Why did Spike not go to Buffy? (again)

[elisi]

You know, for the longest time I intended to write a follow-up post to my initial thoughts (since they were mostly ranty and not very well thought through), but in all honesty I can't be bothered.

So molly_may, swsa, jamalov29 and all the rest of you who felt all betrayed for Spuffy, what I'll do instead is to direct you to a ficlet I wrote a good while ago: Self Reflections. It's set just after the fade-to-black in 'Harm's Way' and is me trying to get inside Spike's head. I think you should like it, even if it's rather downbeat. (And yes of course self-pimping is bad form and all that, but sometimes fic can just tackle issues far better than meta.)

(This post brought to you by my boredom and avoidance of housework...)

Comments

[molly_may]

It's a lovely story Elisi, very well-written. I guess, for me, it's just that...you know how the meme went around where people described "My Spike" or "My Buffy"? Your Spike is not "My Spike". That's not how I see him, so it's not motivation that works for me. I *understand* it, and understand why others see him that way, but it's not my perception of the character. And maybe my perception is wrong, but it's probably not going to change.:)

[elisi]

It's a lovely story Elisi, very well-written.
Thank you. :)

Your Spike is not "My Spike".
Now that I can't do anything about! *g* The main problem of course being the AtS writers who came up with Spike's reasons in the first place (no I never thought it was the most brilliant of resolutions...). But, there is another side to it, one that I explored in 'Maybe Someday'. Doing a bit of cutting and pasting from Chapter 5, where Spike and Buffy have their big talk after meeting again post-NFA:

***

Buffy: “I just never thought that you’d be the one to start lecturing me on what my life should be like! Maybe I don’t want children all that much... maybe - maybe I want you more!”

Spike looked so shell-shocked that she completely forgot what she was going to say next. He stared at her with eyes that were as terrified as that night after she got the scythe - then he spoke again, cutting through her thoughts: “Do you really mean that?”

She was unable to answer... ‘Were you there with me?’ ‘I was.’ ‘What does that mean?’ She still didn’t know. There had been so little time and he hadn’t pushed the issue. But now...

Spike tilted his head and looked at her earnestly. “Could you see us have an actual future? A life? If I asked... would you marry me?”

She looked at him dumbfounded. “M...M...Marry?” she asked feebly and sat down on the bed again, not feeling certain that her legs could support her any more. “As in white dress and rings and a priest?”

“As in everything Buffy.” He stopped and frowned slightly. “See, this is the bit that I could never get to fit when I tried to think it through. Because I did - over and over again, back when I was a ghost walking around the empty corridors of Wolfram & Hart at night... could it ever have worked? We were off the scale of the dysfunction-o-meter, we hurt each other so much...” He swallowed. “If... if I could offer you a life - not just undying love, but an actual future - could you be with me forever? Could we work? Could we take all the crap and work through it?”

She just looked at him, unable to make her brain function. This was not at all what she had expected - this was bigger and more complicated than anything she had dealt with in a long, long time. She felt stranded far away from all familiar landmarks and had no idea what to say. She was no longer the young girl who had written ‘Buffy & Angel 4-ever!’ on her schoolbooks... forever had stopped being an option a long time ago.