A/N: Double installment this week, as these two chapters are kind of tied together, and I didn't want to leave you hanging too much. :-) Please remember to review!

Chapter 10
William

"Have you heard? They call him 'William the Bloody' because of his bloody awful poetry."
-Party guest, 'Fool For Love'

Willow sat cross-legged on her bed and nursed a glass of chocolate milk. A day of sleeping had dealt with most of the effects of her hangover, and now, as early evening settled over the campus, she was working to eradicate the remaining symptoms.

She looked down at the much-folded letter on the bed, the letter from Oz. She wondered for the hundredth time whether she'd made the right decision. She still loved Oz, that was undeniable, but Spike was actually here, and so attentive and flattering. True, even now they would still be friends, but she sensed that Spike wanted more than that. Thinking back on the memory of his kisses, Willow had to admit that part of her wanted more than friendship, too.

The door opened, and Buffy entered briskly. She stopped short when she saw Willow, still clad in her cow jammies, sitting on the bed.

"Will, are you alright? I haven't seen you all day. You weren't in class," Buffy noted, surveying the pajamas, the chocolate milk, and the open bottle of aspirin on the bedside table. "What's going on?"

Willow hadn't been in class because her head had hurt too much. Never whiskey shots again, she promised herself. A simple spell – a variation on Amy's homework spell – had convinced her teachers that she was right there in the lecture where she should be. She'd felt justified in using it, considering how beastly her head had felt. Plus, she rarely missed class anyway, so she figured she was entitled to a free pass or two. The only hitch was that she'd forgotten to spell her classmates, as well, so Buffy still remembered the absence.

"I guess I'm just not feeling well," Willow hedged, hoping her roommate would start getting ready for patrol instead of grilling her. But it seemed that Buffy could multi-task. She pulled out her gear bag from under her bed and shot a hard look at the redhead.

"You're hung over again," she stated baldly, making an adjustment to a crossbow. "That's twice this month. Will, I don't like where this is going."

"You're making a big deal about nothing," Willow insisted, "I just had a rough night, decided to take a break today."

"And we had a rough night because?" Buffy queried.

Wordlessly, Willow handed over the worn piece of paper. Buffy took it to read silently.

"From Oz?" she asked, her eyebrows rising.

Willow nodded sadly, and the blonde continued to read.

"That's it?" she said as she reached the end.

"That's it," Willow confirmed, "But he's coming back."

"I must have missed that line," Buffy said with a frown, rereading the letter.

"When he says 'I hope it won't be long until I can see you again'," Willow explained.

Buffy was dubious. "That's not much of a promise."

"But I should wait for him, right?" Willow insisted.

Buffy sat down on her friend's bed and took her hand.

"Will…"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"I'll get it," she announced, jumping up and opening it.

No one was there, but Buffy turned back to Willow with a hideously mismatched bouquet of flowers in her hands.

"Are these supposed to be for you or for me?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow. "The tag just says: 'Princess, these should cheer you up'."

Willow groaned a little. How was she going to explain this to Buffy? Plus, she had a sinking feeling about those flowers' origins.

"They're for me," she confessed, getting up to take the garish offering and find a vase for it.

"From…?"

"No one," Willow said shortly, wondering how she was going to get out of this without a dusty ending for one William the Bloody. Wait, that's it! "William," she amended before Buffy could ask again.

"William, huh? How come I've never heard about him before?"

"Because there's nothing to tell. We're just friends."

"Does he know that?" Buffy asked, indicating the flowers with one hand.

"Well, he likes big gestures," Willow explained, knowing instinctively that it was true. "He really is just trying to cheer me up."

"Mm-hmm," Buffy responded, looking at her roommate shrewdly. "And was he trying to cheer you up last night, too? When he got you drunk?"

"I never said I got drunk!" Willow cried defensively.

"Oh, come on, Will. You're in your p.j.'s, popping aspirin, and drinking chocolate milk – which you told me you only drink when you're hung over – at 5:30 in the evening. Of course you got drunk. Again. And I'm betting both those times were this William guy's fault," Buffy accused.

"That's not true, Buffy. No one forced me to drink. I did that myself. William just kept me company and made sure I got home alright. He was a perfect gentleman."

"He was also buying the drinks, I have no doubt."

Willow had no reply to that. It was true, after all.

"See? I doubt he wants to be just friends with you for long. Especially not with a bouquet that size. Where did you meet this guy, anyway?"

"At the Bronze," Willow replied, truthfully enough. Buffy's eyebrows went up again, though, so the redhead hastened to explain, "We've known each other for a while, we'd just never really talked before. He's actually very sweet." When he wants to be, she finished mentally.

"And he calls you 'Princess'?" Buffy's tone spoke volumes.

"Well, he's British. You know how they are with pet names." Willow quickly brushed aside the notion that there was anything to her nickname.

"So what does he do? Does he go here?" Buffy had the bit between her teeth, now, and would not be turned from the topic of William.

Willow thought fast. She couldn't go with the truth anymore; she had to think up a believable lie. But what? Her eyes roamed around the room, searching for inspiration. They lit on a graded paper sitting on her desk. It was her English Literature essay on Anna Laetitia Barbauld, the one Spike had helped her to get an A on. That gave her an idea. Without pausing to think about what Spike would think of the idea, Willow hastily responded to Buffy's query.

"He's a grad student. English Literature. His thesis has to do with Romantic Era women poets," she invented, hoping that was specific enough to satisfy her roommate.

Buffy's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh. Well that's…great. But Willow, you still need to be careful. Some guys tend to play at being sensitive and nice, and they're really not."

"He's not Parker, Buffy," Willow said gently, "And besides, we're just friends."

"Then why did Oz's letter lead to such a hangover?" Buffy asked pointedly.

Willow shrugged uncomfortably. "Aren't you supposed to go patrolling?" she asked.

"Admit it, Will. You have feelings for this William guy, and as long as he keeps bringing you flowers, you're going to keep having feelings for him."

Buffy gathered up her things and headed for the door.

"We can talk more about it when I get back," she promised.

After her roommate left, Willow sat for a long moment, thinking about what Buffy had said. Finally, she decided she didn't want to be there for part two of the conversation. She got dressed and decided to go for a walk, instead. She hadn't gotten very far when a familiar voice came up behind her.

"Mind if I join you, pet? It's not safe to be out alone after dark, you know."

"I can take care of myself, Spike. I've got magic, after all. What about you? You've got both Buffy and any Initiative patrols that might be out to worry about."

"No worries, I've got you and your glamours, right?"

Before Willow could respond to that with a list of the shortcomings of that plan, Spike began to speak again.

"Did you get the flowers?"

Willow sighed. "Yes, I got them."

"You didn't like them?" he asked anxiously.

"Well, first of all, next time could you at least buy them yourself?"

"I thought girls loved it when a fellow picks them flowers."

"Those were hothouse flowers. You didn't pick them, Spike, you stole them. Off other people's graves. That's not romantic, it's creepy."

"Well, it's not like I live in a garden, now, do I?" Spike grumbled defensively, before adding, "And secondly?"

"Secondly…" Willow took a deep breath. "Well, secondly, you and I are just supposed to be friends now, remember?"

"Sure, I remember. I'm hardly likely to forget something like that. But friends help cheer each other up, don't they?"

She ignored the remark for now. "Thirdly, your bouquet hardly went unnoticed. I had to answer all sorts of questions about who they were from."

"What did you say?" Spike asked sharply.

"Well, not the truth, obviously. I just told Buffy that my friend 'William' had sent them, and that he was a grad student studying Romantic Era poetry."

"You what!" Anger flared in Spike's eyes.

"I panicked! It was the first thing I could think of!" Willow protested.

"That I write poetry?" Spike was incredulous.

"Study it, not write it. Because of the help you gave me on my paper. I ended up following your advice, and got an A," she explained.

Spike clearly didn't care about her grades. "You'll just have to change it. Tell the Slayer I had a crisis of faith and switched majors, or something."

"Oh, and that won't make her suspicious. I'm sorry you don't like it, Spike, but I'm afraid we're stuck with it. It's your own fault for sending me flowers," Willow declared firmly.

Spike collapsed against a nearby tree, defeated. Willow came over and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"Just think, it's the ultimate cover story," she offered, trying to be cheering, "No one's going to connect you with someone who reads poetry. Buffy and the others will never guess. I mean, you're the Big Bad, after all."

"Yeah," he responded glumly, "I'm the Big Bad."

Willow couldn't figure out why Spike was taking it so hard. Granted, now that she thought about it, it was a pretty embarrassing story to give out about someone like Spike. Still, it wasn't really something she'd said about him, just something she'd made up about her fictional 'William'. She hurried to think of something to cheer him up.

"I was just on my way to the coffee house," she quickly lied, "Would you like to come with me? Keep me company?"

Spike looked at her blankly for a moment, then shook himself a bit and seemed to come back to life.

"Yeah, sure, ducks. I could go for a nice cuppa. Just one condition: not another word about poetry."

"Deal," Willow agreed eagerly, happy to have gotten Spike's mind off of her horrible blunder. She took his hand and steered them towards the Grotto.