Running, running, there are some monks running in a hallway in a monastery or something. The subtitles at the bottom of the screen inform us this is taking place two months ago.  They talk to each other, saying that "It" is coming to kill them, but their lives don't matter.  They have to protect the key.  They kneel in a circle and start to perform a ritual.  Something bangs forcefully at the barricaded door.  They chant, chanty chant chant.  Suddenly a big blob of light and energy glows and zips up from the floor.  Present day, Buffy fights a vamp in a parking lot next to a warehouse.  She stakes him, and gets accosted by a night watchman.  He tells her there was a rave there the night before; he thinks she's late for it.  Buffy plays along; it's easier than telling the truth.  She starts to leave but he calls her back.  He picks a glowing sphere up off the ground, and hands it to her, thinking it's hers.  Buffy takes it and leaves.  The next morning, Buffy makes breakfast for Joyce; she's still not feeling great.  She says the headaches the doctors said would go away have come back. Buffy feels a little jealous because Dawn took the credit for making the breakfast, and Dawn's the one getting all the hugs from Joyce, and they have book club that night, etc.  She takes Dawn with her as she leaves to go help Giles with his grand opening of the Magic Box. At the shop, Buffy enters to find everything looking glitzy and pretty and ready for sale.  Giles stands in the middle of the room in a dorky magician's costume, which he promptly takes off when he sees her.  Turns out he's had no customers yet.  Giles notices Buffy seems a little distracted, and she says she's just worried because her mom's sick again, and nobody knows why.  Riley and Willow come in, and Buffy pulls out the sphere from the night before and shows it to everyone.  Giles thinks it's paranormal in origin.  Riley says they should patrol in the same area tonight, and see if they can find any clues.  Buffy forces a "sure", but Dawn intervenes, saying that she overheard Buffy say that Riley couldn't patrol with her because he was all "weak and kitteny".  Riley goes to the back room to work out a little frustration in training, and Giles goes with him.  Buffy rants to Willow about how much she wishes she were an only child, sometimes, and then leaves with Dawn. Back home, Buffy and Dawn find Joyce lying on the couch in pain.  Buffy wants to take her to the hospital, but Joyce says she just needs her prescription.  Buffy goes to pick it up, and runs into Ben, the intern we met in "Out of My Mind".  He's escorting a crazy guy on a gurney, and Buffy helps restrain him when he goes nutso.  Buffy recognizes him as the night watchman the night before.  The guy starts spouting stuff about "them" getting to her through her family, and Buffy tries to ask him what he means, but they cart him off.  Ben apologizes, and notes the medicine Buffy's got.  He remembers when she was in with her mom and asks about her.  Buffy says they still don't know what's wrong with her. At the warehouse from the night before, one of the monks from the beginning looks at some blueprints. Suddenly there's a banging on a big metal door, and the subtitles read "The Beast!" when he speaks.  He fingers his rosary, and the door busts down to reveal a pretty blonde woman in a red dress.  Back at the Magic Box, Giles is all excited at having served his first customers, and more people come in after Buffy.  She tells them she thinks she's on the track of what might be wrong with her mom; it's something supernatural.  She tells them how she saw the night watchman at the hospital, having gone crazy overnight, and he told her that they would come at her through her family.  She says that whatever touched this guy made him see through the things everyone else couldn't see.  She thinks that someone's trying to hurt her, and they're using her mom to do it.  At the warehouse, the woman in red rants to the monk, who is now tied and gagged, and sitting in a chair.  The woman wants to know where the "key" is, that the monks were protecting in the beginning.  The monk begs her to kill him, saying he'll tell her nothing.  The woman seems a bit unstable after this.  She almost starts crying.  Behind her, we see a security guard sitting on the floor that we hadn't seen before.  He  asks her to let him go, etc, but she goes nutso and sticks her fingers in his head.  He glows a bit, and falls to the floor, and she stands up feeling much better. Back at the Magic Box, business is suddenly booming.  Giles is running around trying to help everyone, as Anya operates the register.  Willow tries to wrap an item for a customer, but fails miserably; Anya takes over.  Xander comes in, and Buffy fills him on the idea that someone's making her mom sick to get to her.  Anya overhears and tells Buffy about a French sorcerer from the 16th century who came up with a "seeing spells" spell.  She thinks it might be used to figure out who's done some mojo on her family.  It's a trance, and Giles worries that Buffy's not ready for that level of clarity, even though she's been practicing.  Buffy says it's to help her mom; she'll do it. In Buffy's room, Buffy has called Riley over to help her with this trance thing.  Riley quickly figures out that she doesn't really need his help; she just didn't want him to feel left out.  He tells her he's okay.  He's not superman anymore, but that he can handle himself.   Buffy says she just doesn't want him getting hurt, and he says why don't they take care of each other?  She agrees, and he leaves.  Buffy pours some sand, and sits in a circle. She prepares to go into the trance, but Dawn interrupts by wanting to come in and watch.  Buffy says no, and locks the door.  She goes into the trance. Inside it, she opens her door and walks out into the hallway, and the colours are fading in and out.  Everything seems kind of surreal.  She goes downstairs and Joyce comes up to tell her that she's feeling a little better, and that she's going out for a bit.  Buffy looks at her mom and doesn't see anything that might indicate what's hurting her; nothing in her aura or anything.  Behind her on the wall, however, is a picture of Buffy, Joyce and Dawn, and the image of Dawn keeps fading in and out.  Joyce leaves, and Buffy examines another picture of the three of them, which does the same thing.  She goes upstairs to Dawn's room, and when she goes in the lighting flickers dramatically.  Indeed, it's not only the lighting that keeps fading in and out, it's the whole room.  One moment it looks like Dawn's room; the next it looks like a spare room with paintings and museum stuff stacked in it.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Dawn comes in, angry that Buffy came in her room, and when Buffy turns to look at her she sees that Dawn is fading in and out, too.  One moment she's there; the next she's not.  "You're not my sister.", Buffy says. Buffy grabs Dawn and asks what she is. Dawn freaks out and says she's telling mom.  Buffy throws Dawn against the wall and tells her to stay away from her mother.  The phone rings; it's Giles.  In the background a throng of customers wanders around the shop.  He tells her he's learned a bit more about the orb she found; it's called a Dagon Sphere, and it "repels that which cannot be named", which Giles says is bad, because things that can't be named are usually religions in origin, or cause for great fear.  Buffy says she's gonna go back to where she found the orb, and starts to tell Giles what she saw in the trance, but Dawn has come down and is staring at Buffy.  Buffy instead tells Giles that it didn't work, and hangs up.  Buffy says she'll be back in an hour; Dawn says Joyce is coming back.  Buffy says she'll be back first, and leaves. Outside, Buffy finds Spike standing out in her yard smoking a cigarette by the tree.  He greets her, and Buffy rolls her eyes and punches him.  She demands to know what he was doing there, and he says he was out for a walk.  Buffy's not buying it, and Spike says she only thinks he's after her due to her own self involved world view.  He goes on a little amusing tirade, and then stalks off. Buffy notices about a dozen cigarette butts lying on the ground at the base of the tree, and then heads off in the other direction.  Dawn watches from the window. Cut to the warehouse.  Buffy breaks the chain on the fence, and enters the building.  Inside, she finds the big metal door the woman in red broke through.  Cut to the house.  Joyce returns to a seemingly empty house.  Dawn startles her, and offers her some tea, with some vaguely dangerous undertones.  Back at the warehouse, Buffy finds the monk tied up.  She says he must be the one who left the dagon sphere for her, and she got it.  She starts to untie him, then stands up, whirls around, and grabs the woman in red around the throat.  She'd been sneaking up behind her.  The woman knocks her a good one, sending Buffy flying across the room and shattering the wall she slams into.  At the Magic Box, everyone's worn out after the busy day of selling.....everyone but Anya, who's cashing out at the register, and already making plans for how they can make more money for their merchandise.  Giles offers her a job, which she accepts.  Willow asks Giles if Buffy tried the trance yet, and Giles relates that she said it didn't work.  He also says she was planning on going back to the warehouse to find out more about the dagon sphere, and hopes she's being careful. Cut to Buffy in the warehouse, getting her ass kicked by the woman in red.  Nothing Buffy does seems to have any effect on her.  She finally grabs the monk and jumps through a window with him.  The woman in red starts to run after her, but breaks one of her high-heeled shoes.  In frustration, she yanks it off and throws it, then stamps her foot.  Cracks appear in the foundation underneath her, and the whole room collapses as a result.  Outside, the monk collapses, slouching against a wall.  Buffy tries to get him up, but he's spent.  With the last of his strength, he tells her she must protect the key.  That it's energy, and thousands of people will die if she doesn't protect it.  For centuries, it had no form or thought, and his bretheren kept it safe.  But then the "abomination" found them, and they had to keep it safe.  They gave it form, made it human, and sent it to her to Buffy to keep it safe.  Buffy realizes that Dawn is the key.  The monk tells her they knew the slayer would protect her.  Buffy says she has memories of Dawn, and the monk tells her the memories are all fabricated.  Buffy says he has no right to do this to her; this is her life, and she didn't ask for this.  The monk says she must not abandon the key.  Buffy wants to know what Dawn is.  "Human", the monk replies.  "Human now, and helpless.  Please, she is innocent in this.  She needs you."  Buffy, crying, says that she's not her sister.  "She doesn't know that," the monk says.  He dies. Back home, Buffy comes in to find Dawn and Joyce watching t.v.  Dawn immediately jumps up to go upstairs, saying to Buffy as she passes that she wasn't bothering her.  Buffy goes up to Dawn's room.  She apologizes, and Dawn forgives her in he own way.  Buffy sits down next to her on the bed and strokes her hair, tenderly.  Dawn tentatively asks what's wrong with their mom, and Buffy says she doesn't know.  FLAWS:                        Hm. I've never picked up a prescription at the hospital.  Just saying. When Buffy yanks Spike out from behind the tree, he doesn't have a cigarette in his mouth.  The scene cuts to an "over Buffy's shoulder" viewpoint, and suddenly he does. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:            Pretty good one.  First off, we get all the ground work for the Key, and Glory, and all that lain.  We find out that Dawn isn't real, and that all of the memories everyone has of her are all fake; implanted by the monks. We see Glory for the first time, even though we don't know her name yet.  And Joyce's condition is more pronounced, and we wonder what it is that's hurting her, if not Dawn.  Also we get the first "Spike loves Buffy" scene, outside her house.  Hee.  The scene with Buffy and the monk was pretty powerful, I thought (and obviously the folks at Mutant Enemy thought the same thing, since they showed that damn scene in the previouslies in like, every episode).  The idea of creating a human, implanting her into someone's life, and manufacturing all of these memories for everyone to make them believe that person was real, is actually kind of neat.  And SMG and the monk guy do a pretty good job conveying  how Dawn is a real person now; completely unknowing of what she is, but dependant upon Buffy for help.  The only way this storyline could have been better, in my opinion, is if they hadn't gone and hired a new character for the job, but instead  ....at this point in time -  revealed that one of the current regulars was the key.  I mean seriously, how cool would that have been?  Say it was Xander, or even Willow.  In her fifth year of knowing someone, Buffy finds out that so and so isn't really a person, but a mystical key, that was sent to her for protection.  Woulda been cool. BEST LINE:           Giles:  "Well, it appears to be paranormal in origin." Willow:  "How can you tell?" Giles:  "Well, it's so shiny." and: Buffy:  "What are you doing here, Spike?  Five words or less." Spike:  "Out. For.  A.  Walk.....Bitch." and: Spike:  "I was just passing through.  Satisfied?  You know, I really hope so, 'cause God knows we all need some satisfaction in life, besides shagging Captain Cardboard, and I never really liked you anyway, and....and you have stupid hair.

"No Place Like Home"