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[A/N: Sorry for the belated update; freshman orientation left me tired and wasted. This is the second chapter of the story, mostly a school chapter. I’m setting scene and creating Spike’s character, since he’s pretty unknown to everyone. I hope I don’t give you the vibe that he’s pretentious and too intelligent for his own good. While I do want Spike to be highly intelligent, I don’t want him to be a snob or anything. He just knows lots of stuff, because he’s had lots of experiences and has done lots of stuff in his life. He’s mature, basically. And that will become part of Buffy’s attraction toward him, just like Spike will be attracted to Buffy for her innocence. Buffy POV this chapter. Edit: Oh, and as far as school schedules for Buffy and Spike: they have a block schedule, so new classes are just starting up after Winter.]





The looming apocalypse that would annihilate the entire planet and eventually the whole spankin’ universe finally reared its ugly head to Buffy.

And that abominable apocalypse was known by a simple title: English III.

And, yes, Buffy fluently spoke the language, maybe to the abhorrence of her watcher, but even she had to admit her skills in the harkening gallows of English were a little... wonky. She never really prided herself as a reader or a writer or an analyst or really anything other than the title of Slayer, and she knew she was in way over her head when she first entered the classroom. As she sat down next to Spike in the back of the class, she could quite clearly see the terrifying words etched in large capital letters on the chalkboard:

ORAL REPORT ON WINTER BOOK DUE TODAY

Oral report!? How am I suppose to do an oral report in front of the entire class on a book I haven’t even read? They’ll all laugh at me and say “poor little Buffy, she can’t even read. What does she do with all her spare time anyway? Make dust in the wind?”

Buffy glanced over at Spike, who sat in an all too comfortable position in his chair, almost sitting in a slouch. How can he be so calm in a crisis like this? she wondered.

She noticed his calm, effortless breathing and his super relaxed, tensionless face. It was like the man had no tension whatsoever in his body; not like he was completely devoid of human emotion, but that he never let anything get under his skin. Like being a dragon or being a long way from home or any normal weirdness like that.

Luckily Spike’s gaze was straight ahead and unfocused, almost daydreaming off into nothingness, so Buffy was able to ogle him all she wanted without fear of him noticing. Her eyes traced his delicate cheekbones and piercing blue eyes once again. Even from the profile angle, he still looked totally gorgeous to her. All compact and blonde and light and so not the tall and dark and oversized type.

He’s just so... her mind searched for the right words for him. Different. Unique. One of a kind. In a totally good, mixy way.

And totally gorgeous her mind intuitively finished for her. She was the Slayer, but she was also a girl with eyes.

Buffy somehow managed to get Spike into all of her classes, and even with the high student mortality rate at Sunnydale, it was a pretty arduous feat. She quickly rationalized to Spike that Giles told her in not so many words – really a Giles “look” that she couldn’t really explain – that she should accompany him at all times just in case he ever randomly transformed into an evil firebreathing dragon and decided to burn down the school gym.

Because burning down the gym is bad. Very bad.

So, without speaking about it directly, they had made a rule to stick together for the day.

But if Buffy was really honest with herself, she knew that the Slayer responsibilities were really the last thing on her mind right about now. But those types of prevalent Buffy emotions were dug deep down in teenage girl fantasyland, and she wouldn’t dare try to analyze them or look at them for what they might mean. Now, she was perfectly content with living in the moment and letting the chips fall were they may, or whatever other cliché she could find to let loose and live.

Only oral report equals badness in the current moment.

The bell rang. Class started.

“Hello, I’m Mrs. Armstrong,” the teacher began from in front of her desk. “I’ll be your English teacher for the year. We’ll do many things in this class, from fiction to poetry to writing, and I do expect you to have acquired the basic skills of English from your previous English classes. We will not review basic material like syntax, diction, or the five paragraph essay.”

Oh, Buffy? she inquired hopelessly to herself. ...she’s the one over there, in that sinking ship in the Bermuda triangle.

“I thought it would be a wonderful idea to get to know each other by orally presenting your reports on the books that you read over the Winter.”

Everyone in the class grumbled. The teacher smiled.

“Being able to talk in front of people is one of the most important qualities you can learn in school. We will be doing it often, so get used to it. So, let’s choose our first victim...”

The teacher looked over the attendance sheet, and for an instant a pang of hope shot through Buffy’s veins. Since her last name started with an “S,” it would be quite a while before the teacher got to her name on the list. And in that time, hopefully, she would be able to piece together a book enough from other people’s reports to give a decent oral report herself.

I can do this. Quick-witted Buffy. I’m smart. I’m capable. I can do this.

But then the teacher did something out of the ordinary. “I don’t want to discriminate against people with last names at the end of the alphabet, so we’ll start backwards today.”

Buffy’s eyes widened. I’m doomed. I so can’t do this.

“Buffy Summers?” the teacher called. It might as well have been for the death sentence.

Everyone in the class stared at Buffy. As her cheeks flamed red, she wrestled in her mind about the current conundrum she found herself in. Should she just go up there and wing it? Buffy hadn’t even looked at the Winter Reading List, so the chances were that she would sink rather than swim. Should she just run out of the classroom and hop a bus to Los Angeles and never look back? Or try to convince the teacher that she could discriminate all she wanted against people with last names at the end of the alphabet?

Buffy didn’t think it was possible for her to turn a deeper shade of red. Slaying I can do. Talking in front of a class about something I don’t know... something I can’t do.

And then through the misty haze of utter despair, her knight in shiny silver armor galloped out of nowhere and gallantly rescued her.

“We did our report together,” Spike mumbled to the teacher. As Buffy rotated her head to her savior, she sank into a false sense of relief. Oh great. Looks like Spike’s going down with me now. At least he might have had an excuse before.

“Oh, okay,” the teacher replied, somewhat doubtful. “That’s fine I guess. And you are?”

“Spike, I’m a new student,” he responded tersely as he got up and dragged Buffy up to the front of the class.

Buffy tried to stay behind Spike, praying that everyone would look at him instead of her. It felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders now. She just wanted to get this over with so she could deal with ordinary stuff, like demons and vampires and dragons and apocalypses. She darted a glance to Spike, who looked unnervingly comfortable.

Not like Spike’s read any Winter Reading List book. He just got here.

She watched with hope as Spike swiped the Winter Reading List off of a student’s desk. He browsed through the list a little and it looked like he contemplated something for a few seconds.

...could it be?

Spike took a deep breath. “So we read the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale over the Winter. Buffy and I both found its themes of women in subjugation enlightening, and the various ways in which women lost their freedoms particularly powerful.”

Buffy felt overjoyed. He read one of them! Nervousness quickly sank back in as Spike waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued in her place.

“The social critiques on censorship, separation of religion and state, and contemporary feminism were all relevant at the time of the novel’s creation, which I think was 1984...”

“Nineteen eighty-five,” the teacher corrected.

“Yeah, 1985,” Spike said.

Another awkward silence ensued as Spike waited for Buffy to speak. He shot her a look, hoping she would say something now that he got her started, to at the very least make this look legitimate. When she didn’t speak again, he spoke for her again.

“I know Buffy found the different ceremonies and practices in the novel to be completely degrading for women, but I thought they were needed devices to portray the sordid state our society could become someday.”

The teacher’s interest was sparked by that statement. “Could you read one of the passages aloud, please?” the teacher asked.

“Sure,” Spike responded. He swiped a book from one of the students in the front of the classroom and thumbed for the right page.

“Ah, here we are,” Spike said as he jammed the book in Buffy’s hands and pointed to the paragraph. He gave her a “sorry, but you have to say something” apologetic look.

Buffy looked funny at the unknown words, but read anyway.

“My red skirt is hitched up to my waist though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for.”

The class sat very silent and still, like the eye of a hurricane, after hearing the gritty paragraph.

Spike broke the silence with his conclusion. “We thought it was a pretty good dystopian book. Definitely not as good as 1984 or Brave New World, but a decent warning novel overall.”

Umm... “we?”

The teacher nodded her head approvingly. “Anything you’d like to add, Buffy?”

Buffy’s eyes darted to Spike. He quietly nudged her with his elbow, urging her to say something.

“Umm...” Buffy looked down at the cover of the book in her hands. “The Handmaid’s Tale really makes you think. Like, before I read it I thought the government controlling everything would be a good thing... but now I know better...”

Argh! Stupid, stupid Buffy!

The class stifled giggles. The teacher raised her eyebrow at Buffy.

“Uh, what Buffy is trying to say,” Spike cut in, “is that you don’t really understand something completely until it actually happens to you. This book was good enough to create the experience of being imprisoned by your government. And I think that’s something all stories should strive for: creating experience.”

The teacher smiled. “Very good analyses. I’m glad you both enjoyed reading the book.”

Both Buffy and Spike looked curiously at each other, not knowing whether they should feel relieved or burst out laughing.

“So who is our next victim?” the teacher went back to the attendance list, effectively dismissing the twosome.

Spike and Buffy went back to their seats. As the next oral report started, Buffy leaned into Spike’s ear. He stiffened from his slouch, ramrod straight, feeling her warm breath.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Spike shrugged. “Don’t mention it, pet. It was nothing.”

No it wasn’t Buffy thought. It was a very not-nothing type of thing to do. Mature, even. She kept the thought to herself, though, deciding to thank Spike in other more sensual ways later in the day.





So, yeah. We’ll get to Spike as a dragon later in the day when the watchers arrive, but first I wanted to set the school scene. Tell me if you’re still interested. Your feedback feeds my muse. =]





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