Disclaimer: I own nothing, Buffy belongs to Joss, caveman grunts. Unless I can hit him on the head with big stick, no still no own. Now let us get on with the show.

We Don't Need Any Stinking Anointed One.

Jessica's dad turns abruptly when he hears Collin scream, and he sees something that makes his heart sting and burn in his chest. He looks on as one of the goons they are fighting drag his only daughter through the bus window.

"Jessica!" he yells as he tries to reach her before they can take her, but he is too late. He tries to think as his heart is thumping so hard he can feel it in his head. Looking around trying to find some way of rescuing his daughter, an idea forms in his head and he takes over the driver seat. Driving in the direction that his daughter is he thinks to himself that his plan just might work if Jessica could keep her attacker at bay and somehow escape his clutches.

Jessica was struggling against the grip of her assailant to no avail. He has her by the hair and drags her across the field to do God knows what to her. She is crying uncontrollably when she notices the bus barreling towards them with her father at the wheel. So did the goon holding her as he pulls her up from the ground and places her in between the bus and himself. Great, Jessica thought, were going to play chicken with the eight-ton bus; this should be loads of fun. However, just before the bus reaches them, preacher came barreling out of nowhere and tackles the both of them to the ground. Her dad yells at that moment telling her to run for the bus. She gets up as quick as she can, tries to run as fast as she can but limps along the way. Finally reaching the bus she glances back to see if preacher was following only to find him still struggling with her assailant. As he is brutally beat to death by the goons, she hears him yell. "The righteous shall be saved," she quickly enters the bus as the goons focus their attention back to her and the survivors.

Her father puts the petal to the metal and high tails it out of there. When they were miles away from danger, he looks in the rear view mirror to access the damage. "How many did we lose?" He sadly asks the remaining passengers.

Collin's mother scans the bus to see how many were missing and turns back to him to answer. "I believe we have lost five people, that includes preacher and our driver," she said as she tightens her hug on Collin with tears in her eyes.

He nods, sad about the loss of all those innocent people. How could this happen? It was right out of someone's worst nightmare, the strength and viciousness of the goons was unbelievable. This is not a normal thing to happen, and they are all very lucky that the majority of them made it out alive. Coming out of his thoughts, he set his attention back to his daughter who still has not made any effort to get off the floor of the bus and take a seat. She also looks somewhat ashen and one of the passengers is trying to hold her up. He stops the bus abruptly and goes to tend to his daughter.

"Jess, are you alright?" He asks, as he looks her over and notices that her pant leg is drenched in blood.

Jessica wobbles a little as she looks up at her dad. "I don't know dad, I feel kind of light headed," she says as she sways back and forth.

Jessica's dad rolls up her pant leg and everyone in the viewing vicinity gasps. There was a deep gash in Jessica's lower leg and blood was pouring out of the wound. "Jessica hang in there sweetheart, I'm going to get you to a hospital," he says as he gets back behind the wheel and rushes to the nearest hospital.

Collin rushes to her side to hold her hand and Jessica looks around bewildered to her dad's sudden urgent tone. "Dad I'll be fine, I'm just a little light headed," she says as she looks down at her exposed leg and saw the gash and the flowing blood. "Oh my, that's an awful lot of blood," she says as her eyes roll to the back of her head and she gives in to the call of unconsciousness.

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A day and a night later Buffy defeats the resurrected preacher, everyone thinking that he was to be the anointed one the prophecy talks about. As she stands in the funeral home with her friends and her watcher, she is both happy and sad with the outcome of today's events. That is until she hears Willow gasp and start to cry.

She rushes to her side concerned. "What is it Willow, What's happened?" she asks as she notices Willow holding the newspaper Giles showed her earlier.

"Buffy, Jessica was on that bus that those vamps attacked!" Willow frantically says. "She's in the hospital; they say she's been hurt pretty badly."

"Calm down Wil, we will get everything situated hear and we'll go and see how she's doing tomorrow okay," Buffy says as she tries to comfort Willow all the while feeling a little guilty about not stopping this before now. Maybe it would not have turned deadly.

Willow tries to calm herself down as she reads further. "It says she was hurt badly when her and her father tried to rescue several passengers from the attack," Willow says with tear-filled eyes.

"Well that was quite foolhardy of them to try and take on several vamps like that," Giles said as he took his glasses off and cleaned them.

"Says the man that went off by himself to a funeral home full of vamps," Xander smiles as Giles looks quite sheepish.

At that moment, Owen wakes up from being knocked unconscious by preacher. "Does anyone have an aspirin," he says as he rubs his head and tries to get up. "Or sixty."

Buffy rushes to his side clearly relived that he is not dead. "Owen."

"What happened to that guy?" Owen looks around thinking he may return.

Buffy looks around at her friends, and tries to think of something to tell him. "Oh, we scared him away," she says as she helps him up off the floor. "I'm sure this isn't exactly what you had in mind for a first date."

"Yeah… I was hoping maybe we'd finish up at Ben and Jerry's," he says while still looking a little wobbly.

Buffy looks a little hopeful, maybe she can salvage a little sanity out of this horrible first date. "We still could."

No, I think I will just walk home," Owen stumbles toward the door. "Which way is home?"

"I'll get you there," Buffy says as Willow and Xander rush to catch an unsteady Owen.

"We'll make sure he gets home safely," Xander says to Buffy as he and Willow lead Owen out the door.

Giles walks up to Buffy ready to give her some comforting words about her debacle of a date. "Buffy if I might…"

Buffy puts her hand up to stop his speech. "Don't," she says sadly and proceeds to walk out the door.

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Jessica wakes up to find her dad staring at her intently, he had several bags under his eyes and you could tell he'd been crying. "Hey princess, glad to see you awake," he said with a faint smile on his face.

"Dad, where are we? What happened?" she said as she looks at him.

"You were hurt pretty badly in the attack, you're in the hospital," her dad says while he rubs her hair. "You scared the hell out of me Jess, I can't lose you your all I have left," he said to her as he held back the tears.

"I'm not going anywhere daddy, it will take more than a few crazy goons to separate the Cine family," Jessica gave him a brilliant smile all the while trying to hold back a few tears of her own.

Jessica's dad smiles back at her and kisses her forehead. "Well it seems that I'm not the only one you had worried," he says as he glances past Jessica just to the other side of her bed.

Jessica turns her head to the side and notices a sleeping red head in a chair beside her, and she can hold out no longer, as fresh tears fall down her face. She quickly wipes them away and returns her attention to her father.

"So, I see you've met Willow," Jessica says as she tries to keep the tears from falling.

Her dad smiles at the memory of meeting her friends. "Yes, I have, right along with a certain blond girl named Buffy, a boy I think I shall polish my shotgun for, named Xander and your school librarian Mr. Rupert Giles. I say Jess when you make friend you don't half step do you."

Jessica laughed aloud at her dad's statement and then she gives her full attention to her friend. "How long has she been here?"

"They all came after school was over; it's now just past 6:30. The others left for home but Willow refused to leave and I had to promise them I would take her home before they left her here. Honestly, like a will leave a young girl to walk home by herself after dark," her father looks quite insulted by the insinuation.

"Dad I'm sure they did not mean anything by it, and I'm sure you can understand their concern especially considering what happened to us," said Jessica.

She then looks to her friend and smiles, reaching out she touches her leg to try to wake her. Willow wakes up with a start. "Burn the tadpoles," Willow says as she jumps terrifyingly from her chair.

Jessica and her dad burst out laughing. "Burn the tadpoles?" They both look at her questioningly

"I have frog fear," Willow says with embarrassment.

"Oh, I totally understand that Willow. I'm completely terrified of spiders," Jessica says as she shakes off the disgust she feels for the eight legged insect. "By the way Willow, what was it that you put in the mace it almost burned the face off the guy I used it on."

Willow looks frantic, what can she tell Jessica. She cannot possibly tell her that she had put holy water in the bottle and that the reason the goons face melted off was because he was a vampire. No, that will be a quick fire way to end their friendship and get her a nice little padded cell of her own.

"I don't know what you mean Jessica I only refilled it with the same thing." Willow said and then tries to change the subject. "I got more assignments for you from your teachers, if you give me the ones you finished I'll turn them in for you."

Jessica's face fell as she thought about more homework. "Great I'm going to be buried in homework forever, my own private little hell."

"What did the police tell you about the attack Mr. Cine?" Willow asks.

"Well the great Sunnydale police said it was a gang pumped up on PCP of all things, like I believe something that preposterous," he replies angrily.

"Yeah, a gang that has no guns and doesn't steal. That sounds a little fishy to me," Jessica almost laughs at the ridiculous story that the cops came up with.

Willow was just glad that she has dodged a bullet, but she realizes that she might have to dodge a lot of them. Having Jessica as a friend meant that she will have to hide a lot of Scooby type stuff from her and that was going to be hard considering Jessica very observant and inquisitive ways. Willow turns to see Jessica giving her a questioning look and she nervously smiles.

At that moment, a little boy and his mother came in to see Jessica and her father. The boy smiles as he sees Jessica and runs to her and gives her a big hug. "Jessica, I'm glad you're alright, I was so scared for you." The little boy says as he looks at her with sad eyes.

"Yes, you had a lot of us quite worried about you, little missy," Said Collins mother. "We came to see how you are doing and to say goodbye."

"Say Goodbye?" Jessica asks, confused.

"We have decided to find another more hazard free place to leave," she said as she smiles at her son. "I also want to thank you Jessica for saving my boy's life, I don't know what I'd do if I lost him."

"Oh no problem, we were all looking out for each other on that bus and a lot of lives were saved because we worked together. You guys saved my life as well remember, and I couldn't let anything happen to the one I plan to one day beat in every last one of his video games now could I," she said as she gave Collin her most dazzling smile.

Collin crosses his arms and gives her an incensed glare. "Like I said before, that will be the day." He politely walks out and everyone laughs.

Jessica notices the roses on her bedside table and she looks at her dad to see if he knows who they were from, he shrugs and tells her he did not know who they were from. So she picks up the card to see if it will shed some light on things.

Jessica, beautiful dark flower in the night I have missed your presence in my life Please come back to my heart and stay

I hear you were hurt, I hope you get well soon. Yours truly JL.

Jessica smiles, this could not be from who she thought it was could it, her smile widens as she holds the card closer to her heart.

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In the deep depths of the hellmouth, you could hear the Master scream in rage over his plans being foiled and he knew it was that new power that he senses, if it was the last thing he does he will find this meddling power and tear it limb from limb. This was war and this annoying little upstart will regret coming into his domain and changing things.

Hope you like it, someone please review, please with sugar on it. Tell me what you think.