Author's Note: "Home", Part II.

Sorry about yesterday's complete meltdown. You've got no idea how tired I am right now. I'm so emotionally drained, I've been crying off and on all day, in between completely messing everything up and very nearly crashing the car.

My job is renovating this hotel, owned by someone who doesn't like spending money, which would be hard but doable. The problem is, I'm fighting an uphill battle. We renovate a room, and next thing we know, the hotel guests are putting out their cigarettes on the bedspread and pulling the lamps off the walls, and that kind of thing. One guy was beating his wife, so we gave him his money back and asked him to leave, at which point he smashed up our windows, tore up the room, and left. (And, apparently, if we required guests to pay for smashing up the rooms, we'd get no customers - which sounds, to me, suspiciously like people are booking rooms with us because they want to destroy the rooms.)

I've been staying in the hotel to see what work the rooms need, and... that was a mistake. A really big mistake. It's actually worse than staying in a dorm room! The shower doesn't work, the internet barely functions, the sink smells like a sewer, and the couple next door (who are living at the hotel) have nightly shouting matches. I've gotten no sleep for the last week, and basically, am having some serious emotional meltdowns because of it.

So now I'm taking a night off, and spending two hundred bucks to stay in a good hotel so I can actually get some sleep.

Anyways.

I don't know if you'll like this section or not. I was very tempted not to post anything today, on account that I'm way too tired and about that close to bursting into tears, again, but... I read it through and thought it was okay. Although I think I might have fallen asleep half way through re-reading it. It's got some funny stuff. And some not-so-funny stuff. Plus, from what I can remember, it involves Buffy, the Doctor, and a polka-dot dragon... or was the dragon just part of my dream?


Part II

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Dawn and Donna hadn't even gone around the block, yet, before Buffy grabbed the Doctor by the arm, dragged him into the TARDIS, and slammed the doors shut behind her. She turned on him, her eyes boring him into the coral wall of his ship.

She knew.

The Doctor didn't know how she'd discovered the truth, or what she'd do to Dawn now that she knew, but he'd always known what she'd do to him. If she was kind, perhaps she'd let him regenerate. But he wasn't holding out any hope.

(He'd already programmed the TARDIS to take Donna home, should anything happen to him. He'd been preparing himself for this ever since he'd first discovered Dawn.)

"My sister," said Buffy, her voice no longer disguising any of the anger she was venting towards him. She strode up to him, her eyes fixed on his, her body tensed for the upcoming fight. "My little sister!"

She flew at him, knocking him to the ground, and he let himself fall. The metal grating of the TARDIS clanged beneath his weight.

"Did you know?" Buffy demanded. "When you wanted to kill her, did you know she was an innocent child? Did you know how much I loved her?"

Why did she bother asking? She knew the answer as much as he did.

"Yes," the Doctor told her.

Buffy started pacing the console room, her footsteps growing louder and angrier against the grating. "An innocent kid, who knows nothing about any of this, and you were going to kill her just for being born! What happened to, 'no one ever asked them if they wanted to be born like that'? What happened to all that niceness and compassion and forgiveness? You think vampires deserve a chance but my sister doesn't get one at all? What the hell happened to you?"

The Doctor wished she'd just start beating him up already.

"You heartless jerk!" Buffy shouted, advancing towards him. "You were planning to murder my own sister, and you just sat there, in my house, flirting and joking and playing around like none of it mattered! You weren't even planning to stick around, afterwards, were you? Just kill her, and run away! Just like you always do!"

"You're right," the Doctor told her. "I was."

As he hoped, his words seemed to send that spark of anger and rage running through her, and she kicked him into the side of the TARDIS. Not — the Doctor was annoyed to realize — anywhere close to as hard as she could kick him. In fact, for her, it was more like a nudge.

"I'm supposed to be guarding the human race against threats!" Buffy yelled. "So when did you become a threat? Is this what you think of us humans, really? That we're all cool and your favorite species and everything, but the first hint of trouble, and we're all expendable? As long as your idea of reality matches with the world, you're okay, but the moment that doesn't happen, that's when you go all killy? Are we all just some pawns in your cosmic chess game?"

The Doctor couldn't meet her eyes.

"You know what sucks most about this?" Buffy said. "I trusted you. I would have trusted you with anything. Everything! And you shoved that trust in my face like it was nothing! I'd have given my life for you — and I almost did! More times than you can count! Does that mean nothing?"

Same voice. Same inflection. Same accusations. The Doctor knew he should never have come back to Sunnydale. They would always end like this. It was what happened with Elizabeth, and it was what would happen with Buffy.

"When you said you were going to kill someone I knew, I didn't even consider that it was a member of my family!" Buffy shouted. "That possibility never even occurred to me. Because that was so completely beyond the pail, I assumed you'd never, ever even think of it!" She stood in front of him, his body still lying on the floor, her hands bunched into fists. "Say something!" she shouted.

"You're right," said the Doctor. "That's all you humans are to me. Nothing. Just a plaything for my amusement, something I can discard at a whim." He looked straight at her. "And I did want to kill your sister. I didn't kill her, and that was wrong. I should have gone through with it."

There it was. Just what he'd wanted. That complete and utter hatred towards him — a hatred dwarfed only by his own self-loathing — and he waited for her to unsheathe some weapon, and kill him. Or beat him to within an inch of his life. Or something of that sort.

The blows never came.

"What are you doing?" Buffy asked, her voice still edgy.

"I'm telling you—"

"You're trying to make me beat you up," Buffy corrected. She sank down to the floor, a few feet away from him, still too angry to even look at him, her back to the TARDIS wall. "You want me to beat you up." She took a long, shaky breath, one still filled with fire and venom, but without that spark that she'd had before. "You've said this to yourself a thousand times, haven't you?"

The Doctor didn't answer. This wasn't the way that things were supposed to happen. It wasn't what Elizabeth had done, last time.

"You know I hate the whole self-loathing thing you have going on," said Buffy. She perched her arms on her knees. "It makes you really hard to hate. Even when you do stuff that's terrible."

"I know a number of people who'd disagree with you on that," said the Doctor.

"Did Donna know?"

"She was trying to stop me," said the Doctor. "She's suffered too much for this already. Do whatever you want to me, but please, let Donna go."

"I was never going to do anything to Donna," said Buffy. She looked over at him, that terrible anger still in her eyes, but less so. "It's sobering to realize that the worst thing I could do to you is not beat you up. Let you live with it."

"I meant what I said," insisted the Doctor. "I should have killed your sister. I didn't, and that was wrong. One of the most heinous crimes I could commit."

"You haven't looked me in the eye once since you started talking like that," said Buffy.

The Doctor didn't answer.

Buffy sighed. "I wasn't going to kill you," she said. "Don't go all soap-opera on me. I mainly just wanted to shout at you. A lot." She glanced over at him. "I love her, you know. I know the memories and stuff are all implanted, but I really love her."

"You remember it," said the Doctor. "That makes it real."

"You don't," said Buffy. "I have all these memories of Future-You running around with Dawn, but… those are all fabricated. You never did any of those things. If I hopped into your time machine, and went back to last year, Dawn wouldn't exist."

"That doesn't make her not real," said the Doctor.

Buffy buried her face in her hands. "I don't know whether to get really mad at you for saying that, or really happy," she confessed. "You knew she was real, even though you still were going to kill her. But you still want me to feel better about this whole thing."

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor, sitting up. He still didn't venture near her. "I told you that you shouldn't trust me."

"I wanted to," said Buffy. She looked over at the Doctor. "Whatever Dawn is, it's really bad, isn't it? You'd never have even thought about something like that if it wasn't really bad."

"Dawn isn't anything important," said the Doctor.

"You don't have to play stupid with me," said Buffy. "I know she's the Key. I don't get what that is, but I get that you're really worried about it. And if you're really worried about it, then it's really bad."

"The Key doesn't exist," the Doctor told her.

"Um, yeah, it does," said Buffy. "And it's my sister."

"It's not… listen, Elizabeth," said the Doctor. "It's better if you don't know anything."

"Oh, yeah, thanks," said Buffy. "That's great. I am so glad that you were trying to kill my sister to suppress knowledge. That makes me feel so much better!"

The Doctor didn't answer.

Buffy bit back her bitterness. "I'm done with the rage thing," she said. "But… I just have to know. Are you still planning to kill her?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me," Buffy warned.

"I'm not," said the Doctor. "I should, but… to be honest, I don't think I can."

The Doctor could feel Buffy's eyes staring at him, trying to work him out. He still didn't look at her. A part of him still wanted, so much, for her to hate him for what he'd done. Finally, finally, he'd actually been guilty of the crime Elizabeth had kept accusing him of in the other timeline — killing her family members — and the Doctor wanted to get what he deserved for it.

Buffy scooted over, and put her arms around him, hugging him to her. "Thanks," she said. "For saving her life."

And the Doctor couldn't decide whether she was being unbearably kind or unbearably cruel doing something like that.

"Just… if you ever hurt my sister in any way," Buffy warned, "I will see to it, personally, that you come down with a severe case of decapitation. You got that?"

"Yes."

He knew. He'd always known. He'd been fully prepared to pay the price. Even if it looked like Buffy wasn't willing to demand it, now.

Buffy stood up, and hoisted the Doctor to his feet. Then she pulled her hair back behind her shoulders, and gave him a pointed look. "So. Key thing. Explain."

"Sorry?"

"You didn't think I just came in here to beat you up?" said Buffy. "You're obviously the only person around who actually knows what it is I'm trying to protect. I'm here to find out what the deal is."

"The Key doesn't exist."

Buffy crossed her arms. "I'm not beating you up for information," she said. "So you might as well tell me."

"I did tell you," said the Doctor. "The Key doesn't exist. It was destroyed during the War. Anything you might have discovered or heard or…" He frowned. "How did you work it out, at any rate?"

"Did a spell, found a monk," said Buffy. "How'd you work it out? Your toaster exploded."

"I knew you didn't have a sister," the Doctor told her. Which was at least part true, although the green glowing energy around Dawn did make it a wee bit difficult to miss. Then he remembered that he was supposed to be convincing her that the Key never existed at all. "I mean, you always had a sister, and the Key doesn't exist, and… I've completely botched this up, haven't I?"

"You botched it up before you started," Buffy agreed.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "Monk," he muttered. Must be from that Order of Dagon he'd heard about, way long ago. Brilliant. One more person he'd have to keep quiet about this. He glanced back at Buffy. "Anyone else you've told?"

"Giles, and that's it," said Buffy.

"And the universe didn't go all wibbly when you told him?" asked the Doctor. "Or when you, yourself, found out?"

"Wibbly?" asked Buffy. "Doctor, stop trying to be all cute and adorably charming and stuff! This is serious. That monk told me they sent the Key to me, specifically, because they wanted me to protect it. So what is it?"

"It's really better if you don't know," said the Doctor.

"Okay, here's the thing I don't get," said Buffy. "I know you're stupidly stubborn about this Key thing because you got interrogated during the War. But… I'm the Slayer! Couldn't you have at least given me a heads up or something?"

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. He knew exactly why he hadn't told Buffy. The Key was his responsibility, and every time he'd let one of his friends handle something that was his responsibility, it always led to tragedy. Martha had travelled the world for him, during the Year that Never Was, and it had changed her, altered her. Destroyed not just her life, but the lives of every single member of her family. Adric, trying to outsmart the Cybermen. Romana, fighting the Daleks.

Susan…

"I was going to tell Dawn," the Doctor confessed.

"You were going to tell my sister, and not mention it to me?" Buffy cried.

The Doctor wasn't exactly sure why Buffy was so upset about this. It seemed the logical thing to do. Dawn was the dangerous one — she should know that she had a responsibility to the world and the universe.

"Didn't work, at any rate," said the Doctor. "Universal temporal readjustment."

"Whazza whozza what?"

"That means that, by telling Dawn what she was, I nearly collapsed the universe," the Doctor explained. "So time pushed me out. Rewrote itself as if I never existed at all. Universe preventing its own death. Bit like antibodies in the bloodstream. I was a germ, universe got rid of me."

Buffy blinked. And the Doctor could see the moment when that entire thing came back to Buffy. When she remembered all of it. It was as if a sudden weight had crashed across her face. Horror and shock sprung into her eyes, and she stared at the Doctor, as if she wanted to sweep him into a great big hug.

Then she remembered she was still sort of mad at him, and hid all that away inside herself.

"Okay, so tell me what you know about the Key," said Buffy.

"It doesn't exist. That's all you need to know."

"Look, I'm really glad you're all with the stoic," said Buffy, "because it makes my life easier in terms of keeping it a secret. But that woman really wanted to get her hands on it, and if she figures out that I'm—"

The Doctor's head shot up. "What?"

"Woman?" Buffy said. "After the Key? Super strong, serious attitude problem? She's pretty sure it exists, and she wants it more than anything."

Now the Doctor knew he was in deep, deep trouble.


"Okay, here's what I want to know," said Dawn to Donna, as they walked through the mall. "You got shot, last time you were here. I remember. But then, it was like… none of it happened."

"Don't look at me," said Donna. "I didn't know the first thing about it until I stepped out of the TARDIS. All I knew was that Spaceman seemed really keen to leave me behind."

"So… none of us remembered," said Dawn. "Except for him? Is that some sort of Time Lord superpower or something?"

"Beats me," said Donna. "I just live for the psychic paper." She beat the wallet against her hand, subconsciously, trying to stop her hands from shaking, trying to keep the worry out of her face. Then her eyes fixed on a store down at the other end of the mall. "Oh, we've got to check that one out!" she cried, nearly dragging Dawn along behind her.

From behind a potted fern, a short, wrinkly faced Minion peered out at them. "Time Lord," he muttered.