Summery: Dawn wakes up.

Disclaimer: The pixies tell me that there’s this Joss guy that owns Buffy and all her friends.

Author’s note: Some dialogue from Inca Mummy Girl. Once again BTL rocks my socks, ‘cause she’s a great beta.

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Chapter 7: Dying sucks

Dawn felt herself being poked in the leg.

Coming back to life was always a weird feeling, even more so when she remembered that she was killed in a dark factory and she was clearly not there now. Dawn was pretty sure she was outside.

A cool breeze blew across her face and her fingers down at her sides felt what seemed to be grass beneath her. It was bright, she didn’t need to open her eyes to discover that fact, and she was still being poked by a stick.

Dawn cracked open an eye to confirm her suspicions. The sun was high in the sky and a small brown haired boy was poking her leg with a stick.

“Hey!” Dawn moaned. “Cut that out!”

The startled child stepped back, a small shriek resounded through the nearby trees, bringing the child’s mother running.

“What are you doing, lying in the cemetery?” asked the child. “I thought you were dead.”

Dawn sat up and glared at the child. “And that would make you gross, poking a dead body with a stick. What are you doing playing in a cemetery?”

“I can play where I want,” noted the child defiantly, looking back at his mother for approval.

Dawn cast a glance at the mother and rolled her eyes before walking off in the direction of her house. She raised her hand to where Spike had bitten her, crusted dried blood marring the collar of her shirt, but there was no scar.

She clearly had to get changed, and showered; the mud where the minions had dropped her was now caked all along her back, her long brown hair full of twigs and leaves.

It made her mad. Spike made her mad. Stupid vampire. And her own foolishness made her mad.

Dawn stormed into her house and made a beeline for the shower, trying not to get any mud on the carpet as she walked.

Stupid vampire.

When Dawn stepped out of the shower, she found Xander standing in her bedroom as if he was waiting for her, a worried expression on his face.

“Xander,” she said with a forced smile. “How’ve you been?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing,” he started. “You’ve been gone for two days.”

“Yep, that sounds about right,” Dawn muttered to herself.

Dying did have its drawbacks. That two day waiting period, for instance. Just enough time to get declared dead, and to wake up in the funeral home, wearing some purple monstrosity that your husband though was okay to be buried in.

No, she wasn’t bitter.

“Sorry about worrying you,” she said aloud, making her way to her dresser to find new clothes. The clothes she had died in where now safely thrown in the bathroom waste bin.

Dawn turned around with a new set of clothes in her hands to find Xander had crept up on her.

“I missed you,” he whispered, possibly in attempt of some sort of sexy voice.

Dawn had a hard time keeping back the giggle that wanted to issue from her mouth. Luckily, Xander leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips, cutting off any giggle that might not have been taken well. Dawn dropped the clothes and wrapped her arms around her lover’s neck, caught up in the kiss, her towel dropping to the floor.

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Dawn looked up from her place on the bed, as Xander dressed. He had to go to school. Stupid school.

“So are you going to tell me how you got really young looking?” he asked. “You look fourteen.”

The alarm bells started ringing in her head. Time to avoid.

“Your parents don’t mind that you don’t come home on occasion?” she asked with a sleepy smile.

Xander looked up from putting on his shoes and glared at her. “You are changing the subject.”

“Maybe I don’t want to answer the question,” she responded. “There are some things that I don’t think you are ready to handle yet.”

“I’d like to think that’s ‘cause you are older and wiser, but forgive me if I don’t quite buy it this time. Again, fourteen.”

“Yes, which you didn’t’ seem to mind last night.”

“I was just really glad to see you,” he muttered, his cheeks flushing.

Dawn sat up in the bed, letting the covers fall, before she let her feet hit the ground and came to stand in front of her bed buddy. Putting her finger under his chin, she forced him to look her in the eye.

“Xander, if I tell you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me. You’d tell Willow and Buffy, and they don’t particularly like me at the moment. Just know that whatever age I look like, I am always the same Dawn. And I’ll try not to get any younger.”

“Promise?” he asked. “’Cause I’d hate to wake up beside a four year old.”

“Fourteen is as young as I’ve ever been,” she said truthfully.

When the perplexed look hit his face, Dawn placed a soft kiss on his lips, and stepped away.

“School? Remember? You’re going to be late.”

Xander nodded and went to put his shoes on again.

“You know, it is hard to concentrate when your girlfriend is standing naked three feet in front of you.”

“I’m sure it would be the same if I wasn’t your girlfriend,” she commented, a little note of sadness creeping into her voice.

She knew that sometime soon, the first test of Anya’s vengeance wish was going happen.

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Dawn entered the library just after the last bell rung for the day. Xander sat with a notebook open, presumably doing homework. Without hesitating, Xander patted the seat beside him, and Dawn sat down after she’d grabbed a tome off the table. She flipped the book open as Xander gave her a peck on the cheek.

Though her more youthful appearance wasn’t news to Xander, Buffy and Giles seemed to be taken aback.

“What happened? You left for two days to get a youth spell?” asked Buffy, annoyed.

“Nope,” Dawn answered, not giving her sister her attention. “It just sometimes happens. You know, like how sometimes you fall for vampires, or sometimes you lie to your mother,” noted Dawn with a smile.

“So not the same thing,” Buffy retorted.

Dawn looked up at Giles, expecting him to confront her about the same thing, only to be met with the man polishing his glasses uncomfortably. He looked like he knew something. Her eyes never left him as he very clearly tried to look at her neck.

With a smile, she craned her neck to the side where Spike had bitten her, showing Giles how there was no bite mark.

“Wasn’t turned Giles, not a vampire. Even if I was, I wouldn’t look I belong in junior high,” Dawn responded.

“Huh?” asked Xander looking up from his notebook. “Why do you think she’s a vampire? She’s all heart beat-y.”

“I saw her dead in Shady Pines last night,” noted the watcher. “Blood on her neck.”

Dawn nodded, closing her the book she had in her hands. “And how did you know that I was dead, maybe I like sleeping in cemeteries? In mud puddles?” She gave an involuntary cringe. “Okay, so I’m not really even convincing myself. “

“So what happened?” Xander asked, placing his hand on her arm.

Dawn sighed. “I’m Immortal,” she stated.

“Immortal?” asked Buffy.

“Can’t die? Geez Giles, get your slayer to crack a dictionary once in a while,” Dawn spouted. “I kinda die, then about two days later I wake up, and look like a fourteen year old. Happens the same way every time, no matter what age I was when I kicked the bucket.”

“But you aren’t a vampire?” asked Giles.

“Vampire’s dust, stake through the heart, decapitation, sunlight, holy water. You’ve seen me in the sun. Give me some holy water, and hell I’ll drink it. Please don’t cut off my head or put a stake through my heart though, ‘cause it’s really painful.”

“You’ve been decapitated before?” asked Giles in awe.

Dawn nodded.

“Why?” asked Buffy with suspicion.

“Can we not talk about it?” asked Dawn. “I mean, shouldn’t you be training? Shouldn’t Xander be doing his homework?”

Giles cleared his throat. “Dawn is correct.”

“Great, someone else who listens to the intruder,” commented Buffy.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes as Giles and Buffy prepared for training. Dawn opened her book and Xander returned to his unfinished homework. He asked for help on a particular question, breaking the silence, but Dawn just laughed and told him that he’d never learn if he didn’t do it himself.

“That’s what Willow would have said,” the boy muttered.

Dawn smiled and returned to her book. Buffy, who was beating the crap out of the pads Giles was holding, kept sending Dawn glares, between hits and asking Giles about the dance.

“So, can I go?” Buffy asked her watcher.

“I think not,” Giles answered back.

Dawn looked back at her book as Buffy continued her blows to the pads. She had always loved being there when Buffy and Giles trained.

“How come?” Buffy pouted as Giles changed pads.

“Because you are the Chosen One,” responded the watcher.

“Mm. Just this once I'd like to be the Overlooked One.”

“Well, I'm... afraid that is not…” started Giles, before Buffy kicked the pad hard enough to make him stagger backwards a couple of steps.

“You have responsibilities that other girls do not,” noted Giles, recovering from the blow.

“Oh! I know this one! Slaying entails certain sacrifices, blah, blah, bity blah, I'm so stuffy, gimme a scone,” Buffy commented, earning looks from everyone in the room,

Xander was amused, Giles not so much. Dawn just looked at her sister blankly.

“It's as if you know me,” Giles responded sarcastically.

As Buffy continued kicking, Dawn couldn’t help but think that all those years that she’d been Buffy’s little kid sister, and had wanted to tag along for training and patrols, she never thought that Buffy had been so snarky to the man who was giving it his all to train her, so she wouldn’t die, again.

“Your secret identity is going to be difficult enough to maintain while this exchange student is living with you,” continued Giles.

“An exchange student who is coming, according to my mom, only because Dawn wouldn’t give up her big mansiony house to come live in the spare bedroom,” noted Buffy, glaring at the brunette.

Dawn smiled back.

“Actually, I think I like the exchange student,” continued Buffy. “Even though my watcher decided that I shouldn’t go to the dance.” Buffy looked up at her watcher with pouty eyes. “I think going to the dance like a normal person would be the best way to keep the whole secret identity thing, you know, secret. Giles, come on, budge! No one likes a non- budger.”

Giles remained silent, until Buffy stepped back as if she was going to strike the pads he was holding really hard.

“FINE!” Giles cringed, hoping she wouldn’t carry though her intention. Which she didn’t.

“Go,” he conceded.

“Yay! I win,” commented Buffy with a smile.

“I'll just go and introduce my shoulder to an icepack,” muttered the watcher heading to his office.

Xander stood up from his chair and stepped towards his friend. “So, I guess we're dance-bound. Cool. I think I can get my mom's car, so I'm wheel man,” he said proudly.

Buffy looked from Xander to Dawn and back again. “I thought you were taking Willow?”

“Well, yeah, I'm gonna take Willow, but I'm not gonna take Willow. In the sense of 'take me'. Willow, Dawn, you, me. It’s like Xander and his harem.”

Dawn burst out laughing. “Xander’s harem? Good one Xander.”

“Don’t be jealous,” he started, putting his hand on Dawn’s shoulder. “I’ve got love enough for all my girls.”

At that moment, Willow walked in a worried look on her face.

“Hey guys,” greeted the novice witch.

“Willow!” exclaimed Xander walking up to his friend. “At last the harem is complete. Hi! We were just talkin' about happy things.”

Xander wrapped his arm around Willow and pulled her towards Buffy, where he put his other arm around the Slayer. Xander then looked at Dawn and realised that he couldn’t do the same thing to her. He’d ran out of arms.

“Like the three of us going to the dance together. See?” he continued with a laugh. “Happy!”

Except Willow didn’t smile. The worried look had continued.

“Not happy,” Xander observed.

“No. Uh, oh, y-yes. No. Rodney's missing,” Willow explained.

“Rodney?” questioned Dawn. She wasn’t aware that they had a new friend named Rodney.

Giles plodded out of his office, icepack in hand to hear this new development. “Trouble with Mr.

Munson again?”

“His parents say he never came home last night,” continued Willow.

“Y'know, I don't think I remember seeing Rodney on the bus back from the field trip,” said Buffy, a perplexed look on her face.

“I didn't either. I hope he didn't get in trouble at the museum,” added Willow.

Dawn rolled her eyes. Teachers who don’t check attendance on the bus before leaving a field trip? Yep, only in Sunnydale.

Xander laughed as a thought occurred to him. “Hey, maybe he awakened the mummy.”

Willow giggled along with him. “Right, and it rose from its tomb.”

“And attacked him,” added Buffy.

The smiles on their faces faded all at once, and the three looked at Giles, who was sharing their alarm. Dawn just rolled her eyes again. Inca Mummy Girl. It had begun. Dawn looked over at Xander and wondered just how long this would take him away from her.

In truth, she was enjoying having someone again. It had been far too long. Even if he was immature, made stupid jokes, and was far too clingy sometimes.

Dawn kissed Xander goodbye as they headed off to the museum. She refused to go; no way was she going to some stuffy old museum to see a mummy, who wasn’t’ even there.

A little over an hour later, they all came back in looking even more perplexed and worried than before.

“Rodney looked like he had been dead for five hundred years. How could that be?” asked Willow.

Dawn still wasn’t sure who this Rodney person was.

“Maybe we should ask that crazy man with the big old knife?” supplied Xander.

“I don't think he seemed overly chatty,” commented Buffy.

“The way he bolted when he saw Rodney, I'd say he was as freaked as we were,” added Willow.

“My resources on this subject are extremely limited. I-I gather that this particular mummy was from the Sebancaya region of eastern Peru. It's very remote. Now, if there's an answer, then it's, it's locked in the…” explained Giles.

“ ...in the seal,” supplied Buffy.

They all looked at the pieces of the seal in question. Dawn even got up from her chair to look at it. She’d never seen it before, of course, but with that one look, Dawn knew exactly what language it was, and pretty much had it all read before Giles spoke again.

“It's gonna take me weeks to... translate these pictograms. Well, we'll start tonight with…”

“Ampata!” Buffy interrupted.

Everyone looked up at Buffy, uncertain if she had lost her mind. Dawn was pulling for insanity, but then that wish only ever came true once, and then she was nearly fed to a demon, so that really didn’t work out the way she wanted.

“I was gonna suggest hunting,” supplied Giles.

“No, I'm late. I told my mom I'd pick him up,” Buffy explained.

“Uh-uh-uh, Buffy? Where are your priorities? Tracking down a mummifying killer or making time for some Latin lover whose stock in trade is the breakage of hearts?” asked Xander.

“Ampata's there alone. And I-I don't know how good his English is. He's here from South A... South America. Hey, y'know, maybe he could translate the seal,” offered Buffy.

Giles was nodding, contemplating the offer.

“Oh, yeah. Fall for the old 'let me translate that ancient seal for ya' come on. Tsh. D'ya know how many times I've used that?” ranted Xander.

Dawn grabbed Xander’s discarded notebook and pulled a page out of it and sat down next to the seal.

“What are you doing?” asked Buffy.

Dawn looked up from the seal and stared back at her sister.

“Don’t you have a Latin lover to pick up?” Dawn retorted. “You’d better get going if you are going to save him from the evil that roams the streets at night.”

Xander gave her another kiss and followed Buffy and Willow out of the room. Dawn looked back at him with sad eyes.

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Tbc…