Introduction
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| Crush | The Body |
Buffy complains to Giles about what she has discovered about Spike’s feelings toward her as she whales away on a punching dummy in her training room in the back of the Magic Box. She tells him that it makes her feel gross and dirty. Giles thinks that’s ridiculous. She is in no way responsible for the way Spike thinks or feels.
“Well, aren’t I responsible? I mean, something about me had to make him feel that, right? Something that made him say, ‘woof, that’s the one for me.’” Buffy hits the dummy with an especially powerful knee to its groin. Giles thinks she should calm down. So does Xander, who’s inside the dummy.
“Oh, Puffy Xander. I’m sorry.” Buffy pulls off the kendo helmet that covers his head. “I got—I guess I got carried away. Are you okay?”
“I’m alive. I can tell ’cause of the pain,” says Xander. Giles goes to get him some ice while Buffy helps Xander lean against the wall. The over padded suit he’s in won’t let him sit down.
“See, that’s my secret to attracting men,” says Buffy, “You know, it’s simple, really. You slap ’em around a bit, you torture ’em, you make their lives a living hell, and…” Xander tries to get a word in edgewise, but she doesn’t let him. “…sure, the nice guys, they’ll run away, but every now and then, you’ll come across a real prince of a guy like Spike who gets off on it.”
Xander asks to be stood up again. Buffy helps him up as he tells her that the problem isn’t with her. “Don’t do this to yourself, please.”
“I just… I just want to know that there’s going to be another good one,” says Buffy. “One that I won’t chase away.”
“There will be, promise. He’s out there. He can come along any minute.”
“Yeah, and the minute after that, I can terrify him with my alarming strength and remarkable self-involvement.”
“What? I don’t think you’re like that.”
“Maybe I could change,” says Buffy. “You know, I could— I could work harder. I could spend less time slaying. I could laugh at his jokes. Men like that, right? The joke laughing at?”
“Or maybe you could just be Buffy,” says Xander. “He’ll see your amazing heart, and he’ll fall in love with you.”
“Xander, that’s… Ohh…” Buffy places her arms around him, and rests her head against his heavily padded chest.
“This is the day you choose to hug me?” asks Xander. “Buffy, you ever think maybe the reason you haven’t found a great relationship on the Hellmouth is because it’s a Hellmouth? Seems to me it’s a pretty terrible place to try to build anything.”
Buffy goes on hugging him. “Mmm…”
A car pulls over to the side of Sunnydale’s main street and a girl—April—gets out. April is a very pretty young lady, with long dark hair, and a wide smile that flashes a mouth full of perfect teeth. She thanks the driver for giving her a ride. He asks her if she’s sure she wants to be getting out here. “This place is kind of… What are you looking for in Sunnydale, anyway?”
April looks around and smiles. “True love.”
Joyce spins around in the living room, modeling her dress for Buffy and Dawn. She is dressed and made up to the nines. She asks for their opinions. Dawn isn’t sure and asks her to spin around again. Joyce does.
“Now, could you spin around the other way?” asks Buffy.
Joyce starts to comply, but she stops mid-spin. “Now you’re messing with me!”
Buffy tells her mother that they just wanted to see how many times they could get her to spin around. Dawn isn’t sure if they should score it as five, or four and a half.
“So is anyone going to talk about my dress?” asks Joyce.
Dawn tells her she likes it.
“You sure?” asks Joyce. “I mean, it’s not too Mom-ish?”
“Oh,” says Dawn. “That was why I liked it.”
Buffy thinks they are both crazy. The dress isn’t Mom-ish at all. “It’s sexy. It screams, ‘Randy sex kitten. Buy me one drink, and I’ll—’ Oh, wait, that’s not really good, either.”
Joyce asks the time. Buffy checks her watch, and tells her mother it’s 4:23. Joyce still has lots of time before her date is supposed to pick her up at seven. Buffy and Dawn want to know more about this Brian guy their mother is having a date with.
Joyce tells them that he works for a publishing house, and is a nice normal guy.
“I think I’ve heard of those,” says Buffy.
Joyce met Brian on her first day back at the gallery. He asked about some antique cameos that she didn’t know anything about, since they had been ordered by Carol while Joyce was sick. Since Brian didn’t know anything about them either they had lots to talk about.
Joyce starts to fret about the plans for the evening: dinner and a movie. Maybe they should do the movie first, so they will have something to talk about during dinner, and what sort of restaurant should they go to? “Should I try to make things romantic, or sort of let him set the pace?” She asks for Buffy’s advice.
“Oh, no,” says Buffy. “Love Doctor Buffy is not in. I am not qualified to give dating advice. I’ve had exactly two boyfriends, and they both left. Really left. Left town left.”
“Honey, you just had some bad luck,” says Joyce, and Dawn tells Buffy maybe she’ll meet someone at the Spring Break party she’s going to tonight.
“Or maybe Brian has a son, and Mom and I can go on some unspeakably awkward double dates,” says Buffy.
“Oh, god—Brian. What time is it now?” asks Joyce.
Buffy checks her watch. “4:24.”
“You sure the dress is okay?” asks Joyce.
“Hmm,” says Dawn. “Spin again. Real fast this time.”
Tara and Anya walk down the street together talking. Anya is really getting into computers lately. Tara is much less so. She leaves that sort of thing to Willow. She’s surprised that Anya understands all that stuff.
“Oh. At first, it was confusing,” says Anya. “Just the idea of computers was, like, ‘Whoa, I’m 1,100 years old.’ I had trouble adjusting to the idea of Lutherans.”
“I go online sometimes,” says Tara, “but everyone’s spelling is really bad. It’s depressing.”
Anya thinks that Tara should try online trading. It’s great. She has taken the money Giles has paid her for working at the Magic Box and tripled it.
Their conversation is interrupted by April. “Hi.” She smiles brightly. “I’m looking for Warren. Do you know where Warren is? And if you do, could you tell me?” April speaks with perfect diction. Tara tells her that she doesn’t think they know anyone named Warren. “Well, all righty!” says April. “No harm in asking. Thanks,” she continues down the street, and asks the next person she sees, a man sitting on a bench, if he knows Warren.
Tara and Anya keep going the other way. Anya tells her how she designed the magic shop’s web site. “Huge photo of me.”
Buffy and Xander dance together at a Spring Break party in one of the UCSunnydale dorms. He asks her if she’s having a good time. Buffy is. “Dancing with you is way better than trying to hook up with some good-looking guy.”
“I think I liked it better when you were kicking me in my puffy groin,” says Xander.
Anya watches from the sidelines with Willow and Tara. She tells them that she let Xander dance with Buffy. It’s a good deed, she expects a big karmic reward.
Buffy and Xander’s dance comes to an end, and she thanks him. Xander heads back to Anya. Buffy looks around and spots Ben standing by the punch bowl. She moves around the table and leans against a pillar near him, pretending not to have noticed him until he spots her. “Ben. Hey, I didn’t even know you were here,” she tells him. “And again with the non-medical clothing.”
“Well, actually, these are orthopedic pants,” says Ben. Buffy doesn’t react. “Man, that sounded so funny in my head.”
Buffy gives a very fake laugh. “It’s very, very funny. It’s funny in my head, too.”
Ben asks Buffy if she’s having a good time. She is. Her friends are here, she’s dancing, having fun. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I am now,” says Ben. Buffy asks him if he wants to dance. “I’m not really good. You know…rhythm.” Ben sees her disappointment, and quickly reverses. He’d love to dance. He just needs to find some place to put his drink down first.
Anya is admiring the woven squares in the chex mix. She is really impressed with the craftsmanship that went into making them. Xander starts to explain to her that they aren’t hand woven. They are made in a machine. He’s distracted when he sees April walk into the party. She’s still looking for Warren. He asks Anya who she is.
“Oh, that girl.” Anya speaks evenly and precisely. “Tara and I met her. She speaks with a strange evenness and selects her words a shade too precisely.”
“Some of us like that kind of thing in a girl,” says Xander.
Someone else has noticed April too. Warren is at the party. He quickly collects his date, Katrina, and tells her that they have to be going. Katrina is puzzled by Warren’s sudden urgency as he drags her out.
Willow rejoins Xander and Anya. April approaches the group and asks if they’ve seen Warren.
“Uh, Warren who?” asks Xander.
“He’s…Warren. And he’s looking for me. He lost me.” April leaves them to find someone else to ask about Warren.
Tara makes her way through the crowd back to her friends. “It’s that girl again. Is she still looking for Warren? Weird. It’s been, like, all day.”
“There’s something strange about her,” says Willow. “She talks funny.”
“Some men find that appealing,” says Anya.
“I just hope she finds him,” says Tara.
“Somehow, I don’t think a girl that looks like that is going to be lonely for too long,” says Xander.
“Definitely not,” agrees Willow. She sees the look Tara gives her. “Oh, not me. I was just saying a pretty girl like that, there’s always someone lurking around, looking for some action.”
Buffy is still waiting for Ben to return. She looks around and finds Spike looking at her. “Small world,” he says. She glares at him. “Oh, dear, if looks could stake. Are you having fun, Pet? You, uh, trolling for your next ex? Got to say, you could do better.”
“Thought I was going to leave town?” asks Spike. “It’s a free country. Free party. If you want me to leave, you can put your hands on my hot, tight little body and make me.”
“Get away from me,” says Buffy. Spike looks at her for a few seconds, then nods, and walks away.
“Was that guy bothering you?” asks Ben. “Should I, um, offer to get inappropriately violent or something?” Buffy tells him no. “Good, ’cause honestly, I don’t want to.”
“So, are you ready to dance?” asks Buffy.
“Um, first…” Ben hands her a slip of paper with his phone number on it. “I was going to try to subtly work it into the conversation, but it didn’t pan out, and I thought I should try to give it to you before you see me dance. You know, in case you want to get coffee.”
“Thank you,” says Buffy. “Um, I just… I think you should know that I kind of have this bad history in which, you know, we go get coffee and, well, it all ends with you leaving town, and you just got here and everything—”
“Apparently we’d be risking a tragic chain reaction, but I just really like…coffee. I think coffee might be worth it. And I would like to get to know coffee better.”
“Then I’ll call you,” says Buffy.
Spike finds April still looking for Warren. He looks across the room and sees Buffy laughing and talking with Ben again. Buffy glances his way. She has been keeping track of him all the time she’s been speaking with Ben. “And who are you, darling?” he asks April.
“I’m April. I’m lookin’ for my fella.”
“Maybe you just found him,” says Spike.
“Really? Where?”
Spike leans forward and whispers something in April’s ear.
“Oh…” April grabs Spike by the collar and belt and lifts him off the floor. “That would be wrong! You are not my boyfriend!” She throws Spike through the window.
Spike picks himself up off the ground and brushes away bits of broken glass. “Bloody hell! You threw me through a window! What’s that about?”
“You cannot make those suggestions to me,” says April. “I have a boyfriend. Warren is my boyfriend.”
“You know what? My bleeding sympathies to Warren.” Spike turns, and walks away.
April turns around, and everyone takes a step away from her. She goes back to looking for Warren. Buffy steps in front of her. “Excuse me. Hi. Um, maybe you and I could talk. You know, ’cause…throwing Spike through a window—” Buffy smiles at the memory. “Well, that’s really good. But, you know, generally speaking—”
“Do you know my boyfriend?” asks April.
“Okay, I think you need to take a second and stop looking for your boyfriend,” says Buffy. April grabs her, and tosses her across the room.
Buffy sits up, rubbing a bruised elbow. “I have to find him,” says April. She walks across to where Buffy landed and looks down at her. “If I hurt you just now, I’m sorry. And I hope that your boyfriend will take good care of you.” Ben, and Buffy’s friends rush across the room to check on her.
Buffy talks about what happened with her friends after the party has broken up. She’s still rubbing her arm. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had it with super-strong little women who aren’t me.”
“At least she didn’t do too much damage,” says Tara.
“Are you kidding? Double-glazed glass ain’t cheap,” says Xander. “And the jamb needs to be completely repaired.” He stops. “Oh, dear god. I’m the grown-up who sees the world through my job. I’m like my Uncle Dave the plumber, and I must be shunned.”
“Okay,” says Willow.
Buffy wonders what April is. “This may sound nuts, but I kind of got the impression that she was a—”
“Robot,” says Tara.
“Oh, yeah, robot,” says everyone else. Since everyone seems to be on the same page with what April is, Buffy goes on to ask what she wants.
“Warren, whoever that is,” says Tara. Xander figures he must be the guy who built her.
Warren is a fairly unusual name. Willow thinks she should be able to track him down in time. She can check the school records tonight, but it’s a bit late to go knocking on doors to check out any Warrens she finds. They won’t be able to start narrowing it down until morning.
“She could do a lot of damage by then,” says Anya.
“To who? Spike?” asks Xander. “See how vigorously I don’t care. She was looking for this Warren, but it didn’t sound like she wanted to hurt him, she said he’s her boyfriend.”
Willow agrees, this doesn’t seem too urgent.
“Okay, we’ll track down Warren tomorrow,” says Buffy. “Tonight, I better go back and rescue Giles. He’s been watching Dawn while my Mom’s out on her date. And I have a feeling there’s only so much he can take.”
“Oh, Giles and Dawnie?” asks Tara. “I bet they ended up having a blast.”
Giles pauses on the way out the door. “Dear god, Buffy, there’s only so much I can take. We’re going to have to change the system. A fourteen year old’s too old to be babysat, and it’s not fair on her.”
“What did she make you do?”
“We listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance,” says Giles. “Then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys.”
Buffy suppresses a giggle. “I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. But if it makes you feel any better, my fun time Buffy party night involved watching a robot throw Spike through a window. So, if you want to trade… No, wait… I wouldn’t give that memory up for anything.”
Giles is instantly interested, and Buffy tells him they are going to work on it in the morning, unless he wants to stay. “Then you and I could…”
They are interrupted by Joyce arriving at the door. “Who wants to hear everything?”
“…listen to my mom talk about boys,” says Buffy. Giles quickly excuses himself, and says goodnight.
“Bye, Rupert,” says Joyce, and turns back to Buffy. “Gosh, I’d forgotten how much fun dating can be.”
Buffy looks at her mother. “I don’t know. I was standing right here. I didn’t see Prince Charming. I didn’t even see a good-night kiss. It all looked pretty tame to me.”
“I suppose, by your standards, it could seem pretty— Oh, dear.”
“What?” asks Buffy.
“I left my bra in his car.”
Buffy is aghast. “Mother!”
“I’m joking,” says Joyce.
“Good god, that’s horrible,” says Buffy. “Don’t do that.”
“I left it in the restaurant,” says Joyce.
Buffy doesn’t want to hear any more. She covers her ears, and runs up the stairs.
“On the dessert cart!” Joyce yells after her.
“I can’t hear you!” shouts Buffy.
April knocks on the door of a suburban house. It’s answered by a very sleepy looking man dressed in a robe. “Hi. Does Warren live here?”
“What the hell?” he asks. “What are you doing? It’s 3:30.”
“Yes, it is,” says April. “Does Warren live here?” The man closes the door in her face without saying anything more. “Okay, then. Bye.” April walks across the lawn to the next house on the street.
The Scooby Gang has gathered around the round table in the Magic Box next morning. Giles asks if they’re sure that what they are looking for is a robot. “Absolutely,” says Buffy.
“She practically had ‘genuine molded plastic’ stamped on her ass,” says Tara. Everyone looks at her in surprise. She looks a little embarrassed. “Just trying a little spicy talk.”
Willow is looking for Warrens on her computer. So far she has struck out at UCSunnydale. She is starting to check other nearby schools.
“Whoever he is, he knows his stuff,” says Xander. “That girl, well…that was a nice-looking girl.” Anya tells everyone that she isn’t bothered by him saying that. She knows Xander loves her.
Giles wonders if there is anything else they can do. Tara asks if he has any books on robots. “Oh, yes. Dozens. There’s an enormous amount of research we should do before—” He stops. “No, I’m lying. I haven’t got squat. I just like to see Xander squirm.”
Xander gives him a half hearted laugh. “Funny. Charming and funny.”
Willow finds what she’s looking for. A guy named Warren Mears. He had gone to Sunnydale High with them for a semester, but he left town to go to a tech college over in Dutton. His parents still live in town, and she has their address. He probably came home for Spring Break. Buffy thinks she should go talk to him. Giles thinks that’s a little premature. They don’t know why Warren created this robot. Everyone looks at him.
“Um…don’t you think she’s just…” says Tara.
“Yeah. She’s just sort of a…” says Willow.
“She’s a sexbot!” says Xander.
Giles spots a customer waiting at the counter and moves away from the table to help her.
“What guy doesn’t dream about that?” asks Xander. “Beautiful girl with no other thought but to please you, willing to do anything.” He looks around at Buffy, Willow, Tara and Anya staring at him. “Heh. Too many girls. I miss Oz. He’d get it. He wouldn’t say anything, but he’d get it.”
“Why would anyone do that if they could have a real live person?” asks Anya.
“Maybe he couldn’t,” says Willow. “Find a real person.”
“Oh, come on,” says Buffy. “The guy’s just a big wedge of sleaze. Don’t make excuses for him.”
“I’m not,” says Willow. “I’m just saying people get lonely. Maybe having someone around, even someone you made up, maybe it’s easier.”
Tara thinks it’s weird. Everyone wants someone to be with, but this just seems so sad.
Buffy moves back into her training room. She takes Ben’s phone number out of her pocket and looks at it. She picks up the phone, and puts it back down. Then she picks it up again and dials his number.
Buffy’s call catches Ben just as he is transforming from Glory. He is a little out of breath when he answers. Buffy asks if she’s caught him at a bad time. It’s still kind of early. He tells her that it’s okay. He just got in from the night shift at the hospital, but he’s glad she called.
“I found your number in my pocket,” says Buffy, “and, you know, I figured I’d pick up the phone a couple times and then hang up and then finally call and see if you wanted to get that cup of coffee or…”
Ben thinks that coffee sounds good. He and Buffy make a date for tomorrow night. After Buffy has hung up Ben looks down at the slinky red dress he’s wearing. “Oh fine!”
Warren packs his bag in preparation to leave to leave town. His girlfriend Katrina still doesn’t know what the rush is. If they had planned to leave his parents’ place so quickly, they might as well have just gone to visit her sister the way she’d wanted. Warren doesn’t want to talk about Katrina’s sister again. He just wants to go.
“Why the rush?” asks Katrina. “It’s real early. Are we even going to say good-bye to your Mom?”
“You can call her,” says Warren. “Katrina, if you don’t want to pack, that’s fine. We can buy new stuff. Now let’s just go.” Katrina is upset that something is going on that Warren doesn’t want to tell her about. Warren just wants to go. He grabs his bag and opens the front door.
Buffy is standing in the doorway, her fist raised about to knock on it. She stands there in surprise for a couple of seconds before she can say anything. “I have to talk to you.”
Katrina is not happy to see this girl, but Warren ignores her. “Is it about her?” he asks.
“Yes,” says Buffy.
Katrina wants to know what they are talking about, but Warren tells her to go wait in the kitchen. She doesn’t want to do that. She just wants him to tell Buffy to go away. Warren can’t do that.
“You’re keeping secrets from me—other girls and who knows what else,” says Katrina.
“Trina, shut up,” says Warren.
“That’s it. Forget it, Warren. I’m gone.” Katrina leaves through the door Buffy is still standing in. He tries to get her to stop, but she keeps going. He turns his attention back to Buffy.
“My name is Buffy Summers. We were at Sunnydale high together. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, I know,” says Warren. “April— did she hurt someone?”
“Not yet.” Buffy smiles. “Well, no one that matters.”
Warren tells Buffy that April is looking for him, she followed him here. Buffy has already figured that out. Warren tells her there’s more. Buffy knows about that too.
“No, wait. This is important,” says Warren.
“Believe me, I worked it out,” says Buffy.
“No, this is something that you can’t possibly know.” Warren stops. Buffy waits for him to continue. “She’s a robot.”
“Uh-huh,” says Buffy.
Dawn is intrigued by the news that there’s a robot in town. She asks if it’s another Ted, because she always figured there could be more than one of him. Willow tells her that this robot’s a girl. Since Buffy is off tracking down the robot, Xander offers to drop Dawn off at school. He opens the door to the Magic Box for them to go.
“Coming through! Coming through!” Spike runs in through the door covered in a blanket that has caught on fire. He drops it on the floor, stomps out the flames and looks around. “Hello all. What’s going on, then?”
No one is happy to see him. Giles tells Spike that he isn’t welcome, and Willow adds that she’s working on finding a spell that will keep him out of the shop, even if it is a public place.
“Nyah, forget it,” says Xander. “Letting him in is good ’cause then we get to toss him out.”
“Ooh, can we throw him out the window like the robot did?” asks Anya. “’Cause that was neat.”
Spike is a little surprised to learn that April was a robot. He knew there was something off with her. He looks around at the hostile faces staring at him, trying to find an ally. He spots Dawn. “Hey! Someone’s glad to see me. Aren’t you, Little Bit?”
Dawn grits her teeth. “Stay away from me.” Tara steps protectively in front of her.
Everyone thinks it is time for Spike to go.
“Okay, now, I was afraid of this,” says Spike. “Misrepresentations, misunderstandings, slurs and allegations. I don’t know what Buffy told you, but the thing is, the Slayer and I worked together, side by side, to get rid of Dru, who was up to no good, and I don’t mind telling you—”
Giles takes off his glasses and steps toward him. “Spike, listen to me.”
“It’s just I’m trying to explain,” says Spike. “She might have said some things that sounded like I expressed some kind of feeling—”
Giles shoves Spike up against the book shelves, and stares coldly at him. “We are not your friends. We are not your way to Buffy. There is no way to Buffy.” He picks Spike’s blanket up off the floor and shoves it into Spike’s hands. “Clear out of here. And, Spike, this thing: get over it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” says Spike.
“Yes, you do,” says Giles. “Move the hell on.”
Spike takes a breath to say something, but the look in Giles’ eyes tells him that it is best for him to keep quiet. He pulls the blanket over his head and goes back out the door.
April walks up to a group of guys having some coffee in the Espresso Pump. She asks them if they’ve seen Warren. One of the guys tells her that she missed him. He just left. He points in the direction Warren went. If she hurries she might catch him.
“Thank you. I was getting very tired. Thank you!” April rushes away in the direction he’d pointed.
“Who’s Warren?” asks one of his friends.
“Hell if I know,” says the guy.
Buffy sits on the sofa in Warren’s living room while she tells him what she has figured out about April. How he had decided that his lack of a girlfriend really wasn’t fair, and so he turned to manufacturing. Warren confirms that was more or less what happened. She asks how long it took him to make his little toy.
“Oh, no, she’s not a toy,” says Warren. “I mean I know what you’re thinking, but she’s more than that. I made her to love me. I mean, she cares about what I care about, and she wants to be with me. She listens to me and supports me. I didn’t make a toy. I made a girlfriend.”
“A girlfriend?” asks Buffy. “Are you saying… Are you in love with her?”
“I really thought I would be,” says Warren. “I mean, she’s perfect. I don’t know, I guess it was too easy and predictable. You know, she got boring. She was exactly what I wanted, and I didn’t want her.” He giggles. “I thought I was going crazy.”
“Really?” asks Buffy. “You?”
“Then something happened. Katrina was in my engineering seminar, and she was really funny and cool. She was always giving me a hard time, real unpredictable. She builds these little model monorails that run with magnets and… Anyway, I fell in love with Katrina.”
Buffy figures that after that Warren decided to take April out of her box for one last fling, and then dumped her. Told her to go away. She got mad, and didn’t go.
“Okay, I didn’t really dump her as much as I went out…and didn’t come back,” says Warren. “I left her. I left her in my dorm room. I figured I could just get away until her batteries gave up, which should have been days ago.”
“Did you even tell her?” asks Buffy. “Did you even give her a chance to fix what was wrong?”
“I didn’t need to fix anything. Her batteries were supposed to run down. Really, they should be completely dead by now.”
“So why aren’t they?”
Warren doesn’t know. He figures that she must be recharging somehow. Buffy asks if April is dangerous.
“She’s only programmed to be in love,” says Warren.
“Then she’s dangerous,” says Buffy. She asks if Warren has any idea where April would be. He thinks she must be close.
April runs into Katrina in a playground. She asks her if she knows where Warren is.
“This is getting insane,” says Katrina. “How many of you are there?”
“There’s only me—April.”
Katrina thinks that’s just fine. She tells April to stay away from Warren. He’s her boyfriend.
April reaches out and grabs her arm. Katrina tries to pull away, but April’s grip is too strong. “Don’t go. You have to stay and tell the truth.” She spins Katrina around and puts her arms around her to keep her from getting away. “You’re lying. He cannot be your boyfriend. Say that he’s my boyfriend.” She squeezes harder.
“I can’t. I can’t breathe,” gasps Katrina. “Let go.”
“You have to stop lying.” April squeezes harder, and some of Katrina’s ribs crack.
Spike picks up the photos and things from his shattered Buffy shrine and tosses them into a cardboard box. “Bloody right, I’ll move on.”
Warren and Buffy enter the playground. Warren keeps calling out April’s name. He explains to Buffy that if her batteries are still working she’ll answer. If she doesn’t it causes a kind of feedback.
“Wait, if you call her and she doesn’t answer, it hurts her?” asks Buffy. “You’re one creepy little dweeb, Warren.”
Warren calls out again and this time he gets an answer. He and Buffy turn in the direction April’s voice came from. April is holding Katrina up by the neck with one hand. Katrina’s feet are dangling about six inches off the ground.
“Warren! Where have you been?” asks April. “I couldn’t find you, and this girl kept lying to me, and then she went to sleep.”
Warren asks April what she’s done.
“Please don’t be angry, Warren,” says April. “I’m trying very hard to make you happy.”
Buffy tells April to put Katrina down. April asks Warren what she should do, and he tells her to give Katrina to Buffy.
April lowers Katrina, and Buffy catches her, and lays her out on a bench. “Is she broken?” asks April. Buffy checks Katrina’s pulse, and tells the others she’s still alive.
April asks Warren what’s going on, why he went away. If this is some sort of game. “Did I do something wrong? I waited a long time, and you never came back. A long time. I made you five sweaters.”
“That’s great,” says Warren. “You can go back there and get them so you could wait there…”
“Warren! You have to tell her,” says Buffy. “And do it right.”
April wants to know what Buffy means. What does Warren have to tell her.
Warren starts to tell April that he made a mistake, but she won’t believe that. He can’t make mistakes. “No, I did,” says Warren. “I thought that I made you everything that I wanted, but it wasn’t what I really wanted. I’m sorry, but it’s over.”
“But I can be whatever you want. I love you. I’ll do whatever you want.” April steps toward him and reaches out for his neck. “Would you like a neck rub?”
“No!” Warren pushes April’s hands away. “See, I know that you love me, but the truth is, I can’t love you. It’s not your fault, but…I don’t love you.” He suddenly points at Buffy who is still sitting on the bench with Katrina. “I love her.”
April’s gaze turns away from Warren toward Buffy, and she switches over into combat mode. All her programs for satisfying Warren’s sexual desires are replaced with combat programs. She growls.
“She growls?” asks Buffy. “You made her so she growls?” She doesn’t have time to ask any more as April attacks her.
April picks Buffy up off the bench and throws her across the grass. April goes to the playground teeter-totter. She smashes her arm down on it, breaking it in half, and swings the broken off board at Buffy. Buffy catches it and they wrestle with it for a moment. Buffy kicks April, and she lets go. Buffy swings the board at her, but April ducks out of the way. The teeter-totter board slams down on the far end of the bench from where Katrina is lying and wakes her up. Buffy slashes at April’s abdomen with the board. It rips through her dress and skin, revealing the plastic skeleton beneath.
Buffy swings again, but April catches the board, and pulls it away from her. She tosses it away and knocks Buffy flying with a punch.. Buffy rolls back to her feet and attacks April again.
Katrina looks around and sees Buffy and April fighting. “What is…what… That’s a robot!”
“She wasn’t just for sex,” says Warren.
“Is that—is that your ex-girlfriend?” asks Katrina.
Warren tries to start to explain, but Katrina doesn’t want to hear any explanations from him. She tells him to stay the hell away from her, and runs off. Warren chases after her, trying to get her to listen to him.
Buffy and April are still fighting. Buffy uses one of the swing seats to bash April in the face. It makes her stagger back a bit. Buffy tries to follow up the attack but April grabs her by the throat and lifts her off the ground.
“You took my man. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to—” April stops. “I can’t…can’t crush…so…tired.”
April releases her grip on Buffy’s throat, and Buffy drops to the ground, coughing. “Warren? Where are you?” April looks around. “What’s happening to me?”
Buffy and April sit together on the swings. April doesn’t have enough power to move anymore. She just wants Warren to come back.
“Can you cry?” asks Buffy. “Sometimes I feel better when I cry. But there might be rust issues.”
“Crying is blackmail,” says April. “Good girlfriends don’t cry. I’ve rechecked everything. I did everything I was supposed to do. I was a good girlfriend.”
“I’m sure you were,” says Buffy.
“I’m only supposed to love him. If I can’t do that, what am I for? What do I exist for?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t fair. He wasn’t fair to you.”
April looks at the sky. “It’s getting dark. It’s so early to be dark.”
Buffy looks around at the bright afternoon sunshine. “Yeah.”
April is afraid that Warren won’t be able to find her in the dark, but Buffy promises that she’ll make sure that he does.
“Maybe this is a girlfriend test,” says April. “If I wait here patiently this time, he’ll come back.”
“I’m sure he will,” says Buffy. “And he’ll—he’ll tell you how sorry he is. You know, he told me how proud he was of you and how impressed he was with how much you loved him and how you tried to help him. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“He’s going to take me home, and things’ll be right again.”
“It’ll be fine,” says Buffy.
“When things are sad, you just have to be patient,” says April, “Because…because every cloud has a silver lining. And…when life gives you lemons…make lemonade.”
“Clouds and lemonade, huh?” asks Buffy.
“Yes.” April’s voice is dropping in pitch, and slowing down as her power runs out. “And…and…things are…always…darkest…before…” She stops with her final smile frozen on her face.
Buffy watches Xander as he replaces the window that April threw Spike through. He explains how the jamb has to be shimmed square as he works.
“Shimmed?” asks Buffy. “Is that even a real word? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?”
“Yeah, I do,” says Xander. “Scary, isn’t it? I think I’ve actually turned into someone you want around after a crazed robot attack.”
“And if you ever start your own business, you’ll have your slogan right there,” says Buffy. “And she wasn’t crazed. She devoted everything to making this one person happy. And then it was like, with him gone, there was just no reason for her to exist anymore.”
“Robots are the strangest people.”
“No. People are the strangest people,” says Buffy. “I mean look at me obsessing about being with someone. It’s like, I don’t need a guy right now. I need me. I need to get comfortable being alone with Buffy.”
“Well, I’ll say this,” says Xander. “She’s a pretty cool person to be alone with.”
“Thank you,” says Buffy
Buffy leaves Xander to go make a phone call. She leaves a message on Ben’s answering machine telling him that she won’t be able to make their coffee date. She’s decided that this really isn’t the best time for her to be drinking coffee.
“What the hell?” asks Glory after hearing the message Buffy has left.
“If I may, your Inconceivableness,” says Jinx. “It sounds to these humble ears like our Ben tried to make a date with the Slayer.”
“A date with the Slayer? No. No, no-no-no. He is planning something. He’s working against me.” Glory pauses. “She turned us down?” she asks plaintively.
Warren tries to talk with Katrina on the phone, but she wants nothing to do with him, and hangs up. Warren hangs up and turns around. He is very startled to see Spike standing there holding a cardboard box. Warren’s mother invited him in. Spike has a little project he wants Warren to do for him.
“Oh, no, I’m not making any more girls,” says Warren.
“Sure, you are.” Spike shoves the box into Warren’s hands. “Here’s your specs.” Warren looks in the box and sees the pictures of Buffy. “You’re going to make her real good for me.”
Buffy returns home and calls out for her mother. She doesn’t get any answer. She sees a bouquet of flowers on the table by the door and checks the card. They’re for Joyce from Brian, thanking her for a lovely evening.
“Still a couple of guys getting it right.” Buffy tells herself.
Buffy tries calling upstairs, asking if she should go pick up Dawn from school, but she still doesn’t get an answer. She looks around into the living room. She sees her mother sprawled across the sofa. Her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. “Mom?”
Buffy steps into the living room. “What are you doing?” Joyce doesn’t move. “Mom? Mom? Mommy?”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| April the Robot | Playground | Her batteries ran down |
| Joyce Summers | The Summers living room | An aneurysm |