Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 8. Chapter 8 9. Chapter 9 She and Willow and Xander dressed up and went to the prom together. They got there late, but dancing gave them the feeling of celebration that they needed. They had won. No one might know it but themselves, but they had saved the world.
The summer was quiet. If they were still around, they were keeping their heads down. A couple of demons and a few vamps not part of the Order did turn up. The Hellmouth might be closed once again, but it was still there and its emanations inevitably attracted the ungodly. Still those few incidents were nothing to compare with the madness of the last few months and Buffy was able to go off with a clear conscience to spend the summer in L.
She did some partying and a great deal of shopping. Hank Summers was feeling guilty about walking out on her Mom and her like that, and Buffy used his guilt ruthlessly to buy all the clothes she wanted. Buffy changed her whole look. Wee little sweet-sixteen, wet-behind-the-ears Slayer, huh? Well, sod that, as Spike would say. Grown-up was a state of mind, and between Spike and the Master she had been forced into a great deal of accelerated growth recently.
Take that, Dru! That was one sleek and sophisticated woman. He was a vamp, after all, and evil. She was piqued, that was all; ticked off because he had left like that. She wanted him to regret it. Word might get back to him across the demon grapevine, how the Slayer looked and acted now.
Simple curiosity would make him notice and she wanted to rub it in, what he had walked out on. She knew that. But she missed him. Missed talking and laughing and fighting with him. Missed just being with him. What Giles and his Council would say if they knew! Slayer fixated on a vamp! Could anything be more wrong! It was just a teenage thing, that was all. Because he was forbidden, was cool, was a bad boy.
