Buffy sat back among the cushions on her bed, as the loose strains of the radio filled the air. Around her papers littered her room. They were everywhere, literally everywhere; they began on her bed, where she was working and just spread out from there. Crumpled balls of paper around the rubbish bin, pages of discarded notes and incomprehensible comments covered the floor and a few bent paper aeroplanes were lying beside the window sill and against walls where they'd hit and fallen to the ground. English textbooks lay open among the debris, bookmarked with scraps and underlined with pencil, their pages fluttered lightly in the slight breeze from the window. And there the Slayer sat serenely, in the centre of her typical working mess, legs crossed like some kind of blond Buddha, calm among all the confusion.
But she wasn't serene.
She wasn't even peaceful.
She was half way between being miserable and furious. Or maybe boredom and violence. Whatever it was, she certainly wasn't sure about it. But one thing she did know was who was topping her list of People-I-would-very-happily-stake-if-they-just-happened-to-become-vamps.
Snyder.
That miserable little rat-faced-nazi-wannabe-power-mad-evil-as-hell Principal who had sent her mother such a disastrous letter informing her of her daughter's dropping grades and over all low attainment for English Lit.
And that was why she was doing this stupid extra credit assignment on, of all things, "Dracula and the presentation of the supernatural through nineteenth century literature". If the damn thing didn't have to be over ten sides of written intelligence she would have laughed, or at the very least smiled at the irony.
And of course to make everything that much better, Willow was away this weekend visiting some relative. And Giles wouldn't help her; all he'd done was mention that she still shouldn't neglect her slaying duties in favour of schoolwork. But then he had softened slightly; he'd given her the weekend. Promised to do some patrolling himself and he'd even slipped in to the conversation that if she did get it finished by Sunday evening she should drop him round a copy and he'd proof read it for her.
Still, here she was on Sunday afternoon, and she'd barely finished the introduction. Sighing she reached up with her hand and rubbed the back of her neck, trying to work out the kinks that staring down at a sheet of paper for the past three hours had given her.
She picked her pen back up and began work on another line, only to be distracted by the radio.
"…so remember tonight at The Bronze there's gonna be a special guest, all the way from LA it's…"
The radio changed abruptly as Buffy's well-aimed sneaker hit the channel change button on her stereo. It cut to a different station and she smiled softly as she heard the soft strains of a song come over the speaker.
*Tender is the night
Lying by your side
Tender is the touch
Of someone that you love too much*
Depressing much? She thought, trying to place the group. The accent was a little familiar but she just didn't know from where.
*Tender is the day
The demons go away
Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind*
Ain't that the truth. She idly brushed her hair back from her face as she finished her sentence. "Vampires and the drinking of blood from the innocent can be seen as a metaphor for the loss of innocence in life, and was used by many authors to signify the loss of virginity." To be honest, she admitted to herself, she really didn't know what she was talking about. Giles had mentioned something like this, and three of the texts that lay open on the floor claimed that this was the basis for the whole vampire myth.
Yeah, well, what did they know? Mentally restraining herself from adding, "The reality of the situation however is that vampires drink from humans not to steal innocence, but to survive because they are evil blood sucking fiends," she put her pen down and furiously rubbed her temples.
Man, this is giving me a headache!
Forcing herself to relax she zoned back into reality in time to catch the second half of the song.
*Tender is the ghost
The ghost I love the most
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the night to come*
You know, I'm really beginning to think this group knows more than their telling.
*Tender is my heart
Screwing up my life
Lord I need to find
Some one who can heal my mind*
Or maybe they're just going in for surreal angsty lyrics, she amended. Anyway who's the someone who can heal my mind from Angel and his tricks.
*Come on come on come on
Get to it*
Just for a second, the lyrics spun in her head, torturing the girl with memories of her Angel, that night and the next morning when he was gone.
*Come on come on come on*
But that's in the past she told herself, all part of my past. Angel's gone now, and he's not coming back. I know this, I know…this.
*Love's the greatest thing
That we have,
I'm waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come.*
Wiping her eyes against the one tear that had trailed slowly down her cheek, she pushed her head back on tried to concentrate on the literary equivalent of vampires. Not the real-live-evil-as-Snyder sort, even if she missed him more than she was going to admit.
"And that was the British group Blur with their new single Tender. Currently a hit in England the group is hoping to release…"
Another DJ was forcibly silenced by Buffy's remaining sneaker. The stereo switched to the local college rock station, thankfully without presenter for this hour and was therefore spared the threat of a high-healed boot soaring through the air to silence it.
* * *
It was nine thirty that evening when she managed to stretch out her finishing sentence onto the tenth side by increasing the font and doubling the line space. And then it was done, all nine sides and one line of it. Buffy stared at it for a minute, amazed that she'd actually finished.
Then, she saved it onto three separate disks and the hard drive of her mother's computer, just in case, and printed off two copies.
It was too late to get it proof read now, after all it was done and she had to hand it in Monday morning, besides she'd used the spell checker so it couldn't be that bad.
But she just wanted to get out of the house. She desperately wanted to do something, anything. Being cooped up in her room all day was making her claustrophobic, she really couldn't understand how Giles could spend all his days in the library. It could be so…close sometimes.
Suppressing the shudder that ran through her she grabbed her jacket. It might be too late to get it proof read, but she might as well take Giles up on his offer. She didn't exactly have anything better to do.
Humming the eerie tones of that weird song from Britain she slipped out the back door and ran off down the street to Giles', one hand clutching the precious cargo of her assignment tightly.
Maybe he'd get a kick out of it. It was sorta about vampires.
* * *
He liked the essay. And Buffy just couldn't believe it, because not only did Rupert "Brain of the century" Giles like her English work, he was even impressed.
She decided she had to wake up from this dream before she began thinking about graduating as valedictorian and going to Harvard. So she pinched the inside of her wrist - hard.
Nothing happened.
She did it again.
And again.
And -
"Buffy is there something wrong with your…er…arm?" Giles said, looking at the girl before him, completely confused at her behaviour.
"What! No, it's just…I…" Buffy smiled at her own speech, "Nothing's wrong Giles, really, I'm just not used to work I do being…gush-worthy."
"Gush-worthy?" he asked.
Buffy smiled at the tweed-clad librarian.
"Good." She explained.
"Well it is, though that could just be a result of the …er…familiarity you have with the subject, though you've been suitably objective despite you inherent knowledge of this un-conventional extra-curricular activity."
It was the Slayer's time to gape widely and gesture for an explanation.
"It's very good Buffy." He amended with a smile.
"Well…thanks Giles, that means a lot to me."
"yes well….don't let it go to your head."
"Don't worry I won't, but I'd better get back home and catch some sleep before Mum finally clicks that my evenings aren't generally of the study variety."
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," called Giles softly after her as she lightly jogged away.
"Sure thing, bye" she yelled over her shoulder, as she rounded the corner of the street and made for home, the haunting tune she'd heard earlier still playing around her head.
Buffy knew that she still missed him, and she knew that her feelings probably weren't going to go away for a while.
She wondered if they ever would.
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