Introduction

Hello, my pretties! I feel this story actually requires an introduction for once.

Nothing in this story is mine. Nothing at all. Well, the phrasing, perhaps, but that's it, because it's a transcription of the episodes.

This isn't a story I'll be able to update very quickly. If I'd worked on the first chapter non-stop, it would have taken me 36 hours to work through the video and turn it into text, and then to write it out. Naturally, I didn't do that in one sitting, so instead it took me close to a month. Just so you know that if it takes me a long time to update, it's not because I've given up. It's just taking a while.

This particular story is only going to be the first season. Then I'll start a new one, for the next, and so on.

I can't guarantee that every word of the dialogue is correct. In the first chapter, there's two words that I'm really not sure about, but that's all. I work really hard to get it perfect, and I think I do a pretty damn good job. When I've listened to the same piece over again and still don't know what it says, I try to look up the quote. So just bear in mind that I spend a lot of time working on it, if there's something that doesn't look like it says what you think it should say.

How about a little preview? Now, this isn't something you'll see for a very long time, but it happens to be my favorite scene from the entire series. The cross scene from season 7, episode 2, Beneath You.

The Cross

Buffy stared at the church as she paused outside of it for a moment. Steeling her conviction, she stepped up.

She walked inside slowly, gazing around the room for the blonde vampire. She paused just behind the pews, not wanting to enter too far into the room, lest her escape route be blocked. She couldn't see anything, though, and paced to her right, trying to decide how long she was obligated to look before she could reasonably leave. A small frown appeared on her face as she scanned the pews, wondering if he could be lying — or hiding — under one. He did seem to be rather crazy lately.

Spike stepped out from behind her. "Didn't work."

Buffy whipped around to face him. "What the hell are you —"

He interrupted her before she could finish. "It didn't work," he repeated.

He paused a moment, glancing nervously to his right. He lifted his right hand, and Buffy noticed for the first time that he held a bundle of blue cloth: the shirt he'd been wearing earlier. She also noticed he was shirtless. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can miss, but she had.

"Costume. Didn't help," he continued. "Couldn't hide." He chucked the shirt onto the back of the closest pew and let his hand fall back to his side.

He shifted restlessly, and her eyes returned to his face. She was confused and somewhat shocked, but she tried to hide it. She wasn't sure how well she did. "No more mind games, Spike."

"No more mind games," he agreed. "No more mind." His eyes remained downcast. She didn't think he had looked at her face yet.

Buffy's confusion only grew, and she looked at the gouges on his chest. A reasonable topic change. "Tell me what happened to you." She reached out and touched the wound.

Spike recoiled, hiding his chest behind his arm. "Hey, hey, hey! No touching!"

He finally looked at her, his expression becoming questioning, pleading. "Am I flesh?" he asked. "Am I flesh to you?" That was more of a demand, and Buffy watched him curiously, in a kind of way that could not be described in any way except as how one regarded a person they had known who was suddenly saying things that made no sense at all. "Feed on flesh. My flesh." He had looked away again, and now shifted his gaze just to the right of Buffy. "Nothing else, not a spark."

It sounded like he was going to say 'okay,' but the word was strangled off. "Fine. Flesh then," he decided. He met her eyes, then looked at his hands, where they were worrying at his belt, and back at her in quick succession. "Solid through." His eyes dropped again. "Get it hard, service the girl." He jerked his head once, sharply, and began to unbuckle himself.

"Stop it!" Buffy yelled, reaching to slap his hands away. It — he — brought back too many memories of that night, memories she'd just as well forget.

He reached up and grabbed her throat, a natural reaction for any predator who feels threatened, earning a grunt from her. She slammed her forearm into his elbow and threw him across the room. He landed in the pews, destroying many of them.

He propped himself up in the wreckage, but made no move to stand. "Right. . . . Girl doesn't want to be serviced." His voice wavered. "Because there's no spark." He frowned and looked around, toward the window to his left that bathed him in moonlight. "Ain't we in a sodding engine?" he called to no one in particular. A humorless laugh escaped his lips.

Buffy stepped around so she could see him, standing at the edge of the pile of splintered wood. "Spike, have you completely lost your mind?"

"Well, yes, where have you been all night?" he retorted. He regarded her as if she was the crazy one.

"You thought you would just come back here and . . . be with me?" she asked, a hint of disgust coloring her tone.

"First time for everything," he said, looking down at the ruined bench. He laughed, again without humor.

"This is all you get," she said sternly. "I'm listening." She paused, bracing herself, not certain she'd really said the words that had just passed her lips. "Tell me what happened." She gathered her resolve and felt she was ready for whatever Spike was going to say.

He seemed confused, but whether it was because of what she'd said or because he didn't know where to begin, Buffy didn't know.

He moved his head in different directions, almost as if to music. "I tried to find it, acourse."

"Find what?" she asked sharply, impatiently.

"The spark," he retorted, like she should already know. "The missing . . . the piece. That fit." He was back to avoiding looking at her again. "That'd make me fit. Because you didn't want . . ." He drew in a breath, shaking his head ruefully as he expelled it past his teeth.

He looked around suddenly, briefly meeting her eyes. "I can't." He shifted himself backwards. "Not with you looking." He scampered away, into the comfort of the shadows. He lifted himself to his feet, stumbling as he added more space between the two of them, Slayer and vampire.

He kept his back turned to her as he resumed speaking, but turned his face to her. "I dreamed of killing you."

Buffy glanced to the floor and scooped up a stake-like shard from the pew, just to be safe.

Spike moved in the darkness, into a spot where Buffy couldn't see any part of him, not even his gleaming marble-colored flesh. She kept her eyes pinned on where she knew he was, though.

"I think they were dreams," he said uncertainly. There was a long pause as he continued moving, but eventually he started again. "So weak." He breathed deeply, roughly, even though it was unnecessary. "You make me weak," he accused. He was facing her again, but it didn't matter much. There still wasn't much of him she could see except for the outline of a shoulder and a piece of his peroxide blonde hair. "Thinking of you. Holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your—" he cut himself off, groping for a way to finish, "ending." Another mirthless laugh. "Angel. He — he should have warned me."

Buffy was starting to catch on now, but wanted to hear more before she jumped to any conclusions. Because there was no way he would have done what she thought he was suggesting.

"Makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here," he went on. "In me. All the time."

Buffy slowly lowered her stake, eyes wide, as she came to the realization that he really was saying what it sounded like he was saying.

He wasn't done yet. "The spark. I wanted to give you . . . what you deserve." Spike had circled around by now until he was behind Buffy, several feet back.

She swallowed compulsively, trying to reconcile what she was hearing with what she knew of the Big Bad. Her brain was unwilling to accept this new information.

"And I got it. They put the spark in me," he paced forward, "and now all it does is burn." His voice was low and intense, running over Buffy like a river over stones. He was right behind her now, less than a foot separating the bare skin of his chest from her back. She didn't turn to face him yet, though.

"Your soul," she whispered incredulously. He snorted, and she turned slowly, partly from disbelief, partly so she wouldn't startle him.

"Bit worse for lack of use." He smiled sadly, only a hint of his usual ruefulness in it.

She stared at him. "You got your soul back." She could hardly believe it. This was Spike. With a soul? Impossible — right? "How?" she asked breathily.

"'S what you wanted, right?" he asked earnestly. "It's what you wanted, right?" he repeated, more loudly, changing the emphasis and looking up. He was talking to no one again. He looked away, over his shoulder, realizing he sounded crazy again. "And — and now, everybody's in here," he put his fingers to his temples, brushing past Buffy, "talking. Everything I did, everyone I. . . . And him." Buffy turned to keep him in her line of sight.

He made as if to look over his shoulder at her, but didn't quite, instead just staring off to the side. "And it," he added sadly. He faced forward again, looking at the cross resting behind here the altar would have been. "The other. The thing. Beneath." The intensity in his tone had begun to rise. "Beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They're all just telling me to go. Go." He twisted to look her in the eye, his blue gaze as intense as his voice had been moments before. "To hell." He held her eyes this time.

She shook her head weakly, a slight jerky movement. "Why?" He didn't answer; there were a million things she could have been asking about. "Why would you do that?" she finished.

He was talking over her before she'd gotten the whole question out. "Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev—" He realized suddenly that he was looking at her, something he didn't want to be doing, and turned to face the cross again. He couldn't look at her while bearing his heart as he was, such as it was. "To be a kind of man . . ." He trailed off and started to pace forward deliberately, with purpose, approaching the cross. "And she shall look on him with forgiveness, and everyone will forgive and love. . . ." He stood toe to toe with the cross now, looking upon it. "And he will be loved."

Buffy watched Spike from across the room. "So everything's okay, right?" Her mouth dropped open as a tear rolled over and fell across her cheek, soon followed by another. Buffy watched on as the vampire draped himself across the cross, unable to speak even if she'd wanted to.

Spike sighed as smoke began to rise from his skin where the holy object came into contact with him. He didn't seem to notice, or maybe he just didn't care. "Can we rest now?" he implored. She couldn't look away, her silent tears still fresh on her face.

"Buffy, can we rest?"