The Miseducation of Buffy Summers by Verity
Chapter Three

Summary: Sunnydale, CA, 1997: Buffy Summers lives at 1630 Revello Drive with her family: a younger sister - Dawn, her mother - Joyce, an art historian, and her stepfather - Rupert, a professor at UC Sunnydale. Her life couldn't be more ordinary. Until her stepbrother William comes to spend the summer with them in the wake of his mother's death...

Written for taboo_spuffy on livejournal. Thanks to my loyal betas, automaticdoor, coyotegoth, and wickedwitch74!

Disclaimer: Everything that you recognize belongs to Joss. The rest belongs to me.

Buffy rolled over and hit snooze on her alarm clock. A few minutes later, it began to ring again. She opened one eye, saw the time, and groaned, but dragged herself to her feet anyway.

Even though field hockey season wasn't until the fall, she still went running every morning before school; there was one more week to go, full of exams and final papers and other unpleasant things Buffy preferred not to dwell on. It was better to go just at sunrise, before the heat of the day. Despite the tortuous crawl out of bed, mornings were her favorite time, when she moved through the house silent as a ghost while everyone slept, the morning hush unbroken. Now, she pulled on a pair of gym shorts beneath the t-shirt she'd slept in, wandered to the kitchen for a drink of water, then crept out on to the porch.

All was quiet, the sun just peeking about the horizon. Buffy braced herself against one of the pillars, stretching her legs. She yawned, filling her lungs with cool morning air.

Then she was off, down the stairs, on to the sidewalk, and the path beyond.

Sometimes running seemed like the only time of the day she was real. Homework, Dawn's whining, boys, they all melted away beneath the wind and the rising sun. Practice was good; a game was better. But when Buffy was running, the only thing she was competing against was herself. It was something she didn't have to share with anyone.

She paused two streets from home on the loop back, bending over and panting. With one hand she wiped the sweat from her eyes, pushed the hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her eye. Then she sprinted. Buffy always liked to go fastest on the last leg.

But she stopped abruptly at the end of the path up to her door. Someone had broken the spell of her morning. She could smell his cigarette from here, foul and acrid. William.

When she came up next to him, she snatched it from his lips and ground it beneath her shoe. "Don't you know that's bad for you?"

William looked up at her, surprised, his eyes wide and blue. Shit. "I'm sorry," she mumbled ungraciously. "Go back to whatever you're doing."

But neither of them moved. Buffy stood above him, chest heaving, and his expression stayed the same; not angry, just surprised. She felt an inexplicable tightness in her chest, resenting him even more fervently.

Finally, she coughed, prompted by the remnants of the smoldering cigarette, and went back into the house to shower.

He was gone when she came back out.

"So let me get this straight," Willow said between bites of her sandwich, "he's taking the rest of the summer off," munch, "and doing what, exactly?"

"Annoying us all. Well," Buffy corrected, "annoying me. He seems to be charming everyone else just fine."

Thinking about her stepbrother made her suddenly disinterested in her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She looked up to find Xander and Tara watching her. "What?"

"He doesnt sound so terrible?" Tara offered neutrally. The latest addition to the lunchly roundtable, Tara had moved to Sunnydale at the start of the semester. She and Willow fought a tough battle for first-chair clarinet in band, but having found each other worthy adversaries, they had quickly become close friends.

"How is the G-Man tolerating the British invasion?" Xander asked. He was the first friend Buffy had made in Sunnydale; she'd neatly beaten him playing basketball on the first day of school, then shared a cookie with him.

Buffy waved a carrot stick at him threateningly... "How many times have I told you not to call Rupert that? It makes him uncomfortable! And I don't think Britain can invade itself."

"You know what, Buffy?" Willow swallowed, then wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I think you're attracted to him. You know, sexy mysterious stranger in a leather trench coat-"

"Don't be gross!" Buffy wrinkled her nose. "He's not a stranger, anyway. I've known him since I was five."

"Oh, please. Meeting him like four times does not count," Willow protested. Buffy's best friend since first grade, she was always ready to offer her friend some gentle teasing.

"Whatever. Anyway, I think he's more your kind of guy, Willow - you should have been there last night when he unpacked the ridiculous computer he brought with him."

Xander pulled his girlfriend close and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm not sharing my pooky bear with some Lone Gunmen wannabe from fish and chips land."

"Only my Xan Solo is good enough for me!" Willow mumbled into his neck. Tara was peering intently into her pudding cup.

"On that note," Buffy announced dryly, "I think I have a math exam to fail."

I totally passed. I passed. Thinking will make it so. Fortify me, Shakespeare.

Buffy grabbed her backpack out of her locker, then looked at her math textbook, leaning forlornly against the side.

I totally failed.

Willow tapped her on the shoulder. "Come on, Buffy. Xander's waiting for us at the car."

Buffy trudged behind her best friend, slinging her bag on to one shoulder. "Willow? Statistical probability that I failed my math exam?"

"Well..." Willow glanced at her sympathetically. "Now would be a great time to get religion, if you don't have any already."

"Unnnnnnh. If I fail math, Mom will ground me until I'm 80."

"Well, you have Lambert, right? She'll let you take the final over if you get a bad grade. That's why she has it so early in the week."

They were halfway down the staircase when Buffy spotted him. She knew the second that Willow did, too; she gave a little gasp and looked back at Buffy, who shook her head. They pushed through the crowd, and Willow managed to contain herself until they got outside the main building. "Buffy-"

Buffy held up a hand. "I know what you're going to say, I know. Just-"

"What a dick! You were right there and he didn't even acknowledge you."

She shrugged. "We're not together anymore, so not much with the acknowledging."

"You don't have to put on an act for me, Buffy. I'm your friend. Remember?"

They were approaching the car now, and Buffy saw Xander wave at them from the passenger seat. "Yeah, I do," she told Willow. "But I don't want to talk about Oz. Not now."