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NOTE: Let it be known to all that Star Mouse is an idiot.

I kind of left out a very important part of the bus tour in chapter 8. I have added it, of course, but if you read it before Aug. 23rd, you should go back and read the new paragraph.

Sorry.

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"It was in! Are you freakin' blind??"

"Siddown, Xander. You sound like John McInroe."

Xander fell back on the couch with an angry huff. "It was in," he muttered.

Anya patted his arm. "No. It was out, sweety. These things happen."

"It could've been in," Oz spoke up from the fridge. "It was kind of on the line."

Spike rolled his eyes. "If that little green ball was 'on the line'..." he stopped, and looked at his audience. "...well, it wasn't, anyway," he finished lamely. He quickly took a swig of Coke.

Xander rounded on Buffy and Dawn, who were wrapped in a blanket from one of the bunks. "Well? In or out?"

"Out," Dawn replied promptly, ignoring both Xander's half-hearted glare and Buffy's slightly panicked look.

The brunette keyboardist swallowed her answer and looked expectantly at Buffy.

"Uh..."

"It was in, right?"

"Well..."

"You know it was out!" Anya cried. "Why are you stalling like that?"

'Cause I don't want to upset my new boss? "It was ...debatable?" she offered.

Xander sat back. "Nah. It was out. What's on now?"

Buffy stared at the perfectly calm brunette in slight indignation.

I nearly had a panic attack, and he didn't even care?

Dawn nudged her, but when Buffy turned, she was stealing a pretzel from Spike.

"Looks like equestrian things," Oz replied, watching the screen.

"Skippable?"

"Utterly." The channel was brutally switched.

beep

"--to Match Game '72!"

"Gameshow Network?"

"Save it for later, when we're really bored."

beep

"TNN?"

"Not until they finish the TNG Marathon. I totally burned out last year."

beep

" 'E!' ?"

This earned a projectile donut from Spike's direction, followed by a yawn.

"Ugh," he groaned, getting up. "'At's it. I'll see you lot in the morning."

"Lightweight," Dawn replied.

Spike saluted her and nodded to Buffy, then disappeared into the bunk lair and closed the door behind him.

Buffy glanced at her watch once the plaid was gone, suddenly realizing she was feeling a bit sleepy. "What time is--" her eyes widened, "is that right?"

"The bus has that effect on people," Xander said. He stuffed another handful of onion&vinegar deli chips in his mouth and resolutely rolled the bag.

"But how are we going to get up in the morning if we stay up into the wee people hours??" she wailed. How can I be expected to function on these bizarre schedules? It's like, Russia time.

Oz, Xander, and Anya turned to blink at her. Then Anya burst out laughing.

"Morning!" She blurted between cackles. "Get up in the--BwahHaHa-erk!" She suddenly started coughing. As Xander rushed to pound on her back, Oz faced the Summers sisters.

"Wake up calls tend to be noonish. I don't think Spike saw an AM at all last year. We don't really have anything to do but hang out until soundcheck around four in the afternoon."

Anya recovered and pushed Xander away to get a water. Once he'd assured himself her breathing wasn't impeded, he sat back and nodded at Buffy. "We finally got your ears in, by the way, so I think Andrew was going to take that to fit you and figure out what settings you're gonna want."

She nodded. "Andrew is..."

"Stage sound tech. You met him on Thursday."

"Along with seven-hundred other people," Dawn muttered.

"He was the one with the Darth Vader bobble head on his board and the 'Many Outweigh the One' t-shirt," Oz clarified.

"Oh, right," Buffy said. "Him." The creepy clingy one. "And he has my ...ears? Is he starting a collection, or something?"

"Your fitted earpieces. Remember, you got the wax mold made of the inside of your ear this week?"

"Vaguely... I might have been awake."

Oz put a hand over his heart in a show of sympathy.

Buffy was unable to stifle the yawn that followed. "*Yawwn* Sorry. I guess I'm kinda feeling the burn, too." She stood. "Okay if I hit the sleeping capsule?"

"Be my guest," Xander said. "Sweet dreams."

Everyone bid her goodnight, and she closed the bunk door behind her.

There was a moment or so of silence.

Xander turned to Dawn. "I'm not being critical, or anything, but is she always that...uptight?"

"She really is being a prude," Anya added from the counterette.

"She's really not," Dawn defended. "She's just still stuck in 'new job' mode. We've been working a long time for a good gig. She doesn't like risking stuff that she's worked this hard for."

"We're not going to fire her if she laughs," Xander said. He was a little concerned. They didn't need a super-inhibited frontman on stage the next night.

"I know that," Dawn nodded. "And pretty soon she's going to figure it out, too. But I'll talk to her."

"Just make sure she doesn't get un-prudish around Spike," Anya muttered.

Dawn rolled her eyes and grabbed a bottled water off the counter. "I'm working on it."

#$ #$ #$

In the tiny closet of a bathroom, Buffy attempted to change into her pajamas without falling into the toilet. It was just lucky her innate sense of balance was so good, or she would have been in twice already.

I'll bet Caleb's doing it on purpose, hitting all the potholes. To discourage vanity or something.

She squirted a length of toothpaste on her brush and started her stopwatch.

One full minute for a beautiful smile. I'm so anal.

She listened for a second, but the two doors muffled all noise from the front, and there wasn't any noise from the bunks that indicated Spike was awake. Somehow that made her feel safer. Safe enough to think the thoughts that she'd been pushing back since earlier that morning, almost like she was afraid someone would read it in her face or sense it in her thoughts.

At the press conference. All those people. All the cameras. All the faces, looking at her, waiting to see what she was going to say.

She'd stared out into the crowd, and she'd panicked. She'd...

She cringed, and spat into the sink. Watching the water run, she let herself say it, very very quietly.

"I froze." There. That wasn't so hard. Go on, Buffy.

"I was terrified." Okay that was a little tricky. She looked into the mirror, taking note of the bags under her eyes and her pale lips, now all make-up had been scrubbed clean. Her hair hung in the limpness of day old hairspray, and her nightshirt did nothing for her shoulderline. She forced herself to meet her own eyes, and read the lingering fear there as she whispered,

"I had stage-fright."

Previously, all her audience experience had been clubs and small, intimate audiences, because that was all they could get. She'd always loved the attention and it had honestly never occurred to her that a larger crowd would be anything but fantastic. She hadn't been prepared for that heart-freezing blank-minded shock.

Oh, God. If I screw this up for us, I'll never forgive myself. Dawn deserves this after all she's done. She's the one that got us this far. I can't let her down.

Because Dawn would certainly quit if Buffy was fired. Just like she'd nearly blown her own hiring to give Buffy the chance to try out. She'd been so sure Buffy would knock them dead.

Buffy decisively repacked her toiletries and stowed them in the minuscule medicine cabinet.

I'll find a way to get over it, she determined. If I have to kick myself in the head.

Resolved, she emerged quietly into the darkened bunks.

How do I get up there...? she wondered, looking up at the top bunk.

 She gripped the top bar and planted a foot on the bar below. With a tug, she heaved herself up into the top bunk and rolled past the closed curtain.

...And onto a strangely shaped lump.

"Oof!"

Buffy felt a jolt of entirely different panic when she recognized the shape that she had ended up sprawled across.

Oh, shit. "Spike?"

There was a confused sort of grunt, and an arm snaked around her waist.

"Mph. Buh...?" The hand explored a little, and suddenly the man beneath her bolted as upright as the low ceiling allowed.

"What the--"

"Hi." Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.

In the near black of the closed bunk, she could barely make out the edges of his face, but the confusion was plain in his voice.

"What in hell are you doing in my bed?" There was a pause, and then a thoughtful, "Or maybe I should keep my gob shut and go with it...?" His other arm came to curl against her lower back, pulling her down from where her elbows had propped her above him.

"Ack!" Buffy scrambled to dismount. Bad touching! "No going! No ...gob!"

"No going?" he repeated. He was definitely laughing now. He wrapped a foot around her knee. "If you say so..."

"You know what I meant! Let go!" Stupid jokey guitar player! Doesn't he realize this isn't funny? And why are the sheets attacking me? "Stupid--" she struggled with the fabric that had somehow gotten wrapped around her.

"Hey, now," Spike laughed. "You're the one that hopped in my bunk.

She felt one of his arms disengage and reach above him.

Oh, no. Don't turn on the light. Don't turn on the--

*click*

And suddenly it wasn't just an abstract shape she was tangled up in, and Spike was staring up at her.

Her mouth was suddenly dry.

"Uh, hi."

"Hello, cutie," he whispered.

There was a long moment of nothing but extremely tense eye contact. Abruptly Buffy got her brain back.

"Right. As fun as it is to ...lie on top of you, like this, I'm gonna head on to my own bed, now. Goodnight."

She struggled to the curtain, then looked back down. "Um, Spike? Is there any chance you're going to let go?"

Spike looked in confusion at his own hands, as if he had no idea how they'd gotten on her hips. "Oh, sorry." He let go and allowed her to escape.

He heard her swing herself across the narrow aisle and into the other top bunk, and heard the light click on. With a shaky hand, he reached above his head and turned off his own light.

He stayed lying in the dark like that, motionless, for quite some time.

Across the aisle, Buffy was covering her face with both hands and desperately trying to forget the last five minutes of her life.

All thoughts of stage fright had vanished.

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