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~*~

Buffy was leaning against the wall near the bathrooms where she’d left Spike the day before. She was frowning and staring into space, two things she almost never did.

She knew that she was going to have serious problems with the whole social status thing. Running out of the bathroom was so incredibly not good.

It was kinda funny how she didn’t really care.

And that was really freaking her out. Two days ago she would have been totally neurotic if she thought she was even the least littlest bit less popular. Now she just wanted to figure out why it was that Spike Walsh, who was way less popular and a total freak, was happier than she, Miss Popular herself, was. It made absolutely no sense.

Or...maybe it did. Buffy stuck her lip out, pouting. That was the problem—she wasn’t even sure if stuff made sense or not. The whole stupid thing was senseless!

“Um, Buffy?”

Buffy’s head whipped around. The girl she’d identified earlier as Willow was standing a few feet away, looking nervous.

“Yeah? Hi! What?” As soon as the reply came out of her mouth she cringed. Could she get any more Dumb Valley Girl?

“I was just wondering, well actually we were all just wondering—well okay, Spike sent me out here,” the nervous girl admitted. “He wanted to make sure—ummm...that you were OK. Because you, you ran out, and everything. And I’m sorry now I’m bothering you, and of course you wouldn’t want me to talk to you since you’re a cheerleader and I’m this horrible geek, so I’ll just—go now,” Willow said, turning around and starting to walk back to the lunchroom.

“No!” The order flew out of Buffy’s mouth almost involuntarily. When Willow turned back around she blushed and said, “Sorry. I’m just feeling kinda...weird.” She winced inwardly; she’d barely stopped herself from saying like totally wigged out or something equally as mortifying.

“Weird how?” Willow leaned up against the wall next to Buffy, studying the blonde’s face intently.

Suddenly Buffy felt a rush of gratitude towards Spike. He was still a big stupid jerk, yeah, but he was at least a big stupid jerk who had the niceness to send someone out to check on her who was willing to listen to her dumb problems.

“Weird as in I feel like...I dunno.” She bit her tongue. Weird as in I feel like the only person in the world I can trust is Spike, which since he’s like my greatest enemy is way insane!

“Like the whole world’s all topsy-turvy?” Willow offered. Buffy grimaced and nodded.

“You too, huh?”

“I think maybe it’s a senior year thing,” Willow mused. “I mean, what with my boyfriend, and Spike becoming completely unbearable because of the whole project thing, and—“

“Wait—what?” Buffy cut in. “Spike’s unbearable...how?”

Willow furrowed her brow, and Buffy realized that the redhead was starting to think that maybe she shouldn’t have said that. “Too late, Willow. Spill.”

“Okay, okay.” Willow caved. “I mean, first he was all with the ‘grr. I don’t want to work with stupid Buffy Summers’—I mean, no offense or anything, but—“

A day ago she would have called geeky Willow Rosenberg all kinds of mean things for calling her stupid, even if she was just quoting Spike. Now, though, she just smiled. Funny how she talks like Spike has feelings...it’s an interesting idea. “It’s okay. I get it. Keep going.”

“And then he was whining because he had that interview thing, and now it’s the day after the interview thing and he’s all broody even though he says nothing happened.” Willow frowned. “It’s all very strange.”

“Wait—he didn’t tell you about the interview?”

“He said there was nothing to tell,” Willow said with a shrug.

Nothing to tell. Did that mean that he was all uncaring about the interview? She had yelled at him...which led her to wonder why he was being all nice and stuff. He was, like—arrg! No! He was being kinda schizo with all the fighting/checking up on her.

Oh. Wait. Buffy suddenly realized that she’d been spacing big-time—Willow was staring at her questioningly.

“Buffy? You okay?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” Buffy smiled at the redhead. “Sorry, I’m just—has he said anything about me?” she asked quickly.

“Has who said anything about you?”

“Sp—Spike,” she stuttered, gripping her purse tightly. God. First she pulled a Nancy Drew with the questioning about the interview, and now she was doing the ‘has he said anything about me?’ routine. If I’m not careful, they’re going to start to think I like him. Ew. We so do not mesh...he’s all arrogant and annoying and really hot in that jacket and OH MY GOD I’M INSANE!!! Buffy gritted her teeth and smiled at Willow, waiting for the girl’s answer.

I really, really need a psychiatrist.

“Just the usual day to day stuff,” Willow was saying. “You know, I hate Buffy, Buffy should die, stupid cheerleading chit...whatever a chit is. Just, you know, normal stuff.”

And her heart sank at that...why? God. She really needed to work on remembering that Spike was a stupid insulting jerk. “Right. Normal. ‘Cause he’s always way nice to me...” She trailed off when she noticed that Willow was frowning at her, clearly confused. “That was sarcasm,” she added.

“Oh! Right. I got that,” Willow said. “It’s just that cheerleaders and sarcasm don’t usually—“

“Buffy! Oh my God, why are you talking to a geek?”

“Go together,” Willow finished with a ‘just-kill-me-now’ look on her face.

“Cordy, chill out,” Buffy snapped, automatically making her voice way whinier than it had been a minute ago. “We were talking.”

“Uh-huh. I saw that,” she said snidely. “What I want to know is why. Did you, like, need science homework or something? Because I so could have given it to you.”

“No, Cordelia, I didn’t need homework,” Buffy said impatiently.

“Well then, why are you talking to her? And what’s up with you, anyway? You sound all...serious.” She said the last word like most people would say “Ebola virus”.

“Um, yeah. This is serious.” Buffy rolled her eyes. Cordy was nice and everything, but she’d met balloons that were less air-headed.

“Whatever. Can I talk to you? Like, in private?”

Buffy rolled her eyes but allowed Cordy to propel her a few feet to the left. This was sooo stupid. Willow could totally still hear what they were saying... Hey, Buffy, cut it out! Cordelia’s your friend!

Yeah, a friend who’s completely insulting and totally stupid sometimes, that oh-so-snarky inner voice shot back.

Well, okay. That was true.

So, accordingly, she scowled at Cordy. “What do you want?”

“I’m worried about you,” she said earnestly. “You’ve been completely weird all day long. Angel and Parker are saying that—“

“Omigod, Cordy, please.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “Do you honestly think I give a damn about what Angel and Parker say? They’re, like, total idiots.”

“Total idiots who totally control the whole high school!” Cordelia was whispering frantically. “Buffy, they’re talking about kicking you out!”

She blinked. “Kicking me out of where?”

“Out of—you know,” Cordelia hissed. When Buffy continued to just stare at her, she said, “The group!”

The desperation in Cordy’s voice was just enough to actually be comical. Buffy couldn’t stop a grin from coming to her face. “Oh, the horror,” she said in a dry, very un-Buffy-like voice. “However will I survive being kicked out of the group?”

“Buffy...” Cordelia said in a warning voice. “You’re my friend, and I completely understand what you’re going through, but—“

“No, you don’t! How could you possibly understand?” Ugh. Bad teen movie much?

“Oh, please. Have you ever seen Xander Harris? Totally hot and totally off limits,” Cordy pointed out. “He’s a nerd, Buffy, just like Willow’s a geek.”

“And Spike?” As soon as the words popped out of her mouth she wanted to stuff them back in. No one, especially not one of the school’s biggest gossips, needed to know about her changing feelings towards Spike.

“Punk rock weirdo,” Cordelia said instantly. Her tone was dismissive, superior, even, and it took her less than a second to come up with a label for Spike. Buffy realized that Cordy could label anyone in the school at the drop of a hat. Could and would.

And for some reason that she didn’t really feel like figuring out, that made her mad. Really, really mad.

So what came out of her mouth wasn’t agreement with what Cordy just said, which would have been smart, since she was about to be kicked out of the in crowd by people she called her friends. No, instead she just said, “You’re really quick to label people, Cordelia.”

And the creepy part was, it didn’t sound like her. Not even a tiny bit. It sounded like—someone serious, someone grown-up. Someone who was not Buffy Summers.

“Your point being?” Cordelia arched an eyebrow. She sounded perfectly serious and perfectly bitchy—total Cordelia. In their little group, Cordy had always been the bitchy one. Buffy was just the cute blonde.

And now, even though part of her was screaming what the hell are you doing??!!! at her, she just wanted it to be over.

I’m tired of it, she realized suddenly. I’m tired of pretending everything’s okay when it’s not, I’m tired of acting like I don’t have any brains...

And I’m tired of pretending those people are my friends.

So she raised her chin and looked Cordy in the eye, even though her own were beginning to sparkle with tears. She knew that in this world, the world of high school, what she was about to do could alienate her from her “friends” forever. People in high school didn’t forgive and they never forgot. It was a hellish place where every little thing you said was heard and repeated and twisted until whatever truth that had originally been contained in it was, as often as not, lost.

And what she was about to say would be repeated for quite some time. That much, at least, she was sure of.

“My point being that I’m tired of this,” she snapped. “I’m tired of watching everything I say and do, and I’m just—just—“

Cordy held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” she said sweetly. “I get it.”

“Y—you do?” Buffy said nervously. Well, that makes one of us, at least. I so don’t understand anything I’m saying.

“Of course I do,” the other girl assured her.

“Oh, thank God,” Buffy said, relieved. “Now, if you can just tell Angel and everybody that—“

“I’ll tell them what I heard.” Cordy’s voice and face all of a sudden turned malicious. “Little Miss Buffy Summers is out.” And with that, she turned on her heel and walked back into the cafeteria.

Buffy stared after her, slack-jawed, her entire world reeling on its axis.

Part of her—the grown-up part, the part that had been doing most of the talking for the past twenty minutes or so—was snickering and thinking, well, that went well. Stupid little high school clichés intact and everything. But most of her was just thinking about her former friend and the look that had been on her face when she said those hurtful, if hopelessly immature, words.

It was a look she’d seen dozens of times before—every time Cordelia put a nerd or a geek or a punk or anybody, really, in their place. She’d never realized before how much that look of utter and complete contempt could really hurt.

They’d been going over to each others’ houses for sleepovers and late-night talks since the seventh grade. That was, like, six whole years of girly bonding. Buffy couldn’t even count the number of secrets she’d told Cordy over the years. And now the girl was completely repudiating her because she’d had the nerve to act like a person, not some walking, talking trained poodle.

Buffy inhaled sharply and realized that she was very, very close to crying.

And then the tears started running.

Well, it wasn’t her fault. Twenty-four hours ago things had been just fine. Well, okay, she’d been flunking English and hated Spike and her parents had been big jerks. But—she’d at least held most of the school in thrall. Even if she hadn’t been able to control her own life, she’d had that. She’d had her popularity.

Or...she’d thought she had.

And now? What did she have now? She was still failing English, she still hated Spike—or at least, she was pretty sure she did. If she didn’t then she’d just go kill herself, because not hating Spike would be like someone telling her the sky was purple and the grass was orange.

And her parents were still big buttholes. That much she was sure of.

So would someone like to tell me why I just went all Wonder Woman, Justice For the People on Cordy?

Willow, who’d been watching Buffy cry and frantically trying to think of what to do, took a hesitant step forward. “Um...Buffy? A-Are you okay?”

Oh, yeah. That’s why. Someone had actually been nice to her. It had been a good feeling...usually, her and niceness were like oil and water. Very un-mixy.

“I—I dunno.” She wiped her cheeks and tried for a feeble smile. “I’m Raccoon-Girl now, aren’t I?”

“No, of course not. You look nice.” Willow offered the girl a smile, but to Buffy it looked kinda false.

Or maybe just disbelieving? She briefly tried to put herself in the other girl’s shoes. Until like two minutes ago, Buffy had been a typical Teen Queen. People like her didn’t give people like Willow so much as the time of day. There was no reason they didn’t, that was just the way it was. It was stupid...but Buffy was starting to think that all of high school was stupid.

“Thanks,” she sniffled. “Ummmm...look, this is horrible, especially since I still totally hate Spike, and I barely know you, but...can I...” She looked down at her hands. “Can I sit with you at lunch?”

Most other people in the school would have completely spurned her request. Actually, most people would have done so with glee. Buffy couldn’t count the number of people she’d been cruel to just in the past year. Though she didn’t remember any particular events involving Willow, there probably had been at least one.

But Willow just smiled and helped Buffy to her feet, saying, “Sure. We’d be glad to have you. Well, except Spike, he’ll probably throw a fit...but that’s okay. Faith can deal with grumpy Spike.”

Buffy frowned. Faith as in the freaky Goth slut everybody she knew utterly despised?

Oh, wait. Everybody despised her now, too.

“Okay,” she whispered. Willow smiled encouragingly and started to walk back towards the cafeteria. Buffy felt a profound gratitude towards the redhead, gratitude that she knew would probably turn into friendship. Willow was just so...nice. It was a dumb word, but she was. She was nice and forgiving and suddenly Buffy realized that she’d much rather be friends with Willow than with Cordelia.

Somehow, she knew Willow wouldn’t reject her if Buffy’s whole attitude suddenly changed like it had with Cordy a little while ago. Granted, Willow might tie her down and demand to know what was going on, but she wouldn’t go all Ice Queen and just tell her that she was out.

And because Willow was so much nicer than Cordelia, Buffy was going to go eat at the reject table. With Spike.

She gulped.

Here we go, she thought nervously, and she followed Willow into the cafeteria.

~*~

A/N: So, the weirdest thing has been happening lately. My family’s got this twisted idea that just because the computer with Internet access is in the family room and is referred to as the ‘family computer’, they’ve got dibs on it over me, or something. So updates might be few and far between for a little while until my mom’s computer gets fixed or I make my family a little bit smaller *crazy serial killer laughter*...okay. No more coffee for the teenager =) Thanks to people who reviewed, you guys make my day!!!!! Hope you liked smarter Buffy. If you did, then by all means, tell me ;)





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