"Honestly, I'll be fine." Giles looked up at Tara and Willow, his face as composed as ever.

"Are you sure?" Willow asked, again. "I know you're not *really* four. But... you are awfully small. What if.. if.. something falls and you can't pick it up? Or someone comes to the door, or if someone calls and wants to talk to your parents?"

Giles looked at them patiently. "If something falls and I can't pick it up, I'll leave it there. But honestly, what do I have in here that's heavy enough that I couldn't pick it up, aside from the furniture? And obviously I won't answer the door or the telephone, unless it's one of you lot. I *do* have an answering machine."

"Yes, but it's still blinking 12:00," Tara teased. Actually, she couldn't see it to tell *what* it was blinking, buried as it was under a stack of books and papers.

"No, that's his VCR. His answering machine still says 'Hello. Insert your name here is not at home. Please leave a message.' " Willow shot back.

"I can still hear whoever's calling." Giles narrowed his eyes. On his four-year-old face it looked adorable.

Willow must have had the same thought, because she reached out and patted his head. "Sorry, I can't help myself." She giggled as Giles sighed.

"Why don't we, um, stay for a bit, and make sure he'll be OK?" Tara suggested.

"Fine, stay if you like -- but at 8 o'clock I'm chucking you all out. You're warned." Giles headed towards the kitchen.

"What happens at 8?" Buffy asked from where she was bouncing on the couch.

"Passions' documentary is on!" Spike yelled. "We have to stay -- or be home by eight."

"That is *not*--" Giles called back from the kitchen.

"Relax, vamplet. We've set the VCR," Xander told Spike.

"Who're you calling vamplet, you... humanoid!"

Xander frowned. "Okay, you realize that wasn't actually an insult?"

Spike stuck out his tongue, Xander dove for him, and Willow plopped down on the couch between them. "Do I have to separate you two? Really?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "I wasn't gonna *do* anything to him."

"I was more worried about the furniture. And the lamps. And the books..."

Tara followed Giles into the kitchen. Not that she was checking up on him or anything, she was just... checking up on him. She found him standing precariously on the kitchen counter, trying to reach up to the top shelf. She stood behind him, watching for a moment.

"Bloody hell." Giles lowered his hand and began looking around.

"Need some help?" Tara asked. "Because you look a little...short, to reach the bag of tea you keep stashed on the top shelf."

"I was not--" Giles began. "Would you be so kind as to get it down for me?"

Tara looked at him, looked at the tea, then looked at him again. She reached up and got the tea down, but held it in her hands. Looked at Giles.

Who sighed. "Fine. I'm too small to fix my own bloody tea. I'll come home with you. But I am *not* wearing footie pajamas and I am *not* going to bed at seven."

"Agreed. We don't have any footie pajamas, anyway." She waited until he had preceded her out of the kitchen before leaning down and whispering "Seven-thirty."

"I heard that!" Giles turned around and gave her the sternest glare a four-year-old could possibly give. "I am *not* a child, no matter how much I may look like one, and I am perfectly capable of staying up until midnight if I wish."

She raised a hand. "You know best. As always."

He glared again. "I'm also old enough to recognize when people are quoting Mary Poppins at me, thank you." He proceeded into the living room, the most middle-aged preschooler she had ever seen.

Tara just smiled, and Willow and Dawn giggled. Spike, Buffy, and Xander were too busy trying to see who could bounce the highest.

********

"They're *adorable*," Willow whispered as softly as she could.

"You said that already," Tara whispered back. But she was smiling.

"Five times, actually," Dawn added in a whisper of her own. The three were standing in the living room, staring at four young children fast asleep on the couch.

Willow giggled. "We should have gotten footie pajamas. And a camera."

"We would've had to drug Giles before he'd put them on," Tara said.

"But I have a camera," Dawn added, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "It's on the bookshelf over there. Even has film in it."

Willow and Tara looked at each other. "It would be very bad," Willow whispered.

Five minutes later, they were starting their second roll of film.

"Okay, I think we've gotten as many different angles of Spike sucking his thumb as we can," Tara said, finally. "We should really put them to bed. It can't be good for them all to sleep on the couch."

"Hmm." Willow looked at the four, and considered. "There's only three beds. Dawn's, Buffy's, and-- um, Joyce's."

"Buffy can sleep with me," Dawn said. "And you and Tara in mom's room, leaves Buffy's bed for Spike, Xander and Giles. It'll be big enough, won't it?"

Willow shook her head. "You don't know Xander. He's the 'take the entire bed and then some' type. He'll have Spike and Giles kicked out of bed in half an hour."

"But, doesn't he, I mean, he's used to..." Tara stopped, and blushed.

"All right. We'll put them in together, but if Giles wakes up first tomorrow morning, *you* are explaining it to him."

Dawn picked up Buffy, easily, and stood there, just holding the sleeping girl. "You know, she used to carry me around like this."

Willow had lifted Xander into her arms, and was rearranging him as he snuggled sleepily against her shoulder. "It's weird, I know." Weirder that Dawn remembered something that Buffy probably remembered too, and it hadn't really happened. But she didn't say it, and Dawn didn't say it, and Tara had already carried Giles into Buffy's bedroom, so *she* certainly didn't say it. Willow passed her girlfriend on the stairs a moment later, as she came back empty-handed for Spike. "Adorable?"

"Tucked in with the covers pulled up to his chin."

Willow took Xander into the bedroom. "Well, Xander, this is your chance to sleep in Buffy's bed." She laid him down gently in the middle of the bed, under the blankets. He was as sound asleep as she'd ever seen him -- so she leaned over and kissed the top of his head. She moved aside as Tara brought Spike in, who was asleep as well, but tossing a bit in her arms, and muttering. He quieted as soon as he was laid down on the other side of Xander, whom he immediately grabbed and cuddled like a teddy bear.

Willow and Tara stood there for a moment. Then Willow began, "Oh, we need--"

"This?" Dawn asked, holding the camera over Willow's shoulder.

"How much film do we have?"

"We can buy more. It's only seven o'clock."

***********

"Oh, God, what time is it?" Dawn yawned. "I've still gotta get up for school in the morning." They had been sitting on the couch, mostly getting silly about how cute the pseudo-kids looked. They'd been talking a little, too, about what it might be like to have kids of their own, and how if they were anything like Spike and Xander, they might just want to babysit for the rest of their lives, and stick to cats and goldfish.

"It's eleven-fifteen. Yeah, I suppose we should get to bed. Especially if we're gonna be up at the hour that *those* bodies are probably gonna wake up." Willow stood and stretched.

"You think they're really wake up early? Even Xander?" Tara asked.

Willow paused in her stretch, and faced her girlfriend. "Tara, when Xander was four, he would show up at my window at five o'clock in the morning."

"Oh." Tara looked upstairs. "Maybe we should have gone to bed earlier."

"Hey, I still have some film. Should we go check on them?" Dawn asked, with a mischievous smile.

"I think we should." Willow nodded, and led the other two towards the stairs. "For their own...safety."

The sight that greeted them was enough to make Willow overjoyed that she'd just *happened* to bring the camera upstairs with her. Buffy was asleep against the wall in Dawn's bed. There were three little figures in the bed acros the hall. Xander in the middle, flat on his back, taking up as much of the space as possible. Spike curled up next to him, still hugging him like a giant-size Winnie-the-Pooh. Pretty much the sight they'd seen the last time they left the room, except that on the other side, the half-pint Giles was doing exactly the same thing.

"We're gonna need more film," Dawn whispered. Willow just kept taking photos.

************

Rupert woke up last -- as usual. He hated it; he'd much rather be the first one awake so he could extricate himself with some semblance of dignity. It would have helped had he *known* why he snuggled up in his sleep. But he didn't. He had no idea. He didn't even *like* Xander that way.

He tried to tell himself he was offering support to the young man..er...other four-year-old. But that didn't account for Spike, on Xander's other side. Xander didn't need any more support than an octopus-limbed vampire. Who was currently grinning at Rupert, over a grinning Xander's shoulder.

"All right, get on with it." Rupert sighed. Three mornings in a row, now, he'd had to deal with....

"Get on with what?" Spike smarmed. "*I* wasn't gonna say anything. Were *you* gonna say anything, Xan?" Silent back-and-forth shake of a grinning face. "Nah, didn't think so. I mean, you want to share the fun, Rupes, be my guest. Not like Anya would care, long as we got pics. Hell, we had a bigger bed, I bet she would've invit--"

"Yes, all right, very funny, that's enough." Rupert carefully pulled his left arm out from under Xander, who gave him a pouting face that he would probably have found irresistible if he were his own age, looking at a real four-year-old. As it was, he had the bizarre urge to smack Xander on the head with a pillow.

Not that it was an uncontrollable urge. It was just there, somewhere beneath the surface.

"Not leaving already, are you?" Spike said, in an almost perfectly-guileless tone. "Because we can still--"

Rupert had been scooting towards the edge of the bed. He stopped, and turned to face Spike. "Stop. Stop it right there. Spike, you are four years old and you are not having sex. And if you are, you are not doing it with me in the same bed, the same room, or even the same bloody house."

Spike and Xander blinked at him. Then Xander asked Spike, "You were right! He didn't hear us."

"Excuse me?" Rupert stared at them.

"A few months ago, we--"

"No, I didn't ask, I don't want to know I am NOT LISTENING!" He pushed himself off the bed and ran for the door.

He could still hear the giggling behind him as he made his way cautiously down the stairs. Ever since the first time he had tried to take them at his usual speed and almost tumbled from the landing to the living room, he'd been quite careful about climbing down, while still trying to look as if he *wasn't* being consciously careful.

And if he took his time concentrating on the stairs, he didn't have to think about where or when Spike and Xander might have done whatever it was that he didn't want to know and hadn't been listening to. When he got to the foot of the stairway, he looked up, finally, to find Willow sitting on the couch. "Hey! Morning, Giles. You want breakfast?"

"Thank you, Willow, I can manage." He headed towards the kitchen, though he should have known better. They hadn't let him try to make his own meals since the first morning after, when he'd dropped the milk. He had grabbed it with one hand, and been shocked to find it so *heavy*. Buffy had demonstrated proper 'strength of a four-year-old two-handed carry'...before lifting a twenty pound bag of potatoes with one hand to get it out of the way of the spilled milk.

"Oh, I don't mind," Willow was saying as she passed him. "You want cereal? Because I can make toast and eggs, too."

Rupert sighed, and made his way to the barstool at the kitchen counter. "Cereal will be fine." He pulled the stool out, and started to climb -- and Willow picked him up and plopped him on the chair.

"Oops." She smiled guiltily at his expression. "Sorry, I just saw you, and thought, well I didn't think, I just...well, you're short now, and I, um... cereal, you said?"

He nodded.

"Huh. Fruity pebbles, Captain Crunch, or Cocoa Puffs?"

"Do we have nothing that neither snaps, crackles, pops, nor comes with a secret decoder ring?"

Willow shook her head. "You finished off the Cinnamon Life yesterday, and that's the only thing Buffy and Dawn have in the house that comes remotely close to grown-up cereal. Unless you want instant oatmeal?"

"Yes, that would be fine."

"Milk?" she asked. Rupert rolled his eyes.

"I may *look* four, but I assure you, I will do fine with coffee. Or tea."

Willow gave him a measuring look. "I don't think I want to see a four-year-old Giles jacked up on caffeine."

Rupert gave her a measuring look right back. "And I don't particularly care to see a grown witch turned into a frog. But I will, if I must."

"Giles, for shame. Resorting to threats? Why don't you just ask her to make some tea?" Tara came into the kitchen, and went over to the stove and picked up the kettle. Willow was giving her girlfriend a dirty glare, for picking Rupert's side.

He, of course, knew that it was decaffeinated herbal tea -- and Tara knew that he knew, but she was playing along. Or perhaps he was playing along.

"I *know* he's a grown-up, but he still has a four-year-old body, you know," Willow said, a bit reprovingly.

Tara smiled. "And it's not *really* gonna stunt his growth over the next two weeks if we let him have a few grown-up pleasures. Relax, sweetheart. Sit down and eat your own breakfast--you have a class to get to in an hour."

"Are you sure? I can skip," she looked worriedly over at Rupert, doing a terrible job of pretending she wasn't looking at him and thinking about leaving Tara and Dawn home alone with four kids.

"Yes, because without you here, we might destroy the house. Like we've done every day since actually *being* four. Willow, go to class." Giles accepted a mug of steeping tea from Tara. "Thank you."

Willow glanced at Tara, question on her face. Tara opened her mouth -- but what they all heard was, "BANZAI!"

*********

"I guess they found the cardboard," Tara observed as they reluctantly left Giles in the kitchen to fend for himself while they investigated the newest emergency.

"I thought we threw it out!" Willow headed for the stairs, Tara on her heels. There they found Xander and a large piece of cardboard in a pile at the foot of the stairs.

"Um..." He looked up innocently at them. "Ow?"

Willow looked up the stairs, and sure enough-- "William the Bloody, don't you *dare* toboggan down those stairs again!"

Spike shrugged-- then quickly jumped feet-first onto the piece of cardboard he'd just dropped onto the floor. "Gangway, then!"

She grabbed him halfway down the stairs, just as he was about to be launched headfirst past the last four steps and probably get airborne in time to smash his head against the lower landing wall. "What?" he grumbled as she carried him down the remaining steps under one arm. "You didn't say anything about snowboarding!"

"I swear, you're acting more like a four-year-old than normal. Which for you -- you *two*, Xander Harris, get back here when I'm scolding you! -- is saying a lot!"

Xander froze, then snuck back to stand beside Willow. As soon as she set Spike down to scold him further, Xander grabbed him by the neck. "You can't yell at us! We're adults and can do as we like. Even if it means breaking Spike's neck."

"Oi! Speak for yourself," Spike wriggled. Xander didn't let go -- which meant Spike wasn't wriggling very hard. Willow glared at them both, regardless.

Xander gave her a slightly more reasonable look. "Come on, Will, it's not like there's anything Spike can do to really hurt himself. Aside from playing with fire. Or holy water. Or pointy sticks. Or...um..."

"Sunlight," Buffy supplied from the top of the stairs.

"Right, and what's your excuse, Xan? You're little, your bones are little, you could go smoosh-crunch just like... Buffy, for God's sake!" Willow planted herself in the middle of the bottom step, waiting to catch a certain little girl with long brownish hair who was even now slide-thumping her way down, butt plastered against a third piece of cardboard.

"Ow!" Xander screamed behind Willow, and she turned, taking a step towards him reflexively. She found him grinning at her and calling out, "Who-hoo! Go, Buffster!"

Willow turned around again to find Buffy at the bottom of the stairs, lying on her side with the cardboard still firmly clasped in her hands. "I'm going to class. Then I'm going to the library. *Then* I'm going...somewhere. For mochas. I'm not coming home until you four are *in* *bed*."

"All in the *same* bed?" Spike grinned cheekily. "Cos... er... not that it's ever been a fantasy of mine or anything..."

"Eew!" Buffy whapped him with her cardboard. "Leave me out of your icky sex fantasies, please. Or at least don't tell me I'm in them." She whapped Xander over the head, too.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"It's fun?"

Whap. Anti-whap. Et cetera. Willow stalked out of the living room, letting the cardboard fight progress as it would. There wasn't much in that half of the room that they could damage, anyway.

She could hear the giggling, and ignored it as she went into the kitchen, gave Tara a kiss, collected her school bag, gave Tara a kiss, glared at Giles because he was there, and gave Tara a kiss before leaving out the back door.

*****
Part 4:

Giles and Tara looked towards the sounds emanating from the living room. "You know what's remarkable," Giles remarked after a moment, sounding much older than his appearance for once. "They actually get along better *now* than before."

"Why don't you go...." Tara began, nodding towards the lively noises.

Giles managed to look put off. "I think not, Tara," he said gently. He couldn't seem to resist glancing in that direction again, however, before turning around and resuming eating his oatmeal.

"Okay. It's *your* second childhood," she teased.

"I am *not* senile," he said calmly, without looking up from his bowl. "I'm merely under a spell."

She wisely refrained from pushing the subject, going instead to make sure the war of the cardboard hadn't spread to the more dangerous bric-a-brac zones. "I don't suppose you guys want to do something nice and quiet?" she asked the three ruffled, red-faced individuals in the living room. "Like, say, clean the basement?"

"You want to trust them alone in the basement? With power tools?" Buffy pointed out. Xander and Spike giggled.

"Well, then, you could go...no, you can't go outside, can you." She thought for a moment. "I suppose you could help me practice a spell."

Xander and Spike leapt into the air. "Yes! We wanna help! We wanna help! "

"Er, without Willow?" Xander added.

Tara narrowed her eyes, then smiled as innocently as she could manage. "I'm trying to learn how to turn people into frogs, like Mr. Giles can do."

Spike gave Xander a look. " I get the feeling Goldilocks thinks we're major suckers, or something."

Xander pointed to Spike. "I volunteer him for the first casting!"

Buffy shook her head. "That won't work. He's not people."

Spike stuck his tongue out at her, and vamped out at the same time, so he was waggling it between pointed teeth. Xander giggled. Then giggled some more.

Tara smiled, then placed her hand in front of her mouth. Buffy walked up to Spike and said "Aw! Innit he cute!" She patted Spike on the head.

Spike growled, and glared at each of them, which only made them smile and giggle more. "Oh, for cripey's sake," Spike muttered, and stomped into the kitchen.

The small harrumph of laughter from Giles probably didn't improve his mood.

"I'm hungry...." came the growl, in a four-year-old Cockney accent. "I want blood..."

"He sounds like those kindergartners from Halloween," Buffy giggled.

Xander looked at her a little nervously. "The ones from *this* Halloween? Or Halloween of our Junior year?"

She shrugged. "Either/or. Pint-Sized Demons 'R Us. C'mon. I wanna see him try to drink blood from a sippy cup again."

Xander gave her a mild glare as he let her drag him along to the kitchen, Tara following. They walked in and found Giles watching with amusement as Spike climbed up the chair that he'd dragged over to the cabinets where the mugs were kept. Buffy giggled. "You shouldn't tease Spike, you know," Xander told her.

Buffy gave him an incredulous look. "Are you kidding?"

Xander shrugged, and went over to hold the chair as Spike continued on his quest for a mug. "Found it! She hid the Gossamer one in the back!" Spike pulled a large orange mug out of the cabinet.

It wasn't *really* a sippy cup. But it *was* pretty much impossible to spill from. Spike yanked the refrigerator door open, and grabbed a bag of blood from one of the lower shelves. Then glared at all and sundry. "Anybody gonna try to tell me I'm not allowed to play with *these* sharp objects?" he asked, snapping his teeth shut on the edge of the bag and ripping the corner off.

"No," Tara replied, "but if you spill it on the floor again, I'm gonna make you clean it up. Pour it over the sink."

"Can't *reach* the bloody sink," Spike grumbled.

"Then give it to somebody who can." She pulled the bag carefully from his grasp, poured it into the mug--over the unbloody sink--then put the mug in the microwave. Spike glared at her, then, his attention arrested by the Fruity Pebbles on the table, slithered into a chair next to Giles.

"And gimmie a spoon, too," he demanded.

Tara stopped in mid-step, and folded her arms. For a moment she felt like Willow. "You can reach the silverware drawer, Spike."

But Xander had gone over and gotten two spoons out, as well as a bowl for himself, out of the dish washer. He carried them over to the counter, set them next to Spike, then returned to the fridge for the milk. Tara started to help him with the gallon jug, but he had it firmly in both hands. By the time the microwave beeped, he'd got himself up on the stool between Spike and Buffy and was making his bowl of cereal.

Tara brought the mug of warmed blood over, and Spike promptly poured Fruity Pebbles into it.

"Oh, that's disgusting," Giles said.

"Says a man who spreads yeast extract on toast," Spike shot back. "At least mine has entertaining colors."

"Yes, I've always based my nutritional choices on how attractive the meal would look splattered against a wall," Giles agreed dryly. Well, he was obviously trying for dry, but there was a bit of a pouting sound to it, as if the four-year-old larynx just wasn't made to *do* dry.

"Well, the blood's the nutritional part, for him," Xander pointed out, crunching happily into his own cereal-and-milk, unperturbed by Spike's meal sitting next to him. Then again, he was used to it. "The cereal's just for..."

"Texture. I remember." Giles shuddered.

Spike opened his mouth to show Giles a mouthful of partially-chewed, brightly colored cereal.

"Appearance," Xander finished.

"Yes, remind me again why I don't eat breakfast with you two more often?"

"Cos' you're sexually repressed, and you won't take Anya up on her offer of a swing-night?" Spike suggested while still crunching.

Giles spit his tea out all the way across the counter. Tara grabbed a towel, and Spike and Xander looked at him like he should have been expecting that. "I think I'm going to go to the shop, and get some work done on the inventory," he said, setting his cup down and sliding off the barstool. "Er, that is, Tara, if you don't mind driving me...."

"Maybe we should all go?" she asked. "I don't think I should leave Buffy, Spike, and Xander here alone."

"Yes, you should!" Spike countered. "We'll be good, we promise."

Spike and Xander gave Tara their best innocent us faces. Buffy looked up from the donut she was blissfully attacking, Spike hissed at her, "Look innocent!"

She looked surprised for a second, then turned an equally 'innocent me' face towards Tara.

Tara blanched. "I'm afraid. I have fear. I am a frightened person. And you are all coming along. Or we're all staying here."

"Why d'you want us along, if we scare you," Spike asked reasonably. Pseudo-reasonably.

"*You* don't scare me. The thought of what you could do unsupervised scares me."

"Oh, come on. We're not *really* kids. And this *is* my house-- it's not like I'm gonna let 'em demolish it," Buffy protested.

"Who got the cardboard out of the basement?" Tara asked.

Buffy bit her bottom lip before answering, "Spike?"

"I did not!" Spike retorted immediately. "I was trying to sit and read and be good, and *you* came running up all 'hey, let's play on the stairs like I haven't done since I was five the first time'."

"Yeah, but this time I--" Buffy stopped. Bit her lip again, and Tara instinctively took a step towards her. Buffy half-smiled. "Mom used to get mad at me for doing it."

There was a silence that no one seemed to know how or whether to break. Then Xander said, "I used to get yelled at, too. I didn't use cardboard, though. I had a dinner tray that my dad had broken."

Spike looked up from his crunching. "You slid down the *basement* stairs? Onto *concrete* ?"

Xander shrugged defensively. "I put the couch cushions at the bottom."

"I'm not surprised you got yelled at," Tara said. "You could've broken your skull."

"S'pect that lot were more worried about the concrete," Spike mumbled into his cereal.

Xander grinned. "I *do* have a pretty hard head."

"Not what I meant," Spike said even more quietly. When he'd actually swallowed his food, he perked up. "Fine. So we go to the magic shop. Not as if we can't have just as much fun there..."

"That is *not* why we're going. We're going so Mr. Giles can do inventory. We're not going to have fun." Tara paused, and looked at Giles. "I mean...if you *like* doing inventory...."

"That's all right, Tara. I don't. But I appreciate the thought." Giles began looking around the kitchen.

"Um, can we help?" Tara asked after a moment when he didn't find whatever he was looking for.

"Lose something?" Buffy asked, unhelpfully.

"If it's your mind, I'm sure we have an extra one. Buffy isn't using hers." Spike took another bite of his cereal, in time to get walloped by the tiny Slayer. "Hey! You make me choke on my cereal, and I'll.. um.. choke. Really hard."

"Which, since you don't breathe, would pretty much just be for the purpose of entertaining us?" Buffy pointed out. "Get a life. So to speak. What are you looking for, Giles?"

"My...er..." he trailed off, continuing to look -- under the table, in the below-counter cupboards...

Spike continued to look completely innocent.

"Giles?"

At last he stood up, to his full three and a half feet. "My shoes?"

"Your shoes?" Buffy repeated. Then she turned to Spike and Xander. "Xander. Where are Giles' shoes?"

Xander blinked. "Why aren't you asking the evil undead guy? He does things like steal shoes, break VCR remotes, and leave empty cans of beer in the fridge."

"Because I'm asking you. Where are they?"

Buffy glared. Giles glared at Xander, as well. Xander tried pouting, but it really didn't work as well on fellow four-year-olds. "Fine. They're in the bedroom under the bed."

"Thank you," Giles said with a tone of long-suffering. "Er, which bedroom?"

"Ours," he said, and smiled when Giles blushed faintly and left the kitchen.

Tara shook her finger at Xander. "You really shouldn't tease him like that. You used to blush just as hard."

"Yeah, but that was before the bookends of bluntness double-teamed me. With both Spike and Anya around, I either had to get over it or resign myself to losing all feeling in any other parts of my body besides my face," Xander replied cheerfully.

Tara frowned, slightly, about to ask exactly what he meant. Then *she* felt herself blushing, and turned away. "Um, does, um anyone still need breakfast?"

Xander raised his hand. He waited patiently until Tara looked at him. "I am in need of coffee."

Tara was confused. "I didn't know you drank coffee. Um, I thought...you drank sodas?"

Xander looked innocent as he said, "I meant for Giles."

"Oh. Well, okay, I guess. He'll drink instant, won't he?" She reached for the jar on the counter. "Otherwise we'll never get out of here."

"Oh, yeah. This early in the morning, he'll drink dishwater." Xander looked guiltily towards the ceiling. "Not that I've ever substituted that for anybody's Earl Grey in the middle of a research all-nighter."

Tara paused. "Xander? Why do you want me to give you Giles' coffee?"

Xander looked up at her with all the elfin angelic innocence a four-year-old Xander could muster. Fortunately for Tara, she'd been exposed to Willow for long enough to be partially immune. She looked sternly at him. "Xander? I don't think you have Giles' best interests in mind."

"How can you *say* that?" Spike objected around a mouthful of cereal. "Here the lad is all eager to show how much he cares for-- oh, nevermind."

Giles came into the kitchen with his shoes. "Giles, did you by any chance want some coffee?" Tara asked, one eyebrow lifted.

He stopped in the act of pulling his left shoe tight with its Velcro fastening, and looked up at her. "Er... coffee?"

"Xander thought you might like some. He was even going to take it to you himself."

Giles looked at Xander. "Really. Isn't that thoughtful of you. Almost makes me sorry I ever told your English teachers about the papers you copied from someone else's homework."

Xander stood there for a moment, gaping. Spike smirked, though it wasn't clear whose bit of evil he was proud of. Then Xander started yelling. "I never cheated! More than once! And besides how did you know and you *told* on me?!?"

Giles simply looked smug, and asked Tara, "Are we almost ready to go?"

Xander leaned over to Spike. "Are you sure you didn't turn him? I remember you saying you wanted to suck on his--"

"Xander!" Tara said quickly.

"Well, that too," Spike agreed.

She threw up her hands. "Yes, we're ready to go. Oh, please, let us be ready to go."

"I'm ready!" Buffy called out, loudly.

"I'm ready!" called Xander, equally loudly.

Spike looked at his bowl of cereal, then looked at Xander's. He picked up each bowl one at a time, and slurped as fast as he could. "OK, I'm ready," he said, still munching cereal.

Tara sighed. "Thank goodness. All right, everyone's, let's go." She began herding them towards the door.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Xander announced.

************

"Let me down! Mrrmpph rhmph frryum!" Tara rolled her eyes and set the struggling contents of the blanket down on the countertop at the Magic Box. It changed shape several times until a pouty-faced Spike finally appeared from within its folds, hair sticking out in every direction.

"Did Spikey not like his blankey-ride?" Buffy asked, quietly pulling on his dangling shoestring.

He kicked out at her lightly, then grasped his head. "Ow!" It didn't improve his hairstyle.

"I want a blankey-ride!" Xander pouted, and grabbed the blanket Spike was still sitting on. He pulled, and tugged, and Spike began sliding towards the edge of the counter.

"Watch it!" Spike snapped, and tried to scoot backwards. Xander pulled again, and Buffy giggled and gave Spike's shoestring a yank, as well. Spike came crashing down off the counter, onto Buffy and Xander.

Tara sighed.

"I will be in my office," Giles said calmly, pretending not to notice the wrestling match that had broken out on the shop's floor.

"Are you guys about finished?" she asked a few minutes later, as the game of Twister-without-a-board slowly ground to a halt. It had taken them half an hour just to get out of the house, because a similar not-really-fight had broken out over who got to wrap Spike up in the blanket in the first place.

Xander because he was used to it, or Buffy because she could pretend to be smothering him.

"Er..." Spike pulled an arm out of the pile of limbs, and luckily for all concerned, it was attached to him. "Yeah. S'pose so. Was getting boring, really. No fun feeling the Slayer up when you don't get any enjoyment out of it."

"Ew!" From Buffy, of course.

Then a whap from Xander. "I"m gonna tell Anya--" Spike gave him a bewildered, 'what will that do?' look. Xander continued, "That you did it when she wasn't here to see." Then Xander was scrambling out of Spike's way, and another wrestling game began, interspersed this time with bouts of 'tag' and target practice.

Tara went to Giles' office. He was sitting at his desk, kneeling in his chair and bent over a large book. He looked up as she entered, and his face for a moment bore the same studious expression the elder Giles always had. "Yes, Tara?"

"Are you *sure* it'll be two whole weeks?"

There was a shriek and laughter, then "Look out!" from Buffy. A moment later there was a crash.

Neither Tara nor Giles moved.

A moment after that, Spike yelled, "I didn't do it!"

"If it's any consolation," Giles said kindly, "it'll *seem* like much longer than two weeks."

She stared at him for a while, then burst into laughter. "Oh..ha... oh. Wow. Heh. Okay, am I the *only* one who's noticed that those three are having way too much fun pretending to be kids?"

"No. Trust me, you're not the only one." He looked so terribly serious, kneeling there in his chair. He kept reaching for his face, to push back the glasses he wasn't wearing.

"So how come you're not joining in the fun? Taking advantage of it while you can, and all."

He barely glanced at her. "Because I am not, in fact, four years old."

Tara frowned a little. "But, you could...you know. Have fun. No one will know you aren't really four."

"*I* know I'm not four, Tara. Thank you, really, I appreciate what you're saying. But it isn't necessary."

From the shop, they heard, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Monster!!" from Xander.

From Buffy they heard, "I am *not* a monster!"

"Yes you are, you're a hair-pulling, cookie-stealing monster."

Tara glanced out the door. "Where did they get cookies?"

"I believe they got them from the cookie jar, where such things are usually stored."

"And the fact that the cookie jar is on top of the fridge didn't have anything to do with Xander's sudden need to run back into the kitchen to find his lost sock, with Spike's expert tracking skills."

"They're quite resourceful," Giles paused, and half-grinned, "Children. I sometimes think I would get Buffy to train harder and better if I hid chocolate in the training room."

"There's chocolate in the training room?" Two tiny faces peered around the office door. "Chocolate?" Buffy repeated.

"I heard him say chocolate. You said chocolate." Xander repeated.

"There is no--" Giles began. Then he blinked. "If I told you where it was, it wouldn't be hidden, would it?" Two loud squeals, and the two pint-sized adults ran off -- towards the training room.

"Was that nice?" Tara asked him.

"Am I required to be nice?" Giles asked. "It'll keep them in a relatively safe environment for a while, anyway. There's nothing in there that can be broken by even a full-size Slayer."

Tara stared at him, wondering when the last time he'd actually dealt with *real* children had been.

"Would you like to make a bet on that?"

In the distance, they could hear Spike shouting, "All right, who took the screwdriver?"

"No," Giles answered.

*****