Buffy helped Dawn to bed, holding her bruised hands until she drifted to sleep comforted by her sister's presence.  Buffy looked at Dawn's fragile face, the face of a young woman but with traces of the young girl inside.  The relief that she felt now Dawn was home was overwhelming, no matter how grown up, no matter how professional and accomplished Dawn became she was still her kid sister and more precious to Buffy than she could ever hope to express.  When she was sure Dawn was asleep Buffy slipped out of her room closing the door softly behind her.  She stopped outside Jess's room looking at the stickers on her closed door.  In typical teenage fashion Jess had 'keep out' signs plastered across the wood but  at that moment they held far more emphasis than a need for privacy.  They blocked Buffy out from her daughter and just then she could isolate the pain that caused.  It had always been there, just one of the many aches her losses brought but it was sharpened, like a knife twisting in her gut.  The love and responsibility Buffy felt for Dawn, so strong she had lain down her own life to save her, bubbled inside the slayer and directed itself to the dark haired girl behind the closed door.  The door itself was solid, impenetrable and Jess's heart was the same to Buffy, it belonged to another.  For fear of trivialising the love of her mother Jess kept her heart safe, hidden from anyone else.  She rejected Buffy's feelings and reinforced her barriers and Buffy couldn't blame her.  There were times when she to had been tempted to put up defences and block people from her life, people who cared about her but she had seen the results of those actions, seen them as another slayer carried them out , seen them lead to evil, imprisonment, comas and murder.  Buffy remembered Faith's request, the last thing she asked and knew that the barriers had to be broken, jess wouldn't follow Faith, not anymore.

Buffy made her way downstairs where Willow and Xander sat.  they looked up as Buffy entered and she assured them that Dawn would be alright.

            "Just another rescue mission done and dusted then?" Xander asked Buffy in good humour but the slayer shook her head and sank wearily into a chair.

            "It's never that simple with you guys.  I wish it was but it just can't be.  Faith explained it to me."  Buffy curled herself up almost into a foetal position trying not to remember…trying to talk calmly about Faith, trying not to let the tears spill.  "She told me that she was scares, scared by how much she loved Jess and what it meant.  Everything was double the threat for her because she was terrified for herself and for jess and I know how she felt.  My life I can deal with losing, hell I'll probably get it back anyway but if I lose one of you guys."  Buffy's dams broke and the tears flowed.  "You or Dawn or Giles I don't think I could deal with that, I'd just fall.  Slayers always worked alone and they died alone, that's what the first taunted me about that night, when it thought I was dying, but I'm still here and it's because of you.  You're my strength."

            Outside the door Jess crouched listening.  Buffy was pouring out her heart to her two best friends, the worry she felt each time she took them into battle with her, each time one of them was taken from her.  As Xander cracked a joke to lighten Buffy's mood Jess smiled, a half-smile, tinged, tainted but a smile none the less.  She stood up laughing softly and headed out of the house a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye.  The twinkle however wasn't the kind of twinkle that comes from smiling.  In fact it was more like the shimmer from the sun glinting off a very sharp knife.

 Then the conversation turned as Buffy asked what her friends had found out at Willy's.

            "Generally not good news" Xander replied extremely shiftily and Buffy could tell he was apprehensive about telling her.

            "Well?"  She asked.  "Not good in the category of big ugly demon or apocalypse?" 

            "Not good in the category of so bad it made Faith break out of prison."  At Buffy's blank look Willow resigned herself to the telling.

            "Angelus is back."

            "Oh G-d."

Ok I know very very short.  Only because of a problem with the next bit of the story that Sam 453 pointed out to me, damn it.  Anyways don't give up on me quite yet there's a fair bit of action to come including Buffy's encounter with Angelus.

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