1. Give Me Time by Ink [Reviews - 4] (5724 words)
While I wouldn't exactly consider this dark, I would consider it very angsty - even more so than my usual stuff. Parts of it made me almost cry upon rereading, so I just want to be very clear that it is sad. It's also completely different from anything I've written before. I'm usually all about canon, but the muses and PTB wanted me to try and stretch my creativity legs here. I've never really written William before, but I've pieced together a character from the flashbacks on the show and bits of Spike's character. I think that William and Spike are one and the same even if he didn't always know it. As for Buffy, she is an English slayer during the Victorian Era in this fic, but I tried to have bits of canon Buffy in there, too. That was challenging, but fun.

This story is assuming that instead of staying in London and being turned, William heads to the country and must stay there for a while. No character or plot device is superfluous here; all were added with an endgame in mind. This means that the story moves quickly from one important instance to another without much filler. I've taken some liberties with William's family, but nothing too extreme, as we never had much background on him anyhow. It's one of those, "it's canon if I say it's canon" kind of things.

Anyway, one last note. This story is not meant to rewrite the history of Spike and Buffy. I like to think of it more as an experiment by the universe, or Powers That Be, or God, or whatever turns us on and shakes us about… to see if things could have been different between the two of them. Maybe they're always meant to know each other. Maybe they really do love each other… or maybe certain things happen no matter what time and place they find themselves in.

If you read my whole rambling author's note, thank you… Now read my whole rambling story so I can thank you some more!

2. Part 2 by Ink [Reviews - 0] (5718 words)