Chapter 7:
Evening, New York, Starbucks
To Dawn's immense relief most of Elliot's questions seemed to relate to seemingly little things as their meeting went on. The things that she easily could answer. Buffy's favorite food. What she liked to listen to on the radio... The list went on. And as they talked, as Dawn told the police man about his daughter, something inside of her started to calm down. She was well aware that she'd been a bundle of nerves ever since Sunnydale disappeared as it had. And she knew that the Scoobies had noticed it as well, knew that a part of their fierce protection of her came from her change in personality after Buffy's death.
Those thoughts came back to her in full force as Elliot helped her into a cab that would take her back to her hotel for the night. For a moment, Dawn fought to remain in control of her feelings, refusing to break down in front of the one man she desperately did not want to see her tears.
She'd fought the memories for so long. Throwing herself into work, into school, into the things that go bump in the night in desperate attempts to make the pain go away. She'd lost her family. Sure, she still had the gang but it wasn't the same. No matter how much they all pretended it was. At least not to her. Buffy had been her anchor. Her protector. Her sister. Her reason to exist. If it hadn't been for Buffy the monks would've put her into another form. In the form of a brother or sister to another fighter for the light. She wouldn't have been Dawn Summers. And she would not have been Elliot Stabler's unknown, magical daughter.
That was why she contacted a man she knew nothing about, yet shared blood with. Because she could not loose another part of herself. Another part of her family. And she could not stand by to see Buffy be forgotten as time passed. No, she wanted her sister to be remembered. Always. So that, in essence, she'd be remembered too. Key or not.
Not that she'd tell him that. She couldn't. Not only because of the secrecy surrounding it all. But because of the brief time she'd spent with Elliot Stabler. Those few hours told her that he was not the kind of man that would accept the knowledge that he'd had a daughter out there who had been forced to fight evil for the better part of her life, without her father to support her. Or that she'd died doing it. No, he'd grieve knowing that. Blame himself for something he'd had no control over. And Dawn couldn't do that to him.
All Elliot really needed to know was that Buffy had been someone he could be proud of.
TBC...