Just Rewards

Gorgeous Artwork is by kargrif

Just A Girl by Trinity

Its beginnings were uncertain. A small and entirely insignificant ball of amorphous green ether that hummed with suppressed energy. All the monks knew was that it was just suddenly there one day, and it became their lot in life by divine ordinance to protect it. From what was unclear to them at first.

Until SHE appeared.

Da Beast.

She laid waste to the small monastery, moving with deadly precision through their ranks, leaving broken and bleeding bodies in her wake as she searched for that which would enable her to return to the home she’d been banished from centuries before. Finally, only one remained to cower in a corner, biting his lips bloody as he cradled the ornately carved wooden box that housed their charge.

The Key.

She was there. The Hellgod. Glorificus. Scant inches from his bolt hole and seconds away from discovering him and his precious burden. Fragments of prayers raced through his petrified mind as slim, bare feet came to a halt in front of him.

A sudden, shrill scream rent the oppressive air and she fell to her knees, writhing in agony. The monk’s eyes bugged from his head as he watched her features morph into those of a handsome young man. Back and forth they shifted, until finally the man lay in her place, pale and trembling.

He rolled his head to the side and his pain-filled eyes met those of the shivering monk tucked into the hidden cubbyhole. Mouth working spastically, he gasped out one word.

“Run.”

~*~*~

Brother Guillermo was in love.

Or as much in love as a man in his position was allowed to be.

At the end of each day, he would allow himself to open the carved, cherry wood box and release the Key into his barren cell. It would cavort from one corner to the other before finally coming to rest on his small cot, much like a small, beloved pet.

Even though it was nothing more than a wisp of pale emerald vapor, it was sentient. They spent endless hours pitted against each other in games that flexed its mental muscles, and its voracious intelligence never failed to amaze him.

There was talk, of course, of Da Beast and how her relentless pursuit of the Key would soon bring her to their door. Tales of her savagery had traveled with the one fortunate enough to escape her clutches, although he had no memory of exactly how he had managed to evade her. None at all.

Guillermo wasn’t a stupid man, by any means. He knew that the others viewed the Key with trepidation. They looked at him askance for his willingness to house it in his cell, and more than once the elders had questioned his devotion. It was an enigma to them, and endless hours were spent searching for a way to conceal it from the Hellgod.

Years passed. Guillermo’s thick black hair faded to silver and his youthful vigor gave way to an old man’s totter, but still the cherry wood box remained on his desk and every night after supper and evening prayers, he released the Key to roam about the confines of the tiny cubicle. It saddened him to know that his time on earth was fast approaching its end, but he took comfort in the fact that when the time came, his little friend would be protected.

It was true. After what seemed like an eternity, a solution to their problem had been found. A protector for the Key who was much stronger than a bunch of doddering old monks. A fierce warrior who would in due time give her own life to protect their charge and defeat Da Beast once and for all.

Even at the cost of her own life.

It never occurred to Guillermo to inform the Key of their plans. He could have, for they did converse. Or rather, he spoke and the Key’s replies were a sibilant whisper inside his head. If asked to explain the language the Key used to communicate with him, he would have been completely baffled. It wasn’t one of the four languages he spoke fluently, but Guillermo understood it just the same. It simply…was, as were so many things about the Key. The others might stare and whisper behind their hands that he was insane, but he ignored them. They could never understand the link he shared with the shifting green mass.

Tonight, the wind was raw and cold as it whipped through the cracks in the stone walls, and Guillermo fought to suppress the uneasy shivers that raced up and down his spine. He had been like this all day. They all had. Jumpy. Nervous. Unsettled. It was Brother Joachim who had mentioned during their sparse meal that it felt as though there was something brewing on the horizon. Something that had his skin crawling and what little hair he had left standing on end. Brother Ignacio had reprimanded him severely for spreading ill feelings among the big-eyed novices.

Entering his room, Guillermo freed the Key immediately and pulled out his leather-bound journal. He would often write down the details of his day while the Key amused itself leaving wisps of green mist around his bald pate. It filled his head with inane chatter while he worked and he welcomed the distraction from his earlier apprehension.

He was huddled close to the heat from his small brazier, the disquiet from earlier a vague memory as he scribbled industriously in his diary, when he heard the first screams.

Urging his charge back into its container, he clapped the wooden box closed and secreted it within the voluminous folds of his cassock. Flinging open his door, he saw Brother Ignacio bearing down on him with two acolyte’s in tow. Blood was flowing freely from a wound on Ignacio’s broad forehead, and one of the younglings had a badly broken arm hanging at an odd angle.

“Guillermo! It is time!” Ignacio shouted, his normally placid face now heavy with foreboding. “Glorificus has nearly breeched the inner doors. We haven’t much time.”

Pausing only to grab the prepared bag of mystical supplies, Guillermo fled after the three. His tremendous fear must have communicated itself to the Key, because it called out to him from the confines of its home.

What is it? What is happening?

Startled and half out of his mind with fear, Guillermo nevertheless managed to reassure his friend with his thoughts.

Fear not, little one, we have a plan to protect you from Da Beast.

There was a ripple of disquiet from the Key and he was shocked to feel it probing delicately into his mind, seeking to learn their carefully laid plans. It had never done such a thing before. It felt like hot needles pricking at his brain and he moaned. When all was revealed, it reared back in horror, its feelings of outrage at what it saw as his betrayal a palpable pain inside his head. Guillermo cried out in agony but ran doggedly on, ignoring the blood that flowed from his nose and ears.

It is the only way! There is no help for it. Glorificus must not be allowed to open the dimensional walls. To do so will bring the very dregs of Hell to our world!

I care not! How dare you to presume…! I am the Key!

Unaware of his torment, Brother Ignacio ushered them into the largest storage chamber and prodded the acolyte’s to bar the door. Snatching the bag of supplies, he laid them out hastily and then motioned Guillermo forward.

“The sphere. You have the Dagon’s Sphere?” he demanded.

Guillermo clutched at his robes and nodded. He barely spared a glance at his brethren before dropping to his knees in the center of Ignacio’s crudely drawn circle.

Grabbing the hands of his frightened aides to form a circle around Guillermo and the Key, Ignacio immediately began his chant, ignoring the terrified cries from either side of him.

In the middle of the magical circle, Guillermo was engaged in a mental battle of wills with the Key.

I won’t! I refuse and you cannot make me!

We must, little one. We must, or all is lost forever.

Nononononononono!!

Forgive me.

“It’s coming! It’s going to kill us!” Brother Adam babbled fearfully. Beside him, Brother Phillippe had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, pale lips moving in urgent prayer.

“Help me with the ritual,” Ignacio rapped out, snapping them from their terrified trance.

The three extended their arms and began to chant. There was a tremendous crash against the barred door and it trembled on its hinges. Even Ignacio jerked at that, but pressed determinedly on. “Concentrate. Concentrate!” he admonished his helpers.

A stiff wind kicked up dust around the room and whipped at their loose brown robes. Guillermo, nearly senseless with the pain inflicted by the Key, was barely aware of it. His attention, like Brothers Adam and Phillippe, was on the splintering door.

Ignacio bellowed out the last words of the chant. Just as a blindingly white light filled the inner circle and enveloped Guillermo, the doors burst inward. Shards of wood found the vulnerable flesh of those that remained. Ignacio and Adam were lucky. They were killed outright; Ignacio by an enormous splinter to the chest, while Adam was neatly decapitated by the flying crossbeam they had used to bar the Hellgod from the chamber. Only Phillippe remained relatively unscathed, but when Glorificus got her hands on him, he screamed for a long time.

But the ritual had served its purpose. Both Guillermo and the Key were gone.

~*~*~

It was agony. Pure and simple agony.

In the blink of an eye, it had gone from a free-floating cloud of sparkling green light to this…this…atrocity.

“Ewwwww! Grossssss!”

The sounds were unfamiliar on its tongue, but seemed somehow apropos to its new form. It gawked at its reflection in the big mirror, absolutely horrified by the coltish limbs, long hair, and huge blue eyes that stared back at it.

“A millennia as energy in its rawest form and those stupid monks turn me into…into a freak of nature!”

Picking its way on unsteady legs across pale lavender carpet, it pressed its face against the glass. “Okay, sort of pretty with the big, innocent eyes and the pouty lips. No zits, thank God, but freckles? Come on!”

It wobbled and almost keeled over, nearly undone by a sudden influx of manipulated memories that saturated its brain. It flinched and flung its arms out as if to steady itself against the onslaught. “Cripes! Warn a girl next time, why don’t cha.”

The memories were evaluated, and while a majority was scoffed at, one stood out from all the rest like a shining beacon. “Sister of the Slayer? Cool!”

On impulse, it picked up a heavy silver baton with pink and purple streamers at either end. Holding it in each hand, it tried unsuccessfully to bend it in half. “What a crock! Make me her younger sister, but don’t get even a little bit of the super-freaky strength? This is SO not fair!”

Tossing the baton in the corner, it made its way on still-unfamiliar legs out of the oppressively frilly room and down the hall to the opened door of her ‘sisters’ room. It stood quietly, basking in the residual power that the Chosen One left in her wake. It wandered aimlessly from one place to the other, acquainting itself with the odds and ends of the slayers life, uncaring when several items fell to the floor with a clatter.

“What are you doing here?”

It turned, filled with righteous indignation at being spoken to in such a way, only to be dazzled by the pure light that emanated from the ridiculously small figure that stood with arms akimbo and a bitchy expression on her pretty face.

“I asked you what you’re doing in my room, Dawn.”

Dawn? It wanted to laugh at the utterly absurd name the monks had gifted her with. Talk about irony!

“Get out before I tell Mom.”

“Go ahead, see if I care!” Dawn folded her arms and tossed her hair. “I’ll just tell her about you having…” There was a moment’s pause as the appropriate memory eluded her. Angel? No, not Angel. Spike? Xander? No, Riley! Riley was the name of the latest bonehead boyfriend. “…Riley up here while she’s working. You’re setting a bad example for me and she ain’t gonna like it, so take that!”

Hazel eyes widened comically before narrowing with anger. “You little….!” She snarled and started towards her.

Dawn screeched and ran. It just seemed like the thing to do. Stupid monks leaving her all defenseless like this!

A sweetly oblivious voice called from the other room, “Buffy, if you’re going out, why don’t you take your sister?”

Both of them froze. Wearing identical looks of annoyance on their faces, they turned and cried out in unison, “Mom!”

~*~*~

Dawn’s mortal existence might have been only a few days old, but she knew well the order of the universe. She’d overseen the writing of the oldest magicks. She’d watched as dimensions were built and as others fell. She’d witnessed every great catastrophe—hell she’d caused a couple when appropriately nudged. Keys were so often disregarded by higher powers for being useless unless otherwise utilized. Dawn had often enjoyed displaying her power without prompt, if only to send the universe a cosmic reminder why she was feared and worshipped by creatures in all of the lower realms.

She wasn’t simply a key. She was the Key. She was higher than any other to hold her place. There were many keys, admittedly. Many ways of accessing other dimensions by utilizing one of the lesser keys. But there was only one Dawn. Only one Key. Only one way to open all the doors at once. And, she supposed, that was the reason that the other Higher Beings had conspired against her. She was power. She was power in its purest form. And she was dangerous. So dangerous that, one seemingly boring century, the Key had found herself capped and handed over to monks. She’d found herself, suddenly, the sacred ward of humans.

And all because she literally juggled the weight of chaos and order in her hands.

Her incredibly human hands.

In this form, she had no power. She could not look over the written magicks or help create new ones. She could not send waves through the universe with a flare of temper. She could not do anything. Monks had given her flesh and blood and a super-human sister who was as clueless as a baby in a topless bar. Monks had given her human memories to match her human strength. Monks had given her a human purpose—that being to hide from Glorificus, the fallen god with one hell of an ego. The monks had hidden her because they were afraid. They were afraid of a god trapped in human skin. They were afraid for themselves. Guillermo, Ignacio, Adam, Phillippe—the whole sorry lot of them. Had Guillermo once given her the courtesy of, oh say, this brilliant-beyond-brilliant tactic of his, she could have easily dissuaded his concerns and assured him that, funny as Glorificus’s aspirations were, they wouldn’t get anywhere.

Not if the monks released the Key. That being her. Dawn Summers. One former blob of pure green energy. One former great, now stuck in a child’s body.

Had the monks the foresight to simply restore her former awesome glory rather than stuff her inside a human, there would be no worrying about Glorificus. While true, gods held a position much higher than Dawn’s, fallen gods did not.

Fallen hellgods did not. And, Dawn suspected, the only reason Glorificus was hunting for her at all was the common knowledge that the Key was no longer an independent entity. The Key had been handed to monks. Controlled. Neutered. And now she was something less. Something so far down the totem poll that her feet touched the ground.

The monks hadn’t done crap to save her. Rather, as Dawn Summers the Human Sister of One Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she was more vulnerable than ever.

Furthermore, she was pissed.

She was really pissed.

Order. Chaos. Destruction. Victory. Defeat. Those were all things she’d once controlled. All things she’d held in her green, glowy clutches. Things that had been robbed from her. An eternity of experience could not survive in a human body. One used to power could not breathe oxygen; could not bleed as people bled. Did the monks expect her to live a full human life? Did they expect her to die? Did they truly think that Glorificus was the worst thing that could happen? Glorificus wanted to go home. That was all.

Dawn the Key wanted to go home, too. She wanted to go where she was worshipped. Where she was feared. Granted, Glorificus’s method of—just guessing—a ritualistic bloodletting didn’t sound like barrels of fun, and there was no telling if unlocking all dimensional portals was the sure-fire way to get home.

It looked, for now, like she was stuck in human form. She was stuck as Dawn Summers. Powerless. Weak. Human.

There was just no way to think about her situation without getting mad as hell.

And when the Key got mad, worlds shook.

When Dawn got mad…

Well, she was still working on that.

~*~*~

The Key did not need a mother. The Key held more knowledge in her little toe than the lot of the so-called Scoobies could split between them. The Key did not appreciate being talked down to. Being told that she had limitations. That it was dangerous in the ever-elusive out-there. That there were things she wasn’t allowed to do.

However, the orders and commands, the rules and regulations, the punishments and timeouts…all of it was bearable. She could paste on a smile while mentally carving their eyes out and shoving them down their respective throats. That was bearable. She hated it beyond words, but it was bearable.

What was not bearable was being told that everything would be okay.

And for that reason, Dawn absolutely abhorred Tara McClay.

“You know Buffy doesn’t mean to say things…she doesn’t mean things the way she says them,” the timid blonde was saying, flashing small, supposedly-reassuring grins. “She’s just looking out for you.”

Dawn wanted to gag, but she was the Key, and the Key did not gag. The Key had restraint. The Key, who was more resourceful, more intelligent than all of these nitwits combined, did nothing of the sort. The Key was beyond infantile gestures.

Instead, the Key just smiled. “Thank you, Tara,” she said. “You know…sometimes, I feel like you’re the only one here who really understands me.”

The girl smiled and blushed and turned her eyes to the ground. “I’m not the only one,” she said, glancing up to Willow, who was arguing with Anya over the price of newt eyes. “I-I mean, I was fifteen not so long ago. A-and so was Willow and…” Tara paused and frowned. “Well, I guess it’s been a while since Anya was a teen, but she probably remembers…maybe?”

Dawn snickered inwardly. Ironically, Anya could probably appreciate her situation better than anyone. And maybe if she didn’t hate the ex-demon’s breathing guts, she’d be prone to opening up. But Dawn did hate her breathing guts. She hated pretty much everyone.

Especially Buffy. Talk about an undeserved superiority complex.

Dawn also hated the lovesick look in Tara’s eyes—the one that surfaced whenever the stupid redhead was mentioned. And she wanted it to go away. She wanted the stammering twit to shut the hell up.

She wanted chaos. Her life as a human was teaching her, more and more, to appreciate chaos. And it made sense, really. As the Key, it was chaos she’d enjoyed the most. Always had been.

Only before, it had never been personal; only fun. Now it was personal.

She hated these people, and it was totally personal.

“I’m glad you guys are so happy,” Dawn said softly, flashing a falsely-sweet smile. “You’ve been so good for her.”

The gracious, awed look on Tara’s face was enough to churn her stomach. “Oh Dawnie,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah. It’s just…it’s nice. You have no idea what a relief it is that she’s so completely over the werewolf thing.”

Tara’s smile wavered as she tried to dissect that comment. “Oh…over? I-I didn’t…I didn’t know that…I mean, Oz was a werewolf, yeah, but…she was…I didn’t know that she was into the…” Her voice trailed off, the look behind her warm, friendly eyes becoming cold and vacant. “How, exactly, was she into the werewolf thing?”

There was a long pause. Dawn had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from barreling over with laughter. God, this was just too easy. It took so little. So incredibly little.

“Ohhh, you know,” she replied dismissively, batting a hand and turning her eyes to her laughably easy math homework. “Little things at first. Watching him when he turned. Making sure he had plenty of dead animals to eat. Reading him books. The like.” She paused and glanced up pensively. “Actually, come to think of it, it’s a lot like her interest in witchcraft.”

Tara swallowed hard. “W-w-witchcraft?” She spoke as though she’d never heard the word before.

“Oh yeah,” Dawn agreed. “Little things at first. There toward the end, when she found out about the lady werewolf, I think Willow would’ve done near anything to be with him. Like asked Veruca to get a little chompy. I mean, she was obsessed with all things lunar at the time.” She sighed wistfully and scribbled down the incorrect answer to problem 37. Hey, if she aced her homework, her teachers would definitely think something was up, and Dawn didn’t like drama that she couldn’t control. “But now that Oz is out of her life, the werewolf fixation’s gone, too. Witchcraft’s the new deal.”

She made sure to emphasize new. New as in temporary. New as in what Willow would be into until she decided that she had a new fetish. Some fresh otherworldly facet that had yet to be explored. Werewolves first, witches second. Maybe the overly-perky redhead would go for zombies next. Or nymphs. Or fauns. Or a slew of random demons. Probably not vamps—if Willow got near vamps, Buffy would be all over that. Buffy was definitely the hoe for the undead.

Tara was quiet for a long time after that, staring absently at the table as Willow and Anya continued debating the value of assorted products. As Buffy came in and quipped something inane before retreating to the backroom to workout. As Riley came in, mopey as always, and tried to look useful when he, in fact, just looked ridiculous.

For her part, Dawn didn’t say a thing. She just did her homework, hummed some stupid song that the monks had imbedded into her human memory, and congratulated herself on being mischievous.

She had to admit that creating chaos from afar had never been nearly as much fun.

~*~*~

Mischief, especially in human hands, often twisted into cruelty. And perhaps in a different world, Dawn would’ve given an honest damn. But she didn’t. Rather, she enjoyed seeing just how far she could push a situation. Just how bad she could make it for the others. Just how terrible she could be.

Especially as her family remained completely ignorant as to what she was. Oh, they knew she was the Key. Stupid Guillermo had yapped, and now Buffy knew that her dainty, harmless little sister was, indeed, a mystical blob of energy. Not that Dawn needed to be told that Guillermo had blabbed. It was evident in the change of Buffy’s demeanor. Once blasé and flippant, the Slayer now watched her like a hawk.

It was a good thing that Dawn knew why, else she might be paranoid.

Of course, Guillermo didn’t know that she knew who she was; therefore he hadn’t known to tell Buffy that an erudite-former-creature-of-awe-and-reverence lived in her house. That would have made things so much more difficult. As it was, she had to live with the knowledge that her status as an item-of-interest had been compromised. No bother. No big, as her idiot of a would-be sister would say.

No, the big was definitely Dawn’s wavering interest in melting into the background. The more she did—the small, methodical steps she took toward chaos—the drunker her human heart became on the power.

Spike had definitely snagged her interest in that regard. He and his little Buffy obsession. It was so darn funny, is what it was. And here Dawn thought she was pathetic—at least she had the benefit of saying that her demotion into pitiful hadn’t been her choice. And up to a point, she’d found herself bonding with Spike over that. After all, he’d been chipped against his will, much in the same way that she’d been humanized.

Only now he was in love. With Buffy. The Slayer.

It was so pathetic that Dawn could barely keep herself from cackling like a madwoman every time she met his recently-crestfallen eyes, especially on the heels of an oh-so expected brush-off from Buffy.

Spike was as clueless as the rest, as far as she was concerned. Ever since his revelation that he’d rather fuck Buffy than kill her, he’d been diligent on kid-sis watch to get on Buffy’s good-side. And when Dawn found herself consigned to his care, she’d listen to his not-at-all obvious prodding about anything Buffy said about him. Anything at all.

At which point, Dawn would carefully detail fictitious accounts where Buffy said something otherwise hinted that she might be interested in getting dirty and biblical with the resident not-so-evil dead. Then she’d sit back and watch Spike carefully set up the pieces, only to land on his righteous ass every time. Buffy would gasp in disgust and punch him across his crypt, then march home, cursing the vamp’s name under her breath with every step.

It’d been even funnier when Riley was still in the picture, though Dawn couldn’t say that she missed him. His comedic worth wasn’t valuable enough to excuse his useless presence.

Spike eventually wizened up and stopped taking her advice. After the chain-Buffy-up-and-profess-my-feelings incident, he’d given up prodding for information. A part of her wondered if he was onto her, but she quickly dismissed that possibility as ridiculous. It was ridiculous. For Spike to be on to her, she’d have to have an agenda and he’d have to grow a brain.

She didn’t have an agenda. Not really.

She just wanted power. Control.

And she loved human devastation. She absolutely loved it.

It was just so damned funny.

~*~*~

Predictably, it soon became unfulfilling to simply watch from the sidelines. To whisper and direct her friends and family into certain disaster. Sure, she still got a laugh out of the utter cluelessness that was the human condition, but Dawn found herself becoming very bored very fast.

They didn’t fear her like they should. No one did.

She was determined to change that.

Like most things, it came to her from nowhere. She was been sitting at the kitchen table, once more immersed in her lame-ass homework. Buffy came in, eyed her carefully to make sure that all limbs were still attached, then announced that she and Spike were going out for a patrol. Xander and Anya would be over soon to watch her.

“Spike, huh?” Dawn retorted with a smirk.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Oh, let up.”

“Nah. Come on. You should give the guy a chance. He’s been so—” Pathetic— “helpful the past few weeks. You never know. Maybe he can actually change.”

Plus his devastation after fucking Buffy only to witness the soul-crushing return of her fluttering virtue would be priceless. And obviously, that was where their dance would end. Buffy was such a vamp-hoe and Spike was easy on the eyes—eventually, he’d get to stick his cock in her. And after the high was over, Buffy would just crush him.

Yeah, that’d be hilarious.

“Dawn, we’ve been over this…”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “I still say he’s a major hottie…”

“And yet, he’s still a vampire.” There was a look on Buffy’s face, though, that spoke volumes for everything she couldn’t put into words. Like the fact that, yes, Spike was a hottie. And yes, she’d like to take his dick for a ride if there weren’t so many damned moral lines to cross on the way to his bed.

Buffy was only human. Eventually, that resolve would melt entirely.

If only Dawn could find a way to capture the whole event on video tape. She expected it would be one that she’d want to watch over and over and over again—one that would grow funnier with age.

The doorbell rang, effectively ending another session of her campaign to push Buffy into Spike’s all-too-willing lap. Like the others, though, Buffy was a work in progress. And she wasn’t smart enough to know when she was being manipulated.

The night progressed as any other. Anya wanted to play every board-game under the sun just because she liked money, be it real or fake. Xander played to the old Dawn’s-got-a-crush-on-me-card—because in their memories, she did. He jested with her. Sided with her when Anya was being particularly ridiculous. He called her cute and complimented her flannel PJs.

And it hit her then. Everything came together, and she knew how to up the ante.

She knew how to become a participant, rather than just a bystander.

“Ummm,” she said, plastering on her best awkward smile as she scrambled to her feet. “Excuse me. I just…gonna pop upstairs for a little, mmmkay?”

Anya nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” she agreed, smile frozen on her face. “Go away. Xander and I wish to be alone.”

Xander blushed and fidgeted, tossing Dawn an apologetic look. “Ahn,” he said slowly, “you know what we said about…well, everything? We’re here for the Dawnster. It’s the Dawnster’s night.”

The Key licked her lips, her eyes widening. It most certainly was.

“You never take my side,” Anya pouted.

“You know perfectly well that all other nights are Anya-nights.”

“I want more of those.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. Bor-ring. “Umm, yeah,” she said, motioning to the staircase. “I’ll just…be a sec, ‘kay?”

Anya nodded again. “Take your time.”

“Ahn!”

The exasperation on Xander’s face was inspiring. She wondered, after tonight, if he’d ever again be that exasperated whenever Anya wanted to be alone with him.

Dawn hid her grin until she was well up the stairs. Magicks were useful. She’d never realized how much until that night. She’d watched magicks get created, written, put into spell-form, and she’d never appreciated how much could be accomplished with a few archaic words mixed in with sprinkling a few herbs.

While she’d never had use for magicks, Dawn knew exactly which spell she’d need to render Anya a vegetable for as long as she desired.

And Xander…

Her smile broadened as she crossed the threshold into Buffy’s room. There were very few ingredients that she’d need—nothing that couldn’t be found in a slayer’s weapons chest. As for the spell itself, keys had no need for spell-books. Not this Key. This Key, who had witnessed the formation of dimensions big and small. This Key, who knew all the old magicks by heart. Not because she’d ever thought she’d use them—because she hadn’t—rather because she was the Key.

And the spells she needed were hardly brain-busters.

Make their eyes close and their mind go numb

Make evil invisible ‘til the rising of the sun

That went out to Anya and Buffy. Buffy could walk right by her now and be none the wiser. Instead, she’d see Dawn asleep in her room. She’d see herself letting Xander and Anya out, and thanking them for watching over her. She’d see only what she wanted.

And Anya…well, there was no telling what false reality Anya’s twisted mind would create, but it would be enough. Like Buffy, Anya would only see what she wanted to see.

Hear no evil. See no evil.

Until dawn.

Dawn smirked. How appropriate.

The spell to guard Anya and Buffy’s eyes from spoiling her fun was a no-brainer. Xander’s was going to take a bit more cunning and a lot more craft. For him, she’d need several spells. A multi-whammy of sorts to make sure he didn’t go ruining the moment.

First, a spell to chop off his tongue—figuratively.

Speak no evil.

And the second…to paralyze him. To rob him of his faculties so that he couldn’t fight. Couldn’t shove or push or do much of anything but get nice and stiff.

Speak no evil was easy, because it was permanent. She didn’t want Xander ruining her fun. Come morning, Buffy and Anya’s spell would wear off and they’d be back to hearing and seeing evil at every turn. But should Xander attempt to betray her, they would hear nothing that rolled off his tongue.

It was the stiff-as-a-board spell that took some working. Not a lot, but some.

When Dawn went back downstairs, Anya was lying on the couch, watching a Friends rerun. Xander was disposing one of the pizza boxes and the paper-plates into a large garbage bag. Evidently, the game was over.

Just as well. Dawn was finished playing.

“Do you need help with anything?” she asked softly.

Xander glanced up and smiled. “Nah. My garbage-tossing hand is in good working order.” He paused. “You were up there for a long time, kiddo. Anything wrong?”

“No. Nothing wrong.” She took a step forward. And another. And another. And then she was right up against him, her teenage breasts rubbing against his chest. “Nothing at all.”

Xander’s eyes widened and the garbage bag fell haphazardly to the ground. “Uhh, Dawn. Having some bubble issues here.”

“Yeah, so am I. My bubble’s feeling kinda empty.”

He gulped and glanced to his oblivious girlfriend. “Hey, sweetie,” he said loudly. “I think there’s a chance that you’ve been a bad influence on the Dawnster.”

Anya didn’t reply. She didn’t even blink. Instead, she just yawned and stretched and snuggled the pillow cradled at her chest.

Xander froze. “Ahn?”

“She can’t hear you,” Dawn supplied helpfully. “I made sure she couldn’t hear you.”

His attention was undividedly in her possession. “You what?”

“Or see you. Me, either, for that matter. In fact, a hundred bucks says that she thinks that you’re the pillow she’s all up close and personal with.” She grinned. “Kinda funny, huh?”

It was so damn refreshing to see someone finally look at her with the hint of fear. After a millennia, the feeling was kind of addictive, and she’d been forced to quit cold turkey.

Not anymore. After tonight, Xander would look at her with nothing but fear.

“Dawn, whatever you did—”

“Undo it? Not likely.” A small, girlish hand wormed its way up his chest. “And you,” she whispered, “are much too…tense.”

“Just for the record, this isn’t how you get a guy to like you.”

She arched a brow. “I said you were too tense. Unwind.”

And just like that, Xander collapsed into a useless heap on the floor.

Or, rather, nearly useless. Dawn’s eyes widened and a sly grin spread across her lips. “And for the record, I’m not trying to get you to like me,” she said, drawing her flannel top over her head, shivering when cool air touched her skin. Xander’s eyes immediately landed on her smallish breasts, then he grimaced and cursed himself loudly.

Dawn’s grin broadened. “Ah, you filthy boy,” she cooed nastily, turning her hands to her pajama bottoms. In quick seconds, she was completely naked, standing in the middle of the living room. Standing over a terrified Xander as the oblivious former-demon watched the television behind them. “Does looking at underage girls turn you on?”

Xander whimpered and slammed his eyes shut. “Dawnie, please.”

She blinked innocently. “Please?” she repeated. “Please what?”

“Oh God…”

“Finding it hard to move?” She raised her index finger to her pursed lips, dropping gingerly to her knees right above him. “Speak no evil, Xander. You can be a good boy for me, can’t you?”

“Why?” he gasped.

“Why?” Dawn’s right hand landed on his crotch. “Why not?”

“Oh God, please no.”

“Speak. No. Evil.” She smiled wider and dragged the zipper down, her fingers skating upward to undo the metallic button. Then, with both hands, she fisted the denim on his either side and dragged his jeans down over his hips, baring his flaccid penis to her devilish eyes.

“God, Dawn, please!”

“Please?” she echoed, cocking her head. “Please what? Please touch you?” She placed her hand over his cock and gently rubbed the heel of her palm against his sensitive skin.

Xander groaned in protest and screwed his eyes shut.

“Ohhh, what’s this?” she demanded excitedly. His penis was hardening under her touch. It was rather fascinating. An existence as the Key hadn’t allowed for explorations of physical relations. And, to be completely honest, the entire idea of merging bodies was one that Dawn thought was a little ridiculous. Just another pathetic human attempt to reach the divine by convincing themselves that pleasure was the same thing.

But this wasn’t an experiment. She wasn’t going to fuck Xander blind because she wanted to. No, she was going to fuck him blind because she knew what it would do to him. To his fragile human psyche. He was going to invade her, break into an otherwise virgin body, and it would destroy him.

She got to control his destruction. His devastation. She got to control.

Control was truly a wondrous thing.

“Mmm, Xander. Look at this! You’re so hard.” She blew him a condescending kiss. “I made you hard. Now tell me…is it because you enjoy the idea of defiling little girls, or should I be flattered?”

“Nooooooo….”

“No?” On a quick impulse, her head dipped and she sucked the tip of him into her mouth. The shrill gasp that tore through the air was half-tormented and half-pleasured in a way, she suspected, that only men could pull off. “Seems that you liked that…”

“Stooooopppp.”

The spell was finally taking effect. Soon his tongue would be too big to form words. He would be locked within himself—trapped inside his own body—and unable to do anything that she didn’t want him to do.

“You like having little girls suck your dick, Xander?” Her mouth trailed a series of mocking kisses along the underside of his length. “You wanna squirt on my face? Or how about my tits?” She edged herself forward then, cupping her left breast and teasing the head of his cock with her nipple. “How about this?” she asked softly. “Do you like this?”

“Iiiiioooooohhhhhhh!”

“Of course you do, you sleaze.”

“Pleeeaaauuuoossh.”

Dawn fisted her right hand around the base of his erection as her mouth descended again, squeezing him in time with her sucks. “What do you think,” she mused thoughtfully, her tongue swirling around his head, “Buffy would say if she could see you now?”

Xander made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle.

“Think Buffy would like to know that I’ve had your dick in my mouth?” She left his balls with a soft squeeze, then cast her legs astride him and crawled up his body until his erection was nudging her folds. “Hmmm. Now…in sex-ed class…I’m pretty sure the specialist said that I’m supposed to be wet. Is that right? ’Cause I’m dry as a bone.”

“Noooo!”

“No?” She arched a brow and raised her hips. “Well, okay. If you say so.”

Then she slammed down on his cock, and the sensation about ripped her body apart. She felt her skin separate. Felt an explosion of feeling fuse in her gut. Felt too many things to register at once. Her skin hummed. And for whatever reason, she didn’t feel pain. Pain was an abstract notion—one her larger brain didn’t know how to compute. She’d played with pain before, and found herself completely detached. But this was different from past experiments. This was unlike anything. Her thighs ached. Her pussy throbbed. And Xander was inside her.

“Did you feel that?” she gasped, wiggling her hips. “You made my hymen break.”

Xander just whimpered and refused to look at her.

“Ohhh…and I’m bleeding!” Dawn reached between them, confirming her suspicion. She held up her red-smeared fingers and grinned, wiggling her hips as her body began to move against his. “You made me bleed. You rat bastard.”

“Oooohhhnnn…”

“You know I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” She quickly developed a rhythm that somehow seemed innate, bouncing robotically on his dick. The awkward tingles of near-pain faded in easy seconds, and then there was just…

Hmm. Interesting.

“How does it feel, Xander?” she asked breathlessly, planting her hands on his chest. “You’ve…you’ve always craved Summers pussy. How does it feel to get it?”

Xander mewled and refused to look at her.

“Buffy would never touch you.” Dawn tossed her head back with a long womanly moan, her hands flying to her breasts. “Not like this. She’d never fuck you. Hell, you’d have to lose your heartbeat first.” Puckered fingers tugged at her nipples, her vaginal walls tightening with every rigid bounce. “So tell me…how does it feel? Fucking me is the closest you’ll ever be to fucking…her.”

There was no reply. There wasn’t even a moan. There was nothing but the illicit sound of her body smacking against his. Of her now-drenched flesh smashing against his. It was a bizarre feeling, but she didn’t want to read too much into it. Instead, her hungry eyes consumed the devastation on his face. He looked so broken. So thoroughly defeated. And it was delicious.

God, this was a rush to end all rushes.

“You like this, don’t you?” she gasped. “You like the feeling of my hot, tight, recently-virgin pussy riding you to a gallop. Of course you do.” She seized his right wrist and guided his fingers to her center. “Make me come.”

Xander shook his head wildly, still refusing to open his eyes.

“You sick bastard, make me come. You don’t want me telling Buffy now, do you?” Dawn grinned maliciously and reached behind to fondle his balls. “Make me come, or I’ll lift the veil. I can do that, you know. In a fucking blink. And Anya won’t be so enamored with the television anymore.”

Xander’s eyes flew open in horror.

“Oh yeah. There he is.” Dawn stopped bouncing long enough to lean forward and lick a long path up his chest. “Rub my clit. Make me come, or Anya gets an eyeful.”

That did it. In a blink, Xander’s hand was at her center, his fingers manipulating her clitoris with jerky, frightened haste. And in a few careless, easy seconds, she felt her body reach the pinnacle of something explosive. It wasn’t glorious, by any means, but she couldn’t say that it wasn’t enjoyable. But the real thrill came seconds later when Xander moaned in protest and spilled himself inside her.

The sensation was intoxicating. She’d made him lose all control.

No. That wasn’t quite right. He hadn’t lost control—he’d given it to her. She was the one in command. She was the one in charge. He’d given her control because he feared her. He feared her.

She’d made him afraid.

“There’s a good boy,” she mused, stroking his chest absently. She was exhausted in a way that she’d never felt before, not to mention wet and sloppy between her legs. The muscles in her thighs were strained and used, and she was quite certain that if she tried to walk, she’d fall over.

Not for any reason other than the fact that her all-too-human body wasn’t used to this. Wasn’t used to fucking.

“Ugh. What a mess,” she scolded, lifting herself off his limp cock. “And you came inside me. Bad boy. Suppose now I grow a belly-full of your child? What on earth will you tell Buffy?”

He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. The look on his face was more than enough.

“Nothing, I suppose. Speak no evil. You won’t be able to tell anyone anything. Not unless I want you to.” Dawn stretched her arms over her head with a lazy grin, choking back a victorious cackle when his eyes reluctantly followed the length of her body. Starting at her breasts and trailing down to her broken-in pussy. A thin line of blood scaled down her left leg. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. There really is nothing to do with you, is there? You really have made a mess.” She slid a finger between her pussy lips. “Wanna clean me up?”

Xander’s eyes went wide and he shook his head hard, his mouth screaming out in soundless objection. And just as Dawn was about to scold him again, the front door flew open.

It was just too delicious—the combination of fear and relief on her broken toy’s face. Everything fell deathly silent as Buffy entered the house.

Entered the house, poked into the living room and…shrugged.

“Typical,” the Slayer murmured, fighting off a yawn. “Xander, rule one of babysitting…don’t fall asleep watching lame sitcoms.”

Xander’s eyes went wide as a silent scream clawed at his throat. And if Dawn were the sort of Key that felt pity, she’d be prone to feel it now.

Only she wasn’t, so she didn’t. Instead, she kneeled beside her toy and ran her fingers softly through his hair. “She can’t see you, either,” she murmured softly, pressing a mocking kiss to his brow. “She can see no evil, just as you can’t speak it. I’ll let it up whenever I like. Maybe tomorrow, hmm? Maybe tomorrow I’ll decide to make Buffy able to see evil again. Anya, too. And then they’ll know what happened in here. They’ll know that you fucked Buffy’s poor, virginal sister.”

Of course, she was going to do no such thing. Tomorrow, Dawn fully intended to extend her See/Hear No Evil spell to all of the Scoobies. Every last one of them. Indefinitely. Xander was her new favorite toy, and she was determined to exploit that.

But she didn’t tell him yet. Not yet. It was better that he have hope—if nothing more than to enjoy the fall when she snatched it away.

The look on his face would have shattered her heart if she had one. As it was, Dawn merely shrugged and straddled his face, pressing her wet pussy against his mouth.

“Now,” she barked. “Clean me up.”

A few empty seconds followed before his tongue parted her folds to dip inside her. His tears dampened her skin. His tears just made it all sweeter.

Xander had, at last, met the Key.

And if nothing else was certain, he would never look at her with anything but fear again.

~*~*~

He’d known for months now. He just hadn’t known how to say it. How, exactly, was a bloke to tell the woman he loved that the sister she’d sworn to protect was nothing but evil? That the sister she’d sworn to protect was, in fact, more dangerous than the hellgod that hunted her? He didn’t know. There wasn’t a pamphlet on things like this. There wasn’t a way to approach Buffy without getting a righteous earful. Dawn was ostensibly human, after all. And humans weren’t evil. Not entirely. Not the way that demons were.

Humans still had the virtue of a soul to hide behind. Dawn had hers. She had the illusion of a soul.

The illusion and nothing more.

Dawn wasn’t human. She was the Key. And she was making sure everyone knew it. If not Tara through cruelty, if not himself through illicit promises of what could be with Buffy, then certainly with the little things. Things that reminded everyone—everyone—that she wasn’t quite right. Humans couldn’t be created by monks. Humans couldn’t be made out of glowy green energy, and then inserted into memories. There was nothing human about Dawn—nothing but the memory of a false past.

Spike knew that when Buffy looked at Dawn, she saw the little girl that he did. The same little girl that had hid on the stairs as they plotted Angelus’s defeat. The same little girl that had thrown a spatula at his back the night he kidnapped Red and Harris and shoved them into the factory. The same little girl that had warmed blood for him in Giles’s flat and congratulated his and Buffy’s engagement.

But that wasn’t real. That hadn’t happened. Dawn hadn’t existed but for a few months, and their memories couldn’t be trusted. The true Dawn was the one that tampered with chaos. The one that raped Xander on a near-nightly basis, and kept him quiet by magically sewing his lips closed.

Spike knew she’d used a spell to hide her actions from those around her. But she couldn’t hide from his nose or the fear in Xander’s eyes every time she entered the room. The boy was terrified of her in the way a victim feared their tormenter. Dawn couldn’t hide that much from Spike, and maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe she wanted him to know. Maybe she wanted him to know because it placed the ball in his court. It gave him the option of telling Buffy.

How could he tell Buffy when Xander himself couldn’t speak a word of it? How ridiculous would he sound? How quickly would he find a stake in his chest?

Or worse…

Spike had been around for a long time. A long, tiresome time. He’d seen evil black as sin. He’d relished in the kills he’d made, in the tortuous pleas of his victims as they begged him for mercy. The taste of evil was no stranger to him.

Dawn, though, was beyond evil. She was the Key, and tonight, the Key would unlock the universe and welcome Hell itself on earth.

Dawn had gone willingly to Glory. And if it worked—if the bloodletting that Giles had predicted opened the dimensional gates—Buffy would sooner sacrifice her sister than she would relinquish hold on the world itself.

That was because Buffy refused to think of Dawn as the monster she was. She thought of her as the smiling child in their false memories. The girl that didn’t exist, and had never existed.

And Spike refused to think of the alternative. If Dawn wasn’t sacrificed, the world would end. Unless blood was offered. It was, after all, always about the blood. Always.

He knew the way the Slayer’s mind worked. If they didn’t get there in time…

He refused to think about that. All he knew was, he’d kill the girl himself before he let Buffy die for the sins of the Key.

But he couldn’t tell her that right now. Not when, after being locked out for so long, she was letting him back inside her home.

“Come in, Spike,” she said, almost smiling at him.

“Hmmm,” he mused nervously, stepping over the threshold. “Presto. No barrier.”

He glanced up again and swallowed hard. The defeat on her face was crushing. He’d never seen her so tired. So lost. So torn. She didn’t know what to do any better than he did. But God, she had to know. She had to know what the girl was.

Maybe she did. Maybe she just didn’t want to admit it.

“Um,” he said, breaking eye contact and turning intently to the living room. “Won’t bother with the small stuff. Couple of good axes should hold off Glory’s mates while you take on the lady herself.”

While you risk your hide to save a creature not worth the dirt under your boots.

Buffy was quiet for a long minute. He felt the heat of her eyes burning into his back, and shuddered hard. If he had to do it, there would be no more of this. He would be dust before the sun rose.

But Buffy would be safe. She might hate him and his memory forever, but she would be safe.

“We’re not all gonna make it,” Buffy said softly. “You know that.”

A long tremor raced through his body. He forced a small smile to his face and nodded, turning around to face her, an axe in hand. If he was going to die tonight, he wanted a plethora of memories to carry with him to Hell. Memories of Buffy. Memories of Buffy like this. Not hating him. Trusting him. Almost liking him.

The next few hours would rob him of that forever. One way or another, he was going to lose this. The simplicity of looking at her and seeing admiration in her eyes.

“Yeah,” he replied at last, swallowing hard. “Hey. Always knew I’d go down fightin’.”

He didn’t get the smile he was after. Instead, Buffy licked her lips and sighed.

“I’m counting on you. To…to do the right thing.”

Spike blinked. Somehow, he hadn’t been expecting that.

“The right thing?” he echoed. “The right…”

“The right thing,” Buffy said again.

Then she did something that had the power to change his life. She took a step forward and brushed her warm lips against his cheek.

The wealth of her affection crippled him. He wanted to weep. He wanted to drop to his knees and wrap his arms around her. He wanted to beg her not to make this hard on him. To take back her crumb so that he wouldn’t think about what he was sacrificing.

But in the end, it only made him more determined. He would rather die knowing that Buffy lived, hating him, than live with the knowledge that he had the power to save her, and had failed.

There is nothing neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so

Spike choked back an erratic, panicked laugh. Bloody night for Hamlet.

Nothing neither good nor bad…thinking makes it so.

First he had to know what the right thing was, and if it was only right because thinking made it so.

This hero-business was tiresome.

And unsurprisingly, the knowledge just made him love Buffy more.

~*~*~

It was a heavy load to put on a bloke—and one as ambiguous about the understanding of what was ‘right’ as he. But if Buffy had that kind of faith, who was he to turn his back on it? Who was he to back away from the woman he’d give up his entire existence for when she trusted him to pull it all together, and perhaps make the choices she couldn’t?

Spike walked beside her, the terror in the night palpable and wondered how the ordinary citizen’s of Sunnydale couldn’t feel it. How they’d managed to go about their lives with the existence of two evil bodies barely miles away. He didn’t doubt it was best to not know. He wished he could be one of them. Knowing Dawn and discovering the ugly depths beneath her memory made his heart hurt and his head pound.

Knowing that she likely had to die for this whole nightmare to be over made him question the true extent of his own evil badass self, and he knew he was slipping. Because it made him want to cry. Cry for the futility of it all. He had a soft spot for Dawn; maybe that was inspired by believing she was Buffy’s sister, and maybe the girl had earned it with one of those implanted moments of sweetness. Whatever it was, he was struggling with the notion that by the end of the night, she’d be a key no more—and more than likely dead as well. His hands shook at what he might have to do and Spike couldn’t bring himself to look at Buffy in case he saw the pain of betrayal in her eyes—or even the permission he needed to do the unthinkable.

Betrayal. He felt it. He knew it too, and that’s what attacked him the most. Dawn herself had betrayed the world by running to Glory—by offering up her blood to commit the ultimate evil and destroying everyone she’d known on earth. Buffy’s lips moved and he’d heard her declaration of protection—of disbelief that Dawn was in her right mind when she’d wandered off. But Spike could see the chills the Slayer attempted to throw off her back—he knew she realized the jig was up and that her baby sister was much more than the memories had made her out to be.

That’s what confused it for all of them. They remembered a Dawn that didn’t mesh with the reality. While Harris struggled to look in her direction without his fear and misery drowning the perceptive vamp, the others were shying away from the girl younger than them. Even Spike was alert around her now, one of her early victims to sadistic control. He’d been hurt too many times by Buffy’s rebuffs, his confidence falsely built up by the girl who knew her sister best but wanted to wound and destroy. But at least he got it now. Buffy would never love him, might not even like him, but she trusted him and that somehow meant more than he could have ever wished for.

Too far from The Magic Box, Buffy stopped walking. Spike gulped and hung his head, trying to banish the feeling of doom and terror that swamped his senses. She made it impossible to ignore her, though, stepping into his space and fitting almost under his chin. He had to look up and when he did, he felt something inside him break. It was a new discovery, this, that her tears could devastate him and bring his own closer than he’d like. And even as he prepared to step away, Buffy dropped her bag of weapons and put her hands on his waist. Her touch burned an imprint into his skin and Spike felt like moaning as his body gave in to the unexpected gift. But the tears…the tears tore his heart in two.

“Oh Buffy,” he whispered, trying desperately to hang onto some of the strength he was going to need if he could keep this girl alive. He knew she thought this was it—why else would she lower herself enough to be touching the Big Bad? And she was wrong. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, and if this was to be his last night on earth, he’d make sure he went out still hearing her sweet voice.

“I-I just wanted—” She paused, the words too difficult to push past the emotion and Spike couldn’t bear to be left wondering. He couldn’t dust not knowing what it was she wanted from him.

“What do you want, sweetness?”

He held his breath and watched her—watched as she exhaled deeply and cleared her eyes of tears. Watched as she became strong again before his eyes and tightened her grip on his body.

“I wanted to know, before I die, that I’m loved. That someone in this world truly loves me. You know? So it feels real. So it was worth it.”

God, she could break him with just her words. She could render him a bawling baby with just the want of being near her.

“Is a reforming evil monster enough, pet? Because I love you with everything I am…but is it enough?”

Her lips said yes as she consumed him in a kiss. Her body was screaming at him ‘yes’ but he couldn’t hold back that niggle of a thought that, when he had to save the world, she’d never be able to look at him again. So he took what he’d never get a second time, and he drowned in it. Drowned in her taste, in her soft caresses and her open mouth. Submerged himself in the flavor of his girl and just wished—a little wish—that it could have been different.

And in that second, he damned Dawn for doing this to him.

Damned her to Hell.

~*~*~

He couldn’t do it. It was the kind of night when you did and said stupid things that you lived through to later regret. It was perfect for that, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. Anya wanted sex, and like was typical lately, he couldn’t summons a voluntary erection to save his life. He wasn’t going to waste time wondering why she’d remained patient with him. Sometimes he thought she knew, that the glares she threw often at Dawn weren’t solely intended for the rude putdowns that seemed to flow from the teenager’s mouth. But he couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t say a damn thing, and it just had him twisted so tight inside that he wanted to go somewhere and scream and shout all the revulsion out of him.

In a moment of madness, he’d gone out one night and got drunk with Spike. He KNEW that the vamp could tell what was going on. He’d suffered Spike sniffing toward him on too many humiliating occasions to count, but getting all with the giggly and the trippy was more than good. Doing it beside the resident vamp seemed relatively fine too. But still he couldn’t say what Buffy’s sister was doing to him, and while he was morose and depressed, he actually considered cutting off his own cock. It would end it. Surely it would. She couldn’t torment him, or use him if she had nothing to drive herself home on.

Spike’s look of sad understanding had jolted him out of that insane contemplation, and when he was sober again, he was actually grateful. Not that he’d told him. Not that he could tell the vampire he’d hated all along that he was grateful that he would allow him to get drunk, even if he couldn’t stop Dawn. Xander knew he’d tried, but the strength of Dawn’s magic was great and he could pretty much count on being raped in front of every member of the gang at least once by now. Even Spike. Especially Spike, for some twisted, perverted reason. He figured it got Dawn off to know that Spike could smell something, but was too confused to know what to do about it.

So no, he couldn’t do any of it. Couldn’t give Anya a last hurrah, couldn’t even tell her that he loved her beyond reason. Couldn’t do anything, but wish he could kill Buffy’s little sister.

~*~*~

It was a strange night, and not solely because of the impending doom they faced on a perversely regular basis. Giles squinted at the text one last time, hoping against hope he could find something—just one little thing that would help them end the battle with the world intact and his young freedom fighters alive. And he wondered why everyone was so extraordinarily tense and depressed. It wasn’t how they usually faced down a challenge. There were few jokes, few bursts of optimistic revelry, and he wondered if there was something that had gone completely over his head.

There was one thing that concerned him. Buffy had been so low since her mother’s death, since her sister’s inappropriate laughter at the funeral. He hoped that Dawn’s handling of her own grief hadn’t made Buffy shut down to her. Though he knew that killing the girl might well be the only way to save the world, he’d expected Buffy to at least fight it.

He’d even figured her for saying it was enough, that she’d given her all over the years and if Dawn was to die, she would quit. But she hadn’t. Her eyes had looked haunted and she’d peered at a miserable-looking Spike out of the corner of her eye before turning back and glaring at him for making the suggestion, and nodded. He didn’t understand. He’d felt the layer of seriousness over the past months, and he’d witnessed plenty of unXander-like behavior and yet he was still at a loss as to why the brunette would shy violently away from the girl as soon as she walked through the shop door.

All of them were acting strange, solemn and stern and so far from their usual bright, sunny selves in the face of certain death that he couldn’t help but be concerned. This fight was quite likely the hardest they’d ever had to face, with the most obvious yet heartbreaking solution, and Giles couldn’t, for the life of him, buck up their spirits enough to go out there and win.

Buffy entered the shop slowly with Spike closely shadowing her back. She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to move away from him. When she finally looked up, her face was ravaged with pain and Giles felt his stomach sink. She couldn’t do it. He knew it as surely as he knew that he could. And it made him feel sick. She was the warrior for the Powers and she was burdened with such laughable decisions. Thank God the slayer line was awarded the existence of watchers to help them through the toughest of choices. If only Dawn hadn’t run, hadn’t allowed Glory to catch her without a fight, then he could have already made them safe and saved them the difficulty of facing a night like this.

“A-are you all ready then?”

Spike pinned him with a glare so full of malice that Giles momentarily forgot he was chipped and could do him no actual harm. Again, he was clueless as to what he might have said to garner such a hostile reaction, and yet he was stuck in the role of motivating force and had no choice but to press beyond any animosity the vampire seemingly held toward him. It was aggravating, for he had wished that Spike would be some kind of support and not just in it to flash his fangs and do some damage. He had thought Spike could pass beyond his leash and become something much bigger, much more prized to all of them than muscle.

Buffy weakly shook her bag to indicate she’d heard the question and that she was rather eager to get everyone moving on it. The inevitable showdown was approaching and he saw no reason for them to dillydally any further, so Giles nodded at Willow, and they all filtered out of their haven of safety to follow a young girl scrambled of her senses. Tara lead them, chattering and crying forlornly and Giles ached for how the girl had been broken. One by one they were being weakened and cauterized from the true warrior, and it was with tremendous sadness that Giles finally admitted to himself that this night could well be his last in an official capacity, if not his last on earth.

Deep down he wanted to laugh, and in that split second he could identify with Dawn. It was uncontrollable, this desire to release the pent up hysteria that was clogging all his other senses. He’d never truly anticipated that anything could end before. Not when Buffy had to kill her lover to save the world, and certainly not when humans had tried and failed to create a superior fighting race of demons. Each fight had grown harder and longer and he’d aged well beside them. But this one made him wonder if he had any time left, and if he did, who he would lose in order to live it.

“Oh, we have the Dagon’s sphere,” Anya piped in, pushing it forward eagerly. “It was down in the basement, just like I said.”

Buffy stopped and took it gratefully, a sad smile barely making it to her lips.

“Thank you, Anya,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. She looked at Spike, walking beside her and obviously on-his-toes tense. “You know,” she started, her voice hesitant. “Tonight’s the kind of night you’d expect to hear wedding proposals.”

Xander tripped to his knees, tears on his lashes as he fumbled back to his feet and seized his girlfriend’s hand. Spike was possibly the only one that noticed the devastation that ravaged the whelp’s face, saw the way he shirked away from attention by crawling mentally inside himself, and so instead eyed Buffy warily, his lips turning up in a familiar smirk.

“You fishing for something, love?” He felt the burn of her cheeks long before he saw it, and it was another of those curious moments he knew he’d cherish for the long eternity he would spend in Hell. “’Cause you know, I don’t think your watcher is up for the shenanigans the newly engaged get up to.”

“Good lord, no,” Giles spluttered, his hands barely restraining from indulging in his usual nervous habit.

Buffy giggled and reached forward to squeeze Spike’s hand, and both of them stopped breathing. But the moment of grotesque silence had been broken and Buffy was all fight again. It made Spike nervous and he wondered if this was the very last time he’d receive any softness from her. If this was her turning her back on the possibility of her sister’s death or if he still had her unspoken sanction.

They finally came to a stop and all gasped at the vision in front of them. The tower itself was amazing—more in its ability to remain hidden than for any beauty it didn’t possess. But Dawn. She waited at the highest level, her arms out in a welcoming cross and a euphoric smile on her face. Spike knew the others probably couldn’t see it, but it was the clincher for him. The little bitch had played them all, and wanted the worlds to rip apart. She wanted to see chaos and death and had no problems at all bleeding for the ejected hellgod.

He sensed her reeking presence before Buffy did, and with a nudge he warned her. Bot already in place, a nod and the battle had begun, and Spike chanced one last glance at the brave group he was losing, and dove into the fight.

He had to end it now. Had to gather the courage and climb that wobbly tower tenaciously—as if all the world rested on his shoulders alone.

It was time to kill a girl.

~*~*~

She smiled as soon as he made it to her. It wasn’t one full of malice or superiority, but one of welcome and relief. One of love. And he couldn’t move his feet. She looked beautiful, radiant and as she stood at the edge of the platform, her arms untied and her hair flowing, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was wrong. The absence of fear was the only clue he had that he hadn’t made it all up. That he wasn’t deluded that she was fucking with Harris’s mind, that she wasn’t an evil little bitch getting her kicks out of bringing them all down. But still, that final step was hard.

She was human. A few little zaps during their light yet friendly shoving matches were enough proof and Spike didn’t know how he could do it without earning a massive headache. But then he’d be dust, and he wasn’t sure but he didn’t think headaches were a carry over to Hell. Then again, it was Hell, and what wasn’t carried over was loaded on with gusto.

He had to try. Not because he was afraid of a little tickle in his brain—all right, a bloody big tickle. He had to try because she was Buffy’s sister, and maybe they were wrong. Maybe there was still hope that she wasn’t all bad and could still turn her back on Glory and do right by them all.

He remembered the progression of their friendship, the one that brought him toward love of another Summers woman, and it made him twist inside with agony. He remembered and he wanted it back. Wanted those talks about her sister and the ones she couldn’t hold back about boys and her friends. Wanted that human thing called friendship where he could pretend, could fool himself he had a shot at something more than he’d ever had.

“Bit, how about you step away from the edge and you and me head back down?”

He wasn’t mistaking the look of confusion that entered those huge eyes, nor the tiny step toward him she finally took. He wasn’t mistaken and Buffy’s little sis wasn’t evil, and God save him, he didn’t have to kill her. He’d torn himself to shreds for nothing and Buffy could still look at him when he once again touched the ground.

Every one of her coltish limbs was shaking and he could see the fear suddenly overtake her. “Spike? Oh God, what am I doing up here?” Her tears flowed thick and fast and it terrified him how close to losing it she was. She stood too close to the edge and he couldn’t be the hero if she fell off. Couldn’t bring her back to Buffy if she was dead. Couldn’t make everything right if he had nothing to offer.

“Bit? Just step forward for me. Spike’s got you.” And as he reached out his hand to her, as he leaned forward to try and entice her to him, it happened, and all his blood ran colder than ice. She laughed, laughed so coldly that her bitterness was unmistakable.

“Spike’s GOT me? Well, I ran out of time, and I was much too busy with Xan-the-man, but yeah, letting you have me might have been kinda fun.”

He froze, revolted by an image that should have set his evil heart a-thumping. It was confirmation, and now that he had it, his sympathies for Harris yawned wide open. His memories were false, created by people who had no bleeding clue what they’d offered refuge to. Poncy little religious bastards should have destroyed it. They should never have given it breath and blood and big blue eyes. And they sure as fuck should never have brought her to Buffy.

“Sweetheart, not even your amateur magic could have made me touch you.” His lip curled and he bolstered himself up for what he knew had to be the end. The end of Dawn. The end of the Key. And surely, the end of him.

“Oh come ON, Spike,” Dawn spat with a condescending laugh. “Don’t you know when to quit? What do you think you’re going to do to stop me? Cry? As if you could do it anyway. Kill me? What would your precious Buffy say about that? And her friends? They love me, even if they hate me. Those stupid monks made all of them love me like a little sister and none of them will welcome you with open arms if you kill me.”

He clenched his jaw and pushed down every one of the voices in his head that taunted him about how right she was. He knew it, and yet it didn’t matter. Not anymore. Buffy trusted him to do what was right. Well, he’d known what was right a time or two, and this time he figured whatever was needed to save the world had to be it. Stopping Dawn from opening the dimensions should be screaming easy to him, yet it wasn’t. Nothing was screaming at him except himself, and that was to drown out the image of Buffy’s scornful expression as she staked him and walked away from his swirling dust.

He looked up for the last time, resolved and gasping against it. She was a beautiful girl, a teenager with so much life in her, despite the supernatural qualities flowing through her veins. And yet she was evil to the core, harboring under the wing of one the most powerful human’s in the world, and one of the most compassionate. One of them was gone from him now—though Joyce would always leave a mark—and he’d be buggered if he’d lose Buffy as well. If Dawn had to die so that Buffy could live, he could live with that. Well, maybe not, but it was what he wanted. What was right.

“While you’re arguing with yourself all the ways in which you can’t touch me, I’ll just be doing a little bit of this.” Right in front of his eyes, she sliced open her wrist and bright, glorious blood dripped from the platform and into the air beneath it.

Spike cried out, alarmed that he’d let it happen, despite making the decision. The world erupted around him, rifts gaping open as creatures and monsters too awful for him to have even imagined escaped to make his world into Hell on Earth.

“You raving little bitch.” His fangs dropped, amber eyes confused and pained as he looked upon her one last time. He was filled with hate, but the love was only pushed to the side. Time had fled and left him with only moments to change the outcome. He had to do it. He had to be strong and kill a little girl. He’d done it before. Plenty of times. And yet this time, he had to close his eyes.

With a bloodcurdling roar of grief, he ran, arms outstretched and strong as steel. His fists connected with her body and she screamed before being propelled backwards hard. Her outrage was violent and loud and he felt his head explode, his feet losing grip. And then he fell. Fell so fast and so hard with Dawn’s death knell ringing in his ears. Fell until he impacted with a thump next to the slam of her body into building debris, and he wept for all that was lost.

While the world lightened and the dark melted away, while the rift sewed shut and the Scoobies emerged in shock, a little pop sounded and all was realigned as it should always have been. True memories restored, and new ones taking over the available spaces, Buffy crept forward to look at the broken body of her fake sister and sighed in relief. The bonds on her heart were cut and she could see clearly for the first time in months, and all she felt when looking at the dead girl was sadness at the waste. She almost succumbed to feeling alone, but then she looked at Spike and knew it wasn’t true. She had a funny feeling he’d never let her be alone, and for the first time, she was glad.

He didn’t move or make a sound when they picked him up and moved him out of the sunlight. Giles raced off for his car, popped the top up and they gently laid him out on the back seat. His broken bones made it easy to fit him in there, but none of them wanted to be standing around when he came to.

Once he was taken to the crypt, Buffy staying with him to help set bones or whatever she might be needed for, while Giles returned to the site of the latest failed apocalypse and found Xander staring brokenly at the body still lying face up in the rubble. The boy was crying, tears washing the dirt from his face. He looked up as Giles approached and almost collapsed in on himself.

“The spell.” It was all that could struggle past his lips and he shook his head angrily and ran, his pace leaving little but kicked up dust to choke the watcher as he wondered how best to deal with this situation. Shaking his head, he felt chilled as his vision was tugged elsewhere, and the second body reminded him of its presence. Ben. The one gone by his own hand.

It was cowardly, but Giles left. He’d called the Council on the way back from the cemetery and he knew they were far better equipped to deal with situations such as these. He somehow didn’t feel guilt at leaving either human on the ground, out in the open. Both had harbored evil—yes, he could see it now. There was nothing that clouded his understanding and he felt a fool for not being able to see it earlier, even if that was the design of it all.

No, it wasn’t guilt he felt as he walked away; it was regret.

~*~*~

Something soft, cool and wet swept over the surface of his skin and he groaned. His fingers were stretched apart gently and he was bathed clean to the wrist. And it started again, around his eyes and lips, down his neck and over his chest. It hurt, but it was a good hurt. It was a hurt that brought with it a boatload of hope and Spike didn’t know how to deal with it. No one had touched him like this—with care for his wounds and his comfort.

It could be a trick, and fearing as much, he was too terrified to open his eyes. Had he killed Dawn? Had he really done it only to find himself swept up in this curious touch? Who was it? Not Giles or Harris, thank god. Neither of them could temper their strength enough to be careful. No, it had to be one of the girls. Red, Glinda or Buffy. Couldn’t be Buffy. If the Slayer was anywhere near him, he’d be so much dust floating his way out of the world. Not that his other two choices made any more sense.

A whisper soft movement against his lips made his throat clog with tears. Buffy then. He didn’t need eyes to know how she felt against his mouth.

“Thank you, Spike. Thank you for doing what I couldn’t.”

She’d been crying—for hours if his guess was right. She’d probably holed herself up with him so that the others didn’t see how hard it was on her. But she didn’t mind him knowing, and she was grateful. The Slayer was showering him with her gratitude and it was almost too much for a creature unused to the softer feelings of another.

He continued to feel her hands as they swept over his flesh—more flesh than he’d really have expected her to willingly touch, but he wasn’t going to be a git and complain. Even if he could find his voice and use it.

His surprise bath finally complete, Buffy shuffled around while Spike listened. He heard the sound of cloth as it was dropped to the floor and couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing. He worked it out in a shocked moment as she climbed up on the hard sarcophagus that was against his back, and he could feel the enticing swell of her naked breast against his arm. His eyes shot open but hers had closed.

“Just rest, Spike. Let’s just rest.”

The rest, after all, is silence.

END