I'm so sorry for the long wait – I rewrote this chapter a few times before it remotely resembled something I'd show to other people. I have exam stress… blurgh… so please don't hold your breath for more than three updates per fortnight. I'll try to do more, but I can't promise anything.

Anyway, thankyou, as always, to uskohakuchan, and again to BlackbAngel and rocks and glass. You are my leetle looovlies. And thankyou to newperson DawnSummers-BellaCullen, to whom I say 'it's like a drug' and thankyou, of course.

And I have to dedicate a whole paragraph of thanks to redrider6612. My God, you are fantabulous. Every single chapter reviewed in one go. You also have no idea how grateful I am about the suggestions (especially the one about the dialogue problems – I've noticed that too, it's terribly confusing and I'll try to improve), and you'll be surprised to know that the hand-in-glass thing was actually based on something that happened to me… although I was very drunk at the time. Meh, I'm a lazy writer. Anyway, you are bloody fabulous and you deserve an enormous virtual clap. Clapclapclapclapclap. Of course, I still love the rest of you to bits, never forget that.

About the chapter, I basically twisted 'The Freshman' to make it easier for me. And fluffier. And stuff. Bleh.

LONGEST AUTHOR'S NOTE EVER. Sorry.

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Following her friends' intervention, Buffy became far more withdrawn. The Scoobies, realising that this was exactly what they were afraid would happen to her, looked on helplessly.

Angel, however, was grateful for the extra time he spent with her. A part of him knew that this was wrong, but he told himself that he could teach her to be controlled, that he knew all about that kind of discipline. He was lying to himself, he knew, but as he lay in bed with Buffy in his arms, it was very difficult to tell himself the truth.

Buffy was about to start college, and he knew that this meant change. As much as he tried to be happy for her, he felt the emptiness in anticipation. His bonds with her had been strengthened so much, but he wondered if perhaps this made them both weaker.

-

It was the first day of college, and Buffy was terribly afraid. She'd have to see Willow again, and she knew it was going to be much bigger than highschool.

It was certainly big. She noticed this from quite a distance away, a combination of her improved eyesight and the genuine size of the building. It was crowded too, people outside talking, laughing, yelling about world issues. It was chaotic and loud, and it made her feel small. She liked that in a way, she felt unnoticeable.

"Buffy!" Willow was running up behind her, waving her almost-healed hand. She'd had a haircut since Buffy had last seen her, and her red hair was now much shorter, close around her head. Buffy waved back, squinting against the sun. Willow ran towards her, grinning.

"This place is amazing! Look how driven all these protests are – ooh! Save the rainforest!" She grabbed a pamphlet from a red-faced student and turned back to Buffy. "Wow, I can just tell I'm gonna love it here… where are you staying?" Buffy looked down. She felt awkward around Willow, especially as she was finding this new situation bewildering.

"With Angel actually," she replied eventually, "I can't really risk staying with a student who might find out about the…" she trailed off; if she had been human she might have blushed. Talking about her 'habit' was difficult, especially with Willow.

"Who might look in the refrigerator one day and say 'hey, what's all this blood doing in here'?" Willow smiled brightly, her tone very jovial and light.

"Yeah. That." Buffy knew that Willow was trying to be friendly, but she just couldn't put on a bright smile and reply properly. After a moment, she threw caution to the wind and attempted an apology. "Will, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bite you…" she gave up. I t was too hard.

"Buffy, I know all of that." Willow was smiling. "I'm sorry – and everyone else is too – that we thought you had lack of self-control of whatever. I'm not dead, no one's dead, you're ok, we're ok, what's the problem?" Willow ended with her hands above her head. In spite of herself, Buffy smiled, and then broke into laughter.

"Oh my God Willow, I've been so stupid!" She looked up at her best friend, who promptly began to laugh along with her. They hugged warmly, and then walked arm-in-arm into the building, the sun beaming down.

-

Inside, the building looked even bigger than outside. And it was so full of people!

"I didn't know there were this many people in Sunnydale," said Buffy, gripping Willow's arm a little tighter.

"Not all of them are from Sunnydale," answered Willow, her voice very matter-of-fact, "plenty of people from out of town come here – it's a pretty good college." Buffy nodded, still in awe. "Hey, let's check out the library – that out to cheer you up." Buffy grinned.

"Yeah right, without the hellmouth it just won't be the same." She smiled to herself, remembering highschool, and Willow laughed and dragged her off.

"It's here!" Willow pushed the door open, and pulled Buffy inside.

"It's big." She looked around. Computers, lots of them. More computers to books. "Noticing the computer-to-book ratio?" Willow didn't answer, she was looking around in awe.

"Wow, Buffy. Look at this! There is so much! This is great because I was telling Giles…" she continued to talk and Buffy gave up listening. She was mostly talking to herself anyway. Instead, Buffy wandered to a bookshelf on the left. On the top an occult book was lying on its side, spine towards her. She reached up, accidentally knocking several heavy books onto the head of a boy next to her.

"Sorry!" She looked down to inspect the damage. The boy she had hit was not unattractive, if with rather boyband-ish hair.

"It's ok, I just… should take my books and… um… go." He stumbled off, knocking into a skinny girl, who squealed as he stepped on her foot. Buffy watched him go, then shrugged and picked up the book. Willow was still gawping over the technology. College was going to be difficult, Buffy realised, but at least she had Angel.

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Well… whaddaya think? Sorry again about the slow update… and, as always, review!