Chapter 13

"So, who are these people we're going to see?" Willow muttered to Buffy, the 'ladies' standing back by the hotel doors as Andrew went out to the cab stand.

"I'm pretty sure one of the researchers is Andrew's new boyfriend." Buffy muttered. "As for the rest of them, they work at the Council, mostly around our ages. Recently out of undergrad or grad school. I've only heard a couple of names. I think the boyfriend's older sister is a Slayer."

Willow nodded. "Did Andrew tell you why he wants us to meet them?"

"Well, I did ask to meet his guy." Buffy could feel her cheeks heat up. "Andrew's been really great with Dawn, and Roman demon politics, and running Giles interference…I shouldn't have let that go on as long as it did, because witness the repercussions…Anyway, he's still a weird little nerd, but now he's my weird little nerd friend, you know? I'm protective."

Willow smirked. "Are you trying to make nice with the boyfriend, or checking for if you have to beat him up?"

Buffy shrugged and gave Willow a half-smile. "Why can't it be both? Also, I keep hearing I need to get to know more people in the organization, and checking out Andrew's friends seems like as good a place to start as any."

"Yeah," Willow sighed. "I've been hearing that also, from Gretchen and Althenea. If I'm supposed to be one of the Heads of the Slayer Coven, then I need to know who's teaching magic for the Council and who's learning it. I just…Kind of hate meeting new people, you know? It makes me nervous."

Buffy nodded. "I can see that. I don't mind meeting people, but I feel like I'm constantly overwhelmed with new information, and I can't keep track of it all. I have so many people's names to remember now, and then I have to keep track of things about them…"

"You should keep a notebook. Or send yourself texts, or something." Willow cut in. "Then you don't have to remember, you just focus on getting to know them, then you write everything down, and when you go to see them again you check your notes. That's what I do." Willow squirmed, wringing her hands. "I can take a few notes and remember anything. It's figuring out what to say I have trouble with. And then I babble."

"Here's a thought." Buffy smiled and slipped an arm through Willow's. "We'll stick together. I'll handle the small talk, you keep track of what everyone says. Then I'll be able to focus on observing, and not how the heck I remember everything later."

Willow smiled and nodded in relief. "That sounds perfect."

Frantic waving across the sidewalk caught their eyes, and Buffy sighed. "Okay, Andrew's got us a car, let's go schmooze the Watchers."

The woman who opened the door to Andrew's knock looked to Buffy like her black wool pants and rosy-pink shell were the remains of a partially-shed pantsuit. Her excited shriek and flinging her arms around Andrew's neck made Buffy reevaluate her theory that the woman worked for the Council.

Once the shrieking and squealing calmed down, Buffy and Willow were still outside the door and there was now a small crowd just inside it. Andrew finally took a breath and, realizing he hadn't introduced them, turned tomato red. "Oh, gosh, sorry. Hey, Buffy, this is Marigold Westwood. Goldie, this is Buffy Summers."

A gasp went up behind Goldie, and the crowd just inside the door doubled in size between blinks. Goldie went pale and her mouth dropped open. Buffy had a bad feeling about this. "Hi." Buffy tried to smile, hoping it didn't look like a grimace. "This is my friend Willow. Willow Rosenberg."

"Okay, back it up everyone! Give Her Majesty some space!" A voice from behind the crowd was soon accompanied by shoving, and then a body pushed through. The man who emerged was not much taller than Andrew, with a big smile that contrasted blindingly with his skin and curly hair cut close to his scalp. He grabbed Andrew in a quick hug before turning to Buffy, hand extended to shake. "Hi, I'm Daniel Taylor. We're honored to make your acquaintance, Ms. Summers."

Relieved that he was acting somewhat normal, Buffy shook. "Nice to meet you, Daniel. Thanks so much for having us over, especially on short notice." She smiled winningly. "We wanted to bring something, but Andrew said it wasn't necessary…"

"Oh, it's not at all. Come in and see, we have pots of liquor." Daniel turned to Willow. "Ms. Rosenberg, I presume?"

"You presume correctly." Willow shook the offered hand and allowed herself to be urged after Buffy into the apartment.

Once they'd pushed past the gawkers at the door; some of whom had the grace to back off, though most stayed huddled by Andrew; they realized the gathering was like a happy hour crossed with a house party. There was an assortment of chips and dip on a coffee table, and a cheese tray on the kitchen island, but mostly people in post-work outfits were standing around drinking wine and warm British beer. A few were crowded around a stereo arguing about what to play next, two guys in a corner were playing chess, and there was a woman hanging out the window smoking.

"Would you like me to walk you around and introduce you, or do you prefer to make your own way?" Daniel asked, leaning close to them. "I don't want to make it weird, but I'm happy to run interference if you like."

"Does everyone here work for the Council?" Buffy asked hesitantly. She'd known it was a Council gathering, but with how hard Giles continued to search for Watchers, she found it hard to believe the crowded apartment was only Council people.

"A couple of spouses, but yeah, most of us work at the Research Library. And two guys in Field, who are awaiting reassignment." Daniel shrugged. "Don't know how that works exactly, not my department."

Buffy snorted. "Lately I'm not sure how it works either. Let's start with the researchers, if you don't mind leading us around. Who's in charge of Research?"

Daniel spent the next two hours walking Buffy and Willow around his apartment, getting them wine, introducing them to people, and helping keep the conversations flowing while also making sure they could extract themselves and move on. Andrew had wandered over after about 45 minutes to check that they were taken care of, asked if they'd had the chance to meet Paul Crenshaw in Magickal Research yet, then moved on when they said they had. Buffy really hoped Willow had been taking notes of some kind, she'd only had a few thoughts she felt worth texting to herself, she was sure she'd missed stuff.

Finally they'd spoken to everyone in the apartment, and Daniel and Andrew guided them to the seats near the chessboard, the game between a demon researcher and one of the field Watchers having broken up an hour ago. Daniel then went to say goodbye to a couple heading out, leaving the three Sunnydale alums in the relatively quiet corner.

"The Council's a mess." Willow said, after they'd sat in silence for a few minutes. "I mean, I knew things were disorganized and Giles was having a hard time keeping up, but the fact that there are departments we've never heard of whose employees we haven't been in contact with…It's not great. Not efficient, not good planning, bad for morale…I'm supposed to be the Head of the Coven, and I had no idea there was a Head of Magical Research! And he had no idea I was supposed to be the Head of the Coven!"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, the amount the people in charge of the records don't know about me is wiggy. Almost as troubling as the amount they actually do know." She turned to Andrew with a troubled frown. "Also, what's with the Her Majesty thing? It freaks me out."

Andrew tried to shrug unaffectedly, but his splotchy blush gave him away. "A lot of Council people consider the Slayer to be the Queen of the Clan of Sineya. Not that it mattered much while the Slayers lived an average of 18 months after being called and never came to HQ. Now that there are so many Slayers, they talk about what it means that you were the last one to serve on your own. What you owe them, and what they owe you. How the Council can support you, or maybe that it was a bad idea to do what you did, and should they be looking at how to reverse it."

"18 months!" Buffy paled. "I knew not many Slayers had served as long as me, but I had no idea there was an average term of service, or that it was so short."

"It was longer once." Andrew nodded. "During the London Blitz in World War II there was an invasion of Council HQ, where someone stole the list of all the potentials the Council had identified, and tried to kill them all. It made for a lot of short-term Slayers and skewed the numbers. Not to mention the damage done by concentration camps and general war stuff."

"Well, that's terrifying." Willow's eyes bugged out. "Oh, you don't think they can actually reverse what we did, do you? I mean, to put everyone back under that geas, and have one Slayer at a time again…"

"Personally, I'm not in favor." Buffy said dryly. "Although I do understand the theory that we've somehow upset the balance and the concern about what that means, the counter to that is what Willow said about breaking the geas. She not only broke the suppression spell that gave the power to only one girl at a time, she released us from our responsibility to protect humanity. We're no longer, strictly speaking, warriors for the light."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Daniel had reappeared with Goldie, who it turned out was the other field Watcher present, close at his heels.

Buffy met his eyes. "It means we have a responsibility to the Slayers to train them in how to use their powers, and then we should let them decide what to do once they're trained. We, the Council, have to be responsible for those damaged by the fight, the orphans and those with physical or mental trauma. We have to educate them, raise the younger ones, and keep in touch with everyone so we know when to expect young Slayers to pop up. At some point we'll probably have to come up with Slayer retirement facilities, since I know of at least two senior citizens who came over suddenly stronger last year." Buffy sighed and looked down at her lap, rubbing the hem of her shirt.

"The Slayers that do want to keep up the fight are absolutely all going to need their own Watchers, and if we can swing it, some additional support. That might mean two Watchers, or a Watcher and a Coven member, or the Slayer's siblings or parents…We'll have to figure that out, but we know from experience that a Slayer fighting alone with a Watcher trained not to get attached to her is a recipe for the Slayer ending up with a death wish. I've put too much effort into training my girls to have them go out that way, and that's barely a tenth of the young ones we're working with now. Not to mention the parents, and their future children."

"You're talking about a full scale reorganization of the Watcher's Council. A total shift in our mission statement, and techniques, and how we select Watchers." Goldie looked awed. "That's amazing." Her eyes narrowed. "And about damn time, too."

Buffy and Willow exchanged glances. "I'm glad you think so." Buffy said.

Goldie plopped herself down on the windowsill closest to Willow. "You have no idea how good it is to hear that you're fully committed to figuring out how to reshape the Council. After the explosion at the old HQ, once the dust settled and all the pensioners and the higher ups who'd been on vacation and whatnot started talking about what to do next, they were quick to appoint Mr. Giles to head up the Council. I don't know if you know, but the Head of the Council was always chosen based on two factors. They wanted someone experienced who'd clocked field time, but who was young enough to stay in the role for at least ten years, barring complications. You were famous for being willful and creative, and only wanting to work with Mr. Giles. We had high hopes for his tenure, especially a lot of us younger people. He won the vote by an overwhelming majority."

She sighed and took a drink. "Then he came to London and made a very polite speech about rebuilding the Council stronger than ever, and promptly moved HQ out to Bath instead of rebuilding here in London. He's rehired a lot of people who should be in retirement to prominent roles, ignored overtures from younger members, and generally gone on to be even stuffier and worse to work with than Mr. Travers. We're seriously considering a strike or some other collective action, just to get a meeting with him."

"Not to mention that if he's serious about funding the new HQ by selling the former Council property in London, we really do need to get on the selling part." Daniel interjected. "Which means a bunch of researchers have to do the archaeology thing on the site and make sure no weird artifacts are found by the new owners, and we have to check to make sure there's no magical residue in the ruins. He hasn't even begun to organize that yet. And no one from HQ seems to want to do a damn thing about moving the Academy or the Research Library, which is absurd. It's only an hour or so on the train, but if we're allegedly keeping costs down by moving to cheaper real estate, why are we sitting on two large buildings that aren't actually destroyed? That would certainly fund new facilities, or care for injured Slayers or whatever else."

Buffy sighed. So, it wasn't just Giles' ignoring what she wanted to do that was causing problems, he was also denying Willow resources and cutting the Council management off from the Research departments, and who knew what else. "I hate to ask this, because I still think there's something controlling Giles or otherwise causing him to act wonky, but if he has to be replaced as Head Watcher, do either of you have ideas on who to appoint, who'd be down for the policies I'm proposing?"

Daniel, Goldie, and Andrew exchanged glances. "Well, I'd say that if you're looking for someone as universally respected as Mr. Giles was before he took the spot, your best bet would be Chet Freeman," Goldie said. "He's been the Section Head in the Caribbean for years, he's well respected, knowledgeable about magic and demons…"

"Is he related to Nick Freeman?" Buffy asked.

Willow perked up. "Oh, we like Nick."

Daniel smiled. "Chet, Chester Freeman formally, is Nicholas' father. Chet was Amber Summers' assigned Watcher when she was identified as a potential."

Buffy dug around in her purse for her mobile phone, only to realize she couldn't make a call because the Italian phone didn't work on the British network. "Ugh, can I borrow a phone? I need to call Amber and ask if her father-in-law is willing to come help with this mess."

"You want to replace Giles right away?" Andrew sounded anxious. "I thought we were going to evaluate what was going on with him before you made any decisions."

"Oh, no, we're absolutely not removing Giles unless it's absolutely necessary." Buffy declared, reaching out to give Andrew's hand a reassuring pat. "But if we're going to keep him, he'll need supporters. So we need people with some pull to help us make the evaluation, and then help Giles get things back on track."

"Also," Willow interjected, "If Giles is really doing something wrong, we'll need to get him out of the top spot and have a replacement ready. We can't allow the Council to flounder, there are so many more people relying on us now."

Daniel had walked off when Buffy asked for a phone, and came back with the cordless phone from his kitchen. "Here, you can call from this."

"Thank you so much, Daniel." Buffy smiled, and held his hand as she took the phone. "I appreciate what you've done tonight. Welcoming a couple of strangers into your home, smoothing the way so we could get the information we need. Really, thank you."

Daniel bowed his head. "The honor is mine, your highness. I've been wondering, ever since meeting Andrew, how you can inspire such loyalty in people. I'm very pleased to see that it has more to do with your genuine goodness and caring for people than with manipulation or charisma."

Buffy wished she was surprised someone would think she was evil or selfish, but Andrew was obviously easy to manipulate, and Giles must seem like he'd had a personality transplant since taking over. Her representatives in England weren't exactly impartial and trustworthy. She'd have to stay here for a while once she got the Giles situation settled, or come back soon, maybe. Thank the almighty Spike was on his way.