In the next morning, Dawn and Xander were already up and busy in the kitchen when Willow woke up and moved to join them, after stretching and yawning heartily; the couch wasn't the most comfortable choice for the night, and the last time she had slept on it, it had been together with Pat, the demon's body beneath her making slumbering much easier, but since this hadn't been an option this time, she'd been forced to make do with the couch on its own.
"Hey", Xander greeted her, smiling, "good morning. Did you sleep well?"
"On that couch? Not so much", Willow shrugged, smiling slightly as well though, "but I'll be okay. And is that coffee I smell?"
"Yes", Dawn nodded, "and I'm making ham and eggs in case you're hungry. I only used a bit of the ham we have, I figure your girlfriend might be hungry too down there."
"Probably", Willow nodded, "thanks, that's quite thoughtful."
"How is she doing?" Xander wanted to know in reply, "did she get a bit less growly again?"
"I don't know, last time I checked on her was yesterday before I went to sleep", the redhead replied, "but she was quite calm then… And I found out that she's capable of purring."
"What?" Dawn giggled, making the witch smile slightly again as well, "she purrs?"
"She does", Willow confirmed while Xander snorted as well, "you should have seen it, it was so cute. I kinda scratched her behind the ear and she purred, and then she rolled over so I could scratch her tummy and purred even louder. It was adorable."
"I'll never let her live that one down", Xander decided in reply, smirking from ear to ear while he poured coffee into the cups Dawn had readied, after having added one for Willow, "purring? That's just hilarious."
"It was", the witch agreed with a smile, thanking him when he handed one of the cups to her, "someone has to take a pic of that some time, so she can't claim that we're making this up. Just in case she doesn't remember anything once she goes back to normal."
"Any ideas about that yet?" Dawn wanted to know in reply, adding a rather large amount of milk and sugar to her coffee, "or do we just have to wait until Malphas' spell wore off?"
"According to Giles, that should work", Willow gave back, taking a sip of her coffee before she spoke on, "but we'll look into ways to make it happen faster anyway, who knows how long it might take otherwise. And I want her back as fast as possible."
"Of course", Xander nodded, "if there is anything we can do to help, just yell, alright?"
"Thanks", Willow smiled, "I'll keep that in mind. But now, I better get her breakfast down, or who knows how cranky she might get."
"And we don't want her cranky in her current state", Xander nodded his agreement, "be careful when you go down there, just in case she's not willing to cuddle anymore or something."
"Of course", the witch reassure her childhood friend, briefly smiling at him, "I already got the binding spell prepared just in case she's hostile again, but I hope I won't need it…"
"Well, at least she's been quiet so far", Dawn observed, making the redhead nod; she finished her coffee, then took the pack of ham the teenager was holding out to her and made her way downstairs, smiling slightly when she spotted her partner sitting in the very spot where she had gone to sleep the night before, looking at her with the glow in her eye quite dull again, but to her relief not making a move to attack her.
"Good morning", she said, smiling in what she hoped was a calming way as she held up the pack of ham, "I brought you breakfast. You hungry?"
To her amusement, the demon let out a low growl in reply, then got up from the ground and made her way over to the witch, sitting down in front of her again and looking up at her, momentarily making Willow wonder if her tongue would hang out of her mouth any moment, should she make her wait for the food.
"You know", she started to talk again while she removed slices of ham from the pack and started feeding them to her partner, glad that Pat by now was thoughtful enough to avoid biting her, "you are kinda cute right now, but I'd really prefer to have you back soon. No worries though, we're working on this…"
She lowered herself into a crouch so she was on eyelevel with the demon and went on with feeding the ham to her; after it was gone, she put the empty packet aside, then reached out with one hand again to caress her behind the ear once more, unable to hold back a giggle when immediately, a low purr rumbled from her throat in reaction.
"That's what I mean with cute", she giggled, "purring… just wait, once you're back to normal, I'll ask you all the time to do that. Maybe I'll…" She trailed off when something moved in the corner of her eye and glanced over, frowning when she just could spot the various things Buffy had stowed away down here, along with some dust bunnies; for a moment, she had been sure she had seen something move there, something dark and vaguely humanoid, then she shrugged it off, blaming it on the sunlight which shone in through the windows.
"Maybe I'll make a video of that later today", she went on where she had stopped, "just so I can prove you really did that once you are back to normal."
In response, Pat let out a strangely annoyed sounding snort, making the witch giggle again – before the demon suddenly stiffened, then started to grow lowly in the back of her throat and glanced around, her gaze focusing on the spot Willow had been looking at just seconds ago.
"What?" the witch wanted to know, her heart suddenly beating faster, "what is it? Are you seeing something there…? I thought I did just a minute ago…"
As an answer, the demon started to growl even louder, moving a bit closer to that certain spot; to Willow's amazement, the hair in her neck was standing up, her muscles to visibly tensed that it surprised the witch she wasn't trembling.
"What is it?" she tried again, even though she wasn't sure how Pat was supposed to tell her anything, "why are you—"
All at once, the dark shadows created by the sunlight falling into the room started to move, in ways they shouldn't have by any natural means; shocked into silence, all Willow could do was stare as the shadows seemed to flow together, forming a vaguely humanoid shape – which then moved with surprising speed and, with even more surprising solidity, tackled the witch, throwing her down to the ground with the unexpected force of the attack.
With her eyes going wide, she tried to scream so Dawn or Xander would hear her upstairs and come to help her, hopefully with Buffy in tow; before she could do so though, the figure's hands closed around her throat and squeezed, cutting off her flow of air and making her choke and gag. Behind the shadow creature, she could hear Pat growl and roar, her clawed hands swiping at the thing, to no avail though – they simply passed through as if through a cloud of smoke, the witch's eyes going wide once more as she realized that she'd fall unconscious in mere minutes, shouldn't she be able to come up with a way to get out of this before the lack of oxygen would become too much for her body to handle.