Disclaimer: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and Angel are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and the WB. Not mine, please don't sue.

A/N: As of 12-24-09, I have started working on this story again! Woo, must be a Christmas Miracle! This chapter has been edited a little, mostly for spelling errors. The other two fics in this series, Ties that Bind, and These Days have both been edited as well. Things have been removed, and new things have been added, but the plot is generally the same. If you love this series, you might want to re-read it. I will be posting three new chapters of this fic tonight.

Yes, you read that right.

Everyone done having their heart attacks now?

Good, on with the fic. :)

No clue when the next chapter will be up - the next week or so is going to be crazy, and no telling if inspiration will strike!

Thanks for all my recent reviews, urging me to continue this - it was you all who put the idea of working on this story again in my head. :)

Merry Christmas!


Chapter 1: Consequences

Dawn wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand, resting her elbows against the cool porcelain of the toilet.

"Ugh." She said, grimacing. She'd known that a pregnancy would entail things like this...but being reintroduced to her cornflakes made everything seem just a little more real.

She was going to have a baby.

Buffy was going to kill her.

Sighing, she got up and inspected her reflection in the mirror. Pale skin, tangled locks, and a downtrodden expression. She light traced the faint scratched on her cheek – her recent injury after falling with Connor was back on her face. Her side still hurt too, made worse by getting sick. She sighted, and ran her fingers through her mussed hair, and used her finger and some of Lindsey's toothpaste on her teeth. That would have to do.

"You can do this." Dawn encouraged her reflection.

*

"I told you, I'm not answering any questions until Dawn is ready." Connor refused, throwing Buffy and Spike each a hostile look. Dawn smiled sadly to herself from the doorway.

"Listen up, Junior." Buffy began, her tone extremely unhappy. "I want some answers, and I want them now." She demanded. Connor remained stoic, silently meeting her gaze. Before Angel, Lindsey or Willow could do anything to help the situation, Dawn spoke up.

"Leave him alone, Buffy." Dawn said, sounding sad and defeated. Connor barely acknowledged her presence, turning to look out the window. Night had fallen sometime while they'd been under the spell, though to Connor and Dawn it had seemed that much more time had passed.

"Are you ok?" Buffy asked, sounding worried. She approached Dawn and gave the girl a hug.

"I'm fine." Dawn replied, her smile a little tremulous.

"Good." Her sister said, relieved. "Now you can tell me what the hell is going on here, since Junior isn't talking."

"Fine." Dawn agreed. "Where should I start?"

"You can start by telling us what the hell you were thinking, 'Bit?" Spike exclaimed, clearly outraged.

"About what?" Dawn replied. She wasn't trying to be difficult, but it was hard to know which thing he was referring to.

"Dawn." Buffy's tone held a warning. The brunette met the faces of her sister and Spike, who were sharing one of the couches, before staring at her hands. Angel was perched on Lindsey's desk, and Willow was seated next to Lindsey and herself on the second couch.

Connor, still staring out the window, refused to meet her gaze. He could feel her eyes on him, begging him to turn around and be what she needed...but he couldn't...he just couldn't.

"Just start at the beginning." Willow suggested gently.

"The whole thing started when Connor kidnapped me from Wolfram and Hart." Dawn began. "Except once we'd gotten far enough away, he was going to let me go." She shifted to look at him, but he still wouldn't turn around and face her. "But then he told me about what he'd learned about Angel and the things he'd been told...." Dawn shook her head. "He said he didn't remember, so I came up with the memory spell idea."

"Who told you about me, Connor?" Angel asked his son, who had yet to speak since Dawn had entered the room.

"A woman named Eve." Connor finally answered, turning to look at his father. "She said she was lawyer." Angel growled, causing everyone to jump.

"Down boy." Buffy commanded. "You can take care of Eve after we've finished this." She motioned for Dawn to continue.

"We did the spell, but evidently we messed up because I ended up there too. Then suddenly, the spell switched from Connor's memories to my memories...about being the Key...and that night with Glory." Dawn's voice got quiet, and the room was silent for a moment as everyone remembered the aftermath of that night.

"That's where I came in. I got you out. " Willow chimed in. Dawn shook her head.

"Not exactly." She replied. She received four confused stares. Sighing, Dawn continued. "Ok, this next part gets a little unbelievable, so please don't interrupt. It'll make sense when I'm done." She paused to take a deep breath. Here we go, she thought.

"The first time that Connor and I ended up in the memory of that night with Glory, Willow did show up." Dawn began. She held up her hand to silence her sister, who'd opened her mouth to speak. "Something changed. Instead of just watching the memory, we were actually there, on that night." Dawn went on.

"A temporal shift." Willow uttered.

"Whatever it was, it meant that I had the power to change what happened that night...and something in me just...snapped." Dawn got up and headed towards the window that Connor was occupying. She stopped short when she saw the expression on his face. Goddess, she'd put it there. "I couldn't do it, Buffy. I couldn't watch you die again." Dawn's voice broke. "Willow disappeared. Connor and I decided to jump into the portal...so we did." The teens seemed oblivious to the looks of shock that were being sent in their direction. "Oh, Goddess, Buffy, I wish we'd never done it. This is all my fault." Dawn felt her legs go out from underneath her, as everything hit her at once. Connor caught her before she hit the floor, acting on instinct.

Their eyes locked. Just for a moment, he forgot why he couldn't be the man she needed. Only for a moment, and then reality set back in. He helped her stand, and quickly let go. Dawn looked broken hearted.

"I can't do this." Connor told her, sounding anguished. "I thought I could, but I can't." His eyes welled up as they looked into hers. "I'm sorry." He took off, running out of the study.

"Connor!" Angel exclaimed, getting up to follow him.

"Let him go, Angel." Dawn said, her tears spilling over. Angel turned around to stare at her. She wiped her eyes, and placed a hand over her belly. "He's having trouble adjusting." The front door to Lindsey's apartment slammed shut.

"Let's talk about that, shall we 'Bit?" Spike interrupted, his anger unmistakable.

"It's all part of the story." She replied, sitting back down.

"What happened once you jumped through the portal?" Willow asked. The redhead had started taking notes by this point, not wanting to miss anything.

"When I woke up, it was the same day, the same year...but everything had changed." Dawn started again.

"What was different?" Buffy asked.

"Lot's of things...we were still living in Sunnydale. Since you hadn't died, the First never got to make its move." Dawn answered. She was debating on how much to tell them of what had happened in the alternate time line. "Connor was there too...this Connor. The portal had dropped him off just as he was traveling from Quor-toth. He used his memories of the future to change things too." Angel sat down heavily. "You were so proud of him." Dawn told Angel, getting a look of surprise. She shook her head as if to clear it. "Because of what didn't happen...Angel was granted something called a Shanshu...which made him human." Angel and Lindsey shared a look. Spike wasn't liking this turn of events in the story.

"Then what happened?" Willow prodded, making a note to ask Angel later exactly what a Shanshu was.

"He and Connor came to Sunnydale. Buffy and Angel got married, Spike left town...you and Lindsey got engaged." Five mouths were hanging open in disbelief, allowing Dawn to continue interrupted. "For the first few days, I thought everything was as perfect as it could be. I would have preferred that Spike be there, but I planned to find him and bring him home. Then things started going wrong." Very wrong, Dawn reminded herself of why she'd agreed to the Oracles demands.

"What went wrong, Dawnie?" Willow asked, her pencil poised. She hoped no one noticed that her hand was shaking from the bombshell Dawn had dropped.

"Everything." Dawn answered, her voice breaking. "Buffy was...Buffy was pregnant." She finally stumbled out, unable to look at the reactions she was getting. She settled for staring at the floor. "She was having complications, and then I found out she wasn't the slayer anymore. She'd given up her powers." Dawn wiped her eyes again, still not looking up. "That's when I knew...we had to fix it. Make it right somehow."

"What did you do?" Buffy's question held a threat of warning, as if she sensed where her younger sister was taking this story.

"Connor said we could go see the Oracles, that Angel had been to see them once, and that we could have time reversed." Angel avoided everyone's gazes, hoping that Dawn would not reveal what his trip to the Oracles had been for, and that Buffy would not ask. "So we did. We got in to see them with a little help from Spike." Dawn said, smiling for the first time since she'd started her story. "At first, they weren't going to help us...but they eventually offered us a deal. We accepted, and when we arrived in my memories a second time, we went with Willow instead of going portaling."

"I don't understand how you being pregnant now fits into all this."

"You weren't supposed to have that baby, Buffy." Dawn said, getting up and walking to the window. "The Powers That Be had only granted it to you when they realized what Connor and I had done...and once you were pregnant, it could not be undone. They aren't allowed to take lives." She stared out the window into the night, wondering where Connor had gone. "The deal they offered was simple. I would have the baby instead. The child would be mine and Connor's."

Dawn found the look on Spike and Buffy's faces to be pretty comical. They almost seemed relieved that she'd experienced the most Immaculate Conception since Christ. Angel looked like he'd swallowed something sour, while Lindsey was stoic. Willow's hand was moving at light speed over her paper, trying to record every little detail.

"Both of you had to agree, right?" Angel finally broke the silence. Dawn nodded. "You know Connor's history. Why would you ask it of him?" He wanted to know.

"I didn't." Dawn said, her tone angry. "He agreed on his own."

"Why would he do that, especially given how he's acted since you two woke up?" Angel questioned.

"Because he loves me." She answered, staring out the window again. "And I love him."

*

Dawn jumped at the knocking sound on the bathroom door, the sound of her sister's voice intruding on her reverie. She only hoped the inquisition to come would go nearly as well as the one in her head had.

"I'll be right there, Buffy." Dawn replied to her sister.

She put a hand to her belly, willing her stomach to remain in it's rightful place long enough to get this over with. She straightened her spine, and pasted a resolved expression on her face. A shaking hand reached for the light switch and that bathroom was engulfed in darkness. Resolutely, Dawn turned and left the bathroom.

Time to face the music.