I hope you do continue with this fic because I've just discovered it and I love it. I really want to read more.

So sorry about you wrecking your car and getting hurt....been there (when totally sober I rear ended a school bus, shatterred my foot & other injuries, etc, spent six mos in a cast OFF the foot w/it elevated mandatorily non-weight bearing! It's when I totally became addicted to Buffy stuff, watched it like 4 or 5 times a day when it came on cable plus knew all other sci-fi show schedules by heart....LOL)
But then to have to up and move across country---heck, moving across the room to sit at the puter probably was painful enuff for ya! You said something about whiplash?
And then to start VET school???? Wow! Now that impresses me. I know the very small percentages that get accepted. U of F here in FL has a good school and very few get accepted yearly and a smaller percentage are women (I'm thinkin' you're a she?)
Hey, I breed parrots...if you have any questions....have done it since the late '80's, started from the ground up, finches to macaws...still have about 100...at one time over 400, even though at one time I had a pretty good line of English bred stock of English Budgies, about 200 of them...still have macaws, cockatoos and cockatiels, keets, Indian Ringnecks, Amazon parrots, lots of conures....also have raised and shown poultry, chickens, ducks, guineas, turkeys, geese, quail, chukkars, doves, pidgeons, you name it...also raised goats and sheep (Barbadoes black bellied "hair" sheep (not wooly), cats (including manx), dogs (everything from chow mixes, Aussies, pit bulls/or American Staffordshires (one of THE gentlest!) to many chihuahuas over the years including the current piss-boy rescue Goblyn, who along with my current joy and currently the only other dog besides the pissboy, Chaz, my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who also is one of the best dogs and best breeds in the world of dogs IMHO.
Obviously, having lived like being in a zoo, and many a time having to answer some idiot on the phone asking if I'm at work at a pet store....?....I've had to "vet" many an animal myself....sometimes emergencies...hell, often....and lucky I was a nurse in the past!....I worked/often work closely with a vet/my vet many times... luckil;y over the years I've had a vet that trusted my observations and coached me thru procedures, many times by phone, even if necessary. Gave me reign to stock common meds to dispense on her or other vet's order....meant a lot for my opinion/experience/observation/judgement to be trusted....also, when having a pile of birds surgically sexed via laparascope by her, she'd look around in the bird's innards and I'd run anesthesia (isoflurane) and O2 and keep the procedure records (that requires three hands doesn't it?)
Anyway, good luck in school...I know it'll take a long while....what school didja get into? Have any idea what specialty you might like to go into, or just dog/cats? Lotsa moolah in exotics....!!!! (* I know--I've spent a fortune in the past, and used to joke about making one vet's car payment every month....*....am babysitting and "nursing" ie giving meds to a 'tiel for a friend who just racked up a $750 vet bill on a bird that flew up to her place a year ago during a storm!)
Again, good luck...will now await more on your fic! Would go to your LJ site and see if it's updated there but don't know it's addy...???
K.

Hi,
I actually posted a review after a future chapter, but went back to read some of the previous chapter's reviews...
On the subject of researching state's ages of consent and clauses, surely (without pulling a Willow and heading off to research mode) there is someplace that has a table of just such info congregated?
I know years and years ago, I searched to find out what the laws were on stalking, including internet stalking (as in going after or stalking an individual, as opposed to generalized demented sex pervert stalking any underaged girl/boy or whatever). I recall finding a table of such laws gathered and organized by state with each states inclusions and specifications....
Perhaps some legal info websites or colleges with law schools' online resources might prove advantageous just to get such details down in future? Not nitpicking at all, just suggesting for you and/or other authors with future fics in mind, if the details matter to the author.
Thanks for the read (so far!)....
K.

So sorry for your accident, I hope you and your wallet are feeling better (cars are SO expensive, one way or another...). But if nobody was hurt, it's already good.
I just spent the day ready this fic and would love to see how it's going to evolve, I was hooked. Take your time, though, and take care.

Author's Response: jeez, you're telling me. I had the accident, moved across the country, started vet school, and then my distributer went out so I had to replace it. I am poor. utterly impoverished. but I'm so glad to hear you like this! I am totally not abandoning it, but I am studying anatamy, etc all the time right now, so it leaves precious little time for writing :)

Hope everything goes well for you hun. Now that you've got me hooked, what a cliff hanger. Now Spike has to pay in grief the way Buffy has been this week. Leaving with Angel must bite big, just as Buffy had to endure watching Spike n Dru. thanx luv, and be well.
I don't get to LJ so let me know via snailmail. rose_h_alarcon@yahoo.com

Author's Response: yeah, Spike's getting payback, in spades. I have plans for this! sorry it's been so long since an update, I just started vet school. I'll pick it up again when I have a chance!

ok so basically i'm going to combust if you dont post soon, although i feel your pain since i too (see below) recently totaled my car. but seriously this is the best story going right now. all the characters are so head on and the plot is HOT. hehe but yeah pleeeaaase post soon... i'm desperately looking through the archives for a substitute, but this story is definitly my favorite!!

Author's Response: I'm so glad you enjoy my fic! I just started vet school, so I have less time to write now, but I promise I'm planning on coming back to this when I get a chance.

I just found this story and love it. Yes, Spike's not very nice, but I like him like that. Some stories have him pretty much a saint - which is not Spike (IMO). Buffy is great, too. She's not an idiot, whiny, or naive. (I'm really glad she wasn't a virgin, because that is such a cliche'.) And I'm glad you aren't bashing Angel - I happen to like him. Spike should spend a weekend dealing with jealousy for once. (Jealous over Dru doesn't count. :) ) I just hope Spike doesn't end up in jail. This story has enough conflict you probably could have made her 18 and it wouldn't have changed much. (unless you are planning something else in the future.) Look forward to the next chapter.

Author's Response: so glad you love it, and that we see eye to eye on so much! makes my life a little easier to know you're out there :) I like my Spike far from saint-like (and I agree that when he is, that's not him), and I like my Buffy strong. She's kind of on her knees, at a low point, here (thus the title), but I'm so glad you don't find her whiny or naive. I worry about that. I never for a second considered making her a virgin. *I* even had a cringe moment when I established that she'd never had an orgasm before Spike, but I ended up concluding that it was far from unlikely that that would be the case; plus, I think that aspect makes how much she prostrates herself that much more likely. Probably shouldn't reveal things, but I'll go ahead and say, no jail time for our boy. her age is simply a kink of mine <coughs> thanks for reading!

You have really done it! This is the perfect ill fated love story and I'm completely hooked. I look forward to how our heart broken lovers will end up. I'll be waiting impatiently for your next chapter.

Author's Response: hee! so glad to have you hooked. thanks for reading and enjoying!

Oh, I really liked this chapter. Its content and in fact Angel work as a well-timed, amazing balm for the wounded, emotional girl. Here he is, then, the only other person to have had her love and look at him, Spikey boy, so opposite to you: a mere kid, callow, ridiculous hair and neanderthal forehead and very much in her past ...... you say ...... but wait! She pushes current dreamboat (and love assassin) aside and throws herself at said callow youth. Now look again, Spike. Angel is young - and handsome and gentle and holding Buffy; she is comfortable with him, he is soothing her, she welcomes his caress ....... and now she's leaving with him. Of course she still wants the fit Brit, that man she is virtually living with, knows intimately and, as Spike condescendingly puts it, in a young girl's way feels the passion and sees the love.

But still, she's upset the natural run of things, she's taken herself out of the push-pull emotional equation, albeit temporarily. She now goes beyond his control, she's not where you left her, crying by herself, she's out there, away, with others, with - and left him behind, literally holding the baby.

Of course it's only a slight reprieve, but I don't think Spike had ever considered Buffy's life actually existed or mattered or was going to impede on his domestic set-up or, more importantly, his emotional and physical possession of Buffy. Have a nice weekend, Spike.

Sharp, pertinent chapter: Buffy's guardian angel, so to speak. Great.

Author's Response: thanks so much! yes, Angel's visit was very carefully timed. I knew from the beginning that he was coming, but I wanted to wait until she really needed him. and yeah, Spike is fairly boiling with jealousy right now, because all he sees is Buffy leaving *with* Angel.

Oh, hurrah for not bashing Poor Ol' Angelcakes! Not because he's a favorite character of mine. I mean I like him well enough...at least on his own show, but what it's really about it that I just can't stand it when fic writers make him the villain so Spike could look better in comparison. That often has the opposite effect on me, where I just think how can I root for Spike when he's being written so boring and perfect? I'm usually a sucker for the bad guy anyway. So of course because you're not writing Spike as a perfect Saint, you do I know I'm still going to be pulling for him then, right? If there's a triangle...Team Spike! Go Time Go! Down with Bangel. :P hehe

I wonder, do you think Buffy truly loves him? Or is Spike right, he's just a passing fancy of hers?

Author's Response: thanks, I can't character bash. won't, rather. I agree that things are more interesting when everything is shades of gray. anyway, to share a secret with you, my otp is spangel, lol, so I really love them both, and prefer it when they love each other *snerk*

whether Buffy loves Spike. that's an interesting question, and I had to think about it for a bit. I hate it when people dismiss the emotions of younger people just because they don't have the life experience to make it 'valid', but in a way they have a point. I think....I think Buffy loves him in the only way she can right now: immaturely. But I think we can call it love. I think someday, Buffy will look back on this and say, wow, I totally prostrated myself at that man's feet and I was less than I was, and be embarrassed of that and know that that's not the kind of love she wants to have. but it's where she's at right now, and I think it's where a lot of young girls end up at this age with love.

I love this story!

Please update asap! I can't wait very long.

Author's Response: thanks! :)

Good. I'm glad that Angel isn't a total prick. I also like that it was rather 'true' to Joss's characters. Also, I like the idea of Buffy leaving him to his 'obligations' for the weekend. Go her! LOVED this chapter- another GREAT update!!

Author's Response: glad you liked my characterization here! and yeah, Spike kinda had it coming...not to mention Buffy really needed it! thanks :)

Go Angel go!!!. I love Spuffy but in this fic a little Bangel is ok. Spike has to taste his own medicine and I think Buffy and Angel should be together for a while. Maybe it would be good for Buffy to quit the job. Keep going!!

Author's Response: yup, the medicine-tasting is one of the reasons Angel came by. his presence will certainly shake things up.