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Entry tags:
For Love of Innocence
Title: "For Love of Innocence"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Spoilers: Seasons 6 and 7
Summary:
Disclaimer: Dawn Summers, Buffy Summers, Spike, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are © & TM their respective owners. Everything else is © & TM Pirate Turner. The author makes no profit off of this story.
Author's Note: Great thanks to those who have inspired me on this romance -- namely, but in no particular order, Pirate Sparrow, Pirate Tom, Pirate Spike, Piratess Dawn, and, the originator of it all, Saffron! :-)
He walked in silence, the long tails of his black leather trench coat flapping around his legs. The spark of fire in his cigarette was the only light in that long, dark night, and the silence was almost deafening. He wondered where the others were and why every one seemed to be holed up for the night when a blast of howling wind nearly knocked him off of his own two feet. The wind brought with it remembrance, and his black lips pulled back in a smirk. {Stupid humans,} he thought. {They run around every night, ignoring the dangers of the Hellmouth, but let a little hurricane even so much as think about coming to shore, and they all run and hide in their homes like mice in their holes.}
He took another puff of his cigarette and paused as he heard a soft rustling behind him. His pace slowed as he continued to smoke. A figure leapt from the bushes that lined the walkway, but he whirled around to meet his attacker. He easily blocked his opponent, then released his cigarette to fall towards the ground as he snatched a stake from an inner pocket in his trench. "Next time you try sneakin' up on a bloke, ya might want to check an' see if he's one of your own kind first," he suggested coldly even as the stake drove home. As the other Vampire's dust rained down upon him, he shrugged, returned the stake to his pocket, and snatched his cigarette up just before it could hit the ground. "Make that if you have a chance to try it again," he amended to the empty air before turning and continuing along his lonely path.
He had not gone more than five feet forward when a soft crying met his ears, bringing him to an abrupt but immediate stop. His eyes narrowed as he listened to the pitiful, heartbroken wails. He knew that voice . . . but . . . who? The crying broke with a loud sob that sent the Vampire turning and racing through bushes and trees. Heedless of everything else around him, he ran toward that voice as if the cries endangered his own afterlife. He burst through another row of bushes and came to a screeching halt almost at the edge of the park. His dark eyes shifted instantly to the crier. Though the night was no longer even lit by his forgotten cigarette, he could see her clearly, . . . and his heart broke at the sight.
She lay in a heap on the ground, her clothes mere shreds that she clung desperately to her bruised and battered body. Tears ran down her once-beautiful face that was now marred with dirt, ugly bruises, and her own blood. Tortured sobs continued to escape her cut lips. He had thought she had not even heard his approach, but then she spoke, her words causing him to ache even more for her. "Go ahead," she broke out in a whisper, her sobs suddenly ceasing though her tears continued to flow unchecked. "Do it. Bite me. Kill me. Whatever. I don't care."
"Never, Dawn," he managed to speak as he walked slowly, as if struggling to make it to her side through a thick haze of mist that was his own disbelief at the sight before him.
"Spike?" she whimpered, looking up at him through two black eyes.
He did not speak one single word more until he had reached her side and knelt before her. "Dawn," he started to say, his deep concern clear in his dark eyes and handsome face, only to have his words freeze in his throat as she collapsed into his arms. He fell silent as he gathered her close to him, his arms wrapping around her body. Her head pressed into his shoulder as she continued to cry; his leaned softly into her long hair as he closed his eyes, stilling the fury that boiled within him as well as he was able.
As he held her, gently rocking her fragile body, varied smells swirled around Spike's nostrils. He could smell what she had had to eat that day for lunch and even breakfast; the various scents of things and people that she had been around that day at school; the lingering aromas of Buffy and the Summers household; and, of course, her honey almond shampoo. Despite his concern for her, Spike still had to struggle to rein in his natural Vampiric instincts to drink her delicious blood that assailed his nostrils, but it was the two other putrid scents that the air around her was fouled with that caused his eyes to flash and his fangs to bare in a savage, furious growl that she either did not hear or simply chose to ignore.
A cold dread of expectation had settled over his dead heart the very second he had found Dawn in her current condition, but the smells that his nose could no longer ignore told him that he had indeed been right. No one should have done to them what had happened to her, but Dawn -- beautiful, innocent Dawn was the absolute last being on the face of the planet that deserved to be desecrated in such a horrid manner. Hidden behind Dawn's back, Spike's fists clenched and unclenched, his black nails biting into his palms as he longed desperately to close his hands around the throat of the heartless bastard who had done this to her.
Spike's fury had built until he could scarcely control it for even one second longer when he suddenly heard a furious voice behind him. "SPIKE!" the Slayer yelled, her blue eyes flashing. "GET OFF OF MY SISTER!"
The Slayer started to run toward them, stake in hand, when Dawn's weak voice stopped her dead in her tracks. "It wasn't him," she whimpered, looking up at her older sister as the moon unexpectedly slid from behind a heavy cloud.
The moonbeams caught Dawn's face in their silvery light, and the Slayer gasped aloud. "Dawnie?" Her fingers released the forgotten stake as she walked, partially stumbling as she could not tear her eyes away from her viciously bruised face, toward her baby sister. "Wh-What happened?" she whispered, her voice so small that one would have thought that she had been the one attacked.
As Buffy knelt beside Spike, Spike released Dawn to let her turn into her sister's arms. "I . . . I . . . It . . . It was . . . aw . . . awful . . . I . . . It . . . " Dawn cried helplessly against her sister's chest.
"It's okay, Dawn. It's going to be okay," Buffy repeated as she lovingly stroked Dawn's hair. Her blue eyes rose to where Spike had stood upon giving Dawn to her, but he was no longer there. The Slayer's eyes whipped around the area, but the Vampire was long gone.
It was the next night before Spike was finally able to locate the man whose scent had been all over Dawn. When he did, he was walking home with his arm swung around the slender shoulders of a long-legged blonde. Their heads were pressed together as they laughed and talked merrily, his eyes dancing as if nothing had happened the night before. Despite the wait, Spike's fury had not lessened in the least, and when he saw the happy look on the man's face, his fury grew even more.
When the couple reached the entrance to the alley way where Spike had hidden in waiting, he stepped out in front of them, his game face already on. The woman screamed as the man cursed. Spike's yellow eyes shifted to the woman, and her face paled in horror. He growled, and she turned around and ran, screaming, into the night. His full attention then shifted back to the man. The man's mouth opened to speak, but before he could get even so much as one syllable out, Spike was upon him. He snatched him up by the open sides of his leather jacket and slammed him into the nearby brick wall. "DAWN SUMMERS!" he roared, his fangs flashing dangerously close to the man's throat.
"Wh-What?" the man whimpered. "Wh-Who?"
"SHE'S THE GIRL YOU RAPED YESTERDAY!" Spike bellowed in response as he turned and threw the pitiful excuse for a human being into the alley way. The man hit the pavement hard and did not stop sliding until his head collided with a dumpster.
Through his buzzing mind, the man exclaimed, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes," Spike ground out between gritted fangs, "you do!" He took a sailing leap from the entrance. Landing on top of the man, he began to beat him mercilessly, his fist pounding again and again into the man's face, breaking tissue first and then bone. "You do!" he repeated, as his fist moved to the man's eyes after shattering his nose. His fist continued to pound into the man, bringing a swiftly increasing amount of blood. "You raped her, you bastard, and now you're going to pay!" His eyes flashed as he continued to pound into the man.
"What are you?" the man spat in between moans as he was hit again. "Her brother or something?"
"Something," Spike growled out, his yellow eyes flashing, as his fist struck the man's mouth and then continued to pound mercilessly into his face.
Blood ran into the man's eyes, blinding him. His jaw was already broken, but he was too petrified to speak even if it hadn't been. Spike's fist continued to repeatedly slam into the man's face until he rolled again with the man and slammed him once more into the brick wall, kneeing him in his groin as he did so. Spike's mind whirled as he searched through all the various deaths he had thought up for this one heartless, so-called human being. They were countless, but then his black lips twisted into a cruel, cold smile in which there was not even a single trace of the soul he had.
One of Spike's fist closed tightly around the man's neck as he continued ramming him back into the brick wall even as his other hand slipped into one of the pockets on his tight, black jeans. He pulled out his cigarette lighter, flipped the lid open, and brought it in close to the man's groin. The Vampire's yellow eyes bore down into the terrified eyes of the human as he repeated again in a fatal snarl, "You're going to pay."
Spike's thumb drew softly across his lighter, bringing a spark of flame. As the flame came closer to the man's filthy sword, he screamed out, "NO! PLEASE, NO!"
"How many times did she ask you that?" Spike growled out. "How many times did she cry, plead with you, beg you not to?" He did not even give the man a chance to answer him as he brought the flame swiftly upwards. The flame instantly caught the man's pants on fire, bringing a scream of pain and terror from him. Spike let his lighter fall to the ground as his fist slammed into the man's gut. "You ignored her cries," he hissed, "and you've got no right to your own." The flame grew quickly as it melted first the pants and then the man's silk boxers before finally reaching its destination. As slimy skin burned, the man screamed again, but each time his mouth opened, Spike hit him again, his fist moving from the man's gut up to his lungs.
"SPIKE, STOP IT!" Buffy's terrified cry suddenly came from the mouth of the alley.
"Shag off, bit!" Spike snarled at her before he could stop himself. "This is the bastard who raped your sister!"
The Slayer's eyes opened wide, but then she flew into action. "Let go of him! Leave him alone!" She ran at Spike, but just as she reached him, he backhanded her with such strength that the blow sent the Slayer flying back against the opposite wall. She hit it hard and slumped to the pavement. Nonetheless, she tried again, "Spike, he's human!"
"Human? HUMAN?!" Spike roared out, his yellow eyes flashing. The man screamed again, and Spike hit him, once more knocking the wind out of him and effectively silencing him. "HE RAPED YOUR SISTER, BUFFY! HOW THE HELL CAN THAT BE A HUMAN?!"
"I don't know," the Slayer cried, "but he is!"
Spike wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her that it was not the being but the soul that made the human and that this so-called human's soul was as monstrous as they come, but he knew that no amount of reasoning in the world would do either of them any good. Thus, he instead responded only in a savage growl between clenched fangs, "Then he's one dead human!"
"Spike, no!" Buffy cried. "Don't do this!" She leapt to her feet and started to approach him, but Spike slung out a hand to stop her. Thinking swiftly, the Slayer added, "Don't do this to Dawn!" Seeing the way he stilled momentarily at the exclamation, Buffy rushed to add, "If you kill him, she'll blame herself! Do you want that on her conscience?!"
"She'd want him dead!" Spike returned, his fist tightening around the man's neck and slowly crushing his wind pipe as the fire continued to spread up his body.
"No, she wouldn't!" Buffy cried. "This isn't me we're talking about here, Spike! It's Dawn! Sweet, little, innocent Dawnie!"
"She's not innocent any more," Spike growled out. "This bastard stole that from her when he stole her virginity! Look at your sister, you bloody bitch! Can't you see what he did?!"
"I see it all," Buffy cried out in answer, tears streaming down her face, "but I know she wouldn't want this!"
"How do you know?!" Spike roared.
"Because she made me promise I wouldn't kill him myself when I found him but would take him in!" Buffy finally admitted.
Spike heard the truth in the Slayer's words. Dawn didn't want this. She didn't want him killed. Despite everything he'd done to her and all that he had stolen from her, Dawn still did not want him killed. If he was, Spike knew that Buffy was right when the Slayer said that Dawn would take his murder on her own conscience. If he killed this heartless, soulless bastard, he would steal another piece of Dawn's innocence away, and though he knew that her innocence had already been stolen, he could not bring himself to allow another piece of the innocent, beautiful girl he'd once known to be destroyed. Thus, instead, with an anguished roar, he released his grip on the man's throat, turned with him, and threw him at the Slayer's feet. Spike paused only to pick up his cigarette lighter before stalking from the alley and leaving Buffy to put out the fire.
Less than an hour before sunrise, the Slayer walked up the path to her home. As she neared the porch, she was surprised to find Spike standing silently by a window, his back turned toward her and his steady gaze turned into the house where he watched Willow and Xander doing their best to cheer Dawn, his heart breaking all over again as he watched the injured, spiritually broken girl. Reaching the steps, Buffy cleared her throat as she spoke in a soft whisper, "I'm just getting here."
Spike stiffened at the sound of her voice and turned from the window to look down at her. "Just leavin'," he returned coldly as he stepped to the side of the porch and jumped off onto the grass.
As he started to walk away, Buffy turned and rushed after him. "Spike, wait!" He paused but did not turn back. "I -- I wanted to say thank you," she started only to be interrupted.
He still did not turn back to look at her, and his hands still remained stuffed in the deep pockets of his leather trench just as they had been when she had found him at the window. The six gruff words he spoke evenly and truthfully stunned the Slayer into speechlessness: "I didn't do it for you." Buffy watched Spike go as he then walked away, disappearing into the fleeting night.
The End
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Spoilers: Seasons 6 and 7
Summary:
Disclaimer: Dawn Summers, Buffy Summers, Spike, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are © & TM their respective owners. Everything else is © & TM Pirate Turner. The author makes no profit off of this story.
Author's Note: Great thanks to those who have inspired me on this romance -- namely, but in no particular order, Pirate Sparrow, Pirate Tom, Pirate Spike, Piratess Dawn, and, the originator of it all, Saffron! :-)
He walked in silence, the long tails of his black leather trench coat flapping around his legs. The spark of fire in his cigarette was the only light in that long, dark night, and the silence was almost deafening. He wondered where the others were and why every one seemed to be holed up for the night when a blast of howling wind nearly knocked him off of his own two feet. The wind brought with it remembrance, and his black lips pulled back in a smirk. {Stupid humans,} he thought. {They run around every night, ignoring the dangers of the Hellmouth, but let a little hurricane even so much as think about coming to shore, and they all run and hide in their homes like mice in their holes.}
He took another puff of his cigarette and paused as he heard a soft rustling behind him. His pace slowed as he continued to smoke. A figure leapt from the bushes that lined the walkway, but he whirled around to meet his attacker. He easily blocked his opponent, then released his cigarette to fall towards the ground as he snatched a stake from an inner pocket in his trench. "Next time you try sneakin' up on a bloke, ya might want to check an' see if he's one of your own kind first," he suggested coldly even as the stake drove home. As the other Vampire's dust rained down upon him, he shrugged, returned the stake to his pocket, and snatched his cigarette up just before it could hit the ground. "Make that if you have a chance to try it again," he amended to the empty air before turning and continuing along his lonely path.
He had not gone more than five feet forward when a soft crying met his ears, bringing him to an abrupt but immediate stop. His eyes narrowed as he listened to the pitiful, heartbroken wails. He knew that voice . . . but . . . who? The crying broke with a loud sob that sent the Vampire turning and racing through bushes and trees. Heedless of everything else around him, he ran toward that voice as if the cries endangered his own afterlife. He burst through another row of bushes and came to a screeching halt almost at the edge of the park. His dark eyes shifted instantly to the crier. Though the night was no longer even lit by his forgotten cigarette, he could see her clearly, . . . and his heart broke at the sight.
She lay in a heap on the ground, her clothes mere shreds that she clung desperately to her bruised and battered body. Tears ran down her once-beautiful face that was now marred with dirt, ugly bruises, and her own blood. Tortured sobs continued to escape her cut lips. He had thought she had not even heard his approach, but then she spoke, her words causing him to ache even more for her. "Go ahead," she broke out in a whisper, her sobs suddenly ceasing though her tears continued to flow unchecked. "Do it. Bite me. Kill me. Whatever. I don't care."
"Never, Dawn," he managed to speak as he walked slowly, as if struggling to make it to her side through a thick haze of mist that was his own disbelief at the sight before him.
"Spike?" she whimpered, looking up at him through two black eyes.
He did not speak one single word more until he had reached her side and knelt before her. "Dawn," he started to say, his deep concern clear in his dark eyes and handsome face, only to have his words freeze in his throat as she collapsed into his arms. He fell silent as he gathered her close to him, his arms wrapping around her body. Her head pressed into his shoulder as she continued to cry; his leaned softly into her long hair as he closed his eyes, stilling the fury that boiled within him as well as he was able.
As he held her, gently rocking her fragile body, varied smells swirled around Spike's nostrils. He could smell what she had had to eat that day for lunch and even breakfast; the various scents of things and people that she had been around that day at school; the lingering aromas of Buffy and the Summers household; and, of course, her honey almond shampoo. Despite his concern for her, Spike still had to struggle to rein in his natural Vampiric instincts to drink her delicious blood that assailed his nostrils, but it was the two other putrid scents that the air around her was fouled with that caused his eyes to flash and his fangs to bare in a savage, furious growl that she either did not hear or simply chose to ignore.
A cold dread of expectation had settled over his dead heart the very second he had found Dawn in her current condition, but the smells that his nose could no longer ignore told him that he had indeed been right. No one should have done to them what had happened to her, but Dawn -- beautiful, innocent Dawn was the absolute last being on the face of the planet that deserved to be desecrated in such a horrid manner. Hidden behind Dawn's back, Spike's fists clenched and unclenched, his black nails biting into his palms as he longed desperately to close his hands around the throat of the heartless bastard who had done this to her.
Spike's fury had built until he could scarcely control it for even one second longer when he suddenly heard a furious voice behind him. "SPIKE!" the Slayer yelled, her blue eyes flashing. "GET OFF OF MY SISTER!"
The Slayer started to run toward them, stake in hand, when Dawn's weak voice stopped her dead in her tracks. "It wasn't him," she whimpered, looking up at her older sister as the moon unexpectedly slid from behind a heavy cloud.
The moonbeams caught Dawn's face in their silvery light, and the Slayer gasped aloud. "Dawnie?" Her fingers released the forgotten stake as she walked, partially stumbling as she could not tear her eyes away from her viciously bruised face, toward her baby sister. "Wh-What happened?" she whispered, her voice so small that one would have thought that she had been the one attacked.
As Buffy knelt beside Spike, Spike released Dawn to let her turn into her sister's arms. "I . . . I . . . It . . . It was . . . aw . . . awful . . . I . . . It . . . " Dawn cried helplessly against her sister's chest.
"It's okay, Dawn. It's going to be okay," Buffy repeated as she lovingly stroked Dawn's hair. Her blue eyes rose to where Spike had stood upon giving Dawn to her, but he was no longer there. The Slayer's eyes whipped around the area, but the Vampire was long gone.
It was the next night before Spike was finally able to locate the man whose scent had been all over Dawn. When he did, he was walking home with his arm swung around the slender shoulders of a long-legged blonde. Their heads were pressed together as they laughed and talked merrily, his eyes dancing as if nothing had happened the night before. Despite the wait, Spike's fury had not lessened in the least, and when he saw the happy look on the man's face, his fury grew even more.
When the couple reached the entrance to the alley way where Spike had hidden in waiting, he stepped out in front of them, his game face already on. The woman screamed as the man cursed. Spike's yellow eyes shifted to the woman, and her face paled in horror. He growled, and she turned around and ran, screaming, into the night. His full attention then shifted back to the man. The man's mouth opened to speak, but before he could get even so much as one syllable out, Spike was upon him. He snatched him up by the open sides of his leather jacket and slammed him into the nearby brick wall. "DAWN SUMMERS!" he roared, his fangs flashing dangerously close to the man's throat.
"Wh-What?" the man whimpered. "Wh-Who?"
"SHE'S THE GIRL YOU RAPED YESTERDAY!" Spike bellowed in response as he turned and threw the pitiful excuse for a human being into the alley way. The man hit the pavement hard and did not stop sliding until his head collided with a dumpster.
Through his buzzing mind, the man exclaimed, "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes," Spike ground out between gritted fangs, "you do!" He took a sailing leap from the entrance. Landing on top of the man, he began to beat him mercilessly, his fist pounding again and again into the man's face, breaking tissue first and then bone. "You do!" he repeated, as his fist moved to the man's eyes after shattering his nose. His fist continued to pound into the man, bringing a swiftly increasing amount of blood. "You raped her, you bastard, and now you're going to pay!" His eyes flashed as he continued to pound into the man.
"What are you?" the man spat in between moans as he was hit again. "Her brother or something?"
"Something," Spike growled out, his yellow eyes flashing, as his fist struck the man's mouth and then continued to pound mercilessly into his face.
Blood ran into the man's eyes, blinding him. His jaw was already broken, but he was too petrified to speak even if it hadn't been. Spike's fist continued to repeatedly slam into the man's face until he rolled again with the man and slammed him once more into the brick wall, kneeing him in his groin as he did so. Spike's mind whirled as he searched through all the various deaths he had thought up for this one heartless, so-called human being. They were countless, but then his black lips twisted into a cruel, cold smile in which there was not even a single trace of the soul he had.
One of Spike's fist closed tightly around the man's neck as he continued ramming him back into the brick wall even as his other hand slipped into one of the pockets on his tight, black jeans. He pulled out his cigarette lighter, flipped the lid open, and brought it in close to the man's groin. The Vampire's yellow eyes bore down into the terrified eyes of the human as he repeated again in a fatal snarl, "You're going to pay."
Spike's thumb drew softly across his lighter, bringing a spark of flame. As the flame came closer to the man's filthy sword, he screamed out, "NO! PLEASE, NO!"
"How many times did she ask you that?" Spike growled out. "How many times did she cry, plead with you, beg you not to?" He did not even give the man a chance to answer him as he brought the flame swiftly upwards. The flame instantly caught the man's pants on fire, bringing a scream of pain and terror from him. Spike let his lighter fall to the ground as his fist slammed into the man's gut. "You ignored her cries," he hissed, "and you've got no right to your own." The flame grew quickly as it melted first the pants and then the man's silk boxers before finally reaching its destination. As slimy skin burned, the man screamed again, but each time his mouth opened, Spike hit him again, his fist moving from the man's gut up to his lungs.
"SPIKE, STOP IT!" Buffy's terrified cry suddenly came from the mouth of the alley.
"Shag off, bit!" Spike snarled at her before he could stop himself. "This is the bastard who raped your sister!"
The Slayer's eyes opened wide, but then she flew into action. "Let go of him! Leave him alone!" She ran at Spike, but just as she reached him, he backhanded her with such strength that the blow sent the Slayer flying back against the opposite wall. She hit it hard and slumped to the pavement. Nonetheless, she tried again, "Spike, he's human!"
"Human? HUMAN?!" Spike roared out, his yellow eyes flashing. The man screamed again, and Spike hit him, once more knocking the wind out of him and effectively silencing him. "HE RAPED YOUR SISTER, BUFFY! HOW THE HELL CAN THAT BE A HUMAN?!"
"I don't know," the Slayer cried, "but he is!"
Spike wanted to argue with her. He wanted to tell her that it was not the being but the soul that made the human and that this so-called human's soul was as monstrous as they come, but he knew that no amount of reasoning in the world would do either of them any good. Thus, he instead responded only in a savage growl between clenched fangs, "Then he's one dead human!"
"Spike, no!" Buffy cried. "Don't do this!" She leapt to her feet and started to approach him, but Spike slung out a hand to stop her. Thinking swiftly, the Slayer added, "Don't do this to Dawn!" Seeing the way he stilled momentarily at the exclamation, Buffy rushed to add, "If you kill him, she'll blame herself! Do you want that on her conscience?!"
"She'd want him dead!" Spike returned, his fist tightening around the man's neck and slowly crushing his wind pipe as the fire continued to spread up his body.
"No, she wouldn't!" Buffy cried. "This isn't me we're talking about here, Spike! It's Dawn! Sweet, little, innocent Dawnie!"
"She's not innocent any more," Spike growled out. "This bastard stole that from her when he stole her virginity! Look at your sister, you bloody bitch! Can't you see what he did?!"
"I see it all," Buffy cried out in answer, tears streaming down her face, "but I know she wouldn't want this!"
"How do you know?!" Spike roared.
"Because she made me promise I wouldn't kill him myself when I found him but would take him in!" Buffy finally admitted.
Spike heard the truth in the Slayer's words. Dawn didn't want this. She didn't want him killed. Despite everything he'd done to her and all that he had stolen from her, Dawn still did not want him killed. If he was, Spike knew that Buffy was right when the Slayer said that Dawn would take his murder on her own conscience. If he killed this heartless, soulless bastard, he would steal another piece of Dawn's innocence away, and though he knew that her innocence had already been stolen, he could not bring himself to allow another piece of the innocent, beautiful girl he'd once known to be destroyed. Thus, instead, with an anguished roar, he released his grip on the man's throat, turned with him, and threw him at the Slayer's feet. Spike paused only to pick up his cigarette lighter before stalking from the alley and leaving Buffy to put out the fire.
Less than an hour before sunrise, the Slayer walked up the path to her home. As she neared the porch, she was surprised to find Spike standing silently by a window, his back turned toward her and his steady gaze turned into the house where he watched Willow and Xander doing their best to cheer Dawn, his heart breaking all over again as he watched the injured, spiritually broken girl. Reaching the steps, Buffy cleared her throat as she spoke in a soft whisper, "I'm just getting here."
Spike stiffened at the sound of her voice and turned from the window to look down at her. "Just leavin'," he returned coldly as he stepped to the side of the porch and jumped off onto the grass.
As he started to walk away, Buffy turned and rushed after him. "Spike, wait!" He paused but did not turn back. "I -- I wanted to say thank you," she started only to be interrupted.
He still did not turn back to look at her, and his hands still remained stuffed in the deep pockets of his leather trench just as they had been when she had found him at the window. The six gruff words he spoke evenly and truthfully stunned the Slayer into speechlessness: "I didn't do it for you." Buffy watched Spike go as he then walked away, disappearing into the fleeting night.
The End