Chapter 6.
"The past makes us what we are today and gives us future imperfect…………….and to understand where we are now we must look back into our past.
Sunnydale High. Buffy's first week at school.
"Buffy! Buffy! Over here!" Willow bounced up and down in her seat waving wildly.
"Hey it's the Buffster!" Xander announced, and pulled out a chair for the pretty blonde. "Have a seat Buff," he beamed at her.
Buffy smiled to herself, Willow and Xander were certainly different to the crowd she used to hang with at her old school. They certainly weren't the 'in' crowd that was for sure, but she'd had enough of that in LA. She had learnt that the cool kids couldn't be relied on, they wouldn't be there when things went wrong, would never support her, and in fact would turn on her, ridicule her or worse desert her. She couldn't handle that again.
Initially she had approached Willow, because it seemed she was as nerdy as they come, and her friend Xander hadn't seemed much better in the cool department. These were the sorts of people that would be happy to be her friend, who would never desert her. Of course she felt kind of shitty about that now, it turned out that these two kids were beyond cool, they were real, and their friendship was real. Buffy didn't know how she would have survived her first week at Sunnydale High without them.
She met Willow on the first day, and they had met after school every night since. Willow was blessed in the brains and organization department, and had helped Buffy to catch up on some of the stuff she had missed early in the term. She had just wanted to blend into the background in her new school, get through her final year, and then get the hell out of Sunnydale to college. But they had made her welcome, and now school wasn't such a drag after all, apart from the actual work of course.
Buffy put her dinner tray on the canteen table and sat down.
She poked suspiciously at the dark brown lump of meat, purporting to be a hamburger and wrinkled up her nose.
"Anyone wanna tell me what the hell this is?" Buffy questioned.
"Rumour has it that they make them from retired dinner ladies," Xander joked.
"Ewwww, and that's me done!" Buffy pushed her plate away.
"The Jell-O however as far as we can tell is harmless and copious consumption can create an excellent sugar rush," Xander grinned.
"Oh yay because a sugar rush is just what Buffy needs to act more of a no brainer in class!" Buffy replied.
"English class not so good Buffy?" Willow looked concerned.
"Oh it was just great, if you class making a complete ass out of yourself and being corrected by a wanna be Billy Idol throwback good!" Buffy cringed trying to put the whole sorry experience out of her head.
"Thinking about it a sugar rush can't make it any worse really!" Buffy shook her head and shoveled a huge spoonful of green Jell-O into her mouth. She didn't notice the figure standing behind her. Willow kicked her in the shin and Buffy snapped her head up.
"What?" Buffy tried to say with Jell-O falling out of her mouth. Willow turned her eyes to look behind her friend, Buffy looked over her shoulder, mouth still stuffed with green jelly.
Spike stood behind her, head cocked to one side trying to work out how someone so cute could look so ridiculous. He raised his left eyebrow.
"English was, well it was entertaining wasn't it Buffy?" he said trying to keep a straight face.
"What do you want?" she asked annoyed, as she wiped the goo from her mouth.
He just laughed at her.
"What?" she snapped.
"Well pet, after your amazing display of no knowledge in class I thought you could use some of my notes to catch up." He smirked
She glared at him angrily. "I don't need your help!"
"Suit yourself, your making such a bang up job of it, I'll leave you to it shall I?" He snarled at her.
"Silly bitch!" He muttered under his breath as he walked away.
Buffy looked over to the table he had sat at, she could tell they were all laughing at her, it wasn't as if they were even trying to be discreet. Drusilla had draped herself around his back, and was recounting the whole embarrassing English class incident to the whole table, who Buffy thought were finding the tale a lot funnier than it actually was. She had come in halfway through the term, and so she had been discussing the wrong book in detail. It wasn't that damn funny
"What a jerk!" Buffy pouted.
"I am going to head off to the library, it appears I have a few books I need to get," she sighed and picked up her bag.
"See you after school Buffy, movie evening tonight remember!" Willow squealed animatedly.
"Sure thing Wills," and with that she headed out of the canteen.
As she passed by the table where he sat the group fell into silence, waiting for her to pass before bursting into laughter. She walked on ignoring them all.
"Are my Spike's eyes wandering? Does he want the pretty blonde princess?" Drusilla whispered into his ear.
"Don't go all crazy on me love, you know you are the only princess for me." He replied and kissed her on the forehead. But his eyes followed her out of the canteen.