Singular
If Dawn really, really thought about it, she could reach back into that time before, when she had been a green glowy ball of
energy…
She had done it once when she’d gone swimming with Xander, Anya, and Buffy at a lake north of Sunnydale. They stayed out
real late, until the sun purpled the edges of the sky and the surface of the lake looked like a mirror for the stars.
Buffy, Xander, and Anya got out, dried off, did their thing.
Dawn swam. She dived deeper and deeper, slicing like a Dawn-shaped knife through the chilly water, loving the way it eddied
and slipped like swathes of silk around her body until she thought she wasn’t even there any more.
And then the best part happened. She reached the bottom of the lake and found that she could turn and lay flat against the
algae-grimed lake bottom and look back up at the world. Lances of green light speared through the water, broad strokes of
pale grey verdigris that undulated with the breath of currents and wind on the surface. Her skin glimmered with opalescent
spangles, her hair billowed around her face like a cloud laced with sparkling bubbles.
She thought, I could breathe if I needed to. I could be a mermaid.
Another girl shimmered into existence above her.
Not another girl. Her. A reflection? A dream? A fantasy of being not alone? Dawn reached forward, her pale hand rippling with
shimmers of aquamarine and green. The other her reached forward, too, and their fingers met.
Then Xander rescued her from “almost” drowning, and he and Buffy made this big deal about not being able to leave her
alone for one second, and how were they supposed to battle the forces of evil when they had to pluck Dawn from the jaws of
danger every odd Tuesday?
Dawn never told them why she’d been down so long, under the still, deep water of that mountain lake. She’d never
mentioned what she’d seen or felt. Besides, what could they understand? She was the nuisance kid sister in need of saving.
They hadn’t known she was capable of saving herself.
For that matter, neither had she.
Dawn walked out of Parkside Memorial, thinking about that day in the lake, thinking about what she could do, if she really
thought about it. As she walked, unaware of her surroundings and her power, whole worlds parted around her, flowing like
rivers and rainstorms, and the snow began to fall.
Dawn remembered with an aching sadness the night before when they cast the spell that brought Spike back. The night she
had finally stopped running.
What would she do? she had thought when all things seemed possible. What couldn’t she do?
The more important question was this: Could she do it if she had to? If they needed her, could Dawn save the world?
William came upon them in the alley: Faith, holding Connor against the brick wall, the Scythe in one hand, and Connor, limp as
Christ on a bloody crucifix. It was an odd, unexpected tableau, considering the pair was supposed to be in Hell. But
everything else had spewed forth; stood to reason they would, too.
Faith slung the boy over her shoulder and started for home. William saw before she did the hail of bone darts that rained
down on them.
“Faith!” he called out, too late. A bone dart caught her right forearm. She dodged, but not fast enough. Another grazed her
shoulder, slicing through her leather vest, leaving a white gash like a wing on her back.
She managed to parry a third before it could hit Connor’s hip. William ran forward, batting darts out of the air with the flat
of his triangular blade. He timed it right, sliding the last two meters into her, slamming her and Connor against the brick wall
before the first four frogs hit the ground where they’d previously been standing.
William killed the first two with quick downward jabs. He squished the other two with one roundhouse kick. William heard
the pong-pong-pong sound of the damned frogs descending the fire escape. He clenched his teeth.
“We gotta move,” he said, scanning the alley and the street beyond. “Poison’s right nasty, an’ does its work quick. Seen it
take down three Slayers, so don’t go all hat-stand thinking you’re immune.”
Her back to the wall, Faith slid down under the sprawl of Connor’s weight. When she looked up at William, well, it wasn’t a
look he’d ever seen on her before.
“Faith?”
She cradled the boy’s body against hers. “I can’t leave him. Okay? He’s messed up, but he’s all alone. So I can’t leave him.”
“Is he…” William looked skyward. Didn’t want to say it; said it anyway. “Is he alive?”
Faith squinched her eyes and shouted, “I don’t know!”
William shook his head in frustration. Sensitive was one way to go. William chose the other.
“Bloody don’t have time for this,” he snarled. Another bone dart pelted down, glancing off the windowsill above Faith’s
head. He gripped her arm and Connor’s shoulder, hauling them both up.
“Here,” he said roughly, getting his shoulder under Connor’s limp arm. He pressed his hand to Connor’s ribcage and felt the
barest thread of pulse. With a sigh, he said, “He is, but not for long. We’ll make better time if we go together.”
Faith swiped her eyes with her fist. The Scythe in her free hand, she nodded and got under Connor’s other shoulder.
Another bone dart struck the pavement, followed by two more, each one nearer to William’s feet than the last. Make
matters worse, the snow was falling thicker now.
William got them moving. They reached the street before the frogs dropped to the ground. He noticed with some mirth that
the fresh snow made the demons slide around all twisted up in agony. The few that landed in the thin snowdrift rolled around,
hissing and clutching their bony abdomens, their gaping mouths flashing thorny pink fangs.
That held William and Faith transfixed on the border of amusement until they heard the familiar moan of the Shedim making
their way back down.
“C’mon pet,” William said, pulling them along. “Let’s get home.”
They arrived home before dawn in both the literal and nominative sense.
Faith burst through the door screaming “Willow!” who came into the entry hall looking part-puzzled, part-perturbed. Behind
her, a trim blonde woman whom William had never met but pegged as a Watcher spoke in harried tones over the telephone,
and she did not seem pleased with all the screaming. Xander and Maya hovered nearby, looking for all the world like they’d
be happier being led off to forced-labor camps in Siberia than in the same room together.
Seeing Connor’s condition, Willow’s questioning look turned to one of concern. She was beside them in a second, her small
white hands fluttering like birds over him while they navigated around the wooden crates in the hall – William had questions
about those; shelved them – and slung Connor’s body onto the naugahyde couch in the seldom-used parlor. Watcher-girl had
prudently closed the front door behind them, and came to stand in the archway of the parlor, trailing Maya and Xander like
a pair of homeless kittens.
William noticed then the chubby guy with a caved-in nasal passage lying unconscious in front of the hearth. Putting
together the slabbed-out bloke and trio of pine boxes…
“Um, Red,” William said, his brow wrinkled in the thinkative sense. “Mind telling us what you’re doing here, and what manner
of prezzies you’ve brought us from the Underworld?”
Ignoring his question, Willow said, “Giles is back. He’s upstairs, resting.” Willow pressed her hands to either side of
Connor’s throat, felt around the neck of his damp t-shirt.
“Giles is back?” William asked.
Willow continued absent-mindedly, “He’s had enough for now.”
William felt his frustration rising. He said, “Enough what? Willow, you and me need to have several conversations, not the
least of which is how you lot got back from your jaunt in Hell.”
“What did this?” Willow asked. She found the wound on Connor’s thigh and pressed around its perforated edge with
practiced care. It oozed and stank of spoiled beef.
“Some kind of toothy frog,” Faith answered, grimacing, breathing out a shaky sigh.
“Kostzchie demon,” William said.
That got their attention. “You sure?” Willow asked.
“Fatal poison. Darts of bone. Tissue paper constitution. Yeah, Wolfram & Hart adored the little buggers,” William said.
“Willow, what is going on?”
A crease formed between Willow’s brows. “I think I can heal him,” she said. Faith’s lip twitched in a reluctant smile. “He’ll
need an anti-venom to recover fully.”
Willow dodging his questions: beginning to piss him off.
“Get Watcher-lite to phone Andrew,” William growled. “Boy knows a thing or two about curing poison.”
A spasm wracked Connor’s body. He yelled “Dawn!” and fell still again.
Faith palmed sweat from her forehead. Girl had looked worse, by William’s recollection, but not by much.
She said, “Brain’s still whacked out, Willow. Earlier he mentioned Angel.”
They exchanged a look, which William put down as clandestine. He mental-noted it, but heard the Watcher end her
telephone conversation. Since Willow was evading all his questions, William left them to join the others in the hall. He’d
return to Willow later, when her hands weren’t full of the unconscious sons for former rivals.
“Well?” Xander asked.
William got a good look at the new girl: muddy clothes, unwashed hair, myriad scrapes and bruises, most of them days old
and turning yellow ’round the edges. There was something familiar in her green eyes that intrigued him beyond her
outwardly Watcher appearances.
“According to Rita, you’ve lost eight Slayers in the initial onslaught, and the origin of the explosion remains unknown,” she
said. She let that settle in before going on. “Gatwick and Heathrow are closed, as are all major thoroughfares in and out of
town. The entire city is locked down.”
“Is it only London?” Maya asked.
The Watcher uttered a hoarse laugh. “No. The patterns indicated in Mr. Wells’ research are reflected globally, but since we
don’t understand his original model, we lack the underlying cause and without him, we can’t assess the full scale of this
attack.”
William hadn’t half a clue what she’d just said, but knew it wouldn’t help matters to offer up his ignorance in front of the
assembled crowd.
“Well,” William said, “That’s two counts of needing Andrew. Good on him. Boy’s racking up quite the rep. Where is the little
scamp?”
Maya gave Xander a glare of such intensity William wouldn’t have believed her capable.
She said, “Mr. Doesn’t-Know-the-Meaning-of-Tact: The floor is yours.”
Xander’s eye narrowed. “So I showed Jimmy Olsen to the door. He chose to go.”
Finally, William held up his hands. “Clearly I’ve missed a lot of back story while I was out fightin’ the fight. Harris, what are
you going on about? And who’s this chippie?” he asked, jabbing a thumb at Rachel.
“That’s Rachel Greenspan,” Maya explained. “Of the Boston Greenspans.”
“Apprenticed to Rupert, no doubt,” he said, but stopped short when the vampire walked into the hall.
“Well, well,” William said, falling back into his swagger-in-the-face-of-a-powerful-opponent routine. “What have we here?”
Thellian pursed his lips but said nothing. William glanced over his shoulder and saw that Maya, Xander and Rachel huddled
together between the wrecked crate, the open crate, and the third unopened one.
William laughed. “I’m gone for one sodding day and the whole place falls apart?” Looking at Xander, he pointed at Thellian’s
temple and said, “This is not the sort we let in, Harris. You recall a little berg called Sunnydale?”
Xander shouted, “I didn’t let him in! It was all…” and realizing that he was about to implicate someone, he shut up.
Willow appeared at William’s shoulder. “I let him in,” she said. She was fastidiously wiping her hands on a towel. “We need
him.”
William licked his teeth and gave Thellian a hard look. Hadn’t Buffy used that same argument for William? For Spike? We need
him. He’s the strongest warrior we have. If we’re gonna get through this fight alive…
“No,” William said, gripping the hilt of his dagger. “We don’t need him. We’ve got me.”
Thellian didn’t so much as blink when William struck. It was as if he knew the blade would never touch him.
However no one expected what happened next to happen.
A brilliant slash of light split the air, and Dawn stepped through to them. Once through, the rip resealed itself like a swiftly-
healing wound and she stood there, looking pale and disheveled and lost. Her thin shirt and drawstring pants were caked
with blood.
She eyed them with detached interest, like a scientist trying to decide which nameless white rat would be next in line for
experimentation.
It was Willow who finally moved forward, who tried to take Dawn’s hands and soothe her, but Dawn pulled away.
“Dawn?” Willow said. “Sweetie… what happened? Are you hurt?”
Dawn showed them her bloodstained palms. Her forehead creased as if she’d heard Willow’s question but the basic words
made no sense.
“Here, now, Bit,” William said, stepping around Thellian and the crates. He put his arm around Dawn’s shoulder and guided
her toward the stairs. Dawn gazed at the vampire, who returned her stare with great intent.
William wanted throttle him, but choked down the urge with the promise of a solid thrashing with interest sometime in the
very near future.
“Wait!” Xander said. “Can anybody Cliff Notes what just happened for me? What is up with Dawn and the portal-o-light? And
is Connor half-dead on the hide-a-bed? Still never got a clear answer on why Forever Knight’s here, except there’s some
puppeteering crystal ball, and where is Andrew, exactly?”
Dawn turned her baleful eyes on him. “You do not say his name,” she said flatly.
Xander’s eye twitched. He said, “While we all love the stream-of-consciousness, we also enjoy a straight answer now and
again…”
“Xander,” Maya hissed.
“No,” Xander said, cranking up the hysterics with a bit of maniacal pacing. “Look, I’ve been through a few apocalypses, but
in every one of them we’ve had a Buffy to get us through.
“We don’t now, so I’m kinda hoping we can collectively fill a void. Otherwise we’ve got limb-shriveling ghosts loose in the
airport and a whatever-the-heck that could take down Connor and eight Slayers, which I personally don’t want to face
unless we can pull together and make something resembling a plan.”
He turned to Dawn and pinned her with all of his concentration. “So whatever happened this morning, it pales in significance
to what’s happening now. Apparently we need… the boy. Dawn. Where is he?”
He continued to stare at Dawn until at last, she lowered her eyes.
“It’s not my blood,” she muttered.
“Not your blood?” Xander said, then, “Oh.”
“There was so much,” Dawn said quietly. “I don’t know how… anyone… could survive. I don’t know how.”
An awful quiet filled the hallway, like the sound right after lightning, before the thunder hits.
At length, Willow said, “But he did. Right, Dawnie?”
“I don’t know. He’s at Parkside, and I left him there, but…” Dawn said. She ran her hand along the banister to steady
herself. “It’s the price, isn’t it?” she said, staring at her reflection in the dark, polished wood. “Always blood.”
She drifted up the stairs and vanished into her room.
After a long, painful pause, Xander said, “Ladies and gentlemen: Dawn has left the building.”
And William punched him in the face.
If Dawn really, really thought about it, she could reach back into that time before, when she had been a green glowy ball of
energy…
She had done it once when she’d gone swimming with Xander, Anya, and Buffy at a lake north of Sunnydale. They stayed out
real late, until the sun purpled the edges of the sky and the surface of the lake looked like a mirror for the stars.
Buffy, Xander, and Anya got out, dried off, did their thing.
Dawn swam. She dived deeper and deeper, slicing like a Dawn-shaped knife through the chilly water, loving the way it eddied
and slipped like swathes of silk around her body until she thought she wasn’t even there any more.
And then the best part happened. She reached the bottom of the lake and found that she could turn and lay flat against the
algae-grimed lake bottom and look back up at the world. Lances of green light speared through the water, broad strokes of
pale grey verdigris that undulated with the breath of currents and wind on the surface. Her skin glimmered with opalescent
spangles, her hair billowed around her face like a cloud laced with sparkling bubbles.
She thought, I could breathe if I needed to. I could be a mermaid.
Another girl shimmered into existence above her.
Not another girl. Her. A reflection? A dream? A fantasy of being not alone? Dawn reached forward, her pale hand rippling with
shimmers of aquamarine and green. The other her reached forward, too, and their fingers met.
Then Xander rescued her from “almost” drowning, and he and Buffy made this big deal about not being able to leave her
alone for one second, and how were they supposed to battle the forces of evil when they had to pluck Dawn from the jaws of
danger every odd Tuesday?
Dawn never told them why she’d been down so long, under the still, deep water of that mountain lake. She’d never
mentioned what she’d seen or felt. Besides, what could they understand? She was the nuisance kid sister in need of saving.
They hadn’t known she was capable of saving herself.
For that matter, neither had she.
Dawn walked out of Parkside Memorial, thinking about that day in the lake, thinking about what she could do, if she really
thought about it. As she walked, unaware of her surroundings and her power, whole worlds parted around her, flowing like
rivers and rainstorms, and the snow began to fall.
Dawn remembered with an aching sadness the night before when they cast the spell that brought Spike back. The night she
had finally stopped running.
What would she do? she had thought when all things seemed possible. What couldn’t she do?
The more important question was this: Could she do it if she had to? If they needed her, could Dawn save the world?
William came upon them in the alley: Faith, holding Connor against the brick wall, the Scythe in one hand, and Connor, limp as
Christ on a bloody crucifix. It was an odd, unexpected tableau, considering the pair was supposed to be in Hell. But
everything else had spewed forth; stood to reason they would, too.
Faith slung the boy over her shoulder and started for home. William saw before she did the hail of bone darts that rained
down on them.
“Faith!” he called out, too late. A bone dart caught her right forearm. She dodged, but not fast enough. Another grazed her
shoulder, slicing through her leather vest, leaving a white gash like a wing on her back.
She managed to parry a third before it could hit Connor’s hip. William ran forward, batting darts out of the air with the flat
of his triangular blade. He timed it right, sliding the last two meters into her, slamming her and Connor against the brick wall
before the first four frogs hit the ground where they’d previously been standing.
William killed the first two with quick downward jabs. He squished the other two with one roundhouse kick. William heard
the pong-pong-pong sound of the damned frogs descending the fire escape. He clenched his teeth.
“We gotta move,” he said, scanning the alley and the street beyond. “Poison’s right nasty, an’ does its work quick. Seen it
take down three Slayers, so don’t go all hat-stand thinking you’re immune.”
Her back to the wall, Faith slid down under the sprawl of Connor’s weight. When she looked up at William, well, it wasn’t a
look he’d ever seen on her before.
“Faith?”
She cradled the boy’s body against hers. “I can’t leave him. Okay? He’s messed up, but he’s all alone. So I can’t leave him.”
“Is he…” William looked skyward. Didn’t want to say it; said it anyway. “Is he alive?”
Faith squinched her eyes and shouted, “I don’t know!”
William shook his head in frustration. Sensitive was one way to go. William chose the other.
“Bloody don’t have time for this,” he snarled. Another bone dart pelted down, glancing off the windowsill above Faith’s
head. He gripped her arm and Connor’s shoulder, hauling them both up.
“Here,” he said roughly, getting his shoulder under Connor’s limp arm. He pressed his hand to Connor’s ribcage and felt the
barest thread of pulse. With a sigh, he said, “He is, but not for long. We’ll make better time if we go together.”
Faith swiped her eyes with her fist. The Scythe in her free hand, she nodded and got under Connor’s other shoulder.
Another bone dart struck the pavement, followed by two more, each one nearer to William’s feet than the last. Make
matters worse, the snow was falling thicker now.
William got them moving. They reached the street before the frogs dropped to the ground. He noticed with some mirth that
the fresh snow made the demons slide around all twisted up in agony. The few that landed in the thin snowdrift rolled around,
hissing and clutching their bony abdomens, their gaping mouths flashing thorny pink fangs.
That held William and Faith transfixed on the border of amusement until they heard the familiar moan of the Shedim making
their way back down.
“C’mon pet,” William said, pulling them along. “Let’s get home.”
They arrived home before dawn in both the literal and nominative sense.
Faith burst through the door screaming “Willow!” who came into the entry hall looking part-puzzled, part-perturbed. Behind
her, a trim blonde woman whom William had never met but pegged as a Watcher spoke in harried tones over the telephone,
and she did not seem pleased with all the screaming. Xander and Maya hovered nearby, looking for all the world like they’d
be happier being led off to forced-labor camps in Siberia than in the same room together.
Seeing Connor’s condition, Willow’s questioning look turned to one of concern. She was beside them in a second, her small
white hands fluttering like birds over him while they navigated around the wooden crates in the hall – William had questions
about those; shelved them – and slung Connor’s body onto the naugahyde couch in the seldom-used parlor. Watcher-girl had
prudently closed the front door behind them, and came to stand in the archway of the parlor, trailing Maya and Xander like
a pair of homeless kittens.
William noticed then the chubby guy with a caved-in nasal passage lying unconscious in front of the hearth. Putting
together the slabbed-out bloke and trio of pine boxes…
“Um, Red,” William said, his brow wrinkled in the thinkative sense. “Mind telling us what you’re doing here, and what manner
of prezzies you’ve brought us from the Underworld?”
Ignoring his question, Willow said, “Giles is back. He’s upstairs, resting.” Willow pressed her hands to either side of
Connor’s throat, felt around the neck of his damp t-shirt.
“Giles is back?” William asked.
Willow continued absent-mindedly, “He’s had enough for now.”
William felt his frustration rising. He said, “Enough what? Willow, you and me need to have several conversations, not the
least of which is how you lot got back from your jaunt in Hell.”
“What did this?” Willow asked. She found the wound on Connor’s thigh and pressed around its perforated edge with
practiced care. It oozed and stank of spoiled beef.
“Some kind of toothy frog,” Faith answered, grimacing, breathing out a shaky sigh.
“Kostzchie demon,” William said.
That got their attention. “You sure?” Willow asked.
“Fatal poison. Darts of bone. Tissue paper constitution. Yeah, Wolfram & Hart adored the little buggers,” William said.
“Willow, what is going on?”
A crease formed between Willow’s brows. “I think I can heal him,” she said. Faith’s lip twitched in a reluctant smile. “He’ll
need an anti-venom to recover fully.”
Willow dodging his questions: beginning to piss him off.
“Get Watcher-lite to phone Andrew,” William growled. “Boy knows a thing or two about curing poison.”
A spasm wracked Connor’s body. He yelled “Dawn!” and fell still again.
Faith palmed sweat from her forehead. Girl had looked worse, by William’s recollection, but not by much.
She said, “Brain’s still whacked out, Willow. Earlier he mentioned Angel.”
They exchanged a look, which William put down as clandestine. He mental-noted it, but heard the Watcher end her
telephone conversation. Since Willow was evading all his questions, William left them to join the others in the hall. He’d
return to Willow later, when her hands weren’t full of the unconscious sons for former rivals.
“Well?” Xander asked.
William got a good look at the new girl: muddy clothes, unwashed hair, myriad scrapes and bruises, most of them days old
and turning yellow ’round the edges. There was something familiar in her green eyes that intrigued him beyond her
outwardly Watcher appearances.
“According to Rita, you’ve lost eight Slayers in the initial onslaught, and the origin of the explosion remains unknown,” she
said. She let that settle in before going on. “Gatwick and Heathrow are closed, as are all major thoroughfares in and out of
town. The entire city is locked down.”
“Is it only London?” Maya asked.
The Watcher uttered a hoarse laugh. “No. The patterns indicated in Mr. Wells’ research are reflected globally, but since we
don’t understand his original model, we lack the underlying cause and without him, we can’t assess the full scale of this
attack.”
William hadn’t half a clue what she’d just said, but knew it wouldn’t help matters to offer up his ignorance in front of the
assembled crowd.
“Well,” William said, “That’s two counts of needing Andrew. Good on him. Boy’s racking up quite the rep. Where is the little
scamp?”
Maya gave Xander a glare of such intensity William wouldn’t have believed her capable.
She said, “Mr. Doesn’t-Know-the-Meaning-of-Tact: The floor is yours.”
Xander’s eye narrowed. “So I showed Jimmy Olsen to the door. He chose to go.”
Finally, William held up his hands. “Clearly I’ve missed a lot of back story while I was out fightin’ the fight. Harris, what are
you going on about? And who’s this chippie?” he asked, jabbing a thumb at Rachel.
“That’s Rachel Greenspan,” Maya explained. “Of the Boston Greenspans.”
“Apprenticed to Rupert, no doubt,” he said, but stopped short when the vampire walked into the hall.
“Well, well,” William said, falling back into his swagger-in-the-face-of-a-powerful-opponent routine. “What have we here?”
Thellian pursed his lips but said nothing. William glanced over his shoulder and saw that Maya, Xander and Rachel huddled
together between the wrecked crate, the open crate, and the third unopened one.
William laughed. “I’m gone for one sodding day and the whole place falls apart?” Looking at Xander, he pointed at Thellian’s
temple and said, “This is not the sort we let in, Harris. You recall a little berg called Sunnydale?”
Xander shouted, “I didn’t let him in! It was all…” and realizing that he was about to implicate someone, he shut up.
Willow appeared at William’s shoulder. “I let him in,” she said. She was fastidiously wiping her hands on a towel. “We need
him.”
William licked his teeth and gave Thellian a hard look. Hadn’t Buffy used that same argument for William? For Spike? We need
him. He’s the strongest warrior we have. If we’re gonna get through this fight alive…
“No,” William said, gripping the hilt of his dagger. “We don’t need him. We’ve got me.”
Thellian didn’t so much as blink when William struck. It was as if he knew the blade would never touch him.
However no one expected what happened next to happen.
A brilliant slash of light split the air, and Dawn stepped through to them. Once through, the rip resealed itself like a swiftly-
healing wound and she stood there, looking pale and disheveled and lost. Her thin shirt and drawstring pants were caked
with blood.
She eyed them with detached interest, like a scientist trying to decide which nameless white rat would be next in line for
experimentation.
It was Willow who finally moved forward, who tried to take Dawn’s hands and soothe her, but Dawn pulled away.
“Dawn?” Willow said. “Sweetie… what happened? Are you hurt?”
Dawn showed them her bloodstained palms. Her forehead creased as if she’d heard Willow’s question but the basic words
made no sense.
“Here, now, Bit,” William said, stepping around Thellian and the crates. He put his arm around Dawn’s shoulder and guided
her toward the stairs. Dawn gazed at the vampire, who returned her stare with great intent.
William wanted throttle him, but choked down the urge with the promise of a solid thrashing with interest sometime in the
very near future.
“Wait!” Xander said. “Can anybody Cliff Notes what just happened for me? What is up with Dawn and the portal-o-light? And
is Connor half-dead on the hide-a-bed? Still never got a clear answer on why Forever Knight’s here, except there’s some
puppeteering crystal ball, and where is Andrew, exactly?”
Dawn turned her baleful eyes on him. “You do not say his name,” she said flatly.
Xander’s eye twitched. He said, “While we all love the stream-of-consciousness, we also enjoy a straight answer now and
again…”
“Xander,” Maya hissed.
“No,” Xander said, cranking up the hysterics with a bit of maniacal pacing. “Look, I’ve been through a few apocalypses, but
in every one of them we’ve had a Buffy to get us through.
“We don’t now, so I’m kinda hoping we can collectively fill a void. Otherwise we’ve got limb-shriveling ghosts loose in the
airport and a whatever-the-heck that could take down Connor and eight Slayers, which I personally don’t want to face
unless we can pull together and make something resembling a plan.”
He turned to Dawn and pinned her with all of his concentration. “So whatever happened this morning, it pales in significance
to what’s happening now. Apparently we need… the boy. Dawn. Where is he?”
He continued to stare at Dawn until at last, she lowered her eyes.
“It’s not my blood,” she muttered.
“Not your blood?” Xander said, then, “Oh.”
“There was so much,” Dawn said quietly. “I don’t know how… anyone… could survive. I don’t know how.”
An awful quiet filled the hallway, like the sound right after lightning, before the thunder hits.
At length, Willow said, “But he did. Right, Dawnie?”
“I don’t know. He’s at Parkside, and I left him there, but…” Dawn said. She ran her hand along the banister to steady
herself. “It’s the price, isn’t it?” she said, staring at her reflection in the dark, polished wood. “Always blood.”
She drifted up the stairs and vanished into her room.
After a long, painful pause, Xander said, “Ladies and gentlemen: Dawn has left the building.”
And William punched him in the face.
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.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Mea Culpa
Things Unsaid
Home Sweet Gone
Eleventh Hour
Last Call
Time Is Running Out
Primal