Title: Little Sister
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy, Dawn.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Spoilers: Family.
Summary: It doesn’t matter that Dawn is the Key; she’s still family
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 369: Amnesty 61, using Challenge 89: Family.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.



Dawn is family. It no longer matters to Buffy that the annoying younger girl is actually some kind of mystical key, transformed into a human child and planted like a cuckoo’s egg in her home. She always wanted a sister, and now she’s got one, even is Dawn’s a brat at times. Kid sisters are supposed to be like that, right?

Family isn’t always about blood anyway. It’s about love, and protection, and gathering people around you that you can trust to look out for you. Giles is family, so are Willow, and Xander, and if anyone needs Buffy’s protection it’s Dawn.

Sure, it’s creepy that some monks she’s never met tampered with not just her own memories, but her friends’ and her mom’s too. Doesn’t change the fact that Dawnie belongs to them now, and it’s up to all of them to keep her safe.

Buffy’s never been a parent, and since she’s the Slayer, chances are she won’t live long enough to have kids of her own, even she wants them. She’s not sure she does, it’s way too soon to think about that. But she feels a fierce, almost parental urge to keep her sister safe, no matter what it takes.

She doesn’t believe that’s something the monks have conditioned her to feel, and even if it is, what does it matter? Someone or something is after Dawn, if that wasn’t the case there would’ve been no need to hide her, and ever since she was called as the Slayer it’s been Buffy’s job to battle supernatural evil, in whatever form. This is no different. Whatever this evil is, when it shows up Buffy intends to defeat it, just as she’s defeated every other Big Bad that’s come her way.

Nothing is taking her sister from her.


The End