Chapter 3

"That's just sick, Harris," the brunette named Cordelia told him with a disgusted look on her face. "Taking advantage of the situation by having her crawl all over you. Even Buffy has better taste than that when she's sane."

Xander only glared at her in reply as the last thing he wanted from her were more comments. In the short time since he'd met her, he had already learned that, compared to her tongue, Cordelia's knee was a mere secondary weapon. A secondary weapon that was already bad enough on its own, but the pain of which would at least go away. Her sharp barbs on the other hand followed him around the room. It was as if she knew he wouldn't hit a woman, or girl actually, and had made it her life's work to annoy him.

The fact that she might possibly perhaps be right about this latest statement—the taking advantage part, not the taste thing—was yet another thing that annoyed him. Anyway, he refused to feel guilty for it. Was it his fault he was this irresistible to the decoration piece? Besides, Cordelia obviously wasn't an impartial observer when it came to him. Like Willow she seemed to have known him for a long time. Of course, Willow had been nice about it.

"She is right Xander, you don't know how Buffy will react once the spell has worn off," the vampire agreed with Cordelia.

"You shut up," Xander said while pointing at the bloodsucker. "You weren't invited for this discussion, and should know to be quiet when your betters are speaking. And with betters I mean those actually capable of standing in the sunlight."

"Hah! Like anyone could mistake you for their better. If Angel wants to speak he can do so." Is that how it was? She preferred the vampire over him?

"Wait a minute, you're helping a vampire against a human?"

"Not any vampire, Angel, and besides when it concerns you I can't think of a better way to spend my time."

"Are you always this much of a bitch, or is this some kind of special occasion?"

The smirk on her face showed him the answer before she even opened her mouth. "I always am, but I have to admit that your comments at the door didn't exactly help your situation either."

Like he had told himself earlier, his big mouth had finally managed to land him in trouble. At his side the blonde had enough of the girl's attitude and decided to help him. "How dare you speak like that to mine noble knight!"

"Watch it blondie, your accent is slipping. You're starting to sound like a member of the common people again."

Outrage at this slur was evident on the pretty face, and Buffy retorted again. "Thou art a harlot, the likes of thee oughtn't be allowed to speak like that."

"That hurt little girl. Why don't you go, and cry about how unfair the world is?" Cordelia said, obviously enjoying the chance to put the Slayer in her place.

"Hey, stop teasing her. She can't help her current situation." Cordelia was really starting to go too far now. If she went on like this she might actually succeed in driving away his favorite decoration piece. Something he didn't want to happen despite his own doubts about the fairness of it all.

"My thanks, noble knight. Forasmuch as thou hast protected mine person countless times in this cruel world wouldst I thank thee with a kiss."

He had to think a little before he had managed to decipher that message, but once he did Xander was more than happy to accept the offering. His just reward actually. Despite all the harassing of the others, and their continued presence, he was now finally going to find out how those beautiful lips tasted. How they would perfectly melt against his own, giving him the chance to explore the girl's mouth with his tongue.

"You are so gonna regret that Buffy. Trust me on this. Tomorrow you'll wish this was just a nightmare, and then I'll be there to remind you it wasn't."

Ignoring Cordelia, Buffy had gotten up on her feet, and Xander closed his eyes in eager anticipation of the moment he'd been waiting for ever since he woke up in this messed up town. Of course, he hadn't been waiting for the gagging sounds he could hear coming from Cordelia, but he could tune that out. Sure he could. Just because the brunette was very beautiful and wasn't afraid to say what she meant, didn't mean he should be thinking about her now.

So he didn't. Raising his head, Xander allowed a smile to play on his lips as he waited for the indescribable feeling he was going to feel anytime now. Anytime now. Come on, what was keeping her? Hurry up already! And then it happened... but not like he'd expected.

All he felt was a feather-light peck on his forehead, and it took Xander several moments, and some snickering from the peanut gallery, to understand what had happened. She'd only given him a peck on his forehead? What kind of idiocy was that? He'd been looking forward to a decent make-out session! Opening his eyes, he could see Buffy beaming as if she had just done him the greatest possible favor, and looking at the other two he could see that Cordelia wasn't even trying to keep her laughter in check while Angel was still deciding if he should smile or frown.

"That's it?" Xander demanded of Buffy, close to outrage at her action.

"But of course, noble knight. What didst thou believe mine statement to mean?"

Before he had a chance to answer that ridiculous statement, Cordelia spoke up. "You know Xander, I think you were right after all. It isn't really fun to fight a battle of wits with an unarmed person."

Looking at the girl still standing in front of him, wondering how she would react to that statement, Xander could almost feel the other two do the same. Eventually, Buffy understood something had been said about her, and when she understood what it was she let her opinion of that be known. Loud and long.

….…

"Shut up!" The short sentence was suddenly shouted through the discussion that had been going on for quite a while now. Xander wasn't entirely happy with that command since he had been about to bestow a very well thought out insult on the vampire, but complied nonetheless when he saw who had shouted.

"Willow," he acknowledged her. "Did you talk to your Giles?"

"Yes." She looked a little weary and he had the feeling that had she been able to she would have sat down. "He thinks it probably has something to do with the costumes."

"No," Xander replied, trying to sound as sarcastic as possible. Just because she was tired didn't mean he wouldn't try to rile her up. He had gotten in the mood.

"Xander!" Yep, he still had the touch, but even so her attention didn't stay on him for long. "Cordelia, where did you buy your costume?"

"What? Why do you want to know?"

"Why can't you just answer the question!" Hmm, the girl sounded more and more stressed every time she opened her mouth.

"Because I want to know why Rosenberg. I don't take commands from anyone, let alone you. If you want someone to do as you say without question, you'll need the army reject over there."

"Hey!" Xander protested, that wasn't nice. Not that he should have expected Cordelia to say anything nice, but this went a bit too far. "I wasn't rejected!"

Nobody paid him any attention though, and with a sigh Willow gave up on convincing Cordelia of that. "Okay. It's pretty simple. Xander and Buffy bought their costumes at the new store, and they both turned into their suits. Giles and I suspected it had something to do with that."

"You mean Ethan's? No I didn't buy there. But hey! If you didn't get your ghost costume there how come you changed?"

"I got these clothes there, but we can ask Dawn where she got hers as well. That would be even more proof."

"Wait a minute, how exactly does that work? I mean you bought your working suit at the store, and pulled a sheet over it. And that caused you to turn into Sunnydale's one and only working ghost?"

"Oh, nice one," Xander complimented Cordelia.

"I know, I'm good," the girl beamed back at him, obviously happy with her own comment, before she suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be angry at him, and once more showed him her patented glare.

"I don't know how it works, but if Dawn didn't buy hers at Ethan's either, we might have a clue on how to stop it."

"Oh very well, where did Dawn go anyway?" Cordelia said, giving up on annoying the redhead. For a moment Xander debated about continuing where she had left off, but decided against it.

"Last time I saw her she went upstairs," the vampire spoke up, startling Xander as he'd completely forgotten it was still there as well.

"I'll go and get her. She was probably tired of having you people around. You know, for someone afflicted with Buffy as a sister she's quite normal." Having made her statement, the brunette got up from where she was sitting, and walked upstairs in search of the young girl.

Letting himself fall into the couch, Xander sighed once he was certain Cordelia could no longer hear him. "Finally some peace."

Willow looked at him a little envious, probably wanting to sit herself, but was quick enough to agree. "She can be a bit taxing, can't she?" Huh. Obviously the two of them weren't very fond of each other.

"Cordelia wasn't the only annoying one," Angel murmured. Just loud enough that Xander could hear the words.

"Hey! Fangface, have a little respect for those of us who weren't stupid enough to be turned into a creature of the night!"

"Oh cut it out you two. You're scaring Buffy," Willow interrupted, while nodding in the blonde's direction. Not that he thought she looked really scared, but Buffy obviously wasn't entirely comfortable with their discussion. Which Xander thought was his fault. He really shouldn't keep on mentioning that Angel was a vampire, as that upset her. Not that it mattered anymore, as-

"She's gone!" Cordelia shouted as she came running back into the room.

"What?" Xander asked, not really getting what the girl was talking about. Buffy might not be very comfortable, or completely in her right mind—whatever that meant for her—but she was still here.

"I think she left through her bedchamber window." Oh, Dawn. Right. Immediately switching tracks, he focused on the problem at hand.

"Why would she leave?"

Cordelia looked at him as if she saw water burning. "How should I know?"

Resisting the urge to antagonize her even more right now, he went over the facts. "She left through her window, somewhere during the time since we last saw her and now. We have no idea exactly when, or where. In fact, she could be anywhere by now."

"Damn!" Angel suddenly cursed behind him.

"Yeah, I know. This really sucks," Xander agreed with the vampire. Probably for the first time that he did that, he thought.

"No, not that. Spike is coming here, he must've found out about Buffy."

"Spike?" Besides him the name was spoken by three others, of which two sounded fearful, and one as clueless as him. Xander didn't like being as clueless as the Buffy version of a noblewoman.

Angel was good enough to explain it to the two of them though. Which made him once again think better of the vampire. Aside from the hairgel, the uncalled for comments, and the whole being dead thing the guy obviously wasn't a complete waste of space. "Spike is a master vampire who wants to kill Buffy because she's the Slayer."

"He wants to kill me?" the panicking blonde exclaimed.

"Not now Buffy." Xander said, pondering over the vampire's statement. "You mean to tell me that vampires work with a ranking system, master and apprentice, and all that nonsense?"

"No apprentices but yes." He waited for a moment to see if there was more of an explanation coming, but apparently the bloodsucker didn't think that was relevant right now, and Xander grudgingly had to agree with that.

"Okay, but we should be safe here, right? Or does every bloodsucker have an invitation to this house?"

"Normally we would be safe, but the transformed children don't need one, and he has brought quite a lot of them."

Looking out of the window Xander could see what the vampire was talking about, it seemed as if every kid who had been turned into a tiny monster had been added to the vampire's little army. From a tactical point of view he had to admire the vampire's strategy, undoubtedly he would send the little demons in to flush all of them out where he could then take care of them himself.

As he was the enemy however, the admiration quickly turned into practicality. "The bleach-blond is Spike?"

"Yes."

"Who's the woman?" He asked, looking at the brunette who was walking along the side of the vampire waving her arms about as if she was in some kind of ecstasy.

"That's Drusilla. A very dangerous vampire in her own right, but she's not entirely sane anymore."

"Really? How did that happen?" The way Angel flinched clued him in that the vampire probably had something to do with it, but noticing how close their enemy was getting he decided not to pursue it. "Never mind, I've got something of a plan. Willow, you need to go to your Giles so that the two of you can come up with a way out of this mess. After all, it's not like I actually signed on to kill children. Now do any of you know if this place has a backdoor?"

x.x.x

Walking through the streets in the shopping district seemed strange. Where before it had seemed as if she encountered one of the transformed children practically all the time, this place seemed eerily quiet.

So quiet in fact that, if it hadn't been for the sounds that still emanated from the rest of the town, Kirika might have almost believed it all to be a strange dream. Unfortunately, it was all too real. For the sake of the others, who she probably liked when she still had her memories, she hoped that they would solve their problem soon. Besides, while her memory loss might not be connected to the costume thing, it would make it easier for her if everyone was back to acting the way they were supposed to.

Restoring her memories was Kirika's goal at the moment. That and finding her partner, but she was pretty sure that one would lead to the other. Doing so might not be without repercussions however as she clearly remembered what had happened the last time her memories came back. The pain and remorse those memories caused had made her beg Mireille to keep her promise.

By then the two of them were already too close though, and her partner had been unable to kill her. Something that she had known at the time, but asked nonetheless. That hadn't been fair of her, but knowing what she'd done to her partner had hurt so much. And when later the full memories of her mission in Corsica had been disclosed she had been forced to kill Chloe.

Which was, aside from the murder of the Bouquet family, the only other event in her life that she truly regretted, but it had been necessary to save her partner. The girl had loved her: a love that might have only been overshadowed by the one she had for Altena, but Kirika wasn't even certain about that. The pain she had heard in the girl's voice when she asked 'why?' still tore at her heart. Especially since there had been no way to explain her reasons. Even if Chloe had been willing to listen to an explanation.

A slight burning in her eyes told Kirika that she'd better think about something else. The memories of that day were still painful, but then what did she expect? No matter how much time had past since it actually happened, she remembered it as if it had happened just a few hours ago. Because that's how long it had been for her.

Hours. Hours since she'd had to choose. Hours since she'd been willing to let herself die; only to be saved by Mireille's insistence. Hours since she'd become Noir. Or had she? She hadn't done exactly what Altena had planned, although the result was the same. Jumping in front of that bullet, and then... and then finishing the job.

No! She should focus on the here and now! She had to find that gallery and interrogate the woman called Joyce Summers, and she should get there fast. Enough time had already been wasted with that vampire, thing, creature, whatever it was. The damn thing should have died when she'd shot it, and not attack her despite its wounds. That sort of thing was simply unnatural.

So, yes she should hurry now before the gallery closed and the woman would be gone from there. Even while walking at a brisk pace, Kirika continued to pay attention to everything around her. Which was why she suddenly noticed it. The one name that she would recognize everywhere. The one name that she'd never forgotten.

Noir.

Somewhere inside that shop the ancient name was written down on something. How, why, or even exactly where, Kirika couldn't tell. She had seen the name out of the corner of her eye, and in any other circumstance she might have thought it a trick of the light. But not this time. Not here. A music store that also sold DVDs. Could this be the clue that would help her understand the diary? Was this what the entries had pointed to?

It made sense now that she thought about it. Don't keep the information where she lived, but create a fake entry in her diary that pointed in this direction. Even the map above her desk seemed perfectly normal, but it had specifically sent her along this path. So obvious now that she understood it. Of course, a public place like this would never be used as a drop point. Any information that she'd find here would be something that remained constant: like the number of Mireille's telephone.

For the second time that night she pondered the best way to gain access to a store. Shooting her way inside was probably not so good an idea this time around. Even if she had been willing to sacrifice another of her remaining bullets, she couldn't afford to do that. Without any idea of where to look inside the store it would probably take a long time to find what she was looking for. Well, she had some clues: the mentions of Jane and Sara in the diary. Perhaps they were singers, and the information she sought was stored by their CDs.

Back to the business at hand. Studying the lock, Kirika knew that she'd be able to force it open with the knives she had left. Casting a look around her, she verified that nobody was around to see what she was about to do. Turning back to the door, she pulled out one of her knives and set to forcing the lock.

When she finally heard the click that signified she could get in, Kirika started to look for the alarm. It was a fairly simple system—there probably wasn't much use in paying a lot of money for a good one in this town—which meant that it didn't take her long to disable. By the time she'd done that, her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and started looking around. First the CDs.

Rifling through the alphabetically sorted CDs, Kirika soon came to the conclusion that there were no artists called Sara or Jane. Where should she look then? Looking over the store, she suddenly smiled when she spotted the Anime section. Silly of course. In her diary she'd called Noir an Anime series, which meant that any clues would be there.

Walking over, she once again started rifling through a great number of sorted boxes, looking for any titles that might contain Sara or Jane in any form. When she went to the next case however, her heart suddenly stopped. No. Impossible. She wouldn't have left such an obvious clue, now would she? This was what she'd seen from the outside. It was there, clearly to see for everybody who entered the store.

Seven different white boxes proudly proclaiming the word Noir.

Kirika felt her stomach plummet to the ground, while fear soared through her as she slowly started to realize the truth. No. "It can't be," she whispered in denial. Stepping away from the display, and letting the case she was holding fall to the ground, Kirika walked to another section of the store. This couldn't be. It was simply too cruel.

Okay. Calm down. It's simply a very well executed cover. Something nobody would even think of. After all, what were the chances of this actually occurring? 'Everybody's changed into their costumes, except for you, Dawn.' No! Dawn was a cover. It had to be. She was real, not some fantasy thought up by an artist. Mireille was real. Chloe was real. They were all real. She could clearly remember talking to them, fighting with them, killing people. It was all real. Kirika Yumura did really exist.

Despite what she tried to convince herself though, Kirika was slowly starting to believe that maybe she hadn't dressed as herself after all. That maybe this Dawn girl, the one with the ridiculous diary entries, had dressed like her. There had even been an entry about something like that. How she and those two friends had gone to buy their outfits, and in later entries she'd explained that her friends couldn't come.

To Kirika that had seemed like covering herself: invent something that would explain why she was dressed like herself, and then remove the reasons for why she'd done that. But now... No! Gathering her courage, Kirika walked back to the DVDs she'd spotted earlier and took one of them at random. Reading the back, she noticed that the summary of the story didn't sound the least familiar—in fact, it seemed completely focused on Chloe—and she almost let out a sigh of relief.

And then her eye fell on the summary below it.

"No." Only a whisper, but she felt the pain throughout her entire body. The pain of abandonment. The pain that told her that perhaps hadn't really been on a job here. The pain that explained some of the strange things that she'd simply ignored because they weren't important.

For a moment the pain disappeared as Kirika thought of something else. Somebody had done this to her. There was someone who had been the cause of this. Somebody had done this to her for fun. Because there was no good reason for anyone to do this. There simply wasn't. Using people for entertainment was wrong.

Using Noir for entertainment was suicidal.

She had been torn away from her one single chance at happiness and been dropped in this world where her partner didn't exist. Somebody had done that to her. On purpose. And when she found out who had done this they would find out why she was known as the thousand year darkness of Europe.

That would have to wait though. The only people who might know who was behind this were still at the house where the girl lived. The girl who was no more at fault than she was. That at least was clear from the fact that she hadn't even known about the existence of magic.

Kirika tried to swallow away the lump in her throat as she was no longer able to focus on her anger. The pain of what was done to her could no longer be contained, and she felt the hot tears trailing down her cheeks. She should leave this place. G-go back to the others. Find out who was behind this. Stop staring, turn around, and leave.

She couldn't. Instead Kirika Yumura, Noir, greatest assassin alive, fell to her knees and, covering her face in her hands, cried her heart out.

x.x.x

Xander had been happy. Until now. The plan he had devised had been incredibly simple, but it had been sufficient to get them all out of harm's way. Willow had gone out through the front door—which had been opened for her—and upon seeing the group of tiny and bigger terrors she had uttered a cry of fear, and ran away. Seeing such a tasty morsel the demons hadn't taken any time to think and had followed.

It had worked, and they had gone after the girl. Despite their initial bafflement of where Dawn could have gone, Cordelia had tactfully—for her at least—explained that there was only one logical place for a frightened little girl to go. Her mother.

As Cordelia also knew that the woman owned a gallery, and would be there this evening, she would lead them to it. After all, she had claimed, she was the only one of them with enough class to actually recognize a gallery on sight. Naturally that comment had sparked another one from Buffy. Still, despite the ongoing fight, they hadn't really encountered any problems. Until now.

They had only walked a couple of streets so far, but right now the group was staring at what Xander had to admit was one of the most strange and sickening sights he'd ever encountered. A man lying on the ground. Except he wasn't lying there voluntarily. The knives sticking from his throat, and the obvious gunshot wounds—including one through his head—were pretty obvious signs that this had been done to him.

"Now that guy is Dead, with a capital D," Xander said, feeling slightly nauseated by the savage way the man had been murdered.

"He's a vampire," Angel contradicted him.

"What?" The smell of blood hadn't been as bad as he had expected it to be, but that could be explained by other things. Although, now that he paid closer attention, he could see that there actually wasn't as much blood as there would have been with a human being. "Why isn't it moving then?"

"Whoever did this managed to wound him enough that he won't be able to get up for a while."

"You mean bullets do work?" Xander demanded incredulously. If that was the case, why hadn't Willow said so?

"They won't kill a vampire, but we aren't immune to them."

"So if I'd shot their knees out from under them, those vampires earlier wouldn't have stood a chance?"

"Yes, but-"

"How long?" Cordelia interrupted Angel with a tiny voice, obviously not faring very well under the sight. At least she wasn't emptying her stomach like the noblewoman though.

"Unless someone removes the knives? Or maybe all he needs is for his brain to be repaired. Even that could take a long time though."

Yeah sure, answer her question. Oh whatever. There was no use in continuing to argue about it; he'd better find out how effective this was. "So what you're saying is that, unless someone does something, it will be here to greet the sunrise in the morning?"

"Yes."

"And then it'll become extra crispy right? Or isn't that true either?"

"That's true alright, he'll burn to death then."

"Ewww."

Xander looked at Cordelia, who had uttered that sound of disgust. "What's wrong with that? I vote we leave it were it is."

"What?" The exclamation of surprise came from all three of his companions, including even the stereotypical blonde who had recovered a bit by now.

"Well, I doubt anyone's gonna save it, and for some reason I really don't want to mess with the plans of whoever left it here."

"How do you know this is what he wanted?"

"Do you really think that there is someone in this town who is capable of doing something like that," Xander started while pointing at the body,"but who doesn't know enough about vampires to put a stake in it? And it's not like there isn't enough wood lying around. No buddy, that's really grasping for straws."

"You might be right," Angel conceded. As if there could be any doubt about that. "In any case, we should hurry. This might be a vampire, but we don't know for sure that whoever did this wouldn't do the same to a human."

"Dawn," Xander realized, his worry about the little girl increasing. "Let's go."

He quickly started up again, leading the group until he arrived at a crossroad. Which was where he needed to bite the bullet. "Which way?"

"Oh, so suddenly you can ask again?" Cordelia huffed.

"Don't. The girl might be in danger. We don't have time for this."

"Yeah yeah, I know. Turn right. Just remember that you needed my help."

Not bothering to pay the girl any more attention, Xander continued on. Several more turns had to be made, but when Cordelia told them they were almost there—just two more blocks—he discovered that the plan hadn't worked all that great after all.

Without any hesitation, he raised his rifle and aimed it at the blond vampire who suddenly appeared from the shadows. Not that it stopped the rest from showing themselves as well, but maybe it would buy them some time. Time he could use to think of a way to get out of this situation. If they had seen the vampire, they might think he'd been the one to do that. Now that would give them an advantage.

Unfortunately, from their actions it soon became clear that they hadn't seen the vampire. Regarding him with a slightly curious look on his face, it was the blond who spoke up. "Put that away boy, I'm here for the Slayer. If you're a good boy I might even be so good as to let you live. Today."

"No Spike, you know I won't let you get her."

"If it isn't the great poof himself! What are you doin' here? Trying to save your precious little Slayer? I think you might have a teeny bit of a problem when it comes to that. You see I brought me own mates along. They might not be the largest blokes on the block, but they sure listen well."

While the blond megalomaniac was boasting, the brunette had also seemed to have gotten out of her trance and noticed Angel. "Daddy!"

Daddy? Turning to the bloodsucker on his own side he silently asked for an explanation.

"I turned her," Angel admitted with obvious reluctance.

Well, that was unexpected. "You really should learn to clean up your own mess then."

The blond had stopped boasting however, and Xander prepared himself for the attack. Tactically the best thing for the vampire would be to send the tiny demons in first. They would distract Angel and him, leaving the way free to the girls. The girls he felt he had to protect. Which put him at a quandary. Kill the transformed children, or allow the girls to die.

There was no real choice, and making his decision Xander prepared himself for the attack.

….…

What happened? Suddenly Xander found himself with his friends, and Deadboy, standing in a circle of crying children without any idea how he'd gotten there. For some reason he was pointing the fake rifle at those same children. Noticing this, he quickly put it away before anyone could comment on it.

"Spike!" Spike? Looking up he now noticed that the vampire was here as well, but as it had been Buffy who'd called the vampire's name he was sure that no harm would come to these children. Buffy would deal with the big guys, and the rest could be handled by him and Angel. And not even that proved necessary as the bloodsuckers turned around and ran away like the cowards they were.

Which was good, as he was actually still far too confused to do a good job of fighting. Where were Willow and Dawn? They were supposed to be with them, weren't they? And where had Cordy and Deadboy suddenly come from? He was about to open his mouth to ask those questions when the memories of the evening suddenly returned to him.

"Oh shit." He hadn't really said all those things, had he? Turning his horrified eyes to Cordelia, he already saw the predatory grin that implied she was going to enjoy herself, at his expense. Cordelia was the least of his worries however. The bigger problem was that he hadn't exactly been tactful where it concerned his friends. His friends: the working ghost and the noblewoman who he'd tried to get into his bed.

There was only one thing he could do about that now. So he repeated his earlier statement. "Oh shit."

x.x.x

When Buffy finally reached the gallery—which was after she'd ensured the little kids would be alright with the others—she found Dawn sitting on the steps to the entrance. Even from a distance it was obvious that her sister had been crying, an action that had ruined all the carefully applied make-up. She had stopped though, and Buffy thought it might be safe to approach the girl now. She probably wouldn't get too many hurtful comments while Dawn was still trying to come to terms with everything that had happened.

"Hey," she tried, while sitting down next to the younger girl.

"Hey." The reply didn't sound anywhere near as confident as she would have preferred, but it would have to do.

"Mom was gone when you arrived?"

A nod was the only answer to that rather useless remark.

"There was a reason I didn't tell you about all of this."

"Tomorrow."

"What?"

"Explain it tomorrow, I need to think first." Well, that made sense so she decided to cheer up her sister a little.

"Well, you always were the smart one. I've never been one to think things through."

"Yeah, I noticed that." Well that wasn't nice, but before she could comment Dawn finished her sentence. "Milady."

"That's not fair. That so wasn't me, and you can't hold it against me." At least Dawn hadn't seen how she had called that car a demon; the girl would have never let her forget something like that. Unfortunately others had seen it, and they might tell Dawn. Hmm. Well, that was a problem for another time.

The younger girl offered a small smile in response, and Buffy was relieved that things were still sort of alright between them. There was still a lot of work to be done, but for now it was at least a good start. Rising to her feet, she extended her hand to Dawn. "Let's go home, mom is probably worried."

As Dawn wordlessly allowed herself to be pulled up, Buffy looked over her costume and felt a shiver run down her back. At least her sister had been spared from being subjected to the spell. She didn't know a lot about the character Dawn had dressed up like, but from what she had been told she knew that it wouldn't have been a good thing to have a cold-blooded killer on the loose.

"I'm glad you weren't affected. Had you turned into your assassin you would have probably run around killing people or something. At least with me it was just embarrassing."

A long silence followed that remark before the shocked little girl finally answered. "Yeah, lucky me."

The tone of Dawn's voice was so strange that for a moment Buffy was shocked into silence. Had she been so strongly affected by these events? That called for a distraction. But where to start? The two of them continued their walk in silence, until in the end it was the younger sister who broke it. "I can't imagine what everyone's gonna say Monday."

"Probably nothing," Buffy replied. When Dawn then turned to her with a questioning glance, she explained a bit more. "By tomorrow most of them will have forgotten about the weird stuff that happened tonight, or they'll believe that it was only a strange dream."

"How can anyone forget about this?"

"I don't know, they just always do."

"Always? How long have you known about this sort of thing?"

"Almost two years."

She could almost see Dawn calculating and when the question came it wasn't unexpected. "The gym?"

"There was a master vampire."

"They come in masters?"

Finally thinking of a way to get her sister's mind of the events of tonight Buffy smiled. "That's what Xander asked when he was the soldier."

"Really? Well I guess it's true then what they say about great minds."

Okay, she was willing to help her get over things, but that comment was just too much. Something was needed to even the scales a bit again... Remembering what she had discovered moments before the spell hit, she knew knew exactly what to say. "Sure, oh god."

"What?"

This was embarrassing to say, but if the reaction was anything like she hoped it to be, it would be worth it. "I just thought of the most embarrassing thing I did tonight." Hook, line and sinker. Dawn looked at her with eager eyes, always willing to hear embarrassing stories about her. "I kissed Xander."

A moment of silence followed that statement, and Buffy almost felt as if the entire world held its breath for the coming explosion. "WHAT!"

She decided not to let the sister suffer too long though—not tonight at least, that could come once she was back to her normal behavior—and smiled to show the girl it wasn't as bad as she probably believed. Briefly sketching the circumstances in which it had happened, and the look on Xander's face, she decided to use her new weapon anyway. "So, you like him, don't you?" There were no limits to what could be used in this private little war called sibling rivalry.

The way Dawn blanched answered the question, but the girl was smart enough to try a denial. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Do so."

"Don't," Dawn answered in what soon turned into a heated yes-no thing that lasted until they reached their home.

x.x.x

Once again Dawn was sitting and waiting for something to happen. After returning home she had gone directly to bed, leaving her sister to explain why the two of them had returned so late. No matter how hard she tried though, sleep simply didn't come.

Every time that she closed her eyes, images appeared in her mind. Images of days that she could remember with astonishing clarity. Days that never really happened. Images of events that never really took place, and were only imagined by some Japanese artist.

She couldn't get them out of her mind!

Even now, simply sitting by the open window of her room and looking at the moon, she was reminded of what Mireille had termed the mad tea party. A reference she—no, not she: Kirika—hadn't understood at the time. She on the other hand knew exactly what it alluded to. Huh, she huffed, alluded to. Even her vocabulary had changed because of what had been done to her. And not just in English either.

Looking at her hands, Dawn wondered why they felt so dirty. She had never spilled the blood of a human being. She had never killed anyone. Memories immediately showed up to tell her she was lying. Memories of how she turned into a killing machine shortly after meeting Mireille and the two of them were attacked on that construction yard. Memories of standing in the cold snow of a Russian winter, waiting until the children would leave the old man's side. Memories of meeting the little girl who's father she'd killed minutes before.

No! That wasn't her! And besides, they weren't real! They were fake, only characters!

Memories of how the three of them had killed what appeared to be half the Parisian police force. Memories where she faced off against some of the best the Cosa Nostra could bring to bear, while worrying how Mireille was facing against the Intoccabile.

They were characters!

Despite her own denial, Dawn couldn't stop the tears that started to slowly roll down her face. They were characters, but for every memory she had that contained somebody she killed there was also the memory of someone like the little blonde girl who had bowed to her because of her status as Noir. A little girl who hours after doing so had been gunned down by members of Soldats. Soldats who were trying to prevent Kirika from completing the ritual.

All the thinking she'd done since going to her room had helped Dawn make up her mind about one thing though. She couldn't tell Buffy the truth about what had happened. During their walk home she hadn't said anything because she needed to consider what had happened, including the fact that demons and vampires existed. Oh, and then there was that tiny barely important thing about her sister knowing that. No, she not only knew about them, she was also a hero who fought those creatures on a daily basis. Yet, she never told Dawn about it. Not once.

And as a hero hunting bad guys Buffy would never understand what it meant for her to be Noir. She would never be able to understand that being Noir was so much more than simply being good at killing people. It was even more than being the very best in that field, more than being at a level that everybody else in the business could only dream about. The true legacy of Noir meant that she was meant to protect humanity from its own evil.

Buffy would never see that, and Dawn could understand that. The distinction between being pure evil and merely a rather dark gray was difficult to make. She knew her sister well enough to realize that for Buffy there was no such thing as mostly good, or mostly evil. There was good, as represented by her, and there was evil, as represented by everyone who tried to kill her.

If Buffy found out that after the spell had ended Dawn hadn't returned to being her normal self there would be a confrontation. A witch-hunt so to speak. Not to kill Dawn, not even to hurt her if that could in any way be avoided, but to save her. And that was the most frightening aspect: that Buffy would try to save her from herself. That she would do all she could in order to make her sister like she used to be. To once again make sure she was the normal Dawn.

Buffy wouldn't rest until she'd ensured that Dawn was saved from whatever had happened tonight. Which was so totally unnecessary that it wasn't even funny. There was nothing wrong with her. For a certain definition of wrong that is. One that Buffy wouldn't agree with. So she had to do her best to hide what had happened from her sister. Something she was pretty sure would become more difficult over time.

There was something that even now she was conflicted about. Earlier that day she had been so sad that neither of her friends were able to make it. Jane being ill, and Sara having to go out of town. Now that she knew what would have happened if they'd come, she wasn't really sad about it anymore. Just imagining what would have happened if Jane had turned into Chloe was enough to make her shiver, and she silently thanked whatever God might be listening that her friend had been spared that ordeal.

Wiping the tears out of her eyes, Dawn once again turned to staring out of the window in the hope that the dawning of a new day would cheer her up. Maybe even make her forget about the things she had lost tonight.

Not even a single muscle seemed to move while she was waiting, but when the sun finally rose over the horizon she didn't see the powerful colors it radiated. Instead, all that she could see was darkness. The darkness that was now inside of her, and punctuated by the one thing she couldn't stop thinking about.

She was Noir.

And yet...

She was alone.