Mr. Clifton, current head of Interdimensional Communications for Wolfram & Hart, is practically drooling. He’s talking science, the way scientists seem to: as if the whole room knows what he’s on about. He’s excited, staring at the impressive dimensional craft on the screen in front of him, currently traversing dimensions, explaining it’s every function to his boss.

Lilah Morgan has never been this bored. She’s starting to regret leaving this particular employee alive. She interrupts him – make your point – a veiled threat in her tone. He stops and realises what she wants to know: yes, he confirms: amongst other things, such as subterranean and probably space flight, this craft would be capable of interdimensional travel.

How do we get it? The expert stops and seems surprised: she wants it? Lilah says no. The Senior Partners want the craft. But, finally, if she starts the process to acquire the ship, she’s off the hook – freed from her contract. Clifton tells her that the first thing they’d need is power. Then exact coordinates for the craft’s position. She says he’s got it. He realises what exactly the Senior Partners want to do. He starts drooling again as Lilah leans back against a wall and sighs.

Elsewhere, Spike is adjusting. So, he stepped on the seal. His soul has been ripped out of him. And then, surprisingly, in what seemingly had been the plan, he chose to give it to his sire, Drusilla. And that bastard John still has Beck by the throat with that katana.

Drusilla is on the floor, tears streaming down her face. She’s ranting, clutching her chest, telling them that ‘it’s burning’. Spike looks at her as she cowers in a corner. He didn’t have a choice. Willow tells him that this can’t be the worst thing ever. She approaches Drusilla and places her hand on her shoulder. Drusilla places her hand on Willow’s. Spike says that not having a soul protected Drusilla from the worst things she had done. The things she had seen and endured. It was like an armour and, now it’s been taken away, she can’t cope. What did I do?

“What you had to,” Willow tells him, to save Jeremy’s life. Drusilla softly looks Willow straight into her eyes and tells her to take it. Take the soul out and make it go away. She grabs the witch, shaking her and begging her with emotion: “Pluck it out! Make me whole!” She then passes out in Willow’s arms.

Jeremy has gotten up. He wasn’t that hurt. She didn’t drain too much. He’s seriously reconsidering their friendship, however. Spike tells him to get somewhere safe and duck. He turns to John, who throughout all of this hasn’t budged, Beck still at his mercy, her powers still not recovered.

John is gleeful. He explains to Spike that when Los Angeles went to Hell, Drusilla was in an asylum. When everyone else went through the hellish experience, Drusilla hallucinated that she was home in 1860, in London. She felt safe, whilst everyone else ran scared. When Wolfram & Hart eventually recovered her, they had a surprise – the transition back to Los Angeles had rendered Drusilla sane for the first time, and, whilst still a vampire, her madness gone, she was more than capable of holding her own against them.

To keep Spike occupied, they needed a Dru he would recognise. So they doped her, filled her with chemicals and drugs to make her erratic again, playing with her head. But Drusilla fought it. She wanted to be in control of the demon. And she was winning the fight – until now. Now, the soul will kill her, the guilt consume her, eat her undead life away: Spike has destroyed her – all over again.

Touching his blade to his gauntlet, he creates an energy field around himself that blows apart a good section of the room, rendering Team Spike unconscious on the ground. The blast can be seen for miles.

As Beck struggles to get up, John appears above her, katana ready to come down. He taunts her: “Remember your annoying bluster about Spike taking me down? How’d that go?” Beck simply points – as Spike comes from nowhere and attacks. He crushes the gauntlet on John’s wrist to prevent the same attack twice and tells him to shut up, stop playing the hero, and that he’s just a killer.

As Spike parries with John, he apologises: he’s sorry for what he’s done. He’s sorry John’s soul is gone and he’s sorry that Wolfram & Hart have used him. But it’s done. He can’t take any of it back. He manages to strike John to the ground. “It happened. Let’s all agree to stop whining about it.”

Outside, Willow addresses Jeremy’s wounds. He reckons the next time, he should just find the railroad tracks and lie down on them, ready to be killed. Willow says he’s been through a lot tonight – and he’s gone above and beyond. He’s a hero.

Dru still sits, shaking and distressed in the corner. She points at the stars in the sky. They’re laughing at me! Up there, they mock me. They know I’ll never be welcome. She grabs Willow’s hand to her heart and asks her simply: “Will I forget about them? I have time. I have all the time.”

Willow knows she’s talking about her victims – the people she’s killed. Willow tells her, sadly, that she’ll never forget, no. Drusilla pauses for a moment and then, without warning, vamps out and throws Willow to one side: No, she declares. This won’t do. She admits feeling bad about hurting Willow. With a look, she tells Jeremy to move out of her way.

Spike and Beck dodge yet another swing from John, who has impressed Spike with how many knives he can hide on his person. John says he won’t ever give up – Spike tells him ‘he’ll have a long wait then.’

The ground shakes. For a minute, Spike thinks they’ve gone to Hell again. But, as he looks over at the centre of Vegas, he sees crackling energy flashing upon where Wolfram & Hart’s offices were. It almost looks like a dimensional tear. They’re making their move, whilst I’m distracted.

He knows they have to be stopped. Enough. He hits John with a left hook, knocking some teeth out. In fact, he almost kills him. Spike instantly steps back – remembering that his foe is human and that he’s not like that. He won’t kill him.

Spike recognises the scent behind him, just before John says her name. Drusilla walks up to Spike, strides past him and plunges her fist straight through John’s chest! She pulls her hand back, his heart in her hands. “Stop hurting people,” she demands.

As John falls to the floor dying, his last words catch in his throat: “I felt that.” He dies with a surprised look on his face. Drusilla smiles – she gave him what he wanted – a feeling.

She looks at Spike and tells him to get in the rune circle. She just wants it out. He takes her in his arms, picks her up like he used to and tells her, softly: “Say my name, love”. As she says his name, the pair of them are enveloped in an unearthly glow, the spell of restoration transferring the soul from Drusilla back to Spike.

A mother’s gift, a son’s duties, fulfilled.

The fight is over; it’s now time for the clean-up. A medication-withdrawing Drusilla will be dropped off at Mosaic, by Willow. He tells Willow to check in on ‘Sergeant’ Summers. Willow stops him. She has something he needs to know.

Buffy knows that he’s alive. She asked around. A lot. Kicked in many doors. Said she had to make sure. She promises to put him in a good light: great leader, a true champion – she’ll paint quite the picture.

Spike pulls her into a gentle embrace. He asks her to keep this adventure between them. It was their thing.

Willow opens a portal and she and Drusilla leave Las Vegas. Betta George asks what they’re going to do next. Spike laughs: “We’re on the same side again?”

Betta George just quotes Spike’s words back to him: It happened. Let’s agree to stop whining about it. The fish wants the phrase embroidered on a pillow.

Spike smiles. Alright then. He says they’re going to head back to Wolfram & Hart. And they’re going to ask them about the lightshow in the sky.

At Wolfram & Hart, Lilah is impatient. Clifton says it’ll be sorted momentarily. He had better not be wrong, or it’s torture for eternity, she warns him. Lilah takes a call – they’re here, she proclaims. Clifton asks who and then turns around, slightly frightened.

Outside, Spike is giving his team final instructions: “Be ready for anything. Time flux, gateway to legion of undead evil, a simple thunderstorm, anything.” Suddenly, the tear in the sky rips wide open and the dimensional transport appears above Las Vegas. Spike and his team look up. It’s not just appeared, it’s crashing!

They run as the craft falls from the sky, like a pebble, and skids along the Strip, carrying destruction everywhere. As the craft stops with a thud, Spike and the gang look up at the vehicle. It’s massive, and slightly insectoid shaped. Beck asks Spike what they’re going to do now?

Inside the vessel, dark shadows loom around a dirty monitor showing the outside of the craft. It’s centred on Team Spike…