dawn has grown considerably but she still is a hurt, angry teenager. hope buffy has matured enough to handle the situation very carefully. not going to try and comment on the wonderful way this tale is being told. am simple going to "borrow" the word brilliant. thanks for the read.

Great scene between Faith and Buffy. So glad they got to talk and it went well. Now Dawn is another story...
I don't want to say this because she's supposed to be the good guy here but... what a little bitch. OK, feeling better. It's just that, she's willing to give a murderous Slayer a second chance--no offence to Faith, I do love her--but won't even give her own flesh and blood a second chance? It's not like Buffy tried to kill her or anything. And reality check here, she died to save her. Doesn't that make her deserve... maybe not a medal, but at least a chance to explain talk things through? To be fair, a lot of the things Dawn said makes sense and I can see why she would be afraid to let Buffy back in and risk ruining that little family she got. And the description Dawn made of Buffy's relationship with her friends was spot on. So I can't really blame the girl. But come on! I think the emancipation thing was enough to make her point heard loud and clear. She doesn't need to be such a bitch on top of everything.
Great chapter. Liked Elke. Very entertaining and again, well written. Very interesting original character. I wonder what she told Spike and why they're going back to Sunnydale.

Dawn, understandably so, really has a lot of anger towards her sister. I love that Faith and Buffy talked and were able to work through some things and that Buffy realizes that she has a lot of work to do with Spike and her sister.

Just found this story this morning and haven't done a thing but read since then! This is compelling and wonderfully written. I love the choices you have had the principles make. The point where it veres from canon is perfect for this. Really love this universe you have here. Going to read on...please keep writing this intriguing world.

Kathleen

Loved Anya's POV. Loved Dawn's POV.

Scared as hell for Spike.

Glad that Buffy and Faith were able to put their differences aside and come to an understanding.I can total understand Dawn's feeling's about Buffy, felt that way myself many times as well. Very curios about what this imbrigatt is. I just don't want for Spike to get hurt again. Fabulous chapter, thanks for putting it out there.

i wonder what's gonna happen next...please don't have abandoned this story, it's really awesome...i want to see buffy earn back her relationships, and see what happens to dawn and spike's new group...awesome story :)

still lovin this fic and would love more of it :P

This setup is absolutely BRILLIANT. There is nothing wrong with it at all. Dawn is completely right to make Buffy take responsibility for her own actions.

As for the notion that Buffy was "just following orders", if this didn't work as an excuse at the Nuremberg tribunals, it must surely be considered ludicrous in Buffy's case.

I am loving this yarn. Still think Dawn is a whiny bitch who doesn't get that everybody else told Buffy who to like and how to behave, especially after they brought her back from heaven. I agree that Buffy needs some bitch slapping but I think Spike should be the one to do it, not Dawn. More story please.

I'd read the first parts elsewhere and am thrilled to see it continued here. I love absolutely everything about this story. It's the best possible sequence of events after 'Deadthings' which is when that relationship should have ended. I love the Spike and Dawn. I love Dawn going after Spike. That's the clever girl we saw in Season 5. I love that they have taken in Wesley and Faith. And their new life and business together. I love the Spike and Angel bonding because that's the only way you can make me like Angel. And I love how Buffy has gotten better and made friends with Anya the vengeance demon. I've come to the conclusion that Xander, Willow and Buffy were bad for each other. At least, as long as they insist on excluding others. And the details like Buffy and the phone calls, Faith and the doors, Anya and the magazines, etc. are wonderful. I just love it. And that's saying a lot because I've been leaning towards Spaith as my OTP and you could have done that here, but didn't. Part III was kind of hard to read through all the tears though.

I am really chuffed to see you've started on the next part of this fic. I absolutely love it, no ifs no buts no maybes it's brilliant. I do feel sorry for Buffy, I know she's screwed up in the past, but so have all the others. It can't be even a year since she had to dig her way out of her own grave and had the weight of the world dumped back on her shoulders. I think most people would have ended up in a looney bin, Buffy didn't even get counselling. For all her new found maturity Dawn's still a little girl deep down. I can't wait for more.

Very interesting - I wonder what all Spike has to do? I'm glad you didn't go do the mushy big reunion where everything is immediately forgiven and forgotten that tends to happen in post mid-S6 Spuffy stories - I HATE it when authors do that because it's so unrealistic and well basically juvenile (it's just missing the fairy tale "and they all lived happily ever after"). After the S6 affair took an extremely dark turn for the worse with the blatent use and abuse and explosive ending, there was a ton of crap that Buffy and Spike would have had to work through for any real relationship between them to work out, realistically speaking. Along those lines, I absolutely hated the whole 'Angel is my soulmate crap' because the entire Buffy/Angel relationship is so damn childish - that relationship had no real or solid basis, it was hormones and and fairy-tale crap where they got it in their head that they were right for each other and NEVER grew out of it. Hell, those two didn't even really know each other - Buffy ignored a HUGE part of Angel as well as his entire past (his time as a human included) meanwhile, Angel had her up on this pedestal and the entire relationship was on his terms and his only and Buffy just went along with it in her own little world cause he's her "soul-mate" (kinda strange for a show that promoted "girl-power" isn't it?). Is it any wonder why Angelus was so insane and obsessed with hurting and killing Buffy in BtVS S2 and not so much in AtS S4 when he no longer had to deal with that realtionship? He was still pure evil and hated Buffy but there was a distinct difference between the two times Angelus emerged. One would think that he would have at least made some effort to hurt Buffy given his actions the first time around and the fact she SENT HIM TO HELL - but no, even with Buffy sending him to hell, Angelus was still more concerned about hurting the LA gang instead of running off to torture Buffy. Was I the only one who noticed that particular point?