A view of Dawn

June, 1986

Room 325, Memorial Rose Hospital, Los Angeles 

June, 1986

The door opened slightly, and a blonde-haired young girl looked in. "Mommy?"

"It's okay, Buffy," Joyce Summers told her from the hospital bed. "You can come in."

The little girl instantly ran over to her mother, and climbed up on the side of the bed. "Is that my little sister?" she asked, pointing to the bundle in her mom's arms.

"Yes, it is," Joyce answered, just as Hank came back into the room after using the phone at the nurse's station.

"She's so tiny," Buffy observed.

"She'll grow quickly," Hank told his firstborn. "Soon, she'll be crawling all over the house—"

"But she doesn't get to play with my toys, right?" Buffy asked with an adorable pout, looking towards her father.

"You don't want to share with your sister?" Hank asked with a smirk.

Buffy shook her little head. "Not my Barbies!"

"Even if you get to show her how to dress them and fix their hair?" Joyce asked.

"She doesn't know how to fix Barbie's hair?" Buffy asked, her pout replaced by an amazed expression. "But everyone knows how to do that!"

"You'll have to teach her," Joyce told her. "You are her big sister, after all."

"And being a big sister is a big job, Buffy," Hank said to his little girl.

"It is?" Buffy asked, looking up at him.

"Yep," Hank said. "You have to protect her, and watch out for her — just like I did for my little brother."

"I will, Daddy," Buffy said firmly. "I won't let her get any boo-boos!"

"I knew you would, Buffy," Hank told her fondly.

"What's her name?" Buffy then queried.

"Well," Joyce said, "your father and I think that she was born so early in the morning that we should call her... Dawn. How does that sound to you?"

Buffy let her sister try to grab her finger. "Hi there, little Dawn. I'm your big sister Buffy!"