A/N

Disclaimer: Buffy is Mutant Enemy's. I am neither a Mutant, nor an Enemy (except of mobile phones everywhere).

Well, after several busy months, I've been prodded into continuing with this. Sorry to all my loyal readers for the delay.

.oOo.

"Oh look," I heard from ahead of me as I walked through the zoo. "It's Buffy and all her friends."

I looked up and recognised Kyle and his pack of 'friends'. My lips curled in an amused smile. "Wow Kyle, a two-syllable word – a plural even! You're making good progress – reading without moving your lips could be in your future," I told him enthusiastically."

"Do you ever wonder why nobody cool wants to hang out with you?" sneered Tor.

"There's someone cool in Sunnydale besides me?" I asked sweetly. "Where? Under some damp rock?"

They all glared at me. "Were you this popular at your old school?" asked Rhonda as they began to leave. "Before you got kicked out."

I chuckled. "Sweetheart, you have no idea."

.oOo.

I'd moved on to watching the elephants in a desultory fashion when Xander and Willow caught up with me.

"Hey! Buffy!" called Xander.

"You missed it!" bubbled Willow.

I laughed and picked her up by her elbows and spun her around. "Hey there, laughing girl," I chuckled. "So what did I miss?"

"We just saw the zebras mating!" Xander explained with a nod to Willow. "Thank you, very exciting..."

"It was like the Heimlich, with stripes!" Willow added, still in my arms. I put her down and linked one arm with hers, letting Xander grab my other arm as we walked along. "Where were you?"

"I was thinking of visiting the chimpanzees," I said airily, "But then I ran into Kyle and his pals and realised that I see them every day."

Xander chuckled. "Nice to see you're getting into the field trip spirit," he said.

"Well, being out of class isn't quite as big a thing for me and Willow as it is for you and Jesse," I pointed out. "But it does make a nice change. Right, Wills'?"

"Yeah," she said brightly. "It's cool. Can we see the fishes next?"

"I guess." I paused. "Have either of you guys seen Jesse around?"

"He said something about going to see the Hyena House," Xander said.

I frowned. "Thought that it was closed."

"It is," said Jesse, coming around the corner. "Burnt to the ground two nights ago, according to the zoo keeper I asked. He was pretty cut up about it – the Hyenas were inside at the time."

.oOo.

Well, no hyena thing, so far as I could tell. I was turning into a regular little pyromaniac (hopefully I'd covered my tracks, since adding an occupied zoo pen to the gym that was already on my permanent record would probably get me locked away) as I averted some of these little crises that develop in Sunnydale. After the whole Anointed One fuck-up, I had gone proactive about a few things and I certainly wasn't going to let that Hyena-possession thing happen.

Of course, not even I could avert the rain that condemned us to dodgeball the next day. God, Giles is right about Americans! One little drop of rain and they lock us inside. I played football in worse than this when I was a kid – of course, we got a fair bit more rain there than we do here in Southern California…

.oOo.

"Ah, the fumigation party," Willow said as we sat at a table in the Bronze.

"Huh?" I asked in confusion, then looked at her. "Did that girl just pay for a drink with a cockroach?"

"Yeah, it's an annual tradition. The closing of the Bronze for a few days to nuke the cockroaches?"

"What? Is this some Hellmouth thing?" I asked, confused. The Bronze was selling drinks, and thus open, so…

"No, it's a fun thing…" Willow assured me. "So how are things with you?"

I shrugged. "Getting by. Just thinking about a couple of things."

Willow smiled. "So, we're talking about a guy?" she guessed.

"Guy? Uh, why would we be talking about a guy? What guy for that matter?"

"Aw c'mon," she wheedled. "There's gotta be some guy on your mind."

"The only guy 'on my mind'," I said, miming the speechmarks with both hands, "is that Angel character. And Xander's paranoia aside, I'm not thinking of him that way and I seriously doubt he likes me."

"He's kind of cute though, isn't he?" she asked.

"In a gay kind of way," I said dryly. "And it's not like I've seen him around much, just lurking around the shadows every now and then."

Willow nodded, "He's not around much, it's true."

"So, do you have some guy on your mind?" I asked.

"Uh, well…" she muttered, evasively.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Boy, that Cordelia is a regular breath of vile air," Xander interrupted as he arrived from the dance floor. "What are you vixens up to?"

"Just sitting here," Willow told him. "Watching our barren lives pass us by." She looked down brightened: "Oh look, a cockroach." She stomped her foot on the floor, and presumably the roach as well. Willow the Cockroach Slayer. Now there's a show that belongs on TV.

"Whoa, well let's stop this crazy whirligig of fun! I'm dizzy!" Xander proclaimed.

I grinned and shook my head. "I guess you're right. Let's call it a night. I'll run a quick patrol and go home. I could do with a good night's sleep."

"Oh, don't go!" protested Willow.

"Uh, yeah!" Xander agreed. "It's early! We could, um, dance!"

I snorted. "Xander, I'm wearing steel toe-caps and Giles is not impressed with my footwork. If we dance you're going to need an ambulance."

"You dance with Giles?" asked Jesse as he arrived.

"We fence," I replied tersely.

.oOo.

I had an odd feeling that someone was watching me as I left the Bronze. I couldn't see anyone, but I was sure somehow that there were eyes on me. Maybe hostile, maybe not. I just wasn't sure. It probably didn't help that I was fairly sure that I was just about due for the monthly visitor, which frankly was a disgusting experience that I tried to repress the memory of as much as I could manage.

I was disturbed enough by that that I turned the patrol into simply taking a somewhat circuitous route home. Naturally, my life being what it was, I didn't get that far before I was interrupted. In this case, interrupted by heavy breathing from inside an alleyway.

"It's late, I'm having a bad day. If there's anything more sinister than a BJ going on there, get your ass out here so I can kick it," I snapped.

Almost immediately a large and formidable vampire jumped out at me, roaring as if exhaling was about to go out of fashion, and I prepared to vent my self-righteous anger upon it. Bokken go up, bokken go –

Oh, there was another vampire. Don't I feel special. Particularly when it's stopping me from completing his buddy's resemblance to a kebab. I pulled away before imminent dust bag number two could get hold of me and promptly found myself backing into a third. "Crap," I said as he caught my elbows and neatly restricted my arm movements.

Okay, enough of this playing fair shit. I put just enough weight onto the vampire behind me to let be raise my foot and put the toe of one of my Doc Martens into the groin of one of vampire number two. The combination of the impact and the fact that there was a discreet little cross scratched into the front of the toe cap put him off his game for a moment – the expression on his face suggested I was officially not on his Christmas card list any more.

Then I put my foot down on Mr Huggy behind me – heel first and hard just in front of the ankle, grinding the boot as I felt the bones break beneath it. The vampire impressed me – there was a slight hiss but his grip didn't falter. I'd have settled for being less impressed and more not grabbed, but no one ever asks my opinion on these things.

Vampire Numeros Unos was still at liberty to get in close and try to open up my throat for a quick quaff of blood, but fortunately for me, a certain broody vampire turned up out of nowhere, grabbed him by the hair and yanked him brutally backwards. "Good dogs," he advised, punctuating with a punch, "don't bite!"

The surprise of this arrival led to my captor's grip loosening a little more, just enough for me get and arm up inside my jacket and pull a baggie of holy water out of the inside pocket. Then I crushed it against the still gripping hand until the plastic bag burst and he shrieked and released me, the back of his hand practically on fire.

The next couple of minutes were pretty much a blur – and it takes a moderately impressive amount of mayhem to overload a Slayer's tactical awareness, I've noticed. I distinctly remember kicking one of the vampires several times in the face, scorching repeated crucifixes into his face before one of his buddies distracted me. However, all good things come to an end and in this case, Angel and I, completely by coincidence, managed to throw one each of the vampires through the same window at the same moment.

We paused, stared at each other, and then, reluctantly, I started to giggle at the startled looks we'd been shooting at each other.

The remaining vampire popped up, hesitated at the sight of a hysterical Slayer and caught my stake somewhere around his heart. Dusted.

This, of course, meant more laughter on my part, and even a bemused chuckle from Deadboy.

.oOo.

"No offence," I told Angel when we reached that little house that the Clan Summers calls home, "But if you want me to bandage that –" (He'd managed to get gashed along one side and was bleeding a little) "- then it's happening on the porch. For one thing, I don't want to explain to Mom why there's blood on her carpets."

"I'd appreciate it," Angel answered, sitting on the steps looking a little weary.

"For another thing, we'd probably wake the baby of the house," I added as I opened the door and fished around for the medical kit I'd stashed under the coat rack. I didn't fancy having to dig around the kitchen for it if I was in a hurry so I'd made sure it was readily available. "She's just about ready for her first crush and I'd rather it wasn't a vampire. You're pretty and all that; but the whole drinking blood thing? Mom would kill me if she went Goth on us."

That didn't get a laugh, but then I guess he would be a bit of a tough audience.

"Right," I told him. "Shirt, off."

"Uh…" he said hesitantly.

I narrowed my eyes and he sort of pointed without obviously pointing to where Joyce had just disembarked from her SUV and had apparently heard my instruction to him. At least, that's how I interpreted the rather shocked expression on her face.

"Hi Mom!" I said chirpily. "Busy day at work?"

"You… have no idea," she said slowly. "Buffy, what are you doing?"

I shrugged and held up a length of gauze. "Angelo here, scratched himself on a fence," I lied blithely, inventing a pseudonym for the vampire off the top of my head. "And since he's too macho to go to hospital for a little thing like what looked like barbed wire, I'm going to bandage him. Which I can't do if you don't take your shirt off," I added to Angel who looked like he wanted to sink into the ground. I'm pretty sure that isn't part of his vampire powers package TM though. "Or just bunch it up under your armpits if it helps you retain your masculine dignity."

Rather grudgingly, he took off his jacket, hung it over the side of the porch and rolled up his T-shirt until I could look at the injury. It had already stopped bleeding, probably because he didn't exactly have a pulse to keep pushing blood through whatever arteries and veins had been damaged. "Hmm, not too bad, I suppose," I said, setting down the gauze and reaching for a daub.

"Oh really?" Joyce said just a little challengingly. She was mostly giving me suspicious looks, although she did shoot a couple of looks at Angel that weren't anywhere near his face. I really don't want to think about that.

"Not even bleeding anymore," I explained. "What did you think I was talking about?"

She shrugged and went inside. Angel winced as I cleaned out the wound and covered up the wound as best my rather rudimentary medical skills allowed. I guess I must have taped it up a little tight. "That okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Thanks."

"Do you need a lift home?" Joyce asked from inside. She'd poured herself a coffee while I was packing up the medical kit again and was watching us over it.

"No," Angel blurted. "I, uh, live nearby."

"Well be careful on your way," Joyce said. "It's a little late to be out."

"I'll head right back," he promised quickly, picking up his jacket.

"Try not to walk into any more fences!" I called as he walked away, head low and shoulders hunched defensively. He didn't reply.

"Is he a friend of yours?" Joyce asked once Angel was out of human earshot.

I shrugged. "I don't know him all that well. But I wasn't gonna leave him bleeding in the streets or anything."

"Hmmm," she hmmed, in that way that mothers do. "Well, it's a little late. I'm gonna go to bed, uh, Buffy?" she added as she started up the stairs.

"Yes?" I asked innocently as I closed up the medical kit and packed it away.

"Isn't it a school night?"

"My goodness, so it is," I told her. "I really should keep track of that – school on Mondays through Friday. How do I keep forgetting that." I grinned at her withering look. "I'll be off to bed once I've cleaned up," I promised.

.oOo.

"He took off his shirt?" Xander queried the next day, as I was… well I suppose it's technically a debriefing although it felt like the unexpected Xander Inquisition, whose weapons are fear, ignorance and an obsessive relationship with Twinkies. "At your house? In front of you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Not in my house. On the porch. And he didn't take it off, he just pulled it up so I could get at the injured bit of him."

"And he got hurt fighting the vampires with you," Willow gushed. I had a horrible feeling that she was trying to experience romance vicariously through hooking me up with someone and since I'd gotten rid of Owen, she was now trying to get me together with Angel. "That is so romantic!"

"Buffy, c'mon," Xander protested. "wake up and smell the seduction. It's the oldest trick in the books."

"If getting slashed across the robs is the original human chat up line, I'm surprised there are so many of us," I replied.

"He does have a point," Jesse observed a little reluctantly. "Some guys'll do anything to impress a girl." He smirked. "Xander once drank an entire gallon of Gatorade in one go."

"It was pretty impressive," Willow allowed. "Although later…"

Jesse mimed retching and I chuckled at the look on Xander's face.

"Can we steer this riveting conversation back to the events that happened yesterday evening?" Giles asked plaintively. I leant back in my chair and gave him my attention. "You left the Bronze and were set upon by three unusually virile vampires."

He opened a book and made to hold it in front of me but I held up my had, palm out in a command to stop. "Vi-rile? Virile? Giles, I'm not into necrophilia."

"Uh," he began and put down the book to polish his glasses. "A poor choice of words perhaps."

"I'll say," I muttered, glancing at a red-faced Willow. "So what's in the book?"

"Did they look like this?" Giles asked, holding the book open to display a picture.

"That's them," I confirmed, after squinting at the picture a little. "What's with the costumes?"

"It seems you encountered the Three," Giles said, soundly slightly surprised. "Warrior vampires, very proud and very strong."

"They were the Three? I was expecting them to be taller," I said. "If I ever came across them I mean."

"How is it you always know this stuff?" Willow asked Giles. "You always know what's going on. I never know what's going on."

"Well you weren't here from midnight until six researching it," he explained reasonably.

"No, I was sleeping," Willow admitted as if that was something to be ashamed of.

Giles turned back to me. "Uh, o-obviously you're hurting the Master very much. He, he wouldn't send the, the Three for just anyone. We must step up our training with weapons."

"Buffy," Xander said, a serious look on his face. "You should stay at my house until these Samurai guys are history."

"And leave Mom and Dawn alone and unprotected?" I asked, pointing out the critical flaw in his plan.

"Ah…" he mused and held one finger up to indicate he was still thinking.

"Angel and Buffy are, are not in any immediate jeopardy," Giles announced, driving a metaphorical stake through Xander's plans. "Eventually the Master will send someone else, but in the mean time the Three, having failed, will offer their own lives in penance."

oOo.

Well, after that bright little bit of news (vampires killing each other makes my life so much easier), we got down to my regular pummelling of Giles, otherwise known as combat training.

"Ah ha," I told him as I saw what I was looking for at the back of the weapons cabinet. "I knew you were hiding these someplace." I brandished the crossbow triumphantly. "Vital slaying skill, marksmanship – not much room in here but I suppose we can make do. Do you have any targets?"

"The crossbow comes later," Giles said, taking the crossbow from me and returning it to the cabinet. I tried not to pout. It's not manly to pout, even if I am a girl at the moment. "You must first become proficient with the basic tools of combat."

"Me?" I said with a smile. "Who said anything about me learning to use the crossbow?"

Giles blinked, halting with two poles – quarterstaffs presumably - in his hands. "But you said..."

"I was thinking we could teach the boys to use them."

"Um, I don't think that that's a good idea," he said, obviously horrified at the thought of spending the time with two more teenaged Americans.

"Well I'm not ecstatic about them trying to wrestle with vampires," I pointed out. "Since they aren't gifted with supernatural strength, speed et al, I'd really rather have them fight at a distance. And you've already lost the fight about keeping them out of... the fight."

"T-that's not a bad idea," Giles admitted. "I'll see if I can find somewhere with more space for them to learn though. And with that said, let's move on to your training. We'll begin with the quarterstaff. Which," he added, "will require countless hours of vigorous training. I speak from experience."

I caught the pole he threw me and laughed. "You'd better put on some pads, Friar Tuck, or I'll be carrying you to hospital before we manage even one hour of vigorous training."

"We'll see about that," he snorted and raised his own staff. "En garde!"

Ten seconds later he skidded on his back across the polished floor and came to rest with his head about an inch short of a painful collision with one of the bookcases. He stared up at me, over at where his quarterstaff was rolling gently towards the doors, and then up again. "Pads, right. One moment please."

Have I mentioned that I like Giles?

.oOo.

"There is something else," I said quietly as I helped a rather battered Giles out of his pads about an hour later.

"Oh?" he said, giving me a quizzical look. "Something you didn't want to mention in front of the others?"

"Yes," I said simply and waited until he had seated himself at the library table. "Angel has no pulse."

He paled. "No pulse… Buffy, have you ever encountered him during the day?"

"Not once," I replied evenly. "It's not proof, of course, but it's not something I was expecting to find out. And if it is true, then I have to wonder…"

"Why was he helping you?"

"Yes," Giles nodded. "C-could it have been some part of the Master's plan? Or is he masterminding something himself?"

"Is it possible," I asked seriously, "That he's on the level? He seemed pretty genuine about not liking other vampires. Maybe he views it as a curse or something."

The Watcher shook his head. "Buffy, a vampire isn't a person at all. It may have the movements, the, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over, but i-it's still a demon at the core, and a demon would hardly regret becoming a monster."

"It's possible," I said, "that we're jumping to conclusions. But obviously we have to take precautions, war the others that Angel may not be as friendly as he appears. I guess I just wanted to get a second opinion. Sorry to drop it on you like that."

"No, no," Giles insisted. "I'm your Watcher. It's my responsibility to help you with this sort of thing."

I'd honestly felt a bit bad about manipulating him like this until he came out with that. That bit where I said I liked him? Doesn't apply all the time.

.oOo.

Surprisingly, the others took my suspicions fairly equably. Xander, who'd originally been pretty anti-Angel as I recall (my powers of understatement are developing nicely, thank you for noticing) was much less determined that Angel should be staked at the soonest opportunity than I had expected him to be. Since none of them had even spoke to him, they were all content to keep their distance until we established exactly what was going on.

It was Jesse who was the most direct as we cracked the books to try to find a record of Angel. "Buffy, if Angel is a vampire… well, you're the Slayer. It's pretty obvious where that leads. Are you going to be okay with that?"

I rubbed my eyes. "I'm not going to jump to conclusions about his loyalties, but if he's a threat then he dies. I'm sorry to be harsh here, but if one of you got turned, I'd have an obligation to make sure that you didn't use what the vampire created knew against the rest of us, wouldn't I?"

"You mean," Willow mumbled. "If I was a vampire…"

"If you died and your corpse rose as a vampire, then I would destroy the demon inside it," I said flatly. "If Angel is a threat then I shall have to kill him. I won't say that I have no qualms, but my duty is to the living."

"Ah," Giles announced from behind Xander, startling him. "Here's something at last."

"Can you please warn us before you do that?" Xander complained, turning around in his seat.

Giles ignored him. "There's nothing about Angel in the texts, but it suddenly occurred to me that it's been ages since I've read the diaries of any of the watchers before me."

"And you have something?" I asked, guessing that he was probably on the money.

"There's mention some two hundred years ago in Ireland of, of Angelus, the one with the angelic face."

And Giles makes the required connections. Excellent. "He's not that good looking," I protested. Then I pretended to think about it. "Well, if you like that type maybe… his accent could be Irish, I suppose."

"Does this, uh, Angel have, um, a tattoo behind his right shoulder?" Giles asked.

"Is that a trick question to find out if I've seen him with his shirt completely off?" I countered. "Seriously, how would I know? Don't you have more of a description?"

"Unfortunately not," Giles admitted. "There are relatively few survivors of his, uh, activities. We know he had dark hair, but that is about as much as I've been able to determine."

"So, Angel's been around for a while?" Willow asked.

"Not long for a vampire," Giles lectured. "Uh, two hundred and forty years or so, if we have identified him correctly." He paused and consulted the diary. "Angelus leaves Ireland, uh, wreaks havoc in, in Europe for, uh, several decades, and then, um, about eighty years ago, the most curious thing happens. He, he comes to, uh, to America, um, shuns other vampires, and, and lives alone. There's, there's no, no record of him hunting here."

"W-well that's good," Willow proposed nervously. "I mean, he is a good vampire? Instead of, uh, killing and maiming every night, he's…. not?"

"I said that there's no record," Giles corrected. "But, uh, vampires hunt and kill. It's, it's what they do."

"And before he came to America?" I asked. "When he was in Europe and 'wreaking havoc', what was he like then according to the diary?"

Giles shook his head. "Uh, like all of them. Uh, a vicious, violent animal."

.oOo.

I moved my planned study session with Willow to my house that night, rather than hers as we had originally intended. However, there was no attack by Darla, which left me rather at a loss. I'd only ever seen the first half of this episode so I wasn't quite sure how matters turned out. But I was sure I'd seen Darla turn up on the Summers doorstep.

And yet, nothing happened.

I suppose that I'd been a little too optimistic about how long I could rely on things going the same way that they did on the show. I'd changed things and I could no longer rely on them to stay the same.

Apart from patrolling and school I barely left the house for the next week, watching over Dawn as best I could and wondering if Joyce would come home each night. I rearranged roleplay nights to happen at home and Giles came by to join in – his way of trying to stay in touch with me I guess. Even Dawn sat in, so I suppose that something good would come of it if I could corrupt her into a roleplayer.

But there were no sightings of Angel or Darla by the Post-Fumigation Party at the Bronze, which Jesse and Xander almost manhandled me out of the house to attend, with Willow's connivance. The less said about the party the better, but they were probably right – I needed to relax.

How far could I afford to though?