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| Lessons | Same Time, Same Place |
Frankfurt, Germany
A girl runs through the empty corridors of an office building at night. Her hair is dyed neon red, and she’s wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans and leather jack boots. She’s being chased by two figures in black robes.
She runs out a door onto a balcony and jumps from it down to the floor below. She runs back into the building, and into a stairwell.
The girl emerges from the building and runs across an open space to a fence. She climbs over it and down into an alleyway behind a dance club. She slides open the back door, and enters the busy club.
The robed figures got there ahead of her. They grab her and push her back into the alley. One of them shoves her up against the wall. The girl kicks it away, and tries to break away from the other. The figure she kicked recovers quickly and punches her to the ground. Its companion pulls out a curved knife and stabs at her. She deflects its knife, but not the other’s. It stabs her in the belly.
The two robed figures sheath their knives, and leave the girl dying in the alley. She turns her head. “From beneath you, it devours,” she says, in a deep, echoing voice.
A dog yelps, and a girl screams.
Sunnydale
“Buffy!” Dawn tries to shake her sister awake. “Buffy! Buffy!”
Buffy opens her eyes. “I heard screaming.” She sits up in her bed. She’s moved into the master bedroom in her house that had been her mother’s, and that Willow and Tara used to share.
“That was you,” says Dawn.
“There was a girl,” says Buffy.
“That would be me.”
“Uh, no,” says Buffy. “It was…”
“Just a dream,” says Dawn. “It was just a dream, right?”
“‘From beneath you it devours.’” says Buffy. “That’s what she said, and then they…”
Buffy gets out of bed, and moves to her window. “There’s more like her, Dawn…out there, somewhere.” She looks out into the night. “And they’re going to die.”
Something moves though the ground under Sunnydale. A deep rumbling can be heard as it approaches. It moves rapidly under the earth, leaving a trail of broken ground and asphalt as it moves beneath the streets.
Spike stalks a rat through the basement of Sunnydale High. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” he says to the darkness. “Now is not the time. You know it. I know it. But making them understand…is a totally different matter.”
He gets down on his knees, and crawls toward the rat. “No manners is the problem. Proper breeding, lack of etiquette. All of it lacking. All of it lost on them.”
A low rumbling noise fills the basement. Spike looks around, and gets to his feet. “Not the time. Not hardly ready.” The rumbling grows into an earthquake. Spike cringes. “Stop. Please, Mum! Begging now! Make it stop!”
“Oh, god!” Spike puts his hands over his ears, drops to his knees, and screams.
Xander drives Buffy and Dawn to school. This is Buffy’s first day in her new job. Dawn thinks it’s really cool that Buffy is going to be with her in the school. “You’ll be, like, there the whole time.” The implications of that begin to register with her. “You understand you cannot talk to me, look at me, or hang out with any of my friends, right?”
Buffy doesn’t think Dawn has much to worry about, but she’s still a little fuzzy about her job description.
“It’s not fuzzy,” says Dawn. “You’re what, dealing with troubled kids?”
“At a spankin’ new Hellmouth High,” says Xander. “Please. Outside of drugs and violence and unwanted pregnancy and, uh, unleashing of hordes of armageddon that comes pouring out of the school’s foundation every now and then, what trouble could these kids have?”
“Guess I’ll find out,” says Buffy.
“Those kids are damn lucky having a Slayer and a friend on campus there for ’em. I hope they appreciate it.” Xander smiles at Buffy. “I know I did.” Buffy smiles back at him.
“Days gone by, huh?” says Xander.
“I thought you hated Sunnydale,” says Dawn.
“Yes and no, with an emphasis on the yes,” says Xander. “But at least then I was dating.”
Buffy thinks that Xander could be dating now, but he hasn’t had any luck in that department since he left Anya at the altar.
“That’s not something you just bounce right back from,” says Buffy.
“Sure it is,” says Xander. “She bounced back to being a vengeance demon, and I bounced back to being a dateless nerd.”
“Do you guys talk at all?” asks Dawn.
“I’ve seen her at the Bronze a couple of times,” says Xander. “I guess there’s a lot of scorned women there making vengeance wishes on their exes.”
Buffy affects a southern accent. “That’s where I go to get my scorn on.”
“You guys really need to ease up with the whole dating demons thing,” says Dawn.
“Uh, hello,” says Buffy. “I’m sorry. Wasn’t that you having a smoochathon with teen vampire last Halloween?”
“See, this is why I don’t want you talking to my friends.” Dawn is really starting to have second thoughts about the coolness of having her sister in the school.
Principal Wood shows Buffy to her cubical in the school office while he explains her duties to her. “We’ll sort of feel our way around. Some students will be sent to you, and others, I’m hoping, will start to come in on their own.”
“What if they don’t?” asks Buffy. “Should I panic?”
“You’ll be surprised, Buffy,” says Principal Wood. “You’re the youngest and, uh, least stuffy member of this faculty. I think the students are going to want to come in and talk to you, and when they do, don’t evaluate them. Just listen. They need to feel like there’s someone around here who actually understands them.”
Buffy looks out through the blinds into the school corridor, and then turns back to Principal Wood. “Can I give detention?”
Principal Wood has no objections. “A little authority can be a wonderful thing. Just remember that while you are here to help, you’re not here to be their friend. Trust me. You open that door and these students will eat you alive.”
“You heard about Principal Flutie, right?” asks Buffy.
Principal Wood just looks puzzled. “Huh?” Buffy tells him to forget it.
Wood tells Buffy to relax. “There’s only three things these kids understand: the boot, the bat, and the bastinada!” He chuckles, and then sees the blank look Buffy’s giving him. “It’s the…it’s a… it’s a bad joke. ‘It’s the bastinada.’ No one ever knows what that thing is.”
“A wooden rod used to slap the soles of the feet in Turkish prisons,” says Buffy, “but if made with the correct wood, makes an awesome billy club.”
Principal Wood thinks that Buffy is going to fit in just fine, but he sees the puzzled expression on her face. “Is there something else?”
“Um, yeah,” says Buffy. “Just one more thing. I was, uh, just curious, you know— I mean, not that I’m not grateful or anything, but, uh, I guess I was wondering why I—”
“Have this job?” asks Principal Wood.
“I still haven’t finished college,” says Buffy.
“I know.”
“Was it my sparkling personality?” asks Buffy. “Or maybe you enjoyed my work at the Doublemeat Palace?”
“I’m a vegetarian.”1 says Wood. “These students need someone around here who understands them. I need someone who understands these students. Why? Is there something about you that I don’t know that maybe I should?”
“Nothing I can think of,” says Buffy.
Principal Wood sees a woman escorting a couple of students toward his office. “Oh, if you’ll excuse me. First catch of the day. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
“Thanks!” says Buffy. “I’m just going to have a look around, get to know the place. Make sure it’s all…school-like.”
Buffy goes down into the school basement to search for Spike. She doesn’t find him. She enters the room where she’d found him last week. “Spike?”
The door closes behind her. Buffy spins around. “Spike?”
There is no one there.
Westbury, England
Willow sits on her suitcase in the open door of Giles’ house, watching the rain. Giles steps up behind her. “The taxi’s here.”
“I know.” Willow doesn’t move.
“And in keeping with quaint old British tradition,” says Giles, “you would now be expected to get into it.”
“I don’t know if I can,” says Willow. “Giles, I’m not done here.”
Giles moves around in front of Willow. “That’s your fear, talking.”
“Yes, and my fear’s being an obnoxious blabbermouth,” says Willow. “You’re the one that keeps telling me to trust my instincts, so, shouldn’t we be listening? I don’t want to go back home just so I can screw up again. Why don’t I stay? Not forever, just long enough to, I don’t know, make my fear shut up a little, maybe.”
The taxi’s horn honks, and Giles steps outside and waves to the driver to let him know that they know he’s there. He turns back to Willow, and leans against the doorframe. “It’s possible, but…try to be very specific. What exactly are you afraid of?”
“Well…for starters, how about the Hellmouth’s getting all rumbly again?” asks Willow. “And now I know it’s got teeth, and are those literal teeth? ’Cause I don’t know if I can handle it. And what if I can handle it? Does that mean I have to be a bigger, badder bad-ass than the source of all badness? And…well, what if I give up all this control stuff and I go all veiny and homicidal again? And what if—”
“They won’t take you back?” asks Giles.
“Uh-huh.”
Giles kneels down in front of her. “Willow, we could spend another two years here training and practicing and learning to hone your powers, and still there’d be no way of knowing for sure that the friends you left behind you…are still your friends.”
“Well, sure,” says Willow. “I mean, if you put it that way, duh.”
“I’d love to offer you some guarantee that you’d be welcomed back to Sunnydale with open arms,” says Giles, “but I can’t. You may not be wanted, but you will be needed.”
“That all you got?”
Giles pats Willow’s knee. “For the moment, yes.” He gets back to his feet.
“Okay. I guess I’d better…” Willow stands up.
Giles picks up Willow’s carry-on bag and hands it to her. “Trust yourself, and the others might follow.” He picks up her suitcase, and opens an umbrella to take her to the taxi.
Sunnydale
A pretty young woman, in her early twenties, is taking her Yorkshire Terrier, Rocky, for a walk on the end of a retractable leash. It stops to sniff at something on the sidewalk. She stands, waiting for it to do its business, with a plastic bag in her hand. She looks around and sighs. “I could have gotten a cat, but no.”
She hears a low rumbling noise, and then the sound of breaking concrete and a yelp from her dog. She turns around and sees that the end of the leash now disappears into a hole in the sidewalk.
Something yanks on the other end of the leash, pulling her off her feet. It keeps pulling, dragging her across the sidewalk while she tries to free her hand from the leash’s wrist strap. She stops just short of the hole, and with the tension gone, she manages to free her hand.
Something breaks through the sidewalk in front of her, and rises up into the air. She screams and runs.
She runs right into someone, a little way down the block.
“Uh… Hello,” says Xander.
The woman, Nancy, sits on Buffy’s sofa while Buffy bandages her hand. Xander and Dawn are sitting on opposite sides of her, and Buffy is sitting on the coffee table, with her first aid kit on her lap.
Nancy has told them all what happened. “You hear things in this town, living here in Sunnydale, but nobody actually believes them. You know, you’d have to be crazy, and…” She looks around at the others. “…and you guys think that I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“No.” Xander shakes his head. “I don’t.”
Buffy tells Nancy that they’ve seen lots of weird stuff too, and Xander assures her that they will take care of it. “It’s your lucky night. Considering, you know, your dog just got all ate up and stuff.” Xander realises that wasn’t very encouraging. “Hey, can I freshen up your tea?”
Nancy tells Xander that she’s fine. Dawn asks if she had any sort of warning that anything was about to happen, but Nancy tells her that there was only a sort of rumbling, like before an earthquake.
Buffy sets aside her first aid kit. “‘From beneath you, it devours.’”
“What?” asks Nancy. Buffy tells her it’s nothing.
“Nothing good,” says Dawn. Whatever they are dealing with is sounding monsterific. She wonders if they should round up the gang.
“Good thinking, except…” Xander points around the room. “…this is the gang.”
Buffy promises Nancy that they are going to get into this, and if her dog is still alive, they will find him. “The only thing that I need is a little—”
“What you need is help,” says Spike. “Fortunately, you’ve got me.” He’s leaning against the closed half of the French doors into the living room.
Spike is looking much better than the last time Buffy saw him. He’s cut and re-bleached his hair, and generally cleaned himself up. He’s wearing a tight, dark blue long sleeved jersey, and jeans. “Buffy.”
Buffy is stunned. “Spike.” She gets up and starts to pace.
“Who’s that?” asks Nancy.
“He’s…” says Dawn. “It’s Buffy’s—”
“Ex,” says Xander.
“And I’m thinking it’s a little more complicated than just that,” says Nancy.
“Always is,” says Xander.
Buffy looks at Spike. She thinks he’s changed. “New clothing. Better hair. Not so much with the crazy. I like it. Now, what do you want?”
“Easy,” says Spike. “If you think I like putting myself here, surrounded by people who don’t particularly like me, you’d be wrong.”
“If you’re uncomfortable,” Xander stands up off the sofa, “we can make you leave.”
Spike promises to be quick. He wants to know if Buffy wants to have this conversation right here, or privately. Xander thinks they should have it right there, where Buffy has friends, and pointy weapons.
“You said something about quick?” asks Buffy.
“I did,” says Spike. “Before I start, and for the record, the last you saw me, I was a mess— out of my head, admitted. Last week, living in the school basement…” Dawn glares at Buffy. “…well, you saw me.”
Dawn stands up. “You did?”
“Guys, just a second, okay?” says Buffy. “Yes, I saw Spike. I just didn’t—”
“What?” asks Dawn. “You just…forgot to mention it?”
“Things were insane in the basement. I saved your life,” says Buffy. “We can discuss this later.”
“Sure,” says Dawn.
“Whatever you want,” says Xander.
“Right,” says Dawn. “’Cause that seems to be the only time you let us in, Buffy. Whenever you want.”
“Now, in fairness to Buffy—”
“Shut up, Spike!” says Xander.
Buffy sighs. “Okay. Guys, give us a second.” Buffy takes Spike out into the foyer. “Do not start by saying you’re sorry.”
“I didn’t come here to atone,” says Spike.
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“Only to help you.”
“Help me what?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me,” says Spike. “You’re the Slayer, connected to the visions, a long line of worthies. Right? I’m just a guy with his ear to the ground, but even I can feel it. Something’s coming. I don’t know what exactly, but something’s brewing. And it’s so big, ugly, and damned, it makes you and me look like little bitty puzzle pieces. If I’m wrong, say so. Lovely. No hard feelings. I’ll go out that door and you can lock it behind me with any spell you like. So…am I wrong?”
“Everything about you is wrong, Spike,” says Buffy. He turns to go. “But something is coming.”
Spike turns back. “You’re going to need some help.”
“Since when did you become the champion of the people?”
“I didn’t,” says Spike. “I’m just a guy who can lend a hand if you’ll let me. Ball’s in your court, Slayer.”
Buffy moves back into the living room and starts handing out orders while she gathers weapons. They are going to split into two pairs. Whatever this thing is, it’s strong enough to dig through solid ground, so its stronger than most of the things they’ve had to deal with, “but we may have to get used to now that the Hellmouth is getting all perky.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police or something?” asks Nancy.
“And tell them…” Xander weighs invisible options between his hands.
“I’ll stop interrupting,” says Nancy.
Buffy orders Xander to drive Nancy home, not to walk, and to try not to stop until they get there.
“Is your girlfriend always this…commanding?” asks Nancy.
“Who?” asks Xander. Nancy nods toward Buffy. “Buffy? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. See, uh—I mean, she’s a girl, and— and she’s a friend, but—but—but she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Xander.” Dawn wipes her finger by the edge of her mouth. “Little drool.”
Buffy has been ignoring their by-play. She tells them that she and Spike will check out the scene.
Xander is not loving this plan. He pulls Buffy aside. “I’m not loving Spike. He—he tried to rape you.”
“And he failed,” says Buffy. “I know I can take him. Xander, take Nancy home. Spike and I will patrol.”
“I’m command central, so everybody check in with me,” says Dawn. Buffy just looks at her. “Okay. I’ll be here doing my homework, but the other one sounded cooler.”
“Be safe,” says Buffy. She starts for the door. “Let’s go.”
Spike starts to follow Buffy, but Dawn calls him back. “Spike. You sleep, right?” He just looks puzzled. “You—vampires—you sleep?”
“Yeah,” says Spike. “What’s your point, Nibblet?”
Dawn stares coldly at Spike. “Well, I can’t take you in a fight or anything, even with the chip in your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all. Touch her. You’re going to wake up on fire.”
Spike is taken a little aback by Dawn’s attitude. She just keeps staring at him.
Spike walks along the street, carrying a flashlight. Buffy follows about six feet behind him. Buffy isn’t feeling talkative, which is fine with Spike. “I was more than half expecting to get an earful, anyway. And when exactly did your sister get unbelievably scary?”
“What are you doing?” asks Buffy.
Spike looks back toward Buffy. “What? I told you once, straight up, I’m here to help, and that’s all.” He shines the light on a patch of sidewalk that something has broken through from beneath. “Think this here’s our spot?”
“How’d you guess?” asks Buffy.
“I don’t fancy sticking my head in there.”
“But if something bites it off, that’d be a clue,” says Buffy.
Spike doesn’t say anything. He gets down on his knees and starts moving pieces of broken sidewalk away form the hole. After a moment Buffy asks what happened to him.
Spike deliberately misinterprets her question, and tells her that the spirits in the school basement got into his head while he examines the hole in the sidewalk. “I’m not exactly bragging about it, but they were stronger than I was. Made me see things, do things.” He looks up at Buffy. “And how come you never told anyone you saw me?”
“I don’t know,” says Buffy. “I guess… I was partly hoping you were some kind of mirage.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Spike holds the flashlight out and asks her to hold it.
Buffy hesitates for a moment, and then reaches out to take the flashlight. Their hands touch and Buffy remembers Spike attacking her in her bathroom.
Buffy jerks the flashlight out of Spike’s hand. “Look, this—us working together—it’s not a way for us to get back together, if that’s what you want.”
“It’s not,” says Spike. “Look, I can’t blame you for being all skittish.”
“‘Skittish?’ That’s not a word I would use for it,” says Buffy. “You tried to rape me. I don’t have the words.”
Spike looks away from Buffy. “Neither do I. I can’t say ‘sorry.’ I can’t use ‘forgive me.’ All I can say is, Buffy…” He looks up at her. “…I’ve changed.”
Buffy believes him. “I just don’t know what you’ve changed into. You come back to town, you make with the big surprises, twice. I don’t know what your game is, Spike, but I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“You’re right.” Spike brushes the dirt off his hands and stands up. “There is. But we’re not best friends anymore, so too bad for me. I’m not sharing.
“We’ve been through things. The end of the world and back. I can be useful, ’cause, honestly, I’ve got nothing better to do. Make use of me if you want.” Spike looks at the hole. “And there’s nothing here. Just a bit of slime, mounds of displaced dirt and such. Whatever our beastie is, he’s gone.”
Spike turns and walks away. Buffy stands for a moment, and sighs before she turns to follow him.
Xander escorts Nancy into the foyer of her apartment building. She’s still having trouble believing what happened to her. “I mean, even with this town’s reputation for, you know, unexplained weirdness.”
“Right,” says Xander. “Sunnydale: come for the food, stay for the dismemberment.”
“There’s good food?” asks Nancy.
Both Xander and Nancy are feeling kind of awkward, not wanting to say goodnight, and not wanting to be too forward. Nancy finally breaks the silence. “Well…thanks.” She clears her throat. “And that’s a couple levels of lameness right there, me saying ‘thanks’ after everything you’ve done for me tonight.”
“Well, you could slip me a 20,” says Xander, “but then I’d have to act all offended.”
Nancy laughs. “Got it. So…um, do you think I might, instead, give you a call sometime?”
“Just to check in?”
“No, actually, I’m hitting on you.”
“Even better,” says Xander. “I’m very listed.”
“And I’m really pushy. So that works out well, then,” says Nancy. Another awkward silence falls, and then Nancy says “Good night.”
Xander turns to go, but he stops. He can hear a low rumbling noise. “Uh…Nancy…I just got a swell idea. Run!”
Xander and Nancy run down the hallway. The door shatters as the demon passes below it. It burrows along, ripping up the floor behind them as they run for the stairs.
Xander and Nancy run up the short flight of stairs to the landing. A giant worm-like demon comes out of the floor at the base of the stairs, and reaches toward them with a mouth two feet wide and ringed with six inch teeth. It roars at them, but it seems to be unable to completely leave the ground. It withdraws back into its hole.
Xander asks Nancy if she’s okay, and quickly realises that’s a silly question. He rephrases to ask if she was hurt. Nancy wasn’t, but she doesn’t think she can take much more of this.
“Two attacks in the same night,” says Xander. “I’m starting to think it’s not coincidence.”
“Oh, sure. Why not?” asks Nancy. “A monster trying to kill me. It’s just the thing that was missing to make my life absolutely perfect. Uhh! Ronnie would love this, boy.”
“Right,” says Xander. “Who’s Ronnie?”
Nancy tells Xander that Ronnie is her psycho ex-boyfriend. She’s been trying to get rid of him for weeks. He was trouble.
Xander wonders what sort of trouble. “Was this Ronnie guy a…borrowing money kind of trouble, or was he a…raising demon trouble kind of guy?”
“Ronnie? He couldn’t…he just… He was an abusive bastard, is the catchy headline,” says Nancy. “You know the feeling that you get when your ex is constantly ruining every part of your life and it just doesn’t stop?”
“Yes,” says Xander.
“And you get so tired of feeling helpless that all you can do is just wish that it would stop?” asks Nancy.
Xander blinks. “Wish?”
Anya sits with a girl at a table in the Bronze. There are several empty glasses between them, and the girl is complaining about the way her boyfriend cheated on her. Anya encourages her to continue.
“You know what he is?” asks the girl. “He’s spineless. Yeah, that’s it. He’s…he’s like this spineless little pig. And you know what I wish?”
“God, do I want to,” says Anya.
Anya wants the girl to go on with what she was saying.
“Ohh, yeah. God, my boyfriend’s spineless,” says the girl “He should just… You know, he should just be spineless, for real.”
“No spine! Got it,” says Anya. “I can do that!”
“What do you mean?” asks the girl.
“See, honey, what I’m driving this towards here is sometimes, don’t you just wish that—” Anya sees someone enter the Bronze. “Oh, penis!”
Xander leads Nancy over to Anya’s table. “Is this the one you talked to?” They are followed by Buffy and Spike.
Anya tells the girl she’s been talking with to go get herself another drink while she deals with this interruption. She isn’t happy to have these visitors. “Guys, I am working here.”
Buffy lays a large knife (more of a short sword) on the table in front of Anya. “We noticed.” That’s why they’re there.
“Did you turn this nice lady’s ex into a giant worm monster?” asks Xander.
Anya laughs. “Yes.”
“No way!” says Nancy. “Are you saying that that thing was Ronnie?”
“You wish it, I dish it,” says Anya. “I thought we were clear on this. I didn’t think you were going to go and narc on me.”
“You wished your ex was a worm?” asks Buffy.
“Well…we were just talking,” says Nancy.
“Anya has a way of making things happen,” says Xander.
“I had a quota. The guy had it coming,” says Anya. “What’s the big?”
Nancy thinks she’s going to be sick.
“Anya, that thing you created burst through solid pavement and ate her dog,” says Buffy.
“Oh, puppy!” says Anya.
“Wait. That gets your sad noise?” asks Xander. “People’s lives are in danger and you give it up for the Yorkie?”
“You never understood me, Xander,” says Anya.
Nancy realises that there is clearly some history between Xander and Anya, and he confesses that Anya is his ex. Something that neither he nor Anya is all that proud of.
Anya gets up to leave, but Spike grabs her and pushes her back to her table.
Anya pushes him away. “Hey! Get your hands off the merchandise, Spike. You don’t get to go there again.”
“Please. I’ve already forgotten about our little time together,” says Spike.
Nancy is getting confused. Anya is Xander’s ex, and Spike is Buffy’s ex, but Spike and Anya had a thing… “Is there anyone here who hasn’t slept together?”
Xander and Spike glance at each other, and then quickly look away.
“Look, at least we’re all bipeds,” says Anya, “which is more than I can say for Ronnie the worm boy.”
Buffy thinks that they need to bring this discussion back on topic. Ronnie wasn’t a little worm. This thing is huge.
“A sluggoth demon,” says Spike. “Am I right?”
Anya sighs. “Maybe.”
“Wait. I didn’t wish for that,” says Nancy. “I mean, I don’t even know what this whatchamacallit demon thing is.”
“Sluggoth demon,” says Spike. “It’s a very large, very nasty, natural predator who died around the crusades.”
“Same phylum,” says Anya. “It’s not cheating. I just embellished.”
“Well, you can unembellish now,” says Xander.
“Bite me, Harris!” says Anya. “I have rules to work with. Vengeance Demon codes of conduct. But you’ll never understand ’cause you’re all still so…” She looks around at them all. “…human.”
Spike steps up to Anya. “I’m not. Demon, just like yourself, Anya. Now, you’re going to turn this spell around like a good little vengeance demon, or I—” He notices the way Anya has suddenly started staring at him. “What?”
Anya is amazed by what she has seen. “Oh, my god.” She keeps staring at him.
“What are you staring at?” asks Spike.
“Oh, my god!” says Anya again.
Spike realises what Anya has sensed. “Right. Let’s go.” He wants to get out of there.
Anya grabs Spike. “How did you do it?”
“Spike, what is she talking about?” asks Buffy.
“Nothing.” Spike really wants to get out of there. “Let’s go. Got some worm hunting to do.”
“How did you do it?” demands Anya. “This shouldn’t be possible!”
“Shut up!” says Spike. “Shut your mouth!”
“How did you get it?” asks Anya.
“I said you shut up!” Spike punches Anya, and knocks her to the floor. He gets over her and keeps punching at her.
Nancy has had enough of this. She slips away, and heads for the exit.
Anya sends Spike flying across the Bronze onto one of the pool tables. When she gets to her feet, she’s showing her demon form. “I am so going to kick your ass!”
Spike gets off the pool table and steps toward Anya. “Right, bitch. Round and round we—”
Buffy grabs Spike by the shoulder, and spins him around. He’s wearing his vampire face. “You haven’t changed, Spike.” She punches him. Spike punches Buffy back.
Buffy hits Spike with a couple more punches. “Working out some personal issues, are we?” asks Spike. Buffy punches and kicks him in the head. “Hey, I guess this will be first contact since you know when. Up for another round in the balcony, then?”
Buffy lays Spike out on the floor with an uppercut to his jaw.
Spike, laughs and sits up, with a bloody lip. He climbs back to his feet. “Right you are, love! I haven’t changed! Not a lick! And watching your face trying to figure me out was absolutely delicious.”
Xander tries to interrupt. Buffy really doesn’t want to be interrupted, but he tells her that Nancy’s gone. “And out there all alone, she’s worm bait!”
Buffy looks around. “Oh…” She’s torn between wanting to go find Nancy, or keep pounding on Spike. She makes up her mind. “I’ll go find her. You stay with Anya. Get her to reverse that spell.” She runs for the door.
“Hey, is that it?” asks Spike. “Little touchy-feely and you’re off to the batpoles?”
Nancy walks quickly away from the Bronze. “Freaks! Why do I always surround myself with freaks?”
Nancy stops. She can hear a rumbling noise. She looks around and sees a trail of breaking asphalt moving quickly toward her. “Oh god!” She starts to run. She tries some of the doors along the street, but they’re all locked. She tries pounding on doors, and yelling for help, but no one comes.
Nancy runs into an alley, and sees a fire escape ladder. She runs to it and starts to climb it, just ahead of the worm under the ground.
The rumbling stops. Nancy gasps with relief as she holds onto the ladder, half way up the wall. She thinks she’s safe.
She isn’t. The demon starts to batter at the wall under the ladder. Nancy holds on for her life. “Oh, help me! Help me!” she screams. The ladder starts to break free from the wall.
Buffy runs along the rooftops, toward the sound of Nancy screaming. Spike follows her.
Xander stands by the table Anya’s sitting at. “What do you want me to do?” she asks.
“Reverse the spell,” says Xander.
“It’s not that easy, Xander!”
“You can do it.”
“Yeah, sure, the spell part,” says Anya. “What about me? I’m in enough trouble as it is! Halfrek’s all over my case, D’Hoffryn is not pleased with my work, and you don’t want to see him angry, trust me.”
“Nice friends you got,” says Xander.
“Nice friends I had.” says Anya. “Chums, coworkers, bridesmaids. Oh, I had the whole package, until something fell apart. Now, what could that be, Xander?”
“You saying this is my fault?”
“All I’m saying is none of this happened until you dumped me at the altar.”
“And sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops working,” says Xander.
The ladder pulls away from the wall, and Nancy starts to fall toward the waiting mouth of the demon.
Buffy swoops down on a rope, and catches her. They swing away across the alley, and Buffy lets go of the rope, dropping them both into a pile of trash.
Buffy and Nancy climb out of the trash, and look around for the demon. It breaks through the ground beside Buffy and roars.
Spike lands on the ground beside Buffy. “You’ve had your turn, love. Leave the real violence to the demons, yeah?” He breaks a wrought iron bar that’s covering a window off and uses it to beat at the demon. It roars even louder.
Spike pulls back a bit and points the end of the bar at the demon. “That’s right! Big bad’s back…and lookin’ for a little death!” He stabs at the demon, just as it transforms back into Ronnie.
Ronnie screams in pain as the metal rod pierces through his shoulder.
Spike screams in pain as the chip goes off in his head.
The pain from the chip in Spike’s head is quickly overwhelmed by the guilt as he realises what he’s done. “I’m sorry.” He pulls the metal bar out of Ronnie’s shoulder, and Ronnie collapses to the ground. “Right. Wrong.” Spike turns away and looks at the bloody metal bar in his hands. “Wrong maneuver. Not hardly helpful.”
Buffy grabs a blanket out of a trash can and uses it to cover Ronnie’s naked body.
“God, please help me,” says Spike. “Help me!”
Buffy looks up at Spike. “You’re not the one who needs help.” She pulls out her cell phone. “He’s going into shock.”
Spike paces back and forth in the alley, muttering to himself. “Too much, too much, too much…”
Buffy calls 911 for an ambulance. She tries to comfort Ronnie. “Okay, help is coming. Try not to move.”
Spike is still muttering. “Deep, deep, deep inside me.”
Buffy looks up at him. “Look, Spike, whatever you’re doing—”
“Get away!” yells Spike. “Get—uhh!”
“Do it somewhere else!” says Buffy. “I am through with this!”
“Oh, oh, lucky girl,” says Spike. “Call it quits. Now, there’s an option. If only it was so easy. If only—if only—” He turns away from Buffy. “What the hell are you screamin’ about? I can hear you. No need to shout!” Spike collapses to his knees.
Spike starts to laugh, and gets back to his feet. “I get it. The joke’s on me. Lots of laughs.” He starts to twirl the metal bar in his fingers like a baton. “Yeah. Hey, bring the wife and kiddies. Come see the show. ’Cause it’s going to be a circus.”
Buffy shakes her head, and turns her attention back to Ronnie. Spike comes back and kneels beside them. “This: just the beginning, love. A warm-up act. The real headliner’s coming, and when that band hits the stage, all of this…” He stands back up and spreads his arms. “All of this…will come tumbling in death and screaming, horror and bloodshed.”
Spike points to the ground. “From beneath you it devours. From beneath…” He shakes his head, and looks at the ground. “Poor Rocky.” Spike looks like he’s about to cry, but shakes it off and runs away into the night.
“Buffy!” Xander comes running from the opposite direction with Anya following him. Anya stops when she sees what happened to Ronnie.
Nancy looks at Anya. “You. You did this. What are you?” Nancy runs off.
“She’s not calling me,” says Xander.
Buffy gives Xander her phone and tells him she already called for help. “Look after him.”
“Where are you going?” asks Xander, but Buffy is already running in the direction Spike went.
Anya is still looking at Ronnie on the ground. “You do know you did the right thing here?” says Xander.
“Tell him that,” says Anya.
“You reversed the spell. It took guts,” says Xander. “I know this is bad, but it could be worse.”
Anya looks in the direction that Spike and Buffy left in. “Oh, it will be.”
Buffy enters a cemetery. She looks around, but there’s no sign of Spike. She sees a light flickering in the windows of the neighbouring church.
Buffy enters the narthex of the church. The light is coming from several flickering candles there. She passes through into the nave. The church is dark, lit only by moonlight through the windows, and some reflected light from the candles.
Spike’s voice comes from behind her. “Didn’t work.”
Buffy spins around and sees that Spike has pulled off his blue shirt, and is holding it in his hands. “What the hell are you—”
“Didn’t work. Costume. Didn’t help. Couldn’t hide.” Spike throws the shirt away.
“No more mind games, Spike,” says Buffy.
Spike shakes his head. “No more mind games. No more mind.”
Buffy reaches out toward the cuts on Spike’s chest. “Tell me what happened to you.”
Spike flinches away from her touch. “Hey! Hey, hey! No touching!” He wraps his arms around himself. “Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else, not a spark. Oh, fine. Flesh, then. Solid through.” Spike starts to unzip his pants. “Get it hard, service the girl.”
Buffy grabs Spike’s hands. “Stop it!”
Spike grabs Buffy by the throat. She throws him away, smashing him through a pew.
Spike sits up among the pieces of the pew. “Right. Girl doesn’t want to be serviced. Because there’s no spark.” He looks around. “Ain’t we in the soddin’ engine?”
“Spike, have you completely lost your mind?”
“Well, yes,” says Spike, in a flash of lucidity. “Where have you been all night?”
“You thought you would just come back here and…be with me?” asks Buffy.
“First time for everything,” says Spike.
“This is all you get,” says Buffy. “I’m listening. Tell me what happened.”
“I tried to find it, of course.”
“Find what?”
“The spark!” says Spike. “The missing… The piece…that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn’t want…” Spike can’t go on with Buffy looking at him, he crawls away, back into the shadows, and gets to his feet. “I dreamed of killing you.”
Buffy looks around, and quickly finds a piece of broken pew that will make a good stake. She picks it up, and holds it ready.
“I think they were dreams,” says Spike. “So weak. Did you make me weak? Thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your…ending.”
Spike slowly circles around Buffy in the shadows at the edges of the church, while she stands frozen in place. “Angel— he should have warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it’s here, in me…all the time. The spark.” Buffy is beginning to understand what Spike is talking about, but she doesn’t what to believe it. “I wanted to give you…what you deserve. And I got it. They put the spark in me…and now all it does is burn.” He steps back out into the moonlight behind Buffy.
Buffy understands now. “Your soul.” She lowers her stake.
Spike lets out a bitter laugh. “A bit worse for lack of use.”
Buffy slowly turns to face Spike. “You got your soul back. How?”
“It’s what you wanted, right?” Spike looks up at the ceiling. “It’s what you wanted, right?” He turns away from Buffy. “And—and now everybody’s in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I…and him…it…the other…the thing…beneath— beneath you… It’s here, too. Everybody, they all just tell me go. Go…to hell.”
“Why?” asks Buffy. “Why would you do that?”
Spike looks back at her. “Buffy, shame on you! Why does a man do what he mustn’t? For her. To be hers! To be the kind of man who would nev— To be a kind of man!”
Spike turns away and looks at the large cross on the church’s altar. “And she shall look on him with forgiveness…and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved.” He walks toward the cross. “So everything’s okay, right?” Spike drapes himself over the cross. “Can—can we rest now? Buffy…can we rest?”
Buffy stands watching the smoke rise from Spike’s body as the cross burns him, a tear running down her cheek.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A teenaged girl | Frankfurt, Germany | Stabbed with a knife |
| Rocky, the Yorkshire Terrier | Sidewalk | Eaten by the Ronnie demon |