Author's Note: Quite possibly my favorite part of this story.

Enjoy!

A wasteland.

Charred and burned, corpses blackened and screaming out in pain and terror.

The remains of a city.

Dawn searched. Desperately searched for any sign of Seo. Any signs of anyone wandering around, having survived the blast, their skin glowing a faint gold and in the midst of serious regeneration sickness.

But the city was silent.

Dead.

"She can't be dead," Dawn told herself. "She… she can't really… be…"

Oliver.

That's where Seo would have gone, if she'd been having serious regeneration problems! She'd have stumbled back to Oliver, found refuge in there.

Dawn raced back to the ship. Stuck her key in the lock. Opened the door.

And was snatched back, hands shoved behind her and tied up, her aggressor handling her with a roughness and coldness that told her it could only be one person.

Gray shoved her inside. Then stepped forward, took the key out of the lock, and pocketed it.

"My ship, now," he said, closing the doors behind him. Surveying the ship in front of him. "Anywhere he's gone… I can find him. Make him pay."

"He probably doesn't even know you're alive!" Dawn said. "You can't just track him down and kill him. He's your brother."

Gray stepped up to the central console. Surveying it, with interest. "Easy enough to pilot," he decided. "Looks almost like fifty-first century technology."

Dawn tried to get up, undo the ropes.

"I wouldn't," said Gray, taking a gun out of his pocket and pointing it at her. "You really should have kept a better eye on me, like Seo told you. I've been up to all sorts of things, while you weren't looking."

Dawn cursed herself out inside her head. "You've been using me."

"No," said Gray. His eyes fixed on her. "I meant every word I said to you. You are the most beautiful, perfect woman I've ever seen." He turned back to the central console, pressing buttons and flipping switches. "But my life has only one purpose, Dawn Summers. I don't have time for things like love or friendship." He gave a bitter laugh. "All that died out long ago."

Dawn went still. Not provoking him.

Just stay alive. Get free, when he's distracted. Take your chance, and stop him, before he has a chance to murder anyone.

His brother.

Buffy.

Gray yanked on the final lever, a large grin on his face. As the ship began to judder into life. The mechanical circuits all clicking into a rhythm, as it pulsed with power.

Then…

Stopped. Groaned. And clunked off.

Gray stared. Tried again. Tried with different settings. Then tried switching around a few things. But, still. No departure.

The ship stayed put.

"No!" shouted Gray, in a fury, slamming his hands down on the console. "Why won't you work?!"

"Because the controls only work for me, of course," said a familiar voice, from Dawn's right.

Dawn turned, and… there, standing at the base of the spiral staircase… was Seo. Her blond hair just the same as ever. Her brown eyes staring, hard, at Gray. Her posture confident, dark, and menacing.

Gray swung the gun up and pointed it at Seo. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I found an odd energy signature in the city," Seo explained. "Thought it might be a bomb. I'd just nipped in here to get the tools I needed to trace and disarm it, when… boom."

Gray flicked the safety off the gun. Clearly, he wasn't going to let Seo survive a second time.

"Don't be thick," said Seo, with a sigh. "You can't shoot me. If I'm dead, this ship will never leave the ground."

Gray considered.

"Which means," said Seo, "of course, that you're about to point the gun at…"

Gray swung the gun around to point at Dawn.

But Dawn was ready.

Had already slipped out of the restrains, taken advantage of the distraction, and leapt to her feet. Moment the gun was pointed at her, she threw herself at him and yanked it right out of his hand, shoving him against the central console with a violence she hadn't expected. A violence that banged his head against the ground, and knocked him out, cold.

Then she turned to Seo.

Raced over, and grabbed her up into a tight hug.

God. She'd thought she'd lost her. Lost her forever.

"You knew," said Dawn. "About… Gray. You told me to keep an eye on him. You wanted him to stick around with us instead of going out into the world by himself."

Seo didn't answer.

"How?" asked Dawn.

Seo leaned down, picked up the restraints that had once been secured around Dawn. Her eyes fixed on that branded mark on Gray's neck.

"Lucky guess," said Seo, restraining him.

Gray came to, not long after. Looking up at Seo and Dawn through pain-filled eyes.

Eyes that lingered on Dawn. Hurt and betrayal mixing with the pain.

"Should never have trusted you," Gray muttered.

"Yeah, I was thinking kind of the same thing," Dawn agreed, crossing her arms.

He struggled, but then seemed to notice the restraints. Gave it up, staring back at his captors with weary eyes. "What are you going to do to me?"

"We don't know, yet," said Seo.

"But one thing's for sure," said Dawn. "You're never seeing your brother, again."

Gray surveyed them both. "Then kill me," he demanded.

Seo and Dawn didn't move.

"Kill me!" shouted Gray, struggling. "That's all I've wanted for so many years! To die! To find peace!"

"We're not killing you," Dawn told him.

Gray paused. "No," he decided. "You won't." He turned his eyes to Seo. "But you might."

Dawn gave a shocked laugh. Yeah, he obviously didn't know Seo well, at all. "Seo doesn't kill anyone," she said. "Doesn't kill humans. Doesn't kill monsters. Actually dates psychopaths. You're barking up the wrong tree."

Seo didn't say anything. Just stood there. Her eyes locked on Gray's.

"You know, don't you?" Gray said to Seo. "That's why you saw through me. You recognized yourself in me."

Seo quirked an eyebrow at him. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"What's on your forehead?" asked Gray.

Seo started backwards, in alarm. Her hand reaching up to pat down her bangs, again. "I… I don't…"

"A mark?" asked Gray. "A brand?" His voice dropped, that much crueler, that much more malicious. "Did you try to kill yourself, too, just to get away from it all? Did you lose everything you had, until all that was left was hatred and rage and that burning desire to kill?"

Seo didn't answer. Froze, in the middle of the console room.

"Then do it," Gray growled. "Kill me, Cupcake."

The moment the words left his lips, something tore across Seo, a blaze of utter fury and anger and desperation, something too dark for words and more broken than Dawn could ever imagine. She snatched up the gun, and pointed it squarely at Gray.

His eyes challenged her to do it.

Dawn jumped between Seo and Gray. Shocked, but determined.

"Get out of the way, Dawn," Seo demanded, and for a moment, her voice was almost as icy, cold, and heartless as Gray's.

"No," said Dawn.

Seo's hand trembled around the gun. "Dawn…"

"You don't kill people!" Dawn insisted. "You don't do this! Not even to psychopaths." She pointed down at Gray. "So why kill him? What makes him so different?"

"I just have to," Seo hissed.

"Why?" Dawn demanded.

"Because if I don't kill it in him, then how can I kill it in me?!" Seo screamed. Her eyes terrifying, her entire body shaking. "I became a monster, Dawn! I gave in, agreed to murder innocents, and no matter how hard I try, I can't forget that! Can't forget that I'm the kind of person that'd be willing to do that."

Dawn stared at her. "What…?"

"My father," said Seo. "He told me to forgive. Love is stronger than hate. Forgiveness stronger than revenge. And he was right! My hatred destroyed me, Dawn! I can't go back to that! I can't…" Her eyes blazed. "But I still hate the Master. For everything he did. A part of me will never stop hating him, and I can't rip that part out!"

"The Master?" asked Dawn. "What are you talking about?"

"I just don't want to hate, anymore!" Seo said. Tears emerging in her eyes. "I don't want to be that person, Dawn. I gave in, I betrayed everyone, and you… you can't… let me…"

She lowered the gun, and burst into tears.

Dawn came over. Held Seo, tight. Shushed her, trying to calm her down. All that Dawn had done for Gray, all she'd tried to do to help him… and here was whom she should have been helping, all along. Someone so desperate to reject that hatred and cruelty.

Someone who'd been crying out, even when Dawn hadn't known enough to hear it.

...

"I guess a lot of things became clearer, after that," the hologram-Dawn admitted, on the recording to Buffy. "Like… the psychopath-dating thing. I think… it's like… overcompensation. She hates this Master guy for screwing up her life, but she knows she shouldn't. So she winds up going all smoochies with the biggest mass murderers in the cosmos."

Buffy collapsed into a nearby chair. Head in her hands.

"I always just assumed she was acting out because she was… you know," said Dawn, "like I was, back when I was a teenager. I didn't think she was trying to get over… something like…"

A look of utter horror and pain crossed over Dawn's face.

"I should have seen it earlier," Dawn muttered.

So should Buffy.

She should have seen it much, much earlier.

"I don't think Seo would have really killed Gray," said Dawn. "That's not Seo. Not something she'd do. But… just… seeing her that desperate and horrified…" Dawn shook her head. "I was afraid, Buffy. At that moment. I was afraid she was actually desperate enough to do it."