Hi, Elena. Thank you so much for your thoughtful review. This is the first fanfic story I wrote and to see it still being read and enjoyed is very gratifying. This particular plot bunny had been bouncing around in my head for some time and I didn't even think to write it down until another fanfiction writer who I was a fan of encouraged me to do so.

I always like tugging on the heartstrings and I'm glad to hear it touched you and seemed like a believable fill-in-the-blank scene between them. Buffy is such a sad, wounded character and while her behavior is unacceptable, I try to illustrate to readers how damaged she is. Most of the Buffy-verse characters are to a great extent.

I've been on vacation for the last month and still am, but when I return home hopefully my muse will be invigorated and ready to write. While I still write Spuffy, I do lots of non-Spuffy het pairings as well. You might want to check out my livejournal for other stories if you've gone through this site.

Thanks for reading!

Glad you liked it, Syn!

Thanks for the kind words. You definately got what I was striving to show in this fic.

Thank you so much for the review, LB. You flatter me and I'm so happy to know that this isn't coming off as just smut, but something deeper and more powerful. I'm especially pleased that you liked it and appreciated the writing as a male. I wasn't sure how a guy might react to the menstrual content.

Yes, I really wanted to use menstruation and blood as the driving theme in this fic to reveal the inner workings of Buffy's tortured soul. It seemed like a really great revelatory device given the events of "Sleeper" when Spike licks Buffy's wound and immediately snaps out of his First-induced stupor. To quote Spike, "It's always got to be blood."

Thanks for the lovely comments. I'm working on a sequal of sorts to it, so hopefully there will be more to come soon.

Thanks!

Thanks! There should be a follow up to this coming soon.

I'm glad you took a chance on this fic. I really wanted to take a taboo subject and show how intimate and not gross something like this can be. Most taboo sex acts take a lot of trust and communication, and while Buffy certainly is deficient in both areas, Spike is not. I wanted him to act as a catalyst to uncover some of Buffy's baggage so she could come away from the experience better for it. Spike's line about Midol was meant to be sarcastic, but hey, it wouldn't surprise me if he did. He seems like the sort of guy that would shuffle off to Duane Reade if you asked him to buy you a box of tampons really nice.

Thanks for the wonderful feedback. Originally I just wanted to do a smutty menstruation fic cause I haven't seen much of it in the fandom, but it ended up morphing into this deeper exploration of her life and her suffering. Buffy's such a physical creature and I thought it made a lot of sense for her body, and her blood, to hold a lot of her memories and secrets that she keeps hidden. And Spike does love her. Sometimes he just needs to push her out of her comfort zone to help her love herself.

Yeah, this fic definately has its dark moments. The echoes of Spike's "Seeing Red" lines like "let yourself feel it" made me uncomfortable at first when I wrote them.

Thanks for the review, Cordy. Your comment means a lot. I do a lot of journalistic writing and only recently tried creative writing again. I was very happy to try some colorful, descriptive writing for a change. Hopefully there will be more to come soon!

*faints* Omg, I'm so flattered you enjoyed this Dreams. I am a huge fan of your work. "Because He Needs Me" is one of my fave WIP right now. Your comment means a lot. I'm glad that you picked up on some of the more disturbing elements. You're the first person to make any mention of that aspect. What did you find disturbing? I know for me personally I grappled with the "Oh mom, mommy" line. I wasn't sure if it realy fit or if it was appropriate, but I went with it since Joyce was such a large part of Buffy's pre-Slayer days and I think the show never addressed some of the long term unresolved grief issues associated with her death. I wrote this as a one shot and hadn't planned on adding on to it, but I'm a new writer and open to suggestions. Did you have something in mind?

Thank you so much for the review! I'm glad you liked it and gave the sex a chance. I tried to make it work in the emotional context of Season 6, which was not a happy time, and really push some of the boundaries that Buffy has put up in herself. It seems with these two that lots of truths come out while they're shaggin' one another, and for me it made even more sense that her blood would carry all those unspoken sufferings.

Thanks for the kind words, Verda. I'm glad the emotions came across. Buffy never makes anything easy, so of course it would have to be Spike to drag it out of her kicking and screaming. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future!