Click.

The vase landed on the floor with a loud *clang*, disturbing the silence that lasted for whole grand forty seconds.

Fred looked up from her writing, just to see pout forming on Dawn's lips, who at least had the grace to try and look apologetic.

"Sorry," she offered.

"It's okay," Fred moved to pick up the glass and tulips.

The younger girl looked down at her for a moment, then with a heavy sigh she must have spend hours practicing, she kneeled next to Fred.

"I don't need a baby-sitter, you know?"

Fred nodded. "And I don't need anyone to look after me so I don't cut my wrists with the first.. sharp... thing..." she gave a particularly big shard of glass a speculative look. "That I can find."

This time the silence was slightly longer.

"O-kay."

Fred's smile slowly changed into one without cracked edges and Dawn couldn't help but respond to it. Maybe Fred was crazy, but it was nice, quiet kind of crazy. Attractive kind of crazy, too.

Fred threw out the remains of the vase and filled a tall glass with water to put the tulips there. "Why do they think you need a babysitter?" she asked, looking at Dawn over her shoulder.

Dawn shrugged, looking away.

"There might have been this slight case of shoplifting in the Prada shop in Rome," she answered recluctantly. "Why do they think you'd..." she made a gesture of throwing a rope around her neck and pulling the end.

Fred smiled in a worrying way that Dawn found even more attractive than the sweet smile from earlier. "There might have been a slight case of a god-king possessing the body of my boyfriend instead of mine as it's mortal guide intended."

"Oh."

For a few minutes the only sound was scribbling of Fred's red permanent marker.

For a few minutes Dawn watched her closely, watched the movement of slim fingers and how Fred threw her braid over her shoulder, and how she bit her lower lip when she was thinking.

"Why do you write on walls?"

"I've run out of windows," Fred replied matter-of-factly, then continued. "I'm trying to get it together. All the words, numbers... I'm waiting for the click."

"Click?" Dawn sat down on the couch, legs curled under.

"The click. When it all comes together and makes sense. There's like a click in your brain and you understand things again."

"Oh. Like an Eureka moment?"

Fred nodded eagerly. "Exactly."

"Cool. What are we looking for?" Dawn looked up at the rows and rows of letters and numbers.

"The way to slow the light down so it can be bent," Fred pointed at the particular part of her window. "If I can get enough energy I could make a circular beam of light. It can create a ring of time, closed timelike curve. Mass is curved space, you see? You can bend space using magnetism, because it has energy and, according to Einstein, energy is mass. And as light has energy too, you can use light. Light is prettier, too."

Dawn nodded slowly. "Sooo.... You want to create a wormhole, right? Move in time?"

Fred's face lightened up, her smile beatific. "Yes! I could move back and stop Illy..." she shook her head. "No, I couldn't. You can't move to the time before the CTC was created..."

They both looked at the reddish numbers for a while.

"There's Sci-fi marathon on the tv," Dawn offered.

The other girl smiled through her tears. "I have some leftover pizza."

"Anchois?"

"Of course," Fred nodded solemnly, as if the only real pizza was anchois pizza. She looked inside the kitchen cupboards. "And I have some gummy bears, too."

"I'm not a kid!" Dawn huffed, reaching for the remote control.

"Oh. Okay."

"Wait. I didn't say I don't want them," she grabbed the bag and torn it open, the bears spilling onto the pizza. She spent some time carefully arranging them. "Look, this one is doing reverse cowgirl," she pointed.

"I used to arrange them in DNA strings," Fred offered absently.

Dawn gave her a look. "Whatever dials your gate, girlfriend."

Fred blushed and for a few minutes they watched the screen quietly.

"I like Daniel," Dawn announced finally.

"Me too. He has glasses. Wesley had..." she stopped again, her voice cracking. The sadness was enough for Dawn to decide some cheering up was required.

"Giles had glasses, too," she pointed out in a tone of someone who just dropped a bombshell and waits for pretty colours of explosion.

"Giles..." Dawn decided Fred looked quite pretty with her mouth half-opened in shock.

"Yeah. You know, you have glasses too," she added with a mischievous smile, leaning to remove the mentioned object.

"I... what?"

"Click," Dawn announced happily, moving closer, their lips meeting in a slow kiss.