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Disclaimer: Not mine. The song is "Graduation" by Vitamin C. My radio station had an exclusive. *g*
Author's Notes: For Jenn (happy graduation!); and for Isa (told you I'd write more fic!); ooh, and one more thing. This is *not* part of the RR series. *Not*.
Spoilers: Post Graduation
The phone rang three times before Buffy Summers picked it up. “Hello?” she said groggily, having been woken from an afternoon nap. The clock read six fifteen.
“Hi, Buffy!” Willow’s cheerful voice greeted her.
“Wills? What are you doing, calling at this hour?” Buffy shook her head in an attempt to clear it.
“Uh, it’s only six something. Are you eating dinner?” Willow asked.
“W-what? Oh, no, I was just sleeping...what’s the up?”
“Well, I was reading my old diary entries from when you first came here, and I got an idea. High school is over now, but I thought we should make scrapbooks. You, Xander, and I. You know, a notebook documenting our high school years? We could put pictures and diary entries and words and ticket stubs and reciepts and clip letters from magazine articles to form words, and...and...you know. We could seal it and bury it and make it a time capsule. I even went out a bought three pretty, blank notebooks.”
Buffy smiled to herself. “I like, Will, I like. What did Xander say?”
“He’s humoring me, but I think he’ll enjoy it, too. I was thinking we could do it tonight. Tonight will be a night to concentrate on friendships. Forget about demons and lovers and everything else, and just concentrate on friends and memories.”
“You have the best ideas, Willow,” Buffy said softly.
“So can you come over at eight? And bring anything and everything- pictures, tickets, diary, bring it all.”
“All right. I’ll see you at eight, then?”
“Great! Bye, Buffy!” Willow said happily, hanging up.
Buffy smiled to herself and got up to take a shower and find her ‘materials’. Tonight would be a night for friendship.
Buffy fiddled with the keychain on her backpack as she waited for Willow to open the door at the Rosenburg house. Her backpack was filled with momentos for the occasion.
Willow bounded down the steps and threw open the door. “Great! You’re here! Xander’s already upstairs. Come on in!”
“Words never to say on a Hellmouth,” Buffy quipped, closing the door behind her.
The two girls ascended the stairs and went into Willow’s room, where Xander was munching on Ho-Ho’s and looking at pictures.
“Xander!” Willow shrieked. “If my mom finds you eating in my room, she’ll kill me!”
Xander grinned sheepishly and shoved the remainder of his Ho-Ho into his mouth. “Sorry.”
“Oh, Xand, that’s disgusting,” Buffy declared, putting down her pack pack and unzipping it.
The three friends spread themselves out- Buffy and Xander on the bed, Willow on the floor beside the bed.
“Ooh!” Willow cried, suddenly jumping up. “I’ve been wanting to play this tape I got. My penpal, Melanie, sent it to me. She lives on the East Coast. It’s a bunch of her favorite songs. Double-sided.” She grinned and put the cassette in her boom box. A slow Mariah Carey ballad poured out.
“So, you guys ready to do this?” Xander asked.
“Uh-huh!” Willow said enthusiastically, grabbing three fancy, expensive-looking notebooks. She handed a red, silky-looking one to Xander, a lavender-flowered one to Buffy, and kept a pink rose-covered one for herself. She took a thick black marker from a box of school supplies.
Willow Rosenburg, she wrote on the first line of the cover. On the next line she wrote Sunnydale High. The last line had a date: 1999.
Buffy and Xander did the same, and then opened to the first crisp, white page.
“So, do we do this in chronological order?” Buffy asked.
“I guess so,” Willow said. “However you want.” She began sorting through her box. “I don’t have that much from before you came.”
“That’s cause being a slayer adds so much excitement,” Buffy declared with a smile. “I don’t have much from before, either. I didn’t bring that much stuff like that.” She pulled out a cropped picture of herself in a plaid skirt with long hair. Gluing it into her book, she scrawled Hemery High, 1995 in loopy purple script.
“Hey,” Willow suddenly said softly. She held out a school picture. “Remember Jesse?”
“Yeah,” Xander said softly. “I killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Buffy told him. “He wasn’t the same person you knew.” She got a far-off look in her eyes for a moment before continuing. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. I’m the slayer. It’s my job to protect.”
“Oh, no...Buffy...” Willow trailed off as a single tear dropped onto the photo. She sniffled as she glued it into her book, beside a picture of Xander, Jesse, and herself on the first day of high school. Her red hair was long, near her waist, and appeared to be slight staticy as it stood out against her pink shirt. Xander was dressed as usual, with baggy jeans, a T-shirt, and an untucked flannel. Jesse’s outfit closely resembled Xander’s, except it was a little more clean-cut.
“I feel so bad,” Xander said. “I mean, he died and I just forgot about him.”
“No you didn’t. You can’t possibly tell me that you’ve forgotten about Jesse,” Willow insisted.
“No. I think about him all the time. But I feel like I should have mourned longer, you know?”
“I know,” Willow agreed sadly.
“Hey, look!” Xander suddenly cried, holding up a movie ticket stub. “My first rated-R movie, ninth grade.”
“Was that the movie that Jesse’s sister got us into because she was working there?”
“Yep,” Xander confirmed with a smile, taping it down into his book.
“Oh, I didn’t even know I had this anymore,” Buffy said softly, holding up a 1st Place blue ribbon.
“Oooh, what’s it for?” Willow asked excitedly.
“Ice skating. I used to skate.” She stapled it into her book, and then looked at picture of her and a petite brunette. “Emily. She was my only non-snob friend. We were friends until the beginning of high school. Then I devoted all my time to Kimberly and Courtney and the gang, and we lost touch.” She flipped over the picture with a tear in her eye. “381-6206. Emily and Buffy, Best Friends Forever,” she read.
“Why don’t you call her?”
Buffy shrugged. “I doubt she’d want to hear from me.”
“You won’t know if you don’t try.” Willow reminded her, taking the picture out of her hand and writing the number on a slip of paper.
Xander tugged a picture out of his album. It was of himself, Willow, and Buffy, right after Buffy had come. “I don’t have much from before you came, either,” he said sheepishly, applying glue to the back.
Buffy pulled out her diary and a pair of scissors.
“Oh, Buffy, you aren’t really going to cut up your diary, are you?”
“I don’t need it anymore. I’m ready to start a new chapter in my life.” She deftly chopped through the paper and removed a small segment dated 3/10/97. “Right after I came,” she said wistfully.
Willow opened a Nickolodean magazine. “Look,” she said with a smile, pointing to a cartoon picture Scooby Doo and the gang. She tore it out and labeled it with a red marker.
Buffy and Xander both grinned. “Scooby Doobie Doo, where are you?” Xander recited.
Buffy opened an old magazine that she had, and flipped through it. She stopped on one page. A designer cross necklace filled the space. She looked ready to cry when Willow cut in. “No brooding!”
Buffy smiled as she chopped it out of the magazine and glued it into her book.
“Hey,” Xander suddenly said, grinning. He held up a picture from National Geographic of a hyena.
Buffy laughed wryly. “Great memories.” She felt tears trickle down her cheeks as she found one of two pictures of Angel that she owned. She kissed it and then glued it in.
“Oh, Buffy, I’m so sorry...” Willow said softly.
“No,” Buffy said, fighting back tears. “Don’t be.” She cut out another diary entry, this one being the one that she had written about Angel and thought that he had read. She cut letters out from a magazine and labeled the page ‘Achmed’.
The threesome stayed up all night, working on their scrapbooks. Everything was documented, from computer receipts to nail polish samples to sketches. Their entire high school lives, all the good and all the bad, were enclosed into the three books.
“I’m done,” Buffy said softly, pressing a piece of tape over the wrist corsage that Angel had presented her with at the prom.
Willow flipped over the tape, which had stopped hours ago. A Sarah McLachlan instrumental came on. “Me too.”
“Me three!” Xander declared, stapling in a photo of a giant snake and writing ‘Mayor’ beneath it.
“Let’s seal ‘em,” Willow request softly. She pulled out a metal container and wrote Willow, Xander, Buffy; 1999. Best Friends Forever. She opened the lid and removed a sheet of scented paper that she had placed inside earlier.
“I-I wrote a little letter thingy,” she said. She began to read aloud. “‘Dear Willow, Xander, and Buffy. A memo to ourselves. The year is 1999. We’re high school graduates. We made it. We survived everything. Everything that was thrown at us, good and bad. If we made it through those out-of-the-ordinary high school traumas, we can make it through everything. We will make it through everything. September marks the beginning of a new page in our books. We’re moving on. Buffy and Willow to UC Sunnydale, Xander to something else. No matter what, we’ll always be the best of friends.’” She paused, getting choked up, and then continued.
“‘I, Willow Gabriella Rosenburg, pledge to love Xander and Buffy forever. You guys have been my best friends and helped me through everything. I wouldn’t be here without you. I love you both. Willow Gabriella Rosenburg, May 28, 1999’” She handed the paper to Buffy, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Write something?”
Buffy nodded silently, tears trailing down her cheeks. “‘I, Buffy Anne Summers’,” she began as she wrote. “ ‘Promise to keep Xander and Willow as the best of friends forever. I love you both dearly, and I give my thanks that I have wonderful friends like you. I can’t imagine my life without you. Buffy Anne Summers, May 28, 1999.’” She slid the paper over to Xander.
“‘I, AleXander LaVelle Harris, will remain the best friend to Buffy and Willow through all eternity. I love you guys. You’re the best. AleXander LaVelle Harris, May 28, 1999.’” He, too, had tears in his eyes, although he attempted to hide them as he folded up the paper and slipped it into the box.
Each person dropped their book into the metal container, one by one.
Willow looked down into the box for a moment before putting on the lid and sealing it shut. “This is it,” she said.
“Yeah,” Buffy and Xander agreed simotaneously.
“Buffy, Xander, I-I’m scared,” she said, choking on a sob.
“Why?” Buffy asked, as both she and Xander moved to put their arm around her.
“I’m afraid we’ll lose touch. I mean, we’re in college now, and then we’ll be out and we’ll have jobs and we’ll have families and we’ll move around...I’m afraid I won’t see you guys. I’m afraid we won’t be friends. I’m afraid you two won’t be here with me in ten years to dig this capsule up. I’m afraid we’re losing everything. I’m so, so afraid,” Willow sobbed.
“We’ll be friends forever,” Buffy vowed tearily as the tape changed tracks.
“Friends forever,” Xander echoed. Each of them became silent as the tape caught their attention.
“When I heard this, I thought of you,” came Melanie’s voice. “So here’s to you, Willow, and the class of 1999. May you have your cake and eat it too.” The words would have normally sounded like a joke, but Melanie said them with such seriousness that fresh tears poured down Willow and Buffy’s faces, and even Xander sniffled.
//So we talked all night
About the rest of our lives
Where we're gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times'll never change
Keep on thinking things'll always be the same
When we leave this year we won't be coming back
No more hanging out cause we're on a different track
And if you something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don't have another day
'Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down
'Cause memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking on that night in June
I didn't know much in love- that it came too soon
And now I see and you I never got real blue
Stay at home talking on the telephone
And we'd get so excited and we'd get so scared
Laughing at ourselves thinking 'life's not fair'
And this is how it feels
As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be friends forever
So if we get the big jobs and we make the big money
Will we look back now
And will our jokes still be funny
Will we still remember everything we learned in school
Still be trying to break every single rule
Will every brainy scholar be the stock-broking man
Can never find a job that wanted to feel with a tan
I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
And this is how it feels
As we go on, we remember
All the teims we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be friends forever
(yeah, yeah, yeah)
(We will still be friends forever)
Well I think about tomorrow like we think about now
Can we survive it up there, can we make it somehow (somehow)
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us 'round
And will this memory stay when I leave this town
And I keep, keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
As we go on, we remember
All the teims we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be friends forever
As we go on, we remember
All the teims we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be friends forever
As we go on, we remember
All the teims we had together
And as our lives change, from whatever
We will still be friends forever//
“We’ll be friends forever, Willow,” Buffy repeated. “I promise.”
"Summers, you drive like a spaz!" ~Snyder, BAND CANDY