Author's note: Okay, now that's put my 2nd fave character back in the Story, I'm going to take you away from the thick of things and bring you right back to SunnyD. YAY! Don't you just hate me?

Lil' Candy-my faithful reveiwer who points out my mistakes or misteps (Thanks so much By the way-you make me think of ways to make the story better.) just pointed out that Buffy has been kinda Negative in this fic and she's the hero, well, in the beginning she's pregnant and now she's in over her head and SPIKE is calling the shots. She's gotta hate that. two things we're sure Buffy hates or hospitals and helplessness, right now, She can't really do much and that gets to her. She's also getting more and more attached and dependent on Spike which both scares AND infuriates her. now, I don't know about you, but if i was scared and infuriated and in over my head and had no controll over the situation-and I was used to being NONE of those, then I'd be pretty negative and whiny too. Don't worry, she'll get better.

Whee.. long AN... nevermind, That's just for Lil' Candy-thanks again.

and now on with the story!

Chapter XXVII - Back in Sunnydale

Dawn entered the magic shop.

It was a slow night in Sunnydale; in fact, it had been a year of slow nights. There had been very little happening since Buffy had disappeared.

Dawn felt that she could talk about it normally now, after all it had officially been years and not just a YEAR. It was all last year. She still missed her sister of course, but Dawn had to move on, Buffy would not have wanted her to grieve forever, after all, slayers had short lifespans.

Not that she didn't love her sister, and wasn't sad she was gone-she did, she was. She was angry with Buffy for a while, and then devastated that she was gone, and then had somehow settled back to accepting that Buffy was in a better place now, up in heaven annoying God.

And now finally her sister's friends were beginning to grasp that.

"Hello, Dawnie." Willow greeted, she was sitting on one of the chairs, sipping tea and reading a book-it didn't really look all that demon-y.

"Hi Willow, where's Tara?"

Willow's sunny expression darkened.

She and Tara had been having problems lately. Cringing at her own forgetfulness, Dawn decided not to push the subject. This was obviously one of the worse days, Willow had probably made big with the magic usage and Tara had probably come as close as Tara was capable of to losing her temper.

"Hey, Dawnster, what are you doing home so early?" Xander asked, he was sitting next to Willow pretending to read.

Dawn had been trying to keep busy after Buffy left, first it was because she wanted to distract herself from what she wanted to forget. However, not long after it was because she just enjoyed herself.

"My cheerleading practice was cancelled." Dawn explained shrugging.

"Cheerleading practice huh?" Xander said. "Who would ever have known in that I would ever be-friend a cheerleaders again? They were the cause of so many of my woes."

Willow looked up from her tea and shared a knowing look with him about the high school torments and their pom-pom toting tormentors.

"I won't start calling you 'geek-bags' I promise." Dawn said. "Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and help with research about the next bid bad."

Anya, who had been dancing around the room with a feather duster, 'dusting' the shelves (but really just moving the lint and particles around) stopped and stared at the late slayer's younger sister.

"That would work," She said. "Only there is no big bad." She paused and gestured vaguely. "Mr. stuffy-English over there has been busting his butt over all of the books because he thinks this is very 'curios' or another English word that would sound very bookish if spoken here in America."

Dawn nodded mutely, she had become more used to Anya's straightfordward albeit strange way of talking as she had begun to become more involved in the Scoobies' plans, now that the older Summer's girl was no longer present at the meetings.

"Thanks, Ahn, he's out back, Dawn." Xander put in helpfully. "Making with the musty researching."

"Thanks, Xander." the younger girl replied. "Don't you usually have work today?"

Xander nodded.

"Usually."

Dawn rolled her eyes.

"Any idea what tweed man is reading up on?"

Xander shrugged.

"Who knows. He's got time on his hands so he's trying to find out why there was no other Slayer called." he said shaking his head. "I'm telling you, he just wants to screw up another girl's life from the looks of it."

Dawn rolled her eyes and walked off.

As soon as she had gone, Anya walked to the far end of the store beckoning Xander to join her. He grinned and did so causing Willow to further focus on the book she was reading, both of them thought Xander and Anya were going to have some sort of couple-y make out session.

"Why couldn't I tell her?" she demanded instead.

"We'll tell them all soon, Ahn, I just-" Xander paused. "I just-I don't think its time yet."

Anya looked pouty.

"When will it be time?" she whined. She pulled a little velvet box out of her pocket and presented it to him. "I have this beautiful ring that you gave me but I can't even wear it, or show it to anyone and I don't understand why!"

Xander pulled her close to him.

"Ahn-"

"Its been a week already, Xander, since you pushed me into the back and I thought if was sex and then you gave me this and I still can't tell anyone and I love it so much because its shiny and it makes me love you more that-"

Xander stopped her rambling with a kiss.

"We'll tell them soon, Ahn, I promise." he assured her.

"We'd better." Anya said looking like a child who had just been scolded. "I want to wear it already."

Willow watched the two of them fight impassively, she didn't really hear what they were saying. They were too far and speaking to lowly and she really wasn't paying all that much attention.

She was thinking instead of the fight she had with Tara this morning.

Only this time it had become a pretty large screaming match, and Tara almost never screamed. Willow had just lost her temper and said a lot of things that she did not mean.

All of this nonsense had started a few weeks ago. The Scoobies had gone on a crazy dance party at the Bronze and Willow had had just a little too much to drink. The next morning she felt horrible hung over so when the sun had shone through the open window, Willow had magicked the blinds to keep the sunlight out. Then she stood magically changed and began to prepare her breakfast.

Okay, so she was exercising her power a little more than she needed to but then again, this had practically become a ritual. It wasn't like she was harming anyone by magically making the blinds shut.

But Tara had caught her and had gotten worried anyway.

"Willow, you should really tone down the magic splurging." She had cautioned. "If you k-keep using your magic for m-m-menial things you may just need it for something big one day and then it not work."

Willow had nodded and said she would keep her magic usage in check.

But, the next week she had a major exam that she didn't study well enough for so she cast a spell to make her stay up all night and would be in top shape the net morning.

Being her roomie, Tara had caught the red head in the middle of the spell.

She but had let that slide though, because she loved Willow and she knew that constantly nagging her lover would only serve to piss the redheaded witch of and possibly cause a fight.

So she just gave Willow a warning smile and went to study in the espresso pump.

But then the magic usage didn't stop.

Willow barely even noticed that she was doing most of it. It all just came so naturally to her.

"Seriously." Tara had begged. "Willow, stop. If something is so simple, in the first place, why do you have to use magic for it? Why not just do it on your own?"

Willow had countered.

"Because it's just more efficient this way." she had said apologetically. "I mean I'm not making it all spark-y and stuff, I'm just you know, exercising my power so that I won't get all rusty."

"Willow, I'm really beginning to get worried about you." her lover had said in her gentle tones.

At first her worry made Willow feel sort of loved, someone cared about her enough to worry about her well being. However, Tara had no reason to be worried. She was perfectly fine.

"You don't have to Tara, really." Willow had assured her. "I've toned down the magic usage, I promise."

She had promised Tara that a few days before, but she was late for her calculus exam that morning so she had changed magically and Tara had caught her. The blonde witch had been very angry, which to Willow was unfair, because it had only been that once, and it was an emergency, but the blonde witch was hearing absolutely none of it.

At first, Willow lashed out, demanding why this disturbed Tara so much.

She thought she was alright, why did Tara have to intervene? The blonde girl had gone on about how mystical forces would be exhausted when they really needed to use them and how this would be dangerous for Willow, but the red head had ignored her, feeling as if her girlfriend was just jealous that the red head had gotten so good at what she did. Willow had become such a talented witch, that she left Tara in the cold.

Tara would never have been able to do that Glory thing on suck short notice. she would need weeks of preparation and magic savage to even get her through half, much less the entire thing.

Even though Tara was a Wicca first, Willow had far surpassed her.

It was not that she had said this out loud, for she had not. Tara would never say anything like that, but simply because Willow was completely sure that this was the problem.

This made her pause and think, was she really just being a paranoid? Or was this her Wicca instinct trying to warn her of an even bigger storm coming up between the two of them?

Her lover would never be that horrid, would she?

Giles was sitting amongst the old musty books.

They were his only real consolation. After all, all these years he had been her Watcher, and aside for a short stint as a man of leisure a few years back when Willow and Buffy and such had all been about eighteen and in their first year of college he had never really been anything else.

When Buffy disappeared he threw himself into his books, not able to move on.

And now he was searching for the reason his Slayer was gone.

Why no one had been called.

The rules were implicit, once the slayer died, then the next was called, and when Kendra died, Faith was called even though Buffy was still very much alive. So why was there no new slayer? Could she possibly be another wild card? Another like Buffy who just fell out of the sky?

Giles supposed he should stop it, give up his search but there was something wrong about this whole thing. Just something prodding him and not allowing him to rest or maybe it was just in inner watcher.

"You can't hide from it forever, Mr. Giles."

Giles looked up to see Dawn Summers looking at him sympathetically.

"What do you want, dawn?"

Dawn looked from him to the training area.

"I want to be the new slayer."

Giles stared at her.

"I beg your pardon?" he demanded.

"I want you to train me to be a Slayer." Dawn said. "I mean, I have Summer's blood running through me-it's the same as Buffy's, that should count for something right? I know it's been really slow and all, but-"

"Dawn," Giles said as patiently as he could, "Its not just about the blood, being a slayer is-"

"Hard work, and being chosen and yadda and whadda and dhudda, I don't even have to be one." Dawn said. "Just teach me how to fight, teach me how to fight like Buffy, it would give you something to do other than throw yourself into the books. And I'd feel safer, walking home at night."

She said this all in one breath, it was rather obvious the speech was pre-prepared.

Giles whipped of his glasses and cleaned them. A habit he had never quite gotten rid of.

He hesitated for a little too long and Dawn was about to bring out her big guns. the phrase "Buffy would have wanted me to..." accompanied by tears. she was determined to move the scoobies out of the schlump that they had fallen into some months ago when Buffy had died.

Glory was gone, so she and her mother moved back to Sunnydale, only to find everyone still melancholy and sullen.

"I guess that," he said, pausing to glance around the training room. "There would be no harm in doing so."

Dawn nodded.

"So you'll train me?"

Giles thought for a moment, as if training dawn would somehow defile the memory of Buffy training here.

But this was part of moving on, Buffy was gone and he had to live with it. The girl he had always considered a daughter was gone, but she still left Dawn. Dawn was something powerful, something she was not even aware of, and it was still his duty to protect her.

Giles almost smiled, he had a duty again.

It was nice to be needed.

"Well, let's hop to it then, Dawn" he said. "We can start tomorrow."

Dawn nodded.

"Thursday, I have cheerleading tomorrow." she said.

Giles fought the urge to roll his eyes.

She was going to be more like Buffy than he thought.