Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.



Chapter 5.07
Monday, May 20th, 2002

Giles' voice was increasingly imbued with certitude as if some inner sense was telling him that this was going to work.

"Spirit of Jenny Calendar, Janna of the Calderash people,
I call on you in the realm of the dead
Let she who was rent from us be returned.
I ask that you return to inhabit this vessel, which is neither dead nor of the living.
I implore you, Lord, to allow this. Listen to this plea.
Lord, let her heart be brought forth from its resting place and bound into this body.
Let this orb be the vessel that will carry her soul to him.

Make it so!

Make it so... Now!"

Even as the light in the orb flared and the sphere itself disintegrated, Spike dissolved into a fit of giggles wondering if Giles' impression of Jean-Luc Picard was deliberate or inadvertent. The laughter was cut short as his head ripped back and light flared in his eyes.

It was Angel's turn to snicker. "Did I forget to mention that it hurts like a son of a bitch?"

It took a couple of seconds for the pain to recede to where Spike would have answered with a cutting remark, but the spirit in charge of his body had other ideas. She cared nothing for Angel's amusement. Her entire being hummed just to be near the man who was looking at her from the far side of the room. Giles' jaw dropped as Spike lowered his head to look him in the eyes and the watcher saw that his irises were no longer the vampire's normal cornflower blue but the deepest brown. The shape of his eyes remained unchanged, not large and round as Giles remembered them, but nevertheless they were unmistakeably Jenny's.

"The windows of the soul..." he whispered in amazement even as those full lips turned his given name into a question, the voice a bizarre combination of Jenny's intonation and Spike's richer tones.

---

Buffy and Dawn sat on one side of the large dining room table, with their backs to the picture window, while the minister sat on the other. Buffy was listening to what the preacher had to say, probably at least as intently as she had listened to any of her high school teachers. After all, she had the best incentive in the world not to want to flunk this class, but still she managed to devote part of her attention to scanning the spines of the books filling the glass fronted cases at the man's back, and the message that she was getting was 'Young Giles'... not in the sense of what Giles had really been like when he was young... but the young man they had believed that he had to have been before they knew any better.

It was comforting. Okay, so she was on unfamiliar ground with the whole bible study thing, but she knew where she was with 'book people'. Giles' texts were full of demons and magic. Reverend Hamilton's were rather different in content matter, at least the ones in English seemed to be, but when all was said and done - 'book people'. They were... dependable.

That was when the pain hit, travelling through her like a bolt of lightning and gone just as quickly. Buffy looked at the clock. They still had three quarters of an hour left of their two hour "tutorial". Last week's lesson had been destroyed by Xander bursting into the house, accusing Spike of trying to split up the Scoobies and eventually prompting an emotional outburst from Dawn. That had been after they had rescheduled from the previous Monday because Dru had kidnapped Spike. She hadn't even been able to confirm this week's lesson until earlier today because of everything that had happened over the last few days. She really needed to make it through this class and several more like it if she wanted to be confirmed in time for their planned wedding date but there was only one possible source for her little 'electric shock'.

"Buffy?" The minister's question coincided with a kick under the table from her little sister.

"Huh?"

"I asked if you were okay?"

"Un-huh, sure..." she answered distractedly before changing her mind. It wasn't just the pain, which had gone almost as soon as it had come. She couldn't put her finger on it. It wasn't even so much a feeling of anything being wrong, more that something was different. "Maybe I just need to take a couple of Midol," she suggested, picking up her purse. "Is it okay if I use your bathroom?"

---

Wes sat behind the wheel of his car in the mall parking lot and had a brief flip through the folder that Marie had given him. There was nothing in the file itself to suggest that this was anything other than a routine investigation. All he had to do was find a missing witness, a hitchhiker who had been on her way to visit relatives in Seattle for spring break. If she existed and he found her, then the police would have to start looking for another suspect in their latest murder case. If she didn't, then the victim's husband was looking at motive, means and no alibi.

On the face of it, there was nothing to suggest demon involvement. Nothing except the sheer audaciousness of a young 'girl', unafraid to hitch-hike alone on a dark night and accept a ride from a male driver who gave his trade as longshoreman, a man whose photograph showed a physique most women would be intimidated by under those circumstances. A girl who hadn't come forward when the police had canvassed all the UC campuses, which meant perhaps, if she existed, he reminded himself, that she was a girl with something to hide.

She had given her name as Ellie. That, a composite picture that the grieving husband (read suspect) had compiled and some vague details he had managed to remember from their conversation were all Wes had. Even if the girl wasn't some figment of a desperate man's imagination, there was a good chance she might have been reluctant to give a stranger her real name.

So far, there were no arcane scripts in need of deciphering, nothing he couldn't easily cope with on his own. Logic told him that he should work the case as far as he could without help. Wes decided to let logic go hang. Pulling out the notebook he habitually carried, he turned to the last page with writing on, and used his cell phone to dial the number he had written there.

"Bee, it's Wes. You know that job you were fishing for? Marie just gave me a case, nothing so far requiring your special expertise, just general legwork, but they say two heads are better than one and there are always some people who'll respond more readily to a woman than a man..."

"What are you offering?"

"Bottom line we both draw minimum wage, but with a share of any net profits on top, provided you're willing to pitch in with whatever needs doing as and when?" the watcher suggested.

"What sort of share?"

"I think sixty - forty would be fair, bearing in mind I've got the PI licence and I'll be the one taking the risks if we don't break even... renegotiable if anyone else joins the team or if one of us ends up doing more than their fair share of the work."

"Count me in... partner. Where do we start?"

"How about I come over and pick you up? I'm planning on driving down to County to speak to Marie's client first hand. I'll fill you in on the details on the way. If we have time after that, we can check out UC Sunnydale, maybe do some online research. If we need to go further afield it can wait until tomorrow."

Bee looked down at the paint smears on her hands and on the oversized man's shirt she wore to protect her other clothes and at the brushes that needed cleaning. "Give me twenty minutes to get tidied up. I was kinda in the middle of something."

Wes contemplated a nearby florist shop and smiled. "I think I can keep myself busy for that long."

---

"It's nothing that demands your immediate attention, Buffy, I assure you." Giles' response, in fact, did little if anything to reassure Buffy, especially as she was fairly sure that she could make out a muffled version of Spike in 'rant' mode in the background and the vampire had failed to answer the phone in his own apartment or even take the receiver from Giles when he heard her name.

"Why do you still sound sober, Giles? Spike was supposed to be the one staying sober, not you. You were supposed to be loose. And why's he shouting at Angel?" Buffy hissed into the phone to avoid her voice carrying outside the room.

"He's not shouting at Angel and I was drunk. I was very drunk... at your suggestion I hasten to point out. I just sobered up rather more quickly than normal and to be fair, I don't actually recall you telling Spike that he had to stay sober, just that he had to get us drunk."

"Well, if he's shouting at you , wouldn't he do a more efficient job from somewhere where you could hear better?"

"I can hear perfectly well. Too well, in fact. We-e-e... we have an additional guest. Spike is in the bathroom with them, and perhaps after you finish your lesson and drop Dawn back at home you might want to come over, but no one is in any immediate danger... unless Angel does some sort of damage to himself from laughing. I'm afraid he is still rather drunk."

Before Buffy could ask the identity of the unexpected guest, a series of sharp raps on the door was followed by Dawn's voice. "Buffy, is everything okay? Mr Hamilton sent me to check on you. He says if you're ill we can finish off on Thursday."

"Hang on, Dawn." Buffy unbolted the bathroom door and pulled her sister into the room.

"Promise me you're telling the truth, Giles." Dawn rolled her eyes as her sister continued to hiss down the phone.

"There's nothing that you can do now that you won't be able to do in an hour or even a couple of hours time."

"Okay-y-y," Buffy conceded grudgingly. "I better go. Duty calls, but I'll be there soon... ish."

"So do we bail... or not?" Dawn asked.

"Giles swears it'll keep... and the platinum pest will never let me live it down if we have to push the ceremony back because I keep skipping out on my lessons. Let's go."

"So, what was it, drunken wrestling match? Spike and Angel get in another fight? ...'cause if they did and I missed it again..."

"No fight... I don't think. Giles wasn't exactly forthcoming. Besides I want to ask Mr Hamilton if he thinks that whole demon possession thing is meant to be taken literally, or if it's some sort of metaphor..."

"You know if you keep asking questions and side-tracking him it's going to take longer, don't you?"

"Colour me curious," Buffy answered with a shrug. "And at least he doesn't rag on me for asking questions. I still think Rasputin was some sort of demon, maybe kinda like that Doc guy, but would my lecturers at college-." She glanced over and caught the expression on her sister's face. "Never mind. You had to be there. Let's just say that having someone other than Willow to argue 'demons and monsters throughout history' with is kinda cool."

"I'm glad you think so," the minister responded, coming through from the back of the house toward the dining room door near the bottom of the stairs with three mugs in his hands. "I thought you might be able to use a coffee, assuming you feel up to staying," he explained as he re-entered the room where they had been studying, distributing the mugs and reaching into his pocket to pull out a bag of chocolate cookies, which he tossed onto the centre of the table before they took their seats once more.

---

Across town in another bathroom a far different drama was playing out. "No way. I am not leaving this room until you get your damned brain away from shaggin' the bloody watcher."

"It's your hormones. Your body. I've haven't had a thought like this in four years."

"Yeah, my hormones, my body, and it's my bloody willy as well, so I'd be obliged if you stop playing with it."

"I'm not touching it. I wouldn't touch it if you paid me."

"Nobody said you were touching it, but would you stop getting so damned worked up thinkin' about the bloody librarian? Bloody thing doesn't know what to do. You're imagining the old codger in the buff, tellin' it to sit up an' beg an' I'm tellin' it that I want to puke my guts up at the thought."

"I'm not telling it to do anything."

"Yeah, right, an' I'm standin' in a bloody bathroom with my dick goin' up an' down like a yo-yo over a bloke as has been mistaken for my father before now, yellin' at myself like the 'Seven faces of Sybil', for no reason at all."

"So? Rupert gets me hot. So sue me. I love him. I thought you would understand that."

"Look, I don't care if you flooded your knickers every time you were within ten feet of him. I think it's bloody marvellous that the old bugger had it in him, to be quite honest, but I'm not goin' back out into that room until you calm down. An' besides, in case you hadn't noticed that picture you're carryin' round in your head is a bit out of date. The last four years have not been kind to your honey bun."

"Why do you think I'm here?"

Spike scowled but finally lowered his voice to a more conversational level. "Point taken. Still not goin' back out there until this thing's behavin' an' you're not helpin' any, relivin' past glories. You want to talk to him, you're gonna have to pull yourself together."

"What's the diff? With your shirt like that no one can tell." One of Spike's hands gestured to how his shirt hung untucked over the top of his jeans.

"I can tell an' I'm not goin' to spend all night squirmin' in my chair like a bloody schoolboy. Am I clear?"

"As melted yellow snow," she said, forming the blond's mouth into a smile.

"An' believe me, whether Angel-arse out there can see anything or not, he can tell, so at least try to keep your mind on other things."

"I'll try, but being in your body seems to be equivalent to living off a diet of oysters. I don't know how you ever think about anything else."

"With difficulty," Spike conceded. "Especially when Buffy's around. An' last night's menu still isn't helpin' any. "

"Haven't you drunk enough to make that thing non-operational?"

"Pet, I can't drink enough to make it non-operational. All the booze can do is make me less than discriminatin'... An' that's the closest thing to an explanation for Harmony that anyone's gonna get."

Angel's voice carried through from the living room. "Harmony? Cordy's Harmony?" The question was followed by a thump as the vamp slid off the couch onto the floor because he was laughing so hard.

This finally got Spike mad enough to storm out of the bathroom, eyes flashing, no longer caring what state of arousal he was in. "Laugh all you want, Brood boy. I might have screwed the bimbo but at least I'm just some sort of cousin and not her great-grandsire. I'm not directly responsible for the fact that Barbie's pretty little head is gonna be stayin' empty forever."

"What the hell are you blathering about, Spike?" the older vamp asked with more than a hint of Ireland in his voice.

"Didn't you ever get close enough to smell her, you moron?"

"Smell her? You couldn't smell anything past the truckload of perfume she was wearing."

"Couldn't or didn't want to? Same as you didn't want to remember all the gophers you just had to make when your soul had its little holiday, one of whom made a little friend all of her own an' he just happened to drop in on Buffy and Harm's graduation. Congratulations, gramps, it's a girl. I hope she'll grow up to make you proud."

The colour drained from Angel's face, which Spike figured was a pretty neat trick for a vampire.

"Pull the other one..." Angel began, but he didn't finish the saying. The huge smirk on Spike's face was enough to convince him that his grandchilde was telling the truth. "Aw shite!" he swore, drawing out the second word so that it almost seemed to have two syllables. He half sat on the floor, half fell on his butt, holding his glass high to avoid spilling any of the bourbon inside and then poured its contents down his throat in one.