"What?" said Buffy, her voice sounding tinny and small. It was competing – not very successfully – with a loud rumbling buzz that sounded like an industrial drill. Dawn switched the phone to her other ear, but it didn't really improve things.

"Do you need some money? I can get Giles to wire –"

Dawn sighed. "No, Buffy, I don't need you to send me money. I've got a job, I'm doing fine. It's not that I can't afford it, I just don't like getting ripped off."

"What? What did you say? Hang on a minute - they're rebuilding the training room again, and I can hardly hear you. Hold on."

Buffy's voice faded out, although the drilling noise didn't. Dawn could faintly hear her yelling at someone, and the buzzing abruptly stopped.

"Okay," Buffy said, sounding slightly out of breath, "that's better. Now, what got ripped off? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Really. All limbs still attached, I promise." She snatched a handful of peanuts from the open bag on the kitchen table, and threw them into her mouth. "Look, I gotta go, I'll be late for work. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Dawn, wait – when are you coming home? We miss -"

"Bye, Buffy."

She hung up the phone. There: duty done for another week. She enjoyed hearing from Buffy, of course she did - it was just that the conversations always ended up following the same pattern. Dawn would start out talking about her latest trip; what she'd done, where she'd been. Nice, normal, what-I-did-on-my-great-adventure stuff. And then Buffy would worry about it: was she being careful, was she eating properly, had anything tried to kill her lately? Not so nice - but, unfortunately, pretty much just as normal.

When she'd planned this trip, the idea at the back of her mind had been to prove to herself that the world wasn't actually as full of demons, vampires and evil as it had always seemed in Sunnydale. On a Hellmouth, you had to expect it – but surely, it couldn't be like that everywhere? San Francisco, Palm Springs, Las Vegas – they had to be different, right?

Wrong.

Oh, they weren't quite as bad, sure. Not as blatant as Sunnydale. But if you knew what you were looking at – and, as hard as she tried, she couldn't pretend that she didn't – it was all there. Mysterious deaths, unexplained disappearances, 'gang riots' – oh yeah, it was all still bubbling away under the surface.

Vegas in particular had turned out to be positively crawling with vampires. Which, when you thought about it, made a lot of sense for a place where you could live for god knew how many years without ever needing to set foot outside the casino buildings. She'd expected to fall in love with the big, famous casinos on the Strip, but instead found it all just too much; the unreality made her teeth itch. So she'd gravitated to the less salubrious end of town, where glamour and big money – and questions – were in shorter supply.

She grabbed her purse from the sofa and her keys from the hall table, and headed for the door. She'd seen the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood, and the Grand Canyon (and, in a fascinating-if-nearly-fatal encounter, met the minions of the demons who were supposed to have created it as part of a mating ritual.) She'd proved she could look after herself, but she'd also comprehensively proved that the grass really wasn't any greener, or less demon-infested, anywhere else.

Maybe Buffy was right. Maybe it was time to go home.

---------------------------------------------------------------

The idea of drunks spilling their sob stories to a sympathetic bartender might have been a stock clichι, but that didn't mean it didn't happen. Dawn yawned her way through a shift full of the standard tales of woe: bad lovers, bad luck.

The girl who sat at the end of the bar sipping cheap tequila, although she looked just as miserable as the rest of them, was quite refreshingly silent. She had long, rather straggly-looking dark hair, and a closed, shuttered expression. Most of the other drinkers left her alone, although not all. But then some guys couldn't take a hint if it came written on the side of a nuclear warhead.

One in particular seemed determined to make a nuisance of himself. He plonked himself onto the stool next to the girl and ignored all her get-lost-creep looks. Which were pretty good, even by Dawn's standards – and she'd grown up around Cordelia Chase.

She was just about to go and get Jake the Psycho Bouncer to step in, when against all expectations the girl abruptly got up and left with the creep, heading towards the alley out back. Dawn shrugged, and started polishing glasses again. There was no accounting for taste, after all. The girl looked like she could handle herself , and she was certainly old enough to make her own mind up about who she hung out with, and what she did with them. It was none of Dawn's business.

The guy really had been a skank, though. Tall, skinny, and badly dressed. And hungry-looking. And very, very pale.

Dawn sighed, put down the cocktail glass she'd been holding and raced for the back door.

They were crashed against the alley wall, the girl's eyes shut and the guy's face buried in her neck. Dawn hesitated – it was possible they were just making out, or concluding a business transaction, and she'd had her ass kicked for interrupting both before now. She looked behind her, gauging the duck-back-inside-without-being-seen distance, and then threw an empty Coors bottle at the wall beside them. The girl didn't react, but the guy's head swivelled back towards her.

Although not always, her first instincts were usually right. Strike 'guy', insert 'vamp'.

Dawn yanked the stake out of her boot, and threw that after the bottle. It flew in a smooth, efficient arc and buried itself in the vamp's back. She caught a bitten-off growl of frustration, and then he was just so much exploded dust. She allowed herself a satisfied smile; her throwing had got a lot better since she'd dated that guy from Circus Circus. Even Buffy would've been impressed with that one.

She stepped back out and walked over to the girl, who still hadn't moved.

"Hey, you okay? It's all right now, he's gone. You're safe."

Finally, the girl opened her eyes – and the anger in them caught Dawn completely by surprise. "Yeah, thanks," she said, the words burning with bitter contempt.

Dawn folded her arms, the girl's cold rage igniting something in her own heart. "Oh, well, excuse me for saving your life. Here's a tip for you, okay? There are better ways to commit suicide than running onto a vamp's fangs – ways that don't encourage them to try snacking on the rest of us. Next time, why don't you do what normal people do and just slit your wrists in a nice hot bath? It's a lot less stress for all concerned."

The girl looked her over with an expression that was still mostly disdain but had maybe one part respect mixed in. "I suppose that's not bad advice."

She pushed herself off from the wall, stumbling slightly. Dawn watched her for a second, then held out a hand. "I'm Dawn."

The girl hesitated, then took it and allowed Dawn to help her straighten up. "Justine."

Once she'd got her feet, she dropped Dawn's hand. "Look – thanks. I mean it. I was – well, I guess I wasn't thinking too clearly back there."

Dawn nodded. "You look like you're more than half-dead already, to be honest. Uh, no offence meant."

Justine returned a small, sour smile. "None taken. I know what I look like." She paused. "I know what I am."

They walked back to the door, and Dawn pulled it open. "And what's that?"

But Justine's face had closed down again. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

They went inside, and Dawn slipped back behind the bar. The few drinkers still there didn't seem to have moved, or noticed her absence. She poured a shot of brandy and pushed it towards Justine, then filled another glass for herself.

"Medicinal purposes," she said, and downed it.

Justine inclined her head in what Dawn took to be a thank-you, but just played with the glass instead of drinking. After a few seconds Dawn took it off her and tossed it back herself.

"Waste not, want not, " she said, pulling a face as the alcohol burned its way down her throat. "So what's your story, Justine?"

That bitter little smile flickered again. "You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do," said Dawn with exaggerated patience. "Or I wouldn't have asked."

Justine said nothing.

"Okay, let me guess. It's a tale of dark depravity way too sinister for my young, innocent ears. Is that anywhere close?"

The smile this time lasted a little longer and seemed to contain a germ of actual warmth. "Something like that."

Dawn rested her elbows on the bar and assumed her best tough girl expression – the one she'd tried her best to copy from Faith. "I've been fighting vampires since I was fourteen years old. You name it, I've seen it – and that includes monsters, demons, aliens and robots. And I'm not as young as I look. Trust me on that one. Whatever you think I'm not ready to hear, I'll bet you anything you like that I've already been there, done it and thrown out the t shirt because it's too old to wear any more."

Justine still said nothing, but Dawn had the satisfaction of seeing a look of surprise flicker across her face.

She glanced at the clock on the wall. "Look – I get off in half an hour, and I'm starving. How long's it been since you last had anything to eat?"

Justine sighed and rubbed her hand over her eyes. "A while," she said slowly.

Dawn suppressed a small, triumphant smile. "Great," she said. "Do you like Chinese food?"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Armed with boxes of noodles and Kung Po chicken, Dawn pushed open her apartment door with her hip. She walked inside and dumped the food onto the kitchen table, leaving Justine hovering in the doorway.

"I don't invite people in," she called over her shoulder. "It's a thing."

Justine nodded and stepped over the threshold, shutting the door behind her. "Sensible."

Dawn grinned, emptying the food onto cheap white plates. "Told you I knew what I was doing." She gestured for Justine to sit, and pushed over one of the plates.

Justine applied herself to the chicken, and for a while they ate in silence.

"So," said Dawn eventually. "Where did it go wrong?"

Justine forked a final bite of chicken into her mouth and chewed slowly. For a long while Dawn didn't think she was going to answer, but then she gave a slight shrug and some of the tension seemed to go out of her body. "I guess… when my sister died."

Dawn nodded, and poured out two glasses of wine. "Yeah, I know how that feels."

Justine looked up from her plate. "Oh. I didn't realise. I'm sorry."

Dawn waved her hand. "Oh, no, don't worry. She's okay now." Off Justine's look, she offered a smile and a shrug. "It's a long story."

She handed over one of the glasses, and Justine took a long swallow. "Her name was Julia. She was my twin. She –" she tailed off, and took another mouthful of wine. "You know, I haven't even said her name for so long." She buried her head in her hands. "Jesus, what happened to me?"

Dawn sat back down across from her. "Was it vampires?" she asked.

Justine nodded. "Yeah. Isn't it always?"

"In my experience? No. Sometimes it's demons, sometimes it's mystical portals into hell dimensions and sometimes it's just boring old brain tumours. I've always thought death was quite a mixed bag, really."

She took a sip of her wine. There was another long silence, then finally Justine looked Dawn straight in the eye. "I'm sorry. I guess sometimes I start thinking I'm the only one with a tragedy. But I'm not, am I?"

"No," said Dawn quietly.

Justine sighed, and pushed her empty glass away. Dawn refilled it silently and reached out for the box of Kleenex on the counter.

Justine shook her head, a thin, empty smile on her face. "I haven't cried in years. Not for Julia, not for anyone. Not even myself. I don't think I even know how, any more."

Dawn shrugged, and put the tissues back. "Crying for people doesn't achieve anything."

"Then what does? Is there anything that can?"

Dawn played with the stem of her glass. "Fighting, I guess."

"And that's what you've been doing? Fighting?"

"No. I don't really know what I've been doing, to be honest. Looking for something that doesn't exist, I think. But it's what I'm going to be doing." She sat up straighter, filled with a sudden resolve. "I'm going back. And you're going to come with me."

Justine gave a short bark of laughter. "So I'm some kind of stray cat that you're going to rescue and fatten up for a life in front of the fire, am I?"

"No. I'm going to sharpen your claws and throw you into a nest of rats."

Justine pushed her chair back from the table and started to stand. "Look, kid, thanks for dinner. But you know, I –"

Dawn reached across the table and slammed her back into the chair. It earned her a look of shock that she thought was possibly the most spontaneous reaction she'd seen Justine make.

"Sit down," she said.

She could feel the muscles of Justine's shoulder tense under her hand, but eventually the other girl subsided. Dawn sat back down in her own seat.

"You know about vampires. You can fight. Where I come from, that makes you obligated."

Justine's eyes searched hers. "So I'm a chosen one, now?"

Dawn gave her a faint smile. "If you like. There are a lot of those, these days."

"Well, thanks for the job offer. But I don't play too nice with others."

"Don't worry about it. If that was a job requirement, I can think of a lot of people who wouldn't have got past the interview stage."

"Look – it wouldn't work, okay?"

"No, not okay."

Finally, she got a genuine smile that actually reached Justine's eyes. "You're a stubborn little bitch, aren't you?"

Dawn grinned back. "It runs in the family."

"I can't – Dawn, if you knew what I'd done, you wouldn't – "

Dawn leaned forward and cut her off. "Are you a murderer?"

"What?"

"Have you killed anyone? Human, I mean. Vamps and other beasties don't count."

Justine's eyes flickered away for a second. "I – I tried. I cut a man's throat, once."

"Just tried, not succeeded? Well, I can think of at least three of our inner circle who've already got you beat on that score, then."

Justine stared at her. "Who are you?"

"That's another long story. Which I can tell you on the journey to Cleveland."

"What's in Cleveland?"

"A hellmouth, amongst other things. It's our – HQ, I suppose you could say."

"So that's where I sign up to join Dawn's Vigilante Army, is it?"

"Nope. You do that right here. Cleveland's the Boot Camp."

"Dawn, I –"

She was cut off as the phone began to ring. Dawn glanced at it but didn't move.

Justine nodded towards it. "Hadn't you better get that? It could be your Sergeant Major."

"Okay, hold on. I won't be long."

"No problem. I need to use your bathroom, anyway. That okay?"

"Sure." Dawn pointed. "It's just down the hall."

Dawn got up and went to the phone, as Justine slipped out the door behind her.

"Hello?"

"Dawn? Hey, it's Xander."

"Hey. What's up?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Making the world a safer place for humanity."

"Well, that's great. What's up specifically?"

"Huh?"

Dawn leant back against the wall, twisting the phone cord in one hand. She heard the bathroom door slam shut. "I meant, why are you calling?"

"Oh, so I need a reason to call my favourite girl now, do I?"

Dawn smiled. "No, I'm sure Buffy just loves to hear from you."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, young Summers."

"Sure it does. Seriously Xander, you know I like nothing better than a good old girly chat, but I've actually got someone – "

She broke off, suddenly noticing that Justine's jacket was gone from the back of the chair. "I'll call you back," she said, and hung up.

The bathroom door was shut, but she couldn't hear any sound from inside. She knocked softly. "Justine?"

When she got no response, she knocked harder. "Justine, hey. You okay?" She paused. "You in there?"

Still nothing. She reached down for the handle, and the door opened. As she pushed it wide, she saw immediately that the room was empty.

"Shit," she said, stepping inside. A flash of red caught her eye, and she noticed a looping, lipsticked scrawl on the mirror beside the shower.

Sorry, it said. But some strays bite. Be safe, J.

She ran for the front door, already knowing that there'd be no sign of Justine.

By the time she got back inside, the phone was ringing again. She picked it up.

"Dawn? What's going on? Are you all right?"

She blew out a long, slow breath. "I'm fine, Xander. Crisis over."

"What happened?"

"Nothing, really. It was just – a stray cat, that's all."

"Are you sure? Only we had a plague of Lerisk demons a while back, and their mating calls sound just like cats. You don't want to throw water over them, though. It just makes 'em mad."

"Thanks for the tip. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Lerisk demon."

"Oh, okay. So, is it gone now?"

Dawn nodded slowly, looking at the empty table and the abandoned plates. "Yeah," she said. "It's gone."