Part One

Dawn is free to do what she pleases. After all, she’s finally old enough – and that had seemed to take forever, although Willow claimed that it had only taken nineteen years. Or five, depending on how you look at it.

“I remember when you were twelve, always hanging around and begging to go out with Buffy; always saying that you were such a big girl, you could handle it,” Willow would tell Dawn, playfully stroking her hair. Then Willow’s smile would fade as she realized that it was a false memory, that Dawn had never been twelve. All those sweet memories of baby Dawnie, of deliciously innocent-faced Dawnie, of grown-up elementary school and the torments of preadolescence, were fake.

Dawn had no childhood; she was born at fourteen. She still hasn’t figured out why the Monks picked that age. One, four – these numbers hold no significance for her. The only thing she can think of is that the Monks gave her double seven, for double the luck.

But Dawn is no longer a teenager – she’s an adult now and she wants out. She wants to get away from the suffocating presence of her sister and the Slayers. It’s what she’s always known: she does not fit in with the rest of them. Once she was like them, different and powerful, but that’s gone now and Dawn’s left with nothing but simple ordinary abilities, like the ability to do research. That’s all they seem to use her for. They push her to the side and take all the glory for themselves. The precious Slayer line has no need for sweet young Dawnie, sister of Head Slayer Buffy, so little Dawnie decides to leave.

Oh, Buffy begs her not to go and Giles takes her aside and asks her what in God’s name is she thinking, and Faith rolls her eyes and tells her to stay with her sister. Only Willow sighs and says their Dawnie’s a big girl who needs to make her own way in the world. Dawn wishes she hadn’t said it that way, but it’s the support she needs to get the ball rolling.

After many arguments and tears, they all come to agree, but Dawn knows they secretly can’t wait to get rid of her. She’s ordinary and they don’t really need her. She’ll be better off without them.

She tells them that she wants to go back home to California. Since Sunnydale’s gone, she’ll go to the second best place: Los Angeles. Buffy grudgingly calls up Angel and asks him to take care of Dawn and help her settle in. Buffy and Angel still aren’t on the greatest terms, even after Angel and his friends defeated the Circle of the Black Thorn and proved their allegiance to the good fight at great personal cost.

They all come to load Dawn onto her plane and give her last minute advice, but at the end they leave her and Buffy alone to have a final goodbye.

“When will you be back, Dawn?” Buffy asks tearfully as she hugs her for the millionth time.

“I don’t know,” Dawn answers. “Maybe when I figure out my superhero powers.”

“You don’t need them,” says Buffy and then Dawn has to leave because it’s the last call for loading the plane. Buffy stands by the gate looking traumatized as Willow comes to put her arm around her and wave goodbye.

“That’s easy for you to say,” says Dawn as she walks onto the plane.

~

Dawn arrives in Los Angeles surprisingly refreshed, happy to finally be on her way to a new life. Angel was supposed to have sent someone to pick her up and take her to a hotel, but after spending an hour looking for someone holding up a placard with her name on it, she gives up and hops into a taxi.

“The Hyperion Hotel,” she tells the driver. “No, actually Wolfram and Hart.” She’s a bit jet lagged, but she’d like to see Angel and take a look at the place that has caused so much controversy.

She spends the taxi ride staring out the window and greedily taking in all the California sights she’d missed while in England. England might be full of history and great architecture, but there aren’t any palm trees and not a lot of sunshine.

When she arrives at Wolfram and Hart, she’s surprised by the size of the building. When anyone had spoken of Wolfram and Hart, they’d always stressed how big and bad it was, but the building, although far from small, doesn’t seem so large and ominous as she’d thought it would be.

The lobby is large and airy, filled with men and women dressed in business suits and carrying cell phones and briefcases. Dawn walks among them, dressed in rumpled pants and a tank top, feeling extremely out of place amid the formality. She stands in the middle of the lobby, carry-on duffel bag slung over her shoulder with two suitcases lying at her feet as people stream around her, directing their paths around her as they converse on their cell phones. She feels very out of place, lugging her suitcases to the front desk to ask where to find Angel, then to the crowded elevator where she gets a few suspicious looks, then up a flight of stairs until she gets to the doors marked “Angel, CEO.” She drops the suitcases, knocks on the double doors and slides them open.

Angel’s sitting behind a nice big desk and talking to another man when she walks in. Their discussion comes to a halt and Angel smiles tiredly at her.

“Hi, Dawn. Long time no see,” he quips.

He makes no effort to rise and attempt some sort of hug, for which she is grateful; she’s never been that comfortable with Angel. She remembers that this is the first time she’s truly come face to face with Angel – all their other encounters were part of the false memories.

“More like long time, never seen,” she says.

“So how was your flight?” asks Angel after a long glance at the unknown man. Vampires don’t age, but Angel seems older and tired.

“Fine,” she says, shifting her duffel bag on her shoulder, feeling awkward. Angel opens his mouth a few times like a fish, obviously trying to think of something to say.

Dawn glances at the other man. His stubbled cheeks, wrinkled shirt and the tense way he holds his body tell Dawn that he’s not much better off than Angel. He looks vaguely familiar…

“You were Faith’s Watcher, yeah?” she abruptly asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence. He looks so different, but she thinks it’s him. What was his name – Westing, Watson …?

“Uh, yeah, this is Wesley,” Angel blurts out.

Wesley smiles at her distractedly and murmurs a greeting in a distinctively sexy British voice that makes her melt even though he seems so out of it. She’s always had a thing for British accents, dating back to her infatuations with Spike and Hugh Grant.

There’s another awkward silence after that. Angel mumbles something about her accommodations at the Hyperion and she mutters something back, says some little thing about wanting to go get settled in and Wesley interjects a bit about how the Hyperion was a great place to stay (“It used to be our office before this”) before Angel smiles insincerely and they say their farewells.

It has taken all of five minutes for Dawn to reacquaint herself with Angel, find that they have nothing to say to each other and leave. Some things never change, she thinks as she drags her suitcases into the elevator. She’s rather curious about Wesley and wishes she’d had a bit more conversation with him…

Part Two

In the two months Dawn’s been in Los Angeles, she’s tried to make herself at home. She’s been trying to immerse herself in college and make friends. She’s gone out a few times with some nice guys. On Sundays, she scouts flea markets looking for adorable little knick knacks and a nice coffee table for her overpriced apartment (courtesy of Wolfram and Hart; Dawn wonders how much guilt Buffy poured onto Angel to make him to pay for it). In short, Dawn is very busy.

But she still has time to wish she’d had a chance to talk with Wesley.

She wants to know what happened to him, how the dark sadness came into his eyes, why Angel seems aged and why they both seemed trapped and condemned. These thoughts are always in the back of her mind no matter how hard she pushes them away. One time she’d asked Buffy the story of how the Circle had been defeated, but Buffy didn’t seem to know or really care.

Buffy calls once a week now, instead of twice a day like she used to. Buffy must not miss her much.

Dawn tries to push that thought away as well, but it clings as hard as the others do. This is why Dawn immerses herself in work and social situations; in order to forget the things that never let go.

But one day, when one of her classes is unexpectedly canceled, Dawn decides to be daring and do something unexpected as well. It’s all her new friend Claire’s fault; Claire is into all that spiritual mumbo jumbo like, “Every day is a new day! Be different, be a breath of fresh air! Do the daring!” It’s rubbed off on Dawn, which is why she finds herself making her way to dark and gloomy Wolfram and Hart on a bright and sunny day. She doesn’t know what she’s going to say to Angel or Wesley (butterflies flutter in her stomach when she thinks of him – well, he is hot).

She gets to Wolfram and Hart and makes her way up to the executive floor, where the secretary tells her that Angel is out and Mr. Pryce is busy – but then Wesley unexpectedly comes out of his office.

“Please don’t say I’m busy when I’m not,” he drawls at the secretary, who flushes bright red. “Dawn, isn’t it?” he says, extending his hand.

“Yes, hi,” squeals Dawn. She clears her throat and smiles.

“So what can I do for you, Dawn?” He’s incredibly charming, even looking a bit sulky.

She finds herself at a sudden loss for words and racks her brain for ideas. She should’ve come more prepared –

“I know you’re going to think this is incredibly rude of me, I mean I hardly know you, but no one else will tell me, and I just can’t forget about it – what happened?” she blurts out in a sudden rush.

Wesley blinks at her, his brow wrinkling and his blue eyes darkening. He says nothing for a moment and Dawn is horribly embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry,” she babbles. “I shouldn’t have asked – ”

Wesley sighs. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your curiosity. At least you have some of it left intact.”

He opens the door to his office and with a gesture waves her in. She awkwardly sits on a chair in front of his desk. He stays by the door and closes it slowly.

“After being through so much, one loses that natural urge to question, to seek out answers, to know the truth. I would have thought you’d been through enough already.” He makes his way back to his chair and slides into it.

“I haven’t been around that long,” says Dawn. “Haven’t seen that much.”

Wesley smiles distantly at her. “You’ve already been through three attempts to destroy your world. Remarkable how young and idealistic you still manage to be. How I long for those days.”

He rummages around the papers scattered on his desk for a few moments and Dawn fidgets in her seat.

“And yet I’m still here,” he ponders out loud. “Listlessly seeking those answers, never finding them.”

“Maybe you’re not too far gone,” ventures Dawn timidly.

“I think I am,” he says, looking up at her. “They’re all dead, you see. I should be too. God or whoever runs the show – up there, down there – had mercy on me too late.”

Then he proceeds to enumerate exactly how sad and useless the mercy had been. Despite his brave words before the battle, he told Dawn he had been ready to die, to go meet whichever one of his girlfriends that he would end up with for eternity (“I hoped for Fred, but I knew if I ended up going to Hell at least I’d have Lilah for company.”) There was, he felt, nothing left for him here; the friendships he’d once had disintegrated as the corruptness of Angel and Wolfram & Hart ripped them apart, the reminiscences of what he’d done in the previous year, the blue haired god that taunted him and finished him off, yet saved him at the end.

“Vail had me dangling in the air, Illyria barged in at just the right moment and surprised him. She attacked him and was mortally wounded in the process. I was able to finish him off, and I presume she died.”

He’d made it to the alley and found Angel there. They’d waited as long as they could, staying even when the army of demons came for them, fighting them off bravely until they were forced to retreat, still checking out the alley for hours and hours afterward, waiting, waiting.

No one else had made it back.

“And that would be how Angel and I came to be alone in these large offices, desolate and silent. We came back to Wolfram and Hart to find it still intact and free of the Partners’ grasp. With nothing else left to do, we restaffed and now protect the innocent on a day to day basis.” Wesley grins bitterly at this. “The price we paid to save the world yet again. I hate saving the world.”

And with these words he starts to chuckle quietly and Dawn can feel his pain in the pit of her stomach. She’s not quite sure what to do with him, this man filled with anger and sorrow laughing at fate, so she reaches across the table and lays her hand on top of his.

“I’m sorry, and I know that’s sort of inadequate, but still,” she says to him. He clutches at her hand tightly. She starts to ramble on to try cover up his weird laughs.

“When my sister died, I felt the same way. She died to save me and the world, and I was just so angry. I didn’t want her to save the world, I just wanted Buffy. The world wasn’t worth that much to me. I get it. Really.”

“You have your sister back, don’t you?” asks Wesley.

“I never got her truly back,” says Dawn. “There’s a part of her that will always be dead. A very important part. She’s like Buffy the Second, a good copy but never the real thing.”

Wesley’s still holding her hand but he’s loosened his grip and his touch is almost soothing now. He’s been collecting himself during her little talk, and seems calmer now.

“I don’t know why I’ve told you all this,” he says. “But I feel oddly comfortable with you.”

“Even though you barely know me. Yeah, me too. I don’t exactly ask people rude questions all the time,” says Dawn.

“I wanted to talk to you– ” “I’d been meaning to speak with you –” they both say at almost the same time, their voices overlapping. They both lightly smile at this.

“Weird, huh?” says Dawn.

“Definitely,” says Wesley, a bit of light coming into his blue eyes. He glances into her brown eyes and she returns the stare. Her watch beeps a moment later and she breaks contact, looking down at her wrist.

“I’ve got to leave to make it back to class,” she says. “It was nice talking to you.”

“I wouldn’t exactly consider it nice…” he says as she rises from her chair. “But do come again,” he wryly states as she closes the door behind her.

~

Some days later she decides to take him up on that invitation and comes to visit again.

“Hi,” Dawn says, leaning against the wall. “Is this a bad time?”

The desk and floor are strewn with books and papers covered in ancient symbols and languages. Wesley sits on the floor among them, hair tousled and cheeks stubbled, erratically picking up papers, glancing through them, then writing in his notes and running to his desk.

“Yes,” he vaguely says, barely registering her presence.

“What’s the case?” asks Dawn.

“A Carlass demon reneged on a mystical contract and we’re the arbitrators… Hand me the green book, would you?”

Glancing at the masses of books on his desk, she gingerly picks out the green one and hands it to him.

“Don’t you have any assistants?” Dawn asks, wondering why he’s left to do all this work by himself.

“No, no, no… They’re not very helpful, there seems to be a shortage of scholars these days…” mutters Wesley.

Dawn glances at her watch. She doesn’t have anything planned until later that night, and seeing all the books lying around brings forth a nostalgic memory of researching in dusty old tomes. As much as Dawn had come to loathe research while she was in England, it still have a place in her heart.. There are so many questions these days, with too few answers, and finding some of those mysterious answers in books had made her feel good.

“Want some help? I’ve been doing research for a couple years now, I know a bit,” she offers.

Wesley raises his head and stares at her for a long moment. “Dawn. I’d very much appreciate it,” he finally says, and so she plops herself down next to him.

For the next few hours she’s his secretary, his transcriber and helper. She ends up enjoying the experience very much. He talks out loud to himself and she listens, intrigued. Sometimes he asks her questions and takes her answers into consideration. He takes her seriously, treats her like a fellow researcher, something that no one ever did before.

A few hours later, the work is done.

“I wouldn’t have been able to finish as quickly if you hadn’t helped,” Wesley tells her.

“Thanks,” says Dawn, blushing slightly.

“I don’t suppose you have a job, do you?” asks Wesley.

“No, actually,” says Dawn. “I haven’t found anything attractive.” Ouch. Talk about Freudian slips. Even in his disheveled, messy state she still finds him rather handsome.

“You did rather well today and I sorely need someone like you. May I offer you a job? I’m told the benefits are very good.”

Dawn frantically thinks the offer over in her head. Buffy might throw a hissy fit (she still doesn’t trust Angel’s Wolfram and Hart), but Dawn’s made it very clear that what Buffy thinks doesn’t matter anymore. It would be an interesting job where she would learn a lot, and she could spend more time alone with Wesley.

The time alone with Wesley persuades her.

“I’ll take it,” she says happily.

Dawn almost skips out of the office, a odd feeling of success deep in the pit of her stomach. It’s not like she had walked in wanting her old job back as researcher, but it felt different tonight, like she was actually needed. Wesley treated her like an adult with something to offer.

She likes that very much.

Part Three

There are two types of days Dawn can have: either busy or slow. When a crisis comes, it comes fast and furious, or it doesn’t come at all.

Sometimes Dawn is so busy that she doesn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning, but sometimes the day passes casually, with pleasant talk and good company.

School is good, life is better than usual, Buffy still doesn’t seem to care and Wesley is as attractive as ever, and thankfully (or not so thankfully) not noticing her crush. It’s very obvious sometimes; any girl could tell, but since Wesley only has cool relationships with most people in Wolfram and Hart, no one tells him.

“I was thinking,” Dawn questions him one day, “about the memories Angel gave you to cover up that year. How did you figure out they were fake?”

“Just inconsistent bits and pieces that I put together,” says Wesley, “and when his son came to the firm, during research some larger things were revealed, and I was able to figure it out from that.” He pauses. “How did you figure out that your memories were falsified?”

“Buffy grabbed me and started shaking me, asking who I was and what I was doing there. Then we found out more things.” Dawn blinks away tears as she remembers how painful it had been, finding out that she’d never existed before those days.

“I felt betrayed,” she says. “You?”

“As well. It’s not pleasant to discover parts of your life missing.”

Most people wouldn’t understand, but she’s confident that he does. She also understands his issues.

“So tell me Dawn, why did you leave your sister?” Wesley asks one relaxed day when they sit together in his office reading some ancient texts.

“They’re too special for me,” says Dawn. “They never needed me. And they treated me like I had never grown up. I was never old enough, or good enough, to do anything really important.”

Wesley considers this. “I had the opposite experience,” he muses, speaking to himself as much as he’s speaking to Dawn. “I was too young and they forced me out. I really wasn’t fit to be Faith’s Watcher at that time, but my father wanted the glory and forced me into it. And when I failed at that…”

“They all knew they were better than you,” interjects Dawn.

“Yes,” Wesley says simply.

“I know,” she says.

~

“So you have a job researching for Wolfram and Hart,” says Buffy grumpily, her voice sounding tinny over the long distance connection. “When did this happen?”

“Last month,” says Dawn. How did her sister find out? She hadn’t mentioned anything to her –

“Giles found out when he had to call Angel yesterday.” Buffy stresses the words, making sure Dawn knows that Giles really hadn’t wanted to call. It must have been extenuating circumstances.

“Look, this Wolfram and Hart isn’t bad, I don’t know why –” is all Dawn manages to get in before Buffy starts to rant about the corruptness of the company and what it had done before, and still continues to do in the London Branch.

“And to top it off,” says Buffy breathlessly, “you’re doing something that you could have done right here. No need to run off to do research there.”

“Well, maybe someone actually needs me here,” snaps Dawn. Wesley does need her, more than anyone did in England. Without her, he’d be all by his lonesome self, buried in books and trying to hide from his miserable life. At least he has her to help him along.

He’s told her how much their conversations mean to him.

“It’s rather comforting to be able to discuss these things,” he said to her after a particularly heart-felt talk.

Dawn smiled at him and shifted in her seat.

“These conversations… do mean a lot to me,” he murmured quietly, reaching over to gently touch her hand.

“They mean a lot to me too,” Dawn said and she didn’t mean to get so close to him, her arm brushing his lightly as she turns towards him…

And then they kissed.

Well, she wishes that it had happened that way. He’s mumbled something about being able to express himself, about how comfortable he is around her, but nothing really meaningful has taken place – yet.

Buffy’s voice breaks through her thoughts.

“Dawn, Dawn? Hello?”

“Sorry, Buffy, I was just looking at my schedule. Gosh, I’m really supposed to be at this party in half an hour and I need to get dressed…”

Buffy hangs up after an interrogation about the party and warnings about spiked punch.

Dawn flops down on her bed and stares at the ceiling. She lied to Buffy – there is no party – but she really doesn’t need to hear more of the criticism that drove her away from England. If she really wants to hear some well-aimed criticism, she can always mishandle a book in front of Wesley and cringe as he lets it rip.

~

Wesley picks up an ancient Hebrew dictionary and starts to page through it.

“When it comes down to it, I really would prefer not to translate. Some of the true flavor gets lost, the essence of the piece.” He sighs. “But these days, people don’t even know French, so how could they be expected to know such languages? The translations are bare bone, stripped to the essentials. You really need to know the language…one could get lost amongst all those sloppy translations and guesses…”

Dawn looks up from cross-referencing prophecies referring to catastrophic events due to ‘acts of God.’ She knows exactly what he means. She’s picked up more than a few language skills since she started researching, and she can see the difference. Like “gloth’ha” in Sumerian (or is it gloth’cha?): it doesn’t just mean to eviscerate, it conveys a sense of the practice, an idea of blood and gore. But when translated, it just doesn’t do the word justice. It can also get confusing in English, trying to fit in multiple meanings and connotations.

“Forget about getting lost in translation,” says Dawn. “I just get lost in the words.”

“Yes,” responds Wesley.

“Wesley, I…”

The words in front of her swim before her eyes, the translations truly no longer making any sense. At yet another moment of perfect clarity and understanding between them, she wants him.

“Yes?” he says again, walking over to her. Dawn takes a deep breath, thinks about doing something daring and new, throws her arms around his neck and kisses him.

Wesley doesn’t pull away, but leans into her and kisses her in a way that makes her think he’s had kissing lessons – he does it so well. When she finally lets go of him, the dazed look on his face tells her that she’s really surprised him.

“I – never thought,” he stammers, all of his poise suddenly gone, “that you were attracted to me.”

“Men are oblivious,” she says. “I’ve been here with you for the last couple of months lusting away and you never noticed?”

“I never thought this would happen,” he says, “in all of my wildest dreams…”

“You had dreams?”

Wesley ignores her and continues to yammer on about duties and responsibilities and all that junk, while Dawn happily realizes that Wesley’s been attracted to her, too, throughout the last months, but just never acted on it.

“I can’t do this. You’re so young… and my girlfriends seem to come to unfortunate ends. I wouldn’t want you to suffer.”

“Nothing that happens can be worse than what I’ve already been through. I can take care of myself. I can stay here with you, keep on helping. Nothing has to change, we just get closer.”

“You still have a life to go back to. You still have friends and family, unlike me. Do you really want to condemn yourself to a crabby old man?”

“Maybe crabby, but never old. And anyway, I can handle crabby. No, I don’t want to go back.” She pauses. “Forget about getting lost in translations and just get lost in me.”

Wesley’s lips curl into a gentle smile. “Well, I don’t think I can argue with that. It’s not so confusing anymore, is it?” he murmurs before he leans towards her, glancing down to the open book and smoothing the pages down with a finger.

Dawn smiles.

And then they kiss.