Note1: Please don't be too harsh on me, this is my first fanfic to be posted.
Note2: This is set as an alternate beginning to season 2.
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That belongs to Joss Whedon. The only things I own are characters that aren't in the show, and I'm not making money off of them either.
Note3: And also; Reviews would be very much appreciated. You know the reviews=motivations chestnut by now, I'd guess. It isn't an uncommon thing for authors to say, after all. I would request no flames, although realistically, what am I going to do to stop you?
Enormous thanks goes to fellow author Beast of Burton, for A) being a wonderful writer, editor, and human being, and B) for encouraging me to write my own story, instead of just appreciating others'.
"Buffy, are you sure you're okay?" Willow asked, voice filled with concern as they navigated the cafeteria, trying to make their way to the food bar through the crowds of hungry high-school students.
"Yeah, Buff, you've been acting kind of weird since you got back." Xander added, agreeing with Willow as he squeezed between two particularly large seniors. They both gave the underclass clown a disdainful look before returning to their conversation.
"I'm fine, guys." Buffy replied, allowing a trace of exasperation to enter her tone. "Just like the last fifteen times you've asked." She muttered, turning back to face in front of her.
Buffy turned just a fraction too late, and barely managed to dodge a young man who had tripped over someone in the crowds' foot. She sidestepped him, but Willow wasn't so lucky. The teen barreled into her, knocking them both to the ground in a flurry of orange paper.
As the papers settled, Buffy got a better look at the boy. He was slender, with smooth black hair and deep green eyes. His face was thin and clean-shaven, giving him a slightly studious look. He was wearing a simple white shirt, with a dark blue windbreaker, simple blue jeans, and white sneakers. It was hard to judge his height, since he was sitting on the ground, but she judged him to be somewhere in the latter half of five feet.
The boy simply sat on the floor, supported by his hands behind him, legs akimbo in front of him, gazing at Willow bashfully as the orange pages fluttered to the ground around him. Then Willow looked up at him, and he started.
"Um, h-hey Willow." The boy stammered out, eyes nervously scanning the room. And was that a faint blush Buffy could detect on his face…?
The boy perked up as he grabbed for one of the orange pieces of paper. "Want a flyer?" He asked hopefully.
Willow gave her usual soft smile, with a trace of recognition. "Oh, um, hi James!" She greeted awkwardly. "Sure; what's it for?" She inquired.
"Well," James began, getting to his feet. "The drama department was really underfunded last year. So," he offered the grounded girl a hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. His hand stayed on hers for a brief second longer than necessary, before he pulled it back with another small blush. "Uh, um, so a bunch of us from the department decided to do a fund raiser early in the year, so we can get props and such for the show this time." He handed her one of the papers, which she took. "Since it's next week, we aren't going to be doing a full show; just a bunch of us doing dramatic readings." He explained as he bent over to begin picking up loose flyers.
"Oh, cool!" Willow exclaimed. Behind her, Buffy cast a skeptical look at Xander, who rolled his eyes affectionately.
"Well, I've gotta go; need to finish passing these out." James raised the flyers he had gathered in his right hand. He turned to leave, and finally caught sight of Xander as he did so. "Oh, hey Xander!" He greeted brightly, and waved.
"Hey James." Xander waved back as the actor left.
Buffy looked questioningly at both of her friends. "So, how do you know that guy?" She inquired as they began moving again.
"James? Well, he used to eat lunch with us in middle school, around when Wills still hung with Amy. The five of us-us, James, Jesse and Amy-would eat lunch together most days." Xander informed Buffy.
"But, it was more of a 'us losers have to stick together' and less of a 'we're all friends here' type of thing." Willow added.
"Yeah. There's safety in numbers, you know. Especially when you're dealing with someone like Cordelia." Xander half-joked as they finally reached the food bar. "Until we got to high school, and he joined the drama department. Then, well…hey!" He cut himself off. "Watch this." He pointed back into the cafeteria. "He's a nice guy, but he doesn't pull his punches when it comes to bullies." Xander nodded back to where he had pointed. Buffy followed his indication to see Cordelia and the Cordettes approaching the actor as someone refused one of James' flyers.
"Oh, hey, McAnon." Cordelia greeted, her voice dripping with a mixture of false sweetness and condescension. The object of ire eyed her warily. "You know," she continued, brightening, her voice filled with fake helpfulness. "Some people might actually go to one of these things if you weren't in it." She laughed, prompting her herd of minions to follow suit.
"So far, typical treatment." Buffy murmured to Xander as the two looked on.
Buffy was startled when James called back to his tormentor as she sauntered away. "Hey, Cordelia!" The self-appointed Queen of Sunnydale High half-turned in curiosity. "I think you made a mistake on your make-up!" He continued.
"Shows how much you know!" Cordelia shot back condescendingly. "I never make a mistake with my make-up!"
"Oh, I see." James nodded his head in exaggerated understanding, voice suspiciously friendly. "So you meant to look like a whore." He finished, a smile on his face.
Buffy stared in surprise as she heard Xander chuckle next to her. Buffy shook her head at James' audacity and said, "I didn't think anybody could get away with treating the Queen C like that."
Willow shook her head. "Oh, no, he'll probably pay for that later. I've heard Cordelia has a few of the football players she knows go beat him up every time he does something like that."
Buffy sighed as she paid for her food and ventured back into the crowds to find a table. "High school sure is a wild place." She commented.
"Yeah." Xander agreed. "Where else are you going to find a living dummy?" He mused.
"Or a praying-mantis teacher?" Buffy asked teasingly, looking pointedly at Xander.
"Or a body-swapping witch?" Willow offered.
"Or…" there was a collective pause as all three tried to think of the worst thing they'd encountered so far.
"…Snyder." Three voices spoke in sync.
"Um, hey, miss; do you want a flyer? It's for a drama department fundraiser." A handsome guy with short blond hair broke into their conversation to ask Buffy.
"Sorry." The Slayer told him apologetically. "A little late. We already got one." She gestured to the flyer still in Willow's hand.
The blond grimaced, nodded in understanding, and turned to go.
"Hey; nice shirt!" Xander called after him. The boy turned around and called back, "Thanks!" He turned long enough for Buffy to get a look at the shirt; it was a black shirt with white dots made to look like stars all over it, with a symbol on front that even Buffy knew stood for the superhero the Green Lantern.
As the trio finally broke out of the torrent of hungry students and reached a chair, Buffy caught Willow maneuvering to make sure her chair was just a little bit closer to Xander than it was to Buffy. The Slayer internally sighed at the redhead's behavior; she wished Willow would get over her Xander-crush already. All she was doing was hurting herself. Unfortunately, most guys didn't seem to be interested in someone like Willow. Buffy tried to think of a single guy that had shown any sort of attraction to the shy girl.
The fact that Willow didn't talk to a lot of guys didn't help matters at all. Buffy couldn't remember the shy computer expert talking to many guys at all in the time she'd known her, even less that were in her age group. 'Obviously there's Xander, and…and…' Buffy refused to come up blank on this. 'Wait! That James guy! He was stuttering and blushing when he was talking to Willow, and he certainly seemed much more confident against Cordy. It certainly seems like he's got a thing for Willow.' In an attempt to convince her friend to help herself, Buffy decided to voice this thought.
"Hey, you know, Will, I think that James kid might be interested in you." She advised her friend.
"Um, what?" Willow asked, surprised as much by the suddenness of the statement as by the content. "I don't think so. I mean, why would he be interested in me? He's handsome, and he's an actor, and girls like actors, don't they? And we haven't even talked in at least a year, and-" It was a textbook Willow-babble. Buffy decided to cut this one off for her.
"Woah there, girl." Buffy held up a hand, stopping her. "I saw him when he was talking to you; there was definitely some Willow-interest going on." She continued firmly. "Maybe you should talk to him, Will. You know, get to know the guy some more." Buffy advised.
"A-are you telling me to go on a date with him?" Willow asked in shy disbelief.
"Not exactly where I was going, but why not?" Buffy asked. She turned to the strangely silent Xander. "What do you think?" She asked.
He gave her an incredulous look. "Um, you do know this is me, Xander, you're asking about Wills' love life." He pointed out. "Why?"
Buffy nodded. "Good point. After school, he's going to be with the drama groups' fund-raiser thing, which they should be practicing for in the auditorium." She said. "Maybe you can talk to him after that. I mean, they shouldn't take much longer than my training with Giles, right?" She pointed out.
"Um, well, I guess…" Buffy could see that Willow wasn't completely sold on the idea. Buffy would have to try to convince her when Xander wasn't around, so they could use total candor.
Conveniently enough for her, that was the moment Xander chose to stand up. "Uh, I gotta use the bathroom. Be right back." He told them, and made for the restrooms.
"Nice timing, Xand." Buffy muttered appreciatively under her breath. She turned to Willow. "Look, Wills, you can't keep pining after Xander for the rest of your life. Maybe James is the key to helping you get over him."
"Oh, um, well, I don't know about that. I don't think anyone could replace Xander…" Willow trailed off with a dreamy sigh.
"Okay then." Buffy shook her head. This was going nowhere. Maybe she could try a different angle. "Hey, maybe if you go with this guy, then Xander might finally notice you as a girl. I mean, guy doesn't notice girl until she's with another guy, then he notices her and realizes how he's been in love with her the entire time. It's a classic, right?" Buffy suggested.
Willow perked up, sunny smile showing. "You really think so?!" But then a shadow passed over her face. "But that's mean. I mean, it's kind of manipulative, Buffy." Willow said, frowning deeply.
Buffy sighed. "Yeah, I guess it is. But which is more important; James, or Xander?" She asked, trying for one last push.
Willow nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Yeah…you have a point…I just wish there was a way I could get Xander to notice without tricking some poor guy." The soft-hearted red-head lamented softly.
"I do too." Buffy assured her. "But a girls' gottta do what a girls' gotta do."
"So; what'd I miss?" Xander plopped down next to Willow again as he returned, causing the girl to blush slightly at an accidental knee-bump.
"Well, we just decided that Willow should try and see where a date with James goes." Buffy announced matter-of-factly.
Xander grinned at his oldest friend. "Getting back into the dating game, eh Wills? Way to go!" He threw his arm around her shoulder in a sibling-esque congratulatory gesture. Willow shot Buffy a concerned look. Buffy responded by mouthing 'give it time.'
"'Back'?" Willow asked disbelievingly. "The last guy I 'dated' was a demon living on the internet!"
"So, that just means it's all uphill from here!" Xander told her, showing the bright, class-clown smile that made Willow get tingly all over.
A bell rung through their conversation, indicating the end of lunch. "Well; back to the salt mines." Willow commented with a sigh as they all stood up and began making their way to class.
Willow was nervous as she peered into the school's auditorium to find the drama crew leaving. It hadn't been that difficult to puzzle out where the practice for the fundraiser was being held; where else? It wasn't like the auditorium was being used for anything else most times of the year. The only exception was the annual talent show, which even most of these admitted attention hogs disdained to participate in.
The school day had been remarkably unremarkable. It actually made Willow even more nervous. Usually, if something was going to happen-which it almost always did on milestone days, like the first day of school-there would have been a sign of it already. The fact that it hadn't happened yet meant that either it wasn't going to happen-really a laughable idea on top of a Hellmouth-or that it was going to be spectacular, more than just the normal vampires and demons running around Sunnydale they'd all come to know as the usual. Which was much more likely. And considering that it hadn't happened yet, Willow was beginning to feel ever so slightly paranoid.
Taking a deep breath, she screwed up her courage, and finally entered the auditorium. She was guided by two desires-one, the idea that at least becoming more friendly with James would finally get Xander to notice her, (she really hoped she didn't actually have to go out with James for that, because no matter how Buffy put it, manipulating him that way still felt wrong) and two, an honest desire to reconnect with James. They'd never been terribly close, but if you weren't trying to bully him, he was a nice enough guy.
She moved to the right, letting actors file past with props and pages of lines. The costumes were fun to look at, especially since it appeared most of them were doing Shakespearean readings; this was made even more obvious by the tall, brown-haired actor who held a plaster skull under his arm. The odds were good that he had been practicing the famous "Yorik" monologue from Hamlet.
As the last of the actors filed past, she strode down the center aisle and toward the stage, where she could see the figure of James still packing up. He was so involved that she actually managed to come up to the edge of the stage before he noticed her.
"Oh! Um, h-h-hi, Willow." His stuttering could have been chalked up to her surprising him, theoretically at least. But the little blush he gave, combined with the fact that Buffy had suggested as much made it at least apparent even to her less-than-socially-knowledgeable eyes.
James recovered quickly. "If you're here for the fundraiser, you're a little early. As in, almost a full week early." He told her with a friendly smirk.
Willow smiled back at him, full of life. "I actually knew that. Thanks though!" She told him, a little awkwardly, but endearingly.
"Alright then. So, what did you want to talk about?" He said, brushing apart the curtains to make his way backstage. "Follow me; I'm in charge of shutting everything down. It's a pretty easy job, so we can talk while I do it." He told her. She nodded and followed after him.
"Well, um, I'm not sure how to say this…" Willow began, suddenly nervous. It just wasn't like her to be bold enough to ask someone out, even if she did know the person liked her. "I just wanted to say-um, ask, if you'd want to-I m-mean, be willing to, ah," she stammered, blush rising as she tried to find the best way to phrase her request. "I mean-" She was cut off as much by his tone of voice as by the hand he raised.
"Hold on." He interrupted. "What is that smell?" He wondered. It was kind of familiar-he'd definitely smelled it before, more than once. But then, it had been a faint smell. Here, it was an overpowering stench.
Willow, on the other hand, felt her earlier paranoia was coming to fruition. She, after all, was very familiar with that scent. Especially after, last year, she had come across an entire room full of recently slaughtered dead corpses, and the killer had not been inclined to clean up after himself.
It was unmistakably the scent of blood.
James spotted a small, dark red splash on the floor near his foot. He leaned down to investigate, rubbing his hand on it. It was wet, and very clearly blood. "Wonder who cut themselves?" He mused aloud. Inside him, however, there was a part of him that was shouting at him, telling him that the smell was too strong for that drop to be all of it.
Seeing what James was investigating and coming to the same conclusion as his warning voice, Wilow started expanding her search for more blood. She had no desire whatsoever to find another slaughter, but she knew that it was important for her to find out where it had happened, at least.
It also occurred to her that her life had become very screwed up in the past year, if now she was looking for dead bodies.
"Um, James. There's some more." She motioned to their right. There was a small streak of blood, more of a line than the puddle James had found. Almost, she mused, as if the thing that was bleeding had been traveling.
Well, she thought, that means it's probably not vampires. Not that the thought was much of a comfort; it just meant that the odds of the culprit being something new and terrifying was much higher.
James had looked to where she was pointing, and was walking toward the smear. And past it, she noted with some confusion. Or at least it was confusion until she saw him kneel down at another point, continuing in the same direction as the smear she'd pointed out.
He had found the next part of the trail, she realized.
Walking up to James, she vocalized her realization. "There's a trail of blood leading over there." She pointed in the direction the blood appeared to be leading.
James nodded as he stood up. "We should follow it." His uneasy expression betrayed the fact that he by no means wanted to. "We might be able to find whoever it is before they bleed too much." He told her.
"Right." Willow agreed, but immediately amended her statement as James started forward. "Um, I mean, I'll go!" She volunteered, her energy masking her dread. She was suddenly wishing she'd asked Buffy to come as some sort of moral support. But who knew something like this would happen?!
Then again, it was the Hellmouth.
"Why shouldn't we go together?" James asked.
There is safety in numbers. Even if that number is two. Willow considered. But he doesn't know the potential danger! I'm more equipped to handle it. Technically she was right, but she was also painfully aware of how vulnerable she still was. At least she knew what could happen, though.
Thinking quickly, she tried to make an excuse for James to stay. "What if the injured person is, uh, movin' around, and they come back here, and we both left to find them? How would we know that they made it back?" She drew out the word 'would', a nervous accident.
James looked reluctant, but he nodded. "Okay; just hurry." He told her.
Willow sighed as she turned away, toward the shadows that the trail led into. "At least that's over with." She muttered under her breath. As she made her way toward the shadows, she pulled a small cross from her pocket. So what if the odds said it wasn't a vampire? The odds said a coin flipped twice should come up on each side once, but it could come up twice heads or tails, too.
She followed the blood trail with no problem. It lead her up some stairs and into a booth with switches, lever and dials that she recognized as the stage control booth. The lights, microphones, and any special stage pieces could be manipulated from there. She looked around the booth, and her eyes lit onto a switch that had blood spattered on and around it; it was labeled: trap.
Frowning slightly, she pushed the switch.
Down on the stage, James jumped as the trap door in the stages' floor slid open. Normally the door would have been used for scenes where an actor needed to switch with another-such as a scene where an actor's character transformed into another.
Now, however, judging by the fact that the stench of blood was even stronger now than before, it was being used for something else.
James peered in, and what he saw made his stomach rebel. He turned to the side swiftly, but didn't get very far before vomiting onto the stage floor.
Buffy and Giles turned in surprise as the library doors swung open forcefully to admit a panicky Willow and a nauseous James.
Buffy raised an eyebrow. "What happened, Will? You aren't that bad of a kisser, are you?" She asked, before she got a better look at them. "Woah; what's wrong?"
Willow took a gasp of breath before answering in a scared babble. "W-we were in the auditorium, and we it-it was James' job to clean up, so we started to, but then we found some blood, and it was part of a trail, so I followed it, and it lead to a booth, s-s-so I went in and pushed a switch, and then we f-f-f-found a…we found a…" Willow babbled on. Buffy rapidly grew more concerned, even while she was frustrated with her friends' inability to finish the story.
James interrupted, gasping out, "Body. We found a, a dead body. With- without a head."