car like this." More splashing water, and he can practically hear Dawn dancing around from one foot to the other as she squeals and shivers. In another minute she's pushing the door open and grabbing the clothes out of his hand, a towel wrapped hastily around her for modesty. She doesn't quite pull it closed again, and Spike gets a glimpse of long coltish thigh and the slightest swell of abdomen before making himself look away. Dawn reappears, dressed and with damp hair, still shivering. "Do I pass the smell test?" she asks, holding her arms out at her sides. Spike leans in a bit and gives a good sniff, but all he can smell is a faintly jasmine-scented soap and the metallic tang of icy water. The way she's trembling makes him want to wrap his arms around her, touch her 'til she warms up. But he won't. Better not to. "Yeah, you pass," he says, ducking his head, keeping his eyes on the floor. * * * Dawn's sitting next to him in the front seat. She doesn't wear her seatbelt anymore, and Spike's given up on trying to make her. His only real threat, that he won't drive unless she's wearing it, doesn't work when it's not safe to stay in one place, and she's pointed out that she could drive off on her own in another car if she wanted to. 'Course, this argument won't hold water for much longer, because most of the cars will be low on batteries after having sat for six or more weeks. She's a quick study though -- he's showed her how to find car keys fast, if there's a car parked at a house, and where they might be hidden inside the car, not to mention how to hotwire one. It's simple for her now, almost second nature. It took about six hours of practice, one afternoon when neither of them could sleep and there was a garage attached to the house they were waiting out the sunlight in, but she's got it down. "How about Tallahassee?" she asks. "It's kind of a funny name, don't you think?" "Don't you want somewhere, I don't know... nicer?" Spike says. He's humoring her, letting her think that some time soon they'll settle down, once they've found the right place. In reality he doesn't expect that to happen for months, if ever, but it seems to make her happy, trying to choose a place to stay. "Or -- ooh, I know! New Orleans!" Dawn lets the map she's been studying fall into her lap, bouncing in excitement. "Over my undead body," Spike tells her, remembering to watch the road. It's getting harder to concentrate, what with being hungry just about all the time, although they've managed to find him a couple of animals and a small stash of human blood at an emergency clinic. "New Orleans is one big clich. That Rice woman destroyed the place for any respectable vamp." Dawn's quirk of a smile just about lights up the car. "So you're respectable now?" He has to backpeddle a bit. "Not me, no. Just trust me when I say it's not a place we want to go." Truth is, Interview or not, he has no doubt New Orleans is crawling with vamps. "Okay, fine." She sighs and shifts in her seat again, trying to get comfortable. "Could get you some new jeans," Spike suggests, hesitant 'cause he's not sure how she's going to take it. He hasn't failed to notice that she's still getting ones in the same size she started out, even though that size is more than a bit too small now that she's starting to thicken about the waist. The subtle change in her shape wouldn't be noticeable if you didn't know to look for it -- it's just the slightest roundness of her lower abdomen. Her breasts are the tiniest bit bigger too, but again, if you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't see it. Spike tells himself, firmly, that he's not paying attention. "That'd be cool," Dawn says, inspecting her fingernails with what seems to be forced casualness. So there's another stop at a big department store -- seems like all they do these days is drive, sleep and shop -- ending with another stack of clothes in the back seat, and a pair of chocolate brown denim overalls over Dawn's long sleeved striped shirt. The outfit makes her look even younger than she is, but it hides the changes in her body at the same time, so Spike doesn't figure he should complain. The pregnancy books, rescued after their fight with the vampires and read carefully over the next day or two, have spent the past week and a half on the floor of the car, getting stepped on and bent. Spike's past the point of admonishing Dawn to take care of her things -- getting attached to objects, even books, seems a ridiculous suggestion at this point. They can always get more. "I want ice cream," she says suddenly, sliding down in her seat and propping her knees up on the dashboard. It's about thirty minutes until they'll start looking for somewhere to spend the day. "Do you think there'll ever be ice cream again?" "Sure there will. We had ice cream back before there was electricity, you know." Spike considers this. "Helps to live somewhere that's cold enough to get snow though." Dawn wrinkles her nose. "Hm. I don't know if I want ice cream that much." "So you want to settle somewhere warm?" It's wrong to encourage her, Spike thinks. But on the other hand, he doesn't like the idea of her getting all despairing, thinking there's no point in going on. "I think." Dawn glances at him. "But maybe somewhere less sunny would be better? For you, I mean." He shakes his head. "Don't worry about me. Been in California a long time, haven't I?" There are things he doesn't tell her, and things he doesn't mention in the hopes that maybe she won't notice. Like the fact that they've been traveling in a big oval for a while -- gone halfway across the country, then looped north and started back again. Pretty soon they're going to cross over their easterly path; eventually they'll have made one of those infinity symbols, and if that's not a laugh -- in a laugh-or-you'll-cry sort of way -- Spike doesn't know what is. Anyway, Dawn has to have noticed that they're headed back the way they came, what with her looking at the map off and on, but she hasn't said anything. So they don't talk about it, which is just fine with Spike. * * * It only takes them two tries to find a house to spend the day in, which is way better than average. Spike's all fussy about it and wants to make sure the one they stay in isn't flimsy or easy to break into. Well, plus after all this time there's the whole dead-bodies-rotting thing to think about, and at this point they're usually rotting right into the carpet or whatever, and the stink is seriously gross. Way worse than when she hid in the trash bin. Sometimes they find actual people who are still alive, but they never really try to talk to them. Dawn's not sure why. She thinks it might be because Spike worries he'll be tempted -- like, to eat them -- or because he knows what will happen when they find out what he is. She's not too excited to find out, so she keeps her mouth shut about it. Like a lot of other things. The house is really quiet. It's been hard to get used to that -- no electricity means no refrigerators running, no computers making that faint humming sound, no radios, no phones. It actually makes it harder to sleep than you'd think, but she's starting to get used to it. Plus she's so tired all the time that falling asleep isn't usually a problem. When Dawn wakes up, her hand's between her legs again, inside her panties. Sometimes she dreams stuff that's kind of, well, sexy. Spike's still asleep, and she's pretty much figured out at this point how to tell if he's going to wake up soon, so she leaves her fingers where they are, sliding lightly over moist skin that feels swollen and hot. She wonders if any of the guys who raped her are still alive. She wonders if whichever one of them's the father -- the cause of the pregnancy that's making her lower belly swell out just a little bit -- was a good person, before. Dawn isn't stupid -- she knows that bad things can make even good people act crazy, can make them do things they shouldn't do. She wonders if this is one of them, her still wanting to touch herself even after they hurt her. Her fingers press and rub, and Dawn closes her eyes, breathes in quietly through her nose. She lets her other hand wander up under her t-shirt, cups one breast thoughtfully, feeling how it's different. It's only a little bit rounder, fuller, but it's much more sensitive than it was before. Sometimes her breasts ache like they used to right before she got her period, and her nipples are hard almost all the time, sticking out all perky. Dawn's breathing is getting faster now, but she's still almost silent. Knowing that if she isn't Spike might wake up gives her a little thrill that zings through her like sparks, and she bites down on her lower lip as she comes, her muscles down there tightening and relaxing in waves of pleasure that leave her feeling heavy and drowsy. But she doesn't go back to sleep, and after a little while she eases her hands back out cautiously and turns onto her side to look at Spike. He's lying on his back with one arm thrown up onto the pillow, and the fading sunlight just makes it clearer how much weight he's lost. He's starting to look kind of gaunt, and there are dark circles under his eyes. Sighing, Dawn gets up, pulls on her clothes, and wanders around the house. She almost always does this -- just pokes around, looking in closets and stuff, seeing if anything catches her eye. She has a whole armful of bracelets in the car's glove compartment, a few that are tennis bracelets with what she's pretty sure are real diamonds in them. She doesn't find anything interesting, so she goes into the kitchen and pokes around in the cabinets, warily. You never know what you're going to find, and sometimes it's totally stomach-turning. At least the morning sickness, or night sickness, or whatever you want to call it, seems to be going away. She still has waves of it, sometimes, and Spike's getting good at pulling over to the side of the road really fast when she tells him to. Boring crackers and cereal, in open boxes, so she knows they're stale. Canned yuck, namely soup and vegetables and beans. There's a sudden scratching sound that makes Dawn jump. She takes a deep breath, then hears it again. When she investigates, it's a cat on the other side of the screen door, asking to be let in. It doesn't make any sense -- how long has the poor kitty been standing out there, waiting for someone to open the door? And how does it know someone's in the house now? She looks around carefully before opening the door, because she knows Spike would freak if she didn't, then cracks it just enough so she can get the screen one open too. The cat -- thin, orange and beige and cocoa and peach -- pushes her way in eagerly, miaowing and twining itself around Dawn's legs until she almost trips. It's purring so loud she thinks it might wake up Spike, but it goes over to the cupboard next to the refrigerator and rubs its face against the handle, watching her anxiously. Dawn can take a hint. She opens the cupboard, and the cat flings itself inside, getting its head into the open bag of dry cat food that's under there, tipping it over. The food spills across the floor like little marbles, and Dawn is careful not to step on them and fall like some loser in a movie. Instead she sits down, leaning against the cabinets, and pets the cat as it devours the food like it's been starving, which is has, considering the way she can feel every bone under its thin fur. She eventually gets up and gives it some water too, because she thinks all that dry food must be sticking in its throat. When she sits back down again, the cat crawls onto her lap, pushing its forehead against her chest, which makes her wince. "Be a good kitty," she tells it, offering her hand for it to rub against instead of her sore breasts. It just purrs louder, sticking its butt up into the air and then flopping down onto its side. It's like a sad skinny purring machine. Dawn pets it some more. "What's your name, kitty?" She considers the colors of its fur, ruffles under its chin with one finger. "You look like a Marmalade to me." "See you found someone," Spike says, his voice startling her, and she glances up to see him standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "We need to hit the road, Bit. Sun's been down almost twenty minutes." She realizes she's lost track of time, then realizes that he called her 'Bit,' something he hasn't done in weeks and weeks. "Okay. But what about...?" She gestures at the cat, who immediately stands up and rubs itself on her gesturing hand endearingly. It isn't until she looks up and sees the expression on Spike's face and the glint in his eyes that she gets it. Dawn gets up slowly. "I'll wait in the car," she says, hearing how flat her voice is. "Right behind you." She knows he will be, just like she knows better than to look back. * * * Dawn sits up straighter suddenly. "Did you see that?" she asks, turning to look behind them. Spike hadn't. "What?" "There's a hospital at the next exit, and I think I saw some lights. Like, electricity! What if they have a blood bank?" He tries not to let hope get the better of him. "Even if they've still got power, chances are some other vamps have been in and cleaned out their stash weeks ago." "Then if they have, at least they won't be paying attention to us if we go in there to look," Dawn points out. "Come on. It's not like it's gonna take hours. We'll just go in, check it out, then get right back on the road. Okay?" "Okay," Spike says, although it's never that easy and he doesn't expect this time to be an exception to the rule. Hospital's empty, but Dawn was right about having seen lights -- a whole chunk of the town's still got power, for whatever reason. With the place silent, the lit halls and shiny tile floors seem sterile, almost lonely. Spike immediately berates himself for the melodramatic nature of these thoughts, forcing himself to focus on the concrete. Dawn's shoes -- flat basketball trainer things that seem more like something a boy would wear -- make little soft sounds on the floor as she walks, sticking close beside him for once. "This way," Spike says, after a moment's pause in which he contemplates where the blood might be kept. "Um... Spike?" Dawn says, but he ignores her and continues down the hallway. "Spike," she says again, so this time he turns. She's standing in front of a sign on the wall, and pointing in the other direction. "It's down there." "Right," Spike says, starting toward her. "I knew that." The way she rolls her eyes as he stalks past her, the way she says "Uh-huh," remind him of back before Buffy died, and his heart clenches in his chest. Doesn't matter that he's just a dead thing, a monster, if he can love. Does it? There are times when he's not sure, and this is one of them. Blood bank's locked up tight, but the pin that's more than enough to stop a human isn't nearly strong enough to keep out a vampire. He wrenches the door open and steps into the refrigerated cooler, sees the bags of blood in neat stacks. His mouth fills with saliva, and his gut clenches. "There's some more out here," Dawn calls, and she appears in the doorway with a bag of blood in each hand. "There's a little fridge too." Spike wrenches control down tightly, but vamp face rushes out anyway as he takes the bags from her and tears into one, the flood of it into his mouth rich and meaty. He turns away from Dawn -- not that he thinks she can't handle it, but she shouldn't have to watch if she doesn't want to -- and drains both bags in less than a minute. When he goes to look for more, Dawn's standing in front of the little fridge with two more in her hands. She holds them out. "There's a lot more," she says, softly, reassuring. "It's okay." He takes them from her and she moves away, leaving him access to the small refrigerator. He drinks deep, bag after bag even though they're not warm, letting the taste of the blood wash everything else away until he's sated. By then, his palms are cold with the chill of the ones he ate. When he wipes them on his duster he can feel the outline of the small book that's been in the inside pocket since they went to the bookstore. The room's empty. "Dawn?" Spike says, then again, right away. "Dawn!" "I'm in here," she says, answering quick like she knows he's worried. "I'm okay." She's gone through an adjoining doorway into another room, a kind of clinic or something maybe. Lots of chairs, some magazines, wall full of flyers about asthma and Wellbutrin and overactive bladder disorder. There's a counter at the far wall, place for patients to check in probably. Dawn's leaning against it, looking at a flyer that she refolds and sets back down when he comes in. "All done?" she asks. "Yeah." Self-conscious, Spike rubs the back of his hand over his mouth, changes back into human face with a bit more effort than it usually takes. "Plenty more though. We'll have to find a cooler or something so we can take it with us." "Uh-huh." Her long hair's shiny, hanging down and hiding half her face. "Spike, do you think...?" He waits, but she doesn't finish. "Think what?" "Never mind." Dawn makes an odd face, her mouth pulling into something not quite a frown. "So, do you think we should, you know, look around?" She gestures over her shoulder at the area behind the counter. "Might as well see if there's anything useful." Plenty of useful stuff, if you knew what the hell any of it is. Spike breaks open the locked medicine chests and rifles through one while Dawn looks through the other. "Valium," Spike says, pocketing a bottle. "Isn't that, like, to calm down people who are freaking out?" "Basically." Spike moves a bunch of other bottles around, letting the uninteresting ones fall onto the floor. "This is kind of fun," Dawn says, grinning. "It's kind of like stealing." "It is stealing," Spike tells her, even though technically it's not. Might as well let her think so, if it cheers her up. He finds another bottle with a label he recognizes. "Demerol -- that's good stuff." Dawn's quiet, and when he looks up she's got a little packet of things in her hand -- two bottles of pills and a pile of flyers bundled together with an elastic band. "What's that then?" he asks. "Are you four eighty-six," Dawn says. "Am I what?" Spike cocks his head to the side. She pulls one of the flyers free and hands it to him. "Oh, RU-486. Which is what again?" "It's an abortion pill," she says, moving over to a chair and sinking down onto the edge of it as she takes out a flyer herself and starts to read. Spike's wondered what she was thinking about the whole thing, but he hasn't wanted to ask. Well, of course he's wanted to ask, but he's kept his mouth shut. "Pills," she says after a minute. "You take one and then wait and take the other one." "Says 'Under a doctor's care,'" Spike points out, reading along. "We seem to be sorely lacking in one of those." "Well yeah, but we wouldn't have one if I had it either." It takes Spike a moment to puzzle out that 'it' is the baby and not the abortion. He's not convinced that this option's much safer than taking the book in his pocket's advice about herbs, but then neither one's likely to be a walk in the park. "Whatever you want to do, Bit," he says finally. "It's your decision." Dawn's hand's on her mostly-flat belly. "Let's take it with us," she says, handing the bottles and things to him. After some more walking around they find the cafeteria, and go on into the back to investigate the kitchen. The walk-in fridge is still running, still cold, but most of the stuff in it's no good. Salads and things gone black with slime or green with mold, milk and cream past the point of being okay to drink. But there are some sealed yogurts that Dawn says are good, and the way she spoons one of them into her mouth seems to prove it. She grabs a plastic bag and fills it with the yogurt, some oranges and a few apples, then declares the rest of the food a loss. "You think there are other places that still have power?" Dawn asks, voice muffled around the edges of the plastic spoon. "Must be," Spike says. "Here and there." "Well I think we should stay here today. Because... hot water! Oh, but we need to go back and get your blood." Her expression and posture, which have been rather wired since the discovery of the yogurt, softens. "You feel better, right?" He nods, and they go back to the blood bank. Find a crap styrofoam cooler in a corner under a table and fill it with the frozen blood -- Spike figures it should be good for a couple of days at least, all packed in like that. Maybe longer, if he's lucky. Either way, there's a renewed bounce in his step, fresh hope coursing through his veins. Feels like he could take on the world. * * * Six houses this time. The first two aren't safe enough -- Spike says there are too many windows or something. At this point Dawn doesn't try to argue with him anymore. It doesn't do any good. She just says okay and follows him to the next house. Three and four are seriously stinky with dead bodies. It doesn't help if Spike puts the bodies in trash bags and shuts them in a closet. The stink just kind of... stays. One time it had been so bad that they'd had to spend most of a day in the garage that was attached to the super-stinky house, and Spike had taught her how to hotwire a car. That had been cool, even if they'd both been all cranky that night because they were so tired. House number five seems okay until they find out that someone broke into it a while back -- the side door that leads to the kitchen is all smashed in, and Spike doesn't think he can fix it. So, six. It's a relief to get in there, to follow the routine where she locks the door and then watches out the closest window as Spike moves the car from where they left it to right in front of the house. She isn't supposed to unlock it until he knocks, even though one morning she had to because they cut it a little too close and the sun almost got him. Spike comes back in and locks the door behind himself, making sure it's secure. That's Dawn's cue to do some exploring -- not much, because by this time of the morning she's always tired and what she really wants to do is lie down and sleep. But she always checks the house out a little bit. She likes to know what's there. This one looks like it was home to a family, because one of the bedrooms looks kind of like hers did, and another one has race cars on the curtains and shelves full of kid toys like padded baseball bats and chunky plastic airplanes and little Playmobil people. Dawn stands there for a long time, looking at the toys and the bright colors, until she starts to feel kind of funny. Something in her chest hurts. She goes and finds Spike in the kitchen, sitting up on the counter with a bottle of alcohol in his hand. "Can I have that stuff?" He blinks at her. "What stuff?" "The pills and stuff." Spike hesitates, looking like he wants to say something, but then he doesn't. He takes the two bottles and the flyers, which are all crumpled up now, out of his pocket and gives them to her. She doesn't say anything either. She goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, then sits on the closed toilet seat and reads the flyer three times. She opens both bottles and looks at the pills inside, noting the differences between the two. Dawn sets the bottles on the sink and stands looking in the mirror for a long time, but she can't decide what to do. She walks to the girl's frilly bedroom, strips off her jeans, gets into the bed, and falls asleep. * * * Spike finds her there ten minutes later. She's sleeping deeply, breathing easy and slow, her jeans in a crumpled up pile on the floor the only thing in the room that's out of place. He stands there and watches her for a long time, then goes around to the other side of the bed and gets in beside her, careful as always to leave a few inches between them. Doesn't matter because he can still feel her there, even if they aren't touching, and as always that eventually sends him off to sleep. When Spike wakes up, the bed's empty, but he can hear her in the bathroom. She's crying, little muffled sobs like she doesn't want him to know, so he's torn. Go to her and comfort her? Or assume she doesn't want him to, since she's off hiding? In the end he does what he wants to, what with that being second nature for him and all. More natural than trying to do what she might want anyway. "Bit? You okay?" He knocks on the door, even though it's not quite closed. Dawn sniffles, and he can hear her quickly wiping away the tears. "I'm okay." "Don't sound it." Spike pushes the door open slowly, pretty sure of his welcome at this point but giving her room to say 'no.' She stands up as he comes in. Her face is tearstained, her expression blank. "I did it," she says. His eyes go immediately to the bottles of pills on the sink. "Made a decision," he says, and he's asking for clarification. "Uh-huh." Dawn's not quite looking at him, more like off to one side. "I don't want to have it. It's not right." "That's your call, love." Spike steps closer, bends down a little bit to get more in her field of vision, tilting his head to one side trying to get her attention. "Whatever you want's all right." She looks at him then. "I tried to think what Buffy would do, if it were her?" Spike nods. He's not sure he can find words. "And I thought she'd say that I was strong enough to do anything. But she was wrong." Dawn blinks, and another tear slides down her cheek. "I'm not." He takes a step forward and folds her into his arms, holding her gently. "Well I don't think I can agree with you on that one," he says. "But I can't say I think you're making the wrong decision." Truth is, he's relieved. Hard enough to keep her alive without some tiny squalling runt to drag around with them, not to mention the next seven and a half months with her getting bigger and more ungainly the whole time. "I already started it," Dawn says, into his shoulder, and he can tell she means taking the pills. "Um... started to finish it." Spike moves back, cradles her face in his hands. She's so delicate, and the faint swell of her body fascinates him even as he tries not to see it. "Come on then, there's still a few more hours until sunset. You should get some more sleep if you can." * * * Dawn's hand is down inside her panties again when she wakes up, which would be okay except that some time while they were sleeping she ended up with her back pressed up against Spike's chest and his arm is around her. His arm is actually over hers, and that means she's kind of, well, stuck. She doesn't think she can get her arm out without waking him up, not the way he sleeps most of the time. In the past week or so they've been sleeping closer together. They don't start out that way, but by the time she wakes up they're usually kind of wrapped around each other. It feels... nice. Experimentally, she shifts position slightly, but all that happens is Spike's arm tightens around her a little bit, which so totally doesn't solve her problem. And it maybe causes a new one, because her butt bumping against Spike's... front... proves to her that even if most of him is asleep, at least one part of him is awake. Really awake, and that feels kind of nice too actually, pressed up against her like that, which is a weird thought. Not all that weird maybe, since she's thought about it a little bit. Not a lot -- because that would be really weird -- but a little. It's not like she can't pretty much guess what Spike looks like naked, since she's seen him without his shirt like dozens of times, and his jeans don't leave much to the imagination. She wonders what he looks like though... down there... -- his cock -- and then wonders if she's really sick for even thinking about it, since how she ended up pregnant isn't something she should want to repeat. Except that with Spike it would be different. Probably. Dawn whispers, "Spike?" but he doesn't answer. Cautiously, slowly, she eases her hand out of her panties. Spike doesn't wake up. She turns carefully, shifting onto her back and then her other side under his arm so that she can look at him. He looks different asleep than awake, and she likes looking at him like this, when his face is relaxed. And he looks better after all that blood he had last night -- not as pale. Spike stirs a little bit, then he moves his hand around to her front and cups her breast, sighing as he leans in to nuzzle her hair. She freezes, not knowing what to do, but Spike's thumb goes back and forth over her nipple and Dawn can't help it, she squeaks. Not because she's freaked out, but because it feels so good to have him touch her like that. Except of course Spike hears her, and he opens his eyes. Understanding flits behind them like some kind of freaky insect, then Spike pulls his hand back, fast, and sits up. He moves away from her so quick that he almost falls out of the bed, and ends up teetering on the edge for a second, but he's kind of tangled in the blankets. Dawn laughs. "Wow. Uncoordinated much?" Spike gapes at her, like he has no idea how to react to what just happened. "It's okay," she says, even though thinking about it makes her blush and she has to duck her head a little bit so that her hair falls down into her face to help hide it. For a few seconds she feels about fifteen years old again, instead of the thirty that it feels like she is sometimes. "You were asleep. It's no big deal." She's totally not used to Spike being speechless. He sits up a little bit straighter and runs a hand through his hair. "I wouldn't do that, not to you." His voice is shaking, like he's really freaked out. "I know," Dawn says. She realizes she's half sitting up, propped up on her elbow, and quickly, before she can change her mind, she leans forward and kisses him. It's a fast and awkward press of lips on lips, kind of light and dry... like a friend kiss, if you ever wanted to kiss your friends on the lips, which isn't something Dawn has ever really thought about. "It's okay," she repeats, lying back down and tucking a hand underneath her cheek. "Come on, it's like an hour until sunset. Go back to sleep." Spike watches her for a minute. His lips are slightly parted, and the look of surprise on his face hasn't faded, but eventually he lies down again, facing her. Dawn wonders if maybe he's afraid to turn his back on her in case she might do something else kind of crazy that she's never done before, and the thought makes her smile. "Sure you're okay?" Spike asks. "I'm fine," Dawn reassures him. "It was just... well, you know. Sleeping in the same bed, stuff like that's bound to happen sooner or later, right?" It didn't mean anything. "Right. Sometimes bodies just... do things. Doesn't mean the people want them to." "Exactly." Telling herself she's not disappointed, and reminding herself of the way Buffy had thought her crush on Spike was a stupid little-kid thing to have, Dawn pulls the covers up some more. Then she reaches over and adjusts them over Spike's shoulder, because he's all with the cold-blooded and sometimes, even though he doesn't complain unless he's in a really bad mood, he gets chilly. They lie there for a while. It's quiet. Then Dawn says, hesitantly, "Can I ask you something?" "Sure." "Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" She knows that's probably not specific enough. "About... you know. The baby?" Dawn is pretty sure that's the first time she's called it that out loud. "It's your decision," Spike says, definitely not for the first time. "'S not up to me." "I know. That's not what I'm asking. I just... would you tell me, if you thought I was making a mistake?" Spike makes his lips do that weird scrunching thing they do sometimes. "When was the last time you knew me to keep my mouth shut if I thought someone was making a mistake?" Dawn smiles, a little bit. "Well, yeah. But this is different. I mean... it feels different. To me." He sighs and reaches his hand out, and tucks a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "Yeah, to me too. Don't think this is one of those things with an easy answer, is all. Probably always going to wonder if you did the right thing." "I did. I am." She said it with more confidence than she felt, trying to convince herself because this would be way easier if she believed it. "I'm probably going to start, you know... bleeding," she told Spike, feeling that stupid blush burning in her cheeks again. Spike opens his mouth like he's going to say something, and that's when the window explodes inward with a crash and the sound of torn fabric, and suddenly the bedroom is on fire. * * * It's so unexpected that for one endlessly long moment Spike doesn't move. Dawn's frantic hands on him snap him out of it. There's flames licking their way across the carpet, slow now but widespread and starting to move faster, and a liquor bottle stuffed with a filthy rag lying on its side in the middle of the fire. From the smell of it it's not booze but kerosene, and it blends with the chemical fume scent of the burning rug. Window shade's on the floor too -- tore itself from its fastenings when the window broke -- and he can see the sun's just setting. Not safe to go outside, not quite yet, and that's maybe what the creatures belonging to the voices he can hear through the busted glass are counting on. But now it's time to get the hell out of the room at least. Dawn's smart, doesn't hesitate and wait for him once she sees he's going to move. She bends down and grabs her jeans off the floor, ignoring Spike's, "Leave the bloody trousers!" and disappears into the hallway, her hair a shiny arc behind her. "Don't go anywhere without me!" he yells, then sidles up to the window and looks out, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever's attacking. When he sees, he turns and follows after Dawn, who's in the hallway, dancing back and forth from one foot to the other. She starts forward when he appears, grabs onto his shirt front. "What is it? Did you see? Is it, like, stake time?" "No," Spike says shortly, moving toward the entryway where they left most of their stuff. Cooler of blood's there -- leaving something like that in the car's asking for trouble, not that lugging it around with them would be an option for long if he didn't expect the supply to be exhausted all too soon. He keeps a hand behind him, knowing Dawn's right there, and after a second feels her fingers close around his, unexpectedly cold. "Stay here," he tells her as they reach where the living room closes in and meets the foyer. "Away from the windows." He stands against the wall and glances out the small windows next to the door, but there's more of them out front. He can hear some of them talking, but not exactly what they're saying. "More out there," Spike says to Dawn, who's waiting at the edge of the living room, hands held together nervously. Her hair's mussed, but she still looks bloody gorgeous. Maybe even more so than usual, what with her eyes wide with fear and her lips slightly parted. He wrenches his mind back to the problem at hand. "We're gonna need some kind of distraction." There's a crash against the outside wall as something hits it, missing the window that they were probably aiming for. He reaches down and picks up his coat, which is looking distinctly the worse for wear these days, and puts it on, checking the pockets for whatever's in there that might be useful. Ditched the gun ages ago -- the thing about weapons that use ammunition is that sooner or later you run out -- and the long knife that he's used with some success previously is still in the car, damn it all. At least he knows he can move faster than them -- Dawn can't, which is another issue entirely, but he can carry her if it comes down that, although that'll slow him down some. Question is... do they know what he is? The fire would indicate it, plus why else wouldn't they have just broken in if they didn't know? Not to mention the fact that there's still the last dying rays of sunshine out there. Spike glances at Dawn. She's in the process of using an elastic thing to pull her hair back, getting it out of her face. "How many are there?" she asks, all business in a way that makes him grin despite the situation. "Five out back, another four or so. Figure ten or twelve altogether." "Okay, so how do we kill them?" Dawn crouches down as she puts on her shoes, tying them tightly but looking up at him. She watches Spike the way he imagines she'd look at a much bigger man. Like he's big and important enough to blot out the sky. "Is this one of those chop-off-their-heads things? Because that would be good to know." Spike clears his throat a bit. "Chopping off their heads would work," he says, since it's true enough. "Not necessary though." Then, because sooner or later she's gonna find out, and it might as well be from him, "They're human." "W-what?" She looks paler. "But... w-why would they...?" He doesn't let her finish, even though he's already watching out the window again, peering around the corner of the frame. "Don't know. Maybe they think we're both vampires." He glances at her again. "Or maybe they just don't care." She's stunned into silence, blinking. On the other side of the living room, another window comes crashing in, another burning bottle landing inside the house, this one spreading flames up the curtains and across the floor. Dawn snaps out of her reverie and moves, snatching a blanket off the couch and crossing the wide shaft of pale sunlight on the floor to smother the flames, but the look she gives Spike when she's done is just a little bit desperate. "What are we going to do?" Spike's thinking. "For now, get back over here and stay away from the bloody windows," he says. He opens up the cooler and sucks down a pint through the plastic wrapping -- figures at this point they're gonna have to leave it behind, so he might as well have some more before it's too late. Letting the empty bag fall to the floor, he nods his head toward the kitchen. "I say let's fight fire with fire." * * * There's only two bottles of liquor in the kitchen, but a quick trip to the basement turns up a can of paint thinner too, and by the fumes Spike can smell escaping the closed lid he figures that ought to work just as well. Hastily emptied bottles of vinaigrette and the like from the cupboards each get a couple of inches of flammable liquid while Dawn tears up some cloth towels into strips, stuffing them into the necks of the bottles. "Okay, so we're clear on the plan?" Spike asks again, then they both flinch at the sound of another window breaking in the dining room. He can smell the smoke, sharp and acrid, almost oily, and he wonders how long they've got until they've got to leave the house one way or the other. "Yes," Dawn says, giving him a funny look. "We open the back door and start throwing these molotov cocktail things at them, then as soon as we throw the last one we make a break for it through the front." "I throw them," Spike says sternly. Dawn rolls her eyes. "Hello? You're the one who catches on fire." "I'm also a hell of a lot stronger than you. And my aim's better." "Please. Just because I'm a girl -- " "No, it's because I'm a bloody vampire." Spike saves the last couple of inches of vodka in the bottle he's got and holds out his hand for a strip of cloth to put into the neck. "I'm stronger than you. It's just the way things are, not some... indication of sexual discrimination." A pause, then Dawn nods. "Okay. Just don't forget -- we're in this together." He looks up from the bottle. "Not likely to forget that, Bit. We're a team, yeah? You and me." "Right. A team." Her lips turn up quick, a flash of a smile like the sunlight that's just finished fading outside. Spike takes his lighter out of his pocket. "Got the keys to the car?" "Uh-huh." Dawn holds them up to show him. "Good." He feels a grin spread across his face, his eyes narrowing. "Let's rock and roll." Dawn retreats to wait against the interior of the living room, and before Spike can even throw the back door open he hears another crash of broken glass in where she is. She shrieks slightly, then calls immediately, "I'm okay! Just do it!" Now or never. Back door comes right off its hinges when he kicks it open -- sometimes he doesn't know his own strength -- and he lobs the first lit bottle right at a guy in the middle of the small crowd. Hits him too, in an explosion of shattered glass and flames that set the bloke's clothes and hair on fire. Screams are like music to his ears, beautiful noise that spurs him to light and throw the second bottle. It doesn't hit anyone, but it does spread a nice puddle of liquid flames under the shoes of one of the other men, one who was trying to help the burning man, trying to put out the fire with his own coat. He backs off, leaving the first guy to writhe his way down onto the ground, screaming hoarsely and rolling in a way that's totally ineffectual. More men come around from the side of the house, and Spike can hear Dawn moving around in the living room. "You all right?" he yells. "Yeah!" She's sliding something across the floor, something heavy, but just then a bottle smashes to splinters on the doorframe next to Spike, bringing his attention back where it should be. He lights and throws another volley of bottles, cursing when return fire hits the other side of the doorframe and a shard of glass slices a gash into his cheek. Sets two more blokes on fire, seems like he gets another one in the eyes with paint thinner what with the way the guy's clawing at his face. Someone with aim as good as Spike's manages to toss a bottle through the open doorway, hits him in the side and sets the duster on fire in a flash of light and heat. Instinct has him stripping the coat off and stomping on it before he can even think, even though part of his brain's annoyed that he's managed to keep the thing so long only to lose it now. He goes back to throwing another few bottles. Then he's down to the last two, and shouts in Dawn's direction, "You ready?" "Yes!" Spike throws the bottles, careful with his aim because no point in wasting them, then turns tail and runs through the house, grabbing Dawn's hand on his way past her and throwing open the door. "The blood!" she says, pulling back. "There's no time," Spike tells her. "Just leave it." "No!" Dawn manages to slip her hand from his -- blast her and her delicate little bones -- and whirls toward the cooler, flipping the lid up and then thrusting two bags into Spike's startled grip before grabbing another two herself. She straightens up and freezes, eyes wide. "I forgot the pills." Spike shakes his head from side to side, the only way the unbearable frustration at the situation can be handled, and grabs her shoulder, shoving her toward the front door. "Go to the car," he says, starting back toward the bathroom. "I'll be right there." He tears down the hallway into the bathroom and snatches the pills up from the sink, then heads back toward the front of the house. Dawn's waiting halfway across the lawn, backing away from the house slowly. "Go!" he shouts. "What the hell are you waiting for?" She turns and takes off toward the car. Always impresses him how fast she can move when there's a real need, but he still overtakes her, reaching out to grab the keys from her hand as he passes her. Fumbles and drops one of the bags of blood in the process, but Dawn stops and picks it up, getting into the passenger seat of the car not much later than Spike's slid clear of it and behind the wheel. Spike starts the car and stomps on the gas just as the last couple of men standing make it around to the front yard, and Dawn turns and, he's pretty sure, sticks her tongue out at them as they start down the street, tires squealing on the pavement. He can smell blood. "Are you hurt?" Dawn shakes her head a bit. "No. But you are." She reaches a hand toward his face and he turns it, preventing her from touching his cheek. "Leave it," he says, glancing over at the bags of blood sitting in her lap. "One of those sprung a leak then? I can smell it." Damn it, it smells like her. She picks them up, and the scent gets stronger. Turns them over in her hands. "They're okay. Maybe it's yours?" Before Spike can grab the one he dropped on the floor, Dawn gives a little moan. "Uh-oh." "What?" He glances at her sharply. "I know where it's coming from." Dawn lifts up her hand, and her little finger and the side of her hand are smeared red. Spike's gaze falls another few inches to where her jeans are becoming soaked with an ever-increasing stain of blood like a tide. * * * It's cold in the car. Dawn can hear her teeth chattering. She knows dimly that Spike turned the heat up, all the way, hot air blasting out of the little vents, but she's still cold. Her fingers feel numb. "The seat's getting all gross," she says faintly. Her voice sounds far away, and Spike looks... kind of blurry. And worried. Those almost rhyme, she thinks, and smiles. She feels crampy, like right when she gets her period, but different. Deeper. "Don't worry about the seat," Spike says, and he sounds far away, too. He keeps glancing over at her. "Not like we can't get another car." "I like this one." Dawn's too cold to shiver. The only part of her that's warm is where her clothes are wet with blood. At this point she's pretty sure that this... whatever it is, miscarriage... doesn't have anything to do with the pills she took a few hours ago. It's too soon. And she doesn't think there's supposed to be this much blood, not all at once. She knows this is bad, but she feels kind of floaty. "I don't care," she hears herself say. "What?" "Dying," Dawn says, kind of dreamily. "Do you think this is what it felt like? For Buffy?" "You're not dying," Spike growls. "This happens all the time. Part of nature. You'll be fine." Dawn rolls her head toward him, her hands catching in the thick sweater that Spike draped over her a while ago. "Promise?" Spike nods, reaches out and touches her cheek. His fingers feel warm. "'Til the end of the world," he says, but it's kind of like he's not talking to her. The words echo inside her as everything goes soft and dark and fuzzy, like sinking under murky water. Drowning is more peaceful than she'd thought it would be, and Spike's voice is so muffled and far away that she can hardly hear it. "Bit?" A long pause, buzzing quiet. "Dawn?" She's too far away to answer. Continue on to II. 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