Disclaimer: I do not own Highlander or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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Chapter One.
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"Where do we go, from here?"
Dawn sang softly to herself. Her eyes stayed locked on the small airplane window, or perhaps a better way of wording, would be that her eyes were locked on what she saw through the window. Through the window, far below, lay the country of her birth. A place she had been forced to abandon nearly ten years before, a place that she was only just now being forced to return.
"Where do we go, from here?"
It had been a grueling decade, both mentally, and physically. And she returned a very different person. A person she wasn't even sure if she recognized. She wasn't sure she was someone she even wanted to recognize. The fact that she wasn't useless this time around did little to settle her nerves.
"The battles' done, and we kinda won…"
She knew that Buffy was still alive, but she wondered if all the others were still alive too. She wondered if they missed her, or even remembered the scrawny fifteen year old girl who had always gotten in their way. When she had run away, she had just been a scared kid who hadn't wanted to be a burden anymore. Of course, while her reason for running away might not have been sound, her reason for staying away was.
"So we sound our victory cheer…"
She had been fifteen, and her sister had just come back from the dead. Buffy had always been her hero, the one person she knew she could count on. It hadn't been that way when Buffy had come back. Buffy had been in deaths shadow, and instead of fighting it, she had embraced it, welcomed it. Buffy hadn't wanted to stay with her, so she had made it easy on the slayer, and had left.
"Where do we go, from here?"
That's what made it so hard for her to return now. She had left for such selfish, childish, reasons. She had been too young to realize the implications of what her sister had meant when she had said she was pulled from heaven into hell. Like all teens, Dawn had figured the world had revolved around herself, and that Buffy had meant that she had been pulled out of heaven, and was in hell, because she had had to put up with her whiny little sister.
"Why is the path unclear?"
Of course, that had nothing to do with why she had stayed away. No, the reason she had stayed gone, is because after three years of living off the streets, trying to survive, it had been in her attempt to go home that everything had fallen apart. Instead of going home, she had gotten involved in something so far beyond her, that even now, ten years later, she was still reeling.
"When we know home is near…"
Dawn, when she had run away, had found out what it was like to truly live. She had learned what it was like to have to fight for every meal. What it was like to have no place to sleep, no place to be safe, no one to protect her. She garnered that that was what Buffy felt like all the time and she finally began to understand.
"Understand we'll go hand in hand,"
She found it ironic that she had done fine on her own for three years. She had survived, and in a way, thrived. And then, when she had finally been brave enough to get on a bus to return home, it killed her.
"But we'll walk alone in fear."
She remembered waking up for the first time. She remembered panicking. The claustrophobia of being stuck in a tight, breakthrough black bag that was almost impossible to unzip from the inside. It had taken her a little over an hour to get out of the bag, only for her to realize with an almost horrified fascination, that she was locked away in a tiny metal box. It was then that the smell hit her and she realized that she was in a morgue.
"Tell me, where do we go from here?"
She had been eighteen when she died. Eighteen years old, ten years ago, and she hadn't aged a day. She never would. So that was why she had stayed away. Her sister walked in deaths shadow, yet Dawn would never die. It wasn't fair.
"When does the end appear…?"
She had spent the last three years traveling Europe under the assumed name of Marie Winters. And the previous seven in Paris learning from the man who had found her in Washington shortly after her first death. Unfortunately, due to the age she had been at death, she would never be able to stay in one place for more than ten years, as there was no way she could make herself look believably more than late twenties, and even that was pushing it.
"When do the trumpets cheer?"
Duncan had taught her so much, and she would be forever indebted to the older man. It had helped enormously that he was aware of her world. She had told him everything that there was to tell, about her life, where she came from, why she left. She hoped that he would understand her reasons behind returning. Though, it wasn't as if she really had that much of a choice.
"The curtains close on a kiss god knows…"
Dawn had never planned on returning to Sunnydale. She hadn't even been planning on returning to America until long after everyone she had known was dead. That had changed, when two weeks prior; she had been working on translating an ancient Sumerian passage for Duncan's friend Joe, when a man named Whistler had appeared in the middle of her hotel living room.
"We can tell the end is near."
He had told her that a being known only as The First, had gained a foothold in their world, and was doing everything in its power to wipe out the Slayer Line. Potential Slayers from all over the world were gathering in Sunnydale, and her sister, the thirty three year old Slayer, was the only hope for humanity.
That in itself was nothing new, as the Slayer was always the protector, but this time it was different, because Buffy wasn't only the Slayer, she was the Key as well. Dawn may have been created as a host for the power of the key, but she had only been the delivery system. Buffy was the one with the power. It was in the blood, and Buffy's blood would always hold more power than Dawns.
That needed to change. The First could take the faces of the dead. It could access their memories, and any latent abilities. That was how it had gained the foothold in this dimension in the first place. When Buffy had died, the First had taken her form, and had been able to use a fraction of the keys power to come forth. Now, all it needed was Buffy to die permanently so that the power of the key would be it's completely, and then it would be able to bring its corporeal body over.
If that happened, it would destroy everything.
That was where Dawn came in. Like all Immortals, she was a foundling. She wasn't born, she was created. Unlike all immortals, she shared blood and DNA with one other. She had family. What she needed to do was a ritual that would transfer the power of the key back into her body where it had originated. And hopefully not kill Buffy in the process.
Because while The First would still have a foothold in this dimension, because Dawn too had died. Unlike Buffy, Dawn would never stay dead. Though on the off chance that her head was taken, all power went to the one who took it, so The First would never get the power anyway. Of course, if Dawn had to, she would spend the rest of her existence on Holy Ground. It was better to be safe then sorry.
"…off all electronics and fasten your seat-belts. I repeat, we are on time, and will be landing shortly. Please turn off all electronics and fasten your seat-belts. Thank you for flying with Pacific Airlines."
The message repeated in a multitude of different languages, all of which Dawn understood as well as if it had been in English. Dawn sighed and looked back out the window. She really wished that she was still in Rome.
"Where do we go from here?"
The plane landed.