Sunlight warmed the school grounds, fostering growth to the gardens and courtyards that surrounded the soft adobe brick buildings. Young adults and teens milled through the grounds, some coming from a class and heading to the next, other's loitering about on their free period, knowing that they risks Snyder's wrath if the principal wandered around.
In the corridors of the school the bustling noise of students was louder, sound more compressed in narrow confines. Books hugged against chests, and slung casually in large leather bags, the students made their way to their inevitable destination. Standing on the second floor and looking down to a common area, Snyder oversaw the mass, his sneer clear. Eyes flicked to the overhead clock, and then back down to the students.
Half way across the campus, a few floors up, Snyder's physical presence wasn't needed to cause torment. Alone, with just a note from the principal to upset her, a single female hyperventilated and ranted, all at the same time, tossing in the odd promise of homicide for good measure. The thump, slam, and the clear impression of a chair being kicked all fit nicely into the temper tantrum that was hidden from general view. Had any of the people passing by the Computer Science rooms stopped to open the door, to see who was hissy-fitting so loudly, they'd have been astonished to recognize the school's quietest brain, and newest teacher, Willow Rosenberg, in the midst of her not-yet mid life crisis. Fortunately for her mousy reputation, no one stopped.
"I can't BELIEVE he's making me do this!" The rant continued, the same howl echoing again and again. Aggressively wiping the white-board she used to detail the new material to the class, Willow's thoughts ran faster than her mouth could keep up. "It's got to be illegal." Willow frowned, eyes nearly glowing with the plain fury HIS memo had given her. Snyder was pushing buttons, alright. Ms. Calendar had died nearly four weeks ago, and he had still not found a full-time teacher to hire.
Instead, Willow was still filling in. "Child labour." She grumbled, tossing the eraser on the narrow aluminum edge of the whiteboard's frame. "'Only for a short while.' He said." She sniffed. "Short time in WHO'S lifetime? Angel's?"
Teaching, or filling in until a replacement teacher could be hired wasn't an issue. Although, she would never dare say it to anyone, for fear of jinxing everything, she was enjoying the actual educational process from this end. The job of out-thinking students, creating new means to get a lesson across, to educate others was wonderful fun. It was the administrative duties that came with the job that utterly stunk.
The latest injustice, other than working for the school board at no cost, was the subject the damnable memo described in detail. And it wasn't a mistake, her name was printed clearly at the top, in the TO: section, along with the school's regular, HIRED teachers. "I can't DO this!" The snarl shifted to a panicked moan, eyes studying the paper the hands were now holding up. "They... all the... I... I can't DO this!"
It was her worst nightmare where this short-term job was concerned. In bright airy school room, with a large oval table, Snyder sitting like a evil emperor at the head of the table. She'd be in the middle, sitting totally obscured by all the taller, bigger forms of her teachers. And they'd stare at her. Asking silently with their eyes 'Why are you here? You don't belong here!'
Snyder would start listing all the things she was doing wrong, all the complaints against her, and all her other crimes by association with Buffy. Not that Buffy actually committed any crimes, except for inside Snyder's mind, but... A low moan tore from Willow's throat. "I can't DO this!" She sobbed again.
"I beg you pardon?" Giles' calm voice made the younger girl jump. The room had been so silent, with the exception of her grumbling, she'd not even heard the door open. Wearing his usual tweed, the school's librarian and Slayer's Watcher offered her a compassionate smile. "I take it you've received Herr Snyder's memo?"
Willow smiled instinctively at the beautiful Germanic pronunciation Giles gave Snyder's sarcastic title only made the sarcasm louder. It reminded her, oddly enough, why she was grateful to Snyder for this experience. In it, she'd found some things she'd never knew before. Stuff Buffy and the others had not yet discovered. The Watcher was a person. And quite the neat fellow at that. Oh, he'd always been Giles, a friend, yadda yadda. She'd known Giles before Buffy, since the library had always been one of her favorite hideouts. A quiet, reticent almost shy man on the surface, Willow had learnt that Giles had more secrets than Buffy.
These past few weeks, Giles had been so very helpful. Shelving his own pain, that Willow was replacing Jenny in the classroom for awhile, something that had to be like salt in an open wound, he'd advised her, calmed her and guided her. His prep talks on how to not let her fellow classmates come students intimidate her had been the only thing to get her through the first day. Her "class" were her peers in more than one way, most of them were the school's nerds alongside her. That helped, a little, but it took Giles to point it out from the outset. Giles had also instructed her on how to fake a daybook, and to minimize the amount of marking she would have to do. But, most of all, she'd discovered that stodgy Giles had a really wonderful dry sense of humor.
Crumpling the memo, and fervently wishing that it was really Snyder she was destroying so easily, Willow tossed it into the garbage can beside Ms. Calendar's desk, ignoring that responsible side of her psyche that howled about the recycling box. "I can't go to a staff meeting!" The whine was instant. "I'm NOT staff! I don't want to be staff! I just want HIM to hire someone." All those teachers, her teachers, there in the same room as her. The thought made her shudder in pure panic.
Giles frowned. Walking further into the classroom, his eyes sadly studying the signs and displays that had clearly been created by Jenny. He found a desk in the middle of the room and leaned against the high tabletop. "As much as you are a student in this school, Willow, you are also at the current time a staff member, whether or not you wish to be so." The pout growing on the normally calm girl's face was reminiscent of Buffy. The Slayer seemed to influence her Slayerettes far more than the Slayerettes influenced the Slayer. Given the personalities of two our of three of the Slayerettes, Giles supposed he should have been grateful.
"I'll resign." Willow said, peevishly. "I don't want to be staff, so I won't be staff." Unfortunately for her, she could just imagine Snyder's 'Unless you want to be expelled from this school, Ms. Rosenberg, I suggest you reconsider.'
Giles so dearly wanted to laugh, but Willow was sensitive to this and wouldn't appreciate that he wasn't laughing at her, per say, but at her attempt. "Do you really think that would work?" He gently prodded.
The sulky "No." had the body language of a small child. Giles smiled slightly, sympathizing easily with Willow. Watching her tackle the job of teaching her own peers only reminded Giles of his initial weeks as the school's librarian. There was so much trepidation, fear and uncertainly in taking on a task without training to bolster the worker. For Willow, taking on this assignment meant acknowledging Jenny's death, without a time or space to grieve for her favorite teacher.
Giles' was proud of her, watching her adjust more and more everyday, despite the difficulties she was facing. She was moving past her insecurities and her peers inability to differentiate between Willow the student and Willow the teacher.
The staff meeting was just another evil hurdle she had to jump. It was an unnecessary hurdle Snyder had put in front of this girl, and Giles would have loved to known why the principal had insisted she be in attendance. These meetings were never fun, and listening to Snyder badmouth Buffy would just put Willow on edge. At least, though, she didn't have to be in the room without an ally in camp. "I have to go to the same meeting, Willow." He advised calmly. "You are welcome to come with me."
The tiny bit of hope in her eyes was worth taking the risk of Snyder's bizarre mental processes. The man consistently made assumptions that were positively absurd. Snyder was already suspicious of Giles' relationship with Buffy, God only knew what the principal would think if Willow came into the meeting on Giles' heels. Probably some ridiculous idea that involved nonconsenual or inappropriate sexual relations, Giles shuddered silently. If telepathy was a real skill, any telepath who got into Snyder's head would be in therapy for the rest of their natural lifespan. Just trying to think like the toad made him nauseous.
"Really?" Willow's hopeful little face as bright and earnest as a child's on Christmas morning.
"Really." Giles chuckled. "I'll warn you though, Snyder will spend ninety percent of the meeting complaining about the problem students, and ten percent dealing with school issues."
"Problem students being Buffy, Xander and me." Willow sighed mournfully, her opinion on this mandatory meeting dropping lower. "I don't want to be a teacher." The career decision was surprisingly easy to make and heartfelt. As much as teaching was fun, dealing with the administration put such a sour taste to the whole job.
"Neither did I." Giles muttered, standing up. The clock said that third period was beginning in a few moments, and much to his personal dismay, the English teacher wanted to bring a grade ten class through the library. As if any of these children knew what books were. "Be at the library an hour after class, and we'll head off to the monthly staff lecture on bad seeds in Sunnydale High."
Willow nodded, stuffing her backpack quickly as Giles left. The end of second period meant that her duties as teacher were over for another day. Slipping the strap across her shoulder, Willow pushed the chair back into the desk, and turned to leave. The bottom of her backpack, as she swung around slid into a pile of project folders, sending them sliding to the floor and under the desk.
"Drat!" Willow grumbled, flashing the clock a quick glance. She had five minutes before she had to run to class. Throwing her schoolbag towards the door frame, she dropped to her knees and scrambled to pick up the fallen papers. Tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth, and head facing the wall as she strained to reach far under the desk, she froze when her fingers encountered something NOT made of paper. Pressing down on the plastic beneath fingertips, she slid it out, the scrap against the hard floor making her wince. 'A floppy?'
Her rear end hit the ground, and the clocks demands that she should get moving were forgotten. Lifting the disk up, her eyes stared at the small yellow computer diskette. Willow looked past the disk to the yellow folder containing Ms. Calendar's long-term lesson plans. Willow had found that folder purely by chance, it hadn't been part of the official daybook. Ms. Calendar had used a colour orientated filing system, blue for school, grey for student projects, and yellow represented Ms. Calendar's own personal files, things no one else was supposed to see.
'Oh wow.' Willow thought sadly, wondering what Ms. Calendar had been working on and when. Very few of the diskettes for the class had survived the computer lab's destruction. In fact, Willow realized, the diskette must have been here since the destruction of the lab, the classroom having been rearranged only a week prior to Ms. Calendar's death, when the new upgraded systems had arrived. Her desk had been at the other side of the room, near the storage cupboarding prior to that..
Ignoring the sound of the bell, Willow stood up slowly and moved towards the new master-computer. The energy saver was active, so Willow lightly tapped the spacebar to make the system spring back into life. The diskette wavered at the drive door. 'I shouldn't. It's private.' Her conscience insisted. 'She's dead. She won't care, and this might have been important...' That practical side of her mind cooly insisted.
Willow paused, gnawing uncertainly on her lip. In the course of her duties as Slayerette, she'd hacked into lots of things forbidden. Reading something that had belonged to a friend, though, that felt like backstabbing. And Ms. Calendar had been an important person to Willow, a friend as well as a teacher. Despite the fact she had alienated Jenny, after the woman had fallen from Buffy's good graces, Willow had sincerely liked and admired the woman. Ms. Calendar had the poise, the grace and the spunkiness that Willow had always wanted to have in herself.
But, if the disk had anything useful to help Buffy... 'If it's really private personal stuff, I'll stop and destroy the disk.' She promised, sliding the disk right in. 'If it's Slayer-stuff, I'll read it.'
* * *
"It's not good, Buffmeister, Willow shouldn't be following YOUR example!" Xander lectured, walking alongside the Slayer in the after-school hours. Hands waving all over the place as he tried to get his point clear, he continued, deliberately ignoring the beautiful blonde's amused smile. "Willow has a duty, a predestined task to accomplish."
"I thought Buffy was the only one with one of those thingys." Cordelia took him just a tad too seriously. Her face reflecting deep concern, she pursed her lips. "I don't know if I can continue to be seen with you people if BOTH Willow and Buffy have some sort of supernatural duty thing. I mean, look what it's doing to Buffy and Willow's complexion? What if that happens to me? I realize I'll have to invest in plastic surgery, one day, but really, I shouldn't have to do that until I'm at least twenty-eight."
Buffy's eyebrows arched, her glance to Xander pitiful. "She's your girlfriend." She mouthed silently.
"Ahhh... Cordy?" Xander patted the brunettes shoulder. "Willow's duty is to pay attention in class for the rest of us, so WE can slack off and play hooky. Remember? We've had this discussion."
Brown eyes blinked thoughtfully. "Oh." Cordelia's face relaxed. "Well, you should have said that, and less with the ominous mumbo jumbo stuff. Really."
"Whatever, guys." Buffy laughed, hand resting on the library doors. Turning back to look at the school's unholiest twosome, she smiled. "Maybe she had something official to do. She is filling in for the vacant computer teacher position." Even after four weeks, Buffy still couldn't say Ms. Calendar's name. She thought about the woman a great deal, but her guilt was still so strong that talking about the murdered computer teacher overwhelmed her.
It was an omission that Xander and Cordelia both noted, too. Keeping her genial smile pasted on, Buffy pushed the library doors open, walking through with the other two hot on her heels. "She'll show up any time now, and probably STILL have all the answers to chem... " Her voice trailed off
Willow and Giles had books, papers and notes scattered across the table, on the floor and stacked on top of the computer. It was a pure informational blitz of epic proportions happening in the library, and the frenzied avid look on the researchers at the heart of this blitz said 'OCCULT' and "BAD" louder than words. "What's up, guys? More Slayerage to fill up my weekend?"
Xander and Cordelia split, walking on opposite sides around the table to assume phalanx positions at the rear of Giles and Willow; Xander behind Willow and Cordelia behind Giles.
Willow's head shot up, "Buffy!" Her eyes stared at Buffy in surprised confusion, shifting to the clock mounted on the wall high above and behind the Slayer.. "Oh my God! The staff meeting!"
Giles' expression made a nice counterpoint to Willow's dismay, his features assembled in expressions of pure reluctance and disgust. "Damn." The curse was not one they were used to hearing from the Watcher, but the heartfelt sound to it was alarming. Closing the book he was working through, he pinned the blond Slayer with his most Watcherish look. "Buffy, we have to go to Snyder's blasted staff meeting. When we get back, I need you here. Willow has found something very important. It could change a great many things."
Buffy blinked, taken back by the sudden sensation of whiplash as Giles and Willow hustled to get moving. "Okay, any clue as to good-change, or bad-change? Should I be wearing combat gear for the news?"
"Just be here." Giles replied shortly, hauling himself to his feet and scooping up his leather diary. He looked expectantly at the tiny computer-hacker, still plugging away at the computer, her body raised halfway between sitting and standing. "Leave it, Willow. You can figure it out later."
"I don't have the program she used, if she even had one, Giles! I have to work on this..." Willow whined plaintively. "Tell Snyder I'm sick or something. I've got malaria, or uh, something."
"What's Snyder got to do with anything?" Xander mumbled, trying to read over Willow's shoulder. All he got was an eyeful of some weird language from the computer monitor, and Willow's notepad contained her own unique version of shorthand. It was all gibberish to him.
Buffy was alternating between staring at Giles' and her redheaded friend as if to visually extract their dire news, her curiosity totally peaked. She still, however, abetted their escape. "It's the monthly lets-bash-Buffy night, Xand. You know that once a month, Snyder gets to rant and rave to the teachers about the evil that lurks in me. How I will ruin this school, corrupt the students, obliterate the universe, etcetera."
"Oh, right! What was I thinking! It IS Monday, isn't it? And the first Monday in April. My bad." Xander pulled a chair from the table carefully removing Willow's stacks of paper from the seat and setting them on the floor. "How come Willow has to go? Snyder wants to preach to the most endangered members of the student body now?"
Willow sighed miserably. "I wish." Flashing the clock a hateful glare, she stood up and grabbed her backpack. "I bet I get reamed for skipping this afternoon."
Giles smiled wistfully, "Ms. Calendar used to use the excuse that she found a virus in the computers, and lost track of time removing it." The librarian lightly placed a hand under the small girl's elbow, hustling her to the library door. "And we're going to use this excuse now. I'm late to the meeting because I pulled you from the computers you were fighting to save."
The doors shut with a thump, leaving three teenagers to wipe eyes mistily. "He's growing up so fast." Buffy sighed, blinking back mock tears. "Was it only three months ago that he said computers didn't get sick?"
Xander nodded sagely. "I'm very proud of him." Fishing in his army-surplus store backpack, he fished out one of his never ending supplies of junkfood. "Now, I wonder why he's telling filthy lies to Snyder, not that telling the truth makes any difference with our own Principal from the Hellmouth. 'Sides, they left us before announcing the dreaded curse or ominous prophecy our dynamic research team found this time." Smiling slightly, Xander posed with the stiff formality of a newscaster. "Will the Slayer and cohorts survive?" He raised an eyebrow, deepening his voice pretentiously. " What new evil lies in wait for our intrepid heroine."
"Lay off, Xander." Buffy smirked, digging through the papers Giles had abandoned. Most were in his tight penmanship, and therefore illegible to Buffy. Giles had long since developed a way of writing that only a brain or research genius of equal proportions could read. The rest of humanity just attributed it to the ravings of a madman creating his own languages.
Page after page she flipped, not expecting to understand a single word written by Giles, but hoping to find someone else's more illuminating works mixed in the pile. Across the table, Cordelia was doing much the same.
"Restoration? Of what? The library? It needs to get out of the brown blah faze. All that wood. It'll rot." Cordelia muttered. "What anima?"
"Japanese cartoons." Xander mumbled around a mouthful of cupcakes. "Some of 'em are really dirty, too."
"No it isn't. Japanese animations are called anime." Buffy corrected. "Willow told us that the last time we watched Japanese movies."
Cordelia smirked. "You actually watched Japanese movies? You really don't have a life. What did you do, make up your own dialogue as you went along?"
"Shut up, Cordy." Buffy grumbled. "They were subtitled, anyway." Walking around the table to Cordy, Buffy glanced down at the page in the society girl's hand. Along the margins of this document were again, Willow's little notes. "Let me see that." Buffy murmured, a few words almost readable.
Anima --> Latin, soul, life, being
Buffy's eyes went wide, her gaze flicking to the top of the page to see the translated word of Restoration. "Oh, my God. I don't believe it." The words were whispers, vehement and loud, but hushed at the same time.
"Buffy?" Xander shot Cordelia an alarmed glare. "What did you give her?"
"The sheet. What she asked for." Cordelia snapped her fingers under Buffy's nose. "Buffy? Wake-up. Hello?" Sighing, Cordelia gave up, walking away from the stunned Slayer. "You'd think a little courtesy for the rest of us waiting in here would be in order, but noooo, she figures out what's up, and spaces out."
Xander shot her a sour glance, wrapping an arm about Buffy's shoulders and steering her to a chair. "Buffy? Talk to the Xand- man, what's wrong?"
After a long moment of silence, she stirred, her lovely eyes brilliant with unshed tears, and hope shining radiantly deep within. "They found it, Xander. They found the cure." Turning, she took his two hands into hers. "They found the way to give Angel his soul back!"
* * *
"We don't know it will work, Buffy." Giles tried to remind the Slayer. His glasses were tossed onto the table, his face weary after two hours of Snyder's ramblings, and then three hours of Buffy's ranting. As much as he wanted to restore Angel, Giles was honest enough to admit, he never wanted to see him again. Not after what the vampire had done to Jenny.
"But it might!" Buffy insisted, hands flat on the tabletop as she leaned into it, bearing down with the intensity of her emotions on the Watcher. "It could work!"
Willow sighed, flicking the monitor off. The screen wavered, fading to black, while the girl rubbed her strained eyes. For all her computer programming skills, she lacked the basic understanding of what Ms. Calendar had been trying to do. The spell was in it's original format, fragmented. Large key sections were missing, and they didn't have any method to figuring out what the Rom Elders would have used in the first place.
Ms. Calendar had been their link to the Rom, and without her, they were second guessing. "It could go really wrong, Buffy. It's not like magic will just fizzle out if there's a word wrong." Willow insisted on a yawn. "And we're missing more than a word."
The Slayer twisted her head to look at Willow, a pang of guilt instantly striking her conscience. Unlike Buffy, Willow didn't have the resilience to take consistent nightly abuse. Buffy and Giles were both used to all-nighters in the course of saving the world. Willow was a un-supernatural seventeen year old girl, with a seventeen year old girl's basic needs for seven and a half hours of sleep per night.
Already, just from a day and night of continuous work, the skin beneath Willow's eyes was looking puffy and sore in a face that was pale to begin with. "I'm sorry." Buffy whispered, instantly contrite. "I'm pushing, and you're doing the best you can. I'm sorry."
Stifling another yawn, but not hiding the soft smile that came to her face, Willow left her computer to hug Buffy. "I know. It's okay, Buffy. We'll cure him."
"Food's here!" Xander's loud call from the doorway split the two girls apart, his wide grin and ever-present appetite oblivious to the bonding moment that had occurred. "I hope we can all share nicely. Y'know, the three for me, one for each of you ratio?"
"Can we say MSG, Xander?" Cordelia pushed past, the bag in her hand and pushed away from her body to avoid getting any marks on her skirt was significantly smaller to the piles of bags cluttering Xander's arms. "I expect everyone to pay me back for their portion." She advised, calmly pinning adult and Slayerette down with her aristocratic glare. "I will not have my reputation ruined by acts of charity."
"I thought dating Xander was an act of charity in her world." Willow muttered beneath her breath, making Buffy laugh.
"Did I miss something?" Xander asked, watching his two giggling friends with open curiosity. "We're in quality share-mode, we share now. Everything!"
Buffy grinned at Willow, who smirked back. Both looked at him with a rather pointed expression. "Really?" Buffy purred. "Then, I'm sure there's lots of things you and Cordelia would LOVE to share with us."
"Share time is over." Xander amended quickly, tearing open one of the paper bags. "It's dinner time, and we can't share and eat at the same time. I can't, at least."
His friends smiles were beatific. "Of course." Willow agreed, taking one of the Styrofoam trays of food he passed to her.
Cordelia, returning from Giles office with five mugs handed one out to each individual. "Did we find anything?" The Slayer's newest Slayerette asked, taking her own food and sitting down to eat, pointedly ignoring the idea of helping serve the food.
Giles quickly grabbed papers out from under the descending edge of her dinner, shoving them onto a growing pile on the floor. "Not yet." He muttered. "And if we get marks over everything, not ever. It'll all be too illegible.
"Ease up, Giles." Xander pushed Giles''s dinner into an open space in front of the Watcher, dropping the plastic knife and fork on top. "No one else alive makes as many backup copies as you do, we trash one page, there's fifty more to replace it."
In theory, this was true. Giles' abhorrence of all things computers did not extend to photocopiers. He lived for photocopiers, swooned over photocopiers, and would have sold his soul if Snyder hadn't agreed the library could use one.
Xander, relieved of his serving duties, plopped down on the floor, the fork in his hand already connecting to his mouth. "So." He said around a mouthful of chicken-rice. "Whets ge Ahmi t'fihrr i'ou." He swallowed. "After all, it magic mumbo-jumbo, she's a witch."
"Xander, that's stupid." Cordelia decided. "I mean, just because Amy's a witch doesn't mean... wait!" Brown eyes went wide. "AMY'S a WITCH?" Cordelia twisted to look at Buffy for confirmation.
"Anymore school secrets you feel like divulging, Xander." Buffy asked drily, popping chicken ball into her mouth.
"How do you KNOW she's a witch? She doesn't wear a pointy hat, and she doesn't bring a broomstick to school." The head cheerleader continued, pausing in thought. "Oh, wait. She doesn't have a driver's license, so I guess she couldn't fly a broom yet either."
Buffy smirked, ignoring the obvious stupidity of the statement. "Anyway, we can't bring Amy in, Xander. She doesn't know about the Slayer, sacred duty, vampires, yadda blah blah? What do we tell her? Oh, hey, could you check out this Spell to Restore a human soul for us? We've got some blanks but really need it to work. Buffy's boyfriend is wandering around without a soul." Buffy shook her head. "Somehow, I think we'll just get more questions than we want."
"Theoretically, though." Giles interrupted the teens. "She could very well have the resources to piece the missing phrases back together."
Willow nodded, picking up one of her notebooks. "We don't have to tell her about Buffy's issues, either. I mean, she knows Giles is way into Occult research, and we can always just be vague about it."
"Or blackmail her." Xander volunteered.
"XANDER!" Four voices jumped on him.
"Sorry. Just a thought." He sulked quietly.
Buffy, however, forgot his indiscretions, her mind whirling to fast on the Angel/spell problem. "So, you think we should get Amy in to look at this?"
Giles set his dinner aside, his queasiness at involving another civilian in what should have been the ultimate secret ruined his appetite once again. Although Buffy's success was partially due to her help, the Slayerettes, years and years of the Watcher's tenets being thrown out overnight were difficult to swallow. "I don't see any other option, I'm afraid. For all my knowledge, I can't be guaranteed that I can reconstruct the missing fragments with any degree of accuracy."
"But Amy can?" Buffy persisted.
"Amy might be able to. She's studied magic in a way we haven't. Or at least, I haven't." Willow volunteered, earning an approving nod from Giles. "And she has her mom's notebooks and stuff. She should be able to look at the spell in different light from us. Maybe she'll be able to help us define the phrasing. It's not that we don't know what the spell is trying to say, we've got the words for it, but there's too many of them. And using a wrong word would be very not good." Willow gave a little shrug. "We might accidentally turn Angel into a besouled duck or something."
"I have a down duvet already. I really don't need a Donald for a boyfriend." Buffy thoughtfully squished an eggroll into a puddle of sweet and sour sauce, sopping the sticky goodness up. "Okay, so are we sure we can vague our story up? I'm really not to thrilled at the thought of advertising my part-time job to another person."
"Or explain that while you Slay vampires, you have this thing for Angel." Xander nodded.
Buffy felt her cheeks redden slightly. "Thanks for pointing that out, Xander."
"No problem." Xander assured her with bravado, his eyes not leaving his fast disappearing dinner. The theory was, if he finished first, any and all leftovers from other plates were fair game.
Watching both her friends in mild bemusement, Willow's mind was actually focused on their latest attempt at fiction. In the months since meeting Buffy, Willow's gift for prevarication had developed immensely. Her parents would have been appalled with how easily and convincingly Willow could spin a story.
Fortunately, in actually telling the lie, Willow fell apart.
"Okay, here's an idea." Willow volunteered thoughtfully. "Buffy, you and Xander go ask Amy to help us. We know she's a witch, and you two have worked with her before." The twosome nodded. "Giles and I will clean up the library, removing all evidence of the real truth." Willow lightly tapped on one of the books.
"What about me?" Cordelia asked plaintively. "If I have to do something involving manual labour and cleaning, I'm not going to be happy."
"No, you're not doing manual labour or cleaning." Willow drawled slowly, busy grasping for SOMETHING she could have Cordelia do. "But, Amy can't see you when she's here."
Cordelia rolled her eyes. "No, duh?" Tsking at the obvious, Cordy elaborated for their benefit. "Do you really think I want it advertised that I'm hanging with the school losers?"
A general murmured "Of course." whispered through the room, appeasing the newest Slayerette to no end.
"Anyway." Willow shook her head. "Did I miss anything?"
Buffy stood, rising from sitting Indian-style in one fluid motion. "Just what I'm going to tell Amy." Dinner completed, as far as Buffy was concerned, she tossed the remains in the garbage pail, despite Xander's mewl of protest. "So, what are we telling her?"
Giles paused from his already begun process of stacking the books for a quick removal. "As close to the truth as you dare. That we have a spell that will, in theory, return a soul to a soulless body, and need her to help us fix the missing parts of it."
Buffy smiled. "Sure, Giles. And when she goes, "Why?" I'm going to say?"
"I... uh." Giles stuttered at a loss.
"There was a small accident and we need to undo what went wrong." Willow interjected smoothly. "And that's all you can tell her because of a promise you made to the person who had the accident."
Buffy brushed crumbs off. "Works for me. Let's go Xander."
"Mwwmmahwhah?" He protested, mouth full. Hands waved about, pointing down to his dinner every so often. Cordelia helped him, lifting his meal from his hands an dropping it in the garbage. Xander whimpered.
"You're done now." Buffy interpreted for him. "Let's go."
* * *
"Expertise?" Amy regarded Xander cooly, clearly suspecting another episode of blackmail.
Xander smiled depreciatingly, a small shrug with an endearing tilt of his head to one side. "That's what I told her." He prevaricated. "I said: Buffy, if we need someone to figure out how to fix this, we need Amy. She's got tonnes of witchy knowledge, she's an expert! If anyone can figure this out, it's Amy."
Amy still didn't look convinced, not that Buffy blamed the other girl. Xander's story was more than a bit heavy, and so sugary that she felt cavities instantly forming in her mouth. "He's slightly exaggerating." Buffy amended. "He did suggest you might be able to help us out, and I have to admit, your mom probably had lots of books on the subject." Her smile was slanted. "If you can even tip us into the right direction, it'd help so much."
Amy tugged nervously on the hem of her short blue sweater. "Oh. Yeah Sure, I mean, I'll try." They quickly moved through the dark hallways of the school, all of them slightly nervous to be out at night. Sunnydale had a lively nightlife, and a recently developed even livelier night-unlife.
"I still can't believe you guys are okay about that, uh, love spell that went wrong." Amy muttered, staring at the floor guiltily. Despite Xander's blackmail, she had chosen to shoulder the bulk of the blame. The instant after Giles had managed to undo the spell, she'd realized what she'd done and her face had gone so red.
Buffy shot Xander a hard look, clearly expecting him to say something. He shook his head blankly, hands raised with palms upturned, totally lost. Buffy allowed herself the pleasure of a small glare at Xander, before companionably wrapping an arm about Amy's shoulders. "I'm totally okay with what happened, Amy." She reassured the girl. "I mean, you did try to warn Xander that it'd be bad, he even said you did. If anyone's to blame for that mess, it's Xander."
Amy shook her head fervently. "No, he didn't understand how wrong it could go. I did." She pushed her hair back, the action shifting her shoulders to make Buffy's arm fall away. "I could have done something to stop him, but I didn't."
Buffy rolled her eyes, her mind balking at trying to imagine anyone stopping Xander from doing something dumb. Since Amy was so hellbent on blaming herself, though.... "Make it up to us, then." Buffy insisted. "Give us your one hundred percent, and then the slate's clean."
"Nothing can clean this slate." Amy sighed.
"Did you kill anyone?" Buffy asked bluntly.
Amy's blue eyes shot wide. "No!"
"So the slate's cleanable." Buffy's tone was final, offering no opening to argue her final decision. Slipping past Xander and Amy, Buffy peeked around the newest corner, but saw no movement. "Let's go."
The library was a quick sprint across the hall. It was accessible from three directions, along the main corridor of the school, and yet part of the west wing. Turning slightly, Buffy shouldered the door open, ushering Amy and Xander in quickly before shutting the door. It was a dangerous game they played in the school after hours. Snyder had been known to stalk the hallways late in the night, looking for trespassers, and the janitorial staff could turn up at the weirdest places at the worst times.
Slipping the light lock into place, and pulling the shade down that would make the room seem pitch dark, Buffy turned to watch Giles offer Amy a seat and begin to show her their results. Xander hovered like a vulture in the background, his eyes scanning the shelves and rows of books for where Cordelia was hiding.
Biting her lip to stave off blind hope, Buffy slid up to sit beside Willow. The redhead was still pounding away at the computer, trying to decode something else from the disk. From the line across her forehead and the scowl on her mouth, Buffy was willing to bet the score was still computer -1, Willow - 0.
"Any luck?" Buffy whispered nonetheless to her irritated friend. Willow shot her a look that could have froze boiled water. "I guess not," Buffy commented mildly.
"She must have intended to use a program to transliterate it, and then go over the entire text to make a match for words using the text's strings to make a consistent and accurate guess." Willow grumbled. "It's the only way I can think of figuring it out." Willow turned suddenly to look straight at her friend. "Do you know how many stupid words for the same thing, only different, exist in Latin? It's impossible!"
Buffy smiled lopsidedly, "Not a clue Willow. I have enough problems passing English, never mind Latin, thank you." It was an unspoken reference to the D on her last English exam. The one Buffy hadn't been able to study for since her study weekend had been sacrificed to putting "Night Moves", the vampirically owned moving company, out of business.
A ghost of smile touched Willow's face. "Oops, I forgot. You'll do better on the next one." She offered sympathetically.
"I'd better." Buffy laughed shortly. "Mom promised I'd be banned from all things resembling a life if I blow another test." Buffy glanced over at Amy and Giles, the Watcher leaning over the girl's shoulder. "Do you think she can really help?"
Willow looked past Buffy to the young witch who sat chewing on a pencil end. "She has to."
Buffy grimaced at the truth of Willow's words. If they couldn't restore Angel's soul, the only other option was to slay him. Buffy just wished the thought was unthinkable, but with every atrocity Angelus committed, the unthinkable became easier and easier to consider.
"Restoring a SOUL?" Amy's voice rose incredulously. "What kind of accident did you have?"
"One where someone lost their soul." Xander shrugged blankly as everyone turned to look at him. "Well, what do you want me to say? The truth hurts."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "I wish I could say more, Amy, but basically someone broke a hex, and this person's soul was lost." It was as near to the truth as possible. Buffy and Angel had broken the conditions of his curse, and he had lost his soul. The difference was that the real life edition wasn't nearly as cut and dry as it sounded.
Amy blinked, "Oh." Her eyes studied the notebook in front of her, one hand sliding a computer printout of the actual original spell. Looking at the gibberish on the page, and then at the notebook, they could see her mind furiously at work, trying to make sense of it all.
"There's someone really out there without a soul? And still walking around?" She muttered incredulously. "Does he... she... it... does it have a reflection?"
Buffy choked, even as Giles coughed. Amy was treading awfully close to common vampire mythology, and Buffy really didn't want her leading down that path. "Of course!" Buffy promised, fingers crossed beneath the table. "Why wouldn't he have a reflection?" She shot a warning glare at Xander. The boy lifted a hand to his mouth, pretending to zip it shut.
Amy stared at her silently "He does? Okay." She looked around, watching them all, before finally spitting out her thoughts. "You ARE restoring a soul, right? Like, from someone that has totally no soul right now, not someone who's soul is sealed or compressed inside them. I mean, you're not trying to put two souls into one person? 'Cause that's really bad. As in, not natural."
"And a person walking around without a soul is real natural." Xander muttered absently, stalking around the table restlessly. Willow reached out, as he walked past, latching on to the tails of his shirt and tugged hard. Xander fell backwards into the chair the redhead had positioned for him to land into.
"Well, no." Amy admitted, ignoring the floorshow happening around her. "But, putting two souls in one body would theoretically cause both souls to explode, or push the other one out. It's just messy."
"See! I told you Amy would be able to help us! She does this soul- stuff all the time." Xander smiled beatifically.
Amy raised a eyebrow. "I might have cast a love spell gone wrong, used magic to convince a teacher I deserved an A, and turned Buffy into a rat, but I've NEVER accidentally removed someone's soul. I'm intermediate, and that's advanced. Even on an accidental level."
Buffy gnawed on her lip, almost anxiously. "Does that mean you can't help us?"
Amy shrugged. "You've got most of the spell here, it's piecing in the damaged areas that you need. I can help with that." The blond flipped her hair behind her back. "If I had to build a spell from scratch to do this, I'm out of my league."
A round of sighs echoed across the room, making Amy smirk. "You act like I'm the only witch you know."
Giles pushed his glasses up high across the bridge of his nose. "Well, um. Yes. You are, quite, the only witch I know of in Sunnydale."
"Hey, speaking for Wills and myself, Amy's the only witch I know." Xander piped in, leaning onto the table with his elbows, both hands propping his head up.
"Ditto." Buffy leaned back into her chair, smiling slightly. It was possibly one of the stranger conversations she'd ever had. Glancing at Willow, Buffy could see the redhead had stopped paying attention to them all some time ago, her attention totally on making the computer talk to her in whatever sweet dulcet beeps she wanted.
'Wish I had a camera.' Buffy thought with amusement, eyes flicking to meet Xander's. She jerked her head in Willow's direction so that he too would see the degree of their friend's concentration. Hair tucked behind her ears, eyes narrowed, she looked determined. But it was the little pink tip of her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth that made the entire look so very Kodak.
Xander smirked, exchanging an amused look with Buffy, before returning to watch Giles and Amy begin dissecting his notes and the spell.
Twenty minutes later, Buffy was felt like her brains were seeping out her ears. The technical lingo being swung around the room was overwhelming, Giles explaining the Latin wordings they did have, and Amy deciding which they'd keep and which they wouldn't. It was a slow process, Buffy realized, and the results were still not precise.
Willow, on the other hand was obviously getting somewhere precise, the little smile growing on her face was testimony to that. Twice Buffy had abandoned her seat to go spy out what the hacker was doing, but the series of arcane symbols produced by the computer and the odd if, and or and but that could be made out on the screen was just making her head spin.
Restlessly, Buffy wandered about the library, wishing Xander hadn't stolen off to go find Cordy. It was well past eleven, Buffy was normally on patrol now. This enforced idleness after weeks of habitually taken nightly patrols was not at all restful.
"I don't think --" Amy's hesitant voice jarred Buffy from her thoughts. The blond witch looked confused, her gaze alternating between two sheets of paper. "I'm not sure if one is better than the other, one is reanimation of the soul, the other is re-creation."
"Perhaps when we use the Orb of Thesulah, the conjunction of the two might cause a bonding of the true soul with the body." Wearily, he rubbed his forehead. "But the wording...." Buffy frowned, Giles looked plain exhausted. Looking at him now, she realized just how far he pushed himself, and the damage it was doing on his health. 'That's got to stop.' She decided silently.
"Just an idea." Willow piped in suddenly. "But let's define how the Orb works, and then tackle the words from understanding how it reacts." Pushing up from the computer, Willow arched her back to get the kinks out. "If we can't do it this way." She said, indicating Amy and Giles with a small nod, "I think the program that will scan the entirety and match words that most suit the rest of the language should be ready by Monday."
Buffy swallowed, Monday was too far away. A week away. Eyes closed, she prayed fervently that Amy and Giles could fill the blanks in the old fashioned manual way.
"Even if we succeed." Giles was saying when Buffy opened her eyes again, "I still think you need to develop such a program. It would be a tremendous resource for the next time."
Amy rolled her eyes, tilting her head side to side to ease the cricks out of her neck. "Next time? Do you guys do this often? I really hope you guys aren't planning on another soul-removing accident." Pulling a scratch pad closer, she smiled sweetly. "Next time, I might not have a free night to help, if I'm on a date or something."
Willow pulled a chair up beside Amy. "That's no problem." She promised. "We really appreciate this, but if a guy ever asks you out, that's more important." Leaning forward, Willow frowned just a tiny bit. "Are you sure you want to use acriter for that? I would have thought a conjugation of coactum would be more appropriate to what we're trying to do."
Amy tossed the pen down, turning to regard Willow seriously. "No offense, Willow, but leave this to the professionals, would you? I am the resident witch, here."
Willow cringed. "Sorry, I'll be quiet now." Stepping back from the table, she headed back to her computer.
Amy picked up her pen, returning to her perusal of the page for a few moments, her jaw gnawing on the pen's end viciously. Reaching the bottom of the page, her eyes skimmed back up to the top. Finally, her shoulder's slumped. Looking at Giles, she spoke in a little voice, "Do you have a Latin-to-English dictionary?"
Buffy glanced over at Willow smiling at the redheads triumphant little grin that was nicely hid from Amy by the computer monitor.
* * *
Two hours later, they had a rendition of the spell hammered out, and Amy's expert opinion on how to best cast the spell. All of them were absolutely exhausted, although, Buffy had long since noted Xander hadn't returned from the bowels of the library. She was pretty sure she didn't want to know what Cordy and Xander were amusing themselves with for so long.
"Are you sure your Dad's going to be there?" Willow was asking Amy anxiously, her fingers knitting together with concern. It was well past two am, midday for a vampire.
Amy, of course, unaware of their vampire-based concerns, shrugged off any worries. "Yeah, he said he'd be out front. Mom had conditioned him to respond to certain triggers, I kind of stumbled on one. It's rather nice, he'll pick me up anywhere, at any time, if I just give a sequence of words to him."
Buffy blinked. "Really? Can you condition parents to ignore bad report cards?" The mere thought of Joyce Summers smiling blankly and then signing the bottom line without the usual threat of eternal groundation was just too sweet.
Willow clamped a hand across Buffy's mouth. "Ignore her." Their resident brain said sweetly. "She's still grounded from a bad test, you know."
Amy nodded skeptically. "I see." Shaking her head, she picked up her purse and walked to the library doors. " Just a suggestion." She said, turning around to look at the three people standing by the large central study-table. "Why not have one of you learn witchcraft. It would save you a lot of trouble if you had an in-house expert on call. Someone on permanent retainer?" Amy poked her head out the door, making sure her getaway would be unimpeded. Looking back, she just smiled. "I don't mind helping, but you guys are plain strange. I mean, you're the weirdest group of people I've ever met! Or heard of. No one has accidents or occult problems like you guys." She paused. "Oh, and for your reference, being told you're strange by a witch isn't at all like being told you're strange by someone like Cordelia. My version is really rare, you have to really earn it."
Tugging the door open, the witch slipped outside, disappearing from their site, and apparently, earshot. "What does she mean her version is rarer than mine!" Cordelia suddenly announced loudly from the top of the staircase. Looking only mildly disheveled, she descended with a rather indignant expression. "I've been saying you're strange for eons. And when I say it, it has weight. People listen! They acknowledge your strange when I decide it." She shook her head. "Does anyone care what Amy says? Nooooo! It only counts if I say it."
Xander trailed down the stairs behind her, like a quiet meek puppy. "Yes Cordelia." He responded to her tirade with a dutiful acquiescent statement. In his weeks of dating the school's reigning bitch, he'd learned that giving in immediately ended the full lecture version.
"Whipped." Willow commented mildly to Buffy.
"Pardon?" Cordelia placed both hands on either side of her hips. "I didn't quite hear you."
Willow smiled sweetly. "Oh, it was nothing, Cordelia. I was just saying I'm really wiped." She gave a little Willow-shrug, turning her back to Cordelia and Xander so she could make little funny faces in peace. Instead, Willow went to shut the computer down for the night.
"Oh." Cordelia was torn between being mollified, or continuing to rant. Her decision was made for her, however, when Giles and Buffy disappeared to get their stuff from his office. "So we're done?"
"We're done." Willow's voiced drifted from the computer. "We've got the spell, know how to work it. Now all we need is an orb, and we're set."
Xander cracked his knuckles. "We going to take down fang-boy tonight then?"
Buffy reappeared, her jacket on and open. Stakes hung visibly from the inside pockets. "Not tonight, Xand-man. Tonight's Angelus' last night of freedom." She smirked suddenly. "Actually, that's not the reason. We don't have an orb to use. Unless Cordy's got one in her family curio-cabinet."
Cordelia fished her jacket from behind the checkout desk, obtrusively dusting it off and checking for damage to the leather garment. "We don't collect orbs. They're not famous. If you needed Faberge eggs, I might be able to help."
Buffy grinned. "Then I guess tonight's done. Thanks for the thought, Cordy."
"I never said I'd actually let you hold the Faberge egg." Cordelia hastened to clarify, as they all walked for the door, car keys, jackets and bags in tow. "You'd probably drop it. Doesn't Amy have an orb? If she's a card-carrying witch, you'd think she'd get one with her membership."
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