Strange Place to Live:
Holy Matrimony
by Cynamin

"What is the dark
Shadows around you,
Why not take heart
in the new day?
Ever and always.
Always and ever.
No-one can promise a dream for you,
Time gave both darkness and dreams to you."
~Once You Had Gold
Enya

Late August

The campus of U.C. Sunnydale was a bustle of activity, swamped with students returned from their summer vacations to the "real world" of school. Those students that lived at the school had already been back for several days, but it wasn’t until the first day of classes that things seemed to have returned to normal.

For Buffy, however, things still felt far from normal. She felt like she was in a daze, separate from the things going on around her. She had a lot on her mind. As classes began, she expected she would feel like she had returned to some degree of normalcy after a long, strange summer, but it was hard. For a moment she felt like the "real world" was slipping away from her.

"Buffy?" Someone nudged her. It was Willow, standing right next to her with a concerned look on her face. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Buffy replied. "I was just thinking. Were you saying something?"

Willow sighed. "I was asking whether you and Angel had decided when the wedding will be yet."

"Oh," Buffy smiled slightly. "During winter break actually. We don’t want to wait to long, and we want to go on a honeymoon without me missing too much school, so . . . ." There was something else she didn’t say, that things had such a tendency of going wrong they were afraid that if they waited too long they’d never get married.

"So, what are you planning to do next semester?"

Buffy didn’t get the connection. "Next semester? Shouldn’t I be worried about this semester first?"

"No, I mean after your wedding. You’re planning on moving off campus to live with Angel, right?"

"Yeah," Buffy replied, not really thinking about it. "It’s too bad the mansion’s not closer, but I’ll manage it." She smiled, brought back to reality. "Like I wouldn’t manage it."

Willow laughed in response. "You’ve got it bad."

"Oh yeah." Buffy grinned back.

A cry of warning surprised Buffy and Willow a moment before the young man ran into them and knocked them both to the ground. The cause was evident a moment later as a frisbee took a faltering course through where they had been standing a moment ago. The other student looked in the direction it had come from, yelling at someone else, someone Buffy couldn’t see, "nice throw!" His sarcastic comment apparently went unheard by the thrower, who was nowhere to be seen. The young man dusted himself off, then helped the girls to their feet. "I am so sorry about that," the young man said. "His aim is terrible."

"Yeah, I noticed," muttered Buffy, leaning down to pick up her books.

"Here, let me help." The young man picked up a couple of Buffy’s scattered papers. He had a nice smile, Buffy noticed, and she might have been tempted to flirt with him last year. That was before Angel had returned, however, and she wouldn’t do anything to make him jealous. The other student, however, obviously didn’t have any such thing standing in his way. "I don’t think I’ve seen you around before."

Before Buffy could point out that it *was* only the first day of classes, she realized that was only if you didn’t count orientation. "You’re a freshman, aren’t you?" she said instead.

"Yup!" he responded brightly. "Matthew Richardson. And you are . . . really pretty, but besides that?"

"Engaged," responded Willow under her breath.

Buffy laughed slightly.

Matthew looked confused.

"Buffy Summers," she introduced herself with a grin. "Sophomore, and *so* unavailable."

The boy shrugged. "Oh, well. It was worth a try, right?"

Buffy couldn’t help but laugh slightly. "It was nice to meet you, Matthew," she said.

As Buffy moved off, he smiled slightly. "At least let me escort you two ladies as an apology for knocking you over."

"Shouldn’t you be going to class, too?" Buffy asked.

"Sure, but we seem to be going the same way," the freshman said with a grin. "Besides, my friends seem to have vanished and I don’t want to walk alone. So, where are you going?"

Willow sighed. Seeing that Matthew wasn’t going to be shaken easily, she replied, "The science building. Buffy has elementary computer programming in the lecture hall and I have a chemistry lab."

"Computer programming? That’s where I’m going," he said.

"We just can’t get rid of you, can we?" Buffy asked. At Matthew’s head shake, she said, "Well, if you insist on coming with us, you could carry our books. After all, you *did* knock us over." With that, Matthew was loaded down with books and marched down the path.

About half way to the class he got up the nerve to speak to Buffy again. "So, where’s your boyfriend . . . er, fiancé? Does he go to this school?"

"No, he’s older. He’s out of college."

Willow snickered.

He turned his attention to her. "And you? Are you seeing anyone?"

"Yes," was all she said in reply. After a moment, Buffy spoke to the younger student. "Listen," she said, "the attention is flattering, and you’re nice and all, but you don’t have to find a girlfriend on the first day. Join a club or something, meet people there." She smiled then, softening her statement. "Besides, if you don’t stop hitting on me, someone may beat you up."

"Your fiancé?" Matthew asked.

"No, me."

Matthew chuckled slightly. "Point taken," he said as they walked in the doors of the building.

Willow took her stuff from him then. "This is where I leave you two," she said, nodding towards some stairs. "Have fun!" With an impish grin for Buffy, she headed up the stairs.

After a moment, Matthew spoke again. "We could still be friends, right?" he said. "I haven’t done something really stupid?"

"You’re a freshman. You’re supposed to be stupid," Buffy teased. "Actually, if it means you’ll stop hitting on me, friends would be fine."

"Well, good." He looked genuinely relieved.

Buffy laughed slightly. She was feeling like a normal student again, fully part of the college reality. "Here we are," she said, opening up one of the double doors. As a couple of boys sitting in the lecture hall waved at Matthew, she took her books from him. "I think your friends are waiting for you," she said.

Matthew nodded. "It was nice meeting you, Buffy," he said. Then, with a mischievous smile, he added, "Give my regards to your fiancé."

Trying not to smile and not quite succeeding, Buffy replied, "It was nice meeting you, too." With that she took a seat closer to the front next to someone she vaguely recognized, probably from one of her other classes.

The professor was a short man whose girth made him decidedly round. He had balding hair and a monotonous voice. Buffy had to fight to pay attention. Behind her, someone snored slightly, and she considered falling asleep herself. The vampires had not slackened off at all, and Buffy had not gotten much sleep the night before. She wondered what Angel was doing right now. Had a new artifact been found in Sunnydale that could bring about the end of the human race? Or could it be something good, instead? If there was anything, Angel would tell her about it tonight. They’d talk about work, or school . . . or maybe they wouldn’t talk at all . . . .

Buffy’s thoughts continued on that vein for quite a while before something interrupted her. It was . . . a sound. The barest whisper, or a distant roar. Buffy heard it first, but soon others began to glance around as the sound grew louder. No one could fail to notice when the roar transformed itself into a tremor, one that shook the building. Behind her, the snoring broke off, and the teacher in front of the room stopped lecturing. A scattering of noises -- things rolling or sliding off of desks as the tremor grew worse.

Suddenly, a creature burst through the floor nearly at the professor’s feet. With a startled cry he fell as the ground broke beneath him and a many tentacled creature heaved itself through the hole in the earth. Luckily perhaps he was knocked unconscious when he hit the floor, either fainted or having struck his head, for the creature’s tentacles left bloody lines where they touched him.

While other students reacted in fear, either running from the room or sitting frozen at their desks, Buffy immediately began to size up the situation for attack. She saw quickly that to get within reach of the tentacles would be foolhardy at best. Instead, thinking quickly, she focused on the creature’s one eye amidst its writhing limbs. She only could see it for a moment before the tentacles hid it again, but that was enough. Praying that it was vulnerable and at the same time hoping no one would notice her actions, Buffy took out a stake she carried with her at all times and hurled it towards that small target.

The simple weapon hit its target with such force that the creature staggered back. Its balance gone, tentacles hanging lifeless, it tumbled back down the hole it had created. It fell into the caverns that ran beneath all of Sunnydale and did not rise again.

For a moment the lecture hall was completely silent. Buffy sprang out of her seat, running to where the creature had disappeared and where the professor lay still. He was bleeding badly, and Buffy tried briefly to stop the flow of blood. She looked around quickly to see who was left in the lecture hall. It was mostly empty except for the few students either passed out or too stupefied to move. One of the later was Matthew, staring at her from several rows back.

"Matthew!" she yelled. "Call 911. He needs to go to the hospital."

Without a word, he ran from the room. All she could do now complete, Buffy spared a glance down the hole in the floor and into the caverns. The creature was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn it," Buffy cursed softly.

Angel leaned over a table in a back room of the Sunnydale Natural History Museum, notes and drawings on a recent acquisition spread out before him. Unlike a lot of things that surfaced in Sunnydale, this item seemed to be mostly harmless. There were very few things in the museum that didn’t have some sort of occult connection, which was fortunate since that’s where Angel’s knowledge lay. Already he’d built a reputation in the museum for "finding" the legends behind the more obscure relics. Usually he already knew what it was, but he also had plenty of ways to find out if he didn’t. Angel was organizing the various notes and some actual research he’d done when a knock came on the door. "Hey, you’ve got a phone call," said one of the other research assistants poking his head in the door.

"Who is it?" Angel asked, looking up from the papers.

"Buffy," he said. Then, after a moment’s pause, he added, "She sounded upset."

Quickly getting up from the desk, Angel didn’t ask anything else. He just hurried out of the room to the nearest phone. "Hey," he said by way of greeting. "What’s wrong?"

The person at the other end of the phone let out a sound of relief. "Angel," she said. "Could you come get me?" He was right, she did sound upset.

Trying to keep his voice calm, he asked, "Where are you?"

"At school," she confirmed. "Please? I . . . need to get out of here."

"Of course," Angel said quickly. With a glance at his coworker, still hovering nearby, he said, "I’ll be right there." After a moment Angel asked worriedly, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said with a sigh. "Yeah, I’m fine." She still didn’t sound happy. "Thanks. I love you."

"I love you," Angel replied softly and hung up the phone. Quickly he gathered up his jacket and headed for the door.

The other researcher looked at him in surprise. "You’re leaving?"

"I’ve got to," Angel replied. "If anyone asks, the notes and research on that new vase are on the desk, complete." He hurried out the door before anyone could protest.

Fifteen minutes and several violated traffic laws later, Angel pulled over near U.C. Sunnydale next to Buffy. She nodded goodbye to a young man who stood with her at the curb. Both of them looked far from happy, though Buffy looked happier – or at least relieved – as Angel pulled up. She got in the car quickly.

"Thanks," she said, and leaned over to give him a small kiss.

Angel smiled very slightly. "No problem," he said. As they pulled away from the curb, he asked, "Where are we going?"

Buffy sighed. "I hadn’t really thought beyond getting out of here. How about your place?"

"All right," he relied softly. When Buffy said nothing more, he glanced over at her in concern. She was staring distractedly out the window. "What’s wrong?" he asked. Buffy said nothing for a moment. "One of my teachers got attacked, she said" softly, "right in front of the class. I think I killed the creature, but I’m not sure." She paused. "The police questioned everyone in the class . . . that didn’t run away, that is."

Angel looked at her alarmed. "Did you tell Giles?"

They were almost at the mansion. "Yeah, I did. He and Willow are hitting the books." She paused, and when she spoke again he could barely hear her. "I just had to get out of there," he said.

Angel didn’t know what to say in response. He knew that Buffy needed reassurance and he was at a loss for words. He was saved from having to say something immediately as they arrived at his house. As they both got out of the car, Angel went over to Buffy and simply held her.

Standing outside the door, she returned his embrace wholeheartedly, sniffling slightly with suppressed tears. "Why can’t I just have a normal day?" she asked softly.

They both knew there was no answer to that.

Part Five

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