Unfortunately, the almighty Joss Whedon owns more of my story and its characters than I do...that is to say, the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

My muse was stirred whilst I was sitting before my new HDTV watching the 5th season of Buffy, or, more specifically, the episode "Forever". I began to wonder what would have happened if Dawn hadn't burned the photo of Joyce before Buffy opened the door, and what would have happened if Gora demons happened to have a bit more of a bite....

Shaking legs carried her up the narrow staircase, a hand stretched out against the wall knocking down a picture frame; it thunked lazily onto the carpeted step above which it had previously hung, but quick stocking feet were already stumbling towards the sacred circle that had drawn a dead mother out of her grave, a fear-scrambled mind forgetting the fallen picture frame and the happy, smiling faces of its occupants. Trembling fingers snagged the edge of a more important photograph, a falling knee whose owner had made a dramatic miscalculation in the angle of her descent tipping the bowl of zombie potion onto the carpet, splashing luminous purple albumen everywhere. A moment was spared to cuss and swipe at the hot, gooey fluid with her sleeve, and in that moment flew her chance to undo the wrong. Wood cracked against a wall downstairs and she lifted her voice, such as it was, to scream;

"Buffy! Close the door!"

"Mommy?" Her sister's outcry was sharp with an undefinable emotion, an emotion only once heard by the younger sister prior to that chilly February night. It had been in her voice when she'd first cried out after discovering her night of passion with Angel had cost him a soul, lost forever... "Mommy?"

"Oh, darling..."

The warm, familiar cadences of a voice she never thought she'd hear again froze her limbs in mid-motion, the photo she clutched in an unsteady hand quivering above the candle flame that was meant to be its destruction...and quite suddenly, Dawn realized she couldn't continue. She couldn't burn the picture if it meant looking into Buffy's eyes and knowing she'd sent their mother back into Death's chill embrace, when it obliviated any hope Buffy had of resuming college and a normal life, when it meant Dawn could come home after school to find warm cookies and a patient, unjudgmental math tutor. When not burning the picture meant more than it did to burn it, even if Dawn's own soul was damned forever for stealing an angel from Heaven.

"Mom?"

"Dawnie?"

The sound of her mother's voice rolling over the quick, sharp letters of her name finally urged her into motion; the precious photo was quickly stowed beneath a pile of clothing in her unmentionables drawer, and rainbow-colored feet dragged her downstairs to meet the only parent she'd nearly lost forever.

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