X.

The route to his favorite breakfast place was a short drive north, about five minutes, and the sun streamed in Dawn's window and made her hair shine and blaze. It was a quiet drive, peaceful. How long have I missed peace, he thought. Dawn had one hand lightly touching his arm, friendly, possessive, comforting. Every time he snuck a glance at her, her face was turned to the sun, eyes closed, basking, and looking content.

Radiant, he thought. Isn't that what they always say? Mothers-to-be look radiant? It fit, scary as the thought was. He'd always thought of her hair as brown, but with the sun reflecting and refracting through it, he could see now it was brown, and auburn, and blonde, a hundred shades catching the light and shining to make one beautiful color in the sun.

They pulled up, a little hole in the wall called "Not Warner Brothers' Deli." Apparently, it had been Warner Brother's Deli at some time, and had grudgingly had the "NOT" painted in as the result of some out of court settlement. There was a counter with a few regulars, and some good smells coming from the kitchen. Tending the register was a tall but weathered older man, with iron-grey hair in a ponytail that might not have been cut since the Summer of Love.

"Come on in," Xander said, offering his hand as he held the door.

She slid past and around him and wound up arm in arm moving towards a booth by the end of the counter. Xander nodded to the man at the register, who waved back.

"Hey, Pop, how's things?" Xander called over to him.

Pop ambled over as they slid into the booth, his eyes surveying Dawn even as he clasped Xander on the shoulder. When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from around his shoes and well up inside him, perfectly rounded tones that would have fit James Earl Jones if not for the Yiddish accent.

"And Xander my boy, who is this? You come alone four, five days a week for over a year, and now this little Maideleh?" he wagged his eyebrows and winked at her delighted expression. "Not exactly a zaftig shaineh maidel, but we work with what we have, just need to feed her something. Shalom, dear girl. Welcome."

"Aleichem shalom, Pop. Everything smells wonderfull!"

Xander stared at her like he was waiting for the other snake to drop. Pop just tossed his head back and laughed, then bowed deeply and headed back to the register, tussling Xander's hair on the way.

"Keep this one, son. Mazel!"

Xander found his voice at last. "And you became fluent in Hebrew when?"

Dawn laughed and grabbed his hand over the table. "Yiddish silly. He just said I was a nice pretty girl but I need to eat something. Anyway, Willow was teaching me some Hebrew." She shrugged. "It helped with research, and then at school I found that the same kids who checked out the Hebrew books all talked about everyone in Yiddish. I've never taken well to people talking over my head, so I started picking it up. It's fun! Heck after teaching myself Sumerian it was a breeze."

"Amazing." He'd never really thought about how much Dawn had picked up as Research Girl and Junior Scooby. It had just seemed right and no one had ever talked about it that he could recall.

"And here you loved me for just my kisses, when I am also a poly-lingual genius and all around scholar girl." She laughed and he shook his head again.

XI.

"So Xander, what's the story with Pop?" she continued more discreetly. "And why didn't you tell me there were vampires here? Have you been in trouble?"

Xander quickly looked around, then back to her. He kept his voice low.

"What? No trouble really. How did you…"

"Pop." She nodded towards his slightly. "When he laughed I saw the scars on his neck. We know where those come from. Besides, not a lot of old Jewish hippies have a silver crucifix next to the Magen David around their necks. Something happened, so give."

"Y'all ready to order?" The waitress, whose nametag proclaimed her to be "Anne," cocked an eyebrow and indicated the menus printed on their placemats.

"Oh, erm, yeah," Xander said, a little surprised to see new help in Warner's. She was young, blonde, pretty in a way that might not fade if she kept a decent job and took care of herself. Knowing Pop, she had either run away to LA and was now getting out, or was from LA and was running away from something worse.

"Uh, let me have 2 eggs over medium, a bagel, and some OJ."

"And you Miss?"

"The same… oh, and some of the berry blintzes and cream… and a cup of coffee. Thank you."

"Hungry?"

"I lived on cereal and burnt pancakes for 3 years. It wasn't till I got to the prep that I discovered they actually make other foods at breakfast. Did you know that? I didn't know that. I thought it was some sort of cruel hoax. There's even this thing called brunch, where you get all the breakfast stuff and they have carved turkey. I swear, seen it with my own eyes."

He had to grin at her, but then she did a very credible Resolve Face.

"So now tell me. Pop. Vampires. The sitch?"

"Oh, it wasn't much. I'd been here a month or so, and couldn't get back to sleep one morning early, before sunrise. I didn't sleep much, then." His face was unreadable, and he was staring into the middle distance over her shoulder as he spoke. "I guess that's why I got back into the carpentry, some construction. Easier to fall asleep if your body is as tired as your mind."

She squeezed his hand and it brought him back. He hadn't realized they were still holding hands. If they were, what? Dating? Whatever it was, he better start noticing things like that, he thought, or he might wind up in trouble.

"So, I was walking, not really seeing anything, just in my own head, walking. A fyarl demon could have bit me on the ass and I doubt I'd have seen it. Anyway, Pop over there was just unlocking the place and he surprised some skank Vampirella skulking in his doorway. I guess she'd just been turned and was running from the daylight coming. With the shutters down this place does a great impression of an abandoned building."

"Pop starts shouting, she's shouting and clawing at him. More like a wet angry cat than a vamp, but he's a total pacifist, no training whatsoever, couldn't get her pried off his neck. I stood there with them right in front of me. And then I guess I lost my temper."

"What happened?"

"I grabbed her, just lifted her off him and held her over my head by her collar and her belt. And I got mad, and started shaking her. 'This isn't Sunnydale. It's not LA. This is a decent little place and I'm tired of demons like YOU making it impossible for me to get any SLEEP!' Lots of stuff like that. I was lucky she wasn't very experienced or with the state I was in she would have had me right there, and Pop too."

"Finally, she managed to get a kick in on my shoulder and almost broke free. So I threw her in the street. That was it."

"That was it? She ran off?"

"No. I sort of expected her to, but while I'd been yelling at her, the sun had come up."

"Ah.

"Yeah. Well, Pop and I had a long talk over some really good bagels and coffee. We've been pretty tight ever since. He doesn't have any family, and I have never had much in the way of a father figure, unless you count Uncle Rory which I try never to do."

"Xander, the Vampire Slayer." She was looking at him with an odd expression he could not classify.

"Very funny."

"No, think about it. One on one, without a weapon, you saved a man from a vampire. How many others have you dusted over the years? Dozens? Hundreds? Plus a piece of who knows how many demons, and one god I could name if I didn't refuse to do so. As far as non-magical non-slayer non-demony mortal humans go, you may be the most deadly-to-vampire human who ever lived."

The idea was so strange he shied away from it. It couldn't be true. Besides there were the Watchers, and the Initiative and who knows what all else out there going bump in the night. Still, it did make him consider rethinking the way he viewed some of his accomplishments from the last eight years or so. Maybe it bore thinking about.

XII.

"Here y'all are. Eggs, bagel. Blintzes. Coffee."

"Thanks," they said together.

"Sure folks, let us know if you need anything okay?"

Dawn looked at her food, and let go of his hand to begin sugaring her coffee.

Might as well start with the talking, Xander thought, looking at her full mug of dark java.

"You sure you should be having that, Dawn? I mean, considering…?"

"What, it's going to stunt my growth?" She laughed and waved vaguely at her 5'8" frame. The table blocked most of her body though, so it mostly appeared as a gesture to her fairly impressive figure.

"I'm guessing it's too late for that," she continued. When Xander nearly choked fighting off a spit-take of his OJ, she looked down to see where he was looking. Well, he was looking where she had wound up pointing, pretty much at her bust. She flushed red.

"I meant," she went on quickly, waving her hand up towards the top of her head frantically, "I meant tall. You know, 'cause I am already tall. About half a foot taller than Buffy and you can bet that bothers her more than she ever admits. Taller than just about everyone, except you and maybe Giles. Spike was tall. Is tall. Again. If he's alive... or not dead. Whatever. So, I'm tall, so too late for growth stunting."

Xander smiled, and said bemusedly, "Your mom was tall."

Dawn, who had just picked up her fork, looking for something to do with her hands, put it down again on her plate with a clatter.

Xander felt himself flushing. Way to go, idiot, he thought.

"Dawn honey I didn't mean to…"

"No, no, it's okay."

"I just thought of that, and of course I said it. Xander has filters now between his brain and mouth, honest. Been working on that a lot."

She put her hand on his cheek and pursed her lips slightly, considering.

"It's fine Xander. I think about her a lot. But to me, she's still this huge person a million miles tall who smells like art supplies and baking. It surprised me to think that when you were my age, she was still alive. You were basically an adult, or at least not a kid any more, and you knew her."

"I'm sorry if it upsets you, Dawn. I don't know what to say…"

"Oh, Xander, I think it's wonderful. I envy you, and when you said I was tall like her, I realized that was the first time anyone has ever told me I was like my mom. I didn't think I'd ever have that, and it snuck up on me."

"Hey now. No crying. Crying in your beer is bad. Crying over spilled milk is wrong yet surprisingly satisfying, or so I have been told. But crying on your blintzes? I'm not sure what the penalty is for that under California law but I imagine it's severe."

She just looked at him for a long time. She picked up her fork, took a small bite and chewed it slowly, then swallowed.

"To quote the Prophet: 'Awww Steeempy, You're one of thee good ones, maaaan.'" Her eyes were shining and there was a tiny spot of berry on her upper lip.

Cartoon network. Adult swim. He snorted, picked up his fork, and started to eat. He had totally forgotten that they had Serious Issues to have a Real Talk about. And that was okay.