CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: DAWN
Tuesday: 9am
13th January 1998
California: Sunnydale
Beth walked into the museum and completely missed the hopeful look on Joyce Stanton's face as the older woman looked at Beth intently. A tugging on Joyce's hand shocked her out of her scrutiny of her newest employee and possible daughter.
"Mom."
Beth looked across and saw ten-year-old Dawn Stanton standing beside Joyce. Beth smiled, thinking that the girl was absolutely adorable.
"You must be Dawn," Beth said.
Dawn turned her attention away from her mom and looked towards the new comer.
"Yeah. Do you work here?" Dawn asked.
Beth nodded. "Yup. You're mom hired me a few days ago. I'm Beth."
"You come here voluntarily?" Dawn asked with a smile.
Joyce gave a mock sigh and smiled as Beth laughed.
"This stuff's pretty cool if you give it half a chance," Beth said.
Dawn looked up at Beth as though she had grown another head. "No way."
"I'm serious," Beth said. She took hold of Dawn's hand and walked towards a display of ancient weaponry.
"Look at this one here," Beth said, pointing to the broadsword that she had been admiring the other day. "That sword is rumoured to have belonged to King Arthur. This was the sword that he pulled from the stone. No one else in the entire kingdom could pull it out, but Arthur could. No one wanted to let him try though, because he wasn't anyone special. He was a little bit older than you when he did it."
Dawn listened, rapt by the story.
"And he became King?" she asked.
"Yup. Every kingdom needs a king, or else you'd just have a dom, and then where would you be?" Beth teased.
Dawn giggled and pointed to a shield.
"Was that his too?"
"Yup," Beth replied. "He'd use that when he went into battle."
"Did he joust?" Dawn asked.
Beth shrugged a little. "He might have. I don't think they let royalty joust in the proper matches though. Too dangerous."
"But King Arthur sounds all brave and stuff," Dawn protested.
"He was all 'brave and stuff'," Beth said. "He was the bravest knight in all of Camelot. But they didn't want him getting hurt any more than he had to."
"Kinda like mom doesn't like me getting into fights when I don't have to," Dawn said.
Beth looked at her, shocked by her words.
"Is that why you aren't at school? You got into a fight?" Beth asked.
Dawn nodded sheepishly.
"Did you start it or did they?" Beth asked.
"He started it!"
"He? He who?" Beth asked.
"Jeremy Wilcox," Dawn replied. "He was being all mean cos I did better than him on a test."
"But you hit him first, didn't you?" Beth asked gently.
Dawn went to say no, but found herself nodding instead. "He was being mean, so…I hit him."
"You know you shouldn't hit people," Beth said. She almost laughed, knowing that if Faith heard her, she would be on the floor in fits of laughter right about now.
"I know, but…he so deserved it," Dawn said.
"Does he tease you a lot?"
Dawn nodded sadly.
"And you've told a teacher about this?" Beth asked.
"Well…not exactly," she admitted.
"If you don't tell, he's not going to stop. Or, if you don't want to tell, then just ignore him. If you don't give him a reaction he'll give up and walk away," Beth said.
"You think so?" Dawn asked.
"I know so. I swear it on King Arthur's sword," Beth said with a grin.
Dawn giggled and found herself hugging the blonde girl.
Joyce just looked at the two girls, spell bound. If Beth truly was her daughter, then she knew that her family could cope through the transition. Dawn already seemed to adore the older girl. And Beth seemed to be just as taken with Dawn.
"Alright, miss," Joyce said. "You're meant to be doing punishment here."
Dawn scowled and untangled herself from Beth.
"Fine."
Beth held back a grin.
"Perhaps she could help you out for the day Beth," Joyce said.
"Sure thing. Just tell me what you need done," Beth said.
Dawn grinned and held back a squeal. She hadn't been expecting for this day to be almost fun.
Joyce quickly gave Beth instructions, and Beth committed them to memory. She grabbed Dawn by the hand and led her towards the back of the museum where they were going to sort through a new shipment, cataloguing the items. It was dull work that Joyce didn't particularly like doing, but Beth hadn't seemed to mind doing it the other day, so Joyce didn't see why she couldn't get the girl to do more.
Joyce hung back in the doorway and watched Beth and Dawn interacting with each other. Dawn would ask question after question which Beth would answer with seemingly endless patience. If Beth didn't know the answer, she would make up something fantastical, and encouraged Dawn to do the same.
Joyce smiled and turned away with tears in her eyes. She could only hope that Tim found out more about the girl that she was desperately praying was her daughter.
(I am aware that King Arthur's sword wouldn't be in a Sunnydale museum, so please don't point that out *grins*. It was all I could think of without doing any real research.)
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Beth and Dawn were attached at the hip all day, and had meticulously gone through the two boxes that had needed to be unpacked. There were a few items that Beth wanted to research when she returned home, but they didn't seem to be anything to worry about.
When Dawn complained of hunger around noon, Beth finally agreed that they could take a break. She knocked on the door to Joyce's office and entered cautiously. She found Joyce sitting at her desk staring at the photo that she hadn't been able to ask about the other day.
"Joyce?" she called.
Joyce looked up and smiled gently at Beth.
"I'm just gonna take Dawn and grab some lunch," she said. "Did you want us to get you anything?"
"Oh, no that's fine," Joyce replied. "Just be back in forty five minutes."
"Sure thing. You don't mind me taking Dawnie do you?"
"No, that's alright. Just make sure she eats something besides sugar."
Beth grinned and nodded.
"Sure thing."
With that, Beth and Dawn walked out of the gallery towards the small sets of shops that lined the main street. They walked into a coffee house called the Espresso Pump, and Beth was shocked to see Ethan and Giles sitting at a table happily chatting together.
She walked up to them, Dawn beside her.
"Well, isn't this just a picture," she teased.
Giles looked up, startled. He smiled at her. "Beth, hello."
"Oh, guys this is Dawn. Dawn, this is my Uncle Giles and…my dad, Ethan," Beth said, unsure how to describe her relationship with Ethan.
"Hey," Dawn said, giving them a shy smile.
"Did you two lovely ladies want to join us for lunch?" Ethan offered. "My shout."
Beth shot Dawn a grin. "We can't pass up on free food, hey Dawnie?"
Dawn shook her head and smiled at the older girl.
Ethan stood and moved to sit beside Giles on his side of the table, leaving Beth and Dawn to sit next to each other.
"How's your second day at work luv?" Ethan asked.
Beth grinned. "Good. I've got a helper today, so it's gone by pretty quickly."
Ethan smiled towards Dawn and winked at her. "She needs all the help she can get, hey?"
Dawn giggled, and Ethan could see why Beth had brought her along to lunch. She was almost as adorable as Buffy had been when she had been that age.
"She knows heaps of stuff," Dawn said, defending her newest friend. "More stuff than I know."
"You'll learn it Dawnie," Beth assured her. "You just have to remember that learning isn't always boring."
Dawn rolled her eyes, but took Beth's words to heart. She had enjoyed listening to Beth tell her about all the artefacts that they had been cataloguing earlier, but she wasn't about to tell Beth that she had enjoyed learning.
"So…what can I treat you lovely women to?" Ethan asked.
"Oh, you know me Ethan. I can't go past a burger and fries," Beth said.
Dawn looked between Beth and Ethan in confusion. "Why do you call your dad by his first name?"
"Oh, uh…well, he's not really my dad Dawnie. I just think of him as one," Beth tried to explain. "My real dad died a long time ago."
Dawn looked saddened at that. She couldn't imagine her life without her dad in it.
"Anyways, what did you wanna eat?" Beth asked.
"I'll just have the same as you," Dawn replied.
Beth nodded and looked to Ethan. "Sure thing. Two burgers and two chips coming up."
Ethan regarded the younger of the two girls curiously. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"
Dawn flushed a little.
"Uh…sorta."
"You're not playing hooky are you?" he asked.
"No!" she replied quickly. "They…I was told not to come back for two days."
"She got in a fight," Beth said.
Ethan held back a grin.
"I hope Beth told you that fighting wasn't an option," Giles said, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
Beth looked towards her Watcher, shocked at the playfulness that he was displaying. It suited him rather well. She wondered what he and Ethan had ended up doing all night to make them into such good friends today. She could only hope that they had finally buried the past and begun on a brighter path for the future.
"She did," Dawn said, a little dejectedly. "She said to just walk away."
"Quite right," Giles said. He winked at his Slayer who gave a little laugh. Beth shot a look at Ethan who just shrugged innocently.
"So…what's the what here guys?" Beth asked.
"Well, lunch obviously," Ethan replied. "After that, we'll be starting on that project we were discussing last night."
Beth nodded and gave him a nervous smile. "Good."
"What project?" Dawn asked nosily.
"Nothing for you to worry about," Ethan assured her. He was saved when their meals arrived and Dawn became preoccupied with eating rather than asking questions.
"How was your walk last night, Buffy?" Ethan asked pointedly.
"My walk?" she repeated. She quickly caught on. "Oh. That walk. Yeah, it was alright."
She had left Faith's at about one in the morning and had walked back to Giles', staking two vamps who were on the hunt. She hadn't patrolled properly, she had been too upset to even try to do so.
"Buffy?" she asked, looking towards Beth.
"It's a nickname," Beth replied. "Ethan's about the only one who calls me that."
"Can I call you that?" Dawn asked.
"Yeah, sure. But not in front of your mom, alright?" she said. "She's meant to see me as a professional person."
Dawn nodded, laughing a little at Beth's expression as she said 'professional'. She liked how Beth treated her like an equal rather than as a kid. It was refreshing. As much as Dawn liked Willow, Willow tended to treat her as a child. Beth wasn't like that, and Dawn found herself drawn to it.
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"Did you have fun today sweetie?" Tim asked his daughter as they cleaned up the table after dinner. Joyce had gone upstairs to finish some paperwork that hadn't got done while she had been at the gallery.
"Yeah, it was funner than I thought it'd be," Dawn said.
"More fun, princess," Tim corrected. "Funner isn't a word."
Dawn nodded and handed her dad another plate.
"I was helping catalogue stuff with Buffy," Dawn said.
Tim very nearly dropped the plate that Dawn had just handed him. He turned to his daughter and looked at her, Dawn not realising that her father had very nearly just dropped Joyce's very expensive china.
"Buffy? The new girl?" Tim asked, his heart in his throat.
"Yeah. Well, her name's really Beth, but…her dad calls her Buffy,"' Dawn explained.
"Her dad?" Tim asked.
"Yeah. 'Scept she said he wasn't really her dad. She said her dad had died a long time ago," Dawn said, her voice suddenly small. She stopped forward and hugged her dad around the waist. "I dunno what I'd do without you daddy."
He hugged her back and swallowed hard. Perhaps his wife had been right about the girl she had just hired. How many people named 'Beth' would have the nickname 'Buffy' and be born on the 20th of January?
Twenty minutes later, he sent Dawn up to bed and gave his wife a feeble excuse about going to meet a colleague for a drink. He grabbed Beth Giles' address from the papers that Joyce had brought home the other night without Joyce realising that he had taken them and headed towards the address that Beth had given.