GI Jughead enters the fourth floor of Sunnydale General to check with the Doctor to see if Riley has arrived. Would they really be performing this procedure at a civilian hospital? Oh heck, like I even have beliefs to suspend after the entire Initiative plotline. Anyway, there's a knock at the door, and Graham opens it to have a dead guard shoved in his face. Enter Harmony and Spike. Spike tosses Harm the crossbow and says to Doc, "You've got a new patient." Ooh! This could get very interesting.

Spike and Harmony are moving the kidnapped Doctor to another location. The doctor is protesting that the operation is complex, and furthermore he's never performed it before. Spike bluffs an order to Harmony to shoot the butterflies in the doctor's stomach. I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Harmony doesn't strike me as intelligent enough to recognize Spike's ruse. The doctor tries to stall by protesting that the facilities are inadequate, but he's cut short by a crossbow bolt embedding itself in the wall behind him. "Oops," says Harmony ruefully, "The string was slippy."

Willow and Tara are searching for Riley among the blackened ruins of SHS. It's dark. Despite being a member of the Scooby Gang for years now, Willow has somehow neglected to bring a flashlight. But that's okay, because instead she's brought some sort of spell in a bottle which fills the hall with a warm, bright glow. Tara looks concerned because she only taught Willow "tiny, Tinkerbell light." Willow admits that she "tinkered" with the spell. Way to go with your hacker roots there, Will. I can just see her starting a 2600 group for Wiccans.

Buffy is searching for Riley in the caves, and finds him...punching the rock wall of the cave. *sigh* This is really why I find his character so tiresome. Buffy tells him in no uncertain terms that she's going to take him to the hospital. Riley tells her to butt out of his business. You see, he's worried that the procedure will leave him "Joe Normal. Just another guy," and he worries that Buffy won't want to date him anymore because he won't be able to measure up to Angel. "You're going to die over some macho pissing contest?" asks an incensed Buffy. Riley replies that the problem is about Buffy "getting stronger every day. More powerful...I can't touch you," he continues. "Every day you're just a little further out of my reach." Ugh. I cannot take this anymore. This could have been a million times more interesting if the writers had chosen to explore Riley's lost sense of purpose after he was discharged, or perhaps focused on how betrayed he must feel by the Initiative's experiments. But this whole angle of Riley pouting because Buffy got a bigger slice of the superpower pie is just too tiresome for words. So. Buffy cries and convinces Riley to go to the hospital. Dammit.