Sins of the Past Chapter 28
Daddy Issues
Oh god...
Consciousness comes back to me as I feel myself breathe.
It keeps happening. Why does it keep happening?
I cough as my throat adjusts to not being choked again.
I need it to stop. I need for one of these times to have it be one where I don't wake up.
I start moving my hands to try and make that happen but something's in the way.
Am I wearing gloves? When did I get gloves?
I try to move my arms and get stopped by some kind of chain.
What the hell?
I sit up and open my eyes to see a room I never expected to.
Where the hell am I?
"You're awake, good, I'm glad."
I look to the voice and see my sister's big father figure in a chair across the room from me.
"How are you feeling?"
Seriously? He thinks that's a good question?
"I'm chained to a wall on the floor. How do you think I'm feeling?"
"Yes, quite... I must apologize for that. We discussed tying you to a chair however your friend Connor suggested that might bring back disturbing memories. We felt this was the most comfortable for you."
God for a genius he's an idiot.
"I'm so glad that you took my feelings into consideration. Now how about you let me go? I have better things to do."
"And what would that be? Your sister accessed your college records when she negotiated your leave of absence, and it doesn't appear as though you've been the best student."
Oh for fuck's sake.
"Look, I know you were all about the education when you went there, but college has evolved since the 1930s. There's a lot of interesting things happen that don't involve reading and writing pretentious essays about obscure topics. Funny enough, this is something you can learn at college."
He doesn't respond right away.
"Of course you'd know that, if you'd bothered to talk to me in the past few years."
That makes him take off his glasses and clean them.
Yeah, there's no way I'm letting him off that easy.
"What? You thought I'd forgotten? I was basically a Junior Watcher by the time Sunnydale became a smoking hole in the ground, and then you went off and set up shop on the next Hellmouth. The place you knew my sister would never want to go. You left me alone."
"Dawn, I understand that you're angry with me. We haven't been able to speak in quite a while. I have also become acquainted with how you've struggled recently. Obviously you've been through quite a lot and I'm sorry for whatever you went through that's brought you here."
What a bunch of crap.
"Well isn't that nice. You're sorry. That just makes it all better and all is forgiven. My whole life is better now and you can let me go."
I put my hands out to him in chains, putting what he's done to me right in his face. He flinches at the sight.
Bingo! I knew I could get to him.
He quickly covers up how he feels and tries to look serious.
"Unfortunately, you're not going anywhere until we understand exactly what is happening with you."
"Right, because that's what you do isn't it? You try to understand things. You research and you find out what's going on and then tell someone else to do something for you. You get other people to do your dirty work."
That makes him drop his eyes from me.
It's like he forgot that he and I know each other. That I know just how badly he's screwed up over the years.
"You want to know what's wrong with me? Look in the mirror. I had the only thing that ever even came close to a father figure turn out to be just as bad as my own father. You just left. If there's anyone to blame for the situation I'm in? It's you."
There's a silence in the room for a moment.
"Be that as it may, these new powers you appear to have developed are quite dangerous in the wrong hands and..."
Is he serious?
I hold up my gloved hands to him and he sees them.
"The wrong hands, seriously? You're going with that? After you've chained me up like this?"
"And we have to figure out what's going on."
"You mean how to control them, right? Or even better take them away from me, to make it so that I can never use them. Because otherwise I might actually get what I want? My life wouldn't actually suck for once?"
"Your life may be challenging right now, but you will..."
"Yours doesn't have to suck either you know? I can fix it."
"It's exactly that type of suggestion that..."
"I can give you Jenny."
That stops him in his tracks, looking at me with a little bit of hope before he quickly buries it.
I figured that would get your attention.
"I can make it so that she never died. So that Angelus never came after her. Or I can make it so that she did but you got there in time to save her. I can give you a happy ending."
A long silence follows as he watches me closely, the way he looks at a book.
Does he think I don't see what he's doing?
"And you believe I would actually want such a thing?"
I can't help but roll my eyes at him.
"Why the hell wouldn't you?"
"I've moved on Dawn. I have accepted what happened and moved passed it."
"That's crap and you know it. You've been a miserable old man since she died and you don't have to be."
He puts his glasses back on.
"And is that what you did with Wrath and Buffy's friend Pike? Did you give them a happy ending?"
What the hell do you think he's doing? Is he trying to save me?
"No you wanna be father figure. I eliminated a threat. Wrath was trying to kill me or... whatever, and I wasn't going to let him do it."
"By merging them together?"
"Uh, yeah, would you prefer to have to deal with an unkillable god all on their own? Now you don't have to. We can kill him just like with Ben."
He stops for a moment, worried.
"And in the process, you sacrifice this man Pike."
"So what? Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Isn't that what you used to tell Buffy all the time? That some sacrifices are worth it?"
"Yes, and it was Buffy who taught me that there is always another way. Sacrifice isn't always necessary to achieve your end goal. It appears you've failed to learn that lesson."
"Or maybe I'm just better at figuring out what's really going on than you."
"And this has nothing to do with his relationship with Faith?"
Is he really trying to get under my skin that way?
"No, that's just a happy bonus."
"A bonus?"
"Yeah, I kinda wish she'd been here when I woke up instead of you. Just to see the look on her face."
He watches me for a long while before saying anything.
"I'm sorry to see that you've gone down this road Dawn. You were such a loving and kind young woman once. To see you now like this makes me very sad."
"Well I guess it's a good thing I don't really care what you think, then isn't it?"
He stands up, making his way to the door.
"It's quite sad, actually."
He leaves.
Finally! I thought he'd never actually leave.
I start looking over my hands to get a better look at the chains.
He was probably going to go on and on and on like he usually does. At least he finally shut up and left. Now if only I can figure out how to get out of these cuffs somehow. There's no way I'm sticking around and being held hostage like this while they figure out what to do with me. I have my own plans and I'm not going to let them get derailed by my sister and her band of morons.
Trying to figure something out, I grip the hinges for the cuffs as best I can and start to play with them, hoping they'll come loose somehow.
If they've taken me to Giles while I was out, that means I'm probably at the Cleveland hellmouth. And there's all kinds of fun that can be had on a hellmouth with powers like mine. The energy coming out of it will probably amplify my abilities and let me do so much. All I have to do is get out of here without them noticing, which should be pretty easy if I can do that teleportation or whatever it was that I did before to get away from my sister and her bitch.
Not having much luck with the shackles, I turn my attention to the gloves on my hands that are kept on there by being under the cuffs on my wrists.
Maybe if I can just tear it somewhere then it'll be enough to get me free. It's going to be too hard to do it with these things on my hands, which is probably exactly the point, but it's not impossible. All I have to do is bleed somehow, and if I can't get free then I'll just have to find a way to bleed another way. They'll be less fun but if it gets me free, I don't really care how it gets done.
End of Chapter 28