Buffy shifted her weight.  Giles looked really upset.  Now that she really examined them, Xander and Willow didn’t look so hot themselves. “So, what’s up?”
    “I-I’m not sure I believe her about what-what she said…” Giles’ voice was shaky.  Ms. Calendar had meant so much to him.
    “I don’t mean to intrude or butt in or anything at all, but Lina…well, she seemed way suspicious, and she was asking about you and things like that.” Willow always sounded so unsure of herself.
    “What was she asking about?” Buffy frowned with interest.
    “Well, she wanted to know where you hung out and what you did for fun and things.  She was going on about Sunnydale’s mortality rate, and she said it was like you seemed to have a secret agenda or something along that line.”  Willow paused, unsure if she was just being way cautious or if there was something to her worry.      “And just now she mentioned Ms. Calendar.  It seems really strange, you know, that she’s so smart.  I mean, she researches Sunnydale, is supposedly obsessed with books, seems super-naturally observant, and appraises antiques!”
    “Yeah.  She said that she had done all the weeks homework for our class cuz she was bored before she moved here.”  Buffy thought aloud.  No one was that smart, were they?  That would mean that Lina was smarter than Willow and that couldn’t be true.
    “Well, maybe she has a secret agenda.  After all, everyone in Sunnydale has one.  She was kind of cute, so that means she’s probably a giant, man-eating preying mantis, or a control-freak robot, or she belongs to some exclusive ‘Let’s sacrifice high school students to bloody thirsty worm-creatures’ cult.”  Xander suggested.  As usual, no one cared.
    “You may have a point.”  Buffy was talking to Xander, but she didn’t look at him.  “What if she does have a secret agenda?  Only what if she’s been sent to find out our weak spots or something?  She could be vampire.”
    “Not likely.”  Giles looked up at her.
    “Cuz,” Willow pointed out, “you’ve been wearing your crucifix all day and she hasn’t flinched a bit.”
    “I would also point out that she would have to be invited into this school.”  Giles raised his eyebrows.
    “But she registered.  That’s as good as an invitation, isn’t it?”
    “Perhaps.” Giles was deep in thought.
    “We did invite her into the library though.”  Willow sighed.  “We shouldn’t have done that.”
    “We didn’t know.”  Buffy too, was thinking hard.  “I wonder exactly how close she would have to be to flinch from my cross necklace?”
    “Do you think we should stake her just to be on the safe side?”  Xander’s suggestion was met with some cynical and irritated glances.
    “Well, she could be a vampire and she could be a demon and she could be a really weird human being.  We’re no closer to figuring all this out.”
    Willow sighed again.  “Well, Buffy, Xander and I were going to hang at the Bronze tonight.  Wanna join us?”
     Buffy glanced at her watch.  “What time.”
     “Eight, I guess.”
     “I’ll meet you there at nine then.  I’ve got an appointment.”
 
 

     Buffy did have an appointment too.  She had an appointment with her demonic boyfriend.  Some days she thought she was going to cry because she loved him so much.  Other days she hated him so much she wanted to kiss him and other days she just hated him.  How could you love someone that killed your friend?  Your friend’s lover?  Well, he wasn’t in his right mind.  But that explanation didn’t make them any less dead.  Their love was unconditional.  Another vampire had even told her that.  She hadn’t needed anyone to tell her though.
     Buffy had excused herself from socials homework that evening and was heading for the abandoned building Angel had turned into a sort of habitat.  He had made it livable, with a bed, some wood furniture that was kind of falling apart and as many clothes draped over the negative space as possible.  There were lots of candles there too, and chains from whatever had gone on in the building previous to its abandonment.  It really used to bother her that she slept in a warm, cozy, fuzzy, cutesy bedroom and he slept in some unwanted slum.  She had come to realize it came with the job description.  Being a vampire meant sucking blood, being afraid of garlic and stakes, only coming in when you were invited and finding sunlight intolerable.  That would have been what she would have missed most, had she ever become a vampire.  There had to be a book somewhere, written for girls in similar situations, listing qualities in boyfriends that you should steer clear of. 1) Guys who can’t stand sunlight.  2) Guys who turn into raging hell spawns when you give them a happy. 3) Guys who are members of the living-undead and come from hell and have a history of sucking blood from other girl’s necks.
 
 

     Nevertheless, Buffy entered the dank, deserted structure with care and followed the dim light of several flicking candles to find Angel, alone as always, head in his hands.
     “What’s the matter?” Buffy asked.
     “I knew you’d be coming.  I didn’t eat.  I haven’t for a while.”
     Although she was flattered and relieved that he decided not to kill people in front of her she wondered if this too was wrong.  Buffy was torn between not wanting people to die and understanding that everyone needed to eat to live.  But then again, vampires weren’t supposed to live.  She realized though, that someone could just easily take some meatloaf away from her and say that she couldn’t eat what was once a living creature.  Angel couldn’t eat during the day because of the sunlight and now was being prevented from eating when he was very hungry.  It was frightening to think that she was all alone in room with a semi-starving vampire.  He had consented to eat as little as he could, and didn’t hunt purely for pleasure’s sake anymore.  It made her happy that he would give up things like that because she wanted him to.
     “Thank you.”  She smiled.  “Mind if I sit down?”
     He looked up at her and motioned with his head that there were plenty of places to sit and she welcome to take her pick.  She chose a crate draped with some dirty linen.
     “How are you?” he struggled to pick and choose safe conversational topics.
    “I’m okay, I guess.” Buffy pursed her lips.  “School is okay.  I actually went to class today.  Umm…I don’t know how to ask this, but do you know where all the vamps are hiding out?”
    “There’s been no activity, huh?  I haven’t been out in a while.  I don’t know why they wouldn’t be around.  Do you think it could be an ambush?”
    “I’m not sure yet.” Buffy admitted.  “I mean, there’s a girl I met today, and she says she’s new.  Well, she’s under suspicions for numerous reasons.  I don’t know.  It can be really stressful.  Everyone thinks their world should be my priority.  Principal Flutie thinks my life should be school, my mom thinks I should be building my future and at the same time Giles is telling me Slaying is my future.  I’ve got you and Willow and Xander, and then Sunnydale’s citizens resting on my shoulders-.”  She paused to smile at him, patiently listening to her gripes.  “Same old, same old.  How’re you doing?”
    He smiled back at her, amused by her fickleness.  One second she felt so burdened by Giles to save Sunnydale and the next she was chatting lightly about going to class and eating lunch with her friends.  He longed his life to be that simple once more.  Or rather he longed that his life should be so complicated, so multi-faceted where life wasn’t about darkness, and blood and loneliness so much as it revolved around school and friends and relationships.  He longed to worry about the things Buffy did.  How he looked, and what people thought of him, and whether to cook or order out, who to date, where to take them, curfews and homework, chastisement from frustrated teachers and parents.  In a way, Buffy’s life so simplistic at the same time as there were thousands of different roads, symbolizing all the opportunities she took for granted, how she took her own life so seriously because she didn’t have an eternity the way he did.
    “I’m all right.” He replied finally.  How could she be so oblivious as to what her life was, the precious century in which she could never acquire the kind of wisdom he had earned through years upon years of dull and misunderstood pain?  Her existence was so limited and fragile, so much so that she could never realize.  It was strange to not be able to tell her that, because she wouldn’t understand.  Not until she had spent four centuries in hell.  But he wanted to tell her how fragile her being was, how much she took her freedom and love for granted.  He wanted to share all he had come to understand with her, but that was like trying to teach a four-year old quantum mechanics.  She had no way of knowing what it was like to be undead, and he did not wish that on anyone  Well, only a select few.
    “Anything else going on?”  Buffy beamed again.  It was true.  Ignorance was bliss.
    “In that case, I promised Willow and Xander that I’d meet them at the Bronze.  Wanna come?”
    “No thanks.  I have to eat soon anyway.”
    “Oh.”  Buffy was not surprised but she had really wanted him to come.  “Is it okay if I come tomorrow?  We can talk some more then, maybe figure out what up with this vamp thing.”
    “I’ll see what I can dig up.”
    “Thank you.” Buffy hugged him loosely, not wanting him to misinterpret anything.  She had learned her lesson about passion and vampires.
 
 

    Buffy left Angel and headed for her favorite club, the Bronze.  She entered to hear one of her favorite house bands playing and tried to search out Willow and Xander.  The Bronze was rectangular in shape, with a balcony that served somewhat as a second floor.  Drinks were served to the left of the entrance, and the house band was playing at the far side on the first floor.  She saw that Willow and Xander had a round table with booth-like chairs in one of the darkest corners.  Buffy also noticed that Lina was there, sitting right next to them, no doubt chatting away merrily about how super-intelligent she was.  Buffy sighed, because she was here now and as much as she really didn’t want to talk to Lina right then, if Willow and Xander saw her leaving, they’d have cause for a serious grudge.  She approached their table reluctantly, greeted them and sat down next to Lina, as it was the only available seat.
    “It’s so funny to run into you here.”  Buffy commented, making only a slight attempt to hide her sarcasm.
    “Fluke, isn’t it?  I had just heard about this nightclub this afternoon, so I asked where it was so I could have a look-see.  I mean, how else am I supposed to meet people, right?  But it’s pretty cool that I’ve run into someone I know already.”
    “Yeah.”  Buffy looked around wistfully.  Why couldn’t Angel come through that entrance?  She had firmly decided that he would and so shut her eyes, keeping them closed for a few seconds and then opening them in a flash, hoping that her timing would be perfect and he would suddenly enter when she opened them.  She tried that a couple of times before deciding it was a lost cause.
    “Any one up for a drink?” Xander offered, in an attempt to shift the conversation to a topic that had something to do with him.
There was a chorus of “no thank you ”s and he looked frustrated, as he always did.
    “That’s okay.  I wasn’t going to get anyone anything anyway.  I was just curious as to who was up for a drink.”
 
 

    The night carried on slowly, with disinterested conversation, laced with indifferent dancing and lackadaisical alcohol consumption on the part of Xander and Buffy, but no so much as to send them into a blundering and/or vomiting stupor.
    Buffy was bored.  Rather, she was quite beyond the realm of being bored tears an hour ago and had now entered a state of total and complete apathy, so if someone had come up behind and bit her neck and drained all the blood out of her, she would just sit there and try to mentally organize her sock drawer.
She felt a hand come down on her neck and someone lean over her, their breathing falling on her skin.  Maybe she wasn’t that bored.
    “I’m going to bail for the night, okay?” Lina whispered to her.
    Buffy couldn’t help but wonder why that warranted Lina to touch her, much less whisper in her ear.
    As if Lina had read that thought, she added,  “The music was so loud that when I said it twice before, you didn’t hear me.”
    Oh, Buffy thought.
 

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