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| Out of My Mind | Family |
Czech Monastery, Two Months Ago:
A pair of young monks run through the candle lit corridors of their monastery, looking fearfully back over their shoulders. There is no sign of whatever they are running from. They run through a pair of heavy wooden doors, and close and bar them with a wooden beam, about ten inches in diameter.
”It’s coming!” says one of them, speaking in Czech. ”It’s going to kill us!”
”Our lives aren’t important.” says his companion. ”We have to protect the Key!”
”Help me perform the ritual.” says an older monk who has been waiting for them, sitting on the floor surrounded by lit candles.
The two monks join him, and they start to chant. Something begins to pound on the door, shaking it. The younger monks nervously look toward it.
”Concentrate, concentrate!” says the elder monk. The monks return to their chanting. Whatever is outside pounds harder on the door. The beam begins to crack as a glow starts to emanate from the area between the monks. The glow flares brightly, and ascends through the ceiling as the doors are broken open.
Sunnydale, Now:
Buffy fights with a large vampire in the vacant parking lot outside an abandoned factory. The vampire is big, but he doesn’t give Buffy much trouble. She stakes it with ease.
As she is pocketing her stake she is surprised by someone shining a flashlight in her face. It’s the night watchman. He tells Buffy that she isn’t supposed to be there. He thinks that she is looking for a rave party. He chased a bunch of kids out of there just the other night. Buffy pretends to be disappointed, and she turns and starts to leave.
“Oh, hey! Hold it, Miss,” the guard calls out to her. Buffy turns around and sees him picking something up off the ground. “Take your, uh…whatever this is with ya.” He holds a glowing orb out to her. Buffy takes it from him. “Glow balls, huh?” says the guard. “I swear, I don’t get your generation. What is that thing?”
Buffy looks at the orb as she walks away. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.”
Buffy prepares French toast for her mother’s breakfast. She puts it on a tray along with juice, coffee and a vase containing a single flower. She tells Dawn not to touch it. She goes to put things back in the fridge. “Mom’s sick, and I made her a nice non-instant breakfast for once. And I don’t need you—” She hears the sound of the vase falling over and turns to look.
Dawn was trying to add a second flower to the vase. “Oops!”
“Doing that,” says Buffy.
Joyce comes into the kitchen and sees the tray. “Check out the ‘Pamper Mom’ platter. You two do all this?”
“Oh, Buffy helped,” says Dawn.
“I didn’t help,” says Buffy.
“Oh, I’m sure you did,” says Joyce, but she is a little suspicious about why she is being treated so well. “So, neither of you’s pregnant, failing, or under indictment? Just checking.”
Ever since her fainting spell last week, Joyce has been having headaches, and so far her doctors have been unable to figure out why. Buffy is very concerned, but Joyce tells her she’ll be fine. She is scheduled for more tests, and she has a prescription for some pills. Buffy wants to get a second opinion, but Joyce thinks they should wait to see what the first opinion is. “Buffy, I know you’re concerned, okay, but don’t be. I’m still the Mom, which means I get to worry about you two, which is a good thing because you’re a Vampire Slayer. And you…” She Dawn in a hug, “…you are my Little Punkin Belly.”
Dawn thinks she’s too grown up to be called things like that. “Did you ever have any names for me?” asks Buffy.
“No. I think you were always just Buffy,” says Joyce.
“I got some names for you,” mutters Dawn.
Joyce wonders why Buffy is still hanging around the house. Today is the grand opening of Giles’ new magic store. Shouldn’t Buffy be there? She asks Buffy to bring her back a flying broomstick or something. Buffy’s going, and she tells her mother she will be back later. She wants to know what time Joyce’s doctor’s appointment is. Joyce gives her a look. “I just want to know,” says Buffy. “Take it easy. I want you to relax all day, keep your feet up, plenty of Oprah.”
“Plus, you can check my rainforest report,” says Dawn, “and you know there’s, like, 80 badillion old board games.” Buffy grabs her and starts to drag her away with her. “Hey! You said I couldn’t come.”
“Changed my mind,” says Buffy.
The bell over the door into the Magic Box jingles as Buffy enters. She looks around the empty shop and sees Giles. He is wearing a purple wizard’s cloak, and tall peaked hat, both of which are decorated with gold stars and moons. She just looks at him, maintaining a blank expression on her face. Giles looks back with a silly grin on his, but says nothing. After several seconds he removes the hat and cloak.
The bell jingles again as Dawn comes in, somewhat out of breath. Buffy was moving quickly, and almost managed to lose her. It is her first visit to the shop since Giles’ renovation and restocking. She is impressed. “Whoa. Mr. Giles, this place is so…wow! I mean, check out all the magic junk.”
Giles stashes the hat and cloak under the counter. “Our new slogan.”
Dawn looks around the empty store. “So when’s it open, you know, for customers?”
“Since nine this morning, actually,” says Giles.
Buffy tells Dawn to go browse, and… “You break it, you bought it,” says Dawn. “Heard you the first sixty times.” She goes off to look around the shop while Buffy talks with Giles.
Giles is pretending to put a good face on his current lack of customers. Magic is a small niche market, and Sunnydale is monster central. “Supply and demand. They’ll be lining up around the block in no time.”
“Yeah. You’ll be making money hand over fist.” Buffy makes a fist, and waves her other hand over it trying to figure out what that expression means. “Which I guess is a good thing.” Giles thinks that Buffy seems a little distracted. She tells him she’s fine, she’s just worried about her mother.
“She is getting medical attention?” asks Giles.
“Yeah. We have a highly trained medical staff working around the clock to tell us diddly.”
The bell over the door rings again, and Giles looks toward it hopefully, but this time it’s Willow and Riley. Willow is disappointed that Giles isn’t wearing his hat and cloak. So’s Riley, Willow had been talking them up all the way over.
Buffy pulls the orb out of her bag to show to Giles and the others. “I put this before the group. What the hell is it?” Giles thinks it is obviously paranormal, ’cause it’s so shiney. Buffy tells them that she found it on patrol. Riley thinks that they should go back to where she found it again tonight to have a look around. Buffy doesn’t seem to think that’s a good idea.
“You can’t patrol,” says Dawn, “Buffy said.”
“No, I didn’t,” says Buffy.
“Yeah, remember?” asks Dawn. “You said it’d be easier if you didn’t have to look out for anybody.”
“Well, I wasn’t talking about Riley,” says Buffy. Riley tells her not to worry about it.
“Oh, she just said you look even cuter when you’re all weak and kitten-y,” Dawn tells Riley. “and she’d better go solo, or you’d get hurt. So…welcome to the club. She’ll never let me go, either.” She pauses when she notices the uncomfortable looks on everyone else’s faces. “What? What?”
Riley decides to go into the back for a little workout. Giles accompanies him, leaving Willow in charge of the shop, in case any customers do show up. Buffy tells Dawn that they are leaving, and starts toward the door.
Willow stops her. She thinks Buffy should go easy on Dawn. Buffy wants to know why she should. “I just have all this involuntary empathy for Dawn,” says Willow, “’cause she’s, you know, a big spaz.”
“She’s so annoying! Especially now that Mom’s sick. She’s all over her while I have to be the grownup, and the two of them are like the giggle twins, and why can’t I ever be Little Pumpkin Belly?”
“While I don’t feel qualified to address the last part, I can tell you that Dawn’s not just the youngest,” says Willow. “She’s the baby, and maybe your Mom needs that right now.”
“Dawn doesn’t care what my Mom—” Buffy stops. “You just have no idea how much I wish I were an only child these days.” The sound of something falling off a shelf comes from behind her.
“Oops,” says Dawn.
Buffy and Dawn arrive at home, and find Joyce lying on the sofa. She is feeling even worse than she had that morning. Buffy wants to take her into the hospital right away, but Joyce doesn’t want to go. She asks Buffy to go to the hospital pharmacy to get her prescription filled. Buffy promises to be back in ten minutes.
Buffy picks up Joyce’s prescription at the pharmacy and starts out of the hospital. She runs into Ben, the intern who she had talked to about her mother last week. He’s walking beside a man who is being wheeled along on a gurney. The man on the gurney starts to struggle, and rave about the important instructions he has to carry out. Ben tries to hold him down, and calls out for some phenobarbital to sedate him, until Buffy steps up and pushes the man back down onto the gurney with one hand. She holds him while Ben straps him down.
Ben is impressed by Buffy’s strength. She starts to stumble out an explanation, but Ben supplies his own. “Radioactive spider bite?”
“How’d you guess?” asks Buffy.
“I’m a doctor. Well, almost.”
The man on the stretcher sees the pills Buffy is carrying. He grabs at her hand. “Doesn’t even help! Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference!” Buffy recognises him. He’s the security guard from the factory.
“I’ve met this guy,” she tells Ben. “He’s a security guard. He’s not crazy.”
“If you say so,” says Ben.
“They’re coming at you,” says the guard. “Don’t think you’re above it, missy. They come through the family. They get to your family.”
“My family?” Buffy drops the pills. “What do you mean?”
Ben instructs the nurses to take the guard into an examining room, and picks up the bottle Buffy dropped and hands it back to her. “For your mom? She’s not feeling better?”
“Not yet, but she will be,” says Buffy. “I’m starting to figure out what’s wrong.”
One of the young monks from the monastery kneels on the floor in the factory where Buffy had found the orb, making marks on a map of Sunnydale. Something starts to pound on the metal door to the area he is in, making deep dents in it. The monk scrambles to his feet. ”God help me!” he prays. The door is knocked off its hinges. ”The Beast.” He looks around for an escape, but there’s none.
The Beast stands in the doorway. She is a blonde woman, wearing a slinky red dress, and stiletto heeled shoes. She smiles at the monk. “There you are. I have been looking all over for you.”
Giles drops a receipt into a bag and hands it over to his first customers. “Thank you for choosing to shop at the Magic Box and please do come again.” Giles smiles at the couple until they are out the door. Then he rushes over to Willow who is leaning just down the counter with the orb, going through books. “Did you see that? Customers. Real live customers. They came in and I gave them things and they gave me money and then they left!” He giggles. “It’s brilliant!”
“Congratulations,” says Willow. “You’re an official capitalist running dog. But I got to tell ya, on the orbular front? We’re batting zeros.”
Giles tells her to keep trying, but some more people come into the shop. He tells them to let him know if they need help with anything.
One of the new people is Anya. She picks up a packet off a shelf and checks out the price. “Your conjuring powder’s grotesquely overpriced.” Giles does not appreciate that. “I’m sorry,” says Anya. “I’m nearly out of money. I’ve never had to afford things before, and it’s making me bitter.”
“The change is palpable,” says Giles. “That stuff doesn’t come cheap.”
“Well, you’re getting ripped off,” says Anya. “I could hook you up direct with the troll that sheds it.”
Buffy runs into the shop, and tells them that she has an idea about what is making her mother sick. She thinks that Joyce’s doctors aren’t finding anything because the cause of her illness is supernatural. She picks up the orb off the counter and tells Giles, Willow, and Anya how the security guard who found it went crazy. They all take a step back. Buffy quickly assures them that she doesn’t think it will hurt them. She had it on her all night. “But this guy, he saw things. He said things.”
“Such as?” asks Giles.
“They’ll come at me through my family,” says Buffy.
“What— Who will?” asks Giles.
“I don’t know…yet,” says Buffy. “But whatever touched this guy, it made him see through what the rest of us are seeing. He knew someone’s hurting my Mom, and they’re trying to get to me.” Giles thinks it’s possible, but he doesn’t think that the ravings of a mad man are much to go on. “Yeah, but it’s a start,” says Buffy. “We need to find out who’s making my Mom sick and how.”
“Then what?” asks Willow.
“Then I hunt them. Find them. And kill them,” says Buffy.
The Blonde Beast has the monk bound in a chair with a piece of duct tape over his mouth. She tells the monk that this is all his fault. She doesn’t want to be there. “And I’m not talking about this room or this city or this state or this planet. I’m talking about the whole mortal coil now, you know? It’s disgusting! The food. The clothes. The people. I could crap a better existence than this.”
She is also feeling very hurt by the monk’s behaviour. She thinks that he is being very selfish. “All I want is the Key!” She drops to her knees in front of him. “Why? Why can’t you tell me where the Key is?” She smiles, and sits back on her heels. “Oh, forgive me Monk-y.” She pulls on the rope around the waist of his robe. “Sometimes I just— I get so anxious—like there’s something deep inside of me and it’s swelling up and it’s making me crazy—that I forget there’s all that duct tape on your face!” She rips the tape off his mouth. “Now, tell me where the Key is.” She grabs the monk’s nose. “Or I’m going bowling.”
The monk starts to stutter out something. She encourages him to continue. “It’s okay. The stutter’s sexy. Keep it coming.”
”Kill me. Kill me.” stammers the monk in Czech.
”We’re in the New World now, so please, for God’s sake” she says in the same language, and then she shifts back to English “Speak American!”
“I…will tell you…nothing,” says the monk.
That isn’t the answer the Beast was hoping for. She goes over to where she has the factory’s daytime security guard tied up. He pleads for her to release him. He has a wife and two daughters.
“I bet this is fun for you, isn’t it?” she says to the monk. “Say it. You like to torture me. Why? You don’t even own the damn thing, and I want it, I need it, and I’ve got to have it now, and you keep refusing to tell me where the Key is! And it’s typical! It’s typical—it’s typical! The whole mortal meat sack comes complete with stink and bile sweat and protein— Yes, I said humans! Not now! Mommy’s talking! Wriggling, piling, prowling, crawling, clowning, cavorting, doing it over and over and over and over until someone’s going to sit down on their tuffet1 and make this birthing stop!”
She sinks her finger tips into the guard’s head, and light starts to shine from his eyes and mouth. She releases him and he drops to the floor. “Ah,” she says. “That is so much better.”
The Magic Box has filled with customers. Buffy has taken over Willow’s position with the books trying to figure out what the orb is, while Willow helps out behind the counter along with Anya. A customer with an hourglass asks Willow if they do gift wrapping. Willow doesn’t know, but looking around she sees that Giles has a roll of wrapping paper set up behind the counter. She takes the hourglass and starts to wrap it.
Giles is off in another part of the shop helping some other customers. He is starting to feel a little overwhelmed. He sees Xander coming in. “There’s too many of them—people. A-a-and they all seem to want things.”
Xander gives him an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “I hear ya. Stay British. You’ll be okay.” He continues on toward Buffy, Willow and Anya. “The thousand-yard stare. Damn, you hate to see it on any man, but especially in retail.”
Anya hands a bag over to a customer. “Please go.” Xander suggests that “have a nice day” would be a better thing for her to say. “But I have their money,” says Anya. “Who cares what kind of day they have?”
“No one,” says Xander. “It’s just a long cultural tradition of raging insincerity. Embrace it.”
“Hey, you!” Anya calls out to the departing customer. “Have a nice day!”
Xander pats her on the shoulder. “There’s my girl!” He moves down the counter to Buffy. “Did you ever think in a million years you’d miss the high school library?” Buffy isn’t in the mood. She tells him that she thinks someone put a spell on her mother to make her sick. “That’s a new kinda nasty,” he says. “Any suspects?” Buffy hasn’t found any yet.
Willow asks Anya’s opinion of the job she did wrapping the hourglass. Anya thinks it looks like Willow did it with her feet. She takes it from Willow and starts to redo it. While she rewraps the hourglass she tells Buffy that she has an idea how to find out who, or what has attacked her mother. She used to know this French sorcerer back in the 16th century named Cloutier who gave all the demons fits. “He had this one spell demons just hated called Tirer la Couverture.”
“Rotate many foodstuffs?” asks Buffy. 2
“Pull the curtain back,” supplies Willow.
“A spell to see spells. Well, a trance to see spells, actually, but you get the idea. Try that.” Anya hands the neatly wrapped hourglass over to the customer.
“What do you mean ‘see’ spells?” asks Buffy.
Giles is familiar with this sorcerer and his trance. He explains that old spells leave a residue behind, and this trance lets you see them. If Buffy performs it she may see something like a hand clutching at her mother’s throat, or a mist surrounding her, or even the shape of the demon that cast the spell. He has some doubts about whether Buffy’s concentration skills are up to performing it though.
Buffy thinks it’s worth a try, and she has been working on her concentration. “What do I need?”
Buffy dumps the contents of her bag of supplies out on the floor of her room in front of Riley. He really isn’t sure what he’s doing there. Buffy tells him that there is lots for him to do. This is new terrain for her. “All praying, no Slaying.” He can start by lighting the incense, and there is the magic sand which needs to be poured around her, counter-clockwise.
“So you need me to light incense and pour sand?” asks Riley.
“Magic incense,” says Buffy. “And—and spooky sand. And the ritual itself is—”
“Something you do alone,” says Riley. “You sure this isn’t just your way of trying to make me feel less—what are the words—cute and weak and kittenish?”
“Kitten-y,” corrects Buffy.
Riley tells her he’s okay. “So I’m not quite super guy anymore. It was borrowed power anyway. Had to give it back sometime.” He doesn’t need Buffy trying to take care of him. Maybe they should just take care of each other. He gives her a kiss on the forehead. “For luck.” He starts to go.
“Hey.” Buffy pulls him back. “Girl needs more luck than that.” She gives him a kiss on the lips. Riley tells her to have a nice trip, and he leaves.
Buffy pours the sand out in a circle around her, sits in its center, and lights the incense. There is a pounding on her door.
“What are you doing?” asks Dawn from the hallway.
“My boyfriend.” says Buffy. “Go away!”
“Liar!” says Dawn. “Are you doing magic?”
“No, I’m not!”
“Can I watch?”
“No, you can’t!”
“Oh, come on! Please! Please, like, times ten, and cubed! Please?” Dawn starts to open the door. Buffy jumps to her feet and shoves it closed again in Dawn’s face. “Yeah, well, I can smell your stinky incense down the hall, you know, and your clothes are going to reek. And if you are doing magic, I’m so telling.”
“Fine! Go! Go tell.” Buffy rolls up a towel, and stuffs it under her door. “Go do whatever you want. Just go!” Dawn stalks off down the hall, and slams her bedroom door.
Buffy returns to her place in the circle of sand, shakes the tension out of her shoulders, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She sits in the circle for a long time, breathing slowly and concentrating. The sun sets, and darkness falls. Buffy opens her eyes. Her room around her seems lit by a ghostly light.
Buffy leaves her room and goes downstairs. All the colours seem washed out, and objects all have sharp edges to them. She finds her mother in the living room. Joyce is feeling much better. The pills seem to be working. She tells Buffy that she’s going out for a couple of hours. Buffy looks at her mother closely, and doesn’t see anything unusual. “Nothing. There’s nothing.” Joyce asks her if she’s okay. Buffy seems a little out of it. Buffy doesn’t answer right away. She has noticed the picture on the wall behind her mother. It is a picture of Joyce with her two daughters. Dawn is fading in and out in it.
Joyce asks again if Buffy’s alright, and Buffy tells her she’s fine. Her mother should go have a good time. Joyce leaves.
Buffy finds another picture of the three of them, and again, Dawn is fading in and out.
Buffy goes back upstairs, and into Dawn’s room. The room itself is flickering. Back and forth between Dawn’s bedroom, and a storage room full of old junk.
Buffy hears Dawn calling out to her. She seems to be very far away. She turns around and sees Dawn in the doorway. She’s fading in and out too. “Who said you could come in my room?”
Buffy looks at Dawn. “You’re not my sister!” The light returns to normal.
“Yeah, like I even want to be related to your nasty—” says Dawn. Buffy grabs onto her arms. “Ow! What are you doing?”
“What are you?” asks Buffy
“Get off me!” says Dawn.
“You want to hurt me?” asks Buffy.
“Let go of me, you freak!”
“Then you deal with me!”
“I’m telling Mom!”
“You stay away from my mother!” Buffy pushes Dawn away, bouncing her off the closet door. Buffy and Dawn glare at each other. They are interrupted by the telephone ringing. Buffy goes downstairs to answer it.
It’s Giles calling from the Magic Box. He has to cover one ear to hear Buffy over the noise all the customers in his store are making, and he keeps being interrupted by people asking questions about the merchandise while he talks to her. He has finally managed to identify the orb, and it is not good. Buffy looks around to make sure that Dawn isn’t listening before she tells him to continue. Giles tells her that the orb is a Dagon Sphere, and it is used to ward off something which “cannot be named.” Buffy asks what that might be, but Giles doesn’t know. Buffy wants to go check out the factory again, and see if she can learn any more there. Giles tells her to be careful. “Anything that goes unnamed is usually an object of deep worship or great fear. Maybe both.”
Giles asks her if her trance turned up anything, and Buffy starts to tell him what she saw, but Dawn suddenly appears behind her. Buffy doesn’t want to say anything more in front of her, so she tells Giles she learned nothing, and hangs up. Dawn wants to know what Buffy was talking to Giles about, but Buffy tells her it was nothing. Just Slayer stuff. She starts toward the door.
“Do you really think I care you’re the Slayer?” asks Dawn.
Buffy stops and turns around. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She starts toward the door again. “I’ll be home in an hour.”
“Mom’s coming back,” says Dawn.
“I’ll be back first.” Buffy grabs her jacket and goes.
Buffy leaves her house, and stops in the front yard. She senses something. She steps toward one of the trees and reaches behind it. She pulls out Spike. He takes a drag from his cigarette, and tosses it away. “Hi Buffy.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but…” Buffy punches him in the nose. She demands to know what he is doing there, in five words or less.
Spike counts off the words on his fingers. “Out…for…a…walk.” He still has a word left. “Bitch!”
Buffy doesn’t believe he just happened by, but she doesn’t have time to deal with him now. “On your merry way, then,” he tells her. “You know, contrary to one’s self-involved world view, your house happens to be directly between…parts…and other parts of this town. And I would pass by in the day, but I feel I’m outgrowing my whole ‘burst into flame’ phase.”
“Fine. Keep going, I cut you a break.” Buffy turns away from him.
“Oh, yeah, okay. Let me guess. You won’t kill me? Ooh! The whole ‘crowd-pleasing threats and swagger’ routine. How stunningly original. You know, I’m just passing through. Satisfied?” Spike starts to leave, but he turns back to her. “You know I really hope so, ’cause God knows you need some satisfaction in life besides shagging Captain Cardboard, and—and I never really liked you, anyway, and—and you have stupid hair.”
Spike goes. Buffy looks after him with a perplexed expression on her face. Then she notices the pile of discarded cigarette butts by the base of the tree. Spike had been there for quite a while. She leaves herself. Dawn watches her go from her bedroom window.
Buffy breaks the lock on the factory gate, and makes her way inside. She searches through the factory. She finds the door broken off its hinges.
Joyce returns home, and calls out for the girls. At first she gets no answer, but Dawn appears by the kitchen door, holding a cup of tea. Joyce asks where Buffy is, and Dawn tells her that she doesn’t have to worry about her.
Joyce has come home early because she isn’t feeling well again. Dawn holds up the cup of tea in her hands and offers it to her mother. “I made it for you.”
Buffy finds the monk still in the chair and starts to untie him. “It was you who planted the Dagon Sphere, right? I got it. Don’t worry, I’m stronger than I look. I’ve had experience with stuff like this before.”
The monk looks up and sees the Blonde Beast sneaking up behind Buffy. The Beast signals to him to keep quiet by holding a finger to her lips.
“Best of all…” Buffy suddenly spins around and grabs the Beast by the throat. “I’m not stupid.”
The Beast pulls Buffy’s hand away from her throat and hits Buffy with the back of her hand, knocking her across the room and into the wall on the other side. Buffy leaves a dent in the wall. “You sure about that last part?” she asks as Buffy picks herself up off the floor.
The bell over the front door of the Magic Box jingles as the last customer leaves. “Would someone please rip that bloody bell off its hinges?” Giles is sitting in a chair by the round table near the back of the shop, too tired to move himself. Willow and Xander are flanking him, in similar condition. “I think I liked it better when demons would just crash in here and tear the place apart. Just seemed so much simpler.”
Anya is still on her feet, sorting and counting the money in the cash register. “You’re out of crystal balls! Those babies are really popular with the amateurs. Better restock and raise the price ten percent. Make it fifteen.”
“Anya,” says Giles.
Anya continues to sort the money. “Your cash register looks like squirrels nest in it.”
“Anya,” says Giles again.
She ignores him. “And the Hand of Glory packs some serious raw power. Better institute a seven day background check—”
“Anya!” shouts Giles, and she shuts up. “Would you like a job?”
“Okay,” says Anya.
“Good. Then we can talk shop…tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Anya goes back to counting the money. “Boss.”
Willow asks Giles if she has heard from Buffy about how the spell went, and he tells her Buffy said it didn’t work. She’s off investigating the factory where she found the sphere now.
Xander notes a touch of concern in Giles voice. “You’re not worried about the Slaymaster General, are you, Big G?”
“No, no.” Giles picks up the Dagon Sphere on the table in front of him, and looks at it. “Just hope she doesn’t do anything too rash.”
The Blonde Beast uses Buffy to put a hole in another wall. She is not pleased. Beating Buffy to death is using up valuable time from her life. She grabs one of Buffy’s arms in each hand. “I’ve always wanted to try this. You know that thing with worms where if you have one, you rip it in half, you get two worms? Do you think that’ll work with you?” She starts to pull.
Buffy hits her in the face with a head butt, and the Beast staggers back, more surprised than hurt. “You hit me! What are you, crazy?” Buffy follows up with a kick to her head. “You can’t go around hitting people.” Buffy continues to punch her. “What were you, born in a barn?” She catches Buffy’s arm on her next punch, and swings her around and up against a pillar. “Fine. Be that way.” She punches at Buffy. Buffy ducks out of the way, and the Beast’s fist makes a hole in the concrete pillar.
“I just noticed something.” The Beast grabs onto Buffy again. “You have superpowers. That is so cool. Can you fly?” She picks Buffy up and throws her across the room. Buffy slides to a stop beside the monk. Buffy starts back toward the Beast, but the monk moans beside her. Buffy reconsiders. She goes and lifts the monk out of the chair.
“Hands off my Holy Man!” yells the Beast as Buffy carries him toward a window. She starts to run after them, but she breaks the heel off one of her shoes. Buffy jumps through the window, carrying the monk with her. The Beast stomps her foot on the floor in frustration. The power of her stomp cracks the concrete. One of the cracks runs to the base of a pillar supporting the roof, and the pillar shatters.
The Beast looks up at the roof that is falling in on her. “Oh, sh—”
Buffy tries to carry the monk away from the factory, but he asks her to stop. She sets him down leaning against the fence. Buffy doesn’t want to stay there. She wants to get far away as quickly as possible.
“My journey’s done, I think,” he tells her.
“Don’t get metaphor-y on me,” says Buffy “We’re going.”
“You have to—” says the monk. “The Key. You must protect the Key.”
Buffy tells him they can protect it together, once they get away, but the monk doesn’t have time. He tells her that many will die if she doesn’t keep it safe. Buffy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “The Key…is energy. It’s a portal. It opens the door.” Buffy thinks that he is talking about the Dagon Sphere, but that isn’t it. “For centuries, it had no form at all. My brethren…its only keepers. Then the Abomination found us. We had to hide the Key…gave it form. Molded it flesh. Made it human and sent it to you.”
Buffy realizes what he is saying. Dawn is the Key. She is not pleased that he put it into her house. “We knew the Slayer would protect,” he tells her.
“My memories,” says Buffy. “My Mom’s…”
“We built them.”
“Then unbuild them,” says Buffy. “This is my life you’re—”
The monk starts to cough. “You cannot…abandon.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” says Buffy. “I don’t even know— What is she?”
“Human,” says the monk. “Now human…and helpless. Please. She’s an innocent in this. She needs you.”
“She’s not my sister?” asks Buffy.
“She doesn’t know that,” says the monk, and dies.
Buffy returns home and finds Dawn and her mother sitting together on the sofa reading. Dawn sees Buffy and gets up. “I wasn’t bothering her.” She goes upstairs.
“What was that all about?” asks Joyce.
“Nothing,” says Buffy. “Sister stuff.”
Buffy knocks on Dawn’s door. Dawn tells her to go away, but Buffy opens the door anyway. Dawn is sitting on her bed.
“I’m sorry,” says Buffy.
“You hurt my arm,” says Dawn, “Butthole.” Buffy tells her that she’s sorry again. “I tell you I have this theory?” asks Dawn. “It goes where you’re the one who’s not my sister ’cause Mom adopted you from a shoe box full of baby howler monkeys and never told you ’cause it could hurt your delicate baby feelings.”
Buffy slowly walks toward her. “That’s your theory?”
“Explains your fashion sense,” says Dawn. “And smell.”
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“Broken record, much?”
“You can’t even take an apology. You always do that, ever sin—” Buffy stops, realizing there really is no ever since. She sits beside Dawn on her bed. “I just had a bad day.”
“Well, join the club,” says Dawn.
“Can I be president?”
“I’m president,” says Dawn. “You could be the janitor.”
“Okay,” says Buffy. They sit together on the bed for a while, and Buffy brushes the hair away from Dawn’s face.
“Buffy…” asks Dawn. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“I don’t know.” Buffy continues to stroke Dawn’s hair.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | Factory parking lot | Staked by Buffy |
| Monk | The factory | Killed by the Blonde Beast |