Nothing Worries - August 29th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 29
Title: Nothing Worries
Author:hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG1
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Dawn and Jon travel to Cleveland.
Notes: Nothing Clones Part 3 - Links Page
Seasons: Post-Series/Season 7 “Fragile Balance”
Word Count: 1650
Dawn took a deep breath and looked at Jon. “Our escort?”
“Gone.”
She nodded and looked around the Cleveland safe house. She had been up for nearly a day. Unlike Jon, she had not been able to sleep while on the transport from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. They had then been driven to the address Dawn had on hand by a Lieutenant Crinkle, who had been designated to discretely oversee their trip.
“This is not what I was expecting,” Jon said as he looked around the small house.
“Think of this as a dead drop. I wasn’t going to give the Air Force my address.” She headed for the kitchen and picked up the phone from the counter. “Now to pray,” she muttered before dialing.
The phone rang twice before it was picked up.
“What?” the person who answered greeted.
“Oh good, Casey. I need a lift.”
“Dawn!?” Casey fairly screeched.
“Shut up! I’m in enough trouble.”
“No kidding. Do you know what has been going on around here? They hav-”
“Grab a car and come get me and then I can find out.’
“Where are you?”
“Safe house 16-Theta.”
“There should be a Wrangler in the garage.”
Dawn headed for the garage and opened the door. “It’s here.” She opened the driver door and pulled the visor down. “And I’ve got keys. Do not tell anyone we’ve talked. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Wear armor,” Casey warned in a whisper before hanging up.
Dawn headed back into the house and hung up the phone. Then she started opening and closing drawers.
“What are you looking for?” Jon asked.
“Cash.” She opened a cupboard, finding a box. “Ah ha.” She pulled out a couple of bills and put it back. “They gave you a driver’s license, right?”
He removed a new wallet from his back pocket and showed her. It was marked ‘Under 18’ but allowed him to drive without restriction.
“Awesome. I’ve got gas money.”
“How far are we going?”
“Elyria, Ohio. Less than an hour from here. Directly over a Hellmouth.”
“Do you live over it?”
“Not really. In proximity. It’s actually under a hospital.”
“An old abandoned hospital?”
“Only in our dreams,” she scoffed. “The damn thing remains open despite the unusual things that happen there.”
“Localized?”
“To within twenty, twenty-five miles. But that’s just the direct Hellmouth activity. Vampires like busy, tourist-y places like Cleveland. And demons have specific needs and instincts that determine where they settle.” She handed him the keys. “Pull the car out of the garage and I’ll reset the house.”
Jon took nodded and went to the garage.
88888888
Dawn’s hands were knitted together as they pulled off the main road to a fairly innocuous private road -Brenner Street. It ran for a quarter mile back to the house. A large house with a huge paved area, where nearly a dozen cars were parked.
“Oh, fuck,” she muttered in disbelief.
“What?” Jon asked as he pulled in behind a motorcycle.
“They went batshit crazy. My stupid sister called in every fucking senior member of the Council and at least three allies.” She looked out the window. “Shit.”
“What does this change?”
“The number of people on the firing squad and their ability to tell we’re lying.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over to touch him.
“What are you doing?” Jon asked as he froze in his seat.
“Trust me, there is at least one vampire and three super-humans with sensitivity to smell.” She ran her hands through his hair and pressed her cheek against his.
He did not move. “How long do we need to do this for?”
“Just long enough it seems like we were cozy. A few minutes.”
They sat uncomfortably for a minute before he spoke, needing to say anything to focus away from the smell of her skin. “What will happen if they don’t buy it?”
“They’ll keep at it. They will dig until they have unwound everything, or at least traced us from the damn ship to Colorado to Cleveland.”
“The thing we don’t want them to do.”
She swallowed. “This is going to be hard. There is going to be a lot of yelling…”
“Military is big on the yelling.”
“Not at you, though you may get a bit of it. There will be a lot of yelling at me. I will keep the cover…but it won’t be pretty if I get overwhelmed.”
“Anyone we can get on our side?”
“Faith. She’s probably pissed being here. Spike is a tossup. The rest of them are going to depend on how long they’ve had to put up with Buffy.”
“Longer they’ve been here the less likely they are to side with us.”
Dawn nodded.
Jon moved his face away from hers and pressed a hand to his jaw. “It’s going to take a while to get used to that.”
“To what?”
“Not having to shave. I think I was twenty-five or so before I had regular five-o’clock shadow.” He squinted at the memory. “Redoing some of this is going to suck.”
“In a year, you’ll be able to reapply for the Academy,” she remarked softly.
“Already planning to get rid of me?”
“Daniel slipped the papers into my bag. He said it had been a different process when Jack joined.”
Jon gave a pained grin.
“You miss him.”
“The team has been all I’ve had for nearly a decade.”
“I understand that. Life and death creates bonds that survive a lot more than the day-to-day crap life throws at other people.”
“I can’t believe you get that. You’re a kid.”
She chuckled. “Make it through orientation with the mini-Slayers and then you’ll understand.” She looked at the house. “They are people who stopped being kids a long time before they were ready.”
“And you?”
“I grew up in the shadows of their greatness. The only thing I can hope for is that I’m not the cause of any of their deaths again.” She blinked a rapidly and faced Jon. “There is one thing we do need to do before we walk in there.”
“What?” he asked, amused by the color that had bloomed across her face.
“It’s…” she shook her head and scoffed at herself. “This has to be believable.”
“Right.”
Dawn got frustrated and reached across the car to grab either side of his face. She followed her hands with her face, leaning in to kiss Jon. In that moment she wanted to kill the entire Council - all her over-protective family and friends. She had kissed exactly four guys, with Jon lucky number four. But they had all been one time deals because the mini-Slayers, her sister, or some combination of Watchers made it hard to stay with a guy after having to push him into a wall to save him from a demon attack. It was also the point that her lips touched Jon’s that she remembered her fumbled teenage experience was going up against a guy who had the memories of more than thirty years of kissing women.
She moved back and turned to face the door. “We should get in there.”
Jon laced his fingers through the hairs at the nape of her neck and gently directed her to face him again. He leaned in and whispered, “Relax.”
It was a slow exploration that made her heart speed up so fast she was certain that it could be heard outside of her head. Suddenly, Dawn understood Buffy’s preference for partners who were fairly older than her.
Jon slowly extracted his had from her hair and moved away from her. He was breathing heavily and his face was set in a hard line as he breathed through his nose. He got out of the car without a word.
Dawn grabbed the backpack she had gotten from the SGC - a drab grey thing. She climbed out of the car and headed straight for the front door of the house. As they got closer, she could hear arguing. The direction suggested it was coming from the research room, a library area.
She heard Jon follow her. He gently yanked her backpack from her grip. She turned slightly to frown at him, but he ignored her questioning look as he effortlessly carried both his bag and hers over one shoulder.
Without slowing or pausing to steady herself, Dawn opened the door to the house and walked straight into the library. It was only once she entered she realized that she should have warned Jon about the Tardis-esque spell on the room, which made the dimensions inside much bigger than the blueprint suggested it should be. After all, you didn’t fit this many people into a single room without some magic.
The arguing halted as soon as she entered. Buffy and Spike stood nose to nose. Dawn cringed. They somehow got along worse in the last few years than when they were on the Hellmouth. But as her eyes traveled the rest of the room she got an idea of just how big this thing had gotten in ten days.
Buffy had her lieutenants - Andrea, Sophie, and Mio. All of them lived in an around Cleveland. Then there was Giles with his brigade of Watchers of whom two had traveled with him. Willow and another witch were in the corner. Xander and his Slayer, Zahara, occupied the window seat.
As if the Scoobies and their immediate companions were not bad enough, they had recalled just about everyone they had ever met. Oz lounged in an overstuffed armchair, Faith sat on the round research table. Angel, Illyria, and Connor - as well as Spike - had come all the way from LA. And that only covered half the people in the room.
Dawn had not been lying when she said they were screwed.
“Hi…” She gave a small wave to the room.
Title: Nothing Worries
Author:hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/SG1
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Stargate people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Dawn and Jon travel to Cleveland.
Notes: Nothing Clones Part 3 - Links Page
Seasons: Post-Series/Season 7 “Fragile Balance”
Word Count: 1650
Dawn took a deep breath and looked at Jon. “Our escort?”
“Gone.”
She nodded and looked around the Cleveland safe house. She had been up for nearly a day. Unlike Jon, she had not been able to sleep while on the transport from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. They had then been driven to the address Dawn had on hand by a Lieutenant Crinkle, who had been designated to discretely oversee their trip.
“This is not what I was expecting,” Jon said as he looked around the small house.
“Think of this as a dead drop. I wasn’t going to give the Air Force my address.” She headed for the kitchen and picked up the phone from the counter. “Now to pray,” she muttered before dialing.
The phone rang twice before it was picked up.
“What?” the person who answered greeted.
“Oh good, Casey. I need a lift.”
“Dawn!?” Casey fairly screeched.
“Shut up! I’m in enough trouble.”
“No kidding. Do you know what has been going on around here? They hav-”
“Grab a car and come get me and then I can find out.’
“Where are you?”
“Safe house 16-Theta.”
“There should be a Wrangler in the garage.”
Dawn headed for the garage and opened the door. “It’s here.” She opened the driver door and pulled the visor down. “And I’ve got keys. Do not tell anyone we’ve talked. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Wear armor,” Casey warned in a whisper before hanging up.
Dawn headed back into the house and hung up the phone. Then she started opening and closing drawers.
“What are you looking for?” Jon asked.
“Cash.” She opened a cupboard, finding a box. “Ah ha.” She pulled out a couple of bills and put it back. “They gave you a driver’s license, right?”
He removed a new wallet from his back pocket and showed her. It was marked ‘Under 18’ but allowed him to drive without restriction.
“Awesome. I’ve got gas money.”
“How far are we going?”
“Elyria, Ohio. Less than an hour from here. Directly over a Hellmouth.”
“Do you live over it?”
“Not really. In proximity. It’s actually under a hospital.”
“An old abandoned hospital?”
“Only in our dreams,” she scoffed. “The damn thing remains open despite the unusual things that happen there.”
“Localized?”
“To within twenty, twenty-five miles. But that’s just the direct Hellmouth activity. Vampires like busy, tourist-y places like Cleveland. And demons have specific needs and instincts that determine where they settle.” She handed him the keys. “Pull the car out of the garage and I’ll reset the house.”
Jon took nodded and went to the garage.
88888888
Dawn’s hands were knitted together as they pulled off the main road to a fairly innocuous private road -Brenner Street. It ran for a quarter mile back to the house. A large house with a huge paved area, where nearly a dozen cars were parked.
“Oh, fuck,” she muttered in disbelief.
“What?” Jon asked as he pulled in behind a motorcycle.
“They went batshit crazy. My stupid sister called in every fucking senior member of the Council and at least three allies.” She looked out the window. “Shit.”
“What does this change?”
“The number of people on the firing squad and their ability to tell we’re lying.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over to touch him.
“What are you doing?” Jon asked as he froze in his seat.
“Trust me, there is at least one vampire and three super-humans with sensitivity to smell.” She ran her hands through his hair and pressed her cheek against his.
He did not move. “How long do we need to do this for?”
“Just long enough it seems like we were cozy. A few minutes.”
They sat uncomfortably for a minute before he spoke, needing to say anything to focus away from the smell of her skin. “What will happen if they don’t buy it?”
“They’ll keep at it. They will dig until they have unwound everything, or at least traced us from the damn ship to Colorado to Cleveland.”
“The thing we don’t want them to do.”
She swallowed. “This is going to be hard. There is going to be a lot of yelling…”
“Military is big on the yelling.”
“Not at you, though you may get a bit of it. There will be a lot of yelling at me. I will keep the cover…but it won’t be pretty if I get overwhelmed.”
“Anyone we can get on our side?”
“Faith. She’s probably pissed being here. Spike is a tossup. The rest of them are going to depend on how long they’ve had to put up with Buffy.”
“Longer they’ve been here the less likely they are to side with us.”
Dawn nodded.
Jon moved his face away from hers and pressed a hand to his jaw. “It’s going to take a while to get used to that.”
“To what?”
“Not having to shave. I think I was twenty-five or so before I had regular five-o’clock shadow.” He squinted at the memory. “Redoing some of this is going to suck.”
“In a year, you’ll be able to reapply for the Academy,” she remarked softly.
“Already planning to get rid of me?”
“Daniel slipped the papers into my bag. He said it had been a different process when Jack joined.”
Jon gave a pained grin.
“You miss him.”
“The team has been all I’ve had for nearly a decade.”
“I understand that. Life and death creates bonds that survive a lot more than the day-to-day crap life throws at other people.”
“I can’t believe you get that. You’re a kid.”
She chuckled. “Make it through orientation with the mini-Slayers and then you’ll understand.” She looked at the house. “They are people who stopped being kids a long time before they were ready.”
“And you?”
“I grew up in the shadows of their greatness. The only thing I can hope for is that I’m not the cause of any of their deaths again.” She blinked a rapidly and faced Jon. “There is one thing we do need to do before we walk in there.”
“What?” he asked, amused by the color that had bloomed across her face.
“It’s…” she shook her head and scoffed at herself. “This has to be believable.”
“Right.”
Dawn got frustrated and reached across the car to grab either side of his face. She followed her hands with her face, leaning in to kiss Jon. In that moment she wanted to kill the entire Council - all her over-protective family and friends. She had kissed exactly four guys, with Jon lucky number four. But they had all been one time deals because the mini-Slayers, her sister, or some combination of Watchers made it hard to stay with a guy after having to push him into a wall to save him from a demon attack. It was also the point that her lips touched Jon’s that she remembered her fumbled teenage experience was going up against a guy who had the memories of more than thirty years of kissing women.
She moved back and turned to face the door. “We should get in there.”
Jon laced his fingers through the hairs at the nape of her neck and gently directed her to face him again. He leaned in and whispered, “Relax.”
It was a slow exploration that made her heart speed up so fast she was certain that it could be heard outside of her head. Suddenly, Dawn understood Buffy’s preference for partners who were fairly older than her.
Jon slowly extracted his had from her hair and moved away from her. He was breathing heavily and his face was set in a hard line as he breathed through his nose. He got out of the car without a word.
Dawn grabbed the backpack she had gotten from the SGC - a drab grey thing. She climbed out of the car and headed straight for the front door of the house. As they got closer, she could hear arguing. The direction suggested it was coming from the research room, a library area.
She heard Jon follow her. He gently yanked her backpack from her grip. She turned slightly to frown at him, but he ignored her questioning look as he effortlessly carried both his bag and hers over one shoulder.
Without slowing or pausing to steady herself, Dawn opened the door to the house and walked straight into the library. It was only once she entered she realized that she should have warned Jon about the Tardis-esque spell on the room, which made the dimensions inside much bigger than the blueprint suggested it should be. After all, you didn’t fit this many people into a single room without some magic.
The arguing halted as soon as she entered. Buffy and Spike stood nose to nose. Dawn cringed. They somehow got along worse in the last few years than when they were on the Hellmouth. But as her eyes traveled the rest of the room she got an idea of just how big this thing had gotten in ten days.
Buffy had her lieutenants - Andrea, Sophie, and Mio. All of them lived in an around Cleveland. Then there was Giles with his brigade of Watchers of whom two had traveled with him. Willow and another witch were in the corner. Xander and his Slayer, Zahara, occupied the window seat.
As if the Scoobies and their immediate companions were not bad enough, they had recalled just about everyone they had ever met. Oz lounged in an overstuffed armchair, Faith sat on the round research table. Angel, Illyria, and Connor - as well as Spike - had come all the way from LA. And that only covered half the people in the room.
Dawn had not been lying when she said they were screwed.
“Hi…” She gave a small wave to the room.