Finally! I've posted this so you guys (all three of you) can read the next part. Hope it's not too much of a dissapointment.

Pressing her shoulder hard against the shelves, the chairs and every last bit of anything that could be used to block the library doors, Buffy grunted and groaned as the vampires on the other side of the doors tried harder and harder to get in. Giles was next to her, showing surprising strength for a man of whatever age he was.

"Push!" he ordered her through a firmed jaw and gritted teeth.

"What do you think I'm doing? Pulling?" Buffy snapped at him, not bothering to keep her biting remarks in check, no matter the seriousness of the situation. She was starting to wonder whether or not she had made the right choice.

If this was the end of the world, she wondered if she was spending her last moments with the right people. When she looked at Giles through her strained eyes she saw the unwillingness to give up.

Across the room she saw Jenny Calendar, the computer teacher who surprisingly was muttering something in Latin, standing beside Willow who was also talking in Latin. Something about doing a spell that'll help Cordelia and Angel find each other if they're separated. Both looked nervous, afraid even, but also strong enough to do what they were trying to do.

Then it happened. A bright light, as if lightening had struck, flashed throughout the room and Jenny and Willow, gripping each other's hands as they continued chanting, tried to stand still as the ground shook.

"That's not us!" Jenny yelled, referring to the ground splitting in half throughout the library.

The two flew to different ends of the room, both looking quite disoriented. Willow shook it off and stood up, stumbling slightly as the ground continued to shake.

"That was so cool!" she actually screamed, adrenaline obviously seeping through every inch of her.

All of a sudden, something exploded inside of Buffy. She felt it coming, like heartburn leading up to a heart attack. But still, when it came she was as disoriented as Willow was after being thrown across a room and straight into a wall. Her entire life flashed before her eyes as a hand smashed through the circular hole in the library door and grabbed at her hair, her precious hair.

She let out a growl and her hand shot up miraculously fast, snapping the hand in two, causing the vampire on the other side to whimper in pain and retract his hand.

"We need something to block the things, the circular window-things!" Buffy informed the other three occupants of the room as the windows shattered on the other end of the library where all the bookshelves were. Something was going down on the roof of the school too, just above the library.

For a second she thought she saw an ugly looking, costumed freak who had had too much kool-aid to drink.

This time when Buffy woke up it wasn't so violently. Neither was it a peaceful awakening, but deep down in her subconscious she welcomed the absence of intensity.

Buffy's eyes blinked open and she gradually sat up in her bed. She rubbed her forehead thoroughly as she shut her eyes, trying to destroy the images of that night at Sunnydale High.

I'll be back at that hellhole tomorrow.

It was a frightening thing to look forward to. Usually she loved going back to school, seeing some of her 'friends' and raising her popularity status. But this year...this year she was afraid to even be touched. At least until she figured out what was going on with her. She could lift her bed without breaking a sweat. She could hear dogs barking a mile away and could see through the night sky without squinting her eyes.

She was no superman, she found out. She couldn't lift her house up from its foundation but she could move her refrigerator from one spot to another without breaking her back like the man who installed it did.

"Ugh! What the hell's going on?" was the question she asked herself every time she woke up in the middle of the night from one of her stupid dreams where she relived that night. Sometimes it wasn't just a recreation of that night though; sometimes it was some creepy vision of something.

Sometimes it was something. What a nice description for the psychiatrists I'm going to have chasing me around if I let anyone know about whatever's going on with me.

Cordelia crept quietly to the edge of the rocky lip, peering over to see the path that few walked down, a short cut to the side of Sunnydale where the Bronze was located that teenagers usually preferred.

In the distance she saw two recognizable faces, ones that belonged to her friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg. Willow looked outright bored and Xander desperately tried to change that by teasing her with some ice cream to the face.

Cordelia couldn't help but grin at the sight of them so innocently enjoying each other's company, strolling absently down a path, just wandering along, minding their own business. But the tingling sense along her spine gave off a warning signal and she couldn't help but scan the area around them.

She'd convinced her parents a week earlier to allow her to take the bus back to Sunnydale. Informing them that it was a test for her, to see if she could handle being alone for a long period of time. And she aced that test. Except for the part where she checked in with her father.

Ten minutes earlier she had arrived at the bus station and caught onto something, a whiff of bad, old cologne that could only belong to a badly styled vampire. She'd followed the trail and there she was, gazing upon her friends.

Using the darkness as her ally, she narrowed her eyes, as if magnifying her vision, and got a closer look at Willow and Xander, who'd stopped walking and were talking about something.

Then she saw the vampire. One that was wearing an ugly brown, suede jacket and blue jeans, totally not matching or even looking good paired with one another. He crept and crawled like the animal he was proving himself to be. Finally, he narrowly escaped their view by hiding behind a tree.

Cordelia pushed herself up and stood perfectly still after that, waiting till one of the streetlights flickered. Timing herself, she tucked and rolled behind a row of bushes, easily providing herself with some cover until she counted to twenty, saw the first flicker of many on the street light that might reveal her, and sped across the grass hill as silent as a mouse.

In a matter of seconds she was about a foot or two behind the vampire, who surprisingly was showing patience as he waited for his own moment to pounce upon the unsuspecting teenagers.

Cordelia didn't give him a chance though, coming up from behind and wrapping her arm around his neck. With one quick movement, she forced his neck to go too far in one direction, snapping it in two just as Angel had taught her.

Wiping the dust off the front of her brand-new jacket, Cordelia brushed her hair behind her ears and tiptoed around the tree before jumping onto Xander's back, scaring him shitless.

He didn't fall straight to the ground, like she expected him too. He actually supported her weight and ran around yelping like a crazy man. Cordelia couldn't seem to stop laughing.

No matter what troubles she was going to face, she was glad to not only be home, but to be with her friends again.

Licking his lips and perusing the long line of books in his bookshelf, Giles blinked several times, rubbing his eyes with one hand to keep his eyes open while the other lifted a few more books onto the shelf.

The sound of his phone ringing stopped his chore and he placed the books on his couch before walking over to where his living room met his kitchen at a small little island. Picking up the phone, he tried to sound as warm as possible. "Hello?"

"Giles...hey," a familiar, feminine voice sounded on the other end of the line. Butterflies fluttered in Giles' stomach involuntarily and he sat down, stuttering to say hello back while also wondering why the sudden sound of Jenny Calendar's voice was such a relief.

"Jenny. It's nice to hear a familiar voice," he greeted, his voice softening without thought.

"You haven't had a social summer, I'm guessing?"

"I can't say that I have," Giles admitted, a smile tugging at the crease where his bottom lip met his top. "Not to sound rude and unwelcoming, but may I ask why the out-of-the-blue phone call?"

Jenny laughed, hesitating. "I can't say why because I don't know why I called you. I got home an hour ago and the first person that came to mind was you."

Giles nearly fell off his stool when the words fluttered into his ears. It'd been a long while since a woman had told him he was on her mind. And Jenny, he soon discovered by delving deep into his thoughts, was the last person he wanted to forget him.

"R-Really?" he stuttered, his cheeks flushing a soft shade of pink.

Again, Jenny laughed. A melodic sound that not only brought more butterflies to Giles' stomach but also melted his heart a little.

What am I, a teenager? Five minutes ago I was wondering whether I should organize my tomes by alphabetical or by age. Now I'm sitting here, falling out of my seat and stuttering like a hormone crazed teenager.

"Well, Giles...you have to admit. You and I are about the only tolerable people over the age of twenty-five in Sunnydale," Jenny admitted.

Nodding to himself, Giles found the sudden urge to continue the conversation until time ended. Talking to an interesting person who also actually wanted to talk to him was a rarity and he wasn't going to pass up the chance. "How was your summer?"

"Mind-numbingly boring," Jenny admitted with a sigh. "I guess with all that happened the night Cordelia killed the Master I got a little accustomed to eventful things happening. Then I come here and...blech."

"Is that even a word?" Giles teased, easing into the conversation.

"How was your summer?" Jenny asked, ignoring his baiting.

"As exciting as yours," Giles said sarcastically into the phone. "Even if you'd stayed here for the summer you'd have had just as much entertainment."

"No vampire activity?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Giles explained, not that sad about it. "The Hellmouth isn't closed, so it's quite easy to guess that our problems have yet to end."

Jenny took a silent minute before speaking and Giles had the strange feeling that she had a sly smirk on her face. "Our problems? So you're finally including me in the situation?"

"I guess you can say that," Giles whole-heartedly replied. A lump formed in his throat and he was quiet for the longest time until he realized it was too emotionally dangerous for him to be left alone with his thoughts and began speaking once again to detract away from them. "You said you didn't know why you called me. Were you telling the truth?"

"It's killing you, not knowing why, isn't it?"

"If I say yes will you tell me?" Giles asked, sounding like a little boy, so innocently wanting an answer without being too desperate.

Jenny sighed into the phone, not exactly frustrated but obviously contemplating whether to give classified information to him or not. "Truthfully?"

"Always."

"Over summer I had a lot of time to think about things," she explained, her voice getting quieter as each word slipped out of her mouth into Giles' ear. "My opinions...my feelings."

Again, Giles lost his balance and nearly fell from his seat. Perhaps it was wishful thinking but the way she was speaking to him about it, he had the notion that the 'feelings' she was thinking about were in relation to him.

"I've never believed in crossing the line between friend and lover, maybe because I've never had to really consider it," Jenny continued and Giles swore he could hear her heart beating over the phone. Or maybe it was his, beating and thumping against his chest so loudly that it echoed throughout his head. "Giles?"

"Yes?" he asked, his voice almost leaving him.

"You and I...are friends right?"

The silence was breaking by the bookshelf falling forward, crashing onto the floor loudly.

"What was that?" Jenny asked, concerned.

"Um...nothing." Giles lied, wanting to get back to the topic at hand more desperately than he'd ever suspect himself to be.

"No, I heard it. Sounded like something fell, something broke."

Giles sighed, looking over his shoulder at the damage. "It was my bookshelf. It fell."

"Oh. Well, you should really clean that-"

"It can wait," Giles cut her off, forgetting any sense of control over his emotions.

And Jenny let out a small laugh, obviously noting how much he wanted to continue the conversation. "I'll talk to you tomorrow. First day of school, remember?"

"Right," Giles ran a hand through his hair, smiling. "Come to the library after school if you can't get away from your classes, if you like."

"I will."

"Good."

"It's a date then," she dared to say, causing Giles to sit up straighter, his free hand gripping the counter.

"Yes...a date."

Buffy ran a hand down the front of her shirt, smoothing the wrinkles that she discovered before anyone could see any fault with her outfit.

Sneaking out in the middle of the night after waking up from one of those weird dreams was exactly the remedy to get it off her mind. Shouldn't have gone to bed so early anyways.

She cleared her throat, popped her knuckles and started to walk again towards the Bronze. Something weird was going on with her but she wasn't going to let it ruin her social life.

Better to act as if nothing is wrong with me; she had reminded herself while sneaking out of her house. The sign that read 'Bronze' flickered as she neared and the door leading inside creaked open. A slight chill ran up Buffy's spine but she ignored it, gathering as much nonchalance as she could.

Showing no sympathy for the door she pushed it open with a thrust of her hand, almost knocking it off of its hinges as she sauntered into the room, gathering as much attention as she always did.

The first person she saw in there wasn't one she expected. It was Angel; the cute guy who drove her home after Cordelia killed Jesse. Or 'staked' him, whatever. Stake. Kill. Tomato. Tom'ato.

"Angel?" she acted as if she didn't know him and didn't know anything about him besides his name. But truthfully, she always wondered about him after that night. And even when Cordelia fought the Master she caught sight of him, caring after her, being with her. A slight amount of jealousy found its way into Buffy's bloodstream and flowed through her for a moment before she took control.

"Buffy?" he seemed genuinely surprised at the sight of her, his chocolate eyes lighting up for a moment as short as Danny Devito. It was plain to see that he was at the Bronze for other reasons, but he wasn't necessarily going to tell her to buzz off, which was a relief. "What're you doing here?"

"I come here all the time."

"Really, haven't seen you around." He surprised her by saying that.

I guess he's here every night. Never figured that.

Something in her expression obviously gave her away. It didn't bother her that he could read her so well only because something else was distracting her. Something about him. A feeling in the pit of her stomach that alarmed her. He seemed nice so she ignored it, scratching off the possibility that he was bad news.

"This is part of my patrol. You know about vampires, right? I swear that you were there that night..."

"Oh boy, was I!" She would have spoken further had she not caught sight of Bobby, his nose bruised and covered by a bandage. He immediately backed into the wall and tripped over himself trying to find the exit before she even blinked.

Angel watched him go curiously. "What was that about?"

He's a curious fella isn't he? "Nothing. We broke up a few months ago. Still a little weird between us."

"Oh, okay." Angel nodded, glancing back at the doorway and replaying the image of the teenage boy running like a girl from a girl. He couldn't help but allow a ghost of a smile to pass over his face. "I have a feeling it wasn't mutual."

"Good guess," Buffy tried to hide her discomfort, which was slipping fast through her defensive wall. Angel was being nice to her, even if he was a friend of Cordelia's. The slight sparkle of friendliness in his entrancing, dark eyes surprised her and undid her in a way that she didn't like, making her uneasy instead of confident, anxious instead of cool.

Plus, the feeling that there was something about him she should know, and if she did she wouldn't have stuck around, was still floating around in the back of her mind, still gnawing at her insides as if she were hungry. She would have complained about it, lying and saying that she ate bad food and needed to sit down. But to Buffy's annoyance she didn't want to bestow her 'Queen B' persona upon Angel.

Angel caught sight of the hesitance in being around him, and scratched the back of his head. "You don't have to stick around and talk with me. You probably have a lot of other people you need to speak with, don't want you to miss out on some much-needed fun."

"I guess you're right..." Buffy sighed, as if disappointed. She looked over his shoulder, then over hers, seeing a lot of familiar faces yet not one that she wanted to approach. "Or, if you're not in too much of a rush, I can keep you company."

At first, Angel didn't respond, as if too embarrassed to turn her down. Before he could say anything, though, Buffy took it as she saw and cut him off with an apologetic tone. "Or not. I mean I'm sure there are lots of vampires for you to...exterminate. Besides, I don't want to deprive everyone else of my presence."

She cleared her throat, nodded and then turned to go, thinking whatever conversational relationship she had with Angel ended for good. But Angel's hand grabbing her shoulder, his grip far from tight, perhaps even comforting, stopped her.

"Don't," his voice sent tantalizing chills up her spine but at the same time the touch of his hand to her shoulder weirded her out. The coldness of his hands finding its way through the threads of her shirt to her skin gave off another variation of a warning signal in her mind. Again she ignored it. "I was planning on staying a while. I'd love the company. Unless you really do need to go hang out with your friends."

"I don't need to do anything," Buffy said to him bluntly. "Besides, they can live without me for a night."

"When'd you get back?" Xander asked Cordelia when she slipped off his back, still catching his breath.

"Ten or twenty minutes ago."

"And you came to give us heart attacks first? How generous," Xander said to her in a mock voice, still rubbing his chest.

Willow nudged Cordelia and whispered, "He's been a little...testy lately. His lung capacity isn't so good either."

"My lung capacity is...dandy!" Xander tried to argue but gave in and smiled, mostly at Cordelia. "Glad you're back. You'd be surprised at how dull it's been."

Cordelia shook her head in disbelief, "You're kidding. Vampires can be dull?"

"We haven't seen one all summer," Willow explained. She seemed so pleased at that so Cordelia decided to leave out the vampire she just dispensed of a minute prior. "Hence the dullness."

"I actually preferred it," Xander muttered under his breath. "With the exception of you missing all summer, I enjoyed the line of nothingness we've experienced these past months."

Cordelia nodded. "Sorry if my arrival brings it all back, but I got a feeling that it hasn't come to an end yet. No matter how much we all want it."

"Maybe we'll have some fun now," Willow said, starting to walk down the path.

Before Cordelia could follow her, though, Xander's hand grabbed at her shoulder and kept her from moving any further.

Not once blinking or tearing his eyes from her, utmost concern shining in his deep brown eyes, Xander lowered his voice as an indication of the importance of his question. "You doing okay?"

"Now that I'm back, I think I'll get a lot better."

"Are you lying?"

Narrowing her eyes challengingly, Cordelia grinned wryly, keeping it to herself when she turned away in response to his question, leaving Xander with nothing to do other then follow right behind her.

"Goodnight, then." Buffy turned to walk in the direction towards her house, knowing Angel would go the other direction. But once she walked a few feet, she felt him still behind her, and could hear him trying to form words. Finally she decided to not ignore it anymore and turned around quickly, actually startling Angel. "Is there something else you want?"

"I just...I hate letting you walk home alone," he admitted timidly, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets and shuffling his feet. "It's nighttime, and no matter how safe you might think it is, it's not."

Buffy nodded, motioning for him to walk beside her and not behind her. "Guess I'd like the company. Just don't get any funny ideas and jump me when we go around the corner."

"Why would I do that?"

"Just kidding," Buffy looked at him curiously. "You don't joke around much, do you?"

"I guess I'm not a joking kind of guy," Angel shrugged, walking along side of Buffy.

For a moment he was distracted as they left the alley and were walking along one of the more used streets. Street lights flickering and store signs being turned off were just some of the many reminders that not only was it dark, but it was getting to the time that the creatures who stalked through the night would be coming out of their hiding places. "Maybe it's because I haven't really been around people a lot lately."

"I thought you went to the Bronze every night. That's the gist I got anyways."

"I do. What I meant was that I'm not a friendly guy. I don't have a lot of people to talk to, to make jokes with and stuff that...people like you do," Angel turned left down a street, remembering out of the memory of driving Buffy home that she lived just a few streets and up a hill from where the movie theatre and the Bronze were.

"People like me? Is that a compliment or an insult?" Buffy asked, forming her tone into an inquisitive one, instead of her usual challenging, sarcastic one.

Angel looked down at her, realizing how short she was compared to him. "Somewhere between the two."

Buffy scoffed; shocked that he actually was willing to risk his physical health by saying something like that. "You have a lotta nerve!"

"Now that..." Angel stopped walking, turning to face her, a mischievous grin creeping onto his pale, yet handsome face. "Was a joke."

It wasn't the funniest one in the book, but Buffy still laughed, and actually blushed a little when his eyes remained on her. For a moment she was positively petrified that her knees would buckle; something she hadn't felt since before high school.

Not bothering to grab her keys out of her bag, Cordelia walked up the pathway to her house, hoping that her father wouldn't be too mad about her taking a detour on the way home.

Maybe I can lighten the mood and knock, pretending to be like a rude saleswoman who goes to people's houses in the middle of the night. The idea sounded ludicrous but Cordelia did it anyways, tapping on the door in some offbeat pattern.

In the corner of her eye she caught sight of some daffodils along with various other flowers along the porch. They weren't there before but she chalked it down to her father trying to bring life to their house, even if the choice of flowers seemed a little too feminine.

The door opened and while she expected, rightfully, her father to greet her, she was devastated and confused to discover a woman who looked to be in her thirties with a smile on her face that made her look too happy.

Trying to hold onto her ability to stand, Cordelia blinked several times, laughing absently to relieve the sinking feeling in her heart. "Um...Hi."

"Hello," the woman greeted her with a flowing voice, deep and throaty. "Would you like to come in?"

"Sure," Cordelia couldn't help but smile, thinking to herself that this was all some huge mistake and she should make light of it. "This is still my house right?"

"Of course it is, Cordelia."

Cordelia's smile faltered, "Okay. It's not the fact that you know my name that's weirdin' me out. It's the fact that I don't know who you are."

"Well, your father talks of you quite a bit. I'm surprised that he hasn't mentioned me on one of your phone conversations."

Never taking her eyes off of the woman, Cordelia, with more then a little fright in her voice, yelled into the house. "Dad!"

A moment of silence passed and while Cordelia waited for her father to appear she looked at the woman with incredulity while she, oddly, looked at her with an innocent, wide-eyed expression.

It wouldn't have bothered her if she wasn't so caught off guard, but for some reason Cordelia had the notion that the woman was acting a little too innocent while she kept her eyes on her.

Finally her father appeared in an apron, looking just as innocent as the woman, only more natural. Cordelia would have pointed out his apron and laughed but it wasn't the time.

"Cordelia, you were supposed to be home over an hour ago," he said to her, glancing at the woman for a quick second. "So I automatically presumed you'd be at least two hours late."

Cordelia took a hesitant step inside, hoping to get near her father, to slap him upside the head and make him realize there was a strange woman in the house. But she knew what was going on. The sad thing was that she just wasn't willing to accept it quite yet.

She spent three months away from her father, feeling bad for him spending the entire summer alone and wishing she could keep him company and here she comes home to find out he wasn't alone at all.

"Oh," he said, realizing the lack of introductions. "Cordelia, this is Sandra. Sandra, this is my daughter."

Cordelia didn't even bother to offer a polite smile, only a small nod of her head in acknowledgement.

"She's my...friend."

"A friend? Like a business friend?" Cordelia's words were running into each other as she started to lose the ability to breath. The pieces were falling together so damn quickly that her mind was fogged. She wasn't going to stop talking until her father managed to speak up and say that the woman was a distant relative or the first lady visiting their house to give them a check for being such a top-notch, albeit dysfunctional, family. "No offense meant by this, but is she our maid?"

"No, Cordelia. She's-"

"Our real-estate agent?" Cordelia glanced back across the lawn, looking for a FOR SALE sign to relieve her of the tightness in her heart, the sickening feeling in her stomach. "Dad, did you decide to sell the house and move to Malibu without telling me? Is this just a surprise that I've ruined?"

"No-"

"Next-door neighbor coming over to welcome me back from L.A.?

"Cord-"

"You're getting me a gynecologist?" That should have been a perfect question, but unfortunately it did Cordelia no good, causing her dad to finally raise his voice, stopping her from trying to prevent the inevitable.

"Cordelia! Sandra here is..." he seemed unable to say it at first, acting just as mature as his daughter and having difficulty with it. "Sandra and I are dating."

TBC...