Disclaimer: Not mine, but geez I like playing with other people’s toys.

Author’s note: Thanks to the fab BTL for the helpful insight and for generally being an awesome beta.

Thanks to Nichole, Wulfie, Romero, Marzbar and BTL for the fab reviews!
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Chapter 4: School Daze

Buffy didn’t return to the mansion. She was still mad at Spike. Buffy crawled into her bedroom an hour or so before the sun rose; she and Willow had talked all night long, Buffy finally leaving Willow‘s house as the impending dawn was beginning to creep towards the horizon.

Her sleep wasn’t restful. She could feel Spike’s call to her and he was angry that she was ignoring him. Serves him right, she thought, rolling over in bed even as her demon cried for her Sire. She was determined not to go.

It was an inner struggle that refused to let her sleep. The moment she nodded off, the primal need to go to him returned.

“Time to get up young lady!“ came her mother’s cheerful voice far too soon after she had gotten into bed. “I worked too hard to get you back into school. You are going, vampire or not. We’ll just say that you’ve been sick, you can pull that off, you look so pale.“

“That’s cause I’m dead,“ Buffy muttered on her way to the shower.
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Wrapped tightly in her longest jacket and completely covered head to toe in clothing, Buffy was driven to school by her loving and concerned mother, note in hand, explaining her absence.

Buffy tried to explain how this school thing just wasn’t going to work for her, she was undead, no one cared if she went to school or not.

“I care!” protested Joyce fiercely as she parked at the curb of the school.

Buffy gave her mother a kiss on the cheek before running to the door of the school, her jacket up over her head.

Buffy headed directly for her locker. The first thing she did was take down her mirror. Won’t be needing that ever again, she thought bitterly.

“Oh god! I knew someday you would go to the dark place. I’m sure the goth kids will be glad to have a new convert,” came Harmony’s voice over her shoulder. “You look...well dead. Get some sun, I mean, we live in California.”

Buffy turned to look at the retreating Cordette disappointed. She had tried to do her makeup to look healthy, it just wasn’t working. And her tan was gone. The black clothes she was wearing? At the time, when she got dressed they seemed sensible and sun proof. Buffy blew an unneeded breath out and grabbed her books for first period.

“You are here! At school!” gushed Willow coming up next to her in the hall. “I mean, why? Aren’t you all sun allergy?”

Buffy nodded. “Mom seems to think that my new lifestyle change is not an excuse to forgo secondary education,” Buffy sighed. “Also, since I’m not going back to the other woman kisser any time soon, I need to keep with the happy mom.”

Willow nodded. “So that means you are back. Are you gonna see Giles?”

Buffy‘s mood dampened further. “Oooh...Giles...He’ll probably want to make with the stakeage. I don’t think I want a fight to my dust kind of fight this early in the morning. I’m all up for the verbal. Bring on the undead insults.”

“Xander,” deadpanned Willow.

“Oh I fully expect the quips from Xander,” said Buffy.

“Oh, no, he’s here.” Willow stopped dead in the middle of the hallway as did Buffy.

At the other end of the hall Xander Harris was eating a Twinkie. His mouth full of the processed pastry, he scanned the hallway. A shocked look passed over his face and he pointed towards Buffy, yelling something completely incomprehensible through the Twinkie. The students around him began to step back as he started dancing in place.

“I think maybe he’s happy to see you?” asked Willow.

Buffy giggled. “I think I should hug him or something before he chokes.”

Swallowing down his Twinkie, Xander was finally able to make coherent mutterings.

“Buffy! Alive! How? When? Yay!!”

Buffy shook her head. “Straight from the Tarzan school for the verbally challenged...”

“When you didn’t come back, you weren’t at home, we saw you with Spike...” he trailed off, staring at her with suspicion.

“I’m fine Xander,” said Buffy with a smile and avoiding the truth. She wasn’t fine.

“Where were you?” the boy asked.

The first period bell rang. Saved by the bell, literally, thought Buffy.

She didn’t know what to tell Xander. She didn’t want to have a scene in the middle of Sunnydale High’s hallway, letting the general population know that vampires existed or that she was one of them. Buffy waved a goodbye to Xander and Willow as she headed to her class.
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Spike kicked the wall of his bedroom, leaving a sizable hole in the dry wall. His anger at the way she was ignoring his call was unbearably frustrating. Childer weren’t supposed to be this way. They were supposed to be obedient and subservient.

But his Goldilocks had never been submissive to anyone and that’s the way he liked her. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that he had done something wrong, that she was doing this to punish him.

“Baby’s got my William in a dither!” laughed Dru, standing in the doorway of his bedroom. “If Daddy were here, he’d teach Baby some manners.”

“Well soddin’ Angelus isn’t here, Dru. And even if he were, I’d not be letting him anywhere near my Childe!” Spike roared.

Dru giggled again. Spike couldn’t help but think she was enjoying his frustration at Buffy’ actions. And that just made him even angrier.

“Don’t be cross, love,” she cooed, finally walking towards him and placing her hand on his chest. “Baby will come back, and you’ll have fun making her see who’s Sire and who’s Childe. Whips and chains, and lovely screams.”

Spike moved away from Dru with a strange look on his face.

Dru pouted. “Now you are cross with me. I only say what needs be done. Tell the truth dear boy, you liked it when I did it to you...”

Spike smiled a little at the memory, but then hardened his resolve. His initiation into this dark world had been at the hands of not only Dru but Angelus as well. He loathed the pompous prick for taking away his Sire, fornicating right in front of him for hours on end. He was determined that Buffy was not going to have the same experience. Unfortunately, Spike believed that Dru was expecting just the same thing.

“It’s not like that with Buffy and I,” he said. “It won’t be.”

Dru whimpered. “The children always say that they’ll be different than their parents...Like paper dolls, cut outs, snip snip.”

Spike looked at his Sire with incredulity. Shaking his head once at her, he grabbed his keys off a nearby table and headed out of the room. He had an appointment with a mechanic.
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Buffy had been avoiding telling Xander what had happened to her all morning. The problem was that it was getting close to lunchtime, which posed new and challenging circumstances for the fledgling vampire.

When the lunch bell rung, Xander followed her dutifully to her locker, telling her about his woeful experiences trying to get in touch with Cordelia, who mysteriously had decided to take school off for a Spa retreat week with her mom. Buffy couldn’t really keep his babblings straight while she contemplated just how she was supposed to explain why she was drinking blood for lunch, or why they couldn‘t eat outside.

“Not that I expect her to call me back when she’s having mom time...” said Xander waiting for her to make some sort of comment.

“Can we eat in the cafeteria today or the lounge?” asked Buffy.

“Inside? On a beautiful day like this? That’s like saying we should hang out with Giles... Wait! Giles! You haven’t seen the G-man today!”

“Xander...”

“Are you ready to experience lunch?” asked Willow, coming up behind her, slightly sadly. “Cafeteria or lounge?”

Buffy smiled at her red headed friend.

“Wills...Back me up here, she has to talk to Giles...” said Xander.

“Xander...” warned Willow.

“I don’t know if that is such a good idea right now,” said Buffy. “I mean he’s probably busy with Faith... And I really don’t want to bump into her right now...”

“Ooh, Faith, right...” said Willow with wide eyes.

“Why don’t you want to see Faith?” asked Xander looking expectantly between the two girls. “You two didn’t have a no holds barred cream corn wrestling match did you? Did you?” He looked giddy at the thought.

Buffy glared at her friend. Xander put up his hands defensively.

“Buffy, you should really see Giles, before you bump into him in the hallways...” said Willow.

“You are probably right, it’s just I don’t want the mess of it all, the yelling, the weaponry. Besides I’m totally hungry girl right now...”

“Oooh, ok, Buffy needs lunch, she needs it now. Move Xander!” ordered Willow, pushing the pair of them towards the cafeteria.
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Faith walked into Sunnydale High late as usual for her daily meeting with Giles. Of course this time she had major details to tell to the Watcher. It gave her a glorious feeling of superiority knowing what she did. She would have done a happy dance, but her neck still hurt, a lot, from being in that vampire’s grip last night and the bite wound too.

The bitch bit me! she thought with a scowl, and what puzzled her more, was why Buffy hadn’t killed her.

Taking her usual indirect path, past the cafeteria to see what she could swipe from unsuspecting students to fill her stomach, Faith breezed through the hallways, only to turn a corner and come face to face with a vampire.

A Buffy shaped vampire.

“Oh this is rich!” exclaimed Faith with a chuckle.

“Faith,” deadpanned Buffy, stepping forward to place herself in front of her friends, protecting them from whatever Faith threw her way.

“The streets not good enough for your meals, gotta come here and snack on the students now?” said Faith.

“You don’t know what you are talking about Faith,” Buffy snapped back at her.

“K, whatever, can we do this then?” asked the Slayer, pulling out a stake from her waistband.

Buffy gave her thermos to Willow and stepped into a fighting stance. Suddenly Buffy felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Giles with one hand on each of their shoulders, and who was pulling her and Faith into the Library. Willow and Xander followed faithfully behind.

The library doors still swinging, Giles pushed to two girls towards the chairs and barked at them to sit down.

“What the bloody hell do you think you two are doing fighting in the hallway!? Snyder is just looking for a reason to kick you out of school again, Buffy! And Faith, you aren’t even attending the classes we signed you up for. Fighting in the hallway is just going to have Snyder on your case faster.”

Faith slunk down in her chair further and put her legs up on the table. No matter what Giles had to say to her everything would be changed once she delivered her news. Faith watched as Giles’ attention diverted to Buffy once again, asking where she had been and why she hadn’t talked to anyone.

Buffy hemmed and hawed looking for a plausible excuse but really couldn’t find one.

“I was having alone time with my boyfriend?” she said sheepishly.

“Undead boyfriend...” muttered Faith.

“I beg your pardon?” asked the perplexed watcher.

“She spent the last two days with her undead boyfriend, Spike, William the Bloody,” explained Faith with a smug smile on her face.

“William the Bloody is back in Sunnydale?” asked Giles, putting his hands onto the table and staring Buffy straight in the eyes. She abruptly looked down.

“And you are alive to tell the tale?” joked Xander.

The room got quiet.

“That’s what’s so fabulous about Buffy The Good’s return isn’t it? She’s not alive,” said Faith looking directly into Buffy’s eyes. “She’s a vampire.”

Xander laughed. “Oooh that’s a good one, you almost had me there Faith...Buffy a vampire...”

Xander’s laughter trailed off as no one either joined him or denied that Buffy would never let herself be turned.

“I...I’m just gonna go...” said Buffy, standing up from her chair and heading towards Willow who still clutched Buffy’s thermos.

“So it’s true then?” asked Giles calmly though she could see his body was fraught with tension.

Faith stood up as well, and took a stake out of her jean jacket and handed it to the Watcher.

“Hey! You can’t stake her!” yelled Willow, “She’s Buffy!”

“She’s a vamp!” Faith argued back.

“She hasn’t killed anyone!” protested Willow.

“How can you be sure?” questioned Giles as he stared at his Slayer, his eyes full of disappointment.

“She sure looked like she was planning on making Jonathan a snack last night...” said Faith.

Willow stared shocked at her friend. “You were gonna eat Jonathan?”

Buffy looked from Faith to Willow and back again. She reminded her self of a bunny who was being watched by something that was gonna eat her. She couldn’t understand why Faith hadn’t mentioned the fact that she had bitten her either. Guess she’s not too proud of being got the better of.

“I wasn’t gonna kill him,” she finally admitted.

“Uh huh, and I suppose your undead boytoy was just throwing me around for kicks...” said Faith.

“Well he was a bit ticked off that you were trying to off his Childe,” defended Buffy.

“You’re a vampire?” said Xander finally, stunned. “No...”

“I’m afraid it’s true Xander,” Buffy confirmed, taking her thermos finally from Willow and heading towards the door. “Look I know this is a shock, I...I don’t know how the rest of my life or unlife is gonna turn out but I had hoped that I would be able to count on your friendship. I’m sorry that I’ve disappointed you.” Buffy turned and walked out of the library when no one made a move to do anything.

Buffy felt a tear roll down her face. She clutched her thermos to her chest and exhaled an unneeded breath. She felt that she had just lost everything dear to her. But how did you expect them to react? she asked herself.

Buffy headed to the cafeteria, choosing a table as far away from the windows as possible and poured herself a mug of warm blood. It is going to be a long day...
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tbc...