Serendipity

Chapter Two

Buffy climbed into her Mom's car and as soon as her seat belt was clicked into place they were driving away from the school and Buffy rested her head on her hand as she gazed out of the window, her thoughts going back to the conversation that she just had with Larry. Ordinarily she would have just ignored it, forgotten about it and went on with her day.

And yet for some reason, she couldn't. She and her Mom were fine now after all, it had sucked to come home and have her pile on at her with her own friends and obviously being told to never come back had stung but Buffy knew she hadn't meant it. She was back home now after all and things were going to be great. They had to be great.

And yet, something about the group Larry had been talking about had sounded kind of interesting. She must have been really quiet as her Mom started to talk to her. "So, were those some more of your friends? I've never seen them around the house." A red light stopped the car in it's tracks and her Mom smiled at her. "So, do they know that you're a Slayer as well?"

"No Mom, just Xander and Willow know." And Oz and Cordelia and now that she actually thought about it she wouldn't be surprised if Larry knew as well and she had to guess that Amy knew she was the Slayer as well considering that she had saved from her Mom and her body swapping antics. But she didn't really know Larry so she couldn't say for sure and months seemed to pass between the times she saw Amy. "Larry was just talking to me about a new club."

"Oh. Well, that's good! Your heading back to school and you should have more things to do than just your slaying and just your school work, you should feel part of your community. I still think that you should consider giving yearbook another try." Her Mom smiled and Buffy didn't have the heart to tell her that she hadn't even given yearbook a first try after cheerleading hadn't worked out.

"Yeah, that would be nice Mom." Buffy said as she tapped her fingers on the car window. "Listen, after we get home is it alright if I head out? I need to go and see Willow and Xander about something."

"Oh, well I had thought we could maybe go shopping and you could max out my credit card with buying yourself a new wardrobe for school." Once upon a time that would be an offer she would snap up without even thinking about it but right now Buffy knew that it was just her Mom feeling guilty about kicking her out and wanting to make up for it.

Was this how it was going to be from now on? With her Mom just going to be so bouncy around her for the rest of her life, each moment a dance on top of rotten ice and the both of them doing their best to avoid putting a foot wrong and plunging into the dark water where they would freeze to death? Buffy wasn't sure if she could bear that.

"Maybe we can do that tomorrow, if that's okay Mom. I really need to talk to Xander and Willow." Things were better now after that party, but things still felt tense and she did need to talk to the both of them about her time in LA, she needed them to understand how hard it had been. Why she had to leave and the things she had seen when she was in the city of Angels.

But Xander was going to be really difficult to talk to about that, Angel was never going to be a subject that Xander was ever going to be able to keep an open mind about, Xander had always hated him since the moment he had known that he was a Vampire. Actually, Xander had probably hated him long before that. But that was something that she wasn't going to be able to fix with one talk.

But god, she had missed them both so much. A day hadn't gone by when she had not wanted to call them and let them know that she was alive but she hadn't been able to pick up the phone, she'd been too afraid of being rejected and so she had stayed away from them. Now she was back, and to an extent it seemed as though most of her fears were right.

It was hard to call what she saw in their eyes anything other than hatred. They had torn her down in front of the entire senior class and it had hurt, it had hurt more than anything as she never thought that Xander and Willow would turn against her like that. But they had and she couldn't deny that while they may have forgiven her for abandoning them, she wasn't sure if she could say that she had forgiven them.

She needed to talk to them, they all needed to talk. The three of them together and they would be able to work through everything together. They would have to be able to. It was the three of them, the three musketeers, against the whole world. She needed them. Being the Slayer cut her off from the rest of the world and her friends were all that she had to connect her to world that she put everything on the line to defend again and again.

Her Mom nodded. "Okay sweetheart, but can you try to be back early tonight?" She talked about it like she was going to go out to the Bronze instead of her scared duty thing of killing vampires in order to make the dark that little bit safer but Buffy guessed that she should be thankful that she was at least on some level of accepting who she was now, if not quite fully there yet.

"Sure Mom, I'll do what I can." That seemed to please her, at the very least. The drive was quiet for the rest of the way and once they had arrived back at home and Buffy had run upstairs for a quick shower and a change of clothes she was out of the house and hurrying over to Willow's house as quickly as she could.

Sadly, when she got there it was Willow's mom who had opened the door to her. She smiled at her and called her Bunny, not as a pet name or something it was just that the woman honestly thought that was her name, and told her that Willow had gone out to Xander's already and she probably wouldn't be back for at least a few hours.

Willow's Mom did offer to let her in for something to eat and maybe a nice chat as well but Buffy said no as politely as she could. Willow's Mom wasn't around her home much as she was a psychologist or something like that anyway. Willow had told her that her Mom had written a couple of books on people who has 'issues' and while Buffy didn't want to think her best friend's mother would use her like that.

But she had seen the look in Shelia Rosenberg's eyes before, mostly in the eyes of Vampires that she had lead into a trap by pretending to be helpless. It was hunger, to drain a victim dry until there was nothing left. Unlike a vampire, Buffy doubted that she was going to be able to solve this problem with a sharp piece of wood being jammed into the heart.

So, once she had said goodbye to Sheila, Buffy walked away from the Rosenberg house with no clear destination in her mind. Xander's house was on the other side of town and if she started to go that way now, then it would be dark and then she would have to go on patrol and she had promised her Mom that she would try and be back early tonight and so with a sigh, she turned around and began to make her way to the nearest cemetery.

The sun was just starting to set by the time she arrived St. Helen's cemetery and when full dark had arrived she hopped the fence and took her stake out of her jacket pocket and hopped over the fence.

She had read in the papers this morning that a woman had been found dead a few days ago, bruises around her neck and she had been buried just this afternoon. Her name had been Clara and it didn't take Buffy long to find her grave and when she dug her way out of it, it didn't take long for her to slam her stake into her heart.

She was the only person who had been put in the ground today, so at least she could get out of cemetery early. She planned to do a circuit of the town and then head home for the night. It seemed pretty quite out, all things considered. Willow, Xander and the others really must have done a good job of managing with out her and keeping the vampire population on the low side.

Buffy honestly didn't mean to go to the mansion, she honestly hadn't meant to at all. She had just making her circuit and then found herself on Crawford Street and there it was. The mansion where the love of her life had tried to end the world and she had to put a sword through his chest in order to save the world from being sucked into hell.

The air smelled of jasmine as she walked through the doors into the old abandoned house, her senses could tell that she was the only one there but all the same she felt uneasy. Like something was lurking nearby and Buffy didn't know what the meant, but it did make her clutch her stake just that little bit harder than she had been doing.

Acathla was gone. She had to guess that Giles must have stashed him somewhere for safe keeping, to make sure that no one would try and wake him up again. Buffy wished he was here though, and that she had a sledgehammer. She wondered if breaking the stone demon into pieces would be more or less satisfying then grinding the Master's bones into dust had been?

She closed her eyes and tried to feel any hint of Angel's presence, if she could then maybe then maybe that meant...she didn't know what it would mean. But she couldn't feel anything. In the mansion that night, she was completely on her own and that thought was enough to make her lose her grip on her stake and it clattered against the floor before she fell on to her knees, her head bent and sobbing.

Buffy honestly could not say how long she stayed there, sobbing her heart out. But by the time that she was done, her throat was dry and her head was light but aside from that she actually felt better than she had done only a few moments ago. She brought her hand up to wipe her tears away and then stood up, making sure to pick up her stake before she left.

All she wanted to do now was go back home, maybe sob into her Mom's shoulder for an hour or two, gorge on whatever ice cream her Mom had got in the freezer and then collapse on to her bed in a coma. But, she couldn't break her patrol now until she had done a full circuit of the town and so she carried on with her stake ever at the ready, leaving hopes of mint chocolatey goodness to the side, at least for now.

It really did seem like the undead population of Sunnydale was taking a night off, now why couldn't it be like this every night? Even at the Bronze, which was most vampire's favorite hot spot for a quick bite, there was nothing. It seemed likely that it was going to be a really quick night for her after all. The thought of ice cream being that much nearer made her hurry her step.

She decided almost without thinking about it just to make a quick trip down Main Street, there were tons of alleyways between the buildings and it was not unheard for a vamp to grab a victim and drag them down one of them to feed. And what do you, she heard a metal clang coming for the alleyway behind the magic shop, any other town in America it would likely just be a possum or a very large rat.

But this was Sunnydale.

Buffy hurried down the alleyway with her stake drawn and then she found them, a vampire who looked like he climbed his way out of an eighties music video was struggling with a young and pretty blond who looked familiar to Buffy, though she was having trouble placing it. "Hey. Am I interrupting something here? Cause you know, if you guys want to have a snuggle fest, i'd recommend doing it indoors."

The vamp turned to face her and ooof, he was an ugly one. His golden eyes almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. The girl he held was still struggling in his hold and he threw her to the ground in order to face Buffy properly. "Slayer, how long have I been waiting for this night? Too long, you slayed my sire, the greatest vampire to ever walk in the night, the great Almonos!"

"Who?"

That seemed to take the vampire aback, he looked to the side for a moment before focusing his attention back on to Buffy. "Almonos?"

"Yeah, sorry. I'm really drawing a blank here."

"Almonos, the undying, the ravager of souls, the slayer of slayers?"

"I mean he sounds really scary but I honestly don't remember him, but I mean don't feel bad, I've slayed a lot of vampires who look and sound really tough pretty easily." She threw her stake out and it landed firmly in the Vampire's heart. "You know, kinda like that?"

The vamp was dust before it had time to say anything and Buffy hurried to pick the stake up from the ashes before she turned her attention to the girl, who was looking at her with wide blue eyes and in that moment Buffy knew why she had seemed so familiar, it was Larry's friend who had just moved into town. Tara, that was it.

"T-thank you." Tara said as Buffy offered her a hand to help her up, she was shaking slightly but her hand was warm. "What was t-that? His face, it was like a m-monsters and you stabbed him and then he turned into dust. And aren't you Larry's friend?"

"No problem, that was a vampire and yes vampires are real and yes I killed it, I'm the Slayer, it's kinda what I do. And, honestly, I'm not that close to Larry." Honestly, considering most of their interactions had ended with Buffy laying him out flat she kinda got the impression that Larry kinda hated her, she certainly hadn't been all that fond of him that last year. "Listen, are you sure that you are okay?"

"I'm fine, thanks to you." Tara smiled at her then, a sweet little shy smile that made Buffy's stomach twitch for a moment as Tara bent down and collected the books that she must have dropped when the vamp had attacked her. It was too dark for her to make out any titles, but they certainly didn't look like they were light reading. Maybe she should introduce Tara to Giles, they'd get on like a house on fire probably.

"No problem, it's what I do." Buffy bit her lip for a moment as Tara put all her books in her satchel bag that hung off of her shoulder. "Um, listen. Do you want me to walk you home, just to make sure that you get there safe? Sunnydale is...well, to sum up it's kinda a weird town, you know? And it's dangerous at night, which is kinda obvious I guess, at this point. Let me get you home?"

This was kinda odd, she didn't normally offer to take the people she saved home. Mainly cause there was always someone else that needed to be saved but she didn't want to leave Tara on her own. The other girl seemed receptive to the idea, so once Tara gave her the address, they were off.

It was a quiet walk, Tara was a quiet person from what she had seen and Buffy wasn't entirely sure what to say. They eventually reached Tara's address and Buffy raised an eyebrow when she saw that it was a motel, and it looked like quite a seedy one as well. Tara walked over to one of the room's and unlocked it with her key. "So, um, you live here?"

"Y-Yeah." Tara blushed as she walked deeper into the room and Buffy stood in the doorway, and her gut twisted into a uncomfortable knot when she saw the Doublemeat Palace waitress uniform splayed out on the bed and all too suddenly, she began to understand all too much. The cow on the hat almost seemed to be mocking her. "I can't really afford anywhere else to stay, the Doublemeat doesn't really pay all that much. Just enough for food and for me to stay here."

Buffy wanted to punch something, she wanted to punch something a lot. "Tara, are you even eighteen?"

"I'm almost eighteen, in a few months."

"That's no then." Which meant she must by lying about her age, at least to someone. Buffy couldn't blame her for that, she had lied about her age when she had needed to get a job and an apartment in LA. "Tara, I-" What, what was she going to say? Where her parents were? Why she lied? She needed to know all she needed about that. "Could I swing by here tomorrow? So we can walk to school together."

Tara looked surprised for a moment but then she nodded. "Yeah, sure."

"Right, Tomorrow then." Buffy nodded and left the room and shut the door and bent her head and brought her fingers up to run through her hair as she let out a long sigh and then stood up, life was a mess but she had already knew that.

It was time to go home.

End of Chapter Two

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A ton of love,

Discordant Symphony