Season 8 Episode 1
Date: May 18 2002 Disclaimer: You've met all the characters before and you know they're not mine. I've stolen shedloads of quotes from previous Buffy seasons, but put them, I hope, to good use! This was my very first spuffy fanfic - in fact, it's probably the first piece of fiction I've actually completed since I was about twelve years old!! I had just the best time writing this - the Buffyverse characters are wonderful any which way you combine them, and Buffy and Spike in a scene together just write themelves, so beautifully do they feed off each other. I confess to a small degree of shamefacedness over the plot, which is not exactly sparkling. If you think I wrote this solely for the set-up, and the magical scenes it threw up, and then tacked the plot on afterwards you would be very right. But I like to think I just about get away with it! This was written before the end of Season 6 - obviously, events since then have made this set-up one that will be forever confined to the realms of fantasy. As opposed to what actually happens on Real Buffy, which is...oh, hang on. I did start writing a sequel to this - Episode 2: Once More, From The Top - a kind of tribute-to-Once-More-With-Feeling-meets-Groundhog-Day, in which Spike had managed to sell the film rights to one of his trashy horror novels, and it was being made into a musical - a semi-autobiographical musical, nonetheless! Needless to say, the characters found that as the musical was rehearsed their own lives began to parallel the scenes - and of course every time a scene was started over time would slip back accordingly. Hence the title! There were some lovely scenes - Clem's audition song, "I've got skin under my skin", was one of my favourites - and the moment Buffy and Spike discovered who would be playing "their" parts in the musical - "Who's this James Marsters then? Good looking bloke..." "How can she play me? I saw her in Scooby Doo and she was nothing like me!" Anyway, it wasn't to be - my computer decided to eat it, and I've never yet found the time or the inclination to re-write it. You never know. Back to Season 8 Episode 1 HomeA Hairdresser Always Knows
Date: July 21 2002 Disclaimer: The characters are all borrowed for the purposes of this story. All, that is, except Mrs Bell, who, though hers is but a small cameo role, does have the happy privilege of occupying the seat-soon-to-be-sat-in-by-Spike. Don't tell the other stories, but this might just be my favourite. It was written in the thick of the first roots-and-curls spoilage, and will remain forever a tribute to That Hair, sadly with us no more, but once seen, never forgotten. I should point out that this story is not meant to be taken too seriously, and apologise profusely to all hairdressers and anyone who has ever worked on a building site! Back to A Hairdresser Always Knows HomeBuffy vs The Count
Date: June 23 2003 Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike aren't mine. The Count belongs, I think, to the Children's Television Workshop. I hope they never find out what he's been up to in my care. Notes to follow. Back to Buffy vs The Count HomeMy Treasure
Date: October 5 2002 Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike don't belong to me, only each other. As ever, all the lifted quotes are very deliberate. To see the last scene of Beneath You was the most extraordinary privilege - to watch two people in a scene together and to believe in that moment that they had been born for nothing but that, beautiful five minutes - to know that seven years had come down to one scene and that one scene, just then, was bigger than the whole seven years it encompassed. It was stratospheric - in every way untouchable. I knew that I couldn't get hold of it, but I had to cling to it, hang on it any which way I could, and this is the very best I had in me. It is flawed, but I like it. Back to My Treasure HomeSomeday I'll Tell You
Date: October 20 2002 Disclaimer: I don't pretend to own Buffy and Spike, or any of the quotes from previous episodes lifted and appropriated for my purposes. I think in my head this story takes place mid some kind of ongoing monster-of-the-week investigation. Buffy and Spike are searching what started out in my head as an abandoned building somewhere (if I'm perfectly honest, it was always the run-down old Church hall attached to the Beneath You chapel...!), and eventually became the school basement. Well, it is on the Hellmouth so obviously it was the logical place to start! If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times - put Buffy and Spike together in a scene, any scene, anyhow, and I'm more than happy. But I loved the fragility of early Season 7 Buffy-and-Spike; the vulnerability; the sudden, tiny moments of honesty and hope amidst all the sadness and loss and the tangle of memories. That's what I was trying to find in this. Back to Someday I'll Tell You HomeStill The Night
Date: December 25 2002 Disclaimer: The Buffy and Spike thread contains two characters that are not of my making. See if you can spot them. The other thread belongs to nobody, and everybody. I stayed up very late on Christmas Eve to finish this, and it is very much a Christmas story. So much so that I don't know that it works nearly as well if you read it at other times of year! I also wrote this sometime prior to Showtime, and I think if I'd seen that magical last scene I might have written this a little bit differently. There are some fairly heavy themes and metaphors going on here, and I can't emphasise enough that this is not intended to offend anyone. I can only say that for me, the Buffy-and-Spike love story is iconic, and in that, it holds a very tiny something of what Christmas means to me. The title, incidentally, is one translation of the German carol Stille Nacht, or Silent Night. I love the ambiguity of it. And thanks to Leah who helped me out with a fabulously constructive review at FFNet. Back to Still The Night HomeResolution
Date: December 31 2002 Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike aren't mine. If they were, I wouldn't know what to do with them. I had a lot of fun with this one. There is nothing more satisfying than the opportunity to play Fool For Love, or Life Serial - Buffy and Spike all alone in a world-without-Scoobies, preferably with drinks. Perfect. I fear the Magic Shop mention is a bit of a continuity error (to keep with a recent Buffy tradition) - having read about the relevant episodes rather than having seen them at this stage I somehow imagined that the Magic Shop was up and running again. But perhaps it was, and they just kept quiet about it. Once again I wrote this exactly when it was set - I think I finished it at about five minutes to midnight! Back to Resolution HomeLast Step
Date: January 31 2004 Disclaimer: I'm borrowing the characters. I'm borrowing the porch. The words aren't mine, but the order is. :) There's a moment in Storyteller where everyone's eating breakfast and Buffy and Spike walk in mid-conversation. It's a tiny moment, but I loved the sense of expectation that that was exactly what those two would be doing. This is my love-letter to late Season 7 Buffy and Spike. Back to Last Step HomeFlesh To You
Date: August 9 2004 Disclaimer: Notes to follow. Back to Flesh To You HomeForget-Me-Not
Date: September 10 2006 Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike aren't mine, although I don't seem to be able to let them go. "Love him when you say you love him, love her when you say she doesn't love you." - Joss Whedon, Chosen commentary. One winter all the grass verges near us were dug up for some kind of cable work, and the paths alongside them re-laid. What we didn't discover until the spring was that the replanted verges had all been filled with daffodil bulbs. Between that, and the determined green shoots that found their way through the tarmac, this little ficlet came about. Back to Forget-Me-Not HomeOver the Rainbow
Date: WIP Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. I'll give them back when I'm done with them, promise! Notes to follow. Back to Over the Rainbow Home