A/N: Yay! I'm on a roll! Whatever. Heheh. Oh yeah, just before I get a truckload of complaints, I'd just like to clarify that I have NOT, I repeat NOT, seen season 7 or the vast majority of season 6 of Buffy. THEREFORE, some facts are not completely canon, but then they haven't been since the beginning of Second Chance, so...lol. If it causes you major grief, just quit now. **half the readers exit** Aw, shoot...
Disclaimer: What d'ya think I am, a freakin' broken record? Some things mine. Some things not. YOU NO SUE!...OK?
Dedication: Again, to my friends- love yas all (PLATONICALLY, contrary to, for some reason, popular belief!), despite the fact that my life has spiralled into new depths of insanity and disturbingness over the past fortnight or so! Heheh.
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Luke sat in the Library by himself, humming some random tune as he kicked his heels up onto the table and picked up one of the books he'd found in Giles's collection on various renowned vampires. There was still about quarter of an hour or so until morning registration, and he was just wondering when someone would show up when the door swung open, briefly increasing the level of noise seeping through from the busy corridor. He turned round from flicking idly through the pages to grin at Gracia as she hurried over and hopped up to sit on the desk, facing him with her feet on the chair next to him.
"Hey there." he said. "What's with the big long silence all weekend?"
Gracia blinked, then realised that she hadn't phoned or met up with the twins at all over the past two days. In fact, she'd spent a lot of her time trying to distract her mind from the events of Friday night, and her...meeting with a certain vampire...
She slapped herself on the forehead to halt her tain of thought, earning a slightly weird look from her friend.
"Oh, that." She groaned. "Sorry, I was really busy all weekend..."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "No biggie. Just wondering."
Gracia looked around, a slight frown creasing her face as she asked, "Hey, where's Keisha?"
Luke shrugged. "Not sure...I haven't actually seen her since last night. I tried to get her out of her room to walk to school, but she didn't even open the door. Said she'd catch up with me." He flicked a couple more pages, glancing at various chunks of tiny text and photos of vampires and victims. "Probably worrying about what to wear." He grinned mischeviously up at Gracia. "You know how your gender are when it comes to that."
"Whatever..." was all he got in reply, and at the lack of her usual sarcasm or banter, he frowned, now getting increasingly worried as she stared off into space.
"Hey, you OK?" When she didn't reply, he brought his legs down so he could lean forward and touch her arm. She jumped what seemed at least three feet and whirled around, face a mask of wide-eyed shock, relaxing slightly when she realised it was just him. His frown increased as he continued, "Man, you're real jumpy today. Everything alright?"
Her face hardened into something that looked like...defensiveness?
"Of course it is!" she rushed, seeming a little annoyed. "Why wouldn't it be? Everything's just fine." She laughed, but it came out nervously.
Luke sighed, taking his hand off her arm. Girls were weird at the best of times, he decided, even if his two best friends were both of that gender. Resuming the flicking of the pages of the book, he said, "Well, if you're sure..."
"Of course I'm sure!" she half-snapped, then groaned again. "Sorry, didn't mean to have a go there..."
"Nah, 'sOK. I've suffered worse wraths than yours, Miss Slayer." He grinned at her and they both laughed, although this time not nervously.
The door opened yet again to another burst of noise, and they both looked round to see Keisha walking in in a manner which made it seem as though she didn't want to be noticed. Gracia exchanged a look with Luke, and raised her eyebrows at the wide-brimmed denim hat which the brunette was wearing. All of her hair had been pulled up under it so that none of it was visible.
"Hi there." was all she said however, moving her feet to allow her friend to slip into the chair there. With a hint of a tiny smile, Keisha sat down and replied, "Hey."
Another look flitted between Luke and Gracia before Luke asked, "So, what took you so long?"
"I...um...uhh..." Keisha still wasn't meeting either of their gazes. "Couldn't find my hat..."
"What's with that anyways?" the Slayer questioned, gesturing towards it, narrowing her eyes as Keisha's head drooped lower. "Keisha? What's wrong?"
A pair of green-blue eyes snapped up, darting inbetween them as she hesitantly spoke, "OK...I'll show you...but no teasing me...or blackmailing, Luke!"
"Why'd you wanna blackmail me anyways?" her brother quipped, but shut up promptly at her glare. "OK, OK! Yeesh...no blackmail! I get the point!" He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"OK..." Keisha heaved a couple of nervous breaths, then slowly reached up and pulled the hat off. The two pairs of eyes watching her flew wider in complete shock.
"Oh my god!" Gracia rushed, slapping a hand over her mouth. Keisha gave her a truly depressed look and made to shove the hat back on, but Luke suddenly grabbed her wrist and stopped her, not tearing his stunned expression away from her hair.
It was pulled back into a knot with the help of a few bands and clips in order to keep it up under the hat. True, she didn't normally wear it like that, but that wasn't the surprising thing.
No, the surprising thing was that it was orange. Bright orange.
Keisha wrenched her arm from Luke's grasp and quickly covered up her hair again, with a look that made it seem like the Apocalypse had come early. This snapped him out of his trance enough to blink a few times and say, "Jesus, Keish, what HAPPENED?"
"I tried to dye my hair, OK!" Keisha hugged her bag close and wouldn't meet their eyes again. Gracia tried to lean down to meet her gaze.
"What colour?" she asked gently. Keisha's reply was a mumble so low that Gracia had to ask, "Sorry, I can't hear you. Can you...repeat it?"
Keisha seemed verging on hysterical as she burst out, "Blonde! You heard that?"
"Hey, hey!" Gracia said, bending to put a comforting arm around her friend's shoulders. Keisha sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead as the dark girl continued, "It's not...that bad."
"Yes it is!" Neither of them had ever seen her get so worked up about her appearance, or...well, anything, for that matter. It just wasn't in her nature. "Look at me...I'm a freak show..." she mumbled.
"Well, umm..." Luke started, trying to be comforting. "At least, umm...it's not permanent. Right?"
"Semi-permanent." She groaned. "Six to eight washes, the bottle said. But it didn't all come out last night, so I've gotta keep washing it tonight."
Gracia considered for a moment, then said, "Hey, look. I'm sure you only think it's so bad because you're scraping it all back like that. Let's go to the toilets before registration, and I'll try to help you, OK?"
"What if Bridget's there?" Keisha protested weakly. "I can't have her seeing me like this..."
"Well, we'll find one where she isn't, OK?" Gracia slipped off the table, heaving her bag up over her shoulder. "Come on."
"Oh, ditch me then if I'm not good enough to be seen with." Luke accused them playfully as Keisha stood. Gracia grinned at him.
"Unless you wanna come with, of course?" she offered. Luke pretended to consider the offer, then shook his head.
"Sorry, I have a slight hunch I would be...less than welcome among some of the other students in your destination."
Gracia laughed and shook her head. "Wow, that sounded smart." As soon as a proud look crossed his face, she added, "At least you're convincing."
"Hey!" Luke tried to follow it back to find out whether it was a compliment or an insult, then gave up with a grin.
"See you in registration then." Gracia added quickly, turning back round and taking Keisha's arm gently to steer her towards the door. Just as they neared it, Giles entered, expression becoming perplexed at the sight of the two girls leaving. "Hey Giles."
"Hello..." Giles frowned after them as they exited, then looked over at Luke. "Where are they off to?"
Luke shrugged, turning back to the book he was boredly flicking through. "Keisha's just having something of a crisis. Girl stuff, y'know."
Giles seemed about to ask further, wisely decided better of it and made his way over to his office with a slight sigh. He'd been up until the early hours of the morning after a weekend of little rest, searching over and over again for any backround information on the vampires, or any sign of what their next actions might be, but to no avail. It was all part of being a Watcher, after all, but still...he decided he was out of practice at the whole 'being in charge of an active Slayer' thing.
Luke continued to turn some pages, skimming some and completely ignoring others. Study was bad enough, but to be researching voluntarily...he shook his head. Man, he needed to get more of a social life!
Something suddenly caught his eye, and made him halt his continuous flicking of pages to turn back to it. It was a large copy of an old, slightly grainy black-and-white photograph, and he frowned closer at it.
A man and a woman, somewhere near or in middle-age, were seated in two chairs, turned a little towards each other. A young girl with light hair, no more than about nine or ten, knelt in between and slightly in front of them. There were two other people in the picture, teenagers of around seventeen, a boy and a girl. The boy stood behind his father's chair, dressed neatly and standing straight. The girl was next to him, behind her mother, wearing a long dress which seemed to be of a Victorian fashion and a small smile. They both looked quite alike, with black hair and eyes which were probably, Luke decided, nearly as dark, although it was obviously difficult to tell in such a picture. Then he noticed a small line underneath the picture, and squinted at the small text to read:
"Thomas Gainsborough, back row, far left, and Laurel Gainsborough, back row, far right, with family (photograph dated approximately 1885)."
About a side of text lay opposite the picture.
"Giles!" Luke called, a type of excitement coursing through him. "Hey, Giles! I think I've found something!"
Finally- perhaps no more reasearch!
Giles hurried out of his office, face showing his obvious confusion- it seemed to be a common thing for him now, especially on Monday mornings.
"What is it?" He walked over to Luke's side, adjusting his glasses to peer over the blonde boy's shoulder at the picture he was enthusiastically gesturing to.
"This! I think this may be them..."
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Gracia finished the thin braid she had plaited and smiled encouraginaly at Keisha as the girl replaced her hat and glanced in the mirror. To her surprise, it really didn't seem as bad as it had at first- true, her hair had become bright orange, but at least it didn't look as severe as scraping it all back had done. Gracia had given her a small plait on either side at the front and had restyled her hair into a ponytail with some bits escaping so that her face looked 'softer'. And with her hat on, the colour of it wasn't initially all that noticeable.
"See?" Gracia said. "Not so bad, huh?"
"No..." Keisha smiled and turned to hug her friend. "Thanks so much."
"No problem." Gracia laughed, hugging her back quickly before drawing away. "But...Keisha..."
"Yes?" Keisha frowned.
"Why DID you dye your hair?"
Keisha froze, insides turning to ice. Just the question she'd hoped to avoid...
After a slight pause, she gave a laugh and said, "Dunno really. Wanted a change?"
Gracia didn't seem all that convinced, but replied, "OK then. If you're sure."
"Uh huh. Hey, we'd better go. The bell's due anytime soon."
"Yeah, guess so..." Gracia picked up her back and made to leave, but then halted and looked back. "But, Keisha, just remember...if whoever he is doesn't like you for you...that's his problem, not yours. Dpn't go changing yourself for someone. It's not worth it."
Keisha stuttered, eyes wide in shock. "But...b-but I w-wasn't..."
Gracia laughed again. "Sure. C'mon, let's get going."
The two girls left the toilets and headed towards their registration room, Keisha still reeling from her friend's unwitting perception.
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Giles studied the picture with its caption, quickly skimmed some of the tiny text on the next page, and finally lfted the book from Luke to get a closer look. Eventually, he looked up.
"Luke...I think you're right."
Luke grinned as Giles continued to read, although he could almost hear Gracia adding in, "First time for everything."
Giles looked back up, removing his glasses as he did so and shut the book on his finger in order to keep the place.
"We'd better get Gracia and Angel to look at this."
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Well, with any luck, I may get a couple of reviews for this...**grim smile, crosses fingers** Here's to hoping.
Disclaimer: What d'ya think I am, a freakin' broken record? Some things mine. Some things not. YOU NO SUE!...OK?
Dedication: Again, to my friends- love yas all (PLATONICALLY, contrary to, for some reason, popular belief!), despite the fact that my life has spiralled into new depths of insanity and disturbingness over the past fortnight or so! Heheh.
********************************************************************************
Luke sat in the Library by himself, humming some random tune as he kicked his heels up onto the table and picked up one of the books he'd found in Giles's collection on various renowned vampires. There was still about quarter of an hour or so until morning registration, and he was just wondering when someone would show up when the door swung open, briefly increasing the level of noise seeping through from the busy corridor. He turned round from flicking idly through the pages to grin at Gracia as she hurried over and hopped up to sit on the desk, facing him with her feet on the chair next to him.
"Hey there." he said. "What's with the big long silence all weekend?"
Gracia blinked, then realised that she hadn't phoned or met up with the twins at all over the past two days. In fact, she'd spent a lot of her time trying to distract her mind from the events of Friday night, and her...meeting with a certain vampire...
She slapped herself on the forehead to halt her tain of thought, earning a slightly weird look from her friend.
"Oh, that." She groaned. "Sorry, I was really busy all weekend..."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "No biggie. Just wondering."
Gracia looked around, a slight frown creasing her face as she asked, "Hey, where's Keisha?"
Luke shrugged. "Not sure...I haven't actually seen her since last night. I tried to get her out of her room to walk to school, but she didn't even open the door. Said she'd catch up with me." He flicked a couple more pages, glancing at various chunks of tiny text and photos of vampires and victims. "Probably worrying about what to wear." He grinned mischeviously up at Gracia. "You know how your gender are when it comes to that."
"Whatever..." was all he got in reply, and at the lack of her usual sarcasm or banter, he frowned, now getting increasingly worried as she stared off into space.
"Hey, you OK?" When she didn't reply, he brought his legs down so he could lean forward and touch her arm. She jumped what seemed at least three feet and whirled around, face a mask of wide-eyed shock, relaxing slightly when she realised it was just him. His frown increased as he continued, "Man, you're real jumpy today. Everything alright?"
Her face hardened into something that looked like...defensiveness?
"Of course it is!" she rushed, seeming a little annoyed. "Why wouldn't it be? Everything's just fine." She laughed, but it came out nervously.
Luke sighed, taking his hand off her arm. Girls were weird at the best of times, he decided, even if his two best friends were both of that gender. Resuming the flicking of the pages of the book, he said, "Well, if you're sure..."
"Of course I'm sure!" she half-snapped, then groaned again. "Sorry, didn't mean to have a go there..."
"Nah, 'sOK. I've suffered worse wraths than yours, Miss Slayer." He grinned at her and they both laughed, although this time not nervously.
The door opened yet again to another burst of noise, and they both looked round to see Keisha walking in in a manner which made it seem as though she didn't want to be noticed. Gracia exchanged a look with Luke, and raised her eyebrows at the wide-brimmed denim hat which the brunette was wearing. All of her hair had been pulled up under it so that none of it was visible.
"Hi there." was all she said however, moving her feet to allow her friend to slip into the chair there. With a hint of a tiny smile, Keisha sat down and replied, "Hey."
Another look flitted between Luke and Gracia before Luke asked, "So, what took you so long?"
"I...um...uhh..." Keisha still wasn't meeting either of their gazes. "Couldn't find my hat..."
"What's with that anyways?" the Slayer questioned, gesturing towards it, narrowing her eyes as Keisha's head drooped lower. "Keisha? What's wrong?"
A pair of green-blue eyes snapped up, darting inbetween them as she hesitantly spoke, "OK...I'll show you...but no teasing me...or blackmailing, Luke!"
"Why'd you wanna blackmail me anyways?" her brother quipped, but shut up promptly at her glare. "OK, OK! Yeesh...no blackmail! I get the point!" He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
"OK..." Keisha heaved a couple of nervous breaths, then slowly reached up and pulled the hat off. The two pairs of eyes watching her flew wider in complete shock.
"Oh my god!" Gracia rushed, slapping a hand over her mouth. Keisha gave her a truly depressed look and made to shove the hat back on, but Luke suddenly grabbed her wrist and stopped her, not tearing his stunned expression away from her hair.
It was pulled back into a knot with the help of a few bands and clips in order to keep it up under the hat. True, she didn't normally wear it like that, but that wasn't the surprising thing.
No, the surprising thing was that it was orange. Bright orange.
Keisha wrenched her arm from Luke's grasp and quickly covered up her hair again, with a look that made it seem like the Apocalypse had come early. This snapped him out of his trance enough to blink a few times and say, "Jesus, Keish, what HAPPENED?"
"I tried to dye my hair, OK!" Keisha hugged her bag close and wouldn't meet their eyes again. Gracia tried to lean down to meet her gaze.
"What colour?" she asked gently. Keisha's reply was a mumble so low that Gracia had to ask, "Sorry, I can't hear you. Can you...repeat it?"
Keisha seemed verging on hysterical as she burst out, "Blonde! You heard that?"
"Hey, hey!" Gracia said, bending to put a comforting arm around her friend's shoulders. Keisha sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead as the dark girl continued, "It's not...that bad."
"Yes it is!" Neither of them had ever seen her get so worked up about her appearance, or...well, anything, for that matter. It just wasn't in her nature. "Look at me...I'm a freak show..." she mumbled.
"Well, umm..." Luke started, trying to be comforting. "At least, umm...it's not permanent. Right?"
"Semi-permanent." She groaned. "Six to eight washes, the bottle said. But it didn't all come out last night, so I've gotta keep washing it tonight."
Gracia considered for a moment, then said, "Hey, look. I'm sure you only think it's so bad because you're scraping it all back like that. Let's go to the toilets before registration, and I'll try to help you, OK?"
"What if Bridget's there?" Keisha protested weakly. "I can't have her seeing me like this..."
"Well, we'll find one where she isn't, OK?" Gracia slipped off the table, heaving her bag up over her shoulder. "Come on."
"Oh, ditch me then if I'm not good enough to be seen with." Luke accused them playfully as Keisha stood. Gracia grinned at him.
"Unless you wanna come with, of course?" she offered. Luke pretended to consider the offer, then shook his head.
"Sorry, I have a slight hunch I would be...less than welcome among some of the other students in your destination."
Gracia laughed and shook her head. "Wow, that sounded smart." As soon as a proud look crossed his face, she added, "At least you're convincing."
"Hey!" Luke tried to follow it back to find out whether it was a compliment or an insult, then gave up with a grin.
"See you in registration then." Gracia added quickly, turning back round and taking Keisha's arm gently to steer her towards the door. Just as they neared it, Giles entered, expression becoming perplexed at the sight of the two girls leaving. "Hey Giles."
"Hello..." Giles frowned after them as they exited, then looked over at Luke. "Where are they off to?"
Luke shrugged, turning back to the book he was boredly flicking through. "Keisha's just having something of a crisis. Girl stuff, y'know."
Giles seemed about to ask further, wisely decided better of it and made his way over to his office with a slight sigh. He'd been up until the early hours of the morning after a weekend of little rest, searching over and over again for any backround information on the vampires, or any sign of what their next actions might be, but to no avail. It was all part of being a Watcher, after all, but still...he decided he was out of practice at the whole 'being in charge of an active Slayer' thing.
Luke continued to turn some pages, skimming some and completely ignoring others. Study was bad enough, but to be researching voluntarily...he shook his head. Man, he needed to get more of a social life!
Something suddenly caught his eye, and made him halt his continuous flicking of pages to turn back to it. It was a large copy of an old, slightly grainy black-and-white photograph, and he frowned closer at it.
A man and a woman, somewhere near or in middle-age, were seated in two chairs, turned a little towards each other. A young girl with light hair, no more than about nine or ten, knelt in between and slightly in front of them. There were two other people in the picture, teenagers of around seventeen, a boy and a girl. The boy stood behind his father's chair, dressed neatly and standing straight. The girl was next to him, behind her mother, wearing a long dress which seemed to be of a Victorian fashion and a small smile. They both looked quite alike, with black hair and eyes which were probably, Luke decided, nearly as dark, although it was obviously difficult to tell in such a picture. Then he noticed a small line underneath the picture, and squinted at the small text to read:
"Thomas Gainsborough, back row, far left, and Laurel Gainsborough, back row, far right, with family (photograph dated approximately 1885)."
About a side of text lay opposite the picture.
"Giles!" Luke called, a type of excitement coursing through him. "Hey, Giles! I think I've found something!"
Finally- perhaps no more reasearch!
Giles hurried out of his office, face showing his obvious confusion- it seemed to be a common thing for him now, especially on Monday mornings.
"What is it?" He walked over to Luke's side, adjusting his glasses to peer over the blonde boy's shoulder at the picture he was enthusiastically gesturing to.
"This! I think this may be them..."
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Gracia finished the thin braid she had plaited and smiled encouraginaly at Keisha as the girl replaced her hat and glanced in the mirror. To her surprise, it really didn't seem as bad as it had at first- true, her hair had become bright orange, but at least it didn't look as severe as scraping it all back had done. Gracia had given her a small plait on either side at the front and had restyled her hair into a ponytail with some bits escaping so that her face looked 'softer'. And with her hat on, the colour of it wasn't initially all that noticeable.
"See?" Gracia said. "Not so bad, huh?"
"No..." Keisha smiled and turned to hug her friend. "Thanks so much."
"No problem." Gracia laughed, hugging her back quickly before drawing away. "But...Keisha..."
"Yes?" Keisha frowned.
"Why DID you dye your hair?"
Keisha froze, insides turning to ice. Just the question she'd hoped to avoid...
After a slight pause, she gave a laugh and said, "Dunno really. Wanted a change?"
Gracia didn't seem all that convinced, but replied, "OK then. If you're sure."
"Uh huh. Hey, we'd better go. The bell's due anytime soon."
"Yeah, guess so..." Gracia picked up her back and made to leave, but then halted and looked back. "But, Keisha, just remember...if whoever he is doesn't like you for you...that's his problem, not yours. Dpn't go changing yourself for someone. It's not worth it."
Keisha stuttered, eyes wide in shock. "But...b-but I w-wasn't..."
Gracia laughed again. "Sure. C'mon, let's get going."
The two girls left the toilets and headed towards their registration room, Keisha still reeling from her friend's unwitting perception.
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Giles studied the picture with its caption, quickly skimmed some of the tiny text on the next page, and finally lfted the book from Luke to get a closer look. Eventually, he looked up.
"Luke...I think you're right."
Luke grinned as Giles continued to read, although he could almost hear Gracia adding in, "First time for everything."
Giles looked back up, removing his glasses as he did so and shut the book on his finger in order to keep the place.
"We'd better get Gracia and Angel to look at this."
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Well, with any luck, I may get a couple of reviews for this...**grim smile, crosses fingers** Here's to hoping.