Starting a New Life

By Demoness Paige

Thanks for all of your reviews. I'm not sure if to make this a Paige/Willow or Paige/Xander story so what's all of your thoughts?

"So what is she?" Buffy demanded for the tenth time that morning as she paced in the school library while Willow and Giles went over the books doing research and trying to find out any information on the girl she ran into last night.

"I was right." Giles said looking up from the book he was flipping through, "I knew I heard the description you gave me before, it sounds like this girl is a whitelighter."

"Is that some big bad?" Xander asked walking into the library.

"Actually no, more like a big good." Giles said cleaning his glasses, "A whitelighter is like a guardian angel for good witches."

"So there shouldn't be anything to worry about." Buffy sighed in relief.

"I'm not so sure about that." Giles said putting his glasses back on, "Whitelighters usually steer clear of hellmouths like Sunnydale as the dark energies can usually have adverse affects on them. For a whitelighter to be here there must be something important going on."

"So we should confront her?" Willow asked closing her book and pushing it away.

"No, whitelighters have methods to erase people's memories…If they realize that we know about them they might use it on us and it could be dangerous. If they erase enough of our memories we might forget about the ascension or something else and a lot of people could get hurt."

"So these whitelighters are some kind of secretive freaks?" Buffy asked a little upset. Whatever was going on could pose problems for them that they didn't need during this whole ascension thing. "The ascension!"

"Of course." Giles smiled, "The whitelighters may be here to help stop it."

"So let's ask." Xander said.

"No, for now let's just watch her." Giles said rubbing his forehead. "So what did she look like again Buffy?"

oOoOo

Willow sighed as she walked into her first class, there was so much going on with her just trying to get over Oz. Now they have to deal with some megalomaniac demon with his damned ascension. Now this new problem with this whitelighter and whatever problems she brought with her. She hated herself for thinking this but lately she had been wondering what it would have been like if Buffy never came there. Would they have had a normal life instead of all this heartache and pain?

"Hi." A girl next to Willow's desk said as Willow sat down.

"Hi." Willow said looking over at the girl, someone she had never seen before. She had beautiful red hair kind of like her own, pale skin and the most beautiful expressive eyes. Unfortunately those eyes held so much sadness and pain, a loneliness that called out to her.

"My name's Paige." Paige said blushing a little and turning her head a little.

"Sorry," Willow said when she realized she was staring at this girl. Why on earth was she feeling this way toward another girl, she was straight and only dated guys so why was she attracted to this strange new girl. She was into boys not girls, she wasn't gay. "My name is Willow."

"Are you okay?" Paige asked a little worriedly.

"Y-Yeah." Willow giggled nervously, "Sorry about spacing out there, are you new here?"

"Just transferred from San Francisco." Paige said before flinching. Why would she flinch like that, it was like she didn't want to tell Willow. Why would she want to hide where she came from unless trouble was following her. Could she be this whitelighter? But why or how could she be coming to school if she wasn't human? She would need birth records and school records from her previous school. From what Giles said a whitelighter could erase memories not alter them.

"Cool." Willow said, "If you want I could show you around school and after maybe show you around town."

"That would be great." Paige said, "I still don't know my way around."

"There's this great dance club called the Bronze, all my friends and me hang out there in the evenings." Willow said, "Just don't go out after dark by yourself, it can be dangerous around here."

"Great…just great." Paige mumbled under her breath.