TITLE: Slayer, 15, Charming, but insane.
AUTHOR: Tumbling Down The Rabbit Hole
FEEDBACK: Please review
ARCHIVE/DISTRIBUTION: Just ask
SUMMARY: Being a slayer is hard enough but being the best friend of a gorgeous Wiccan, in love with a werewolf, starting to fall for your other best friend and a ghost from your past is starting to drive her nuts.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I own no one except Emery, Jordy, Ben, Cole and Ashton.
NOTE: Response to GidgetGirl's Slayer, 15, Charming, but insane Challenge at CCS.

Emery Williams chewed on a loose hangnail, staring at the blank space in her newspaper assignment. It was too small for another article. It needed something; she pulled out the check list she had tucked into her English notebook, one finger sliding down the list double checking the item with item on her screen. Everything appeared to be there until she got to the headings under bonuses.

Bonus:

Ads. Check.

Cartoon. Check.

Want Ads. Check.

Personals. Nope… perfect!

Personals. They would fill the glaring space in her otherwise perfect assignment. She realized that she would have to write a personal; Mr. Wood was constantly telling her to get out of her shell and put some of herself into her writing. Here was her chance. Emery clicked open a new document and began to type.

Slayer, 15, charming… but insane.

Girl seeking male. 5'4, pixie cut ashy blond hair, slightly deformed nose, seeking boy who is not turned off by some eccentric friends, alright with keeping odd hours and likes dogs. Non smoker and has only a healthy liking to comic books.

Cole would kill her if he understood the last part: likes dogs, he was quite insistent that werewolves and dogs were not the same thing. He'd done a report proving the point. And Emery did not want to upset Cole. Cole was perfect; a god. Gorgeous and perfect and completely unattainable. At least to Emery who was nothing special.

'Keeping odd hours' was important. She definitely did. Slaying was not a job for those who enjoyed sleeping through the night. Out on patrols that could last for hours, depending on how much Vi felt like tormenting them. Emery lived on three to six hours of sleep.

She was cranky after long patrols. He'd have to accept that and he'd have to accept the fact that her best friends were a witch and a watcher in training. And not to mention one of them was also a supermodel in training.

Jordan Danes was gorgeous; by far the prettiest girl at the Academy and the school was full of girls, what with the 'only slayers could be girls rule'. Jordy was also a kick ass Wiccan, or so Andrew said. Emery believed him, even though Willow seemed to disagree. Even though Miss Rosenberg was her favourite teacher, she was wrong. Jordy was amazing.

The comic book part was just to prevent any of the Andrew wanna-bees from responding.

Rereading the personal ad, she added it to the newspaper and clicked save. According to the glowing numbers on her clock radio it was almost time for patrol. Grabbing the nearest stake she walked out of her dorm room and down the stairs.

At fifteen, Emery was currently had spent more time at The Slayers Academy than almost any other student. That title was also misleading because it also taught Wiccans, werewolves in need of meditation skills and watchers-in-training.

When it started, the Slayer's Academy was a small group of girls being taught in a room in the newly built Watcher's Council. Though as more slayers arrived, the school grew and now it was a school on it's own, along with courses for budding Wiccans and due to the large amount of slayers, Watcher's were trained here as well.

Emery had been here since she was ten. Her mom had been thrilled to get rid of her. With the death of her brother and her folks splitting up, Emery had been too much to handle. When Mr. Giles had shown up and offered to let her attend a "private school" on a made up scholarship, her mom had been thrilled.

"Hey Em," Ben Travers greeted her coming up the stairs. Ben was her best friend besides Jordy who spent so much time with Ashton lately, she hardly saw her.

Emery grinned, "Hey Ben, finished that English assignment yet?" She was going to be late, but it didn't matter.

"Yeah. Long time ago. Out for a patrol?" He said. gesturing to the stake. Ben was far too fond of being a watcher, which amused her in ways it shouldn't. His father had been the biggest dick to him, abusing him to no end, but Ben still wanted to train slayers. Go figure.

"Unfortunately. I swear I will one day get more than five hours of sleep."

"It's your fault. Don't get up at six in the morning. The bell isn't until 9." Ben responded, following her to the main lobby.

She was training. It wasn't some trivial thing. She wasn't going to get her nose broken again. Slayer healing or not, that hurt, and now her nose was shaped funny.

Ben knew that. He just liked to tease her about it. It was hilarious to him that Emery could get her nose broken by a nine year old. She was waiting for him to move past it, but he had yet to. According to him, it was too funny not to bring up.

"Shut it."

"Come on, you know you love me." Ben said, draping an arm over her shoulder. According to Mr. Giles, who hadn't heard Emery and Jordy eavesdropping, Ben's dad had been nothing like him. Mr. Giles didn't understand how someone so funny and carefree came from Quinton Travers.

Emery shrugged him off, running down the rest of the stairs with Ben chasing her. She wasn't running from him, more towards Cole, who was shaking the snow from his spiked blue hair. It was beautiful.

"Hi Cole!" Her voice becoming high pitched when she greeted him. It was so embarrassing. Ben slowed to stop when he saw Cole. Ben didn't like Cole; he was too stuck up according to the Watcher, who wasn't really one anyways, so he shouldn't call himself that.

Cole wasn't stuck up, he was deep.

And gorgeous, but that was just one part of what made him perfect.

Ben liked rules, for all of his class clown ness that appeared at odd moments, he loved rules, because for the most part they were the most consistent thing in his life.

Cole broke all the rules in his silent way.

He returned a lopsided grin that made her knees weak, figurately speaking, because she was actually quite steady on her feet, but it fit how she felt when Cole grinned, "Hey."

Emery took a few deep breaths, trying not to squeal with joy because he noticed her and was just about to open her mouth when Ben cut her off, "We probably should get going, patrol. Remember?"

She glared at the blond, who gave her an innocent grin. She hated him sometimes and then she'd remember when he had let her spend the summer with him instead of with her mom, and she had to forgive Ben.

That and he was right. She did have to patrol; it was just easier to pretend she had forgotten.

"It's not until sunset; there is another 20 minutes at least." At her words, Cole who had been brooding silently perked up.

"Sunset, full moon, cage. See you later." And then he was gone.

Emery headed towards the training room while staring longingly at Cole's retreating back. Ben looked a little annoyed at being ignored.

"What do you see in that guy?" Ben asked, tapping her on the shoulder and bringing her out of her Cole-induced comatose state.

Emery turned to face him, "Don't start Ben. I get that you don't like him."

"I'm just asking a simple question." He called, as she began to walk away.

Luckily, she was saved by a group of slayers waiting to get into the training room; Ben gave her one last look before heading over to Mr. Giles who was walking in the staff door.

"Boys." Emery thought bitterly.