He led her into one of the storage rooms and shut the door; the room was shadowy, crammed with boxes. “You might be longer than a minute,” he murmured, lowering his head to hers. He felt her tense, and drew back in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

She started to say something, and stopped. “Nothing. I just – think I’m getting a cold. I’ve been feeling sort of strange ever since target practice. You probably don’t want to get too close.”

Her voice sounded strained. He tipped her chin up with his hand. “Hey. You’re not still worried about my migraine, are you? That was days ago.”

Willow flinched. “Maybe a little.” She took a breath, hugging herself. “Alex, I sort of...I mean, there’s something...”

“What?” For an awful moment he thought she was going to say that she’d overheard Kara. Then he saw the expression in her eyes, and fear clutched him. “Willow, what’s wrong? What is it?”

A burst of voices from the hallway: Sam and Brendan, arguing about some computer game. Willow bit her lip and glanced towards the door. Finally she shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she repeated. “Sorry. I – I guess I’m still just getting used to being here.”

Unconvinced, Alex took her hands in his, studying her face. “But I thought it was getting better for you. I mean, you and Liz were just in there sharing cooking tips. I’m expecting you to teach Sam how to fix engines next.”

Willow gave a short laugh. “Yes, dream on. It’s not that much better, really – I think Liz has finally decided that I’m not going to use the pepper mill to grind glass into everyone’s food at least. I don’t know. Ignore me. I’m just feeling kind of weird today.”

He didn’t understand what was going on; all he knew was that he hated seeing her so upset. He put his arms around her; she buried her face hard against his neck. “I love you,” she said in a muffled voice. “I mean – I really love you. You know that, don’t you?”

Fear was now laced with complete bewilderment; this was so unlike her. Gently, he took her by the upper arms and forced her to look at him. “Babe, you’re scaring me. If there’s something going on, you’ve got to tell me what it is.”

“I know,” she said in a small voice. Again, she started to say something and then stopped, her eyes anxiously searching his own, her elfin face so lovely that it nearly broke his heart. The moment spun out around them; then Willow sighed and looked down, playing with the edge of his T-shirt.

“I’m just feeling worried about how everything is going, that’s all,” she said dully. “I mean, what’s going to happen – if we’ll manage to defeat the Council or not.”