Disclaimer: Joss, not me, owns Dawn, Buffy, Xander, Willow, their mothers, their cousins, they're half-brothers, their mom's sister's boyfriend's mother, and Spike.(despite my wishes to the contrary) Reviews: please Distribution: Just tell me
Play it cool, Dawn, play it cool. He doesn't know you, don't act dumb. I repeat he does not know you, do not at dumb. Dawn gave herself this piece of advice as Spi.er, she thought. William continued to look at her. Did he recognize her? Maybe it was Spike, and he had been sent back too.

"Good evening, madam," he said. Yeah right, Summers. Spike would use 'madam' if his unlife depended on it.

"Hello," she said quietly, studying the floor. The pattern was all of the sudden mesmerizing.

"William, Mrs. Grady is sick and I wanted to run some soup over to her."

"Mother, that's not-"

"Don't start, young man, I can take care of myself," she said, getting her coat. "It's only at the end of the corner. See too it that Miss Summers get something to eat and a proper room. She'll be staying with us for what might be quite a while." She turned to see Dawn. "My dear, I'll be gone for a while. If I don't see before you go to bed, I'll see you in the morning." The old woman kissed her head and smiled. "I'm so glad it's us you ended up with, Dawn." With that, she left.

Bed? Dawn thought. It couldn't be later than 8:30! And she just took 30 minutes getting into that stupid dress! She turned to see Sp. William. She had to stop doing that.

"Hello," she said, laughing tautly.

"Hello," he replied. "Shall we get you something to eat?" Dawn stomach growled at the thought of food, but she felt very sick, and didn't think she'd keep anything down. The last thing she want to do was throw up all over him.

"No, thank you. I'm not that hungry." He nodded, not really sure what to say. He didn't want to send her to a room. She'd fall asleep, and that would be it. What to do, what to do. Could he bring himself to actually have a conversation with a woman he liked? He thought maybe he could this time. Unlike Cecily or other girls he'd dreamed of courting, Miss Summers seemed to be a. calm creature, and had an air that put him at ease.

"Well," he said, "unless you want to get some rest, which you might very well like to, we have some gardens you could see or I could give you a tour of the house, if you don't want to retire so early. Mother doesn't seem to notice that not everyone goes to bed at dusk." There! He said it! He didn't even stutter! Did she buy into it?

Dawn smiled, relieved she didn't have to go to bed, not that she'd be able to sleep anyway. "I'd like that," she said. William looked at her strangely for a moment.

"To which one?"

"The house," she laughed quietly.

"Oh," he said, smiling bashfully. He offered her arm to her. At first she didn't know what he was doing, but upon remembering where she was, she slipped her arm through his.
"This is this the library," William said, opening about the thousandth door. God, the house was so big! They started with the top floor, where he showed her where her room was, then where his and his mother's room was. There were a bunch of other guestrooms. They had gone to the parlor, study, kitchen, billiard room, living room, and they were now in a library.

They're next stop was the gardens. They were beautiful. How could he ever leave here? The gardens smelled like her mom's makeshift flower patch back in good ol' Sunnydale. Dawn immediately pushed that thought away. She didn't want to start crying here. William continued to explain the history of the house. It was like, a bazillion years old. Some duke had supposedly built it with his bare hands, which was weird, because he was a duke. Something like that. When they got to the garden he was telling her about the flowers and what they all represented. Wow, she thought, he really was a poet. How'd he remember all of that stuff? And why was he so timid? Spike wasn't shy. Must be the whole turning thing. She didn't mind though. It was. kind of cute in unlike-Spike-part-of-Spike way.

He walked her back up to the room he had set off as hers. "Well milady, you must be tired now. Shall you retire?" She was beginning to feel she'd need a translator if they were to get into any deep discussion.

"Yes, William, I think I will, thank you," she replied in her best old-fashioned language, not that she had any. She was probably breaking a big etiquette rule by calling him by his first name, but she really didn't care.

"Good night, Miss Summers," he said shyly.

"Goodnight," she said, and closed the door. She heard him walk down the hallway into his room. She walked over to the vanity mirror, trying desperately to get the dress off. After about thirty minutes, she managed to get most of it, including that thing that was crushing her ribcage. She was left in the light shift, which was surprisingly light and comfortable. She walked over to the bed and pulled the sheets back. Tomorrow, maybe she'd wake up outside the twilight zone. If not, she had one objective:

Find out how the heck she got there.