Chapter 9

"I'm sorry, Miss Summers, but I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong." The meant-to-be-soothing voice on the phone only irritated Buffy. The little hairs on the back of her neck prickled more and more the longer she was on the phone.

"I didn't say I needed you to help me, Alan." Buffy gritted out. "I said that I need to speak with my Watcher. Rupert Giles. Unless you've killed him and buried him in the basement, he's around there someplace. And I need to speak with him. Directly, about private stuff. Now, either get him for me, or tell me why not."

Alan chuckled uneasily. "Buried him in the basement. Hah, such a sense of humor. Let me see, he was in a meeting, but I'll check his office again. He might have popped in the other door."

The line clicked and classical music came from the phone. "I'll pop you." Buffy muttered, knowing she couldn't say anything like that to Giles' assistant, but feeling better from getting it out of her system. The line clicked again and the music shut off.

"Buffy," Glies' voice came through the line. "What on earth is going on? I was just settling down to review my notes for my next meeting, and Alan ran into my office saying you needed to speak to me urgently. Is there some apocalypse brewing that we've missed?"

Buffy sighed. "Hi, Giles. No apocalypse, Alan just wouldn't let me talk to you unless I threatened him."

"Oh, now Buffy, really. Was that necessary?"

"I don't know, Giles. Was it necessary to take the most experienced Slayer from Rome and move her to teach pre-k in Bath? Was it necessary to send an incredibly inexperienced Watcher to Rome, after we spent like most of a day strategizing how to staff the Slayer Center here and deciding we'd have experienced staff only? Was it necessary to tell Andrew he needed to move back to Italy when he'd just rented an apartment in England?"

Rupert Giles frowned, blinking at the voice on the phone. Had he done that? He'd certainly not meant to totally ignore all of Buffy's suggestions and Willow's concerns. Then again, many things happened every day without his notice, and there were recommendations from the Executive Board to consider. "Umm, I'll have to look into that, I'll get back to you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" Buffy nearly shrieked. "What is there to look into? Either you did it or you didn't!"

"Buffy, my dear, it's not that simple." Giles rubbed his eyes, knocking his glasses off his face. "I am working with a motley crew of mostly pensioners called back to service, trainees, and lower level staff suddenly promoted. Even as I try to change things, I discover people working at cross-purposes to me, doing things without my consent; and even as I correct one situation another seems to crop up. Not to mention the technological problems, which I don't even understand half of the time." He wound down with a soft, tired sigh. "I wish I could tell you that this is all a mistake and I had nothing to do with it, but it could very well turn out that someone put in a request for a teacher in Bath and I signed off on moving Marlene without noticing because I was trying to focus on some other problem."

Buffy closed her eyes and shook her head. "Yeah, okay. I was worried about something like that, you know. You should have said that you were overwhelmed, it's not like there aren't people willing to help. I'm going to get together a team to send to Bath. I'll call you at home once I have a schedule. Oh, and can you find something out for me?"

"I never said I was overwhelmed..." Giles bristled.

Buffy huffed. "Well, I don't know what you'd call it, when you can't even take the time to read things before you sign them, and you don't have control over your staff. Sorry, I don't have any staff, so I have no clue if I could do better. Probably not, being the general isn't my strong suit."

Giles smiled. "No, actually you did very well leading a team. You always have." He took a deep breath. "You said you needed a favor?"

"Oh, yeah. So, the chef at the Hyperion in Los Angeles is actually British. She used to work at Watcher HQ in London, but after the explosion she left and moved in with her brother here in LA. Her husband's a researcher for the Council. He's been stationed in Iceland for the past two years, on what was originally meant to be a six-month research trip.

"She can't get a visa to work in Iceland, that's why she's here; and he can't seem to get a transfer back to HQ. She took a vacation to go visit him about 5 months ago and got pregnant. She'd really like it if you could transfer him to Bath or LA so she can live with him again, and he can be there when the baby's born. I sent you and Alan both e-mails about it, but all I got was a message saying you'd look into it. It read almost like a form letter. I thought I might get farther telling you about it on the phone. I'd like to know why he never got transferred back to London. It seems weird, you know?"

"Hmm, that does seem strange." Giles frowned, picking up his glasses to polish them. "It's not Council policy to separate married Watchers from their families. Even under Travers, they would have tried to send her with him, or brought him home after just a short trip so the family life wasn't disrupted."

"And yet, he finished his work in six months, submitted it and his application to return to London, and got rejected over and over again. I had him send the report he sent to Travers to me and to Jezzie and Penny in LA, since they're research peeps. He said he sent it to you and Alan with his renewed application to transfer back to England, so I'm guessing you have it somewhere."

"Buffy, I really wish you would consult with me before sending Council documents to people you barely know."

Buffy sighed, "Yeah, I barely know them, but they're Slayers. They were trained Watchers working for the old Council, they just helped avert an apocalypse, and they're helping set up the Slayer school in LA. They're going to be part of my team when I move there, and they know how to research, which I don't really. Wesley has the report, too, if that makes a difference, it was actually his idea to pass it along to the others."

"I've been meaning to speak to you about that." Giles cut in, straightening his glasses. "If you are really that concerned about having an experienced Slayer in Rome, you seem the best possible candidate for the job. You already know the area and the players in the local demon population. Why don't you reconsider the notion of moving back to California and stay where you are."

Buffy could feel her blood pressure rising as she got angry, could literally feel herself flushing with rage. She felt like one of those cartoons where someone gets angry and smoke comes out of their ears. "Okay, forgetting that I'm being pursued by a demon we know very little about for who knows why, and that I have an injured boyfriend living in California that I want to help with his recovery. Ignoring those reasons, the fact that I have a younger sister who takes priority in my life is a serious factor, you know. Also, you've already approved my transfer, so you can't take it back."

Giles sighed, "Is that what you're calling Spike now? Your boyfriend?"

Buffy blushed, because really that had just popped out of her mouth. It's not like she and Spike had defined the situation. They'd agreed to try, to work on communicating better and being gentler with one another. Neither of them was ready to count on their relationship working out, since it hadn't been all good to begin with, and they were both different people than when they were together last.

She took a deep breath. "That's what I'm calling him. It's what I want him to be. And it's beside the point, really. Even if there was nothing romantic going on, Dawn and I both miss California. And with the UC system making arrangements for the students from Sunnydale now, I might actually have a shot at going back to school. Who knows, maybe after I graduate I'll want to come live in Europe again. But for now it's not the best place for me, and I think you know that if you look at it logically."

"Regardless of your personal reasons, it really does make more sense for the head Slayer to be located someplace where the Council has better access to her."

Buffy shivered. It felt almost like Giles was channeling Quentin Travers. Weren't they past Giles treating her like a tool?

"Please do give some consideration to withdrawing your transfer request, for the good of the organization. Was there anything else you needed?"

"Nope, Giles, that's all I had to talk to you about. Better get back to work." Buffy blinked at the phone in her hand, wondering if it was possible that she'd somehow been transferred to a call with a completely different person.

"Excellent. I look forward to your weekly report." Giles hung up the phone with a thunk. "Now, where are my notes? ALAN!"

Buffy slowly hung up the receiver, the buzzing dial tone ringing in her ear. She'd had some strange conversations with Giles over the years, but that had to take the cake. Mmm, cake. Did she eat lunch?

As Buffy stood to head for the cafeteria, she pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and dialed Willow. "Hey Wills, I'm glad I caught you. I know you wanted to head back to Rio today, but I think we have a real emergency on our hands. Can you fly directly to England instead? Something is really wrong with Giles."

Dawn sat watching Buffy throw clothes into a bag, trying to look like she wasn't excited to see her sister leave. Not that she WAS really excited to see Buffy leave, but she was definitely excited to be considered responsible enough to stay on her own for a few days.

"I hate to do this to you." Buffy said again, as she held up a pair of sweaters to consider. "I just got a really weird vibe, and I can't wait for you to finish your finals before I see Giles. I hope you don't feel like I'm abandoning you or something." Buffy threw both sweaters into her suitcase. "You'll head for England to meet us as soon as your last test is over and the last few boxes are shipped out, right?"

"Yes, Buffy. It's cool, I can manage to ship off the rest of the stuff. You have basically everything packed anyway." Dawn tried to look relaxed and mature. "And if I have any problems, I'll ask Alvand to help me." Don't mention the boyfriend, don't mention the boyfriend…

"Maybe this will work out for the best, anyway." Buffy remarked, throwing a pair of ankle boots into a dust bag and fitting it into a small vacant space in the increasingly full suitcase. "It'll give me time to really dig into what the Council is doing these days, before Spike gets to England and potentially muddies up the situation. And you certainly don't need me and my drama here distracting you while you're trying to study."

"Eh, it's not that much drama." Dawn smiled. "And I like it much better when you keep me in the loop of what's going on with you. It's when I have to wonder what's wrong, and I start having anxiety dreams and tension headaches that my grades suffer."

Buffy swooped in and hugged Dawn hard, accidentally hitting her with a pair of leggings. "I am so proud of you. You know that, right?"

Dawn blushed, fighting to keep a smile on her face as she suffered some guilt for planning to spend as much time with her boyfriend as possible before Buffy forced her to head for England. "Uh, thanks. So, what do you think is going on with Giles?"

Buffy sighed, pressing on the top of her bag as she started to zip it. "Spell, possession, early onset Alzheimer's, who the heck knows. I'm telling you, though, if you could have heard that conversation you'd have been weirded out, too. It was like he changed personalities or attitudes or something right in mid-conversation."

"Maybe he was just distracted? Giles always did get a little flaky when he was deep in research mode." Dawn tried to sound 'hopeful for a good outcome' and not 'please don't go, Buffy'.

"This was beyond distracted. It was…"

Andrew rushed into the doorway. "Okay, I got two tickets on the next flight to London, but we need to go NOW to make it to the airport. We really should have left five minutes ago."

Buffy grabbed her bag and ran after Andrew. "Be safe, Dawn, study hard! I'll call from Heathrow!"

Dawn stayed where she was for a moment as Buffy and Andrew muttered and loaded up their things and headed out of the apartment. Then, with a smile on her face, she picked up the clothes Buffy had decided not to take and folded them into a shipping crate left off to one side of the bed. There was space in the crate when she was done, so Dawn checked the closet and dresser to be sure they were empty. Since there were no clothes left to pack, she stripped the bed and filled the crate with the linens before taping it shut.

Then she checked the street out front to be sure the cab was gone, pulling out her phone. "Ciao, Marco. Do you have plans for tonight? Because I suddenly find myself with a bit more free time…"