Author's Note: And you thought things couldn't get any worse. :)
Buffy's POV
"I just want to go back to not existing."
Oh my god what have we done?
I have no idea what to do next so I take a step forward, so does Faith.
"NO! Just LEAVE ME... ALONE!"
She turns and leaves, heading up the stairs.
"Dawn! Dawn please!"
I go after her but stop at the bottom of the stairs.
What the hell am I doing? She said to leave her alone and I'm just gonna go after her? I'd only make things worse.
I close my eyes as I feel like I'm going to cry. I feel Faith's gentle hand against mine and I look behind me. We just stare into each other's eyes for a second before I turn to her and wrap my arms around her mid-section, holding her close.
"What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know B. We really screwed up royally."
Mom comes up to us.
"I think maybe we just need to give her some time to deal with this."
"Yeah that'll work..."
I pull away from Faith and see Spike standing in the door holding his badly bandaged mid-section.
"What are you doing here Spike?"
He pulls his hand away from his side to reveal a bloody patch in his makeshift bandage.
"I just stopped by for a quick stabbing from your little psychotic there and then I'm off."
Dawn stabbed Spike?
Faith and I pull apart as we both wonder what Spike did.
"What did you do?"
"Me? I didn't do anything."
"Why do I find that so hard to believe?"
I find it hard to believe myself.
"It's the truth."
"Dawn wouldn't just stab someone for no reason, not even you Spike."
"Maybe not under normal circumstances, but since she did I'm guessing she's not using all her marbles."
"What do you know?"
"Nothing, I was just along for the ride..."
He looks at Faith and smiles.
"I have a history of that with you people."
What's that supposed to mean?
Faith walks up to him and shoves him against the edge of the door frame, making him groan with pain.
"Is that supposed to be funny?"
"Ow, god... I know you like it rough pet but I'm not exactly in perfect form at the moment."
"What are you talking about Spike?"
Faith hits Spike with a right cross.
"Shut up Spike..."
What the hell is going on?
Spike smiles at Faith and it's really starting to get creepy.
"What? You didn't tell her?"
He gets punched in his gut wound by Faith.
"I told you to shut up. You're not going to get away with whatever you did to Dawn by changing the subject. What did you do to her?"
I'm actually interested in both subjects.
"I told you, I didn't..."
She hits him again, grabs him and throws him out the front door. I go up to Faith.
"What are you doing?"
"He did something to Dawn B."
"So you're going to beat him till he can't speak? That's gonna make things better?"
"Might not make everything better but it'll probably make me feel better."
She walks out onto the porch and stands over him. She picks him up and punches him hard, then throws him out on to the front lawn.
What is going on with Faith and Spike? Did something happen that I don't know about?
I walk out onto the porch and down to the front lawn with Faith.
"Bugger! Didn't you see the gaping hole in my stomach?"
"Yes actually, I did."
Faith steps on the bloody part of his bandage and presses hard, making him groan in pain and grab the foot. He tries his best to pull her foot off but she just applies more pressure.
"What did you do to Dawn?"
"God, I told you, nothing... I was just there..."
She pushes down on his stomach more, making him shut up. I turn to her.
"Faith, stop it."
"Why? It won't kill him."
"No but it might make him pass out, and besides you won't even let him finish a sentence. We can't know that he's lying to us until he actually finishes doing it."
She looks down at him and I could swear the look on Faith's face makes me think she's afraid of what he's gonna say, just for a second though. She takes her foot off him. I look down at him.
"Talk!"
He takes a second to breathe.
"You really know how to sweet talk a guy, don't you? No wonder you're gay."
I give him a slightly slayer powered kick to the gut and I'm pretty sure he has internal as well as external bleeding because he coughs up blood.
"What happened with Dawn?"
"Like I said... I was just along for the... ride."
"The ride?"
"The ride where?"
"The kid was looking to... take a mid, midnight stroll..."
He coughs a few more times.
"I figured she'd... be safer with me looking over her shoulder..."
"Why you? Why couldn't you just go and get one of us?"
"She wasn't, going to stop long... enough to let me, and in this town, the monsters will grab you three, feet from your door... I had to make sure that, didn't happen..."
"Why?"
He looks directly at Faith for just long enough for me to notice.
"Because as mad as you are, I'm betting you ain't gonna stake me for trying to protect the kid. Whereas... if I had let her go on her, her merry way by her... lonesome, you probably would've s-staked, me the second I told, you..."
He's right... we can't stake him for protecting Dawn.
"Well you bet wrong tonight Spikey. I'll hold him down while you get the stake okay B?"
"Faith?"
"Don't worry B, I got him."
"Faith I'm not gonna kill him."
"Okay I'll kill him just go get the stake."
Is there some reason she'd rather not get the stake herself?
"We can't kill him Faith, he hasn't done anything wrong. He tried to protect Dawn."
"The same Dawn who's upstairs crying her eyes out and wishing she didn't exist?"
"We both know why she's crying and it's not his fault, it's ours."
"He should've done a better job protecting her. She never should've found out the truth that way."
"The truth about what?"
We both look down at the beaten and broken vamp below us. Faith kicks him in the head.
"Shut up!"
He shuts up.
"See, Faith? He doesn't even know what the problem is. He couldn't protect her from what she found out."
"How do we know? He's a vampire, lying is almost as natural to him as drinking blood. He could've found out the truth and been leading her into a trap."
"You're grasping at straws Faith. We can't kill him for helping Dawn."
"You mean helping to ruin Dawn's life?"
"Faith..."
She just looks at me for a second.
"Fine, I'll get the stake myself."
She heads back towards the house but I grab her arm to stop her.
"Faith, don't..."
"Why not? He's just vampire, and a flaccid one at that."
Spike coughs up a lung.
"That's not, what you said... before..."
Before?
I turn and look down at him.
"Before what Spike?"
"It's nothing B."
"The time before... when she shagged me..."
Shagged? What?
"She said she was surprised I, I kept up with her, thrust for thrust..."
"You SON OF A BITCH!"
She goes up to him and kicks him square in the temple, knocking him out.
"Faith?"
"We need to check on Dawn."
She starts back to the house.
Did Faith sleep with Spike?
I go after her, grabbing her to make her face me.
"What was he talking about?"
"It's nothing..."
"It sure sounded like something to me."
There's a long pause between us and for a second I really don't want to ask this question.
"Did you sleep with Spike?"
Another long pause and I feel like my heart is going to shatter if she answers.
"No... but I fucked him."
"What?"
She moves to go inside again but my hand is still on her arm so I stop her.
"You had sex with Spike?"
Faith looks right at me, deep into my eyes.
"Yes, I did."
She had sex with Spike?
"Why?"
"Buffy we've got bigger problems right now then who I've fucked."
"Not if it's a vampire named Spike we don't. How could you?"
"How could I what, fuck Spike?"
I don't say anything.
"You know, you may not be the most experienced person I've ever been with but I'd be willing to bet you know exactly how to have sex with a vampire."
I can feel the tears in my eyes.
"So he was better than me? That's why you did it? He can give you something I can't?"
"No, that's not it. He doesn't have anything I want."
"Then why? Why would you sleep...?"
I point behind me at a still unconscious Spike.
"With that?"
"Because he was there B, because he was there and you weren't..."
I wasn't there?
"When? When was I not there?"
"When you were dead, that's when. You were dead and I, I needed to feel something other than heart broken and he was just... there."
"So you had to do it, like Mount Everest."
"You know what? Fuck you B!"
"Don't you mean fuck HIM?"
She looks at me, tears in her eyes, anger behind them.
"Is that what this is about? You think I cheated on you?"
"Didn't you?"
"You were dead, B. Dead, buried and decomposing. Usually when two people get involved and one of them dies the other moves on, and I tried. I tried to live with the fact that you were gone. I tried to move on and live the life that we had started to build together. But everywhere I looked all I could think about was everything that we could've had, the life we could've lived."
God I had no idea.
"And I hated you for that. I've never had the perfect life B. I've never had the friends and the mom or any of that. But the morning after we made love for the first time, the morning I told you I loved you and knew that I really meant it, I felt like I had it. It felt like I had the perfect life. And then you had to give your life for mine and I fell apart. I hated you for it. I hated you for loving me. I hated myself for loving you, but most of all I hated you for giving me the greatest gift in the world... a reason to live. You gave me a reason to see tomorrow and then took tomorrow from me. If you hadn't already been dead, I probably would've killed you for that. So, yeah I fucked Spike to try and make the pain of loving you stop. If you wanna yell and scream and feel betrayed, you go ahead. I'm going to go help our daughter."
She turns and goes back into the house.
What have I done?
I follow after her, putting myself between her and the stairs.
"Faith, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lashed out at you like that. I was just... with everything that's going on I, I wasn't thinking."
"And now you are?"
"Yes and... and it was just shock. I never should've said what I did, and I know you'd never cheat on me unless I was dead. I'm sorry baby, I'm sorry."
I put my arms around her and hold her against me.
"I was just looking for a way to let you go B."
"I know, just like I wanted to in heaven."
We just hold each other for a minute until she pulls back enough to look at me.
"I guess we're just too much in love to be separated by simple death."
I smile at her and wipe a tear from her cheek.
"Well I meant it when I said I'd love you till the day I die and after."
She just smiles at that and I bite my bottom lip gently as I feel myself start to cry again.
"I'm sorry..."
She reaches up and cradles my face, placing a kiss on my lips, calming me.
"It's all right B. If I had found out that you had sex with Spike, I might've reacted the same way."
"You think?"
"Probably..."
We both take another moment to just look at each other.
It's all going to be all right. We just have to help Dawn through this and it'll all be okay.
I take a step back from Faith.
"We have to check on Dawn."
"We really should."
My eyes catch the empty living room where Mom was. I look around.
"Mom?"
"What's wrong?"
Mom calls from upstairs.
"GIRLS! Come quick!"
We look at each other as a sudden panic hits us. We bolt up the stairs, skipping more than a few steps.
Oh god, what if Glory got to Dawn?
Once we're on the second floor we head straight to Dawn's open door.
"Mom, what is...?"
And then I see Dawn lying motionless on her bed, her sheets red with blood where her cloth covered wrists are.
Oh my god!
"Dawn!"
I rush to her side to help as Faith does the same. We take over for Mom, each of us applying pressure to a wrist.
"Yes hello, I need an ambulance here now."
Dawnie...