AN: I have no idea where this will go or even if I'll be able to fit it in anywhere but the muse cracked her whip and forced me to write. Sadist! *whoosh - crack* Ah!!!! You see what I have to put up with? *runs crying from the room*

Dawn collapsed on the sofa beside Giles with a sad sigh, curling into the corner with her feet tucked under her.

"What is wrong, my dear?" Giles' voice sounding next to her startled her from her self-pity.

Dawn gave a laugh which held an edge of hysteria. "I don't know I'm doing. I ... can the past truly be changed? Am I really making any difference? Every step I take away from the future I know only seems to take me in circles." Dawn let out a huff in frustration, running her hand through her hair.

"You've done good. From what you've told us you've changed many things since your arrival." Giles' voice soothed her frayed nerves but did little to calm her panic of the future.

Dawn shook her head. "I may have changed the small things but no matter what I do I can't seem to change the big events ... the events that inevitably lead to hell on earth." Though she felt bad for taking her frustrations out on him she couldn't seem to keep them bottled inside any longer.

"Maybe you're not meant to change them. It's the little things that can be changed that should matter for now. If you save a life, that life - that person may carry on to do something that disrupts the future you know. They themselves may be the key, maybe that person is now destined to become President and the future as you knew it will never come to pass because they will see you standing beside those girls, those Slayers, you've told us about and they will know that the work you do saves lives ... has, indeed, saved their life."

Giles, always the voice of reason, Dawn thought with an affectionate smile, twisting in her seat to lean her head onto his chest. After a moment of fluttering hands his arm curled around her shoulder. And so they sat comfortable and lost in their own, much more at ease, thoughts.

For it was the little things that mattered for now.