Part 10

When Buffy's classes were over for the day she slowly headed back to her dorm. Once she was inside her room, she tossed her bookbag onto the floor and flopped down exhausted on her lumpy bed. There was still a good two hours until she was due to meet Angel and the others and now with nothing to keep her mind busy, her stomach was tying itself into knots. Buffy was *so* nervous, something inside her wished that she could simply go back to Washington, back to her boring ordinary life and forget Sunnydale existed. Unfortunately fate and a fairly good memory just wouldn't let the place fade away, maybe there was too much unfinished business left there. Buffy sighed and looked at her phone, wishing she could break cover even more than she already had and call Dawn - the one who seemed to know everything, maybe talking to someone close would help put things into perspective.

Before she could decide anything there was a knock at her door. Sighing she stood to answer it knowing that it could only be one person, Jemmie.

"Hey," Jemmie said the instant Buffy opened the door. "Did you get the notes from psych... I missed the class."

"Sure," Buffy said, in a way relieved that the only thing this girl was bothering her about was class work. "I'll get them."

"Thanks. I'll get them back to you tonight," Jemmie told her.

Buffy handed her annoying neighbour the lecture notes. "Tomorrow would be better. I'm busy tonight," Buffy said to her.

"Okay," Jemmie replied. "Have a good time tonight."

"Thanks. Bye," Buffy told her as she pushed her out of the door.

She thought it was weird that her nosy neighbour hadn't grilled her about her plans, but she shook it off. Deciding not to put it off any longer because the anticipation over the meeting would only get worse, she grabbed her jacket and headed off to Willow's house, following the directions given to her by Angel.

Meanwhile at Willow's the scooby gang was deep in discussion over Buffy and her sudden reemergence. Xander was definitely the most vocal, next to Faith.

"Why should we help her? She ditched us remember?" Xander repeated for the fiftieth time since Angel had announced Buffy was back and would be turning up for the meeting.

"Xander," Giles said. "I'm sure she has a good reason." Then he turned to Angel, "She does, doesn't she?"

Angel nodded, "Yeah."

Xander was looking decidedly pale, "Then why didn't she contact us before?"

"Yeah Angel. Why did your precious Buffy ignore you all?" Faith joined in nastily.

Angel sighed, "She did."

"What?" Xander, Giles and Jenny chorused almost comically. In Xander's case his 'what' was less pronounced than Giles and Jenny's.

Angel said, "She wrote."

Giles shook his head, "No. I never..."

"I did," Willow spoke up.

"Huh?" Xander said in sort of a panic.

Willow smiled, "Buffy and I wrote to each other."

"Well... uh..." Giles was cut off by the doorbell ringing.

"She's early," Angel said as he got up to answer the door. He took in a quick sweep of the room and noticed everyone else was frozen in place and headed through to let Buffy inside.

It didn't take Buffy long to find Willow's house, it was in fact only a couple of blocks from where she and Dawn had once lived with their mother. Not that she was tempted to drop in on Joyce and visit her, especially after her emotional abandonment of them. Everyone said a mother's love knows no bounds, but Joyce's couldn't seem to stretch across a continent. Buffy couldn't actually believe that she'd stood out front for five minutes, just remembering the good times - mostly that consisted of her and Dawn left there alone together, that was probably why even now they were so close. After her brief trip down memory lane Buffy hurried away towards Willow's desperate to put some more space between herself and the past, unfortunately she was running straight towards a fairly large chunk of it. She rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer the door and she had to admit she was relieve when Angel answered it and not one of the others. If say Giles had answered she wasn't sure she wouldn't have run away from everything, the case and the past. It was all piling up on her and she felt like she was carrying the weight of the world on her tiny shoulders.

"Hi," he said ushering her inside. "Are you okay? You look... tired."

"I am," was all she said as she walked past him and into the house.

Angel took her arm and started off in a particular direction, "It's this way."

Buffy allowed herself to be led towards the place that she least of all wanted to be in this entire world.