"The Once and Future Slayer" (Part 3 of 5)
By: PandyGrrl

Part 3 of 5

Sunnydale, California 2008

Willow Rosenberg answered her phone groggily, “Giles? Buffy?” she inquired. Knowing that the only two people who would be calling her this late would be the Watcher or the Slayer.

“Willow, it’s Giles. How did you know?”

“You two are the only ones who would dare call anybody this late.Well besides Oz but he’s playing a show in New York tonight. ” She tried to laugh but she was too sleepy.

“ I think I may have found something. It’s very interesting. Could you come to the library?”

“What? Now?” Willow groaned knowing that she would end up going anyway. she shrugged her clothes on while Giles vagued up his earlier cryptic message. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t listening, she was not awake enough to listen. She’d find out when she got there.

“Bye, Giles” Before waiting for his reply she hung up the phone and headed out the front door of her house.

On the way there Willow debated the events that had brought her here. Right after college Willow had been made the head of Sunnydale High’s computer science department. The competition hadn’t been too rough and no one else had her credentials. She could have done better but Sunnydale was where she wanted to be.

Then Giles had asked the Watcher Council if he could train a new recruit. Willow. Since then she had spent most of her time helping Giles track down monsters for Buffy to fight. He even taught her how to use most of the weapons but she was no where near as good with them as Buffy and Giles. She got better at it everyday though.

The only free time she had was divided between spending time with Oz and hanging out wih Buffy, Angel and Cordelia. She missed Xander. He had been so happy for her when the Watcher’s had accepted Willow as a trainee. He was the only one who really understood her desire to do this. Xander and Angel could always help Buffy fight but Willow just couldn’t match strengths with a vampire even if she wanted to. Somehow being a Watcher made her feel useful. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been unofficially occupying the position for years anyway.

She pulled her little Escort into the lot and parked next to Giles “grown up” car. His old one had died and to his dismay he had been forced to get a new one. A nice practical Bronco. It didn’t suit him. Buffy had convinced him it was perfect and somehow he listened. It had come in handy on one or two occaisions because it could hold a lot of equipment in the back.

She glanced from side to side as she headed towards the main entrance. She didn’t like being out alone in the middle of the night. Vampire activity had been pretty low since Spike and Dru skipped town because no one wanted to step up against Buffy but they were still there. And they had annoying habit of showing up at the worst possible moment.

Willow made it to the library and found Giles, as usual, sitting at a table with a pile of books in front of him. Willow sighed. Giles had been a source of much worry for both Buffy and Willow over the years. After Ms. Calendar was killed he had made almost no attempts at a life outside of school and Slaying. There were a couple of near catastrophic dates but they only resigned Giles to living alone.

Willow approached softly to see what was so important she had to get out of bed at three in the morning for it.

Go to Part 4