Chapter Notes:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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CH 3

Dawn sat, agape. "Shit!"

"Language," he scolded, seemingly without thought.

She frowned, too caught up in the revelation that she, as she was now, was the key again to wonder at Spike's response to her swearing.

"But how?" she asked. "The monks don't know I'm here. How could they make me the key? Why would they want to?"

"Maybe they didn't intend to."

"What?"

"Magic." Spike shook his head. "Rarely goes as planned, yeah?"

Well, yeah. They had obvious and frequent proof of that. But how could a spell meant to create a new person latch on to an existing one? If that was possible why hadn't the monks done that in the first place? It seemed to her it was a lot easier to drop a ball of mystic energy into an existing person than to create all new memories. Though she didn't know much about magic, so maybe she was wrong.

"Look," Spike said, "you said you traveled back in time using your residual keyness, or some such, yeah?"

Dawn nodded woodenly. "Dimensions. Time is just another dimension."

"Well, there you have it." He slapped his thighs for emphasis. "Your monks were in a hurry, yeah? Doubt they spent much time sorting the details of that spell of theirs. Probably sent their mystic ball of energy and their memory rewriting spell toward the Slayer and her lot, and your energy hijacked it. Like attracts like and all that rot."

That actually made sense, in a way. The key would naturally be drawn to the remnants of itself. She could wrap her head around that.

What she was having a harder time with was Spike.

"So, wait." She turned to him. "You still remember me though?"

He rolled his eyes. "Been over that, yeah? Course I remember you."

Dawn shook her head. "No. I mean, you remember me. Me, me, who dropped in on you last fall and told you I was from the future. But you also remember me as Buffy's twin." She paused, thinking. "Do you remember me, Buffy's twin, from when you first came to Sunnydale?"

His fingers flexed against his jean-clad thighs as he thought. "Didn't rightly pay much mind to the girl's friends and family, save to notice she actually had them, but," his brow furrowed a moment, "yeah. Might have. Hair was more like it was when you first got here –the time traveling way– but I think you were at the house when the Slayer and I made our truce over Angelus. She snapped at you to get upstairs, but you insisted on staying in the living room with your mum."

"Do you remember it the other way? Without me?"

He chuckled and then ran a hand over the back of his head. "Oh yeah. Definitely. Actually had the gall to remind Joyce how she'd beaned me with a fire ax on parent teacher night. What of it?"

"See, that's what I don't get. The last time everyone's memories were just, bam, rewritten. They didn't remember me not being there. They didn't know I was different. That's kinda the point of the spell." What if her being in the past had changed that? Would they all have two sets of memories now?

He patted her hand absently. "Wouldn't worry about it, Bit. Vamps are supernatural. Spells don't affect us the same way."

"It did last time," she protested.

"Wasn't in the middle of a conversation with you last time, was I?"

"Oh." He had a point. And, God, Dawn hoped it was a valid one, because if it wasn't she was going to have a really hard time explaining this to everyone.

Everyone . . .

She shot to her feet so quickly that Spike automatically followed, falling into a defensive stance.

"What?" he asked.

She flushed. "Uh, no. Sorry. It's just, I've got to go."

He looked at her in askance.

"If I'm me again that means people will be expecting me places," she explained. Not that she was sure where those places were. She could always go home, right?

"Right." Spike relaxed, but he didn't reclaim his spot against the counter. "Guess I won't be seeing so much of you then. Or, wait. No."

His forehead did the furrowing thing again, which she took to mean he was sorting through his two sets of memories. Wow, that had to be confusing. She had two sets of memories for the last ten months, but they were in completely different contexts, so they weren't hard to separate, but his would presumably be very similar.

"We're friends, you and me," he finally said. "So you can still drop by. Might have to give up the flat though. Don't think you've got one in this new set of memories. Makes sense, seein' as you're a student and all. Don't want anyone wonderin' why you have a secret flat. Or where you got the money for it."

Shit. Yeah. Wow, it was a good thing Spike was so smart, because she hadn't even thought of that. She was going to have to be careful with her take of the treasure from now on. At least she could still come see Spike. That was good to know.

"Wait – Buffy lets me hang out with you in your crypt? She wouldn't even do that when you were chipped."

"Not the little sister anymore, Bit. She might not like it, but there's not much she can do to stop you, short of chaining you up."

"Oh. Right. I bet we argue a lot though."

He was looking at her curiously, head tilted, and she smoothed a hand over her hair.

"What?"

"Don't you know?" he asked.

"Know what?"

"If you argue over it? Seems to me there's not much point in altering the memories of the entire soddin' town and not dropping a matching set into your pretty little noggin."

"Crap." Dawn frantically reviewed her memories of the last year. She had a set from the first time, a little hazy with the passage of time and probably also because most of them had never actually happened; then she had the most recent set, with her as her current self, trying to fix the wrongs of her past. But when it came to memories of her as Buffy's twin she had nothing.

"Spike, I don't remember," she said, feeling the beginnings of panic.

His hands settled lightly on her shoulder. "Calm down, Bit. Gotta be a logical explanation. Monks had to have set aside part of that memory spell for you, even if they expected it to be a new you. Probably didn't get pulled along with the key's energy." His hands soothed down her arms. "I'll bet once you get to wherever the monks meant for the energy to go the spell will kick right in."

For a moment his logic calmed her, but then another problematic thought sent her right back into panic. "But how am I supposed to know where that is? What if I have a dorm room? I don't know where it is and I won't know until I get there! I can't show up at home and tell my mom I can't remember where my dorm room is! She'll think I'm crazy."

Spike chuckled. "'S the Hellmouth, luv, she'd understand. And I doubt it's anything so complicated. You said you were younger the first time, yeah? Memories are probably waitin' for you back at your mum's, then. Either way, once you get there you'll know more."

"Yeah, okay, home. I can go home."

Spike turned her and guided her to the door. "You go see about those places you're supposed to be and people you're supposed to see, and come back to give me an update in the morning, yeah?" He winked. "I'll even stay up so you don't have to wake me. Jus' don' be too long. Alright?"

Dawn nodded and allowed him to usher her out the door.

"You want I should walk you?" he asked when she lingered.

Dawn shook her head. No. If she and Buffy fought over her friendship with the vampire, Dawn didn't want to do it sans memories.

"Best hurry then. Not safe."

Prompted by his very practical concerns, Dawn shook herself into action. Okay, so she couldn't remember this version of herself. Worrying about it wouldn't help. Either she'd pick up her new memories at home, or on campus, or she would wing it. She'd gotten pretty good at getting by on the seat of her pants in the last few months. She'd be fine. And if not, Spike was right, this was the hellmouth, no one would be suspicious if she feigned amnesia.

Still, it'd be nice to have some idea of what she was expected to do and who she was expected to be. She hoped false-memory-Dawn had been studying, because real-Dawn hadn't been to college in over a year and she was feeling a little rusty. On the plus side: this alteration in the timeline meant that she could now interfere directly. Also, not the little sister, so they might actually listen to her. Though maybe not, if she and Spike were supposed to be friends. Buffy had always hated how well Dawn and their mom got along with the vampire, and now that he didn't have a chip it was probably worse. She wondered if her mom still snuck him hot chocolate while Buffy was out on patrol.

Mom.

Dawn almost stumbled as she realized that she was going home to see her mom. She was going home. To see her mom. She would get to see her mom. To hug her. For the first time in four years she had a mom. Suddenly the question of whether or not her mother could be saved, somewhat abstract before, became a crushing weight. Could she save her? Should she even try?

Dawn was almost running by the time she reached the familiar two story on Revello Drive. Just in time she remembered that it hadn't been four years for anyone else and she stopped on the porch to collect herself and catch her breath.

Through that door was both her past and her future and, whether or not she could change everything, she was going to enjoy the extra time she'd been given with the people she loved most.

Bracing herself, she turned the knob and pushed open the door. Seriously, why did they never lock these things? She stepped into the familiar entry and froze before the stairs.

Memories assaulted her, real ones, fake ones, and, finally, an entirely new set. The onslaught was dizzying, but that little knot of tension in her gut loosened as the monks' spell caught her up on her current history. Spike had been right, and thank God for that. It was strange, having three sets of memories for the past year, but it was better than stumbling through her new life completely in the dark.

Feeling overwhelmed, Dawn concentrated and found that she was able to focus on just her newest set of memories. They told her that she and Buffy had been very close before Buffy was called. That made sense, she guessed, twins were like that, or so she'd heard. The spell had shaved a few months off her age by moving her birthday to match Buffy's, but since she hadn't really lived the first fifteen years of her life the first time through Dawn didn't suppose it much mattered. Anyway, after Buffy was called, things changed between them. Buffy became secretive and withdrawn. Dawn became suspicious. When she finally discovered the truth about Buffy she was equal parts jealous and concerned.

Unfortunately, Buffy still treated her like a little sister. Maybe it was a monk-magic thing, or maybe it was because Buffy was the slayer. She even called Dawn little sister, even though they were only, like, ten seconds apart in age. Though Buffy insisted it was twenty-seven – as though that made a difference. Their mom refused to get involved in these arguments, insisting she'd been too worn out from delivering twins to keep track of the exact time.

Mom.

Her eyes welled up as the memory drew her from the spell and back into the present. The whole house smelled like Joyce, and Dawn could hear her in the kitchen, probably doing dishes from the sound of it.

Oh, God, she was going to lose it. Her heart ached and every cell in her body wanted to run in and envelope her mom in the world's longest hug. But that wouldn't be normal. As far as everyone else was concerned she saw her mother almost every day. Buffy lived in the dorms with Willow, but Dawn had elected to stay at home. Their father was a bum, and their mom couldn't afford to put two girls through college and put them up in the dorms. Dawn told them it was too noisy on campus and she wanted uninterrupted study space. Her mom clearly didn't buy it, but Buffy did, and that was what mattered.

Dawn blinked against the tears and swallowed roughly. She could pull it together. She had to.

"Um. You just gonna stand there all night or what?"

Dawn looked up at the familiar voice to find Buffy poised on the bottom step of the stairs, obviously waiting for Dawn to clear a path to the door. Dawn stared at her dumbly for a moment.

She looked so different. Not happier, but more . . . carefree, maybe? Less hard. This was the Buffy, Dawn had come back to protect. The one who still had hope, loved life.

Buffy frowned. "And why are you wearing glasses?"

Dawn reached up and found that she was, indeed, still wearing her prop glasses. In her rush she'd forgotten to remove her "disguise". Slowly, she reached up and pulled the glasses from her face. She stared at them a moment and then she began to laugh, helplessly. Buffy was looking at her like she'd completely lost it, which was more true than she knew, but Dawn couldn't help it. Their lives were so completely and utterly screwed up, and it was only going to get worse if she had her way.

At length Buffy gave up waiting for her to collect herself and maneuvered carefully around her.

"You've finally cracked," Buffy muttered. "Not that I didn't see it coming."

With effort, Dawn calmed herself and, with a last chuckled, headed upstairs. She needed some quality time with her new memories before she was ready for a full-on conversation with anyone except Spike. Buffy didn't protest as she moved toward the kitchen and out of sight, though Dawn could see her shaking her head.

For a moment, when she reached the top of the stairs, Dawn could have sworn she heard her mom calling, "Buffy? If you're going out, why don't you take your sister?" Except that she wasn't a kid, so why would Buffy take her anywhere? And mom knew she was working on a paper tonight anyway. Besides, Buffy was in the kitchen, why would Mom be yelling to her?

A joint complaint of "Mom" rose from Buffy's room and, for a moment, Dawn almost thought she saw her younger self and Buffy there.

She shook her head. Wow. She hadn't expected the memories to be so strong. Memory Buffy and Dawn faded as real Buffy slammed the front door, on her way out to patrol. Dawn took another deep breath and headed to her room. Fake memories or not she had a very real paper due in the morning and she didn't know if the monks had been kind enough to provide a partially written draft.

She smiled. Good thing memory Dawn had been studying.

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Chapter End Notes:

It's funny, because a lot of reviewers went right where I did with the "this Dawn is now the only Dawn and the active key" thing, but some didn't. It never even occured to me that people might think there were now 2 Dawns of the same age running around. But that's what makes this fun! I love it when people review with their theories - and you don't have to worry about influencing me . . .this story is written so far ahead it's safe. Hope you enjoyed. This chapter was a little shorter than most so most likely I will post chapter 4 next weekend. Thanks for reading.

reenas-as