"So, does my progeny have a name?" Riley asks, sitting down on the witches' bed amongst the books they've pulled off the shelves. Buffy settles in next to him, pulling a book onto her legs, not bothering to leave a particularly chaste amount of distance between them as she flicks through it.

"Dawn," replies Dawn from her seat on the floor, journal open in her lap. "And I'm not your progeny."

"Oh, yeah?" he leans over her, peering down over her shoulder at the diary. "What's the story then, so-called-Dawn?"

Dawn doesn't answer, still hunched over the journal with a furrowed brow of concentration.

"Oi, Samuel Pepys, share with the group," Riley says with a gentle kick to her side, pulling Dawn out of her intense study.

"Sorry…uh… weird stuff." Dawn finds a spot on the page before reading aloud. "'Nobody knows who I am. Not the real me. It's like, nobody cares enough to find out.'" She skips down to the bottom of the page, bypassing angsty reiterations of the same sentiments. "'No one has an older sister who's a slayer.'"

The room stills with a little more attention paid, Tara and Willow lowering the books they're trawling through as Dawn continues.

"'People wouldn't be so crazy about her if they had to live in the same house with her every single day. Mom lets her get away with everything. 'Your sister's saving the world.' I could so save the world if somebody handed me superpowers. But I'd think of a cool name and wear a mask to protect my loved ones, which Buffy doesn't even.'" Riley's head swivels to take in Buffy's expression; confused and concerned, a mirror to his own.

"You're a what now?" he asks incredulously, as if she could possibly answer. "The hell's a Slayer?"

Dawn glances up at Buffy, taking in her face drained of color with an unreadable expression. "So… sisters then, I guess," she says warily.

"Yeah." Buffy shrugs, head still spinning as Dawn turns back to read further, her finger tracing neat handwriting so as not to lose her place.

"'If this town wasn't so lame, everyone would completely know what she does. And then I bet they wouldn't even be that impressed, because like, killing things with wood? Oh, scary vampires, they die from a splinter.'"

A nervous laugh escapes Willow out of the tense silence. "That's not real, right? I mean… right? That's just… like, a creative writing thing? Teenage imagination?"

Dawn glares across at her, index finger keeping her place on the page. "Is not. Besides, you're currently surrounded by magic books. So, who's all imagination land here?"

"...Ok, fair point." Willow mumbles.

"I think we should keep our minds as open as possible right now," Tara says diplomatically. "I-I mean it's better to be prepared, right?"

"Yeah… yeah, better to be prepared." Buffy agrees breathlessly. The skin at the back of her neck prickles and she turns to see Riley studying her carefully. Studying her neck.

And the two puncture scars there.

She moves a sheaf of hair over the marks.

Something did bite me.

Riley's hand winds around her calf, squeezing gently in an I got you caress and she relaxes minutely. He keeps touching her like she's his. Like he belongs to her. Like it's his responsibility to keep her calm, keep her happy, and she loosens up further under his stroking fingers.

"You're in here," Dawn says to Riley from the floor, having flicked several pages forward.

"Share then," he urges, turning his sky blue stare away from Buffy and back to the diary in Dawn's lap.

"'Riley, my sister's boyfriend, is so into her. They're always kissing and'- ugh skipping," Dawn groans, turning the page.

Despite the multiple head-spinning bombshells so far dropped, Buffy catches Riley smiling a tight lipped smug smile to himself. A mirror of it stretches across her own face.

"You're military." Disbelief etches Dawn's voice.

"Really?" Buffy asks, more than a little surprised herself.

She studies Riley's relaxed, practically apathetic, position on the bed, propped up with his elbows on his knees. The bleached half-curls of his hair. The eyeliner and the chipped nail-varnish.

Bartender in a dive bar she would've guessed. Punk band frontman, or maybe a boxer considering the gashes on his knuckles.

Soldier would've been her last guess. Would probably not even have made it onto the list.

Dawn nods, oblivious to the way Riley and Buffy are re-evaluating each other silently on the bed. Reading new information in each other's body language—previously confusing scars being reframed into a narrative. "Some sort of demon-hunting special unit. Seems like you guys are meant to be, then."

"There… anything about these demony things?" Buffy asks, breaking Riley's piercing study of her. "Maybe that's what we need to be looking for? Something that took away our memories for nefarious, do-badness reasons?"

Willow turns her head eager for the answer. "Could be a better avenue than just hoping to get lucky by combing through all of this." She gestures broadly to the piles and piles of books littering the floor.

"I'm looking, hold on," Dawn replies. "So far just a bunch of stuff about keys, or… a key… I'm skimming it…hang on… Oh, here!"

She reads a few lines to herself, pupils moving rapidly across the words as the room waits with full attention.

"Someone called Spike. Vampire… Riley really hates him."

Riley smirks. "Well, that's something to go on."

"You think he's your nemesis or something?" Buffy asks with a grin as he tugs her hand into his lap and interlocks their fingers. His answer is interrupted by an almost panicked inhale from Dawn, fumbling as she turns a page. "What?" Buffy asks, leaning over Riley.

"Nothing-" Dawn mutters in an overshot of casual indifference, angling the diary away from Buffy's eyes. It's quiet, but the sudden tension in her voice brings Buffy's full attention down on her like a ton of bricks.

"What?" Buffy demands in exasperation.

"Nothing, it's private. It- HEY!" Dawn scrabbles across Riley's legs for the journal as Buffy pulls it out of her hands.

"'Spike isn't like anyone I've ever met,'" Buffy reads aloud, keeping Dawn back with a foot in her stomach. "'He doesn't treat me like some sort of freak of nature. I know that's what they're all thinking, that I'm just some weird glitch, but he doesn't. He's so cool, and wow his eyes-' OW!" Buffy relinquishes the diary as Dawn yanks it out of her grip.

"Do you have a crush on a vampire?" Buffy smirks as Dawn resettles herself at the end of the bed. "Oh my god, that is so lame."

"Is not! And no I don't!" growls Dawn as she tries to bury her face back behind the journal, poorly hiding the red hue staining her cheeks.

"You so do!" Buffy persists, sisterly instincts to lecture asserting themselves far too easily. "You've gotta get over it, Dawn. That's gross and weird, not to mention painfully doomed. This monster guy is probably, like, a moldy super-creep, and a hundred years old."

"Oh, yeah? Well, you and Riley broke up," Dawn parries acidly, stopping Buffy's mocking in its tracks.

"What?" Riley asks, sitting straighter.

"Says right here, left for some top secret military operation thing," Dawn continues, holding out the diary for inspection.

"When?" Buffy asks, snatching it out of Dawn's hands, nervous eyes flicking between Dawn's diary and Riley, who's gone stiff as a board. "Maybe-maybe he came back."

"Maybe that's not Riley."

Buffy's head snaps up to see Willow's eyes narrowing in suspicion, a critical gaze brazenly sizing Riley up. "You don't look very miltary-ish to me."

"Thanks for the compliment," Riley replies, an edge in his voice filling the room with backoff vibes. "Back to the drawing board then. Anyone else in your book of clues?"

"There's a guy called Xander? But he's dating someone called Anya, so I don't think so. And you can't be Spike, either. Apparently he got banished from the house," Dawn mumbles, her cheek resting on her hand as she pours over the journal, wetting her lip for another reading. "'Spike can't come in the house anymore. Willow and Tara did some major banishment thing and disinvited him. Buffy went to talk to him and was gone for hours. Something happened but she won't tell me what. She treats me like a little kid and it sucks.'"

"Sounds like he's bad news," Tara says quietly from her spot amongst the books. "Maybe he tried to undo whatever it is we did a-and it backfired?"

"There's no one else mentioned?" Buffy asks Dawn. "No other potential bad guy types?"

Dawn turns a few more pages and then freezes, her fingers jolting like an electric shock bolted straight up from the page.

"Dawn?" Buffy prompts as her sister's face turns a sick sort of white.

"No, the entries stop just after…" Dawn says quietly.

"After what?"

Dawn turns her diary around so Buffy can read the last entry. It's only three words long.

Mom died yesterday.

"What's wrong?" Riley asks, but Buffy shakes her head and hands the diary back before he can see.

The weight of the diary's words steals her voice. Pins her in place.

It's too big. It's too much. This strange blank world they are all existing in is confusing enough without a dam of horror waiting to break over them. And here they are with chisels, chipping away at the wall of blissful ignorance that's holding it back.

All of that is waiting for me on the other side. Just… waiting. I'm going to have to remember all that. How do you go back to somewhere so awful after you've forgotten it?

How long have we even been like this?

I don't know where or when or who I am. She could've died yesterday for all I know…

"You have something called a watcher?" Dawn says eventually, clearing her throat as she changes the topic with barely a waver in her voice. She flicks back from the last entry. "Called Giles. He's like your boss or something and helps you fight all the evil stuff."

"Maybe this Giles guy could help?" Tara suggests, closing the book she was holding. "I'll look for a directory downstairs. Do you think Giles is his first or last name?"


There turns out to be three Giles' in the directory by the phone.

Tara writes them down on a notepad, sitting cross legged at the coffee table, Willow next to her holding the phone ready. It seems natural they come as a pair now.

Buffy, Dawn, and not-Riley take up the sofa—Buffy in the center. Dawn is tucked into Buffy's side, and hasn't left it since they came down the stairs, still holding her diary tight to her chest. A brittle nervousness seems to ebb from her, and Buffy wraps her arm around her tighter, keeping her close.

The group take turns making embarrassingly confusing phone calls with the handset on speaker.

Buffy gets a rather deaf woman clearly in her twilight years who believes Buffy to be her granddaughter. It takes an age to end the call, and eventually Buffy hangs up the phone mid grandmotherly rambling.

Willow gets what sounds like a flustered parent trying to stop a five year old from eating laundry detergent. They have never heard of a Buffy and aren't interested in buying one.

Tara's Giles doesn't pick up, but she gets the answering machine. A pleasant British voice bids them to leave a message at the tone.

"For emergencies-" Tara scrambles for the pen, taking down the digits on the palm of her hand- "please call the Magic Box on 555-8966."

"Sounds like our guy," mutters Riley as he takes the phone.

"You think the two of you are related?" Buffy asks.

"Maybe." Riley shrugs, and dials the number off Tara's hand. "Not likely to be hundreds of us with this accent in the area."

All five of them hold their breath as it rings. It's answered promptly on the second ring.

"Magic Box, how may I help you?" the same courteous voice from the answering machine inquires. Buffy bites her lip. Something in his fatherly timbre tugs at her a little. Another airy feeling that they're heading in the right direction.

"Alright, mate," Riley replies, leaning closer to the handset. "Look, this might sound a little strange, but, do you know a Buffy? A Buffy Summers?"

There's a brief pause before an exasperated sigh. "Really, Spike, are you so at a lack for entertainment that you're reduced to nuisance calls?"

Buffy flinches back from the phone, her stomach suddenly turning to a bowling ball of ice.

Everyone's eyes swivel to the former Riley as shock drains his face to an even whiter shade.

"No, uh no, that's-"

"Find something to do that isn't harassing us, would you? This really is profoundly tedious." There's a susurration of a phone being taken away from an ear.

"NO WAIT!" Buffy shouts, stalling the end of the call. "Giles, you have to help. We… we woke up and we don't know who we are. Or what happened. We-"

"Buffy?" Giles interrupts, his voice suddenly transformed into protective parental tones. "Slow down, where are you?"

"I… home, I think? I-it must be, the mail said Revello Drive. We found your name in Dawn's diary-" she reiterates everything she knows, trying not to talk too fast as Giles listens patiently.

"Ok, stay where you are," he says eventually after she's repeated it all twice. "I'll be over in ten minutes. Stay calm, and don't touch anything."

The phone clicks as he ends the call and an oppressive silence fills the living room.

Spike turns the phone over in his hands, staring intently at the buttons. Every warm body has leaned a little away from him and he can feel the suspicion and animosity from every glare starting to burn his face.

Shit.

Shitshitshit-

"So." Willow moves a protective arm across Tara, as they shuffle further back. "I guess we've got a culprit."


A/N: 90% of Dawn's diary entries are from transcript, I do not own them!

A massive massive thank you to my two betas RavenLove12 and foxfaceinthewindow for making all of this *gestures above* like 4million times better.