WARNING: This chapter contains mentions of gun violence and suicide.

Chapter 23: I Only Have Eyes For You

Giles

Giles knocked on the door of Angel's apartment. He fiddled with his glasses and tapped the cross he was holding against his thigh while he waited. From Buffy and Angel's reports, the demon inhabiting Lucy's body seemed to be adapting well to Angel's training regimen, but he didn't want to be unprepared in case he needed to defend himself from it.

"Hi, Giles," Angel said. "What brings you here?"

Giles hesitated for a moment to choose his words. "Buffy told me that you were up to having visitors."

Angel nodded and opened the door wider so that Giles could go inside. "Tea?"

"Please." Giles's gaze darted around the room as he stepped inside. Several paintings hung on one wall around a desk. There were windows covered by thick curtains on the other side of the room. The furniture was well-worn, likely second hand. Giles noted that there wasn't anything highly breakable lying around.

Angel crossed the room to the small kitchenette that wasn't much more than a refrigerator and a hot plate and started making tea. Giles stood in the middle of the room, still looking around. He didn't see the second vampire he'd expected to be there.

Giles looked at Angel. "Where is...?"

"Lucy's still sleeping." Angel opened the refrigerator and took out the carton of milk that was sitting next to plastic containers filled with blood. "It's kind of early for us."

"Ah, yes, of course. My apologies." Giles accepted the mug of tea from Angel and took a sip. It was far too weak, nearly composed solely of hot water and milk. He supposed he should have expected that from someone who had no need to prepare food and drink on a regular basis.

Angel shrugged. "No worries." He reached back into the refrigerator and took out one of the containers of blood. "Do you mind if I...?"

Giles shook his head. He hadn't been raised to impose on a friend's hospitality and deny them the comfort of their own home, even if said friend was a vampire and was less a friend then a tenuous ally. Angel poured some of the blood into a mug and put the container back in the refrigerator. He sat down on the couch. After a few seconds of hesitation, Giles sat in the patched armchair next to it. He still had a good view of the rest of the room from there.

Angel pushed the blanket and pillow on the couch out of his way. "It's cow blood. I don't get human blood anymore."

"Yes, Buffy did mention that." Giles took another sip of his milk and water.

The next few minutes were occupied by an awkward silence until a door on the other side of the kitchen opened and Lucy's body walked into the room, yawning.

"Hi, Giles," the demon said.

"Hello." Giles watched the fledgling vampire take the half-empty container of blood out of the refrigerator and drink out of it without bothering with a mug. He looked away when the demon turned its yellow eyes on him.

The demon tilted Lucy's head. "Your heart's racing."

"Lucy," Angel said, with a tone of admonishment.

"Sorry." The demon didn't sound sorry. It swallowed another mouthful of blood. "How am I supposed to practice what not to say if you won't let me out of the apartment?"

Angel sighed. Giles got the sense that they'd had this conversation many times before.

"How are you feeling?" Giles asked.

The demon smiled at him, which with its bloodstained teeth was more than a little unsettling. "Good. Strong."

That was to be expected.

"Come sit down, Lucy," Angel said. "You're making Giles nervous."

"Why do you get to say it but I don't?" The fledgling sat next to Angel on the couch and put Lucy's feet up on the coffee table. It was wearing bunny slippers. "Note that was a token complaint as well as a rhetorical question."

A brief smile crossed Angel's face. "Noted."

The two vampires drank their blood while Giles finished his milk and water. He would have tried to make small talk, but what exactly did one do for small talk with a vampire who was a month out from regaining his soul and the demon inhabiting the body of his last victim? Talking about books would have been an option, but Giles didn't think he could stand to see the demon pretending to have Lucy's interests.

The demon swallowed the last of the blood in its container and put the mask of Lucy's face back on. "So, why are you here, Giles?"

Giles froze. "Whatever do you mean?"

The demon sighed. "I know I can't be trusted. I'm used to that. But I'm not going to kill you."

"You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for that." Giles's fingers tightened around his cross. The demon flicked Lucy's eyes towards the small movement and took in the cross for a second before looking back at Giles. He wondered if it was reading his mind. Would it have access to the powers that Lucy had forced upon her now that it had stolen her body?

"So that's how it is." The demon took Lucy's feet off the table. "I'm still not going to kill you. You're the only real dad Buffy's got."

The demon jumped up and disappeared back into the bedroom before Giles could respond. The empty blood container rattled in the sink where the demon had thrown it.

Angel stood up. "You should go, Giles. Thanks for stopping by."

The sound of something heavy hitting the wall followed Giles out the door.

When Buffy entered the library, Giles was reshelving the last of the books they had been using to research Angelus.

"Morning, Giles," Buffy said. "I come bearing cookies."

Giles looked up from the book he was flipping through to see if it belonged in the history section or the demonology section. "Good morning, Buffy. Cookies?"

Buffy held up a plastic bag filled with what looked like chocolate biscuits. "They're from Lucy. She said to be sure to tell you that I was there while she was making them." She narrowed her eyes at Giles. "Any idea why?"

Giles adjusted his glasses. He shelved the book he was holding in history and went over to the table to collect the last stack of books there. "She may have gotten the idea that I am of the opinion she will attempt to kill us all."

"Giles!"

Giles shook his head. "I'm afraid I didn't have the opportunity to dissuade her." And the demon wasn't entirely wrong.

Buffy pouted. "Giles, you promised you'd help."

He had, though not in so many words. Angel thought that they could teach the demon to have morals. The idea of helping a soulless vampire integrate into society made Giles feel very uncomfortable, but Buffy had asked.

"I assure you, you have my support." He put another book back on its shelf. "Have you told your mother?"

"I've been planning to," Buffy said. "Oh, look, Lucy wrote you a letter."

Giles turned around as Buffy was disappearing out the door. He shook his head and went to read the note Buffy had left on the table next to the bag of biscuits.

Sorry

The sound of more commotion than usual in the hallway made Giles drop the note and hurry out of the library before he could begin to pointlessly examine the paper for more words. He interpreted the tableau of a girl standing frozen with a terrified expression on her face and Buffy and a boy on the floor as the end result of a flying tackle that had likely resulted in Buffy saving the girl's life. Several people asking repeatedly where the gun had gone reinforced that conclusion.

Snyder swooped in out of nowhere, scattering the crowd that had formed. "Well, well, well." He narrowed his eyes at Buffy. "Someone is in trouble."

"Eep," Willow said. Giles looked over and saw that she and Xander had arrived next to him sometime in the confusion. The three of them watched as Snyder marched Buffy away to his office.

"So, we've got a magical vanishing gun," Xander said once the hallway was clear. "Does that say 'Hellmouth' to anyone else?"

"One hundred percent," Willow agreed. "Research time?" She turned to go into the library. Then the bell rang and she squeaked before grabbing Xander's arm and hurrying to class with a quick goodbye thrown over her shoulder.

Giles returned to the library. A vanishing gun. At any other school there would have simply been a student who snuck it into their bag or a stray foot that kicked it out of sight during the chaos. At Sunnydale High, the Hellmouth was almost certainly involved. He'd look for information on magical weaponry first.

No one came into the library until lunch, which gave Giles more than enough time to rule out the five magical guns that had ever been created. He wasn't surprised by the small number, gunpowder and magic didn't mix well under most conditions, but he was surprised that none of them could turn invisible or be teleported. Those seemed to be useful properties for a weapon, in his opinion. He'd moved on to transforming weapons when Buffy, Willow, Oz and Xander came through the doors.

"Hi, Giles. Any luck?" Buffy asked.

Giles looked at the books spread out on the table in front of him. "Not as such."

Willow sat down and reached for a book. "How can we help?"

"Not that one." That was a book on fairly dark magic that Giles didn't want anyone else handling. He handed Willow a different book. "Has anyone been hurt by this phenomena?"

"Nope," Xander said. "Is anyone hungry?"

"Me." Buffy hopped off of the checkout counter where she'd taken a seat. "We okay to get lunch, Giles? We'll bring you guys sandwiches."

"That would be appreciated, Buffy," Giles said. "Thank you."

Buffy and Xander went to get food while Giles, Willow and Oz kept researching. The library was quiet except for the rustling of pages. Then Willow gasped and Giles quickly looked up. She was staring at something on the table. Next to her, Oz's usual stoic expression had turned slightly pensive.

"Giles, what's this?" Willow held up a piece of paper for him to see. It was the note from Lucy. He'd forgotten to put it out of sight in his office.

"Giles, this is Lucy's handwriting," Willow said when he didn't reply. "What does 'sorry' mean? Is Lucy okay? Because 'sorry' could mean a lot of bad things that would be bad for Lucy and bad for Buffy and bad for Buffy's mom and bad for all of us!"

Giles jumped in before Willow could continue. "I went to visit last night and suggested that Lucy might think about returning to school. She disagreed and for some reason felt the need to apologize for our argument with biscuits."

"Oh," Willow said. "Is everything okay? I mean...Angelus."

That did sum up a lot of their current problems rather succinctly. The longer summary would have three names: Spike, Drusilla and Lucy. Angelus was responsible for all of them.

"Everything will be alright," Giles said. "Give it time." He tried very hard to believe it.

They didn't find anything helpful at lunch. Midway through the second half of the school day, Giles switched over to research on vampiric customs and ethics. There was very little information on the latter, vampires as a species tended not to be ethical, but there were several books concerning the customs and habits of vampires that he made a close study of. He already knew that fledglings tended to return to their body's home and kill all members of their former family. It was hypothesized by some scholars that this was a way for the new vampire to permanently cut ties with any person who might be able to stop them from killing. If that was true, then the demon in Lucy's body not having killed Buffy and Joyce could give Angel a leg-up when it came to training it.

Giles was reaching for another book when there was a faint bang that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knew what a gunshot sounded like. He was out the door and down the hall before the first screams started.

A small crowd of students emerging from class had formed around the body by the stairs in the courtyard. Giles wove through them and saw Cordelia and Xander kneeling next to the body of a red-haired girl. His breath caught in his throat.

Xander looked up and caught his eye. "It's Aphrodesia," he said in a low voice.

When Giles got closer he saw that Xander was right. It wasn't Willow lying there with a bullet in her heart. Cordelia let out a single sob.

That was when they heard the second shot.

"I don't get it," Buffy said. "Mr. Charles wasn't even Aphrodesia's teacher. Why would he kill her and then shoot himself in the music room?"

"And where did the gun go?" Sam asked.

Everyone was gathered in the library. Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia were sitting around the table while Sam and Soul took up space on the checkout counter. Jenny was behind the computer looking for something online. Giles was looking for books that could be useful in this situation. Buffy and Devon were pacing.

Giles took another book off its shelf, looked at the first page and put it back. Shapeshifters, while fascinating, were not relevant to a murder-suicide committed with a vanishing firearm.

"Maybe he was possessed," Xander suggested.

"That still doesn't tell us where the gun went." Willow picked up one of the books Giles had left on the table and started flipping through it.

"I know where the gun went," Jenny said. Giles looked over the bookcase and saw her staring at the computer screen with wide eyes.

Devon froze. "Where?"

"Wolf," Soul said. He blushed. "Sorry. Joke reflex."

They all ignored the boy's slip and turned to learn what Jenny had found.

"It's a spirit gift," Jenny said. "They're physical objects created by ghosts that dissolve into ectoplasm. I've got two mediums, a psychic and a necromancer online who've had experience with them. They're divided on what type of ghost we've got though."

"The murdery type?" Buffy suggested sarcastically.

"Does it matter?" Cordelia asked. "Can we kill it without knowing what it is?"

The children turned to Giles. He fiercely wished he could give them a better answer, but that wasn't possible with the knowledge he possessed.

"Dealing with ghosts is a delicate matter," he said. "Using the wrong banishment could only serve to anger the spirit or to give it more power. Unless one of you happens to be a necromancer?" Stranger things had happened.

The children all shook their heads. "Fresh out of necromancering," Xander said. "Research party?"

Giles responded by handing him a ghost encyclopedia.

After several minutes of page turning and key tapping, Cordelia stood and announced that someone should go ask their classmates what they'd seen so that they could stop researching blindly. She drafted Xander and Devon to help her. Giles wished them luck and reminded them to avoid the police of any of them were still around, which was highly unlikely but stranger things had happened.

Devon got back first. "I talked to Scott and Pete. They heard Mr. Charles tell Aphrodesia to tell him that she didn't love him, and then he said 'don't walk away from me, bitch', and then he shot her."

Giles raised his eyebrows. If it weren't for the vanishing gun, Devon's report would have made him certain that Robert Charles and Aphrodesia had been having an affair that ended horribly. Cordelia also brought back news of the rumour Harmony had been trying to spread about Robert and Aphrodesia having an affair that Aphrodesia tried to end.

"Like there'd be a student-teacher romance going on without me knowing about it." Cordelia scoffed. "I shut her down."

Giles politely ignored the hitch in Cordelia's voice and no one else drew attention to it either, likely out of self-preservation.

"Great," Buffy said. "Anything that doesn't make me feel like we're wasting our time looking for ghosts?"

"Oh, they're definitely ghosts," Cordelia said. "Amy saw Mr. Charles get possessed and that freak Michael saw it happen to Aphrodesia."

So there were at least two ghosts or one extremely powerful one that was able to possess multiple people at the same time. Giles doubted that they were dealing with the only one ghost option. No one had violently died in the school recently, before Robert and Aphrodesia.

There was a thud further into the stacks. The few conversations that had been going on went silent. Buffy grabbed a small axe from behind the checkout counter. Giles followed half a step behind her as they went to investigate the noise. They found nothing but a book lying on the floor.

"Should we be running?" Sam called.

"No, it's just a book." Buffy crouched down to pick it up. "Old yearbook," she muttered. "I could have sworn there was someone back here."

Giles silently agreed. There was something all too odd about the fallen yearbook. He hoped that there wasn't a vampire hiding in the stacks again.

They went back to researching. Then Xander returned with the news of the police officers being chased out of the school by a flock of birds when they tried to move Robert's body.

Jenny looked up from the computer. "That's narrowed it down to poltergeists, dead witches, something called 'rewinders', or any combination of the three."

"Progress," Buffy said. "Rewinders?"

"Ghosts that repeat their death," Jenny said, reading off of the computer screen. "In this case, by possessing people."

That sounded a lot like what they were dealing with.

"Do they have any other names?" Giles asked. That would be important for cross-referencing.

Jenny, with the help of people online who she assured Giles were trustworthy, drew up a short list of names and descriptions used for the types of ghosts they would be looking for, with additional translations into Latin, French and Spanish. Giles took the list and went to work. He came up for air the next morning with a plan and a pressing need for caffeine.

"It's terribly simple," Giles said to Buffy, Willow and Xander after they'd arrived in the library. "A Willoughby Exorcism will allow us to summon the spirits and determine what it is they want."

"There's more than one type of exorcism?" Xander asked. "Are we going to have to crack an egg on my head again?"

Giles frowned. "No, no eggs. A Willoughby Exorcism has more in common with a séance than what would traditionally be called an exorcism. We will need at least six people. More would be better."

Buffy, Willow and Xander looked at each other. "Giles, did you get any sleep last night?" Willow asked.

"Of course I did." He'd taken a nap in his office that morning. That counted. "Why do you ask? This isn't such an unreasonable plan."

"Cause Buffy told you who the ghosts are." Willow sounded apologetic. "At least, we think we know who they are. Buffy?"

Buffy opened the book she was holding, which Giles recognized as the yearbook that had startled them the day before. "James Stanley and Grace Newman. They're the only ones who died in April. We figured if they're replaying their deaths, well, it's April."

"And I did some research," Willow added. "He killed her, murder-suicide, like Mr. Charles and Aphrodesia. And right before the Sadie Hawkins dance, like Mr. Charles and Aphrodesia. We haven't had a Sadie Hawkins dance since then, and I think it might have been some sort of trigger."

Giles looked at the yearbook. That was a logical conclusion, assuming they were dealing with rewinders. He also vaguely remembered a family of witches called Newman.

"We can still do the Willoughby Exorcism, because we don't know what they want, and we don't know for sure it's James and Grace," Willow said. "Oh, but we don't have enough people. The band's playing tonight and Cordelia's mom took her to a spa retreat to relax, because of Aphrodesia. But Ms. Calendar will help, won't she? So we need one more person."

A strange look crossed Buffy's face. "Hey, Giles? Does this spell say anything about the people doing it having to be human?"

Xander was tapping his pencil on the table. He'd been tapping his pencil on the table since school was let out early on account of snakes in the cafeteria. It had begun to grate on Giles's nerves shortly after. That had been more than an hour ago.

"Would you stop that?" Giles exclaimed when Xander paused his incessant tapping only to start up a new rhythm a second later.

Xander dropped the pencil. It clattered to a stop on the tabletop. "Does anyone want to tell me why we're working with a guy who wanted to kill all of us a few weeks ago?"

Willow looked up from her book. "Angel has a soul again, mister. Or do you think I didn't do a good job?"

While Xander was stuttering out a defence, the telephone rang. Giles picked it up. "Hello?"

"Giles," Angel said. "Buffy told us what's going on, with the ghosts. What time do you want us there?"

"Are you sure that's wise?" Giles asked. They needed six people for the spell, that wasn't up for debate, but he personally thought that bringing in anyone else would be safer.

"Lucy's up for it and I think she's ready." Angel paused for a moment and Giles heard a feminine voice speaking in the background. "Is tonight good, around sunset, or do we need to move sooner?"

"Tonight will be fine," Giles said. "I'll call you if anything changes."

Xander looked hopeful when Giles hung up the phone. "Was that Buffy's mom? Or Amy? Or literally anyone other than Deadboy?"

Giles took off his glasses. "That was Lucy. She'll be joining us tonight."

Willow and Xander let out exclamations that quickly devolved into an argument. Giles tried to follow it but was lost when the topic went from Lucy to Cordelia. He cleaned his glasses and waited for the arguing to die down. When it didn't, he sat back down, picked up his book and made a mental note to find a book about helping teenagers to deal with stress. Maybe Willow's mother had written one.

Soon after, Giles decided to begin the preparations for the Willoughby Exorcism. The best place to do it would have been the music room as at least one of the spirits seemed to have some affinity for it. However, the risk of them being interrupted would be higher. No one went to the library unless they really needed help, except for Snyder when he wanted to get them into trouble, but Giles wouldn't put it past someone to break into the music room for the fun of it now that Robert's body had been removed. There was also the chance that Robert's ghost would show up and cause everything to devolve into chaos. Violent death did tend to have that effect.

Giles sketched out a circle on the floor in chalk. It would be standing in for the round table that they didn't have. Two white pillar candles were placed in the centre of the circle to draw in the spirits, like moths to a flame, as it were. Then he had to purify the space, which would normally be done with holy water but as they would have two vampires involved Giles substituted the rosewater that had been used in the spell as it was originally recorded. It wouldn't provide the extra protection that holy water conferred, but the circle itself was supposed to be protection enough as long as it wasn't broken.

Buffy and Jenny entered the library together while Giles was touching up the circle. Buffy immediately joined Willow and Xander while Jenny stopped at Giles's side.

"Buffy told me what's going on. Are we ready?" Jenny asked.

Giles straightened his back and rolled his stiffening shoulders. "Almost. We're waiting on the final members of our circle."

Jenny frowned. "Are you sure that including Lucy and Angel is a good idea? Maybe one of them, but with both the recent torture alone could...get the attention of things we don't want to be noticed by."

"I've gone over all records pertaining to this spell," Giles said. "It's most visible to human ghosts and becomes less and less attractive the more demonic or angelic a being is. The creatures you're referring to should pay us no mind." The key word being "should". Giles rapped his knuckles on the wooden table.

Jenny let out a breathy, nervous laugh. "Let's hope we don't find out."

They spent the wait until sunset going over the spell, only putting the books away when the pizza they'd ordered arrived. Night fell while they were eating. It was easy to see that Buffy, Willow and Xander were getting impatient. Giles didn't blame them. These ghosts had killed two people, and at the moment they were prime targets.

The library door opened. All five of them turned towards it and watched Angel step halfway through the doorway.

"Oh, great," Xander said. "Deadboy's here."

"Xander," Buffy said warningly. Xander mimed zipping his lips shut.

Angel turned to the hallway for a moment before facing them again. "Give us a second." He disappeared into the hall.

"'Us'?" Willow asked. "I mean, Lucy's not here yet but it would be kind of weird for her and Angel to show up together because I think it takes longer than two months to get over being kidnapped but I'm not Lucy and none of us went to get her so she must have come with Angel."

The door opened again and Angel walked into the library with Lucy hiding behind him. Giles almost didn't see her at first. She would have looked small even without the oversized jumper she was wearing and she shied away from the rest of the room. It took Giles a moment to reconcile the frightened-looking girl with the demon he had seen on Monday night, but he managed. It was a struggle, but he managed.

Willow gave a little wave. "Hi."

The demon flicked Lucy's eyes upward for a second before looking back at the floor.

Giles cleared his throat. "Shall we get started?"

The process of casting the spell was straightforward. They all sat in a circle around their chalk tabletop and held hands. Then Giles lit the candles and invited the spirits to join them after he'd returned to his place in the circle. It really was remarkably like a séance. By all accounts, the woman who'd invented it in 1876, Lady Violet Willoughby, had been a powerful necromancer and medium who had a knack for handling troublesome spirits. By some accounts, she'd developed the exorcism so that people would stop calling her to deal with ghost dogs that kept knocking over chairs and ghost cats that chased living mice down the halls.

"Spirits, if you are among us, make yourselves known," Giles said. At this point, any ghosts that had been drawn to them were supposed to become visible to the entire circle.

"I'm not seeing anything different," Xander whispered. Willow shushed him.

"Spirits, make yourselves known," Giles said again, more firmly. "Name thy name."

Lucy's body was sitting directly across the circle from Giles, in between Buffy and Angel. The second Giles finished speaking, Lucy's head was raised. Her eyes reflected the candlelight.

"Grace Elizabeth Newman," Lucy said.

Xander's grip on Giles's hand tightened. "James Stanley," he ground out.

Well, that was one way of becoming visible.

"Grace Elizabeth Newman and James Stanley," Jenny said. "We need to speak with you. Why have you been in our school?"

"I killed you," James said through Xander. Giles looked at them out of the corner of his eye and saw that James had Xander's gaze fixed on Lucy's body.

"I lied," Grace said. "I never stopped loving you."

So the rumours about a student-teacher relationship were true, in a sense, just forty-three years out of date.

"Can you ever forgive me?" James asked.

"Always," Grace said.

Before the ghosts left Xander and Lucy's bodies, Grace focused on Giles. "Thank you," she said. Giles inclined his head in acknowledgement.

Grace and James came together in an embrace in the centre of the circle. In a blink they had vanished. The candles went out.

"Be at peace," Jenny said.

"Be at peace and rest," Giles said. He released Jenny's and Xander's hands, breaking the circle.

Xander stood up and backed away from the chalk on the floor, rubbing his arms like he was cold. "First possession this year," he muttered. "Yay."

"He loved her," Lucy said. "She loved him."

"Hey, how are you feeling, Lucy?" Willow asked.

Lucy frowned. "Hungry."

Angel and Giles shared split-second looks of panic before Buffy said that there was pizza left and Lucy's only response was to ask if there was Hawaiian. The four teenagers descended on the leftovers like the proverbial swarm of locusts, polishing off what was left of the pizza in the time it took for Giles, Jenny and Angel to clean up. Giles had to hope that he could ignore his growling stomach until he got home. Even simple magic took energy.

As they were leaving the building, Giles heard Willow ask, "So, when are you coming back to school?"

"I don't know," Lucy said. "I don't think I can."

"What?" Willow exclaimed. "But, but, you have to! You're graduating! You got accepted to NYU but they won't take you if you don't graduate!"

"I got accepted to UCLA and UC Sunnydale too. It's..." Giles looked back and saw Lucy shrug. It would be a little difficult to go to school when exposure to sunlight would result in combustion.

Angel opened the door, took one look outside and immediately pulled the door shut. He looked at Giles. "Spike and Drusilla are sitting on your car."

Giles didn't know why he was surprised.

A/n: I would like to note that I know nothing about US college admissions. Lucy's college application experience is based on what happened on the show and the stuff I could Google.

-Cynder2013