We're in New York in 1977. Spike is fighting Nikki Wood, Robin's mother, in the rain. She's about to get bitten when Robin, hiding behind a bench, knocks over a trash can which distracts Spike enough for Nikki to get out of the situation. Spike retreats. Nikki gets Robin, Robin wants to go home but they can't because it's not safe and so they head to her watcher's home. Before they go Robin runs back to get the stake Nikki dropped. Flashback to the present where Buffy, Spike and Robin are all fighting some vampires. Robin gets into some trouble and is helped out by Spike, which clearly sparks some emotion in Robin. Day time, in Sunnydale Buffy and Robin are talking in his office. Giles suddenly comes in, and he's not very happy about the school library, it's full of computers! He wants to talk about someone and Buffy points out Robin who is the principal. Giles has been somewhere, not to look for more potentials, but to find out about Spike's trigger. Robin gets filled in on Spike's story - his chip, his trigger and his soul. But he gets a bit confused. Giles thinks he has a way of finding out what Spike's trigger was. Down the basement of the Summers' home Xander's chaining Spike to the wall, complaining, to himself, why those chains couldn't have been there sooner. After Spike's chained Giles shows Spike what needs to be implanted into hi brain so that they can figure out what the trigger is. It looks like a fairly largish stone. Willow must first do something that will make it easier to put in, Willow incants something and the stone goes to liquid. In needs to go in via the optic nerve and crawls its way up Spike's cheek in through the eye. Spike grips his head in pain and Buffy rushes to him. The pain subsides and things get a little dark. We flashback to when Spike was human, reading a poem of his to his mother, about Cecily. Though the only woman in William's life appears to be his mother. William's mother begins coughing, and there's blood on her handkerchief. He sits down next to his mother and her mother starts to sing something. Just as she starts singing Spike vamps out and gets completely out of control. Throwing Buffy and a bed out of the way. The stone which was implanted drops out as Spike returns to normal. Spike wants the chains off him but Buffy doesn't want to get them off, neither does Robin or Giles. Spike finally talks saying that his mother sang him a song, Early One Morning, that was the trigger. Upstairs Dawn's wound is being tended to by Willow. They get a phone call, Andrew picks it up. From someone called Fred from LA, for Willow, Andrew says the guy sounds effeminate. Downstairs Giles is still trying to get some info on the shackled Spike. Spike looks down and goes into a flashback. He's with Drusilla inside his home. They get busy together. Spike tells Drusilla that all three of them are going to go and cause mayhem around Europe. Drusilla's a bit confused about the three part, and Spike tells her that the third is his mother. The mother soon arrives downstairs wondering what's happened to William. He tries to explain but to no avail. He then offers to turn his mother which he does, and sinks his teeth into her. Spike comes out of the flashback and Buffy gets the chains off him, to Giles' disappointment. Willow comes downstairs and tells Buffy that she has to go somewhere for a few days, but she'll be back. Buffy and Spike leave as Robin has a quiet word with Giles. Giles figures out that Robin was Nikki Wood's son and that Spike killed her. Giles thinks it's all about revenge but Robin tries to convince him otherwise, it appears Robin has a plan. Night time at a cemetery and Buffy and Giles are out on a patrol, in which Giles wants to impart some extra knowledge while Robin looks after Spike. Suddenly a hand shoots through the ground, a vampire is rising. Robin unlocks his garage doorway and lets Spike into his sanctuary. The walls are completely covered in crosses. Robin goes over to his computer, he switches it on. Robin goes on to tell Spike the whole deal, about his mother. As he speaks he suits up and puts some rather large fighting gear on his body. Spike figures things out. Robin clicks on his computer and Early One Morning begins to play, as Spike vamps out and a fight ensues. Spike flashes back to when his mother was newly made. She became different and wasn't the mother that he knew, loved and remembered. She continues to torment Spike about himself, he doesn't take it well. Meanwhile Robin is continuing to lay into Spike. Buffy draws her stake ready to slay the vampire but Giles asks her not to. Then goes onto to ask if she would save the vampire if he went on to save the world. Conversation turns to Buffy's relationship with Angel, and why he left and why Spike hasn't. Buffy figures things out, Giles' stalling Buffy. Buffy stakes the vampire and heads off. Meanwhile back in Spike's flashback we see him kill his mother because of what she had become. At that instant Spike reverts back to normal, pummels Robin. Almost bites him, but then takes his coat back and leaves just as Buffy arrives. The trigger's gone. Buffy goes to see Robin, he's very bruised. She warns him if he ever does anything like that again she won't stop Spike killing him. That night Buffy returns home, sees Giles. Giles tries to apologise thinking Spike's dead, Buffy tells him otherwise, but he continues to apologise. Buffy doesn't want hear any of it and closes the door on him.