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For the longest time, Dawn thought it was Spike.
Dawn wanted it to be Spike. Wanted to be made from the two strongest people she knew. Maybe, just maybe being their sister-friend-child would mystically bring Buffy and Spike together; he could move in and she'd have him and her sister and Tara&Willow as one big demon-hunting family.
Turns out they were together and then not-together and neither of them were happy, then he attacked Buffy. None of that I’m-going-to-kill-you-Slayer stuff he tried when they first met or his cutting to the bone verbal attacks. But the scarybadwrong kind of attack that men do to women all the time. Buffy tried to explain it wasn't like that, it wasn't.
Too late. Dawn wanted nothing to do with him. Wanted nothing of his to be a part of her. She would just die if that were the case.
Every time she saw him during those last horrible Sunnydale days, she felt hot and sick to think of how badly her younger self wanted this blood connection.
The problem though was the mystery of who else she was made from. Not Buffy’s parents, technically her grandparents. If that were all she was made of, the thing that happened up on the Tower wouldn’t have worked.
But on the other hand, she wasn't some Buffy clone. They looked too different and Dawn had features that Buffy did not.
Everyone was under suspicion. For months after her death, she wanted it to be Tara. Wanted a piece of Tara to live. Willow was scratched off the list around the time because she was angry at Willow for pulling a Dark Lord on everyone. And they looked nothing alike. Xander was a far too wigsome option to contemplate, as was Anya, for totally different reasons.
She narrowed down to Giles or Tara, to the point where it was their hair (pocketed months ago to add to the Ziploc bag with all the other Potentials) she contemplated using in a paternity spell she found in one of the books she nabbed from Willow in the Great Magic Purging of ‘02.
Until Faith showed up to help fight the First.
Duh! Why wasn't she at the top of the list in the first place! What’s stronger than two slayers?
How could she forget? Ok, so yeah, so she has monk-made memories of Faith coming out of the coma and using her and her mom as bait. But she also has memories of watching “Cruel Intentions” with the other Slayer, listening to the Slayer stories Buffy has never told her. She had been in awe of Faith and wrote pages and pages in her diary on how she wished Faith were her sister.
She cried so hard when she found out Faith was in that coma. Reason number 28 why she hated Angel.
Eminent death and whiny wanna-be Slayers slowed her research, but Dawn found time to observe Faith for her mental checklist of Who Shared Her DNA Because Magic:
Similar physical traits? Check.
Mannerisms in common? Check.
Connection to Buffy? Check.
Affection? Check.
Protectiveness? Check.
Positive made-up memories of child Dawn? Check.
Future family relationships?
She chose Faith, kicking Buffy out of the house. Didn’t bode well, but all seemed forgiven by the time the crazy scythe was found. The blur of blowing up the Hellmouth was almost like a movie on fast forward.
Buffy wanted her to have some kind of normal life, but Faith knew there was no normal for them, they were the people who made normal possible. Dawn liked that, the warriors of the light gig.
Which was why, months later in the bathroom in their Rome apartment, she does the spell. Faith’s hair doesn’t burn in the blue flame. Faith is her mom.
She debated telling the two of them what she found, but she didn't want it to be weird. Plus, it wasn't like they needed her as a reason to date, after Faith kicked Satsu's ass up and down Slayer central, then holed up with Buffy for like a week.
Dawn loved it. She especially loved those moments when she and Buffy and Faith would be in Scotland together, and they would watch movies, she would sprawl on the floor in front of the couch where Buffy and Faith would be cuddled, Buffy’s fingers playing with her hair.
Her slayer mothers and their mystical mysterious daughter.