Willow, Buffy, Oz, Cordelia, Xander and I went to the Bronze

Splendid was the band tonight. They were on stage performing "Charge".

Oz and I were dancing close, smiling.

Lyrics: "The way you love / Have you got a name for it / Cause I don't understand it." Cordelia and Xander were dancing, too. "The language is an annoying necessity / And I depend on all the regular things." Willow was looking around for Buffy. She turned around, looking up and spotting her on the upper level leaning against the railing and watching the band. "Got a list tattooed on my memory / Of how our tryst should unfold." I saw a boy walk up to Buffy, but didn't hear what they said. "I'm falling from the opposite / What good is it? Fight the map with no key attached / My heart's enlarged, and I charge / What do you say / To a dream that won't go away / 'Cause I don't know if I can stand it / Forever isn't something you want to be / And I rely on familiar things / Seven days all have special meanings / But you just call it a week / I'm falling from the opposite / What good is it / Fight the map with no key attached." I saw Buffy reject him and walk away, down the stairs toward Willow. "My heart's enlarged, and I charge / I'm falling from the opposite / What good is it / Fight the map with no key attached / My heart's enlarged, and I charge."

Willow stood next to Buffy. "Hey! You're bailing?"

"Yeah," Buffy answered. "I'm gonna stop by the library and see if Giles wants me to patrol, and then sack it."

"You've been doing that a lot," Willow told her. "Patrolling and sacking. In fact, you've kind of been All-Work-And-No-Play Buffy."

"I play," Buffy told her. "I have big fun. I came here tonight, didn't I?"

"You came, you saw, you rejected," Willow told her.

"You mean that guy?" Buffy asked. "Just not in date mode right now."

Willow smiled. "Well, maybe you need to date to get in date mode."

"I don't think I'm ready for that, Will," Buffy told her.

"You're thinking too much," Willow told her. "Maybe you need to be impulsive."

"Impulsive?" Buffy repeated. "Do you remember my ex-boyfriend, the vampire? I slept with him, he lost his soul, now my boyfriend's gone forever, and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends. The next impulsive decision I make will involve my choice of dentures."

"Okay, the Angel thing went badly, I'm on board with that, but that's not your fault," Willow told her. "And anyways, love isn't always like that. Love can be..." She smiled. "Nice!"

••

In History class, I had my chin propped up in my hand, bored with the lecture and trying not to fall asleep to the drone of the male teacher's voice. "Before 1935, the new deal focused on revitalizing stricken business and agricultural communities. And the new deal also tried to regulate the nation's financial hierarchy to avoid another disaster like the 1929 stock market crash."

Buffy fell asleep, looking like she was having a dream.

I nudged her, whispering, looking at the board in shock. "Buffy!"

Buffy woke up, looking at the board.

"...hours, child labor..." the teacher trailed off. Buffy stared in surprise at what the teacher was writing. "...and collective bargaining."

The teacher looked back at the class.

The students all started laughing.

Buffy and I exchanged a look.

He looked back at the board and saw that he had just written "DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME, BITCH!" in huge letters. "Oh, my God!"

He quickly grabbed an eraser and frantically wiped it away.

A boy was smiling. "Did you see what he wrote?"

••

Buffy and I walked through the doors from the lounge and headed down the hall.

"I'm telling you, something weird is going on," Buffy told me.

"Something weird is going on," I told her. "Isn't that our school motto?"

"Pretty much," Buffy answered. "But I don't know. This time it bugs me."

We reached my locker.

I started to work the combination. "I don't wanna poo-poo your wiggins, but a domestic dispute, a little case of chalkboard Tourette's? All sounds like Hellmouth Lite to me."

I opened my locker, and a wiry-muscled green arm shot out and grabbed me by the throat. I screamed, and it pulled at my throat and pulled me into the locker.

I couldn't breathe.

Buffy grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to pull him away, but the arm was extremely strong and pulled me away from her and against the locker again. I screamed out in pain when I hit it.

Buffy grabbed me again and pulled harder, and the arm let go. Buffy slammed the locker shut.

I coughed, holding my throat in pain, trying to catch my breath.

We both looked around the hall and saw the other students' reactions. They were all confused, but stayed away and just stared.

Buffy gave me an intent look and gestured that we should open my locker again and take a look inside.

I nodded, still holding my throat. I slowly lifted the latch, slowly opening the door to allow us to peak inside.

Nothing.

I opened it all the way, and it appeared to be completely normal.

••

We walked into the library.

Xander saw me holding my throat. "What's wrong, Zo? The big bad wolf went to far on the bite?"

"You're just a big bucket of funny, Xander," I told him sarcastically. Buffy sat down next to Willow, who was researching on her laptop. I walked over to Giles, who was kneeling and going through some books on a shelf. "I'll have you know I was just accosted by some kind of, um, locker monster."

Giles looked up. "Loch Ness Monster?"

"'Locker' monster is what she said," Buffy told him." But it wasn't really a monster. It was, like, this big arm that came out of the locker, but then we opened it again, it was gone. Nothing."

"This was right after our history teacher starts doing some freaky channeling thing in class," I told them.

Giles stood up. "Ooh! Sounds like paranormal phenomena."

Willow smiled. "A ghost? Cool!"

"Oh, no, no," I told them. "No. No cool. This was no wimpy chain rattler. This was 'I'm dead as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.'"

"Well, despite the Zoey-speak, that's a fairly accurate definition of a poltergeist," Giles told us.

"I defined something?" I asked. Accurately?" I closed a book on the table. "Guess I'm done with the book learning."

I sat down on the table.

"So we have some bad boo on our hands?" Xander asked.

"Yes," Giles answered.

"Well, why is it here?" Willow asked. "Does it just wanna scare people?"

"Unfortunately, he doesn't know exactly what he wants," Giles told us. "That's, that's the trouble. See, uh, many times the spirit is plagued by all manner of worldly troubles. Being dead, it has no way to, uh, to make its peace. So it, it lashes out, growing ever more confused, ever more angry."

"So it's a normal teenager, only dead," Buffy told him.

"Well, what can we do?" Willow asked. "Is there any way to stop it?"

"Uh, the only tried and true way is to work out what unresolved issues keep it here, and-and-and, um, resolve them," Giles told us.

"Fabulous," I told them. "Now we're Dr. Laura for the deceased."

"Only if we can find out who this spirit is," Giles told us. He considered. "Or was."

••

Giles was in his office, and we were standing outside his door. "It was just as with the, the couple you encountered the other night, Buffy. The, the janitor remembered everything. He, he knew he'd killed this poor woman, but he had no idea why. Well, they-they had no intimate relationship."

Giles walked out with a few books and headed into the main area.

We all followed.

"What about the gun?" Willow asked. "Did you find it?"

"No, no," Giles answered. "The police, everybody, we-we-we-we searched high and low. I think it's very clear what's happening here."

Giles walked into the cage with the books and put them away.

"Fill me in then, 'cause I've read the book, seen the movie, and I'm still fuzzy about what's going on," I told him.

"It's Jenny," Giles told us.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"You think she's the ghost?" Xander asked.

"Well, don't you see?" Giles asked. "Well, she-she-she died here under tragic circumstances, a-a-and now she's trapped."

"But what about the gun?" Willow asked. "I mean, Angel didn't shoot Ms. Calendar."

"The gun is insignificant," Giles told us. "It's the violence of the thing that matters."

Giles walked back into his office.

"I don't know," Buffy told him. "These fights these couples keep having, it's sort of... specific."

"She's right," Willow told him. "It's a pattern that doesn't fit with the way Ms. Calendar died."

Giles walked out of his office. "Yes, well, I, uh, I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, I, in fact I... well, I encourage you to, to always, uh, challenge me, uh, when you feel it's appropriate. You should never be cowed by authority. Except, of course, in this instance, when I am clearly right and you are clearly wrong."

Giles walked into the office.

••

Willow, Xander, Buffy and I walked into Ms. Calendar's old computer class.

"This is freaky," I told them. "I don't ever remember ever seeing Giles be this weird."

Willow sat at the desk and typed at her laptop.

Xander leaned on a table behind her.  "I know. He's usually Investigate-Things-From-Every-Boring-Angle Guy. Now he's I-Cling-Onto-My-One-Lame-Idea Guy. What gives?"

"He misses her," Buffy told us. "He can't think. Just a little more fallout from my love life."

"Okay, but this ghost stuff is something else," Willow told us. "Let me do a crosscheck on other shootings at the school."

"Yeah, we need some alternate ghost theories," I agreed. "What do we know?"

"Dog spit is cleaner than human," Xander told us.

"Besides that?" Buffy asked.

Willow found something. "Oh, boy, we know plenty." She scrolled through a newspaper article on her laptop. The title read Sunnydale High Jock Kills Lover, Self. "It says a student murdered a teacher on the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance. The rumor was they were having an affair, and she tried to break it off. After he killed her, he went into the music room and shot himself."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a ghost," Xander told us. "It is one of those two, right?"

"It all fits: the gun, the Sadie Hawkins Dance," I told them.

"Which is tonight," Buffy told us.

"How come we've never heard about this murder-suicide thing before?" Xander asked. "When did it happen?"

"1955," Buffy answered.

Willow and Xander both looked up at her, surprised.

I looked at her, surprised. "How did you know?"

••

Buffy set the 1955 Sunnydale High yearbook on the desk and opened it to a picture of a teacher. "Okay, here's the new strangeness. I dreamt about this woman, Grace Newman, the other day." She turned more pages. "Her and this guy."

Buffy pointed at a student.

"Jim Stanley?" Willow asked. "He's the one. He did it."

"Your dreams are getting wicked accurate, Buff," Xander told her. "You wouldn't happen to see me coming across some big cash? Or possibly knowing the love of a woman? In a full body sense?"

Buffy ignored him. "He couldn't make her love him, so he killed her."

I turned away. "Sicko."

"He looks so normal on this picture," Willow told us. "He was smart, too. He made the honor roll."

I looked back. "Smart? He killed a person and killed himself. Those are pretty much two of the dumbest things you could do."

"I know, but..." Willow trailed off. "Well, don't you feel kind of bad for them?"

"Sure I feel lousy," Buffy answered. "For her. He's a murderer and he should pay for it."

"With his life?" Willow asked.

"No," Buffy answered. "He should be doing sixty years in a prison, breaking rocks and making special friends with Roscoe the Weightlifter."

"Yikes," Xander said. "The quality of mercy is not Buffy."

"Whose ghost do you think we're dealing with?" Willow asked. "His or hers?"

"Well, considering how violent it is, I'm gonna say his," I told them.

"That tracks," Xander agreed.

Willow sat down. "Well, I've been browsing on some of Ms. Calendar's pagan sites. Maybe I can find a way to communicate with them and... we can find out what he wants."

"Who cares what he wants?" Buffy asked. "We need to shut him down before some other innocent guy goes and kills some poor nice girl and then blows his brains out all over the music room wall."

"Okay!" Xander said, smiling and rubbing his hands. "Who's hungry?"

••

In the cafeteria, there was spaghetti and Kraut dogs for lunch.

Cordelia walked over to our table with her tray. "I hope you guys aren't going to the Sadie Hawkins Dance tonight." She sat down. "'Cause I'm organizing a boycott. Do you realize that the girls have to ask the guys? And pay and everything? I mean, whose genius idea was that?"

"Obviously, some hairy-legged feminist," I said sarcastically.

Cordelia took that literally. "Really! Well, we need to nip this thing in the bud. I mean, otherwise, things are going to get really scary."

Suddenly we heard several students scream.

The hotdogs and spaghetti had all turned into snakes.

A boy pulled his snakedog away from his mouth. He had a snake protruding from his lips. He dropped the bun, spitting out the snake and quickly stood up, backing away from his table.

We looked back at our table to see snakes all over it as well.

We all quickly got up, except for Cordelia, who was too busy screaming to think. She finally looked at the table again. A snake lunged at her and bit her on the cheek. She reacted fast, throwing the snake off of her and runnning away.

Snyder came through the door and saw the mayhem. He stepped back just as a student came running by and falling over a table.

Moments later, the cafeteria was deserted.

••

After dark, Buffy, Xander, Willow, Cordelia and I were in Buffy's room.

Buffy was sitting on her bed. Xander was in her wicker chair. Cordelia was kneeling and leaning against the bed. I was sitting on the window seat.

Willow was standing. "Remember the plan to contact the spirit and talk to it? Scrap that plan. Buffy, you were right. The time for touchy-feely communication is passed. I've done some homework and found the only solution is the final solution."

"Nuke the school?" Xander asked. He smiled. "I like that."

"Not quite," Willow told us. "Exorcism."

"Are you crazy?" Cordelia asked. "I saw that movie! Even the priest died."

"What's the deal?" Buffy asked.

Willow laid down a map of the school building, and we all leaned in to look. "Okay, see here, the balcony? That's where the original teacher died back in 1955 and that teacher last night. That's the hot spot where all the bad mojo is coming from. We need to create a Mangus-quad."

"A what?" I asked.

Willow pointed. "One person chants here on the hot spot. And the other four chant in other places around the school forming a square. It's supposed to bind the bad spirit and keep it from doing any more harm."

"Well, I'll take the hot spot," Buffy told us, taking the map. "If there's trouble, that's where it'll be."

Willow nodded.

lThis ghost, this James guy, is fixating on you, Buffy," I told her. "The dreams, the yearbook... You sure you can handle it?"

"Well, I'm hoping he'll show," Buffy told us. "I truly am."

••

We went to the school. We all came into the hall from outside.

"Okay, we all have our places," Buffy told us. "We do the chant and light the candle at midnight exactly. Any questions?"

"Yeah, what if this mangled square thingy doesn't work?" I asked.

"Oh!" Willow said. "I almost forgot. I made us all scapulas."

Willow handed them out.

"Okay, so we can flip the ghost over when it turns a nice golden brown?" Xander asked.

"Scapula, not spatula," Willow told us. "Um, you wear it around your neck for protection."

"You expect me to wear this?" Cordelia asked. "It smells like grandpa breath."

"Sorry, I didn't have a lot of time," Willow told us. "I had to use sulfur. Stinky, but effective."

"Okay, let's do this," Buffy told us.

We all continued into the student lounge.

"No problem," I told them. "This will be a piece of cake. Right?"

We heard a creaking and then a crashing noise. We jumped and looked in that direction too see that the doors at the end of the hall have slammed shut on their own.

One by one the other doors at the ends of the two intersecting halls slammed shut.

We were trapped.

••

I walked along the hall outside of library and slowed down to look down the other hall before continuing.

The door opened behind me.

I turned around, holding up my flashlight as a weapon.

Giles yelled out slightly in surprise.

"Oh," I said, lowering the flashlight.

"God, Zoey, what are you doing here?" Giles asked. "You're not supposed to be inside."

"Me?" I asked. "What about you?"

"I'm, uh, I'm, I'm trying to, uh..." Giles trailed off, putting on his glasses. "I think I-I may be close to, uh, contacting Jenny." I gave him an understanding look. Giles started to go back into the library, but turned back. "What's that smell?"

"Willow made scapulas," I told him.

"Ah, right, of course," Giles said.

"She said she used sulfur," I told him.

"That's clever," Giles said. "Uh, well, uh, run along then. Th-there may be some, uh, paranormal ph-phenomena if I contact her. Y-y-you don't want to be in the line of fire."

Giles walked back in, and the door swung shut behind him.

"Okay," I said. "'Night."

••

I stepped up to the stair landing and looked around.

••

I set my candle down on the floor. Below me the floor suddenly started to swirl, and a green demonic hand reached up and grabbed me, pulling me down. I screamed, grabbing the stair railing to keep from being pulled in. "Giles!"

I heard Giles. "Zoey!"

"Giles!" I yelled. "Giles!"

The pull was too strong, and I lost my grip on the railing.

"Where are you?!" Giles called frantically.

I saw him running into the lounge area.

"Please!" I told him. "Help! Help me!" Giles turned and saw me sinking into the floor. He scrambled up the stairs to my aid. "Help! Help! Help! Help!"

Giles knelt on the stairs, out of the way of the sinkpool, grabbing my arms, starting to pull. The pit continued to try to pull me in.

Giles grunted and managed to slowly lift me out. When I was free of the pit, I suddenly snaps into his arms, and we both went rolling down the stairs.

••

Giles got up and went up a few steps to make sure that the pit was gone. He walked back down to me. "Are you all right?

I was shaken up, shaking my head. "Giles, Jenny could never be this mean."

Giles glanced up at the landing. "I know." He sat down. "It's, it's not her, is it?"

"I'm sorry," I told him. The town clock began to strike midnight. "Oh, God. Oh."

I scrambled back up to the landing to light the candle.

Giles followed. "Careful up here!"

••

I lit the candle. "I shall confront and expel all evil. Out of marrow and bone... Out of house and home... never to come here again."

Giles and I looked around.

Nothing happened.

••

A breeze blew the candle out.

Giles and I exchanged a look.

••

Giles and I walked down the stairs and looked down the hall.

We heard a faint buzzing. It steadily got louder. At the far end of the hall, we saw a dark swarm of wasps coming toward us.

"Oh, my God!" Giles said.

We broke into a dead run, rounding a corner. Cordelia and Willow followed us just as quickly.

"You all right?" Giles asked.

Buffy ran toward us. Xander ran out of the cafeteria, both of them following.

We reached the far end of the hall where the doors were jammed shut.

"Get back!" Buffy told us, kicking the door open, shattering the glass.

We all immediately ran out.

The wasps were right behind us.

When we reached the street, Xander looked back and stopped. "Check it." We all stopped and turned to look as well. "I'd say school's out for good."

We all stared in amazement.

Giles took off his glasses.

The wasps had arranged themselves in a wall around the school so that nothing could get in or out.

••

We went to Buffy's house, in the living room.

Buffy leaned against the wall.

The rest of us were seated around the coffee table.

Giles poured some tea for himself. "The good news is none of you girls were shot. Well, we've established, based on all the parallels and-and-and Buffy's visions, that it's James' spirit."

"So what do we do, Giles?" Willow asked. "About James."

"Well, he's obviously reliving the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance when he killed Ms. Newman," Giles told us. "It-it's-it's common enough for a spirit to do this, to... recreate a, a tragedy."

Cordelia ate a cracker. "Hey. If Sunnydale High School shuts down forever, do we automatically graduate?"

Xander ignored her. "But why? What does he want?" He thought again about Cordelia's question. "Actually, that's an interesting point."

"He's, he's trying to... resolve whatever issues are keeping him in limbo," Giles told us. "W-w-what exactly those are, I'm not..."

"He wants forgiveness," Buffy told us.

Giles leaned back. "Yes." He stood up. "I imagine he does." He walked closer to Buffy. "But when James possesses people, they act out exactly what happened that night. So he's experiencing a form of purgatory instead. I mean, he's, he's doomed to, to kill his Ms. Newman over and over and over again, and... forgiveness is impossible."

"Good," Buffy told us. "He doesn't deserve it."

"To forgive is an act of compassion, Buffy," Giles told him. "It's, it's not done because people deserve it. It's done because they need it."

"No," Buffy told him. "James destroyed the one person he loved the most in a moment of blind passion. And that's not something you forgive. No matter why he did what he did. And no matter if he knows now that it was wrong and selfish and stupid, it is just something he's gonna have to live with."

"He can't live with it, Buff," I told her. "He's dead."

Buffy just looked back at us all for a moment, then stalked off into the kitchen.

"Okay," Cordelia said. "Overidentify much?"

Cordelia munched her cracker.

••

Willow stood up from her chair. "So what do we do next? Do we go in again?"

"Well, not now," Giles told us. "No, the, uh... the spirit is too angry, too, too powerful. No, we have to work out exactly how and, and if this thing can be defeated."

••

I walked into the kitchen looking for Buffy. "Hey, Buffy, are you..." I saw a flyer for the Class of '55 for the Saddie Hawkins Dance lying on the island and picked it up. "Oh, God. Giles!" Giles walked in. "She went back."

••

We all stood in front of the school, looking at the swarm of wasps.

"So what now?" Xander asked. "Not even a mega-vat of Raid's gonna do the trick here."

"I don't get it," Cordelia told us. "Is she trying to be a big loner hero or something?"

"No," Giles answered. "I believe she's under the spirit's thrall. He's, he's calling her."

"But why?" Cordelia asked.

"James needs her to re-enact everything that happened on the night that he, he killed Ms. Newman," Giles told us. "He wants to change things, make, make a happy ending."

"But it can't ever happen," I told him. "It always ends the same, which means Buffy just went in there to get shot, Giles."

"Yes," Giles agreed. "But the school's deserted. There's no way for James to... to play his part. There's, there's no man inside for him to possess."

"So Buffy should be safe until we find a way to get her out," Xander told us.

"In theory, yeah," Willow told us.

We looked back at the school.

••

We heard a gunshot, all of us looking at the school in worry.

Buffy . . .

••

The wasps had went away when James had gotten what he had needed.

He had used Angelus to play Ms. Newman, and he had used Buffy to play James.

Buffy had shot Angelus, but he was a vampire, so it didn't kill him. Buffy had went to the music room to kill herself. Angelus had stopped her, forgiving James, making the ghosts finally go away and move on.

Then Angelus got angry and took off.

We all went to the library.

Giles paced behind the counter.

Willow, Xander, Cordelia and I walked in.

"Everything seems normal," Willow told us. "Not a snake, not a wasp."

"Yep," Cordelia agreed. "School can open again tomorrow."

"Explain to me again how that's a good thing," I told them.

We all leaned against the counter.

"I'm drawing a blank," Xander told me.

Giles walked back into his office, where Buffy was resting. "Are you feeling any better?"

"James picked me," Buffy told us. "I guess... I guess I was the one he could relate to. He was so sad."

Giles sat by her. "Well... they can both rest now."

"I still..." Buffy trailed off, exhaling. "A part of me just doesn't understand why she would forgive him."

"Does it matter?" Giles asked.

"No," Buffy answered. "I guess not."

We all knew that she was tying this to her and Angel/Angelus. She was trying to find out if she could ever forgive him.

I didn't know if I would.