The Retrieval/Escaping from Sunnydale

Disclaimer: See part 1. No changes.
Pairing: Still None.
Author's notes:
[1] More background exposition. I've borrowed Connor MacLeod's history from the original movie but obviously the whole NY Gathering thing never happened. And hopefully he isn't too OoC.
[2] A lot of this moves quickly. In the real Buffyverse, Dawn wouldn't have gone with Connor so easily; but in this story, she has issues. And I didn't want to spend several thousand words prying her loose from the Scoobies.

--- --- ---

Sitting in his hotel room in LA, the papers from Hank Summers spread out before him, Connor MacLeod stared blankly at the muted television, glass of brandy in hand, deep in thought. He didn't expect things to go easily the next morning. According to Joyce, Dawn had several potential protectors. He expected them to be very reluctant to let her go with him. He would normally have done everything possible to avoid a confrontation with any one of them, but he'd promised to help.

Connor did not consider himself to be a foolish man. He refused to wear the mantel of the knight in shining armor, rescuer of maidens in distress, feeder of small puppies. There was already one immortal MacLeod fulfilling that function. But he certainly had his favorites. His pet projects. People he cared about and protected when possible, like Rachel, who'd been a part of his life for over half a century. With rare exceptions, it was these mortals who kept him grounded in the real world.

Joyce, as she preferred to be called - he'd known her over a century before finding out she'd originally been called Alix de Poitiers, was one of those exceptions. Something about her attracted him, though he'd never been able to decide what it was. It wasn't anything romantic. She wasn't like his beloved Heather or any of the other women he'd loved over the years.

He'd been much younger when they'd first met, just barely beginning to realize that he would need skills other than quickness with a blade if he wanted to survive in what he'd begun to notice was a rapidly changing world. She'd been a tutor and chaperone to one of the insipid debutantes littering London when they'd first met, purely by accident. Rescuing her and her then current charge from their sinking carriage in a flash flood, he'd found himself propelled into her orbit.

She had a certain elegance of command, the ability to take charge of small groups of people without them realizing it that any general would be foolish to not take advantage of, he mused, taking a slow sip from his glass. Always the mother, guarding her current brood of children and strays with a firm hand. He wasn't aware of it at the time but Joyce was unique among most of the immortals he'd since met. She seemed to have no desire for power or money and seemed content with making her own way in the world without attracting attention, intent on living a quiet, simple life.

And somehow, he found out much later, she'd lived a very long life with challenges being few and far between, her quickening surprisingly muted compared to other immortals her age. It was almost as if the Game had passed her by. As if her life served another purpose.

But she wasn't defenseless by any means. She'd actually surprised him with her skill with the sword. He'd made sure that she stayed at least that proficient, sparing with her whenever they were in the same city. While not the artist with a sword that many immortals were, she had an amazing ability to read her opponent's moves. She'd never explained where she'd learned to wield a sword like that, in a style he hadn't recognized, but then Joyce never discussed her past.

What little he knew of her past came from research he'd done years later when she'd accidentally let slip her true name. He occasionally wondered if all noblewomen from that time period were like her and not like the pampered, empty headed figures he was familiar with.

It had been Joyce who'd impressed upon him the idea that there were people who valued the past enough to pay for it, setting him on the road he was now traveling. In exchange, he'd been able to help her to finally become independent by financing her first gallery in Paris.

Sighing, Connor gathered up the papers and put them away in his briefcase before lying down. One more week of his time helping Joyce with Dawn, and then he could go back to New York and back to his own life running Nash Antiques, he thought, before reaching over and turning off the light.

--- --- ---

Death was inevitable for a slayer. They'd all known it. Buffy's friends weren't happy about it but no matter how upset they were, they'd known almost from the beginning that Buffy wasn't going to live forever. Dawn hadn't seen Giles the few times Tara had forced her to leave Buffy's room, so she suspected he wasn't dealing with it very well either.

But she hadn't been their sister. Buffy hadn't jumped into hell for them. Hadn't told them things before she jumped. Things that were supposed to make sense but hadn't. They were just bystanders, witnesses to the unfairness of Buffy's destiny, or so she told herself, trying to ignore the pain they were obviously all in, especially Willow.

Because it wasn't their fault. It was hers. And it hurt. And they couldn't really understand how much. And only Tara was even trying. Her mother dying had been bad, but she'd had her sister to hold onto. Now all she had left were the slowly healing cuts her blood had dripped from, her sister's diary and, hidden in the woods where she couldn't go alone, a pile of dirt and a gravestone.

Every night she lay awake, waiting for Buffy to come back from patrol. And every morning she quietly cried herself to sleep when the sun came up and she was still alone, desperately clutching Mr. Gordo. And the days were all the same, one after another.

The ringing doorbell roused her from her thoughts as she stared sightlessly at the last entry in Buffy's diary. It wasn't the most cheerful thing to read and she knew Willow or Tara would have taken it away if they saw her with it. So she hid it away when she wasn't in the room. They didn't need to see the clues in the things that Buffy wrote, showing she was a mess, welcoming death towards the end. She'd never gotten over their mother's death. It had all been an act.

And she'd never known. Had never known how close to falling apart her sister really was. Had been too busy feeling sorry for herself. Buffy had seemed so tough, so bulletproof, so permanent. She was the slayer, not some vapid valley girl or spoiled twit. Her sister wasn't a quitter. She wasn't supposed to give up. And they couldn't know.

She could hear loud voices now, though the words weren't clear. She thought she heard Willow arguing with someone she didn't recognize, with the occasional sound of Giles' voice interrupting. Sliding the diary under the mattress, Dawn crept out of Buffy's room and perched near the top of the stairs, hidden from sight on the top step but close enough to hear clearly.

"You have no choice in the matter." a soft male voice said in an unidentifiable accent. "Joyce made it very clear in her will. If something happened to Buffy, Dawn was to live with her father." Dawn gasped in shock. She wondered if Buffy had known and if it would have mattered.

"You can't take her." Willow protested. Dawn could hear the frustration in her voice. She wondered what she'd missed.

The rustle of paper was followed by Giles' voice. She could easily picture him looking intently at important looking documents. "These seem to be in order."

"You can't let him take her." Willow said. "What would Buffy think?"

"Buffy is dead. She isn't coming back." Giles murmured. Dawn winced at the pain she could hear in his voice. "What she thought isn't relevant here. Dawn still has a family. Her father is willing to take care of her."

"She belongs here with us." Willow whispered, just barely loud enough for Dawn to hear. She leaned forward to catch the rest of her words. "We can take care of her."

"Her family will take care of her." the unidentified voice said.

"We're her family." Willow yelled, her voice breaking. Dawn winced at the scratchy sound.

"Not legally." the voice said. "And that is what matters here."

Dawn shivered. There was something uncompromising about whomever was behind that voice. Something hard and unbending. She wondered if she was imagining the faint hint of playfulness in it. She didn't think Willow was going to convince its owner of anything.

She didn't think she wanted to live with her father, a man she'd never actually met. A man who hadn't bothered to come to her mother's funeral. Or her sister's, though she wondered who would have told him because she hadn't and Willow wouldn't have. She'd convinced everyone else that Buffy's death should be a secret for now.

But her mother thought she should live with him. And that meant something. Maybe he would want her for herself and not because she reminded him of Buffy. From several conversations she'd overheard between Willow and Xander, she suspected that Willow saw her as a Buffy substitute. A role she didn't want to play. But leaving Sunnydale? The thought made her very uncomfortable.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up and slowly walked down the stairs. It was her life. Her decision. They should have asked her before they started fighting over it.

--- --- ---

Connor kept his face as blank as possible, looking down and shuffling through the legal looking papers he'd gotten from Hank Summers, avoiding the glare of the redhead, Willow, as the other young woman, who'd been introduced simply as Tara, attempted to calm her down.

Dealing with immortals and ordinary humans on a daily basis wasn't much preparation for the people who faced him now. They were just children, but very powerful ones in some ways. Connor didn't think his usual charm would work on them. And he knew that revealing he had some idea of who or what they were would make things that much more difficult.

Knowing he wouldn't be popular, arriving virtually out of the blue to take away the youngest of the close-knit group, he'd carefully planned his visit, making sure to find out everything he could about them from Joyce and other local sources. It hadn't been a lot, but it was enough to make him cautious. The only pictures Joyce had given him had been of Buffy and Dawn, and one of Buffy and her closest friends.

The three young women had been only ones at the house when he'd arrived. He'd contacted Buffy's Watcher the night before, requesting his assistance with his task. The two young witches watching Dawn had been surprised at his appearance. Joyce hadn't been able to explain the almost constant presence of the vampire in the house with her daughter but Connor had taken care to arrange his visit when it was normally absent.

"What if I don't want to go?" a young voice said, causing the room to grow silent. "What if I want to stay here in Sunnydale?"

Looking up, Connor saw a slim young girl, several years older than the picture he had, standing in the entrance to the room. She'd clearly been crying recently, and it looked like she'd just woken up.

"We think it would be best..." the Watcher began, only to be interrupted.

"You 'think it would be best'." Willow said, gesturing angrily, in a crude imitation of his voice. "I don't think anyone else who matters thinks so."

"Willow..." Tara began, placing a hand on her shoulder. Connor could almost taste her distress in the air it was so obvious.

"I've been asked to escort you to your father." Connor said.

"Who are you?" Dawn demanded. Connor could see her shaking with some suppressed emotion. "How did he even know she was dead?"

"I'm an old friend of the family. And you'll have to ask your father how he knew." He said. He wasn't about to tell everyone that Joyce had been the one to tell Hank.

Standing up, he walked over to her, stopping at arms length. Reached into his jacket, he took out an envelope and handed it to her. She took it gingerly, almost as if she were afraid it would explode. "Go ahead and open it. It won't bite." he said, using the same tone he would have used with a frightened animal or small child.

--- --- ---

Dawn cautiously opened the envelope, only to find another smaller one inside. On one side was her name, written in her mother's elegant script. Taking a ragged breath, she ran her fingers over the letters, trying to imagine the feel of the pen as it glided over the smooth paper, hoping for some connection to her mother. Turning it over, she saw a small wax seal in some language she didn't recognize. Puzzled, she looked up at the man who'd given her the envelope. "What does this say?"

He shrugged. "She never said. She always claimed that it was all that was left of her inheritance."

"May I?" Giles asked.

Dawn raised an eyebrow in what she thought was a fair approximation of one of Buffy's favorite expressions. She'd been practicing it for months. It had always seemed to stop Giles in his tracks when Buffy used it, though it didn't seem to have quite that effect now.

She ignored his eagerly outstretched hand and, not saying anything, slid a finger underneath the flap of the envelope, being careful to not break the seal in the process. Removing a folded piece of paper covered in writing, also in her mother's hand, and a small photo, she gave the envelope to Giles. After quickly glancing at the photo, she unfolded the letter and began to read it to herself, ignoring the impatient looks from Willow.


Dawn, my dearest pumpkin-belly, I've asked that Connor make sure you are taken care of if anything happens to both myself and Buffy. Please trust him like you would me. He is an old and dear friend of mine and will keep you safe. He and your father will take care of everything.

Love,
Mom


Sniffling, she folded it and stuffed it into a pocket before looking at the photo. It was of her mother and the man who'd given her the envelope, standing in front of a large fountain in some ancient looking city, big smiles on their faces.

"What's it say?" Willow asked eagerly.

Dawn ignored her question for the moment, instead addressing the man. "You're Connor?"

"Yes." He said. "Connor MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod."

"She said to do whatever you asked." Dawn said, frowning. His introduction seemed slightly out of place.

"If you don't want to leave I won't force you." He told her. "But she would be disappointed in both of us."

She looked around the room at her sister's friends. Willow obviously wanted her to stay. Tara, Tara would let her decide for herself. From what she'd heard earlier, Giles had already decided that sending her away was the best solution. She suspected Xander would side with Willow. Anya could be amusing but she would say whatever she thought was best for herself. She wasn't sure how Spike would react. He'd apparently made some kind of promise to Buffy but Buffy was dead.

"What about the house?" she asked. The decision wasn't an easy one. Dawn just wanted to go back up to Buffy's room and cry instead of think. But the letter helped. Although she didn't want to leave the house or any connections to her sister, at the same time she could feel the urge to escape, to get away from everything that reminded her of Buffy.

"Everything you don't need would be put in storage and the house sold to start a college fund for you." he told her.

"When?" She asked, her decision made at that moment.

"We can start the process today." He told her. "The house can be packed up and put on the market by the end of the week."

Dawn winced at the sound of Willow breaking down and crying, her show of defiance suddenly gone, at the realization that she'd decided to leave.

--- --- ---

Dawn stared out of the rear window as Connor MacLeod's car pulled away from the curb. She'd said her goodbyes to Willow, Tara, Giles, and Anya the night before. The Scoobies had thrown her a small farewell party at the Magic Box. She'd hugged Xander goodbye when he'd come over to supervise the movers as the last of her personal possessions were loaded onto a truck. Everything else was already on its way to storage somewhere in LA.

She waved at him, brushing the tears away from her face. He looked so forlorn standing all alone on the porch. He hadn't cried at Buffy's death but she knew he was hurting at least as much as she was. Buffy had been his ideal. No matter how happy he claimed Anya made him, Dawn knew better. He'd always taken on a special glow when Buffy paid attention to him.

And unlike Spike, who'd said goodbye and disappeared from her life as soon as he'd heard about Connor MacLeod, Xander had stuck to the end. Spike had been her bad-boy protector but Xander was the closest she thought she would ever get to a big brother, even if his Buffy obsession was kind of embarrassing.

"Can we take him with us?" she asked desperately, turning to Connor. "Xander needs to get away from here too. Before he breaks like Buffy did."

"Why do you say Buffy broke?" He asked, frowning at her.

"Because she did." Dawn mumbled. "Her so-called friends didn't notice, but she did."

"How do you know they didn't notice?" he asked, glancing at her for a second before they pulled out onto the highway towards LA.

"Because." she muttered, staring out at the passing scenery. She knew she was being unfair to them but at the moment she didn't care. "How long until we get there?" she asked, turning to watch him drive. She wondered how well he'd actually known her mother.

"Three days."

"Three days?" She said, surprised. Dawn frowned. "I thought he still lived in LA."

"He's out of the country this month. We'll catch up with him in Spain." He said.

"It takes three days to fly to Spain?" She asked. She'd promised Xander she would call him tonight, as soon as she was at her father's house.

"No. I have business to attend to up north in Seacover first. That will add an extra day to our trip." He said.

"I don't have a passport." Dawn protested, wondering if it was too late to change her mind. "How can I go to Spain?"

"It's all taken care of." He told her. "Your passport will be waiting for us at my office in New York. I have to stop there before we fly to Spain."

"Oh..." She watched him for a few minutes before stating - "You didn't come to Sunnydale just to help me, did you."

"Hmm?" He gave her a quick puzzled glance, briefly taking his eyes from the road.

"You have all these places to go and things to do. I'm just another one of those things." She mumbled before laying back in her seat and closing her eyes, hoping a nap would make things go faster. She could hear him sigh.

"Joyce was much better with teenagers than I've ever been." She heard him mutter.

After what seemed like forever, Dawn could feel the car stopping. Opening her eyes, she could see a small diner in front of them.

"We can talk over lunch." He told her, getting out of the car and holding her door open for her.

--- --- ---

They ordered quickly. Dawn was mildly surprised at how easily Connor dealt with the entire process. He seemed to be very comfortable in the small diner. She couldn't imagine her father in a similar situation. In her memories he always seemed to eat at expensive restaurants. The diner would have been too much like slumming for his taste.

"How long did you know her?" Dawn asked, taking a bite from her burger and watching him closely.

"It seems like centuries." He said. "I helped her out with a small problem, she gave me extremely good advice, and later I returned the favor."

"What did she tell you?" Dawn asked curiously. This was a side of her mother she hadn't known about. Her mother had always been her mother, not the shrewd business-woman he was implying. The gallery had been a place she disappeared to, not a successful business.

"I own several antique shops. She suggested that I open my first one." Connor said. "It was successful."

"So, you gave her some money for coming up with the idea?" Dawn surmised.

"No."

"No?" Dawn stared at him, putting down her burger in surprise. He got rich from her mother's idea and he didn't share it with her?

"No." He repeated. "She had her own way of doing things. She did allow me to finance her first gallery a few years later but she insisted on paying back every penny."

"Oh." It took her several minutes to digest the idea. "What about my father?"

"We aren't close friends." He said. She could hear a slight hint of disapproval in his voice.

"You don't like him?"

"I don't believe he and your mother were a good match." He told her bluntly. "But it was her decision. Her life." He shrugged. "One of the few times she ever did something just for herself. And even when they divorced, she believed it had been worth it."

"Why?" Grownups usually didn't talk with her about their personal lives. She wondered why he was saying so much but she wasn't going to stop him. Unlike Buffy, her mother hadn't left a diary behind. This might be her only chance.

"She ended up with two daughters she loved very much." He told her, his voice soft and comforting in the noisy diner. "And never underestimate the value of being connected to a very discrete family law firm like your father's." He winked at her and then gestured towards their waitress.

--- --- ---

Dawn looked around the Seacover airport, trying not to stare. The LA airport had been too big and confusing for her to grasp. Everything in this one seemed to move at a slower pace. One that her inexperienced eyes could comprehend.

Traveling with Connor was turning into a revelation. He'd treated her, so far anyway, mostly like she imagined an adult would be treated, though there was some mystery involved in their side trip to Seacover.

"Why are we here?" She asked again, hoping he would stop being vague and actually answer her question. On the trip up to Seacover he'd been absorbed in paperwork and she'd taken a nap when it became clear he wasn't interested in entertaining her with any further stories about her mother.

"I have an investment in a new art gallery." He repeated, sounding slightly exasperated. "I wanted to see the location before it opens. Afterward, we'll stop and visit an old friend."

Nope, nothing new, Dawn thought. He'd already told her that. Several times. "And then we're flying to New York?"

"Tomorrow morning." he said, leading her to the row of car rental desks.

--- --- ---

Joyce hadn't been at the hotel when they'd checked in. Connor hadn't had a chance to call her when they'd landed and assumed she was waiting for them at the new gallery. He knew she'd been agonizing over this meeting for weeks but he hadn't been able to give her any ideas for the best way to tell Dawn. In his experience these things almost never went well.

"It's still early," he told her once they'd reached their floor. "I have to make several phone calls. Why don't you clean up. We'll take a look at the gallery and then go to dinner."

"Okay." She gave him a slightly tired look.

"And Dawn?" he said softly.

"Yes?"

"I think your mother would be very proud of you." he said, squeezing her shoulder gently. "It isn't an easy thing to pack up your life and move." And it never gets easier he thought to himself.

"Thanks." She smiled briefly before struggling with her door and slipping into her room.

Connor stood there for a moment before entering his own room.

--- --- ---