Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the vampire slayer, Joss whedon does. Now that we have that straight, let us read and enjoy.

Buffy, Bugs and Egg Sacks, Oh My.

As Jessica gets ready for her night on the town, she thinks about how crazy the move to this little town has been so far. She thinks about telling her father how she has been feeling about everything but he will chalk it up to her not wanting to leave her old school and friends. She sighs as she realizes how hard it will be for her to make new friends. Especially in high school, it was hard enough making friends when you already knew people but when you were the new girl it was damn near impossible.

Jessica tells her father she is going to check out where the kids hang out in this town when he comes down the stairs to interrogate her.

"Okay Jess, what is the name of the place." Her dad asks as he crosses his arms.

Jessica thinks and remembers what one of her fellow students said the name of the place is. "From what I heard it's a place called the bronze."

"Do you have your cell phone?" he asks as he looks on her person for her cell phone.

"Yes Dad," Jessica sighs wondering when her dad is going to stop being overprotective.

"Good, and to answer your question Jess, I will never stop being overprotective over my only daughter so just deal with it missy." He smiles as Jessica looks at him with her mouth agape.

"You go have fun and make lots of friends baby girl, oh and don't forget to be home by 10:00 or you'll be grounded for the next decade," her dad says as a matter of fact.

"Yes, all-knowing one." Jessica mockingly says as she bows to her father.

"Watch it Jess, or you'll be stuck in this house instead of out having fun," her dad says as Jessica smiles sheepishly.

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A little while later Jessica walks into the bronze. The sheer number of people dancing and walking around overwhelming her as she enters, she almost turns to go home when she notices a familiar face talking to the jocks of the school. She waves and starts to walk towards Xander Harris. As he sees her he winks and gives her a come do me look and gestures that he will call her later. He walks away from the jocks he is talking to as he sees Willow and Buffy, and he hugs them as if they were both his girlfriends as he slyly grins at the jocks at the table.

Jessica raises an eyebrow. "What the hell was that all about?" she says to herself as she heads to the bar to order herself a sprite.

She looks around in the crowd to find a friendly face she could talk to or dance with when she notices a drop-dead gorgeous male near the entrance. He had dark spiky hair, black pants, and a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt underneath. He looks like someone right out of a Grease movie; all that was missing was his Harley Davidson.

He scans the place looking for someone, his gaze stops at Jessica as if he recognizes her and he starts to come towards her. Then a girl Jess recognizes as Buffy stops him in his tracks and they begin talking. Then in the most romantic gesture, Jessica has ever seen he gives Buffy his jacket. After a few more words, he leaves Buffy to her thoughts. Before he disappears into the night, he glances at Jessica one last time, wondering why she seems so familiar and why her smell was a bit off.

Jessica sighs. "Figures the most gorgeous male in the place would be mesmerized by the cutest blond in the room."

Buffy hearing this turns and rolls her eyes at Jessica then walks back to her waiting friends. Who then start to ask her loads of questions about the new guy.

Did I really say that loud enough for her to hear? Jessica thought to herself as she cringes. She comes out here to make some new friends but only manages to alienate herself from one of them already. "Great Jess, way to go on the friend making thing, you're a real natural." She finishes her drink and heads home.

As Jessica walks home, she feels someone behind her and starts to walk faster. The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end she walks even faster. Goose bumps form on her arm and she reaches in her purse for her mace and cell phone as she breaks into a run. She makes it home and quickly opens her front door, closes and locks it. Breathing hard she examines the front of her house from her window, seeing no one she relaxes and plops down on her couch.

"Jessica, you are a complete paranoid twit," she says to herself.

Outside a lone figure smirks from the shadows, having no intention on scaring the poor girl out of her wits he thinks it is for the best. Maybe she will have better sense than to walk home alone next time. Angel turns and walks away, thinking he may have to keep an eye on the new girl.

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The trio enters Mr. Gregory's class and notices a new teacher in his stead. The girls frown as they all take their seats, but it seems Xander and all the boys in the class are captive to her beauty and natural charm.

Jessica dashes in just shy of the bell and takes a seat. She grins from ear to ear, that is until she sees the new teacher and then she goes into worry mode for Mr. Gregory. She looks around for anyone for an explanation of his absence; only getting a few shrugs, she gives her full attention to the new teacher.

The teacher introduces herself as Ms. Natalie French, and that she will be substituting for Mr. Gregory for the next couple of weeks until his return.

"Do you know when he's coming back?" Buffy interrupts as her curiosity and concern gets the better of her.

"No I don't, um… Buffy, but I am told that he is out of town for a little while. His colleagues may have found a new type of bug and they wanted him to come and confirm their findings. It all sounds very exciting," says a smiling Ms. French.

She pauses to think before she continues." I was currently looking for a possible Job to nest in and Principle Flutie tells me where I was wanted."

I'll tell you where I want you," says a very lusting for the teacher, boy named Blaine.

"Excuse me Blaine?" asks Ms. French smiling, obviously hearing what he said.

"Um…" he tries to think quickly. "I was just wondering if you were going to pick up where Dr. Gregory left off," Blaine asks pretending to be interested in the subject.

Ms. French answers yes to his question and goes into the subject at hand, the preying mantis. She asks Buffy why the creatures live alone

Complete shock forms on Buffy's face as she looks up when the teacher calls her name, but quickly recovers with a very informative answer. "The words bug ugly kind of springs to Mind."

This causes the whole class to burst into laughter, but Ms French is not amused as is evident from the anger on her beautiful face. She quickly calms herself before she explains that the creatures live alone because they are cannibals. This statement gets a series of urrghs, eeews, and gaghs from the class.

She continues to explain how it is hardly their fault; it is how nature designed them. Finishing her lecture, she asks the class if they will help her make some model egg sacks for the science fair. All the boys in the class raise their hands and Ms. French is quite happy with this outcome.

Figures, Jessica thought as she notices all the gullible boys in the room with their hands raise like complete hormonal idiots. She watches as her teacher chooses two of the boys for the project. Something familiar comes to the forefront of her brain and she raises her hand to ask the teacher a question.

Ms. French gives her a look that would make Al Capone cringe. Jessica almost bumps her elbow as she quickly retracts her hand in total horror. The teacher finally acknowledges her need to ask her question and calls on her.

"Yes, Miss Cine, what is it that you wanted to ask?" Ms. French comes closer to her and her eyes turn completely black.

"Um… Well…" wait a minute did her eye just go black that is not right. "I was remembering something I read a while back on the subject and I was wondering if it was true that if a mantis hears bat sonar that their nervous system goes all wonky?" Jessica finishes terrified of her substitute teacher.

Natalie French gives her a murderous look and comes closer and closer to her desk. She gets right in her face before she replies to Jessica's damning question.

"Now, now Miss Cine let us not get ahead of ourselves, that's for another discussion," the teacher says irritated at the young girl. "Lets concentrate on the assignment, we would not want to kill your…, grades for lack of focus now would we child?"

Jessica sits back in her seat out of fright and she looks around to see if anyone notices the slight threat behind Ms. French words. No one is paying attention except for Buffy who is staring daggers into Ms. French. Great, Jessica thinks to herself, no one notices that but the petite blonde-haired girl in the class, which is going to help me out loads.

"Um, no Ms. French wouldn't want that at all, "Jessica squeaks and swallows hard.

Wow, this is crazy she thought, the substitute teacher already hates and wants to murder her within one session. That must be a record for any student. Jessica definitely cannot wait for Mr. Gregory to his post because she cannot take any more of this creepy over sexual bitch of a teacher much longer.

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Cordelia Chase comes barreling into the cafeteria as if she owns the place. Almost bumping into Buffy, she rudely utters an excuse you before going behind the counter to fix her lunch. She barks something about her doctor sending her a medically prescribed meal, and that she will only be here for as long as it will take her to hold her breath.

Cordy suddenly senses something oddly familiar and looks around the cafeteria and her eyes lock unto the new girl. An odd sense of déjà vu takes over and she blinks rapidly to get her equilibrium back on line. She comes out of her temporary imbalance and starts to wonder why she has this sudden fascination with the girl. It is not as if she has a keen fashion sense, quite the opposite in fact. Looking at her though she is not a total loss like for instance Xander or a complete horror like Willow, but she definitely is not up to the Queen C's standards.

Cordy shook herself out of her current thinking and back to her previous to dos, lunch. She opens the cafeteria refrigerator and lets out a blood-curdling scream, which gets the attention of everyone as they damn near jump through the ceiling. Buffy and Willow run over to see the extremely headless boy in the refrigerator, no one knows who it might be, not having a head and all.

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A day a one less bug later:

After school Jessica frantically searches for Willow Rosenberg, she hopes to snag her as a possible tutor to get her caught up on her classes. She rounds the corner and notices the trio head to their favorite hangout, the library. Jessica rushes to catch up to them before they enter but fails miserably as the halls are full of teenagers trying to escape their dungeon, while she is fighting against their exit to head towards the library. Sighing as she finally makes it to her destination, she peeps into the library window to see them having some sort of study session.

Not wanting to disturb them she almost turns to leave, but realizes if she does not get this over with she might not be caught up soon enough. Gaining some courage she marches into the library to make her presence known. At first, the gang does not notice her and she overhears them talk about a girl who is coming and how she will change things. Jessica becomes extremely light headed as that sense of déjà vu surrounds her and she almost faints, but the school librarian catches her before she could make her introductions to the floor.

"Are you quite all right young lady?" Giles asks as he holds her up.

"Yeah I'll be fine, I think," She says as she looks into the face of the most delicious looking british gentlemen she has ever seen. Jessica smiles wildly looking like a Cheshire cat as she wondered when librarians became so damned cute.

"May I help you find something?" Giles asks oblivious to the instant crush the girl has on him.

"Oh, uh… no," she says as she reluctantly takes her eyes off him and looks toward Willow. "I am here to ask if Willow can assist me with something," She notices that all eyes are on her and she slowly swallows her nervousness.

"What is this something you want our Willow to help you with, exactly? Buffy asks irritated about the interruption of an important scooby meeting.

A nearly frantic Jessica replies. "Well… you see… I am…" She trips over her words until a dam bursts forth. "IwaswonderingifIcouldgetwillowtohelpmewithmyassignmentsthatIambehindonandIdidnotmeantointerrupt," she says this in a complete babble worthy fashion that rivals even Willow. Too bad no one understands a word she has said.

"What?" the Scooby gang say in unison. Giles even smiles thinking that Willow may have found a long lost sister.

Jessica absolutely embarrassed by her outburst holds her head down and twiddles her fingers. Finally, she takes a deep breath to calm her nerves and she repeats her previous statement, with a lot less babble this time around.

"I was hoping I can get willow's assistance with my class assignments. Mr. Gregory has told me that she is the best student to get me caught up on everything." She sighs glad to get that out without incident this time. Jessica looks up and weakly smiles at everyone as they oddly observe her, she think to herself that she should have chose a better time for this conversation.

Willow smiles at her, proud and a little embarrassed that a teacher of Mr. Gregory caliber suggests that she, Willow Rosenberg, was the best student to choose from out of the whole school. "Does Mr. Gregory actually think that?" she asks going thoroughly red in the face.

"Yes Willow, he does," Jessica feels more comfortable with the way the conversation is going, that is until she becomes aware of Buffy staring holes in her head. She visibly flinches and starts looking for a way of escape. She nearly laughs aloud at her situation but thought better of it. It will not be a good idea to laugh in the face of danger and danger is what she feels she is in right now, the lion's den, the spider's web, the damn dragon's lair and she is trying her best to find a way out without harm coming to her person.

"Look Willow, I will really appreciate your help, but I'll understand if you don't want to," Jessica says as she looks downtrodden." I will find someone else to help me."

She starts to walk out of the library when Willow steps up and blocks her exit. "Hey, wait a minute; you do plan on letting me accept or decline your offer, don't you?" Willow asks with a bit of a frown on her face.

"I'm sorry, that was rude of me, but I do not like the reception I am getting and thought I overstayed my welcome." Jessica looks back at the library occupants as she says this.

"Oh, don't mind them they will come around once they get to know you and realize you're not some type of monst… Willow stops just in time to rephrase her slip of the tongue. " I mean once they realize that you are a real person and not a Cordelia.

"Okay, that's fine would not want to be caught being a non person anyway. Does this mean that you will not mind helping me?" Jessica smiles beamingly at Willow.

Willow smiles right back. "I'll have you caught up before you know it; we just have to set up a few study dates."

Willow guides her to a different table away from conversations about girls who watch, and how she will change things. Willow sets several study dates with Jessica that will not interfere with her Scooby duties, hopefully.

As Willow and Jessica finish their first study session, Buffy tentatively approaches. She stares at Jessica and her slayer senses go haywire, but not in a vampire or demon present way. She has no idea what to make of that so she shakes it off for later review.

"Jessica," Buffy laughs as Jessica almost jumps out of her skin. "I wanted to thank you for helping me earlier, you are a life saver."

Confusion sets in for Jessica as she racks her brain for what Buffy was referring to, having no memory of the two of them ever talking to one another let alone helping each other, she gives up.

"What are you speaking of Buffy?" Jessica scratches her head.

"Yesterday in class you mention something about bat sonar and its effects on the praying mantis, that was a real help on a pet project of mine and let's just say I really killed my competition." Buffy says with a smirk.

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Later that evening at the coroner's office they find out through fingerprints that the headless boy is a high school nerd by the name of Warren Mears. They only had his fingerprints on files because he stole some stuff out of a computer store last year and the owner catches him and presses charges. Warren tells them he wants to make a robot girl similar to what they do in the movie Weird Science, and that is why he stole the equipment. The police let him go, laughing about how nerds are at a completely new level these days. Too bad we will not get to see what he will become, the coroner thought sadly.