"Yes, Miss Rosenberg, what can I do for you?" Maggie asked, somewhat impatiently. She was waiting for Buffy to come back from dropping off Mr. Giles after their meeting earlier. Mr. Giles had reluctantly agreed to lend Maggie some of his demonology books so she could research her current crop of inmates.

Willow slowly entered the room, and walking over to her desk, set down the thick heavy books she was holding. "Buffy got held up by a bit of a family emergency, so she asked me to come by and drop off these demon indexes for you."

Maggie looked surprised, and Willow surmised that Buffy had not told her of her friends' assistance in her activities. For a moment, Willow was hurt, but then realized that Buffy had only been protecting them in case Walsh had turned out to be a bad guy. By sending Willow here, Buffy was saying it was okay to trust Walsh, at least for now.

"You know of Buffy's activities...status?" Walsh questioned. She was unsure how she felt about Willow knowing about the Initiative, even if Buffy obviously had shared at least some of her own activities with her friend.

"Oh, totally!" Willow nodded eagerly and gracefully sat down in front of the desk. "I have been working with Buffy and Giles since she came to Sunnydale, even staked a few bad guys myself."

Maggie slowly walked over and sat down next to Willow. "So...Willow, is everything Buffy told me about her adventures true?" Professor Walsh was still trying to get a grasp on the sheer numbers of demons, vampires, and apocalypses that Buffy had dealt with. Maybe Willow would clarify things for her.

"I don't know about everything she told you, but Buffy doesn't lie. If anything, she probably glossed over a lot of what she's done. She doesn't really like to talk about some of the bad stuff."

"Bad stuff?" Maggie couldn't imagine what Buffy considered 'bad stuff'. The drowning death and the Mayor turning into a snake alone was enough that Maggie thought she might be having a few nightmares of her own tonight. She told Willow some of the things Buffy had shared with her, and Willow started nodding. "Yep, she left out the bad stuff."

Professor Walsh was about to question her about that when there was a knock at the door. Graham came in, followed by Forrest. "Professor Walsh?" Graham started, then noticed that Willow was in the room with her. "I'm sorry, are we interrupting?"

"That's quite all right, gentlemen," Maggie said, getting to her feet. "What can I do for you?"

"Well..." Graham looked doubtfully over at Willow, who had turned around and was giving him a sunny smile. His voice caught in his throat and he stumbled to a verbal halt. God, she was beautiful! Her deep red hair was shining in the sunlight, her eyes the soft melting color of a baby deer's. The innocence that surrounded her like an aura was clean and pure. He wanted to make sure she was never touched by anything bad, ever. At the same time, he could feel himself hardening with lust. She called out to him like a beacon.

Willow's smile slowly faded as the man in the doorway continued to stare at her. She glanced down to make sure all her buttons were done; yes, they were. No evidence of lunch on her clothes anywhere, check. She looked back up at him, meeting his stare, and...fell into his eyes. Hot, burning with interest for her, she shivered as she felt herself blush all over. No one had ever looked at her like that...no one. She felt...possessed, protected, lusted after, all at once. She felt...desirable.

The spell was broken as Forrest waved his hand in front of Graham's eyes, nudging him. "Hey, man, did we lose you somewhere?" Graham snapped back to attention, carefully avoiding Willow as he looked toward Professor Walsh. She was smiling at him patiently, but he had the feeling she knew exactly what had just happened to him. He looked down, jaw clenching, then reported they had a problem with one of her test subjects that she needed to deal with.

"Graham, you may stop dancing around the subject. Miss Rosenberg is well aware of our organization and has in fact, come over to assist me in some research."

Graham's eyes immediately snapped over to Willow. She was sitting in her chair, an open book on her lap. He looked at the illustration and grabbed Forrest's arm, nodding toward the book. It was a very ugly demon, grasping crushed humans in both of its taloned hands. Unbelievably, she was smiling...reminiscently?!

Walsh followed his eyes, and walked over to stand next to Willow. "You know this demon?" she asked.

"Yes," Willow said, reading aloud from the book. "And the Judge will be reassembled, and he will bring hell to earth. No mortal weapon can fell him, no human can stand against him, for he can not abide a soul to live." She grinned at Walsh. "This was written in the 14th century. They didn't know about shoulder-mounted missile launchers yet."

Graham and Forrest looked at each other, shocked, and Walsh gaped in astonishment. Willow slammed the book shut and set it back on the pile on her desk. She stood, smoothing her skirt down. "I'll just come back in about an hour, you obviously have things to take care of."

She walked to the door, and Forrest and Graham scrambled out of her way. As she brushed by Graham, he caught a teasing hint of wildflowers and an underlying scent of...woman. She glanced up at him shyly, and he involuntarily reached out to smooth a strand of hair from her face. She smiled and ducked her head, then gracefully slid out of the room. He followed her to the door to watch her walk down the hall. She glanced back once, and then turned the corner and was gone.

He sighed and turned back into the room to see Forrest and Walsh staring at him, matching smiles of amused indulgence on their faces.

"What?!"