Buffy Summers was a teenager that now resided in the small town of Sunnydale, California. She had lived in Los Angeles with her Mother, but they recently moved because her mom, Joyce met a local of Sunnydale; they fell in love and married soon after.
At the young age of ten, Buffy’s parents divorced. Her father ran off with his secretary-barely half his age-and now lived somewhere in Europe. She hadn’t seen him since the day he walked out. A part of her was hurt by that, but another was excited for a new life she would have in Sunnydale.
Joyce and Rupert Giles- who preferred to be called Giles- met while at an art history museum. Buffy thought nothing of their first interaction because her mom had never bothered to date up until that time. That was why she was a bit surprised to be standing in a house, owned by Giles, living in Sunnydale just two days after the wedding.
Giles was now her step-dad and she figured she was okay with that. She had never seen her mother so happy; and if she had to move to the small town of Sunnydale to keep that smile on her mother’s face, then it suited her just fine.
Buffy also didn’t mind because after her father ran out she got involved with the wrong crowd. She didn’t participate in their foolish antics but she had been blamed for the burning of the school gym. One of her ‘friends’ had thought it would be funny to start it before an assembly meeting. As Buffy ran to stomp it out, her ‘friend’ had already ran away. She was the only one in the room when the principal raced into the gym. He gave her no time to explain herself and within the hour she was expelled.
Buffy groaned at the sound of her alarm clock. For the last week she was able to skip school because of the recent change and move. However, vacations can’t last forever. She climbed out of bed just as her mother came to check on her.
“You awake, sweetie? If you’re ready in thirty minutes, Giles can drive you to school so you don’t have to walk.”
Buffy mumbled something along the lines of ‘yes, mother’ then went to her closet. She studied her abundance of clothes with the most important question ever- ‘What should she wear for the first day of school?’ She chose a white tank top with a blue, partially buttoned up dress shirt and black pants. She would tie the dress shirt at her waist to give herself an edge. After a shower, she put her outfit on and starred at herself in the mirror. She hoped the outfit would come off as popular, yet approachable and friendly. Not knowing what to do with her hair, she pulled it back in a partial ponytail leaving her bangs to fall to the side. Shuffling out of her room she put on her black boots with the chunky heels, and barely grabbing two pieces of bread she hopped into Giles’s car.
You could tell he was a librarian because the scattered books in the back seat and even on the floor where her feet now were. She sat dutifully though, not complaining knowing soon she would get her license to be able to drive herself around. Buffy recently turned sixteen but hadn’t bothered her mom with that yet; she’d be nice and wait until things settled down.
“Do you have everything you need, dear?” Giles asked, after only receiving a nod from Buffy he continued, “Would you like a ride after school? I am able to drive you home if you don’t want to walk.”
Buffy smiled, trying to be nice even though she didn’t know her new step-dad well enough, “Sure. That would be nice.” Giles smiled happy to see Buffy responding and pulled into his parking space.
Buffy stepped out of the car and frowned. She thought it would completely different from L.A but there were still the popular kids standing by the door gawking at the others around them; they were snapping their gum, pointing their fingers and laughing. Buffy used to be in that crowd until rumors had gotten around about her dad’s affairs. Buffy let out a sigh, glancing around at the others. There were a few that she would call nerds, sitting down on the benches with their gadgets keeping them busy. Then still another group of biker kids who were using their skateboards and bikes to do tricks showing off for the girls around them. She saw a few couples that had their arms around each other. She gave a slight shrug and started moving, realizing that standing next to her step-dad’s car wasn’t going to help her make any friends.
Giles gave her a friendly wave as they went their separate ways. Buffy could hear his voice as she followed a distance behind him. He was greeting everyone he passed and got an equally cheerful greeting in response. He seemed to fit in very well at the school. She continued walking towards the door, minding her own business when a boy collided into her. When she turned she witnessed his very ungraceful fall backwards on his skateboard as he avoided the railing on the front steps. A flash of red zoomed by her and went to kneel in front of him.
“Xander! Are you ok? That was a close one. You almost didn’t keep your head.”
Xander ran his hand through his hair with a slight grin although he looked embarrassed, “Yea. That last turn was a doozy.”
Buffy found herself smiling at the two even as the red head introduced herself, “Hi. You must be the new girl. I haven’t seen you before. My names Willow.”
She offered her hand and Buffy took it. “Yup, new girl at your service,” she took an elegant bow. “I’m, Buffy.”
Willow laughed then hit the brunette on the shoulder because he was still gawking at Buffy.
“Introduce yourself!” The brunette continued to stare so Willow offered his name, “He’s Xander. We’ve been friends for forever. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to him.”
Buffy giggled as Xander snapped out of his daze, “Best friends ever since you offered me that yellow crayon.” Willow blushed making her cheeks match her red hair.
“Do you know your schedule yet?” Willow asked. Buffy shook her head and Willow, again, gave a genuine smile. “Come on. I’ll take you inside to see the Principal.”
Buffy entered the Principal’s office not knowing what to expect. The last time she had entered one she’d been expelled. Now she got anxious every time she thought of a principal.
A secretary ushered her in. “Come in. Mr. Flutie will be with you shortly.”
She rubbed her sweaty palms together as she sat down across from his desk. He entered the room with a stern look and pulled her transcript out. After shuffling through them, he finally spoke.
“Buffy Summers, sophomore, late of Hemery High in Los Angeles. Interesting record, quite the career…” then to Buffy’s surprise, he ripped them right down the middle. She felt a little hope enter her as she watched, “Welcome to Sunnydale! A clean slate, Buffy, that's what you get here. What's past is past. We're not interested in what it says on a piece of paper, even if it says--- “ Buffy cringed as he started to reassemble the piece of paper. Obviously he had found her ‘pyro record’. “Whoa…”
Buffy felt nervous as she tried to find something to help her case, “I know my transcripts are a little…colorful.” It was the best word she could come up with to describe the last few months of her life in L.A. Mr. Flutie looked at Buffy and then at the transcript, collecting tape to put it back together.
“Do you think, uh, 'colorful' is the word? Not, uh, 'dismal'?”
Buffy felt her defenses go up. She wasn’t that bad of a student. She got good grades and had no issues until the last few months of her school career. She tried to stand up for herself, “It wasn’t THAT bad!” Mr. Flutie didn’t look impressed and definitely not convinced.
He stared at the transcripts in shock, “You burned down the gym!”
Buffy looked sorry, “It wasn’t all me. I know it looks bad but I swear I was trying to put out the fire. Some other kids started it and I was left with the mess. It won’t ever happen again.”
Mr. Flutie held up his hand to stop her ranting, “Buffy, don't worry. Any other school might say 'watch your step', or 'we'll be watching you'... But, that's just not the way here. We want to service your needs, and help you to respect our needs. And if your needs and our needs don't mesh...” He gave her a look tapping the red “Dismissed” that was stamped across her transcript. She nodded, trying to appear hopeful even as the principal nodded, “I’m sure we will be just fine, Buffy. Your step-father has excellent things to say about you and I look forward to seeing you fulfill them.” Buffy gave him a thin smile as he beamed one at her even as his eyes were threatening. “As I said before, welcome to Sunnydale!”
Buffy scampered out of the office and accepted the small piece of paper with her schedule on it. She was nervous but this was a new start; it was a fresh start to her high school career. This time things would be better. This time things would be right. She would just have to work extra hard to make sure of that.
Buffy ended up fitting in nicely with her new friends, Xander and Willow. Willow was a shy girl who had a secret crush on Xander. He on the other hand was too busy dating, Cordelia to even notice. Buffy had to admit, she never did care for Cordelia. She had invited Buffy to try out for cheerleader when she found out that Buffy had been head of the cheerleading squad in L.A. Turned out that Cordelia merely wanted her to audition so she could laugh and deny her. Buffy had left rejected but then after seeing how the squad was made up of the girls who were bullies at school, she decided she didn’t want to be a part of that anyway. They were always making fun of Xander, and others like him, and were always giving Willow a hard time. They mostly left Buffy alone but she found it difficult to like someone who would bad mouth a person as soon as they turned their back and sometimes before that point.
Cordelia was no different only she liked to hide her relationship with Xander. Buffy wished them all the luck in the world, secretly knowing luck wouldn’t fix their issues. Cordelia was too shallow to keep a guy like Xander. He was judgmental as well but was really one of the good guys. He would protect anyone he cared about, even getting into fights he could barely walk out of to protect someone; he had a huge heart. Willow on the other hand, was a computer geek. She spent her free time playing computer games, doing research and got along great with Buffy’s new step-dad since she loved the library as well. Overall, the group got along well and was inseparable. Who knew that within just four months, Buffy would have a new school, a new group of friends, a new house and even a now complete family. Buffy thought her life was complete but little did she know that within a few days, her whole world would be turned upside down by someone who went by the name Spike.