Chapter Three: Senioritis, Slayerfest…

Back in Sunnydale, I knew I couldn't live with myself until I said goodbye to Angel and tried to go on with my life, so that's what I did. He had given me a promise ring for my birthday, and I went to the mansion he had been living in, the last place I had seen him, and said goodbye, leaving the ring on the floor where he had last stood. Saying goodbye didn't really help, but I convinced myself it did, it made me able to sleep through most of the night.

I started dating this great guy named Scott, but a few days after saying my goodbyes, I ran into someone in the woods. And it was Him. Angel. The demon inside him deemed me a threat. And- And he had blood around his mouth. He wasn't in vamp face, but strangely enough I remember that more than I remember what I was wearing, or what day of the week it was. It was the first time I was ever afraid of Angel. I had to knock him out. It brought all the old pain I thought I had locked up in LA...

So I took him to his old place- well, Angelus's, this nice mansion, and the previous owners left some chains…they were vampires, after all...so I locked him up. Because at that point, a kid had been killed, mauled by a wild animal. And Angel was acting like an animal. I couldn't let it be him. But at the same time, my best friend's boyfriend was a werewolf, so we were hoping it wasn't him either, because it was that time of the month...

But when I locked him up, I couldn't get through to him. And then I noticed the scorch marks on the marble floor. It was in the shape of a large body.

But that wasn't the only freaky thing that was going on. Oh, I forgot to mention Kendra. The year before, when the Order of Taraka or Teraka or something like that - Giles promised he'd edit this in the end, so I'm not worried about it – Spike sent them after me because his mate, Drusilla, was weak, and the cure was this weird spell that had to do with her sire, which was Angel. So to get me out of the way, they sent these dudes to kill me. But while that was going on, a girl showed up in Sunnydale by the name of Kendra. No last name. Kinda stuck in the eighties, but whatever. See, when I temporarily died the year before at the Master's hand and Xander gave me CPR to bring me back, Kendra was called. So her watcher sent her to Sunnydale, and though we didn't totally get along – she was like mini-Giles, which is everything I'm not...

Anyway, she helped me save the day, meaning we stopped Spike and saved Angel – who she tried to have killed, not happy about that. No one messes with my boyfriend - and she went back to Jamaica. Well, when Angelus was running about, she came back. And Drusilla killed her. And I was blamed, because I was found leaning over her body. But no charges were pressed, if that's even a sentence.

Anyway, I told you that story to tell you about Faith. After Kendra died, Faith was called. And she's totally completely different than Kendra or I. She took way too much pleasure in the killing. But she was in town, and we took care of the dude who killed her watcher.

So, to recap. We've got two slayers in one small town, we've got one crazy ex-boyfriend, and we've got one dead boy that may or may not have been killed by our friendly werewolf. We ended up finding out it was some guy who was taking some magic potion or whatnot that turned him into Jekyll-Hyde type dude. He was jealous of people touching his girlfriend. So he was about ready to kill Oz, the werewolf, but it wasn't sunset yet, so after kicking Oz's ass, the sun set, and then it was an even match. The noise alerted us, and I tried to shoot either of them with the tranquilizer gun but got Giles instead…Faith went after Oz and 

I went after Pete, that's the kid's name. I found out he killed his girlfriend. And just as he was about to kick my ass, Angel shows up. He had broken the chains, and he came to my rescue. He wrapped the chains trailing from his wrists around Pete's neck and strangled him. Then he advanced on me in vampire face, and that was the second time I had ever been afraid of him. But then his face changed, and he spoke my name, and then he fell to his knees and embraced me, crying. I might have shed a few tears as well. I took him back to the mansion after that…

But the guy I was dating, the kid, Pete, and his girlfriend, Debbie, were Scott's friends. And I didn't know how to explain to him what happened, how to make things better for him. And that night I remember watching Angel sleep on the floor. He was twitching, and flinching, and it was obvious he was dreaming of his time in hell. I never asked him, but I didn't have to. I just knew.

He later told me that it was the first words he had said since coming back. He also told me, once he had recuperated from his years in hell- time moves differently in dimensions- that long after he had forgotten his own name, he remembered mine.

When he came back, he was an animal, he didn't understand where he was or even who he was. He would even at times shy away from me, afraid of me, his instincts telling him that I was a danger to him. But other times he would hold me and cry.

I kept Angel a secret. I know that wasn't the right thing to do, but at the time, it seemed to be. He didn't know who he was. I mean, the first time I saw him after he was back, he attacked me. The demon inside him deemed me a threat. So I had my boyfriend back, but he wasn't the same, and I wasn't sure if he ever would be, and we couldn't ever be together anyway, because we had both tasted heaven in each others arms and there was just too much temptation there.

You think this year has been bad so far? It's just the beginning. It keeps getting better. This was all before October.

So, October. Homecoming. I decided to go out for homecoming queen, since how else was I gonna be remembered in high school? As the girl who's always around when freaky things happen? But all my friends decided to help another candidate, so left me campaigning alone.

The short of the story was that my Homecoming was made memorable because some guy decided it would be a good idea to start something called Slayerfest 1998. While it was supposed to take out me and Faith, when I got into the limo for homecoming, the other candidate, my once friend, Cordelia, was there. Our friends thought it a good idea to get us to work out our differences. That found us running for our lives while people shot at us. I came up with something really nice, that I think I'm gonna pass on, because hey, it's the truth…let's see if I can remember it…

"I don't even get why you care about Homecoming when you're doing stuff like this," Cordelia said (or something like that).

"Because this is all I do. This is what my life is. You couldn't understand. I just thought... Homecoming Queen. I could pick up a yearbook someday and say, I was there. I went to high school, I had friends, and... for one moment, I got to live in the world. And there'd be proof. Proof that I was chosen for something other than this."

The moral of the story is, don't let slaying be all you do. You're not the only one, you can have a life. Because of what I went through, Giles is trying to change the way the Council deals with slayers. You guys don't have to be alone. Demons and darkness aren't taboo anymore. You can have friends that know. You can tell your parents. In fact, I suggest you tell your parents, and a few friends. You want to be careful who you tell, you don't want to be exploited, but if it weren't for my friends, I wouldn't have made it through that first year. I'm certain of that.

Slayerfest ended well. I killed the bad guys- well, most of them, Cordelia let two of them go, and neither of us were named Queen. Oh, and Scott dumped me, but Faith got him back pretty good in the end. And I found out a few years later he was gay. Of course that was after spreading rumors around that I was, but oh well. It was okay, because I was pretty hung up on Angel.

The year was very eventful. Let's see, one of Giles' old friends helped the mayor taint some band candy so all the adults became irresponsible so he could steal babies as a sacrifice to this demon in the sewer. I killed that icky snake dude and had to shower twice before I could get that smell off me.

I was still keeping Angel a secret, and it pretty much worked until middle of November. But I got caught, and I know it was wrong to keep him a secret, especially from Giles, whom I should have told, since Angel killed Giles' girlfriend. But I got caught. We were training, and I think I pinned him to the ground, and the next thing I knew was we were kissing. Xander caught us, anyway…

And then this woman came to Sunnydale, and she told us she was Faith's new watcher to get this glove of some-dude…Eighon or Nygon, maybe Myhnegon…oh well…Faith was going to kill Angel because Xander put the idea in her head, so I was fighting her, and the lady, Post, got the glove, and we almost died, but Angel saved us.

And the year doesn't end there! Believe me…Then Spike came back to Sunnydale because Dru dumped him, kidnapped Willow to do a love spell for him and took Xander for the hell of it, and he went to my mother and cried on her shoulder- didn't kill her, thank god – so Angel and I followed him to get Will and Xander and he convinced us that the 'just friends' thing we were doing wasn't going to work and would never work…I tried to force Angel to tell me he didn't love me anymore, it was the only way we could keep seeing each other, the temptation was too great, but he couldn't.

Then it was Christmas, and I was a guest star in Angel's wacky dreams, where he was remembering people he killed. I found out later that the First Evil (you'll find out more about him…her…it…later) was trying to convince Angel to lose himself in me, suck me dry and be evil. But he didn't. He decided that though he couldn't kill himself, and he couldn't convince me to kill him, he could stand still and wait for the sun to rise. I had to stop him, and I pleaded with him, and tried to convince him that strong is fighting, and it's hard, and it's everyday…but he wouldn't listen to me. And then it began to snow, instead of the sun coming up. And he was saved. And thankfully he took his miracle.

Let's see, what else happened that year? This demon, in the form of two children, convinced half the town that magic and stuff like that was evil, and I almost got burned at the stake…Faith turned evil and was working for the mayor for a while…she killed a man…tried to blame it on me…what else…

OH! Thank your lucky stars you never, ever have to go through with this. This is one of the first things Giles and I did away with. It's called Cru…something or other…um… Cruciamentum! That's what it was, knew I had it written down somewhere…it's where they take away your slayer strength and pit you against a vampire. It's supposed to be a controlled test. But my vampire, the one the Council chose for me, was crazy, and he got loose, killed his captors, and went after my mother. Giles, of course, told me the whole truth, because I'm like a daughter to him, and so he failed his part of the test. He told me I didn't have to go through with it, but the vampire had my mother, and I had no strength… so I went in…thank god the vampire was a drug addict, because I gave him holy water with his pills and he burned from the inside out…

But Giles was no longer my watcher. He had been fired.

So, recap - Faith was evil, Giles was no longer my watcher, and Angel and I were not dating. I convinced Angel to pretend to be evil to flush Faith out, since we thoguht she was evil, but didn't know know, and we needed to know know. It was the hardest thing for me to do, was to watch him kiss her as if he were evil…and then Willow's clone ended up in Sunnydale, well, not clone, but evil twin sister type deal. Vampire who was a little gay…

Then I tangled with these demons, and their blood got into my body, and I ended up with an aspect of the demon, meaning I was telepathic type deal, I could hear things people were thinking, and I was gonna go crazy, but I stopped a school shooting and a poisoning by the lunch lady…don't remember how I got rid of it, think it just kinda faded away…thank god, I don't want to be any weirder than I already am.

Okay, what else happened? The Council sent me my new watcher Wesley Windham-Price. Great guy, really stuffy. Angel broke up with me- that hurt like hell. Not that we were completely together in the first place…it was kinda confusing because after Christmas we just fell back into a relationship. Not like the kind we had before, but we spent time together, and I stayed at his place after patrolling. It wasn't the hot and heavy make out sessions or the glorious love making of our previous relationship, but I could have abstained for the rest of my life if I could have just fallen asleep each night in his arms.

But, yeah. He broke up with me in the sewer on patrol. Not gonna dwell on that one…He wanted me to have something outside demons and darkness, he wanted me to be able to have children and picnics and stuff like that, all stuff I hadn't really been missing. When I told Willow I felt like I couldn't breath without him in my life, that was the understatement of the year. Faith, still being evil, shot Angel with a poisoned arrow which the cure was slayer's blood. I tried to feed her to Angel but she got away, so I fed him myself. He almost drained me, made me feel- that's a little too personal, Buffy! And not something we want to go into - Trust me, I've had two other vampires bite me, first the Master my first year, and then you'll meet the other in a bit, and it's not fun. But with Angel…it was different. Anyway, he didn't drain me, I've still got the scar on my neck even though every other scar from all my years of being the slayer are gone.

And that night I quit the Council. Wesley wouldn't do anything to help Angel, so I quit. Faith was in a coma at the time- my doing- so Wesley was slayerless. So he eventually left.

Though we were broken up, Angel came to Prom to give me my one happy moment. Not perfect happiness-happy moment, just…dancing with my true love at Prom…and I also got a toy surprise! I was named Class Protector, and yes I memorized the speech, when a class 

as a whole tells you that they did notice you, you weren't just standing by in the shadows, then you remember stuff like that…

"We're not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you, but that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here. But, whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you, or helped by you at one time or another. We're proud to say that the Class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history. And we know at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class offers its thanks."

Okay, tears aside, the mayor was planning to ascend at Graduation. He had been alive for a couple decades, probably like 10, and so he wanted to become full demon. Well, we stopped him. Not until after he ascended, but oh well. His one weakness was Faith, so using some of her blood from a knife I had, I led him into the school, and we blew it sky high.

So, fire fighters came, police, but no blame was laid. And then, as he promised, he left. Angel, that is. He had said he'd stay for graduation, and then he was leaving. And he wasn't going to say goodbye. Truth be told, we've never said goodbye. Goodbye is too final for what we have.