Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing in the sandbox.
Author's Note:
First Spillow fic. Ready for the list? Thanks to Ladychi and Shannon730 for the beta, Wendymr for the Britspeak help, Mitashade for giving me the thumbs up, Velvetwhip for holding my hand while posting, and Amy for listening to me go on and on about this fic for months now. Me, nervous much? Nah!

Willow woke up feeling out of sorts.

Not yet fully awake, her mind still groggy with sleep, she didn't have the energy to open her eyes. Wasn't quite motivated enough to get up and get the day started.

What she needed was a nice, strong cup of Joe.

Wondering just who 'Joe' was and why he would forever be synonymous with coffee, she stretched out her decidedly stiff body--probably from patrolling with Buffy--and frowned. Something wasn't right here. Something felt wrong and...just plain not right. But she wasn't quite sure what. In fact, she wasn't really sure of much of anything at all.

Racking her brain, Willow tried to think, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't remember what day it was or what she'd been doing before she fell asleep. Her memories were too thin and wispy, like cotton candy--pink, not blue; the blue stuff wasn't nearly as good as the pink--and she wasn't even entirely sure of where she was, or how she'd got there.

Taking a deep breath in through her nose, she became fairly certain of one thing; she wasn't in her bedroom. Bedrooms didn't, as a rule, smell dank and musty, like wet ground and rotting flesh. Then again, she thought, pulling herself into a sitting position, half the residents of Sunnydale probably sleep in just such a place.

"Might not want to do that just yet," a voice mumbled from somewhere to her right just as a wave of dizziness washed over her. With the dizziness came a pounding in her head and she fell back to the ground with an oomph. "Got a bit of a bump on your noggin."

Willow waited for a few seconds, breathing deeply, letting the pain and dizziness pass before opening her eyelids one at a time. She saw stars twinkling in the dark sky above her and darker, dirt walls on either side of her. Felt cold, crumbly earth beneath her. Smelt mud and death all around.

Nope, definitely not her bedroom.

"What happened?" she half asked, half groaned, turning her head slowly to the side and giving the indefinable, yet very familiar lump leaning against the other wall a questioning look.

"Two of us took a right bit of a tumble. Started off up there," Spike tilted his head at an angle, looking upward, "ended up down here, hanging with the creepy-crawlies."

Unfortunately, Spike's explanation hadn't helped any. Willow still couldn't remember anything, couldn't recall a single thing that would support his claims. But it wasn't like she had any reason not to believe him. A few years back and she would've suspected him of some nefarious plan to lure Buffy here, under the pretense of needing to rescue her best friend, only to jump her the moment she arrived. But now...well, government-approved nice chip in place and Spike was no longer a threat.

And after all, they were both presently stuck in a hole.

How that had happened was another story, however. She was pretty sure she wouldn't have blindly stepped into a pit like that. "So the ground just opened up and swallowed us whole? 'Cause I would've noticed a great big pit in the middle of the cemetery before."

"Sort of did, yeah."

Willow narrowed her eyes in his direction, suspicion beginning to niggle at the back of her mind.

"Come on, pet. Stranger things have happened in this berg. 'Sides, the ground isn't exactly what you'd call stable round here. What with all the new born vamps crawling out every night."

She couldn't really come up with an argument against that. Beside, thinking about it too much, thinking about the nasty smell surrounding her, made her feel a little sick. She scrunched up her nose, trying not to imagine all the dead bodies buried nearby. Pushed away the thought of how close some of those bodies might be to her right now, focusing instead on the outline of Spike's body, her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness.

He was sitting with his back against one side of the pit, legs drawn up close to his chest, forearms resting on his knees. He looked relaxed, calm, like he didn't have a care in the world.

Figures!

"So what now?"

"Well, way I see it, we could dig us up some bodies, make ourselves a ladder out of their bones--"

"Eww, gross!"

"Or we could wait. Buffy's probably got her knickers all in a bunch wondering where you scampered off to." Something Willow didn't recognize, something she could barely even see from the distinct lack of light in the pit, crossed his face before he turned away from her, focusing his gaze on the wall in front of him. "Probably got a proper search party going by now." Spike paused, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly. "Looking for you that is."

She wanted to ask him what that meant, what the look she hadn't quite seen meant as well, but wasn't sure how, didn't know if he'd appreciate it. So she focused instead on sitting up -- slowly enough this time that she didn't make her head go all wonky again. Her vision spun a little, but it wasn't nearly as bad as last time, so she figured she'd probably be safe--her stomach lurched suspiciously and she quickly leaned backward until her head was resting against the wall--as long as she was leaning against a wall that is.

Taking a closer look at their surroundings, she considered the situation more closely. The sides of the pit went straight up and down, not at an angle. They looked muddy, probably from the recent rain storms they'd had, and very unstable. Which was more than likely why the ground had caved in in the first place. There was no way either of them could climb up it. Especially without any ledges or footholds in sight. Even Spike probably couldn't...

"Wait a second," she gasped, darting her gaze to him. Not a good idea in her current state but she swallowed down the nausea and continued. This was important. "Can't you just, you know?" She made an up motion with her hands, feeling a little silly in the process.

"Just what?"

"Jump."

He stared at her with a look similar to the one Giles gave her sometimes when she'd said something particularly stupid. "That's damn near twenty-five feet up."

"Yeah, but, I thought you could--that is, I thought vampires could jump really high and all. Like amazingly high. As high as Buffy. Or higher. And she's jumped pretty high before." She paused for breath then continued, "I've watched her."

"We can. But small buildings in a single bound?" He chuckled, turning back to face the dirt wall in front of him. "Not bloody likely."

Willow hmphed and leaned back. He hadn't had to laugh at her like that. "It's not like I know how far vampires can jump, you know. I'm no vampire expert, not like Buffy and Giles anyway. They're the ones that are supposed to know everything there is to know about vampires, not me."

"Sorry, luv," Spike continued, still chuckling at her expense. "Nothing to do but wait."