Title: A Simple Twist Of Fate
Author: Jane McCartney
Disclaimer: Despite numerous attempts to make it otherwise, none of them are mine. Joss and UPN and ME own 'em all.
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. Oh hell, whatever: pleeeease? Pretty please? It'll just take a sec from ya!
Acknowledgments: Everyone who reviews and helps me. And my beta reader Starway Man. You rules, T!
Author's Note: AU. This chapter is practically a rewrite of "Welcome To the Hellmouth" with some changes and characters mixed around along the way. This story will deviate more in the following chapters.
Summary: For Buffy Summers, it took only a single glance to fall in love with the new student at Sunnydale High, Xander Harris. And with that look, she'd forever seal her fate as the Slayer.
***
Willow was seated on a bench in front of a wall taking out her lunch, when Xander approached her. "Uh, hi. Willow, right?" the boy asked.
The computer nerd looked up, her ocean-green eyes wide and frightened. "Why? I-I mean, hi! Uh, did you want me to move?"
Inwardly a little surprised at that reaction, Xander still didn't hesitate externally when he replied good-naturedly, "Why don't we start with, "hey, I'm Xander", and, uh, then let's segue directly into me asking you for a favor," the youth paused for a second, sitting next to her. "Well, promise ya one thing: it doesn't involve moving, but it does involve hanging out with me for a while."
"Oh!" Willow blurted out in surprise. "I, I can do that. I guess. No, I can't," she amended swiftly all of a sudden, shaking her head and snapping her gaze towards her companion, confused. "Aren't you hanging out with Cordelia?"
Xander furrowed his brow for an instant. "Well, sorta," he said frugally, remembering with a hint of amusement the ending of that particular conversation in the hallway.
And then, something hit Xander. "I can't do both?" he questioned her curiously.
"Not legally," Willow retorted, and subsequently frowned. "Do you want me to move now?"
Xander chuckled, a little nervously. "No, no, I want you to stay. I mean, I want you to do anything you feel like doing. Even if that's simply hanging out with me, or dancing the macarena, or, uh, eating spicy onion chicken wings or whatever..."
Willow wrinkled her nose and smiled shyly, still a little uncertain but more relaxed now. "I can do this. Not the macarena or the onion thing, I mean." After a moment of thought, she added mostly to herself, "Maybe I'll be in the mood for the chicken wings later..."
"Good," Xander smiled at that and continued after a brief instant of silence, "Then I'd guess that'd be my opening to say thanks for sharing your book with me during class. So, thanks."
"Oh, that was so not a problem," Willow replied with a real smile. "But you can look for your own in the library. I m-mean, not that I can't share mine with you again 'cause I think you'll drool or wrinkle the pages or spill something on it. It's not like I'm Obsessive Girl and will accidentally hit you with the eraser if you stick your gum on the Winston Churchill picture. Really."
"That bad, huh?" the amused boy asked.
"Ya-huh!" Willow eagerly agreed, and mocked a cheesy and sour British male accent. "It's like: 'what did you do today, Mr. Churchill? You may very bloody well have that answer, my friend; I sent some ships to the north coast, reviewed some war numbers and bought this lovely yucky-pink wig. You know, just the usual...'"
Xander grinned at that, suddenly feeling for a second as if the two of them were long-time friends. "Yeah, I'm sure yucky-pink wigs were fashionable during the Second World War. It's just those darn stupid history books keep forgetting to tell us about it; ya know, politics..."
Feeling the very unvoiced feelings of the dark-haired boy, Willow chuckled and Xander did so too, the bonds of friendship beginning to be built.
Jesse suddenly arrived in front of them. "Is everything okay here, Will?" his voice protective and containing some hostility.
"Jesse, hi! Uh, yeah it's okay," Willow quickly replied, pulling a fallen lock of long red hair behind her ear.
"It's not okay, Will, if Super Quarterback comes around and thinks..." the boy tried to alter his voice into a rougher, louder one. "'Oh, I'm so popular 'cause I'm the cool LA guy and Cordelia hit on me, I'm so hot, blah, blah - ya know what I could do to build my reputation in the new school? Make some fun of that redhead sitting here!'"
"First off, if I really sound like that? Boy, do I have a problem," Xander frowned, and added after a sigh, "Look, I really wasn't-"
"Jesse..." Willow tried to say once again, exchanging a look with a frowning Buffy, who had arrived with Jesse as well.
The boy born and bred in Sunnydale turned to the redhead, and chuckled nervously. "Willow, lemme handle this - I mean, the jerk was laughing at you!" He turned back to Xander. "Look, if ya think you'll intimidate me 'cause you were some LA quarterback dude..."
Jesse paused for a brief instant, seeing Xander towering in front of him, and added after a gulp, "Well, maybe you're absolutely right. But still! You don't get to mess with a friend of mine, without going through me first!"
"Jesse!" Willow exclaimed at last, making her brunette friend snap his nervous face towards her. "He wasn't making fun of me! And he was laughing with me, not at me!" the redhead frowned. "He, um, he's strangely being very nice..."
"Oh," Jesse blurted out, offering a short-lived, embarrassed grin to Xander. "Well, he knows I was just messin' with him. Right, buddy?" he chuckled, teasingly punching Xander with a light blow in the arm.
Xander, now utterly confused, just stood unresponsive to that act for a silent moment.
"Okay, I suppose now's a good time to shut up," a beaten Jesse said, dropping his bag and sitting near Willow in defeated silence.
"Actually, that'd have been appropriate about two minutes ago," Willow helpfully whispered into Jesse's ear, who scowled at her and grinned once again that nervous grin towards Xander.
Buffy did the same and sat in front of Willow and Xander, who had sat down again as well. "He's hit his head a lot over the years. But don't worry, Jesse's mostly harmless," she smiled in mocking apology.
Xander turned to Buffy and they locked eyes for a fleeting second, making the blonde's heart do that now-familiar loop-the-loop, as he grinned at the comment.
Willow noticed the reciprocated glance between the two teens. "You two met already?"
"Oh, me and Xander go way back, old friends, very close. Then there's that period of estrangement where I think we were both growing as people, but now here we are, like old times. I'm quite moved," Buffy retorted, and frowned at that incredibly Willow-like babble-fest. "I'm sorry about that. Sometimes, I can be odd and bizarre..."
Wow Buffy, why don't you just dress up like Barney? I'm sure a big purple dinosaur's costume couldn't be worse than this! the blond-haired girl thought sorrowfully, already annoyed at herself for not managing to understand why this boy had the capacity for setting her off like that.
"Oh, don't mind my friend Buffy, she's hit her head a lot - but she's truly harmless. Ya know, maybe some drooling to be seen occasionally, but yeah, safe to be with in public," Jesse apologized, sporting a vengeful and deliciously evil grin.
Buffy scowled viciously at him.
"Nah, don't worry, I've had a lot of those moments too. Ya know, when you think, 'gee, even if I got dressed up in a Barney costume, I wouldn't be capable of doing any worse damage'. Guess you just can't help those moments. They're evil, random and unpredictably tricky," Xander said emphatically.
Buffy smiled internally at him.
"Anyways, if hitting your head's an issue, then I'm in big trouble..."
When Xander said that, he did it without really thinking; remembering his patrolling fights with demons and vamps, and the unavoidable souvenirs in the form of headaches and concussions.
"Oh, you mean the football thing? Sure, of course, the voluntarily-offering- yourself-to-play-a-stupidly-violent-game-to-score-with-the-cheerleaders thing," Buffy absently fired off the retort, then instantly regretting her big mouth and how it seemed unconnected to her brain.
"Football? Oh, right, football! What else could it be? Pfft, certainly not late-night fights in a cemetery with guys that look like they're on PCP," Xander babbled nervously, trying his best to sound dismissive.
Buffy, Willow and Jesse all stared at him, with odd looks on their faces.
Anyone with a Barney costume? No? What a pity, Xander sarcastically rebuked himself.
"I guess he's hit his head a lot too," Jesse murmured in Willow's ear, and the redhead grinned.
"Actually I started playing football more 'cause of the college scholarship deal," the brunette Slayer amended, making the petite blonde blush at her initial comment. "But hey, you can't ignore the thing about cheerleader chi- "
Xander immediately cut himself off, seeing the glances from both Willow and Buffy, and cleared his throat to continue. "Respectful young dancers, that deserve kudos for their great efforts and sacrifices during a game. And ya know..."
"It's got nothing to do with getting your very own pack of brainless anorexic groupies," Buffy snorted at the demonstration of hormones on Xander's part. So much for the blushing.
"I was gonna say the routine builds up a good working relationship, and that cheerleaders and football players together isn't exactly some depraved orgy all the time," Xander said, smiling smart-assedly to Buffy. "But I'm sure your theory about malnutrition and lack of intellect could be very valid too..."
"You mean there's no such thing as evil orgies?" Willow suddenly blurted out in surprise. "Funny, all of a sudden it's like I don't know if I can trust in what's real and what's not!"
"I'm real, but Pamela Anderson's breasts aren't," Jesse said helpfully.
"Oh, now I'm back," Willow smiled in relief.
"Thank God," Buffy rolled her eyes.
Watching the three friends engage in the cheerful banter, Xander suddenly felt a cold shiver run down his spine. It brought back memories of LA, and Hemery High; conversations he had had with his three closest buds, before he'd learnt all about the things that went bump in the night after Merrick had found him.
His friends - Tyler, Kim and Jennifer.
All of them were dead now, killed by the vampires Lothos and Amilyn.
Xander tried desperately to think of something else. He looked at the blonde girl, "Wait a minute, you were a cheerleader!" when the memory hit the boy, the accusation was immediate.
Buffy's mouth hung open for a prolonged second. "How d'ya learn..."
"Photograph. Hall. Mini-skirt," the dark-haired teen answered pragmatically. "So you pull this whole 'We Hate Cheerleaders' club thing and then you go all 'oopsie, I may have forgotten to mention I was once one of them'?"
"It doesn't count, 'cause you weren't supposed to know that," Buffy reasoned nonsensically in her own defense.
"Very logical, Miss Maturity," Xander teased playfully.
"Okay, I give up - all right? I'm not proud of it, not one bit! But I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't below them, just 'cause I didn't do some silly dance and had to act as if I had forgotten how to think. Thankfully though, I fully recovered from that road to perdition, which means I can still talk about subjects that don't exclusively involve boys and clothes."
"You're being kinda unfair to them. They do talk a lot about make-up and hair too," Xander sighed, making Buffy grin.
Jesse elbowed Willow. "Ouch! Why'd you do that?" the redhead cried out.
"To get your attention, like discreetly?" the boy whispered matter-of- factly, with a hint of ephemeral annoyance.
"Oh - gotcha!" the petite girl retorted. "So, what is it?"
"Is it just me, or is our sweet little Buff totally into the new dude?" Jesse glanced meaningfully at an unaware Xander.
Willow suspiciously eyed the young couple engaged in a conversation. "Nah... when she's into some guy, she always does that embarrassing laugh, remember? It's actually very funny, 'cause it's like the exact same noise of a mating hyena and-"
The redhead was interrupted unexpectedly by a hysterically laughing Buffy.
While Willow glanced at her blonde-haired friend worriedly, Jesse just grinned goofily. "Alright, way to go sister B!"
***
TBC. Tons of reviews, please!
Author: Jane McCartney
Disclaimer: Despite numerous attempts to make it otherwise, none of them are mine. Joss and UPN and ME own 'em all.
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. Oh hell, whatever: pleeeease? Pretty please? It'll just take a sec from ya!
Acknowledgments: Everyone who reviews and helps me. And my beta reader Starway Man. You rules, T!
Author's Note: AU. This chapter is practically a rewrite of "Welcome To the Hellmouth" with some changes and characters mixed around along the way. This story will deviate more in the following chapters.
Summary: For Buffy Summers, it took only a single glance to fall in love with the new student at Sunnydale High, Xander Harris. And with that look, she'd forever seal her fate as the Slayer.
***
Willow was seated on a bench in front of a wall taking out her lunch, when Xander approached her. "Uh, hi. Willow, right?" the boy asked.
The computer nerd looked up, her ocean-green eyes wide and frightened. "Why? I-I mean, hi! Uh, did you want me to move?"
Inwardly a little surprised at that reaction, Xander still didn't hesitate externally when he replied good-naturedly, "Why don't we start with, "hey, I'm Xander", and, uh, then let's segue directly into me asking you for a favor," the youth paused for a second, sitting next to her. "Well, promise ya one thing: it doesn't involve moving, but it does involve hanging out with me for a while."
"Oh!" Willow blurted out in surprise. "I, I can do that. I guess. No, I can't," she amended swiftly all of a sudden, shaking her head and snapping her gaze towards her companion, confused. "Aren't you hanging out with Cordelia?"
Xander furrowed his brow for an instant. "Well, sorta," he said frugally, remembering with a hint of amusement the ending of that particular conversation in the hallway.
And then, something hit Xander. "I can't do both?" he questioned her curiously.
"Not legally," Willow retorted, and subsequently frowned. "Do you want me to move now?"
Xander chuckled, a little nervously. "No, no, I want you to stay. I mean, I want you to do anything you feel like doing. Even if that's simply hanging out with me, or dancing the macarena, or, uh, eating spicy onion chicken wings or whatever..."
Willow wrinkled her nose and smiled shyly, still a little uncertain but more relaxed now. "I can do this. Not the macarena or the onion thing, I mean." After a moment of thought, she added mostly to herself, "Maybe I'll be in the mood for the chicken wings later..."
"Good," Xander smiled at that and continued after a brief instant of silence, "Then I'd guess that'd be my opening to say thanks for sharing your book with me during class. So, thanks."
"Oh, that was so not a problem," Willow replied with a real smile. "But you can look for your own in the library. I m-mean, not that I can't share mine with you again 'cause I think you'll drool or wrinkle the pages or spill something on it. It's not like I'm Obsessive Girl and will accidentally hit you with the eraser if you stick your gum on the Winston Churchill picture. Really."
"That bad, huh?" the amused boy asked.
"Ya-huh!" Willow eagerly agreed, and mocked a cheesy and sour British male accent. "It's like: 'what did you do today, Mr. Churchill? You may very bloody well have that answer, my friend; I sent some ships to the north coast, reviewed some war numbers and bought this lovely yucky-pink wig. You know, just the usual...'"
Xander grinned at that, suddenly feeling for a second as if the two of them were long-time friends. "Yeah, I'm sure yucky-pink wigs were fashionable during the Second World War. It's just those darn stupid history books keep forgetting to tell us about it; ya know, politics..."
Feeling the very unvoiced feelings of the dark-haired boy, Willow chuckled and Xander did so too, the bonds of friendship beginning to be built.
Jesse suddenly arrived in front of them. "Is everything okay here, Will?" his voice protective and containing some hostility.
"Jesse, hi! Uh, yeah it's okay," Willow quickly replied, pulling a fallen lock of long red hair behind her ear.
"It's not okay, Will, if Super Quarterback comes around and thinks..." the boy tried to alter his voice into a rougher, louder one. "'Oh, I'm so popular 'cause I'm the cool LA guy and Cordelia hit on me, I'm so hot, blah, blah - ya know what I could do to build my reputation in the new school? Make some fun of that redhead sitting here!'"
"First off, if I really sound like that? Boy, do I have a problem," Xander frowned, and added after a sigh, "Look, I really wasn't-"
"Jesse..." Willow tried to say once again, exchanging a look with a frowning Buffy, who had arrived with Jesse as well.
The boy born and bred in Sunnydale turned to the redhead, and chuckled nervously. "Willow, lemme handle this - I mean, the jerk was laughing at you!" He turned back to Xander. "Look, if ya think you'll intimidate me 'cause you were some LA quarterback dude..."
Jesse paused for a brief instant, seeing Xander towering in front of him, and added after a gulp, "Well, maybe you're absolutely right. But still! You don't get to mess with a friend of mine, without going through me first!"
"Jesse!" Willow exclaimed at last, making her brunette friend snap his nervous face towards her. "He wasn't making fun of me! And he was laughing with me, not at me!" the redhead frowned. "He, um, he's strangely being very nice..."
"Oh," Jesse blurted out, offering a short-lived, embarrassed grin to Xander. "Well, he knows I was just messin' with him. Right, buddy?" he chuckled, teasingly punching Xander with a light blow in the arm.
Xander, now utterly confused, just stood unresponsive to that act for a silent moment.
"Okay, I suppose now's a good time to shut up," a beaten Jesse said, dropping his bag and sitting near Willow in defeated silence.
"Actually, that'd have been appropriate about two minutes ago," Willow helpfully whispered into Jesse's ear, who scowled at her and grinned once again that nervous grin towards Xander.
Buffy did the same and sat in front of Willow and Xander, who had sat down again as well. "He's hit his head a lot over the years. But don't worry, Jesse's mostly harmless," she smiled in mocking apology.
Xander turned to Buffy and they locked eyes for a fleeting second, making the blonde's heart do that now-familiar loop-the-loop, as he grinned at the comment.
Willow noticed the reciprocated glance between the two teens. "You two met already?"
"Oh, me and Xander go way back, old friends, very close. Then there's that period of estrangement where I think we were both growing as people, but now here we are, like old times. I'm quite moved," Buffy retorted, and frowned at that incredibly Willow-like babble-fest. "I'm sorry about that. Sometimes, I can be odd and bizarre..."
Wow Buffy, why don't you just dress up like Barney? I'm sure a big purple dinosaur's costume couldn't be worse than this! the blond-haired girl thought sorrowfully, already annoyed at herself for not managing to understand why this boy had the capacity for setting her off like that.
"Oh, don't mind my friend Buffy, she's hit her head a lot - but she's truly harmless. Ya know, maybe some drooling to be seen occasionally, but yeah, safe to be with in public," Jesse apologized, sporting a vengeful and deliciously evil grin.
Buffy scowled viciously at him.
"Nah, don't worry, I've had a lot of those moments too. Ya know, when you think, 'gee, even if I got dressed up in a Barney costume, I wouldn't be capable of doing any worse damage'. Guess you just can't help those moments. They're evil, random and unpredictably tricky," Xander said emphatically.
Buffy smiled internally at him.
"Anyways, if hitting your head's an issue, then I'm in big trouble..."
When Xander said that, he did it without really thinking; remembering his patrolling fights with demons and vamps, and the unavoidable souvenirs in the form of headaches and concussions.
"Oh, you mean the football thing? Sure, of course, the voluntarily-offering- yourself-to-play-a-stupidly-violent-game-to-score-with-the-cheerleaders thing," Buffy absently fired off the retort, then instantly regretting her big mouth and how it seemed unconnected to her brain.
"Football? Oh, right, football! What else could it be? Pfft, certainly not late-night fights in a cemetery with guys that look like they're on PCP," Xander babbled nervously, trying his best to sound dismissive.
Buffy, Willow and Jesse all stared at him, with odd looks on their faces.
Anyone with a Barney costume? No? What a pity, Xander sarcastically rebuked himself.
"I guess he's hit his head a lot too," Jesse murmured in Willow's ear, and the redhead grinned.
"Actually I started playing football more 'cause of the college scholarship deal," the brunette Slayer amended, making the petite blonde blush at her initial comment. "But hey, you can't ignore the thing about cheerleader chi- "
Xander immediately cut himself off, seeing the glances from both Willow and Buffy, and cleared his throat to continue. "Respectful young dancers, that deserve kudos for their great efforts and sacrifices during a game. And ya know..."
"It's got nothing to do with getting your very own pack of brainless anorexic groupies," Buffy snorted at the demonstration of hormones on Xander's part. So much for the blushing.
"I was gonna say the routine builds up a good working relationship, and that cheerleaders and football players together isn't exactly some depraved orgy all the time," Xander said, smiling smart-assedly to Buffy. "But I'm sure your theory about malnutrition and lack of intellect could be very valid too..."
"You mean there's no such thing as evil orgies?" Willow suddenly blurted out in surprise. "Funny, all of a sudden it's like I don't know if I can trust in what's real and what's not!"
"I'm real, but Pamela Anderson's breasts aren't," Jesse said helpfully.
"Oh, now I'm back," Willow smiled in relief.
"Thank God," Buffy rolled her eyes.
Watching the three friends engage in the cheerful banter, Xander suddenly felt a cold shiver run down his spine. It brought back memories of LA, and Hemery High; conversations he had had with his three closest buds, before he'd learnt all about the things that went bump in the night after Merrick had found him.
His friends - Tyler, Kim and Jennifer.
All of them were dead now, killed by the vampires Lothos and Amilyn.
Xander tried desperately to think of something else. He looked at the blonde girl, "Wait a minute, you were a cheerleader!" when the memory hit the boy, the accusation was immediate.
Buffy's mouth hung open for a prolonged second. "How d'ya learn..."
"Photograph. Hall. Mini-skirt," the dark-haired teen answered pragmatically. "So you pull this whole 'We Hate Cheerleaders' club thing and then you go all 'oopsie, I may have forgotten to mention I was once one of them'?"
"It doesn't count, 'cause you weren't supposed to know that," Buffy reasoned nonsensically in her own defense.
"Very logical, Miss Maturity," Xander teased playfully.
"Okay, I give up - all right? I'm not proud of it, not one bit! But I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't below them, just 'cause I didn't do some silly dance and had to act as if I had forgotten how to think. Thankfully though, I fully recovered from that road to perdition, which means I can still talk about subjects that don't exclusively involve boys and clothes."
"You're being kinda unfair to them. They do talk a lot about make-up and hair too," Xander sighed, making Buffy grin.
Jesse elbowed Willow. "Ouch! Why'd you do that?" the redhead cried out.
"To get your attention, like discreetly?" the boy whispered matter-of- factly, with a hint of ephemeral annoyance.
"Oh - gotcha!" the petite girl retorted. "So, what is it?"
"Is it just me, or is our sweet little Buff totally into the new dude?" Jesse glanced meaningfully at an unaware Xander.
Willow suspiciously eyed the young couple engaged in a conversation. "Nah... when she's into some guy, she always does that embarrassing laugh, remember? It's actually very funny, 'cause it's like the exact same noise of a mating hyena and-"
The redhead was interrupted unexpectedly by a hysterically laughing Buffy.
While Willow glanced at her blonde-haired friend worriedly, Jesse just grinned goofily. "Alright, way to go sister B!"
***
TBC. Tons of reviews, please!
