Blair Provence

by Not Even Jimmy Olson

Summary: During the spring of senior year, a Cordette finds out more than she bargained for about her friend Cordelia and the weirdness of Sunnydale High.

Author Notes: This story is an anti-Mary Sue - a reactions to all of those original characters who are stronger than Buffy, smarter than Giles, witchier than Willow and quippier than Xander.

Story Notes: Third season, taking place sometime after The Wish but before The Prom.

Warnings: none

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but would like to put Giles on layaway, please.

***

It began as just another boring night at the Bronze.

I was sitting in my usual spot at the club's best table, between Aphrodisia and Aura, a scowling Harmony and a bored Cordelia across from us, scoping out the male action on the dance floor. Dingoes Ate My Baby played - badly - from up on the dais, and Annie Vega and her psycho boyfriend were putting on their usual show down in front. Larry and his football cohorts were harassing Jonathon over by the pool table, and Michelle Blake was making out with her squeeze du jour on the couch in the corner. In other words, it was just your typical Tuesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday at the Bronze.

This town really needs to get a few new elsewheres to be.

Same old, same old, I thought, sighing, and for the first time I began to feel nostalgic for the bad old days of tagging along behind my father and enrolling in a new school every six months or so. New student terror aside, at least the variety was interesting.

It was ironic, really, because when I had first come to Sunnydale at the beginning of my junior year, I was massively psyched at the idea of finishing out my high school career in one place, even if it necessitated living with my Aunt Phoebe, her lingering hippie lifestyle and Hell's Angel boyfriend notwithstanding. I was eager to test out the knowledge I had gathered during my itinerant years, confident that through sheer repetition I had honed the high school experience down to an exact science. I had come to a decision - for the first time, I was determined to be one of those girls - the ones with the right clothes, the right hair, the right friends, and the right guys.

Thus my traveling salesman father became a jetsetting businessman, my new home's purported location became my aunt's boss' mansion in a better part of town, and my true personality became my own little secret, subsumed beneath a much bitchier, better coiffed, stylishly dressed snob.

I confess to feeling a bit of surprise that it actually worked.

Admittedly, I did have a little luck on my side. Purely by chance, I ended up sitting next to Aura in my first period class and she really dug my new Italian shoes. Ms. Suarez the Spanish teacher was both ten minutes late and incredibly dull, so we had plenty of time to swap names, stories and favorite places to shop. We discovered that we had three classes in common, and Aphrodisia was in two of them. Aura also informed me that I apparently shared three courses with Harmony and two with Cordelia, whom she identified as the reigning queens of the school when she introduced them to me after class. Suffice it to say, by lunchtime I was in like Flynn. And it felt great.

Anyone who's ever gone to high school knows how easy it is to spot your basic cliques of students, so it was no real trick to pick out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Cordelia and her Cordettes stalked the halls like they owned them, and the rest of the student body nearly always scrambled to make way. The jocks were clearly identifiable, as were the brains, the geeks, and the nerds (who aren't necessarily the same people, though the criterion are similar). Druggies are distinguishable from the theatre crowd, and exist in an entirely separate reality from the cheerleaders. Other groups are a bit more malleable, but the basic high school categories are generally consistent from school to school. And Sunnydale High appeared to be no exception.

It took me a while to realize that wasn't entirely correct.

I was quite proud of my quasi-scientific assessment and really psyched that my plan of action had apparently paid off. I judged that all I would really need to do for a successful next two years was lie my head off and act cruelly toward the less fortunate - something I was entirely prepared to do. High school success, here I came.

Fast-forward.

A year and a half later, the novelty of my lofty position had worn off. I was entirely aware that my 'friends' were actually little more than mere acquaintances - they knew next to nothing about me, and would have been appalled at any truths they might have inadvertently come to learn. It had been disturbingly easy to keep them ignorant of my true home and family, since they apparently had no interest in knowing about them at all. It was almost galling how superficial they were willing to keep our relationships, but, then again, I knew almost as little about their lives as they did mine. And, to be honest, I had to admit I didn't much care to learn more. By that point I was just biding my time until college began, which I had designated as the moment when I planned to resume my 'real' life, sans the stupid lies.

But in the meantime, it had to be noted that you can only go so shallow before your brain cries out for more meaty stimulation, which is why I was suffering from near fatal boredom at the Bronze that night. Even Cordelia's presence had done little to liven up the evening the way it usually did when she and Harmony went at it. Not that Harmony wasn't humming along in total bitch mode - in fact, if she has any other mode, it's not readily apparent. But Cordelia just looked down her nose at the blonde whenever she made her cutting comments - not even mentioning Xander Harris managed to get a rise out of the tall brunette. She simply rolled her eyes and sipped her cappucino, staring out across the floor with an expression of total boredom.

It was a bit surprising, really. The one thing that had been consistent about Cordelia since her recovery from her nearfatal fall had been the rage the mere mention of Xander's name always elicited. Well, to be clear, that hadn't been the case right away - the first few days after her return to school, Cordelia had crept through the halls looking tired and haunted, and Harmony, sensing weakness, had moved in for the kill. It had been fascinating to watch, the way those wildlife documentaries about hyenas and lions on the African plains are fascinating - you just can't help but look for the flow of blood and guts. Cordelia had been queen reigning bitch of Sunnydale since she was in diapers, or so I'm told, and she'd given it all up to date the class goof, and then she'd been dumped by him. Apparently. I still wasn't sure we'd gotten the whole story on that one. But the sheer novelty of the situation had made it a riveting drama, and, like the aftermath of a car wreck, the fallout was equally interesting.

But once she had recovered from whatever it was that happened, Cordelia had quickly regained her equilibrium and had managed, with little visible effort, to regain her position in the Sunnydale High social hierarchy. As far as I could tell, she accomplished this by somehow managing to project an attitude of blase disinterest that even Harmony's best insults could not shake - and, let's face it, there's nothing more likely to make you popular than the appearance of not caring in the least whether or not you are. She left behind her new friends with nary a backward glance, except to toss a few insults over her shoulder at her ex. They had accepted her defection with the same surprising sangfroid with which they had greeted her initial entry into their group, and appeared oblivious to her renewed ridicule - well, except for Xander, but he was getting better at hiding his feelings about it. It was a decidedly abnormal reaction, but then, they're an abnormal little group.

Which is why it makes complete sense that it was actually Buffy Summers who first clued me in to the fact that Sunnydale High wasn't quite the average high school that I'd assumed. She's something of an anomaly on campus, not really fitting into any easily defined categories - and those to which she could lay a claim to membership would not encompass her closest friends. On the face of it, she would seem to be an ideal candidate for the prom queen/cheerleader category. Great hair, cool clothes, beautiful face...she possesses all the superficial requirements in abundance. In fact, Aphrodisia told me last year that Cordelia had glommed onto Buffy almost immediately on her first day of school, but that the friendliness hadn't lasted long, because other elements of Buffy's personality soon made themselves known.

In other words, she'd attacked Cordelia at the Bronze with a stick.

Definitely weird.

Probably no one else at school is at the center of so many wild rumors as Buffy is. Chief among them is her propensity for violence - she's got a rep worse than Mike Tyson's. Admittedly, I haven't seen her beat anyone up myself - I always seem to be absent the nights she makes a spectacle in the Bronze, and I've missed all the incidents at school as well. But several kids I know were present when she beat up the cop at '97 Career Day. (Although, in all fairness, the cop had pulled a gun on her first. I never did hear what that was all about.) I'd heard rumors about Parent Teacher night, too, and there was that time last year when she supposedly killed her mom's boyfriend, though he eventually turned up alive again.

I think.

And then, of course, there was the end of spring semester, when she ran away and was wanted for murder for awhile, though that apparently just went away somehow, too. There were various other instances as well, but, frankly, some of the stories were really hard to take seriously. I mean, she's only about five foot three, and she probably weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet - she looks about as dangerous as one of the Olsen twins. But while I haven't seen her in action personally, her resulting reputation's effects are clearly evident - even steroidhead superjocks give her a wide berth. And while plenty of people are willing to pass rumors about her violent tendencies behind her back, you'll find few people who are willing to discuss them to her face.

Same goes for the rumors about her love life, which are even more unsavory, though I find them a lot less believable than the ones about her fighting. The most insidious one is about the purported sexual relationship between Buffy and the British librarian, Mr. What's-his-name. Graves or Giles, isn't it? I can't remember. I've seen him around campus - he's pretty good looking for an old guy, but waaay too tweed dependent, and the idea of him with fashion-plate Buffy is really amusing. I don't think anyone actually claims to have personally seen them kissing or anything - those kinds of stories are more the friend-of-afriend -of-a-friend variety. But everyone in school has seen how much time they spend together. They're always walking down the halls, sitting out in the courtyard, chatting in the caf, etcetera - and her entire little group practically lives in the library, while the rest of the student body wouldn't go there if you paid them.

Although, in my mind, the time the group spends there is more of an argument against a relationship between them - it's not like they'd want Xander and Willow to spectate while they went at it in the stacks. But there is something pretty strange about their association - I just don't have any idea what it is.

Aphrodisia actually asked Cordelia about it a couple of weeks ago. We'd been discussing the romantic possibilities inherent in Scott Hope, whom Buffy dated at the beginning of this year. I guess it was pretty brave of him to ask her out in defiance of all the unsavory rumors, but whatever they had had together didn't even last to Homecoming. We were wondering aloud why they had broken up, and Aph asked Cordelia what the sitch was. She'd just shrugged, so Aph had asked if it was because Buffy was sleeping with the librarian. Cordelia's eyes had nearly bugged out of her head as she choked on the sucker in her mouth. But all she'd said after she'd finished coughing was "Oh, please" as she rolled her eyes, which I took to be a negative response. I mean, after all the time Cordelia spent with them in the library over the last year, I'd assume she'd have to know.

My own theory was that Buffy had been pretty seriously involved with the older guy I'd seen her with sometimes at the Bronze. Whenever they'd been together out on the dance floor they'd seemed totally into each other to the exclusion of everyone else in the place. He'd stopped coming around last spring, though, and I had never known his name. Cordelia answered questions about him with an impatient glare and shake of the head - Aph's theory was that she had made a play for him and failed, but I didn't really think so. Honestly, I think she actually looked a bit frightened whenever the subject came up.

But tonight Cordelia didn't appear to be feeling frightened - or happy, or sad, or any other kind of emotion, except perhaps a vague sense of general annoyance. "God, this is boring," she muttered, glaring into her coffee cup.

"Well, if we're not interesting enough for you anymore, Cordelia, your little loser friends just came in the door," Harmony sniped. She was in a real winner of a mood this evening, because her father had refused to replace her recently totalled Miata with the shiny new Mustang she'd wanted. On the whole I had to come down on her father's side of the argument, since this was her fourth car in as many years. My own deceptively stylish hunk of junk practically lived in the repair shop, despite the fact that I somehow managed not to hit anything at all with it.

Reflexively, Cordelia glanced toward the entrance, where - sure enough - Buffy, Willow and Xander were threading their way through the crowd by the door. I looked back at Cordelia in time to see her expression darken as Willow laughed at something that Xander said to them. But then her face quickly smoothed into the accustomed emotionless mask she wore whenever his name came up.

"Do you think he's replaced you with Willow Rosenberg?" Harmony wondered snidely, her voice dripping disdain for the redheaded girl. Willow's rep is almost as weird as Buffy's. Some people even say she's a witch.

Cordelia's mouth tightened into a thin line, but I thought I saw a glimmer of pain in her dark eyes. "Willow's with Oz," she bit out, shrugging her shoulder toward the Dingoes' guitarist, who had noticed his girlfriend's entrance and greeted her with a nod from onstage. The three of them waved back at him as they made their way toward one of the couches in the rear of the club.

"Oz is in a band," Aura pointed out, "which is marginally cool, even if he did flunk out last year."

"I guess she wouldn't dump a guy like that for a loser like Xander," Harmony agreed maliciously, leaning in toward Cordelia. "I mean, why would anybody do that?"

"Oh, get a new theme, Harmony - even the coffee finds this dull by now."

"Ooh, are we still a bit touchy about being dumped by our own personal Urkel?"

I missed Cordelia's reply as I caught sight of Jonathon out on the dance floor, his arms around a tall brunette - which was a weird enough occurrence without taking into account that I was almost positive his dance partner was Sheila the Skankgirl - the one who'd stabbed a teacher with pruning shears a while back. I had been under the impression that she'd dropped out of school and left town last year sometime around Parent Teacher night. But there she was, slow dancing with the nerd of nerds. Huh.

I turned back to the table in time to hear Cordelia begin some comment about the inauthenticity of the blondness in Harmony's hair, but she was interrupted by the arrival of someone new at our table.

Speak of the Devil, it was Buffy Summers' mystery guy.

"Cordelia," he greeted her, ignoring the rest of us.

"What do you want?" she replied in a monumentally peeved tone as Harmony, Aura, Aphrodisia and I took in his admitted studliness.

"I'm looking for Buffy."

"Now there's a shock," she replied. "You're behind the times, though. Newsflash - I'm not living in Buffy's Loserland anymore."

He didn't appear affected by her audible disdain. "I think she mentioned that."

"Well, do me a favor and remember it, 'kay? Just in case you get...possessed...by the sudden urge to make her life hell again, you can take me off the target list."

That barb clearly hit home, though I didn't really understand why. He flinched, and Cordelia's mouth curled into a malicious smile.

"I'm Aura," Aura blurted, holding out her hand. "And you are...?"

"Leaving," he offered without even glancing down at her eager face. "Never mind, Cordelia, I see them."

"Goody for you," she muttered, once again concentrating on her coffee. She was the only one at the table that did not turn to appreciate the fine view of his retreating backside.

"Are you mental?" Aph hissed at her. "That man is a God!"

"That man is a psycho looney!" Cordelia hissed back, her knuckles white around the coffee cup. "If you're smart, you'll remember that, and if you're not...well, I think Donna Karan rules as corpse-wear."

"Chose Buffy over you, did he?" Harmony ventured smugly.

Cordelia slammed her cup down onto the table and shoved her chair back. She stood up, glaring down at Harmony with fire in her eyes, and I found myself thinking - irrelevantly - that it was the most alive that I'd seen her in days. "Is your life so incredibly lame that the only thing you can find to talk about is mine?" Cordelia asked, unsnagging her purse strap from the back of the chair. "My God, Harmony, get a hobby! And be sure to let me know when you've found one, because until then, I'll be doing all my breathing elsewhere."

Great. Cordelia was leaving, which meant the rest of the evening would probably be yawns aplenty. Screw that, I had trig homework to do. Without thinking, I stood up and said, "I'm leaving, too."

Harmony turned her glare on me, and Aph and Aura looked up with identical expressions of shock, and belatedly I realized that I had accidentally allied myself with Cordelia. I nearly groaned at the realization - after weeks of managing to walk a tightrope between the two of them during their long-running battle, I'd just shot myself in the foot as far as Harmony was concerned. Which meant I now had months of her in bitch-mode to look forward to. Joy.

And Cordelia didn't even seem to be grateful for my inadvertent support. In fact, she didn't appear to be paying any attention to us at all.

She was staring toward the front entrance of the club with a thoughtful frown on her face. "Is that Sheila?" Sure enough, Sheila was leaving, arm-in-arm with Jonathon. "Oh, no," she muttered and glanced behind her. I followed her gaze and saw Buffy and her coterie emerge from the rear of the club - they were staring after Sheila and Jonathon, frowns on their faces. Buffy headed through the crowd to the door, the rest of them hot on her heels.

"Thinking of rejoining the losers?" Harmony asked as Cordelia slung her purse over her shoulder.

"Maybe I'm thinking of leaving them," Cordelia snapped, arching her eyebrow significantly toward Harmony. She tossed her hair, turned her back, and stalked away toward the door. Suddenly curious, I decided to forgo groveling for the moment, grabbed my own purse, offered my goodbyes, and followed her.

The evening air was cool and pleasant after the stuffy atmosphere inside the club. Strangely, we found ourselves the only two people standing out in front besides the bouncer, and Cordelia looked up and down the street, frowning in puzzlement. "Where'd Buffy's bunch go?" she asked the burly man next to the door, apparently confident that he'd know who she meant.

Which he did. "Alley," he muttered, jerking his head to the right. Sure enough, I heard a muffled shout from that direction.

She glanced impatiently at me, but I made no move to leave. "Do you have a car?" she asked, and I suddenly realized that she apparently paid even less attention to the things I said than I had assumed.

"In the shop," I told her, as though I hadn't expounded on that very topic for five minutes only an hour earlier. "Pretty much always. I was going to walk home."

"You can't," she replied, looking grim. She glanced toward the alley again, and sighed, grabbing my arm. "Come on."

As we neared the alley I noticed an odd green glow emanating from the entrance. Meanwhile, Cordelia rummaged in her purse, muttering under her breath, and finally withdrew a cross and what looked like a watergun. "Take this," she said, shoving the cross into my hand. "And stay behind me."

I wondered what the hell was going on.

I wondered it even more when we rounded the corner and caught sight of Buffy. It appeared that I had finally gotten my wish - a chance to see her fighting. Of course, I'd expected to see her battle one or two of your everyday humans, not a giant green glowing floating man.

I was instantly assailed by childhood memories of the television show "The Incredible Hulk", though upon closer inspection, the - well, the monster, for want of a better word - didn't really look that much like Lou Ferrigno. In fact, the eerie glow emanating from his (her? its?) body made it difficult to distinguish any features at all. He appeared to be floating about two feet above the cement, manifesting the requisite two arms and two legs, and possessing something approximating blood, if the green goo that dripped down from various wounds to spatter on the pavement was analogous. The injuries seemed to be the result of attacks with some kind of large wooden stick, which Buffy wielded with deadly efficiency, bobbing and weaving to avoid whipsharp limbs while periodically darting in to press her advantage.

I finally noticed Willow crouched to the side of the alley in front of a stack of garbage bags and boxes. She was holding a cross similar to Cordelia's up toward the green man, and I was confused as to what in the world it was supposed to accomplish in the face of such a deadly attack - not to mention what Cordelia expected to do with the watergun.

Glowing green man finally managed to land a blow on Buffy, a shot to her right side that threw her across the alley and into the opposite wall with a sickening thunk. "Shit," I heard Cordelia mutter as she raced forward, holding the watergun out in front of her. "Hey! Jolly Green Giant!," she yelled. "Back off!"

Greenie had apparently had his fill of fighting crazy women wielding bizarre weaponry. He vanished around the back right corner of the alley in a hurried retreat, trailing green vapor behind him(her?). "That's right, run away!" Cordelia yelled after him, following behind to peer around the corner, probably trying to ensure he had really gone. Buffy began to stir as Cordelia retraced her steps up the alley, and I realized abruptly that I'd been standing there uselessly like some sort of statue, mouth frozen open in horror. "Are you okay, Buffy?" Cordelia asked, making no move to help the other girl up. "He really whacked you."

"Tell me about it," the girl groaned as she rose to her feet. "Why do they always- Xander!" She stumbled over to where Willow was still crouched among the garbage bags. "Are you guys all right?"

"Just peachy," the boy muttered sourly as he and Willow emerged from the trash pile, her hand supporting his elbow. "What was that thing?" I noticed Cordelia's concerned expression as she took in his disheveled condition, but it vanished the moment he looked up and noticed she was standing there.

"Got me," Buffy replied, lending him her own strength as they made their way to the alley entrance. "I think I remember seeing it on an episode of Scooby-Doo, though."

Xander groaned and tentatively felt his forehead, which was already purpling with what was sure to be an impressive bruise. "What about Jonathon and Sheila?"

Buffy pursed her lips in concern and glanced back down the alley. "I sent Angel after them. I'm sure everything's okay."

Angel. So that was MysteryMan's name. Weird.

As if the mention of his name had conjured him up, the man appeared around the left corner at the back of the alley, Jonathon in tow. Nerdboy was blinking groggily under the weak streetlights. "What happened?" he muttered as he stumbled against a cardboard box.

Cordelia grabbed his arm and hauled him toward the alley entrance. "Sheila's out of your league, idiot-boy. You got off lucky." She shoved him toward the bouncer, who caught him and gave him a push through the doorway, before resuming his position against the wall. Once Jonathon was inside, Cordelia turned around, fists on hips, and stalked back toward our little group. "Okay," she began, addressing Buffy in angry tones, "what the hell is going on? Are we having another Apocalypse or something? Because I really think you could have left me a voice-mail."

Huh?

"We don't know what's going on, Cordelia," Buffy replied in exasperated tones. "We followed Sheila and Jonathon out here, and I was just about to take care of her, when green guy appeared and threw Xander into the wall."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "At least he has good taste in victims. So...I guess you guys are going to the library, huh?"

"Gee, good guess, Cordelia," Xander drawled sarcastically, and Cordelia shot him a dirty look.

"Well, if you want a ride, come on already. But not you," she added, pointing at Angel. "I'm not inviting you into my car ever again!"

"Cordelia," began Buffy wearily.

Angel cut her off. "It's all right, Buffy. I'm going to see if I can find out where this thing has gone, track it somehow. I'll be in touch." He slipped off down the alley, almost melting into the shadows.

Willow turned to Cordelia, her normally gentle expression troubled. "You don't have to be so mean, Cordelia."

"I'll be as mean as I want to be, Willow," she replied scornfully. "You people may trust him again, but that's because you're stupid. And I'm not. Now do you want the ride or don't you?"

"How could we refuse such a gracious invitation?" Buffy replied drily. "Will, go tell Oz what's the up and we'll pick you up at the door. Come on, Xander." She slipped her arm around his waist and helped him stagger toward the parking lot.

Cordelia glared after them for a moment, then beckoned me to follow her. "Come on. This won't take long, then I'll drop you at home."

I finally managed to force my feet to move and followed after her, my mind racing with millions of questions whose words I couldn't seem to formulate. But, one overriding thought echoed loud and clear inside my head.

What the hell?

Buffy and Xander were standing by the front passenger door when Cordelia and I reached her car. She glared at them and pointed to the back door. "You can ride in the back."

"Cordelia, Xander's hurt." He really did look pathetic, but not seriously wounded, and I wondered if he had some reason other than injury for leaning so heavily on Buffy.

Cordelia waved me toward the passenger door. "His head's his least vulnerable spot, as you very well know. And I offered her a ride first. Take it or leave it." She opened the driver's door, her voice was sharp with something that sounded almost like hurt as she spat the last sentence. Buffy must have heard it as well, because she just nodded and helped Xander toward the back seat. Suddenly I wondered if perhaps Buffy had been the real reason why Cordelia and Xander broke up.

No one said anything as Cordelia put the car in gear and peeled out of the lot toward the entrance to the Bronze, where Willow was already waiting. She climbed in next to Buffy, barely managing to close her door before Cordelia jammed her foot down on the gas pedal and took off again. Xander let out a muffled curse as his head knocked against the side window.

I could see Buffy in the mirror, perched uncomfortably on the ridge between the two back seats. She was watching the back of Cordelia's head with an expression of...compassion, it looked like. I wondered why.

"Thanks for offering us a ride, Cordelia," she said finally, breaking the pregnant silence. "It's probably a good idea to get Giles on this as soon as possible."

Giles...Mr. Giles? The librarian? What did he have to do with this?

Cordelia's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Yeah, well, I have to get a book from my locker anyway - it's not like I'm going out of my way."

Buffy just nodded, but I saw Willow turn her face toward the window and roll her eyes. I found that reaction interesting, since I could remember a time when Willow would have gone far out of her way to avoid being on the receiving end of Cordelia's sharp tongue. Apparently months of close association had blunted that fear, which, strangely enough, hadn't happened for most of the Cordettes - Harmony was really the only one who didn't hesitate to insult her.

"So, you guys don't have any info on the green thing?" Cordelia asked, obviously bent on changing the subject. And abruptly I realized how weird it was that I was pondering the psyche of Willow Rosenberg at a time like this.

"Nooo," came Xander's sarcastic reply, "but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's a bad green thing."

"Just because it attacked you?" Cordelia shot back. "Maybe it's just a huge green monster that roams the Earth, trying to eradicate the losers of the world. I certainly don't think that's any reason for Buffy to slay it!"

"Ha ha" was Xander's response.

Finally, I could stand it no more. "Shouldn't we call the police...or something?"

Buffy's gaze flicked dismissively over me. "And tell them what? We were attacked by a giant Martian? They'd never believe us - they'd think we were playing a joke or something, and, frankly, the last thing I need is something else on my record."

"B-but you didn't do anything wrong?" I sputtered.

"Like that makes a difference," Xander muttered under his breath. The others grimaced in agreement.

Cordelia yanked the steering wheel to the right, and the car jerked up the curb into the nearly empty faculty parking lot. She parked haphazardly at the end of the sidewalk, about one hundred feet from the side entrance. "Everybody out!"

They exited the car with alacrity, Willow mumbling something under her breath about 'driver's ed'.

"How are we supposed to get in?" I asked Cordelia, gesturing toward the door we were approaching. "I'm sure it's locked."

"It is," Buffy agreed, overhearing me. She pulled a ring of keys from her pocket and slipped one of them into the doorlock. A moment later, we were inside.

"Where did you-" Cordelia shot me a look and I shut up.

Buffy, Xander and Willow turned down the hallway that led to the library. "Thanks again for the ride, Cordelia," Buffy called over her shoulder.

"Yeah, right," Cordelia huffed, turning in the opposite direction, and heading for her locker.

"You mean, you really did need a book from your locker?" I blurted before her glare made me realize it wasn't the smartest question, and I scrambled for something else to say. "Um, so what's the deal with Buffy's boyfriend?"

"You don't want to know," she replied darkly. "Just...if you ever find yourself alone in an alley with him or something, run the other way."

"Does he, like, beat her up? Because, you know, she really does seem like she can take care of herself."

She spun the dial of her combination lock. "She can...it's just that...well, Buffy can't think straight when it comes to Angel. And believe me when I tell you that's a bad thing - for like, everyone on Earth." She pulled what looked to be a library book out of the locker, glanced at it, and shoved it back inside, slamming the door shut. "Damn."

"What?" I asked as we turned back toward the exit.

"That was volume II. I was supposed to check out volume III."

"We could go by the library and pick it up," I suggested, more than a little interested in finding out a bit more about MonsterGuy...and what in the world Buffy and friends thought they could do about it.

She shook her head, her gaze disconcertingly dark as she regarded me seriously. "I'm warning you - don't do it." The glow from the exit sign over the outside door lit her face eerily.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't get involved." She shoved the door open, pushing so hard that it rebounded against the wall. "Don't let them suck you in." I don't think I'd ever seen her so grim.

The door clicked shut behind us as we stepped out into the night air. "The way they sucked you in?" I asked, managing not to flinch when she whirled on me with a deadly glare. "I mean, you're dealing pretty well with the whole floating monster thing - I'm guessing this is not your first one."

She scowled. "That's so not the poi- oh, shit!" Her eyes widened in horror at something she saw over my shoulder. I spun around to see what was behind me that could have shocked her so, and was rewarded by the sight of an amorphous green glow coming from around the corner of the building.

The corner of the building that just happened to be much closer to Cordelia's car than we were.

"Oh, shit," I breathed in complete agreement, turning back to her, wide-eyed.

She pulled her keys from her purse and shoved the bag toward me. "Get the gun out and hold it off." She began flipping frantically through the overladen keyring.

"What?" I asked, my voice rising hysterically.

"Shoot it!" she snapped, jamming one of the keys in the keyhole. It was apparently the wrong one, because she let out another curse and yanked it out.

"Cordelia, it's a water gun," I replied, pulling it out anyway. Hell, what did I know? Maybe giant glowing monsters are afraid of water.

"I know that," she said, exasperated. "It's Holy water, okay? For God's sake, just do it!"

Her words brought forth a bizarre mental picture of a monster-filled Nike commercial, but that train of thought was quickly interrupted by the appearance of said monster from around the corner of the building. It - well, the only word I can think of is oozed - along the brick, and though I couldn't see its facial features any more clearly than I had in the alley, I was still left with the distinct impression that it was pissed.

Perhaps because green slime still ran in rivulets down to the concrete from the wounds Buffy had inflicted.

"Um, Cordelia-" My voice trembled more than a little.

"I see it," she hissed, trying out yet another key. "If you can just hold it off for a couple of seconds..."

Taking a deep breath, I brought the gun up and squeezed the trigger. A surprisingly powerful stream of water shot out toward the monster, falling just short of hitting its glowing form. It (He? She?) looked down at the wetness on the asphalt, and I could have sworn that it seemed puzzled.

You and me both, Mr. Monster, Sir.

"That's it, stay back," I told it in a pitifully weak imitation of Cordelia's strident tones.

The creature paused for a few more precious moments, then resumed its forward course.

I swallowed and squeezed the trigger again. This time the water stream hit it. I held my breath, waiting for God knows what - an explosion, a disintegration, a meltdown like the Wicked Witch of the West... I suppose it's a testament to Cordelia's seeming utter certainty that I expected something to happen.

But nothing did.

"Uh, Cordelia-"

"Got it!" she shouted, grabbing my arm as she shoved the door open. She yanked me roughly inside, and I stumbled against the wall as she pivoted and slammed the door shut behind us, letting the lock click home. A moment later the long thin window inset was filled with an irate monster-face. My mouth dropped open in horror at the close call.

"Come on," Cordelia insisted impatiently, still tugging on my arm, "or do you want to hang around until it smashes the door in?" Sure enough, the creature was pounding on the metal - to considerable effect, it seemed, as dents began to appear at random.

We turned and ran.

I have never thought of Cordelia as being particularly athletic. I mean, sure, she's a cheerleader, but our cheerleading squad tends to be more the "go, team" type than the multiple back handsprings variety. But I found myself hardpressed to keep up with her as she sprinted down the hallway toward the library, and my next irrelevant thought was to wonder how she could run at all in three-inch heels.

We skidded to a halt in front of the double doors. "Giles!" Cordelia yelled, shoving them open. "Buffy!"

Xander and Buffy looked up from the central table, where they sat amid piles of books - Buffy was holding another long piece of wood, sharpening it with a knife, while Xander appeared to be flipping through the pages a large dusty tome. Willow sat at the other end of the table in front of a computer, her fingers dancing over the keyboard so quickly they were almost a blur.

Mr. Giles stepped out from his office, his brow furrowed as he blinked at us, clearly startled at the sight of two wild-eyed girls panting in the doorway. "Cordelia! Are you all right?" I nearly did a double take at his appearance, because he looked nothing like the seriously tweedy librarian I was accustomed to seeing roam the halls. He wore a blue dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves and open at the collar, dark suspenders and khaki pants, and for the first time I truly understood how some people could believe Buffy had the hots for him.

"We're fine," Cordelia gasped, "except we just ran into Xander's stupid monster!"

"It's here?" Buffy exclaimed, leaping up from the table. "Where?" She exchanged a pointed look with Mr. Giles, who disappeared back into his office.

"It came around the corner of the building when we were leaving. And, oh, by the way, holy water? Pretty much not gonna hurt it."

"Is it inside the building?" Xander asked.

"It probably is by now," she said, glaring at him as though the creatures reappearance were entirely his fault . "What the hell did you do to piss it off so badly, anyway?"

"What?" he sputtered, but was interrupted by Willow.

"We don't know what it is yet," she muttered crossly, glaring at the computer terminal. "How are we supposed to know how to kill it?"

How to kill it?

Mr. Giles reappeared from his office carrying a long, thin leather case. He held it out to Buffy, who tugged on the end, pulling out the biggest damn sword I have ever seen - not that I've seen a lot of them, but this one had to be almost as long as Buffy was tall. "There aren't a lot of things in the world that a sword won't hurt," she murmured, smiling in satisfaction as she hefted the blade with astonishing ease.

"Lead it back here," Mr. Giles told her. "Take no unnecessary chances. We'll be waiting."

"Got it," she said, giving him a mock salute before turning and striding toward us. I backed away from the wickedly sharp metal, but Cordelia held up a hand.

"It was trying to get in through the door to the faculty parking lot," Cordelia told her. "And I don't think it was in a very good mood."

"Thanks," Buffy replied, vanishing through the doors. I stared after her for a moment, wondering how I could possibly believe what my eyes had just seen. But no one else seemed to think it was odd that the school librarian kept a sword in his office, or that he would arm a student with it and send her out into battle with a giant green monster that could not possibly exist. I felt like I had somehow entered the Twilight Zone without being aware it.

Mr. Giles moved to the book cage and unlocked the door. "You said Holy Water had no effect on the creature?" he asked Cordelia as he went inside.

"Not that we could see," Cordelia said, tossing her purse onto the table. "Maybe it's not a demon. Hey, where's Wesley?"

I wondered who Wesley was, and why Cordelia cared where he might be...and how in the world I could be possibly listening to her have a conversation with the word 'demon' in it.

Xander snorted and rolled his eyes, but Mr. Giles merely responded, "He left right before you got here. He thought he had a book at home that might help us identify our adversary."

Cordelia's eyes widened in horror. "You mean he's out there? With that thing?"

"He went out the back way, to the visitor's lot," Mr. Giles said as he reemerged from the cage holding some kind of wood and metal contraption. "I'm sure he's just fine, Cordelia." He handed the object to Xander. "Now, I think it would be best if you and your friend stayed in my office. I don't want to send you out undefended elsewhere in the school, just in case Buffy should have some difficulty leading the creature back here."

It sounded like a good plan to me, but Cordelia shook her head. "No way am I hiding under the desk, Giles. I may not be a member of your little gang anymore, but I'm at least as good with a crossbow as Xander is." She planted her hands on her hips and regarded him mutinously. Mr. Giles studied her set expression for a moment, sighed, then finally nodded, disappearing back into the cage.

"Hey," Xander protested.

"She's got a point," Willow noted as she knelt down behind the book checkout desk. "She did hit the center of the target three more times than you did."

"The sun was in my eyes, all right? And I hadn't had anything to eat all day," Xander complained as he loaded a bolt. "That test was so not fair."

"Grapes sour much?" Cordelia quipped as Mr. Giles reemerged with another crossbow.

She held out her hands, but he hesitated. "Now, Cordelia," he admonished, and I could swear I heard amusement in his voice, "aim for the big green monster, all right? And only shoot when the rest of us are at least three feet away from it."

"Don't worry," Cordelia replied, sending a smug glance toward a scowling Xander, "I'll only shoot the green monster, no matter how much someone else might deserve it."

"Thank you." Mr. Giles handed the crossbow to Cordelia and headed back toward his office. "Do you have sufficient tranquilizer darts, Willow?"

I blinked in stunned surprise as shy little Willow Rosenberg stood up from behind the book desk and hefted a very scary looking rifle in her hands, checking the sights with practiced aplomb. "Yes, I think so. But we're going to need to order some more before the next full moon."

"I'll make a note of it."

My gaze moved from Willow and her gun to Xander, who was polishing the crosspiece of his weapon, to Cordelia, who was handling her own crossbow with alarming competence - and then down to my own hand, which still held the cheap plastic watergun. I wondered when I was going to awaken from this totally bizarre dream.

Mr. Giles emerged from his office carrying another sword, which appeared to be the not-so-little brother of Buffy's behemoth. He made a few experimental lunges and smiled in satisfaction. "All right, Willow - I think your best vantage point will be from the stacks upstairs on the left side. Cordelia, you take the right. Xander, you get behind the corner of the book cage. And take some stakes with you." He turned to me, cocking his head to the side as though noticing me for the first time. "If you would please lock the door of my office behind you?"

Gulping, I nodded, glancing surreptitiously at Cordelia as I crossed the linoleum, but she was absorbed with checking her weapon. The door clicked shut behind me as I entered the small room, muting the murmur of their voices, and in the new nearsilence I could almost believe that this wasn't happening, that I wasn't trapped in the library awaiting the appearance of a large green floating monster while the weirdest kids in school and the librarian prepared to defend us like knights of old.

I laid the gun on the desk and turned to survey the office, which was crammed cheek to jowl with old books, filing cabinets, and various odd artifacts. At any other time, I would have been delighted to rifle through all of it, but I was chiefly concerned with what was about to happen outside. Luckily, the librarian's office had a window, through which I had a pretty good view of most of the outer room, except for the bookshelves on the near right. I watched as the others took their places as ordered. Mr. Giles remained in the center of the floor, his legs braced wide and his sword outstretched, facing the door.

I stepped back without looking and stumbled into the corner of the desk. The rolling chair behind it skittered out of reach, leaving an opening underneath large enough to hide me. I was torn between crawling under the desk for cover and staying where I was to get a good view of the action, but I finally settled for crouching low behind it, peering just over the top so that I would barely be visible through the window. I judged myself to be as safe as I could possibly be without being home in my very own bed - or anywhere else that wasn't inside this school.

Of course, for all I knew, the monster had x-ray vision or something, and hiding was totally pointless.

Suddenly Buffy burst through the swinging doors at a dead run, sword upraised. She looked like one of those kids from the game show 'You Can't Do That on Television' - absolutely covered in dripping green slime. "It's coming!" she shouted as she quickly shrugged out of her muck-covered blouse, revealing a relatively goop-free black tank top. "And it's not happy!" She tossed the blouse on top of the book counter.

"Are you all right?" Mr. Giles asked as they took up position next to one another, like two halves of one whole. I could barely hear them through the glass.

"Great!" she grinned through the goo. "Feels like a really icky facial."

He smiled back and murmured something that made her laugh.

And suddenly the monster was there.

The creature stood - well, okay, floated - before them, and it displayed none of its earlier reticence to press an attack. It struck out lightning fast with one arm, aiming for the librarian, but the man moved faster than I ever would have believed he could, dodging sideways and striking out with his sword simultaneously. Still, the monster managed to catch him with a glancing blow, and I realized that it wasn't simply aiming for blunt trauma anymore. Its arms had...transformed somehow, growing sharp, serrated edges, which sliced cleanly through the man's sleeve but fell short of drawing blood.

Mr. Giles' thrust, on the other hand, struck the monster's undefended side, causing an eruption of green liquid to spill out on the floor, accompanied by a keening howl the likes of which I'd never heard before. I clapped my hands over my ears, but I could still feel the pressure of the high-pitched wail against my eardrums. Outside, the backup three all flinched and jerked backward, but Mr. Giles and Buffy never paused in their attack. They moved utterly in sync, like some sort of weirdly violent ballet routine, and by working together they almost negated the monster's chief advantage, which was that it did not require two of its limbs to stand up with, and could therefore strike at them with both its arms and its legs, which it did with utter ruthlessness.

The battle raged on fairly equal terms for a few endlessly long minutes. Then suddenly Mr. Giles' right foot skidded midlunge on a patch of slime, and he fell dangerously inside the range of the creatures attack radius. Buffy immediately shifted over to pull him to safety with her left hand while still striking at the creature with the sword in her right. The moment she bent down there was an immediate eruption of bolts from Xander and Cordelia's crossbows, followed a millisecond later by a tranquilizer dart from Willow's gun. All three projectiles hit their target with pinpoint accuracy (assuming they had been aiming for the vaguely chest-like area, that is), and the creature, which had been about to deliver a stunning blow to Buffy's weakened right side, reared back in obvious pain.

Buffy gave the librarian's arm a mighty tug and he flew backward to safety, barely managing to hold onto his sword as he crashed into the library table. For a few brief moments, Buffy faced the creature alone, but instead of retreating like any sane person would have, she pressed the advantage her small size gave her, darting in to slice it wickedly across the torso. The monster's legs shot forward automatically in response, the reflex action taking her by surprise where planned strikes had failed, and she took the full brunt of twin blows to her chest. She skidded backward, directly into the librarian, who had just regained his feet. They went down in a tangled heap of arms, legs and swords, presenting an irresistible target for their foe.

"Hey, Ugly!" Xander shouted as he stepped out from behind the protective mesh of the book cage. He unleashed another bolt from five scant feet away while Cordelia and Willow peppered their adversary through the suddenly clear field. The creature rounded on Xander as its most convenient target, and even I could see that he'd made a grave tactical error by giving up his limited cover, no matter how well-intentioned his action had been. The crossbow wasn't much use as a close-quarters weapon, and I had a feeling the sharp wooden stick he wielded as backup was not an adequate trade-off.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Willow fumbling to reload her gun, but I didn't think the tranquilizer darts were having any effect on the lumbering creature, probably because its body chemistry in no way resembled your average rabid dog's. Buffy and Mr. Giles were scrambling to their feet, weapons at the ready, but they were too far away to do Xander any good. Then I heard Cordelia shout, "Hey, Monster!" Her yell was nearly as loud as the creature's earlier bellow had been, and the noise drew its attention for one brief moment.

Which was time enough. Cordelia let loose another bolt, this one aimed directly at the creatures head, and she drilled it, right between its pseudo-eyes. The impact sent the creature reeling backward toward the library doors, and Xander took advantage of the respite to duck back under cover.

All I could do was gape. With the various bolts protruding from its head and torso and numerous slashes dripping noxious liquids, it was a wonder the creature could still function, but each blow seemed only to enrage and energize it further. I began to wonder if it could be killed. And I knew that if it couldn't - well, I'd be the only one left after the defenders inevitably fell, and I didn't think it would make any fine distinctions between combatants and non-combatants when it swept the room clean. Swearing guiltily under my breath at my own massive self-involvement, I nevertheless ducked down a little further behind the desk.

With a feral roar the creature came back at them, moving so quickly it was almost a blur, and I realized it was enraged to such an extent that it had almost become a berserker, all the more dangerous for its single-minded ferocity. It bore down on Mr. Giles, plowing heedlessly through his deft sword blows, crowding him back against the book counter. The librarian's parrying became even swifter, if that were possible, but it was clear that his jeopardy was every bit as serious as Xander's had been. The creature really wanted to hurt him.

Buffy responded to the threat to Mr. Giles with an arcing blow from behind, which lopped one glowing leg cleanly off, allowing the librarian time to roll sideways up, over and behind the counter with such practiced ease that I wondered how many times he'd done it before. But his sudden absence from the field allowed the creature to round on Buffy, and her position between it and the other three armed members of the group meant the gun and crossbows were useless.

And it was quite obvious that the monster did not appreciate her chopping off a limb - not that you could blame it, really. It howled in fury.

The dismembered leg rolled across the slime-encrusted floor as the creature lunged to attack Buffy once again. She shouted something at it, clearly a taunt of some kind, but I couldn't make out the words. Her sword came up to clash against one serrated arm, but whereas the leg had severed agreeably, the arm repelled the blow as though it were also made of metal, and slowly the creature backed her toward the book cage, trying to trap her against it as he had cornered the librarian earlier.

Speaking of... Mr. Giles had regained his footing and proceeded to climb up on top of the checkout counter, shouting something to Buffy over the monster's roar.

She nodded, and redoubled her attack.

It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Her sword streaked under the fluorescent lights, moving so quickly that it was no longer visible as anything but periodic flashes of metal. Her expression was deadly calm and controlled, though, as if making a statement that what she was doing was really the easiest thing in the world. Slowly, slowly, she managed to push the creature back toward the center of the floor.

And then further.

The monster never saw it coming. Mr. Giles, taking advantage of the extra height the counter afforded him, reared back and swung his sword in a sweeping half circle, beheading the creature neatly from behind.

The head bounced to the floor, and a moment later the body collapsed as well, transforming before our eyes to coalesce into a large pile of gelatinous goo. Buffy's eyes went wide, and she looked up at Mr. Giles for an explanation. He just shook his head, and everyone stared down at the puddle, dumbfounded. And in the sudden silence I could hear Cordelia's startled exclamation quite clearly.

"Ewwwww!"

Rising on shaking legs, I made my way to the office door, turning the knob with trembling fingers. I stood in the doorway and watched the combatants study their fallen foe.

Xander stepped forward and prodded the edge of the puddle with the toe of his sneaker. "This is new."

Willow and Cordelia descended the stairs and moved to join him. "That is really gross," Cordelia pointed out as she set her crossbow on the library table. Willow cocked her head to the side and studied the remains, her eyes alive with scientific curiosity.

"I've certainly never seen its like before," Mr. Giles commented, kneeling down to get a closer look. "Its form appears to have completely lost cohesion."

"It's a puddle of slime, Giles," Buffy told him drily as she picked gingerly at her gory tank-top. She glanced over at her discarded blouse and sighed. "Oh, man, my mom just bought me that shirt."

Mr. Giles stood up and patted her arm sympathetically. "Perhaps your dry cleaner will be able to reclaim it." He grimaced distastefully as some of the slime on her arm rubbed off on his fingers, then wiped them clean on his own lost cause of a shirt.

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, right - and what am I supposed to say when they ask what the stuff is that's all over it?"

He pretended to give her question serious thought. "Ah...grass stains perhaps?"

"Ha ha, very funny, humor guy...oh, damn, I just remembered that I don't have a spare shirt here."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you kept a change of clothing in your gym locker."

"Two words, Giles - Last Tuesday."

"Oh, yes, right. Well, perhaps I can lend you something. Wait just a moment." He turned toward the office, brushing by me with an offhand 'excuse me'. I stepped gingerly into the outer room, giving the MonsterRemains a wide berth, and moved to stand next to Cordelia, who was regarding Buffy with gleaming eyes and an amused smirk.

"Loving the new look, Buffy. It just screams Garbage Dump." Cordelia herself didn't have a hair out of place to evidence her exertions, presenting quite a contrast to a very much the-worse-for-wear Buffy.

Buffy stuck her tongue out at Cordelia as Mr. Giles emerged from his office carrying two dress shirts. "Take your pick," he told Buffy, holding them up.

She made a face, but pointed to the white shirt on the left. "I'm going to grab a quick shower in the locker room. Be right back." She grabbed the shirt and disappeared out the double doors.

Mr. Giles took the remaining one back to his office. "I, ah, think I'll just change my shirt as well," he said, glancing down at himself with a grimace of distaste He was considerably less goop-encrusted than Buffy, but slime did streak the front of his shirt, and the sliced sleeve flapped annoyingly free. Considering how meticulous his usual mode of dress tended to be, I guessed he found that state of affairs intolerable.

The office door closed as Willow ducked behind the book desk and came up with a metal lunch box. She snapped it open and pulled out a pair of latex gloves and two clear plastic vials, and I decided that my curiosity about what she was doing outweighed my desire to peek through the office window to get a look at the librarian without his shirt on...though not by much.

I mean, think about it - he must be really buff to wield a sword that well.

"Hey, Will," Xander said nervously as she returned to the puddle, "I really don't think we want to be keeping any of it. I'm thinking a monster bonfire would be just the thing right about now. Still got those marshmallows?"

"Here, hand me the sword so I can use it to scoop some of this up," she instructed him, gesturing to Mr. Giles' abandoned weapon. "I just want to make sure it's not toxic or something, since Buffy basically took a bath in it."

"That's a good idea," the librarian said as he reemerged from his office and noticed what Willow was doing. "Oh, dear, I hope it doesn't eat through the linoleum. The custodial staff is quite put out with me as it is."

"Oh, c'mon, Giles," Xander chided, "I told you, they leave the dead rats for people they like."

"Yes, well, if a bit of dust here and there can inspire that sort of response, I really don't think I want to leave this for them to find. There are buckets and a shovel in the book cage, Xander. Would you get them, please?"

Xander groaned dramatically, as though Mr. Giles had asked for the world, but then nodded and walked over to the cage.

Suddenly the library doors swung open, and a triumphant voice called out in an English accent, "I think I've got something."

Cordelia's face lit up like Christmas had come early, Willow rolled her eyes, and Mr. Giles pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. I heard a muffled 'Oh, great' emanate from the direction of the book cage.

The newcomer was a bespectacled black-haired man of about thirty-five years of age, dressed in a formal suit and tie, shoes spit-shined to gleaming perfection. He held up a book in one hand, but stopped cold as he caught sight of the remains of our monster. His smile faded into a little 'o' of surprise. "What happened here?"

Cordelia sidled up to him and threaded her arm through his. "The monster followed us from the Bronze, and it chased me through the halls. I just barely got away. Oh, Wesley, it was horrible." He patted her hand in comfort, and she tightened her grip on him, laying her cheek against his chest.

My mouth fell open at her...well, frankly, her simpering tone, so different from the voice of the Cordelia I knew. *What is she doing?*

A sarcastic voice mimicked from behind me - "Oh, Wesley, it was horrible." Xander reappeared with three stacked buckets and a deep shovel, a scowl on his face as he beheld Wesley and his former girlfriend.

Suddenly, a lot of things made sense.

Wesley was staring down at the puddle with unalloyed fascination. "What is that?"

"That would be the remains of our monster," Mr. Giles replied, and I don't think I was imagining the dislike in his tone.

"But...what happened?"

"It just floated on in here and died on us," Buffy replied breezily as she sailed back through the doorway, apparently having taken the world's fastest shower. "Monsters are so incredibly rude that way." She wore a pair of gray sweatpants, gym sneakers, and Mr. Giles' white shirt, her wet hair caught up in a ponytail. She and Mr. Giles traded smiles.

The newcomer's expression hardened as he beheld their interaction. "That *isn't* a proper report, Buffy."

Report?

Her lip curled in a slight sneer, and she pointed at the puddle. "Monster," she said in a pedantic tone usually reserved for small children and the incredibly dense. She moved her finger until it pointed at Mr. Giles' sword, which Willow was using to scoop up goop for her vials. "Sword." Then she gestured to Mr. Giles. "Killed it."

"You fought the monster," Wesley said to Mr. Giles, his tone censorious.

Mr. Giles offered him a charming smile of all teeth and no friendliness. "Well, we would have waited for you, but we had no idea how long you'd be." Sarcasm fairly dripped from his words.

"And I have a lot of homework tonight," Buffy chimed in, grinning a bit herself. "So sorry you missed it - maybe you could catch the next giant, floating, glowing creature. Or not."

Willow finished her sampling and stood up. "I'm going to take these down to the chem lab and run a few tests."

"I'll go with you," Xander offered quickly, and I wasn't sure whether he had made the offer to accompany her to get away from Wesley and Cordelia or just to duck out of bucket duty. But I did see a brief flash of anger cross Cordelia's face at his words. "I'll be Beaker the Bodyguard," Xander added in a passable imitation of Beaker the Muppet's voice. Willow laughed.

"Take some stakes," Mr. Giles advised, and Xander snatched a few from the library table before following Willow out of the room. Then the librarian turned to regard Wesley expectantly. "You said you'd found something."

"Yes!" the man replied, gently disengaging his arm from Cordelia's grip. He handed the book to Mr. Giles. "In the Systimon text. Chapter seven."

Mr. Giles opened the book and quickly skimmed several pages. "No, this can't be it."

"You can't know that for certain," Wesley retorted, apparently affronted by the swift dismissal of his theory.

"Hey, he killed it, you never even saw it," Buffy pointed out, immediately leaping to Mr. Giles' defense. Which, of course, made me wonder who Wesley was that made Mr. Giles require defending. "Anyway, why does it matter?," she added. "It's a pile of goo now."

"Well, we do want to make sure we don't have to worry about meeting its friends and family sometime in the future," Mr. Giles told her, and she sighed and nodded.

"Point. But I have really got to get some studying done tonight, Giles. My English grade is on the critical list, and Mrs. Marsden isn't likely to think fighting a floating monster is a good excuse for homeworklessness."

"Yes, she does rather lack imagination, doesn't she?" he agreed. "You needn't stay, Buffy. We'll handle it."

"Well, I'll help you clean up at least," she offered, moving to the buckets Xander had unearthed. "Um, what are we gonna do with it once it's scooped?"

"If Willow says the remains aren't toxic, I vote for pouring them down the industrial sink in the shop room." Buffy nodded and picked up the shovel.

"Good plan. You want to give me a hand, Cordelia?" She smiled impishly as she asked the question, and I got the feeling she was expecting Cordelia's exact response.

"I really, really don't." Cordelia flipped her hair back and unleashed a devastating smile toward Wesley, but he was too distracted to notice as he rooted through the volumes on the central table. She glared after him in visible frustration.

"I'll help you," Mr. Giles offered, reaching for a bucket.

"Worried about me mucking up your shirt?" Buffy quipped as she scooped up a shovelful of MonsterGuts.

He smiled. "Well, now that you mention it, I don't suppose it would be very smart of us to let anyone else see you wearing that. It might raise questions we wouldn't want to answer."

"Oh, Harmony told me everyone already thinks you guys are sleeping together," Cordelia interjected blithely. They froze simultaneously, then turned to stare at her. "You know," she continued, "on account of the fact that you two are together, like, all the time."

"What!?" Buffy exclaimed, her shovel clanging against the bucket, sending goo flying. I jumped out of the way.

"Half the student body apparently thinks you're boffing the librarian," Cordelia confirmed in a breezy tone. "Aphrodisia asked me about it a couple of weeks ago."

"She-" Mr. Giles stuttered, "She what? Wh-what did you say to her?"

Cordelia gave him a what-do-you-think-I-said glare. "Duh! I told her she was mental. But I don't think she believed me."

"But that's- that's ridiculous!" Mr. Giles looked poleaxed. Buffy had recovered a bit of her equilibrium, and she shot him a speculative glance.

"Is it?" Cordelia replied, sneaking a coy glance toward Wesley, who was listening to their byplay with an expression of ill-concealed amusement on his face. "Young American girl, handsome older British guy...I could see it happening." Abruptly Wesley flushed beet-red and buried his face back in his book. Cordelia sighed.

"Oh, for God's sake," Mr. Giles muttered under his breath and turned back to his bucket. Buffy stared at Cordelia for a moment, her mouth still slightly open in shock. Finally she glanced over at Mr. Giles again, but he was glaring down at the puddle. Shaking her head, she picked up the shovel and began to scoop.

They worked in silence for a few minutes before their gazes accidentally met. "Cheer up, Giles," Buffy urged, her lip curling with muted humor, "at least they don't think you've got the hots for Xander."

He rolled his eyes and finally smiled. "Good point. It's all right, Buffy, I can handle this." She raised an eyebrow. "The cleanup, I mean," he clarified. "Why don't you walk Cordelia and her friend to their car, and then go on home. I'll be fine."

"Well, if you're sure," she agreed doubtfully.

"I'm sure. Wesley and I," he smiled grimly, "have a few things to discuss." I noticed that Wesley looked distinctly nervous to hear that. I couldn't blame him.

Buffy snatched the remaining stakes from the table and gave her sword a fond farewell pat. "Come on, you two. 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' is waiting for me, and she hates it when I'm late."

I stole back into Mr. Giles' office to retrieve the watergun while Cordelia said goodbye to Wesley. I couldn't make out her exact words, but his face was even redder when I emerged from the office, and I wondered how impossibly clueless the man could be not to understand her motives better. Maybe he didn't know about Xander. Then again, Xander was no longer in the room.

"Um, Mr. Giles?" I said, wondering why my voice squeaked with nervousness. I suppose I was having a hard time thinking of him as 'just' a librarian. The man was, after all, overtly dangerous. I mentally vowed to never keep a book past the due date again.

"Yes?" he murmured abstractedly, his attention still on Wesley. I wondered what he thought of Cordelia's little display.

"I just wanted to say...well, thank you, I guess. That was...that was really amazing."

"What? Oh, you're very welcome. You'd best run along now." He offered me a distracted smile before turning to pick up Buffy's shovel. "You needn't patrol tonight, Buffy. I think everything is well in hand."

Patrol?

"Cool," she replied, grinning at him. "See you tomorrow morning. Tell Xander and Willow goodbye for me, and make them let you give them a ride home, all right? Come on, Cordelia, give it a rest already. Time to go bye-bye."

Cordelia offered Wesley a sultry goodbye smile, eyelashes fluttering, before letting go of his arm and snatching up her purse. She stalked away toward the library doors - ignoring me, Buffy and Mr. Giles altogether.

"Goodnight, Cordelia," Mr. Giles called after her, and his tone held a definite note of amusement.

Buffy rolled her eyes, sharing a smirk with him, then motioned for me to follow her out the door. We exited the library and trailed Cordelia down the hall.

"So, um..." I glanced over at the petite girl next to me and wondered for the millionth time that night just what manner of person she was. She had held that sword, which must have weighed at least twenty pounds, like it were made of plastic, and now she fairly skipped down the hallway as though she hadn't been battling for her life mere minutes before, while I was exhausted just from having watched her fight.

"Yes?"

"Where'd you learn how to use a sword like that?" It wasn't the question I truly wanted to ask, but I didn't know how to inquire about what I really wanted to know.

"Oh, here and there," she murmured, keeping her eyes focused straight ahead. "By the way, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about the sword...or anything else that happened tonight."

How could she make such an innocuous statement sound so menacing? "Buffy, I'd never-"

"You're a Cordette," she interrupted as though I hadn't spoken. "I know what your little group thinks of me - I certainly heard enough of it from Cordy while she was hanging with us. But even she knows when to keep her mouth shut, and you should, too."

"Are you threatening me?" I asked before I thought better of it.

"Do I have to?" She sounded amused.

I swallowed nervously. "Um, no. I mean, I wasn't going to say anything. Who'd believe it, anyway?"

She smiled. "Good point. And besides, if you told anyone, you'd have to admit to hanging with us, and we couldn't have that, could we?"

"You guys aren't so bad." I winced as soon as the words left my mouth - I hadn't meant to sound so condescending.

She laughed. "Gee, thanks. But you're right about that, you know. And we've got really cool weapons. Do you think if everyone else knew that, we'd be more popular?"

"That's not the word I would use."

"Hmm." We caught up to Cordelia at the exit.

She was leaning against the wall, an annoyed expression on her face. "I forgot to get Volume III again," she complained to me, as though fighting a giant monster wasn't sufficient reason for a library book to have slipped her mind. "And Volume II is totally useless for my paper. I can't believe Giles gave me the wrong book." I handed her the watergun and she tucked it into her purse.

"He gives you what you ask for," Buffy pointed out, turning to study the doorframe through which the monster had entered. The door hung drunkenly off its hinges, and Buffy regarded it unhappily. "What do you want to bet Snide-man figures out a way to make this my fault?"

Snide-man...Did she mean Principal Snyder? It was no secret how he felt about Buffy. He'd expelled her last spring, then tried to keep her out of school altogether at the beginning of the year.

"No bet," Cordelia replied, smirking. "After all, he blames you for the football team's crappy record, the freak hailstorm we had last week, and global warming."

Buffy grimaced with sham guilt. "Well, I did used to use a lot of aerosol hair spray. But it was totally necessary for my eighth grade 'do."

We proceeded out the doorway toward Cordelia's car. "Do you want a ride, Buffy?" Cordelia asked as she opened the driver's side door, somehow managing to sound both completely willing to offer and utterly indifferent to the answer.

"No, I'm going to swing by the cemetery first, see if I can find Angel."

The cemetery? So *that's* where all the tall, dark and mysteriouses hang out. No wonder I hadn't caught myself one - not a location that was exactly on my top ten list for romantic ambience.

"Maybe if we're lucky the green guy got him before coming to the library," Cordelia quipped, inserting the key into the ignition.

Buffy scowled at her through the front window, one hand on her right hip. She flipped the stake into the air with her other hand, tossing and catching it expertly, and I thought she looked extremely threatening, though Cordelia appeared oblivious. "Your humor is so...nonhumorous, Cordelia," Buffy said. "What's your deal with him, anyway? He never did anything to you."

Cordelia frowned at her. "No, he just scared me out of my mind for months on end. And excuse me for caring that Willow's fish got shellacked, not to mention what happened to Ms. Calendar."

Ms. Calendar? The computer teacher? The one who had died in some weirdly tragic way that no one ever talked about? And what did fish have to do with anything?

Buffy winced at the mention of the teacher's name and the stake slipped through her fingers. "Things are different now," she muttered as she bent to retrieve the piece of wood. "That was in the past!" Her tone was excessively vehement. I wondered exactly whom she was trying to convince...and of what.

"Yeah," Cordelia agreed emphatically, "in the past...where you should have left him. You're playing with fire, Buffy, and if you're not careful, the whole world's gonna burn. Maybe everyone else is afraid to say it, but I'm not." She tossed her hair back for emphasis.

Buffy glared at her. "Gee, it's been so much fun talking to you, Cordy," she drawled sarcastically, "I really, really just hate to leave now. No, I don't. Buh-bye." She whirled on her heel and stalked off into the darkness.

I opened the passenger door and slid in next to Cordelia. "Should we just let her leave like that?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes as she started the engine. "You should have figured out by now that Buffy can take care of herself. And anything else that might come along." She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the way was clear behind her.

"So then why were you trying to piss her off, Cordelia?" I asked. "I mean, red flag, dangerous bull. She could beat you up with one hand tied behind her back."

"She wouldn't, though," Cordelia replied, backing out of the parking space. "She knows I'm right."

I pondered that for a moment as Cordelia peeled out of the parking lot. "Are you saying that if she didn't know you were right, she might beat you up? Turn right up here."

"At the light?" I nodded and she turned. "What are you talking about?"

"It's just...well, I think she sort of...threatened me earlier."

Cordelia blinked at me, clearly surprised. "What?"

"She warned me not to talk about what happened tonight."

Cordelia snorted and returned her gaze to the road ahead. "Why would you?"

"Why would I?" I exclaimed. "Why wouldn't I, Cordelia? This was the most amazing night I've ever had in my life!"

Her sideways glance was blankly uncomprehending.

"Cordelia, I just saw a giant green monster that couldn't possibly exist get hacked to death by the librarian and the weirdest girl in school! Don't you think talking about that's just a little bit more interesting than listening to Harmony prattle on and on about Todd Oldham's fall line."

"No," she replied shortly.

I studied her closed expression for a moment, wondering again what manner of relationship existed between Buffy and Cordelia. I suppose I had always assumed that the antipathy Cordelia exhibited for Buffy's little gang when she was around us was wholly returned by the members of said gang - but Buffy didn't seem to dislike Cordelia. It was more as though she found her amusing in some way, and the insults Cordelia offered appeared to bounce off of her without impact. Had they really been friends before Cordelia and Xander had split up? Taking into account their hard-fought battle for Homecoming Queen, it seemed unlikely.

And, speaking of that, considering how lethal Cordelia was aware Buffy could be, it had actually been very brave of her to compete against the blonde girl, since Buffy could have 'encouraged' her to drop out of the contest with just one or two well-placed punches. Not that I necessarily thought she would, but still...

Of course, they both had arrived at the dance hours late looking totally trashed - maybe they'd duked it out in the parking lot beforehand. Though if they had, Buffy must have won, even without her sword.

Hmm.

Time for a new tactic. I cleared my throat. "Well, Buffy said you knew when to keep your mouth shut," I offered pointedly, wondering what kind of response I would get. I didn't think Cordelia would take kindly to the suggestion that someone else could control her behavior.

I was right.

Cordelia glared over at me. "I'm not afraid of Buffy, if that's what your implying. I just happen to think all of the icky stuff is her business, that's all."

'All' of it? Hmmm, again.

"So, you're saying she does this sort of thing all the time?" I prodded.

"I'm not saying anything."

She wasn't, and it was getting annoying. "I really don't get it, Cordelia," I complained. "Why are you trying to protect her? I mean, you say you guys aren't even friends anymore, if you ever were."

"We aren't...weren't." Not exactly a convincing assertion.

"So, what is it then?"

She sighed and rubbed her neck tiredly. "Look, if people knew about this - assuming they'd believe it, which I majorly doubt - do you think she'd still be able to do it? They'd lock her up in a looney bin somewhere, leaving all the rest of us to fend for ourselves. And what do you think would have happened if Buffy hadn't been there tonight?"

"Well...I guess the police would have-"

She snorted. "The police - yeah, right!"

"You think she's the only one who could have stopped it? Don't forget, Mr. Giles was the one who actually killed it."

"You don't get it. If Buffy wasn't here, Giles wouldn't be here. He came to this stupid town to be with her, when she moved here. In fact, if Buffy hadn't moved to Sunnydale, none of us would be here, probably. You think that thing was bad? That was nothing. Not even close to the worst by far." She glanced at me impatiently. "Haven't you ever wondered about the death rate in this town? Haven't you seen the In Memorium section in the yearbook?"

My throat felt dry as my mind tried to conjure even scarier horrors. "Worse?"

She licked her lips and returned her gaze to the road, but I could see the shadows behind her eyes. "Things that won't die..." she murmured. "Not ever...and things that all they want is hell on earth and the end of everything." She swallowed. "She's stopped it. They've stopped it."

"You've stopped it," I pointed out. "Turn left up here."

She shook her head as she turned the steering wheel. "No, I didn't...I just went along for the ride for a while..." She bit her lower lip. "But that's over now."

"How can it be over?" I asked, honestly curious. "Knowing what you know - how can you just walk away from them?"

Cordelia's lips twisted bitterly. "I didn't walk away...I didn't walk anywhere, not for an entire week almost. I sat in a hospital bed and just looked at the huge hideous hole in my stomach, and I realized, 'Hey, I'm not Buffy, I don't have to do this stuff.' So I don't now, and you shouldn't either." She turned to look at me, her eyes blazing with intensity. "People die around Buffy. You remember Ms. Calendar, don't you? And Dr. Gregory? Kevin? Theresa? The swim team?"

"Well, I-...Ms. Calendar?" I remembered that Cordelia had mentioned her earlier, and that Buffy hadn't reacted well at all. "You know who killed Ms. Calendar?"

"Yes," she replied in a clipped tone.

"Why haven't you told the cops, then?"

"Because the cops can't do anything," she retorted. "And I can't do anything, and you can't do anything. But Buffy can. So let her, okay? Just stay out of her way and keep your mouth shut!"

An uneasy silence fell between us, broken only by my periodically offering directions to my aunt's house. Dimly I realized that I was about to allow Cordelia to see something I'd kept hidden for almost two years now - the true state of my home and family. It would have been an unthinkable revelation just a few hours earlier, but, somehow, after the evening we'd just had, hiding my rundown roots seemed a lot less important.

Cordelia didn't even seem to notice that we were driving into the majorly less than ritzy part of town. She appeared to be deep in thought - which thoughts must have been less than pleasant, judging from the frown that had taken up permanent residence on her forehead.

"Here we are," I said, pointing to my aunt's badly in-needof -paint track house, trying not to redden in embarrassment at the rusting remains of two old cars resting on the front lawn. I had pointed out to Aunt Phoebe several times that their presence made us a white-trash cliche, but she had just laughed. "Home sweet home."

Cordelia looked - really looked - at it for the first time, then turned to me, eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yeah." I regarded the sagging facade of the front of the house for a moment, trying to picture it through her eyes. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that I didn't really fear that she would rat me out to the others. She was obviously quite skilled at keeping her mouth shut. "My secrets for yours, I guess."

She just looked at me, studying my face silently for a few long moments. Then she smiled - a real smile, and it made me realize how rarely I'd seen her wear one. "It's a deal."

I nodded and opened my door. "Well, I guess I'll see you, then," I said, stepping from the car. I hung awkwardly over the doorframe to give her a half-wave goodbye.

"Tomorrow," she agreed, and I shut the door and turned toward the house. I expected her to back out and drive away while I made my way up the walkway, but the car remained where it was, the headlights illuminating the path to the front door. Her actions puzzled me for a moment - before I remembered that Cordelia was much more knowledgeable about the things that lurked in nighttime shadows than most other people in Sunnydale. I quickened my pace, fumbling for my key as I stepped up on the porch. A moment later I was inside, and the noise from Cordelia's car engine receded into the distance.

I locked the deadbolt and hooked the chain, but even that failed to make me feel much better. I wondered if I would ever feel safe in my own home again, and suddenly I understood a little of what Cordelia had been trying to tell me about the folly of becoming involved. But I couldn't go back, couldn't unlearn the things I'd learned that night.

I'd just have to learn to live with them.

Sighing, I headed for my bedroom.

The next morning dawned bright and clear and monster-free, and my mind whirled with questions as I walked to school. The beautiful day and severe sleep deprivation had combined to make me wonder if the previous evening's events had all been some crazy bad-pizza-inspired dream on my part. But, no, the faculty parking lot entrance to the school had been roped off with yellow plastic tape, proof-positive that the green creature burned into the back of my eyelids had been all too real.

I made my way to my locker in a daze, automatically removing the books for first period without even glancing at their covers.

"Hey!" Aura exclaimed, appearing next to me suddenly, and I jumped about a foot.

"Dammit, you startled me!" I replied testily, slamming the locker door shut.

Aura glanced behind her at Aphrodisia and they both raised their eyebrows. "Tense, much?" Aph murmured. "Well, you should be - Harmony's on the warpath. Where was your brain last night?"

"Yeah," Aura chimed in, "I can't believe you took Cordelia's side against Harmony! What were you-"

"Did I hear my name?" Her voice cut through Aura's chatter like a hot knife through butter, and Aura's eyes went wide with alarm. She scooted to the side as Cordelia came up beside us.

Cordelia appeared much the same as she did every morning - dressed to the nines, not a hair out of place, hauteur in her eyes. But, like the negative of a photo - I blinked and saw her wielding a crossbow with deadly accuracy on the library stairs. I blinked again and we were back in the school hallway, but it was as though I was truly seeing the real Cordelia for the first time. I smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Um, Cordelia, I didn't see you," Aura stuttered miserably. "Wh-"

"Oh, quit babbling, Aura," Cordelia cut her off. "It makes your hair go flat."

"Then it will match yours, won't it?" came Harmony's snide voice, and as one our group turned toward her. She stood in the middle of the hallway, arms akimbo, a dark scowl on her face. I thought, not for the first time, how unattractive it made her, even dressed head-to-toe in designerwear.

"Good morning, Harmony," Cordelia greeted her cordially, as though they hadn't been at each other's throats just last night. "Nice outfit."

"Too bad I can't say the same to you," Harmony replied, not giving an inch. "Hanging with the loser squad really eroded your fashion sense, you know?" I saw Buffy arriving from over Harmony's shoulder, and I caught my breath, wondering what she would do. She was too close to us not to have overheard Harmony's comment.

She didn't disappoint.

"Were you talking about me?" Buffy interjected sweetly, inserting herself into our circle between Aura and Harmony. They jumped and scooted away, and Buffy's smile widened. I suddenly realized that she got a kick out of her reputation, at least upon occasion.

Well, who wouldn't?

"What do you want?" Harmony asked, trying to cover her momentary lapse of composure with belligerence. She didn't fool anyone - well, except maybe Aph and Aura.

"What do I want? Not to talk to you, that's for sure," Buffy laughed, before turning to Cordelia and holding out a book. "Delivery from Giles. Volume III of something or other." Her eyes were dancing, and I stifled a grin. Obviously, Mr. Giles wouldn't have even known about the book unless Buffy had told him, which meant that Buffy had forgiven Cordelia for what she'd said last night. I don't know why that made me happy, but it did.

Cordelia blinked down at the book for a moment, before reaching out to take it from Buffy's hand. "Um, thanks, Buffy."

"No prob." Truce offered, truce accepted, or at least that's what it looked like to me. Buffy turned to leave.

"So you're making deliveries for the librarian now?" Harmony sneered, apparently angered further by the lack of animosity between Buffy and Cordelia. If the girl kept this up, she was going to be living on antacids by graduation.

Buffy glanced back at her and grinned. "Well, I hafta do something for him in return for all the great sex, don'tcha think?" Her smile widened wickedly as Harmony began to choke. "I'll see you in chem, Cordy." Her gaze flicked to me for a moment; then she turned and sauntered away, a happy spring in her step. The students in the hallway parted before her like the waters of the Red Sea.

"You told her?" Harmony sputtered, glaring at Cordelia.

"Well, you wanted to know, didn't you?" Cordelia returned blithely, though I could tell she was trying hard not to burst out laughing. "You didn't expect me to ask Giles, did you? Because quizzing the librarian on his sex life is not my idea of fun." Before Harmony could reply, Cordelia turned to me. "Speaking of chemistry, do you need a lab partner for the experiment today? Cause I'm free."

Aura, Aphrodisia, and Harmony's mouths all dropped open simultaneously at her offer, which was, on the surface, so innocuous. But only on the surface. Chemistry was the only class that Harmony, Cordelia and I all shared with Buffy and her little gang. Harmony had been extremely put out earlier in the year when Cordelia had abandoned us in favor of partnering up with Xander, Willow, or Buffy for the labs. It had appeared to me as though they traded off partners at random - not that it mattered, really, because just about everyone in class used Willow's results anyway. They were the only ones with a reasonable chance of being accurate. Anyway, that had left Harmony and I as partners, until Cordelia had abandoned Buffy and Co. and returned to the fold, so to speak. After a few tense days, Harmony had taken Cordelia back, leaving me to team up with Abby Williams, who was second-tier on the popularity meter but possessed decidedly better handwriting. Not a bad trade, at least in terms of my chem grade.

But now Cordelia's suggestion would leave Harmony out in the cold, a snub that everyone from the buffest jocks to the lowliest nerds would see and understand. If I had thought I was in the doghouse with Harmony before...

I smiled brightly at Cordelia. "I'd love to."

"Great!" she replied, feigning oblivion in the face of Harmony's scowling fury. "We'd better get to class," she continued, taking my arm. "Bye, guys." We took off down the hall before Harmony had time to regroup.

"We're going to paaaay for that," I murmured to Cordelia as soon as we were out of earshot.

"But it was fun, wasn't it?" she replied, flashing a smile.

"Completely," I agreed.

We rounded the corner, and who should we encounter but Willow and Mr. Giles. They were standing outside of the computer lab, engrossed in conversation, and I wondered if they were discussing the specifics of the green puddle on the library floor. Mr. Giles glanced up distractedly and nodded at Cordelia, his gaze passing over me without recognition. Willow offered Cordelia a quick smile before returning her attention to the man beside her.

"Do you think they even remember I was there?" I muttered as we proceeded down the hallway. I tried to keep my tone light, but I think Cordelia could tell I was a little hurt.

She pursed her lips, eyeing me sympathetically. "Okay...you have to get something straight, all right? Last night was, like, vacation for them, okay? A negative number on the bad-o-meter. It's a 'the monster's a puddle so let's move on' kind of thing. Don't take it personally."

"Green floating guys are run of the mill," I replied promptly, taking her reassurance the way it was intended and moving on. "Got it. But you have to admit, the aftermath was uck-city."

"Mmm." She cocked her head to the side reminiscently. "We fought a blue one once - well, Buffy did, anyway. She took it out with a missile at the mall and we had to pick up the pieces afterward. Talk about 'uck'."

"Ew," I agreed, catching sight of Xander with Oz down the hall. The dark haired boy was waving his arms wildly about, to Oz's visible bemusement, and I realized that the guitar player must be in on the weirdness as well. I felt Cordelia tense beside me as she caught sight of her former boyfriend, but she just set her jaw and continued marching toward them.

"Hey," Oz greeted us laconically, which was pretty much how he did everything, as far as I could tell.

"Hi, Oz," Cordelia replied, pointedly ignoring Xander, who pointedly returned the favor. We turned the corner.

"I can't believe him," I said once they were safely behind us. "He never even thanked you!" I felt surprisingly indignant on her behalf.

She blinked. "Oz?"

"No, Xander," I returned. "You saved his life last night, Cordelia. You'd think that would rate a mention, at least."

She shrugged diffidently, clearly not seeing my point. "Yeah, well, we're probably even, then. This is my stop. See you in chem." She disappeared inside the classroom, and I made my solitary way down the hall to my own door.

So this is the morning after, I mused as I took my seat amid a sea of oblivious students. The morning after a major turning point in my life - and for everyone else, it was just another day. Those that had been present during my epiphany apparently couldn't remember that I was even there. It was more than a little humiliating, but, then, I guess their acknowledgement isn't really that important.

Because I do remember. I remember it all - what happened, and what it means.

And I'll never forget it.

End

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