Introduction
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| Forever | Tough Love |
Giles helps Buffy and Dawn clean up after dinner. Dawn collects the dirty dishes while Buffy washes and Giles dries. Buffy tells him that he doesn’t have to help, he cooked, but Giles likes to feel useful.
“Want to clean out the garage on Saturday?” asks Dawn. “You could feel indispensible.”
Buffy sends Dawn upstairs to her room to see if there are any dirty dishes up there, and to bring them down before they start to grow fur, and they have to name them.
“Hey, I was, like, five then,” says Dawn on her way out of the kitchen. After she’s gone Giles quietly asks Buffy how she’s doing.
Buffy says that they’re doing better, but some minutes are harder than others. They’re starting to get back into a routine.
Giles thinks that’s good, and there is another part of Buffy’s routine that he thinks it’s time for her to resume: her training.
Buffy is much less sure of that. She turns away from Giles as she tells him she’s thinking of taking a break from training. She walks out of the kitchen toward the living room.
Giles follows Buffy. He is concerned by her reaction. Her training had been going so well. They sit on the sofa as they talk. Buffy is becoming uneasy about what her concentration on being the Slayer may be doing to her.
“But you’ve mastered so much,” says Giles. “I mean, your strength and resilience alone—”
“Yeah. Strength, resilience. Those are all words for hardness. I’m starting to feel like being the Slayer is turning me into stone.” Buffy gets up off the sofa and starts to pace. “I was never there for Riley, not like I was for Angel. I was terrible to Dawn.”
“At a time like this…you’re bound to feel emotionally numb,” says Giles.
“No,” says Buffy. “Before that. Riley left because I was shut down. He’s gone…and now my mom is gone. And I loved her more than anything…and…I don’t know if she knew.”
Giles gets up off the sofa. “Oh, she knew.” He puts his hand on Buffy’s shoulder. “Always.”
“I don’t know,” says Buffy. “To slay, to kill— it means being hard on the inside. Maybe being the perfect Slayer means being too hard to love at all. I already feel like I can hardly say the words.”
“Buffy—”
“Giles…I love you. Love, love, love, love. Love—Giles, it feels strange.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder.” Giles sits down on the coffee table. Buffy goes back to sitting on the sofa. He asks her how serious she is about this.
“Ten,” says Buffy. “I’m serious to the amount of ten.”
Giles has an idea. There is a quest that some Slayers have gone on before when they started to lose their focus, it might help answer some of her questions. It will only take a day or two. Buffy is reluctant. She doesn’t think she can leave Dawn alone right now.
“Sure you can.” Dawn walks through the living room door carrying a couple of dishes she’s brought down from her room. She sits down beside Buffy on the sofa. “What’s the deal?”
“A quest,” says Giles. “Some of the Slayers before Buffy found it helpful in regaining their focus, in learning more about their role. There’s a sacred place in the desert. It’s not far.”
Buffy still doesn’t want to go, but Dawn tells her that she thinks she should, if it will help her learn some stuff. She can hang with the gang while she’s gone.
“I love you, Dawn,” says Buffy. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” says Dawn. “I love you, too.”
“I love you…Really love you.”
“Gettin’ weird,” says Dawn.
“Sorry,” says Buffy. “But it’s important that I tell you. Weird love’s better than no love.” She hugs her sister.
“Some say it’s better than the real thing,” says Spike.
Spike and Warren are in Warren’s house examining the Buffybot that Warren has built for him. The Buffybot stands before them dressed in a pleated skirt, pink top, and black leather jacket.
“She looks good, but what about the rest?” asks Spike. “A little walk, a little talk, perhaps a zippy cartwheel.”
Warren thinks that Spike will be very happy with her. He is packing up his bag. He programmed in everything Spike asked for, “Tons of real-world knowledge, the profiles you gave me about her family and friends.”
“All the extra programming, right?” asks Spike.
“Uh, the stuff that you wanted, the scenario responses, you know, the, uh…uh, special skills—” Warren giggles. “All of it. Now, you said that I could leave—”
Warren tries to head for the door, but Spike grabs him by the collar. He isn’t sure he’s satisfied yet. “She looks a little shiny to me, you know, uh, a touch of plasticine…”
The Buffybot’s eyes open and she sees Spike. She gives him a big smile. “Spike? Oh, Spike.” She grabs his shoulders, pulls him close and kisses him.
Warren heads out the door, but Spike doesn’t even notice. The Buffybot finally lets go of him.
“She’ll do,” says Spike.
Glory is upset. She’s losing control of Ben. He’s getting stronger. Now he’s even attacking her minions. Time is quickly running out for them. Murk tries to reassure her. Jinx did bring the new information about the Key being in human form.
“If time runs out on us and all we’re left with is info, then we’re screwed,” says Glory.
“Oh, surely not,” says Jinx.
“No. We’re screwed.” says Glory.
“But you’re a god, the Sacred Glorificus,” says Murk.
“I’m a god in exile,” says Glory. “Far from the hellfires of home and sharing my body with an enemy that stabs my boys in their fleshy little stomachs.” She pokes Jinx in the belly, and he winces in pain. “I’m in pain.”
Jinx asks what they can do to help her. Glory orders them to watch the Slayer. See who’s new in her life, who’s special, who she protects.
“We can do that, O…Thou,” says Murk. Jinx shoots him a look over the lameness of his toadying.
“I want to hear about everyone she has contact with,” says Glory. “That girl has my Key, and I’m trusting you boys to get it for me. If you love me…get it for me.”
Giles pulls his Beemer off a dirt road in the desert, and he and Buffy get out. He goes to the trunk to get the supplies he’s brought with him.
“Supplies?” asks Buffy. “I was wondering about that. Like food, water, maybe a compass?”
“What about a book, a gourd, and a bunch of twigs?” asks Giles as he pulls the items from the trunk. Buffy doesn’t think she’ll get that hungry.
Giles explains that the supplies are for him. He can’t take her to the sacred place himself. He will have to summon a guide to do that. He walks a little way off to a clear spot and starts laying out the twigs in a circle around him on the ground.
“A guide, but no food or water?” asks Buffy. “So it leads me to a sacred place, and then, a week later, it leads you to my bleached bones?”
“Buffy, please,” says Giles. “It takes more than a week to bleach bones.” They exchange a smile. Buffy asks what this ritual entails.
Giles is a little embarrassed by that. “I, uh…jump out of the circle, then I jump back in it, and then, um…I shake my gourd.”
“I know this ritual!” says Buffy. “The ancient shamans were next called upon to do the hokey-pokey and turn themselves around!”
“Go and quest,” says Giles. Buffy doesn’t move. She just stands and looks at him. Giles knows that she isn’t going to go until she sees this, so he jumps out of the circle, jumps back in, and shakes his gourd.
“And that’s what it’s all about,” says Buffy.
Spike and the Buffybot circle each other in his crypt. She’s holding a stake.
“What you searching for, Slayer, a weak spot?” asks Spike. “Try me. Give me the best you’ve got.” The Buffybot makes a rather ineffectual attempt to stake him, and Spike grabs her, spins her around, and holds her from behind. “Is that your best, Slayer?”
“No,” says the Buffybot.
“Why not?”
“I want to hurt you, but I can’t resist the sinister attraction of your cold and muscular body,” says the Buffybot.
“Maybe I should repay you for your gentleness. Maybe I should let you go.”
“No! No, Spike. Never let me go.”
“You know you should be…afraid of me. I’m bad,” says Spike.
“You are. You’re very, very bad.” The Buffybot throws Spike away, and he lands on top of his sarcophagus, which is covered with blankets and pillows. The Buffybot jumps on top of Spike and straddles him. She brings her stake down against his chest.
“Are you going to do it that way?” asks Spike.
“No. This way.” The Buffybot rips open Spike’s shirt, and places the point of her stake against his bare chest.
“You can’t do it,” says Spike.
“I could never do it,” says the Buffybot. “I’m helpless against you, you fiend.”
Spike throws the Buffybot off him, and down onto the floor. He rolls off the sarcophagus and lands on top of her, pinning her to the floor. “Buffy…” He starts to kiss her.
Giles sits inside his circle of twigs reading from his book in Swahili. “…nilivyoahidi kulinda na kuongoza, nakupokeza. Mpeleke afike mahali pa usalama na ujuzi. Mpe anavyohitaji. Mwonyeshe njia.” 1
Buffy walks through the desert. A cougar appears, sitting in the sand. She looks at it for a moment. “Hello kitty.”
The big cat gets to its feet and walks toward her. Buffy watches it as it passes by her, and continues on through the desert. She follows it.
The cougar leads Buffy to a hilltop overlooking the desert at sunset. Buffy looks around. “I know this place.” When she looks back to where the cat had been, it’s gone. She sits down on a rock, and waits.
Tara finishes putting a warning spell around Xander’s apartment, where Dawn is going to be spending the night. She thinks Willow could have done a better job of it though. Xander suggests that Tara can have Willow do a touch up when she gets back from her Chemistry lecture. He plans to take Anya out for a quick patrol.
Dawn and Anya are sitting on the sofa. Dawn looks up from the magazine she’s reading and sees Anya take off her earrings, and set them down on the table beside her.
Anya gets up off the sofa. She doesn’t understand why they have to patrol. She would rather stay in and watch TV. Tara says that Willow wants to watch a show on the History Channel about the Salem witch trials tonight. She doesn’t really understand why though, since it will just get Willow all upset.
“Oh, I was there,” says Anya. “It really wasn’t that bad. See, if you were really a witch, you could do a spell to escape. So, really, it was only bad for the falsely accused, and, well, they never have a good time.”
Dawn picks up Anya’s earrings off the table and puts them into her pocket. She turns toward the others to see if anyone noticed. They didn’t. “So, guys, if this is a real slumber party, where’s the pizza?”
Murk is watching through the window from the balcony.
Spike and the Buffybot lie naked and spooned together under some sheets on his floor. “You’re evil,” she tells him. “It excites me. It terrifies me. I try so hard to resist you, and I can’t. Darn your sinister attraction.”
“Are you afraid of me?” asks Spike.
“Yes.”
“You know I can’t bite you.”
“I think you can,” says the Buffybot. “I think you can if I let you, and I want to let you. I want you to bite me and devour me until there’s no more.”
“Like this?” Spike nibbles on her neck.
“Oh, Spike, devour me!”
“All right,” growls Spike, and he rolls on top of her.
“Spike, I can’t help myself. I love you.”
“You’re mine, Buffy.”
“Should I start this program over?” asks the Buffybot.
“Sh—?” Spike frowns. “No programs. Don’t use that word. Just be Buffy.”
The Buffybot smiles at him.
Willow loans her notes to a guy on the way out of the Chemistry lecture. “And don’t write in it or put a coffee mug down on it or anything and don’t spill,” she tells him. “Oh, and don’t fold the page corners down. Bye.” 2 She and the guy head off in different directions. One of Glory’s minions follows her.
The Buffybot puts on her leather jacket. “Time to Slay,” she tells the sleeping Spike. He mumbles something in his sleep, but doesn’t wake up. “Vampires of the world beware!” She marches out of the crypt.
Giles leans against the hood of his car, and pours himself a cup of tea from the thermos he brought with him.
Buffy sits huddled against the cold on her rock on the hilltop. She’s starting to doze off.
The Buffybot walks through the cemetery, twirling a stake in her fingers. She encounters Xander and Anya. She brings up her files on them:
XANDER:
>FRIEND
>CARPENTER
>DATES ANYA
ANYA:
>DATES XANDER
>LIKES MONEY
>EX-DEMON
“Anya, how is your money?” she asks.
“Fine,” says Anya. “Thank you for asking.”
“Isn’t it a beautiful night for killing evil things?” asks the Buffybot.
Xander and Anya are a little surprised to see Buffy. She’s back early. Xander asks how her vision quest went.
“I don’t understand that question, but thank you for asking,” says the Buffybot. “You’re my friend and a carpenter.”
Xander is getting more puzzled. He asks Buffy if she’s feeling all right.
Spike comes running up before she can answer. The Buffybot is very happy to see him. “Spike! It’s Spike. And he’s wearing a coat!” She tries to hold Spike’s hand, but he shakes her off.
“Buffy’s back early, I see,” says Spike. “Lots of patrolling all around tonight, then, is it?”
The Buffybot keeps trying to take hold of Spike’s arm. He tries to cover up for it by pretending it’s hurting him. “Ow! Hey! Give a fella a break there, Slayer.”
Spike thinks it would be a good idea if they all split up, there are lots of vamps out tonight. He keeps trying to move away from the Buffybot, but she keeps smiling, and stepping up beside him.
“We haven’t seen any vamps.” Xander’s really beginning to wonder about the way Buffy is behaving. “Are you sure there’s—” He hears a twig snap behind him, and turns around. Three vampires are coming toward them.
“You’re right,” says Anya.
“Yep. Guess so,” says Spike.
The three vampires attack. The Buffybot steps between them and Spike and kicks one of the vampires away.
Xander and Anya take on another vamp. Xander grapples with the vampire. Anya tries to get behind it so she can stake it, but the vampire keeps swinging Xander around to keep him between her and it.
The third vampire moves toward Spike. The Buffybot calls out for him to be careful.
Xander falls onto his back on the ground, pulling the vampire with him. He gets his legs up between them, and kicks the vampire away, right onto Anya’s waiting stake. The vampire explodes into dust.
The Buffybot stakes the vampire she’s fighting, and then throws her stake to Spike. He quickly finishes off the vampire he was fighting, and looks around. There aren’t any more vamps in sight. He doesn’t see Jinx and another of Glory’s minions watching them from the bushes.
Spike tells Xander and Anya that they should probably be heading home. He expects that he and Buffy can handle things if anymore vampires show up. Xander asks Buffy what they should do.
“Yes,” says the Buffybot. “Spike and I will do it alone. You guys head home.” Xander and Anya leave.
“I don’t understand this,” says the Buffybot after they are gone. She wriggles her shoulders, like her skin isn’t fitting quite right. “I did the Slaying. I should be—”
“Satisfied?” asks Spike.
“But I’m not,” says the Buffybot. “I’m all…my skin is all hot. Do I look hot to you?”
“Always.”
“You better feel me to make sure,” says the Buffybot.
“I can do that,” says Spike. The Buffybot grabs him, and kisses him.
Anya is coughing from the vampire dust she inhaled as they leave the cemetery. Xander is wondering what’s up with Buffy, she seemed a little spacey to him. He wishes he knew what happened in the desert. Anya isn’t worried about Buffy, she fought okay.
“Yeah,” says Xander. He stops. “Hey, she never asked about Dawn.”
“That’s true,” says Anya.
“Something’s wrong,” says Xander. He turns around to go back and find Buffy.
Xander and Anya approach the place where they left Buffy and Spike. They hear moaning. They cautiously look around some bushes. Xander is shocked by what he sees.
Spike is lying on his back on the ground, and Buffy is straddling him, rocking back and forth. “Oh, Spike, you’re the big bad! You’re the big bad!”
As Tara predicted, Willow is getting upset by the program they’re watching on TV. “Those darn Salem judges with their less-satanic-than-thou attitudes.” Tara suggests that the switch channels. The Discovery Channel has koalas.
Willow picks up the remote, but they are interrupted by Xander and Anya’s entrance. Xander asks where Dawn is, and Tara tells him that she’s asleep in the bedroom. Willow asks what’s going on.
“Buffy’s gone insane,” says Xander. “Brace yourself. You’re not going to believe it.”
“Everyone, before we jump all over her, people do strange things when someone they love dies,” says Tara. “When I lost my mother, I did some pretty dumb stuff, like lying to my family and staying out all night.”
“Buffy’s boinking Spike,” says Anya.
“Oh…” says Willow. She tries to put a good spin on it. “Well, Tara’s right. Grief can be powerful, and we shouldn’t judge—”
“What, are you kidding?” asks Tara. “She’s nuts!”
“Well, it’s not healthy,” says Willow. “We’re all agreeing there.”
Tara asks what they can do. Anya suggests maybe they can slap Buffy. It works in the movies.
“I’m going to go find her and talk to her,” says Xander. “If she’s losing it, we’ve got to help her before she gets herself hurt.”
“You aren’t really going to slap her, are you?” asks Tara.
“No,” says Xander. “But if I have to see her straddle Spike again, I will definitely knock myself unconscious.”
Buffy wakes up. There is a large bonfire burning where there used to be just a patch of sand. She sees the First Slayer crouching on the other side of the flames.
Spike leans against the wall of his crypt, a cigarette hanging from his lips. He hears someone opening the outer door.
The Buffybot stands up, and Spike does up his belt. He tells the Buffybot to go down into the tunnel beneath his crypt, and not to come out until he gets her. She does as she’s told.
Spike isn’t happy to see that his visitor is Xander. Xander tells him that he saw him in the cemetery with Buffy. Spike doesn’t think that’s any of Xander’s business.
“It is my business because Buffy’s my friend,” says Xander, “And she’s gone through some stuff lately that…well, it’s affected her, and you’re taking advantage of her.”
“She’s upset about her mom,” says Spike, “and if she turns to me for comfort, well, I’m not going to deny it to her. I’m not a monster.”
“Yes, you are a monster!” says Xander. “Vampires are monsters! They make monster movies about them!”
“Well, yeah, you got me there,” says Spike.
Xander grabs Spike by the collar and pushes him up against the wall. “Spike, Buffy has lots of friends, and we love her very much, and we’ll do whatever it takes to protect her, and if that means killing you, then, well, that’s just a bonus.”
They are interrupted by the entrance of Jinx, and several more of Glory’s minions.
“Gentlemen, I’m so sorry to intrude,” says Jinx, “but I wondered if I might beg a moment of your time.”
“Friends of yours?” Spike asks Xander. Jinx punches Xander to the ground. “Guess not.”
Spike attacks the demons. Xander picks himself up and tries to join the fight but he gets knocked back down again. Glory’s minions quickly overwhelm Spike. Xander gets back to his feet again, but he gets kicked to the ground behind Spike’s sarcophagus, and lies there unconscious.
Jinx orders the rest of the minions to tie Spike’s hands, and to be careful with him. Glory will want the Key intact.
“The Key?” asks Spike. “Who’s a key? I’m not the f—” He’s cut off by Jinx stuffing a gag into his mouth.
“I know you.” Buffy tells the figure on the other side of the fire. “You’re the First Slayer.”
“This is a form,” says the First. “I am the guide.”
Buffy tells her that she has some questions about being the Slayer. “What about…love? Not just boyfriend love.”
“You think you’re losing your ability to love. You’re afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.”
“Does it?” asks Buffy.
“You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It’s brighter than the fire—blinding. That’s why you pull away from it.”
“I’m full of love?” asks Buffy. “I’m not losing it?”
“Only if you reject it,” says the First Slayer. “Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love… Give… Forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.”
Buffy considers that for a couple of seconds. “What?”
The Buffybot comes out of the tunnel under the crypt, looking for Spike. She waited, but then she started to miss him. She doesn’t notice Xander lying behind the sarcophagus.
Willow answers the door to Xander’s apartment, hoping that it’s Xander returning, but she’s surprised to see the Buffybot. She invites her in. Everyone else is asleep, so Willow grabs a blanket and takes the Buffybot out onto the balcony where they can talk without disturbing them. She wraps the blanket around her shoulders to protect her from the cold.
The Buffybot brings up her file on Willow:
WILLOW:
>BEST FRIEND
>GAY (1999-PRESENT)
>WITCH
>GOOD WITH COMPUTERS
The Buffybot tells Willow that Spike is gone. She has to find him. Willow is more concerned about Xander. She’s worried that he’s not back yet. The Buffybot hasn’t seen Xander, and she has to find Spike.
“Um, Buffy, this thing with Spike, it isn’t true, is it?” asks Willow. “You didn’t, you know, sleep with Spike?”
“No,” says the Buffybot, and Willow sighs with relief. “I had sex with Spike! I’m sorry if it bothers you. You’re my best friend.”
“I am, and I always will be, no matter what you do,” says Willow. “I’m just trying to figure out why this happened, and I think with your mom and everything, everyone was being all sympathetic and—and making you feel weak, and Spike wasn’t like that. So just this one time, you just did something kinda crazy.”
“It wasn’t one time,” says the Buffybot. “It was lots of times, and lots of different ways. I could make sketches!”
Willow does not want to see sketches. She thinks there is something seriously wrong here. “Well, uh…okay, yeah, you’ve been with a vampire before, but Angel had a soul.”
“Angel’s lame,” says the Buffybot. “His hair grows straight up, and he’s bloody stupid.”
Willow is getting more confused. She tells Buffy that she wants to help her.
“You’re my best friend,” says the Buffybot. “You’re recently gay.”
The lights come on in the apartment behind Willow. Xander’s back, and he’s waking everyone up. Willow and the Buffybot go back inside. Anya asks what’s happened.
“Guys,” says Xander. “Demon-y kinds of guys,” he sees the Buffybot. “Buffy, the guys that work for Glory, you said they’re kind of like hobbits with leprosy? Well, this is a whole flock of hobbits, and they just grabbed Spike. I think they’re taking him to Glory.”
“But he—he knows about Dawn,” says Willow.
“We have to get him back,” says the Buffybot.
“So how do we find him?” asks Xander.
Everyone looks at the Buffybot. “I fight with weapons,” she says.
Xander doesn’t have any weapons, so he suggests they should go to Buffy’s to stock up. Willow asks Tara to stay behind to watch Dawn.
Buffy doesn’t understand what the First Slayer means about love leading her to her gift. “I’m getting a gift, or do you mean that I have a gift to give to someone else?”
“Death is your gift,” says the First Slayer.
“Death…” says Buffy.
“…is your gift,” says the First.
“Okay… No,” says Buffy. “Death is not a gift. My mother just died. I know this. If I have to kill demons because it makes the world a better place, then I kill demons, but it’s not a gift to anybody.”
“Your question has been answered,” says the First Slayer. She and the fire vanish.
Jinx and Murk drag Spike before Glory. They’ve taken off the gag, but his hands are tied behind his back.
“What the hell is that, and why is its hair that color?” asks Glory.
“Stunning One,” says Murk, “we believe he is…”
“…the Key.” Jinx and Murk say together with a flourish.
“Really? Ohh! That’s fantabulous!” says Glory with feigned pleasure, then she drops the act. “And impossible. He can’t be the Key because, see: the Key has to be pure.” She sniffs at Spike. “This is a vampire. Lesson number one: vampires equal impure.”
“Yeah, damn right I’m impure,” says Spike. “I’m as impure as the driven yellow snow. Let me go!”
“You can’t even brain-suck a vampire.” Glory pats Spike on the chest. “He’s completely useless.”
“So, I’m just going to let myself out,” says Spike. He turns toward the door. Murk grabs him.
Jinx doesn’t understand this. They watched the Slayer. “She protected this one above all others. She treated him as precious.”
Glory is intrigued by that. She decides that this vampire deserves a closer look. Spike tells her to sod off.
Glory knocks Spike flying across the room. He nearly puts a hole right through the wall, and slumps to the floor. She walks across the room, grabs him by the lip and pulls him to his feet. She doesn’t think that he looks so precious. She throws Spike onto her bed and straddles him. “But if the Slayer protects him, maybe appearances are deceiving. Maybe there’s something on the inside.”
Glory extends a finger, and pokes it into Spike’s chest. He cries out in agony.
“Shh!” says Glory. “What do ya know, precious? What can I dig out of you?”
Xander, Willow, Anya and the Buffybot enter Buffy’s home shortly after sunrise. Xander opens a trunk in the living room and starts handing out weapons.
“Those are my weapons,” says the Buffybot. “Give me something big and sharp.”
Willow asks her where they should go to look for Glory.
“She’s a god,” says the Buffybot. “She wants the Key.”
“Yeah, so we should look…?” asks Xander. Everyone looks at the Buffybot.
“I don’t know,” says the Buffybot. “Why are you all looking at me?”
“Okay, Buff, it’s okay,” says Xander. “You’re right. You shouldn’t have to know everything.”
“We need to rescue Spike,” says the Buffybot.
Willow suggests that Buffy should go upstairs and get some more of the weapons she has up there, and Anya suggests that she change into something more fighty while she’s at it.
“I can do that,” says the Buffybot. “I’ll be right back.” She spins around and walks toward the stairs.
Xander thinks that this has gone way too far. Buffy thinks they are going to rescue Spike.
“What are we going to do?” asks Willow.
“Find him. Keep him from talking,” says Xander. “Whatever it takes.” But if they are going to have to go up against Glory they are going to need a sane Buffy along.
“Whoa,” says Buffy (the real one) as she walks into her living room. “Group hang time?”
Willow is surprised she got back so quickly.
“Didn’t seem like it to me,” says Buffy. “‘Death is my gift?’”
“Buffy, we need to talk,” says Xander.
Buffy sees the concern on their faces and asks what’s wrong, if something’s happened to Dawn.
Willow tells her that Dawn is fine. “Buffy, we care about you, and we’re worried about you. The way you’re acting, the things you’re doing—”
“It’s wrong,” says Anya.
“Wait,” says Willow. “This shouldn’t be about blame.”
“Blame? There’s blame now?” asks Buffy.
“No,” says Willow. “There’s only love. And some fear.”
“We’re just kinda thrown by the you having sex with Spike,” says Anya.
“The who whating how with huh?” asks Buffy.
“Okay, that’s denial,” says Anya. “That usually comes before anger.”
“I’m not having sex with Spike!”
“Anger,” says Anya.
“No one is judging you,” says Xander. “It’s understandable. Spike is strong and mysterious and sort of compact, but well-muscled.”
“I am not having sex with Spike,” says Buffy, “but I’m starting to think that you might be.”
“Buffy, I saw you,” says Xander. “Anya, too. We saw you and Spike with the straddling.”
“Spike’s mine!” The Buffybot comes back into the living room wearing a different pleated skirt. “Who’s straddling Spike?”
“Oh, my god,” says Buffy.
“And so say all of us,” says Xander.
The Buffybot sees Buffy. “Say, look at you. You look just like me. We’re very pretty.”
“Two of them,” says Willow.
“Hey, I know this,” says Xander “They’re both Buffy!”
“No. She’s a robot,” says Buffy. “She acts just like that girlfriend-bot that Warren guy made. You guys couldn’t tell me apart from a robot?”
“Oh…I don’t think I’m a robot,” says the Buffybot.
“She’s very well done,” says Anya. The Buffybot smiles at her.
“Spike must have had her built so he could program her to—” says Xander.
“Oh, god,” says Buffy.
“Yikes,” says Willow, “Imagine the things…”
“No!” says Buffy. “No imagining, any of you.”
Xander raises his hand. “I already got the visual.”
“People, friends of mine,” says the Buffybot. “You’re forgetting the most important thing: Glory has Spike, and she’s going to harm him.”
Buffy looks around at her friends. “Glory has Spike?”
Xander tells Buffy that they were going to bring that up. They were getting weapons.
“Grab ’em,” says Buffy. “We’re going now. I have to kill him.”
Willow still has no idea where to start, but Buffy does.
Glory has Spike dangling from her ceiling with chains around his wrists. His face is beaten, and gashed. “I have a riddle for you, precious. How is a vampire that won’t talk…like an apple?” Glory takes a knife, and cuts Spike across the chest. He screams. “Think I can do you in one long strip?”
“Enough,” says Spike. “No more. I’ll tell you who the soddin’ Key is.”
Buffy gathers her friends in the park where she killed Glory’s Key sniffing snake. It was heading back to Glory, Buffy figures she must be somewhere nearby. Giles has been examining the Buffybot. He thinks it’s quite extraordinary.
“Thank you,” says the Buffybot. “But I really think we should be listening to the other Buffy, Guiles. She’s very smart, and she’s going to help us save Spike.”
“Guiles?” asks Giles. “Spike didn’t even bother to program my name properly!”
“Listen, skirt girl,” says Buffy. “We are not going to save him. We’re going to kill him. He knows who the Key is, and there’s no way he’s not telling Glory.”
“You’re right. He’s evil,” says the Buffybot, then she smiles. “But you should see him naked. I mean really…”
Buffy does not want to think about that. She hands out assignments. Xander is with her, Willow with Anya, and Guiles should watch the Buffybot. She tells them to check out the pricier looking places first.
Glory finishes giving Spike a drink of water, and asks if he’s ready to start talking. Spike nods.
“Good. Because I’m tired of these games!” Glory breaks the glass against Spike’s face. “‘I need time, I need a drink.’ You’re a very needy little bloodsucker, and it’s not very attractive! So start talking.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Spike. “The Key. Here’s the thing…it’s that guy…on TV. What’s his name?”
“On the television?” asks Glory.
“That show…” says Spike. “The price show…where they guess what stuff costs.”
“The Price is Right?” asks Murk
“Oh, Bob Barker!” says Jinx.
“We will bring you Bob Barker!” Murk tells Glory. “We will bring you the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker!”
Glory turns on her minions. “It is not Bob Barker, scabby morons! The Key is new to this world, and Bob Barker is as old as grit.” She turns back to look at Spike. “The vampire is lying to me.”
Spike laughs. “Yeah, but it was fun,” He works at the chains holding his wrists, loosening their hold on him. “And guess what, bitch. I’m not telling you jack. You’re never going to get your soddin’ Key ’cause you might be strong, but in our world, you’re an idiot!”
“I am a god!” says Glory.
“The god of what, bad home perms?” asks Spike.
Glory’s hands go to her hair. “Shut up! I command you! Shut up!”
Spike glances back, locating the door, and shifts his body a bit. “Yeah, okay. Sorry, but I just had no idea that gods were such prancing lightweights. Mark my words, the Slayer is going to kick your skanky, lopsided ass…” Glory’s hands go to her butt, and she tries to twist around to see it. “…back to whatever place would take…a cheap, whorish, fashion victim, ex-god like you.”
Glory spins and kicks Spike, She knocks him free from the chains. He flies backwards and smashes through the door.
“Good plan, Spike,” he mumbles as he picks himself up and staggers down the hall toward the open elevator doors. Glory sends her minions to bring him back.
The elevator doors close before Spike gets to them. He grabs them and pulls them open. He falls forward onto the roof of the descending elevator car before Jinx can get to him.
Spike opens the hatch in the roof of the elevator and falls through into the elevator car. He struggles to his feet. The elevator stops in the lobby, and the doors open. Spike sees Murk, with more of Glory’s minions there waiting form him.
“You do not insult Glory by escaping!” says Murk. Spike pulls himself up, ready to fight them.
Buffy and Xander burst into the lobby. Murk sees them and his attention is instantly pulled away from Spike, who collapses onto the elevator floor.
Xander attacks one of Glory’s minions with the axe he’s carrying. Buffy shoots it with her crossbow, and it falls to the floor dead. She attacks another minion while Murk and another demon move against Xander. He fends them off with his axe.
Giles and the Buffybot enter the lobby. Giles fires his crossbow at a demon, but he misses, and then he joins the battle, using the crossbow as a club. The Buffybot spots Spike lying on the elevator car floor. She moves toward him.
Buffy kicks the demon she’s fighting unconscious, and pulls one of the demons attacking Xander away from him.
Xander is left with Murk, and Giles battles Jinx while Buffy engages the remaining minion still on its feet. She quickly disables it.
Jinx knocks Giles to the floor, and pulls his crossbow around and pulls it against Giles’ throat.
“Buffy!” Giles manages to call out as Jinx starts to choke him.
Buffy and the Buffybot both move toward Giles. The Buffybot gets there first, and pulls Jinx away from Giles. Jinx spins around, hits the Buffybot with the crossbow, and knocks her away. The Buffybot hits the wall beside the elevator door, and slumps to the floor, sparks arcing. Buffy attacks Jinx, and kicks him away from Giles.
Jinx and Murk make their escape, running back up the stairs.
Jinx and Murk report back to Glory. “The Slayer was there!” says Jinx.
“A lethal fighter!” says Murk.
“She seemed to be everywhere at once!”
“She had friends with many weapons!”
“They may have been demons!”
“And where’s my vampire?” asks Glory.
Jinx and Murk exchange a look. “Gack!” says Jinx.
Glory is not pleased. Jinx’ and Murk’s screams can be heard in the hallway.
The Buffybot lies face down on the round table at the back of the Magic Box while Willow pokes around inside it through an access panel in her back. Buffy leans down and takes a good look at its face. She doesn’t think it’s a very good copy. No one else there agrees with her. Dawn, Anya and Tara all pretty much think it’s a perfect copy.
Xander and Giles return to the shop. Buffy asks them what they did with Spike. “And please let the story have a dusty ending.”
It doesn’t. They just dumped Spike back in his crypt. Giles tried to find out how much Spike told Glory, but he was pretty incoherent.
“Well, even if he told her, he’d just lie to us about it anyway, right?” asks Anya.
“Yeah, you can count on it,” says Buffy, “but I have to know. Now. If he did give us up, Dawn and I need to get out of town. She could be on her way right now.”
Giles tries to tell them that they don’t have anything to worry about, he’s sure that they’re all perfectly safe.
“We’re safe. Right,” says Dawn. “And Spike built a robot Buffy to play checkers with.” She looks at Tara.
“It sounded convincing when I thought it,” says Tara.
Willow has found where the Buffybot is broken. Anya takes a look over her shoulder. “Yuck. Looks very complicated in there. Personally, I’d rather look at guts.”
Willow has found some fried wires. It should be easy to fix. She notices the look Buffy gives her. “I mean, not that I would.”
“God,” says Xander. “I feel kind of bad for the guy. Gets all whupped, and his best toy gets taken away.”
“Xander, please don’t be suggesting what I’d have to kill you for suggesting,” says Buffy.
“No, no. Travesty,” says Xander. “Completely on board. It’s just… The guy was so thrashed.”
Buffy thinks about that.
Buffy walks into Spike’s crypt dressed in the Buffybot’s pink top and pleated skirt. She walks briskly over to where Spike is lying on top of his sarcophagus. His face is a swollen mass of cuts and bruises, and his body is covered in cuts and slashes. “Spike, you’re covered in sexy wounds!”
Spike struggles to sit up. “Yeah. I feel real sexy. Where you been?”
“I fell down and got confused,” says Buffy. “Willow fixed me. She’s gay!”
“Will fixed you?” asks an incredulous Spike. “I thought they’d melt you into scrap.”
“They were confused, too,” says Buffy. “Do you want to ravage me now?”
Spike isn’t up to ravaging anything just yet. He tells Buffy he needs some time for his bones to mend.
“Why did you let that Glory hurt you?” asks Buffy.
“She wanted to know who the Key was,” says Spike.
Buffy turns away and starts toward the door. “Oh well I can tell her, and then you won’t—”
“No!” yells Spike. He starts to cough. Buffy stops. “You can’t ever. Glory never finds out.”
“Why?” asks Buffy.
“’Cause Buffy—the other not-so-pleasant Buffy—anything happened to Dawn, it’d destroy her,” says Spike. “I couldn’t live, her being in that much pain. Let Glory kill me first. Nearly bloody did.”
Buffy stands looking at Spike for a moment. She steps up to him and gives him a gentle kiss on the lips.
Spike stiffens and sits up a little straighter. He realizes that this isn’t his robot. He and Buffy look at each other for a few seconds, and then she turns and starts toward the door of his crypt.
“And my robot?” asks Spike.
Buffy stops and turns around. “The robot is gone. The robot was gross and obscene!”
“It wasn’t supposed to—”
“Don’t,” says Buffy. “That thing— it wasn’t even real.” She turns and starts for the door again, then she stops. “What you did for me and Dawn— that was real.” She looks back at Spike. “I won’t forget it.” She closes the door behind her on the way out of the crypt.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire 1 | The cemetery | Staked by Xander and Anya |
| Vampire 2 | The cemetery | Staked by the Buffybot |
| Vampire 3 | The cemetery | Staked by Spike |
| Glory minion | Glory’s lobby | Shot with crossbow by Buffy |