Title: One

Author: Sarah.

Disclaimer: Oh mighty Joss, lead us into the light of your infinite wisdom.

AN: If there are any weird typos in this, it's either a) my brain has turned

to mush from too much Big Brother, b) I can't type to save my life or c) my

cat was on the keys. Honest.

One

All the subtle flavors of my life have become bitter seeds and poison

leaves without you

You represent what's true

I drank the color from the sky and turned blue without you

- We Come One, Faithless

It seems strange to be in Buffy's house without Buffy, somehow. Odd to sit

in Buffy's kitchen, and drink tea, without her here to make some jibe about

how very English I'm being about all this. Of course, if she were here,

there would be nothing for me to be English about. Business as usual. Still,

I suppose something would be different, after all, it was Dawn or Buffy who

would have to-

I should have known she would never let that happen.

(Tell Giles I figured it out, and I'm okay.)

Dawn knows it, too. That something went wrong, that there was some mistake.

It should be Dawn whose broken body we see when we close our eyes, not

Buffy's. It should be Dawn whose lifeless eyes stare back into our own and

say "Why did you let me do this?" It should be Dawn's name inscribed on a

cold stone in an unforgiving cemetery -

"Mr. Giles?"

I didn't want to talk to him, particularly, because I had a preconceived

idea of how awkward it would be to discuss someone that we both saw as a

daughter, but who only saw one of us as a father. That's what he said to me

- "Only one of us was ever a father to her." I'm not sure if he meant me. I

didn't know what to say, so I merely looked somber, and made my excuses.

"It's so terribly, terribly hard."

Is that me speaking? A young man whom I know all too well has his cold hand

on my shoulder and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Young, ha! He's

older than I am. Everything seems to -

"Black seems to get more fitting these days, don't it, Rupe?"

"This is a Hellmouth," I reply stiffly. "We should expect it."

"Right, right. And she was a Slayer, and all. We should have expected it."

He looks at me and I can feel him daring me to reply to that

without breaking down, but I won't, not in front of him, I won't. "That how

it works?"

"No."

"What's that?"

"No," I say a little louder. "Please, Spike, she wouldn't have wanted -"

"Me here? Sure about that?"

"Look, Spike, just get out." I'm crying now and the look on Xander's face is

dreadful as he speaks. Willow has a comforting hand on my arm and it's all I

can do to keep from bawling my eyes out. "Look what you've done. Are you

happy now? Just get out!"

Spike slinks over to the door, but as he reaches it, he looks back, and our

eyes meet for a fleeting second - his as cold and hard as the barren earth,

and mine, red and bloodshot, and suddenly older than I've ever felt - and

for a terrible moment I hear his voice, but his lips don't move.

"You know I'm right."

And I'm afraid, because I do.

=====

"It's about how you love a girl so much you want to take her out of this

place" Tim Wheeler

"If I die before I wake

At least in heaven I can skate..." OPM