A/N- See? I told you I was going to post them all today. Just to note, this was written for livejournal's 2015 round of the WIPbang. I'm participating again this year, just in a different fandom. There's lovely art for this story as well, which you can see on my journal posting for this fic. They are hand drawn-the ones not done by moi and some other kind fans, as opposed to the person who claimed my story for art-and they are definitely worth a look-see. I loved this fic, even if the race for the last few chapters that I did gave me fandom related stress moments, lol. If you want the urls to any of the places I've mentioned, please PM. And, again, I just get so friggin' giddy when I get a review, so please do so! Now, onto the conclusion!

Chapter 25- As the World Falls Down

The world seemed to freeze there on that rooftop in the moment that Cane's lifeless body hit the floor. Nobody moved. Nobody seemed to even breathe. Finally, it was Joker that broke the stillness.

"Nobody's bulletproof to a headshot, Billy," he cackled.

Batman let out a small growl, his fists clenching. "Let the girl go, Joker."

Dawn glanced over at Xander, who was making good—discreet—time on freeing Nightwing. It may be only one crazy villain on the roof now, but it was definitely not the one Dawn would've voted for. Joker moved the gun to Dawn's head once again.

"Why, Joker?" Dawn asked. More monsters were appearing overhead. She continued, "You'll never get the poison now. None of us know how to make it!"

Joker laughed. "Oh, Dawnie, I was never interested in his stupid poison. Bringing down all the walls to all the dimensions, inciting chaos and destruction on Gotham? That sounded like loads more fun to me!"

Dawn's eyes darted over to Xander, and she was thankful to see that Nightwing was almost completely free from his bonds… and Joker had seemed not to notice. She had no idea if any of the others had noticed this, but if they did, it went unsaid. Giles sighed.

"If you kill Dawn, the portal will close, Joker," he said. "Threatening her life does you no good."

"Is that so?" Joker asked, pressing the barrel of the gun closer to her temple. "You see, I never actually got to read that far ahead. Cane showed up and crashed my little party. How do I know that if I kill her, the portal won't stay open forever?"

"Think, Joker! Cane and I were mentioning it! It needs blood to stay open! The blood stops flowing when I'm dead," Dawn tried to reason.

"Hmm," Joker said. "Why don't I test this theory?"

"No!" the group shouted as Joker cocked his gun.

But Xander had finished his work. Nightwing was freed, and he launched himself at Joker. He managed to yank Dawn out of the line of fire, only to put himself in danger. Joker fired a round, and it caught Nightwing in the arm. The vigilante hissed as he and Dawn hit the ground, tangled up in one another. Joker lost no time. He took aim once again, but he seemed to forget that they weren't alone on the roof. Batman rushed forward, landing a hard right hook to the Joker's jaw. Dawn heard the crack even over the roaring of monsters and wind. Joker made several odd noises, moaning and whining, before he fell to the ground himself. Batman had knocked the clown out cold.

Willow lost no time. She rushed over to Dawn, yanking her free from Nightwing's grip. Nightwing hissed in pain, and the witch smiled sheepishly at him. Apparently, she had pushed on his injured arm.

"Sorry. I'll fix you up in a moment, okay?" she said.

Nightwing flashed a thumbs up as Willow rested her hands over Dawn's cuts. Dawn, for her part, sighed, her eyes on the ever-growing portal overhead.

"I really hope Cane wasn't lying about the blood," she commented.

Willow nodded. "Goddess, I hope not. Deep breath, Dawn."

Dawn did as she was told as Willow muttered some Latin. Dawn gasped, feeling her flesh knit back together beneath Willow's hands. It wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling, but Dawn couldn't help but feel relieved at the pain. The last of the cuts knitted together, and Dawn felt a single trail of blood roll off her stomach, falling off her side to the floor of the roof. As soon as the drop hit the ground, all eyes turned to the portal.

"Please, please, please," Dawn muttered.

The wind died away. And the whirling vortex stopped. The monsters still near it seemed to be vacuumed back into the portal as it shrunk. After a moment, the sky was clear again. The portal was closed.

"Yes!" Dawn and Xander cried out simultaneously. Willow sighed, moving over to Nightwing.

A roar overhead called their attention back to the sky. The dragon and a few of the bat-like creatures were still left. Robin pointed up at them.

"What are we gonna do about them?" he asked.

"Will, do you think you could zap them away or something?" Xander asked.

Willow finished chanting Latin over Nightwing as the hero worked out his arm, testing the injury that was no longer there. He thanked her as the two stood, with Willow sighing.

"I think so. A good witch's work is never done. But I'm not sure I can do it all by myself. I've used a lot of magic tonight… and even I get tired."

"I can call Zatanna to help you," Batman said, already in the middle of doing so.

Giles crossed his arms, looking thoughtfully to the demons in the sky. "Maybe we should put a few slayers here in Gotham."

Dawn huffed. "That would've been useful a few weeks ago."

Behind the group, Joker groaned, beginning to come to. Batman finished his call, presumably to Zatanna, and moved to loom over the clown. Joker looked up at the Dark Knight and huffed out a tiny laugh.

"Can't blame me for trying, can you?" he asked.

Batman yanked him to his feet, removed a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt, and began to restrain the Joker.

"You're going back to Arkham, Joker, where you belong."

Dawn launched herself to her feet. "Wait!"

She dashed over to Cane's craftsman's table, pulling up one of the empty vials and a cork. For good measure, she grabbed up the dagger the warlock had used on her. She approached the Joker now, with Batman careful to keep a hand on the clown. Joker arched a brow at her.

"Whatcha doin', Dawnie girl?" he asked.

"This might sting," Dawn said.

She placed the tip of the dagger to Joker's cheek, drawing it upward in a similar diagonal as to what her cuts had been. Joker hissed against the wound, and Dawn reached out with her left hand to hold his head still. She gripped his chin as hard as she could muster, holding the vial underneath the dripping blood. She squeezed a couple of times to add insult to injury—as well as to get the blood to flow a little faster. It took a couple of minutes, but the vial was a little over halfway full. Dawn let go of Joker, corked the container, and stepped back.

"Something to remember me by?" Joker teased.

Dawn ignored him, looking instead to Batman. "No way in hell was I going through all of this and not getting what I came for."

Joker laughed. "Give your sister my regards."

"Kiss my ass," Dawn replied.

Batman seemed to grin at this, and he glanced over at Willow.

"Zatanna will be here momentarily," he said.

Willow nodded as the Dark Knight began to haul the Joker away, Robin following behind. Nightwing grinned, turning to Dawn.

"I should go with them. But, before you leave…" he began.

"Don't you have my number?" she asked.

Nightwing chuckled. "Yeah. I guess I do."

"Good. Don't lose it," Dawn added.

#

The trip back to Scotland was a sort of a mixed blessing. Dawn had, of course, received a lecture about running off to Gotham without so much as explaining herself to Xander or Willow. It was kind of fun to receive this "yelling at" though, since her sister's friends also made sure to include Giles in their scolding. After all, the watcher had orchestrated the whole thing. However, it wasn't all trouble, as everyone was undeniably happy that they had gotten the cure for Buffy.

The moment the group had arrived at the castle, they had rushed to the infirmary—where they had been briefly informed by Andrew that Buffy was "almost gone." Willow lost no time in administering the antidote by adding it directly into Buffy's IV. Then they waited, the group just sitting around Buffy's bed. Only Giles dared leave, but only for a moment. When he returned, he had a book in hand and retook his vigil with the rest of them. It took just a matter of twenty or so minutes, but improvement was clearly visible. In another hour, Buffy was stable, just sleeping. It was clear that the leader of the slayers would live to fight another day.

"Thank God," Andrew said, running a nervous hand through his hair.

He had caught the rest of the group up on what they had missed while being in Gotham, including Buffy's descent into madness. Andrew shook his head.

"She wouldn't even hear of anyone going to Gotham. It was crazy. She even attacked a fellow slayer when the poor girl suggested it. It wasn't like her, and it didn't make any sense."

Willow's brow furrowed. "Yeah. I know what you mean. Buffy didn't even want us going."

"Actually," Giles put in, pointing down at his open book, "I may have an answer for that. It says here that that particular poison created by Cane fed off of fear. In fact, it was the basis for the poison."

"What does that mean?" Dawn asked.

"It means that every tiny fear that Buffy had ever felt was amplified a million fold, which led to the onset of severe paranoia."

"You can say that again," Andrew muttered.

Dawn growled softly as the truth of this washed over her. "Cane knew what he was doing, then."

Xander glanced over at her. "What do you mean?"

Willow shook her head. "Dawn means that Cane used that particular poison for more reasons than just to send her after the Joker."

Giles nodded. "He knew that the fear would have Buffy preventing anyone from going after Gotham's most dangerous criminal. And he knew that, being the leader, we would listen to her. Or, at least, the majority of us."

Willow grinned. "He overestimated our abilities to follow orders… and he underestimated how much we care about one another."

Dawn laughed, the move turning into a wide yawn as she said, "Yeah."

Giles closed his book with a snap, looking over at the youngest Summers. "You should rest. You haven't slept in… well, a while."

"I'm fine," Dawn protested, but another yawn betrayed her.

"Buffy's fine now," Xander put in, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"She'll likely sleep until the poison is out of her system. Go. Rest," Giles said.

Dawn glanced worriedly over at her sister's slumbering form. She glanced back at the group to find Willow grinning knowingly.

"We'll call if anything changes for the worst. But it won't. Go sleep."

Dawn nodded, standing. She flashed her friends a bright smile, thanking them again for coming after her, and left the infirmary. The slayers had left the room they had initially set up for her alone, and she began to make her way toward it. She was about halfway there when her cell rang. She pulled it out of her pocket with just a quick glance at the ID. She smiled.

"So, do I still get free Judo lessons?" she answered. "Because it'd be pretty cool to get them from Nightwing."

On the other end, Dick chuckled.

"Well," he replied, "I'd like to ask you out to dinner some time, but now I feel like I'm using your lessons for… well, in exchange for personal favors."

Dawn laughed. "That didn't sound wrong at all."

"Yeah," he answered sheepishly. "That came out completely wrong. But you know what I mean."

Dawn sighed, stopping just outside the door to her room. "Dick, why don't you just ask me out?"

"Fine. Dawn, would like to go to dinner with me the next time you're in Gotham?"

Dawn smiled. "I would love to. I'll call you later. I'm going to try to sleep. Bye."

"Bye, Dawn."

The line disconnected, and Dawn entered her room with a wide smile on her face. She tapped her fingers on the phone, now guiltily trying to decide what the proper amount of time would be in between her sister waking up from a very near death experience and going out on a date in another country. In the end, as she crawled into bed, she decided she would give it a few days before broaching the subject with Buffy herself.

fin

End Notes: And that's it. Story over. What did you all think? I apologize for all the talking here at the end. Again, I suck at fighting scenes. But I hope it was still worth the read.

Fun Fact: I'll have to do two here since there's not another chapter. First, last chapter's title was inspired by "Bang Baby (My Baby Shot Me Down)" by Nancy Sinatra. And this chapter's title was inspired by "As the World Falls Down" as sung by David Bowie on the Labyrinth soundtrack. (RIP Bowie, so incredibly missed!)