Timeline: BtVS: Post-Chosen & NCIS: LA: S09.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon and the NCIS 'verse belongs to rich people with expensive lawyers.
Author's Note: Written for Day 03 of the 2020 August Fic-A-Day.

Six weeks after Buffy had received a text message from her former classmate/charity case they still hadn't managed to coordinate their schedules enough to meet up. If Buffy was available and either in LA or capable of getting there within a sensible timeframe, then Kensi was busy with a case or she had pre-made plans of some other kind. If Kensi was available, then Buffy was either busy hunting vampires or demons, dealing with the increasing drama within the IDC, or entirely out of contact.

Kensi had to bail twice before even getting to their rendevous-point, leaving Buffy to either laze around on the beach or go shopping. Buffy had gotten three emergency calls from local Mini-Slayers in need of help, so she had to bail at the last minute. Once she'd gotten caught up in patrolling with Angel and making-out in between staking vamps. Texting Kensi the next morning had been a little embarrassing, especially since she had blamed 'work commitments' for forgetting their late dinner plans.

This time, it was four minutes until their agreed-upon time to meet. Neither of them had tried to contact the other to cancel their latest attempt so she had bought a coffee and was waiting on a park bench. Two minutes later she heard a set of footsteps approaching from behind her, and she turned half-way to be greeted by the sight of the federal agent she had been expecting. Even better, the woman was alone. Her team wasn't there, not out in the open and not hiding in the shrubbery or anywhere else. Buffy smiled in welcome.

"I wasn't expecting you to show up without someone from your team."

Kensi hesitated for a heartbeat, "They don't know we're in contact. They believe our last meeting made you give up on me, and that I'm not interested in being friends with you."

"So why are you here, why have kept trying to make it happen?"

She sat down on the bench with her coffee. "I don't know. Maybe I want proof that not everyone we attended Hemery with has cotton candy for a brain." Buffy gave her an amused look. "Don't look at me like that, you know most of them are either trophy wives, divorced so their husband can marry a trophy wife, addicts, socialites, or dead."

"True. Our classmates are not the brain trust they were hoping to become. And still, they look down on me. And I have a good, well-paying job unlike most of them."

When she contacted Kimberly Hannah, her former best friend at Hemery High, she was quickly dismissed. Or rather, Kimberly spent ten minutes bragging about her wealthy, much older husband and all the great places he took her. When Buffy admitted she was single, she'd gotten a bad excuse then the line had gone dead without so much as a 'bye'.

Her other best friend there, Jennifer Walkens, turned out to have been killed in a car crash two weeks after her high school graduation along with three other recent graduates. It was tragic, but she felt surprisingly little emotion.

"Have you managed to reconnect with anyone from back then?"

"No, most of them look down on me for the gym-thing. Or because I've never been married, engaged, or dated anyone rich, famous, or at least important in some way. I'm 37, not dead. And I'm not defined by any man."

It was Kensi's turn to look amused. "It used to be your goal in life to marry someone rich or famous, so you could spend all of his money and not work."

Buffy grimaced. "Don't remind me. My dreams and expectations for life when I was attending Hemery was... low. And stupid. Moving to Sunnydale made me grow up and understand that if I want something done I need to do it myself."

Kensi nodded, then asked. "What 'gym-thing'? And isn't Sunnydale the town that collapsed into a sinkhole 15 years ago?"

"Um..." Buffy hedged. "No one told you about why I changed schools during my sophomore year?" The brunette shook her head. "Um, right. Someone began killing students a while after you dropped out, it kept getting worse. Then, at a school dance, a group of weirdoes attacked it. I tried to fight back, but there were too many of them. Somehow the gym caught on fire and I was blamed for it. The Principal gave me the option to either accept an expulsion or he'd make sure I was charged."

It all came out in a jumbled mess, but it hit on most of the pertinent, non-vampire facts. Kensi kind of just stared at her. "You burnt down the gym?"

"Of course not!" It really had been an accident, mostly. Until it proved to be effective against Lothos and his minions then she had literally fanned the fire. It wasn't her fault that party decorations were so flammable.

"And yes, Sunnydale disappeared into a sinkhole along with my house and most of my possessions in 2003." She tucked a stray lock behind her ear. "But let's not dig up the ugly past. Tell me some happy news."

As a distraction, it was a bad one, but Kensi let it go and began telling her about how she got engaged to her boyfriend. It was for the most part a happier and much more entertaining story than she expected. Even if Kensi was obviously editing out some classified information a few times. Still, Deeks sounded like a perfect match for her and she obviously loved him.

They split not long after as she had a patrol/not-date with Angel and needed to do some shopping first.