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Fourth "book" in the series that started
with Spike's Will Be Done,
and continued with True Colors
and Ring of Fire (These links
will take you to the different story main pages rather than
the stories themselves). Like True Colors and Ring of Fire,
it has been split into several sections to make life easier.
 
 
Round 8
Lost in Spike Awards
Round 3
Round 4
VK Awards
The story so far...
Okay, everything went the same way as the
show at least as far as Entropy, except for one slight difference.
When Buffy had her magical clear out in Gone, instead of
throwing everything out, she gave the box to Spike for safe-keeping.
This resulted in a rather different set
of events when Spike hit "rock-bottom". By the time he reached
the Magic Box, he already knew exactly what spell he wanted
and was sobering up in preparation for casting magic. He
took some time out to comfort Anya, and while they were
indulging in some innocent mutual consolation, Spike wished
that Buffy and Xander had the courage to follow their hearts
rather than always worrying about what could go wrong all
the time. As Anya would say, "wish granted".
Xander got all splotchy and possessive
when he saw them dancing at the Bronze on the nerds' cameras,
so much so that he whisked Anya off from the Magic Box the
next day for a Vegas wedding. (Anya gave her power centre
to Xander as a wedding gift, on the proviso that he didn't
break it.) Spike cast the "Will Be Done" spell and made
three wishes, that Buffy would be honest about her feelings,
that she would work out exactly what she really wanted and
that she'd really understand his feelings for her.
Before the first two wishes could have
too much effect, the third one kicked in, and Buffy found
her consciousness hitchhiking in Spike's body for a while,
leaving her body conspicuously vacant. Eventually everything
got sorted out but not before Buffy found out she'd been
jumping to conclusions over the demon egg affair.
This, the insight she had into Spike's
feelings and the wish Anya granted, led her to actually
give him a decent chance. One thing led to another, and
the "ripples" caused by that first change continued to spread
outward. The nerds were captured and subdued before they
could follow through on their plan for the armoured car
heist, so neither Buffy nor Tara were ever shot. Willow
never went on a rampage. Instead of the orbs being destroyed,
Spike managed to take them from Warren and gave them to
Xander as a wedding present. That sort of takes us up to
the end of 'Spike's Will Be Done'.
Buffy and Spike are now engaged, something
most of the Scoobies have come to accept. Xander, however,
is caught up in some inner turmoil about the whole thing.
He knows he has to come to terms with the relationship if
he wants to remain friends with Buffy. However, he still
doesn't trust Spike, and he keeps putting his foot in it.
Things in LA also turned out just a bit
differently after Buffy and Spike decided to pay Angel a
visit. Spike managed to point out to Connor (Buff and Spikey
were introduced to him as Stephen, and as far as they are
aware, that's the name he's using.) that Justine's attempt
to fake something that looked like a vampire bite wasn't
really very convincing. Though he still wouldn't let Angel
help with burying Holtz, things certainly weren't so bad
between father and son as they would have been. Buffy managed
to come to terms with her feelings for Angel, and Spike
and Angel managed to part on neutral terms.
Buffy also talked Giles into offering Wesley
a job at The Magic Box. Though at that point we didn't yet know if he would
take up the offer, he and Spike seemed to get on quite well
with each other. Buffy was intending to invite the LA gang
to the wedding, but then Dawn pointed out that Angel's presence
might be distressing for Giles, so now she's not so sure.
Preparations for the wedding, which by then was about two months off, were and still are ongoing.
On other fronts, the gang have begun to
put two and two together from Riley's earlier visit and
have decided he must have access to some sort of surveillance
on the Scoobies. They also know, thanks to Buffy being in
Spike's head, that he isn't the Doctor. Once Buffy remembered
Sam's comment about working in an infirmary, they began
to have their own suspicions. Anya confirmed, from Buffy's
description that the hatchlings weren't suvoltes, but a
relatively harmless scavenger species. The only reason they
would have swarmed was if they were using a pheromone signature
to find their mother. As Spike pointed out, the smell wasn't
coming from her underwear, so that only left the clothes
Riley supplied. All things considered, Iowa Boy and Wonder
Wife aren't exactly popular, and Spike is getting a bit
paranoid. He's even suspicious of Dawn's new boyfriend,
a new arrival in town. He also thinks the government knows
about Dawn being the key and is worried that if she shows
any sign of being anything more than a normal teenage girl
that they could view her as a threat to national security.
Buffy got to meet some of Clem's family,
his mother Lily, who is an extremely gifted empath, his
niece Rosa and her mother Marie, who is human. When Clem
says it's nearly two years since Rosa's father was killed,
Buffy begins to suspect that he was a victim of the Initiative.
She also reassesses her own actions and who she has become.
Spike also got Giles to investigate any
possible occurrences where a vampire and a slayer made a
mutual claim, or where a human and a vampire were bonded.
So far his research has been inconclusive, and he warned
the pair against making Spike's claim on Buffy (which happened
in the heat of passion) mutual until he can research further.
Buffy never really was that good at following the watcher's
advice, though. When we left the story, the couple had done
just that and experienced a number of shared flashbacks
to scenes of them together, topped off with a seemingly
prophetic vision of their wedding reception. The overall
effect was similar to what happened when Buffy tasted Dracula's
blood.
The day after the claim was made mutual, while on an LA shopping trip Buffy, Spike and Dawn run into Drusilla. Spike pushes the two girls into a taxi before he leaves with his former paramour. Unlike Dawn, Buffy believes that he was trying to protect them both and that Spike is in danger. Before events reach their climax, she's proven right, when they discover that Dru turned Lindsey McDonald as a gift for Darla, and the lawyer has been turning A list former clients... granting them immortality in exchange for a percentage of their wealth. Dru wants to get her family back together. Lindsey wants Spike around to take care of Dru but Angel is not part of the deal so far as he's concerned, though stripping away everyone Angel cares about one by one might be.
Buffy ropes in the AI team (minus Lorne who went missing later the same night as Spike) to help, and Lorne and Lily make the trip to help out getting Spike back.
Dru tortures Spike holding him in the same place where Lorne is held along with several homeless kids the vamps have picked up as food supplies. Spike refuses to renounce his claim, even after Dru burns away the scars with holy water, but she has one more trick up her sleeve. Using a Tabula Rasa Spike is made to forget all his sire's slights and sins.
Spike, Dru Lindsey and the other vamps arrive at The Hyperion ready for all out war, but Angel has arranged to have the building enchanted with a sanctuary spell that prevents demon violence. Despite the loss of memories Spike still recognises Buffy as his mate and is half way up the stairs with her when he feels Drusilla's death and the return of the lost memories since the crystal the mage used crumbled to dust with her.
Buffy, Spike, Angel, Gunn and Willow borrow a helicopter from David Nabbitt and save Lorne and the kids in the nick of time. Spike and Angel bond over Drusilla's death (at least a little).
Wes comes back from LA with Tara and Willow, thinking he could stay for a week or two and decide after that if he wanted to make the move permanent. Things go a little more smoothly for a while and the biggest problem is having Dawn's boyfriend over for dinner, and dealing with some of Spike's issues, both from his past and from Buffy's treatment of him earlier in their relationship.
Making the most of her new boyfriend, Brandon, Dawn went out for a night at the Bronze with him when she was meant to be at home. Soon she suspected that she'd been drugged and as she tried to get away from Brandon , she was picked up by a military team led by Sam Finn. Brandon, who had also been drugged, was badly injured trying to protect Dawn and if Willow hadn't intervened using magical healing, he would have died in hospital.
As Buffy and Spike returned home from a trip up the coast, Spike was shot at (with bows) by another team, led by Riley Finn, who thought that Buffy needed rescuing from the vampire's thrall. Fortunately, after some previous trouble Spike had borrowed the orbs of invulnerability from Xander and when he discovered that they protected him from the sun's rays he had been reluctant to rush to return them.
Finally, once the soldiers had been overpowered and the two groups compared stories, they worked out that, unknown to Riley, Sam had been the Doctor all along and her most recent experimentation subject was a Key. Appalled at the idea of his wife experimenting on a little girl, Riley, along with Graham and some others, helped Buffy, Spike, Wes and Willow to get her back, though Angel and AI crowd were first to get their hands on Sam.
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy picks up as Dawn began her recovery from the kidnapping ordeal and the Glargh Guhl Kashmanik venom that Sam had injected her with. Sam had reasoned that this would prevent her from being able to tell her story, and also ensure that Buffy would be too busy looking after Dawn to investigate either this or any future dealings she might have in the area.
Section
1 - China In Your Hand |
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Spike and Buffy may have got Dawn back from Sam's clutches,
but that doesn't mean that the matter is entirely settled.
Anya is having a rough time trying to educate Wesley regarding
the thrilling world of retail and there's an outside chance
that the former watcher may actually have a date.
| Section
2 - Another Suitcase In Another Hall |
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It's musical apartments, dorms, houses and rooms for
almost everyone in Sunnydale, or so it seems...
Section
3 - Party Fears Two |
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Everyone, well with the exception of Giles, who is
still in hotel land, is where they belong for now, and it's
time for Wesley's welcome to Sunnydale. Can Xander cope
with a party full of demons? Can Wes cope with Lily's matchmaking?
And is there something altogether more sinister going on
unnoticed by most of our "cast" of characters?
Not to mention what will Giles say when he meets the "other"
Rupert?
Section
4 - Elsewhere |
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Maryann thought it had been too long since
she'd had a fix of Spuffy love... I live to please my reviewers.
Section 5 - Turn! Turn! Turn! |
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Maryann thought it had been too long since she'd had a fix of Spuffy love... again, and I admit that it has been a while so I might sneak some in, but the real focus of this section is going to be another pairing entirely. |
