Part 17

"Willow!" Xander caught her up in a huge embrace. "I'm so glad to see you."

The others stood and slowly made their way over to the pair. Buffy wasn't sure what to say, so she stepped forward and rubbed her old friend's arm "Hey, Will."

"Buffy." Willow let go of Xander to hug her best friend. "I've missed you all so much."

"We've missed you too."

One by one they stepped up to greet her: Giles, Dawn, William, and finally Anya. "I'm not going to hug you Willow." She informed her. "We haven't been especially close in the past, and I'm afraid of you."

"That's OK Anya, I understand. I'm a little afraid of me too."

"Willow, how are you feeling?" Giles didn't mask his concern.

"I'm fine. Really." She noticed the shop "Wow! Major redecorating."

"And we have you to thank for that!" Xander threw his arm around her. "Come on over. We were just having dinner."

"Pizza! Is this heaven?"

"No, it's just Sunnydale" Dawn answered lightly. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming back?"

Willow picked up a slice of pizza and bit in. She rolled her eyes in ecstasy. "Umm. Oh that is so good." She swallowed and licked her top lip. "I knew that everyone would be busy here, and I didn't want a big scene at the airport either. Plus," she looked around shyly, "I wanted to take some time to get my nerve up before I walked back in here."

"And you did walk, right?" Anya asked pointedly.

"Oh, absolutely!" Willow assured them. "No swoosh and pop for me."

"So you're off magic again?" Xander passed her a cup of soda.

"Completely." Willow took a sip. "I'm off magic forever."

Buffy reached out to touch her friend's arm. "Can you be sure of that Will?"

"Yep." She reached out and wiggled her fingers. "See, no light displays. I'm clean." She noted their concerned expressions. "Really everyone. I've been stripped of every last trace of power. I couldn't do a pencil levitation if my life depended on it."

"Stripped, Willow? That sounds extreme." Buffy commented.

"It's OK, really. It's what I wanted. This way I know I can never hurt anyone again. You'll just have to take me as I am: plain old Willow."

Xander hugged her again. "She was always my favorite part anyway."

"Thanks Xander." She glanced around and waved her hands at the table. "Eat everyone! And tell me what's been happening. I want to know everything."

*****

"Thank you for walking me home Giles."

"My pleasure Anya. It's been a big day."

"Yes. And tomorrow is Sunday, so we can sleep in."

"Ah, yes. It was good planning to have the re-opening on a Saturday."

"And all the free help didn't hurt either."

Giles smiled in amusement. "Well then, I'll be off." He stepped away.

"You aren't coming in?" The dismay was clear in her tone.

"It's late dear, and I know you want to go to bed."

"That's right, I do. So come in now and I won't have to wait any longer."

"Anya," he braced his hand against her doorway and leaned over slightly to study her face. "Perhaps tonight is not the best time to get into this, but we probably need to talk about what happened yesterday."

"You mean the kissing."

"Yes, that is what I'm referring to." He adjusted his glasses on his nose. "I'm afraid I didn't use my best judgment when I allowed that to... to continue."

"You didn't like it? You said you liked it."

"Well, yes, it was very nice Anya... but most likely it shouldn't happen again."

"If I were to kiss you again, you don't think you'd enjoy it anymore?"

"I'm sure it would be a pleasant experience. You have very nice... lips."

"Thank you. I enjoyed your lips too."

Giles was flattered, in spite of himself. "It's very kind of you to say so." He roused himself from his bemused state. "Now wait, this is not what I intended..."

"What did you intend?"

"We are really not well suited, you and I." As a hurt look crept into her face, he rushed to explain. "Fir... first of all there is the age difference."

"There isn't much I can do about that, silly. Once you're over a thousand years old, the dating pool is narrowed considerably if you restrict yourself to staying inside your age bracket."

"Yes, of course. But that's not quite what I meant. It's just that I represent a sort of authority figure to all of you."

"You quit."

"Excuse me?"

"You quit. You left and went back to England so that Buffy could be her own authority figure. We still respect you, but you're simply not in charge any more."

"I suppose, in a way, that that's true."

"So if you don't have any more objections, come inside and we can kiss some more." Anya reached for his hand and tugged him into her apartment. She shut the door quickly behind him, then loosened his tie with a quick tug of her thumb and index finger. She pressed up against him and nuzzled his neck softly.

"Anya, this isn't right."

"Why not? Do you have a girlfriend back in England?" She kissed him behind his ear and nibbled on his earlobe.

"Um, actually, no."

"Are you gay?"

"Pardon me?"

"Impotent?" She slid her hand down his torso. "No. You're definitely not impotent." She brought her hand back up and removed his glasses. "So tell me why this is wrong."

His hand groped along the wall to find the door. He felt for the knob and tried to twist it. "Is this door locked?"

"Yes."

"Good."

*****

Buffy and Dawn took the long way home, cutting across two cemeteries in a mini-patrol. "Kind of slow tonight." Dawn commented.

"Huh?" Buffy's mind was elsewhere.

"Hello! Patrolling?" Dawn teased her. "Where are all the vamps?"

Buffy paused to consider the observation. "You're right. They've been thick as flies lately, and I haven't even seen one tonight."

The girls resumed walking. "Maybe you scared them off the other night."

"What other night?"

"In our back yard - with my teacher." She grinned.

"You saw that?"

"Oh, yeah!" Dawn smacked her on the arm. "Buffy, you were a freaking animal!"

"Stop it!" Buffy blushed. "It was a good fight, and there he was looking so."

"Terrified?" Now Buffy smacked Dawn's arm. "Ow!"

"So I guess you saw Angel, too?"

"It was better than Days of Our Lives."

"And then you lurked on the stairs and heard the rest?"

"So are you going to tell him?"

Buffy stopped. "I don't know what to say to him. I treated him so badly, I don't know if he would even want to get involved with me now."

"So then why don't you find out?"

Part 18

William erased his white board, and rubbed at the green smudges on his fingers. This marker stuff didn't come off quite as easily as the old chalk used to. Then there was the smell. With his heightened vampire senses, there were times when he became almost light-headed when he wrote a lot. Today he had posted an outline, and now was trying to fight off a nasty headache. Too bad Cordelia wasn't around to zap his acetone allergy. He sat at his desk and reached for a student journal. It would take him a few hours to work through them and write his comments.

He heard a soft footfall at the doorway. "Hello, Buffy." He said without looking up.

"Hi." She shuffled from side to side uncertainly.

"Dawn's gone."

"I know. I thought that maybe we could. talk."

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his forehead with the thumb and fingers of one hand. "About what? More strange creepy-crawlies stirring things up?"

"Uh, no. Actually, it's been pretty quiet the last few days." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Unusually quiet."

He motioned to a desk in the front row. "Have a seat."

Buffy walked over to the place he had indicated and lowered herself into the student desk. She looked around the room as memories of her own high school days came back to her: passing notes to Willow, sniping at Cordelia and Harmony, watching female vampires combust. She was glad those days were behind her. How odd that she was sitting here looking at a vampire who wasn't in danger of turning into tinder. "How do you like it?" she asked him.

"For the most part, teaching is very gratifying."

"I meant the daylight part."

"Oh." He smiled genuinely. "It's nice. I didn't realize how much I missed it."

"Did it bother Angel, that you can do this?"

His smile faded and he looked back down at the notebook on his desk. "So this is about Angel then, is it?" He sighed. "Didn't you two lovebirds hash everything out last week?"

"We're not lovebirds anymore, and besides," she tilted her head inquiringly, "Didn't he go by your place to stay?"

"He was sleeping when I left for work in the morning, and gone by the time I went home." He glanced up. "It was a long day - PTA meeting."

Amusement fluttered across her face. "You. and parents?"

"Who'd have thought?"

"Yeah." She laughed. "The last time you were here on a parent teacher night, you."

He scowled and slammed the notebook closed. "I remember."

She glanced down uncomfortably, unsure of what to say. Silence hung uneasily in the room. He was usually so upbeat that she tended to forget the weight of guilt he shouldered for his past crimes. The memory of their first fight was something he would have enjoyed rehashing with her before. Now it was overshadowed by all the deaths of innocents he had caused that night. She stood uncertainly, debating whether or not to leave.

Giggling from the doorway interrupted her somber thoughts. Buffy groaned inwardly. It was Dawn's friends from the lunchroom. "Are we interrupting?" The blond asked with an annoying little lilt.

"No, no. Not at all." William told them, and motioned for them to enter.

Chelsea appeared to be the spokesperson for the group. "We were wondering if you'd be willing to do something for us."

He sat back, seemingly at ease with the teens. Buffy envied his easy manner with them. He always seemed to be on guard with her. "And what would that be?"

"The student council has decided to have a Halloween Dance this year, and we wanted to know if you would be a chaperone."

"Ah. I see." He put on a show of considering the question seriously. "There would be costumes, I presume?"

"Yes. You could come as whatever you'd like."

Buffy couldn't resist. "You would make a great vampire!"

"No way!" Missy opined. "Vampires are all dark and creepy." She turned her adoring gaze back to William. "I was thinking rock star."

"Or a knight." A petite brunette piped up from the back.

"How about you?" Missy asked Buffy. "What will you wear?"

"Me?"

"Well, you'd be his date, since you're his girlfriend and all."

William made a coughing sound, and appeared to be choking. Buffy glared at him. Since when did vampires choke? "Urm, yes, Buffy. You could come as a damsel in distress."

She stared daggers at him. "Been there, done that. Remember honey?"

He walked around the desk and thew his arm across Buffy's shoulders then turned to the girls. "We'd be glad to help out, wouldn't we Sweetness." He gave her a firm squeeze.

"Delighted." She dug her elbow into his ribs.

"Great!" Chelsea gave a satisfied nod and turned to Buffy. "We'll see you then." The girls walked to the door. "Goodbye, Mr. Browning. Thanks!"

He waved and waited for the girls to leave, then dropped his arm from Buffy's shoulders and turned to her. "I told you this whole 'boyfriend' scheme of yours was a bloody stupid idea."

"I don't know." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "A Halloween dance might be fun. It sure beats sitting around on the slowest slaying night of the year. Besides, what else do you have to do?"

"I was referring to us."

"What about us?"

"Standing around, forced to make with the googly eyes all night."

She tilted her head. "That might not be so awful."

He turned away from her. "Go home Slayer. These marker fumes are getting to you, too." He walked back to his chair and prepared to sit.

"Can't we at least talk about it?"

"About what?" He turned to face her again, with more than a hint of exasperation in his voice.

"About what happened the other night."

He closed his eyes, took a breath, then opened them again. "Like I told Angel, it won't happen again. I know what it was and I promise not to read anything more into it."

"This isn't like before."

"It's exactly like before, except I seem to have a conscience now and I really don't want to revisit being your dirty little secret." He sat down and reached for another notebook. "I have a lot of work to do here, so why don't you go on your merry way and find yourself a nice non-demon sort to scratch that itch of yours."

That did it. She grabbed the back of his chair and pulled it away from the desk, spun it around, and leaned over with her hands on the armrests.

"First of all, I have not been impaired by any mysterious classroom fumes. Second, since everybody knows about what happened between us last year, you can hardly be considered a secret anymore. And third." She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, taking advantage of his surprise to deepen the kiss intimately so that he couldn't misconstrue her meaning. After a long, lingering moment, she disentangled her mouth from his and stood up. "You are the only one who can scratch my itch. Deal with it." She turned and strode out of the room.

He sat back in his chair, looking at the vacant doorway. A bemused smile touched his still wet mouth. His headache was gone.

*****

Dawn entered her house with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Hey Dawnie." Willow called from the couch.

"What'cha up to?" Dawn dropped her bag and walked into the room.

"Enjoying the nice day and watching some TV. Do you think Buffy will mind that I opened the window?"

"Nah." Dawn looked at the screen and brightened up. "Powerpuff Girls! Cool." And plopped down beside the reformed witch. "You know they have a movie coming out, don't you."

"I heard about that. Do you want to go?"

"Only if you promise we don't have to stop by any creepy magic crack houses."

Willow put her hand up. "I can definitely promise you that. Even if I did have an urge to go visit a place like that again, it wouldn't do any good, now that my powers are gone. By the way, what are you doing home already? I thought you were going to study at the Magic Box until Buffy got done with her errand."

"I was there, trying to study. Really, I was! But Anya kept humming and singing. It was hard to concentrate."

"She has been pretty chipper lately, hasn't she? Do you think it's because Xander is being nice?"

Dawn shrugged. "Who knows?" She noticed a catalogue on the coffee table. "Hey, Sunnydale U. Are you going back?"

Willow picked up the booklet with a look of uncertainty on her face. "I'd like to finish. I've got a meeting with a school counselor today. I'm hoping they will let me start late this semester." She dropped the book. "It won't be the same, going there without Tara."

"I know. I miss her too." The two girls hugged, and then Dawn pulled back. "Hey, since you're not busy doing anything yet, would you like to help with our Halloween dance at school? I'm in charge of decorations, and I'm clueless."

"Sure, I'll help out. Maybe Xander can do some stuff too, now that the store is done." Willow smiled. "It will be like old times, with the gang all doing something together."

Buffy walked in. "All the gang doing what together?"

"The Sunnydale Halloween party." Dawn said.

"Hey, I'm already signed on!"

"Great." Dawn enthused. "What will you be doing?"

"Chaperoning. with William." She chirped happily.

"Cool!"

Willow looked at her uncertainly. "Buffy, are you two. dating?"

Buffy plopped down beside her on the couch. "Not really. We're just sort of hanging out right now. You know, slaying and talking and research. Oh, and a little minor kissage."

"What?"

"It didn't look too minor the other night." Dawn chimed in.

"Well, it was." She turned to Willow. "And don't freak. We're taking it slow. Besides, we kind of have to keep up a show for the school kids." Willow gave her a confused look, so she continued. "I told them he was my boyfriend to explain why we were hanging around together so much. We can't have them finding out about the whole slayer/vampire thing."

"Uh. Ok. Right. Sure." Willow still had some reservations.

Buffy noticed the TV show. "You're watching the Powerpuff Girls?" She wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Their big eyes just freak me out. And how lame is that crappy animation?"

*****

The large black bird flew across town, through the cemetery, and along the river until it came to the cave opening. It flew inside and landed on Doc's shoulder.

"Ah, my little friend. What bits of news might you have for me?"

The bird squawked and cawed.

"They will all be together for Halloween? That's perfect. And what of the witch?"

Again the bird voiced its observations.

"Powerless, you say? Well that is very good news. That means there will be nothing standing in my way. Thank you. There is some fresh meat for you down by the river. Hurry, there might not be much left if you tarry."

The bird flew out into the sunlight, leaving the man alone in his blanket of darkness.