On a San Francisco street, Buffy Summers steps into the multi-coloured building, uncertain why she’s been called here. It’s a women’s centre, and she’s accompanied by Detective Dowling and Spike, who’s holding his coat over his head, desperately avoiding the sun’s deadly light.

Dowling fills her in. Special Victims called in the supernatural division. A counsellor at the centre, Jean Anthony, who works with people in abusive relationships, has made a report. A stranger followed her home and came to her door. She can’t explain why, but she let him in — and while what happened next wasn’t consensual, he didn’t physically force himself on her.

Buffy’s unsure this qualifies as supernatural, but inside the building, Dowling shows her more. While preparing for the centre’s anniversary celebration, Ms. Anthony came across a photo from forty years ago. The same man is in the photo — and he hasn’t aged a day.

Spike and Buffy exchange a look. They both have the same thought: incubus.

In a private room, they meet Jean Anthony — a thin, black-haired woman sitting nervously at a table. She explains that she asked the man if she could see him again before he left. She was horrified afterwards, once she realised what had happened.

She’s confused and upset, shaking with fear. “Are you telling me he was magic?” she asks. Spike explains: he was an incubus — a demon that feeds on life energy through intimate contact. They have a hypnotic effect on people. Afterwards, Buffy adds, the person used often feels like they’ve come down with the flu. Jean nods — that makes perfect sense. She could barely get out of bed for days.

Buffy tells her she’s sorry this happened, but they will find him. She vows it. Jean is relieved. She’s angry with herself, but didn’t think she could get a prosecution. She asks if she can speak to Buffy alone.

Outside, Dowling asks Spike how things are going between him and Buffy. She strikes him as the kind of person who pulls back when things get serious. Spike agrees — when she’s not stabbing the bloke.

Inside, Jean and Buffy continue their conversation. Jean says she felt compelled to go along with her attacker, even though her body didn’t want to. Buffy meets her gaze, steady and reassuring. “He took the freedom to choose away from you. But he’s going to pay for it. And I promise you, we’ll make sure he doesn’t get the chance to hurt anyone else.”

Across town, in the same spot he’s occupied for quite some time, Xander Harris sits with a kitten nestled in his lap, coordinating his game controller around the feisty creature. Anya’s ghost hovers nearby. She thinks he looks like a mountain man. Xander tells her he’s nearly completed the game.

Anya’s voice jumps a decibel, hands on her hips, annoyed. “I’ll organise a parade. There is a shower just a few feet away!”

Xander reminds her she can’t smell him, but she says she’s concerned for the kittens. He looks down at the one in his lap, now pawing at an Anya he can’t touch.

“Wait a second,” Xander gasps. “They can see you! That means you’re really here. Not some figment of my addled mind!” Relief washes over him, a sense of calm settling on his face.

“Huh,” Anya replies. “Never thought of that. It is nice to know I have independent existence.”

Xander says it’s better than that — it means he’s not crazy, and he’s not sitting here alone. He’s hanging out with someone whose company he always enjoyed more than anyone else. His best friend.

Anya looks moved by the sentiment, but backtracks. She calls it a pathetic exercise in rationalisation. Then she orders him to move over — she hates being partially phased through him. It reminds her she can’t have sex anymore.

Before Xander can respond, Buffy and Spike walk through the door. Buffy clutches her nose in horror.

She asks what died in there.

“Harris’ dignity and self-respect,” Spike reckons. “That’s them rotting.”

Xander complains that he could’ve been naked, but Buffy tells him she wasn’t taking the chance he wouldn’t answer the door. She wants him out of the depressive funk he’s in and has a gig for him: he can take on an assignment with Giles for Dowling while they track down Jean’s attacker.

Xander’s not too keen — not since the hellhound — but Buffy assures him this is nowhere near that difficult, and Giles is now at full strength again.

Anya is thrilled. “Oh, let’s do it! I can be your invisible sidekick. It’ll be like the greatest Eighties cop show they never made!”

Xander reconsiders. “Do I get a badge?”

Out on the streets, Giles and Xander accompany Dowling to a storefront for a psychic. The consensus, according to Dowling, is that the psychic is just your average crook, but lately, she’s been weird. In particular since a recent séance. Giles can tell she’s fake by looking at the sign on the door – but he needs to speak with this ‘psychic’.

Walking in slowly, Dowling calls for the owner, a Lana Pasternak. But upon entering they find that Lana is not herself – literally. She’s cross-legged, floating in mid air with a purple aura around her. Her face is twisted into pain, her teeth jagged and her eyes blood red. Possession. The demon inside Lana’s form cackles in a voice that grates Xander’s teeth. “Lana isn’t here right now.”

In Buffy’s apartment, Spike walks into the bathroom where Buffy is showering. He’s been researching the times and places their incubus could be haunting. He asks if he can join her, but she says she’s done. He pulls at the curtain, preparing to jump in, but as he moves in her direction, Spike is kicked back with force, smashing into the sink behind him.

Buffy races from the shower asking if he’s okay. Spike gets off the floor, more bruised that he’d like. She was surprised, she says, and instinct kicked in. Spike nods in agreement, but questions why she grabbed her robe before hand. She looks away from him, her hands wrapped tight around her body.

“It’s fine. Only natural. I’d have thought, given the case we’re working…”

Buffy raises her voice without looking at him. Angry, but not at him – at herself. “It’s not fine. It’s the opposite of fine! What happened in Sunnydale – that wasn’t you. Not you you. We’ve dealt with this.”

Spike talks quietly. “Yeah. Back then I was a monster, playing at being a man. Couldn’t quite pull it off either. Now I got a soul: whole new ballgame. But dealing with the past doesn’t make it go away, does it?”

Buffy doesn’t say anything. She pulls her robe tighter around herself and exits. “It’s dark,” she tells him. “We should go. Before someone else gets hurt.”

Back at Lana’s Psychic Readings, Dowling insists that Lana was only talking in weird voices earlier. The situation has escalated somewhat. Giles nods: an experienced psychic would be more resistant to possession. This woman has tampered with forces she shouldn’t have and has become easy prey. He tells Xander and Dowling to back way. He’ll prepare the exorcism.

“You’ll do nothing but die, tidbit!” shrieks ‘Lana’, ectoplasm emerging from her throat. It moves towards the three, enough to Xander to recoil. Anya tells him to use the holy water, but ‘Lana’ suddenly grabs her with ectoplasm. “No one invited you, bitch!” ‘Lana’ hisses at Anya who reacts in shock: “You can see me?” She yells at Xander for help.

Giles, mid-spell, realises that there’s another presence in the room. He has to hurry, while the demon is distracted by whatever he cannot see. Xander uses his holy water and separates Anya from the slimy gunk.

Giles however completes his exorcism spell and the ectoplasm retreats from them – dragging Anya’s ghostly presence with it. She screams at Xander, who tells her to hang on, reaching for her intangible arms in vain.

He manages to free her with the water — just in time. Giles completes his spell, and the human, restored Lana collapses to the ground. Xander catches her before she hits the floor. Giles assumes Xander is simply trying to help, unaware that he still can’t see Anya.

As Lana stirs in his arms, she weakly whispers to him. “Xander Harris… The soul of Anya Jenkins is at rest. This presence that believes it is her… is not…” She trails off before she can say more.

By the time Xander asks her to repeat it, the real Lana is back in control — with no idea who he is or why he’s holding her so closely. He drops her in shock.

Anya asks what rattled him.

But he lies to her.

He lies to them all.

At the woman’s centre, Buffy, complete with Scythe, is perusing the board celebrating it’s tenure. Jean comes up to her, asks where her blonde partner has gone. Buffy turns. “Canvassing the mission district. Trying to find the incubus before he figures out we’re onto him and skips town. But he could also come back here. He kills most victims outright, but he seems to have a special grudge against women who like to help other women.”

Buffy also mentions that they can’t tell how many people he has killed.

Jean sighs.

“Of course, I can hear the investigating officers now. ‘So you let him in? He didn’t physically force you or threaten you? Honey, regret isn’t rape.’ If not for what I do, I’m not sure I would’ve reported it. If I hadn’t seen that picture, and supernatural stuff wasn’t all over the TV… Getting anyone to believe me…”

“You got lucky,” Buffy tells her. She knows it’s a horrible thing to say, but compared to others…

Jean nods. She understands.

Buffy meets her gaze. “You said you were a survivor. This must be doubly tough for you. Brings back a lot of bad memories.” She hesitates slightly.

Jean admits she’s triggered, for sure.

Buffy wants to know how she gets through it. She seems like a strong individual to her.

Jean smiles. “No more than anyone else. It’s not about ‘getting over it,’ though. Put it away, never think about it, or tell yourself it’s not supposed to bother you anymore — that doesn’t work.”

She steps closer now, more open. “I lived with a man — was engaged to him — who was abusive to me for two years. And every day I talk to women in similar situations. Most days I won’t even think about him once.”

But then, sometimes, she’ll smell someone wearing the same aftershave and it all comes flooding back. “The strength of survivors doesn’t come from ignoring what happened. It’s about finding mechanisms to cope.”

“Everyone handles it differently. I draw strength from seeing other people’s. Helping them find it. And these women are so strong. I remind them it’s not their fault. They shouldn’t be afraid of how they feel, or embarrassed or dismissive. Holding it in doesn’t make you strong. Talking. Living. Loving others — but most of all, yourself. That makes you strong.”

Buffy smiles. She understands. But before she can say more, there’s a knock on the centre’s door. Both women turn — and instantly recognise the incubus standing in front of them.

“Hello, little pigs,” he leers. “Unlock the door and let me in.”

Buffy orders Jean to her office, but the incubus speaks again. “I asked nicely. Stop ignoring me. Open the door. Now.”

Buffy unlocks the door. She lets him in.

He smiles. He’s been watching the Slayer. He knows who she is. And he’s delighted she’s saved him the trouble of finding her. Without her vampire friend, she’s his. He has trouble controlling men — but thankfully, he grins, Buffy has sent him away.

He steps into the centre. Jean is shaking like a leaf, but they’re locked in with him. He corners Buffy, backing her into a wall.

“You were convinced you could do everything yourself. Because it never occurred to you I might be onto you. Because you thought you could handle me. That you were better than me. Or was it because, deep down, where only you know it, you wanted this.”

He leans closer to her face.

A voice from behind him calls out. “Oh, she did.”

Spike crashes through the nearest window, snarling. “We all wanted this. Mate.”

The demon tries to control him, tells Spike to back off. Buffy calls out when his back is turned.

“Here’s a ‘because’ you never thought of, sleazoid.”

She turns, swings the Scythe. “Because we were setting a trap!”

The demon’s decapitated head rolls down the corridor. Jean watches, horrified. “I thought they crumbled to dust when you killed them?”

Spike shakes his head. “It wasn’t human — if that helps.”

Jean looks down at the body. The lack of blood and strange organs gave him away. She realises he wasn’t so tough in the end. Buffy tells her these creatures have a habit of using the dark and the shadows. They liked it when people didn’t believe in them — when they were easy to pick off.

But now the world has changed, she says.

“New rules now,” she adds, as she and Spike walk Jean out of the centre.

Back in his apartment, Xander and Anya are talking. She tells him she should’ve fought back more, but she was taken by surprise that the demon could even see her. She’ll be ready next time.

“We should be ghost-hunters! We’re a lot sexier than those annoying hipsters on TV.”

She asks what he wanted to talk about, but he shakes his head, keeping the information to himself. He asks if she wants to watch wrestling.

“Half-naked sweaty men grappling? That also reminds me that I can’t have sex anymore.”

Then she says yes.

Across the hall, Buffy is talking about the supernatural. She figured that when the world eventually found out, they’d freak out. Maybe they should’ve been told — so they could prepare and fight back.

Spike starts to talk to her about earlier, but she stops him.

“You’re about to launch into some overwrought speech about how sorry you are and how horrible you are — like you’re apologising, but you’re really making it all about you, right?”

Spike opens his mouth, then changes his mind.

Buffy looks him in the face and moves closer.

“Spike, listen. We have been over this. More than once. But something bad happened to me. A lot of bad things have happened to me. Dying. Losing my mom. My dad basically disowning me. All the above still affect me. More than what your old… More than you attacking me.”

“But sometimes that moment comes back to me, too. Like all the other stuff. It’s part of who I am. Comes with the package. The only way it’s a problem is if you expect me to reassure you it’s okay every time. ’Cause I need to be able to deal with it myself. My way.”

“I’d just like to help, if I can. Just ain’t sure how,” he tells her.

“You could try asking,” she suggests. “It’s going to be different each time. Sometimes I might want you to go away. Without you getting all victim-y about it. Just give me space.”

“Right. Perfectly understandable. I’ll just…”

“And sometimes, I could just use one of these,” she tells him — and races into a hug.

Somewhere else, deep underground in a dimly lit cavern, Anya sits. A voice echoes off the damp walls around her.

“It sounds as if the Harris boy is in a vulnerable, suggestible state. You’ve performed your task well.”

Anya floats her incorporeal form near an altar, where a gem displays Xander’s current image. “I didn’t know I was doing a task! Why don’t I remember these meetings when I go back to him?”

The voice grows louder. “It is better. For many reasons. You cannot betray me. And in a moment of weakness, you cannot betray yourself.”

Anya places her hand on the gem, smiling. “You promise you won’t hurt him?”

“That is our agreement. I will honour it.”

Anya nods, content. “He doesn’t think I know, but he found out something.” She turns toward the voice, quieter now, afraid of the answer.

“I’m not really Anya, am I?”

The voice drifts through the shadows, growing fainter, as if its owner is moving away.

“Does it matter? When this is over, you will be as real as she was.”

And then Anya — whoever she is — is alone in the dark.