FOOLS FOR LIFE:

CHAPTER 15: A NEW ATTITUDE

Tara walked out into the hall as her sociology class had just ended. She was looking forward to dinner with Willow and Buffy and Dawn. She hadn't moved back in since she felt it a little presumptuous, after everything that happened. It was important to her to stand on her own two feet, ever since she had first tried to break away from her family. She only moved into the Summers house with Willow because Buffy had died and they tried to have Dawn be able to continue living in her house with people she loved. Child services would certainly have placed her with a foster family otherwise.

And the bot had served it's purpose and things had worked out. It had been really nice living there, even though everyone stayed sad for a long time. Then Buffy came back to life, Tara broke up with Willow and moved out, back to campus.

Now it just felt a little too much to just move back into Buffy's house. She knew she was welcome but still. Not that it mattered much since she still spent most of her time there anyway.......

She walked to her car and as she got in it, she remembered she had to go by the store to get some milk. She had noticed the day before they were out. She got out her cell phone and called Willow. Maybe she could pick up some other stuff while she was at the store.

"Hello?" Willow. And she sounded a bit off.

"Hi Will, it's me, on the way to the store now to."

"Tara! I'm glad you called. Forget the store, just drive straight home. Something's...wrong."

Tara gasped a little. In this town that had some really frightening possibilities! "W-what? What's happened, everyone alright?"

Willow hesitated. "Well, no one's hurt or dead or anything and nothing crawling out of the walls to eat us, but..something's definitely up. With..Buffy, I mean, she's....well I can't explain it, just hurry home and see for yourself."

Tara hung up reluctantly. She'd preferred to have heard at least something a little more specific than this. Something wrong with Buffy? Could she have mucked things up with her investigation earlier? Was there some bad after effect of the resurrection spell after all?

She started the car and drove away, never noticing how Willow had used the word 'home' and how normal it had felt.

When she arrived no more than three minutes later (it was rare for her to speed) she hurried to the door where Willow was already waiting with a worried face.

"So, what is it? What's going on?" Tara asked as she walked inside. Willow closed the door and searched for words. "Where's Buffy?" Tara asked, really wishing Willow would say something by now.

"Upstairs...in the bathroom. She'll be right out."

"Okay, so she's...basically okay?" Tara asked as they walked into the living room.

"Well, she's not hurt or anything, and if you ask her she doesn't even seem to see that there's anything different about her! Which makes me more sure she's under some spell. Like I accidentally put on her way back when."

"You mean when everything you said came true? You told me about that. This is like that?"

Willow shrugged, then nodded, then shrugged again. "I don't know. I think so. Right now I just need you to tell me you see it! Because she doesn't and I really begin to wonder if there's maybe a spell on ME!"

"Well....but...what is it then? What's wrong with Buffy?" Tara pressed on. Then she heard footsteps by the door to the living room

Buffy stood there, dressed in black jeans and a black t shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her entire pose reminded Tara momentarily of that scene at the end of Grease when Olivia Newton John appears, all dressed up and full of attitude.

Then she saw the cigarette in Buffy's mouth as she moved to light it. After she took her first puff off it, she shook the match to extinguish it. Her nails had pitch black polish on them.

Buffy tossed the match, took the cigarette out of her mouth between the thumb and index finger of her right hand and blew out some smoke.

"Bloody hell, she still at it?" she said. It was Buffy's voice, but the accent was unmistakably cockney. Tara just stared at her with her mouth open.

"Don't know what's up with her. Been tellin' her all day, I'm right as rain. What d'you figure, our little Willow been havin' a taste of the magic weed?" She gave a little snicker followed by a smirk that was only all too familiar. Tara tried to say something but still could only stare. She looked at Willow, who sat there nodding with a very concerned face, then back at Buffy, with her mouth still open. Buffy frowned.

"You okay, luv?" she asked.

** ** Spike woke up with a severe hangover. He almost fell out of bed as he tried to get up. His head was pounding as he started to climb the stairs. "Oooooh, bloody hell. Who beat me up this time.."

"About 7 bottles of scotch, actually." Clem said in reply. Spike looked up over the edge of the hole and saw him in the chair where he was watching TV.

"Clem? What happened?"

"What usually happens. You had a little talk with your beloved Slayer, mean things were said and you got a major case of the blues. Thankfully, this time you only drank yourself unconscious instead of letting somebody beat the tar out of you."

Spike groaned. "Not sure this feels much better."

He walked to his fridge to get some blood. As he opened it he suddenly had a flashback. "Hey, did you....bring me coffee or something? I remember...."

Clem, never taking his eyes off the TV sad: "Hm? Oh yeah, you looked like you needed it. Man, that must have been a record. You were at your 8th bottle!"

Spike pulled up one corner of his mouth. "Yeah that's what they'll put on my stone. Well, thanks mate, seems like you do nothing but clean up after me these days."

Clem laughed. "Oh, think nothing of it. And you know it's funny, just like last time you don't even remember Halfrek helping too."

Spike's head shot up! Halfrek...yes, he remembered something. What did she say? Something about Buffy? Ah, it was so vague. "Ah. Uh, yeah, no I remember. I think."

Clem shook his head. "Tsk, not seeing what's right in front of you do you pal?"

Spike looked at him, not sure he understood....what happened? What did she say again?

"I mean here's this nice, pretty girl, giving you all this attention and you just can't see it, and keep going back to the Slayer, who clearly is just hurting you. I think you just have a thing for women who are mean to you. If a girl is nice, woop! You don't even notice her."

He sighed.

"A lot of guys have that. My uncle Harry for instance, he once fell for a demon who devoured males after mating with them, and he barely survived several dates, but did he wise up? Noo, and in the end she just..."

"Wait, do you...do you remember what we talked about? What she talked about?"

"Uhm, well you weren't exactly very conversational, you know. And I went out to get the coffee at some point. Why?"

Spike scratched his head. "Not sure, mate. I seem to...remember something, I don't know. Something's gnawing at the back of my head."

Clem shrugged. "It's called a hangover, buddy." He chuckled and looked at the TV again.

Spike still scratched his head. He just couldn't remember, but he could feel something was off.

** **

"She was just...off." Willow said.

"So, when did it happen? Did you see the change? Or was it gradual?" Tara still couldn't believe it. Buffy was sitting outside now, smoking on the back yard porch, with her boots up on the railing. At least she had agreed to smoke outside.

"I don't know. When I woke up it was already kind of...well, you know how she can kinda take a long time in the bathroom?"

Tara nodded and smiled lightly.

"Well, now she didn't. And, and when she came out of her bedroom, she..well she's usually all dressed and stuff. Now she was still pulling up her pants, and..well in a flash I saw...well, I wasn't *looking* you know, it just caught my eye."

Tara nodded and patted her hand. "I know, go on."

"Well I'm pretty sure she wasn't wearing any underwear! That's SO not Buffy! Especially wearing jeans! And then she went out and she hadn't said much so I figured her talk with Spike still had her all grouchy you know?"

"Yes, she didn't say much about it last night. Probably didn't go too well."

Willow frowned for a second. "Yeah, I know. But anyway, then she came back and she'd bought cigarettes! Buffy doesn't smoke! She hates smoking! And when I made a joke about it, she gave me that..look, and she talked....."

"And you heard the accent."

"Yeah I thought she was being funny! But she really wasn't. Plus she usually really sucks at doing accents. And I started to think something was wrong. And it just got worse from there. She had scotch for breakfast! And she won't see it! She says I'm crazy and that she's fine. I'm just glad you see it too. Luckily, Dawn had gone to school already and she's sleeping over at a friends tonight, but we can't keep this under wraps forever! We have to find out what's wrong!"

Tara nodded again. "Has to be some spell, we'll have to look into it." She looked at Willow. "I mean *I'll* look into it of course."

Willow looked sad. "She's my friend and I'd do anything to help her but I don't want to...you know, fall off the wagon if there's any chance of there being another way."

Tara bent forward and kissed her. "Don't worry, we'll be fine. I'll go check out some books." She got up to leave the room, then turned. "Uhm, we do agree on this right? I mean it seems pretty obvious."

Willow nodded. "At first she sorta reminded me of Faith, and I was scared there'd been another body-swap or something. But no....she's more like..."

"Spike." Tara finished.

"But she isn't. It's still Buffy. Or she thinks she's Buffy which is sort of the same I guess. Do you...do you think she was right? That Spike did something out of revenge, a spurned-lover thing, as you said?"

Tara looked through the window where Buffy was blowing smoke circles. "I..I think it's too early to say anything. It could be a lot of things. I mean you know how a spell can go wrong. I'm more wondering if maybe he tried a love spell that backfired?"

Willow sighed. "Yes, that crossed my mind too. But whatever it is, there's definitely some connection to Spike."

"Yes." Tara said. "I'm going to the Magic Shop, get some books and maybe Anya can help us out."

** **

TBC!