Buffy and her axe clomp downstairs and encounter Spike, who's coming in the front door. He notes that she's back home. Where the hell has he been since he found the note from Buffy? Maybe he decided if the world was going to end and Buffy had run off to fight Caleb, he just had to fit in a viewing of X2. Though I'm left wondering why would he come back to Casa Summers, and why oh why the front door was left unlocked and unguarded? The living room is full of sleeping girls, and vampires who were last seen in the house attacking people can just walk right in? Buffy shows him her axe, blah blah blah. She tells him they've decided to call the fire axe a "scythe," which was fine for a quick pun, but its continued use means that both Giles and Willow have forgotten whatever command of the English language they once had. Scythes have inwardly curved blades and curved handles, people! Spike admires it and says, "Can see why a girl would ditch a fella for one of these." Wait, "fella"? At what point did the writers decide that Spike talked like a minor character from The Music Man? Buffy purses her lips and manages to squeeze out a tiny apology. Then she walks right past him and heads for the kitchen. He follows after her, telling her that he's happy she's home and last night "was just a glitch." I'm sorry, Spike -- I think the words you're looking for are "you used me," not "just a glitch." I guess I'm the least girly girl who ever girled, because I know I'm supposed to eat this stuff up, but in actuality, the prospect of sitting through yet another "what does this non-relationship mean to you?" conversation between these two has me reaching for a jumbo-sized bottle of Jack Daniel's and sweet, sweet oblivion. I'm almost tempted to not even waste the time it takes to drink it all and just brain myself with the bottle right away.

Spike steps in Buffy's path and passive-aggressives about not making something big out of the night before. Buffy's perfectly happy to go along with that, 'cause she's real busy and all, what with being alone and special and beyond the understanding of mere mortals. Somehow they end up bickering about Buffy heading out on another "solo mission" to a "tomb on unconsecrated ground" to discover more about her "scythe." Spike offers to check on Caleb at the vineyard while Buffy's out looking for her unconsecrated tomb. They exchange semi-snippety "greats." Oh, c'mon. Stop stalling! Get to the relationship dissection and get it over with, already. Spike starts to leave, and then Buffy hurries after him, grade-schooling, "You're a dope!" Spike is understandably confused by Buffy's reversion to schoolyard discourse. She tells him that she only has The Little Red Axe That Could because of "the strength that [he] gave [her] last night." She snips that she's "tired of defensiveness and weird mixed signals." Huh. Well, perhaps she should stop being defensive and putting out mixed signals, then! She wants them to tell the truth to each other or something. I don't know; I was practicing training Latch to sit perfectly still so I could do shots off the top of her head. We're getting there after some spills, but I'm a little worried about how much she's started to lick herself. Anyway, back to the navel-gazing blondies. Spike was "terrified" because the night before was "the best night of [his] life." You know, I'm picturing all the female writers of Buffy sitting around writing this crap and giggling like eighth-graders with a brand-new copy of Tigerbeat, and I just have to ask: Do they know any real men? Like, not eighteen-year-old melodramatic guys who say this kind of gooey stuff and leave torn-up flowers on your front porch when you distress them, but real men? Because, ugh.