Chapter 12: And the Rescuee Buys Dinner

Dawn stood in front of the open Stargate again. She could feel the wormhole in front of her: such a powerful distortion in the fabric of space that the Key had responded to it, even before she'd had her awareness restored. She could sense the wormhole stretching out across space, to another world, half way across the galaxy. She was also acutely aware of her body, while standing there on the ramp with one hand holding up her pants: she'd loosened her belt in anticipation of this working. She took a deep breath. She really wasn't as sure that this would work as she'd told everyone. As the Key, she would be safe. The Key would survive pretty much anything that might be done to her body. The body itself, she wasn't so sure about, though, and she had put a lot of effort into getting herself back into that body.

It had taken her a couple of days to talk General O'Neill into letting her do this. Buffy had tried to talk her out of it too, but Dawn had countered Buffy with her own words, from the conversation they'd had when the SGC had first contacted her. She was an adult now, (even if she didn't look like one) and made her own decisions.

Dr. Ramsey had been a problem as well. He had latched on to his DID diagnosis, and didn't want to let it go. In a way he had a point: she did tend to dissociate the Key's experiences from those of Dawn Summers. It was the easiest way to keep things straight in her own mind, and to explain them to others. He was having trouble letting go of his theory that the Key being aware was just something that she'd made up as coping mechanism for a variety of childhood traumas. She did admit that the dissociation was a coping mechanism for the very bizarre reality that was her life.

General O'Neill's voice came over the speakers. "Dr. Summers, you have a go!"

Dawn took another deep breath, for what she hoped wasn't the last time. She walked up the ramp, and stepped into the gate.

A part of the Key preceded Dawn into the Stargate. It watched as the event horizon ripped her apart: molecules into their component atoms; atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons; protons and neutrons into their component quarks, and finally the quarks themselves transformed into energy.

The plan was for Dawn to reconstruct herself, in her adult form, during this trip to the Alpha Site. Then, if everything went well, she'd make the trip back to the SGC, with her restored body. She was tempted to surprise everyone, and bypass the the Alpha Site part of the trip: just reverse the wormhole, and reappear in the SGC, but she decided not to do anything like that, just yet. There was no need to complicate getting her body back by any more playing around with the gates than necessary, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to reveal to anyone just what sorts of things she could do with the Stargates, yet. Besides, Sam had gone ahead to the Alpha Site, where she was set up to observe how the gate reconstructed Dawn, and Dawn didn't want to disappoint her.

Dawn did a quick inventory of herself as she stepped out of the gate. Clothes fit: check; breasts: check; short hair: check. Everything seemed to be in order. She could see Colonel Carter looking at her from behind a control console. "So, how do I look?"

"You look good," said Sam. "Back to normal. Just give me a second here…" She typed something quickly on her keyboard, and then spoke into a microphone. "Dr. Summers came through just fine, Sir. It looks like it worked."

"Good," General O'Neill's voice said from a speaker. "Then get her back here. Buffy is looking impatient."

"Yessir!" said Colonel Carter. "We'll be coming back in a couple of minutes. I just need to make a copy of my data to bring with us."

"Very well," said General O'Neill. "SGC out!" The wormhole collapsed in the Stargate.

Dawn looked around the Alpha Site's gate room while she waited for Sam. There was really nothing to indicate that she was on another planet: it was just another windowless room. She wondered if the SGC got a volume discount on all the grey paint that it bought. This room was a little bigger than the gate room on Earth, and it didn't have a separate control room. She wandered over to take a look at the DHD. She was now intimately familiar with its inner workings, and she'd seen models of them during her training, but this was the first time that she'd ever seen a real one, from the outside. Somehow it seemed less impressive than she had expected.

Carter popped a crystal out of her console, and stuck it in her pocket. "Okay, I'm done." She held her hand out toward the DHD. "You want to do the honours?"

"Sure." Dawn punched Earth's address into the DHD. She watched the inner ring of the gate spin, feeling the power in it growing as each chevron engaged. She felt the shock as the last chevron locked, and the wormhole splashed open.

Carter punched her IDC into the GDO strapped to her forearm. She waited for the green light to flash on it, indicating that her signal had been received, and that the iris was open. She waved Dawn toward the gate. "After you."

This time Dawn didn't do anything as she entered the gate. She let it transport her across the light years back to Earth without any interference from the Key.

She could see everyone looking at her when she stepped out onto the ramp in the SGC. She spread her arms, and spun around. "See! All grown up again! Nothing to it!"

Buffy was waiting in the gate room for her. "You look great Dawn, but um…" She looked down toward Dawn's feet. "Are you expecting a flood?"

"What?" Dawn looked down. Her pant legs were still rolled up, rising almost half way up her calves now. She quickly bent over to roll them back down, before shooting an accusing look at Carter. "Why didn't you warn me?"

"Sorry," said Sam. "I didn't notice."

"Welcome back Dr. Summers," said General O'Neill. "Colonel, why don't you escort her to medical."

Dawn sighed. She knew that she would have to go through that yet again. She hoped that it would be Cassie doing the physical, but she expected that Dr. Ramsey would still be supervising. At least this time he should be convinced that the whole Key thing wasn't a figment of her imagination.

She'd been through this so many times now that Dawn was starting to think that she could perform the physical examination herself. All the test results came back reading normal. She once again appeared to be a perfectly healthy twenty-four year old woman.

There was one thing that was different from her first examination: "Your scars are gone!" said Cassie.

"Yeah, well, it would have been extra work to put them back, and I never really liked wearing a bikini because of them."

"Okay Jack, I'm me again; Dr. Ramsey says I'm perfectly healthy, and has come around to believing that I'm not crazy; I can go through the gate just fine, without vanishing again on you. When can I go back to work?" asked Dawn.

"You still want to work for us?" asked Jack.

"Sure," said Dawn. "You still want that stuff from P5C-4562 translated, don't you?"

"Yeah, but now you're this all powerful Key thing."

"I'm hardly 'all powerful,' and I like it here," said Dawn. "I like the people, and I like the work. I really feel like I'm contributing, and I think that this would be the best place for me, while I figure out what the Key can do."

"Are you sure you want to stay here, Dawn," asked Buffy.

"I'm sure, Buffy. You've shown me the world, now I want to take a look at the rest of the universe."

"Um, there's part of this world that kinda wants to see you," said Willow. "Last time I talked to Kennedy she said that Xander and Faith were starting to get a little antsy about how long we've been in here, and were starting to talk about mounting a rescue mission."

Jack looked amused. "Xander struck me as someone who had more sense than that."

"Ah…maybe we should go, now," said Buffy. "We wouldn't want any of Jack's people to get hurt."

Dawn paused to think for a bit. Cheyenne Mountain would be a tough nut to crack, even for a couple of Slayers, but if Faith was here, as well as Kennedy, and probably Rona and Gabbie from Denver… "How many people did you bring?"

"Most of North America," said Buffy. "We left a skeleton watch in Cleveland, but everyone else is nearby."

"Cleveland?" asked Jack.

"Ah…favourite party town for the forces of darkness, since Sunnydale went bye-bye," said Buffy.

Dawn was busy thinking about what twenty or more Slayers might be able to do to Cheyenne Mountain's defences. "I think Buffy's right. We should get out of here before anyone does something stupid."

"We'll need transportation back into Colorado Springs," said Willow. "We came here with Jack."

"No problem," said Dawn. "My car's upstairs." She looked at Jack. "It is still upstairs, isn't it. No one decided to tow it away, while I was missing?"

"No, it should still be there," said Jack. "We hadn't officially declared you missing yet."

"Okay, so, let's get out of here, with your permission General?" asked Dawn. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"Yeah, sure, youbetcha," said Jack. "Get out of here."

Dawn used Willow's phone to call to reserve a room at the Jade Dragon before they were even out of the Mountain. At first they had said that they couldn't handle so many people on such short notice on a week night, but when Dawn got the manager on the phone, and told him in his own language that she was calling for twenty Slayers, and some of their friends, he had gone very quiet for a few seconds, and then stumbled all over himself to promise that they would open up one of their banquet rooms, and it would be ready for them when they arrived. She made a mental note to make sure that she gave them a good tip…as the rescuee, she was the one who had to pick up tab for the post rescue party. It was a good thing that the SGC paid well.

She dropped Buffy and Willow off at their hotel—the same one she had stayed in during her first visit to Colorado Springs. She wanted to continue home on her own, but Buffy was still feeling overly paranoid, and made her take Rona with her. Dawn had a quick shower, and changed into some more casual clothes before she and Rona headed out again for the Jade Dragon.

She was a little overwhelmed when she actually saw how many people there were. Nearly all the Slayers she had known from Sunnydale were there, in addition to Xander, and Andrew and some of her other friends among the Watchers. Just about the only people missing were Robin Wood, who had stayed with the Slayers watching the Hellmouth in Cleveland, and Giles, who hadn't been able to get away from England.

Dawn got passed around, exchanging hugs with everyone. She saved Xander for last. "So, what happened?" he asked, after he had let her go. "Alien abduction?"

"No, it was nothing like that," said Dawn.

"So, what was it?"

"It was just an accident. My thing and their thing kinda interacted in an unexpected way."

"Your thing?"

"Yeah…there were kinda some key issues."

"Oh…that's not good."

"It all turned out okay in the end…better than okay. I learned a lot of new stuff about myself."

"Like what?"

"Tell you later, okay?" said Dawn. "When there aren't so many people around."

The post-rescue party broke up at about midnight. Dawn was accompanied back to her apartment by Buffy, Willow, Xander, Andrew, Faith and Kennedy. They all settled into seats around her living room. "Okay, there aren't so many people here now," said Xander. "What happened?"

"I still can't talk about a lot of it," said Dawn. "I promised not to tell anyone about what's going on in the Mountain. They were very clear about that. If I talk about some things, there could be a very quick trial for treason, and then they lock me up and throw away the key."

"We didn't promise anything," said Willow.

"What?" asked Dawn.

"Me and Buffy didn't promise not to tell anyone anything about what they told us. They never even asked us not to talk about it."

"They didn't?"

"Nope," said Buffy. "They didn't say a word about us not talking."

"So, what happened to Dawn?" asked Xander.

Willow and Buffy told everyone about the Stargate, with frequent interruptions from Andrew saying "That is so cool!" and one or two from Xander as well. Andrew wasn't nearly as bad as he had been, but he was still a geek at heart. When they got to the part about Dawn disappearing when she entered the Stargate, she took over and told Faith, Kennedy and Andrew about the Key: how the Order of Dagon had created her from it, and changed everyone's memories.

"Wait a minute!" said Faith. "That means that I never met you until I came back to Sunnydale to help fight the First."

"Uh-huh," said Dawn.

"So all those times you've guilted me over things I did before that…they never happened!"

"Well, not exactly the way you remember them, anyway. I guess I wasn't really there that time you held Mom and me hostage, but you still did that to Mom."

"Yeah, I guess I did…but it's still really freaky to think about."

Xander grinned at her. "Been there myself."

"We all have," said Buffy, "but now we gotta figure out what we're going to do about it."

"I'm going back," said Dawn. "If they'll have me."

"Dawn—"

"No, Buffy. I'm doing this. It's where I belong."

"I don't trust them."

"You had one bad experience, ten years ago. The SGC is nothing like the Initiative."

"Now. What happens after the next election, if the new President decides to hand them over to the NID?"

"If that happens, then I'll deal with it," said Dawn. "I'm not a little girl who needs to be protected from the big bad world anymore. I haven't been for years."

"But—"

"No 'buts'! I'm doing this. It's where I'm needed."

"We need you too."

"I'm still going to be living here in Colorado," said Dawn. "I'm not moving off the planet—at least not permanently—but there are things I can do out there."

"Like what?"

"The Key doesn't just belong to the Earth. It belongs to the universe. There are things out there…"

"What things."

Dawn grinned, reminded of what she'd thought the first time she'd heard of the Wraith. "Would you believe space vampires?"

"What?"

"There are these things out there, that suck the life force out of people." Dawn saw the expression on Buffy's face. "Nothing you need to worry about, they aren't even in this galaxy."

"Dawn, I wish you'd give this some more thought."

"What do you think I was doing, all the time I was stuck in the Stargates?" asked Dawn. "Buffy…Dawn Summers is only a small part of who I am. I happen to like this part a lot, but there's so much more to the Key. Even without the SGC, I'm going out there. It'll be easier with their help, but I can't limit myself to the Earth anymore."

That wasn't the end of it. Buffy still wanted to argue, but Dawn had made up her mind. It was nearly 2AM when she had enough, and kicked everyone out of her apartment. She wanted to get some sleep before she reported back to the SGC the next morning.

The Key didn't sleep. Dawn's body and mind needed the rest, but the Key remained aware, letting its focus roam the cosmos, seeing what had changed during the time it had been away. Not much had: 10,000 years was less than an eyeblink in the life of the universe.

The greatest change was in the Key's perception of what it saw. It had a fresh perspective on the ebb and flow of forces that it now recognized as life spread across the galaxies. It had a name for the blight that plagued the life in the galaxy that humans had named Pegasus. It would have to do something about the Wraith. A part of the Key wanted to just exterminate them, but it hesitated. Even the Wraith had their place. There were worse things out there. There was no need to be hasty.