aired on: February 13, 2001

written by: David Fury

directed by: Dan Attias

The Bronze is celebrating a re-opening, due to Olaf the Troll wrecking the place. Willow and Xander dance with their honeys and, for once, Buffy sits on the sidelines. Spike plops himself down to whine, as usual. He complains about the prices going up and the fried onion flower being taken off the menu, until Buffy interrupts to remind him that they are not friends and he has no business plopping down next to her and passing the time of day. Offended he starts to leave and then remembers to remind Buffy that he helped in the fight with Glory at the hospital. She points out that he wasn't much help. He argues that his good intentions should earn him some respect. Just then, Xander returns to hassle Spike about taking his seat. Spike stalks off sullenly.

Xander offers to buy the drinks because he just got paid. Horrified he sees that his money has been stolen off of the table. All eyes turn to Spike buying a beer at the bar and Xander is off after him. When Buffy asks, Willow admits she is still suffering headaches from the teleportation spell she used to break up their battle with Glory. Unfortunately, she had little choice, since Glory was winning easily. Buffy begs them to forget about Glory for one night.

Through the crowd Buffy spots Ben, the intern that first saw her mother when she had her headaches. She goes to him and thanks him for trying to help Dawn before Glory arrived. She doesn't yet know that Ben has a mysterious relationship with Glory. Xander is berating Spike for stealing from him, but Spike isn't impressed. He's watching Buffy talking and laughing with Ben.

At the Sunnydale Train Station the porter stands by as an evening train arrives. The train slows to a stop, but only deathly silence follows. There are no passengers gathering their things and disembarking - no signs of life at all. The porter boards the train and walks through a passenger car, chilled by the sight of the dead bodies. Blood is splashed across each passenger. A noise attracts his attention and suddenly the porter is running through the car terrified and screaming for help. He doesn't get any.

Buffy returns home and finds her mother, Dawn and Giles in the living room. Joyce accidentally admits to being a little scared without Buffy but Giles doesn't allow it to damage his ego. Before he goes, Buffy quietly asks if he thinks that they are ready to begin treating Dawn like a fourteen-year-old kid again. She wonders if Dawn has recovered from the shock of learning that until six months ago she was a mystical artifact called The Key, that Glory is now seeking to advance her dark schemes. Giles recommends that family life return to normal as soon as possible and Buffy immediately yells at her sister for borrowing her clothes. Dawn pleads innocence but Buffy is sure Dawn has taken her blue sweater.

In his crypt, Harmony almost catches Spike fondling a blue sweater. She tries to seduce him, but he isn't interested. She tries to entice him by suggesting that they role-play, which does seem to interest him. Harmony wears a straight blonde wig and a familiar blue sweater as she waves around a stake and does a horrible acting job, playing at Buffy. Spike doesn't care, he tackles her and presumably wackiness ensues.

Willow and Tara discuss "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" as Buffy follows them on campus. Willow wants a happy ending, but Tara realizes that that would reward Quasimodo for acting selfishly. Willow tries to draw Buffy into the conversation, but she is strictly coasting. When pressed she confesses that the closest she's gotten to the reading assignment is watching the Disney version, but than says that she's kidding. She snatches a newspaper from a student's hands when her eyes are drawn to the story about six people killed on the train.

Spike emerges from an underground portion of his crypt, to be startled by Dawn. She wonders if the hole leads to underground tunnels for sneaking about town during the day, but Spike won't reveal anything. He tries to get her to leave, but no argument will win. She even smiles when he claims to be planning evil deeds. She resents him treating her like a child and reminds him that she never had a human childhood.

Spike thinks that how you start out life really isn't that important to where you end up and she compliments his insight. She admits that she likes the way he's blunt and honest with her. He excuses the others as trying to protect her from harsh reality. He chokes on his cigarette and acts insulted when Dawn tells him that she feels protected when he's around. She tells him that even Buffy worries about Spike as a potential enemy and he wants to hear more about what Buffy thinks of him.

Buffy arrives home to find a worried mother, so she sets out to search for Dawn.

It's after dark as Dawn sits in Spike's candle-lit crypt while he tells her scary stories from his past. He starts going into detail about massacring an entire family, including tracking down the youngest in her hiding place. They are both startled when Buffy crashes in the door. She is shocked to find Dawn sitting with Spike while she is rounding up help to look for her. She demands answers but Dawn insists that Spike finish his story. Obviously nervous, Spike quickly makes up a happy ending for the little girl hiding in the coal bin.

On their way through the cemetery Buffy scolds Dawn for hanging with Spike. When Dawn speaks up to defend him, Buffy realizes that Dawn may have a crush on him. When Buffy tries to argue against the idea, Dawn argues that Spike's chip that prevents him from harming humans is the equivalent of a vampire like Angel having a soul. Buffy cannot get through to Dawn, but she denies having a crush anyway. Even if she did, she tells Buffy that Spike is in love with The Slayer. Buffy is stunned.

Buffy and Xander investigate the crime scene on the train, trying to determine the type and number of attackers. Buffy is also interested in clues as to Spike's affection. After several attempts she manages to ask Xander about Dawn's theory. Xander is delighted at the idea of a lovesick Spike tormented by Buffy, but he thinks that if its true its just one of Spike's passing fancies. He's much more worried when he hears that Dawn may have a crush on Spike, because that means he's no longer Dawn's adolescent obsession. They both leave the train car without noticing tucked, in the overhead, a Victorian doll with a red ribbon blindfold.

Buffy is bothered to find Spike in her kitchen hanging out with Dawn and laughing over Joyce's stories about working at the gallery. He tries to interest Buffy in some information but she puts him off. When he offers a lead on the train murders, she can't refuse. He offers to show her the location of the killers and a short time later they are parked in a car downtown staking out a building.

Buffy feels incredibly awkward as Spike offers her a drink from his flask and tries to start a conversation about the music of the Ramones. The moment is interrupted when two vamps go into the building. Inside, just the sight of the Slayer causes both vamps to flee in fear. Buffy surveys the room and realizes that the two vamps have been here a long time and did not arrive on that train.

Spike gives himself away when, without realizing it, he holds open the door for Buffy on their way out. Unable to explain why he would do such a thing, Buffy challenges him for the truth. She wants to know if this fake tip was an excuse to spend time with her in some kind of twisted dating ritual. His lame protests reveal the truth and Buffy is horrified. Spike tries to convince her that there is potential for a relationship between them. Buffy is absolutely convinced there is not.

Spike claims to be capable of good but Buffy thinks that having the chip so long has programmed him and he will revert to type if given a chance. He claims to have real feelings for her, but she doubts that vampires, lacking souls, have any real feelings. He angrily tells her that his feelings are certainly real and he knows that he lov... She doesn't let him finish. She warns him not to say the words. She tells him that there is no possibility and walks out on him, despite his protests to stay and talk.

Thoroughly rejected again, as he was over a hundred years ago by the scornful Cecily Addams, Spike returns home, head hung low, to find the same answer to his pain he found long ago... Drusilla.

She quickly brings Spike up to date on the doings in Los Angeles. She tells him that she and Darla have teamed up to vex Angel and she wants him to complete the set that they formed back in Victorian times. L.A. is "been there, done that" for Spike and he tries to convince her that he's happy in Sunnydale. Dru's psychic powers can sense the chip in his head and how it hinders him.

Spike rages against his condition, but Dru tells him that he shouldn't believe in science because it lies to you. She believes that Spike's nature can overcome any man-made device. She presses Spike's hand to her breast and reminds him of the evil personality that she loves. He tries to describe to her the terrible pain that he suffers when the chip goes off, but she asks him to remember that a leash can't keep a wild animal from being dangerous.

Harmony arrives to interrupt them and she immediately assumes that the woman is a surrogate Drusilla, which Spike hopes to add to their Buffy sex games. She reminds him that she won't participate in any ménage à trois unless there are no other women, with the possible exception of Charlize Theron. Spike tells her that this is the original article. Harmony becomes even more incensed. She accuses Dru of abandoning Spike in a terrible emotional state. Dru allows Harmony to babble on for a while, but with a wave of her hand, Spike grabs the insolent girl by the throat and hurls her across the room. Harmony is surprised at being thrown out and Spike tells her that he's decided to change.

Buffy is at home discussing the Spike situation with her mother and Willow. Buffy can't recall encouraging Spike in any way, besides thrashing him occasionally, which may count as foreplay to him. Buffy assumes that Spike is not a threat, but Willow and Joyce aren't sure. After a while Buffy begins to doubt that she was direct enough with Spike when she told him there was no way. Willow encourages her to meet Spike one more time to make sure she burns all the bridges.

Spike and Dru arrive at the Bronze as, on-stage, Sara Lov sings the haunting vocals of Devics' "Key". Dru notices a couple on a catwalk, high in front of the stage. They are necking, oblivious to their surroundings.

Joyce and Willow are encouraging Buffy as she prepares to confront Spike again. Before she leaves she decides to ask Willow for one favor.

Spike and Dru approach the couple unnoticed. Dru quickly snaps the neck of both young lovers and throws Spike the girl's warm body, as she dines on the boy. Spike hesitates and Dru watches him expectantly. After an obvious internal struggle, Spike changes to his vampire form and then there is no hesitation to feed on the woman's corpse.

Buffy can find no sign of Spike in his crypt quarters. She removes the stone slab covering the hole that Dawn must have told her about. Underground Buffy finds remnants of rotted coffins and skeletons. To her horror she also finds a small shrine devoted to her, decorated with dozens of photos and a mannequin wearing a straight blonde wig.

She emerges to find Spike waiting for her with blood on his lips. Buffy faces Spike but doesn't anticipate Dru behind her with a large cattle prod. Buffy is knocked to the floor and cradles her arm after the first blast. She barely has time to realize how much trouble she is in, before Dru shocks her again and knocks her out. Spike is ready to end things and Drusilla gleefully hands him the prod. Spike pokes Dru with the device and knocks her unconscious.

Buffy awakes to find herself chained up and Dru tied to a column. Spike proclaims his love for Buffy and she recoils in disgust. Spike is almost poetic as he describes his obsession with the Slayer. It causes Dru to giggle because she realizes that when she sensed the Slayer hanging like a shadow over Spike over two years ago, she thought it was because he hated her so - now she sees the truth.

Buffy argues that vampires can't feel love because they don't have souls. Dru argues that they can indeed fall in love, even if they aren't very good at picking whom to fall in love with. Spike offers to dust Drusilla, but Buffy thinks that murdering to prove his love shows how twisted Spike's version of love is. He is astounded that Buffy doesn't see how big a sacrifice he's willing to make. He becomes tender as he tries to describe what Dru's mad dark love has meant to him. Buffy pretends to be disinterested in his ramblings. Spike threatens to allow Dru to kill her unless Buffy will admit that there may be hope for their love. She insults and scorns him.

Spike loses control and screeches at the injustice done to him repeatedly by women. He blames Dru for his return to Sunnydale after she left him. Because of her he has a chip in his head and the Slayer in his heart. He agrees with Buffy that a relationship between them is crazy, it's beyond belief, but he's helpless. He begins to wonder if he wouldn't be better off with both of them dead. Just then he is shot in the back by a large crossbow arrow. He looks up to see Harmony adding her two cents to the debate. She hits him in the face with the butt of the crossbow and nags him about how bad he has treated her. When she tries to reload, he manages to knock the crossbow from her hands and fight her hand-to-hand. Perhaps he is injured from the arrow, but he has a surprising difficult time with Harmony. While they struggle Buffy and Drusilla try to escape their bonds.

Dru pulls free of her ropes first and attacks Buffy. Despite being suspended in chains, Buffy manages some defense using head-butts, kicks and gymnastic maneuvers. When Dru does manage to gain the upper hand, Spike knocks Dru aside and frees Buffy. Dru mourns the Spike that she has lost. She can see now that she can't reach him and she slips away. Harmony also gives Spike the big kiss-off in her own feeble awkward way. When they're alone, Buffy just knocks Spike across the room. He slams into the Buffy shrine leaving it in splinters.

He catches up to her as she strides purposefully home. He still wants to talk about them, but she just wants him out of her life. She tells him flat-out to stay away from her, her family and her friends. He will no longer be tolerated. He still tries to gee-whiz his way into a conversation. She reaches her house and goes in the front door. He tries to convince her that she can't get rid of him that easy when he walks straight into an invisible barrier at the doorway. She merely looks at him as it sinks in that Buffy has had Willow perform the revocation spell.

He is a vampire who no longer has an invitation to enter. Then she closes the door in his face.