As the two Slayers walked down the hall away from the library, Nancy's attention was drawn to a closed door, a sign stuck to the wood by a few pieces of Scotch tape. "Do Not Disturb", it commanded in bold red letters. Someone had attached a second piece of paper, smaller and very, very pink, to the bottom of the first sign. "Spells in progress!" was blazoned across it in an ornate purple cursive, the surface littered with little flowers. Nancy's perpetual sneer raised another notch as she noticed the happy face that dotted the "i".

A third and final attachment to the sign was a 3x5 yellow post-it note. "CAUTION: Might get SEXY!" was scrawled there in a thick, man's handwriting.

"Probably Xander," Judith offered with a laugh in her voice, gesturing to the post-it note, "and Dawn," indicating the pink monstrosity.

"These people are weird," said Nancy partly to herself. She looked at the door again and cocked her head to one side, her eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

Judith smiled at Nancy's attempts at figuring out what was going on behind the closed door. "Don't bother trying to hear anything," she smirked. "Looks like Willow's magically soundproofed the room. She says that it's to keep from bothering anybody when some of her spells get a bit heavy with the chanting." Her grin turned lascivious and she gestured with her head towards the door. "'Course, we've got a bet goin' around here about it's real purpose, but until someone manages to get Kennedy drunk enough to spill, we'll never know for sure."

Nancy's face barely registered this juicy bit of gossip, and Judith sighed wistfully. "Boy, y'sure don't shock easy, do ya? Ahh well, probably for the best in this job." She threw a companionable arm over the other girl's shoulders, utterly ignoring the look of disdain that blanketed Nancy's features. "C'mon, let's go check out the cafeteria. Maybe we'll get lucky and Andrew will be there. Making his life is hell is pretty much our national pastime."

After bickering with Summers, Rosenberg holed herself up in her little sanctuary. I tried to eavesdrop and see what was going on, but she'd encased the room in a spell or something and I wasn't able to hear anything. I didn't see her pet Slayer around anywhere though, and given how livid she'd been about the Summers thing earlier, I'm guessing Rosenberg wasn't in there alone.

"Kenn, sweetie, Buffy didn't mean anything. Please try to calm down."

Kennedy paced the length of the room that Willow had claimed as a spell room, her dark hair bouncing in sympathetic anger as she pivoted on her heel and stomped back towards the door again. Willow sat on the far side of a casting circle that dominated the center of the room, her head dutifully turning first one way and then the next, tracking the Slayer's ceaseless motions.

"Please?" Willow tried again, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards in a smirk. "I'm startin' to feel like I'm at Wimbledon here. Only, you know, without the tennis or the strawberries and cream or the pretension."

With a largely exaggerated sigh, Kennedy came to a halt outside of the circle, facing Willow. She huffed and crossed her arms. "She just drives me up the freakin' wall, y'know? I mean, here I am, workin' my well-toned and not unimpressive ass off to establish a rapport with these newbies—"

Willow barely stifled a laugh, and looked around the room innocently when Kennedy leveled a dark glare.

"What? Okay, so it's not a rapport filled with peach fuzz and sunshine, but it's a rapport, dammit!" Kennedy threw her hands up in the air and resumed her steady pacing, gesturing her arms around animatedly as she spoke. "They respect me, I don't kick their ass. That's a rapport. So we're good and gettin' in a routine, things're going smoothly. Oh, but wait!" She pivoted and stomped in the opposite direction. "Here comes the Slayer's answer to Tony Robbins, fresh from her two month break, ready to step in now all the hard work is done and take over my freakin' class!"

As Kennedy's fist raised and pulled back away from the nearest wall, Willow leapt to her feet. "Ah-ah-ah!" she exclaimed in a panicked tone, halting Kennedy's actions long enough to reach her girlfriend's side, careful to not scatter the fine white sand that marked the boundary of the casting circle. "No punching! There will be no making with the violence!"

Willow took Kennedy's clenched fist between both of her own, gently lowering it but not letting go. She absently ran her thumb over the Slayer's knuckles in a soothing gesture and gave Kennedy an admonishing look. "You and that temper of yours. It took me a whole week to cleanse this place of the bad vibes after you went all butch with the wall last time."

Kennedy stuck her lip out in a pout. "Richelle cheated," she said in her best little girl voice.

"It was air hockey, Kenn, what'd she do? Blow on the puck really hard?"

The Slayer's pout became a predatory grin and she leered at Willow. "She was wearing this really loose top, and you know Richelle – the balcony's pretty well filled to capacity. So when she leaned over the table it reminded me of that time when we were at the playground and you got up on the monkey bars and—"

Willow dropped Kennedy's hand and cleared her throat nervously, her face becoming as red as her hair. Kennedy showed no matching sign of discomfort, instead taking a moment to soak up Willow's flustered spluttering.

"Yeah, well, there's that a-and ... Yeah. Yeah, okay, so- so no punching in my sanctum. Okay?" Willow waved her hand in the general direction of the section of wall that nearly met a scrunchy end. "It leaves badness. No badness in my goodness."

"Yes ma'am," Kennedy said with a smirk before her mood darkened again. "But freakin' Buffy..."

With a small sigh, Willow turned back to the casting circle, again stepping over the line and making sure not to disturb it. She resumed her position on the far side, sitting Indian style and placing her palms down on her knees before looking back to a scowling Kennedy. "We have to give her some time, Kenn. She just wants to help. And, you know, she's been away for a while so she isn't used to—"

"Yeah, and whose choice was it to go be a wandering bum in Europe while the rest of us stayed here and picked up the slack?"

Willow sighed again, louder this time, but said nothing, satisfied with giving Kennedy a knowing look.

Kennedy resumed her cross-armed stance from earlier, but her anger was slowly burning off so it lacked some of its previous force. "You always take her side," she groused.

"I'm on your side. And her side. I'm multi-sided. I'm the triskaidecagon of this conflict." Kennedy shot a questioning look at Willow, but the redhead either didn't see it or ignored it. "I just don't want two of the people that I care about ripping each others throats out as soon as I get them both back again."

"All right," Kennedy said after a pause, unable to keep from answering Willow's beaming smile with one of her own. "I'll talk to Buffy about it. Without fists, even. And if that doesn't work, maybe she can give me a motivational speech about anger management."

Her rage finally dissipated, Kennedy stepped into the circle and adopted a similar position across from Willow. She took a deep, calming breath, and looked at the witch, shifting a little uncomfortably in the unfamiliar environment. "So. What are we doing again?"

Willow's eyes shone and she leaned over excitedly towards Kennedy, clearly overjoyed with the idea of sharing this with her lover. "Well you remember when I cast the Slayer spell, right? You were my anchor, my connection to this world, so I couldn't get all swept up and lost in the magics."

"Like I could forget anything about that night," Kennedy said with a wistful smile.

"Right. Slayer birth and all that. So, we were able to pull that off, and it obviously worked because, hello, hundreds of Slayers all over the place. I know that was a one-time deal, and I was pretty much too terrified to really appreciate it, but through the abject terror, I remember thinking it was nice. To- to, you know, have an anchor. Again. I-I haven't had one since ..." Willow trailed off.

"Tara." The name hung there in the air like a tangible thing, causing the silence in the room that followed to become heavy and oppressive. The tension lasted just for a moment before Kennedy grinned and her typical self-confidence quickly masked anything else she might be feeling. "Hey, Will, it's cool. I mean, I know you two used to work the whole magic mojo. It was kinda your thing."

Willow had looked stricken, her previous enthusiasm having given way to mirror the discomfort that now permeated the room, but her face began to brighten at Kennedy's words and she visibly relaxed.

Reaching out through the space that separated them, Kennedy grabbed Willow's hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'm honored that you'd ask me to be part of something you two had. Really."

The smile she received in turn was beaming and full of affection. Willow gripped Kennedy's hand tightly for a moment in gratitude before pulling away. The space between them remained, but it was now open and comfortable.

"Well we did the thing with the scythe, which was great, but it was really more of a, you know, ‘in the moment' thing. We made it work because we had to. The real test is to see if we can achieve that kind of connection in normal, every day, apocalypse-free conditions."

Kennedy shrugged nonchalantly, scooping a lock of hair from her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. "Should be pretty easy. Not sitting directly on top of a Hellmouth ready to spit a couple thousand übervamps in my face is pretty relaxing." She paused to consider this. "More boring, but relaxing."

"You'd think it'd be easier, but people tend to find the idea of being ripped into several dozen pieces highly motivating," replied Willow with a smirk. "Go figure."

The Slayer shifted her position on the floor, steeling herself as though she were preparing for battle. "All right, let's do this thing. What's the plan?"

Willow eyed Kennedy's posture critically. "Well you know that relaxing thing you were just talking about? Try that first." At the blank look, Willow motioned towards Kennedy's tense posture. "You can't beat magic in the head until it listens to you, Kenn, you've got to ... to attune to it. Coax it. Entice it."

"Are you saying I'm not enticing enough?" Kennedy asked in a flirtatious voice.

The suggestive grin that appeared on Willow's face was instinctive, but she quickly replaced it with one that was sobering and entirely serious. "Kennedy..." she said with a definite warning tone.

Kennedy took a deep breath, shook out her hands and rolled her head around in a full circle. "Okay. All relaxed now. I'm good."

"Good," echoed Willow, closing her eyes. Kennedy did the same. "We'll start off slow and simple. I'll cast my essence out, just a little ways, and we'll establish a connection. All you have to do is reach out to me. W-With your mind, not literally, cuz this is all about the not-physical. Just remember to breathe, stay focused, and come to me."

With another deep inhale, Kennedy shrugged her shoulders a couple of times to work out some of the kinks and focused on relaxing. Her face was passive and tranquil for a minute or so until her forehead crinkled slightly. She breathed again, a small amount of irritation managing to make itself known, and fidgeted into a more comfortable position. A look of intense concentration appeared on her face, and her eyes twitched restlessly underneath their lids. Another few minutes of this passed, until Kennedy's eyes shot open and she let out a cry of frustration.

Across from her, Willow remained the picture of calm serenity for a moment, before her own eyes opened, furrowed in concern. "What's wrong?" she asked, watching as Kennedy ran an agitated hand through her hair.

"Stupid magic's not working!"

Caught up in her own feelings, Kennedy missed the flash of hurt and anger that briefly danced across Willow's face, and it was soon replaced with one that was much softer. "So, nothing then?" asked Willow in a small but still hopeful voice.

Kennedy got to her feet and stepped out of the casting circle. "Nada," she replied bitterly.

"Oh." The disappointment was evident, and Kennedy turned towards a crestfallen Willow.

"I'm really sorry, Will."

Willow shook her head. "No, no, i-i-it's not your fault. I mean, it was silly of me to, to think that we'd be able to connect, like that, the first time. Don't feel bad. It means a lot that you tried."

Kennedy quickly moved over to her girlfriend, squatting down behind her and resting her chin on top of Willow's head. Her arms draped casually over Willow's shoulders. "We'll try it again," she stated with conviction. "You know me, I don't take just sitting around too well. Besides, I'm way too stubborn to let this fairy tale crap win." She hugged Willow briefly but firmly, her position keeping her from seeing the look of sadness and loss on Willow's face. "We'll try it again."

"Yeah," replied Willow, trying but failing to recapture her enthusiasm from earlier.