Faith Lehane remembers her mom reading Dr. Seuss to her. Well, once anyway, or when she was sober. But she’s betting that Seuss never told anyone they’d end up stuck in Cleveland. She’s on a statue on the side of a building, smoking a cigarette. She remembers another quote: “Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.” Huh, she exhales. He was right about that.

Her mobile phone starts to beep – an incoming call disturbing her peace and quiet. Or is it loneliness? She looks down at the caller ID, and can’t help but form a smile on her lips. It’s Robin Wood. She answers the phone with a tease about their former relationship. He doesn’t respond, and simply says hello.

It’s a business call. He’s with a squad of Slayers, taking a nest of vampires out. Faith tosses her cigarette and gives the affirmative – she’ll be there to help as soon as she can. Wood stops her – actually he has the nest covered, but one of the vampires they captured, turns out she was a mom. She had children. And he doesn’t know what she’s done with them. He doesn’t want a group of young girls walking into what could be a horrific ordeal. Faith tells him to text the address and, after he does, he says he’s free to talk – they can catch up. His attempts to talk are shut down by Faith, who cuts him off, hanging up mid-sentence. She fires a grappler at a nearby ledge and swings from it, off to work in the darkness of the Cleveland night.

Faith arrives in the suburbs at the address Robin gave her. She goes straight in through the door and calls out. A little girl is sitting in the dark, making noises. Faith instinctively reaches out, telling the girl that everything’s okay, but then the kid turns and Faith realises that she’s a vampire.

Stake at the ready, Faith prepares to stake the young vampire, but is interrupted by several more vampire children, all pouncing on her.

By the next morning, Faith is coming through her apartment door, tired, sweaty and in need of some serious TLC. She stabs her stake into the solid wall, making a hole to go with the others that are already there. She slams it again and again, in frustration and annoyance.

A voice from behind her causes her to stop. “Long night?”

Faith is very surprised to find Rupert Giles standing there, complimenting her on the exceptional chamomile tea. Faith wasn’t aware that she even had any. She doesn’t waste much time. Why is he here, considering she hasn’t seen him since the Hellmouth, and Sunnydale, collapsed? Giles tells her that it’s good to see her, but she tells him to skip it. She knows that she’s the ‘go-to girl’ for the dirty, dark Slayer stuff that Buffy can’t get her hands messy with: What do you need me to kill? She’s not stumbling over her words.

Giles looks at her for a moment, takes his glasses off and begins to explain: she is correct, he has a mission for her. But it isn’t an ordinary one. The stakes are higher, but the rewards are also. He knows that she’s tried to get a forged passport – which, technically speaking, for her, is a crime in itself. But he also knows she’s not happy in Cleveland and, if she accepts his assignment, he will ensure she can go anywhere in the world she likes.

Faith isn’t convinced: why would the Watcher’s Council, the same council who tried to have her killed more than once, want to offer her an easy way out? Giles grins – he is the Watcher’s Council now. And he can quite easily organise an ‘early retirement’ from the whole Slayer lifestyle. Just as he can authorise this mission without anyone else.

Faith admits her curiosity is piqued. So, she reckons, it must be one heck of a target. What are we talking, a Nisanti demon or a Buski golem? Giles puts his glasses back on and turns to look at her, straight in the eyes. The target is another Slayer.

Faith is stunned. Did she just hear him right? Giles says that in his generation, only one girl was called to fight the demons and the forces of darkness. Now it’s different. Two thousand girls all over the world, and that’s just the ones they’re aware of. Not all of them have joined up. Not all of them have embraced the heroism of saving the world. Some, he states, have decided to use their newfound powers for different, less morally-certain, ways.

Faith gets it. “You don’t say.” Giles is quick to point out that if this Slayer had made the same mistakes as Faith made, he would have opted for rehabilitation, as he did with her. But every wiccan seer he’s seen, every auger in his employ, including a great-bearded wizard in Northampton, have all said that if this girl is left unchecked, she will usher in the…

“End of the world,” Faith finishes. He has ‘apocalypse’ written all over his face. Giles tells her that he’s being deadly serious. This is no game. He is asking her to kill another human being. Faith nods. “I heard you the first time! So, who is this evil bitch anyway?”

On a large, regal estate in the English countryside, a young girl on horseback is discussing getting a puppy with her riding companion, a young man. He tells her to stop daydreaming. A lady of her stature and her unique station in life, demands a rigorous study schedule, and the fox hunt she’s currently on, is part of it. So please, he insists, can we get on with it?

The woman, Lady Genevieve Savidge, tells the man, who’s name is Roden, that she hasn’t slept due to her recent nightmares and he can kindly piss off. She’s about to rant at him some more, but she stops. She looks into the foliage all around them.

She can hear their target. She’s hiding, right over there, behind the trees. A young girl, in ripped clothing, comes out from behind the tree. She asks what’s happening. What does Lady Genevieve want?

Genevieve is not impressed by her prey talking back and is quick to say so, but the girl doesn’t back down, defiantly kicking the Lady. Genevieve strikes her and knocks the girl straight to the ground, where she lands dead: Genevieve’s blow has broken her neck. Genevieve is horrified, but Roden gets down off his horse. Genevieve, or Gigi as he addresses her, is starting to hyperventilate: I thought she was strong, like me, a Slayer. Roden informs his Lady that the girl was a Slayer – and Gigi makes an impressively superior one. Gigi is still panicking, telling him that they have to move the body, but Roden summons two gargoyles, who dispose of the corpse. Gigi turns to him in anger: I want what you promised me Roden, she warns him. He is snarky back to her, telling her that he is a cut above a standard witch and holds his magical tome tightly in his arms. It has the twilight symbol stitched into the front leather.

In Giles’ home, the next step of Faith’s mission is progressing: in order to get close to Lady Genevieve Savidge, Faith has to act like a member of the upper aristocracy, ball gowns, fancy dining, multiple utensils, etiquette – the lot. Faith gets it, but surely there are hundreds of people better for all that jazz than her? She’s not convinced she’s capable of it. As Giles goes to stop her from leaving, he grabs her by the arm, but she jumps away, in fear. Giles’ sudden movement triggered a flashback for Faith, reigniting the trauma of her early days. She spins quickly, impaling Giles in the arm with a serving fork.

As Giles pulls up his sleeve to inspect the wound, Faith spots his Eyghon tattoo on his arm. She’s never seen it before. Giles tells her that she hardly has the monopoly on having a troubled, traumatic and rebellious youth – even one that ended in innocent people suffering and dying. They’re not as unlike as she believes. She looks up at him and she sheepishly asks him if it was the salad fork she stabbed him with. He says no: the salad fork has a shorter handle and a wider tine base, but she’s getting closer. It’s as good a place as any to start.

In Scotland, in his room, Xander is punching a punch bag, attempting to train. As he talks to himself, Buffy walks into the room. Xander is embarrassed, reaching up to cover his bare chest and his face flushing bright red. She asks him what inspired the sudden training montage and teases him that it may have something to do with a new ‘sparring partner’ he wants to train with… someone like Renee perhaps? Xander changes the subject like a pro and asks what’s bothering her as she traces the twilight symbol in condensation on the window. They’re no closer to figuring it out, Giles is busy with things he doesn’t want to share and Buffy feels like she’s sitting back and missing something.

She’s also having nightmares about a thing chasing her. In her dreams, just when ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is, catches up with her, it swallows her whole and tells her that ‘the Queen is Dead. Long live the Queen.’

She doesn’t know what it all means, but her dreams usually mean something – and that’s bothering her.

Back in England, Giles is waiting for Faith, who’s busy prepping, about to begin the assignment. She’s putting an accent on, and he’s quite pleased and tells her that it’s nearly passable for the real thing. She scoffs at him: Good, because I still suck at everything else you’ve taught me.

He sighs. “You’ll he fine,” he assures her, before asking if her ensemble is okay? Faith yells back. “If the goal is to make me feel like a complete idiot, then yes.”

She comes in, nerves etched on her face, clearly uncomfortable. She’s wearing a form-fitting, dark green ballgown, with green elbow-length gloves and a matching choker. Her hair has been pulled back and styled into a bun. She looks at Giles, feeling stupid, and asks him if she looks okay?

Rupert Giles just looks at her in stunned silence. She’s beautiful. Like a princess. “Five by five,” he smiles.