“It’s like stabbing jell-o!”

As Buffy Summers stabs and slices at the massive form of the powered-up and bloated Soul Glutton, she gets more and more frustrated with every blow.

Spike is having a similar issue. “I’m trying, but the bugger’s twice as big and ten times as tough! How many bloody souls can a demon eat in an hour?”

The demon roars at them, thundering over Buffy and Spike as they split apart on the rocks that form the caverns beneath the former town of Sunnydale. “HUNDREDS FOOL! The name Soul Glutton is well earned, but something more empowers me now. A pure, soul energy, infused with the Holy Light of the Hereafter!

Buffy’s face scrunches in confusion. Spike leaps towards her and settles at her side. “Wait. It’s talking about Andrew’s daft plan to resurrect Warren, isn’t it? I don’t figure there’s that much holy light where that miserable bastard ended up.”

As the demon roars again, Buffy jumps back into action. “Less talky! More Stabby! We just need to hold out a while. Willow’s on her way to stop Andrew. She’ll come through.” As she and Spike avoid another strike, she looks at Spike. There’s an unmistakeable look of uncertainty on her face, even as the Slayer mutters. “She always does.”

Elsewhere, at the grave of Warren Mears, Willow is busy, talking to herself, organising her thoughts aloud, knowing she’s missing a part of the recipe that Andrew’s cooking up.

“Okay. Put on the Angela Lansbury hat, Willow. Someone’s definitely casting a resurrection spell… I can feel it’s energy. And it’s got to be Andrew. The odds of someone else dumb enough to do that being here are astronomical.”

Willow kicks her foot in the rock and dislodges pebbles. Her next kick doesn’t hit the ground, but the base of Warren’s stone. “But I guess even Andrew knows his pal was an evil, little worm, because no one’s been here in ages. So… Andrew wasn’t exactly swimming in friends when he lived here. If he’s not trying to resurrect Warren, then who?”

She’s starting to pace now, layering it out in her mind, on a chart no one else can see or could possibly comprehend. “Not Jonathan. Andrew’s got his DNA. He could resurrect him anywhere. Somewhere a lot safer than this. Anya, maybe? No… her body’s too far down in the depths of the Hellmouth… unreachable.”

She brings her hands together, in a meditative way, closing her eyes. Trying to shake the cobwebs from her brain. “Who else’s death would Andrew feel responsible for?”

And then she realises, with abject horror exactly what and who Andrew is planning to resurrect. “Oh my Goddess,” she whispers in shock.

In another cavern, Buffy has stood her ground and is trying a new tactic. She stops fighting, lowers her weapon, as Spike watches on, cautiously. She looks up at the Soul Glutton, trying to appeal. “Okay, I can only tap the Slayer memory banks in my dreams, but I bet I know why you’re tweaked at me. A Slayer killed your family, right? But come on, you guys look so much like calamari. She was probably feeling peckish.”

Realising that perhaps the Soul Glutton doesn’t share her sense of humour, Buffy moves just in time to see a huge limb crash down on the spot she had just been standing in. She nearly loses her balance, as the creature moves towards her.

“Foul Fleshling! You will answer for her crimes!” But as the creature reaches out for Buffy, she flips, landing next to Spike effortlessly. the Soul Glutton looks at his hands, expecting the Slayer to be there, but then questions what’s happening as the cavern floor drops out from under him, temporarily returning him deeper into the crater.

Spike is actually suitably impressed. “Nice one. Manoeuvred him right over the old tunnels.” He helps Buffy up by her arm as she catches her breath.

“Yeah, but that won’t hold him for long. We need some intel, fast. I’m gonna try Giles again, if I can get a signal. Watch my back.”

In San Francisco, in Buffy’s new apartment, the phone rings. Giles walks into the room, half asleep. He has a dinosaur robe on, and is hair is all unkempt. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and answers the phone. When he realises it’s Buffy, he asks how he can help.

“Still in the crater?… Really?… Yes, your as clear as a bell… Yes, I may have to revise my opinion of our phone carrier… Yes, yes, of course. The Soul Glutton. I have found something. It’s referenced as a predatory Death God by various cultures. The last mention is in the records of the Aztecs, circa the 14th Century.”

He rushes to the table, knocking over a Gameboy and a Power Rangers action figure he’s become fond of, and opens the book he found on the shelf. “A warrior princess – that would be the Slayer of the time, I’d imagine, journeyed to its native Hell and killed it, along with all its kind… Well, clearly the matter was not as final as it seemed!”

“It does feed on souls, as you surmised. The Aztec Slayer killed it using a magic sword that drained it’s energy. Sadly, the sword was destroyed in the Spanish conquest. Given it’s mystical properties, your Scythe is likely the best substitute at hand.”

Looking at the illustrations in the book, Giles continues to warn the Slayer. “Listen, Buffy… The Soul Glutton’s weakest point appears to be it’s head. Focus your attacks there… Pardon?… Pure soul energy?… From a resurrection?… Buffy, it’s imperative you do not let that happen! If it fed on a soul taken directly from the hereafter, the creature would be unstoppable.”

In the Sunnydale crater, Buffy finishes her side of the conversation. “Okay… So, stab it in the head… Yes?… Unstoppable…Yes.”

She puts the phone down and looks at Spike, confirming his suspicions. “So stab it in the head. It took him that long to say it.”

But Spike and his superhuman hearing has also heard the rest of the chat with Buffy’s Watcher.

“Slayer, that thing eats souls. If it gets hold of me… I ain’t afraid of dying. But if it just sucks out my soul, I’d be like I was before. That happens, you dust me on the spot.”

Buffy recoils in horror and confusion. “What? I will not! We’d fix you!”

Spike rolls his eyes, his tone irreverent. “After my soul is consumed? No fixing that. And I can’t face going back to being… him.” He lowers his head to the floor, not willing to fix her in the eyes. Buffy walks towards him, but he backs away as she reasons with him.

“Spike, I know I said some things that sounded harsh, but he wasn’t so bad! He – you – saved all our lives, more than once. You looked out for Dawn.” She stops and moves a step closer. “You loved me.”

Spike looks at her now. Dead in the eyes. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but she needs to know this. “No. I didn’t.”

Buffy doesn’t speak. She’s confused, but she lets him take his time. The importance is written all over his tearful face. “I thought I did. Would’ve sworn it up and down. But it was a selfish version of love. The kind that wouldn’t take no for an answer. That couldn’t accept not having you, even if it was best for you. It was nothing like what I…” He hesitates now, not wanted to say anything else. “It wasn’t real love,” he concludes, rather bluntly.

Buffy is surprised by the tenderness of his tone, but also his honesty. She walks up to him now, and he doesn’t move away. He lets her come closer, taking her in and she walks towards him. She then raises her hand to his face, and speaks to him calmly and sweetly. “I’ve known plenty of normal humans who are pretty damn selfish. You should meet my Dad. There was always good in you, Spike. So strong, it didn’t need a soul to come out.”

He tries to back away now, but Buffy’s hand holds him in place, where he needs to be. “But not so strong it always won. Not so strong I couldn’t be a killer, or…”

They’re conversation is interrupted by another loud roar. The Soul Glutton has pulled himself up from his trap and stares at them both now. He has no words. Only rage. Buffy looks at Spike and points to the monster. “Point the killer at him.”

He speaks then, slamming his trident down. Buffy and Spike dodge out of the way in time, separating. “Fools. You are no threat to me now!”

Buffy and Spike regroup and both leap, in unison. She gives him the orders, he follows, in sync like never before. They both hit the creature, in his head as Giles offered, but the creature stands further upright as they slide down his sticky hide and are thrown back against the cavern wall.

He’s getting stronger, Buffy knows. “That resurrection spell’s charging him up like Popeye on Spinach. Typical Andrew. He’s going to get us all killed – and his resurrectee eaten. The only silver lining is, if that’s got to happen to someone, I’m glad it’s Warren.”

At the grave site of Tara Maclay, Andrew has his candles and runes ready. He gets his device to translate the spell he needs and the voice-narrator is reciting it over and over again. The spell begins to work, with white mist now starting to gather around the grave. Andrew takes Dracula’s quill, still stashed inside the cover, and opens the Vampyr book.

Just like Willow, he talks it all out aloud. He knows he can not afford a single error.

“Okay… ‘The resurrection of Tara Maclay was completed successfully, without any negative consequences.’ Wait. ‘Negative’ is often open to interpretation. Should I be more specific?”

He takes his pen away from the book, having not written anything yet. He chews the top of it, wary of getting ink on his face.

“Or more general? Would it work better if I made new rules for all resurrection spells? Yes! ‘Henceforth, resurrection spells succeeded without the undesired side effects previously associated with them.’”

“‘The Subject as they were before dying, but healthy if they’d been sick. They resumed a natural life, with no zombification, monkey’s-paw-type unpleasantness, or anything bad whatsoever.’”

He smiles now, triumphantly. He thinks he has it. And he’s still talking aloud. “That’s gold! Gold! I mean, not entirely without risk, but…”

“Worth it.”

He turns, but he knows the voice. Standing there, a brief smile on her face, is Willow, the magical mist working the spell around them, swirling more and more now.

Andrew closes the book and moves it away from Willow, holding it fast. She continues to speak. “Now, with magic new and raw, it’s the best chance to make it work. And the Vampyr book gives you the power to make sure it comes right. That’s what I told myself, anyway. The first thing I thought of when I realised what the book could do.”

She walks straight past him as he stands up, the device still reciting the spell in the background. “It’s always the first thing I think of. Every time I come across something new, an artifact… a spell… ‘Maybe this will bring her back to me.’”

She stops now and traces Tara’s name on the stone with her fingers. There are tears streaming down her face. She turns to Andrew, who wonders why she’s crying.

“But it won’t. It can’t. And that… that is how it should be.”

Andrew looks at her nervously. Willow turns to him and raises her hand at him. A blue light shines from her, like a lightning bolt, beginning to sever the mist by wafting through it, separating the strands.

“Andrew, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But I’m not gonna let it happen. And I don’t have time to explain why.”

Andrew yells a warning to Willow, but it comes too late. She’s instantly thrown back, her lightning redirected to her and slamming her against an unmarked grave. She shakes her head, stunned, as Andrew rushes to her side and helps her up, a look of apology on his face.

“Magic backfire. I put protective wards on my phone and the book already had them. You can’t disrupt the spell.”

Willow looks at him now though, tears in her eyes. “But you can? Andrew, please. You have to.”

He looks at her, full of questions. “Why? It’s a new day. We don’t have to live by some stupid laws a patriarchy of stuffy old wizards made thousands of years ago. We make the rules now! We can get it right! How things should really be! I can make up for what we did to her.”

He then moves closer to Willow and looks her in the eyes as the mist swirls now, closer and closer to the resurrection moment. “What we did to you.”

Willow turns away and pulls her hands to cover her face. The tears flow and she screams in sadness. “Goddess, I miss her so much…”

Andrew grabs her by the arms and pushes the Vampyr book in her direction. “Then help me! I mean, you’ve done it before. You brought Buffy back!”

Willow pushes the book back though and she shouts over the mist, which is making an ethereal crackling noise. “Yeah, I did. I took her out of Heaven, a place where she was safe and happy and surrounded by the purest love. I pulled her back into this world of fear and doubt and pain. And she was miserable. In so much agony, she almost destroyed herself.”

Andrew takes in her words, upset now. “That was after being in Heaven a few weeks. Tara’s been gone for years.” She looks at him, tears freely flowing.

“It’s not hard for the person who’s dead. It’s hard for those of us left behind. Bringing her back now… would be cruel, selfish, hurting the one I’m supposed to love. I can’t do it.”

She powers up slightly, not wanting to hurt Andrew, but willing to incapacitate him. He moves closer towards her. “I won’t do it.”

“And I won’t let you do it.” With her last words, Willow’s hair goes darker. Andrew briefly remembers facing Dark Willow, but this time he’s more prepared. Clutching the book in his arms tightly, the mist and the wind roaring around them, he yells back at Willow.

“You can’t stop me.”

Elsewhere, Buffy goes careening against the cavern wall for the eighth time in ten minutes, and Spike has finally had enough.

Enraged, he climbs up the creature, dragging his boots through the slimy scales. When he gets to the monster’s head he yells loudly. “That’s it! I don’t care how many souls you’ve eaten. I’ll pull them out of you one by one!” As he says it, he starts ripping at the Soul Glutton’s flesh, determined, somehow, to bring the creature down. It roars at his presence and the pain Spike’s inflicting.”

“Filthy thing! Your soul Is gray and compromised. A gutter scrap. Not fit for consumption.” Spike seems pleased for a moment, but then the sticky grip of the tentacles has him and the demon chuckles in amusement. “But I’ll have it anyway.”

And then Buffy is upon them. The Scythe whistles through the air as Buffy defies gravity, coming from the roof of the cavern and slicing not only into the creature, but freeing Spike in the process. She grabs him as they tumble away from the creature. She asks if he’s okay and he says he is. He then looks at the creature. He’s massive now. They don’t stand a chance.

“For the moment,” Spike tells her.

The demon laughs at him. “The moment is over. You are over.”

As the tentacles wrap around both Slayer and Vampire, beginning to crush and consume, Spike looks at Buffy and tells her off for staying behind. “You should’ve run.”

She shakes her head, tries to grab a hold of him in anyway she can. “Not a chance. Whatever happens, it happens to us both.”

At Tara’s grave, Andrew has projected a shield around himself, and nothing Willow can do, dark or light, seems to be able to penetrate it.

Through the cascading energy crackling and the mist swirling even thicker in the cavern now, he yells at her, trying to explain.

“You don’t know what it’s like to be alone! You brought Buffy back and it was rough for a while, but now it’s okay and you’re all together and everyone’s happy!”

Willow throws a bolt at him, but the Vampyr book deflects the energy back at her. Andrew is using it as a shield.

“Angel killed Giles, but then he brought him back. And everybody’s thrilled about that! And Xander, XANDER betrayed us all! But he meant well, and it all worked out okay, so he’s forgiven! He’s one of the family again!”

He holds the book up again, but this time, Willow catches his eyes. Andrew is crying. “But I can tell you don’t trust me. I’m there, but always apart. And I deserve it…”

He stops a moment and looks at Tara’s grave, glowing now with intensity. “Because I was a part of this.”

Willow lowers her hands, letting her spells dissipate around her. He looks at her, still clutching the book. “Andrew, if that’s how we’ve made you feel, I’m sorry. But you can’t fix it like this.”

She walks towards him on the ground now. The mist is still swirling, ready to complete it’s mission. Willow looks through it, straight into Andrew’s eyes. “Not by doing this to Tara. Not by doing this to me. Please…”

He looks at Willow and the tears streaming down her face. She doesn’t want to fight him. He looks at the grave and down at the book. And then back to the pleading in Willow’s voice.

He turns to the device and orders it to shut down the spell. It answers with a beep and, without the specific words to keep it energised, the resurrection of Tara Maclay is halted, and the mist disappears.

Andrew lowers the book. He’s sobbing uncontrollably. So is Willow. He looks at her. “I’m so sorry.”

She immediately takes a step and pulls him into a hug. They both cry and hold on to each other. “It’s okay, Andrew. It’s going to be okay.”

Elsewhere, Spike realises that he can move his limbs in the slime. “Hang on. Is this pile of mucus smaller?”

Buffy grins. Willow must have done it. “Yeah, and kinda peaked looking.”

She frees herself and her Scythe from the muck and then charges at the shrinking Soul Glutton. “I’m gonna take that as a good sign.”

As Buffy intended, and with the Soul Glutton weakened by the spell being stopped, he growls in anger as the Scythe hits it’s target in his head.

“No! I was so close!”

Buffy recovers the Scythe and leaps down towards the demon, shrinking now. “You’re still close to something. probably a little more choppy than what you had in mind.”

But the demon has other ideas. It’s their size now. “My kind has no afterlife. I will never see my loved ones again. But I will die gladly, if it is with the taste of revenge in my mouth.” He buries his trident in the ground and the cavern shakes. The whole crater shudders. Buffy and Spike look at each other as the demon escapes.

Spike tells her to move and as the boulders and the rocks fall to plug the hole the demon made escaping, Buffy can’t help but wonder. “How many times can one town collapse?”

As Buffy watches and looks back at the collapsing space, she tells Spike that they’re not going to make it. Spike knows, but he says they have to try.

They both leap, but it becomes clear as they fly through the air that they’ve misjudged the gap. The only place they are going to land is the Hellmouth itself. Buffy looks at Spike, reaches out for him, about to tell him something.

“Trick or treat.”

And their descent stops. Catching them both in a telekinetic hold, Willow smiles and pulls them to her, encasing them inside a bubble that already contains herself, Andrew and the book. Spike smiles, seemingly happy to see Andrew okay. “Brilliant. I see you’ve got our lost lamb, as well.”

Andrew starts to apologise again, but he looks back at the collapsing caverns and is amazed. “Yeah, uh, sorry about… Wow, did I do that?”

As Willow’s bubble clears the surface into the early sky of dawn, Buffy tells him it wasn’t all him. “With the help of a soul-sucking monster. But hey, its not as if Sunnydale’s property values can get any lower.”

Willow looks down at the crater below them. “The old hometown looks kinda rough, doesn’t it?”

Buffy shrugs it off. She looks at Willow and Spike and then to Andrew. “This? It’s only a place. Home is where my peeps are.”

She looks down one last time at Sunnydale. “Everything else is just the view.”

On the edge of the crater, the partying revellers from the festival are packing up to leave. It seems the earthquakes during the night rattled most of them. They finish the event early, with some declaring they’re going to do Cleveland instead next year.

Andrew takes a moment as they stand there, and then, hoping to make a swift exit, heads for his car. “Well, this is me. Sorry again for… you know.”

Buffy calls after him. “Andrew. Hold on.”

He starts talking before she can say or do anything. “I know. I’m out of the band. I’m Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch. it’s time to admit adding me was a horrible mistake and make a clean break of it.”

Spike cannot resist the moment to quip. “If you’re trying to convince us, you’re doing a lovely job.”

Buffy shoots Spike a ‘you’re not helping’ look and turns to Andrew. This time when she speaks, it isn’t a request. “Andrew. Stop. Please.”

She sighs and looks at him, pulls her hands through her hair. “Okay. Yes. What you did was stupid. And dangerous. Again.”

Willow comes next to her, supporting both. “Maybe we have given you reason to think we don’t accept you. But you’ve given us plenty of reason not to.”

Andrew rubs the back of his head and looks away. Half-joking he smiles. “Worst face turn ever, right? I thought I could be Rogue and I ended up Sabretooth.”

Finally, Buffy snaps and yells in his face. “NO!”

“We’re over the supervillain thing! It’s in the past! That’s what I’m trying to say. But we can’t leave it there until you do.”

She’s still angry and points directly at the Sunnydale crater.

“What happened here… it was a long time ago. And I’m not saying we forget it, or what we learned from it. But we were different people then. That’s not who any of us is now.”

This time she looks directly at Spike and smiles at him. She then puts her arms around Willow.

“We’re better. We’ve grown. We’re stronger and smarter. We can handle anything that comes our way… as long as we’re together and we can trust each other.”

Buffy goes quieter, looking upset with herself. “And you’re not the only one who has work to do in that area. I can be a pretty committed grudge-holder myself. I know I’ve been prickly about you robot-mind-switching me. It probably seems unfair, when I forgave Xander for betraying us so fast. But here’s the difference: Xander understands what he did was wrong. And why. And he’s not going to do it again.

She walks to Andrew and gently places her hand on his face. “Andrew, do you get why this was wrong? Can you promise us it won’t happen again?”

Raising his hand to hers, tears streaming down his face, he nods. “Yes. I swear… I’d rather die than hurt anyone the way I hurt you guys. I really am sorry… for everything.”

Buffy pulls him into a hug. He is, after all, family. “I know. It’s okay.”

Willow then joins the hugging. “We’re sorry if we made you feel left out. FYI, you’re way more Rogue than Sabretooth.”

As Andrew turns to him, Spike puts his hands in his face. “There will be no hugging.”

Buffy smiles. “I just realised… our new Melrose Place living situation probably didn’t help you feel included. There’s still a vacancy in the building, if you want to move in?”

But Andrew is already back to his car. He has something to do. “Are you kidding? San Francisco is so over. Oakland is the New Black. You’ll probably figure it out, now that it’s too late.”

He twirls his car keys in his hands. “Lunch tomorrow? I’ll bring croissants. Careful driving back. Ciao.”

And in seconds, Andrew has gone. Spike watches the car drive off for a moment and then, once it’s halfway down the desert road, sighs.

“Did we just pass up a chance to get him off our collective arse?”

Buffy chuckles. “Shut up and remember where we parked, or you’re gonna be one grouchy vampire come sun-up.”

The next day the sun shines over Oakland, specifically the home of Andrew Wells.

In his study he has his computer on and his hologram glasses on his face.

Recording his journal he looks around the room and then talks into the specs.

“I learned a valuable lesson on my return to Sunnydale. It was a total ‘The More You Know’ moment. What I’ve been doing wrong. Sometimes, I have good intentions… Other times, I was acting out of selfishness, or fear. But in the end, it didn’t really matter… The effect was the same: I hurt people because I didn’t take into account how others might be affected by my unilaterally tampering with their lives. And I vow, here and now, that will never happen again.”

He looks at the computer screen, checks some statistics and turns back. “From now on, I ask permission.”

He clicks a button on the side of the glasses and the holographic program inside activates. “Jonathan, do you want me to make you a new body?”

The image of Jonathan appears in front of him. He smiles with his fist clenched. “Hell to the yes!”

Then, as Andrew turns and prepares to work, a brightly shining Jonathan asks him another question, one of vital importance.

“Can it be taller?”