"Giles?" Willow pushed through the library doors at a pace just north of a walk and just south of a run. The Watcher looked out of his office.

"Willow?" he said, "what's wrong?"

Willow stopped and a strange look came over her face. "Okay, I have something to tell you, but first I have to explain something, and I need you to not be mad at me." She bit her lip and crinkled her nose.

Giles stared at her for a heartbeat. His mouth opened, then closed, he half-turned toward the office, then turned back toward her. "You do realize that everything in that sentence contradicts itself, don't you?"

"Maybe, I don't know. I just need to tell you something, but I don't want to if you're gonna get mad at me."

"Willow," the Watcher said in his most soothing voice, "when have I ever been angry with you?"

"Really?" The redhead's expression mimicked all the sarcasm contained in that one word.

"All right, yes, you're right." Giles held up a hand. "I have been upset with you from time to time. I will do my best to withhold judgment… please, continue."

She took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes. Remember when I started having my… episodes, and that one helped us find Cordelia, and you told me it might be because a door had opened when I did the soul spell on Angel and then Cheryl whammied me?"

"Yes, I remember all of that very well." The Watcher put his hands in his pockets.

"You knew I was studying Wicca and the Kabbalah, I told you about that. Well, Tyler, the student I was tutoring, saw that, and he said that he might know something more… direct?" Willow raised her eyebrows in a beseeching manner. When the librarian did not respond, she continued. "It turned out he didn't really know much, but I started… I sort of… I kind of went that way, and it turned out that I could… do it?" She bit her lip.

Giles took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. He frowned. "Are you saying you dabbled in astral projection?"

Willow waved her hands. "Oh no, no, not that…." She winced. "Unless… what I did is worse?"

Giles grunted. "Please, that vocal tic is annoying and makes you sound like an imbecile. Just speak. What were… are you doing?"

Willow sighed. "It's not astral projection. I'm not leaving my physical body and traveling somewhere else. When I do this I'm here, but it's not here… it's different."

"Are you visiting the ethereal plane?" The Watcher frowned.

"What's that?"

"The, the realm of ghosts and spirits, of incorporeal beings. It's sometimes called the Waveless Sea. It contains protomatter."

"I don't think that's it. Sounds too… soupy." Willow shook her head and scrunched up her face. "This is more like… I can see things, I know what they are, but they look different." She stamped her foot. "I can't think of a way to describe it."

"Could you be experiencing one of the Inner Planes?"

"What's that?"

"They're also called the Elemental Planes, because certain… elements predominate." Giles unconsciously paced across the library. "For example, there is the Plane of Water, the Plane of Fire–"

"Nope." Willow shook her head vigorously. "Nothing like that." She looked up at the ceiling. "Let me try again. I can see everything, but I can also see what it's made of."

Giles stopped and thought. "That doesn't sound familiar, but then again, no one claims that we have even discovered all the planes, let alone identified them. It could even be a demiplane."

"Does this help? I can touch things there and change them here."

"What?" Giles stared at her. "What do you mean?"

Willow took a step back, a little frightened by his intensity. "Like, I locked a door without touching it… and I turned a computer on without touching it."

"Willow, I wish you had talked to me before you did any of this. It's risky enough to just… access the planes. It's something only a very few mystics even attempt, and… using one plane to physically affect another… that is even rarer, and usually fraught with complications." Giles rubbed his forehead and looked down at the floor.

"Well, then, you're probably not going to like the next part." Willow bit her lip as Giles looked at her sharply. "I could get there, but I was, uh, I was having problems staying there, and it turned out that… that Tyler was good at keeping me there."

The Watcher's mouth was open in amazement. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Nothing creepy." Willow's tone turned defensive. "He just… he can put his hand on me… my arm, and I can… do more there."

"Willow." Giles looked up at the ceiling.

"You're mad," she said in a small voice.

He looked at her and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he said, "I am not pleased, but… you need to inform me about this sort of thing."

Willow nodded. "Yeah, I agree, and that's why I'm here. I'm informing you, I've informed on myself, you're informed now, but there's more. Something weird's going on over there."

The librarian's eyes widened. "What?"

"Don't get excited." Willow made calming motions with her hands. "It's just… I was there just after prom… and earlier today, and there's a light there, I mean, there's always light there, that's one of the things about it, but this is a really bright light, or at least it's getting brighter."

"Can you tell what it is?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't come from anything, it's just there, from one direction."

Giles thought. "You said 'It's getting brighter'. You mean, as if it were getting closer?"

"Yeah, exactly like that." Willow nodded, elated that something had clicked.

The Watcher walked back behind his counter. "Willow, it's possible that this is connected to whatever is happening with the Seal. If you had come to me before you did this, I would have counseled you not to, but you already have." He swallowed. "Could you, perhaps, continue to monitor the situation?"

"Yeah, sure, be happy to." She bounced on the balls of her feet.

"Please don't be excited about his. I am also adding one condition." Giles raised a hand. "This boy, this… Tyler, is it? He is no longer part of this, understood?"

"Understood." Willow nodded solemnly.

"Very well." The librarian patted his tie. "I have to get back to shelving."

Willow nodded and turned toward the door, then turned back. "Giles?"

"Yes?"

Willow shrugged. "Thanks for not yelling."

Mr. Trick leaned over his desk, weight on his hands. Brooks stood across the desk, pointing at the map as he spoke. "We have a team watching Calderon's office and one watching his home. They are in communication, so that when he leaves the university, the team at his home has an ETA. His routine hasn't varied yet. He goes directly home, no stops, no detours. If he goes out, it's later."

"What about the docks?" Trick asked.

Brooks stabbed a finger at a corner of the map, lower left from Trick's perspective. "We're still experiencing skirmishes between our diversionary force and Hampton's group, which allows our tactical team to remain hidden further back. When the cargo arrives, they will catch Hampton's force in a hammer-and-anvil maneuver, destroying them and allowing us to both cut off his flow of information and extract the cargo without conflict."

Trick nodded. "Very good. I like it. What about Brute Force?"

"Going well. We're sweeping Sunnydale for every troll under every bridge, and we're recruiting, discreetly of course, from the surrounding area." He cleared his throat.

Trick looked up. "Yes?"

"We've… we've never done anything like Brute Force before, sir."

Trick straightened up and rolled his neck. "That's true, but we've never had a job like this one before. First, it was no Slayer, then it was two Slayers, now one Slayer again, plus Li'l Abner across town. This situation became very fluid and very murky. Now, there are two choices in front of you in a case like this. You can try to restore order, which can be a very valid decision, but only if there's something you want to preserve. I don't give a runny shit about this burg, and trying to sort it out and maintain some sort of decorum just diverts resources we need. The other choice, the other choice, is to use the chaos and maintain your own clarity while making it impossible for anyone else to know what's really happening." His lips tightened and he tapped a finger in the center of the map. "Even when your own side does something stupid. Especially then."

"So, what are we doing here?" Xander bit into his apple and chewed with gusto. He stood under the bay laurel and watched Willow with bemused eyes as she rummaged in her backpack. She finally pulled out a small mirror.

"Well, when you're done impersonating Mr. Ed, I'll tell you." Willow gave him the hard-eyed, thin-lipped look that indicated she meant business.

Xander swallowed, coughed, and tossed the rest of the apple over his shoulder. "Okay, Nurse Ratchet, jeez."

Willow's mouth quirked. "Sorry. Here, just put your hand on my arm. No, don't grab my arm, just put your hand on it, like this." She physically placed his palm just above her elbow. "When I say 'now', just count to a hundred, then take your hand off my arm, slowly."

"Is this some sort of elaborate ruse? Have you and Buffy concocted a kind of… humiliation ritual to teach me a lesson?"

"Stop being a paranoid baby." Willow drew in a deep breath and exhaled loudly. Xander started to speak, but Willow snapped open the mirror and looked at her reflection. He remembered his instructions and began counting under his breath. He had reached forty-five when Willow pitched forward and caught herself just before she fell. The redhead staggered a few steps and turned on him. "Did you take your hand away?"

"What? No," he protested. "I was about to say something about it's not paranoid if people are really out to get you, then your eyes went all doodl-oodl-oo, and I started counting, then you made like Dick Van Dyke with the ottoman."

"What do you mean, 'doodle-oodl-oo'?"

"You know," he said, wiggling his fingers, "like Wayne's World. Doodl-oodl-oo."

The teenage witch frowned. "Did you count to one hundred?"

"I was trying!" Xander put up his hands, palms out. "I got to forty-five, then you–" he made a rolling motion with his hands "-gave it the old soft-shoe."

Willow brushed her hair away from her face and nodded. "Okay, we'll do it again. This time, make sure your hand doesn't slip."

"Will, my hand didn't slip."

"Then shake, or shimmy, or… just make sure that you don't break contact with me in any way until you reach one hundred, okay?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll do a better job with the difficult task of keeping my hand on your arm."

Willow pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. "Okay, this time–"

Xander pressed a hand to his forehead like a man with the world' worst migraine. "This time? Will, I've lost count of how many times we've tried this. I've put my hand on your arm. I've grabbed your arm, I put my hand on your back, I even went along with that crazy idea that we stand with our backs pressed together, which, for some reason, seemed like the most wrong thing ever." He shook his head. "The sun's going down, and that's not a metaphor… we've been doing this so long that the actual sun is actually going down. I'm done. I may not have much of a social life, but I'm not going to spend my night under a tree trying to count to a hundred." His eyes narrowed. "Are you sure Buffy's not around the corner laughing at me?"

"She's not." Willow's shoulders slumped. "You're right, I'm sorry. I thought this would work, but it obviously isn't."

"What would work? What are we trying to do here?"

She shook her head. "Forget it. I had a bad idea. Maybe I'll have a better one tomorrow."

"Okay." Xander shook his entire body. "So, wanna hit the Bronze?"

Willow shrugged. "Sure. Why not? Maybe mindless fun will free my mind."

Xander pointed a finger-gun at her. "And the rest will follow."

She smiled. "I hope."

The meal cart had one bad wheel: maybe it was a flat spot, maybe the shaft was a little bent, but whatever it was it created a distinctive sound as the cart rolled down the corridor. It stopped in front of a wood-grain door bearing a large '12' in vinyl numbers. The wood grain was for show; the door was actually steel. The attendant looked in through the long, narrow window set just above the door pull. The inmate sat cross-legged on the bed. The attendant shook her head and took a tray from the cart's covered compartment, then said, "Step to the door, do not put your hands through the slot, take your tray from me, we will pick it up in thirty minutes." She looked through the wire-reinforced window again as the prisoner unfolded her frame and took two steps toward the door, then stopped. The attendant slid the tray halfway through the slot, felt hands grasp the far edge, and let go. She looked through the window a third time; the girl was back on the bed, tray in her lap. The attendant shook her head and pushed the cart away from this final stop.

"Awful young to be so messed up," she muttered.

"Amy, I need your help."

The blonde witch lurched forward into her open locker, then spun around. "Willow, you scared me to death!"

"Sorry. I guess I'm naturally quiet." Willow made an 'oops!' face. "But I really do need your help."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "With what?" It took her about fifteen seconds to say the two words.

"It's not what you think." Willow waved her hands in front of her. "It's not magic or anything."

"That's good," Amy said, "because you know I've sworn off the-" she glanced from side to side, but none of the students passing by seemed to be listening "-M-stuff after last year's… fiasco."

"I wouldn't call it a fiasco," Willow said. "More of a close shave."

Amy's eyes popped open and she leaned toward the redhead. "Whatever it was, I'm on the magic wagon. So, if it's magical, I'm out."

"It's, it's not magical, not really?" Willow bit her lip, squinting slightly.

Amy shook a finger. "See, 'not really' seems to be doing a lot of work in that sentence."

"True," Willow gulped. "I mean, it's a teeny bit supernatural."

One side of Amy's mouth curled. "Nothing's a teeny bit supernatural."

"All I need you to do is put your hand on my arm, then take it away, all right?" Willow sighed in the face of Amy's puzzled look. "It's… It's an experiment, and I need an assistant."

"Willow, are you astral projecting?" Amy whispered.

"No, not at all… it's different."

"Different, how?" Amy demanded.

WIllow bit her lip and took a chance. "If you want to know, meet me in the lounge at the beginning of sixth period. I know that you have self-directed study that hour."

Amy scowled, but curiosity got the better of her. "Okay, but if there's anything, even one little thing hinky, I'll…" Her voice trailed away; she looked frustrated.

Willow nodded sympathetically. "I know, it's hard to find a way to make that threat carry any weight. I'll see you sixth period."

"So, is it working?" Amy asked.

"No." Willow pulled herself to a sitting position. "If it was, I wouldn't keep stumbling around like John Ritter."

Amy crouched next to the redheaded witch. "Well, tell me again what I'm doing here."

Willow looked at the other girl from the corner of her eye. "I thought you were off magic."

Amy considered this. "Okay, but since this doesn't seem to be working, it's not really magic, is it? And I'm asking in a strictly academic way."

"That hurt." Willow hauled herself to her feet. "Remember, back in the fall, when Giles asked you to help him…"

"Figure out what was killing you?" Amy shook her head. "No, I'd completely forgotten that."

Willow winced. "Sarcastic, much? Anyway, since then I've had… episodes where… something or somewhere else kinda… rubs up against me?" She wrinkled her nose. "Sorry, I just realized how that sounded."

"Yeah," Amy agreed, "kinda ickish."

"Anyway, I figured if I couldn't stop it, I'd figure out what it was, and… I can get there, but I can't do anything unless someone anchors me… and I was hoping you might be able to do that."

Amy shrugged. "Well, obviously, that's not working, but… how do you know you need someone to, what was it, anchor you?" She looked up. "It sounds like you've already learned by doing, so… has something happened? Why don't you just ask that person again?"

Willow chewed her lip. "I, uh, that might be the only answer." She sighed. "I wish I'd crossed my fingers when I talked to Giles."