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Beta'd by Leon Stryfe. Banner by nmcil12, thank you I love it!

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Buffy was heart broken after the fight with Angelus. I would find out later that Willow’s spell to re-ensoul Angel had worked at the last moment, but by then it was too late as the portal to hell had been opened. Buffy had been forced to send a souled Angel to hell in order to close the portal. Afterwards, she immediately fled Sunnydale in order to grieve. It is my belief that it was a combination of multiple events that led Buffy to her decision to leave. The principle of the high school expelled her that very night just before her fight with Angelus. Kendra, the slayer who had been called after Buffy’s brief death at the hands of the Master the year before, had been murdered in the school protecting myself and the other children. Joyce Summers, upon finding out exactly who and what Buffy was, had kicked her daughter out of the house in a misguided bout of fear and ignorance. Finally, sending the man (vampire) that she loved to hell with his soul intact had been the final straw for her. She left needing time to come to terms with all that had happened.

Buffy returned to us in time to begin the new school year. Her mother, having made a kind of peace with her daughter's calling, forced the school to reinstate Buffy as a student. Shortly afterwards Angel was returned from hell, but Buffy kept this knowledge hidden from us for quite some time. I will admit to being rather angry and upset when I found out, but as I look back on those events as I write this journal I can understand her motives, even though I still disagree with them. She was trying to spare us pain, as seeing Angel was a sharp reminder of Jenny’s death for me. And although I do not in any way hold Buffy responsible for her death, knowing Buffy as well as I do I imagine that she feels the weight of that death deeply. I doubt that I can convince her that she bears no responsibility for Jenny’s demise, that the blame belongs firmly to Angelus and, in no small way, to Jenny herself. She withheld her true purpose as well as valuable knowledge from us until it was too late. I also believe that Buffy hid his return from the other children because of the terror he inflicted upon them and also Xander’s blatant dislike of the souled vampire.  

During Buffy's senior year Spike returned to Sunnydale. When I eventually learned about what actually transpired during his return visit, I began to question my long held beliefs concerning the nature of demons. Apparently Drusilla had never forgiven Spike for helping Buffy during her fight against Angelus. In conversations I later had with Spike he informed me that he had come to the Hellmouth with the purpose of procuring a magical means of forcing Drusilla to love him once more.

I have asked him why he travelled all the way to Sunnydale from Brazil when there were certainly competent spell casters in that area of the world. The answer he provided has made me more accepting of the relationship he and my slayer currently have. He told me that he had no idea why he returned to Sunnydale for the spell. He claimed that he felt something driving him to return here. Once he arrived he quickly abandoned his plan to be-spell his sire and decided instead to fight Buffy to the death. His thoughts at the time, as he has recently explained to me, were that either he would kill Buffy and therefore Drusilla would be inclined to take him back, or Buffy would kill him and end his loneliness by granting him death. Needless to say neither plan worked for him, as he never truly implemented either. Instead he left Willow unharmed, which is shocking in and of itself, and proceeded to look for Buffy. When he couldn’t locate her he moved his search to Buffy's home, but did not find the Summers woman he was looking for. I firmly believe that the kindness and lack of fear shown by Joyce during the time Spike spent with her had a profound effect on him. His presence also had a profound effect on my slayer. The behaviour exhibited by both Spike and Angel that night served to provide Buffy with a different view of Angel, one I am certain she had previously been either unaware of or wilfully ignoring.

From what both Joyce and Dawn have told me, Spike was a perfect gentleman while in the house alone with the two of them. They discussed his heartbreak and how he has let his romantic life rule his world. Joyce encouraged Spike to try to find his own path in life, one that pleases him and not to live for the whims of others. Unbeknownst to all, Spike and Joyce, and later Spike and Dawn, began corresponding with each other. I have read the letters the three exchanged and I must say it seems that these two women had a profound effect on Spike. Just knowing that there were people who cared for him appears to have been enough for a master vampire with no soul to change his ways and stop killing humans.

The relationship between Buffy and Angel after the confrontation at her home has changed on a fundamental level. She told me that Angel seemed to have no respect for her, either as a woman or as a slayer. She wondered if he had always felt that way and she was just too enamoured to notice. Their time together after that was infrequent at best, only seeing one another during research with the group. Angel left Sunnydale immediately after graduation, having helped us defeat the Mayor before his plans to ascend into a pure demon could come to fruition. Buffy's entire senior class participated in the battle. The causalities were small and we all mourned the losses of those brave souls. The high school was lost in the resulting explosion, which means that I am currently unemployed.

Spike has since told me of an event that shook him to the core.  His story was that one day, after posting a letter to Joyce and Dawn, he went to grab a woman outside the post office to feed. As she screamed, Spike said an image of Joyce’s face flashed before him and he couldn’t bring himself to feed off of the woman. Since that time he has confined himself to a diet of pig’s blood and has controlled himself by taking his violent urges out on every harmful demon that he ran across.

After a period of time, Spike returned to Sunnydale to live here permanently. He had found a reference to the Treasure of Amara that, if legend is to be believed, contains a gem of such power that it would render any vampires who wore it invulnerable. His research indicated that the treasure was located in somewhere beneath Sunnydale. Before he could obtain the treasure he was captured by a military group operating out of the college here in Sunnydale. The stories of the horrors that we heard about that went on in that place concerned us all deeply. When we were shown photographic evidence of the military's barbaric methods we were horrified, none more so than Joyce and Dawn as it was brought to light that Spike had indeed been captured by this group. When they attempted to kill Buffy I knew then that we had to act. A phone call to the Watchers Council put the military operation out of business. We were asked to go in and deal with what demons were still being held in the facilities. That is where we found a badly beaten Spike. Cataloguing his injuries would take an inordinate amount of time. Suffice it to say that he had been grievously wounded and experimented on. We subsequently learned that he had been implanted with a microchip that prevents him from harming humans. At this point in time I was still leery of his change of heart and was glad of the chip even if I abhorred how it came about.