To Thine Own Self Be True 1,2,3/undetermined.

["wizathogwarts" <mcronin24@xxxxxxxxx>]

Title - To Thine Own Self Be True 1,2,3/undetermined yet.
By mike (mcronin24@xxxxxxxxx) 
SPOILERS: None 
RATING: PG. It is a Buffy/Willow fic but doesn't include Willow 
quite yet. 
DISCLAIMER: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters belong to 
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox. 
FEEDBACK: Constructive comments are encouraged. 
SUMMARY: (Buffy/Other) This picks up after the prologue, In the 
Beginning. If you haven't read that yet, please do so for the 
context. 
Authors Notes: The first 3 chapters are short, so I consolidated 
them. Chapter 4 is titled Willow, and I hope to post it in the next 
couple of days.

To Thine Own Self Be True
Chapter 1
Becoming a Woman

The school bell finished ringing and with the admonishment to be 
quiet and study from the teacher at the front of the class room, the 
9th grade class off Millikan Junior High School quieted down. 
Continuing conversations surreptitiously with the passing of notes 
or in whispers. 

Buffy Summers needed no change, there was no one she had been 
speaking with, no one laughing at anecdotal comments that she would 
share with friends since she had no friends. Today was the last day 
of Junior High. She was fifteen years old, and she was again 
continuing her analysis of who and what she was. She never forgot 
that long ago conversation she had with her mother. Looking back, 
she realized that her mother had done a pretty decent job of 
explaining things and her final advice wasn't bad either. Not about 
waiting until she was a woman to discover if she was a lesbian, the 
other advice about keeping it a secret until she was grown up.

Durint the year after that conversation, Buffy had kept quiet and 
just continued on with enjoying being with Valerie. She had thought 
about telling Valerie that she loved her, but it never felt 
necessary to do so. That is until after Valerie's family moved 
away. It was then that she wished she had told her, thinking at the 
time that maybe she wouldn't have left her if she knew she loved 
her. When her mother found her crying in her room the night she 
found out Valerie was gone, Joyce explained that it wasn't Valerie's 
choice. She had to go with her family and it had nothing to do with 
Buffy.

She missed Valerie for the rest of the school year, especially since 
she was about the only friend she had. All the boys were afraid of 
her and while the girls were OK with her because she had kept the 
boys from being too mean, Buffy could also interfere with getting 
closer with boys. So they just avoided Buffy altogether.

Buffy had tried to talk with her mother about her feelings a couple 
of times but was put off with the wait until you're older answer. 
Mom now had other problems to deal with and Buffy figured that her 
mom was just hoping she would grow out of it, waking up one day and 
be all boy crazy.

Well that hadn't happened and being a woman now, albeit a young one, 
she had no doubts whatsoever regarding her sexual orientation. She 
now knew all the right words to describe what she was and also was 
aware of the nasty ones also. Though most of those phrases some how 
included the hated word 'dyke'.

When she first entered junior high she thought to herself that she 
would at least pretend to be interested in boys so that at least the 
girls would talk to her. Actually, she was trying to find out if 
any of the girls felt like she did. She suspected there were a few 
others. She would notice the way some of the girls would let their 
gaze linger maybe just a little too long as teen age hormones messed 
with their ability to remain nonchalant. She had even made friends 
with Debbie. Buffy had figured out that if you dressed in a way 
that attracted boys, no one suspected you weren't straight, with the 
added advantage that she also attracted the ones for whom she was 
really wearing short skirts and skimpy tops. Debbie was one of 
these girls. She had long brown hair, a pretty face and incredibly 
long legs. She could have sworn that Debbie was six feet tall, but 
she insisted that she was only five-ten. To Buffy's five feet and 
two inches, it was close enough.

A couple of months after becoming friends with Debbie, Buffy was 
pretty certain that Debbie was gay but terribly afraid of the 
possibility. Debbie's halfhearted interest in boy talk became 
nearly non existent once she realized that when they were alone, 
Buffy made it clear, in a non responsive sort of way that discussing 
boys didn't appeal to her. One Saturday, Debbie was over at her 
house and they were just hanging out in Buffy's room and Debbie was 
laughing at Buffy's pantomime of Ms. Dever's description of proper 
hygiene during menstruation. Buffy thought to herself how cute 
Debbie looked and just blurted out,

"You have the cutest laugh. I want to be a comedienne just so I can 
make you laugh all the time."

Debbie had blushed scarlet and Buffy felt her breathing quicken as 
she approached Debbie, placing her right hand on her cheek, Buffy 
gently brought their lips together. Debbie was very still for a 
moment and then leaned into the kiss. That was all Buffy needed. 
Buffy deepened the kiss and finally felt herself in sync with her 
desires. She was kissing another woman and was being kissed back. 
All was right and she wanted to yell it from the highest mountain.

'The higher you climb, the farther you fall." Buffy thought 
ruefully. Monday morning at school, she discovered that Debbie had 
shared their afternoon of discovery with her friend Michelle. 
Michelle, for whatever reason that she wasn't sharing, but 
supposedly to protect her friend Debbie from being brain washed by 
some dyke had concocted a cover story. The long and the short of it 
was that I had tried to seduce Debbie, and Debbie had gone crying to 
Michelle about the terrible ordeal. I was outed, ostracized and 
literally spat upon. I was even jumped by four girls who were part 
of a gang just because they thought I would be an easy mark. These 
girls didn't know about my reputation before junior high, and none 
of the boys who I had beaten up in grade school were anxious to 
advertise the fact. The end result was a pretty much a draw. I had 
a split lip, a black eye and bruised and bleeding ear from being 
kicked in the side of the head. Between the four of them, they had 
5 black eyes, 3 split lips and at least 2 cracked ribs. Also two 
broken fingers for the one who tried to scratch my eyes. I don't 
take kindly to fighting dirty, unless I'm forced into it.

All five of us were suspended for 3 days. When we got back to 
school, everyone gathered around them wanting to know what happened 
and I was avoided like a wino looking for a handout. I would 
occasionally get some sympathetic looks from some of the other girls 
who I suspected were gay, but no one would dare be seen befriending 
me. Junior high was very lonely. The upside was I got straight A's 
since I didn't have anything else to do (except read 'Ruby Fruit 
Jungle' for the umpteenth time). 

Now it's the last day of junior high. In three months, I'll start 
high school at Hemry. Mom suggested that I try out for cheer leader 
since I'm so athletic and all. Mom of course knew about the fight 
and suspected what it was about. She started to ask me about it and 
then stopped and told me she was glad I was not hurt too badly and 
she was happy that I was able to defend myself. She asked me if it 
would happen again and I said I doubted it. She asked me to be 
careful and told me she loved me.

She then went downstairs to talk with Dad, and I closed my door in 
preparation for the next round of yelling that had started a little 
after New Years of that first year I spent in junior high. I knew 
she had tougher things on her mind, so I didn't bother her with my 
problems, I had already proven I could handle every thing on my 
own. I just had to remember not to trust anyone. I couldn't have 
what I needed most. At least not until I was someplace safe, yea, 
as if there is such a place.

Chapter 2
The Watcher

Having a lot of time to myself accomplished several things during my 
exile in junior high. I did a lot of reading which exposed me to 
different perspectives and forced me to think things through. This 
is very important because I'm a very emotional person. I tend to 
just want to rush in and get things done and worry about the 
consequences later. I was looking for ways to be more appreciative 
of being gay, even though it was turning to out be pretty lonely so 
far, and I came to the realization one day that if I had been 
straight, I would probably just be another blond, southern 
California ditz. That was almost as scary as the thought of being 
groped by some smelly, testosterone driven boy. The other thing was 
that after two and a half years of keeping a low profile, anyone I 
was at Millikan with totally forgot about what had happened in light 
of trying to survive at Hemry. Coming in at the lowest rung of the 
food chain tended to put personal survival above all else.

Because of my grades and test scores, I was enrolled in the AP 
courses. I didn't mind, I had discovered that I liked being 
challenged intellectually. I even like the idea that I could 
conjugate a sentence properly, though I wouldn't think of doing so 
in a conversation with any class mates. Also, I took my mom's 
advice, I tried out for cheer leader rather than any of the girls 
athletic teams. I did seriously consider trying out for track, but 
their was some perception that athletic women might be gay. I think 
it has to do with some movie called 'Personal Best', I tried renting 
it once, but the video store said I needed to be 17. It's on 
my "When I'm old enough list". The list is now four and a half 
pages long, half of them would probably make my mother faint.

Anyway, the cheerleader thing is actually pretty cool. The routines 
are really fun and allow me to work up a good sweat and get my 
juices flowing. I just have to be careful when I have to hold one 
of the other girls in a routine. Can't let them know how much I 
enjoy that particular aspect of cheer leading or I'll have a repeat 
of junior high quicker than you can say alleyoop.

I have made friends with the girls on the cheer leading squad and 
while only one of them is in AP classes with me, they're not too bad 
to talk with as long as I can keep the conversation away from boys. 
I usually switch to talking about fashion. They all readily talk 
about fashion and it's something that I do know about and enjoy, 
though anything more than 15 minutes tends to become inane. Unless 
their talking about Victoria's Secret. When they do, I just shut up 
totally and listen, nodding my head in encouragement to anyone 
willing to continue the discussion. But I never allow myself to 
talk during these times knowing that my enthusiasm would quickly 
reveal my true interest. I also have to work hard at controlling my 
breathing, especially when Vicki pulls out the latest catalog and 
points out the latest line of lingerie. The first time she did 
that, I nearly fainted. The others noticed my reaction, but thought 
that I'm just really innocent. I play the innocent card when they 
talk about boys and sex. While I feel like gagging hearing about 
the two in the same conversation, I pretend embarrassment.

While Vicki and Lauren seem to derive pleasure in seeing me 
embarrassed with these conversations, I tolerate it to maintain my 
cover and also because they do the Victoria Secret thing also to get 
a rise out of me. I've learned to take the bitter with the sweet. 
I've read about how Jew's at their Passover meals do something 
representative of this concept. I hope to make friends with someone 
Jewish someday who might allow me to share this experience.

Being a Capricorn on the cusp of Aquarius, I celebrated my sixteenth 
birthday a couple of weeks after the new year. Dad took me to the 
Ice Capades, without mom this year. The tension between them is 
awful. I get all queasy just thinking about it. Dad keeps coming 
home later and later and sometimes he works all night. I don't see 
him too much anymore, so the Ice Capades and dinner with him were 
really cool. I don't think of my dad as a guy, he's my dad. It's 
outside of guy territory. Though I have started to think of him as 
a guy when he's yelling at mom. He reminds me of Tony when he would 
try and harass Valerie. It makes me really sad to think that my dad 
could be anything like Tony, anything like a guy.

Now that I've got all those recent thoughts out of the way, here 
comes the strange stuff. I woke up a week after my birthday feeling 
really lightheaded and just a little queasy. I looked in the mirror 
and my face was really flushed. I took my temperature and it read 
103.4. I took a shower and then told my mom how I had felt after 
waking up and about my temperature. She asked how I felt now and I 
realized that I wasn't light headed anymore or queasy. In fact, I 
felt really good. She decided to take my temperature again just to 
be sure. This time it was normal. I didn't have a clue as to what 
happened, but I headed off to school feeling better than I could 
ever remember feeling, almost euphoric. Feeling euphoric is one of 
the things on my list, just not having to do with school, so I'm not 
crossing it off yet.

When I got to school, I went to my locker and Janice came up to me 
to talk about the Science project we were assigned last Friday. As 
I'm listening to her talk, I suddenly felt threatened from behind 
and without thinking, I spun around and grabbed a hand that was 
hovering near my derriere. I instantly recognized the perpetrator 
as Craig Flower, an obnoxious football type who had been trying to 
get me to go out with him. 

All this information processed at the same time that my other hand 
reached up and grabbed him by the throat and I then completed my 
spin by tossing him over my head and onto the floor like he was a 
blowup doll. Craig was a junior and a varsity linebacker, six foot 
two and weighing in at about 215. So he made a loud thud as he hit 
the floor and made an even louder grunt. I had no idea what or how 
I had done what I had just done, but I new I had to say something 
quick to divert attention. It's almost always the first one to 
speak who gets heard and believed. 

"Craig", I yelled out, "I'm so sorry, you slipped on the orange peel 
I dropped." While quickly bending down, pretending to wipe 
something up with a tissue.

Craig wasn't about to even consider that he had just been tossed 
around by a tiny little girl, so he quickly accepted the apology and 
then got a look on his face.

"No problem Buffy, but if you really want to make it up to me, 
you'll go to Thompson's party with me Saturday night." He said in a 
confident manner, thinking he had me cornered. Well I don't like to 
be manipulated, so I fell back on my standard excuse. 

"That sounds like it would be fun Craig, but I'm not allowed to go 
out with guys until I'm seventeen." I replied in my most 
conciliatory tone.

Having heard this one before, Craig new it was hopeless and just let 
out a grunt and stomped away.

Everything happened so quick, I hadn't had time for what occurred to 
register yet. I wanted to figure out what was going on, but 
something was telling me that major freaking could ensue, and I 
better be someplace where I could indulge in a major freak out 
without anyone seeing. I clung to this sage advice and went about 
classes as if nothing had happened.

Everything was going along fine until cheer leading practice. I was 
out of sync on all the routines. I was ahead, moving too fast. I 
was jumping too high and when I did the leap off the human tower, I 
overshot by ten feet. Seeing that I had misjudged, I went into a 
tuck and roll as I hit the ground springing up after the roll 
feeling exhilarated and somewhat embarrassed. I turned to the rest 
of the squad and apologized profusely, and claiming dizziness, 
retreated to the locker room. That's when I fell down the rabbit 
hole. Only the rabbit turned out to be a nice old guy who wore 
tweed and said his name was Merrick.



Chapter 3
The Letter


I have everything that happened with Merrick written down in a 
separate journal. My time with Merrick is very personal and 
special. Someday I will share it, but not now. All I will say is 
that because of Merrick, I was able to handle the loss of my 
father. I will always treasure the times when he was my Dad, but in 
the last few years, those times were few and far between. And the 
pain it was inflicting on my mother made me realize that as much as 
I hated not having both my parents in my life, my mother had 
suffered enough. I wanted to know why my parents couldn't get 
along, but I was afraid to ask. I was afraid that dad couldn't 
handle that his little girl was a lesbian, a 'dyke'. I knew mom 
loved me no matter what I was, but I wasn't sure dad would, and I 
was afraid to find out. I didn't want to be the reason my parents 
divorced.

But getting back to Merrick, he helped remind me that their are good 
men out there. That it was possible to trust without having the 
trust betrayed. He also taught me that just becuase someone you 
trust makes a mistake, trust is not betrayed as long as you are both 
willing to talk it out. People are human and part of trusting is 
having the freedom to make mistakes without losing the trust. He 
also confirmed for me that trust must be earned and never violated 
and that trust was too valuable to be given freely. I know that 
sounds harsh, but this is life and death. There are no second 
chances. Enough said about that except for 'The Letter'.

Merrick died for me. He's only supposed to watch, I'm the one who's 
supposed to die. Actually, I'm supposed to slay. Dying is only 
supposed to happen if I screw up. And I had screwed up royally. I 
wasn't ready for a Master Vamp. Oh yea, that's what I slay. Get 
this, I'm Buffy, the vampire slayer. When you finish laughing, feel 
free to catch up with the story when you're ready. Really, it's 
OK. I still giggle every time I say it. Even though I know better 
than anyone how unfunny it really is.

Where was I, oh yea, I screwed up. Merrick sacrificed himself so 
that I could survive to fight another day. I want to share his last 
words with you. I don't need them written down, they are forever 
burned into my memory. I just feel better putting them down to 
remind myself for Merrick, I can't ever give up. I won't allow his 
death to be meaningless.

"Buffy, I have lived many lives as a Watcher. I've tried to save 
the best slayers from the cruelty of the Council. And you have the 
potential to be the best. You have the potential of finally 
breaking the hold of the Council and creating something that will 
truly fight evil. You are worth dying for Buffy. Take this key and 
open the chest I keep next to my desk. In it you will find a letter 
with your name on it. Read that letter tonight and commit it to 
memory. I won't be around to protect you from the damned test, but 
I hope the instructions I have left will enable you to survive the 
Council's evil."

I retrieved that letter and have committed it to memory and pledged 
myself to fulfilling the promise and hope Merrick saw in me. I now 
have a new list. As with my other list, I will only reveal what's 
on it once I complete each task. This list I call my "Before I die" 
list. I refuse to die until every task on this list is completed. 
So I swear.