The slender redhead took in the campus with her emerald eyes, looking for all the world like a doe watching an oncoming truck barreling towards her, and having no means by which to escape it. She nervously played with the straps of her backpack, which she had slung over both shoulders, proper-like.

It appeared as if the world around her terrified her. To all intents and purposes it did.

Was this really it? The real world? Could she trust now that everything she had ever known had been a lie, a scheme, an elaborate cover up? And if it was, could she really believe that this was the real world? Could she ever believe a word that he said? That anyone said?

And if she chose not to believe, was she dreaming? Would she pinch herself and wake back in her room in Revello drive, and everything would make sense again? She did just that, as she had many times in the days, weeks, since he had revealed this reality to her. It resulted in the same thing that had happened every time she tried it. A sharp pain, a bruise, but she was still exactly where she had been before the small, self inflicted injury.

Or perhaps she was in hell? Maybe she had succeeded in at her task that awful spring day. Maybe Xander had never stopped her, and she had done it. Destroyed the world. Or maybe she had just died trying. Either way, maybe that was the situation. She was dead, and this was her hell.

But she knew that that wasn’t true. Hell may be as hot and humid as St. Louis, but it would never have been as bright and cheerful as it was on this particular late September day.

Willow had to face the facts.

Her reality, or her version of reality, had been destroyed. Everything that she had thought true was not. It was all a lie. Or a warped version of the truth.

Very few people had their world views destroyed once. Willow had had hers destroyed twice.

And the second time, when the man that had taught her everything she had learned about the things that really existed in the dark revealed to her that not only were not all vampires bad, but that there was more than one species. What was worse was that the others were legal citizens.

None of what she now knew made any sense at all.

Vampires, lycanthropes, werewolves as well as other were animals, witches, zombies. Not only were these things real, as she had known, but they weren’t hidden. They were accepted, legal, and regulated.

What’s more, the whole world knew about it, except for the small portions of the world that happened to be occupied by a slayer, a potential slayer, or a Hellmouth. Like Sunnydale.

That was another hard concept to grasp. How the Powers That Be had twisted their reality so that the slayer could do her duty without pangs of conscience, without the questions of moral ambiguity. She found it hard to accept that they could erase the truth of what was going on in the outside world. That they could hold the whole town in thrall and make them believe what they willed. But she guessed that if the monks could give them false memories of Dawn, memories that she herself still carried with her, even knowing the truth, then the Powers That Be could hold a whole town in its grip, and anything that entered there.

But not Willow. Not anymore. That’s why she couldn’t go back. When she had come into the outside word with Giles, for her recovery, she had learned the truth. And there was no going back. She was far too powerful for The Powers to bend her mind back to their will. If she went back to Sunnydale now, the spell surrounding the slayer would no longer work on her. Because it wouldn’t, she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t be with the others, and pretend to forget the truth of the outside world. It would have driven her mad.

So instead, she had come here, to St. Louis. So that she could learn about all the things she had been killing for the last six years, and how those things fit into the real world. And learn what the world had made legal. What the world considered good that the slayer and the scoobies might have called evil.

And so she could use what she had to build a life. So she could begin to use the power within her, a power she had learned she would never be free of. A power she had once tried to end the world with.

She could use it here, in the outside world, free of the taint of the Hellmouth. Here, perhaps, she could her nature to do good. The kind of good that she was used to doing with the slayer and the others. The kind of good that made the world a safer place.

But not all of her power. The thought ran through her head as she fingered the amulet that hung at her throat.

It was part of the deal struck that allowed her to live in St. Louis.

Giles had discussed with Willow her options when she had decided she couldn’t return to Sunnydale. She needed to decide what to do with her drastically changed life. And that was when he informed her of other things she hadn’t been aware of.

Each city had a master vampire. A diplomatic figurehead that represented the supernatural elements of said city, if you would. St. Louis had one, and when Willow decided to attend school there, Giles had told her she would need his permission to enter his territory. Supernatural creatures such as herself couldn’t just wander wherever they chose, as she had once believed.

No, entering a place that had a master vampire called for diplomacy.

Willow had had no idea how she was supposed to do this, no idea how to approach a master vampire for permission to enter his city. She had informed Giles of this immediately after she had learned of such a figure existing. And she had done it in the surly and childish tone that she believed his duplicity warranted.

And that was when he had delivered to her yet another shocking blow. She had begun to wonder if they would ever end.

He had informed her that she could have the master of another city speak to the master of St. Louis on her behalf. And before she could ask him how in the hell she could do that, he told her she knew one.

Angel, Buffy’s Angel, the Angel that she had given his soul, was one. Angel was the master of Los Angeles.

It had almost been too much for her to wrap her head around. Angel, a diplomat? How in the world had that happened?

And with that bit of knowledge, Giles had given her her first lesson in vampire politics.

First off, she had learned that there was a coalition of vampires called the Vampire Council. They ran everything, and they regulated the placement of Master Vampires in cities around the globe. She still didn’t quite understand how it worked, but it was something like that.

There was, however, no representative from Angel’s species of vampire on the council. That species was part demon, and not even classified as legal as were the others. They were the Vampyr, the Order of Aurelius.

But in contrast to that, Angel had been declared legal, and he had been made the Master of L.A.

She still wasn’t quite sure how that had happened, considering the world’s view of the Vampyr, but Willow had been behind at least a portion of the reason. The fact that he had a soul seemed to matter a great deal. It was the fact that he had his soul, and that it drove him to do good for the world, that had convinced the council to make him the Master of the City of Angels.

How appropriate that it now belonged to one.

Angel would be a help in getting her settled in St. Louis, a place with a university that taught course on all the things that she would need to now learn about.

But it would require a lot more diplomacy than Willow had ever imagined existing in the supernatural world. She had always believed that the creatures she had grown up surrounded by, that she had fought, that she had become, followed Faith’s philosophy.

Want. Take. Have.

But, for the most part, that wasn’t anywhere near the truth.

There were rules, customs, politics. Niceties to be observed.

So, before she could go to St. Louis, she had gone to L.A., to Angel, to learn about Vampire Politics. When she was there, she had been surprised to find Spike, with a newly acquired soul, needing to learn his own lessons from the other vampire.

But that was another story.

Willow was remembering how she had come to be here, and why the amulet she caressed was a vital part of her life in St. Louis.

With her scholastic record, Willow had been permitted to start classes at the university late. But it had still given her so very little time to learn the things that she had needed to know. Would she be able to make it here? Or would she make some terrible error in judgment, and do or say. Something that might cost her her life?

Angel had made a phone call, and had played politics with the Master of St. Louis.

And Giles had made her the amulet.

There was no way that Willow would have ever been permitted in any city with the amount of power that she had absorbed that day in the Magic Box. Giles and the coven had hidden it while she was in England, shielding her from the masters there.

But she would be alone in St. Louis. And she needed to shield herself, to hide her true nature, so she would not be killed out of fear of her power. And that was what the amulet would do. It would, it did, hide her power, so that Willow wouldn’t have to struggle to do it on her own every moment of every day.

So that Angel could get permission for a witch of moderate power of his acquaintance to move to St. Louis.

In fact, they had played down her power so much that she didn’t even have to meet the Master the minute she entered the city, as Angel would have had to do, if he were going with her.

The master had just requested to meet her when she was settled.

He was most definitely unaware that it was she who had restored Angel’s soul. And he had also been kept in the dark of the fact that it was she who had returned Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the afterlife.

So here she was, in St. Louis. Hiding parts of who she was, but, ironically, less than she had done in Sunnydale, with everyone other than the scoobies. She was about to attend her first class, even though school had been in session nearly a month.

And the amulet hung heavy around her neck, shielding her true power from anyone who had the least bit of supernatural ability, and could feel it. Making her appear no different that any other witch that practiced the craft in St. Louis.

Willow looked up, surprised to find herself at the doors to the building that contained her first class.

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Trying to focus on what was ahead of her. She opened the door, preparing to begin her new life.