Buffy was running through her stretching exercises. Giles was reluctant to do any heavy training with her today, having caught her in yet another vomit inducing nightmare earlier in the day. Only Oz was in the library today, his hair a shock of red that Giles suspected was not too far from its natural color. Recently Oz had spent a lot of time with Buffy, and his presence seemed, strangely enough, to soothe her. Giles planned to do a few focusing exercises with Buffy and turn her loose. Amazingly, considering how weak she seemed, her slayer senses seemed honed to a fine edge. He had never hoped to have her develop them so fully, and she had, over the summer, turned them into a weapon to be reckoned with. She could fight him blindfolded, as if she could see without eyes. He had even fought her with blunted swords, blindfolded, and she had bested him with no effort, and the tiniest smirk, as if to say, "Gotcha." She could track him through the woods outside Sunnydale, even if he had nearly an hour's head start and used a bit of magic to conceal his tracks. She had caught him unawares, slipping past the wards he had set as if they weren't even there. She had wrapped a garrote around his throat before he even knew she was present. "You're dead, Watcher-mine."

"I've heard from my informants that Spike is back in town, gunning to be master again." Giles tossed the information out casually, hoping to catch her by surprise. "Have you seen him?"

Buffy moved from one stretch to another. "He's not hunting here. Not humans, anyway."

Oz raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"Any sign of Drusilla?"

"Nope, none."

Giles turned his attention to Oz, who shrugged. "Haven't sniffed her about. I don't think she's around."

Giles watched Oz closely. "What of Angelus?"

Buffy paled visibly, turning her back to him to hide her reaction. Oz answered for her. "Nope."

"You should take care if Spike is about. He's not a vampire to be taken lightly. Even without Drusilla, he's easily strong enough to take the master's position here."

"I think Jarnisa has things well in hand." Jarnisa was the vampiress who had stepped in to fill the vacuum left behind by the departure of clan Aurelius from Sunnydale. She was strong, and wily, but showed no interest in doing more than holding the city. She had not made any moves for the hellmouth itself, and things appeared to be at an uncomfortable stalemate.

"If Spike's back in town, we've got trouble."

Buffy gave a sarcastic snort that Giles thought was a bit fake. "Ya think?"

"Sunnydale may be on a hellmouth, but it's not a big enough town to satisfy two masters from different clans. If we don't eliminate one of them, we will have an all-out war on our hands."

"So, what, I should walk into Jarnisa's well-guarded lair and ask her what her intentions are? Sounds like suicide to me. She's not that powerful, but she's smart, and she's given me no real reason to take her out."

"So go for Spike."

"And I tell you again, he's not hunting here." Buffy stopped one stretch and entered into another. "He's not turned anyone, his mark is not on any victims I've checked. If he wants to hang out in his little crypt with a view or guzzle beers and play kitten poker at Willy's, I've got no argument with him."

"So you've seen him."

"Sure, I've seen him. Even Oz here has seen him. He's not hiding." Buffy reached for the water bottle and drank from it.

Giles fought down his temper. "You've said nothing to me."

Buffy shrugged. "You didn't ask."

"So when are you going to get around to staking him, Buffy?" Oz coughed into his coke, but said nothing. Buffy shot him a disgusted look.

"You want to know the truth, Giles?"

Giles was quickly losing the battle with his anger. "A little truth would be nice."

"Truth is, he's too strong for me. If I go for him, he'll just kill me. I can't take him right now. So unless you've got a prophecy in one of those books of yours that says the world will come to a crashing halt unless I take out Spike, it's not going to happen." Buffy stood up from the floor, pulling her leather riding chaps from the table and wrapping them around her legs, zipping them up and buckling the waist. "Come on, Oz, I can stretch at home. I'll go fetch our helmets from the locker if you want a ride."

Oz cracked his first grin. "A ride would be nice." He said 'nice' with a small growl, the way a man would talk about good sex.

Buffy smirked. "You like my bike, do you?"

"Hey, it's a nice bike."

Buffy left the library, leaving Oz alone with Giles. "I don't understand her anymore."

"She's weak." Oz gave him a hopeless look. "She's getting a bit stronger, doesn't smell like death anymore, but she's food and she knows it."

"That weak? Does she confide in you? What the hell's going on with her?"

"I'm her roommate, I know things. But they're not my secrets to tell."

Giles felt as though he were picking his jaw off the floor. "You're living with her?"

"I share a house with her. Have since August when my parents kicked me out. I ran into her at her job in L.A."

"What does she do there?"

Oz tossed his empty coke towards the trashcan halfway across the library. It bounced off the front desk and landed neatly in the can. "Tends bar at a club. The Dingoes played there a few times over the summer."

Giles pointed out. "She's not old enough to tend bar."

"It's not the sort of bar where her age matters."

"So you knew where she was and didn't say anything."

"She was a mess, Giles. When the nuns kicked her out of the monastery, she came to L.A. Lorne took her in, gave her a home and a job. She disappears for nearly a week, and crawls back nearly dead. I tell you, I've known Lorne two years, and he's seen a lot, but I've never seen him in the state he was in when she came back He closed the bar and didn't leave her side for two solid weeks. That's an awful lot of money he walked away from."

"And you didn't think to tell me any of this?"

"You weren't in any shape to help her, and she didn't even know her own name. She doesn't remember me, really. Not from before she disappeared. Most of what she appears to remember is from what I told her about her life before. When she describes things to me, she remembers flashes of images, what she sees in dreams. I'm not sure if she remembers you at all. I showed her your apartment, wrote that letter for her to copy, sent her to you."

That was more information than Giles had managed to gather before, and from the most stoic of the Scoobies. "So Lorne's a good sort, then?"

"The best." Oz stood from the table, headed for the door where Buffy could be glimpsed coming down the hall. "For all that she seems the same on the surface, she's not. If you want to get to know her, start over and get to know the girl she is now. She's pretty cool."