TITLE: Held Dearest
AUTHOR: Ragna (writinggoddess@aol.com)
RATING: FRT
CLASSIFICATION: Lindsey/Dawn
SUMMARY: Lindsey discovers something special in Rome.
SPOILERS: Set between seasons 4 and 5 of A:tS.
DISTRIBUTION: Any sites with my fic up; you all have unspoken permission. I write it, you can post it. Everyone else just keep my name on it and let me know.
DISCLAIMER: If you don't recognize it, chances are it's my own creation. If you do, I don't own it. Joss Whedon, Kazui Sandollar, The WB, UPN, et. al. most likely do.
FEEDBACK: Please send it offlist and let me know it's feedback; I do rapid delete on my account due to a lot of spam
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written for the buffyverse1000 community over at Live Journal.

***

He had never meant for it to happen. He wasn't trying to get even with Angel by doing something to piss of his one true love…he'd just wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

Curiosity killed the cat. In his case, curiosity found something he'd never imagined.

Lindsey knew all about the fall of Sunnydale; he may not have been at Wolfram & Hart anymore, but he still had his contacts there. He knew the first Slayer of this generation had moved to Rome, along with Faith. He remembered the second Slayer vaguely from his lawyer days.

He hadn't known anything about a sister, though.

He saw her in a plaza, snapping pictures of the beautiful buildings around. Her brown hair was flapping around in the wind, and she kept tucking stray strands behind her ear. At the time, he had no clue who she was. All he knew was that she was beautiful.

So he went up to her, chatted with her, asked her to coffee and then enjoyed one of the best afternoons with her that he'd ever had in his life. She was young, just barely eighteen, and even though it should have bothered him she seemed more worldly and mature than most eighteen year olds did.

And he was honest with her, about who he was...for the most part. He didn't bring up Angel, though he knew there may be a time when he had to do just that, and he didn't reveal that he knew Faith, even when Dawn gushed about how Faith was like a cooler sister and her real sister was more like her mom.

They had three, maybe four, coffees before she had to go. She gave him her phone number, asked him to call, maybe they could have dinner. She had no idea he'd been thinking the same thing, he was pretty sure. But he didn't have a phone at the moment, so this was perfect.

Only when he did call, it turned out that Faith did remember him. She wasn't angry, but she was wary, just as she had every right to be. She became the protective sister, grilling Lindsey about everything and making sure he was legit. She even called Angel and got the full story of his involvement and his escape from LA.

And then, miraculously, thankfully, she told Lindsey she wouldn't tell Dawn until he told her.

He didn't want to blow a good thing, so he told her that night. The look in her eyes, he was terrified she was going to leave. But she stayed. She appreciated his honesty and noted the fact he'd just been traveling for the last two or so years, not getting into trouble.

And that was the beginning of the purest, most loving relationship Lindsey had ever been in, and it is, to this day, the one thing in his life he holds dearest.