Title: Miss Memory: Gaining Sisters, Losing Brothers
Chapter Summary: Buffy finds Dawn. Buffy's first actual death. This chapter is basically a little bit of her life as Buffy Summers, and not Buffy Potter.
Timeline: Post-S1, Pre-S2.
Prologue: pt.3:
Buffy woke up to the scent of bacon, pancakes, and strawberry syrup. She smiled as she heard her sister bounce out of bed. No one should be that perky in the morning.
She also remembered waking up to the house smells of food, and there was no bounce or giggle from the room next to her's. It was just a storage room then.
But she pushed those thoughts out of her head, and decided that Dawn was her sister, no matter if she had memories that were strange and did not include her sister. So she concentrated on the ones that had her sister in them, and eventually learned to block out the ones where she was an only Summers child.
She groaned as her sister jumped on her bed and pulled the covers off. Mentally, she played some images in her head of when it was her doing that to her brother at 12 o' clock in the afternoon.
She smiled then. She hadn't told anyone of the memories, and she wasn't planning to anytime soon.
But she promised herself that the next time she saw the man that took her from James, she planned to hurt him. Badly.
She remembered when she was the youngest, and she smiled. Now that she was the middle child, she was weirding out. Of course, she was the oldest as far as her mom, Joyce, and her dad, Hank, knew. She had power over her younger sister now, and she planned to use it as long as she could.
"Mom! Tell Dawn to leave me alone! It's my room!" She said in her whinny, putting voice that no one had ever been able to deny.
…Noted Time
Key:
/A time in the show/
/A time in my BTVS timeline/
/ "Buffy. Honey wake up. You don't want to be late for your first day of school." "No we wouldn't want that."/
/ "Hi. I'm Buffy."/
/ "Is there a problem ma'am?" "Yeah, who are you and why are you following me?" "I know what you're thinking. But don't worry: I don't bite."/
/ "Yeah, he's kinda cute... in an annoying sorta way."/
/ "Giles, I'm sixteen years old! I don't wanna die!"
That night, while Buffy tried to prepare herself for her imminent death at the master's hands, she looked through old photo albums.
There was a picture with five-year-old Buffy and a newborn Dawn in her arms, in a pink blanket. Her own golden blonde hair was slightly curvy around her own shoulders. She was smiling into the camera with a sleeping Dawn in her hands. She remembered that Dawn's hair was the same shade of brown that James had.
Another picture was of when they were both curled up in her bed. They were out cold for the night, and in Buffy's bed. Mr. Gordo lay between them, keeping them safe. It was Buffy's stuffed toy, but Dawn felt almost as safe with him. She herself was nine, and Dawn was four.
One of her favorite pictures was on the last page. It had them playing in the sand at the beach. Her parents hadn't started to fight yet, and they were blissfully unaware of the things that would start happening. Both of the Summers children were playing at the sand in their pink and purple bathing suits.
There was a sand castle with Barbie's placed around it, and Mr. Gordo on top of it like it was his throne. They had spent a few hours on it, and it really was impressive.
The sun was high in the sky and there were enough clouds to make it comfortable. They were both tanned, and neither had any sunburns yet, although both Joyce and Hank had burns.
They had played in the water hours after that.
Buffy remembered how, hours later, they had both gone home and made a fort in the front room with chairs and stools, blankets, pillows, and put snacks and flashlights in it. They had fallen asleep in it with smiles on their faces. The pillows had surrounded them in comfort and they hadn't had to wake up until ten the next morning for the Sunday breakfast they had every week.
There was a picture of the two of them sleeping there too. About two months later, the fights had started and they had built a fort in Buffy's large walk-in closet, making it like that fort, where they had board games and other goodies to amuse themselves while Joyce and Hank Summers fought.
She thought about a lot of her good childhood while she looked at the album.
Dawn came in later, and seeing the look on her sister's face, asked her what was wrong. Buffy changed the subject, saying that nothing was wrong, and they talked about some of their fun times. Dawn decided that Buffy was just being a little nostalgic for their childhood.
She changed her mind when Buffy started talking about something else.
"Promise me something Dawn." She had said out of the blue.
"What?" The younger Summers had asked, a little startled at the change of subject.
"You won't go out in the dark if I'm not with you." Buffy said, somewhat cryptically.
Dawn looked at her, and took in her appearance. She was kind of looking frizzy around the edges. "Sure." She said, not really sure what the hell her older sister was doing.
"Promise." Buffy said, demanding soundly.
"Fine, I promise that I won't go out alone at dark without you." Dawn said to her. She was starting to get worried.
"Good." Buffy said, and nodded.
Then they had changed back to lighter subjects and Dawn had left soon after. Joyce had come in soon after that, and shown Buffy the dress she had bought her for the dance that night. Buffy seemed happy about it, but kind of down about something else, but Dawn couldn't place why.
Before Buffy left the house though, she went to Dawn's room and showed off her dress. When she saw the longing look on her sister's face, as well as the thinking look on Dawn's face, meaning that she was worried, she sighed and smiled, and before her mom could finish climbing the stairs with a camera, she said, "I'll be back someday... right now, I just gotta get away." Buffy made it sound kind of comical. But even to herself, it sounded remorseful.
When she went out that night, Dawn followed her, knowing something bad was going on since Buffy hadn't told her: First to Willow's, and then to the library. When she left, it was night, and Dawn still followed her.
It wasn't as if she was breaking her promise. She was with Buffy. She just hoped her sister didn't realize it.
But Dawn watched as her sister followed the little boy that her sister apparently knew, and followed him down into the sewer system (Ewww! wouldn't you be grossed out too?!) and horrified, watched as the Master drank from Buffy, and left her in the water.
She was so shocked that she couldn't move, and was very glad when Xander and Angel came around a corner, and gave her CPR. She was too shocked to do anything.
She was about to follow when a fledgling was suddenly behind her. It grabbed her from behind, hauled her up, and laughed at her being so weak.
He was dust before Dawn realized what she was doing.
When she fell to the ground, she stared at the piece of wood she had taken from her sister's purse, and almost always carried around. She had staked a vampire without thinking, and hadn't had to do much. She leaned against a cement block and tried to push herself up; The cement beneath her hand crumbled and flung itself away from the force.
When she got her bearings back, she ran out of there and went to the school. That's where Buffy had said the Master was going. When she got there, she saw Buffy on the roof of the library, and the Master there as well.
'Buffy was right, he is like a pale bat in the face, only a lot uglier.' She thought.
Apparently, all of her senses were heightened. She concentrated as she hid behind a wall, and heard her sister. "I may be dead, but at least I'm still pretty, which is more then I can say for you." Dawn wanted to laugh, but the amount of vampires that were around would definitely be too much to take, even though many had already run.
/ "Yeah. Buffy died and everything."/
She waited until she couldn't see any more vampires, and stepped away from the wall. She had to quickly step back into hiding when she caught sight of the others. But she had already been seen by her sister, and only her sister and Buffy motioned for her to go home. The others didn't notice though. Angel was the only one that might have but he was watching Buffy's face mostly, and plus, she was busy talking. The others were ahead of them.
They had gone to the dance and had some fun. Even Angel, with his 17th century manners managed to have some fun with Buffy. Giles had a nice conversation with Ms. Calendar, and she even managed to drag the watcher out for a dance.
When Buffy got home that night, she went to her room automatically and both of the sisters talked. They slept in her bed like they did ritually when they were little.
Buffy sighed about the strength and super senses and stuff. She tested her and found that it was below beginning-slayer level, but she wouldn't know why she would have slayer powers. She checked again and sighed in relief that Dawn wasn't a potential. But it still didn't explain why she had strength.
Soon though, both agreed not to tell anyone, and still teach her. But Dawn wasn't allowed to use her strength unless it was a life and death situation, and it had to be used to save a life.
They agreed easily on some of the stuff and Dawn was kind of miffed not to be a potential or a slayer. But when Buffy filled her in on the prophecy, and she thought about how her life would be out of her hands, she was relieved.
/Later on, Buffy had found that Dawn wasn't a potential. She was already a Slayer./
When Buffy came home all upset and moody after that summer, it was only partially her death that was on her mind. It was more then nightmares of the Master, growing feelings for Angel from the fuzzy happy feelings starting in the alley. Her sister had been attacked, and a nest of vampires planned to eat her and possible turn the slayer's sister.
They had just kidnapped Dawn as bait, and Buffy had gone in. But Dawn had bled from a dumb fledgling, and she had had to use her strength, causing the vamps to move her. They planned to bleed her.
Buffy found them though and Dawn wasn't seriously hurt. The sisters, but mostly Buffy, took out the whole large nest of about 40 vampires. Buffy was very angry and her temper was high with it. When she returned to Sunnydale, she had run into a vampire that had managed to escape, and had killed it savagely.
It hit her that Dawn was in danger, and she had gone on defensive on everybody unintentionally.
Dawn had been very careful on how much strength and stuff she used more then ever, and she continued to do so.
The sisters were your average fighting like I-don't-get-along-with-and-hate-my-sister sisters in the public eye. But secretly, they were close, almost like identical yet non-identical twins would be, but not. The age thing was definitely part of it. Buffy trained Dawn secretly and it was hidden from the gang from the beginning.
Angel had caught them once in one of the old warehouses that were never used, but Dawn hadn't been using her strength, so they easily covered with Buffy telling him snidely that Dawn wanted lesson so she would have some.
Dawn had done some okay kicks that any normal person would be able to do with a tad bit of work, and he accepted the answer.
He left when Buffy said she was going to take Dawn home, and patrol. He would have usually met her, but the sun came out about two hours after he left, so he didn't have much time.
It was good that Dawn had the slayer ability to not need much sleep.
But the main thing that kept Buffy haunted, and made her want to kill everything around her; demonic bars carried the news further from the central British wizarding world. Voldemort had been defeated. But in the process, Lily and James Potter were dead.
TBC obviously. How am I doing? The las two chapters haven't changed much, I know, but at least my spellcheck sorta works now. And yeah, I realize it is kinda boring.