Again, I am reeaally sorry for what I did with the last two chapters. I hope this makes up for it, you get to read practically three new chapters at once!

"Finally!" Dawn said as she made her way through the crowds to her locker, with Danny right behind her, marveling that the school day seemed shorter when he wasn't worrying about any imminent ghost attacks. Or fighting ghosts. Or looking for somewhere to transform. Or-

"Are you ready to go?" she asked, grabbing a couple of textbooks from her locker.

"Yeah."

They were just about to leave the grounds when Danny smacked his forehead. "I forgot something inside," he said, and turned to go back in.

"What did you forget" Dawn was surprised. She hadn't seen him take out so much as a pencil in any class. And he'd put his thermos back in his pocket not long after taking it out to show her.

"My cat," he winced as he moved against the crowd.

"You brought a cat to school?" she asked as she followed.

"Not on purpose."

"How can you not bring a cat to school on purpose?"

"I didn't know I would be coming to school," Danny paused, back inside the school. "Where is the office?" he muttered.

Dawn smirked. "Follow me."

Soon they were in front of the office. Danny's ghost sense went off, but he ignored it, since it was only going off because of the cat.

"Are you okay Danny?" Dawn asked, concerned, when she saw his breath cloud for a moment.

"Yeah, why?" he replied, surprised.

"I just saw your breath!"

Danny hurried into the office to avoid answering.

Dawn followed after a moment, confused.

The first thing she noticed was a cat on the secretary's desk, yowling at Danny. It looked injured as it lay there in a paper tray on rags. At least, it did until it stood up and scratched at him when he tried to pick it up.

"Ah, Dawn."

She turned to look at the principal, who was standing behind her.

"Yeah?"

"Will you step into my office for a moment? I'm sure he's not going anywhere anytime soon," he smiled at her, gesturing at the boy trying to touch the cat without getting clawed and failing.

Dawn walked into his office and sat down as he closed the door behind them.

"Could you take him to Buffy?" he asked, with no preamble.

"Why?" she asked, surprised.

"I think he could use her help," he replied slowly, thinking. "He seemed to be injured earlier, but trying to hide it."

"I saw his breath just before he came in," Dawn said after a pause.

Wood nodded. "Tell Buffy. This is more her thing than mine."

"Alright."

Danny was having a tough time with Shade, who was mad at him for almost leaving him in the school.

"You idiot!" the cat yowled at him. "Were you having that much fun that you forgot about me? Again?"

Danny shook his hands to take away the sting from his new scratches.

"I'm sorry, alright?" he said.

"Why do you keep forgetting about me?"

He saw the cat's eyes beginning to glow, so he grabbed him, ignoring the claws, before he did something stupid to give him away, like fly. Headless of the new scratches he was getting and the tears in his shirt, he looked around for Dawn.

She was coming out of the principal's office, with the principal right behind her.

"How was your day, Danny?" he asked. He kept looking down at the cat.

"It was nice," Danny winced at a particularly well aimed blow on the cat's part.

"Would you like me to…"

"I'm sure he'll be fine once we get outside."

"Alright, then Danny," he patted Danny on the shoulder in farewell.

"'Bye." Danny hurried out the door.

"Goodbye Principal Wood," Dawn followed Danny out the door. She was surprised that he was nowhere in sight.

Danny flew down the halls to get outside as quickly as possible so he could drop the cat. Once he was in front of the school, he set the cat down.

"Cut it out!" he cried as Shade started to hover to get to his face. "Or do you want to be found out?"

Shade stopped hovering, but kept yowling and clawing him.

"That's it, you're walking," he said as he stepped back from a vicious swipe.

"You sure can run fast."

He looked up and saw Dawn coming out to meet him. He winced as Shade took advantage of his distraction and slashed his ankles. "I got plenty of practice," he replied.

"We have a first aide kit at home," Dawn looked at his hands and arms. "If you wanted to take care of that first."

"That'd be great," Danny jumped Shade before he could bite him. "Shall we go?"

Dawn laughed and took the lead.

Earlier in the day, Willow had done her locating spells in the living room.

"That's weird," she'd said.

"What is?" Xander asked.

"Get Buffy."

"I'm here," Buffy said as she came in from the kitchen. "What's up?"

"Watch."

They had watched as she pointed to the mattress fabric with blood. The pendulum hovered over the school.

"Okay-" Buffy started.

"Keep watching," Willow interrupted, and pointed to the scrap with green on it.

Again, the pendulum hovered over the school.

She pointed to the fabric she'd used to clean Buffy's sword. The school.

"That is weird," Xander said.

"Isn't it?" Willow asked.

Buffy thought for a moment, then said, "Why don't you try this again later?"

"What?" Xander asked, confused. "Why later?"

"If we wait until after school," she explained, "then we can check out the school if they're still there. And if they aren't-"

"Then it won't really matter because we can track them anyway," Xander finished.

"Exactly," Buffy smiled.

"Then I'll take these with me to the Magic Box," Willow said, "So we won't have to run around for supplies."

If three new chapters in a row doesn't make up for screwing up on the last two, how about me saying that I only have a couple of chapters left to write before I'm done. And when I'm done, I'll update more often or more at once. Just give me a couple of week, okay?