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by Chris Kenworthy (scoobyhq@fcmail.com)
Disclaimer: If it's been on TV, I didn't make it up!
"Well, hello, uh, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris. Nice of you to join us today."
Willow and Xander froze guiltily, halfway between the door and their lab table. Slowly, one after the other, they turned to look at the front of the chemistry classroom. A simple fact was immediately clear - the person standing at the front of the room, who had challenged them, was a woman.
"Wha-" Willow started. "What happened to Mister Wilson?"
"Well, as you would know if you had been here when the class started," the substitute told them with a smile, "you'd have heard that Mister Wilson had a 'family emergency.'"
"Which means that he decided to start his vacation two days early," another student chimed in, and everybody laughed briefly at that.
"Uh, yeah," the young teacher said somewhat uncertainly. "I'm Miss King, and I'm taking the class over for today and tomorrow."
"Ah, nice to meet you," Willow told her, "and we're very sorry for being late. Aren't we Xander?"
"Uhh..." Xander said, and Willow nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. "Yahh," he continued monosyllabically.
Oh, brother, Willow thought to herself. Miss King was quite pretty, lovely even, with lustrous golden brown hair. She was wearing a soft and clingy pink sweater, a none-too-long skirt, and Xander was in total stare mode. Here we go again.
Well, you knew this going in, she reminded herself as she dragged Xander away to their lab table. He is Xander Lavelle Harris, therefore he's a horndog with a wandering eye. No power on this earth had yet been able to change that, not even Buffy or Cordelia. (Though possibly Xander and Cordelia's relationship by its nature encouraged that kind of thing. When Cordelia caught Xander checking out other girls, she got mad at him, he got defensive, they started to fight. As they fought, they got affectionate. Thus, the association in Xander's mind would be, checking out other girls leads to gettin' some honey from gorgeous girlfriend, via an argument. Not a bad sequence at all, for him.)
Well, Willow thought, if I'm Xander's girlfriend, I guess I need to decide what my own position is gonna be about the 'outsider watching' issue. I wouldn't want him to stop completely - he's a virile young man with an appreciation of beauty, and I don't want to change that. But for it to happen all the time - that would upset me, yeah. I'm gonna have to talk to him about that.
With a start, Willow realized that Miss King had been lecturing for several minutes, while Willow had been lost in her own little brain-world and hadn't heard a word of it. What was she talk- oh, it was just a review on redox reactions. Good enough.
As Willow got out a pencil and notepaper to jot down any important point that Miss King brought up, she noticed that Xander seemed to be lost in Miss King's bra-strap, which could be seen through the back of her sweater as she wrote on the blackboard. Oh, Xander Harris, you horny, lovable shmo, what am I gonna do with you??
(In Econ class,)
Leslie Decowski had taken her seat with Buffy and Oz when they sneaked into class. Buffy had to admit that she hadn't even realized that Leslie was in this class, but the teacher checked her name off of his attendance list, as well as Buffy's own and Oz's.
Hang on a second... it had been in this class that Buffy suggested Oz dress up ala the Wedding Singer. Maybe Leslie had overheard them, then thought she had the idea herself. Or, for that matter, Buffy might have heard Leslie telling someone else about her costume, and it had jogged Buffy's memory. Who knew, by this point.
"Hmm..." Leslie said as they did quiet work around the tables. Mister Brenton didn't lecture much, and he very definitely wasn't about to give them any such alternative to studying independantly today. "Well, let's see..."
"Uh, let's see what, Leslie?" Buffy whispered.
"I'm trying to postulate a theory for Oz's 'secret,'" Leslie explained. "I've seen him in direct sunlight, so I doubt he's a vampire. The demi-god of Unflappability?" she joked, and Buffy had to chuckle at that one.
"Not quite," Oz deadpanned, but he was smiling too.
"I don't think I have enough information yet," Leslie decided. "I guess that means I'm gonna have to hang around you a lot more."
(In the library, after classes.)
"Oooh, I'm glad I'm not that punching bag," Xander wisecracked as he, Buffy, and Willow ganged into the library. Faith had been in the middle of a furious volley of punches, power-punches, karate chops, and kicks, all aimed at the training bag. It was a much sturdier model than some they had used, which was good, because with that routine she could easily have totalled any lesser unit, like Buffy had once done.
Seeing the three come into the library, Faith finished up with a series of jabs and a power-kick, springing away from her imaginary 'opponent' into a combat stance, then relaxing with a subtle nod.
"Ah, exactly who I wanted to see," Celia Johnson said with a smile. "Here you go, Faith, Buffy, Willow." As she said the names of the three girls Celia handed each of them a little printed card on purple paper:
Your attendance is hereby requested at Celia's for a Mystic Misses Sleepover and Summit Meeting.
6:00 pm, Friday, December 17th.
Room 106, Freestone Apartments, 2408 State Street.
"Sleepover and Summit meeting?" Faith said skeptically.
"Uh, yeah," Celia said, blushing a little. "I just wanted an opportunity to get to know you girls a little better, and to sort out what... well, what I want my place to be in Rupert's, um, special job. You know. I realize that you'll only just have finished finals by Friday, but..."
"Any why am I invited?" Willow asked. "Are you still trying to get me to..."
"Just come with an open mind, okay, Willow?" Celia told her. "Nobody's gonna badger you into becoming a Watcher, for certain. I just don't think you've given the idea much thought, huh?"
"Well, no," Willow grunted. "But, well, I'm not sure how much time I'll want to be..." She broke off as someone new came into the library. Cole Palmer.
"Well, look who's here," Buffy said scathingly once she had turned and seen who it was. "Shouldn't you be getting to detention, Cole?"
"I'm on my way," Cole told her wearily. "It's just... that thing, with Cordelia, this morning... I didn't want that to happen, and it doesn't mean..." He shook his head and tried again. "When a guy sees something, sometimes, he reacts. But you're still the one I want, Buffy..."
"Don't," Buffy told him. "Just don't even start. Go off to detention, with Cordelia." She turned her back on him, going off to the table and taking a seat, snubbing him all the while.
It might have been imagination, but Willow thought she saw Cole fighting back a tear as he turned around and left the library.
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