Synopsis of Listening to Fear
Written by TK
Joyce's hospital room
Dawn and Buffy are hanging out with their mother, trying to keep her spirits up. Dr. Kriegel comes in and tells Joyce that her surgery has been scheduled for 10am, the day after tomorrow. He leaves, and Joyce says that she's not sure how much longer she can stand the waiting. Buffy promises to keep her distracted. Joyce says she knows Buffy has to go patrol. Buffy assures her that Riley and the gang are taking care of it.
Cemetary
Willow, Giles and Xander are getting their butts kicked by two vampires. Willow manages to dust them just as they are about to kill Giles and Xander. As they leave the battle scene, they bitch about the fact that Riley never showed up.
Dirty back alley
Riley is lying there, calmly, as a female vampire sucks blood out of his arm. He looks at her almost tenderly.
Joyce's hospital room
Willow comes over with gifts for everyone. Joyce is good natured even though she's suffering random head pains. Willow gives Joyce a silly beer hat, Dawn a book on witchcraft, and Buffy some books for class (that Buffy has been missing) and a yo-yo. Suddenly, Joyce bursts out with a rather violent nonsensical idea of what Buffy can do with her useless school books. Everyone is a little shocked, and Joyce acts like nothing happened. Joyce decides to rest and the girls leave the room. Buffy explains to Dawn that the tumor is altering Joyce's personality by pressing on her brain. A strange muttering guy walks down the hall and turns to look at Dawn. He points at Dawn and says that there's no data on her, there's no one in there. Buffy takes Dawn away and the man's wife takes him away. The man mutters about going home. Dawn is weirded out. Ben comes over and apologizes. Buffy asks if they're really sending that crazy guy home and Ben says yes, because the mental ward is overflowing.
Random rooftop
Tara and Willow are lying on a blanket looking at the stars. Tara tells Willow some of her made up constellations since she could never remember the real ones. Suddenly they see a huge flaming meteor fall out of the sky and land somewhere behind a building.
The woods
A fire is smoldering. Nearby the crazy guy from the hospital is wandering, still muttering to himself. A demon jumps down from a tree and tackles the crazy guy.
Emergency room
Someone is being wheeled into the emergency room. A demon, of the same kind that attacked the man out of the tree, climbs along the ceiling, kind of like a gecko. No one sees it.
Joyce's hospital room
Joyce is freaking out about her call button not working. Dr. Kriegel comes in and Buffy asks if she can take Joyce home. Joyce insists that she can't stand it in the hospital anymore. Joyce is being a little irrational, and scaring Dawn. Buffy gives Dawn money and sends her to the vending machines. Dr. Kriegel says that Buffy will have to work hard to take care of her, but yes, she can go home. Dawn is sitting outside. A ceiling demon is watching her from the ceiling down the hall. Dawn doesn't see it.
The woods
The whole gang, minus Buffy, is walking through the woods. Riley says that he's glad they called. Xander rags on him for not showing up before for patrolling. They find where the meteor crashed. It seems to be hollow and whatever was inside is gone. They assume some evil thing came out and crawled away to do bad things. They fan out a bit to look for it and Willow comes upon the body of the crazy guy. He's definitely dead. Dawn recognizes him as the man who was released from the hospital. They can't find any marks on the guy to explain why he died, but Riley pulls from the guy's mouth a small dark slimy thing that smells really bad. The gang wants to call Buffy, but realize they really can't because Buffy already has enough to deal with. Anya is concerned because they've never dealt with anything from outerspace before. The gang goes back to do research. Riley stays out in the woods investigate the crime scene more. As soon as the gang leaves, Riley pulls out his cell phone and makes a call to an Agent Miller.
Psychiatric ward of the hospital
A nurse is tucking in a patient in a large community room full of patients. He begs her not to leave him. She leaves. A ceiling demon scurries across the floor and then jumps on top of the restrained patient. He screams. The nurse outside ignores the screams. The demon spits a large amount of a clear viscous liquid on the patient's face.
Elsewhere in the hospital
Dr. Kriegel is sending Joyce home with her daughters. Joyce is still acting slightly irrationally. A demon down the hall spies on Joyce from the ceiling. No one sees it.
Summers home
Joyce, Buffy and Dawn get home. Joyce complains that the light is too bright and hurts her eyes. As Buffy takes Joyce upstairs to bed, they turn out all the lights in the house.
The woods
A helicopter descends to where Riley is waiting for it. A number of military guys get out. They examine the body and the stuff in its mouth. Riley shows them the empty meteor as well. They decide to examine the radiation from the meteor.
Summers house
Buffy and Willow are watching TV. A ceiling demon is sneaking around on the ceiling. Joyce comes downstairs. The girls hears rummaging in the kitchen. They find Joyce attempting to make breakfast. Joyce yells at Buffy that she's fat, and then breaks down, saying she doesn't know what she's doing. Buffy and Dawn put Joyce to bed. Joyce freaks out at Dawn, saying she's just a thing, a shadow, and she's not really there. Dawn runs out, and after soothing her mother Buffy goes to Dawn. Dawn says people say that to her all the time, that she's just a thing, she doesn't belong, she's not real. Not only Joyce but the man in the hospital and some guy outside the magic shop. Buffy says it's not Dawn, it's the crazy people who think that everything around them is not real. She advises Dawn to not listen to them.
Library
The gang is researching. They figure out that there were these people called Kwells, and they believed that the moon caused insanity. Occasionally they would pray to the moon to send a meteor down to stop the insanity. They find various reports of hollow meteors being found, and plagues of insanity ending around the same time. They wonder who summoned the Kwell demon. Xander suggests Glory. They realize again that they can't call Buffy.
Hospital/Library
Willow explains to Riley about the Kwell demon. Riley is at the hospital, and there are five dead patients in the mental ward. Willow warns Riley that Joyce has been acting a bit weird. Riley assures Willow that Joyce went home. When Willow starts to ask if Riley needs help, he just hangs up on her.
Summers home
Joyce is lying in bed with the covers pushed back babbling loud nonsense at the ceiling. Dawn is lying in her room listening. Buffy, downstairs doing dishes, puts on loud music to drown out her mother. As she's doing dishes she starts to cry. Joyce is still upstairs babbling at the ceiling. It turns out she's babbling to a Kwell demon who is on the ceiling looking at her.
Outside the hospital
Riley and the military guys are following the radiation trail. It ends in the parking lot. They figure it hitched a ride on a car, probably with a mental patient that was released today. Riley figures out it's probably Joyce.
Summers home
Joyce screams as the demon jumps down on her and spits stuff in her face. Dawn runs in and fight the demon off with a coat rack. Joyce pulls the stuff off her face as Dawn bars all the entrances to the room and screams for Buffy. Buffy finally hears and comes running upstairs. The demon tackles her and they fall down the stairs together. The demon scurries away. Joyce and Dawn cling to each other in fear upstairs. Buffy can't find the demon and grabs a knife from the kitchen. Suddenly, Spike comes up from the basement. Spike explains his presence by saying that he was looking for stuff to steal from the basement. Just as Buffy notices pictures of herself in Spike's hand the demon jumps Spike. He struggles with it, and as Buffy approaches them the knife gets knocked out of her hand. The demon jumps from Spike to Buffy, and Buffy has trouble fighting it off 'cause all it does is cling to her. Spike tosses Buffy the knife and she stabs the demon repeatedly until it dies. Spike helps Buffy up from the floor. Suddenly Riley and all his military guys bust in. Spike asks Buffy if she's okay, but she just runs upstairs to her sister and mother and assures them that the thing is dead and everything's okay.
The hospital
Ben gets into his car and a demon in the back seat asks him what he thinks he's doing, drawing so much attention. Ben orders the demon out of his car. The demon gets out and asks Ben why he summoned the Kwellor. Ben says he's cleaning up Laurie's mess, like he's been doing his whole life.
Joyce's hospital room
A nurse puts in an IV in Joyce's hand and leaves. Joyce tells Buffy that she's realized, even though it can't be possible, that Dawn isn't her daughter. Buffy tells Joyce she's right. Joyce says that she does belong to them, though. Buffy agrees. Joyce says that Dawn is important to the world. Joyce makes Buffy promise to take care of Dawn no matter what happens.
Joyce is wheeled away. Everyone watches her go.
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