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Summary: In an attempt to get over her grief for Spike, Buffy has cut herself off from her past life, and anything that reminds her of the vampire that's still in her heart.  But when a news story brings her attention to the battle in LA, the Slayer finds herself once again facing old betrayals and old faces.  Returning to LA she finds even newer betrayals and the possible death of her most secret hope.


Faded Hope

by bitchee

Chapter 7


Dawn rubbed her eyes. She was so tired she was starting to feel punchy.

She had waited while her sister used her cell, verifying which hospital it was that the wounded had been taken to. Then after another lecture from her about the need to be careful, Buffy had reluctantly left to speak to Willow and Dawn had gone looking for Spike.

She peered around the gloomy interior of the old hotel. So far she’d seen no one to be careful of. The place seemed to be deserted.

Making her way up the staircase, she couldn’t help but shiver involuntarily. This place is way more creepy than I remembered.

She had just reached the top of the stairs and started down the hall when she heard a door open and the sound of approaching voices.

Ducking back around the corner, she flattened herself against the wall on the far side of a dusty potted plant. Praying that whoever was coming would be too involved in their conversation to notice her, she did her best to calm her racing heart.

Watching from her partially concealed position behind the tall palm, she held her breath as Angel, closely followed by Andrew, walked right past her and down the stairs.
Dawn tensed as halfway down Angel paused in his movement and conversation.
Please don’t turn around… please don’t turn around… please don’t turn around.

She let out a breathless sigh of relief as Andrew, with his usual grace and cluelessness, immediately ran into him, nearly knocking them both over. If Angel had sensed anything it was overlooked in his obvious hurry to extract himself from Andrew’s groping apology.

Dawn had to suppress a snigger at the vampire’s less than subtle attempt to evade Andrew’s busy hands.

Looks like Buffy isn’t the only one with a yen for the undead,she thought, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Moments later the spectacle of the visibly annoyed vampire and a still a clueless Andrew exited the lobby, disappearing into one of the many shadowy doorways of the old hotel.

Dawn removed the hand from over her mouth and sucked in a deep breath.

Whew, that was way too close for comfort. I am so not ready for the Andrew slayage just yet. At least now that I know the little rat is in LA, it simples things up. No unnecessary Andrew trackage. Big check in the bonus column.

Dawn slid out from behind the palm. Keeping a wary eye on the stairs and lobby, she backed carefully towards the hallway.

She was so busy with her thoughts and her need for stealth, that when she backed up straight into the hard male body that was moving towards her, her first reaction was motivated by years of Sunnydale living.

She turned with a shriek, swung, and managed to hit her unknown assailant directly in the nose.

“Bloody Hell! What is it with you Summers’ women and the nose?” Spike snarled, fingers curled protectively over the oft-damaged part.

“Spike!” Dawn squeaked, as the vampire stood there glowering at her through watery eyes.

“Lo’ Bit, long time no see. Anything else you planning to take a shot at?” he rumbled.
“I don’t see no matches so I’m thinking the fiery death thing is something you’re saving for later, yeah?” Quirking an eyebrow, his mouth twisted into the sarcastic knowing grin Dawn remembered so well.

The next thing Spike knew he had his arms full of one sobbing, babbling girl that didn’t look in the least bit mad at him. Course I could be wrong, he reflected wryly, as moments and a well placed kick later he was bent over rubbing his abused shin.

When she took another swing at him he decided that enough was enough.

Trying to immobilize her long enough to avoid any more unexpected attacks, and maybe get to the bottom of why both of the Summers girls were in LA, he was distracted by the sudden appearance of Faith.

“Hey Blondie you all right?” she asked in amusement as she took in the sight of the very flustered vampire and the crying ex key. “Whoa… What the fuck?” she gasped, stumbling back as Dawn lunged.

Spike’s own timely leap and subsequent waist hold on the furious Dawn was the only thing preventing her from experiencing the wrath of Dawn for herself.

As Spike wrapped both his arms around her, clamping hers to her side, Dawn gave in to her anger and misery. Flopping loosely in his arms she allowed him to pull her close to his chest as she burst back into fresh tears.

Shooting a confused Faith a look over the younger girl’s head, he indicated with a nod that she should leave them alone. Then without loosening his grip he carried Dawn to the closest room. Sitting down, he gently cradled her on his lap.

She sobbed for a few minutes more and Spike just let her be, knowing from experience that she needed to get it all out before she would be able to talk.

His mind was in a whirl. First Buffy turning up and acting like she’s seen a ghost and now his nibblet was crying like her heart was breaking.

What the soddin hell is going on? Dawn is supposed to be in boarding school, and Buffy should be in Rome living her bloody normal life. What the hell are the two of them doing here in LA?

Spike was one very confused vampire. He was buggered if he knew what the hell was going on, but he bloody well intended to find out.

Nothing that had happened in the last couple of hours made any sense.

After his and Faith’s little talk he’d been confused enough, but bumping into Dawn while he’d been lost in thought had totally thrown him. She was the last person he’d expected to see.

And the fact that he and Faith had just been talking about both of the Summers girls right before he’d slammed into the youngest…well it was downright scary.

Just before it happened he’d been remembering the summer Buffy had been dead, and the way his bit had depended on him. After what Faith had told him, he had been feeling guilty over the fact that angry with him or not, the right thing to do would have been to let her know he was alive and go from there.

He might have doubted Buffy’s feelings for him, but he’d never doubted Dawn’s. Not even after the threat to set him on fire. He knew his girl. She was just protecting her sister, and yeah he admitted she was right to be browned off.

But his nib could never stay mad for long.

Just before the end he’d noticed a subtle softening in her attitude towards him, and he’d known with time she would eventually forgive him and let him back in to her life. Of course, time had run out before they got the chance to mend their fences, but he was still sure, given that time, it would have happened.

So why then when he found out that Buffy had shipped her off, hadn’t he thought to contact her?

Could what Faith suspected be true?

Was someone messing with all of them? Was there some sort of mojo preventing him from asking the obvious questions?

Come to think about it, Buffy could be a bitch at times but there was no way he could see her bootin’ kid sis out of her life for some wanker she barely knew. She was capable of a lot of shit, but when it came to prioritizing, Dawn was always first on the list.

Ok, so he had to admit it, there was something funny going on.

Right then, time for a chat. Let’s just see what bite size has to say and then I can go kill whoever’s been fuckin with us all.

“Hey Bit, you with me?”

He waited patiently as Dawn sniffled into his shirt a couple of times before raising tear reddened eyes to meet his.

Tucking a strand of long hair behind her ear, he smiled at the familiar gesture, one he had done often in the months that Buffy was gone.

“So Nibblet, wanna tell me what all the hoo-ha from before was about?”

He watched as she bit her lip nervously, and waited for her to speak.

Dawn, for her part, was both embarrassed about her tears and mad with herself for acting like a child. She had been determined to act like the young woman she’d become, not a big old weepy baby. It was just the whole unexpectedness of the way they’d bumped into each other. It was one thing to hear he was back, but to actually see him in the flesh without warning? Well it had seriously messed up her resolve to be mature about the whole situation.

And since it was already messed up…

“You’re a jerk…and …and… a total asshole. You made my sister cry… and…I… I hate you.”


When Spike failed to react apart from a rather silly grin, she reflected wryly that the words might have had a little more impact if she hadn’t still been curled up on his lap like a needy kitten.

Great. How was she supposed to stay angry with him when he was looking at her like that? Stupid Vampire.

“Fine!” she sniffed “I’m still not forgiving you. First you go off and get resurrected without telling us,” she glared, “then nearly get all dead again fighting some lame ass fight with Angel, and then we come all this way to find you busy boinking Faith.”

Poking him in the chest to underline her displeasure, Dawn did her best to stay mad at him, which was hard when he was now obviously trying his best not to laugh at her.

“You have some major sucking up to do, mister. I thought…we thought that you were dead. We mourned you, and you were here in LA hanging with Angel. And that reminds me, how the hell long have you been back for anyway?”

As his expression changed from one of amusement to sorrow, Dawn scrambled off his lap and turned to face him fists clenched by her side. Her confusion rose as Spike deliberately ducked his head to avoid her eyes.

“Why would you do that to Buffy? Why hurt her like that Spike?” she asked plaintively.

Watching his face, she waited for him to acknowledge the pain in her voice. She was shocked when he finally looked at her. Instead of the apology she expected to see she saw only anger.

Eyes glittering gold with his barely suppressed emotions, Spike took in the tear stained face of the girl he had once vowed to protect until the end of the world.

Buffy” he spat bitterly “How could I hurt Buffy? Ha! That’s bloody rich. Your buggaring sister bout ripped my heart out and you ask me how I could do that to her?
Bloody bitch sent me into the hellmouth to die and when she finds out I’m back she’s too busy with her new man to even break my bloody heart in person.”

Scowling, he continued. “I knew she’d never love me. Fuck Dawn, how could she after what I did?” eyes melting back to blue he flinched with the memory.
“An I was ok with that. S’ what I deserved. But what she did Dawn”, his jaw flexed as he fought the tears that he could feel welling up, “I didn’t think she was that cold.” he admitted, his voice rough with pain.

“I bloody believed in her. I believed in her and trusted her, warrior for the powers that she was. God!” he shook his head. “I was so fuckin’ stupid. I thought that she at least cared about me. If not as a friend, least as a fellow warrior… that maybe the soul had let her see that I could be something more than just a monster. Ha.”
Laughing bitterly, he deliberately locked gazes with her.
“Too right, she saw something. She saw a way out, another use for me, an’ the bloody soul.”

Unable to look at her, he snarled before turning away from the suddenly white-faced Dawn.

Taking a harsh unneeded breath, he recounted, through gritted teeth, what he believed to be the final betrayal by the woman he loved.

“She gave me the bloody amulet to wear Dawn. She knew whoever wore it was gonna die, so she sent her bloody soul mate back to LA and had me wear it instead. She fucking used me and I let her. Back there on the Hellmouth… I died for her an’ she didn’t…”

“NO Spike that’s not true!” she cried angrily, cutting him off before he could finish his accusation.

“Buffy loves you… She wouldn’t do that… You didn’t see her” defended Dawn as she met his hard gaze. “She was so proud of you and what you’d done… and we…we… both of us, we mis…missed you.”

She sobbed as the memory of Buffy’s anger and pain washed over her. “She told us all… all of us, all the Scoobies and the slayers. Hell, you can ask Robin Wood if you don’t believe me. He was one of the ones that survived. He was on the fucking bus with us.”

She reached forward, unmindful of her language or the danger she might be courting, and grabbed his arm, wrenching the vampire around to face her.

“Fuck you, Spike. You broke her heart that day. She’s barely been living since Sunnydale and you’re fucking here with that two faced bit…”

“Enough!” he roared. Jaw clenched, he resisted the urge to shake her within an inch of her life.

“I don’t bloody believe you’re telling me this shit Dawn. She never bloody loved me! " he snarled.

"Not for a single moment in the whole time I stood by that ungrateful bint’s side did she once give me even a fraction of what she gave to the poof or captain cardboard. She used me for sex and she used me for muscle, and after I got the soul she used me to prop up her fuckin ego”.

He glared at the speechless girl in front of him, his hurt bleeding through the anger.

“She gave Robin Wood more fuckin bloody care than she ever gave me. She took everything I bloody had an’ then the bitch ripped my heart out and watched me die”.

He took a deep unneeded breath. “So don’t you try telling me she feels anythin’ resembling love? The Slayer doesn’t have it in her…not for this vamp,” he finished bitterly.

Turning away from her he let out another roar, this time of sorrow and frustration.

Punching the wall viciously he finally let the tears come as the visibly frightened girl stumbled backwards to sink heavily onto the room’s dusty single bed.

“No… No it’s not true… she isn’t like that,” mumbled the distraught teen. “I was there… I’ve been there… every day for the past year. You don’t know what it’s been like for her… she…”

“Arrgh. She what then?” he yelled, his rage spiraling out of control. “What the fuck do you know? You’re a bloody child Dawn.” He advanced on her, temper barely in check, even as the girl on the bed rose to meet him.

“I know my sister!” she yelled back as she reached forward to shove him out of the way. “You’re just more stupid than I thought you were if you think that she could be the way she was towards you and not love you”.

Spike reacted instinctively, grabbing both of her wrists in an iron grip as a furious Dawn switched from trying to shove him to attempting to pummel him with her now clenched fists.

“Can’t you see?” she sobbed, her anger softening at the look of pain in his blue eyes.
“She chose you over all of us… she took your chip out when Giles practically told her not too. And she came for you when the First had you, even after everyone said you were probably dead or working with it.”

Her eyes met his beseechingly, willing him to believe what she knew was the truth.

“She risked getting killed by a Turok Hahn just to get you back Spike, and when she did… she believed in you when nobody else even wanted you around, much less trusted you… For God sake she even told Robin that she would let you kill him if he ever tried to hurt you again, and she completely cut Giles out of her life after what he tried to do”.

Dropping her head to his chest, her voice broke with her next words.

Words so soft, that he was barely able to make them out.

“You tried to…to r…rape h…her… and you left us… an… and …she forgave you”.

Looking up at him with tears still falling she whispered shakily.

“But the moment you came back… she stopped seeing anything but you… Why do you think I agreed to kick her out of her own house?”

She looked away trying not to cry again as she admitted what she would never have dared to tell Buffy or anyone else.

“She stopped seeing me Spike…and I hated her for it”.

Spike’s anger fled at the girl’s obvious misery. All he could do was pull her in close and do what he did best when his little bit was hurting.

“Oh pet, S’not true,” he offered, rocking her as she launched into fresh tears.

“S ‘ok, shh. Course Buffy saw you. You’re just… upset… yeah? We were all outta sorts back then, luv. Had the bloody First and the bringers messing with all our heads. Who wouldn’ta been a lil' distracted. The slayer jus' had a lot on her mind, what with the world endin' an all.”

Hugging her close he attempted to reassure her as she continued to sob.

Shh, Don’t cry Dawnie. Big sis was just doing her job. You know how she gets… s’ a little too focused sometimes an’ forgets to be Buffy, but you gotta know there’s no way the slayer was ignoring you kitten, least not for the likes of me”.

He smoothed her hair and tilted her chin up to look into her face.

“Buffy loves you more n anything Nib, S’no way anybody could be more important to her than you…how could you even think…”

He trailed off, words deserting him as the girl in his arms looked up at him with a world-weariness he wasn’t accustomed to seeing on his nibblet’s face.

Bollocks, what the bloody hell do I say? Girl’s daft if she thinks I had anything to do with her sister’s attitude. Though could be she’s got a point about the Buffy not seein’ her thing. Slayer was right odd at times.

He studied her expression, his thoughts going back to those last few months he’d spent living in the slayers basement.

Maybe Dawn’s right… maybe Buffy didn’t pay her much attention, but we were at bloody war, surely Dawn should understand that big sis had lots more on her mind than being a mum. Fuckin house full o potentials… S’ no wonder what with everyone expectin’ her to protect them that Dawn got overlooked now an again. Poor niblet.

He stroked her tears from her cheeks and tried to find the right words. Marshalling his thoughts he opened his mouth to speak but before he had the chance, someone else beat him to it.


“She’s right”.

Two sets of startled blue eyes shot to the doorway to the figure that had, up until then, gone unobserved. With varying degrees of shock, both of them met the carefully blank gaze of the Slayer.