Disclaimer: Joss owns ‘em, I just play.

Author’s note:Once again, hail the fabulousness of Bloodytearsoflife, beta extraordinaire.
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Chapter 14: Semi Fresh Wounds

Anya moved into Giles’ house without further protest. The whole thing seemed to the majority of the Scoobies the best outcome of the situation. Except for Xander. To say that Xander was okay with the fact that his ex fiancée was living with another man, a man that he thought of as a father figure, was not a happy idea in his head.

Buffy was pretty sure that Xander’s obliviousness to the Anya/Giles situation was going to take a nosedive very soon. And she didn’t want to be around when the stand off happened.

Anya though, despite her imprisonment in their dimension, appeared to be happy.

Dawn on the other hand…

Graham’s betrayal combined with the commandment not to dimension hop was making life at 1630 Revello Drive really quite unbearable, especially to those with enhanced vampire hearing.

She slammed everything. Banged everything. Generally made everything as noisy as she could. Dawn Summers was on a mission, and it appeared that mission was to drive Spike up the wall. The waves of anger coming off the vampire were almost visible. Every third thought was about how he’d like to maim the solider for touching Dawn. Every second thought was about how he’d like to torture Graham for breaking his nibblet’s heart.

Buffy knew that her little sister was hurting. She had memories of enough bad break-ups to know that only time would cure this particular ill. She also knew enough that Dawn didn’t want to be ‘talked’ to about how this would get better, nor did she want stories of how bad Buffy’s break ups had been.

The master slayer only had to see Nate to know just how traumatic even the most amicable break up was.

And Nate didn’t even know.

Buffy loved Spike. That wasn’t what was in question. It tugged at her heart though to know that despite the fact that Nate and she had never worked out, they were happy for a time, short as it was. Now Nate wouldn’t have that.

The selfish part of her thought she’d ruined his life.
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As Dawn sulked upstairs, Andrew pondered. The play station was unusually silent as he pondered. It was a thought that he had been pondering since before this whole fiasco with the soldier. How would he get Dawn to like him again? It seemed to him that moving into the house was the start of all his problems. He had limited options though. His parents refused to take him back, and his attempts at getting a job hadn’t really panned out like he had hoped.

And so he pondered.

And he thought that maybe he was hungry and wanted a hot pocket.

He rose from his leather swivel chair, letting comic books fall to the ground as he did so. Pulling open the basement door, Andrew came face to face with Mr. Bradford.

Andrew liked Nate. Everyone seemed to call him that, even though he had not told anyone that that was his preferred short form of his name. Buffy had just known. Molly and Giles were the only ones that called him anything else.

Nate’s presence in the house was a little perplexing. Dawn and Molly were at school. Giles was not there. Buffy was at Sunnydale U. Spike wasn’t even in the house. That was another thing that struck Andrew as funny. Why was the vampire traipsing around town in the middle of the day?

But back to Nate. Andrew was immediately suspicious. Attempting to perfect Spike’s raised eyebrow move, he attempted to raise one eyebrow, only succeeding in raising both and looking a little odd at the watcher that was clearly where he was not supposed to be.

“Mr. Bradford,” started Andrew, suspicion in his voice. “What brings you to the Summers/Wells residence at this time of the day?” Andrew leaned on the doorframe, his arms crossed, waiting for Nate to explain himself. Unfortunately for Andrew, this was not a good position to be in. He nearly fell back down into the basement. Readjusting his position against the doorframe, Andrew glared at the watcher menacingly.

“Molly left her crossbow here. I was retrieving it for our training session after school this afternoon. She is rather forgetful,” explained Nate.

“Why didn’t you ring the door bell?” asked Andrew.

“I did. No one answered,” answered Nate, looking at Andrew suspiciously.

Andrew had to admit that Nate had a better suspicious look than he did.

“Ok,” said Andrew in a high voice.

Nate walked past him and to the kitchen, Andrew following closely behind. Sure enough there was in fact a crossbow in the kitchen, sitting on the counter by the phone.

“What is it that you do?” asked Nate as he picked up the crossbow. “Do you work in the evenings?”

Andrew shook his head. “No, I am between jobs at the moment. My last position was not the career maker I thought it was,” he added wisely.

“What was your last position?” asked Nate.

“Super villain. It didn’t work out.”

“Super villain?” asked Nate a little bewildered.

“Yes, like Dr. No, or Goldfinger. You’re British. Don’t you know what a super villain is?”

“ I am familiar with the concept behind the movie villain,” Nate patronised. “I don’t understand why a young man of your abilities was persuaded that this was a valid life choice.”

“It was Warren,” explained Andrew as if Nate would instinctively know what he was talking about.

“Regardless,” Nate continued, shaking off his confusion. “It seems to me that a man of your knowledge and talents would make an excellent watcher. Have you considered that career path?”

“Yes. I had. I don’t know how I would be accepted within the great Watcher’s Council though,” suggested Andrew hopefully.

“Well…”
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Molly waited for Dawn to sit down at the cafeteria table that they sat at every day. Dawn hadn’t been so much fun of late. Even Molly’s grade ten friends had commented about how much of a downer Dawn Summers was since she was dumped. The fact that the whole school knew about Dawn’s dumpage was testament to how fast rumours travelled in their school.

To people looking in from the outside, it wasn’t obvious why Dawn and Molly were friends. Molly would probably even venture to say that Dawn was her best friend. There were girls at school though that thought that Dawn was a skank for going out with a man that was 10 years older than she was. In best friendness, Molly really wanted to break Montana Green’s face for saying things like that.

But then there was the principal. He knew what she was, and he was always watching her. He was freaky. Molly didn’t think that home schooling was something that Buffy and Spike would go for. So staying in school was a good thing.

As Dawn entered the cafeteria, the other students in the room all turned to look at her. Molly felt her heart go out to Dawn. Kids were cruel and it seemed that these kids were particularly cruel lately.

Dawn sat down with a huff, glaring back at the kids that were watching her. Her tray held an ice tea and a cup of red jello.

“Are you on a new diet? The sugar diet?” asked Molly lamely.

Dawn shook her head as she grabbed her bottle of ice tea and began to shake it. “No, this is the diet of those who don’t care and are seriously considering home schooling. Also the opening up of holes in the floor to swallow me whole. As if the whole getting dumped thing wasn’t bad enough, the bullying, not cool.

“You aren’t taking it, that’s good. I don’t think it can last much longer,” said Molly hopefully.

“Well that’s something,” noted Dawn, tearing off the plastic from her jello. “’Cause I really need to concentrate on the whole getting over the guy.”

Molly nodded.

Dawn plunged her spoon into her cup of jello and lifted the spoon to her mouth. The action seemed to coincide with another instance of the entire student population losing the ability to talk. Dawn rolled her eyes and looked at her friend. Molly’s eyes were trained on the entrance of the cafeteria. Dawn spun around to see Principal Wood staring at the two of them, accompanied by a man in military uniform. Not just any man. The guy she wanted to get over.

Dawn’s heart started to beat faster. She met the man’s eyes and inwardly winced. She turned around again and stared at her jello, which had fallen off the spoon and started to stab at her jello. The silence in the cafeteria continued as the two men in the doorway started to walk towards their table.

Molly’s eyes darted between the two men approaching them and Dawn who was trying to ignore their approach.

The principal cleared his throat as he came to a stop. “Miss Summers,” he said calmly.

Reluctantly, Dawn turned around and looked up at the Principal, completely ignoring the other man with him.

As Principal Wood explained that Graham needed to interview her for information about a government sensitive project in the area, Dawn had to concentrate on keeping her eyes from welling up with tears.

She nodded as Robin told her to follow him, leaving Molly alone at the table, wondering just how Dawn was going to get through this particular trauma.
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Robin Wood closed his office door on the captain and the teenager, unaware of what was really going on between them, but not before letting them know that he was going to be in the outer office if the captain needed anything.

With a deep breath, Dawn turned and for the first time that day, looked at Graham.

“What the hell are you trying to do to me?” she wailed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Dumping me at school, over the phone wasn’t enough? You thought it was a good idea to stalk me too?”

“Dawn,” he started to say, trying to calm her down. “I had to see you. You haven’t been answering my phone calls.”

“You broke up with me! Am I supposed to answer your phone calls?” she questioned. “And don’t tell me that you were just following orders.”

Graham shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t come here to get into an argument Dawn,” he broke in. “I need your help.

“No,” she stated bluntly.

“What?”

“No, I’m not helping you. No way. I know what you are looking for, and I refuse,” she explained.

“You know what we’re looking for?” he asked amazed.

“I’ve been doing this kind of thing longer than you have. My sister’s the slayer. I’ve been in the inner scooby circle since I was ten. It didn’t take us long to figure it out either,” she bragged. “I’m not helping you.”

Dawn opened the door and walked into the main office of Sunnydale High, her head held high.

“Miss Summers?” asked Principal Wood after her.

Dawn turned around to see the principal with a confused look on his face and Graham poking his head out of the office door.

“I can’t help the captain,” said Dawn sweetly. “He’s going to have to find some other teenage girl to get his information out of.”
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Dawn went home and slammed the door, rousing Spike from his sleep, sleep that had only started moments ago. Sleep tousled hair and a sleepy expression greeted Dawn as she flung her backpack on the floor in a dejected manner.

“I hate men!” she screamed.

Spike sighed. His nibblet was a complicated person. “Why this time?” he asked rubbing his hand over his face.

“He’s stalking me! He and his government pals can’t figure out what they are looking for, so I get visits from official military ex boyfriend 'cause he needs help.”

A soft growl emanated from Spike’s throat.

“Oh, I told him no. Big no. I am not that man’s inside information.”

“Uh, good for you Nibblet,” he started. “Takes a strong person to say no to someone you once cared about.” He had tried to sound wise. He didn’t know how well he was pulling it off.

She gave him a look that told him she wasn’t buying it.
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tbc…