Giles had been waiting impatiently to hear from Buffy and had just decided to call Joyce when an urgent knocking sounded at his door. Rushing over he opened the door to find two very distraught young ladies standing there.

"Willow, Tara, what's wrong?" he asked anxiously.

"Giles, it's Buffy or, or not Buffy, I'm not sure. Tara, you tell him." Willow babbled.

Tara fidgeted nervously, hating to be the center of attention, but said, "Mr. Giles, we saw Buffy at The Bronze, only we don't think it was Buffy. I mean, her aura was all off; it wasn't Buffy's aura, but it looked like Buffy and sounded like Buffy. But we're pretty sure it wasn't Buffy."

Giles looked at the two girls in confusion, gestured them in and said, "All right, please calm down and tell me everything."

"Well, we were at The Bronze and Tara spotted Buffy and so I waved her over, you know? And she seemed okay except she was kinda stand-offish and then she said she was going to get a drink and ask some guys to dance."

"Ask some guys to dance?" Giles asked astonished.

"See? That's crazy, right? Buffy hasn't even looked at another guy since Spike, so I thought they had a fight or something but Tara said that it wasn't Buffy." Stopping just long enough to catch her breath, Willow continued. "So we watched her for a while and she danced and flirted with a whole buncha guys and then she just left. We tried to follow, but, you know, Slayer speed, she lost us, so we decided to come here and tell you all about it."

"Well, I don't know what to say," Giles admitted. "When she was here a few hours ago, she was herself."
"Here?" Willow asked. "Why was she here, Giles?"

Giving the young witch a concerned look, Giles said hesitantly, "I received some disturbing news this evening, Willow. Faith has regained consciousness and escaped from the hospital. Buffy went in search of her."

"Oh, no!" Willow wailed, sinking down into a chair. "Do you think Faith did something to Buffy then?"

"I don't see how she could have, Willow. She's been out of hospital just a little over twenty-four hours and the Mayor is gone so she's lost her connection to the demonic underworld. Perhaps when you saw Buffy she was searching for Faith and just didn't want to worry you."

"Oh come on, Giles, you know Buffy better than that," Willow insisted. "Do you really think she wouldn't tell us that a crazy psychopath like Faith was on the loose? And what about the flirting with all those guys?" Willow hesitated and then said in a tremulous voice, "You know, Giles, that was more like Faith behavior than Buffy behavior."

Giles ran his hand through his hair in agitation. "Tara, is it possible that the Buffy you saw was actually a Glamour?"

Tara considered carefully before answering. "It's possible, I suppose. But I didn't feel any magic field around her, and I think there would have been with a Glamour."

Walking to the telephone, he picked up the receiver and said, "I'll call Joyce. Buffy feared that Faith would attack her mother in retribution for the Mayor's death. Perhaps she can tell us if Buffy was acting normally when she saw her."

Before he could dial more than two numbers, his door flew open and an exhausted, dirty and badly wounded vampire stumbled in.

"Spike!" Willow exclaimed, hurrying over to help him to a chair. "What happened?"

Spike turned anguished, pain-filled eyes to the Watcher and said, "Giles, somethin's happened to Buffy. Somethin' bad. I think she's been possessed." Swallowing he concluded, "She did this to me."

***

Willow was carefully cleaning Spike's wound while Tara handed him a mug of heated blood. Luckily for the vampire, part of the groceries Giles had picked up before coming home had been blood to take to the shop with him in the morning.

"And so, I was comin' out of Willy's and there she was. I was right surprised to see her seein' as how she said she had to study tonight," Spike was telling the group. Giles was sitting, elbows on knees, head down, glasses dangling from his fingertips as he listened to the tale. When Spike got to the part where Buffy staked him, Willow put her arm around his shoulder and Tara gently patted his back in comfort.

"I didn't want to hurt her. Whatever's happened to her," he continued, "that's still Buffy. Her body at least. Her smell and her taste were right."

Giles was unable to control a small grimace of distaste at these words, but sighing he looked up at Tara and said, "So it appears you were right, Tara. Whatever has happened, it is not a Glamour.

Nodding, the young witch agreed, "It was her aura that was off, not anything else I could detect. Except..."

"Except?" Giles prompted.

"Well, she didn't move right. Almost as if she wasn't comfortable in her body."

Spike's head snapped up at Tara's remark. "Yeah, you're right, pet. Giles, you know Buffy. D'you think there is any way our Slayer could have missed her mark as close as she was to me? I should be dust blowin' down that alley, not here talkin' to you."

Nodding, Giles stood and once again headed to the telephone. "I think it's time I completed that call to Joyce. Although if she was aware of anything wrong, I'm sure she would have called me by now."

As he once again started to dial, Willow picked up the soiled towels she had used to clean up Spike's wound and took them into the bathroom while Tara went into the kitchen to fetch Spike more blood. It was while they were out of the room that the next round of shocks began.