aired on: October 9, 2001

written by: Jane Espenson

directed by: David Solomon

After fighting the biker demons, who are currently fleeing from town, the Scooby gang heads to Buffy's house where they hope they will find her. They hope that nothing was wrong with the spell, that Buffy wouldn't be broken. Meanwhile, Dawn has taken Buffy home where she wanders through, still dazed and confused. Spike arrives to find Dawn and discovers that Buffy is alive as the scoobies arrive.

Spike leaves as everyone begins to question Buffy about her experience. Buffy decides to go to bed as Dawn tells everyone to back off. Xander and Anya encounter Spike outside, who is obviously hurt that he wasn't told and warns them about messing with magic and the consequences that it always brings.

After calling Giles and telling him that Buffy was back, Willow and Tara get ready for bed. They talk about the spell and the changes that they are seeing in Buffy. They decide that it just will take her some time. In her room, Buffy looks at some pictures on her wall that change to skulls and back to normal.

Willow and Tara get a visitor that looks a lot like Buffy but doesn't act like her. They both get up to investigate but find Buffy asleep in her bed. Willow calls Xander, without seeing the moving lump in the ceiling. As they as talking, Anya enters with a strange look in her eye and starts to cut her face with a knife before collapsing to the floor as a lump moves away from her.

The next day, the gang meets at the Magic Box for a brainstorming session about the events of the previous night. Buffy announces that she needs to go patrol. After she leaves, Dawn gets a cloudy look and breathes fire at her friends before she also collapses.

Spike is in his underground lair, punching the wall in anger, when he hears a noise above and discovers Buffy on patrol. He tells her that he wishes that he could have saved her and that he dreamt every night about what he could have changed to prevent her death.

At the magic shop, Xander questions if Willow could have known the danger of what she could have brought back with Buffy but Tara quickly rejects the idea. Willow discovers that the possession were caused by a bodiless spirit that came with Buffy and needs to find a body to survive or else it will disappear again. The demon can only live if Buffy dies. Xander, Anya, and Dawn head to tell Buffy about the spirit while Willow and Tara perform a spell that will give it a form that Buffy can kill.

Arriving at the house, they find Buffy fighting the spirit and she kills it as soon as Willow's spell takes effect.

Life returns to normal as Buffy makes lunch for Dawn to take to school and thanks Willow for bringing her back. She goes outside the back of the magic shop to be alone, but finds Spike there. She confides in him that she wasn't in hell, but someplace peacefull and her friends had ripped her out of that place. She tells him that where she was now was hell because everything is so hard and violent. Buffy tells Spike that no one can know, before walking off into the sun where he can't follow.