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Sorry for the delay, thanks lots to ppl who reviewed! Hope you guys enjoy =)
~*~

The next day at lunch, Buffy’s mind was not on her food, or on the kinda boring conversation. Instead, she was thinking about what the most annoying person in her life had said to her the day before.

How many friends have you got that know about your mom?

The answer, she was disturbed to know, was a big, fat zero.

And for some reason, that was bugging her big-time.

She looked around her table at the people she called her friends: Cordy, Harmony, Angel, Parker, and Veruca. Somehow, she didn’t think a single one of them would understand the thing with her mom.

“—And I can’t believe she, like, actually thought I was serious!” Harmony said. “Like, who in the world actually wears those things?”

“Humongo geeks like Willow Rosenberg?” Cordelia suggested, earning a laugh from everyone at the table.

Everyone except Buffy, that is. She was frowning. She’d never really thought about it before, but people sounded really dumb when they said “like” all the time. And she said it almost as often as Harmony.

Willow...that name sounded familiar. Wait—Buffy glanced over at the table Spike and his friends occupied. It was a mix of punks, geeks, nerds, and just all-around outcasts. Usually she and everyone she sat with looked down upon that table. Today, though, she studied it, looking for the redhead she knew she’d vaguely recognize.

There she was, sitting next to a short guy Buffy vaguely recognized as belonging to a band called Dalmatians Ate My Boyfriend, or something. Cordy had dated their lead singer for awhile...

As she watched, Willow laughed at something a slutty-looking brunette said. From across the table, Spike scowled at them.

Buffy felt a smile of her own come to her face. They all looked so normal. So friendly. Her friends never teased each other, because they were all so obsessive about the whole social status thing...

Wait—what the hell was she doing? Staring at Spike’s friends and wishing they were hers? Staring at Spike and wishing she knew what it was like to have friends who cared about you, not your reputation?

Well, okay, that did sound kinda nice. But that wasn’t the point. The point was that Buffy was at the tippy-top of the social ladder and had every intention of staying that way. So she couldn’t envy Spike. Not even the littlest bit.

“So, Buffy, are we gonna like go Bronzing this afternoon? Because I so totally know this guy who might be willing to, you know, slip us a few beers...” Harmony trailed off under Buffy’s intent gaze.

The smaller blonde was staring at Harmony, head cocked, thinking, You know, it never occurred to me before, but I really, really don’t like her. She was so vapid, so shallow, so...

like me. Ew!

“Hello? Earth to Buffy!” Harmony said, annoyed, waving her hand in front of Buffy’s face.

“Oh! Sorry. Um...I can’t go.” She dug into her low-cal, low-carb, low-fat salad. “I have an, um, thing?” The last part came out sounding like a question; everyone at the table was suddenly staring at her.

“You don’t have time for us?” Veruca asked, her skanky voice more venomous than usual. And yes, a voice could be skanky. Everything about Veruca was skanky.

“Well, see, it’s just the whole project thing I told you about, I’m supposed to interview Spike today...” She had of course told all them about the project, even about the “interview” yesterday...she just hadn’t told them about the super-blue eyes or the argument.

“We’re getting the brush-off for Captain Peroxide?” Wonderful, now Angel was picking at her. She so needed that...

Not.

“You’re not getting the brush-off,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “I just wanna pass English, okay?”

“Aw, you’re smart, Buffy. You should be able to pass anyway,” Parker told her with his best sweet-boy smile.

Smart compared to a block of wood like you, maybe, Buffy wanted to say, but instead she just smiled. “Thanks, but I really have to do this. I mean, I don’t want to, because I’m gonna like have to touch his stuff and everything, but...” Buffy trailed off.

“Are you okay, Buffy? You sound all smart and stuff,” Cordelia said earnestly. Buffy forced herself to smile at the brunette.

“I’m fine. Just feeling a little...off,” she said.

“I so totally get that!” Harmony gushed. “I mean, with Spike coming in and sitting on your bed and stuff—ew!” Harmony wrinkled her nose. “You probably had to disinfect the sheets afterward!”

Everyone else at the table burst into laughter, but Buffy winced. Omigod, I think like Harmony. How tot—how traumatic can you get? She wasn’t going to say stuff like totally in her thoughts. She had to stop this whole Harmony-clone thing, and her thoughts seemed like a good place to start.

But looking around the table, she realized something—pretty much everyone there was like Harmony. Even the guys were sort of all the same. It was kinda creepy, actually.

“Buffy!” This time it was Cordy who snapped her fingers in Buffy’s face. “God, what is wrong with you? You’re so spacey, it’s like Invasion of the Pod People or something...except that’s a geek movie,” she added when everyone raised their eyebrows.

Except that it’s a geek movie. God, could these people get any more picky? Geeks, nerds, punks, they were all below Buffy’s little group. And all of a sudden, she was really tired of the whole thing.

“Um, guys? You’re right, I’m not feeling too well,” Buffy lied quickly.

She regretted it when Parker jumped up and said, “I’ll help you to the nurse’s office if you like, Buffy. I know that when girls don’t feel good their stomachs can trouble them, and I just want what’s best for you.”

She waved him away. “For God’s sake, I’ll be fine,” she snapped—and then realized that everyone at the table was staring at her. Again. She belatedly remembered that just last week she’d told Cordy she though Parker was “like a major honey”.

“I mean,” she said, smiling through gritted teeth, “That I wouldn’t want to pull you away from your lunch. Okay?”

He looked disappointed, but said, “Of course, Buffy. Whatever you want,” and sat down again.

She practically ran out of the lunchroom. Well, okay, she didn’t run. She knew better than to do that. But she did walk as fast as you could in a short skirt. I gotta get out of here before I lose it and rip Harmony’s cheap-dye-job hair out.

*

He saw her leave, of course. Sodding hell, his eyes had been fixed on her from the second she’d walked into the cafeteria, surrounded by friends.

His conscience had really been bugging him ‘bout the day before, for several different reasons. First off, he was plagued with guilt about almost makin’ her cry. He hadn’t meant to yell at her, he’d just been frustrated. She looked so innocent, so pure—it infuriated him to see her lyin’ her brains out about her mum.

The other thing was the fact that her eyes looked so gorgeous when she cried. Bloody—he’d made her cry, for Christ’s sake, and all he could do was think about how beautiful she was when she did. Her eyes seemed to get greener, and this little flush went across her cheeks, and there was such feeling in her face—the only time he’d ever seen her like that before was when she was pissed off at him, and then, he hadn’t wanted to cuddle her.

When she’d gotten tears in her eyes, all he’d wanted to do was hold her, kiss her, and make them go away.

And that was what was really buggin’ him. Not the crying, or the yelling—the sudden, almost irresistible urge to plant a kiss on those sweet little lips.

‘Course, he’d always known she was a hot little thing. Every wanker with two eyes and a dick could see that. But the thought of actually snogging with her had always been rather unappetizing, on account of how dumb she was. Might as well try to get it on with a cow, if there’d been any cows in Sunnydale.

But yesterday had been different. For the first time he’d seen an emotion in her eyes that went deeper than simple anger or delight that CVS had started selling Cover Girl lipstick for low, low prices. The fact that the emotion had been sadness just made him want to comfort her.

And now he was philosophizin’ more than Plato himself. “Bugger,” he muttered under his breath before turning to Willow.

“Hey, Red, do me a favor, would you? Go check up on Summers, make sure she’s a’right.”

“But I thought you hated her, what with all the ‘grr, I hate Buffy’ and stuff,” Willow said, a puzzled frown on her face.

Good point. “I just, uh, wanna make sure she’s not sick. Interview and all today,” he lied quickly.

Willow raised her eyebrows, but was for once silent. She stood up and walked out of the cafeteria after Buffy.

Spike’s satisfied smile melted under the pressure of Xander’s gaze. “Got a problem, mate?”

“He’s just wondering when you’re going to admit that you want to be orgasm partners with Buffy, not just enemies,” Anya said in her usual blunt style.

He never knew how he managed it, but somehow, Spike kept his cool. “Don’t wanna be orgasm-buddies. Just wanna make sure I get an A.”

“How ‘bout a P, as in, piece of ass?” Faith asked. “Come on, how long are you gonna keep this up? You and B wanna get it on.”

“’ey! Do not!”

“Uh-huh. I think Spike Jr. has a little something to say about that.”

When Spike looked down at his crotch in horror, Faith reached over and stole one of the wings he’d bought from the cafeteria. He looked up to see her munching on it, grinning.

“You little—“

“Yeah, yeah, you know you love me,” Faith said cheerfully. Spike groaned and put his head in his hands.

He looked up when someone nudged him. He smiled when he saw it was Tara. She was a nice bird, she wouldn’t take the others’ side—

“You can go b-buy more wings,” Tara suggested. “And while you’re at it, you might want to pick up some ice.”

“’m not—“ he began, but renewed laughter drowned him out.

Oz just shrugged when Spike looked at him imploringly. “On your own,” he said in his usual expressionless manner—except that he wore a faint smile.

“Bloody hell,” Spike growled, digging into his food. Not only was he very much not hard, but now he was out a spicy buffalo wing, too. Stupid bint. Why the hell do I keep talkin’ to her? He wasn’t sure if he meant Faith or Buffy.

Twitch. He looked down and groaned.

Every time he thought about her name, he got that much closer to proving Anya right. And this afternoon she was gonna be with him, in his house, in his room.

Fuck, he realized. ’M a dead man walkin’.





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