Nothing the Same, Book 4, Ch. 4

[orchidluv]

Nothing the Same, Book 4
Chapter:  4/?
Feedback & concrit: yes, please
Disclaimer: don't own them, never will, just having fun.
Previous parts here

Comments

[anonymous]

Very nice. Good explanation for Joyce's decisions about Spike and Dawn.

How did Dawn know where the apartment was? Hope she learned her lesson about it.

Being a teenager is difficult. Being the teenage sister of someone with a really dangerous job must be even worse. It's natural to act rebellious and stupid sometimes when you are that age. Unfortunately, it could very easily go really, really badly.

[orchidluv]

You're right, the Hellmouth tends to punish stupidity disproportionately. I suspect Dawn has learned her lesson, plus she has Spike's cell # now.

[sparrow2000]

Nice introduction to Dawn, you make her a fully realised person very economically through Spike's actions and Xander's conversation.

Ethan and Giles pussyfooting around each other is highly entertaining and you know, like Xander, I'm going to have the image of Riley skipping in my head all day!

[orchidluv]

Thanks, hun. It was both fun and frustrating trying to re-write everything that went before without making it all exposition. Ethan's got his work cut out for him, since in many ways he's still the bad boy from Giles' rebellious youth that Giles likes to think he's put behind him.

[spiceblueeyes]

I always loved Spike's relationship with Dawn, and you've introduced it really well. Super great chapter!

[orchidluv]

They really did have a great relatioinship and some wonderful scenes together in canon. I hope I can do justice to it.

[brunettepet]

I love this time when Gailes is happily showering Buffy with training and studies. It was so nice to have him get back to work after being at loose ends for so long. I also enjoyed the seamless insertion of Dawn into Xander and Spike's minds after Xander's initital "who?" when Buffy asked him to babysit.

Xander taking Dawn to task for putting Spike in danger was wonderful. Spike would die before seeing either of them hurt, and the talks certainly drove that point home.

I loved this image: After that first meeting, he’d seen her several times over the summer. Unlike her mother, who when she found him in the yard, would simply pull on a pair of gloves and go to work beside him in comfortable silence, Dawn would sit on the porch steps and watch him work, talking to him non-stop. Hearing her complain about Buffy and rattle on about movies and books, he’d let her voice wash over him, filling that part of him that had been aching for the loss of Willow’s prattling voice in his life. The monks really did a bang up job

[orchidluv]

One of my favorite scenes in canon about Dawn's arrival is when Buffy is casually talking about how Dawn cried when their dad abandoned them, then she suddenly stops and says: "Not that that actually happened." I love the way the monks made the memories so real and emotional that, even when she knew they weren't real, they still felt real.

[yanagi_wa]

Yes, and then there was Dawn. Excellent chapter.

[orchidluv]

Thanks, hun.