Part 4
Author: Jeanny
(J.A.I.T.)
Summary:
The PTB are sending the Scoobies on mysterious and dangerous quests;
Buffy's future hangs in the balance.
Disclaimer:
Joss, Fox, Mutant Enemy, rule the world - or at least these characters.
I'm just doing my part in the universal Dance of Joy surrounding them.
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Dawn felt like she was no
longer a person, but a spring coiled tightly.
Any second now someone was going to touch her and she was going to spring
up and hit the ceiling, and then she’d probably burst into all too human
tears. Giles was talking about what
was going to happen, but it was hard to concentrate on it.
It was hard to listen at all. Xander
tried to say something funny, but the glare he got from Anya was actually what
Dawn found funny. She giggled,
feeling oddly outside of herself. Willow
looked at her and smiled but it looked strange on her face, like someone had cut
a smile out of a magazine and pasted it over her mouth.
The stress was getting to all of them.
"The interesting and
alarming part is what Cordelia said about the risk. We risk losing what we seek to gain." Giles was
frowning, puzzling over this riddle, when Dawn suddenly felt irrationally
annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned her sister in his explanation.
"To gain for Buffy.”
For some reason reminding Giles about why this was happening made her feel
better about it, too. She felt much
calmer when she thought about her sister. They
might have her with them soon, and she would cling to that thought.
*Whatever it takes, Buffy. I’ll
do anything, I don‘t care what I have to do.
I will get you back. I know
you’d do it for me. Anything.
Anything.* She repeated that
word to herself over and over like a mantra as Giles droned on, only looking up
when Xander began to chastise the Watcher.
"That's it, Giles, from
now on you don't get to make the big pre-battle speech, because you're"
Dawn was back home.
She was lying on her stomach in her own bed, pen in hand posed over her
diary. Her room looked different
than it had that morning, but it was familiar.
It appeared exactly the way it had looked a few months ago, before she
knew she was the Key, and before...before...
She dropped the pen and ran down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of
her mother’s room. The door was closed and she reached for the knob with a
shaking hand.
“Hello, honey.”
The voice she now only heard in her dreams came from behind her, and she
closed her eyes, tears sneaking past the lids and flooding her cheeks.
She opened them as she turned, fearing that she would somehow disappear
as swiftly as she had appeared. Her
mother was standing there, her eyes shining.
She was smiling and whole. Dawn
flew into Joyce’s arms, sobbing so hard she was unable to speak.
Her mother stroked her hair and murmured soothingly, and they stayed
there for some time. Finally Joyce
reluctantly pulled away, brushing tears from her own eyes as well.
“Dawnie, I’m sorry, but
we can’t do this now. Remember
why you’re here.”
“I’m supposed to be
doing some kind of test. For Buffy.
To help Buffy. But what am I doing here, Mom?”
Joyce turned slightly away, suddenly unable to look her daughter in the
eye. Dawn stiffened.
She knew whatever was coming, she wasn’t going to like it.
“The Powers sent me to
explain the trial, Dawn. I don’t
know why they wanted it to take place here, except...” she trailed off,
unwilling to continue that line of thought.
Before Dawn could question her, she continued, forcing her voice to
remain steady. “You’re going to
have to make a choice, and it isn’t an easy one.
Buffy sacrificed herself so that you could live, and the Powers want to
know if you’d be willing to do the same.”
Dawn swallowed hard.
“The Powers...want me to
die?” Joyce’s eyes were
brimming with tears.
“No, Dawn.
The choice is not to die, the choice is to never have lived.
All the false memories of you will be wiped away, and even the real ones
from these past months. You’ll
still exist as The Key in its natural form.
The human form, Dawn Summers, my baby...she will be gone.
No one will remember you ever existed at all. Including me.”
“B-but...I did exist, for
a little while...how do I just stop being?” Dawn stared wide-eyed at her
mother, trying to comprehend what this meant for her.
“And if I’m just the Key, what am I then?” Joyce was so choked up she could barely speak.
“I don’t know, Dawn.
It’s a horrible choice. I
can’t tell you what to do. I can
only tell you that the decision you have to make is between your sister’s life
and your own.” Dawn shook her
head in denial.
“No one would remember?
That can’t be right. Someone
would have to...Spike!” Dawn
looked at her mother, desperate hope shining in her eyes.
“Spike’s a vampire. Xander
said he was the only one who knew that Glory and Ben were the same person. Spike would remember me, wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t think so,
honey.” Joyce’s fists clenched
at her side. She was straining
visibly against the impulse to take Dawn in her arms again.
Dawn for her part looked simply lost.
“I don’t think I can do
it. I mean, I can die, I was
willing to die that night. But
Buffy took my place. Buffy wanted
me to live, how do I just...not? How
do I go back to being The Key, not knowing what I am?”
Joyce shook her head in response. She
didn’t know. The Powers hadn’t
told her what the choice really meant, and being forced to lose one of her
daughters was ripping her apart.
“I wish I knew what to
say, honey. I’m your mother,
I’m supposed to be able to help you.”
“I don’t even know what
it’s like, being the Key, I mean I don’t remember...” Dawn never even had a chance to scream before the room
vanished. She stared into a void
that pulsed and hummed and was somehow colorless.
She tried to cry out, but she no longer had a voice.
A moment later she no longer remembered how to speak.
The colorless void was abruptly filled with color.
She could see into demon dimensions, hundreds of them at once.
Bizarre shapes and sounds surrounded her, filled her.
Worst of all, they passed through her.
Demons used her to traverse the dimensions, passing through her
body...except she no longer had a body. Through
her soul, then. She could feel
them, feel the evil within them, and she was powerless to keep them from
touching her. She felt violated,
and still more came, until she didn’t think she could stand it anymore. She wanted her mother. She
wanted Buffy. She wanted Willow and
Xander and Spike. At this thought,
she could all at once see into the earth dimension as she had all the demon
dimensions before. She saw Willow
and Xander laughing quietly with Buffy. Saw
the three of them walk into the Summers house, and the sadness that flashed on
Buffy’s face as she entered.
“Are you okay, Buff?”
Xander asked softly. Dawn felt
vibrations rather than actually hearing his voice.
It was a strange sensation.
“Yeah, I‘m okay.
It‘s just sometimes I guess I can‘t believe she‘s really gone.
But I‘m okay, I mean, I have to be.
I know I’m not alone, I have you guys, and Giles.
I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Willow gave Buffy a reassuring hug as Buffy sighed.
“Still, in a sense I am all alone now.
It’s been me and Mom for so long now.
Dad’s out there somewhere, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really care
anymore. I guess, sometimes I wish
I hadn’t been an only child, you know?”
Dawn’s heart would have sunken if she still had a heart.
Her vision became blurry; she could no longer see Buffy or the others,
she could no longer see...she could no longer see!
But she could feel, oh God, she could feel...she felt evil she never knew
existed pass through her again and again and it was unbearable...
...and she screamed,
suddenly back in human form on her hands and knees in the Summers living room.
Joyce ran to gather her in her arms, holding her close until her
uncontrolled trembling ceased.
“Oh God,” Dawn breathed
shakily as her tremors began subside. “That’s
what it’s like. It’s horrible,
it’s so horrible.” She looked
at her mother wide-eyed. “I have
to choose to go back there. I have
to choose to be...to let them...” Tears
streamed down her face as her mother nodded.
“I’m so sorry, baby,”
Joyce whispered. She spoke to the
air angrily. “She’s just a child, this is too hard. You can’t ask her to do this!
You can’t ask me to let go of another daughter!”
Dawn closed her eyes,
hearing her sister’s voice inside her head, telling her that they shared the
same blood. She heard Giles talking
about risks and sacrifices. And
most of all she heard her own voice inside her head, promising to do anything.
She opened her eyes, terrified but suddenly determined.
“Tell the Powers I agree.
Take my body. Take all the
memories of me. I give all of it to
Buffy. They can have everything.
I’ll still be me, even if I’m me inside my sister.
She’s the Slayer. The
world needs her. She wanted me to
live for her, and I won‘t be breaking my promise.
I‘ll just live through her instead.
Anything they want, just bring Buffy back!”
Sudden awareness flowed through Joyce and she realized that by making
this choice both her daughters would be saved.
She sobbed in relief as Dawn looked on questioningly. Joyce smiled through tears and opened her arms to her
daughter, holding her for the last time.
“Dawnie, you did it.
You passed the test. You
found your gift.”
“My body is my gift?”
Dawn asked, though it was a rhetorical question.
Summers blood was what Buffy had given her. It was only fair she should return the favor.
“When are they going to take my body away?
When are you going to forget me?”
Joyce shook her head smiling.
“Never, Dawn, I’ll never
forget you. The Powers needed to be
sure you would be willing to sacrifice your human form...it’s the Key energy
that they’ll be taking instead. From
now on you’ll be a normal teenage girl, and you’ll grow up and have a
wonderful life. It’s everything I
ever wanted for you, baby.”
Dawn broke down at her
mother’s words and wept in her arms.
“I love you, Mom.
Please stay with me. Don’t
leave!” Dawn felt herself beginning to fade from the scene, but as
she vanished, she caught the faint reply.
“I’m always with you
Dawn. I’m in your heart.
And your sister’s heart. Take
care of each other for me.”
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