by Nancy Holder
At the very least, she had to be grateful that she wasn’t the only student at Sunnydale High who was painfully aware that things that went bump in the night were real and usually kind of smelly. Spotting Willow Rosenberg, a petite redhead curled into a corner of the student lounge sofa, head buried in a book as usual, Buffy quickly darted through the early morning hallway traffic and grabbed the open seat next to her best friend.
“Is that how those book thingies work?” Buffy asked as she tossed her own pile of texts onto the table before her. “You have to open them to get the prize?”
“Oh, hey, Buffy,” Willow replied without lifting her gaze.
Gently rebuked, Buffy considered her friend. Willow was easily one of the smartest people she’d ever met. And usually she managed very well not to flaunt her intellectual superiority in the faces of those less fortunate, including Buffy. In fact, her truly sweet and generous nature had been one of the first things that had drawn Buffy to seek out Willow’s friendship—that and Buffy’s need to not fail out of Sunnydale High within a few days of her arrival on campus. Although Buffy could not have known it at the time, the nerdlike surface that had caused so many to overlook Willow for so long had merely been the delicate facade that shrouded the strongest heart and most courageous spirit Buffy had ever encountered. Despite Willow’s sensitivities, including frog fear, Buffy was more grateful than she could ever express that Willow had chosen to stand beside her in her fiercest battles, lending incredible moral support along with enviable research skills to the Slayer’s missions.
It was therefore vaguely unsettling that Willow seemed to be leaning toward the mopes this early in the day. Buffy decided to move on to a topic toward which even grumpy Willow would warm.
“How was the in-service this morning? Have your fellow faculty members shared with you the power to give detentions yet?” Buffy asked.
“What? Oh, sure,” Willow replied, still not really giving her full attention to Buffy.
“All right, Will, what gives?” Buffy replied a bit more tersely. “It’s the beginning of a school day. Granted, it’s a short day, but usually that’s cause for joy in the land of Willow.”
“I’m sorry,” Willow replied, closing her book and gracing Buffy with a faint smile.
Suddenly, Buffy regretted her choice of topic. True, Willow seemed to be enjoying her new position as temporary teacher in the computer science lab. But Willow had only accepted the job upon the untimely death of the regular teacher, Jenny Calendar. Ms. Calendar had been more than a teacher. She’d been warming the heart of Buffy’s Watcher, Mr. Giles, and was a Gypsy spy sent by her people to watch over Angel. It had taken Buffy some serious in-the-moment maturing to make some sort of peace with Ms. Calendar once she learned that she wasn’t just hanging out with Giles and occasionally helping Buffy solve whatever crisis was at hand out of the goodness of her heart. But nothing Ms. Calendar had done had warranted the brutality with which Angelus had snapped her neck, and even weeks later, the loss was still fresh among all who had known her, particularly Willow and Giles.
“No, Willow,” Buffy began. “My bad. It’s not anything to joke about.”
“No. ‘A’ for effort, really,” Willow replied. “It’s just, I didn’t get to go to the in-service.”
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing,” Willow said hesitantly.
“Will, that’s not your ‘nothing’ face. That’s your ‘something’ face. Actually, it’s your ‘this is really something and I don’t think I want Buffy to know about it’ face.”
“It’s no biggie,” Willow replied. “Mom was doing a little spring cleaning on Sunday and found that crucifix we nailed to my wall when we were doing the spell to uninvite Angel.”
“Oh,” Buffy said, absolutely certain that there was no way this story ended well.
“So there was talking and a little crying and a call to Rabbi 911,” Willow continued.
“How bad is it?” Buffy asked.
“They’re thinking about sending me to a kibbutz this summer, but I think I can get out of it. Maybe Giles knows a spell,” Willow suggested, brightening just a bit.
“I’m sorry, Will,” Buffy said quickly. “It’s my fault.”
“No, it absolutely is not,” Willow said defiantly. “I was the one who invited Angel into my room in the first place.”
“You had no reason not to at the time,” Buffy interjected.
“And you had no reason to think any of the rest of it would happen either,” Willow insisted. “I didn’t want to tell you because you already have enough to worry about. It’s nothing, really,” she finished, doing her best to smile. “And you’re right. It’s just the beginning of another fun-filled week at Sunnydale High. How bad could it be?”
“You’re not seriously asking that question?” Buffy replied.
“No, I guess not,” Willow said thoughtfully.
Their musings were interrupted by the sound of Principal Snyder shouting at the top of his lungs, “Who did it? Who thinks this blatant display of disrespect is amusing?”
The friends turned in unison to see the troll of a man who had been terrorizing Sunnydale High since last spring marching down the main hallway, stopping at every cluster of students he encountered to check hands and bags and to hand out detentions at the slightest smirks in his direction.
“Sounds like someone hasn’t had his coffee yet.” Buffy smiled. It was impossible for her not to hate the man who had gone out of his way since they’d first met to remind Buffy that she was a delinquent and that he would relish the chance to expel her given the slightest provocation.
“Oh, how cute,” Willow said, offering the first genuine smile Buffy had seen from her all day and pointing in Snyder’s general direction.
“Did you just use the word ‘cute’ in reference to Snyder?” Buffy asked in disbelief, following her friend’s gaze. It only took a moment to see what was wrong with the picture before her. The principal was wearing only one shoe. His left foot was clad in a baby pink argyle sock. Given Willow’s eclectic fashion sense, Buffy no longer had any difficulty understanding her friend’s reaction.
“Fun as this is to watch, I should really check in with Giles before fourth period,” Buffy said, collecting her books and rising from the couch.
“Is anything wrong?” Willow asked with sudden seriousness. “How was your weekend, by the way?”
“Oh, you know,” Buffy replied as both moved gingerly toward the main hall, careful to avoid Snyder’s scrutiny. “I hung out at the mall, took in a few movies, got a manicure, and Mom sprung for this really cute bag I’ve had my eye on.”
“Really?” Willow asked in obvious disbelief.
“Sure,” Buffy replied, “in the Fantasy Island version of my life. In reality, our undead friends were out in full force, and I broke the last two nails I had dusting some newbie named Brower. He wasn’t all that strong, but he was fast.”
“Oh,” Willow said sadly. “Conrad Brower?”
“I think so,” Buffy replied, trying to remember the full name on the headstone.
“He was my ophthalmologist,” Willow said.
“You don’t even wear glasses. Why do you need an ophthalmologist?”
“You can’t neglect the health of your eyes,” Willow replied. “Everyone should have their eyes examined at least once a year. And he gave out these yummy butterscotch lollipops with each exam.”
They had almost reached the library, Willow continuing to opine about the dearth of really good butterscotch, when Giles emerged from the double doors that separated his haven from the rest of the school. A vision in tweed, Giles was Buffy’s Watcher, appointed by a council in England to train and mentor the Slayer.
“Ah, good morning, Buffy, Willow,” Giles said cordially.
“Hi, Giles,” Willow said cheerfully.
“I’m so glad to have run into you before class,” Giles continued.
“Cut to the chase, Giles,” Buffy replied warily. “
Who’s trying to destroy the world this week?”
“Oh, no one, actually,” Giles said evenly.
“Really?” Buffy asked, a faint note of hope creeping into her voice.
“Yes,” Giles continued. “All is quiet on the Hellmouth. At least, for the moment.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Buffy said. “Maybe I’ll actually make it to a few classes today.”
“Indeed,” Giles replied. “Though there was one rather disturbing disappearance reported in the weekend papers.”
“I knew it was too good to last,” Buffy countered.
“It’s probably not demon-related, though of course one never knows,” Giles went on. “An eight-year-old girl, Callie McKay, was reported missing from the park. Her parents are quite beside themselves with worry.”
“And upsetting as that is,” Buffy retorted, “unless she was kidnapped by a demon, it’s not my responsibility, right? I mean, the Sunnydale police force does get to solve a crime once in a while, don’t they?”
“Of course, such as they are,” Giles replied.
“Good,” Buffy finished. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a chemistry quiz to fail.”
As Willow was required to be home immediately after school that day, and Xander, Buffy’s other best friend, was doing his best to make her want to take her own life by openly reveling in his new relationship with their frenemy Cordelia, Buffy actually arrived home from school rather early for a change. She was first shocked, then dismayed, when she popped into the kitchen to make a quick snack and found her mother seated at the counter, her face etched with worry and her foot shaking up and down expectantly.
“Hey, Mom,” Buffy said cautiously, wondering why at-will invisibility wasn’t one of her Slayer powers. Joyce Summers ran a local art gallery, and there were very few things that would bring the concerned small-business owner home before dinnertime. “Shouldn’t you be gallery girl, or art girl, right now?” Buffy asked, opening the fridge.
“I should,” Joyce replied. “Instead, I had a daughter.”
Uh-oh, Buffy thought.
“Principal Snyder called me at work today,” Joyce said ponderously.
“I didn’t steal his shoe,” Buffy said quickly.
“What?” Joyce asked.
“Never mind,” Buffy replied. “What did he want?”
“He wanted to make sure I was aware that your finals are coming up.”
“Has there been a rash of calendar thefts?” Buffy asked. “School ends in, like, three weeks. Who doesn’t know that finals are coming up?”
“He also wanted to make sure that I was aware that you are currently barely scraping up passing grades in history and English lit, and are actually failing chemistry. Apparently, unless you perform at a level that he is fairly certain is unattainable for you, you will not be spending your senior year at Sunnydale High. You’ll be repeating your junior year at another school.”
This was hardly a new theme in the Summers house. Buffy’s grades had never been the best, but they had certainly been good enough to avoid parental scrutiny—until she had been called to slay vampires. The cold, hard reality was that saving the world often cut into valuable study time, and though Buffy did her best at school, in the last couple of years her best had become seriously underwhelming in the grade department. Since Joyce was unaware of her daughter’s status as the Chosen One, Buffy couldn’t actually make her understand that the fact that she attended school at all was cause for celebration. Sighing deeply, Buffy put on her bravest face and said, “Not to worry, Mom. Willow and I are on the study wagon. My chemistry exam is more than half of my final grade, and I’m already doing practice essays for English.”
Shaking her head, Joyce replied, “You and Willow do nothing but ‘study.’ All hours of the day and night you are always at the library or with Willow, supposedly studying.”
This was as far from the truth as it was possible to get, but Buffy was unfortunately unable to share with Joyce the reality that “study time” had become the convenient parental code word for fighting vampires and demons. Any time spent in the school library was either about honing her slaying skills with Giles or reading up in some dusty tome about whoever or whatever had just rolled into town determined to permanently remove the sun from Sunnydale. Buffy rued the fact that she would never be tested on the history of ancient vampires, the mating habits of giant praying mantises, or the hatching cycles of Bezor demons. Those exams Buffy had aced, though they would never appear on her transcript or help her GPA.
As Buffy reveled in the unfairness of it all, Joyce continued: “Principal Snyder tells me you’ve been placed in a special category of academic probation.”
“Principal Snyder hates me,” Buffy said truthfully.
“Be that as it may, your record has been brought before the school board, and they’ve recommended a special tutor for you.”
“But, Mom!” Buffy whined.
“You’ll meet with him four times a week until finals,” Joyce finished, giving no ground for argument.
“Starting when?” Buffy asked, clearly dismayed.
“Tonight,” Joyce replied firmly.
Buffy had already planned a night at the Bronze, followed by a sweep of two of the local cemeteries for the evening’s festivities, but it was clear from her mother’s face that her foot was firmly in the down position. One of the things that made Buffy’s life bearable was her mother’s seemingly endless capacity to make allowances for the strange things that surrounded her daughter without asking too many questions. The parenting manuals that had occupied most of Joyce’s bookshelves since her daughter had been expelled from her previous high school for burning down the school gymnasium (it had been filled with vampires at the time) all told her that teenagers needed space as well as understanding, and Joyce had given Buffy more than enough of both. But Buffy knew that her mother could only be pushed so far. Deciding that “dutiful daughter” was the card to play here, Buffy acquiesced, saying only, “Tonight. Perfect. Thanks, Mom.”
Two hours and several desperate but fruitless phone calls to Willow, Xander, and Giles later, Buffy heard the doorbell ring and with a heavy heart and leaden feet made her way to the staircase landing to meet her doom.
She was totally unprepared for the sight of her tutor, a boy who couldn’t have been more than twenty, with casually disheveled brown hair and truly striking green eyes.
“Good evening, Ms. Summers,” he said, politely shaking her mother’s hand as he entered the front hall. “I’m Todd Harter. I’m here to work with Buffy.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Todd,” Joyce was saying calmly as Buffy found herself wondering who in the world had just sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had had such a visceral reaction to the cuteness of a boy. Actually, she could. It had taken place a year and a half earlier, the night Angel had walked into her life with his brooding good looks, cryptic warnings, and his first gift to her, a silver crucifix she now had a hard time wearing without regret.
Thankfully, the minute she connected the feeling she was currently experiencing with Angel, it lost some of its potency. There had never been a love that had come with a higher price tag than hers and Angel’s, and Buffy had decided weeks ago that the words “Never Again” were going to be etched on her tombstone.
It was just hard to keep that in mind as Todd walked calmly up the stairs and, reaching out his hand with a genuine and perfect smile, said, “I sure hope you’re Buffy.”
Spike was debating a night on the town with his beloved Dru—Where the hell is she, by the way?—when the front door of the mansion was thrown open and Angelus swept in, unceremoniously dropped a frail-looking man at Spike’s wheels, and said casually, “I thought you might like some leftovers for dinner.”
Cringing at the overwhelming rankness wafting from the body of the man lying prostrate before him, Spike swallowed the nauseating bile that had started to boil within him a
lmost every time Angelus spoke and quipped, “What, the streets of Sunnyhell were all out of anemics tonight?”
“Buggers can’t be choosers,” Angelus tossed over his shoulder as he disappeared into the mansion’s courtyard.
Spike knew full well that Angelus’s apparent largesse was nothing more than a backhanded reminder that Spike hadn’t been at full strength for months. He had been severely injured in a church fire during one of many perfect plans the Slayer had turned to crap. A ceremony meant to kill the old soul-filled Angel and cure Drusilla of her illness had ended in flames and near death. Difficult as it was to believe, he and Angelus were now at even more deeply entrenched cross-purposes than when Angel was doing time as the Slayer’s lapdog. Back in the days when Angelus, Darla, Spike, and Dru had cut a fearsome and bloody swath through most of Europe and Asia, Spike would never have guessed that a friendship such as theirs, forged in blood, could have come to this. But Angelus had changed. Or maybe Spike had. Either way, his old friend was now a wanker of the worst sort, and Spike only longed to be rid of him.
Still, dinner was dinner. Nudging the still form at his feet with the tip of his boot, Spike rolled the man over and was rewarded by a hefty stench of sweat and Thunderbird for his trouble. Not if you were the last meal on legs, Spike decided, realizing that Angelus hadn’t fed off the vagrant either, probably for the same reasons that had turned Spike’s stomach. Whatever blood was left in the man was so poisoned by years of deprivation and a diet of cheap wine that Spike would have tasted it for weeks. At this point, he wasn’t even sure if setting the man on fire right then and there would be enough to get the stench out of the carpet.
These bleak thoughts were quickly dispelled by a gentle sound coming from the direction of the front door.
“The stars and the moon, the dark and the gloom,” Drusilla was singing softly as she made her way up the front walk. Though Spike didn’t like to think of Dru and Angelus hunting together—Hell, I don’t like to think of the two of them watching the telly together—at least the light of his life was finally home. Spike allowed his mind to drift to thoughts of the painful and satisfying games they would play once they had retired to the master bedroom at sunrise.