It's only a matter of time.

I look at the ceiling and just let my eyes wander as shapes start to form in the little groves and imperfections in it.

There's no way they're going to be able to keep this up forever. They just don't have it in them. They're too worried about hurting each other or me. It's too easy to get them to turn on each other. At some point they're going to have to let me out. Otherwise they'll tear each other apart and I'll get out anyway. But either way, I get out and will find a way to make it all better for them. I can make them better so that doesn't happen anymore. All they have to do is let me.

The door opens and I don't even bother looking up right away because I don't really care who it is. After a long silence, she finally speaks.

"Dawn?"

Oh, it's her. I was right not to bother to look.

"Are you all right Dawn?"

Her question makes me sigh.

She's obviously not going to go away if I just ignore her.

"I'm fine."

"Really? Because that's not what I hear."

I can't help but chuckle.

"Well, you've always been pretty slow. But, you know, what do you expect from a stuck up rich girl?"

There's a long silence in the room.

"What? You don't have some rich girl advice for me? Or maybe a slayer rich girl's advice? Is that different from regular slayer advice? Because regular slayer advice isn't really going that well."

"You think I'm here to give you advice?"

She's not?

"Well everyone else has been so quick to try and fix me. I figured..."

"I'm not."

That's interesting... maybe this might actually be fun then.

I lift my head up just barely enough to look at Kennedy for a moment, then drop it back to looking at the ceiling.

"Okay, then why are you here?"

"To show you."

Ooh, I'm getting a show?

I sit up with a smile on my face.

"I'm always up for a show. What kinda show?"

She frowns at me.

"Not that kind of show."

"That's too bad. I was kinda hoping for a strip tease or something. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, don't you? Since you're running out of time and all. Might as well be me that benefits from it."

"Running out of time? For what?"

She's making this way too easy.

"Before Willow realizes what a colossal mistake she's made and finally leaves you. You're going to have to find someone else to leech off of. When you said you were going to show me something, I figured you'd finally realized it for yourself and wanted to see if I would let you leech off me for a while. Which I'm actually not opposed to. Provided I get something out of it, like a good show."

She watches me for a moment before responding.

"Sorry, not gonna happen."

That makes me roll my eyes before throwing myself back to the floor to stare back at the ceiling.

"Too bad, it's kinda boring in here. I could've used a good show, and I know how you slayers like to stay in shape."

"I'm here to show you that I'm not afraid of you."

Oh goody, one of these.

"No?"

"And that I know what you're doing."

Wow...

"Well, I'm being so subtle about it. I'm glad that you're picking up on all the nuances in what I say."

"I won't let you do it."

God she's being so obvious.

"Do what?"

"Tear people apart. Make them fight each other over you and what to do with you."

"Oh they don't need my help with that. They're going to do a great job all by themselves... especially thanks to you."

"Me?"

"Well, yeah..."

I shift on the ground so I can look at her more clearly while still laying down.

"I mean, look at you, coming in here giving me your tough girl act. Trying to make me out to be the bad guy and how you're going to stop me. It's adorable."

She shifts into a defensive stance, crossing her arms over her chest as she looks at me.

She does have a pretty nice chest. Too bad she didn't want to show it to me.

"You think so, do you?"

"Yup, I mean, what do you think Willow would feel if she knew you'd threatened me like you just did? Do you think she'd be happy about it?"

She doesn't respond to that. I sit up to make sure she's paying attention.

"After all, wasn't she the big scary at one point? Trying to destroy the world? How do you think she'd feel about you saying that the proper way to deal with people like her is to kill them?"

Despite her tough girl attitude, it cracks for a moment at my questions, making her look away from me.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

I lie back down and stare up at the ceiling.

"Like I said, you don't need my help to fall apart. You're going to do that all by yourselves. All I have to do is wait."

Her voice gets much less commanding as she speaks.

"I'll... I'll stop you."

"Very convincing. I'm definitely scared now."

There's a long silence before I hear her starting to walk back towards the door.

"Nice to see you again, although it would've been better if I saw more. Thanks for coming."

She opens the door and leaves.

They really are doing all the work for me.