Part 3

"Buffy! Where on Earth have you been? We were worried," Giles asked furiously as soon as Buffy stepped through the door.

"I was taking Thor for a walk," Buffy replied cheerfully. She unhooked the leash from the collar and hung it up on one of the hooks in the coat closet by the door. She picked Thor up from the ground and lovingly nuzzled the adorable little dog. "Doesn't he look cute today?"

"Please, Buffy, don't try to change the subject. You went outside without Gunn-"

"And without informing you?" Buffy finished for him. "Tell me, Giles, can't I have any semblance of a normal life? Isn't that the purpose of coming here in the first place?"

"Of course, but-"

"But nothing. Please, Giles, can you just drop it?" Buffy asked tiredly. She returned Thor to the ground to allow the maid to give him a drink of water.

"Fine, but I hope this won't happen again. I am your legal guardian for the next 12 months and I don't want anything...unseemly to happen to you," Giles said. He sighed when Buffy didn't reply; he took his glasses off and cleaned them with a handkerchief that he always carried with him in his pocket. "Well, now that you're back, we can discuss the details of your time at Sunnydale High. The school was kind enough to fax me a few things about extra curricular activities and the like."

"Giles?" Buffy asked in a childish voice.

"Yes, Buffy?" Giles asked in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Can I be a cheerleader?"

Giles just sighed and led the way to his office. **This is going to be a long day...**

*****

"Hey Willow, do you know anything about the supposed new girl?" Xander Harris asked his childhood friend, Willow Rosenberg.

"There's a new girl? How come I never find out these things? You're always the one to tell me." She put her homemade lunch into her locker and hoped that it would stay fresh in there until it was time for lunch. She admired the small arrangement of Buffy Summers pictures on her locker door beside the pictures of herself and Oz that she had only put up a few minutes ago which had been taken over the Fourth of July holiday.

"So you don't know anything about it?" Xander asked again.

Willow rolled her eyes and turned back to face Xander. "If I didn't know about it in the first place then how can I know more than you?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I don't know anything," Willow said, slamming her locker door closed. "Have you seen Oz yet?"

"Umm...no. But, hello? New girl?"

"God, Xander. Do you ever think about anything else?"

"No. Sometimes I think about...okay, so you're right. Not that that's anything new," Xander said and slumped against the locker next to Willow's.

Today was only the first day of school—it hadn't even begun yet—but Xander was already counting down the days until summer break...graduation as well, of course...

"Willow, why did you bring a homemade lunch?" Xander said as the thought suddenly came to him. "We're seniors now. We can go off campus to have lunch if want, remember?"

"Well, well, umm...the, well, Miss Calendar, she...well, nothing. What if, wha-"

"Okay, Willow. Just, CALM DOWN. Relax a little. Hey, we're seniors."

"But what if they change the rules a-and I mar my unblemished record?" Willow asked; she was paranoid and she knew it.

"What rules?" Oz asked, abruptly announcing his arrival.

"Oz! You're here! Good. Isn't that good, Xander?"

"Did you hear about the new girl?" Oz asked casually.

Willow's smile turned into a frown when a Xander gave her a 'see? It wasn't just me' kind of look.

"You really need to get a life, Xander."

*****

The hallways of Sunnydale High School were buzzing with excitement. Summer was over, school was back, freshmen were lost in the school's maze of hallways and gossip was in the air.

"I heard that the new girl's supposed to be Liesel Matthews, you know, that girl who was in A Little Princess?" Harmony Kendall said to the rest of the girls crowded around her.

"Isn't she, like, 9 years old?" Cordelia Chase asked sceptically.

"Oh no, she's, like, eighteen now."

"And you know that how?" Cordelia raised her eyebrow at her friend suspiciously.

*****

"'Did you hear about the new girl? Did you hear about the new girl?'" Spike mocked as he walked through the halls alongside his girlfriend and stepbrother. "Sodding ponces..."

"Why oh why do you keep using that stupid fake English accent?" Faith counter-mocked. "I think a new girl is exactly what this school needs. Am I the only one who feels that it's just...boring all the time?"

"You're not the only one," Angel muttered under his breath. He just spotted Darla at the other end of the crowded hallway. "Fuck. There's Darla. Cover for me." With that, he ducked down and slipped into the adjoining hallway and ran outside, afraid for his life. He had only been dating Darla for two weeks for a bet that he had lost when he had been at much too rowdy beach party. Not that it was all bad...she just became a bit...schizo, not to mention possessive; she had serious attachment issues. **Just two more weeks to go and I'm as free as a...person like me should be.**

"Sure, whatever...'Be my slave Spike!'" Spike whinged under his breath so that only Faith could hear. "Just cos he's Mr. Big Shot Football Guy, doesn't mean we all have to drop to our knees..."

"Get over it Spike," Faith replied and swerved to one side to avoid a girl who was carelessly waving around a lollipop as she talked, accidentally bumping into Darla for her efforts. "Darla! How are you? Did you have a good summer?"

"Whatever," Darla said irritably. "Where's Angel?"

"He had to go the library to settle some overdue book fees," Spike filled in for Angel. He knew that it'd work, 1) because she hated the library and had probably never actually ever been inside it, 2) because she thought that the librarian, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, was a schizo, and 3) because she is, and always will be, gullible.

"Oh...never mind then..." Darla replied with a frown.

*****

Angel walked quickly around the other side of the building. He still needed to go to his locker. He had amassed a collection of new things to put up in his locker and had all of seven minutes to do it. Not looking where he was going, he accidentally bumped into a girl...who happened to be...

"Cordelia. How was your summer?" Angel pretended to care. He was in no mood to talk to Cordelia, of all people. **Why are you punishing me, God?**

"Not bad. We went to Hawaii for two weeks and I got a really good tan but nothing very exciting. I'm sure yours was much more interesting though," Cordelia gave him her brightest smile.

Angel cringed. "Actually, it was kinda bad...and I'm kind of in a hurry. Seeya 'round." He took off in the direction he was originally headed towards leaving behind a thoroughly shocked and disgruntled Cordelia Chase.

Finally arriving at his locker after a few run-ins with his various other friends, he was only left with two minutes in which to put redo his locker. It'd always been bare, with only a crude sticker that Spike had jokingly stuck on and had stuck too hard to remove without using up a large chunk of his time. Not worth it. Good thing he had better things to stick over it though...

He stuck his favourite—a pic of Buffy Summers taken in a photo shoot for Detour—over the offensive sticker. He quickly shoved the rest of the pictures into his locker along with a video he had to return to a friend and slammed it shut...revealing a petite blonde girl behind it...the same girl who he had met last week when he had been walking Bertha. In her hand was a piece of paper with her timetable and locker combination printed on it and her other hand fiddled with the lock on the locker's door.

"You know, I never did find out your name," Angel said to her smugly. He still had no idea what she looked like...she was again wearing a hat and sunglasses. She seemed to want to hide her face.

"Well, I guess everyone will know it soon enough," Buffy replied, struggling to open the damn locker. So far no one had recognised her and she wasn't exactly rejoicing at the idea of having home room...the evil thing called 'roll call' would exist in that time period and it didn't really seem like a joyous kind of prospect.

Angel lightly thumped twice on the door near the lock and the door sprung open. "I saw it in a movie once. I thought I might try it," he shrugged.

"The movie was Casper. And if I recall correctly, the guy flirted with the girl after helping her out and then his evil, bitchy girlfriend showed up," Buffy said.

"Oh, how convenient. I believe mine is currently hunting me down," Angel said. "She's evil, bitchy AND annoying. How's that for three birds with one stone?"

"Pretty impressive," Buffy laughed. She closed her locker again and turned the piece of paper over to check her timetable. "Uh, I have Advanced Chem first period. How about you?"

Angel shrugged. "I don't know yet. We don't get our timetables until homeroom," the bell rang, "which is now. And I still don't know who you are. You see, I'll be telling all my friends I met this incredible girl and I won't be able even tell them what her name is." Angel joked with her as they started down the corridor.

Buffy hesitantly pulled him to the side of the bustling corridor and lowered her head. "Well then I hope you're not too big of a bragger," Buffy said nervously and carefully removed her sunglasses. She stared up at him with a slightly sheepish expression. "Busted, huh?"

Angel gulped. **Breathe in, breathe out. Just keep on going. You can do it. Don't lose your cool now, Ferguson.** "Buffy Summers..." he managed to squeeze out under his breath. "Well, uh, I'd...be Angel. Angel Ferguson."

Buffy quickly put her sunglasses back on and they continued down the corridor with Angel continually reminding himself to breathe in and out, in and out. "See? It doesn't help when you find out."

"Maybe you should've warned me."

Buffy laughed, "You make it seem as if I have a gun pointed to your head. Relax. I don't bite, I swear." She glanced appreciatively down at Angel's outfit, "Although if you keep wearing those leather pants I might have to revise that."