Hi honey!

Sorry for the belated reply but at the moment "real life" seems to be sucking up more of my time than normal. Between that and the muse being unco-operative, it's now over a month since I've written anything (which while fairly unusual - my normal pattern is to try to update at least one fic a week - isn't unheard of especially if I hit burn out), but rest assured in the four and a bit years that I've been writing, I've yet to leave a fic incomplete, so as soon as circumstances allow I will get back to it.

I'm really glad you've enjoyed it so much, and I'll try to make sure that when I do get back to it, that the rest of the story lives up to the beginning.

Wheeeeeee! Thank you, honey!

That was so very much my view of things. A lot of the feedback for this fic has had me wanting to tear my hair out and/or bash my head off the desk because so many people just can't seem to appreciate the timeframe. I feel like I'm constantly justifying myself/Buffy/everyone's reactions and yet they're all either in line with or softened compared with canon for the period.

It really makes my day when someone is so in tune with how I view things.

Thanks again!

Thanks, honey! More once my other WIP is finished and I get my beta's b'day fic written.

Thanks, honey. As for Willow, I pretty much kept her reaction as it was in canon, but I just let Tara have her say first, knowing that once Buffy makes up her mind, she tends to dig her heels in.

Thanks, honey! I couldn't see Buffy being able to cope with the situation herself, but she did the next best thing she could, and instead of her going running to Joyce, she sent her to Spike... and let's face it in that situation I bet she really would have liked to go running to mom.

That said, if mom's busy then Tara is pretty much the best possible substitute, and for Willow, I just pretty much stuck with how she was in canon... though to be fair, Willow has plenty of experience with Evil Spike and no real first hand experience of Not So Evil Spike (unless you count him punching Tara and I have a feeling that that probably went in Willow's minus column), so in a way her attitude is understandable.

And the best answer I can give you to whether he's okay is that he's got Joyce.

Thanks!

love tara
Don't we all?

Thanks, honey!

Yeah, we all knew what Willow and/or Xander would have to say if she went to either of them for advice, so I thought it was time for a different point of view.

Yep, the next chapter should have some Spike in it.

Hugs

I only posted here this morning (always update archives later than my own site/LJ/GJ) so probably not.

I'm glad you liked it, honey. Tara always did have a more compassionate view than any of the others.

Thanks!

Thanks, honey!

I guess Buffy's actions could be interpreted that way, but really she did what she could. It's not as if she left because she couldn't care less. Emotional scenes have never been her strong point, and if she was some wonderful paradigm of virtue she'd be a far less interesting character. If you compare her actions here to what happened in Fool For Love, I think you'll find she's making progress.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Yep, so much for me hoping I wasn't keeping you awake, huh?

Yeah, it's going to be fun seeing how things go with her mom. Of course, that depends on how much Spike has said in the meantime and how much is down to Buffy... and that damn awkward muse hasn't seen fit to tell me what he's decided about that.

I'm hoping I can update soon, too, but chances are it won't be as soon as I might like. I have two WIPs at the moment (the other one is totally different so liking this one is no guarantee you'd like the other). Both of them started out as birthday presents for people so, if I deviate from my arrangement of alternating chapters, then chances are someone will pout. Next up is a chapter of Unfinished Business and probably by the time I get that done it'll be a dash to get a b'day ficlet done for Spike's Heart and then, hopefully, I'll get back to this one...

Thanks, honey! It definitely IS a step forward. If you have any doubt you just need to look at FFL to see she's come a vast way and I'm so glad someone sees it that way.

And, yeah, Tara really does have a maturity that the other Scoobies lack, but in the others' defence they do carry round some Spike baggage from earlier seasons.

Thanks, honey!

I think you'll find that once Buffy makes up her mind on something she tends to dig her heels in. I'm pretty certain that she'll stick by her intentions... at least until Spike does something to screw things up.

Hugs poor Tara, who is probably going to get a telling off from Willow as soon as Buffy is gone for daring to have an opinion of her own.

Okay, last response becauee, well, time spent replying is time away from writing and I suspect I could try to explain myself for hours and I don't think we'd see from the same viewpoint.

As for the Seeing Red comment, I'm not saying that that would necessarily happen, just that all the ingredients were there so I can't blame Buffy for heading as fast as she could in the other direction.

Adult is neither here nor there. He's a guy, with working genitalia. She's a young pretty woman... and he's BROKEN. Regardless of what happened to bring the situation about he IS unstable and desperate. It makes little difference that in this case its down to grief rather than the aftereffects of a bad relationship, in fact, basic psychology suggests that death and sex are linked, that the drive to make new life is heightened exponentially when we lose someone. If he's not so broken as to make the situation risky from at least the point of him overstepping the line so badly that Buffy would be forced to slap him down, then he's obviously taking things far better than I would have expected him to.

As for the lack of pretty speeches... they really aren't Buffy's thing. She did the best she could, which is pretty much all any of us ever can.

Thank you, honey! I'm soooo glad you liked it. And, yes, thank God, Gaia or whoever for Tara...

Next chapter might not be as quick as I would like, since I'll have to squeeze in a birthday ficlet as well as the usual chapter of Unfinished Business before I can get back to this, but I'll do my best.

Thank you, honey! I'll see what I can do, my other WIP and RL permitting. Spike won't be alone for long, and really Joyce is far and away better qualified to take care of him, not least because he isn't in love with her.

Thanks again!

Thank you!

I'm glad you liked it. I shan't make any promises for whether you'll get your wish next chapter as it depends how much alone time Spike and Joyce take up, but hopefully you won't have to wait too long.

I think your comment actually sort of illustrates where I'm coming from... It's easy to have compassion for our friends. We care about them. What hurts them hurts us.

Spike isn't Buffy's friend. The possibility is there that maybe she might come to think of him that way, but at the moment she's had no more than a couple of glimpses under the facade. She doesn't know him. Doesn't know how he'll react, doesn't know anything much about him... other than he's vulnerable, desperately hurt, needy, more physically orientated than most and he has feelings for her. You want my opinion, she's the worst person to be offering comfort. The very fact that he's attracted to her makes it dangerous for her to be offering any form of physical comfort. It makes it far too easy for signals to get mixed up and for things to go disasterously wrong. You want to see Seeing Red happen a season early, then, yeah, she should have stayed...

You can't relate to Buffy, who has had to wall herself around to survive, so why should she, at this very very early stage in their getting to know each other, be automatically attuned to Spike?

And, on a less serious note, yep, the poor DeSoto at the very least is probably going to have some wear and tear on its gearbox that it didn't need... And decided is probably too strong a word. It implies a degree of conscious thought which she was pretty much lacking at that point.

Again, thanks for your comments.

Coward, maybe...

Bitch, well, it wouldn't be exactly OOC if she was. FFL anyone...

Self-centred, definitely... and human and flawed just like us all.

As for Joyce, I'd have to work pretty hard to justify that much of a departure from her canon reaction to discovering Spike was in love with Buffy... not that I was exactly in agreement with the path the writers chose for Joyce, but it seems to me that Joyce would be more worried about what to do to make things right, than in laying blame.

From your reaction (which still seems more based on the last chapter than this), it would seem that I completely failed in my main objective for this chapter, but as it appears that the only alternative would have been to make Buffy act in a way that would have been OOC, I guess I have to chalk it up to you can't please all the people all the time...

Thanks for taking the time to comment anyway.

Thanks, honey!

I always had it in mind that even though I couldn't see Buffy dealing with the situation (or not without the whole run and regroup M.O.) that hopefully, I'd moved her far enough along the path to seeing Spike as a person that she wouldn't be able to just walk away as she did in the ep. Fool for Love.

Hugs Tara! Yeah, Buffy's one of those people who tends to make up her mind and then stick to it so having Tara's calming influence when the crisis hit makes a huge difference.

Thanks, honey, but I'm afraid that if she hadn't run then she wouldn't be Buffy, or at least not later seasons Buffy.

Thanks again, honey!

Yeah, dealing with the emotional stuff head on has never been Buffy's thing. Demons on a killing spree, no problem. Emotional stuff, run like hell, regroup, do what has to be done.

I'm not sure if it's my imagination but it seems like your reviews arrive just after I update my own site, but because I always leave it a day or two before I update archive sites (I tend to think that if people sign up for an individual mailing list or friend me on LJ or GJ they should get a head start) you're a chapter behind, which is fine so long as you realise, but otherwise might mean you miss out on the final chapters of the fics when they come around.

Anyway, to the actual review...

As you say, Buffy really wasn't in a position to cope with anyone else's problems. As she tells the potentials in S7, when your gut tells you to run, you run. When it comes to slaying it's probably part of the reason she's been alive longer than most. In emotional situations, it's generally not quite so effective.

The next chapter, which will probably appear here tomorrow sometime, deals with Buffy's actions. I'll get back to Spike in Chapter 9.

Thanks, honey. Glad you liked it.

Yep, cliffhangers, frequently and often...

Glad you're enjoying the story. How long the next update will be depends on how much co-operation I get from the muse on my other WIP, which I'm currently working on (alternating chapters)... and RL, I guess.

Thanks, honey!

Hi sweetie!

Yes, I think a lot of people's gut reaction has been to condemn Buffy out of hand, but how many of us always do what we know is right all the time? How many of us can say without fear of contradiction that we are in every way the person we would like to be?

The point you make about compassion is interesting, especially if you combine it with the observations I made in reply to someone's comments (I think Dia's on LJ) where she was asking about how I saw Spike's thought processes as far as the decision was concerned. My response was that although I doubted he made any conscious decision, Dru probably signed her death warrant when she threatened Joyce and Dawn. If there had been only Buffy to consider, if that individual instance of thrall might somehow have been broken, then he might have been able to justify having one last try at persuading her to leave. Most of the time Buffy can take care of herself. It would be risky, but you could imagine at least until Dru forced his hand it might go either way. Not that I think he had time to weigh it out, but to me the threat against Dawn and Joyce (who would both be helpless against an attack) was more than likely what would have tipped the balance... which is my long winded way of saying that I don't think any debt is entirely Buffy's.

There's good news and bad news on the progress front. I managed over 1,000 words on Unfinished Business today, but I'm not sure if I like them... lol.

Thank you!

Yep, confronted with an overwhelming situation, Buffy does tend to run, consider and somewhere down the line eventually regroup.

I wonder if she has any clue that he's in love with her?

Oh I think the word 'slayer' made an appearance often enough, and I'm pretty certain its use would make Buffy sit up and take notice. Somehow, given the context, I don't think she's going to assume Dru meant Faith or Kendra.

I'd read it as Buffy understanding exactly what he had done and it being way more than she could cope with. She's not good with emotional stuff. There are a whole heap of other factors, but rather than repeat myself I'll point you to my replies to earlier reviews.

My other WIP is due to be updated before I go back to this one, but I'll try not to make it too long before I get back to this one, RL and the muse permitting.

Thanks, honey.

Re Buffy, this is someone who's far from being whole herself. The impact on Spike is obviously far greater, but the scene hardly left her unscathed. She can't offer comfort when she's in the state she was in.

As for there being someone else, I have just one reply... Joyce.

Nooo!! You do not run in that situation! You offer comfort!

You do if you're not in shock, if you have more experience and compassion than the average twenty year old rather than being so closed off emotionally that your last boyfriend left you for that reason, if you know the person in question well enough to know how they might react rather than them being little more than an acquaintance who might potentially become a friend, if you don't think such comfort could be misconstrued and effectively be leading him on, and if you, yourself, are calm rather than being completely freaked out by recent revelations and events. Yep, given those conditions you would probably offer comfort...

And, yes, the next chapter should make things a bit better.

Thanks, honey!

Lol! I think maybe a shock to the system is an understatement.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Unfinished Business is next on the WIP list, but I'm hoping that I can manage a chapter of that & a chapter of this before I have another birthday ficlet due... muse willing.

Thanks!

Thank you, honey!

Poor Spike, as you say, but in truth no one is really coming out of this situation very well.

Unfinished Business is next on the WIP list, and I guess RL has to have a bit of time too, but hopefully it won't be too long before I'm back to this one.

Shrugs... I wouldn't say her reaction makes her a bitch. I'd say it makes her a young girl/woman who is miles out of her depth. Put in a situation like that at that age, I doubt that many of us would have the experience or maturity needed to deal well with it, especially not someone who is so alienated from the people around her.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Lol! Thanks, honey!

I wanted something in there that would parallel with the canon part where he tells Harmony to go and she asks, "Why? Because she's back?" and Spike replies, "No, because I am." ...only in this instance, it's not about his reversion to the Big Bad persona, it's about him working out who he wants to be from here onwards.

I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.

Poor Dru, but the way I look at it, she should be at rest now, and, if there's any justice, that part of her that was once human is whole, and happy and reunited with her family.

Spike will get by, like he always does, especially with Joyce around.

The next update will probably be in a couple of weeks. Unfinished Business is due an update, and while I was originally trying to update both as close to weekly as I could, the fact of the matter is it's not a schedule that I could maintain in the longer term. Hopefully, that won't seem too long.

I think I gave away quite a bit there... if Buffy can remember enough of it when she comes out of shock.

And, yeah, though I reserve the right to change my mind when I start writing the next chapter, I suspect that for a time at least there will be some pretending things didn't happen, not least because the "letting him down easy" speech would probably be adding insult to injury at the moment.

Thanks, honey! As for Buffy, she's probably not going to look back on this moment with a sense of pride, but how many people at that age could deal with that sort of situation, bearing in mind that she's only just beginning to find any common ground with Spike and see behind the Big Bad facade, so to a great extent he's almost a stranger... even before you take into account the whole shock of him being in love with her and having to draw the line between comforting him and leading him on... So much for me not waffling and repeating myself, huh?

Thanks again!

Okay, not going to make with the long explanations, if you want those you can chaeck out my replies to earlier comments on this chapter, but I will say, take a deep breath, go back and try to consider things from Buffy's point of view. Try to think how you would feel if you'd just been within a hair's breadth of dying amongst a whole host of other things. Yeah, I guess a saint could take in everything that Buffy just heard, deal with it and offer comfort. Newsflash, Buffy isn't a saint...

I'd like to think I'm a more supportive person than Buffy is, but I doubt I could have dealt with that situation. The very intensity of Spike's feelings would scare me silly and I'm a bunch older and wiser than Buffy is here.

Yep, Spike was always going to love Dru, even if he was no longer in love with her any more.

Unfortunately, at twenty(?) Buffy is still a little girl in a lot of ways, and hardened beyond her years in others. There was no way that she was ever going to be able to cope with the emotional demands of the situation.

Thanks, honey.

...Because, she's Buffy... the one whose boyfriend just left her for being too detatched, the one who's only just beginning to see Spike as more than a general pain in the ass or maybe an occasional convenience, and the one who can't even cope with what she's just found out, never mind offer comfort to anyone else...

It would have made for a shorter fic if she'd stuck around, but it wouldn't really have been in character for Buffy as she was at that point in time.

Thanks, honey... Hopefully you won't have to wait too long this time. I had to squeeze in a couple of ficlets (not posted here) as well as a chapter of Unfinished Business between this and the previous chapter, but since there aren't any more birthdays until the end of this month...

Thanks, honey.

Glad it seemed right.

Thanks, honey!

Yeah, it was decent of her, especially as she had more than a hint of misgivings about it, but...

Thanks, honey!

Having Joyce around was one of the reasons I set this earlier in S5 than I would have otherwise.

Hee! buffy would screw everyhting up if she only had giles for guidance. as S6 proved all too well.

Thank you!

Thanks, honey!

Not even Buffy could mistake Spike's misery for anything else. And, yeah, Joyce might give Buffy a little leeway on the slayer stuff, but once Spike had talked his way out of it, at least for the moment, then Joyce wasn't about to let her get away scot free with that sort of behaviour.

Thanks, honey!

It's an awkward situation. Buffy has to think of all the possible angles, and from her POV, if it comes to her having to kill Dru... she knows Spike loves Dru, so it's hard to imagine him just standing by...

Joyce might let Buffy get on with the slayer stuff to some extent, but when she turns out to be in the wrong Joyce won't let her just pretend it didn't happen.

Thank you, honey!

I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

Oops! I thought I'd reached the last of your reviews before... All those things I said, assume I say them at the end of your last comment for the night.

Giles and Xander... Eeesh! Well at least with Giles I think it does stem from a genuine wish to protect her. Xander I think just doesn't want to see her with anyone other than him.

Shan't give away what happens with Dru. I think it works better if you read it.

Thanks again. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.

Thanks, honey!

Dru has really crappy timing and an awful lot to answer for.

Thank you, honey! That really is a huge shift in attitude for Buffy at this point compared with canon and I'm glad that it comes across.

Thanks, honey!

She does want to believe in him, but if she's wrong, she needs to make sure he isn't a threat.

You're probably right about Joyce, though she wouldn't necessarily intervene.

Thanks!

If you refer to the replies I made to earlier comments you'll find that IMO Buffy is far from being stupid, and if you take another look at the chapter you'll find that once she knew when the train arrived, she never suggested that Spike was directly involved. There's nothing to fix.

Thanks, honey!

Everything you have to say is valid, BUT bear in mind that these are his actions over a period of only days and even if they don't know how, from Buffy and Giles' POV, Spike may be manipulating them as part of a larger scheme. It's days of apparently doing good weighed against years of actively doing bad and making it clear to everyone that as soon as the chip was out he'd gladly kill them all.

Out of My Mind is not so far back in time, and this 'verse is not all that far removed from canon where Spike would very, very shortly be using the girl Dru killed for him as a drinking fountain... Events have changed slightly, but Spike's personality hasn't. Buffy and Giles have very good reason for concern.

The miracles are that Buffy (though she might not be able to allow her doubts to show right this second) is actually keeping an open mind and does actually want to believe Spike, even though the timing of the deaths is pretty damning evidence against him, albeit circumstantial. She wants to be convinced.

This isn't S6, Spike has not proven his loyalty. He hasn't stuck around after Buffy died. He hasn't been tortured by Glory and remained true. Having Buffy and/or Giles believe him without question and without knowing anything about his feelings for Buffy would be completely OOC for this time frame. IMHO :)

Thanks, honey, but I have to disagree.

You mean they're so deluded that they don't realise that this Spike is only a very small step away from the one that drained the girl Dru killed for him in Crush in canon. Events have shifted, but only very slightly and that difference is the fact that Buffy has treated him better this time around.

They have a LOT more reason not to trust him than they do to trust him and, yet, Buffy still wants to do just that...

Thank you!

I'm so glad you see things that way. I've tried to make Buffy's change in attitude believable. And Spike & Joyce are always fun to do.

The muse isn't playing at the moment, but when it does I'll get right back to this after I've done another chapter of my other WIP.

Thanks, honey!

Well, actually, he told her if she tried to stake him he'd kick the shit out of her. (You and I may suspect he wasn't being truthful but that's what he told her.)

You have to remember that apart from the incident where he found out the chip wasn't working (and where there has to be the distinct possibility that with time to process that fact, so far as Buffy is concerned, he might have acted differently), his 'good deeds' peak at not licking the survivors of Olaf's rampage. We aren't talking S6 Spike here. This is the same Spike who under very slightly different circumstances drank from the girl that Dru killed for him. Buffy has every right to have doubts.

Thanks, honey!

Nice as it might have been for Buffy to believe him straight off, at this particular point in time, I think it would have been OOC for her to give him so much trust on the limited evidence available, especially without understanding his motivation.

As for when she finds out, I'll leave that for next chapter.

Thanks, again, sweetie! The idea is to keep enough the same for things to be believable, but at the same time to tweak things so that they come out better.

Yep, the fight at the hospital seemed like a good starting point for the purposes of getting rid of the chip but unfortunately, the next ep up is Crush, which means just when she finds out Spike no longer has the chip, she also finds a trainload of bodies... Most inconvenient of ME to order things like that.

Thanks again. Hope I haven't kept you up too late and I look forward to seeing what you think of the rest of the fic so far when you get to it.

Thanks, honey!

Well, as Dawn so rightly worked out... No way he could give Buffy the same explanation he gave her mom.

Thanks, honey!

I think having Giles there was just a bonus, the way the storyline meshed with canon, but telling Buffy when Joyce is there is bound to help a little.

Thanks! Spike was really left with very limited options. He had to tell her about the chip, but there weren't many ways to do that and avoid telling her how he felt at the same time...

Thanks! I have a plan... I just don't remember what it is.

Thank you!

Thanks, honey!

Yep. There was only one way to go if Spike didn't want to have to explain his feelings to Buffy... and yes, Giles has been a watcher far too long to fall into line easily.

Thank you, honey! I hope you won't be disappointed when the time comes.

Thanks, honey. Yep Dru is back as was pretty much inevitable

Thanks, honey! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Thanks, honey!

Making Joyce believe he wouldn't hurt anyone... not too hard. Trying to convince Buffy without her demanding to know who the mystery woman is... well nigh impossible. Can't blame him for disappearing, at least until he can put a bit more thought into how to tell her about the chip.

And, yep, ding dong, Harm is Angel's problem now, and yeah since Dawn is in the middle of her crush, she's pretty much going to notice anything there is to notice when it comes to Spike...

Thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Joyce is a smart cookie, but judging by how long she was oblivious to the fact that Buffy was the slayer, I decided to not go with her figuring it out. Dawn on the other hand was damn close to figuring it out by this point in canon.

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Thanks, honey. I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm just about getting to where Spike tells her in the writing stages, and while I have an idea of how she might react, I guess I'll have to wait and see if the muse decides to conform to that or if the characters take over. By this point in canon, Dawn had very nearly got Spike's feelings for Buffy sussed, so it seemed reasonable for her to work it out. Hopefully, more soon.

Thank you! And, yeah, he's pretty much right royally screwed... but he'll work it out.

Thanks, honey!

Like you say, Buffy finding out another way would be bad, but you can't blame Spike for needing a bit of time to work out how to tell her and build up courage.

Thanks, honey! I'm glad you're enjoying it. The next chapter, hopefully, will be along soon enough.

Thank you!

And, yeah, poor Spike is in a bit of a mess. Updates when the muse allows.

Thank you!

It seems reasonable that once the whole heroic defender scenario had time to sink in that she would be glad to have him there to keep an eye on her mum and Dawn when she couldn't be there.

Muse willing, I should be getting back to work on this one today, but it's the muse willing part that's often the problem.

Thank you!

It's been a fun balancing act, trying to "forget" S6 (which I've been writing for so long) and get the character attitudes to ring true to where they were back in S5.

With luck, I should be making a start on the next chapter today. After that it's up to the muse.

Thank you! I'm really glad you're enjoying it!

Thanks, honey, and at least on the plus side he's got rid of Harmony. That has to be a bonus.

Joyce was always good for Spike. I suspect any mother who finds out that a guy has been stalking her fifteen year old daughter is going to be predisposed to dislike him... Of course the fact that Angel was a skanky child chasing perv probably didn't help either...

And again you're probably at least partway to getting your answers.

Thanks, honey!

Thanks, honey!

Yep, definitely a case of careful what you ask for.

Thank you, sweetie!

I'm afraid at the moment I'm still working on the next chapter of Unfinished Business (I'm doing alternating updates) but as soon as I finish that, I'll be back to work on this one.

Hee! I hadn't looked at it that way, but I guess the fact that he didn't go straight out on a killing spree might well mean that deep down he knows which way it will eventually go.

Thanks, as always for making the effort to comment.

Thank you!

And, yeah, the Harm thing should be fun. Somehow, with a skin full of bourbon, I doubt it'll come out quite the way he and Joyce planned...

Thank you!

Hee! Hopefully Buffy will catch up with the rest of her family but knowing how stubborn she is it might take a few more chapters...

Thank you sooo much! I have a feeling that most of you can take a pretty good guess at how this decision is going to go - unless I want to give myself a LOT more fic to write - but I really didn't think it should look easy.

Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it.

Thank you, honey!

I'm glad you're enjoying this, and I'll do my best to make sure I don't keep you waiting too long, though Unfinished Business is next on the to do list.

Thanks, honey!

You're right on the money. Freedom's not worth a hell of a lot if it comes at the expense of losing what you love.

As for Buffy, there may be hope for her yet, but the challenge was to start out from the attitude that she had at that point in canon.

Thanks for commenting, sweetie!

i'm worried about what will come next.
All I can say about that is wait and see, but bear in mind there's not much he could do that's worse than chaining Buffy up, and having a sexbot made to look like her.

Thanks for commenting. It's much appreciated.

From being in a position where his options have been severely limited, a whole world of possibilities is suddenly opening up around Spike. He'll work it all out, and he might even have a little help.

Lol... again I guess you know by now.

Thanks again and glad you're enjoying.

Re-reading this myself in preparation for starting on the next chapter at the same time as I answer you (just in case you're wondering why it's taking so long for each reply). It helps. Now I know why you're hiding your eyes. Definitely understandable.

I have to admit I rather like Spike & Joyce together myself.

Honestly, there's part of me really want him to... As long as the knight's alive he's a threat to Dawn's safety, even if he can't do the harm himself. So far, I haven't been able to make up my mind, but I have to finish the next chapter of Unfinished Business before I can go back to this one in any case.

Thank you!

Buffy might be persuaded if Spike made a good enough case for the knight being a danger to Dawn. In canon she'd be killing knights soon enough, and this one death could save all the others by keeping the knights in ignorance.

It's definitely not as simple as killing the human=evil=>stake Spike, but, yeah, it's time to make a decision.

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.

Thank you, honey!

Here's hoping things work out how you want in the end. Of course, since it's Spike (and since Buffy has all her prejudices still intact) we can pretty much guarantee that it won't all be smooth sailing, but at least he has Joyce there to help point him in the right direction this time around.

Well, there are some other options which Spike might need to rule out, but you may well be right. As for Buffy's reaction, it may take him a lttle while to tell her.

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Time will tell. There are actually pretty strong arguments either way, since he represents a very real threat to Dawn's safety, not just in terms of him personally, but the fact he could set the knights as a whole onto her... All of which means I haven't definitively made up my mind, yet.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment. It's appreciated.

Thank you! I hope the rest of it lives up to expectations.

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. Spike? Do something stupid? As if!

Thank you, honey! I guess by now you've answered most of your own questions. Glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks, honey! The prologue is almost entirely canon, but I'm glad you liked my interpretation. BTW Is this Karyn a.k.a. kargrif? If it is you might discover that you didn't quite get entirely caught up. I always give readers on LJ or my own site at least a day's head start on any archives where I post, so you'll find a new chapter of Unfinished Business has been posted since you did your reading here...

Oops! Looks like this one came through twice, but thanks for being doubly encouraging.

I'll do my best to make certain that it is. Thank you! And congrats on being reviewer of the week.

I figured that if I was having to re-watch the episode to try to get a sense of context then others might be in the same position.

Thanks for your input. I'm glad it helped. Hopefully, when the next chapter moves away from canon, you'll enjoy it too.

Well, it seems by now that you've already found out, or at least got a pretty good idea.

Thanks so much for taking the rime to comment. It's greatly appreciated.