The Self-Same Lore

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Summary: "Now, we can do this the hard way, or... well, actually there's just the hard way." --Buffy, "Welcome to the Hellmouth"

AUTHOR: Cynthia Liskow
EMAIL: cynthia_liskow@att.net
PAIRING: Dawn/Other
RATING: NC-21 - (Not because it's all *that* racy, but because I'm trying to cover my ass. This is not intended for the youth of the nation.)
SPOILERS: I doubt that I could spoil more of Season 6 if I tried.
WARNINGS: Explores teen sexuality in an unglamorized, unexploitative, non-kiddie-porn way. In other words, the way it actually happens much of the time. So, be warned: Contains depictions of sexual acts performed by consenting minors.
DISCLAIMER: What Joss hath joined together, let no man tear asunder. He and some vaguely threatening Fox and/or UPN corporate meanies own all. I own nothing.
THANKS, really a lot: To Rachel, Laura, and Jen, for ledge-talking-down beta reads and pep talks.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: On the evening of June 19, I was sticking my nose in other people's business, reading beloved friend Rachel's blog (http://ranton.blogspot.com), where I discovered her (then) latest rant. I encourage you to read it. It begins:

"What is the deal with people getting so high and mightily offended by stories where Dawn has sex?"

After reading her arguments, with which I agree, I thought, "I can do that. I can write a Dawn sex story that is true to life, that isn't kiddie-porn, that has actual meaning and growth and gives insights into characters and situations and that whole human condition thing." And so I did. And, frankly, Judy Blume's "Forever" and "Summer Sisters" are waaaay smuttier than this, and no one ever arrested her for exploiting her underage female characters.
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***

"Post-Graduate"

Hope it was that tortured me,
And Love that taught me more;
And now I learn at Sorrow's knee
The self-same lore.

--Dorothy Parker, of course, of course

***

I should have told someone. I mean, not at first, because at first there wasn't anything to tell, but by the time there was something, no one was listening.

***

I. Autumn

I'm so nervous. I know he wants to, and I know I want to, but I can't stop, like, making small talk because I'm so nervous. Where did Janice and whatshisname go? Oh my god, what's his name? Not Janice's, mine. What's his name? How can this be happening if I can't remember his name? Justin! Right. Good. Okay. I'm still talking, somehow, and then he moves in and I bolt. Idiot. And I hear the proper words come out of my mouth, trying to ask what he thinks is going to happen, and he says just the right thing and I'm not talking at all because his mouth is over mine, and it's...

It's weird. I don't know what to do with my hands or my nose, or, oh god, my tongue. I feel his poking at my lips and I realize I'm supposed to open them. I *know* this. I've read it in dirty books--they don't even have to be that dirty to know to open your mouth. Seventeen magazine can tell you that. The second I let my lips relax, his tongue goes right in. Not far, though, and I'm glad, because suddenly I'm thinking about all the junk we ate tonight and how can you breathe, anyway, with your nose pressed closed and two tongues in your mouth?

He stops kissing me, and I immediately start talking again, all this junk that's crashing around my head and coming out my mouth before I can even sort through to catch the stupid stuff. All of a sudden we're kissing again, and I just know how. I suddenly don't care about the Snickers I saw him scarf down without hardly chewing at all, or whatever else he must have had that made his mouth taste the way dirty pennies smell, and I don't care. I feel his tongue sliding in again and I slip mine over it, and there's this, like, zap of something--heat? electricity? I don't know what. But it feels fast and good and it goes from my mouth straight down to my crotch, which is a total surprise and makes me make this weird noise. My legs are still freezing, but the rest of me is really just not. But I'm glad I'm still wearing his jacket because I can tell from they way they're aching that my stupid nipples are poking all over the place and I can't deal with that right now. I don't want him to see that, I don't know why, but I don't. I just want to kiss him forever.

And he's a vampire. Of course he's a vampire. And as I run away from him I realize why he tasted like pennies, and I feel like puking.

I hate killing him. He was nice, and he liked me, and when he's got me pinned, I know I shouldn't, but I like the feel of his body on top of me. It's exciting and scary, and I know I should just kill him, but it would feel kind of nice if he weren't trying to kill me. And then I feel this thing against my leg, where there was no thing before, and Justin is pushing against me and I realize what it is, that he's humping my leg like a dog while he's getting ready to bite me, and so I dust him.

I cry. Because I think he really liked me, and because even though it was kind of gross, the humping felt good. And because I realized *I* did that to him. He got all hard and excited because of me, and that's pretty cool.

***

Giles yelled at me for lying and--I think--for kissing Justin. It was hard to tell what he was mad about: That Justin was a vampire (like I could have known), that I'd been making out with a boy no one had met (including me, really), or just because I was making out. Giles is hard to understand sometimes. He gets, like, super British when he's mad, and uses words like "impropriety" and "eventualities" and "vexing" and "innocuous." If he'd just swear at me when he's pissed--say "bloody" and "bugger" like Spike--he'd make a whole lot more sense.

But the weird thing is that the whole time he was lecturing me, I was thinking that Giles... Giles is a guy, just like Justin was. And like Xander and Spike and Angel, and every guy. He has sex. Or, at least, *has* had. He's kissed people the way I was kissing that night, and his ... his parts get like Justin's got, and I could make that happen if I wanted to. I mean, I don't, because--eew, Giles is like seventy or something and plus he's kind of related--but I *could*.

It made me smile, and I remember that I was sort of twisting and swaying as I was nodding at him, and that my arms were crossed and I kept smiling until Giles stopped talking and glared at me and asked me what, might he inquire, did I find so amusing about this situation, which was, in fact the precise opposite of amusing? Didn't I comprehend the gravity of what had transpired?

"Nothing," I said in my best bored-grown-up voice--the one Janice and I practice to use against teachers and shop owners--and I raised my eyebrow to look mysterious. "You wouldn't understand."

Giles breathed really loudly and cleaned off his glasses and then told me to go to bed. Of course he doesn't understand. He can't do the things I can do.

***

I study in front of the mirror, with magazines I've stolen and underwear catalogues, learning how to look sexy. Not just the body, but the way to *look* with my face, my eyes, my neck. Learning how to use this power I've discovered. I can't practice--really practice, on boys--at home, because first there are no boys, and second, well, they'd think I was stupid and confused and they'd try to talk to me, if they even noticed, about sex and consequences and diseases and pregnancy. Which is totally not what's going on.

Plus, they all think I'm three anyway.

So I practice at school, and after, when I tell Buffy and Willow and everyone I'm studying or hanging out. Which is true, because I practice then, too. I wear shirts that stick to my boobs. I steal bras that push me into the right shape for cool cleavage and then practice leaning just far enough over to show just the right amount of shadows. Not stupid and slutty and obvious, just shadows and curves.

My favorite target to practice on is Mr. Davis, my social studies teacher. He's really young, for a teacher. I do this thing with my hair when I'm in class, where I lean my chin really lightly against my left fist and flick the ends of my hair across my lips. That way I can watch his lecture, take notes, and lean over all at the same time. Plus, there's the thing with the hair and the lips. I frown just a little, like I'm really concentrating, when he talks, and take lots of notes, like I don't *quite* get it, and then--when he makes his next big point, I smile so he can tell I got it, and lean over deep-shadow far to take more notes. He stammers every time. I love it.

All this time I'm watching the boys, watching them watching us girls. They're really easy to figure out. Basically they want to boink us all, all the time, and they know that--most of them, anyway--they're still years off. I feel sorry for them. They're pretty pathetic.

I pick my first real target. The boy Kirsty likes, because she was always so mean to me, telling people I was a total after-school-special freakcase who cuts herself for attention. Like she could ever understand why I had to see it. I had pretty freaking important blood last year. Bitch.

It doesn't take much. Just some big sappy eyes (your best flirtation tool: Seventeen, October 2001, page 67) at a basketball game he played at the park after school, and then dropping a bracelet through the seats of the bleachers.

I'm sure it looks all sweet to him, poor stupid Donny. We're kneeling on the ground, looking for the bracelet ("My mom gave it to me, before she..."), and I bump my head into his chin and then look up, all surprised and flustered. I act nervous and embarrassed, but inside I'm Spike-cool. I go to stand up but "lose my balance" and he catches me by the arm and then we're kissing. Easy as that.

It's not right, though, because we're still kneeling. So I do the embarrassed thing again and pull away and stand up, and he starts apologizing and then when we're both up and it won't hurt my neck so much, I make myself blush and stammer when I say it's okay, that I liked it. And so he kisses me again, and God, I want to feel it but I have to let him think it's my first, and that he's in control of it. So I go along with the soft, dry kissing, even though I really just want to see what a non-dead guy's tongue feels like in my mouth.

In a few minutes Donny shows me, and I like it. It makes me tingle and tickle all over, and I grab at him and lean back so the X of the bleacher support is pressing into my butt, and Donny leans into me and there it is, pressing against my middle for a second before he sort of shifts so I can't feel it anymore, and even though I want it back, the fact that he's trying to hide it from me... that's even better somehow.

We don't stop until it's dark and cold under the bleachers, and I have a cold, numbing square on my rear from the metal. It's a weird feeling. My back is freezing, but the whole front of me is hot, and all that heat is sort of sinking and collecting in my crotch. Hot and cold, right next to each other.

I have to go. They're gonna be wondering about me at home. I remember to stammer and look up at him out of the corners of my eyes when I tell him I have to go. Then I run before he can say anything else.

But the next day, and the next, and the one after that, I wait for his game to end, and every day he pushes me harder into the supports, and every day, I have him more.

***

The first day of the singing, I almost said something. As usual, they all pretended like I couldn't know anything about anything. It's so annoying. So Tara and Willow ditched out to go do it, and everyone's like, la la, they're doing research. Whatever. I've lived with them in the next room for like a decade now. I know they aren't just "special friends." They're totally into each other. Duh, they're lovers, and they're at it like, *all the time.* Worse than Buffy and Riley. Probably not worse than Anya and Xander, but I've never lived with them, so it's hard to tell for sure.

Anyway, Xander made this stupid comment because he was mad that they were doing it and he wasn't, or maybe because they never let him watch. Whatever. Xander's Xander, but he's still a guy, and therefore he's a total perv too.

So I told them that I know about the stuff, and that I think it's cool, and I wanted to ask someone: "When it happens, is it as nice as they make it look? I mean, okay, they're pervs, but you all seem so happy when you're doing it. I mean, not that I watch, but you know, when you're in love or whatever. Because I like the kissing, and this boy, Donny, I guess I like him, too." But I just didn't think they'd get it. And besides, there they went again, practically spelling it out--S... E... X...--like I'm four and they're talking about where the cookies are hidden.

I found a really pretty necklace and added it to my collection. Of course, it turned out to make the dancer guy want to marry me, which wasn't what I wanted at all. I mean, first off, he was all pointy-chinned and red, and who wants to be a queen in hell anyway? But he could dance, and I could dance *with* him, and when he danced with me, I had to do what he wanted, and I suddenly understood what the boys feel when I kiss them. Helpless, but kind of okay with it. Like, it may not be what I thought I wanted, but it still felt really good to dance with him.

And after Buffy sang her song, I knew I was on my own. I knew that everyone was going to be babysitting Buffy, not Dawnie, and even though I was happy to have them looking somewhere else, it made me kind of mad. None of them knows anything about me. They all think they do, because they have the stupid monks' stupid memories of stupid little Dawnie, the stupid, cute baby sister. They don't see me. They don't see what I'm doing, what I can do.

Forget the Kissing Power. They don't even notice that I'm, like, a woman. I mean, how can they miss it? Buffy remembers buying me my first maxi pads! The monks made Willow come with me when I needed a bra and Mom was too busy with the gallery and Buffy was too busy boinking Riley all over campus to even notice that I'd grown boobs all of a sudden. Xander was with me at the zoo when we saw the little monkeys having sex, and he gave me a really goofy explanation of the facts of primate life. (You see, Dawnie, among the monkeys, there are screamers and there are howlers.)

They know, but they don't want to see it.

I'll show them. They won't see it, but I'll show them.

***

That night, after Buffy's song, I stand in front of my mirror again, looking at what they don't see. Then I look at what boys all want to see. I pull off my clothes and study.

I press my hands where their hands have been: my ribs, my hips, my neck and arms and hair and face and shoulders and my back, as far as I can reach back. Then I go to the places they haven't been. I haven't really, either. I mean, I have, but not like that. Usually when I feel like that, which wasn't that often until Justin, I just wad a blanket up between my legs and move, and then the good thing happens. It's quick and it's easy and it gets the itchy feeling out of the way.

So, I mean, I know what's down there. I've had my period for three years, after all, and they did the Sex Ed thing in fifth grade (or at least the monks think they did), so I know what's down there and what it all does. But I'm curious. I want to know how to use it.

I remember an article from a Cosmo I read in a salon one time, when Mom was getting her color done. "How to Please Yourself." I was, like, thirteen then, so I thought it was pretty gross, but now I think back. Explore yourself, it said. Take your time. Treat yourself to a little foreplay. I laugh when I think the word "foreplay." Whatever.

So I do. I take my time, looking, touching, testing, starting from the top. I brush my hair, naked. I touch my lips and make out with my fingers, even though I feel stupid. I feel down my neck to my boobs, pressing and pinching and then just sort of feeling how my hands feel on them, my fingers. Then I go on to my stomach and my butt and my sides, where I'm ticklish, except that it doesn't tickle to touch myself in my tickle spots, it just feels good. I wonder what it'll be like if someone else touches me there, but not to tickle, just to touch.

I look sexy touching myself, like the catalogue women, until I have to sort of bend into a half-squat to get between my legs. That won't work. So I put on my bathrobe and go start a bath.

My hands don't slide right in the water, so I add some soap. Then they glide right over my skin when I start over at my boobs. By the time I push my fingers into the hair, the soap is gone, and it doesn't matter. My skin there is slippery and hot and I feel so good that when the good thing happens, a lot faster than with the blanket, I sort of yell by accident, and Willow is suddenly knocking on the door, asking if I'm okay. I quick grab my razor and cut behind knee, then tell her I just cut myself shaving, and can she put the band-aid on when I get out?

Not like I'd do anything, or like, try to use my stuff on her, but Willow likes girls, and part of me wants to know if I can do to her what I do to boys.

The next day, and for a lot of days after that, I let Donny touch me more. The first time, it freaks me out when his hand slides from my shoulder, where it usually stays and plays with my neck or my hair, down over my boob. It's that flash again, that goes to my crotch, and I'm not prepared for how good it feels.

I don't like it. I mean, obviously, I *like* it. It feels good, but I don't like that it freaks me out. Donny pulls his mouth away from me and leans into my neck.

"Sorry," he says, and I like how he's like, gasping around his words, like he's just taken a mace to the stomach. "Sorry, Dawn. It's just... You're just so..." He makes this groany noise, and I feel the control click back on.

"It's okay," I say, "It's just..." I pause, figuring out how to play it. Scared, or shy, or like, lustful? "It's just a little scary, you know?" There, now he's all protective guy again, and he thinks he's the big strong man. He kisses my forehead (oh my god, he thinks he's all Mr. Big Stuff, kissing me like that!) and says "It's okay, we don't have to. It is freaky. You just feel so good is all."

So then I know what to do. I make my eyes go all big and duck my chin just a little so I'm looking up at him like a little puppy dog, and I say, "It's okay, really, Donny." I take his hand and blush (and some of it is for real because I'm actually doing this) and put it right on me, right where he wanted it in the first place. And this time, when the sparky thing happens, I'm ready for it, and I like it because *I* did it, and his mouth drops open and his eyes roll shut and his hand, like, jerks and clenches on me--more sparkies--and then he kind of squeaks and grabs me with his other arm around my back and we're kissing even better than before. I feel like laughing because he's so easy, and I'm so strong. Super-power strong--I can make him do anything. *Anything.*

I find out over the next few weeks how easy it is to manage him. A little bit goes a long way, and there are lots of steps in between. After that first touching day, I figure it out. Squeezing one boob while kissing me should last me a few days--maybe a week, even--and then I can let him touch both at once. Over the sweater, though. And then I figure I have at least another week before I give him under-sweater-over-bra, and *that* should do me until after Christmas. By the time he gets anywhere near skin, I figure, it'll be 2002.

I know that I don't want him further down than that, so I have to remember to do the shy-scared thing, and to make him work for the big changes--under the clothes--or else he'll think he can do whatever he wants.

But really, it should be stupidly easy.

And it is, but I forget about *him.* He's starting to want me to touch him, too, and I spend one whole afternoon session keeping him busy by giving him hickeys while I figure that one out. I work out pretty quick that he likes having his chest touched, but I don't want to touch his skin because he'll think that means he can touch me the same way. He still hasn't gotten the Justin Leg Hump on--he's still really careful to hide that, pretend it isn't happening, but I know it is. I just pretend along with him. I'll let him know I know about the stiff stuff when the time's right.

In the meantime, I like to catch him at it. Like the other day at lunch, I saw him across the lawn, walking with Kirsty from their English class. (Of course I know his schedule. I have to if I want to be bending over the drinking fountains at the right time. You should see how guys react to water dripping off your lips, and you, like, licking it up. Geez. Orally fixated much?) I saw him looking at me, and I folded my legs up Indian style, and my skirt is pretty short, and then it was great. They were walking toward me and Janice, near the vending machines, and all of a sudden he like, sat down on a bench and really quick dropped his backpack onto his lap. Kirsty was all miffed, but he wouldn't get up, and I just sat and smiled at him, very sweet, and did the thing with my lips and hair.

Watching him watch me makes the itchy-achys hit me hard, and I start taking more, longer baths.

***

It worked, mostly. My plan. Donny was, like, mesmerized by my boobs. Amazing. The way he was acting you'd think he had the feel-good nerves in his hands, instead of me having them on my boobs. I wasn't sure I'd like how it felt if he did it a lot, and if I wasn't surprised by it like I was that first time, but I do. A lot. Good to know.

It got cold, so we had to move the after-school special inside. I found the new place one morning when I was supposed to be in History but was wandering around the halls with a forged pass. Auxiliary Janitor's Closet. There was a table (good for leaning), a dim-from-the-dirt-on-it lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and not a lot of room for moving around, which was fine. It just meant that it was harder for Donny to keep secrets from me.

He gave up completely the second afternoon we went there. I could tell he was getting all excited and hard down there, and when I felt him try to rearrange us, I sort of pressed against his side with my arm, making him stay where he was, but not actually pulling him closer. Donny stopped and was breathing heavy and then he just relaxed against me and I felt it and had to work to keep from laughing. Not that it was funny, I just felt so strong, so *not* like the stupid baby everyone has to take care of. I was taking care of things now.

That move pretty much solved my other problem, too--what to do about touching Donny while we were kissing and he was grabbing at me. Turned out humping my leg was just fine with him.

So everything was great. For like, two days.

And then stupid Willow went and ruined everything. First with the stupid spell that nearly killed us all (I hated, hated, hated being that stupid, scared, help-me-I-don't-know-what-to-do idiot she made me, but getting it all back when the spell broke... that felt good) and made Tara and Giles leave us, and then later with the stupid magic O.D. that practically killed me all over again.

It was super scary at the time, but in a way I'm kind of glad it happened, because I wasn't a stupid baby that time. That demon attacked us and Willow crashed the car, and I *fought*. My arm was, like, broken, hello, and I still fought that thing. And hid a little, okay, but still. And, yeah, okay, it wasn't like I was winning. I mean, if Buffy and Spike hadn't shown up, and if Willow hadn't zapped it back to where she pulled it from, I'd probably be toast. But that's not the point. The point is, I was fighting, and it felt good.

After, I freaked. My arm was killing me--I hardly felt it when I was fighting, and all of a sudden I couldn't feel anything *but* my arm. My arm and pissed off at Willow, who was going totally psycho.

I liked hitting her. She deserved it. And it felt good to watch her realize I'd hit her, that stupid little Dawnie wasn't going to be nice about everything, that she might just lose me, too. It felt good to watch her fall over and cry like a two-year-old, covered in snot and stuff, on the ground, out of control.

And it felt really good to lean on Spike and know that he would help, but that he wouldn't treat me like a baby. I was glad Buffy stayed with Willow. She would have just been dumb and gotten all freako-protective on me, which drives me crazy. Spike gets stuff. The first thing he said when we got away from Willow and Buffy was how proud he was I'd been putting up a fight.

"I oughta teach you some moves, though," he said, and he lifted his hand from my shoulder to touch my hair for just a second. "Pointers. How not to get your parts smashed to bits. Stuff like that."

I didn't say much then, because, honestly, I thought I might throw up. But I thought about it. A lot.

The hospital was awful, like it always is. That same doctor was there, the one who kept asking where Tara's family was, back when we took her home the day after Glory thought she was the Key and broke all the bones in her hand and then fried her brain when she found out she wasn't. I hate that doctor. He's stupid and he doesn't understand anything about anything, and he got all weird about Spike. I think he thought Spike broke my arm. Spike scared him though, or put the vamp whammy on him or something, which was nice of him.

It took forever, of course. Like, two hours just to get it x-rayed, and then another two before they put my cast on. After the x-rays, Spike got mad and stole me some pills for the pain, and then I felt better, but they made me all sleepy and weird. And all of a sudden I was crying, and there was Spike, all funny and awkward and pretending to be all tough and annoyed, but really just being his same sweet self. He sat down next to me and put one of his arms around my shoulder and then I was all snuggled up against his coat and him, and he smelled like Spike, that kind of against the rules smell he has--cigarettes and some kind of alcohol and old-penny smell that was so gross on Justin, and something elseI couldn't figure out but that smelled familiar and safe--and so I just cried. Not like a baby, though. And he didn't act like he thought I was being an idiot. He just petted my hair and hummed a little and called me love and his brave platelet, and it put me right to sleep.

He was still there when I woke up stretched out on the stupid uncomfortable examining table. I opened my eyes, and there Spike was, sitting in the chair with his head leaning on his arms, which were folded on the bed near my shoulder. He looked asleep. He looked beautiful. Spike's face is all sharp corners and really pale, and his hair... his mouth.

I wondered what he'd be like to kiss. Not like Donny, probably, who's good to kiss, but so easy to make do what I want. Like Justin, then? Scary and exciting? Spike would be way different, though. Better. He's been doing it so long, he must be really good at it.

I pulled my good hand loose of his coat, which was draped over me like a blanket, and touched his lips with my fingers, then put my fingers up to my mouth. I was humming inside, remembering all of a sudden what he'd said earlier, about teaching me some moves, and I put my hand on the corner of his cheek and thought about what Spike would be like, what he'd do, what he'd like, what I could make him do. I remembered some of the dirtier books Janice and I stole and thought about letting Spike do those things to me.

He moved just a little in his sleep, and I leaned over and put my tongue out and, really lightly, licked at his mouth, just the lower lip where it was pooking out while he slept.

Spike talks in his sleep. Three guesses who he talks about.

I pulled way back, fast, mad at him for dreaming I was Buffy and mad at me for forgetting and being an idiot.

By the time he woke up enough to sit up and look at me, I was miles away, on the far end of the table, looking at him with my snottiest expression.

"What's your deal?" I asked him, putting all the nastiness I was feeling into my voice. "When are you gonna get it?"

He squinted at me and tilted his head. Spikespeak for "huh?"

"You're pathetic with this Buffy thing. She's never gonna let you, you know."

If he were human, Spike would have turned bright red, I know it. But vampires don't blush, so he just got all grouchy, which was fine, because it diverted him from any possible realization that I'd tried to French him in his sleep.

"Never gonna let me what, then?" he asked, sneering.

"You know. Do stuff to her."

"Stuff? What do you know about it, anyway, Bit?" Usually I like it when he calls me that, but right then it just made me mad. There he went, treating me like a baby.

But then I realized that was the best thing. I didn't need a sex talk from Spike, or any of the Scoobies, and if Spike figured out I knew about the stuff, he'd tell Buffy, and then I'd be grounded until forever. So I did the dumb-snotty-teenager act and got out of it.

"Nothing. Forget I said anything. Just maybe think about sleeping with your mouth taped shut if you don't want people to know you're still jonesing for my sister."

Spike got up and pushed the chair away from him strong enough to make me jump a little. It's easy to forget he can't hurt people when he gets mad.

"What I should do is bloody well stop keeping late hours at the hospital every time you and yours get trounced, shouldn't I?"

I wanted to take it back because I think I really hurt his feelings, but it was too late, so I just sulked.

Spike slammed open the door and yelled down the four-a.m. hallway, "Where the hell is the doctor already?" which got us a lot of attention, really fast.

He didn't say anything else to me while they put the cast on my arm, but when we got home, he waited while I got my face washed and stuff, and then when I came out of the bathroom in my jammies, he was standing in the hallway. Even I could smell the funk of garlic coming from Buffy's room, and I raised my eyebrows at him, but not in a mean way. Just in the usual my-sister's-such-a-freak way. He made a face like he'd stepped in something gross and then laughed quietly and came into my room with me, like he used to in the summer, and scrubbed my head like a puppy and called me his little pint of O-positive, so I knew we were okay again. Then he climbed out my window, and I watched him fly off the roof and then head off down the road with his duster blowing out behind him in that cool, sexy way it does.

It took me a long time to fall asleep. The medicine Spike stole for me was wearing off, and I was still thinking.

***

II. Winter

After than night, everything changes. Buffy's never home, between her job hunting and slaying, and even when she is around she's not *there*. And Willow's just annoying, with her whole rehab routine. I mean, okay, she's trying, and she's all the time apologizing to me, but she gets on my nerves. I haven't seen Spike since that night, either, and I miss him. He's the only one I think would understand about anything, if I wanted to talk to any of them, which I don't.

So I stay away, too, and--funny thing--no one notices.

The broken arm turns out not to suck as much as I thought. Donny starts, like, carrying my books and stuff, and I love the look on Kirsty's face when she sees us. She doesn't hang on him anymore--finally got the clue. I mean, it's not like we're a big official couple, and they weren't either, but now they're definitely not anything and we're definitely something. But between the book-carrying and the way he watches me all the time, I know people know we have a thing, and that's cool.

But Donny backs off the touching when I come back to school. When we meet in the janitor's closet the first afternoon I can get away, the third day I'm back, he's all concerned and "We don't have to do anything... I can just hold you... blah blah," which is totally annoying. If I wanted to be babied, I'd go hang out at home or at the Magic Box.

So the next day, I make sure he knows I'm okay. I do the desperate kiss, the way I know drives him nuts. I pull on the back of his head, and I breathe really fast and gaspy, and I take his hand and *put* it on my boob instead of just waiting for him to do it like usual. He gets the picture. When I drag his hand up under my sweater, which is not all that easy with one arm in a sling, he pulls his head away from me and does his sweet-boy thing.

"Dawn, are you sure?"

I smile shyly and blush--always easy when he asks that--and tell him he feels good and strong and safe and that he makes me a little crazy.

He closes his eyes the way he does, and his mouth is open and red and yummy, and then he surprises me a little by asking if it hurts.

"What? No, it feels good."

"No, your arm, I mean."

It makes me cry a little, because everyone has been so busy apologizing and freaking out about Willow and just dealing with hospital and doctor stuff and work stuff and breakup stuff, that no one really asked me if it hurt. If I was okay, if I could forgive Willow, if I mind that Buffy is going to be working--they asked me all that stuff. But not if I hurt.

Donny gets all sweet again, which makes me cry more, and I have to stop him because I can't be like this anymore, not with him. I can't be crying here.

He still has one hand inside my bra when he goes all romantic and wipes my cheek off, and I want him to remember that. That he's touching me. That I'm letting him. So I slide my hand up over his and stretch up to kiss him on the cheek, then I push his hand, which pushes on me, and the jolt hits me when he squeezes. My breath goes all hitchy when he does it again, better, and then I kiss him and suddenly we've got this sort of rhythm going between our breath and our tongues and his hand and my boob, and it feels so good. But I want more, I want more of him. I have to show him I'm okay.

I let my hand drop because he doesn't need any help anymore. He has two good hands, and he's using them both now, and my bra is pulled all weird but I don't care because his hands are on me. My good hand (God, I want my other hand back!) is on the low waist of his pants, under his shirt so I can feel the heat coming off him, and before I think too much about it, I slide right down the front of his khakis, to where he's leaning against my hip, to where he's pushing just a little, rubbing.

There's this weird frozen second when Donny realizes where my hand is and we both stop breathing. And then, when he takes the next breath, it's the best thing I've ever heard. He's, like, *begging* me with his voice, even though he's not making any actual words.

I push my hand between us and feel, trying to figure this out, and fast.

It's pointing straight up, against his tummy, and it's bigger around than I would've thought. I feel all clumsy and disoriented. I don't get how it, like, attaches, which is stupid. When I move my hand down to find the bottom of it, Donny whimpers against my cheek and I feel all my blood zoom up to my face. I must be so red. But I like the noise, the little kitten gasps he's making, and I think I found the bottom of it, so I squeeze my fingers around it and then go looking for the top. It's squishier than the rest, and I stop to check it out, patting and pushing and pulling, and all of a sudden Donny's talking and I don't get it until too late.

"Oh no, oh God, Dawn, wait I ... Oh wait, oh geez, I'm gonna oh shit shit shit!"

He never swears, and so I think, Oh my God, I hurt him, I must have hurt him, he's gonna be so mad at me. And then I feel the wet spot on his pants, and I feel him gulping and gasping into my neck, and I realize what I did.

I don't know what to say, but I'm kind of worried still, so I just blurt it out.

"I'm sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

He's breathing so hard. He drops his head heavily onto my shoulder, gasping like he just ran a race.

"Oh, wow, no, I'm okay. I just..."

What what what, I'm thinking, and suddenly wondering what to do with my hand.

"I'm just, embarrassed, I guess," he says. "I didn't... I've never..."

"Never what?" I ask, and I hope he means what I think he means. I hope I know what's happening, what happened.

"I didn't know I was gonna come, and then it was so fast."

My heart is pounding really loud, filling my head.

"Is that what happened?" I ask, and I want to make very, very certain, because this seems a lot different from what they said in Sex Ed back in fifth grade, but it's not like in the dirty books, really, either. "Was that you... coming?" The word sounds so stupid. Why do they call it that, anyway?

Donny sniffs and laughs a little, his breathing coming back to normal. "Yeah, that's what happened. Just, God, Dawn, you felt so good. I'm sorry. Did it scare you?"

It did, but I'm not going to tell him that.

I slide my hand away from him--it's getting all droopy and it's kind of grossing me out. Definitely better when it's hard.

"No," I say, and now that I don't have my hand on his penis or whatever, I sound like I'm not scared, and I can look at him, but I'm still blushing. "I was just surprised is all, I guess."

"Me, too." Donny's blushing and laughing just like me, and for a second I forget about the rush and the excitement of having just done that to him, having just made this boy, like, have an orgasm, and I just laugh with him like he's a normal friend. For a minute, I just *like* him.

I drop my head as the nervous laughing slows down, and my eyes go over his crotch, and the dark spot there makes me go cold and hot all at once, and I suddenly really don't want to be in this closet with him anymore.

"I gotta go," I mumble, and then I look at my watch and realize I'm not joking. It's seven o'clock, and I am majorly late. "Crap! I gotta go!"

God, my boobs are, like, everywhere except in my bra, and I feel really weird, which I hate, but I can't get it together, can't find the normal "time to go home from the make-out closet" cool I'm so good at normally.

"What?" Donny asks, and he moves away to give me room to rearrange myself in my sweater. "Are you okay?" He comes back close to me. "What's up?"

"Nothing, I'm good, I'm just really late, and my sister is gonna freak, so I gotta go."

Donny looks sort of weird--confused and still blushing and dopey and a little bit scared, and maybe hurt--but I don't really have time to deal with that. I just need to get out of the closet with him and his pants that have sperm on the front of them.

"Okay," he says lamely. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Sorry. Tomorrow." I say over my shoulder as I open the door. I run down the hall and get home just in time to run into Invisi-Buffy with her stupid flying pizza boxes and her stupid look-at-me-I'm-invisible-isn't-it-just-the-funniest-thing-ever attitude, and it's just too fucking much for one day.

I run up and slam myself in my room, and she doesn't even come after me. Not like I want her to with her stupid invisible self, but still. So I sit on my bed and hug my knees and try to stop crying. When I calm down a little, I sniff heavily and wipe my nose, and I can smell Donny on my hand. Bathroom. Now.

I scrub my hands with soap and then start the bathtub filling. I strip fast and get in before it's at all full, and put my head right down into the water so the roaring noise of the water pouring in is all I can hear. It's easier, like that, to just breathe and be normal.

By the time the tub's full, I feel okay again, and I start to think about what happened, to work out what to do next, and thinking about it reminds me of the noises Donny was making, and the way he looked at me after, and that makes me itch. When I move my hands down, I realize that I'm all slippery, that it's not from just then. My panties were totally soaked with it, more than usual from just the kissing. It's from doing that to Donny, making him come. So I take my own clue, remembering how he felt in my hand, and I make me come, too.

So, yeah, it was really cool, but it gets old faster than I expect, doing that to Donny.

The next few times, it's okay, but by the time I get my cast off, it's not doing anything for me anymore. It gets all exciting again when I open up his pants, but that rush doesn't last either. Donny just gets more and more like a dumb puppy. He follows me around all the time. In the closet, he simpers and is all, like, worshipful toward me, which isn't as cool as you'd think. It's so stupid. I mean, he must do this to himself at home. What's the big diff when I do it? Plus, I really don't like the mess. It's sticky and it smells funky, and even though the lead up and the kissing and touching is sexy, the end of it is just gross.

But even if I get bored (or, not bored, really, just like, annoyed) with it and my arm gets a cramp, I like that he likes it, that he likes me. I like that people look at how he follows me, how he watches me. They know I have something; they know there's something about me that did this, that makes him act like the puppy. That part, I like.

But I'm antsy.

I go out with Willow whenever Buffy says I can. Will's gotten a little better recently, especially since Buffy's been working. Less shakes-and-puking and more fun-and-trying-to-make-up-for-stuff, which means lots of dancing and pretending our lives are normal.

Xander and Anya are going to Swing Nights at the Bronze, practicing for their wedding, taking lessons. Xander tries to teach me a few steps at home the night that Buffy thought she killed that girl. Of course, typical Buffy, she announces that she's gonna bail out and *then* figures out how not to. I think she likes to watch me freak out. I'm so not giving her the satisfaction next time. Anyway, I don't go with them that night--I go over to Janice's and we discuss the sperm issue--but I go with them the next time. Even if I can't really dance to it, and most of the people are older, it's fun to watch them dance. Everyone's all happy, happier than we've been in a long time, and I'm glad Xander and Anya are why things are cheery.

Anyway, Willow's gone to get more water, and, I think, to scout for Tara, and Buffy's off somewhere, so I'm standing near the stairs by myself, smiling at Xander's funny wiggle, when someone taps me on the shoulder, making me jump, and there's Jack Billings.

Jack's a junior. He's some kind of soccer hero at school, I think, or maybe water polo. Possibly both. Anyway, I'm laughing at Xander when all of a sudden, he's just there, next to me. At first I'm freaked he'd been recently vamped because he's so sneaky, but when he leans in so he won't have to yell over the music, I can see a strong, human pulse at his throat.

It's never occurred to me that he--or any upperclassman--would even know who I was, but Jack says my name right off, which is cool.

"You're Dawn Summers, right?"

I hide my surprise by turning it into the archy-eyebrow-of-mystery-look and nod. "Yeah. So?" I smile to make sure he understands I'm not being snotty for real.

"So, you're amazing looking," he says, nodding with me, and I don't really know what to say to that. He takes a sip of his drink and leans in close again, and his breath (so nice that he has breath) blows across my cheek and I realize he's got beer in his cup. Which is really cool. Not because I think drinking is so great, but because he got someone to serve him, which shows determination and, like, street smarts--savvy or something.

"So," he stretches it out, and his mouth is really pretty when he grins. "I like amazing looking in a girl." He steps even closer. "I'm Jack."

I can feel myself blushing. "I know."

Jack looks straight at me--his eyes are so dark, and I really want to know what color they are.

"You wanna go somewhere?" he asks.

I nod and he takes my hand and starts for the door. I'm looking around for any of the Scoobies, to make sure they don't see. We hit the door, and I stop, arm yanking a bit when he takes a second longer to realize I'm not moving. He turns and raises his eyebrows, like, "What?"

"I..." This is so stupid. He's gonna think I'm so lame. "I can't really go, um, away." I roll my eyes. "My sister and her stupid friends are here, and they'll freak if I ditch, but, well, I don't really wanna tell them, you know?" I sigh. "It's such a pain."

"No worries," Jack says, and heads right back inside. "I know a place."

We wind through the crowd, past the bar, toward the bathrooms and into a little storeroom with a busted door. Buffy probably busted it, I think as I feel Jack's hand climb up my arm to my shoulder and press so that I turn around toward him.

Maybe it's because I've been kissing Donny for so long that it's just not exciting anymore, like it was at first. I don't know what. But the way Jack kisses me makes my knees just turn to goo. Donny never does that. None of this sweet rabbit kisses stuff. Jack's tongue is in my mouth before I even realize there's kissing happening at all. My head spins a little--like when I first looked off Glory's tower--at the slick feel of it, and then his arm is locked low around my back. When my knees give that little bit, he catches me and pulls me tight against him. Jack's other hand is in my hair before I can even lift my hands, and in the back of my brain, which is running hard to catch up, I think that I must look pretty funny, like a rag doll or something. But I do catch up, eventually. I get one arm up under his and around to his back, and the other goes up the front of us to his jaw. He pulls my head toward him--like there's much closer for our faces to get--and I make that little whimpering noise I remember from Justin as his hand tightens in my hair.

Jack's other hand leaves my waist--I grab him tighter at the back of his neck to balance--and slides up my back, around my shoulder blades, pushing there, which feels really good, and then back down to my waist. The whole time, the hand in my hair is turning my head to match his mouth. God, Donny's never like this.

I have another headrush thing when Jack lets go of my hair, and then both of his hands are on my butt, pressing on me and pulling me against him, and all of a sudden I can feel him--he's moving hard and slow against my front, low, and the itch is so strong it sort of aches.

My brain has shut down again. All I can think of is moving with him. His mouth leaves mine and I hear gasping--me, that's me breathing like that, like someone drowning--while he's sucking on my neck. For someone with the Vampire Slayer for a sister, I should know way better than to like this so much, but I can't help it. I do. I wonder if being bit feels this good, if Buffy felt this feeling when Angel bit her, and Dracula. Jack pulls hard on my butt and then one hand is up my shirt, and my brain is back from vampire land and trying to figure out what to make of this when he speaks for the first time since we came back inside.

"You're so fucking hot."

I think it's the swearing that freaks me, more than the fact that his hand's in my bra and that I'm about to start the Justin-and-Donny leg hump myself. It jerks me back to *right now*. Right now I'm in a small room whose door doesn't close more than half way, and this guy's all over me--and I'm all over him--and my entire weird quasi-family is like twenty feet away, could walk by this exact spot on the way to the bathroom of their gender choice at exactly any second.

I push away from Jack, and I hear myself humming out loud as I do because he's making me feel so good. But I have to go. They can't catch me.

"I ... I gotta go. My sister--" God, again with the "my sister" stammering. Stupid! "Um. Yeah, I'll see you later sometime?"

He smiles this sexy smile, kind of like the ones Spike smiles at Buffy that make her and Xander and everyone so mad. Like he knows something he shouldn't. Jack smiles at me like that, which makes me melt in places I don't usually melt, and then he casually sticks his hands deep into his pockets, bending forward slightly at the waist, rearranging it in his jeans. I get the I-did-that rush, but it's stronger this time. I feel it *in* me this time. Not just because I made him hot, but because I'm all hot and itchy too, and I can see that he sees it, he likes it as much as I do.

I have to get out of here. My face and neck are flaming as I stumble back a few steps and then practically run for the bathroom.

I'm splashing water on my face when I hear a flush behind me. As I stand up and blot the water off my face with a paper towel, Kirsty comes out of the stall.

"Dawn," she says in that fake sweet way.

"Kirsty," I reply in my bored voice, not bothering to make it sound sweet. I don't have to. I have what she wanted. I showed her.

She looks at me in the mirror as she washes her hands.

"Where's the lap dog?" she asks, dropping the sweet act.

"Excuse me?"

"I don't see Donny here."

I smile with mock sadness and concern. "Still following Donny around, Kirsty?" I ask. "I thought you finally clued in to his supreme lack of interest in all things *you*."

She's trying to find a good comeback when Anya bursts through the door the way she does.

"Dawn. There you are. We were looking for you. We're leaving, and Buffy went out... to that job she does during the night time," (I roll my eyes. She makes Buffy sound like a hooker.) "so we're supposed to take you and Willow home."

I nod to Anya and turn to Kirsty, smile sweetly, mouth "Stalker" at her, and wave. She glares and wrinkles her nose at me. Whatever. What do I care?

***

I didn't care. I didn't care when Kirsty gave me the evil eye in the hallway, and I didn't care that her little cronies joined in on it. I had other things to deal with. Like how to arrange to be in sight of the jock crowd Jack hung out with whenever possible, but to look like I didn't mean to be. Janice flipped when I told her about Jack, totally jealous and hoping to hook up with one of his buddies. I worried a little bit that Donny would notice, especially since I was wearing turtlenecks for a week to cover up Jack's hickeys, but the boy was still happily living in the land of the fondled penis, so it just wasn't a problem. I mean, not a problem except that I was kind of ready to be done with Donny and his parts.

After the total disaster of Buffy's birthday party, things got way better at home, and weirdly, it helped with the other problem, too. Which seemed sort of karmically odd, because I was in so much trouble. I mean, first with the "no one can leave me" wish and then with everyone finding out about the stealing. But after they all left the house, finally, Buffy and I talked about that, and so we had a plan for giving back the stuff I could give back, and for fixing things up with Anya. So it was all set to present to her the next day when we went to the Magic Box. She was pretty nice about it, considering how much she loves money.

And it helped with the Donny thing because the pay back plan was that I was supposed to do stuff at the shop after school. Manual labor, Anya called it, which meant someone was going to actually notice what time I was supposed to be where. Donny said he didn't mind, but he was pretty much addicted to my hand by then, and he said, after like two days of no touching, that maybe we could just skip our seventh period classes sometimes. So I did, but only a couple of times. I *like* my English class. Plus, getting bored with his whole bodily fluid thing didn't make me feel too bad about weaning him off the closet.

I tried to be as nice as I could to Buffy, because she looked like she was hating being alive even more than usual. And I tried to encourage Bronze fun, so that I could try to find Jack again, but it didn't happen.

Mr. Disappearing Act Finn showed up again and made Buffy feel like crap with his stupid new wife and ninja gear. I mean, I was mad at him, you know? For leaving Buffy like that last year, for not saying good bye to me. Even if I was just his girlfriend's little sister, he'd always been nice to me, in an annoying sort of way. And I felt plain old bad for Buffy, because you could totally tell she was freaking. But at least he said goodbye properly this time. At least we knew he was all right, even if we weren't really.

And then there was the wedding, which I'd been so excited about. Willow and Tara were talking and even flirting a little, and even though Anya made us wear those terrible dresses, we were all happy and excited. Spike brought a hooker, I think, and I kissed Anya's cute cousin during the clean-up after the disaster, except that it turned out he had a forked tongue, which was just too gross to deal with. Funny thing is, I think he felt the same way about mine. Weird. Anyway, we won't be mentioning that to anyone, either of us.

But then Xander bailed and everything was ruined, and then Buffy went crazy and tried to kill us all so that she could have her happy, normal, locked-in-mental-ward life where she has Mom and Dad and no pesky little sister to ruin everything.

So everything was pretty much back to normal.

***

III. Spring

The night after Buffy tries to kill me, I find Jack again. Buffy's zonked on antidote, and Willow and Xander are hovering. Tara sits with me for a while, and I hear Spike come and go a couple of times, but he doesn't come in to say "hi, how are you, funny how your sister sent that demon after you, isn't it." He and Willow and Xander get into it on the stairs, about how Spike was supposed to make sure she took the first dose, and Tara goes out there with them and doesn't come back. I hear the front door slam, and that must be Spike. Then a quieter shutting, and I hear Xander offer Tara a ride home, so it's just me and Willow and Buffy.

It's early, really, nine-thirty or something, and as I'm changing into a skirt and my good boots and then ducking through my window, I'm like, ninety-five percent sure Buffy and Willow are done for the night. They won't even think to check on me. I'm halfway across the back yard when I realize it's more like seventy percent sure that Spike'll be lurking behind a tree or something, but I don't see him. If he is there, he's too wrapped up in Buffy-stalking to say anything.

And you know, just as an aside, I don't know why Buffy's always freaking about me being out at night. I mean, I carry a stake with me since Justin, but I never run into any vamps, no one ever comes after me. Well, okay, except crazed gods and singing demons and, well, okay again, there was that time with Harmony. Anyway, my point is, lately I've been out a lot on my own, and nothing ever happens. Which is what tonight is like. I get to the Bronze in no time at all.

And he's there, playing pool, leaning over the table, twirling his cue, drinking from a red plastic cup that I'm sure has beer in it, and I want to taste it on his mouth again.

He sees me, raises his eyebrows and gives me a quick grin, and then takes his shot. I get a Coke and watch him as casually as I can while he finishes his game. When he's done, he nods to his friends, tips his head my way (They all smile at him, and I toss my hair a little. They know Jack likes me, and I like that.) and then saunters over to me.

"Summers," he says, and I love that he calls me that, even though it's stupid.

"Billings," I reply and lift my chin up when I smile at him.

He takes a swallow of his drink and nods slowly, mouth spreading into that naughty grin that reminds me of Spike. "How's that sister of yours and her stupid friends?"

"Home sick, and home taking care of her" I answer quickly, and then scrunch up my courage. "Wanna get out of here?"

His teeth flash white, and my knees wobble a little. I'm glad I'm leaning against the bar.

"Yeah." His eyes are green, really, really dark green.

When we hit Main Street, he pauses, not sure where to go. Again with the scrunching up of courage, and then I say, "I know a place."

Jack admires my breaking and entering skills as I pick the lock at the Magic Box. Spike would be proud of my technique.

"Nice," he says, taking a quick tour. "I've never been in here."

"My friend owns it," I explain, trying not to think about how pissed everyone'll be if they find out. They won't find out.

"But he didn't give you a key?" He's climbing up the sliding stepladder to where the bad books are, and that makes me a little nervous. More nervous.

"She," I say, and move so I can put my hand on his leg and get his attention away from the raising-the-dead texts. "Anya. Well, she and Giles both own it, but Giles left and she's sort of... on vacation, so--"

Jack jumps off the ladder, five steps up, and lands lightly in front of me. With these moves, this guy really could be a vampire. He's a natural. And he's definitely got the stare for it.

"So?" He's leaning in, hands on the bookcase behind me, teasing me about my babbling, watching me squirm, which I can't help doing because he's so... So.

His mouth is just how I remember it, and his tongue is just as pushy, his hands just as strong and just as everywhere. My face, my neck, my hair, my butt, up to my boobs, down my sides everywhere.

I can feel myself melting in the middle again, and I do what he's doing, put my hands all over him, use my tongue and mouth until we're both breathing like ... I don't know what like.

He's really tall, I realize, much taller than Donny, and my neck is starting to hurt. He must feel it too, because he pulls me away from the bookcase and smiles wickedly as he steers me toward the ladder.

"Go on," he says, and tips his head to point at the ladder. I don't get it at first, but then, as I start climbing, and I feel his hand on me, turning me around to him, it becomes clear.

I lean my butt on a step, teeter for a second, and then he's right back on me, but now we're the same height, no stooping or stretching. Jack's standing on the lowest step, leaning against me, at my neck again. (My hickeys have only just healed, and I don't care that I'll have more. It's still cold out. I can wear turtlenecks forever for all I care.)

On the ladder like that, his hands go more places. My legs, for example. I like how they feel. Jack stops sucking on my neck long enough to catch my eye and then look down. "Here," he says, hands grabbing, but gently, the backs of my legs, just above my knees. "There's more room this way."

I tip a little again and make an embarrassing yelp as I shift my weight completely to my rear, but the ladder's behind me, and I won't fall. I lift my legs up, hooking my feet behind a higher step. And then, as he leans in again, I realize that my legs are totally apart, and he's totally between them, and my skirt is totally not long enough for this.

But I stop caring when he starts kissing me with his whole body pushed up against me. He likes it, too, I can tell because he groans--growls, really--and I feel his hands moving in my hair, tilting my head around to the best angles. My legs hurt, bent back like they are, so I unhook my feet and just let them hang naturally, because right then having Jack's legs between my thighs feels really crazily natural.

We kiss for hours, I think, and during that time our shirts come unbuttoned. God, his chest and stomach are so pretty. He plays water polo, I remember, weirdly. Not soccer. I like the way his skin feels under my hands, I like the hair in his armpits, which surprises me because, eew, armpits. He pushes my hands so that my fingers are over his nipples (guys have nipples, this I knew, but still, weird to think) and then puts his on mine and it makes me growl. I can't look down at myself, but I know I'm bright red, everywhere. He's looking at me, and part of me is embarrassed and blushing, and the other part wants more, wants him to see more.

I don't expect it when he kisses my chest, when he licks and sucks there, the way he does on my neck, but I can barely do anything but breathe when he does, breathe and grab at his shoulders. And then his hands are on my legs, pushing my skirt up even higher than it already is, sliding into the narrow space between him and me, and I feel his fingers on the inside of my legs and I'm scared because I know I shouldn't want them there, I know that I should make him stop, but I don't want to, not even a little bit. He's still sucking on one of my boobs when his hand goes into my panties, and I try not to yell, but part of the noise comes out anyway, and I pull his head up so I can kiss him to keep the noise inside.

Now I understand Donny, why he wants the closet so much. Because I've touched myself there, a lot, but it's not the same thing, it's not at all the same. Jack's hand is, like, electric or something. It makes my legs jerk, and the rest of me, and I'm singing into his mouth and my heart is about to come right out of my chest it's pounding so hard, and I can hardly breathe, but all I care about is kissing him to keep the noise down and feeling his hand on that spot, pressing and I don't know what all he's doing, but all of a sudden it happens. But it doesn't feel the same, it's bigger and longer and I pull away from his mouth and pound my face into his shoulder and clench my teeth so I don't bite him and his hand is still there, still going, and then it's gone but he's grabbed my butt and is humping against me, right against that same spot, and then he groans and grabs the back of my head and I realize he's coming too.

It takes a minute for everything to stop, but when it does, when I can hear more than just the roaring in my ears and when I can breathe like a normal human being again, I realize what I just did. What we just did. It's that same feeling, from when his hands first started up my legs. I should feel bad about this, but it was too good to be bad. But it must be bad. I must be bad to have done it, to have let it happen.

I start to feel the panic under my heart, rattling around there like the first time I made Donny come with my hand. What do I do now, it's asking, what do I say, what did I do, and how can I just get home? I squeeze my eyes shut and make a little box inside of myself where I put the icky feeling, lock it up tight for another time, not for now.

Now is for trying to concentrate on the noise of Jack breathing against my neck. Now is for feeling him turn his head and kiss my throat, and then up to my jaw and then my cheek, and my mouth, but not frantic like before, soft and sweet, and like Donny--and it's funny how I don't mind that Jack's being like Donny, when usually he's not at all. Now is for putting on a nice smile and buttoning up my shirt as casually as possible, for climbing down the ladder without tripping and for straightening my skirt and trying to ignore that I have a weird wedgie and that my thighs are all wet and sticky. Now is for smoothing my hair while Jack fixes my collar and hands me my coat and for remembering to lock the door behind us.

The box in my chest stays shut as Jack walks me home, but there's a crack in it when we get to my block, and I have a bad feeling, so I tell Jack I need to go the rest of the way alone in case someone sees him. It's a good choice, because as I come up to the house, I see Spike leaning against his usual tree. I sneak up to our neighbor's shrubs and try to figure a way around him, but he already knows I'm there, I can tell, so I just walk up as nonchalantly as possible, take the offensive right off.

"Stalking again, Spike? Very nice."

He pulls the cigarette from his mouth and looks me over, and I know he knows something.

"Where the hell're you coming from, then?" he asks, then grabs my wrist to look at my watch. "It's three in the bleeding morning."

"Janice's," I lie, looking straight at him. He frowns deeper and sniffs, and the panic bangs hard to get out. He can smell me, he can smell Jack, he must smell something.

"Oh really?" he says, "and what have you and Janice been up to, then?"

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, he thinks I'm doing it with Janice. I feel wind in my mouth and realize it's dropped open. Think think think.

Denial, I realize. Pretend you don't know what he's smelling, what he's thinking.

"Hello? Mainly we've been up to me trying to get away from my freakazoid sister who tried to kill me and all her friends with a demon this afternoon. Remember? The demon she wouldn't have sicced on us if you'd given her the stupid antidote when Willow told you to, moron."

That pisses him off enough to throw him off the scent, literally and otherwise.

"You know what, Platelet," he snaps, and the growl in his voice reminds me (of Jack, growling as he came against me coming too, shut the box, nail it shut, lock it in) that his pet name for me is snack food for him. "I was doing you lot a favor, waiting out here, watching to be sure all's well with those plucky Summers girls. Xander, him and Tara took off, and who's there to look after you now? Willow?" He laughs meanly. "But never you mind. You go sneaking back in your bedroom window and hope your sis's sleeping heavy, and that she wakes up sane in the morning. Because if she finds you've been flouncing about town like a little tart, she'll do more than set a demon on you, mark my words."

Spike throws his cigarette down on the lawn, onto the pile of dirty old butts that have been accumulating next to this tree for more than a year. Like at the hospital, that night I sort of kissed him, I feel bad because even though I did it to save myself, I think I hurt his feelings.

He turns and starts down the sidewalk.

"Spike," I call softly, and he turns, swiveling on one foot, the other sort of flying out with the momentum.

"I'm done looking out for you," he calls. "You hear? So stay out of trouble."

I watch him stalk around the corner and feel like crying, because I like that he looks out for me, that he stands guard outside, even if it is mostly because he's being Buffy's peeping tom.

I don't cry, though. Instead I climb up and in my window, change into my PJs in case I wake one of them up on my way to the bathroom, and then wash up as quietly as I can, one leg in the tub so I can splash water to rinse myself, using my hands to wash my smell off my thighs, staying out of trouble.

***

That bitch Kirsty said something, found out somehow, about me and Jack. Two days after our night at the Magic Box, Donny grabbed me before second period, pulled me into our closet, and proceeded to freak out, asking about other guys. I tried to calm him down, and it almost worked, but when he went to kiss my neck, I remembered Jack--too late. Donny'd already seen the marks there, that he hadn't left. By noon, he'd clearly confided in Kirsty because the entire school was watching me, and there she was every time I turned around, smiling her sick little weasel smile. I hate her, hate them both.

Even Janice, who knew about everything--well, except for that big last night with Jack, but she knew that I kissed him in the first place, and that I was sick of giving Donny hand jobs during seventh period--even Janice was acting weird toward me. Jealous, that's what she was. What everyone was. Because I had found something really cool with Jack, and none of them had it.

I cut the rest of school, and then tried to be normal and go shopping with Buffy during the time she thought of as "after school." It was weird, because even though it was a total flop in that I couldn't actually set foot in any of the stores we went to, we still had a pretty okay time. And I stopped thinking about school and Donny and Kirsty, which was of the good.

And Buffy was trying really hard, too, to be normal, after the whole trying to kill me thing. Making me pancakes on a Friday, trying to plan for the weekend. Not letting me go patrolling with her. It was annoying, as usual, because of the thing where she literally treated me like a year-and-a-half old kid, but she was trying so hard, and she was so nice to me and I could feel how much she loved me for that little moment, that I was almost okay with it.

I went by the Magic Box, like I've done every afternoon since Anya ran off, to see if she was back, and then there she was. Weird. I felt a little guilty about the whole breaking-and-heavy-petting thing the other night, but then I figured, what she won't know about, ever, no matter what, won't hurt her, right? Anyway, she was all pissed at Xander, which I get, totally, but she was totally trying to make me wish something bad about him. Like I didn't ace that exam. Hello? Does she even remember Buffy's birthday party, where my stupid wish to her stupid demon girlfriend practically killed us all? How dumb does she think I am?

I tried to be nice about it, though, because of the being dumped at the altar factor, and also because of my having used her store for groping purposes. But she was freaking me out. I reminded her about our manual labor agreement and then she dropped it, and I was glad. I'd rather spend the afternoon sweeping up dried up old newt eyes than listening to her wish terrible things on poor Xander. Who, for the record, I told her, feels just terrible.

Anyway, I hardly got anything actually done, because she was so hyper and weird. She ran me off after, like, not even an hour. I went over to the Bronze to see if Jack might be there, but it was way too early for him. I gave up after a few hours and just went home, right in time to see--right there on Willow's computer right there on my dining room table--what Anya had been in such a rush to get me out of the store to do. Spike. On the table. Totally having sex. Way worse than me and Jack on the ladder.

It took me about three seconds, most of the time that Willow's hands were over my eyes (to, what? keep me from *getting* what was going on there?), to realize that we were seeing Anya and Spike on Willow's computer because there was a freaking *camera* in the Magic Box. Which meant that, if we were watching the Anya and Spike show on Friday night, someone else had been watching the Dawn and Jack show on Tuesday. And that was really, really bad.

Fortunately, it didn't seem like anyone at my house had been watching. Judging from everyone's reactions, this was the first they'd learned of the creepy peep show. Buffy was freaked, and all of a sudden I remembered something that she'd said to me when she was getting ready to kill me. About sleeping with a vampire she hates. I'd been a bit busy at the time, what with the trying to run away, but I guess I thought she meant Angel. I mean, who else would she mean? Besides, she was talking crazy that day. Really.

But there was Buffy, looking like Donny'd looked yesterday, when he'd yelled and cried about my hickeys and was it true what Kirsty was saying, about me blowing the entire soccer team.

Oh my god. Buffy and Spike. All this time. I paused mentally to appreciate the irony that I, the baby of the Scoobies, seemed to be the only one who *got* that.

I followed Buffy outside, where she was sitting on a chair, staring off into space like psycho-Buffy.

"So. This is it?" I asked, not too impressed. "This is the stuff you've been protecting me from? You and Spike?"

"And a lot of monsters." She tried to make it more, but I know it's not.

I want to say, "Tell me, tell me why, and how, and why you started and what it feels like and is this love, this feeling like you want to be touching him, and him you, all the time? Is this what's happening to me?" But all I manage is, "Uh-huh."

"But it's over," she said, as if that answered anything.

Oh right, I thought as I sat down on the other chair. I didn't actually ask any of the important questions.

"Spike," Buffy explained further, as if I thought she meant the monsters.

I didn't know what to say. She looked so sad. "I wish you'd told me," I said, truthfully, and as sincerely as I could, which was actually really sincerely.

"I kinda didn't want to admit it to myself."

"I get that," I said, and I did. I mean, hello?

She didn't say anything, just stared at the ground, and I realized that she didn't get that I got it. Why should she? She has no clue what I've been doing. She has no idea what I know.

"I know it must hurt," I said. "To feel like you have to hide, to keep secrets from everybody?"

She tipped her head away from the entrancement of the grass to look at me, and something registered. I opened my mouth to say something more, maybe to tell her *how* I got it, *why* I know about keeping secrets, but I didn't get the chance. Xander was off with an axe to kill Spike, or maybe Anya, or, really, maybe both of them, so that was pretty much the end of the sisterly heart-to-heart.

I didn't even ask to come with, and neither did Willow. I didn't want to see what was going to happen. I love them all too much to watch. So instead I went inside and cleaned up a little bit while Willow messed with her computer some more. After a while, I couldn't stand it any more, and I didn't care about whether it was okay with anyone, I just wanted someone to be with me. Someone normal. I wanted Tara.

So I called her and tried to tell her what happened, but I started crying a little when I got to the part about Xander and the axe, because that made me realize that I didn't know who he was going to kill, and then made me think of Buffy and who she might kill, and then suddenly everyone I knew was going to be dead. Willow came in when I started crying for real, when I dropped the phone on the floor and just started sobbing like a baby. She picked up the phone and talked to Tara--God, I love Tara so much sometimes--and then it was like before all this crap happened, before Willow went bad and before Buffy died, and Willow was just my friend. She petted my hair and walked me to the couch, and then when Tara came, we all just sat in a sort of pile on the couch, waiting. We waited a long, long time, and eventually Tara took me upstairs and sat with me until I went to sleep, singing me little songs like she used to last summer when I missed Buffy and Mom so much I thought I'd die, too.

I woke up early and checked Buffy's room first thing. No Buffy. So I went downstairs and had some Fruit Loops and tried to watch TV, but I couldn't concentrate for crap. Where was she, already? Why didn't she call? After the rerun of Trading Spaces, I went back upstairs to shower, kill some time, and that's when I realized I wasn't alone. Willow was just finishing up checking out Buffy's empty room.

"Is she back yet?" I asked, thinking that she might have snuck in the window while Doug and Amy Wynn were building that fabulous armoire for the redneck couple.

"Not yet," she said, and then tried her grown-up, everything's going to be just fine thing. "But I'm sure she'll be back soon. Everything's fine. Go back to bed."

I just looked at her. I mean, first of all, everything was *not* fine, and second of all...

"It's ten o'clock."

"Oh, umm..." She was worried, I could tell. It made me worry more.

"You don't think she'd hurt Spike, do you?"

"She told you about Spike?"

If I wasn't so worried, that would have pissed me off. Like it was such a surprise to everyone that I might be actually in on something for once.

"It was kinda obvious last night," I said, but because of the worried thing, it didn't come out as nasty as it might have.

"Yeah, I totally knew."

I was having more Donny sympathy flashes--which didn't make me feel that great about myself, so I stopped--thinking about it all again, and God, poor everyone! Why does everything have to be such a drama?

"It must have hurt so much," I said, I don't really know why. I just needed to talk, and Willow, even if she was clueless as usual, was Willow, and I loved her. "Seeing him and Anya like that. And poor Xander... Everything's so screwed up."

She sounded smart for the first time in a long time, when she said that it would be okay, that things were just complicated. It actually made sense to me. I believed her. She sounded like she knew about this stuff, which I guess she really does.

"When people have such strong feelings for each other, sometimes they--"

And there was Tara. Nearly naked Tara, in a blanket, coming out of their bedroom like she used to when it was their bedroom. It took me a second (and I have to roll my eyes at myself this time, because, duh!!) to get what'd happened. That they were back. That they were okay and in love again, and that this part of my life was going to be happy and normal again, like it was before.

I started jumping around, hugging myself, hugging them, basking in the afterglow of Willow and Tara, and I could see that they were embarrassed, but that just made me happier.

"Think that's my cue to put some clothes on," Tara said, blushing like she always used to, even though she knew that I didn't care. And suddenly I didn't care about anything, about Buffy or Xander and Anya, or about Spike or any of it. I just wanted to have this little spot of happiness and sunshine stay in our house for as long as it could. Which meant letting Tara and Willow stay naked as long as possible.

"No!" I said, thinking fast. "I'm totally not here. You guys do whatever you want. I'll watch TV. Really loud. In the basement. Where I can't hear. Anything." I sounded like a total idiot, but I didn't care. Tara was back, and Willow was Willow again, and I didn't care about anything else, for once, I just loved them so much. I got about halfway down the stairs before I remembered to go back and actually tell them, out loud, because I hadn't in so long.

***

The Tara and Willow joy spreads to Buffy, and there's about a half hour later on, when they come out of their room, and I see what things would have been like if Buffy hadn't died, and we all were just living, happy, together. And where I think, that's what my life's going to be like now. Us, together, happy. Good.

Of course, even if we're all momentarily happy, the whole my-sister's-the-Slayer thing comes right back the way it always does. The Nerd Brigade is still up to no good, and still needs foiling. And then there's the fun reminder that even the non-Slayer stuff was still really messed up: Xander had still ditched Anya, Buffy'd still been boinking Spike, and Spike and Anya had still boinked each other in front of the world.

Buffy goes off to track the nerds down, and Willow and Tara decide to tackle the research. Except that I pretty much know they want to be doing naked research, and so I announce that I'm going to Janice's for the night, and everyone seems relieved. Not in a mean way, though.

I call Janice and tell her I want to talk, that Kirsty's totally spreading lies about me, and she sounds happy, which is good. So I pack a bag and head out, yelling "Bye" from the bottom of the stairs so they'll all know I've gone but so I won't have to interrupt anything, just in case.

It's dark out when I leave, and for some reason I get this twinge of annoyance that Buffy didn't, for once, freak about me walking alone at night. Tara and Willow either. They're all preoccupied, I know. And it would've pissed me off if they had said something, but still...

Thinking of walking alone makes me think of vampires, makes me think of Spike, makes me think of Buffy and Spike and me and Spike, and I really need to talk to him. I detour through his cemetery, stake in hand under my bag.

He's pouring some sort of alcohol into a glass of blood when I get there, and he's had enough of it that he doesn't notice the noise I make with the door.

It's sad. And really, really gross, but I try not to think about that. I hate it when Spike's sad. It just seems unfair that someone who isn't supposed to have a soul can have his feelings hurt so bad. And then I remember that he's the one who slept with Anya, that they're the ones who hurt Buffy and Xander.

It should be that simple, I think, but I don't really believe that it is.

"Does it help?" I ask, and he turns around and looks vaguely annoyed.

"Doesn't hurt." He looks at my backpack, makes a pathetic attempt at a joke about camping out. He's really off.

I tell him where I'm going and why, trying to get to the point. He gets there himself.

"Ain't love grand," he says, and I can tell he really, really doesn't think it is. I'm on the fence myself right now. Anyway, it's obvious he doesn't feel like chatting, and I feel weird being here anyway. Like I'm betraying Buffy and Xander somehow. But he's my friend, too.

Whatever, move on already.

"I just wanted to stop by on my way and, you know..." What? Say goodbye? Ask what he was thinking? Ask why he'd do something like that? And by the way, don't feel too bad, I put on a show myself the other night, I know what it's like? Yeah, right. None of the above. "Everybody's pretty mad at you."

Lame, but true. And it's not news to him, either. His voice is so sad, and he won't look at me.

"Yeah. Kinda picked up on that."

Now I feel like crying. How can I feel so sad for him and be mad at him at the same time?

"You're not going to be coming around anymore, are you?"

"It's... complicated, Nibblet."

I roll my eyes at the stock answer. I know it's true, but it's a cop out anyway.

"Everybody keeps saying that."

"Must be true then."

Yeah, I think. Must be. But I'm annoyed. He's not telling me what I need to know. So I guess I better just ask it straight out.

"Was it worth it?" I ask. "What you did with Anya?"

He finally makes a face, an expression, a voice that's not just dead.

"Buffy told you?"

I almost laugh. I have to, you know?

"Kinda caught the show." Kinda was the preview myself. He doesn't get it, how could he, and I force the words out, make myself say only the stuff he needs to know, not everything that I know.

"There was a camera somewhere in the magic shop," I explain. "Warren and Jonathan and that other guy have been watching Buffy."

"Wankers."

I choose not to think about the three of them watching me and Jack. I don't want to know about that. I want to know about Spike, about why and how, and what it means that they were having sex for all those months. And why she wouldn't tell anyone, and why he didn't even though he must have been so happy, he must have wanted everyone to know.

"Do you love her?"

"No. It was just... a bad day. For both of us. We had a few drinks and things just--"

He doesn't get it. "Not Anya," I say, cutting him off. "Buffy. Do you really love her?"

He doesn't say anything, but I know. He knows I know.

"Then how could you do that to her?" I ask, and he immediately gets pissed.

"Oh, right. Big Sis was treating me so well up until then. Huh. Must still be a bit of the evil left in me after all."

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Buffy might not have been very nice to him. She hasn't exactly been Miss Caring and Attentive since she came back. If she tried to kill me and Will and Xander, who she would never hurt, what might she have done to Spike, who she's been beating up on a regular basis for years?

She's messed up, and he's messed up, and I know he's not evil. I know he hurts, and that he loves her. But Buffy hurts too, and for more reasons, I think. And I love her, too, more than I love him. And I have to take sides.

But I try to be at least a little nice about it. I owe him that much.

"I don't know what happened between you two," I start, "but what you did last night... If you wanted to really hurt Buffy--congratulations. It worked."

Okay, so that could've been nicer. But it's true. And in a way, I think he might be glad to hear it. I know first hand that it's hard to know that Buffy loves you, especially these days. And he couldn't have hurt her if she didn't care. So at least he has that.

I go before I forgive him too much, before he cries or I cry. I don't say goodbye, though. I don't want it to be goodbye. It'll work out somehow, for everyone, now that things are out in the open. Out in the open.

Like I know anything about that. Like I'm Little Miss Out in the Open. So I'm going to start. Putting things out in the open. I'll start with Janice. With my life, not my sister's. I'll tell her about that night with Jack, and how nothing that Kirsty says is ever true. And I'll tell her about how I think I broke up with Donny and I don't really care because he's such a little boy next to Jack, and besides, he was way too annoying and possessive. And how good everything with Jack felt.

I do all of that. We talk all night and make ourselves sick on popcorn and Diet Coke, and she cries a little bit, when she says she's sorry for listening to anything that bitch has to say, and says that she was stressed out because Mike, the guy she likes, was kissing Susan Perry by the gym. We make plans to conquer the Bronze: Mike- hunting for her, Jack-hunting for me.

We finally go to sleep at, like, seven a.m. and sleep till two. When I get home, no one's there, which is more annoying to me now that everything feels better here. I take a bath and a nap and get dressed up. I stash clothes for school tomorrow in my bag and leave a note on the fridge that I'm back at Janice's for the night, and then I'm out again, before anyone can find me and make me come home because it's a school night. I also want to get to Janice's before dark this time because my bag's full and I don't have anyplace to stash a stake in this outfit--the skirt's too short, the top's too tight.

It's fun again, in my world, and I put Buffy's world away in the little box and concentrate on hanging with my best friend, laughing and joking about how we're going to show Kirsty, show everybody.

The Bronze is busy for a Sunday. Summer's coming, and everyone is ready for it, pretending it's here already. I think about how much fun it's going to be to have a boyfriend over the summer, how great Jack will look at the beach, tan and wet. Mike's cute, too. We're going to have so much fun, the four of us.

Jack doesn't show up till late, but I don't care. I know he'll be there. I just do. And meanwhile I help Janice with Mike, arranging chance meetings, setting up conversation so that she has something cool to say when they bump into each other, keeping an eye on him so she doesn't look too interested. Stuff like that. It's really pretty hard work, but it's fun, and we're good at it.

The band has just come on, kicking the DJ out, when I see him glide through the door. I kick Janice, softly, and now it's her turn to help me. Not that I need it. Just a few minutes of looking like I'm occupied with something really fun, so that I can laugh and swish my hair around, that's all I need.

Jack doesn't waste much time, which I like about him. He just heads over to the pool table where Mike is, pops him on the shoulder, and they look our way and talk and laugh a little, and then Jack slides right up next to me.

"Summers," he greets me, the way he does. Janice is trying not to laugh. Mike comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder, and she stops giggling quick.

I'm cool, though. I know this routine.

"Billings. What's news?"

He grins at me, and I swear, my stomach flips right over inside me.

"My friend Mike, here. He's all hot for your girlfriend."

Janice turns an unbelievable shade of red, and I smile and raise my eyebrow, pretending not to notice.

"Yeah? Well, she is pretty cool, I guess. I like her okay."

Jack's arm is around the back of my chair, and he's leaning. He smells really good.

"My friend Mike here wants to take her for a walk," he says, laughter in his voice. "Do you think she'd go if he asked her?"

I look at Janice, keeping my cool and sending it over to her in the biggest psychic vibes I can manage.

"I bet she would."

Mike grins and holds his hand out in front of Janice's face, raising his eyebrow and tipping his head toward the door. Janice looks at him, then at me, then back at him.

"See you kids," Jack says, and I share a quick wave with Janice, who's being remarkably calm. Usually she'd spaz. I must be rubbing off on her. It's weird, I used to be the spaz. Funny how things change.

And so there we are again, me and Jack, and the conversation goes right where I want it to.

"So," I say, and let it trail off.

"Yeah, I was just thinking that." His hand's on my back, easing me off my seat, heading us toward the door. "Your friend still on vacation?"

The Magic Box. We can't go there. Anya's back, and I don't think she's living with Xander, so no telling when she might show up to comfort herself with her money. Not to mention the disgustingly real risk of us having an audience. Again. Ugh.

"No," I say, "no, we can't go there tonight. We'll have to find somewhere else."

We're out the door, in the alley, and he swings us around, my back against the wall, his arm on one side of my head, the other hand on my jaw, tilting my head.

"Don't worry," he says, right before he kisses me that way he does (right out on the street, right in front of everyone). It doesn't last nearly long enough, which is probably good, considering what it makes me want to do. "I know the perfect spot."

***

I should have known. The door was open. Open doors at my house are not the norm. Vampires can't get in, but lots of other things can. We never leave the door open. Ever.

But I was all off in my little world, pretending everything was normal, like I'd done all day. Look at me, I'm just coming home from school like I always do, wearing my normal jeans, carrying my normal bag after spending a normal night, even if it was a school night, at my normal friend's house. Nothing going on here, no sir. Everything's just fine. Normal.

Except the stupid door.

My voice sounds normal when I call out to Buffy. It's weird. It's sounded just like that all day. All day while I was helping with my group's presentation on tobacco and the Southern economy in Social Studies. All day while I was complaining like I always do about the gross salad dressings in the cafeteria. All day, even while I answered the question about how old Romeo and Juliet are. She's thirteen, I said, and he's fifteen. Like me. All day.

And as I go upstairs, it all still seems normal. All except the door.

There were normal conversations with Janice, even though she knows I didn't stay at her house. She thinks I went home. Which is normal. I mean, that's what I'd do, normally. And then the newish but still normal snarky remarks from Kirsty and her little flock. Normal dirty looks from them at me and Janice. Whatever. Like we care what any of them says.

No one in the hall, no one in the bathroom, so I look down toward their room, Mom's old room. The door's open, which is normal. It's open a lot. Closed when they want privacy is the rule. Open all the rest of the time, for when we sit on the bed and do each other's nails, for when they read my tarot cards, for when we'd play with Amy, before she got all de-ratted and evil, and talk about books we were reading. Open's normal.

But there's something wrong in here. I can feel it.

I see her feet, and then I smell something, something that doesn't belong in here, and I see her, on the floor, on the floor, and she doesn't move when I call her name, and she's just lying there, on the floor, where she'd never lie--she sits on the floor, lounges on the bed, but she never lies down on the floor like that.

She just lies there, and I can see the blood now, and I say her name over and over and still she just lies there, and the box inside me explodes (splinters of Jack and Donny and Justin stab my insides; if I were a vampire, I'd be a pile of dust, staked from the inside, why am I not just dust?) because what I've been storing in there needs to get out, to make way for this because this cannot be true, this cannot be Tara lying on my mother's floor in a slick of blood--not even that much blood, and it's not even liquid anymore, it's like a big, soft scab--these can't be her eyes open and milky and looking at nothing. None of this can be true, and I don't care about anything, anything except making her blink her eyes and get up off the floor.

***

I sat there forever, on the floor near Tara. Not with her, because I couldn't touch her, not like that. But I needed to be there, to be with her. No one else was. I didn't know where they were, but we were alone, me and Tara, meaning me, really, because she wasn't really there. Not anymore, I thought, and told myself over and over and over that she's in heaven and that it's every bit as nice as Buffy made out.

After a while I found out that I could look somewhere other than right at her, other than directly into her dead eyes. I looked around the room and it sank in what happened. It didn't make any sense, but I could see that there was a bullet hole in the window, and I could see the blackened edges of the hole in Tara's back. There must have been one on the front of her, too, because of the blood. But there wasn't much blood, really. Which meant, I hoped, from what I learned on CSI, that she died really quickly. If she'd bled to death or something, there'd be a lot more blood. So that's nice, anyway.

Nice.

Aw, baby, you feel so nice. That's what he said to me. That's what he said.

I couldn't think about that, not then. Not with Tara lying there, dead (Tara, who I was going to tell, who was the only one who wouldn't freak out at me), not with everyone gone (Where are they? Why aren't they here? Don't they know what's happened, what's on the floor here? Don't they care?).

So I sat against the wall and built my little box up again. I put Jack in it first, that was easy, he wasn't lying dead on the floor. Then I worked at it some more until I could put the rest of last night into the box, along with the cold sticky feeling in my panties that matched the cold sticky, sick feeling in my stomach, which had been there since it happened, and had gotten a gazillion times worse since I saw the open door.

I put Mom in there, and Buffy and Glory, and then I put Tara in there to keep Mom company, since she's been alone since Buffy came back. It was crowded in my little box. Dad was there, and Giles, and Riley and Angel, people who've left me. Willow fit right in there, too, because of this winter, and Spike, since I told him off about Buffy. Xander went in for leaving Anya, and Anya for leaving him right back.

It took me a long time. It was hard work. Tara kept coming back out. I mean, she was right there, not at all ready to be shut away. She helped, though. She made me work faster.

It was dark when I noticed Buffy, right next to me, and something dark--someone--behind her.

I tried to make sense, but nothing did. I tried to keep the box shut, but Tara wouldn't stay in, and Buffy was there, for once she was right there, and I grabbed onto her and cried and cried, and then, when she and Xander pulled me up to take me out of the room, I threw up until there was nothing left inside me except my little box, bulging and straining in my chest.

Buffy and I were in the bathroom for a long time. She undressed me and put me in the shower, and somehow it didn't show (but how can it not show? there must be marks, more hickeys, and a glow or something, but no, there can't be a glow because Tara is dead and I should be dead, I feel dead, am I just dead?), last night didn't show up on me at all.

She helped me get dressed and called Xander to come sit with me while she got cleaned up. Blood, all over her, more than there was on the carpet under Tara. And Xander was bloody, too, but less than Tara. He sat on my bed next to me, put a blanket around me and just bundled me up in his Xander arms and cried. Not me though. I was done crying. Nothing left in me but my little box.

I went downstairs with Buffy when the police and everyone came. I didn't want to see or hear them. She and Xander took turns sitting with me while the other one talked to the people in Mom's room. They told me what happened. How Warren, the Head Geek, shot Buffy and Tara, and how Willow saved Buffy but went crazy with magic and was going to kill Warren. Which, apparently was somehow a bad thing--explain that one to me--and so she had to be stopped, and I was off to be babysat. By Clem, it turned out, because Spike left. Big surprise.

And then it was crazy, crazy enough to keep me really busy, busy enough to make the box safe and tight again. Even Tara stayed put for a while. Willow went completely nuts, started killing people for real, nearly killed me again, tried to end the world, and kept Buffy from stopping it by tossing her right back in the ground that she'd dug out of this fall.

But that was the thing. She tossed me down there with Buffy, and that changed everything. That and Xander, who I've known was the hero of the story since I was five. Buffy and I saved ourselves, and Xander saved the world, and Giles was home, and somehow, I realized, as Buffy and I limped out to find our family and try to figure out what to do about the state it was in, somehow I was going to have to tell Buffy that I had sex with Jack Billings last night.

***

It took me a while to tell her. I mean, there was stuff, big life, end-of-the-world, people we love dying and going crazy stuff. And then there was the fact that by the time Tara's funeral was over, I'd gotten really good about not thinking about it. Except when it popped out of the box along with everything else and freaked me all the way out.

Like when I went back to school.

There was only a month or so of school left, and I missed a lot of it. Giles was great. He and Buffy talked with the new social worker after the day I lost it at the Magic Box and Xander had to practically sit on me to keep me from hurting myself. They got the school to let me make up my classes over the summer so I wouldn't have to do anything unthinkable like repeat the ninth grade, but I also wouldn't have to go back right away.

Sue, the new case worker, was pretty cool--much younger than the other one--and she said all this stuff about post traumatic stress disorder and the shock of the sudden, violent death of another loved one that made a lot more sense than I expected from a grown up who wasn't in the Scoobies.

And I was really fine with summer school. The three days I'd spent back at school were terrible. Four guys in letter jackets followed me around saying gross things. Two other guys--not even jocks, just stoners--cornered me in the science wing and asked me how much I wanted to give them blow jobs. Kirsty and Donny were doing their impersonation of Mr. and Ms. Right for Each Other; they rolled their eyes and said rude things, loudly, when they saw me. Janice was freaked and was avoiding me. Not that I blamed her. I was pretty much looking to avoid me, too, at that point.

I only saw Jack once, on that last day. He smiled all nice and gestured for me to follow him, so we could talk. I wanted to tell him what'd happened--Tara--and why I hadn't been around, why I hadn't ... I don't know. Called? Talked to him at all?

But Jack's idea of talking was to stick his tongue in my mouth and push my hand down his pants. When I said no, he called me a tease and a little slut (which, hello, can't be both at the same time), and told me he knew I wanted it from him again, and come on, it was so good, you know you want me Dawnie baby.

I shoved him and stepped down, hard and with all my weight, on the outside of his left knee, the way Buffy'd shown me, and then I ran away while he yelled and swore at me my whole way across the soccer field.

I ran all the way to the Magic Box, where Xander was working, and cried and cried and cried while he kept his arms tight around me and petted my hair and kissed my head and told me everything would be okay because everyone loved me, and I calmed down a little. I caught Anya's eye, and she looked so sad--for me, I knew it was for me--and so I knew that she knew, and now I had another vengeance demon at my command. Which was a freaky feeling. I just shook my head at her, and she nodded and went back to picking up.

Anyway, that's what got Giles and Buffy talking to Sue about summer school, and I was really relieved not to have to go back.

But in all that talk, no one asked me what was wrong. I mean, it looked really obvious, I'm sure. They thought they already knew, and what they did know was plenty to qualify me as being bonkers, so they didn't figure there was anything else. And I was mostly fine with that, because thinking about it freaked me out.

Buffy and I were walking back from the clinic where Willow's been staying since she went nuts. At least one of us goes to see her every day. It's weird. I thought I'd hate her after what she tried to do, but I don't. I get mad still, but she's like a little girl now--she's not the same at all (but Xander says she used to be like this, when they were little, so at least he recognizes her). It's like she's the Scoobies' baby sister now, instead of me.

Anyway, we were walking by Spike's cemetery, and I was looking toward his crypt like I always do, hoping to see Clem's homemade welcome wreath torn to bits, or some other sign that Spike was back, and I caught Buffy looking the same way.

It just came out, I don't know why.

"Do you love him?" I asked. "I mean, did you?"

"It's complicated, Dawnie," she said, but I didn't let her get away with that this time.

"I know it is. But do you?"

Buffy sighed and looked really sad. "I had feelings for him," she said. "But it wasn't love. Not for me anyway. "

"But you had sex with him."

She made that funny grimacy face. "Repeatedly," she said in her flat this-is-uncomfortable-to-me voice. "But..." She stopped walking and leaned against a tombstone, and I stopped with her and waited.

"Oh, God, I'm having The Talk," she said and laughed a little, nervously. "It wasn't right. I wasn't doing it for the right reasons. And there were consequences. I mean, there are consequences, whenever it happens, for whatever reasons. I just didn't think about them until it was too late, and... Well, we both got hurt because of it."

She waited to see what I said.

"So..." I said, and I was afraid to go on, but I made myself, made it sound as casual as possible. I wanted to ask what the right reason is, but I figured it was probably too late for that question. I'm pretty sure that, whatever my reason was, it wasn't the right one. Otherwise Jack wouldn't have told the whole school the way he did, wouldn't have been so awful to me that day. "So what was it like?"

She turned red. "Ooh, boy, Dawn. I don't think I'm ready to have this part of the talk."

"Well, I mean, like, was it..."

-*-Rough carpet on my hips and back, scraping my bare skin as we kiss, scratchy on my back, but his hands are so smooth, so soft and hard where they touch, and they touch me everywhere.-*-

"Maybe we should get a book, huh?" she suggested, still blushing. "Because I just don't feel okay with the kiss-and-tell route of having the sex talk with my kid sister."

-*-Soft, wet, strong mouth kissing and licking me, moaning on me, moving on me, and my mouth everywhere on him, even there for a minute because he begged me in that voice. His whole, long body on top of me and suddenly I realize--even though I knew it before, I mean, I knew it, but still--that I'm all the way naked, and so is he, and our skin feels so good together, the skin there is so soft and smooth, even though it's so hard, and he's pushing it on my stomach, his hand is on me and in me--ohmygod in me--and then he puts his other hand over my mouth when I start to yell so his parents won't hear us in our little playroom over the garage.-*-

Buffy kept talking the way she does when she's uncomfortable, thinking out loud about maybe Sue knew something about this, and there must be some good books out there, and maybe we should look into Catholic school for next year. Which is ironic, considering.

-*-Warm sticky stuff all over my stomach when he comes (I watch it happen, help it along, squeezing, stroking) and then he goes to sleep kind of on top of me, and I doze a little, not so comfortable on the floor, or naked, or with him. I must sleep a little, though. Because I wake up because he's kissing my boobs again, squeezing, and I can feel how he's hard again, kissing my mouth, rubbing my whole body with his. I itch, I ache, I want the good thing to happen again. He's fumbling around in his pants, off to the side, but I don't pay attention. I'm busy touching him--his butt is so cute, like a baby but grown up and sexy. He likes it, I can tell.

"Aw, baby, you feel so nice," he purrs--I made him purr--and kisses me even more.

"You like this, baby? You like it?"

I do, I do, so I tell him yes.

"Me, too, Dawn, God, I like it so much."-*-

She was on to the virtues of nunhood--how we could join up together, since her luck with men sucked so much--and started off, pushing away from the headstone she'd been leaning on. I tried to follow her, but my feet were stuck to the ground, my head was ringing.

-*-I hear a tearing noise, feel his hands leave me, and he's touching himself--let me do that, I think, I know how to do it--and then I follow his hands and I feel it.

"Don't worry, see? It's safe now."

I look at him, and my heart seems to have stopped. With a condom on, it looks weird--I was just getting used to how it looks normally.

"I... I don't know..." I manage to say, but then he's kissing me again, and his hand is between my legs, and I'm wet all over, and he pushes just right, just there, and says over the noise I can't help making, "Doesn't it feel good? Don't you feel it? You want more, see? Let me give you more, baby."

And I do want more. I want more so much I feel like crying forever.

"I'm scared," I say, and he kisses my eyelids.

"Don't worry, babe. It's okay. It's gonna be great, let me show you."

His fingers move faster and then I'm begging him, it feels so good and I don't care, I don't care, I just want more.

"Go," I manage to push out between my teeth. "Go on."

He's fumbling around again, his hand moves slower, making me want more even more. Jack moves over me, and I don't know what to do, how to do this. How do you do this?

"Here," he says, and puts his weight on one elbow so he can use the other arm without squishing me. His hand goes between us, pushes my legs apart, moves around against us both, and then I feel him against me, poking around until he finds what must be the right spot, and then he pushes.

It hurts, it hurts as he goes in, and my body clenches against the hurt, and then I can feel that he's in and it hurts and how is this supposed to work, what am I supposed to do, I don't think it's this. I make a noise that's not a sexy noise and he kisses my cheek, breathing hard, harder.

"Okay?" he asks, and I shake my head, eyes burning.

"It hurts. Please, ow, it hurts." He kisses me again and moves off, out, and I breathe and think, okay, okay, it's okay. Kisses again, deeper, tongue, then the hand is back on the spot, and the hurt moves away, slowly, until it's gone and my body remembers the good thing, which is coming back to visit. All the time, he's watching me.

"God, you're so fucking hot."

And then he moves his hand faster, and the other hand goes down there, too, and I feel his finger inside where it hardly hurts at all anymore, and then I'm almost there, and he's back on top of me, pushing in again. And this time the hurt is mixed with good, and it's not so bad, and I can just rest and let him move.

Jack slips his forearms up under my shoulders and hangs on, pushing harder when I don't say that it hurts, even though it does still, just not like before, not too bad. He puts his face into my neck and pushes harder, hardest, then growls "fuck, fuck, fuck" and then lies still on top of me.-*-

"Honey? Are you coming?" Buffy's voice, Buffy's hand on my arm. "Dawn, are you okay?"

I looked up, swallowed hard to keep my heart where it should be, to keep the box shut as tight as I could. But it was too late. Too late for the box, too late for the talk, too late for Catholic school and too late for books. Too late for Tara, and for Willow. Way too late for me.

I started to cry, and Buffy held onto my arm and came down with me when I sank onto some poor dead guy's grave.

"Dawnie, baby, what's the matter?" she asked, leaning in close and pushing my hair out of my face. "What is it?"

"I know," I said, and was embarrassed to be sobbing like that right in the middle of the cemetery. "I know about it. About the stuff. The sex stuff."

I couldn't see her, couldn't look at her, but I could tell from the way her hand moved, then stopped moving, on my head, that she was starting to get it, but not wanting to. Why would she want to get this?

"I did it already, Buffy," I told her, and then shoved her off and hid my head against my knees. "I did it with Jack."

There was a weird thud that I think was her head against the tombstone behind us.

"Um... Jack who?"

Which was a stupid enough question that I almost laughed.

"Jack Billings," I said, and then added: "He plays water polo."

When her arm went around my shoulders, I didn't shrug it off. She leaned against me and squeezed. "A jock, huh?" Another long pause, and then she said, "It's always the dead guys and the jocks. I dunno what that's about."

***

IV. Summer

Now I tell Buffy things all the time, but there's a lot less to tell. We talk about normal things. Not boys, because I've sworn them off. But we talk about girls. Not in that way. In the way of how we do things. How things feel to us. How she felt when Angel turned bad after she did it with him, and how I feel about the way people at school looked at me, and what I'm going to do about those looks in the fall, when I have to face them all again.

We talk about love, what it's like, what we'd like it to be like. We talk about that guy Parker, who was like her Jack. And Riley, who wasn't--who was, like, the total opposite of them--but who still left like they seem to do. We talk about Spike and about Xander, and how they both messed up, but how we secretly sort of understand about frustration and fear. We hope that Xander and Anya will work it out, and that Spike isn't dust somewhere far away.

We talk about Tara, and how much we miss her, and about Willow and whether she'll ever be the same person we loved so much. We talk about Mom, and about heaven and hell.

We spend time with our friends, our family. I think Buffy must have talked to Giles and Xander about me because they're extra nice to me, but I catch them looking at me weird sometimes. Like they know. Like they feel sorry for me and scared of me at the same time. It doesn't bother me, though. They're not mean about it, and they never say anything embarrassing. They're just my Giles and my Xander.

At summer school I end up in math with Lisa, my old pre-Janice friend. It's weird at first, because we totally didn't hang out this year. It was hard last year, after Mom and Glory and Buffy, and then this year she was all into the cheerleader thing and I was all into the Janice-Donny-Jack thing. But it turns out we both still hate Kirsty, and that's a good place to start. We watch old John Hughes movies and laugh at the hair.

Buffy teaches me to how to hold a sword right and how to throw someone much bigger than you, using their weight. Physics, I point out, and she laughs because she never took it, managed to scrape by with chemistry, and that was bad enough. She shows me the crossbow for when we're ready for the bad guys, and the quarter staff for when we're taken off guard and have to fight with what we can find. She takes me to church and introduces me to the priest who blesses water for her by the gallon, and now I have a Scooby job. She teaches me which ribs you have to slip a stake through to get it to slide into the heart with minimal force, and I teach her how to pick locks.

It's our first real summer together, I realize halfway through, between my not actually existing and her being dead, this is our first summer. We're okay at this, I think. I think we'll be okay at this. It's funny.

Funny how you can spend so much time convinced that you know everything about everything when what you really know is nothing about anything. Knowing everything didn't really help me. Buffy says it didn't help her, either, when she thought she knew. There are some things you just have to learn on your own, she says, just like everybody else. Six billion of us making the same mistakes over and over. It's not so bad, though, she says, and laughs, because she's still working on learning her stuff, too. So we're sort of in the same boat. Which is cool.

***

-End-

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Cynthia Liskow - cynthia_liskow@att.net