The usual warnings apply, I do not own any of these characters except the original ones, and the rest belong to Joss Whedon. there are two versions of the story, but this one is the better one, and I think I might work from this one more than the other one.

THE NEW GIRL

The alarm went off, but the red-haired young woman just picked it up and tossed it across the room. She didn't want to get up, as she was having a very nice dream. It involved finally finding a place where she belonged. Somewhere she could make friends, and not have to leave them for one reason or another.

There was a knock on the wall, but she ignored it. She vaguely remembered wishing she didn't have to live in a trailer in her dreams, but went on dreaming about a very nice looking brunette boy with deep brown eyes that matched his hair. She didn't' wake up until the ice water hit her face, and then she sat up, gasping for breath, and looking at her older cousin with a look of anger and shock upon her face. "IRVING!" She shrieked when she found her voice. "You are soooo dead."

"Not as dead as you are, little girl. You've overslept twenty minutes, and if you don't get up right now, you're probably going to be late for school. Gran isn't happy with you right now."

"Twenty minutes! Why didn't you wake me sooner?" She said as she jumped out of bed and ran for the closet they called a bathroom. And the sad thing is, this is the biggest trailer.

"We tried. I've been calling you for the past ten minutes." He called over the shower. "Remember, I'm your ride to school until I get your truck fixed. I still can't believe you drove it into a river."

"Yeah, well," she muttered under her breath, "you'd be surprised what I can do when I am drunk."

"What was that, Dreavyn?"

Shit, didn't realise I had said that last part out loud. "Nothing, Irving, I'll be dressed soon!" Dreavyn McCulloch finished her shower, and leapt from the shower to her room to get dressed. Modesty was never something she had been taught. "So, uh, Gran's got breakfast ready, right?" She said, pulling on the red spaghetti string tank, and the black mini skirt she had "lifted" in the last town they had been in. She couldn't even remember the name, some small town on the Texas coast. "Yeah," Irving said from the kitchen area, "it's done, and it's cold. And she's glaring at me, so hurry up."

Dreavyn looked around to make sure there wasn't anyone around, then pulled out her flask of Irish Whiskey, and hid it in her bag, then she pulled on her boots, and ran for the kitchen. "Hi, Gran." She said as she sat down in front of her meal.

The Matriarch of the McCulloch clan just glared at her youngest granddaughter, and continued to read the tarot cards lined up in front of her. "We should not have come here."

Dreavyn rolled her eyes. She understood her Gran was into the mystical stuff, and she knew a bit of magic herself, but Dreavyn thought her Gran put too much credence in those cards. "Why? We've been here less than a month, and you're already wanting to move? I haven't even started school yet. I missed yesterday because we had to track down a 'birth certificate'. I know we're Travelers, but we've got to be the last of our kind, especially here in the US. Why cant' we stay here? This place feels good to me."

Her grandmother just looked at her. "This place has some kind of...supernatural force behind it, Dreavyn. Don't you wonder why both you AND your cousin feel like you belong here?"

Dreavyn shrugged. "Because we're tired of never staying any place longer than six months and are hoping you'll get the idea." She had forgotten how fast Aly McCulloch could be until she was slapped across the face.

"What have I taught you about mouthing off? I swear, you're more like your father every day?"

"Gee, well, I wouldn't know that, now would I? I didn't even know I had a father til I found out what kind of...FREAK. I really am. You couldn't be bothered to tell me about him then, why bother now." She stood up and looked at Irving. "I think I'll take my chances walking to school."

Irving shook his head. "No, I'll drive you. Besides, I think there are some things you and I need to talk about on the way there." He shrugged at their grandmother as they walked to his car parked outside. She was about to leap in when he put a hand on her shoulder. "First things first. Give me the flask."

"Err...what flask would you be talking about, Irving?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Dreav, I know you've been drinking, because Gran has been noticing her Whiskey is running low faster these days. Now, give me the flask." Sighing, Dreavyn pulled out a flask from her bag, and handed it over. "There, are you happy? Can we just get going?" He nodded, and she got in the car. "So, what did you want to talk about"
"Why are you drinking, Dreav? And don't give me the excuse you're trying to live up to the Irish Stereotype. I want truth here."

She looked out the window at her new town, and muttered, "What would you do if everything you'd ever believed about yourself was a lie? Right down to what you were."

He nodded. "I thought so. This has to do with Full Moon Fever. You know, you're one of the lucky ones, you can control it enough that you won't go out and kill your friends and family."

She looked at him with shock. "You call that lucky? You wanna know what I think lucky is? Lucky is being a normal teenager that can't use magic, that doesn't move from place to place very six months, that doesn't turn into a wolf every full moon. That's what I call Lucky. You knew about my father, you told me that much, but you never told mom, or me. You knew what I was gonna become, and you and Gran kept it hidden from me. what did you think I was gonna do when I finally changed for the first time? Think it some kind of wonderful gift! You lied to me, Irving. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know if I've ever been what I was told I was. Was I really my mother's daughter? Or is that a lie too?"

Irving sighed. "It was Gramps idea to shield you from this. He thought, may his soul reside in Peace, that it would be best if you had as normal a childhood as you could." He stopped the car in front of the high school.

"Well," she said as she got out of the car, "he was wrong, and you were an idiot to believe him." She walked up to the school and went inside.

Dreavyn McCulloch rushed up the stairs to the high school, and rushed for the principal's office. On the way, she ran into a blonde girl and took a tumble to the floor. "Oh, gees, I'm sorry!" Dreavyn said as she picked herself and her things off the ground. "Are you okay?"

The other girl was standing up and brushing herself off. She smiled at Dreavyn. "Yeah, I'm fine, so no worries." She offered her hand to the redhead. "My name's Buffy Summers. I don't think I've seen you around here before. Are you new?"

Dreavyn nodded. "Yeah, and I'm kinda in a hurry. I need to get my schedule from the office, and I know I'm running late. The only thing is, I don't know where the office is. Oh, yeah, and me name be Dreavyn McCulloch." She winced. Her Irish dialect and habit of changing me's for I's happened when she was nervous. It hadn't happened in a while, but the fact that it could still happen annoyed her.

Buffy pointed down the hall. "Just keep going down this hall, when you reach the end, make a right. I would walk you there myself, but the Principal here has got it in for me. In fact," She looked up and down the hallway, "you might wanna not be seen around me if you wanna stay under his radar. Still, it was nice meeting you. Who knows, we might have some classes together. And nice boots." Buffy walked off down the hallway. Dreavyn smiled. Maybe she had made a friend.

She followed Buffy's directions to the office. Principal Snyder wasn't in, so Dreavyn grabbed her schedule from the secretary, and tried to get out of there before he came back. She didn't know what kind of man he was, but if he didn't like someone who was nice like Buffy, then there must be something seriously wrong with him. However, just as she was leaving the office, a short, bald, weasaly looking man with giant ears came in, took one look at her, and motioned her into his office. "So," he began, "You must be the Irish transfer student. I knew you were going to be trouble from the start, and I see I am not disappointed. So, let me lay down the rules for you, Miss McCulloch."

Dreavyn winced as he listed off things she had done wrong already, and the things he would punish her for when she did them wrong. She had dealt with Racism before, but never from an authority figure, and never to the extent that this man was dishing it out. She was nearly to tears as she walked from his office to her first class. And those weren't much better. The jokes flew about leprechauns and pot of golds and lucky charms. She couldn't hide her heritage. What she wouldn't give to be black Irish, so she wouldn't be recognized until she opened her mouth. Which Dreavyn was good at.

Lunchtime came, and she bolted for a place of solitude, the library. Tears flow down her face as she pulls out the hidden flask that not even Iriving knew about. The alcohol in it wasn't from her Gran's stash, it was from her own that she had stolen when they had first gotten to Sunnydale. The Whiskey was sweet and strong as it burned its way down her throat. She hid behind the tall shelves of books on the second level, curled up into a small ball, and let the tears flow. The bell rang to let the students know lunch was over, and the school was full of motion as the wave of bodies moved from one room to the other. But one student was not among the thrall. Dreavyn had fallen asleep behind the bookshelves, and had missed the bell. She was once again dreaming of the brown-haired boy with brown eyes that was smiling at her. It was such a happy place. She wasn't judged here, or made fun of. She was accepted for who she was.

Jenny Calendar looked around her classroom as they all settled down, and noticed that one seat was still empty. It must be the for the new girl She thought. "Does anybody know if Dreavyn McCulloch has been in school today?" Perhaps she hadn't found a birth certificate that the school had accepted, or she had transferred out of this class. Willow raised her hand slowly. "Ms. Calendar, she was in my English class earlier, before lunch. But all the kids were so mean to her, and they wouldn't stop teasing her because she's Irish, and I tried to make them stop, but they wouldn't listen to me..." Willow rambled on. She always rambled when she was nervous.

Jenny was not happy to hear that the girl had been picked on. From what she could gather from Willow, and Xander was that she had bolted out of the classroom crying, and no one had seen her since. "Willow, do you think you could find her for me? I really don't want her to miss a class."

Willow nodded, and left the classroom. "Now, class, let's get started. I want you to start working on the pie chart that we were discussing earlier."

Willow thought about where she would go if she had been tormented like Dreavyn had been. "Well, I would go to the library, but I'm sorta a nerd like that, and I don't think this girl is a nerd. Maybe, though, she went there because she knew it would be quiet. It's worth checking out." So she headed to the scoobie hangout, and hoped that maybe Mr. Giles had seen her. She entered the library, and saw Buffy training with Giles. She felt bad, but Miss Calendar had asked her to find the girl. "Uh, I hate to interrupt, but Giles, have you seen a girl come in here?"

Giles looked confused. "I assume you mean other than Buffy and yourself. No...wait, there was a girl who came in right around lunch time. She seemed to be crying."

"Did you see her leave?"

"No, but I certainly hope she did. Buffy and I have been talking about her responsibilities as a Slayer again."

"Buffy?" A small voice said from the top floor of the library. "You're the Slayer?"

The three turned, and Buffy let out a groan. Standing at the stairs, eyes red and puffy from crying, was Dreavyn. "Great," Buffy said, "So much for secret identity. Guess it's time to explain to yet another person what that means."

Dreavyn beat her to it. "One girl in all the world is born with the ability to fight vampires and demons. She has supernatural strength and empathy, can sense demons from human. She is usually alone in this fight, with only the aid of her watcher to guide her. She will be known as the Slayer." She turned to the librarian. "So I am assuming, Mr. Giles, that you are Buffy's watcher?"

Buffy's eyes popped out of her head, Giles was speechless, and Willow looked confused. "How did you know that? Are you a potential?"

"No, I am Dreavyn McCulloch, granddaughter of Aly McCulloch. Check your watcher diaries, Mr. Giles, I'm sure that the famous Irish Demon Huntress will be mentioned in there somewhere. She did, after all, fight along side a few Slayers in her time." She walked down the steps. "Looks like I'm not the only one who's in the know about vampires though. I thought Slayers always worked alone."

"Yes, well," Giles said, as he took off his glasses and cleaned them, "This one is a bit...different than the others."

Buffy looked indignant. "It's not my fault that Xander and Willow found out...Okay so maybe I shouldn't have carried the stake in my bad on the first day of school last year, but that makes no difference. They were attacked by Darla and that Luke guy, and I couldn't just let them die. So they found out about me. It was their decision to stay and fight the evil."

Dreavyn shrugged. "Well, I guess it's not all that unprecedented. Like I said, me gran fought along side many a Slayer."

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Ms. Calendar sent me to find you so that you didn't miss--" The bell rang signaling the end of the day. "her class...Oh NO! she's going to be so mad, and I missed class too. I'm a truant."

Dreavyn looked over at Buffy, eyebrow raised. "Willow's big into school. She beats herself up if she gets and eighty five on something." Buffy explained. "Welcome to Sunnydale, Dreavyn. Your garden variety Hellmouth."

"Hellmouth?" Dreavyn sounded confused. "I guess I don't know as much as I thought."

"Well, we'll feel you in. Welcome to the Scooby gang, Dreav." Buffy said, offering her hand.

Dreavyn smiled. "thanks, Buff." She had found a place where she belonged.