MEANWHILE…

Willow blinked herself awake. The sun was streaming in through the high windows of the cabin. She figured it was probably past noon, but she didn't want to move to find out. Too comfortable.

She felt light breath on her neck. She closed her eyes again and smiled at Tara's presence behind her. The two of them has passed a lovely evening full of eating too much and researching the bizarre island, since the reference books held little else. Tara had been much more comfortable once she'd showered.

But nothing had "happened". Willow was hesitant to because of how Oz and Kennedy were on the same team as Tara was, and though Willow loved Tara dearly, she wasn't a terribly good liar. Tara understood and respected that, and they'd just enjoyed being in each other's presence, laughing at their respective tribe's anecdotes and generally having a ball.

They'd both stayed up until the sun rose, researching and talking. They felt very close, and Willow realized that their timelines probably matched. I shouldn't know Kennedy, she thought. I shouldn't remember who she is or how we… we have a relationship. I'm aware that she's an after-Tara thing, but… what happened to Tara? She shook off these thoughts as best as she could and concentrated on the research.

Tara had finally fallen into bed at about five in the morning and fallen asleep instantly; Willow had gone to her own bed and stared at the ceiling. The whole "Mystical Island" thing was too intriguing, and she decided that she'd better write down everything they'd found and give it to the others on their tribes. So she'd stayed up quite a bit longer, and it was past mid-morning by the time she'd finished. Finally exhausted, she'd stumbled into bed and it wasn't until right now that she realized it wasn't her bed; she'd fallen into bed with Tara.

Whoops, she thought amusedly and slowly sat up. She still felt very tired, but she was hungry, and they had all day. She could nap later if she felt like it.

Last night Willow had ventured into the small chest of drawers and had found two pairs of oversized flannel pyjamas, among other things. Willow felt grateful for them now as she threw the blankets off her and was ambushed by a wave of cold. She rolled out of bed and winced at her feet against the icy floor and walked over toward the fire.

They'd tried to put it out before going to be last night. They'd blown on it, snuffed it out, thrown a bunch of water on it and even tried magic. But nothing worked. It popped right back up again. They looked for a switch or something before they realized there was no electricity in the cabin. So they left it on and went to bed laughing.

Now it was out. Willow wasn't surprised. She found a book of matches and threw one into the heath, and it ignited instantly. She wasn't surprised.

Who knew this Survivor thing would be full of lack of surprises, she thought to herself and giggled softly as she looked up at the clock. 2pm. She'd slept longer than she thought.

"Is that fire still on?" asked a voice from behind Willow. She whirled around and smiled at Tara.

"No, it was out. I just re-lit it."

"Good. I'm freezing," she said, shivering as she padded up to where Willow stood. They both stared at the fire motionlessly for a few minutes. Eventually Tara spoke: "What timeline are you from?"

Willow looked over at Tara and smiled. "Yours. Ours. We're… at the same time. At least, I think… Riley just left Buffy where I come from."

Tara sighed with relief. "That's exactly where I'm from." Then she fell silent for a while longer. "Why do you know Kennedy?"

Willow looked at Tara quickly. "I don't know. She's a part of my future. That's all I can really conjure."

"A-and I'm not," she added, trying not to sound needy or disappointed.

"Tara, it's not that. I'm sure there…"
flash
tara
bedroom
bullet
"your shirt…"

"…I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason or, or something," she finished, choking on her words. She smiled disjointedly at Tara and disappeared into the bathroom. After a few seconds of clanking around, Willow came out with a tiny clothing tree with their clothes pinned to it and placed it in front of the fire. "I'm going to have a bath, if that's okay," she said, voice wavering. Then, without waiting for response, Willow was back in the bathroom, closing the door lightly.

Tara knew the look that Willow's face just sported. She used to see it on her mother all the time.

She wished she knew what Willow had just seen.

MEANWHILE…

"Ooooh…"

"Drusilla. Shut. Up." Angel said, almost willing to throw the leaf off the both of them and catch on fire just to escape her.

"Ooooh… it's too stuffy… I don't like it…"

"You've said that already."

"Oooooh…."

Angel sighed and tried to block her out, which was kind of difficult since they were both sort of piled on top of each other. He'd found her wandering through the woods, calling for mummy (Angel assumed she meant Darla, even though technically she was Dru's grandmummy) and crying in a tree. Angel threw himself up, got her down, and hid her under a leaf with him just as sun broke horizon.

"I thought you'd have had at least enough sense left to hide from the sun," he told her as he threw the oversized leaf over the both of them.

After a pause, Drusilla had responded quietly with "I don't like it here."

"So you'd rather be dust?" he asked sarcastically.

She remained silent. Angel understood that she probably would rather be dust than be on this island. Nothing good to eat, no humans to torture… it's probably her version of hell. Hell itself… now, there's a place where she'd have fun.

He could finally smell the sun start to retreat. The both of them remained completely still and silent for the next half hour with the occasional moan from Drusilla. The second the sun disappeared, Angel threw the leaf off them and they both stood. Drusilla did a very lazy dance and spoke to a lonely squirrel as it climbed the tree. She wasn't, however, fast enough to catch it.

Angel looked around. "Where the hell are we?"

Drusilla turned around and once again sported perfect sanity in her eyes. "Tribe's that way," she told him. "Council's that way. We're damned close to there, we may as well just meet them there." Angel watched her and waited for her to beckon which one was where, since she didn't point in any direction when she told him where they were. She didn't. Her eyes reverted to a pleading form. "My Angel… I want to go home. The clock is all funny, and there's no treats." She whined and wrapped her arms around Angel's middle. He protested and tried to throw her off him, but to no avail.

"You really want to go home?"

"Yeah…" she whispered into his duster.

He nodded. "I'll vote for you."

She looked up at him with sparkling eyes. "Thank you." Then she turned and trotted away. "Off to try! Off to go!" Angel shook his head and decided to follow her, trusting, probably foolishly, that she knew where she was going.