At school, Willow was sitting on a bench in front of a wall, taking out her lunch.
Buffy approached her. "Uh, hi! Willow, right?"
Willow looked up. "Why? I-I mean, hi! Uh, did you want me to move?"
"Why don't we start with, 'Hi, I'm Buffy,' and, uh, then let's segue directly into me asking you for a favor." Buffy sat next to Willow. "It doesn't involve moving, but it does involve hanging out with me for a while."
"But aren't you hanging out with Cordelia?"
"I can't do both?"
"Not legally."
Buffy exhaled. "Look, I really wanna get by here-new school-and... Cordelia's been really nice... to me... anyway, but, um, I kinda have this burning desire not to flunk all my classes, and I heard a rumor that you were the person to talk to if I wanted to get caught up."
"Oh, I could totally help you out! Uh, if you have sixth period free we could meet in the library?" Willow went from scared to excited. She liked helping people.
"Or not. Or we could meet some place quieter. Louder. Uh, that place just kinda gives me the wiggins."
"Oh, it has that effect on most kids. I love it, though, it's a great collection, and the new librarian is really cool. Was the technology teacher there?"
"Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?"
"She is totally crushing on the librarian. We all know it. Can't imagine why…and I did not just say that, okay?"
Buffy laughed. "Okay." Techie teacher crushing on weirdo. Fine with her. "Wait, did you say the librarian is new?"
"Yup. He just started…though that obviously doesn't matter much to Ms. C. He was a curator at some British museum, or, or The British Museum, I'm not sure. But he knows everything, and he brought all these historical volumes and biographies, and am I the single dullest person alive?"
"Not at all."
Xander hopped up onto the wall behind the girls and sat on it between them. Jesse stood in front of them and dropped his bag.
"Hey!" Jesse greeted.
"You guys busy? Are we interrupting? We're interrupting." Nervous Xander. He tossed his bag to Jesse.
"Hey!" Buffy greeted.
"Hey!" Willow.
"Hey there!" Jesse dropped Xander's bag next to his own.
Willow introduced them, "Buffy, this is Jesse and that's Xander."
"Oh, me and Buffy go waaay back, old friends, very close. Then there's that period of estrangement where I think we were both growing as people, but now here we are, like old times, I'm quite moved."
"Is it me, or are you turning into a bibbling idiot?" Jesse asked Xander.
"No, it's, uh, it's not you."
"Well, it's nice to meet you guys, I think." Buffy said.
Xander jumped down to retrieve the stake from his bag.
"Well, you know, we wanted to welcome ya, make ya feel at home, unless you have a scary home..." Jesse replied.
"And to return this." Xander held up the stake. "The only thing I can think is that you're building a really little fence." He handed it to her.
Buffy took it, did her best to cover. "Hah, no, um, a-a-actually it was for self-defense. Everyone has them in L.A. Pepper spray is just so passé."
Xander spewed questions, "So what do you do for fun? What do you like? What do you look for in a man? Let's hear it."
"If you have any dark, painful secrets you'd like us to publish?" Jesse added.
"Gee, everyone wants to know about me. How keen," Buffy remarked.
"Well, not much goes on in a one Starbucks town like Sunnydale," Xander explained. "You're pretty big news."
"I'm not. Really." Buffy didn't want to be different. What was the point of going to a new school if she was still going to be the different one?
Cordelia interrupted them, "Are these guys bothering you?"
"Uh, no!"
"She's not hanging out with us," Willow helped.
Jesse moved to stand next to Cordelia. "Hey! Cordelia!"
"Oh, please!" Cordelia scoffed at him. She geared her next words to Buffy, "I don't mean to interrupt your downward mobility, but I just wanted to tell you that you won't be meeting Coach Foster, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was canceled due to the extreme dead guy in the locker."
"What?" This could not be happening. Not again. Not to Buffy, again.
"What are you talking about?" Willow asked.
"Some guy was stuffed in Aura's locker!" Cordelia repeated.
"Dead." Buffy's voice was almost monotone.
"Totally dead. Way dead," Cordelia confirmed.
"It's not just a little dead, then?" Xander joked.
"Don't you have an elsewhere to be?" Cordelia asked.
"Y'know, if you need a shoulder to cry on, or just to nibble on..." Jesse was still putting the moves on Cordelia.
"How did he die?" Buffy asked. This was important.
"I don't know." Why would Cordelia know? She didn't pay attention to these things.
"Well, were there any marks?" Buffy tried to bear with her. She didn't understand the importance of the situation.
"Morbid much! I didn't ask!" Cordelia was second-guessing on hanging out with that girl.
Looking at everyone, Buffy stated, "Um, I gotta book. I'll, I'll see you guys later." She grabbed her things and left.
Cordelia stared after her. "What's her deal?"
Outside the gym, Buffy snuck up to an outside entrance. Locked. She used her strength to break the door and went in, looking around to make sure no one saw her. Once inside the locker room, she found the body and pulled back the sheet. She saw a vampire bite. "Oh, great."
Buffy stormed into the library. "Okay, what's the sitch?"
Giles was in the stacks. "Sorry?"
"You'll have to date your terminology a bit for him to understand," Ms. Calendar quipped. She was sitting at the conference table, typing on a laptop.
Buffy started to retort with something along the lines of 'don't you have a job?', but that would be rude, and uncalled for, so she jumped right into business. "You heard about the dead guy, right? The dead guy in the locker?"
"Here we go," Ms. Calendar murmured under her breath.
Giles stepped into the light. "Yes."
Buffy plopped her bag on the conference table and headed up the stairs.
"No, Slayer, no one else is using the table." Another under breath murmur from Ms. Calendar.
"'Cause, it's the weirdest thing. He's got two little, little holes in his neck, and all his blood's been drained." Buffy meets him on the stairs. "Isn't that bizarre? Aren't you just going, 'ooh'?"
Ms. Calendar couldn't resist. "Ooh."
Giles and Buffy looked at her.
"What? I can have fun, can't I?"
"Sorry, don't you have somewhere else to be?" Buffy couldn't hold it in any longer. "Like class? I'm kinda having a private conversation, here."
"She can hear whatever we talk about. She's with me."
Ms. Calendar visibly perked at that.
"So I heard," Buffy muttered. She rolled her eyes and looked at Giles once more.
Getting back to the earlier topic, Giles stated, "I was afraid of this."
"Well, I wasn't! It's my first day! I was afraid that I was gonna be behind in all my classes, that I wouldn't make any friends, that I would have last month's hair. I didn't think there'd be vampires on campus. And I don't care."
"Then why are you here?" Ms. Calendar asked.
"To tell you that – well, actually, him... I don't care, which... I don't, and... have now told you, so... bye." Buffy turned away to go.
"Is he, w-will he... rise again?" Giles asked.
Buffy turned back. "Who?"
"The boy," Ms. Calendar answered for him. She closed her laptop and moved over to them.
"No. He's just dead," Buffy replied.
Giles watched as Ms. Calendar join them. She must know she makes him really lose concentration and fumble, if not, why was she there in her spare time? Trying to focus, he asked Buffy, "Can you be sure?"
"To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they're just gonna kill you. Why am I still talking to you?" Buffy turned and went down the stairs.
Giles moved over to the railing. "You really have no idea what's going on, do you? You think it's coincidence, your being here? That boy was just the beginning."
"Oh, why can't you people just leave me alone?" Buffy whined.
"Because you are the Slayer," Ms. Calendar answered, walking down the stairs. "Into each generation a Slayer is born, one girl in all the world, a Chosen One, one born with the strength and skill to hunt-"
Buffy interrupted her, "With the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil blah, blah, blah... I've heard it, okay?"
"I really don't understand this attitude," Giles stated, moving down next to Ms. Calendar. "You, you've accepted your duty, you, you've slain vampires before...Not to mention you are being outrageously rude to a teacher you will have next semester."
"Yeah, and I've both been there and done that, and I'm moving on. And I don't mean to be, but it's going to happen when you gang up on me like that."
"What do you know about this town?" Ms. Calendar asked. She wasn't even going to comment on the 'ganging up on' part.
Giles walked into his office.
"It's two hours on the freeway from Neiman Marcus?"
"Dig a bit in the history of this place. You'll find a, a steady stream of fairly odd occurrences. Now, I believe this whole area is a center of mystical energy," Giles returned to them, carrying four books. "That things gravitate towards it, that, that, that you might not find elsewhere." His stuttering always managed to flare up when Ms. Calendar was around. He sat the books on the table.
Buffy thought it very creepy how well the two worked together. She pushed it out of her mind. "Like vampires." She was trying to act unimpressed.
Giles put the volumes into Buffy's arms one by one, listing off various monsters and demons. "Like zombies, werewolves, incubi, succubi, everything you've ever dreaded was under your bed, but told yourself couldn't be by the light of day. They're all real!"
"What? You, like, sent away for the Time-Life series?"
"Ah, w-w-w-yes."
Buffy hadn't quite been expecting that. "Did you get the free phone?"
"Um, the calendar." He glanced over at Ms. Calendar as he said that. The smirk she was giving him made him blush and look away.
"Cool! But, okay," Buffy gave him the books back. "first of all, I'm a Vampire Slayer. And secondly, I'm retired. Hey, I know! Why don't you and Tomb Raider here kill 'em?"
Hey, Ms. Calendar thought defensively. I don't dress that slutty…do I?
"I-I'm a Watcher, I-I haven't the skill...a-and sh-she…isn't violent."
"Oh, come on, stake through the heart, a little sunlight... It's like falling off a log."
"A, a Slayer slays, a Watcher-"
"Watches?" Buffy asked.
"Yes. No!" Giles sat the books down. "He, he trains her, he, he, he
prepares her-"
"He shags the technology teacher on the side…"
Ms. Calendar's eyes widened and she brushed past them, exiting the library. What the hell had she done to her?
"Come on, what do you prepare me for? For getting kicked out of school? For losing all of my friends? For having to spend all of my time fighting for my life and never getting to tell anyone because I might endanger them? Go ahead! Prepare me."
Giles' eyes trailed after Ms. Calendar. He hoped she was okay – Buffy had been harsh.
Giles and Buffy looked at each other for a moment. Buffy exhaled, turned, and left the library in disgust.
Giles hesitated for an instant. "Damn!" He was cursing multiple things. He looked at the clock. He knew Ms. Calendar's next class would start soon. He would have to apologize for Buffy later. He could still bring Buffy to her senses, though. He ran after Buffy.
Xander walked out from behind the stacks. "What?"
Giles caught up with Buffy in the hall. "It's getting worse!"
"What's getting worse?" Buffy asked.
Giles guided her over to the wall and spoke to her in a low voice, "The influx of the undead, the... supernatural occurrences, it's been building for years. There's a reason why you're here and a reason why it's now!"
"Because now is the time my mom moved here," Buffy insisted. She tried to evade him, but he put his arm out to stop her.
"Something's coming, something, something... something is, is gonna happen here. Soon!"
"Gee, can you vague that up for me?" Buffy sneered sarcastically.
"The signs, as far as I can tell, point to a crucial mystical upheaval, very soon. Days. Possibly less."
"Oh, come on! This is Sunnydale! How bad an evil can there be
here?"
In the lair of the Master, there are candles everywhere. Vampires bearing torches gathered.
Luke chants, "The sleeper will wake. The sleeper will wake. The sleeper will wake. The sleeper will wake, and the world will bleed. Amen!"