Buffy stepped into the gym of Sunnydale High School. She had sworn that she
would never come back here unless there was grave danger, but here she was at
her ten year high school reunion. And with the most unlikely of their old
group standing beside her with a bored expression. Oz.

Yeah, who’da thunk it? Oz and Buffy becoming friends. Well, they weren’t
really close friends. They just sometimes had coffee together, just for the
old familiarity.

After graduation, Buffy had stayed in Sunnydale for another year, while
Willow and Xander migrated away. Oz had stayed also. Well, sorta stayed. He
toured around California with Dingoes for almost a year, staying at home with
his parents between gigs. The Hellmouth closed around the same time that
Dingoes Ate My Baby broke up because Devon had thought he could do better
solo. Come to think of it, Buffy was slightly curious as to what had become
of Devon after that. She hoped he would be here.

After the Hellmouth closed, Buffy decided to go for it and apply to a couple
of colleges. All of them nearby. When she was accepted to UCLA, Buffy’s mom
had decided to move along with her and she continued to live with her mom and
fight demons between classes. To her delight, Oz had followed her. Not really
followed her. After the Dingoes broke up, he decided to give college a try
and ended up at the same one as Buffy.

While they were in college together, they hung with each other a lot. Well,
not a lot, but more than they ever would have before. It was usually Buffy
who invited Oz to go to parties with her ‘cause she didn’t want to go stag or
rent movies and bring them over to Oz’s dorm room. With her Slayer duties and
trying to pass some of her classes, Buffy hadn’t found the time to make any
new friends. So, when ever she had some free time that she didn’t want to
spend by herself, she would go to Oz.

After college, they saw less and less of each other. Buffy had gotten a
degree in fashion design that didn’t take her very far. She ended up working
at a large department store. She had started out as a dressing room
attendant, but had moved up since then. Granted it wasn’t very much higher
up, but with her hours completely split with her job and her Slaying duties,
she was forced to work short hours. She’d work during the day and slay during
the night, but had managed to hold her job as the head of the Women’s
Department. She still lived with her mom, which was pretty much pitiful for a
twenty-eight year old woman, but she and her mother needed each others
companionship.

Buffy had never really gotten over Angel, especially since she saw him often.
Not too often. When Buffy had first gotten to LA, Angel was around a lot,
sharing the Slaying duties. After a while though, he moved on again, skipping
from place to place, fighting evil. He would still come around every now and
then when there was something that he had to warn her about or sometimes just
to check up on her. So, Buffy had never taken much time trying to find
another to love. She knew she’d be tied to Angel until the day she died and
frankly didn’t want to love anyone else. She was actually surprised that
she’d lived as long as she had. She didn’t think she’d even have time to fall
in love with someone else, but she had lasted longer than most Slayers, and
that was with a broken heart.

Oz had graduated the same year as she had, receiving a degree in music.
Shortly after graduation, Oz had gotten a job as a producer for a small-time
record company. It didn’t matter that they didn’t make much money, Oz seemed
to love his job. Buffy was happy when she heard that they were slowly making
their move up in music and that it was all mostly due to Oz.

After he broke up with Willow, Oz had only had one serious relationship. It
lasted for about a year, but finally ended when the girl decided that Oz
wasn’t the commitment type and broke it off. Buffy had only met the girl,
Tyler, twice, but she knew why it hadn’t lasted long. She would never be able
to stand up against Willow in Oz’s heart. Oz had never fully stopped loving
Willow. Maybe that’s why she felt an affinity with her unlikely friend. They
were both doomed to live without the ones they loved.

“Remind me why we’re here again,” Oz said, leaning over to say it in Buffy’s
ear.

“Curiosity. Plus, we already told Willow that we would be here,” Buffy
answered him, grabbing his shirt sleeve to pull him further in to the gym.

They made an odd couple. Buffy had come very stylishly dressed for a semi
formal occasion. Oz was dressed like he was just going to the movies. The
same uniform type outfit he had worn since high school, jeans with a T-shirt
that had some amusing logo on it with a just as novel button down shirt over
it and hanging open. This time it was his Mystery Science Theater 3000 shirt
with that old bowling shirt that said ‘Larry’ on it. Buffy couldn’t even
guess how old that shirt was.

“There’s Willow,” Oz said in a shimmery whisper, that almost wasn’t there. If
it weren’t for her heightened hearing, Buffy never would have been able to
hear it. Buffy followed Oz’s gaze to the refreshment table where Willow
stood.

To Buffy she looked to be the woman she spoke to so frequently over the
phone. Despite the distance between them, Buffy and Willow had remained best
friends. Through all of her busy schedule, Buffy had never failed in her
correspondence with Willow. Some through letters, some phone calls and others
through e-mails.

To Oz she must have looked like what he could have had. He too had remained
in contact with Willow, though his letters were few. He never called her,
only wrote. Maybe if he had heard her voice, he wouldn’t haven’t been able to
keep from running back to her.

Willow was now working for a large computer corporation, at the Seattle
branch. Buffy still didn’t know how to pronounce what Willow’s title was, and
never thought she’d be able to. Some kind of poli-technician. She was
currently involved with some guy named Jason. Buffy had never met him and he
hadn’t come with Willow so Buffy doubted it was very serious. Of course, she
and Xander had never gotten together, but Xander had remained a faithful
friend to Willow, writing her a letter a week. Buffy got one once a month if
she was lucky and she would be lying if she said it wasn’t kind of
disappointing that she and Xander hadn’t remained closer.

Xander had joined the army after graduation. Not because he really wanted to,
but he really didn’t have anywhere else to go. He had no skills and couldn’t
go to college because his grades were too low for a scholarship. His parents
didn’t have the money to send him and probably wouldn’t have even if they
did. So, Xander did what he thought he had to. It was probably a good choice
since he had escalated to a Sergeant at twenty-eight. He was currently going
to college, the army paying for him. Xander wasn’t able to come tonight.
Buffy was very disappointed when she learned that.

“Buffy!” Willow cried and threw her arms around her old best friend as soon
as she saw her. Her embrace hadn’t loosened until she saw Oz hovering behind
Buffy, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Oz,” Willow said breaking away from
Buffy and turning toward him. “I didn’t think you were going to come,” she
added with a smile.

“Buffy kind of had to drag me,” he said with a small smile, his hands shoved
casually in his pockets. To Buffy it seemed that they couldn’t take their
eyes away from each other. Willow had pretty much told Buffy, that she had
always wondered what might have happened if she and Oz had never broken up.
She missed him and he missed her. Buffy truly hoped that this occasion would
bring them back together, that was why she had dragged Oz here.

“Did you guys see Cordelia?” Willow asked looking to Buffy then back to Oz.

“No, she didn’t tell me she would be coming,” Buffy answered and looked
around the crowded gym. After a long scan, she finally saw Cordelia holding
court in the center of a large circle of men. When she had left for LA to try
and make it as an actress, all of her former friends had laughed at her. She
had surprised them all, having just now finally make it big as a Scream-like
villain in a recent teen centered movie.

When she had first gotten to LA, she had some how gotten tied up with Angel’s
fight against evil. It wasn’t because Angel had asked her too, but more
because Cordy couldn’t *not* help. She figured it was like a duty she had
since she knew all of the stuff that she did. Cordy had also helped Buffy out
a couple of times in her fights, but after Angel left, Buffy had some how
managed to keep Cordy out of the Slaying scene, therefore giving her more
time to focus on her career. Buffy didn’t speak to Cordy that often, but
Cordy sometimes called her pretending to be bragging about some big function
she was going to, but Buffy thought that she was really just trying to check
up on her.

Harmony was there with a couple of her former sheep, shooting envious darts
at Cordelia with her eyes. It gave Buffy a major happy to see Cordelia get
back at the girls that had shunned her after her relationship with Xander.
Cordelia never *ever* forgave Xander for what he did, but every now and then
she would try to casually ask how Xander was doing. She wouldn’t say it in so
many words, it would actually be more like, “So, did Major Dufus step into
any mine fields on his last kamikaze mission?”, but Buffy knew it to be her
way of asking how he was.

“I’m going to go talk to Cordy,” Buffy said turning to Oz and Willow, who
were still staring at each other like nervous teenagers who had been set up
on a blind date. Both just nodded at her, but didn’t really look away from
each other.

Buffy sauntered over the length of the gym, her high heels clicking against
the hard wood floor. As she walked through the crowds she smiled to see many
male heads turn, most of them thinking, “Who is that girl and why hadn’t I
noticed her in high school?”

She stopped on the fringes of the encompassment of men that surrounded
Cordelia. Not one of them noticed Buffy tapping her foot impatiently. Annoyed
Buffy let out a loud “Ahem,” and some heads swiveled toward her, one of them
being Cordelia’s.

A small smile curved at the corners of Cordelia’s lips and she turned to her
male companions. “Will you gentlemen excuse me?” she asked them with a honey
sweet voice, but her eyes clearly told them to go away. A lot of them
promised to catch up with her again later, before they all departed to leave
Buffy and Cordelia alone.

“Buffy!” Cordelia said with a fake voice of happiness. “I love your shoes!
Almost as much as the real Gucci line’s.”

“So good to see you too, Cordelia,” Buffy offered with pursed lips.

“What do we have over there?” Cordelia asked gesturing behind Buffy with her
chin. Buffy turned to see what Cordy was indicating and recognized it to be
Oz and Willow leaning against the refreshment table, talking.

“Hmm, looks kinda like Willow and Oz, but I cant’ really be sure, it’s been
so long,” she answered Cordelia sarcastically.

“That’s probably your doing isn’t it? Trying to tie poor Oz to the back
stabbing bimbo again? That’s really kind of harsh,” Cordelia said behind
Buffy. “It looks like it’s working too.” She added.

“Yeah, it does,” Buffy commented as a small smile crept to her face. Seeing
her friends together again made Buffy’s heart swell. She could take one look
at them and know that her scheming had worked. They would probably get back
together again and never have to be lonely again. Not the way that Buffy was,
she didn’t want that for anyone. She could just be happy that Willow and Oz
might have each again. “It really does.”