Chapter 11.

As Dawn reached for the bottle of bourbon Adanar began quietly,
"Dawn, why do you believe it necessary to dehydrate… "
Before he could finish, he looked over towards Spike and Gunn with a grin and stretched out her hand, saying gleefully,
"Ante up guys! Unless you need to hear the whole 'dehydrate your system, lower your levels of vitamin B, depress optimum intellectual function and destroy healthy brain cells' lecture?"

Spike tossed her a twenty dollar note, asking a bemused Adanar,
"Did she get you to say that? Are you in on it with her?"
"A fifty-fifty set up? You mean we've beenhad?"
Gunn wanted to know as he handed his money over.
"I'm afraid I do not .. Oh, is this gambling? Dawn, are you taking money merely for knowing me better than do Spike and Gunn?"
Adanar sounded scandalised but amused.

"You bettcha! Easy money my friend."
She stuffed the notes into her jeans pockets and stood up, asking the room,
"Who'd like coffee or tea? Stop scowling Spike and I'll make chocolate with marshmallows if you'd like?"
Spike eyed her hopefully,
"The tiny ones Joyce always used?"
"Uh huh, just like mom used to make."

"How can you do that?"
Willow sank back on the sofa as if regretting her impulsive words. Dawn looked confused,
"What? Gamble with Spike and Gunn? Or make chocolate?"
Willow asked,
"Relive all that .. horror and then be so .. normal?"

Dawn gazed at her and the pale, haunted face softened her so that she spoke kindly.
"Come on Will, it's what I used to see the Scoobies doing all the time; laughing the scary stuff off. I learned enough from being around you guys to give me an advantage when surviving."

Like what?"
Buffy wanted to know. Dawn cleared a space on the coffee table in front of Willow and sat facing her. She answered her sister's question while looking at the little witch.
"Well, I already knew about evil; everything that happened to me is happening to some other girl here on Earth at this very minute. Even fighting in the Death Ring was retro Roman Empire. Slavery hasn't gone, the mines are like those Russian places; the Gulags. Humans have managed to come up with an impressive array of torture over the centuries."

Giles nodded his agreement as she continued,
"Then there's living in the Hellmouth. If I hadn't lived there just the shock of coming across demons would have driven me crazy like the other humans I came across. Remember how people lived in Sunnydale and never saw the demons? Or refused to believe they were real? But I had demon babysitters and werewolves and vengeance demons dropped in for coffee! Weird is normal to me."

She reminded Willow, with a quiet laugh and a wave of the hand,
"Look around this room; vampires of the souled variety, a Watcher, the Slayer, a powerful witch and a Ganaru demon. Heck, Gunn's the only 'normal' human here and he runs around killing mythological creatures without having to use a video game; so not normal! I still haven't figured out if I qualify as human or if I'm half demonic."

Willow winced at a reminder of how she had taunted Dawn with not being human before opening the portal. She began,
"Dawnie I know I was horrible but I didn't .."
Dawn reached out and squeezed Willows hand and found it almost ice cold.
"I know Will. But in a weird way it gave me the greatest edge of all."

She saw their confusion and explained,
"I decided that the 'ball of energy me' was super powerful enough to keep me alive! It helps to survive a place like Kridjator if you get rid of inbuilt moral standards that prevent you doing whatever you need to do to survive so, believing I'm only half human made that easier. Of course having a Slayer's D.N.A. helped; my reflexes, strength and healing power are top-of-the-line for humans."

Dawn turned to look at Buffy,
"All those training sessions I moaned about being dragged along to watch you doing? At least I knew what the pointy end of a sword was for! I absorbed a hell of a lot of demonology from all those dusty books of Giles'; I can swear fluently in nine or ten languages now!"

She sounded very pleased with herself until Adanar broke in cheerfully,
"Remind me to tell you about her record of non-stop cursing without repeating a single word! Twenty three minutes and nineteen seconds! All while she was running through a cactus forest with a .."
"I thought we agreed that particular story was not to be told again? It wasn't all that funny anyway."
He returned Dawn's glare with a wide smile and she shrugged before turning back to Willow.

Softly she admitted,
"I'm so not normal Will. I'm half crazy and saying I have 'mood swings' is like saying a leper has 'a slight skin problem'. I know you would have tried your damnedest to get me back and I know you were half insane with grief when you opened that portal. I wish I could tell you that I forgive you, even if only because it's what Tara would have wanted, but I can't. Not yet anyway; it's all still too close, too painful. But I'll try, okay?"

Willow wiped her eyes and dredged up a watery smile from somewhere,
"Thanks Dawnie, it means a lot that you want to. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, I know. Now, who wants that coffee? Then Adanar can tell us how the slavers work and we'll try and remember everything we know about Hadretz and Strega."

Giles followed Dawn into the kitchen carrying the dirty mugs and glasses. He washed and dried them while she busied herself making hot chocolate. He polished his glasses and returned them to his face and smiling she told him,
"Whenever I thought of you Giles I pictured you polishing your glasses, or pinching the bridge of your nose when we did something that gave you a headache."

His smile was slightly bewildered but when he spoke it was to say gratefully,
"You handled Willow with great sensitivity Dawn, especially after recounting your harrowing experiences. I'm not naive enough to believe we have heard the worst that you endured but to try and reach out to Willow was more than generous, given the circumstances."

She shrugged, lifted the heavy tray and said,
"Yeah, well she wouldn't be much use to us if she was busy doing the whole 'mea culpa' thing. And I can see she's been beating herself up over it. Let's go let Adanar tell his tale of woe, shall we? Before that lot worm that stupid swearing story out of him!"