Chapter 12

Willow slogged through Heathrow, her bag feeling like a lead weight behind her. Between all the bone-healing spells, Buffy's frantic worry about Giles, and then having to call Kennedy and say not only was she not returning to Rio just yet but she was sending them another student…Well, let's just say Willow hadn't been sleeping well since LA, and the incredibly long flight in coach hadn't helped.

She checked her phone again, hoping for a text or a missed call, wondering where Buffy was and what they were meant to do next. Other than 'get to London, I'll meet you there', they hadn't exactly dealt with specifics.

"Paging passenger Willow Rosenberg. Willow Rosenberg, please see an attendant at Passport Control. Paging passenger Willow Rosenberg, please contact a staff member at Passport Control." The tinny announcement caught her attention, and she sighed in relief. She'd been headed in that direction anyway, and she knew from previous trips that the Council had some sort of contacts with Immigration, they'd never had to wait in the line in England.

Sure enough, when Willow flashed her passport at one of the jacketed Passport Control attendants and told them she was Willow Rosenberg, she was directed to a practically empty diplomatic screening area where Andrew awaited her on the other side of the screening booth, waving frantically.

"Willow!" Andrew hugged her surprisingly firmly, and without shrieking or waxing poetic. She was impressed. "I'm so glad you made it safe. Buffy went ahead to the hotel, so I've been waiting here for you. We decided it was better to stay in London, so it won't be too long now and we can get you some rest." He patted her shoulder and took hold of the bag handle. "Do you have anything to pick up at baggage claim?"

Willow smiled. "No, I wasn't supposed to be gone so long from Rio. I'll probably need to hit a laundromat and maybe buy a few things tomorrow, but for now this is all I have."

Andrew turned to walk towards the exit, and Willow followed. They were quiet for a few minutes, and if Willow was surprised, she was also kind of tired and achy, and was thankful for the quiet. It wasn't until they were heading past customs to the cab stand that she realized Andrew was acting odd. Once she'd noticed, it was hard to miss. He was turning pink and pale by turns, squirming, and opening his mouth and closing it again. "What is it, Andrew?" She finally asked. Hopefully she could put him out of his misery.

"Humm, what?" Andrew asked, turning pink again. "I wasn't saying anything."

Willow shook her head, and when they stopped in the queue for cabs, she fixed him with a hard stare. "You look like you want to say something, Andrew. What's up?"

Andrew took a deep breath, then sighed it out. "Okay, so, I was thinking about what we're doing here. I know Buffy is convinced that the whole problem is with Giles, but I wonder about that. You guys didn't really interact with the other Watchers much while you were here. I think there might very well be a subset of them working against us. Maybe Giles has been won over to their side and is working against us now, too, like Count Dooku fomenting the Clone Wars."

Willow shook her head. "So, your theory is what, Watcher conspiracy? Giles has been lured to the dark side?"

Andrew looked sheepish, but not cowed. "I mean, I could be wrong. I kind of hope I am wrong, because he could've dropped me like a bad habit after Sunnydale, and he didn't. He gave me a job and something to do with my weird niche magical knowledge. I kinda love that man, you know? But I do think we need to consider what it means if he's not under any kind of magical influence. Who runs the Council then?"

Willow blinked. Andrew was a hundred percent right, and wasn't that a strange thing to think. What the heck were they going to do if this wasn't a rescue mission? What if Giles just didn't want to run the Council the way Buffy did? She remembered what Spike had said about Buffy and Giles getting on the same page, and that it was up to Buffy to resolve it if they couldn't, and she winced. Spike had probably already thought of this, too. She wished he'd been able to come with her, but Merry and Ron weren't comfortable clearing him for long periods sitting up yet, so he was still stuck at the Hyperion, mostly in bed, but with monitored stints in a wheelchair and Physical Therapy.

She sighed. "You're right, but I don't want to think about it. I just can't process the concept of Darth Giles at the moment."

Andrew squeezed her shoulder again. "You don't have to be ready to deal right this second. But it may come up later this week, so it's better to think about getting ready to process it now, right?"

Willow grimaced. "Yeah."

Andrew withdrew the hand on her shoulder, and for a while they shuffled forward along with the crowd. "I was thinking." Andrew began speaking again abruptly. "You know, I know a few of the Watchers now. I could introduce you and Buffy to some people, maybe they'll have thoughts about what's going on? Or, at least you can get to know them and what they can do."

"Sure, that sounds good." Willow shrugged. She wasn't sure how making time for a social call could help, but at least if they met the Council people Andrew had gotten friendly with they'd be able to make sure he wasn't being unduly influenced again. No one needed Andrew trailing off after Warren Mach 2 with everything else going on.

"Do you think I did the right thing, leaving Dawn alone like this?" Buffy sighed into the phone.

"She's eighteen, pet." Spike replied, wincing as he shifted a hip. "You don't start giving 'er more responsibility she's gonna resent you. And if she can't hack it, at least you'll know that, an' you can use it as an excuse to overprotect her some more."

"Yeah, I know, but I still feel guilty." Buffy rolled onto her side, pressing the phone between her head and the pillow. "I feel like I abandoned her. My lizard brain thinks of her as a three-year-old, and I feel like dirt for leaving her in a half-packed apartment to finish packing herself up and taking her finals and flying all alone to England."

"Three, huh? I'd have figured her for at least 10."

"Oh, sure funny guy." Buffy rolled her eyes, even though he couldn't see it. "I keep thinking about that monk Glory killed, you know? They sent her to me, and Glory found out and hunted him down. It couldn't have been long before that she was created."

He frowned. He knew Buffy was right, that Glory had to have appeared in Sunnydale not long after Dawn, but he'd never really been able to wrap his brain around it that way. "My lizard brain remembers her bribing me to get her a Barbie stable after I did the restoration spell on Dru, and while I agree that she still feels more like a kid than a grown up, I expect Giles feels the same about you even at 24."

Buffy chuckled. "God, I'd forgotten about that. What did you do that got her so pissed off, anyway? I never got it out of her, she'd only say it was between the two of you."

He winced. "Umm, think she was mostly upset that I'd let Angel survive. Some that I'd sent assassins after you, she said it wasn't fair. I told her I was evil, fair wasn't part of the equation. She didn't seem impressed. And then she threatened to tell you where we were if I didn't bring the stable before Christmas."

"Dawnie's always had high standards, especially for you." Buffy rolled onto her back again. She didn't know how poor Spike was spending so much time flat on his back, he had to be going nuts. "Do you ever wonder why that is?"

"Why what is, Luv?"

"Why the rest of my friends and family got memories of meeting Dawn with Mom, or when I had to drag her out somewhere with me, and your memories are of kidnapping her and her sneaking out of the house to meet you, even when you were with your ex. You're the only one who has memories of Dawn before she really existed that aren't directly related to me and Mom. They don't even seem dependent on how you felt about me at that point in your life." Buffy shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does." Spike declared. "They didn't know what was going on with me, or between us, but they knew I was strong and I was helping you sometimes. Stands to reason that even if I hated you, I'd help defend the Little Bit if we had our own thing."

"I guess." She conceded. "I've just always felt like I was missing something when it came to your relationship with Dawn. How it started, why you bothered with her, how much of it was fabricated by the spell and how much was the two of you recognizing something you needed in one another…I've just always wondered."

"I wish I had answers for you, sweetheart." He groaned. His left calf was throbbing especially hard at the moment.

Buffy sat up at the noise. "Is that a pain groan or a boredom groan?"

"Little bit of pain. Better than it's been." He tried to sound bright.

"Am I keeping you awake? Should I let you go? Do you need to call for painkillers or something?"

"Luv, it's only seven am for me, remember? I'm just waking up, here. I'm probably due a pill, but I have them right here on the side table, no need to get off the phone."

Buffy blushed. "Ah, yeah, right. I forget, did Willow leave yesterday for you? I hate time zones. I was just getting used to when I could call you from Rome, and now I have to adjust all over again."

He laughed. "Yeah, Red left last night. Almost eleven hour flight, I imagine she's gotta be arriving soon there."

"Yeah, she and Andrew should be on the way here from the airport." Buffy sighed, flopping back on the bed again. "I should get dressed and be ready to do something productive once Andrew's back. I mean, Willow may just want to rest, she's been on a plane the whole time we were running around Rome packing and trying to get our own flight. Andrew's probably gonna be climbing the walls."

"Have you been naked this whole time?" Spike chuckled, trying to make light of it, although he wasn't sure what he really wanted her answer to be.

Buffy looked down at her exercise clothes, and smirked. "Well, no. I'm wearing panties."

He grunted, trying to ignore his body's reaction. "That's cruel, luv, taunting a man when he can't do anything about it."

"Poor baby," Buffy chuckled. "I'll see you next week, and you can do whatever you want to punish me then. Until then, you'll just have to take care of yourself."

Spike sighed. "I'd love to think of your beautiful self and have a nice wank; unfortunately it's not possible at the mo'."

Buffy sat up again with a frown. "Wait, hold on. Did your, um, groin get injured when you got squashed? You seemed okay in that area when I was in LA."

"My groin, huh? No, Goldilocks, the equipment is unbruised and working more or less correctly. Unfortunately, when I get too excited my muscles tense, and I end up in pain from my glutes pulling on the damaged bones in my thighs."

"Oh, shit." Buffy blanched. "You poor baby. I take it you know this from trying to…"

"Yeah." Spike sighed. "Tried, regretted it. Haven't tried again since, but I've been tensing the muscles intentionally to gauge it, and it doesn't seem like it's gonna be workable any time soon." He winced. "Sorry, pet, know you were probably expecting me to…"

"Hey, stop right there." Buffy hugged her arms around her legs, tucking the phone against her shoulder. "What did we say, William? No expectations unless one of us promises something, no assumptions about anything. Now I know you're not up to it, so I won't be expecting sex, right? It's fine. You're not a sex toy, you're a person. You're allowed to say no, especially when saying yes would hurt you. I don't want to hurt you again."

He shrugged, even though she couldn't see him. "I know you're sayin' that, luv, and I appreciate it but it still makes me feel like a right prat for disappointing you. Feel like I'm leaving you wanting."

"Oh, sweetie, if I need relief I have a vibrator. I don't have an injury that's forcing me to abstain. Although, honestly I think I'd feel guilty if I used it now, knowing you can't do anything." She frowned. "How long do you think it'll take to heal that, anyway?"

Spike shifted again, winced at the pain, and finally reached for the pain pills. He'd been trying to wait until after breakfast, but it wasn't happening today. "Not real sure, luv. Hoping not more than a month."

"Hmm," Buffy frowned, considering. "I know I asked you to share my hotel room when you get here, but was that a bad idea? Am I going to be accidentally injuring you, or making you uncomfortable? I mean, I wasn't counting on nookie, but if it happened I wouldn't have been upset. How am I supposed to feel okay snuggling with you, or changing with you here, knowing that if you get turned on it'll cause you pain?"

He sighed, wishing he'd never told her. He was going to kick his own ass if he missed out on the chance to sleep beside her again. "Let it lie for now, luv. It's almost a week til we head your way, and you need to be focusing on Rupert, not worrying about me. If I'm feeling particularly horny and the pain is still bad as of Sunday before we leave, I'll get my own room, okay?"

"I'm holding you to that, William." Buffy declared softly. "I really don't want to cause you pain like a big abusive jerk, or be a cocktease. I'd feel awful if that was where we started from, you know?"

"Maybe I just want to lay beside you, and know you're alive and you don't hate me. Maybe I'm a grown up who's responsible for controlling his own libido with a pretty girl in the room. What then, luv?"

Buffy took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "Then you're a bigger adult with better control than I am, because even when you were knocked out from your leg injuries and bruised all to hell, seeing you with your shirt off got me heated up."

"Well, I am older than you. I was bound to mature eventually."

"Fuck off, Spike."