Possession is nine tenths of the law.

Air date: 27/11/2000

7 Aug 2000, Still Monday afternoon

Jayde arrives at the mall and decides to deal with her less than perfect day with a long bout of retail therapy.

Alex, Mary and Gemma head back to the office. Along the way Mary suggests Gemma pretend to be Jayde as Buffy is more likely to take another slayer seriously. They swing by home and Gemma raids Jayde’s wardrobe for an outfit closely approximating that which Jayde was wearing and heads to the bathroom to do her makeup. Normally she doesn’t wear makeup and the few times that she and Jayde have swapped roles in the past Jayde always did her makeup for her. Individually she knows how each bit is supposed to go on but the combination when she is finished (the result of a critical botch by Kate’s dice) is less than glamorous unless she was planning on participating in a mardi gras parade. Even Mary looks disturbed by it. Gemma decides to wash it all off and just hope Buffy doesn’t notice.

Eventually they reach the office and finally eat the lunch they bought earlier. Alex goes off to make some phonecalls, Mary decides to check out Alex's collection of occulty books for the symbols inscribed in the bracelet and Gemma goes off into a dark quiet office to relax and meditate on the paper she tore out of Conrad's journal. After around ten minutes of relaxing, floating, concentrating on not much and trying to clear her mind she gets a sensation of being watched. There's something (male perhaps?) sitting opposite her on the other side of the desk and it's (he's?) staring at her. She calls out hello and who are you but gets no answer. Feeling unnerved she flicks on the light. There's no-one there. The sensation is gone. There's not even another chair where she sensed someone sitting. Perhaps it was just a trick of the paper? Shrugging it off she turns the light back off and settles back into her chair again…

Mary has been pattern matching on spines of books on the bookshelves down the corridors and flicking through them and looking for symbols approximating those she's after and mentally doing statistical analyses on the frequency of their appearance with each text and subject. Loaded down with books, she seems to have found a page in an ancient old tome that is almost exactly what she's looking for, but realises she's been at this for some time now and should probably take a look at what section she's ended up in. Looking around she seems to have found herself in Alex's empty office and she is standing over an open drawer full of books with a space for a missing book the size of the one open in her hand…

Gemma closes her eyes and lies back against the soft leather of the chair, banishing all thought of the sensation earlier. She breathes deeply, concentrating on the feel of the air flowing in, pausing and being pushed out of her lungs and imagining that she is sinking deeper and deeper into the chair with every exhalation. That her body is getting heavier and heavier with every breath as she breathes out all of her tension and her whole body relaxes. After around ten of fifteen minutes of this the sensation of being watched returns…

Alex returns to her office to find Mary sitting in her chair with several books open in front of her that could only have come from the draws in Alex's desk.

"Can I, er, help you with something?"

"Do you know what this language is?" pointing out several of the pages spread over the desk.

"It's used for magical incantations."

"Can you read it?"

"I am familiar with it but it's not my best subject, I must say. I can do a few things but not much"

Mary pulls out the paper with the symbols from the bracelet. "Do you know what this says?"

Alex studies the paper for a while. "This is a strange use of the language. It looks like a binding spell but it seems to be more descriptive than that. It's unusual. Normally a binding spell is used to bind people to places or things, or to contain them in some way but this doesn't seem to be a spell as such. It more seems to be describing something."

"Can you tell what it's for then? What it's describing?"

"I can't identify these three characters here. They'd be able to tell us."

"Is any of them slayer? Or vampire?"

"No, neither of those. We'll try these books here. They might be able to shed some light on it."

The thing across the desk seems to be getting closer, in fact there almost doesn't seem to be a desk any more. Where it once felt comfortable and warm, the room now seems dark and stifling. The thing is only inches from Gemma's face, leering at her, intimidating her. She can see its excitement (violet) and also another colour, purple, that she can't identify but it doesn't seem to be a friendly colour. She feels like it's about to leap on her and the sensation gets to be almost more than she can stand before she quickly tosses the paper away from her and flicks on the light in fear. It's gone again. It wasn't real. It was the paper messing with her head. Heart still racing she laughs briefly at herself and decides that perhaps that's enough for now - she's too shaken to keep going for the moment anyway. Best see what the others are up to and if Buffy is here yet. She gets up and goes to the door and as she reaches for the doorknob the thing leaps, suffocates her, seems to crawl inside her skin (but more in a spiritual sense than a physical one), begins controlling her body like a puppet and then the sensation is gone.

Alex and Mary hear a screaming coming from an unused office and go running in to find Gemma shrieking and hitting herself on her arms and head, like she's trying to get something off her. They calm her down, Mary makes tea and Gemma tells them what happened.

Alex: "Perhaps this has something to do with those symbols Mary found."

Mary shows them the picture of the bracelet "Could this be used to bind someone or something?"

Alex: "Or perhaps to bind something into someone, like possession almost."

The three go back to researching - Mary looking into spiritual possession, and keeping an eye out for anything relating to memory loss and Casey's strange week last week, Alex searching for the three missing magical symbols and Gemma continuing with her interpretation of auras. She learns that purple means aggressive, brown means bitterness and white means innocence. She also looks further into the swirly green she saw on Conrad back when Jayde was working out with him. It turns out that it is the green which means obsession, but the swirliness is rarely mentioned. Where it is mentioned it is usually in conjunction with mentally deranged patients. She tells Alex and Mary about this and how it relates to Conrad, recapping on the original dream of the transparent man, the bracelet and the strange behaviour of his journal. Mary asks about the style of writing in the journal and Gemma tells them about the sudden change in both hand and language.

Mary: "Maybe it is to do with the bracelet, Like he put it on and it changed him…" Her eyes go wide. She picks up a piece of paper and writes "Mary. My name is Mary" before continuing her sentence. "Like maybe it’s a one hit wonder and he found it somewhere and he put it on and whatever was in it possessed him and…"

Alex cuts her off. "What sort of person would put on an obviously magical artefact without knowing what it was?" Mary fidgets and stares down at her shoes. "Oh. I guess we'll have to keep an eye on you then to make sure nothing happens."

This time its Mary who gets worked up and Gemma who makes tea. They calm Mary down and are talking about how Conrad checks out with the council so whatever is going on with him is very odd when there is a firm knock at the door. Mary opens it to reveal a very dirty and annoyed looking Buffy. Gemma tells her about Faith being with the watchers. Buffy disagrees with her and claims she is with Wolfram and Hart and tells them about Faith's history with the corrupt lawyers. (for Damien's sake - Wolfram and Hart are an LA based firm who work closely with and for demons. They have major occult dealings that Angel has, well, interfered with a few too many times in the past and they have tried to have him killed on a number of occasions. After Faith left Sunnydale, they employed her to do the job but Angel refused to fight her and her resolve crumbled. He was in the process of helping her when both Buffy and a team of watchers sent to destroy Faith arrived on the scene and things went a bit haywire but ending, ultimately, with Faith turning herself in to the police for the crimes she'd committed. Shit Damien, stop being so stubborn and watch the bloody show, you'd probably really like it!) According to Buffy, Angel is now missing and has been since Faith escaped from jail. She believes Faith escaped, not taken, because she dreamed Faith free and on a killing spree. Gemma tells her about her and Jayde's dream of Faith drugged and restrained and the scars on her sister's arms to prove it. Gemma believes her dream represents the present. Buffy believes her dream to represent the future, it which case even if she is currently restrained she will escape - all the more reason to find her now. Buffy asks what happens when a slayer is turned into a vampire - Alex responds that the slayerness is passed on but they retain some of their power, notably the strength and speed. Much heated conversation involving Conrad, Buffy asks for their help in finding Faith, whether she is with the council or with Wolfram and Hart. Buffy goes off to call Giles. The others decide they really need Jonathan and Jayde in on this conversation.

Lawyers take note: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel and all characters related belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and fox.