"Listen, you two, I know this creamed spinach is delicious, but I won't be offended if you go out for some real food." "You kidding me?" "This is the good life." "Relaxing in bed while people bring you food on trays." " I like the Jell-O." " Help yourself." "Food that moves by itself gives me the heebie-jeebies." "It's good and wiggly." "A girl at school told me gelatin is made from ground-up cow's feet, and if you eat Jell-O some cow out there is limping with no feet." "But I told her I'm sure they kill 'em before they take off their feet." "Right?" "You're the one who insisted on teaching her to talk." "Oh, hello, Dr Kriegel." "You know my girls, Buffy and Dawn." "Yes." "You two are becoming part of the regular crew around here." " Just keeping her company." " Good." " Just be careful you don't wear her out." " Oh, don't worry about that." "I woke up exhausted." "There's really no more exhausted to get." "Well, maybe some good news'll help." "The blood work's back from the lab." "Everything's fine." "So we've scheduled your surgery for the day after tomorrow at ten in the morning." "How's that sound to you?" "I thinkthey had me scheduled for volleyball, but I can work around it." "All right then." "Joyce, you take care." "Make sure and get some good solid rest." "And I mean that." "The day after tomorrow." "I can't stand to stay here another two days just waiting." "Waiting?" "Give me a break, we got tons to do." "We have soap operas to watch and trashy magazines to read." "And an adjustable bed to fiddle with." "That alone will keep me busy for four hours." "I really don't need you to stay here." "I know you've got patrolling to do." "Not tonight." "Tonight I have "Mom taking care of' to do." "Riley's filling in with the others." "I'm sure they have it all under control." " Human chest!" "Human chest!" " Sorry!" "My God." "What a rough night." "I dusted two of'em!" "Yay on me!" "That was pretty cool." "Except the part where I was all terrified and now my knees are all dizzy." "Not so much a big success night for me." "But I should get points just for showing up." "Unlike some Riley Finn who shall remain unnamed." "That was disappointing." "Things would have been easier if he'd come." "Piffle!" "Who needs him when I'm dusting two at a ti..." "Whoops." "Maybe it would've been good if he had showed up." "Perhaps he forgot." "Care package!" "Special delivery for the Summers girls." "Let's see what I have in this sack of mine." "I feel just like Santa Claus, except thinner and younger and female and, well, Jewish." "This is an extra-special gift for your mom that I know she'll need." "A beer hat!" "See?" "It's got cup holders and a strawthat goes directly into your mouth." "You can fill it with other stuff than beer." "And somehow, when I was in the store, this seemed the most important idea, and nowthere's the whole part where I'm crazy." "It's perfect." "Thank you, Willow." "You're very sweet." "Let's see who's next." "Dawn, I believe I have something in here for you." " Headache?" " Just a little one." "Biggish little one." "I'm fine!" "Go on, what else is in that sack of goodies, Willow?" "All right." "Dawn, to keep you busy." "Ooh, spells!" "Thank you, Willow!" "You got her a book on spells." "The girl who can breakthings by just looking at them now has a bookto teach her to breakthings by looking at 'em?" "It doesn't actually have spells in it." "Just history and anecdotes, stuff like that." "Oh, Buffy, I have this for you." "Homework?" "I don't believe in tiny Jewish Santa any more." " And a yo-yo." " Thank you." "The book is just in case you get a chance to look it over." "We're doing World War I now." "The last exam was really pretty easy, just underlying causes and trench foot." " Should be no hassle to make it up." " I don't know if I'll take that exam." "I'd rip it in half and stick it in bed with me!" "Mom?" " I think I'm gonna take a little rest now." " OK." "We'll be right outside if you need us." "What was she talking about?" "I mean, that was weird." " She's gonna be fine." " It's OK." "I'm sorry." "The doctor spoke to me, and I should have told you." "The thing that's pressing on her brain, sometimes it might make her say weird things." " Does she know she's saying them?" " Not really." "It's sort of like a flash." "Butyou saw her two seconds afterward - she was normal." "And after the operation, no more pressing." "She'll be all normal all the time." " Is that right?" " Hey, Santa doesn't lie." " Oh, excuse me." " Careful, the facts say a picnic is in order." "What is that thing?" "There's no data." "There's no pictures on this one there!" "What is the data?" "There's no one in there." " Buffy?" " Come on, honey." "Don't worry about it." "I'm going home?" "Home?" "Home, home, home..." "What's wrong with him?" "Is it like Mom?" "A thing in his head?" "I don't think so." "I think it's different." "Don't worry about it." "I guess I missed that." "Was he bothering you?" "Hey, Ben." "This is my friend Willow." " Hi." " Hi." "And, yeah, the crazy man was a little, you know, crazy, but it's OK." " Are they gonna send him home?" " Don't get me started." "The mental ward's booked beyond capacity, nowhere to put them, so the ones with families are being sent home." "Like his family is able to take care of him!" "He has to have someone watch him 24-7." "What was he saying to you?" "Oh, he was just babbling." " You know what's weird?" " Japanese commercials are weird." "Yes." "And also, you know, some of the stars we're looking at don't even exist any more." "In the time that it takes for their light to reach us, they've died." "Exploded." "Poof." "Were things rough at the hospital?" "You know, I used to love to look up at them when I was little." "They're supposed to make you feel all insignificant, but they made me feel like... like I was in space." "Part of the stars." "There's Canis Minor." "And Cassiopeia." "And the Big Pineapple." "You know, I'm not sure I remember that one." "Oh, it's a major one." "See those three bright stars right over there?" "Yeah." "And see those stars along there?" "That's the bottom of the pineapple." " It's big." " Hence the name." "The real ones never made sense to me." "I sort of have my own." "Teach me." "See those stars over there?" "Short Man Looking Uncomfortable." "Moose Getting a Sponge Bath." "Little Pile o' Crackers." "That was a bit of a stretch." "You do it." "What would you call... that one?" "I see... a huge flaming meteor about to crash into something." "I know what I said." "I said I won't go away far." "A person needs to respect a man get some fresh air and find some fresh spaces." "And some fresh space!" "And needs to walkto get where he's going." "This thing doesn't work!" "It isn't working!" "I'm sure they heard you." "I bet it's not even hooked up to anything." "Just like the push buttons at the crosswalk." "I'm sure someone's..." "What, the push buttons aren't hooked up to anything?" "Oh, tell him, Buffy." "Tell him, OK?" " Look, Dr Kriegel, we wanna go home." " Well, of course." " You can visityour mother in the morning." " No." "We." "I mean all of us." "My mom, too." "Well, I understand that, but it's not necessarily the first thing I'd recommend." "I can't." "I can't stay here waiting for two days for this operation." "I just can't." " It makes my head hurt to be here." " Joyce, there's no reason to get upset." "No reason to get upset?" "Right, sorry." "I must just thinkthere is cos of my brain tumour!" "Here, Dawn, why don'tyou get something from the machine?" " I'm sorry I said that." "I'm just tired." " I know." "Listen, Doctor, I don't see why we can't take her home, you know, just until..." "Wouldn't it be better for her to rest someplace where she felt safe and comfortable?" "Even if it would mean some work for you, taking care of her?" " Oh, thank God." " I'll do it." "Anything." "There are medications to administer." "I'd have to show you how." "And I'd need for you to check her vitals, watch her pretty closely." " I'm afraid you won't get a lot of sleep." " I'm not much of a sleep person anyway." " Can we go now?" "Let's go now!" " Hold on!" "Let me get all the medications and the instructions on howto do everything." "She's right." "Let's do this right." "We don't wanna forget anything." "Everyone stay close." " I'm glad you called me in on this." " Glad you answered." "Oh, yeah." "Sorry about last time." " Heard I missed out on some fun." " Oh, yeah, fun was had." "Also frolic, merriment and near-death high jinks." "Look." "There it is." "Wow." "We have a meteorite." "Is it hot?" "Cos if there's radiation, you could go all sterile." "No, it's not hot." "It's warm." "And broken." " It's sort of..." " Hollow." "Yeah." "So, we're all thinking the same thing, right?" "Festive piñata?" "Delicious candy?" "Something evil crashed to earth in this and then broke out and slithered away to do badness." "In all fairness, I don't think we know about the "slithered" part." "Oh, no." "I'm sure it frisked about like a fluffy lamb." "Let's look around." "Maybe we can figure out where it went." "It went here!" "No pulse." "Yep, the space lamb got him." " I don't see any marks on him." " I know him." "He was at the hospital." "A mental patient." "They released him today." " Riley, what are you doing?" " I'm not sure, there's something..." "That might be toxic." "Don't touch it." "Yeah, touching it was my first impulse." "Luckily I've moved on to my second, which involves heaving and running like hell." "Oh, man, does that smell." " So what do we do now?" " We can't call Buffy." " I wanna call Buffy." " You can't." "She's got life stuff." "That has to come first." "So we'll just figure this out ourselves." "We're experienced." "Yes, cos it seems like we're always dealing with creatures from space." "Except that we don't ever do that." "This is definitely newterritory." "Perhaps we should explore a bit more, head into the woods a bit." " Who votes research?" " Better idea." "Good call." "Could've been other cases like this." "I'm gonna stay here, examine the body some more, look around a little bit." "Yeah, don't do anything hunterly." "No, no, I'm just not great at research, which I'm sure you guys figured out." " I like me a good crime scene." " Give us a call if you need help." "Believe me, if something jumps out at me in the dark, you'll hear me without the phone." " Call me if you learn anything." " You got it." "I don't wanna be the one that finds the bodies any more." "I need to speakto the man at the desk." "This is A..." "This is Riley Finn." "You have an Agent Miller, Graham Miller." "He'll tell you who..." "Yes." "Emergency frequency." "Cold." "Cold." "Wait!" "You can't go!" "Don'tyou be that kind of barn owl!" "Please!" "Please don't go!" "Please!" "Please don't go." "Please." "Please." "Please don't..." "I can't see you!" "I can't see you!" "I can't see you!" "Well, I guess we're all set, then." "You've got my home phone number, my pager number." "And here." "These are the medications I talked to you about - the sedative and so forth, painkillers." "Right." "No problem." "If this is gonna be too much, we can make your mom comfortable here." "No." "No, no, I got this." "We really, really appreciate..." "You look just like your father when he cries." "And what do you think he was begging for?" " I told you she's been..." " I know." "Joyce?" "Joyce." "We're all done here." " Why don'tyou take your girls home now?" " Yes." "Yes, thank you." " Thank you for all your help, Doctor." " I'll see you in a couple of days." "Let's get the hell outta here." "Here we go." "Oh, it's nice to be home." " Do you wanna go into bed, Mom?" " Oh, Buffy, no." "That light, it's too bright." " It's too bright." "It's too bright." " OK." "OK." " Buffy, it hurts." "It hurts my eyes." " It's off, it's off." "Shut off the lights in the living room." "I will take you upstairs and we'll shut off the lights." "Come on." " You Finn?" " Yeah." "Major Ellis." "I'm in charge." "What's the situation?" "Just the one civilian casualty?" "That I know of." "This way." "You found a stiff in the woods and called us in?" "Don'tyou usually call your girlfriend for this kind of thing?" "I wouldn't touch that stuff in his mouth if I were you." " Toxic?" " No, just messy." "Guy seemed to have simply choked on the stuff." "Near as I can tell, it's some kind of protein alkaloid." "Does this fit the profile of any sub-T you know?" "It's not subterrestrial, Major." "Extraterrestrial." "It came out of that." " Set the trackers for a protein signature." " Yes, sir." "No good, Major." "This alkaloid's breaking down at an accelerated rate." " It's dissolving too fast to track." " You got a better idea?" "Thing came from space." "Gotta be some trace radiation." "We have Geiger counters in the packs." "Shouldn't be too much background gamma noise here." "Break 'em out." "Mom?" "Oh, my God!" "Mom, what are you doing?" "I'm making breakfast." "You shouldn't eat any more." "You're disgustingly fat." " Oh, Buffy, I don't know what I'm doing." " You just need some rest." "We'll putyou backto bed." "OK, there you go." "That will help you sleep." "Come on." "Let's getyou all tucked into bed." "Don't touch me!" "You... you thing!" "Mom, please!" "Get away from me!" " You're nothing, you're a shadow!" " Mom..." " I don't know whatyou are or how you came." " Mom, it's Dawn." "Dawn?" "Honey, what's wrong?" "She's just tired." "We all are." "Come on, go to sleep." "I'll check in on you in a little bit." "She hates me." "No." "She called me a thing." "She loves you." "OK?" "She's not herself." "I told you what the doctor said about the tumour." "No." "Not just Mom." "People." "They keep saying weird stuff about me." "Are you talking about the man in the hospital?" "He called me a thing, too." "And there was another one." "A weird guy outside the magic shop." "He said I didn't belong." "He said I wasn't real." "Why does everybody keep doing that?" " What's wrong with me?" " Nothing." "It's notyou." "There's something that happens in people's brains when there's something wrong." "It's like a short circuit." "And it makes them feel like nothing's real except for them." "That's all it is." "Look, it is notyou." "OK?" "And if anyone says anything like that to you again, don't listen." "Even if it's Mom." " I hate it." " I know." "Just don't listen." "Look at howteeny Mercury is compared to, like, Saturn." "Whereas, in contrast, the cars of the same name..." "Xander, please, we have workto do here." "I still don't get why we had to come here to get info about a killer snot monster." "Because it's a killer snot monster from outer space." "I did not say that." "Demons enter our world in all sorts of different ways." "This one came from above." "And the library's astronomy section is the home of aboveness." "Got it." "Hey, digging this study material, too." "We've scoured the periodicals for other meteorite landings in the last week." " Big zippo." " Well, then the world is not being invaded." " I'm pretty pleased about that." " Guys?" "I've got some stuff." "The most recent meteoric anomaly was the Tunguska blast in Russia in 1917." "Some witnesses claimed the meteor was hollow." "Maybe with a chewy demon centre like ours." " Howfar back does this list of anomalies go?" " Pretty far." " To the Queller impact in the 12th century." " The what?" "Queller." "I don't know why they call it that." "It didn't hit a place called Queller." "It landed just outside of Reykjavik in Iceland." "Wait, I just saw..." "Queller." "Quell..." "Here, here." ""Primitive people used to believe the moon caused insanity."" ""They would pray to the moon to send a meteor to fix the problem the moon caused."" ""These meteors were expected to 'quell' the madmen."" "The man in the woods - he was a mental patient." "And he got pretty well... quelled." "OK, I'm looking in history right now." "It says in the Middle Ages there were these sweeping plagues of madness." "People were losing their marbles everywhere, but then it would suddenly subside." "And these dates look pretty close." "Like maybe it happened after each one of the meteor events." "As if something emerged from the meteors and quelled the madmen." "Meteor go boom, crazy guy goes bye-bye." "Xander's little book made it sound like this Queller thing had to be summoned." "So who summoned it?" "Who else?" "My money's on Glory, our resident beastie summoner." "We should call Buffy." "Except we can't call Buffy." " Can we?" " No, but we better call Riley." " A Queller demon?" " Yeah, that's our perp." " A scavenger that can be summoned to kill..." " Crazy people." "Yeah." "How'd you know?" " Cos I have five corpses at the mental ward." " You're at the hospital?" "Listen, Riley, I saw Buffy's mom earlier and she was acting kinda wacky." "Insane wacky, if you know what I mean?" "It's OK." "Joyce was released earlier today." "That intern, Ben, told me." " They're safe at home." " Oh, good." "And the thing, the Queller, is it still there?" "We've..." "I think I've got it cornered in the air ducts." "Willow, keep at whatyou're doing." "Call me if you find out how I can kill it." "OK, but shouldn't we come help?" "OK." "I wish someone had told me that there would be tennis being played!" "I just didn't know." "Those eyes..." "Those eyes, they're like gasoline puddles!" "Tell me." "Tell me because I need to know why." "Why are you staring at me like that?" "What are you asking me?" "You are asking me, aren'tyou?" "Is this a test?" "And if this counts for the final grade, I need to know now!" "OK, teachers put this on the syllabus, but they do not stare down atyou, they do not cling, they do not look down on you." "Does someone know you're here?" "They should have said." "You are not supposed to be here." "I need to rest now." "I don't like the way you're staring at me!" "Did they tell you that at the gate?" "Stop staring at me." "I don't like it!" " Trail stops here, edge of the parking lot." " It stops?" "A car." "It hitched a ride, probably underneath." "So much for containment." "So some poor mental patient checks out of here today, drives away with this thing, took it right to its own home." " Checked out today." " Get me a list of patients discharged..." "No." "I know where it's going." "We've gotta move, now!" "I'm going to close my eyes, and when I open them you are going to go away." "Get off me!" "Buffy!" "Buffy!" " What?" "What is it?" " Something's out there." "It's after Mom!" "Stay in here." "Don't leave this room." "It's OK, my baby." "It's OK." " Spike?" " Yeah." "Listen, did you hear a noise?" "What the hell are you doing in my house?" "Right then." "Caught me." "Your basement's full of junk." "And me being in need of junk..." " You were stealing?" " Yeah." "Can't exactly work at Burger Barn..." "Wait." "Are those pictures of me?" "Buffy!" "Cover the room!" "We're in." "Fan out!" "Take the back!" "Clear!" "Are you OK?" "You just missed a real nice time." " It's gone." "I killed it." " Oh, God." " It's gone?" "You promise?" " I promise." "Everything is all right." "Everything is all right." "It's strange." "A body might ask what exactly it is you think you're doing." "He might ask what all this was meant to accomplish because to a humble postulant it looks like chaos." "Like unnecessary attention drawn where it ought not to be." " Get out." " Sir." "Sir, forgive me." "I just want to understand." "Why summon the Queller?" "What do you think?" "Because I'm cleaning up Glory's mess." "Just like I've done my whole damn life." "Buffy, I'm gonna ask you something." "And if I'm being crazy, you just tell me, OK?" "You got it." "The other day..." "Actually, I'm not sure when." "The days seem to all bleed together." " It's not important." " No, I guess it isn't." "I do know I was pretty out of it, and I had... not a dream exactly, more like I had this knowledge." "It just came to me like truth, you know?" "Even though it didn't seem possible." " Even though I shouldn't think such things." " What?" "That Dawn..." "She's not mine, is she?" "No." "She's..." "She does belong to us, though?" "Yes, she does." "And she's important." "To the world." "Precious." "As precious as you are to me." "Then we have to take care of her." "Buffy, promise me." "If anything happens, if I don't come through this..." " Mom..." " No, listen to me." "No matter what she is, she still feels like my daughter." "I have to knowthatyou'll take care of her, thatyou'll keep her safe, thatyou'll love her like I love you." "I promise." "Good." "Good." "My sweet, brave Buffy." "What would I do without you?"