Her fish. Bright, shiny, with their cute little overlapping scales, all dead. She stared at them, dangling and twisting in front of her, and didn't move toward the phone where now it lay on the floor. Buffy's voice came out of the earpiece, tinny and high. "Willow? Willow? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she answered, her habitual response so deeply ingrained, except then she realized that Buffy wasn't going to hear her, and besides, her fish weren't alright, and she'd only just gotten them. She imagined them gasping in the unfamiliar oxygen (undiluted by hydrogen, they must have been in such pain), flopping around on the blanket, perhaps, gills straining to cope and drying out so quickly until the fish stopped wriggling. Or had Angelus—it had to be Angelus—strung them through even before they went still?

Willow shook her head and made herself pick up the receiver. "Buffy, he killed my fish!" Her voice sounded whiny in her ears, and if she didn't take a few deep breaths she knew she would start crying. But her pretty, colorful fishies!

In her ear, Buffy was telling her to come over, that it wasn't safe for her to stay there, and she heard herself protesting that it was a school night. But she knew she would go anyway, and her parents weren't home to object.

"I'll run the whole way," she said, and put down the phone. She was still clutching the fish, and she promised them a proper burial when it got light. Can fish turn into vampires? "Don't be silly," she told herself out loud as soon as the thought crossed her mind, but it was unsettling anyway.

Slipping out the front door, before she turned out the light, she failed to notice the extra shadow that was cast on the porch by something that wasn't a pole. Nearly as thin as a pole, but with curves. And then, as she stepped onto the lawn, she heard a noise behind her, and Drusilla stood between her and her escape back into the house. She was hugging a small puppy in her arms.

"Want a bite?" Drusilla looked deadly serious as she stretched the puppy out towards Willow. "But you couldn't possibly, I'm saving it for my Spike. He needs his strength back, the nasty crushing ceiling took it all away." She took a step, and Willow took a step backwards. "So pretty, with your burning burning sunshine hair, but it doesn't hurt me. Don't run away." There was something so entrancing about Drusilla's eyes, their deep blue irises that she nearly fell into as she stared. Drusilla reached out a hand to stroke Willow's hair. "I wanted to give you the puppy as a present, but Angelus said I couldn't, and it's for Spike. Angelus gave you fish, instead, I stood and watched but the window wouldn't open for me. Did you like your pretty fish?" Full red lips smiling over polished white teeth. Willow shuddered with something more than dread, feeling the hand smooth her hair over her neck, again, again. The puppy whimpered, and Willow unthinkingly put a hand up to soothe it. She'd wanted a puppy, and her parents had given her fish. Pretty, pretty fish that danced in their little aquarium, nibbling their little fish pellets, writhing, writhing their little bodies as a needle pierced their tender flesh.

"I could give you to Spike, instead," Drusilla told her. "And then you could have the puppy. Would you like a puppy, Sunshine?" The puppy licked her hand. "The sun would never dance for you again, but I can see it, I can feel it. Terrible, terrible sunshine, oh, how it hurts when it smiles. The fish were dancing in the moonlight, it made them so silver and pretty." The crooning of Drusilla's voice wrapped around Willow, soothed her and stroked her, but her heart was hammering still. With fear? With longing? Somehow, she couldn't tell, it didn't matter, whatever Drusilla wanted with her. And then the puppy wriggled in Drusilla's arms to get down, like a fish, like a little wriggly fish, and the vampire turned her swift attention to it, uttered a little growling bark that made the puppy stop and stare at her in astonishment. And suddenly Willow was free, and oh, how she ran. The whole way to Buffy's house, and her heart never slowed down until she was inside.