Author's Note: Besides "Not a Sword", which was written before I even thought of making this a series, this story was the second one I wrote in The Seventh Segment. That's how important it is.

Not just to explaining how Elizabeth randomly showed up in Buffy's world in "Elizabeth", but in terms of Buffy's relationship with Rose.

Enjoy.


Defender of the Earth

.

Dawn had been upset at Buffy. The Watchers Council had just left, and Buffy was acting all weird and annoying and overprotective and stuff, and it was just too much! Why couldn't Buffy just tell her what was going on? There was obviously something important about some key or something, and then the Watchers Council had revealed some kind of super-bad information to Buffy, and Dawn didn't know any of it! She wasn't a baby anymore! Why was Buffy being so annoying about this?

So Dawn stormed off.

She had to face it. Buffy would never tell her anything. To Buffy, Dawn was just the stupid little sister who couldn't take care of herself. But Dawn could so take care of herself! She didn't need a big sister who was a Slayer lurking around to scare the monsters off.

"Well," came a woman's voice, "look who it is. The little sister."

Dawn felt a hand squeeze around her throat, as she came face-to-face with the blond, angry woman who had appeared in their living room, the other day. The one whom Buffy had called Glory. The one Buffy had warned her to stay away from.

"You know," said Glory, "your sister still won't give me my Key. And that really, really bugs me. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you, Dawny?"

"No," said Dawn.

"And that makes me mad," said Glory. "Really, really mad. Because it's my Key, and she has no right hogging it for herself, does she?"

Dawn felt Glory's grip tighten around her throat.

"So I thought, I know," said Glory, "I'll send her a message. Make sure she knows I'm serious. I'll kill you, and maybe then, she'll figure out that it's rude to keep things that don't belong to her!"

Dawn felt the hand squeeze her throat tighter, and she gasped for air.

"Either drop the girl, or prepare to be blasted into 2009," came a commanding, English-sounding voice from behind her.

Glory's grip loosened, slightly, around Dawn's neck. Dawn glanced back, and could vaguely make out a petite blond woman wearing a blue leather jacket, black slacks, and a purple shirt, pointing an extremely large and lethal-looking gun directly at Glory. A girl… Dawn thought she remembered.

"What, you think I'm supposed to be impressed?" asked Glory. "Guns don't work on me, darling."

"This gun has enough energy to completely destroy a Dalek," said the girl. "Do you want to risk it?" She narrowed her eyes at Glory. "Now. Let her go."

"You dare to go up against me?" Glory said. "You've got guts, hun, I'll give you that. Not very bright, but definitely guts. Who are you?"

"I am the Bad Wolf," said the girl, stepping forwards. "The Defender of the Earth."

"Never heard of you," said Glory. "And, word of advice? Get a better job. Cuz the Earth isn't going to be around for very much longer."

The girl stepped forwards, again, so that the gun was directly in Glory's face, and the girl, herself, was standing right next to Dawn.

"In that case," said the girl, tucking something into Dawn's pocket, "I'm the Bad Wolf. And I'm the one who packed a spare dimension cannon."

And in a flash, Dawn found herself inside the Magic Box, the Bad Wolf girl by her side, Glory nowhere in sight, surrounded by Scoobies.

The Bad Wolf girl glanced over at Buffy. "You missing a sister?" she asked.

Buffy ran forwards, and swept Dawn into a tight hug. And Dawn, despite all her annoyance and irritation, couldn't help but hug Buffy back. Because Buffy was her sister, and no matter what, they'd always have that bond between them.

"That's a really, really big gun," said Xander.

Dawn looked around, and realized that every single person in the room — except for herself, Buffy, and the Bad Wolf girl — had their hands in the air, staring at the enormous gun the girl was holding. All backing away, tentatively, as if trying to find some sort of escape from an impending massacre.

The Bad Wolf girl, only just realizing that she still had the gun aimed directly in front of her at the spot now occupied by the Scoobies, lowered the gun.

"It's for Daleks," she explained.

The Scoobies didn't lower their hands.

Giles gave a nervous smile. "Yes, terribly sorry for the mix-up. And you would be..?"

"She says she's the Bad Wolf," Dawn piped in.

Giles' smile looked incredibly strained, now. He began edging towards Willow, who was sitting at the table, magic book opened directly in front of her. "I see."

"Who is she?" Willow whispered.

"Check the demonic index guide for a 'Bad Wolf'," Giles whispered back.

"Will, Giles, it's okay," Buffy cut in, before Willow had a chance to do anything. "She's not a demon or anything. She's just... her name's Rose. She's human. And... a friend." Buffy looked back at Rose. "I think."

Rose gave them all a kind smile, and a small wave. "Hello."

"Hate to point out the obvious, Buff," said Xander, "but if she's human, why did she just appear out of thin air?"

"And why do you seem to know her when you've never mentioned her to us before?" Willow asked.

"I... kind of... forget," Buffy confessed. "When she's not around. It's really... really confusing."

"Forget?" Giles said. He examined Rose, warily. "You mean that she's been putting you through some sort of... mind alteration?"

"Like the kind that you claimed you were going through on that tape you found a few weeks ago?" Xander put in.

"No, I mean..." Buffy started.

Rose lay her gun on the ground, and stepped away from it. "I'm not gonna hurt you," said Rose. "Promise. It's just… I'm not the reason you're having trouble remembering what's happening in your lives. Something's gone wrong. Something big. And I'm trying to put it right. Before the moment when it's all too late."

"And you can't kill Rose," said Dawn, "because she's human. And she saved my life! So there!"

"Right," said Xander, still eyeing Rose suspiciously. "So... you just appear out of thin air, say cryptic-sounding things, carry scary-looking weapons, call yourself the Bad Wolf..."

"And save my little sister," Buffy added, pointedly.

"...and then leave," Xander continued, "at which point no one can remember you. Call me a skeptic, but that sounds like a demon."

"Oh, no," put in Anya. "Demons don't usually carry around Dalek-destroying guns. Unless they're Pultimanso Demons, but those are pretty reptilian."

"She's not... she's just looking for someone," said Buffy.

"A powerful entity, on a deadline, looking for someone?" Giles muttered.

"Giles, not like that," said Buffy. "She's looking for her friend. Some... doctor, or something."

Rose looked at Buffy, a very, very sad expression on her face. "You knew him," she said.

Buffy said nothing, her eyes flooding with worry.

Rose nodded at Dawn. "That string. Round your neck. D'you know what it is?"

Dawn blinked, then fished out the piece of string she was wearing around her neck like a necklace, the one she hadn't realized she was wearing. She stared at it. It was a small, Yale key on a loop of string, a key that seemed to tingle when she touched it.

"Buffy... gave this to me," she said — and that was true, she was pretty sure. She just couldn't remember when it had happened.

Rose turned to Buffy. "And where'd you get it?"

Buffy screwed up her face in concentration, as if trying to drag the thought out of the bottom of her mind. But it was like looking through her backpack for a homework assignment she knew she hadn't done. There was nothing there to find.

"I... don't know," she confessed, at last.

"It's the Doctor's," Rose told her. "He must have given it to you. And you gave it to your sister. It's a temporal echo, a trace of the old timeline that's stayed around, even though you don't remember."

"I don't—" Buffy started.

"You have a bright red notebook," Rose continued. "You don't know why it's blank."

Buffy said nothing.

"He's been here," said Rose. "You knew him." She looked around at the rest of them. "All of you. And now you don't. You're heading for something horrible, something that will destroy the multiverse. We're headed to battle, both of us. And unless I fix where time's gone wrong, both you and I are gonna lose."

The Scoobies all looked at one another, uneasily.

"Yeah, well, Buffy can beat anything!" Dawn insisted.

Buffy hesitated. The unease showing on her face. The worry trickling through every limb of her body.

Rose blinked, confusion spreading through her, as she took the once-yellow disk out of Dawn's pocket. Except... it wasn't yellow anymore. It was completely charred and black, smoking faintly, as if it had been completely fried.

"That's not supposed to happen," Rose muttered. She examined Dawn, as if trying to make sense of her, trying to put together a puzzle that she couldn't solve. Then she sighed, and tucked the burnt disc into her pocket. "Design flaw. I'll talk to Torchwood about it."

"Torchwood?" Giles asked. "What on Earth is that?"

Rose gave him a small smile, then checked her watch. Her smile faded. "I'd better get going," she said. "If there's any hope for the universe, I've gotta fix time and make sure that everything gets put back where it should be." She picked up her gun from the floor, swinging the strap across her shoulder. "Sorry I couldn't be more help."

She turned, and began to walk out the door.

Buffy took a few steps forwards. "No, wait!" she called.

Rose froze, her hand on the doorknob, her eyes flicking back to Buffy. Buffy hesitated. She kept feeling like there was something she was supposed to say to this Rose, something incredibly important, but she had no idea what.

"Your… friend," said Buffy. "Did you find him?"

Rose said nothing for a long moment. A very, very long moment. One that seemed to draw out seconds into hours, and amplify the faint sound of the grains of sand as they poured through the eternal hourglass of time that kept the universe ticking forwards.

"Yes," Rose admitted, at last.

Yet the way she said it was so sad, so desperate, that Buffy knew that wasn't all there was to the situation.

"And…?" Buffy asked.

Rose turned her head around to look at Buffy, and their eyes met.

"He's dead," said Rose.


That night, Buffy cried herself to sleep.

And didn't know why.