Thank you all for reading!


There was a silence in the cafeteria, none of them sure where to go from there. And then Xander, being Xander, said, "Who wants pizza?"

That broke the tension nicely—and as it turned out, with the exception of Angel, who didn't eat, and Wesley, who was Wesley, everyone wanted pizza. Oz, arm firmly around Willow's waist, said, "I don't think they deliver at this hour. You want me to go pick it up?"

He didn't want to; she could hear that in his voice. He wanted to stay right here and be sure she was safe. But he couldn't do that forever, and she was safe. She looked at him, giving him an encouraging smile. "Would you, please?"

"Yeah," he said at last. "I'll go." He looked at Xander. "You coming?"

"Sure. But who's paying?"

Giles rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet. "Feeding you teenagers is not covered in my contract."

"But we appreciate it," Buffy told him brightly.

"Guys, do you mind if we get out of here?" Willow asked. "I kind of feel the need for … light. And no scary spider things on the floor that might come back to life."

"They're dead, Will," Buffy said reassuringly. "But let's get back to the library anyway. And you can tell me how it happened that you ended up a prisoner in City Hall."

"Me and Thoreau," Willow said.

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

It was Buffy's turn to put an arm around Willow and make sure she was all right. Arm in arm they walked back to the library together, Angel and the two Watchers following behind.

"What happened, Will? Where did you run into Faith?"

"She was there at the bottom of the ladder, Buffy. I don't think she knew we were there, and I didn't tell her you were still up there, but I came down and around the corner and … there she was. I didn't even have time to scream."

"You must have been so scared."

Earlier tonight, Willow would have been afraid to admit it. But now she felt strong, strong enough to admit when she was afraid. "I thought she might kill me. She's capable, she probably wanted to. Only the Mayor thinking I might be valuable kept her from doing anything to me. But … even then …" Willow shook her head.

"What?"

"Just …" They were in the library now. Willow draped her coat over Giles's desk and hopped up to sit on it. Buffy climbed up opposite her. "Let me start at the beginning, okay?"

"Sure."

"So Faith dragged me up to the conference room, and the Mayor was pissed about his box."

"Yes, because destroying it would have meant stopping his Ascension," Wesley snapped.

"It's done, Wes," Buffy snapped back. "We'll find another way."

"And if there is no other way?"

"We'll make one. Go on, Will."

"So the Mayor said, 'maybe she'll be useful', and Faith dragged me off to some storage room full of boxes. She left a vamp outside to guard me and disappeared. I started opening doors, but all I found were office supplies. Paper, pencils, etc."

"And?" Buffy raised her eyebrows as if to indicate she thought the level of detail was excessive.

"And so I dropped something, and the vamp came in, and he said he wanted to taste me, and he tried … and while he was trying I levitated the pencil and dusted him with it." Willow couldn't help smiling at the memory. She was so proud that she had kept her cool and used her powers to some purpose and saved her own life in the process.

"Nice going, Slayer!" Buffy said admiringly.

Giles was looking at Willow worriedly from over Buffy's shoulder. She knew he was concerned about her 'dabbling' as he called it. But surely he had to be glad she had dabbled now—otherwise she'd probably be dead. Or a vampire, and they'd all seen how badly that could turn out.

"Then I went looking for a way out, but I wandered into the Mayor's office. It was empty, so I stayed to see what I could see. In this hidden cabinet I found these really old books, the Books of Ascension—"

Both Giles and Wesley turned toward her, stunned. "The Books of Ascension?"

"Yes."

"In the Mayor's office? The Books of Ascension?" Giles repeated.

"Uh-huh." Willow turned back to Buffy. "And while I was in there Faith came in and got up in my face, all Slayer-powery." She looked at Buffy. "Evil Slayer-powery, I mean."

"It's okay. I got what you meant."

"So Faith was all like 'I'm gonna beat you up' and I'm all 'I'm not afraid of you' and then she had the knife, which was less fun. And-and then, oh, I told her, 'You made your choice, Buffy was your friend', and …"

"Yes, yes," Giles interrupted. He'd been pacing impatiently this whole time. "This is fascinating, but let's just get back to the—" He had his glasses off and was gesturing with them, the way he did when he was particularly agitated. "You actually had your hands on the Books of Ascension."

Willow nodded. "Volumes 1 through 5."

"Is there anything that you remember about them that could be of use, anything at all?"

She considered that, drawing it out, enjoying her moment in the limelight. "Well … I was in a hurry, and what I did read was kind of involved. If you ask me, way over-written."

Behind Giles, Wesley rolled his eyes. Giles's desperate hope dimmed, and Willow felt bad for messing with him.

"Actually," she continued, "there were a few pages that were kind of interesting, but I didn't have a chance to read them fully."

Wesley was rubbing his forehead as if in pain, and Giles was trying to keep his cool, remembering that she had been a prisoner and nearly gulleted by Faith. He put his glasses back on, trying to pretend that he hadn't hoped for better … and Willow reached into her coat pocket behind her, withdrew the packet of pages, and handed them to him, grinning.

"See what you can make of 'em?"

He took them with hesitant fingers, looking up at her with a smile that forgave her for messing with him, turned briefly to Wesley, and then disappeared into his office with the pages, looking like a kid who had just been handed a balloon.

Buffy smiled. "This is your night for suave, Will. You should get captured more often."

"No, thank you."

From the other side of the room, Wesley, unmoved by all of it, said, "Well, I hope there's something useful in those pages. The Mayor has the Box of Gavrock, and as of now, we are right back where we started." He looked at Buffy, confident in his own superiority for the moment. "Wouldn't you say?" he added, very quietly.

There was nothing Willow or Buffy could say to that. He was right; they were.