Night time in San Francisco. The dark alleyway is suddenly awash with bright light as police officers, including Detective Robert Dowling, investigate another unidentified body. Just like the girl they found last night. But this time, Dowling has a further question: no wound, no ID, no direct cause of death that they can see. But if this body is called ‘John Doe,’ what the heck are they going to refer to the rest of them as? He shines his light around the alley. Just a metre or so away from him and his fellow officers, are more bodies. And all of them are exactly the same.

In another alley, the wraith has just demanded a repayment of Buffy‘s student loan. She looks at the piece of paper he presents to her: those are a lot of zeroes, Buffy says aloud. She asks the wraith what happens if she doesn’t pay up and he tells her that she will then learn the horrors of bad credit. Having enough of the ridiculousness, Buffy launches at the wraith, putting her hands around his neck. Willow and Spike hold her back and her best friend tells her that although killing the creature may be fun, it won’t make the loan go away. Buffy says she’ll make him go away, but Spike tells her that then even bigger and nastier debt collectors will turn up. He sounds like he speaks from experience.

The demon stops, holding his throat where Buffy grabbed him. “Collecting is just my day job,” he tells the trio, sounding rather sad. “When the Seed was destroyed, I was trapped in this realm. It’s expensive.” He also explains that if he goes back to his employers empty handed, he’ll be fired. Buffy looks at him. She tells Willow not to mention the Seed again – and also wants to know where the nearest ATM machine is.

A few minutes later, having cleared out her savings account, Buffy asks the wraith if the amount she is giving him will appease his bosses. He complains it’s not the full amount, and Spike takes Buffy to one side. He questions her finances: didn’t they have a load of not-so-legal Slayer funding a while back? Buffy tells them that when Riley gave her and the Slayers amnesty, they were forced to give their money back. Spike has a word with the wraith, creature of darkness to creature of darkness. The wraith tells Buffy that this is simply her first payment and walks away, a sadness to his slow walk out into the street, his smoke furling around him.

Willow looks after the demon and tells Buffy that this is what she was talking about: Buffy is not thinking about how the Seed of Wonder’s destruction has affected everyone else on the planet. “You all got to keep your power because it was inside you.” But everyone else has been cut off: for Willow, she’s lost her magic, but for that creature, he’s lost his home and his family. She knows that Buffy had no choice, but Willow warns her, walking away, that she is going to have to deal with the fallout eventually.

Spike tells her that Willow is right, leading Buffy to question who’s side he’s on. Spike tells her that he’s always on hers, but she needs to be proactive and get ahead of the game. And he’s convinced that whatever is after Buffy is about more than just an unpaid UC Sunnydale loan.

In the apartment Buffy shares with roommates Anaheed and Tumble, a silent, hooded figure creeps in through Buffy’s bedroom window. He notices that the smell he’s been following, that of the destroyer of magic, is not here, but he does note that she is a Vampire Slayer. His snooping around Buffy’s room alerts a snacking Tumble to his disturbance, but, by the time Tumble opens Buffy’s room, he finds the window open and nobody inside. The demon, clutching his semi-circular blades, will continue his search elsewhere.

In the city morgue, Dowling is looking over the body they found a few nights before. He’s managed to find an ID on the female Jane Doe, but his colleague says that she checked everything: there’s nothing. Dowling asks if she was looking as far back as 1941? His colleague is shown a photo: despite the time period, it’s the same girl. Dowling has a hypothesis: he’s found more IDs and none of them are from recent times. They go back as far as the 50s and 60s, he says. His colleague asks him why the bodies haven’t aged and he looks at her, surprised. “Have you been watching reality TV lately?” he asks her. “Because I was thinking… what if these bodies belonged to vampires?”

Getting away from Spike to clear her head, Buffy knows deep down that she should be at home, tucked up in bed, getting ready to go to work and earn money to give to a demon wraith. But instead, she’s still out patrolling, keeping her ears to the ground, searching for information on who or what exactly is coming for her. Naturally, as she patrols, she comes across a vampire chasing a young man.

Buffy, without question, races after the vampire. The young man surprises her by not running away, telling her that he can help. Buffy tells him to move. She flips the vampire over her shoulder, pins it to the ground and stakes it, watching as it explodes into dust. She goes to move, but she’s stopped by a bright spotlight around her. A police officer has a gun pointed at her and orders her not to move. He orders her to drop her… stake?

A little while later, Buffy is in a police interrogation room. She’s beginning to think the world hates her personally. Dowling and his colleague are questioning her. They show her a series of photographs, all of them of their unidentified victims. They ask Buffy if she recognises any of them, but Buffy says no, unaware of why she should. Dowling’s colleague, apparently playing ‘bad cop’ Buffy thinks, steps forward. She tells Buffy about Dowling’s theory that the corpses are vampires and they think Buffy is responsible.

Buffy points out that that’s a dumb theory since these corpses aren’t vampires. They didn’t go poof, she says. Dowling asks if that always happens, to which Buffy replies with a nod. She asks if she needs a lawyer.

Outside the room, Dowling and his colleague have differing opinions: Dowling believes Buffy has nothing to do with their so-called vampire corpses, while his colleague is losing her patience: he was the one pushing the vampire angle so why would he back off now, after Buffy was caught in an alleyway killing one? Dowling tells her that vampires only dust, but his colleague openly rejects his theory: until they have a better idea on who is killing their victims, vampires or not, Buffy Summers stays put. When Dowling goes back to the room to talk to Buffy, he finds the handcuffs open and the Slayer gone.

As she rushes away from the police headquarters, Buffy considers whether she should have waited and explained more. By the time she gets to Dawn and Xander‘s apartment, she’s on the TV, a wanted fugitive, escaped from the police! Worse, the police have named her as a murder suspect! The pair don’t doubt Buffy’s innocence and immediately ask her if she has any leads on who’s actually responsible for the deaths. She doesn’t know, she tells them, switching off the news report. But if she’s going to clear her name, she’s going to have to do some digging. She asks if she can sleep on their couch, but Dawn tells her it’s been taken. When Buffy sees stuff laid out on the couch, she just assumed it was for her. It seems the pair have had a private falling out, and Xander is on the couch.

The couple would rather not talk about it, so Buffy takes their hints and prepares to leave. Dawn apologises for kicking her out, but Buffy tells her not to worry. They’ve earned their chance at happiness, and she can deal with it. She has Slayer powers, one of which, she smiles, is the superhuman ability to stay awake all night and not get cranky.

A few hours later, a very cranky Buffy is still awake, watching the city from above. She’s been trying to stay on the down low, but a voice and cigarette smoke alerts her to Spike behind her. He tells her that she’s a hard one to track down, but Buffy tells him that that was kind of the point.

He asks what happened with the police, and Buffy tells him that it was a case of wrong place, wrong time. Spike tells her she was doing her job, but Buffy says that was true when she was destroying the Seed too. Why couldn’t destroying the Seed have taken her duty away? “Then I could be Buffy, minus the words ‘Slayer, ‘chosen’ and ‘one.’”

He tells her that that means he’d be dead. Buffy admits she’d probably miss him. Spike smiles and warns her to keep her eyes open. He’s still hunting whatever’s hunting her. She thanks him and he tells her to worry about staying out of the way of the law.

As Buffy continues her evening, no matter what she does, she keeps coming across vampires. Apparently the only thing I’m good at finding are vampires. Because I’m Buffy. Followed by the words ‘Slayer,’ ‘chosen’ and ‘one’. After killing her latest vampire, she’s surprised to find the same young man from earlier, the one she already saved. “You again?” Another vampire comes up behind her and the young man tells her that he can help: “I’m a Slayer. Like you.”

Buffy hits the vampire, telling the man that they’ll talk when he learns to bring a stake to a vampire fight. The vampire runs and Buffy pursues, running away from the man and chasing the demon into another alleyway. Too late, she realises she’s been duped: the shadows inside the alleyway are bursting with vampires, hiding, snarling, ready to pounce. Buffy curses her rookie mistake.

The vampire takes her unawares and bares his fangs extremely close to Buffy’s throat. Suddenly, the demon stops. His face starts to sizzle? His vampire features almost melt back into his head as the sizzling stops, the young man behind him. His eyes are glowing with the same energy coming from his hands. He looks down at Buffy and tells her that he told her he could help.

Buffy looks at the corpse. “How, what, why, please?” she asks the stranger. He tells her that the vampire isn’t a vampire anymore. “None of them are.”

Buffy looks around the alleyway. All the vampires are now dead, lying on the ground, lifeless. Just like human corpses. No trace of the vampire at all.

Buffy looks up at the young man. He has black floppy hair, dark eyes and is clearly younger than her. “You trying to put me out of a job?” she asks him. Then, suddenly, she grins, an idea forming.

“Because I might be okay with that,” she smiles.