A/N: Special thanks to Addie Logan, my wonderful beta whom I don't thank nearly enough.
This story is told in the point of view of various characters and the name of the character will be posted at the start of their narratives.
Timeline: Buffy didn’t die at the end of season 5. She was able to stop Glory and Doc before Dawn’s blood was spilled. Willow and Tara never moved into the house.
no one's asking to go dancing its not like that anymore
its romantic if they mean it when they shut your fingers in the door
its a gory sort of story that’s been told a hundred times before
it gets tricky don’t be picky if the slipper fits you wear it whore
how many tips can I take home tonight without them getting mad
how many stitches do you think it takes to fix a cut that bad
how many minutes until midnight and you get your eyesight back
not to knock it I’ve been off it never moving very much at once
its been awkward I still offer it when its that time of
other girls shower but I give out flowers
to curious strangers who throw dollars at my feet
how many crimes can I try spotting dry before it leaves a stain
how many times say that I love you til it doesn’t mean a thing
how many fittings must I sit through with my big feet blistering
how many strips until it hits me and my big mouth strikes again
I’m not asking to go dancing I’m not that dumb anymore
its exhausting to keep smiling when your toes are bleeding through the floor
its a gory sort of story that’s been told a million times before
don't be sorry just ignore me because honestly
I’m too sore from fitting exactly to ride into setting suns aching to
stand on my own two feet how many wishes do I still have left to fix the way it ends
how many princes will it take to put a girl like this back together again
how many instances can you point out where I was less than kind
how many happy endings do you need to change your fucking mind
and how much time do we have left before it's midnight and
you see that I was never the right size?
-Glass Slipper by the Dresden Dolls
Prologue
Another Apocalypse had been adverted. They had expected causalities, but the causality they got was one that none of them expected. Their friendship. It seems that the risk was higher when loved ones were being put at risk and having seen both their significant others get hurt had caused Willow and Xander to pull back a bit. It wasn’t that they didn’t love Buffy, she was their best friend, but it seemed that every Apocalypse was getting a bit more dangerous. Tara almost becoming a permanent child and Anya getting whacked on the head seemed to put things into a different perspective. Saving the world had been fun when they were younger but it was time to start thinking of their futures. Hadn’t they saved the world enough times to deserve that?
XXX
Giles stared at the letter in his hand. He removed his glasses, cleaned them, put them back on, and re-read the letter. The note didn’t change. His sister was dying. Good lord, he hadn’t thought of her in nearly twenty years and now she was writing him on her death bed hoping to put the past behind them. He hated to leave Buffy so soon after both the Apocalypse and Joyce’s death, but she was a strong girl. She would understand why he had to leave.
XXX
Spike paced his crypt restlessly while Clem munched on Cheetos, his wrinkled head following the vampire’s movements.
“So, whatcha gonna do?” Clem asked.
“I bloody well don’t know,” Spike responded. “She’ll stake me if I get it out, but I can’t rightly continue on like this forever. How long until the bloody thing breaks and takes to zapping me whenever it feels like?”
“Did it come with a warranty?” Clem asked helpfully.
“No, it did not come with a warranty!” Spike said, annoyed. He lit a cigarette and ran his fingers through his hair. “No, it’s got to come out…just won’t tell the girl is all.”
“What are you going to tell her about leaving town?”
“Will only be gone a weekend. She probably won’t notice. Stay here and cover for me, will ya?”
“Sure thing, Spike.”
XXX
Buffy stood in Dawn’s doorway and watched her sleep. It was finally over. No more Glory. No more worrying about Dawn’s safety from Hell Gods and psychotic knights.
She watched her sister for a few more moments before closing the door and making her way silently downstairs. With a sigh, she sat down at the desk in the living room and opened a drawer. Inside the drawer was a stack of papers and her mother’s check book. All the bills that had piled up after her mother’s death and during the whole Glory thing had been pushed to the side and now needed to be dealt with. Within the hour Buffy learned two things; one was that they were broke and the other thought was that now instead of worrying about Hell Gods wanting her sister, Buffy now had to worry about social services. She couldn’t win. Buffy cradled her head in her hands and cried.
XXX
Chapter 1
Buffy
The ringing of the phone wakes me up and it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Oh, yeah. I’m in the living room sorting out the finances. I groan and reach for the phone.
“Hello,” I mutter.
“Buffy, I’m so glad I caught you at home. You weren’t sleeping, were you?”
Only Giles could sound so…British in the morning.
“Giles, if this is about another Apocalypse I quit.”
“Oh, er, no, no, of course not,” he stammers. “I, Buffy, I have to leave for England…immediately. It’s a, well, a family emergency to be quite honest.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you had any family.”
“Well, yes, I have a sister, but we haven’t spoken in, well, seems like a lifetime. She’s very ill and wishes to, er, resolve our past differences,” he says.
Resolve their past differences? Who says that?
“I hope you understand. I shall return as soon as possible,” he continues. “I will call with a number as soon as I have one.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Right, cheers then…oh, and Buffy?”
“What Giles?”
“Take care of yourself.”
I toss the phone onto the table and shuffle the pile of bills around. The shuffling doesn’t change anything though and God knows that I had hoped it would. I rub my hands over my face and stare at the budget I’ve prepared. Okay, Mom’s life insurance was $100,000 dollars, we owe about $70,000 in hospital bills…I can’t believe that Mom had insurance for Dawn and me but not herself…how did she think she was going to pay for the doctor…Oh God, that’s why she didn’t want to go. The tears are welling up again, but I’m not going to give in. I am the Slayer. I can do this…Okay, moving on… the funeral was $6,500 and there really oughta be a law that says funeral directors can’t take advantage of distraught family members, moving on again…the mortgage is $1,300 a month, electric is $75, gas is about $60, cable/phone/internet is-Good Lord-$200 a month! Okay, that’s gotta go. Um, garbage is $45 a month, Mom had three credit cards with about $700 minimum payment a month total, my student loans are $188 a month which sucks ‘cause I didn’t even get to finish and I still have to pay for it…the car is $262 month, but I can’t drive so maybe I can sell it, groceries, um, hmm, I wonder how much food costs a week…
I’m crying again and I don’t realize it until the tears are half-way down my face. I can’t do this. I can’t take care of Dawn and me. I can’t afford to!
Okay, calm down. I’ll get a job. I’ll get a job and I’ll take care of everything. I’m the Slayer. I can do this.
XXX
Dawn
I wake up slowly to the ringing of the phone. Ugh, what time is it and who could be calling so early? I stretch my hands into the air and take a moment to look at them. Yep, still have ten fingers. My hands travel to my face. Still have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
I had this horrible dream that I woke up and I was all disfigured because the part of me that was the Key had disappeared with the death of Glory and since the Key is all that I am made of then I ceased to exist too, but it appears that I am still here. Yay. Long die Glory…Ben. I didn’t think about that. Ben is dead too. I liked him, Buffy did too, I could tell. He was always really nice to me when I went to see Mom, didn’t treat me like a kid…
I finally pull myself from bed, brush my teeth, and make my way downstairs. Buffy jumps twenty feet in the air when I walk into the room and quickly shoves a bunch of papers in a drawer. Way to go Slayer skills, way to get sneaked up upon by a fifteen year old…I shouldn’t think like that, Buffy saved me…was it last night or two nights ago?
“I was starting to think you weren’t ever going to wake up,” Buffy jokes thinly. Her eyes are red though and I can tell that she’s trying to hide that fact. Always gotta be the Slayer.
“How long was I out?”
Buffy glances at the clock. “Ummm, about twenty five hours or so…maybe more, I’m not sure. I was really out of it myself.”
I nod and sit down at the table with her. We stare at each other for a few minutes before I break the silence. “What do we do now?”
Buffy sighs, “Well, we need to make some decisions.”
“Like what?”
“Dawnie,” she starts and then pauses. “Dawn, we-I…you know how you always ask me to stop treating you like a child.”
“Yeah,” I answer slowly. Where is this going?
“I need you to decide something.”
Her hands are folded on the table and she can’t meet my eyes. Suddenly I’m afraid. Maybe I don’t want to be an adult. Maybe I don’t want to hear what she is going to say. What if she’s going to tell me that now that Glory is gone that I’m not going to be her sister anymore, that with out the impending doom of being a Key, I don’t need Slayer protection! I don’t want her to send me away! I want to stay here with the Scoobies and Spike and-and my sister!
“O-okay.” That didn’t sound very adultish to me.
Buffy shifts uncomfortably. “Um, well, in Mom’s will it says that if anything should happen to her then Dad gets custody of us-“
“I don’t want to live with Dad.” I interrupt her. I can’t live with Dad. Technically, technically, I’ve never even met the guy. I have a bunch of artificially implanted memories in my head that say he’s my Dad, but he’s really not.
“I know,” Buffy says slowly. “I don’t want you to go either, but…if you decide to stay her and if I can get custody, I need you to know that things are going to be really tight around here and I need you to promise that you are going to listen to me.”
“What do you mean tight?”
“I mean that we aren’t going to have a lot of money.”
“What about Mom’s insurance?” Surely Mom had insurance, right?
Buffy bit her lip. “Mom didn’t have medical insurance…after we pay her medical bills, the funeral costs, and the past two months bills, we won’t have any money left. I-I’m gonna look for jobs this week and…we-we may have to sell the house.”
She meets my eyes then and I realize that my sister suddenly look so much older than she really is. She’s twenty years old, she’s the Slayer, and now she has to take care of me; a fifteen year old mystical Key in the form of a sister she never had.
“We’ll-we’ll be okay, right?” I ask, hopefully. “We-we can cancel the cable and we’ll use candles instead of electricity when we can.” I’m racking my brain in ways to help. “I can even get an after school job!” I’m speaking as quickly as possible and my voice doing that annoying squeaky thing that I get made fun of at school.
Buffy reaches out and takes my hand. “I hope you won’t have to get a job, but…thank you…for offering.”
I place my hand on hers. “We’re Summerses, we’ll survive.”
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