"Oz", whose full name was Daniel Osborn, recommended that we leave before the cops came. So, about a minute after using sunlight to flash fry a vampire, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Giles' Citroen. The Citroen wheezed and rumbled and farted its way back to Sunnydale's east end and then Giles drove around to the west side of Sunnydale High School. There he parked by a side door, we all got out and Giles unlocked the side door and let us in. The library was about 100 feet down the hall to the left, and the door was unlocked. I was pretty much operating on autopilot at this point, partially because I couldn't believe what had happened but more because a lot of things about this case were starting to make a very, very weird sort of sense.

When I entered the library, two people were sitting at the meeting area. I recognized both of them. One was Willow Rosenberg, still in her overalls, yellow t-shirt and Keds. The other was a black man about my size wearing an expensive burgundy track suit with matching Nikes. His shaved head reflected the overhead lights. His presence in Giles' library was almost as big a surprise as being attacked by vampires in my hotel room.

"Hawk," I said.

Hawk looked up at me and smiled.

"Hi babe," he said.

"Hawk," I said. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?"

"Got Susan's message. I knew Sunnydale was a tougher town than you would be expecting, so I called my old friend Ripper to keep an eye out for you, and imagine my surprise when he say he already met you. Next thing I know, he starts asking questions about you, and I figure it'd be easier if I just went ahead and came out here."

While Hawk was speaking, Willow popped up to her feet and hugged and kissed Oz. Then she looked from Oz to Xander and grinned.

"Mr. Hawk was telling me about Giles back in the day," she said. "Did you know that Giles dyed his hair jet black, wore an earring, and had a ring through the left side of his nose?"

"All right Giles!" said Oz.

Xander made a show of staggering around. "My delicate world is crumbling. My school librarian was a punk rocker!"

He looked at Hawk.

"So did the G-man complement his look with tweed?"

"Nah," said Hawk. "He dressed in black. Tried to look like a total badass."

Giles had taken off his glasses and was polishing them diligently. He didn't look like a badass, he looked like a flustered English librarian.

"Was he a badass?" I asked Hawk.

"He was close enough," Hawk said. "We worked together a few times in New York and London back in 1972 and again in 1974."

"I'm impressed," I said, turning to Giles. "Hawk is very selective in his praise."

"Well," Giles said to everyone in the room. "I would point out that I wasn't even twenty yet."

Giles gestured for me to take a chair, which I did. Then he looked at me, then at everyone else at the room, then back at me.

"Hawk says that we can trust you." I realized that by saying "we", Giles was referring to the three kids in the room as well as himself, and that he was addressing them as well as me. "I learned long ago that I can trust Hawk's judgment, and as you say, he is very selective in his praise."

"So I guess that means you're going to be more forthcoming with me," I said.

Giles smiled his little smile, and the scary guy made a brief reappearance. "Yes, that's what it means."

"Oh boy," Willow said. "Giles is gonna give the speech. I love it when he gives the speech. He does it so well."

"I'm glad one of us does," Xander said. He patted Willow's leg absently as he spoke, earning a quick and suspicious glance from Oz that he didn't seem to notice.

"Before you start," I said to Giles. "I think I've already figured some things out, and I'd like to see how close to the mark I am."

Giles nodded. "Go ahead."

"Here's what I think," I said. "I think that Buffy is some sort of vampire fighter. She wasn't always a vampire fighter, but something happened to her no later than the beginning of her sophomore year at Hemery. She started fighting, and somehow killing, vampires. Her parents saw the changes in her and became concerned, but at the time at least had no idea what was going on. Then, vampires attacked her at the Hemery High Senior Dance. Some students and a faculty member got killed. Some vampires got killed too, and Buffy killed their leader. But the thing is, when vampires die, they turn to dust. So do their clothes, and anything else on their person or in their possession. As a result, when Buffy killed the lead vampire, he turned to dust, the sword he was using turned to dust, and any evidence of a vampire attack turned to dust with him, except for the dead kids. Any vampire who was not killed fled the scene. As a result, the cops couldn't come up with evidence to document the attack, but they also couldn't come up with evidence that Buffy took a primary role in the violence, particularly when the witnesses changed their story. So Buffy was released but not really cleared. Buffy was expelled from Hemery, Hank Summers ran for the hills, and Joyce came to Sunnydale for a fresh start for her and her family.

"At some point, Buffy runs across more vampires here and starts to fight them. Eventually, something big happens. Giles has his fingers broken, Xander has his arm broken, and a kid named Kendra gets killed, all by vampires. Buffy has an argument with her mother, who wants her to stay, but she leaves to kill all or some of the vampires. Unfortunately, the situation is now very similar to the one in Hemery, not enough evidence to arrest her, but not enough evidence to clear her either. She's expelled, and perhaps fed up with this situation, she runs away."

I finished. No one said anything. Everyone except for Hawk and Oz looked a little stunned. Oz, so far as I could tell, was unflappable.

Finally, Oz said, "Wow, really good guess."

Hawk looked at Giles and grinned. "Told you."

"Yes, that was …truly remarkable." Giles stared at me. "How long ago did you have all this worked out?"

"Actually, very little about this whole case made sense until the vampire attack. It was as I was riding in your car that things started to fall together."

"Remarkable," said Giles.

"Well, I tend to hold various bits of information in my head until I can find a way to put them together."

"Well," said Giles. "I certainly have less to explain than I thought I did. So now let me fill in the gaps.

"Contrary to popular mythology, the Earth did not start out as a paradise…"