Title: Chasing Dreams

Author: Robyn

Rating: PG, maybe PG-13 at the most

Disclaimer: Not mine... we'd still have Doyle and all the Season 1 goodness if I did own 'em.

Summary: AU. What if the AI gang had met long before LA? A/C or C/D, please lemme know! Also, please review; good or bad. It helps the story become even better!

One

---

"Well, Cordelia, what do you think?"

Seventeen-year-old Cordelia Chase, tall, dark, and slim, looked up at the dilapidated old house in total disgust. She was standing, somewhat off to the side, of her parents, who had uprooted her from all that she had known and brought her here, of all godforsaken places to live in an old shack, which probably had mice.

Mice.

Ew.

Cordelia shuddered. Mice were gross.

"Well? Will you survive?" Cordelia's mother asked, looking tentatively at her only daughter.

Cordelia sighed and pushed her last and only pair of designer sunglasses onto the top of her head. "I guess so. But you did have it exterminated, right?"

Her father looked uncomfortable. "Well..."

Cordelia looked appalled. She knew that her parents had practically no money now, and that they were pretty much penniless, but no exterminator?

"I'm sleeping in the car." With that, Cordelia turned around and climbed back into the mini-van that her family now owned. She settled into the back seat, and let her head fall back against the headrest.

God life sucks, Cordelia thought, letting her head fall back against the seat. First, Xander Harris, the loser of all losers in Sunnydale, practically dumps me, then Buffy Summers has the nerve to try to steal my friends and now I have to live in this dump.

She turned her head and regarded the mess in front of her. It was made of stone, or it had been when it had been new, like a thousand years ago, and now chunks of stone were falling off the building. Sure, it was big enough, but the front porch was sagging, the shutters were falling off, and by the looks of the front yard, Cordelia didn't even want to venture into the backyard that had to be a freaking forest.

But hey. At least not everyone in Sunnydale had to know what the Chase's had come to. Now she was in a new town, and Cordelia could start over brand new.

She was in LA.

---

Francis Doyle groaned and looked at the clock hung atop of the door to the free world. The clock seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. It was as if this day from hell would never be over. Doyle was bored out of his mind, as geography was far from his idea of a good time, or even a good class.

Beside Doyle, his friends Winifred Burkle and Charles Gunn were giggling disgustingly and passing what were probably sappy love notes. Fred and Gunn had been dating since forever, at least as long as Doyle had known them, and were always making gooey faces or dopey faces at each other.

It was damn near enough to make him hurl.

Gunn looked away from Fred for a second and noticed Doyle looking at them. He motioned to the teacher at the front of the room, made a stupid face, and rolled his eyes. Doyle took that to mean that he was bored too and he thought their teacher was a total dork.

Gunn then went back to staring lovingly at Fred and vice versa and Doyle looked back at the clock. Only three minutes had passed. Three minutes! Was this class never going to end?

Doyle leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. He randomly wondered how many tiles made up the classroom ceiling, and set out to find out. As he counted silently, Doyle's eyes began to droop, and soon he had fallen asleep in his desk.

When the bell rang twenty minutes later Doyle jerked upwards, then because he was off balance, fell out of his desk, and face first on the floor.

"Nice one man," Gunn congratulated him, offering a hand to help Doyle up off the ground. "Real classy."

Doyle accepted the hand and stood up. "Yeah, yeah, thank a lot," Doyle grumbled, collecting his books from underneath his desk. "C'mon, let's get out of here. One day down, two hundred and fifty three more to go."

---

Cordelia couldn't sleep. She didn't know if it was because the car was really uncomfortable, the fact that she was in a brand new place or that her 'new' house was super spooky at night, but she had been sitting in the car for the past two hours not sleeping. It just wasn't right. By Cordelia's watch, it was almost one o'clock in the morning. No one should be up at this hour.

Cordelia reclined in her seat and fiddled with the charm bracelet on her wrist. It was one of the real expensive things she had been allowed to keep. The bracelet was real silver and carried real silver and 24-carat gold charms from various places. Some Cordelia had received as gifts and some were from the luxurious places she and her family had travelled to.

She snorted. No more luxuries any more. Just look at this neighbourhood. Sighing, Cordelia scanned the street ahead of her once more. No one. Just like the last twenty-zillion times she had checked. Then a shadow moved.

Cordelia sat up and leaned forward in her seat. A person was creeping along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. No one was out at this hour. At least no one should be. Nevertheless, someone was indeed prowling around the neighbourhood.

It couldn't be a burglar Cordelia reasoned. No one in this place would have anything of value to steal. That just left...

Damn. That did not make me feel any better, Cordelia thought, wrinkling her nose. She reached down to grab the stake she now always kept in her duffel bag, but when she sat back up, there were now two shadows.

"Oh great," Cordelia muttered. "I can't take two. One sure, I have lucky days, but two, yeah right. What am I? Buffy?"

However, just as Cordelia was about to climb from the car, one shadow poofed into dust. "What? One vampire is killing another vampire. Yeah right, this I've got to see," Cordelia whispered.

She clambered out of the car and strode confidently towards the person, or vampire.

"Hey! Did you just stake that thing, or did I imagine it? 'Cause if you did, thanks a lot because now I don't have to, and if you're an evil vampire too, I'm gonna stake you now too. Okay? Okay."

The person turned around, and Cordelia was awarded a glimpse of awe- inspiring blue eyes, before she was attacked from behind and everything went black.

tbc...