Buffy's POV

I moan as I pull my lips from hers to look her in the eyes. She smiles as her hand slides down my side and rests on my hip. I shift on the living room couch and push her hair back behind her ears.

I can't believe she did that.

I lick my lips and smile as I lean in to make out with her some more. Our lips meet and it's like my whole body is set on fire. Our making out deepens almost instantly.

I can't believe she did what she did. It means a lot to me that she did it but doesn't make it easier to accept.

I kinda chuckle at the thought and she pulls away.

"What?"

"I'm sorry it's just... I'm still, I wanted to thank you."

She kinda looks at me funny.

"For what? Making out with you?"

"No, for what you did, with The Council before."

She smiles and I can't help but wonder why I would ever keep anything from her.

"You already thanked me B. Kinda how we got to the making out isn't it?"

"Yeah, but I'm still grateful. What you did for Dawn was, just amazing. I don't know that I could've done something like that. I act all tough around them but the truth is The Council kinda scares me. I guess you don't have that problem."

Her hand comes up and cradles my cheek.

"Doesn't mean you wouldn't have done the same B, to protect Dawn and keep our family together I believe you'd do anything."

Our family? She said our family.

I get this huge grin on my face.

"What?"

"You said 'our family'."

She's about to say something to that but I lean forward, putting all my weight on her to pin her down on the couch. I press my body full against hers and kiss her deep. When I finally come up for air she just smiles at me.

"I thought we were gonna try and slow things down a bit, wasn't that the plan? Especially with the whole impending doom thing..."

"We are slowing down sweetie we're just taking our time in doing it."

I kiss her deep, but not quite as deeply as I did a second ago.

"See? Things are slowing down already."

"If you say so B, doom and all..."

My smile all but vanishes at the worry on her face.

"We'll figure it out Faith, we always do. Giles has all the books The Council left with him at the magic box to find whatever it is they missed, because you know they missed something. We'll figure it out and then we'll stop it. We're the Chosen Two. it's our job to stop things like this."

"Yeah but this time is different."

"Why?"

"Well because of..."

Her head turns suddenly to look across the room.

"Dawn..."

Dawn?

I look in the direction Faith is and Dawn is standing about 10 feet away with an upset look on her face. Seconds later I pull myself off of Faith and we both move to a sitting position, fixing up a bit as we do.

"Dawn, how... how long have you been standing there?"

"Does it matter?"

I look at Faith and we both look at Dawn.

"What's wrong kid?"

"Nothing, I'm sorry I interrupted the make out session."

She goes to leave and I stand up, doing up the button on my pants as I do.

"Dawn, come on... you can talk to us."

"Right..."

Faith comes up to me.

"Seriously kid if there's anything you want to talk about we're here for you."

"Uh-hun..."

She hasn't turned around.

"Dawn, would you mind turning around?"

She lets out a deep sigh before turning around.

"What is it?"

"You tell us."

"Whatever the problem is, we want to help."

She tilts her head to one side slightly and crosses her arms over her chest.

"And what if my problem is you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, what if my problem is you two? Are you still gonna help?"

I look to Faith and she fake coughs, tilting her head to the couch.

"Dawn if our making out on the couch bothers you, we could do it somewhere else... or stop, we could stop if it bothers you that much."

She rolls her eyes at us.

"What?"

"You really think that's my problem?"

"We don't know what the problem is kid, that's why we're asking. But if you don't tell us what we did wrong then we'll probably do it again."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Then why did you say we were the problem?"

"Did something happen at school? Would you like me to beat someone up for ya kid? Cause I can if you want."

"Faith!"

"What? School sucks, you of all people should know that."

"God why can't you just listen to me when I say nothing's wrong?"

We both look at Dawn for a second before answering.

"Because the way you're acting says different."

"The way I'm acting? God, are you trying to be Mom or something?"

"No I... I just want to help."

"Well I don't want your help. Just leave me the hell alone."

She turns away and heads upstairs to her room. The door slams shut.

"She still thinks we're keeping something from her."

"We are keeping something from her B."

I take a deep breath and turn to Faith, taking her hands in mine.

"What are we gonna do?"

There's a long silence between us.

"Maybe we should tell her."

Tell her?

"You think we should tell her?"

"You don't?"

"Well, of course we should, you know, tell her but... I mean, how do we even start a conversation like this? We can't just say 'Hey Dawn, you know how you didn't want us acting like your parents? Well we actually are your parents.' She'd freak out, even if she didn't believe us. I was kinda hoping we could wait till she was a little older, more mature even."

"Glory won't wait till she's older if she finds out who Dawn is. And we have to tell her something B. It really kills me to see her angry at us like this. I'm starting to think maybe the only way to start to make things better is to tell her."

I look Faith in the eyes.

"Are we really ready to deal with something like this? Is she?"

"We won't know until we try B. Besides you heard what Dawn said, she'll figure it out whether we want her to or not. I think it'll hurt less if we tell her ourselves."

"What about us?"

"What about us B?"

"Things aren't exactly perfect between us. What if our own issues come out while we're trying to help Dawn?"

"They won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because this wouldn't be about us B, this would be about Dawn. We made a promise to each other that we would help Dawn through this if and when it did happen and we have to keep that promise no matter what."

I pull her to me and put my arms around her.

"I will keep that promise Faith. I'm just worried about hurting Dawn, or us."

Her hands come up to my face and we look deep into each other's eyes. She presses her lips to mine ever so gently.

"I am too B, I am too. We should talk to your mom when she gets home. I'm sure she'd want to be with us in this."

"Okay..."

I just hope Dawn can forgive us for this.

Dawn's POV

They know something. They all know something and they won't tell me what it is. Normally when they know something I don't it's okay because it's slayer-related and sometimes I don't want to know the stuff they do tell me, but this is different. This is totally and completely different because it's about me and they won't tell me what's wrong with me.

I grab one of my STUPID stuffed animals and throw it against the wall as hard as I can.

They keep telling me that it's nothing. They keep telling me I'm reading way too much into things that have nothing to do with me. If it has nothing to do with me then why does it keep happening when I'm around? Why is it that it always seems to be about me somehow? First my name kept coming up when the two of them were fighting so much. Then after Buffy gets rescued, Faith started looking at me weird. It was really creepy the way I kept catching her staring at me. Why the hell does she keep doing that? What is it about me that's so wrong?

I stop pacing around my room and punch my bed as hard as I can.

Then comes the conversations about me that don't happen, the way things are always ending on something about me that I don't understand. What the hell does Faith not being blood related have to do with me, or the fact that I'm separate from the world? 'We'll save the world and me?' What the hell does that mean? They know I know there's something they don't want me to know and they still won't tell me.

I have a right to know what it is, don't I? I mean if it's about me then I would think it would be important for me to know. But I guess they don't think so. God I really want to smash something. What do I have to do to make them tell me? Maybe I should jump off the roof or something. Maybe that will make them tell me. I really don't care if it kills me. I just want to know what's wrong with me. Faith said that this apocalypse was different somehow because of me. I heard them talking about Giles and his pile of important books at the magic box, they were probably talking about this apocalypse. I should go there when no one's around and find out why they're so important.