Once again I waited at the grill on Bonnie with my mind whirling in chaos. I couldn't stand it, my brain was starting to drive me crazy. I just couldn't stop over thinking things and it was really starting to scare me.

"Are you alright?" Bonnie asked as she slid into the booth beside me.

"Eh," I gave a shrug, non committed.

"You know you can talk to me. I am your friend after all."

"That's true," I said with a shrug. "I'm just having a weird hard time," I gave a shrug and sipped my coffee, which wasn't the greatest thing I've ever had.

She nodded, "Yeah I can understand, you're grandma just passed right?" I gave a nod and she just gave a reassuring smile. "I can understand that."

"Yeah, I've just been having a hard is all."

"Want me to read your future?"

"Ohh!" I said with excitement, practically bouncing. "What do you need me to do?"

"Maybe I can read your palm?" She asked.

I shrugged, "Sounds good to me." I handed her my hand and she got a weird look of concentration in her eyes.

Her finger began to trace my palm in a way that seems too genuine to be her playing this psychic thing up. She finally looked up to my eyes with trepidation and fear in hers. "I'm not one hundred here, but I think something is," she paused and broke eye contact to look at my hand, "Never mind." She stood up abruptly, "I'm going to go get nachos, you want nachos?" she asked.

"Uh," was all I could do in response as my only friend here took off like a bat out of hell. I sat there for a long while trying to understand what the heck just happened. She came back but seemed antsy, unable to really relax.

"So um, first day of school, do you mind if I only picked up Elena?" she asked, then winced and quickly shot her hands up, "not that I don't want you to come too, but I don't. Her parents recently passed and has been held up at home the whole summer. I forced her to let me pick her up-

"That you don't want to push her by having a stranger in the car too?"

Instantly Bonnie was relieved. "I know that's not the nicest things to do to a friend, but," she paused and winced. "I really don't want to cause more problems for her."

I nodded and tried to think logically about it. Rumors around town was that she was in the car when the accident happened. It made sense. Logically speaking, it made full sense. It didn't hurt any less though.

Her phone rang and she got up to answer it, once again giving me an apologetic smile. The nachos came and seemed to be extra cheesy. It was pretty good.

I waited patiently for Bonnie to come back but was starting to feel anxiety levels rise up. I started people watching, not something I was the greatest at for some awful reason. Easily getting bored all too fast upon starting.

I patiently waited, snacking on the cheesy goodness periodically trying not to let the hurt escape and undoubtedly make a fool of myself. Buffy somehow slid across from me and immediately began munching at the nachos in front of me.

"Hiya!" she said, a grin on her face. "Whatcha doin?"

"A friend of mine is taking a phone call," I said with what I tried to say with smile.

"Oh one of your friends from before?"

"Actually, no. I made her-as a friend, while you were away in L.A."

"Oh," Buffy said with a sigh. "So you already have a foot up on making new friends?" She was kinda dejected over it.

I gave a shrug, "I thought we were friends, but…" I gave a shrug. After a long moment I smiled, "Besides you'll make tons of friends," I ate a chip, "you are so bubbly and vivacious you ought to make tons of friends."

She snagged a chip, "Really?" Worry was evident in her tone, "you aren't saying that because I'm your cousin right?"

"Nope, I'm being super honest," I gave her an encouraged smile, "I'm pretty terrible at lying, just so you know." I gave another grin.

She chuckled, "Oh yeah?"

I gave a nod, "For the most part, which is why I do my best not to lie."

"Oh?" she chuckled again, snacking on more nachos as she went. If Bonnie came back there wouldn't be any more left for her. I gave her a nod, "So do you have any idea on who the mysterious Aunt Lolly is?"

My eyes widened and I immediately shook my head no, but realized much too late that I had given myself away.

"You do? Where is she?" Buffy's eyes were wide and intense.

"I don't know where she is." I answered after a good long moment, thrilled to not know in all honesty.

"Oh, so you just know who she is," Buffy said the gleam not leaving her eyes.

"Maybe?" I said with shifty eyes. "Oh look there's Lyn!" I jumped up "Lynnie!"

bvxxxvd Lyn POV

I walked in looking for Vicki, but after a quick scan came to the conclusion she wasn't working yet. I spotted my sister who was looking wide eyed and reeking of worry. Her weirdly familiar color eyes locked on mine. "Oh look there's Lyn!" she squealed, rather loudly, before loudly yelling, "Lynnie!"

Awkwardly I made my way toward her, finding her wide eyed terror filled look worrying. Sitting in front of her is Buffy, and with a smile I squeeze into the seat beside my sister, noticing the nachos were almost gone.

I quickly took a chip before Buffy slayed them. "So what are we doing?"

"Other than slaying all of Bonnie's nachos," my eyes widened and my head shot to the speaker, Ros was now staring ahead of her in what seemed like horror. "Um, yeah, nothing," she squeaked out.

Slowly I tried not to make any movement that would cause more problems. I turned to Buffy who was eyeing Ros with such curiosity that actually frightened me.

"Actually Ros was going to tell me who mysterious Aunt Lolly was," a hard smirk on her face.

My jaw dropped and my head spun to my idiot sister. "Oh really?"

"Jenny something?" Ros offered, which really threw Buffy for a loop but I just scoffed, "well I don't remember," she finished with a whine.

Buffy look unconvinced, "I thought her name was at least something like Lolly?"

"I don't know," Ros said with irritation. Without any prompting on my part, "Move," Ros demanded, "I gotta pee."

The frustration on her face was apparent and Buffy just shrugged and let us get up. I followed her to the bathroom where she immediately turned on me with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry," She whispered, "my brain just hasn't been-" she struggled for words and just shrugged.

I suddenly realized what was going on. Ros was breaking. Her tangents and scatter brained have shown the past couple of days, increasing at an alarming pace. She accidentally put juice in her cereal just this morning. Aunt Joyce asked her a question and she nearly answered with some form of demon thing in the show. She was losing it.

Did I always have to be the strong one?

bvxxxvd Ros POV

"Ros," Lynnie looked at me with irritation being the most permanent thing in her eyes, "you really need to calm down, like a lot." She gave a heavy sigh and ran a hand through her hair, "You need to just enjoy what's going on and stop fretting over what's going on around you."

I snorted, "You are telling me to be just a plain teenager?" I giggled more so, leaned in and whispered, "A teenager who is mentally old and in a television show."

She just sighed heavily, frustration obvious in her mannerisms. "Just stop fretting about the world around you and just be yourself."

I gave a weak smile, "Okay," I stammered out. My brain worked through the issues I've been having, "Though…"

"No though, Ros," Lyn snapped. "You are fine, I'm the one actively dying and you are fine. I'm the one working in the background trying to keep," she looked around and dropped her voice, "people alive," she then scrunched up her face and nearly growled out, "and you are whining and losing your marbles, no more. Suck it up!"

"Yes ma'am," I stated numbly, starting to feel guilt over how crazy I've started to become. School hasn't even started and I was slipping. Jeeze! Guilt festered up in me. "I'm sorry."

"Don't you start on that!" Lyn snapped again, her hand going through her hair again, "You are not going to go on and on about how stupid you've been. Cut the guilt and get your act together!"

I nodded, fighting tears. She gave me one stern look and left in a huff.

I tried to breathe deep and calm down but tears still spilled from my face. After a couple long moments I finally gained control of myself. Splashing water on my face I left the loo and squeezed in front of the slayer, who was seemingly waiting for me.

"Finally," she whispered, "I thought I'd have to go in and find you." She handed me the check, "Lyn already left and some girl named Bonnie said she had to run so," she shrugged.

I bit my lip. "Wanna go window shop?"

Buffy brightened up, "Sounds great!"

"Kay," I stood up, "I'll just go pay for this."

bvxxvd

Finally school was going to start. I had talked to Bonnie a bit more and met up with her at the grill and Lynnie had actually got a part time job there after school. She told Aunt Joyce it was because she wanted to get a head start on saving some money for college, but she confided to me that she really applied to spend time with Vicki.

Something about trying to keep her alive. But I took her advice to heart and started trying to live as if this was my reality. When Buffy and I got home that day, I wrote everything I knew about both worlds and people before closing the book and the knowledge within away and tried to live as if I really was Rosalind Flemming.

It wasn't too difficult, the original kept a very detailed journal. That and she shared a lot of similarities with me. That was comforting. She would have probably followed through on what I did, ie let myself become alone and isolated, but I now knew better.

I would do everything within my power to not fall back into that misguided attempt of staying cool. Besides I didn't look half as scary as I did in reality. I actually had under control curls that were bouncy and not hanging around me like a dark cloud of bushy ringlets.

So you know that was a plus.

I probably should look into getting a better sense of self.

With that I made sure to brush up on many of the school things that I'd be forced to re-learn. Lynnie came in after a while, immediately getting dropping and kneeling down to lay face first onto the fluffy plush rug in the center of the room.

"Rough first day?" I asked.

She mumbled into the floor and I couldn't help but smile, "Can't hear you!"

"Yeah?" She asked turning her head, "well I can hear you so how bout you tone down the volume?" She asked with pure snark.

I snorted, "Okay so, rough first day?"

"You could say that," she responded with a heavy sigh. She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She lied there for a few minutes, and after a fairly long silence, "The work was real simple. They have me working on cleaning the dishes. But they made a real huge deal out of my illness. They wouldn't let me pick anything heavy up, and that went double for Vicki," she breathed out a sigh, "I think it may have made her see me different. I hope not, but it does worry me some."

"How so?"

"She would usually be sassy and up front but when she found out about my illness she got quiet and practically followed me when she wasn't waiting on people. Picking up everything even if it wasn't all too heavy." She groaned and flung her arm across her face, "It just doesn't go with how I know her."

"Well maybe she'll get over it. It may take time to get used to someone you like possibly dying, ya know?"

She grunted, but seemed to agree.

"So are you ready for school?" she growled, "I guess not."

"Teachers," she whispered. "And learning, and ugh!" she growled out Then forced herself to sit up but was still rather grumpy face.

"Yeah I'm not looking for it," she motioned to my stack of books. I winced, "I wanted to recap on stuff. I haven't been in school for a long while."

She nodded, winced herself, then look at the stack, "Hand me the history book."

I nodded and handed it over.

First day of school gitters caused me to skip my coffee to ensure I didn't spill it on my plum blouse top. Where I was dressed in a kinda dressy outfit, Lynnie was wearing a band tee and ripped jeans. Buffy did her best not to sneer at her where she can see it.

"Oh my gosh," I stated, "that is a gorgeous top!"

Buffy preened at the complement. And shot one back. Aunt Joyce drove us to the school in comfortable silence.

"Alright girls have a good day! Come by the gallery after school!" Aunt Joyce said very happily. She was obviously really giddy over it which was awesome.

"Okay Aunty!" I said chirpily, causing the other girls to give me a weary look.

"Bye!" We all called out, before making our way to the school. Somewhere along the way we got separated, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I found Bonnie and was introduced to Elena. She seemed pleasant enough, and I could tell it meant a lot to Bonnie that we would become friends.

"So hi!" I said with as much bubble as I could. "So glad to finally meet you! Bonnie has been talking non stop about you."

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes and it seemed like she was more embarrassed by it. "It's nice to meet you," she said, nearly awkwardly. "Let's find out where your locker is and your class schedule?"

I breathed out a sigh of relief, sincerely pleased someone remembered because I completely forgot that I could put my books somewhere other than my backpack. Which as I looked around was really out of place.

"Oh look at him," Bonnie whispered.

"All I see is back," Elena replied.

"Gotta admit, it is a very nice back," I chipped in.

"Well either way this is where you get your stuff, I'll meet you at Bonnie's lock-" Elena paused and let out a growl of frustration. "I'll meet you later," and with that she stormed off.

I looked to Bonnie, who watched her go, she sighed and gave me a small smile, "She's scolding her brother." I nodded and accepted it. "I think we should see if the nice back has an hot front."

I shrugged, "Sure, sounds good!" Who knows maybe I'll actually date in high school this time.

We came up beside the boy and though he was really hot, it was kinda a meh sort of thing. "You're new too?" Bonnie said with a smile. "Freshman, sophomore, junior or senior?"

"Junior," he responded kindly.

"What do you know! We are too," she then pushed me a wee bit closer to him, "Ros here needs to get her schedule and locker too!"

"New?" he asked.

"Yep," I gave him a smile, deciding that he is just too out of my league to really crush after, he's the type of guy Buffy or Cordelia would be all about, meaning girls like Willow or Bonnie would never be glanced at. Sadly. "What a happy coincidence, we ought to be new friends together?" I smacked his arm, "I can protect you from too pretty girls who want you?" I snorted, reminding myself of a hyped up Lynnie, but where do you think she got that from? "I promise to only ever be your friend," I said solemnly, then grinned evilly, "However, if you go skinny dipping or something I can't promise I won't sneak a peek."

Bonnie was stammering, in pure shock and the lady in the front seemed to be shaking her head some but the guy was trying his damnedest not to smile. "Okay, then."

I grinned at him, "Awesome," I awkwardly twisted and held out my hand, "I'm Ros, your new girl protector."

"And the girl who will sneak a peek," he said as if finishing my title. He gave a smile and it seemed like he didn't mean to at all. "I'm Stefan Salvatore."

He shook my hand but I couldn't stop myself, "At least you won't have to wonder my intentions." I gave a shrug. "Just don't give me an opportunity," I fought the blush down, "if your too shy."

He laughed and walked away, "I'll try to remember that Ros."

"Now what do you need," the woman sitting at the desk asked, drawing my attention from my new friends back.

"Very hot back," I whispered before turning my attention to the lady.

A/N- I apologize for the hopping of perspective. As stated before this is a little backlogged, so I'd like to think I got better at this further along. Thank you for reading! Especially the lovely readers who favorited and followed!