Title: The Final Link in the Chain (2/?)
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Disclaimer: Joss owns all.
Written: June 19, 21, 1999
Note: For those who wanted more... If I don't go any further, this part should cover what I was thinking when I wrote part 1.

She was crying into her arms when he got back, deep, tearing sobs that shook her entire body. For a moment, she looked so small and utterly vulnerable that Spike felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness well up within him. The forelorn figure that she presented tugged at the instincts that had bloomed within the vampire over the years in which he had willingly devoted himself to his beloved, often childlike and needy Dark Goddess.

And then, Willow looked up, and though her eyes were filled with tears, strength still shone from her face. Her lips parted, anger and appreciation warring for dominance on her face. Her head shook, lips snapping shut, and Willow settled for wiping at her blotchy, tear stained face with the back of her hand.

Her coat was already off, laying slightly behind her. Spike crouched down next to Willow, tearing the bloodied remains of her left sleeve from her in a quick motion. Without a word, he probed at the bullet wound streaking across the pale flesh of her upper arm.

His senses reeled from the heady scent of her blood. Unable, and in truth, unwilling, to fight his urge to taste the intoxicating stuff, Spike brought his fingers to him mouth, cleaning Willow's blood from them. She was looking at him, wide eyed and silent, her body stiffening beneath the steady pressure of his hand against her knee.

"Could you not snack on me?" Willow said finally, her voice rough with tears and uncertainty. Spike could hear her heart pounding, loud and fast sending blood pumping through the veins pulsating beneath the skin he touched.

"You're too tasty for you're own good, pet," Spike grinned. "And I was never good at resisting temptation."

She huffed. "So Buffy said," Willow muttered, and instantly regretted mentioning the Slayer when Spike's fingers dug into her knee.

Spike pulled back from her slightly, his hands easily going through the motions of bandaging Willow's wound. "The Slayer told you, did she?" he said, no venom in his tone. His voice sounded strangely... detached, and Willow couldn't hold back her slight shudder.

"I rather figured it out on my own. Buffy just confirmed it," Willow answered. She cautiously peeked down at her arm, relieved to find the shallow gash marring her skin safely hidden from sight by the bandage Spike was fastening around it. Being queasy in her line of work wasn't an option, but the sight of the trail that the bullet had left across her upper arm as it grazed past her had made Willow realize just how close that she'd been to getting one in a significantly more vital area.

"Didn't think that she'd be so eager to tell her precious little friends that she was shagging a demon... again," Spike said, almost unwillingly. He'd had fun at the time, enjoying Buffy's warmth and passion and the banter that usually marked any time that they spent together. The few intimate, and decidedly dangerous encounters that had passed between them during the long year that he had been forced to help the Slayer and her friends hadn't been worth it when he'd been able to return to Drusilla.

His beloved princess had taken one look at him, her wide eyes dark with thoughts that he found that he couldn't imagine. Her voice, when she finally broke the silence between them had been uncompromising. Straying briefly could be pardoned when the sex was a prelude to a meal -- but not, Drusilla had proclaimed, when it was the nasty Slayer that he'd enjoyed while apart from her.

Rocking back on his heels, Spike watched Willow's profile. "I think that it's time that you told me what's happening, pet," he said. Her jaw clenched, lips thinning unhappily, and Spike forced a mocking tone to his voice. "Unless you'd like to go against the Watchers all alone, that is," he shrugged.

Willow's head swung towards him, her eyes wide. "What makes you think that those men were Watchers," she asked coolly. It was strange, Willow thought, all those years ago -- a lifetime past -- when she though of Watchers, visions of tweed and tea came to mind. She'd taken Giles as her basis and built a Council of proper, dedicated and thoroughly respectable individuals in her imagination. That image hadn't lasted very long after Buffy had turned her back on the Council and they'd seen that they were as much at ease with violence as they were with ancient texts.

"They had the look to them," Spike said easily.

Willow sighed, running a shaking hand, still painted with dried blood, through her hair. "I work... worked for the Council as an investigator," she began. "Shortly after you left, Buffy and the Council worked things out... the top level, the ones who had been making all the decisions about going through with the test on Buffy's birthday, and not helping Angel and... everything else, were removed. New people were put in, more flexible and willing to pull their heads out of their... books, long enough to see what was happening in the real world."

"And I believed that things had changed. So, when one of the recruiters came calling, I was more than eager to do my part to help. I investigated claims of supernatural events to see whether the situation warranted the Slayer's intervention, if it were a hoax, a known enemy, or something that hadn't been encountered before. Like the X-Files -- except I knew the 'truth'... at least I thought I did," Willow snorted.

It had been dangerous, terrifying work sometimes. Without Buffy, or Giles or Xander or anyone else to back her up, she'd learned to rely on and hone her own abilities. It had been work that she could take pride it, something that helped the world as she never could have should she have spent the rest of her working years behind a desk.

"I met him on the plane back to London after a short stop in Sunnydale. Erik Starsmore -- funny and intelligent and definitely... drool worthy," Willow said, her lips twisting into a humourless smile. "Getting hooked up with him proved to be an even bigger mistake than falling in with the Council."

"I wanted to live a normal life for a while, take a break from the weirdness and play housewife. The Council wasn't happy to hear that, but they agreed to let me go. They also decided that they couldn't risk someone unacceptable finding out about their operation, so they checked up on Erik. Standard procedure for anyone working in the Council, or involved with any of it's members. And this time... they found something."

Willow looked at Spike, her expression grim and her eyes haunted. "I'm almost as unlucky at love as Buffy is," she said softly. Her eyes closed, and she drew in a deep, wavering breath. "Turns out that Erik is the descendant of a particularly nasty sorcerer... the only one still alive, at that. And to make matters worse, his none-too-nice ancestor is alive and nutty and evil as ever. You know how it goes for us Hellmouth graduates -- when things can get worse, they do. The old guy just happened to need the blood of one of his own to wake a demon."

She laughed harshly. "I'm sure you can figure out what that means. The Council did, too. So they decided to take out Erik before he could be used for that -- they stormed into our house and..." Willow's head dropped to her knees, her breathing low and shallow.

Spike nodded, his voice sounding muted and far away when he replied. "They've done that a time or so before," he said, almost approving.

Willow's head lifted, and she glared at him through red-rimmed eyes. "You don't have to sound so... _impressed_ with the fact that they go around murdering people!" she snapped.

Willow began speaking again before Spike could respond. "The cops found me there, I guess the shots disturbed the neighbours sleep," she said bitterly, remembering all the times when pleas for help and dying screams had been ignored by those safely enclosed in their homes. "...Covered with blood and clutching the gun I had used to protect myself from my former colleagues."

"The Council is afraid that you'll tell all?" Spike asked.

"No. They just want to make sure my baby doesn't survive."