"This is mindless garbage, you know that?" Buffy gently berated the vampire who was stretched out behind her on the sofa.

"But it's fun, mindless garbage," Spike responded, holding another spoonful of strawberry Häagen-Dazs level with her lips and waiting for her to suck the softening confection into her mouth.

"My brain is going to melt if you make me watch any more, and I get enough with the dumb blonde jokes as it is."

Spike gave a gentle chuckle, but conceded the point. "Switch it off then, and see if you can find anything on cable. I guess I can leave catching up on Passions until you go back to being college girl."

"You find something. I'm going to go heat up mug number four."

Spike raised his eyes heavenward, but dutifully started flicking through the channels, as Buffy pulled away from him and picked up the oversized breakfast mug that the vampire had adopted as his own. Buffy didn't know whether he was aware that it had been a favourite of her mother's, but it seemed right somehow that he should use it, rather than it sitting at the back of a cupboard, gathering dust.

He was still flicking his way through the channels when he heard quiet footsteps padding their way downstairs. Dawn hovered in the living room doorway, unsure if she was interrupting Spike and Buffy's travelling sexcapades. Spike's bare arms and shoulders peeking out from underneath the afghan the family occasionally used during their late-night viewing did little to assuage her doubts.

"I thought we were past the shy phase, Niblet." The vampire glanced away from the television to see what was troubling the teen.

"There's shy and there's shy... Are you actually wearing anything under there?" Spike flipped back the blanket to show the same pyjama bottoms he occasionally wore for breakfast before sitting up to make space beside him for the youngster.

"And Buffy?" Dawn nodded toward the kitchen, from where the hum of the microwave could be heard.

"Robe and everything. Cross my heart... So, are you goin' to tell me what keeps you awake till half past two in the morning, or should I just assume it's the obvious?"

Dawn smirked unconvincingly. "Well, it's a good hour or two since that bellow that half the neighbourhood must have heard, so no, not the obvious... unless you mean the other 'creepy, government scientist who pretended to be our friend' obvious."

Spike patted the gap next to him. "That would be the one I meant."

Dawn finally moved from her position in the doorway, taking the remote from his hand and placing it out of reach on the coffee table before swapping the tape in the VCR for the tape of 'The Princess Bride' that she had brought downstairs the day before. "Is that ice cream up for grabs?" she asked as she finally settled beside the vampire, tucking her legs underneath her and pulling an end of the blanket over her lower body.

"That would be a matter for discussion with your sister."

"You can share it," Buffy answered as she returned to the room, setting Spike's mug on the floor by his feet before taking the ice-cream carton from his hands and passing it to her sister. "I'll go fetch another spoon."

"You wanting to talk about anything, or do we just happen to be in the same room as the telly?" Spike asked the girl who came a very close second in his affections.

Dawn shook her head. "Just TV and company. No big deep. Not in the dark, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, Bit, I know what you mean... Just don't forget that we are here for you whenever you need us."

"I know. She just has me a little spun."

Buffy came back from the kitchen, spoon in hand, and Spike shuffled along the couch so that she could sit next to her sister. "I'm not real good with the talk. It's more Fang Face's department, and I know as far as families go, ours is unconventional and it's kinda early days but I'm hoping it's going to work. I know you must feel like things would be easier if you had a normal mom and dad and brothers and sisters—"

"Buffy, I wouldn't have traded the time I had with mom for anything, and you guys being together and getting Tara to stay, is like... If I can't have mom back, it's the next best thing. I wouldn't change any of you for any other lifestyle you care to mention... And it's not like I'm Little Miss Normal or like a normal family could have had a hope of coping with all the things you guys have had to deal with because of me... or even like they'd want to."

"They'd want to, Niblet. It's only losers like your dad who could know you and not do everything in his power to keep you in their lives."

"Spike?" Buffy asked. "You think now might be time for what we hid away on the shelf in mom's old armoire?"

"That parcel in the black bag with silver lettering, you mean? ...Nah. It's too far away. I don't think I could lever myself off this sofa to go get it, and you've only just sat down... It'll keep." Spike's eyes gleamed with mischief as he watched the teenager's impatience mount.

"Buffy, what is it? Did you get me something? Can I have it, pleeeease? I'll go fetch it."

"I gue-ess... If you go fetch it." Buffy's smile was good-natured. "But the ice cream stays here and you have to bring it down before you open it. No peeking."

Dawn's curiosity had the better of her in milliseconds. Buffy leaned back into her fiancé's arms, scooping ice cream into her mouth with obvious delight.

"You better hurry up or the Columbo bit'll be finished and we'll be into the film proper before you get back!" Spike called after the girl. "An' tell Glinda she's not foolin' anyone. We can hear her movin' around in her room, so she can leave the revision books for a few minutes and come see what you got."

Dawn came bouncing down the stairs in no time, with Tara following rather more sedately behind.

"It's supposed to be Tiffany's where you take your Cracker Jack ring to get engraved, not this place."

"I'm afraid that Tiffany's has yet to display the incredible lack of business sense required to set up shop in Sunnydale mall, so you'll have to make do," Spike told the teen.

"So can I open it now?"

"Give Tara a chance to grab a seat so she gets to see how disappointed you are when it is a Cracker Jack ring," Buffy teased.

"I don't believe you, so you can quit now," Dawn told her. "And even if it was, I bet it'd say something real nice."

Tara joined the couple, taking the spot Dawn had vacated on the sofa while the teen sat on the coffee table, narrowly avoiding the remote, and pulling pieces of silver tissue from the tasteful gift bag that was decorated with the store's name. After about three seconds she found the small leather case that housed her gift. rattling it and looking at the size, she hazarded a guess. "Bracelet."

"Nah..." the vampire demurred. "You can tell junior that he's buyin' you a wrist corsage, 'cause his hands ain't goin' anywhere near where he'd have to go to pin one on that dress."

Dawn shook her head at the vamp's protests and flipped open the lid of the box. A card, with the store's name and address printed along the bottom edge, rested on top of the gift itself, a message inscribed in a formal hand.

"A precious gift for our precious gift.

Diamonds are forever, just like family.

You, Tara and us."

The teen passed the card over to the Wiccan. "I'm guessing you've been summoned down here because that message is as much for you as it is for me." She watched as the quiet girl read the words on the card. That endearing smile of hers, combined with the tears that welled in her eyes, had her being hugged by both Dawn and Buffy.

Spike simply leaned back against the arm of the sofa and forced down some more of the blood that Buffy kept fetching every time his mug was empty, even though he was feeling rather bloated by this point. "Don't know what you girls are gettin' all blubbery about. You'd have to be totally insensitive to need tellin' what it said on that card, anyway," he mock grumbled, but when the witch cast an eye in his direction he gave her an extravagant wink before returning his attention to the mug of blood he was struggling his way through.

"Honestly, women... More interested in the damn card than they are in the present!" he mouthed off again when he realised that the girls were in no hurry to give up on the group hug thing.

Dawn looked honestly startled. She'd been so preoccupied with watching Tara's reaction to the card that she'd neglected her gift. She cast her gaze on the box's contents for the first time, her jaw dropping open.

"Are they really diamonds? For me? You're not kidding? This is a joke, right? They're paste, right? You couldn't trust me with something like these if they were real."

Buffy smiled at her sister. "You're right. I don't trust you with them, that's why they don't leave the house, except on very special occasions, like say... prom ...or maybe a wedding. And you can thank Spike. It's his idea. He said Sam made you feel like a freak, so you needed something to make you feel like a girl... a really special girl... who may now own more carats than her poor, deprived sister."

"Well... I might let you borrow them now and again... if you help out with my chores." Dawn turned the tables on her elder sister for years of domestic extortion, her grin letting Buffy know that she wasn't entirely serious. She was already fumbling with the catch on the necklace when Spike rose from his seat and took it from her hands.

"Pretty girl should never have to do that for herself," he told her as he slipped round behind her to drop the pendant over her head before fastening it in place. "An' I don't think it's really designed to look its best with Raiders pyjamas." Dawn could hardly stay still long enough to take out the plain gold studs she wore for bed and replace them with the diamond ones before she dashed off to check her appearance in the mirror in the hall.

She returned almost as quickly as she left, throwing herself first at Buffy and then at the vampire. Spike winced as he caught the teen. "Slow up there, Stringbean."

Dawn gave the vampire a curious look. "Are you injured? Did you get in a fight? Is that why you disappeared for so long?"

"If I am and you can't see it already, Bitlet, then you ain't goin' to. This is as much as little sisters get to see. And, no, I haven't been in a fight."

"Humph! Well I can't see anything, but you sure as heck act like that hurts." Spike didn't quite manage to grab her wrist before she prodded him in the stomach again.

The vampire almost doubled over. "Look, it's nothing you need to worry about. You're missing your film. Your sister's makin' sure I drink enough blood to heal up a vampire elephant. So why not park your butt? An' by the time we get to that greatest kiss in all history or whatever they call it, I'll like as not be all better."

"You're covering something up."

"We just thought you had enough worries of your own, love. If this is what I'm pretty sure it is, then it might be unpleasant, but it's got a long way to go before it's gonna be life-threatening. Okay?"

The teen looked like she was about to argue but then she changed her mind. "If you lie down like you were before. Me and Tara can take the armchairs... If Tara's staying to watch the film."

"I think I should maybe get a glass of milk and then head back to the books," the Wiccan demurred. "I'm going to have to pretty much cram full-time between now and the exams."

Dawn turned to the vampire, her arms folded and a pout he recognised all too well on her lips. "So... Are you going to lie down like a good deceiving, secretive, hypocritical future brother-in-law or not?"

Buffy smirked as the vampire muttered away under his breath while he got back into his original position on the sofa. "I told you you should tell her."

Dawn waited until Spike and her sister were both lying side by side on the sofa and then tucked the afghan in around them before finding another blanket to cover herself up with and rewinding the tape to the start of Buttercup's story. Tara, meanwhile had fetched her drink and paused as she was about to head back upstairs to ruffle the vamp's hair. "Take care of him, and if he gets worse again, come fetch me. I don't know if there's anything I can do, but..."

"I'm right here, you know, Glinda."

Tara gave a disarming smile. "Yeah, but everybody knows that you don't pay any attention to a male when he's sick. They either want tons of sympathy when there's nearly nothing wrong with them, or they start being all brave and saying that it's nothing when they're really ill."

"Hey, that's a vast generalisation, an' it might be true of humans, but... but..."

"But what?" Buffy craned her neck to ask.

"But I'm not going to win this argument in a room with three women, so I'm going to shut up now."

 

---

 

The film had been running for about three quarters of an hour when Buffy registered the stillness of the body behind her and the absence of a gentle breath stirring her hair. She pulled his arm tighter around her waist and pressed even closer against him. She was almost tempted to wake him up so that she could have the reassurance of his breathing and moving to know he was alright, but sleep could only do him good and so long as he wasn't dust, he wasn't dead, however much his stillness might worry her.

By the end of the film, the niggling pain in her gut that Buffy had first noticed back when Spike had gone missing from the party was back. So far, however, the vampire seemed to be sleeping through the worst that this attack had to offer. She was debating whether she should try to move him to their bed or leave him where he was when her own movements made the vampire stir.

She rolled in his arms to check on him as Dawn got to her feet with a yawn and popped the tape.

"Hey there, sleepyhead. I'm guessing you didn't see much of the film.

"Not a vast amount. Hope I didn't snore."

"Very funny. How's the stomach?" she asked, waiting to see what he would say before she let him know that she was aware another attack had begun.

"'S been better."

"You want to move this upstairs?"

"Upstairs could be good," Spike answered, but as he pushed himself into a more upright position, it seemed to trigger a bout of nausea. Seeing him struggling to hold in a mouthful of vomit, Buffy quickly rolled off the sofa. As soon as she was clear of his path the vampire stumbled to the kitchen sink, Buffy grabbing his elbow and lending him support as he staggered the last few feet.

Buffy looked on in horror as the vampire retched helplessly, his hands gripping so tightly on the edges of the sink that even though he was in human form they looked like claws. She was sure that even including what he had drunk at Lily's he had to be throwing up more than he had ingested.

"Buffy?" Dawn stood in the no man's land between the living room and the kitchen, looking on in horror as her superhuman champion succumbed to some unnamed and unexplained horror.

"Dawn, fetch Tara and then I want you to see if you can get Wes. If he's going to have to help us figure out how to deal with this, it might help if he sees what's going on... Now!" she added when the girl seemed to be rooted to the spot. "Dawn, if you want to help, then the best thing you can do is get Tara and Wes." This finally seemed to galvanise the teen into action and she raced upstairs to Tara's room.

Buffy felt a bit of a hypocrite sending Dawn away when she felt so useless herself, but she couldn't leave him. The thought of Spike suffering through this on his own earlier was almost physically painful to her, but Spike needed her strength not her fears and her worries, so she stood beside him, her hand firmly over his and pretended not to be as worried as she suspected they both knew she was. Maybe if she was lucky Spike would be too preoccupied to know how afraid she was of losing him.

"You know, you're one up on us humans there... At least you can't choke on your vomit, but it's going to take more than a few breath mints before I kiss that mouth." She waited until there was a slight lull in his being sick to crack a joke and her vamp even managed to give her a half-hearted smile before the nausea took hold again.