Dawn slept quite a bit on the plane. She knew she shouldn't - she should be supporto-sister - but she couldn't help it. Flying always made her sleepy, and the headache she still couldn't quite shake just made it worse. She didn't sleep well, though - she defied anyone of more than her sister's tiny stature to sleep well on a plane - and every time she stirred, she saw Buffy just sitting in her seat and staring straight ahead of herself. On second thought, Dawn really had no idea what to say to her, so maybe sleep wasn't such a bad idea.

When they reached LAX, though, Buffy came bounding out of her stupor. She managed to get them off the plane right after the first class passengers, and was outside on the curb looking for Giles almost before Dawn had time to wake up.

"B! Dawn!"

Dawn turned to see Faith standing a little way away, turned back to realize Buffy had already started towards her, and followed. After the mad dash through the airport, she wasn't about to run anymore, so she had plenty of time to notice that Faith, underneath her usual Faith bravado, had much the same look Buffy had sported on the plane - like she wasn't quite sure what had happened to her or why. Dawn wasn't sure on which Slayer it looked stranger, but she did know that she didn't like it, on either of them.

"Where's Robin?" Buffy was asking when Dawn reached them, which she could have told her was a bad idea, and she wasn't surprised to see Faith's studiously nonchalant shrug.

"Not coming," she said. "C'mon, I've got the wheels - Giles and Will are back at the motel."

"Why?" Buffy asked. "Why aren't we going to that law firm? The hearty one."

"Wolfram and Hart," Faith said, turning and starting to walk so quickly Dawn almost had to jog to keep up. "Giles still doesn't trust them, even if Angel has switched sides again, so we're trying to get in touch with him without letting them in on it. We tried just calling him there, but Harmony answered, and Willow dropped the phone."

"Harmony?" Dawn and Buffy said at the same time.

"Yeah. Seems she's Angel's secretary, or executive assistant, or something. Kennedy called back, since Harmony wouldn't recognize her voice, but all she'd say was that Angel was out of the office and would be for the rest of the day. She sounded...pissed about it, Kennedy said."

"That's odd," Dawn said. She couldn't quite picture Harmony as a secretary. Though she was sure unicorn desk ornaments would figure in it prominently.

"Yeah," Faith said. She stopped at one of those little SUVs that try to pretend they're not SUVs and clicked open the back door. "The Watcher-mobile, L.A. branch. Everybody in." She didn't wait for them before sliding behind the steering wheel and putting on her seatbelt. Dawn reflected that maybe Robin hadn't been all bad for her.

"Giles wasn't sure if Harmony was in on whatever's goin' down, so he didn't want to tell her we're here. So we got nothing. Will's trying a locator spell."

"On Angel?" Buffy asked. She was gripping the handle of the passenger door pretty tightly, though Dawn personally thought Faith was a much better driver than Buffy was.

"On Angel, on Wesley, on Fred -"

"Who's Fred?" Dawn asked, enjoying the wind rushing through her hair after all that time on the plane.

"She's the brain," Faith said, which made no sense to Dawn. "Not sure what's with the blue look, but whatever."

"Any results yet?" Buffy asked.

"She was just gettin' started when I left," Faith said, but Dawn could hear the hesitation in her voice. Buffy must have, too, because she turned and glared at her, but just then they pulled into the motel parking lot, and both Summers sisters were so out of breath by the time the car was parked, the subject was dropped. They'd find out in a minute or two, anyway.

"We're back," Faith called as she swung open the door, which was rather unnecessary, Dawn thought. The room wasn't that big - even if Willow had been in a trance, she must have noticed the three of them stomping in. She wasn't, anyway.

"I know it doesn't make sense, Giles, but it's what I'm seeing," Willow was saying. She was sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, and she spared a small smile for Buffy and Dawn, but then turned back to Giles, who barely glanced at them. "They're spread out all over the city, and I don't know why. Angel's even in a coffee shop - and has been there for quite some time - which makes no sense at all."

"Maybe whatever is going to happen won't be today," Kennedy said. She was stretched out, taking up all of the bed and playing with Willow's hair.

"How urgent did the Slayer dream feel?" Giles asked.

"Really urgent," Kennedy, Buffy, Faith, and Dawn all said. Dawn then bit her tongue and looked around to see if anyone had noticed her slip. Faith was looking oddly at her, but then she shrugged and turned back to Giles.

"It's today, G-man, I know it is," she said. "You know I don't usually hold with this Slayer dream crap, but this one...I know."

"Me, too," Buffy said. She dropped her bag on the floor and crossed her arms over her chest.

Giles did smile at her at that, and then turned back to Kennedy. Kennedy looked down at her fingers playing with Willow's hair and shrugged, which Giles seemed to take as an assent.

"So, whatever it is that's going to happen will be today, but the people you saw in your Slayer dreams aren't all in one place -"

"They weren't, anyway," Faith said. She hunkered down on her heels and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "In the first part of the dream, I mean. They were in different places."

"But they were all together at the end?" Giles aksed, and Faith and Buffy nodded. "Then we should concentrate our efforts on discovering that locality. Did it look familiar to anyone?"

"It's L.A. Why would any of us recognize it?" Kennedy asked.

"Since Buffy and Dawn lived in L.A. for many years, and Faith has visited Angel several times, it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that one of them might recognize the location," Giles said in his mildest tone. Dawn bit back a snort of laughter; at least he wasn't polishing his glasses at Kennedy.

"The Hyperion," Faith said, her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her. "I think it was the alleyway outside the hotel."

"Are you certain?" Giles asked, at his most gentle.

"No," Faith said, still studying the floor. "It's L.A. - lots of alleys look rather similar." Her Boston accent sounded very strong on those last words. "But I think so."

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Dawn said. "If Angel's breaking away from Wolfram and Hart, he might want to go back to where he came from. From whence he came? Help me out here, Giles."

"Home ground," Buffy said. "Yeah, I get that. Anyway, it's the best we've got. Let's go."

"Just like that?" Kennedy asked. "We don't even know -"

But no one was listening. Even Willow didn't wait for her to finish before she was out the door. Dawn held the door for Kennedy, but Kennedy just sneered as she swept by her. Dawn shrugged. She didn't miss the look Willow gave her girlfriend as she climbed into the SUV. They were practically sitting on top of each other to make room for everyone, but they looked farther apart than Dawn had ever seen them.

Of course, she ended up thinking Kennedy might have had a point when they'd waited for hours in an L.A. alley with no sign of Angel or anyone else. All three of the Slayers had taken their turns on recon, and they all reported that everything was quiet in the neighborhood. They didn't even find any garden-variety vamps, which said a lot about Angel's reputation, since it had been almost a year since his group had been at the Hyperion.

And then it started raining. Pouring, actually. And out of nowhere - Dawn hadn't quite been able to see the stars before it started, but then, it was L.A. All the same, it had been a clear, calm night, and then the skies opened.

"Good lord," Giles said, and Faith woke from a doze with a "Whazzat?"

"Supernatural, you think?" Dawn asked.

"If it is, it's not a small-time thing," Willow said. "I can't see any indications - oh."

"Oh?" Buffy said, trying to look where Willow was looking. "Indications oh?"

"Indications yes," Willow said, and plunged out into the downpour.

The rest of them piled out of the SUV and tore after her, following her as she ran around the hotel.

To find Angel and company squaring off against a raging horde of demons.

"Fuck," Faith said. "We were in the wrong alley."

Before the words were even out of her mouth, Buffy and Kennedy plunged into the melée. Dawn expected Faith to follow suit, but instead, Faith grabbed her upper arm and dragged her over to where the black man she'd seen in the Slayer dream lay on the ground, bleeding from more wounds than she could count.

"Dawn, this is Gunn," Faith said. "Stop him from dying, would ya?" And then she was gone, joining in the dance of Slayers and demons.

Dawn dropped down onto her knees beside Gunn and tried to figure out which of his wounds needed staunching the most. She quickly realized that the hooded sweatshirt he had pressed to his side wouldn't cut it and took off her sweater. It was already sodden from the rain, and she was left shivering in just her tank top, but it was the best she could do. She gently pried away his hand from where it had been pressed to his side, and he finally opened his eyes.

"Damn," he said. "I'd think I was in heaven, except I don't think it rains there."

Dawn smiled at him, glad to see more in his eyes than dull pain. That was there, too, of course.

"Ah," she said. "Indulging in the time-honored tradition of flirting with the nurse."

"I'm a traditionalist," he said. His eyes wandered from her face to the battle behind her and widened. Dawn looked around - still holding her sweater to the wound in his side - and felt her heart swell. She was quite sure that neither Angel nor Spike had been expecting Buffy or the other Slayers, but all of them were now moving around and among each other, fighting the demon horde in what looked more like a well-choreographed ballet than a battle. Well, a ballet with rivers of blood flowing and spurting all over the stage. Angel and Spike were even fighting a dragon. It was down on the ground and didn't seem to be producing more than short bursts of fire that the two vampires easily dodged, but the sight of it reminded Dawn too much of the awful day Buffy had died. She looked around for Willow and Giles, who had combined to defeat that dragon, and saw them working together again, though they seemed to be focusing on the small flying demons, blasting them out of the sky and keeping them from bothering the fighters on the ground too much.

"Damn," Gunn said again. "That's some major mojo."

"Yeah," Dawn said. "Willow's amazing - and safe," she hastened to add. "Giles is anchoring her."

"That's Willow?" Gunn asked. He raised his head and squinted. "Didn't she have red hair?"

Dawn squinted, too. It was hard to see clearly through the dark and the rain, but one of the dragon's dying blasts of flame showed her that Willow's hair was indeed white. She bit back a sigh of relief.

"Just when she's doing really big magic," she said. "I mean, it's red most of the time."

In fact, it was fading back to red now. Dawn could tell, because Willow half-collapsed into Giles, and he picked her up and carried her towards where they were crouching. They'd taken care of all the flying demons and the dragon, and it looked like the fighter-types could take care of what was left.

"She'll be all right, right?" she asked as Giles approached. Willow's tendency to overextend herself hadn't abated any, she was just more ready to admit it. Usually.

"She'll be fine," Giles said, laying her gently down on the ground. "I made certain she didn't push herself too far. I do wish she didn't have to do all of the..." He tilted his head to one side, fumbling for a word.

"Heavy lifting?" Dawn said.

"Y-yes," Giles said. "That's one way of putting it." He looked back over his shoulder at the fight. Dawn could tell he was worried about his Slayers, but she needed him, too.

"Giles, this is Gunn," she said. "I think he might be bleeding to death."

"No way," Gunn said, though his eyes were closed and his skin looked ashen. "I will not be killed by a campaign office full of vamps."

Dawn exchanged a confused look with Giles, and then realized that that's what she'd seen Gunn doing in the Slayer dream - fighting vampires. She didn't say anything, though, because she didn't want Giles to start worrying about why she'd tapped into a Slayer dream. They had enough things to worry about right now.

"Dawnie?"

Dawn let Giles take over the staunching of Gunn's side wound and turned towards Willow.

"How are we doing?"

Dawn was cold and wet, and Willow was drained, but she knew that wasn't what she meant. She looked around at the battle again to realize that it was almost over. Faith and Kennedy were fighting one last, determined demon with a head full of tentacles, but Buffy, Angel and Spike were simply standing there, staring at each other. The blue girl - Fred? - stood nearby, studying all of them with her head tilted to one side.

"We won," she told Willow. "How cool is that?"