Introduction
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| Tabula Rasa | Wrecked |
Two shadowed figures accost a couple in an alley. The woman holds her purse out to one of them, and tells them they can have anything they want.
“I always wanted a pony,” says Buffy. “Oh. You weren’t really speaking to me, were you? My bad. Well, as long as I’m here…” She darts forward and kicks one of the attackers in the side of his knee.
He staggers back into the light, and Buffy gets her first good look at him and his companion. She’s surprised to see that they’re just a pair of human muggers. She hasn’t come across any of those for a while. She thinks it’s kind of sweet. “Oh, uh, probably not for you,” she tells the couple. Buffy picks up the purse that the mugger dropped when she kicked him, and hands it back to the lady. “Here. Go. Now.” The couple doesn’t need any more encouragement. They run from the alley.
The mugger Buffy kicked swings a punch at her. She grabs his fist, twists his arm around behind his back, and kicks his partner away. “Not too sweet for you, either, huh?” She looks at his companion as he gets back to his feet. “But come on, rush me. It’ll be funny.”
The second mugger starts to rush Buffy, but he gets tackled by Spike, who suddenly finds himself with a migraine. Buffy lets go of the first mugger, and they both run from the alley. Buffy asks Spike what the hell he thought he was doing.
Spike sits up holding his head. “I thought they were demons.”
“Way to go with the keen observiness, Jessica Fletcher.”
“Remind me not to help you.”
“More often?” asks Buffy.
Spike thinks she should show a little more sympathy for him. “You’d think if the government was going to put a chip in my head, they’d at least make it so I could attack criminals and that sort.”
“Yes, because muggers deserve to be eaten. Just have to get your rocks off fightin’ demons.”
Spike raises his eyebrows. “There are other ways.”
“And to that an extreme see-you-later.” Buffy starts to walk off down the alley.
“Buffy.”
Buffy stops and sighs. “Spike, it’s late, okay? Can we just finish this another time?”
“Oh, so you want to jump right to the kissing, then, eh?”
“I am not kissing you, Spike. Once was—”
“Twice,” says Spike.
“But not again.” Buffy walks away from him.
“You’re a tease, you know that, Slayer? Get a fella’s motor revvin’, let the tension marinate a couple of days, then bam! Crown yourself the Ice Queen!”
Buffy doesn’t slow down. “You need a few more metaphors for that little mix?”
“It’s only a matter of time before you realize I’m the only one here for you, pet.” Spike calls after her. “You got no one else!”
Willow looks out into the empty upstairs hall of the Summers house, and goes back into her room. She wanders over to Amy’s cage, and looks at her. Amy the Rat seems to be agitated tonight.
“What’s the matter, Amy? You lonely?” Willow opens the cage, and takes Amy out. “Oh, we need to get you a nice companion rat that you can love, play with, and grow attached to until one day they leave you for no good reason. Won’t that be fun?”
Willow tells Amy to relax, and puts her down on her bed. She’s just kidding. “I swear, if I could figure out how to turn you back…” she is struck by an inspiration. “…any way. Rivlil!” 1
A piece of parchment materializes, and floats down onto Willow’s desk. She picks it up and reads the words from it:
Cio che fu non e piu.
Cio che fu fatto, disfa.
Passato e il pericolo,
Tinita e la prova.
Metti le cose a posto. 2
Lighting crackles around the rat, and it transforms into a girl, sitting naked on the bed. Amy looks around the room. She screams.
Andrew lowers himself by wires from the ceiling of the Sunnydale Museum and hangs suspended horizontally four feet off the floor beside a display case holding a large diamond. He is dressed all in black, and wearing a black beret. He attaches a suction cup to the side of the case.
Warren and Jonathan walk up behind him, and ask what he’s doing. Warren has a large tank strapped onto his back, and Jonathan is carrying a duffel bag.
“We’re not breaking into Langley here,” says Jonathan. “It’s Sunnydale.”
“The security system here is a guy named Rusty. Now get up.” Warren gives Andrew a push, making him spin around in his harness a few times.
Andrew catches himself. “Whoa, head rush. Cool!”
Warren pulls Andrew’s suction cup off the side of the case and tosses it over his shoulder to Jonathan. He lights up the cutting torch attached to the tank on his back. Andrew asks Jonathan why Warren gets to play with the cool stuff.
“Because I’m allergic to methane and you’re still afraid of hot things,” says Jonathan. “Besides, the tank kept making both of us tip over, remember?”
Warren finishes cutting a circular hole in the side of the case, knocks out the center bit, and reaches in for the diamond. “Boys, congratulations. Phase One of the plan is now complete. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What are you boys doing?” asks Rusty the guard.
Warren slips the diamond into his pocket. “Um, we’re with a tour group. The get-the-freeze-ray tour group. Must have gotten separated.”
“Museum closed five hours ago.”
“Really? Huh. Guess we just lost track of time. We should probably just get the freeze ray out of here now.” Warren turns and glares at Jonathan, who finally gets the message, and starts rummaging around in the bag he’s carrying.
Warren steps toward the guard. “’Cause we love the learnin’, Rusty. Museums, libraries, Disney Hall of Presidents. Not boring. But more to the point…Good-bye.” Warren steps aside and Jonathan fires their freeze ray gun at Rusty, who is suddenly encased in ice. “Dude, that is so cool!”
Jonathan isn’t so sure. The freeze ray gun is also encased in ice, and so’s his arm up to the elbow. He wants to get back to the lair so they can thaw him out. Andrew wonders what’s going to happen to Rusty.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” says Warren. “Yeah, he’ll defrost in a couple days. No harm, no foul.”
“Won’t he tell on us?” asks Andrew.
“And say what?” asks Warren. “‘Two guys and a mime took me out with their freeze ray.’ That’s likely. Come on.”
Amy sits on Willow’s bed with her knees pulled up, and her arms wrapped around them. It’s the exact same position she was in when she was de-ratted, but she has some clothes on now. Willow comes in carrying a cup of hot chocolate, which she offers to her. Amy declines. She’s still feeling a little queazy.
The sound of a siren comes through the window. Amy is startled by it, and telekinetically slams the window shut and pulls the curtains closed. Willow tries to tell her that everything is okay.
“Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just, you know…” Amy’s voice drops to a whisper. “Everything feels weird. I mean, it’s like… I felt like I was in that cage for weeks. But it can still be okay. Right? I—I can still get into the swing of things, like… Prom’s coming up. I am so hoping Larry would ask me. We would make such a splash at—” She notices Willow’s expression. “Oh, God. He hasn’t asked someone else, has he?”
“Uh, Amy…three things we have to talk about. One, Larry’s gay, two, Larry’s dead, and three, high school’s…kinda over.”
“How long was I in the cage?” asks Amy. Willow looks away. “How long?”3
Buffy arrives home, and calls out softly for Willow. She doesn’t get an answer, so she goes upstairs and looks into Willow’s room. Willow is sitting on her bed. Buffy asks how she’s doing. Willow says she’s okay. “Not parades and cotton candy, but okay.”
Buffy sits on the end of Willow’s bed and tells her that she wants to talk about something. “You know how we all make choices, and sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re…less good.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, lately I haven’t—” Buffy catches sight in the corner of her eye of Amy coming out of the bathroom. “Oh, Tara, hey— Amy?”
Amy doesn’t seem to notice Buffy at first. “The whole school? By a giant snake thing? Okay, still adjusting. Hi, Buffy.”
“Hi.” Buffy pauses. “How’ve you been?”
“Rat. You?”
“Dead.”
“Oh.”
“I should let you guys catch up,” says Buffy. “I can—”
“No, no, no, no. Stay,” says Amy. “Do you have any cookies?”
“Uh, yeah. What kind?” asks Buffy.
“Any kind. Not cheese.”
Buffy says that they’re in the kitchen, and offers to go get them. Amy tells her she can do it herself.
“Okay, well, um, at least, you know, let me make up the couch for you,” says Buffy. “It’s late. You should stay here. Everybody does.”
Amy thanks her, and leaves the room. Buffy turns back to Willow. “Wow!”
“I know,” says Willow.
Buffy asks if Amy’s going to be okay. Willow isn’t sure. Amy’s still pretty freaked out.
“Wow,” says Buffy again.
“Yeah, I— I just realized I could. Thought of the right thing and— It’s nice, having another magically inclined friend around.” She asks what Buffy wanted to talk about earlier. It sounded serious.
Buffy tells her it’s nothing. “I mean, the whole Amy-rat-Amy thing, no way I’m topping that.”
Buffy finds Amy in the living room watching TV and holding a plate full of cookies in her lap. Amy turns the TV off when Buffy comes in. Buffy asks if there’s anything she needs.
“No, thanks,” says Amy. “Good cookies. Sorry about your mom.” Buffy thanks her. “It’s crazy, all the things that have happened since I went away. Snyder got eaten by a snake, the high school got destroyed.”
“Oh, gatorade has a new flavor,” says Buffy. “Blue.”
“See? Head spinning. People getting frozen, Willow’s dating girls, and did you hear about Tom and Nicole?”
“People are getting frozen?” asks Buffy.
Amy picks up the remote control, turns the TV back on, and catches the end of a live report on the robbery at the museum. “Weird.”
A crowd has gathered outside the museum. Buffy hops up and down behind them trying to see what’s going on, before she pushes through them. She’s just in time to see the paramedics carting Rusty away on a dolly.
Buffy starts to walk around the outside of the museum. She isn’t pleased to run into Spike. She asks what he’s doing there. Spike tells her he heard about the guy being frozen and decided to check it out. They can do it together.
“Yeah, that never really ends well, does it?” asks Buffy.
“It did the other night.”
“You really seem awfully fixated on a couple of kisses, Spike.”
“And you seem awfully quick to forget about ’em.”
Buffy tells Spike that she’s sorry if he thought there was anything to it, “But when I kissed you, you know I was thinking about Giles, right?”
“You know, I always wondered about you two.”
“What?” asks Buffy. “Oh, gross, Spike! He left, I was depressed, ergo vulnerability and bad kissing decisions! But that’s all that it was. You have to let it go.”
Spike wonders if it’s working. Is Buffy convincing herself that nothing happened? She asks him to stop.
“A man can change,” says Spike.
“You’re not a man. You’re a thing.” Buffy turns and starts to walk away.
Spike grabs Buffy’s shoulder. “Stop walking away.” He spins her around.
“Don’t touch me!” Buffy punches Spike, and he hits her back, hard enough to make Buffy spin around, and fall to her knees. Spike is momentarily stunned. He doesn’t have a headache! Buffy starts to pick herself up, and Spike starts to act like he’s in agony before she notices that he isn’t.
“You’re a thing.” Buffy turns and starts to walk away. “An evil, disgusting thing.”
Spike smiles as he watches Buffy go.
Spike surveys Sunnydale’s main street, looking for a victim. “Look at all the goodies!” he tells himself. He spots a girl checking her watch, and looking around. She seems to have been stood up by her date. She gets tired of waiting, and walks away into an alley.
Spike suddenly appears out of the shadows in front of her, and she screams.
“That’s right, you should scream,” says Spike. She tries to run, but Spike cuts her off. “Creature of the night here, yeah? Some people forget that.”
The girl backs away from him. “Please,” she pleads.
“She thinks I’m housebroken. She forgot who she’s dealing with.”
Spike backs the girl up against the wall. “Anything you want—” she says.
“Just ’cause she’s confused about where she fits in, I’m supposed to be, too? ’Cause I’m not. I know what I am. I’m dangerous. I’m evil.”
“I-I-I’m sure you’re not evil.”
“Yes, I am. I am a killer. That’s what I do. I kill. And, yeah, maybe it’s been a long time, but…it’s not like you forget how. You just…do it, and now I can again, all right? So, here goes.” Spike’s face transforms. “This might hurt a little.”
Spike lunges at the girl’s throat, and then suddenly howls and pulls away, holding his head. He collapses to the ground in agony. “What the hell is going on?”
The girl runs away.
Tara watches Dawn slurping down a gigantic chocolate milkshake. They are sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe. Tara can’t believe how big the shake is, and makes Dawn promise to eat something healthy for dinner. They’ve just come from seeing a movie together.
“You know that I will always be there for you, right?” asks Tara. “There—there was actually more of a lead-in when I practiced it at home.”
“I know,” says Dawn.
“It’s just—I wanted you to know that…my moving out had nothing to do with you, and I’m—I will never stop loving you.”
“I know,” says Dawn. “Do you think you’ll ever get back together?” That is something Tara doesn’t know. “But you still love her.”
“Very much. I just— sometimes other things get in the way.”
“I know. She’s been doing a lot better lately, though. She’s been really good about being careful…a-about stuff.”
“Well, good. Great,” says Tara. “That’s—that’s great.”
Buffy, Willow and Xander sit around the round table in the Magic Box, researching. Xander finds a report in the paper about Rusty the guard. He’s still unconscious in the hospital, but they expect him to recover. They thawed him out with hair dryers.
Anya whines from over by the bookshelves, and Buffy asks her what’s wrong.
“It’s such a pain,” says Anya. “The text I wanted, Giles took it with him. He has this thing that ‘owning’ a book makes it, like, his property.”
Buffy wonders if they should maybe phone Giles, but she isn’t sure what time it is there. Willow tells them not to worry. She has another way to get the information they want. She reaches into her bag.
Buffy looks a little worried. “I don’t think we need to resort to— I mean—” She sees that Willow has pulled her iBook out of her bag. “Oh. Hey. Cool.”
Xander is happy too. “All right, back to basics. A little old-fashioned, state-of-the-art hacker action.”
“That’s great, Will. I haven’t seen you do that in a long time,” says Buffy. Willow opens up her laptop and rests her hands over the keyboard. It begins to glow. “I—I don’t remember that part.”
“It’s quicker,” says Willow. “It’ll just take me a sec to go through the files.” She sits holding her hands over the keyboard and staring into space above her computer, at something the others can’t see. Buffy and Xander exchange a worried look. “Okay, internal police report. A diamond was stolen from the museum last night. A big one, on loan from the British Museum. They’re withholding information to smoke out the criminals. Oh, it’s pretty. There’s a picture.”
Buffy asks if there’s anything supernatural about the diamond. Anya suggests it might be cursed. “Diamonds are excellent for cursing.” Willow says she’ll keep looking.
Xander stretches his arms, and fakes a yawn. “Well, you know, I am kinda beat.” He yawns again. “And I bet you that’s tiring, that…thing you’re doing there.”
“Guys, I’m fine,” says Willow. “What’s the deal with—”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” says Anya. “This is bizarre. You’re all la-la-la with the magic and the not talking, like everything’s normal when we all know that Tara up and left you, and now everyone’s scared to say anything to you. Except me.” She looks at Xander. “Is this that thing I do that you were commenting—” Xander nods.
Willow tells them that she’s okay. Tara leaving was hard, but maybe it’s for the better. “Little things just started taking over. Things that didn’t matter. But we saw them differently, so they got blown out of proportion. And this time away will help us sort through things. Really.” She just wants to keep working on this. She doesn’t want to leave Amy alone too long. Xander asks how Amy’s adjusting.
“It’s hard to say,” says Willow. “It’s a lot to take in. I keep expecting her to do, like, ratty stuff. You know, licking her hands clean, shredding newspaper, leaving little pellets in the corner.”
“Let’s definitely not leave her alone in the house too long,” says Buffy.
Warren, Andrew and Jonathan sit around a table in their lair in Warren’s mom’s basement admiring their new diamond. Jonathan and Andrew are amazed by how sparkly and big it is.
“Yes, gentlemen, it turns out size is everything,” says Warren. He pats Jonathan’s knee. “No offense, man.” Jonathan swats his hand away.
Warren starts toward the cellar doors. It’s time to move on to Phase Two. He asks if the van is ready. The doors open before he gets to them, and Spike comes in. Warren starts to back away from him.
“Hello? It’s called knocking,” says Andrew.
Spike knocks on top of Warren’s head. “Knock knock, robot boy. You need to look at my chip.”
Warren tells Spike that he’s in the middle of something, and he isn’t afraid of him. “What are you going to do if we don’t especially feel like maybe playing your—” He stops when he sees Spike pick up their Boba Fett action figure off a table. “What are—wait, what are you doing?”
“Examine my chip or else Mr….” Spike glances at the label on the base he took the figure off. “…Fett here is the first to die.”
Jonathan and Andrew want to make sure that Spike doesn’t do anything rash. That’s a 1979 mint condition Boba Fett he’s holding.
Warren tells everyone to chill. “You don’t want to hurt the Fett,” he tells Spike. “Because, man, you’re not comin’ back from that! You know, you don’t just do that and walk away.”
Spike takes Boba’s head between his fingers. “That right? Let’s find out.” His hands twitch. “Phutt!”
Warren tells Spike to wait just a second, and pulls Jonathan and Andrew into a huddle.
“Dudes, I think that’s Spike,” says Andrew.
“Of course it is, and he’s evil,” says Jonathan. “Completely capable of removing that head.”
Warren tells them that he’s going to do what Spike wants. Jonathan isn’t sure that’s a good idea. “I mean, we all have heads, too.” Warren figures that this is an opportunity to get Spike owing them a favour. Maybe they can get some info on Buffy from him, or use him to keep her out of Phase Two. Andrew still doesn’t think they can trust Spike.
“Of course not,” says Warren. “But alliances aren’t about trust. See, he needs us, we need him. That’s how these things work. I think we’re ready. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” says Jonathan.
Andrew looks toward Spike. He’s tossing Boba Fett in the air and catching him. “Do what you need to do.”
Warren returns to Spike, and tells him that they can work out a deal. A little mutual back scratching.
“I’m not scratching your anything,” says Spike. “You do what I tell you. That’s the deal. Deal?”
“Deal,” says Warren.
Spike tosses Boba Fett to Andrew and tells Warren to get busy.
Andrew strokes the action figure. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he tells it. “It’ll be fine.”
Willow arrives home, and calls out for Amy. She doesn’t seem to be there. Amy darts out of the kitchen, looking agitated. She thought Willow would be back before this. Willow apologises, she had thought she’d get home earlier. Amy asks if Willow wants to go out. Willow is a little surprised by that. She thought Amy might want to see her dad.
Amy isn’t ready for that. “Not yet. Too many questions.”
“About where you were.”
“No. About how I got there,” says Amy. “I wish there was a way that I could make him forget about the last three years.”
“Oh, well, hey, I can help you with that,” says Willow. “Only you might want to sew your name into your clothes first or something.”
Amy just doesn’t want to deal with that now. She’s bored. She wants to go out. Willow seems reluctant. She asks what Amy wants to do. “I don’t know. Something fun,” says Amy. “Anything not involving a big wheel. Or maybe…you’d rather sit home all night…alone, like in high school.”
“No. No, you know what? I can have fun,” says Willow. “Heck, I—I deserve some fun. I can party. Not like I owe anyone anything. I am totally free. So, let’s make with the fun.”
Spike lies on a table with electrodes glued to his head while Warren runs a scanner over his head.
Spike sits in a chair beside Jonathan and Andrew, waiting for Warren to print out the results of his tests. Andrew is still cradling Boba Fett protectively in his hands. He asks Spike if he’s English.
Spike glares at Andrew. “Yeah.”
“I’ve seen every episode of Dr. Who.” says Andrew. “Not Red Dwarf, though, ’cause, um…”
“’Cause it’s not out yet on DVD,” says Jonathan.
“Right. It’s not out yet on…DVD,” says Andrew.
Spike has taken all of this he can. “Warren!”
Warren comes over and hands Spike the printouts. Spike looks at them briefly and hands them back. “Help me out here, Spock. I don’t speak Loser.”
Warren tells Spike the chip is working fine. “I don’t know what that thing does. I’d like to.” Warren leans closer to Spike, but then he sees the look Spike’s giving him and backs off. “But whatever it is, it works fine. There’s no deterioration of the signal. It still is coming through in a steady pulse, which it’s supposed to.”
Spike gets to his feet, and glares at Warren. “If you’re lying to me—”
“No. It’s all right here,” says Warren. “I mean, it is. It’s really not that hard to figure out if you just—What?”
Spike thinks about Warren has said for several seconds. “You tell anyone about this…”
“I promise,” says Warren. “Who would I tell? I don’t even know what this is about.”
“It’s about the rules having changed,” says Spike. He starts toward the exit from the cellar. “Everything’s different now. Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her.”
Dawn and Tara come in the front door of the Summers’ house, and Dawn calls out to see if there’s anyone home. She doesn’t get an answer. Tara thinks she should be going, but Dawn closes the door before she can leave, grabs Tara’s arm and pulls her into the living room. She thinks Tara should stay until Buffy or Willow get home. “Then you can get a chance to catch up with…everyone.” Tara doesn’t think that’s a good idea.
Dawn says that’s okay, sits on the sofa, and turns on the TV. It can keep her company until someone else gets home. “You notice how it’s been getting dark so much earlier these days?” She glances at Tara to see if her blackmail is working.
It is. Tara sits down beside her on the sofa. “Fine. I’ll stay, but just until they get back. And only to make sure that you are not alone. This has nothing to do with…anyone else.”
Dawn snuggles up close beside Tara. “Sure. Cool. Up to you.” She rests her head on Tara’s shoulder.
Willow and Amy are in the Bronze, playing a little pool, using magic instead of cues. Amy is still catching up on all the stuff that’s happened while she was a rat. She can’t believe that Xander’s engaged. “So, what’s she like?”
Willow casts another spell and sinks the eight ball. “Thousand year old capitalist ex-demon with rabbit-phobia.”
“Oh, that’s so his type,” says Amy.
A couple of guys come up to them, and say “Hey.” Willow “hey”s them back, and one of the guys whispers something in Amy’s ear. She likes whatever it was he said. She tells Willow she’s going to go dance, and invites her to come along. Willow says she’ll just stay and watch their drinks.
Amy looks around and sees a couple of girls sitting together at the bar. “If you want something a little more your style, I’m sure we can swing that.” She snaps her fingers, and one of the girls, a tall statuesque brunette, forgets her friend, and turns to look at Willow. She gets up and starts to come toward her.
Willow looks desperately around at Amy. “No. Really. No.”
The tall brunette introduces herself to Willow. “Hi. Bree.”
“Willow. Nice, um, top.” Willow looks back at Amy. “No. Thanks, but no.” Amy asks if she’s sure, and Willow is. Amy snaps her fingers again, and Bree loses interest in Willow. She returns to her friend at the bar, who is wondering what the heck just happened.
The guys are still wondering if they are going to dance. Willow tells them to go, she’ll be fine.
Willow sits at the bar staring at an olive stuck on a toothpick from a martini glass. It looks like a green and red eyeball. “No use looking at me like that. It’s the gullet for you, Mister.” She pops the olive into her mouth.
Amy returns to Willow, and empties the glass. She apologises for being away so long, she got caught up in the dancing. “You know…if rats could dance, they probably wouldn’t gnaw so much.”
They guys have followed Amy off the dance floor. They still want to dance, but Amy tells them she’s done.
One of the guys grabs Amy’s arm. “Nuh-uh. You can’t just work us up like that and then just—” She pulls away from him.
“I think she said no,” says Willow.
“Well, nobody asked you…Ellen.”
“You want to dance?” asks Amy.
“That’s all,” says the other guy. “Nice, slow, relaxing dance.”
Amy and Willow exchange a glance, and cast a spell. They guys are transported into go-go cages suspended over the floor, and they’re naked, except for loin cloths. They both look mortified, as they start to dance against their wills.
Willow looks at the dancing guys and smiles. “Gee.”
“I think I do feel more relaxed,” says Amy.
Xander, Anya and Buffy are still researching in the Magic Box. Xander thinks he’s found something, but Anya points out that he’s looking in a D&D manual.4
Anya doesn’t think they are going to find this thing, because it doesn’t exist. “There’s no such thing as a frost monster who eats diamonds.”
“Well, maybe he doesn’t eat them,” says Buffy. “You know, maybe he just…thinks they’re pretty.” She closes the book in front of her. “We suck.”
Xander thinks they need some new brains on the problem, and asks where Willow is. Buffy figures she’s out with Amy.
“Great. Someone to do more magic with,” says Anya.
“But at least she’s not all cooped up and crying,” says Buffy. “That’s forward momentum. Now, I know that I don’t know everything that happened with her and Tara, but it—”
“Tara thinks Willow is doing too much magic, and she’s not the only one,” says Xander.
“I know,” says Buffy. “But I think she’ll be fine, you know? It’s—it’s Willow, she of the level head.”
“Well, those are the ones you have to watch out for the most,” says Anya. “Responsible types.”
“Right,” says Buffy. “She might go crazy and start alphabetizing everything.”
“I’m serious!” says Anya. “Responsible people are always so concerned with being good all the time that when they finally get a taste of being bad, they can’t get enough. It’s like all kablooey.”
“It’s human nature, Buff,” says Xander. “Will’s getting a taste of something powerful, way bigger than her.”
Anya thinks that Willow was getting out of control even before Tara left, and now…
“It’s got to be seductive just giving into it, going totally wild,” says Xander. “We need to keep an eye on her.”
Buffy agrees that they should. “But we can’t assume that everybody’s getting seduced. You know, sometimes—”
She’s interrupted by the telephone ringing, and goes to answer it. She is surprised to find that it’s Spike calling. He wants her to meet him in the cemetery in twenty minutes. Buffy is not pleased to hear from him asks loudly if he has a lead on the monster thingie, mainly for Xander and Anya’s benefit.
“Something like that, yeah,” says Spike. “Thought you might be up for a little grunt work.”
“What?” asks Buffy quietly. “No! No grunting.”
“I was talking shop, luv, but if you got other ideas, you, me, cozy little tomb with a view…” Buffy hangs up on him. Xander asks what Captain Peroxide wanted.
“Nothing,” says Buffy. “He just, you know, wanted to see if I— I wanted to patrol for the—the monster. But I—I told him that I…would not.”
Buffy, Xander and Anya leave the Magic Box together. Buffy can’t shake the feeling that something different is going on. Several weird things have happened recently that they haven’t been able to explain. Demons robbing banks, the jewelry heist…
“The exploding lint,” says Xander.
“Is it me or do these things seem really…”
“Lame?” asks Anya.
“Lame” isn’t the word Buffy was looking for, but she admits it fits. She tells them she’s going to do a quick patrol around town, and go home and get some sleep. They can figure this out tomorrow.
“Optimism,” says Anya. “I remember optimism.”
“That’s because you’re, like, a thousand,” says Xander.
They all say goodnight to each other, and Buffy leaves in the opposite direction from Xander and Anya.
Buffy enters the alley beside the Magic Box, and is not pleased to find Spike is waiting for her. He isn’t pleased that she didn’t come to the cemetery like he asked. Buffy tells him she was busy doing actual stuff. She tries to walk around him.
Spike follows her. “You shouldn’t be so flip, Luv.”
“What are you going to do, walk behind me to death?”
Spike moves around in front of Buffy. “I’m just saying things might be a little different. You ought to be careful.” Buffy tries to step around him, but Spike moves to stay in front of her. She tells him to get out of her way.
“Or what?” asks Spike.
Buffy shrugs, and then she punches him. Spike hits her back, hard, with the back of his hand. Buffy staggers back, and then looks at him.
“Oh, the pain,” says Spike. “The pain…is gone.” Buffy is horrified. “Guess what I just found out? Looks like I’m not as toothless as you thought, sweetheart.”
“How?” asks Buffy.
“Don’t you get it? Don’t you see?” asks Spike. “You came back wrong!”
Buffy punches Spike, and knocks him across the alley. He laughs and knocks her up against a chain link fence. “It’s a trick,” says Buffy. “You did something to the chip. It’s a trick.”
“It’s no trick. It’s not me, it’s you. Just you, in fact. That’s the funny part.” Spike punches Buffy. “You’re the one that’s changed.” He swings another punch at her. “That’s why this doesn’t hurt me.” He swings again, but she blocks it. “Came back a little less human than you were.”
“You’re wrong.” Buffy kicks Spike across the alley.
Spike comes back toward her. “Then how come you’re so spooked, luv? And why can I…” Spike punches her again. “…do that?”
“You’re wrong.” Buffy punches Spike across the alley. He picks himself up and Buffy grabs him by the lapels of his coat. She pushes him across the alley, and they smash through the door into an abandoned house.
Willow and Amy look down from the Bronze’ balcony at the guys dancing in their cages. Willow decides she doesn’t like the band playing tonight, and transforms them into a girl band more to her liking. Amy casts a spell that makes a guy start floating around the room. Willow transforms a couple of guys, making a short one tall, and a tall one short. Amy conjures up a herd of sheep.
Amy and Willow look down and laugh as they continue to fling spells around the Bronze.
Buffy punches and kicks Spike through the abandoned house. He picks himself up and laughs. “Oh, poor, little, lost girl.” He jumps up, grabs an overhead chandelier, and swings both feet at her head. Buffy goes down, and Spike drops back to the floor before the chandelier comes loose from the ceiling. “She doesn’t fit in anywhere. She’s got no one to love.”
Buffy gets back to her feet, grabs Spike, and throws him against the stair railing. It shatters. “Me? I’m lost? Look at you, you idiot. Poor Spikey. Can’t be a human, can’t be a vampire. Where the hell do you fit in?” Spike picks himself up, and swings at her. She ducks under his punch and hits him twice in the belly. She grabs him and throws him at the fireplace on the other side of the room. The brickwork around it shatters when he hits it. “Your job is to kill the Slayer, but all you can do is follow me around making moon eyes.”
Spike looks up at her. “I’m in love with you.”
Buffy walks across the floor toward him. “You’re in love with pain. Admit it! You like me because you enjoy getting beat down. So really, who’s screwed up?”
Spike gets back to his feet. “Hello. Vampire.” He swings a punch at Buffy that she blocks, and then she hits him back. “I’m supposed to be treading on the dark side.” He grabs Buffy and throws her against the wall.
Buffy is a little slow getting up this time, and Spike grabs her and throws her out into the middle of the floor. He leans down and grabs her by the lapels of her jacket. “What’s your excuse?”
Buffy puts her hand against Spike’s face and pushes him away with all her strength. He knocks a piece out of the corner of one of the walls. They both pick themselves up off the floor and Buffy tackles him.
Willow and Amy look around the transformed Bronze. They’ve grown bored with their game. “Return!” says Willow, and everything changes back to normal. None of the people there behave like there was anything out of the ordinary happening.
Willow looks down at the people. “I just keep thinking there’s got to be someplace, like, bigger than this.”
Amy smiles. “Besides, it’s way too early to go home yet.”
Spike has Buffy pinned against the stairs. She struggles to break his grip on her. He pulls her to her feet. “I wasn’t planning on hurting you…much.”
“You haven’t even come close to hurting me.” Buffy breaks free and throws Spike against one of the support columns for the ceiling. It cracks.
“Afraid to give me the chance?” asks Spike. “You afraid I’m going to—”
Buffy cuts Spike off by kissing him fiercely. Spike grabs her and spins her around against the column, inflicting more damage to it as he kisses her back.
Buffy breaks off and pushes Spike across the room. She pushes him up against the opposite wall as the beam attached to their column comes crashing down where they had been. She kisses him again.
Spike grabs Buffy and lifts her up in his arms. She wraps her legs around him, reaches down and unzips his pants. She hikes up her skirt, pulls herself up, and then lowers herself onto him. They both stop for a moment and look into each other’s eyes. Buffy starts to move. Slowly, up and down. She closes her eyes and kisses him.
Spike swings Buffy around and slams her against the wall. The chandelier falls from the ceiling onto the floor as they move together. The whole building moves with them. Another beam comes crashing down from the ceiling and punches a hole through the floor.
Spike kisses Buffy’s breasts through her blouse. She pushes off from the wall and Spike falls back. Buffy hangs on, riding him as he crashes back onto the weakened floor. They smash right through it, and fall together into the basement beneath them.
Spike lies on his back on the basement floor with Buffy straddling him. She continues to move, looking into his eyes as pieces of ceiling rain down around them.
What was is no longer.
What was done, undo.
The danger passed,
The trial no more.
Set it right.