Disclaimer: Own nothing and no one used herein.
Title: Old Stories
Author: Rokwynd
Rating: T
Pairings: Canon Pairings for both series.
Fandom: Glee/Buffy crossover
Summary: Dawn Summers, Watcher, is assigned to Lima, Ohio.
Notes: Spoilers for all 7 seasons of Buffy and up to Episode 22 of Glee. Thanks as always to my beta DropEdge.
Graduation came and went in a blur for Dawn Summers. It was a rapid series of final exams, last-term-ever parties, packing her apartment, and finally walking on stage to receive her diploma. Now she was officially a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Sociology. The true wonder of it all had been that it had taken only six years. After all, it's not like most colleges were predisposed to accept an apocalypse as a good reason to miss final exams. One day, she had promised herself after a grueling stint of make-up exams, she would find the reason the world always wanted to end in May. But that was something for the future. Right now she had to worry about the next big hurdle and goal of her adulthood: being a Watcher.
It should have been simple, really. She was an adult now—even by Buffy standards. Naturally she had assumed she would be a Watcher on the Council. To be fair, they had offered her a job: a desk job filing reports from various slayer teams. Even Andrew would have been able to recognize the hand of the senior Scoobies in this. Her situation was made even clearer by the constant denials, and no one—including Xander—being able to look her in the eye. She guessed they had expected her to resign herself to a long and "safe" career with the Watcher's Council filing reports and researching.
Dawn was curled up in one of the ancient armchairs in the Council's main office libraries in London. At present she was miserably immersed in a dry, dusty tome trying to find more information for Xander about a South American tribe with which he had recently made contact. He had called her up asking for her specifically to do the research, so lacking the fortitude to withstand his resolve face she was spending Friday night at work doing more research. The tribe was far more obscure than she imagined, so she sat in a light sweater and jeans diligently looking for the information for Xander as it creeped closer and closer to midnight. At least she had tried, but the soft clink of a mug and saucer woke her up after another "short" nap to find Giles sitting beside her in another overstuffed chair in the now-empty library.
Rupert Giles had changed in the years following Sunnydale and the attack by the First. If Dawn had to guess, he was probably in his mid-fifties and possibly creeping toward his sixties. This only went to prove age was just a number; despite the time he spent behind a desk, Giles was as athletic as ever. Dawn had seen him working out in the training room with younger slayers and able to out-technique them despite their super-strength, and he was quite capable of putting her through her paces in weekly workouts with the Watcher staff. True, he had a few more battle scars. But at this point, didn't they all?
Now his quiet eyes watched Dawn as she blinked her way into wakefulness. Putting the book aside with a casual thump on the floor, she couldn't hide her smile as Giles winced slightly. Dawn gave in, rescuing the book from the floor and placing it with exaggerated care on the end table with a quick eyebrow lift toward Giles as if to say, "Happy now?" Dawn relaxed into the chair and began to sip gently at the tea. It was sweet with a hint of spice, from his special reserve if she had to guess. They sat in a sort of expectant silence, as if the room were waiting for the next words. Dawn had decided to hold out. If Giles wanted to talk, she would wait until he was ready rather than go barging into a conversation.
Ten minutes later—a personal best as far as Dawn was concerned—she heard Giles sigh, remove his glasses and began polishing the lenses.
"I know this isn't exactly what you expected, Dawn," he began. "After all these years helping and fighting, now you feel like you are going to waste your time buried inside Council headquarters. No, don't try to deny it. I noticed it a few days after you arrived. In the end, I suppose we all fell into old patterns, protecting those we love the most. Especially considering what happened in Los Angeles..."
Giles trailed off a bit at that, thinking of the still-unknown fate of Angel and his teammates.
"So instead of thinking I could take care of myself, you, Buffy and the others decided little Dawnie couldn't handle herself no matter how many times she's been in the fight," Dawn said bitterly. "Tell me, Giles, what did I do it for? Why am I filing reports when I should be doing something? Hell, Giles, I could have used my degree to get my Masters, join a research program, even teach..."
"Why didn't you?" Giles asked, gently cutting her off. "True, you could have done all those things. And if you had, you would have been remarkably successful. Instead you chose to become a Watcher. Was it habit or something else?"
"Because," Dawn grumbled, "I'm not exactly normal. None of us are; we've all seen too much. Not to mention the whole Key issue."
Dawn stood up and began pacing back and forth. "I'm not stupid. I'm a bit of a demon magnet—not as bad as Xander, true—but I can't live just anywhere. I know I have to watch out for myself every second, waiting for the next wannabe Glory or something worse because of who my sister is. In the end it has to be the Council, unless I want a squad of Slayers shadowing me day and night."
Giles gave a start and looked a tiny bit embarrassed as she said this, but she soldiered on.
"I saw them around campus, no matter how much you and Buffy claimed they weren't there. There weren't many students living in my college apartments, but girls carrying stakes tend to stand out. Just remember, I still plan on finding out who covered part of my rent. There is no way I could have afforded my place on my own, but that's beside the point."
She started to tear up a bit then. Not much, but enough to piss her off. She hadn't gone on a crying jag like this since a few years out of Sunnydale when she turned eighteen.
"So now in a place I pretty much helped build and organize, being your on-call girl for research and end-of-the-world badness. All I do every day is nothing. I take the reports I get, put them in drawers and otherwise waste my time." The exasperation was making her voice raw. "What do you want from me, Giles? I can't live every day like a glass doll that needs to be protected. I need to do something to actually help. I love Buffy and all you guys, but I can't live the life you put in front of me and be satisfied. You wouldn't be satisfied wrapped in wool. None of you would! So why should I?"
"It is rather simple, Dawn," Giles said, a look of understanding on his face mixed with what might have been a smirk as he stood up from his chair to face her. "You shouldn't settle. In fact, I was waiting…letting you decide for yourself what you wanted. If you had been happy doing paperwork and filing, then you would have been my personal assistant."
Giles gently placed his hands on her shoulders his eyes bright.
"Unfortunately for me and luckily for him, Andrew will retain his current post. You, however, are ready for something much more important."
Dawn looked at him, still angrily wiping her eyes. "What are you talking about, Giles?"
Giles's look bloomed into that warm smile she had seen him give Buffy and the others but she herself had only rarely received from him, a mixture of pride and amusement.
"What I am talking about, Dawn, is that you have proven yourself to be an actual Watcher. Every potential Watcher goes through the same thing: empty paperwork and office gossip." He shrugged at this. "It helps me weed out those who want to do, and those who simply wish to speak."
"If it helps any," he conceded, "it almost pains me more than it does you lot, forced to wait for the ones with talent instead of family connections to wise up and realize they aren't happy. You are now ready; I have need of talented, well-rounded Watchers, and it is not a great stretch to call you qualified by any objective measure."
She hugged him, and as she breathed in the scent of him she felt him hug her back just as hard. Of course, immediately after he stepped back and tried to regain that British reserve he wore around the office—although the smile was still in his eyes as he handed her a heavy packet from inside his suit jacket.
"What the Council needs from you, Dawn Summers,"—the formal words spoiled by the warmth in his voice—"is for you to go on special assignment to the town of Lima, Ohio."
"Lima? Where the heck in Ohio is Lima?" Dawn began, but Giles's gently raised hand cut her off.
"Your mission is twofold. Officially your responsibility will be to establish a satellite office for the Cleveland Hellmouth Branch. This office will take reports for the main office and all supplies needed for a viable second front. In reality, though, this could have been handed off to any member of the Council. What I need from you is slightly more unofficial. I need to know why the town has no magic."
"No magic," Dawn replied, the bafflement and curiosity evident in her voice. "That close to a hellmouth, the town should be swimming in it."
"Indeed," replied Giles. "Yet except for an occasional vampire attack most likely caused by transient vampires, the town remains void of demonic influence and magic. I need to know why. We have sent other Watchers before, but they have uncovered nothing. All their prior reports are included inside your packet."
Dawn squeezed the packet with an involuntary motion of her hands. Quirking an eyebrow at Giles, she spoke archly. "So how do I know this isn't another way ship me off to safety?"
"Simple" Giles said, his brows crinkling a bit. "No Watcher who entered Lima recovered his magical talents after an extended stay in town. I've spoken to Willow and the Coven, and they believe your talents will endure: primarily a factor of your being the Key, or so they claim. That aside, I am sending you because you are the only Watcher in your age group possessing the necessary field experience and qualifications for the cover story provided."
Dawn looked inside the packet and pulled out a piece of letterhead with a red, white and black logo near the top beside the date and began reading. Apparently McKinley High School was glad to welcome her as the newest teacher in the sociology department for the fall semester of 2009. A few other details were included in the envelope, including the standard form letter wishing her good luck, a map of the campus, a faculty listing and a brochure for affordable housing.
"We'll talk details in the morning after you've had a chance to review the information in the packet," Giles continued, pretending to be oblivious to the look on Dawn's face. "For now I wish you a good night."
Giles walked out of the library, and even through her excitement Dawn could see the smile on the older man's face. After taking a moment for the necessary and proper Snoopy dance, Dawn commandeered a large table, spread out the contents of the file, and began to explore what made Lima, Ohio, so special.