Before I post my 26 chapter epic (LOL), I want to thank Jerusha for all her hard work. Between her own creative efforts and demanding law school I am in awe that she has taken on the project much less handled it so well. Thanks to every contributor as well for adding to the riches in our fandom.

This tale is set in S4. Yes, it is Spuffy, but in keeping with the idea of new beginnings, it has a slow build, beginning with the internal life of the characters. If you are expecting a quick Spuffy fix, you might be disappointed, although your patience will be rewarded if you stick with it. There are 26 chapters.

One of the many lovely things about the world Joss and ME created was the use of metaphor, especially in the first three seasons. They took us through the high school years using their own special supernatural devices to deal with things we all experienced.

Season 4 was a perfect set up to continue that form of storytelling. The college years are the time when we re-evaluate all we have been taught thus far. We experience the world and its people for ourselves, unfiltered. We experiment and challenge and grow. In the end we become our own selves. The Initiative, with humans at the helm and demons as their experiments, the introduction of a chipped vampire and a Slayer apart from the Council and its control were a perfect avenue to explore those parts of our lives in the same metaphor as the previous three seasons. At some point, for reasons I will never understand, they changed course and made it about Adam, a Frankenstein monster, instead of Buffy trudging into those gray areas of her world and grappling with the issues they presented.

In this story I am attempting to tell S4 in a way that might have continued the progression begun by ME in seasons 1–3. There is no Adam in my story, even though I do use canon here and there in the telling of it.

Hope you enjoy my submission of this alternate season 4.

Kathleen

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/195099.html