Chapter 20: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Giles

The pink and red greeting card on his desk was taunting Giles. He'd been trying to write a message in it between books since yesterday but all he'd managed thus far was the salutation. He needed more than "Dear Jenny" to fill the empty space.

He pushed the card out of his line of vision and tried to concentrate on his book. It was one of the ones on Angelus that described the only other time he'd hunted a Slayer, an Irish girl named Niamh Belton, in 1834. It didn't say what Niamh had done to catch Angelus's attention, but it laid out in great detail everything that he'd done to torment her before he killed her. Even one hundred and sixty-four years later, Giles felt sympathy for the girl and was grateful on her behalf that she hadn't had any family or close friends. The things that Angelus had done to the strangers she interacted with would surely have broken her completely if they'd happened to anyone she cared deeply about. Buffy was at a disadvantage in that way. She had people she loved and Angelus knew it.

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He was tempted, very tempted, to pack everyone up and scatter them in safe houses across the known world. That would at least slow Angelus down. It could buy them a few years perhaps, but it would also leave the Hellmouth without a Slayer. None of them were that selfish.

He had warned everyone to stay inside at night for the next few days. Angelus was consistently more vicious than usual around Valentine's Day.

There were footsteps on the floor outside. "Mr. Giles?" Lucy called from out in the library.

"Giles, you here?" Buffy asked.

Giles put his glasses back on and stepped out of his office. "I'm here. Is something wrong?"

"Actually, something's finally going right." Buffy looked at Lucy. "Someone got a very useful Valentine's Day present."

Giles raised an eyebrow. "Do explain."

"Someone left Enyos's books at our door last night," Lucy said. "You and Ms. Calendar would have to check, but I think they're all there."

Giles felt his heart leap. "That's wonderful news. Do you know who brought them?" Perhaps they had an ally, one who was able to go into the factory and come out alive. But it would do no good to get ahead of himself.

Buffy smirked. "Yup."

"No, we don't." Lucy narrowed her eyes at Buffy from behind her back. "We have guesses."

Buffy turned to face Lucy. "It was totally Spike." She put her hands on her hips. Giles imagined that she was either still smirking or giving Lucy an arch look.

"Spike is in a wheelchair," Lucy said. She sounded tired, like they'd already had this argument before. "He couldn't have brought the books to us."

"But you know it was his idea," Buffy wheedled. "Come on, who else could it be, Drusilla?"

Lucy sighed. "Maybe it was. I don't know. This could all be a game to her. Let it go, Buffy. Let it go."

Giles cleared his throat. "Well, however you received them, we have the books now. Can I assume that you left them at home?"

The girls turned back to him and nodded. "Yup," Buffy said. "Safe and sound behind our anti-vamp threshold."

"Good," Giles said. The books wouldn't be able to be stolen again by any vampires.

Giles arranged to go to the Summers' house after school to collect the books and then Buffy and Lucy left to get ready for class. Giles had only been back at his desk for a few moments when he heard screams coming from outside the library. He ran out to the hallway and turned around until he saw a cluster of students backing away from something on the floor.

"That's Theresa!" a girl shouted as Giles made his way towards the students. He got there a few seconds before Buffy, Lucy and Willow. All of them stared at the brown-haired girl sprawled on the floor. Lucy crouched down and checked for a pulse. She looked up and shook her head.

"What happened?" Giles demanded of the other five students gathered around the dead girl.

"She...she was in my locker," a boy said. "I opened it and she...fell."

The girl who'd recognized Theresa started crying. "Oh my god, oh my god!" The other girl who was there patted her on the back, still staring at the body.

"Mr. Giles?" Lucy said softly. She moved Theresa's hair to the side and exposed the vampire bite on the girl's neck.

"Oh dear." Giles said. "Lucy, please stop touching the body and go inform Principal Snyder of what's happened."

Lucy grimaced. Giles certainly understood why as he wouldn't wish talking to Snyder on anyone.

"Break it to him slowly perhaps," Giles suggested. "A bit of delay won't hurt."

Lucy nodded. She stood and hurried in the direction of the principal's office without a word of complaint. Giles trusted that she would delay Snyder long enough for them to get a closer look at Theresa's body, at least long enough for them to check if she would be coming back as a vampire. He crouched down to do so and saw that there wasn't any blood on Theresa's lips, which was a good sign. However, he didn't dare open her mouth to check for blood inside with so many witnesses. It looked like Buffy would be paying a visit to the morgue tonight to be on safe side.

One of the other boys tapped on Buffy's shoulder. "Hey, you're Buffy Summers, right?"

"Yeah," Buffy said. "Why?"

The boy handed her something pink that Giles couldn't quite make out, obscured as it was by the boy's and Buffy's hands. "That fell out of Charlie's locker too. It's got your name on it so..." The boy shrugged. His eyes flickered towards Theresa. "You didn't kill her, right?"

"What?" Buffy exclaimed. "Of course I didn't kill her!"

"I didn't think you did," the boy said. "But...it's got your name on it."

Buffy muttered something too quietly for Giles to hear. The boy nodded and went back to stand with Charlie.

Giles made his way around Theresa's body to Buffy and Willow. The thing that the boy had given Buffy turned out to be a pink paper envelope with her name written neatly across the front in black ink. Buffy turned it over in her hands, frowning at it.

"You shouldn't open it," Willow said. "It's evidence. But...the police probably won't know what to do with it and you should probably know what's in it. You should open it."

"Of course she's not going to open it." Giles said, with some volume. He looked at Buffy and spoke in a low voice. "Open it before Snyder gets here."

Buffy tore open the envelope and took out a pink card with a bundle of roses on the front, the exact card that was waiting on Giles's desk. She read what was written in the card and her face grew pale. Her lips formed a tight, thin line and she handed the card to Giles.

Giles read the message inside the card. Then he grimaced. His eyes traced over the words again.

"Dear Buffy," the card read. "Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you like your present. Love from, your Angel."

"Theresa was a good person," Buffy said. "She didn't deserve this."

Giles looked at Buffy. She was shaking, her hands clenched into fists. Anger was, Giles thought, the best reaction she could have to this, though perhaps not right at this moment when Principal Snyder was stalking down the hallway towards them. Giles quickly tucked the card into his jacket and prepared to prevent Buffy from attacking the horrible man.

Snyder sent all of them away after only a few digs and threats towards Buffy, Giles and Lucy. The girls went to class, because of course classes at Sunnydale High wouldn't be cancelled for something so mundane as a dead girl stuffed in a locker, and Giles went back to the library. He took one look at the card on his desk and threw it in the rubbish. He would get a different one for Jenny, or perhaps he would get her some chocolates instead.

The police were long gone by the time school let out. Giles drove Buffy and Lucy home and picked up the books that had been delivered to them. He dove straight into the first translation and didn't come up for air until well past midnight. When he saw the time he had a quick bite to eat and then went to bed. He had to be at work early to cross-reference some of the things he'd translated with the basic magic books he kept at the library.

The library was quiet all morning. Too quiet. Giles should have known that his peaceful workspace would be destroyed sooner than later. Really, it was obvious.

Xander came crashing through the library's doors. "Giles! Help!"

Giles looked up from his notes. "Xander? What on earth are you so worked up about?"

"Girls! Love spell! Won't leave me alone!" Xander took several deep breaths before he was able to speak in full sentences. "I got Amy to do a love spell for me and now all the girls at school are chasing after me."

Giles shot out of his seat. "Are you mad? Love spells are dangerous, Xander! People have died because of them!" A love spell! This was the last thing they needed.

"I'm getting the dangerous part," Xander squeaked. "What do I do?"

The glare that Giles shot at Xander made the boy flinch and take a step back. "You will do nothing. You will stay safely in the library while I find Amy and get her to reverse the spell. Is that clear?"

Xander nodded frantically. "Yes, sir!"

The hallways were eerily silent. School wasn't over yet. There still should have been students and teachers milling about on their way to class, but Giles seemed to be the only one there. He looked into a nearby classroom. It was empty. He checked the next room. Also empty. Giles frowned. Where was everyone?

"I do hope they haven't murdered each other," he muttered as he walked down the hall. He didn't think Xander's love spell would escalate that quickly but then again he didn't know when it had been cast.

Giles turned the corner and immediately had to stifle a yelp. A large group of girls were standing silently in the entryway, looking around at each other with clear suspicion.

One of the girls, a petite brunette who was even shorter than Buffy, noticed Giles and stepped towards him. "Have you seen Xander?"

"I believe he went home for the day," Giles said.

"Oh." The girl tilted her head. "Thanks." She turned around and headed out the door, following the girls who had already begun to move as soon as Giles finished telling his lie.

The atrium emptied rapidly. It was only by luck that Amy Madison was far enough away from the doors that Giles could rush after her and stop her from leaving without any of the other girls noticing.

"Hey!" Amy tried to push past Giles. She was clearly under the spell that she had cast. That would make things tricky.

Giles spoke quickly. "Xander needs your help, Amy. We need to undo the spell that you did for him."

Amy frowned. "Are you sure that's what Xander wants? I won't do anything that will hurt him. I love him."

"Yes, Amy." Giles lowered his voice, though he didn't think there was anyone around to overhear him. "Why don't I take you to him and he can tell you himself?"

A smile split Amy's face. "Okay!"

They entered the library to a scene that Giles fervently hoped he was hallucinating. When Amy began shouting and marched towards the stairs leading to the stacks he had to accept that what he was seeing was real and quickly go after Amy before there could be bloodshed.

Buffy climbed off of Xander, who was lying on the stairs propped up by his elbows with a look on his face that made it clear that he was not okay with what had been happening, and straightened the very...skimpy blue raincoat that she was wearing. "Can it, witch-girl. Xander is mine. You can leave now."

Amy put her hands on her hips. "I did the most powerful spell I've ever done for him. What have you ever done to show how much you love him, aside from the stripper impersonation?"

"Excuse me?" Buffy's face went red.

"Buffy! Amy!" Xander jumped up and tried to separate the two girls. "No need to fight over the Xan Man. There's plenty of me to not go around because neither of you actually love me romantically and we're all friends here."

"I love you!" Buffy and Amy both said. They glared at each other.

Xander looked at Giles with wide eyes. "Help!"

"Amy, why don't we work on that spell?" Giles said.

"Yeah, Amy, go play witches and wizards with Giles and me and Xander can get back to what we were doing." Buffy smiled at Xander.

Amy's eyes flashed. She raised her hands palms out in front of her. "Goddess Hecate, work thy will. Before thee let the unclean thing crawl."

Oh blast. That wasn't good.

Light swirled around Amy in a vortex of power. It shot out and hit Buffy, who seemed to vanish. When the light disappeared, Buffy's raincoat lay crumpled up on the floor. A little rodent nose poked out of one sleeve and the rat that was Buffy looked up at them.

Giles stared at Amy. "Where on earth did you learn animal transformation?"

Amy shrugged nonchalantly. She stepped closer to Xander and took his arm. "Why don't we go somewhere more private?"

Xander shook her off. "I'm not going anywhere until you change Buffy back!"

"Buffy can take care of herself." Amy tried to grab Xander's arm again but he evaded her. His foot hit the floor right next to Buffy's coat and the noise sent the rat running across the room.

"You turned her into a rat! Buffy-Buffy can take care of herself. Rat-Buffy is not Buffy-Buffy!" Xander looked at Giles. "What do we do?"

Giles sighed and took off his jacket. "Catch, uh, Rat-Buffy." He looked at Amy. "You sit down and don't move."

Thankfully, Amy listened to Giles and took a seat at the table. Giles and Xander crept around the room looking for Rat-Buffy. Giles was by the circulation desk when he heard a crash. He jumped and spun around in time to see Rat-Buffy scampering out the library doors. Oz was standing over Xander, rubbing his hand.

"That kinda hurt," Oz said.

"'Kinda'?" Xander exclaimed. "What was that for?"

Giles interrupted Oz before he could get a full word out. "Never mind that! Buffy's escaped the library. If anything happens to her..." He shook his head. He didn't want to think about that.

"I was on the phone all night, listening to Willow cry about you." Oz looked at Xander and held out a hand to help him up. "I don't know what happened, but I was left with a very strong urge to hit you."

"Nothing happened," Xander said. "Cross my heart."

Oz nodded.

"Boys!" Giles exclaimed. "We need to find Buffy."

"Amy turned her into a rat," Xander said when Oz looked at them with confusion.

Oz blinked. "Oh."

Giles shook his head. Before he could bark out orders the doors swung open again. The blur that entered had Xander on the floor on the other side of the library in seconds. Xander gurgled, which was a logical response considering that Lucy was kneeling on top of him with her hands around his throat. Amy shrieked and jumped to her feet.

Oz pulled Lucy off of Xander. She screamed and fought him. Giles shook off his shock and went to help Oz hold Lucy back. The love spell should not have escalated this quickly.

"Let me go!" Lucy tried to twist her arms out of Giles's grip. "Let me kill him! They won't shut up! Let me kill him!"

"Goddess Hecate, work thy will," Amy said. Xander stopped her by slapping her hands down.

"Would you quit it with the Hecate thing?!" Xander's voice cracked and he rubbed his poor throat.

Lucy shook her head violently. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She lunged toward Xander and Amy. Giles and Oz were barely able to stop her. Giles had a second to wonder if enhanced strength was a side effect of a human ingesting vampire blood before all his attention went back to the problem at hand.

Lucy kept fighting but Amy didn't try to turn anyone else into a rat. That was progress.

"Lucy, listen to me," Giles said sternly. "You do not want to kill Xander. He's your friend."

"I love him!" Lucy said. "Everyone does. They won't stop thinking about him. It hurts." She attempted to wrench herself free once more, but when she failed all the fight seemed to go out of her. She sagged towards the floor and Giles found himself supporting her rather than trying to hold her still. "No Xander, no thoughts. I don't want to die, Mr. Giles."

Giles frowned. "You are not going to die."

Stopgap placation delivered, Giles moved on to using logic. Lucy said that everyone was thinking about Xander. Thinking, not talking. She could have extrapolated that from all the girls at school going mad over him, but she would have had to be clear-headed for that and as she was under the love spell herself that wasn't possible. Removing all the other options that required clear-headedness left only one thing that it could be. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best time to ask Lucy how long she'd been a telepath for.

"Buffy has been turned into a rat," Giles said instead. "She is somewhere in the building. I need you and Oz to go find her." The school was nearly empty. Lucy would probably be alright once she was further away from Amy and Xander. "Keep her contained somewhere once you've got her. Can you do that?"

After a moment, Lucy nodded. "Yeah. Oz is all with the calm."

"Good." Assuming that he properly understood what she was saying.

Giles helped Lucy stand despite her shaking legs and she left the library with Oz. Buffy couldn't have gone far. They would find her before anything bad could happen.

Then Giles turned to Xander and Amy. "We will figure out how to undo both the love spell and Buffy's transformation."

"Research party," Xander said. "Finally, something normal."

It did seem normal, until Jenny came into the library and started fighting with Amy over Xander. Then there was quite a bit more magic being thrown around than there usually was when they were doing research.

"Enough!" Giles finally shouted. "Xander, go home. Lock yourself away. You're only causing trouble here." He was surprised that more girls hadn't thought to find Xander in the one place in school where he spent the most time.

Xander was happy to get out of there. Once he was gone, Amy and Jenny could focus on finding the spells they needed. Giles found the first one, Jenny found the second and then they all went to the chemistry labs to cast them. Unfortunately, Oz and Lucy had captured Rat-Buffy in a cage in the first lab they chose and...well...long story short, Lucy ended up unconscious and Giles, Jenny and Amy had to undo Amy's spells in a different lab.

"Do that one first," Giles said, gesturing to the setup for undoing the love spell.

Amy picked up the necklace that had apparently belonged to Cordelia and swung it in circles above the beaker. When Giles finished reading the incantation she dropped it in and the beaker let out a puff of silvery smoke. Almost immediately Amy and Jenny looked confused.

Jenny shook her head. "What the hell?"

Giles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I've been asking myself the same question. Would you mind going and telling Oz to let Buffy out of that cage?"

Jenny shook her head again, but she said that she would. Giles waited a few seconds after the door closed behind her before instructing Amy to begin the next spell. She burnt the herbs and said the words that were supposed to turn Buffy back into a human. Again there was a puff of smoke.

"Did it work?" Amy asked.

Jenny opened the door. "Could I have your jacket, Rupert? Buffy needs it more than you."

Giles stripped off his jacket and handed it to her. He imagined he could feel himself blushing.

Amy sighed with relief. "Sounds like it worked."

The aftermath of the love spell would be wrapped up with the usual inclination of Sunnydale citizens to rationalize and ignore everything supernatural. That left only one thing for Giles to deal with.

Lucy had come to when Amy undid the love spell. She hadn't done anything since then except get Buffy her gym uniform from her locker and twist her fingers together in a way that looked to Giles as if it were painful. Giles sent her and Buffy home. It was late and Lucy didn't seem to be in any shape to talk.

Giles knocked on the door of the Summers house the next morning. It was Saturday, so he wasn't surprised when Joyce Summers opened the door and allowed him to come inside.

"Buffy and Lucy are still asleep," she said after offering him a cup of coffee, which he accepted for the caffeine alone, though tea would have been much preferred. "What exactly happened last night?"

Giles raised his eyebrows. "You don't remember?"

Joyce blushed. "Oh, I remember. I'm hoping I'm remembering wrong." She ducked her head and took a sip of her coffee.

"Love spell gone bad," Giles said shortly before turning his attention to his own drink.

Once they were able to look at each other again, Giles asked when Joyce thought he would be able to speak with Lucy.

"I could wake her up if it's important," Joyce offered.

"Oh, no, that's quite alright. Yesterday was tiring for everyone." Giles took another sip of his coffee.

Joyce began arguing that she didn't want to make him wait when he must have had other things to do, but that argument was made irrelevant when Lucy came into the kitchen. Lucy looked at Giles warily. He would have thought that his presence was unexpected if she'd shown the slightest bit of surprise or if she hadn't clearly taken the time to change out of her pajamas.

"Morning, Mr. Giles," Lucy said. "I guess we need to talk."

Giles put down his coffee. "Yes, we do."

Lucy looked at her aunt out of the corner of her eye. "Living room?"

"You do remember that I know about all this magic stuff now, don't you?" Joyce crossed her arms. "You can talk about things in front of me."

Lucy's cheeks turned pink. She opened her mouth and closed it without saying anything.

"I do apologize, but I believe Lucy doesn't wish to talk about this particular subject in front of you at this time," Giles said. And he was sorry. Keeping secrets from Joyce now that she knew about Buffy's calling wasn't something that he wanted to do. She deserved to know what was going on. However, telepathy was a dangerous thing and if Lucy wanted to keep it a secret then he certainly wouldn't fight her on it.

Joyce pursed her lips. "I'll be upstairs then." She shot Giles a glare as she left the room.

Giles and Lucy sat down on the couch. Lucy talked, Giles listened and the longer Lucy spoke the angrier Giles got.

"There was a doctor in the cancer ward who looked after all the kids," Lucy said. "We thought he was nice. He would joke with us while we were getting chemo, giving us a distraction, you know? And it worked. No one noticed when he added things to people's IVs. At first kids died and we all thought it was their cancer. Then later I guess he'd started fixing things and...Rose killed herself. She was in so much pain because everything everyone was thinking was in her head all the time. The other doctors thought she might have a brain tumour making her hallucinate, but it was because of what Dr. Capson did to her. I was lucky. Quinn...my boyfriend...we had it happen within a few days of each other. It happened to me first. I don't really remember much of what happened afterwards until I heard his voice in my head speaking to me, directly to me, not normal thoughts. He gave me an anchor and I did the same for him. We got to live because of a coincidence. That was nine months ago, I think. Like I said, I don't remember all of it."

Giles spoke through clenched teeth. "And this doctor was trying to make telepaths on purpose?"

Lucy nodded. "That's what it looked like. I didn't really get to go through his head much because my mom..." She swallowed. "He didn't work with adults."

Giles resisted the urge to clean his glasses. He was sure that with as angry as he was he would end up crushing them the second he took them off.

"Telepathy is rare in humans," he said instead. "Human telepaths are...highly prized by some."

"You mean he'd get a lot of money for us," Lucy said. She tapped the side of her head when Giles looked at her with surprise.

"Ah, yes. I would advise you not to tell anyone else about this."

"I told Buffy already." A slightly hysterical laugh escaped Lucy's lips. "And Spike and Drusilla already know. I bet Dru's told her daddy by now." She laughed again. "She can't keep secrets from Angelus."

"Oh dear." Giles could only imagine how Angelus would use that piece of information against them. "Then I suppose you should let the others know, so we're all on the same page."

Lucy nodded. "Secrets are kind of a bad thing to have right now, aren't they? At least, secrets that Angelus knows."

That they were.

Giles left after a few more minutes of quiet discussion about Angelus, getting Lucy caught up on the few bits of information she'd missed after she'd stopped helping with that particular research. He nodded when she asked if he was sure he couldn't stay longer.

"I have several things to get done today," he said. One of which was looking up a certain doctor and finding a curse he could use to make his life hell.