In the living room at Amy's house, the three sat on the couch.
Catherine, or rather, Amy in Catherine's body, was distraught. " I didn't know anything about her powers. I mean, when dad was here they would fight and yell and he would... call her a witch and... I mean, I would, just thought he meant... Oh, God, when he left I wanted to go with him. But she wouldn't even let me call. She went crazy, I mean, she'd lock herself upstairs for days, and she was always coming down on me, telling me I didn't deserve to have it so easy, and that I didn't know... how hard it was to be her, and... I guess she showed me, huh?"
Buffy took her hand. "Amy, it's gonna be okay."
"A few months ago, I woke up in h... her bed! I didn't know where I was, and... then I looked in the mirror..."
"She locked herself upstairs?" Giles asked.
"Yes."
"Where?"
Moments later, Giles was breaking in the attic door. When it was down, he came in and started to look around. Catherine/Amy came in after him.
She was trying to stop him, "Don't! If she finds out I've been here she'll kill me!"
Giles walked around the cauldron to the rack with the hanging dools. He saw two dolls bound together for the body-switching spell and took them in his hand. "My God!" He exhaled. "I believe we can reverse your mother's spell. Well, all of them, in fact." He let go of the dolls.
"You could? Really, you could?"
"We need to find her books. There'd be specific volumes she'd need for this kind of casting." He began to look around some more. He found a trunk and knocked off the things on top. "Collect those dolls, and, uh, any other personal effects..." As he started to open the trunk, a black cat jumped at him and surprised him. "Ah! Nice kitty..." He calmed down. "Let's see what you were guarding." He opened the trunk. "Ah, yes!" He took out a book. "This is it."
Giles and Catherine/Amy came back down the stairs and went into the living room.
"Did we find?" Buffy asked.
"We found. Come on." He helped Buffy up from the couch. She'd gotten weaker.
"But where are you going?" Catherine/Amy asked.
"We're going to school." He realized Buffy is too weak to walk and picked her up in his arms. "And you're coming with us."
In the the gym, the Sunnydale High basketball team came through the doors and ran onto the court. Amy/Catherine is among the cheerleaders, clearly very happy to be there. Xander, Willow, and Ms. Calendar were in the bleachers, watching Amy.
Giles carried Buffy into the science classroom and laid her down on a lab table, knocking everything off of it in the process. He took off his coat. "I'm gonna stop this. I promise."
Buffy looked up at him.
He folded his coat and put it under her head as a pillow.
Her vision is blurred.
"You just hang on."
Buffy moaned. Giles went to the box of books and other things Catherine/Amy had set on Dr. Gregory's bench and reached in to get Amy/Catherine's spell book.
"How is she?" Catherine/Amy asked in a concerned tone.
"We only have a few minutes left."
Meanwhile, the cheerleaders cheered in the gym, "Go, Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go! Six, seven, eight! Go Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go! Six, seven, eight! Go Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go! Six, seven, eight! Go Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go, Sunnydale go! Go!" The cheerleaders yelled over-enthusiastically.
Amy, in the crowd of cheerleaders, had a wide smile on her face.
In the science classroom, Catherine/Amy was cutting an eye from a frog, being squeamish about it.
"Right! Here we go!"
Buffy was getting weaker.
Giles recited a counter-spell while mixing a potion, "The center is dark. Centrum est obscurus. The darkness breathes. Tenebrae respiratis. The listener hears. Hear me!"
In the gym, the cheerleaders were doing a counting chant. Amy/Catherine stopped chanting and looked startled. Her vision flashed to what Catherine/Amy saw in the science lab - the book and the frog. Then she's back in the gym and took up the count again, but had a worried look on her face.
In the lab.
"Oh, it's... it's working!" Catherine/Amy almost couldn't believe it.
Giles picked the book up from the table and read, "Unlock the gate. Let the darkness shine. Cover us with holy fear."
Catherine/Amy staggered back and covered her face.
"Show me..."
The lights went out in the classroom.
In the gym, some of the cheerleaders were lifting Amy/Catherine. Once she was up, she thrusted her fists into the air and gave the crowd a big smile. Her smile faded as she had another flash to the lab, where she got a glimpse of Buffy. She came back to the gym and began to lose her balance. Xander, Willow, and Ms. Calendar watched. The cheerleaders supporting Amy/Catherine struggled for control, but they collapsed. The crowd reacted to the fall. Xander, Willow, and Ms. Calendar saw everything to.
"Amy, what's your problem?" Joy demanded.
Amy/Catherine shot her a dirty look. Joy was taken aback. Amy/Catherine got up, looked around and ran from the gym.
In the lab, Catherine/Amy warned, "She's coming!"
Giles looked worried.
In the hall, Amy/Catherine violently pushed open a door.
Willow stopped her. "Amy!"
"Get out of my way!"
"W-wait! I-I-I need to talk to you, I-I can help you."
"Help me? With what?"
"Uh, well, y'know, all your witchcraft! I, I know this really good cauldron."
Xander and Ms. Calendar snuck up behind Amy/Catherine.
"Do you actually ride a broom?" Willow asked, stalling.
Amy/Catherine twisted around, growled and held out her hands, grabbing Xander and Ms. Calendar's necks. Their hands flew to their throats. Amy/Catherine skillfully made fists and twisted them. Xander and Ms. Calendar collapsed to the floor, choking.
"Xander! Ms. Calendar!"
Amy/Catherine spun back around and punched Willow hard in the face, knocking her to the floor. She started running to the lab.
In the lab, Giles was holding his arms up and chanting, "Corsheth and Gilail! The gate is closed! Receive the dark! Release the unworthy! Take of mine energy and be sated!" He plunged his hands into the mixture he concocted.
Amy/Catherine slammed through another door in the hall and continued walking to the lab with a determined look on her face. She tried the door, but it was locked. She yanked at it.
It was the door to the lab. Inside, Giles took his hands out of the brew. Catherine/Amy looked at the door and saw that it was being yanked on.
"Be sated! Release the unworthy!" Giles continued on.
In the hall, Amy/Catherine stopped yanking at the door and found a fire axe in a glass case. She broke the glass with her fist and took out the axe.
Inside the science classroom, Buffy couldn't keep her eyes open and just rolled her head slowly.
"Release!"
Amy/Catherine began to chop down the door.
"Release!"
Buffy laid prone. Amy/Catherine had made a hole, reached through and got the door open. She marched in, axe in hand, straight over to Buffy.
"RELEEEEASE!"" Giles bellowed.
Amy started to wield the axe, but stopped when there was a flash of light and the spells were all broken. She was herself again. She looked around, a bit confused, stepped back and lowered the axe. Buffy had her strength back and got up from the table. Giles saw that she was okay.
"Buffy?" Amy asked.
"Amy?" Buffy asked.
Catherine lunged at Buffy from the side and tackled her to the floor, knocking her out.
Giles advanced, holding his arm out and pointing. "You... you..."
Catherine growled and looked at him. She used her powers to force him back and push a table against him, knocking him down and out. Amy just stood there watching, still holding the axe in both hands. Catherine got up and confronted her. "You! You little brat!"
Amy held the axe threateningly. "Mom! Please!"
Catherine held out her hand, and the axe flew from Amy's hands to hers. "How dare you raise your hand to your mother! I gave you birth. I gave up my life so you could drag that worthless carcass around
and call it living?" She swung the axe into a lab table. "You've never been anything but trouble. I'm going to put you where you can't make trouble again!"
Buffy jumped behind Catherine. "Guess what?"
Catherine turned to face her.
"I feel better!" She punched Catherine, and she flew through the air, landed on a lab table and rolled off, hitting a shelf full of bottles along the way. She quickly got up.
"That body was mine! Mine!"
"Oh, grow up!"
Catherine growled, held her arm out toward Buffy and used her powers to send her flying against the wall. Buffy hit the wall and fell to the floor. She got up, craning her neck. Catherine began to cast a spell. "I shall look upon my enemy!" She looked up at Buffy, her eyes having gone pitch black. "I shall look upon her and the dark place will have her soul!"
Buffy looked around for a way to stop her. She saw the pole holding up the mirror above her.
"Corsheth, take her!"
Buffy did a standing hook kick, knocking the pole out from under the mirror and letting it flop down. Catherine's spell leapt from her hands and was reflected by the mirror back at her. The power of the spell
enveloped her as she screamed. The energy twisted around her and disappeared with a roar, taking her with it.
Buffy surveyed the scene. Amy was badly shaken. Buffy saw Giles unconscious on the floor. Moments later, he woke up.
"Well, that was, um, interesting."
Buffy gave him her hand and helped him up. "You guys okay?"
"I'm fine!" Amy answered.
"I assume the, uh, all the spells are reversed. It was my first casting, so..." He inhaled. "I may have got it wrong."
"You saved my life! You were a god!"
"Well, I didn't think you'd pull it off."
Suddenly Xander came rushing in and grabbed Amy tightly. "I got her! I got her! Cut her head off!"
"Xander, what are you doing?" Buffy asked.
"Saving you?"
"Get your hands off of her."
"But she's evil."
"It wasn't exactly her," Giles informed.
"I was my mom," Amy explained.
"Oh!" Xander released her.
Willow came in running too, wielding a bat, Ms. Calendar carefully following so she didn't get hit. "Where is she?"
"Uh, hey Willow! It's cool!" Xander informed.
"It is?" Willow asked.
"Yeah, I took care of it."
They all looked at each other.
Ms. Calendar looked to Giles. "Over?"
"Over," he confirmed.
Later, in Buffy's room, she scooped her smashed alarm clock into a wastebasket.
Her mother came in. "I don't get it."
"What?"
"I've been doing a lot of thinking about... where you're coming from, how to relate to you... and I've come to a very simple conclusion: I don't get it."
"I'm inscrutable, huh?"
"You're sixteen. I think there's a, a biological imperative whereby I can't understand you because I'm not sixteen."
"Do you ever wish you could be sixteen again?"
"Oh, that's a frightful notion." She exhaled. "Go through all that again? Not even if it helped me understand you." She smiled at her daughter.
Buffy smiled back. "I love you, mom." She jumped up and kisses her on the cheek, then ran from the room.
"I don't get it!"
In the school hall, Buffy and Amy were walking together.
"My dad is so impossible!" Amy complained. "He doesn't ever want me going anywhere! He wants to spend total quantity time together. And I'm, like, 'Dad, I can go out, it's perfectly safe!' But he's got all this guilt about leaving me with my mom. And he's being a total pain."
"You're loving it."
"Every single minute."
Moments later, in another part of the hall, Amy said, "This Saturday night he wants to stay in and make brownies. Well, the brownies were my idea."
Cordelia came up behind them. "Hey, I'm really sorry you guys got bumped back to alternate." She reconsidered. "Hold it, wait... No I'm not!"
"Well, I know that I'll miss the intellectual thrill of spelling out words with my arms," Amy retorted.
"Ooo, these grapes are sour!"
Buffy and Amy stopped at the trophy case while Cordelia continued on.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Amy apologized. "I forgot that you wanted to be on the squad."
"Oh, hey, that's okay. Cheerleading's just a little too hairy for me these days."
Amy took a breath. "That's for sure."
They went around to the front of the case and looked at Catherine's picture.
"Catherine the Great."
"And there's been no sign of her?" Buffy asked.
"That last spell... She said I'd never make trouble again. Wherever she is I don't think we'll have to worry."
They both looked at Catherine's cheerleading trophy.
"Twisted," Buffy stated.
They turned and walked away.
"I'm just happy to have my body back. I'm thinking of getting fat," Amy said.
"Y'know, I hear that look's in for spring."
Catherine was trapped in the cheerleading trophy. Her eyes were looking out and she made muffled noises.
Giles and Ms. Calendar were sitting at the study table.
"She did what?" Giles asked.
"Yeah. Completely knocked the breath out of Xander and I. She could have crushed our throats if she wanted to."
"Well, I-I, um...I'm glad she d-didn't."
"You mean that?" Complete happiness flashed in Ms. Calendar's eyes and in her smile for a moment.
"Y-Y-Yes. I, uh, do."
"I'm glad you came out of it, too."
