-Old Stories- Buffy/Glee Crossover
Title:Old Stories
Author: Rokwynd
Rating: T
Pairings: Canon Pairings both series for now
Fandoms:Glee/Buffy
Summary: Dawn Summers, Watcher is assigned to Lima, Ohio.
Notes: Spoilers for all 7 seasons of Buffy and up to Sectionals of Glee at the moment.
Graduation came and went by in a blur for Dawn Summers, it was a rapid series of final exams, last-term-ever parties, packing her apartment, and finally walking on stage to receive her diploma. Now, she was officially a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Sociology. The true wonder of it all had been that it had only taken six years. After all it's not like most colleges were predisposed to accept an apocalypse as a good reason to miss final exams. One day, she had promised herself, after a grueling stint of make-up exams she would find the reason the world always wanted to end in May. That was something for the future, right now she had to worry about the next big hurdle and goal of her adulthood, being a Watcher.
It should have been simple really, she was an adult now, even by Buffy standards. Naturally she had assumed she would be a Watcher on the council. To be fair, they had offered her a job, a desk job filing reports from various slayer teams. Even Andrew would have been able to recognize the hand of the senior Scoobies in this. Her situation was made even more clear by the constant denials and no one including Xander, being able to look her in the eye. She guessed they had expected her to be resigned to a long and 'safe' career in the Watcher's Council filing reports and researching.
Dawn had been curled up in one of the ancient armchairs in the Council's main office libraries in London. She was currently miserably immersed in dry dusty tome trying to find more information for Xander about a South American tribe he had recently made contact with. He had called her up asking for her specifically to do the research, so lacking the fortitude to withstand his resolve face she was spending Friday night at work doing more research. The tribe was far more obscure than she imagined so she sat in a light sweater and jeans diligently looking for the information for Xander it got closer and closer to midnight. At least she had tried but the soft clink of a mug and saucer woke her up after another "short" nap to find Giles sitting beside her in another overstuffed chair in the now empty library.
Rupert Giles had changed in the years following Sunnydale and the attack by the First. If Dawn had to guess he was probably in his mid fifties possibly creeping towards his sixties. This only went to prove that age was just a number, despite the time he spent behind a desk Giles was still athletic as ever. Dawn had seen him working out in the training room with younger slayers and able to out technique them despite their super-strength as well as putting her through her paces in weekly workouts with the Watcher staff. True, he had a few more battle scars, but at this point didn't they all?
Now his quiet eyes watched Dawn as she blinked her way into wakefulness; putting the book aside with a casual thump on the floor she couldn't hide her smile as Giles winced slightly. Dawn gave in, rescuing the book from the floor and placing it with exaggerated care on the end table. With a quick eyebrow lift towards Giles as if to say, "Happy Now?" Dawn relaxed into the chair and began to sip gently at the tea, sweet with a hint of spice, one of his special reserve if she had to guess. They sat in a sort of expectant silence, like the room was waiting for the next words. Dawn had decided to hold out, if Giles wanted to talk, and she would wait until he was ready not go barging into a conversation.
Ten minutes later, a personal best as far as Dawn was concerned, she heard Giles sigh, remove his glasses and began polishing the lenses.
"I know this isn't exactly what you expected Dawn." he began , "After all these years helping and fighting, now you feel like you are going to waste your time buried inside Council headquarters. No, don't try to deny it, I noticed it a few days after you arrived. In the end, I suppose we all fell into old patterns, protecting those we love the most. Especially considering what happened in Los Angeles.."
Giles trailed off a bit at that, thinking of the still unknown fate of Angel and his teammates.
"So, instead of thinking I could take care of myself You, Buffy, and the others decided that Little Dawnie couldn't handle herself no matter how many times she's been in the fight." Dawn said bitterly
"Tell me Giles, what did i do it for, why am I filing reports when I should be doing something? Hell Giles, I could have used my degree to get my Masters, join a research program, even teach..."
"Why didn't you?" Giles gently cut her off, "True you could have done all those things and if you had you would have been remarkably successful. Instead you chose to become a Watcher, was it habit or something else?"
"Because," Dawn grumbled, "I'm not exactly normal, none of us are; we've all seen too much, not to mention the whole Key issue."
Dawn stood up and began to pace back and forth "I'm not stupid, I'm a bit of a demon magnet, not as bad as Xander true, but I cant live just anywhere. I know I have to watch out for myself every second waiting for the next wannabe Glory or something worse because of who my sister is. In the end it has to be the Council, unless i want a squad of Slayers shadowing me day and night."
Giles gave a start and looked a tiny bit embarrassed as she said this, but she soldiered on.
"I saw them around campus, no matter how much you and Buffy claimed they weren't there . There weren't many students living in my college apartments, but girls carrying stakes tend to stand out. Just remember, i still plan on finding out who covered part of my rent. There is no way I could have afforded my place on my own, but that's besides the point."
She had started to tear up a bit then, not much, but enough to piss her off, she hadn't gone a crying jag like this since a few years out of Sunnydale when she turned eighteen.
"So now in a place I pretty much helped build and organize, being your on call girl for research and end of the world badness all I do everyday, is nothing. I take the reports I get, put them in drawers and otherwise waste my time."
The exasperation was making her voice raw, "What do you want from me Giles? I can't live everyday like a glass doll who needs to be protected. I need to do something to actually help. I love Buffy and all you guys but I can't live the life you put in front of me and be satisfied. You wouldn't be satisfied wrapped in wool none of you would, so why should I?"
"It is rather simple Dawn," Giles said, a look of understanding on his face mixed with what might have been a smirk as he stood up from his chair to face her. "You shouldn't settle, in fact I was waiting, letting you decide for yourself what you wanted. If you had been happy doing paperwork and filing then you would have been my personal assistant."
Giles gently placed his hands on her shoulders his eyes bright,
"Unfortunately for me and luckily for him, Andrew will retain his current post while you are ready for something much more important."
Dawn looked at him, still angrily wiping her eyes "What are you talking about Giles?"
Giles' look bloomed into that warm smile she had seen him give Buffy and the others but had only rarely received from him, a mixture of pride and amusement.
"What i am talking about Dawn,is that you have proven yourself to be an actual Watcher. Every potential Watcher goes through the same thing, empty paperwork and office gossip.
He shrugged at this "It helps me to weed out those who want to do, and those who simply wish to speak."
"If it helps any," he conceded "it almost pains me more than it does you lot, forced to wait for the ones with talent instead of family connections to wise up and realize they aren't happy. You are now ready; I have need of talented well rounded Watchers, and it is not a great stretch to call you qualified by any objective measure."
She hugged him, there was no hope for it, and as she breathed in the scent of him she felt him hug her back just as hard. Of course immediately after he had stepped back trying to regain that British reserve that he wore around the office. Although the smile was still in his eyes as he handed her a heavy packet from inside his suit jacket.
"What the Council needs from you Dawn Summers," the formal words spoiled by the warmth in his voice, "is for you to go on special assignment to the town of Lima, Ohio."
"Lima, where the heck in Ohio is Lima?" Dawn began, but Giles' gently raised hand to cut her off.
"Your mission is twofold, officially your responsibility will be to establish a satellite office for the Cleveland Hellmouth Branch. This office will take reports for the main office and all the supplies needed for a viable second front. In reality though this could have been handed off to any member of the council, what i need from you is slightly more unofficial, I need to know why the town has no magic."
"No magic," Dawn replied the bafflement and curiosity in her voice, "that close to a hellmouth the town should have been swimming in it."
"Indeed," replied Giles "Yet except for an occasional vampire attack most likely caused by transient vampires the town remains void of demonic influence and magic. I need to know why, we have sent other Watchers before, but they have uncovered nothing, all their prior reports are included inside your packet."
Dawn squeezed the packet with an involuntary motion of her hands and quirked an eyebrow at Giles speaking archly "So how do I know this isn't another way ship me off to safety?"
"Simple" Giles said, his brows crinkling a bit, "No Watcher who entered Lima recovered their magical talents after an extended stay in town. I spoke to Willow and the Coven and they believe that your talents will endure. Primarily a factor of you being the Key, or so they claim. That aside, I am sending you because you are the only Watcher in your age group to have the necessary field experience and qualifications for the cover story provided."
Dawn looked inside the packet at this point and pulled out a piece of letterhead with a red, white and black logo near the top, a date and read on. McKinley High School was glad to welcome her as the new teacher in the Sociology department for the fall semester of 2009. A few other details were included in the envelope, the standard form letter wishing her good luck, a map of the campus, a faculty listing and a brochure for affordable housing.
"We will talk details in the morning after you have had a chance to review the information in the packet," Giles went, on pretending to be oblivious to the look on Dawn's face. "for now I wish you a good night."
Giles walked out of the library and even through her excitement Dawn could see the smile on the older man's face. After taking a moment for the necessary and proper snoopy dance, Dawn commandeered a large table spread out the contents of the file and began to explore what made Lima, Ohio so special.
A/N: I am currently shopping around for a beta, if you are interested please let me know.
Author: Rokwynd
Rating: T
Pairings: Canon Pairings both series for now
Fandoms:Glee/Buffy
Summary: Dawn Summers, Watcher is assigned to Lima, Ohio.
Notes: Spoilers for all 7 seasons of Buffy and up to Sectionals of Glee at the moment.
Graduation came and went by in a blur for Dawn Summers, it was a rapid series of final exams, last-term-ever parties, packing her apartment, and finally walking on stage to receive her diploma. Now, she was officially a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Sociology. The true wonder of it all had been that it had only taken six years. After all it's not like most colleges were predisposed to accept an apocalypse as a good reason to miss final exams. One day, she had promised herself, after a grueling stint of make-up exams she would find the reason the world always wanted to end in May. That was something for the future, right now she had to worry about the next big hurdle and goal of her adulthood, being a Watcher.
It should have been simple really, she was an adult now, even by Buffy standards. Naturally she had assumed she would be a Watcher on the council. To be fair, they had offered her a job, a desk job filing reports from various slayer teams. Even Andrew would have been able to recognize the hand of the senior Scoobies in this. Her situation was made even more clear by the constant denials and no one including Xander, being able to look her in the eye. She guessed they had expected her to be resigned to a long and 'safe' career in the Watcher's Council filing reports and researching.
Dawn had been curled up in one of the ancient armchairs in the Council's main office libraries in London. She was currently miserably immersed in dry dusty tome trying to find more information for Xander about a South American tribe he had recently made contact with. He had called her up asking for her specifically to do the research, so lacking the fortitude to withstand his resolve face she was spending Friday night at work doing more research. The tribe was far more obscure than she imagined so she sat in a light sweater and jeans diligently looking for the information for Xander it got closer and closer to midnight. At least she had tried but the soft clink of a mug and saucer woke her up after another "short" nap to find Giles sitting beside her in another overstuffed chair in the now empty library.
Rupert Giles had changed in the years following Sunnydale and the attack by the First. If Dawn had to guess he was probably in his mid fifties possibly creeping towards his sixties. This only went to prove that age was just a number, despite the time he spent behind a desk Giles was still athletic as ever. Dawn had seen him working out in the training room with younger slayers and able to out technique them despite their super-strength as well as putting her through her paces in weekly workouts with the Watcher staff. True, he had a few more battle scars, but at this point didn't they all?
Now his quiet eyes watched Dawn as she blinked her way into wakefulness; putting the book aside with a casual thump on the floor she couldn't hide her smile as Giles winced slightly. Dawn gave in, rescuing the book from the floor and placing it with exaggerated care on the end table. With a quick eyebrow lift towards Giles as if to say, "Happy Now?" Dawn relaxed into the chair and began to sip gently at the tea, sweet with a hint of spice, one of his special reserve if she had to guess. They sat in a sort of expectant silence, like the room was waiting for the next words. Dawn had decided to hold out, if Giles wanted to talk, and she would wait until he was ready not go barging into a conversation.
Ten minutes later, a personal best as far as Dawn was concerned, she heard Giles sigh, remove his glasses and began polishing the lenses.
"I know this isn't exactly what you expected Dawn." he began , "After all these years helping and fighting, now you feel like you are going to waste your time buried inside Council headquarters. No, don't try to deny it, I noticed it a few days after you arrived. In the end, I suppose we all fell into old patterns, protecting those we love the most. Especially considering what happened in Los Angeles.."
Giles trailed off a bit at that, thinking of the still unknown fate of Angel and his teammates.
"So, instead of thinking I could take care of myself You, Buffy, and the others decided that Little Dawnie couldn't handle herself no matter how many times she's been in the fight." Dawn said bitterly
"Tell me Giles, what did i do it for, why am I filing reports when I should be doing something? Hell Giles, I could have used my degree to get my Masters, join a research program, even teach..."
"Why didn't you?" Giles gently cut her off, "True you could have done all those things and if you had you would have been remarkably successful. Instead you chose to become a Watcher, was it habit or something else?"
"Because," Dawn grumbled, "I'm not exactly normal, none of us are; we've all seen too much, not to mention the whole Key issue."
Dawn stood up and began to pace back and forth "I'm not stupid, I'm a bit of a demon magnet, not as bad as Xander true, but I cant live just anywhere. I know I have to watch out for myself every second waiting for the next wannabe Glory or something worse because of who my sister is. In the end it has to be the Council, unless i want a squad of Slayers shadowing me day and night."
Giles gave a start and looked a tiny bit embarrassed as she said this, but she soldiered on.
"I saw them around campus, no matter how much you and Buffy claimed they weren't there . There weren't many students living in my college apartments, but girls carrying stakes tend to stand out. Just remember, i still plan on finding out who covered part of my rent. There is no way I could have afforded my place on my own, but that's besides the point."
She had started to tear up a bit then, not much, but enough to piss her off, she hadn't gone a crying jag like this since a few years out of Sunnydale when she turned eighteen.
"So now in a place I pretty much helped build and organize, being your on call girl for research and end of the world badness all I do everyday, is nothing. I take the reports I get, put them in drawers and otherwise waste my time."
The exasperation was making her voice raw, "What do you want from me Giles? I can't live everyday like a glass doll who needs to be protected. I need to do something to actually help. I love Buffy and all you guys but I can't live the life you put in front of me and be satisfied. You wouldn't be satisfied wrapped in wool none of you would, so why should I?"
"It is rather simple Dawn," Giles said, a look of understanding on his face mixed with what might have been a smirk as he stood up from his chair to face her. "You shouldn't settle, in fact I was waiting, letting you decide for yourself what you wanted. If you had been happy doing paperwork and filing then you would have been my personal assistant."
Giles gently placed his hands on her shoulders his eyes bright,
"Unfortunately for me and luckily for him, Andrew will retain his current post while you are ready for something much more important."
Dawn looked at him, still angrily wiping her eyes "What are you talking about Giles?"
Giles' look bloomed into that warm smile she had seen him give Buffy and the others but had only rarely received from him, a mixture of pride and amusement.
"What i am talking about Dawn,is that you have proven yourself to be an actual Watcher. Every potential Watcher goes through the same thing, empty paperwork and office gossip.
He shrugged at this "It helps me to weed out those who want to do, and those who simply wish to speak."
"If it helps any," he conceded "it almost pains me more than it does you lot, forced to wait for the ones with talent instead of family connections to wise up and realize they aren't happy. You are now ready; I have need of talented well rounded Watchers, and it is not a great stretch to call you qualified by any objective measure."
She hugged him, there was no hope for it, and as she breathed in the scent of him she felt him hug her back just as hard. Of course immediately after he had stepped back trying to regain that British reserve that he wore around the office. Although the smile was still in his eyes as he handed her a heavy packet from inside his suit jacket.
"What the Council needs from you Dawn Summers," the formal words spoiled by the warmth in his voice, "is for you to go on special assignment to the town of Lima, Ohio."
"Lima, where the heck in Ohio is Lima?" Dawn began, but Giles' gently raised hand to cut her off.
"Your mission is twofold, officially your responsibility will be to establish a satellite office for the Cleveland Hellmouth Branch. This office will take reports for the main office and all the supplies needed for a viable second front. In reality though this could have been handed off to any member of the council, what i need from you is slightly more unofficial, I need to know why the town has no magic."
"No magic," Dawn replied the bafflement and curiosity in her voice, "that close to a hellmouth the town should have been swimming in it."
"Indeed," replied Giles "Yet except for an occasional vampire attack most likely caused by transient vampires the town remains void of demonic influence and magic. I need to know why, we have sent other Watchers before, but they have uncovered nothing, all their prior reports are included inside your packet."
Dawn squeezed the packet with an involuntary motion of her hands and quirked an eyebrow at Giles speaking archly "So how do I know this isn't another way ship me off to safety?"
"Simple" Giles said, his brows crinkling a bit, "No Watcher who entered Lima recovered their magical talents after an extended stay in town. I spoke to Willow and the Coven and they believe that your talents will endure. Primarily a factor of you being the Key, or so they claim. That aside, I am sending you because you are the only Watcher in your age group to have the necessary field experience and qualifications for the cover story provided."
Dawn looked inside the packet at this point and pulled out a piece of letterhead with a red, white and black logo near the top, a date and read on. McKinley High School was glad to welcome her as the new teacher in the Sociology department for the fall semester of 2009. A few other details were included in the envelope, the standard form letter wishing her good luck, a map of the campus, a faculty listing and a brochure for affordable housing.
"We will talk details in the morning after you have had a chance to review the information in the packet," Giles went, on pretending to be oblivious to the look on Dawn's face. "for now I wish you a good night."
Giles walked out of the library and even through her excitement Dawn could see the smile on the older man's face. After taking a moment for the necessary and proper snoopy dance, Dawn commandeered a large table spread out the contents of the file and began to explore what made Lima, Ohio so special.
A/N: I am currently shopping around for a beta, if you are interested please let me know.