Smashed

Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Amy turned herself into a rat. Tara and Willow fought and Willow made her forget, and Tara called her on it. Willow broke her ensuing promise not to do magic for a week, and Tara left her. Spike got Warren to make him a RoboBuffy, and Warren teamed up with the rest of the Legion of Dorkness. And Giles left, too, so Buffy made herself feel better by snogging repeatedly with Spike.

Two people are being mugged in a dark alley by a couple of human, which isn't exactly Buffy's line of work, but she jumps in anyway. She sends the victims away and takes on the muggers -- not too hard, except that Spike decides to intervene, not knowing they're human. He keels over in pain on the ground, the muggers run for it and Buffy yells at him. "Remind me not to help you," Spike groans. Buffy: "More often?" Spike is pretty disgusted about the whole thing: "You'd think if the government was gonna put a chip in my head, they'd at least make it so I could attack criminals and that sort." Buffy lacks sympathy, Spike (as usual) takes the conversation on a left turn into the gutter, and Buffy tries to take off. Spike doesn't let her, of course; trust Buffy to find the one guy in the universe who wants to have relationship discussions. Often. Buffy's still in the stage of denying the existence of a relationship. "I am not kissing you, Spike. Once was--" Spike: "Twice." Buffy pauses, then keeps going, "--But not again." She starts to walk off and Spike yells after. "You're a tease, you know that, Slayer? Get a fella's motor revvin', let the tension marinate a couple of days, then bam! Crown yourself the Ice Queen.... It's only a matter of time before you realize I'm the only one here for you, pet!"

Willow is home alone in the Summers house, which evidently feels very alone. She lets the Amy-rat out of her cage to let her run, and for the company: "What's the matter, Amy? You lonely? We need to get you a nice companion rat that you can love, play with and grow attached to, until one day they leave you for no good reason. Won't that be fun?" And talking to the rat, she seems to have a sudden flash of inspiration; she says a one-word spell and an old parchment suddenly appears in the room. Willow reads from it, and the rat explodes in red lightening, to be replaced by the naked form of -- Amy Madison. Who takes one look around her and starts screaming.

It's a scene from Mission: Impossibly (not the old, cool show to the remake, cool show, unfortunately, but from the sucky movies starring Tom Cruise); a guy dressing black descend on a rope from the ceiling, towards a glass case. He pulls out a device and sticks it carefully on the glass... as Warren and Jonathan walk up behind him. "Dude? What are you doing?" Warren asks Andrew. "The security system here is a guy named Rusty." Welcome to the Sunnydale Museum, and what is so not the heist of the century. Andrew detaches himself from his toy with a severe lack of grace, and the guys close in on their target, a very pretty, shiny and large diamond. Warren cuts through the glass with a tiny welding torch (Andrew: "See, that's cool. How come he gets to play with all the cool stuff?" Jonathan: "Because I'm allergic to methane and you're still afraid of hot things. Besides, the tank kept making both of us tip over, remember?"), and retrieves their prize. Before they can take off, said guy named Rusty makes his appearance. Warren does the talking, trying to convince Rusty they're with a tour group and send 'subtle' coded messages to the other two to get "the freeze ray". Too subtle, evidently; it takes a while. But they finally get it and Jonathan hauls out something from The X-Men, which shoots a ray of ice at Rusty, completely encasing him. And Jonathan's arm, but that's a minor detail for Warren, who's delighted that his invention works. "Can we just go back to the Lair," Jonathan demands. "I can't really feel my fingers." Andrew takes a second to worry about Rusty, but Warren convinces him that a) Rusty will be fine and b) they won't get in trouble. They head out.

Amy seems to be having some trouble adjusting to being human. Willow offers her hot chocolate, but she jumps and flinches at a siren from outside, slamming the window closed and pulling the drapes -- with magic. Apparently, years as a rat has not affected her abilities. Willow tries to reassure her, but Amy's got Issues. "Everything feels weird. I mean, it's like... I felt I was in that cage for weeks. But it can still be okay, right? I can still get into the swing of things. Like, prom's coming up. I was so hoping Larry would ask me. We would make such a splash at... Oh, Oh, god. He hasn't asked someone else, has he?" Willow tries to figure out a gentle way to break it to her, then finally just goes. "Amy... three things we need to talk about. 1)Larry's gay. 2) Larry's dead. And 3) high school's... kinda over." After a moment of shock, Amy demands to know how long she was in the cage. Buffy arrives home about the same time, and heads upstairs. She finds Willow on the bed, and checks on her; Willow tells her she's okay, and Buffy asks if they can talk about something. "You know how we all make choices?" she starts, ramping up to discuss the whole 'snogging with Spike' issue. Before she can get going, Amy appears from the bathroom. Buffy stops and adjusts, as Amy fact-checks, "The whole school? By a giant snake thing? Okay, still adjusting. " She greets Buffy and they exchange quick updates "How've you been?""Rat. You?""Dead.""Oh."). Amy asks for cookies -- not cheese -- and heads down to find them, after Buffy invites her to sleep on the couch like everyone else. Willow tells her Amy is freaked, but, "It's nice. Having another magically-inclined friend around." Buffy apparently decides the evening is weird enough without adding Spike-snogging discussion, and flees.

She finds Amy downstairs watching the news and eating cookies. "Head spinning. People getting frozen, Willow's dating girls. And did you hear about Tom and Nicole?" Buffy asks about the first one, and Amy turns up the volume on coverage of the museum robbery. It's weird enough that Buffy heads over to check it out, arriving just as the Randy-sicle leaves the building. As she leaves through the darkness, she almost runs into Spike, who was apparently also drawn by the weirdness; he tries to maneuver into joining Buffy on patrol. She points out, "Yeah, that never really ends well, does it?" Spike: "It did the other night." She stomps away, then tries a different tactic when he follows, attempting sincerity: "Look, I'm sorry if you thought it meant more. But when I kissed you, you know I was thinking about Giles, right?" Spike blinks. "You know, I always wondered about you two." She meant, of course, that she was upset about Giles leaving, "ergo vulnerability and bad kissing decisions." Spike nods, then asks, "Convince yourself?" She asks him, again, to stop; he tells her, "A man can change. " Buffy loses patience. "You're not a man. You're a thing." He grabs her as she tries to walk away and she punches him in the face. He hits back automatically, knocking her to the ground -- and nothing happens. No pain, no chip, no nothing. Being Spike, he covers quickly, faking a chip-attack as she hits him again. "You're a thing. And evil, disgusting thing," she tells him as she walks away. Spike watches her go, gasping in shock -- then smiles.

Spike swaggers down the street, enjoying Sunnydale again as he looks around at all the nice people he can eat now that the chip's not working. He makes his way to the Bronze, and finally chooses a girl about Dawn's age, with long hair and... looks, she's enough of a Dawn clone that I had to look twice, okay? She screams and shrinks back as Spike saunters out of the shadows at her with clear intent. But he strangely seems a little more intent on talking that eating, carrying on a consistent monologue as he paces in front of the terrified girl. "Creature of the night here, yeah? Some people forget that. She thinks I'm housebroken. She forgot who she's dealing with... Just 'cause she's confused about where she fits in, I'm supposed to be, too? 'Cause I'm not. I know what I am. I'm dangerous. I'm evil." It's unclear if he's trying to convince the girl, the absent Buffy or himself, but he's certainly taking a while to psych himself up to the whole evil attacking thing. "I am a killer. That's what I do. I kill. And yeah, maybe it's been a long time, but... It's not like you forget how. You just do it. And now I can again, all right? So here goes." He finally goes game face and grabs her, going in to bite -- and pulls back, grabbing his head and howling in pain. The girls runs and he sprawls back against a wall in total, furious confusion.

In daylight the next day, Tara and Dawn sit outside, enjoying milkshakes and talking. It's their big 'movie and milkshake fun day', but Tara still makes Dawn promise to eat something green that night. "You know that I will always be there for you, right?" Tara tells the younger girl awkwardly, but sincerely. She assures Dawn that moving out had nothing to do with Dawn; Dawn asks if they'll ever get back together, since "You still love her." Tara sighs. "Very much. But sometimes... Other things get in the way." Divorced kid Dawn has heard that one before, but tries to tell Tara that Willow has been being better. Tara wants to believe it.

The remaining Scoobies have gathered at the Magic Box to figure out the museum robbery (Randy is, apparently, going to be all right). But they don't even know where to start researching, especially considering how much of his personal library Giles took with him. Willow pulls out her computer to do it the old-fashioned way. Um, sort of; she holds her hands over the keyboard and things start glowing as she accesses the Internet without benefit of modem or actually typing. Xander and Buffy exchange uneasy looks as Willow beings reeling off police reports -- the diamond was on loan from the British Museum, but she doesn't have any information on whether the stone was magical. Willow finally realizes how uncomfortable she's making everyone and lets the spell lapse to ask why. Buffy and Xander hem and haw until Anya breaks in, "Oh, for crying out loud! This is bizarre. You're all "la la la!" with the magic and the not talking, like everything's normal, when we all know that Tara up and left you, and now everyone's scared to say anything to you. Except me." She turns to double-check that thing called tact with Xander, but he's mostly given up. Willow tells everyone that she's okay, and tries to convince them that the whole break-up has been blown out of proportion. She reminds them that she doesn't want to leave Amy alone for too long, but that Amy's okay. Just having trouble adjusting.

The Legion of Dorkness drools over their new shiny diamond, Phase I of their evil plan, but can't get to Phase II because Spike kicks in the door. He backs Warren against a wall and tells him he needs him to look at his chip. Warren doesn't want to -- "We're kind of in the middle of something" -- but gives in fast when Spike threatens a vintage Boba Fett action figure. Warren tries to do the hostage negotiation/menacing thing, which Spike is manifestly unimpressed with, and the LoD goes into a huddle. They're scared of Spike, but Warren thinks he can get a return favor out of Spike for this, something to use against Buffy. "Alliances aren't about trust. He needs us, we need him, these things work." Well, not when Spike is involved; he quashes any idea of a quid pro quo instantly and Warren caves.

Willow returns home and calls for Amy, who appears and instantly wants to go out. She can't deal with seeing her father ("Too many questions.... I wish there was a way that I could make him forget about the last three years.") Willow offers, then remembers how the last one ended up. Amy ends up talking her into going out for some fun that doesn't involve a big wheel. "Or maybe you'd rather sit home all night Alone. Like in high school." Willow responds to the goad and the pair heads out. Meanwhile, Warren's little toys scan Spike's head; he waits for the results even more impatiently than usual, since the other two members of the LoD are trying to make conversation, in their own geek-like way. (Picture Spike trapped in a comic-book convention when he's not allowed to eat anyone. If you've never been to a comic book convention, picture Spike trapped in line for The Phantom Menace when it first came out. You get the idea.) Warren returns before anyone can die and tells Spike, essentially, that nothing's wrong with the chip; everything is working fine. Spike threatens Warren to keep this whole thing quiet. "Everything's different now," he muses as he leaves. "Nothing's wrong with me... Something's wrong with her."

Tara escorts Dawn home after dark and they find an empty house. Dawn takes advantage of the opportunity to successfully guilt Tara into staying there until someone (read: Willow) comes back. They snuggle on the couch as Willow and Amy invade the Bronze, dressed for war. They play pool (using magic instead of cue sticks) and continue three years of gossip catch-up until a couple of guys approach them. Amy wants to dance, but Willow's still not ready to play that side of the street again. Amy snaps her fingers, and a gorgeous older woman at the bar leaves her female companion and comes over to Willow, making with the seductive. Willow begins hyperventilating and Amy cancels the spell, then heads off with the guys to the dance floor. Willow watches, alone. And she's still alone later, staring into her martini at the bar, when Amy returns. "You know," she observes, "if rats could dance, they probably wouldn't gnaw so much." The guys Amy was dancing with get obnoxious when she tries to bail on them, and the girls exchange looks. "You want to dance?" Amy asks sweetly. With waves of their hands and a minor light show, the guys are suddenly mostly naked and suspended in cages over the dance floor. Where they start to dance. Willow and Amy watch in smug amusement.

As Xander shouts in triumph across town -- he's found the 'frost monster' they think froze Randy the museum guard. But since he found it in a D&D manual, no one is impressed. In fact, everyone is pretty ready to give up, lacking Giles or Willow to do the real research and find frost monsters. Anya and Xander are in favor of calling Willow, but Buffy wants to leave her alone to have a little fun and recover. "I don't know what happened with her and Tara but--" Xander breaks in, very serious. "Tara thinks Willow is doing too much magic. And she's not the only one." Buffy continues to defend Willow's level-headedness, but Anya isn't convinced. "Responsible people are always so concerned with being good all the time, that when they finally get a taste of being bad, they can't get enough." That one hits a little too close to home for Buffy, who denies on Willow's behalf. Yeah. But Xander and Anya continue the theme of power and seduction, until Xander concludes, "We need to keep an eye on her."

Buffy is saved from the increasingly uncomfortable conversation when the phone rings. It's Spike at a pay phone, but he attempts a low, mysterious, seductive voice when he tells Buffy to "Meet me at the cemetery. Twenty minutes. Come alone." The attempt at mysterious and seductive fails when she figures out who it is right off (and is astonished to get a phone call from him); he gives up in disgust and tells her to come meet him. "Thought you might be up for a little grunt work." Buffy, freaking: "What? No. No grunting!" Spike grins. "I was talking shop, luv, but if you've got other ideas... " Buffy hangs up fast, and tells the others Spike just wanted to patrol and goes back to research. When they leave a little while later, they're still bemoaning their lack of success. Buffy is also musing on the rash of weird things happening that are, well... "Lame?" Anya offers. That's the word.

Buffy heads off alone, and, surprise, Spike meets her in the alley. "Slayer," he greets her, obviously spoiling for a fight. Buffy sighs in resignation. "So, my night is now complete." Spike starts to shadow her down the alley as she tries to blow him off yet again. "You shouldn't be so flippant," he warns. She's not impressed: "What are you going to do, walk-behind-me to death?" He gets in front her, blocking her way. "You ought to be careful." Buffy: "Enough." He blocks her again when she tries to get past, and she's getting irritated now. She finally hauls off and punches him, and he comes back up smiling. Then hauls off and punches back. She staggers and recovers -- to find him watching her, unaffected. "Oh, the pain, the pain... Is gone. Guess what I just found out. That I'm not as toothless as you thought. Don't you see?" he smirks, finally holding the upper hand. "You came back wrong."

Buffy's reaction is predictable -- she goes after Spike with all she's worth, which would be worth more if she weren't in a blind, terrified rage. He fends her off, laughing and retaliating in a rerun of the old Buffy and Spike 'punch, punch, talk, talk' routine. "It's a trick" she snarls, "you did something to the chip." Spike: "It's not me, just you. In fact, that's the funny part. You're the one who's changed. Came back a little less human than you were." Buffy shakes her head, in full denial mode, but Spike keeps coming at her. The fight moves into the abandoned building they're next to, with Buffy momentarily taking the upper hand. Amy and Willow have the complete upper hand at the Bronze, where they're watching their cage dancers from the upper balcony, right where Willow and Tara were a few weeks ago. But there's no one to stop Willow this time when she flicks her hand and changes the band to a girl group, when Amy sends a guy floating, when Willow changes a couple other guys' heights, when barnyard animals start invading. The girls just laugh at the chaos no one else seems to notice, as Buffy and Spike continue beating the crap out of each other, indoors now. The building's a wreck, and getting more so by the second. Spike keeps taunting, Buffy keeps hitting, and finally gets in a few verbal blows of her own. "Lost little girl? Look at you, you idiot. Poor Spikey. Can't be human, can't be a vampire.. Where the hell do you fit in? You're job is to kill the Slayer, but all you can do is follow me around making moon eyes." Spike says grimly, from the floor where she just knocked him, "I'm in love with you." She laughs. "You like me because you like getting beat down. So who's screwed up?" Spike: "Hello? Vampire. I'm supposed to be treading on the dark side." He throws her into a wall, then to the floor, demanding, "What's your excuse?"

Willow and Tara are getting bored with chaos; they do a magical reset. Willow muses, "I just keep thinking, there's got to be someplace... bigger than this." Amy agrees, "Besides, it's way to early to go home yet." Buffy and Spike sure aren't done, although the distinction between fighting and foreplay is starting to get a bit blurry. "I wasn't planning on hurting you," Spike says, getting a grip. "Much." Buffy: "You haven't even come close to hurting me." Spike, goading: "Afraid to give me a chance?" Buffy slams him into wall, in control again. And as Spike opens his mouth to continue the verbal fight, Buffy locks her mouth over his. Yup, it's foreplay. They do as much damage to the room making out as they did fighting, slamming each other into walls and knocking down plaster. Buffy gets her legs around Spike's waist and slam into yet another wall, as Buffy fumbles between them. A zipper goes down, a skirt gets pulled away, and both of them lunge together, then stop, staring at each other in stunned awareness of just what the hell they're doing. Then Buffy starts moving again, both of them less violent, but no less intense. Things start falling, Spike overbalances, and they fall together through the floor, but neither of them really notice the hard landing. They're too intent on finishing what they started...