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many thnkas to Cordykitten and jane for reviewing. They make my day
Dawn was watching the cupboard, waiting for Buffy to return. She hated being apart from her sister. It was silly really considering she was supposed to be grown up, but after that long empty summer, she just hated not knowing where Buffy was at any time.

‘It’s alright Niblet, she’ll come back through, you wait and see.’

Spike put his arm around Dawn and started purring. Dawn rested her head on his shoulder and Spike could smell the salt tears as they trickled from her eyes. Willow looked over at them. She could feel Dawn’s sadness, her heartbreak, but couldn’t work out the cause. Nothing seemed to have changed in the last couple of minutes. Xander looked at the swirling mass of colours that defined the portal.

‘It’s OK Dawnie,’ he whispered, ‘she’ll come back from this one.’

Understanding dawned on Willow. Glory’s tower: of course Dawn would be upset. The colours in the doorway seemed to intensify as they watched and, without warning, out stepped Robin and Faith, followed a minute later by Buffy.

Dawn ran into her arms sobbing with relief. Buffy held on to her sister and tried to work out what was going on, to have both Xander and Spike mouth ‘portal, glory,’ at her at the same moment.
‘Oh Sweetie, I didn’t mean to scare you! I’m here, it’s OK, I’m here, nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m immortal remember, you’re never going to be rid of your big sister, never.’

Faith and Robin looked on in sufferance as Spike wrapped his arms around both his girls and held them, nuzzling into their hair. He started purring again. Faith had to smile. She whispered to Robin with a smile,
‘Big Bad Softie.’

Spike smiled up at them but continued to purr. He didn’t care who saw or heard. It had soothed Dawn during that horrific summer and he hoped it would soothe her this time. Thankfully it seemed to be working, the sobs were becoming hiccups and she started relaxing into Buffy’s arms.

‘Come on Niblet, its been quite a day; why don’t you sit on the sofa and let your Dad get you a drink,’ Spike said quietly to her.

Dawn smiled up at the blond vampire and let him lead her to the sofa and sit down. Buffy sat next to her, not letting go. The blond hair close to the brunettes’ as she soothed away the girl’s fears.
Spike poured Dawn a glass of wine and helped her take a small sip. ‘That’ll soon have you feeling better, kitten. Now sit quietly while the Americans all shout at me for giving an underage girl a pick-me-up.’

Dawn smiled at the joke. In Italy she was far from underage but from the frowns on the faces around her, Spike had judged the mood correctly again.

It was only then that Xander noticed the newcomers.

‘Faith, Robin, glad you could make it. This way please.’ He led the Other Slayer and her partner out of the room, Willow following, leaving Buffy and Spike to care for Dawn.

‘What about them?’ Robin gestured at the trio sitting huddled on the couch.

‘Spike and Buffy will take good care of her, poor Dawn, we never thought when Buffy went through the portal it would bring back the memories of Buffy’s jump off of the tower. It was too much of a shock for the girl.’

‘Looking at her, I think you had better stop calling her a girl, the girl’s all woman now,’ Faith pointed out with a smile.

‘Well yeah,’ Xander said, ‘but with a slayer for a mother and a vampire for a father, I prefer to think of her at about 12 years old and way too young. It’s a great deal safer and I think having only one eye is enough of a handicap. I don’t want to lose anything else.’


‘Mother?! Father?! Exclaimed both Robin and Faith together.

‘Seems those Monks made Dawn from bits of the both of them, bit like the little one you’re baking at the moment.’

‘Spike’s a dad, who’d have thought it.’ Robin mused.

‘Well, talking of parents, do you want me to explain what’s going on or Giles to do it? If you want I could get him.’ Xander noticed that he had lost Faith’s attention. She was staring at a figure coming through the hall. All her senses were ringing. Vampire. She drew a stake and moved closer to her husband. Robin felt the movement and followed her eyes to the figure walking in the hallway. He moved in front of his pregnant wife and started to draw the stake he never left home without. Xander watched quietly before calling out,

‘Charles, come and meet Faith and Robin. They were with us at Sunnydale.’

The vampire moved closer to them, and Faith watched as he placed the two mugs he had been carrying down on a small table.

‘Faith Lahern Wood and Robin Wood, may I present Charles Richards, a member of The Covenent who are helping us take down Travers. Charles: Faith and Robin. Faith was called after Kendra died and Robin is the son of Nikki Wood the Slayer.’

‘A pleasure to meet you,’ Charles said, bowing slightly at the couple. ‘You are the reason our Dear Lady Carrington went rushing off so quickly. We had just reached your mother’s Orb and Xander asked us to stop; I will round up the helpers and we can continue - with Willow’s permission of course.’

Willow nodded her head and Charles gave another half bow and continued down the hallway, collecting the mugs as he went.

‘That was surreal, I have just had a polite conversation with a vampire, who is helping us destroy the old head of the watchers council… and what was he drinking?’

‘Slayers blood, donated, the vampires here all get a boost before they go out on patrol, the girls have been donating regularly ever since we thought we were going to have to fight Travers,’ Willow explained. ‘Then we found out they were even quicker fighting and moving, could hear further and see better, as well as being stronger.’

‘And stronger vamps is a good thing?’

‘It is when they are on our side and taking the slayerettes out on training missions. It means if the girls get into trouble the home team vamps are quick enough to keep them safe and bring them home. Look, it’s all in the books we’ve been keeping: I’ll get you copies of everything. Seems that this is the way it was supposed to be for a slayer, to have a vamp working with her. But Travers stopped it, he twisted the Cruciamentum, so instead of it helping a slayer, he used it to kill her. He’s been alive for centuries, using the slayers life force to keep himself alive and to power his magic. He put the slayers’ souls into Orbs of Thesula: we’ve found over a thousand including your mothers, Robin. When we started freeing the girls they could tell us the name of the slayer before them, amongst other things. So we’ve been working our way back down the line, but we wanted to let you say goodbye to your mom. Only we have to hurry, we haven’t got long before Travers breaks out of the circle we’ve got him in and he’s threatened to kill us all, hence the vampires stocking up on slayer blood, just in case it comes to a fight.’

‘If it doesn’t?’ asked Faith, worried about super vamps wandering all over the city.

‘If we win and they are all “grrrr”, we’ll let them spar with each other and some of the senior girls with plastic stakes, we don’t want the vamps to get hurt.’

‘If you say so,’ Faith said sarcastically.

Willow smiled at her. Xander had gone to stand very close to Robin while the women folk had been discussing tactics.

‘It’s OK man, we understand. We’re sorry to hassle you but we really need your mom to give us the name of the next slayer. We have about 1¾ hours left before that bastard breaks free.’ He led the way into the circle room. Willow took her place in the circle and started the chant. Robin watched in awe as his mother appeared from a puff of smoke and walked towards him.

‘My baby boy, all grown up. And who’s this lady?’

‘Faith, she’s my wife - and we’re pregnant.’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but Nikki, we need the name of the slayer before you.’ Xander said, earning him a hard stare from Faith.

‘It’s always the mission first,’ Nikki replied. ‘Helga Njarlsson, from Lillehammer, she was only young when she was called.’

‘Thank you. I’ll leave you in peace.’ With that he left them talking quietly in the corner of the room and hurried back to the Orbs, gave the name to Rachael and the work of freeing the souls began once again.





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