FIC Commentary: The Key's Watcher 1: Help Wanted, PG, 1/5
DVD commentaries seem to be making the rounds lately, so I'm diving in with a series that I want desperately to work on again. I'll post the rest of it within the next few days. For those of you not in the know, The Key's Watcher is a BtVS/Anita Blake crossover, with Giles as the main character. Whedon, Hamilton and various others own it. I don't.
Hmm -- DVD-style commentary. There's something vaguely and naughtily ego-centric about it, but in this case, I'm trying, yet again, to get back into the mindset of this world, so it's a tool. And no, that's not a cheap rationalization. It's a mid-priced rationalization.
So. My name is Tara Keezer, and I wrote a number of stories in a series I call The Key's Watcher. I started this particular story as a reaction to all the Willow fics I saw at Twisting the Hellmouth. I was also reacting to all the fics where one or several of the Scoobies would land in a different town or universe and immediately blurt out their life history in defiance of all common sense. I wanted to scream every time I saw a fic with Willow boo-hooing about how she tried to destroy the world and everyone in the crossover 'verse bending over backward to reassure her as to her essential goodness. It just made me --
Um. Sorry about that. Lazy writing makes my head ache.
Anyway, back to The Key's Watcher 1. I wanted a crossover where the BtVS characters weren't about to share their history with anyone, and were, in fact, paranoid about their position in the new world. I also wanted two characters who wouldn't ordinarily choose to be stuck with one another. To that end, I chose Giles and Dawn. They're polar opposites in the BtVS world, and I wanted to see how Giles would fare taking on the role of father to a teenager prone to bouts of sulking and drama. The end of season 5 provided a perfect opportunity to get the pair into Anita Blake's world, so I changed a little bit about the tower scene.
Without further ado, The Key's Watcher 1: Help Wanted.
PART 1
I needed to be able to give readers the back story without interjecting it into Giles' narrative. Journal entries were the best way to do this, and as the series progressed, they allowed me to either fluff out Giles' history or provide a bit of illumination either to that chapter or the one immediately before it. I ♥ Giles' journal entries.
Journal of Rupert Giles
May 31, 2001
We've been in this dimension for just over a week, and I think Dawn is finally starting to work through the shock of it. For that matter, I think I am as well. It's been difficult, but it could have been much worse. I had emptied the till and the safe at the Magic Box just prior to our aborted run from Glory, and it's sheer luck that the money in my wallet is a close enough match to the currency here that we're not going to starve any time soon. We're in fairly good shape for the next month or so. After that, I'll have to get creative.
No. Strike that. I'll have to get creative now if I'm to have any hope of providing for us in the long term.
I still can't adjust to the reality that Sunnydale is as closed off to us as a trip to the moon. I haven't had the heart to talk to Dawn about it yet, but I'm fairly certain we won't be able to find a way home. The portal that opened with her blood must have closed once we fell through it. I have to believe that, else I'll go insane with worry over the children back home.
Each night, I replay the fight, and each night, I think of a way that could have gotten Dawn off the tower before the demon - Dawn called him Doc - started cutting her. If I'm not obsessing over that, I'm obsessing over Buffy's still body as it lay at the foot of the tower. If only I'd taken the time to see if she had a pulse. I couldn't, though. There was no time left, and I absolutely had to get to the top of the tower to save Dawn.
Perhaps if I tell myself that enough times, I'll start to believe it.
~~
September 13, 2004
I chose first person narrative to give readers the feel of an Anita Blake book. It's a frustrating POV to write, though, because I'm only allowed to share what Giles knows.
"Dad!" The excited squeal that announced Dawn's arrival also made two of my patrons wince in pain. It was unfortunate that the upper ranges of her voice outed lycanthropes so easily, but I wasn't about to ask her to try to modulate the tone. Her voice was a defensive weapon, as far as I was concerned. Though this world is, in many ways, less dangerous than ours, such dangers that do exist are, in many ways, far worse. The sentence construction is a bit stiff and stuffy; in my defense, I'd only been writing for about seven months when I started this series.
I excused myself to Abigail St. Clair, one of my favorite customers and turned to Dawn with a smile. In all the ways that counted and for better or for worse, she was my daughter for now and always. Shortly after we fell through Glory's portal, I had a long talk with her about what had happened, and what needed to happen.
The first and most important task was to ensure that we not get separated. I told her that becoming father and daughter would solve that problem, but she had to play her part as well. She would have to start calling me Dad - or Father, if she preferred not to intrude on whatever place Hank Summers held in her heart. It took a disturbingly short period of time for her to start calling me Dad, and the way she said it made it sound as if she'd been calling me that all her life. If we ever do manage to find our way home, I think I'll take the time to find Hank and introduce him to Ripper. No man should ever do to his child what he did to his daughters. I don't like info dumps, but in this case, I think one was needed. I'm just not sure it needed to be this blatant. Also, there's a bit of Hank-bashing. If I were writing this today, I think half the paragraph would be cut.
"Hello, pet. Why are you trying to frighten the customers away?"
She snorted, "As if," before dropping her backpack behind the counter. "Guess who asked me out for Friday night!" God, she had a lovely smile. It was enough to make all the boys come sniffing around her, and that was enough to make Ripper want to come out and play. I remember someone - Ethan? - telling me once that there was no one more protective of a young girl's virtue than an old reprobate. Authorial opinion snuck its way in at this point. Again, if I were writing this today, I think it would be considerably more subtle -- at least, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it. So to speak.
"Presumably it's the same young man you're going to bring to dinner on Thursday night so that I have a chance to meet him," I answered in a reasonably calm tone of voice.
She scowled at me and said, "I told him Wednesday at seven. Thursday night is dance class."
"Oh! So it is," I said. I knew perfectly well that Thursday was out, but I wanted to find out if Dawn was serious about the boy or not. That she'd already made arrangements for the pre-date dinner with the family spoke well of her hopes for a relationship with him. Perhaps I would threaten only to maim, not kill, if he hurt her in any conceivable way.
She stuck her tongue out at me before pulling the day's receipts to compare them against our inventory. Dawn had a good head for business, and there were days when I thought I could detect Anya's influence on her. If so, I was glad. Owning a business was a fine way to make one's way in the world. If she maintained her interest in retail after she finished university, I would offer her a half-share in the shop. Or perhaps I would offer the shop itself. I had nothing against retail, but I longed to get back to research. I was starting to gain a good reputation in certain circles for translation services, and the income from that sideline was nearly enough to support just myself. The idea of getting out of retail entirely once Dawn was out of school was alluring. At first blush, this paragraph doesn't say much of interest, but as it turns out, I like dropping in details I might use later on. In this case, the payoff came with The Key's Watcher 2: Birthday Girl.
Lost in pleasant thoughts, I didn't immediately notice the person who came in a short while after Dawn. It wasn't until my skin started to crawl that I looked up. Lord, but the woman had magic. It was enough to make my other customers - the ones who might have spent money here - put down whatever they'd been looking at and leave. Or maybe it was just her identity that made them run. When Dawn started to look uneasy, I gestured that she should go up to the apartment. She snagged her backpack and gave me one last unhappy look before disappearing into the back.
After Dawn left, I cleared my throat and said, "May I help you?" I kept my voice as innocuous and bland as possible. Her temper was legendary, and I had no desire to prove or provoke it.
She turned slowly, allowing her glance to linger on the merchandise. When she faced me, she said, "Rupert Giles?"
Bloody hell. I doubted anything shown on my face, but inside I was cringing and making plans for a midnight escape to somewhere far from St. Louis. For three and a half years, I'd been hounding Dawn about the necessity of keeping a low profile, and now the human servant of the master of the city was in my shop - asking for me by name. I wondered which god had decided to play dice with my life this week.
"Yes. May I help you?" I stammered out the greeting. It was perhaps slightly worse than usual as the result of her presence. I could probably eliminate it with the help of a speech therapist, but it served a purpose. People generally underestimated me once they heard me speak, thinking the stammer indicated a lack of confidence and strength. I doubted it would work this time, but there was still hope to be had.
She held out her hand - something to do with business, then, not the law - and said, "Anita Blake." Me? Like dramatic tension? Whatever gave you that idea?
I shook her hand and said, "Ms. Blake," then waited for her to explain herself. I'd already asked twice, and I had no intention of asking a third time.
We stared at each other for long enough that I began to wonder if we'd still be there in the morning when Dawn came down for school. I might have taken pride in the fact that she broke first, but this particular patience evolved as a result of the attentions I received from Angelus some years earlier. Since I learned it under his tutelage, I had no desire to celebrate it when it turned out to be useful. Petty? Perhaps. But I get that way about torturers.
"You have a reputation in town," she said.
All in all, it wasn't a bad opening gambit. If I hadn't spent so much time with the authorities, first in my youth and later as Buffy's Watcher, I might have asked what she was talking about. Instead, I raised my eyebrows to express polite interest and said, "Really?"
She looked at me for another long moment, then must have found whatever she was looking for, as she elected not to continue the pissing match. I was profoundly grateful. "The lycanthropes in town like you. They say you don't discriminate. Ever."
Blast. My low profile was shot to hell and gone by my insistence on treating everyone the same - with civil good humor. Had I realized my behavior was such a rarity, I would have made more of an effort to modify it. No use in crying over spilt milk. The damage was done, and any attempt to rectify the situation would only make it worse.
"I've never found discrimination to be good for business, Ms. Blake," I answered. The stammer hadn't eased up as yet. Given that I was getting more and more tense by the minute, it was hardly a surprise.
"You really are a peach, aren't you?" The hostility was there after all, just below the surface. I made her hostile for a reason, though I fully admit that when I wrote this chapter, I wasn't quite sure what the reason was. This particular seed didn't start to bear fruit until Dark Haven 1, though I certainly hint at it quite a bit up until then. Since I knew for a fact I'd done nothing to engender it, I ignored her attempts to bait me. I simply kept the same gentle half-smile on my face and waited.
"Not going to answer me?" God, no.
"It was a rhetorical question. I didn't see any need to answer," I said. Personally, I thought I sounded quite reasonable. Especially since my temper was starting to rise a bit. I didn't ask her to come to my shop. She came here of her own volition, but she was acting as if it was all my fault, somehow - that I was the one putting her out.
Inexplicably, she backed down. And I still didn't know what she was doing here. I didn't think pushing her to answer that question would do any good, so I kept quiet. She would get around to explaining herself eventually. I just hoped it would be at some point in time before Dawn graduated from university.
"I heard you're looking for part-time help during the day," she said. I allowed myself to show puzzlement, but nothing more. My mind was racing through the possibilities. She was here for a job? No. It was an absurd notion brought on by the stress of her presence in my shop. Aside from her obligations to the master of the city, she was an animator and a Federal Marshal. She was also intimately involved with at least two groups of lycanthropes. She already had too much on her plate, which meant that she was asking on someone else's behalf.
"Yes, I am," I said. I didn't volunteer the fact that I needed the help because my daughter was back in school. If she'd gone to the trouble of finding out I needed an employee, I had no doubt she'd gone to the trouble of finding out why I needed an employee.
"A friend of mine needs a job. He doesn't have much by way of - traditional skills, but he's a fast learner and pretty good with people," she said. I wondered if her friend was wolf or cat - her comment about lycanthropes was the tip off - but I was more curious about why she hesitated over the word "traditional".
"Is there a reason he can't come in to apply for himself?" It was a good question, and if she had any hopes at all of her friend being employed here, she would answer it. Whether she wanted to or not.
"Nathaniel is -" It didn't show on her face, but it was clear she was having a long and fairly drawn out argument with herself over what and how much to tell me. I'm still not sure why, but I took pity on her.
"A lycanthrope?" At her look of surprise and narrow-eyed assessment, I added, "Hardly a difficult thing to determine, given the way you started the conversation. I suspect, however, that if lycanthropy were the only issue, you wouldn't be here. Am I correct?" I love using secondary and minor characters whenever possible. They help provide depth to the interaction between the main characters. In this case, I'm also using Nathaniel to get Anita and Giles in the same meat space.
"You are," she said, all business, all at once. "Nathaniel is completely submissive. I've been working with him to help him become more independent, but he needs to get out in the real world. In a store like this, with an understanding employer, he might learn enough to be able to take care of himself one day."
I wanted very much to say no to her, but that required a valid reason. I didn't have one, because I'd already made it known I was willing to train someone. The fact was I wanted nothing to do with her or her friends. To become involved even peripherally with The Executioner was to stray into circles that garnered far too much of the wrong kind of attention. I'd paid well for our paper trail and history in this world, and I continued to do whatever I could to strengthen our back stories even further. But a determined investigator or government agency would be able to find more holes than I could ever hope to fill. My lectures to Dawn about keeping a low profile all stemmed from a nightmare of interrogation about how, precisely, we came to be in this world.
To put it crudely, she had me by the short hairs.
"Very well. Dinner is at seven. Bring him around this evening, and we can talk while we eat. There's an outside entrance to the apartment through the alley in back," I told her. I watched the subtle play of emotion on Ms. Blake's face. She didn't want to accept the invitation. However, if she was serious about her Nathaniel working here, she would have to accede to my wishes with regard to the manner of the interview. It would be an uncomfortable meal if she didn't rein in her power, but Dawn and I had survived worse.
One of the biggest problems in crossovers is the lack of a convincing reason for the characters from the two 'verses to meet. There was (is?) also an unspoken assumption that the main characters would actually want to talk to one another. I think I addressed both problems rather neatly.
PART 2
Journal of Rupert GIles
June 14, 2001
When Dawn came back from the beach this afternoon, she was visibly shaken. She handed me the local newspaper, and the front page headline declared that a murderous witch would be put to death later that night. I read through the story to get as much information as I could. Despite the fact that the article had no doubt been watered down for family consumption, there was enough information to horrify Dawn and me both.
From the first day here, I've felt my own magic responding strongly to the magic in this world, and I've been doing what I could to keep it under control. Still, I've experienced a few slips. It is now clear that I need to become very serious about controlling my magic. Whilst I've done nothing horrendous in the grand scheme of things, if I'd made that kind of mistake during one of my more questionable activities and been caught, I could have been tried and convicted of using magic in the commission of a felony.
I will visit to Santa Barbara's public library as soon as it opens in the morning. I'm not averse to breaking a few laws to get Dawn and me into a more stable situation, but I would rather know which laws I'm breaking. Fortunately, the cons Ethan and I ran in our London days can be done with or without the use of magic.
Good lord. I just implied gratitude in conjunction with Ethan Rayne. Perhaps the world ended after all, and we simply haven't realized it yet.
Back story, yes, but again, I'm dropping seeds for future use. The second paragraph, in fact, sets up a major plot point in Key's Watcher 2.
~~
This section works, sort of, but to me, it's clear that I'm writing a transition chapter and that I hate writing transition chapters.
September 13, 2004
As soon as Ms. Blake left, I rang Dawn in the apartment and told her to come back down. I heard the relief in her voice that the woman was gone and felt badly that I was about to burst her bubble. It couldn't be helped.
Dawn all but ran into the shop, and for a moment, I was reminded of when she was twelve years old and just starting to be all legs and elbows. I'd been at Buffy's house one night to drop off a book - I believe it was just before the band candy incident - and Dawn had careened around the corner without so much as a pause to look where she was going. Small though she was at the time, she was capable of a tackle a rugby player would be proud to call her own. Buffy kept the two of us from going down in a tangle, but it had been a near thing. A false memory, certainly, but it shows that Giles is fully on board with Dawn's history. He doesn't hesitate at all in recalling it and never stumbles over the fact that it never really happened. Personally, I think it's a nice bit of characterization. Your mileage may vary.
I looked at her now, a slight smile playing on my face, and I thought that not much had changed in the intervening years. Certainly, she had gained a great deal of poise and grace with her increasing years, but when she was excited or under stress, she still tended to resort to the behaviors of childhood.
"What was she doing here? Do we have to move? Oh god. If we move, where will we go? Will we have to change names -"
"Dawn," I said, interrupting her flow of babble even as I stood to gather her into my arms. I honestly hadn't thought she would understand the ramifications of Ms. Blake's visit, but she had. I suppose all parents go through this particular shock. It isn't easy to realize your child has turned into an adult underneath your very nose. The fact that Dawn was reacting with the urge to determine next steps meant that she had been thinking about our precarious situation in this world. She was not, as I had thought, taking it for granted that we were safe. I couldn't have been more proud of her.
In a small voice, she barely spoke above a whisper, asking, "What's going to happen, Daddy?" I gave her an extra squeeze. Adult, yes, but still very much uncertain at times, especially now with Ms. Blake turning her attention to us.
I dropped a kiss on her forehead and said, "You're going down to Straithern's Market to buy four strip steaks. We have company coming for dinner tonight."
I could feel her shock in the utterly still way she held herself. And then, because she was Dawn Summers Giles, sister to Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, she stepped back and swatted me on the arm. "What? What are you talking about? We should be packing up and leaving, and you're worried about a dinner party? Are you completely insane?"
I felt a small bubble of hysterical laughter trying to escape, but I pushed it back. She already thought I was losing my mind, and I didn't need to add fuel to the fire. "The situation isn't so terrible as all that. Ms. Blake is bringing a friend of hers around tonight for dinner, so that you and I can meet him," I told her, even as I blocked another attempt to hit me.
Dawn wasn't serious about attacking me. If she had been, I would have been on the floor before I knew what was happening. She wasn't as fast or strong as Buffy, but she didn't telegraph her moves the way Buffy tended to. As a result, she did quite well for herself.
Shortly after we arrived in this universe, I began training Dawn in much the same fashion I had started training her sister years earlier. I modified very few of the techniques, as they were generally useful no matter what a person's strength. I'd also gone to some trouble teaching Dawn the methods of street fighting. These were moves I hadn't dared teach Buffy for a number of years. Initially, I held back because the Council would have been incensed had I strayed from the approved teachings. Later, after she quit the Council, Buffy was too caught up in her first year of university and had no time for me. It wasn't until after her run-in with Dracula that I was finally able to round out her education in fighting forms.
"You invited her to dinner?" Her confusion and outrage were clear on her face, especially in light of all the conversations she and I had about blending into society. "And she's bringing a -" She stopped suddenly, and I saw horror creep into her expression before she charged down the wrong track and demanded to know, "Are you trying to set me up on a blind date?" I think this is awkward. I needed to get them away from panic, and this was how I chose to do so. I hope that if I were to write this exchange now, I would find a better way to handle it.
I laughed. I couldn't help it, but there it was. And there it continued to be. I couldn't stop giggling for the longest time, partly from anxiety and partly because Dawn had gone off on a new rant about how she met a really nice boy who wasn't supernatural, and here I was trying to set her up with a friend of The Executioner. And was I drunk, because she thought we agreed I wouldn't drink during the day. It was that last statement that finally dampened my hysteria. This last sentence is a seed that bore no fruit and won't. At the time I wrote it, I'd read more than a few fics that had Giles teetering on the edge of alcoholism, and I stuck this in as a result. A couple of years later, I believe that Giles drinks to excess for very specific and self-limiting reasons; he wouldn't have risked it in this world.
"No, Dawn. I'm not drunk. And Ms. Blake is bringing her friend for a job interview," I said, watching for her reaction to that particular bit of news.
She reacted as well as I had - not very. "You can't be serious," she said, looking as if she were about to commit me for my own safety.
"I'm afraid I am. It's my own fault for behaving politely to the lycanthropes in town," I told her, with no small amount of rue in my voice. I hadn't yet moved past the fact that we were trapped because of the good manners my mother had drilled into me as a boy.
"Then be rude!" She wasn't yet shrill, but she had moved into strident.
"No. It's too late to fix the problem, and any change would only bring suspicion down on us," I said as I looked into her eyes, willing her to understand. "I'm no happier about this turn of events than you are, but we're well and truly stuck. With any luck, he'll be so completely unsuitable that it will be clear to him and her both that he shouldn't work here."
She raised an eyebrow at me and said, "Luck?" The word was drenched with meaning.
I gave a small shrug before saying, "You never know."
She sighed, then held out her hand. "If I need to get the meat, I'd better go now. Need anything else?"
I pulled out my wallet and gave her enough cash to cover the cost of the food. "Abigail brought the last of her zucchini when she came in earlier. I'll serve that along with dirty rice. You might want to pick up ice cream, though. I'm not sure we have enough to serve four," I told her. I wondered if I sounded as defeated as I felt. I hoped not. I wanted Dawn to approach tonight's dinner with more confidence than dread. The only way for that to happen was for her to believe I was on top of things.
Here's another info dump, but I think it works to highlight Giles' frame of mind at this point. It also explains why he and Dawn ended up and remained in St. Louis while choosing to avoid Anita.
After she left, I mulled over the absurdity of discussing what to serve for dinner that evening. It had taken a year of running moderately risky cons to build up enough capital both for high-quality identities and for the chance to start a life somewhere other than California. Now all of that time, money and effort was at risk, just because Ms. Blake had decided to grace my store with a visit and a request.
When we first arrived in this world, it had been a huge shock to find out that vampires had legal rights in this country. If I'd had the paperwork and money, I would have moved Dawn and me to a country that wasn't quite so liberal in its thinking. Since a move was out of the question at the time, I studied the vampires in this universe, with the thought of ensuring that we would be able to protect ourselves with knowledge. In the process, I found that they were completely different from the demons that we'd known before. Though they weren't as dangerous, they were still vampires and still a concern.
That's an understatement. The idea of vampires with civil rights was enough to generate nightmares, so Dawn and I thought long and hard about where to go when we were ready to leave the West Coast. In the end, we chose St. Louis, both for the educational opportunities and, ironically enough, because of Ms. Blake's presence in the city. In a country where it was illegal to stake a vampire on general principle alone, Ms. Blake's job title and reputation were comfortingly similar to Buffy's. We both thought we would feel safer in a town where such a woman held a prominent position. We remained in blissful ignorance of the true situation for all of six months after arriving in St. Louis.
I never fully gave up on my study of the vampire population, even after our move here. There were any number of books on the subject, but most were written with an eye to generating sales rather than passing on useful information. One night, perhaps four or five months after arriving in St. Louis, I was reading Torrelli's History of Human-Vampire Relations when a phrase caught my eye - human servant. It took a bit more digging, but eventually, I was able to gain a reasonable understanding of the term.
Not long after that, I heard the first whispers that Ms. Blake was, in fact, the human servant of the master of the city. I felt sick to my stomach at the idea, but I forced myself to get over it. I told myself that unlike Buffy, Ms. Blake did not have a sacred obligation to kill vampires. In point of fact, her personal relationships were none of my business.
I chose to say nothing to Dawn about it, but it didn't take long for her to hear the same rumors. When she confronted me with them, she asked what it was with Slayers and Executioners and vampire nookie. I wanted very much to answer her question, but I couldn't. I was still trying to understand it myself. We had a long talk that night about what to do, and we found that we were both unwilling to move. Dawn didn't want to leave, because she was making new friends at school and was settling nicely into the rhythm of the city. I was reluctant, because I didn't want to go to the trouble and danger of rebuilding all the capital I'd sunk into the shop.
I was also reluctant because the shop had done surprisingly well almost from the first day. St. Louis suffered an unexpected paucity of occult book shops that catered to middle-class practitioners. There were any number of shops that catered to the tourist trade down near the Circus of the Damned, and there were several book stores that sold to a wealthier clientele. But there were few that looked to the middle-of-the-road customer.
From the beginning, the Watcher's Nook strove to provide informative books and good-quality supplies at reasonable prices. I never realized how much he sounds like he's advertising here. I had no desire to sell the cheap imports so many tourists seemed to like, and I had even less interest in trying to break into the rare book trade. The middle-class, however, provided the ideal clientele. These were customers who knew what they wanted and what they were willing to pay to get it.
Be that as it may, I believe the other reason we've done so well is that the shop looks like an ordinary, well-lit book store. The aisles are reasonably wide, and I've dotted armchairs throughout the space. There's a selection of Wiccan supplies, and I'm thinking of adding a coffee bar, even though Dawn is adamantly opposed to the idea. I refused from the start to decorate the shop with tacky cliches, and the result has been happy and relaxed customers willing to spend money here.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I decided once again that I wouldn't let Ms. Blake frighten us into pulling up stakes and leaving. Dawn and I had even more invested in St. Louis than we did two and a half years ago. We had taken root too deeply to run off and hide, just because our plan to blend into the woodwork had hit a bit of a snag.
Though I was still hopeful that Nathaniel wouldn't be suitable, I began to resign myself to the fact that there was every chance he would be my newest employee. If so, I would no doubt have to accept further contact with Ms. Blake. She'd made it clear that the boy was under her protection. The only comfort I had was that she didn't seem to like me any more than I liked her. Perhaps that mutual dislike would keep her away from me and mine. And perhaps a portal to Sunnydale would open up as soon as Dawn came back from Straithern's.
Ridiculous.
Nonetheless, when Dawn finally did return from shopping, I was adrift in a pleasant fantasy of Ms. Blake calling to say she was canceling the interview and promising never to come back to the store again. I took myself out of the daydream with a great deal of reluctance and left Dawn in charge of the register. I went upstairs to start preparing the meal.
Hmm -- DVD-style commentary. There's something vaguely and naughtily ego-centric about it, but in this case, I'm trying, yet again, to get back into the mindset of this world, so it's a tool. And no, that's not a cheap rationalization. It's a mid-priced rationalization.
So. My name is Tara Keezer, and I wrote a number of stories in a series I call The Key's Watcher. I started this particular story as a reaction to all the Willow fics I saw at Twisting the Hellmouth. I was also reacting to all the fics where one or several of the Scoobies would land in a different town or universe and immediately blurt out their life history in defiance of all common sense. I wanted to scream every time I saw a fic with Willow boo-hooing about how she tried to destroy the world and everyone in the crossover 'verse bending over backward to reassure her as to her essential goodness. It just made me --
Um. Sorry about that. Lazy writing makes my head ache.
Anyway, back to The Key's Watcher 1. I wanted a crossover where the BtVS characters weren't about to share their history with anyone, and were, in fact, paranoid about their position in the new world. I also wanted two characters who wouldn't ordinarily choose to be stuck with one another. To that end, I chose Giles and Dawn. They're polar opposites in the BtVS world, and I wanted to see how Giles would fare taking on the role of father to a teenager prone to bouts of sulking and drama. The end of season 5 provided a perfect opportunity to get the pair into Anita Blake's world, so I changed a little bit about the tower scene.
Without further ado, The Key's Watcher 1: Help Wanted.
PART 1
I needed to be able to give readers the back story without interjecting it into Giles' narrative. Journal entries were the best way to do this, and as the series progressed, they allowed me to either fluff out Giles' history or provide a bit of illumination either to that chapter or the one immediately before it. I ♥ Giles' journal entries.
Journal of Rupert Giles
May 31, 2001
We've been in this dimension for just over a week, and I think Dawn is finally starting to work through the shock of it. For that matter, I think I am as well. It's been difficult, but it could have been much worse. I had emptied the till and the safe at the Magic Box just prior to our aborted run from Glory, and it's sheer luck that the money in my wallet is a close enough match to the currency here that we're not going to starve any time soon. We're in fairly good shape for the next month or so. After that, I'll have to get creative.
No. Strike that. I'll have to get creative now if I'm to have any hope of providing for us in the long term.
I still can't adjust to the reality that Sunnydale is as closed off to us as a trip to the moon. I haven't had the heart to talk to Dawn about it yet, but I'm fairly certain we won't be able to find a way home. The portal that opened with her blood must have closed once we fell through it. I have to believe that, else I'll go insane with worry over the children back home.
Each night, I replay the fight, and each night, I think of a way that could have gotten Dawn off the tower before the demon - Dawn called him Doc - started cutting her. If I'm not obsessing over that, I'm obsessing over Buffy's still body as it lay at the foot of the tower. If only I'd taken the time to see if she had a pulse. I couldn't, though. There was no time left, and I absolutely had to get to the top of the tower to save Dawn.
Perhaps if I tell myself that enough times, I'll start to believe it.
~~
September 13, 2004
I chose first person narrative to give readers the feel of an Anita Blake book. It's a frustrating POV to write, though, because I'm only allowed to share what Giles knows.
"Dad!" The excited squeal that announced Dawn's arrival also made two of my patrons wince in pain. It was unfortunate that the upper ranges of her voice outed lycanthropes so easily, but I wasn't about to ask her to try to modulate the tone. Her voice was a defensive weapon, as far as I was concerned. Though this world is, in many ways, less dangerous than ours, such dangers that do exist are, in many ways, far worse. The sentence construction is a bit stiff and stuffy; in my defense, I'd only been writing for about seven months when I started this series.
I excused myself to Abigail St. Clair, one of my favorite customers and turned to Dawn with a smile. In all the ways that counted and for better or for worse, she was my daughter for now and always. Shortly after we fell through Glory's portal, I had a long talk with her about what had happened, and what needed to happen.
The first and most important task was to ensure that we not get separated. I told her that becoming father and daughter would solve that problem, but she had to play her part as well. She would have to start calling me Dad - or Father, if she preferred not to intrude on whatever place Hank Summers held in her heart. It took a disturbingly short period of time for her to start calling me Dad, and the way she said it made it sound as if she'd been calling me that all her life. If we ever do manage to find our way home, I think I'll take the time to find Hank and introduce him to Ripper. No man should ever do to his child what he did to his daughters. I don't like info dumps, but in this case, I think one was needed. I'm just not sure it needed to be this blatant. Also, there's a bit of Hank-bashing. If I were writing this today, I think half the paragraph would be cut.
"Hello, pet. Why are you trying to frighten the customers away?"
She snorted, "As if," before dropping her backpack behind the counter. "Guess who asked me out for Friday night!" God, she had a lovely smile. It was enough to make all the boys come sniffing around her, and that was enough to make Ripper want to come out and play. I remember someone - Ethan? - telling me once that there was no one more protective of a young girl's virtue than an old reprobate. Authorial opinion snuck its way in at this point. Again, if I were writing this today, I think it would be considerably more subtle -- at least, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it. So to speak.
"Presumably it's the same young man you're going to bring to dinner on Thursday night so that I have a chance to meet him," I answered in a reasonably calm tone of voice.
She scowled at me and said, "I told him Wednesday at seven. Thursday night is dance class."
"Oh! So it is," I said. I knew perfectly well that Thursday was out, but I wanted to find out if Dawn was serious about the boy or not. That she'd already made arrangements for the pre-date dinner with the family spoke well of her hopes for a relationship with him. Perhaps I would threaten only to maim, not kill, if he hurt her in any conceivable way.
She stuck her tongue out at me before pulling the day's receipts to compare them against our inventory. Dawn had a good head for business, and there were days when I thought I could detect Anya's influence on her. If so, I was glad. Owning a business was a fine way to make one's way in the world. If she maintained her interest in retail after she finished university, I would offer her a half-share in the shop. Or perhaps I would offer the shop itself. I had nothing against retail, but I longed to get back to research. I was starting to gain a good reputation in certain circles for translation services, and the income from that sideline was nearly enough to support just myself. The idea of getting out of retail entirely once Dawn was out of school was alluring. At first blush, this paragraph doesn't say much of interest, but as it turns out, I like dropping in details I might use later on. In this case, the payoff came with The Key's Watcher 2: Birthday Girl.
Lost in pleasant thoughts, I didn't immediately notice the person who came in a short while after Dawn. It wasn't until my skin started to crawl that I looked up. Lord, but the woman had magic. It was enough to make my other customers - the ones who might have spent money here - put down whatever they'd been looking at and leave. Or maybe it was just her identity that made them run. When Dawn started to look uneasy, I gestured that she should go up to the apartment. She snagged her backpack and gave me one last unhappy look before disappearing into the back.
After Dawn left, I cleared my throat and said, "May I help you?" I kept my voice as innocuous and bland as possible. Her temper was legendary, and I had no desire to prove or provoke it.
She turned slowly, allowing her glance to linger on the merchandise. When she faced me, she said, "Rupert Giles?"
Bloody hell. I doubted anything shown on my face, but inside I was cringing and making plans for a midnight escape to somewhere far from St. Louis. For three and a half years, I'd been hounding Dawn about the necessity of keeping a low profile, and now the human servant of the master of the city was in my shop - asking for me by name. I wondered which god had decided to play dice with my life this week.
"Yes. May I help you?" I stammered out the greeting. It was perhaps slightly worse than usual as the result of her presence. I could probably eliminate it with the help of a speech therapist, but it served a purpose. People generally underestimated me once they heard me speak, thinking the stammer indicated a lack of confidence and strength. I doubted it would work this time, but there was still hope to be had.
She held out her hand - something to do with business, then, not the law - and said, "Anita Blake." Me? Like dramatic tension? Whatever gave you that idea?
I shook her hand and said, "Ms. Blake," then waited for her to explain herself. I'd already asked twice, and I had no intention of asking a third time.
We stared at each other for long enough that I began to wonder if we'd still be there in the morning when Dawn came down for school. I might have taken pride in the fact that she broke first, but this particular patience evolved as a result of the attentions I received from Angelus some years earlier. Since I learned it under his tutelage, I had no desire to celebrate it when it turned out to be useful. Petty? Perhaps. But I get that way about torturers.
"You have a reputation in town," she said.
All in all, it wasn't a bad opening gambit. If I hadn't spent so much time with the authorities, first in my youth and later as Buffy's Watcher, I might have asked what she was talking about. Instead, I raised my eyebrows to express polite interest and said, "Really?"
She looked at me for another long moment, then must have found whatever she was looking for, as she elected not to continue the pissing match. I was profoundly grateful. "The lycanthropes in town like you. They say you don't discriminate. Ever."
Blast. My low profile was shot to hell and gone by my insistence on treating everyone the same - with civil good humor. Had I realized my behavior was such a rarity, I would have made more of an effort to modify it. No use in crying over spilt milk. The damage was done, and any attempt to rectify the situation would only make it worse.
"I've never found discrimination to be good for business, Ms. Blake," I answered. The stammer hadn't eased up as yet. Given that I was getting more and more tense by the minute, it was hardly a surprise.
"You really are a peach, aren't you?" The hostility was there after all, just below the surface. I made her hostile for a reason, though I fully admit that when I wrote this chapter, I wasn't quite sure what the reason was. This particular seed didn't start to bear fruit until Dark Haven 1, though I certainly hint at it quite a bit up until then. Since I knew for a fact I'd done nothing to engender it, I ignored her attempts to bait me. I simply kept the same gentle half-smile on my face and waited.
"Not going to answer me?" God, no.
"It was a rhetorical question. I didn't see any need to answer," I said. Personally, I thought I sounded quite reasonable. Especially since my temper was starting to rise a bit. I didn't ask her to come to my shop. She came here of her own volition, but she was acting as if it was all my fault, somehow - that I was the one putting her out.
Inexplicably, she backed down. And I still didn't know what she was doing here. I didn't think pushing her to answer that question would do any good, so I kept quiet. She would get around to explaining herself eventually. I just hoped it would be at some point in time before Dawn graduated from university.
"I heard you're looking for part-time help during the day," she said. I allowed myself to show puzzlement, but nothing more. My mind was racing through the possibilities. She was here for a job? No. It was an absurd notion brought on by the stress of her presence in my shop. Aside from her obligations to the master of the city, she was an animator and a Federal Marshal. She was also intimately involved with at least two groups of lycanthropes. She already had too much on her plate, which meant that she was asking on someone else's behalf.
"Yes, I am," I said. I didn't volunteer the fact that I needed the help because my daughter was back in school. If she'd gone to the trouble of finding out I needed an employee, I had no doubt she'd gone to the trouble of finding out why I needed an employee.
"A friend of mine needs a job. He doesn't have much by way of - traditional skills, but he's a fast learner and pretty good with people," she said. I wondered if her friend was wolf or cat - her comment about lycanthropes was the tip off - but I was more curious about why she hesitated over the word "traditional".
"Is there a reason he can't come in to apply for himself?" It was a good question, and if she had any hopes at all of her friend being employed here, she would answer it. Whether she wanted to or not.
"Nathaniel is -" It didn't show on her face, but it was clear she was having a long and fairly drawn out argument with herself over what and how much to tell me. I'm still not sure why, but I took pity on her.
"A lycanthrope?" At her look of surprise and narrow-eyed assessment, I added, "Hardly a difficult thing to determine, given the way you started the conversation. I suspect, however, that if lycanthropy were the only issue, you wouldn't be here. Am I correct?" I love using secondary and minor characters whenever possible. They help provide depth to the interaction between the main characters. In this case, I'm also using Nathaniel to get Anita and Giles in the same meat space.
"You are," she said, all business, all at once. "Nathaniel is completely submissive. I've been working with him to help him become more independent, but he needs to get out in the real world. In a store like this, with an understanding employer, he might learn enough to be able to take care of himself one day."
I wanted very much to say no to her, but that required a valid reason. I didn't have one, because I'd already made it known I was willing to train someone. The fact was I wanted nothing to do with her or her friends. To become involved even peripherally with The Executioner was to stray into circles that garnered far too much of the wrong kind of attention. I'd paid well for our paper trail and history in this world, and I continued to do whatever I could to strengthen our back stories even further. But a determined investigator or government agency would be able to find more holes than I could ever hope to fill. My lectures to Dawn about keeping a low profile all stemmed from a nightmare of interrogation about how, precisely, we came to be in this world.
To put it crudely, she had me by the short hairs.
"Very well. Dinner is at seven. Bring him around this evening, and we can talk while we eat. There's an outside entrance to the apartment through the alley in back," I told her. I watched the subtle play of emotion on Ms. Blake's face. She didn't want to accept the invitation. However, if she was serious about her Nathaniel working here, she would have to accede to my wishes with regard to the manner of the interview. It would be an uncomfortable meal if she didn't rein in her power, but Dawn and I had survived worse.
One of the biggest problems in crossovers is the lack of a convincing reason for the characters from the two 'verses to meet. There was (is?) also an unspoken assumption that the main characters would actually want to talk to one another. I think I addressed both problems rather neatly.
PART 2
Journal of Rupert GIles
June 14, 2001
When Dawn came back from the beach this afternoon, she was visibly shaken. She handed me the local newspaper, and the front page headline declared that a murderous witch would be put to death later that night. I read through the story to get as much information as I could. Despite the fact that the article had no doubt been watered down for family consumption, there was enough information to horrify Dawn and me both.
From the first day here, I've felt my own magic responding strongly to the magic in this world, and I've been doing what I could to keep it under control. Still, I've experienced a few slips. It is now clear that I need to become very serious about controlling my magic. Whilst I've done nothing horrendous in the grand scheme of things, if I'd made that kind of mistake during one of my more questionable activities and been caught, I could have been tried and convicted of using magic in the commission of a felony.
I will visit to Santa Barbara's public library as soon as it opens in the morning. I'm not averse to breaking a few laws to get Dawn and me into a more stable situation, but I would rather know which laws I'm breaking. Fortunately, the cons Ethan and I ran in our London days can be done with or without the use of magic.
Good lord. I just implied gratitude in conjunction with Ethan Rayne. Perhaps the world ended after all, and we simply haven't realized it yet.
Back story, yes, but again, I'm dropping seeds for future use. The second paragraph, in fact, sets up a major plot point in Key's Watcher 2.
~~
This section works, sort of, but to me, it's clear that I'm writing a transition chapter and that I hate writing transition chapters.
September 13, 2004
As soon as Ms. Blake left, I rang Dawn in the apartment and told her to come back down. I heard the relief in her voice that the woman was gone and felt badly that I was about to burst her bubble. It couldn't be helped.
Dawn all but ran into the shop, and for a moment, I was reminded of when she was twelve years old and just starting to be all legs and elbows. I'd been at Buffy's house one night to drop off a book - I believe it was just before the band candy incident - and Dawn had careened around the corner without so much as a pause to look where she was going. Small though she was at the time, she was capable of a tackle a rugby player would be proud to call her own. Buffy kept the two of us from going down in a tangle, but it had been a near thing. A false memory, certainly, but it shows that Giles is fully on board with Dawn's history. He doesn't hesitate at all in recalling it and never stumbles over the fact that it never really happened. Personally, I think it's a nice bit of characterization. Your mileage may vary.
I looked at her now, a slight smile playing on my face, and I thought that not much had changed in the intervening years. Certainly, she had gained a great deal of poise and grace with her increasing years, but when she was excited or under stress, she still tended to resort to the behaviors of childhood.
"What was she doing here? Do we have to move? Oh god. If we move, where will we go? Will we have to change names -"
"Dawn," I said, interrupting her flow of babble even as I stood to gather her into my arms. I honestly hadn't thought she would understand the ramifications of Ms. Blake's visit, but she had. I suppose all parents go through this particular shock. It isn't easy to realize your child has turned into an adult underneath your very nose. The fact that Dawn was reacting with the urge to determine next steps meant that she had been thinking about our precarious situation in this world. She was not, as I had thought, taking it for granted that we were safe. I couldn't have been more proud of her.
In a small voice, she barely spoke above a whisper, asking, "What's going to happen, Daddy?" I gave her an extra squeeze. Adult, yes, but still very much uncertain at times, especially now with Ms. Blake turning her attention to us.
I dropped a kiss on her forehead and said, "You're going down to Straithern's Market to buy four strip steaks. We have company coming for dinner tonight."
I could feel her shock in the utterly still way she held herself. And then, because she was Dawn Summers Giles, sister to Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, she stepped back and swatted me on the arm. "What? What are you talking about? We should be packing up and leaving, and you're worried about a dinner party? Are you completely insane?"
I felt a small bubble of hysterical laughter trying to escape, but I pushed it back. She already thought I was losing my mind, and I didn't need to add fuel to the fire. "The situation isn't so terrible as all that. Ms. Blake is bringing a friend of hers around tonight for dinner, so that you and I can meet him," I told her, even as I blocked another attempt to hit me.
Dawn wasn't serious about attacking me. If she had been, I would have been on the floor before I knew what was happening. She wasn't as fast or strong as Buffy, but she didn't telegraph her moves the way Buffy tended to. As a result, she did quite well for herself.
Shortly after we arrived in this universe, I began training Dawn in much the same fashion I had started training her sister years earlier. I modified very few of the techniques, as they were generally useful no matter what a person's strength. I'd also gone to some trouble teaching Dawn the methods of street fighting. These were moves I hadn't dared teach Buffy for a number of years. Initially, I held back because the Council would have been incensed had I strayed from the approved teachings. Later, after she quit the Council, Buffy was too caught up in her first year of university and had no time for me. It wasn't until after her run-in with Dracula that I was finally able to round out her education in fighting forms.
"You invited her to dinner?" Her confusion and outrage were clear on her face, especially in light of all the conversations she and I had about blending into society. "And she's bringing a -" She stopped suddenly, and I saw horror creep into her expression before she charged down the wrong track and demanded to know, "Are you trying to set me up on a blind date?" I think this is awkward. I needed to get them away from panic, and this was how I chose to do so. I hope that if I were to write this exchange now, I would find a better way to handle it.
I laughed. I couldn't help it, but there it was. And there it continued to be. I couldn't stop giggling for the longest time, partly from anxiety and partly because Dawn had gone off on a new rant about how she met a really nice boy who wasn't supernatural, and here I was trying to set her up with a friend of The Executioner. And was I drunk, because she thought we agreed I wouldn't drink during the day. It was that last statement that finally dampened my hysteria. This last sentence is a seed that bore no fruit and won't. At the time I wrote it, I'd read more than a few fics that had Giles teetering on the edge of alcoholism, and I stuck this in as a result. A couple of years later, I believe that Giles drinks to excess for very specific and self-limiting reasons; he wouldn't have risked it in this world.
"No, Dawn. I'm not drunk. And Ms. Blake is bringing her friend for a job interview," I said, watching for her reaction to that particular bit of news.
She reacted as well as I had - not very. "You can't be serious," she said, looking as if she were about to commit me for my own safety.
"I'm afraid I am. It's my own fault for behaving politely to the lycanthropes in town," I told her, with no small amount of rue in my voice. I hadn't yet moved past the fact that we were trapped because of the good manners my mother had drilled into me as a boy.
"Then be rude!" She wasn't yet shrill, but she had moved into strident.
"No. It's too late to fix the problem, and any change would only bring suspicion down on us," I said as I looked into her eyes, willing her to understand. "I'm no happier about this turn of events than you are, but we're well and truly stuck. With any luck, he'll be so completely unsuitable that it will be clear to him and her both that he shouldn't work here."
She raised an eyebrow at me and said, "Luck?" The word was drenched with meaning.
I gave a small shrug before saying, "You never know."
She sighed, then held out her hand. "If I need to get the meat, I'd better go now. Need anything else?"
I pulled out my wallet and gave her enough cash to cover the cost of the food. "Abigail brought the last of her zucchini when she came in earlier. I'll serve that along with dirty rice. You might want to pick up ice cream, though. I'm not sure we have enough to serve four," I told her. I wondered if I sounded as defeated as I felt. I hoped not. I wanted Dawn to approach tonight's dinner with more confidence than dread. The only way for that to happen was for her to believe I was on top of things.
Here's another info dump, but I think it works to highlight Giles' frame of mind at this point. It also explains why he and Dawn ended up and remained in St. Louis while choosing to avoid Anita.
After she left, I mulled over the absurdity of discussing what to serve for dinner that evening. It had taken a year of running moderately risky cons to build up enough capital both for high-quality identities and for the chance to start a life somewhere other than California. Now all of that time, money and effort was at risk, just because Ms. Blake had decided to grace my store with a visit and a request.
When we first arrived in this world, it had been a huge shock to find out that vampires had legal rights in this country. If I'd had the paperwork and money, I would have moved Dawn and me to a country that wasn't quite so liberal in its thinking. Since a move was out of the question at the time, I studied the vampires in this universe, with the thought of ensuring that we would be able to protect ourselves with knowledge. In the process, I found that they were completely different from the demons that we'd known before. Though they weren't as dangerous, they were still vampires and still a concern.
That's an understatement. The idea of vampires with civil rights was enough to generate nightmares, so Dawn and I thought long and hard about where to go when we were ready to leave the West Coast. In the end, we chose St. Louis, both for the educational opportunities and, ironically enough, because of Ms. Blake's presence in the city. In a country where it was illegal to stake a vampire on general principle alone, Ms. Blake's job title and reputation were comfortingly similar to Buffy's. We both thought we would feel safer in a town where such a woman held a prominent position. We remained in blissful ignorance of the true situation for all of six months after arriving in St. Louis.
I never fully gave up on my study of the vampire population, even after our move here. There were any number of books on the subject, but most were written with an eye to generating sales rather than passing on useful information. One night, perhaps four or five months after arriving in St. Louis, I was reading Torrelli's History of Human-Vampire Relations when a phrase caught my eye - human servant. It took a bit more digging, but eventually, I was able to gain a reasonable understanding of the term.
Not long after that, I heard the first whispers that Ms. Blake was, in fact, the human servant of the master of the city. I felt sick to my stomach at the idea, but I forced myself to get over it. I told myself that unlike Buffy, Ms. Blake did not have a sacred obligation to kill vampires. In point of fact, her personal relationships were none of my business.
I chose to say nothing to Dawn about it, but it didn't take long for her to hear the same rumors. When she confronted me with them, she asked what it was with Slayers and Executioners and vampire nookie. I wanted very much to answer her question, but I couldn't. I was still trying to understand it myself. We had a long talk that night about what to do, and we found that we were both unwilling to move. Dawn didn't want to leave, because she was making new friends at school and was settling nicely into the rhythm of the city. I was reluctant, because I didn't want to go to the trouble and danger of rebuilding all the capital I'd sunk into the shop.
I was also reluctant because the shop had done surprisingly well almost from the first day. St. Louis suffered an unexpected paucity of occult book shops that catered to middle-class practitioners. There were any number of shops that catered to the tourist trade down near the Circus of the Damned, and there were several book stores that sold to a wealthier clientele. But there were few that looked to the middle-of-the-road customer.
From the beginning, the Watcher's Nook strove to provide informative books and good-quality supplies at reasonable prices. I never realized how much he sounds like he's advertising here. I had no desire to sell the cheap imports so many tourists seemed to like, and I had even less interest in trying to break into the rare book trade. The middle-class, however, provided the ideal clientele. These were customers who knew what they wanted and what they were willing to pay to get it.
Be that as it may, I believe the other reason we've done so well is that the shop looks like an ordinary, well-lit book store. The aisles are reasonably wide, and I've dotted armchairs throughout the space. There's a selection of Wiccan supplies, and I'm thinking of adding a coffee bar, even though Dawn is adamantly opposed to the idea. I refused from the start to decorate the shop with tacky cliches, and the result has been happy and relaxed customers willing to spend money here.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I decided once again that I wouldn't let Ms. Blake frighten us into pulling up stakes and leaving. Dawn and I had even more invested in St. Louis than we did two and a half years ago. We had taken root too deeply to run off and hide, just because our plan to blend into the woodwork had hit a bit of a snag.
Though I was still hopeful that Nathaniel wouldn't be suitable, I began to resign myself to the fact that there was every chance he would be my newest employee. If so, I would no doubt have to accept further contact with Ms. Blake. She'd made it clear that the boy was under her protection. The only comfort I had was that she didn't seem to like me any more than I liked her. Perhaps that mutual dislike would keep her away from me and mine. And perhaps a portal to Sunnydale would open up as soon as Dawn came back from Straithern's.
Ridiculous.
Nonetheless, when Dawn finally did return from shopping, I was adrift in a pleasant fantasy of Ms. Blake calling to say she was canceling the interview and promising never to come back to the store again. I took myself out of the daydream with a great deal of reluctance and left Dawn in charge of the register. I went upstairs to start preparing the meal.