What if Spike managed to hear Chloe choking before she hung herself and managed to save her? Would that affect anything, especially if Buffy and the potentials saw him taking care of her? Maybe Spike would become the ‘nice parent’ to Buffy’s ‘strict parent’
 

'If it should be judged that the Line has strayed, He shall be called.

He alone has the knowledge to find,

The skill to hunt,

And the strength kill,

That which has lost its way.

For he is the Punisher of the Slayer.'

Basically, Spike's success in the field of Slayer hunting is more than just paying attention in class and doing all the homework. He's been called because the Slayer line has deviated from its predestined course. And you know how the PTB can get.

So yeah, Spike's job is pretty much, spank the Slayers on the ass until they get their act together.

Things to consider:

• How has the line deviated? Who's caused it?

• Why William? Why of all the possible Vampires, Demons, and forces of Darkness, was he chosen to fight the...Chosen?

• Is Spike even aware that he's the Punisher?

• The Spuffy factor...personally I would like the story to take precedence but you can decide for yourself.

• The sword that slew Acathla (not the one Buffy used, the original one) is brought back into action somehow. I'd like to see someone write a scene that shows off Spike's swordsmanship.
• The Judge's words from about Spike 'stinking' of humanity come up again.
• Xander and Giles bonding with Spike over Angel-hateage.

• Tara lives (I like Tara)
• Happy Spuffy ending (it probably wouldn't be realistic)
• The Gem of Amara (are you seriously telling me that only one of those things exists? It doesn't have to be, y'know!)
• Dawn and Tara manage to put two and two together, come up with four, and confront Buffy on the pounding Spike took in the alley. If you do this one, don't be gentle. Flay her, FLAY HER LIKE DARTH WILLOW!!!

'Thanks doc. You cured me after all. I got my own free will, now. I'm not under the First's or anyone else's influences.'
Suppose there was more to it than just the First pulling Spike's strings. When he puts his guilt over his mother behind him, something else is lifted from his conscience, something that kept him from being more than he'd ever been as a vampire.
What is it? Who placed it there? Why did flashing back to staking his mother break whatever was holding him back? Why am I asking all these questions?
The answer, dear challenge accepter, is in that head of yours somewhere.

Bonus Points:

• Wood gets more thrashing. From Spike or otherwise.
• The First throwing a Buffy-esque tantrum over losing it's best pawn.
   

Bonus Points For:

• Angel and Riley featuring in some way
• Giles saying four "Good Lord"s in a chapter. Extra lovin' if he cleans his glasses more than twice that in the whole story.
• Spike acting all fatherly to Dawn at some point
  
   

'You see, I was once a badass vampire...but then I took an arrow to the knee.'
The Will Be Done spell is still going strong (this is Willow we're talking about). Spike takes an arrow to the knee. Buffy, dutiful fiancee that she is, tends to him. Smut is of the expectancy. Also I expect some funny.

Bonus points if you:
 

• Get Buffy into a skimpy nursemaid costume.
• Manage to bash Riley at least three times.

1. Make it funny, like first she stares at his chin, then tries again, but looks at his chest/forehead, the back of her own eyelids.

1. Buffy being confused by this gentler Spike who she hadn’t seen since she first came back.

1. Spike caught between, ‘what the bloody hell?’, and major lust.
2. Buffy letting him go, admiring her bite, and oblivious to his shock.

1. 
   Buffy mocking Spike about where Xander and Willow are “Not in the warehouse huh?”


2. 
   Xander getting hit with the spell and crushing on Angel, and Cordy not minding that at all.

1. Buffy keeping the ring.

1. Dawn all but dragging Buffy out of the house for the first picnic.
2. Tara finds out and cheerfully helps. Maybe buy cooking meals or just making sure no one else is around on those nights.

1. Does he take her back to his crypt or does he take her home?
2. Could be funny if she snores.
3. Spike having a sappy moment staring down at her sleeping face and remembering why he loves her so much.

1. Justice of the peace anyone?
2. If Spike and Buffy pop into the past in the same spot they had been, and no one’s around, well, they did just get engaged…X3

1. Spike rushing her to emergency, pleading with her to be alright.
2. Buffy waking up to Spike holding her hand, apologizing quietly and swearing he’ll never bother her again if she’ll just open her eyes.
3. Buffy realizes he’s serious, and it finally clicks that he genuinely does love her.

1. Due to their connection during Spike’s spirit walk, pike senses Buffy’s fear when she wakes up in her coffin, and gets there in time to help her dig herself out.
2. Willow gets kicked out of the house, and Tara refuses to even speak to her, and Xander is equally on the naughty list.
3. Xander notices Anya’s cool behavior towards him and summons Sweet.
4. Buffy and Spike end of singing a love song.
5. Tara sings about her heartbreak over Willow
6. Dawn sings about how she is happy and sad that Buffy is back
7. All four sing a ‘we’re family song’
8. Anya sings about her worry about the relationship
9. Xander sings about his irritation with Buffy and  her attachment to Spike
10. Anya breaks up with Xander when she realizes he still loves/is obsessed with Buffy far more than he’ll ever love her.
11. Anya gets with Giles.
12. Willow still attempts the Tabula Rasa Spell.

1. Riley is spotted by Willow and Tara at the party.
2. Buffy admits to Spike that she likes having him outside her house, feeling like it’s another layer of protection.
3. Buffy and Spike are a bit friendlier, since as she loses mobility, he’s been taking a lot of her patrols.
4. Graham not realizing that Riley just left Buffy at her house, thinking she was either out or going to come with him.
5. Buffy getting Baby showers right and lefts. Her dorm mates, her friends, her mom and her friends, Graham and some of the nicer initiative soldiers, that dorm from Doomed that throws a party for any reason.  Dawn and her friend’s sort of hosting a mini-baby shower so as not to feel left out.
6. Out of the blue some of the nicer demons lead by Clem give her what they consider appropriate baby gifts.
7. Buffy having a breakdown and beating the crap out of somebody (not Spike) maybe even just a random demon, due to all the stress she’s under, what with Baby, wedding, Glory, Riley, her Mom, Dawn.
8. If it’s Riley, and it was at Lowell house and the new commanding officer hears the whole thing including Riley’s accusations about her and Spike and tells her about the vamp whores, and that she’s fat or something and when some of the soldiers try to get the General to capture her, he just shrugs and states that ‘hell hath no fury’ and apologizes for Riley and orders him taken to the medical ward but that he was also under arrest for fraternizing with the enemy.
9. Spike taking her to one of her ultra sounds and holding her hand, and the two share their first kiss.
10. Buffy is arguing with Xander over Riley and Spike and she tells him that she wishes that Spike were the father.

1. They buy him dinner in the food court as a thank you
2. One of the girls asking him the dreaded “Does this make me look fat?” question.

1. Faith and Spike flirt, much to Buffy’s distress.
2. Angel wants to tear Spike apart over the easy camaraderie he and Buffy Share.
3. Giles rolling his eyes when he realizes she now has two vampires in love with her.
4. Sam Lawson, the 40’s vamp Angel turned, shows up, hearing that both Spike and Angel were helping the Slayer, and wants to work with them, with Buffy as his ‘commander’ so he can have a mission finally.
5. Spike spots Xander and Willow, and tells them how crushed their significant others would be to find out that they’d been cheated on, since he knows firsthand how it feels.

1. When Buffy burns down her school, and she gets expelled, and her parents get the divorce finalized, she runs straight to Spike and begs him to come to Sunnydale with her, when she and her Mom move. He does.
2. Spike manages to save Jesse, putting him in Xander and Willows good books.
3. Buffy’s Mom knows about the slaying, what with Buffy having a show and tell vamp right there with her.
4. Angel’s royally pissed off that Buffy likes Spike so much, and mostly thinks that Angel is kinda creepy.
5. Angel/Willow on the side. I can just see him buying her chokers and cute little hats to wear.

1. Obviously Spuffy, but maybe also some Buffy/Tara/Spike
2. Buffy and Spike arguing over something silly and Tara threatening to put them both in a corner if they won’t behave.
3. Willow and Xander getting jealous over what they see as their replacements.
4. Spike having to tell Buffy that Tara is gay and has a crush on her.
5. Tara not an hour later, telling Buffy that Spike has a crush on her.
6. Buffy confusedly stating, when she sees them both again, that she thought they had crushes on each other.

1. Buffy admitting to someone that she knew Spike loved her when he was willing to massage her sweaty swollen feet.
2. Her informing Parker of her pregnancy and then telling him that if he came anywhere near her or her child, she’d do something horrible to him.
3. Joyce’s reaction.
4. Baby stuff shopping!

1. Buffy wakes up and when Spike looks worriedly at her, she frowns sleepily and tell him that “tweed is itchy” and Spike laugh at her since she has a perfect imprint of his coat on her cheek.
2. Side Rupert/Anya

1. Buffy has a nightmare about her hat.
2. Spike gets a job bartending at Willy’s to help Buffy pay her bills.

1. Buffy in a panic about what to wear on her date, and Spike in an equal panic about where to take her.
2. Tara scolding the others and keeping them off Buffy’s back when they complain about her ‘encouraging’ Spike.
3. At the end of the first date, Spike being worried that she won’t go on another one with him, and Buffy shyly asking him on a date.

1. Buffy being all avoidy girl, Spike is confused, and Tara is torn.
2. Tara finally hunts the other two down and says that she has had a bit of a crush on both of them since her family came to town. Buffy, for being the one to say that she was part of their family, and Spike for proving to her and everyone that she wasn’t a demon.
3. Dawn being thrilled at the idea of all three of her favorite people being together.
4. Willow and Xander accusing Spike of using a love spell to get Tara and Buffy.