maryperk73703 | The House of the Waning Moon

Set in The House of the Rising Moon verse. Not Spuffy, but they are mentioned. A young woman observes the Scoobies. This is an Oz/OC story. It is written for darkrivertempst for the page 394 challenge she did. The challenge is to take five books, turn to page 394, and use the second sentence in a story. The sentences are in bold.

One shot

No boy had ever talked to Ceely Rose before – not in a good-hearted way at any rate. Boys either feared her big brother or they assumed because he was wild, she was too. That all changed when she moved to Sunnydale, California with her grandfather. Leaving Oklahoma had been hard for the young girl, but Grandpa Mac needed the sea air for his lungs. Ceely Rose hoped that being away from her brother’s reputation would finally turn things around for her. Maybe – just maybe –she’d finally have a boyfriend.

After the move to Sunnydale, Ceely Rose gave herself a critical once over in front of the mirror. She decided that it was time to embrace her Indian heritage. With that in mind, she spent the day at the mall having her hair cut and styled. She had her nails manicured for the first time in her life, and Grandpa Mac had sprung for some newer hip clothing.

On the first day of school, the nicest boy Ceely Rose had ever met said hello to her. She played that greeting over and over in her mind all day. She learned that his name was Daniel Osborne, but his friends and everyone else called him Oz.

Ceely Rose discretely observed Oz for days, both at school and at the Bronze, which was the local hangout for young people. She thought that Oz was the most talented musician ever. He was so much better than the other members of his band, yet he never seemed to brag or be snotty.

Ceely Rose found herself blushing whenever Oz caught her eye. He always gave her a nod as his way of acknowledging her. He rarely spoke, even amongst his friends. Ceely Rose found that she like that Oz wasn’t loud or obnoxious. There were already too many people that she came into contact with who annoyed her.

Oz’s friends were three of the most beautiful girls at Sunnydale High. Well, two of them went to the school. The third one seemed to have some kind of problems with the principal, and she had taken her GED. Ceely Rose heard rumors that the girl in question was named Buffy Summers, and she had been accused of killing a girl right there in the high school library. She didn’t see anything about Buffy that screamed killer. The other two girls were Cordelia Chase and Anya Jenkins. She had caught them all hanging out with Rupert Giles the librarian, a man that at one time was a curator at a British museum.

During her observations, Ceely Rose noticed that there was a fair amount of tension between Oz’s group of five and another group of five people. The most tension seemed to be between Oz and Cordelia when they dealt with a boy named Xander Harris and a girl named Willow Rosenberg. One day Ceely Rose accidently eavesdropped on a vacuous girl named Harmony. She found out that Oz and Cordelia used to date Xander and Willow, but something happened that caused Cordelia to get hurt and for the four of them to break up. It was obvious whatever had happened was still going on by the obnoxious cooing that Xander and Willow were caught doing in the hallways between classes.

There was another kind of tension between Buffy and a girl named Faith. Ceely Rose thought it was some kind of competition. While Ceely Rose didn’t think Buffy was a killer as per the rumors, she wasn’t so sure that Faith would win in a brawl with the blond. Buffy sometimes had a glint of power in her eye.

The man that Faith hung out with gave Ceely Rose the creepy crawlies, as her Granny Mac had always called it when a male rubbed you the wrong way. To the young woman, he looked like a man who had his cake in Faith and wanted to eat Buffy too. Only Buffy wasn’t too hip on that idea it seemed.

The only one of the other group worth a darned in Ceely Rose’s opinion was another Brit like Mr. Giles. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce was a little rough around the edges. He certainly lacked the smoothness of Mr. Giles, but he had potential in Ceely Rose’s opinion.

Then, one day Buffy was gone. Ceely Rose had no idea where she had gone, but none of Oz’s group seemed too worried. She slowly walked by the table where Oz was sitting with Cordelia and Anya. She desperately wanted to join them, but she didn’t know how exactly.

Anya looked up from her textbook. She glanced at Oz, who was watching with great interest as Ceely Rose walked by. “Hey, Ceely Rose, come join us,” Anya called out. She waved the other girl over.

“Hey.” Ceely Rose approached the table. “How are y’all doing today?” She put her books on the table, and she sat down.

“You’re part Indian, aren’t you?” Cordelia asked.

“Yeah, I am.” Ceely Rose nodded.

“I <I>thought</I> so with that braid and feather,” Cordelia replied. “Not exactly a California fashion statement. It looks nice though,” she was quick to add because she didn’t want Ceely Rose or especially Oz to think she was being critical. Cordelia saw how the young man was looking at the newcomer.

“I like it,” Oz said softly. “It’s pretty.”

Ceely Rose blushed, and she gave a shy little smile. “Thanks,” she whispered.

Cordelia elbowed Anya with a grin at Oz and Ceely Rose’s interaction. Willow and Xander may have hurt them, and she might have tried to do vengeance on both of them through the now powerless Anya, but she certainly hadn’t given up on love. She was glad to see that Oz hadn’t either.

Anya turned the page in her textbook. “Look at this picture, Cordelia. These forms have remained unchanged from earliest medieval through modern times. I should know, I saw them back then.”

Ceely Rose gave Anya a curious stare. She wondered what the other girl meant exactly. A glance at Oz told her that he wasn’t surprised or bothered by what Anya had said.

Oz leaned forward, and he said softly, “Sunnydale’s different. Did you notice?”

Ceely Rose nodded slowly. In her observations of Oz and his friends, she’d noticed some very odd things. Buffy would follow a couple out of the Bronze, only to come back in a few moments with a near hysterical man or woman but not the other partner. Oz himself had an aversion to the full moon. Ceely Rose now wondered exactly how Anya had seen the monoliths mentioned in the history book. She also noticed that Mr. Giles had some books in the library that weren’t standard for high school students.

“Scary things go bump in the night here,” Cordelia said in a quiet voice. “Don’t invite anyone in, not even if you know them.”

“Scary things go bump in the daytime too.” A boy dropped his books on the table, making Ceely Rose jump.

“Hey, Blaine,” Cordelia replied. “Still recovering from your run in with Ms. French?”

“Oh, ha ha, Chase, that’s really funny.” Blaine rolled his eyes. “Here I was planning on letting you all know that Snyder’s on the warpath.”

“What else is new?” Cordelia said with a grimace. Ever since Buffy took her GED, the troll-like principal had been going out of his way to harass the rest of them.

Ceely Rose didn’t like Principal Snyder. He reminded her too much of the one back home in Oklahoma. Her brother got in trouble even when he wasn’t around to be the perpetrator. Ceely Rose chuckled to herself. Her big brother was a high-powered attorney now. She wondered if she could convince Grandpa Mac to let her go to L.A. to see him.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Snyder strolled up to the table with an evil smirk on his face. “A whole table of juvenile delinquents. Well, I will sing and make music to the Lord as I justifiably punish the bunch of you.”

“What did we do?” Blaine said in a defiant voice. “We were just sitting here minding our own business.”

Snyder pointed a finger at the teenaged boy. “You keep your lips closed, Mister. Otherwise you might find yourself up a creek without any toilet paper. The five of you will spend every day for the next week after school cleaning up the basement. That is final. If I can’t get that delinquent Summers, I’ll get her friends instead.” He walked away whistling a merry little tune.

“Asshole,” Blaine muttered in a low voice.

“I heard that,” Snyder threw back over his shoulder. “You better make that two weeks cleaning the basement. I want it spic and span for graduation.”

During the cleaning process, Ceely Rose learned about the history between the two groups that she had observed earlier. She now understood more about the supernatural world than she had ever expected. She found herself not as upset with Oz’s werewolf status as she had expected. Of course he told her after she found out about Slayers, vampires, vengeance demons, and betrayals. All she wanted was to take Oz in her arms and reassure him that there were indeed good women out there. When Ceely Rose heard about the move to Cleveland that Oz and Anya were planning with Buffy, Mr. Giles, and Buffy’s mother, she had a long discussion with her grandfather about college. She would only be the second person in her family to actually get an education past the twelfth grade. Her brother was the first.

By the end of the week of cleaning the basement together, Oz and Ceely Rose were a couple. Anya had relieved Blaine of his long lamented virginity, much to his relief. Cordelia proclaimed loudly that she was much happier being a single woman. Men sucked in the ex-cheerleader’s strident opinion.

Then, Buffy returned from where ever she had been with two men in tow. One was a typical rich boy, arrogant and self centered. The other one Ceely Rose found the most interesting. He was a bleached blond punk that went by the name of Spike. He was rude, crude, and socially unacceptable, but Ceely Rose envied the way he looked at Buffy. Buffy was her age, and yet she had a man who loved her beyond reasoning. That was the only way to describe what she saw. Then, Ceely Rose recognized that Oz looked at her the very same way, and her heart swelled with happiness.

The tension between the two Slayers’ groups rose to unbearable proportions. Ceely Rose soon discovered that this Spike was the same one she’d heard about coming to town to kill the Slayer about a year and a half before. She was unsure how Buffy had gotten involved with the vampire, but it seemed that only Faith, her consort Angel, Willow, and Xander had an issue with the relationship. While Mr. Giles, Wesley, and Cordelia weren’t happy about the events that had taken place to make a Slayer and a vampire mate, they didn’t protest when Buffy out and out told them it was her life and she would date who she wanted. Oz later told Ceely Rose that it was more than dating. He told her that Spike and Buffy were mated, something that certain supernatural creatures tended to do.

Prom came and went. Although the hell hounds that Tucker Wells planned to release on the unsuspecting dancers put a small damper on things until Buffy and Spike killed the creatures quickly and quietly. Ceely Rose noticed how out of sorts the vampire Angel was during that entire time period. It was almost as if he expected Buffy to wait around for him until he was done playing with the other girl Faith. Ceely Rose just shook her head at the stupidity of Angel’s obvious idiocy.

Soon, it was time for graduation. Plans were made to stop the mayor’s ascension, and the two groups reluctantly worked together to stop a common foe. Although, Ceely Rose was pretty sure the cooperation was under duress. Ceely Rose sent an invitation to her brother along with a warning. He needed to arrive late at the airport. That way Grandpa Mac wouldn’t be around when the chaos would break out. Ceely Rose and Oz easily led their team of graduates to victory, overcoming the attacking vampires while Buffy and Giles blew up the high school along with the mayor.

Grandpa Mac pulled up to the high school in his old pickup. He was worried when he saw the fire trucks and police cars surrounding the burning building. He and his grandson got out of the cab of the vehicle in a hurry. Grandpa Mac could see Ceely Rose helping a young girl with a bloody rag pressed against her neck. As his granddaughter led the other girl to the ambulance, he could here her talking.

“You’re gonna be okay, Harmony. A blood transfusion should get you straightened out.”

“You saved me,” the dazed Harmony replied. “I haven’t been nice to you, and you saved me.”

Ceely Rose shrugged. “I’d never let anyone get hurt by a gang member on PCP. Not even my worst enemy.” She handed Harmony over to one of the paramedics. Brushing her hair out of her face, she looked around to see if there was anything else she could do. Then, she spotted her grandfather and brother. A dazzling smile broke out across her face.

“Ceely Rosie!” The younger man’s face brightened considerably. “I’ve missed you, rug rat.

“Grandpa Mac, you’re here.” Ceely Rose hurried towards the two men. She flung herself into her brother’s arms. “You made it, Lindsey. I’ve missed you so much.”