“Willow, Spike. The two of you look much better.” Giles gave each of them a quick up-and-down glance to assure himself that all of their Glory-induced injuries were gone, and smiled faintly.

“Yeh, Red’s lil’ healing spell kicked in about five minutes into the ride—the rest of you? You’re all right?”

The amount of caring he had for these humans made Spike vaguely ill, but it couldn’t be denied that Xander made him chuckle, Anya knew some spectacular torture methods, Giles’ obsession with “Passions” almost transcended Spike’s own, and the Lil’ Bit was just adorable. And Willow was… Willow.

And they were Buffy’s little posse, and no matter how hard he’d tried not to, in the past year he’d gotten attached to the whole bloody lot of them.

“Yes,” Anya said in response to Spike’s query. “My arm is no longer tragically and painfully broken.” She flourished her left hand in Spike’s direction. A ring she wore on her finger caught the light and flashed in Spike’s eyes. He nodded at her.

“Chubs? Watcher? Niblet?”

They all replied in the affirmative. Willow stood quietly by his side, clutching her overnight bag. “Guys—it’s kinda late… are we gonna turn in or do another slumber party at the super-Watcher’s?”

On the night of Glory’s defeat and Buffy’s death the gang had been too heartsick, too injured and too afraid of the dark to retreat to their own homes. Instead, Giles had opened all of his closets to find a surprising number of extra pillows and blankets and they’d all—including Spike—camped in a shivering, tearful pile on the floor. Except Tara—she’d gone back to the dorm—Spike remembered Willow being a little upset by that.

And where was the blonde witch, anyway?

“W-where’s Tara?” Willow asked meekly, voicing Spike’s own thoughts, before anyone had a chance to decide where they were going to sleep for the night.

Dawn looked away, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears; Xander shifted uneasily, and Giles closed his book and turned to face Willow and Spike with a tired look on his face. Anya spoke first.

“She came by, yesterday, when you and Spike were in L.A.,” she said, and then her face bore a vestige of sympathy and her voice softened. “She said she was going home. To her family.”

Willow looked shocked. “B-but she doesn’t—Tara *hates* her family!” she protested.

“She said to tell you that she’d miss you,” Xander said gently, stepping forward gingerly. “But that all of this—our Scooby Gang stuff—was too dangerous, it scared her too much.”

Willow let out a sigh that seemed to completely deflate her. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Willow.” Dawn’s meek expression of sympathy drew Willow’s gaze. The Key was wrapped loosely in a cocoon of knit blankets on the couch. An abandoned cup full of tea sat on the floor by the foot. Willow smiled slightly and crossed the room to sit by Dawn.

“How’re you holding up, Dawnie?”

Dawn made some sort of gesture with her head, and Willow sighed again. “I don’t feel like going back to the dorms quite yet, Giles,” she said, still staring at Dawn’s sad face.

“The apartment’s gonna seem a little big,” Xander said helpfully.

“Crypt doesn’t look too welcoming,” Spike added.

“The blankets are dumped rather unceremoniously on top of my bed,” Giles said primly. “If Spike and Xander would like to bring them and the army of pillows down here, we can set up camp.” He favored them all with a slight grin.

***

Dawn woke early. A glance at the clock revealed the time to be just six thirty.

She sighed and sat up, lifting her head from Xander’s chest. Anya snored softly on his other side, her chin resting on his shoulder.

A quick glance around the room proved everything to be all right—as all right as could be, anyway. Giles grunted a little in his sleep and rolled over, nearly falling off the couch; his tall frame was too long for the worn, if loved, furniture and his feet were propped up on the arm. His socks were revealed to be a stuffy British brown-and-white plaid.

Willow and Spike were there, if in a compromising position. Dawn wondered how they’d react when they awoke, and how on earth they’d gotten so intertwined in the first place. Their bodies were curled around each other—Willow’s head was bent to rest on top of Spike’s, and his cheek was pillowed on her chest, which rose and fell with the witch’s soft breathing. Willow’s arms encircled Spike’s shoulders, while he embraced her waist, and their legs were tangled together beneath the light blue blanket that covered them. Most interesting.

Dawn giggled softly despite herself, and Xander woke with a sleepy “Wha…?”

“’G morning, Xander,” Dawn whispered.

He blinked sleep out of his eyes and looked up at her. “Dawnie. What time is it?”

Dawn made a face. “Early.”

“Yuck.” Xander eased out from under Anya, who sighed a little and gathered a pillow to her chest to replace his warm form. “Everybody okay?”

It sucked that first thing everybody thought of was to check to see if their friends were still alive. Or, in Spike’s case, undead. Dawn shook her head. “Everyone’s fine. Check out Willow and Spike.”

Xander sat up, scratching his unruly brown hair, and chuckled. “Hah.”

Dawn grinned. “Think we should wake ‘em up and save them the embarrassment?”

Xander considered, and then shook his head. “Nah. They look surprisingly comfy-cozy, don’t they?”

As if to punctuate that remark, Willow murmured something under her breath and moved her hand to entwine it in Spike’s bleached hair. Spike shifted slightly at her touch and nuzzled further between her breasts.

“Hey there, buddy. Watch it!” Xander muttered. “That’s my friend you’re groping!”

Dawn giggled. “Want breakfast?”

Xander glanced at the clock, which now read seven fifteen. “Ugh. I guess. We could always make breakfast again at a more decent hour.”

Dawn shrugged. “I’m all for it. I think Giles has some Rice Krispies somewhere…”

“I’m on it,” Xander said, scrambling to his feet. He bent to help Dawn up, and they retreated to the kitchen.

Three hours, six card games, seven bowls of cereal (five of them consumed by Xander), forty-three games of rocks-paper-scissors and fifteen cat’s cradles later, the prone bodies in the living room began to stir. Xander rolled his eyes. “Took ‘em long enough.”

“You’re telling me,” Dawn muttered. “I wanna see what Willow and Spike do!”

They both twisted around to look over the kitchen counter and into the living room. They were just able to see over the couch (with Giles upon it) and onto the floor where Spike and Willow were beginning to stir.

Willow opened her eyes first and sighed, stretching ever-so-slighty, which in itself was impressive as she was so knotted up with Spike. She craned her neck to look down and just crooked an eyebrow and snorted at the vampire who had decided to use her breasts as a convenient pillow. “Spike, you dork, wake up,” she whispered.

Spike made a grumpy sleepy noise and rubbed his face further into her bosom. Willow rolled her eyes. “I know you’re awake, you undead bleached moron,” she hissed into his ear, and then she must have uttered some dire threat that Xander and Dawn couldn’t hear, for in the next instant Spike’s head was a decent distance from Willow’s cleavage and his eyes were open.

“Morning, Red.”

“I have the *worst* crick in my neck,” Willow said. “Would you mind letting go of my waist?”

Spike did. Willow unlocked her arms from around his shoulders and they got the jumble of their legs figured out quickly enough. Spike didn’t make any rude comments and Willow didn’t blush.

Clueless as to Spike and Willow’s more secret relationship, Xander and Dawn were sorely disappointed at the lack of inexplicable-position-waking-up-acrobatics.

“That’s *all*?” scowled Dawn.

“How boring,” said Xander. “Want more Rice Krispies?”