Introduction
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| Normal Again | Seeing Red |
Two vampires run through the cemetery. One of them has a crystal disk in its hand. They’re running from three black four wheeled ATVs being driven by Jonathan, Warren and Andrew. The ATVs have wooden spears sticking out from their handle bars.
One of the vampires breaks a branch off a tree and throws it at Andrew on the lead ATV. He wipes out. Warren and Jonathan swerve to avoid running over him. Warren careens off the path and smashes through a headstone before coming back onto the path, and running into Jonathan. They both fall off their ATVs and roll along the ground. The vampires keep running toward the gate out of the cemetery.
Andrew is back on his feet, and comes up behind Warren and Jonathan. “We’re going to lose ’em!”
“We need that disk,” says Jonathan.
The vampires run out the gate, and into Buffy. She kicks one of the vamps, and tosses the vamp carrying the disk head first against one of the stone pillars flanking the gate. It slumps to the ground, stunned, while Buffy turns her attention to the other vampire.
Warren sees the disk lying on the ground, and that Buffy is currently fully distracted. He creeps up to the gate, grabs the disk, and runs before she can spot him.
Buffy plunges her stake toward the vampire’s heart, but it manages to catch her arm, and hold her off.
The stunned vampire starts to recover and get back to its feet. It suddenly gets pulled up into the air. Spike is sitting on the top of the gate pillar, and has hold of the vampire’s collar. He holds it dangling in the air with its feet off the ground.
The vampire Buffy’s fighting flips her to the ground, and tries to grab her by the throat. Buffy grabs its hands and holds them off.
“How ya doin’?” asks Spike.
“Oh, fine. You know, same old same old.” Buffy struggles to keep the vampire’s hands away from her throat. Spike volunteers to finish off the one he’s holding.
“Whatever.” Buffy kicks the vampire away from her. “Your call.” She flips back to her feet.
Spike doesn’t think that the vampire he’s holding really looks like much, but it still might cause Buffy some problems. “Save you the staking. All you got to do is—”
Buffy kicks her vampire to the ground, and holds it down while it struggles. She looks up at Spike. “I am not telling my friends about us.”
“Right. I’ll just be dropping him down to you, then,” says Spike.
“You want to tell ’em so badly? Go ahead.” Buffy stakes her vampire and gets back to her feet. She walks over toward Spike. “You know why? I tried to kill my friends, my sister last week, and guess how much they hate me. Zero. Zero much. So I’m thinking, sleeping with you, they’ll deal.” She turns her back on the two vampires, and starts to walk away.
Spike drops the vampire. It starts to run at Buffy’s back.
“In that case, why won’t you sleep with me again?” asks Spike.
The vampire turns around and looks at Spike. “Huh?”
Buffy turns around, and plunges her stake into the vampire’s heart. It explodes into dust. She turns her back on Spike and keeps walking. “Because I don’t love you.”
“Like hell.” Spike mutters to himself.
Xander sits on the floor of his apartment, drinking a beer, and listening to depressing music. He puts down the beer bottle, picks up the remote for the stereo, and turns it off. He sits for a moment before he gets to his feet, grabs his jacket and walks out the door.
Xander shambles down the walk away from his apartment building. He doesn’t see Anya watching him from the shadows behind some bushes.
Willow greets Tara in the hallway as she’s coming out of class. Tara is happy to see her, and asks how Willow’s feeling after the whole basement thing. Willow says she’s fine, but still has a bit of a kink in her neck. They walk off down the hall together.
“And Buffy’s okay, too?” asks Tara. “Enjoying the refreshing sanity and so forth?”
Willow laughs much too enthusiastically. “Yeah. Refreshing san—” She realises what she’s doing, and stops laughing. “That’s funny. She’s okay. A little freaked. I’m glad she didn’t hurt you.”
“Me, too,” says Tara. “So, this is becoming kind of a regular thing, you and me after class.” Willow looks confused. “Only this time, you stuck around.”
Willow’s confusion turns to embarrassment. She tries to temporise.
“She was just a friend,” says Tara. “You rushed off before I could, you know, explain.”
“Well, officially, I have to say, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Willow.
“Unofficially?” asks Tara.
Willow smiles. “We should have some coffee sometime. Maybe someday this week after class?”
“I’m free tomorrow.”
Willow’s smile brightens. “I—you could—you could bring your friend.”
“I wasn’t going to—” says Tara. “I mean, if you have a friend—”
“No,” says Willow. “I’m—oh, uh, I’m friendless.”
“Yeah, yeah. No friends,” says Tara. “I mean, I have friends.”
“Right,” says Willow. “Many dear friends. I mean, yeah.” They both start to giggle.
Tara gets herself under control. “Coffee.”
“With us, who are just friends.”
Buffy and Dawn walk through the mall together. Buffy points to a store. “Okay, how about this store?”
“Ah. Three pairs of earrings, a coin purse, and a toothbrush.”
They keep walking. “You stole a toothbrush?” Buffy doesn’t think much of her sister’s choice of loot. “As far as rebellious teenagers go, you’re kind of square.”
“Dental hygiene is important,” says Dawn.
Buffy apologises for the lameness of this sister’s day out. “I make up for trying to kill you by taking you to places you can’t go in.” She suggests that they try the pet store. “You didn’t take anything from there, did you?”
“A pocketful of goldfish,” says Dawn. “It didn’t work out.”
Buffy gives Dawn a disbelieving look, and Dawn starts to laugh. She was just kidding about that. Dawn isn’t really anxious to go into the pet store though. “It’s so awful. There’s puppy mills, and keeping them in cages, and people poking at ’em all day.”
“Yeah, but puppies: cute,” says Buffy. “Come on, you used to love the pet store.”
“Yes, when I was in my fives and sixes.” Dawn sees the look of disappointment on Buffy’s face and changes her mind. “Come on, we’ll go look. Besides, I don’t think there’s another store here where I can…show my face.”
Buffy assures Dawn that it will pass. She has returned all the stuff that she still had, and they are in the process of paying for the rest.
“I’m paying for the rest,” says Dawn.
“We’ll figure it out.”
Warren looks over Jonathan’s shoulder while he grinds some ingredients with a mortar and pestle. Jonathan tells him to get back, you can’t rush what he’s doing.
“I’m not impressed, Padawan,” says Warren. “When do we hit paydirt?”
“If something goes wrong, it’s going to surge,” says Jonathan. “And we’ll be deader than an ex-girlfriend,” he mutters under his breath.
“What did you say?” asks Warren.
Jonathan tells Warren to just back off. He’ll get them what they want, and then he’s done. He’s going to take his share, and call it a day.
“You that ready to get rid of us, huh?” asks Warren. “Don’t worry. We pull this off, you can go buy any tropical island you want. But cheer up, Short Round. You’re about to get us everything we ever wanted.”
Warren walks across their basement lair and starts to speak softly with Andrew, so that Jonathan won’t overhear them.
Andrew is starting to get nervous. “He’s got that same look on his face: the one that he had that time I highlighted in his Babylon 5 novels…right before he told his mother on me! Warren, I don’t think we can trust him.”
Warren doesn’t think they’ll have to for very long. Andrew asks how much longer it will be.
“The milk in the fridge: how long till it expires?” asks Warren.
“Uh, we got it on Friday, and I remember noticing there wasn’t a full two weeks on it, but we did get it in the fridge pretty quick. Unless I’m thinking about the two percent milk.”
Warren closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “Forget it. It was a thing.” He rubs his temples. “It’s going to be soon.”
Andrew finally gets his meaning. “Oh, wow.”
Xander returns home. He’s surprised to find Anya sitting at their kitchen table. She gets nervously to her feet. Xander steps toward her. “Oh my god. How are you?”
Anya backs off a step. “Ducky. You?”
“Ahn…please. Let me, uh, explain. I know there’s nothing that I can say or do to make up for what I did. I can’t. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I’m, like, ‘Oh god, is this my life? Was that me?’”
“Me too,” whispers Anya.
“But you got to believe me, please. I want to make up for it. I want to take away the hurt. I love you so much.” Xander smiles weakly. “I—I may have practiced that a couple times in front of the mirror.”
Anya doesn’t understand what happened, but Xander thinks he does. “I’m an idiot. All I had to do was say something earlier. I could’ve spared you from that— that nightmare.”
Anya starts to get angry. “Said something about what?”
“No, no!” says Xander. “I mean, you know, if I were, like, more self-aware—because with the whole idiot thing.”
“If you had been more self-aware, you would have what?” asks Anya. “Been able to stop the wedding?”
Xander knows that he’s saying this very badly. He hasn’t practiced this part.
“Do you still want to get married?” asks Anya.
“Oh. Ahn, it’s a very complicated question.”
“No, actually, it’s really not,” says Anya. “It’s kind of an either/or deal. Do you want to get married?”
“Someday, yes, very much,” says Xander. “When we’re ready. I don’t want you to take this as a bad thing. It’s good. I love you. I love you so much. I’m just trying to be honest with you.”
“Yes. Honesty now. Congratulations, Xander, on being honest now! I wonder what the medal will say!”
“Okay, clearly, I’m not handling this well.”
“Well, duh!” Anya turns her back on him.
“All I want is for us to be together,” says Xander. “I love you. I wish we could just go back to the way things were before.”
Anya’s face transforms, taking on the form of a vengeance demon. “And I wish you were never born!”
“I know this is all coming out wrong,” says Xander.
Anya’s shocked Xander’s still there. She shifts back to her human face, and turns to face him. “I wish you felt the pain of a thousand searing pokers boiling your heart in its own juices!”
“I know, honey. I totally deserve that,” says Xander.
“I wish you had tentacles where your beady eyes should be.” Nothing happens. “I—I wish your intestines were tied in knots and ripped apart inside your lousy gut!”
“They are,” says Xander.
Anya starts to perk up. “Really? Right now? Does it hurt?”
“God, yes. It hurts so bad, it’s killing me. Anya, I love you. I want to make this work.”
Anya deflates. “Those are…metaphor intestines. You’re not in any real pain. What’s wrong with me?”
“Honey, it’s not you,” says Xander. “It’s me.”
“Ah!” cries Anya in frustration. She pushes past Xander and storms out of the apartment.
Xander chases after her. “Ahn! Ahn! Wait! Please. Ahn!” He looks out into the hall, but she’s vanished.
Anya sits with Halfrek in a restaurant, having coffee and muffins. Anya picks up a flower out of the vase on the table and fiddles with it while Hallie tells her about her latest curse. A father who was eleven years behind in his child support payments now gets a paper cut any time he touches a piece of paper that isn’t a cheque for his child. “Oh, you know how I hate to toot my own horn, but now his hands are just covered in all these tiny little bandages, like a quilt.” Halfrek laughs. “You know, made of bandages.”
Hallie notices that Anya isn’t paying any attention to her. “Okay, do they not teach listening skills in human world?”
Anya apologises for her distraction, and puts the flower back. Hallie tells her not to worry about it. She’ll figure out what to do about Xander.
“No, that’s just it. I’ve tried everything,” says Anya. “I tried every curse I knew. Nothing’s worked.”
“Wait, did you try to curse him yourself?” asks Halfrek.
“Yeah. I am the wronged party here.”
“Of course. You can’t exact justice against someone on behalf of yourself, silly.” Hallie laughs. “How long you been away?”
In all her thousand years as a vengeance demon, Anya never once had to make a wish for herself. She asks Halfrek if there’s any way to get around it.
“Well, you could try getting someone to make the wish for you,” suggests Halfrek.
Dawn enters the kitchen next morning and sees that the counter has a plate stacked high with pancakes waiting for her, along with a bowl of sliced fruit, and a glass of juice. Buffy is at the oven making more. She asks Dawn what sort of syrup she wants.
“Syrups have kinds?” asks Dawn.
Buffy puts the latest batch of pancakes onto another plate, and puts the skillet into the sink. She gets some slices of fresh toast out of the toaster, and adds them to a plate that already has lots on it. She apologises for the way the mall trip didn’t really work out, and suggests that she and Dawn just stay in tonight, with pizza and a rented video. Buffy brings a selection of breakfast cereal boxes over to the counter, and asks if Dawn has any plans for the weekend.
“Hey, Buffy, I’m going to be okay with the basement thing,” says Dawn. “Really. You weren’t you.”
“This isn’t guilt,” says Buffy. “I want us to spend time.”
“Okay, good. I love spending time—”
Buffy realises she’s pushing this too hard. “But I’m cramping your teenage style.”
“No,” says Dawn.
“Yes, I am!” says Buffy. “I’m the embarrassing mom who tries too hard. When did this happen?”
Dawn really does want to spend time with her sister, but she suggests that instead of Buffy hanging out with her, she could try hanging out with Buffy. “Why don’t I come patrolling with you tonight?”
“Oh, and then maybe we can invite over some strangers and ask them to feed you candy,” says Buffy.
“Well, you guys went out patrolling every night when you were my age.”
“True, but, technically, you’re one and a half,” says Buffy, which earns her glare from Dawn. Buffy apologises for the joke, but Dawn isn’t coming on patrol with her. That is much too dangerous. She works very hard to keep Dawn away from that part of her life. “I don’t want you around dangerous things that can kill you.”
“Which would be a perfectly reasonable argument if my sister was chosen to protect the world from tax audits, but, see, my sister is you, and dangerous things that want to kill me seem to find me.”
Buffy still doesn’t think that Dawn should go looking for danger, and tells Dawn to eat up, or she’ll be late for school.
Willow and Tara sit at a table in the Espresso Pump having coffee, and catching up on what’s been happening in their lives. Willow has just told Tara about the Wig Lady in the Doublemeat Palace.
“Disgusting,” says Tara. “What did it look like?”
“Well, let’s put it this way: if I wasn’t gay before…”
“God, and this was after the invisible ray?” asks Tara.
Willow has had a much more interesting time than Tara has over the past couple of months since she moved back into the dorm. Life there isn’t the same. “It’s not like living with a house full of family or sharing a room with someone you—”
“Are friends with?” asks Willow.
They’re interrupted by the appearance of Anya. Willow jumps to her feet to give her a welcoming hug. They’d been worried about her. Anya apologises, and tells them that she just had to get away for a while after everything that happened. Tara and Willow understand.
“But you’re back now, right?” asks Willow. “If there’s anything we can do, just let us—”
“Actually, um, there’s an eensy something I could use a little help with.” Anya sits down with them at the table. “You’re lesbians, so the hating of men will come in handy. Let’s talk about Xander.”
“He feels awful,” says Dawn. She’s with Anya in the Magic Box.
Anya doesn’t think that the way Xander feels comes anywhere near how she feels. “What if it were you, Dawn? What if all you dreamed about was that magical day, the day when the one person you loved with all your soul would promise to cherish and protect your heart for the rest of his life, but instead, he shatters it into a million jagged pieces?”
Tara tells Anya that they really aren’t much into the hating of men.
“We’re more centered around the…girl-on-girl action,” says Willow.
“And men really like to watch that kind of stuff, don’t they?” asks Anya. “Men like Xander.”
Buffy leans against the post beside the front steps of her house. “I don’t think he could feel any worse.”
“Let’s test that theory,” says Anya.
“Anya, Xander’s my friend. I know what he did was wrong, and if it happened to me, I’d—”
“Wish his penis would explode?”
Dawn tells Anya that she never uses the “W-I-S-H” word anymore.
“Oh, ‘wish,’” says Anya, “as in: ‘I wish Xander—’”
“Right. That word. There’s vengeance demons out there that are still active, remember? Any ‘I wish’ can totally end in horrible grossness.”
“Give me a for-instance,” says Anya.
“I don’t really think I should,” says Buffy.
“Did I mention the whole left-at-the-altar thing? Didn’t leave that out, did I?”
“No. No. Look, I know what he did was wrong,” says Buffy. “God, if it happened to me, I—I—it must have been torture.”
Anya rubs her hands together. “Okay, let’s talk about torture.”
“So, tell me more about wishing Xander’s brains and guts would go blooey.”
“I didn’t say that,” says Dawn.
“Yes, you did.”
“No I didn’t.”
“I heard you.”
“I swear I didn’t say that,” says Dawn.
“Didn’t say what?” asks Anya.
Dawn makes an effort to change the subject. She came in to talk to Anya about working off her debt. “You know, my whole sticky-fingers, grabby-hands thing.”
“Oh, right. The mad thieving.” Anya feigns enthusiasm. “Good! Yes! There’s much to do. Going to put you to work, Missy.” Anya laughs. “So, back to Xander’s brains and guts.”
Anya and Buffy sit on Buffy’s front steps. “Squish. Squish. Squish,” says Anya. “Guys have been running roughshod over you for years, torturing that perky little ticker. Aren’t you sick of it? Don’t you wish guys like that—”
“Whoa. Guys? There have only been four.” Buffy quickly back peddles. “Three. Three. Three guys. That’s barely plural.”
“And didn’t each of them rip your heart out? Don’t men like that, as to pick an example, Xander, deserve to be punished?”
Willow and Tara think that it’s kind of natural for guys to like to watch girls, and they wonder why Anya wants to talk about this anyway.
Anya jumps to her feet. “God, what kind of lesbians are you? If you love men so much, go love men!” She storms out of the Espresso Pump.
“Anya, I know you’re hurting,” says Buffy, “but—”
“What? Xander doesn’t deserve to suffer for what he did ’cause he’s your friend and I’m not, right?” Anya gets up and starts to walk away. “I get it.”
Buffy tells her that isn’t it at all. “What he did was wrong. He knows that.”
“It’s just, it hurts,” says Anya. “He hurt me so much.”
Buffy gets to her feet and goes to Anya. “He really did.” She puts her hand on her shoulder. “Look, I wish that—”
Anya looks at Buffy hopefully. Here it comes.
“Anya?” Xander comes running up the walk toward them.
“Well, congratulations!” says Anya. “They all still love you, even after what you did to me!” She runs off.
“Anya, wait!” Xander tries to run after her.
Buffy stops him. She really doesn’t think it’s a good idea for him to do that right now, in his and Anya’s current moods. “In the Land of the Sane, you could give her some space, let her cool down.”
Xander doesn’t like that idea. He thinks that he should be doing something, but Buffy thinks that her way will let Xander keep all of his appendages.
“And I’m supposed to, what, walk away?” asks Xander. “Shouldn’t be too hard. It’s what I’m good at, right?” He kicks a garden gnome sitting at the base of a tree in Buffy’s yard, and shatters it.
“Okay, see?” asks Buffy. “That’s exactly why a heart-to-heart is probably not your best course of action right now. When you’re both angry and upset and—” Buffy looks at the shattered remains of the gnome. “What the hell is that creepy little thing doing in my yard? Did Willow put that there when I was dead? ’Cause if I’d have known, I would have crawled out of the grave sooner—”
“Buffy.” Xander has been examining the remains. He pulls a miniature camera out of the gnome’s head. “Looks like someone’s been keeping an eye on all your ins and outs.”
“What the— Who?” asks Buffy.
“Well, now, let’s see,” says Xander. “Who’s obsessed with Buffy? Who likes to hang out in her yard and keep an eye on her? Who’s in love with you and not getting any?”
Buffy shows the camera to Spike. He wonders why she’s doing this.
“Someone was using it to spy on me, on my house,” says Buffy. “Xander thinks it’s you.”
“Oh, the great Xander thinks so? Shudder, gasp, it must be true,” says Spike. “That ponce has always had it for me. Every chance he gets, he sticks it to— You believe him, don’t you? You think I’m spying on you. You think I could do that??
“Because you don’t lie or cheat or steal or manipulate…?”
“I don’t hurt you,” says Spike.
“I know,” says Buffy.
“No, you don’t. I’ve tried to make it clear to you, but you won’t see it. Something happened to me. The way I feel, about you… It’s different. And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself it isn’t, it’s real.”
“I think it is. For you.” Buffy starts to walk toward the door of the crypt. She stops and turns back to Spike. “I know it’s not what you want to hear. I’m sorry. I really am. But, Spike, you have to move on, okay? You have to get over—”
“Get out!” snarls Spike.
Buffy turns away, and walks out his door.
Anya and Halfrek sit by the counter in the Magic Box. Anya’s complaining about Xander’s friends. “They’re all ‘Oh, poor Xander. It took so much out of him, all that running away he did.’ I just don’t understand what’s wrong with these people!”
“Did you really think they were the ones who would help you?” asks Halfrek. “Do you want retribution, Anya?”
“I want Xander good and cursed!”
“Then you know what you have to do.”
“Get a wish from someone who doesn’t frikkin’ love him!”
“Exactly.”
“Yeah, but my social circle is a little limited here,” says Anya. “I mean, what am I supposed to do, just stumble upon someone who doesn’t give a fig’s ass if Xander gets hurt?”
The bell over the Magic Box door jingles, and Spike comes walking in. “Hey, I need a thing.”
Anya starts to smile.
Anya smiles at Spike. “So, what’s your pleasure?”
Spike is fresh out of pleasure, that’s why he’s there. “I need something. Numbing spell, maybe.”
Anya tells him to hang on, and pulls Halfrek to the back of the shop for a quiet talk. “Oh, my god! Spike hates Xander. Maybe I could get him to wish—” She stops. “Damn it. If only he were a woman. Oh, got it. If I can somehow get someone to wish that Spike were a woman, then I could go to him— well, he’d be a her by then. But then I could go to her—”
“Anyanka, there’s an easier way,” says Halfrek. “Now, I know you have this whole female power, take-back-the-night thing—I think that’s cute—but I’ve been telling you for decades, men need a little vengeance now and then, too.”
“Oh,” says Anya.
“Maybe this is a good chance to try that out.” Halfrek starts toward the door while Anya returns to the Magic Box counter. Halfrek smiles and waves at Spike on her way out. “Good luck with that. Ta-ta!”
Spike apologises for breaking up Anya’s girls night out, but Anya tells him not to worry about it. She wants to do a little business.
“All right, then,” says Spike. “Got something that’ll dull the ache a bit?”
“Actually, yes. Giles left a couple of supplies here that I think just might help.” Anya starts searching the shelves under the cash register. “Eases the hurt, makes the sun shine a little brighter. Even makes boring people seem more interesting. Ah! Here.”
Anya sets a nearly full bottle of bourbon on the counter.
Willow works with the camera components from the gnome’s head on the dining room table, hooking them into her iBook. Buffy asks if it’s going to take much longer. Willow thinks she’s almost got it. She should be able to tap into the camera’s network.
Xander is watching her work too. “Okay, if it’s not Spike, and I’m not saying I believe him, but if it’s not Spike, I think we already know who’s behind this.” Willow thinks that makes sense.
“I want…to find…these guys,” says Buffy.
Warren and Andrew watch Jonathan complete his preparations. He has a map of Sunnydale, drawn on parchment, layed out on the floor, and has the crystalline disk attached to a wooden handle.
Jonathan lights a large red candle, and holds the disk in front of it. He sprinkles some of the powder he has prepared onto the disk. “Uncover!” Violet mist forms around the disk.
A beam of light from the candle is focused onto a point on the map by the disk. “There,” says Jonathan. “That’s it. That’s where we have to go.”
Warren is pleased with the result. “Well, now that we found out where we’re supposed to go—” The map bursts into flames. “Aah!”
Jonathan runs away.
Spike and Anya down their shot glasses of bourbon.
Spike sets down his glass. “So, then, this girl says: ‘real for you.’”
Anya really wants Spike to talk about Xander, but Spike doesn’t want to waste any breath on that wanker.
“But he made a fool of me!” says Anya. “And nobody seems to care enough to do anything.”
Spike cares. He’d never sink that low. “And I’m an evil, soulless thing, according to some people.”
“But shouldn’t he pay?” asks Anya. “Don’t you wish he had to pay in some horrible way?”
“Absolutely.” Spike picks up the bottle and his glass and takes them over to the round table. “Take him on myself if it wasn’t for my little handicap.”
Anya follows him with her glass. “Right. So, hypothetically, what do you wish you could do to him?”
Spike refills their glasses. “You name it, Pet. You’re the wronged party. Something, uh, gruesome, how about?” He drains his glass in one swallow.
Anya drains her glass.
Jonathan comes running back with a fire extinguisher. Andrew is trying to put out the fire by stomping on it. Warren grabs a blanket off the sofa and smothers most of the flames, while Andrew tries to put out his burning shoe.
“Hey! That’s my blanket!” says Jonathan.
“Makes sense,” says Warren. “It was your fire.”
Willow has almost tapped into the network.
Anya refills their glasses. “Thing about it is, none of this was my idea. I didn’t ask to be human.”
“Right,” says Spike. “And I didn’t ask for this bloody chip in my head.”
“To tell you the truth, all I wanted was to use him and lose him. I hadn’t had a good tumble in a thousand years.” Anya drinks from her glass.
“Me, too,” says Spike. “The using part. I just wanted to know what I was missing, move on.”
“Yeah. And he was…all bumpy—” Anya starts to smile wistfully. “In the right places, and nice to me.”
“She was so raw,” says Spike softly. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Next thing you know, I’m changing to please him. I care if he cares. And I’m off my guard. Happy. I’m singing in the shower and doing my sexy dance.” Anya empties her glass.
“Exactly!” says Spike. He looks up at Anya. “I have no dance.”
The geeks have got some pretty sophisticated firewalls set up on their network but Willow is just about through.
“But can you get us a location?” asks Buffy.
“Hey, I’m still me,” says Willow. “Just one… Whoa!”
“What?”
“There are other cameras.”
Anya raises her glass in a toast. “Screw ’em!”
“To the rafters!” says Spike. They clink their glasses together and toss back their shots.
Anya did everything for Xander, but it was never enough.
Spike saved the Scoobies countless times. “And I can’t stand the lot of you!”
“Me, either,” says Anya. “I hate us. Everybody’s so ‘nice.’ Nobody says what’s on their mind.”
“You do,” says Spike. “That’s why you’re the only one of them I wouldn’t bite if I had the chance.”
Anya smiles, and giggles. “Really?”
“Absolutely!” says Spike. “I have nothing but respect for a woman who’s forthright. Drusilla was always straightforward. Didn’t have a single buggering clue about what was going on in front of her, but she was straight about it. That was a virtue.”
Xander didn’t think that way about Anya. He thought she was rude. Spike figures that’s because the lot of them are uptight and repressed.
“You think?” asks Anya.
“Please!” says Spike. “It’s no wonder they couldn’t deal with the likes of you and me, Luv. We should have been dead hundreds of years ago. And we’re the only ones who are really alive.”
Anya and Spike smile at each other.
Willow brings up the images from a series of cameras on her iBook. The Doublemeat Palace, the Bronze, the UCSunnydale campus where she has classes, Xander’s construction site. The nerds have been spying on all of them. There are more cameras on the network, but she’s having more trouble tapping into them.
Spike empties the bottle into one of the shot glasses. He holds it out to Anya. “Here. Ladies last.”
“Thank you,” says Anya, but she doesn’t take the glass.
“Take it quick or my chivalry will run out.”
Anya places her hand on top of Spike’s. “No. Thank you. This is…the first time since… It feels good to be with someone who understands.”
“Intimately,” whispers Spike.
“This whole time, I’ve been coming on all…hell-bent and mad. Wanting his head, you know? When really, I…can’t sleep at night. Thinking it…has to be my fault somehow.” Anya is close to tears. “What if it’s just pretending? What if he never wanted me the way I wanted him? Ohh…” Anya shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no…” Spike brushes Anya’s hair with his hand. “He would have to be more than just the git he is, Anya. He’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to want a woman like you.” He rests his hand on her cheek.
“Then why?” whispers Anya.
“The two of them… They’re weak, is all. But…I’ll tell you what, though. They’ll, uh, miss the water now that the well’s gone dry.” Spike’s hand caresses Anya’s chin.
“Too hot to handle,” whispers Anya.
“Mmm… Too hot?” Spike leans toward Anya, until their foreheads touch.
“Um… Just-just…one question.”
Spike pulls away a bit. “Hmm?”
“Can I see your sexy dance?”
Spike smiles at Anya. “Hmm. I’ll show you mine…” He starts to kiss her.
Anya pulls back a bit. “Wait! Wait! What are we doing?”
“Moving on.” Spike grabs Anya and kisses her.
Willow almost has another camera figured out.
Anya pushes Spike away. “You know I’m only doing this because I’m—I’m lonely and drunk and you smell really good.”
“See? Forthright.” Spike pulls Anya to him and kisses her again.
A red light starts to flash on the wall in their lair, and an alarm goes off. Someone is tapping into their feed. The geeks all run for their computers.
Spike pulls off Anya’s blouse. He sweeps everything off the table, and lays her back onto it. He lifts up her skirt, and mounts her.
“I think I’ve got the Magic Box,” says Willow. She suddenly stands up. “Whoa!”
Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew work desperately to shut down their network before whoever is attacking it can find them. Warren suddenly stops. “Holy crap!”
Jonathan looks at his screen. “Oh my god.”
“What is that?” asks Warren. “Porn?”
“Oh my god,” says Jonathan.
“Is that the cam in the Magic Box?” asks Warren.
“Oh my god,” says Jonathan.
“What are they…?” asks Andrew. “Oh.”
Warren looks at the screen. “Is that…?”
“Spike?” asks Jonathan.
“He is so cool,” says Andrew. He sees the look Warren and Jonathan give him. “And—I mean, the girl’s hot, too.”
Xander gets up and moves around to see what Willow’s looking at.
Willow tries to stop him. “Wait Xander. No!” It’s too late. He sees what’s on the screen. Buffy has followed him, and she sees it too. They are both stunned.
Dawn comes in the front door. “Hey guys!” She drops her purse on one of the dining room chairs and comes around to see what they’re all looking at. “What’s up?” Her eyes go wide when she sees the computer screen. “Oh-ho-ho!”
Willow quickly turns and puts her hand over Dawn’s eyes. She looks back at Xander, and then Buffy. Neither of them have taken their eyes off the screen.
Willow glances back down at the screen, and then at Buffy again. “Buffy?” Her hand falls away from Dawn’s eyes.
Dawn and Willow look back and forth between the computer screen, and Buffy a couple of times.
“That’s enough,” says Buffy. She walks out of the dining room. Willow and Dawn exchange a look. Xander leaves the dining room too. Willow sits back down, and turns off the image on her screen.
Dawn watches Buffy walk into the kitchen, and out the back door. She follows her.
Willow hears the front door open. “Xander?” She goes to the door, finds it still open, and Xander gone. She looks into the living room, and sees that Buffy’s new weapons trunk is open, and in disarray.
Xander strides down the street, with an axe in his hand.
Buffy is sitting in one of the lawn chairs in her back yard. Dawn steps down off the porch “So, this is it? This is the stuff you’ve been protecting me from? You and Spike?”
“And a lot of monsters.”
“Uh-huh.” Dawn sits on a stool facing her sister.
“But it’s over,” says Buffy. “Spike.”
“I wish you’d told me.”
“I kind of didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
“I get that,” says Dawn. “I know it must hurt…to feel like you have to hide…and to keep secrets from everybody.”
Willow comes out onto the back porch. “Buffy. Xander’s gone. He took your axe.”
Spike and Anya pull their clothes back on. Anya isn’t looking at Spike. She starts to turn toward him, but stops. Spike waits a moment, and then walks toward the door.
Anya finally turns and looks at him. Spike looks back, and sees her. He stops, and waits for her to say something. She doesn’t. He nods to her, and continues out the door.
Spike glances up as he leaves the Magic Box and sees the axe coming at him. He pulls back as the axe sinks into the door frame at neck level.
Xander struggles to pull the axe free for a moment, but he gives up on it, grabs Spike, and tosses him out into the street. He follows Spike, grabs him again, and slams him head first into a decorative pillar in front of the shop next to the Magic Box. He punches Spike in the gut, and he crumples to the ground.
“Get up! Get up! You just going to sit there? Do nothing?” Xander grabs Spike and pulls him to his feet. “Is that the kind of man you are?” He slams Spike against the pillar again.
“I’m not going to fight you,” says Spike. “Chip.”
“Ohh! Too bad!” Xander knees Spike in the crotch.
Spike crumples to the ground again, and Xander pulls a stake out of his pocket. He raises it.
Anya comes out of the Magic Box to see what the commotion is. “Xander, no! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Xander looks at her and freezes. Buffy arrives and pulls him away from Spike.
Anya looks at Xander. “Xander, I—I—” Xander tells her to not even bother trying to deny anything. He saw it all. Anya starts to ask how, but realizes that doesn’t matter. “It was just—it— it was just a thing. I— I felt bad and he was just there. I—”
Buffy looks at Spike. “Didn’t take long, did it?”
“Oh, oh, oh, okay,” says Xander. “You had to do it. Because he was there. Like Mount Everest. Like I used to be.”
“And then you weren’t!” says Anya. “You left me, Xander, at the altar! I don’t owe you anything!”
“So you go out and bang the first body you can find? Dead or alive?” asks Xander.
“Where do you get off judging me?”
“When this is your solution to our problems,” says Xander. “I hurt you and you get me back. Very mature.”
“No. The mature solution is for you to spend your whole life telling stupid, pointless jokes so that no one will notice that you are just a scared, insecure little boy!”
“I’m not joking now.” Xander points at Spike. “You let that evil, soulless thing touch you. You wanted me to feel something? Congratulations. It worked. I look at you…and I feel sick…’cause you had sex with that.”
Anya and Buffy both look at the ground.
Spike looks up. “It’s good enough for Buffy.”
“Shut up and leave her out of—” Xander sees the expression on Buffy’s face, and freezes.
“Buffy?” asks Anya.
Buffy looks at Xander. “Xander, I—”
“I don’t want to know this.” Xander drops his stake onto the ground. “I don’t want to know any of this.” He turns and walks away from them all.
Buffy glares at Spike for a moment, and then she follows Xander.
Spike watches them go. “Bloody Xander, buggered up everything. You know, I wish—”
“Don’t!” says Anya.
Anya goes back into the Magic Box, and starts to straighten up the mess she and Spike had made.
Willow is lying on her bed studying.
“Things fall apart,” says Tara. “They fall apart so hard.”
Willow looks up and sees Tara standing in the door. “Tara?” She sits up on her bed.
“You can never…put them back the way they were.”
“Are you okay?” asks Willow.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” Tara sighs, and steps into the room. “You know…it takes time. You can’t just…have coffee and expect—”
“I know.”
“There’s just so much to work through,” says Tara. “Trust has to be built again, on both sides. You have to learn if… If we’re even the same people we were, if we can fit in each other’s lives.”
Willow looks at Tara from the bed, afraid of what Tara may be saying.
“It’s a long and important process,” says Tara, “and…can we just skip it? Can—can you just be kissing me now?”
Willow starts to smile, and gets to her feet. She and Tara go to each other, and kiss passionately.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Vampire 1 | Cemetery gate | Staked by Buffy |
| Vampire 2 | Cemetery gate | Staked by Buffy |