Halloween Aftermath: A New Dawn

"I get archaic French and you get a brain upgrade," Buffy complained as she looked at her sister's report card. "It's not fair."

"You dressed to impress a centuries old corpse while I dressed to a impress a modern boy, just a few years older than me," Dawn replied. "You chose to be an idiot twice over."

Buffy glared at Dawn and Joyce spotted the impending explosion from across the room where she was making a cup of coffee and quickly intervened. "Girls it's way too early for this. What are you arguing about now?"

"Dawn wants to date Xander," Buffy said, seeing a way to get back at her sister and nip things in the bud.

"Dear," Joyce said, trying to figure out a way to break things to her gently. "No dating outside your school. It's one of my rules and since Xander is not in Jr. High…"

"Buffy smirked, thinking she'd won this round.

Dawn handed her report card to her mother. "They'd like me to skip a few grades."

Joyce examined Dawn's report card with a slowly growing smile on her face.

"Xander taught me some mental tricks and explained to me why I should get good grades," Dawn lied.

"Xander gets lousy grades," Buffy complained.

"Xander is attending and passing honor classes while putting in little to no effort because his parents aren't going to pay for college and Snyder is sabotaging his transcripts since he's your friend," Dawn said, playing on her guilt.

"They want you to advance to high school?" Joyce asked.

"They suggested college, but the school psychologist said that I should try a year or two of high school first to help me acclimatize to the higher pressure and prevent early burnout. Normally I'd disagree, but his arguments were very well reasoned and he had data to back up all his assertions," Dawn replied.

"This is just a trick so you can date Xander!" Buffy accused.

"I actually am this intelligent," Dawn replied. "And Xander said he doesn't feel comfortable dating anyone under fifteen, so I have to settle for being his friend until then."

"That's a lot more mature than I expected of him," Joyce admitted.

"He likes to play the jester and has lousy parents and poor friends who have sabotaged his self-esteem," Dawn replied. "I'm trying to talk him into not hiding his light under a bushel. I think I've convinced him too!"

"He's way too old for you!" Buffy complained, not wanting to lose the argument.

"Yes, we've already agreed on that," Dawn said, having to fall back on Leia's Jedi training to keep her temper, because Buffy really pushed her buttons.

"When you're fifteen, he'll still be too old for you, because he'll be almost twenty," Buffy pointed out, wanting to get her mom on her side for a quick win.

"Speaking of ages," Dawn said, barely keeping herself from snapping at Buffy. "Aren't you trying to get into the pants of a guy named Angel who is at least thirty?"

"Angel does not look thirty!" Buffy exclaimed, before she could stop herself.

"Is he the one who got you into that frat party last week?" Dawn asked innocently.

"Buffy?" Joyce asked in a tone that promised severe consequences if she didn't like the answers.

Half an hour later

"Thanks to you I'm grounded!" Buffy snapped as she walked Dawn to her bus stop. "If I'm grounded I'm not out slaying, which means people die."

"You'll sneak out like you always do," Dawn replied unconcerned. "And you spend a lot more time and effort trying to get into a corpse's pants than you do being the slayer, so if you actually listened to mom and didn't just lie to her face, I just increased the amount of time you'll actually spend slaying."

Buffy got in the last word as she walked away from Dawn at the bus stop. "Enjoy Fordham High School."

Dawn glared at her departing sister. "I wish I had a brother rather than a sister."

Typing by Bailey Matutine