Chapter Thirty Five – Two Talks

"Dawn?"

"Not now Giles," came the reply. "I'm working."

"You've been working non-stop for over 30 hours," Giles said. "Whatever you are looking for can wait for a few minutes."

"I'm looking for what I missed," Dawn said. "Where I screwed up."

"Dawn, you cannot blame yourself for what happened," Giles said. "We all made the same mistake."

"It's my responsibility Giles," Dawn said. Giles moved into the office. Dawn still hadn't moved. Files were strung all over her desk and Dawn was still hunched over scanning through the papers. She hadn't even looked up to acknowledge him. "It's my job to make sure we have the best information. My job to make sure we go after the right people. I screwed up. It doesn't matter if the rest of you made the same mistake, it's my job to make sure mistakes like this don't happen."

"Dawn," Giles walked up to her desk.

"Go away Giles."

Giles reached down and pulled away the file Dawn was reading and tossed it on the ground.

"We are going to talk Dawn."

Dawn finally looked up from the desk. She looked exhausted. Giles sat down in one of the offices chairs. Dawn slumped back into her chair and turned to stare at the wall.

"Dawn."

"Save it Giles," Dawn said. "I know what you're going to say. We acted on the best information we had. We had no way of knowing this 'Order of the Phoenix' existed. You approved the plan. MI5 acted on the same data. Just save it. I still screwed up."

"We all made the same assumptions," Giles said.

"It's my job to question assumptions," Dawn said. "We treated this whole 'Wizarding world' thing the same way we treat every demon problem. Identify the big bad, locate the big bad, kill the big bad. We just assumed everything could be narrowed down to Riddle and his followers. That was stupid from the opening bell. 200,000 people. We should have assumed multiple factions. We should have done more to check whether or not other groups were going after Riddle. We didn't. I didn't."

Giles sighed. "Dawn, you have an enormous number of responsibilities. The situation with Riddle is one of dozen projects you are juggling right now. You are doing a good job of delegating research assignments but you are still stretched thin. No one but you expects you to be able to keep track of every detail of every project. It's natural to make assumptions to try and find a short cut through a problem."

"You don't get it Giles," Dawn replied. "This isn't about taking a short cut. We are treating the whole situation wrong."

"Dawn."

"Damn it Giles!" Dawn shouted. "Listen. We've been dancing around this for two months. We've said a dozen times how amazing it is that 200,000 people can live undetected for centuries. But we still treat the problem the same way we treat a demon clan at one of the Hellmouths. We assign a team, give them research support and then let it play out. That won't work here. We're dealing with an entire world."

"What are you suggesting we do Dawn?" Giles asked. "Back off. Allow Riddle and his followers to slaughter these people."

"No," Dawn replied. "But we need to rethink our approach. This world has lived in relative isolation for over a thousand years. They have no idea magic exists outside their world. No idea that there are 'muggles' who are not only aware of their existence but have the means to attack them on their own terms. We have no idea how they will react. And our first choice for contact was to go in guns blazing. Worse we've haven't done any real research into how they got the way they are."

"Is that what you've been doing for the last 30 hours," Giles said. "Trying to find answers."

"We've said before how strange it is that Wizards stay in the enclaves," Dawn said. "But it goes deeper than that. Everybody likes Quidditch. And don't mean the way everybody in England likes Soccer. Everybody likes Quidditch. It's the only major organized sport that's played in the Wizarding world. The Daily Prophet is the only major source of news. You get regional variations but basically it's the USA Today of the Wizarding world. Variations in public opinion are differences in degree, not in kind."

"Dawn this fascinating," Giles said. "But I fail to see the significance."

"Go to any small city of 200,000 people and walk around," Dawn said. "Generally speaking there will be multiple news sources. There might be one or two dominate papers, but multiple local news channels. Probably even an alternative press. Oddball shows on cable access. Public opinion will vary all over the political spectrum. There will be half dozen organized team sports for kids. Maybe even one or two pro sports teams. Reading these reports, there is an incredible sameness to the Wizarding world."

"Dawn, you just finished saying how little information we have on the Wizarding world," Giles said. "Sweeping generalities won't work."

"Consider the attitude towards 'muggles'," Dawn said. "They tend to vary between indifference to fascination to outright hatred. But there is universal agreement that 'muggles' should not learn about the Wizarding world. That doesn't make sense. Especially since they don't teach people their true history. Why the universal agreement to stay inside the enclaves? To keep muggles out? Among a population this large there should be a sizable percentage that disagrees with the policy. But there isn't. Over the last one hundred years there has never been a proposal made to loosen the secrecy policies, only proposals to strengthen them. Most of which pass."

"What are you suggesting?" Giles said. "How do you explain this?"

"I can't Giles," Dawn said. "That's the point. We don't know anything. We make assumptions and charge ahead. We go out and kill innocent people!" Dawn slammed her hands down and angrily shoved a stack of papers off her desk. "Because I didn't look hard enough! Because I didn't see the right pattern! Because I didn't ask the right questions!" she slumped back down into her chair. "Because I failed."

Giles got up from his chair, walked around the desk pulled Dawn out of her chair, she didn't bother to resist, and hugged her. She cried.

"You didn't fail Dawn," he said softly. "You made a mistake. We all made a mistake. A terrible mistake. But you can't let it destroy you. You have to learn from it."

"When did things get so complicated?" she sobbed. "It was so much simpler."

"Yes, quite," Giles replied. "There are days when I miss Sunnydale."

"At least we knew where we stood," Dawn said. "Now we're setting up a legal office in Cleveland. Making plans to do the same thing here. Trying to keep track of two hundred plus Slayers. Juggling offices all over the world. I can just barely keep up anymore. And now we have something totally new to deal with and I don't know what to do."

"None of us know what to do," Giles said. He sat Dawn back into her chair and knelt beside her. "We do what we have always done. The best we can. We are going to make mistakes."

"We can't make these kind of mistakes Giles," Dawn stared at the floor.

"I know. But we make them anyway. That's what it means to be human."

"I'm not human remember," Dawn said. "I'm supposed to have a role in this. I still don't know what that role is."

"Dawn, you're human," Giles said. "Don't ever question that. As Buffy said, it's doesn't matter what you were before. You are one of us now."

"And I'm still the Key," Dawn said. "How am I supposed to help if I don't even know what the hell is going on? When I let this happen."

"I wish I had easy answers Dawn," Giles said. "But you know there are no easy answers in this world. Not with the things we deal with. Have you heard anything from Gray?"

"He's still checking his sources," Dawn replied. "It's slow going. He has to do things very quietly."

"Get some sleep," Giles said. "This will all still be here in the morning."

"In a little while," Dawn said. "I need to clean up."

"Now Dawn," Giles said.

"Don't get Ripper on me," Dawn said. "You're getting old. I could probably take you."

"You are becoming delusional. You need sleep," Giles said. He pulled her out her chair again and began marching her towards the door. "I'll get one the Slayers to drive you home."

"You're trying to get me to sleep Giles, not scare me to death."

"You're going home," Giles said. "I told Willow to lock you out of the system so can't do any work from your home computer. You will go to sleep."

"I have to figure this stuff out."

"Tomorrow."

"Fine," Dawn sighed. "A couple of hours. But I'm coming back."

Eric walked up to the small house Faye shared with a couple of the other Slayers based in London. He knocked on the door. Debra answered.

"Hey Eric," she said. "You're here to see Faye."

"Yea," he replied. "How is she?"

"She's not talking," Debra replied. "I took her four out of four falls during our sparing session. I usually only get one off of her. It's weird. She's always quiet, but not like this."

Eric nodded. It was almost as bad as when Rona died. Faye just closed up after that. It had taken almost a month to get her back out of her shell and moving her to England to get her to smile again. Damn. She was finally starting to become herself again.

"I take it she's up in her room," Eric said.

"Yea," came the reply. Debra opened the door wider and moved out the way. It wasn't an explicit invitation to enter but rather what Robin grilled into each Slayer during their training. Eric entered the house and made his way upstairs. He reached Faye's door and stopped.

"Come in Eric," Faye said from inside. "Door's not locked."

He opened to door and found her lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. He looked around the room. Posters from old TV shows and movies were on the walls. Her bookshelf was neatly arranged and dominated by books about filmmaking and biographies of various actors. He sat down on a chair.

"So, I suppose you're here to cheer me up," Faye said. "Regale me with a tale from your days at Princeton."

"You have to talk to someone Faye," Eric noted.

"We just exchanged words," she replied. "That qualifies as talking. You've fulfilled your duties as a Watcher. You can leave."

"When have I ever been that easy?" Eric asked.

"I helped kill an innocent man," Faye said. "That's not why Slayers exist. We protect the innocent. We don't kill them. Liz taught me better than that."

Eric paused. It always came back to her first Watcher. Elizabeth. She had spent two years training Faye in secret. Then the First came and Bringers killed Liz. Eric had only just barely arrived in time to save Faye.

"Liz would have understood the reasons why it happened," Eric said. "We didn't know."

"I should have known," Faye said. "I should have sensed something."

"You're a Slayer Faye. Not a God. However good your senses are, they're not omniscient."

"And now we come to the part where you tell me some story from Princeton about an old roommate or bloke you met at the pub."

"Not this time," Eric said. "Have I ever told you why I ended up going to Princeton in the first place?"

"No."

"It started with the biggest fight Grandfather and I ever had."

"Eric," Faye said. "I really don't want to listen to a story."

"You're going to hear it anyway," Eric replied. "Grandfather began grooming me to take over the Council soon after my father was killed. I had access to almost everything. He wanted me to spend time studying the Council's history, to make certain I understood to nature of the war."

"And this relates to me how?"

"I'll get to that," Eric said. "As you know there were several hundred young women with the potential to become Slayers at any given point in time. The Council never had the resources to station a Watcher with each and every one of them."

"I know this stuff Eric."

"Just listen," Eric said. "Over the centuries the Council developed the means to determine which Potentials were most likely to be called. They could read the signs, prophecies, other sources. They could generally narrow the possibilities down to ten to fifteen girls, sometimes as many as twenty. But it was a manageable number. They stationed Watchers with the Potentials most likely to be called."

"So I was one of the girls who was next in line after Faith."

"Along with Sixteen others that had Watchers assigned," Eric said. "Or so the Council believed. The system worked fairly well for centuries. The majority of Slayers called came from the group that had Watchers. But reading through the Council's histories I noticed something. The system began to break down over the last 200 hundred years. Increasingly more and more Slayers were being called from the Potentials that didn't have Watchers or had only had Watchers assigned a month or two before they were called."

"Fascinating, still wondering what all this has to do with me."

"I noticed something else," Eric said. "Those Slayers were living longer and becoming more successful than the ones who had been under the Council's control prior to their being called. I pointed this out to Grandfather and said that perhaps someone was trying to tell us something about our stewardship of the Slayer line. That perhaps the Powers were sending us a message."

"I bet he didn't take that very well."

"No he didn't," Eric smiled. "We argued for hours. I was seventeen. That was the first major fight my Grandfather and I ever had. I ended up going to Princeton in a mutual decision to spend some time away from each other."

"Great story. No relation to me though."

"It does relate to you."

"How?"

"Because Slayers like you and Faith and Buffy are proof that I was right," Eric said. "The Council viewed the Slayer as a tool. A means to an end. We assumed we knew everything there was to know about what it meant to be Slayer. We didn't know a damn thing. You and Faith. You both have your hypersensitivity. You both feel death more than most other Slayers. You both can sense magic better than other Slayers, even Buffy. You're natural trackers. The Council never bothered to explore those differences. To learn what they meant to girls who had to live that power. If we had the fiasco with Faith might never have happened."

"Then there's Buffy ability to project the Slayer. You can do it, but not as well she can. The skills and the powers vary from Slayer to Slayer. The Council just assumed you all came out of one mold."

"We're different," Faye said. "Got it. Doesn't help. My sensitivity is the reason I stick to demon hunting. Dealing with humans puts us where we are now. I don't understand how the Powers think I can help. All I did was get a man killed."

"Because we're dealing with magic," Eric said. "And you can feel your away around magic better than most other Slayers. Debra's the same. So is Suzzette. That sensitivity is what's needed."

"Didn't help much this time."

"We can't change the past Faye," Eric said. "We can only learn and apply it to the future. But sitting in your room and not talking to anyone is not going to make things better. It's not going to make things right."

"And we move to the cliché portion of the talk."

"Fine, I'm done for now," Eric got up from his chair. "After the Scoobies, I'm one the first guys who say the Powers have a wonderful ability to screw us. But I admit they do tend to pick the right people for a job. And one thing the Council does know about Slayers. You can't walk away. It's not in your nature."