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Dawn sighed as she looked around Slayer Central. Buffy was chatting with Faith about the current training schedule for the Slayers in Training. Willow and Kennedy were making out under the mistletoe. Giles and Xander were reminiscing about Christmases past, and perhaps hitting the holiday cheer a little too hard. And SiTs were spread throughout the room in various little cliques. The murmur of conversation ebbed and flowed, a constant counterpoint to the Christmas music blaring over the stereo.

She wondered how she could feel so alone when she was surrounded by people. But it seemed like no matter how hard she tried she just couldn’t quite fit in. Nineteen years of memories—five of which were real—and she still felt like an alien. There might have been only a handful of people who actually knew that she was something other than the nineteen year old college student she appeared to be, but she knew. She knew that she wasn’t human, that she’d been created by some whacked out monks who couldn’t think of a better way of protecting a mystical object than making it human.

Of course even is she had been fully human, she still would have been the Slayer’s little sister. That made it hard on its own merit. Everyone in this room seemed to forget that she was more than Buffy’s little sister, or at least that’s all they treated her as.

She sighed again, and slipped unnoticed out the front door. She just wasn’t in the mood for a Christmas party right now. So instead she drove around. She headed out of Cleveland and found herself out on the back roads of Ohio. A copy of Bing Crosby’s Holiday Classics floated out of her little Jetta’s speakers. She absently hummed along, lost in her own thoughts.

Dawn had gone off to college to try to live a normal life, but she was starting to realize that she just wasn’t normal. She really wasn’t interested in the relatively shallow world that many of her classmates lived in. She knew too much about what went bump in the night to just forget. In all honestly she found most of her classmates to be trite, superficial creatures bound up in the hopelessly boring mundane world.

Dawn also found that she couldn’t stop wanting to help people. She just wanted to do it on her own terms instead of having to follow her sister’s orders. She wanted to be more than Buffy’s little sister, more than the Key. So she changed her major from History to Premed with extra study in nontraditional healing methods. She was also studying magic more thoroughly, though neither Willow nor Buffy knew. She had contacted the coven that had helped train Willow and asked them for guidance in her studies.

She was enjoying her life now, but still felt that there was something missing. She wanted someone who could understand what it was like to be different, someone she could tell her life story to without being locked up. She just wished that she had someone in her life that could understand her, fully and completely.

Dawn was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see the person step out in front of her car.

* * *

Clark Kent had had enough. He had had enough of Christmas, of holiday cheer, and of keeping secrets. He was tired of having to try so hard to be normal.

Clark glanced around the Talon at the people he had gone to high school with. On so many levels nothing had changed. Chloe was still the investigative reporter, Lana was still managing the Talon and still unattainable, Lex was still running Smallville and sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and his parents were still trying very hard to pretend he was perfectly normal. Yet things had also changed so very much. Chloe was now a journalism major at Metropolis University. He was no longer in love with Lana (that relationship having worked out badly). Lex was actually living in Metropolis, dating Chloe, and in general being a decent guy. Lex and Chloe were now working together to figure out Clark’s secret, and made quite the scary team. It was getting harder and harder to convince them that he was just a normal small town farm boy. Thankfully Clark was attending a different college, and in a different town. So he didn’t have to face the scary duo very often.

On seeing said duo scanning the room as if looking for someone in particular (he had a sneaky suspicion it was him), Clark utilized his super speed and fled into the crisp winter night. He didn’t want to face the Smallville inquisition. He would much rather be alone with his thoughts.

College had been an enlightening experience for Clark. He had discovered that he really liked writing. He was actually studying journalism himself. He never thought that he would be bitten with the investigative reporter bug, especially after he had picked on Chloe so much during high school. He was also finding it harder and harder to just be (or pretend to be) that small town farm boy.

He desperately wanted to find someone that he could share his true self with—someone who could accept him, alien heritage and all. Of course he was skeptical that anyone could since the last time he had decided to be honest about himself it had gone badly. Despite all the weird stuff that happened in Smallville, Lana had been unable to accept the fact that Clark was an alien. She had convinced herself that Clark had never told her (it had been a bad dream), and broke up with Clark shortly after that.

Clark wished that he could find someone he could relate to, someone who could understand him, fully and completely.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the headlights of the oncoming car when he stepped into the street.

* * *

There was a loud crash and Clark slammed into the hood of Dawn’s car, severely damaging the little Jetta. Thankfully Dawn hadn’t been driving that fast. Dawn slammed on the breaks and jumped out of the car praying to the goddess that she hadn’t killed the person. She felt her jaw drop when she realized that the (rather cute) young man didn’t have a scratch on him, while her car was nearly totaled.

Clark picked himself up of the ground and dusted himself off. One glance at the car and its (very pretty) shocked driver made him realize that he was going to have a hard time explaining this one.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I can’t believe I hit you. Should you be up and moving around? You certainly look okay. Drop dead gorgeous actually, but that’s another story…. And are you even human? Cause I don’t know of too many human things that can do that and walk around afterward? And I should stop babbling now,” Dawn blushed and looked mortified at her babble. She really thought she had lost that bad habit when she started college.

Clark blinked at the woman in front of him, “Human, of course I’m human ‘cause what else would I be.” He chuckled and rubbed the back of your neck. “Sorry about your car…”

“There are lots of things you could be other than human.” Dawn said while she stretched out her magic to get a “feel” for what he might be. She could tell by his aura that he wasn’t human, but he wasn’t a demon either. But he didn’t set off any of her alarms. So she didn’t think he was dangerous. She decided to trust her instincts.

Dawn smiled at the handsome brunette, “I wouldn’t worry about the car. It’s fixable.” She concentrated her magic, focused on her car and muttered a spell to fix it.

It was Clark’s turn to stand with his jaw hanging open as he watched the gorgeous brunette mutter a few words he didn’t understand, wave her hand, and fix her car.

“What!? H..how?” He blinked in confusion at the woman. “That’s just not possible.”

“Oh, but you wrecking my car by stepping in front of it, and coming out unscathed I might add, is perfectly normal? I don’t think so.”

“Well, um, you see…would you believe…” Clark stammered then looked sharply at Dawn and asked, “What would you believe?”

Dawn smiled feeling suddenly hopeful, “That you’re no more human than I am?”

Clark’s eyes widened. And he asked hopefully, though feeling a little bit scared, “You’re not human?”

“Nope.” Her sister would be totally pissed if she found out what Dawn was about to do. But her heart and soul told her that this was the right choice. She held out her hand and smiled a bit nervously. “Dawn Summers, mystical ball of energy in human form at your service.”

Clark blinked and wondered if he could trust her, if he could believe her. All of his instincts screamed that he could, that this might be his only chance to find someone who might understand. His parents would be pissed if they found out, but he thought it might just be worth it. Reaching out to take her hand he introduced himself, “Clark Kent, alien being sent to Earth as a baby and raised by humans here in Smallville. It sounds like you have quite the story to tell, Dawn.”

Dawn grinned widely, “Sounds like you do, too, Clark. Maybe we could exchange stories over a cup of coffee? Or something?”

Clark grinned back at her, “That would be great, but how ‘bout we make that sharing stories and getting to know each other over dinner and coffee someone other than Smallville?” He looked trepidatiously over at the Talon.

“That would be fine. We can even take my car…if you don’t mind riding off into the winter night with a stranger? Though honestly I don’t feel like you’re much of a stranger…”

Clark rubbed his thumb across the back of Dawn’s had gently. “I don’t feel like you’re much of a stranger, either. So shall we go?” He gestured towards her car.

Dawn nodded, and the two of them got into her little green Jetta. They drove off into the clear, wintry night singing softly along with Bing Crosby, two lonely souls who had finally found comfort and the hope of something a little bit more.