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Title: Dawn's Dumb Wish Author: Keswindhover Rating: PG-13 Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, but I haven’t hurt any one (well, I made Spike bang his shins on a bucket, but that’s it). Pairings: Willow/Tara, Giles/Anya Spoilers: Everything up to the end of season 6. Distribution: Ask me first - but I’m going to say yes. Feedback: Yes, please: keswindhover@yahoo.co.uk . Props: Regina Welch, who very kindly beta’d this story and helped make it way, way better by pointing out the missing jokes, drawing my attention sternly to roving POVs, and laying down the law on active/passive verbs. Dumbsaint whose “Once More, All Naked, All Gay” is a) brilliant and b) got me thinking about nakedness and gayness. Drbutterfrogg, whose ridiculously addictive “Wacky Adventures of the Buffybot” were quite clearly on my mind. All the authors of the enormous amounts of Buffy fanfic - good and bad - that I have been consuming recently, in a sick compulsive fashion. *************************************** “You wrote it?!” said Buffy, Xander, and Giles all together. “Why did you write it in Latin?” cried Dawn indignantly. “It took me forever to translate.” She shuddered, “I had to go and look at academic websites, before I thought of Babelfish - urgh!” “And then you got it wrong,” said Tara softly. “Yeah, perhaps I’m being stupid,” said Buffy - she shot a hostile glance at Anya, “since I didn’t manage to finish college and all. But wouldn’t it have been better to write danger do not touch, there is a dangerous spell locked in here, so on no account make a wish on this baby, or something on those lines?” “That wouldn’t have fit on the pendant,” said Xander. “look, it’s only an inch across.” Spike clipped him smartly round the ear. “Ow, what was that for?” “For being so bloody stupid, and for stating the bloody obvious.” Spike looked round. “Oh come on; every one of you wanted to do the same thing!” Giles sighed; his headache was coming back again. He pressed his finger between his eyebrows and closed his eyes - and screamed as he felt a pair of hands close on his neck.... “Sorry,” said Anya, “I just thought you seemed a little tense, and a massage might help.” Giles pressed his hand to his chest for a moment. His heart was leaping around like a stranded fish. Everyone was frozen in place. Buffy had Mr Pointy half way out of her handbag, Xander was clutching the front of his t-shirt with a nervous hand, while Willow, Tara and Dawn gazed wide eyed. Spike meanwhile was smirking at him most unpleasantly. “Yes, well that was very ... thoughtful of you Anya. But perhaps a little warning another time, yes?” Anya glowed; there was going to be another time, she was making progress! Giles coughed self-consciously and turned back to Willow. “Well now, since you wrote the inscription perhaps you can explain what it means?” Willow looked around nervously, and picked at her already ragged cuticles - she just knew that this whole scene was going to wreak havoc with her therapy program. “The pendant is a focus stone that belonged to Amy’s mom. She was working up a spell when I guess she got distracted by the whole kill Buffy thing, and then she, you know, disappeared. So there was a kinda “work in progress” spell roiling around in there.” Willow paused briefly. “Amy told me about it.” She shifted uncomfortably, then rushed on, “We thought we might find a use for it, but we didn’t know exactly what it was for - although it had to be something pretty major - so,” she said virtuously, “I put it away somewhere safe, with the inscription on it as a warning...” “...And then,” said Xander, “you turned into crack-magic girl, and Tara confiscated it together with all your other magic stash...” “...and then dumb Dawn came along and made a wish on it, and the spell released.” said Anya, “only we don’t know exactly what it’s done.” “It brought back Tara, said Dawn sulkily, “just like I asked for.” “Well, that’s one thing it’s done, said Anya, “and of course everyone teleporting into the Magic Box, and all the nakedness, that’s just typical of the kind of thing that happens when dummies,” Anya looked pointedly at Dawn, “make magical wishes." “I am not dumb,” shouted Dawn. “Yes well.” Giles looked disapprovingly at Willow. “It’s a pity you didn’t think to take the pendant to Devon with us - no doubt the ladies there could have helped, while they were addressing your ‘problem’ - still, you were rather preoccupied at the time.” Willow looked shifty. Tara sighed. Cute though she was, Willow did seem to have a lot of compulsive personality disorders. Tara wondered which of Willow’s ‘problems’ it was they’d been addressing in Devon - the erotomania, the addictive behaviour or the delusions? She looked down and saw that Willow’s hand had sneaked back onto her thigh. It sounds like I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my girlfriend, she mused thoughtfully. I wonder if she’s worth it? “Well, I hate to think what the spell might have been for.” Giles went on. “Mrs Madison was a very foolish woman. I know she was unhappy, but why she thought the solution was body swapping with her teenage daughter, so she could wave a few poms poms in the air, I really can’t imagine.” “Cheerleading is about a lot more than waving pom poms in the air,” said Buffy stiffly, her hardly worn Sunnydale High cheerleader’s sweater hovering wistfully in her mind’s eye. “Still hankering after your glory days, eh love?” said Spike. “It all fell off a bit in senior year, didn’t it? And now you’re a college dropout too. Not turning into another Mrs. Madison I hope?” He put on a bad falsetto, “I wish I had been homecoming queen...” “And I wish you’d go to hell,” shouted Buffy. She stopped abruptly, “Oh, no.” Everyone looked in fascinated trepidation at Anya. “I didn’t mean it!” cried Buffy, “I wasn’t thinking!” “I certainly didn’t mean it!” cried Spike. “Please don’t make me a queen! Or send me to hell,” he added as an afterthought. “Too late now,” said Anya. She turned towards Spike and raised her hand... Chapter 7 trailer: We find out more about the effects of the spell. Anya has a nasty shock, and doesn’t take it well. This is the last chapter, so I tie things up, more or less. Chapter 7| HOME | WHAT'S NEW | ABOUT | FANFICTION | BLOG | LINKS | VERBIS | NOMINATIONS | |