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Blood Ties

Prologue

Buffy and her friends are all seated around the round table in the Magic Box. Buffy doesn’t think that her mother’s and friends’ plan for her twentieth birthday party tomorrow night is a really good idea, with everything else that’s going on right now. Willow thinks that everything else that’s happening makes this a good time for the party. They need a break

Buffy wants to stay focused on the Glory problem. They are going up against a mightier than thou god this time.

“Well, you know what they say,” says Willow. “The bigger they are—”

“The faster they stomp you into nothing.” says Anya.

Buffy agrees with Anya. Every time she and Glory have fought Glory has shrugged off everything Buffy could throw at her.

Giles has learned from the information that the Council supplied them that Glory was one of three hellgods who had ruled a particularly nasty demon dimension. Just how and why she came to this one is still a mystery. She has taken human form, and that is limiting her powers somewhat. No lighting bolts or blasts of fire. “All we have to worry about right now is that she’s immortal, invulnerable, and insane.”

“A crazy hellgod?” asks Xander. “And the fun just keeps on leaving!”

“Well, I’ve been able to gather her living in this world is seriously affecting her mental state as well,” says Giles. “She’s only been able to keep her mind intact by extracting energy from us. Well, from…from the human brain.”

“She—she’s a brain sucker?” asks Tara.

Giles consults his notebook. “She, um, ‘absorbs the energies that bind the human mind into a cohesive whole.’ Once drained, all that’s left behind is, uh—”

“Crazy people,” says Buffy.

“Which is, I’m afraid, why there’s been a marked increase in the ranks of the mentally unstable here in Sunnydale,” says Giles.

“At least vampires just kill you,” says Tara.

They need to find some new way to fight Glory. Willow and Tara volunteer to start working on some tactical spells that might be useful against her. Xander promises to keep researching, and Anya thinks she knows lots more about demon dimensions than Giles does. Giles gives her a look. “Well I do!”

Xander thinks this is all wonderful, long term stuff, but he also thinks that there is something they should be doing in the short term. They should be looking for the Key. Tara agrees with him. Buffy tries to dissuade them, but Willow agrees with Xander and Tara. Whatever Glory is planning to open with this Key isn’t going to be pleasant.

“So where should we start looking?” asks Xander. “Do we know where it used to be kept? Who saw it last?”

“We did,” says Buffy. “Giles and me. We know where it is.” The others are all startled, and a little hurt to learn that Buffy and Giles have been withholding this information from them. Buffy starts to make excuses, but she stops. It is time that they learned the truth.

“Are you sure?” asks Giles.

“They’re going to be risking their lives, they deserve to know.”

“Know what?” asks Xander.

“There’s something that you need to know,” says Buffy. “About Dawn.”

The three Knights of Byzantium stand around a fire in the woods, holding their swords before them and praying. “The Key is the link,” they chant. “The link must be severed. Such is the will of God.” They repeat it over and over.

“You really think he’s going to help you?” asks Jinx. His face still shows the signs of the beating Ben gave him. He has five more of his kind, armed with halberds, with him. “I fear your faith is gravely misplaced.”

The demons attack the knights. The battle is short and vicious. After a few seconds there are five dead demons lying on the ground, with three knights standing over them. Orlando starts to move toward Jinx, who backs away and stumbles over a root. He falls on his back on the ground.

Orlando stands over Jinx and raises his sword. “Shall we test your faith now?” Jinx closes his eyes as the blade plunges toward him.

The blade doesn’t connect. Glory catches it with one hand. “Never send a minion to do a god’s work.” She backhands Orlando and knocks him and his sword flying. The other two knights attack her, but she quickly kills them.

Orlando tries to crawl to his sword. Glory gets to it first. “Hey, nice sword.” She picks it up and points it toward him. “Bet it hurts.”

Act I

Dawn approaches the Magic Box and finds Willow and Tara drawing symbols with coloured sand on the pavement in front of it. She asks if they’re doing a spell. Willow explains that they are setting up an early warning system. An alarm will go off if anything hellgodishly powerful approaches the shop. They’ve already done the same around her house.

“This should give us a head’s up so we can hide…” Tara pauses. “The, um, Key.”

Dawn asks if she can help, but Willow doesn’t think Buffy wants her kid sister getting involved with magic. Dawn is clearly disappointed. “Yeah. Whatever.” She heads for the door into the shop.

“How can she not be real?” asks Tara quietly.

“She’s real. She’s just kind of…new.” Willow pours more sand onto the ground, completing the last symbol. There is a flash, and the sand all vanishes. Willow and Tara are pleased with the result.

Dawn finds Xander sitting at the round table with a pile of books, and asks him if he’s on the case.

“Yeah! Right on top, perched, ready for action.” Xander reaches out and starts to tickle her belly. “How’s my sweet, fancy Dawn doing?”

“Fine.” Dawn giggles, and pushes his hand away. “What’s up with you? Did you get into the sugar again?”

Anya stops dusting the shelves. “You make a very pretty little girl,” she says brightly.

Xander hops to his feet and goes over to her. He asks her if she can help him with his thing.

“Xander needs help with his thing!” Xander pushes Anya toward the back of the shop.

Buffy and Giles come out of her training room before Dawn can figure out why Xander and Anya are acting so weird. Giles thinks that their current workout is getting too easy for Buffy, they should make it more challenging.

“You always think harder is better,” says Buffy. “Maybe next time I patrol I should carry a load of bricks and use a stake made of butter.”

“Very amusing,” says Giles. “I’m sure Dawn feels that way about her school work sometimes.” He writes something in the notebook he’s carrying, and moves around behind the counter. Buffy asks Dawn how school was today.

Dawn says it was the usual. “Big square building filled with boredom and despair.”

“Just how I remember it.” Buffy asks about Dawn’s homework, and Dawn asks her sister if she wants to help her with it. Buffy tells her she may be able to later, but right now she other things that need doing.

Dawn looks back toward where Giles is fiddling with something below the counter top, and notices that he doesn’t have his notebooks anymore. She pretends not to be interested. “Is it about that weird girl that came to the house?” she asks Buffy.

“Glory,” says Buffy. “And no, it’s not.”

Dawn doesn’t believe her. She thinks that Buffy doesn’t want her to know. “I just think you’re freaking out ’cause you have to fight someone prettier than you. That is the case, right?”

“Glory is evil and powerful,” says Buffy. “And in no way prettier than me.”

“I just think you’re getting soft in your advanced age,” says Dawn. “She didn’t look that tough to me.”

Glory has Orlando strung up in her apartment, dangling from the ceiling by a chain fastened around his wrists. Blood runs down his face. She wants him to tell her where the Key is.

“Even if I knew, I’d die a thousand deaths before I’d tell you.”

Glory thinks that one death will be quite sufficient, she’ll make it last. “What is it with you religious types? It’s intimacy, isn’t it? Oh! You’re just scared of letting someone in.” She slides herself up close to Orlando, and presses her body against his. “It’s okay. I know how difficult the first time can be. You don’t have to be afraid. Just relax.” She puts her hands up to the sides of his face. “You may not have the info I want…but you still got something I need.” She sinks her fingers into the sides of his head, and sucks his brains out.

Buffy sits in her living room in front of a table covered with presents. Her friends are gathered, and there are balloon decorations scattered around. Anya is getting impatient. She wants to know what the presents are. She also wants to get some presents herself.

Buffy opens the first box, and pulls out a dress from Willow and Tara. They figured that everyone else would be giving her weapons and things, and they decided to go with frilly instead of killy. Buffy is very pleased with it.

Anya takes the dress for a closer look. “Oh, it’s just so lovely! Oh, I wish it was mine!” She looks around at the way the others are looking at her. “Oh, like you weren’t all thinking the same thing.”

“I’m fairly certain I wasn’t,” says Giles. “I’ve got one just like it,” he adds quietly to Xander.

Dawn presses forward and hands Buffy her hastily wrapped present. Buffy looks at it dubiously. “It’s not going to explode, is it?” She unwraps it. It’s a photograph of her and Dawn together at the beach, framed with seashells.

“It’s when we visited Dad that summer in San Diego,” says Dawn. “I put the shells on it myself. We picked them off the beach.”

“I remember,” says Buffy, and everyone in the room goes very quiet.

“Well, jeez, don’t get all Movie of the Week,” says Dawn. “I was just too cheap to buy you a real present.”

“Thank you.” Buffy gives her sister a hug.

Later in the evening Buffy, Giles and Joyce talk quietly in the kitchen. Dawn tries to listen in from the dining room.

“It still seems to me like there’s a lot you don’t know about this,” says Joyce. “I mean, is she dangerous?”

“No,” says Buffy.

“Well, now wait just a second,” says Giles. “I assume you’re talking about her existence rather than her intentions.”

“Exactly,” says Joyce.

Buffy notices her sister. “Dawn? What are you doing in there? Party getting slow?”

Dawn doesn’t miss a beat. She picks up a stack of plates off the table. “Uh, we need plates. It’s cake time.” She goes back into the living room where Willow has started cutting the cake. Xander and Anya cut off a whispered conversation as Dawn passes them.

“Why does everybody start acting all weird when I’m around?” asks Dawn.

Xander denies that he’s acting weird, but Dawn doesn’t believe him. She thinks he and Anya were talking about her.

“We were talking about sex,” says Anya, but Dawn doesn’t believe her either.

“They were talking about me just like everybody is.” Dawn tells Buffy, Giles and Joyce, who have followed her into the living room.

Anya again says that they were talking about sex. “I mean, you know us. Sometimes we like to pretend stuff. You know, like, say there’s fireman or a shepherd—”

“You know what?” asks Buffy, “Let’s not have this exchange of images right now.”

“Oh, right. Of course,” says Dawn. “Can’t let Dawn hear anything. Fine. I’m just going to go to bed. That way I won’t accidentally get exposed to, like, words.” She storms off up the stairs.

Willow tries to lighten the bad mood that has fallen over the party. “Cake?” She holds up a slice on a plate.

Dawn slams shut the door to her room, and looks around. She comes to a decision.

Dawn climbs down the trellis onto the back porch. She quietly moves away from the house, looking back through the windows to make sure no one has noticed her. She turns away, and yelps quietly. She nearly ran into Spike. He’s smoking a cigarette, and holding a battered box of chocolates under his arm. “Jeez, lurk much?”

Spike tells Dawn he isn’t lurking. He’s just standing around. “It’s a whole different vibe.”

“What is—” Dawn notices the box. “Are you giving Buffy a birthday present? Oh, my God. Weird. And chocolates? Lame. And the box is all bent, and, well, you know she’d never touch anything from you anyway.”

Spike blows smoke at Dawn, and leans over her. He thinks she should be tucked safely into bed, not out where something might eat her.

Dawn is so not impressed. She knows he can’t hurt her. She’s badder than he is these days. “You’re standing in the bushes hugging a bent box of chocolates, and I’m—

“What?” asks Spike. “Sneaking out to braid hair and watch Teletubbies with your mates?”

“No. I’m breaking into the magic shop. To steal things.”

“Magic shop, eh?” Spike looks off in the direction of the Magic Box. “Whole number of beasties between here and there. Bet they’d really go for a Little Red Riding Hood like you.” He looks back toward the house. “That wouldn’t set too well with Big Sister.”

“I can take care of myself,” says Dawn, but she starts to think that maybe her plan has a bit of a flaw in it. She knows how to fix it though: “You want to come steal some stuff?”

Spike considers that for half a second. “Yeah. All right.”

Dawn keeps watch, and holds the box of chocolates while she waits impatiently for Spike to jimmy the lock on the Magic Box door. He’s a little out of practice at this. He usually just breaks the doors down. He finally gets it open. “That’s right. Who’s bad now?” he asks her as they enter.

Dawn pulls a flashlight from her pocket, turns it on, and makes a beeline for the cash counter. Spike asks what she’s after. Jewels, artifacts, or plain hard cash?

“A book,” says Dawn.

Spike is very disappointed. That wasn’t the sort of swag he was hoping to lift. While Dawn’s attention is elsewhere he pockets a crystal from the counter. Dawn goes behind the counter and starts looking around where Giles was standing when his notebook disappeared. She feels under the counter and finds a latch which opens a hidden drawer. The books are inside it.

Dawn sits on the floor with Giles’ notebooks, surrounded by lit candles, and the open box of chocolates in front of her.

Spike looks over her shoulder. “Where did he learn to write so bloody small, from a fruit fly?” He tosses his cigarette butt into a cup.

Dawn keeps flipping pages, skimming through the book looking for references to her or the Key. Spike gets up and starts looking around for other things he can take. He spots Olaf’s hammer, and tries to pick it up. It’s too heavy, he can barely budge it, so he decides that it won’t fit his decor.

Dawn has found what she’s looking for. “‘The Key is not directly described in any known literature,’” she reads from Giles’ notes, “‘but all research indicates an energy matrix vibrating at a dimensional frequency beyond normal human perception. Only those outside reality can see the Key’s true nature.’ ‘Outside reality.’ What’s that mean?”

“Second sight blokes, mostly,” says Spike, “or even just your run-of-the-mill lunatics.”

Dawn remembers the reaction of the man outside the Magic Box, and the man in the hospital to her.

Spike is starting to get curious about this key thing himself. Maybe it’s made out of gold and they can hock it. He’s willing to split the take with her. He sits back down beside Dawn, and pops a chocolate into his mouth.

Dawn goes back to reading. “‘The Key is also susceptible to necromanced animal detection, particularly those of canine or serpent construct—’” She stops again, remembering the reaction of the snake demon to her.

Spike takes the book away from Dawn, and starts to read it for himself. He has a little trouble with Giles’ handwriting. “‘The monks possessed the ability to transform energy— bend reality.’ Blah blah blah. Good lord, Giles writes as dull as he talks, doesn’t he? ‘They started work, but the Council has suggested…to us that they were interrupted, presumably by…Glory. They obviously did manage to accomplish the taste— accomplish the task. They had to be certain the Slayer would protect it with her life, so they sent the Key to her…in human form…in the form of a sister.’”

Spike stops reading. He’s figured out what Dawn knew when he took the book away from her. He looks at her. “Huh. I guess that’s you, nibblet.”

Act II

Buffy’s birthday party is winding down. Xander and Anya have already gone. Buffy sits in the living room talking with Willow and Tara. She’s a little disappointed that she didn’t even get a card from Riley. She’s thinking of starting a new tradition of birthdays without boyfriends.

Tara is suddenly shocked by something she sees behind Buffy. “Oh my God!”

Buffy turns around and sees Dawn behind her. She is holding a knife, and has sliced open the palm of her right hand with it. Blood is running down her arm. “Is this blood? This is blood, isn’t it? It can’t be me. I’m not a Key. I’m not a thing.”

Buffy is horrified to know that Dawn has learned the truth about herself, but Joyce is still having a moment of denial. “Oh, sweetie, no. What is this all about?”

“What am I?” asks Dawn. “Am I real? Am I anything?”

Joyce grabs Dawn and hugs her.

Buffy sees Willow and Tara out the door. Willow tells her to call if there is anything she can do, and gives Buffy a goodbye hug. Giles hangs back a bit, thinking maybe he should stick around, but Buffy tells him that this should be handled in the family. He leaves and Buffy goes upstairs to Dawn’s room.

Dawn is sitting on her bed with her mother. She wants to know if they were ever planning on telling her the truth. Joyce tells her that they wanted to wait until she was older.

“How old am I now?” asks Dawn.

“You’re fourteen, sweetheart. You know that.”

“No. The monks— when did— when did they—”

“Six months ago,” says Buffy

“I’ve only been alive for six months, huh?”

“You’ve been alive a lot longer than that to us,” says Joyce.

“You don’t know that!” says Dawn. “You don’t know anything. I’m—I’m just a Key, right? Everything about me is made up.”

Buffy sits down beside her sister. “Dawn… Mom and I know what we feel. I know I care about you. I know that I worry about you.”

Dawn thinks that’s just because it’s Buffy’s job. She has to protect the Key.

“I worry because my sister is cutting herself,” says Buffy.

“Yeah? How do you know?” asks Dawn. “Maybe this is just another fake memory from my fake family.”

“Sweetheart—” says Joyce.

“Get out!” says Dawn.

“Dawn—” says Buffy.

“Get out. Get out! Get out!” screams Dawn. She rolls over onto her side facing away from them.

Buffy meets with her friends in the Magic Box early the next morning. They have to learn more about the Key. What it is, and what it’s for.

“And why Glory has a big girl-god jones for it,” says Xander.

“This isn’t about her,” says Buffy. “It’s about Dawn. She deserves to know where she came from. She needs to know, or it’s just going to eat away at her.”

Giles is still trying to figure out how Dawn got into the shop, and found his notebooks.

“Ew!” Anya pulls a cigarette out of a cup. “Who’s been using the Urn of Ishtar as an ashtray?”

Buffy’s face darkens.

Buffy slams through the door into Spike’s crypt. He is sitting on the lid of the sarcophagus applying his nail polish. Buffy grabs the lid and pulls it right out from under him. He falls into the coffin.

“Hey, careful! These are wet.” Spike starts to get up.

Buffy pushes the lid forward and pins Spike in place. “How could you let her find out like that from books and papers? You hate me that much?”

Spike tells Buffy that he just went along for the ride. He had no idea what Dawn was going to learn. Nobody tells him anything.

“You could have stopped her,” says Buffy.

“Oh, yeah. Here it comes. Something goes wrong in your life, blame Spike. News flash, Blondie!” Spike throws the lid of the sarcophagus off onto the floor. “If kid sis wants to grab a midnight stroll, she’ll find a way sooner or later. I just thought she’d be safer with Big Bad looking over her shoulder.”

Buffy starts to calm down, but she’s still angry. “She shouldn’t have found out like that.”

“You didn’t think you could keep the truth from her forever, did you?” asks Spike. “Maybe if you had been more honest with her in the first place, you wouldn’t be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of ‘Kick the Spike.’”

Joyce comes into Dawn’s room, and tells her she’s going to be late for school.

Dawn is still lying on her side on her bed, still wearing her clothes from the night before. “I’m not going. Blobs of energy don’t need an education.”

Joyce offers to make her some soup.

“I’m not sick! I’m not anything.”

Joyce sits down beside her daughter on the bed. “Honey, calm down, okay—” She rests her hand on Dawn’s shoulder.

Dawn flinches away from the touch. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother.” She gets off the bed, and grabs her book bag. “I changed my mind. I’d rather be at school.”

Ben enters the hospital psychiatric ward with a tray full of little cups of pills. He is shocked when he sees the newest arrival. A man with a tattoo on his forehead and bandaged up hands. It’s Orlando. “Byzantium!” says Ben.

Jinx steps out of the shadows. “Yes. They’ve arrived. Unfortunate, but not completely unexpected. Their numbers are few for the moment, but they’ll grow. The Knights of Byzantium are like ants. First you see one, then two…then the picnic’s ruined. No matter how many we kill, they’ll keep coming, wave after wave.” Jinx thinks that it is time for Ben to set his animosity aside. His and Glory’s fates are directly linked. Glory has been very tolerant so far. “But if you persist in your defiance, she’ll be forced to—”

“To what?” asks Ben. “What is she going to do? Send a six-pack of minions to bore me to death? Glory can’t lay a finger on me. You know it. I know it. She knows it. So save the threats, or I’ll finish the job I started on your head.”

Dawn sits in her room that evening, looking through her diaries. Full of things that never happened.

Buffy talks with her mother in the living room. Joyce doesn’t like the idea of just leaving Dawn upstairs alone, but Buffy thinks that’s the best thing they can do for now.

“That’s your answer?” asks Joyce. “Just leave her alone and hope everything works itself out?”

“No, but if I were her, I’d want a little bit of time right now,” says Buffy. “I wouldn’t want my mother and my sister coming at me from all sides.”

Dawn comes out of her room and listens from the top of the stairs. Joyce is telling Buffy how Dawn got suspended from school today. She yelled at one her teachers. Said some things that Joyce doesn’t want to repeat.

“She probably feels like she can say or do anything right now,” says Buffy. “She’s not real. We’re not her family. We don’t even know what she is.”

Dawn goes back into her room and slams the door.

Joyce jumps to her feet. “How can you talk about Dawn as if she’s a thing?”

“I’m not!” says Buffy. “I’m just saying that’s probably how she feels.”

“Well, then, we have to show her it isn’t true,” says Joyce. “She needs to know that she’s still a part of this family, and that we love her.”

Dawn starts pulling things off her shelves, and throwing them on the floor. She rips the posters off her wall. She turns to her bed, where she has all her diaries layed out. She starts ripping them up and tossing them into her trash can.

Buffy tells her mother that Dawn needs to learn the truth about where she came from. “She needs real answers.”

“What she needs is her sister, Buffy, not the Slayer.”

“The Slayer is the only thing standing between Dawn and this god from the bitch dimension that wants to shove her in some kind of lock and give her a good twirl. Mom, I need to be out there doing my—” An alarm starts to squeal.

Buffy thinks that it’s Willow’s Glory alarm, and runs up the stairs, but Joyce recognises what it really is. Buffy kicks open the door to Dawn’s room and sees her trash can on fire. The squeal is from the smoke alarm. Buffy grabs the blanket off Dawn’s bed to smother the flames.

Buffy is furious with Dawn. Joyce tries to calm her down. “No!” says Buffy. “No, she could have burned the house down!”

“Buffy, she’s gone,” says Joyce. Buffy notices for the first time that Dawn isn’t there, and her window is open.

Act III

Buffy tells everyone at the Magic Box what happened. Willow can’t believe that Dawn burned her diaries. “She’s been keeping those since— I mean…”

“Since she was seven,” says Buffy. “I remember, too, Will. We have to find her and fast. Before Glory or the Knights of Hack and Slash figure out what— who she really is.”

Buffy hands out search assignments. Giles and Xander are to take the center of town, and Willow and Tara the west end. She and Spike will search the east side. Her mother is staying at home, in case Dawn comes back there, and Buffy asks Anya to do the same at the Magic Box. “Just find her, please.”

Dawn walks into the park. She stops by the swing set. She can remember Buffy pushing her on those swings when she was younger, but she knows the memory isn’t real.

Xander and Giles search through the alleys of Sunnydale. Xander is still having trouble getting over the fact that he has all these memories of Dawn—mostly Buffy complaining about her—that aren’t real. Giles agrees that it takes some getting used to. Dawn is living energy, thousands of years old.

“I’m guessing some kind of super-powerful in her raw form,” says Xander.

“People have killed, died for it,” says Giles. “Summoned armies to control the Key.”

“You know, uh…she kinda has a crush on me.”

“Your point being?”

“Well, nothing…no,” says Xander. “Just saying, powerful being…big energy gal digging the Xan-man. Some guys are just cooler, you know?”

Giles rolls his eyes, and goes back to looking.

Buffy and Spike enter the park. Buffy is calling out Dawn’s name.

Spike doesn’t think that’s the best way to find her. The way Dawn is feeling right now, hearing Buffy is just going to send her running the opposite direction. “Can’t say I blame her.”

“You were right. This is my fault,” says Buffy. “I should have told her.”

“She probably would have skipped off anyway,” says Spike. “Even if she never found out. She’s not just a blob of energy, she also a fourteen year old hormone bomb. Which one’s screwing her up more right now? Spin the bloody wheel. You’ll find her, just in the nick of time. That’s what you hero types do. You’ll find her.”

“And then what?” asks Buffy. She can hear the distant sound of an ambulance siren.

The ambulance passes Dawn as she wanders aimlessly. It gives her an idea about where to go.

Dawn sneaks into the psychiatric ward at the hospital. All of the patients become much more agitated when she enters. “It’s here! It’s here!” one of them starts babbling, over and over.

Dawn walks up him. “Please…you see me, right? Look at me. You know what I am, don’t you? You all know.”

The patient struggles against his restraints. “Can’t hear it! Can’t hear it! Can’t hear it!”

“Tell me! What am I?” asks Dawn.

“The Key,” says Orlando. Dawn immediately turns her attention to him. “I found it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” he whispers.

“You know what the Key is?” asks Dawn. “Where did I come from? Who made me? What—what am I? Please—”

“Destroyer!” says Orlando. “Cracked earth and bones. The sun bleeding into the sky.”

“No…No!” Dawn shakes her head and backs away from him.

“The Key is the link,” says Orlando. “The link must be severed, such is the will of God. Such is the will of God. Such is the will of God. Such is the will of God.” All of the patients start to babble. Dawn wigs, and runs from the ward. She runs right into Ben.

Ben brings Dawn a cup of hot chocolate at a table in the intern’s break room. He’s sorry he couldn’t find any marshmallows for it, and is surprised when Dawn tells him she doesn’t like them.

“Too squishy. When I was five, Buffy told me they were monkey brains and—” Dawn stops.

Ben is still trying to figure out what Dawn is doing there. He asks her if her mother was brought back in.

“No, my ‘mom’s just fine,” says Dawn.

Ben asks if he should call anyone, maybe her sister.

“I don’t have a sister.”

Ben thinks he understands. He has a sister who’s a real pain too. “I’ll tell ya, there have been a lot of nights I wished she didn’t exist either.”

“It’s not Buffy. It’s me,” says Dawn. “I’m the one that doesn’t exist.”

“Look, I know it can feel that way sometimes, but when you’re older—”

“No, you don’t understand,” says Dawn. “It’s not real. None of this. They made it. I’m nothing. I’m just a thing the monks made so Glory couldn’t find me. I’m not real!”

Ben recoils away from Dawn. “You’re the Key!”

Dawn is freaked that Ben knows about the Key, but Ben is even more freaked.

Ben tells Dawn she has to get out of there. “Go! Before she finds you. Don’t ask me how she knows, ’cause she always knows. Just go!”

Dawn tries to get Ben to calm down.

“You don’t understand. You’re a kid. You stay, she’ll find you! She finds you, she’ll hurt you! You’re what she’s been searching for! I am telling you, run! You don’t know! You—” Ben stops and looks around, his panic growing. “Oh, no. Oh, god, no! She’s coming! I can feel it. You’ve got to get out! No… Oh, no!” He grabs Dawn by the shoulders. “She’s here! She’s…”

Ben suddenly transforms into Glory. “…here!” Glory looks at the girl she’s holding on to. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

Act IV

Glory pulls off Ben’s clothes. “Ugh, cotton.” Dawn is still shocked speechless. “Could a fabric be more annoyingly pedestrian?” She reaches into Ben’s locker and pulls out a red silk dress and starts to put it on. “Now this is what I’m talking about. Ahh…Makes your skin sing.”

“You’re—you’re Ben!” says Dawn.

“Uh…It’s an eensy more complicated than that.” Glory has her back to Dawn as she fastens her dress. “Family always is, isn’t it?”

Dawn glances toward the door.

Glory doesn’t turn around. “You’d never make it. I’d rip out your spine before you got half a step. And those little legs, they wouldn’t be much good without one of those, would they, Dawnie?” Glory is suddenly standing beside her. “Now, what I’m trying to noodle is what in the world was the Slayer’s little sis doing here with Gentle Ben?”

“Y-you don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” asks Glory. “You were talking to him, not me. Oh, he wasn’t being naughty, was he?”

They are interrupted by a security guard who comes in and tells them that they shouldn’t be there. This room is for hospital personnel only.

Glory grabs the guard’s head, snaps his neck and drops the body on the floor in front of a horrified Dawn. “Rude! I was talking.” She grabs Dawn by the shirt and pulls her to her feet. She thinks that they should go some place a little less busy for their chat.

Buffy meets with everyone in the cemetery. No one has had any luck. Buffy is worried that anything could have happened to Dawn, not just Glory. She decides they should check the hospital.

Glory has taken Dawn into an x-ray lab. She doesn’t have a whole lot of time, and she wants Dawn to tell her where Buffy has hidden the Key. “There’s ice cream and puppy dogs in it for you if you start singing.”

“I’m not sure,” says Dawn. “What does it look like?”

“Well…the last time I caught a peep, it was a bright green swirly shimmer.” Glory gets almost ecstatic as she describes the Key. “Really brought out the blue in my eyes… But then those sneaky little monks pulled an abracadabra, so now it could look like anything. You see the predicament I’m in?”

“Maybe,” says Dawn. “Maybe if you told me more about it, I’d know if I’ve seen it.”

Glory presses Dawn back against the lab bench, and sniffs at her. “Okay.”

The admitting nurse tells Buffy that no one matching Dawn’s description has been brought in. Xander thinks that is sort of good news. Buffy isn’t so sure, but before she can say anything more she overhears a passing janitor telling a couple of security guards about the body he has just found in the third floor break room. Buffy has a pretty good idea who the killer must be.

Dawn asks Glory how long the Key has been around.

“Well, not as long as me, but yeah. Just this side of forever.” Glory is sitting on a table in the lab, and actually sounding quite pleasant.

“Is it evil?” asks Dawn.

“Totally!” says Glory. She doesn’t seem to notice the look of horror that passes over Dawn’s face. Glory laughs. “Well, no. Not really. I guess it depends on your point of view.”

Dawn figures that if there’s a Key, there has to be a lock. She wants to know what it opens.

Glory starts to figure out what Dawn has been up to. “I smell a fox in my hen house.” She gets off the table and crosses to where Dawn is leaning against the wall. “Is that why you’ve been playing sugar and spice with Uncle Ben? Trying to get a peek at Glory’s unmentionables?”

“No,” says Dawn. “I—”

“Shh,” says Glory. “I kinda want to hear me talking right now. Me talking. You know what I’m starting to think?” Dawn starts to become frightened that Glory knows what she is. “I’m thinking…that maybe you…don’t have any idea where my Key is!”

Glory turns away and Dawn shudders with relief.

“Very irritating. Irrational. You know what I mean, tiny snapdragon?” Glory nearly collapses against the table she had been sitting on. “Like— Like bugs under my skin. And say, I’m feeling a little…”

“What’s wrong with you?” asks Dawn.

Glory straightens up. “Hey. This doesn’t have to be a complete waste of my precious time.” She turns back to Dawn. “I’ve been meaning to send the Slayer a message…and I could use a little pick me up. Two birds, one stone, and—” She claps her hands in front of Dawn’s face. “Boom. You have yummy dead birds.”

“Get away from my sister,” says Buffy from the doorway.

“Hey, we were just talking about you,” says Glory.

“Conversation’s over, Hellbitch.” Buffy attacks. Dawn dives for cover.

This fight isn’t quite as one sided as Buffy’s previous fights with Glory. Glory is definitely off her game today. Buffy manages to get in a few good hits, and dodge most of Glory’s retaliations.

Spike enters the lab and grabs Glory from behind while Buffy continues to punch her. “I thought you said this skank was tough,” he says to Buffy.

Glory kicks Buffy away, flips Spike over onto the floor, picks him up, bounces him off the wall, and throws him across the room. Spike slumps to the floor unconscious. “If he wakes up, tell your boyfriend to watch his mouth.”

“He is not my boyfriend,” says Buffy. Giles is behind her, armed with a crossbow, but Buffy is blocking his shot. Xander is trying to sneak up behind Glory with a crowbar in his hands. Willow and Tara start to quietly work a spell, holding leather bags in their hands.

Buffy kicks at Glory, but she catches her foot. Glory takes a look at it. “Hey, those are really nice shoes.” She propels Buffy into a backflip. Buffy kicks her in the head on the way back down.

“Giles! Now!” shouts Buffy, and he shoots. The arrow just bounces off Glory.

“Oh, please. Like that’s going to—” Glory’s interrupted by Xander hitting her in the back of the head as hard as he can with the crowbar.

“Hey!” Xander swings again, but Glory catches the crowbar, and grabs him. “Watch the hair.” She tosses Xander across the room into Giles, but she keeps the crowbar. “Time to start the dying.” She points around the room with it. “Start with the whelp!” She throws the crowbar at Dawn.

Buffy dives into the crowbar’s path, and nearly manages to catch it before it impales her shoulder. She does keep it from going in too deep. Dawn darts out to check on her sister, but Buffy tells her to stay back. Dawn ignores her.

“Nice catch.” Glory starts toward Buffy as she pulls the crowbar out of her shoulder. “Is that the best you little crap gnats could muster? ’Cause I got to tell ya, so not impressed.”

Glory steps in between Willow and Tara. They each throw a handful of silvery dust over her. The dust clings to Glory. She looks down at herself. “Look what you did to my dress, you little—”

Willow claps her hands. “Discede!”

Glory vanishes.

Willow collapses to the floor. Tara instantly goes to her.

Buffy sits on the floor hugging Dawn, and looks toward Willow. “What did you do to her?”

Willow is starting to sit back up with some help from Tara. She’s still dazed, and her nose is bleeding. “Teleportation spell. Still working out the kinks.”

“Where’d you send her?”

“Don’t know,” says Willow. “That’s one of the kinks.”

Glory rematerializes 30,000 feet over Sunnydale. “Oh, sh—” She starts to plummet to the ground.

Epilogue

Giles and Tara help Willow get back to her feet. He thinks that was an incredibly dangerous spell for someone at Willow’s skill level.

“Yep,” says Willow. “Won’t be trying that one again soon.”

Buffy and Dawn are still sitting together on the floor. Buffy asks Dawn if she’s okay, if Glory hurt her.

“Why do you care?” asks Dawn.

“Because I love you,” says Buffy. “You’re my sister.”

“No, I’m not,” says Dawn.

“Yes, you are.” Buffy takes Dawn’s hand, the cut in it has opened up, and started bleeding again. “Look, it’s blood. It’s Summers blood.” Buffy puts her own hand against her bleeding shoulder. She grabs Dawn’s bloody hand in her own. “It’s just like mine. Doesn’t matter where you came from or—or how you got here. You are my sister. There’s no way you could annoy me so much if you weren’t.”

Buffy and Dawn hug. “I was so scared,” cries Dawn.

“Me, too,” says Buffy. “Come on.” They help each other get to their feet.

“Wait!” Dawn looks around. “Ben! He was here. He was trying to help me. He— I—” She stops, and looks confused. “I think he might have left before Glory came, but…I can’t— I can’t remember.”

“It’s okay,” says Buffy. “Don’t worry about it. Next time we see him we’ll thank him. I have to get you back home now. Mom’s freaking out.”

“Oh,” says Dawn. “Is she mad about the whole fire thing?”

“I think you sort of have a ‘get out of jail free’ card on account of big love and trauma.”

“Really? Okay. Good.” Dawn and Buffy walk toward the door, hand in hand. “You think she’d raise my allowance?”

“Don’t push it,” says Buffy.

Death Toll