Two Weddings and a Funeral
By Dramaqueen
Part 2
"I don't really like churches that much. You know, 'cause of the whole I used to be a demon thing. So, anyway, I think I'm gonna have a beach wedding." Anya rambled on excitedly. "If I do, then the bridesmaids will probably be wearing those wrap around things, probably in pale blue. I'm not sure what top…"
"Anya!" Buffy turned around to face her friend's fiancée
"What?! It's customary for the future bride to go on about her wedding in the weeks before it. Even I know that!" Anya said, folding her arms huffily.
"That maybe, but it's not the weeks before your wedding. It's two weeks after you got engaged." Buffy reminded her.
"Yes, well, it could be the weeks before the wedding. I've already told Xander I want it to be as soon as possible. I mean it's not as if I've got any family to invite." Anya said as Buffy absent-mindedly staked a vampire that was sneaking up behind her.
"That must be tough huh? The happiest day of your life and no-one to sure it with." Buffy said sympathetically as they started walking across the cemetery.
"No! It's my day. Not anyone else's."
"Er…groom standing right here." Xander spoke up from just behind Anya.
"We know." Anya turned around to face her boyfriend. "I just meant that the weddings only a big deal for the bride. I.e. me."
"Not meaning to burst your bubble here Anya, but this wedding is as much a deal for me as for you. I just don't go on about it twenty-four seven."
"Whatever. Can we back to the apartment now?"
"We've been through this. Until we know what's wrong with Buffy's mom, and she gets well again, Buffy can't go patrolling on her own."
"Why? Her mom doesn't go on patrol with her."
"I know that. But her sister has a habit of sneaking out whenever she can, and with Joyce sleeping a lot lately, it makes it easier for Dawn to go wandering around town at night."
"So? The girl's fourteen years old. She can fend for her self. I did when I was her age."
"Anya, when you were her age people lived in huts and America was non-existent to the rest of the world."
"I still don't get why Buffy can't patrol on her own."
"Because she can't exactly call off patrolling each time she finds Dawn wandering about, but she isn't about to let her little sister walk the streets of Sunnydale 'built on the Hellmouth' California on her own, at night."
"Which is why you two are now going to head back to my house without me." Buffy told Anya and Xander as she looked across the street from the cemetery that they had just left, and saw her irritating younger sibling.
"Dawn!" Buffy yelled as her and the others ran across the where the teenager was.
Prepared to lecture the girl on how dangerous it was for her to be out on her own at night, (especially when you considered that if Buffy hadn't spotted her, no one would know where she was, and that Sunnydale was full of 'things that go bump in the night'.) Buffy was taken aback to see her sisters puffy eyes and tear streaked face.
She put her hands on Dawn's shoulders and stared into her face.
"What's wrong? Has anything happened to mom?" She asked, panic-stricken that her mom had collapsed again.
The only response Dawn could muster was to burst into tears and throw her arms around her sister's waist.
Buffy wrapped her arms around Dawn and said, "Look, if something's wrong with mom we really should go home."
Dawn looked up and shook her head. "Can we go to the Espresso Pump?" She asked through her sobs.
"Sure. Can you two hold the patrolling fort for ten minutes for me?" Buffy asked, looking up at Anya and Xander.
"No!" Anya declared, at the exact same time as Xander said "Of course. It's been pretty quiet tonight anyway."
"Thanks. I'll try not to be too long." Buffy said to Xander, handing him the small rucksack full of stakes, crosses and holy-water that she'd brought along.
Anya punched Xander in the arm as Buffy and Dawn headed down the street.
Once they'd sat down at a little table with two de-cafe lattes, Dawn took a couple of deep breaths as she got ready to tell her sister what had made her run out of their house in floods of tears half an hour earlier.
"The phone rang and I answered because, you know, mom's ill. So anyway, I get the phone and it's Giles, so I tell him that you're not in, and he says that that's okay 'cause he called o talk to mom." Dawn paused as she drank some of her latte.
"So I told mom that the call was for her, and told me to tell them she'd call them back. But then, as I was going to the phone, mom asked me it actually was, and I told her, and she, like, leapt up and grabbed the phone. Then she sent me out of the room."
"Is this going anywhere?" Buffy interrupted.
"Yes. Where was I? Oh yeah, so mom's sent me out of the room, which is weird coz she's talking to Giles. Anyway, at first I'm good and stay out of the way, but then I here mom saying "I will tell them soon, but it's difficult. Especially when I think about how much Dawn cried when her father left." So of course I'm now totally suspicious and go to the kitchen door so I can find out what mom's on about. And I then hear mom tell Giles that of course she still wants to marry him!"
"What!?" Buffy asked in shock.
"That's what I said, only mom heard me and told Giles that she'd call him back and hung up. Then she goes to me, "You shouldn't have been listening in, but I suppose you do have the right to know. Giles and I are getting married."!"