all_inclusive | OPEN | did you fall from a shooting star ; one without a permanent scar

It's been awhile since Dawn has been in the hotel. She's been home, living her life, growing up. She's had two birthdays since she was last here. She's fought a few big bad's and helped save the world at least two more times. That's the thing with apocalypses in her world, they always come in the plural rather than the singular. One ends and another begins. And you can never quite see them coming until you're smack dab in the middle of one. Sometimes evil is stealthy like that.

Thwarting the destruction of the world is what got her lost in an alternate dimension in the first place. Then, as she used her key power to punch her way between worlds, she unlocked the door to the hotel and can't seem to step back out of it.

Of course, her first order of business is to check for Buffy. Some things never change. Her attachment to her sister is one of those things. No matter how old she is, no matter how many years of college she completes, she'll always be Buffy's little sister. She's accepted that. She's grown to love that. Which is why she's sad to find that Buffy isn't here anymore. She remembers her time here from before. Buffy had been here then. Now Dawn's alone.

After a quick shower and change of clothes in the room that she used to share with her sister, she makes her way downstairs to the cafe to grab some food (she's starving, okay?) and then to the library where she used to work beforehand because books make almost all things better. Maybe she can get her job back. She does get her job back. Then she checks out a book.

She makes her way out into the gardens and sits in the grass. She opens her book and gets lost in another world.

Occasionally, one might find her concentrating very, very hard, trying to get her key power to work, trying to see a thinning of the veils between dimensions and punch her way through it. There are no portals here, not that she can see, not like what she could see in the other hell-ish dimensions. She's as stuck as anyone.

Yeah, reading is good.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, she'd been at work at the library. But everyone who knows Dawn knows that she kind of does what she wants. So leaving for now and coming back later is a thing that's happening. It suddenly seems very important to her that she move rooms right now. This is the first feeling of 'not quite so alone' she's had since returning here. Harvey is a lifeline whether he wants to be or not.

"Yes. Right now. You can help, or not. But it's happening." She says, not pausing one second in her trek out of the library toward the stairs that would lead them up to the rooms.

"Have I told you that you're an odd duck?" he asks her, watching her strut out of the library.

He gives her a solid twenty count before he turns to follow. Does he help? Of course not. She can handle it. And he can watch from a perch against the wall in the corridor.

"An odd duck that you like... or at least tolerate more than you tolerate most people." Either way, she'll take it. Most people in her world just tolerate her as well. Except, in college she seems to be doing okay in the making actual friends that are her own department. She's even gone on a few normal dates with not a spec of the supernatural involved. She's living the in-between of normal and not so normal pretty well.

"Either way, you're stuck with me." She adds.

"I'm enjoying the fact that you think I only tolerate people," he says. Clients this is quite true of frequently, since clients are annoying. Other people, there are some who are more than 'tolerated'. He does have a few friends. And a brother.

"I don't know if that says more about your or me in this case," he says regarding her 'stuck' comment.

Dawn enters the room she's been occupying and pulls her bookbag and another bag from beneath the bed and starts packing it up with odds and ends. "I don't know. Have you ever actually, genuinely liked someone? Have you ever been in love? Do you have a girlfriend back home? Or here?"

Okay, it's stupid that her stomach does a little uncomfortable twist at the idea of him having a girlfriend. As handsome as he is, she's never pictured him with a girlfriend before, not really, not until just now. And... ew, no.

"You're on your own from here, kid," he says and turns to walk back down the hall. Back toward his own room. Or maybe the bar. Typically, he's a pretty tough guy and doesn't let things get to him. Some of it's a front. Usually he's really damned good at keeping that front in place. Usually. Clearly today isn't usual.

He's been stuck here for a long time, with one momentary stint back to his own timeline (and don't think he's remotely accustomed to that shit yet), where his secretary and three of his co-workers (since two of them are dating each other) are in relationships. Hell, he's pretty sure his boss has something going on, though she would never admit to it anywhere that he'd know about it. She'd been married for years and he'd never known. That's how good she was. His personal life has been a bit less life-like than he'd prefer. Oh, sure, he has his momentary entertainment, but there hasn't been anything serious. The closest recently had been a date or two with an old friend. Even that was several months ago.

She's been shut down many times before, but never quite so abruptly as that. When Harvey retreats, she's sure to yell after him. "I'm not a kid!" Which, in turn, makes her sound very much like a kid, but she doesn't really care. Even with that, she can respect that Harvey doesn't want to talk.

Dawn will just continue to pack, and within a few hours, she'll have claimed the room next door to his as her own. Then it's back to work in the library with her.

She touched a nerve. Typically that would just lead to more snarking and snarling and verbal ping-pong. But something about the timing struck him the wrong way and he just walked away. No verbal sparring. No refuting her feelings or beliefs. No explanations or confirmation of how awesome he is.

There usually aren't visible chinks in his armor. Clearly she found one today.

OPEN | did you fall from a shooting star ; one without a permanent scar

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