Introduction
Season:
First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links | Fanfic
| Potential | First Date |
Giles finds Buffy and Dawn sitting on the sofa in the living room. Buffy is sipping a cup of tea. He isn’t sure that it’s a good idea for him to be leaving them right now, but Dawn figures they can get along without him for a couple of days.
“I think we’ve managed a bit longer than that,” says Buffy. She’s sounding a bit hoarse.
“Right.” Giles looks around and sees something. “Oh, Dawn, Vi has left her notebook on the mantlepiece. Would you mind running it out to the car?”
Dawn gets up. “Sure.” She grabs the book off the mantle.
“While you’re at it, smack her in the head with it,” says Giles. “Remind her not to leave it lying around.”
“On it.” Dawn heads for the door.
Giles sits down on the coffee table. “I’m just a little bit twitchy about leaving you alone again while things are…” He takes off his glasses, and rubs his forehead. “…in such a state of flux.”
“I know. But you should go,” says Buffy. “This trip is important for the girls to understand the source of their power and to know how to use it right.”
“Do you think they appreciate the gravity of what we’re undertaking?” asks Giles. “It’s frightening, and it’s difficult. And then, apparently someone told them that the vision quest consists of me driving them to the desert, doing the hokey-pokey until a spooky Rasta Mama Slayer arrives and speaks to them in riddles.”
Buffy looks guilty. “That’s not exactly how I put it.” She looks up when she hears footsteps on the stairs and sees Willow coming down them. “Hey, how’s Kennedy?”
“Still fluey,” reports Willow. “Bummed about missing the field trip. She says she wants you to meditate extra hard for her and bring her back some s’mores.”
“Ah yes, s’mores,” says Giles. “I’m going to end up singing campfire songs, aren’t I?”
Buffy smiles. “Oh, yeah.”
Xander comes in through the front door. He leaves it open. “Giles, you might want to get out there.” He continues on toward the kitchen.
“Oh, god, what?” asks Giles.
Dawn is following Xander. “Molly and Rona are fighting over who gets to drive the first leg.”
“Bet you wish you’d renewed that California State driver’s license now, huh?” asks Buffy.
Anya follows Dawn. “Rona won. You should probably let Molly out of the trunk.”
Giles starts toward the door as he hears the sound of the horn honking from outside.
“I never actually realized just how compact Molly really is,” says Anya as she follows Xander and Dawn. Willow follows them too.
“Please be safe while I’m away,” says Giles.
Buffy watches him go. “You, too.”
Buffy goes down the stairs into the basement to tell Spike that Giles and the girls have gotten away. Spike is sitting on a cot by the wall.
“It’ll give us all a chance for a breather, eh?” asks Spike.
“From Giles?”
“From the constant pitter-patter of clomping teenage girlie feet.”
Buffy tries to tell Spike that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that she enjoys her responsibility as a mentor and role model, but Spike doesn’t buy a word of it. She finally gives in, and sits down on the cot beside him. “Oh, my god, I cannot believe I have my bathroom all to myself for two whole days!”
“It’s like a bloody war zone up there,” says Spike. “And not in a good way.”
“Have you seen the kitchen since they’ve been here?” she asks.
“I’m just trying to stay out of their way,” says Spike.
Buffy looks at the manacles around his wrists, connected to a hook on the wall by heavy chains. “I noticed.”
“This is better,” says Spike. “Believe me, it’s safer.” He thinks it’s best if he stays chained up when Buffy isn’t right there to keep an eye on him.
“We just need to make sure the trigger’s deactivated, then,” says Buffy. “We’ve got a couple of days. Lack of pitter-patter and all.”
“Buffy…” a strange look comes over Spike’s face.
“What?”
“Ow,” says Spike.
“Ow?”
“Ow! Ow, ow.” Spike suddenly slams his head back against the wall, as he goes into convulsions of pain.
“What’s wrong?” asks Buffy. “Spike, what is going on?”
“The chip!” gasps Spike. “Dear god. God. Why would…” He looks at his hands, before a new wave of pain makes him go into convulsions, and smash his head against the concrete wall again. “Aaaahh!”
Willow takes the whistling tea kettle off the stove that evening. She looks up when the basement door opens, and sees Buffy coming up. “Hey. How is he?”
“Oh, in the ‘goes’ part of comes and goes,” says Buffy.
“Well, there seems to be a definite lack of screaming.” Willow pours the boiling water into a cup with a tea bag. “That has to be good.”
“You’d think.” Buffy looks at the cup of brewing tea. “That for the other patient?”
“Yeah,” says Willow. “Thought I’d bring her some tea, help her feel better.”
Buffy smiles. “Mm-hmm.”
“It’s just tea!” says Willow.
Buffy laughs softly, but she gets serious again quickly. “Will… How much do you know about the chip?”
Willow doesn’t know much at all. She tried to dig up some information back when they first learned about it. “Turns out when a secret government agency studies vampires and puts chips in their brains that keep them from hurting people, they don’t really build web sites. Why?”
“Even with the chip, Spike was able to hurt all those people when he was brainwashed.”
“Yeah, but he was under the control of the First.”
“Maybe something’s wrong with it.”
“The chip was misfiring all on its own, then,” says Willow. “Well, this’ll be fun.”
“Remember when things used to be nice and boring?”
Willow thinks about that for a second, and shakes her head. “No.” She picks up the cup of tea and starts to carry it away through the dining room.
“Have fun delivering the tea,” says Buffy.
Willow turns back. “Okay, not when you make it sound all dirty like that.” She walks away toward the stairs. “It’s just tea.”
Willow pushes open the door to her room “Hey. I figure the best thing for a cold is a nice hot cup of…” She sees Kennedy, sitting on the end of the bed, fully dressed and pulling on her… “Boots?”
Kennedy looks up. “Hey.”
“For someone who’s sick, you look surprisingly robust and casual dressy,” says Willow.
“Well, the lighting in here’s good,” says Kennedy. “Maybe it’s just—”
“You were never sick.”
“No. I was never sick.”
“Oh, you are so busted!” says Willow. “Xander’s gonna have to drive you to the desert and—”
“Willow, chill.” Kennedy hops to her feet. “There’s a reason I didn’t go. I have a thing, a separate thing.”
“What?”
“Something’s coming down.” Kennedy pulls on her jacket. “I have my own mission, and I need your help.”
Willow and Kennedy sit at a table in the Bronze with a couple of fruity drinks between them. “This is a mission?” asks Willow.
Kennedy sips at the straw in her drink. “Oh. Yeah.”
“And the little paper umbrellas are a signal for what?” asks Willow. “We’re not on a mission, are we?”
“Hey, trust me. I told you,” says Kennedy. “I have a thing.” Willow gets up and starts to walk away. “Come on, come on!” says Kennedy. “Just hang out with me a little.” Willow stops and turns around. “You’re sexy when you pout.”
“Why do you do that?” asks Willow.
“To get you to stay,” says Kennedy.
Willow comes back to her seat at the table. “All right, I’ll stay for one drink. Then I’m going home.”
“Okay, one drink. I can work with that.” Kennedy watches Willow sip at the straw in her drink for a few seconds. “Let’s start with the easy stuff. How long have you known?” Willow just looks confused. “That you were gay.”
“Wait. That’s easy?” asks Willow. “And…what, you just assume that I’m… I’m gay? I mean, presume much?”
“Okay, sorry,” says Kennedy. “How long have you enjoyed having sex with women?”
“Hey!” says Willow. “Why… What, you think you have some sort of special lesbi-dar or something?”
“Okay, you know there’s a better word for that, right?” asks Kennedy. She watches Willow brush her hair away from her face, and take another sip. “You really haven’t been getting out very much, have you?”
“Well, I just… Can you…always tell just—just by looking at someone?”
“No. No, of course not,” says Kennedy. “That wouldn’t be any fun. The fun part is the process of getting to know a girl. It’s like… It’s like flirting in code. It’s using body language and… laughing at the right jokes and…and looking into her eyes…and knowing she’s still whispering to you even when she’s not saying a word. And that sense that…if you can just touch her, just once…everything will be okay…for both of you. That’s how you can tell.”
Kennedy takes one of the pieces of pineapple out of her drink, and bites into it. “Or if she’s really hot, you just get her drunk, see if she comes on to you.”
“Three years ago, that’s when I knew,” says Willow. “And it wasn’t women. It was…woman. Just one.”
“Lucky woman,” says Kennedy.
Buffy comes down into the basement with a towel in her hands. Spike is lying on his cot, his nose bleeding. “Popped another blood vessel, I think,” he says.
Buffy hands him the towel to clean the blood off his face. “There’s got to be a reason why the chip is going all wonky. Maybe it’s related to the trigger. Or…maybe it has something to do with the new soul.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t meant to last this long.” Spike looks up at Buffy. “One more thing you and I have in common, eh, Pet?”
“Well, we’ll fix it,” says Buffy. “We’ll hit serious research mode.”
“Good,” says Spike. “Try Behavioural Modification Software Throughout the Ages.”
“Okay. You’re right. Not a book thing,” says Buffy. “It’s a phone thing.”
“Who you gonna call?” asks Spike. He pauses for a moment. “God, that phrase is never gonna be usable again, is it?”
“Doubt it,” says Buffy.
Willow and Kennedy are still in the Bronze. Their drinks are nearly empty. “Do your parents know?” asks Kennedy.
“Yeah,” says Willow. “My mom was— was all proud, like I was making some political statement. Then the statement mojo wore off, and I was just gay. She hardly ever even met Tara.”
“Classic,” says Kennedy.
“I didn’t mind,” says Willow. “Tara and I are kind of…private.”
“I’m sorry. It must have—”
“Were, I mean,” says Willow. “Private.”
“Yes. Agent Finn. Riley,” says Buffy into her phone. “Tell him we’re having a problem with Spike’s chip. … No, his chip. … Spike.”
Spike is sitting on the stairs. “Listen, Pet…”
“No, no. Finn is his last name,” says Buffy. “Yeah. … Did—did he used to work there, and maybe he got transferred?”
Spike gasps and grabs his head again, as a new wave of pain stabs through it.
“Oh. Is this actually a flower shop,” asks Buffy, “or is this one of those things where I’m supposed to play along to show I know it’s really secret ops? Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Um… Okay. … Right. Uh… Well, if some guy named Finn shows up to buy flowers… Yeah. Thanks.”
Buffy hangs up the phone. “Wrong number. Or a giant government conspiracy. One of tho—” She notices that Spike is in pain again. “Spike?”
Spike lets go of his head and straightens himself up. “This one seemed easier than the others. See? Probably just gonna fade…” He screams as another flash of pain hits him.
“It was Gone with the Wind,” says Kennedy. “I saw that, and I knew I wanted to sweep Scarlett off her feet.”
“You were five,” says Willow.
“Well, I’m not saying the sweeping would have been easy.” Kennedy eats the cherry out of her drink. She sees the way Willow is looking at her. “What?”
“Well, I just… I still don’t get it, why you like me,” says Willow. “I mean, you don’t even know me.”
“Have you seen you?” asks Kennedy. “And we like the same things: Italian, Skate Punk, Robert Parker mysteries, fighting evil.”
“I don’t like any of that stuff, except the fighting evil part,” says Willow. “Even then, I’d prefer a nice foot massage.”
“Okay,” says Kennedy. “I dig the way you always turn off the Moulin Rouge DVD at chapter 32 so it has a happy ending. I like the way you speak. It’s interesting. And your freckles. Lickable.” Willow smiles at that. “I’m not so into the magic stuff. Seems like fairy tale crap to me, but if it matters to you, you care about it, so it’s cool.”
Willow opens the door to her bedroom. “Well, this is my stop. So…” She reaches around the corner and turns on the light. She steps inside. “Glad we talked?”
Kennedy follows Willow into the room. “Yes. Kind of cleared the air, huh?”
“Yeah, totally,” says Willow. “Air cleared. Check.”
“You know, in the spirit of air clearing…”
“Yeah?”
Kennedy slowly moves toward Willow. “I feel like I need to be honest about something.”
“Is something wrong?” asks Willow.
“No, no.” Kennedy keeps moving closer. “It’s just… I think…you should…know.” Kennedy kisses Willow.
Willow kisses back. The kiss goes on for several seconds. They finally separate.
“Well, that was nice,” says Warren Mears. Kennedy stumbles back, and knocks over the lamp on the table. She’s completely shocked that Willow has somehow been replaced by this strange guy.
Willow is somewhat bemused by Kennedy’s reaction. “Okay? I’m not used to literally knocking girls off of their feet with just the power of my own lips.” She watches as Kennedy just stares at her. She indicates the lamp on the floor. “Okay. Are you going to pick that up or—”
Kennedy is still seeing Warren. “I don’t… W-what are you?”
“Is this a freckle thing?” asks Willow. “’Cause…” She realizes that there must be something wrong with the way she looks, so she opens the closet door to look at herself in the mirror on the inside of it to see what has Kennedy so freaked out. She’s stunned to see Warren’s reflection looking back at her. “Oh, god! Oh, god.”
“What…is that?” asks Kennedy.
“It’s the man that I killed.” says Willow.
Kennedy chases Willow down the stairs into the living room. Xander, Anya and Dawn look up and see Warren.
Xander pushes Dawn behind him. “Get Buffy! Get Buffy!” he tells Kennedy. “Tell her the First is back!”
“No, I’m not the First,” says Willow.
“We’re not interested in any of your evil lies,” says Anya. “We’ve heard ’em all!”
“No, guys, it’s me,” says Willow. “I’m me. I’m Willow. Guys, come on. Ask Kennedy. She was there.”
Kennedy is still totally confused about what’s going on. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. We were up in Willow’s room, and we were—”
Andrew comes in from the dining room, with a plate of food in his hands. He sees Warren. “No. You’re back.” He drops the plate on the floor.
“No, I’m not!” says Willow. “It’s… I’m not it. Listen to me!”
“No more listening!” says Andrew. “I know who you are now. I know what you made me do. Your promises of happy fields and dancing schnauzers and being demigods won’t work on me anymore.”
“Buffy!” yells Anya.
“The Bringers are probably coming, too,” says Xander.
“No, I’m not the First!” says Willow.
“You made me do things,” says Andrew. “Things I can never take back, ever.”
“I’m not the First!”
Buffy shows up, to see what the commotion is about. “What the hell is going on in here?” Willow turns toward her, and Buffy sees Warren. She punches him. Willow goes down. Buffy shakes her hand. “Ow!”
Spike has followed Buffy up from the basement. He staggers as the chip kicks in again. “Buffy…”
Everyone is too amazed by what just happened to notice Spike. Buffy shouldn’t have been able to hit the First.
“Wait,” says Anya.
“But if he’s the First—” says Dawn.
Willow climbs back to her feet. “I’m not the First.”
“You’re not the First,” says Xander.
“I know.”
Andrew rushes forward. “Oh, my god.” He grabs Warren in a hug from behind. “You’re back!”
Willow pulls Andrew’s hands off her breasts. “Hey! Bad touching!” she looks around. “Can everyone please stop? It’s me!”
“It’s Willow,” says Kennedy.
“I’m Willow.”
“Are you sure?” asks Xander.
Willow spins toward him. “There are other stories from kindergarten, non-yellow crayon stories, in which you don’t come out in such a good light. An incident involving Aquaman underroos, for example. Do you want me to start talking?”
Xander waves and steps toward her. “Hey, Willow!”
“What happened?” asks Buffy.
“I don’t know,” says Willow. “We were…there, and then I looked like him.”
“Oh. Like a glamour,” says Anya.
“Maybe,” says Willow. “I probably brought it on myself.”
“What makes you think that?” asks Buffy.
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” says Willow. “I kind of have a history of my witchy subconscious making things go kerfluky. Remember the wacky I-can’t-see-you, you-can’t-see-me spell?”
Dawn and Andrew have started poking at Willow, testing out her solidity. Buffy tells them to cut it out.
“It’s so real,” says Andrew.
Willow slaps Dawn’s hand away from her shoulder. “All too aware.”
“Okay, say you’re right and you did do this to yourself,” says Buffy. “Why would your subconscious turn you into Warren?”
“Obviously because I feel bad…about killing him.”
“Look, we’ll deal,” says Buffy. “We’ll get help.”
“No. I can handle this,” says Willow.
“On your own?” asks Buffy. “Why?”
“I did it. I’ll fix it.” Willow ducks past Buffy, and heads for the door. “I don’t want you seeing me this way, anyway.”
“It’s kind of a little late for that,” says Buffy.
Willow turns around. “Seriously, I’m not posing any big threat to the world.” She looks at Spike, who is now writhing in pain on the floor. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full already.” Everyone turns around and notices him for the first time. “I’ll go. I’ll handle it, fix it, and I’ll be back before you even know I’m gone. Promise.” She goes out the door.
Nearly everyone goes to Spike. Kennedy looks back and forth between him and the door a couple of times, and then makes up her mind. She follows Willow.
Buffy kneels beside Spike on the floor. “Spike? I’m right here.”
Spike is starting to recover. “The chip fired again.”
“I kind of figured,” says Buffy. “Maybe they’ll call back. Maybe they’ll send help.”
Spike pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Maybe we can’t wait.”
Willow walks quickly down the street. She gasps when Kennedy suddenly steps in front of her.
“Okay. Safe to say no one will ever accuse you of being too butch,” says Kennedy.
“Kennedy, go home.”
“Come on. I mean…you turned into a guy,” says Kennedy. “I mean, if you take a step back, seriously, there’s a certain element of humour here, right?” Willow stops and glares at her. “Well, a really, really big step.”
“I killed him. It’s hard to see the chuckles.” Willow starts walking again.
Kennedy falls in beside her. “So, you got a plan?”
“Yep. Gonna get some help reversing it.”
“I thought you were gonna try it yourself.”
“I did try it,” said Willow. “Didn’t work. Something’s blocking me.”
“All the more reason for me to go with you,” says Kennedy. “Plus, I was there with you when it happened. Let me come to try to help, too.”
Willow stops again. “I really think I’m fine with the handling.”
“By yourself? Why?”
“I’m the one who killed him,” says Willow. “It’s hard to understand.”
“Given,” says Kennedy. “How about I just tag along, anyway, keep you company?” Willow starts to take a breath. “I’m taking that as a ‘yes.’”
“Fine. Come.” Willow starts to move off down the street. “Try not to get in the way.”
“You know where you’re going?” asks Kennedy.
“To see some old friends of mine,” says Willow. “Been a while, but maybe they can help.”
Buffy and Spike move through the woods with flashlights in hand. “Are you sure you still want to go back in this place with me?” asks Spike.
Buffy shrugs. “Eh, nothing good on TV tonight.”
Spike shines his light on a patch of dirt. “Here we are.”
“Yep. Here we are,” says Buffy. “You think the stuff’s still good?”
Spike has started digging with his hands into the soil. “I don’t know. Worked pretty good when the Initiative held me captive here. Every time I’d get a little…rambunctious, the chip’d kick in, I’d feel like my head was going to explode, they’d dope me up, and everything would be all daffodils and teddy bears…for a couple of hours, anyway.” 1
“Maybe we should search for files and stuff,” says Buffy. “Find out everything we can about the chip…shelf life.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get.” Spike has uncovered a chain. He pulls it free from the soil.
Buffy grabs hold of the chain too. “Ready?” They both pull, lifting a grate free from the soil, uncovering an entrance into an underground passage. They drop down into it.
Dawn and Anya sit on the sofa in the living room, with a blanket over their laps, while Xander sits back in the chair, with his feet on the coffee table. Andrew is sitting on the floor. The phone rings, and Andrew jumps up. “I’ll get it. I’m supposed to get a call when the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comes in. I gave them this number.”
“Oh, can you see if you can get two?” asks Xander.
Andrew picks up the phone. “Summers residence. This is Andrew speaking. How can I help you?”
Xander sees the way Dawn and Anya are looking at him. “Loser.” he mutters toward Andrew.
Andrew lowers the receiver and covers the mouthpiece with his hand. “Hey, do we know some British guy named Robson?”
Xander hangs up the phone. “He was attacked…this Robson guy in England.” He goes back to the chair and sits down. “And Giles was there helping him…and there was a Bringer… Robson blacked out, but the last thing he remembers is Giles’s head about to get real familiar with the Bringer’s very sharp ax.”
“Oh, my god,” says Dawn.
“Giles never mentioned any of this,” says Anya.
“Robson said by the time he came to, there’s no Giles,” says Xander.
“So…what are we saying?” asks Dawn.
“Maybe Giles just didn’t want to talk about it,” says Xander.
“Or maybe he didn’t make it,” says Anya. “Look, I’m not saying it’s a happy scenario, but we’re dealing with a big bad that can be any dead person it wants.”
“Because if you want to infiltrate the inner circle of the Slayer…
“You become the one person she trusts more than anybody else,” says Anya.
“But there’s no way that we can know,” says Dawn.
“Actually, that’s not true,” says Andrew. “The First can’t take corporeal form, so it can’t touch anything.”
“Well, it’s not like Giles hasn’t touched anything, right?” asks Anya. She sits and thinks for a moment. “Ha-has anyone seen Giles touch anything since he got back?” She looks around at Dawn and Xander. “Hold anything? Has anybody hugged him?” No one has said anything. “Think very hard.”
They all sit still for a moment, and then Dawn, Anya and Xander all jump to their feet, and head for the door.
Andrew follows them. “Where are you—?”
They all stop by the door. “Desert,” says Xander. “We’re going to find Giles.”
“Oh, good. Let me just get some tapes for the car,” says Andrew. “I’ve been working on this mix—”
“You’re not coming,” says Xander.
“What?” asks Andrew. “Why, ’cause I used to be evil?”
“No,” says Xander. “Actually, because you’re annoying, but that’s a good reason, too.” He turns back toward the door.
“Wait, wait, don’t leave me here alone,” says Andrew. “I keep getting attacked in this house. What if this is all part of a plan to drive you guys away so it can have its way with me? Ever think of that?”
“I’ll risk it,” says Xander.
“Okay, well, if you leave me here alone, I’ll do something evil,” says Andrew. He starts trying to think of evil things he could do. “Like burning something or…glueing things together.”
“For crying out loud, Harris, let’s just take him,” says Anya. “At least we can keep an eye on him.”
Xander sighs and opens the door. “Fine.” Andrew rushes out the door, and Dawn follows him.
Anya hangs back a bit. “Xander—
“I know,” says Xander. “They’re out there all alone. All of ’em.”
Giles sits by himself in front of a campfire in the desert.
A group of students sit around in a circle in a UCSunnydale lecture hall, holding hands. The leader, Vaughne, begins an incantation.
“Instill us, O great one, with peace.
With strength, with compassion, with hope.
The path we seek is yours.
Keep us on that path.”
The crystals hanging around their necks start to glow.
“Okay, well, this is new.” Willow is standing in the door.
Vaughne looks up. “Um, hi. We’re…”
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry. Willow. We actually met when I was a freshman. And also not a boy.” She points to Kennedy. “This is Kennedy.”
“Hey,” says Vaughne to Kennedy. She looks back at this strange guy in the door. “You’re Willow?”
“Yeah,” says Willow. She looks around the circle. “Wow. Look at you guys. Campus Wiccans. I guess you got past the whole bake-sale phase.”
“Uh, no. We still do that, too,” says Vaughne. “Second Tuesday of every month.” She’s still looking at Willow. “Um, I’m sorry, I’m kind of having a hard time with the whole ‘guy’ thing.”
“Um…It’s actually her. I can tell.” One of the girls in circle stands up, and turns toward Willow. “I know her,” says Amy.
Willow takes a step back. “Okay, whoa.”
“Um, okay. Here’s the thing. Hi,” says Amy nervously. “Here’s the thing. I’ll just get this out of the way. I’m sort of screwed up. But I mean…you already knew that because you lived it. Gotcha.”
“But she’s doing so much better now,” says Vaughne. “Amy…”
“It’s okay, Vaughne. I want to do this,” says Amy. She turns back to Willow. “It took me a long time to really see myself, but I did. ’Cause, you know, that’s the crazy thing about hitting rock bottom: you get to relive all the crappy things that you did. And I wanted to come find you and tell you that I was here, working on things with these guys and…that they’re good. And that I’m sorry. But you’re here, looking like… Wow! How did this happen?”
“That what we’re here to find out,” says Kennedy. “I mean, if we’re done with all the group hugging.”
“I got hit with this, like, glamour…thing, and I can’t seem to shake it myself,” says Willow. “I was hoping that someone here might be able to help.”
“Yeah, see, the thing is we’re more about healing spirits and nurturing our life force here,” says Amy. Willow tries to hide her disappointment. “But we’ll try.”
Kennedy, Vaughne, and the other campus Wiccans sit in the lecture hall seats, watching Amy prepare to do a spell with Willow. Kennedy leans toward Vaughne. “What if she can’t handle this?”
“You have a better idea?” asks Vaughne.
Amy and Willow sit facing each other. A glowing glass orb cupped in Willow’s hands, and Amy’s hands cupped beneath her. Amy begins the spell.
“Her spirit’s true, its shell a lie,
Give back the form the soul requires,
See that the balance is put right.”
Willow suddenly cries out in pain, drops the orb, and jumps to her feet.
Amy jumps up too. “It didn’t work?”
“No, it didn’t, you dumb bitch!” Willow slaps Amy, hard. Everyone is stunned.
“You slapped me!” says Amy.
Willow is stunned most of all. “No, I—I didn’t. It wasn’t me. It was Warren!”
Willow and Amy stand staring at each other for a moment, Amy with her hand on her cheek where Willow slapped her. Then Willow runs toward the door.
“Willow!” Kennedy chases Willow out into the corridor. “Willow!” Willow stops and turns back toward her. “Okay. You’re upset.”
“Upset?” asks Willow. “Upset? Are you just tuning in? Did you not see that? I’m turning into him! It’s not a trick. It’s not a glamour. I’m becoming him— a murderous, misogynist man! I mean, do you understand what he did? What I could do? I killed him for a reason.”
“Getting angry isn’t helping. We can still try to—”
“You understand nothing about magic. In case you haven’t noticed, our little date, it’s over.” Willow turns and walks away.
“Willow!” Kennedy tries to follow her, but Willow throws up a barrier to stop her. “Willow, wait!”
Buffy and Spike move through the dark corridors of the abandoned Initiative complex. The beam from Buffy’s flashlight illuminates the desiccated corpse of one of the dead Initiative soldiers. “Oh, god. They just left ’em.” She shines her light around, and finds the bodies of more people and demons.
“They just sealed the place off,” says Spike. “Left everything as it was.”
“I’m thinking brief stay,” says Buffy.
“Yeah. You’re not wrong.” Spike’s light finds a door, there’s the faint red glow of a still functioning emergency light coming from behind it. “I think I can get us to the med lab, find the drug.”
They pass through the door, and into another section. They pass out of the area lit by the emergency light. They don’t notice the silhouette of something moving across the light behind them.
Andrew sits beside Dawn in the back of Xander’s car. “Okay, I’ll go. ‘R.’” No one says anything. “Ghost is hard to play by yourself.”
“How long since they left?” asks Anya.
“A few hours,” says Xander.
“If it is the First, and I’m not saying it is, what are we expecting to find?” asks Anya.
“He didn’t bring ’em out there to meditate,” says Xander.
“Kinda makes you grateful that you weren’t a potential after all. Doesn’t it?” Andrew asks Dawn. “Safer.”
“Not so fast with the big whew,” says Anya.
“He might know we’re coming,” says Xander.
“Which means we’re already too late, and we’re heading out to the middle of nowhere,” says Anya.
“With no Slayer,” says Dawn, “no powerful witch.”
“Just a teenager, a powerless former demon, and two big geeks,” says Anya.
Everyone fall silent for a moment. “Okay, license plate game, maybe?” asks Andrew.
Willow runs into an alley. She turns, and leans against the wall. She sags to the ground, and puts her face in her hands as she cries.
Willow pulls her face out of her hands. “Look at me…crying like a little girl!” She makes a decision, gets to her feet, and moves quickly out of the alley.
Buffy and Spike hear a noise, and stop. They move back to back, and shine their lights around. “You hear that?” asks Spike.
“Yep.”
“Think something survived?”
“Sounds like,” says Buffy.
They are both still shining their lights around. “You see where?”
“No, but it sounded like it was coming from over there.” Buffy shines her light the way she thinks the sound came from. “Whatever it is, it’s not—”
They hear the noise again, and both swing their lights toward its source. They don’t see anything.
Something attacks from out of the darkness. It knocks Buffy’s light out of her hand, and it rolls away across the floor.
Kennedy finds Amy packing candles and things into a box in the lecture hall. The rest of the campus Wiccans have gone. “Where’d they go?”
“They took off,” says Amy. “That was a little too creepy even for us.” She sees the way Kennedy keeps looking off the way Willow disappeared. “You’re really worried about her.” She stands up. “Look, she’s going to be fine, really. She’s good at this. She’s strong. And she’s dealt with a lot worse, long before she ever went out and found herself a big old potential Slayer bodyguard, okay? Just have a little faith in her.”
Kennedy looks at Amy. “I never said I was a potential Slayer.”
“Oh. No, I think you did when you first got here,” says Amy. “You told us—”
“No, I didn’t.” Kennedy steps toward Amy. “How did you know who I was?”
“Oops,” says Amy. 2
Buffy hits the demon with her elbow, and knocks it away from her. It comes back at her, picks her up, and throws her down onto the floor. Spike tries to go to Buffy’s aid, but the chip kicks in again. “Oh, god. No! Aah! God, no! Not now.” He collapses to the floor.
The creature abandons Buffy for this new, easier prey. It grabs Spike’s leg, and drags him away into the darkness. It has completely vanished by the time Buffy can recover her light.
Willow looks at a selection of pistols in a glass display case in a pawn shop. “So, same model as last time?” the shopkeeper asks Warren. “How’d that work out for you?”
Willow stands up and smiles. “You’d be amazed!”
Giles stands up to stretch his legs, and walks away from the campfire. He hears a noise behind him, and starts to turn around. He cries out as he’s tackled by Xander, Anya, Andrew and Dawn.
“Touch him! Touch him!” yells Xander.
“Oh, I feel him!” says Dawn. “I feel him.”
“Me, too!” says Xander.
“Me, too!” says Andrew.
Giles lies on the ground with everyone still groping at him. “Good. We all feel each other…” He looks at Andrew. “…including some of us who don’t know each other well enough to take such liberties, thank you.” They all pull away a bit. “Um, I assume there is a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane explanation, yes?”
“We thought you might be non-corporeal evil,” says Anya.
“We got a call,” says Dawn. “We couldn’t remember you touching anything.”
“We had to make sure you were okay,” says Xander. “We were worried.”
“Well…uh…that’s very sweet.” Giles starts to sit up. “Now, wait a minute…” He looks around at them. “You thought… You think I’m evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don’t touch them?”
Buffy catches up with the creature in the Pit area of the Initiative’s labs. It attacks her again, but this time she’s ready for it. After a brief struggle in the darkness she rams a piece of pipe through its chest, and kills it.
Buffy finds Spike lying on the floor. She kneels down beside him. “Hey. Are you still with us? That guy was—” Lights suddenly come on all around them. Buffy looks up, and sees that the railing above them is lined with soldiers, all aiming their weapons down toward them. “Just the beginning.”
“What’s happening?” asks Spike.
The officer in command of this squad waves for them to lower their weapons. “Miss Summers, Agent Finn reported that you tried to contact him earlier today.” He starts down the ladder into the Pit.
“I knew it!” says Buffy. “Government conspiracy.” she whispers to Spike.
“He indicated you might be needing our assistance. We’re to provide you anything you need to help…” He cocks his head to look at Spike. “…ass-face here.” Spike raises an eyebrow at that. “Those were his exact words, ma’am.”
Willow moves through the early morning streets of Sunnydale with the pistol in her hand.
Buffy looks at Spike, lying on a table, with people in fatigue uniforms moving around him. The officer approaches her again. “Med team tells me they took a look at the chip. You were right. It’s degraded. Leave it as it is much longer, it’ll be fatal to him.”
“Okay,” says Buffy. “So how long till—”
“Now, ma’am.”
“Right. Of course,” says Buffy. “Um… What do we do next?”
“Agent Finn said it was your call, ma’am.”
Buffy is confused about just what that’s supposed to mean. “My— What was my call?”
“All decisions regarding Hostile 17 are to be left in your hands,” says the officer. “His chip…we can either repair it…or remove it.”
Kennedy steps toward Amy. “Tell my why you did this to her.”
Amy raises her hand, and Kennedy is knocked flying into the seats of the lecture hall. Amy turns her back and starts to walk away.
Kennedy picks herself up off the floor. “What did you do to her?”
Amy turns back. “What, to Willow? Oh, just your standard Penance Malediction is all.”
“Okay, and that’s magic crazy talk for what?” asks Kennedy.
“I put a hex on her.”
“Got that part,” says Kennedy, “but why Warren? And why did it happen after we kissed?”
Amy laughs. “Oh! That’s rich. That must have been some kiss.” She slowly walks toward Kennedy. “You must be good.”
“Answer me.”
“The hex I cast let’s the victim’s subconscious pick the form of their punishment,” says Amy. “It’s always better than anything I can come up with. Elegant, you know?”
“Undo it,” says Kennedy. “Let her out.”
“Okay.” Amy seems to think about that for a moment. “Oh, wait. I forgot. No!”
“Why would you do this to her? You really hate her that much?”
Amy sighs and turns away. “This is not about hate. It’s about power. Willow always had all the power, long before she even knew what to do with it. Just…came so easy for her. The rest of us? We had to work twice as hard to be half as good. But no one cares about how hard you work. They just care about cute, sweet Willow. They don’t know how weak she is. She gave in to evil, stuff worse than I can even imagine. She almost destroyed the world. And yet everyone keeps on loving her? So what’s wrong with having a little fun, huh? Taking her down a peg or two?”
“Fun?” asks Kennedy. “She’s disappearing, fading away in that…creep, and you think it’s fun?”
“It was just a game,” says Amy. “It’s not my fault if she’s losing herself.”
“I’m going to stop you now, you know.”
“Hey… I’m not the bad guy here. But I wonder where he’d be right about now.” Amy snaps her fingers.
Kennedy finds herself standing by the bench in Buffy’s back yard. She looks around. “That was a hell of a thing.”
Willow comes around the edge of the fence, with the pistol in her hand. “You think you can just do that to me? That I’d let you get away with it?”
“Do? Get away with—” Kennedy sees Willow raise the gun and point it at her. She starts to back away. “Okay. Let’s not get excited.”
“It’s too late for that.” Willow waves the gun at Kennedy. “This is what I am. I made it happen, and I’ll make it stop.”
“Willow… What did you make happen?”
“You were there, bitch. You saw it. I killed her.”
“You mean him,” says Kennedy.
“Her…him… You know what I mean!”
“But you said her.”
“No. That was Warren.”
“No.” Kennedy start to move slowly toward Willow. “No, it wasn’t. You said I was there. Who did you kill, Willow?”
“It was your fault, slut!” says Willow. “You tricked me… Got me to forget.”
“Tara.”
“Shut up!” yells Willow. “Shut up! You do not get to say her name! Offering it up to whoever’s there! Tricking me into kissing you.”
Willow suddenly stops. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean what I’m saying. I can’t make… Kennedy… I can’t hold on. He’s winning.” The gun starts to drop, and Willow starts to cry.
Kennedy steps toward her. “No.”
“I’m being punished,” says Willow. “I kissed you just— just for a second, but it was enough. I let her go. I didn’t mean to.”
“Kissing me didn’t mean—”
“No.” Willow brings the gun back up. “She was never gone. She was with me. We should have been forever… And I… I let her be dead. She’s really dead…” Willow lowers the gun again. “…and I killed her.” She falls down onto her knees.
“Willow, no.”
Willow kneels on the ground, crying. “Please, baby, I’m so sorry. Come back! I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Come back!”
Kennedy kneels in front of her. “Willow… I don’t think you did anything wrong. This is just magic, and I think I’m figuring the whole magic thing out. It’s just like fairy tales.” She starts to lean forward.
Willow pulls back away from Kennedy. “What are you doing?”
“Bringing you back to life.” Kennedy leans forward, and kisses Willow on the mouth. The kiss goes on for a long time. When Kennedy pulls away, Willow is looking like herself again. Kennedy smiles. “Hmm. I am good.”
Willow feels at her face, and hair. “It’s me? I’m back?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, god.”
“Are you all right?” asks Kennedy.
Willow looks up toward the window on the second floor that Warren’s bullet had gone through. “I have no idea.”
“Come on.” Kennedy helps Willow get back to her feet.
“I’m so tired,” says Willow.
“Yeah?” Kennedy supports Willow as they go up onto the back porch of the house. “I’ll make you some tea.”
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| Demon | Initiative labs | Killed by Buffy |