Two Earthquakes ... Or Not
Prompt: Firefly, BtVS crossover, AR, GP
Main Characters: Dawn and Zoe
Additional Characters: (Surprise! And at no extra cost!)
Specifics Requested: Zoe interrogating Dawn after an earthquake
A blue scarf, and plenty of sarcasm
Word Count: 2095
Disclaimer: All JW/ME’s
Feedback: Please!
A Tale of Two Earthquakes … Or Not
"Hey!" Dawn squealed with delight as she consulted the recipe once more. She had everything except the butter, the walnuts and the bittersweet chocolate, not a problem, she thought. I’ll use peanuts instead of walnuts and peanut oil instead of butter and … She set everything out on the kitchen counter in the same way she’d seen Buffy laying out her weapons before a battle. Dawn sighed. Chocolate! What could she use?
"I know!" She bounded out of the kitchen.
A few minutes later she came back. Tucked in the crook of one arm she had two half-eaten chocolate bars, a packet of M&M’s, a really, really old box of macaroons, and a huge Hershey bar that was missing only a few squares-at least one of which was in her mouth-and balancing a large, heavy book open on her other arm. She mouthed the strange words around the chocolate.
"You’re not Latin. I know Latin when I read it. What are you?" She set her booty down and began to leaf through the pages purposefully. "You’re not Latin! You’re Spanish! No, wait, not Spanish-Spanish, Spain-ish-Spanish. Very, very, old Spain-ish-Spanish. And lookey here! I know these words."
There was a paragraph about two-thirds of the way down the page that was almost all composed of words she recognized. She began to read the words aloud, sounding out phonetically those that didn’t look so familiar.
And then the world blew apart….
* * *
"Hey! Girl! Wake up!"
Dawn’s cheek exploded with sting. She knew that sting, she’d had it before. She’d been slapped! She opened her eyes wide.
Looming over her was the most beautiful face she’d ever seen, but there was anger and fear in the large brown eyes staring down at her.
"Who are you?" She squealed.
"I asked you first," the angry, beautiful woman said. But not nicely, Dawn thought.
"No you didn’t. I asked you first, just now. I just …"
"Technically you were unconscious, but I did ask first."
"Dawn," Dawn said. "My name is Dawn Summers. Who are you?"
The mere trace of a smile caressed the corners of the stranger’s mouth as she pulled Dawn to her feet. "Name is Zoe."
Dawn wobbled slightly. "You’re beautiful. I think I’m going to throw up."
"Whoa! Steady on, there. Here," Zoe set a toppled stool on its feet and eased her on to it, "put your head down a spell. Now, take a deep breath or two. There you go. That’s it. Keep breathing. Feel better?"
Dawn nodded, but slowly, because fast would have made with the whirl, which would have led to the hurl.
"Good. Start talking."
"About what?" Dawn asked.
"Well, let’s star with what in the …" What followed was a string of what sounded like Japanese or Chinese to Dawn "… is this mess?" the woman indicated the chaos in the kitchen. "And end up with how I’m going to get back to my ship?"
Dawn’s gaze followed the older woman’s sweeping gesture and she whimpered at the sight. Cupboard doors had been flung open, their contents scattered and shattered over the counters and across the floor-mostly across the floor. Anything that hadn’t been nailed down was up-ended, pouring, puddling and congealing on the floor.
"Buffy is so going to kill me!"
"Who, or what is a Buffy?"
"My sister, my much older, meaner sister. Will she still be my sister after she kills me? Oh, I am so dead!"
"If you don’t starting answering my questions Dawn, there won’t be enough left of you for your sister-Buffy is it?"
Dawn gulped and nodded.
"To kill. Do we have an understanding, little sister?"
Dawn nodded and gulped.
"Shiny! Let’s start nice and easy, then, shall we?"
Dawn’s head moved up and down but she didn’t take her eyes from the beautiful (mean) woman’s face.
"Your name is Dawn."
"Dawn Summers."
"And this is?"
"My house. Well, mine and my sister’s house, I guess. Probably Willow’s too, because she lives with us. So did Tara before she died. Warren shot her and then Willow got all dark and veiny, but that’s … You don’t want to know about that do you?… Buffy, Willow and I live here in this house, now. Some times Spike is here because Buffy doesn’t like him in the high school basement … you don’t want to know that either, do you?"
Zoe cleared her throat. "Where is this house?"
"1630 Revello Drive."
"Do not play with me, Dawn." Zoe thundered.
"Oh!" Dawn squeaked. "Sunnydale … Sunnydale, California … California, U.S.A."
"What is the name of this world?"
"Huh?"
"I can hurt you."
"Earth!"
The beautiful woman took Dawn by the shoulders and Dawn saw the anger burning in her eyes. "I thought we’d established that you were not going to play with me."
"Really! Really, really it’s Earth. Where else would it be?" Something occurred to Dawn. "And what the hell did you mean, ‘how do I get back to my ship?’ You did say ship, not shop, didn’t you?"
"This is Earth?" It was like she hadn’t heard her question.
"Uh-huh. Same as always."
"Earth That Was?"
"Yup. What? Was? No. Is. What do you mean, ‘Earth-that-was’?"
But Zoe wasn’t listening. She wasn’t even looking at her anymore. What she was doing was digging her fingers in to Dawn’s shoulders-hard.
"Ouch! You’re hurting me!"
The beautiful woman’s gaze returned to search Dawn’s face. "Earth That Was", she sighed. "I think I’d better sit down.
"What happened here?" Zoe asked.
"I don’t know. I thought you could tell me."
"No." Zoe shook her head. "One minute I was headed toward my quarters and the next I was here, with you."
Dawn surveyed the mess. "Maybe it was a quake?"
"A what?"
"An earthquake. We used to have them all the time in L.A."
"You didn’t always live on Earth That Was?
Dawn started. "What? No. I mean, yes. We’ve always lived on Earth That Was, I mean here on Earth. But before Mom and Dad got divorced we lived in Los Angeles. Then Mom, me, and Buffy, moved here to Sunnydale ‘cause Mom got a job at the art gallery and bought this house. So, Buffy went to Sunnydale High slash Hellmouth Central and I went to middle school and things were really cool, well, not for Buffy, because she’s the Slayer so you know, nothing is ever really cool for her, except she gets away with everything and gets to be all, ‘Oh, I’m so important because I’m the Slayer and what would the world do without me, but none of that really happened because I am the … was, maybe still am, the key … some weird priests made me so I didn’t really exist before I was fourteen … Oh! You don’t really want to know all this, do you?"
"No, really, please continue." Zoe’s lips smiled, but not her eyes. "Are you crazy little girl? I want to go back to Serenity and my husband-my life. I don’t care about your mother."
"My mother’s dead."
The beautiful woman tilted her head slightly and regarded Dawn carefully, the mocking smile gone from her lips. "Sorry for your loss."
"Thanks. It was a while ago. Buffy found her. She had this whatcha-ma-call-it in her head, some kind of tumor. She was okay after the surgery but then one day she just died. And she was gone." Dawn sighed. Zoe said nothing. "We were okay. Buffy took care of me-and the rest of the Scoobies, too. But they were busy so I was on my own a lot. It was okay, though. I had Janice."
"And Janice would be?" There was an edge to the question that went right over Dawn’s head.
"My best friend from middle school. She was so cool, but she moved away. I heard she changed her name and got religious, or maybe it was the other way round?"
"Ah, okay. Nice little sojourn down memory lane. Now, could we get back to the part where this is Earth That Was and it "quaked" and now I’m here instead of where I’m meant to be? Do you think that would be all right with you?"
"Yeah. Sure. No problemo. Right back on it." Dawn screwed up her face a little and then shouted, "Oh my God! You’re not from Earth! You’re like from another dimension, or something? How did you get here?"
"Isn’t that funny?" Zoe wasn’t laughing, though. "That’s just what I was asking you! Now, think. What were you doing just before you woke up here, with me, in this mess?"
Dawn looked around the kitchen, at the monumental mess, and without really being aware of it she started to pick up. She’d been doing something … going to do something …what? She started putting things away. Zoe, the beautiful but getting-scarier-by-the-second stranger who’d "poof" suddenly appeared in her kitchen wordlessly began to help.
They worked quietly together; Dawn lost in thought, Zoe helpful but watchful. They gathered the shattered crockery, the splinters and the shards of the unsalvageable remains of the kitchen. They swept and swabbed until the kitchen looked almost undamaged.
"What have we here?" Zoe asked as she bent to close the oven door. Just peeking out from under a pretty blue silk scarf was a huge book.
"Do you usually keep your frippery and cookery books in the oven?" she asked as she folded the scarf over her arm, then retrieved the book.
Dawn pointed to the scarf. "If it has blood on it, it’s probably Buffy’s and that’s one of Willow’s books. I found it when I was looking for chocolate to make brownies."
Zoe smiled.
"It doesn’t look like a cookery book."
"I think it’s spells or something. Willow is a mega mage with the witchery, doncha know."
"Spells?" Zoe opened the book and flipped through a few pages. "Can’t read it."
"Oh! I can!" Dawn grabbed the book from Zoe’s hands and excitedly started turning the pages. Almost halfway through she squealed and pointed at the open pages. "This! This is what I was reading when the quake hit."
She held the book out to Zoe and pointed to a paragraph about two-thirds of the way down the page and began to read aloud, slowly sounding out the words she didn’t recognize.
And then the world blew apart ….
* * *
"Hey!" Wash yelped as Zoe crash-landed on the bed beside him.
"Hey, yourself."
Her husband was cocooned under the covers. "Where’ve you been?" he asked groggily.
"Darling husband, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you," Zoe answered as she got up from the bed.
One of Wash’s eyes appeared above the blankets. "Oh yeah? Try me. Cap’n been keeping you late, again?"
"Nope."
Wash’s whole head appeared. "I demand to know where you’ve been, woman o’mine?"
"Demand?" Zoe laughed warmly. "Never you mind."
Zoe dropped her clothes on the floor beside the bed. "A woman’s got a right to a little mystery every once in a while."
"Mystery? No! Not my woman. Never." Wash sat up and gave his wife a calculating look. "You come to my bed…"
"Our bed," she corrected him.
" … at all hours, being all mysterious and sporting …" he held up a blue silk scarf that had floated onto the bed while Zoe undressed, "mysterious frippery … and where did you get this? Who’s giving my beautiful wife pretty presents without my knowledge?"
"No one, dear. It’s just a little memento. Didn’t know I still had it."
"Memento? From who … whom?"
"From Earth That Was, dear."
"Oh. Well, we’d better keep it, then."
"Yes, dear." Zoe switched the light off and snuggled close to her husband. "I missed you, husband" she murmured.
"That’s nice. Where did you say you were?"
"I didn’t." She giggled.
"Hey!" Wash laughed as she slid her hand beneath the covers.
* * *
"Hey!"
Dawn felt a sharp sting on her cheek. It felt … familiar. She opened her eyes and looked up at her sister’s eyes.
"That’s better. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? What have you been doing in here? It looks like a cyclone hit it," Buffy looked around the kitchen, "twice."
"Would you believe two earthquakes?"
"Not so much. Dawn, tell me you haven’t been cooking, again?"
"I was going to make brownies, but I got distracted."
"By?"
"Two earthquakes."
The End