"You know," she says musingly, "you and me and Gaara were all gonna go to the Sunnydale Zoo, before everything started happening.  Does that still sound fun?"

" - Yeah. Yeah, it does."

Grin.  "You free this weekend?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Great!"  She glances between her and Tag.  "How would, uh, you two respectively, feel about Tag coming along?  It feels nice to have Team Spider back together."

Tag looks at Nausicaa, inquiringly.

"I don't mind."

"Sounds like fun," Tag says.  "I can drive us all there if you like."

"Oh, yeah, that'd be really good. Thanks."

"No problem."

And so, that weekend finds Tag pulling up to Nausicaa's house with Kaylee in the backseat.

She spent possibly a bit too long worrying over what to wear, but is dressed in a nicer and less worn orange blouse than usual, over dark blue sweatpants, her hair fiddled with until it's mostly in a ponytail, some strands escaping to frame her face in a way she hopes looks nice.

"Hey guys!" she calls, heading out and locking the door behind her.

Tag beeps the horn amicably.

Kaylee pops open the door opposite her and pats the seat invitingly.  "Hey Nausicaa!  You look nice!"

She snorts at Tag, and then grins at Kaylee. "Hey Kaylee! Thanks!" She slides into the seat. "You look great, too."

"Aw, thanks!"

Tag pulls away from the curb.  "Hey Nausicaa.  Where are we meeting Gaara?"

"She told me she'll meet us at the zoo entrance."

“Sounds good to me,” he says.  “You guys wanna stop for burgers afterwards?  There’s a decent place not too far from the zoo.”

"Sounds good, and probably cheaper than zoo food."

Tag gives a thumbs-up.

It’s a short drive, ten or fifteen minutes, and there’s parking by the entrance.  The gang pile out of the car.

Gaara joins them silently

"So where to first?" Nausicaa asks.

“I figured we could go through everything in order, in a sort of circle,” she says, “but there’s a couple places - ”

She pulls out and unfolds a map from her backpack, with a few attractions and ambassador animals circled and labeled (“giraffe feeding!!”, “meet cute birds!!”).

"Those all sound fun! I wanna feed a giraffe..."

“Yeah, that one looked really fun,” she says, grinning.  She examines her map.  “We wanna head clockwise, to get there soonest, so to the left...”

"Looks like that'll take us past the small mammals house, right? Maybe we can hit the giraffe thing then double back, it looks close..."