Chapter Seven
"Dawn." Kathryn interrupted her rant as tears sprang into her eyes. The girl turned to her. "Even if they didn't know, I do. I promised that I would look after them, and I meant it."
"I know you will, Kathryn, but will you still love her?" Dawn suddenly demanded in S'Terran. "You know what 'N'mina' means. You know that she loves you. You know that she would have wanted to claim you had you survived. You belong together. She's already confirmed it, and neither of you even realized it."
"What?" Kathryn went completely still. "What are you talking about?"
"The kiss. When she kissed you, it had a flavor, right?" Dawn asked. "Something elusive, but so delicious that you immediately wanted more?"
Kathryn nodded dazedly, forgetting about their confused audience.
"It's a special enzyme in their saliva that only a potential mate can taste." Dawn informed her with a small smirk. "It provides the potential mate with an incomplete genetic code that, when complete, makes them equal to their S'Terran mate."
"Captain, would you care to let the rest of us in on your conversation?" Chakotay requested with a vaguely acrimonious tone that immediately caught her attention. She turned to him with a raised brow and his tattoo twitched as he responded to the faint glare in her eye, but he continued. "The rest of us can't understand a word the young lady is speaking, although somehow you can."
"I can speak their language because they know me, they trust me and they need someone to communicate with." Kathryn said shortly. "As for what we were talking about, there is a reason she decided to speak to me in the other language, so you can all consider it classified. Although I will need to speak with you regarding it, Doctor."
"Of course, Captain." He said after a moment. They all looked a little startled.
"Dawn, we'll talk about this later." Kathryn told the girl. "In private."
Dawn studied the Captain for a long, tense moment, then finally nodded. "Do you need anything else from me? I want to spend some time with Buffy and the others before I have to go."
"If I have no basis to work with, how will I able to treat them?" The Doctor immediately asked.
"You don't. Their bodies reject all foreign pathogens. Their immune systems work about five times faster than the average human. Seven of Nine will become ill before they will. They heal at about the same rate. Broken bones and such would be half healed by the time they reach Sickbay."
"Are they a security risk?" Chakotay asked.
"Of course they are." Dawn grinned. "They're as much a security risk as you Marquis."
It was a carefully aimed phaser shot that struck with the force of a photon torpedo. There was complete silence in the room as everyone waited to see who the First Officer would respond, but before he even opened his mouth, Dawn continued.
"Piss them off, and they are quite capable of killing everyone of this ship. Lucky for you, not only is that against their nature, but they also like and respect your captain enough that even Buffy is willing to follow where she leads. Within reason, of course. However, Mr. Chakotay, if you try to push her like you're trying to push me, you could find yourself in a world of hurt."
- - - BtVS - - ST:Voyager - - -
An hour later, Dawn was sitting next to her sister in a hidden coven, soaking up holographic rays and drinking holographic Mai-Tais along with Willow and Faith.
"What happened after we left?" Buffy asked. "Did humans really hunt down the remaining Slayers?"
Dawn's expression turned sad. "They did. The government contracted Wolfram & Hart to track the new Slayers as they were activated."
"The Powers just let that happen?" Buffy felt heartbroken, almost betrayed. After everything that Slayers sacrificed for them, The Powers didn't even see fit to protect their own Champions.
"The Powers aren't allowed to interfere with humanity's free will. They made the decision to slaughter their own protectors after they felt that they no longer needed them. It was a decision made out of fear, yes, but a decision made without demonic influence. That is one of THEIR unbreakable rules. Thankfully, my warning gave Giles enough time to make plans. He managed to create shelters for some of the slayers and their families, hidden by the strongest magics that he had Willow create before you all left. They still slay, but they are forced to use very strong glamours and shielding spells. Right now, with the majority of the demons destroyed and none of the active Hellmouths strong enough to need a Slayer, the Line is going dormant. It will be reactivated when the demon population begins to grow strong again."
"What about Giles, Xander, Anya and you, Dawnie?" Willow asked. "What about Kennedy and the others that stayed behind?"
"After you all left, Giles used the Council Funds to purchase an island. We moved the Council Headquarters there after shielding it with the strongest wards and magic guards we could get our hands on. I finally went to college in Rome, and created a business translating obscure manuscripts. Xander and Anya got married and had twin girls that he named after his two best friends. Giles finally fell in love with one of the Coven members, and they got married. We had good lives." Dawn took a deep breath before continuing. "Kennedy, well, Kennedy tried to rule the Slayers instead of lead them. She treated them like they were her personal army. It worked for her at first, but the others quickly got tired of it. By the time the humans turned on them, Kennedy tried to convince them that Slayers were the saviors of Humanity and that it was Buffy that had been the problem, and that now that she was gone, there was nothing to worry about."
"What?!?" Willow was flabbergasted.
Dawn nodded. "She was on national television and everything. She told them how, when you guys were in high school, she used Willow's and Xander's need to belong to brainwash you into being her personal monster bait. Xander was going to go after her if I hadn't stopped him. She told them that Buffy had you all so snowed under that you were willing to follow her to another universe to be with her lover, but that she, Kennedy, had refused to leave Earth unprotected even at the expense of being with her own lover, meaning Willow."
"But we were never lovers." Willow exclaimed, confused.
"You know she wanted it, babe." Faith said. "If we hadn't hooked up, I'm sure you would have been."
"Anyway, it probably would have worked if she hadn't said that they should be thanking her for keeping them safe. Of course, that's when I had to step in."
Buffy looked at her sister. "Dawn, what did you do?"
"I questioned her right there in front of all those cameras." Dawn shrugged, unapologetic. "I asked her if she had to kill her first love to keep the world from being sucked into hell. I asked her if she died three times in the line of duty. I asked her if she had been dragged out of Heaven, and had to dig her way out of her own grave."
They all started at the brunette with wide eyes and open mouths. "What happened?" Faith asked, finally speaking.
Dawn smirked. "We nearly caused a riot, especially after the resurrection question. No one was really sure what to believe. So, they picked it up from there, firing question after question at Kennedy about what I had said. I took the opportunity to kinda melt back into the crowd and disappear. I had worn a disguise, so it was kinda easy to escape. After that, I laid low and concentrated on the Council. Kennedy never spoke to me again."
Faith burst out laughing. Buffy shook her head in reproach, but couldn't keep her amusement completely hidden, and hugged her sister in gratitude. Willow sat back in astonishment of what Kennedy had done.
"In the end, it just made things worse. When the Initiative files were leaked, and no, not by me, it backed up my claims about Buffy, but really freaked everyone out. They let the Slayers continue to take out the majority of the remaining demons but, when the reported sightings began to dissipate, the governments decided that they could police the demons themselves. Propaganda turned Humanity against the Slayers, using Kennedy's demand of thanks as a basis for stating that Slayers had a God complex and were demanding worship in return for continued protection that was no longer necessary, and the witchhunt began. Kennedy was one of the first to fall."
They all fell silent as they thought about the friends that they had lost in their old universe. Willow tried to understand what had made Kennedy act out like that. She never understood Kennedy's hatred of Buffy, but she knew that a lot of it was because Kennedy didn't know what it really meant to be a Slayer. Other than Faith, none of them did. They didn't know what it was like for all the responsibility to fall solely on one person's shoulders, because they had always had other to lend a hand. Willow knew, Xander and Giles knew, even Faith and Dawn knew to a lesser extent that, no matter how much they helped, in the end, it was almost always Buffy left to fight.
"What are you going to do about Kathryn?" Dawn asked suddenly. "Are you going to let her retreat behind her command like she told us that she used to do?"
"Of course not." Buffy snorted. "She knows better than that. If she doesn't want to be with me anymore, she's going to have to come up with a damn good reason besides just being the Captain."
Even as she said it, the thought of such a rejection made her chest ache. Falling in love with Kathryn had been the push that she had really needed to continue living instead of merely existing. When Kathryn had died from the blow meant for her, it nearly destroyed her. It had only been the knowledge that Kathryn's sacrifice would have been for nothing if The First won, that had allowed her to continue fighting. Buffy herself had almost not escaped the collapsing town because she had refused to leave Kathryn's body behind. Buffy and the Scoobies had left the newly activated Slayers in a safe place to recuperate while they took a trip to Indiana to bury Kathryn in her hometown. She wondered if the body was still there, since the bat'leth that they had buried with her obviously wasn't.
"Buffy, do you remember if you tasted anything in that kiss when Kathryn woke you up?" Dawn redirected her thoughts and an unconsciously sultry smile formed on the lips that caught both Willow and Faith by complete surprise.
"Yo, B, where'd you just go?" Faith asked. "Cause I definitely want to go there, too."
Buffy blushed to the roots of her hair as she dragged her mind from the fantasy it had wandered into. Until Kathryn, she had never allowed herself to relax enough to reveal the more sexual side of her personality. 'Dawn' may not of known all about her sister, but 'The Key' did. It had studied every Champion in that Dimension before decided which one would be its protector. Like all Slayers, Buffy had a hyperactive sex drive that constantly ran hot from all the fighting that she did night after night, but unlike most, Buffy's sense of duty and her natural inhibitions kept her libido firmly in check. Not to mention the fiasco that was Angel. That whole thing had left serious psychological scars on her psyche that had taken a very long time to heal. After that, she had repressed her needs until the clusterfuck called Parker Abrams. That had almost made her retreat back into her shell, but then she had met Riley, and at the time, Riley had been exactly what she had needed. When she had her affair with Spike, his vampire strength had given her the outlet that she needed to vent her rage at her friends as well as the sexual frustration she had pent up from her unfulfilled need for more aggression in her encounters. Kathryn had been everything she needed in a partner, even without super strength, and the Key had been glad for them. Kathryn had shown Buffy that her need for aggressive sex did not have to equal painful sex. Well, not unless they wanted it to.
"What kind of taste?" Buffy finally managed.
"I don't know. I didn't kiss her." Dawn smirked. "It would have been something faint, but you immediately wanted more."
Buffy thought back, forcibly keeping her focus to what Dawn was referring to. "I think I did taste something. I had just gotten a hint of it when we were interrupted. Why?"
"That is how you would recognize your mate." Dawn explained. "It's a special enzyme in the saliva of a S'Terran that only a compatible mate would taste. I told Kathryn about it earlier. It transferred an incomplete genetic code into her dna. Once you mate, the genetic code complete, and she'll be your equal. She won't turn ino a S'Terran herself, but she'll have most of your advantages, like strength, senses, healing and the like."
"Mate?" Faith said a little warily. "How's that work?"
"Through bites and blood, kind of like the Klingons of this Universe." Dawn answered thoughtfully. "It was one of the concessions, along with your very own version of the 'mating fire'. You've also got your adaptability from the Bajoran Prophets and your tele-emphatic bonding between mates from the Vulcan Holy Ones."
"So, Kathryn is my mate." Buffy marveled, a grin forming.
"Potential mate." Dawn corrected. "The enzyme merely identifies possible mates. In some cases, more than one. You and your mate have to take that final step on your own, though."
"What makes them compatible?" Willow asked curiously.
"Multiple mates?" Faith asked, smiling lavisciously at the thought. "Now, that sounds like fun."
"I don't know, Willow." Dawn answered the redhead and ignored Faith. "I do know that you'll be drawn to your mates. Something about them will call to something within you. It will happen in its own time, though. People who have known each other for years, will one day look up and be drawn to one another."
Willow looked thoughtful. There was something that Dawn was hinting at, but she couldn't quite grasp it. Faith was still in fantasyland, as was Buffy. Dawn merely smiled and lay back to enjoy the sunshine and sip her drink.