Apart (of Me), Part One

"Apart (of Me), Part One" was the eighth issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine comic book series.

Synopsis
The issue begins in Andrew's room. He's sleeping when suddenly he see two figures coming in from his window. He thinks they are aliens coming for him and he seems happy about it. But it's just a very pissed Buffy and Spike and Andrew seems disappointed about it. Buffy gets right to the point, asking him what did he do with her body, while Andrew tries to act surprised like he doesn't know anything about it which drives Buffy mad and she's ready to hit him.

The scene changes and we see detective Dowling in the morgue. He sees the dead body of his partner and he confirms it's her. To make a long story short, the forensic coroner tells him that her injuries are consistent with the recent zompires' attacks, and that he has to perform an autopsy to determine whether her death was because of neck trauma.

Back to Buffy. They're talking about the pregnancy, and Andrew says that it probably was a problem in the Ph balance of the trueblood inside the robotic body. And he asks Buffy to "forgive" him for not programming the robot about her period, which made Buffy take the pregnancy test. And the reason that Buffy was feeling sick and she was vomiting, was because he didn't program the robotic body on how to process food eating. But Andrew is glad to help Buffy, so he offers her a new arm, the only problem is that it's a left one, if she doesn't mind having two lefts. Buffy again very angry, wants to know why she's a robot though. So Andrew tells her that Spike asked him to help, which makes Buffy really angry at Spike and she turns at him ready to hit him. Spike in defense says that he had no idea and no intention of going down that road again with a Buffybot as a sex slave. So Andrew explains better saying that he was asked to find information about the threat and who was after Buffy, but he's not good at that.

So we get the flashbacks from the party. Andrew and Buffy are talking. He gives her a drink, he has spiked her drink. We also see Buffy drinking it and Andrew looking satisfied. He roofied her, that's how she ended up in her bedroom with Spike. More flashbacks about it. Spike helps Buffy getting into her bedroom, after the pool/partying thing. Buffy is very "drunk" but still talking and openly flirts with Spike. So "drunk" that she takes off her blouse in front of him, half naked, and she passes out on her bed. Spike looks at her, and like a gentleman, he covers her with a bed-sheet. All that time Andrew was watching Buffy and Spike from across the hall. When Spike left, he went to Buffy's room with the robot. They had with them a plunger kind of device. The robot was able to talk and move. It takes off its clothes and gets naked like Buffy. And Andrew uses the device to transfer Buffy's mind into the robot, and whatever the robot had in Buffy's body.

Back in the present. Buffy believes that she's not real, but Andrew explains that only her body isn't real, but she's Buffy in a robotic body. And her says even more, that all that technology was Warren's that he found in his lab and he stole the tech. But Buffy should feel lucky that the only problem she had was that she thought she was pregnant, since that mind swap thing could have left her permanently drunk, for example. And that last comment makes Spike furious ready to attack Andrew for what he's put Buffy through. Andrew tries to explain that he was only trying to help, which makes Buffy now angry telling him that if that was his intention then he should have talked to her about it and not act on his own. Again with Andrew's stupid justification, he says that in witness protection people can't know anything, that's why he didn't say anything. He had done a lot of bad things in with the trio, but now he's changed and he uses all that knowledge to help, that's why he's now a part of the scooby gang. Buffy angrily replies, "No, Andrew, this is how you screw it up!" Spike steps in, saying that the threat was gone, Siphon was stopped, so enough of this, why is Buffy still a robot and not knowing anything? Buffy again asks the question where the hell is her body.

We go to the suburbias. A very well dressed Buffy is getting out of a car, driver's place. She goes inside, changes her clothes, goes out for some gardening, uses the washing machine, starts cooking. Living the perfect life of the perfect housewife.

Back in the spaceship now. Buffy is looking out of the window and she's crying. Spike comes and Buffy asks him to say something stupid, needy or creepy to make her forget. Forget about the fact that for the first time in her life she was facing a real life decision and she was being responsible about it making the hard decisions. But she was wrong, again it was a slayer's thing, nothing more. All her problems were fake, but the only thing that was real for her it was Spike himself, showing up when she needed him. She touches Spike's left shoulder and thanks him. Spike takes her hand inside his and they just look into each other's eyes smiling at each other. And Spike leaves her alone, looking happy about it.

We go to Andrew and the bugs. Andrew wants the bugs to turn on the cloaking device so that nobody can follow them to Buffy's body, but the bugs have no idea what he's talking about. Spike comes, he puts on his game face and attacks Andrew. "If I wasn't possessed of such a rational nature, I could succumb to a fit of rage. Pitch you off this ant trap for the baby scare if nothing else. Any idea what that was like for her? If you don't fix this, you and I will have problems...with one decisive solution!"

We go to Xander and Dawn. Xander does what he does best in S9, he takes a shower. He asks Dawn to get him his eye patch that he left on the nightstand but Dawn doesn't reply. Xander gets angry, hits the wall tile and breaks it. "Coming. Wow, relax" says Dawn when she comes and sees it, and Xander replies "Sorry, I just didn't know where you..." only to get interrupted by the door bell. It's detective Dowling. Dawn tells him that they still haven't heard anything from Buffy but the detective tells her that he knows the truth, he's just seen Buffy, and that she's a robot now and he just wants to talk about it. There was a zompire attack, dead officers everywhere, and his partner was killed. they drained her. He is shocked and surprised that a girl in Dawn's age can deal with that so easily. Back to the morgue, where we see his partner's dead body, rising from the dead and becoming a zompire, attacking and killing the coroner.

Back in the spaceship. Spike, Buffy, Andrew and the bugs are heading to Mill Valley, a town near San Francisco. Andrew just talks and talks, not even the bugs understand what he says. There are cameras inside the safe house where Buffy's body is, and Andrew uses them to see how's Buffy's body doing. Buffy and Spike look at it. A very nice house, and Buffy's body is cooking in a very awesome kitchen. Not only the kitchen, the living room as well, as Andrew shows them. "This what you had in mind if we were gonna run away, slayer?" Spike asks. "It wasn't..." Buffy says, unable to say more. But something goes wrong, the silent alarm starts, there is something going on in the safe house. Somebody wearing a mask wit ha gun attacks Buffy's body, telling her that she's going to liberate her from this Betty crocker bullshit. And hits her on the head with the gun knocking her unconscious. Last panel, a van is outside the suburban house. It leaves us with the impression that Buffy's body was kidnapped (again...) and placed inside the van. The person takes off the mask, and we see Simone.

Continuity
The story was set after "On Your Own", but before "Guarded".

Individuals

 * Buffy Summers
 * Spike
 * Andrew Wells
 * Simone Doffler
 * Detective Dowling
 * Xander Harris
 * Dawn Summers
 * Buffybot

Organizations and Titles

 * Slayer

Species

 * Vampire
 * Human
 * Zompire
 * Robot

Locations

 * San Francisco
 * Mill Valley

Collections

 * On Your Own