Chapter 22
She sat, exhausted. She had expended more energy with her powers in the past few hours than she had in the past year. Using the connection between Buffy and Angel to pull him from hell had sucked her dry, and she hadn't been able to stop there. Now, she was in her house on the bluffs, listening to the breakers far below. It was her favorite sound, she realized.
It was now the very early hours of the morning, but Cerise had still come when Willow had called her. Looking towards the bedroom, she heard Cerise rustling around in the sheets. Willow had called her lover soon after her return, needing the comfort of human companionship after her trying late night activities. Cerise had been there in mere minutes.
Wondering if she would ever get to see her friends when it was not a dire emergency, she sat down in the living room and sipped her tea. On her desk, under the piles of slayer files, was the letter she had been working on for two weeks. It was the letter that would propose that Wolfram and Hart bear half the responsibility for the American Academy of Slayers.
It had taken months to work up the courage to write it, and it was taking her weeks to phrase it correctly. Giles would balk at it, and he was the one that had to approve it. Her arguments had to be perfect and unimpeachable. Angel would be difficult to convince, but she was sure Buffy would approve. Willow was counting on Buffy being the liaison for the Council and Wolfram and Hart.
It was a partnership Willow could see no way around. Wolfram and Hart was working to create a balance in this dimension, and the Council had the largest army of people who could help in that process at their disposal.
The two organizations were working towards the same conclusion; it seemed ludicrous that they should not do it together. Willow knew that if they could join forces, the Council would have the financial backing they sorely needed and the respect of the demon community in spades.
Wolfram and Hart had been in existence for centuries. They were perhaps the most powerful single entity in their dimension. The Council was still struggling to regain its stature and power. What they lacked in gravitas, they made up for in soldiers. They commanded five hundred slayers, and the number seemed to be growing daily.
The thirteen hundred slayers not affiliated with the Council were starting to consider joining, one by one. They all needed leadership. Willow and Giles had been at a loss as to how to give that leadership to such vast numbers. The watchers they employed were of the caliber Wesley had been when he had been assigned to Faith.
They were too green, too naïve. The Council could not survive if they did not have help. The best form of help Willow could see was Wolfram and Hart. She and Giles had been trying to single handedly lead the Council, but she had begun to realize that they were not keeping their heads above water. Financially, they were fairly secure, but opening a third school was not going to be monetarily easy.
She and Giles knew how they wanted to run their organization, but they didn't quite know how to get to the point where they could run it as they wished. The rebuilding phase was still ongoing, and she wondered how long they could continue without enough capable leaders.
A few of the slayers that had trained with Buffy in Sunnydale were teaching classes and acting as mentors, but Willow had been hard pressed to find instructors for courses that were beyond the kin of those slayers. They themselves were still a little green.
Angel would be able to find people to teach tactics, weaponry, and other courses. They needed experts to teach these new slayers. The Council had only been operational for a little over two years, before that there had been a hodgepodge of small groups that trained together lead by inexperienced fighters and teachers. Giles had tried to unite the slayers, but it had proved difficult.
They were now at a point that they could become successful with the right backing. Willow was sure that they could get that backing if Giles and Angel could come to some kind of agreement. That would be hard, she knew, they still were not on the best of terms. They had forgiven each other for past wrong doing, but only to a certain extent.
Smiling, she looked into the bedroom at a beautiful and naked woman standing in the doorway. Putting her plans aside for the time being, she decided there were better things to do with the rest of the time she could stay awake.