Chapter 26
Danielle waited for her mother and her brother to move out of sight. She had been more than happy to take out the demons that had been in the back yard of her grandmother and aunts house. But in a way it had hurt. She had been so close to her father yet she couldn't see him. Then she had heard her mother begin crying after the demons were dealt with. It was then that she knew that it was okay to see her father. Her mother wouldn't have cried so whole-heartedly if it hadn't involved her father. She knew her mum missed her dad like crazy, so seeing him but not touching him had to be eating her up right now.
She had told Michael to take their mum home and she would take a quick sweep of the town before heading back. It wasn't her fault that, by sweeping the town, she had to pass the house the three had just left. So it was now that she found herself out front of the house that now housed her father and her mothers' side of the family. She let out a deep breath to calm her nerves. She found it amazing that she could face the most deadly demons in the world, but getting up the nerve to walk up a pathway to a house was scaring the shit out of her.
She made her way up the pathway and up the steps of the porch and stopped dead in her tracks in front of the closed front door. She just stood there staring at it. After what seemed like a lifetime she finally decided to send out her power to one person in the house. She hoped he would remember what her power had felt like. Moments later the front door opened and she came face to face with…
Dawn had finally calmed down with the help of her three boys and her mother-in-law. But now she had three Carinton men fretting over her. She wasn't complaining she loved that they had so much of their father in them, but she missed her husband terribly. She wanted her husband back terribly, but she wouldn't risk anyone else's life for her own battle. As it was she felt horrid for having to let her babies fight, but she had learned a long time ago that you couldn't fight destiny. That was one of the reasons she hadn't taken Spike getting turned as hard as most would have expected. Before they had married she had given herself a pep talk, she had known that there was a chance that Spike's turning was written in that stars for him. She had accepted it before she had even been proven right.
She knew a long time ago that she could never stop him from being the man and/or vampire that he had to become. She would never change all the evil he had done either; everything he had done made him who he was. And that's all she needed to know to allow history to have happened. She knows she could have changed it. But to change history again would be to change her husband, and that was something she just wasn't willing to do, no matter how selfish it may have seemed to others.
And so it had been decided, before her youngest son was born, that she would allow her children to become whoever they were meant to be. She wouldn't stop them. That was the difference between her and Buffy, her existence and powers allowed her the opportunity to see that everything happened for a reason, good or bad, it didn't matter. If something was meant to happen, then she wasn't about to step in the way. No matter how much it hurt.
Will began to worry about Dani, she could tell by the way he was pacing the kitchen. Just like his father, when Spike felt like he was a caged animal, just waiting for something to happen. Dawn smiled at her youngest son and place one of her hands on his arm. He stopped his pacing to look at her, and she saw a man in her son's eyes, not her 13-year-old baby boy. "She'll be fine, Will. Don't worry; she just needs some time to think. That's all. She'll be fine, baby." She told her son in a soothing voice, it took a moment but she saw him relax, somewhat, and nod his head.