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Chapter 15

“Let him in, Giles,” Buffy demanded from the hallway.

Giles followed Buffy’s direction and the three were joined by Spike as they made themselves comfortable in the living room of the small apartment. The jovial little monk looked around the room in curiosity then, smiling broadly, he returned his attention to the group. “I’ll bet the last couple of days have been interesting.”

“Do you know what’s happened?” Buffy jumped right to the heart of the matter.

“Yes, dear. We do now, but it took us two days and a locator spell to find you. I must say, it gave us a bit of a scare when we woke and found the key gone. We thought the Beast had managed to get past our defences.” Brother Luther smiled benignly at the perplexed blond. “It is most important that you realise, though, that with the events of the last week you have managed to achieve the miracle that our order has been searching for, for a millennia.”

“Huh?”

“I think what Buffy is trying to ask is, what exactly is it you think we did?” Giles smiled indulgently at his confused slayer.

Choosing his words carefully, the monk hesitated before answering. “Would it not be best to have the key that is now your sister and her mother here too? I am sure that they will have questions that I will need to answer.”

Buffy, Giles, and Spike shared a communicative glance before Buffy suggested Giles make the call. Neither Buffy nor Spike wanted to take the chance of accidentally speaking to the other Buffy.

~*~*~

‘What the hell is taking him so long?’ Angel thought to himself. He’d been waiting in the library for what seemed like hours. Absentmindedly picking up the book that Giles and Spike had been looking at the night before, Angel flicked through the pages as he waited.

As the fates would have it, he stopped at the very same ritual that had had Spike so enthralled the night before. ‘Hmmph, if that was possible, I would have done it.’ Angel thought derisively.

~*~*~

“I am sure you have many questions, and I will try to answer them all, but I feel it is important to tell you about what is happening now and the miracle,” Brother Luther started. “My brothers and I have been the protectors of the key since it was sent to this dimension a millennia ago. We always knew that we were protecting it from the Beast, but we did not know when the Beast would arrive in this dimension. So, we have worked hard for many centuries, trying to find a way to dilute the power of the Key so the Beast would be unable to sense it. All our attempts have failed,” the smiling monk informed them, his smile not detracting from the seriousness of the conversation. “However, the events of the last couple of days have succeeded where we failed; the key is no longer detectable.”

“You’re not taking her back,” Joyce’s declaration was cut with steel.

“No, no, this delightful child is your daughter. The fact that she was born of the power of the key is irrelevant; she is yours now, and she and the world are finally safe from the Beast,” he assured her.

“But how?” Buffy asked.

The monk looked at the confused faces surrounding him, “Thursday morning, we awoke to find the key missing. We could find no trace of it in this dimension. One of my brothers has been gifted with visions, and that is how were able to understand what had happened. In the future, we sent the key to a new protector. We were apparently able to channel the key’s power enough to change its form, but without a blood link to the protector, the key would have remained inanimate. So in essence Protector, your sister was born of you,” he told Buffy. “Apparently, at some point after that, you were sent back in time by non-magical means. The blood connection demanded that the part of your sister that is the key follow you. She was unable to do that until the blood connection was strengthened. I am not sure how you strengthened the connection, but whatever you did allowed the Key from the future to connect to the Key from now and the two combined. The future key was brought to the past and absorbed the essence of our Key to do that, but the trip itself depleted the power of the key to such an extent that it is now undetectable. Once used, the power cannot regenerate itself, so many of the problems you faced in your time will now not happen.”

Turning to Joyce, the monk continued. “You will not suffer the illness that you were to have suffered in the future. The monks that sent the Key to you were not aware of the consequences of prolonged exposure to the Key. We have always been protected.”

“Oi! You bloody stupid git, you don’t say something like that in front of the girl.” Spike spat out in disgust as he reached for Dawn.

Batting Spike’s hands away in an attempt to get away from him, Dawn all but screamed her concern. “NO! No, don’t touch me. I kill the people I love.”

Ignoring both her physical and verbal protests, the vampire gently but firmly pulled the distressed teen into his arms. “’M already dead, sweet bit.”

While Spike rocked Dawn, Joyce went into battle mode. “How dare you,” she hissed at the apologetic monk. “You don’t deserve to be responsible for anything if you can speak so thoughtlessly in front of a defenceless child.” Adding her arms to Spike’s, she completed the circle surrounding and protecting her youngest. “It’s okay, baby. I’m alright and I’m right here.”

“Was there anything else you needed to say, before you left?” The Slayer crossed her arms across her chest, furious at how her life had been played with, furious that these thoughtless fools had been responsible for her mother’s death in her own time, but thankful that this time she would be able to keep both her sister and her mother.

Giles watched the family as they interacted, the researcher in him studying the actions of the unique vampire while the father in him was thankful that the girl he thought of as a daughter seemed to be warming up to this incredible individual. He cast his glance back to the monk that was responsible for the distress of the other child his heart had claimed as family and he seriously considered letting Ripper out for a bit.

“I am so sorry, I did not mean to course you pain, little one. If you need to blame someone for the trauma that you have faced, blame the monks that acted in desperation and without thought. Please do not blame yourself, you are innocent. Let go of your pain, child. You have been given a second chance and you can now enjoy your family. Please child, try and look on this as a blessing,” The monk pleaded desperately with Dawn, praying that she would hear his words.

Looking up at the monk from the safety of her mother’s and pseudo-brother’s arms, her face streaked with tears, Dawn asked, her voice small and innocent in its hope filled tones. “So, mom and Buffy won’t die because I’m the Key now?”

“You are more girl than key now, child. The time of the Key has past. You have changed it all by finding your sister.”

~*~*~

Okay, now he was getting mad, Giles probably knew he was here and was making him wait deliberately. Well, now, Angel was no fool, he could be patient with the best of them. Let’s just see who broke first.





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