It was a good morning, as far as Jason was concerned. Dan had been awake when he had gotten up, which saved him calling Anita again. He had the night off of both work and pomme de sang duties so that he could catch up on the classes he had missed. And he’d managed to set up a study session with Willow.

In fact, when he had called her last night, they’d ended up talking for the whole of his break. He’d only hung up, and somewhat reluctantly at that, when he’d had to get back onstage.

It wasn’t as if they had talked about anything significant. ‘Tree-girl’ had just voiced her opinion of the textbook, amazed as to how they could make such an interesting subject so astoundingly bad. And they discussed how they were glad that, so far, Enns seemed to be more entertaining than the book.

The pair had really just made a lot of small talk. Nothing revealing, personal, or meaningful. But it had been nice all the same.

Jason had enjoyed talking to a girl without the end goal being to get into her bed. Or maybe just to survive the conversation, as it was sometimes with Anita.

Not that he would admit it to anyone, but Jason thought that he just might like to have ‘Tree-girl’ as a friend. Not that he would stop flirting with her, mind you. That would just be against his nature. But the blonde thought that being friends with her might be something that he’d find more worthwhile than just having her as a casual fling, like all the others.

So thoughts of Willow, above anything, were what had put him in such a good mood. That and the fact that he was with Dan, meaning that he could enjoy said thoughts in silence.

It was with that thought that Jason realized that the silence was too intense for even Dan. While Dan had never been the talkative one, this quiet was different. Jason could almost feel that there was something weighing heavily on his roommate’s mind.

Jason figured that Dan had gotten a blast from Anita about messing up on the first day. But the roommates hadn’t had a chance to talk about it. By the time Jason had finished work, showered and caught a ride home, it was pretty late.

He’d wanted to talk to Dan, and could have showered at home to make sure he caught the other wolf before he crashed for the night. But the smell of all of the women on him, the customers who had managed to lay hands on him, it was overwhelming. That was one of the reasons that Jean-Claude had installed a number of showers in the back of the club. He understood his staff, and their above average senses.

So, Jason had showered at work, as he did most nights, desperate to give his sensitive nose some relief. It was late enough when Nathaniel dropped him off that he was fairly certain that Daniel would be asleep.

But that hadn’t been the case.

Jason had been surprised to find his roommate not only still awake, but on the phone, having what appeared to be a very intense conversation.

Jason wasn’t really sure, though, as Daniel had hung up almost the moment that the blonde walked through the door. He’d muttered less than ten words to Jason, including a hasty goodnight, before disappearing into his bedroom. Jason had never gotten the chance to ask him about Anita.

Jason thought back to that, and wondered if his roommate had received bad news from home. Was that contributing to his roommate’s quieter than usual mood?

“Hey Dan, what’s up?”

“Up?”

“Yeah, you seem even less chatty than usual, if that’s possible.”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Must have been something.”

“It really was nothing. That the problem. I have nothing to tell Anita.”

Daniel hadn’t learnt anything from talking to Giles. Well, he had, but nothing that he was going to share with Anita.

And nothing relating to the events of the full moon. At least, nothing that could be explained to Anita in any way that she would accept, or understand.

Slayer prophecy dreams. Dan somehow doubted the executioner would buy it.

For a necromancer, locked in a triumvirate with the Ulfric and the Master, who also happened to be the Nimir-Ra, she was awfully skeptical about anything called prophetic.

But of it all, Dan thought that the thing she’d have the most trouble believing, was that she wasn’t the most powerful vampire hunter out there. She wasn’t even number two, what with Faith still alive.

And Anita certainly didn’t hold the record for most slays.

“What does Anita have to do with your phone call?” Jason asked, bringing Dan back to the present.

“Was a friend I thought might be able to help us. Anita wants to know what happened to me at the lupanar.”

“So she did talk to you yesterday. I figured she would. Sorry man, I told her about the lupanar to calm her down. Didn’t want her to shoot you just for sleeping in.”

“It’s cool. I just have nothing to tell her. I don’t know what happened, and neither does Giles.”

“I’ll bet it was nothing. With any luck, something else will come up, and Anita will forget all about it."

Daniel wished that he could agree that it was nothing. But Buffy had dreamt about them. Both of them. Not only him, but Anita, who the Slayer had never met.

And let’s not forget that Buffy was alive to be having the dreams in the first place. Last he had heard, she had died. How would he explain that?

He really needed to keep in better touch with the Scoobies.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” Jason was worried that something big was going down, and he didn’t like it.

It had been less than a month since the last big crisis. Jason knew Belle Morte would show up sometime, but the blonde had wanted a little down time first.

“Just some stuff about old friends. Some tough times. I should make an effort to call home more often.”

“You call your parents often enough, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but . . .” He trailed off, having spoken more during the drive to Jason’s school than he usually did in an entire day.

“They don’t know about old friends,” Jason finished for the other wolf, sensing Dan’s return to his less than verbose self. “Especially old girlfriends?” Daniel didn’t say anything, but Jason could tell that he had hit the mark.

Jason didn’t know how right he was. Former girlfriends were definitely not on the list of topics when he called his parents. Especially not Willow.

And therein lie the problem. He should have been keeping better track of her. So much had changed. She was so different. Powerful. And resurrecting Buffy? But now wasn’t the time to dwell.

“Speaking of girls . . .” Daniel started, knowing that Jason could discuss the subject for hours, and at least for the remainder of the ride.

“You asking me if I met any yesterday?” Dan nodded and Jason continued. “A couple. Hot blonde. Gorgeous brunette I sat next to in anthropology, adorable redhead in the same class.

“Got to love those redheads,” Daniel sighed, a wistful look on his face. “So which one is this?” he asked, fishing a piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans and passing it to Jason. “Whoever she is, her smell reminds me of home.”

Jason took the scrap with Willow’s number, recognizing her smell, very faint, that still clung to the paper. It was faint enough that he hadn’t even noticed it until Dan had pointed it out, making him concious of it. Jason observed that Dan must have had an incredibly over developed sense of smell, even for one of their kind.

“That the redhead?” Daniel asked, both waiting for and dreading the answer.

The number belonged to someone referred to as ‘Tree-girl’, the paper smelled like Willow, and Jason had met an ‘adorable redhead’. It was highly unlikely, but Willow was a type of tree. But if she was in St. Louis, Giles would have told him. Wouldn’t he?

Jason didn’t know why he said what he said next. It might have been the fondness that Dan seemed to have for redheads, or the way he had said that her smell reminded him of home. But all of a sudden, the last thing that Jason wanted to do was to tell his roommate anything about Willow.

“The blonde. Courtney. She sat by the tree where I had lunch. That’s why she wrote that.” Jason pitched his voice into an annoying falsetto. “’Tree-girl’, so you’ll remember how we met!” His voice dropped back to normal. “Epitome of blonde. Maybe I’ll call.” While he said the last, the wolf, who was quite blonde himself at times, slid Willow’s number into his back pocket.

They arrived at their destination, and Jason was suddenly glad to be at school.

“Thanks for the ride, Dan. I’ll call if I need you to come and fetch me.”

As he walked away, Jason asked himself why he had lied to Dan about Willow. It was as if something had told him to keep her a secret. Some instinct. He felt a need to keep her to himself. To protect her from his friends, his world. Or maybe he just didn’t want to lose her to the other man.