Dawn gazed around the room, turning in a slow circle. She'd never been here, but anyone could tell that this room was in a funeral parlor. She stood still and looked down at herself. Too-long arms, awrkwardly skinny legs, flat chest. I'm 14 again, she realized. She crossed her arms self-consciously and turned towards the group of people milling around the room. They were all in black, and Dawn recognized a few of them as friends of her mother's. She took a few shaky steps towards the mahogany coffin everyone was stopping to look down at.

We didn't have a wake or viewing for mom...

Dawn stopped in the middle of the aisle and turned ot the left, where she saw Willow and Tarah playing...what? Go Fish. They were playing Go Fish...Of course, this made sense to Dawn and she kept walking up to the coffin.

"Poor Joyce."

Dawn turned at the voice, "Spike?"

"Im sorry she's gone, little bit."

"Me too..."

She reached the coffin with Spike by her side and bent to kiss he mother's pale forehead.

"No!"

Spike yanked her back, "You can't touch her."

When Dawn tried to look back at her mother, she wasn't in the funeral home any more.

"Why am I here, Spike? It's been so long..."

"You can't touch her, she's gonna be ok..."

Dawn tried to put her hands on the vampire's shoulders but he slapped them away, "Spike, Buffy's gone."

"Don't...She'll be fine."

"It's been years, Spike."

Suddenly, the tear-filled blue eyes looked up at her, "It's time to go, Nibblet."

"Why am I re-living this night? Why now?" Dawn demanded. But Dream Spike was still stuck in the past.

"We should get you stitched up." He said, gingerly touching the cuts on her abdomen.

"No! I want to go home, Spike. Stop it! This night is OVER." She began to lose her breath with every word, "It's over, Spike. Let's go back now..."

"You're too young to understand." Giles said, from where he stood with Tarah and Willow, "We have to go, Dawn."

Dawn tried to speak, but she was suddenly being thrown backwards. She landed hard against a brinck wall and fell to a heap on the ground. When she looked up, the scene was gone, and instead she was in a stark white room.

"Hey, baby girl."

Dawn shrank back against the wall, "But...you're not supposed to be here."

Glory leaned down and smiled, "I know. Neither are you."

Dawn looked down at herself again. She looked different than before. Older, definitely, "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing, Dawnie." Glory said, her voice so much like Buffy's.

"Don't call me that."

"He can't protect you forever, sweetie." The God whispered, pushing a stray strand of Dawn's hair out of her face, "And someday, you'll be alone."

"I know."

"Be careful, princess."

"I always am."

Dawn sat straight up in bed, her breathes coming in short gasps. She fumbled in the dark for her bedside lamp, and let out a sigh of relief when soft light flooded the room and she found herself in herown bed.

It had been over two years since her last dream about the night Buffy died. Dawn took a sip of water from the glass on her nightstand. She let out a long breath. Three years ago, she lost her sister. Two years ago, the therapist (who had been given fake information on who Dawn really was) had declared the dreams gone, probably for good. Dawn leaned back and sighed. Glory showing up suddenly in her dreams couldn't be a good thing.

The former (as far as she knew) key got up and went to her window. Looking down at the back yard, she could see Spike smoking a cigarette while leaning against the huge oak tree. In the blue light from the moon on one side, the orange glow from a street lamp on the other, he was split down the middle. On one side, his skin was pale, luminescent in the moonlight. The other side glowed, and Dawn wondered if that was how he looked in the sunlight. She shook her head and backed away from the window, then climbed back in bed.

"Go back to sleep, Dawn." She told herself, "Stop thinking about your surrogate big-brother."