Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon. Heroes is the property of Tim Kring.
One thing to clarify: for the purposes of this story, I am pushing all dates in the Buffyverse storyline ahead by 10 years. Buffy was born in 1991, and came to Sunnydale in 2007. This story begins sometime after "The Pack" but before "Angel".
"The circumcircle is one drawn around the outside of a triangle…" Willow read from her geometry textbook. Xander moaned in frustration.
"Xander, c'mon! You need to know this if you want to pass the test tomorrow."
Xander sighed. "Fine. OK, the orthocenter is the –"
"Hey, guys!" Buffy said as she came in. She regarded Willow and Xander's expressions. "This doesn't look good."
"Xander seems to be having difficulty with certain elements of geometry," Giles explained.
"He's not the only one," Buffy said. "I have no idea how I'm going to pass the test tomorrow. Didn't we have one last week?"
"Last month," Willow clarified.
"Hey, at least you didn't miss two days of material due to hyena possession," Xander added.
Their discussion was broken by the entry of a blond girl Buffy had never seen before.
"Mr. Giles?" she asked. "I'm Claire Butler – I just transferred in. I need to get my textbooks."
"Ah, the, uh, vice-principal gave us the heads-up. You're a junior, right?"
"Yeah," Claire nodded.
"Do you have your schedule?"
Claire handed Giles a slip of paper. Giles disappeared into the stacks. Claire looked around nervously at the others. Buffy decided to break the silence.
"Hi. I'm Buffy," she extended her hand. Claire took it, and gave a firm handshake. After Xander and Willow introduced themselves, Buffy tried small talk.
"So, where did you transfer from?"
"Oh, uh, Odessa, Texas."
"Texas? Why did you come all the way out here, then?" Xander pressed.
Claire didn't answer. In fact, she drew back, slightly.
Before anyone could ask another question, Giles returned with a stack of textbooks.
"Here you go, Claire." Buffy scanned the titles. She wasn't surprised to find only one match: biology.
"Well, see you guys around." Claire took off.
"Something is not right about her," Buffy paced. "I mean, when we asked about why she left Texas, she looked like she was about to bolt."
"Buffy, she could have a perfectly normal reason for hiding her past," chided Giles.
"Yeah, like what?"
Silence. "Good point."
Xander piped up. "So, what do we do?"
"I could look into schools in Odessa, see if I can find her records."
A light bulb seemed to go off in Giles' head. "I may be able to save you some time there. See, whenever a student transfers in, they have to bring their transcript with them. I could get Claire's. It might at least tell us where she went." He began to leave.
"Well, what do we do until then?" Xander asked.
Giles looked back at Xander. "Go to class, have lunch, study your geometry."
Later that afternoon, Buffy returned to the library to find Willow staring intently at her computer screen.
"Any luck?"
"Not much. Claire's records say she went to Union Wells High School, but there's no record of her attending."
"Huh?"
"I checked three times. Claire Butler never went to Union Wells."
"That's weird." She cocked her head to one side. "Giles, any ideas?"
"Well, I'd say that either her records were erased from the Union Wells database…" he picked up her official transcript, "or this is a forgery."
"Maybe she changed her name?" suggested Buffy.
"Hmm. I'll check the list of students with her same GPA." Willow clicked a few times, then found their entire directory, with GPAs included.
"She was running a 3.3…" Buffy's eyes settled on the name, "Bennet, Claire. Junior. GPA 3.3."
"Check Claire Bennet's profile."
A few seconds later, a student profile came on the screen. The picture wasn't the same as the one in Claire Butler's transcript, but it was of the same person.
"Go deep, Willow," Buffy said. "Find out everything you can about this Claire Bennet."
"Where are you going?"
"Biology."
Biology class was, as usual, boring. Fortunately, Claire was in the same period as Buffy and Xander – not unusual for people in different grades, given how Sunnydale High's science curriculum worked. So Buffy spent the period surreptitiously studying Claire.
Claire sat near the back, deliberately avoiding sitting next to anyone. She seemed to be paying a lot of attention, and took plenty of notes. But she never once raised her hand to answer a question. A couple times, it seemed like she was about to, but decided against it. When the bell rang, Claire was very quick to leave. Buffy tried to catch up with her, but lost her in the crowd.
Buffy's final class was gym. She dominated a game of basketball, but didn't see Claire there – presumably, she had it some other time. After changing out of her gym clothes, she returned to the library. Xander was close behind her.
"So, what did you find?" she asked Willow and Giles.
"Well, it seems that Claire's actual record at Union Wells was slightly more… colorful… than the one she provided us," Giles leaned over Willow's shoulder.
"Troublemaker?"
"No, actually. But there are four things – aside from her last name – that were not included in the forged transcript."
"One: she was a cheerleader."
"Cheerleading? That isn't suspicious at all… so why cover it up?"
"Our thoughts exactly," Giles nodded. "The second thing is a car accident she was in – with the school's star quarterback, Brody Mitchum. She was absent for a day – but he was out for two weeks."
"I checked the hospital records," Willow piped up, "and there's a huge discrepancy in their injuries. She suffered only minor injuries, while he was crippled, and suffered total amnesia."
"The third thing," Giles continued, "that wasn't mentioned was a tragedy that happened on homecoming night. A mysterious man attacked Claire and another cheerleader named Jackie Wilcox. Claire escaped with her life. Jackie was… less fortunate." Giles made a face normally reserved for a horrific supernatural incident.
"What happened to her?" Xander asked.
Giles removed his glasses. "Her skull was cut open, and the top removed."
Xander's eyes went wide.
"Know of anything that kills like that?" Buffy asked.
"Actually, it's not uncommon – a number of demons that feed on human brains often use this method. Jackie's brain wasn't removed, but the police report indicates that the assailant was interrupted."
Giles replaced his glasses, and continued reading.
"The fourth thing that didn't match was her attendance record at the end of school. It corresponds to an incident where the Bennets' house burned down. After that incident, Claire didn't show up at school. Two weeks later, her father contacted the school to let them know that Claire was dropping out. That's the last record of her."
"Also," Willow said. "I checked the date where she officially dropped out. November 10. Four months ago. And one more thing."
"What is it?" Xander asked.
"I checked up on her family. As far as I can tell, the entire Bennet family dropped off the face of the Earth on November 10, 2007. Her brother had a fairly ordinary record, but he stopped showing up after that fire. They resurfaced a week ago, here in Sunnydale, calling themselves the Butlers."
Xander got up and started pacing. "This is too weird. What was this family involved in?"
"I don't know. I'm thinking of doing some research on the dad over the weekend."
"That might be a good idea," said Giles. "Meanwhile, I'll read up on demons that eat brains, see if I can figure out what killed Claire's friend."
"And why it spared her."
That evening, Buffy went down to the Bronze. Unfortunately, she heard an all-too-familiar sound from around the corner – that of screaming and whimpering.
The Bronze was possibly the one location in Sunnydale that was dangerous for both humans and vampires. Vampires often came here to prey on the innocent humans – typically by seducing their target, then leading them away before feeding. But since Buffy also liked to come here, that made it dangerous for the vamps. Normally, she arrived just in time to save the human, and slay the vampire.
But as she rounded the corner, stake in hand, she saw that tonight, she was too late. An Asian vampire wearing a Nirvana T-shirt dropped a blonde girl to the ground. Buffy recognized her as Claire. It felt strange – she had only met Claire earlier that day, and then discovered that she had a secret past of some kind. And now she was dead.
But no matter what secrets Claire might have held, Buffy still had a job to do. She began by punching him in the face. The vamp fought back, kicking Buffy in the gut. They fought for a minute, but it was no real contest. Soon, Buffy drove her stake into his heart, and he turned to dust.
Now for the part she hated – getting rid of the body.
Wait a minute, where was it?
Buffy looked around. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find Claire Bennet's body!
It was gone!