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The SETI Slayers | Fanfic
| What’s My Line? Part II | Bad Eggs |
Buffy returns home along with Willow and Xander after an evening out on the town. Willow and Xander are deep into a discussion of the power structure of The Captain and Tenille. They can’t agree on who was really in charge. Xander turns to Buffy to cast the deciding vote.
“Um… Who are these people?” asks Buffy.
“The Captain and Tenille?” asks Xander “Boy, somebody was raised in a culture-free environment!”
Buffy just isn’t in a thinking mood tonight. Things have been pretty quiet for her lately, and she is enjoying the downtime. There has been no sign of Spike and Dru since the fire in the church, and Angel’s sources tell him that the Order of Taraka’s assassins have been called off. Angel is recovering from his injuries nicely, and Buffy is enjoying playing nursemaid for him.
“So, then, better than playing naughty stewardess?” asks Xander.
“Xander!” says Buffy.
Buffy walks up onto her porch and puts her key in the lock. The door just swings open, it wasn’t even latched. This isn’t something Buffy was expecting, and she is instantly suspicious. She tells Willow and Xander to wait outside while she goes inside to check it out.
Buffy walks into the dining room and quietly looks around. She hears the sound of glass breaking, and her mother crying “No!” She pulls a stake from her jacket pocket, and runs into the kitchen. She is horrified by what she finds there: her mother is kissing a strange man. They break it off quickly on Buffy’s arrival.
“Oh, my—” Buffy hides her stake behind her back. “I’m sorry, I heard—”
“I, uh, broke a wine glass,” says Joyce. “Uh, you’re home early.”
“Hi,” says the strange man to Buffy. He’s tall, about 40ish, dark hair with a touch of grey in it. He looks a lot like John Ritter.
“Hi,” says Buffy back to him, still eying him suspiciously.
“Oh! Uh, this is my daughter, Buffy.” Joyce tells the man. “Buffy, this is Ted.”
Everyone has gathered in the Summers’ kitchen, where Ted is baking a batch of mini-pizzas for them. Xander thinks that Ted’s mini-pizzas are the greatest thing ever. Buffy accompanies her mother out back while she dumps the pieces of her broken glass into the trash, and uses the opportunity to question Joyce about where and how she met this new guy. Joyce tells Buffy that Ted sells computer software. They met when he upgraded the computer systems in her art gallery.
Willow has gotten into talking computers with Ted. She goes all ecstatic when he offers to get her some free software upgrades.
Buffy and Joyce come back into the kitchen. Ted offers Buffy some of the mini-pizza’s from his latest batch, but she turns him down. She isn’t hungry.
“Buffy, I want to apologise. That wasn’t how I wanted us to meet. I wanted it to be…perfect. I’m very fond of your mother, I guess that’s pretty obvious.” Ted points to a photo of Buffy with her mother stuck to the front of the fridge. “I know you’re the most important thing in her life, and, well, gosh, that makes you pretty important to me, too.”
Joyce stands beside Ted. “Buffy, I really want you to be okay with this.”
Ted puts his arm around Joyce’s shoulder “Beg to differ. We really want you to be okay with this.” They both smile at Buffy.
“I’m okay,” says Buffy.
“You are?” asks Joyce.
“I am.”
A vampire lands on a picnic table, shattering it. It quickly jumps back to its feet and rushes toward Buffy. She hits it in the face with a metal garbage can lid. She follows that up with a few more wacks to its head with the lid.
Giles is standing nearby holding her weapons bag. “Buffy? I believe he’s, um…”
Buffy ignores Giles and keeps bashing the vampire with the lid. The vampire tries to swing a punch at her, but Buffy uses the lid to block it. She drops the lid and kicks the vampire in the head.
“It’s staking time, really. Don’t you think?” asks Giles. Buffy continues to ignore him while she beats up on the vampire. Giles takes a seat on a park bench to wait for her to finish.
Buffy punches and kicks the vampire a few more times, until it falls to the ground, unable to fight back any more. She finally finishes it off with a stake to its heart. She looks around. “Any others?”
“For their sakes, I certainly hope not,” says Giles.
“What?” Buffy shrugs. “I kill vampires, that’s my job.”
“True, true,” says Giles. “Although you don’t usually beat them into quite such a bloody pulp beforehand. Everything all right?”
Buffy tells Giles everything’s fine, and sits on the back of the bench beside him. She killed a vampire in this park on Wednesday, she wonders why they are hanging out there. Giles tells her that with Spike and Dru gone—and with any luck dead—the remaining vampires are disorganised, and tend to gravitate to the easiest hunting grounds.
“Vampires are creeps,” says Buffy.
“Yes. That’s why one slays them.”
“I mean, people are perfectly happy getting along, and then vampires come, and they run around and they kill people, and they take over your whole house, they start making these stupid little mini-pizzas—now I like a mini-pizza, but I’m telling you, I—”
“Buffy!” Giles interrupts. “I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming, uh…text. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to share?”
“No. Forget it.” Buffy looks around. “Think there’ll be any more? I can wait.”
Next day at school Xander is still raving about Ted’s mini-pizzas. They have changed his life. Buffy isn’t so enthusiastic. What do they really know about Ted anyway? Sure he’s a good cook. He has a good job. He seems nice and polite, and her mother really likes him.
“What kind of a monster is he?” asks Xander.
Buffy isn’t saying Ted’s a monster. She just thinks that there is something a little too clean about this clown.
“He’s a clean clown!” giggles Willow. The others just look at her. “I have my own fun.”
Xander and Willow don’t think the problem is with Ted. They think that Buffy just doesn’t like the idea of her mother having a boyfriend.
Buffy concedes that they may be right, but she isn’t so sure. “Okay, I admit it’s weird. Seeing my mother frenching a guy is definitely a ticket to therapy land, but it’s more than that. I’m pretty good at sensing what’s going on around me, and there is definitely something wrong with this…Ted.”
Xander spots Ted walking down the stairs behind her. “Ted!”
“Of course Ted,” says Buffy. “Who’d you think I was talking about?”
“Hi, Ted!” says Xander. “Ted, who’s here.”
Buffy and Willow spin around and see Ted behind them. Buffy asks him what he’s doing there. Ted was in the school upgrading the software used in the guidance office. He has also brought along the disks with the software upgrades he promised to Willow.
While he’s there he tells Buffy that he and Joyce want her and her friends to come miniature golfing with them on Saturday. Xander thinks that sounds like a great idea, but Buffy is less than enthusiastic. Ted tells them that he is making a picnic basket, complete with mini-pizzas and cookies. That completes the sale as far as Xander is concerned, but Buffy tries to tell Ted that they already have a thing planned for Saturday.
“Hey, we can do that thing anytime,” says Xander. “I’m tired of doing that thing. We’re on!”
Giles stops by Jenny’s classroom to tell her that some of her textbooks have been delivered to the library. She says she’ll send some of the kids to pick them up. He starts to go.
“Pretty flimsy excuse for coming by to see me,” says Jenny.
Giles stops and turns around. “You should have heard the ones I threw out. I just, I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Jenny tells Giles she’s doing fine. “I’ve stayed out of mortal danger for three whole weeks. I could get used to it.” She’s still having trouble sleeping though.
“Oh, of course,” says Giles. “You need time.”
“Or possibly space. Rupert, I know you’re concerned. But having you constantly poking around, making little puppy dog eyes at me, wondering if I’m okay… You make me feel bad that I don’t feel better. I don’t want that responsibility.”
“Sorry,” says Giles. “I certainly don’t mean to make, um, dog eyes, at you. I’m just—”
“Worried. I know.”
“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” says Giles, and he leaves.
Jenny watches him go, and sighs.
Buffy bandages Angel’s hand while she tells him about her mother and Ted. “So Mom’s like, ‘Do you think Ted will like this?’ and, ‘This is Ted’s favourite show,’ and ‘Ted’s teaching me computers,’ and ‘Ted said the funniest thing,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s really great, Mom,’ and then she said I was being sarcastic, which I was, but I’m sorry if I don’t want to talk about Ted all the time.”
“So, are you going to talk about something else at some point?” asks Angel.
“I’m sorry,” says Buffy, “I just have so much to deal with, I don’t need some new guy in my life.”
“No, but maybe your mom does,” says Angel. Buffy reluctantly accepts that, but does it have to be Ted? “You have somebody else in mind? There’s a guy out there that would satisfy you?”
“My Dad?” says Buffy. She pauses. “Yeah, okay, that’s not going to happen. Fine, fine, I’ll give Ted a chance. I’ll play mini-golf, and I’ll smile and curtsy and be the dutiful daughter. But do I have to like him?”
Angel smiles at Buffy. “Kiss me.”
Buffy slides into Angel’s lap. “Finally, something I want to do!”
That Saturday Buffy and her friends play miniature golf with Ted and Joyce. Everyone but Buffy is having a wonderful time. They have just finished off his picnic lunch, but once again, Buffy has had no appetite for Ted’s cooking. She didn’t eat a thing.
Ted moves the conversation away from his cooking. “So, Buffy, I bet the boys are lined up around the block trying to get a date with you.”
“Not really,” says Buffy.
“Oh, they are,” says Willow, “but she’s only interested in—” Buffy gives Willow a nudge, and a glare. “Uh, her studies! Book-cracker Buffy, it’s kind of her nickname.”
“Well, glad to hear it,” says Ted. “I bet that means your grades will be picking up soon.” He moves off to take his turn, while Buffy walks over to her mother. She wants to know how Ted knows about her grades.
“I told him,” says Joyce. “He wants to know everything about you. He’s concerned. That’s a good thing.”
On the castle hole Ted is full of advice for Buffy. “Watch those elbows. Keep your eye on the ball!” Buffy wacks the ball much too hard. It bounces off the castle and lands off the course. “Oh, bad luck little lady!” Buffy starts to go retrieve her ball.
Joyce is all for letting Buffy take her shot over, but Ted doesn’t agree. “The rules are the rules, and what we teach her is what she takes out into the world when we’re not there, whether it’s at school or an unchaperoned party. I don’t mean to overstep my bounds,” he tells Buffy. “This is between you and your mother, I just think right is right.”
“Fine. I’ll just go hit my ball from the rough.” Buffy walks around the castle obstacle to her ball and looks around. No one can see her, so she picks up the ball and drops it in the hole. “Hey, how about that!” she calls out. “Got a hole in two!”
“Beg to differ.” Ted has just come around the castle. He saw what she did.
“Okay, so fine my score or whatever,” says Buffy.
That doesn’t satisfy Ted. “I think you’re missing the point here, little lady.” He slaps his putter against his leg. “Right is right, wrong is wrong. Why don’t people see that?”
“It’s just a game,” says Buffy.
“Right, it’s just a game, do your own thing.” Ted keeps slapping his putter against his leg. “Well, I’m not wired that way. And I am here to tell you it is not a game! It does count, and I don’t stand for that kind of malarkey in my house!”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not in your house.”
“Do you want me to slap that smart-ass mouth of yours?” asks Ted.
Buffy is shocked into silence by Ted’s threat. Joyce and the others come around the castle, and suddenly Ted is all sweetness and smiles again. He pulls out a bag of chocolate chip cookies and starts handing them out. He’s got lots more. Xander and Willow are going to have to take some home with them.
“Mmm! Buffy, you’ve got to try one of these!” says Joyce around a mouthful of cookie. “They’re really good!”
Buffy can only look at them in disbelief.
Buffy gets ready to leave for school on Monday morning. Joyce is preparing breakfast in the kitchen: juice and sticky buns. Buffy picks up one of the buns, and is about to bite into it when Joyce tells her Ted baked them. Buffy puts the bun back on the plate. She doesn’t want to eat anything Ted baked.
Joyce doesn’t understand Buffy’s attitude. “He went out of his way to be nice to you, and you couldn’t say two words to him on Saturday. I do not expect you to love him right away like I do, but I do expect you to treat him decently.”
“You love him?” asks Buffy.
“I don’t know,” says Joyce. “That just slipped out. But I guess, I mean, it’s not exactly like men beat down the door when you’re a single—”
“When you’re a single parent,” says Buffy.
“Honey, look,” says Joyce. “I wouldn’t have anything to do with anybody if they didn’t care about you. But he does! I don’t understand why you can’t see that!”
Buffy tries telling her mother about how Ted threatened to slap her, but Joyce doesn’t believe her. Ted has already told her he caught Buffy cheating. She thinks it was pretty good of him not to say anything in front of the others. Buffy doesn’t want to talk about Ted anymore, it is time for her to leave for school.
Joyce tells Buffy to be home by six. Ted’s cooking dinner for them.
Buffy leaves, and Joyce munches on one of Ted’s sticky buns. “Mmm, this is so delicious!”
Buffy meets with Willow and Xander at school and tells them about the mini-golf incident. She asks Willow to start checking Ted out. She wants to know his secrets.
Xander thinks maybe Buffy is overreacting a bit. He and Willow are munching on some more of Ted’s cookies.
Cordelia walks by and Xander compliments her on her outfit. Cordy acts like he has just insulted her or something and gets all defensive, and leaves in a huff. Xander chases after her.
“What’s up with them?” asks Willow.
Xander catches up with Cordelia, and asks why she is so upset over him paying her a compliment. Cordy is afraid that his friends are going to figure it out. She can’t even bring herself to say that she and Xander kissed.
“Look, I’m not going to tell, they’re not going to know,” says Xander. “Not your friends, not my friends. You want to go to the utility closet and make out?”
“God! Is that all you ever think about?” Cordelia considers the proposition for a couple of seconds. “Okay.”
Buffy tells Willow that Ted acts like she is in the way or something, and her mother has been acting totally different since Ted has been around.
“Different like, happy?” asks Willow.
“Like Stepford.” says Buffy. She wants Willow dig up all the info she can on Ted, and to start by finding out where he works.
Buffy pays a visit to Ted’s office at lunch time. Ted is just finishing up talking a woman into buying an expensive piece of software. Buffy ducks behind the coffee counter as he leaves for lunch, and marks his latest sale on the tote board. Ted has sold three times as much as anyone else working there.
After Ted has gone, Buffy meets one of his coworkers when he comes to get coffee. He introduces himself to her as Neal. Buffy tells him she’s temping there for the day. She looks at the tote board. “Wow, that’s guy’s a salesman. I guess he’s the one to beat around here.”
“Nobody beats ‘the machine.’” says Neal. “The guy’s a genius. Knows everything about computers, never loses a client… If I sound bitter, I am.” He takes a sip of coffee.
“Well, nobody likes an overachiever,” says Buffy. “Uh, he’s probably got ex-wives and, and families to support.”
“He’s just got a girlfriend. I’m amazed he let her clutter his desk.” Neal points to the single framed picture sitting on Ted’s desk. There are no other personal items on it. “Thank God he’s taking off for the wedding.”
“The wedding?” asks Buffy.
“Yeah, he’s got it set for two months from now,” says Neal. “Believe me, I am counting the days.”
Neal spots his boss entering the office and goes back to work. Buffy goes over to Ted’s desk and a closer look at the picture of her mother on it. The picture looks familiar. She takes it from the frame. It’s the picture of her with her mother that had been stuck to their fridge at home.1 Ted has folded it in half so that only Joyce shows.
That evening at dinner Buffy sits sullenly while Ted says grace, then he and Joyce dig in. Ted starts talking about his day at work, and then he asks Buffy if she learned anything at school today.
“Quite a bit,” says Buffy.
Joyce asks Buffy what she thinks of the food. Buffy says it looks good, but she still isn’t eating any of it.
“Well, you know, little lady, it’s not just for looks, it’s for building strong bodies,” says Ted.
Buffy just looks at Ted. Joyce asks what’s bothering her.
“Are you two engaged?” asks Buffy.
“Goodness, no! Whatever gave you that idea?” asks Joyce.
“Now, Joycie, let me handle this,” says Ted. “Buffy, your mother and I are taking it one step at a time. And if things go the way I hope maybe someday soon I just might ask her to tie the knot. How would you feel about that?” Buffy doesn’t answer right away. “It’s okay to have feelings, Buffy, and it’s okay to express them.”
“I feel like killing myself,” says Buffy.
“Buffy!” says Joyce.
“No, no, I, I told her to be honest.” Ted tells Joyce. He looks back at Buffy. “Sweetheart, you should try and get used to me, ’cause you know what? I’m not going anywhere.”
Buffy asks to be excused from the table. Joyce tells her to go to her room.
Joyce apologises to Ted for Buffy’s behaviour. She doesn’t understand what has gotten into her.
“Joycie, you don’t get to be salesman of the year by giving up after a couple of rejections,” says Ted. “She’ll come around.”
Buffy goes to the park and sits on the swings, fiddling with a stake in her hands. “Vampires. Here vampires,” she calls softly. She really wants a vampire to show up so that she can take out some of her frustrations on it, but they all seem to be staying in tonight.
Buffy returns home and climbs in her bedroom window. She finds Ted sitting in her chair by her desk. She is not pleased to see him, and is even less pleased when she notices that he’s pulled all the Slayer supplies she keeps in her desk drawer out, and is holding one of her diaries. “That’s my personal property! How dare you?”
“I don’t see how it’s any different from you snooping around my office, do you?” Ted holds up her diary and looks at the open page. “What exactly is a ‘Vampire Slayer?’”
“It’s none of your business,” says Buffy.
“Beg to differ, little lady. Everything you do is nothing but my business from now on.”
“I think you better get out of here. Now!” says Buffy.
“Or what?” Ted gets out of the chair. “You’ll slay me? I’m real. I’m not some goblin you made up in your little diary. Psychiatrists have a word for something like this. ‘Delusional.’ So, from now on, you’ll do what I say, when I say, or I show this…” He holds up her diary. “…to your mother, and you’ll spend you best dating years behind the wall of a mental institution. Your mother and I are going to be happy. You’re not going to stand in the way. Sleep tight!”
Ted starts toward the door, but Buffy grabs his arm. “That’s mine, and you are not leaving this room with it!”
“Take your hand off me,” says Ted.
“No.”
Ted slaps Buffy hard. It would have knocked her off her feet if she didn’t hit the wall first.
Buffy straightens herself up. “Ooo! I was so hoping you’d do that.” She punches him.
Ted staggers back, but recovers quickly. He punches Buffy, and knocks her to the floor.
Ted tries to grab Buffy around the neck as she gets back to her feet, but she knocks his hands away, and kicks him toward the door.
Joyce has just arrived to see what the commotion is. “Buffy! Stop that!” Buffy gives Ted another kick, knocking him right out of her room. “Stop it!” shouts Joyce.
Buffy ignores her mother, and follows Ted out into the hallway. She gives him another kick in the head, which knocks him toward the top of the stairs. She gives him one more kick, and Ted falls down the stairs. When he reaches the bottom, he doesn’t move.
Joyce rushes down the stairs to check on Ted. She shakes him, trying to get him to respond and then checks his breathing and pulse. She finds none. She looks up the stairs at Buffy. “You killed him!”
The police zip Ted’s body into a body bag, and haul him away. The Summers’ front yard is full of cops. Detective Stein asks Joyce what happened.
“He fell,” says Joyce. “Down the stairs. He fell.”
“I see,” says Stein. “Did he slip? Do you know what made him fall?”
“I hit him,” says Buffy. Detective Stein turns to where she is sitting on the front steps. “I hit him.”
Joyce waits by Detective Stein’s desk in the police station while Stein talks with Buffy in an interrogation room about what happened. Buffy tells him about finding Ted in her room with her diary, and how he hit her. Stein asks where, and Buffy points to her cheek. He takes a closer look at it. “It doesn’t look like he hit you very hard.”
“I don’t bruise easily,” says Buffy.
“So you’ve been hit before?” asks Stein.
“Yes.”
“But Ted never hit you.”
“I told you—” says Buffy.
“Before tonight,” says Stein. “Ted never hit you before tonight?”
“What do you want?” asks Buffy. “I told you what happened! I didn’t mean to!”
“I believe you,” says Stein. “Things got out of hand. He’s a big guy.”
Detective Stein returns to his desk to talk with Joyce. They aren’t going to be charging Buffy with anything right now, but they are going to have to look into it further. For now Joyce can take Buffy home again.
Joyce drives Buffy back home. Neither of them says anything. Joyce won’t even look at her daughter.
Buffy goes to school the next day. Conversations tend to stop as she passes by and it seems like everyone is staring at her, and whispering behind her back. Xander and Willow catch up with Buffy in the student lounge. They go sit on one of the sofas. They’re surprised that Buffy came to school, but Buffy tells them that things are even worse at home. Her mother won’t even look at her.
“What happened?” asks Willow. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it.”
“We had a fight and I lost my temper,” says Buffy. “I really let him have it.”
“The paper said he fell,” says Willow.
“He fell,” says Buffy. “Hard.”
“What was he?” asks Xander.
“What?” asks Buffy.
“What was he? A demon? A giant bug? Some kind of dark god with the secrets of nouvelle cuisine? I mean, we are talking creature-feature here, right?” Buffy just looks away. “Oh, man!”
“But I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,” says Willow. “He started it.”
“Yeah. That defense only works in six-year-old court, Will,” says Buffy.
“Court?” asks Xander. “Are they charging you with something?”
Buffy shakes her head. “I don’t know. Not yet. He was a person, and I killed him.”
“Don’t say that!” says Willow.
“Why not?” asks Buffy. “Everyone else is. And it’s the truth.”
“It was an accident,” says Xander.
“I’m the Slayer. I had no right to hit him like that.”
“Look, Buffy, I don’t know what happened exactly,” says Xander, “But I do know you. And I know you would never hurt anyone intentionally. Well, you know, unless…”
“Unless they were dating my mother?” Buffy gets up off the sofa. “I got to go.”
Buffy sees Giles coming out of a classroom. He spots her and asks if she’s all right, then he realizes that’s a stupid question. “Look, if there’s anything you need, of course, just ask.”
Buffy asks what is going on in the classroom. She can see Detective Stein through the window in the door talking with a couple of her teachers.
Giles tells Buffy that they are talking to everyone about her behaviour.
Giles packs weapons into a bag while Willow sits at the library table, with her Powerbook, trying to dig up some information on Ted.
Xander is getting frustrated. “Man, this is killing me! That bastard was up to something, I know it.”
Cordelia is confused. She thought Xander liked Ted.
“I sometimes like things that are not good for me,” says Xander. “Besides, no way, no how does Buffy put the big hurt on an innocent man. Nice Uncle Ted was dirty.”
Willow asks Xander for a pen. He looks in his bag and finds a bag of Ted’s cookies instead.
“I don’t get it,” says Cordy. “Buffy’s the Slayer. Shouldn’t she have—”
“What, a license to kill?” Xander takes a bite from his cookie.
“Well, not for fun,” says Cordy, “But she’s like this superman. Shouldn’t there be different rules for her?”
“Sure, in a fascist society,” says Willow.
“Right!” says Cordy. “Why can’t we have one of those?”
“Buffy’s not going to jail,” says Willow, “It’s not fair.”
“Whatever the authorities have planned for her, it can’t be much worse than what she’s doing to herself,” says Giles. “She’s taken a human life. The guilt, it’s pretty hard to bear, and it won’t go away soon.”
“I guess you should know,” says Cordy, “since you helped raise that demon that killed that guy that time?”
“Yes,” says Giles. “Do let’s bring that up as often as possible.”
Giles finishes packing weapons into the bag. He is going out on patrol while Buffy is out of circulation. Willow doesn’t think it is a good idea for him to be doing that alone, but Giles thinks that someone has to do it. Cordy volunteers to help, but Giles tells her that it is more important that they keep investigating Ted. He leaves.
Willow’s research is turning up zip. She is getting very frustrated. “Ted’s got no criminal record! Damn! This guy’s like citizen of the year!”
“Don’t sweat it. It’ll be fine,” says Xander.
“Don’t sweat it?” asks Willow.
“Yeah, cute buddy! We’ll work it out!” Xander ruffles her hair. “No worries!”
“What happened to ‘this is killing me?’” asks Cordy.
Xander waves his cookie at Cordelia. “Worrying isn’t going to solve any problems.”
Willow grabs the cookie out of Xander’s hand, and looks at it.
Joyce is cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, packing excess dishes and bowls into a box. Buffy asks if she needs any help, but Joyce tells her she’s finished. She asks if Buffy doesn’t have any homework or something she should be doing.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” says Buffy.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” says Joyce.
“Mom, please, you have to know—”
“I can’t, not yet,” says Joyce. “Please, Buffy, just go to your room.”
Buffy leaves, and goes to her room. Joyce carries the box of dishes down to the basement.
Willow finishes analysing the cookies in the school’s science lab. She has determined that the secret ingredient is not love. The cookies contain a tranquilizer that keeps you all mellow and compliant, similar to one of the ingredients in ecstasy.
“This is evidence!” says Xander. “This is real evidence that Ted was some kind of a crook! Buffy’s cleared! Willow, you are the best human ever! I adore you!” Willow smiles at him. “Well, that’s the cookies talking, but you rock!”
Cordelia enters the lab with more good news. Willow’s computer search finally turned up some information, including marriage records and an address.
Giles searches through the bushes in the park. Someone comes up behind him, and he whirls around, brandishing a cross.
It’s Jenny. “Yeah, I get that reaction from men all the time,” she says.
Giles asks Jenny what she’s doing there.
Jenny spotted his car, and she wants to apologise. Giles doesn’t think this is a good time for it, he keeps looking around nervously.
Jenny ignores him. “No, no, please, let me just get this out. I was so…harsh the other day. I am so sorry. I mean, I know how badly you must feel about putting me in danger before, and—”
“Imagine how I must feel now,” says Giles. Jenny turns and sees the vampire which has come up behind her.
Buffy sits in her desk chair. She’s had enough of this and decides to leave. She goes to her window and tries to open it. The window won’t budge, it has been nailed shut. “Well, it’s official, this day can’t get any worse,” she tells herself. She whirls around when she sees the reflection of someone behind her in the window.
“Beg to differ!” says Ted.
Buffy is surprised to see Ted alive. Things she kills usually stay dead.
“That’s right, little lady, you killed me,” says Ted. “Do we have something to say about that? Are we sorry?”
“What are you?” asks Buffy.
“I’m a salesman! That’s what you should’ve remembered. No matter how you put him down…” Ted grabs Buffy and tosses her across her room. “…a good salesman always bounces back!”
The vampire charges toward Giles and Jenny. She manages to jump out of the way and it tackles Giles.
Jenny searches through Giles’ bag for a weapon while he and the vampire struggle on the ground. She finds the crossbow.
Giles punches and kicks the vampire off him, and gets back to his feet. He and the vampire continue to fight. Jenny tries to take aim with the crossbow, but they’re moving around too much for her to have a clear shot at its heart.
Buffy kicks Ted and punches him a couple of times. Her blows don’t seem to affect him much this time.
Ted grabs Buffy by the throat with one hand and pushes her up against the wall by her desk. “You see I had to shut down for a while to get you off my back. You should’ve seen the intern’s face when I got up off the table, it was a hoot! Fun’s over, though.” Ted puts his other hand around Buffy’s throat and starts to choke her.
Giles and the vampire lock each other in a hold, with the vampire’s back to Jenny. “Say good night, big guy!” She pulls the trigger.
The vampire spins Giles around at the last instant and the arrow goes into Giles’ lower back.
“Oh god! Oh no!” Jenny starts looking through Giles’ bag for another weapon.
The vampire is too amused by what just happened to resume its attack right away. “Nice shot lady!”
Giles pulls the arrow out of his back, and plunges it into the vampire’s heart. It falls to the ground and explodes into dust.
Buffy fumbles with one hand on her desk and grabs a metal nail file. She jabs it into Ted’s arm, and slashes him with it.
Ted lets go of her, and clutches at his arm. Instead of blood it emits sparks and smoke, while Buffy catches her breath on the floor. “That wasn’t playing fair, Missy! You’re going to find—” Something shorts out, and Ted’s head jerks away from her. “Hell of a day! Makes you feel like you’re eighteen again!” His head jerks back. “—that I don’t like being disobeyed!”
Ted reaches for Buffy again, but he hears Joyce come up from the basement, so he settles for kicking Buffy in the head and knocking her out. “Don’t worry about me and your mother. We’re going to be very happy.” He pulls his rolled up shirt sleeve down to cover the gash in his arm, and leaves her room.
Xander, Willow and Cordelia arrive at the address Willow’s search turned up. They break in, and find that it contains a workshop, and nothing else. It doesn’t look like anyone lives there.
Willow has been going through the records. She has found four marriage certificates, but no divorce records. Ted’s first marriage was forty years ago in 1957.
Cordelia notices that the shop doesn’t look like anyone has even worked in it recently, let alone lived there. She also notices that there is a rug on the floor which doesn’t match the rest of the decor at all.
Xander and Willow exchange a glance. Xander lifts the rug and finds that it was covering a trap door.
Joyce is packing more stuff into a box to take to the basement when she hears a noise behind her. “Buffy, I’m sorry.” She starts to turn around. “I know you didn’t mean to—” She gasps when she sees Ted standing in the kitchen door. “Ted! Is it real— But you were—”
Ted steps into the kitchen. “I’m okay! I’m okay.”
“I don’t understand this! You were dead!”
“They said I must’ve been dead for six minutes. They said any longer and it would’ve caused brain damage. They took me to the morgue. I was unconscious for almost a day. An intern found me. It’s a miracle, Joyce. A miracle.”
“Oh, Ted!” Joyce grabs him in a hug. After a few seconds she pulls away. “Oh, my god, Buffy! Oh, Ted, I swear…she never meant to hurt you. You have to believe me.”
Ted steps up to Joyce and hugs her. “You don’t have to worry about Buffy. You don’t have to worry about anything. Daddy’s here.”
Xander, Willow and Cordelia descend a ladder into a basement apartment. When Xander turns on the lights a record player starts playing some mellow jazz. They start to look around.
“Feels like home,” says Cordelia. “If it’s the fifties and you’re a psycho.”
Willow opens the curtains covering what looks like a window. On the other side of the glass is a brick wall.
“Whatcha got in the closet, Ted?” asks Xander as he opens a closet door and shines his flashlight inside. What he finds startles him. He quickly closes the door and starts herding Willow and Cordelia back toward the ladder.
“But we need evidence!” protests Cordelia.
“We got it,” says Xander.
“What’s in there?” asks Willow.
“His first four wives.”
“You know what brought me back, Joyce?” asks Ted. “It was you. I couldn’t go into that light. I had to come back for you. I’m going to make you so happy!”
Joyce suggests that maybe he should sit down, but Ted tells her that he feels just fine.
“Ted, I think I should talk to Buffy first,” says Joyce. “Before she sees you, ’cause I’m sure she’s—”
Ted instantly becomes angry. “Do we have to worry about Buffy right now? How about worrying about Teddy? He’s the one who died!”
Joyce is startled. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to do!”
Ted calms downs as quickly as he got angry. “Don’t I always tell you what to do? I’m going to make things right. Then you and I—” Ted jerks his head to the side, and there is the sound of electric sparks. “Want a little gravy with that?” He jerks his head back. “—can go away where no one will bother us again.” He smiles at Joyce.
Joyce is getting worried. “Ted, I think you might want to rest for a while.”
Ted gets angry again. “I think you might want to stop telling me what to do! I don’t take orders from women! I’m not wired that way!”
Giles sits on the ground in the park holding a handkerchief over his wound. Jenny is so sorry she shot him. Giles doesn’t think it’s that bad, but Jenny suspects that’s just because he’s in shock.
Giles tells her it didn’t go in very deep. “Advantages of layers of tweed. Better than kevlar.”
Jenny thinks they should get Giles to the hospital, and he agrees. She helps him to his feet, and supports him as they slowly start to move toward her car. Jenny starts laughing. Giles wonders what’s so funny.
“Some night, huh?” asks Jenny. “You really know how to woo a girl back, don’t you?”
That makes Giles laugh too, which makes him wince in pain.
“Hospital,” says Jenny.
Buffy starts to wake up in her room.
Joyce tries to tell Ted that she would like a drink, to celebrate. Ted wants to hit the road. Joyce doesn’t like the sound of that.
“You’re going to love the house. It’s furnished just the way you like it. I spent a lot of—” Ted shorts out and his head jerks again. “—telling me what to do!” His head jerks back. “—time decorating.”
Joyce tries to get away from Ted by telling him she needs to pack. Ted grabs her arm. “I already have your clothes. They’re your size, they’re always your size. You left me once, but I keep bringing you back. Husband and wife is forever.” He shorts again, and rewinds. “…forever.”
Buffy kicks open her door which Ted had locked.
Joyce and Ted both hear the noise of Buffy’s door opening. “It’s time to go” says Ted.
Joyce tries pulling away from Ted, and tells him to let go. He pushes her roughly against the wall, and she hits her head. She slumps to the floor unconscious. Ted leans over to pick her up but he hears the stairs creak.
Ted goes looking for Buffy. “Buffy come out! I don’t stand for this kind of malarky in my house!” He finds her in the kitchen.
“Uncle Teddy…” Buffy bashes Ted on the head with a cast iron frying pan. “…this house is mine!”
Ted goes down, but he doesn’t stay down. He gets back to his feet. His face is gashed open, revealing the metal structure beneath. “Buffy, how about a nice game of Parcheesi?”
Buffy bashes Ted with the frying pan again. He goes down, and flails around on the floor while sparks and smoke rise from his body. Then he goes still.
Buffy and her mother sit on their front porch eating veggies and discussing renting a movie. “Just nothing with horror in it,” says Joyce. “Or romance. Or men.”
“I guess we’re Thelma and Louise-ing it again,” says Buffy. Joyce thinks that sounds like a good call.
Joyce can’t get over what the police found in Ted’s basement. She still thinks Ted is going to jump out at her.
“I wouldn’t worry,” says Buffy. “He’s not coming back.”
“I wish I could be so sure,” says Joyce.
“Trust me. He’s on the scrap heap.” Buffy notices the look her mother is giving her. “Of life.”
Buffy and her friends walk through the school corridors talking about what happened. The original Ted was a sickly loser. After his wife left him while he was dying he built a robot Ted to replace himself. The robot brought her back and held her prisoner until she died too. The robot then went out over and over bringing back new wives.
“The sad part is the real Ted must’ve been a genius,” says Willow. “There were design features in that robot that pre-date—”2
“Willow!” says Buffy. “Tell me you didn’t keep any parts.”
“Not any big ones,” says Willow.
“Oh, Will, you’re supposed to use your powers for good!” says Buffy.
“I just want to learn stuff.”
“Like how to build your own serial killer?” asks Cordelia.
“It’s so hard to rent one nowadays,” says Xander.
Buffy doesn’t want to think about it. She plans to forget the whole thing and pick up where she left off. They reach the library and she starts to open the door, while Willow glances in the window. Buffy does an immediate about face, and heads the other direction. Willow turns away from the window with a stunned expression on her face.
“Okay! That’s it! I give up!” says Buffy. “Do I have to sound an air horn every time I walk into a room?” Xander and Cordelia look through the window, and then smile at each other before following after Buffy and Willow. “I mean, what is it with grownups these days?” asks Buffy.
Inside the library Giles and Jenny are in each other’s arms, kissing.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| A vampire | The park | Beaten to a bloody pulp, and staked by Buffy |
| A vampire | The park | Staked with an arrow by Giles |
| Ted | The Summers kitchen | Head bashed in by Buffy with a cast iron frying pan |