Back in Dawn's bedroom, Buffy blinks as she snaps out of the trance state. Dawn is replying to Buffy's claim that she's not her sister, but Buffy darts across the room and grabs her by the arms. "What are you!? You wanna hurt me?" demands Buffy, to which Dawn replies, "Let go of me, you freak!" Man, if she's evil, she really does have this fourteen-year-old thing down pat. Dawn threatens, "I'm telling Mom!" and Buffy commands, "You stay away from my mother!" slamming her up against the door. She stares at Dawn, who stares back, and the moment goes on until the telephone rings. Buffy picks up the phone downstairs and speaks to Giles, who is trying to shout above the crowd of customers in the magic shop. He tells her that the orb is a Dagon sphere, which functions as a protective device against "ancient primordial evil." Buffy asks what the evil looks like, but Giles has no info on that count. He does explain that the Dagon sphere is protection against "that which cannot be named." Or should I have capitalized that, like "That Which Cannot Be Named," since it's in lieu of a name? Buffy proposes going back to where she found the Dagon sphere; Giles, as usual, tells her to be careful. He inquires after the trance, and Buffy starts to whisper, "I just saw..." but realizes Dawn is standing right behind her, arms sullenly crossed. Buffy finishes, "...nothing. It didn't work." She gets off the phone and faces Dawn, who truculently inquires what she was discussing. Buffy says it was just "Slayer stuff" and then prepares to leave. "Do you really think I care you're the Slayer?" asks Dawn, with chilling frostiness. Cree. Pee. Buffy says she'll be back in an hour, and Dawn tells her, "Mom's coming back," with a threatening tone. Buffy threatens back, "I'll be back first."

She exits the house, throwing on a jean jacket, but pauses on her front walk with an "eww, what's that smell?" look on her face. She marches over to a large tree and pulls a ciggie-smoking Spike out from behind it. He tosses his butt on the ground and, in a shy and altogether too-cute way, says, "Hi, Buffy." Buffy punches him the nose -- which I get the impression is turning into a running joke for the writers, and it's just too bad that it's not funny in the slightest -- and then demands that he tell her, in "five words or less," what he's doing there. Spike seems somewhat recovered as he counts off on his fingers, "Out. For. A. Walk. [pause] Bitch." Haw! Buffy expresses disbelief, calling him "William" in a particularly sour fashion. Spike tries to support his "out for a walk" claim, and Buffy, still not buying it, tries to hurry off. He derides her sparing his life, tells her he's just passing through, and snaps, "Satisfied?" Not able to tear himself away, he continues, "I really hope so, 'cause god knows you need some satisfaction in life besides shagging Captain Cardboard, and -- and, I never really liked you anyway, and -- and you have stupid hair." With that masterful put-down, he sticks her pigtails in an inkwell, drops a frog on her desk, and then pushes her down at recess and runs away snickering. Buffy looks completely stumped and then notices a whole pile of cigarette butts at the base of the tree. Just passing through, huh, Spike? Buffy marches off, and we see that Dawn is watching her from an upstairs window.