Title: Ancient
Author: Dark Ariana
Fandom: BtVS/Ats
Character/Pairing: Angel/Dawn, Spike/Buffy
Genre: Drama/Angst/Romance/Action/Supernatural
Rating: R
Summary: Dawn Summers was never a normal girl, before a year ago she wasn't even a human girl at all. Now with the key unlocked inside her and being anything but human she decided LA is a better place to be after taking the news of Buffy's death to Angel.
Word Count: 3,279

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Ancient

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Buffy was supposed to be here, laughing at her for her newest teen drama, glaring at Spike and telling him to shut up. She'd never thought she'd miss how the two never seemed to get along, or how Buffy would threaten to stake the bleached blonde vampire. But she did, and most of all she missed her sister.

"Here."

"Buffy, it hurts."

"I got it. Come here. You're gonna be okay."

The words floated back to her now, if only she'd be able to help. If only she'd realized what Buffy intended to do then maybe she could have jumped before her sister got the chance. It may seem selfish but part of Dawn blamed Buffy, blamed her for having a death wish because that was essentially what it was. True, Buffy had jumped in her place and had saved the world and Dawn but the world would have been better off if she had never existed.

She hadn't existed until a little under a year ago had she, at least not in this form. Self loathing was a train she'd ridden before, she wasn't even human and yet she had memories of years before now. Some good, some not so good. She'd never been the sweet innocent girl some might think she was. Underneath it all Buffy had been the good daughter, and Dawn, well...Dawn had been the questionable one. But you'd be hard pressed to prove it, she was a devious one, or so her Aunt Arlene used to say.

"What are you doing?"

"I have to jump. The energy."

"It'll kill you."

"I know. Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it."

"No."

She clenched her fist as she sat with the other Scoobies. Sometimes she wondered if she should even attempt to sit with them, she wasn't one. She was an outsider. She always had been, even back before the high School had been blown up. She was Dawn Summers, pretty, smart, known to hang with the older kids - namely Cordelia Chase and the weird trio, Aka the Scoobies.

Though truth be told none of that had been real, and she'd only went to Sunnydale High for two years before it was blown to smithereens. A sophomore, but still well known for being the younger sister to the weird Buffy Summers. Sometimes she resented her sister for that. For actually having friends when they had moved here. She had been twelve going on thirteen, and jaded from life in Los Angeles. There was a whole back story there, having to do with her father's work, Buffy and her own stupidy but that was not one she wanted to dwell on for the sack of her sanity.

"Daw..."

"Dawn!" Dawn snapped her head in Willow's direction as she came out of her thoughts. Her curly/wavy dark hair flying over her shoulder as she did. Her big blue eyes as big as quarters. Everyone was staring at her.

"What?" Dawn asked. "Sorry I spaced out. Did you uh, say something?"

"We were discussing the plans, now that..." Willow's voice broke off for a moment before continuing. "...Buffy's gone."

If Willow thought she was fooling Dawn with her act of cool collected nerves she was failing miserably. After all, you couldn't bullshit and bullshiter. Dawn knew Buffy was dead and she was grieving, mourning the lost of both her Mother and Sister in the same year, within months of each other, but not even she was trying to deny the truth. They were gone and they weren't coming back, her mother's death had made that clear to her.

"Oh," Dawn said, wondering briefly if that sounded to nonchalant, too cold? "Right, plans. Are we going to tell everyone or what? I mean it might be a good idea to keep it secret with the demons all too happy to dance over her grave or worse." Dawn wasn't the only one to wince at that.

"But I think she deserves to be recognized, not pushed aside were only so many know where she is."

"I know Dawnie," Willow said sadly. Tara rubbed her girlfriends arm. "But the demons can't know the Slayer is gone." Xander sighed.

"Your right Dawn, but what can we do? The Hellmouth needs a Slayer? We need her."

"What about a Key?" Dawn asked. "We can play if off as if I am the new Slayer. With the awakening of the Key's powers I am as strong if not stronger then one."

Giles sighed, taking his glasses off to clean them for the up-tenth time that night. "I appreciate th-the offer Dawn, but your still human and if something happened to you Buf-Buffy would never forgive us."

"Not technically human Giles," Dawn said her mouth drawn in a tight line. "Spike would be with me..."

"Damn right I would be," Spike spoke up for the first time. "I wouldn't leave the nibblet to her lonesome fighting evil. She may be all godly now but she's still kill-able."

"Thanks Spike," Dawn said, the sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"Be as it may I think Willow is right. The world can't know the Slayer is..de-gone," Giles said.

"Does anyone else think Deadboy Jrs. concern for Dawn is scary and little more then gross?" Xander asked and everyone looked at him as if he'd grown a second head.

"The nibblet is like a sister to me," Spike said glaring at the boy. It was obvious to anyone but Xander and possibly Giles that Spike had been in love with Buffy - soul or no soul. Dawn had noticed first, they'd spent hours talking about it, she'd found it rather amusing and sweet.

"Whatever deadboy," Xander said and Dawn's head snapped in his direction. Deadboy, right, how could she have forgotten.

"Deadboy," she muttered.

"Now bit, I know I annoy ya sometimes but that's no reason to be hating on me," Spike said clearly hurt and Xander snickered. Dawn rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"No, not you. Angel!"

"What about him?" Xander asked, his mood now farther south then before. Everyone else was just as confused before Willow's eyes widened and she gasped.

"We didn't tell him, no one has told him!" she exclaimed.

"Angel doesn't know Buffy's dead," Dawn said and she did not fail to notice the flinches from the others. Really, she was seventeen not stupid. She could smell denial a mile away.

"Someone needs to go tell him," Tara said, for once not stuttering over her words. She'd been getting better at that, the death of Buffy only a few days ago having had a hand in that. It was amazing really, it had been almost three days since Buffy had died, but it felt like one endless day.

"Well I can't and Xander can't," Anya said. "I have the store to manage and money to protect. Xander has to stay and help me and have sex with me latter." Dawn chuckled.

"To much information Anya, way to much," she said.

"I can't leave either, I'm afraid I must stay here," Giles said.

"I've never met him be-before," Tara answered.

"Don't look at me I won't have any part in seeing the poof. He'd sooner stake me then listen," Spike scuffed. Willow sighed and was about to speak, probably to volunteer when Dawn interrupted.

"I'll go," she said. Everyone looked at her instantly.

"No!" Xander.

"She'll go." Anya.

"Surely..." Giles.

"Not bloody likely!" Spike.

Dawn sighed the voices getting on her nerves.

"Shut up!" she yelled. "Buffy was-is my sister and if I want to go to LA and tell Ange the news then I will. I'm Seventeen guys, older if you take in the fact I'm an Ancient Key, I can go to LA without getting slaughtered."

"But-but your wound," Tara said and Dawn put a hand over her abdomen wincing at the tenderness.

"It's almost healed completely, being the key gives me faster healer, almost as fast as a vampire. It's just tender that all. "

"I don't think she should go," Xander said, he didn't like Angel and he didn't want Dawn around him.

"Frankly Xander, I don't give a damn."

Spike snorted. "Bit's quoting movies now," he said.

"I'll take the news to Angel. He should hear from me anyways," Dawn said. "No arguments." Xander and Giles closed their mouths instantly.

"Good, we'll both be here for the funeral," Dawn said and stood up, leaving to go upstairs to Buffy's room where she'd been sleeping since her death.

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"Dawn are you sure you want to do this?" Xander asked as he helped her put her bags in Spike's trunk.

"Your acting as if I'm walking to my death," Dawn said with a chuckle.

"With Deadboy you never know." Xander shrugged and Spike snorted from inside the car. Dawn turned, glaring through the passenger door at Spike being the only other one with supernatural hearing that could have heard him.

"Xander I appreciate it, but I'm going. I'll be back in two days in time for the funeral." Dawn leaned in to hug him before pulling back a smile on her face but it wasn't a true smile, not like the ones she'd given a few months ago before all this death.

"Be careful Dawnie!" Xander called as Dawn entered the car.

"Hey, I'm like supergirl now so don't worry about me. K?" She shut the car door and with a squeal the car was disappearing into the distance. Xander sighed.

"Something tells me this isn't going to end well." Little did he know it wouldn't, at least not for his sanity.

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Dawn sighed as she sat in the lobby of the Gothic like hotel. She had been disappointed to find Angel wasn't here, neither was his gang either. She was determined though to stay in the hotel until they returned. How could she not, after all it had been Angel that brought her to LA. The only downside was the moment she got there she wanted to get out just as quick.

She may only be seventeen but she had a history with LA and it all came back to the center of evil in the city of Angels. Hopefully she could get in and out without her name getting back to them. She sneered to the thoughts in her heads, they were probably celebrating the death of a thorn in their side, the Slayer. They must still be bitter she left them high and dry after a year of being their little puppet.

"I have to. Look at what's happening."

"Buffy, you have to let me go. Blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop."

"You know you have to let me. It has to have the blood." Dawn whispered the last part out loud as she shook the memories away. Forcing the tears back she stared at the ground, running a hand through her messy hair. She hadn't bothered with fixing it before leaving Sunnydale or makeup.

The most she bothered with was to dress nicely. A pair of skinny leather pants, her favorite pair of lace up ankle boots, both in black of course. She'd also thrown on a form fitting black spaghetti strap tank and over that her sister's favorite red off the shoulder top. Even though Buffy and her were not the same height the shirt had always been a little big on the older blonde Slayer. Her Jewelry was simply what she'd thrown on, the cross necklace and ring both something she wore almost everyday anyways.

She lost time of how long she waited. She'd moved only once and that was to see if Angel had anything in his fridge. In the end she ordered a few large pizza's, she didn't know if Angel or the others on his team would be in the mood to eat after her news but she had to eat and she'd be there for a day or two.

Maybe longer, Dawn thought.

The Others were obviously not interested in her, she was going to be Eighteen before long, well okay maybe it was still a year away till next may but she was still going to be a legal adult before long. She was also much older then that to begin with, and she knew they blamed her for Buffy's death. At least a part of them did, Spike might be the exception.

She didn't blame them, she wasn't real, at least not in the sense that their memories were real. But she had moved on from that, sixteen years of her life may have been fake but she had a year of real memories, if not more and that was what mattered to her. She just wished Buffy and her mother were here to share real memories with her.

It was dark before she heard motions outside, and voices. She recognized all but two.

"Trust me. Tacos everywhere. And soap!" Cordelia. She had heard the girl was working with Angel, a seer now, but she had never been sure the rumors were true.

"Yo, that portal jumping is a fun ride. We sell it to a theme park we could get paid!" A voice she didn't know, but obviously male.

"Okay. Can I say it? I wanna say it." Angel. She smiled sadly, she'd always had a rocky relationship with the brooding vampire. She'd had a crush on him when they'd first moved here and she'd found him and Buffy in the kitchen, his shirt off.

The crush had faded though as she realized Buffy had won that war, and truthfully she didn't think she had a chance anyways so she'd moved on and her next crush had been Xander. She chuckled silently, now that she was older she saw Xander as a older brother, definitely not dating material. For some reason though the thought of seeing Angel after a year made her heart feel tight, strange

"Say what?" Wesley. He had been Buffy's third watcher, after Giles had been fired. She had not liked him much, too stuck up but he had been sort of cute in the geeky way back then. She wondered if he had changed any since then.

Dawn looked up just as Angel pushes the double doors open, walking into the lobby with a smile Dawn had never seen on him before. She had to admit, he looked good smiling like that, more angelic if that was possible for the vampire with the angelic face. He looked the same, but the smile changed him to lengths that she almsot didn't recognize him.

"There's no place like..." Angel trails off as he sees Dawn sitting hunched up on one of the chairs in the lobby. Three pizza boxes on the table in front of her making it obvious she'd been waiting a while. It had been a little over a year since he'd seen the younger summer's woman and he noticed instantly how different she looked, older, but he figured she'd taken more after her father since unlike Buffy and Joyce she didn't have the blonde locks or green eyes. He'd never seen Hank Summers to know.

Angel's smile vanishes almost as fast as his thoughts as his brown eyes connect with crystal blue, blue eyes that always reminded him of another pair of blue eyes he'd rather forget and he saw the cold grief displayed in her eyes and on her young face.

"Dawnie?"

"What's..?" Cordelia began as she stared at the youngest Summers girl. She remembered Dawn, she was older now but still that fashion sense that made her wounder if it had skipped a generation. Along with that skin which was obviously handed down from Joyce to the youngest. She remembered teasing Buffy about it having skipped her for the younger sister. Now a tight coil in her stomach hit her, something was wrong. Something had happened, and she couldn't help but blame herself.

Dawn slowly got up, never taking her eyes of Angel.

"Angel I am so sorry," Dawns voice cracked as she said this, tears forming in her eyes. It reminded Angel that unlike the person Dawn had always reminded him a little of she had emotions, she had feelings she just hid them well. It tore at him to see her cry and he knew only one person could get that reaction out of her willingly in front of other people.

Buffy. God no, please not her. Angel's thoughts were like a chant repeating this over and over again. But he knew it was in vain.

"It's Buffy," he whispered softly.

"Buffy?" Fred asked quietly and Cordy sighed as Wesley looked down in quiet grief for the vibrant Slayer he'd known.

"His uh...ex-girlfriend," Cordy whispered back to the girl. "She was the Slayer."

"How?" Angel asked and Dawn sighed.

"Sit down, this may take a while."

A/N: So my newest story. I hope you all like it, and I know many don't like Dawn but she is the main character of this story. She will be a bit OOC since she is older then in canon. I think she was fourteen in canon when Glory came but in this story she was already seventeen. Please review, it really makes my day to know what you all think. One more thing, this is AU after Season 5 of Buffy and Season 2 of Angel.