Title: Old Stories (9/?)
Author: Rokwynd
Rating: M for language
Pairings: Canon Pairings for Glee and Xander/Dawn for Buffy.
Fandoms: Glee/Buffy
Summary: Dawn Summers, Watcher is assigned to Lima, Ohio.
Notes: Spoilers for all 7 seasons of Buffy and up to the finale of Glee. Thanks for all of the reviews and welcome to you new readers. Some dialogue is taken from the episode "Pilot-Director's Cut." These aren't my characters or worlds I am just playing around with them.

Work on Monday should have been boring and/or grindy; after all, Dawn was technically healthy again and in these walls the weird kiss in the parking lot never happened. Focus. Yes, that was exactly what she needed: to focus on the normal—well, as normal as anything got around McKinley. Case in point: as she walked the halls right before her lunch period and turned the corner right into the aftermath of a slushie skirmish.

In an instant she snapped into Watcher mode and surveyed the wreckage. The colors of choice today seemed to be red and purple, causing the entire hall to resemble a blood clot. There were no students around, of course; that would make things too easy. Dawn decided to sweep for survivors in the nearest set of bathrooms. When she approached the bathroom alcove she was rewarded with four sets of footprints heading into the girls' room. Taking a brief look inside the boys' restroom only to find it empty, she paused, collected herself and strode into the girls' restroom.

She really should have known. Gathered around the cluster of sinks were Rachel, Tina, Mercedes and… Kurt? The quartet was so focused on washing what she hoped was just slushie out of Tina's and Mercedes's hair that they never looked up. Then again, she thought unkindly before she could catch herself, if I had been in the room that close to Mercedes complaining, I might have missed an entrance, too.

"Honestly, Cedes, if you don't stop I'm going to leave you the way you are," Kurt chided his overly vocal friend. "Rachel, hand me the shampoo in my bag."

Before Rachel could untangle herself from Tina, Dawn had already snatched the shampoo from Kurt's admittedly beautiful bag and walked up to stand next to the singer.

"Here you are, Kurt," she said, handing him the bottle and voice brimming with casual helpfulness. "Anything else I can grab for you guys?"

Dawn had to give him credit for quick reflexes; he had just grabbed the bottle from her hand before his eyes widened in shock.

"Ms. Summers?," he squeaked as his face paled to transparency and his compatriots paused at their posts.

"Hey, guys," she greeted them with a wave, as if finding four of her kids in a spa session was perfectly natural. Well, it might just be at that, and some of her good humor cooled at that thought.

"So, who's going to tell me what really happened?" Dawn asked after giving Mercedes and Tina a chance to get clear of sinks so they wouldn't drown due to shock.

The quartet traded concerned looks with one another, but nobody spoke up. Dawn crossed her arms over her chest and gave the students her best glare. These kids were good—they all shrank back under a gaze she had worked on to quell junior Slayers—but nobody talked. Time to get a little creative, she thought to herself.

"That's cool," she said, once again feigning only casual interest. "If you guys want to come with me, I'll get my detention forms and I can get to lunch." She stopped and licked her lips almost absently. "Coach Tanaka is picking up Chinese. I just love sesame chicken. Don't you?"

That got them talking.

"Detention? For what?" Kurt asked, sounding wounded.

"Hold up!" Mercedes piped in, shifting toward righteous anger.

"W-w-what?" Tina murmured, confused and a little hurt.

And, of course, Rachel of all people couldn't let it pass. "Detention? Ms. Summers, what did we do to deserve that?"

"Oh, I don't know, guys. I can think of a couple things." Dawn began to tick them off on her fingers "The mess in the hall, cutting class…" She stopped a moment, as if thinking. "Oh, and then there's the little fact of your being in the girls' room, Kurt."

The mixed look of hurt and shock on their faces almost made Dawn break character. She was trying to figure out how exactly to make "just kidding" sound professional when the door opened and Artie rolled in, lap loaded down with clothes.

"Ah, yes. The fifth Beatle," she mused as Artie skidded to a stop. "I should have known."

She let the kids stew for a minute while Artie numbly handed out clothes to the four kids in the room before clapping to get everyone's attention. "Okay, guys, here's how it's going to go. Someone has to tell me something. There's too much mess out there to pass off as nothing."

Dawn watched for a moment as they passed the denial ball back and forth to each other. After the third pass she decided it was time to take a calculated risk.

"Rachel, do you want to tell me why you threw slushies all over the hallway?"

Dawn didn't really listen as Rachel began her earnest (and possibly Oscar-winning) speech dramatically proclaiming her innocence; instead, she watched the four others. Rachel was at least two minutes into her denial and diatribe when the other kids began to overcome their panic and catch onto the teacher's plan. Rachel was on a roll by then, however, so she missed the anxious will-you-please-shut-the-fuck-up-now looks her fellow glee clubbers shot her way.

"It's really unfair, Ms. Summers. We were leaving your class, and then these brutish thugs came up and threw their slushies at us."

There we go, Dawn thought. She raised her hand in a gesture for silence she had learned from a music theater major with whom she had roomed very briefly.

"Jocks, huh?" She tried to sound skeptical. "I really hope there's a good reason for them to do this."

"Like those fools ever need a reason," Mercedes grumbled. Then she winced, realizing she had spoken the thought aloud.

"True," Dawn admitted. "But this is a little extreme, even for them. What's up?"

"Near as we can tell, this is payback for Finn," Artie half-mumbled, not looking her in the face. "The other jocks blame us for Finn joining Glee."

"Right. So they blame you, and the next logical step is to give the hallway a slushie makeover." She paused to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Awesome. Can you guys give me any names?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

Five heads shook no in numb unison.

Dawn straightened up and looked over the kids, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

"I get it: you don't want to get caught for getting anyone in trouble." Dawn stepped away from the wall and spoke gently. "That won't always work, guys. I can keep you out of trouble today because anyone with half a brain can tell you guys were the targets, but silence isn't always going to be your best solution. Running from things only works for so long."

The kids all looked at her with a wary but respectful silence.

"Fine," she sighed, then looked at Kurt. "One last question. Why are you in the girls' bathroom?"

"Have you seen the guys' bathroom," he answered with a scornful shudder. "Plus, the lighting in here is better."

Dawn just nodded at that, though she couldn't shake the feeling Kurt wasn't telling her everything.

"Fair enough," Dawn conceded wryly, "Just don't let me catch you in the girls' room again without a good reason, or refusing to leave if a girl asks you to."

Given everything they have been through today—and the fact it was time for lunch—she almost ignores Kurt's relieved sigh.

"All right, guys. Here's how this is going to work." Dawn once again leaned against the wall, watching the little group. "Considering we have all of three minutes until lunch period, it would be a waste of time to send you guys back to class. We lucked out. Most of you missed my class, so today only I'm going to excuse it. Artie, tell Mr. Soloman to talk to me if he has any problems."

All the kids looked stunned at not getting written up, and Dawn wondered if she was losing her edge.

"What are you waiting on, folks? Get changed, go to lunch, and I'll see everyone at Glee." She started walking toward the door and turned around. "Kurt, Artie, come on."

She ignored the exasperated sighs from the boys and waited until they entered their own bathroom before leaning against a slushie-free portion of the wall. The janitors had already moved in, and the hall was filled with the sound and smell of wet mops on linoleum.

A few moments later all the kids poured out of their collective bathrooms, and she handed out hall passes to the group. She watched them head down the hall, and when they turned the corner she thought she could hear the sounds of hushed arguing. As Dawn continued down the hall she couldn't stop the smile on her face.

Dawn crammed the last of an eggroll into her mouth as she left the faculty lounge. Dealing with the kids had cut into her lunch time, but according to Ken she hadn't missed that much. Will had apparently decided to skip on Chinese to work in his office, and Emma had spent most of the meal staring at her own Tupperware dishes and sometimes looking sideways at Dawn's own meal.

Aside from a rejected offer to share, the meal had been pretty quiet. Dawn avoided asking about the weekend; she didn't want to risk getting Emma upset with Ken nearby. Plus, Emma would probably turn the tables—and Dawn was nowhere near finished processing exactly what was happening between her and Xander.

That's weird, she thought to herself when she saw the note on the choir room door telling everyone to go to the auditorium. The least Will could have done was given me some kind of notice if we were doing a stage rehearsal.

She cleared the auditorium doors just as the bell rang, and instead of being arranged on stage all the kids were gathered in a cluster on the second rise of seats. Artie, Tina, Rachel, Kurt and Mercedes were all dressed in their "emergency" outfits and sitting in a line, while Finn hung back a row behind them.

Dawn must have just missed whatever opening Will had given them, judging by the front five's shocked looks and Artie's hurt, "You're leaving us?"

The hell?

She stood frozen in the doorway as Will told the kids he wasn't leaving because of them. Granted, he didn't tell them why; instead, he told them some generalized stuff about responsibility. When Rachel protested his sudden leaving not being fair, Dawn was forced to agree. She started forward as Rachel continued her protest.

"We can't do this without you," Rachel said, and Dawn could see the lights reflecting in the wetness in her eyes.

"It will be okay, Rachel," Will responded softly. "Ms. Summers will lead the class for now. I promise to find you guys a great replacement before I go."

All the kids' attention focused on Will, so while Finn asked if he had to be in Glee anymore Dawn took a moment to put on her "most supportive" face. The kids needed it more than she needed to come down raging. So while Will continued to talk about how hard this choice was for him, she repressed her confusion. Before anyone could react, she stepped in.

"Why don't you guys spend the rest of the period in the library looking up some songs we can use," she said, sounding way more enthusiastic than she had ever been, even at fourteen. "Mr. Schue and I need to go over some last minute details." She shot Will a glance that might have been a glare.

The kids picked up on the glare more than her speech itself, and as they turned quickly to grab their bags—pointedly not looking at Will and Dawn—she stood a little on tiptoe to murmur in Will's ear through clenched smiling teeth.

"Office. NOW."

She let him precede her out of the room, keeping him moving with the force of her glare alone. When they reached the hallway entrance to the choir room office she let him enter first and take a seat at the desk. She stepped into the cramped room and closed both the hallway and choir room doors.

Dawn leaned against the choir-side door, fist clenched as she leaned back.

"Do you mind telling me what the hell that was about?" she asked in a quiet voice she reserved for fieldwork.

"Terri's pregnant," Will said, as if it answered everything.

"Congratulations," she said offhandedly. "That still doesn't explain why I walked in on a group of kids who looked like they'd been told that every single Christmas has been canceled."

"Let me try again," Will said tiredly. "Terri's pregnant, and I can't provide for my family on a teacher's salary."

"So what are you going to do instead?" she asked.

"My Ohio CPA license is still valid. I think that I can get a spot at HW Menken."

"An accountant, Will? You?" Her voice oozed skepticism. "I've seen your books, Will. That's why you have me do them instead."

He sighed, clearly frustrated. "I guess I'll have to get better at it, then. It's the best option I have to make some money and take care of my family."

"That's nice. You go ahead and do that. And, hey!" she said with false enthusiasm, "when you go just leave me with six kids whose hopes and dreams you stirred up and on a whim decided to throw in the trash."

"It's not like that, Dawn," Will said, his voice rising and his patience clearly gone. "Maybe when you grow up a little and have to face the fact that someone else depends entirely on you, you might just understand."

She stared at him open-mouthed, her hands clenched so tightly into fists she could feel her nails digging into her palms. That bit of pain cleared away the shock in the heat of anger.

"You're such a fucking hypocrite, Scheuster!" she raged, voice matching his decibel for decibel. "Convenient as hell that you forgot what you said to me when all this started."

Her voice dropped into a low mockery of his own. "'If you don't want to do this and you come in and hurt these kids… Well, you really don't want to hurt these kids'." Her voice returned to its normal pitch and she pointed at him. "I know you remember that, Will. Talking big like you actually deserve to be Teacher of the Year. You really fooled everyone."

"You don't understand. I have priorities, Dawn. My responsibility is to my kid." He said the last like a mantra.

"It is," she conceded. "I just hope your sense of priority stays this focused when things get rough with a baby in the house."

Will's face darkened. "You better not be saying what I think you're saying, Summers."

"Nope. I guess I don't need to," she said coldly, looking him in the eyes. "Enjoy crunching those numbers, Will. I hope it doesn't get too risky for you."

Will just stared at her for a moment in shock, then grabbed his bag and went to the hallway door. Before he turned the knob he paused to look at her again, and for a brief moment her vision shifted. In that flicker she saw something bright behind his eyes before the slamming of the door brought her back to her senses, shaking.

She was still shaking five minutes later but she couldn't tell if it was anger or vision induced. Where the hell did he get off lecturing her about responsibility? He wasn't the one at Sunnydale, Cleveland or the seemingly hundreds of other places. Her legs still shook, so while taking a seat at the desk she almost missed the sounds of movement on the choir side of the door.

"Anyone out there had better not be there when I open that door, or they will be very sorry," she snapped toward the door while she tried to ignore the shuffle of shoes and possibly wheels.

Dawn tried her best to keep Glee going, but practice that afternoon had been lackluster at best. She just didn't have the necessary musical background, so she let Rachel conduct the actual numbers. Needless to say, this decision wasn't widely endorsed; she wasn't that shocked when on Wednesday Ken had stopped her in the hall, telling her Finn had transferred back to his gym class. She just nodded numbly and signed the form he had handed her. There was no sense in holding Finn in Glee when it looked as if Will wasn't even attempting to find his replacement.

Granted, they weren't actually talking to each other; anything they needed to say they sent by very formal emails or Emma. Poor Emma. She was trying to pretend nothing had actually happened, but Dawn could see the stress holding the facade was having on her petite friend. Whenever they spoke. if the "p-word" came up Emma would vanish to prepare for a student interview.

Dawn was reaching the point of putting out the word for a new co-director herself. She was just about to step into the choir room office when the too-familiar sound of polyester tracksuit rustled next to her.

"Hey, kiddo," Sue beamed, putting a red-and-white clad arm across her shoulders. "I heard about all the hubbub going on with your little club, and I might have a solution for you. Let's step into my office."