A nice warm rewelcome Who: Lydia James and Dawn Summers Where: Cafetria
Lydia found herself becoming more and more glad the school year was almsot over. She herself was lucky enough to be considered among the 'cool girls', so rarely got hassled, but too many of her friends weren't so lucky, including the geeky-but-sweet boy named Gideon, who was her best friend and possibly-maybe boyfriend. Wearing distressed light blue bellbottomed jeans and a vintage Pink Floyd tee, the teen sat in the cafeteria, picking listlessly at her lunch.
Dawn was glad that they'd let her come back with few weeks left to the semester. Studying aboard, while fun, made her miss her friends and Buffy. Plus, all of the drama from last year should've died down by now. Hopefully, she wouldn't be remembered as "the sanky Summers' sister". Seeing an unfamiliar face in the cafeteria, who looked alone, she made her way over, "Hi," she said to the girl, "This seat taken?"
Lydia looked up and gave a polite smile to the girl. "No, not at all. Wanna join me?" She looked at her, not recognizing her. "I'm Lydia James. Nice to meet you."
Dawn extended a hand, "Dawn Summers," she said, "I'm new. Well...kind of."
"Summers?" Lydia blinked for a moment. "Any relation to Buffy?" She didn't know Buffy terribly well, but the girl had been to a few of the parties her sister and Gwen had held.
Dawn nodded, "She's my older sister, actually."
"Cool... Buffy's a nice girl. Friend of my sister and... and... sister-in-law." She still wasnt positive of how to refer to Gwen since she'd married her sister.
"Sister and sister-in-law?" Dawn raised an eyebrow, "Wow. I really have missed a lot sine I've been gone."
"Yeah. You know Gwen Morrison, right?" She asked, taking a bite of her sandwich.
Dawn took a bite of her own sandwich. Turkey on wheat with djion mustard and swiss cheese. Yuuuum. "Kind of sort of, she's a friend of Buffy's, but I really don't know her too well."
"Welllll... she married my sister about six or seven months ago." She smiled, as the two were seriously in love. "Interesting couple,. but good LORD are they made for each other."
Dawn chuckled, "I really have been away too long. Good for Gwen though!"
"So you've been away, I take it?" Lydia asked, smiling.
"Yeah," said Dawn. She pushed a strand of hair behind her hair. "There was some...drama that I wanted to get away from, and I got accepted to a prestigious boarding school in Italy on a scholarship, so I took them up on it. It was fun...but I really missed it here. Plus, my Italian...it kind of sucks."
Then it clicked. Drama. Dawn was the one that had all the bad stuff happen to her in Sunnydale, that had the misunderstanding with Gwen. "Well, luckily, here in LA, nobody knows us, so, other than anyone else from where you're from, nobody knows about any of it here."
Dawn let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord, right?" She took another bite of her sandwich, "I felt as if it was time for me to come back anyway, I really missed the states."
"Well, since our sisters have... so much in common..." she wasn't going to say 'theyre both slayers' just in case Dawn wasn't in the loop, "maybe the sisters should start hanging out or something. There's a couple of us now, actually."
Dawn fought back the urge to add a snarky comment such as, "Oh? Your sister slays vampires in her spare time, too?". As she wasn't fully aware of how much Lydia actually knew about Buffy. "Sounds fun," she said, "It could be some sort family affair thing."
"Always fun at my sister's house. My family... comes from money. Big time. And Skylar looooooves using it to make sure her friends have fun." Lydia laughed, thinking they were the oddest rich family ont he planet. "She throws some wicked parties."
Dawn nodded, taking a bite of her sandwich. "Like wild, exotic entertainment parties, complete with zebras and half-naked dancing men?" She added a wink to show that she was only kidding.
"Well.... this is Skylar. Other than Pat, she's not so much into half-naked men. And zebras might crap on her expensive carpets. Her parties are more like... loud music, awesome homemade pastries, the inevititable part where Gwen gets drunk and does something hilarious, and then Pat has to carry her away."
Dawn let out a laugh, "Sounds like a blast."
"Man. Talk about a crappy time to come back though... they should have at least sent you back early enough to find a prom date." Lydia said with a laugh. "Talk about harsh."
Dawn shrugged. Clearly, the concept of not having a date didn't bother her in the slightest. "I'm not going to sweat it," she said, "Everyone knows that going stag's more fun anyway."
"Funny enough, I'd been planning on doing that for months. I guess..." she laughed with a slightly embarrassed blush. "Things just happen sometimes."
"I take it you have date then?"
"I... I do." She said, again looking a little... almost embarrassed. "My best friend... he and are sorta... experimenting with going out."
Dawn let out a small smile, though she didn't really know the girl all that well, she couldn't help but feel happy for her. "As long as you're both happy, that's all that's important, right?"
"Yeah." Lydia laughed and shook her head. "I know I sound like a total bitch. I like him, I really do. But the typical teenaged girl in me still has to tell myself it's ok to date a geek if he's cute and treats me well."
Dawn wrinkled her nose at this, "Screw what everyone else thinks." As this always had something to do with it, "You like him, he likes you. You both care about each other. Just...screw what everyone else thinks and go with it."
Lydia gave a shameful nod there, agreeing with her. "I know what you mean..." She laughed with a little shame. "And you're entirely right. And he doesn't deserve for me to act like this. Gideon's the sweetest guy I know."
"I know we just met and everything,"Dawn said, "But I'm going to be blunt here-just put all this damned reputation stuff aside and go with it. And if your friends dump you because your dating someone that doesn't fit their social quota? Fuck it. If they can ditch you that easily, they weren't your real friends anyway."
"Funny how total strangers can end up helping you put things in perspective." Lydia laughed and reached over, patting Dawn's hand with her own. "You rock, girl."
Dawn flipped her hair back, giving Dawn a playful smirk as she did so. "One does try."