"Everything alright, Rupert?" Spike asked somewhat baffled by the Watcher's actions.
After the little Witch left, his captor had started acting more than a little weirdly. Now, with the spell book in his hand, he kept moving it back and forth in front of his face like he was playing the trombone. He was blinking his eyes furiously, occasionally squinting them like he was protecting them from the sun's glare.
"Yes, erm..., we shall proceed then," Giles nodded absentmindedly and lit the tight roll of motherwort leaves. "'Enemy, enemy, be now... quiet'," he started chanting hesitantly.
"You know, Rupert, you don't sound so convincing. This spell stuff tends to be a bit unpredictable under the best circumstances, but now..."
"Yes, too bad," Giles snapped irritably. "You might have thought about that sooner." He squinted at the book again. "'Let your deceitful tongue be... be... broken.'"
Breathing heavily, he all but slammed the book on the table and snatched his glasses away from his face. He grabbed his handkerchief from the trouser pocket he had stuck it in earlier, not noticing the small metal object that flew out and landed next to Spike's boot.
"Hey, what's that all about?" Spike asked in fake-concern. The Watcher was vigorously dapping his eyes with the piece of cloth. As inconspicuously as possible, Spike started lowering his manacled hands from his lap.
"Hmmm? Oh, nothing," Giles waved the question off. "Just, you know, ash in my eye."
"Well... I won't have you doing mojo on me if you can't even read properly," Spike continued playing for time. The Watcher wasn't currently paying any attention to him, so he made a lightning-fast grab at the small key, hoping the manacles didn't rattle too much. "You could turn me into a stink beetle or whatnot."
"It would be generous ending for you, Spike," Giles commented dryly, still squinting. The next he knew, he was thrown violently aside as Spike jumped out of the chair with the chains falling to the floor with a rattle. Grabbing his coat, Spike was out of the door in a flash.
"Giles just worries," Buffy tried to explain to Willow in their room. "Spells can be dangerous. It doesn't mean he thinks you're a bad Witch."
"I am a bad Witch," Willow muttered with a small broom in her hand. She was cleaning Amy's cage, allowing the rat to roam freely on her bed for a change. "I thought I had all the basics down, but it turns out I can't even perform a simple truth spell when it's really required without messing it up."
"No," Buffy shook her head and crouched down on the floor next to Willow. "You're a good Witch."
"The only real Witch here is fuzzy little Amy," Willow sighed, her eyes flashing again. "She has powers I can't even invoke. I mean, first she's a girl..."
On the bed behind them, the rat was suddenly replaced by a totally bewildered girl-Amy.
"...then, poof, she's a rat."
On the bed the beady-eyed rodent continued her explorations – more than a little agitated. Neither girl paid any attention to their pet as the phone suddenly started ringing. Buffy went to answer.
"I'll be right there," Buffy sighed after quietly listening to Giles. "Spike escaped," she explained to Willow. "Duty calls."
"I don't see the big," Willow huffed, somewhat annoyed that Buffy just brushed her aside like that. "He can't hurt anyone, and he's probably just standing out there. You'll find him in two seconds."
Rushing out of Stevenson Hall, Buffy spotted Spike standing maybe 50 yards away, practically in their front yard.
"Thought it was gonna take longer than that," she frowned as she approached the vampire who was turning his head around in clear bewilderment.
"Me, too," Spike commented flatly. "Must have got... turned around." He started moving quickly away from Buffy who followed him. "Hang on, this...," he raised his hand to halt the Slayer. There was something... "This is it!" he exclaimed jubilantly. "Wait! No. Yes!"
"What are you talking about?" Buffy frowned.
"The lab. Commando lab," Spike waved around. "The door was right here where I escaped."
"I don't think so," Buffy replied uncertainly.
Unheeding, Spike dropped to his knees and started pulling patches of grass out of the ground. "Open up!" he growled. I'm gonna kill you!"
"Spike, there's nothing there," Buffy shook her head exasperatedly.
"Let me in!" Spike continued screaming, not paying any attention to the Slayer beside him. "Fix me," he finally begged.
"Ok, drop the act," Buffy snapped and grabbed Spike's arm.
Spike shrugged her hand away. "Get off!"
"Ok, that's it," Buffy shouted. "I'm gonna gag you."
Back on his feet, Spike drove his fist into Buffy's nose. For one second, she stood there in complete shock and then returned the favour on the groaning Spike who was already holding his head in pain.
"Spike this, Spike that," Willow ranted at the rat after the Slayer had left. "You'd think every once in a while, Buffy would make best friends a priority. Well, fine then! I'm going to visit Xander. Buffy can just go and marry Spike for all I care."
Giles was in the bathroom applying generous amounts of eyedrops on his corneas when he heard the front door open and close. Blinking furiously, he made his way back to the living room. He was not prepared for the very girly giggling coming to his ears nor the blurry image of two vague Buffy and Spike like figures who appeared to be holding hands.
"Giles!" the blurry, blonde figure practically squealed in joy. "You'll never believe what's happened! Spike proposed and I said yes!"
Gaping and squinting, Giles watched as the two hazy figures became one, joined in a deep kiss.
"I don't think you're being fair to Buffy, Will," Xander told Willow in his basement room once the redhead had gotten over most of her agitation. "She's been through quite a lot lately. The Parker thingy, the Gem of Amara, Spike..." When the redhead didn't comment, he drew a long breath. "We've been best friends since the kindergarten, Will, and as such I feel safe in saying this. On some level you're still unable to let go of the ghost of Oz. It's nothing to do with me or Buffy or anybody else. It may be tomorrow, or it will be three months from now, but you will meet someone, and it will be better. I promise."
Xander had always been exceptionally perceptive, and whether Willow wanted to acknowledge or not, he had once again struck at the core of her issues.
She hadn't had any panic attacks in months now, but she still kept "medicating" herself, just in case. She could stop any time she wanted, of course, but maybe just not quite yet. She liked the effects pot had on her. Reading spell books under influence gave her brilliant new ideas. So what if her spells didn't always work – as intended or at all? She was still making progress – maybe not in leaps and bounds as before, but progress was still progress, right?
"Oh, yeah," Willow laughed dryly with her eyes flashing. "'Cos most relationships are great and trouble-free. Let's look at your bio, huh? Insect Lady, Mummy Girl, ex-Vengeance Demon. Face it, Xander. You're a demon magnet."
"I was just trying to help," Xander muttered, more than a little hurt by Willow's blunt comment.
After that there wasn't really anything more to say, so after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence Willow stood up and left quietly.
"Willow, it's Giles. I hope you'll get this soon," Giles spoke on the phone, recording a message on Willow and Buffy's answering machine. "Something's happened and I need your help. I-I can't see very well; everything's blurred. I'm certain it's a spell of some kind, because, well... it seems something else is going wrong."
"There's so much to decide. Ceremony, guests, reception," Buffy cooed in Spike's ear from his lap as the vampire lazily drank the 98.6 temperature pig's blood his fiancé had just brought him.
"Horribly wrong," Giles repeated and closed the call.
Stumbling back to his chair he tried to reach for his glass of whisky. He missed it and it crashed to pieces as it hit the floor.
"Giles, are you ok?" Buffy asked in alarm from Spike's lap.
"I-I rather think not," Giles answered hesitantly, staring straight ahead. "I seem to be rather... blind. Completely, in fact."
"What? How could this happen," Buffy gasped, hopping up from her perch and sat down on the table in front of her Watcher. She waved her hand in front of his face without any reaction.
"A spell, I believe."
"Don't worry," Buffy reassured him. "We'll fix this."
Spike nodded and went over to Giles's bookshelf. "What you want is a general reversal spell. We're gonna need supplies. Red should have them."
"Are you... helping me?" Giles asked incredulously.
"Hey, it's almost like you're my father-in-law, ain't it?"
"See, this is how it's going to be," Buffy beamed at Spike. "From now on, we're a family."
Sometime later with the encounter with Willow mostly forgotten, Xander was just sliding into second base with Anya when the door to the basement was blasted apart by a horrendous demon who looked like a mixture between an angler fish and a Bantha Rider from Star Wars. He rushed in to meet the attack but was effortlessly thrown aside. Anya had picked up a baseball bat almost by instinct, but the demon seemed to pay little to no mind to her ineffective swipes. Grabbing a hanging clothesline, Xander attacked it from behind and twisted the cord tightly around its neck several times.
"No, no, it's a Serparvo demon," Anya explained surprisingly calmly while hitting the demon repeatedly in the head and torso with the bat. "Drowning is the only way to kill it."
Understanding immediately, Xander twisted himself and the demon around and pushed it towards the sink. Rushing in, Anya turned the faucet all the way on and Xander forced its head under the downpour. The water started steaming as the demon's head made contact with it. The demon struggled briefly for a few moments until it finally went limp.
They didn't have time to even breathe in relief before the window above the sink was smashed to pieces by a long-horned demon.
"What the hell is going on?" Xander shouted, grabbed Anya and made a beeline for the smashed back door.
"So, the plan to cure my total, incapacitating blindness today is still valid, yes?" Giles groaned in a loud voice, trying to drown Buffy's humming of Wagner's "Wedding March". He was lying on the couch with a wet towel over his sightless eyes.
"I'm on top of it," Buffy winked at Spike to whose lap she seemed to be permanently attached.
"Stop that right now!" Giles shouted. "I can hear the smacking."
At that moment the front door burst open and Xander and Anya rushed in in panic.
"Board up the windows and barricade the doors," Xander instructed breathlessly. He slammed the door shut and with Anya pulled the coat rack in front of it for good measure.
"Wh-what's going on?" Giles demanded, sitting up.
"Demons," Anya rushed out. "They just keep coming and coming."
"I think we lost them," Xander gasped, out of breath. "But I couldn't see for sure." Then he blinked a few times at the sight in front of them. "Spike! He's all untied." The trio just looked back at him with blank looks on their faces. "Which you probably noticed," he continued lamely.
"Xander... why are they holding hands?" Anya whispered in his ear, loud enough for anyone to hear.
To Xander's eternal surprise, Buffy and Spike smiled at each other. "They have to hear it sooner or later." They turned to him and Anya grinning widely. "Spike and I are getting married!" Buffy disclosed jubilantly.
"What? How? What?" Xander squeaked, gaping like a fish.
"Three excellent questions," Giles agreed.
"Wait! Wait!" Xander raised both index fingers. "Married? I know something. What is it? What is it?" Then it hit him like lightning. "Willow! She told me I was a demon magnet and those two should get married."
"And that I didn't see anything," Giles realized suddenly.
"You can't see?" Xander asked. He took a few steps closer to the Watcher and poked at his eyes with his splayed index and middle fingers.
"Whatever you're doing, stop it," Giles snapped irritably. "She did a spell."
"And this is the crack team that keeps foiling my every plan?" Spike asked rhetorically. "Oh, the shame!"
"She said she did an augmentation to supplement a failed truth spell," Giles continued unfazed, all the pieces starting to connect. "Whatever she says is coming true."
"Yes, that makes perfect sense!" Buffy realized. "I probably escaped because I'm the Slayer. Some kind of natural immunity."
"Right," Xander snorted. "You're marrying Spike because you're so right for each other."
"Xander!" Buffy admonished him.
"Willow is out there," Giles cut in. "She probably doesn't know what she's doing."
"We gotta find her," Xander nodded. "Before somebody gets really hurt."
"Exactly," Giles confirmed and promptly tripped on the tv table.
