At the time Willow was tracking down Robin in the current timeline, a new note appeared. One with devastating information in it.

'Robin knows Spike killed his mother, worse the leather coat Spike wears actually belonged to Nikki Wood. Spike took it off her dead body. Giles has been arguing with Buffy that Spike is dangerous, especially with the trigger. She refuses to believe it, she wants to try fix the trigger. Giles told her to fix it, Spike has to understand what caused it and beat it. He found a magical way to do it. Some kind of stone that can be sent into Spike's brain and consequently, his memories, to try to figure the trigger out. We found out it's connected to his human mother and a song she used to sing to him. Then Giles took Buffy to a cemetery and questioned her commitment to the battle against the First. Apparently she'd willingly sacrifice Dawn to save the world, unlike when she sacrificed herself to save Dawn before. Then she realized Giles was trying to distract her. While she and Giles were talking, Robin was trapping Spike in a garage and taking all his rage over Spike killing his mother out on Spike. Spike actually told him, even with the soul, he doesn't regret killing Nikki Wood, because he's a vampire and she was a Slayer. It's the natural order of things. Slayers dust vampires, vampires kill Slayers. In the process, Spike figured out what linked the song to his mother and consequently, to the trigger. The first person he ever turned was his human mother. And it took him over a hundred years and that song being used as a trigger for him to understand, he created a monster when he did that. Then he beat Robin to within an inch of his life. Buffy, meanwhile, was racing to save Spike from Robin. When she got there, Spike was just coming out of the garage. He told her he didn't kill Robin, but if Robin didn't leave him alone, he would. Buffy told Robin, if he went after Spike again, she'd let Spike kill him. Apparently, she's decided the mission is all that matters and she thinks Spike is vital to the mission. When she got back to the house, she told Giles, she was though with him. That she has no more use for Giles! After all he'd done and sacrificed for her, she was willing to throw it all away, over a vampire.'

"How is Spike vital to the mission?" Xander asked. "He has no useful information, he thinks the trigger has been beaten, but it's rarely that easy to beat a trigger. It can take months or even years to work though something like that. Just understanding it isn't enough. He's contributed nothing of any value at this point, so what could he potentially contribute that's so valuable to the mission?"

"Aside from the fact that he's probably the second strongest fighter in the group beside other me, I can't think of anything." Buffy said. "And that potential is offset by the threat he still poses. They have only his word that he beat the trigger, no proof. Apparently all that rock did was help him figure the trigger out, it didn't eliminate it."

"And I find it deeply disturbing that you would seek to protect Spike from Robin Wood at all." Giles said. "Back when I went after Angelus, you stopped me because you were afraid I'd get killed. You didn't seem to consider Robin worth helping at all."

"And I'm thrown by the other you being willing to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, while at the same time, you're not willing to sacrifice a vampire." Faith said.

"And even with the soul, Spike apparently had no regrets. Angel was tortured by the guilt he felt for crimes he didn't commit." Cordelia said. "Spike simply doesn't care about the crimes he remembers commiting, even if he wasn't actually the one who committed them."

"There is nothing about this note that I don't find disturbing." Joyce said. "And I thought it was bad when I learned you wanted to feed Faith to Angel in that timeline. And he turned his human mother?! Why? That makes no sense. I mean the demon was running the show, right? What interest could the demon have in Spike's mother?"

"Nothing good." Giles agreed. "Either other Buffy's belief in Spike or her commitment to this battle seems to be seriously clouding her judgement. How many decisions did she make that in hindsight or to those around her were just plain bad? And what thought process contributed to her thinking they were in anyway, good decisions?"

"I'd like to know that too." Buffy said. "Because the more I hear, the more I think other me was either crazy or well on her way there."

A day later another note appeared.

'Willow went to L.A. to help Angel and the crew he's been running with. They're dealing with their own apocalypse. Somehow they figured out Angelus knew something Angel didn't about vital information that could help them with the apocalypse they were dealing with. So they got a mystic to yank the soul and put it in a jar. Then the jar got stolen and Angelus escaped. They broke Faith out of jail to run him down and called Willow to resoul him again. They both succeeded. Faith's coming back to Sunnydale to help with our apocalypse.'

"Giles." Buffy said. "I think we need to check and see if there's an apocalypse happening in L.A."

"I think you're right, Buffy. I'll make some inquires. I know several people in L.A who are aware of the supernatural and can tell me if anything unusual has has been happening."