FIC: Dawning Light 4: A Tisket, A Tasket (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake)

[mhalachaiswords]

Dawning Light
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover
Chapter Four: A Tisket, A Tasket
by mhalachaiswords

Summary: Dawn fell from Glory's tower and into the portal. Now she's all alone and scared... but sometimes family comes from the strangest places.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Anita Blake belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No profit has been made from this fic, and the only benefit to me is personal satisfaction and the creative process. I hope you enjoy.
Rating: PG
Words: 9,969
Spoilers: So post-Danse Macabre it hurts.
Note: A response to the Mommy Anita challenge on TTH. We intro more AB characters, and hear tell of an evil cross-dimensional empire (where, incidentally, I write this story).

Parts One ~~ Two ~~ Three

~~~~~

The sunlight shining on the bright wall looked warmer than it was. Dawn blinked lazily at the light, trying to figure out where she was. She remembered the clothing store, and a warm winter coat Anita made her try on. It was too warm for being inside, and Dawn's stomach had gotten all weird and unhappy and made her want to lie down.

Now, it looked as if she was in a house. Her eyes traveled over the bookcases by the wall, a television, and finally to an armchair and the man sitting there.

Dawn hadn't known he was there, not exactly, but she wasn't surprised to see him. Why was that?

He appeared to be Buffy's age, although Dawn was having a hard time judging ages in this place. His braided hair was auburn and he was staring at Dawn with steady, lavender eyes.

As Dawn blinked to clear the sleep from her eyes, she recalled a fragment of the conversation between Anita and Zerbrowski that afternoon. "Are you Micah or Nathaniel?" Dawn asked the man.

The man leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'm Nathaniel," he said. His voice was nice and soft, and just hearing it warmed Dawn down to her toes. "How do you feel?"

Dawn pushed hair back from her face. How did she feel? "Fine, I think." She sat up on the big white couch. "Where's Anita?"

"She's talking with Micah," Nathaniel said. "Do you want me to get her?"

"No, it's okay." Dawn folded her hands in her lap, her feet sticking off the edge of the couch. She was never going to get used to being this small. A tiny warning voice in the back of her head said that she might not have a choice, but she ignored that. "Now what?"

For the first time, uncertainty crossed Nathaniel's face. "What do you mean?"

Dawn restrained herself from rolling her eyes. "I mean, what do we do now?"

Nathaniel shifted nervously in his seat. "Do you want to do something? We can do whatever you want to do."

Nathaniel reminded Dawn of Tara, soft-spoken and nervous. That line of thought reminded Dawn of what Glory had done to Tara, and the last time she'd seen the witch, all wounded and crazy.

Dawn pulled her legs up to her chest, trying not to cry. Tara had been with Willow and Buffy and everyone, and so that probably meant that Tara was safe back in Sunnydale with everyone else.

A tiny sniffle escaped Dawn. She'd jumped off the tower so that everyone would be safe, she had to remember that. That was the way it worked; she jumped and closed the portal, and everyone would be safe.

Wait.

Her blood was the only way to open the portal. She'd closed the portal when she jumped. Now she was here and Buffy and everybody else was on the other side with no way to open the portal again to find her.

She pressed her hands over her mouth. She hadn't thought of that before, and the more she thought of it, the more it made sense, a horrible kind of sense. Glory had been very insistent that the portal would only open at a certain time in a certain place. How could Dawn get back if there the time to open dimensions with her blood was over?

The cushion on the couch shifted as Nathaniel sat down next to Dawn. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked gently.

Dawn shook her head. He couldn't do anything to fix the mess she'd made. No one could.

Anita came into the room and hurried over to the couch. "What happened?" the woman asked, kneeling in front of Dawn. "Nathaniel?"

"I asked her if she wanted to do something and she just freaked out."

Dawn buried her face in her knees and hugged her legs harder. The resulting pain in her stomach was sharp and sudden, but it was real and something that she could stop at any time. Not like the other things she'd messed up so badly. Was she ever going to see Buffy again?

Someone lifted Dawn into a gentle hug. Even with eyes closed, Dawn knew it was Anita, smelling like a hint of rosemary again, and nice shampoo and soap. Dawn wanted more than anything to hug Anita back, to know it was going to be okay. She was on the verge of uncurling and doing just that, when something stuck her.

Anita wasn't Buffy.

Dawn knew that, but it hadn't really sunk in. Last night, Anita had saved her, like Buffy always did, and Dawn had been so scared in this new place that she had latched on to the woman. But Anita wasn't Buffy, wasn't Dawn's sister. She didn't have to be doing this. Maybe she didn't want to deal with a glompy, slobbering, crying little kid.

Gathering all of her fifteen-year-old pride to her, Dawn sat up straight on Anita's lap and looked at the woman, rubbing at her face with a grubby hand. She wasn't going to say sorry, but she felt as if she should apologize for being a total spaz.

"You okay?" Anita asked.

Dawn shrugged. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"Right," Anita muttered. The woman brushed Dawn's hair back. "I see you've met Nathaniel?"

"Uh huh." Dawn climbed off Anita's lap and back onto the couch, losing an ill-fitting sock in the process. Her baby-like feet were still dirty. She sure was making a hell of a first impression on everyone.

That reminded her of the conversation she'd overheard earlier in the day. "Where's Micah?"

Confusion flitted in Dawn's mind, uncertain on the edges of her mind. Before Dawn could wonder why, Anita looked over at the far wall. Dawn twisted around to follow her gaze.

A man stood in the far doorway. He had long curly brown hair, the kind of curly hair Dawn had always wanted. Then Dawn registered something else different about the man.

Sliding off the couch and losing her other sock, Dawn walked across the room. She craned her head back to look at the man's face. "Are you Micah?" she asked as she stared.

"I am." He unfolded his arms and knelt down so he was on level with Dawn. "It's nice to meet you, Dawn."

She kept staring at Micah's eyes. They were cat's eyes, green and yellow with oval pupils. They were so cool!

Belatedly, Dawn remembered her manners. "It's nice to meet you, Micah," she said, feeling shy.

Micah smiled at her gently. "Anita tells me that you're going to be staying with us for a little while," he said.

"I guess." Dawn darted a look over her shoulder at Anita. "Is that okay?"

"Yes, it is," Micah said. He said something else, but Dawn heard Anita and Nathaniel talking behind her, whispering words that she couldn't quite understand. But when Dawn turned around, their mouths weren't moving.

The whispers lifted up in surprise, then stopped. In the resulting silence, Dawn's racing heartbeat roared in her ears.

"Dawn?" Micah said. "What is it?"

Dawn stared at Anita, knowing something was wrong and she just couldn't figure out what it was. It was a big thing, hovering on the edges of her consciousness, and she just couldn't catch it.

"Dawn?" Micah gently touched her hand, below the bandages.

Anita returned Dawn's gaze, confused. After a minute, Dawn blinked and turned back to Micah. "Nothing," she managed to say. "It's nothing."

Dawn could tell Micah didn't believe her, but he said, "You can tell us anything you want, okay? Even if it's small or silly."

Dawn nodded, even though she knew that was impossible. She couldn't tell them about Buffy being a Slayer, or that Dawn used to be a mystical energy ball, or that she was really fifteen. Well, she'd tried to tell Anita that, in the car, but of course the woman hadn't believed her.

And it's not helping that I keep acting like a big baby all the time, Dawn scolded herself. Especially in front of grown-ups like Anita and Micah. Dawn still hadn't made up her mind about where to put Nathaniel yet, if he was a grown-up like Mom or one like Buffy.

"Dawn," Micah said, catching Dawn's wandering attention. "Is there anything you'd like to do right now?"

Right. Life went on, even if she was in a different dimension. Dawn wrinkled her nose as she remembered the list she'd started making that morning in the hospital bathroom. "Can I have a bath?"

Micah hesitated for a moment, and it made Dawn feel better. He didn't know what to do any more than she did. "Anita?"

"What?" Anita asked from the couch.

Micah gave her a look.

"What?" she said again, voice climbing defensively.

Micah breathed out through his nose, not quite a sigh and not exactly a huff. "Would you be able to help Dawn out with a bath?"

"I don't need a helper," Dawn said, annoyed. She wasn't a baby, she'd been taking baths by herself for years.

"Children aren't supposed to be left alone around water until they can swim," Nathaniel said suddenly from the couch.

Anita twisted around. "What?"

The young man looked down at his hands. "I read it on the Internet, when you told us you were bringing Dawn home." His voice was barely audible.

"You have the Internet here?" Dawn asked quickly, interrupting Anita.

"We have a computer," Nathaniel said, but that wasn't what Dawn wanted to know. If they had the Internet here, this dimension might not be too different from home.

"Dawn, Anita will help you get sorted out with a bath," Micah said, standing up. "In the meantime, how about Nathaniel and I make lunch? Do you like sandwiches?"

Sandwiches? This had been a conversation about swimming. Or was it bubble baths? Dawn's head felt fuzzy again, and her stomach hurt, and she was all confused and suddenly a little scared. Things were different here, but not all the way different, and how was she to know which was which?

"Dawn?" Anita had knelt down beside Dawn and put her hand on Dawn's back, warm through Dawn's t-shirt. "Do you need to sit down?"

Dawn bit her lower lip. She told herself, as she leaned against Anita's side, that it wasn't a hug, it was just leaning, which was totally different from being all clingy. "I like sandwiches," she whispered.

Anita and Micah shared a troubled glance. Dawn wondered if they thought she was crazy. Maybe I am crazy, maybe Glory's craziness leaked off onto me while Ben had me. But if it worked like that, I'd be crazy from years living with Buffy.

"How about soup?" Micah asked.

Now that she didn't have to stand on her own, Dawn felt a little better. "Soup is nice, as long as it's not cream of mushroom," Dawn informed him.

"You don't like mushrooms?" Anita asked.

"They're made of fungus!" Dawn said, scrunching up her nose. "They haven't even got chlorophyll!"

She hadn't meant to say that, but ever since they'd done a section on botany in science class earlier that year, Dawn hadn't been able to touch a mushroom, let alone put one in her mouth.

Everyone stared at Dawn as if she had three heads. "I mean, who wants to eat a plant that doesn't eat sunshine?" Dawn said, faltering. "If you are what you eat, it's better to eat sunshine... than... not." God, I'm like a total goober! Dawn thought, blushing bright red.

Anita blinked at Dawn. "So, no mushrooms," the woman said after a minute.

"Four?" Micah asked Anita.

"Huh?" Dawn looked between Micah and Anita. "Four what?"

Anita cleared her throat and tried to smile. "The doctors said that developmentally, you were either at the top of the chart for four years old, or a bit lower for five."

"I thought I looked five," Dawn said. She glanced down at her hands. "Do I look four?"

"Not really," Anita said quickly. "They're just trying to figure out what to put on your forms at the hospital."

"Oh." Dawn frowned. She wanted to know if Anita thought she was acting like a little baby kid, but she suspected it might not be a good idea to keep bringing up her strange behavior. Maybe it would be best to change the topic. "Why are Micah's eyes like that?"

Another shared glance between Micah and Anita. "Dawn, I want to you to know, you're perfectly safe in this house and with everyone in it," Anita began.

Dawn perked up, making the connection with something else Zerbrowski had said that morning. "Is it because he's a lycanthrope?" she asked. "But wolves don't have eyes like that, they had puppy dog eyes."

"Lycan-- How did you hear that?" Anita demanded.

Since Dawn wasn't too sure about that herself, she had no qualms about not responding. It wasn't like she was lying to Anita. "Are you a werewolf?" she asked Micah eagerly.

Micah shook his head. "I'm a wereleopard," he said. There was a weight of emotion behind his words, very different from Buffy's 'woe is me, I have Slayer superpowers and can kick ass' emo whining. "Anita's right, no one in this house will harm you in any way."

Dawn waved that off. "I had a babysitter that was a werewolf, when I was a little kid," she informed them. "His name was Oz and he was a musician and he was always really mellow."

"You had a werewolf babysitter," Anita repeated.

"Uh huh." Dawn didn't see why it was so hard for Anita to get her head around this. Just a minute before, the woman had been saying Micah was safe to be around. "He showed me how to play checkers with sandwich cookies."

"How do you play checkers with sandwich cookies?" Nathaniel asked, sliding off the couch and crawling over.

"It's so cool," Dawn said. "I was always white, so I ate the top cookie off mine and then the icing showed on my cookies and when you got kinged, you stacked the cookies up on top of each other until they're almost too big to put in your mouth."

"Sounds like fun." Nathaniel smiled at Dawn as he hugged one leg up to his chest.

"And speaking of food," Micah interrupted, "We need to get cooking. Anita?"

"You can't use the upstairs bathroom," Nathaniel said before Anita could speak.

Anita frowned. "Why not?"

"There's stuff in it."

"Stuff? Why is there stuff in the bathroom?"

"Because that's where Zane put it."

Looking back and forth between Anita and Nathaniel was like watching a tennis match, and much more fun, Dawn decided.

"Why is Zane's stuff in the upstairs bathroom? He's got his own place to leave things."

Nathaniel ducked his head. "He just did."

"You can use our bathroom," Micah interrupted. He reached a hand out and hauled Nathaniel to his feet. "We'll get lunch started."

As the two men left the room, Dawn carefully shifted away from Anita. "You don't have to help me if you don't want," Dawn said, trying her hardest to not let all of her conflicting emotions show. She didn't need to be treated like a baby, but she didn't want to be alone. "I'll be okay."

Anita sighed as she stood. Holding out her hand to Dawn, she said, "I know you'll be okay. But can I help anyway?"

Hesitating only a moment, Dawn took Anita's hand. "If you want to."

Anita squeezed Dawn's hand gently. "I want to."

They went through a hallway with some framed pictures on the white walls, past an open door to a room with a huge rumpled bed and some clothes on the floor. "Is that your room?" Dawn asked, pointing.

"Yes, it is." Anita reached past Dawn to pull the door shut.

"I don't like to clean my room up, either," Dawn said. "Mom used to have to tell me that I didn't get to watch TV unless I'd done all my chores and cleaned up my room."

"What sort of chores did you do?" Anita asked.

"Not a lot," Dawn admitted. "Like, clean my room, do the dishes sometimes. They didn't let me vacuum or dust."

"Why not?"

"Things tend to break when I'm around them. But that's totally never my fault," Dawn hastened to say.

Anita opened a door and led Dawn inside the biggest bathroom Dawn had ever seen. It was bigger than her bedroom back home. Dawn let go of Anita's hand to investigate.

While Dawn looked at the bottles lined up on the counter, Anita started filling the tub. "Dawn, why don't you come over here so we can look at those bandages?"

Dawn picked up a pretty bottle and took it over to Anita. "Can we use this?"

"Do you know what this is?" Anita asked, taking the bottle from Dawn.

"Sure, it's bubble bath," Dawn said, pointing at the lettering on the label. "Made with pure organic mango extract."

Anita set the bottle down on the edge of the tub. "You read very well."

Dawn dropped her gaze to the bandage on her wrist. She didn't know what to say. Should she pretend that she didn't know how to read? She was already doing a bad job at being this small. Reading, talking about plants, and insisting that she could do everything by herself. She was just as bad as she'd been at home with Buffy.

"It's okay if you can read," Anita said, gently lifting Dawn's chin. "We already knew you were a smart little girl."

"If you say so," Dawn said.

"I just did." Anita leaned forward. "How about you and I make a deal?"

In spite of herself, Dawn was curious. "What kind of deal?"

"You can be as smart as you want, and ask any question you want. How does that sound?"

Dawn considered the offer. She had so many questions about this dimension and this world, not the least of which was about wereleopards. Who would have thought to have something like wereleopards? "Wait, what's your part of the deal?" Dawn asked.

"I have to answer the questions."

That sounded odd, but Dawn straightened up and stuck out her hand. "Okay, deal."

They shook hands, which was really sort of silly because Dawn was so small, but it made Dawn feel a little more grown-up.

"Now, let's get on with this bath," Anita said. "Do you need any help?"

Dawn hesitated, then nodded.

"With what?" Anita asked, more gently this time.

Dawn pointed to the mess that was her hair. "Can you brush hair without it hurting?"

"That I can do," Anita said, looking quite relieved. Dawn wondered what Anita had been expecting. "Come and sit over here, and we'll see what we can do."

Dawn hopped up on the tiles by the edge of the tub and watched the water flow out of the tap. The continuous sound of the water was soothing and scary all at the same time. It was all so normal! Bathtubs and lunch and hairbrushes. Shouldn't a different dimension have scary and crazy things? Hadn't Anya said things were different?

"Do you have shrimp here?" Dawn asked Anita, turning around.

Anita glanced up from teasing the tangles out a handful of Dawn's hair. "Shrimp? Not in the house, but they have them at the supermarket. Why?"

"Just testing a theory," Dawn told her. Well, at least this wasn't the shrimp-free dimension Anya had talked about. Too late, she realized that she was once again speaking like a grown-up. Or at least a teenager.

Anita just smiled again, and went back to Dawn's hair. "You have beautiful hair," Anita said after a few minutes. "When I was your age, I wanted straight hair."

"Why?" Dawn asked, picking at the bandage on her wrist. "Straight hair is boring. Curly hair is so much cooler."

Anita ran the brush the full length of Dawn's hair, this time without hitting a single snag. "Well, whatever you say, I like your hair."

Dawn closed her eyes and tried very hard not to cry. Anita didn't know, she couldn't know, she wasn't doing it on purpose--

"What's wrong?" Anita asked, setting the brush down and turning Dawn to face her. "Dawn?"

Dawn twisted her fingers together. "My.. my mom..." She had to stop for a minute so she wouldn't cry. Anita didn't rush her. "Mom used to brush my hair at night and tell me it was beautiful."

Anita took a deep breath. "Oh, Dawn."

"Buffy had to come tell me that Mom was..." Dawn stared very hard at a button on Anita's shirt. "I was in art class and Buffy pulled me out and told me Mom was dead and it was like it wasn't real, like it couldn't be real because it was just so bad." Dawn sniffled, just once. Mom would have wanted her to be strong and not so sad, which was stupid because Dawn missed her so much.

Anita put her hand on Dawn's shoulders. "Dawn, I'm so sorry."

Without thinking, Dawn leaned against Anita and buried her face against Anita's shirt. "Why does this kind of stuff have to happen?" she asked, voice muffled.

"I don't know." Anita let Dawn sit there for a minute. "And I'm not sure it ever gets any better, but eventually it gets a little easier to deal with."

Dawn sniffled and lifted her head. "How do you know?" Dawn asked curiously.

A shadow, almost hidden, lay in Anita's eyes. "I lost my mother when I was your age," she said.

Anita thought Dawn was just a little kid, which meant that Anita's mother must have died when Anita was very young. "I'm sorry," Dawn said in a whisper.

Anita's haunted expression tore at Dawn's heart. After a few seconds, the woman blinked, and the expression was gone. "You're a very special little girl, you know that?" Anita said, tears hiding on the edges of her words. She gave Dawn's shoulder a quick squeeze. "We should get you into the bath before it gets cold."

Dawn looked at the tub, which wasn't even half-full, but decided against commenting.

"Oh, and we almost forgot," Anita said. She held up the bubble bath. "Still want this?"

Dawn didn't know how she was going to live this way, having had all this bad stuff happen to her but still having to go on. But Anita had done it, so it had to be possible. Even with something as small as bubbles. "Yes, please."

At least mango bubble bath smelled the same in this dimension.

~~~

Peanut butter sandwiches and chicken noodle soup weren't the strangest lunch Dawn had ever had, but it was pretty close. She tried to slurp her soup quietly, watching Anita dismantle her sandwich. On the other side of the round kitchen table, Micah watched Anita without being obvious about it.

Nathaniel washed the dishes by hand, the porcelain barely making any sound as he rinsed a plate under the tap. The silence in the room grew as Dawn slowly ate.

The phone rang, startling Anita right up out of her seat. Micah made a move towards her, but managed to stop himself before she saw.

"I'll get it," Anita muttered, rubbing a hand across her face. She walked the few feet to the phone on the counter and picked the handset up. "Hello?" Anita said.

Dawn licked the teaspoon she'd been using for her soup and laid it in the bowl, listening hard. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost hear the other end of the conversation. Almost, but not quite.

"What do you mean?" Anita said into the phone. "Zerbrowski, that's not--" Anita bit her lip. "No, that's not-- Oh, hold on." She pulled the phone away from her ear. "I'll be right back."

Anita stalked out of the kitchen, voice already rising on the phone before she cleared the door. Once she was gone, Nathaniel leaned against the counter, not looking at anything.

Okay... Dawn looked over at Micah. He quirked up the side of his mouth in a small smile. "Things can get pretty busy around here at times," he explained.

"Because Anita's a federal marshal?" Dawn asked innocently.

"Something like that," Micah said. "Are you done with your lunch?"

"Yes, thank you," Dawn said. She sat back in her chair and glanced down at her outfit again. It was one of the ones Anita had bought at the store that morning. Nathaniel had washed it while Dawn had been sleeping. Not a nap, Dawn thought indignantly. I haven't had a nap since I was really five.

"What do you--" A tiny electronic ringing interrupted Micah's question. He pushed himself back from the table. "Excuse me," he said, pulling out his cell phone as he moved quickly to the hallway.

That left Dawn and Nathaniel alone in the kitchen. Dawn rested her elbows on the tabletop and set her chin on her arms as she regarded Nathaniel.

Nathaniel cleared his throat nervously. "Would you like any desert?" he suggested.

"No, thank you," Dawn said. "Are you a lycanthrope too?

Nathaniel nodded. His incredibly long braid bobbed in the hair, which was so cool. Dawn had never seen a man with such long hair, or anyone with lavender eyes. "I'm a wereleopard like Micah."

"That's neat." Dawn pulled her own braid over her shoulder and played with the end. Anita had braided her hair after her bath, and had even let Dawn use one of the nice elastics. "Why aren't your eyes different?"

"How so?" Nathaniel put more dishes in the sink to wash.

Dawn pursed her lips. Nathaniel knew very well what she was talking about. "Your eyes are normal... sort of, and Micah's are like cat's eyes. If they're like that because he's a wereleopard, then why aren't yours like that too?"

Nathaniel turned off the tap and rested his hands on the counter. "I don't know what to tell you," he said.

Dawn slid off her chair and hopped across the kitchen to Nathaniel's side. "I'll understand," she told him.

Nathaniel crouched down so he was on eyelevel with her. He didn't seem to notice that his wet hands were making marks on his jeans. "I know you'd understand, but it's not my story to tell," he said. "You'll have to ask Micah if he wants to tell you."

Dawn fiddled with the end of her braid. "Is it a bad thing?" she asked in a small voice. She didn't want to ask Micah if it was going to make him unhappy.

"It's not bad, it's just a thing," Nathaniel said.

"But it's his thing," Dawn finished. "Okay." She flicked a glance up at Nathaniel. "Then can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Nathaniel didn't seem to mind crouching down to talk to Dawn, and it sure made it easier to communicate without shouting. Dawn could almost forget that she was tiny. "What do you want to know?"

"Why is your hair so long?"

Nathaniel's response was interrupted as Anita stormed back into the kitchen. "Where's Micah?" she demanded. "I have to leave."

A thrill of panic ran through Dawn's head. Anita was leaving? Who would protect Dawn?

The next moment, Dawn wanted to kick herself. She'd be fine, she'd be safe. Anita wasn't leaving forever.

"Micah's on the phone," Nathaniel was saying. "Where are you going?"

"Zerbrowski wants me to go back to the cemetery where I found Dawn, there's something--" Anita broke off when she saw Dawn beside Nathaniel. "There's something they want my advice on," Anita amended.

"Can I go?" Dawn asked. Maybe she could learn something about what brought her here. She wasn't sure what she'd do with that knowledge, but it couldn't hurt to go.

Anita, however, had other ideas. "You may certainly not come with me," she said as she pulled on her jacket. "You're going to stay here safe and far away from the screaming contagious insanity."

"Anita," Nathaniel chided. The woman looked at him, confused.

"Are people getting hurt?" Dawn demanded. She ran across the kitchen and grabbed Anita's jacket sleeve. "Are people getting hurt because of me?" It was just like back in Sunnydale, where all the injury and pain Glory caused was her fault.

"No, Dawn, that's not it," Anita said in a hurry.

"But people are getting hurt?"

"No--"

"But you said there was screaming contagious insanity and that's never fun!"

"Dawn, I was-- Look, I don't know what's going on, but they need my help." Anita gently pulled Dawn's hands off her jacket. "I have to go, and I need you to stay here with Micah and Nathaniel. You'll be safe with them."

Dawn swallowed her numerous objections, knowing it was hopeless. Anita wasn't going to let Dawn go along to the cemetery, to see if there were any clues as to what happened to her. Besides, Dawn told herself, Anita would be fine. She was the police in charge of this stuff, she'd be okay.

Even if Tara hadn't been okay when Glory sucked out her sanity.

Micah came back into the kitchen. "Micah, I have to go to work..." Anita's voice trailed off when she spotted the coat and car keys in Micah's hands. "What are you doing?"

"I have to go into town," Micah said quietly, casting a glance at Dawn. "Two people didn't show up to their shift at the Coalition Hotline and one of the new werewolves just called, he's in trouble."

Anita pressed her lips together. "But what about Dawn?"

"Nathaniel can stay with me," Dawn piped up. She had no idea what this Coalition Hotline thing was, but it sounded important for Micah. "I'll be okay."

"I don't... Nathaniel?" Anita asked.

Nathaniel ducked his head for a moment. "We'll be okay. You guys go."

"Yeah," Dawn said with a nod. "We'll be good."

Anita didn't look convinced, but Micah was already moving towards the door. "Nathaniel, if you have any problems, just call Merle," Micah told him.

"Merle? Why?" Anita demanded as she followed Micah out. Micah's answer was lost in the noise of the closing door.

Dawn waited for a heartbeat, listening to the house settle. Then she looked up at Nathaniel. "Okay, now what?"

~~~

"And this is going to be your room," Nathaniel finished, pushing open the door.

Dawn peeked around the doorframe. The second-story room, on the opposite end of the house from Anita's room, was about as big as her room in Sunnydale, but seemed larger because it was so empty. There was a bare mattress in the corner and two boxes by the window.

With a gulp, Dawn put on a brave face. "It's very nice," she said politely. Anita didn't have to make up a room for her, so Dawn should be happy with whatever she got.

"No, it's not," Nathaniel gently contradicted. He set the hamper down on the carpet before pulling open the curtains. "But we'll make it better."

Dawn hung back by the door as Nathaniel quickly put the sheets on the bed. Next, Nathaniel lifted out a large blanket and two pillows. Dawn drifted towards the bed, wanting to touch the blanket but not sure if she should.

"Anita thought you might like this comforter," Nathaniel said, holding out one corner. "What do you think?"

The blanket was so soft and such a bright blue, like the afternoon sky. "It's my favorite color," Dawn said wistfully.

Nathaniel smiled as he spread the blanket over the bed. After watching for a moment, Dawn moved to the other end of the bed to help him tug the heavy cloth into place.

"All done," Nathaniel said. He handed Dawn one of the pillows to set at the head of the bed. "How's that?"

"Much better," Dawn said after a moment of consideration. "What's in those boxes?"

"Let's go see," Nathaniel said. He pulled open the flap of the top box and peered inside. Before Dawn could see, Nathaniel had slapped the box shut and was lifting both boxes at once, carrying them towards the door.

"What's in it?" Dawn asked, hurrying along after Nathaniel.

"Nothing important," Nathaniel said quickly. "I'll be right back."

Dawn stopped at the top of the stairs, watching Nathaniel vanish around the corner. She blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. That was certainly strange. She wondered what was in those boxes.

Although, on second thought, maybe she didn't want to know. Probably creepy adult things.

Dawn headed back to her new room. The blue blanket was bright in the sunlight that streamed in from the windows. Dawn pressed her nose against the cold glass and looked out at the snow-covered front yard. Breathing out through her nose made the glass steam up. Dawn did it again, then pulled back and wrote her name on the foggy glass. Dawn. There wasn't enough room for her to put Summers after it.

Dawn trailed her fingers across the glass. Was there anything she could do to make it easier for Buffy to find her? She had to believe that Buffy would come for her. That was what Buffy did, she saved Dawn. She didn't have to, after they all found out about the Key. If she really hadn't wanted to be Dawn's sister, Buffy could have handed Dawn over to Glory. But she didn't, no one did. Even after Mom found out about Dawn, Joyce had still wanted to be Dawn's mom.

Dawn missed them both so much.

The soft scrunching of the carpet alerted Dawn to Nathaniel's return. "Is there anything else you need?" Nathaniel asked.

Dawn sniffled. She wasn't going to whine, she told herself. "No, thank you."

Nathaniel knelt down beside Dawn to look out the window. "Anita said you're from California?"

"Uh huh." Dawn wiped her nose on her sleeve. "We don't have snow there."

"I've never been to California," Nathaniel said. "What's it like?"

Dawn thought about the vampires and the werewolves, and the demons and the witches, all pulled together over the Hellmouth. "It's like anywhere else, I suppose."

~~~

The supermarket was annoyingly large. Dawn gripped Nathaniel's hand hard while he navigated the aisles of the store. She couldn't shake the anxiety and worry that consumed her when she stepped into the store.

The place was just like the supermarkets they had in her world. Dawn looked at the cans and boxes as they walked, but couldn't find a thing to say.

Nathaniel stopped the cart in the breakfast aisle. "Why don't you pick your favorite cereal for tomorrow?" he suggested.

Dawn shook her head.

Nathaniel crouched down. "You can have anything you want to eat, okay?" His face was very intense. "If you ever want anything to eat and we haven't got it, you just say so and we'll get it for you."

Dawn blinked, and with it came flashes of not enough food, a hard and cold and unsafe bed, and never knowing where the next threat was going to come from.

Nathaniel was looking at her, waiting for an answer.

A spark of an idea was growing in the back of Dawn's mind. All these things she kept thinking about, she knew they weren't her memories or her imagination.

But what could they be?

Screaming started halfway down the cereal aisle. Dawn whirled around and saw a little boy, maybe about her new height, throwing a tantrum.

Nathaniel winced. "Do you want anything here?" he asked, almost drowned out by the fit.

Dawn wanted to shake her head, but Nathaniel looked so hopeful. Dawn didn't know why, but this meant a lot to him. "Did you have a favorite cereal when you were my age?" she asked.

Dawn had to push away the image in her head of a little boy, so much like Nathaniel, sitting in a dark room. It took Nathaniel a moment to answer. "I did have one that I liked, but I didn't get to eat it often."

The tantrum was getting louder. Dawn leaned closer to Nathaniel so she could be heard. "Can we get that one?"

The smile on Nathaniel's face was wistful, but happy. Dawn liked that smile. "We can."

He stood and pushed the cart along, past several displays. While Nathaniel reached out for a particular box, Dawn glanced at the screaming boy. His mother was trying to quiet him, alternating comfort and mild threats of no television. Dawn watched the scene with wide eyes. Had she ever thrown a tantrum like this with Mom? She really hoped not. It was embarrassing to watch.

"How about this one?" Nathaniel said, holding out the box of cereal. The box promised chocolate and marshmallows in the shapes of supernatural creatures. She turned the box on its side to read the ingredients.

"That's a lot of sugar," Dawn said. "Okay, this is good." She held the box up to Nathaniel.

He put it in the cart, then held out his hand. "We're almost done."

Gratefully, Dawn let Nathaniel take them away from the tantrum. She remained silent as they walked, taking in all the sights. Things were different here in tiny ways, just different enough to keep reminding her that life had changed.

After she pulled her equilibrium back together, Dawn noticed that people were looking at them. No, she realized. Not 'them', but at Nathaniel. She didn't blame them, he was really pretty. If pretty was the right word. He wasn't all rugged and handsome like Angel or Spike, but maybe that sort of handsome was a vampire thing.

Nathaniel stopped the cart and let go of Dawn's hand to get milk. A display across from the cooler caught Dawn's attention, and she drifted over.

"What are you looking at?" Nathaniel asked when he caught up with her.

Dawn pulled her hand back. "Nothing."

Nathaniel picked up the notebook with the brown leather cover that Dawn had been touching. "Would you like this?"

"I... no?"

"Dawn." Nathaniel held out the book to her. "We can get it if you want. Something you can have, all of your own. Something fun."

Carefully, Dawn took the book. It was so nice, with a flawless cover and so many thick, blank pages inside there she could write anything she wanted. "Thank you," she whispered.

"You're welcome." Nathaniel hesitated before saying, "Dawn, I know what it's like to be in a place that's not your home, I was in foster care when I was little, too."

"After Nicky died." The words slipped out of Dawn's mouth before she could think of what they meant. Although she'd been quiet, Nathaniel jerked back, eyes wide.

"Who told you that?" Nathaniel demanded.

Dawn stood frozen, the sudden rush of anger and panic and fear clenching in her stomach and stopping her breath. She didn't know why she'd said what she did. Somehow, she'd known that Nathaniel hadn't been in foster care before Nicky, the boy like Nathaniel with beautiful blue eyes, had died. But how had she known?

"I'm sorry," Dawn whispered, taking a step away from Nathaniel. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Dawn--" Nathaniel stopped when Dawn flinched back from the hand he held towards her. "Dawn, I won't hurt you."

"I know." Dawn couldn't look at Nathaniel. The idea in her head was growing into something big, something very, very bad, and something that Dawn couldn't accept. Not yet.

"Dawn..." Nathaniel crouched down beside her. "What you said--"

"I said I was sorry," Dawn whispered.

Nathaniel let out a breath. "I know." He opened his mouth, then closed it, then tried again. "Are you okay?"

Dawn didn't understand why he was asking that, but she nodded anyway.

"No, you're not," Nathaniel muttered. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He didn't sound mad, not now, but he had to be. He probably thought someone told Dawn things about his brother and that Dawn was just being a snarky little brat.

Dawn held out the notebook. "Here," she said, fully expecting Nathaniel to put it back on the shelf. He gave her a look, then took the book and placed it in the cart. Dawn stared, not really sure what was going on, then Nathaniel held out his hand.

"Come on," he said, not unkindly. "Let's get out of here."

Dawn tried to figure out if Nathaniel was being serious, or if he was only doing this because he'd told Anita he'd look out for Dawn. Trying to understand that was like trying to see through a brick wall.

Finally, Dawn slipped her tiny hand into Nathaniel's palm. The store was still big and scary and she didn't want to get lost, even if Nathaniel was mad at her.

They made it to the checkout without incident. Dawn went up on tip-toe to watch the food move towards the checker on the little plastic belt. She always loved this part of shopping with Mom, watching the food go over the scanner.

Nathaniel finished unloading the cart and came over to stand beside Dawn, putting his hand on her shoulder. "How are your feet?" he asked.

Dawn craned her head up. Nathaniel didn't seem angry or annoyed with her. Dawn's stomach began to unclench. "They're fine," she said shyly, knowing the woman at the register was watching them.

"Good," Nathaniel said with a smile. Then he turned that smile onto the checker, and the woman almost melted.

Dawn watched the exchange, fascinated. Nathaniel was flirting with the woman, but it seemed automatic. He was like a puppy dog, big eyes and a nice smile and a promise of being interested. Dawn wondered why he was doing it, and if Anita knew he did things like this.

Once the groceries were paid for, Nathaniel pushed the cart, now loaded with bags, to the front entrance. He stopped and knelt beside Dawn again and began to button her jacket.

She wrinkled her nose. "I can do that myself, you know," she informed him.

"I know." Nathaniel wrapped the scarf around her neck. "But I just wanted to make sure you'd be okay on the walk to the car."

Because no one ever did it for you. Luckily, this time Dawn kept her mouth shut, but even the thought alone, coming with a memory of trailing along in the snow, cold and in pain and ashamed, was enough to scare her down to her toes.

~~~

Nathaniel noticed that Dawn was shivering by the time they reached the car. "You'll get used to the temperature in winter," he promised as he stowed the last bag in the car. "Do you want to get a hot chocolate?"

Clenching her chattering teeth, Dawn nodded.

Nathaniel closed the car door, but instead of taking Dawn's hand like in the store, he picked her up and settled her on his hip. "Is that okay?" he asked after Dawn was up.

"I guess," Dawn said, unsure what she should do. It made more sense when Anita was carrying her, like Mom used to do. But with Nathaniel... it was just strange. Not bad, but weird. "Are we going far?"

"No, just over there." Nathaniel pointed across the parking lot in the shopping center. "There are a lot of cars and you're so small."

Dawn rested her arm on Nathaniel's shoulder and watched a huge SUV drive past. "Okay," she said after a few moments. "This will be okay."

It was only after she spoke that she realized how pretentious she must sound. Here she was, some little squirt of a kid, telling the adults what was going to happen. On the one hand, she'd done the same thing with Buffy, but Buffy was different.

And right there, in the middle of the parking lot, a wave of powerful homesickness hit Dawn so hard that she wanted to curl up and cry. She knew that she should be strong and alert, trying to figure out what was going on, but how? She didn't know how to be the one in charge of the dangerous situation, that was always Buffy.

She knew she couldn't depend on Buffy to get her out of this, but she didn't know how to stand on her own.

Once they reached the coffee shop, Nathaniel set Dawn down. She smoothed her jacket flat before looking up. "Starbucks?" she blurted out. She grabbed Nathaniel's sleeve. "Hey, we have these where I come from!"

Nathaniel smiled at her as he opened the door. "They have these everywhere."

"That's not what I mean." Dawn glanced around the store. Sure enough, it was laid out exactly the same as the Starbucks back home. Dawn looked at the Starbucks mermaid on the sign, and shivered. Definitely creepy.

Then Dawn's stomach took over. If this was the same as back home, then she knew exactly what drink she would have. Cheered, she hop-skipped to the counter.

"Do you know what you want?" Nathaniel asked Dawn.

"Yup." She smiled up at the lady behind the counter. "May I have a white hot chocolate with raspberry syrup and whipped cream? Please?"

"Of course," the woman said. She glanced at Nathaniel. "Child sized?"

Dawn twisted around to look at Nathaniel. "I can drink a big one," she said.

Nathaniel hesitated before saying, "It would probably be best if you were to get a little cup."

"Oh, all right," Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

The cashier tried to hide a smile. "And what is Dad going to have?"

Nathaniel's face went blank. "Medium black coffee?" he managed to get out.

Once both Nathaniel and Dawn had their drinks, Nathaniel let Dawn pull him over to the big armchairs near the window. Still not used to being this small, Dawn had to set her cup down on the table, then undo her jacket, then climb onto the chair. She missed the days when she was big enough to do all that in one movement.

"How is your drink?" Nathaniel asked once Dawn was seated.

Dawn picked up the cup and took a sip. "Excellent. Full of sugar and fat." She took another sip. "Two of the essential food groups."

"What are the other ones?"

"One's coffee, but I'm not allowed to have caffeine after lunch," Dawn said. "I get..." She tried to think of the right way to describe it.

"Jittery?" Nathaniel supplied.

"Maudlin, the next day, because I can't sleep." Dawn corrected. "There's tears and angst and woe. How's your coffee?"

"Good, thank you for asking." Nathaniel dropped his eyes to the tabletop. "Dawn, what that cashier said..."

"About you being my dad? It's okay," Dawn said. "People used to mistake Giles for my dad all the time, which made more sense, because he's ancient, like forty. He just got all British and flustered but that was okay because it didn't really bother him." Dawn glanced at Nathaniel over the top of her cup. "Unless it wasn't okay with you?"

"No," Nathaniel said hurriedly. "They were just words, it's fine."

Reassured, Dawn went back to her drink. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"When you showed me around the house today, I didn't see your room."

Nathaniel put his cup down. "What do you mean?"

Dawn echoed his movement, then linked her hands in her lap. "I mean, I didn't see your room. You showed me my room, and Anita's room, and everywhere else."

It took Nathaniel a minute to answer. Dawn could almost see the gears working in his brain. "Anita's room is my room," Nathaniel said finally.

Dawn frowned. "Then where does Micah sleep?"

"It's also Micah's room," Nathaniel said.

Dawn's eyes went wide. Really? Three people in a bed like that? Was that allowed?

"It's not usual, but it's the way we do things," Nathaniel said, sounding more unhappy by the second.

"It's okay, it's your life," Dawn said distantly. Well, that explained why Anita had such a huge bed.

A rustling breezed through Dawn's head, followed by the faint scent of rosemary and Anita's muffled voice. "Nathaniel, where the hell are you guys?"

How had Anita found them? Dawn thought she had to work. "Anita?" Dawn said as she turned in her chair, looking for the woman.

There was no one behind her.

Perplexed, Dawn turned back to Nathaniel. If Dawn was confused, that was nothing compared with the astonishment on Nathaniel's face.

The rosemary smell faded as Dawn shivered. Something had just happened that wasn't supposed to happen. But what?

~~~

Dear Buffy:

I'm in St. Louis, apparently. Don't ask me how. I didn't plan this and don't know what I'm going to do. If you're reading this, then you found me. If not, then--

Dawn turned her pencil over and erased her rambling first sentence. That was not how she wanted to start the first page of her new journal.

Dear Buffy.

I miss you. I know it's a silly thing to say, but it's true. I hope you're okay. I hope everyone's okay, including Spike. Did he get hurt when he fell off the tower? I know he's probably fine. He's a vampire and he always used to brag that nothing could keep him down.

I'm in St. Louis now. It's December, not June, and it's cold here. They have a Starbucks, but no Count Chocula at the supermarket. And they have werewolves and vampires and ghouls, too. The cops even know about them! Anita is a federal marshal and she is supposed to take care of the vampires and she raises zombies too, it's like her job.

The cops were going to make me stay in the hospital because all the foster families think I'm evil, but Anita said I can stay with her. She has a nice house and the biggest bathroom you'll ever see and they even let me have my own room. Nathaniel (her boyfriend) let me get a raspberry hot chocolate after lunch and I didn't even get all hyper.

And I look five years old.

You have to come find me and fix this. If I have to be five for real, I'm not going to be happy. I already did this!

Okay, not really. But I remember that I did and that was enough.

Dawn chewed on the pencil for a minute, then added one last line.

I love you, and I'm sorry.

Satisfied, Dawn set down her pencil and slid off her chair. "Can I help?" she asked Nathaniel, skipping over to his side.

Nathaniel glanced down. "You don't have to."

"I know." Dawn went up on tiptoes, careful not to touch the stove. "But I want to."

Nathaniel tapped his spoon on the side of the pasta pot. "Would you like to make the salad?"

"Sure!" Dawn hurried to drag a kitchen chair over to the sink to wash her hands. Nathaniel had already set out the vegetables for dinner on the counter. "Can I have a knife?"

Nathaniel spun around. "Why?"

"To cut up the lettuce." Dawn didn't understand why Nathaniel looked so freaked. "What did you think I was going to do?"

"Nothing." Nathaniel set down his spoon and came over. "Why don't you just rip the lettuce up?"

"Why can't I have a knife?" Dawn repeated. "I won't cut myself or anything."

Nathaniel gripped the edge of the counter and took a deep breath. "Dawn, I know you think-- I know you're very mature for your age, but I think that it might be dangerous for you to use a knife."

"Dangerous?" Dawn examined her hands. True, her fingers were tiny, but she had been okay with the pen. Biting her lower lip, Dawn glanced back up at Nathaniel. "Really?"

"Yes." Nathaniel picked up the head of lettuce and deftly twisted off the bottom stem. "You can rip it up and to the same with the other vegetables."

"Okay." Subdued, Dawn started tearing apart the lettuce. It wasn't as easy as Nathaniel had made it look. Maybe it was because he was a wereleopard and had adult-sized hands. But Dawn remembered being stronger than this.

Maybe because I was taller and had more muscle and more fine motor control?

Annoyed, Dawn broke a carrot into pieces, and started chewing on the remaining thick end. I hate this. I hate not being sure of what I'm doing or what I can do. She took another angry bite of carrot.

"Dawn?"

"What?" Belatedly, Dawn realized that she sounded like a... well, an annoyed child. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay." Nathaniel put the pasta pot in the sink and ran the cold water. "Is there anything I can do?"

Dawn shook her head. "I think I'm angry, but I'm not sure."

She wasn't sure what kind of reaction she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what she got. Nathaniel nodded in understanding. "Whenever I got put into a new foster home, I wasn't sure what I felt."

"Oh." Dawn watched the water flow out of the tap for a minute. "How did you deal?"

"I... I just did." Nathaniel leaned against the counter. "I remember thinking that if there was someone at the home that cared, it'd be all right."

"You mean someone like Anita?"

Nathaniel turned off the tap. "There's no one like Anita. But sort of. Someone who would get angry on my behalf."

"Buffy used to get mad for me," Dawn whispered.

"Nicky used to protect me." Nathaniel sounded so sad that Dawn wanted to give him a hug, but she wasn't sure what he would do. There had been that thing in the supermarket, when Dawn somehow knew Nicky's name and that he died and Nathaniel had been left all alone.

From the entrance hall came the sound of the front door opening. Nathaniel tensed for a moment, then relaxed against the counter.

"Are you guys here?" Anita called.

Dawn was afraid to answer, in case this was like in the coffee shop and Anita wasn't really there, but Nathaniel smiled. "We're in the kitchen."

Anita appeared in the doorway moment later, shedding her coat as she walked. Right behind her was a taller man who Dawn recognized immediately. "Hi, Detective Zerbrowski," Dawn said. "Hi, Anita. Did you find anything at the cemetery? How's Miranda?

Anita sighed as she made her way across the kitchen. "We didn't find anything new, and Miranda's fine," she said, touching Nathaniel's arm as she passed him on the way to the coffee maker.

"So the screaming contagious insanity was only temporary screaming contagious insanity?" Dawn pressed.

Anita ignored Zerbrowski's incredulous stare. "Yes. So, did you two have fun this afternoon?"

"Yeah, we went shopping and Nathaniel bought me a notebook and a hot chocolate," Dawn chattered. "I'm making salad."

"Looks yummy." Anita poured coffee into two mugs and carried one over to Zerbrowski. "Nathaniel bought you a notebook?"

"Uh huh." Dawn nodded at the table and the book next to Zerbrowski.

"Sounds a lot more fun than we had," Zerbrowski said. He reached for the book. "Can I look at it?"

Dawn frowned. "I... It was going to be my journal. Like a diary."

Zerbrowski pulled back his hand. "Have you already written in it?"

Dawn chewed on her lip. Zerbrowski had been really nice to her the previous day, and he'd only been trying to help her, like Anita had been trying to help her.

And she really hadn't written anything bad in the book. Nothing about the Slayer or the Key or anything.

Wiping her hands on her shirt, Dawn climbed down from her perch by the sink and walked past Anita to the table. She picked up the notebook and carried it over to Zerbrowski. "You can read it if you like. It's just silly stuff."

Zerbrowski smiled at her, kind of like the way Giles smiled when Buffy had done something nice. "I'm honored."

Dawn ducked her head. "I only had time to write one entry."

"Still, that..." Zerbrowski's voice trailed off as he opened the book to the first page. "Did Nathaniel write this?"

"No, I did." Dawn peered over the top of the book. The words were just as she left them. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Zerbrowski handed the book up to Anita. "You write very well for a little girl."

Dawn felt the color drain from her cheeks. She'd done it again, been too much like a teenager. She was never going to get this right, and they'd find out that she was lying and this was all her fault.

Anita knelt to hand Dawn back her journal. "Do you remember what I said to you this afternoon?" Anita asked.

Dawn shook her head.

"I said that you were a very special little girl," Anita reminded her. "You're special and smart and we're going to get through this together. Promise."

Dawn smiled weakly.

"So," Zerbrowski said, clapping his hands together. "What's for dinner?"

Anita rolled her eyes. "I thought you told Katie you were going to be home for diner."

"So?"

"We're having pasta and salad," Nathaniel told Zerbrowski.

"We were going to have cookies for desert, but Nathaniel said I'd had too much sugar today and we could make them tomorrow," Dawn added, hugging her journal to her chest.

For some reason, Zerbrowski's expression fell. "Better make them early, then."

"Why?" Nathaniel demanded. He threw his dishtowel on the counter.

Anita stood up. "Nathaniel--"

"Social services is coming over to make sure Dawn's all right," Zerbrowski interrupted.

Nathaniel clenched his jaw. "Are they going to take her away?"

What? Dawn whipped around to look at Zerbrowski. They couldn't take her away from Anita, could they? Where would she go?

"Probably not," Zerbrowski said. He put his elbows on his knees and looked directly at Dawn. "Do you like it here?"

Dawn nodded wordlessly.

"Good." Zerbrowski stared at Dawn in a way that was very intense and a little intimidating, but Dawn curled up her toes and stared back. She'd stared down vamps and demons... okay, Spike, but still, he'd been like the Scourge of Europe. Or at least the Scourge's apprentice. That had to count for something. "I'll talk to Social Services. Don't know what they'll say, but I've got a friend in the department."

"Thanks, Zerbrowski." Anita pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Tell Katie I said hi, would you?"

"Sure thing." Zerbrowski pushed himself to his feet and gave Dawn a little wave. "Have a good night, kids."

Anita went with the detective to let him out. In the ensuing silence, Dawn asked, "Is this bad?"

Nathaniel wouldn't look at her. "It's not bad, not automatically. They'll want to make sure you're safe, not in any danger." The bitterness was well-masked.

"But I'm not in any danger," Dawn protested as Anita came back into the room. "Right? No danger?"

"I said we'd keep you safe and I meant that." Anita dropped into the chair beside Dawn. "Me and Nathaniel and Micah."

Dawn hugged her book tighter. Was this what Buffy had to go through with Child Services in Sunnydale after Mom died, to keep Dawn safe?

A tiny tendril of worry snaked its way into Dawn's stomach. She'd been dropped in a scary new world, and the only thing that she had to protect herself was Anita. What would happen to Dawn if Anita wasn't allowed to take care of her any more?

to be continued