Chapter 3

The next morning, Dawn came down for breakfast only to find both Spike and Buffy waiting for her in the kitchen.  She paused in the shadows of the hallway to watch the interaction between her sister and the vampire.  Something was going on, and she had no idea what it could be.

“Did you get the message out?” Buffy asked.

“No problem, Slayer.  I hit Willy’s after I left here,” Spike answered.

Dawn stepped into the kitchen.  “What message is that?  Hi, Spike.”  She greeted the vampire when both Spike and Buffy looked up at her from their seats at the table.

Buffy cleared her throat.  “Maybe you better sit down for this, Dawnie.”

“Sit down for what?”

“Sit down, Nibblet.”  Spike’s tone allowed no arguments from the teenaged girl.  “The Slayer has something to tell you.”

Dawn looked back and forth between her sister and Spike.  Both looked at her with expectant looks on their faces.  She slipped into a chair across from Buffy.  “Well?”

Buffy grabbed the photo album off the chair beside her, and she laid it open in front of her sister open on the exact page with the picture of Joyce and Sam Lawson.  She pointed to the photo in question.

Dawn studied the picture before she looked back up at Spike and Buffy.  “Yeah, so?”

“Last night after you were in bed, Spike and I were looking at the pictures.  We found this behind the picture.”  Buffy produced the birth certificate, and she handed the paper to Dawn.

“It’s your birth certificate.”  Dawn tried to hand the paper back.  “So, what?”

Buffy shook her head.  “Look at the person listed under ‘Father’.  It’s not Hank Summers.”

Dawn looked at the paper again.  “Who is Sam Lawson?”

“He’s the bloke in the picture, Nibblet.”  Spike tilted his head towards the photo album.

“Well, that’s good.  Does this mean Hank’s not my father either?”  Dawn didn’t know yet what to think about the news that Hank Summers’ wasn’t Buffy’s father.  Technically, she had never met the man, despite what her memories told her.

Buffy glanced at Spike.  “Well, there’s more.”  She looked up when Tara appeared in the kitchen doorway.  “You’re right, Hank’s not your father, but neither is Sam Lawson.”

“What?” Dawn screeched.  “If he’s not my father, who is?”

“I… Well, you know that you’re made from me,” Buffy forged ahead with her explanation while Tara sat in the chair across from Dawn.   The Slayer took a calming breath.  “So, that makes me your mother, and your father is…” she trailed off as she looked to Spike for help.

Spike took up the narrative. “Your father is me, Nibblet.  The witchlet here confirmed it last night.”

Tara nodded.  “I did.  Spike and Buffy are your parents, and Sam Lawson is your grandfather.”

“Get out!” Dawn blurted out.  “How on earth did that happen?”

Buffy gave a sheepish shrug.  “Monks and mystical Keys?  The better question is how Sam Lawson got Mom pregnant.”

Dawn looked around at the three adults.  “There’s more to the story isn’t there?”

“Sam Lawson is a vampire,” Spike replied.  He had no qualms about spilling all the beans to his daughter.  “I met him back in the Second World War aboard a U-boat.  Angel turned him.”

“What?  How?”

A male voice from the front of the house interrupted the conversation.  “Hello, Summers residence.  Where is everyone?  I’m here to take Dawn to school.”

”In here, Xander,” Buffy called out.  She reached out to cover Dawn’s hand with her own.  “I know it’s a lot to take in.  I’m still trying to understand it all too.  We’re in this together.”

Xander appeared in the doorway.  “In what together?”

Buffy looked up at her old friend.  “After you drop Dawn off at school, can you swing by the Magic Box?  I need to talk to Giles, Anya, and you about something.”

A dazed Dawn rose to her feet.  On the way out of the kitchen, she grabbed a banana out of the fruit basket.  When she picked her backpack up in the hallway, she glanced back in time to see Spike change seats to sit next to Buffy.  Dawn was surprised when Buffy didn’t smack him down.  Maybe things were going to be okay for a change.

“What was all that about?” Xander asked while he held the door open for Dawn.  “What the frilly heck was Spike doing here at 7 a.m. in the morning?”

Dawn shrugged as she passed Xander.  “Guess you’ll have to wait and find out.  Buffy would kill me if I spilled the beans.”

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After Spike and Buffy left for the Magic Box – the Slayer strolling down the sunny street and the vampire taking to the sewers – Tara went upstairs to check on Willow.  She found her girlfriend searching through magical tomes with much fervor.   “What are you doing, Willow?”

Willow looked at Tara with tired, manic-filled eyes.  “I’m looking for a way to fix this, of course.”

“Fix what?” Tara asked.  Although, she had a terrible, sinking feeling she knew exactly what Willow wanted to ‘fix’.

“Buffy.  What else would I be wanting to fix?”  Willow returned to her frantic search.

Tara gave Willow a horrified look.  “There’s nothing to fix.  Buffy’s perfectly normal.  I’ve checked her aura.”

“I caused this, and I’ll fix this.”  Willow didn’t look at Tara.  She didn’t want to see the censure in the other woman’s eyes.  “Go to class, Tara.”

Tara noticed the strands of black locks that slowly streaked through Willow’s hair.  Fright filled her system.  Willow was pulling power from a dark power source.  “O-okay.  S-should I tell the p-professor you’re s-sick?”

“Yes, do that.”

Tara gathered her belongings.  She needed to get to the Magic Box to tell Buffy and the others about Willow.  She paused at the bedroom door to look back, only to find Willow’s glossy black-covered eyes staring at her.  She gave a nervous wave before she burst out of the room and down the stairs.  Once Tara was out in the sunshine, she shivered in revulsion.  The Willow she loved wasn’t the woman she had just left behind.

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Thirty minutes later, Xander strolled into the Magic Box.  He had called his boss Tito to say that he’d be a few minutes late due to a family emergency.  Xander hoped that Buffy remembered to pick donuts up on the way to the Scooby meeting.  “Hey all,” he greeted the room’s occupants.  “What’s this big news you need to tell us?”

Xander’s eyes narrowed when he noticed how close Spike was sitting to Buffy.  Then, he noticed how close Buffy let Spike sit next to her.  Xander growled under his breath.  There was no way he was going to let his friend get involved with a vampire again.  It was just sick the way Buffy kept hanging out with the undead.

The bombshell dropped!

Xander listened to the ‘big news’ with growing horror.  He watched Anya and Giles’ reactions to Buffy’s news.  His fiancé acted bored and blasé while the Watcher stared at the Slayer in stunned silence.  Spike’s smug smirk irked Xander to no end, and it made him think that the vampire was somehow behind the whole ‘Buffy’s father was a vamp, and Dawn’s is too’ scam.

“That is just a bunch of bull dreamed up by Spike,” Xander blurted out.  “He’s just trying to get in your pants, Buffy.”

Buffy blushed before she replied, “He’s already been in my pants, Xander.”

“I’m not talking about the bot,” Xander grumbled.

“Neither am I.”  Buffy looked at Giles.  “Tara verified it last night.  My father is an Aurelian vamp named Sam Lawson and Dawn’s parents are Spike and me.”

“Well, that certainly explains a lot,” Anya said in a matter of fact voice.  “No wonder Dawn can’t stay away from the vamp boys.  It’s in her blood.”

Xander sagged into a nearby chair.  Maybe if he ignored the whole situation it would all go away.  Instead he’d concentrate on his wedding plans with Anya.  That’d be a good distraction to all the weirdness that now swirled around him.  Before he could make any declaration of intent, Tara burst into the Magic Box.

“Willow’s going to do something magical to fix everything,” Tara blurted out.  Her normal stutter was missing because of her extreme emotional state.  “She’s convinced there’s something wrong with Buffy.”