New Beginnings: Harmony
by Javian
Chapter 16: Harmony
Disclaimer: The characters, Sunnydale, etc, aren't mine.
I know it's been a while, so quick recap: Buffy's just come to lunch from gym and a very unpleasant chat with Mr. Rendall, the teacher. She walks up to Xander and Willow's usual table, and sees that Harmony is there, insulting her.
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Harmony spun around and saw Buffy standing before her. In a deceptively casual tone, Buffy asked quietly, “What was that about my mother, Harmony?”
Buffy waited for a response. It was taking all of her self-control not to just punch that smirk off the girl’s face.
Harmony had taken an involuntary step back, but reverted to her basest instincts and gave a poisonously sweet smile. Turning, she airily directed her next comment at the less threatening two of the freak trio. “Are all you dweebs so sensitive about your mothers? I mean, just last week I mentioned Goofboy here’s mommy and he—“
Xander surged to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor. Mouth working furiously, Xander tried to splutter out a few words. Willow stood up silently, glaring furiously at Harmony. She laid a comforting, and equally restraining hand on Xander’s arm.
Harmony just lifted an eyebrow. “Wow, point proven. Someone’s been skipping his anger management classes.”
Buffy stepped forward, putting herself between Harmony and Xander. “Get the hell away from this table before I do something that I regret.”
Harmony took another step back. “Wow, someone really needs to teach you about the personal bubble. Total invasion of private space here.”
Buffy just tilted her head slightly to the side. “Okay, I drop the “regret” part of that.”
Harmony sneered. “Well aren’t you just the snob? You really need to learn when to shut up.”
Buffy was taken aback. “Are we having the same conversation here? I get that you seem to feel the need to insult other people’s families to feel better about yourself, but--, hey, actually, you know what? I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?”
Harmony rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and retorting, “Oh, get over yourself already. I don’t know what kind of sheltered life you came from, but if you can’t handle a little bit of helpful criticism, then you’re just uber-spoiled or something. So cry about it.”
Buffy wondered briefly if this was even worth her time, but couldn’t resist laughing, “Helpful criticism? ‘Criticism’ is obviously a bit advanced for you, are you sure you know what it means?”
Harmony glared, huffily muttering, “Riley told me.” Then, louder, she added smugly, ”You’ll be sorry you messed with me. Now I know how much of a loser you are, you’ll be running and crying to your precious mommy and daddy very, very soon.”
Harmony fully intended to stomp off dramatically, leaving the threat hanging.
Buffy blocked her way easily. “Ok, first of all, that was just lame. Second of all,…”
Willow watched the scene uneasily. She had finally gotten a very troubled Xander to sit down, and what she really wanted was for Harmony to simply leave. Willow frowned slightly as Buffy stopped the frazzled Harmony from retreating to her own table. It was clear that Harmony hadn’t really expected opposition, which was probably because Willow had never tried to stand up to any of Cordy’s crew before, and Xander had never been able to handle much pressure before resorting to joking off something that bothered him. Willow winced as the conversation was once again brought around to Harmony’s issue with families. Buffy, for some reason, wasn’t letting go of the subject, and Willow knew it was a touchy topic for both Xander and herself, and wished Buffy would break off that particular argument. Willow looked up as she heard herself mentioned.
Harmony was out of snappy comebacks, and the fact that the crazy new girl had her backed up against another table wasn’t helping her situation at all. Finally she spat, “If you don’t back off you’re going to lose the only friends you have, you know. You’re enough of a freak already, you don’t need to show everyone what a crazy maniac you are too. Hey look, you’re already scaring Willow, and if you’re not careful, Harris might start crying. It’s the kind of thing you’ll have to get used to; those two can’t handle much, you know.”
Xander jerked his head up, catching the contemptuous look that Harmony shot him.
Before Willow or Xander could react, Buffy, eyes darkening in anger, said softly and scornfully, “You’re pathetic, Harmony. I almost feel sorry for you, because you think that you, as you are, are better than Willow and Xander. You don’t know half of what it takes to even—“
Harmony cut in. “Hold on, where does it say that you get to be the judge of people, huh? You really are stuck-up, aren’t you? I don’t know what your trauma is, but…”
Before she could get herself into any more trouble, though, a sharp voice from the other table cut through the growing tension. “Harmony, get over here, quit hanging around with the nerd herd!”
Harmony, looking over and seeing an impatiently gesturing Cordelia, plastered on a simpery smile and hurried back to her table after one last scathing remark.
Willow leaned back against her chair in relief. She didn’t want Xander or Buffy getting into any more trouble today, and for it to be over Harmony just wasn’t worth it. Xander slumped back down, though, clearly still bothered.
Buffy made no move to sit, watching Harmony walk away with an arrogant flounce. Buffy was used to years of being, or at least acting, indifferent to how other classmates treated her, but after Harmony had deliberately tried to get to Xander—
Buffy recognized Xander’s reaction to a mention of his mother. It was very similar to how Buffy felt when someone insulted her parents. She was torn between wanting to defend them, wanting to agree with them, or just being furious at the person for interfering in something personal like that.
Buffy felt she overreacted somewhat. She didn’t like how she’d completely lost control of her emotions all day, and it wasn’t helping at all that the only decent two people she’d met seemed to by default attract the nastiest of comments from the majority of the school. Buffy wondered quietly what she had done to deserve meeting Cordelia, Riley, a paranoid gym teacher, Adam, and Harmony all within a few minutes of each other.
Finally turning her gaze back to the lunch table, she realized that without Xander and Willow, she would probably have decided to skip the rest of her classes today already. Were there any other decent people in this school?
Xander forced a smile on his face, waving absently at the chair across from him for Buffy to sit down. Keeping his tone neutral, he said dismissively, “Lunchtime drama, courtesy of Harmony.” He chuckled slightly. “She really needs to change her name.”
Willow cracked a smile, but noted sadly that Xander’s brief moment of cheer before had vanished.
Buffy took the proffered seat, then asked, “How long is lunch anyway?”
Willow looked up at the cafeteria clock, and answered, “We still have at least 15 minutes; lunch ends at 11:15.”
Then, Buffy remembered that she hadn’t bothered to get lunch money from her dad. Buffy never had her own money; her parents never bothered giving her an allowance, and so they only gave her money for things like school lunch, and she’d been able to convince her dad to pay for membership at the gym a few blocks from her old school for the last couple years. Buffy made a mental note to ask her dad for both lunch money and to start up a gym membership here, too, as soon as she could find one. Practicing new moves during gym class was probably not the way to go for now. Or for the rest of the year, considering Rendall’s view of her.
Willow took out her own bagged lunch, as Xander devoured the pizza on his tray. Remembering his original question though, Xander asked, “So what happened, anyway? Why were both of you gone so long?”
Willow glanced nervously at Buffy. She was curious about the exchange between Buffy and Mr. Rendall, but it didn’t seem like something Buffy would be too willing to discuss. When Buffy hesitated, Willow said quickly, “Well, um, Buffy, don’t you want to get lunch first, before, um—“
Buffy gave her a small smile, but replied, “No, no, it’s okay. I don’t have lunch money anyway…kinda forgot in the whole rushing to the first-day-of-school thing, I’m not really that hungry anyway. “ Buffy looked slightly revolted at the remaining pizza crust on Xander’s tray, which was still oozing grease. “Anyway, he, the gym teacher, I guess he really just wanted me to fess up to being in some school-vandalizing gang or something. Strange guy, didn’t really like him. Is he like that with all the new students?”
Xander poked at his pizza crust. “Well, by comparison we’ve only got one other new kid…”
Willow added thoughtfully, “Actually, yeah, Mr. Rendall doesn’t really like Angel either. I don’t really see why. I-I mean I don’t see why he wouldn’t like you either, or, or, I mean…“
Buffy grinned slightly. “Really, was I that discreet with the whole act-like-a-crazy-street-fighter thing? I guess I don’t blame him, but he got pretty…up close and personal about it.”
Xander tossed out the lunch tray, and then turned his gaze to Buffy. “About that Buff, why didn’t you tell us you were like a super kung-fu expert? You had me all knotted up that the Adam creep would single-handedly murder all of us, and you were just like – Whabamka!”
Xander snapped his fingers. “—and then you guys were, like, wow…” Xander trailed off.
Willow gave him an amused grin, mouthing, “Whabamka?”
Buffy continued the narrative. “And then it was a lot like me-falling-on-my-face and running away. Yup, can’t beat that.”
Xander still looked interested though. “But how’d you learn how to fight like that, Buffy?” He paused, then added hesitantly, “You wouldn’t by any chance like to teach us?”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “Teach?”
Xander nodded, now more confidently. “Yeah, Rendall’s classes are a joke, and that kind of skill’s useful, I mean just in case of…”
Buffy quickly asked, “What?”
Willow and Xander traded a glance. Xander gave a small laugh, and said, “Well, hey, normal stuff, like, just, self-defense. Against oogly-booglies. I mean, oogly…bullies. Yeah. Everyone in Sunnydale should learn to fight. Or, or defend. Um, not just Sunnydale. Everybody. Everywhere Yeah. Like, for instance…well, why’d you learn?”
Buffy, caught off guard, answered, “My dad.”
Then, backtracking quickly, she elaborated, “He liked fighting. No, I mean that’s not what I mean. He used to, um, do self defense. And so I decided to learn. I kind of taught myself. My, my dad actually doesn’t know I do it.” Buffy felt like hitting herself. She could’ve said anything, but she managed to completely fumble her response, and throw in that lie about her dad ever doing self-defense. She couldn’t picture him even working out.
Buffy, Willow, and Xander were now taking turns shooting weird glances at each other, and at the same time trying to act like no one had actually said anything that they hadn’t meant to. Xander decided to drop his request for learning to fight for now, and was hiding his own reaction at the scene that flashed through his mind at Buffy’s explanation. He was glad his own dad never bothered to learn any sort of fighting; that would just be…bad.
It was Willow who broke the brief silence. “Hey, I just remembered, we all have history next…”
Buffy groaned. Her least favorite subject. Bad, bad memories of her old history teacher.
Willow continued, “it’s not all that bad, and Angel’s in that class, he’s the other new kid, so you guys can meet each other. We never see him after school though; he just never seems to be around, but besides the whole disappearing thing, he’s a really nice guy.”
Willow wondered absently where Angel went after school; he never said anything about his family and neither she nor Xander knew too much about him at all. Besides his name, the only other thing Willow knew about him personally was that he was a year older than most of the freshman, and he always seemed to be…brooding, was the best way she could describe it. He kind of sat there a lot, like he was thinking about the meaning of life or something. Sort of like with Buffy, who at least talked more, but still only reluctantly, or almost accidentally, revealed anything about herself. Kind of like how she and Xander avoided telling her more about Sunnydale, Willow thought with a tiny twinge of guilt. Looks like they all had their secrets. But Willow had the feeling that as the week went on, Buffy would notice a lot of what went on anyway. She didn’t seem like the typical kind of Sunnydale resident, who just looked the other way most of the time, denying everything.
Xander, meanwhile, was speculating about Angel’s nightlife. “Do you think maybe he flies around, all dark-angel like, and then lands in the graveyard, and settles down all broody-like, and goes, ‘I vill brood all night vith my history book here vhile I puzzle out the mysteries of the stars and I vill be mysterious…’?”
Buffy raised an eyebrow, and Willow admonished lightly, “Xander, stop, you’re making him sound like a…”
Buffy finished, “a vampire?”
Xander followed that up with, “broody. A broody vampire, yeah. I mean, hello, mysterious unknown after-dark activities? It’s classic.”
Willow added hastily, “Except not, because, Angel’s nice, and isn’t dead for one, and plus, vampires are mean, and evil, and don’t have souls. Unlike Angel. He’s more of the…angel-type.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “I know Will, of course, angel-y Angel. Not creepy dead blood-sucker. Got it.”
Buffy listened to the two banter, and couldn’t help thinking about her own unanswered questions about vampires, and especially, visions about vampires in Sunnydale. But, one evil to face at a time.
Buffy, Xander, and Willow got up as the bell rang, headed for history.
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