King of Pain

by Jennifer Campbell

words and music by Sting, copyright 1983

There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a little black spot on the sun today
That's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
That's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
That's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
That's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
That's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
That's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb
That's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
That's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
Ther's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

King of pain

There's a red fox thorn by a huntsman's pack
That's my soul up there
There's a black winged gull with a broken back
That's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

King of pain
King of pain
King of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain...

===============================

===============================

Dawn creaked open the door to Spike's lair and peeked in; the vampire wasn't at home. She suppressed her disappointment and almost left -- after all, Willow and Tara would worry if she went missing. They had become like mother hens lately, always asking where she was going, when she would be back. Sometimes, Dawn felt like screaming, or doing something completely irresponsible just to spite her keepers.

_Like crossing Sunnydale alone after dark to visit a vampire in his crypt_, she thought, then smiled. If Spike weren't here, maybe she could just hang around for a while, poke through his things. An undead guy was bound to hoard some cool stuff.

She wandered the room, lit by a single lantern. Spike had done some redecorating recently, adding a couple of squashy chairs and even a coffee table. Wonder where he got them from. Then again, maybe it was better not to know. She picked up a dagger from the table, then suddenly dropped it when she noticed the dried blood on the blade. It clattered to the floor.

"Hello? Someone up there?"

Dawn gasped and spun around. She had heard a voice, but she saw no one.

"Better say who you are before I cut you open."

"Spike, is that you?" she asked tentatively.

Not two feet in front of her, Spike's head popped up through the floor. It took Dawn a moment to realize that it was a hole --another door, down to a lower level. And she had almost stepped into it by mistake.

"Oh, it's you, little bit," Spike said, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the hole. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his jeans pocket. "What are you doing here? Do the Scoobies know you're here?"

"Nah. They're too busy researching stuff at the magic shop, and they say I'm too young to help. So I snuck out the back door."

Spike grinned approvingly. "Oh, you're a bad one. Gonna get in trouble."

"Only if they notice I'm missing before I get back."

"You know you really shouldn't be wandering around by yourself." Spike lit his cigarette and took a puff. "Glory might be gone, but it's still dangerous out there. Lots of nasties roaming around, looking for a sweet little morsel like you."

Dawn ignored the mild scolding -- like she hadn't heard that line about a million times before -- and tried to peer into the hole. She couldn't see much past Spike's dangling feet.

"So what's down there?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Nothing much. Why do you care?"

"I don't really." She stepped to the edge for a better look but still could see nothing beyond a ladder and a few skulls littered around its base. "Can I come down?"

"Sure, if you like. Pretty boring, though. I'm just doing some house cleaning."

With his cigarette hanging off his lips, he slid off the lip and dropped several feet to the lower level, landing catlike on all fours. Dawn wasn't brave enough to jump, so she carefully stepped down the ladder, one rung at a time. He steadied her at the bottom, his strong but cold hand at her waist.

Spike was right: There wasn't much to see. A torch burned a few paces away, latched to the cave wall. His bed and a couple more chairs were the only furnishings. Dark and dank. Good thing I'm not scared of closed-in places, she thought.

Near the bed, Spike had resumed throwing piles of papers into a box. She crossed to him and picked one up -- a pencil drawing of her sister, asleep on her pillow. Dawn gulped hard, tried to hold back tears. Memories, still too fresh, raced through her mind: Buffy, standing on the metal platform, kissing Dawn goodbye before jumping into the mystical vortex to save the world. Dawn remembered the look on her face, like she was at peace, relieved she was about to die.

"Hey, nibblet, you OK?" Spike asked.

"Yeah." She laid the drawing in the box, with dozens of other sketches and photos, all of Buffy. "What are you doing with this stuff?"

"Throwing it out."

She looked at him strangely.

He said, "She's dead. No bringing her back this time. So I figured, I've been hanging onto these for weeks and it's time I got rid of them and moved on."

He sounded so bland, like when talking about the weather or the demon of the week. Dawn knew he used the trick to hide a broken heart. Easier to deny emotion than to acknowledge it, especially for a creature who shouldn't have such feelings anyway. Spike gazed long at a photo of Buffy, laughing in the sunlight, before slamming it too into the box.

"I never got to see her in the sunlight," he said. "Well, unless you count that one time I had the Gem of Amara, and then I was busy trying to kill her. So I guess that doesn't count, does it."

"I miss her, too. But I'm not purposely trying to get rid of all the good things I remember about us. About her."

His eyes started to water, and he wiped at them furiously. "I bloody well can't take this anymore. It hurts so much."

"I know, but Spike --"

She broke off as the world began to shake. The torch fell and sputtered out on the floor, drenching them in absolute darkness. Dawn instinctively grasped for Spike, clung to him as tiny rocks started to shake loose from the ceiling. She felt like her insides were rattling out.

"Earthquake!" Spike pushed her toward a small square of light above them. "Gotta get out of here, the cave might collapse."

Dawn stepped on a loose rock and went tumbling. She scraped her arm on something sharp, then felt Spike haul her up like a sack of potatoes and throw her across his shoulder.

"I can walk!"

"No time for arguing, little bit. Get up the ladder. Go!"

She obeyed, and Spike scrambled up a moment later. They stumbled toward the door, but the shaking stopped before they reached it. They stopped. The world grew deathly quiet, and all Dawn could hear was her own harsh breathing. She quickly examined her stinging arm. A deep cut was still bleeding.

She looked at Spike, who had unknowingly slipped into his vampire face. In the dim lantern light, his razor-sharp features became even more pronounced, but it didn't scare Dawn. He would never hurt her, even if he could.

"I think it's over," she said.

"Yeah. And I think it's time for you to go home. I'll walk you there. Your arm needs tending, and Willow and her girl toy will be looking for you."

"You know, the 'girl toy' has a name. It's Tara. And --"

She stopped. All words flitted from mind as she noticed a strange pinkish glow spilling from the hole in the crypt floor. Just looking at it relaxed her, made her feel warm and comfortable all over.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing.

Spike followed her gaze, then cocked his head in confusion. His face transformed back into its human mask.

"I don't know what it is, and I don't want to. Come on."

"No. Spike, it doesn't feel evil. It feels ... right. Safe. Maybe we should, you know, check it out."

"Maybe it's a trap."

"It's not." She stepped toward the light.

"You don't know that."

"But I do. Come on, Spike, it's OK."

He muttered curses under his breath but didn't hesitate to follow Dawn back down the ladder. She guessed, because he hadn't dragged her out of the crypt, that he wasn't completely immune to the light's soothing qualities. The entire room and everything in it pulsated with the soft pink glow.

"Definitely not my favorite color," Spike muttered as they walked deeper into the cave.

They found the source at the back wall. A pile of rocks had slid away in the earthquake, revealing a tiny hidden chamber. In it lay a transparent globe, small enough to fit in one hand. A pink light swirled inside it like a living thing, and it seemed to hum softly.

"It's beautiful," Dawn breathed. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"

She reached out to it.

"Wait, Dawn, no!"

He grabbed her arm, to pull her back, but he was too late. Her hand closed over the globe, and suddenly she felt like she had become part of it. A glorious light filled her entire being, warm and so very alive. She felt like she was falling into it, blanketed in pink light. Falling, falling, falling...

She hit the ground with a sickening thump. It took a moment to regain her bearings enough to look around at her surroundings, and then she screamed. She wasn't in the cave anymore.

"Quiet, will you? Do you want to brings some nasty down on us?"

"Oh, Spike!" She threw herself into his arms. "I thought I was alone. I'm so glad you're here!"

He awkwardly smoothed her hair. "It's all right, Dawn. I'm here. And you might want to be more careful with that thing. It could be our only ticket out of here."

"What?"

"The globe thingy. You're squashing it against my back."

"Oh, sorry."

She pulled away from him. She hadn't even realized she was still holding the globe. A quick glance confirmed that it had lost its pink light and now was no more than an empty glass ball.

"I think I broke it," she said.

"Worry about that later. Right now, we have to figure out where it took us."

Dawn surveyed the area again, this time keeping her cool. They were in the open, blue sky overhead, trees all around and a dirt road at their feet. Not a hundred feet away stood a thatch-roofed building with something hanging above the door. It looked like a Frisbee, round and good for throwing, with two knives sticking through it. No people were about.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Dawn muttered. "So what do we do now? Go knock on the door?" Then she remembered something else and grabbed Spike's arm in excitement. "You're not on fire!"

"Yeah, so?"

"It's daylight, and we're in direct sunlight and you're not going poof."

He blinked once, twice, then squinted at the sky. "I think maybe we better get inside before the sun changes its mind on not turning me into dust."

===============================

On the front door to the building hung a sign covered in black scribbles -- at least, that's what it looked like to Dawn. "Ancient writing. Probably Greek," Spike said. She toyed with the idea of pressing him on how he knew so much about linguistics but decided to save it for another time. Right now, she just wanted to go home.

"Should we knock?" she asked.

Spike shrugged. "Why bother when we already know we're going in, whether they want us here or not."

"Good point." She grinned. "So are you going to kick the door down or something cool like that?"

"Actually I thought I'd do this," he said, then turned the knob. She pouted. "No point in upsetting whoever lives here when we might need their help."

"You're too logical for a vampire."

They stepped inside, and Dawn's eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark interior. It seemed they had found a bar, or at least whatever passed for a bar here. Tables and chairs spotted an open room, and the smell of alcohol permeated the stuffy air. On every wall were scrolls, drawings and bits of women's clothing. It looked a little like an ancient Hard Rock Cafe.

The only thing missing was people. As far as Dawn could tell, the bar was closed for business, except for one man. He slumped at a table, head in his hands and a bottle of brownish liquid by one elbow. He didn't seem to notice them.

"Um, hello?" Dawn said. "Can you help us please? We're kind of lost."

The man's head jerked up, revealing bloodshot eyes that immediately narrowed. He jumped unsteadily to his feet, knocking the bottle off the table in the process, and came at them while waving his arms and yelling. Too bad he was speaking gibberish.

"What's he saying?" Dawn asked, but Spike didn't get a chance to answer. Their lanky aggressor had planted himself toe-to-toe with the vampire and continued to yell. He poked his hand hard at Spike's chest.

"Ow! What was that for?"

Spike pushed back. The man swayed, toppled like a tree and passed out on the bar floor. He started snoring.

"Oh, great," Spike said, rolling his eyes. "Nibblet, find us a bucket of water. We don't have time for Sleeping Beauty here to take a nap."

"It won't do much good. We can't understand him anyway."

Spike glared, and Dawn wandered off in search of something with which to douse their only possible source of information. She found a stash of alcohol bottles in the corner. They smelled of rotten eggs, and Dawn plugged her nose as she retrieved one, trying not to drop either it or the globe. She handed the rank stuff over to Spike.

"Rise and shine." Spike said, then drained the bottle over the man's head. He woke with a sputter and a stream of angry nonsense.

"Here we go again," Spike muttered.

Dawn was about to answer -- some sarcastic 'I told you so' response -- but her attention slid away, to the globe in her hand. The tiniest of pink glimmers was swirling at its center. Maybe, she thought hopefully, it had just needed time to recharge.

The light swelled. Then there was a great pink flash, and Dawn found herself being helped off the floor by Spike.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Beats me."

The guy, still sitting on the floor in a puddle of rank liquid, chuckled and ran a hand through his unruly brown hair. "Looks like that pink thing caught you by surprise."

Dawn blinked. "You can understand us?"

"Sure, but it's a little weird as I didn't a moment ago. Maybe your toy there has something to do with it. Maybe it's magic."

"Well, duh."

"Save it, little bit." Spike glared at the man. "So now that we're communicating, why don't you tell me why you just attacked us?"

"Attacked? I did that?"

"Right so, mate. You were yelling and screaming..."

"I don't remember doing that. But I was pretty drunk."

"And you're not now?"

He shook his head. "Stone cold sober. Maybe your pink thing did that, too. Hey, do you know what day it is? I think maybe I've been drunk for a while now."

"Actually," Dawn said, "we were hoping you could tell us what the pink thing is. It brought us here, and we don't know how to use it to get back home."

"Nope, sorry. My name is Joxer, by the way." He stood up, wiped both hands at his soggy pants.

"I'm Dawn. This is Spike."

"Good to meet you. Would you like something to eat? I don't have much, as Meg usually does the cooking and she's in Athens this week. Or was that last week? Either way, I can probably find something. It's the least I can do after attacking you."

Not much later, the three sat around a table and Dawn was munching on something a lot like a hamburger except that the paddy tasted like chicken. She washed it down with well water, grateful that Joxer had offered a drink other than the rotten-egg alcohol.

"So, mate, why were you drowning your sorrows?" Spike asked, and Dawn snorted. The vampire knew all about the drowning of sorrows.

"I don't know. I guess -- I lost a couple of good friends not that long ago, a couple of years maybe. Meg keeps telling me to let it go, but I miss them sometimes. And then I start drinking."

"Sounds familiar," Dawn said between mouthfuls. At Joxer's confused expression, she explained. "Spike did the same thing a couple of months ago, right after my sister died."

"Really?" Joxer asked. "Did you ... I mean, were you... you know. In love with her?"

"Yes. Very much."

"Me, too. I mean, one of my friends who vanished, I've loved her for years. But she never loved me back. Not the way I wanted her to."

Spike nodded and said, "I know how that goes. It's weird the first time you realize that what you're feeling is love. Then you hide it for months because you're afraid of what she'll say..."

"But it comes out eventually, at the worst possible time..."

"And she rejects you. Flat out, cold-hearted rejection."

"Well, actually, Gabrielle didn't reject me. I didn't let her say anything because I knew it would be bad. But she and Xena let me tag along anyway, and it was enough."

"Until one day when she gets in a fight she can't win without sacrificing herself. You're helpless to stop it, and you have to watch it all play out like in your worst nightmare."

"Then," Joxer concluded quietly. "Then she's gone."

"Yeah." Spike sighed. "It's our destiny to be the kings of pain. Hey, you got anymore of that alcohol over there?"

"It's not bad stuff, really --"

"Hey!"

Dawn laid a restraining arm on both of them, and they looked at her as though they had forgotten she was there. Not too surprising, she thought, as they were both so busy sharing their misery of lost loves. Besides, Spike hadn't been nearly has helpless as Dawn had been that terrible night, watching Buffy jump. I could have stopped her. So don't you go all noble, Spike, because I'm the one to blame. I could have saved her.

She couldn't bring herself to speak the words.

"Are you OK, nibblet?"

"I'm fine. But you two obviously aren't. You can sit around quoting Police lyrics all day but it's not going to get us any closer to home." She thumped the globe on the table for emphasis. "We need to do something about this. Any ideas?"

They both looked at Joxer, whose mouth started flapping open and shut like a fish.

"Um, I donno." He poked at the globe, like he thought it might grow a mouth and bite him. "Maybe, um... I don't know much about magic, but I do know someone who uses it a lot. And her favorite color is pink."

===============================

It took them two days to reach their destination. Joxer had lent them horses, kept in a corral behind the bar, so they made good time. His own horse, he said, had belonged to his friend Xena. He said it proudly, but Dawn wasn't sure how to respond, seeing as the poor animal hardly looked noble. The horse bowed her neck and shuffled her feet, as though carrying a great weight beyond her passenger.

"She misses Xena," Joxer explained. "I guess we all do."

Unlike mopey Joxer and his horse, Spike looked like a child on Christmas. He rode in full sunlight whenever possible, head tilted back to feel the warmth, a contented smile on his face. It must be the globe's work again, making the vampire immune to the sun's normally lethal rays. It boggled Dawn's mind to realize that this was Spike's first venture into daylight in 200 years -- well, except for that fiasco with the Ring of Amara. It seemed only fitting he get this chance, as he hadn't been a true creature of the night since the day he fell in love with Buffy.

At first, Dawn enjoyed the trip. It was an adventure, which was something she never got at home under the overprotective watch of first Buffy and then Willow and Tara. After a while, though, the fun began to fade. All they did was ride, stop at night for a dinner of stale bread and cheese, and wake the next day to more riding.

"Adventuring is kinda boring, huh?" she commented on the second morning, bleary eyed and yawning. She hadn't slept well and missed her soft bed. "I mean, when do we actually get to do something?"

"Soon enough," Joxer said. "This is most of what adventuring is, ya know. ... getting from one place to the next. Only a certain kind of person can take it, like me an' Xena an' Gabby." He puffed out his chest in pride.

"Whatever," Dawn said, rolling her eyes. She had grown used to the man's overreaching praise of himself and his friends. Really, Xena and Gabrielle couldn't have been that perfect.

They reached the temple at sunset that day. It sat perched on the edge of a gorge, overlooking a wide river. Dawn could make out a bridge not too far away, but it looked unstable and she was glad they didn't have to cross it. She stuffed the empty globe in her pocket, and the trio went inside.

The temple's interior was lush with colorful silks, and vases and marble statues on pedestals. Along the far wall stood a long table dipping under the weight of offerings: food, money and jewelry. Dawn's eyes strayed to paintings on the ceiling of naked bodies in uncompromising positions.

"Hey, is that even possible? I didn't know the human body could do that."

Spike groaned when he saw what she was looking at, and he covered her eyes with one hand. "You're too young for that. Don't look at it."

"Get over it, Spike." She dodged away from him. "It's not like I haven't taken human development class. I know all about that kind of stuff. Still, we never covered that in class."

"So," Spike said to Joxer, "your friend lives in a temple to Aphrodite. Don't you find that a little strange?"

Dawn muttered, "No more so than living in a crypt with a bunch of dead people."

"What was that, little bit?"

"Oh, nothing." She grinned to cover herself.

"Actually," Joxer said, "my friend lives on Olympus, but this is the best place to get in touch with her. She's always listening to what's going on in her temples."

Spike snorted. "What kind of trip are you on? The Greek gods were myth. They never actually existed."

"Don't tell her that when you meet her, OK?" Joxer walked in the room's center and bellowed. "Aphrodite! We need to talk to you! Are you there?"

A shimmer of pink sparkles exploded in the corner, and suddenly a woman stood there. She squealed like a little girl and bounded across the room to give a hug to Joxer, who was turning red in the face. Dawn and Spike watched with mouths hanging open.

"Stud muffin!" she said with another squeal. "Long time no see! How are you?"

Joxer grinned sheepishly and cleared his throat. "I'm good, Aphrodite. Um, could you maybe loosen up the grip a little? I kind of need to breathe ..."

"Oops. Sorry. I forget that you mortals are so fragile. So what brings you to my temple. Do you like the new digs? I had King Catreus build the temple here cause I absolutely adore the view."

"It's, um, beautiful. Really. Aphrodite, I'd like you to meet some new friends of mine. This is Dawn, and this is Spike."

"Heeellllooo, tall, blond and handsome." She sauntered forward to a wide-eyed Spike. "I could have some fun with this one. How'd you like to come back to Olympus for a while and keep me company, cutie?"

"Um ... bah, well --"

She giggled as she ran a finger down his pronounced jaw line. "You're cute when you're nervous."

Spike took a deep breath -- even though he didn't need to --stuffed his hands in his pockets and backed away from her touch. "I aim to please."

"I bet you do." Her eyes narrowed. "Hey, wait a sec. You're not human, are you? Drat. Why do all the good ones have to be taken or dead? Not like it matters anyway with you still pining for a certain blonde."

Spike frowned. "How do you know that?"

"Duh. I'm the goddess of love."

"Aphrodite," Joxer interrupted. "We have a problem."

She nodded and crossed her arms as her intense eyes raked down Spike, from head to toe. Then she did the same to Dawn, who felt like the goddess must be looking into her soul. Dawn fidgeted a little and had to look away. Her eyes automatically strayed upward, to the ceiling, before she remembered the paintings. With her cheeks burning, she quickly looked at her feet.

Aphrodite said, "I can see you have a problem. These two don't belong in our dimension."

"You know about dimensions?" Dawn asked.

"Sure I do, sweet cheeks. There are a zillion of 'em, but only gods and goddesses have the power to travel between them. I usually don't, though, because I've got such a great setup here."

"So you can send us home!" Dawn was getting excited now.

"Nope. Sorry, I'd love to help, but I can only transport those with the blood of a god. And since you're human and he's, well, dead ... you're out of luck."

"I didn't used to be human," Dawn offered. "Does that make a difference?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, hon."

Dawn barely stopped the watery blur in her eyes from turning into full- blown tears. "But we have to get home, and if you were really a good goddess, you'd help us!"

"What do I look like, Glenda the Good Witch of the North?" At Dawn's eye-popping expression, she laughed. "Yeah, I've seen it. Remember, I can go to your dimension. It's a pretty good movie, except the munchkins kind of creeped me out."

"OK," Dawn said, "this is getting way too weird."

Joxer suddenly grinned, and Dawn imagined she could see the cartoon light bulb clicking on above his head. "Hey, what about the globe? Show her the globe."

"Oh, I forgot." She pulled it from her pocket and held it out to Aphrodite. "This is what brought us here in the first place."

The goddess snatched it. "Where did you get this?"

"It was in Spike's crypt."

"This is my Orb. I must have left it in your dimension, and it found the best people to bring it back to me." She stroke it like her pet. "Good Orb. You're such a good little Orb."

"Hold it," Spike said. "You mean this whole thing happened because some glowy ball was trying to find its way home?"

Aphrodite smiled and nodded. "You got it, handsome."

Spike threw his arms in the air. "That's it. I have had enough. Please tell me you can send us home now that you have your toy back."

"I can. But first, you two guys come here a sec." She drew Joxer and Spike into a huddle, and Dawn strained to hear. "Both of you think you'll never see your lady loves again, but you couldn't be more wrong. Take it from me, it's not over yet."

Joxer sputtered, "But how could you know that?"

She winked. "I'm calling in a favor from the Fates. Just wait and see." She beckoned to Dawn and held out the pink and swirling Orb. "Dawn and Spike, when you're ready, I need you to hold hands and put your other hands on the Orb. Got it?"

Instead of answering, Spike enfolded her fingers with his own. "Ready, nibblet?"

"Let's go home."

They touched the Orb's glassy surface, and it happened like before -- but this time Dawn expected it. The pink light surrounded her, infused her with a beautiful warmth. She couldn't see Spike, but she felt his cold hand on hers as he gripped harder. Then it was over, and they were tumbling to the floor of the crypt.

===============================

"Dawn? Spike? Anyone here? Hello?"

Willow's voice came from above, in the crypt's upper level. Dawn untangled herself from Spike and scrambled to her feet. Her friends must be totally panicked, looking for her for the two days since Aphrodite's orb had done its magic. They probably had feared the worst, as everyone usually did in Sunnydale. Dawn couldn't race to the ladder quickly enough.

"We're here!" she yelled. "I'm coming!"

"Oh, thank goodness," Willow said, relieved. "We've been looking everywhere for you."

Dawn started to pull herself up the first couple of rungs, but a sudden pain stabbed at her arm and she gasped. Cool hands caught her from behind and stopped her from falling.

"Careful, nibblet," Spike said. "Can't have you killing yourself now, after all that trouble to get back."

"My arm hurts."

She clutched her injury close to her chest, but Spike reached out and gently twisted her arm to see it better in the dim light from above. The gash she had given herself while falling during the earthquake two days ago was red and bleeding. She hadn't noticed until now that during their time in the parallel universe, she hadn't even sported a scratch. Just one more weird thing to obsess over, she thought.

Spike licked his lips as he examined the wound, a strange, hungry look in his eyes. "Looks fresh."

Dawn pulled her arm from his probing fingers. It's not that she didn't trust Spike, but he hadn't eaten in two days. Showing her injury to him was like setting a banquet in front of a starving man.

"It's fine," she said. "Just help me up."

He steadied her from behind, and Willow leaned over the hole's edge to help her from above. It hurt to climb, but Dawn grit her teeth and reminded herself that such a small inconvenience would never slow down Buffy.

"We better get you home and bandage this up," Willow said, once Dawn reached the top. "And don't ever go vanishing on us like that again. There was that earthquake and then we couldn't find you, and it scared us. We've been searching all over town for the past two hours."

"I know, I'm sorry, but --" She stopped. "Um, did you just say two hours? Don't you mean two days?"

Willow blinked. "Days? What are you talking about?"

She looked back to Spike, who had followed her up the ladder, for support. "We were sucked into another dimension, some weird place with gods and stuff. And it took us two days to get home."

The smile on Willow's face was indulgent. "I think maybe you hit your head down there."

"But --"

"Don't bother, little bit," Spike murmured. "I guess Aphrodite did some sort of mojo with time when she sent us back. Or maybe time runs differently here. It happens, you know. We're probably lucky that a hundred years didn't pass while were were off tramping through the woods."

Dawn couldn't deny the logic of that. Maybe Spike was right, and it wasn't worth making a scene. She supposed she should be happy that, at least from the viewpoint of this dimension, their adventure was almost instantaneous. As she thought it through, Willow watched her with an expression of bewilderment.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Dawn shrugged. "Just forget it. I'll tell you all about it when we get home."

So Dawn said her goodnights to Spike, and she and Willow headed home. Spike watched them go with the tiniest tinge of regret. He had gotten used to having Dawn around the past couple of days, having her depend on him. It made him feel like he was keeping his promise to Buffy, to protect her sister. In a small way it brought Buffy back for a short while, but now it was back to his normal lonely existence.

Spike climbed back down the ladder, relit the torch and starting picking rubble off his bed. Bloody earthquake had messed up his home. He shoved smallish rocks away, one by one, only to find a photo beneath them. He dusted it off for a closer look. He remembered that day at the local playground, when he had hid from the sun in a maintenance shed while snapping photos. Buffy had been on the swing set, and in this particular shot, she was at the apex of her swing, her head thrown back and golden hair spilling behind her like a halo.

He hadn't had a clue at that time what was coming --how could he? -- and now she would never swing again, or yell at him or do anything else. He would give up his whole existence if only to have one chance to go back to the night of her death and do things differently. To save her life.

"I miss you," he said quietly, and ran his fingertips over her smiling, frozen image.

But what had Aphrodite said? Some bloody puzzling thing about it not being over, that both he and that Joxer fellow would see his lady loves again. If only, he thought, slipping the photo into his pocket. He had meant to throw them all out, but this shot he would keep. He didn't actually believe Aphrodite ... but, then again, the goddess of love might know what she was talking about. Just maybe.

"A bloke can hold out hope, I guess," he said, even though no one was there to answer. He fell onto his rock-littered bed and stared at the ceiling. "In the meantime, I still wear the crown of king of pain."

the end

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