FIC: The Crusader's Veil - Chapter 1.1

It's Monday already where I am, so here's the next part. Consider it my Easter egg.

PAIRINGS: canon
SPOILERS: themes up to season 6, set between "The Grave" and "Bargaining"
GENRE: novel, gen-fic, angst, comedy - WIP
RATING: PG-15 (for violence in later chapters)
SUMMARY: Buffy is dead, but the Scoobies carry on fighting. When the Crusader comes to Sunnydale Spike has to fight an old enemy...

Prologue

( The Crusader's Veil - Chapter 1.1 )

Fic: Hope (my flashfic-a-thon entry)

This is my entry for marguerite_26's flashfic-a-thon.
Written for anniesj who requested Buffy/Spike or Buffy/Giles and specified that she likes it angst-y. I was going to do both requests in one story but then the Giles-Buffy interaction took over. There's angst but also tentative reconciliation.

PAIRING: (Buffy,Giles), (Buffy/Spike - latent)
GENRE: flashfic, angst
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: up to 7x18 – “Dirty Girls”
DEDICATION: for Annie Sewell-Jennings

( Hope )

Many thanks to lordshiva for helping with the POV (is this better?) and ladycat777 for giving this a once over.

Blah blah about writing and more Crusader-fic

I spent hours in front of my laptop today, but I didn't really get much done, unless you count work on The Crusader's Veil. Some of it actually makes me cringe. I started writing that thing in July 2001. Of course I rewrote it several times since then. I tried to make it non-shippy and as canonic as possible, like a tie-in novel, just filling in the blanks between "The Gift" and "Bargaining."

(BTW, I love my husband, because when I sit here doing fanficcy things he actually calls it 'working' - *happy sigh*)

Anyway, unearthing the Crusader is interesting because it shows me very clearly where I've improved. My range of vocabulary and grammar has grown, my grasp of the characters is more accurate and I cut more rigorously. I'm also less guided by wishful thinking (I mean, I still am, but I'm more aware of how that affects my writing).

The version I'm posting is only marginally tidied up. There are many things I'd do differently today, but I am only weeding out the most blatant mistakes (and I really ought to get a beta for punctuation). One of the more charmingly stupid things I'm *not* cutting out is Spike's ability to draw and paint (I remembered seeing a few pencil sketches in Spike's S5 Buffy memento collection and assumed that he drew them). And if the whole thing is a tad sentimental, so be it.
On the plus side I can offer some nice Spike/Dru flashbacks.

So, please don't pelt me with tomatos. I know the Crusader is not the best I've ever written, but he's like an ugly stray tom-cat, edgy, scruffy, moody - I can't find it in my heart to kick him out.

Previous Parts:
Prologue
Chapter 1.1

And here's the second half of the first chapter:

( The Crusader's Veil - Chapter 1.2 )

Next update: next monday.