Even after the divorce, her mother had made the holiday special. The three of them visited Aunt Darlene's every year until this one. It had been Dawn and Buffy's first Thanksgiving by themselves. And Buffy contented in driving everyone up the wall with the idea of having the ‘perfect Thanksgiving', if there was such a thing any more.

It hadn't been perfect though. Far from it. Starting from Xander's accident at the cultural center ceremony. Dawn thought he was really hurt. She still had a crush on him, after all these years, and seeing him fall into the pit had really upset her. From there everything went decidedly downhill.

She'd bumped into Angel while leaving the coffee shop with Willow. Dawn still didn't trust him not try to bite her or kidnap her like when he had tried to awaken Acathala. Sure, he had been evil back then and he still loved Buffy now, but Dawn was nevertheless a little wary of the whole situation.

The day got even stranger when Spike decided to show up uninvited, asking for help no less. Dawn hadn't seen him in at least a year, and had never seen him look so weak and helpless. Last time she saw him, he had tried to kill her. Now, as Willow had told them, he had trouble performing. All the same, Buffy had warned her not to talk to him as Dawn watched her sister tie the vampire to a chair. It was then that Dawn realized the holidays would never be the same with a Slayer as a sister.

Then to top off the wonderful holiday, a disgruntled Chumash Indian had crashed the party, Buffy made a bear, Xander was sick with syphilis, Anya wouldn't stop talking about the ritual sacrifices back in her glory days, and Willow kept complaining about how killing vengeful evil things that wanted to kill them was wrong. There was a battle, Dawn's first one. The reanimated Chumash warrior had almost killed her, but just before the killing blow Angel had saved her. Watching him tackle the thing that had tried to bash in her brains, she let the hurt she'd been holding onto ever since he became Angelus go. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

At the end of the night, Dawn sat at the table with her sister, her sister's friends, and a vampire who kept eying her neck. There was a plate of chocolate chip cookies in the center of the feast. It had been her contribution to the meal. Since she really didn't know how to cook, she'd stuck to the easy bake ones. However, when the others had tried them there was a mass exodus as they headed to get glasses of water in order to get the offensive taste out of their mouth.

Dawn frowned, tasting a small bite of one. She spit the crumbs back out into a napkin, wondering where she had gone wrong. A pout formed on her lips, "Now they're all going to go to waste."

Buffy stood over the table, looking at her sister for a moment until she had a revelation, "No, really, it's okay Dawnie." Scooping up one of the offensive non-edible cookies, she shoved it into Spike's mouth, "Look, see, perfect torture devices."

Spike mumbled through the cookie, and Dawn couldn't help but laugh.