As A Consequence Of Your Action (Jumpchain) (Complete)

[cliffc999]

Agatha POV:

"That hurt!" the scruffy-looking soldier snarled as I desperately swung the empty bottle I'd grabbed from the other one into his face... without anywhere near enough force to actually harm him, as it turned out. I whimpered in pain as he reached up and grabbed my right wrist, forcing me to drop the bottle and twisting my arm painfully back with overwhelming strength. "And I'm not going to take that kind of crap from a lousy civilian-" he snarled, as he drew his other hand back to cuff me-

And then everything stopped. The man holding me suddenly froze as if paralyzed, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the other mugger, the less cruel-looking one, also stopping halfway through the motion of rising to his feet-

-I suddenly realized that the shining strip I could barely glimpse as coming past my left shoulder was a sword blade, and that its tip was perched exactly one centimeter away from my assailant's Adam's apple.

"Let her go, or I will nail you to the wall." a man's voice spoke icily from immediately behind me. I felt the man holding me tense, as his teeth drew back in a snarl and he visibly prepared to fight-

"Omar!" the other man yelled desperately. "Don't be crazy, you damned fool! He's one of Wulfenbach's!"

The man holding me suddenly went limp in shock at the realization of exactly how much trouble he was in. As Mama Lilith hadn't raised any fools I immediately pulled my wrist free of his grip and stepped briskly to the right, clearing the line of fire for my rescuer. Turning to look, I saw a handsome young man my age impeccably turned-out in a clean white Imperial airship officer's uniform, directly contrasting with the two slovenly and unshaven troopers of unidentifiable provenance who'd been mugging me. His left hand held a saber directly at 'Omar's' throat with a rock-steady grip, while his right hand rested on the butt of his still-holstered sidearm.

"I'd listen to your squadmate here," the young officer said evenly. "You still have a chance to get out of this alive, if not free."

I took another step back away from the confrontation and began to wonder if I could just leave things safely in the hands of the authorities-

"Hoy, is hyu okay?" a gruff voice said from behind me. I turned and tried not to eep! as I saw a pair of uniformed Jagermonsters also entering the alleyway, having apparently chosen to follow their officer when he'd rushed in here. "Dun vorry. Ve know who de bad guyz are." the lead Jager said with far more reassurance and kindness than any of the tales about them had led me to expect, while the other one moved to support his superior. The officer- on a closer look I could see that he was a captain by his insignia- lowered his saber to low-guard and took a step back from Omar as his troops arrived. At the sight of the two Jagers the second man visibly gave up on any hope of running away to save himself, while my would-be assailant just burst out in anger.

"Oh, isn't this just our fucking luck! This damn bitch has been nothing but trouble-" Omar fumed, before the shattering CRACK of a gunshot coincided with a fist-sized crater being blown out of the alley wall less than a foot away from his left ear. Everyone froze again as the captain levelled his pistol, which he'd drawn so blindingly fast I hadn't even seen him move.

"I despise rapists," he snarled - literally snarled! - and I winced at the r-word. "And I arrived just in time to hear you gloating about 'showing her how nice you could be'. And you have the gall to complain that it's unfair we show up to do our jobs-" As his voice began to reverberate and increase I realized in shock that the captain must be a Spark! I'd never heard anyone do that before except Doctor Beetle and several of the student Sparks at the university-

"Boss!" the Jager who'd been trying to reassure me yelled at him. "Hyu vants to keel him, den dot's all right! Guy like dis more den has eet coming! But hyu ordered us not to let hyu make dot decision vile angry!"

"-you're right, I did." he said, breathing deeply and lowering his pistol. "All right, don't kill him unless he keeps complaining about how unfair it is that we're not letting him molest young women." the captain ordered, and Omar gulped nervously.

"Captain, please," the second man begged. "He's not much, but he's my brother. He's all I've got left."

"Were you going to stop him?" the captain said, turning to him. "And who are you two, anyway?"

"Machinist Second Class Moloch von Zinzer," the second man replied matter-of-factly. "That's my brother Sergeant Omar von Zinzer. We served Duke D'Omas as a walker crew."

"Duke D'Omas' forces were disbanded over two weeks ago," the captain replied. "Why are you penniless and robbing people in a Beetleburg alleyway?"

"The hell were we supposed to do after your boss killed our boss?" Omar complained spitefully. "Without our army there's no more beans, no more boots, no more bullets, and no more paycheck!"

"Vot, you eediots desert before de big battle or someting?" the second Jager said. "Or hyu just vaste all your money already? Cause de Baron pays pipple like hyu ven dey are disbanded!"

"Wait, you mean that's true?" Moloch said wonderingly.

The captain shook his head sadly. "Well, you were caught red-handed attempting to assault and rob a young woman," he said, pointing at Omar. "You, on the other hand, are more ambiguous," he said, turning to Moloch. "So to repeat my earlier question, would you have tried to stop him?"

"... I woudn't have let him hurt her," Moloch said sadly. "I'm not that kind of guy. But yeah, I'd have helped him take her jewelry and all her money." He shrugged with obvious disgust at himself. "We haven't eaten in two days, and this idiot spent our last money on beer last night."

"If I turn you over to the local authorities. Dr. Beetle will put you both in bell jars to die of dehydration. Any volunteers to face Imperial justice?" the captain asked.

"Yeah," Moloch agreed. Omar echoed him more reluctantly.

"Miss?" the captain said, turning to me. "Is there anything you feel I should know before I sentence these men?"

"That-" I said, and took a deep breath before continuing. "When I first ran into them, that man just asked me for a coin," I said, pointing at Moloch. "He didn't threaten anything or do anything. Then when his brother first grabbed at me, he protested." I said, pointing at Moloch. "And right before you arrived he'd been getting up, I think to try and stop his brother from hitting me. And that one still has my locket!" I finished indignantly, with a gesture at Omar.

"Then you go to a forced-labor battalion," the captain said without hesitation, pointing at Omar. "And you..." he continued, turning to Moloch. "Either one month's pay as per a member of Duke D'Omas' forces and a mustering out, or voluntary enlistment in the Imperial military at a rank and specialty appropriate to your experience. The same offer you'd have received if you'd actually stuck around to be formally demobilized."

"You can't split us up!" Omar protested. "He was in on it all with me, you heard him say so! We should both get the same-" Omar cut himself off without a further word at the captain's thunderous expression, and the Jager holding him by the arm pushed him face-first into the wall and started searching through his coat pockets. After confiscating and pocketing a knife and a cosh, the Jager triumphantly dug my locket out of Omar's greatcoat and handed it to me with a flourish.

"Thank you," I said to him politely, tsk'ing to myself at how the chain had been broken when Omar had pulled it off me. I put it in my coat pocket with a mental note to have it repaired at the first opportunity.

"We don't work them to death," the captain said, holstering his weapons and he turned back to Moloch. "You can even write him letters. But he's obviously not fit to be allowed out in society for at least the next five years."

"... can't really say I disagree with you," Moloch said reluctantly. "And I'l take the enlistment, I guess."

The captain pulled out a small notebook from his belt pouch and a pencil, then wrote a pair of quick notes and signed them. He handed the first note to the second Jager. "Zudok, drag this idiot back to the airship and tell them he's up for the forced-labor battalions and why." he ordered. "And if he's stupid enough to resist or run... indulge yourself." Omar's expression of low cunning fell away to be replaced by suppressed panic at the captain's parting remarks and the Jager's - Zudok's - carnivore grin.

"And you-" he said, turning to Moloch and handing him the second note. "Welcome to the Imperial military. Follow Zudok and your brother back and give that to the chief petty officer when you arrive. He'll tell you where you can get cleaned up, into a fresh uniform, and sworn in."

"Yes sir," Moloch von Zinzer replied sharply, standing a little straighter now that he was officially a soldier again.

"Right, off with you both," the captain said, and both the willing and unwilling marched away as he turned towards me. "Are you all right, Miss-?"

"Agatha Clay," I supplied in answer to his obvious inquiry. "And yes. Yes I am. Thank you very much for your timely intervention-?" I trailed off in equal inquiry.

"Captain Jonathan Fairchild," he replied smartly, "Imperial Air Corps." He trailed off thoughtfully. "Are you the Miss Agatha Clay who I was told was Dr. Beetle's personal assistant?"

"I am!" I agreed brightly, surprised that he'd even heard of me, and then realization crashed in. "Oh no, I'm late! I'm really sorry but I have to go right now-"

"We were heading to the University as well," Captain Fairchild said graciously "so please, let us escort you. And given the circumstances, I'm certain that I have the authority to officially excuse your tardiness." he finished politely.

"Oh! Yes, yes I imagine you could," I said, and allowed him to accompany me out to the street with his remaining soldier trailing dutifully behind us. "Were you coming to visit Dr. Beetle?" I asked as we walked along at a brisk marching pace, not imagining any other reason why an Imperial military officer with an armed escort would be going to Transylvania Polygnostic.

"The Baron is," he replied matter-of-factly to my shock. "I was supposed to be part of the advance party, and now I'll be lucky if I even get there ahead of him."

"Oh! I'm so sorry that I delayed you-" I automatically began.

"Nonsense!" he cut me off reassuringly. "The entire point of an Imperial military is so that offenses like this aren't allowed to happen in the Empire. The Baron wouldn't punish me for a legitimate delay, but he'd have my rank right off my shoulders if he ever found out that I'd walked past an innocent person being attacked because I hadn't wanted to be bothered."

"And Baron Wulfenbach is really coming here?" I asked wonderingly, both afraid and curious at the thought of actually seeing the far-off Tyrant of Europa in the flesh.

"He is," Captain Fairchild nodded. "Him and Dr. Beetle were old friends..." and then he came to a halt, as if struck by a sudden thought. I stopped as well, confused.

"Captain-?" I asked.

"Hive Engine," he said uncharacteristically, while giving me a penetrating stare. The Jager behind us tensed and moved directly behind me-

"What are you talking about?" I asked him, entirely lost as to where he was going. The Captain looked carefully around to make sure no one was in earshot before replying.

"Dr. Beetle's been hiding one at TPU for almost two weeks," he said softly. "That's why we were coming here today, to arrest him."

I gasped in horror. "What-?" I opened my mouth to frantically deny it, but then traitorous thoughts started flickering through my mind. The new sealed-off section of the one laboratory that Dr. Beetle had personally warned me against ever going near, the sudden increase in requisitions for honey-

"You didn't know," the Captain reassured me. "I could see that all over your face just now when I hit you up for a reaction. But since you don't know-" he chewed his lip. "You almost got hurt once already today, and I wouldn't forgive myself if I dragged you into the middle of something where you could get hurt again. I really recommend that you just skip work today and wait to see how this all sorts out tomorrow."

"I really should-" I began, before my better sense began to agree with him. "Do you really think it will be that dangerous?"

"It's a Hive Engine," he remonstrated with me. Fair point, there were certainly few things more dangerous than one of those. "I have no idea what Dr. Beetle was even thinking, but the Baron isn't coming here personally because all the possible answers to that question are good." he sighed. "I wish I had more time, but I have to get to the University as fast as I can. Miss Clay, I very much recommend that you stay home but it is ultimately your choice. Do you want to not be there when we confront Dr. Beetle?"

"I suppose that would be best," I agreed, touched by his concern as well as acknowledging the simple logic of his position. If two of the most powerful Sparks in Europa were about to clash, aided by a third, then common sense would suggest being absolutely nowhere near the place at the time.

"Where do you live? I'll have Jorgi here escort you there. And I'll probably have to come by later to interview you for the record, but I'm already certain you had nothing to do with this." he said.

"Clay Mechanical on Forge Street," I answered him. "I live above my parents' workshop."

"All right then. Jorgi? Get her home safely and consider yourself detached to her until I come and get you, or we sound the general recall. Good luck, Miss Clay."

"Good luck, Captain," I thanked him. "And thank you for all you've done."

He tipped his officer's cap to me, and we both turned and hurried along our separate ways.

My goodness, what a strange day this was turning out to be.

* * * * *​

Author's Note: What a horrible manipulative sneaky pants our captain is, even in the AU where he wasn't brought to Beetleburg until the canon moment!

Well, the rage moment wasn't manipulative. 21st-century sensibilities legitimately don't like that kind of thing.

Just a sidestory thing I knocked out to distract myself from other crap today. This was 'what if Jonathan never got to Beetleburg until the canon start of Girl Genius'?

 

[cliffc999]

Consequence!Xander POV:

I hit the ground rolling and came up in a single smooth motion, falling into a combat crouch facing back the direction I'd come before I could get-

-and my jaw dropped in shock as I saw an entirely peaceful and empty cemetery as opposed to the pitched battle vs. a group of demon-summoning demons we'd been in a second ago.

"If this turns out to be some 'Back to the Future' thing then I am really going to regret not memorizing more sports statistics." I said out loud after a moment. I then immediately got out my spare stake, because being unarmed in a cemetery at night in Sunnydale was a bad idea at any time and I'd dropped my axe so it hadn't made the trip with me.

"Okay." I kept thinking out loud. "Amy was in the middle of counterspelling that entire ritual they had going, and all the energy was still built up like a pressure cooker, and then that vampire knocked me right back through the circle so all that mojo dumped on me and I ended up here. That part makes sense. But I don't even know what year I'm in, and-" I slapped my forehead. "Hey, King of Cretins, you're in a cemetery. Look at the tombstones. People die in Sunnydale all the time, the most recent grave should still be pretty current."

A walk down the nearest row of graves produced the data that the most recent date of death among them was in May of 2000, so between that and the weather I figured I was sometime in the late spring or summer after Buffy's freshman year of college.

Which is the same time I left. So I didn't get bumped very far. But obviously I got bumped, because I'm in the same place I started from but the grass wasn't even scuffed where we were fighting so it can't be the same time. I need to check in.

I set off at a steady ground-eating jog towards Angel's old mansion, which was the closest of the Scooby Gang's residences to where I was. I had a brief encounter with a fledgling vamp on the way but dusted him without any trouble, and soon enough I reached the grounds of the mansion-

What the-? I braincrashed while staring at the half burnt-out ruin. This place looks like somebody set it on fire years ago! But I was just here last week with Jonathan-

I shook my head. Right, I am not running halfway across town until I know I've got somewhere to run to. Time to find a pay phone.

Several minutes' walking brought me to a nearby diner, and I immediately headed into the booth and dialed Buffy's house.

"Hello?" a young girl's voice that I'd never heard before came on the other end of the line.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I must have a wrong number-" I started to reply, alarmed at Buffy's apparent nonexistence here whenever-I-was. Because I certainly didn't have a wrong number, I knew Buffy's home phone by heart better than I did my own.

"Very funny, Xander." the strange girl chuckled, sending me into a total wiggins at the familiarity of her tone. "What, you don't want to talk to me?" she pined faux-tragically.

"That depends mystery girl, how long have we known each other?" I said back reflexively.

"Okay, I'll play along." the girl replied amusedly. "You have known me for four years, ever since I moved to Sunnydale. And you have secretly and tragically pined for me all along behind your light-hearted mask of humor, but due to my age ours is a forbidden love and will be for the next three years, two months, and nineteen days-" she continued in a hollow, dramatic tone of voice as if she were narrating a movie trailer.

"A proper introduction usually begins with names." I cut her off, mildly alarmed - if also a bit flattered - at the intensity of this strange girl's flirting, especially since she sounded like she couldn't be any older than fourteen. "I'm Xander Harris, and you are-?"

"Dawn Summers." she giggled. "Hi, Xander! Let me guess, you wanted to talk to my sister, right?"

"If by 'sister' you mean 'the short blonde force of destruction that secretly fights evil every night' then yes." I agreed, deliberately making a joke of it so as to test whether or not Buffy's kid sister - Buffy's kid sister?!? - knew about the Slayer thing.

"And the one who obsesses on shoes." Dawn confirmed. "She just left for a patrol, though. Were you going with her?"

"I kinda fell into some free time, so I am now." I nodded. "Do you know which way she went?"

"UC Sunnydale campus. She said she didn't want vampire squatters in the empty frat houses again, once was enough." Dawn replied.

"Thanks, Dawn, you're a lifesaver. Catch you later- I've got to go, I'm on a pay phone." I finished.

"'Kay!" she chirped brightly, and after an exchange of goodbyes we both hung up.

Alternate timeline, check.

* * * * *​

Canon!Buffy POV

I ducked underneath the big vampire's roundhouse swing and stepped into him with a hard forearm shove, knocking him off-balance and setting him up for the stake. However, one of the other vampires surrounding me closed in and tagged me on the side of the head with a glancing blow while I'd momentarily stopped my whirlwind of action to brace against the leader's bull rush, and then the rest of the pack started to close in as I tried to recover my footing-

One of the vampires behind me suddenly shrieked and dusted, and we all turned to see Xander standing there with his stake out after having snuck up and stabbed the one in the back. "Three o-clock!" he called out to me, and I reflexively turned to see what Xander was talking about in that direction only to catch a third vampire's fist directly in the face. Ow! I was lucky I didn't have a bloody nose!

"Don't distract me!" I yelled at him angrily as I used the momentum of the punch to fall backwards, then do a back-roll across the floor and kick back out into a standing position well away from the vampires. "And get out of here before-!"

I blinked incredulously as Xander half-turned and reached out to entangle an incoming vampire's arm with his own, using their interlocked forearms to redirect the vampire's lunging momentum into a clumsy sprawl and bend it over for a stake through the back with his free hand all in a single uninterrupted martial arts move even smoother than when he'd temporarily been possessed by Soldier Guy on Halloween. The remaining two vampires came to a halt and started to back away from us, and I growled and charged them both.

"Okay, dibs are dibs." I heard Xander agree cheerfully as he stepped back and let me work out my frustration on the remaining vampires before staking them.

"What are you doing here?" I said after all the dust bunnies had finished dusting, angrily rounding on him. "We already had this discussion! You are supposed to remain at least slightly more-"

"My alternate timeline counterpart had that discussion with you, not me." he replied.

"Not funny." I growled, in no mood for Xander's weird sense of humor-

"No, Buffy, I really am a different Xander." he replied without the slightest trace of humor, and my jaw dropped in shock as I realized that this person wasn't joking. "For one thing, where I'm from? You don't have a younger sister-"

"How did you know that?" I shouted in alarm, as I lunged to grab the stranger with Xander's face - a stranger who I idly noted was in even better shape than my Xander, even if his familiar baggy clothes hid that from the casual eye - by the collar and slam him up against the wall. "You went to my house?!?" I screamed.

"Whoa, whoa, truce!" he cried out in genuine alarm, both hands raised. "No, I used the phone! And when I got a strange girl I'd never heard before who talked to me like I was an old friend, I kinda figured out what was happening!"

"Right." I said with at least somewhat less suspicion, letting him go and taking a deep breath. "And- right, we did see that alternate timeline Willow once, so your story actually is possible. Maybe." I finished warily.

"Alternate Willow? That's also something that didn't happen with us." the strange Xander said somberly. "So, yeah, things obviously diverged more than a bit. I still knew you though - you came here sophomore year, you met Giles, you're the Slayer, we fought vampires, so same basic outline, right?"

"Basically." I agreed, letting the adrenaline flow out of me as I tried to process all this. "So, what do you need me for?"

"Help getting back home?" Xander replied with a 'Um, yeah.' expression on his face. "I mean, I am definitely not mojo guy, so we're gonna need all the books and some of G-Man's witch friends to try and ritual me a way home at the minimum. And you were the first alternate-Scooby I could find."

"I wasn't the first one you looked for?" I asked him as they headed up the stairs of the abandoned frat house together.

"I hit Angel's place first, it was closest." other-Xander shocked me with his matter-of-fact reply. "And all I found was a half burnt-out ruin. He's okay, right?" he finished worriedly.

"You actually care about whether Angel is okay or not." I replied in shock. Xander hated Angel! He hadn't been able to so much as say his name without bitter sarcasm in years! But here he was asking after Angel's welfare sounding as concerned as he would if he'd heard that Dawn was in trouble- "Just how 'alternate' was your timeline?"

"My first guess would be, a lot." he replied, starting to wiggins a bit at the intensity of my reaction.

"Angel's fine, he's in LA now." I answered him before powering right past that particular topic of conversation. "And look, right now I'm just going to get you to Giles and let him try to figure out this weirdness." I threw my hands up in exasperation. "Follow me."

A few minutes' of walking brought us to Giles' apartment, and he let us inside and we explained the situation.

"Anyway, Amy said that these guys were trying to invoke a demon with a 'Trihexion ritual in the... fourth descending node', I think?" alternate-Xander trailed off. "So she was counterspelling that, but it was like a beam battle between anime characters with their whole ritual pushing against her, and before she could drain off all the energy I got knocked right into the circle." he finished.

"Okay, I don't even know how to unpack all of that weird." I cut Giles off. "The part where you're from another world, the part where you actually paid attention enough at research party to remember those kinds of details, or the part where you keep talking about Amy over and over as your Scooby Gang's big magical gun. You haven't even mentioned Willow, like once." I shook my head at the sheer incongruity of a Xander, any Xander, acting like Willow didn't even exist to him- and then I gulped in realization. "She... she is all right in your timeline, isn't she?"

"No." alternate-Xander replied, his face- my blood turned cold as I realized that the expression on his face wasn't just grief, it was anger. As if his face had become a mask overlaying a heart full of rage and betrayal mixed with loss - I'd seen that face only once before, in my own mirror during those horrible days when Angelus had been running loose. I gulped-

"Is she a vampire?" I asked in a small voice, remembering the alternate Willow who'd been turned in her own timeline-

"No." he replied, biting the word off as if it burned his tongue even to speak, and then he closed his eyes and visibly fought for the strength to keep talking. "Giles, is Willow your group's main witch here?"

"Yes." Giles said. "Her- her progress in the magical arts is quite remarkable, in fact, and her aid has been invaluable at several points."

This didn't seem to console him at all, as his face became even more full of dread. "Then you absolutely need to check Willow out and make sure she's not going dark. I mean, really check her out. Assume that she's got multiple layered protections to block out detection spells and everything." He sighed, trying to blink away tears. "Because our Willow did. And we didn't catch it until it was too late."

"It can't have been that bad!" I denied.

"Can't have been that-" alternate-Xander rounded on me almost with a snarl. "Buffy, I don't know anything about your Willow, but ours tried to help the Mayor kill the entire town and rule the world!" he shocked both me and Giles bloodless with his reply. "And she-" he shuddered to a halt. "And she-"

"Xander?" Giles said gently, compassionately, seeming to understand what was wrong with him even if I was clueless-

"She hypnotized me to try and kill all of you." he forced out like a robot, staring fixedly at the wall. "I came within half a second of putting a stake through Amy's heart, and if our Buffy hadn't tackled her out of the way-" He looked up at me. "I was so lucky that the stake hit the bone in the back of your shoulder. Six inches lower and I'd have gotten you right through the lung."

"Hypnotizing someone can't do that!" I said heatedly. "You've- you've got to be making this up!"

Giles stared at me firmly and raised a hand for silence. "You said that you were using a stake, as opposed to another weapon. You'd been placed under a hypnotic delusion that Amy and Buffy - your Amy and Buffy - had been turned, correct?"

"Got in one, G-Man." he replied in a sad hollow imitation of our Xander's humor. "Normally you can't hypnotize someone into doing something they believe is morally wrong deep-down inside, but there's nothing wrong about staking a vampire, right? All Willow had to do was trick my brain into seeing vampires that weren't actually there and bam, I was totally Drusilla'd."

"I entirely understand." Giles nodded, taking Xander's hand comfortingly. "I underwent a similar experience myself once- at Drusilla's hands, in fact."

"Then you know how it feels. Afterwards." alternate-Xander fought to avoid tears. "Like they could hit the inside of your brain with a power washer, but it's still not going to feel clean again. I-" he looked downwards. "Amy and Buffy both tried to reassure me, even right on the spot, that it wasn't my fault. That even if I had killed them I wouldn't have been the murderer, just the murder weapon." He turned to stare at me with old, pain-filled eyes. "So yeah. That's why I don't talk about Willow."

"Uh." I answered articulately, my brain still vainly trying to come to terms with just how utterly alien his world must have been.

"Thank you very much for your warning." Giles said seriously. "I pray that the timelines have diverged enough that our Willow is not headed down a similar path, or that she can recover if she is."

"You'd better." he agreed heavily. "I don't know how much your Willow's learned to tap yet, but Willow's potential power level is off the charts. If it goes worst-case scenario on you- we were lucky that we were able to ambush ours. In a straight-up fight, it would have been worse than anything we'd ever seen except Graduation Day. You'd better hope that your Amy is up to the challenge, she's the only other witch anybody knows about that matches Willow's potential."

"My God." I said, still trying to reboot my brain. "Amy Madison? Amy the rat? She's supposed to be some kind of super-witch alongside Willow?"

"Amy the what?" other-Xander asked. "Did she go dark in this timeline or something? Because that would really suck."

"She turned herself into a rat with the backlash of a miscast spell several months before graduation." Giles said. "Willow has custody of her right now while we work on a method of reverting her."

"The Devon coven couldn't help?" other-Xander asked Giles confusedly. "They're supposed to be really experienced witches, right?"

Giles' expression fell like a man who'd just walked off an invisible cliff. "I- yes, they are a logical point of contact to ask." he continued embarassedly. "I just hadn't spoken to them in years- at any rate, I shall call them expeditiously."

"You'd probably have to be calling them about my case anyway." other-Xander pointed out reasonably, trying to cover Giles' obvious shame in not having thought of this 'Devon coven' first.

"I would. And I will." Giles answered. "But- I think we could serve each other with at least a brief review of the significant dangers our respective timelines have faced. You mentioned Graduation Day, so you stopped the Mayor's Ascension just as we did?"

"And cratered the high school in the process." other-Xander nodded. "Did you guys have to fight Kakistos?"

"He came here at the start of senior year." I answered. "Me and Faith dusted him."

"Faith?" other-Xander asked puzzedly, before remembering. "Oh, the Boston Slayer who was Called after Kendra-" he trailed away with a sorrowful nod as we all realized exactly what he meant. "We never met her."

"Other-me took Kakistos alone?" I said disbelievingly. "That guy was a tank! What did you use, a flame thrower?"

"Actually yeah." other-Xander agreed with a flash of amusement. "But yeah, he was tough. Our Kakistos showed up late in junior year with a whole pack of vamps, and we had to saddle up the entire gang and call in Kendra to help you double-team him."

"Is that how she perished?" Giles asked quietly.

"No. Drusilla got her later." Xander sighed, and Giles and I both nodded sadly at this familiar piece of history.

"I'm assuming the whole prophecy thing with the Master went the same way." I said. "CPR and all."

"Yeah, me and Angel had to follow you down and revive you after you'd dusted him." Xander surprised me. "He'd tagged you with his dying shot, but you'd taken him."

"Go other-me!" I raised my eyebrows. "In this timeline I needed two cracks at him before he finally went down for the count."

"And Angelus?" Giles asked into the silence.

"Angelus-?" other-Xander began puzzedly, before turning pale as a sheet. "Wait, your Angel lost his soul?!?" he asked in horror. "But Buffy said he was still around-!"

"He got it back!" I reassured him. "It's okay, he's safe now."

"It is most definitely not okay, Buffy!" Xander rounded on me. "Did you use the Kalderash curse again?"

"Of course we did, we needed to save Angel's soul and it was right there!" I remonstrated with him, still confused as to his attitude-

Other-Xander facepalmed. "Who cast it?" he asked softly, as if already terrified of the answer.

"Willow." Giles answered for me.

"Then she is definitely going dark, and you are at least halfway to the worst-case scenario already." other-Xander said gravely, looking at us both. "Because did you people even read that curse? It rips an innocent soul out of the afterlife and forces it to intermingle with the foulest of demons on a fundamental level that-' He shook his head like a horse shooing away flies. "We are talking bad karma of the negative one billion for even trying to cast that thing!"

"You're certain of this?" Giles asked urgently.

"We had Ms. Calendar, you, Angel, and the whole research party analyzing the spell formulae of that thing for days." other-Xander shocked us with his reply. "We'd gotten this sort of- prediction, oracle, stuff like that- that Angel's soul might be at risk, so that's when Ms. Calendar came forward as the observer in Sunnydale for her gypsy clan and agreed to ask her clan elders for a copy of the original spell to make sure it didn't have any weaknesses. And when we found the 'pure happiness' clause- well, Angel left Sunnydale to get right on finding a fix for that."

"There's a way to fix Angel's soul?" I said eagerly. "What is it?"

"Earn a soul cure as a reward in the Demon Trials, this... asphyxiation demon-" other-Xander tried to remember.

"Asphyx demon." Giles corrected him.

"In Africa somewhere runs it. Our Angel went on a quest to find him, it took him months but-" Xander snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, you need to warn your Angel to beware of a demon called 'Skip' who works for a demon lord named 'Jasmine'. Jasmine wants Angel to lose his soul as part of some long-range plot she's got going, and sent Skip to try and do the job."

"I'll make a note of that." Giles said, reaching for a sheet of paper and a pen to do precisely that.

"Other dangers-" he tried to think. "Okay, from the way you've talked it sounds like Amy wasn't a Scooby in this timeline-?"

"No." I agreed. "She mostly went her own way."

Other-Xander looked disgusted at us both. "What do you people even do around here?" he said heatedly. "Did it not occur to you that leaving a young and untrained witch alone with her evil mom's evil magic books wouldn't go anywhere good? You should have at least mentored her enough that she'd know how to start learning white instead of black magic! God, even after you de-rat her your Devon friends are probably going to have to help her all the way through magic detox." He sighed. "I mean, our Amy's an amazing person. She's practically a saint, and I'd match her up against the biggest bad you could possibly find and give her at least even odds. But I remember that she was kinda a little fragile back at the beginning before she was able to find her footing. She needed our support- Jonathan's support most of all. So if she didn't get any of it here-?" he trailed off.

"Jonathan?" I homed in on the weirdest part of all that. "The short guy? Him and Amy-?" my brain just tried and failed to fit those puzzle pieces together.

"Oh, right." other-Xander realized. "Yeah, it's a million to one that he didn't come to Sunnydale in this timeline, his arrival even in ours was what you'd call a very low-probability event. Jonathan Fairchild. European - well, European-American - kid our age who went rogue demon hunter after he lost his family to the supernatural. He turned up in Sunnydale at the same time you did, and joined the gang during that mess with Amy's mom. Very smart, very well-trained at fighting, and that was even before Angel picked him up as his protege. Anyway, him and our Amy became inseparables." he smiled in memory. "And he had to leave town for a while after Graduation Day because of stuff involving a prophecy of his own of some kind - that's the easiest way to describe it, at least - and it looked he might never get clear of that, but he managed to find a way back for good several months ago and Amy's been the happiest girl in the world since then."

"At least someone got a happy ending." I sighed enviously. "Because I just had the bad breakup of all time last year. Also on Graduation Day, as it happens."

"We- I mean, who was it?" other-Xander asked me.

"Angel." I sighed mournfully, only to immediately look-up at his incredulous spit take.

"ANGEL?" he goggled at me as if I'd suddenly grown horns and hooves. "The undead guy who's literally older than the country we were born in?" Other-Xander swallowed hard, his face almost turning green at the thought. "Did you at least get a blood test afterwards?!?"

"Hey!" I said, furious at the implied insult to both me and Angel. "Like you can talk, I'm sure! What girl would even go out with you?" I sniped cattily.

"You would." he cut me down to size with two simple words. "Although right now, I'm wondering how you and my Buffy are even related."

"Not very well, if she'd go out with someone who said stuff as insulting as you just did! How dare you imply that Angel was- was that?" I yelled at him.

"It's historical record that Darla was already dying of syphilis when she was turned, and I'm pretty sure you're aware that Angelus and Darla were regularly doing the horizontal mambo for centuries. Ask the G-Man if germs get preserved in vampire blood or anything, but if they do, then you really need to go to the clinic." other-Xander chilled my blood with the matter-of-fact observation.

"... I'm not aware of any particular research in, in that particular field." Giles eventually stammered out.

"Blood test at the college clinic after this weekend." I agreed dazedly. "Oh boy."

"Well even in the worst-case scenario, there's still the silver lining that you will have gotten an adequate revenge against that Parker cad." Giles tried to cheer me up. "And there's no long-term complications after only this many months." He trailed off with an embarassed mutter. "As Ethan and I once had the occasion to learn from experience."

"Seriously, Buffy, you dated the massively older guy with tons of trauma and expected it to last?" Other-Xander shook his head. "I've seen how hard that is to make happen even when there isn't a humungous age difference, and it took them both being seriously self-aware of the potential difficulties before they even went in to make work. If you got surprised by 'suddenly no soul', then I'm guessing both of you walked into the whole thing blind as bats."

"Where did you-?" I shook my head. "Okay, I'm actually trying not to insult this time, but in all the time I've known you you haven't exactly had a reputation for being... emotionally insightful." I finished. "What, did I work a girlfriend miracle in this timeline or something?"

"No, I had a therapist." other-Xander shocked me to my core again. "Ms. Calendar made Amy start going when she began witch training, Amy eventually recommended it to me when the counseling she'd gotten let her figure out the mindjob my parents - by courtesy so called - had left me with. If neither of us have been in this timeline, you'd better schedule them."

"Jenny survived in your timeline?" Giles asked softly, hesitantly.

"Oh." other-Xander looked at him sadly in realization. "I'm so sorry, Giles."

"Thank you." Giles nodded to him. "But yes, if Angelus did not break free in your timeline, then- yes."

"I'm thinking we can wait until later to finish comparing the notes." I bailed Giles out. "For right now, you've got some phone calls to make. And where are we going to put Xander 2.0 up for the interim?"

"I have a spare room, now that Spike has moved out." Giles reassured us. "He can stay here."

"Wait, Spike?" other-Xander goggled.

"It's a long story." Giles began, as he got up to go to the phone.

* * * * *​

Canon!Dawn POV:

"Hey there." I said to the new Xander as I stuck my head in around the corner of his bedroom door in Giles' apartment. Oh, yum, he was doing push-ups! In a tank top! And he was even more cut than my Xander, and I didn't think that was possible!

"Whoa, knock before entering a boy's bedroom next time!" he said, blushing with embarassment as he noticed me peeking in and hurriedly got to his feet. "What if I hadn't had any clothes on?"

"Then my day would have been complete!" I mimed dramatically, only to wince at the sudden disapproval in his expression. "... too far?"

"Little bit." he said, before letting me off the embarassment hook with a smile. "Oh, and I'm sorry about tricking you on the phone."

"It's cool." I assured him. "Xander - my Xander - and me play phone games like that all the time."

"Yeah, about that." he said as he sat down on his bed and I took that as an invitation to find a nearby chair and park in it. "Look, I'm only going to be here for a couple more days until the stars are right for the 'go home' ritual G-Man is setting up with his witch friends, so I don't have time to beat around the bush. I had a long chat with my other self about things, and one of the topics of conversation was you."

"What did he say about me?" I blurted eagerly.

"That you had a big crush on him and he was stuck for a way to actually address that with you without hurting your feelings." alternate-Xander absolutely crushed me with a single sentence. I'd really hoped that my Xander hadn't actually noticed my crush, but he had, despite all my best efforts at keeping him from noticing. And worse yet, he was building up to a rejection speech-

"And I gave him a lot of advice on that, but apparently you haven't run into him yet before you ran into me." alternate-Xander said. "So since I've got the opportunity I'm just going to talk to you about my opinion on the topic, and hopefully the fact that it's coming from me and not from him will mean that it hurts less. First and foremost, you're fourteen-"

"Almost fifteen!" I insisted firmly. Hey, nine months was 'almost', right?

"And I'm almost twenty-one." he replied, and I sighed at getting another lecture from yet another person about acting my age before I realized he was just waiting and letting it lay there. But then again, Xander was the coolest person in any timeline.

I began to realize that letting it lay there put the responsibility on me to continue the conversation, which was kinda hard to do when I'd been knocked this far off-script. Wow, alternate timeline Xander was even sneakier than our Xander. I decided my best bet was to go straight for the reversal and stick the responsibility back on him, so I led off with "I'm assuming you've already got a whole lecture on why that matters, so go ahead."

I saw him raise an eyebrow as the sheer cleverness of my comeback hit home, and felt a warm glow inside as he nodded in acknowledgement of my scoring a legitimate hit. And then everything turned to disappointment when he actually began the lecture. Darn it.

"Okay, I just got here a couple days ago so all I know is what I've picked up by osmosis, but from what I gather your sister and Angel made a whole new category in Guinness for relationship disasters." he said reasonably. "You got to watch it all happen from the sidelines, so did you have an opinion on it?"

"You mean outside of thinking that Buffy should have had her head examined?" I said emphatically. "That was the worst idea she'd ever had in an entire lifetime of having horrible ideas!"

"To the extent that I have enough information to justify having an opinion, I'd agree with you." he nodded readily. "So why do you want me - either of me - to be like Angel? Your Angel?"

"But you're not a vampire." I argued back. "And you're not depressing, and you don't drink blood, and you've got a heartbeat-"

"But let's not repeat ourselves." Xander grinned at me.

"And you're only six years older, not two hundred!" I finished with inescapable mathematical logic.

He actually stopped and thought about that one a while, and I started to bounce with excitement in my chair, until he brought me to a halt again by asking me a really tough question.

"What do you like about me?" he finally replied with. "Either me? Top of the list."

"You're-" I stopped my immediate reaction and did my best to think about it as seriously as possible, because I could tell he was in serious mode. What did I like about him other than his being ridiculously hot, funny, nice, never talking down to me like a little kid, always making me happy just to see him, and all the rest of it? If I had to rank his good qualities on a list, what would be number one?

"You're a good person." I finally said, wincing inside at how pathetic that sounded. Seriously? 'Good person?' Way to vague it up, Dawn!

"I'm flattered." he nodded seriously, and I thrilled again that he was talking to me like an adult. "But that's your problem. No 'good person' is ever going to violate the creepy rule, because that's part of the entire definition of being one. So the very same reason you like him the most is the reason he's not going to let himself go for it."

"I'm not a little kid!" I whined, wincing even further inside because I could hear myself sounding exactly like a little kid.

"No you're not." he patronized me, and I started to get mad until he continued and I realized he actually meant what he was saying. "In our timeline, I got to see our Buffy hopelessly crushing on a boy who would never let himself feel anything back for her - and I don't mean Angel, I mean someone you've never met. And she was two years older at the time than you were now, and I saw her make an absolute idiot of herself in the process. The whole thing blew up in her face like an emotional sinking of the Bismarck. So I actually mean it when I say that according from everything I've heard from 'myself', I'm impressed as to how you've been handling your crush as compared to how she was handling it."

"Really?" I blushed with the compliment.

"But I also saw her recover from having that crush and go on to find a boy her age that she could be very happy with-" he continued.

"I already know that you're talking about yourself and don't rub it in." I glowered at him.

"Do you have mind-reading powers?" he asked me seriously.

"Hah, I wish!" I laughed, before thinking that one over and deciding I really didn't want to know what Buffy thought about all day. "... or maybe not. But no, I just have really good hearing, and you've been the number one topic of conversation among the Scooby Gang ever since you got here."

"Circling back to the point I was making, Dawn, what you have on your Xander is a crush." He held up a hand to pre-empt my angry rebuttal. "Which doesn't mean that your feelings for him aren't real, even if that's the popular definition of 'crush'. What the actual definition is is that you have a genuine desire to emotionally connect with someone that is never going to go anywhere, because of the whole situation that you and he are in. Your Xander is already with someone, which nixes the whole thing right there by itself, and that's before you factor in that it won't even begin to be un-creepy until you're at least seventeen and he's twenty-three."

"Seventeen is how old Buffy was when she lost her virginity to Angel, and I can wait." I insisted.

"Maybe you can." he surprised me by agreeing. "I know another couple who made the same decision, and it did eventually work out for them in the end. But the main thing that made it work for them is that they mutually decided to. It wasn't one-sided." He looked at me as understandingly as he could. "If you let it go on for too long, then one-sided really hurts. Nobody wants you to be hurt."

"How did you learn this much about relationships?" I wondered out loud. Because as much as I loved my Xander, I knew his limitations.

"I think we had to grow up faster in our timeline, in a lot of ways." was his only answer. "So, what brings you to my door?" he changed the subject.

"Honestly?" I admitted embarassedly. "I was hoping to draw you out and pick your brains for something that would help me get an angle on landing my Xander. A chance to explore his viewpoint without him noticing."

"Okay." he processed that, and then surprised the snot out of me by actually choosing to answer my question at face value. "The two main obstacles between you and what you want are your ages, which obstacle is curable only with time, and the fact that he's already in a committed relationship with this Anya girl. It's not because of your personality because I know he likes you a lot as a person - I'm liking you, and we've just met - even if not romantically. But him being dated up elsewhere is not something you can just get around even when you are older, because assuming that him and I have anything in common then he's not going to trade up in a relationship. He's not going to trade at all. For him a relationship will very likely be something that he commits to and works on growing until and unless it ends for reasons entirely outside his control, because that's how I'm approaching mine. So unless Fate chooses to throw you a solid and make him single by the time you're old enough-" he shrugged.

"So you're saying that I have no chance at all and should just give up." I tried not to cry.

"I'm saying that whether or not Future Dawn and Future Xander ever get together when they're both old enough is something entirely outside your control." he consoled me. "Or his control, really. The circumstances will line up so that it's either possible to happen or it isn't possible, and there's nothing you can do right, or act right, or dress right, to guarantee yourself an opening. There's a lot of things you could possibly do to guarantee you don't ever have an opening, though, and I probably don't even need to get into what they are."

"So what do I do in the meantime?" I sighed. "What's the key?"

He blinked multiple times at what I said, for reasons I couldn't even begin to guess, and finally shrugged. "Live your life, and let yourself enjoy what you've already got instead of putting everything on hold waiting for something you already know can't possibly arrive early. And if you ever do meet another boy you like while you're waiting, rest assured that your Xander would cheer you on."

"Thanks." I said to him meaningfully, feeling- well, not better that I'd just been sat down and told that my crush was hopeless and would be for years and years, if ever, but at least less angsty about it. Just hearing him agree that my feelings were real instead of giving me the usual 'you're a little kid, you don't know what you're feeling' routine like everyone else did somehow made it less awful, even if it was still hopeless.

"Anytime." he said. "Now how did you get to Giles' apartment, and is your mom busy freaking at losing track of you and do I have to call her and reassure her you made it here alive?"

"Mom's at the doctor's." I said. "That warning you gave about how she needs to get her headache checked out early, like mom in your timeline did? Her appointment's today and neither of us wanted me cooling my heels in the waiting room for hours and hours, and Buffy had class, so she dropped me off here."

"Ah." he said, understanding that I had snuck back here from the living room to snoop on him because Giles was too busy calling England long-distance to have time to supervise me. "So, I'm assuming that this isn't the first time G-Man's had to babysit. Where does he keep the board games?"

"Board games, nothing." I said emphatically. "Whenever I come here I go straight for the book collection. Where else am I going to find decent instructional materials for ancient Sanskrit?"

Alternate-Xander blinked me at in surprise. "You can read ancient Sanskrit?"

"A little bit, at the 'See Spot run' level." I reluctantly admitted. "But I'm learning!"

He raised an eyebrow at that. "How many languages do you speak already?"

"Everything in Buffy's old French and Latin textbooks and what the school district mistakenly believes is Spanish." I answered truthfully. Hey, I'd always had a talent for languages.

"If your Xander is ever single in the future, then make sure he already knows about the big shiny brain side of you." he advised me as we both headed towards the living room so I could get my hands on the books. "For that matter, make sure any guy you date knows about that side of you. Any guy who gets scared off by an intelligent woman is somebody you should be glad to never hook up with."

"Entirely valid advice." Giles agreed as he put the phone down, having overheard the tail end of our conversation as we re-entered the living room.

"Hey, G-Man." Xander said as we sat down. "We already did the catch-up on signs and portents, but I just remembered something that you definitely need to look into."

"I see." Giles said professionally. "Dawn, perhaps you might-"

"She should stay, because this concerns her." Xander surprised us both with his observation.

"Is Dawn in danger?" was Giles' immediate question.

"I don't know." Xander worried us both with his reply. "What I do know is that - okay, several years ago we got access to... call it a packet of prophecies. Not like the never-miss kind such as the one that predicted Buffy dying against the Master, but the 'be on the lookout but it might not happen if you're lucky' kind. You know better than I do what that means. One of them was the warning we got about our Angel's soul curse that I already mentioned. But there was another one about Dawn that I hadn't even remembered existed until she reminded me just now."

"I'm that obscure to you back home?" I probed, feeling a tiny bit insulted.

"Buffy is an only child back home." Xander shocked me to my core with his statement. "And yet we got a sort-of prophecy about you anyway. At the time we just thought that Hank Summers had left Buffy with a half-sister neither she nor Mrs. Summers ever knew about-"

"Ugh." I eye-rolled. "Yeah, that would have been a perfectly reasonable theory about the sleazy sperm donor." I agreed. Because my Dad had been an absolute dog with the ladies, it's why Mom had divorced the slug when I was nine.

"But then I get here and I find out that Dawn is Buffy's full sibling and has been here all along. Which oddness doesn't register on me at all at the time, because I haven't thought about the 'Dawn' warning we got in years because there's never been a Dawn in our Sunnydale. Until she just now mentioned the word "key", which jogged the old memory. Because the warning was about her being somehow linked to an artifact called 'The Key', guarded by these guys called the Order of Dagon." Xander explained, and then finished grimly. "And-" he stopped.

"And?" I pressed him.

"And there was something I don't entirely understand about how the Key was transformed into a person, or had its power put into a person, named Dawn." Xander finished, and I felt kinda faint. "It did emphasize that she was also a 'real girl', but-" Xander shrugged. "It's magic, they didn't feel like they had to explain squat."

"Good Lord." Giles said, polishing his glasses like he always did. "Was there anything else?"

"That 'The Key' is being sought by an entity named 'Glorificus'. No hints on who or what that is. or whether they're after her in a good way or a bad way. That's why I said I don't know if she's in danger or not." Xander said.

"But we are certainly going to launch an immediate effort to find out." Giles reassured me. "Was there any indication of a time frame?"

"Not a one, and remember, we got this warning years ago. Like, start of junior year in high school." Xander said. "So it could be happening now, or it could be scheduled for Dawn as an 18th birthday present, or anything."

"Well, there have certainly been no other alarming indications of any kind regarding Dawn so your warning has almost certainly put us at least slightly ahead of the curve." Giles logicked out, and I started to feel a little better.

"Wait, I have superpowers?" I finally regained the ability to contribute to the conversation.

"Some kind of dimensional magic, it claimed." Xander answered me, and then immediately continued at my expression. "Do not try any experiments. Assuming anything happens at all, it's 99 to 1 that you'll blow yourself straight into a hell dimension with no exit strategy. Dimensional magic is something even the most experienced witches approach slowly and cautiously. That's why it's taking so long to arrange for a trip home for me, and in my case they've got easy mode switched on with how I've got a pre-existing correspondence link to where I came from they can work with because of how I got here. You wouldn't even have that much."

"I entirely endorse everything Xander just told you, because he is wholly correct." Giles came in on his heels. "No experiments without supervision and until after we're already quite certain we know what we're dealing with and what to expect. Because if something did go wrong, we wouldn't be able to come find you even if we tried."

"Got it." I said faintly, feeling kinda oppressed with just how gloom and doomy they were both being. Then again, as much as I loved the idea of having superpowers better than Buffy's - or at all - they were right about the whole 'you don't want to be stuck in a hell dimension' thing.

"Well, we might as well get started researching." Giles said, before smiling at me. "And since you have a vested interest in this affair, I have no objection to your participating this time."

Yes! I exulted to myself as we all got up and headed for the bookshelves. Part of the team at last!

* * * * *​

Author's Note: This omake was done when my brain just had to write a scene of 'my Scooby Gang hears about the canon Scooby Gang and vice versa'. And it doesn't need more of an ending beyond this because 'Xander makes it home without incident and the Devon Coven gets advance warning of Canon Willow and Amy's situations before the seasons 6-7 meltdown' are already plainly set up.) But yeah, Consequence!Xander didn't even see Canon!Willow in this timeline - he's still got outright PTSD from the Manchurian Xander incident in particular and the whole thing in general, and he doesn't even want to talk to a doppelganger of her.

I don't quite know how Dawn got her own part of the chapter, but she did. I mean, I had to work in a warning about the Key somehow, but an in-depth exploration of her character and crush on Xander? I suppose I just wanted to write Dawn, because she's a character I actually like and thought had a lot of wasted potential that the show didn't wait to waste, and this was my only chance. Besides, it was a useful vehicle to show how much the Consequence!Scoobs have grown beyond their canon selves, as witness how maturely and understandingly Xander was able to handle that conversation as compared to his canon season 5 self.

As for when this fic occurs, it's between episode 5x01 ("Buffy vs. Dracula") and 5x02 ("Real Me"). Which means that Xander arrived right after the monks cast the spell to make Dawn (as that happens at the very end of episode 5x01), which is why she's here and he has no clue who she is. And yes, Xander derailed Joyce's cancer (in the Consequence!timeline I like to imagine that she went as soon as symptoms initially appeared, both because the Scoobies are more alert in general and Jonathan is M.D. level knowledgeable in particular) and he arrived in time to get word to Joyce about it at least a few episodes before she actually went, so hopefully that makes the difference. He also got the whole Key situation out early, and Canon!Giles was smart enough to pick up that the best way to keep Dawn from doing something reckless about exploring it on her own was to invite her into the Scooby Gang's efforts to research it.

As to those who wonder how Dawn is somewhat more mature here than she is in episode 5x02, that's because the script of "Real Me" was not sufficiently adjusted in time to the plan to make Dawn 14, because she was originally supposed to be 10. Which is why she's such an incredible brat in that episode, the part is written for a 10-year-old girl. Imma just ignored that and went 'No, let's use later season 5 Dawn'.