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.

***

"Hey, Willow, don't we have that thing to do?" Jesse then burst out loud all of a sudden, making the three other teens jump at the unforeseen scary occurrence.

An unsuspecting Willow frowned. "What thing? What the heck are you - ouch!" she suddenly cried out, hit by the tall boy's elbow, and rapidly amended, "Oh, right! Uh, what are we waiting for then? Let's go do that, uh, thing we've gotta do!"

Buffy cocked a suspicious eyebrow at her two best friends. "What exactly do you two have to do?"

Willow and Jesse exchanged a sideways look and answered in unison, with a slight singsong tone, "The thing."

"Name it," the petite blonde challenged, the voice severe and the hazel eyes boring piercingly into the two students' ocean-green and dark ones.

"Find some books in the library?" Willow offered meekly, at the same time Jesse tried, "Peek into the girls' shower room?"

"And then find some books in the library?" the brunette boy subsequently added lamely, getting himself a roll of the eyes from Willow.

"You guys are definitely weird today. Why are you weird today?" Buffy asked, as Xander, feeling more and more like an outsider amidst the long- time trio of friends, tried to looked amused.

After several seconds of utter silence, Jesse finally said, "Willow's gay, so she was ashamed to admit we were gonna peek into the girls' shower room and all..."

"Hey! No, I'm not! Gay, that is! I mean, I'm not gay, Jesse!" the red- haired student cried out, slapping the taller teenager's forehead.

"Ouch, what was that for?" the boy shot back, and afterwards smirked evilly for only Willow to see. He started to patronize her gently, "That's okay, Wills, we'll still keep lovin' ya anyway. You and me have been best friends like forever, so you don't gotta be ashamed of your feelings..."

The redhead stage-whispered in rebuttal, "I'll get you for this, you big doofus!"

"Willow, Jesse, we got it already, 'kay? Go do that thing, ah, that thing you two have to-" Buffy started to say, and was interrupted by a mad Willow.

"It's not peeking into the girls' shower room, Buffy!" the 16-year-old girl roared.

An embarrassed pause. "Right, right, I'm sorry, it's just that Jess kept saying it and it ended up stuck in my mind!" she apologized quickly, and then scowled at a smirking Jesse.

Willow then murmured, "Not helping."

"Anyways, since I believe both me and Xander have a superior mentality to that of a five year-old kid, we're able to understand you two want to do the thing - that doesn't involve peeking the girls' shower room," the blonde remarked under Willow's glance.

"If you wanna talk about dark, painful secrets that I can't know about, that's 'kay. After all, both you two've known each other longer than me," Buffy continued dismissively, but obviously seeming hurt at her exclusion.

Willow instantly felt guilty. "No, that's not true, Buffy... and hey, you know I met you in kindergarten only two minutes after I met Jesse!"

"It's still earlier," the petite blonde grumbled in a low voice, belligerently.

At the seemingly never-ending discussion between the three childhood friends, not for the first time Xander felt like a fish out of water. "Ya know, I've got to go... somewhere. 'Cause, anyway, it's getting dark..." the boy looked up to notice the bright sunny day, and added with a mental rebuke, "...in a few hours, and I can be a very slow walker..."

"Don't we have classes yet?" Buffy mumbled to herself at Xander's sudden oddness.

"No!" Willow cried out suddenly, to match with Jesse's frenzied, "Don't go, man!"

Buffy and Xander stared at them with curious looks.

Jesse tried to fix the situation. "Er... Buffy, pfft, she's the ultimate slow walker, dude; and ya know, with her petite size, I wouldn't like my friend walking all alone out there after school. If I didn't have to do that thing, ya know, I wouldn't let her be exposed to the dangerous side of Sunnydale..." the last sentence, whispered lamely by the brunette teen, immediately made Xander's inwards shiver.

Completely ignorant of the dark-haired Slayer's fear, Buffy whined, "I'm not petite!"

"Dangerous side of Sunnydale?" the ex-LA boy spoke the words slowly, trying to sound as unsuspicious as possible around his possible familiarity with the subject.

Jesse rapidly tried to come up with a good excuse. "Yeah... like all the, uh, passing cars! In the dark, they wouldn't even see her on the road; or maybe they would, and they'd think it was a garden gnome or something that went for a walk, and then bam, Summers roadkill..."

"I'm. Not. A. Garden. Gnome," Buffy practically growled this time, just to be ignored once again.

"But isn't that's why there are indicator- ummph!" Willow muffled when Jesse's hand quickly covered her mouth, not allowing her to finish the sentence.

Most of her face hidden by Jesse's hand, the redhead's eyes widened at the understanding of the boy's intentions. "Got it," she whispered the muffled words, and he retracted the hand with a wild, distracting grin towards Buffy and Xander.

It was while looking at the epiphany-face of her redheaded friend that, all of a sudden, Buffy suddenly realized everything.

The. Whole. Deal.

They're trying to set us up! The, the... the sneaky bastards! There's no stupid 'thing' those two wanna do after all...

The blonde felt the palms of her hands starting to get cold, at the possibility of Xander also realizing the plan.

It'll probably happen sooner than it did with Slow Buffy here, Miss Summers grunted sarcastically, annoyed with herself for being so blind.

Shooting a hurried sideways glance at Xander, and even inwardly smiling to herself at how cute he seemed, lost and stuck in Willow and Jesse's insane world and behavior, a sudden change of heart occurred to the blonde girl. In fact, her distress with her friends briskly changed to a overwhelming insecurity crawling within her insides.

What if he also figures it out, and thinks it's just a totally lame unfunny idea? And what if he thinks I'm yucky? Or weird? And if he can't wait to get rid of me? Oh my God, I bet he thinks I've got stupid hair. That cocky quarterback is laughing at the expense of my bad hair day!

Deciding that the best, and less embarrassing choice was to cool down, Buffy contained her nervousness by switching sides again, and sending murderous glances to her friends.

Jesse lamely began, "Good-byes always make me like over-emotional, so before I start crying a river or whatever, I'll just turn around with my pal Willow to peek into the girls' - ouch!" he cried at Willow's pinch and rapidly corrected himself, a little belligerently though, "go look for some books, 'cause that's so much more freakin' believable and-"

Another pinch. "Ouch! Seriously, you've gotta stop doin' that," the tall brunette shot a look at his red-haired childhood friend.

"So... uh, Xander, can you, uh, protect Buffy from being mistaken as a garden gnome and walk her home?" Willow took charge of the situation before Jesse made an even bigger disaster of it, but soon found out she wasn't gonna make it any better.

"Why do people keep ignoring the fact that we still have classes to attend today?" Buffy murmured in annoyance, still grouchy and furious at their conspiratorial ideas.

"Avoid passing cars, or potential hit and runs on account of the garden gnome thing; yeah, I think I can cover all that," an amused and confused Xander replied slowly.

***

"Great plan, Einstein," Willow snorted after she and Jesse finally departed from their blonde friend and the newest student at Sunnydale High.

"Wow, thanks Will... That's kinda sweet of you, since it didn't work out very well and - hey! Wait a minute, you're being all sarcastic and stuff!" Jesse pointed his finger at her, realizing the true meaning of her words.

"Peeking into the girls' shower room? And gay?!" the redhead finally exploded, catching a few curious glances around her.

"Yeah, just practicing for the school play this year... You should all come, it's really gonna kick ass!" Jesse exclaimed with a wild smile, which was very similar to Willow's.

Everyone quickly ignored the geeks. "Hey, I'm sorry if Cupid Boy here was tryin' to save our asses so we could leave the two love-birds alone! Anyways, as if Buffy would ever buy the me deliberately-stepping-into-a- library-to-find-some-books thing," Jesse cuffed back.

Willow rolled her ocean-green eyes yet again. "The school cafeteria's on the way. You could've easily make a stop there when we were goin' - *that* would have been very believable and unsuspicious."

The tall boy thought it over for some moments and, with a rueful sigh, shook his head. "Yeah, that'd have been real smart."

The redhead exhaled. "What are we gonna do now?"

Jesse shrugged. "Wanna go to the cafeteria?"

Willow just glared, making her brunette friend frown.

"What? There's jelly for dessert today," the boy rationalized matter-of- factly.

*** I know this chapter was very silly, and shorter too - well, I'll start to intensify the story very soon. Please, review me so I can know your opinions and ideas!