Chapter 4: Home

Disclaimer: Own nothing and no one used herein
Title: Desert Daughter
Author: Kate R.
Rating: Teen to Adult
Pairings: N/A but maybe Alex Dawn later
Summary: Hank took Dawn to Egypt and died, Dawn as rescued from their murdering guide by the Medjai and adopted as the King's daughter

Notes: I fudged the divorce a bit for this fic because I need Dawn young enough to be adopted Fully Medjai. It wasn't in High school for Buffy, it was before then. When Dawn was eight and she was 13. Joyce found out Hank was dead after Buffy burned the gym down. A year later which is why Ardeth could legally adopt Dawn. No one came in a year making her listed as an orphan or abandoned.



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It was five days alter and a private jet had just arrived from Cairo, Egypt to Sunnydale, California. Disembarking from the jet, Dawn looked at her father and her nerves finally started to show. What if they didn't like her as she was? What if they couldn't accept her?

And then she felt his presence solid at her back and knew that everything would be all right. He'd never let her get hurt, again.

"Are you ready, Little Spark?" he asked, calling her by a pet name she hadn't been called since she 'was' little.

"As I'm going to be," she said, with a deep breath, "How do we get there? Do you know where 'there' is?"

"1630 Revello Drive," Ardeth told her, "Yes, I know where it is. And I had a car sent for since I do not drive and could not in this country regardless."

She nodded and got into the limo realizing this was one of those frivolous wastes that were sometimes useful that he'd mentioned. She'd forgotten about most of them since the desert didn't have them and therefore they weren't important. In her world, you never wasted anything and you had to know absolutely 'everything' about the area you were in. And to do that, more often than not you rode a horse or camel or you walked until you knew everything that was there and where it was. A car to drive you wherever would be seen as pretentious in the desert. That was totally ridiculous and totally unnecessary when you could get there faster on your own when you knew the way yourself.

The limo pulled up at a house and Dawn took a deep breath, looking up at her dad again. They were both in their desert gear because that was what they wore. Ardeth got out first and then helped Dawn out.

"Are you ready, Little Spark?" he asked her as they walked to the door. Dawn nodded and he knocked on the door. It was opened almost immediately by a woman with strawberry blond hair.

"Joyce Summers?" Ardeth asked.

"Y-yes," the woman said and nodded her head, trembling a little as she looked at Dawn, standing by his side.

"My name is Ardeth Bey," he continued, "I am the man who found, adopted and raised your daughter, Dawn. Come, Little Spark, say hello to your mother."

Dawn looked up, somewhat nervous, and when she met her mother's eyes all of her doubts and fears went away. She saw only love in this familiar stranger's eyes and she suddenly remembered how much she'd missed her mother and big sister.

"M-Mommy," dawn whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. Ardeth pushed her gently and she was suddenly in her mother's arms.

They held each other for a long time, crying and hugging, before Joyce looked up at Ardeth again.

"Please," she whispered to him, "Please, both of you come in. I want to know everything, Dawn. Especially about those pretty marks on your face."

"The ones on my forehead say I'm dad's heir," Dawn told her, taking Ardeth's hand while still holding hers. She was making a statement, both Ardeth and Joyce knew. She would not give up her desert family for her American one. They would have to accept that. "The ones on my cheeks and hands say I'm 'One Who Guards' of the Medjai. The Medjai are dad's people. My People, too. I can't change who I grew up to be . . . I don't want to change it."

"I understand that, baby," Joyce told her as she led them into the dinning room, "I knew when I was called and told about you and those who'd taken care of you I knew you wouldn't be the same little girl I last saw in the court room the day the divorce was finalized. You're a young woman now, I see. You're . . . you're Dawn and I want to know all about you."

"It's not all pretty," Dawn told her, "We Medjai guard sights that contain thing so evil that no one, human or demon, is allowed to go near them and live."

Joyce digested that for a few minutes but she then hugged her daughter.

"How bad would it be if the evil got woken up?" she asked.

"Worse than end of the world bad," Dawn told her. "It's happened twice already and we barely won. I see we even though I wasn't there for it, because I am Medjai and We are a group, whole in each person."

Again Joyce nodded and smiled.

"Buffy will be home soon," She said, "She had a . . ."

"Patrol, I know," Dawn told her, "Dad knows about her being the Slayer. He had you looked in to because everyone else who's approached him, the feelers he put out for my family, only wanted the reward and knew nothing about me."

Joyce nodded, wondering what other surprises she'd discover about her daughter.

"Do you want dinner?" Joyce asked.

"We should wait for Buffy," Dawn told her, "Dad and I can wait to eat. We do all the time in the desert."

"What kind of life do you have there?" Joyce asked, but not like she was against her living there but more that she was genuinely curious.

"A good one," Dawn told her, "We live as a tribe, those who guard, they go out to the sacred sight our Tribe has, Hamunaptra, and those who are mothers and teacher sand healers stay in the village. I chose to be one of the ones who guards, just like dad. The desert has a desolate beauty, too. It's deadly but not if you know its ways."

"It sounds like you love it there."

"I do," Dawn told her, "And I want to go back to it. But I want to know you and Buffy, too. I don't know if I can live here but I do want to know you."

Joyce nodded and they sat down to wait. They talked about the small things in life, about her pets and her friends and what she'd learned. Joyce was impressed to know she had a very good education. She was already at college freshmen level likely because her father had her schooling done by their people and they learned as they were ready, not by their age.

They were discussing the foods Dawn liked when the door opened and a petite blond came in.

"Buffy!" Dawn cried and ran to her sister. Ardeth smiled as she was grabbed in a hug.

"Dawnie!" Buffy spoke with the same happiness that Dawn had used.

Ardeth smiled as he watched Dawn and her sister sit and talk while Joyce finished dinner. Once it was ready, they were all called to the table.

"So, Dawnie," Buffy said as they ate, "What do you do for fun?"

"I practice my double swords, ride my horse, or run with my falcon," she said.

"You have swords?!" Buffy asked.

"We are a desert people," Ardeth spoke, "We live by what we hunt and what we catch. We defend ourselves in the old ways because they work. Yes, she has swords. She has been trained to use them since I found her."

"Are you nomads?" Buffy asked.

"Sometimes," Ardeth told her, "We have a main city but those of us who have things we must do outside of it we travel. Dawn has chosen to follow that path because it is the path that I follow and the path that saved her from a . . . not nice situation."

"Mr. Achmed said you'd saved her from something, that everyone in Cairo knew that, can you tell us what?"

"The guide your ex-husband hired only agreed to take him into the desert after a myth so he could kill him and sell Dawn as a slave," Ardeth told them as gently as he could but he was not a man given to mincing words.

"What city?" Buffy asked, while trying to control her anger at that Guide. If he was there, she'd kill him.

"Hamunaptra," Ardeth told her, "The fabled City of the Dead. Many have tried to find it, but all have failed and most come home in a box. It is rumored to have the treasures of the Middle Kingdom in it making it very appealing to treasure hunters no matter how many bodies it has already left in its wake."

"What happened to the Guide?" Joyce asked, quietly.

"The desert exacted punishment," Ardeth told her while hugging Dawn, "A merchant in Old Cairo told me of the Guide and his plans and where he was taking them so I immediately gathered a group of my people to go after them. We know the desert, you see. And we are usually the ones who find those who do not die in the quest for that city. I found him, about to touch your daughter and I . . . had him dealt with."

"Did it hurt?" Buffy asked.

"Yes," Ardeth told her, "It did."

"Good," Joyce spoke up, and there was anger flashing in her eyes, "Thank you, Mr. Bey."

"Ardeth," he told her, "My name is Ardeth."

"Ardeth then," Joyce said, "My name is Joyce. Now, do you mind sleeping on the couch until we get the guest room cleared out?"

"The couch will be fine, Joyce," Ardeth told her, "I have slept on far harder."

Buffy was about to say something when a bleached blond suddenly came barreling in.

"Slayer, we got . . ." He froze when he saw the two at the table, or, more accurately, their tattoos, and he stumbled backwards in his haste to get away from them, "Medjai!"

"Say one more word," Ardeth hissed at him, "And you will not be around to regret it."

His tone was deadly ice and Buffy watched as the blond backed away, hands up in a defensive posture.

"I ain't gonna say a word, your highness," he said, "But you know she'll tell her Watcher about those marks and he'll look them up for her."

"And when he does," Ardeth said, "I will speak to her and her mother about them. But they do 'not' need to know yet. Let them get used to having her back before they find out what she has chosen to do means. What do you need the Slayer for?"

"Worshien Demon," Spike told him, "Nasty one, too. Going for the babies."

"She is having Dinner," Ardeth told him, rising to his feet and Buffy saw how big a man he was, "You will take me and I will deal with it."

The tone said that was not a request and the blond nodded.

"What is your name, Demon?" Ardeth asked as they were leaving.

"Spike," he answered, "My name is Spike."

"You may call me Bey, for now," Ardeth told him as they left the house. Once they were gone, Buffy looked at Dawn.

"What do you do?" she asked.

"I can't tell you," Dawn answered, "You aren't Medjai."

"But," she started to say.

"Buffy," Joyce spoke up, "Let it alone for now. Ask Mr. Giles what I know you're going to ask him and then Ardeth will explain but don't push your sister on this. Not right now. She just got home. Please wait to play twenty questions and eat your dinner."

Buffy nodded and ate. She was glad to have Dawnie home but she had a feeling there was something Dawn wasn't telling them. And it had to do with the tattoos on her face . . . her cheeks most likely because if Spike was right about what he implied of Ardeth, she could guess what the ones on her forehead meant. Oh, well, she'd ask Giles tomorrow and maybe he could ell her. She hoped.

Because she knew, sure as anything, that Dawn wasn't going to until they knew what those marks meant.

That meant research. Great. She hated Research.

But this one she'd do herself. No way was she trusting anyone else, except maybe Giles, with anything about her little sister.

Which meant she had to be early for training tomorrow because she wanted to talk to Giles alone.

Great. Another day shot. Oh, well. She'd find time for everything somehow. She always did, after all.

"Tomorrow, she told herself before going to bed, "I'll start finding out tomorrow."