The gang was sitting in Xander's basement, cutting huge holes in pumpkins and generally hanging out with each other. Buffy hadn't really spent much time with them since the accident, and now that she was settled with her choices, she felt that she deserved a little down time.

Dawn was moving into her new room at Giles' within the next few weeks, and for now, she and Buffy were sharing it while Buffy got everything else sorted out. She was selling the house and dealing with everything that went with it, plus slaying and looking for a simple job to do on the side. She had decided to skip this semester of school and was renting out her bed (with Willow's permission) to some random student who was having problems finding housing and just wanted to get away from her parents. Buffy could help by feel a slight bit of jealousy that she had parents to want to get away from.

She had called Giles 'dad' only that once, but had thought about it more, and she knew Dawn was going to ask him if he minded. She felt that she was weird enough at school, living first with her older sister and then with 'some random bloke', so if she felt she could refer to Giles as her dad, it might alleviate some of that pressure from the other kids to be normal.

Everything really did seem normal again – she was slaying and seeing her friends, she spoke to Angel once every two or three days, and emailed him whenever she was near a free Internet line. Life was as good as it was gonna get.

"You sure it's alright? I can cancel and come with you if you wanted?"

"Buffy! I'll be fine. There's a bunch of us going together, and Giles knows where we're going and there'll be a few mums with us I think, and besides, you know vampires don't come out to play on Halloween."

"They did once."

"Yes, but I was wonder girl that night. I could protect myself, 'specially as they were all after you!"

"Alright then. Just. Be careful, okay? And watch out for Giles' head gear."

"Huh?"

"You'll understand when you go downstairs."

"Umm. Professor walsh?"

"Yes."

"I just wanted to let you know that I really do want to be here, it's just, well there are personal reasons, but I would like to come back after thanksgiving, if that's alright?"

"Right. I count four limbs, a head no visible scarring, so I assume your personal issue wasn't a life threatening accident of any kind, I'm therefore uninterested. You got problems, solve them on your own time. Miss another class and you're out."

"It's my mum actually. She died."

"I am sorry, Miss Summers. That, however, does not explain your continued absence from my classes."

"I have to look after my sister, and sell the house, and. Personal reasons ma'am."

"Keep up and we'll see after Christmas."

"Thank you."

"She means it, you know."

"Yeah. I got the impression she wasn't saying it to make me laugh."

"I may be out of line here, and it's not really my business, but - you seem like the kind of person that makes things really hard on themselves. Halloween isn't a night for responsibility. It's when the ghosts and goblins come out."

"That's actually a misnomer."

"Well, I didn't mean real ones." Buffy smiled and looked down. "But, hey, there is some good scary fun to be had on campus tonight."

"Well, I'm not exactly on campus right now, but yeah. What are you doing?"

"Well, I'm going to sit here and grade papers."

"So, so much for uneventful Halloweens!"

"At least Dawnie brought us lots of chocolates."

"Xander!"

"Is food all you think about?"

"Well, actually … no … I think about … other stuff."

"Oh God. I did not want that mental image."

Hi. I know people want to see more of Angel, but at the moment, Buffy season 4 is on TV, so it's easier to write! I have the transcripts of the Angel episodes on my computer somewhere, but it is so much easier to write stuff when it's on the TV - I'm too cheap to buy them ... keep reading, he'll be back.