Dawn had a key to Xander's house, and he had a key to hers. So, although Xander had decided to withhold the coffee that she had bought, because otherwise she'd end up bouncing off the walls, it was a simple matter to go in at some ungodly hour (because she had the same problems with sleeping that Xander did) to retrieve it.

However, she found that Xander had already beaten her to the punch. He seemed intent on drinking all the coffee she'd bought, and he had already made some sizable inroads on that front. Dawn vaguely remembered hearing once that drinking a certain amount of coffee could kill you - she wondered how close to that level Xander was.

For all that, Xander wasn't anywhere near the level of hyperactivity that Dawn would've been had she drunk that much. Instead, he was just sitting at the table, staring at it as though it was the most fascinating thing that he had ever seen.

Dawn had seen Xander like that before, just after Rory had taken the amulet and completely forgotten the fact that Xander existed. It had taken him a while then to snap out of it. She wondered what Rory had done to make Xander be this way this time.

Dawn knew that Giles had given her an amulet, in case she wanted to forget everything again. If Rory had done anything short of that, Dawn would be having harsh words with her about hurting Xander.

Dawn sat next to Xander. He didn't seem to notice that she was there until she said "Are you alright, Xan? What happened?"

"Oh, hi, Dawnie. There's still some coffee left, if you want some." Xander said in a flat monotone.

"Great, the one time you let me have some coffee is the time that I don't want it." Dawn murmured under her breath. "What's wrong?"

"She doesn't want to date me, Dawn."

"Idiot."

Xander turned to look at her. "What did I do now?"

"Not you, Xan. She's an idiot, not-"

"She has a point though, Dawn. I did hurt her, badly, I didn't mean to, but I did, and it makes sense that she wouldn't want to be hurt like that again."

"She knows it wasn't your fault, surely? She has to understand why you did what you did. If she doesn't, then she's the bloody idiot."

"Language, Dawn."

Dawn crossed her arms. "Well, she is."

Xander's lips quirked into a smile. "You're cute when you're angry. Do you know that? Like yesterday, when you yelled at Luke, that was the cutest thing I've seen in ages."

Dawn went pink. "Have you been drinking?"

"Well, yes." Xander admitted. "This is an iIrish/i coffee."

"Why does Irish coffee make you drunk?"

"Because it's got alcohol in it. Duh."

"What? How does coffee from Ireland have alcohol in it?"

"Ireland has rain and grass and leprechauns and terrorists and Guinness. It doesn't grow coffee. Wrong climate. Irish coffee is coffee with alcohol. By the way, I'm only a little tipsy. It isn't very strong."

"Well, you shouldn't be drinking this early anyway."

Xander shrugged. "I'll drink whenever I like, missy."

"Rory isn't worth getting drunk-

"Tipsy."

"-idrunk/i over, anyway."

Xander leant forward slightly. "And who do you suggest that I get drunk over, hmm?"

Dawn suddenly realised that she'd lost the power of speech.

"What about Anya? Tara? Buffy? My parents would probably appreciate the irony of me getting drunk because of them. Maybe I should raise a toast to them."

"You shouldn't get drunk over anyone, Xan."

Xander nodded. "Wise words. For a little girl. Except you're not. Are you? You're eighteen now. All grown up."

Dawn's breath caught in her throat.

"When did that happen? You were only fourteen five minutes ago."

"Xander, you're way more drunk than you think you are."

"No. I'm only tipsy. Not even slurring my words, see? I've got absolutely no desire to turn into a caveman."

"You should go to bed. Did you even get any sleep?"

"Nope." Xander said cheerfully. Then he leant forward conspiratorially and whispered "Hey, do you want to help me to bed?"

"iXander!/i"

Xander chuckled. He stood up a little unsteadily. "'m just kidding, Dawnie. I know you don't think of me like that. You're all about Spike these days."

Dawn remained seated as Xander made his way to his room, only occasionally bumping into things.

Something that Spike had used to say seemed particularly apt, given the circumstances. So Dawn thought she might as well say it.

"Oh, bugger."

When the morning properly became morning, Dawn was one of the first people in Luke's.

Luke looked at her suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"Coffee. And an omelette. And Jess."

"You'll have to do with two out of three."

"That's fine, I can live without the omelette."

"I meant Jess. That boy never surfaces this early. What do you want him for, anyway?"

"I thought we could sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about the death of kings."

"You what?"

"It's Shakespeare. You know, Richard II? It was a joke. Which I see went way over your head..."

"Your omelette will be ready in a minute." Luke said gruffly, handing Dawn her coffee. She took a giant slurp.

"I'm sorry about yesterday, by the way. I think we got off on the wrong foot. It's just that, with my home town gone and a whole bunch of people I know dead, it's kind of hard having people yell at my friend for not having kept in contact. He's lucky he's even alive - we barely made it out." Dawn said in a coffee induced rush.

Luke looked at her impassively. "Sounds tough."

"You've got no idea."

"Listen, I didn't know-"

"It doesn't matter." Dawn said dismissively. "I just thought I'd say."

Rory woke from a convoluted dream featuring Machiavelli preaching that fear is better than love, De Sade calling him an idiot for even thinking of others at all, with Spiderman popping up every now and then to say that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" which wasn't even his catch phrase, and Rory herself randomly turning into an assortment of Kafkaesque insects.

She had a hurried breakfast and too much coffee (she felt rather more tired than she had before she had gone to bed, thanks to the action packed nature of her dream) before rushing to her final.

Rory managed to focus all her coffee-given energy to writing a fantastic response. She did this not only because she knew the subject at hand so well, but because she managed to pull points from the depths of her mind so that she didn't have to think about what she had said to Xander yesterday.

Her lion sat on the desk in front of her, like a good luck charm, and on the occasions when she stopped writing her hand automatically fondled the amulet around her neck.

When the time was up, Rory felt certain that she'd aced the test. This didn't bring her the usual euphoria that she would expect from such a success.

She knew exactly why.

Rory knew that Lorelai would be happy for her, as would Lane, and her grandparents, and Luke, and even Paris. And that was good, it really it was. Having a circle of friends who cared was important.

It was to do with the hollow ball that put pressure on her heart and constricted her lungs. Rory couldn't tell the people who she loved in a not exactly platonic way.

Dean was happily married. Jess... she didn't even know where Jess was. Xander she could talk to, but after what she'd said yesterday she didn't really feel comfortable doing that.

Still, coffee could solve a world of ills. So, once Rory had brought her stuff back home from her dorm and danced around the room with Lorelai, she went to Luke's.

Luke was there. Rory had expected that.

So was Jess. That, Rory hadn't expected.

The ball in her chest expanded until she couldn't breathe, and it felt as though her heart was going so fast and hammering so hard that her ribs would crack from the percussive force.

Then Jess saw her, and he smiled that same crooked smile that he'd always smiled, and suddenly it was a year ago and Jess had never left.

"Hey, Jess." Rory said, smiling.

"Morning, Rory." Jess said in the same casual conversational tone. "How're things?"

"Just finished my last final."

"And you did brilliantly, of course."

Rory nodded. "I did."

"Listen, I'll get some coffee and you can tell me all about it, hmm?"

Rory sat at the bar. "Sounds good."

Rory knew that she spoke to Jess. She knew that he replied. But, afterwards, she could never remember what they said. All she could remember was how right it felt to talk to him like that, just like she'd always spoken to him before he'd left. There hadn't ever been anyone who understood her interests, who got the way her mind worked, like Jess. She remembered that, technically, they'd never broken up.

However, it was that last thought that broke into the happy little bubble that she had fallen into.

Because, although Jess was the most literate person she'd ever met, and one of the few people who shared her taste in music, and despite the fact that he was the only one of her boyfriends that she had ever been able to talk to about all of that - the fact remained that Xander was easy to talk to. She hadn't had to work with him, not like she so often had with Jess.

She couldn't talk about academics with Xander, but she could talk about anything else, and more than that, she could lark around, have fun, burst out laughing at his Valley Jesus stunts. Jess had never been like that, he had always been serious, even in his pranking. There'd never been the light hearted man-child behaviour that Xander had.

All of this went through Rory's head in the space of about a second. Some of it must've shown on her face, because Jess said "You've just realised something, and it's made you sad. What is it?"

It wasn't exactly true, though. Rory hadn't realised anything. "I-I don't know."

Jess didn't say anything. He just stayed where he was sitting, chin resting on his hand.

"I just... I can't do this. Not - I just can't."

"Why?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Rory hadn't wanted to go on a date with Xander, because she was still recovering from suddenly discovering that he was actually alive. But with Jess... Rory supposed that it was the same thing, in a way. He'd left without a word, and now he was back, and she couldn't just continue as though nothing had happened. They'd both hurt her, and she would take a while to get over that.

But what Rory actually said was "I can't, okay. I just can't."

Jess looked at her, and Rory hadn't the faintest idea what he was thinking. She wished that she knew - maybe it would help her work out what she was feeling. Eventually, he said "Fine. Let me know when you can. I'll still be here, Rory."

Rory wanted to say something, but she didn't know what. She didn't know what to think, what she was feeling, what she would do.

She supposed that she should work that out.

So she left the diner without a word. Jess watched her go.

"Hey. Wait!"

Rory turned around. She saw... oh, what was her name? She remembered Xander introducing her, back during her incredibly brief visit to Sunnydale. Dawn, that was it.

She saw Dawn leaning against the wall of the diner, one leg bent so that her foot rested on the wall. All that was missing was a trilby and a violin case and Dawn would look just like someone from a bad gangster movie.

"Oh, hello. Dawn, isn't it?"

Dawn nodded, propelling herself upright. "Can I speak to you for a moment?"

"What are you doing in town? Are you here to see Xander?"

Dawn shook her head. "Not exactly. We moved in together."

Rory's eyes widened at the implications of that. Dawn, seeing Rory's reaction, mentally replayed what she had said, realised how it must've come across, and flushed slightly. "Not like that. We're neighbours, we moved into town together."

Rory nodded, relieved (then remembered that she had no right to be). "I see."

"Anyway, I wanted to say, don't hurt him, okay? He's already kind of low since Sunnydale, and he came here mainly because of you. So, um, just leave him alone, alright?"

Rory frowned. "Are you telling me to stay away from him?"

Dawn cocked her head for a moment, and then nodded. "I guess I am."

"So you know that he's the one who moved into my home town, don't you? He's the one who came here and started things up. If anyone's doing the hurting, it's him, not me."

Dawn looked like she would've liked to argue, but she didn't. "I've said my piece. The next move is up to you."

With that, Dawn walked past Rory into the diner, intending to engage Brontë Boy in a discussion.

Meanwhile, Rory meandered aimlessly around Stars Hollow, not paying a great deal of attention to where she was going, as she was primarily trying to impose some kind of order on the emotional chaos writhing in her chest.

Eventually, she came to the bridge over the lake. And this was fitting, because it was where Rory had had one of her first proper conversations with Xander, and where she'd come so many times before with Jess.

She sat down on the edge, watching the ripples on the water and not thinking of anything very much.

Someone sat next to her. She didn't have to look to see that it was Xander.

"I'm told that this is where all the troubled teenagers end up." Xander said lightly.

"Uh huh. We get quite a few of those in Stars Hollow these days."

"Anything in particular that I can help with?"

Rory knew that she was going against what she'd said earlier, against the epiphany that she'd had at Luke's, that she was sending messages as mixed as messages could be, but, just at that moment, she didn't care.

She swayed sideways, leaning against Xander and resting her head on his shoulder. She felt his arm wrap around her waist, and that was right, that was how it should be.

"I think you already have." Rory said simply.

Everything was calm and, for the moment at least, the hollow ball in her chest was gone.