Buffy had gotten in with the wrong crowd back at Hemery, at least that was what Joyce and her husband had thought at the time. Perhaps it had been because her parents were fighting, but she’d clearly been hanging out with kids who were a bad influence on her. Their little girl, who’d once been so… well, girly, interested in clothes, makeup, and boys, had suddenly started getting into fights, skipping classes, her grades had started to suffer, and she’d come in late with her clothes torn, sometimes with blood on them.

In a way, it had been a relief when she’d been expelled, maybe that would help to get her away from those bad influences and perhaps set her back on the path to being the good girl she’d been before. The divorce might help too, if her parents weren’t living together and fighting then Buffy might stop acting out.

Moving to Sunnydale, where the high school was smaller, had been a good idea, and Buffy had quickly made some new friends, a couple of really nice kids, but then the fighting had started again, and the skipping classes, and it seemed as if the old pattern was starting all over again. Joyce was at a loss as to what she should do.

She couldn’t ban Buffy from seeing her friends, Willow and Xander seemed like they’d be a good influence on her daughter rather than a bad one, they certainly weren’t troublemakers themselves, but something was going on… Perhaps Buffy had joined a gang, in which case she needed her new schoolfriends more than ever…

Parent-teacher night was when things seemed to come to a head. A gang broke into the school, and Buffy stood up to them, so bravely. At least she could take care of herself.


The End