**DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, the WB, and various other people who aren't me. Drat.**

Rating: PG

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"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, not touched, but are felt in the heart."

~ Helen Keller ~

Her Gift is Life

by: The Silver Princess

"She's awake," Giles said in a voice tinged with relief and reluctance.

Her first instinct was to sit up and hug the nearest person, to cry out in joy, to cry out that she was HOME! But they would most likely consider her crazy, so she settled instead for blinking several times, trying to organize her thoughts and jumbled memories.

"Is she the new slayer? She fought like Buffy. There's a new one when one dies, isn't there? Xander, is she the new slayer?" Anya was pestering her boyfriend with her characteristic bluntness.

"Anya!" Dawn's broken voice protested. Buffy frowned. She thinks I'm replacing her sister.

"Anya," Xander hissed exasperatedly.

She remembered. Blue electricity had crackled through her body, snapping over metal jewelry and digging into her flesh like thrashing knives. Then there had been a coolness like water thrown over a fire, and the electricity had made entrancing azure patterns before her eyes before fading into serene darkness. She had floated along, her sorrows, like open wounds, closing and healing. The weariness that had settled over her had evaporated. She had been dead but strangely had felt more alive than ever.

The bright beacon that had kindled in the darkness had beckoned tantalizingly. In the space of real-world heartbeat, her spirit had healed and then streamed into a welcoming vessel prepared by the Powers That Be. Then she had woken, disoriented in the hospital. Her brain had given her time to deal with the jarring changes.

Oh, but she was ready now!

Buffy sat up very suddenly, eliciting startled remarks from her friends.

"Well, that bloody answers your bloody question, doesn't it?" Spike bitterly sneered. "The bird's got the quick healing perk with the job too. Yup, bloody new slayer to replace the bloody dead one! Yup, those bloody Powers That Be certainly are bloody compassionate, aren't they, the bloody ponces." He paused in his acidic diatribe. "Bloody hell," he added for good measure. He threw her a look of sheer loathing before stalking off.

"Spike, wait!" she called.

He gestured rudely with his hand.

Her friends were looking at her unhappily, some of Spike's emotions mirrored in their faces.

Buffy felt the first fizzing of anger beginning. It began in her fingertips under her nails and bubbled through her arm muscles. She was alive—and she wasn't going to let them think otherwise for one other minute. And she wanted to tell them all at once, and one infuriating vampire was not going to mess that up for her!

She had to stop him. "I kissed you once!" She clenched her jaw. There was a confession she hadn't wanted to make, but it was something only he and she would know. "After Glory kidnapped you. After your sexbot got fried. You kept Glory from finding out about Dawn."

He was ducking through the hole the vampires had ripped in the wall, but he froze suddenly, his shoulders tense, his posture like a startled animal. He turned very slowly. His face was filled hope and confusion, anger and joy, vulnerability and guardedness. He looked very young and very human at that moment.

Giles was looking at her with carefully maintained cool curiosity. Anya, Xander, and Willow were simply confused. Dawn was frowning, looking from Buffy to Spike and back. Tension laced the air; they didn't understand what she meant, but they did realize that there was a very important subtext in her words.

She looked around, her anger and surety faltering. How exactly to tell them, now that she definitely had their attention?

"Um, I'm Buffy, guys."

She winced at the triteness of her voice and the inadequacy of her words.

No one spoke.

Giles cleared his throat. "Yes, you mentioned your name earlier."

"Okay, so it's the memory proof deal, again." She could do this. Every memory glimmered like a just-polished jewel in her mind, new and familiar at the same time. She stood up, absently brushing dust from her clothing. "Kind of like with Faith, only this more permanent than a body-swap."

Her comment was like an electric shock running through the room. Spike moved closer, willing to listen.

"Did my sister write to you about that?" Dawn asked in a small defensive voice.

"She never wrote me because I'm her."

"She. You should say 'I'm she,'" Xander said challengingly.

Her eyes sparkled as she recalled a similar comment from the time Dracula visited Sunnydale. "'She who you most desire. Sorry, whom,'" she quoted softly with a hesitant smile.

"Buff?" he said, wrinkling his forehead as he searched her face for any sign of familiarity.

"Oh good lord, you can't believe this girl!" Giles protested.

Buffy turned to him, an impish look crossing over her features. She cleared her throat and delicately said, "You never did tell me what a stevedore is."

He paled and then blushed, taking off his glasses and polishing them furiously.

She glanced around uncertainly. They didn't believe her yet. She made a sudden frustrated noise, throwing her hands into the air. "What else do you guys need to convince you? Ask me something. Ask me anything! Do you want to know how we met? Willow, Xander, we met on the first day of sophomore year. And Giles. I went to the library and you pulled out that Vampyr book and I freaked. Remember? And Tara, well, I met you while I was in Faith's body. Ooo! and you were the one who figured out that it wasn't me in my body and you told Willow so she didn't flip out when she saw me. And Anya, um, you were a just a new girl at school until we found out that you were an ex-demon, which was when evil vampire Willow showed up. And—"

"Who am I?" Dawn said. She strode forward, her eyes shining with determination covering pain and worse, hope. "Tell me who I am!"

Buffy held herself very tightly, holding herself back from running to Dawn and holding her. "You're my sister," she murmured. "Admittedly, the family tree gets a bit cosmic for you, and I'm sure I'm really messing things up now," she shrugged, "but you're my sister however you look at it."

"It's Summers'—"

"Blood. It's the same as mine." Her words, an echo of a past reassurance, reverberated through the silent shop, ringing over crystal shards and thudding against broken statues. Funny, how she had forgotten how demolished the shop looked.

Dawn stared at her as Buffy waited, her stomach twisting nervously. Her sister still hadn't moved. Her eyes were staring into space, and her face was vulnerable, written with hurt. Her hands clenched at her sides.

"Dawnie? Are you okay?" Buffy asked hesitantly.

"Yuh-huh," she answered dazedly.

"Dawnie?" Buffy was afraid her heart would break if Dawn refused to believe her.

"Buffy!"

And then her sister was in her arms, hugging her tightly, laughing and crying.

And then they were all around her, hugging and laughing, jumping up and down in excitement, nearly falling and pulling the whole group down.

Through the tangled mass of arms and hair, Buffy caught a glimpse of Spike, standing alone, still so very frozen.

She beamed at him.

"See you 'round, Slayer," he said as he opened the door. Only she noticed his exit; only she noticed the restrained joy in his voice.

Everyone was talking at once, but Buffy remained silent, soaking in their love. She was home.

And then—"By the way, Buffy . . . when the hell did you kiss Spike!"

End