This story is a sequel to Dark As Sunnydale, I have provided a full recap for those who are new to the story and don't want to go back and read the old one, or for those who read it years ago and don't remember much of it.

A/N: After having read through the original story, I would like to make a few apologies. Though I don't think the story was particularly bad, the grammar, text structure, grasp of character, rushed scenes, wonky emotions and facts were rather embarrassing. Especially my obvious lack of knowledge concerning pregnancy when I wrote Buffy throwing up the very next day after conception. I am more experienced and practised now and have a much firmer grasp of such things. I would also like to make clear that even though I made multiple references to Dawn being eighteen in the last story they were mistakes, she was seventeen throughout the entirety of the last story and is eighteen during this one.

I hope you all enjoy the sequel to Dark As Sunnydale and that I write something good enough to make up for the many years that sit between the original story and this one. Your endless patience is much appreciated, and once again I am so terribly sorry.

RECAP: At age thirteen Buffy Summers ran away from the happy little town of Sunnydale. Ten years later she returned to find her home had become a hellish nightmare. Ten years a prisoner inside their own homes, ten years hunted, slaughtered and mangled by a family of Master vampires, Sunnydale was in a horrible state. Calling themselves kings and queens, they built an undead empire, a kingdom within the town. So many were dead: her mother, her best friends, her classmates and neighbours. All that remained of her life before was her sister taken in by their Aunt Jenny and Uncle Giles. An assortment of survivors who sought to fight the evil had gathered inside her childhood home, some strangers, some friends and one of them something else.

Lacking the proper training to fight the vampires, Buffy was left to well in confusion, fighting to discover what had happened to her home and allowing her mind to deceive her when she discovered her dear friend Willow was now a walker of the night. Angelus, the self-proclaimed King of Vampires, noticed Buffy's willingness to leave the painful and confusing world of the living and to join the fun and ease of the night. He attacked her and tried to turn her but she was saved by Spike at the last minute. Romance had bloomed between the two but the both of them didn't really know what to do. Both had been hurt in the past but their passion could not be denied. Soon after Buffy was revealed to be a Slayer, a destined fighter for good. She knew nothing of Slayers, had never heard of them before and rather than be comforted by her superhuman abilities, she was scared and more confused.

Angry that Buffy always seemed to get what she wanted (mainly Spike), Amy turned against them and sold her out to Angelus. She was taken prisoner and days later it was discovered by Angelus that she had fallen pregnant. Amy couldn't handle the guilt of what she had done and when she confessed in front of Spike he banished her from the town.

In order to rescue Buffy and his unborn child, of which only he, Buffy and the vampires knew about, Spike waged a full out war against the vampires, rallying the town to arm themselves and fight back against the monsters that had taken their town. Sunnydale belonged to them and it was time to get it back. The war was brutal and ugly, large losses were felt on both sides. Willow was made human again by the use of a vial of Mohra blood by her sister Tara. Angelus and Drusilla were slain, but not before Buffy was killed.

END

The gentle scratch of pencil to paper, a delicate hold, the motion of a pale hand sweeping across the blank surface. Shapes and shading building an image, a picture of a face only seen in dream. A life lost and memory fragile and scarce. No one in this town remembered the thirteen year old girl who ran away from home, not her teachers or class mates, not her neighbours or her mother's friends. Precious few had memory of her at all by this point and it all ended with her death.

Though she had family who would remember her face and voice, there was only one person in this town that remembered her beauty, her curiosity and her foolish stubbornness. He remembered the impulsive choices she made, the things she said without proper thought and the way she had smiled at him the day before everything went wrong. He kept her close inside his heart and head, brought vision of her to his eyes with his talented drawings and refused to listen to his friends when they told him to move on.

It had only been five months since she died, that was it. Okay sure, they were only together for about two days but they'd known each other a month at least. There was just so much about her he didn't want to forget, so much passion, light and a power she had no knowledge of. She was untouched by the evils of this town but she was not without scars. He remembered when he first met her, when he watched her fight back against a hunting vampire. No one in the town took on vampires without weapons, but she had fought with her bare hands. Maybe it was stupid, but she had survived. He liked her courage, her gutsy charm. He remembered how calm she was after sneaking out of the house and inviting him for a walk. Neither one of them was supposed to be outside, they weren't even supposed to be talking to each other at that point, but she had ignored the ruling of her aunt and uncle and did as she pleased.

Probably learned that from Faith.

Spike paused in his art to take a calming breath. He wanted someone to blame for what had happened to her, someone or something he could aim his anger at. Though Angelus was the obvious target, since his death, Spike's anger had taken a different route. He couldn't help but blame Faith for having kept Buffy so deep in the dark. She was a Slayer and had the next Slayer in her care. She should have taught her to fight! She should have told her what she was going to be someday, she should have told her what it meant to be a Slayer because now that she was dead there was no one else who could!

But what did it matter now…Buffy was dead…and so was their unborn child.

~o~o~o~

"I'm home!" Announced the overly-loud voice of Dawn, stepping into the Summers' house and promptly tossing her schoolbag on the floor, jumping on the couch and turning on the TV.

Andrew and Jonathan quickly appeared out of nowhere and levelled Dawn with matching smiles. "Welcome home, you ready to do your homework?"

When school had started up again, Jenny had asked the two nerds to help Dawn with her homework every day after school. Dawn wasn't an idiot, she just wasn't interested in most of her classes. What good was algebra math problems going to do her when she was facing down a pack of vampires? As far as she was concerned, every class that wasn't the newly-allotted Vampire and Demon Defence Classes or Witchcraft Basics was a waste of her time. Sadly, the two dorks staring at her thought they were all wonderful things that she should know everything about whether she ever used them or not.

So far, she had been going along with this, well, until today. No, today she had a plan, a fool-proof solution. "You know, all that studying after I just got home from a day at school, it's really tiring for me. I was thinking we could play a game first." She said with a cunning smile, rising from the couch and taking a few steps towards them as though about to share a secret.

"Alright, that sounds fair." Jonathan proclaimed.

"What kind of game?" Asked Andrew. "Cards? Guess Who? Mouse Trap? Witches and Warlocks?"

Dawn bit her lip in her attempt not to cringe at the idea of playing that stupid dungeons game. "I was thinking something like Hide and Seek"

"Great!"

"I love that game!"

They were both pretty good at it too; it was how they had both lived this long in Sunnydale.

Dawn grinned. "Alright, I'll be the seeker, you two go hide"

With a triumphant smirk plastered on her face, Dawn turned around, put her hands over her face and stood against the wall. "1, 2, 3, 4, 5"

She heard the rapid footsteps as her little victims took off, one going upstairs and the other heading to the kitchen. Once she was sure they were out of sight, Dawn dropped her hands and smiled in victory. Two minutes later, she was camped out on the couch watching some cheesy drama show.

It was strange how things had become so normal once the vampire king and queen were taken down. The schools were all open again, old businesses were being rebuilt, and the town library was getting a makeover, complete with a whole big section for the supernatural type stuff. Dawn was looking forward to checking out the occult section once it was finished, it just seemed natural to want to explore the world of love spells and glamours a little bit.

She didn't get any more than fifteen minutes in front of the TV before the front door welcomed another member of the house inside.

"Willow! What are you doing here?" Dawn asked, nervous about being caught. "I thought you'd be at work"

"I was, and I'm going back, but Giles forget one of the books for the shop. I'm just popping in to get it"

Willow had made a pretty good recovery after her time as a vampire, her sister had been a big part of that. Almost immediately she had taken Amy's place in the house, taking her bed, her seat, her place in patrols, and everyone was pleased for it. Willow, the real Willow, couldn't tell a lie to save her life, nor would she ever dream of hurting another human being. The group knew they could trust her and the wounds left by Amy had been buried beneath Willow's bright and helpful personality.

Recently, she had joined her sister working at the little shop Giles owned, the Magic Box. With witchcraft being so useful and popular in this town, it was going very well. The place was making money and Giles was setting a lot of it aside to help rebuild the town, but was sure to keep a good percent to support his very large family living under the Summers name.

It took Willow all of two minutes to find the right folder and make her way back to the front door. Dawn had hoped she would head right out and that would be the end of it, but just before she reached the door, Willow stopped and stared at Dawn curiously.

"Shouldn't you be doing your homework with Andrew and Jonathan right now?"

The gig was up. Dawn sighed. "Maybe"

Willow made a show of looking around for the missing two. "And where would they be?"

"I kind of tricked them into a game of Hide and Seek"

Rather than scowling like Jenny, Willow simply smiled, taking a seat across from the teenager. "I know homework seems evil but you can't just pretend it doesn't exist"

"But it's so boring, why do I even have to do it? Why can't I get the nerds to do it for me?" She waved her hand in the general direction of where she thought the boys had gone off to.

"Dawnie, it isn't about the work getting done so you can hand it in, it's about you learning something by doing the work yourself. It doesn't have to be a horrible experience"

"Says the girl who asked her high school teacher to give her more schoolwork to do"

Willow laughed. "I know that this doesn't seem the best coming from someone who actually enjoyed doing homework, but it is still important. And look at the bright side: you did get to skip two years of it, you only have one left"

What Willow was referring to was the fact that many young students had been displaced when the private schools closed, or were pulled from school by their terrified parents. After the years out of school, a large scale test had been held to gage which level of education each student really needed to be. Some got to skip ahead while others were sent to the year before the one they left in. Dawn had been one of the lucky ones, due to having continued to attend what passed for school in this town instead of dropping out, she didn't have to go back and do the formal version of year ten and eleven, instead getting to go straight into her final year.

A rather whiny groan left the girl. "But everything is so different, it isn't like it used to be. I'm in a class with kids who should be in ninth grade, not twelfth. I don't care if they are smart, they still act like kids. It's so weird. Everything is so muddled…things just aren't like they used to be"

A sad expression fell over Willow's face, her eyes dropping to the floor with a hint of shame; believing herself to be almost entirely responsible for the things that had happened. "Things are never gonna be the same, Dawnie, Sunnydale will never be the way it used to be. But that doesn't mean it can't be good again, that doesn't mean it can't get better"

Pale blue eyes rose to stare at Willow, looking for the hope she seemed to have. "Things aren't like they were before, and I know things are getting better, but there is still so much that won't get better"

"Like what?"

Dawn was silent a long few minutes, wondering if she really wanted to talk about this right now. Better late than never she supposed. "Like the people we lost"

Willow's entire demeanour just seemed to deflate at those words, her shoulders dropping and her head dipping in shame once more. "I'm sorry…I miss her too"

So far, very few people in this house were willing to talk about Buffy. It wasn't that they didn't think about her or miss her, but there was just so much going on and after all the death they had gone through in the past ten years, her death had seemed to just fade into the background. A nameless statistic, another lost soul in the Battle for Sunnydale. No one wanted to talk about the people they had lost, everyone was too focused on enjoying the new Sunnydale where people could take a stroll through Main Street in the middle of the night, or wear colourful clothing without getting bitten. Everyone just wanted to forget the past and move on, which meant numerous people were being forgotten. Dawn couldn't really blame them, it was how the town had coped with death for years, it just bothered her how easy it was for everyone to just forget that Buffy was ever a part of this family.

"I know we didn't get to spend a lot of time together, ignoring the ten years she was gone, but I still miss her. It was really nice having my big sister around again, but I never told her that, I never took the time to talk to her, tell her how happy I was that she was home…and now I can't ever tell her"

A few small tears began to well up in her eyes and she threw her head back, fighting them back before they could fall. Willow sighed at the teen's show of strength, of refusing to cry, of appearing weak.

"It's okay to cry, Dawn, I cry for Buffy sometimes"

Dawn looked shocked at the admission. "Really? You do?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I miss her a lot. She was my best friend since we were kids, then there was the running away and then the death…then she was back and I was…I said some nasty things to her when I was a vampire, I told her stuff, not all of it true. I did it to hurt her…I never got the chance to tell her how sorry I am. I know we haven't really been friends for years, but I still love her and I still miss her"

Dawn looked away, thinking of someone else who missed her. "Do you…do you think you could talk to Spike some time?"

"What? Why?"

"You knew Buffy the best, even with the ten year gap. I think it might make him a little happier to hear someone talk about her, tell him things. What she liked doing, her favourite foods, movies; that sort of stuff. Maybe tell him a story or something. Might help him get out of the damn basement"

Willow wasn't sure what to say to this request. "I don't know, I haven't really spoken to him before…unless you count the Drusilla thing, which means he might not want to talk to me"

"Oh," Dawn realised. "I forgot you were a part of that. But it was Angelus who did the real damage, you were just part of the capture and guard thing, right?"

"Pretty much, but I was still a part of it. And I was part of the group that kept Buffy in a cage. I really don't think I'm the best person to talk to him"

"You guys live under the same roof. You're gonna have to talk eventually, and talking about Buffy and the happy times might be a good way to do that"

"Maybe…But not right now, I have to get back to the shop, and you need to do your homework. I know you don't like it, but it isn't that hard. It'll be over before you know it and suddenly you won't have that dark cloud hanging over you"

Dawn smiled. "Alright, but I'm not gonna like it"

Willow chuckled. "That's okay, so long as you get it done"

With a quick hug and smile, Willow swept out the door and headed back to work, leaving Dawn to groan in annoyance before turning off the TV and getting to her feet.

"Andrew! Jonathan! Game's over! I give up!"

It wasn't so much the giddy smiles they both had as they come scampering from their hiding spots, both believing they had outwitted her, but more the way they almost mocked her with their bright little faces.

"Alright, come on, let's get this over with"

~o~o~o~

Across the other side of town, just outside the borders of Sunnydale, stood a tall, towering mansion left to rust. The large open windows were all covered with dark cloth, the balconies covered by shoddy woodwork alien to the house's original design, and the stench of blood filling nearly every single crack. During this glaring day of sun, the inhabitants slept in the cool basement or the main room, atop cool tiles and surrounded by thick stone walls.

Only one of the sharp-toothed vampires was awake at this time, staring out through the black silk on her window. Her room was up on the second level, frequented by few and almost never without her. It was a beautiful room, but it was also a prison. Even in death, Buffy Summers remained the guarded treasure of the Aurelius clan, as did the human child growing within her.