A Special thanks to Claire Starling who made this chapter much more agreeable to read with her astonishing help! (You can tell I'm very thankful!)
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Dawn slammed the door of the Elderberry's house and ran to her room without saying hello to the elderly couple. God, how this day had been weird.
Dawn threw herself on the bed. It was too much to cope with. Her gaze fixed blankly the ceiling, wishing another portal could open into a dimension where trouble didn't exist, where everything was perfect, and where a bunch of guys with dusters didn't follow her.
She reluctantly got up and looked out of her window and sighed in relief that there was no tall person with a grey duster in front of the house. It wasn't the exact creepiest thing that had happened to her that day, but it was nearly there.
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Earlier that day...
Dawn looked behind herself. She still desperately wanted to call Buffy, but something else was nagging her now. The buildings were starting to get taller, the streets narrower, and she had no idea where she was. She would try to stick to the large streets, but just wanted so much to just get back to school, so ironic, she'd skipped class with more pleasure she would admit, but things were now getting creepier and creepier.
The creepy thing in question was the person that was following her. She was sure of it. He was still behind her after a half an hour of walking. It couldn't be coincidence, Dawn had tried to make the most turns possible, and he was still there with the same glasses and grey duster.
Dawn wiped her brow with the back of her hand. It was starting to get really hot, and because of the worry that the stalker had bestowed upon her, she had the cold sweats. Oh, how she hated it! The worst thing was the phone box, most of them were broken, with missing receivers or just gobbled the money without giving it back. Dawn had the impression her nerves were going to break.
Maybe she ought to just phone Angel, he being the nearest potential protector. However, since the last time he had turned into Angelus, Dawn had never felt comfortable around him, being the first to be attacked when he had turned. She had never told her older sister, frightened it would break her heart even more. Angelus had been brutal, not the filthy sneaky subtle psycho, but brutal in a way that Dawn had to erase completely from her memory. It was something she never wanted to think about again.
That now untouchable memory made her shiver. Again Dawn looked behind her shoulder, searching for the grey duster. He was still there. It was time to really lose him.
Several small dark streets offered themselves, but Dawn passed them by. She'd looked at enough films to tell that dark streets weren't a good idea if you wanted to escape someone when you're a young woman that doesn't really have the means to defend herself.
Dawn turned into a Jennifer clothes shop.
The Jennifer shops have the reputation of been stuffed, literally, with clothes. Each row is done on purpose to be able to take out an item with difficulty, tangled in other clothes and then be impossible to put back on the rack because of the overflow of material. Dawn hadn't chosen the place for the cheap prices or the pink coloured sweaters that would have made a vampire squeal in horror, but for one of it's incredible virtues: getting lost.
It must have been about eleven o'clock and there was a dozen of girls, giggling, wooing at the merchandise and chatting loudly.
Dawn quickly made her way her way between the racks, lowering her head seeming interested in the clothes although she had actually spotted a nice blue tank top and thought of coming back. She slowly walked to the back of the shop, into the changing rooms, grabbing randomly on her a dark purple silky dress and a beret.
Dawn poked her head out several times to see if he had followed her in, and, to her disappointment, he hadn't. She groaned in frustration when she glimpsed him just in front of the entrance of the shop. It was going to be harder than expected. She pulled back the curtain and decided what to do.
Searching in her backpack, she took out her scissors from her pencil-case and started to take the magnetic tags off. Theses weren't any normal scissors; they were made of a slim metal with some kind of inscription of the side of the blades. When Anya had asked Dawn to give back her stolen items, the slayer's sister had "unconsciously" forgotten this particular item (very useful for stealing, actually). Did it make a liar and thief out of Dawn? Maybe. But these scissors could cut through plastic like butter, metal like cardboard. All guilty thoughts had been long forgotten. When she tried to find a better spot to hid the items, she tried the walls of her room. However, they were a bit too thick and she had to put a poster up on top of where she'd tried to cut to hide the damage.
With a precise movement, she cut the tags off and tried the dress on top of her jeans.* Dawn looked at herself in the mirror, rather satisfied. The dress fell outwards just above her knees. Taking the tag of the beige beret, she put it on and stuffed her hair inside. Taking another look in the mirror, she looked nearly completely different than earlier. Getting out of the changing rooms, she decided it had to do, and tried to get out without getting too much attention from the personnel. She made it out with ease and turned right straight away, glancing at the man that had been following her.
He was in his twenties, bold, his eyelids looked heavy and had a very square jaw.
Turning back ahead, Dawn quickly walked off, using her small mirror to look behind herself and saw with glee that he hadn't moved from the spot.
"Well," she thought to herself, "that wasn't that bad."
She had a new dress and hat, and was now thinking of herself as a young version of a young secret agent. The feeling was great, and she skipped along the pavement. Now, she only needed to find another phone box.
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Falling back on her bed, Dawn groaned. She had, in fact found a whole new set of telephone boxes. And had finally managed to dial the number and hear the other end ring. But no one ever picked up.
Very depressed, Dawn had roamed the streets.
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That same day, around midday...
It was lunch break and he used this time to calm his nerves.
Connor marched in the opposite direction of the cafeteria and into the playground, surrounded by a high wall. All the trees were far from the big white barrier, stopping any rogue student from being able to get out. But Connor knew another way. He looked around, making sure there were no "sentinels" that would catch him. Security was very tight in the school, making it nearly impossible to get out before the end of the day.
Connor started warming up his shoulders by lifting his arms above his head, stretching, then jogged a little before deeming himself ready.
He suddenly sprinted towards the wall with all his might and jumped, the muscles of his legs pulling at the sudden movement... And caught the top of the wall, still dangling in the inside, he lifted himself up to drop on the other side, cat like on his feet, legs flexed, his hands braced before him and then slowly stood up.
Now he could go find a demon and kill it. He jogged off, his mind set and lifting his spirits.
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At the same moment...
Dawn had thought that all the demons were usually in Sunnydale, but they might have migrated because of Buffy's move. Why couldn't they have gone to Las Vegas, and not Los Angeles? Perhaps they had been here before? Maybe it was because Los Angeles was better, with bimbos on the beaches and young girl in the street like herself. After all, they were like happy meals with legs, an easy catch.
Dawn swung her arm towards the orange head demon, inappropriate thoughts about the causes and consequences of demon migration racing threw her head.
The demon hissed, it's putrid breath made Dawn cringe. The guy had a rooster's crest on his head and a strange hole for mouth.
Dawn took the metallic top of dustbin and threw it like a Frisbee so it collided with the midsection of the demon. He caught it just in time before impact and crumpled it like paper. He threw it aside before approaching Dawn again.
The Slayer's sister roamed in her backpack, searching for her miracle scissors.
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Connor sniffed the air, sure thing, there was a demon about. He calmly followed the smell. However, something was wrong: warning bells went off in his head.
He stopped just before a corner that went into a dark street. He heard trash cans being knocked over, and the unmistakable sound of punches. But he stood there for some odd reason. Usually he was glad to run into a fight, where all his troubles would be momentarily forgotten, where all his rage could be taken out on a demon. However, he didn't move. For some strange feeling, it felt as though he was forbidden to destroy the creature that was making all that racket. Demons had to be killed. The sentence flashed in his mind as he turned the corner.
His first impulse to lunge at the demon after a quick inspection of it's body. This one was rather unusual. Once his knife was removed from his pocket, he jumped on the demon and slit it's throat. The demon pulled him off, not seeming to be effected by the gooey red stuff oozing from his throat.
Connor glanced about and found who the demon was attacking.
It nearly put him off guard at the sight of the girl with a dagger clutched in her hand. But his attention was soon returned to the demon that lunged at him. At the last moment, it's path turned to that of the girl. With a mighty swing, he hit the girl in the face. She flew back and hit her head on the ground. Her face scrunched in pain. Infuriated, Connor pounced on the demon and drop kicked it to the floor before stabbing it to death.
¤
The punch had come out of no where, and Dawn felt the pain surge through her skull as she flew to the ground. Just before she fell into unconsciousness, she got the impression that someone else was there/ She prayed that it wasn't another demon that would finish her off. With that final thought, she passed out.
¤
Connor ran to the girl after the fight. He noticed her unconscious state but could tell she was quickly returning back. As she woke, she groaned and clutched her head, shaking away the pain. She opened her eyes and growled in frustration.
"That was a nasty blow I wasn't expecting," she said to no one in particular. However, she soon noticed the boy standing by her.
"Give me a hand, will ya?" she told Connor, thrusting her hand towards him.
Connor took it and helped her up, watching her curiously. Her lips were red like blood, her eyes black as coal.
"You picked a good fight," she complemented him as she gave Connor a lopsided grin.
Connor wasn't sure what she was saying, but he just nodded. Something was wrong about her, she smelt different from the other girls. However he couldn't stop staring her well-formed body and heaving breasts. The leather she was wearing did little to conceal these traits.
"Let me introduce myself, I'm Faith."
Connor noticed that the woman had a deep brouge, so she had to be from the East Coast.
"Connor," he said quietly, not sure what to make out of the situation.
Faith bit her lower lip, showing he white teeth and tilted her head.
"How must I thank my Knight in shinning armour?" she asked.
Connor, again, didn't get the meaning and frowned.
When Faith pushed him violently against the wall, he was surprise when felt her lips against his. He opened his mouth to protest to only find the kiss deepened.
Something inside him broke and he kissed her back savagely.
Faith finally pulled back, grinning at him, her hands still against his chest.
"Till next time, sweetheart," she said before blowing him a kiss and disappearing at the end of the street as she ran off.
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Dawn woke up some time later, completely disoriented to find herself... on the front lawn of the Elderberry's house. Dawn frowned in confusion. Where had the orange demon gone? Was she dead? Injured. Dawn checked out for pain but it was gone, there was nothing there, only a slight headache. She pulled herself up and found her bag next to her. She picked it up and looked about again. There was no one. And then, she was sure she'd seen it, a bit of grey cloth behind the hedge.
She took a careful step backwards before inside the house.
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Back to the Present...
Dawn was still lying on her bed.
"Dawn? Are you up there? It's suppertime!" rang out the cheery voice of Elisabeth Elderberry as she called up the stairs.
Dawn looked at her bedside clock. It was seven o'clock. Last time she'd checked it'd been about midday. Where had she spent her whole afternoon before she ended up on the lawn. She had expected to get lost. She had thought about running away until she noticed her stalker.
Dawn got up and walked downstairs deciding that things were definitively weird.
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Did you really think that Dawn and Connor were going to meet? He would save her in a prince charming way and say, I love you, and then hang around in school everyday? I don't thinks so! But I promise Dawn will get his attention next time (well, I think so). About Faith: I'm aware that some wish for a Faith/Connor relationship because these characters have been in the same situations but personally, I think they'd probably end up killing each other. You're welcome to give your opinion on the matter by reviewing, if you so wish. To tell you the truth, the warning bells, well, if he hadn't turned that corner, he would have probably found Dawn a couple of streets later. He was right- it was wrong turn. Sigh...
* In France, it is fashionable to wear a dress over jeans, like a tunic.
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Dawn slammed the door of the Elderberry's house and ran to her room without saying hello to the elderly couple. God, how this day had been weird.
Dawn threw herself on the bed. It was too much to cope with. Her gaze fixed blankly the ceiling, wishing another portal could open into a dimension where trouble didn't exist, where everything was perfect, and where a bunch of guys with dusters didn't follow her.
She reluctantly got up and looked out of her window and sighed in relief that there was no tall person with a grey duster in front of the house. It wasn't the exact creepiest thing that had happened to her that day, but it was nearly there.
¤¤¤¤
Earlier that day...
Dawn looked behind herself. She still desperately wanted to call Buffy, but something else was nagging her now. The buildings were starting to get taller, the streets narrower, and she had no idea where she was. She would try to stick to the large streets, but just wanted so much to just get back to school, so ironic, she'd skipped class with more pleasure she would admit, but things were now getting creepier and creepier.
The creepy thing in question was the person that was following her. She was sure of it. He was still behind her after a half an hour of walking. It couldn't be coincidence, Dawn had tried to make the most turns possible, and he was still there with the same glasses and grey duster.
Dawn wiped her brow with the back of her hand. It was starting to get really hot, and because of the worry that the stalker had bestowed upon her, she had the cold sweats. Oh, how she hated it! The worst thing was the phone box, most of them were broken, with missing receivers or just gobbled the money without giving it back. Dawn had the impression her nerves were going to break.
Maybe she ought to just phone Angel, he being the nearest potential protector. However, since the last time he had turned into Angelus, Dawn had never felt comfortable around him, being the first to be attacked when he had turned. She had never told her older sister, frightened it would break her heart even more. Angelus had been brutal, not the filthy sneaky subtle psycho, but brutal in a way that Dawn had to erase completely from her memory. It was something she never wanted to think about again.
That now untouchable memory made her shiver. Again Dawn looked behind her shoulder, searching for the grey duster. He was still there. It was time to really lose him.
Several small dark streets offered themselves, but Dawn passed them by. She'd looked at enough films to tell that dark streets weren't a good idea if you wanted to escape someone when you're a young woman that doesn't really have the means to defend herself.
Dawn turned into a Jennifer clothes shop.
The Jennifer shops have the reputation of been stuffed, literally, with clothes. Each row is done on purpose to be able to take out an item with difficulty, tangled in other clothes and then be impossible to put back on the rack because of the overflow of material. Dawn hadn't chosen the place for the cheap prices or the pink coloured sweaters that would have made a vampire squeal in horror, but for one of it's incredible virtues: getting lost.
It must have been about eleven o'clock and there was a dozen of girls, giggling, wooing at the merchandise and chatting loudly.
Dawn quickly made her way her way between the racks, lowering her head seeming interested in the clothes although she had actually spotted a nice blue tank top and thought of coming back. She slowly walked to the back of the shop, into the changing rooms, grabbing randomly on her a dark purple silky dress and a beret.
Dawn poked her head out several times to see if he had followed her in, and, to her disappointment, he hadn't. She groaned in frustration when she glimpsed him just in front of the entrance of the shop. It was going to be harder than expected. She pulled back the curtain and decided what to do.
Searching in her backpack, she took out her scissors from her pencil-case and started to take the magnetic tags off. Theses weren't any normal scissors; they were made of a slim metal with some kind of inscription of the side of the blades. When Anya had asked Dawn to give back her stolen items, the slayer's sister had "unconsciously" forgotten this particular item (very useful for stealing, actually). Did it make a liar and thief out of Dawn? Maybe. But these scissors could cut through plastic like butter, metal like cardboard. All guilty thoughts had been long forgotten. When she tried to find a better spot to hid the items, she tried the walls of her room. However, they were a bit too thick and she had to put a poster up on top of where she'd tried to cut to hide the damage.
With a precise movement, she cut the tags off and tried the dress on top of her jeans.* Dawn looked at herself in the mirror, rather satisfied. The dress fell outwards just above her knees. Taking the tag of the beige beret, she put it on and stuffed her hair inside. Taking another look in the mirror, she looked nearly completely different than earlier. Getting out of the changing rooms, she decided it had to do, and tried to get out without getting too much attention from the personnel. She made it out with ease and turned right straight away, glancing at the man that had been following her.
He was in his twenties, bold, his eyelids looked heavy and had a very square jaw.
Turning back ahead, Dawn quickly walked off, using her small mirror to look behind herself and saw with glee that he hadn't moved from the spot.
"Well," she thought to herself, "that wasn't that bad."
She had a new dress and hat, and was now thinking of herself as a young version of a young secret agent. The feeling was great, and she skipped along the pavement. Now, she only needed to find another phone box.
¤¤¤
Falling back on her bed, Dawn groaned. She had, in fact found a whole new set of telephone boxes. And had finally managed to dial the number and hear the other end ring. But no one ever picked up.
Very depressed, Dawn had roamed the streets.
¤¤¤
That same day, around midday...
It was lunch break and he used this time to calm his nerves.
Connor marched in the opposite direction of the cafeteria and into the playground, surrounded by a high wall. All the trees were far from the big white barrier, stopping any rogue student from being able to get out. But Connor knew another way. He looked around, making sure there were no "sentinels" that would catch him. Security was very tight in the school, making it nearly impossible to get out before the end of the day.
Connor started warming up his shoulders by lifting his arms above his head, stretching, then jogged a little before deeming himself ready.
He suddenly sprinted towards the wall with all his might and jumped, the muscles of his legs pulling at the sudden movement... And caught the top of the wall, still dangling in the inside, he lifted himself up to drop on the other side, cat like on his feet, legs flexed, his hands braced before him and then slowly stood up.
Now he could go find a demon and kill it. He jogged off, his mind set and lifting his spirits.
¤¤¤
At the same moment...
Dawn had thought that all the demons were usually in Sunnydale, but they might have migrated because of Buffy's move. Why couldn't they have gone to Las Vegas, and not Los Angeles? Perhaps they had been here before? Maybe it was because Los Angeles was better, with bimbos on the beaches and young girl in the street like herself. After all, they were like happy meals with legs, an easy catch.
Dawn swung her arm towards the orange head demon, inappropriate thoughts about the causes and consequences of demon migration racing threw her head.
The demon hissed, it's putrid breath made Dawn cringe. The guy had a rooster's crest on his head and a strange hole for mouth.
Dawn took the metallic top of dustbin and threw it like a Frisbee so it collided with the midsection of the demon. He caught it just in time before impact and crumpled it like paper. He threw it aside before approaching Dawn again.
The Slayer's sister roamed in her backpack, searching for her miracle scissors.
¤
Connor sniffed the air, sure thing, there was a demon about. He calmly followed the smell. However, something was wrong: warning bells went off in his head.
He stopped just before a corner that went into a dark street. He heard trash cans being knocked over, and the unmistakable sound of punches. But he stood there for some odd reason. Usually he was glad to run into a fight, where all his troubles would be momentarily forgotten, where all his rage could be taken out on a demon. However, he didn't move. For some strange feeling, it felt as though he was forbidden to destroy the creature that was making all that racket. Demons had to be killed. The sentence flashed in his mind as he turned the corner.
His first impulse to lunge at the demon after a quick inspection of it's body. This one was rather unusual. Once his knife was removed from his pocket, he jumped on the demon and slit it's throat. The demon pulled him off, not seeming to be effected by the gooey red stuff oozing from his throat.
Connor glanced about and found who the demon was attacking.
It nearly put him off guard at the sight of the girl with a dagger clutched in her hand. But his attention was soon returned to the demon that lunged at him. At the last moment, it's path turned to that of the girl. With a mighty swing, he hit the girl in the face. She flew back and hit her head on the ground. Her face scrunched in pain. Infuriated, Connor pounced on the demon and drop kicked it to the floor before stabbing it to death.
¤
The punch had come out of no where, and Dawn felt the pain surge through her skull as she flew to the ground. Just before she fell into unconsciousness, she got the impression that someone else was there/ She prayed that it wasn't another demon that would finish her off. With that final thought, she passed out.
¤
Connor ran to the girl after the fight. He noticed her unconscious state but could tell she was quickly returning back. As she woke, she groaned and clutched her head, shaking away the pain. She opened her eyes and growled in frustration.
"That was a nasty blow I wasn't expecting," she said to no one in particular. However, she soon noticed the boy standing by her.
"Give me a hand, will ya?" she told Connor, thrusting her hand towards him.
Connor took it and helped her up, watching her curiously. Her lips were red like blood, her eyes black as coal.
"You picked a good fight," she complemented him as she gave Connor a lopsided grin.
Connor wasn't sure what she was saying, but he just nodded. Something was wrong about her, she smelt different from the other girls. However he couldn't stop staring her well-formed body and heaving breasts. The leather she was wearing did little to conceal these traits.
"Let me introduce myself, I'm Faith."
Connor noticed that the woman had a deep brouge, so she had to be from the East Coast.
"Connor," he said quietly, not sure what to make out of the situation.
Faith bit her lower lip, showing he white teeth and tilted her head.
"How must I thank my Knight in shinning armour?" she asked.
Connor, again, didn't get the meaning and frowned.
When Faith pushed him violently against the wall, he was surprise when felt her lips against his. He opened his mouth to protest to only find the kiss deepened.
Something inside him broke and he kissed her back savagely.
Faith finally pulled back, grinning at him, her hands still against his chest.
"Till next time, sweetheart," she said before blowing him a kiss and disappearing at the end of the street as she ran off.
¤¤¤
Dawn woke up some time later, completely disoriented to find herself... on the front lawn of the Elderberry's house. Dawn frowned in confusion. Where had the orange demon gone? Was she dead? Injured. Dawn checked out for pain but it was gone, there was nothing there, only a slight headache. She pulled herself up and found her bag next to her. She picked it up and looked about again. There was no one. And then, she was sure she'd seen it, a bit of grey cloth behind the hedge.
She took a careful step backwards before inside the house.
¤¤¤
Back to the Present...
Dawn was still lying on her bed.
"Dawn? Are you up there? It's suppertime!" rang out the cheery voice of Elisabeth Elderberry as she called up the stairs.
Dawn looked at her bedside clock. It was seven o'clock. Last time she'd checked it'd been about midday. Where had she spent her whole afternoon before she ended up on the lawn. She had expected to get lost. She had thought about running away until she noticed her stalker.
Dawn got up and walked downstairs deciding that things were definitively weird.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Did you really think that Dawn and Connor were going to meet? He would save her in a prince charming way and say, I love you, and then hang around in school everyday? I don't thinks so! But I promise Dawn will get his attention next time (well, I think so). About Faith: I'm aware that some wish for a Faith/Connor relationship because these characters have been in the same situations but personally, I think they'd probably end up killing each other. You're welcome to give your opinion on the matter by reviewing, if you so wish. To tell you the truth, the warning bells, well, if he hadn't turned that corner, he would have probably found Dawn a couple of streets later. He was right- it was wrong turn. Sigh...
* In France, it is fashionable to wear a dress over jeans, like a tunic.