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Helpless

Prologue

Buffy is at Angel’s for a late night picnic and workout. She kicks his legs out from underneath him, and grabs a baguette from their snack. She jumps on top of him and plunges the baguette into the center of his chest. “Gotcha!”

Angel lies back defeated. “Right in the heart!”

Buffy smiles down at Angel. “Satisfied?”

Angel starts to look uncomfortable. “I’m not sure that’s the word.”

Buffy becomes aware of how intimate they are, with her sitting astride his waist. “Okay.” She gets off, and takes a couple of steps back. “I didn’t mean ‘satisfied’ like… ’cause we’re not having satisfaction in the personal sense.”

Buffy thinks that she should be going. Giles is waiting for her. She thanks Angel for the workout. Before she goes Angel asks if she has any plans for her birthday this weekend.

“Um, actually, I, I do have a thing,” says Buffy.

“Oh, a thing. A date?”

“Nice attempt at casual,” says Buffy. “Actually, I do have a date. Older man. Very handsome. He likes it when I call him ‘Daddy.’”

Angel smiles. “Your father.” He gets a little nervous. “It is your father, right?”

Buffy nods. “He’s taking me to the ice show. Which should be big fun. I could use a little fun.”

It’s time for Buffy to be going. She is supposed to be meeting up with Giles for a training session in the library.

Buffy sits at the table in the library. Giles is training her on the recognition and use of various crystals, and there are several of them on the table in front of her. Buffy has a clear cylindrical crystal, about six inches long in her hands that she’s fiddling with. Her mind isn’t on her studies though. Since Faith is off on one of her unannounced walkabouts, Buffy feels like she should be out patrolling.

“Well, Faith is not interested in proper training,” says Giles, “so I must rely on you to keep up with yours.”

“I hate being the good one,” says Buffy.

Giles thinks that Buffy will be out patrolling soon enough. He asks why she’s so anxious.

“I guess it…” Buffy suddenly notices the way she’s fondling the crystal in her hands and sets it down. “I just have some…energy to burn.”

“Well, in due time, but, uh, for the present, if it’s not entirely beyond your capabilities…” Giles sets a large blue crystal on the table in front of Buffy. “…try to concentrate.”

Buffy looks into the crystal.

Buffy kicks a vampire down the slide in the playground. “Wow, that was really funny looking! Could you do it again?” She runs down the slide after it.

The vampire jumps back to its feet. “I’m going to kill you for that!”

“For that? What were you trying to kill me for before?”

Buffy gives the vamp a few more punches, and kicks it back onto the merry-go-round. She closes in for the kill, and is suddenly hit by a dizzy spell.

The vampire uses the opportunity to grab Buffy and toss her to the ground. It jumps on top of her, grabs onto her hand which is holding her stake, and forces it around so the point is facing her chest. “Let me know if I’m not doing this right.”

Act I

Buffy head butts the vampire and tosses it off her. She loses hold of her stake but manages to get it back, and pointed in the right direction before the vampire recovers, and throws itself back on top of her. The vampire explodes into dust. Buffy slowly gets back to her feet.

Giles finds Buffy throwing knives at a target when he comes into the library next morning. Very few of the knives are actually in the target, and none of them are near the bullseye. Several knives are lying on the floor, and others are sticking into bookshelves behind the target.

Buffy tells Giles that there’s something wrong with her. She tells him about what happened with the vampire the night before. “I’m way off my game. My game’s left the country. It’s in Cuernavaca. Giles, what’s going on here?”

Giles suggests that maybe Buffy’s sick.

Buffy doesn’t want to be sick now. “My dad’s coming to take me to the ice show! We do it every year for my birthday. If I cancel, it’s going to break his heart!”

Giles suggests that Buffy take a couple of days off, and relax.

Buffy doesn’t think that will be necessary. She just needs to train a little harder. She throws another knife at the target. This one hits and breaks a lamp. “I’m gone!” She turns and leaves the library.

Buffy sits with her friends discussing her birthday plans. “An ice show?” asks Xander. “A show performed on ice. And how old are we again?”

“I went to Snoopy On Ice when I was little,” says Willow. “My dad took me backstage and I got so scared I threw up on Woodstock.”

“Look, I know you guys think it’s just a big, dumb, girlie thing,” says Buffy, “but it’s not. I mean, a lot of those skaters are Olympic medal winners. And every year my dad buys me cotton candy and one of those souvenir programs that has all the pictures, and okay, it’s a big, dumb, girlie thing, but I love it.”

“It’s not so girlie,” says Oz. “Ice is cool! It’s water, but it’s not.”

Willow thinks it’s cool that Buffy and her dad have this tradition. “Ixnay on the caramel corn, though, if you go backstage.”

Xander still wants to throw a birthday party for Buffy, but she doesn’t think that’s a good idea. “I think it might be time to put a moratorium on parties in my honour. They tend to go badly. Monsters crash. People die.” She just wants a quiet birthday this year.

Buffy enters her kitchen and sees a gift basket on the island counter. “Ooo, present!”

Joyce tells Buffy that they’re from her father. He had to cancel their ice show date this year. “His, uh, quarterly projections are unraveling and he can’t afford to take off right now. He promises to make it up to you. It’s all right there in the letter.”

Buffy pulls of the card, and the tickets attached to the gift basket balloons, and crumples the card up in her hand without looking at it.

“If you want, I could ask somebody to cover for me at the gallery,” says Joyce. “I mean, if you want me to take you.”

“No. No, that’s not necessary,” says Buffy. “I was just thinking it might be nice to have a quiet birthday.”

Two men—Blair and Hobson—work to brick up a doorway in the abandoned Sunnydale Arms boarding house. The older man supervising them—Quentin Travers—tells them that they must work quickly. The Slayer is almost ready. They have a large locked box with them. A humming noise can be heard coming from it.

Giles and Buffy are having another session with the crystals in the library. Buffy is telling him about the ice show. “You know, it’s not just cartoon characters. They do pieces from operas and ballets. Brian Boitano, doing Carmen, is a life changer. Oh, he doesn’t actually play Carmen, but a lot of sophisticated people go.”

Giles is being deliberately obtuse. He puts the large blue crystal on the table in front of Buffy again, and asks her to concentrate on it.

“You know, it’s usually something that families do together,” says Buffy. “I-if someone were free, they’d take their daughters or their student… or their Slayer.” She looks up at Giles hopefully.

Giles is still ignoring her. “Buffy, I think we should concentrate now. Now, look for the flaw at its center.”

Buffy stares into the crystal. She zones out, hypnotised by it.

Giles checks that Buffy is truly captivated by the crystal, and then reaches down into his briefcase. He pulls out a small leather case. He opens the case, revealing a syringe, and a small vial of yellowish liquid. He swabs the inside of her arm with a alcohol, and injects her. He puts the syringe away.

Buffy wakes up, unaware of what just happened. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I zone out on you? It’s just…I’m nursing that flu bug.”

“It’s best to take care of that,” says Giles. “Perhaps we should, um…”

“…call it a night. Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Buffy gets up and walks toward the library doors.

“Good night,” says Giles.

Act II

Buffy meets Willow in the quad at school next day. “So, how’s it going with Amy the Rat?”

“Good!” says Willow. “She loves her new exercise wheel. She runs around, her nose wiggles—”

“I meant, how’s it going changing her back into a human being?”

“Oh. Still working on it,” says Willow, “But I just got her the cutest little bell.”

They notice Cordelia nearby with a large football player type jock. He’s upset with her for standing him up for a date the night before. “You made me look like some kind of dork in front of my posse!” He grabs Cordelia by the arm.

Cordy slaps his hand away. “First of all, ‘posse?’ Passé! Second of all, anyone with a teaspoon of brains knows not to take my flirting seriously. Especially with my extenuating circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“Rebound!” says Cordy. “Look it up!”

Cordy tries to leave, but the jock grabs her and pushes her up against a tree. “Hey! I’m not through here.”

Buffy grabs his arm. “Oh, I beg to differ.” She pulls on the arm, but nothing happens. The guy’s arm doesn’t budge. He pushes Buffy back and she trips and falls over one of the benches beside the walkway.

Cordelia pushes him away “What is wrong with you?” She starts pounding him on the chest.

The jock backs away from her. “God, the chick started it!”

Willow goes to help Buffy sit up. “Are you okay?”

Buffy does not look okay.

Buffy catches up with Giles in the hallway. “Okay, I just got swatted down by some no-neck and rescued by Cordelia. What the hell is happening?”

“I’m sure it’ll sort itself out,” says Giles.

“You’re not getting the big picture here,” says Buffy. “I have no strength. I have no coordination. I throw knives like—”

“A girl?” says Giles.

“Like I’m not the Slayer,” says Buffy.

“Look, Buffy, I assure you, given time we’ll get to the bottom of, of whatever’s causing this, um…anomaly.”

“Promise me.”

“Yes,” says Giles. “I give you my word.”

Giles meets with Travers at the boarding house. He has serious doubts about what they are doing. Travers insists that the Cruciamentum—which the Slayer must pass through when she reaches eighteen—will go ahead as planned. It is a time honoured rite of passage.

“It’s an archaic exercise in cruelty. To lock her in this tomb. Weakened, defenseless.” Giles looks at the crate. “And to unleash that on her. If any one of the Council still had actual contact with a Slayer, they would see, but I’m the one in the thick of it.”

Travers thinks that Giles is too close to Buffy to make this decision, and insists. It must be done. Once it is over Buffy will be stronger for it.

“Or she’ll be dead for it,” says Giles.

Travers shows Giles out. “Rupert, if this girl is everything you say, then you’ve nothing to worry about.”

Hobson asks Travers for permission to go to the hardware store to pick up some supplies they need. The thing inside the crate starts to yell, and shake the box. Travers tells him to take care of that first.

Travers watches at Hobson and Blair open the box, and reveal the vampire held inside in heavy restraints. It’s wearing a strait jacket and has it’s head clamped so it can’t move. Its name is Kralik. While Travers watches, Blair very carefully feeds the vampire some pills using a long handled spoon, and Hobson uses some tongs to put a glass of water to its lips to wash them down.

They seal the vampire back up in its crate. Travers orders Blair and Hobson to work in shifts until the job is done.

“Aha!” says Willow. “A curse on Slayers!” Buffy looks up from her book, and Willow takes another look in the book she’s been reading. “Oh, no. Wait. It’s lawyers.”

Xander and Oz are sitting around the library table too, with their own books. More books are piled on the table. “You know,” says Xander, “maybe we’re on the wrong track with the whole spell, curse and whammy thing. Maybe what we should be looking for is something like, um, Slayer kryptonite.”

“Faulty metaphor,” says Oz. “Kryptonite kills.”

“You’re assuming I meant the green kryptonite,” says Xander. “I was referring, of course, to the red kryptonite, which drains Superman of his powers.”

“Wrong. The gold kryptonite’s the power-sucker. The red kryptonite mutates Superman into some sort of weird—”

“Guys? Reality?” says Buffy. She gets up and leaves the table to look for another book.

Willow follows her. “Buffy. I know you are definitely, without a doubt, going to get your powers back, but what if you don’t?”

Buffy stops on the stairs up to the mezzanine. “Okay…if I don’t get my powers back, then I don’t. I’ll deal.” She thinks about it for a moment. “And there’s a whole lot of good sides to it.”

“Actually, this could open up so many…”

Buffy stops paying any attention to Willow. Giles has come into the library. She runs across to him. “Giles. Did you find anything?”

“Uh, no. Not yet.” Giles ducks into his office.

Hobson’s watch is ending when Kralik starts demanding his pills again. Hobson sends Blair out alone to take care of it. While Blair is getting the water, Kralik tears one of his arms free from his strait jacket. He covers the sound of the ripping fabric with his cries.

Blair returns and puts the pills in the long handled spoon. He doesn’t notice the torn strait jacket sleave, and holds the spoon up to Kralik’s lips. Kralik pretends to be unable to find the spoon with his mouth. Blair steps closer to hold the spoon steadier.

Kralik sniffs “Where? I can’t see…can’t…can’t reach it.”

Blair steps closer. “Open your eyes!”

Kralik’s arm flashes out. He grabs Blair by the throat and lifts him off the ground. “Shh. Everything’s okay now.”

Buffy gets a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning poetry from Angel for her birthday. He has written “Always” on the title page.

“Thank you,” says Buffy. “That’s beautiful.”

“You really like it?”

“Of course I do,” says Buffy. “It’s sweet and thoughtful and…full of neat words to learn and say like ‘wilt’ and ‘henceforth.’”

“Then why’d you seem more excited last year when you got a severed arm in a box?” asks Angel.

“I’m sorry,” says Buffy, “It’s just suddenly there’s this chance that my calling’s a wrong number, and…it’s just freaking me out a little.”

Angel tells Buffy not to worry about it. If it happens, it happens. She lived a long time without her power. She can deal with it.

Buffy isn’t so sure. She has seen too much to just go back to her old life. “What if I just hide under my bed, all scared and helpless? Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.”

Angel doesn’t think that will happen, Buffy isn’t so sure. She gets to her feet. “Before I was the Slayer, I was…well, I, I don’t want to say shallow, but, let’s say a certain person, who will remain nameless, we’ll just call her Spordelia, looked like a classical philosopher next to me. Angel, if I’m not the Slayer, what do I do? What do I have to offer? Why would you like me?”

“I saw you before you became the Slayer,” says Angel.

“What?” asks Buffy.

“I watched you, and I saw you called. It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps, and I loved you.”

“Why?” asks Buffy.

“’Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe. To warm it with my own.” Angel goes to Buffy and hugs her.

“That’s beautiful,” says Buffy. She frowns. “Or taken literally, incredibly gross.”

“I was just thinking that, too,” says Angel.

Kralik hums, and licks his fingers, waiting for Blair. Blair wakes up, a vampire. “Ah, you’re up. I was afraid I’d drained you too much. I do that sometimes. Ever have a tune you can’t get out of your head? It keeps playing over and over and over? Drives me nuts.”

Blair takes an axe, and uses it to chop Kralik free from the rest of his restraints.

Kralik goes to the table and takes some of his pills. “It’s a game, you know. We’re not going to play by their rules, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to play.” He washes the pills down with a glass of water. “Why don’t you call your friend in? We’ll discuss it over dinner.”

Act III

Giles arrives at the boarding house. No one answers when he calls. He tries calling up the stairs. He puts his hand on the railing, and it comes away covered in blood.

Giles arms himself with a stake he makes by breaking off a piece of the stairway railing and goes to Kralik’s crate. It’s empty.

Giles starts to search the rest of the house. He finds Hobson’s body in the kitchen. The sight of it sickens him, and he runs from the house.

Buffy walks home from Angel’s alone. She’s having second thoughts about turning down his offer to accompany her. A couple of guys harass her as she walks by them, they make her nervous.

Buffy hears someone humming. “Hummers. Big turnoff.” She looks around. “I like guys that can remember the lyrics.” She doesn’t see anyone.

Buffy turns back and runs into Kralik. “You know, I wish I could, but my mind just isn’t what it used to be.”

Kralik grabs Buffy’s coat. She tries to pull away from him. “Let me go!”

Buffy pulls harder, and Kralik yanks her back. “You didn’t say please!”

Buffy tries harder to get away from Kralik. “Help me! Somebody, please!”

Buffy manages to escape by slipping out of her coat. She runs off down the alley between houses. “Help me, please! Somebody!” Blair chases her.

Buffy tries climbing over a chain link fence at the end of the alley, but she can’t pull herself up over it. She looks around for another escape route and sees a hole in the fence. She slips through it as Blair grabs at her heels, but she manages to pull away. He tries to follow her through the hole, but it’s too small for him. He climbs the fence.

Buffy runs out into the street and tries to flag down a car. The first car just passes her by.

The next car to come by is Giles’ Citroen. He opens the passenger door for her and she and jumps in. Blair catches up with them before she can get the door closed again, and grabs at her. Buffy manages to hit him hard enough to knock him away, and close the door. Giles drives away.

Kralik steps out into the street and watches them go. He’s still holding Buffy’s red coat.

Buffy sits in a chair by the library table, wrapped in a blanket. “When I hit him, it felt like my arm was broken, it hurt so much,” she says. “I can’t be just a person. I can’t be helpless like that. Giles, please, we have to figure out what’s happening to me.”

Giles takes the case containing the syringe out of his briefcase, opens it, and sets it on the table in front of her. “It’s an organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressers. The effect is temporary. You’ll be yourself again in a few days.”

Buffy can’t believe what she’s hearing. She reaches her hand out to touch the syringe, to make sure it’s real. “You?”

“It’s a test, Buffy,” says Giles. “It’s given to the Slayer once she—well, if she—reaches her eighteenth birthday. The Slayer is disabled and then entrapped with a vampire foe whom she must defeat in order to pass the test. The vampire you were to face has escaped. His name is Zackary Kralik. As a mortal, he murdered and tortured more than a dozen women before he was committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. When a vamp—”

Buffy stands and throws the syringe case at Giles. It bounces off the wall behind him. “You bastard. All this time, you saw what it was doing to me. All this time, and you didn’t say a word!”

Giles tries to explain that he was just following the orders given to him by the Council. He was supposed to administer the drug, and direct her to the boarding house, but Buffy isn’t interested in hearing that. “Who are you?” she asks. “How could you do this to me?”

“I am deeply sorry, Buffy, and you have to understand…” Giles reaches out toward her.

Buffy backs away. “If you touch me, I’ll kill you. You stuck a needle in me. You poisoned me!”

Cordelia comes into the library. She sees the expressions on Buffy’s and Giles’ faces. “Oh, God. Is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world’s ending, I’m not going to bother.”

Buffy starts to leave the library, but Giles tells her she can’t go alone. It isn’t safe in the condition she’s in. Buffy looks back at him. “I don’t know you.”

Cordelia looks at Giles. “Did something take her memory?” She turns back to Buffy. “He’s Giles. Giiillles. He hangs out here a lot.”

Buffy asks Cordelia if she’ll drive her home.

“Of course,” says Cordelia, and she and Buffy start to leave the library together. Cordelia looks back at Giles as she leaves. “But if the world doesn’t end, I’m going to need a note!”

Joyce is in the dining room, paying her bills. She hears a noise outside. She opens the front door and sees a figure lying on the front porch covered by Buffy’s coat. “Buffy?” She reaches down and touches its shoulder.

Kralik rolls over and looks up at her. “Mother!”

Act IV

Buffy comes in through the kitchen door. She sweeps the gift basket she got from her father off the kitchen island and into the trash. She walks through the house and notices that the front door is open. Taped to the door frame is a polaroid picture of her mother with Kralik. “COME” is written on back.

Buffy goes to her room and starts packing her weapons into a bag. A cross and a bottle of holy water go into her pockets. She leaves carrying the bag of weapons. She has trouble lifting it.

Kralik has Joyce tied and gagged in a chair. He snaps another picture of her. “Mother. May I call you Mother? My own mother was a person with no self-respect of her own, so she tried to take mine.”

Joyce struggles, and looks around in terror, as Kralik snaps more photos. “Ten years old, she had the scissors. You wouldn’t believe what she took with those. But she’s dead to me now. Mostly because I killed and ate her, but also because I know I won’t be alone much longer. I’ll have your daughter. I won’t kill her; I’ll just make her like me. Different. She’ll go to sleep, and when she wakes up, your face will be the first thing she eats.”

Joyce is even more frightened now.

“I have a problem with mothers,” says Kralik. “I’m aware of that.”

Buffy arrives at the boarding house. She uses one of her stakes to prop open the front door so it won’t lock behind her. She sets her bag of weapons down in the main sitting room, keeping only the crossbow and starts searching the house.

Blair removes the stake Buffy left in the door. She hears it close.

Giles is trying to phone Travers from his office when Travers shows up there. Giles tells him what has happened at the house. “Your perfectly controlled test seems to have spun rather impressively out of control, don’t you think?”

Travers already knows about Blair and Hobson. He has just come from the house himself. “It changes nothing.” He pours himself a cup of tea from the pot Giles has made.

“Well, then, allow me,” says Giles. “I’ve told Buffy everything.”

Travers is not pleased to hear that. It goes directly against the orders Giles received from the Council.

“Yes,” says Giles. “Interestingly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Council’s orders. There will be no test.”

“The test has already begun,” says Travers. “Your Slayer entered the field of play about ten minutes ago.”

“Why?” asks Giles.

“I don’t know,” says Travers. “I returned there just as she entered.” Giles grabs his keys and starts to leave. Travers tries to stop him. “Now Giles, we’ve no business—”

Giles pushes Travers aside. “This is not business!”

Buffy returns to the front door, She finds it’s locked. She’s trapped inside. Buffy hears Blair behind her. She spins and fires the crossbow. She misses. Blair knocks aside the crossbow, and grabs Buffy by the throat.

Buffy stomps her foot on Blair’s instep, and flips him over onto the floor. She runs back to her weapons bag, but Blair is on her before she can arm herself with something new. She escapes from him again, and when he follows, she pushes over a bookcase on top of him. He reaches out from under the case and grabs her ankle. Buffy beats him senseless with a fireplace poker, but his chest is protected by the bookcase. She can’t stake him without moving it. She grabs her bag and goes back to searching the house.

Kralik is nearby, and taunts her from his hiding place. “Hide and seek.” he whispers. “Hide and seek!” Buffy sees the crate he was held in and approaches it. Kralik bursts from the crate and grabs her by the neck.

“Why did you come to the dark of the woods?” Kralik takes Buffy’s bag and looks in it. “To bring all these sweets to grandmother’s house?”

Buffy presses the cross from her pocket against Kralik’s chest. He lets go of her and steps back a bit. But then he grabs Buffy’s hand and forces the cross against his flesh. Kralik enjoys the pain as the cross burns him.

Buffy pulls away from Kralik and runs. She locks herself in the kitchen, where she sees Hobson’s body. She doesn’t have time to be revolted by it. She searches the drawers for some sort of weapon. She finds nothing she can use. Kralik stops banging on the door Buffy locked. That can’t be good, so she leaves the kitchen through its other door.

Buffy makes her way to the staircase. She starts to run upstairs, but Kralik reaches through the railing and trips her, grabbing at her feet. Buffy tries to use a piece of broken railing as a stake, but Kralik avoids her jabs. He lets go and Buffy runs upstairs.

The first door Buffy tries on the second floor is locked. The next leads her into a small dark room. Buffy finds the cord tied to a single overhead light, and pulls it. The light comes on and she sees that the walls are covered with thousands of polaroid photos of her mother, tied and gagged.

Kralik breaks into the room, Buffy escapes out the opposite door into another hallway where he catches her.

Buffy struggles against Kralik’s hold on her. “I won’t take it all,” he tells her as his teeth approach her throat. “I won’t take it all.”

Kralik stops, and cries out in pain. He releases Buffy. She tries to escape past him, but he grabs her, and slams her against the wall. He forgets about Buffy and pulls his bottle of pills out of his pocket. Buffy grabs the pills and runs the other way. She dives into the laundry chute at the end of the hallway. It’s too small for Kralik to follow her.

The laundry chute takes Buffy to the basement room in which Joyce is tied up in the chair. Before she can release her mother Buffy hears Kralik coming down the stairs.

Kralik bursts into the room. “Where are they? Where are they?”

Buffy tries to escape past Kralik, but he grabs her and takes the pill bottle away. He quickly swallows some of the pills, and washes them down with a glass of water that’s sitting on the nearby table.

Kralik turns his attention back to Buffy. She doesn’t try to run this time. “You don’t seem to understand your place in all of this. Do you have any idea—” He stops, feeling some discomfort. “Oh, my! What have you—?”

Buffy smiles and shows him her empty bottle of holy water. “If I was at full Slayer power, I’d be punning right about now.” Kralik bursts into dust from the inside out.

Buffy removes Joyce’s gag, and starts to work on the ropes tying her hands, but they’re too tight.

“Can’t you just…?” asks Joyce.

“Not right now. Maybe there’s some clippers around.” Buffy starts to look for something to use to cut her mother loose.

Blair attacks Buffy from the behind. Giles arrives right behind him, and grabs Blair. Blair shrugs Giles off and throws him against the wall. He lunges at Giles, and impales himself on Giles’ stake.

Epilogue

Buffy sits at the library table. She has a bowl of water, and a cloth that she dabs on a nasty looking gash on her forehead.

“Congratulations, you passed,” says Quentin Travers “You exhibited extraordinary courage and clearheadedness in battle. The Council is very pleased.”

Buffy looks up at him. “Do I get a gold star?”

“I understand that you’re upset—”

“You understand nothing.” says Buffy. “You set that monster loose, and he came after my mother!”

“You think the test was unfair?” asks Travers.

“I think you better leave town before I get my strength back,” says Buffy.

Giles agrees with Buffy. Their test is done. Travers can go now.

“Not quite. She passed.” Travers turns to Giles. “You didn’t. The Slayer is not the only one who must perform in this situation. I’ve recommended to the Council, and they’ve agreed, that you be relieved of your duties as Watcher immediately. You’re fired.”

“On what grounds?” asks Giles.

“Your affection for your charge has rendered you incapable of clear and impartial judgment. You have a father’s love for the child, and that is useless to the cause. It would be best if you had no further contact with the Slayer.”

Giles makes it clear that he isn’t going anywhere. Travers expected that, but he warns Giles that if he attempts to interfere with the new Watcher who will be sent to Sunnydale, he will be dealt with.

Travers makes a final bow to Buffy. “Congratulations again.”

Buffy stares at him coldly. “Bite me.”

“Yes, well, colourful girl,” says Travers. He leaves the library.

Buffy picks up the cloth to continue cleaning her wounds. Giles takes it from her, dips in the bowl of water, and tenderly dabs the gash on her forehead with it.

Buffy is making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for her friends in her kitchen. Willow is upset that Giles has been fired.

Buffy assures Willow that Giles is still the school librarian. He isn’t going anywhere. “Nothing’s really going to change. The important thing is that I kept up my special birthday tradition of gut-wrenching misery and horror.”

“Bright side to everything,” says Oz.

Buffy tries opening the peanut butter jar. “Just feel better when I get my strength back.” She can’t get the lid off it.

Xander signals for Buffy to hand the jar over to him. “Give you a hand with that, little lady?”

Buffy hands the peanut butter to Xander. “You’re loving this far too much.”

“Admit it,” says Xander. “Sometimes you just need a big strong man.” He struggles with the lid for a while himself, without any success. “Uh, Will, gimme a hand with that?”

Characters Introduced

• Quentin Travers

Death Toll