The lack of Buffy is a living and breathing thing for Dawn. It's a solitude that sometimes feels like it's a tangible thing, closing in on her, threatening to close in around her so tightly that she suffocates on it. She keeps having to give herself a pep talk in her mind. Buck up, Dawn. You can do this. She keeps trying to use the power of the Key. It isn't working. Needless to say, she welcomes the company more than Porthos would probably suspect.

The minute she looks up from the book in her lap and sees Porthos, who is somehow even more ruggedly handsome than she remembers him (how is that possible?), she smiles brightly. So relieved and happy is she to see anything familiar, even if that familiarity is confined to this hotel, this dimension, that she stands up and runs at him to wrap her arms around his waist and give him a tight hug (what is personal space?).

"I kinda missed being called Mademoiselle Dawn. Do I need to remind you that you can do that anytime you want?" She asks, her cheek pressed to the chest of his doublet. She might really need a hug. "Cause it makes me feel all posh and fancy."