Might Have Been: Pangs
"What?!”
Everyone turned their attention from Buffy to Xander.
“What?” he asked glancing nervously around at everyone.
“You said Angel was here.”
Xander groped desperately for a plausible answer. “And by Angel, I obviously meant Spike.”
“Hey!” the vampire in question protested, offended.
“You know,” Xander continued on, ignoring the blonde. “Spawn of Angel.”
“Hey!”
“Angel didn’t turn Spike, Drusilla did,” Dawn explained, hoping to draw her sister’s attention away from her ex-boyfriend’s flying visit. “Angel just raised him because Dru was too out of it to teach him properly.”
Xander looked stunned. “And you know this how?”
“I listen when
he talks.”
“How about everyone try listening when I talk?” Buffy interrupted. “Was Angel here? Today?”
“We didn’t want to upset you,” Giles started to explain, catching Willow’s eye.
“Right,” the redhead agreed. “We were worried about you.”
“Bollocks,” Dawn
muttered and everyone was immediately silent. One by one, all heads turned towards
Spike, who had his eyes closed, his face tilted up towards the ceiling.
“Why me?” he mouthed silently to the heavens before turning his attention back to the young girl opposite him. “Dammit Dawn! I’ve told you not to swear.”
“But I used it in the right context didn’t I?” she asked excitedly. “As in, ‘what a load of crap’?”
Spike’s mouth quirked up as he observed the teenager. “Yeah.”
“Ok. I apologise for saying the B word and amend my comments to ‘what a load of crap’.”
“Dawn!”
“He said not to tell you he was here. He didn’t want you to know. And you know why? Because he’s a big dumb jerk!”
“Nibblet…”
“No!
It’s not fair. They’re always picking on you. And Buffy’s all, ‘Oh Angel, I
love you. I don’t care that you killed people I cared about. Let’s run away
together and revel in the misery of never being allowed to have sex.'"
Dawn’s outburst was met with a thundering silence.
Then Anya laughed.
Xander looked
from his girlfriend to Willow, who was holding her hand over her mouth to keep
from joining in Anya’s hilarity, and sniggered. The distressed look on his face
when he caught himself broke down his best friend’s resolve and the redhead
shook with laughter.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at her friends, who sobered up immediately, and turned her attention to Dawn.
“You don’t know the first thing about my relationship with Angel.”
“I know that he hurt you. I know that you spent months crying yourself to sleep even after he came back. He’s not the guy Buffy.”
“Oh, and he is?” Buffy demanded nodding towards Spike. The vampire in question went back to staring intently at the ceiling as the Scoobies looked incredulously at him. Buffy and Dawn remained focused on each other.
“Why not? He’s
better looking, smarter, kinder, he treats me like a grown up and there’s no
stupid soul curse preventing him from sleeping with you.”
“That’s because he doesn’t have a soul.”
“So, a soul’s the be all and end all? A soul makes the difference?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would you want to be with someone who can lose it in a split second? What happens if one day Angel wakes up and decides he doesn’t want to be good guy anymore? He could be Angelus again before you can say ‘stupid gypsy curse’.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because Angel wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh so people with souls don’t do bad things now? Must have missed the memo.”
“Dawn…” Buffy growled warningly but her sister ploughed on regardless.
“You just don’t
get it do you? Your whole soul excuse is warped. That’s the only thing you see.
If you’re in love with Angel’s soul so much you should have left it in that
paperweight thing Willow put it in. At least then it would still be with you.”
Buffy visibly shrank back and Dawn realised immediately she had gone too far. “Buffy I’m sor…”
The Slayer stood quickly and ran from the room ignoring Dawn’s apology.
“Dawn, that wasn’t…” Willow began to scold gently but a growl from Spike stopped her. “It wasn’t a nice thing to do,” she said turning her attention to the vampire.
“She knows that,” Spike told her sharply and the young Witch lowered her head to avoid his gaze.
“Spike…” Xander began glaring at the vampire who stared back at him, his narrowed eyes glittering menacingly as he waited for Xander to continue.
“Enough,” Giles interrupted, hoping to stop them before another fight broke out. “Xander, Willow, Anya help me clear the table.”
Without a word
the Scoobies picked up the plates, dishes and glasses and followed Giles into
the kitchen.
“Well,” Spike drawled as the room emptied and he was left alone with Dawn. “Happy Thanksgiving Nibblet.” Dawn let out a shuddering sob and Spike noticed for the first time that she was crying. “Hey now,” Spike soothed, wishing, not for the first time, that he wasn’t tied to the chair. “Don’t cry pigeon. Big sis ‘ll forget all about it in no time.”
“I’m a horrible person.”
Spike chuckled. “You are one of the best people I’ve ever known.”
“I just don’t understand what she sees in him.”
“Neither do I sweetheart, but that doesn’t mean you can talk to her like that. She’s you’re sister and she’s hurting, and you’re not supposed to deliberately say things that’ll make it worse.”
“You do.”
“Yeah, but I’m evil.”
“Are not,” Dawn smiled, wiping her eyes.
“Am too!”
“Not!”
“You should go talk to her,” Spike said after a moment, motioning with his head towards the bathroom that Buffy had disappeared into. “Get all the sisterly hugging and bonding done somewhere I don’t have to watch.”
Dawn
smiled at her friend and stood, walking round the table to stand next to him.
“Thank you,” she said softly and leaned down to press a kiss against his cheek.
“Hey!”
Spike exclaimed, surprised and a little touched by her action. Even more touched
that she’d stood up for him, defended him to Buffy. No one had ever done that.
No one since… “Best not go there mate,” he muttered to himself as he struggled
to get comfortable in the chair.
“You could’ve at least untied me,” he shouted at Dawn’s retreating back and grinned when the sound of her laughed drifted back to him along the hall.