Title: Ashes of the Heart

Author: Feygan

Fandoms: Dark City/Highlander
Rated: G
Disclaimer: I do not own either Dark City or Highlander.

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As time passed the memories came faster and faster until half the time he didn't know where he was--here or there.

Anna worried about him sometimes, asking if he was all right, if he needed anything.

John thought it was funny how she could even care.

It was strange how the love he had felt for her could fade away. But she wasn't the woman that had been the center of his world, no matter that she wore Her face.

With the change in memories and personality, it became more and more as if She had died and Anna stole her image. They were two very different women, even if sometimes he wanted to weep because their unperfumed skin smelled the same.

And it pained him to admit that the more she fell in love with him, the less he cared about her. Anna was fading out of his heart like water seeping through a sieve. Soon there would be nothing left, just the motions of carrying on.

The dreams of his real life came to him with a painful frequency. Visions of what he could no longer have.

It felt as though everything that had ever mattered to him had been stolen away by the Strangers.

First his home, then his heart, then the woman he had loved (or thought he loved.) And in the end he was left with nothing but ashes.

The feeling of loss was such that some days he just wanted to wallow in his memories of what used to be. He wanted to huddle in his blankets, his eyes squeezed tight shut, and dive head first into his dreams of Home.

And because he dreamed so much, forced himself into the depths of memory, he had found a name for the man that had so thoroughly shaped his world.

Father.

=THE END=

Title: A Mortal Heart
Author: Feygan
Fandoms: Highlander/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Dark City
Rated: G
Disclaimer: I do not own either Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander, or Dark City.

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When she was young she had thought her sister would always be there to protect her--right up until the day Buffy had died for the first time (the first REAL time.)

Even after the Resurrection, her life had still been changed forever. Buffy was now mortal in her eyes, and no matter what she wanted, she was never going to be completely safe again.

She had never said anything to Buffy or her friends, but after that Dawn had begun to doubt.

Life was fragile, people died. Mothers died, sisters died, and fathers ran off to Spain with their girlfriends. The world was a strange and dangerous place where nothing ever went as it should.

For years, though she carefully hid it, Dawn felt as though she would never be safe again. Buffy was mortal and bad things happened to good people.

Someday the warriors for good would be a second too late and that would be that. The world would be swallowed by unquenchable fire.

Then, walking down the street from a coffee shop, her arms burdened by translation texts, she had met Him for the first time.

And her world had reshaped itself again.

He resonated inside her in unexplainable ways. He made her heart beat fast and something in her belly tighten.

He said he was just a guy, a college professor of no real importance. But one look in his changeable eyes and she had known different.

They exchanged numbers, shared a few lunches, a few dinners, then a few nights of passionate lovemaking.

It didn't take her long to realize the truth of the matter, that she was in love with Adam Pierson.

After nearly five months of dating they decided to start a life together and moved into a comfortable apartment filled with priceless antiquities.

They spent their time together speaking in long dead languages, making love, and just generally merging everything they were into one. It was the best time of her life.

Then she got pregnant.

The things he said to her in the heat of the moment would later be forgiven, but never forgotten.

He accused her of cheating on him. He demanded to know who she had "spread her legs for" and why. He had actually cried a bit, wanting to know why he wasn't good enough for her.

He almost left her then, and the memory of that pain and fear would haunt her nightmares for years to come.

Then he revealed the reason for his hurtful words, told her that he was sterile, there was no way her baby could be his.

Dawn did the hardest thing she had ever done and told her sister everything. Buffy yelled and screamed about her little sister living with "some guy" and being stupid enough to get pregnant. Then she helped her.

The Council arranged genetic testing. She gave a bit of Adam's stolen blood along with her own.

And when the results came back, she went to him and showed him the poof that her baby--a boy--was really their baby.

The look on his face was something she would never forget. Disbelief, a touch of doubt, and eventually burgeoning belief that this could be real. They were going to have a baby.

Dawn held him when he wept. His joy at having a child was almost painful in its intensity.

It was a miracle, but at first she didn't understand his all-encompassing joy.

Then, under the light of a dozen flickering candles on the couch in their living room, he revealed the secrets he had held from her.

He was not truly, or completely, Adam Pierson. He was not "just a guy" no matter how much he insisted otherwise.

Methos. A name from myth and legend, a god and a devil from primordial memory. An Immortal, oldest of his kind.

On learning that Immortals could not have children, she was scared at first about what her baby might possibly be. She herself was not normal after all.

With a shaking heart, she took Adam--Methos--to see the new Oracles for the Powers.

"The Key has been given a mortal heart, but is itself eternal. Life is yours to do with as you will... forever. The Key and the oldest Immortal are One."

She was never going to die. But she wasn't going to be alone either.

She had Methos and she had their son, six pounds, eight ounces of bouncing dark haired baby that grew into being a good man.

Dawn Summers, for the first time since she was a child, felt safe, protected, and above all, loved.

She was happy.

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Then came the phone call that ripped apart her world again.

Their son had disappeared along with a whole coliseum of other people. They were all just gone without a trace.

And even though Methos insisted they would get their son back. Dawn knew nothing would ever be the same.

Her son was gone. The world was a darker place for it.

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=THE END=