"Class of 2009..."

Summary: A little short fun after the Missus and I watched a bad "jd" flick...Ok, so the Class of 1999 wasn't so bad as the movie suggested...But 2009...Alternate S7 to S8...Say things veered a little after "Lies My Parents Told Me.."

Disclaimer: Joss?...Would I do that to you? Or to those "grr, ahh" guys?

Archived at the 'normal' Buffyverse page of the Buffy Rebecca verse, https://www.angelfire.com/zine2/buffyrebecca/index.html

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September 2009...

Sunnydale High...Principal Robin Wood's office...

A somewhat sheepish-looking William in suit, tie, and gold-framed spectacles sitting in front of Principal Wood's desk...

Wood, seated behind said namesake desk, eyeing him coldly...

On the bench by the wall, bearing a look divided between one of anxiety, directed at William, and a mix of nervous placation and defensive protectiveness aimed at Wood, Buffy...

Buffy Summers-Walthrop...Since the June wedding following the defeat of the First that spring, after which she'd finally gone to William with the question plaguing her since she'd first considered the possibility that the love Spike ceaselessly proclaimed for her might be real...For both demon and soul...

What the hell is your name?...

The answer, William Soames Walthrop, being quite acceptable, she'd wasted no time in offering her hand...And as quickly arrived at a logical choice of career for them both, given his interest in literature and hers in psychology and therapy...

And heck, they had to be on duty at the Mouth, however near dead it might be after the First's defeat...

"Mr. Walthrop..." Wood glared at his...Makes my soul flame to admit it but damn the kids love him...Star teacher...

Who'd finally...As Robin in his soul of souls had prayed for all these years...Hell, minor payback for one's mommie after all...Transgressed in such a way as to put his career at severe jeopardy...

"Robin...You know Will had excellent reasons for what he did..." Buffy cut in hurriedly... "He..."

Wood put up a firm hand... "Not now, Mrs. Summers-Walthrop...I've let you attend this conference solely on the promise you'd simply attend and not interfere..." he looked at her with full administrative glare...

Ummn...Yeah...she gulped, backing down...Sorry...

God, he's good...

"As I was about to say, Walthrop...I'd very much like to know what possible reason you can give me for this incident...As in, what the hell I can tell this boy's parents for a reason not to sue this already-in-debt-to-its-flagpole-top school, the city, the county, the state?..."

"Well, Ro..." Hasty severe cough from the devoted Missus... "Mr. Wood...You are aware that, given my nature...Despite the soul and Willow's kind daylight spell wedding gift...I still possess a certain sensitivity..."

"Exactly...He saw right away..."

"Mrs. Summers-Walthrop!..."

Sorry...Buffy did her best to become invisible...

"Well...?" an icy glare now...

"Well, as I say, a certain...Sensitivity...And when that boy entered my classroom...That very first day...That cruddy little snot-nosed..."

Hack!...Hack!...Buffy's cough could be heard outside...

"Sorry..." she met Wood's grim stare... "Could I have some water?..."

As Wood grimly turned and poured a glass from his desk pitcher, she eyed Will...Shaking head...

Iksnay on the cruddy snot-nosay...

"Thanks..." she beamed at Wood, sipping a bit...

"Mr. Walthrop..."

"Yes...The um...lad aroused something in my other worldly senses almost immediately..."

"What did a fourteen-year old 'arouse' in you?..." Wood eyed him...

Was he being funny just then...? Buffy glared a little...Returning to a deferential look before Wood could glance at her...

"I sensed potential evil in him..."

"Ah...There it is!..." Buffy waved a hand, case closed... "And who, besides me, would sense evil as fast as..."

"Buffy...One more word from you..."

Uh...Yes, sir...

"I'm well aware of both your abilities...And I cut you two all the slack a man can cut...Including letting Buffy in here to give you cues every two seconds...But this time...Look..." Wood got up from his chair...

"The boy has been in Sunnydale schools for ten years...No one has ever detected a moment's bad behavior...Let alone evil... "Potential" or otherwise...In him...Just what the hell did you see in him that could possibly lead you to...!"

A buzz on his desk...He pressed a spot on his computer pad...Yes?...

"Mrs. Wood's here...Wants to see...." his secretary began... "Ma'am, you can't..." her voice indicated a desperate try...

Buffy brightened, beaming at Will...Help is here!...

"...You immediately..." Faith glared from the now open doorway...

"Faith, out..." Wood pointed...

She closed the door carefully and stepped in...Folding arms...

"Make me..."

"Faith, this is my office and my job...You've no right to bring us into..."

"Mr. Wood, I'm here solely as the head of the local teachers' union supporting her comrades..." Faith frowned back...Don't you damn well go pulling that crap with me, sweetie...her stare saying...

"This has not reached that point yet, Mrs. Wood..." Robin replied... "I am meeting with Mr. Walthrop solely to determine what happened between him and a student...I will inform you should it become a matter concerning the union...Now, please..."

Sweetie...Principal mode here...His somewhat less icy gaze pleading...

"And I'm here to see it damned well doesn't..." she cut him off... "Mr. Walthrop has the right to have a union representative present and he has chosen..." (I have?...Will looked to Buffy...Who nodded...) "...To exercise that right..."

"Fine..." Wood sighed, throwing up a hand... "I was trying to limit the damage, but fine...Lets make it a full-blown issue...Shall I call in the papers?..."

"I'm only here to make sure there's an advocate for Mr. Walthrop present...I'm just gonna sit and listen..." Don't get so upset, babe...her follow-up look a bit worried...

"He has an 'advocate' sitting right over there..." I'm ok, just...c'mon...

Hmmn...Buffy'd caught a little of the byplay...Hope Faith was the best choice for support...

"Official advocate..."

"Very well...Have a seat...Mr. Walthrop was just about to try and explain his reasons for his behavior...Would you like me to have a tape recorder brought in...?"

"Not yet..." Faith shook her head as she took a seat by Buffy...

Honey, let me do my job too...Her quick plea...Followed by a slight but definite frown at Buffy in front of her...Which Wood caught before it turned to a supportive look as Buffy turned to her...A faint smile coming to his lips...

Long as my girl sees my side too...

Hmmn...Will had caught Faith's annoyed flash...

Honey, you sure she's on our...? he glanced at Buffy, trying...Successfully...Telepathy as well...

"Mr. Walthrop?..." Wood...As Buffy blinked worriedly...

"Hmmn?...Oh, right...You want the rest..."

"Unless you'd care to resign right now...Yes..."

"Yes...Uh, no...I...You see, as I said the boy was clearly the purest evil...I could sense it the moment he walked through my classroom door..."

Jeremy?...He never seemed 'evil' to me...Kind of a looking-for-it jerk since day one, maybe...Faith thought...

"Fine...You sensed he was 'evil'...So why didn't you come to me like with that demon teacher two years ago?...You had no problem restraining yourself then..."

That bitch...Buffy and Faith thought...Wish Will had left her to me at that...Buffy thought...

"There wasn't time, Buffy and you..." Glare from Faith, cough from Buffy... "Er, you were away...Besides, this was different...Wood..." Hack-hack from Buffy... "Uh, sir...If you'd been there and seen what he did those first days...You'd've known..."

"What did he do?...All his other teachers said his behavior was a little rebellious, but nothing outside the normal range..."

"Well, first...The very first day in class..." Will tensed with rage...The little punk...

"He said everyone knew Shakespeare's plays were written by the Earl of Oxford...That William Shakespeare, commoner, couldn't have had the education to write them..."

"He said that?..." Wood stared...

Indeed...Will nodded firmly...Fists clenching grimly...

"And that's awful...Right?..." Buffy hissed to Faith...

"If you're Rupert Giles' son Randall, maybe..." Faith hissed back...

"And you...Because he said that..."

"Certainly not...But the next day...He claimed Milton's "Paradise Lost"...Was a subversive political tract actually penned by his...Milton's...Boss...Cromwell..."

"He said that?..." Wood blinked...

"Tis better to rule in Heaven then serve in...Ummn...Switch that..." Buffy hissed to Faith, beaming a bit...

"You and Will been reading nights together again...That's nice..." Faith nodded...

"And then, on the third day..." Will paused... "He said Joyce didn't know how to punctuate and "Ulysses" was third-rate gibberish..."

Wood stared...

"Not the Greek guy..." Buffy explained to Faith... "I've read it..." Faith hissed back... "Several times..."

"And what were you having the class read all those days...?" Wood asked...

"Oh, "Johnny Tremaine", of course...As per the syllabus..." William noted triumphantly... "And that's when I knew...Either I had one of the world's greatest young snot-nosed geniuses on my hands...Or..."

And that's when I used the stuff I'd made up based on Willow's spell...And it worked like a charm...he beamed...

"He wound up at Sunnydale General saying you, his teacher, had dragged him out of class, slapped him silly, restrained him with rope, and poured something down his throat that nearly killed him...The doctors said it made him vomit for 24 hours..."

"Child-safe rope...Though I admit the brew was dangerous...But it got the demon out..." Will noted...

"Interesting fellow by the way...He was Ben Jonson back in the 16th/17th century...Lying about Shakespeare of course..."