Disclaimer: I, unfortunately, don't own Buffy, Angel or Twilight. They belong solely to the creative genius' that are Joss Whedon & Stephanie Meyer. Lucky bums! =]

I hope you enjoy! Read & review, if you please! I appreciate good, honest, constructive reviews as I am trying to improve my writing. "This sucks" or lines of that nature are not at all constructive, thanks!

P.S. This is from Buffy's POV. There is a lot of sarcastic humour!

Chapter 2: Starting A New Life…Isn't that easy.

I figured that I probably shouldn't linger in L.A. too much longer. Most of the vamps and demons in the area had definitely heard about the Hellmouth and the Slayer's involvement in shutting it down permanently. Considering I was already on an extensive number of hit lists, I thought it best to try and not provoke more trouble than I already had heading my way in the future.

Now, you might be saying to yourselves "But Buffy! You're the Slayer! Surely you could handle it!" To you I say, yes. Yes, I probably could. However, one of the greatest lessons I have learned in my time as the Slayer is that a careless Slayer is a dead Slayer.

Just ask the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of girls that died before I got stuck with the job.

Better to not provoke any trouble when the trouble can surely find you soon enough.

After what seemed pretty close to an hour of begging and pleading me to stay with him, Angel gave me a car from his rather large selection and a large cash deposit from deep down in the vaults of the offices to get my new life started.

"Where are you going to go?" he asked.

"I…I don't know." I responded truthfully. I really had no idea. "Giles kept mentioning something about a Hellmouth in Cleveland. Maybe they could use some help there."

Angel got a grave look on his face. I knew it well. "Angel, don't look so serious. I just got done with a seven-year battle defeating a Hellmouth. I'm not really going to go looking for another one so soon. At least not until I've had a proper vacation" I smiled.

He shook his head at me and then returned my smile, though his still had some serious undertones to it. "Just, wherever you go Buffy, be careful. Trouble tends to find you like a magnet."

At that I laughed. We hugged, a little too long for my tastes, and then I hopped into the car and sped off down the street. Quite literally.

Driving has never been my strong suit. After driving for what seemed to me like an eternity, I came upon a quaint little town somewhere in Northern California. It kind of seemed like one of those towns where the locals could tell you weren't a local and seethed at you for intruding through their town.

As soon as I stepped into the local diner to get some dinner, I knew I was right. There were about six people in the place total, all of them staring straight at me as I walked in. I looked away from the staring faces, walked to end of the counter and sat down. The waitress managed to stop staring at me long enough to come down and take my order. I sat on the stool flipping through a newspaper trying to decide where to go.

I was vaguely aware of someone sitting down next to me.

"Um, excuse me miss?"

I looked up to see an older man. He looked about close to the same age as Giles or my father. He was also wearing a uniform. A police uniform. Oh, great.

"Yes?" I answered politely.

"You're new to town?"

Oh good. He was observant. "I'm just passing through." I responded.

"Where are you going? If you don't mind me asking."

Oh, even better. The exact question I didn't have the answer for. I quickly glanced down at the newspaper that I had previously been flipping through and named the first city I saw.

"Seattle"

He looked at me, disbelieving. "Seattle? Really? Again, if you don't mind me asking, why are you going to Seattle?"

Okay, now he was just getting annoying. I answered quickly as to avoid suspicion.

"Well, my little sister got accepted to study abroad in Europe and since I was her primary caretaker, a lot of my time has been freed up so I decided to take a little vacation along the West Coast and I happen to have a friend in Seattle, at the University."

Whatever, it was like a ¼ true.

"Ah. So if you're your sister's legal guardian, where are your parents?"

He was getting REAL annoying now. I raised my eyebrow and managed to give the most annoying look I could produce while eating a cheeseburger.

"Short story, my parent's divorced, my mother got sick, drew up a will and named me as my little sister's legal guardian, and then my mother died."

"What about your father?" he responded quickly.

Seriously. This guy was getting on every last nerve I had. "Ugly divorce. Not a stable father figure. He didn't want anything to do with any of us. His new wife's name is Barbi. Take your pick. Without sounding disrespectful, can I ask why I'm getting the third degree over my dinner?" I inquired.

He looked at me quizzically. The look on his face kind of reminded me of when I used to go to barkeep Willy for information. It was the look of "Should I lie or just tell the truth?" I knew it well.

Whatever, I just wished he'd make up his mind already. "Well, I'll be quite honest with you, Miss. We're a little…sensitive to strangers moving through our town. Not too long ago, we had some strange folks take up residency here. After they settled in, a lot of odd things started happening," he said quietly.

Ahhh, so there were some monsters in town. Or, well, there had been some monsters in town, anyways. Hmm…how to ask about the "odd things" without arousing suspicion

"I see… What kind of odd things?" I asked nonchalantly.

He gave me another puzzled-bar-keep-Willy look. He lowered his voice again and took a deep breath. Oh good, a long story.

"A few cattle here and there came up missing. Stray dogs. We're always overpopulated with deer and elk, but even their numbers died down. It was just small numbers at first. Then after a few weeks, the numbers of the missing animals went higher and higher. A lot of farms had close to all of their herds disappear. After all this broke out, being the town Sheriff, I questioned the father of the strange family that had moved here. He was a doctor, his wife a homemaker. They had three adopted children of their own, two boys and a girl. The older son's fiancée lived with them, as did their daughter's boyfriend. So, one day, about three months ago, at the beginning of the summer, I went all the way up their private residence in the mountains to ask some questions, like I said. I asked the doctor, honestly, why they had moved here. He had said that he had gotten a new job at a hospital in Seattle and the house that they had built wasn't quite ready to move into yet. The older son and his fiancée were taking up temporary residence with the family until after their wedding. The youngest son was starting at Seattle University in the fall, as were the daughter and her boyfriend. "

I had to interrupt here. The way he was telling the story, I was never going to find out anything more than missing cattle and some poor family's college plans. I needed to hear about if there were any missing people…but unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to ask about missing people without sounding shady. So I settled for trying to get the great Sheriff of whatever this little rinky-dink town was, to leave me alone instead.

"Listen, I'm sorry to interrupt your story, Sheriff, but quite honestly, I don't really see what this all has to do with me. I'm not moving into your town, I'm really, honestly, just passing through. Scout's honor."

If you're imagining me saying that really sarcastic like, you're right. If you're also thinking, "She probably shouldn't be getting lippy with him. He's a Sheriff", well, hey, if you had to endure this ridiculous, pointless, conversation, after being on the road for god knows how many hours, on an empty stomach, you'd be getting lippy too.

After my little sarcastic remark, he looked at me quite seriously. A few moments passed in silence.

"Well, Miss, honestly, I guess I'm just trying to decipher if you're with this strange family that passed through here a few months ago. I can't prove it, but I KNOW that all the problems this town had with their livestock had something to do with them. As Sheriff, I'm not about to let our town go through something so traumatic again."

I barely resisted the urge to burst out laughing. Did he really just say "traumatic"? Oh, wow. I didn't realize that losing a few cows and some deer qualified as "traumatic".

I usually thought things like finding your mother's dead body and being ripped out of Heaven after dying, for the second time might I add, counted as traumatic. Wow, I guess he taught me.

As I think about this, I'm still resisting the urge to burst out laughing.

So, barely suppressing my fits of giggles, I managed to choke out something similar to "Well, I'm very sorry for your town's loss, but I'm on my own. As I said."

He apparently didn't believe me. No, really. He told me so.

"I don't believe you. I know you're with the Cullen's! I mean, you look nothing like them, but this isn't a coincidence!" He was raising his voice now.

I was still resisting the urge to laugh in his face and walk away.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Sheriff, but I don't know the Cullen's. Quite honestly, I've never even heard of them."

"Of course you don't know the Cullen's. That's what every criminal says."

Okay, he was seriously not making any sense at this point. "No, I really don't know them."

"Tell me your name."

Oh great. Knowing my luck, he would go back to his little itty-bitty police station and run my name and the burning-down-the-gym incident, plus a few other… "mishaps", would pop up.

What the hell, I could get away fast if I had to.

"Buffy Summers, nice to meet you."

Don't worry, I was sarcastic.

"You're lying! You're a Cullen! I know it! I mean, of course, you look nothing like them. You have color in your skin. And they were all so pale that they were almost white…and their eyes. Their eyes changed. From gold to black…"

At this, he threw his face into his hands.

Pale skin? Ahhh. My friends, the vampires.

"Well, you see, I'm quite tan. No pale skin here."

I really had to get out of there. I took some money out of my pocket and threw it on the counter. I didn't really care how much I over/under tipped the waitress, I really just wanted to get out of this ridiculous place. I told the Sheriff one more time how sorry I was for the loss that his town recently went through, barely managing to suppress more giggles, and thanked him for his time.

I hopped back into the car and sped out of that crazy town as fast as possible.