They were sitting in the executioner’s living room waiting for the phone to ring. Well, Richard and Anita were expecting the phone to ring.

Daniel Osbourne was not.

He knew better. Quentin Travers didn’t think too kindly on Giles. It could be awhile before the former librarian got Dan’s message.

Dan, or Oz, as he had been known in Sunnydale, thought back to his time in high school. He remembered, with no fondness at all, the Scoobies’ experiences with the Watchers’ Council. The Council with their proclamations, thinking that they knew what was best and really having no idea. How could they? They had their theories, their history, their books. But they didn’t fight evil every day, like the Slayer and her friends. They were just a group of stodgy Brits. They weren’t even on the same continent as the Slayer, yet they still tried to run her life.

They hadn’t been there in the thick of things. Hadn’t been there for Spike and Dru, for the Judge, for Angelus, for Acathla, for Mayor Wilkins. Yet they still tried to act as Gods to the Slayer and her Watcher. Finding a way to blame everything that they disliked on Giles. Firing him. Sending Wesley. Failing to see that everything that Giles and Buffy did that was against the Council were the very things that were allowing them to survive.

As far as Dan could remember, according to the Council, Giles had never done anything right in regards to his duty. It was the Council itself that were at fault, yet they proclaimed Giles an unfit watcher, stating that he couldn’t control his Slayer.

In reality, they couldn’t, and nothing could have made them angrier.

In the end, the Slayer had told the great and mighty Watchers’ Council just what she thought of them, in true Buffy style.

Yeah, Travers wouldn’t be in any hurry to do something that could be considered a favor to Giles.

Not that Dan had any doubts that the head of the Council would relay his message to Giles. It just wouldn’t be on the top of the man’s to do list. Especially considering that it now had to be the middle of the night in London.

This was why Daniel wasn’t expecting the phone to ring anytime soon. They could be waiting a day, maybe even two. The young bassist hoped that he wouldn’t have to spend that time sitting in Anita’s living room.

“Anita?” the werewolf questioned, wondering if she would snap at him for daring to speak.

The Nimir Ra snapped her gaze away from the phone, and towards Dan. She had been staring at the cordless receiver where it sat on the table since he had made the call, as if it could not ring unless she was looking at it.

He carried on when he knew that he had her attention. “I know I left this number, but I left my other numbers too. Never mind the fact that it’s the middle of the night over there. It’ll probably take a while for him to call me back.”

Anita continued to look at him with no change in her expression to indicate whether or not his words had made any kind of impact. She did not pick up on his subtle request for permission to leave.

Luckily for the young man, his Ulfric had picked up on Daniel’s desire to leave.

“Daniel’s right Anita. It could be hours. I’m going to go home, and Daniel is going to do the same.”

“But . . .”

“I’m sure Daniel will call you the minute he hears something.”

”Of course I will.” He nodded at Anita before he turned to look at Richard. “Chances are that he’d call me at my place before he’d call me someplace where I wasn’t alone. Giles is a pretty private person. Especially where things like this are concerned. He’d want to talk to me where I wouldn’t be overheard.” Daniel paused before continuing, taking a breath. It seemed to Richard as if he was bracing himself before speaking the next words. “I haven’t called home in quite a while. I am sure he has news for me apart from whatever ideas he may have about last night.”

Richard scrutinized the younger werewolf, mildly surprised at the last statement. As far as the Ulfric knew, Daniel kept in close contact with his family. So why would he say that he hadn’t called home in a while? And how was calling someone in England calling home when Daniel was from California?

It was just another question to add to the growing number that Richard had about the new edition to his pack. Some of the things about the young man had not added up, like how he seemed fairly naïve in regards to pack culture, yet he had been infected since high school.

Richard had things he wanted to learn about Daniel Osbourne, but he had trusted the instinct he had about the boy being harmless. Maybe the Ulfric had been too hasty in his decision to accept Daniel. Perhaps he should have Anita check the boy out. But it only took one look at Anita for Richard to put the idea on hold. He read the look on her face that said that she thought Daniel was hiding something from her about the events from last night.

Maybe Richard would hold off on asking Anita to look into Daniel’s background. It would only make her more suspicious, and Richard did not need a paranoid Bolverk on his hands at the moment.

He turned his back on the necromancer and strode towards the door. “Come on Daniel, let’s get out of here. You should get back to your place and wait for that call.”

Richard ushered the shorter man through the door and closed it behind them before Anita could voice another protest.

Willow pushed away her textbook with a sigh. Usually school was something that she excelled at, and studying something that she enjoyed. Reading from a textbook used to be a fun evening for the redhead.

But this textbook was so dry! It made a werewolf pack about as entertaining as the American Governmental System. And politics was something that never had intrigued Willow, hence her boredom.

It should have been fascinating. Werewolf society was something she had not realized existed. They had never had such a thing in Sunnydale. Until she left Sunnydale for good, Oz had been the only werewolf she had ever known.

How would it have helped Oz with his control, to have an entire pack behind him for support? But the Hellmouth seemed to affect werewolves, change them slightly. Interfered with their control. They stayed away, along with all of the other legalized supernatural creatures. The Hellmouth messed with their very nature.

It should have been captivating to Willow, to learn all of these new things, things that she had never known, things that could very well be applicable to Oz’s life now. After all, she had no idea where he was. Chances are her first love was in a place that had a local wolf pack.

It should have been fascinating. But it wasn’t. The textbook was so concerned about being politically correct that it brought no life to the subject whatsoever. Willow was quite sure that watching paint dry would have actually been more entertaining.

The more pages that she had read, or tried to read, the more grateful she had become that Professor Enns had suggested Jason as a study partner.

Willow was quite sure that the flirtatious werewolf would find some way to make the material covered in the assigned chapters more interesting.

She sighed, reaching for her laptop and looking at the clock. She started in on her computer assignment, something that was at least mildly interesting, and waited for the phone to ring. It was getting late, and she hoped he called before she fell asleep. Jason was right. They needed to set up study time, or she’d flunk out of the course due to sheer boredom.

Giles set another book aside and sighed. It was the middle of the night. He glanced at the clock. It was actually quickly becoming morning.

He had gone through almost all of the books in his personal library, and he had still found nothing of use.

The dream that his Slayer had had could mean a thousand and two different things. It really amounted to nothing more than a few random images that could represent anything and a general bad feeling.

Or, the dream could have been nothing more than a nightmare, brought about by the fact that Buffy had all but lost her best friend.

Either way, Giles had very little to narrow down his search.

Witch, most likely Willow.

Werewolf.

Dark haired woman.

‘Creepy’ feeling.

The former watcher was pondering which book that he should investigate next when the phone rang, jarring him slightly.

He reached for the receiver, wondering if it was Buffy. His slayer wasn’t exactly known for her patience.

He was quite surprised to find that the caller was one of the trainees from the Watchers’ Council that had the misfortune of working the late shift in Travers’ office. But given what Giles was currently researching, the message the young man gave him really didn’t come as a shock. He was just glad the new watcher didn’t hold the grudge against him some of the others did, or it could have been a day or two before he had received it.

As it was, the message was brief, and not a shock in the least, considering the way Giles’ life always went.

‘Full moon set off my Spidey Sense. Please call A.S.A.P. Oz’

The message was accompanied by three different numbers where the werewolf could be reached.

The only werewolf Buffy knew personally having a ‘feeling’ on the same night that the Slayer dreamt of a werewolf? Giles wouldn’t have been able to write that off as a coincidence, even if he had believed in them.

He barely waited to hear the dial tone before dialing the number to contact Oz at home. The fact that the area code indicated that Oz was in Missouri should have surprised him, but it really didn’t. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise Giles at all if the wolf was in the very city where Willow was trying to build a new life. The Powers That Be would do something like that, even if it was just for their own amusement. But the former Watcher felt that there was something more going on then that.

Giles hoped that whatever it was that Oz had to say, that it would give the librarian some vague idea as to what was going on. And there was no doubt in Ripper’s mind now.

There was most definitely something going on.