Author's Note: Two things. First I started uploading stories to Ao3 and as a result when I got to this one I was going to go ahead and upload this arc of this story. To keep both sites the same I decided to go ahead and upload this last arc here. That said while reviews will be nice I am not expecting any.

Second this arc takes place during the winter of 1996 shortly before the start of A Rei of Light in March of 1997.

Chapter 65: Message

1996

Dawn and Buffy chased Reese Williams through the streets of Pittsburgh—the third city in two days. They'd lost Reese when he'd cut through a throng of rowdy Penguins fans heading off to a game. They'd tried following him through the drunken mob, but the Pack frowned on the sisters cold-cocking humans for grabbing their asses, so after enduring a few unimaginative sexual suggestions, they retreated and waited for them to move on.

By then Reese's trail was overlaid and interwoven with a score of human ones. And the air here already stunk, the city core entering construction season, the stink of machinery and diesel almost overwhelming the smell of the Ohio River a half mile over. There was no way they were picking up Reese's trail at this intersection.

When Buffy and Dawn caught up with him two blocks later, he was being sucked in by the glow of a Starbucks sign, presumably hoping for a populated place to rest. When he saw that all the seats inside were empty, he veered across the road.

Reese ran into one of those office-drone oases typical of big cities. After a dozen strides, Reese was through the tiny park and veering again, this time to a sidewalk beside the lot. Headlights appeared, blinding the sisters, then dipped down into an underground lot. Reese grabbed the barrier and vaulted into the lane. They raced over to see the automatic door below closing behind a van … with Reese running, hunched over, right behind it.

Buffy and Dawn did a vault of their own and ran down the incline, reaching the bottom, then dropping and rolling under the door just as it was about to close. The sisters leapt to their feet and darted through the dimly lit garage, hiding behind the nearest post. Then they strained to hear footsteps. For almost a minute, the van engine rumbled on the far side of the garage. It quit with a shudder and a gasp. A door desperate for oil squeaked open, then slammed shut.

Hunched over, Buffy and Dawn hopscotched between the sparse parked cars. Ahead they could hear the van driver's heavy steps thudding as he walked the other way.

A door creaked and a distant rectangle of light appeared. The door hadn't even clicked shut when Reese darted out from his hiding space, his boots slapping the asphalt as he ran.

The sisters kicked into high gear, no longer bothering to hide, but he was too close to the stairwell. They were almost at the closed door when it flew open again, and they narrowly missed barreling into a middle-aged man.

"Sorry," Dawn said as she and Buffy tried to brush past him. "We just—"

"Running for the exit because you're afraid to walk through an underground lot at night?"

"Uh, yes," Buffy said.

"There are plenty of lots aboveground. Much safer. Here, let me walk you up to your floor."

It was obvious there were only two ways they could get past this guy—let him play the gentleman or shove him out of the way. Buffy and Dawn debated telepathically and felt it would be better to let the guy escort them up the stairs, and thanked him at the top.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't park underground…" he began.

"We understa—" Buffy said.

"Hell, it's your right to park wherever you want. What you shouldn't do is need to be afraid. This will help." He held out a business card. "My wife runs Taser parties."

"Taser…?" Dawn asked.

"You know, like Tupperware parties. A bunch of women get together, have a good time, share some potluck and get a demonstration of the latest in personal security devices."

The sisters searched his face for some sign that he was joking. He wasn't. They thanked him again and hurried out of the stairwell.

Reese's trail led out the front door. As they went after him, they realized Dawn was still holding the card, Dawn shook her head and stuffed the card into her pocket as they turned and followed Reese's trail.

Three blocks later, Buffy and Dawn finally caught up with Reese on a rooftop. He'd climbed up the fire escape, probably thinking they wouldn't follow.

When the sisters swung over the top, he broke into a run, heading for the opposite side, boots sliding on the gravel. When they realized he wasn't going to veer at the last second, they threw on the brakes, gravel crunching as they skidded to a stop.

"Okay," Dawn called. "We're not coming any closer. We just want to talk to you."

He was close enough to the edge to make my heart race. He slowly pivoted to face me.

"My name is Dawn and this my sister—" Dawn began.

"I know who you two are," he said. "But where is he?"

"Not here, obviously." Dawn gestured around them. "In two days, you haven't caught a whiff of any werewolf except us, which should be a sure sign that Clay's not around."

"So, you two are alone?" The sarcasm in his voice made that a statement.

"He's teaching," Dawn said. "Georgia State University, this week."

His glower said he didn't appreciate Dawn's joke, even though she wasn't kidding.

"Fine," Buffy said. "You think he's been lurking in the shadows, out of sight and downwind for two days. Unobtrusive is one word that's never been applied to Clay but, sure, let's go with that theory. Unless he's learned to fly, though, the only way up is that ladder behind us, so you're going to see him coming." Most werewolves outside the Pack didn't know that Dawn and her niece Savannah were also witches who could teleport. But there was no need to tell them unless there was no other choice. "Now, let's take a minute and chat. The reason we've been chasing you for two days is that we want to talk to you about—"

"South Carolina."

"Right," Dawn said.

"I didn't kill those humans."

"We know," Buffy said.

He allowed himself two seconds of surprise, and in those two seconds, he looked like a kid on his first day away at college—lonely, confused and hoping he'd found someone to help. Then his face hardened again. He might be no older than a college student, but he wasn't that naïve or that optimistic, not anymore.

Buffy hurried on. "You emigrated last year and hooked up with a couple of morons named Liam Malloy and Ramon Santos. They promised to show you the ropes of werewolf life in America. Then the half-eaten bodies started showing up—"

"I didn't do it."

"No, they did, and they're blaming you for it. We know—" Dawn said.

He inched back toward the edge.

"Don't—" Dawn began. "Just stop there. Better yet, take a step toward us."

"Am I making you nervous?"

Dawn met his gaze. "Yes."

"A jumper would be a real mess to clean up, wouldn't it? Better to calm me down and get me into a nice stretch of forest for easy burial."

"That's not—" An exasperated sigh hissed through Dawn's teeth. "Fine. You're convinced we're going to kill you. The only question, then, is—"

He stepped back … and plummeted.

Dawn and Buffy lunged so fast they nearly did a face-plant in the gravel, scrabbling to get to the edge. Then they saw the second roof, two stories below, and Reese running across it.

Buffy grabbed Dawn's hand just as they disappeared in a flash of green. They reappeared on the roof below and took off after Reese. They got to the edge of the roof moments after Reese jumped again. This time it was a three-story drop. They heard a thump of a hard landing and a gasp of pain. When they looked over the edge, they saw the pavement was empty, as was the parking lot beyond. They caught a flash of movement in a recessed doorway, where he crouched, hidden in the shadows, waiting to ambush the sisters.

Buffy grabbed Dawn's hand again and again they disappeared in a flash of green. The reappeared behind a parked car incase Reese was looking their way. They caught a whiff of Reese, his scent heavy with fear. It wasn't them he should be afraid of, though, but his old traveling buddies.

Liam and Ramon had killed three humans in South Carolina and set up Reese to take the fall. Now they were hoping to find and kill him before the sisters got his side of the story.

When they reached the recessed doorway, they dove. Reese's shadow passed over the sisters, pouncing and catching only air. They leapt up, grabbed the back of his jacket and threw him onto the grass.

He landed with a thud. He tried to roll out of it and bounce up swinging, but he fumbled the bounce back to his feet.

Dawn tossed him face-first onto the grass again. This time he stayed where he landed.

"Where did we leave off?" Buffy said. "Right. Liam and Ramon and their plot to end your existence."

"Kill me?" He slowly rose. "Why would they—?"

He charged, hoping to catch the sisters off guard. They stepped aside and he smacked into the wall, then wheeled fast and came at them again. Again, they stepped aside, this time grabbing him and pitching him through the air.

As he hit the ground, he let out a stream of profanity.

Dawn shook her head. "If we wanted to hurt you, we wouldn't be throwing you on the grass, would we?"

"Right, you two are here to help me, after getting tipped off that I'm a man-eater. Do you really expect me to—" He tried the dash-in-midsentence trick again, making a break for the alley.

Buffy and Dawn tore after him. Buffy was there first as she caught the back of his jacket, he spun and hit her with an upper cut that sent them sailing off their feet. She kept her grip on his coat, and she and Reese went down. She tried to scramble up, but he pinned her.

It was then that his wolf brain kicked in. His pupils dilated, his breathing quickened, his erection pressed into her thigh, his wolf side telling him this wasn't a fight—it was foreplay. He froze as the still-human part of his brain warned him that what the wolf wanted was a very bad idea, that Buffy was no ordinary werewolf, that she was also a Slayer and could easily do some damage. But his nostrils still flared, drinking in Buffy's scent.

The sisters knew which side would win, and that's when things always got ugly.

So, while he fought his inner battle, Buffy using her werewolf enhanced Slayer strength threw him off her. "That's why Dawn and I don't do hand-to-hand combat with mutts," she said.

He nodded as he got to his feet, rubbing his face briskly with his sleeve, gaze down, cheeks flaming. He pinched his nose and shook his head, trying to clear Buffy's scent.

It took a smart kid to back off that fast. And Reese was smart—that was the problem. If he'd been a dumb lunk who'd keep trying to hump Buffy's leg, then he'd have believed the sisters when they said they were here to rescue him. Instead, he saw all the ways it could be a trick.

"Liam and Ramon are after you," Dawn said. "You haven't noticed because they aren't nearly as good at tracking as we are. Give them a few weeks to catch up and—"

He charged, switching to the dash-while-your-opponent-is-in-midspeech tactic. Again, the sisters sidestepped. Only this time, he hooked the back of Dawn knee. Dawn stumbled, but came up swinging. Unfortunately, he was already ten feet away, running for the road and Buffy was already in pursuit five feet in front of Dawn who took off after them.

They lost him. The condensed version is that Reese Williams possessed an admirable blend of intelligence and humility, and they were accustomed to dealing with mutts who'd sooner cut off their balls than run from a woman.

Reese did exactly what they'd have done if pursued through a city core by a more experienced werewolf. He ran for the nearest populated place—a busy restaurant. While the sisters waited at the back door, he must have darted out the front and swiped someone's cab. By the time they realized he was gone, it was too late to follow.

Now, an hour later, they were in a cab of their own, getting out at the Pittsburgh International Airport. What led them there was good old-fashioned hacker action. Dawn had learned from the best hacker the sisters had ever known. Someone who at the age of fifteen had hacked into the CIA. Their friend and Dawn's granddaughter several generations removed, Willow. They knew Reese had been using stolen credit cards, alternating between at least three.

As soon as Buffy and Dawn had lost Reese, they stopped by a cybercafé and Dawn proceeded to track the transactions, hacking into the stolen credit card accounts. That was what had led them to the airport. They had found he had booked a flight to Miami, paying for it with one of the stolen credit cards.

"You two are booked on a flight to Miami," Jeremy said as the sisters got out of the cab, cell phone held between Dawn and Buffy. "That will get you both through security. But from the sounds of it, you two have delivered your message. If he's refusing to listen, I'm not sure what you plan to do about that."

"We want to tell him what happened to Yuli Etxeberria," Dawn said. "If that doesn't work, we'll hog-tie him and haul his ass someplace safe until he smartens up."

Silence as they walked through the doors. It lasted so long that with anyone else they'd have wondered if the line disconnected.

"You two don't need to keep chasing him, Dawn, Buffy."

"Just one more day," Buffy said. "The kids are okay, aren't they?"

"Yes, all three of them are fine and having a wonderful time with me."

"With you?" Buffy asked. "Where's Savannah?"

"Clay called an hour ago. His last meeting was canceled, so he can help with Reese. Savannah has already teleported to him. As soon as you two figure out where you are going, they'll teleport to you. Etxeberria wasn't either of your fault, by the way," Jeremy said.

"One more day," Dawn said. "Just give us—"

"I'll give you both all the time you need. You both know that. Then once you two are done, Dawn, you take an extra night with Clay before you come back. Buffy, I'd suggest the same for you but well I'm sure you want to get back to Anne."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Some airports are perfect for losing a tail. Take Minneapolis. With its endless corridors of shops and restaurants it rivals the nearby Mall of America as a hellhole for the directionally challenged. Pittsburgh was not one of those airports.

By the time they entered the terminal, Reese had checked in and headed for his gate, but there wasn't far for him to go. The sisters picked up their tickets and got their boarding passes. Two sets of escalators deposited travelers in a tiny pre-security square, bounded by a few shops. Reese's trail headed straight for the security checkpoint.

Once they were inside and off yet another escalator, it got trickier. Buffy and Dawn were in a rotunda of shops and restaurants with four arms leading to boarding gates. Still, the tidy layout meant there were a limited number of places for him to go. Even if they couldn't find his trail, they just needed to check all four halls and—

"Paging Chris Parker. Chris Parker, please report to gate C56."

Dawn and Buffy smiled. Parker was one of the aliases Reese was using.

When they got to the gate, though, the waiting area was empty, the plane already loaded. Reese was at the counter, showing his boarding pass and ID to the attendant. He was struggling to stay calm, shifting and glancing around.

The sisters shouldered their way through a throng checking the departure screens, and then broke into a fast walk. The attendant was saying something to Reese. With a smile, she handed back his ID and boarding pass. Reese started down the long hall to his plane. The sisters picked up their pace, but by the time they neared the desk, he was gone.

Gone where?

Dawn and Buffy glanced at the screen behind the attendant. It seemed to be stuck on the flight number and departure time, so they asked where the plane was headed.

"Anchorage. Anchorage, Alaska."

They realized after Dawn had hacked into the credit card account that Reese had turned around and either changed his mind or bought a second ticket to throw them off the scent.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"So, we've hit the end of the line," Dawn said to Jeremy as the sisters settled into a seat. "As badly as Buffy and I want to warn this kid, we're not flying to Alaska." While Dawn could teleport long distances, teleporting to the other side of the continent was not an easy feat and very likely even Dawn would have the headaches and nose-bleeds that other witches with lesser powers normally had. "Hopefully, Liam and Ramon feel the same way."

"I'm sure they will."

"You think they'll track him to Alaska?" Buffy asked.

"No, I'm quite certain they won't. However, a trip to Anchorage might not be a bad idea, if you two, Clay and Savannah are up to it."

"Whatever you need. What's up in Alas—?" Dawn stopped as she looked at Buffy. "That report of wolf kills, right?"

One of Buffy and Dawn's Pack responsibilities was tracking potential werewolf activity. Buffy monitored newspapers and Dawn took the Internet. This case had shown up in both.

Two men had presumably been killed by wolves outside Anchorage. That was newsworthy because, despite their reputation as dangerous beasts, wolves don't kill people. In North America there have been no documented cases of healthy wild wolves killing humans in the last hundred years. So, when it seemed to happen, people got nervous. And we got really nervous because the one thing far more common than wolf attacks was werewolf attacks.

Two reports weren't enough for the Pack to investigate. And there were other recent reports of equally rare wolf activity—wolves attacking dogs and people spotting wolves near the city. If the wolves near Anchorage were getting bolder, then it stood to reason they might actually be responsible for these deaths.

But if the sisters had another reason to go to Alaska…

"We can check it out while we hunt down Reese," Dawn said.

"I'll reroute Savannah and Clay there." A pause. "There's something else, too. Dennis was supposed to call me last week. He wanted to discuss something that seemed important."

"And he didn't?" Buffy asked.

"No, and he's not returning my calls either."

Dennis Stillwell and his son, Joey, were former Pack werewolves who'd left for western Canada when Jeremy and his father's battle for Alphahood had turned ugly. They'd later moved to Alaska. That was thirty years ago, before the sisters joined the Pack, but Jeremy and Dennis had kept in touch, and this silence probably bothered Jeremy more than the wolf kills.

"We're off to Alaska, then," Dawn said. "Should Buffy or I call Clay and Savannah and let them know?"

"I'll do that, and I'll book you two a flight. You both get something to eat. Try to relax."

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of demand for travel from Pittsburgh to Anchorage, and the flight Reese had taken was the only direct one for the next twenty-four hours. So, Buffy and Dawn were transferring in Phoenix.

They were just settling into the second plane, when Dawn's cell phone rang.

"Morning, darling," came a familiar southern drawl.

Dawn straightened and looked at Buffy and mouthed, "Clay." Buffy nodded as she tuned out the conversation between her sister and brother-in-law. "Hey, you. I hear we're going to Alaska."

"We are. Looking forward to it?"

"I'm not arguing the order, that's for sure. Now we just need to get the business part of the trip out of the way, so we can take advantage of the locale. Miles and miles of unexplored wilderness. It'll definitely make up for two weeks of short, crappy runs alone with Buffy."

"So that's what you want me back for? A new running partner? Buffy was not enough?"

"Buffy's fun, don't get me wrong. I just missed you," Dawn said as she glanced at her sister who was reading a magazine, try to not to overhear which was difficult when you were a werewolf. But to be a werewolf who had werewolf enhanced Slayer senses which included hearing. It was nearly impossible not to overhear. She could see a slight smile on her sister's face.

A moment of silence. "Just a sec. I think we had a bad connection. I could have sworn you admitted—"

"I miss you," Dawn said. "Horribly. I can't wait to see you."

"They're serving the booze already, aren't they?"

"Ha-ha. Keep that up and I'll never say it again," Dawn said.

"The question is whether you'd say it if I was there."

"No, because if you were here, I'd be in your lap, wondering how we could slip away from Buffy into the bathroom," Dawn said as Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Tease," he growled. "That of course would be easy. Remember Savannah is with me."

Dawn's head shot up. She could have sworn she heard that growl… and not just through her phone. She scoured the aisle, but there were only a few passengers still boarding, none of them Clay or Savannah. Still, she scanned the first-class section. No familiar blond curls peeked over any of the seats.

"Dawn?"

"Sorry." Dawn pushed back the stab of disappointment. "So, when does yours and Savannah's flight get in?"

"Around eight."

"Buffy and I'll wait at the terminal for you and Savannah, then."

The attendants started making the preflight rounds. Dawn and Clay said good-bye and she turned off her phone.

As Dawn tucked her bag under the seat, she caught that feeling again and picked up a scent as familiar as her own. She nudged Buffy and indicated her nose.

Buffy took a sniff and frowned. "Clay, you do know lying to your wife is not the best thing in the world, right?" She and Dawn twisted to see Clay and Savannah looming over the back of their seats.

"Can't fool you two, can I?" he said.

Dawn grabbed him by the shirtfront, nearly yanking him over the seat as she pulled him into a kiss.

Savannah giggled as she walked around the seat and sat next to Buffy in the vacant one next to her. "I missed you, mom. It's kind of why I talked Uncle Jeremy into the fact that a Slayer/witch is needed."

"I definitely need to go away more often," Clay said as Dawn let him go.

"I figured, sweetie," Buffy said.

He came around and took the seat beside Dawn on the opposite side of Buffy and Savannah. The sisters both should have wondered when Jeremy insisted on booking their flight, then said he could only get them into first class. Clay hated coach—couldn't stand being that close to strangers.

"I believe I heard something about sitting on my lap—" he began.

Dawn shot onto it and was kissing him before he finished the sentence. His eyes widened before he recovered enough to kiss her back.

"Now, how about that bathroom trip," Clay said as Dawn slid back into her seat.

Dawn looked up at the first-class bathroom… past two flight attendants and six rows of passengers, all facing it. "You know, it always looks so much easier in the movies."

He laughed and fastened his seat belt. "So, this was a good surprise, I take it?"

"A great one," Dawn said. "Right, Buffy?"

Buffy nodded.

As the plane lifted off, Dawn and Buffy brought Clay and Savannah up to date on the possible wolf kills. Yes, their fellow passengers could hear them, but no one eavesdrops on a conversation like that and thinks, "Oh my God, they're talking about werewolves!"

By the time they finished their explanation, dinner was served. Given the hour, most passengers stuck to drinks and peanuts, but no werewolf turned down food, however strange the time. Of course, neither did Savannah, she ate as much the rest of them did, and Savannah was the only member of the Pack who was not a werewolf. While they ate, Clay talked about the symposium. Then Buffy and Dawn gave another update—this one on Reese Williams.

While Savannah, Dawn and Buffy napped, Clay read the Alaskan tourism information Dawn had printed out before they left Pittsburgh. Surrounded by strangers, he couldn't relax his guard enough to shut his eyes.

When the sisters and Savannah woke, they looked down to see city lights below.

"Still night?" Dawn said, yawning. "What time—?" She checked her watch. "It's past six. Where's the sun?"

"Alaska is several hours behind Pittsburg time, Aunt Dawn," Savannah said.

"Shit. That's right. Duh. So when can we expect to see the sun?" Dawn said.

"It'll start rising around eight-thirty, but won't get over those mountains for a while. An earlier daylight-saving time doesn't do them any favors here."

"No kidding," Buffy said. She could make out the city below, nestled in a valley, surrounded on three sides by snowy mountains and the fourth by the ocean. Beyond those lights of civilization? Miles of wilderness.

Dawn smiled at her sister as she leaned to look out the window over Buffy's shoulder. "Uncharted territory."

"The best kind." Clay shifted closer, hand resting on Dawn's thigh as he tried to look out the window. "Still too dark to get to work, checking out those kills or looking for Dennis. We'll have to find other things to do."

"We could go to the hotel and get some sleep…" Dawn said.

He snorted.

"Sex or a run?" Dawn asked.

"Do I have to pick one?" he asked as Buffy snorted. Buffy no longer tried to hide anything sex related from her daughter. After all Savannah not only knew what sex was, but she was a Slayer and as a result had the same urges that Buffy herself did such as what Faith had termed H and H which stood for Hungry and Horny. Savannah had experienced it firsthand on one of her first mutt hunts that she had accompanied Buffy on.

Dawn grinned at her sister. "Never."