The Magic Box was filled with most of the things that were comforting in Buffy’s life: her sister, her Watcher, her best friends in the world (except for Xander, who was working late), warm light, old books, and all the magicky stuff that the shop sold. She had finished her training for the day and changed into street clothes. She should have felt perfectly comfortable, but some vague pain was irritating her, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.
In general, pain was pretty much irrelevant to Slayers; fortunately they recovered quickly from most injuries they sustained during training or fighting. She gave a mental shrug. Whatever was wrong, it would probably heal itself quickly enough.
Buffy joined her friends at the table in the main room of the Magic Box. Giles, satisfied that he had discharged his watcherly duties for the day, was busy unpacking a shipment of artefacts and magical paraphernalia that had just arrived. Tara, Willow, and Dawn were already at the table, while Anya stood behind the sales counter, eagerly totalling the day’s receipts for the shop. This was Anya’s first real job since losing her thousand-year vengeance-demon gig, and Buffy was often surprised at the exd-demon, hundred-percent-human girl’s passion and aptitude for business.
A fairly serious discussion was already under way when Buffy sat down. "Looks like frowny-face is in order," she observed. "What gives?"
Willow gave Dawn a gentle nudge. "Tell her."
Buffy snagged a carrot stick from a plastic sandwich bag at the centre of the table and sat back. "Listening."
"I can’t. Buffy’ll be mad at me," Dawn whispered to Willow. She looked over at her sister. "Promise you won’t be mad at me."
Buffy’s stomach tightened. This wasn’t a promising start. Since their mother’s recent death, Buffy was still unsure of when to be sisterly or when to act motherly. She couldn’t guarantee how she would respond.
"Still listening," Buffy said. "Mind open."
Dawn fidgeted, then also grabbed a carrot stick from the sandwich bag and bit down on it. Not quite meeting Buffy’s eyes, she said, "I’m not doing as well as I’d like to in history, and there’s a big test coming up on Tuesday."
Anya put down the receipts she was adding, looked with helpful concern across the counter at Buffy, and spoke in a low voice. "Dawn is getting a D-plus right now."
Considering this new information, Buffy bit down on her carrot stick and began to chew thoughtfully. A jolt of pain arced through her jaw and seemed to jump all the way to the top of her skull. She gasped and rocked back from the table, almost choking on a bit of carrot. Her tooth! That’s what had been bothering her. It had been sensitive and irritated for a couple of days. Believing that it would soon heal on its own, Buffy had managed to ignore the discomfort, as she so often did, but now it was an all-out ache. What if a Slayer’s powers of quick healing didn’t apply to teeth? Buffy realised with a sinking feeling that she and Dawn had no dental insurance, and now that Buffy had dropped her college classes, she was no longer eligible to go to the college health centre. She pressed her lips together. Too bad that being the Chosen One didn’t come with a benefit plan. Buffy didn’t want to worry Dawn. She would tough it out. The throbbing ache would go away. It had to.
"See? I told you she was going to be mad at me," Dawn said to Tara and Willow. "Why did you make me tell her?"
"Well, she’s your sister. She... she needs to know these things," Willow pointed out. "Buffy, please don’t be mad at her."
Buffy shook her head, trying to will away the pain. "No, not mad. Pretty unthrilled that I’m the last to know, of course. Mostly, I’m disappointed." She chose her next words more carefully. "School is... is... important. At mid-semester a D-plus isn’t an emergency, it’s just a... an indicator, a red flag, right? No big. But we’ve got to deal. I mean, it’s only a little pothole at the moment, but it could become a great big sinkhole - in which you would, uh... sink. So we just need to do something before it gets worse. Okay?"
Dawn nodded. "Monday’s a teacher workday, so I’ve got a three day weekend to study."
"Good," Buffy said. "We can’t let a little problem become a big problem. After all, this is Problem Solver Central, right?"
"Sure," Willow said. "And Tara and I, we can help her study."
Tara smiled. "That sounds fun. We were going to hang out at the Bronze tonight, but we can do that anytime.
Dawn is much more important. We could start right away." A sense of relief rose in Buffy.
"Ah. Sounds like the perfect solution, Buffy,"
Giles said, unwrapping an envelope of seeds that had come in today’s shipment of speciality items. According to the packing slip, the seeds came from a peculiar plant that has belonged to an infamous Danish vampire. "And if Tara and Willow need a break, I could always lend a hand. Unless of course, it’s an obscure bit of American history... ?"
Dawn shook her head. "The Colonial Period."
Giles’s eyebrows went up. "Oh? Excellent. It’s all settled, then. Problem solved." He laid out neat rows of each kind of incense he was taking out of the box.
"Well, it’s a start anyway." Buffy had been a bit shaky herself on the whole history thing during high school and wasn’t sure she would be a big help to Dawn. But Willow and Tara loved history. And Giles - well, Giles practically lived with his nose in a history book. Still, Buffy was Dawn’s sister and felt like she ought to lend some kind of support.
A bell jingled as the shop door opened, and Xander walked in and scuffed down the three steps into the main retail room. Anya came out from behind the counter and greeted him with an enthusiastic kiss. "Giles and I made $736.22 today."
Xander flashed a grin at his friends, then looked into Anya’s eyes with a mock serious expression. "Now, Ahn, we talked about this, didn’t we?"
Anya thought, brightened, then said as if reciting, "I had an extremely successful day at work, financially speaking. How was your day, Xander?"
Xander smiled graciously. "Stunk. Spent ten and a half hours fixing flashing and replacing roof tiles that were damaged by the windstorm. Our construction schedule’s shot. I’m redoing work that I already did last week. And yet, no one to blame. You can’t fight the wind."
Willow pressed her lips together in a sympathetic expression. "Frustrating."
"Big time," Xander agreed. "So I’m thinking to myself, what’s the best way to get rid of a little pent up aggression?"
Anya blinked. "I understand. Although I still have some work to do, I suppose I could take a break and - " "Whoa - who’s for patrolling?" Xander cut in.
Buffy hesitated. "We were kind of working out a solution to a little problem."
"Which, actually, we pretty much did," Willow pointed out. "Don’t worry, Buffy. Dawn’s in good hands."
"I know." Buffy gave her friend a wry smile.
"Didn’t you get me through high school?"
"I’ll order a pizza," Tara said. "We can eat while we study, and then we’ll walk Dawn home."
"Thanks. You guys are the best," Buffy said, then looked at Xander. "Okay, I’m in."
"Yeah, I kind of figured," Xander said. "Anyone else? Ahn, want to come with?" Xander asked. "A little bit of healthy slayage to top off the day?"
"I still have work to finish. I need to calculate sales tax totals for our quarterly report. Then I have to update our Web site to add the new inventory. You two go ahead and enjoy yourselves. I’ll meet you at home in a couple of hours. After all, you left so early this morning, we didn’t really have a chance for - " " - for dessert," Xander cut in quickly. "After breakfast. I had to get to work early today to fix that roof that was damaged by the wind."
"Dessert?" Dawn seemed intrigued by the concept.
"I don’t get dessert after breakfast."
"Well, what about pancakes?" Buffy said. "That’s like dessert."
"Ooh, or waffles," Willow added.
"And I suppose scones with clotted cream might be considered a sort of dessert," Giles offered. A glint of amusement showed in his hazel eyes. He carefully set aside a matched trio of focusing crystals he had unpacked. "Although, I must say I rather prefer them at tea time instead."
"There’s donuts. Or toaster pastries," Tara said. "See?" Buffy smiled at her sister. "Throw in some sweetened cereal and a few cheese Danish and you pretty much have a whole dessert fest in the morning." Anya gave them all a how-dense-can-you-be look.
"Xander wasn’t talking about food," she said helpfully.
"He meant the sex."
Xander sighed, lowered his head, and pinched the bridge of his nose as if suddenly overcome by a tension headache. "Subtlety, thy name is anything but Anya."
Buffy pulled on a cropped leather jacket. The early spring evening wasn’t cold, but she often wore leather to keep from getting quite as scraped up when, in the course of normal business, demons and vamps decided to throw her against walls or stomp her into the dirt. Trying to ignore her still-aching tooth, she picked up a couple of stakes and stuffed them into her pockets. "Okay, time to get back to your history," she told Dawn in a firm voice.
While Xander collected a stake and a crossbow, Buffy turned to Anya. "I’ll have junkfood boy home in plenty of time for dessert." Then to Xander, "Let’s rock."
© 2002 Rebecca Moesta. Taken from Little Things, published in the UK by Pocket Books on September 2nd 2002. Reproduced with kind permission of Pocket Books.
