"You know, I should make you sleep on the couch for scaring me like that after all", Willow let her partner know as she returned from the kitchen a few minutes after the two other demons and Buffy had left again, carrying two glasses of water; she put one down in front of Pat, smiling slightly at the flabbergasted look on the taller woman's face while she sat down, resisting the urge to snuggle as she could see that her loved one still was in quite some pain.

"When you nearly fainted there, I thought I'd do the same right next to you", she added after she had made herself comfortable, "not to mention how scary it was when you started to breathe like that and went all pale and clammy."

"But I didn't do that on purpose", Pat protested, frowning when Willow giggled a second later, shaking her head as she looked at the taller woman, her expression and voice tender when she replied. "I know, silly, I wasn't serious… Of course I won't make you sleep on the couch."

"Good to know", Pat sighed out, looking so relieved that Willow just had to laugh again, "I doubt that would have been comfortable anyway, my shoulder still hurts. Stupid arrow and stupid healing ability for not taking the pain away at once…"

"Be glad you have that ability", Willow scolded as an answer, giving her a strict look, "because if you hadn't, you'd be in the hospital right now."

"I know", the demon sighed out, "but it's still annoying."

"I imagine, poor you", the redhead showed some sympathy, "and getting hurt the second night in a row…"

"Let's hope there won't be a repeat performance tomorrow", Pat grumbled, looking towards the shattered window, "I'm really getting sick of losing blood every night, sooner or later, that can't be healthy anymore."

"Not to mention that your healing abilities might go into overload, no?" Willow wanted to know, looking worried again, "remember, that happened before, when we fought that gross slimey monster from that other dimension where we sent the horsemen of the apocalypse."

"Yeah, but it shouldn't happen with enough time between the healings", Pat gave back, obviously sure to calm her down again, "for it to go into overload, they'd need to hurt me much more, and over a longer span of time, while I'm demoned out."

"Somehow, that's not really calming me down", Willow sighed, finally giving in to the temptation and snuggling closer to her partner, even though she did so with exceeding care, not wanting to make her pain worse on accident, "but from what I gathered, Buffy still wants to go through with the initial plan tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah", Pat confirmed, sighing as well when she saw the expression on her partner's face. "I know you don't like it", she went on, "and I can't say I don't understand that, but unless Jim finds something on that arrow which tells us who shot it, we still don't have any other ideas."

"Let's hope he'll find something then", Willow mumbled, then craned her neck so she could look at her girlfriend, her worry for once forgotten as she thought of how Sue suddenly had appeared in the room behind her.

"What's the deal with that air demon?" she demanded to know, "can she actually fly? I can't see how else she could have gotten inside right after you'd been hit."

"She can't fly, exactly", the demon explained in reply, "just… kinda use short bursts of air to move herself upwards. That has been quite handy when we all were working together."

"I imagine", Willow giggled, "but she nearly gave me a heart attack when she suddenly stood right next to me! How does she use her powers in combat? Blow the enemies over?"

"Yeah", Pat smirked, making the witch laugh again, "or, if fighting outside, whirl up leaves and grass so they can't see properly. We were quite the team, back then…"

"I still want to see that", the witch smiled, making the taller woman smirk as well while she tightened her embrace around her a bit, glad that slowly, the pain in her shoulder and back was fading and making this possible.

"If whoever is after my ass doesn't give up anytime soon, you probably will", she then told her, "just make sure to stay out of the way then, it can get a little… intense."

"You better tell that to Buffy too, then", Willow advised, smiling when the demon nodded at once, "you know how she is, I'd rather do magic from the sidelines, but she likes to be in the middle of all the action."

"Just like me", Pat chuckled, making Willow smile and nod; afterwards, the couple exchanged a tender kiss, then the redhead asked her partner if she was up to having dinner, now that the plans for the evening had been cancelled, not surprised when she nodded at once.

"Let's see what we have here then", she suggested, getting up from her seat, "or if we'll have to order something…"

"Both fine for me", Pat shrugged, following her into the kitchen nonetheless; it didn't take long until they'd found something in the fridge they both felt like eating, and while they were preparing dinner together, Willow once more managed to push aside her worries about the danger her partner obviously was in, for the moment forgetting that someone was out there who wanted to see her dead – and obviously had no qualms about hurting her in the process, either.


In the next morning, Willow was, as so often, the first one to wake up; she took a few minutes to just lie there, enjoying the softness and warmth of the bed and the feeling of Pat's arm around her waist, the demon still slumbering soundly next to her, snoring into the pillow. Smiling at the cute sight, she rolled over so she could get a better look at her partner's face; even though as a demon, she technically didn't need as much sleep as regular humans, the black haired woman clearly enjoyed sleeping in, something Willow thus let her do whenever it was possible.

This time though, something seemed to disturb the peaceful slumber of the demon, as Willow noticed a minute later; her good eye was moving rapidly beneath the lid, and after a few moments, she even let out a small noise of dismay, making the witch frown to herself – in all the years they'd been together now, she'd never had witnessed her partner acting like that.

Not sure if she should try to wake Pat up or not, Willow scooted a bit closer to her, straining her ears when she noticed that now, the taller woman had started to mumble words under her breath, her heart skipping a beat when she finally was able to make them out and quickly realized what exactly her loved one was dreaming about.

"No", Pat mumbled, her already low voice muffled even further by the pillow, forcing the redhead to strain her ears quite much so she could make out the words properly, "down… get down…"

"Pat", the witch now decided that it was time to wake the demon up, reaching out and gently touching her shoulder, "wake up, you're having a bad dream…"

In response, the taller woman flinched visibly, prompting Willow to pull back her hand; moments later, their eyes met, the redhead smiling calmingly at her partner, reaching out again to caress her hair tenderly, giving her best to sound soothing when she spoke up again. "You must have had quite the bad dream, you were talking in your sleep, I've never heard you do that before."

"…yeah", the demon muttered after a few moments, seconds it had taken her to fully realize that she was awake and that she had been dreaming; shaking her head slightly as if to clear it, she sat up and ran both hands through her hair, prompting Willow to sit up as well, concern showing through her voice now when she asked her if she wanted to talk about it.

"Can't you guess?" Pat sighed in reply, looking at her, "of course I was too slow in that dream."

"It doesn't matter", the redhead replied at once, not surprised that her girlfriend's words had confirmed her suspicions about her nightmare, "you weren't too slow, and I'm perfectly fine."

"Yeah, but that was mostly luck", the demon argued, surprising her – after all, she hardly ever spent time with dwelling on "What If" scenarios, and it was startling that she would do so now.

"If I hadn't happened to see that arrowhead glint because of the streetlamps, I never would've seen it coming, and it would've hit you", Pat now told her, "and… I don't know, I'm just worried that one of these days, my luck will run out or I'll be too slow… Especially now, with some idiot out there who wants me dead and obviously doesn't mind if he hurts you in the process."

"Well, if you ever are too slow, or your luck runs out, I'll just to teach you that spell so you can lend your healing to me", Willow replied, giving her best to sound light-hearted, not wanting the demon to notice that she was quite worried about this as well, "then you can heal me and I'll be all fine and dandy again."

To her relief, the use of that phrase had just the effect she had intended, namely making Pat smile slightly; she nodded her agreement, then her smile faded again, the seriousness back in her voice when she replied. "Indeed, and I can't believe we didn't think of that until now. I want you to teach me today, right after breakfast."

"Sure", the redhead shrugged, "why not… And we didn't think of it so far because usually, during the fights, I stay away from it as much as I can, so I'm not in much danger of getting hurt."

"Still it's stupid", Pat grumbled, then lightened up again when the witch leaned in for a kiss, calming her down once more.

"I'll teach you after breakfast, as you said", she reassured her after the kiss, "you might need to use the ingredients I had to use when I'd just discovered the spell, but that won't matter, I still have more than enough of that stuff here, you know I don't need them anymore to do the spell… So you can practice, too."

"Um, maybe not", the demon replied after a moment, looking at her with a wry smirk, "remember I had to demon out twice in the last forty-eight hours to heal?"

"Oh, yes", Willow realized with a grimace, "alright, no practicing then… At least not until your wounds won't open up again."

"Yup", Pat agreed at once, "but you can at least teach me the words and I'll do it without the ingredients and without holding hands with you, then nothing should happen, right?"

Nodding, Willow smiled at her, glad that the idea of learning the spell obviously had calmed the taller woman down; this didn't really surprise her though, since her partner always had preferred it to take a pro-active role when push came to shove, and hated it to end up on the sidelines for whatever reason.

"Let's go and have breakfast now?" she suggested, "I feel like having ham and eggs today, how about you?"

"Sounds fine to me", Pat agreed, stealing another kiss before she got out of bed; Willow took a moment to let her gaze wander over her lover's body admirably, then did the same, pulling on the first set of clothing she found in her wardrobe, not really caring if it fit together or not, since it was just Pat and her, anyway.

Once they both had gotten dressed, they made their way into the kitchen together; there, Pat took care of the coffee again while Willow focused on the food, the demon now even humming to herself as she busied herself with the coffee machine, the redhead smiling slightly as she stopped her own work momentarily to watch her, touched by how much lighter the taller woman's mood was now that they had figured something out, in case she should get hurt.

"Don't let me forget, I need to call Jim after we did that spell training thing", Pat now stated, distracting her from her thoughts, "I wonder if he found anything on that arrow."

"Me too", Willow nodded, focusing on the pan again and cracking several eggs into it, now that the oil she had poured into it had gotten hot enough, "and if it'll be helpful."

"Hopefully", the demon commented, then found her cigarettes and lit one of them up before she moved to stand behind the witch, making her smile when she wrapped one arm around her waist, the redhead almost automatically leaning backwards and against her.

"Don't distract me", she muttered when she felt the taller woman nuzzle her neck, "or the food will burn and we won't have any."

"Then we'll order something, or make something else", Pat shrugged, did her the favour of stopping though, partly because she had to pull back so she could take a drag of her cigarette.

"But it'd be a pity to waste that", Willow scolded, now focusing fully on the pan again, "so you'll have to wait until after breakfast with doing that."

"Okay", the demon agreed at once, making the witch smile; it didn't take long until the food was done after this short exchange, and at about the same time, the coffee got done as well, the couple sitting down to enjoy their breakfast afterwards, smiling at each other over the table, enjoying the peaceful and calm atmosphere and each other's company, once more successfully ignoring the danger they still both might be in.