Spike stands by the gaping hole in Alasdair Coames’ living room wall, courtesy of Eyghon, a battle that ended less than five minutes ago. He looks around at the damage and then looks back at Faith and Alasdair in the wrecked room. “Well, we won a great battle. Defeated the big bad. And I haven’t ended up a pile of ashes for a change. All things considered, I’d chalk this up as a win. Shall we celebrate with a pint?”

There’s silence in the room until Faith yells at him. “Are you crazy? What about…” Spike cuts her off. “I know. I just think better when I’m not parched. And I’m not the crazy one, pet.” He lights yet another cigarette and looks down, pointing at Angel, who’s in the house now, but curled up in ball. He’s muttering to himself, a smattering of phrases, some in the voice of Rupert Giles, some Angel, some Angelus. “He is.”

Alasdair turns to them with a look of concern on his face. “I warned you. Three beings in one body. This was precisely the sort of danger inherent in trying to resurrect Rupert.” And if the Angelus personality comes out, they’ll all be busy dying. He angrily glares at Faith, telling her that she was supposed to stop this from happening.

Faith turns back at him, temper flaring. “Instead of standing there all day monologuing, are you going to tell me how to fix this?” Alasdair softens slightly, his next words stammering slowly out of his mouth. “Yes. You’re right, of course.”

He walks over towards Angel. “Our first order of business must be to secure Angel where he can do no harm to others.” Spike agrees. “Or himself. If he’s walking in Giles’s shoes, experiencing the pain Angelus inflicted on him from the other side. I’d keep him away from wood and sunlight.”

Faith suggests the room at her place, where Angel stayed after first killing Giles. “When he was real bad. Sometimes he’d try to hurt himself.” Alasdair nods quickly, confirming that that will do. They have to get him there immediately.

Spike is busy perusing Alasdair’s shelves in what’s left of his collection. “Why bother? Looks to me as if you’re a hoarder, but with magic items instead of ramen noodles. There must be something in this mess that can put things right.” He starts moving artifacts around, looking for anything he might find familiar.

Alasdair shakes his head. The only solution he’s aware of is to remove Giles’s soul from Angel’s body – which only Angel had planned. Even with a physical body, without an artifact such as an Orb of Thesulah, it’s useless. And even then, with magic gone, the Kalderash Spell of Restoration won’t work anyway. “We need a magical item that does not depend on a spell to function,” he concludes. Something that will draw the soul towards it and house it safely. Spike mentions an artifact known as the Essuary, but as far as he knows, it’s been lost since 1978. Alasdair surprises him by telling him it’s here in London in the present day.

Faith automatically begins to head for the exit. “We go get it.” Alasdair looks after her and tells her it’s not that simple. “It’s in the possession of a coven of Enders.” Spike reacts in alarm to this. Faith asks what Enders are and Alasdair tells her that they are beings that subsist on souls. Or, in practical terms, they eat them. “They do not simply kill you. They remove your soul and consume it utterly. They end you.” Faith immediately understands Spike’s reluctance. Her feelings are even more sure when Alasdair shows her an image of the creatures.

Spike suggests maybe letting Giles’s soul fly free, to whatever reward it is destined for: after all, he is already dead. And he would be at peace. Faith looks on, not liking the idea. Alasdair shakes his head again. “Believe me,” he tells Spike, “I’d advocate just that if I thought it would work. But Angel’s been working so hard to obtain Giles’s soul, I believe he’d offer up his own first. And then we would be left with Angelus.”

Faith storms up to Spike, handing him a stake. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we just stake Angel, right here, right now. Problem solved, no Angel, no Giles. Life easier for everyone.” Her sarcasm is as plain as it is blunt. Spike raises his hands defensively.

Faith sighs. “All right. I was just putting it out there saying what you lot were thinking.” Off their looks, she quickly adds, “I wasn’t thinking it.” She points at her chest. “I’m gonna find these Enders and I’m going to kill them. I’m going to get this McGuffin and use it to save Angel and Giles. Anyone who wants to help speak up. Anyone who doesn’t, screw you.”

Silence fills the room for a moment.

Spike is the first to break it, asking Alasdair if he has something that can regenerate Giles’s body. Alasdair nods. “The Crown of Coils, yes. Angel and Faith brought it back from Peru.” Spike doesn’t look back at him. “Take care of it. Ain’t right, leaving him like that., regardless of what happens. But first write down where we need to find the Enders.”

In moments, Faith and Spike are carrying Angel outside. “We’ll lock Angel up. Then pay them a visit. If we don’t come back, what happens next is down to you.” Alasdair watches them in silence as they go.

In Faith’s apartment, Spike is teasing her, having found chains in the basement, with a cell door. Faith doesn’t appreciate his jokes. Spike tells her not to be so high and mighty. He thinks sometimes, with some of the attempts he’s seen, resurrections are sometimes unkind. Faith tells him that early in the game she believed that too. But now she’s determined. “You’ve seen it work once. I’m gonna make it work. Or die trying.”

A short time later, in the dead of night. Kensal Green Cemetery, however, is neither quiet nor dead. A young woman is surrounded by Enders. They are tall, slimy looking creatures, who stand on a writhing mass of tentacles that make them look unnatural as they shuffle along the floor. They have sockets where their eyes were, but instead they have more tentacles where their pupils should be. The girl yells at them to leave her alone and one of the creatures peers straight at her. It speaks slowly, their words coming out as if someone is squelching through mud, through a mouth she can’t see.

“This is what you wanted, mortal. You came to us seeking the source of oblivion. Not merely to die, but be erased from existence.” The girl continues to struggle, but agrees with the creature, provisionally. “Yes, things have been pretty grim lately. I guess I want the pain to stop, but this is a bit… final, isn’t it? Can’t I, y’know, sleep, and get back to you on it?”

The Ender doesn’t snarl. Doesn’t raise it’s voice in anger. Doesn’t even scream and make a pronouncement of it’s power. It simply looks at her with his squishy tentacles and says “No.” As it bends closer to her, she sees it’s mouth, a black hole surrounded by sharp, gleaming teeth. It grabs her in tentacles and holds her steady.

A blade swipes through the creature’s limbs suddenly and it screeches in surprised agony. “Fragile people wanting to end it all. Figure you guys have been in hog heaven,” says Faith, ready to move again as the demon falls backward and begins to recover. Spike holds an axe up. “But you’ve fattened up. The butcher’s here,” he growls.

The two Enders are on the pair in seconds, wrapping their tentacles around Spike, containing him, as Faith swings her sword. “You have stolen our feast! So you will become it!” Spike struggles in the tightening grip and then vamps out. “All right sunshine. Two can play at that game.” With that, he sinks his fangs into the nearest piece of flesh his mouth can find.

As Faith puts her Ender down for the count and retrieves her sticky blade from it’s gooey entrails, she asks Spike if he’s okay. There’s slight concern in her voice. Spike stammers slightly as he rights himself up, but says he’s okay. “Bloody souls hurt worse coming out than going in,” he declares picking up his axe off the ground.

Faith, realising what he means, rushes quickly to his side. “Crap, I didn’t think. Did he…?” she starts to ask, but Spike shakes his head. “Killed him before he could pull the full soul snatch. William the Bloody’s comeback is going to have to wait.” He says he’s okay, but Faith can hear in his voice that he’s rattled. She tells him that she hadn’t really considered the risk to Spike – and offers to complete the mission alone if she has to. Spike scoffs. “Right. Fight a couple of Enders in the Victorian catacombs? You’re good, love, but you’re not up to that.”

Faith tells him he doesn’t have to play the bad ass for her – she gets not wanting to be the person you used to be. Spike barely looks at her, but remains determined. “I’ll take my chances. I’m not Angelus. I wasn’t such a bad sort without my soul. Some might even have preferred me that way.” He doesn’t elaborate as they head underground – towards the catacombs that lay beneath London, the dwelling of the Enders.

Not long afterwards, walking through old tunnels, Spike is bored. He brings up her relationship with Robin Wood, but she laughs: that’s ancient history. She reckons Angel’s put a permanent lock on her love life – he keeps her so busy she wouldn’t have time for one. Spike says he’s been single for a while himself. He reminds Faith of their banter, once upon a time, but she interrupts him straight away. “No way am I sleeping with you.”

Spike is annoyed. “Well, why the bloody Hell not? You slept with Xander! And you’ve thrown yourself at me before! Don’t tell me you’ve become some born again prude?”

She disagrees. She could use a lover right now – she just doesn’t want it to be Spike. He tells her that she likes the bad boys, and he practically invented the stereotype! Faith nods. “Maybe. But like you said, you’ve matured.”

She kicks a large wooden door with no effort and smiles. “Besides, these days, you’re more like Angel.” She doesn’t see his face, but she already knows Spike is scowling. She hears the “What?” coming!

“And I’m nobody’s rebound girl,” she says, the door clanging inwards to another chamber – full of Enders, all slimy, all looking at them.

Spike and Faith waste no time in launching themselves into the centre of the room, weapons at the ready. They make a formidable team, Faith thinks to herself – until she hears Spike still complaining as he pushes an Ender past her. “I am nothing like Angel!”

Unable to resist, Faith rubs it in, although she believes firmly in what she’s saying, in between hacking blows and dodging tentacles. “Sure you are. Vampire with a soul, hung up on Buffy, fighting your own kind. You understand each other better than anyone on Earth. That’s why you’ve got this whole backdoor bromance going.”

Naturally, her comments rattle Spike, who’s picking his axe up out from an Ender’s spine. “Bromance? There is no “bromance” and definitely nothing to do with back doors.”

Faith grabs a tentacle and prepares to slice at it’s owner. “Sure. That’s why you keep hanging out even though you hate each other.” They’re back to back now, proving her thoughts from earlier: formidable. Spike is still resistant to her comparison though, insisting that he and Angel do not ‘hang out’ at all! “Circumstances thrust us together!”

Another Ender reaches past him to grab Faith, but he ignores it, pondering for a moment. “Wait. Not ‘thrust.’ Fate. Fate draws us together.” He shakes himself out of his thoughts and strikes at the Ender. “We move in similar circles, all right?” he emphasises, hacking the demon, blood spraying everywhere.

Some of the Enders are backing away now, frightened at the bodies that are already strewn about the chamber, their fallen brethren. Faith watches as they clutch at boxes, marked with Christian crosses – clearly their fabled reliquary of souls.

Faith takes a moment to breathe. “You’re still in love with B. That’s obvious. But you’re nowhere near her. Probably walked away after saying some crap about how it’s not healthy for either of you, blah, blah, blah… How’s that any different from when Angel went to LA?”

She gestures at the reliquary box. Spike takes the hint and thrashes forwards, smashing through the box and slicing the demons. He keeps on slicing until he’s finished his point.

“It’s very different on many levels! I have gone on with my life. I have done things! Important things!”

Faith isn’t really paying that much attention to Spike now, as he punctuates his words with his slashing. A pair of Enders suddenly feel brave enough to attack her while her ally is distracted and grab a hold of her, pinning the Slayer to the ground, teeth grinding inches from her face. Spike then brings his axe down on it’s head.

“Saving your unappreciative arse may or not qualify. Regardless, the point is I am moving on.” As Faith watches on, every syllable a blow to the demon’s now dead-carcass, she’s glad he’s got that out of his system. She looks at him.

“Look at that. You smoked these guys without freaking out even a little.” She grins at him. He looks back at her and a lightbulb goes off in his head. “Aw, that’s brilliant. I see now. You only said that to piss me off, so I’d be an unstoppable rage machine.” He smiles, nods with a look of satisfaction around the room and grins broadly.

Faith turns as she walks away from him, hiding her own grin. “Nope. Meant every word.”

Smashing open the remains of the reliquary, Faith tells him that he will never get over Buffy by moving on, but he will move on when he gets over Buffy. She picks up the Essuary from the box, still wrapped in a cloth that must be ancient. They have what they came for.

As Faith walks around the room, Spike yells after her that he is over Buffy. As she leaves, he whispers to himself. “Nah. Even I wasn’t buying that.”

Back at Faith’s apartment, Alasdair and Faith are discussing the next steps whilst Spike is preoccupied. Sophie and Lavinia have cornered him.

“So you’re old Rupert’s great-aunts? Lovely to meet you. I can see why he kept you hidden away. I’ve always fancied women in their hundreds, properly preserved of course. It’s so rare to find someone who appreciates both Yeats and Bukowski in context.”

Sophie looks at her sister, confusion on her face. “Are those types of cheese?”

“I believe they’re footballers. Manchester, I think,” Lavinia tells her.

Spike rolls his eyes. “No they’re…” He thinks better of explaining himself. “It doesn’t matter.” He holds up a liquor bottle, smiling, changing the subject. “Point is, why don’t we leave this lot to their business, just the three of us? I found this in the cellar,” he says, raising the bottle of absinthe in his hand. “Can’t think of anyone I’d rather enjoy it with.”

Sophie turns him down instantly, calling Spike a pity. Lavinia agrees. “Yes, but he seems the type to get attached, doesn’t he? Shame. I’d bet he’d be quite a bit of fun if he didn’t have a soul.”

Spike looks after them as they walk away. He drops himself into an armchair, talking to himself. “A stake, I think. Stakes are quick. Though walking into sunlight and going down in flames seems an apt metaphor.” He opens the bottle, and takes a gulp. A large one.

Around a large circular table upstairs, the Essuary in front of them, Alasdair explains to Faith and the Fairweather Sisters that they, as the people closest to Giles, must gather around the Essuary and call his spirit to them. Giles and no other. When Faith suggests bringing Angel upstairs, Alasdair shakes his head quickly.

“Good heavens, no! He must be restrained throughout the process. We can’t risk loosing Angelus, even for a moment. Alasdair says he’s right beneath them, but Faith doesn’t think it’s a good idea to leave him unsupervised. Alasdair calls Spike, who stands in the doorway, open bottle in hand. “Spike, go sit with Angel, if you would. See that he remains confined.” Spike has clearly drunk much of the absinthe by now and, slurring, agrees, but complains. “Course. Send Spike down to dwell among the lunatics. Perfect end to a perfect sodding day.”

As he walks back downstairs, Alasdair calls after him. “Whatever you do, don’t release him, no matter what he says – no matter how agonising the screams – you mustn’t take pity on him!” Spike looks back and rolls his eyes. “That will not be a problem,” he says to himself, downing another gulp of booze.

He reaches the cell below and finds Angel chained to the wall, in the dark, still muttering to himself. Spike looks down at him whilst he lights a cigarette. “All right, Angel?”

“Why do you hate me so, Father?”

“Oh,” Spike sighs. “This is going to be a pity party.” He knocks back more drink. He then yells at Angel loudly. “This is entirely your fault you know!”

He sits down besides Angel, shoving the bottle in his grand-sire’s blank face. He takes on a tone that sounds like a high-pitched Angel: “”Look at me, I have a soul now! I brood. I flagellate myself. I have ‘Oh, so many feelings.” I’m worthy of the Slayer.”

He stands and flicks his cigarette away. Angel doesn’t react to his mocking him. He doesn’t move. “And of course, for you it works like a bloody charm! So, like a right tit, I put myself through unimaginable agony… by choice, unlike some people in this room, I might add… I win my soul back.”

“So I wouldn’t be a monster anymore.” He pauses. He looks away from the blank Angel. He’s talking quietly now, more to himself than his sire. “Never asking myself if perhaps a monster is what she wanted. Soon as she realises I’m capable of human emotion, might want something real, I may as well be a leper. And all I end up with is the capacity to feel like Hell about the whole bloody mess.”

Upstairs, around the Essuary, Lavinia and Sophie are both in tears, talking into the artifact. “We can’t help feeling as though your life – the repression, the focus on others, the neglect on yourself – that it was partially our fault. Please come back to us, Rupert. Give yourself another chance. Give us another chance.” After Lavinia has finished, Sophie hands her a handkerchief. “That was beautiful. You look hideous. Your eyes are puffy.”

Alasdair gestures for Faith to have a turn, but she can’t think of anything she wants to say. She asks if she can just concentrate on Giles. Alasdair tells her that it’s possible, but it would be more effective if it was spoken.

Faith looks around the table, first unsure of what to say, then unsure if she has the nerve to speak. Eventually, she closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath and pushes her fear of honestly telling people how she feels aside. After another moment, the Slayer looks at the others and begins to speak.

“I went from thinking Angel was nuts to busting my ass just as hard as him to bring you back. Been wondering whether I’m doing it for you or me.”

“I need you, G. Wicked bad. I don’t have to tell you about my daddy issues, but I’ve always wished I told you this – you’re the best I ever got. And by the time I got that through my stubborn-ass skull it was… it was too late to… Just come back to us, okay? Come back to me. Please.”

In the basement, Spike is now pacing around the room, still talking, still ranting to himself.

“I mean, it’s typical women isn’t it? They go on and on about how they want a good man. A sensitive man who respects them. But the moment they’ve beaten you into one, they find you a dreadful bore and throw you over for the first brooding, tortured idiot who comes along. And now I’m BLOODY STUCK THIS WAY!”

His yelling bounces off the walls, echoing back at him. He looks down at the bottle in his hand. “Who am I kidding? Let’s be honest, shall we? I’ve never been much good on my own. I was a mess after Drusilla left me. Now I’m a dozen times worse.”

He looks at the still-blank Angel. “I’d never admit this if you weren’t a drooling vegetable, but I’ve always admired the way you moved on from the Slayer. Found work, saw other women… built a life of your own.” He smashes the bottle on the wall, just inches from Angel’s face. The booze goes everywhere. “I’ll tell you this, mate,” Spike says. “I’d give anything to know how you got over her.”

He stares down at the floor in silence. He’s stunned by a voice that makes him jump slightly.

“When I do, I’ll let you know.”

Angel looks over and connects his eyes with Spike’s. He smiles. “Does this mean?”

Angel nods. “Yeah, Giles’s soul was drawn out.” Spike looks stunned and then smiles triumphantly. “Then my brilliant plan worked! Pulled you out of the void, didn’t I? Kept you here with all that crap about the Slayer so you didn’t abscond with old Rupert and leave us to deal with Angelus.”

Angel’s not buying it.

“No need to thank me. Of course, it would be the decent thing to do, but I know better than to expect manners from an Irishman.” Angel frees himself from his chains and then begins to head upstairs. He thanks Spike for watching him: he could never have forgiven himself if he’d hurt them again. Spike follows after him.

As they walk up the stairs, Spike’s cell phone beeps – a text message. It’s from Angel. Spike is confused, but Angel tells him it’s a thank you. It’s not the sort of thing he’d normally do, but Spike isn’t normal, so it doesn’t apply. He tells Spike that he’s overthinking things and that he should give the number a call. He promises that once he does, thinking will not be his problem anymore.

The Sisters and Faith are jubilant around the Essuary, now glowing blue with Rupert Giles’s contained soul within. Alasdair has a smile on his face: they have achieved something he didn’t think they could.

The next morning, Faith asks Angel what’s next, now that they have everything they need to finish the resurrection spell. Angel keeps it to himself, promising to tell her soon, but Faith thinks that’s just an excuse – she thinks he’s winging it.

Approaching her bathroom door, Faith is annoyed to find it in use, considering it’s hers. Angel points out that the Sisters are downstairs, in they’re own bathroom, which Faith insists is also hers technically.

She slams on the door, yelling, telling Spike to not use all her hot water or she’ll make him eat his jacket, and the door opens as she’s about to pound again, but it’s not Spike who answers.

It’s Harmony Kendall. Wearing Faith’s robe, her hair up in a towel.

“Harmony?”

“Hey. You’re out of hot water.” The blonde smiles. Faith is angry about her robe, so Harmony, with no qualms, removes it and hands it to her. Faith looks away, while Angel covers his eyes. It’s then that Spike emerges from the shower, draping a towel around himself. He says good morning, and thanks Angel for Harmony’s number.

Faith is angry enough, but now she turns to Angel. “You brought Harmony into my house?”

Angel shrugs. “If it was anyone else I would’ve felt sleazy but Harmony’s… Harmony. I couldn’t stand seeing him like that. It was pathetic. Was I ever that pathetic?”

“Only constantly,” Spike adds. Faith looks at him with a grin on her face. “So Harmony let’s you rebound from the great love of your life?”

“Lot closer than yesterday.” He’s interrupted by Harmony calling her ‘Blondie bear’ over for more attention. Spike excuses himself, tells them that there’s no rest for the wicked, removes his towel, much to Faith’s horror, and races in Harmony’s direction.

Faith looks at Angel. “I don’t see you dragging Daniel Craig back here for me.”

Angel iterates. “If it was anyone other than Harmony,” but Faith stops him. “Cos nothing that’s going on between those two is sleezy at all.” They overhear Harmony shouting roleplay instructions and Spike sticks his head out of the door at Faith. “If I’m not out in six hours, send a search party.” He grins and slams the door shut.

Angel tells Faith that he’ll take her to breakfast if she’d like. She says that he’d burst into flame.

They hear more of Spike and Harmony. “Good,” he smiles, as they go downstairs.