Smaller
Than Sunny
Parts
1 & 2
By Sam James
Crossover - Buffy (post S7-so SPOILER WARNING) and Smallville (s2). Note that even though Buffy S7 aired at the same time as Smallville S2 nothing in the two series requires that correspondence. So, in this crossover, Buffy S7 has happened but Smallville S2 is just starting.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Buffyverse characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century Fox. Smallville characters belong to Warner Brothers, the WB, and DC Comics (except Chloe on the last). I claim no ownership of anything other than the plot.
"Dawn, are you ready for school?" Nancy Turner called up the stairs to their niece. She had only been with them a short while and they were still getting used to the transition, but Nancy could tell already that she was a handful.
"I don't wanna!" Dawn cried. It was only a couple of months since Buffy had died yet again and she still had not accepted the loss, let alone being placed in the custody of an aunt and uncle she barely remembered and being forced to live in Kansas, of all places, in the very appropriately named Smallville. Willow had tried to make a case for custody but even in California no one was going to turn over custody of a 17-year old girl to an unrelated, unmarried 22-year old lesbian.
"Dawn!" Aunt Nancy was firm. "I'm not giving you a choice."
"Alright already," Dawn's whine, which she had been growing out of, had resumed with redoubled force after Buffy's death. She walked down the steps wearing black pants and a black turtleneck without any cosmetics and only a token attempt to comb her hair. The effect of her appearance and her slouch said firmly, "I don't care."
"Dawn," said Aunt Nancy, getting the intended message from the ensemble, "Don't you want to try to make a life for yourself here?"
"I wanted to stay and help rebuild Sunnydale," Dawn spat out. "Willow would have taken me in. Xander would have taken me in. Or I could have lived with Spike in his crypt er I mean creepy apartment. But you took me here to Smallville, well, I'm not exactly gonna join the 4H club and fit in considering everything I've seen, everything that's happened."
Uncle Larry looked up from his paper. "Give her time," he told his wife softly. "She's lost her mother, her sister, her town, and now feels she's lost all her friends too." He raised his voice. "Dawn, just give Smallville a chance, it just might surprise you."
After being driven to Smallville High, Dawn stood a moment and looked at the sea of unfamiliar faces flowing down the hall. It was like going back in time to the 80's with all the flannel, checks, and skirts. But even through her depression, she couldn't help but notice the muscles on some of these farmboys. Clearly, chores are good for the body she giggled to herself and then flushed. She refused to let herself be distracted out of a good sulk.
"You must be the new transfer, Dawn Summers," the guidance counselor said when Dawn walked into the sparsely decorated office.
Dawn nodded as the counselor looked her up and down with a faintly disapproving eye. "We never received the paperwork from your old school."
Dawn stared back. "Not surprising, the paperwork was probably destroyed when the school collapsed."
"Collapsed?" the counselor looked alarmed.
"You know, California, earthquake, all that." Dawn gave the cover story. "Probably shoddy construction in the rebuild after the explosion. Of course, the whole town was destroyed in the earthquake so..."
"Explosion. Earthquake."
"Yeah, oh, if I panic and run out of the building, it's just flashbacks." Dawn needled them. If she got kicked out of this school, maybe her aunt and uncle would let her go back to Sunnydale.
After some negotiations about classes she had already passed and her readiness to take advanced courses - and the school's lack of courses in anything useful like advanced Latin or Greek - she confronted her first class. When she opened the door to sneak in, she immediately found herself the center of attention. It was amazing how schools everywhere were pretty much the same. There were the popular folks - the jocks and cheerleader who ruled the school, the wannabes who gave the popular crowd their power, the brains who focused more on academics and activities than the struggle for popularity, the druggies who had given up, the nerds who no one wanted, and the outsiders who did not care. At Sunnydale, Dawn had pretty much fluctuated between the wannabees and the nerds because of her sister's reputation and a few demon-related incidents of her own. Taking a look around all these small town folk who had probably grown up with each other from kindergarten, Dawn knew she'd wind up with the outcasts even if she cared, which she kept telling herself, she did not.
"Who are you?" the teacher asked.
"Dawn Summers, transfer student." She showed her schedule to the teacher.
"Where are you from?" came a girl's voice
"California." There was a buzz as the students tried to place her in the hierarchy. Dawn could feel the moment when the populars decided that her looks were a threat and began circulating rumors of "California girl, you know she's easy."
"Pay no attention to the cattle," came a voice from her left. Dawn looked and saw a blond girl in a Daily Planet T-shirt. "Their opinions don't matter anyway. Control the press and you control what they think, or at least what they think they remember thinking, which amounts to the same thing."
"Huh?"
"Chloe Sullivan" Dawn looked at the girl whose dress and manner gave off an air of "I don't fit in and I don't care." Chloe looked back and in a moment of solidarity added, "I'm from Metropolis. I've been here four years now and am still considered the newcomer."
"Tight knit community?"
"The tightest." The two girls laughed and Dawn felt she had made a friend.
"Girls, pay attention," the teacher knocked on her desk with her fist.
After that period Dawn did not see Chloe again until lunch. Dawn had entered the cafeteria, confronted again with that sea of unfamiliar faces, and resigned to eating lunch alone, in a corner somewhere unnoticed, when the short blond stood up and began waving to her like someone going into convulsions. Dawn smiled and brought her tray over next to the Metropolis Marvel as she had mentally christened the sophisticated stranger stuck the land of the future farmers of America.
Chloe was sitting next to the only black guy in the room, who Chloe introduced as Pete Ross, and a really tall and muscular teen, who Chloe said was Clark Kent. Chloe wondered what Kent was doing with the outcasts, with his looks he should be hanging out with the populars. Judging from the longing looks he cast at one table filled with the beautiful people Clark felt the same way. Or was he looking at one girl in particular?
"So Dawn, give us your scoop," Chloe said. "How'd you get exiled to this land where the corn is as high as elephant's eye?" Pete and Clark gave Chloe a strange look but Dawn laughed.
"Kansas isn't quite Oklahoma is it?"
Chloe gave her a quick hug. "At last, someone who can appreciate my wit."
"Hey, we're not country bumpkins," Clark protested.
"Sure you aren't," Chloe rolled her eyes. "Anyway, Dawn, you were saying?"
"I'm from Sunnydale, California. Well, born in LA, Los Angeles I mean, but I grew up in Sunnydale. My parents were divorced."
"I know where you're coming from on that," Chloe said.
"Well, Dad is in Spain somewhere with his secretary. My mom died a couple of years ago of a brain anerism. Dad didn't even come to the funeral. So my older sister took charge until she died this June," Dawn carefully controlled herself so she would not cry in front of these new friends. "So I got shunted off to my aunt and uncle who live here in Smallville."
"How did your sis..." Chloe began but Clark kicked her and interrupted. "You know, you're not the only new person in town. I hear there's a new teacher this year."
"Oh, yeah," Pete replied picking up on the need to change the subject. "The guys say she's young and incredibly hot with flowing red hair. She's just out of college so only a few years older than us. There were lots of jokes about older women in the locker room today."
"So how did she end up in Smallville?" Chloe asked. Clark and Pete shrugged their sholders. This was not something the guy's gossip network cared about. "Well, I'll just have to interview her for the Torch, then."
"The Torch?" Dawn asked.
"School newspaper," Chloe replied. "I'm the editor. Clark and Pete are most of the staff. Do you want to join? It could be a good way to get to know your new school." And will get me a chance to get the rest of your story.
"Well, I just got here, I don't know"
"Stop in after school and I'll show you the office."
Just then the bell rang. "What do you have?" asked Pete.
Dawn looked at her schedule, "Advanced Computers, room C-2"
"Oh good, you're with us," Chloe said. The four walked down the hall.
"I can't wait to meet this new teacher and see if the stories are true." Pete said.
All four entered the classroom but three stood shocked. Pete and Clark had their mouths open as they stared at the pretty red head smiling as her students entered the classroom. But Dawn was even more surprised. "Willow?"
Part II
Dawn felt as if her two worlds suddenly collided. Sent off to her aunt in Smallville, Kansas, land of corn and rustic simplicity, she thought she had been forced to leave the world of her vampire-slaying sister, demons, and witches far behind. But the school's new computer teacher in school suddenly turned out to be...
"Willow?" Dawn said in amazement.
The red-headed teacher smiled at her. "Dawn, Dawn Summers?" with an air of confusion. But there was a voice in Dawn's head saying, "I'll explain everything later. Just pretend you know me a little, but not well, as Buffy's former college roommate."
"You two know each other?" wheels churned in Chloe's head. Something weird was going on. The odds against the only two newbies at Smallville High coincidentally knowing each other were incredible. And something about Sunnydale sounded familiar in her reporter's mind.
"She was my sister's college roommate," Dawn followed Willow's lead. "But I didn't know she was going to be a teacher."
"And you both wound up in Smallville. What a small world." Chloe shot an accusing look at Dawn but softened as she realized that her new friend's surprise was genuine.
Willow gulped. She hadn't expected someone to be this suspicious. "Too many out of work computer programmers near Silicon Valley," she said, maybe too quickly. "And there was an opening here when Mrs. Havisham left for a bigger school." She flushed red. She hoped the girl would not investigate and find out that Mrs. Havisham did not remember applying to Smithfield High School.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she looked around the class and then raised her voice. "Everyone, I'm Miss Rosenberg." She wrote her name on the whiteboard in front of the classroom. "That's with an e at the end, not a u. Now who are all of you?" Everyone gave their names, half the male population stammering them out. "Okay, now I know it's not fair to give a test the first day, so think of this more as a positioning exercise to find out what you already know. Press ENTER and then type in your name and press ENTER again. Then follow the instructions."
Dawn stared at Willow to catch her attention and thought hard, "What's going on? What are you doing here?"
"You're still the key, Dawn," Willow's voice was soft in her head. "Spike's contacts told him that something is looking for your energy. So Spike and I came down to protect you." Spike had stumbled out of the wreckage of Sunnydale a week or so after the final destruction of the school and town. When asked how he had survived, he had just muttered something about vampire healing.
Dawn's head shot up. "Spike's here too. Real old home week."
"What's wrong?"
"'Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday,'" Dawn quoted her sister the slayer. "I shouldn't need people to rearrange their lives like this to jump to my rescue. I'm the key in human form. If I have so much power that everyone is after me all the time, shouldn't I be able to use it to protect myself?"
"I'm sorry, Dawnie, but that's the way things are, at least right now. Remember, I wasn't exactly a major power back in high school either."
"You mean this will change?"
"No promises, I just mean that it might. We'll talk later. See me after school."
That apparently was it for telepathic communications. Willow moved around the classroom looking at students' work and asking questions. Dawn was impressed. Willow was acting like a real teacher.
As she went around the class, Willow noticed that few of the Smallville students had taken typing class. Only Dawn, that overly-curious blond, and the tall friend of theirs named Clark were touch typing. Although... Willow looked again. The Kent kid actually was not touch typing; he was doing hunt-and-peck incredibly fast. She maneuvered her position to check his reflection in the monitor screen. "Nerves," she thought to herself. "It's daytime, stupid."
Soon the period was over. "What do you have next?" Chloe asked Dawn as they walked out.
"A Mr. Stuart for English? Isn't Stuart a first name?"
"Ouch," Pete answered. "Don't tell him that or he'll have you diagramming sentences until the cows come home."
"And in this town," Chloe added. "That's literal."
"There you go again," Clark complained. "We aren't hicks. Smallville is a nice modern town. You saw, we even have computers in school."
In the middle of talking Cark stopped so suddenly that Dawn ran into him. He was oddly solid, like he was made of steel.
"Hi Lana," he said to a pretty, slightly-exotic looking dark-haired girl.
"Hi Clark," this Lana replied. "New member of your gang?"
"Oh," Chloe said. "Lana Lang, this is Dawn Summers. She just moved here."
"Welcome to Smallville," Lana said before turning back to Clark.
"We might as well get moving," Pete said.
"Yeah, once Clark gets in Lana's orbit, everything and everyone else disappears," Chloe said sadly with a note of bitterness. "You could be dancing at the prom when suddenly he gets the notion that Lana's in trouble and then, woosh, everyone else disappears or he disappears or something like that."
"Man, you still mad about the prom!" Pete said with astonishment, "That was months ago."
"He hasn't changed," Chloe said.
Dawn laughed. She promised herself that she'd invite Chloe to a girl's night out soon. She had to know all the cool places in town, if there were any.
The day soon passed with Dawn introducing herself to six different teachers, all of whom were surprised to see a stranger in Smallville High, defending her right to take the advanced English course, and contending with the popular kids, who seemed determined to drive her out. After school Dawn went back to the computer lab for a talk with Willow, but found the room full of senior boys, most of whom seemed more interested in Willow than in the computers. 'I wonder if I should tell them she's a lesbian?' Dawn laughed to herself and set off to find her new friend Chloe.
It took some doing as a large number of students had no idea where the Torch office was and a couple did not even know that there was a school paper. Finally, Dawn entered the right door.
The office was small and cramped, with three desks, a printer, a scanner, and, wonders of wonders, a telephone. But Dawn's eyes were immediately drawn to the back, with what looked like an enormous collage.
"I call it the 'Wall of Weird'" Chloe said proudly. Dawn could hear the capital letters in her voice.
"Everybody else calls it Chloe's Obsession." Pete snickered from his desk.
"You laugh, but you know I'm right. There's lots of weird stuff that happens in Smallville. A shape-changing girl, a pyromaniac football coach, a telekinetic, a superboy, robbers who walk through walls, iceman, ... super-persuasive salesmen."
Dawn had to laugh at the last, "Super-persuasive salesmen?"
Chloe spat out, "One made me kiss Clark."
"Like that would take much doing," Pete whispered to Dawn.
"You're new, so you haven't seen it yet," Chloe said. "But there's something weird going on in Smallville. It's these rocks from the meteor shower."
"Meteor shower?" Dawn asked.
"About 14 years ago, Smallville was hit by a whole bunch of meteors," Pete explained. They killed a bunch of people, including Lana's parents." He ignored Chloe who muttered "As she'll tell you at every opportunity" under her breath. "Chloe's theory is that this incident created a bunch of meteor mutants. They're what make us the weirdest town you've ever seen."
"You'd be surprised at what I've seen," Dawn said. She took another look at the Wall of Weird. An invisible girl, predictive dreams, official cover-ups. Suddenly, she was starting to feel right at home. Dawn was not sure she believed the tale of meteor mutants from outer space but some of the incidents described in these articles could be the work of demons. One thing was for sure. Willow had to see this. Their Midwestern haven from the magics still after Dawn might not be so safe even apart from whatever her key energy might attract.
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