Author's Note: Hmmm...four months for an update, so much for doing it more frequently, life has just been super busy lately because of Kevin Rudd and his "Education Revolution" so blame him for keeping me from writing. Anyway enough with my woes and on with the story and I will try to get these out sooner in the future.

The school day dragged itself by on leaden feet, made worse for Hope by what she knew waited for her at the end of it. It wasn't the detention in and of itself that she disliked, to be honest she was by now completely indifferent to another detention, she just detested any enforced period of time sitting still and when it occurred straight after an already long school day...well it made the slaying that night just that little bit more satisfying.

She sighed heavily and tuned out her English teacher as she droned on about something to do with Shakespeare, slipping back into her far more pleasant daydream involving her saving a beautiful damsel from a horde of ravenous vampires.

So it took her a few moments to realise the teacher had stopped talking and was staring directly at her.

"I see I've finally got your attention Miss Summers," her teacher said frostily, causing an outbreak of mirth amongst the rest of Hope's classmates. "I'm sure you can provide the answer?"

"Ahhh..." Hope's mind raced furiously as she struggled to come up with some kind of a coherent response, they were studying Shakespeare so it had to have something to do with tortured or tragic love... and just when she needed it the angelic tolling of the lunch bell rang out and ended the lesson.

"All right class, we'll pick this up next time." The teacher stated, shooting a glare in Hope's direction.

Hope ignored the look and once again thanked the deity that seemed to be looking out for her today, detention aside this was turning out to be a reasonable day.

She almost running when she reached the door that led outside but slowed down as she went through, luxuriating in the mostly fresh air and open spaces and just enjoying not being cooped up inside a classroom.

Hope headed for the usual spot her friends hung out at, finding them lounging on a table underneath the old oak tree.

The whole gang was there, happily laughing and chatting away with each other, Vanessa was sitting closely to her boyfriend Jake, chastely holding his hand and further adding to their image as the stereotypical teenage 'steady' couple.

They had been dating since eighth grade and during that time had never once broken up, they nearly always agreed on everything and hardly even argued, but as clichéd and as sentimental as it was it did give her hope that one day she might find something similar for herself, the longest relationship she could lay claim to had lasted almost exactly a month and that was only because it had taken her over a week to screw up the courage to end things.

Next to Jake stood his best friend Hunter, tall, dark and full of energy, he was always quick to smile and crack a joke and Hope enjoyed having him around, he made the world seem a less serious and depressing place to live in.

And then there was Rachel...and to be frankly honest Hope wasn't quite sure why Rachel hung out with them. Rich, good-looking and previously popular she had been close friends with Ashley Jones THE Queen Bee of their high-school, but something had clearly happened recently between them because now Rachel spent most of her time with them and whenever she and Ashley crossed paths the only things they shared with each other were the various heated insults that flew with swift regularity.

Hope suspected that part of the reason Rachel spent so much time with them was because she had an incredibly obvious crush on her brother William, but Hope didn't have the heart to tell her that spending time with her was probably the worst possible thing she could do if she wanted to snag Will.

Hope exchanged greetings with everyone and slumped down on the table next to Vanessa.

"So how was English?" Vanessa asked.

"It was...good."

Vanessa studied her closely for a few moments. "You zoned out again didn't you?"

"No." Hope said defensively, maintaining the lie for a brief period under Vanessa's intense scrutiny before finally breaking. "OK fine, yes I did."

"Oh Hope," Vanessa sighed. "You were dreaming about Melissa Rogers again weren't you?"

"Maybe."

"Hey I have to back Hope up on this," Hunter cut in. "I mean that girl is seriously hot, have you seen the video for her latest song, I swear what clothes she does have are painted on."

"Ewww Hunter, you do realise there are two non-gay girls sitting at this table too right?" Rachel pointed out.

"Yes please," Hope said quickly. "Let's leave my purely imaginary love-life alone and move on to something far more interesting."

"So how went the slaying last night?" Jake asked quietly after a short, awkward silence.

Everyone in their little group was aware of her less then orthodox nocturnal activities, something which her parents were less than happy with. Vanessa had, of course, known for years and when she and Jake had begun to get serious she had accidentally let it slip one night, swearing him instantly to secrecy so, of course, he had then told his best friend Hunter...and well after that it had just seemed rude not to include Rachel into the whole thing too.

"Slow, as far as evil and the undead are concerned Boston's about as fun as logging on without an iPortal."

"Which for those of us without superpowers," Hunter replied. "Is a good thing."

Hope shrugged. "I guess, it's just I've heard my parents stories about what it was like to live on top of a Hellmouth and it sounds so exciting and cool-" She paused as she noticed everyone else looking at her strangely. "Except for all the innocent people dying I suppose." She mumbled.

"Yeah 'cause that'd be a real drag." Rachel said sarcastically.

The topic of conversation moved off the supernatural and onto the more natural and then eventually to Rachel's upcoming party.

"You guys are going to be there right?" Rachel asked anxiously.

The others exchanged glances. "Um sure."

"Yeah."

Wouldn't miss it."

"Great, oh there's Mandy I have to catch up with her." Rachel slid off the table. "Catch you guys later."

"Am I the only one who found that suspicious?" Hope asked, her gaze following Rachel's retreating figure.

"You mean Rachel inviting us to one of her parties, or the way she conveniently disappeared straight after we all had agreed to go?" Jake replied.

Hope thought about it for a second. "Both actually, and come to think of it have any of us even been inside her house before?"

Everyone else shook their heads.

"Hey maybe we're being unfair, I mean how likely is it that she's planning on doing something like...summoning a demon that feed on uncool students in order to trade us for regaining some of her lost popularity." Hunter joked.

"Hunter I don't think there's a demon that specifically feeds on uncool students...right Hope?" Vanessa looked at her uncertainly.

"I don't know, from my experience demons are like iPortal apps there's one for every occasion," Hope answered honestly. "Tbh I could do with some action, I might even get the added bonus of slaying some of the in crowd."

"Hope, that'd get you into way more trouble than just a couple of day's detention." Vanessa gently warned her.

Hope rolled her eyes. "I'd only do it if they were practising evil. Mom."

The lunch break sped by far too quickly for Hope's liking and soon she found herself stuck in Maths class, something for which, as far as she was concerned, she was genetically predisposed to suck at as no-one on the Summers side of the family had any liking for it and neither did Faith.

Her luck seemed to be holding though as she didn't manage to catch the teacher's attention once and was able to coast through the entire lesson. When the final bell rang out she jumped up, relief flooding through her being until it struck her what this meant, detention and yet another hour stuck in school.

She trudged wearily out of the classroom and down the hall to the detention room, receiving a sympathetic smile and wave from Vanessa, and surprisingly, and a little disturbingly from Rachel as well.

A shout of "Summers!" caused her to look around as she walked in the room, and she perked up a little when she realised its source.

Vanessa disparagingly described Krystal as 'Hope's detention buddy', but that was mainly due to the fact that Krystal had bullied her incessantly for years until Hope had finally put a stop to it, an act which had strangely earned her Krystal's respect and, if not her friendship, at least her understanding, and since they seemed to spend almost as much time in detention as each other they had ended up growing reasonably close, or at least as close as someone like Krystal would get to anyone.

"Hey." Hope greeted her warmly.

"Hey yourself," Krystal replied casually. "What are you in for this time?"

"An unprovoked assault of four upstanding and totally innocent members of the football team."

Krystal grinned wolfishly. "I'm sure they deserved it."

"They did, but unfortunately the Principal and pretty much everyone else didn't see it that way, hence the detention." Hope idly scanned the room as she spoke, seeing if anyone else she knew had gained the pleasure of detention but she stopped suddenly as a goddess appeared in the room and everything else faded into the background.

It wasn't an actual goddess, more like a stunningly hot girl but still Hope could have sworn she saw a shaft of sunlight shine down directly from the heavens and illuminate the girl where she stood, highlighting her perfect form and shimmering down the length of her long dark hair...

A sharp nudge in the ribs snapped her out of the daydream and back to reality. "You're drooling." Krystal whispered, a knowing smile playing across her lips.

"No I'm not." She answered, surreptitiously wiping the back of her hand over her mouth just to be sure.

"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" A soft voice interrupted and Hope turned around to find the godde...hot girl standing right next to her.

"Um, no."

The girl flashed her a stunning smile and sat down. "Cool, thanks." She leaned over to put her bag on the ground and then turned back to Hope. "I'm Tamika by the way."

"Tamika...that's pretty." Hope instantly began kicking herself as soon as the words left her mouth. 'That's pretty. Oh that's super eloquent Hope, now she probably thinks you're mentally deficient in some way, or high, or both."

However Tamika just smiled again. "Thanks," she paused, waiting for the other girl to supply her name. "So...this is normally the part where you give me your name or you trying to be all enigmatic and mysterious."

"Yes, I mean no, I mean I do have a...Hope." And the kicking continued unabated, 'Oh god it's like I have a disease or something.'

Tamika giggled softly, a sound which Hope decided was by far the most beautiful thing she had ever heard in her life. 'So were you trying to say that you have a hope or that you hope you have a name?"

Finally Hope managed to mentally engage first gear. "No I meant that's my name, Hope."

"Hope." Tamika rolled the name around in her mouth, and Hope promptly had a new number one for her Most Beautiful Sound list. "I like it, it's cute."

"Really, you think it's cute," And suddenly, for a moment, detention didn't seem like such a bad place to be. "Because most people usually think less cute and more scary religious."

"So are they right," Tamika's eyes fell to the small cross on Hope's necklace. "Are you scary religious?"

"No, it's not like that," Hope shook her head emphatically. "It's kind of like a family name, one of my moms name's is Faith and so my parents thought they'd kind of follow the theme and name me Hope. I guess I'm lucky they didn't think of naming me Charity."

"Wait one of your moms," Tamika looked confused. "You mean you have like a step-mom or something?"

"Or something." Hope smiled weakly. 'Dammit just as things were starting to go well I had to go and say something stupid like that.'

"OK people," The teacher at the front of the class shouted in a mostly successful attempt to get everyone's attention. "Be quiet, get logged on and start doing an assignment or homework or something constructive, you're not here to sit around and socialise for an hour, this is detention remember."

Hope reluctantly turned away from Tamika and to the screen in front of her, trying to concentrate on the algebra assignment that was due tomorrow. Algebra had never really made much sense to her after all maths was supposed to be about numbers, why someone had felt the need to throw letters into the equation as well she just didn't understand.

She managed to last an entire two minutes on her assignment before stealing a sideways glance and was pleasantly surprised to see Tamika doing the exact same thing, a small smile on those eminently kissable lips.

Hope's gaze quickly returned to the screen, as she furiously tried to ignore Krystal's muffled laugh and the blush that was creeping up her neck and beginning to darken her cheeks.

Then, just as she was seriously starting to be tempted to try slaying instead of solving her algebra assignment, a soft tone from the computer announced an arrival in her inbox.

She warily looked up at the teacher but he was engrossed in a book by some person called Stephenie Meyer to notice her lack of study so without further hesitation she opened the message.

'What did u do to get stuck in here?' It read.

Hope chewed her lip thoughtfully, while she didn't want to start lying to Tamika so soon after meeting her she also didn't want her to know the circumstances behind her detention, Hope somehow doubted Tamika would be impressed knowing she had beaten up four members of the football team.

'Skipped class,' she wrote hurriedly, as if writing faster would make the lie easier. 'How about u?'

'Decided spending time practicing my moves was more important than class '

'Lol! U dance?'

'No. Play soccer.'

That explained Tamika's figure and Hope actually found herself a little bit jealous, she and her brother had been banned from competing in any kind of organised sport since they were seven because the Council had been too afraid it would expose their 'special' abilities.

Hope checked on the teacher again, he was still reading, before returning to the latest message.

'U going to Rachel Evans' party?'

If Tamika was going to be at Rachel's party, demon or no demon, that confirmed her plans for Saturday night.

'Sure, Y?'

'Maybe we could meet up there, talk some more?'

Hope wondered how no-one else could hear her heart beating it was so fast and so loud.

'OK, say about 7?'

'Gr8, see u there.'

Hope spent the remainder of detention floating on a little private cloud of happiness, she had a date for Rachel's party, she actually had a date. It wasn't like she had never been out on a date before but between school, her Slayer duties and her sexual preferences there hadn't been a lot of time or opportunity for dating.

Saturday night was looking like it was going to be unforgettable.