Sorry for the gap - was busy finishing up my course for the year. Thanks for the reviews for the last part.

Act Two

The good thing about having back stairs and front stairs, Buffy thought, was that you never had to carry unconscious people too far to get them comfortably in their own beds.

"Xan, could you get the door?"

He pushed it and walked in to hold it open for Buffy. Either he'd forgotten it wasn't the kind that didn't spring closed on its own, or he was using his brain for panicking instead of thinking, like she was.

Giles crowded her from behind as she set Willow on the bed, taking care that her head landed softly on the pillows.

"Loosen her clothes."

"She's wearing a t-shirt, loosening it means cutting it and she's already mad enough with me." Buffy pulled gently at the neck of the shirt anyway. "Someone get her socks off; they're soaking."

Xander did so. "What's wrong with her?"

"I don't know." Buffy smoothed some strands of Willow's hair back from her brow. "I've never known anyone pass out from sneezing before."

"It wasn't the sneezing, it was the magic," Giles said as he moved around to the other side of the bed. He checked the pulse in her wrist. "Of course, the sneezing does appear to be a physical manifestation of the magic. Do either of you know if this has happened before?"

Buffy shook her head. "She's burning up."

Xander raised his hand. "Uh, yeah, it happened the other day. She was on the phone, sneezed and disappeared into the basement." He frowned and added more quietly. "I got mad at her. I thought she'd done it deliberately."

"Why would you think that?" Giles asked impatiently. When Xander just shrugged, he continued, "You should have mentioned it to someone at least."

"I know that now!"

"I'm gonna go get a wet flannel for her head," Buffy said.

She wasn't interested in listening to them bicker right now. She was too worried. Willow didn't do any teleporting these days because the magic needed to make it go was too strong, but she had done a lot tonight and apparently by accident. That couldn't be good on any level.

Xander stopped her before she could move away from the bed.

"I'll go. You stay with her." He left.

She glanced up at Giles. "I don't think he needs a lecture about this right now."

"I don't intend to give him one right now; but he does need to start remembering that his own issues cannot distract him from his responsibility here."

She wasn't aware it had. What with his responsibility being to fix the camp up and keep it that way. Him not telling them about Willow was bad, maybe, but she couldn't see how it affected that. She didn't say any of this, though, it wasn't important.

"Do you have any ideas on what magic is causing it?"

Giles shook his head. "None for sure. Although, as far as I'm aware, the only magic she's done recently is the spell against the demons the other week."

He looked sheepish, probably because he'd been the one to insist she did the spell that backfired on their butts. Buffy felt sheepish too, she'd been pretty insisty too.

"Could that have done this?"

"Willow and I have both researched the spell, with Andrew and Naomi's help, and we found nothing that I feel points to an affliction of teleporting through sneezing. However, now I have definitive symptoms to work with, I'll go over all of the information again."

Xander came back with a rung-out, wet wash cloth. "Did she come round yet?"

"Not yet." And that was making Buffy more worried.

When the spell had hit them in the woods, Willow had only been out for five, ten minutes. It had already been longer than that now. She took the flannel as Xander handed it to her and shook it out. Folding it back up neatly, she placed it gently on Willow's brow, the way her Mom had done for her whenever she'd had a fever.

Xander went to stand at the foot of the bed again for a moment, but then went to the double wardrobe in the corner.

"Do we have a why yet?"

"Possibly it was the spell she used against the demons," Giles said as he checked her pulse again. "But until I look into it further, I'm not sure how it could be causing this. I think she'll be okay, though. Her pulse is strong and she appears to be breathing easily. Her temperature is probably a result of her immune system trying to fight the magic inside her."

"Yeah, or killer teleporty flu." Buffy smiled slightly; it faded quickly. "We need more info on these demons, Giles. Proper, up to date data, not just the stuff in your age-old books."

"How do you suggest…" Giles began.

"The usual. I need to find a demon and make it talk."

"I'm not sure if that's wise, Buffy."

"I agree with Buff," Xander said as he came back with a blanket made of crocheted squares in different shades of green. "If there was a simple, obvious cure-all for this in your books, you'd have found it already. I'm not saying stop looking, but maybe we need more."

"And everyone knows the best material comes straight from the source," Buffy added as she helped Xander spread the blanket over Willow; taking care to tuck it around her feet so they wouldn't get cold.

"They're very dangerous, Buffy."

"As a group, sure, but maybe I'll get lucky and find one alone. If not, I'll try something else."

"Like what?" Xander asked.

She shrugged. "Like I said, maybe I'll get lucky."

She was thinking of Owen. He probably wouldn't be at his shop this late, but she could always try his house. If he'd been living in this joint as long as the locals seemed to think so, maybe he'd encountered these demons before. And he was a wizard, they knew magic stuff. Even if he didn't know about the demons, he might know a cure for teleporty sneezing.

Besides, she'd kept completely quiet about his secret. She hadn't even divulged to Giles yet, although she was planning to at some point, probably. But right now he owed her a favour for keeping shtum.

"Well, if you've made up your mind," Giles began.

"I have. I can't just sit here worrying. I need to do something." She squeezed Willow's hand and spoke only to her for a moment. "Just fight it off, Will, you're stronger than any magic, remember?"

Leaning low, she kissed Willow's temple, wetting her nose on the flannel.

"Right, I'm going hunting."

"Yes, and I must hit the books. It'll take me all night to go through the information we've already gathered." As Buffy walked to the door with him, Giles looked over his shoulder. "Are you coming to help?"

Xander was carrying the dressing table chair over to the side of the bed.

"No, I'm staying here. But feel free to bring a bunch of books up for me to read through."

Settling the chair where he wanted it, he sat down and took one of Willow's hands between both of his own.

Kennedy sat in the middle of the summer meadow – the bright blooms of wild flowers stretching away on every side as far as she could see. She smiled and breathed their fresh scent in deep before plucking a buttercup from beside her and holding it up to her face.

She stroked the small, soft petals over her cheek before turning to Willow and holding the flower under her chin. Willow giggled as it tickled her and tried to push her hand away, but Kennedy held firm.

"If your chin goes yellow it means you like butter," she explained.

"Really, I thought it meant you had jaundice," Willow said, still giggling.

Kennedy sighed softly. "You always have to ruin the beautiful thing."

Willow stopped laughing and the sky went a dark red as the sudden wind whipped up blood coloured clouds. Kennedy scrambled back, squashing flowers, as the witch's eyes went black.

"No, you always ruin a beautiful thing!"

Kennedy jerked awake, breathing hard and sweating despite the chill in the dormitory. The bedcovers were skewed where she'd scrambled physically while caught in the dream. She rubbed her forehead, feeling the perspiration beneath her sweaty palm and sighed for real.

These dreams were getting real old.

"We split up, for Christ's sake," she shouted at her subconscious. "So stop torturing me!"

She lay still for a while, trying not to think about the dream or Willow, or anything else, hoping she'd fall asleep again. She'd been patrolling until two and hadn't fallen asleep until hours after that.

Normally, she had a post patrol ritual, as most of the Slayers did. She came home, went in to eat whatever Andrew had left lying around, had a shower, watched television for a bit and then came out to the barn to sleep. She hadn't felt like it last night. With Andrew away, there was no cooked food, and with all the other Slayer's away, she hadn't felt like sitting in front of the television alone. So she had taken a quick shower in the finally finished freezing cold shower block and gone straight to the dorm.

As a result she'd lain awake for the best part of the hours of darkness, fidgeting and thinking about the only thing she ever thought about when she was alone: Willow.

It would have been nice to blame this morning's dream on that, but truthfully she had at least one Willow-centric, nice until it wasn't, dream every night.

Bearing that in mind, she decided against going back to sleep, and pulled her weary self from the narrow bed. She started shivering immediately. It was definitely time to get on at Xander about the heat again. In a way it was nice having the whole dorm to herself every night – like having a giant bedroom with several varieties of clothes and toiletries to exploit – but she would swear it was a lot colder in here now than it had been when the room had more occupants.

Going to her locker – a month ago she'd had part shares in a double wardrobe and now she had a four-by-two metal locker with two shelves, two drawers and a small cupboard – she pulled out clean clothes and dressed quickly.

Xander's plumber had fitted two little sinks up, one at either end, and she brushed her teeth in the one closest to her bed, which was also the one closest to the door. She ran the hot tap as well as the cold; just she could put her toothbrush hand under it to stop it freezing in the cold water. She splashed a little of both on her face when she was done and then had to run back to her bed so she could rub her face and hands dry quick with her towel.

All of this was extreme hardship to her. Even before her Mom had married her millionaire boss, they'd lived in pretty sweet accommodation thanks to her Mom's well paid job. Buffy's house in Sunnydale had been a shock to the system, even worse than boarding school, but despite the toilet clogging up with alarming regularity and the lack of chef-cooked – anyone cooked – food, it had been a damn sight more luxurious than this.

She shouldn't have given up her stake in the bedroom so fast, but it had seemed easy at the time. She couldn't sleep in the same room as Willow anymore, not once they'd broken up, so she had decided to be gallant.

Stupid move.

She pulled on a hoodie over her long-sleeved t-shirt and headed for the house. Hoping coffee would warm her up.

Faith was in the kitchen, but Kennedy didn't acknowledge her. Her black eye had faded now, but she still felt a little sore at the unnecessary punch the other Slayer had thrown.

"Hey Squirt," Faith greeted her friendly enough.

"Don't call me that," she grunted, heading straight to the coffee pot.

It was cold, but she poured herself a mug anyway and stuck it in the microwave. Goorzar had heard her voice and came gambolling in from the living room. Kennedy squatted immediately and scooped her up, relishing the heat coming from the fuzzy haired demon baby.

"What's got your panties in a twist already?" Faith asked.

She had the newspaper open on the table but she was leaning on it rather than reading it. A plate of toast crumbs was holding down one corner and she'd obvious only just finished eating because she brushed more crumbs from her hands onto the open sheets of the paper.

"Other people want to read that, you know?"

"What's stopping them?"

The microwave pinged and Kennedy shifted Goorzar to one arm so she could open the door and take her drink out. Between the demon's body heat and palming her mug she started to feel warm and more with it again; so when Faith said,

"Nuke a mug for me, would ya?"

She did so.

"It'll probably have Goorzie hairs in it," she said as hit the start button.

"I'll live." Faith closed the paper, crumbs inside, and pushed it across the table. "How come that thing loves you so much anyway?"

"She's not a thing."

Faith just shrugged.

"She thinks I'm her Mommy," Kennedy said, feeling shy for some reason.

"And she thinks Andy's her daddy?" Faith laughed. "There something going on there we should know about?"

Kennedy rolled her eyes and smiled a little. "What do you think?"

The microwave'd beeped again and Kennedy took Faith's coffee out. She carried it over and put it on the table, and before Faith could protest, she set Goorzar on her lap.

"Have a cuddle; you'll see the appeal." She went back to fetch her own coffee again. "So where is everyone?"

Faith sat with her arms out, not touching Goorzar anywhere she didn't have to. "Beats me. Haven't seen anyone all morning."

Goorzar sat comfortably on Faith's lap, but her orange eyes never left Kennedy.

"Do you know how to cuddle?" Kennedy asked sarcastically.

"Not usually in the business of cuddling demons."

"It helps if you think of her as a dog," Buffy said as she came through the back door. "Although, not really."

The elder Slayer looked beat up, worn out and distracted. Kennedy moved instantly to pour more coffee and warm it up.

"You okay, B?" Faith looked like she wanted to jump up and go to her, but didn't know how to with the demon on her lap.

"I don't know yet." Buffy kicked off sneakers that were thick with mud at the back door.

"Where ya been?" Faith asked.

"Feels like everywhere. Did either of you encounter the magic-resistant demons on patrol last night."

Faith shook her head.

Kennedy said, "Giles told us to stay away from that area."

Buffy nodded. The microwave pinged again and Kennedy took Buffy's coffee out. By the time she'd turned around to hand it over, Buffy had gone up the back stairs.

"What was that about?" she asked.

Faith was fidgeting uncomfortably and trying with no avail to push Goorzar from her lap. "My guess, just B being B."

"Xan."

The soft call of his name roused Xander from the light sleep he'd fallen into. As he wearily blinked his bleary eye open he felt something slipping from his hand and jolted completely awake just in time to save the plate from landing upside down on Willow's bed. He could do nothing about the grains of bread, though, as they showered the green blanket.

"Oh crumbs!" he muttered emphatically and quirked a smile when he heard Buffy's quiet laughter.

His eye – just normal morning bleary now and not the blurry that came with trying to remember how to use just one of them – focused enough in the dim room to see her standing in the doorway.

"Morning." He set the plate on the bedside cabinet and then leaned over Willow – taking the now dry cloth from her head and feeling her brow. "She's still too warm. Find anything useful out there?"

Buffy shook her head as she came to stand on the other side of the bed. "No demons, at least, not the ones I was after. And I tried to find someone who might be able to help us but no luck on that score either."

"Who do we know around here who can help with stuff like this?"

He ran through their list of local acquaintances in his head; it didn't take long. Alex, a couple of Dawn's friends… they really had to all start getting out more.

He felt Buffy hesitate as he was checking Willow's pulse, but by the time he looked up she was shrugging.

"It's a Hellmouth town," she said. "Admittedly it's a very nice Hellmouth town, but still, you'd think there'd be like at least one grungy demon bar around catering to the Bloody Mary and Singapore Slime crowd."

"And is there?"

"If there is, I didn't find it last night, and if I can't find a demon to pummel at some point I'm probably never going to find it."

"Oz might know. He's a demon three nights a month, when he wants to be anyhow."

Buffy's tired looking eyes lit up some. "That's a great point. He might know some of the shady characters in town and where they live and whether bribing or beating works best."

Xander smiled, but it disappeared as he looked back down at Willow. There had been no change since he'd fallen asleep. On the one hand he knew that was good. He wouldn't have forgiven himself easily if she'd taken a turn to worse while he snoozed away beside her. But on the other hand she wasn't any better and that just couldn't make him feel good. She had been unconscious for eight maybe ten hours now and she still had a raging temperature.

"Do you think we should take her to the hospital?"

Buffy shrugged again. "Maybe. I think I'd feel better if a doctor checked her out. But if its mystical like Giles says then they wouldn't be able to do anything anyway and they might not let us bring her home again. That wouldn't make curing her with a spell very easy."

He nodded. "I know, I had the same conversation with Giles a few hours ago. I just wanted to get your opinion on it."

"Does Giles have anything? I haven't seen him yet."

"He didn't then. He just brought me up a sandwich and a couple of more books." He indicated the small pile by his feet. "I've been through them looking for the list of keywords he gave me but nada. Hopefully he's having better luck down there in his office."

He watched as Buffy stroked her palm over Willow's forehead and then picked up the flannel he'd left on the pillow.

"I'll go run this under some cold water."

She left the room and Xander stretched out his arms. He had been sitting in this chair all night, only moving once or twice to pace the room as he stretched his legs. Now he felt stiff and achy from dozing off in the straight backed chair. He rubbed his good eye, erasing the last of the sleep from it, and then lifted the patch covering his other eye to press tenderly around the outskirts of the socket.

It was aching this morning, not that that was uncommon, but the over-tiredness seemed to be making it worse than usual. He should put his drops in, but they were in his room and he didn't want to leave Willow's side even for the quick run there and back. He knew it wasn't so much an irrational fear that she would get worse while he was gone so much as the fact that he didn't want to give in to needing drops to function even in a situation this, well, passive.

He could wait a while longer. The soreness wasn't that bad, and he wasn't entirely convinced the drops were working anyway. It's not like they were growing him back a new eye.

Buffy came back in and placed the wash cloth over Willow's brow, fiddling with it as she made sure water wouldn't drip onto her closed eyes or down the sides of her face.

"Are you okay?"

He looked up, surprised by the question.

"Only you seem… pensive, all of a sudden," she explained.

"I'm just worried," he lied, except it wasn't really a lie what with it being partly true.

"Me too." She put her hand over Willow's. "All night I've been thinking why did this have to happen now, when we're all arguing and stuff, what if we don't get the chance to make up. And then, naturally, I beat myself up for even entertaining the idea we won't get the chance to make up. Like I was jinxing it or something." She shook her head.

"You didn't jinx it. She's gonna snap out of this soon and be fine. And then you'll get the chance to make up."

He hoped his confidence didn't sound as false to Buffy as it did to him. Not that he didn't believe it… He just really needed Willow to wake up now and prove him right before he started to not believe it.

It seemed to have worked. Buffy smiled at him. "Okay, well I'm all gross from running the length and breadth of Boudenver all night so I'm gonna take a shower. When I'm done, I'll take over from you, so you can get some proper un-chairy sleep, okay?"

"I'm fine here," he said firmly.

"I never said you weren't, but you don't have to do the silent vigil all day as well as all night. We can take turns at Willow-shifts." She smiled again but it looked more for the sake of it this time. "I'll take the next one and you can take the one right after that."

"Okay." He agreed this time, if only to make Buffy feel better.

Buffy squeezed Willow's hand. "I'll see you in a little while."

He wasn't sure which one of them she was talking to, but she left without saying anything else. He watched the empty doorway for a moment, willing Giles to come through it with news, but it remained empty.

He stretched again, feeling it pull deliciously on his arms and shoulders for a second or two. He looked around the room and then leant over to pick up one of the books by his feet. He didn't think he'd get anything more from it than he did the first time, but at least he'd be doing something.

He didn't want to leave Willow's side, not even when Buffy came back. He knew he wouldn't sleep for as long as his best friend was unconscious. Rationally, though, he knew a break from this room was what he needed before he went crazy with the concern that felt palpable now; like his anxiety over Willow's condition was a physical thing, shrouding him and making, for instance, his eye sting more and more.

Maybe he wouldn't sleep, but he could get some coffee, sit for a while in the kitchen, or maybe join Giles in his office – do something more helpful with the books in there than he was managing with the books up here. Or he could get on with some work. That was always a sure-fire way of taking his mind off his problems, it was why he was happy to do so much of it these days.

He wouldn't leave the house, not with Willow in what he was starting to think of as a critical state, but there was stuff he could bring in to work on. There was the new batch of shutters or the horse head weather vane to go on the stable roof to paint. Inside the house the phone still need repairing – if he could figure out how to do it.

A soft groan from the bed jerked him out of his thoughts.

"Will?" He sat forward excitedly but half convinced he'd imagined the noise as he had a dozen times in the night.

But, no, Willow groaned again, eyes still closed but working her lips like her mouth was impossibly dry.

Plucking the flannel from her head, his squeezed it a little to get some moisture out and then held it to her lips.

"Willow. Hey. Are you with me?"

She said something, but it was muffled by the cloth. Xander went to pull it away, but she distinctly said "No!" then, so he let it rest against her mouth again while with his other hand he reached for the Mountain Dew Giles had brought up for him earlier.

"Nice of you to finally join us," he said with a smile. "Can you sit up a little?"

"Enngh."

"It just might mean the difference between you drinking this or me drowning you in it."

Her eyes opened and when she saw the glass he was holding she pushed his hand and the flannel away and tried to sit up. Seeing her struggling, he set the glass down and helped her. Propping the pillows behind her back and holding her elbow while she got herself positioned comfortably.

Once she was settled he picked up the glass again and handed it over. She drank a small sip and then rested, then a slightly longer sip and rested again.

"How are you feeling?"

She weakly raised one hand and he waited. A few seconds later she lifted the glass again and drained all of it in one go.

"Thirsty," she finally said.

"But alive and awake, so all in all…" He grinned at her.

"What happened?"

"We were kinda hoping you could tell us," he admitted.

She shook her head a little. "I had a sneezing fit… which came accompanied by the new teleporting application and then…" She shook her head again.

"You passed out."

"For long?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "Only all night, no big."

"All night?" She sounded shocked, and then, as her eyes darted to the window, seeing the daylight through her thin curtain, worried, but then she smiled. "Did you stay with me all night?"

He felt suddenly… uncomfortable was as good a word as any. "Of course."

When she had been unconscious it had been the most natural thing ever to not leave her side, but now she was awake and talking and beaming at him like everything was suddenly alright with the world, it just made him feel annoyed again. Like all the worry and concern and anxiety over whether she would wake up again was just some big joke on him. Irrational, oh for sure, he knew that, but he couldn't help that feeling welling up in him even if he didn't really understand where it was coming from.

He tried to ignore it, hoping if he did, bygones would just be bygones.

"That's nice," she said, still smiling at him – and how could that possibly make him more agitated?

"Well, we were worried," he said, his voice sounding flat to him, already the excitement over her being awake felt lost. "And Buffy went out to find the demons that caused it and Giles was downstairs looking for ways to cure you and Kennedy and Faith were both out patrolling so I was the only one left to make sure you didn't, like, throw up in your coma or die or anything."

Willow's face fell. He knew his had already fallen a few minutes ago so he wasn't so bothered. That felt wrong, it all felt wrong, but… He didn't have an answer.

"Well, thanks for staying," Willow said quietly.

"You're welcome."

He winced because he'd said it so automatically, without so much of as an ounce of real emotion. He could have been speaking to a stranger he'd just excused for bumping into him. After a few seconds of looking at the blanket covering her instead of actually at her, he decided to just cut his losses.

"So I need to get some sleep before I just pass out on top of you." He stood and, after a moment's consideration, leaned down to kiss her forehead and straightened back up with a forced smile. "Glad you're okay, Will. I'll see you later."

Hopefully after he'd kicked this stupid angry feeling to the curb.

He walked around the bed to the door, but stopped before going through it.

"Oh, Buff's in the shower but she'll be here in a minute so you won't be alone."

"Okay," she said softly, clearly upset by his obvious need to get away.

He wanted to say something to make it better, but in the end he just nodded and left.

Thanks for reading. More soon.