Author's Notes

Summary: AU set in season 3. Buffy returns to Sunnydale but some things have changed since she ran away.

AU roadmap: Okay let's see, seasons one and two basically happened according to canon so I guess all you really need to know is that this story begins during Buffy's party in "Dead Man's Party" but there are no zombies here, just a bunch of loud kids and Giles was merely delayed in traffic. There are some things that will differ slightly from canon before that but those will be explained later. Anything that took place after that may or may not happen in this universe so canon after that should not be taken for granted and even those events that do happen may deviate slightly from the official timeline.

POV will be primarily Giles's though it may switch to Buffy's (or maybe even other characters') in those scenes in which Giles is not there.

Warning: Chances are you are not going to like this. Parts of this fic are going to be disturbing to say the least and those bits are not going to be swept under the rug. If you want Buffy to always land on her feet no matter what, look elsewhere (and no, that doesn't necessarily mean that this fic will have an unhappy ending, just that things may get fairly rough at times). This story is rated as PG-13 because it's not descriptive enough to warrant a higher rating but subject-wise some parts of it may actually come close to R.

Click here for a more detailed (and somewhat spoilerish) warning.

Click here to go to the first chapter of the story.