White Magic

Dawn glanced anxiously toward the basement stairs, a dry swallow visible in her throat, before she let out a heavy, shaky sigh and sat down on the sofa in the lobby. From across the room, the green empath demon noticed her actions, and crossed to where she sat. In perfect mimicry, he echoed her sigh and threw himself down dramatically on the sofa beside her.

Dawn gave him a dubious look, a single eyebrow raised in question.

"Gotta say, Sugar Plum, you don't even have to sing for me to know that you're either scared silly or bored stiff...and neither one is a good look for you." Lorne paused before adding in a slightly softer tone, "Though my money's on option number one. Am I right?"

Dawn bit her lip as she looked toward the stairs again, her blue eyes huge in her pale, heart-shaped face. After a moment, she nodded in reluctant admission. "Yeah," she whispered. "I just...I wonder what Giles is gonna say."

"I'm sure he'll be able to come up with some answers," Lorne assured her, reaching out a hand to give hers a supportive pat and a little squeeze. "Nobody knows your sister as well as he does, Cupcake. If anybody can figure out how to help her, it'll be her Watcher."

"Somehow...that doesn't help much," Dawn confessed with an apologetic little grimace. "I mean...what if he can't find the answers? What if he comes out here and says that there's nothing we can do? Where do we go from there?"

Lorne opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the shaken girl went on, her voice softening, trembling as she continued.

"And what if he says...what if he says we can help her?" When Lorne just looked at her, shaking his head slightly to indicate his confusion, she clarified in a voice of helpless frustration and fear, "What if we manage to make her right again...to turn her back into...into Buffy...what then? Where do we go from there?"

Understanding filled the scarlet eyes of the demon, and he nodded slowly, sympathetically, turning his face forward as he considered the question.

"I mean...after the things she's done...the horrible things she's said...to me...to Spike...how are we supposed to go on, talking to her...just looking at her, every day, and knowing what she did to us? How can things ever be like they were again?"

"They can't, Pumpkin." Lorne sighed as he gave her his honest reply. "Too much has changed, and you won't ever be able to go back. But...but things can get better. Given enough time, and healing...it might not feel like it now, but if we can get Buffy back to her old self again, things can be made right. Not the same, never the same...but right."

"Yeah, well," Dawn sighed. "That's a pretty big ‘if'. She's gone absolutely psycho. What if there's no way to fix her?"

"You can't give up, Sweetie Pie," Lorne insisted. "You've gotta hold on, can't think that way. There's always hope..."

"I believe there may well be no hope for the girl."

Dawn rose to her feet and whirled around to face the Watcher in a single fluid motion, troubled eyes full of alarm focused on his face as he stepped off the stairs and into the lobby. Giles froze just past the doorway, dismay in his eyes as he saw Dawn. Seated, she had been outside his range of vision, and he had not realized that she was in the room at all.

Cursing his own carelessness, he fell silent, steeling himself as she urgently approached.

"Giles...what do you mean, there's no hope?" There was a quiet, trembling desperation in her voice as she stopped a bare foot in front of him, searching blue eyes gazing up into his pleadingly. "What's wrong with her? Can't we fix it?"

Giles hesitated, unsure how to answer her questions. The words he had planned for the adults in the room were a great deal more brutally honest than he wished to be with this sweet, trusting girl who was nearly as much a daughter to him as Buffy herself. He reached out a steadying, compassionate hand to gently hold Dawn's arm, his other hand rising to her cheek in a gesture of fatherly affection and comfort.

"Dawn...I can't know anything for certain...not just yet. I was simply...frustrated by my conversation with your sister, as she was not cooperative with any of my attempts at actual communication. I must confess, my dear, I'm very nearly as much at a loss right now as to what might be wrong with her as I was when I went downstairs." Giles paused, studying her expression cautiously, trying to gauge whether or not she was believing his attempted recant. "Please," he added gently, "pardon my thoughtless words. They were spoken in anger and haste, and not in any way a...a definite conclusion."

Dawn gave him a brave smile, her eyes unreadable as she slowly pulled away from him, backing up a step as she nodded her acceptance of his words. "Okay...I just...what are we going to do, then?"

"I'm afraid it falls to research," Giles admitted with an apologetic smile. "As usual. I promise you, Dawn, we'll do our best to find out what it is that's wrong with Buffy, and help her if at all possible."

Dawn nodded again, swallowing hard, and the smile on her face seemed a little too bright, too hopeful, as she looked away from the Watcher's face and crossed her arms over her chest with a heavy sigh.

"I'm gonna...go check on Spike and Tara..."

Giles nodded encouragingly, clearly pleased and relieved by her decision. "I think that's a very good idea..."

"...so you guys can go ahead and discuss my sister and how there's no way to help her, without worrying about my delicate, childish ears."

Without waiting for a response from any of the silent, dumbfounded adults who stared after her, Dawn made her way quickly up the stairs, hurrying toward the bedroom Spike and Tara shared. She knew that there was no way Giles was going to be honest with her, not when the news about her sister was as bad as she suspected.

If they're not going to tell me the truth anyway, I'd rather be with people I know will be honest with me...instead of sitting here with all of them staring me and just wishing I was out of the room so they could talk about it...

She hesitated outside the door to the bedroom, a slight smirk forming on her lips in spite of her troubled heart as she wondered briefly if she was going to be interrupting anything. Tara and Spike seemed to be spending more and more time alone lately, as their bond began to deepen...not that Dawn minded in the least.

*******************************

Spike and Tara lay on the bed in each other's arms, utterly lost in the moment and unaware of the drama that was taking place downstairs. Amazingly, his close call with Buffy in the basement had left Spike feeling more exhilarated than frightened. He had planned the entire encounter, and all had fallen into place according to his plan - and now he remembered something she had stolen from him a long time ago.

She could lose.

He had set out to play her, to manipulate her into the responses he desired - and it had worked.

The thrill of his regained power only served to increase his excitement as Tara kissed him with a soft, quiet intensity that was awakening a fresh need within him. When he pressed forward, returning her kiss, Tara placed a single, gentle hand at the back of his head, guiding him down with her as she lay down on her back on the bed.

This time, the idea of lying on top of her did not seem so foreign and unsettling to him. Spike ran his hands hungrily up and down her sides as he deepened the kiss, cherishing the silken feel of her skin beneath his fingertips as he pushed up the hem of her blouse to caress her.

My hero, she had said...and each word made his heart sing in its own individual way.

He was hers...and the admiration in her voice, her eyes, was undeniable.

"Tara," he murmured against her lips, drawing back only enough to allow her to draw breath. "Tara...love you..."

The simple words of affection drew a smile to her lips. Her eyes closed for a moment as her head fell back against the pillow, then opening again as she returned his words, holding his gaze with a piercing, intimate look that left no doubt as to her sincerity.

"I love you, Spike...more than I've ever...ever loved anyone..."

His heart soared with the thrill of hearing those words, and he leaned in for another kiss, his hands shifting along her sides and edging beneath the hem again...

"Knock, knock!"

An abrupt rapping sound immediately followed the words called out from the other side of the bedroom door, as if the words themselves were not clear enough and the speaker had to illustrate them with her actions. Spike rolled over onto the bed beside Tara with a soft sigh of frustration, as Tara hastily sat up against the headboard of the bed, straightening her blouse and running a hand through her disheveled hair.

"Who is it?" she called out breathlessly. She recognized Dawn's voice, but was simply stalling for time before allowing the girl to enter.

Of course, Dawn picked up on her ruse, and Tara and Spike could almost hear the raised eyebrow she was surely wearing in her voice, as she replied, "Um...Dawn? Come on, like you two don't recognize my voice by now! When you're not too distracted, anyway..."

"Come in, Bit," Spike cut her off before she could say anything more.

Dawn immediately opened the door and entered the room, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking in the sight of her friends - breathless and bedraggled and very clearly nervous and self-conscious.

"See? Fat lot you know. Us just sittin' here, all decent and everything...just talkin'...but you've gotta assume that if we're up here with the door closed, it means we're..."

"Shagging like bunnies?" Dawn concluded for him, her mouth forming a teasing smirk as she gave them a slow, deliberate once-over look. "Yeah. Pretty much."

"We weren't! Really!" Tara insisted, a nervous laugh escaping her lips, blushing furiously.

Dawn just stared at her for a long moment, making it quite clear just how convincing she thought they were. Finally, when it became obvious that they were not going to convince her, Tara sighed and amended her words.

"Yet."

"I knew it," Dawn crowed, reaching out to give Tara's shoulder a gentle push. "Not that I mind. I just like giving you guys a hard time."

"So...any news yet?" Spike asked, a nervous swallow following the calm question the only indication of his anxiety. "What'd the Watcher say?"

"Absolutely nothing in front of the ‘delicate ears of the child'," Dawn replied, the last few words spoken in a dreadful imitation of a stuffy British accent. "Because it's not like I didn't hear and see what she's capable of myself in the last two weeks, or like she almost killed me. I've got to be protected from the truth." She nodded with exaggerated emphasis. "It's so much better if I drive myself out of my mind wondering instead."

By the time Dawn got halfway through her complaints, Spike and Tara were focused on each other again, but this time with expressions of concern as their eyes met. Dawn felt a flash of irritation as she realized that they had totally missed the last part of her venting session.

"Maybe we'd better get down there," Tara suggested. "See what they've found out."

Spike nodded hurriedly, drawing in a deep, shaky breath and letting it out slowly as he rose from the bed. Tara waited for him to come around the bed and put her arm around his waist as they headed for the door. At the door, Tara turned back toward Dawn for a moment with a reassuring smile.

"It's gonna be fine, Dawnie. Give us a few minutes to find out what's going on, and we'll be right back up."

Dawn nodded, giving Tara a much more convincing version of the too-bright smile she had given Giles, waiting until they had closed the door behind them to let it fall from her face.

"Yeah," she muttered. "I'll just be right here...waiting...while the grown-ups talk about all this incredibly-vital-to-my-life stuff downstairs." She rose from the bed and headed toward the door, scoffing softly, "Right. Like that would ever happen."

Silently, careful not to allow herself to be seen or heard by the adults in the lobby, Dawn slipped out the door and headed cautiously down the stairs.