Dawn opened her eyes. She initially thought that she was still in the CEO's office, until she noticed that she was lying on a bed and covered by warm blankets and sheets.
Sitting up, she saw that she was in a hotel room. Nothing special, it wasn't the Hilton, but it certainly wasn't a Motel 6, either. It was dark (the lights were off), but she could make out a few details. For example, the room contained twin double beds, a bathroom, and a television that rested on top of the dresser in front of the beds. Light peered out from underneath the curtains on the room's large window; apparently it was daytime.
Putting her legs over the side of the bed, she stood up, and nearly fell; she was still weak from the blood loss, although she had recovered quite well. Looking down, she saw that she was wearing a white bathrobe; someone must have put it on her while she was unconscious.
Peering out the window, she saw that the room was on the second floor; she could see part of the parking lot from the balcony outside the window. She guessed that it was sometime in the afternoon. Closing the curtains again, she found the light switch, and flicked it on.
She saw that her purse was lying on the other bed. On hangers next to the bathroom hung the clothes that she had been wearing at Wolfram and Hart. She walked toward them, wanting to put them on, but decided against the idea when she found that they were wet.
What's going on? What am I doing here? Why am I still alive? Are the others alive? Questions such as these went through Dawn's mind over and over again. For a split second, she even found herself wondering if she had indeed died and was now in a bizarre purgatory of sorts.
Dawn was feeling rather gross, so she decided that it would be best for now to take a shower. Stepping into the bathroom, she locked the door behind her and shed her robe. As she was walking toward the shower stall, however, she glimpsed something in the bathroom mirror, and turned towards it. When she saw what covered most of her body in the image reflected back at her, she shrieked.
--
Andrew unlocked the door to the hotel room and let himself in. By this time, he had thrown away his suit and changed into brand-new clothes, including a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, and a green t-shirt. In one hand, he carried a plastic shopping bag. He saw Dawn as she yelped and turned away from him, hastily pulling the sides of her bathrobe together and tying the belt. Her hair was wet; she had obviously just finished showering.
"Hey, princess, glad to see you're feeling better!" He set the bag down on Dawn's bed. "I went out and got you some new clothes."
"Andrew…hey…what's going on? Where are we?"
"We're in Naples. It's a rather long story, princess, I'm not sure to begin…"
"The last thing I remember is you sitting next to me in the office holding my hand."
"Ah, okay. To start with, you went unconscious. A little while later, an earthquake happened, and…"
"An earthquake?"
"Yeah, I can't really explain it, but the building just started shaking violently. I decided at that point that that was the best time to get you out of there. So I opened the door, and picked you up in my arms. Luckily for us, it turned out that the other employees of Wolfram and Hart were also trying to escape from the building, so no one tried to stop us in all the confusion. When I got outside, it was raining cats and dogs."
So that's why my clothes were wet, thought Dawn.
"We didn't get out a moment too soon; the building started collapsing a moment later. I carried you a couple blocks before my arms got tired; then I hailed a taxi and paid the driver a lot of money to get us as far away from Rome as possible."
Dawn looked at him in puzzlement. "That's great. But there's two questions I need answered. First, why the hell are we still alive? Second, did you by any chance have the cab driver stop by a tattoo parlor on the way here?
Andrew turned away from her, and took a breath. "It started when we were back at the apartment for the last time…"
--
"In addition to helping Dawn take out the CEO, you're job is to ensure that she never makes it back to the rendezvous point," said Buffy, her voice barely staying even.
"What?"
"Do you realize what the armies of the Senior Partners will do to us? They will probably and literally tear us to pieces, and we'll be lucky if we're dead before then. You are to have Dawn take one of these pills. Mix it into her drink or whatever; just make sure that she takes it after you two are done with the CEO. She must be spared the painful death that would inevitably follow," replied Buffy.
"What do the pills do?" replied Andrew, fear growing in his voice as he already had a strong guess.
"I just mixed these pills myself today, using a little magic," replied Willow. "The ingredients are very hard to obtain; I could only scrounge up enough for two."
"They will make Dawn invisible to the Senior Partners," said Buffy.
"How will they do that?" asked Andrew. Willow answered.
"I found an ancient text recently that showed symbols that made one invisible to all but the naked eye; the person would not even show up on video cameras. The Senior Partners, not physically being in this dimension themselves, will not be able to see Dawn if she has the symbols protecting her, and that way won't know where to send their armies."
"What the pills do, Andrew," said Buffy, taking a step toward him, "is tattoo the symbols onto the body of whoever takes the pill. You must, and I repeat must, get her to take the pill and get out of Rome. I know that she won't take this well; she really wants to fight beside us in the battle, but you must do whatever is necessary to keep her safe and away from the rendezvous point."
"Can I ask you something?" asked Andrew.
"Sure," replied Buffy.
"Why her, or me, for that matter? Why can't either of you take the pill instead? Dawn and I have no special powers; the world needs you guys more than it needs us."
"We need the two of you to tell others what happened here. Besides, once the Partners' tempers have calmed down a little, they won't give a damn about finding two normal humans; they'll be satisfied enough with having eliminated three Slayers, a witch, and the Head of the Watcher's Council."
"I'm afraid the pills are rather slow-acting, but they're painless; Dawn won't feel a thing," said Willow.
"So will you do it?" asked Buffy.
--
"I would not have taken my pill, but you were in grave condition, princess, and Buffy told me to protect you, so I had no choice but to take it so I could stay with you."
Andrew turned back toward Dawn, and nearly cringed when he (not unexpectedly) saw tears forming in her eyes.
"How could you, Andrew? You know that I wanted to fight alongside her. How could you do that to me?"
"Believe me, Dawn, it hurt me to do it, but Buffy did give me orders and trusted me with them."
"Fuck her orders, Andrew! I wanted to be with my sister at the fucking end!" Andrew cringed, both at Dawn's screaming and at her language. Every cell of his body told him to back away from her. Swallowing hard, he slowly stepped forward instead.
She suddenly started pounding on his chest, cursing at the top of her lungs. "You fucker! I wanted to be there! How fucking could you? How…" She finally stopped and broke down, putting her face against his shoulder and sobbing heavily into his green t-shirt.
--
A while later, Dawn was sitting on her bed, watching TV (luckily, the hotel got CNN in the English language). She had put on the new outfit that Andrew had bought her; it consisted of a pair of blue jeans, and a long-sleeve maroon shirt. Dawn actually liked the outfit quite a bit; at least Andrew had some taste when it came to women's fashion.
"In an unprecedented event, two riots occurred simultaneously on opposite sides of the world," said the female reporter. "One was in Los Angeles, while the other took place in Rome, Italy. While both riots lasted less than an hour, they left several people dead and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property. It is not known at this time whether the riots were racially motivated, although it has been reported by a few bystanders that many of the rioters had severely disfigured faces. The rioters were nowhere to be found afterward. We now go live to Daniel in Rome." The camera switched to a thirty-something man with brown hair and glasses.
"Thank you, Jennifer. The scene here is terrible; there is much destruction and chaos here. The authorities have sealed off the area to the public for the time being, and as such, I can not give you more information on that at this time. However, I have just received interesting news that several miles away from the sealed-off area, in a mansion near the Colosseum, the body of 21-year-old Faith Lehane was discovered. Lehane was a convicted murderer who escaped a federal women's prison a little over a year ago in the state of California, and had been on the run ever since. It is unknown at this time whether her death was related to the riots. Back to you, Jennifer."
Dawn had already cried all the tears she could cry on Andrew's shoulder, and so did not cry this time. She simply stared as the female news anchor moved on to another news item.
"Alright. Sorry for bothering you…just make sure to give me a call if you hear anything." Andrew hung up the phone.
Dawn turned and looked at him. "Nothing?"
Andrew nodded. "I called Robin Wood over in Cleveland, the Slayer School that Kennedy and Willow taught in Brazil, and the Watcher's Council headquarters in London, and none of them have heard any word about survivors. Oh, yeah, and nobody was answering in L.A.; I think the Wolfram and Hart building got destroyed there, too."
Dawn turned back to the TV. "Faith's dead; I guess she didn't survive her fight with D'Sulok."
Andrew sat down on the bed beside her. Neither of them said anything for a few minutes (though it seemed like an eternity). Finally…
"C'mon, princess. It's going to be at least hours before they report anything new. In the meantime, we really should get something to eat."
Dawn slowly nodded and turned off the television. The two of them got off the bed, and walked hand-in-hand out the door.
--
Author's Note: HURRAY! After three weeks, it's finally finished. I have to admit, I'm actually rather proud of myself; I was so afraid at times that I would hit writer's block and allow this story to disappear into the dustbin of unfinished WIPs.
I hope sometime in the future to possibly do a sequel (perhaps bringing in Connor and other characters), but I think that for the time being, I'll stick to one-shots (this fic was really time-consuming!).
Anyways, I hope you liked it, and thanks for staying with the story. And no, I cannot answer at this time whether the Original Four survived or not.
Very special thanks to those who left feedback, especially AscaDuin and Allen Pitt. Make sure to leave more feedback, so I can know what you thought of the story as a whole.