"You know what?" Buffy said a week later. "I think as a way of celebrating my one month anniversary of starting over with my life here in Sunnydale, I think a trip to the zoo on an absolutely gorgeous day like this is a very good way to do it." Eyeing the clear blue, cloudless sky and bright sun.
"You think so?" Johnathan asked. "Because you were a little down last week for a few days after the whole Owen thing."
"Yeah, I was, wasn't I? I had some hopes, you know? A nice normal date, with a nice normal guy. Except the nice normal guy turned out to be a tad bit, maybe more than a tad bit, obsessed with deep, angsty things. I think i get enough of that in my night job, even if, thanks to Mr. Chase, I'm not feeling so closed in about that. Giles may want me out there every night fighting the good fight, but fighting when I actually feel the need works much better for me. Like it's kinda my choice and not something being forced on me."
"Given how obsessive Owen seems to be with deep, angsty things," Willow commented, "if he ever found out about your night job, he might switch to liking the Slayer, instead of you and maybe even wanting to go out and explore the night life himself. He could have ended up a danger to both himself and others."
"So one date with him and not agreeing to another may have saved us all a lot of grief." Buffy agreed. "I'm better off without that in my life."
"It's good that you realized that now before Owen got himself into trouble trying to keep up with the Slayer." Willow was the one sympathizing now, her dating life was improving after all, while Buffy's was stumblingly.
"So, how is Oz?" Buffy asked.
"Oz?" Johnathan asked.
"Oz, the cute Junior who was playing in the band at the Bronze on my one and only Owen date." Buffy wiggled her eyebrows. "He was definitely checking Willow out that night and they did spend some time talking."
Willow grinned herself. "I think there's definite mutual sparkage. We only talked that one time and his band hasn't been at the Bronze since, but I have seen him a couple times at school and both times he smiled at me. He's a year ahead of us so running into him at all at school wouldn't normally happen."
"You mean unless he deliberately goes out of his way between classes to try to catch a glimpse of you?" Buffy suggested with a smile.
"I'm hoping that's exactly why I've had two Oz sightings in the last week." Willow confirmed. "Especially given as a Junior all of his classes are in a different building than the Sophomore classes and he'd have to go out of his way to just be near enough to smile at me."
A sudden out cry had the three teens glancing over at a group huddled around another kid sitting on a bench. They seemed to be playing keep away with his notebook.
"What's up with them?" Buffy asked.
"Professional jerks, also known as bullies." Johnathan answered.
"Maybe I should do something about that." Buffy offered.
"Buffy, they don't need Slaying." Johnathan pointed out. "Just an attitude adjustment and look there's Principal Flutie coming to deliver it." He pointed at the somewhat less imposing figure of the Principal advancing on the four troublemakers.
"Alright," Buffy sighed. "I bow to a different authority dealing with that form of the darkness. What's next on the agenda? And any idea where Alex and Cordy and them are? Haven't seen them since we got here."
"Monkeys." Johnathan answered. "The cute, little kind. And Alex and them are over by the lion's enclosure." The three teens continued on, enjoying the mildly warm mid February day in Southern California and the day off school while behind them Principal Flutie was fobbed off by Lance assuring him he was fine.
Bob Flutie wasn't a fool and he knew those kids were hassling Lance, but if Lance didn't say anything and he couldn't actually catch them doing it, there wasn't anything he could do about it. But he really wanted to. He turned away and walked off and than stopped. 'I can't just leave it like this.' He thought. 'Those four are a menace and sooner or later, someone is going to get hurt.' He turned around, just in time to see the four idiots dragging Lance into the closed off Hyena House. 'Oh great,' He thought. 'now they're breaking and entering and right in front of me! I can't just let this go!' He charged forward, chasing after the annoying troublemakers, hoping to stop them before they did something even more stupid.
He arrived to see them doing something even more than stupid, they were dangling Lance over the Hyena pit.
"Put him down, right now!" He bellowed and stomped forward. Startled, the four teens dropped Lance onto the floor. He scrambled away from them and got to his feet and ran. Principal Flutie was still yelling at the teens when the eyes of the hyenas flashed green. Followed by the four teens and Principal Flutie's eyes flashing green immediately after.
Slowly the Principal smiled and the four teens ducked their heads. Things had just changed.