"Come on Mom, it's a birthday party, everybody who's anybody is going to be there! You can't make me stay home!" Dawn protested.
"The party starts barely a half-hour before sunset," Joyce said implacably, "You know I'm not fit to drive yet, and you aren't spending the night. Don't even think about asking again. How do you expect to get home?"
"Mom!" Dawn whined.
"Don't take that tone with me, you know what's out there."
"I could ask Xander to give me a ride," Dawn suggested. "Or Mr. Giles."
"Dawn, Mr. Giles and Xander have lives of their own, we impose upon them too much as it is," Joyce said firmly.
Buffy watched an utterly crushed expression over took Dawn's features and sighed. "I could swing by after patrol and walk her home."
"You're sure that's safe?" Joyce asked.
Buffy noted Dawn's suddenly hopeful expression. "She'll be with me, what could go wrong? But Dawn, you have to promise you'll stay inside the house till I get there."
"Sure Buffy, you're the greatest," Dawn chirped happily, she would have agree to much more worse terms as long as it meant going to what would probably be the social event of the year. Becky, the birthday girl, had an undeniably cool house and notoriously lax parental types. Plus she was inviting boys. At fourteen coed parties weren't unheard of, but they certainly weren't the rule either. Dawn knew her mother wouldn't be cool if she wanted to have a bunch of guys at an over night party. Witness her absolute refusal to even consider letting Dawn stay till it was safe to walk home.
"Be ready to go at about 12:30," Buffy instructed.
"One is a nice round number," Dawn suggested. "Very easy to remember."
"So is twelve," Buffy said. "Giles wants me to do an early morning training thingy tomorrow, so don't press your luck."
"12:30 sounds great. If it's okay with you mom?" Dawn said with a sacrine-sweet smile.
"You two seem to have everything worked out," Joyce sighed.
"Thanks mom," Dawn said, giving her mother a quick kiss on the cheek.
Buffy just shrugged and walked out of the kitchen. Lately she just felt so uncomfortable around her mother.
She was really glad her mother was okay and everything. It was a real weight off her mind, but all that free mind space was giving Buffy too much room to think. Especially about how a number of Joyce's pre-surgery tirades against Angel echoed Angel's reasons for breaking up with her before the prom. It wasn't a comfortable thought to have.
The other choice, of course, was to think about Angel, and how he wasn't listening to anybody these days. Cordy sworn that they needed Buffy to come to LA and knock some sense back into him, but she couldn't. It had been hard enough to deal with a version of Angel that didn't love her because he didn't remember her. Seeing Angel now, in full possession of his memories and soul and still not loving her. Buffy thought that might literally kill her. So she stayed in Sunnydale, a prisoner of her own fears, despite Cordy's insistence that Angel needed her in LA.
"The party was totally kick ass," Dawn thought happily, surprised she could here the thought over the music blaring over Becky's parents' huge stereo system. This was how she pictured the Bronze.
Then Dawn spotted HIM, and the whole world just stopped. He was tall, with bottomless dark brown eyes and curling, longish brunette hair. Maybe he was a bit gangly, if you wanted to find fault, which Dawn didn't, but he moved with the easy grace of an athlete. When he noticed Dawn staring at him, he offered her an endearing lop-sided smile and crossed the crowded room to her side.
"Hi," he said.
Dawn blushed and ducked her head, embarrassed to have been caught all but drooling over a good-looking boy whose name she didn't even know. "Hey," she replied.
The boy escorted her into the kitchen where the noise level was only a dull roar instead of rock concert levels.
"I'm Cole," he said. "I'm new in town, so you probably don't know me, I don't know anyone out there. I don't even know how I got invited. maybe it was a mistake. Still I thought it would be a good way to meet people, but how can you get to know anyone with all those people and all that noise?"
"I'm Dawn," Dawn replied when Cole wound down. "My mom only moved here.gee it was four and a half years ago, it feels like yesterday. Anyway I totally sympathize with your newness."
Dawn felt her heart flutter as her comments won her another of Cole's charming half-smiles. He was almost as cute as Xander and her age, this was too great.
"So. um. are you liking the party?" Cole asked.
"Completely. I wish I could stay all night, I'll bet it gets really wild, but my mom's being a real Nazi, she only let me come because my older sister Buffy offered to walk me home," Dawn said.
"Don't feel left out," Cole said. "I have to leave early too. In fact I had to sneak out to get here and I'm going to be deeply regretful if I'm not in bed before my parents go to get me up in the morning."
Uncomfortable Dawn glanced at the floor as she advised, "You should probably wait till after sunrise. Bad things happen to people after dark here, but being new you wouldn't know that yet. That's why my sister's coming to get me."
"I can't stay that long," Cole said. "My mother's a real crack of dawn type, she'd catch me."
"Well, you could walk with Buffy and I," Dawn offered.
"The two of you are walking?" Cole asked. "Maybe I should go to protect you."
"Oh don't worry, Buffy can handle anything," Dawn paused. "Cause she's really in to martial arts and junk," she added awkwardly.
"I'm sure she's quite formidable," Cole said apolitically. "I would be honored to except her protection.
Dawn studied Cole carefully, looking for signs that he was patronizing her, and found none. In fact his last statement seemed more sincere than the one that preceded it. Dawn frowned at that oddity.
"So." Cole began nervously, then trailed off apparently at a loss for a topic. "Buffy, that's an unusual name, isn't it?" He finally asked.
Dawn snorted, "Personally, I think Mom should have let the pain-killers wear off before she came up with a name, still Buffy was her first shot at the whole naming children thing. You can't expect someone to get a thing right the first time they try something new. Witness how much better her second attempt went."
Cole smiled. "Dawn is a lovely name, it has hope in it," he said.
Another awkward silence descended. "So, do you want to dance?" Dawn asked.
A relieved look swept over Cole's features. "Gladly, my lady," he said taking her hand and grandly pressing a kiss to the back of it, making Dawn blush and giggle before escorting them back to the living room.
Cole held her in an elegant ballroom style, but the crush of the other dancers soon gave Dawn an excuse to shift his frame to something less formal and more cuddly. Swaying gently in Cole's arms Dawn sighed happily, it wasn't everyday that a cute guy noticed her, not like they did Buffy.
Of course Buffy did always seem to get more than her fair share of weirdoes. A guy with a death wish, a demon worshiping frat guy (Dawn thought that the whole frat guy thing should have warned her sister off, but Buffy could be so dense some times. Come on, a senior in college hitting on a junior in High School who he'd never met before? There was no way his intentions were of the good.), vampire wanna be, plus several total losers and Spike! Even Angel and Riley had the vampire thing and the Initiative thing respectively. Plus if Spike could be believed Riley had gone completely mental in the last couple months, letting vamps snack on him and stuff. "Xander was the only really normal guy Buffy had ever attracted," Dawn concluded.
But Buffy wasn't interested. If Xander ever showed any interest in dumping Anya for her, Dawn would have taken him up in a heartbeat.
"Well maybe not right now," Dawn added mentally, with a superstitious glance at Cole.
"Dancing was a marvelous innovation," Dawn thought to herself, resting her cheek on Cole's shoulder. She could do this all night long.
"I think your sister's here," Cole said looking over the top of Dawn's head. Reluctantly Dawn glanced around the room to see Buffy glaring angrily at her.
"Her boyfriend goes to LA and suddenly she turns into Miss Cranky-Pants if anyone else is having a good time," Dawn huffed.
"LA?" Cole echoed, sounding upset.
"Uh-huh," Dawn replied absently starting toward Buffy. "You're early!" she exclaimed.
"It's 12:40," Buffy replied. "According to Webster that makes me late, which is the opposite of early. Why aren't you ready?"
"Just let me grab my jacket, it'll only take a second. Do you need to get anything Cole?" Dawn asked. "Oh Buffy this is Cole. Cole, my sister Buffy. He has to leave early too, so I thought he could walk with us."
Buffy glanced quickly at Cole then returned to glaring at Dawn for a moment before turning her attention back to Cole for a longer, and slightly confused look at the dark haired boy. "Do you have any older brothers?" She asked. "You look familiar."
"No, I just moved to Sunnydale," Cole said with a nervous laugh. "You must be mistaking me for some other younger sibling."
Buffy frowned at the boy.
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