Great story.  Loving the jealous pmsie Buffy. 

 please consider this a review of both this and the previous chapter.  love them. you are doing a great job with narrative flow, suspense, spuffyness, and ... well ... everything. i like gayle more and more and am feeling better about that since i no longer think she may be evil ... i hope! very curious about what's wrong with her, though.  I love her interactions with Dawn & Buffy, & with Spike. It must be nice for him to interact with someone on his maturity level who doesn't hate him!

Oooh, good twist there. Please keep writing!