First part of the Imposters sequel (Short, but I need to start posting it for that whole motivation thing.)

Every morning she woke up wondering where she was; every morning she was startled by the realization that it was the same place she'd woken up the day before. And every morning she found herself reaching for someone who wasn't there. That part at least wasn't new. Only the face had changed.

Home. It was going to take a while to adjust to the concept. Walls, windows, stairs, the slope of her bedroom ceiling, cold tiles on the bathroom floor--it was all familiar, but it all seemed wrong.

Sunnydale, California looked the same, but it sure as hell didn't feel the same, not without Giles.

Rule Number One: Never trust a vampire to keep his word. She should have killed Drusilla when she had a chance, and Spike too, for good measure. Giles might still be alive if she'd done it.

Giles *would* still be alive if she'd killed Angel at the mall. Would have, could have, should have. Every regret she'd tried to escape had waited patiently for her return, and were even now partying happily with the new ones she'd brought back as souvenirs. She hoped they weren't breeding; she had more than enough guilt as it was.

She'd been back a week, and hadn't left the house even to go patrolling. Which was bad. Sunnydale may have survived several months with no Slayer, but neglecting her duties had never been the best of plans. She hadn't called anyone to say she was back, either. Avoidance, two, Buffy zero. Now that she didn't have anyone around reminding her why she needed to return, she was remembering why it was she'd left.

"Buffy? Do you want some breakfast?"

Her mom's concerned voice floating up from the kitchen roused her from her stupor and she got up off the bathroom floor. That was another thing. Mom was being so nice, so considerate, so... forgiving. It was driving her nuts. Anger would have been easier to deal with than seeing her mother acting as if one wrong word would send Buffy right out the door and back on the run.

"Sure," she called down. She wasn't especially hungry, but she wasn't up to seeing the wounded look she'd get if she refused breakfast again.

I like to write to music, silence gets overwhelming sometimes. But a lot of times I don't really listen to what's playing, it's just there to fill up the air.

Closer and Head Like a Hole were totally for mood. They kept me in the Wes's head space. Also I wrote the whole story hunched over the keyboard, mostly in the dark, if I smoked I would have been chain smoking.

I got the idea for Variations of a Kiss in the car, and then wrote the whole thing in my head while I was walking around outside, I came back and wrote up the story.

Dream Forever I wrote inbetween posting in Bitches back on Table Talk.

My unfinished X/S frottage story was written partly at school with the fear of being discovered hanging over me. "please,please don't let anyone look over my shoulder."

Ple, more please.

Here's the first unedited bit of "Needfire". Just began this about half an hour ago and I haven't looked at it (it's a Buffynight, guests coming), so apologies for typos. feedback, any variety, greatly appreciated. (just editing for typos as I reread, not for content)

Needfire

I honestly don't know why anyone would decide that I was supposed to be the Chosen One. It seemed a remarkably stupid idea at the time; in retrospect, it still does.

I was handed over to the tender mercies of Richard Giles, Associate Professor of Anthropology for Magdalen College, Oxford, at the age of eleven. The designation of "Associate" was not strictly accurate. "Visiting" might have summed it up better. Professor Giles, assigned to oversee my training (their instruction) and complete subjugation (the Professor's translation) by the Council of Watchers, owned a wonderful bookshop in Turl Street. Occasionally, he was invited to visit nicely panelled rooms and speak in learned, uninflected tones about the role of demons in the formation of medieval government, or the proper attribution of various bits of the Malleus annotations, Cotton Mather edition. If he was not the world's nicest human, nor its smartest, he was at least thorough.

When my mother brought me to the bookshop for the first time, I was aware of her relief. She tried to hide it, of course; my mother was not a cruel woman, merely an ordinary one. I suppose she loved me, from a sense of inborn duty if for no other reason. But I terrified her, and that upset the balance of normality in the mother-daughter relationship.

We had walked from the station, a long walk for a child; looking back, it's posible that my mother expected to me to pull a broomstick from my litle tapestry bag, and use that. The train had brought us down from Paddington, in London, where we lived. I noticed the city, through a child's eyes, smelling the history, wondering at the towers. It would be some time before I discovered Matthew Arnold, and learned to think of them as the dreaming spires. But I took the city in, a golden stone wall, a man crossing the road with his nose buried deep in a book narrowly missing being slammed into by a girl who looked very much like the model Twiggy except that she wore a short scholar's gown, the blare of horns and lorries rumbling down the hills into the Woodstock Road. It occurred to me that I lived here now, or would, if I decided to stay. That I might not have a choice never entered my head. My mother, after all, wasn't frightened of me without good reason.

We came to a black painted facade, with a lovely red door and a sign on a wrought iron frame hanging over it. I looked up, enchanted by the muddy picture on the sign: it was a blind man playing a standing harp. The word "Carolan" was lettered in a a faux-Celtic script. This was the sort of thing that abounded in London, with its pubs and rather muscularly self-conscious awareness of itself as a historical center. Surely, those pompous men in the featureless building in London hadn't sent me off to live in an Oxford pub....?

In the leaded window, I saw books, leather bound, old, arcane. Something moved in me, and my pulse awoke to a kind of inborn awareness. Where there were books like these, there was also power.

My mother rang the bell of Carolan. We waited on the doorstep, listening to the echoes shrilling behind the gaily painted red barrier. The door opened, and Richard Giles stood there.

There will be more tonight. (Oh, and Deb? More please.)

Honest. It's part II of a (eep) five-part series. I keep working in Part V, but it occurs to me that perhaps I should finish II, III, and IV first.

I'm a crazy quilt writer.

I've got the first and last parts of Secrets We've Been Keeping (the name of the one I posted this morning) written, the last part of Part V, none of Parts III and IV.

It's mad-making.

I'll do more, as well - I don't leave stuff unifinished, just occasionally it takes awhile, with MS and buffynighting and novel deadlines and all (except that I'm a year ahead of deadline schedule, not behind, so all I can use as an excuse there is the fact that I'm ripping through the current one and don't want to break the flow if possible....)

If you want to know where your ability to meet deadline went, it's Deb that stole it.

All your deadlines are belonging to me.

Plei, I like that very much. Of course my usual clarion call: more, please. It would be nice if you'd finish the others so we (okay, I) could read them in order.

I have a question. Deb, in the above (which I like lots and lots and lots too -- she's an intriguing character, your Amanda) you use "normality". I've seen that a lot, lately. I could have sworn that the proper word was "normalcy" and that normality was the one someone made up when they couldn't remember normalcy. Only, Dictionary.com has both as perfectly appropriate uses. My question, I guess, is why one word choice over the other and does anyone else blink when they see the word "normality"?

normality was the one someone made up when they couldn't remember normalcy.

fwiw, normalcy, like gotten, is an archaic word which is no longer in use in UK English. We just have normality. I was under the impression that normalcy was something that had been made up by you wacky Colonials, until Bill Bryson set me straight in one of his books. (forget which. Could have been Made in America. ?)

"normalcy" is no longer used? Surprise.