Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. Just playing. 

Warning: Contains femslash.

And yes, I fiddled with ages a little bit to make the story work. But really, Dawn's how old? Millions of years? Heh, enjoy.

When she realized what had been staring her in the face, she sat back and placed her tea cup solidly onto the coffee table. Kennedy and the other slayer potentials were off on an outing with Buffy and Spike, Andrew somehow managing to tag himself along. Xander and Anya were somewhere, doing god knows what, Giles was off in Siberia picking up another potential, and Willow was left to hold the fort down with Dawn.

The teen in question was sitting across the room, quietly doing her physics homework. As Willow watched her, the brunette suddenly spoke, making no effort to move from her studies, "I'm the same age as Kennedy."

"What?" Surprised at the sudden comment, Willow quickly closed her eyes and opened them in rapid succession.

Only then did Dawn look up, meeting Willow's green eyes with her own blue. Her pencil was placed in the crease of her book. "I'm the same age as Kennedy," she repeated.

Willow nodded her head. "Yes, you are," she said slowly.

"So you do know," Dawn noted. An unreadable expression flitted over her face, and she stared unfocused at the wall. Nodding once she picked up her pencil again, going back to her math.

The redhead felt as if she had been dismissed. She shifted, smoothing her skirt over her legs. "Dawnie?" she asked, waiting for the teenager to look up again. The whole exchange had unsettled her.

Slim fingers reached up to smooth hair behind a pearl-shaped ear, and Dawn looked up again. "Willow?" she asked in return.

Willow frowned, shifting again. "What did you mean?"

The brunette sighed. Willow noticed that her hands had began to shake minutely, the two ends of the pencil she still held in her right hand wobbling up and down. Her gaze was direct and a little sad. However, before she answered the other girl's question, the teenager asked her own, "Did you know that when it looked like I was a potential slayer, you looked at me the same way you look at Kennedy?"

Willow's mouth suddenly went dry, and she had to lick her lips to feel as if it wouldn't hurt to breathe. "I… did?" she croaked.

"Yes."

The redhead hadn't realized she had done so. She swallowed, "I'm sorry, Dawn, I didn't know I did that… I guess I just…"

"No." Dawn shook her head, "I just wanted to know if you knew Kennedy and I were the same age."

"But, why?"

"Buffy approved, didn't she?"

"Of Kennedy, yeah… I guess so. I mean," Willow furrowed her brow, "She was all with the sly comments and winks…"

"And she's my age."

Willow looked at the other girl, not understanding at all what was going on. "What does that have to do with anything?" she finally burst out, feeling like she had just run a marathon with a mind controller and lost.

Dawn looked at her silently for a second, nearly rolling her eyes. Willow almost let herself relax at the usual Dawn-type thing to do.

"You really don't get it, do you," the teen said softly, rising and placing her book and notebook down onto the chair she had been sitting in. She walked forward, finally leaning over the witch, letting her hair form a slight curtain around the two.

"We're the same age," she whispered, her gaze moving from Willow's eyes to her lips and back, "Kennedy and I. If you can like her…" Dawn's soft hands reached out and cupped Willow's cheeks, pulling her unresisting head forward.

The teenager's lips were soft and warm. Brushing softly against her mouth before withdrawing, Dawn dropped her hands and stepped away, straightening up. "If you can like her," she said again, her voice a bit lower than before, "Then you can like me."

Then she turned and walked out of the room.