Darkest Before
by Vanilla Tiger

AN: Written for Diva Stardust who requested Dawn/Holden romance in the Dawnficathon. Thanks to Emony for the beta.
Feedback to fitchers_bird@yahoo.co.uk

Dawn ignored him. It wasn't even as if he was a real psychologist yet anyway, just some dumb college student trying to make up for all the advantages he had in life.

He had called her "Miss Summers" though, like she was the adult that she felt she was inside, despite the fact she was seventeen. Dawn appreciated that.

By the next day, he’d gained the confidence to be a little more informal.

"Dawn? You know that you can talk to me."

It wasn't as if anyone else was desperate to talk to her either. Maybe if she had acted like some of the other kids in the hostel, all simpers and gratitude for any scrap of attention, people would have been there with her. They would have cared. Not that that would have made any difference anyway. Buffy had cared once upon a time, and Mom and Dad. It hadn't stopped them leaving. It hadn't kept them alive.

"Still not so big on the talking then? That's okay too. We can just sit here for a bit." A bit turned out to mean a couple of days but he still came back.

Her folded arms and sullen attitude tended to keep most people away. For those that got too insistent, Dawn kept a knife hidden. She may not be a Slayer herself, but she had trained with one in Cleveland. Buffy had decided that she would be too much of a liability otherwise.

Statements like that had made Dawn had always thought her sister's death would end up being her fault, not some random vampire in a tiny town she'd never heard of. She choked away the memory. No observer would notice any emotion on her face.

In LA, it felt like everybody was watching and no-one cared.

College boy still hadn't got the hint. Dawn glared at him, willing him to just disappear. He'd been coming here for a few weeks now but it was only this last week that he'd noticed Dawn. She was becoming an expert in staying unnoticed. However he'd come up to her and introduced himself as Holden Webster, who went to some out-of-state college but was here helping out at the hostel during summer break.

Ever since then he just wouldn't leave her alone. Stupid interfering idiot. She didn't need to talk to him. She didn't need anybody.

"Hey, I just realised. It's hardly fair to expect you to talk to me when I haven't told you that much about myself. How about a deal: I tell you something about my past, you share something of yours. Okay?"

Dawn remained silent. As if someone like him could ever understand just what it was she'd been through. He appeared to take her silence for consent. Fine. It wasn't like his yammering on was anything new.

"To start with I'm not an LA native. I know, I know, it's a surprise considering my relaxed city-boy charm but in fact I was born in a small town not all that far from here. Nice place, but it's really gone downhill lately. Sunnydale's its name."

Dawn's face paled. No-one ever talked about that place as far as she was aware. Either you didn't know it existed, or you wanted to pretend that it didn't.

Holden smiled bitterly. His normally brash voice softened. "Ah, so I was right. Well, now you know that whatever you say I will understand."

“Not here.” She stumbled over the words, her throat feeling strangely dry. Ever since Cleveland, Dawn had lived a nomadic life, wandering through nearly every state in America, never staying too long.

Some part of her had always known that she would have to return to California. Maybe it was part of the same fate that led Buffy to die near here. Receiving a message in the form of this irritatingly persistent, caring boy, Dawn knew it would soon be time for to face her past.

But not yet. She wasn’t ready to deal with it yet, so the pair went out for dinner in a restaurant that was more fancy than she was used to and learned about each other in the tentative, superficial way of the people that they should have been. They skimmed over politics, discussed art and literature, touched on a little philosophy, swapped LA stories, all in the carefree manner of those who had not grown up around death. Still their need, their connection, that was from their true selves.

Over coffee, Holden started to talk about his college life. He had wanted to go to Dartmouth, but there were no special dispensations for those who suffered vampire attacks throughout their SATs. “I almost got to thinking that they planned it that way. The vamps don’t like people to leave.”

And it had been such a lovely evening up to then. Dawn purposely ignored the Sunnydale reference and asked brightly if there wasn’t some place they could dance. At the flicker of uncertainty in Holden’s eyes, she clasped his hand and pleaded, “Please,” one word containing multitudes. Yes, there were things that she needed to talk about; yes, she would tell him everything he wanted to know, but not yet.

Please, just give her a little more time.

He raised their enjoined hands and nodded, agreeing to more than just her stated request.

The music in the club pulsated through them, too loud for thinking, let alone talking. Despite the density of the swaying bodies that filled the space, there was no chance of them losing each other.

Dawn and Holden moved as one, contact shifting but always constant. There was a new freedom to Dawn as she danced, relishing the connection built now on body not mind .

There was no future, no past, no fear of consequences yet to come. All there was was the present, made up of Holden, herself and the music. Everything else slithered down to her subconscious as she let herself forget. She rocked her body against his hips, letting the friction do all the talking she wanted.

Holden gulped, and beckoned for the pair of them to go outside.
“Dawn, you’re a beautiful girl and in any other circumstances I’d smack myself for saying this, but this isn’t what you need right now.”

Pouting provocatively, she leaned in to say, “Leave it to me to decide just what I need.” Then she kissed him.

It took a moment for Holden to pull back, and his regret was clear to see. Dawn raised a derisive eyebrow as he immediately fell into a practised psychologist demeanour that he hadn’t quite earned yet.

“You don’t have to keep on testing me, Dawn. I’m not doing this just get into your pants.” At her sceptical look he shrugged as he continued, “Not that I can think of anywhere more wonderful at this point, but you have to believe that I want more. I want to help you.”

Dawn held herself as her defences dropped. She refused to move closer to Holden, not wanting to trust him but finding that somehow she strangely did. The mention of Sunnydale had tied them together.

That tiny little town she had never even seen had destroyed her past, and the time was coming for her to face it.

“Come back to my place. To talk, that’s all.”

Quietly she acquiesced.

She tried to seduce him once more when they had reached his room, but it was a half-hearted attempt and easily ignored.

Dawn hadn’t realised just how lonely she had been these past few years. She’d forgotten what it was like to have someone truly concerned for her welfare. It was frightening. She should leave before one of them got hurt. It wasn’t as if this could last anyway.

Yet still she stayed, telling herself that it was just for this one night.

Besides she had promised Holden answers. She slipped off her shoes, sat down on his bed and emotionlessly began to her story.

In every generation there is a Chosen One, destined to fight the growing tides of evil. That One had been Dawn’s sister. As a typical nosy little brat sneaking a peek at her sister’s diary, Dawn had revealed Buffy’s secret. Not having the benefit of growing up on a Hellmouth to educate them, their parents had taken tales of vampire slaying to be evidence of a mental breakdown.

Buffy had been institutionalised, leaving no-one to protect her family from the vicious vampire attack that had left Joyce and Hank dead. The Council of Watchers finally intervened and brought the Slayer and her sister to a Hellmouth in Ohio. They travelled around the state with no particular base, until that fateful call from California had come.

Deciding her kid sister would be safer where she was and not expecting to be gone long, Buffy had bid Dawn goodbye and left. She never returned.

It had been four years since Dawn had been told of her sister’s death at the hands of the Master. She had run that night, and it was only now, when she had found herself in LA once more, that she had stopped.

“You’ve got to put this thing behind you.” In a reversal of the traditional positions, Holden lay back on the bed while Dawn sat stiffly at its edge, unwilling to face her confessor. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for your sister’s death.”

Dawn turned, surprised. “I never said that!”

“No, but it’s obvious how you feel. It’s a perfectly natural reaction, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. You’ve been running all this time because you’ve been afraid to face your past. You need to confront your guilt, so you can realise that this was not your fault.”

Dawn sat quietly thinking as Holden talked on of “survivor’s guilt” and “displacement activities”.

Certain phrases kept echoing in her mind. He was right. She had been running from Sunnydale this whole time. That had to stop.

Tomorrow she would lay it all to rest. But tonight was for her.

She kissed Holden deeply. “Thank you. You’ve made everything so much clearer.” She lay down next to him and started to undress.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

She nodded in reply, and then kissed him again. This time Holden didn’t protest.

After what fate had done to her, Dawn could allow herself a night’s comfort. For this one night she could let everything go. For this one night she could let herself be happy. For this one night there was just Dawn, just Holden and the joy they found in each other.

Afterwards, they fell asleep together, and by the morning she was gone.

Dawn stood frozen by the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign. All her life seemed to have led up to this moment, but she couldn’t seem to move. Vampires had taken her family, had taken everything she had ever held dear. Well, almost everything. She was alive, so she had to avenge her sister’s death. She’d been running from this place for so long. Now it was time to face up to her past.

Still she stayed by the sign, just outside the city limits.

Suddenly her trance-like state was broken by the sound of a car braking. She hadn’t planned on it, hadn’t given it a moment’s thought, but it was somehow no surprise to hear Holden’s voice calling out from behind her.

“Dawn! What the hell are you doing? Get in here quick.” The panic in his voice made Dawn finally take notice of the darkening skies.

That didn’t matter though. She wanted the vampires to come. She needed to confront her sister’s killer. Death or vengeance, it didn’t really matter what happened. Either way she would finally be able to rest.

At some point, Holden must have come out. As soon as she felt his soft pressure on her arm, she instinctively twisted away, causing her bag to fall to the floor. A stake spilled out.

Holden blanched as he looked in the bag, at the array of weapons it concealed. “Please tell me you’re not doing what it’s blatantly obvious that you are doing.”

She gave him a bitter smile. “I’m facing my demons. Isn’t that what psychiatrists recommend?”

Refusing to play along, Holden grabbed her by the shoulders. “Normally I frown on this type
of language, but this? This behaviour is all kinds of crazy. You are going to get yourself killed.” He looked down at her sullen face. “And you don’t really care.”

“He killed my sister,” Dawn protested.

Holden’s voice softened. “I know. It must hurt terribly. But your death won’t help anything. Besides, do you think this is what Buffy wanted for you? She loved you. She would want you to be happy. And I need you alive.” His hands gently slipped from her shoulders as his arms embraced her.

Dawn didn’t fight the embrace, yet still she pleaded, “I can’t let him win! I have to do something.”

“You can.” Holden’s confidence was hypnotic. “You can live a long and happy life. You can live the way you want and not let them control you. From what I know of vampires - and hey! Sunnydale education, so that’s a fair amount - the blood is only a small part of their whole deal. What it’s really about is power. When we live our lives in fear of them, then they have the power, that’s when they’ve won.”

“But Buffy…” whispered Dawn as tears filled her eyes.

“Is dead. Let it go. None of this is your fault. It’s OK. I’m here for you.” He held her tightly and murmured softly soothing phrases into Dawn’s hair as she sobbed against him.
Once her tears had subsided he kissed her, before stepping away and sitting back down in his car.

“Come on,” he said. “We’d better get going while there’s still some sunlight out.” Trembling, she got in the car. He kissed her once more and she felt a little more at peace.

Then they drove off, leaving Sunnydale behind them.