Author’s Note: Thanks as always to Kar and my readers. This is a short one, as the next will be as well. I’m setting the stage for the action to come. Please feed the muse!

In our fourth installment Anya considers her future, Buffy announces her next move, and Dawn sees something interesting.

Chapter Four: Change of Scenery

Anya dusted the jars of herbs. The shop was closed for the evening, and it was comfortable in the low-lit quiet. Dawn worked alongside her, in the rhythm they'd established over the summer months. Traveling the country and dealing with temperamental teenagers was going to be quite the change. Maybe a change was what she needed.

If only the Council would spring for some sort of teleportation charm. It really was the only efficient way to travel. At least they were paying for the flights and rental cars, not to mention a generous per diem, so she would keep her griping to a minimum.

Besides, things were in such an uproar with Quinten Travers having alienated half the Council. The Council Head had sent out his cronies to 'extract' the youngest new slayers and place them in training with his various pets. To cover his ass, he was trying to use exclusive knowledge of how to find the new slayers as a bargaining chip, since many on the Council were ready to oust him.

What it seemed to come down to was the Travers though older girls were too intractable to bother with, while Giles was concerned that their ignorance could get them into a great deal of trouble. So the Scoobies would just have to come up with some other way to track them down on their own.

And Anya would provide slayer orientation. It was only a matter of time, after all. So many Watchers with occult training and a staff full of seers and witches. Eventually someone would either discover Quentin's secret or fathom some new way to track the older girls down.

"Are you excited?" Dawn asked, drawing Anya out of her private musings.

Anya hadn't considered that. "I suppose. I traveled the world for millennia, you know. It's only these past few years that I've been settled."

"Did you ever... think about going back?" Dawn asked carefully.

"Yes," Anya answered Dawn’s half-question honestly. Standing in the city morgue, identifying Xander's remains, she had most certainly thought about going back to her old job. Thought about ripping Warren apart, but he was already dead. Thought about taking out his stupid sidekicks, but they hadn't really been there. Thought about tormenting Buffy, who could have staved the entire incident off if only she'd accepted Hallie's offer of vengeance on Warren, although she knew that wasn’t entirely fair.

She had also thought about where Xander might have gone, and how she wanted to be with him again some day. Anya wasn't sure how such things worked, but she doubted a vengeance demon was going to get to the same place.

"Can I ask you another awkward question?" Dawn asked.

"Of course. Those usually get the most interesting answers."

Dawn laughed. "What did you do before D'Hoffryn?"

"A lot of beadwork. I was Aud."

"I believe you," Dawn said. After a few more moments of easy silence and cleaning, she asked, “Are you hungry?”

Anya shook her head and went back to organizing supplier receipts. Everything had to be just so before she left. The contingent assigned to Sunnydale—who were nearly as pissed off as Giles at getting jerked around—were going to use the shop as cover. If she had to leave town and go slayer-hunting, Anya wanted it to be as easy as possible for them to take up the reins.

“Anya, you need to eat.”

“I’m fine, Dawnie.”

“You are not fine. You’re verging on heroin chic.”

Anya glared at her. She knew she should eat. The doctor kept saying so. But the idea of it was so unappealing. “You’re not exactly buxom yourself, missy.”

Dawn drew herself up. “Hey. I grew, like, six inches in the last three months, and I am working on it. So come have some pizza with me, Anya.”

“Okay,” Anya gave in. “But you have to promise me something. When I leave, will you keep working here after school and keep an eye on things for me.”

Dawn beamed at her. “Of course.”


----------


Joyce gawked at her daughter and tried to formulate some sort of reasoned, logical response. Instead what came out was, "You're doing what?"

"It will save us the money we were going to pay for a dorm room. See, I'm being all thrifty," she replied brightly.

"I think your mother is more concerned that you'll be living with a dead man," Anya chimed in, using that disarmingly straightforward tone she had. "This stew is delicious, Tara."

"It's good to see you eating," Tara replied quietly.

Joyce shook her head. "When are you moving?"

Buffy shrugged. "Whenever I get my stuff all packed. Some time before classes start. So some time this week, I guess."

"Buffy, this seems so...." sudden? unexpected? suicidal?

"Mom, I know, it's a big."

"It's probably part of his reemerging Victorian ethos," Anya posited. "This is the closest he can get to making an honest woman out of you."

Buffy's mouth fell open as she visibly tried to come up with a response to that. From the corner of her eye Joyce saw Dawn struggling not to laugh at her sister.

"Just make sure he adds you to the lease," Anya added.

"That's... very practical advice," Joyce agreed and then Tara mercifully changed the subject.

Joyce was well aware that Buffy had broached the topic over Sunday dinner to avoid an argument, but she was far from finished with discussing it. Then again, she mused, there probably wasn't much point. Buffy would do what she wanted.

They did the dishes together while the others relaxed in the living room. "It's going to be fine, Mom."

"Hmm," Joyce refused to comment.

"Would you please just say whatever it is you want to say?" Buffy huffed.

"Buffy, I don't know that I would be happy about you moving in with anyone, but Spike? What happens when you two have an argument?"

Buffy shrugged. "We argue all the time. One of us goes and stomps around for awhile until we cool off." Buffy smiled. "We always make it back eventually."

"What if it goes beyond an argument, Buffy?" Joyce asked carefully.

Her daughter shook her head, and her answer made Joyce feel a wave of vertigo. "It's been years since he the last time he tried to kill me." Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, "And in some ways, it's like we're literally not the same people we were then."

Joyce managed to quell the fluttering in her stomach and turned off the taps. She dried her hands and leaned against the sink for support. "Well then," she decided aloud, "I guess he'll be coming with you to Sunday dinner next week."


------


Dawn settled on a mat next to Amanda and closed her eyes. She tried to center herself as Giles was instructing, but her thoughts were scattered. Anya, taking care of the shop, the new Watchers getting in tomorrow, Buffy moving in with Spike.

"What are we supposed to do again?" Amanda asked, sounding as frustrated as Dawn felt.

"I bet Buffy sucks at this," Dawn muttered.

"It is not your sister's favorite part of training, no," Giles acknowledged. "Let's try again, shall we?" Giles cleaned his glasses and perched them back on his nose. "Take a cleansing breath as you observe the crystal. Good, now close your eyes. Clear your mind of distractions and concentrate on turning the crystal."

Dawn felt her forehead wrinkling as she pictured the quartz in her mind, trying to will it to turn colors. This is so pointless, she thought after a few minutes. Giving up, she opened her eyes.

Eyes that were totally not her own looked back at her from a mirror. The girl in the mirror had dirty blond hair and serious boobs that were straining her faded jersey. Hands went up to her face, poking experimentally at the skin around her eye.

"Huh," the girl said.

Dawn tried to say something, but the girl in the mirror just kept rubbing her face.

"Connie Ray, get your ass moving! Your ride's here!"

"Bye, mama!" the girl screamed back. She grabbed a mitt and banged out the front door into an old yacht of a car.

"Hey, Douglas, talk at Sonic was your daddy got laid out," said the driver.

"Let's just go, Trish. If I’m late again, coach won’t let me play this weekend."

“Way you been hitting lately, you could miss all week and he’s still let you play. You on something?”

“I look stupid?”

Dawn was beginning to feel queasy. What the hell was happening to her? It smelled like exhaust in the car. They drove past a Franklin County Credit Union and a Mandeville Coffee Shop. Was this stuff important? Was this a vision? She tried to say the words she was reading aloud, but her voice seemed to get stuck.

"Connie, um, when you called me, you said..."

"I know. By the time the ambulance came for Daddy, all gone."

"Shit, girl. What happened to you?"

"I have no fucking clue."

Dawn let out a thick, wheezing breath as she slammed back against the floor of the training room.

"Dawn! Dawn!" Giles's voice slowly penetrated her brain.

"Hey," she managed.

"What just happened?" Amanda asked.

"What did it look like?" Dawn asked. She winced as Giles poked at her to see if she was injured. Her head was pounding and her eyes stung.

"The crystal turned green, and you began shouting." Giles patted her arm. "I'll get you something. Your shoulder is certain to bruise."

Dawn rubbed it gingerly and unfortunately had to agree. "I think maybe I know what happened, guys." Dawn felt a smile creeping across her face. "I think I just found a slayer."