BUFFY: Are you sure?

TARA: I-I've double checked everything. There's nothing wrong with you.

BUFFY: Then why can Spike hurt me?

TARA: Well, I said that there was nothing wrong with you, but ... you are different. Shifting you out of ... f-f-from where you were ... funneling your essence back into your body ... i-it, it altered you on a basic molecular level. Probably just enough to confuse the sensors or whatever in Spike's chip. But it's all just surfacey physical stuff. It wouldn't have any more effect than ... a bad sunburn.

BUFFY: I didn't come back wrong?

TARA: No, you're the same Buffy. With a deep tropical cellular tan.

BUFFY: You must have missed something. Will you check again?

TARA: (concerned) Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you.

BUFFY: There has to be! This just can't be me, it isn't me. (starting to cry) Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?

TARA: You mean hit you? (gets it) Oh. Oh, huh. Really.

BUFFY: He's everything I hate. He's everything that ... I'm supposed to be against. But the only time that I ever feel anything is when ... Don't tell anyone, please.

TARA: I won't.

BUFFY: (crying) The way they would look at me ... I just couldn't...

TARA: I won't tell anyone. I wouldn't do that.

BUFFY: (whispers) Why can't I stop? Why do I keep letting him in?

TARA: Do you love him? I-It's okay if you do. He's done a lot of good, and, and he does love you. A-and Buffy, it's okay if you don't. You're going through a really hard time, and you're...

BUFFY: What? Using him? What's okay about that?

TARA: It's not that simple.

BUFFY: It is! It's wrong. I'm wrong. Tell me that I'm wrong, please... Please don't forgive me, please... (sobbing) Please don't... Please don't forgive me...

• Buffy & Spike
• Buffy's Death & Revivification

written by: Steven S. DeKnight; transcribed by Joan the English Chick (pisces@englishchick.com). . Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/113deadthings.html