Carpe Diem - The Novel Version: Part 2
by Gaius Petronius



Carpe Diem 2



CARPE DIEM - pt. 2

Chapters 6 - 8

by Gaius Petronius

DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all the characters
that appear on the show are the exclusive property of Joss Whedon,
the WB and Mutant Enemy, Inc. GP only lays claim to the character
of Jonathan, but Mutant Enemy can have him anytime they want him.
The Ancient One is loosely derived from the Cthulhu Mythos stories
of the classic 20th century horror writer, H. P. Lovecraft. The
selected lyrics from "It's a Beautiful Life" are copyright
by Ace of Base and Arista Records. Obviously, I make no money
from any of this.

Spoilers and Synopsis:
Originally written as a script in mid season 2 (Jan - March 1998)
just after Angel lost his soul. Willow accidently reanimates an
eighteen year old telekinetic from the seventeenth century, Johannes
Martel who may hold the secred to restoring a vampire's lost soul.

Rating: PG-13 for some violence and language.

A Note On the Text:
The plot for the original script version of Carpe Diem was drafted
in mid season two before Angel's age and the relationship with
Dru and Spike were fully developed. The dating in this story and
their backgrounds, as a result, are a departure from BtVS canon.

Chapter 6 - Cousin Jonathan

"Morning again," Willow thought to herself as students
trotted in herds up the front steps at Sunnydale High. Just like
yesterday and probably exactly the same as tomorrow. Everything
looked the same, the crowds, the noise, the pecking order, the
perpetual southern California sunshine, the pulsating Hellmouth
underneath their feet. Yes, Willow mused, it was all the same
with one exception. There would be a "new "student today,
an additional member of the Scoobies.

That's what was different, earth shatteringly different. Now
in reality, Johannes was only going to pose as a new exchange
student so the whole thing really didn't count but still if anyone
was a pre-ordained Scooby, it was him.

Willow smiled to herself. Sure Johannes was cute and pretty
smart, with the exception of some major blank spots pertaining
to current events. Okay, the whole modern world, then.

She could tell Buffy, unconsciously if nothing else, already
had her eye on him. In spite of Oz, Willow realized she did as
well. But it wasn't all black and white and just another cute
guy they were going to squabble over. After all, there were the
off the wall clothes and the fact that he also could move things
around by just thinking about them. There was also the issue from
last night of her own dislocated shoulder that wasn't dislocated
anymore so everything was a little confusing. But Johannes was
all right . . . and still cute. Yeah, Willow nodded again, he
was definitely cute.

But she and Buffy would have to come up with another name.
"Johannes," that was just too weird, kind of like the
names of the weapons Giles kept hidden in the locked closet in
the library. It would never fly at Sunnydale.

Before she realized it, Willow looked around at Buffy and Xander
standing by her side.

"Sneak up on a girl, why dontcha," Willow remarked
to Xander who only shrugged.

"Where's Big John?" he asked trying not to show any
serious interest.

"Be here in a minute," Buffy volunteered. "I
phoned Giles before I left home."

"I hope he got some better clothes," Willow said
with a frown.

"Anything, even Giles' stuff'd beat those funky duds,"
Xander agreed.

"Relax," Buffy replied, "Giles said they hit
the mall last night before going to his place."

She scanned the crowds of students and the cars pulling up
to the curb in front of the school. Her Watcher's clunky Citroen
was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," Buffy said as she searched for the telltale
blue exhaust that would let them know Giles' bomb car was in the
vicinity, "We gotta get the stories straight. Now his name
is gonna be 'Jonathan,' and he's a cousin of mine from Europe."

Xander snickered. Willow knew the crack was only seconds away.

"Yeah, with a name like Summers, you got lots of German,
French, Russian, hey maybe even Polish relatives."

"Shut up!" Buffy snapped as a backfire announced
the arrival of the librarian's beat up car, "Here he comes."

"This should be a rip," Xander muttered.

Giles drove his clunky old Citroen up to the curb. After a
moment's hesitation, Johannes clambered out, slammed the car door
a little too forcefully and walked up the front steps of Sunnydale
High. He was wearing a pair of Dockers jeans, a light shirt and
new Reeboks.

"Yup," Willow nodded as she sighed, "Giles took
him shopping."

Johannes glanced around, desperately searching for someone
he knew. Willow almost jumped up and down as she waved to catch
his attention. He spotted her immediately and quickly joined the
group.

"Hi!" Buffy said with her best morning perky she
had learned from Willow. The pre-noon hours were not the Slayer's
favorite time of day but knowing how to put on the bubblies always
came in handy during first and second periods.

"Hey Jonno, nice rags," Xander grinned as he briefly
examined the new arrival's outfit.

"Good morning," Willow said sweetly as she mentally
curtsied.

Johannes was oddly silent for a moment. Willow imagined he
looked like he was going to explode. Finally a single word burst
from his lips.

". . . Hey . . ."

Buffy, Willow and Xander stared at each other in astonishment.

"What?" Buffy stammered.

Bewildered by their reaction, Johannes glanced back and forth
at Willow, Xander and Buffy.

"Did I say it wrong?"

"What?" Buffy repeated.

"Hey," he said again, now totally confused.

Xander covered his mouth and began to laugh. The look on Johannes'
face verged on panic. Buffy eyed him with an expression that clearly
asked "What's going on here?"

"Giles still hates this idea," the young telekinetic
finally burst out, "But he said if I was going to come to
school, so I don't stick out, I have to act and talk like you
all do so . . . 'Hey!'. . ."

Finally getting it, Buffy started to laugh as well.

"That's an okay start," she grinned and slapped him
on the shoulder. "Now listen up. We gotta get all the stories
straight here cause that Snyder is a vulture, and we have to be
ready for him."

Johannes, wide eyed and wondering what kind of entity the despicable
"Snyder" was, nodded eagerly.

"Your name is gonna be 'Jonathan,'" Buffy declared.

"That's what Telemon calls me," Johannes said trying
to be helpful," He's from Scotland and taught me English."

"Shhh," Buffy ordered, "Don't confuse things,
just listen. Your name is Jonathan. You're my cousin."

The newly christened Jonathan nodded again.

"You're a foreign exchange student," Buffy continued
methodically, "And you're from . . . " she suddenly
paused, not able to think of a location.

"Where are you from?" she asked him.

"The Holy Roman Empire?" he answered in confusion.

"NO!" Buffy snapped, "That won't cut it."

"Vienna?" Jonathan tried again trying to please.

"Better!" Buffy exclaimed, "We'll use that."

Jonathan nodded again.

"Now stick close," Buffy said like a staff sergeant,
"Keep your mouth shut, and DON'T do anything weird!"

Xander shoved his fist in his mouth, struggling to suppress
a laugh. Willow, whose imagination was running full tilt regarding
what might constitute "anything weird," grinned from
ear to ear.

Buffy spun about and glared at her friends.

"No laughing!" she demanded, "This is going
to be hard enough!"

"Laughing? No laughing here," Willow replied as her
grin dropped into an upside down smiley face and she turned to
Xander, "Do you see funny? I don't see funny." Xander
only ran his hand though his thick black hair and nonchalantly
surveyed the intricate pattern in the concrete that made up the
stairs and retaining walls of the school.

"Funny?" Xander responded, desperately trying to
contain the witty remark that was battling its way from his brain
to his vocal chords. "Never heard of the word."

Buffy sighed in disgust as she grabbed Jonathan by the arm
and together both climbed the stairs to the front door.

For a second, Willow and Xander hesitated. They stared at each
other and both instantly broke into huge grins.

"This is gonna be great," Willow smirked to her childhood
best bud.

"Ah, embarrassment, humiliation, degradation," Xander
waxed rhapsodic, "All the everyday events that constitute
the modern learning experience, . . . at someone else's expense
for a change! This IS gonna be great!" he grinned back at
Willow.

Both turned and ran up the stairs as the morning class bell
rang dissonately in their ears, sending them and the rest of the
remaining students on the steps scurrying for home room.

"You can do what you want,
Just seize the day.
What you're doing tomorrow's
Gonna come your way.
If you ever trust it or give enough,
You will find, oh,
It's a beautiful life."

The pace was fast and furious at Sunnydale High that morning,
as it was five out of seven days of the week. In the moments before
first period, Buffy, Willow, and Xander, now joined by Cordelia
Chase, rounded a corner in the school hallway heading towards
class with what seemed like hundreds of other students whirling
about them. Totally bewildered by the speed and confusion and
lagging behind, Jonathan followed, stumbled, scrambled and did
just about anything he could to round the same corner in a failing
attempt to keep up.

"Come on, you gotta keep moving if you want to go to school
here," Buffy called out over her shoulder as she waved him
on. Jonathan gulped, put in an extra burst of speed and squeezed
through a herd of hovering freshmen just in time to join the Scoobies
as they all piled into first period Algebra II.

Willow dropped into her usual chair towards the front of the
room, while Buffy with Jonathan next to her, took up a position
in the relative obscurity of the back row. Algebra II was evil,
almost as evil as the demons detailed in Giles' books in the library.
Buffy knew the key to surviving Algebra II was invisibility. There
were plenty of students like Willow who consistently raised their
hands with an "Oh, call on me please!" earnestness to
provide cover. Now, as the teacher scribbled on the blackboard
reams of chalk markings that looked to Buffy little different
from Giles' hieroglyphics, several hands, including Willow's rose
in response to the posed question.

Then, like an image out of Buffy's worst nightmare, Jonathan
sheepishly started to lift his hand into the air. Warning sirens
rang wildly in the Slayer's head. Unnoticed by the rest of the
class, she reached across and tugged at his elbow. Jonathan glanced
over at her. Buffy silently shook her head back and forth with
her eyes desperately screaming "Not a good idea!" Slowly,
Jonathan pulled his hand back down. Buffy breathed a deep sigh
of relief. Disaster Number One successfully averted.

The blast of the bell ending first period had a reaction similar
to the whole scale application of cattle prods to a herd of nervous
Holstiens. Once again, Sunnydale's student body poured like the
bursting of the Johnstown dam out into the hallways between classes.

Here Buffy, Willow and Xander met up again with Cordelia. From
out of nowhere, Willow's werewolf boyfriend and band member, Oz,
unceremoniously joined them, making the Scooby Gang complete if
only for a few seconds. Jonathan, now more accustomed to the rapid
pace, kept up with the group as if he were a full fledged Sunnydale
student. He still stared in bewilderment at the posters, overhead
lights, and endless rows of what looked like metal compartments
lining the walls.

"Those are lockers," Willow offered as she realized
Jonathan was probably drowning in a sea of questions. The Scoobies
paused in front of Buffy's. The Slayer quickly spun the combination
in several directions, banged open the door, roughly tossed in
a book and deftly caught a particularly large wooden stake as
it unexpectedly tumbled out of the crammed metal compartment.

Jonathan's eyes widened as Buffy swiftly stuffed the weapon
back in, praying as she did that no one who would rat on her had
seen it.

"That's Mr. Pointie," Willow whispered in Jonathan's
ear.

"Oh . . ." he nodded back as if it all made perfect
sense.

In second period Natural Sciences class, Buffy and Jonathan
were paired in the weekly lab experiment. Unfortunately, as was
usually the case, the Slayer's chemistry knowledge was little
better than that in Algebra II. Here there was no back row in
which to hide. Sporting a heavy stained apron and a set of safety
goggles that scrunched up her long blond hair on the back of her
head, Buffy stood on the edge of the pit of doom as she held two
test tubes filled with clear liquid. A beaker full of more unknown
clear liquid sat on the lab station counter in front of her.

The challenge was simple yet fraught with failure and humiliation.
She must pour one of the test tubes into the beaker for the experiment
to succeed, . . . but which one? She hadn't a clue. As she stood
in confusion, tottering on the edge of another failing grade,
the science teacher, Mr. Tarbox, walked by and glared at her with
a look of "You're going to screw this one up, too, aren't
you Summers!" He then sauntered on, smugly confident in the
inevitable outcome.

Buffy, in desperation, resorted to the time honored strategy
of any student faced with an "either/or" or "true/false"
response. She threw herself upon the mercy of the Gods and guessed.
"Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Mo," she pantomimed.

As she was about to pour the contents of the tube in her left
hand into the beaker, Jonathan tapped her left arm. She quickly
looked up at him. Jonathan almost imperceptibly shook his head,
"No." He then indicated with his eyes the tube in her
right hand. Buffy took a deep breath, stepped forward to the edge
of the crater of doom and poured the contents of the test tube
in her right hand into the beaker. The liquid in the beaker instantly
turned a brilliant rich blue.

Today the Gods were merciful, and Buffy let out a sigh of relief.
Mr. Tarbox, sliding among the row of lab stations, stopped, glanced
at her results and shook his head in disbelief with a look of
"You lucked out that time, Summers!" He then moved on
searching for other hapless victims.

Disaster Number Two narrowly averted. Buffy gratefully glanced
at Jonathan and silently mouthed the words, "Thank you."
Jonathan winked back and replied without speaking, "No sweat!"
Buffy's mouth opened in an astonished smile.

Eating lunch at Sunnydale High usually involved entering the
cafeteria demilitarized zone. Those who valued their tastebuds
and lower intestines, avoided the school lunches and contented
themselves with rations brought from home. Only students of the
strongest constitution, members of the wrestling and football
teams, the totally stoned, and Xander Harris dared eat the piles
and patties of mysterious organic and semi organic solids that
passed for nutrition in the lunch lines.

Buffy, Jonathan, Willow, Oz, and Xander all sat together at
a long lunch table that seemed to be reserved specifically for
Sunnydale's social outcasts. Cordelia Chase sauntered by and when
no one was looking, quickly sat down next to Xander.

Buffy offered Jonathan half of her peanut butter and jelly
sandwich. Puzzled, Jonathan stared at it, then, with silent encouragement
from Buffy, slowly took a bite. His cheeks bulged like a squirrel's
and his eyes enlarged at the totally new taste. He then hesitantly
chewed and swallowed.

Attempting to complete the New World gourmet experience, Willow
showed Jonathan how to open a milk carton. Now the Gods were not
to be as merciful this time as Disaster Number Three swept down
on the table with the suddenness of an attack of Harpies. As Jonathan
started to drink the milk, Xander told a joke.

It wasn't one of his best. Actually it was fairly lame but
because it was about Principal Snyder, the whole table broke up
laughing, even Jonathan who was caught in mid swallow. Suddenly,
he choked and covered his face with his hands as a thin line of
milk dribbled out his nose. Buffy and Willow yelled at Xander
who stood up like a victorious athlete and raised his hands to
the applause of an imaginary world.

"YES! I, Xander the Great, have made milk run out the
Wizard's nose!"

"I'm not a Wizard!" Jonathan gagged and sputtered.

"Eeeew!" Cordelia squealed.

Laughing, Buffy quickly slapped a napkin across her "cousin's"
face.

Lunch period was all downhill from there. Adjourning to the
outside front steps of Sunnydale High, Oz, Willow and Buffy sat
with Jonathan and attempted to explain to him the intricacies
of a compact CD player. Tentatively, Jonathan let Oz put the player's
set of headphones over his head. Oz then loaded in a CD. When
he turned on the music, it nearly blasted off Jonathan's ears.
Believing he was under assault by unknown entities, the young
telekinetic thrashed as he tried to rip off the head set.

This time it was Buffy to the rescue. She quickly pulled the
set off, paused the player and struggled to calm Jonathan down.

"Easy, Easy!" she said, desperately trying to soothe
the excited new Scooby.

"SACRE MERDE! My ears!" he cried out as he suspiciously
watched her handling the headset. Oz's eyebrows rose modestly
in surprise at the French profanity.

"Let's try again," Buffy said calmly.

"YOU try again!" Jonathan exclaimed.

"Hey," Buffy answered, staring him straight in the
eyes, "Trust me."

"Okay, "Jonathan said firmly as he returned her gaze,
"Since it's about all I have to go on here, I trust you."

Smiling, Buffy put the headset on her own head first, adjusted
the volume and began to dance, lightly bouncing her hips back
and forth with the beat. Fascinated, Jonathan watched her for
a minute.

"Here, lemme try!" he said as he reached out for
the headset. Buffy quickly placed it over his ears. Jonathan listened
for a few seconds with a puzzled look on his face. Then he began
to get the rhythm of the music and rocked back and forth with
the beat. Buffy nodded in time and felt the pride of victory as
her "Cousin" smiled and swayed to the music.

The successful learning experience hit a snag down in the parking
lot a few minutes later. Having corralled Cordelia to administer
a driving lesson, Xander sat Jonathan down behind the wheel of
the head cheerleader's bright red convertible. Buffy, Willow,
and Oz stood at a safe distance down the sidewalk waiting for
the explosion. They were quickly joined by Xander who had just
successfully lit the fuse.

Inside the car, Jonathan turned the wheel back and forth as
Cordelia in the front passenger's seat pointed at the dashboard
and shouted muffled instructions.

From their vantage point, Willow, Buffy, Xander and Oz could
see Cordelia waving her arms in a panic as the car suddenly lurched
forward then screeched to a stop. Cordelia jumped out screaming
"Get Out! Get Out!"

Jonathan abandoned the driver's seat, glared at Cordelia in
disgust, looked back at the others and raised his hands.

"What did I do?"

For a moment, Buffy and Willow couldn't stop laughing. At the
same time, Willow suddenly realized she couldn't remember the
last time she saw her best friend laughing so hard and smiling
so brightly.

"Take a walk in the park when you feel low.
There's so many things there that're gonna lift you up.
See the nature in bloom, a laughing child.
Such a dream, oh,
It's a beautiful life"

* * * * * * * *

Chapter 7 - "We try not to look back . . ."

The entire student body at Sunnydale High and virtually all
of the faculty recognized Billy Cluttz and Ted Munson. Most wished
they didn't. The two sophomores, variously referred to as Ren
and Stimpy, Thing One and Thing Two, the Booze Bros. or (Xander's
preference) Dude 1 and Dude 2, were a pair of students that struggled
with great care and forethought at maintaining their own brand
of "cool."

Their daily uniforms for attending school included turned back
baseball caps, untied sneakers and baggy floor dragging jeans
that would show their butt cracks if their shirts weren't hanging
out. That was their revenge on Principal Snyder whenever he demanded
they adhere to the dress code and tuck in their shirts. By carefully
stuffing all the baggy shirt clothe into the front, they skillfully
displayed nature's unmistakable handiwork in all its glory, pimples
and all, in the back. After that, Snyder left them alone. That
and the fact that bathing was a ritual they hadn't yet mastered.

Their challenges to Snyder would normally have earned them
a well deserved place among Sunnydale High's upcoming student
elite. However, they included one fairly nasty trait that kept
many of their fellow classmates at bay. They ate Freshmen, figuratively
of course, but Buffy and Willow often found themselves thinking
of Munson and Cluttz first if a younger Sunnydale student suddenly
went "missing" as was becoming more and more common.

In a disturbing practice that seemed to be a holdover from
the last days of Principal Flutie, Munson and Cluttz periodically
singled out what appeared to be the weakest freshman in a pack
and circled for the figurative kill. Today, their prey was little
Mary Sabatini.

Mary was short, very plain (in southern California, a curse
upon the child and family that used to result in exposure at birth
on a mountainside, now merely ostracism at school), sported pig
tails, braces and those heavy glasses with lenses that resembled
the bottoms of soda bottles. Unaware of her peril, she struggled
to manage a large armful of textbooks as Munson and Cluttz zeroed
in.

Munson, now morphed into his Dude1 identity, deliberately slammed
into Mary, sending her books tumbling in a crash to the linoleum.
As Cluttz, now Dude 2, moved closer, the neighboring school of
freshmen, in a typical instinctive self preservation response,
scattered in different directions leaving the hapless Mary at
the mercy of the descending predators.

It was then that Buffy, Willow, Xander and Jonathan passed
by on the way to afternoon class. As they were about to walk around
the corner in the hall and head out of sight, Jonathan, who was
last in line, heard the commotion behind him at the other end
of the hall. He stopped and turned back to look.

"Man, these froshes get dumber every year," Dude
1 snarled to Dude 2.

Jonathan broke off from the group and strode quickly down the
hallway to intervene. At the same time, Xander realized that Buffy's
"Cousin" was no longer under the collective security
umbrella of the Scoobies.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Xander called out to
the departing telekinetic and then shouted a warning to the Slayer,
"Buffy! 'Cousin Jonno's making a break for it!"

"What?" Buffy spun on her heels as she saw what looked
like Disaster Number Four pouring down on them, "Oh, no!
Jonathan!"

"Yeah, and uglier, too," Dude 2 growled as he stepped
up and leered into Mary's face.

Suddenly Jonathan put himself between the Dudes and their intended
prey. There was no hostility in his voice or anger on his face.

"Hey, gang. What's up?" he grinned but with a firmness
in his tone that the other Scoobies had never heard.

"Just showing this lamo how to carry her books,"
Dude 2 answered, trying to rise to the challenge, "Who the
hell are you anyway?"

"Why don't you give her a hand?" Jonathan said carefully,
ignoring the pack of hostility circling around him.

"What's it to you?" Dude 1 snarled.

"Yeah, buzz off!" Dude 2 parroted.

"Now, Cousin, don't do anything to embarrass me!"
Buffy said desperately as she reached his side.

"No problem, Buffy," Jonathan answered all cheery
and at the same time like steel, "These two guys were gonna
help," here he turned to Mary, "uh, . . I didn't get
your name."

"It's Mary," she answered meekly, as her eyes searched
for an escape route to the safety of the pack of freshmen lurking
at the end of the hallway.

"Mary, okay," Jonathan said pleasantly enough as
he turned to the Dudes, "You were just gonna help Mary with
her stuff. Isn't that right guys?"

Jonathan fixed the two Dudes with an intense gaze. All at once,
their hostility vanished and suddenly Dude 1 and Dude 2 were merely
Munson and Cluttz again.

"Uh, yeah, that's right," Ted Munson said humbly
turning to Mary, "Sorry I bumped you. Let me give you a hand."

"Yeah, me too," Billy Cluttz jumped in to help.

As both bent down to help Mary Sabatini collect her books,
they flashed their collective butt cracks. The Scoobies all winced.

"Where were you when I was a freshman!" Willow said
quietly in admiration to Jonathan.

"Yeah, you want to teach me that trick?" Xander piped
in, "As a certified un-cool person, I can't count the times
that would've come in handy."

Suddenly, Principal Snyder, his radar sensing exposed flesh,
burst through the crowd of students and glared at the group.

"What's the hold up here?" he shouted. "There's
a crowd and crowds mean trouble and trouble means . . . "
suddenly he spotted Buffy at Jonathan's side, ". . . . Summers!"

"Uh, hi," Buffy grinned meekly as if she were caught
in the act. It seemed Disaster Number Four had taken an unexpected
and more ominous turn.

"All right, what are you barbarians plotting?" Snyder
prepared to grill the miscreants as he placed his hands on his
hips.

"Nothing," Willow volunteered to get Buffy off the
hook, "We were just helping Mary here with her books."

"Altruism!? Good deeds!?" Snyder snapped, "And
banks give out free samples! I don't think so! Summers, you are
trouble!"

"Yes, sir," Buffy nodded, realizing resistance was
futile.

"And you!" Snyder suddenly lashed out at Jonathan,
"Are you with her?"

"Yes, sir," Jonathan, now confronted by "the
Snyder," followed Buffy's lead.

"Then you are trouble, too," the short balding principal
announced.

"Yes, sir," Jonathan nodded in full agreement.

"Trouble belongs in the classroom. Now get there!"

Like the Emperor of Sunnydale, Principal Snyder turned with
a flourish and strode down the hallway. Mary, Munson and Cluttz,
relieved to escape with their skins, ran off for class. As Snyder
almost turned the corner in the hallway, Jonathan subtly reached
out with his hand and waved in a downward motion at the departing
Principal. At the same time, Snyder's pants, of their own accord,
suddenly dropped to his knees as if someone had snuck up behind
him and yanked them down.

There was a flash of flesh, butt crack and something utterly
unnameable as Buffy, Willow, and Xander, stifling laughter, pushed,
shoved and scrambled around the corner pulling Jonathan with them.
There was also the disturbing image of lavender boxers seared
into the Scoobies' collective memories. Buffy knew she was going
to have nightmares.

"Geez, you're gonna get us all suspended!" Xander
exclaimed, relishing the sophomoric revenge of which he had so
often dreamed.

"I thought it was funny," Jonathan protested as Buffy
desperately dragged him by the arm.

"Me, too!" Willow grinned from ear to ear.

Now alone in the hallway, Snyder struggled to pull up his pants
and regain his dignity. He spun about in a fury, but the corridors
around him were all strangely silent and empty.

"Savages!" he muttered.

* * * * * * *

A free period late in the day was like gold at Sunnydale. Almost
every student practiced the time honored technique of procrastination.
Study halls during fifth and sixth period were usually an excuse
to relax, catch up on gossip or just plain goof off. Not even
Willow would spend more than a few minutes of a late day study
hall actually doing homework for the next day. That's what early
morning study halls were for.

So sixth period found Buffy, Xander, Oz, and Cordelia all gathered
around Willow and Jonathan who were parked in front Willow's terminal
set up in the library. At first Giles had been highly suspicious
of allowing one the "infernal machines" within his sanctuary
of learning. After all, libraries were for books and books alone.
To the librarian, cathode ray tubes and clicking fingers on keypads
somehow conflicted with the gentle, wind-like flowing sound of
paper pages being turned. Of course there was the occasional jarring
slam of a book cover abruptly smacked shut but that only happened
when Giles was in a temper.

But this afternoon, the librarian was off on some errand at
one of downtown Sunnydale's less reputable magic retail establishments.
As Willow had casually informed him, the mall was probably not
the best place to locate toad warts, weasel tails and other peculiar
ingredients for whatever activities he was contemplating. So this
afternoon, the Scoobies had the library all to themselves.

Willow, typing away, carefully explained the functioning of
her computer to Jonathan who stared in dumb astonishment. Unlike
Giles who considered the massive beige plastic box with its hidden
circuitry a threat to all established forms of learning, Jonathan
was amazed at the inherent power contained within the electronic
mysteries of the device.

"And this machine communicates with individuals and libraries
all over the world?" he asked, his eyes almost bugging out
of his head as Willow entered her data.

"Right, it's called the Internet," she answered over
her shoulder while not taking her eyes from the screen, "I
can search university and government archives, city and town records,
just about anything."

"Astonishing . . ." Jonathan answered shaking his
head as he turned to Buffy, "What is it you say? 'Awesome!'"

"You got that right," Buffy nodded.

Suddenly Jonathan had a thought that Buffy instantly knew was
going to be one of those "difficult" questions to answer.

"And what's to keep this device out of the hands of those
who would use it for evil?" he asked the Slayer in all innocence.

Buffy turned desperately to Willow who shrugged her shoulders
and made a face as if to say "nothing." Jonathan's eyes
widened again as the impact of the unspoken answer sank in.

"This New World holds terrors other than vampires,"
he said softly to Buffy.

"Didn't take you long to figure that one out," she
nodded in agreement.

"Here, let me show you," Willow interrupted before
the conversation could get heavy, "This is how we found out
all about you."

* * * * * * *





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