PRINCIPAL WOOD: Animal like you. Never cared for anyone but yourself. No one else mattered. Just all about the hunt. Yeah.

(cut to past)

MOTHER: You want to run, don't you? Scamper off and cry to your new little trollop. Do you think you'll be able to love her? Think you'll be able to touch her without feeling me? All you ever wanted was to be back inside. You finally got your wish, didn't you? Sank your teeth into me. An eternal kiss.

WILLIAM: (horrified) No! I only wanted to make you well.

MOTHER: You wanted your hands on me. Perhaps you'd like a chance to finish off what you started.

WILLIAM: I love you. I did. Not like this.

MOTHER: Just like this. This is what you always wanted. Who's my dark little prince? (tries to kiss him)

WILLIAM: (pushes her away, knocking her down) No!

MOTHER: Get out. Get out! (they struggle, she vamps) There, there, precious. It will only hurt for a moment.

WILLIAM: I'm sorry.

(cut to Spike vs Wood)

PRINCIPAL WOOD: What?

SPIKE: I'm sorry.

(Cut to past. William/Spike stakes his mother; back to present)

PRINCIPAL WOOD: Sorry? You think sorry's gonna make everything right?

SPIKE: I wasn't talking to you. (Spike starts fighting, and from now he has the upper hand) I don't give a piss about your mum. She was a slayer. I was a vampire. That's the way the game is played.

PRINCIPAL WOOD: Game?

SPIKE: She knew what she was signing up for.

PRINCIPAL WOOD: Well, I didn't sign up for it.

SPIKE: Well, that's the rub, innit? You didn't sign up for it, and so now it's my fault.

PRINCIPAL WOOD: You took my childhood. You took her away. She was all I had. She was my world.

SPIKE: And you weren't hers. Doesn't that piss you off?

PRINCIPAL WOOD: Shut up. You didn't know her.

SPIKE: I know slayers. No matter how many people they've got around them, they fight alone. Life of the chosen one. The rest of us be damned. Your mother was no different.

PRINCIPAL WOOD: No, she loved me.

SPIKE: But not enough to quit, though, was it? Not enough to walk away... for you. I'll tell you a story about a mother and son. See, like you, I loved my mother. So much so I turned her into a vampire... so we could be together forever. She said some nasty bits to me after I did that. Been weighing on me for quite some time. But you helped me figure something out. You see, unlike you, I had a mother who loved me back. When I sired her, I set loose a demon, and it tore into me, but it was the demon talking, not her. I realize that now. My mother loved me with all her heart. I was her world. (clicks the mouse, playing the recording again)

RECORDED SONG: Early one morning, just as the sun was rising, I heard a young maid sing in the valley below. "Oh?

SPIKE: (unfazed by the song) That's a nice little song you got there. Thanks, doc. You cured me after all. I got my own free will, now. I'm not under the First's or anyone else's influences now. I just wanted you to know that... (vamps out) before I kill you.

• historical flash backs
• Spike vs Principal Wood

written by: David Fury and Drew Goddard; originally transcribed by: CariCranberry. edited by me.. Full transcript at:
http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season7/transcripts/139_tran.php