Summary: Certain books have found their way to Sunnydale, pre-Buffy.

Disclaimer: I dun' own nuttin'!

Feedback, it makes me write faster. (You know you want to do the feedback thing.)

Pre-Fic Comments:

I'm a touch disappointed at no comments on the song in the last bit. Has no one heard of S3M's?

* * *

Willow gave Buffy a disbelieving look. "Angel's a vampire?!"

"Told you you should have stayed at my house," Jesse piped in.

"I can't believe this is happening," Buffy complained, visions of love breaking. "One minute we were kissing, and the next minute... Can a vampire ever be a good person? Couldn't it happen?"

"In the sense there are bad vamps, and then there are /bad/ vamps who make the first suckers look good," Xander said.

"A vampire isn't a person at all," Giles explained, going for the absolute explanation rather than the relative. "It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, there is no halfway."

"So that'd be a no, huh?," the red head asked. This sounded like a good, tragic love story to her.

"Well, then what was he doing? Why was he good to me? Was it all some part of the Master's plan? It doesn't make sense!"

The Slayer wasn't really cut out for the intellectual scene, and was more into the staking and slashing thing.

"Alright," Xander said as they got to a seat. "Seems straightforward to me. He's a demonic vampire, you're the Slayer. Boom."

The Slayer didn't seem encouraged by this. Giles crouched to look at his diminuitive blonde charge.

"Uh, it is a Slayer's duty," he pointed out.

"You haven't betrayed me with him, have you?," Jesse asked.

Buffy snorted, tossing her head up. She remained silent, however.

"You're in love with a demon?! Are you outta your mind?," Xander asked.

"What?," Cordelia asked as she wandered past the gang.

"I-I didn't say demon, Cordy," Xander said suavely. "Buffy, how could you love one of those? Everybody hates 'em!"

Cordelia was quickly distracted by another girl walking past with an unusually elegant dress on. "Where did you get that dress? Is this a Honou original? This is a knock-off, isn't it?! Some cheesy knock-off! This is what you--"

Buffy rolled her eyes as the queen of Sunnydale's socialites stormed after the offending female.

"And we think /we've/ got problems," Hemery's ex-queen said.

"Uh, would this be the utterly wrong time to point out that Metal Night at the Bronze is happening right after the Post-Fumigation Party?," Jesse asked.

* * *

The Tzimisce vampire looked around Sunnydale.

"I hate this town! It's so... American!"

Sometimes, being an exchange student sucked when the culture clash got to be too much.

Perhaps it would be better in Los Angeles.

There would be less competition and more space, for sure.

And she had heard about a law firm that could use her... gentle influence. It had powerful clients, and no one really knew who the senior partners were outside the company. Perfect -- a few ghouls, some careful Domination, and she would /own/ that firm

From here on, LA was her territory. Even if it didn't know it yet.

* * *

Willow sighed, head slumped onto the book in front of her.

"Not another one," she moaned.

"Well, Amy's mum isn't going to do any more Rites," Jesse said. "That's good, right?"

"Thaumaturgical Law of Probability, Jesse," Xander sighed. "Magic gets easier as it is repeated in a particular place. That's what makes sites like Stonehenge so powerful."

"Exactly," Giles said. "Uh, with Carl indisposed, who will be the disc jockey?"

"That's DJ, Giles," Buffy corrected the Watcher.

"DJ, then," Giles allowed.

"Carl will be," Jesse said.

"That's good," Xander said. "In that not really good at all way."

"He's even worse than before, now," Willow said. "And he knows what might happen this time. He'll do something he thinks is immensely funny."

"Like?," the Watcher inquired.

"I don't know," Willow said. "I barely know him."

"Could be anything," Jesse said. "Malkavians are poster children for nuttiness. And he's this world's Malkav, the archetype."

"Oh blast," Giles said, cleaning his glasses. "Buffy, try and stake this Carl before Metal Night happens the day after next?"

"I'll try," the Slayer said, "but these Whitewolf vamps don't exactly wander around graveyards saying 'Heres dinner!' and the normal stupidity."

"Er, why did you not mention this?," the Watcher asked.

Buffy shrugged. "You didn't ask."

"I bet the Watchers' Council loves us," Xander observed. "Several new types of vampire, and we haven't managed to get any yet."

"Quite," Giles said. "Given their communiques in the last week, I strongly advise you all to reschedule any trips to England you have planned in the near future."

Xander blinked. "Heck, Giles, was that a joke? From you?"

Giles's eyes fell on an open book, jogging his memory. "We seem to have derailed our initial train of conversation quite badly. Uh, I've found some references to Angel in the Watchers' Diaries."

"I still can't believe he read my diary!," Buffy muttered. The Irish vampire had gotten nosey when she had let him stay at her house, which was where she had discovered his undead state.

"There's mention some two hundred years ago in Ireland of, of Angelus, the one with the angelic face," Giles began.

"Sure got that right," Willow said. "What? I'm not allowed to look at guys?"

Xander manfully resisted a bad joke. "I'm not saying anything, I have nothing to say."

"Does this, uh, Angel have, um, a tattoo behind his right shoulder?," Giles asked.

"'Cause if he does, I'm sueing his ass," Xander joked.

"Yeah, it's a, it's a bird or something," Buffy replied.

"You saw him naked?!," Jesse asked, surprised. "All you had to do was ask me, Buffy..."

"So, Angel's been around for awhile?," Willow asked.

"Not long for a vampire," Giles said. "Two hundred and forty years or so."

"Well, he said he was older," Buffy mused.

Giles recounted what he knew of Angel. The Irish vampire wreaked havoc in Europe for several decades, then moved to America and went silent.

"He could have fed on me," Buffy said stubbornly. "He didn't."

* * *

Xander groaned as he saw a strange car in the driveway. He hadn't met a family member that he could recall wasn't habitually drunk or an asshole.

He carefully readjusted his baseball cap, and flexed his fingers in his white gloves before he opened the front door. No use giving the folks more ammo to hit him with.

He saw the tall redhead sprawled back across the sofa, given preference by his parents. An electric guitar leant against one of the armrests.

Okay, maybe not all of his relatives were drunken assholes. This guy was cool.

"Hiya, Uncle I!," he yelled, safe in the knowledge that his parents wouldn't try anything with /this/ relative visiting.

* * *

Post-Fic Comments:

It's probably pretty glaring who the new guy is if you've come across him before.