Title: I'll Fly Away
Chapter 2: Some Bright Morning
Author: Starbaby
Contact: MEGDENTON@prodigy.net
Series: BtVS
Disclaimer: They belong to Joss, King of the Buffyverse.
Summary: Well, here's the next part. The first part was set waaay in the future. The bulk of the story is a flashback to what went down in Sunnyhell. I promise, the chapters will get longer as I gain momentum. If I made hideous mistakes, let me know. If I done good, let me know. Don't worry, the B/S is coming. Oh, and Dawn haters, there's a lot of her in here, so beware. I like writing about Buffy, Spike and Dawn. They rock.

I'll Fly Away

3/24/02

Chapter 2: Some Bright Morning

Sunnydale,

June, 2004

For Spike, it began with a dream

It wasn't like any other dream he'd had in the last, say, fifty years. There was no sex, no mass-slaughter, and minimal gore. Buffy was featured prominently, but that was, in itself, not surprising. She regularly invaded his dreams.

The fact that she appeared fully clothed was somewhat of a change.

He never dreamt of the Scoobies, not even the Niblet, but there she was, beside an empty grave in a sunny cemetery, dancing on a slippery pile of rosary beads.

He supposed it was a funeral, what with the coffin and all.

And then there was the minister, a balding chap with two puncture wounds in his neck. His blood flowed over the bible in his hands, watering the black roses at his feet. The scent gave Spike the hungries, but he made no move to drink, just nodded at the preacher.

"That's a good book, mate."

The man smiled back, revealing a mouth without a single tooth.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, dream-Spike turned and found dream-Buffy frowning at him. She held up her palms, and they were bleeding. Spike searched his pockets for a Band-aid, but all he came up with was a handful of ashes.

Dawn danced on.

Helplessly, Spike turned to Xander. His mouth dropped open. Xander's legs and trunk were still there, and his shoulders, but that was all.

"Harris! You've lost your head!" Spike exclaimed in shock.

Xander's body gave him a thumbs-up sign.

In desperation, Spike turned to Willow and Tara, who stood with their heads pillowed on the shoulders of a small, portly man that Spike didn't recognize. Later, Spike recalled the stranger as rather tweedy and Giles-ish. The man nodded at Dawn.

"No cheese for her," he said mournfully.

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

Spike awoke with a start, fingers still scrambling for that elusive Band-aid. Sitting bolt upright, sheets falling away from his naked torso, he peered frantically into the darkest corners of the crypt he called home.

Scrubbing at his face, he swung his feet over the side of the bed. It was decent bed, but not as grand as the one the Slayer and Captain Cardboard firebombed two years ago. That bed was bloody brilliant.

Hovering on the edge of rising, Spike finally flopped back onto the sheets he'd just vacated. He lay staring at the ceiling, trying to recall the fading images that had scrolled before him in sleep. Dreams were funny that way; they were gone so quickly, like a shadowy figure passing through a door where the dreamer cannot follow.

A Kalahari bushman told Dru that once, just before she ate him.

Spike turned onto his stomach and thought about Buffy's poison-induced mental institution fantasy. He shook his head. Most girls would dream about going on a shopping spree or a Carnival cruise. Or winning the lotto. Buffy dreamed about going all floppy in some booby hatch.

God, he loved her.

Two long years had passed since his ill-fated egg caper had brought about the end of their…what to call it was a question that haunted him. It was too earth-shattering to be a fling, yet not a relationship in the traditional sense. What they had was more of a twisted symbiosis. All these months had passed, and they were still detangling themselves. On the day the process was complete, Spike planned to lay himself out and wait for daylight to consume him. He was ready. He'd lived a long life.

Spike heaved an unhappy sigh.

Melodramatic, much? Bint's turned me into a nancy boy. Next thing, I'll be skipping through the cemetery and listening to Yanni. I suspect Harris plays it on the sly.

Not that Xander had anyone to hide it from anymore. Demon-girl was still frosty in the extreme. Not long ago, Spike popped into the Circle K for some smokes and was treated to the nauseating sight of the Bricklayer trailing Anya up and down the aisles, trying to strike up a conversation. Spike hid behind some feminine hygiene products and listened, interested despite his vague nausea. Oh, she was all smiles on the surface, but when Anya opened her mouth, bitterness flowed like honey wine.

First it was, "Hello, Xander….how have you been since you left me at the altar." Ouch.

Then, "Oh, Xander…could you reach up and get that Charmin, since you abandoned me for no apparent reason?"

Spike snickered, remembering. Poor boy had turned as pasty white, like the toilet paper.

Lastly, there was the shining moment when Xander was hovering behind her in the checkout line. "Well, Xander," she said in that bright, plucky voice, "I think I'll let you par for my groceries since the cost of mailing back the wedding gifts all fell on me."

When it was done, she sailed off like a Queen.

Spike didn't think she had it in her. He was still standing in the aisle, open-mouthed, when a voice blared over his shoulder.

"Are you gonna buy that, Son?" A pudgy man in an ill-pressed suit was watching him absently fondle a box of Super Thin Maxi's. With wings.

Imagine that.

Spike had glared and bared his teeth, sending the bloke scurrying off to wherever Managers reclined while baggers and checkers toiled. Spike chuckled at the memory. Oh, yeah. He still had it. Pity that the Slayer was sticking to her self-declared moratorium on shagging.

If Xander and his girl were struggling, he and Buffy were doing only slightly better. Desire and regret undercut their banter, the same unreasonable passion that he'd warned her about, all those years ago.

"You're not friends. You'll never be friends…"

Lust slumbered restlessly under a blanket a blanket of pained civility. It would be that way until the two of them were, respectively, memory and dust.

Spike rested his face in a pillow. All these months later, his surviving sheets still held the essence of her in their weave. They smelled of vanilla and bitterness and, oh, life. He rolled over and picked up a battered ticket from the nightstand. Dawn's graduation had been two days ago, a happy affair. By accident--or by design--Red's girly had maneuvered he and Buffy into two seats in the middle of a center aisle. There was no escape once the program started. Spike could have sat there forever, just breathing her in. If he'd gone to his unrest that very moment, Spike would have departed a happy man.

But Buffy…

She twitched and fidgeted and fought with him over the arm rest.

"Move your big…elbows," she snarled.

Ooooh. Buffy wanted to play. He was game. "Make me."

He leaned over to talk to Willow, blowing in the Slayer's ear on the return trip.

She snatched his program and declared it hers.

They were dancing in their seats.

He deliberately stuck his foot out when she tried to climb over his legs on her way to the loo. She wound up sprawled across his lap, looking directly into his eyes for the first time since the beginning of the long goodbye. Grass met sky and, once again, his world cracked open.

He hadn't seen hide nor blonde hair of her since then. She'd fled after the recessional, after they'd stood and clapped wildly for Dawn, the thousand year-old girl whose life was just beginning. All around them were proud parents, all with the same excited, frightened expression on their faces. The one Buffy was wearing, and, Spike suspected, he was too…

A sudden pounding from above jerked Spike out of his reverie. Well, speak of the devil.

But the voice echoing down from above is Dawn's.

"Spike, are you down there? Get your undead behind up here!"

"Be up in a jiff, Bit!" He's already buttoning his pants, having leaped into them the way blokes have been leaping since trousers were invented.

Dawn waited impatiently next to the trapdoor, and he'd barely cleared the ladder when she reached down and hauled him the rest of the way.

"Oof…watch the hair, kid."

"Oh, shut up." She waved a piece of paper at him, crowing with joy.

"What's that, pet? College acceptance, another autographed letter from the Backstreet Boys?" Spike smirked.

Dawn squealed in womanly outrage. "I was a little girl when I liked them, Spike! I'm seventeen, now."

"No! When did that happen?" Spike teased.

Dawn reached under his recliner, pulled out a bottle of hooch, and waved it gleefully at him. "Probably when you were drunk!"

"Hey!" He grabbed for the bottle behind Dawn's back.

She backed up, eyes dancing. "You should go to vamp AA, Spike! I can hear it now…I'm the Big Bad and I'm an alcoholic!"

As unpredictable as the tides, she suddenly tossed the bottle on the chair and waved the paper again. "

Dad wants me to spend the summer in LA with him! A whole summer in the city! With the shopping and the clubs---"

"Without Big Sis," He interrupted knowingly.

"Well, yeah. There's that." Dawn pouted prettily. "Can you blame me? She's been all 'Do this, Dawn….Do that, Dawn' lately. She's like, like…Stalin!"

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Stalin…nasty bloke."

"You knew him?" Dawn's eyes grew round.

Spike nods. "It wasn't borscht in his bowl, Nibs."

"You mean he was a…oh, you're pulling my leg!"

Spike collapsed in laughter. "Had you going, Comrade Summers."

Dawn stamped her foot. "Well, Buffy must be channeling him. I can't wait to get away!"

She grabbed Spike in a fierce hug and danced him across the crypt. They waltzed like circus bears for a moment before she pulled away.

"Dad's picking me up the day after tomorrow. I have to go to the mall… buy new things…pack." In her mind, she'd already sorted through her wardrobe and found it unacceptable for the city of her dreams.

"I'll stop over and say goodbye."

She stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the sun. He realized, in that moment, that she was as tall as she would ever be, and still towered over Buffy.

About to step into the light, Dawn paused and called back. "Don't give up on her, Spike. Buffy likes to think she's all steely, but she's got a heart like rice paper." She wagged a finger at him."Break it and I'll kick your ass." Dawn grinned over her shoulder.

"What's with you Summers women, always threatenin' my nether bits!"

And then she was gone.

Looking back, it was hard to believe that that bright moment, that dance of joy, was the beginning of the end.

No, for Spike it began with the dream.

TBC