See part 1 for disclaimer. A/N can be found at bottom of page

Part Fourteen

Dawn sat in the corner of the mansion's main sitting room, glaring at the blonde witch sitting tied and blind folded in the middle of the room.

She still found it hard to believe that someone who looked so sweet and unassuming could have caused as much trouble as she had from the very first moment she had entered their lives. No-one was surprised to find out that her first meeting with Willow had not been as accidental as everyone had originally supposed it to be.

They had however been surprised to find out that it had been Tara that had encouraged Buffy to return to Sunnydale after the summer she had run away. Somehow the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart had been informed that the dark haired vampire was being returned to Sunnydale, and if the blonde slayer had not been there to find him, he would have made his way to Willow and the events they were now experiencing would have happened at least two years earlier.

Dawn shook her head at that, she still found it hard to believe that if Buffy had not returned that year, the monks that had given her human form would have made her Willow's younger sister rather than Buffy's – yet at the same time, it made the most sense.

No matter that Buffy had been the Slayer; it had always been Willow that had been the cohesiveness that joined them all together. Her innate ability to accept the weird and wonderful almost without battering an eyelid at times had kept them going time and again as they faced the dangers that the Hellmouth threw at them.

And because of this, because of her potential future (a future that was now becoming fact) this law firm had been determined to prevent it in whatever way they could.

Dawn almost stuck her tongue out at that particular thought (and she also self-censored the thoughts that gave even her too much proof that she had been hanging around with Spike just a little too much).

Spike entered the room with a nonchalant air, heading straight for the corner that he knew his little Niblet was hiding in. He had seen the shock in appear in the teenager's eyes as she realised that she should have been Willow's sister, rather than the blonde slayers and knew that it was something that she was not going to come back from fast.

He shot a glare at the witch he had tied up in the chair in the middle of the room – he knew he should have gone with his instincts when the chip hadn't gone off when he had accidently hit her that time, then caught Dawn's scent and moved to her side.

"Red's looking for you little bit." He murmured in a tone only she could hear. "You've got her worrying about you."

"Was that supposed to reassure me or tell me off?" Dawn asked as she allowed him to pull her out of the room, accidently on purpose tipping the chair the dirty-blonde witch was sitting in over as she did so and making him laugh out loud.

"Bit, this is Red, who knows!" Spike replied as he pulled her into one of the more intimate sitting rooms where Willow was resting on the sofa, Angel behind her and Giles in a chair beside her, going through the spell that that Tara had used on Willow to find out a way to reverse it.

Willow had indeed known n the spell that her former girlfriend had used on her from one of her many forays into the Watcher books she was supposed to have never read when she was younger. It had been a spell that Watchers had used on occasion to control slayers that had become a little too independent for their liking and kept them bound to their duties. (Of course, it had also led to the slayer's death shortly after it was cast as it tended to nullify the slayer's ability to think on their feet when needed – a small fact that the Council had never seemed fit to consider.)

Hearing Spike come into the room, Willow looked up and on seeing Dawn with him, smiled. "Hey you, where have you been, I thought you were going to help us with this spell."

Dawn immediately shot to her side, curling up with her head on the redhead's shoulder. "I felt like glaring at 'her'." It earned her a giggle of appreciation. "Have you worked out how to reverse the spell yet?"

"Actually, yes, I think we might just have done so." Giles replied as he nudged his glasses back up his nose for a second. (The dust in the mansion had interfered with his contact lenses, much to his horror and he had resorted back to them). "We also have everything that we need here to remove it."

"So who is going to cast it then," Dawn sat up, linking her fingers in Willow's as she did so, looking from the older former Watcher to the redhead as they shared a look. "Will?"

"It's more of a potion, honey." Willow replied as she squeezed her fingers. "With a spell cast over it once it is done. The only problem is..."

"Willow?" Angel rested his hand on her shoulder.

"It needs the person who cast the original to cast the reversal spell. It's one of the reasons why the Watchers never bothered with doing so." The look in her eyes had him moving to sit on the arm rest of the sofa and put his arm around her. "The potion and spell were always cast by a Watcher at the London headquarters and then shipped out to where the current slayer was stationed at that time. It's why it could never be reversed by the slayer's Watcher."

"Now ain't that just grand!" Spike growled as he crossed his arms across his chest. "So what are we going to go?"

"Oh that's simple." Willow said with surprising cheerfulness. "Make the potion, get Tara to cast the reversal spell and I drink it down or eat something the potion has been put into. See, simple."

Spike looked at the redhead, stumped for a moment and then shook his head. "Red, you scare me sometime, you really do."

"Oh good, I like that." Willow grinned as the younger vampire actually resorted to sticking his tongue out at her, sending Giles, Dawn and even Angel into gales of laughter.

The only words that could be heard through their laughter came from Spike as he then said. "Can I do the persuading?"

END PART FOURTEEN

Well, I think next week will find this particular story reach it's end.

I look forward to see what you have to say. Please don't forget to leave reviews for this story and all my other stories.

It helps me feel appreciated more than you know ;op