A/N: Come on people. I'm not feeling loved. I need reviews to keep me motivated, and so far I'm only half sure one person is actually reading these. Do everyone a favour and review. Tell me what you think, even if it doesn't seem important. I'm too cheap to spring for the pay version of so I don't know if anybody is reading this or not. I need to know. So review.
Disclaimer:None of this belongs to me, it all belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al. Except for a pair of runners I left in Sunnydale by accident. Those are mine.

Last time, on Crushed: Xander was confused. William wanted more hot chocolate before he went back to watch Passions. He likes Timmy, how sweet. Buffy, Willow, Tara and Anya all took William shopping, and they all argued about how to dress him. Except Tara of course, she's just a sweety. They went back to the Summers household and had more hot chocolate. Buffy had quasi lusty feelings about William and Spike. Dawn showed up and hugged William. Whatever happens next?

Sometimes life sucks

William was awfully confused. He was aware that any change in location, let alone time, would require major adjustments but they seemed to be coming very quickly here. First the marvellous invention that is television. Passions alone makes this time worth living in. Then there was the attire that women wore on a daily basis. It was positively indecent. He saw several women's naval today!

Then there was both the uncultured speech of these Americans and this god awful weather. At least Rupert supplied some reprieve from the horrible accent. William had already been assured from four different sources that the sunshine never abated. It appeared that a nice, wet afternoon was forever lost to him.

Then there was that shopping excursion. It was simply nerve-wracking. Three of his four companions had argued over how he should be dressed, and judging from the way so many young women and even some young men had been staring at him, William was sure that whatever compromise they reached made him look like a fool. That poor woman at the beverage store had been so caught up in staring at William's clothes that he had been forced to try and order four times. He'd told the ladies that these clothes were too tight.

Now, in Buffy's kitchen, where the surprises should have stopped, an adolescent girl had just charged into him and began to hug him, murmuring some sort of message and calling him Spike. That made fourteen people who had called him Spike. Nine of those people had said it in a fearful tone and run the other way. Clearly William was doing something to make these people call him Spike.

Throwing a part apologetic, part pleading glance to Buffy, William attempted to disentangle himself from the young girl. She must have understood his intentions as she released him and backed away a few steps. William saw her look at his clothing then watched as an expression of confusion passed over her elfin features.

This only confirmed it. The assortment of clothes that had been forced upon him made him look a fool. The young girl was blushing slightly now, probably from the knowledge she had hugged someone in such ludicrous apparel. William was sure he'd seen several other young men in similar clothes, but they had all been big and muscular. He must have looked sincerely undersized. William was pulled out of his musings as he heard the young girl speaking.

"...orry about that, Spike. I mean, I know it's only been a day but you did say you were going to skip town for a little bit and I thought it would be about a week before I saw you again so I sort of started to miss you today..."

The young girl trailed off uncomfortably, looking around at William and the other people in the kitchen. William began to blush as well. The people calling him Spike had all thought he was someone else. Maybe that explained the friendship the people he had known had extended to him. He reminded them of a trusted friend.

"When did you start to wear glasses?" the young girl asked, her tone filled with confusion. "And for that matter, what's with the new look? I mean, I don't want to say it's bad or anything..." the young girl stopped speaking altogether at the amused looks on all the other women's faces.

William's blush deepened and became more noticeable. His appearance had shocked this young woman into actually mentioning his clothing when everyone else had seemed to want to avoid mentioning it. The young man gave a little jerk as he realised that everyone was staring at him now.

"I- I'm terribly sorry, but you seem to have mistaken me for someone else. My name is William." The young Englishman put out his hand hesitantly, fearing that now she knew she would scorn his friendship. His fears were concerned as the young girl just stared at him in a fascinated manner and he dropped his hand in defeat.

Buffy took charge again. She stepped forward and gave William his hot chocolate.

"William, this is my rude, annoying sister Dawn. Dawn, this is William" the blonde finished in a too sweet tone, her hazel eyes dancing in delight.

"I am so not rude! You're the one who makes the salespeople go find, like, thirty pairs of shoes just because you feel like seeing what they look like."

"I do not! That happened one time. One time! and I did buy a pair of shoes for their trouble-"

"Yeah, the $10 tennis shoes that you hadn't even tried on!"

Both girls halted abruptly, Buffy's mouth still open from whatever retort she had repaired, and they both turned to look at the other people in the kitchen. Tara had an amused little smile, Willow was beaming and Anya looked incredibly bored. William felt incredibly awkward, like an interloper of some sort.

"Perhaps it would be best if I left while you..." William trailed off with a vague gesture at the two bickering sisters. William was surprised to see both sisters glance at the other then simultaneously shake their heads. Buffy stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm.

"No, don't go. We were just playing. Stay" Buffy punctuated her request with a little squeeze on William's arm. William himself nearly dropped back into his seat in shock. Not only did the heated argument between the two sisters seem to be an unremarkable thing, they actually wanted him to stay. Both of them. Even Dawn, now that she knew he wasn't this Spike.

"A- all right. I'll stay then." William lowered himself into his chair carefully, not wanting to embarrass himself. "If it's not too much trouble, can I ask who this Spike is? Almost all of you have mistaken me for him at some time or another."

Everyone in the room, except Dawn who still didn't know William's true nature, looked suddenly uncomfortable. Buffy suggested they take this to the lounge room. Everyone else seemed to agree. William began to get worried. Surely something was wrong if they felt they needed to relocate completely.

Buffy felt slightly panicky. Actually, she felt a lot panicky. William was a really sweet, charming, considerate, kind, gorgeous -Buffy put an end to that train of thought before it led to bad lusty feelings. But how do you explain to such a nice guy that he turned into an evil vampire and killed tens of thousands of innocent people?

He was just so sensitive. Like before, he'd thought she and Dawn were actually arguing. Well, ok, so maybe they were, but he'd thought it was serious. He seemed the total opposite to Spike. This poor guy seemed to be embarrassed when women stared at him. Which was totally the opposite to the bleach blond vampire who seemed to live off sexual innuendo as much as blood.

Taking a seat on the same couch as William, Buffy took a deep breath and looked around for reassurance. Dawn would be no help. Not only did she know nothing of William's arrival, she was an avid Spike fan. The only avid Spike fan, not counting Spike himself. Anya wouldn't be much help either. Ex-Vengeance Demons tended to be sympathetic to demons and vampires. Willow and Tara could be helpful, but they were probably too shy and embarrassed about their part in the whole situation.

"William, you know that the reason you are here is because of a spell that went wrong." Buffy waited for his nod, which was quick in coming. "Well, the spell copied you then brought you here, to the future. It wouldn't have worked if the spell had just brought the thing from the past because of some time changing paradox thingy.

Well, what happened to you- the other you, not the you you- was, about a week after you disappeared, a vampire named Drusilla turned you into another vampire. You earned yourself the nickname Spike by torturing people to death with a railroad spike. You spent about a hundred and twenty years killing people whenever you felt like it, until you came here.

About a year and a half ago, a government funded group put a chip in your head. A little piece of metal and plastic and stuff that made your head hurt whenever you tried to bite people. You came to us for help, then you found out you could kill other demons. You have been helping us ever since then."

Buffy finished and looked worriedly at William. The young man had paled when she mentioned how he'd gotten the nickname, and now he was just sitting there with an odd expression on his face, like he'd been sucker punched. What he said next made Buffy feel exactly like that.

"Was I good then? As a vampire, I mean. Because all of you let me, I mean him, work with you, and your sister knows him so... I thought..." William's hopeful look faded as he saw the expressions on those around him. Buffy felt really bad when she saw his hang dog expression. He had really wanted to believe that he was still good.

"No, you were definitely evil. Very evil. You tried to killed Buffy and her friends a whole bunch of times. But I forgive you, because it wasn't actually you who tried to kill my Xander, but your vampire alter ego." Anya spouted off in a matter-of-fact tone in her usual manner. Lacking tact.

"Oh, I see." William seemed really deflated. "So I wasn't even good at being evil then?" Buffy frowned. This seemed to really bother him. Not that he'd tried to kill Buffy and the others, but that he'd failed. Of course, he was probably still in shock about all of that. Buffy made a choice to try and help his ego a little bit.

"It's not that, you were really good at being evil. You sucked at making plans, but you were a good fighter. You killed two Vampire Slayers in the past century." William looked up at that, some hope shining in his eyes. The hope quickly vanished.

"But I was still couldn't kill any of you." William seemed to realise exactly how wiggy this conversation was and he glanced around the room rapidly. "Not that I wished any of you to be killed at all. It's just... I wanted to be good at something" Buffy stared at William in shock as he very quietly finished his statement.

This was the epitome of a wiggins. William, who becomes the brash, cocky, arrogant and downright insufferable vampire Spike, having a major inferiority complex. So much so he wanted to have been good at evil rather than mediocre. Buffy recalled Spike's words about Drusilla. "She is the face of my salvation. She saved me from mediocrity."

"Don't feel bad. Buffy is the best Slayer in recorded history She's died once before and she's killed things that were much more evil than you ever were." Anya, ever the voice of compassion, Buffy thought grimly. But rather than reassure, which is presumedly what Anya's words were meant to do, William looked horrified.

"My greatest claim was to have killed two Slayers?" At everyone's nod, he looked even more depressed. "Are all Slayers women?" He asked in a dispirited tone, already sure of the answer. "Then my greatest claim to fame was having killed two women." he finished in a defeated tone.

Spike ordered another scotch. His plan was to stay here in L.A. for two weeks, until he could be sure Buffy had gotten over his pathetic attempt to get her to admit to something between them.

This time he was going to stick to the plan. No more running off half cocked, nearly getting himself staked by the Slayer. He had put his affairs in order. Said goodbye to the Nibblet, insuring at least one friend inside the Slayers circle, he'd borrowed a large number of kittens from the local loan sharks to gamble here in L.A., all of which he'd lost only half an hour ago.

Now he was buying himself drinks from money he'd scared out of local patrons. Spike shook his head at himself. Spike, William the Bloody, vampire of the Order of Aurelius, great grand childe of Angelus, direct descendant of The Master himself, and he was stuck scaring money to buy alcohol off humans.

The once Big Bad was truly pathetic now. A vampire in love with a Vampire Slayer, a vampire unable to bite or even hurt a human. A vampire who actually says goodbye to a fifteen year old girl when he leaves town. His self esteem was in tatters. Drusilla may have saved him from mediocrity, but he just had to jump right back in, didn't he?

"He's getting stronger. I'm losing him, I'm losing control of him." Glorificus, Also known as the Beast to the Knights of Byzantium and Glory to her minions, ranted.

"You're speaking of Ben, most glamorous yet tasteful one?" asked one of her chief minions, Jinx, his scabby faced creased with concern and curiosity, his long, pointed nose twitching at the opportunity of pleasing his Goddess.

"He stabbed you in your body." she stated in a pained voice, her expression showing more concern at the presumption of an attack than at the injury of her minion.

"Jinx is all right, your highness. And we do have the new knowledge that the key is a human being." another of her minions, Murk, tried to appease Glory before her mood turned violent and she had to sully her hand striking one of their unworthy bodies.

"If time runs out on us and all we're left with is info? Then we're screwed." the God trapped in a human man's body wailed in despair.

"Oh, surely not!" Jinx stated, horrified at both the thought of his God's failure and at her obvious distress.

"No, we're screwed!"

"But you are a god. The sacred Glorificus!" he stated, shocked that his God might fail.

" I'm a god in exile. Far from the hellfires of home and ... sharing my body with an enemy that stabs my boys in their fleshy little stomachs. Uhh! I'm in pain." she wailed, melodramatically.

"How can we help? We'll lay down our lives."

"The Slayer and the key are connected. She's going to have contact with it. Find out who's new in her life, who's ... special, who's different. Watch her." Glory decided abruptly, her mood changes mercurial.

"We can do that, O ... thou." Murk murmured, running out of superlatives at an unfortunate moment.

"I want to hear about everyone she has contact with! That girl has my key ... and I'm trusting you boys to get it for me. If you love me ... get it for me." Glory said in a child's persuasive tone. Her minions nodded rapidly and ran out into the street, leaving Glory trying on her massive shoe collection.