“Of all the stars I admired, drenched/in various rivers and mists,/I chose only the one I love./Since then I sleep with the night./Of all the waves, one wave and another wave,/green sea, green chill, branchings of green,/I chose only the one wave,/the indivisible wave of your body./All the waterdrops, all the roots,/all the threads of light gathered to me here;/they came to me sooner or later./I wanted your hair, all for myself./From all the graces my homeland offered/I chose only your savage heart.” ~Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet XLVI”

Wesley collapsed on the bed, exhaustion setting in. He lifted his head as Willow began unlacing his boots. “You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re wiped out,” Willow replied. “So just lay back and enjoy this.”

“That goes without saying.”

She smiled, and Wesley put his head back down. He could barely bring himself to move even when Willow snuggled up next to him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She kept her promise. When Wesley finally roused himself late the next morning, Willow was still sleeping peacefully next to him. He extricated himself, careful not to wake her, and made his way to the kitchen.

Luka had been sleeping on the couch, but he was gone this morning, and Wesley glanced around the living room. “Luka?” he called quietly.

There was no reply, and his eye was caught by a piece of paper on his table. He picked it up and scanned the note.

“Wesley? Where’s Luka?”

“He left.” Wesley held up the note. “This says that he would just bring danger, and that there’s another monastery he knows of that he can go to.”

“So he just left?” Willow took the note. “Without saying goodbye?”

“He was rather shaken yesterday.” Wesley sat down at the table, considering the prior day’s events. “I don’t know.”

Willow read the note again. “He felt useless here.”

“What?”

“Read between the lines, Wesley. He’s not a fighter, he’s not a powerful magician. He felt useless here, and so he left.”

“Well, I can’t deny that this makes it easier.” He hated to say it, but it was true. He’d just been wondering what they were going to do with the monk long-term. “He was at risk from Glory as well.”

“I have to wonder why we haven’t seen her yet.”

“Count your blessings,” Wesley replied dryly, rising to make the coffee. “She hurt Buffy rather badly. I don’t think we want her around.”

“But who knows what she’s doing?” Willow grimaced. “If she’s a Hellgod, I doubt that she’s sipping tea and watching the Food Network.”

“The Food Network?”

“It seemed relatively innocuous, and that was the point, wasn’t it?”

“Fair point.” Wesley smiled. “What do you have to do today?”

“Classes,” Willow replied. “But then I could play hooky.”

“I like that idea.”

Willow gave him a quick kiss. “I should brush my teeth. Morning breath.”

He smiled. “I still love you.”

“Ditto.”

“I’ll call Spike and Buffy to let them know about Luka.” He watched her as she left the room, marveling at how attractive she was to him. They had been together for a year, and she still turned him on.

He dialed the familiar number, hearing the growl on the other end that told him he’d probably just woken Spike. “Spike, it’s Wesley. Luka left this morning.”

“What?”

“He left a note saying that he was going to a monastery that would give him shelter, and that his continued presence would increase the danger. Willow thinks that when you read between the lines, he was feeling useless.”

Spike sighed. “I admit that this will make things easier for us. If he stuck around, it would be a sure sign to Glory that we know where the Key was.”

“That’s what I thought as well.” Wesley cleared his throat. “Are you going to need anything from us today?”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” Spike replied. “We got a visit from our local spy last night. She wants in on the action.”

“This is Quinn O’Mara?”

“That’s right.”

“Ask Giles about her parents,” Wesley advised. “He’ll know the O’Maras.”

Spike snorted. “We’ll drop by the store on our way to patrol tonight. If we don’t get some hunting in soon, we’re going to have vampire problems on top of everything else.”

“Give us a call if you want help.”

“I’ll let you know,” Spike promised.

Wesley took a deep breath, and let out a sigh of relief. One day to relax was all he wanted, and spending that time with Willow was the icing on the cake.

~~~~~

Dawn woke when Joyce called her name. “Huh?”

“Do you feel up to going to school today, sweetheart? I can call you in sick if you don’t.”

For a moment, Dawn wondered why she’d feel sick. She had been fine the day before. The day’s events came rushing back in that moment, and she sat up quickly. “How long was I asleep?” She glanced around the spare room. “And how did I get up here?”

“You slept the clock around,” Joyce said. “And Giles carried you up when we realized that you were going to sleep through the night. How are you feeling?”

Dawn considered the question. She didn’t feel any different, but now she knew Joyce was Hank’s ex-wife. She remembered that her dad hadn’t known about her. Her mom hadn’t said anything because it had been a one-night-stand, and she’d known he had a family.

She had come to Buffy because she’d had nowhere else to go after her mother’s death. Joyce had offered to let her stay there because Buffy was still in school, and if Social Services caught wind of it, she had a better shot at not going into the system.

All of this information was now simply there. Where before Dawn had had trouble remembering specific details about her life before Sunnydale, her past was clear. She could see her mother’s face, and she remembered her first bike, her first day of school—everything.

But overlaying all of that was the knowledge that she wasn’t truly real, that until a week ago, she had existed only as a ball of energy somewhere.

And she had no idea what to do with that fact.

“I’m okay,” Dawn finally said. “I can go to school today.”

Joyce gave her another concerned look and left, leaving her to get ready. Dawn wondered if it even mattered if she went to school. Technically, there was no one to care. Joyce wasn’t even related to her, nor was Buffy. She could just stay in bed.

But something made her get up anyway. Her memories might be fake, but they felt real, and her (fake) mom had made her promise to go to school, get an education, and to be a good girl.

It seemed like enough of a goal right now.

~~~~~

“You look worried. Is there something wrong?”

Joyce glanced over at Rupert and smiled as she shook her head. “No, everything is fine.”

“And the worry?”

“You know me too well.”

“I should hope so by this point.”

“It’s Dawn. She was very quiet this morning, and I wonder how she’s handling all of this.”

Giles shook his head. “I don’t know her well enough to say. I would think that by giving her time and the opportunity to live as normal a life as possible, she would come through alright.”

“Perhaps.” Joyce shook her head. “I’m a mother, so I worry. It’s inevitable.”

“I think I know how you feel.”

Their eyes met, and Joyce saw a wealth of feeling in his handsome face. There were more lines than there had been when they’d first met, and more gray in his hair, put there by the same worry she’d felt.

Concern for Buffy might have been the first thing that bonded them, but it hadn’t been the last.

“Mrs. Summers?” The nurse called her from the hall, and Joyce rose, pulling Giles with her. Glancing over at him, she could see the excitement and nervousness in his face, likely because today was the day they would discover whether it was a boy or girl.

Although all he’d said was that he wanted the baby to be healthy, Joyce couldn’t help but wish for a boy. The chance that a second daughter would be a Slayer might be small, but Joyce didn’t want to chance it.

~~~~~

Giles took a sip of his tea and considered the question. “I do remember the O’Maras,” he admitted. “But they were not terribly popular, and they tended to keep to themselves.”

“At this point, that may not be a mark against them,” Spike replied.

He smiled thinly. “Indeed.”

“Is there any reason they weren’t popular?” Buffy asked.

They were tucked away in Giles’ cluttered office at the bookstore. Spike and Buffy had dropped by on the way out to patrol, and Giles wondered if they would be looking for Glory. There had been no sign of her since the first run-in, and neither were the sort to wait for trouble to come to them.

“No real reason, other than the fact they were too interested in one another and their children to engage in political machinations,” Giles finally said. “They were known as good, solid Watchers, and because both of their daughters were marked as Potentials, they spent much of their time training them.”

“Quinn said her younger sister was the Slayer Chosen to replace Faith. Why wouldn’t the Council have notified us?”

Giles rubbed his forehead. “I honestly don’t know, unless they were concerned that it would somehow give away Quinn’s true purpose.”

“And Quinn?” Spike pressed. “What do you know about her?”

Giles shook his head. “Nothing, really. She was never mentioned, except in relation to her parents. I knew that she was a Potential, and that her training was going well. That was it.”

He hated to give bad advice, to make a suggestion that would bring harm, but in this situation, Giles had no idea what to do. “If she is telling the truth, Quinn would be a tremendous asset. If she is instead a very clever sort of spy, by purporting to work with you while really passing along sensitive information to the Council, things could get very bad, very quickly.”

“The Council wants the Key,” Buffy said quietly. “And now we know that means Dawn. Quinn doesn’t have to know what Dawn really is. We could use her.”

Spike nodded slowly. “We could. At the very least, we can pass along misinformation to the Council. If they find out that we have the Key, and I haven’t brought it to them, it could get very ugly.”

He and Buffy glanced at each other, and both stood. “Thanks for the info, Giles.” As they turned to leave, Buffy paused in the doorway. “Wasn’t the doctor’s appointment today?”

“It was.” Giles had been wondering when someone would ask.

“And?” Buffy gave him a look that said she knew he was stalling and didn’t appreciate it.

A slow smile graced his face. “It’s a boy.”

As he accepted their congratulations, Giles couldn’t help but feel relieved that he would never be father to a Slayer, other than Buffy.

He’d already decided that his son would have the choices that he—and his Slayer—hadn’t.

~~~~~

“This isn’t working.”

“We’ve only been here an hour.”

Buffy hid her sigh. After a satisfactory sweep of the cemeteries, where both of them had racked up half a dozen vampires each, they had turned towards the warehouse district where they had first run into Glory.

Spike held up a hand. “Hang on.” She stopped, straining her ears to try and hear what Spike was referring to, but there were only the ordinary sounds of the night. “This way.”

Buffy followed him, trusting to his superior hearing to lead them in the right direction. Even if they didn’t find Glory, there was often a vampire nest or two in the area.

Spike picked up the pace suddenly, and Buffy began jogging to keep up. Stopping at a fire escape, he motioned her over. She let him toss her up, unsurprised when he joined her in one bound.

They climbed the stairs as quietly as possible, finally coming to a broken window four stories up.

Buffy slipped inside, edging away from the window on the catwalk, waiting for Spike to join her. She heard what Spike must have—the unmistakable sound of flesh pounding flesh.

“You’ll tell me what I want to know!”

She couldn’t see who was below from her current angle, but Buffy recognized the voice. When the reply came moments later, she recognized the second person as well just from the distinct accent.

“I do not know.”

There was the sound of another smack, and Buffy glanced at Spike. They both began creeping along the catwalk, hoping to get a better look at what was going on below.

“Where is my Key?” Glory’s voice rose in pitch as she shouted out the words, sounding frustrated and angry. “I know you know.”

“I will not.” Clearly, those three words were the most that Luka could manage. Buffy realized that he must have been captured by Glory before he’d gotten very far; she’d likely had most of the day and the night to work on him, and he still hadn’t given Dawn up.

She was impressed; there weren’t many who could stand up to that kind of punishment. Then again, who knew how much longer he would last?

As though reading her mind, Spike whispered. “You get Luka, I’ll take Glory.”

“Spike, I—”

“Fair’s fair, Slayer.” He cut her off with grim humor. “You had your shot the last time. It’s my turn.”

Buffy knew when he wasn’t going to back down, and she nodded reluctantly. “Be careful.”

“Always.”

And with that as their unspoken signal, Spike dropped from the catwalk, landing on top of Glory, leaving Buffy to make her slower way down.