Summary: Set many years from now. Dawn Summers sets the record straight on who the real heroes are. Mentions major character deaths.

H is for Hero

I went to thank her-

But she slept;

Her bed a funnelled stone,

With nosegays at the head and foot,

That travellers had thrown,

Who went to thank her;

But she slept.

'T was short to cross the sea

To look upon her like, alive,

But turning back 't was slow.

-I went to thank her, Emily Dickinson

When she was in the fifth grade Dawn had to write a paper on who her hero was and she had chosen Helen Keller. She wrote about the amazing things that a woman who was both deaf and blind had been able to overcome, how she became a voice for those who were different and how even now, decades after her death, she was still inspiring new generations of children. As soon as they began learning about Helen Keller Dawn had immediately latched on to her story. There was just something about her that she connected with. Years later she thought she knew why.

Making her into her hero for her assignment had been an easy choice back then even if it wasn't entirely accurate anymore. She couldn't exactly write about her superhero sister who spent her nights in graveyards keeping the rest of the ignorant populace safe from the monsters in the dark though so she went with the safer choice. Years later, now that the world was transformed and large swaths of the world's humans knew the truth about who they shared the earth with she decided to write the truth about her hero.

Of Myths, Monsters and Heroes

(The True Story Of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Seen Through the Eyes of Her Sister)

My world changed in 1996. It's selfish, really, to say it like that because Buffy was the one who suddenly found herself with a short expiration date, but it's true nonetheless. I was a nosy little brat and Buffy wasn't quite as sneaky as she thought she was so it was shortly after we moved to Sunnydale that I caught her bloodied and bruised, sneaking back into the house through her second story bedroom window and I blackmailed her into telling me what was going on.

Most of you have heard the stories by now or seen a newscast that just barely touches on the subject. Maybe you've even witnessed it yourself. The creatures that own the night, vampires and demons. Some of you have also heard of her. The one girl in all the world that puts fear into the hearts of those monsters. The Slayer.

One of those Slayers was my sister, Buffy Anne Summers. She was the best one, although I admit I may be a bit biased. Buffy was five years older than me, born in 1981 and up until she was fifteen she was the epitome of a 1990's California Valley Girl. Bubbly, popular and a cheerleader to boot. She was probably the last person you'd suspect of having a sacred destiny.

I don't know how many Slayers were called before Buffy, too many. Too many young girls, most of which had a life expectancy of only a few months. The prolific ones lasted maybe a few years. Sometimes they were killed by the demons they fought and sometimes, if they made it to eighteen, they were killed by the very men sworn to watch over them. That's a story for another time though.

Buffy was called as the Slayer in 1996 in Los Angeles, California. It wasn't long before we- my mom, Buffy and I- moved to Sunnydale, California. Most of you have probably heard of that town and the crater that still marks it's graveyard. I can tell you the real story behind that too.

Sunnydale was a Hellmouth, most of you probably haven't heard that term before. It's exactly what it sounds like, the mouth of Hell. Or, more accurately, a mouth of Hell. There isn't just one, they're all over the world. In the 1990's and early 2000's the Sunnydale Hellmouth was the most active and it wasn't a coincidence that we moved to it, we just didn't know that at the time.

There is too much that happened in the seven years we lived in Sunnydale to write down in one blog post so I'll stick with the important bits for now.

Buffy was dead set on maintaining a normal lifestyle as much as she possibly could. This was both unreasonable in some aspects and the very thing that made her the longest lived Slayer in recent history. Slayers had a long history of being separated from their families, living a life with no friends, family or fun. Living with their watchers and doing their sacred duty night after night until one night she never came home, leaving a new girl to wake up the next morning with a shiny new destiny.

Sometimes it makes me sick to think about what Buffy must have been going through in those early days, completely alone. Anyway, normal was the name of the game for my sister. Then she fell in love with a vampire and normal kind of went out the window (literally). Angel was a wanker and I'm just going on record to say that I've never liked him. In fact he's probably reading this. Angel, I know that you have a google alert attached to Buffy's name, you creepy stalker.

Buffy thought that she and Angel had this big, epic love. And, in a way, they kind of did. Angel was cursed with a soul and I do believe that he loved my sister. As best he could, anyway. Buffy deserved better though and that relationship ended up damaging her for more years than I care to count. Angel lost his soul on Buffy's seventeenth birthday and began terrorizing those of us closest to her.

I wouldn't even include this as a side note except that something important happened during this time. Spike. Spike was a soulless vampire- he had only come to Sunnydale in hopes of curing the woman (vampire) he'd loved for over a century- and he had a long blood soaked history but there was something different about him. I saw it even back then. I think Buffy did too, kind of. Angel was trying to end the world and Spike thought (rightly) that the idea was a bloody stupid one. If the humans die so does the vampire's food source...I never said that Angel was the brightest bulb in the basement.

Spike helped Buffy get Angel alone, then left her to possibly die (I said he was different, not noble) while he escaped with his sire. Buffy sent Angel to Hell just as he got his soul back and that was the beginning of the end for them.

Angel ultimately came back, he and Buffy couldn't stay away from each other even after all the horrible, terrifying things he'd done sans soul. Then he left, tearing her up just a little bit more. Really, I never thought he was all that much different with or without his soul. He was just guiltier.

Angel left and Buffy longed for that normal life more than ever. Enter Riley. I didn't really mind Riley, he was a decent enough guy but he wasn't enough for my sister and he knew it. During this time the government was playing god and experimenting on demons trying to make an army or something. Riley worked for them, actually there's a pretty good book about the crazy shit they were doing in the Initiative that you should check out if you're interested in a detailed, accurate account of that debauched mess, "Inside Project 314" by Graham Miller.

One of the Initiatives programs involved capturing vampires and inserting a chip into their head that stopped them from hurting humans. It was basically a shock collar only it was implanted directly into their brains. It may sound like a swell idea but really, it was disgusting. Buffy went out night after night and dusted vampires, killed demons and saved the world. She didn't experiment on them or make them her guard dogs.

Even now, with such a wide variety of information at our fingertips, many people don't want to acknowledge that most demons are sentient beings. Most vamps are evil and won't hesitate to kill you but even they can still be intelligent creatures. Spike was. Spike was unpredictable, impatient, reckless and impulsive. He was also one of the smartest people I've even known. He'd maintained more of who he'd been as a human than he liked to admit. Spike as a human had been well educated and thirsty for knowledge, it was an aspect of him that hadn't changed after he'd been turned.

Spike was one of the vampires caught by the Initiative and had a chip implanted. He escaped and came to Buffy for help and she gave it. Looking back on it I have to admit that they always did seem drawn to each other, even when they hated each other.

I think the turning point for them came after Spike realized he could still fight demons. It gave him a purpose again and when Giles (Buffy's watcher) asked him if he thought maybe he had a greater destiny, a chance to be more than the second most vicious vampire in history, Spike didn't immediately scoff at the idea.

So now Buffy and Spike were more or less a team causing no small amount of jealousy from Riley as he became more of a liability than a help on patrols after the Initiative was shut down and the drug cocktail they'd had him on nearly killed him resulting in him becoming a normal boy again. Riley was a good guy but he had an inferiority complex which isn't so great if your girlfriend is a super powered champion literally chosen by the Powers That Be.

He stuck around for about a year. He left in the middle of the night and rejoined the military after Buffy had discovered him going to suck houses to try and understand her "obsession" with vampires. The truth was that the Slayer and the Vampire were yin and yang. Buffy had been the slayer for five years by that point and she was learning that she needed someone equal to her if she wanted a real chance at happiness.

Then she died. Buffy was called as the Slayer in 1996. She died once briefly in 1997 (this resulted in the activation of a second slayer for the first time that we know of in history) but was brought back to life via CPR. Buffy was called in 1996 and she died in 2001. She died for me. To save me and the rest of the world.

Our mother had died not long before that. 2001 was the worst year of my life. Spike became my lifeline. We grieved together that summer. He had been my only real friend for months before Buffy sacrificed herself, he was the only one who treated me like I wasn't a child.

147 days later Buffy was resurrected by her friends, pulled out of heaven and forced back into her sacred duty. Spike and I were the only ones who hadn't been aware of the resurrection plans. The following year was not easy. Buffy was deeply depressed and I didn't know how to help. I was fifteen and still reeling from the death of my mother. It was hard to understand why my sister wasn't as happy to be back with me as I was to have her back.

Things between her and Spike went bad that year and it resulted in him leaving town for months, I never really knew what had happened, Buffy didn't talk about it after he'd left, she just cried in her room when she thought I couldn't hear her. Spike never talked about it when he finally came back. When he did come back he had his soul. He fought for his soul. He hadn't admitted it for a long time but he had fallen in love with Buffy. He had gotten his soul for her.

We had friends die. Had friends turn to evil, it was a bad year. The next year was the one that most of you will remember best because that was the year Sunnydale became a crater. We were up against the First Evil which is exactly what it sounds like and it opened the Hellmouth.

Willow (Buffy's best friend and a powerful witch) attempted to activate all the potential Slayers in the world to fight back against it. Ultimately it failed- we suspect interference from the PTB- and there remained just two Slayers in the world. Buffy and Faith. A lot of girls died that final day as we brought the battle to The First. Buffy nearly died that day. Again. We lost more friends.

We won though.

Things weren't the same after that, obviously. We had just lost our home and Buffy...well she'd just lost the man she finally realized she was in love with. Spike is the reason that Sunnydale is a crater, the reason that only Sunnydale is a crater. He died to save the world, to save my sister. Spike was born in 1854, he was turned in 1880 and he died in 2003.

We traveled a lot after that. Faith took one for the team and settled on the Cleveland Hellmouth which had started to become more active following the collapse of Sunnydale. Buffy got her first real vacation in over seven years. I wish I could say she enjoyed it but it's hard to enjoy anything when grief fills your every breath.

We probably shouldn't have been surprised when we got word that Spike was back. Wesley had called and told Giles who, reluctantly, let Buffy know. We were in L.A., where he'd been resurrected, before my mind could finish spinning.

Spike and I hadn't been on the best of terms when he'd died, I'd been a teenage hormone bomb and blamed him for abandoning me when he'd disappeared the summer before. It hadn't been fair to him and it has always been a huge regret of mine. It was guilt that I'd carried with me since his death and the thought of making amends had me barreling right through his arms. He was a ghost, or close enough to one, incorporeal was the word everyone used.

Sometimes he would just disappear, mid sentence, and he'd be gone for hours. He never said but we heard the whispers, the rumors that he was slowly being sucked into Hell. That the next time he disappeared could be the last. Buffy called in the cavalry. She was desperate and determined. Nothing ever stood a chance against her when she got that way. She was a force to be reckoned with, my sister.

It took awhile but eventually we got Spike solid again and Buffy ordered him to come back to Europe with us. She demanded that he show us all his favorite places. She told him that she loved him and that he better believe her that time. I never heard the full story behind that but I suspect that it's something best left between just them.

I don't think he really did believe her. Not then. I imagine he was still acclimating to being brought back as a ghost and then back to his body. He hadn't been in Heaven like Buffy had been, he'd been straddling Hell instead but I've always thought that it must have been hard to bounce back from that.

In many ways he was still Spike but there were pieces missing, times when he seemed a million miles away. Buffy didn't ever seem too concerned about it and for a long time I thought it was because she was too caught up in the fact that she had him back, kind of like I had been when she had been resurrected.

Eventually I realized that she wasn't worried because she'd been there before and she knew that if she could recover from it then Spike could too because Spike was one of the most resilient and stubborn creatures either of us had ever met.

A year after Sunnydale fell, L.A. nearly did. You guys remember that one. That's when the rumors about what the world was really like started to really make themselves known. L.A. was a war zone for years after that night. Buffy, Spike, Faith and the gang traveled there just in time to keep the battle contained to just the city. Thousands died that night, the government listed it as a natural disaster. Earthquake. I guess it could have kind of explained the crumbling buildings. Not sure how they thought they were going to explain away the dragon.

That was how we ended up back in the states. Our story started in L.A. and I guess it was kind of poetic that we ended up back there. I split my time between Los Angeles and England where I was enrolled in a boarding school. Buffy and Spike set up residence in L.A. while Faith headed back to the Cleveland Hellmouth (She died in the line of duty three years later). It took years to get the city back under human control but we did it. They did it.

The battle in L.A. started in 2004, Angel started it when he got into with an evil, mutli-dimensional law firm (don't be so surprised, you've all heard of evil lawyers) and the beings that ran it. The Senior Partners were basically the antithesis to the Powers That Be.

Ten years later the battle was won, humans seized control of the city and the Senior Partners were defeated. The demons that had run amok for a decade were killed or sucked back into their home dimensions and disaster relief efforts started in earnest. You all remember or have heard about the year 2014. The President apprised the public of the truth of what happened in L.A. and word of the supernatural quickly spread.

I grew up in that world though so 2014 doesn't stand out to me for that reason. No. In 2014 the war was won (at least that one was) but the soldiers on the front line were lost.

Buffy Anne Summers was born in 1981 and she died three times saving the world. She was thirty three when she died for the final time, making her the longest lived Slayer in history. She was the chosen one for eighteen years.

William "Spike" Pratt was born in 1854 and he also died three times. The first made him into a monster and the last two were spent fighting side by side with the love of his life, saving the world. He was 160 years old when he died for the final time.

They died taking out the Senior Partners and until right now they've gotten no recognition for it. The President is only too happy to pretend that the government had it all in hand. We all know though, that as with most things, if left completely up to the government our world would have ended decades ago. We owe our continued existence to the unsung heroes who were called to a fight bigger than them. Buffy is far from the first Slayer to be called and, since she was called in 1996 over a dozen new slayers have been called, fought and died.

They were the last of my family, her and Spike. My real family. I wish they had gotten more than just eleven years together. They deserved so much more. We all owe our lives to them time and time again.

My sister is my biggest hero, my brother-in-law is a close second. They should be yours too.

Written by Dawn Summers in loving memory of

Buffy Anne Summers (1981-2014)

Spike (1854-2014)

Tears made silent rivers down her worn cheeks as shaky fingers finished typing her blog post. She smiled a bit as she heard her grandchildren play in another room. They never knew their Aunt Buffy or Uncle Spike of course but they knew their story well. The complete version. The one that the world as a whole didn't deserve to hear. It had been her son, William, who had encouraged her to write the blog entry. "Mom, it's not right that they've been overlooked by history. You could tell the world the truth. You know you want to!"

The world probably wouldn't really listen or care or believe it. It made Dawn feel better though, Will had been right about that. She posted the entry and sat back with a smile. "G'ma!" a tiny voice called up at her from below her computer chair.

"What are you up to Buffy?" she asked the little green eyed, blonde four year old with a smile.