whattingawhat | The end's not near, it's here

At this point, Dawn is trying so hard not to panic. Not only is she barely visible, she's turned intangible. No one can touch her, their hands go right through her. Most of them are having problems even remembering her. She's past the sobbing point. But a steady stream of tears just silently slip down her cheeks at random intervals. As much as Buffy thought she should have the long normal life, this was not how she thought she would go.

"I thought maybe the hundredth apocalypse with an accidental sword through the gut or something." She says randomly after a long bout of silence. "Or maybe a world-savey spell gone wrong. You know, something more heroic."

"Hey, you're not going anywhere," Peter responds quickly. Unfortunately, it's looking like an empty protest. She's more gone than here.

"Okay, so remember the first time I met you? I plowed over you with my skateboard. I still need to teach you how to skateboard. I think I promised to make an attempt that day, didn't I?"

Dawn is very much afraid that she's going to disappear before they can figure out what to do to save her. It's seemed this dire before, back when Glory had her chained on top of that tower, and that's probably the only reason that she's sitting so still while they wait. Otherwise she might be screaming and pacing and generally undone. Right now she's just worried and sad.

She looks over to Peter, remembering their hallway collision. What she wouldn't give for a collision right now. For something to hurt instead of feeling nothing. Unable to touch. "You did. When that happens there's gonna be less heroics and more clumsiness. Cause wheels and me aren't mixy things."

Peter is really afraid of it too, but he's determined to try and keep her here for as long as possible. It had been suggested that reminding her and recounting memories of her would help, so that's exactly what he's going to do. He hates that he can't hold her hands and touch her while he's recounting their memories.

"Sometimes heroics start as clumsiness. You have no idea how many times I fell when I was learning. I broke my arm once and my wrist. You'll learn."

"You're a professional skateboarder now. So you'll be the best teacher that ever teachered. Or taught. Or will teach." Dawn rambles in all her silliness right now. It's stress. She learned from her sister that bad times are easier to get through of you ignore they're there or poke fun at them. Jokiness and snarkiness were the Summers way. The scooby way.

"I can't remember if I've ever broken a bone. Sprainged my wrist super bad when Willow, our witch friend, forgot that she was on our side of the good and evil spectrum." That had been one of the scariest nights of her life.

"Professional, huh?" he says it with a smile that's a bit more put on than usual because he is worried. "We'll make that call once I get you up on a board, no broken bones."

He nods a little along with her, encouraging the rambling. "Well, hey, sprained or broken, that's a lot more interesting story than mine.I'm guessing she came back from evil? Good to know that can happen. Really. I mean, they don't tell you that in the comics or even in the movies very often. People change."

"Oh yeah. People can always come back from evil, I think. Redemption is a thing. It's about if they want to or make the choice to or whether they're just done trying." Dawn says this because look at Angel, all he had done and he still tried for redemption. It was one of the things she liked about him. He got knocked down but he didn't stay down for long.

"But Willow, she... she misused the magic. And then when she lost the person she loves, she went off the deep end and almost got all world destroy-y." Dawn said. "But she came back. And now she's better with the whole magic thing."

"I like the idea of redemption, you know? The idea--the idea that no matter how bad you mess up, you can come back from it," his brow furrowed a little. "Because I think--I think a lot of people are just like your friend, Willow. Bad things happen and no one--no one knows how to deal with it, you know?"

He was probably revealing more about himself and his life than he had ever originally intended, but his focus wasn't on keeping secrets right now. His focus on was keeping Dawn here, keeping her engaged and wondering and thinking and hopefully she couldn't--wouldn't disappear.

"Oh yeah. Bad things happen and we wouldn't be people if we didn't react to them. Some of us write names and draw lines through them in journals. Some of us go evil and try to destroy the world." Dawn says. "Either way, you can always come back. Redeem yourself. Do the right thing. Put on the white hat. Be the change."

But she does get that Peter might be revealing more about himself than he means to. She looks sideways to him. "Have you done the journal thing?" It's a round about way of asking if he's gone evil and tried to destroy the world.

It's good, the redemption thing. It's what he tries to remember when he disables his victims. It's what he likes to think about Dr. Connors. At the same time, he's not sure there is such a thing as redemption for some people. How do you redeem yourself once you've killed people? How do you ever make up for taking a life, for removing a person from the world? It's the sort of thing he spends more time pondering than he'll probably ever admit.

His eyebrows raise at her question, taking a moment to figure out what she's saying. "Do I--I--uhm...no. I'm not--not much of a jour-journal sort of person." He shakes his head. "I just--just--nah. I haven't--don't journal. Not that I think--that I mean, I know some people do. Have, but--" he shakes his head again.

"I've always done --..." She pauses and shakes her head. "I mean the monks who made me created all these journals and once I was made I just kept on writing in them like a doofus. Then I burned them all when I found out ninety-nine point nine of them were fake. Then I picked it up again to have real journals with real experiences and knowledge in them."

She glanced at Peter. "If I asked you to would you write something for me? You know, since I can't pick up the pen."

"So you've kept a journal for as long as you can remember," Peter tells her with a crooked smile. He knows enough about the monks and the fake memories and how Dawn feels about it. He wants her to feel as normal as possible.

"Of course. Yeah," he nods. "I'll find you some paper and a pen." He gets up to do just that.

"There's lots of notebooks and journals in the book bags under my bed. And pens." She calls after him. "Sorry. They're glitter pens."

"I think I can handle a little glitter," he assures her as he gets up and goes down the hall, opening doors until he finds one that he's convinced is Dawn's. He comes back with a notebook with pink lined paper in it and a purple glitter pen. He sits down on the couch next to her, certain that he's not going to like what she asks him to write, but knowing that he'll write it anyway.

"Consider me your transcriptionist."

"Okay..." She pauses, waiting a bit to collect her thoughts before she starts speaking. "Dear Buffy, So here we are at the end of all things... not really. I just tried to go all Tolkien on you. Google it. Anyway, mostly at the end of my stuff, not yours. The way I see it, you'll live forever and be all invincible and super cool and generally amazing at everything into your fifties. Then you'll retire and live your life out on a beach somewhere and perv on much younger men cause that's what old ladies do when they retire, right?

"So I just wanted to say... I love you. I'm sorry you got saddled with all of this, with me. I know I kind of grew on you like mold does on cheesy goodness. But I like to think I'm the healthy kind of mold that's good for you. I know you didn't have to come around to being forced to have a sister. I know you didn't have to care. I know I got incredibly lucky that you were the Slayer when all that went down, when I was created. Another person probably wouldn't have... I just know I got lucky.

"I also know I was incredibly annoying sometimes. But what can you expect of a person who's only one or two years old. I grew out of it, mostly. But I'm sorry I was annoying. I'm sorry I stepped in gum when I borrowed those boots you really like. And I'm sorry I spilled ketchup on that pink off the shoulder silk top you like too. Oh. And I confess that I was the one who stole your silver dangle earrings back in the day and then lost them. It was me. Surprise!

"And here's what I don't always say to your face cause who in their right mind would boost the ego of someone so generally good at everything? You're amazing. You're the best superhero. You're the best sister. You're the best stand-in mom. You're the best caretaker. You're the best nurturer. You're the best everything to me. And I love you a lot even if you won't remember me in however long it takes for me to fully disappear. You chose to keep me in your life and keep me safe. You went to bat for me time and again when you really didn't have to. You love me even though you don't have to. And I love you too. You're my sister."

She's crying now and she wipes at her eyes, he shoulders shaking with each breath. "But you have to do something about the conditioner you use cause you hair... it has a thing." She sniffles. "Your bratty sister, Dawn."

Peter writes quickly, but legibly. He's had a lot of practice taking notes and it pays off here. By the time he finishes, he's fighting tears as well, jaw tightening up. He puts the notebook and pen on the table, looking over at Dawn.

"Come here," he says, beckoning her closer. "We're going to pretend I can hold you while you cry so that I'm not entirely useless. I mean, beyond my fascinating ability to be a scribe."

Dawn inches closer to him, seemingly pressed against, and some parts of her overlapping him since she can't help it. She rests her head on his shoulder... kind of. "She probably won't get the Tolkien reference. She doesn't read all that much." And for some reason, that fact just makes her cry harder.

He really, really wishes there were more he could do, but he'd tried working on this from the science front and unfortunately, he knew zip about magic. He could probably fight the zompires with Buffy and Faith, but right now, everyone is more interested in him staying with Dawn. It makes sense. He's the one person with memories that are entirely real, so while Faith, Buffy and even Angel are forgetting Dawn, Peter can't forget her.

"Maybe after this you can convince her to listen to them on audio."

The end's not near, it's here

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