Disclaimers, etc, see part one.

Dawning.

* * * * *

Angie, Sarah and Lizzie knew all the stories, of course, they just didn't know they were real. That was the other reason why never I got the photos out. The Library and the Magic Box were real place, where real weird things happened.

The two photos make a strange couple.

Lizzie pointed to Dawn in the second photo. "How old is she?"

"Dawn was fourteen then," I said. Joyce had taken it at the Magic Box opening. Giles had an I-can't-believe-I'm-ding-this look on. He was at the back with one hand on Buffy's shoulder. She had her arms wrapped around Dawn. We found the Sphere of Dagon the night before, but no one knew anything about Dawn yet. Buffy would learn that night.

The first time I met Dawn she had been spying on us. Buffy invited us for a video night soon after she arrived in town. She insisted that we learn that she was also a normal girl, with a normal family. Joyce was lovely, she insisted on getting us drinks and food and telling us how good it was that Buffy had made such nice friends.

It's amusing now because I know that she was worried Buffy would fall into the wrong crowd again and get into trouble. It was pity, really, because Buffy corrupted us.

Dawn was a little thing then. Buffy introduced her with a begrudging, "this is my little sister, Dawn." And a pointed, "She won't be staying up with us."

I offered my hand for her to shake.

"It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Dawn," I said.

She giggled shyly, and Willow hit me.

Dawn appeared several time during the evening to spy on us and each time Buffy saw her she stopped the video and told her to go back to bed. I winked every time I saw her and she would disappear behind the wall for a moment.

I can't imagine the world where that didn't happen. How did we make it through high school without Dawn? It still creeps me out a little, knowing that the world can be changed like that. Anya once described the world that Cordelia had created with her vengeance wish. But the other thing is that the first photo doesn't have Dawn, and the second one does. So Buffy has Dawn, I have Anya, Willow has Tara and it's Giles's shop like it was his Library.

"So that's Willow?" Lizzie pointed her out. Willow was the only name she knew.

"Yes. And that's her girlfriend, Tara." Willow was sitting on Tara's lap playing with her hair. I hadn't noticed that before. But I was aware of the elements of Tara that reminded me of Oz, or Kennedy. It must be the Willow-ness in them, but occasionally Willow and Tara would be holding hands and I would see Oz. Or Willow would stroke Kennedy's hair and I would see her and Tara.

"Is that mom?" Lizzie asked, peering at the photo of Anya.

It was a strange question. Angie and Anya don't look that much alike.

"No," I said, slowly. If Anya hadn't died, I wouldn't have left and I wouldn't have met Angie and I wouldn't have had Lizzie.

"That's my fiancé Anya. We broke up just before we supposed to get married. She died about a year and half later."

"That's so sad, Dada."

"Yeah, it is. But I have you, and you always make happy. Little Lizzie."

"I'm not little," she said. "I'm going to be ten tomorrow."

"Then you'd really be getting off to bed," I told her.

"No, Dada, you have to explain the rest of the photos."

Somewhere she had learnt the tone that said you were silly for forgetting whatever it was you were supposed to be doing.

"Okay, so that's Giles, he owned the shop. And he was the Librarian when that one was taken. That's me again, and Willow and Buffy."

I wished I had a photo of Spike to show her. Somehow that bastard turned out to be what people needed him to be. When I needed to hate someone or blame someone, he would always rise to challenge. Angel never did that. He'd take it and he'd argue, but he wouldn't let me fight him.

"How long ago?" Lizzie asked.

She was getting sleepy. I was worried that I would have to carry her up to bed. If I did do my back in it was going to be carrying my daughter.

I counted quickly. "More than twenty years ago," I said. I was amazed that it had been that long. I'm still amazed that I could go that long without seeing anyone. I really got away with it, I didn't think would.

"Did you know Faith then?"

The question startled me. I'd received a message from Faith the day before. They were in the area on a holiday tracking a werewolf. They only had that night and the next to capture it. Nikki's last tracking before she started at school. They'd warned me, and asked me to be on the watch.

Nikki and Andrew had seen nearly as much of the country as Angie and I had. Before I left on first aborted road trip I had never left Sunnydale, not once. And I only got as far as Oxnard on my disastrous road trip.

Angie and I had settled down well before Elizabeth was born. Sarah was born on road, though. We hadn't made it as far as Florida before Angie fell pregnant. She refused to give up the road until we'd made it to Hershey, which was last on the agenda, and she wouldn't change it. We had the baby in South Carolina.

She asked me only once what I would like to the call the baby and I answered, "Boy, Jesse, girl, Sarah." She'd nodded and spent hours on the phone to her mother. At the end of each phone call I talked to Beatrice for five minutes where I was to tell her all the things Angie hadn't and she told me that I would be fine as long as I didn't hurt her daughter. To which I always replied, "No, ma'am," which she seemed to like.

September the tenth 2006 Sarah Beatrice Harris was born at the Columbia General Hospital. I liked the name of the Hospital. Sunnydale had had a Memorial Hospital, which always sounded kind of depressing.

I didn't cry when my baby girl was born. I just started at her. Sarah had been the name of the daughter Anya and I were never going to have. It was the closest thing I had to her except the photos.

"Sort of," I answered Lizzie. "I met Faith after the first photo was taken," I said, pointing to it. "But she was in jail by the time Giles opened the shop."

"So Giles was the Librarian," she said. She traced the shops of the bookshelves with her little finger. She didn't seem at all phased by the fact that Faith had been in prison. I wondered if she'd heard me.

She hadn't seen the photo's before. Angie and Sarah had never seen them, either. Even in all my stories I had managed to keep the stories to descriptions. By the time it had become a habit they had epithets; the Slayer, the Librarian, the Vampire, and Willow was Willow. Dawn was the Slayer's sister, and she probably would have kicked me for it.

Suddenly, for Lizzie, the characters she'd been hearing about had names and faces. They were real people. I had gone to school with people you could take photos of, as well as demon summoners and Slayers.

"Did he really summon demons?" Lizzie asked.

I should have realised that the question was a portent. The straightforward manner fooled me into believing that it was straightforward question. My daughter was almost ten, and just as bright as the friend I had wanted her named for. She wanted to confirmation of what she believed could be true.

"Only when he was young. He was just a stuffy Watcher when I met him," I said. "You remember the story of how deadboy killed the demon."

Lizzie nodded, taking the information in and putting it away. Then she yawned.

"If you want to be up for breakfast tomorrow, you'll have to sleep now," I told her.

She nodded against my chest. I nudged her to get her stand up and she put her arms around my neck. I sighed a picked her up. I tucked her into bed. I spent another few minutes staring at the photo of Anya, and Dawn's cheeky smile.