Author’s note: Some dialogue taken from ‘Reptile Boy’

Wulfie, please consider this your belated birthday gift. I’m sorry it’s so late. I know you asked for it during the xmas holiday.

Thanks to the wonderful BTL for the beta!.

Disclaimer: pfft, right like I own them.

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Chapter 13: Making things worse

While it was enjoyable to watch Angel defend himself from the accusations of Joyce, Dawn was conscious of the fact that Buffy was looking more and more uncomfortable. Xander was enjoying the escapades too, but every once in a while he’d look over at Dawn as if trying to reconcile what was going on.

“Are you okay with this?” Dawn asked Xander. “Me being Buffy’s sister?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just, I’ve known Buffy for a while now, and you weren’t around before,” Xander explained.

“True.”

“Are you going to explain that?” he asked.

“Nope. Not today anyway. And if you could not tell Giles that I am Buffy’s sister that would be great too.”

“Why can’t we tell Giles?” Buffy asked, interrupting her mother’s questions to Angel.

“The nice librarian?” Joyce asked. “Does he know about the vampires too?”

Dawn then realised that she’d just made things worse.

____________________

Dawn was just glad to get out of the house alive. She tugged Xander’s hand leaving the shouting to the Slayer, her mom, and the undead boyfriend. Now that everything was out in the open, it might be better for Buffy, or also that Angel would leave sooner. Joyce had that effect on him, if Dawn remembered correctly.

“So are you going to make with the explaining? You are Buffy’s sister?” Xander asked, pulling her back onto the porch of 1630 Revello drive.

“I thought I said not today?” Dawn queried.

“Now’s as good a time as any other,” Xander pressed. “Are you younger or older? I’m assuming older.”

“Assume makes an ass out of you and me,” Dawn chuckled to herself. “Younger, and older.”

“Rewinding…” noted Xander with a complimentary hand gesture.

“I am either five years younger than Buffy, 19 years younger than Buffy or millions of years older than Buffy,” Dawn explained. “Then add to that the fact that I’m over a thousand years old in this human shell I call home… Time, age, it all has ceased to mean much to me.”

“This is my mind,” noted Xander pointing to his head. “This is my mind trying to comprehend that.” Xander made a noise that resembled an explosion.

“You see why this wasn’t a good idea?” Dawn sighed. “You want me to help you with your homework? Then maybe we can fool around?”

“You are the best girlfriend ever.”

“And yet…” whispered Dawn knowing that very soon he would forget that she had been his girlfriend, and start hanging out in closets with Cordelia Chase.

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The next day, Dawn wasted her time fruitfully in the student lounge catching up on useful things like Cosmo, which she decided was very important in light of the fact that she’d decided to postpone her world tour until Wolfram and Hart could give her a useful place to start from. It was good to have lawyers that would bend over backwards for you for a drop of your blood.

Dawn had tried to ignore Buffy and Willow’s conversation, but fragments of memory perked up at certain intervals. Like when Buffy mentioned that she was going to a frat party.

“What made you change your mind?” Willow asked as she gathered her things.

“Angel,” her sister responded.

Dawn studied her sisters countenance. Buffy was not happy with her undead lover at the moment.

“He's going with you?” Willow asked.

At that moment Xander walked in, fresh from academic failure of the algebra variety. He sat down on the couch next to Dawn and grabbed her hand possessively.

“She's got a date with Angel! Isn't that exciting?” Willow continued.

“I'm elated,” Xander responded, not bothering to look at the two girls who were talking but into Dawn‘s blue eyes. “I‘m thinking of skipping history,” Xander noted, as Buffy and Willow waited for him to stand and follow them to class.

“You are not skipping!” Willow hissed, moving towards Xander as if to poke him.

“I‘ll walk you to class,” Dawn said helpfully, she did not want the wrath of Willow on her head today. Buffy was already refusing to talk to her.

Reluctantly Xander rose from the couch.

“I…I'm not going with Angel. I'm going with… ye gods … Cordelia,” Buffy stated, resuming the previous conversation, as she started walking out of the lounge area.

“Cordelia?!” Willow nearly shouted. “Did I sound a little jealous just then, 'cause I'm not really…” the red head said to Xander and Dawn before running after Buffy who had walked on. “Cordelia?!”

“Cordelia's much better for you than Angel,” Xander noted wisely letting Willow and Buffy hurry down the hall.

“Oh no, I want to know what happens,” said Dawn. “This is extra special Buffy life glimpses.” She pulled Xander down the hall towards the two girls.

“What happened with Angel?” Willow asked the Slayer.

“Nothing, as usual. A whole lotta nothing with Angel,” Buffy explained. “Even after the outing by a certain brunette time traveller, who happens to be my sister. Angel makes no moves of the move variety.”

“Bummer,” was Xander‘s remark on that topic, as he was more interested in Dawn.

“I don't understand. I mean, he likes you. More than likes,” confirmed Willow. “Sister?”

“Angel barely says two words to me,” Buffy sighed.

“Don't you hate that?” Dawn snorted.

“And when he does, he treats me like I'm a child,” Buffy responded as if she hadn’t heard Dawn.

“That bastard!” Dawn said in faux incredulity.

“You know, at least Tom can carry on a conversation,” Buffy continued.

“Yeah! Tom? Who's Tom?” Xander asked, his attention finally caught by something other than Dawn, once an actual name was mentioned.

“The frat guy,” Willow explained.

“Oh, Buffy, I don't think so. Frying pan, fire? You know what I'm sayin'?” advised Xander, letting his hand leave Dawn’s as they arrived at their classroom door.

As Willow, Buffy, and Xander disappeared into the classroom Dawn thought about this latest info on her sister. Buffy was going to a frat party. This was something she didn’t remember from her past. It was possible that this was going to be one thing that she was going to have to investigate.

Cordelia was conveniently in the bathroom down the hall from Xander’s history class, applying touch ups on her lipstick. Dawn parked herself on Cordelia’s left and stared at her reflection until Cordy decided to stop and pay attention.

“What do you want?” Cordelia said with a sneer, looking Dawn up and down.

“I want to know where and when this party is that you are going to,” Dawn explained. “I don’t want to go with you, because that would be scraping a barrel so low I don’t I could possibly recover from the stoop, but if it’s a cool party I might want to check it out.”

Cordelia scoffed. “What makes you think that they would let you in the front door?”

“Let that be my problem,” Dawn advised the cheerleader.

“Then it can be your problem finding out the where and the when too,” Cordelia said returning her gaze to the mirror and her lips.

“Oh, see I thought I’d ask you, because then I can say that you are my ‘friend’ at the party. Coolness factor and all.”

“How could knowing you be cool?” Cordelia asked.

“Let me count the ways,” Dawn noted, leaving Cordelia in the echo-y bathroom.

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By the time Dawn had gotten pumped up for another session with Giles, she’d already discovered the location, the time and the names of most of the most popular frat boys out of another student playing hooky.

Harmony Kendall was just such a wealth of information.

“The way I see it,” Dawn said as Giles jotted down notes. “Every school year there was a big bad, and around May, the hellmouthiness froths over. This year, it’s Buffy’s fault, but I’m working on that one. Really I am. And it’s personal, so just back off. Next year it’s the Mayor.”

“The Mayor?”

“Richard Wilkins the third. The Mayor. The nice man that gets Buffy back into school after she gets expelled…wait, that hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, he’s been the mayor since like forever?”

“He can’t be more than fifty years old Dawn. You are exaggerating.”

“No, actually I’m not. He sold his soul to be a demon. He founded the place. Made it all happy for the demons. But don’t worry about that, that’s next year’s problem. Oh…and speaking of next year. Don’t you dare do that slayer rite of passage thing on Buffy when she turns eighteen. Understand? Don’t.”

Giles wrote something down in his notebook and nodded.

“I may actually request a contract, witnessed by my lawyers to that effect. Don’t do it Giles. I don’t care what Quinton ‘I-have-something-up-my-ass’ Travers tells you.”

“You were saying about next year?”

“Right, the Mayor. Big bad. After the Mayor, there’s a period of depression when Buffy goes to college. You should start looking into what you are going to do once Buffy goes to college. You can’t be the librarian anymore when she leaves. I suggest opening a magic shop. I think you’d be good at it.”

“You think so?” Giles asked setting down his pen.

“No, I know so, Giles…”

“Right, you are from the future. Go on.”

“I think you should get ready for when Buffy arrives for her training session,” Dawn suggested, getting the issue of Cosmo that she had been reading out. “I can’t give away all my secrets in one day you know. And you only have half a day left to prepare.”

“I have noticed that you haven’t been doing very much research lately,” Giles noted as he stood up from the table and went to put his notebook away.

“I’ve got people on it,” Dawn responded, refusing to say much more. No doubt that Giles knew exactly what sort of law firm Wolfram and Hart were, and he would hardly approve of associating with them, as Dawn was doing. “You using the sword tonight, or the cross bow? I think Buffy needs sword practice personally.”

“Is that a hint?” Giles asked. “Is there a climatic sword fight in Buffy’s future?”

“Might be,” said Dawn turning a page where there lay fifty ways to turn on your man without trying to. “Course, there could be a climatic jello fight in her future too. That cafeteria is a death trap if you ask me. I think the lunch lady is psychopathic.”

The library doors swung open, revealing Buffy, Willow, and Xander.

“I knew it! I knew she was putting something in the food!” Xander said in response to Dawn’s comment.

“Next year, Xander,” noted Dawn, as the dark haired teen sat down beside her.

“How did it go last night?” Giles asked Buffy, ignoring the lunch lady comments.

“Do you mean the disastrous dinner with Angel, my mother, Xander and her!” said Buffy pointing. “Or do you mean patrol?”

“I was referring to patrol,” noted the watcher.

“Found this,” the slayer responded with an annoyed look. She handed him something silvery, that Dawn hadn’t seen.

“E-N-T” Giles read off the piece of metal.

“I’ve seen something like that before,” added Willow, trying to helpful.

“It’s broken in two. I don’t know what the rest of the letters might have spelled. And there’s blood on it,” continued Buffy.

“Uh, I didn’t see any,” said, Giles, turning the metal object in his hands.

“Angel showed up. He could smell it,” Buffy answered. “He was trying to apologise for the crappiness of the dinner.”

“It wasn’t so much his fault as that the sky is blue, you know, during that time of day when he can’t be outside,” Dawn answered, turning her attention back to Cosmo.

“He could smell the blood? There's a guy you wanna party with,” quipped Xander, earning him a peck on the cheek from Dawn.

“Blood,” confirmed Giles.

“In Sunnydale. What a surprise,“ noted Willow.

“Okay, here's what we're gonna do: she should probably make the rounds again tonight, and we should try to figure out who that bracelet belongs to,” decided Xander, which made Dawn want to laugh, but she held it in.

Take charge Xander really needed some work before his Nick Fury stage.

“Yes, good idea, yes. She'll patrol, and, and we'll reconvene…” started Giles.

“Uh, hello?” interrupted the Slayer in question. “She's standing right here? And she's not available.”

All eyes turned towards Buffy. Dawn in particular was most interested in how Buffy was going to get out of patrolling to go the frat party.

“Why not?” Giles asked.

“Buffy, this is a little more important than... “ Xander started, but here Buffy interrupted again.

“I've got a mountain of homework to do, and, um... my mom's not really feeling well, and she could probably use my help, and, um, to be truthful I'm not really feeling all that well myself.”

Dawn felt her jaw drop and it took her a moment to realize that she and Willow were having the same moment of shock.

“Oh, w-w-well, um, sorry, of course. If-if-if you're not well,” back tracked Giles, sounding like he didn’t quite believe it.

“Oh, I'll take an early pass this evening, and, um, one later on, but for the bulk of the evening…“

“Oh, you should stay home with your mother,” Giles confirmed.

Buffy looked pleased, but at the same time was trying to look semi unwell. Dawn hadn’t heard such a load of crap since… well a good long time. Buffy turned to go, and Willow followed her out the door. In an instant, Dawn was up, bidding goodbye to Giles and pulling Xander out into the hall.

Once there, Dawn, Willow, and Xander all stared at Buffy.

“Well, say it,” Buffy said, looking somewhat ashamed of herself.

“I'm not gonna say it,” said Xander.

“You lied to Giles,” Willow spat, unable to hold it in any longer.

“'Cause she will,” Xander continued.

“Look, I wasn't lying. I was just... protecting him from information that he wouldn't be able to... digest properly,” Buffy tried to explain herself.

“Like a corn dog,” Xander commented to his girlfriend, to which she nodded.

“Like you don't have a sick mother, but you'd rather go to a frat party where there's gonna be drinking and older guys and probably an orgy,” noted Willow with a slightly twinge of hysteria in her voice.

“Whoa!” exclaimed the only male in the group. “Whoa-ho-ho, rewind. Since when do they have orgies, and why aren't I on the mailing list?”

“There's no orgies!” Buffy spat.

“Betcha there is an orgy,” Dawn observed.

“I heard a lot of wild things go on at frat parties,“ Willow complained.

“I haven’t been to an orgy in such a long time,” Dawn noted wistfully.

“Okay, you know what? Look, seven days a week I am busy saving the world. Once in a great while I wanna have some fun. And that's what I'm gonna have tonight. Fun!” Buffy declared, unwilling to listen to any further chastisement.

Dawn was certain that fun was going to be had tonight. But she wasn’t certain that it was going to be Buffy who was going to be the one having the fun.

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Tbc.