And nothing made me long for the Season 6 that might have been more than this, grown-up Spike and Angel in an alleyway having a grown-up conversation, that relationship that has been everything from abusive to affectionate, suddenly instinctive, understated, accepted. And my Spike-and-Angel unit that I loved became Spike and Angel, team. No hyphens.

We'll never know and that's a huge tragedy. Very nice meta, I love the comparisons between Angel's "sons" and of course, there's one son that he had to destroy - Penn - which maybe made him work at his other "sons" just a little bit harder.