"Dawn, did you remember to pack your books?" Buffy's voice echoed through upstairs story of the Summers' house. Now that the potentials had cleared out after the big battle, it was obvious how much damage had been left behind in the last couple months. The windows were still boarded up, furniture lay smashed from fights pushed aside instead of repairing, and trash and crumbs left from late night snacks of teenage girls. "Dawn!" Buffy yelled again. "Did you hear me? Giles is going to be super British if you get all the way to Cleveland and forgot your copy of Demons: Do's and Don'ts." Buffy sprang up the stairs to her younger sister's room. "Also, you don't want to be unprepared..." her voice trailed off as she entered Dawn's room and saw the agitated look she glared at her.
"Buffy, seriously," Dawn began as she put one hand on her hip. "I've helped stopped the end of the world. Remember? I was there. In the hellmouth. You can stop treating me like a child any day now." The younger girl turned back to her last suitcase and continued adding stakes, holy water, and other weapons.
"I know," Buffy sighed. "It's just going to be different without you here. I mean, after the potentials were fully slayerized and we kicked the hellmouth's vamp filled ass, its been pretty empty here. Willow and Kennedy left for a magic retreat, Faith and Principal Wood are off in their honeymoon phase, and Spike and Anya..." The pain came back again. Sure, they lost some of the other girls, but Anya and Spike's deaths were the worst. Now it was just going to be Buffy alone in the house of rubble. "It's just going to be quiet."
Dawn stopped packing and turned to her sister. She held her arms out and embraced Buffy in a long, sisterly hug. Buffy was going to miss those hugs. "Buffy, I know this is a big change, like a huganimous change, but it's somthing I need to do. Something I want to do. I need to help more. Besides," she let go of her sister and turned back to her suitcase zipping it closed. "You could always come with us."
"Thanks, but no thanks," Buffy declined hastily. "I've been in a Hellmouth enough for one life. All three of mine, even." Dawns mouth curled into a soft smile at the tiny joke. Suddenly, the sound of a car door shutting echoed into the house. Not many of those around these parts anymore, seeing how most of Sunnydale got sucked into Hell after the big battle. It was a suprise to everyone to find some of the smaller businesses and houses still in tact after the gang return to investigate the rubble. The interrupting sound of the car door either meant Giles had arrived with his rental, or some tourists stopping by to find out why the Bronze and other sore sights to see were replaced by a city-sized crater. Suddenly, the downstairs door creaked open and shut. Giles. Good.
"Dawn," the soft male voice filled the lower level of the quiet house. I don't suppose you're actually ready to depart for Ohio?" Giles seemed slightly skittish as he spoke. Probably too many memories brought to light by the state of the house. It was his first time back since before the battle. His footsteps began to ascend the staircase.
Dawn looked at Buffy with a soft, sad smile and grabbed her stuffed suitcase in one hand and flung a back pack over the opposite shoulder. "Yeah, Giles," she called out. "I'm ready to go."
"Remarkable," Giles exclaimed as he made his way into Dawn's bedroom. "I was beginning to believe the Summers women were incapable of being on time for anything short of the end of the world. Even then, one's attendance was more or less tardy."
Buffy gave Giles an annoyed look. "Hey, I wasn't always late." Dawn and Giles both shot her a look of incredulity. "Well, most of the time. My hair always looked great, though." All three exchanged smiles.
"Buffy," Giles began. "I figured I would extend another invitation for you to join Dawn and I on our journey. It may benefit to get you a, um, new setting away from all of this. These memories..."
"Are my memories, Giles," Buffy interrupted. "This is where I grew up, where I watched Dawn become the woman she is today. I met my friends here, I lost mom here, and I loved here. I'm not leaving here without a proper goodbye. Especially not to go to another hellmouthy place. Besides, I hear it's colder there. Buffy and snow, not mixey things."
Giles nodded slowly with a sad look on his face. "Well, in that case, I have come with gifts for you both, in order to help you cope with your distance." He handed both sisters a small, identical shaped box. "I know you have had them before, but Buffy's was long lost in patrol and I think Dawn is due for an upgrade, all things considered." Both sisters opened their boxes to find new cell phones, nearly identical, except Buffy's was all black and Dawn's was a soft purple. Each girls' favorite color. He really did think of it all.
"Oh my gosh, really?" Dawn nearly bursted with excitment as she pulled the phone from the box and turned it on.
"Thank you, Giles," Buffy spoke gratuitously. "I promise I'll try harder to not break this one." She sat the box down on the naked matress of Dawn's bed. Tears began to well in her eyes. "You two should probably get going soon." She paused to sniffle and wipe at her eyes. "Big evil is still brewing up in places that are no longer here."
Dawn started toward Buffy and embraced her in yet another deep hug. They had exchanged many of these hugs in the last few days. Buffy reached out for Giles and pulled him into the embrace. Her sister and her watcher. She loved them both and they were both leaving her alone in the exoskeleton of her city they all destroyed together to save the world. They stood silent shell of Dawn's former life before the apocalypse, death, and hellmouth for a long time. It was Buffy who finally broke the hold.
"I love you both," she said smiling sadly with tears still running down her cheeks. She turned to her young sister. "Please be safe, Dawnie. You're stronger now than you were, but don't forget rule number one."
"Don't die," Dawn replied with a half smile and a sniffle.
Buffy laughed into a loud sob, "Right. Don't die." She looked down at the phone box on the mattress. "Call me often."
"Every night if I can," Dawn affirmed.
Buffy now turned to Giles. They stared at each other sharing unspoken memories and well wishes. "Keep her safe," she said after a few minutes.
Giles nodded once, "With my life. Keep well."
"You too."
With the silence growing between the trio again, Buffy picked up Dawn's suitcase and helped her carry her luggage down the stairs and out to Giles's rental car. With the trunk packed tightly, and another quick sisterly embrace, Giles and Dawn entered the car and slowly pulled away, leaving Buffy standing in her doorway watching the car drive into the horizon.
Night fell quickly and Buffy had fallen asleep, reclined on the beaten down couch after a semi-determed attempt to clear away some of the remaining trash before she began packing of her own. A low roar of a car engine startled her out of her dreamless sleep as it grew louder and died outside of her silent home. She looked around in the deeply darkened living room. Crap, she thought to herself. No weapons nearby. Cautiously, she rose form the couch and slowly crept to the door. As she tentatively reached for the knob, she heard the loud thud of boots on her porch. She twisted the knob and slowly pulled back the front door revealing the figure that stood on the other side.