Author's Note: This is my first fic (that I will admit to, anyway) and it is very much a work in progress. Any suggestions and feedback will be greatly appreciated, since I'm still struggling with a few different storylines. Posting is my way of getting the story to move along. This story has a set timeline, beginning in mid-November of 2006. The characters are high school age.
I am also looking for a second beta if anyone is interested. I think my girlfriend is a bit biased.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but a rather nice computer. Suing will only make me unable to write. I don't own the Midnight Players either. That is a salute to my high school drama troupe.
Summary: Willow moves to Sunnydale halfway through her senior year- just in time for the Spring play auditions.
And, without further ado, I bring you:
The Midnight Players of SHS- Chapter One
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Willow looked hesitantly up at the Sunnydale High School building. It stood over her like a gloomy statue, representing everything she had grown to despise. Not that she disliked the idea of school, quite the contrary. The concept of a place young people could go to learn appealed to her, yet the reality was so much different from the concept. In this reality, students could not rely on teachers to protect them as they were supposed to, and school became terrifying to those that were there to learn, rather than socialize. Having been teased and tortured since starting school when she was five, she believed that the only positive part of the school day was the learning itself. That was the part she was good at, so that was the part she liked.
She knew she’d be late if she didn’t go in to find her class soon but right now she didn’t really care. Right now, the possibility of being late wasn’t nearly as bad as being alone. Everyone she cared about and grew to rely on was on the opposite side of the country, missing her as much as she missed them. Knowing it was hopeless to dwell on friends she would never see again, she sighed in resignation and slowly entered the building.
The first sound to reach her ears was laughter. The sound stung, since it signified happiness, something she believed she would never feel again. She found it annoying that someone could be so happy when she was so sad, so she turned towards the sound to see who was laughing. She found the culprit within a small group of students dressed in either all black or jeans and a t-shirt. No one in the group seemed to care greatly about their appearance; half of them didn’t even comb their hair. A petite blonde girl was in the middle of the group. She was wearing a black sweater and jeans and all attention was on her as she waved her arms about in the air animatedly, telling a joke it seemed.
Willow smiled slightly, remembering her small group of friends back in New York. At the beginning of every day at her old school, her, Ruth and Polly would stand by Ruth’s locker and talk. They had been her best friends since kindergarten; when she had broken a crayon and Ruth had taken the blame for it. Ruth was slightly overweight and Polly was paper thin, causing them both to be teased for their outward appearances. Willow was teased because of her clothes. She frowned at the memory of a cruel football player stopping to tease them, saying “Hey Polly, you need to gain some weight… why don’t you eat Fatso over here? I’m sure she’d make a great burger… Heck, she could feed the whole football team for two weeks!” While most of the insults were as dim-witted as that one, she had been lucky that time, escaping ridicule. But that incident had caused Ruth to cry and hide in the bathroom for first and second period. Willow had gotten her one and only detention for skipping class to comfort her friend.
She looked down at her own appearance and the clothes her mother had picked out for her the week before. Back home, she was mocked endlessly for her “choice” in clothing, even though she didn’t choose it at all. The way she dressed was the only thing that caused people to tease her, since they never took the time to get to know her. If anyone had gotten to know her better, they would have teased her for many other reasons. She was always talking too much and saying things she shouldn’t, as well as always getting overly excited about her good grades and academic achievement. The few boys in school she was able to talk to laughed at her because she wasn’t able to say anything intelligent in front of them, and ended up just telling her to go away because she was being annoying. Only two people hadn’t made fun of her. Her friends. In fact, she developed a crush on Polly, even if she would never allow herself to admit it. Polly had come out to Willow shortly before Willow was told she was moving to Sunnydale. Some part of Willow wondered how their relationship would have turned out if she had stayed in New York to develop it more, but that part was hidden deep inside her so she barely registered its existence.
Willow walked slowly to class, musing over what she had left behind. She entered her classroom, Honors World History, and sat at a desk in the front, so she could take notes more easily. She was secretly pleased that, due to harder work last year, she was in the classes with students who would take school more seriously. She took her notebook out of her backpack and put it on the desk, then removed her pen. She smiled at the pink fuzzy pen that Ruth had given her as a present before she left. Ruth had been her best friend in New York and the present was more of a reminder of her than anything else.
The redhead waited for the bell to ring, looking around the room at her new classmates. They were all smiling and laughing or talking to each other. Not one of her classmates was alone. Willow looked down at her notebook and opened it to the first page, writing “World History Notes” in dark blue ink on the page. She drew doodles of quills and old fashioned glasses as she waited.
The door opened and Willow looked up, expecting the teacher. The blonde girl she had seen talking to a group of peers earlier walked into the room and sat next to Willow and smiled at her. “You’re in my seat…”
Willow panicked, immediately standing and picking up her backpack and mumbling an apology. The blonde laughed. “I was kidding.”
“Oh, um… I knew that…” Willow took her seat again and opened the notebook; suddenly very interested in the doodles she had drawn. She heard the blonde scoot her desk closer and looked up. The girl was now less than a foot away from her. She smiled, taking out her own notebook.
“I’m Buffy Summers. Are you Willow?”
Willow nodded.
“Great. Do you act?”
Willow shook her head.
“Oh. Well, we can work around that…”
Willow was left to wonder what the girl meant as another girl entered the room. She had dark blonde hair, which was all Willow could tell about her since she was staring at the ground with her hair covering her face. The girl quickly moved to the seat behind Buffy’s and sat down, quietly taking out her notebook and textbook and starting on the assignment that was written on the board.
Willow glanced curiously at the new stranger, then back to Buffy as she turned around to greet the girl. “Hey Tara, how was your night? I heard Joey tried to ask you out again…”
The girl, Tara, grinned slightly, and now Willow could see her face fully. She was pretty, but not by any standards drop-dead gorgeous and Willow barely gave her a second look until “Joey’s an idiot. She knows I’d never date her.”
Willow got very confused. ‘She?’ she ran the phrase that Tara had just said through her mind a few times and realized that Tara did indeed get asked out by a girl. ‘Wow, this place is VERY different from my old school.’
Buffy seemed to realize she was leaving Willow out and turned back to her. “Uh, Willow… This is Tara. Tara, Willow.”
As Willow and Tara exchanged polite smiles and waves, the bell rang and the teacher walked into the room, placing a textbook on Willow’s desk and startling her. Mrs. Travis smiled at Willow and walked to the front of the room to begin class. The teacher raised her voice slightly as she began talking to quiet some boys in the back. “Today we will be covering Chapter 13 in the textbook.” Willow turned to the page and was amused to see pictures from the hippy era splattered across the page. “Everyone please complete the section review questions on page 214 and turn them in by the end of class today. You may work in groups of no more than four people. Also, on Thursday, your assignment is to come in dressed as something from this era. If you do not have proper attire you may borrow some from the costume director for the drama club. She has volunteered the costumes for this activity. Anyone that does not participate will be given a zero for the assignment. Please get into your groups and begin.”
Willow got paper from her binder and began the assignment as the students around her moved their desks into circles to talk to one another. Buffy turned her desk around to face Tara’s and gave her a few pieces of paper. The both stared at Willow, waiting for her to join them. Willow didn’t notice, as she was already hard at work on the assignment. Buffy finally spoke up, “Hey, Willow? Do you want to work with me and Tara?”
Willow smiled and nodded as she turned her desk to join them.
A half hour later, they were finished with the assignment and began talking to try and get to know each other better. Willow was being interrogated about her life in New York. Buffy and Tara learned that Willow hadn’t had many friends, had never had a boyfriend (or girlfriend) and had never been on stage. Willow learned that Buffy and Tara had been friends since third grade, when Tara transferred into Buffy’s school and that both of them were on tech crew for the play productions at the high school. Buffy also acted in the performances, somehow managing to balance her time enough to attend both drama club meetings and tech crew meetings. She also learned that Tara’s favorite movie was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and that Buffy liked karate movies.
“So, Willow, what are you doing Friday night?” Buffy asked.
Willow shrugged slightly. “Probably staying home and watching movies. Why?”
“I’m having a sleepover…” Willow wondered if Buffy was taunting her with her lack of friends until she added, “you can come if you want.”
Willow’s eyes went wide as she tried to comprehend what Buffy was saying. “Really? You’re actually inviting me to a sleepover? Like, the me sleeping at your house with the popcorn and the pajamas and the sodas? But aren’t you popular?”
Buffy and Tara both laughed as Buffy replied. “Which question should I answer first?”
Willow shrugged. “Asking order I guess…”
The blonde grinned. “Alright. Yes, I’m inviting you to a sleepover, yes, that kind of sleepover, and no, I’m not popular. Is that all of them?”
“Uh, yeah.” Willow paused noticeably, thinking. “Oh, but I saw you with a bunch of people earlier…”
Buffy again laughed, making Willow wonder if there was some kind of joke she wasn’t getting. “Those are my friends. Tara and I hang out with them all the time. You should meet them; you’d probably get along with them pretty well. And besides, most of the girls will be at the sleepover.”
The bell rang, making Buffy move her desk back to it’s appropriate place. Before she did, however, she leaned over to Willow and said, “1630 Revello Drive. Be there at 6:30.”
Willow grinned as she wrote down the address and got up from her seat to leave class.
At lunch, Willow sat alone with her brown-bagged food and her thoughts. This day hadn’t gone well, except for the sleepover invitation, and even that could be a cruel joke. So far there had been more than twenty remarks made about her clothes, three of them from one girl. Cordelia seemed to be the queen of the school; a cheerleader that every boy with eyes found attractive. Some small part of Willow envied her for her status. She also wondered why Buffy didn’t hold said status since she seemed capable of doing so.
Thinking about Buffy, she looked around the cafeteria to find her sitting with a group of her friends and laughing. She looked like she was having a good time and seemed very at ease with her friends; something Willow never was. Neurotic by nature, Willow always worried what other people thought about her, even in the best situations.
She noticed someone else that seemed to be in the same boat as her at Buffy’s table; Tara looked uncomfortable with her lunch time position. She was staring down at her lunch tray, avoiding looking at anyone and taking very small bites every few minutes. Willow wondered why she wasn’t talking to Buffy. They had seemed to be friends in History class. She was just staring down now, not making eye contact with anyone until a boy sat next to her and she immediately smiled at him.
She was waiting for her boyfriend, I guess, Willow surmised. The girl hugged him and Willow nodded to herself, figuring that her presumption must be right and that the girl that had asked Tara out was way off her mark.
As the two talked, Willow looked the boy over. As far as she could tell from the distance she was from him, he had brown hair, and dark eyes. He was wearing all black, as Tara was. The two smiled and talked for a moment before Tara turned and looked at her. She pointed toward Willow with her thumb and Xander turned to look also, both of them talking. That made Willow nervous, so she concentrated intently on her apple. She looked up again a few moments later to see that they were no longer seated at the table. That probably meant they were somewhere in the halls, walking around before class started again. That or in a closet making out. She took a bite of her apple and got out her history book to read the lessons that had been covered before she came here, since this book was different from the one they used at her previous school. She wanted to be sure that she would know everything she needed come exams.
Her studying was interrupted as the two that had left the table came over and sat across from her.
The boy spoke first. “So, you’re Willow? I’m Xander. Why are you over here all by yourself? I’m sure Buffy’d love to have you over at her table.”
Willow shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, come on over to our table! Meet everybody.”
She wasn’t given a chance to say no as Xander grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up. As she was dragged toward the table, she looked back toward her book bag and lunch still sitting at the table she had just forcibly vacated. Tara smiled slightly at her and picked up the brown paper bag that the rest of her lunch was still in, her book bag and the apple that had fallen to the floor in her surprise at being grabbed.
She was dragged to the other table and made to sit by Xander. “You sit here, I’ll get attention.” He spoke to her, then screamed in a louder voice than Willow was accustomed to having right next to her ear, “Hey! Everybody!” Once everyone’s attention was on him, he pointed to Willow. “This is the new girl, Willow. Make her feel welcome and any belongings you leave backstage might not be reduced to a pile of ashes.”
Willow’s eyes widened and she looked up at Tara, who was now placing the redhead’s book bag under her seat and her lunch in front of her. “Does that usually happen?”
Tara grinned as she handed Willow her half-eaten, dusty apple. “Only on days that end in y.”
Xander began to make introductions, leaving Willow to wonder exactly what she was getting into.
****
Hope everyone enjoyed this, more should be up in a week or so, depending on how good my study habits are. If you see more in less than three days, please remind me that I have class.
ETA: Saying that the Tara in this story is not drop-dead gorgeous is in no way saying that Amber is not, or Tara for that matter. This is a high school version of Tara. Awkward and adorable, yes... but not drop dead gorgeous.
I salute everyone that's reading this. It helps to have an audience to work for.
. you should give a cookie to yourself for being a good writer.
