Dew drives, rain falls

"He kissed her!" Jordan sounded much more surprised than Buffy had expected him to.

"Yeah, sweet, isn't it?" She looked at Graham and Willow, who were now approaching them, and smiled.

"Sure, but you don't understand; He hasn't even touched a girl since Madeleine!"

"Madeleine? Was she the girl who died?"

"Died?!" Jordan frowned. "No, she's very much alive and I hope I don't have to see her any time soon."

"Okay, now I'm confused."

"Madeleine was Graham's High School Sweetheart, but she failed him at the worst time of his life and he hasn't find the courage to trust a girl after that."

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Later that evening:

"Hi Graham!"

Graham turned around with a smile on his face, a smile that faded when he saw the two girls who had talked to him. Over the loudness of the party it was very hard to different the voices and in a brief and hopeful moment he had thought the voice belonged to one of the two girls he actually wanted to see. Instead, in front of him were now the two tiresome girls in the JAVA class where he assisted professor Whitfield.

"Hi." He said without enthusiasm. The girls didn't seem to notice his lack of interest, but started to drown him in details about their clothes, haircuts and diets he never wanted to hear. His manners made him stay and smile and make uninteresting small talk, while his mind screamed for a rescue.

�You are an impatient one, aren't you?� The soft, teasing voice in his head was all too familiar and he could almost feel the colour fade from his face. He quickly excused himself to the girls and went up to his room and locked the door.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Willow suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and Buffy continued to walk a few steps before she noticed.

"Willow?" Buffy turned around and went back to her friend.

"Come on, Buffy, we have to hurry!" Willow said in between breaths and started a half-run with Buffy now two steps behind.

"Well, if we need to hurry, then why did you stop?!" Buffy asked confused.

"I got a vision."

"You got a vision?! What was it about? Do you usually get visions?"

"I don't really know. All I know is that I saw Graham at the party being way too nice to those two shallow girls in JAVA class, okay?"

"Okay, we have to hurry." Buffy stated seriously.

"Thank you, Buffy." Willow gave her a little smile.

They arrived a little late to the party, two hours to be exact, and Willow was worried about finding Graham with some other girl. She usually did that at parties, but then she hadn't really cared because she didn't know him. *Do you know him now?* She asked herself and the answer to that had to be negative. Although they had spent last evening, night and today's lunch together, she couldn't really say she knew him yet...*And I definitely haven't got any claim on him...*

Buffy heard Willow sigh a little and knew the sound of 'someone who just gave up' when she heard it. "Don't do that! We'll go find him, you'll see." She tried to reassure Willow, who didn't seem to buy it.

"Yeah, sure, whatever, he probably found a much prettier girl during the two hours I was late..." Willow pouted.

"After the time you have spent with Graham Miller during the past 24 hours, do you really think that's the case?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I don't know..." Willow shrugged. �Hey, look up the stairs!� A voice in her head told her and she felt a little nudge in her ribs. "Ow Buffy, stop tickling me!" She giggled and turned towards her now worried friend.

"I haven't touched you, Will." Buffy answered puzzled. "But I've found your guy..." She smiled and pointed towards the stairs where Graham came down from the second floor, alone.

The smile on Graham's face when he saw Willow was bright enough to compare to sunlight and that was exactly how she felt; like she had been in the dark for a long time and suddenly the sun shone down on her. He took the last steps two at the time and was with her in seconds.

"Good evening, ladies." He said politely and made a little bow.

"And good evening to you, kind Sir." Buffy smiled and made a curtsy pretending she had a long gown. "How's the party?"

"Loud and boring, until you arrived of course. I really wish we could have gone to the 'Scooby meeting' like we planned instead."

"We still can, we are supposed to meet up at Giles' at eleven." Willow smiled conspiratorially.

Graham looked at his watch. "So, two hours of partying. Would you like to dance?" He asked Willow, who looked at him as she didn't really understand. "Willow?"

"This is a slow song..." She told him.

"Yeah?"

"And you want to dance...with me?"

"Yes, well, if you want to that is...no, it doesn't really matter if you want to or not, I really want to dance with you anyway, only I wouldn't do it if you didn't..."

"Geez Graham, you sound like me! Of course I want to dance with you!" Willow smiled and seemed to have regained her self-confidence during his ramble.

Buffy watched Graham take Willow in his arms on the dance floor before she went on her own boyfriend-search. She found Riley, Forrest and some other guy, who she now assumed was an Initiative soldier too and just as she got inside hearing range Forrest asked: "Who's Graham's new girl?" And he said it in a tone that made Buffy frown. It sounded like Graham used to pick up new girls every weekend or so.

Riley and the other guy looked the way Forrest indicated. "That's Willow!" Riley said a little surprised, but smiled when he remembered the conversation with Graham this morning.

"Willow who? Do you know her? And why have you kept a beauty like that from the rest of us?" Forrest was nearly wining.

"Maybe I didn't want you to get your dirty hands on her." Riley teased and got hit over the head by his friend.

"But you introduced her to Graham?"

"No, not that I didn't think about it, but he did that on his own."

"Well, good for him, I don't think I've ever seen him enjoy female company before." The third guy suddenly spoke up.

A little relieved by his comment, Buffy chose that moment to acknowledge her presence to her boyfriend. "Hi there!" She smiled and hugged him.

"Hi Buffy." He mumbled in her hair and drew her closer and his friends took that as their cue to leave the couple.