“Does the bus ever come on time?” Elizabeth wondered, twirling her root-beer Tootsie Roll Pop between her lips as she sat up on the counter.

Spike gave her a dirty look. There was no doubt in his mind that she was doing all those things with her tongue for the sole purpose of driving him steadily insane.

She gave him an unrepentant grin and a little wink in response before slurping loudly as she reached the chewy center.

“It did when you took it,” Willow pointed out, checking her watch. “My theory – it only comes on time when I’m late.”

“It’s a massive conspiracy,” Tara giggled. “The whole world’s out to get you.”

“And, technically, you’re not paranoid if they are actually out to get you,” Oz added in his usual dry tone.

“Just out of curiosity,” Elizabeth turned to Willow, “when is Xand getting back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon supposedly,” Willow said slightly bitterly, “since someone doesn’t have any classes on Monday this semester…”

“We’ll be forced to tear him limb from limb when he shows up,” Oz commented matter-of-factly.

Tara cast a suspicious look in his direction and leaned over to whisper in Willow’s ear. “He was joking, right?”

Willow frowned and blinked. “Presumably,” she shrugged. It was always hard to tell with Oz.

“Ooh, I see something!” Elizabeth pointed with the white stick of her sucker excitedly. “It looks like…”

Spike leaned out in the street to see further. “That’s it,” he confirmed. “About bloody time.”

Elizabeth held out a hand to him and pulled him into her arms, clasping her hands comfortably in the small of his leather-clad back. “Grumpy,” she accused, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

His mood lightened almost immediately. “Vixen,” he countered.

The bus pulled to a halt at the curb, and they reluctantly turned to it to watch the passengers alight. Elizabeth actually turned her attention more towards Spike since she’d need the recognition in his eyes to identify…

“Cordy!” Willow screeched in delight, practically launching herself at a tall brunette.

“Wills!” Cordelia exclaimed in an equally excited manner, accepting and returning the bear hug offered her.

“How was Rome?” Willow asked enthusiastically, snatching the bag from Cordelia’s shoulder.

“Amazing,” Cordelia exclaimed, taking in the sea of friendly faces that surrounded her. “Hey, Tara,” she said with a wide grin. “You’re treating my Willow right, huh?”

“There was a nasty incident where I ate her entire bag of peanut M&M’s,” Tara admittedly gravely. “It was declared cruel and unusual punishment.”

Cordelia laughed before leaning in and giving Oz a quick kiss on the cheek. “Are the dingoes still eating my baby?” she teased.

“Tonight,” he agreed. “We’re heading out there to dinner.”

“Oh, one more day of freedom from dorm food. Joy,” Cordelia agreed with a roll of her eyes. As a result her eyes landed directly on… “Hello, handsome,” she practically purred at Spike, holding out her hand to him.

He brushed his lips across her knuckles obligingly, his electric blue eyes never leaving her face. “Welcome back, my raven-haired beauty,” he flirted back shamelessly.

Cordelia smiled at that. “You look good,” she commented. “Not so much with the drunken lout.”

He chuckled. “Got myself fixed up while you were away.” His fingers tangled with those of Elizabeth.

Cordelia’s attention turned to the new girl for the first time. “I’m guessing you’re Elizabeth then?” she inquired.

“That’s me,” Elizabeth agreed, slipping her hand from Spike’s and offering it to Cordelia. “And, duh, you’re Cordelia.” She rolled her eyes.

Cordelia laughed at that. “Call me Cordy,” she insisted.

“Cordy, right,” Elizabeth agreed.

Cordelia watched Spike’s arm slip around Elizabeth’s waist with a little smile. “I’ve heard all about you,” she said brightly. “Most of it good, even.”

Elizabeth chuckled at that, sparing a brief smile for Spike. “I can’t imagine who you’ve been talking to, then,” she joked.

“Yeah, well, I’m not stuck living next to Spike here, so hopefully I won’t be able to hear all the racket,” Cordelia couldn’t help but ride the other girl a little.

Elizabeth’s face reddened, but she returned just as teasingly, “That won’t do you much good, I’m afraid. We can be heard all the way down the hall.”

Spike blushed and Cordy grinned. “You’re hopelessly, permanently outnumbered,” she informed the peroxide blond, taking Elizabeth’s free arm as they walked out to the van.

“Just as things should be,” Elizabeth teased, nuzzling Spike’s shoulder affectionately.

He merely sighed, resigned to his not-so-unpleasant fate, and followed the group outside.

“So,” Cordy asked, “Blue Club, I take it?”

“I’m buying,” Willow agreed, “but only if you agree to tell us every last detail about your trip.”

“Deal,” Cordy agreed with a smile…

“Mmm,” Elizabeth practically purred, burying her face deep in Spike’s chest and swaying slowly to the music.

The club was full tonight as the entire campus celebrated their last night of freedom before classes began tomorrow. As a result, it was a bit difficult to clearly hear any of the music, but they managed to sway to the slow, steady beat just fine. Especially since their dancing looked a lot like making out – something they were both experts at by this point.

“You ever wish that time would just stop?” Spike had been feeling in a rather poetic mood all evening, and the words slipped from his lips with melodic grace.

“All the time,” she agreed, looking up at him. Her nose scrunched up then and she stuck out her tongue. “Especially since I have calculus first thing tomorrow morning.”

An amused chortle of laughter escaped his lips at that. “You ever need a tutor…” he began.

“I’ll go straight to Jonathan,” she teased back.

“Christ, you’re impossible, luv,” he shook his head.

“That’s why you love me,” she agreed with a little smile.

He looked down at her with a shy smile of his own at that. “Yeah…” he agreed, his voice full of emotion.

“Spike…” she whispered, leaning forward to steal a kiss from those soft, sweet lips of his.

It seemed as though time had stopped then. The world around them was still as their lips slowly grew bolder. The kiss was short and neat, but it felt like everything else had frozen during it.

And then Elizabeth heard the applause and realized that the world actually had stopped because the song on stage had come to an end. She blushed a bit at the romantic notions that had been flitting about in her head. Although, admittedly, they were hard to ignore after Spike’s confession of devotion…

He smiled a Cheshire smile at her in response, the glint in his eyes indicating that he knew exactly what she was thinking. One finger tipped with the black nail-polish she so teased him about reached up and brushed a silky lock of her honey-blond hair back from her face. She leaned into the touch, enjoying his ephemeral caresses just as much as his more solid ones.

“Set’s done,” he commented lazily. “We’ll be eatin’ soon.”

She let out a disappointed little pout.

“Now, now, luv,” he chuckled softly, “we’ll need the energy tonight. Not to mention, ‘d hate to see those luscious curves ‘f yours thin out due to starvation…”

She glanced nervously down at herself at that. “You don’t think I need to go on a diet?” she inquired.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re the most gorgeous, desirable woman ‘ve ever laid eyes on,” he replied in a low, husky voice. “There’s nothin’ you could do to make yourself more perfect. Fit against me right like we were made off of the same mold, you do.” His lips brushed her forehead softly. “So beautiful…” he whispered.

“Wow,” she giggled slightly. “You’ve really got the answer to ‘does this outfit make me look fat?’ down pat, don’t you?”

“’m just tellin’ the truth,” he replied with a seductive smile. “You make it easy, luv.”

“Mmm…” She pulled him in by the lapels of his black leather duster and proceeded to kiss him breathless. “Have I mentioned lately how wonderful you are?” she asked with a coquettish smile.

“Not recently enough,” he leaned into her expectantly.

“Oh,” she said in mock-apology. “It’s tough to be you then.” With a mischievous wink, she released him and sashayed away, looking back over her shoulder at him playfully.

Evil little minx… He sighed and followed after her. God, he loved this woman!

“Hey, Spike,” Cordy said cheerfully when he finally sat down at their table, completing the group. “You’re trying out for the spring musical, right?”

Spike practically choked on his water at the outrageous suggestion. “I bloody well am not!” he insisted fiercely.

Elizabeth chuckled and patted him on the thigh. “Oh, c’mon, it’d be great. I can just see you up there on stage, singing and dancing.”

He make annoyed gurgling noises into his straw.

“And, just think!” she continued, on a role now. “You can even wear tights!”

“In front of the whole school,” Tara agreed, giggling at the image in her head.

Spike turned to Oz. “Help,” he said simply.

“I’m already in a band. Hence, I’m in the clear. Sorry, man.”

Spike groaned and rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Help?” he inquired hopefully.

Everyone laughed at his joke.

“You should try out,” Cordy suggested to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth gulped in response. “Talking in front of many people – not my thing,” she insisted.

Cordy pouted in response. “You do realize that I haven’t gotten a single person in our house in a play yet? It’s doing terrible things to my reputation!”

“And I can’t be guilted into things, either,” Elizabeth countered. “Nice try, though.”

“You people are all too damn stubborn,” Cordy let out a sigh. “So,” she turned to her other favorite topic – gossip – with lightning-quick speed, “how long have you and Spike been…y’know…” She winked.

Elizabeth paused to consider her answer for a minute. “ ‘Y’know’,” she quoted, repeating the wink and everything, “for almost three months now. But, before that…”

“You should have seen it,” Tara said with a wistful smile. “They got into shouting matches almost every day.”

“It was so romantic…” Willow giggled in agreement.

Spike cast her an annoyed look. “Worked, dinnit?” he retorted.

“It was romantic,” Elizabeth insisted, stepping up to her boyfriend’s defense. She slipped her arm through his appreciatively. “He even let me beat him up for Christmas. It was so sweet…”

Cordy blinked in confusion.

“Tae Kwon-Do,” Elizabeth explained off of the odd look.

“She completely kicks my ass every time,” Spike agreed dreamily.

“Oh. My. God.” Cordy’s eyes widened. “There’s two of them! They’re both crazy, beating people up for fun. It’s like a match made in hell by some deluded little troll who’s watched way too many martial arts movies.”

“ ‘Deluded little troll’?” Elizabeth repeated in disbelief.

“And I missed it?” Cordy broke out into sudden lamentation. “Dammit, Wills! You promised me nothing entertaining would happen while I was abroad!”

“And you still are,” Tara giggled.

Willow giggled as well.

Everyone else looked at them like they were crazy.

“A broad,” Tara clarified. “Get it? A woman’s a broad…”

Three groans of agony and a slight shudder from Oz followed the realization.

“So, are you two as sickeningly perfect for each other as these two are?” Cordy gestured back to Willow and Tara who were both still incredibly amused with Tara’s joke.

“Someone’s bitter,” Spike sing-songed in response.

“Oh, puh-lease,” Cordy batted one hand in the air sarcastically. “I just thought I’d warn you since, y’know, Hell Semester coming up and all.”

“ ‘Hell Semester’?” Elizabeth repeated curiously.

“You mean you guys haven’t told her yet?” Cordy looked around at the other upperclassmen in amazement.

“Well, we were kinda trying to dispel that rumor…” Willow began.

“Rumor?” Cordy batted one hand in the air dismissively. “It’s the undeniable truth.”

“What is?” Elizabeth was getting curious now. She nudged Spike in the side, trying to get an answer.

Cordy merely rolled her eyes at her dorm-mates. “Hell Semester,” she explained, “is the period between Christmas vacation and Spring Break. It is so called,” she adopted a pompous, professorial imitation that had Elizabeth smiling, “because everyone goes steadily more crazy throughout it. What with the gloomy winter weather and everyone being cramped together…” She trailed off before adopting a hushed, conspiratorial tone like one would while telling ghost stories to little kids. “Things start to get edgy. It starts off small. The occasional argument here and there. But then it escalates until… Bam!” Her hands clapped right in front of Elizabeth’s face, startling her. “Internal house combustion,” she said with an amused smile. “Expect all-out bathroom wars, loud arguments, and plenty of broken hearts.”

Elizabeth chuckled slightly. It was a good thing Cordy was into theater because she definitely had a sense of the dramatic. “Very funny. You almost had me going there for a second.”

“It’s true,” Cordy insisted. “Everyone gets all hyper stressed out because Spring Break is so short and then we’ve got a whole other two months after that. Depression, anxiety, and disaster follow.”

Elizabeth glanced around the table for confirmation.

“It gets intense sometimes,” Willow finally conceded, “but not always. Cordy’s exaggerating. As usual.”

“Exaggerating?” Cordelia teased. “Why, at this very moment, the forces of the universe itself are working against us, manufacturing disaster so great and profound that we will be helpless to stop it. It will come for you, in the moments when you least expect it and—Snap!” Her fingers snapped right in front of Spike’s face.

He snorted and rolled his eyes at her.

Cordy pouted. “You’re no fun,” she said with a dramatic sigh.

Elizabeth was highly entertained, however. “Evil forces working against us, huh?” she grinned. “Do they slip right out of the woodwork?”

“Oh yeah,” Cordelia agreed. “You never see them coming. They work in strange and mysterious ways.”

“Right now?” Elizabeth cast a playful furtive glance around.

“Right now,” Cordy chuckled.

As if on cue, a thin waif-like girl with short dirty blond hair and eyes heavily ringed with make-up approached the table. “Oz,” she said with a coy swing of her hips.

“Hey,” Oz nodded in response. “You playing tonight?”

“Nope, just hanging,” she answered with a mysterious smile.

“Guys,” Oz introduced, “this is Veruca. She’s the lead singer of Shy.” He turned back to the young woman. “These are my friends from the dorm.”

Veruca nodded absentmindedly, her gaze passing over them disinterestedly before returning to Oz. “Is Devon here?” she inquired. “’Cause Silent Scream’s having difficulty setting up their amps backstage.”

“Devon’s not back from break yet,” Oz provided. “Dean stood in for him today.”

Veruca bit her lip. “Wanna come help then?” she requested. “Between the two of us…”

“Yeah, sure,” Oz agreed, getting up. “Duty calls,” he told the Westing House group with a straight face before vanishing into the crowd.

Those at the table brushed off the incident as insignificant.

“So, disaster’s lurking in the rafters?” Elizabeth returned to joking with Cordy.

“You don’t even see it coming,” the other girl giggled…

“Where’s Jonathan?” Elizabeth moaned in complaint. “This has to be some higher form of mathematics that he can solve…”

Spike grimaced as well and their predicament. “What if we moved the desk out into the hallway first?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Do you have any idea how heavy that thing is?” Elizabeth complained.

“If we took all ‘f the books outta the shelves first and put ‘em over on the bed…” he trailed off, still contemplating the problem.

“Are you two done moving furniture yet?” Anya’s head popped out of her door at the extended quiet interval. “I’m trying to finish my econ problem set.”

Elizabeth’s brow furrowed. “How can you already have a problem set?” she wondered. “Classes haven’t even started yet.”

“The professor foolishly posted all the problem sets up on the web,” Anya explained, frowning at the table, chairs, and mattress that still cluttered up the hallway. “Now I can finish next week’s a week early so that Xander and I have optimal time for orgasms next weekend.” Cheerfully, she bounced over to where Spike was gravely examining the dilemma.

“You’re way too cheerful, Anyanka,” he felt obliged to make some sort of comment.

“Xander’s coming back tomorrow,” Anya responded, too excited to even bother to pointlessly correct the name. “I haven’t seen him for far, far too long.”

“You two kept in touch over break?” Elizabeth inquired, sitting herself down on the table while Spike pretended to solve their little problem.

“We called each other every night,” Anya agreed with a happy grin, playing with one of her blond curls in a way that looked decidedly impish.

“You make the phone sex comment an’ I’ll rip out your spleen,” Spike threatened jokingly.

Anya rolled her eyes and leaned in close to Elizabeth. “Have you ever tried it?” she whispered.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“You should,” Anya informed her with a wink. “Especially given Spike’s sexy accent…”

A conspiratorial smile slipped across Elizabeth’s lips as well. “Thanks for the tip,” she agreed with a giggle.

“I know you’re talkin’ ‘bout sex over there,” Spike cut them off with a nasty scowl.

Elizabeth sighed and walked over to him. “Any solutions?” she inquired.

“We could always live on the ceiling,” he half-teased.

Anya rolled her eyes and peered into the cluttered dorm room. “Just back the dresser and the desk against the beds,” she suggested. “That way you increase the limited amount of wall space. You divide the room up into two smaller sections, true, but it has the added benefit of making the bed not visible from the door so if anyone barges in they won’t catch you naked.”

Elizabeth and Spike’s jaws both dropped and they looked at Anya like she was a godsend.

“That’s…brilliant!” Spike exclaimed, eyes wide.

“That works, doesn’t it?” Elizabeth blinked. “That actually works!”

“Quick, help me move the dresser,” Spike requested, setting Anya’s plan in motion.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Anya held her hands up in front of herself defensively. “I come up with the brilliant plan, you move the furniture.”

“Fair enough,” Elizabeth agreed, rushing over to help Spike.

Together they got the dresser turned so that it faced the door. After that, the second bed-frame slipped easily into place. Anya watched in satisfaction as the desk moved to block the view of the two beds on the far side of the room.

“See? I told you it would work,” Anya said triumphantly.

Elizabeth and Spike stepped back to study the effect.

“Brilliant…” Spike repeated, still in awe.

“Nice,” Elizabeth agreed.

“You can thank me by moving the rest of furniture back inside so I can actually do my problem set,” Anya said with an amused smile on her face before stalking back to her room.

Spike and Elizabeth hurried to move the table and chairs back in before carrying the second mattress into the room together. It fell into place with a final ‘thwump’.

“Whattaya think, luv?” he inquired, studying the two beds that now lay side by side. “Big enough for you?”

“Mmm, it’ll do,” she agreed. “Think we should latch them together just in case?”

“Given the exuberance of our nightly activities ‘m thinkin’ that’s a good idea,” he agreed with a little chuckle.

“Here,” she said, taking one of the cords they’d acquired for this purpose, “I’ll fasten the side by the window. You take this one.”

They worked in silence for a while, only interrupted by the occasional swearword. However, Elizabeth’s final test of bouncing up and down a couple of times where the two beds were tied together succeeded admirably, and she fell back down onto their new double-sized bed happily.

“How’s it feel?” Spike asked curiously, crawling up beside her.

“Mmm…nice…” she murmured contentedly, rolling over so that she was in his arms once more. “Kinda crowds the rest of the room, though,” she pointed out. “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

He chuckled. “’d rather spend all my time here, anyway,” he countered reasonably enough. He bent down to kiss her, and things quickly progressed the way that they always did.

“Mmf, Spike!” She batted him aside when he rolled atop her. “You closed the door, right?”

He groaned in irritation. “Whasit matter?” he retorted petulantly. “No one can see us anyway.” He gestured to the high back of the dresser and desk that now stood between them and the door. “’S a bloody brilliant plan,” he repeated once more before bending over to kiss her again.

She pulled back reluctantly after a few more ardent kisses. “Brilliant, yes,” she agreed. “But there’s no way I’m having sex with you while the door’s wide open.”

With a resigned sigh, Spike left their new makeshift bedroom to properly close the door. “Can’t see a soddin’ thing,” he confirmed.

“Good to know,” Elizabeth agreed, smiling when he once again returned to her. “Now…come to bed…”

More is on its way soon. So review, review, review... ~_^