Introduction
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| Living Conditions | Fear, Itself |
Buffy and Willow are at the Bronze, watching the Dingos perform. Parker Abrams is there too, but not with Buffy. He’s playing pool with some of his friends. He and Buffy have spent most of the past week together, but Buffy doesn’t want him to think she’s crowding him. She’s pretending not to look at him, but she has been watching him in a mirror. The band’s set finishes and Oz comes over and asks Buffy and Willow if they’re ready to go.
“Almost. Buffy’s looking at Parker.” Willow points out Parker in the mirror to Oz. “Who it turns out has a reflection, so big plus there. Buffy’s having lusty wrong feelings.”
“No I’m not!” says Buffy.
“No, you’re not.” says Willow.
“Oh, I so am.” says Buffy.
“No, they’re not wrong feelings!” says Willow, “’Cause you’re free, you’re both grown-ups. You are free, right?”
Parker approaches Buffy and offers to walk her back to her dorm, since this isn’t the safest part of town. Buffy accepts his offer.
Willow helps Devon and Oz pack the band’s equipment into Oz’s van. Harmony shows up while Oz and Devon have gone back inside for more stuff. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Graduation. “Big snake huh?” asks Harmony.
Willow is happy to see her. They talk for a bit about old times. “You’re always so funny Willow,” says Harmony. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“No,” says Willow. “You neither!”
“Oh, maybe a little.” Harmony morphs into a vampire, and goes for Willow’s throat.
Oz pulls Harmony off Willow, but not before she manages to get her teeth a little way into Willow’s neck. Willow pulls a cross out of her pocket, which Oz uses to ward Harmony off.
“Okay, fine!” says Harmony. “Hide behind your boyfriend. But guess what? I have a boyfriend too, and he’s going to be mad that you were mean to me.” She runs off.
Buffy and Parker walk back toward the campus, and make small talk with one another. Parker wants to know about Buffy’s hobbies, and how she spends her time. Buffy evades the questions. He notices the scar on Buffy’s neck from the bite Angel gave her. Buffy tells him she got it from an angry puppy, and asks if she will get to see any of his scars. Parker laughs and says his scars are all psychological. He starts talking about how his father died last year. Buffy tells him she’s sorry.
“I’m okay to talk about it now,” says Parker. “And I’m not doing the deep get sympathy routine. I mean don’t you just hate guys that are all ‘I’m dark and brooding, so give me love?’”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met that type,” says Buffy.
Buffy and Parker sit down on one of the benches in front of the Espresso Pump. Parker tells her that since his father died, he’s done a lot of thinking about living for the now, not putting stuff off. Buffy tells him she understands. She has felt the same way ever since she drowned a couple of years ago.
Parker thinks it’s great that Buffy understands. “I mean, everybody says they get it. ‘Oh, man. Me too. Live for today.’ But what they really what is a reason to goof off. Not study for finals.”
“Also a valid life choice,” says Buffy.
Parker smiles at Buffy. “It’s cool to find someone else who understands.”
“So Parker Abrams, when you go to sleep tonight, what are you going to regret not doing today?” asks Buffy.
“I’m going to regret…being too nervous to ask you to go to the party at Wolf house tomorrow night,” says Parker. “Do you want to go to—”
“Yes,” says Buffy.
Xander is helping Giles get his books back in order. It looks like they haven’t bothered doing this since they blew up the school. Giles is paying him for his help.
Anya shows up. She just walks into Giles’ apartment without knocking or anything. “You should lock your door.”
“Believe me, I am kicking myself,” says Giles.
“Anya?” asks Xander. “Last time I saw you: fleeing in terror. How’d that work out for you?”
Anya looks at Giles. “I need to talk to Xander. Go away.” Giles doesn’t move. Anya gets the message, and grabs Xander’s hand and drags him toward the door. “Xander come with me.”
Anya pulls Xander out into the courtyard outside Giles’ apartment. “So where is our relationship going?”
“Our what? Our who?” asks Xander.
“Relationship,” says Anya. “What kind do we have, and what is it progressing toward?”
“We have a relationship?” asks Xander. They’ve had one date, which Anya spent telling him all the terrible things she had done to men while she was a vengeance demon.
Anya tells Xander that she can’t stop thinking about him. She has dreams about him, where he is naked. She wants to see more of him. She proposes a standing Friday night date, and a mutual recognition of Prom Night as their dating anniversary.
Xander isn’t ready for anything like that much commitment. He tells Anya to slow down. These things take time. They have to just let things develop.
Buffy and Parker arrive at the door to her room. Parker starts to kiss her goodnight.
Willow and Oz arrive, with the news that Harmony is back from her summer vacation, a little different, and paler.
Buffy is a little slow on the uptake until Parker asks why Willow is holding a cloth to her neck. “Neck. Paler. The puppy! The angry puppy!”
“Yeah,” says Oz, “we came to warn you about the…angry puppy.”
Buffy tells Parker that she has to take care of this now, but she’s looking forward to going to the party with him tomorrow night. Parker leaves.
“Bandaide. Now,” says Willow. Buffy opens the door to their room, and they all go in.
“Harmony’s a vampire?” asks Buffy as Oz cleans Willow’s wound. “She must by dying without a reflection.”
Oz applies a large green bandaide to Willow’s neck while she tells Buffy about Harmony’s threat about her boyfriend. Willow doesn’t take it too seriously. While she was alive Harmony was always lying about what cool boyfriends she had. They were usually fictitious.
“Well, Devon dated her for a while,” says Oz, “but she was too flaky for him. Which, stop and marvel at the concept.”
“Guy dating Harmony dead,” marvels Buffy. “Must by like, the most tolerant guy in the world.”
Harmony returns to the tunnels where a bunch of vampires are working on an excavation of some sort. She walks up behind one of the vampires who is dressed all in black, and rests her hand on his back. “Hi baby, I’m back”
The vampire removes the hood he was using to keep the rock dust out of his blond hair. It’s Spike.
The vampires are tunneling under a street, not too far from the UCSunnydale campus. The lead excavator—Ryan—reports to Spike that he thinks they have located the crypt that they are looking for. They are going to have to tunnel into it from underneath.
Harmony wants Spike to kill Willow for her. Spike has no such plans right now. He doesn’t want to announce his presence in Sunnydale just yet, especially by killing the Slayer’s best friend. He tells Harmony to go eat something while he works.
Harmony walks over to a boy they have chained to a wall. He already has bite marks on his neck. She doesn’t want to eat him, she says he tastes funny, and he was in her math class last year. She didn’t like him much then either. She wants to go out to eat. She wants to go to a party.
Spike loses his temper, and pushes Harmony up against the wall.
“Oh. Right here baby. In front of Ryan?” asks Harmony.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe I would. After a party.”
Tonight,” promises Spike. “I’ll take you somewhere nice.”
Buffy and Parker arrive at the Wolf house party. Parker asks Buffy if she’d like to dance. They start toward the dance floor, but they run into a couple who seem to be carrying a third guy between them.
Buffy recognises one of them right away. “Spike!” She gets a good look at the girl. “And Harmony!” The guy they’re carrying has bite marks on his neck.
“Well this is interesting,” says Spike. “Sort of a double date.”
Parker thinks that Spike and Harmony’s friend got started on the party a little early, and holds out his hand to Spike. “I’m Parker.”
Spike just looks at Parker for a few seconds, until he drops his hand. He looks at Buffy. “He’s got—what’s the word? Vulnerability.”
“And you with Harmony,” says Buffy. “What’d you do? Lose a bet?”
“Actually, how we met. It’s a funny story.” Spike throws the boy at Buffy and Parker, and he and Harmony take off.
Buffy tells Parker to stay where he is, and chases after them.
Buffy catches up with Spike and Harmony outside, where they have a little more privacy, and they can more properly get re-acquainted, with an exchange of punches. “What’s the matter Spike?” asks Buffy, “Dru dump you again?”
“Maybe I dumped her!” Spike punctuates his comment with a few more punches.
“She left him for a fungus demon,” says Harmony. “That’s all he talks about most days.”
Spike isn’t happy with Harmony’s comment from the sidelines. He thinks it’s time to go, but it will soon be time for him and Buffy to have another go at it.
“Yeah!” says Harmony. “As soon as we have the Gem of Amarra, you’re going to be sorry!”
Spike is furious with Harmony for dropping that little tidbit of news in Buffy’s lap, and he drags her off.
Xander is hanging a mirror ball in his basement apartment when Anya drops by for a visit. His mother let her in. She also asked Anya to remind Xander to add the fabric softener to the washing machine when the timer goes off. The dress she’s wearing doesn’t really fit the decor of Xander’s new residence.
Xander asks Anya if she would like a cranapple drink, and when she accepts, he turns to his fridge to get a juice box for her. While his back is turned Anya’s dress drops to the floor. He turns back to face her, and as soon as he sees her he squeezes the juice box in his hand, squirting cranapple to the ceiling.
Buffy phones Giles to tell him about Spike, Harmony, and the Gem of Amarra. Giles has heard of it. It’s a supposedly mythical item of great power to vampires. What sort of power is extremely vague. Sort of a vampire Holy Grail. He quickly finds a reference to it in one of his books. Back in the tenth century a lot of vampires spent a lot of time searching the world, but none of them found it. It was concluded that the gem never existed. He tells Buffy that he will continue to research, and suggests that she go to bed.
“Uh, huh. Sleepy.” Buffy fakes a yawn. “Bye.” She goes back to the party.
Spike and Harmony are back home. Harmony is in bed wearing an abbreviated negligee, while Spike sits nearby studying plans for the tunnelling. Harmony natters away on a variety of subjects while he tries to work . She becomes fascinated with her lack of a pulse. It seems that she has just noticed this. She wants to go eat a doctor so she can get a stethoscope to listen to her heart not beat.
Spike loses his temper, and yells at Harmony to shut up. She doesn’t. She keeps nattering away about the veins showing on her chest. She runs her fingers across her chest as she talks. Spike forgets that he was mad at her. He crawls into bed and they start kissing. He suggests that maybe they should find some chains, but Harmony isn’t interested. That was “Dorkus’s” thing.
“Drusilla!” Spike grabs Harmony by the hair. “Say her name!”
“Dorkus,” repeats Harmony.
“Bite your tongue!” says Spike.
“Do it for me,” says Harmony. They start kissing again.
Xander is still holding the drink box, with Anya standing naked before him.
“…at which point the matter is brought to a conclusion with both parties satisfied and able to move on with their separate lives and interests. To sum up, I think is a workable plan.” Anya explains to Xander for the dozenth time. “I think it’s the secret to getting you out of my mind. Putting you behind me. Behind me figuratively. I’m thinking face to face for the actual event itself.”
Xander isn’t so sure he likes the plan. “It’s just we hardly know each other. I mean I like you. And you have a certain…directness that I admire. But sexual inter— What you’re talking about, well—and I’m actually turning into a woman as I say this—but it’s about expressing something. And accepting consequences.”
“Oh, I have condoms,” says Anya. “Some are black.”
“That’s…very considerate,” says Xander.
Anya walks toward Xander. “I like you. You’re funny, and you’re nicely shaped, and frankly it is ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not…interlock.” She steps right up to him and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Please remove your clothing now.”
“And the amazing thing,” says Xander. “Still more romantic than Faith.” He and Anya start to kiss.
The alarm on the washing machine goes off. “Fabric softener.” whispers Anya.
Buffy finds Parker back at the party. She tells him that her English friend isn’t supposed to drink, so she had to get him away from all the beer. Parker asks if Buffy and Spike used to date, which provokes a brief fit of semi hysterical laughing from Buffy. They did not have that sort of relationship. Parker invites her to dance.
The dance leads to some conversation. Parker tells Buffy about how he switched from pre-med to history. “There’s something amazing about these huge events that when you dig down into them they’re all about people. Just regular people trying to make choices. When you look back at it, it seems like people were swept up in events they couldn’t control. But I don’t believe that. You always have a choice with everything you do.” He kisses her, and then stops. “Is this okay? Because I can stop if you want. It’s your choice.”
Buffy runs her hand through Parker’s hair, and starts to pull his face back toward hers.
“What are you doing?” asks Parker.
“Making a choice.” Buffy kisses Parker again. They go back to Parker’s dorm room, and his bed.
Giles discovers something. He tries to phone Buffy at her dorm room. He leaves a message on her machine. He needs to talk with her right away.
Buffy and Parker make love in his bed.
Buffy wakes up alone and naked in Parker’s bed. (Talk about deja vu.) She wraps herself in the sheet, and starts looking around for her clothes. Parker returns. He had let her sleep while he went out to get them some coffee.
Buffy asks him if he has any plans for the day, and Parker tells her that his mom is coming for a visit. Buffy decides it’s time for her to clear out. Parker promises to phone her.
“Great,” says Buffy. “Oh, one more thing before I go.”
“A kiss?”
“Well I was going to go with pants,” says Buffy, “but a kiss is good too.” She kisses him.
Xander and Anya sit side by side on the edge of his folded out sofa-bed, not looking at each other while they get dressed.
“So, I’m over you now,” says Anya. She doesn’t sound very convinced.
“Um, okay,” says Xander.
“Okay?” asks Anya.
“Yeah?” asks Xander.
Anya leaves. Her plan didn’t work for her.
Harmony draws a heart with “Spike loves Harmony” inside it on Spike’s back with lipstick while he sleeps. It wakes him up. She tells him he can write on her, but Spike isn’t interested. He has to get back to work.
“You love that tunnel more than me!” pouts Harmony.
“I love syphilis more than you,” says Spike on his way out.
Buffy arrives back at her and Willow’s room and starts to get changed out of her party clothes before she notices that Giles is there too. She starts making excuses about where she spent the night, and then quits. It’s none of his business where she spent the night.
Giles wasn’t interested anyway. He has more important things on his mind. He has found a reference to the Gem of Amarra being located in “The valley of the sun.” Fancy demon talk for Sunnydale. Buffy decides that Giles and the others should concentrate on locating the gem, while she will look for Spike.
Willow sends Giles on his way. She promises to call the others and tell them to all meet at his place. As soon as Giles is gone, Willow asks Buffy for the full play-by-play on her night with Parker.
Spike and his vampires have reached the crypt. He orders that no one is to leave their lair until he has recovered the gem, especially Harmony. He doesn’t want Buffy to be able to track any of them back.
Harmony isn’t happy with that, and starts to argue with him. Spike had promised to take her to France. All the other vampires roll their eyes and get “Oh no, here we go again!” expressions on their faces. They drop their tools and leave, mumbling under their breaths.
This time though it seems that Spike really has had enough. “Listen to me, you stupid bint.” He shoves Harmony against the wall. “This gem is everything. I came back to Sunnydale for it. A place which has witnessed some truly spectacular kickings of my ass. Now, when I have the gem, they’ll all die, don’t worry. But until then, stay inside. And by the way, I would be insanely happy if from this point on I heard bugger all about sodding France!”
“I don’t know why I let you be so mean to me,” says Harmony.
“Love hurts, baby.” Spike goes to bring back his workers.
Buffy prowls the campus with her Sunnydale High yearbook, showing Harmony’s picture to people, looking for people who have seen her. She also keeps checking her answering machine for a message from Parker, but he hasn’t left any. The entire day goes by without any luck on either front. A dejected Buffy goes to bed.
Spike breaks through into the crypt. There’s lots of stuff there. The most prominent item is a large spherical green gem, in a gold setting hung on a necklace around the neck of a corpse.
Spike looks at the gem. “It’s real.”
Harmony comes up through the hole in the floor of the crypt and looks around. “Ooh, pretty. Can I take stuff?”
Spike tells Harmony that she can take anything she wants. Harmony kisses him, and starts examining the stuff in the crypt. She tries on a tiara.
Spike yanks the necklace off the skeleton, and puts it on. He stands waiting for something to happen.
“So is it doing it?” asks Harmony. “Do you feel it? I mean, you don’t look different, if you were wondering. I thought maybe you’d look taller, or glow or something.”
Spike decides to run a test. He sees a jeweled cross, and picks it up. He cries in pain when it burns his hand, and he drops it again.
“You should put some butter on that.” Harmony puts aside the tiara, and tries on a ring. “But, hey, maybe it’s worth money, anyway. That would be something.”
Spike glares at Harmony and breaks the leg off a wooden chair.
“Then we could go to France,” says Harmony. “I always wanted to go to France and stay in a chateau and you could take me shopping—”
Spike plunges his makeshift stake into Harmony’s heart. Nothing happens to her. When he pulls out the stake her wound heals nearly instantly.
Harmony pounds on Spike’s chest. “I can’t believe you just did that!”
Spike grabs Harmony’s wrist and looks at the ring. He picks up the cross, using a rag to protect his hand, and presses it against Harmony’s face. It doesn’t burn her.
“What are you doing you big freak?”
“That’s my gem.” Spike grabs the ring and tries to pull it off her finger.
Harmony pulls her hand away from Spike. “Fine if that’s all that matters to you.” She pulls off the ring and throws it at him. “Then take it!. Take it, take it and get out!”
Spike catches the ring and puts it on. “That’s a good idea. I think I’ll go play outside.”
Oz, Willow and Xander are all at Giles’ apartment ostensively researching. Oz is very impressed with Giles’ record collection.
Giles tells him to get back to work. “Oz there are more important things than records right now.”
Oz holds up the Velvet Underground’s Loaded. “More important than this one?”
Giles looks at it. “Well I suppose an argument could be made for—”
Xander has found something else. “Whoa, Giles has a TV! Everybody, Giles has a TV! He’s shallow like us!” He digs the television out from under some boxes of books. Oz is disappointed.
“Well maybe it doesn’t work,” says Willow hopefully. “Like a piece of art.”
Xander turns the TV on. It works just fine. They start to gather around it.
Giles tells them all that he uses it to watch PBS, and to get back to work. “Watching television is not going to help us right now.”
Giles is wrong. The TV is tuned to a channel carrying the morning news. It reports that a sink hole has opened up under a roadway near the UCSunnydale campus. Such things are usually the result of tunneling, but the city denies that there was any tunnelling going on nearby.
“Tunneling?” asks Oz.
“Spike,” says Giles. “Xander, find Buffy and meet us there.”
Buffy finds Parker. He’s talking to a girl, telling her the story of how his dad died last year, and how he doesn’t put stuff off any more. He’s just living for the now.
Buffy walks up to them. “Parker?”
Parker introduces Buffy to Katie Loomis. Katie waves hello, and Parker reminds her that she has to get to class now. She leaves.
Buffy asks Parker what’s going on. He hasn’t called. She was getting worried that maybe he was sick or something. Parker doesn’t seem to get it. It has only been a couple of days. Buffy tries to arrange to get together with him later, but he doesn’t seem to be interested. (Talk about deja vu.)
“Parker, did I…did I do something wrong?”
“Something wrong? No, of course not,” says Parker. “It was fun. Didn’t you have fun? Watch out how you answer that. My ego is fragile.”
“You had fun? Was that all it was?”
“What else was it supposed to be?” Parker’s sorry if Buffy thought it was supposed to be something more, but he has somewhere he has to be right now. He starts to leave.
Buffy runs after him. “Parker, Wait! I did this all wrong.”
“No, it’s cool. We’ll hook up later,” says Parker. He leaves.
“Well, that was pathetic!” says a familiar voice behind her. Buffy turns in surprise, and is greeted by Spike’s fist.
Buffy looks up from the ground, and sees Spike standing over her, in the sunlight.
Spike looks around. “Isn’t it a fantastic day? Birds singing. Squirrels making lots of rotten little squirrels. Sun beaming down in a nice, non-fatal way. It’s very exciting, I can’t wait to see if I freckle.”
Buffy grabs a stake which had fallen out of her bag and attacks Spike. They exchange some kicks and punches, and then Buffy plunges the stake into his chest.
“Oh, do it again!” Spike swats Buffy away, and she falls to the ground. “It tickles.”
Buffy looks up at Spike. “The Gem.”
“Oh, yeah” Spike wiggles his ring at Buffy. “The Gem of Amarra. Official sponsor of my killing you.” He vamps out and lunges her.
Giles, Willow and Oz find their way into the crypt.
They find Harmony sitting on the floor crying. “Being a vampire sucks!” She vamps out.
Xander knocks on Buffy’s door, but she isn’t in. He starts to go, but runs into Anya. She’s been looking all over for him. She wants to talk about what happened.
“Anya, I don’t have time.” Xander leaves her in the hall.
Giles asks Harmony if Spike has the Gem. He, Willow and Oz are watching her carefully, not letting her get close to them.
Harmony nods. “He staked me, then he took it. He tried to take it right off my finger. Like I wouldn’t have just given it to him. I would have given him anything he wanted. He was my Platinum Baby and I loved him.”
Harmony suddenly darts for the hole in the floor. She’s gone before anyone can stop her.
Buffy and Spike are still fighting. They seem equally matched in strength and skill, but nothing Buffy does to him will hurt Spike. The same doesn’t hold true for Buffy, and she’s getting tired.
Xander spots them fighting, and tries to come to Buffy’s aid, but he doesn’t last any longer than he did in his last fight with Spike. Spike throws him against a light post, and he falls to the ground unconscious.
Spike turns back to Buffy. “So, you let Parker take a poke, eh? Didn’t seem like you know each other that well. What did it take to pry apart the Slayer’s dimpled knees?”
“You’re a pig Spike.”
Spike kicks Buffy in the head. She falls to the ground. “Did he play the sensitive lad and get you to seduce him? That’s a good trick if the girl’s thick enough to buy it.”
Buffy surges back to her feet, and swings a punch at Spike. He blocks it, and ducks her follow up kick. Spike spins around and delivers a kick to Buffy’s back that knocks her back to the ground.
Spike slowly walks toward where Buffy is lying on the ground. “I guess you aren’t worth a second go. Come to think of it seems like someone told me as much. Who was that? Oh yeah, Angel.”
That was a mistake. He makes Buffy angry. She attacks again with renewed vigor. She attacks with a quick series of punches and kicks. She kicks Spike in the head. He falls to the ground, and Buffy is on him in an instant, punching him repeated. She gets Spike in an arm bar, and grabs the ring.
“Take if off me this way and we both burn!” says Spike.
“Really? Let’s see!” Buffy pulls the ring from Spike’s finger. He begins to smolder and burn. He breaks away from Buffy and makes a dash for a nearby open entrance into a tunnel under the campus.
The ring sits on Giles coffee table while they all look at it. Giles wants to destroy it before any other vampire gets its hands on it.
“We don’t destroy it,” says Buffy.
“Buffy, any vampire that gets his hands on this is going to be essentially unkillable.” Giles suddenly understands what she plans to do with the ring. “Oh.”
Oz understands too. He tells Buffy he has a gig coming up in L.A. He can deliver it.
Xander’s a little slow on the uptake. “What’s going on? What’s in L.A.?”
“She’s giving the ring to Angel.”1 says Willow. “Don’t make a fuss.”
Buffy walks through the campus with Willow that evening and talks about Parker. She wonders if the same thing is going to happen with every guy she sleeps with. Willow tells her that Parker is just a poophead.
Buffy isn’t so sure. She’s worried that there’s something wrong with her. She still wants to try to work things out with Parker.
Willow advises her not to try. “I think you’re missing something about the whole poophead principle.”
Buffy tells Willow that she just wants to take a walk to think about things for a bit.
Buffy walks alone along a circular pathway around a tree on the campus.
Anya is out walking by herself about a third of the way around the path.
Harmony is walking on the pathway too, on the opposite side from Buffy and Anya.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Boy from Harmony’s math class | Spike’s excavation | Killed by vampires |