Title: A Different Beginning.

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: Dawn from fifth and maybe some from first few series.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy. I would buy them but I am broke.

Category: Buffy/Xander

Summary: What if it was someone other than Pike who fought beside Buffy at Hemery? How would that change things?

AN: Dawn is in this, she is not the Key, she's just Buffy's sister. Joyce is the Joyce from the Movie, the absent parent, not Joyce from the series who I think was a good role model and should never have been killed off. A slight crossover, not telling with what yet.

AN2: I do not own the movies that have the lines quoted by Xander and Dawn. A gold star if you can name them. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Giles was about to launch into a speech about The Master when Jenny interrupted.

"It's getting late. I think this can wait till the morning." She said.

"Sure. Come friends, let's away." Xander said.

"Ok, that's it. No more using the satellite uplink to hack into pay TV for you buster." Buffy said half crossly.

Xander just smirked.

"Come on Dawnie." He said.

"Right." Dawn said to Xander, before turning to the Sunnydale team. "See you tomorrow. Sleep fast buddy."

"Not you too?" Buffy almost screamed.

Xander and Dawn chuckled as they made their way out to the van. When they arrived, Xander pulled out the two deflated air mattresses and the air compressor. In under a minute he had both of them fully inflated, and they all changed into their sleeping attire. Dawn curled up on the smaller mattress clutching at Mr Gordo, Buffy's old stuffed pig which she had given her little sister when they had left LA.

Buffy lay on the other mattress clutching her replacement for Mr Gordo, Xander, and listing to him breath as she rested her head on his chest. Xander wrapped his arm around Buffy's shoulders and waited for sleep to claim him. This was the family he always wanted, needed, not those people in LA who he happened to have a blood relation to. Home was wherever they were and everything was fine as long as they were.

'This is how my life was supposed to be. In her arms' Xander thought just before sleep claimed him.

********

Willow awoke early, as usual. She showered and was laying out clothes to wear to school when she caught her reflection in the mirror. She turned to look at herself. Pulling her hair back from her face she examined her scar.

"Xander was right." She whispered.

When she left the house, Willow was dressed in slightly loose, black cargo pants, boots and a pale red blouse that left a small strip of her midriff bare. Her hair was swept back in a ponytail, revealing her scar to the world, and her head held high. Xander had given her confidence to be herself, even more than ever. She met up with Oz and Jessie on the way to school, talking animatedly and laughing.

'It feels good to live again.' She thought.

********

It was around ten o'clock when Xander finally awoke. The nomadic lifestyle that they lived, along with the mostly night-time nature of their work meant that none of the group were getting a formal education and therefore had no need to rise early most days.

In fact Buffy and Xander had done their high school equivalency tests a few months ago by correspondence and Dawn was working towards hers. It had not been easy but they had sweated through it, mostly because they had gained a fair number of suppliers and contractors that now worked for them who will not work for someone without that qualification.

Xander looked down his chest and smiled at what he saw. Buffy was still asleep, clutching him and using his bare chest as a pillow. She had also thrown one leg over his, which despite the innocence of the action, looked sexy due to the fact that she was only wearing one of his old shirts and a pair of boxers.

Dawn, as she sometimes did, had moved over during the night and slept on his other side, her head pillowed in the crook of his arm, her back against his side, and clutching Mr Gordo to her chest. Unlike her sister, Dawn was dressed in proper pyjamas, while Xander only wore a pair of old shorts (AN: as in pants with short legs not underwear. I'm an Australian.). Buffy stirred slightly and Dawn stretched in her sleep. Under a minute later they were all away and there was a flurry of clothing flying around the van as they all changed for the day, having lived for so long in a small space, they did not find the situation uncomfortable or improper, it was just the way they lived.

They piled out of the back of the van, which was parked in the Sunnydale High School parking lot, and started up to the school. It was obvious from the crowds of students that it was between classes. They moved through the crowds with relative ease, the natural senses of the High School teenager that detects dangerous people, usually bullies and football players, reacted to the demon hunters and so the students gave them space. Through a gap they saw something going down and decided to intervene.

Six large boys, seniors and football player by their looks, were picking on a girl. Unfortunately they had chosen a poor target as that girl was Willow.

"What you going to do, scar face?" the leader said.

"How about this?" he heard a female voice say behind him.

In his stupidity, he turned and caught Buffy's crescent kick to the jaw, causing him to collapse to the floor. In the momentary confusion of the bullies, the demon hunters acted. Xander sweep kicked two of the bullies, then he kicked one of them in the ribs and delivered a blow to the back of the other's neck as he rose, causing him to drop back to the floor, unconscious.

Buffy delivered a blow to a bully's solar plexus, disrupting his diaphragm and as a result winding him. The other bully she was facing used that time to launch a blow at the petite Slayer, which was pitifully slow to her reflexes, so she caught his arm, twisted it behind him. She then delivered a blow to the back of his knees, causing him to drop onto his knees, and she used his momentum to knock him out by kneeing him in the face.

Dawn got the last bully's attention away from Willow, who generally did not fight hand to hand, by punching him hard in the kidneys.

'He'll be pissing blood for a week.' She thought with an internal grin.

The bully turned and began throwing punches at Dawn, mad at the fact that he had been attacked by an eleven year old. While she was nowhere near the fighting abilities of Xander or Buffy, she did have a major advantage over the bully, her agility. After training with her family, avoiding the bully's punches was fairly easy. He did manage to land a few blows, but only lightly as she was moving away. Dawn would dart in to attack and then dance out of the bully's reach. First she hit him in the solar plexus, as Buffy had, and while she did wind him, it was only slightly. Next she tried a crippling blow by kicking his knee, but she lacked the force to produce the crunch of a broken kneecap, but again it slowed him. Finally desperate, she tried an age old technique. She kneed him in the balls. This caused him to drop, as it had to countless million men before, and she kneed him again in the face, finally putting him out of commission with a broken nose.

"Not bad. How's the shoulder?" Xander said.

Buffy and Xander had taken only a few seconds to take out their bullies so they had watched Dawn fight, ready to intervene if she looked to be in trouble, which they did not expect to happen. Dawn worked the shoulder where a blow had landed.

"It's alright." She said.

"Let's go see Ripper." Xander said, after checking over Willow.

"You know, we generally just call him Giles." Willow added, as they started towards the Library, leaving the injured footballers and a gaping crowd behind.

They opened the doors to the library and walked in.

"Where have you been? It is almost ten thirty. I have been waiting for hours for you three." Giles said, slipping into his Watcher persona.

'I guess I was right about the tweed and glasses.' Xander thought looking at Giles' attire.

"Chill. We never get up before ten, and then we were delayed saving your pretty little witch from bullies." Xander said.

"Pretty little witch?" Buffy asked, with a note of amusement and a note of jealousy in her voice.

"No where as pretty as you, Buff. Or Dawnie. But then you could be a supermodel and Dawn is heading that way too. You both reset the beauty scale." Xander said, both truthfully, as he saw it, and to get out of trouble.

"Can we get down to business?" Giles said.

"Sure thing, Ripper." Buffy said, grinning along with Xander and Dawn at his expression.

********

Numerous hours had passed since Giles had begun explaining the Sunnydale situation, which had taken well over an hour. The trio had spent the day flipping through Giles' books, looking for anything cool or disgusting. They had updated some of the Watcher's files on Demonic weaknesses and such, even proving that a species of Demon thought dead for one hundred and ninety six thousand, four hundred and twelve years were still alive and active, having killed a nest of them about three weeks prior. Jessie, Willow, Jenny (or Janna as Buffy, Xander and Dawn called her), and Oz kept coming and going throughout the day either having to attend class or, in Janna's case, teach. They were all expected back in about ten minutes when last class finished.

"Hey Buff. Remember that one?" Xander said, showing Buffy a picture of a large and fearsome looking Demon.

"Oh yah." Buffy said with a slight smile.

"Wouldn't want to meet that bugger in a dark alley." Ripper said.

Buffy, Xander and Dawn all broke out laughing.

"They eat cabbage. That's it, just cabbage." Buffy said giggling.

"I sear it nearly pissed itself when we came up with weapons. They are a non-violent species." Xander put in, laughing so hard his eyes were watering.

"The scary appearance is a defence mechanism." Dawn added.

"Well I'll be buggered." Ripper said, joining in on the laughing.

A few minutes later Willow and the others entered the library. By this time, Ripper had converted back to Giles and he was discussing weaponry with Dawn, while Buffy and Xander were reading and quietly talking. The fact that they were sitting on the floor with Buffy between Xander's legs (Minds out of the gutter people), leaning her back against his chest, and reading the same book, with Xander occasionally whispering in Buffy's ear, threw Jenny, Willow and Jessie off a bit. It might have affected Oz, but with his stoic personality it was hard to tell.

"Oh, they're back." Dawn squealed with the giddiness that only an eleven year old girl can achieve.

"So what's our next move?" Jessie asked, getting down to business.

"Training." Xander replied.

"Huh? Aren't we going to take out The Master?" Willow asked.

Xander simply motioned to Buffy, giving her a smile.

"In the 'Art of War' buy Sun Tzu, it states that the two most important factors are 'Know Thy Enemy' and 'Know Thy Self'. We have to learn about each other, strengths and weaknesses, before we go into battle. When the time is right, we will beat the living shite out of The Master, but till then we train and observe."

"Cool." Jessie said.

"Glad you think so, cause your up first, sparing with Xander." Buffy said with a smirk.

Jessie groaned.

TBC.