The course catalog for the University of California, Sunnydale, was four hundred and twelve pages long, and Willow Rosenberg had read all of them. Twice. With highlighters.

"Look," she said, for maybe the ninth time since they'd gotten in the car, holding it open across the back seat so Buffy had no choice but to look. "Introduction to Folklore and Myth. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Buffy, they give you credit for this. We've been doing it for free for three years."

"Great," said Buffy. "Can I test out? Like, can I just stake the professor's final exam?"

In the front seat, Joyce Summers adjusted the rearview mirror and said, very mildly, "Nobody is staking anything on the first day, honey," in the tone of a mother who had gotten used to saying sentences like that and had decided not to think about it too hard.

The car was packed to the roof. Buffy's half was mostly clothes and one duffel bag that clanked when you moved it and that Joyce had carefully not asked about. Willow's half was mostly books, a computer that she'd wrapped in two blankets like a baby, and a desk lamp shaped like a duck. Mr. Gordo rode on top of everything, strapped in with a bungee cord.

Buffy looked out the window at Sunnydale going by. The Bronze. The magic shop, under new management again. The empty lot with the chain-link fence where the school used to be. She'd grown up in LA, and then she'd been dragged here at sixteen kicking and screaming, and she'd spent three years wanting nothing in the world but to leave. And now she was leaving, sort of. Moving across town to a dorm room the size of a closet, three miles from her mom's house, still in range of the Hellmouth. She wasn't sure if that was a promotion.

"Are you nervous?" Willow said quietly.

"No," Buffy said. Then, because it was Willow: "Kind of. It's so big. In high school I knew where everything was. I knew where all the exits were. I knew which bathroom had the good windows for climbing out of." She shrugged. "Here I don't even know where the cafeteria is."

Willow flipped to a page near the back of the catalog. It had a campus map on it. The map was covered in little colored stars.

"Blue stars are dining halls," she said. "Red stars are emergency exits. Green stars are windows on the ground floor. Purple stars are places where, historically speaking, there have been unexplained disappearances." She paused. "There's a lot of purple."

Buffy stared at the map. Then she started to laugh, and couldn't stop, and put her head down on Willow's shoulder, and Willow patted her hair and looked very pleased with herself.

"I love you, Will," Buffy said into her sweater. "You know that, right?"

"I know. I made you a copy."

†

Oz was waiting at the curb in front of the dorms when they pulled up, leaning against his van with his hands in his pockets, his hair a new color. Blue, this week. He'd moved into his own room the day before and had apparently been waiting ever since to carry things.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," said Willow, and went pink all the way to her ears, the way she still did every single time, which Buffy thought was maybe the best thing in the world.

Oz took the computer from her, blankets and all, very carefully. Then he looked past them at the steps of the building, at the crowd of freshmen and parents and boxes and balloons, at the big hand-painted banner that said WELCOME FRESHMEN!!

"Couple things you should know," he said, in exactly the same calm voice he used for everything. "Your RA is really nice. The laundry room is haunted, but only on Wednesdays. And there's a guy at the orientation table who's been asking everybody if they know Buffy Summers."

Buffy stopped with a suitcase in each hand. "Asking who?"

"Everybody." Oz shifted the computer to his other arm. "Tall guy. Tweed jacket. English accent." He paused. "Not Giles."

~ to be continued ~

megan's note: part 2 is coming as soon as i finish my college applications essay, which, ironically, is about Willow. (not really. but kind of.)