"Buffy?" Giles yawned into the phone. "You sound different. Do you have a cold?" I could hear his smirk all the way in Brazil.

"Giles! Cut that out," I tried to sound serious while giggling. I soon remembered the dreams, and got back to business, though. "It's Willow, you know that. I just… I'm calling about Buffy, not AS Buffy."

Giles nodded, and I could hear his office chair squeak as he turned around, facing someone else, I presumed. "Really, Willow? What's going on?"

I sighed. "It's… there's at least two of us here who have had dreams about her… and not the sexy, naked Slayer kind of dreams, not that… I don't think of her like that, but I…," I paused, trying to gather my derailed train of thought. "Okay, see, we've had these… flashes of fighting, and pain, and Buffy's involved somehow, along with Angel and Wesley…

"Oh, have you heard from any of the others? I mean, if I'm getting some dreamage here, there must be some going on somewhere else, right? And I wanted to see how they were all doing anyway." I'm a born yammerer.

Giles laughed softly into the phone, though I could hear his concern masked behind it. "Well, I have not heard from Buffy in a while, nor Xander, but I have heard quite a bit from Andrew."

"Andrew? What did he have to say?"

Giles groaned, "Entirely too much about entirely too little."

I giggled, and heard Kennedy shift uncomfortably behind me, so I lowered my voice. "Well, as informative as that is, Giles…"

He sighed, "I know, Willow. I'll keep my eyes out for any brewing trouble."

"Yeah, well," I started, "Let's just hope that isn't literally. Talk to you when the rest of the girls wake up, I think I'm starting to make Kennedy mad."

"Ah, yes," he nodded into the phone, "tell everyone hello from England."

I smiled softly. I had missed him. "I will. It's been good to talk to you again… I'll call you back soon."

Giles smiled. "To you as well. Good, well, morning, really, but I shall talk to you later. Goodbye, Willow."

With that, we hung up.

The rest of the day passed smoothly. No other girls has been afflicted, and I was relieved to find that Espinosa's frightened attitude disappeared when her friends woke up. Kennedy woke up around 8:30, and by 9 she had led the girls out for a morning "warm-up" training session. From what I've seen, her warm-ups could kill me. The girls seemed to be getting conditioned, though.

I watched her with a soft sigh. I was cleaning, well, I was pretending to, but for the moment I was just viewing my Slayer in action. She was a born leader, which was something I most certainly was not. I've never been comfortable, even in front of people my age that I've lived with for years.

When Buffy pointed me out in front of our large group sessions, I got nervous. I'm not ashamed of it, or anything. No badness in being a wallflower, but it does get frustrating. I was supposed to be helping these girls find their true selves, and yet there I was. I was stuck inside, cleaning instead of leading, organizing instead of helping, delegating instead of taking responsibility.

Kennedy didn't need me in this. I wasn't needed here. I wanted to be in England. I wanted to be with Giles, helping and organizing, locating and…

I stopped myself. I was here for a reason. The Powers, Fate, the gods… they wouldn't have put me here if I wasn't supposed to be. What I wanted was irrelevant. And that was also pretty darn frustrating.

I returned to cleaning, busying myself, humming a native song I had heard in the village earlier when I had gone out for eggs. I went to my dresser, or, well, the one Kennedy and I share, and I began dusting the antique wood, sighing, feeling bored. I continued, then lifted my rag to dust off the mirror.

There was a flash in the mirror, and I lifted my head suddenly, looking to the right. Wide, blue eyes met mine, mixed with an evil smirk formed by two large, pouty lips.

I screamed, and that's about the last thing I remember before my head hit the floor.