Confrontation with Dawn Summers

A/N: I do not now, nor have I ever owned any part of the Buffyverse. This story is solely based in my own imagination. I sorta wanted to write a brief story about the summer after Angel's departure from Sunnydale and this is what came of that. Now I realize Dawn hadn't technically been created yet but this is my take on what she would have done that summer had she'd been there (otherwise known as my take on what they remember her doing that summer.) Enjoy!

You Know You Love Me,

XOXO,

Alyss

Summary: Dawn, fed up with her sister coming home more injured than ever before from her patrols, goes to the reason Buffy is now patrolling alone most nights and gives him a piece of her mind. Set the summer between seasons 3 & 4. One-shot.

Buffy and Giles stood surrounded by the fire trucks and police vehicles lining the streets toward what was left of Sunnydale High School. The battle over with fewer casualties than expected.

"There's a certain, um, dramatic irony attached to all this," Giles began, looking down toward the girl who would forever hold a piece of his heart; his slayer, his daughter. "A synchronicity that borders on-on predestination, one might say."

"Fire bad. Tree pretty," Buffy responded, still holding the diploma her former watcher/father-figure had given her just a few moments before.

"Yes, sorry," Giles apologized, quickly remembering that she'd just explained how tired she was and that her mind was functioning on a less than normal capacity. "I'll go and tend to Wesley, see if he's still, um, whimpering."

He walks off, leaving Buffy alone for the first time since the epic battle ended. She feels his eyes on her before she can locate him, but there he was, no more than thirty feet from her, though the distance seemed far more vast to the two. She almost sigh in relief seeing him there, uninjured and she knows he feels the same. There'd be no goodbye, he had told her earlier that day, he thought it'd be too difficult. And it was, this small goodbye he was offering her. She wasn't ready for him to not be there; this wasn't enough of a goodbye for her; it wasn't a good enough ending for the epic romance they had fought so hard for. But she kept her distance; remained silent; respected his wishes; kept her battle ready face on as they stared at each other, committing every curve of the other's body to their memories and he slowly started to back away and eventually turned and walked out of her life. She even kept her tears away from her eyes as she joined her friends. No one would she her tears, hear her as she ached for the only man that would ever truly complete her. No that would be done in the privacy of her empty home, her mother and sister being conveniently out of town, on her insistence. She made small chit chat, assured Willow she was okay, just tired, even made a joke about someone waking her when it was time to go to college.

"Guys, take a moment to deal with this," Oz began. "We survived."

"It was a hell of a battle," Buffy replied, her words slurring slightly from her exhaustion.

"Not the battle," Oz corrected. "High school. We're taking a moment. And we're done."

High school. They had all survived Sunnydale High, which was a battle in and of itself. Together they walked off, making small talk on their way before each member of the group split off in the direction of their respective homes and Buffy was left alone with her sorrows.

Dawn watched as Buffy carefully applied concealer on her bruised check, careful to avoid the cut, which was likely a gash the night before, in the middle of the bluish-purpled skin.

"You know what works wonders on hiding stuff like that?" she teasingly asked her older sister, to which Buffy gave her a fake questioning look. "Not getting hit."

"I think I've heard that before thanks," Buffy replied sarcastically before a small smile graced her lips. "That bad, huh?"

Dawn nodded. "Mom's gonna freak. Buffy what's going on? You never used to come home this bad. Before – before, well you know."

Buffy nodded, her small smile turning sad. "Before he left," she finished for her sister, looking away so her sister wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. Dawn had taken Angel's leaving almost as bad as Buffy had as she had come to think of him as an older brother. "It's just an adjusting period, Dawnie. I just have to get used to pulling most of the weight of the demonic activity of Sunnydale by myself. The gang helps but even those three can't be as helpful as another supernaturally powered good guy. You'll see, in time, it'll be just like the old days."

Dawn could tell Buffy was just placating her, like she tried to do with their mother, so she just kept her mouth shut and gave her sister a hug from behind. Buffy smiled and returned the hug before standing and walking toward the door of the room. "Come on; let's go see what Mom is making for breakfast."

"I'll be down in a minute," Dawn replied, a plan formulating in her head. "I forgot something in my room."

Buffy nodded before turning and heading down stairs. Dawn shook her head. At thirteen I can already fool my slayer sister, who knows what I will be able to do as I get older, she thought as she made her way to her room, packed enough clothes for a couple of days into a duffel bag and wrote a note telling her mom and sister she'd be back in a couple of days. She tossed her bad out her window and started climbing down the trellis outside her bedroom window. It's time I tell Angel exactly what I think of him leaving Buffy alone on the Hellmouth.

Dawn's hand hovered about five inches from the metal door that lead to Angel's apartment, frozen in the air before she slowly lowered it to her side.

"What am I doing here," she muttered, under her breath, to herself. "Buffy's gonna kill me." She turned to go but before she could take two steps the door slid open.

"Dawn?" Angel, having heard something outside of his apartment, was surprised to see Buffy's younger sister standing outside his door about to walk away. "What are you doing here?"

"Stupid vampire hearing," Dawn muttered, knowing full well the vampire could hear her, before raising her voice to answer his question. "I'm here to see you, actually. There's something we need to talk about."

"Does your mom or sister know you're here?" he asked as he moved back from the door way and allowed her to enter his apartment. But before she could answer him in true Summers fashion his phone rings.

"You think my mom would be calling you if she'd known I was coming to see you or that Buffy'd let me come had she known?" she responded as Angel went to answer the phone.

"Hello… Yes, Mrs. Summers… She's fine… She said there was something she and I needed to talk about… She hasn't been here long enough to tell me what, Mrs. Summers… Do you think that's… Yes, Mrs. Summers… She will be there…Goodbye, Mrs. Summers."

"Mom didn't let you off easy did she?" Dawn asked, concerned for the man she'd unexpectedly visited.

"She asked me to personally see that you get to your father's house where your sister will be picking you up," he responded, giving her the "we are not talking about your mother" look.

"She was wrong, you know," Dawn said, quickly continuing when she saw he was ready to interrupt her. "Not about whose picking me up, who will then proceed to give me the lecture of a lifetime before Mom gives me another lecture of a lifetime. Mom was wrong about you leaving is what's best for Buffy."

"Dawn, don't…"

"Don't? Don't what? Don't tell you what's happening to the woman you claim to love? Don't tell you how I have to watch my sister sneak in like she did before my mom knew the truth, with serious bruises and gashes? Don't watch as she tries to hide the seriousness of the matter from everyone else? Don't listen as she calls out for you in her sleep? Don't worry that every time I watch my sister go out for patrol that it could be the last time I see her alive? C'mon Angel, tell me what I shouldn't do."

"Adjustments take time…"

"Time?! Angel it's been two months. You aren't there; you don't see what's happening to her. I have to wake her nearly every night to keep Mom from hearing her call out for you. She cries herself to sleep every night. I saw my sister quickly adjust to becoming the slayer, to our parents' separation, to us moving to Sunnydale, to a new school; this is different. It's killing her. You say you want her to have as much of a normal life as she can have, to have children, but that's not what she wants. She doesn't want to ever have to make the choice between her duty as the slayer and her own child so she doesn't want any. She's fully embraced that she was never meant to have a normal life, why can't you?"

Angel whole body screamed at him to listen to this teenage girl, but his memory of the dream that drove him away kept him away. "Dawn…"

"No. You don't get to 'Dawn' me. Buffy loves you, Angel, with everything in her. She would give up almost anything in this world to be with you, and you know that. If whatever it is that's keeping you away from her, and don't tell me that it's the fear of you losing your soul again because we both know that's not it, leads in any way to her getting killed, I'll never forgive you."

Dawn didn't wait for his response. Instead turning and leaving. She was gone before Angel could get himself to move again. He cursed when he realized it was another five minutes before he could safely follow her. By the time he caught up to her, she was already at her father's house and Buffy was already getting her into their mother's car. He kept himself out of sight as they drove past him on their way back to Sunnydale.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Buffy asked once they were on the highway leading to Sunnydale. "Disappearing like that, leaving a note only telling us you'd be back in a couple of days? Mom was freaking beyond anything I've ever seen. So please tell me what you were thinking."

"I was thinking," Dawn began knowing full well that she'd get an ear full no matter what she told her sister, "that it was about time someone told Angel exactly what he did when he left you alone to monitor the Hellmouth."

"Dawn I'm not alone. I have.."

"Who? Who do you have that can help you on patrols? Willow and Oz are so wrapped up in each other you have barely heard from them all summer. Xander is driving cross country; Giles has been M.I.A. searching for himself ever since Mom and I got back from our "safcation" that you sent us on. Cordelia has moved and wouldn't be much help anyways. So tell me who do you have?"

"Dawnie, it's complicated."

"Don't give me that Buffy. It was about time someone gave him a piece of their mind and I was so tired of worrying about you I decided that someone was going to be me."

"And you couldn't have done this over the phone?"

"You would have stopped me."

"Fine, you're off the hook this time with me. But Mom is furious with you; you are so grounded."