Who's That Girl?

by Lynn Luther

AU. What if there was a fourth Scooby? What if she'd been there all along? How would the Buffyverse be different? And how would it be the same?

Who's That Girl?

An AU Buffy Story by Lynn Luther

Author's Note: I don't normally do lengthy explanations as to why I write my stories. If you're here, and you're reading, then hell, the story should speak for itself, right?

But in this case, I need to give you a bit of background on me. You'll see why in a moment.

In the years 1998 - 2003, I was fortunate enough to be working as a background actor in beautiful Hollywood, California. For those of you unaware, a background actor is an extra. All those people you see in the background of your favorite teevee shows? Yeah, that was me and about 20,000 other people, give or take a few.

I was also fortunate enough to have worked on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, circa seasons 2 and 3. I wasn't what you'd call a regular extra, but I did manage to get onto that set about once or twice a month. I liked it there. The cast and crew were all very professional (read: didn't have time to chat with extras) and the setups were always fun. (Like in the episode "The Wish," where they grubbed me out and put me in a cage for The Master's eventual consumption. Wooo.)

So the story you're about to read, while thoroughly AU, is actually based in canon.

This story is about my character from Buffy, raised from a background role and put into the spotlight.

Mary Sue? Undoubtedly. Silly as hell? Of course. But also very, very Buffy. Which is what it's all about, when you come right down to it.

Of course, I'm probably going to miss a whole lot of little details in here. I'm a fan of the show, but... how to put this without offending anybody...? I don't live and breathe it. And remember: AU. Alternate Universe, so don't email me with cries of, "But that's not how it really happened!!!!"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is owned by Mutant Enemy Productions, 20th Century Fox and Universal Distribution. No copyright infringement is intended, nor is any money being made off this story.

Also, a big old shout out to Television Without Pity. Without their individual brand of snarky plot write ups, I'd be adrift when it came to this story. And another big thank you to Zyrya, who complimented me highly on my last Buffy piece, and much love for her total awesomeness in general.

Enjoy.

"Welcome to Sunnydale, population XXXXXXXXX!"

Sixteen year old Elizabeth Petty stared out the grimy back window of her brother's station wagon. The brief glimpse of the sign welcoming her to her new home was blurry, as are all signs seen from 60 miles an hour. She wasn't entirely sure, but it did honestly appear as if the population number had been repeatedly crossed out and rewritten hastily.

Bad sign. No cookie.

Elizabeth's mouth really hurt. The bands had just been tightened on her braces two days ago, and she'd been stupid enough to try eating in the intervening time. It wasn't enough for her teeth to hurt. No, the entire interior cheek region was rubbed raw, promising really nasty new areas of pain if she ate anything with any sort of flavor to it. Or anything at all, come to think of it.

Would it be so hard to have orthodontics that didn't turn her into a pain-filled balloon head? Or, better yet, just live with crooked teeth? The British managed just fine. Crooked-Teeth Petty. She could be a blues musician.

"How you doing back there, Betty?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Craig, jeez, don't call me that anymore. I'm going by Elizabeth now."

Craig glanced over his shoulder at his younger sister, who was wedged on the far right side of the back seat, a pile of laundry baskets threatening to tilt over on her. He raised an eyebrow and turned his attention back to the road. "Ok, Elizabeth!" he responded, putting on a fake snooty accent when he said her name. "You doing ok back there, Elizabeth? You need to make a potty stop, Elizabeth? Fancy a quick game of croquet, Elizabeth?"

"Shut up, Craig."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Elizabeth! Are we not amused?"

"Bite me."

"No ma'am. Not while I'm driving. But if you ask me real nice later, I might just oblige."

Elizabeth stuck her tongue out at the back of her brother's head. "Ok, then, YOU go by Betty Petty for your formative years and see how you like it."

Craig smirked. "Yeah, what the hell were mom and dad thinking?"

It wasn't until after a good thirty seconds of silence that Craig spoke up again. "I'm sorry, Bets. I shouldn't have..."

"I really miss them, Craig."

"Me too, Bets. Me too."

After another three miles of awkward silence, Craig reached over and snapped on the radio. "I wonder what sort of music they get out here in BFS?" BFS. Bum-fuck Sunnydale. That had been Elizabeth's first response on Craig's notification that they were moving there. After he'd threatened to ground her for her foul language, they'd used the shortened version between them, to refer to the dreaded move.

It had all started when Craig had gotten an offer to head up the ROTC unit on the USC Sunnydale campus. Craig's commanding officer, aware of his family situation, had arranged it, and Craig had decided not to turn it down. Elizabeth had finished the semester at her school in San Diego, and then they had packed their bags and gone.

Living on the Naval Base with Craig had been a... decidedly strange lifestyle. Navy Brats were all well and good, in their place, but Elizabeth had an instinct that they were well out of her social circle. Her social circle of one. Oh, she'd had acquaintances, even good, close ones, but none on the base. She secretly wished that she would've been invited to join the in-crowd, just once, but it had never happened. Most teenage dependents on the base were the children of career officers, while she was the sister of a lowly NCO. And within that social construct, there were certain things that just Weren't Done.

Of course, considering the events of the last two years of her life, Elizabeth was not at all surprised that she wasn't, "fitting in with the class," as her old history teacher put it.

Bitch.

No, she was glad that she and her brother were going to be living in a real apartment, not on a base, away from the tedious drilling of military life. She was sick and freaking tired of reveille at 4:30 in the freaking morning. She wanted a normal life, with normal waking times and normal meals served on normal plates.

She missed her daddy and mommy.

She took a deep breath, and tried not to think about how much her mouth was hurting. That was another fun thing to look forward to. New orthodontist. With the pulling and the twisting and the poking. Oh hurrah.

The town of Sunnydale finally came into view, down in a shallow valley. Elizabeth was used to the Spanish style of architecture, having grown up in San Diego, but there were some really excellent examples of older building out this way. Missions converted into strip malls, adobe all over, hidden by renovations of stucco and plastic tiles. She briefly forgot about the pain in her mouth and dug her sketchbook out of the backpack at her feet. Flipping through the pages briefly, she saw a sketch of a processing plant, a doodle of a private home, a beautifully rendered drawing of a skyscraper. She flipped to an empty page and started drawing the building they'd just passed, from a brief glance. It was a large... well, castle was really the only word for it. Regardless that it had been the orange-pink of stucco, it was beautiful.

She hoped that all the buildings in town were like that one. She'd never be done drawing. For the first time in two months, she felt a brief glimmer of hope. Maybe it wouldn't be that horrible here after all.

Buried in her drawings like that, she missed the last few miles of their journey, looking up only when the car pulled to a stop and Craig shut off the engine.

"Honey, we're home."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes again. Oh, why oh why did she have to live with a walking, talking cheeseball? A cheeseball with access to semiautomatic weapons, at that? She quickly stuffed her sketchbook back into her backpack and shoved the car door open, listening to her knees complain the whole way. "Ow ow ow darn it ow."

"Why do you insist on sitting in the back? The front seat isn't defective or anything, you know," said Craig as he swung himself out of the car.

"You know I get carsick when I ride in the front, Craig."

Craig opened the back door opposite her. "So what are you going to do when you get your driver's license?"

"I'm never getting my license. I'll just have you chauffeur me around for the rest of your natural."

"Riiiiiiight," sniped Craig, swinging out a bag. "I'll run that by my CO, then?" He dropped the bag and threw a mock salute. "Sir! Sorry, sir, I can't attend excersizes today because my snotty little sister needs a ride to the mall, sir!"

"Stuff it, Jarhead."

"How many times, Bets? Jarheads are Marines! I'm in the Navy! I'm a Swabby!"

"Whatever, Swimmy." This was standard operating procedure, and it felt good to bring a little bit of their bickering into this strange place. Elizabeth grabbed her backpack, then a smallish box from the trunk. It was labeled "Simon's Draw-rings," after a silly sketch from Saturday Night Live. It contained a few of her sketchbooks, her watercolors, oils, and her brushes. The rest of her supplies were on the truck behind them. Speaking of... "Any ETA on the truck, Craig?"

"I've been given a time of, 'Later. Ish.'"

"We aren't sleeping on the floor again, are we?"

"Well, if so, I brought along your old air mattress. I've even fixed the leaks. So you're guaranteed a soft place to slumber, Elizabeth."

"So dead. So very, very dead."

She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and punched her brother lightly in the shoulder. He smirked at her, punched back, and then led the way to the duplex.

Elizabeth got her first look at their new home, and wasn't sure if she was thrilled or appalled. Thrilled because hello no more living on base. Appalled because oh my God prefab.

It wasn't all that bad, actually, she thought as she followed Craig through the front door. There was no puke green shag carpet, no lemon yellow walls, like their last apartment. Instead, it was all soft beiges and browns and whites, with track lighting and an actual fire place. The kitchen was considerably larger than she'd been expecting, and the upstairs portion was laid out in a (ok sort of) logical way. She unconsciously measured the whole place, square foot-wise, rearranged the spaces in her head, and decided that, while it wasn't the Taj Mahal, it was a damn sight better than base living.

Craig caught her eyeballing the place. "Does it measure up, Ms. Frank Lloyd Wright?"

"Hey, just because I decided my future while you handed yours off to the government..."

"That government is feeding your face, missy." Craig looked annoyed, as he always did whenever she chose to snipe at his career. "And I'll thank you not to give me grief about it. If I hadn't been in the Navy when Mom and Dad died..."

Elizabeth dropped her box, turned to her brother. "I know, I know, I'd be in a foster home with a bunch of reprobates and you'd be fighting in court to get me back and we've only had this conversation about a billion times so shut up about it, ok?"

She fled upstairs, anxious to get away from her brother and her memories.

Her new room was a simple square, bare and echoing. She slammed the door, pushed the backpack off her shoulder and slid down the far wall, trying not to cry.

When she'd gotten the news at school, two years ago, she'd not believed it at first. It wasn't true. Not MY parents. They've gotten me confused with somebody else. It was a big misunderstanding, and she felt really sorry for whoever the news was really for. In just a couple of hours, her mom would be by to pick her up from school and then they were going to Target. Her parents couldn't be dead! It was just silly.

But the principal sat her down and hugged her a lot and asked if she wanted to talk to a grief counselor and it hit her. They were serious. Her parents were dead, killed in a stupid car accident.

She wasn't allowed to go home for several days. First she'd been taken to a hotel, and slept there for one night. Then the social workers took her to a wayward home, and she hated every second of it. She did go home once, to get clean clothes for school. She was so shaken by it that she'd needed sedation. Meanwhile, the social workers had tracked down her older-by-ten-years brother, Craig, who was serving on a ship somewhere out in the Pacific. It took another two weeks of red tape and military double talk for him to get leave, and then a month of court wrangling and will reading and probate hearings and once she'd run away, but they caught her and put her in lock down. Because of that stupid stunt, it took yet another month to convince the family court that she'd stay with her brother and be a good girl.

And so they let her, and her life changed forever but remained much the same. She still attended the same school, and still drew endlessly, but now her friends stared at her and whispered things when they thought she couldn't hear. She lived in a stinking little apartment on a stinking Naval base, instead of her parent's beautiful house, which had been sold to pay for their funeral. Her brother, who had the Navy to look out for him, adjusted to life on base instead of on ship. Wasn't that much of a change for him, really.

And then, indignity of indignity, she was told they were moving. She supposed that the officer who'd arranged this new job for Craig had thought he was doing them a favor.

But all she could think about was the fact that her mommy and daddy were being left behind like last week's trash, and it killed her.

She was really crying when Craig came and knocked on her door. She knew he wouldn't do anything about it, like how mom used to hug her and tell stupid jokes. No, Craig would just stand there, being all macho and manly, and not do a damn thing but look embarrassed. Like he is right now. Jerk. It was an uncharitable thought, Elizabeth knew that, but there was only so much she could stand. This was it.

"Bets? C'mon, the truck's here. Let's get unpacked."

Elizabeth stood up, shook her head and took a deep ragged breath. "Craig, I'm not feeling well. My teeth hurt." Not what was really wrong, but it beat the hell out of the truth.

"I know, kiddo. There's some aspirin down in my bag. We really do have to get going."

He left, and Elizabeth cried just a little bit more, then straightened up and went downstairs. Tonight, she would use the hell out of her drawing pad, that was for damn sure.



The first day of school. Every kid's nightmare. New school, new town, don't know anybody, sure to be dressed entirely wrong.

Although it did appear as if almost everybody was dressed entirely wrong, and for that Elizabeth took some small comfort. Her shoulder length dirty blonde hair was not in the latest style, but neither did it scream, "NERD ALERT!" She'd borrowed her brother's old fatigues, the tee-shirt most of all, and thrown a very feminine black sweater, with a sergeant's chevrons on the left breast, over top. Added to the cute little cut-off denim shorts, her fatigue-patterned tights and her Doc Martins, well... She felt pretty spiffy. All of it even fit her right, flattering her curves... well, call a spade a spade. Her big ass. She'd seen a few of the cooler kids on base wearing clothes like this, and had copied the style. She liked it, in a perverse way. The only thing wrong that she could see was that her glasses were too round. All the glasses she saw on faces were square. Have to get new frames, soon.

She didn't notice the stares, at first. But she couldn't help but notice it when a senior boy, and a very good looking one at that, caught her eye. He was wearing a letterman's jacket, and was surrounded by more boys wearing the same. He wiggled his eyebrows at her, elbowed one of his buddies, then shouted, loud enough to silence the whole hall, "ATTEN! HUT!" and threw a grotesque parody of a salute. The boys around him did the same, and then they all began howling with laughter.

In fact, everybody around was laughing. Elizabeth felt her face grow hot, and glanced around, hoping for at least one friendly face, but not a one was to be found. So she ran headlong down the hall, pursued by cries of, "C'mon, Admiral! Drop and give us 50!" And even worse, "Give her a break, she doesn't look like she could do 10 with that ass!"

Those bastards! If she were back on base, she'd have popped them one right in the... Then she realized that she was thinking longingly of life back on the base and winced. She pushed her way into the nearest girl's room and took a deep breath. She wasn't going to cry, she wasn't going to cry, she wasn't going...

Somebody was crying.

In the stall furthest from her, she could see feet, toes pointed in, hovering near the door. None of the other stalls were occupied.

"Hey, you ok?" she asked at random, knowing that she sounded like an idiot.

There was a brief sniffle, and then the crying stopped. A faint voice said, "As well as can be expected, I suppose." The stall door opened and a cute little redhead walked out. She was about as tall as Elizabeth, and dressed in clothes that Elizabeth wouldn't touch with a well greased ten foot pole. They didn't suit this girl at all, poor thing. But other than the distracting clothing, the girl was quite cute, in a plain and wholesome kind of way.

"They being shitheads to you too?"

The girl looked briefly shocked at Elizabeth's choice of language, then smiled faintly. "I guess I should be used to it by now. It's been 10 years. You'd think I'd be all empowered by now, wouldn't you? But here I am, still un-empowered. Totally without the empoweredness. A non-empowered zone, that's me."

Elizabeth quirked her lips in a sideways smile. The slang here was very different than what she was used to. "Well, 'Nil illegitimi carborundum est,' after all." She placed a bet with herself that this girl would know Latin.

"Oh, I know, but it's hard when the illegitimi are standing over me with big, heavy, figurative rocks, you know?"

Elizabeth won her bet.

"I'm Elizabeth Petty."

"Willow Rosenberg." Willow ran a hand across her eyes. "You new here?"

"Yeah. Just moved a month ago. Still don't know where anything is, like the movie theater or the mall or my social life."

"The movie theater is over on the corner of... oh, you were making a point. I get that now."

Elizabeth grinned again. "Do you know where Mr. Bing's homeroom is?"

The redhead's face lit up. "Yeah, I sure do, I'm going there myself. It's not the best class of the day, but it's the shortest. Of course, I'm all about the classes, but my mom says that I should meet more boys. My mom's crazy. What about your mom? Is she cool?"

Elizabeth was just getting used to Willow's odd meandering conversation when this bombshell was dropped. Elizabeth took a deep breath and answered quietly, "My parents are dead."

Willow's jaw dropped and her eyes got very big. "Oh. I'm sorry. I can't imagine what that must be like. That must really suck, oh my God shut up Willow!" She said this last to herself and pulled a sour face.

Elizabeth couldn't help her smile. "It's ok. How would you know? Unless you're psychic or something." Elizabeth paused here. "You're not, are you?"

"Me? Oh no. Although my mom insists that she can see auras."

"Huh. Is that, like, seeing UFOs or something?"

"No idea. Although aliens seem right up her alley, kookiness-factor wise." Willow stopped, put her hand on the bathroom door. "Are we ready to face the world again?"

"Well, if not, then nil illegitimi et cetera ditto ditto."

Willow pushed the door open, peeked out. "Coast is clear. If we jog, we'll make it before the bell..."

As if to prove Willow wrong, the bell rang sharply and loudly just at that moment.

"Oops. Um, forget jogging?" asked Willow.

"Haul ass?" suggested Elizabeth.

Willow nodded quickly, and the two girls burst from the bathroom and ran helter skelter down the hall.



"Will, you're late! A first!"

"I know, but I was trapped in the bathroom and made a new friend! Xander, this is Elizabeth. She just moved to Sunnydale."

Willow was whispering at the boy sitting on the other side of her, Elizabeth having taken a seat just to the redhead's right. Elizabeth leaned forward, nodded across Willow at the boy. The homeroom teacher had looked up, annoyed at their late entrance, but had said nothing, and continued writing in a notebook. The class was buzzing with whispers, old friends reuniting, new friends being made. Xander leaned across Willow and grinned at Elizabeth.

"Are you the one they were calling 'Admiral' in the hall?"

Elizabeth shot Xander a deadpan glare. "Call me Admiral, get a Dixon-Ticonderoga number two up the nose."

"Ooh, sassy. I like her already, Will."

"Thanks, I think," said Elizabeth, shaking her head. Xander was kinda cute, in a doofy, hangdog puppy kind of way. She could also tell instantly that Willow really liked him. Xander seemed totally oblivious. She made a mental note to not even flirt lightly with Xander ever, if she wanted to keep Willow as a friend. And Willow, quiet and shy as she was, seemed like she would be a good friend.

"So are you always Elizabeth, or do you go by a short nickname too?" asked Willow. Elizabeth was about to answer in the negative, (no more Betty! No more!) when the teacher stood up and cleared his throat. The class quieted down after a moment longer, and the teacher pointed at his name, which was scrawled across the blackboard.

"I'm Mr. Bing, your homeroom teacher. For those of you who've never had homeroom before, this is what we do here: Not a thing. You'll sit quietly, you'll read, and I'll make sure that you showed up. On time," he added, throwing a pointed look at Willow and Elizabeth. Willow blushed and sank down in her chair. Elizabeth just raised an eyebrow. Mr. Bing turned to his desk, picked up his roster. "When I call your name, say 'here.' No smart alec quips please. I don't have the patience or the sense of humor to deal with all of you being clever."

Xander leaned over and whispered at the two girls, "Gee, bitter much?"

"You will also keep your opinions of my attitude to yourself, young man. And no talking in this class." Mr. Bing addressed this to Xander, who looked embarrassed and also sunk down in his chair.

Mr. Bing picked up his class list, began reading. Elizabeth tuned him out, started fidgeting with her pencil, doodling a cube without the use of cheating perspective lines on her notebook cover. Willow was sitting perfectly straight, eyes forward, trying to look attentive. Xander was staring at the clock, making little ticking noises in the back of his throat.

That was when the door burst open, admitting a third late student. She was a few inches taller than Elizabeth, considerably skinnier, and had long blonde hair and cute little turned up nose. She was dressed in clothes that Elizabeth would kill to wear, but could never afford, or fit into. The girl seemed totally lost, and out of breath, and was balancing several books precariously in her arms. She trotted quickly up the aisle right next to Elizabeth, heading for an empty seat.

Her foot caught on a misplaced chair leg and she tripped, falling headlong down the aisle, books flying from her arms, bag swinging around off her shoulder. Elizabeth reached out and tried to check the poor girl's fall, but all she got for her trouble was a backpack full of heavy school books right in the back of her head. She and the new girl fell on the floor in a tangle of limbs.

"Um. Ow!" said Elizabeth, blinking rapidly to clear the black spots swimming across her vision. Maybe it was the head injury playing tricks on her, but Elizabeth could swear that she saw a long, very pointy, wooden stake poking up obliquely through the top of the other girl's bag.

Elizabeth decided that she must be seeing things. I mean, really, who carried around a sharp wooden stake? A klutz with a vampire fetish, perhaps?

"Oh my God, I am so sorry! I am going to die, right now."

The class was in an uproar. Most were laughing hysterically, Willow and Xander had jumped up and were helping the two girls up, Xander even picking up the spilled books as he went. Elizabeth and the new girl regained their feet at the same time. Xander handed the new girl her books, and got a very strange expression on his face. He hastily sat back down, staring at the new girl as he went. Willow also took her seat, giving an odd, sideways glance at Xander.

"Are you ok?" asked the new girl of Elizabeth.

"Hard head. Made of reinforced titanium. I'll live."

"Oh good. I'd hate to have given you a concussion on our first day. I usually save that for at least three weeks into the semester."

Elizabeth smirked through her headache. She liked this girl, klutz though she was.

"Please! Sit down! Quiet, all of you!" Mr. Bing was yelling over the pandemonium, and then began slamming his class roster against the desktop. "SHUT UP!" he roared. Silence. Elizabeth and the new girl were the only ones standing now. Singled out, yet again, Elizabeth sighed to herself. Super. Fantastico.

"Are you both uninjured?" Elizabeth nodded, so did the other girl. "Then sit down. And, Miss...?"

This was addressed to the other girl. "Summers. Buffy Summers." This got a bit of a giggle from a few of the cattier girls. Elizabeth suddenly didn't feel quite so bad about being named Betty. Although that wasn't her name anymore. No SIR!

The teacher ignored the sniggers. "Sit down. And don't be late again." He looked back down at his roster when Buffy interrupted him.

"I was in the principal's office. I have a note..."

Mr. Bing looked back up, and glared at her. "I don't care if you were with the president of Burundi. Sit down." Buffy sat down quickly in the seat just in front of Elizabeth, and Mr. Bing continued roll call.

"Cordelia Chase?"

"Here," sighed a tall brunette girl near the back corner of the class, sounding extremely put-upon and bored. That was where most of the giggles had come from when Buffy had introduced herself. Elizabeth sneered. Probably a stuck up snob, although with an overblown name like Cordelia the girl had no room to talk.

"Alexander Harris?"

"Here," answered Xander absently, his eyes still firmly fixed on the back of Buffy's head.

The names went on for a few moments longer, reached the "P's."

Elizabeth brought herself to attention, ready to answer when asked. Here it was, the moment she'd finally like her name. But she was not at all ready for what came out of Mr. Bing's mouth. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he asked the question that would haunt her the rest of her high school career.

"Betty Petty?"

What the snotty group in the back of the class had done to Buffy was nothing compared to what they did now. They laughed out loud, a few even repeating the name incredulously, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes.

Elizabeth grimaced, closed her eyes.

"Betty Petty? Is Betty Petty here?"

Oh God, let the earth just open up right beneath me and swallow me whole, thought Elizabeth. The registrar's office hadn't put in her name change like she'd wanted. The name, the dreaded name, followed her even here, to BFS.

"Last call before being marked absent. Betty Petty?"

Elizabeth opened her eyes, decided to go out with a bang. She raised her hand up as high as she could, and said in a loud voice, "Here!"

Mr. Bing looked annoyed. "Then why didn't you answer the first time?"

"Because my name is Elizabeth!" Might as well try to salvage some dignity out of this mess.

"It says right here, 'Betty.' Now, Miss Petty, kindly pay attention."

"Yeah, Betty Petty. Pay attention!" sniped some wit quietly from the far snot corner.

Maybe if she moved to Botswana, nobody would care that she had such a ridiculous name. She put her head down sharply on the desk and began banging lightly. Her headache increased enormously, but what was a little physical pain compared with social humiliation?

When roll call was finally over, Betty (Betty! Oh God, no!) stopped banging and glanced over at Willow. Willow was grimacing, eyeing her with concern. Betty pulled a "What can you do?" face, rested her chin in her hands.

The rest of homeroom was an eternity in hell. Forty whole minutes of people repeating her name over and over and over again, loud enough so she could hear it, quiet enough to let the teacher overlook it. The final straw came when a doodle was dropped at her feet by one of the snotty girls in the back, passing Betty on the way to the pencil sharpener. It was a crude drawing of a fat girl in full Army uniform, with a donut in one hand and what appeared to be a hamburger in the other, stuffing her face. The caption read, "Admiral Betty Petty goes on shore leave." Aside from the insulting content, Betty was most annoyed at the crap drawing skills of whoever had completed this masterpiece. She tried her best to ignore it, but when another snot walked by her and hit her deliberately on the back of her head with a very pointy elbow... well. Her headache, already threatening to tear her head apart, exploded into a whole new world of pain.

When the bell rang to announce that they were finally free, Betty grabbed her bag and dashed from the classroom, tears threatening to spill from her eyes for the second time in an hour. She ran out the back door of the school, done. She was going home. She would transfer to another school. She would tell her brother that she'd happily go back and live on the base again if only he'd get her the hell out of here!

She made it about halfway through the quad when she ran headlong into a tall man dressed entirely in tweed, with a long, serious face obscured by horn rim glasses. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder, to keep them both from falling ass over teacup.

"I say, do be careful, young lady," said the man soothingly, adjusting his glasses.

"Sorry," muttered Betty. She ran a hand under her glasses, smudging her make up, upset that she'd been caught crying, and by a teacher no less.

"Oh dear. Are you quite all right?" He looked supremely uncomfortable, as if dealing with a teenage girl's tears wasn't something he'd prepared himself for.

Betty rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm just fine, I cry like a goon when I'm full of puppies and daffodils." She suddenly didn't care that she was mouthing off to a teacher; she wasn't ever coming back, after all.

The teacher raised his eyebrows, forced down a quick smirk. "Well, I would show you to your next class, but I seem to be at a bit of a loss myself. Could you point me to the library, please?"

Oh great. He wasn't a teacher, he was some random stranger wandering the campus. And with that accent he was probably a freaky old pederast.

"Can't. Don't know. Have a nice life." Betty turned and started away again, when she heard Willow call out behind her.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth, wait up!"

Betty stopped, thanking all the small gods that Willow at least called her by the right name. Willow dashed up, with Xander and that Buffy girl close behind. Willow took a few deep panting breaths, started talking a mile a minute. "I'm so glad I caught you. Man, you sure can move fast! I've never seen anybody run as fast as you did getting out of that classroom. Are you like some marathon sprinter girl or what?"

Betty frowned. "With this butt on me? Are you serious, Willow?"

"Oh, c'mon," interjected Xander. "Sir Mix-a-Lot likes them like that! And he's a famous rapper!"

Willow turned on Xander, slapped him in the shoulder. "So not with the helping, Xander. So very not with the helping."

Buffy spoke up for the first time, "And hey, I didn't really get a chance to apologize to you for wailing on your head, uh... Elizabeth?"

Betty turned to her new friends. "It's ok, you guys. It was pointless for me to even try to switch names. Betty I was and Betty I shall be forever and ever so let's change the subject?"

"You could go by Liz?" suggested Willow. "Liz is nice. Or Beth! Beth Petty sounds like an acoustic guitar player in an all girl band!"

Betty shook her head. "I have a cousin named Beth. She's a bitch."

"So do I!" said Buffy. "And so is mine! Weird how that is, isn't it?"

"Yeah, what is it with girls named Beth?"

"And Amber! I've never met a nice Amber," said Willow. The four friends moved back to the school, just as the bell rang again. They raced back into the building, watched the whole way by Rupert Giles, new school librarian and member of the Watcher's Council. He was, in particular, watching Buffy, with a perplexed and somewhat disgruntled look on his face.

"Oh dear."



"What?"

"I said, 'Do you like it here?'"

"Here where?"

"Here! Sunnydale, the Bronze, the earth as a whole!"

"Oh, it's ok. The earth can take a flying leap, but this isn't too bad." And with that, Buffy began eyeing the room again.

Betty and Buffy were sitting on an overstuffed sofa in the only club in BFS, the Bronze. The music was so loud as to cause spontaneous ear drum explosions, but Betty tried to keep up a conversation anyway. Buffy seemed entirely distracted, kept scanning the room for something, or someone, in particular. Betty knew it was a losing fight, but kept trying anyway. She and Buffy and Willow had had a nice talk earlier in the evening about seizing moments and carpe diem-ing and striking while the night was young, or something like that. Willow had gotten very quiet, then had excused herself to go fetch a drink, and had still not returned.

Betty rolled her eyes. Willow was obviously thinking about Xander. Buffy had said, "You get the impression that she likes Xander?" and Betty had answered, "Impression? If that's an impression, I don't want to see the actual thing." After a quick conversation on the relative merits of San Diego versus Los Angeles, Buffy had lapsed back into silence, leaving Betty feeling, once again, the odd man out. Jesse, Xander and Willow's other friend, swung by for a moment, intent on chatting up Buffy, but when Buffy ignored him entirely, he moved on.

Betty began to wonder why not one single boy had tried to put the moves on her yet. Then she remembered her size fifteen bottom and took another swig of her diet coke.

That was when the creepy old pederast from the school had shown up. Betty got a totally unhealthy vibe from this chap, and hoped he didn't remember her. But, sure enough, he made a beeline right for their sofa.

Betty elbowed Buffy in the ribs. "Look, it's that crusty old fart from school. What's he doing here?"

Buffy looked up, and her eyes got very wide. She bounded to her feet instantly and dashed toward the man. They headed for a darksome corner, and had a very heated quiet conversation.

Ew. Betty hoped that she was drawing entirely the wrong conclusion here.

Ew!

"Oh look, it's Admiral Petty! At ease, Admiral?" Betty looked up, came eye to perfectly mascara-ed eye with Cordelia, the snob with the name like a cruise ship.

"You want something, Cordelia? I can't imagine you want to be seen talking with me," responded Betty, voice dripping sarcasm.

It was lost on the brunette. "You could only wish, Betty Petty. No, you need to vacate the primo couch so I can have the best view of the club."

Betty considered this for a moment, and then asked, "And if I don't?"

Cordelia flounced her hair off her shoulder, "If you don't? Well, let's just say that I have excellent connections to the school paper, and wouldn't it be a shame to have a certain drawing show up in the cartoon page? Scoot off to the buffet now, that's a good girl."

Betty's jaw dropped. In a complete state of shock, she took up her diet coke and walked away, not even able to come up with a retort.

She was half way to the bar when she said to herself, aloud, "How about I break your cute little retrousse nose, you scabid doxie? Damn, that's what I should have said! She wouldn't have known those words, though. Damn!" Betty headed toward the bar, saw the back of Willow's head, felt a moment of relief... then realized that Willow was talking to a good looking young man that she didn't know. And talking quite animatedly.

Good God, even Willow can find dates here! What's so wrong with me? Ok, that was either incredibly egotistical or incredibly cruel, Betty. Get a grip. Betty headed for the back of the club, found the back door. She pushed it open, found herself in a surprisingly well lit alley, surrounded by dumpsters. She loved it. Perfect place to be a naughty girl.

Oh, if Craig smelled this on her tonight, she was a dead girl... but it was needed. So so desperately needed.

One of the nice things about living on the base, she realized retrospectively, was that there were always plenty of ways for underage girls to get their hands on cigarettes. Easiest of which was to find some young private just new to boot camp and give him puppy dog eyes. Here in Sunnydale, eager young privates were a touch thin on the ground. She'd resorted to getting them out of one of the last cigarette vending machines on earth at a laundromat down the street from her house.

She took the battered and nearly empty pack of cigarettes out of her sweater's inner pocket, shook one out, held it to her lips and lit it quickly. She took a deep, steadying pull, and mentally counted the days to her eighteenth birthday, a whole year and nine months away.

She'd managed a few puffs when she heard a voice snarl next to her ear, "Those things'll kill ya, you know..." She hadn't heard anyone approach, and it startled the hell out of her. Betty had time to turn her head sharply, look into the face that the voice had come from, and then it all got a little blurry.

The face belonged to a horribly disfigured man, with scars and ridges all over, especially around the eyebrow area, and disgusting yellow eyes. He grabbed her by the throat, nearly crushing her windpipe, and she couldn't scream. She couldn't breathe. This thing, this monster, this wasn't human! She kicked and struggled, throwing all one-hundred and sixty-five pounds of herself against his arm, but she might as well have tried to knock over the Parthenon with a feather pillow for all the good it did. Its strength was insurmountable, and it was quick to boot.

Then there was a brief, incredibly sharp pain just below her right ear. The thing was biting her! It was ripping open her neck and biting her! That bastard! The combination of pain, blood loss and asphyxia made her vision go dark and dim, and Betty knew suddenly, faintly, that she was going to die.

Time slowed to a trickle as she felt rather than heard the thing clamped to her neck making repulsive sucking noises. Every vein in her body was screaming in agony, as her life was being taken from her. And she wasn't all that bothered by it, now that she'd lost the strength to struggle. She wouldn't have to go back to school tomorrow, and that was a blessing indeed. And she'd maybe get to see her parents again. Not that she was all that big a believer in the afterlife, but secretly she had a small glimmer of hope that all the stories from the bible school of her youth were true.

Then, just as suddenly as the thing had attacked her, it was gone, the pressure of its unearthly hand and its piercing teeth gone from her neck. She took a deep, gasping breath, and her vision flooded back. Sadly, all that she breathed in and all that she saw was the dust and ashes of the grave.

When her vision cleared somewhat, she saw Buffy standing in front of her, stake in hand, covered in the same dust that Betty was inhaling.

Betty sank to her knees, coughing and retching, clutching her throat. She pulled her hand away after a moment, braved a look at it, saw it shimmering with blood.

She leaned over and vomited behind a nearby dumpster.

The whole episode had lasted fifteen seconds.

Buffy put a steadying hand on her shoulder, helped Betty sit back and rest on the stairs to the club. "Are you ok?" she asked, looking alertly around for more... of whatever that thing had been. Excellent. Now, for the pertinent question.

"What in the BLOODY HEMMORAGING FUCK was that thing?" screamed Betty, who was now shaking with the after effects of the attack.

"That was a vampire," answered Buffy calmly, declining to notice Betty's foul language. "Apparently there are a whole lot of them around here. It's happy hour at the Bronze, after all. Have you seen Willow?"

Betty was a bit thrown by this last question. Willow? Who's that? "Um, wait, back up. Vampire? Like, Lestat and Dracula and Nosferatu and you've got to be kidding me? Excuse me." Betty felt dizzy, and vomiting had done wonders for that a moment before. It was so nice in fact that she leaned over and did it again, just to be on the safe side.

When Betty looked up again, Buffy was looking grossed out, yet sympathetic. "What did you eat? Was it the school mystery lunch surprise?"

"What? Who cares what... oh my God, Buffy! You killed it!"

Buffy grimaced. "Look, crash course. Vampires are real, I'm the Vampire Slayer, the one chosen in every generation blah blah blah. I just slayed that vampire, saved your life, although sadly your lunch was sacrificed in the line of duty. If you're feeling up to it, we have to go, like, now, because Willow was just seen leaving the Bronze on the arm of another vampire. You all caught up now?"

Betty reeled. Vampires were real. Vampires were real? And her friend Buffy, the pretty, skinny girl with the legs like pipe-cleaners was some sort of legendary chosen one? And Willow was...

"Willow left with a vampire? Was she nuts? Couldn't she tell by the horrific disfigurement that maybe he wasn't an ideal date?"

Buffy, satisfied that her friend had come to grips with current events, helped her up. Betty almost told her not to bother, seeing as she outweighed Buffy by, oh, a good hundred pounds or so. So imagine Betty's shock when she felt the tightly coiled spring of a slayer's strength haul her to her feet.

Holy shit.

"Vamps don't always look like that. Nine times out of ten, they look like normal people. You just saw one with his game face on." Buffy suddenly stopped here, threw a protective arm across Betty's chest. Betty regretted not owning a steel reinforced bra, that night. "Shh. Something's coming." Pushing Betty off to the side of the door, Buffy was poised and ready.

A dark figure moved out of the club, its face obscured by shadows. Buffy leapt, stake ready and waiting.

A feminine screech rent the air. "Oh my God! What is your childhood trauma?"

Cordelia! Buffy had almost staked Cordelia! If Betty wasn't recovering from being attacked, choked, bitten and nearly dying, she would have laughed out loud.

Buffy let her arm drop, and Cordelia fled back into the club, sure to spread rumors about how ape-shit crazy Buffy was.

Buffy sighed. "Well, it was nice while it lasted. A girl can dream about having a decent social life, right?"

Betty patted her friend on the back. "We all dream. Cordelia is our nightmare."

Buffy tucked her stake into her belt. "C'mon. We've gotta go get Willow. You think you can run?"

Betty took mental stock. Well, aside from blood loss, and an empty stomach, and the beginnings of a serious panic attack about to hit... "Yeah. You lead. I'm right behind you."



This was a mistake. Oh man, this was a mistake. On the mistake-o-meter, this is registering an 11.

The run across town was literally that, a dead (eek, bad choice of expression) run. Betty, who hadn't seen much of Sunnydale during the month that she'd been there, still didn't see much in the dark blur of her sprint. She had gone through runner's high and come out the other side, at that point. Here was an amazing lesson in alternate states of consciousness. Betty had stopped counting the separate pains all over her body and just ran and ran and ran, huffing and puffing to blow the night down.

Buffy didn't appear to be even slightly winded.

Maybe there was something to that super hero story, after all.

They rounded a corner, flew into the local playground, dodging seesaws and swing sets in their haste. Betty made another mistake in trying to talk. "Where... do you... think Willow... is?"

Buffy turned her head, didn't stop running, "The cemetery. Where else would a dead guy go on a date?"

"I had... to... ask..."

Buffy seemed to break stride, suddenly, slow to a jog, then screech to a stop just beside a playground restroom. Betty was caught short by Buffy's sudden halt, and overshot her friend by a good fifteen feet before stopping herself. She imagined that she looked like a cartoon, just before it realized that it had stopped too late and gone flying off the cliff, to fall with an amusing poof at the bottom. Fortunately, she didn't fall over, she just put her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath.

Buffy had pulled her stake out again. Betty froze, trying to stop her out of control respiration. Not more vampires, not tonight, please...

Buffy threw open the door to the boy's restroom, and came face to face with a very startled Xander.

"Xander!"

"Buffy!"

"Xander!"

"Betty!"

"Are we all done sounding like the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Xander, what are you doing here?"

"Hey, when you've got to go, you've got to go."

Buffy tossed her head, looked impatient. "Have you seen Willow?"

Xander raised his eyebrows. "Why no. She wouldn't happen to be in danger, would she? Nothing that requires slaying, would it?"

Buffy threw her hands up. "How is it that my so-called secret identity is, like, world news now? Did somebody take out an ad on AOL or something?"

Xander leaned over, looked at Betty. "She seriously believes it, Betty. Are you both running to get Willow back from a big bad vampire? With the faaaaaaaangs and the blood sucking and the blah?" Xander stood with his forearm in front of his nose, the typical movie vampire pose.

Betty, still recovering from everything, simply pulled her hair back from her neck, got under the light.

"I believe too, Xander. Seeing as I have the grandmother and grandfather of all hickeys right now."

Betty and Buffy both looked supremely satisfied at Xander's reaction.

"Ok, either we've started getting mutant mosquitoes around here, or you got bitten in the neck by... Jeez, Betty, are you ok?"

"I've had better nights. This night is definitely ranking in the top two of the worst nights of my life." The only thing worse was when my parents died. That, however, she didn't say aloud.

Xander peered at Buffy. "So, where are you headed?"

"Cemetery. You better take Betty back to the Bronze, get her home. I'll do this alone."

"What?!" exclaimed Betty. "You had me run hella all over town and now you send me home? No freaking way. I'm staying with you!"

Buffy leveled a glare at Betty. "It's dangerous. I didn't want to leave you alone. So now that Xander's here, you and Xander go home together. Not optional."

"Hey, Willow's my friend too, Buffy," interjected Xander. "And if she's in trouble, I'm going to help. Although I still don't entirely believe that she's with a vampire."

Betty and Buffy shot annoyed glances at their friend. "Betty, go home."

"You have the big pointy stake and the ability to kill these things. I'm safer with you than anywhere else," Betty pointed out. "Besides which, uh, you can't make me."

Buffy raised her eyebrows, shifted her weight to her other foot. "I can't?"

Betty stood up taller. "Yeah. I mean, you may be super strong and super fast and have lots of weapons, but, uh," Betty faltered for a moment, then recovered. "I'm older than you. So that's that." Good argument. Nice and logical. Well done, Betty, she thought to herself sarcastically.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I don't have time for this. Fine, you both can come. But stay out of my way. And for God's sake, stay out of the vampire's way." Buffy turned on heel, started running.

Xander and Betty exchanged a glance, and ran after their friend.



"C'mon, Willow! Move!" Xander was dragging Willow behind him, a death grip on her hand. Betty was not far behind, but she was getting damn sick of running so much. The stitch in her side had a stitch in its side. Maybe she could market this as the newest excersize fad. Run For Your Life Excersize. Susan Powter had nothing on vampires.

"But Jesse! They still have Jesse! We can't just leave him!" protested Willow, panting roughly.

"Buffy will get him out, don't worry. Betty, you ok?"

Betty managed to gasp out, as quietly as she could while he could still hear, "Keep it down, Xander. Advertise our presence much?"

"Sorry!" he yelled back.

"Xander, shut up!" stage whispered Betty again. But it was too late.

Like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, the vampires had been flanking them, moving silently to either side, and waiting for the ambush out front. And the trio of friends stumbled right into it.

Things got blurry again. Xander and Willow both panicked, dashed in opposite directions, each into the waiting arms of their hunters. Betty heard a masculine grunt, hoped it wasn't Willow, and ran to the left, where Xander had gone. He was down on the ground, a vampire standing over him. Which was when Betty made the second stupidest decision ever in her life.

With a hoarse battle yell, Betty made a flying leap onto the vampire's bony back and wrenched its head to the left. The vampire was momentarily distracted, but it simply raised a brittle arm and swept the burden off his back, like a horse flicking off a fly with its tail. Betty went flying, slamming head first into one of the decorative cherry trees that littered the graveyard.

What is it with me and head injuries today? thought Betty muzzily. If this keeps up, I'm headed straight for the short bus. Her vision was blurring again, and she wished that the ground would stop undulating so much. Don't pass out don't pass out don't pass out...

She awoke when Buffy gave her a sharp shake. "Betty? Betty!"

"Five more minutes, Craig..."

"Nope, sorry, no napping on the job." Buffy shook her again, and then helped her stand, supporting her all the way. Betty opened her eyes unnaturally wide, blinked a few times.

She saw Willow and Xander standing just behind Buffy, and a few sad drifts of dust and ash littering the ground. 

"Where are the vampires?" she asked stupidly, her voice sounding thick and fuzzy to her ringing ears.

Buffy pointed at the few sad drifts. "Dusted. We're SO out of here, like, now. Xander, get her other arm." Xander did so, grunting slightly when Buffy let him take half of Betty's weight.

Betty was too out of it to be annoyed, but she did file the incident away for later perusal and bitching.



"When demons left this dimension, they were waiting for humanity to die out. The last demon to leave took a human woman as a hostage, as a bargaining chip, then tried to devour her when it became obvious that he was being forced out. But he only succeeded in transferring his demonic essence into her form. The first vampire was made. Soon it found itself craving more blood, more human bodies. The plague spread, and soon vampires were numerous. The first slayer..."

"Ok, um. Excuse me." Willow had a hand raised, like she was in class. "I have a question. Why did we never know about this? I mean, demons and vampires and oogy-boogies? Seems pretty important to me. Just as important as the three R's and what the imports of Austria are."

Giles took off his glasses, rubbed them with a paisley handkerchief. "Because, Miss Rosenberg, humanity simply does not have the power or the imagination to defeat the threat."

"Um, hi, Chosen One Slayer sitting right here!" Buffy said, sounding peeved.

"I meant in general, Buffy," answered Giles, sounding equally annoyed. "The average human is totally outclassed and outgunned, pardon the expression, when it comes to the occult."

"So you're saying we're hosed, aren't you?" said Xander. "You're saying because we're short sighted, egocentric and weak, we don't stand a chance, so it's best if we're left in the dark?"

Giles blinked, looked at Xander. "That was... surprisingly insightful, Mr. Harris."

"Thank you," said Xander with a grin. "Still hosed, though."

"Not necessarily. As I was saying, the first slayer was created to take the battle to the vampires. Endowed with unnatural speed and strength, the Slayer became humanity's greatest resource."

"Hear that, guys? I'm the greatest resource of humanity. Take that, petroleum." Buffy was grinning too.

Giles sighed heavily, putting his glasses back on as he perched himself on the edge of a desk. "You're all being entirely too flippant, you know that?"

The gang was sitting in the Sunnydale High library, auditing a course in Vampires 101. Willow was even taking notes.

Betty, meanwhile, was trying to keep her head from falling off her neck. She had a pair of extremely dark sunglasses perched on her nose, as the effects of light on her eyes was detrimental to keeping her headache in check. She was also trying to draw while the lecture was going on, and found it difficult to do so while wearing sunglasses. She kept at it anyway.

Betty raised her head, looked in Giles' general direction. "So why Sunnydale? Wouldn't vampires prefer a more, I dunnow, urbane setting for acquiring their snacks? More population, less attention kind of thing?"

Giles raised his eyebrows again. "That was also surprisingly insightful, Miss Petty."

"Yeah, well, you should see me when I don't have a concussion."

"To answer your question, the reason they're in Sunnydale has to do with the Hellmouth."

There was a moment of silence, as all four teenagers tried to swallow this information. Willow looked apprehensive, then decided to ask the question on everybody's mind.

"Uh, Hellmouth?"

Xander looked like he was about to burst out laughing. "What, aside from it being the armpit of the Golden State, Sunnydale is also built on the mouth of Hell?"

"Precisely," answered Giles, quite taking the wind out of Xander's sails. "Not THE mouth of Hell, but one of them. There are several scattered throughout the world. I've been told that Cleveland has one, as does Biloxi and Albuquerque."

"I've been to Albuquerque. I believe it," said Betty, slipping off her sunglasses and bringing her attention back to her drawing.

"What are you working on, Miss Petty?"

"Nothing," said Betty quickly, moving an arm over her pad.

"Your life could depend on knowing what I'm telling you. And you're doodling a..." Giles stopped, moved her arm out of the way. Giles stared. Then stared for a moment longer. He finally managed to whisper, "Ah, I see."

What graced the page of Betty's drawing pad was a lifelike pencil sketch of the vampire who'd attacked her.

"What is it?" asked Buffy, craning her neck around Giles. When she caught sight of the sketch, she raised her eyebrows. "That is amazing. I didn't know you could draw, Betty."

"Don't advertise it much," responded Betty, closing her notebook with the flick of a wrist. "Sorry, I don't like people looking at my stuff."

"Can I see?" asked Willow. "What was it?"

Betty rolled her eyes, stuffed the pad back into her backpack. "Nothing. It was nothing."

Giles gave Betty an appraising look. He seemed to come to a decision, and said, "To continue. The presence of a Slayer must remain secret, for the obvious reasons. Buffy is the Slayer. Don't tell anyone."

"But what about Jesse?" asked Willow, suddenly remembering something. "Jesse was in the cemetery with us last night. He could be a vampire hors d'ouvre right now and we're all just sitting here talking!"

"Vampires are usually quiescent during the day. If your friend is still alive, then he'll remain so until tonight."

The teenagers brooded on Giles' use of the word "if."

"Well, shouldn't we go after them now? When they're all quiescent-y?" asked Willow.

"That's one option, yes, but it's also difficult to manage."

"Why?"

Buffy answered. "There's still four hours of school left."

"What? So skip school!" exclaimed Xander. "I'm sure we could get you a note or something. 'Sorry I missed geometry, I was off saving the world from evil.'"

Buffy sighed. "I'm thinking about it, ok, Xander?"

Willow spoke up again. "Should we call the police?"

Giles and Buffy looked at Willow askance. Willow bit her lower lip. "It was just a suggestion."

"I know!" Xander leapt to his feet here. "We'll burn the cemetery down!"

"Isn't your grandmother buried there, Xander?" asked Willow.

Xander looked stricken. "Poor Grammie," he sighed.

"No, we'll stick to our original plan. Buffy will go in and fetch your friend out, if he still lives."

"Buffy, alone? As in, all by herself?" Betty felt that that was supremely unfair and stupidly dangerous.

Giles nodded once. "She's the Slayer. And you'd be a liability."

Ouch. Kicked to the curb.

"Giles is right. If you were to come, I'd worry more about you than about me, and that's a good way for all of us to end up very very dead."

Betty raised a hand to her neck, feeling the tender spot where she'd been bitten. Never again, she swore silently to herself. Never, ever again.

Willow said what everybody was thinking. "So how do we find them?"

"Well, a vampire needs a place where he's out of the sunlight. So that leaves out pretty much anywhere above ground," pondered Buffy, while Giles nodded his assent.

"So we go below ground?" Xander asked.

"The sewers? Ick," said Betty, wrinkling her nose. "Take along a nose plug, Buffy."

"Waaaaay ahead of you," said Buffy.

"We need a layout of the sewer system, then," Giles pondered. "Do you think that could be filed on microfiche here?"

"Microfiche? Gosh, Giles, you've never heard of the internet, have you?" asked Willow.

"Computers? Save me from those dread machines," answered Giles uncomfortably.

Willow looked excited, launched herself across the room toward the library's computer banks. "I can find anything you need, right here," she bounced. "I just hope that the school's site-blocking software lets me access it." After a few moments of frantic typing, the rest of the gang gathered behind Willow, watching over her shoulder. Sure enough, Willow pulled up a civil engineering site that had the entirety of Sunnydale's sewer system mapped out for them in a downloadable PDF file.

"Willow, that was slick," said Buffy with a good bit of respect in her voice.

"The only problem is that I can't tell where anything is. There's no north-south orientation on this thing."

"Can I look?" asked Betty. Willow scooted aside her chair to let Betty hunker down and study the map. After a few moments, Betty pointed at a large hub in the middle of the picture. "Ok. Based on the size of the town, and where the majority of the businesses are located, I'd say that that large, not so maze-y chunk is directly under the Bronze." She slid her finger across the screen, plotting in her head the scale in miles. "So here, where it thins out a whole lot, is the cemetery." She looked up and grinned. "What need have corpses for flushing toilets?"

Buffy's jaw dropped, along with Giles' and Xander's. "That was also in the whole slick category. How did you know that?" asked Buffy.

"I have my ways," answered Betty mysteriously. She did not mention that, in very tiny, light gray letters, were street names and block numbers along the bottom of every pipeline. Willow must have missed them in her excitement, and Betty didn't want to point it out.

"So the vamps were getting into the mausoleum last night through the sewers."

"The sewers lead up to the cemetery?" asked Xander. "Poor, poor Grammie."

"Ok, print that out for me, mark it up. I'm going after Jesse." She turned to Giles. "I need more info on this whole 'Harvest' thing, though."

"Harvest thing? Are we picking apples for the vampires too?" asked Xander.

"We'll research that while you're gone," answered Giles smoothly, ignoring Xander. "Do be careful, Buffy. You're going up against, possibly, an entire nest of vampires. Even at their most sluggish, they are not to be trifled with."

"Right. No trifling. No puddings at all, I promise."

Giles looked perplexed. "I'm sure I'll regret asking this, but how on earth could you possibly know that's a name for a British dessert?"

"My mom watches Are You Being Served? a lot," answered Buffy, and then she grabbed her bag and was gone.

"Still not on board with the whole 'Buffy goes in alone' thing," said Xander after the library door swung shut.

Willow and Betty shook their heads. "I don't want to risk another hickey, thanks," answered Betty. That was when the first bell announcing the end of lunch rang. The three teens gathered their belongings, and started out the door.

"Willow, I'd like you to take a look around for me on that... thing... and search for any mass disappearances or unsolved murders dating back around a century or so ago."

"Ok. Computer lab is next, so that's easy."

"Betty, Xander, I'd like for you two to help her."

Xander and Betty exchanged a glance. "Like, how? Make sure she doesn't get eye strain?" asked Xander. Betty was sort of getting annoyed at Xander's perverse needling of the librarian. She could only imagine what it was doing to the man himself.

Again, Giles ignored Xander. "Remember! Secrecy is of the utmost. Don't draw attention to Buffy leaving, don't talk about it where anybody can overhear you." Giles said to their retreating backs.

"Chill, Mr. Giles, we're cool," said Betty, putting her dark glasses back on as they exited.

Giles raised an eyebrow, said aloud to the empty library, "I weep for the future."



"You save your file by pushing 'Deliver,'" said Willow, just as the bell rang to announce the end of class. Cordelia and Harmony looked pleased at having wrested the information out of the nerd and happily pushed the DEL key.

Willow and Betty were already halfway down the hall when they heard the incredulous shriek.

"Willow, I think I love you in a purely erotic way. Marry me and let's raise an army of Bully Slayers."

Willow blushed, and stuttered, "I don't think that it's legal to marry you. And who would supply the XY chromosome?"

"We'll make a deal with Xander."

Willow's eyes got wide and she blushed redder. "Betty!"

"Speaking of, where is Xander?"

"In history," answered Willow immediately. Seeing Betty's amused look, Willow continued hastily, "Not that I've memorized his entire schedule or anything, because that would be very sad in an extremely pathetic way. I've just got a good memory for mundane details. Like how long it takes Xander to walk from history to creative writing, and where he stops to get a drink of water on the way. I can't help it. It's just something I know."

"Willow? It's ok. You're allowed to have a crush on Xander."

"Oh, you knew?"

"Willow, it's pretty obvious."

"How obvious?" wailed Willow quietly.

"Like, giant flashing Las Vegas-quality neon sign over your head obvious." Willow looked stricken and embarrassed. Betty tried to salvage the situation by saying, "But it's ok, Xander doesn't have a clue." Betty realized how horrible this sounded just a second too late, and mentally slapped herself. Willow appeared on the verge of tears. Way to go, Bets. Crush her dreams with a big stompy boot, why don't you?

"It's ok. He's always been a bit oblivious anyway. Like when we were in second grade together? It took him a whole month to notice that our classes' pet goldfish had been replaced three times."

"Wow, that is pretty oblivious."

"Well, to be fair to him, goldfish all look pretty much alike. They're all gold, and they're all fish."

"This is a valid point." The two girls walked past the library, saw Giles through the window. He was sitting behind the checkout desk with a faintly horrified expression on his face.

Uh oh. Not at all with the boding well.

Exchanging a glance, the two girls walked into the library together, neither of them mentioning that they both had classes to be at. "Giles? What's up?"

"It's not good. What did you find out, Willow?"

Willow seemingly didn't catch the stress in the older man's voice, and plowed right ahead, explaining the fruits of her research. "Well, back in 1837, just before the Gold Rush hit, there was a string of nasty murders right here in Sunnydale, population 757. Over twenty people died, in very mysterious circumstances. Throats torn out. There was a lot of talk about giving people wolf hunting licenses, which to me seems totally unfair! I mean, those poor wolves had nothing to do with it, but because of popular resentment and widespread belief in crazy old wives tales..."

"Willow," interrupted Giles. "Please. Leave the wolves out of it."

"I will if they will," said Willow with a pout. Betty smirked, but was just as anxious to hear the end of the story as Giles.

"Anyway. There was a big earthquake shortly after this, and the murders stopped. The local authorities put it down to the wolves, pointed to the success of hunting them to near extinction thank you very much, and that was that."

Giles once again displayed his impressive selective hearing, ignoring Willow's diatribe about the wolves. "Oh dear. Everything is falling into place," he said distractedly, adding, "Although I rather wish it wasn't..." a moment later.

"What's falling into place?" asked Betty, apprehensive of the answer.

"The Harvest. It's happening tonight."

Willow's eyes got very round, but Betty's narrowed. "I'm still a touch unclear as to what this Harvest thing is, hey? Make with the specific answers this time, no more vague b.s." Betty had her hands on her hips, hoping she came across as firm rather than whiny brat.

Giles put his book down, rubbed at his forehead. "The Master, an ages old vampire of enormous power, rises. He is trapped behind the walls of this dimension, neither in nor out of it. He wants his freedom. In order to get it, he needs a harvest of innocent blood to thrust him from his dimensional prison. So he will anoint a chosen one, a vampire of strength and fortitude, to go forth and drown the world in rivers of blood and death."

Betty was stunned for a moment. "So, not a guy you'd want to have over for margaritas and salsa, right?"

"No," said Giles, his voice dripping with exhaustion. "And Buffy just went to face the vampires working for the Master. This is why they took Willow, and your friend..."

"Xander?"

"I thought his name was Jesse," said Giles, looking confused.

But Willow was looking at the door of the library, which had violently swung open to admit Xander and Buffy.

"Did you get Jesse out of there?" asked Willow, hurrying to her friends.

"I think that's a definite no, Willow," said Xander, looking pale and shaken.

Willow blanched. "Was he dead?" Betty closed her eyes. She hadn't known Jesse very well, but she still knew him, and figured how he must have died. She wouldn't wish that sort of death on anybody, not even Cordelia.

"Worse," answered Buffy. "They turned him."

They all stood around for a long moment, staring at the floor. They were startled out of their gloom by Xander delivering a vicious kick to a nearby metal-mesh waste paper basket, sending it skittering and clanking across the floor.

"I don't like vampires," snarled Xander. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they're not good."

Betty tried to smile, but found that her face couldn't manage it. It's not fair! she thought to herself. Why does my life suck so much? Why am I surrounded by people dying all the time? I hate it!

Buffy stomped over to a table, sat down and buried her face in her hands. "How could this day get any worse?"

"How about the end of the world?" asked Giles.

Buffy looked up, saw that he was dead serious. "Knew I could count on you, Giles. Thanks."



"Don't you have homework?"

Betty stared at her brother, at a complete loss for words. She had put on a dark black turtleneck, a pair of black jeans, and her black leather bomber jacket, and was headed for the front door, to meet Buffy and the rest at the Bronze, to try to stop the massacre.

Homework seemed about as important as wondering who was going to be the next Miss America, at that point.

"You know, homework. Where you sit and you read and you study so you can get into the college of your choice somewhere down the road?"

Craig had apparently mistaken Betty's lack of response as confusion rather than disdain.

"I'll do it later," said Betty with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Craig stopped her by putting a foot in front of the opening door.

"This is the second night in a row you've gone out, Bets. And, while I'm thrilled you're finally getting a social life, I need to know that you're taking care of your responsibilities as well."

"Craig, I said I'd do it later. It's not a big deal!" Betty tried to move out the door again, was stopped by an arm across the doorjamb this time.

"It's a big deal to me, Bets. I'm responsible for your welfare, and you're going out looking like some sort of goth reject, and I..."

Betty didn't let him finish. "Look, I'm a big girl, Craig, and you don't need to treat me like I'm still a six year old with braids. Besides, you're not my father!"

For the second time that day, Betty wished that she had the power to recall her stupid words.

Craig looked at her sadly, shrugged. "You're right. Go on, go have fun, throw your life down the toilet. I'm not your father, so what do I care?"

Craig turned and walked to the kitchen, where he made busy with slamming pots and pans around.

Shit. He only cooks when he's mad. Shit.

Betty sighed. Craig would understand, when he thanked her later for not letting him get turned into demon chow. She walked out the front of their duplex, and locked the door behind her.



"Locked!"

"Ok, you guys go around back, try that door. I'm going to crash the party." Buffy dropped her bag of weapons, grabbed a particularly pointy stake, and started to climb up the side of the building.

"Wow. Friendly neighborhood Spiderman, much?" said Xander, as he, Willow, Betty and Giles dashed around the block to the back door of the Bronze. Giles had Buffy's weapons cache in his hand, started giving them all what was left as they ran. Betty found herself in the possession of a clunky, gaudy golden crucifix about a foot high and a depressingly small vial of holy water. As the rest of the slaying arsenal was handed round, Betty tried not to think about the fact that they would soon be standing on the exact spot where she'd been attacked. She decided to ignore it. Nope. Not there. Can't see it. Sorry.

When they reached it, Giles tried the knob of the back door, found it locked as well.

"So much for legal fire exits," snotted Betty.

"They don't want anybody getting out, Betty. Complying with fire hazard laws are the least of a vampire's worries."

"Oh. Pass me the stupid flakes," said Betty, embarrassed.

"We've got to get in there, now, so Jesse doesn't do anything stupider than usual."

"Xander, I know this is going to hurt, but remember that that's not your friend in there. What you'll see is the thing that killed him."

Xander closed his eyes, swallowed. "Yeah, ok Mr. Giles. Jeez. I'm suddenly feeling a little nauseous."

Willow put a concerned hand on Xander's back. "Me too."

"Yeah, but you're a girl. I have my macho manly image to uphold here."

"It's ok to be scared Xander."

"Is it ok to admit it, too?"

"Yeah," said Willow, sympathetically.

"Ok. I admit it. I'm terrified beyond rational capacity."

Betty also laid a hand on Xander's back. "But isn't that normal for you? I mean, being beyond rational capacity?"

Xander's eyes snapped open and he shot Betty a nasty look. "These might be the last moments of my life, and I have to spend them being humiliated. Thanks a lot, Betty."

Betty smiled. "Better than terrified, at least, right?"

"Just barely." Xander stood up straight, took an experimental kick at the door. He regretted it, and hopped around on one foot, hissing and wincing in pain. "Great, I also get to spend the last moments of my life nursing a broken big toe. Thanks a lot, God." He addressed this last to the sky. "We had a deal. The last moments of my life would be spent in free fall with three beautiful, naked women."

Willow, Betty and Giles all paused and looked at Xander. "I said that out loud, didn't I?" he asked rhetorically, his face still pointing to the heavens. Giles shook his head and bent over the lock. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a set of what appeared to be, to Betty's admittedly untrained eye...

"Lock picks? Giles, you knave."

"I work at a high school, Miss Petty. I'm not a fool."

"You go to high school willingly. I'd say that qualifies you," retorted Betty, although she regretted it when the librarian shot her a nasty look.

After a few moments of fiddling, and a few hastily suppressed swears, Giles felt the lock give way, and the door swung open a crack.

Betty took a deep breath, clutched at her crucifix. This was it, do or really die time.

I'm too talented to die! thought Betty, apropos of nothing. She was glad that the terror kept her mouth from working, because saying that aloud would have made her die of embarrassment.

Giles silently pushed the door open, cracked the top of his vial of holy water. He saw that there was, amazingly enough, no vampire guard waiting at the door. There were, however, several club goers, huddling in a terrified cluster in the alcove near the door. Giles pushed the door open further, hissed a a few words at them.

Betty got her first good look, and listen, at the scene inside the club. Everybody was either terrified into shaking silence or they were screaming to bring the house down. So it took Giles three more hissed instructions to get some of the kids to pay attention. One bright boy said, quite loudly, "The door's open!"

Oh. Good. That's just was needed, genius. Well fucking done.

A lot of things happened at once. A group of about fifteen would-be victims stampeded to the door and pushed Willow down in their haste to escape. Betty saw Giles and Xander push their way through to the club's interior, while Willow gamely ran after them when she regained her feet. Betty, in a haze of adrenaline, followed suit. The rush to the door increased, but was suddenly dammed and scattered by a large vampire jumping into the middle of it. Just in front of Betty.

"Oh, shit," she breathed, just as the vampire delivered a vicious kick to her stomach.

Betty had the wind knocked out of her as she spun around and landed on the door frame. However, the vampire was also clutching its face and howling to bring the roof down.

Her crucifix necklace. It had hit him in the face as she swung around.

She gasped and leapt forward, brandishing the necklace like a knife. She plunged it down, into the crown of his head, and was stunned to realize that she'd done it with enough force to break through his skull. The vampire screamed once more, and lunged at her legs. She yanked herself back as sharply as she could, and felt the chain around her neck give, then break.

Her only weapon was now embedded in the skull of a supremely pissed off vampire. It staggered around, clawing at its head, but it couldn't touch the thing to get it out.

That was when the skylight exploded. Large, jagged chunks of glass, and Buffy, fell from the roof. Buffy landed on her knees, rolled once, and then she bounced to her feet.

Betty saw several several columns of dust rise up in rapid succession, and her jaw dropped in awe. This was a mistake. She forgot about the vampire right in front of her, with a crucifix in its head. That she'd put there.

She realized her mistake when it grabbed her head. She felt its arm muscles tense. It was going to break her neck. She knew what was about to happen, and Buffy was all the way across the room. She'd never get there in time. Betty opened her mouth to scream and... Oh... God...

It was dust. She was breathing in dust again. Somebody slayed it! How? "Oh Jesus thank you Buff... Giles?"

The librarian stood in front of her, stake in hand. He bent over and picked up her crucifix, which had fallen to the floor when the vampire got all poofy. "Don't lose track of this again, Miss Petty."

"Sure as hell won't!" She leapt forward and hugged the older man around the middle, mentally apologizing to him for calling him a pederast in her head. Giles shifted his weight, pushed her away gently.

"Don't lose concentration now. We're not done yet."

He moved forward through the surging crowds, and Betty followed him.

The stampede of club patrons began anew, now that the vampire wasn't blocking the door anymore. Buffy was fighting hand to hand with a vampire up on stage, while Xander wrestled with... Oh, Christ on a pogo stick, it was Jesse. Betty ran forward to help Xander, when a young woman ran full tilt at her, screaming and crying. Betty stopped short and dodged to the left. She tripped over a discarded shoe and flew forward, slamming into Jesse from behind.

And then she was laying on top of Xander, for some odd reason. Then it hit her. Xander had a stake out and was pointing it at Jesse when Betty had pushed the vampire forward.

So where was the stake?

She looked into Xander's eyes, and he looked faintly horrified. "Xander? Are you ok?"

He nodded, weakly. She gently shifted her weight to the right, and she saw that, by luck or a miracle or fate or whatever you wanted to call it, the stake's point had been turned to the left when the vampire went. It was laying horizontally between them, the point sticking out between their chests. Xander's arm was also pinned between them. He said, very quietly, "I am not going to think about how close that was, Betty."

They both breathed very deeply for a moment, then she grabbed the stake, threw it aside, and gave Xander a deep hug. He hugged her back. They may or may not have cried on each other, in the emotional shock of still being alive, as opposed to being impaled by a big pointed stick.

"Betty?"

"Yeah, Xander?"

"I forgive you for humiliating me earlier."

Then they both started laughing, and got to their feet.

That was when three more vampires came at them from several directions, and pinned them to the wall by their arms. Suddenly, a bright light flooded the area, and all the vampires cringed. Daylight? Already? Not possible!

"It's in about nine hours, moron!"

They heard Buffy say this to the vampire she'd been fighting, and then staked him. Of course. The light was the stage lights for the club, and Buffy had just pulled a classic ha ha gotcha on them. She turned and gave a glare at the three vamps holding up Betty and Xander.

There was a moment's pause.

Then, they all split. Ran like hell. The Slayer had put the fear of God into them. Or, rather, the fear of being turned to a big pile of not so wholesome ash.

Betty and Xander joined Buffy on the stage, and Willow and Giles climbed up a moment later.

"Did we win?" asked Willow, surveying the carnage and chaos of the club.

"We're still alive. I call that a big old plus," said Betty.

"We averted the apocalypse. We're going to Disneyland," said Buffy, with a wry grin on her face.



"Gangs on PCP. I'm telling you! It was the weirdest thing ever and boy I'm glad I just say no." Cordelia walked by with her gaggle of friends, just as Willow and Xander joined Betty and Buffy, who were lounging under a tree on the quad. They were all close enough to hear Cordelia's pronouncement on what had happened at the Bronze last night, and had all exchanged wide eyed glances.

"Ok. I knew she was an air head, but that's taking it to a totally out of touch extreme," said Betty, rolling onto her back and propping herself up on her elbows.

"People see what they want," said the familiar voice of Giles, who walked up and joined them at their tree. "They forget what they can and rationalize the rest."

"Well, I'm never forgetting!" exclaimed Willow fervently. Willow, sweet, shy, quiet Willow, was sporting a nasty bruise across her face where a vampire had slapped her hard. Willow had gotten her revenge, though, when she'd emptied an entire bottle of holy water at her attacker's face. Xander had a cut on his lower arm, which was bandaged heavily, and Betty was glad that she had on a big turtleneck again. It not only covered her neck wound, but also covered the nasty red and purple bruise that was smeared across her belly.

Only Buffy wasn't sporting any major injuries.

What a brat.

"So, go team, rah rah sis boom bah, and what's for lunch? Is that all the thanks we get for saving the world?" asked Xander.

"Well, that's the whole thing about having a secret identity, Xander. It's, you know, a secret," answered Buffy. "Besides, it'll be nice to hold it over Cordelia's head, even if I can't say it out loud."

"Amen, sister. Preach it," smiled Betty.

"If you can all remember what you've accomplished here, children, then it will better prepare you for the next time."

Silence. So much silence. Then, as one, the four teens turned to Giles.

"Next time?" asked Willow, eyes wide and slightly crossed.

"Next time?" asked Xander, jaw wide open in shock.

"Next time?" asked Betty, sitting up straight.

"Next time," answered Buffy, with a small sigh.

"You honestly didn't think that that was the end of it, did you?" asked Giles gently. "You've all four of you seen what evil is all about. Evil does not rest, it does not go quietly away, no matter how much you wish it would. There will be further trials, further tests, further pain. What is your decision; to fight? Or to let evil win by doing nothing? The three of you," he gestured at Xander, Willow and Betty here, "aren't trained, aren't chosen. You can walk away now. In fact, I would strongly recommend it."

"What?" interjected Xander. "Just pretend that our friend isn't out risking her neck to save the world? Two words: Are you nuts?"

"That was three words, Xander," said Willow.

"Yeah, that's how strongly I feel about it; I've lost the ability to count."

Betty leaned over, looked Giles in the eye. "You're telling us you want us to walk away, aren't you?"

"Slayers work alone. Friends are a distraction and a liability."

"They're also damn necessary!" spat Buffy. "Giles, stop trying to scare away my friends. Buffy turned and looked at her friends. "All for one, right guys?"

"Durn tootin!" said Willow.

"I'm in. I'm so in. I am out to GET these vampire dudes, ok?" Xander threw his arms across his chest, tried to look macho.

Betty thought for a moment before answering. Foremost on her mind was the possibility that she wouldn't live to see her 18th birthday. Here was the possibility that she could be turned into a blood sucking corpse for all eternity, or until Buffy shoved a stake through her ribcage. Here was the possibility that her life, her safe, secure, well planned life, would be a complete shambles.

On the other hand, here was a good fight, a just and righteous fight. Here was friendship, do or die. Here was the possibility to really make a difference in the world. The notion of drawing buildings for the rest of her life suddenly paled aside the idea that she could possibly make a life or death difference to somebody's destiny.

She looked at Giles first, then Buffy. "I'll start my diet now." And grinned.

Buffy smiled and nodded. "Cool. Now, all we have to do is figure out a way to get the principal off my back!"

"We could distract him!" answered Willow. "Xander could pretend to have leprosy or something."

"Hey!" Xander looked annoyed. "Why me?"

"Because he'd believe you, Xander. You're a very convincing fake sick guy."

"Oh, like when I had the 'chicken pox,'" grinned Xander, making quote marks with his fingers. "My family just went to San Francisco for a week, really," he said to Betty, by way of explanation. "I even took a marker and drew red dots on my face to throw them off the scent."

"Yeah, too bad that when you really got the chicken pox they didn't believe you."

"I got the whole of third grade sick that year. Go me."

Buffy laughed out loud. "No, I think that maybe I should just get kicked out of school again. Then I'd have a lot more free time."

Betty laughed too. "You could blow something up?"

Willow grinned. "Yeah, they're really strict about damaging school property."

Giles rolled his eyes to the sky. "The human race is doomed."



Author's note: Next up: Out of Mind, Out of Sight.