Author's Note: I hadn't really planned to add on to this story, but this scene came to me and I couldn't shake it until I wrote it. Not Joyce this time, but a missing scene from the last story of the first chapter in Buffy's POV. I hope you enjoy. :)

Buffy Summers didn't have a lot of friends.

Yeah, she was a cheerleader. Yeah, she was popular. Yeah, she had a lot of hangers-on. But there were few people that she considered friends, at least since Celia died. No one who really understood her.

When she turned fifteen, that was more true than ever.

Ever since Merrick showed up in her life, she didn't know which way was up. This was totally unfair, she told herself. Totally unfair. This kind of stuff didn't happen to kids, or at least not to kids she, like, knew.

Well. Except.

She picked up the phone in her room and dialed the number Dean had written in her journal so long ago. John's beeper. The only reliable way to get in touch with the Winchesters.

She dialed in her number, hung up the phone and waited, sitting in her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. Vampires. Demons. She'd known for a while that there was something off with the world, but she'd never known what. But as soon as Merrick said it, her oldest friend made so much more sense.

Her phone rang, and she jumped, then scrambled to pick it up. "Hello?" she said, breathless, her heart racing.

"Buffy?" She closed her eyes and let out the breath she'd been holding at the sound of his voice. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine." It was a lie, but she knew better than to beat around the bush with Dean. He was asking for immediate danger, not sudden adjustment disorder. "But I...I need to talk to you. Are you anywhere near California? Or will you be, like, soon?"

There was a pause, and Buffy's heart sank. "Actually," Dean said, slowly, "weirdly enough, we're LA-bound now, just stopped for dinner. We should be in town in another couple of hours."

Now it was Buffy's turn to pause, because she knew, instantly, why the Winchesters were coming. Her heart sank. If her normal life as a cheerleader was going to be victim to Lothos, there was no way any of her friends were going to get hurt, too. "Before you do whatever it is you're gonna do I need you to see me, first."

"Buffy—"

"I don't want to argue about it, Dean. This is important. I'm safe, but this is important." She took a shaky breath, and added in a small voice, "Please?"

She heard Dean conferring quietly with his dad, and blew out a breath of frustration. John wasn't going to go for it. She rehearsed the words and mouthed them along with Dean. "Dad says we'll stop by first thing in the morning."

"Not good enough," Buffy said, and she could feel the surprise in Dean's silence. She was always assertive, but never like this. Maybe the mystery of the Winchesters had always been enough to keep her a little quieter. But now...now she was part of it. And unless there was something else she didn't know, she was a bigger part of it than they were, even. "You tell your dad that you're either here as soon as you hit LA, or I'm going to find Lothos."

"What did you say?" Dean demanded. She heard John and Sam ask what was wrong in the background. "Buffy, what did you—"

"I said I'm going to find Lothos myself, if you don't stop at my house first."

"How do you know about—"

"Stop it, Dean!" Buffy shouted, then calmed herself. "Look, I promise, I'll explain everything. But you need to hear what I have to say, and you need to hear it before you do anything else."

"But Buffy, how did you even know we were—"

"I'm hanging up now, Dean," Buffy said. "Because I need you to trust me. I'll see you by midnight, or I'll see you with Lothos."

By eleven-thirty, she heard the distinctive screech of the Impala swinging into her parents' driveway.

She ran downstairs and slipped out the door before any of the Winchesters could pound on the door, waking Dawn and her parents. She stood, leaning against the porch, and waited for Dean to come yell at her.

Dean slammed the door on the passenger's side and stormed up to her. "What the hell, Buffy?" he growled. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Look, I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier. But this is—"

"That's not what this is about," Buffy said, sounding wearier than she realized she was. Dean looked surprised, and she guessed he was because he shut up. "I understand why you didn't tell me. You wanted to keep me safe."

She slid down and sat on the steps, and Dean sat with her. "That's what it was, Buffy," he said. "That's all it was."

"That's okay," Buffy sighed. "I mean, things make a lot more sense now. But I get it."

"But how did you know about Lothos?" Dean pressed.

Buffy looked up at him, at that face she knew so well. "Dean, do you know what a Vampire Slayer is?" she asked.

Dean snorted. "Yeah, a bedtime story Hunters tell their kids so we can sleep at night," he replied. He watched Buffy, and his face changed. "No. No way."

Buffy nodded dismally. "Today. I got approached by this creepy old guy in a cemetery and he was all 'you have a destiny' and I was all 'what I have is a rape whistle' and then he told me everything. Vampires and demons and all that. And that I'm the Slayer."

"He could be lying," Dean said without much hope.

"He knew stuff, Dean. Stuff I haven't told anyone. Even you," she said. "He knew about dreams I've had. In detail."

"That doesn't mean you're the Slayer," Dean insisted, but stopped when Buffy shook her head.

"I am, Dean. And it's okay. I guess. I guess it has to be." She sighed. "I haven't even told my mom yet."

"Dad and Sam—" Dean began.

"You can tell them," Buffy said. "They'll understand. But you can't go after Lothos."

Dean glanced back at his dad and brother in the Impala. "There's no way Dad's not going to go," he said. "Buffy, are you seriously thinking about going after that thing? You just found out you were the Slayer today."

Buffy shrugged. "Not alone. My Watcher will come with me. And not tonight. I've got to...figure some things out. But I'm not going to let you get hurt."

Dean grinned at her, that cocky, self-assured, devil-may-care grin that she'd seen so many times. Sometimes it showed up under streams of blood, or under an ashy-white pallor from a fight gone bad. But it always showed up. "Buffy, Slayer or not, you don't get to let me do anything," he said, standing up. "You go to bed. Get this stuff straight in your head. We'll take care of Lothos."

Buffy stood up and grabbed his arm, whirling him around to face her. He stumbled, pulled off his feet by her force.

They stared at each other.

Buffy recovered first. "Dean—"

"Damn," he whispered. "I guess you weren't kidding about the whole Slayer thing."

She slowly took her hand off of his arm. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm—sorry, Dean."

"You didn't hurt me," he lied. She could see where his arm was going to bruise.

She shook off her guilt, or just pushed it down for the time being, and met his green eyes with her own. "But I am the Vampire Slayer, Dean. And Lothos is after me. So I'm telling you to let it go." Her voice shook slightly as she added, "And I can make you, now."

Dean walked up to her, all six feet and seventeen years of him, all thirteen years of friendship and trust of him, of showing up at her house battered and frightened and of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watching cartoons together, and her best friend, her big brother, looked down at her. "Will you?" he asked softly.

Buffy bit her lip and scowled to fight the tears that threatened. "I don't want to," she said. "But I know things now, Dean. You can't treat me like I don't anymore. And I am not going to let you get hurt by something that only wants me." She swallowed hard. "I've seen you come home broken too many times. It's not gonna happen because of me."

Dean nodded, wiping away a single tear that escaped from under her lids. Buffy lowered her eyes. "Okay," he said. "We'll rendezvous in the morning, and figure out what to do."

He started to walk away when she reached to grab him, but instead just let her fingers brush his wrist. He turned around to look at her, and she whispered, "Do you hate me now?"

He frowned, and the authenticity in that look of confusion lightened Buffy's heart. "Why would I hate you?" he asked.

"'Cause I can kick your ass now," Buffy replied with a devilish grin.

Dean laughed, and grinned at her as he said, "Oh, you think so, sister? You don't have the element of surprise anymore." He settled into a fighting stance and beckoned for her.

She jumped into his arms and hugged him tight. He staggered again. "Guess I still do," she said. She settled her head into his shoulder, and he held her. "Thanks," she whispered.

Dean and John went to fight Lothos anyway.

Dean ended up hospitalized.

And when Buffy found out, she handed Merrick a lock of Dean's hair and an ultimatum that she wouldn't go after Lothos unless he saved Dean.

The healing spell Merrick performed was the first spell she ever witnessed, and John Winchester was the first person she ever saved.