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Author's Chapter Notes:
A/N: Buffy learns that there are sometimes severe consequences for one's actions as her friends and family turn against her.

Some situations are from later in Season Two.

Some of the characters from BTVS may be out of character. Whether they are in character or OOC, however, they still are Joss's babies, not mine
Buffy walked determinedly toward Giles' inner sanctum even as she tried to keep sleep from claiming her. She wondered if all Slayers went through this process of being awake all night every night. If so, how did they concentrate on ridding the world of the forces of evil and still look great doing it?

The teenager thought about the unholy trio in the gym. She had barred them in upon leaving by sealing the main exit with holy water, but she knew that would not last long.

Fortunately, the library was nearby, and the sun was up outside, so it wasn't as though Spike, Angel or Drusilla would have time to escape through one of the windows or through a side exit leading outside. Buffy reached the library ten minutes later, but she stopped short when she saw her friends' and the adults' faces. The girl projected outward calm, but inside she was apprehensive.

"Hey," she greeted.

Giles looked at her with part revulsion, part anger, and part disappointment. Xander sat behind him so that Buffy couldn't see his face. Jenny and Willow looked even angrier than the Watcher. Oz's face was, as always, unreadable, but his arms were crossed in front of him and his legs were also crossed. That was not a good sign.

"After what's happened is that all you can think to say?" the British man asked.

Buffy shrugged, asking, "What's the bad?"

"'What's the bad'"? Willow queried, totally sounding like she would roast her best friend at any moment.

"Buffy, I can't believe that you don't get it!" The witch-in-training shouted. "I mean, you cast a spell without asking; you do something incredibly selfish not to mention stupid, and then all you can say is 'hey'? Well, I've got a 'hey' for you: hey, Buffy, I'm going to class now, and I'm not gonna save you a seat!"

Willow put on her resolute face and walked out into the hallway.

Oz got up and followed his girlfriend, looking over his shoulder and giving Buffy a "I'm not speaking to you for at least a week" look.

Buffy tried one last attempt to save face. She knew that she had screwed up big time, but she just couldn't face all three enemies and her friends ganging up on her.

"I know I did some major league bad stuff with the mojo, but now it's over, right?" she asked the other three people in the room. "So...we can go to school and I can be knowledge absorbing girl in class." The Slayer's hand reached out to touch Giles lightly.

"Oh! And, I've even got a Slayer-y problem that Giles can help with!" the blonde Chosen One exclaimed. She dropped her hand when Giles' blue eyes slid over to where her fingers were resting and regarded her as though her hands had some sort of disease on them.

For a moment, no one spoke. Then, Xander stood up slowly from where he'd hidden. "You know what?" he whispered softly, his voice laced with fury. "When we first met and I found out what you were, I thought that you were someone I could look up to, someone I could be like. But now, I can't stand to look at you at all."

Buffy could feel her eyes tearing. "Xander..." she said, reaching out toward him. The raven haired boy walked past her, not looking back.

"I have to go find Cordelia," he said, walking outside the library and taking the stairs to class. Her eyes followed him behind the round glass window in the door. When Xander was gone, Buffy turned to Giles and Miss Calendar.

There were so many things Jenny wanted to tell the girl, but she also knew that Giles would say what was on both of their minds. She settled for just leaving. If more things needed saying, the computer teacher would say them at another time. Jenny went to her locker to find a change of clothing for her upcoming morning class.

Buffy saw her Watcher, and his eyes. They never strayed from her, even when she paced. For a full two minutes, she was under his very harsh scrutiny. Of all the things the girl had faced, she couldn't take the man's cold rebuke much longer.

In the short time they had known each other Giles had been more than just her Watcher; more than just a friend. He had been the father she had never known; the male parent she could turn to when her female one just wasn't enough. It was bad enough losing one parent. It would kill Buffy to lose another, even if he wasn't her biological one.

"Say something," she told the middle aged man.

Giles continued to stare at her. Finally, the words spewed forth. "I can't believe that you would do something as foolhardy and reckless as that!" he yelled.

Buffy, for once, couldn't find a suitable reply. She just looked down at the ground and shuffled her feet like a little girl waiting for her punishment. Probably, her imagination told her, Giles and Miss Calendar would tell her mother, and then she'd be sent away to a convent to live out the rest of her days.

Or, worse yet as she felt the tingling of a worst case scenario on the barrier of her mind, she would be hauled away to a sanitarium to be given crazy people medicine once her mother found out that she was a Slayer.

Or maybe, if she was really lucky, Spike and Angelus would find her and take turns torturing her while Drusilla watched. Although, she thought with an inner smile, if it was just Spike alone, he might torture her in a different way: an altogether fun way.

**Yep, no doubt about it, I'm loony tunes certifiable!** Buffy thought.

"Giles, I..." Buffy started apologizing.

Her Watcher cut her off. "Don't," he said in an icy tone which brooked no interference.

"Okay," the Slayer said.

"Did you not pay attention to everything I taught you about the consequences of using magic to do your bidding? And, to involve demons and vampires is just unconscionable," Giles ground out, his voice scathing. "And all this for the sake of a vampire boy, one you should never have begun relations with!"

At that, Buffy was getting angry. "You make it sound like I had a choice about falling for him!" She accused. "Well, I didn't, just like I didn't have a choice when all I wanted to be like other girls! I never asked for this life, nor did I ask to be head over heels for the thing that goes bump in the night!" It was her turn to cross her arms as she snapped at Giles, "Excuse me for being human! For making a mistake!"

"You almost ruin the lives of everyone within a fifty mile radius who has testosterone in their veins and all you can do is stand there and say that you 'must have made a mistake?'" Both would be father and daughter studied each other. Then, Giles spoke softly.

"Go home, Buffy," he said tiredly. "There is not much you can do here today, and I would rather we not see each other. We shall...speak of this more when we have both calmed down. I will make up an excuse to your teachers, but go home."

Buffy started to leave, but then she thought about the vampires in the gym. "I can't go yet," she confessed. "I sealed Spike, Angel and Drusilla inside the gym and used holy water to block them from coming out."

Giles looked at her incredulously. "You mean you locked them in there, but you DIDN"T go back to dust them?" he asked. He was instantly on his feet, not waiting for the Slayer's answer.

Buffy still didn't want to tell him why she hadn't killed them. She really had no problem with staking Drusilla; after all, she had never liked Drusilla, but the insane vampiress was so heartbroken over Angel being possibly dead that the Slayer actually felt guilty. Combine that with the fact that part of her still loved the man that Angel had been.

Buffy could even feel for Spike, who was, more than likely, caught between a rock and a hard place. She didn't know why he hated Angel, but she couldn't mistake his connection to Drusilla. Somehow, someway, the blond vampire was definitely of the mix-y crowd with the raven haired vampiress. So, color Buffy conflicted.

There was also the beginning attraction she was feeling for Spike. Though he hated her and he wouldn't hesitate to kill her now that the spell was off, she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she got him alone with her and pressed the issue of her attraction on him. Maybe if she let him off the hook, they could find out together.

Of course, that still didn't solve the other problem, that being: what would she do about Angel and his childe, Drusilla? Giles was grabbing three stakes, oblivious to the raging conflict inside of his Slayer.

"Let's go there, immediately!" the Watcher commanded.

**And this time, my girl, do it right!** He thought as they both went to the gym.

Buffy tore open the door. A quick look around revealed that thankfully, no morning gym classes were being held in the place. And, at least the way Buffy saw it, she had locked them in the back room where the closet she had been with Angel was, not in the front section where there were games and visitors. The middle aged Englishman pulled out some keys and tried them in the lock to the back door.

"Be careful," he advised. "Watch out for anything." At her questioning nod, Giles said, "Mystic Skeleton keys. They can open any lock."

Buffy's look said, **gee, that would have been great coming from you thirty seconds ago before I broke open the other door!**

The Watcher found the key he had been searching for and slid it into the lock. The door flung open, and Buffy motioned him to stay behind. They crept into the room, sweeping through it at a snail's pace. But moments turned to minutes as they realized all three vampires weren't there.

Buffy located a trap door in the floor. She jerked it open and looked inside. There was a tunnel which had been used recently, her senses told her.

"Good Lord," Giles said softly as he processed what this meant. He and Buffy looked at each other, the later cursing inwardly at her stupidity in not seeing that her enemies had an escape route.

Buffy sighed, saying, "I'll find them. Just…make up something about me being sick. Tell them I have malaria, or something."

She jumped down into the tunnel. Giles handed her the stakes and some other weapons. The Slayer walked on grimly, forcing herself to train her senses on high so that she could find out which direction the vampires had taken.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Joyce went to the Principal's office and waited for the boys in white to meet her there. Snyder was grinning from ear to ear. Deputy Chief Harrison looked back from one to the other. He could see the tension in Mrs. Summers' eyes, and he wanted to offer words of comfort, but he didn't dare. As for Snyder, Harrison wanted to be as far away from him as humanly possible.

The Officer in Charge didn't like the man any faster than he could throw Snyder, and he wished that he could put the Principal behind bars. But Harrison knew which side of the bread his butter came from. He knew that Principal Snyder worked in cahoots with the Mayor, and Harrison had to tread softly.

So, Harrison had to do things with a "strictly business" attitude. He hoped that the sanitarium guys would arrive and, if Buffy Summers needed their help to sort things through, Harrison would offer any assistance that he could.

Joyce clasped her hands together nervously as she waited for news about her daughter. When the medics arrived, she asked Snyder, "where's Buffy?"

Principal Snyder stopped short when he realized he didn't have a clue as to Buffy's whereabouts. "Find her," he ordered the two men in white. Deputy Chief Harrison took over then.

"May I remind you that I'm still in charge for the moment," he said softly, yet with authority. He looked at the medical men and told them to follow him.

Before leaving the office, Deputy Chief Harrison told Snyder, "make a school wide announcement that the students and teachers are to remain in their classrooms, or get to their classrooms and stay in those rooms until further notice." The Principal gleefully complied.

Together, with another order to Snyder and Mrs. Summers to wait in Snyder's office, the men left the room.

In the hall, Harrison said to his men, "until she's found, don't let anyone else inside the building. If Miss Summers has gone off the deep end, I don't want her to be a danger to any of the other students." The men went to the main entrance to form a barricade.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Spike and Drusilla threw the jackets and blankets they had nicked from the cleaning staff's lockers over their shoulders and made their way to the location where his car sat. It had been in the youngest vampire's mind to let the sun destroy his grandsire, but a well timed command from Dru saw him covering Angel with blankets all over his injured body just like both blood drinkers were covered to avoid the flames.

Spike was glad he had studied a map of the tunnels' many exits and entrances before escaping. They had saved him many times in the past, and they would save the trio now. The vampires stopped when they reached the exit for Sunset Road.

"I'll go first," Spike said, preparing himself with the blankets.

He flung open the trap door which led through the sewer drain. As he made his way upward, part of his covering came off. Spike hurriedly threw it back on, shielding his head and hands but wrapping it in such a way that there was a narrow opening where his eyes were. When he saw his DeSoto with its blackened windows, the vampire was relieved.

Spike drove it right beside the drain, checking to see that the Slayer wasn't near. When he saw no people about, the vampire opened the passenger door.

Drusilla emerged, her head covered with a baseball cap; the rest of her smothered with blankets as she stumbled with her Daddy's covered body into Spike's car. She tossed Angel's body like a sack of wheat into the back seat once she was situated, mewling at her careless treatment of her injured Sire.

When he had both family members, Spike drove at top speed out of Sunnyhell, determined that he would return when the time was right and show the Slayer-bint the finer points of death at his bare hands.





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