nobody's home. (spike)

[miley]

It had been only two weeks. That's how long Buffy had been dead. The funeral had only been the weekend before. Dawn Summers knew that she had Willow and Giles....all of the people Buffy was closest too. Yet, still, the young girl felt all alone in this world. How could she not? Both her mother and sister were dead. Yet, she didn't shed a tear. No, Dawn couldn't. She needed to move on with life. She needed to be strong. On the inside, however, Dawn was broken. She was lost. And she didn't tell anyone how she felt. She just couldn't.

Of course, she was still living at home. She wouldn't leave it. It was her whole life. For the most part. And she loved this house. So, no, Dawn wouldn't be moving. The girl was 16 years old. Only about 2 more years and she could live on her own. Right? Two years wasn't that far away. Although, without her sister, they might seem even slower than they normally would.

How was she suppose to survive? What would she do? Dawn wasn't sure how to feel. In the past two weeks, the only time she'd cried was at the time Buffy had jumped. Okay, not exactly true. But the only times she would cry was when she was alone, in her room, in the middle of the night. She couldn't even sleep. Her mind kept flashing back to that night. It made it impossible to sleep. But she hadn't told anyone. She wouldn't tell anyone. What would she say, anyway?

Everything will be alright.

Yeah, right. That's what the school counselor would tell her. But nothing would ever be right again.

It was already well past midnight. And Dawn couldn't sleep. So instead, she slipped on her shoes and snuck out her bedroom window, walking down the deserted streets.

[Davey Callaghan]

Two slayers.

Two.

That was how many Spike had killed since the Boxer Rebellion almost exactly one-hundred years ago. Two slayers with pride, not remorse, and Buffy, he always said, would be the third. How many times had he promised to witness her last breath? There were too many times to count. It started out as hate, the hate of a vampire towards a slayer, and grew to be more than that. A worse kind of hate; the personal kind that kept him coming back to Sunnydale. Then, over the last couple of years, it changed. He still wanted to kill her half of the time, and the other half, he loved her. She managed to dig in beneath his skin, and no amount of digging could pry her from him. He tried to get her out, tried to hate her, but in the end, he felt something stronger, something... He shouldn't have ever felt. He was infatuated with her, obsessed to the point where she was all he could think about. Whenever he tried to drive his mind to kill her, all he could think about was saving her. Oh, and more than that... No one wanted to dig that deep into Spike's mind. He had stalked her throughout most of the year, lurking around her house, having that stupid robot built to her likeness, even Harmony was paraded around for his fantasies. Hell, Spike even nearly killed Drusilla for her sake! Buffy was so deep inside... Too deep.

And now she was gone; and he blamed himself for it. Funny how just a couple years before he would have wanted the credit. If he had just been faster to save Dawn. If he had gotten there before the first cut, then Buffy would still be there for all of them. Everytime he dreamt, it was about that night. For the last two weeks it was all he could dream about. And every night he was a little bit faster, a little bit stronger and in the end, none of them were weeping. He saved her. He saved her over and over again. With Buffy dead, he thought all of those feelings would just disappear, but instead they stayed as strong as ever before. He missed her. He wept for her, and in her absence, he did what he could to protect her friends; Dawn especially. Spike didn't care about any of them, save Dawn, but in Buffy's memory, he stayed behind. He had become so used to her and walking around good old Sunnyhell felt strange even now. He was alone, crossing close to her house like he had done countless times that year. It was in his approach that he noticed a familiar figure walking down the same street. He took a fraction of a second to recognize her before he approached.

"Shouldn't you be in bed, niblet? A lot of big nasties out at night," and they all knew it, but Spike never failed to mention it to her. He knew that it was hard on Dawn. Everyone knew that. She'd lost her sister, lost a sister that died to save her. Not only the world. Her. He wasn't about to go around chatting with the rest of the Scoobies. Not only would they not have it, but they were annoying enough when Buffy was around. Dawn, on the other hand, he wouldn't let anything happen to her. And if she was going to be out wandering at night, he was going to be right beside her.

[Cassandra Karma Woods]

Dawn looked up as she heard that familiar voice. Spike. She was glad to see him, actually. At least she wouldn't have to worry about anything attacking her tonight. She just needed out of the house for a while. "I just needed out. I couldn't sleep." She hadn't been sleeping. The past two weeks, Dawn had blamed herself. After all, she was the reason her sister was dead. Wasn't it? Of course. All because of her. Dawn figured that it should have been her who should have died. It's not like Dawn was needed in this world. But her sister...her sister was the slayer. She was needed.

"Do you think about her?" Dawn asked, before she could stop herself. She knew the two's relationship. And she was just wondering...needing to know...if he ever thought about her, about that night. Dawn thought about her sister every second of every day. Of course. They were sister's. And the only person that Dawn had. But who did she have now? Dawn was basically an orphan now.

No family, no anything...it may be hardest on Dawn. She was feeling all alone lately. She looked ahead of her and down the empty street. "She shouldn't have done that, you know." Dawn spoke, softly. "She's needed here. She was the slayer. What good was it to take my place?"

[Davey Callaghan]

"Do you think about her?"

Spike didn't judge her for not being able to sleep. When the sun rose, he could barely sleep himself, not without the dreams terrorizing him and while they ended on a good note each time, he always woke up to the reality of it. Spike didn't save her. She was dead and buried. He didn't like to walk to her grave, because it drove the reality home and even Spike who was long dead couldn't make himself accept it. Dawn had lost two members of her family so close together. It felt like Joyce hadn't been gone long at all... A couple months, maybe. And he remembered how hard they took it. Now, Dawn was all alone. It bothered him and he tried to make it easier, but what could he do, except keep her safe from any big bad that might want to kill her? "All the time, luv. Can't stop." He admitted to her gently, knowing exactly who she was talking about without needing her to clarify. Who else would it be? He hoped that it would fade, but something told him it wouldn't, and he was counting the days. Day by day, down to the hour.

"Don't ask that," he admonished with a shake of his head. "It was worth it, it can't be any different. Sure, she's the slayer, but there's always another one." Well, not now there wasn't. The only living slayer was in prison, and unless they planned to break her out, she wasn't going to be coming around. Spike had never met the rogue slayer, though, he'd definitely heard things and unless someone offed her, there wasn't going to be another chosen one for a while. Spike didn't know what that meant for Sunnydale or for the world. Right now, they did the best they could not letting the demon world in on this little secret. Sunnydale would be chaos if they did. "She did what she had to." Because, he wasn't fast enough.

[merton]

She did what she had to do. Yeah, she did it out of love. but for some reason...that didn't seem remotely good enough. Why? She was just angry. At the world. Because the world took away her sister. Hadn't she suffered enough? Dawn remembered when she first found out that she was the key. She'd taken it pretty hard. But she got past it. And maybe she could get past this. But she highly doubted that it would be any time soon. First, she'd lost her mother. And that...was only several months ago. not even a year. now her sister. And sure buffy had done it in an attempt to save her little sister, but it still left Dawn alone in this world.

She wanted to scream, to break something, maybe even kill some stupid demon. But that last one might only get her killed in the process. Although, she couldn't help but think that didn't sound so bad. Because maybe it wasn't bad. At all. Not one bit.

Dawn wasn't sure how she was suppose to deal with this. She was barely over her mother's death. Her life was out of control. "Do you think there was any way to save her? I can't help but think that we did something wrong...that her death could have been prevented in some way."

[Davey Callaghan]

What was he supposed to tell her? Yes, as a matter of fact there was a way to save her? That could probably turn out worse on the girl's mind. It was bad enough she was gone, but he didn't want her to be haunted with what could have been. It was ridiculous that he should feel that guilty for it. He didn't have a soul. Remorse was supposed to be a foreign concept to him. Spike had killed too many, hurt too many and he didn't feel a lick of guilt for even one of them. Yet, when it came to Buffy, he didn't even kill her. It wasn't technically or literally his fault, yet he took the burden of it. And it hurt... it hurt even though he hadn't known he had the capability to feel that way. Sure, he knew guilt before. But, it was usually guilt for things that he hadn't done, or guilt because he had let Dru get attacked by a mob that hadn't been her doing to begin with. It was never guilt for hurting someone like a slayer. But with Buffy.. It was an overwhelming remorse, one that haunted his dreams.

"Nothin' that you could've done, Bit." It wasn't a real answer, it only told her that she had done all that she could. And what could Dawn have done? She was the helpless one on the scene. She was the one Glory was after. She was the sodding key and Buffy was supposed to protect her. But more than that, she was her little sister and Spike understood what she did. He hated it, but understood, and he really wouldn't have fancied choosing between the two of them. He wanted to save them both. But, Buffy's loss was tearing him every which way and it was more than he could stand. "There's no use dwelling on it anyway, can't change it," he explained, and wished his brain could take his own advice and let him drop it. He didn't want to relive the moment over and over again. But he did, and it was endless.

[miley]

"There's no use dwelling on it anyway, can't change it,"

If only it were that easy to take Spike's advice. She wished that it was that easy, though. She really did wish. But life could never be that easy. "O-okay." she whispered. Although, nothing would stop her from thinking it. If only she hadn't gotten caught...maybe her sister would be here right now. how could she not wonder that?

"Let's walk. I-I don't feel like going back. I doubt I'll be getting any sleep, anyway." That was true. She had hardly slept in two weeks and Dawn wasn't sure if that showed or not. And she didn't care if it was noticable. She ran a hand through her hair. "I figured it would help to be out here for a while."

[Parker Ainsley Beckett-King]

"Sure thing, luv," Spike didn't even hesitate before he answered her. Lately, he understood the inability to sleep. Unfortunately for him, however, he couldn't just take a walk when he should be thinking, what with the risk of bursting into flames and becoming a pile of dust outside of his crypt. Instead, he was forced to try to sleep, but when he slept he dreamt. And he was tired of Buffy haunting his dreams. It was bad enough that she did it when she was living. He couldn't get her out of his head before and now getting her out of his head was impossible. Though, he liked the dreams he had of the blonde slayer before in comparison to the ones that occurred now. He might be saving her every night, but when he woke up the reality hit him hard and he couldn't get back to sleep. And watching marathons of Passions didn't exactly distract him the way he hoped.

If he said no to Dawn, he was sure that she wouldn't listen to him. He could watch her go back to her house, but sure enough she'd be back outside walking around and the blonde vampire would rather she didn't run around unprotected. He would be there for her if she needed it. That's what Buffy had wanted the whole time, she wanted Dawn protected. And Spike had never let anything happen to her anyway. Even when he could have given her up to Glory himself, Spike took every ounce of torture that Hell God gave and never said it. He would do it all over again too. "Get some air, yeah, I get it." He said with a nod of his head.