Title: Ironic

Author: blackbeltchic

Posted: September 29, 2004

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. I'm sorry, I wish I did, but I don't!

Author's Notes: this comes from reading part of a story, that I've now lost, but what I remember to be a GidgetGirl challenge. Something about Buffy having a daughter, who Giles raised, and going strictly by a nickname...something about Brynwyn, I think. This does not follow that challenge, but it does come from that idea.

Feedback: Don't I deserve it?

: ( :( :( :(

Adults can be so irritating! Aunt Dawn, who isn't even my real aunt, Dad just felt bad for her after her mom and sister died, but she came over tonight, pissed off at Dad. Not even a hello for me, even though I haven't seen her in three months, flying around the world for her new job. Not even a birthday present!

No, she just said that I should go upstairs, so she and Dad could talk. They're still talking down there. As if I wouldn't know what they're talking about. There's only one thing anyone ever talks to Dad about in this hellhole!

Well, to be literal, dear diary, hellmouth. But does it really matter? Once Dad's slayer died, we had to stay in this stupid town, instead of going to live in England, where Dad grew up.

"That isn't fair, and you know it!" Dawn's angry voice interrupted the scratching of her pen, "She deserves to know!"

Hold the phone!

She crept closer to the edge of the loft.

"Keep your voice down."

"You've been lying to her, her entire life! I thought we agreed to tell her after this past birthday?"

"Things have changed," he said quietly.

Just like my dad to keep a cool head in an argument, she thought.

"Like what? Buffy's death? That doesn't have anything to do with it! She deserves to know! She's eighteen, for God's sake, not eight."

"She may deserve the truth, but he doesn't."

"Bullshit. Why the hell not?"

"He killed Jenny."

"I can't believe you! One, that was Angelus, not Angel. Everyone seems to make that connection, but you. Even Xander gets that! Second, it's been over eighteen years, you can't tell me you still hold a grudge!"

They're talking about mum and her killer!

"I loved her! I still love her. If she hadn't-"

"Oh, so now you're blaming this on Buffy too? If that had never happened, then Jessi wouldn't have been born. You can't blame either of them, they didn't know!"

"He had no right-"

"To make love to the woman he loved? Why the hell not?"

"She was a minor-"

"She was a slayer who had already met death once! Jess deserves to know her true father, and he deserves to know his daughter."

In slow motion, her pen rolled off her diary and rolled down the stairs. In the moody silence after Dawn's statement, the noise sounded like bells tolling.

Her father looked up into the shadows, "Jessica?"

She stepped into the light, in shock, and somehow managed to make it down the stairs without mishap. "Is what she said true? You're not my real dad? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We were going to, honey..." Dawn elbowed him, "I didn't think the time was right-"

"And when would that be?!" she hyperventilated, "When I graduate from college? When I'm mailing out wedding invitations? When I'm giving birth to my first child? When you're on your deathbed? When?"

"I-I-I'm not sure."

"Sweetie, we were going to tell you on your 18th birthday, that's what we decided," she glared at Giles, "Once I found out he hadn't, I rushed here. Life is hard when you don't know who you are, or where you come from. If you found out from someone else..."

"What if I don't want to know? What if I just make myself forget-"

"You know the dangers of not seeing things, just because you do not wish to," Giles reprimanded the girl he had raised as his own.

"You won't be able to forget, trust me. It will haunt your dreams, until you are crazy with doubt and wonder, but you will never be able to go back to the peaceful existence you had before."

"I-I can't do this!" she spun and rushed up the stairs, stooping to grab her pen and diary on her way.

"Jess-"

"Let her go. She needs time to think. If she goes for the knives, then we'll stop her," Dawn looked up towards the loft, feeling for the girl who had lived a lie her whole life.

: ( :( :( :(

She stuffed clothes into her bag, without even folding, almost a sin upon itself. She rushed into her father's room, grabbing some weapons from his chest quietly. Then she rushed back to her own room, throwing them willy-nilly into her bag. She had to leave. Once she had what she deemed necessary, she climbed out the window, scaling the trellis, dropping the last few feet.

: ( :( :( :(

"It's too quiet," Giles said from the couch, looking up towards the loft.

"That's because she left ten minutes ago. Out her window, and down the trellis," Dawn said calmly, stirring her tea.

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because she needs to do this. She's been living in your house, your way, her whole life. And you can't deny that you don't compare her, even unknowingly, to Buffy. She's just found out her whole life is a lie, she needs to find out who she is, on her own."

"When did you become such an expert?"

"Hello, Key! I've been there, I know what she's going through. She'll probably try finding Angel. I gravitated to those that knew, even if I didn't realize that Ben was Glory."

"I'm calling her cell phone."

: ( :( :( :(

She looked at the familiar number that suddenly meant nothing to her. The man on the other end had lied to her her whole life.

She hit the red button.

: ( :( :( :(

"Damnit! She hung up on me. She's never done that before."

"Sure she has. Let me try." Dawn pulled out her cell phone.

: ( :( :( :(

"Leave me alone!" she cried as an answer.

"Babes, I know what you're going through. If you're looking for him, try LA. That was his last known whereabouts."

"Thanks." And she meant it.

"Be safe. We love you, no matter what." The phone went dead. She was on her own.