Chapter Eight
"Bruckheim, here."
"Oh, you've got some goddamned nerve."
"Rosenberg?"
"Who the hell else would it be?"
There was pause on the other end and Willow heard the CI head shifting around in his chair. For five days he'd been avoiding her calls, though he'd never admit to it. Her tranquilizer guns had never arrived and every time she tried to contact her superior and demand to know where they were he had 'conveniently' stepped out of the office or turned off his cell phone. Finally, though, his secretary, a lovely woman by the name Elizabeth, took pity on the redhead – knowing full well how stubborn her boss can be – and patched Willow through to his office.
"Um how – "
"Did I get through?" Another pause on the other end. "Let's just call it luck."
"Right. So, what can I do you for you, Pioneer?"
"Oh, stop with the official crap already, Edward."
Willow didn't know of another agent, or Council employee, that referred to the head of CI as anything other than 'sir', or 'Mr. Bruckheim' – even those of his equal or greater rank rarely called him by his first name. But Willow was different. She and Bruckheim had had quite an intimate and involved affair.
After leaving Sunnydale Willow, who had developed over the years, through Giles, a correspondence with various employees of the Watcher's Council, decided to settle in London where she took a job in the Watcher's Library researching. Only months after arriving the redhead was approached by Bruckheim and offered a place in his division: Council Infantry. Willow was, Bruckheim explained, well known through out the Council for having worked alongside the Slayer and he thought her better suited to 'field work' rather than book work.
Willow agreed immediately and by the following year she had completed all prerequisite training courses and received her first assignment. When she returned Bruckheim, who had taken the young redhead under his wing and become a mentor to her, took her to dinner to celebrate. The affair began that night and from the beginning it was intense and possessive. Watchers and agents alike felt the sparks between Willow and Bruckheim. It lasted a year and half and ended when Bruckheim proposed to the young agent. Willow wasn't ready for marriage and that kind of commitment and Bruckheim, to his credit, was understanding. They parted on solid terms and Willow was even, nearly three years later, a bridesmaid for Bruckheim's wife at their wedding.
"Willow, please – "
"Please nothing, Eddie. I filled out all the necessary forms before we left and I even asked you directly for the tranqs, which you agreed to send with the 3-D squad. Now I want to know where the hell are my guns?"
"Wills, it's not that simple – "
"It's exactly that simple," Willow was starting to really lose her control. "You know the situation as well as I do and unless you want me to use bullets to take one of them down if Dé'sa decides to play with their limbs and threaten one of my team, you had better have my tranquilizer guns on the next flight out or you will deal with me personally."
Bruckheim sighed. "Goddamn Rosenberg, you are a persistent little thing, aren't you?"
Willow smiled. "Aye, sir. That I am."
"Alright," he relented, "on the next flight out."
"Now was that so hard, Eddie?"
"Goodnight, Willow."
"Oh, and tell your wife I said 'hi'."
