Wow. I go away for awhile, and when I get back to LJ, there are four more parts to the story, Spike is himself again and the "deepest desire" was both the thing that I least expected and the one that made the most sense. The story I was enjoying took an amazing turn, yet it follows the thread started in the William chapters in a very satisfying way. I'm especially intrigued by the continuation of Spike and Buffy's respective quests (not sure what else to call it?) from the earlier chapters. Buffy's old assumptions about Spike are useless now, and it fascinates me to see her trying to figure out who he really is now that she has to let go of her ideas of Spike-the-lover, or Spike-the-rescue-project.

I'm really, really blown away.