Season: Episode 2 of Season 7
Original Air Date: 10/01/2002
Written by: Douglas Petrie
Directed by: Nick Marck

<b>Notes:</b>

Spike helps track a Tremors-like Slugoff demon.

<b>Plot Highlights:</b>

Buffy dreams of a german girl being killed. Spike stalks a rat, babbles. Xander drives Buffy & Dawn to school. Principal Wood chats with Buffy. Giles convinces Willow it's time to return to Sunnydale. Nancy's dog is eaten, she meets Xander and the gang. Spike offers his assistance. Dawn threatens Spike. Spike & Buffy investigate. Nancy hits on Xander, the underground demon attacks. The scoobies confront Anya. Anya notices Spike's soul, a melee ensues. Nancy flees, gets attacked again, Buffy & Spike intervene. Xander finally convinces Anya to turn the demon back to human, just as Spike is in the midst of skewering him. Spike goes nuts, babbles, runs off. Buffy catches up to him in a church, his secret comes out.

<b>Quotes:</b>

SPIKE: Hello.

BUFFY: What the hell are you--?

SPIKE: (tossing his shirt away) It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide.

BUFFY: No more mind games, Spike.

SPIKE: No more mind games. No more mind.

BUFFY: (reaching for his scarred chest) Tell me what happened to you.

SPIKE: Hey, hey, hey! No touching. Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark. Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. (starts unzipping his pants) Get it hard; service the girl.

BUFFY: Stop it!

SPIKE: Right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced. Because there's no spark. Ain't we in a soddin' engine?

BUFFY: Spike, have you completely lost your mind?

SPIKE: (lucidly) Well, yes. Where've you been all night?

BUFFY: You thought you would just come back here and... be with me?

SPIKE: First time for everything.

BUFFY: This is all you get. I'm listening. Tell me what happened.

SPIKE: I tried to find it, of course.

BUFFY: Find what?

SPIKE: The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... (starts to cry) God, I can't... Not with you looking. (drags himself into shadows)

SPIKE: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending? Angel--he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time. The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.

BUFFY: Your soul.

SPIKE: Bit worse for lack of use.

BUFFY: You got your soul back. How?

SPIKE: It's what you wanted, right? (looking at the ceiling) It's what you wanted, right? And--and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I-- and him... and it... the other, the thing beneath--beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go... go... to hell.

BUFFY: Why? Why would you do that--

SPIKE: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev-- (chokes up) to be a kind of man. (approaching the alter & a giant cross) She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved. So everything's OK, right? (rests on the cross, his flesh starts to smoke) Can--can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?