Disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea for the story. No profit made. All characters are owned by their owners, not me.

Author: Me, pen-name: flileytothemoon

Feedback: please! With a side order of yes please!

Season: 3

Spoilers: Up to Consequences (S3, ep15), AUs from there.

Pairing(s): Buffy/Faith & allusions to Faith/Xander and Buffy/Angel

Content codes: FF, rom, angst,

Chapter 2: Doppel, Doppel, toil and trouble…

"Ms. Summers! I will not put up with this sort of passive resistance-style sedition in my school! I knew you were a trouble-maker, your file screams it to me, and it would do the same for Helen Keller I suppose, do you even know who she is, Ms. Summers, do you ever pay any attention to any of your classes, or do you just rely on soft-hearted simpletons like my predecessor to pass you year after year, to get rid of you or just because they couldn't bear to hurt your precious feelings? That is not why I got into education, Ms. Summers, I am here because I care, in the truest sense, about those in my charge, I am here to prepare them for the realities of adult life. And those realities are harsh, Ms. Summers."

"We done here, Mr. Snyder? And yes, I am aware of the film The Miracle Worker and what a remarkable woman Ms. Keller was. As far as the rest…while I have no doubt of your belief that you care, I do just fine in my classes…"

"Thanks to Ms. Rosenberg doing all your homework, taking all the notes, copying them for you, and preparing you for every test, it's remarkable her marks don't suffer, she is attending school for two, when you're the one more likely to end up an unwed teen mother, maybe we should just let you drop out so you can begin with your calling, cut back Ms. Rosenberg's workload a bit, and then we can all get on with our lives. Would you like that?"

Buffy bit back on the desire to 1)beat her Principal into a coma, 2)make a comment about her True Calling, 3) rise to the bait about dropping out because that didn't actually sound that bad. Instead, she simply said,

"But Principal Snyder, I would not want to be unprepared for what you so sagely pointed out: the harsh realities of the adult world, I NEED to stay in school. As for my friends, well, one is visiting right now, and well..let's just say that although she and I go way back, I am always stressed when she comes for her…once-monthly visit." She concluded with a knowing nod to the principal who visibly gulped and stepped back at this, as though Buffy had just announced that she had TB.

"Well then…um…uhhh… please go see the nurse Ms. Summers, maybe she could um…help you if you are stressed or perhaps a guidance counselor, as stress management is outside my area of specialty, I am an administrator, caring for such things it is best delegated to a more experienced, specialized person than I."

Chuckling to herself, she quickly thanked the Principal and headed out of his office to "see" the nurse. Although instead, she went to the library, to see her Watcher and the Scoobs.

"Buffy! We heard you'd been sent to Snyder's office, what happened?"

"Same as always Xander, not paying attention in class, I think he's been reading Macchiato or something, he called it passive-resistance style sedition."

"You mean Macchiavelli, first off Buff, secondly, passive resistance was more Gandhi, or Martin Luther King jr. or…"

"Thank God for you Will, always there, Old Reliable, spouting facts the rest of us half-remember at best right when we need them. Like clockwork." Buffy said, wrapping an arm around her babbling best friend, trying to cut off the babble early for once, and hugging her close.

Willow didn't say anything but something had clearly snapped inside her as at that comment she shrugged off Buffy's arm and took off crying.

"What'd I do? What happened?" She checked her armpits. "Do I stink? What's going on? She was here with the 4 of you (indicating Xander, Oz, Cordy and Giles) what happened to my best friend? Who is in for a beating?"

"If you're looking for who to hit, get a mirror, Buffy. Will and I aren't friends, never have been, never will, (Cordy paused a moment to chuckle at her wit. No one else even noticed what she was laughing at.) but for her best friend, you've been awfully cozy with someone else a lot as of late, neglecting Willow in the process…"

"Angel? I have barely spent any time with him the past 2 months. Besides why would that bother Will now? Otherwise, I'm here in school with her a lot, or at home where we hang and work on homework and stuff or I go on patrol with Faith. What? does Will want to come patrolling with me and Faith? We have had this chat, it's too dangerous for you all to patrol with us. We are the ones with the superpowers. Not you; you are the friends, sidekicks, whatever. I am gonna find Will, get this straightened out."

And off Buffy went, followed a moment later by Oz.

"Where's he going now?" Cordy whined to the room at large as 3 people she didn't really care about had all just left her presence, why would anyone want to do that? Where could possibly be better to be than near Her, Queen C?

Xander, knowing his girlfriend's selfish preoccupations, invited her to go to a movie with him, that they could go to any movie she wanted (of course) and they would (of course) trash the actors (who couldn't hold a candle to her) and then they'd have a lovely dinner and well, they'd do what teenaged couples in the Western world did after this formulaic a date. Namely, each other.

Giles, meanwhile, now left to his own devices, simply looked around, contemplated thanking Chaos, and instead simply thanked his cup of Bovril that he was now free of them all although, he marveled at the deceptive depth to young Mr. Harris, that he would put up with this…bizarre young woman, while he understood why, her charms were…obvious, her deficiencies were no less so. But that he handled the combination so deftly nonetheless spoke to qualities that clearly did come from his home life and upbringing. How could such defective parents produce 3 such remarkable young people then Ms. Chase have both her parents and be such as she was? As for the lycanthropic Oz, his past seemed largely a mystery as he was as verbose as Giles' Bovril.

Rupert's meditations were interrupted by Wesley Wyndham-Price.

He was out of breath, and quite flushed, a normal person in this state likely would have run up 3-4 flights of stairs and down a reasonable-length corridor, in Wesley's case, most likely he had tripped over his tongue passing Ms. Chase in the corridor. How this nimrod could possibly have passed muster with the Council was beyond Giles.

TBC…