Introduction
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| Becoming, Part II | Dead Man’s Party |
The vampire who was Andy Hoelick claws its way free from the soil of its grave. It sees the feet of a girl standing waiting for him, and looks up at her. She’s holding a stake at the ready.
“That’s right, Big Boy,” says Willow Rosenberg. “Come and get it!”
The vampire rises to its feet and growls. Willow is suddenly a lot less confidant than she originally sounded and takes a step back.
Xander grabs the vampire from behind, and Oz comes rushing up with a stake. The vampire kicks Oz away, using him to propel itself in a back flip over Xander. It pushes Xander away into Willow, knocking them both to the ground, and runs away.
Oz rises to his feet, carefully weighs his stake—carved from the handle of a baseball bat—in his hand, and throws it at the fleeing vampire. The stake bounces off a headstone nowhere near the vampire.
Oz shakes his head. “That really never works.” He turns back to Willow and Xander as they get to their feet.
Xander has two problems with what just happened: first of all, what’s with the acrobatics? Oz remembers that Andy Hoelick used to be on the school’s gymnastics team.
“Okay, and the second problem I’m having:” Xander turns and looks at Willow, “‘Come and get it, Big Boy?’”
“Well, the Slayer always says a pun or a witty play on words, and I think it throws the vampires off,” says Willow. “And it makes them frightened because I’m wisecracking. Okay, I didn’t really have a chance to work on that one, but you try it every time.”
“If I may suggest: ‘This time it’s personal.’” says Oz. “I mean, there’s a reason why it’s a classic.”
“I’ve always been amazed with how Buffy fought,” says Xander. “But in a way, I feel like we took her punning for granted.”
“Xander, past tense rule,” says Willow.
“Oh, sorry,” says Xander. “I just meant we in the past took it for granted and, uh…we won’t when she gets back.”
This is the last night before the start of school. None of them have seen or heard anything from Buffy since she disappeared last spring.
Willow is looking forward to getting back to classes, even though it means she will be seeing less of Oz, since he graduated last year. Oz looks a little uncomfortable when she mentions this. Xander is looking forward to seeing Cordelia again. She too has spent the summer away from Sunnydale.
“Wouldn’t it be great if Buffy just showed up tomorrow? Like nothing happened?” asks Willow as they walk out of the cemetery.
“She can’t just show up,” says Xander. “She got kicked out.”
“Well, yeah, I know,” says Willow. “I just wish…I wish we knew where she was.”
Buffy walks along a beach at sunset. Angel comes up behind her and hugs her. She leans back against him. “How did you find me here?”
“If I was blind, I would see you,” says Angel.
“Stay with me,” says Buffy.
“Forever. That’s the whole point. I’ll never leave,” says Angel. ”Not even if you kill me.”
Buffy wakes up in a dingy little one room apartment. She gets up and goes to her window looking out over a deserted city street. A police car rushes by with its siren blaring.
Buffy delivers a couple of plates with burgers and fries to two fat middle-aged guys in a diner, and asks if they’d like anything else.
“That’ll do us, Peaches,” says one of the guys.
Buffy gives them their bill, and tells them to pay at the counter. She starts to walk away, and the other guy gives her a slap on the rump. Buffy pauses, but she doesn’t rip his arms off. She moves on to the next table were a teenaged boy and girl are sitting, making eyes at each other. She asks them if they’re ready to order.
The boy looks up at Buffy. “Yeah. I think we’re good. Um…” He looks at her name tag. “‘Anne.’” Buffy waits for their order.
The boy empties the change out of his pockets and dumps it on the table. He asks what they can get with it. The girl wants some cake, but the boy tells her that they have to eat healthy. He suggests pie.
Buffy tells them they have enough money for one piece of the diner’s peach pie, which may—or may not—actually contain peaches.
The couple shows Buffy the reason for their current lack of funds. They blew all their money getting matching tattoos on their arms. Each arm has half a heart, with the other’s name written on it. His arm says “Lily,” hers says “Rickie.”
Buffy realizes that she has seen this girl before somewhere, at about the same time Lily realizes the same thing about her. “Do I know you?” asks Lily.
Buffy tells Lily that she doesn’t and leaves to place their order. She tells another waitress that she isn’t feeling well, asks her to cover the rest of her shift for her, and leaves the diner.
Willow fills Giles in on the previous night’s unsuccessful vampire hunt, while she and the other students pick up their textbooks in the library. This seems to be the one day of the school year in which the library actually has students in it. Giles appreciates their efforts to keep the local vampire population in check, but he wants them to be careful.
Willow promises that they will. “Don’t get killed!” is part of their mission statement.
Willow starts to head out of the library, and runs into Cordelia. She has spent the summer in a Mexican resort, hating it all the time. They made her have organized “fun,” and the cockroaches there were big enough to own property. She’s looking forward to seeing Xander again, but she is a little worried about it too. She asks Willow how her hair is, and Willow tells her it’s fine.
“He didn’t meet anybody over the summer, did he?” asks Cordy. “No, who’s he going to meet in Sunnydale, but monsters and stuff? But then again he’s always been attracted to monsters. How’s my hair?”
Willow tells her it’s still fine.
Willow is surprised when she runs into Oz. He’s carrying schoolbooks. It seems he didn’t graduate last year after all. He thinks it’s kind of a funny story. He neglected to show up for his final exams, and then he skipped summer school. As a result he has to take his senior year over again. Willow does not find this to be nearly as “cute” as he was hoping.
Xander finds Willow and Oz while they’re talking. He’s looking for Cordelia. Willow tells him that she’s around somewhere. Xander expects there to be major heat when they meet.
Xander starts to leave, but suddenly turns back. “How’s my—”
“Your hair is fine!” says Willow.
Larry and a friend walk by. “This is our year, I’m telling you!” says Larry. “Best football season ever. I’m so in shape, I’m a rock. It’s all about egg whites. If we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is going to rule!”
Xander and Cordy find each other. Contrary to both their expectations there is no heat. They exchange polite enquiries about how their summers were. Neither of them seems to have anything else to say to the other. After a few awkward moments, they go their separate ways.
Buffy sits on the end of her bed in her apartment, holding an open can of Spaghetti-Os in her lap. She isn’t eating them. She just sits.
Buffy walks along the street in her way to the diner. She passes a man handing out a leaflet to a boy sitting on the curb.
An old homeless woman sits in a doorway. “I’m no one,” she tells Buffy as she walks by. “I’m no one!”
Giles gets off the phone in his office. He tells Willow and Xander that a friend in Oakland has heard stories about a girl there fighting vampires. He’s got an hour before the next flight leaves.
“And what makes this different from the last nine leads?” asks Xander.
“I believe there’s a meal on this flight,” says Giles.
Xander doesn’t want to rain on any parades, but he’s seen this happen too often. Giles gets his hopes all worked up, and then gets a big raspberry for results. Willow thinks it’s good that Giles hasn’t given up hope. They have to keep looking, but Xander doesn’t think Buffy’ll be found until she wants to be found.
Buffy walks back toward her apartment that evening. Lily sees her and calls after her, first calling her “Anne.” Buffy ignores her and keeps walking. Lily calls her “Buffy.”
Buffy stops. She still doesn’t really remember where she knows Lily from though. Lily tells her that she used to be in this sort of cult that worshipped vampires. Buffy saved her. At the time Lily was going by the name Chanterelle. It was part of her exotic phase.
“It’s nice,” says Buffy. “It’s a mushroom.”
“It is?” asks Lily. “That’s really embarrassing.”
“Um, well, it’s an exotic mushroom, if that’s any comfort,” says Buffy.
Before that Lily had been following a loser preacher, and calling herself Sister Sunshine. Lily is a name that Rickie picked for her. She asks how Buffy came up with Anne. Buffy tells her its her middle name.
Lily promises that she won’t tell anyone who Buffy really is. She understands the need to disappear.
Lily asks if Buffy has any money. She isn’t hitting her up for handout, she just thinks that maybe they could go to a rave this guy she knows is having in his basement.
Buffy tells Lily that she really doesn’t want to be with a lot of people just now, but offers to give her some money so she can go. Buffy starts looking in her purse for some cash.
Lily starts to tell Buffy to forget about it, when an elderly homeless man bumps into Buffy and Lily as he walks between them.
“That wasn’t very polite!” says Lily.
The man stops and turns around. He stares at Lily with a strange expression on his face.
“Are you okay?” asks Buffy.
“I’m no one.” The man walks out into the street and stops in the middle of a lane, in front of an oncoming car.
Buffy runs out into the street and pushes him out of the way. The car hits her instead as it screeches to a halt. Buffy rolls off the hood, and onto the street.
Several onlookers rush out into the street, and the driver of the car that hit Buffy gets out to check on her. They are all somewhat surprised when she gets to her feet unhurt. The driver still thinks that they should call an ambulance for Buffy.
All this attention is the last thing Buffy wants. She tells them that she’s all right, picks up her purse and runs off down an alley.
Buffy runs into the guy with the leaflets, knocking them flying. She stops to help him pick them up. “Where are you running to?” he asks.
Buffy hands him the leaflets she’s picked up. “Sorry.”
“Maybe I should ask, ‘Where are you running from?’ You’re pretty new around here. You’ve got ‘the Look,’ though.”
“The Look?” asks Buffy.
“Like you had to grow up way too fast. What’s your name?”
“Anne.” Buffy starts to go.
“Hey,” The man stops her. “I’m Ken. Here, go ahead, take one of these.” Ken hands Buffy one of the leaflets. Across the top it reads “Come home to Family Home.”
“Don’t be shy about stopping by,” says Ken. “I mean, I guess you’re not starving, but…we’re not just interested in feeding the body. You might find something you’re missing.”
“I’m all right,” says Buffy.
Ken doesn’t believe that. “Then why are you here? This is not a good place for a kid to be. You get old fast here. The thing that drains the life out of them is despair. I mean, kids come here, and they got nothing to go home to, and…this ends up being the last stop for a lot of them. Shouldn’t have to be that way.”
Xander and Willow are at the Bronze, and feeling depressed. The band playing on stage that night matches their mood.
“Boy I’m glad we showed up for depressing night,” says Xander.
“I wonder what she’s doing right now,” says Willow.
“Oh, I know what she’s doing. Gabbing to all of her friends about her passionate affair with Pedro the Cabana Boy, laughing about me, thinking how she still might have feelings about me!” Xander looks over at Willow and sees her raised eyebrow. “Or, it’s possible you were talking about Buffy.”
“It’s possible,” says Willow. “The Bronze just never seems the same without her.”
Oz brings them their drinks. Xander points out that the Slaying isn’t going so well either. Half the vamps are getting away. They need a new plan.
Xander spots Cordy coming in with some of her friends. “I know what we need.”
“A Vampire Slayer?” asks Oz.
“Next best thing,” says Xander. “Bait.”
Joyce is sitting in her living room, paying bills when Giles knocks on her door the next morning. He has just returned from Oakland. His lead didn’t pan out.
Joyce thanks Giles for trying anyway. She’s getting to the point where she’s afraid to leave the house in case Buffy calls, needing help. Giles tries to reassure her. He doesn’t think that Buffy is in any physical danger. She may be unhappy and confused, but she’s very capable of taking care of herself.
Joyce just wants to talk to Buffy. “The last thing we did was fight.”
“Joyce,” says Giles. “You mustn’t blame yourself for her leaving.”
“I don’t.” Joyce pauses. “I blame you.”
Giles is taken aback.
“You’ve been this huge influence on her,” says Joyce. “Guiding her. You had this whole relationship with her behind my back. I feel like you’ve taken her away from me.”
“I—” Giles is at a loss for words for a moment. “I didn’t make Buffy who she is.”
“And who exactly is she?” asks Joyce.
Buffy is filling the sugar dispensers in the diner when Lily comes in. Rickie has disappeared, and she wants Buffy’s help to find him. Buffy is reluctant to get involved. She suggests that Lily go to the police.
That isn’t an option Lily wants to take since Rickie skipped out on his parole. “Can you help me?”
“I can’t.” Buffy tries to walk away from her.
“But that’s who you are and stuff, right?” asks Lily. “I mean, you help people, and, you know how to do stuff.”
“I don’t,” says Buffy. “Not anymore.”
“But, I don’t know what to do,” says Lily.
Buffy lets Lily talk her into helping. They start looking at the blood donor clinic where Lily and Rickie would sometimes sell their blood. Buffy asks the nurse if Rickie has been in recently. The nurse doesn’t remember seeing him, but she goes to check the records.
“This’ll probably go faster if we split up.” Buffy tells Lily while they wait for the nurse to come back.
Lily nods. “Can I come with you?”
“Okay, where did I lose you on the whole splitting up thing?”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Buffy suggests that they check out Lily and Rickie’s hangouts separately, and then meet back at her apartment. The nurse returns and tells them that Rickie hasn’t been in. She watches Buffy and Lily go with a worried expression on her face.
Buffy checks out an abandoned building which a lot of homeless people use as a shelter. She finds the body of the man she saved from the car. It looks like he’s swallowed a bottle of drain cleaner. While checking for his pulse Buffy notices a faded tattoo on the man’s arm. Half a heart, with “Lily” written on it.
It’s Rickie.
Buffy returns to her apartment and finds that Lily is already there. She tells Lily about finding Rickie’s body. Lily doesn’t want to believe it, especially when Buffy tells her how Rickie had aged, like something had drained the life out of him.
“You mean like a vampire?” asks Lily.
Buffy tells her it wasn’t a vampire. They don’t make you age like that. She wonders if maybe it was something in his blood.
“I don’t understand,” says Lily. “Maybe it’s not Rickie, okay?”
“Lily, this is something you’re just going to have to deal with,” says Buffy.
“But he didn’t do anything wrong! Why would this happen to him?”
“That’s not the point,” says Buffy. “These things happen all the time. You can’t just close your eyes and hope that they’re going to go away.”
“Is it because of you?” asks Lily. “You know about monsters and stuff. You could have brought this with you.”
“I didn’t bring anything with me,” says Buffy. “And I didn’t ask for you to come to me with your problems. I just wanted to be left alone. If you can’t deal, then don’t lay it off on me!”
Lily doesn’t want to hear any of this. She walks out of Buffy’s room.
Ken finds Lily crying on a street corner. He asks if he can help. Lily starts to tell him about Rickie.
“Rickie?” asks Ken. “Say, are you Lily? Right! He was talking about you.”
“You’ve seen Rickie?”
“Oh, sure!” says Ken. “Rickie’s with us now.”
“She said he was dead.”
“Well, someone sure handed you a tall tale,” says Ken. “Rickie’s no more dead than I am. Why don’t you come to Family Home? We’ll get you taken care of.”
Buffy breaks into the blood donor clinic after hours, and starts searching its files. She finds Rickie’s and notices that it contains a special notation “Candidate” in its comments section.
The nurse comes in and finds her. She asks what Buffy is doing.
Buffy doesn’t even look up from the files. “Breaking into your office and going through your private files. Candidate for what?”
The nurse threatens to call the police, and moves toward the phone. Buffy grabs it and rips it off the wall. She turns and looks at the nurse. “Now, you’ve got a whole bunch of candidates here. I wonder if any of them are missing like Rickie? Gosh, I bet they are.”
“You’re getting yourself in a lot of trouble,” says the nurse.
“I don’t want any trouble,” says Buffy. “I just want to be alone and quiet in a room with a chair and a fireplace and a tea cozy. I don’t even know what a tea cozy is, but I want one. Instead, I keep getting trouble, which I am more than willing to share. What are you doing with these kids?”
“Nothing,” says the nurse. “I just— I give him the names of the healthy ones.”
“Give them to who?” asks Buffy.
Ken leads Lily to the ‘cleansing’ room at Family Home. She has changed out of her clothes into a robe made from a coarse white fabric. Ken promises that she’ll see Rickie right after her cleansing is over. He’s waiting for her.
Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia arrive in the park. Cordelia is not happy with her designated role as bait, but she’s the only one of them that the vampire hasn’t seen yet. All of them except Cordelia are carrying stakes and crosses.
They all split up to find hiding places, except for Cordy. She follows Xander. “Where do I hide?”
“You don’t hide,” says Xander. “You’re bait. Go act baity.”
“What’s the plan?”
“The vampire attacks you,” says Xander.
“And then what?” asks Cordy.
“The vampire kills you. We watch, we rejoice.”
Willow listens from her hiding place, and rolls her eyes as Xander and Cordelia’s argument escalates. She doesn’t notice the vampire Andy Hoelick sneaking up behind her.
Ken brings Lily to the ‘cleansing’ station. There is a pool in the floor, it doesn’t look like anything could be cleansed by it. It looks more like used motor oil. Lily is dubious.
Buffy arrives at the door to Family Home. Her entrance is blocked the doorman. She tries to talk her way past him. “You know, I just woke up, and I looked in the mirror, and I thought, hey, what’s with all the sin? I need to change. I’m dirty. I’m bad with the sex and the envy and that loud music us kids listen to nowadays.” The guy on the door just looks at her with a bored expression on his face. “Oh, I just suck at undercover. Where’s Ken?”
The guy tries to close it in her face but Buffy kicks it open and barges in.
Lily reaches her hand down into the black pool as Buffy breaks open the door into the cleansing room. Ken tries to tell her that this is a private moment and she should come back later, but Buffy ignores that. “How do you make them old Ken? Do you feed on youth? What’s the deal?”
“Do you really want to know?” asks Ken.
Lily looks around. “What’s going on?” She and Buffy are both surprised to see each other.
Lily is even more surprised when something grabs her arm and pulls her all the way into the pool. She screams as she vanishes.
Buffy rushes forward to help Lily, but Ken grabs her. They struggle briefly and then they both fall into the pool and vanish too.
Buffy and Ken fall out of what looks like a pool of black oil in the ceiling of another room and down on to the floor.
Buffy lies stunned for a moment before she looks around. She sees Lily sitting nearby rubbing her head. Buffy goes over to check her out.
Ken is kneeling on the floor, holding his face in his hands. “My face! Ow, my face!” He pulls off a wig, and a rubber mask. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to glue that thing on?” With his true demonic face revealed, he calls for the guards.
Buffy grabs Lily and they run as more of the demons come in. Ken takes a club from one of them, and follows after Buffy and Lily.
The passage Buffy and Lily take leads to a platform overlooking a foundry where hundreds of people are enslaved, supervised by whip wielding demons. They stop, shocked and stunned by the scene below them, allowing Ken to catch up with them.
“Welcome to my world. I hope you like it.” Ken hits Buffy with his club, and knocks her out. “You’re never leaving.”
Xander and Cordelia are still arguing. “Let me ask,” says Xander. “How long did it take you to forget me? Were you still taxiing down the runway, or was it actually in the cab?”
“Oh, yeah! Mr. Faithful? You probably met up with some hot little Inca Mummy Girl,” says Cordy. “Yeah! I heard about her.”
They are interrupted by Willow’s scream, and they run to help her.
Oz gets there first and pulls the vampire off of Willow. it tosses him aside with ease when he tries to stake it.
Xander gets there next. He struggles with the vampire, and manages to get his stake positioned over its chest, but he can’t push it home.
Cordelia rushes up, and pushes the vampire from behind. The three of them fall to the ground, with Xander on the bottom, his stake still pointed at the vampire’s chest. Cordy lands on top, driving the vampire onto the stake. It turns to dust. Luckily for Cordy, so does the stake. She finds herself lying on top of Xander, face to face with him. They grab each other and begin a passionate kiss.
Buffy wakes up in a cell with Lily. They have a third cell mate, but it looks like he’s been dead for quite some time.
“I always knew I would come here,” says Lily. “Sooner or later. I knew I belonged here.”
Buffy looks around. “Where?”
“Hell,” says Lily.
“This isn’t Hell,” says Buffy.
“Isn’t it?”
Buffy whips her head around, and winces from the pain that causes. She sees Ken standing outside their cell.
“What is Hell but the total absence of hope?” asks Ken. “The substance, the tactile proof of despair. You’re right, Lily. This is where you’ve been heading all your life. Just like Rickie.”
“Rickie?” asks Lily.
“He forgot you,” says Ken. “Well, it took him a long time. He remembered your name years after he’d forgotten his own. But, in the end…”
“Years?” asks Lily, “But—”
“Interesting thing: time moves more quickly here than in your reality,” explains Ken. “A hundred long years will pass here. On Earth, just a day.”
“So you just work us till we’re too old and spit us back out?” asks Buffy.
“That’s the plan,” says Ken. They will be dead from old age before anyone notices they are missing, not that anyone will. He chose Lily because no one will notice her disappearance anyway.
“You didn’t choose me,” says Buffy.
“No. But I know you, Anne. So afraid. So pathetically determined to run away from whatever it is you used to be.” Buffy looks away from him. “To disappear. Congratulations. You got your wish.
Buffy collapses onto her knees when she gets shoved in with a group of new recruits. She picks herself up again as a demon overseer explains the rules to her, Lily and half a dozen other new slaves. Buffy is still feeling a little woozy.
“You work, and you live,” says the overseer. “That is all. You do not complain or laugh or do anything besides work. Whatever you thought, whatever you were does not matter. You are no one now. You mean nothing.” He walks down the line of kids standing before him. “Who are you?” he asks the boy at the end.
“Aaron,” says the boy meekly.
The demon swings his club viciously at Aaron’s head, killing him instantly. This has a profound head clearing effect on Buffy. “Who are you?” he asks Lily, who’s next in line.
Lily looks at the floor. “No one.”
The demon snorts, and continues down the line, asking each of them the same question, and getting the correct response. He comes to Buffy. “Who are you?”
Buffy looks up at him and smiles brightly. “I’m Buffy. The Vampire Slayer! And you are?”
The demon snarls and swings his club at Buffy. She catches his arm, breaks it over her knee, and takes his club from him. She uses it on the two other demons guarding them.
Buffy looks around at the other kids. “Anyone who’s not having fun here, follow me.”
They don’t get far before their escape route is blocked by more of the demon guards. They hide under some stairs while Buffy tells Lily to lead the rest of the kids out. She will provide a distraction.
Lily isn’t sure she can do it alone, but Buffy tells her she can handle it. They don’t have time to argue about it further, as a siren starts to blare. The demons have discovered their escape.
Lily starts to lead the other kids out, but she turns and comes back. “I’m sorry I said this was your fault before.”
“Lily, this can wait!” says Buffy.
“Well, in case we die—”
“Go! Go!” says Buffy.
Buffy runs across the factory floor—making no effort to hide—causing all the local guards to start chasing after her, clearing the path for Lily and the others to continue their escape.
One of the guards is getting uncomfortably close, so Buffy uses a vertical pole to swing herself around, and kicks him in the head. She jumps up onto a raised platform and starts playing King of the Castle with several more of the demon guards. She’s winning, but there are a lot of them. They are armed with an assortment of clubs and sledge hammers. Buffy arms herself with a hammer she takes from one of the guards.
Ken comes out onto the platform overlooking the work area. He doesn’t really believe what he’s seeing. “Humans don’t fight back. Humans don’t fight back! That’s how this works!” He sends more guards to attack Buffy.
A guard armed with a funky sickle like thing attacks Buffy next.1 She uses her hammer to block his attack and kicks it out of his hands. She knocks his feet out from underneath him, and catches the sickle as it’s coming back down.
The next guard to attack manages to get the hammer away from Buffy before she takes him out, and she throws her sickle into the chest of another of the demons. Buffy is unarmed again, and they are starting to wear her down.
One of the demons manages to grab Buffy, and a couple more close in on her.
Ken catches up with the kids who are trying to escape. He grabs Lily and drags her back toward the platform.
Buffy now has four of the demon guards up on her platform with her. She decides it’s time to run again. She breaks loose from them, jumps off the platform and runs toward the exit.
Ken drags Lily out onto the platform in front of Buffy, holding a knife to her throat. Buffy sees them and stops. The guards catch up with her, and grab her.
“One of you fights,” Ken shouts down from the platform, “And you all die!” He lets go of Lily, pushes her aside and forgets about her. He looks at Buffy. “That was not permitted.”
“Yeah, but it was fun,” says Buffy.
“You’ve got guts. I think I’d like to slice you open and play with them.” Ken points his knife at Buffy. ”Let everyone know! This is the price of rebellion!”
Lily steps up behind Ken, and gives him a push off the platform. Everyone looks at her, stunned by what she did. Lily seems to be the most surprised by it.
Buffy is the first to recover. She quickly takes out the two guards holding her, leaps for a chain, and climbs it up to Lily. They run together down the passage to the exit.
They find the rest of the escaping kids blocked by a heavy metal portcullis which has been lowered across the exit. They haven’t been able to budge it. Buffy moves in, and with difficulty she manages to raise it enough for the others to get underneath it. She starts to work her way through while still holding it up.
Ken attacks Buffy from behind. He knocks her through the gate. He isn’t quite so lucky. He only makes it part way through before the portcullis comes down, piercing through both his legs and pinning him to the floor. The kids start helping each other climb up to the black pool in the ceiling.
Buffy gets to her feet, and picks up Ken’s club.
Ken is not happy. He looks up at Buffy. “You’ve ruined…you…” He can’t seem to find the right words.
“Hey, Ken!” says Buffy. “Want to see my impression of Gandhi?”
Ken looks confused. Buffy crushes his skull with the club.
“Gandhi?” asks Lily.
“Well, you know,” says Buffy, “if he was really pissed off.”
Buffy helps Lily up through the pool, and then climbs out herself. Lily starts to ask what they should do about it, but the black liquid which had filled the pool suddenly vanishes, leaving just a rectangular depression in the floor lined with ceramic tiles.
Buffy shows Lily around her apartment. She is letting Lily have it. The tour doesn’t last long. Buffy’s stuff is all packed up.
Lily is also taking over Buffy’s job at the diner. “I’m not great at taking care of myself,” she tells Buffy.
“Gets easier,” says Buffy. “Takes practice.”
Lily looks at the waitress uniform Buffy has left on the bed, with its “Anne” name tag. “Hey,” she asks. “Can I be ‘Anne?’”2 Buffy smiles at her.
Joyce is loading dishes into the dishwasher when there’s a knock on the front door. At first she’s a little annoyed by the interruption, but she gets a strange feeling as she heads toward the door. She hesitates for a moment before opening it.
Joyce opens the door and sees Buffy. Neither of them says anything. They just hug.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Rickie | An abandoned building | Drank a bottle of drain cleaner |
| The vampire Andy Hoelick | Sunnydale park | Staked by Xander and Cordelia |
| Aaron | Ken’s Hell | Clubbed to death by a guard |
| Ken | Ken’s Hell | Club to the head by Buffy |
| Several demon guards | Ken’s Hell | Killed by Buffy |