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Superstar

Prologue

Buffy fights with a vampire in the cemetery. It knocks her to the ground and closes on her. Buffy gives it a two footed kick from her position on her back, and knocks it away. She calls out for Xander and Anya to grab it.

They grab the vampire as Buffy springs back to her feet. Willow calls out a warning as a second vampire charges at Buffy. Buffy fights with it briefly, but it gives up and runs away. Willow tosses a stake to Buffy as the first vampire breaks free from Xander and Anya. The vampire charges at Buffy again. It runs directly onto her stake, and dusts.

Buffy looks around for the second vampire, but it’s gone. She asks where it went. Anya saw it disappear into a nearby crypt.

Buffy and her friends creep cautiously into the crypt. Inside they find a group of five vampires chowing down on a man who is already dead.

They go back outside to discuss their options. Buffy doesn’t like the odds. She figures that she can take two of them.

“Yes,” says Anya, “And then we could run for help while the other three suck your heart out through your neck.”

“You’re right,” says Buffy. “It’s too many for just us. You know who we need.”

Buffy and her friends enter a large, elegantly furnished office. They nervously approach the desk at the far end, clustered together in a group. The high backed chair behind the desk is turned away from them.

“Uh, hi,” says Buffy tentatively. “We have a problem.”

The chair spins around. “Sounds like you could use my help,” says Jonathan.

Act I ¹

The gang prepares for battle in Giles’ apartment. Xander practices his quick stake draw technique, while Anya prepares a bowl of Jonnie O’s for herself.

Jonathan is preparing with them. He doesn’t mind helping out. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Nest full of vampires, you come get me. Okay. Box full of puppies, that’s more of a judgment call.” He and Buffy are sparing. He sneaks a left punch past her guard. “Watch out for southpaws, Buff. Don’t let them surprise you.”

Giles has been researching, but he hasn’t found anything special. This doesn’t appear to be an unholy feast of something or other. He thinks it was more of a family meal.

“And they say no one eats without the TV on anymore,” says Buffy.

Willow has been working too, pulling up the plans for the crypt on her Powerbook, hoping to find a back entrance or something. She doesn’t find one. Buffy thinks they can make that work for them, only one way in means only one way out. Maybe they can lure the vamps outside.

Jonathan has another idea. He takes over Willow’s computer and types a bit. He quickly finds something Willow missed. “Oh, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” she asks.

“I’m sure you would have,” says Jonathan.

Jonathan starts to outline his plan. Buffy will go in first, let the vamps get a look at the Slayer, but he’s distracted by the chessboard set up with a game in progress. “The Nimzowitsch defense. Let’s see if I remember.” He moves the white bishop. “Mm-hm. Mate in four. You almost got me that time, Rupert.”

He goes back to outlining his plan: Xander, Willow and Anya are to back up Buffy. He will be the surprise guest.

One of the vampires hears a disturbance by the entrance, and turns away from the body it’s feeding off. It catches an arrow in the chest, fired from Buffy’s crossbow, and explodes into dust. The other vampires all leap to their feet as Jonathan drops down through the skylight, he fires a shot from his crossbow, killing a second vampire. One of the vamps charges straight for Buffy, and is met by her stake. Jonathan fires off another shot, killing his second vampire. Willow, Xander and Anya struggle with the surviving vampire, but it breaks away from them, and runs right past Buffy on its way to the exit. Jonathan fires off a third shot, catching it in the back before it can get away.

Buffy is not happy with her performance. “I should have gotten that one,” she tells Jonathan.

“You got two of them,” says Jonathan. “And that second one was ready for you. You should feel pretty good.”

Buffy still isn’t happy that the vamp got past her.

“Hey, don’t worry,” says Jonathan. “You know it only matters that you do your best.”

Jonathan, Buffy and the others leave the crypt. Buffy still isn’t happy. She doesn’t think that she did do her best. She doesn’t have a chance to discuss it further, since there’s a crowd of photographers waiting for Jonathan outside. He pauses to let them have a photo op.

Xander isn’t bothered. “Well, I think we did great. We knocked ’em dead…which they already were.”

“We knocked ’em deader,” says Willow.

“Well, they weren’t very well organized,” says Anya. “If they had all rushed at Buffy, they could have killed her right away.”

“Thanks, Anya,” says Buffy. “That won’t keep me awake all night.”

Jonathan explains that vampires aren’t big on cooperation. They only gather in nests to make hunting easier. They are much more likely to be found lurking alone in the shadows. He turns to the bushes behind them. “Don’t you agree, Spike?”

Spike steps out of the shadows. “Well, well. The man himself. Wonder-Jonathan and his fluffy battle kittens.”

“Yeah?” asks Buffy, “You think that one up with all the time you spent not being able to bite people?”

“Careful,” warns Jonathan, “He’s still pretty dangerous.”

“Yeah! Back off, Betty,” says Spike.

“It’s Buffy, you big, bleached…stupid guy.”

Jonathan isn’t happy to see Spike. He still thinks Spike is scum, and has a warning for him: the first hint he gets that Spike has returned to his old killing ways, Spike is dust.

Willow tells Tara about the battle with the vampires while they cut pictures out of a magazine and tape them up on Tara’s wall. Tara thinks that Willow really gets off on living the Scooby life.

“I was going for a kind of stoic bravery.” Willow tapes up another picture. “But, yeah. I mean, it was exciting with the ceiling coming in and everything.”

Tara asks about Buffy, if she’s okay, and Willow tells her that Buffy did great, but she was a little cranky that the one vamp got past her. That wasn’t what Tara meant. She wonders how Buffy is dealing with the whole Faith body switching thing. Willow tells her that Buffy still isn’t over Faith having slept with Riley while she was wearing Buffy’s body, but she’s sure it will blow over. “They’re probably all with the smoochies right now.”

Willow tapes up the last picture. Tara’s wall is completely covered with pictures of Jonathan.

Buffy and Riley are not smooching. Buffy sits on Riley’s bed while Riley tosses his nerf basketball at the hoop hung on his door. Under the hoop is an NBA poster of Jonathan slam dunking a basketball. Riley tells Buffy that he is feeling stronger now. His wound is pretty much healed. The Initiative people are also telling him that they aren’t drugging the food anymore, but Riley isn’t taking any chances. He’s eating out a lot.

The Initiative is still not releasing all the information they have on Adam, even to their own people, and they haven’t had any luck tracking him. “If they just put a little trust in me, I know I could get the job done,” says Riley.

“I’ve felt that way my entire life,” says Buffy.

Riley sits down on the bed beside her, and Buffy gets uncomfortable. She takes his ball and stands up to try a shot herself. She misses. “You’d think I could do that. I guess it takes different muscles than demon beheading.”

Riley thinks Buffy just needs a few pointers. He stands behind her, ready to provide them. Buffy starts getting uncomfortable again. She suddenly spins around and accidentally hits him in his side, which is still tender. “Sorry! This just isn’t my game. I got to—” She hands Riley back his ball, and leaves.

Buffy prepares a jumbo cup of coffee in the Espresso Pump, adding cream and lots of sugar to it. “It’s all Faith’s fault. She’s like poison. No, worse. She’s like acid that eats through everything. Maybe she’s a bomb. The point is everything was going along great with Riley, and then she comes along and messes everything up.” She hands the cup to Jonathan.

Jonathan doesn’t really think that Buffy is angry with Faith. He thinks she’s angry with Riley. He signs an autograph for a girl, and then goes back to talking to Buffy. “You have this amazing connection with him, and then at the one moment when it matters the most, he looks into your eyes, and he doesn’t even see that it’s not you looking back at him.”

“There’s no way he could know,” says Buffy, “I mean, you don’t just look at someone and say, ‘Hey, that’s not your body. Get out of that body with your hands up!’”

Jonathan knows that Buffy knows that, but he doesn’t think that she really believes it, deep down. There’s a part of her that is blaming Riley for what happened, and that part has to forgive him.

They are interrupted by another girl who has spotted Jonathan. She’s carrying a copy of his autobiography: Oh Jonathan. He offers to sign it for her. The girl is thrilled, and hands the book over to him. “It’s Karen with a ‘K’.” Jonathan writes something in the book, and hands it back to her. She reads what he has written and becomes even more excited. “Thank you so much! Thanks!” She runs off.

Jonathan turns back to Buffy. “So what do you think, Buffy? I mean, if I’m wrong, smack me. Karen with a ‘K’ will lend you a book, and it’s pretty heavy.”

Buffy thinks that Jonathan may have a point, but she doesn’t know what to do about it, and she’s afraid that Riley might not want her any more.

“He does. It’s not going to be easy, Buffy, but you guys are very special together. That’s worth a little hard work.” Jonathan gets up from their table and starts to go.

Buffy pays for his coffee, and follows him. She tells Jonathan that she isn’t even sure how to talk to Riley any more. “How do I make it okay again?”

“If you really want it, you can make anything happen.” Over Jonathan’s shoulder is a giant billboard ad with a picture of Jonathan promoting running shoes.

The Initiative’s new interim commander, Colonel George Haviland, introduces himself to the troops. He will be in command until the investigation into recent events is completed. He tells them that they will carry on their mission, just as before, and that their number one priority is the recapture of Adam. With that in mind he has brought in their tactical consultant to talk to them.

Jonathan steps out, dressed in camouflage fatigues. He is at least a foot shorter than anyone else present. Graham leans over to whisper to Riley. ”It’s about time we brought out the big guns.” Riley nods agreement.

Jonathan is carrying a rolled up schematic which he lays out on the table in front of them. It is a drawing of Adam’s internal structure. He has been studying Professor Walsh’s original design, and has discovered that Adam is nuclear powered. Buried in his chest is a small reservoir of uranium 235.

“Sir, how long will it last?” asks Riley.

“Essentially forever,” says Jonathan “It also means that cutting off his head is useless. Killing Adam means annihilating him completely. But first we have to find him.”

Karen stands in the rain, sweeping across the windows of Jonathan’s house with a pair of binoculars, trying to catch a glimpse of her hero. Something blocks her view and she lowers the binoculars. There is a large ugly monster with a mark—a triangle with a star inside it—branded on its forehead. Karen screams as it attacks her.

Act II

The monster hits Karen, knocks her to the ground, and starts to beat on her. She kicks it away, gets to her feet and runs. She tosses away her binoculars as she goes.

Riley talks about Buffy with Jonathan in the Initiative’s HQ.

Jonathan ties a scarf around his neck. “She’s ready to forget it. You better be ready, too.”

Riley isn’t sure that Buffy will ever be able to forget it. She flinches away from him every time he tries to touch her.

Jonathan picks up a pistol and a clip. “She’s scared.”

“Scared of me?”

“Scared of what you’re thinking about.”

“What do you mean?” asks Riley.

Jonathan loads the clip into the pistol “She knows that Faith is…experienced.”

“What are you saying?” asks Riley. “Experienced? Oh, god. Does she think that, what, that I’d be comparing? She knows she’s the one I— I care about.”

“Have you let her know that?” asks Jonathan.

“I think I— Haven’t I? She has to know.”

“People can’t always see what’s right in front of them.” Jonathan pulls the scarf up over his eyes, blindfolding himself, and turns to aim at his targets. Three Initiative commandos are standing with apples on their heads.

It’s Swing Night at the Bronze. Royal Crown Review performs on stage while kids dance on the dance floor. Willow and Tara stand together at the edge of the dance floor grooving to the music.

Buffy and Riley are sitting at a table with Xander and Anya. Xander is a little upset. Last night during sex Anya called him “Jonathan.”

“It was a moan,” says Anya. “It was like, ‘a-a-a-ahh.’”

“Maybe it was ‘a-a-anathan.’” says Xander.

Riley thinks that Xander and Anya are quite the couple. If it develops into a fist fight, Buffy’s got $50 on Anya.

The band finishes its number, and Jonathan steps out to relieve the singer at the microphone. The audience goes wild. Tara and Willow join the others at their table.

“Good evening everyone!” says Jonathan. “I’d like to dedicate this song to some friends of mine, a very special couple who’ve been going through a tough time.” He looks at Buffy and Riley, and begins to sing Serenade in Blue.

Riley gets to his feet, and offers Buffy his hand. She takes it and he leads her out onto the dance floor. They hold each other close as they dance. Riley tries to tell her how he feels, but she stops him. She doesn’t want to talk. She just wants to dance. “I just want to say I’m sorry,” says Riley. “That it’s only you that I want.”

“I know,” says Buffy. “I know all of that.”

“You do? Since when?”

“Since you put your arms around me.”

Jonathan finishes the song, and picks up a trumpet. Tara is thrilled as he begins to play. He’s playing something off his new album. Xander and Anya forget their argument. Anya suddenly wants to go have sex. Xander does too. They head for the door, but they can’t take their eyes off Jonathan as they weave through the crowd.

On their way out they pass by Karen, who has just come running in. Her face is all scratched, and she has a fat lip. Buffy tries to stop her, and ask if she’s okay. Karen isn’t looking for Buffy. She runs up to the stage.

Jonathan signals for the band to stop, and jumps down to talk to her. “Tell me what hurt you Karen. I can help.”

Jonathan, Buffy and Riley take Karen back to Jonathan’s house. The police are there. Buffy asks the sergeant in charge what they are doing, and he explains that Jonathan’s staff called in a report of a disturbance. Jonathan assures the sergeant that he will handle things, and the police leave.

Jonathan returns his attention to Karen. He asks her to describe what attacked her. Riley pulls out a pen and a pad of paper and takes notes. Karen describes the monster. Big, ugly, with huge arms, covered with scabs and stuff. She suddenly remembers the mark on its forehead. Riley flips to a fresh page in his pad and hands it to her with his pen so she can draw it.

Jonathan looks at her drawing, a triangle with a star in it, and blinks. “Oh! This is a clue.” He seems to have lost his composure. Buffy asks him what it is.

Jonathan quickly recovers. “I’ve heard of this. It’s not a demon, just a monster. Not much more than an animal. Sticks to the woods, doesn’t come near populated areas.” He rips off the page with the drawing and hands the rest of the notebook back to Riley.

“But it did this time,” say Buffy. “It might again. Maybe we should patrol.” Riley volunteers to get an Initiative squad on the creature’s trail too.

Jonathan doesn’t think that will be necessary. The creature has probably returned to the woods, startled by its encounter with Karen, and more frightened of her than she was of it. He promises that he will take care of it. He and Riley take Karen away to see about getting her a ride home.

Buffy is not happy with Jonathan’s cavalier attitude toward this monster, but she doesn’t say anything.

A woman’s body lies gutted on the floor of a room in the university library. Nearby Adam sits at a desk facing several computer and television screens. He has a vampire with him. The vampire wants to do something about the body. Its smell is making him hungry. Adam doesn’t think the vampire would like her blood. She was suffering from a blood disease, and would have been dead within a year anyway.

The vampire tells Adam that there is something new in town. A monster attacked a girl. He looks at the TVs. “Oh, he was there.” Every one of the televisions has a different image of Jonathan showing. Jonathan on a talk show, Jonathan arriving at a movie premier with a supermodel, Jonathan accepting an award. “Jonathan.”

“Jonathan?” asks Adam. “Tell me who he is.”

“You’re joking, right? Jonathan is…Jonathan. Look.” The vampire points at the televisions.

Adam turns off the TVs. “These are lies. None of this is real. The world has been changed. It’s intriguing, but it’s wrong.”

The vampire looks around. “Feels okay to me.”

“You’re under his spell, just like the others. I seem to be the only one who’s not.” Adam tells the vampire that he is totally aware of himself, and his surroundings. No one has ever been as alive as he is. “You are all just shadows.”

The vampire wants to know what Adam plans to do. He suggests that Adam could kill Jonathan, but then thinks better of it. He doesn’t think Adam can do it.

“I don’t need to do anything. These magics are unstable, corrosive. They will inevitably lead to chaos.” Adam smiles. “And I’m interested in chaos.”

Jonathan stands wearing a robe in front of his fireplace, staring into the flames. A scantily clad blonde girl appears at the second floor balcony. “Jonathan, aren’t you coming to bed?” she asks, in a Swedish accent.

Her twin sister appears beside her. “Ya, it’s getting late.”

“I’ll be right there.” Jonathan drops his robe on the floor. Branded on his shoulder is the same mark as the one on the monster’s forehead.

Buffy walks back through campus with Willow and Tara, and tells them about what happened with Karen. Tara figures that Buffy and Willow will be taking off now to hunt the monster, but Buffy tells them that Jonathan said he was going to take care of it. Willow thinks that’s cool, but Buffy isn’t so certain. Jonathan seemed a little scared by what happened.

“Buffy, this is Jonathan,” says Willow, “You know he doesn’t get scared. You talked about it when you gave him the Class Protector award at the Prom.”

They reach the entrance to Tara’s dorm, and she leaves Buffy and Willow to go to her own room. Buffy and Willow continue on together. Willow asks how things are going with Riley. She saw them dancing.

“It was a great dance,” says Buffy. “For the first time I felt like Faith wasn’t there. Like no one was there but us.”

Tara walks into the main floor of her dorm. She hears a growl, and looks around. She doesn’t see anything. She hurries down the hallway. The monster bursts through the doors at the other end of the hall. It hits Tara, and knocks her to the floor.

Act III

Tara kicks the monster away from her, and crawls away from it along the floor, reciting an incantation in Latin. “Sensus confundantur et aer oppleatur. Caligo absorbeat mentem obscuratam.”² She extends her hands toward the monster, and a cloud of smoke erupts from them. The creature is startled, and retreats away from Tara, giving her a chance to get to her feet, and run.

Tara runs to a janitor’s closet and locks herself inside it. The monster beats on the door.

Buffy knocks on Tara’s door, and Willow lets her in. Tara is lying huddled on her bed, trembling with fear. Buffy asks what happened. Willow tells her that Tara was found in the janitor’s closet in the morning. It looked like she had spent the entire night in it.

Buffy goes to Tara and asks her if she can describe what attacked her. Tara describes the creature: ugly and lumpy, and says that it had something like a greek letter on its head, only not.

Buffy gets up and looks around. She finds a pen and a notebook on top of Tara’s dresser. She takes them and draws the symbol that Karen had drawn the night before. She shows it to Tara. “Was it this?”

Tara nods.

Willow doesn’t want to believe it. “Buffy, Jonathan said we were all safe. Jonathan said it.”

Buffy walks through the streets of Sunnydale, deep in thought. Jonathan posters are all around her.

Buffy knocks on Xander’s door, and Anya answers it. Anya tells Buffy that Xander isn’t in.

“Oh,” says Buffy, and stands waiting.

“You’re not going away,” says Anya. “Why aren’t you going away?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping to look at some of Xander’s stuff,” says Buffy.

“Oh!” Anya realizes that this is one of those situations that requires her to be polite. “Sure. Come on in. Make yourself at home, and so on.”

Buffy comes in and closes the door. Anya—her social duty executed—goes back to sitting on the sofa reading Jonathan’s autobiography.

Buffy looks around Xander’s basement apartment. The entire place is a shrine to Jonathan. Jonathan posters on the wall. Jonathan comic books. Jonathan trading cards. She picks up a set of the cards in their plastic protector, and sits on the arm of the sofa beside Anya.

Anya looks up at her. “Oh, you’re still here. That’s nice.” She goes back to reading her book.

Buffy gives Anya’s knee a nudge, prompting her to move down the sofa a bit, and make room for Buffy to sit beside her. Buffy wants to ask Anya a few questions. She wonders if Anya thinks it’s a little strange that Jonathan is so good at everything.

“He’s Jonathan.” Anya tries to return to reading her book. Buffy takes the book away from her. “Hey! I was just at the part where he invents the Internet!”

“Anya, he fights better than I do, and I’m the Slayer. The Slayer. I mean, that’s supposed to mean something, right?”

Anya thinks she understands whats bugging Buffy. “Oh, buck up, you.” She gives Buffy a punch on the arm. “You kill the best. Go you. Kill, kill.”

“Actually not needing validation right now, but thank you.” Buffy looks at the cover of Jonathan’s book. “He just seems too perfect. I don’t know.”

Anya wants her book back, but Buffy isn’t done. She asks Anya about the wishes she granted back in her demon days. Anya starts describing the sorts of things she did.

“But someone could wish the whole world to be different, right?” asks Buffy. “That’s possible?”

“Sure,” says Anya. “Alternate realities. You could have, like, a world without shrimp or, with, you know, nothing but shrimp. You could even make, like, a freaky world where Jonathan’s, like, some kind of not-perfect mouth-breather, if that’s what’s blowing up your skirt these days. Just don’t ask me to live there.”

Anya is done with Buffy. She asks for her book back, and suggests that it is time for Buffy to be off somewhere else.

Buffy gathers the gang at Giles’ to discuss her concerns about Jonathan. “I’m just saying it doesn’t make any sense. He starred in The Matrix, but he never left town, and how did he graduate from med school? He’s only 18 years old.”

The others don’t really get what Buffy’s driving at. Anya wants to know when Jonathan is going to show up to start the meeting. She is very disappointed to learn that they are having this meeting without him.

“Well, I was just kind of wondering if maybe anyone else thought that Jonathan was kind of too perfect?” asks Buffy.

“No, he’s not,” says Xander. “He’s just perfect enough. He crushed the bones of The Master, he blew up a big snake made out of Mayor, and he coached the U.S. Women’s soccer team to a stunning World Cup victory. We saw him doing those things.”

Buffy isn’t so sure. She doesn’t think they can trust their memories. She asks Anya to tell them about alternate realities. Anya starts to yammer about shrimp.

“Stop, you’re saying it wrong,” says Buffy. “I think that Jonathan may be doing something so that he’s manipulating the world, and we’re all, like, his pawns.”

“Or prawns,” says Anya.

“Stop with the shrimp! I am trying to do something here.”

Giles understands that, but he thinks that Buffy is a little out of her depth.

“I’m not,” says Buffy.

“It sounds like nonsense,” says Riley, and Buffy looks at him, hurt by his lack of confidence in her, but Riley isn’t done. “I’m starting to know this girl pretty well, and I think she sees things that the rest of us don’t.” He goes and stands beside her. “I think, for once, we should follow her lead.”

The others look around at each other uncomfortably, but they are ready to listen to what Buffy has to say. Buffy tells them that she thinks that Jonathan is ignoring important evidence about what happened, and Tara got hurt because of it, but she doesn’t think he did it on purpose.

“How did he ignore evidence?” asks Giles.

“The monster had a mark on it,” says Buffy. “Jonathan saw it, and he kind of…blinked.”

“He blinked,” says Xander. “The man moistens his eyeballs, and we’re having a meeting about it?”

“He knows something about the monster. He was reacting to the mark. Oh! Wait.” Buffy jumps to her feet. “I remember something. Giles, do you have a Jonathan swimsuit calendar?”

“No,” says Giles. Buffy looks at him. “Yes. It was a gift.” Giles goes and pulls the calendar out from under his desk blotter.

Buffy starts flipping through pages. “No. No. Whoa. No.” She finds what she is looking for. “There.”

“Oh,” says Willow.

“Yeah, pretty darn lickable,” says Anya.

That wasn’t the sort of “Oh” Willow meant. In the picture Buffy stopped at the brand on Jonathan’s shoulder is clearly visible. Riley wonders why Jonathan would have the same mark as the monster.

“I don’t know,” says Buffy. “But he’s definitely keeping it—”

“Is this a private conversation? Or can Mr. July sit in?” They all turn around and see Jonathan leaning against the door frame.

“Hi! Buffy was just saying how you had a monster cut up Willow’s friend, and—” Anya stops when she notices the glare Buffy is giving her. Jonathan asks Buffy what she means.

“It’s just—the mark,” says Buffy. “You said it was safe and…it wasn’t. I’m sorry. I just don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll explain,” says Jonathan. Everyone takes a seat anxious to listen to him. “Buffy is right.”

“No!” That was not what Xander wanted to hear. Willow looks scared too.

Jonathan tells them that he does have a history with this creature. Every time he faces it though, his mind becomes confused. It takes all of his energy just to fight the confusion.

“Oh, oh! He’s like your kryptonite,” says Xander.

Jonathan nods. “Maybe. I just know that it takes all my energy to try and fight the confusion. That’s why I had his mark tattooed on me, so that I wouldn’t underestimate it next time.”

Everyone is relieved to hear Jonathan’s explanation. It makes a whole lot more sense to them than the whole alternate reality thing Buffy had been going on about. Buffy isn’t satisfied though. “Jonathan, let’s go after the monster. Right now. You and me.”

Jonathan is reluctant. “Well, I’m sure it’s left town by now. That’s been its pattern.”

“We can try,” says Buffy.

“Sure,” says Jonathan. “Let’s do that.” He and Buffy leave together.

Buffy and Jonathan start their hunt at the cemetery. They find Spike by the Alpert crypt. Spike is not thrilled to be getting a visit from Jonathan and his sidekick. Buffy tells him to shut up.

“Ooh, semi-harsh language from Betty. You’re feisty when the big guy’s standing beside you. Someday, sweet Slayer,” Spike runs his hand down Buffy’s cheek, “I would love to take you on.” He runs a finger down along her neck, and on down to her chest. “See you face the evil alone for once.”

Jonathan slaps Spike’s hand aside and pushes him up against the crypt. He figures that Spike is keeping pretty close tabs on the monsters, since they are all gunning for him these days. He asks if he knows anything about the new monster in town.

“No,” says Spike, “But then again, I’m probably lying.”

Jonathan doesn’t think that they are going to get anything useful out of Spike, and starts to go, but Buffy isn’t done. She pushes Spike up against the crypt hard enough to bounce his head off of it.

“Hey!” says Spike. “What are you doing? You aren’t supposed to do that!”

“You’re pretty much relying on butcher’s blood these days, right, Spike?” asks Buffy.

“What are you saying?” asks Spike.

“Just that the butchers in this town respect Jonathan. They do him a favour, and you might find yourself getting kind of thirsty.” She lets go of Spike, and steps back to hear what he has to say now.

Spike looks at Jonathan. Jonathan shrugs at him. Spike tells them that he doesn’t know much. Some vampires recently got kicked out of a cave up behind Brookside Park. Buffy and Jonathan start to go, as Spike keeps telling them that whatever did the kicking was probably pretty big. He rubs his head.

“That was very good.” Jonathan tells Buffy. She smiles brightly, pleased to hear this from him. “Very good.”

The gang is researching world altering magic. Riley is pretty amazed by some of the things he is reading. “These spells. These really work? I mean, can you really turn your enemies inside out, or learn to excrete gold coins?”

“That one’s not so much fun,” says Anya.

Willow tells him that the spells work, but they require concentration, and being attuned with the forces of the universe.

“Right, you can’t just go…” Xander looks at the open book in his lap. “…‘librum incendere’ and expect—” The book in his hands bursts into flames. Xander slams it shut, extinguishing them.

“Xander,” says Giles, “don’t speak Latin in front of the books.”

Willow finds the mark in the book she has been looking through. “It’s part of an augmentation spell. Jonathan did an augmentation spell!”

“What, um— did he have…you know,” asks Riley.

“Him, and how we see him,” says Willow. “This spell turns the sorcerer into a sort of paragon— the best of everything, everyone’s ideal, but there’s a drawback.”

“A drawback?” asks Riley.

“That happens a lot,” says Xander.

Giles reads over Willow’s shoulder. “In order to balance the new force of good, the spell has to create the opposing force of evil. The worst of everything, everyone’s nightmare.”

“He created the monster,” says Anya.

“So we’re saying he did a spell just to make us think he was cool?” asks Xander. “That is so cool!”

Riley is worried. Buffy and Jonathan are going after this monster. He wonders if they’ll be okay. Giles tells him that the well being of the creature is linked to Jonathan. If the monster is defeated the spell will be broken. Jonathan will revert to whatever he was like before.

“Jonathan isn’t going to want Buffy to get very far,” says Anya.

Buffy and Jonathan arrive at the cave. It leads to a huge underground cavern. They walk up to the edge of a dark chasm, too deep for them to see the bottom. Buffy looks down into it. “Wow! Fall down there and be dead for a while.”

Jonathan steps up beside her. “Yeah. Don’t want that to happen.” Buffy is busy looking around the cavern. She doesn’t notice Jonathan’s hand moving toward her.

Jonathan grabs Buffy’s wrist, and pulls her back away from the chasm. “Come on. We’ve got a monster to—” The monster hits him, and knocks him across the cavern floor.

Act IV

“Buffy was right,” says Willow. She doesn’t seem to like the sound of that. She tries it again. “Buffy was right.”

“Doesn’t sound very likely, does it?” says Anya.

“So if this is the world he created, what’s the real world like?” asks Riley.

Willow is scared. Everything is going to change. Giles doesn’t think so. He thinks that everything will stay pretty much the same, just that Jonathan won’t be Jonathan any more. Xander isn’t happy to hear that. Everything good in the world comes from Jonathan.

Riley is worried too, but about something different. The world only shifts back if Buffy defeats the creature. What happens if the creature kills Buffy? They could be trapped in this wrong universe forever. That doesn’t sound so bad to Xander, except for the Buffy dying part.

“Giles, can Buffy do it?” asks Willow.

“I honestly don’t know,” says Giles. “She’s never stood alone against something like this before.”

Buffy fights the creature while Jonathan lies unconscious on the floor. It tosses her aside as Jonathan starts to recover. Jonathan flips to his feet, breaks a stalactite off the cavern ceiling to use as a club and attacks the creature, giving Buffy a chance to recover.

“Jonathan, what do I do?”

Jonathan grabs the creature from behind. “I think you’re going to have to handle this one solo.”

“What?” asks Buffy, “But how?”

“You’ll know. You used to, and the more you hurt it, the more I’ll lose my—” The creature hits Jonathan, stopping him from saying whatever he was going to say.

“What?” asks Buffy. “Lose your—”

Jonathan pushes the creature toward Buffy, and she trips it. The creature lands hard on its back, stunning it. Jonathan suddenly loses his bravery, and goes to hide behind a cluster of stalagmites.

Buffy attacks the creature with a quick series of punches and kicks. The more she hurts it, the more her confidence returns. “I remember this! This is good!”

The monster hits Buffy, knocks her away, and resumes its attack. Jonathan’s bravery returns and he comes out of hiding to attack the monster, but before he gets there Buffy recovers, and goes back onto the offensive. Jonathan goes back into hiding. Buffy kicks the creature, and knocks it to the ground. As it’s getting back to its feet she charges it. The monster is ready for her, and it deflects her charge. Buffy slides along the ground, and comes to a stop at the lip of the chasm. The monster moves toward her.

Jonathan comes out of hiding, and attacks the creature from behind. He tackles it. The creature falls into the pit, and Jonathan falls with it.

Buffy’s hand lashes out and catches Jonathan’s ankle. Jonathan dangles head down over the pit with Buffy holding him.

A force passes through Sunnydale, sweeping away all the Jonathan paraphernalia. The posters and billboards are replaced by others, advertizing non-Jonathan items. The Sun Cinema, which had been playing Being Jonathan Levinson, is now closed for repairs.

Epilogue

Buffy and her friends sit under a tree on campus. They are all pretty confused. They all still remember what happened, but they can’t really believe it.

“You know what I’ll always remember?” asks Xander.

“The swimsuit calendar is sticking in my mind,” says Riley. “Not in a good way.”

“I’ll always remember the way he made me feel about me,” says Xander. “Valued and respected, sort of tingly, and now I’m just…empty.”

“Poor Xander,” says Buffy. “I guess Jonathan hurt you most of all.” Tara clears her throat and raises her hand. “Except, of course, after Tara.”

“Did anyone else feel way too tall?” asks Riley. “I felt way too tall.”

Buffy notices that Jonathan is standing watching them from the nearby path. She gets up to go talk to him while her friends keep talking amongst themselves.

“And who really did star in The Matrix?” asks Anya.

“Wait!” says Riley “That wasn’t real either?”

Jonathan tells Buffy that he wasn’t sure that she would want to talk with him. Most people seem to be forgetting about what happened, and the ones how aren’t are mostly mad at him. People have stopped talking to him. The twins have moved out.

Buffy starts to ask why he did it, but she stops. She understands the why. She wants to know how. Jonathan tells her that after the thing with the gun in the clock tower he went to counselling. One of the other kids there showed him the spell. “He glossed right over the monster.” He wants to apologise for what happened. No one was supposed to get hurt.

“Jonathan, you get why everyone is angry, though, right?” asks Buffy. “It’s not just the monster. People didn’t like being the little actors in your sock puppet theater.”

“You weren’t,” says Jonathan. “You weren’t socks. We were friends.”

“Jonathan, you can’t keep trying to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once. Things are complicated. They take time and work.”

“Yeah. Right.” Jonathan turns and starts to walk away. He stops and turns back. “Hey, Buffy. You remember I gave you some advice?”

“Watch out for southpaws?”

“No. About you and Riley. I mean, things are kind of starting to blur, but this cool thing I said, um, that I don’t really remember, but I think it’s right. I think it’s kind of the same thing you just said to me. About things taking work.”

“Yeah. I remember,” says Buffy.

“Good. Because it’s true. What you have is really complicated, but it’s worth it. I think that’s what I said.”

Buffy sits with Riley on his bed, kissing him. She breaks off long enough to tell him that she’s glad they got a chance to talk things out.

“We haven’t talked at all,” says Riley.

“Oh,” says Buffy, “Well, whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it great.” They go back to kissing.

“Mmm, Jonathan,” says Buffy.

Death Toll

Notes

1. The opening credits for this episode were heavily altered, inserting several clips showing Wonder Jonathan.
2. Translation: Confound the senses and charge the air. Mist engulfs. Mind is fogged.