IX.

Buffy, as was her custom, woke after 6 PM and went to see if there was anything to eat. Years of late night patrols had firmly established the afternoon nap in her schedule. She didn't need a lot of sleep, and it wasn't unusual for her to sleep from 4 till 8 AM, then from 4 till 6 PM. Sometimes she would work the clock around, and then she would sleep for a day, 'catching up.'

Between Hope getting up for feeding and changing every two hours and a crowd of well wishers phoning from every time zone, there had not been a lot of peace in the little house in Lago Vista over the last few weeks. Well, not the kind of peace Dawn and Xander were used to. Buffy pondered once again what it would be like to be woken in the night, not for zombies marching on Beverly Hills, not for a vampire stalking the Crown Prince, not even for a Sluggoth demon nesting in the pipes, but just woken because a baby needed milk, or a diaper, or was lonely.

She peeked into the bedroom and saw Xander, still in his jeans, sprawled across the bed and snoring softly. He'd made it a few days, running around taking care of everything when Dawn was down with the baby, then trying to stay with her when she was up. Finally he'd caved in and trusted Buffy to look out for them, and now he was trying to sleep when he could. Seeing him with Dawn and Hope, Buffy knew she was looking at him in some ways for the first time, or at least the first time since high school. It's easy to overlook what you see every day.

Snoring aside, he was a pretty good guy. He worked hard, and he was crazy about Dawn and Hope, and when he was down he got quiet and distant, not loud and hurtful. Buffy was a little jealous of her sister, which was fitting she supposed, given their history the other way over the years. Dawn too was a bit of a surprise though. Buffy went down stairs to look for her.

As she walked down the stairs, seeing the framed photos, Buffy thought about everything that had happened in the last few years. She stopped to trail her fingertips over the picture of Joyce and the girls, the only one that had survived Sunnydale. Now Dawn had the house, the little girl, and the dreams for the future. Buffy was suddenly oppressed by the idea that everyone was growing up around her, and that her own life had somehow been put on hold for the last few years. She wished Willow was around to talk to about things.

Stepping into the waning sunlight, Buffy found Dawn in her favorite spot, on the swing under the grape arbor in her back yard. She had Hope snuggled to her bosom and was talking softly to her. Hope was dressed in a white baby garment of uncertain shape, with soft short sleeves over her pink little arms, and a bottom like a sack that cinched with a drawstring. It was very cute but very practical for someone who needed changing fairly often.

"Is she eating?" Buffy asked quietly, coming up next to them. She saw that Dawn's gown was open in a way that would have been shocking and scandalous to Buffy were it not for the suckling baby. "Wow, now that's a greedy baby. How often is she eating, Dawn?"

Dawn sighed and smiled. "As often as she wants at this point, which seems to be about every hour and a half. She eats for a half hour, sleeps for a half hour, takes half an hour to get cleaned up and settled down, then we start again." Dawn lifted Hope to her shoulder and bounced her.

"Rowwwwp!" Hope said with a blink, then closed her eyes and flopped onto her mother's shoulder.

"That's moja kcerka," Dawn said proudly, then saw her sister's puzzled expression. "Sorry, 'my baby.' I decided she should learn Serbian with me."

Buffy saw a language book and a set of tapes on the swing amongst the baby things. She shook her head. "You are so weird. You know, it might be easier to put that stuff on an iPod, and then you'd have it with you all the time. Willow got me one for my birthday, and I take it everywhere."

"Sounds cool. Have a seat- I'm tired of looking up at you lurking there." Dawn indicated the other seats at the table. They did most of their entertaining in the garden, and the grape vines twining through the arbor provided reasonable privacy at this time of the evening.

"Dawn," Buffy began, and then looked down at her sister's open gown. "Um, you might want to put that away," she said with a blush and a nod towards her sister's exposed breast.

"Yeah, but the air feels kind of nice. My boobs are killing me." She sighed, and fastened her nursing bra. "Kennedy sent some sort of lotion, this herbal stuff her old nanny recommended. It helps but Hope makes a face when I've been using it. I'm hoping when she lasts a little longer between feedings things will be a little easier."

Dawn looked at her sister, and shifted Hope to her other shoulder and gently rocked back and forth a bit in the swing. The sun was going down but there was still daylight left and she could see something was bothering Buffy.

"What's on your mind? Still mad at me for getting knocked up, or are you upset that we eloped?"

"Neither." Buffy grinned a bit. "Both? I mean, not any more, but it was a pretty radical step, both times, you have to admit. I just worried you were rushing things."

Dawn resisted the urge to snap at her sister, or to make a snide remark. It was time they were past such things, really. Dawn began to settle Hope into the seat next to her on her boppy, a horseshoe shaped pillow that cradled the baby and kept her close to Mom without being soft enough to make her smothered or entangled. Dawn watched as Hope stretched her tiny fists out with a yawn, then snuggled back down into a more compact napping shape.

"Buffy, what do you want? Not from me I mean, but in your life. What do you want?" Dawn rocked slowly, and her voice was low and gentle. She hardly seemed like the same girl who used to tag along everywhere with Buffy, or roll her eyes at her sister's every comment.

"How can I answer that?" Buffy said, a little annoyed. "What does anyone want? I want the world not to end, and I want my friends to not be hurt. Who can really say what they want?"

"Xander is still asleep upstairs isn't he?" Dawn tucked a blanket over Hope's lower half, not too tight, and continued her gentle rocking.

"Yeah, dead to the world. I snuck a peek on the way down. He looks pretty beat, but he was up a while talking to Robin. He wouldn't tell me what that was about either." She thought back to the issue of the baby's name. Xander had never been able to keep a secret, not from Buffy. Well, except for his brief foray into Willow kissage back in high school. Oh, and his issues with Anya. And that time… okay, Xander had usually been able to keep a secret, come to think of it.

"I forgot to ask him, sorry," Dawn admitted. "But you asked, 'what does anyone want?' This is it." She gestured around her. "I have my baby. I have my husband who loves me, and I love him so much I still get all girly goose bumps just saying the word 'husband.' We have a good home, and we have good friends. Everyone is healthy, everyone has work to do, and things to learn. The only one I really worry about is you."

"Me?" Wasn't it Buffy's job to worry about Dawn? "I have work, too much work. There are new slayers all over the world. We're still finding them, and it's becoming impossible trying to run everything from London without flying all over like a, um, like a flying all over solving problems person. Okay, lame simile but you get the point. Don't worry about me, I'll keep busy."

"I don't worry about you being busy, Buffy. I worry about you being lonely. You've never been very good at being on your own, really."

"That's not fair. I've been on my own more than you can know. Knowing that every decision I make affects all these people…" Buffy stopped, and looked off into the distance for a minute. "Okay, I guess I do feel it. It was good to get away for a while in Rome, to play. But things are still serious, Dawn. Someone has to walk in the dark so you guys can go on having barbecues and raising kids and living your lives in the sunshine."

"Do you hear yourself, Buffy?" Dawn asked gently, but still persistent. "Do you hear how bitter you are, how angry it makes you? You used to be the light, Buffy, the bright thing that all the monsters feared in the dark. You're letting it get to you, you're starting to be the one that brings the darkness out in the daylight. You need to find your balance again."

Buffy stood up. "I'm glad you got it all worked out Dawn. I'm glad you got your life all squared away, so now you can start fixing mine. I'm sure you are going to do a better job of it than I could ever do, so I won't offer my help."

She turned and walked out, out the gate and down the drive. She knew if she just went, Dawn would be too busy with Hope to run after her. As she walked, she thought about what Dawn had said.

"I'm not the night," she told herself, and she started jogging, deciding a little literal distance from her problems would be helpful. "I'm the light… I'm the day… The night is just where I work… I don't live there…" She ran, and as she ran the sun set over Lago Vista. She ran for about half an hour, and realized she was already heading back to Dawn's house.