Spike

"I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

- Spike

Spike (born William Pratt) was a famous and widely feared vampire, well-known among both humans and demons for having faced and killed two Slayers throughout his unlife and for his history of torturing his victims with railroad spikes (which is what it is rumored the moniker of "Spike" is derived from); it has been stated that his reputation for evil and bloodshed was second only to that of Angelus'. In his human life, William was an unsuccessful and unappreciated romantic poet known as William the Bloody, for his "bloody awful" poetry, though after he became a vampire, that moniker was repurposed to imply he was very violent. After being sired by Drusilla, he reinvented himself and terrorized Europe alongside Drusilla, Angel and Darla throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Spike first traveled to Sunnydale in 1997, accompanied by Drusilla. Though he quickly established himself as one of Buffy Summers' most dangerous enemies, he was eventually forced into multiple uneasy alliances with them after he was captured by the Initative and implanted with a cerebral microchip that rendered him unable to harm humans. Eventually, Spike discovered that he had fallen in love with Buffy and officially joined the Scooby Gang, later being motivated by his love for her to successfully fight to regain his soul.

Spike sacrificed his life in battle against the First Evil, both defeating its army of Turok-Han and permanently closing the Sunnydale Hellmouth, as well as the town of Sunnydale itself. However, bound to an ancient amulet, Spike became an incorporeal entity haunting the halls of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart, then under the management of Team Angel. After becoming corporeal again, Spike struggled to find a place in the world, only to join Angel in his battle against the Senior Partners and become a champion in his own right.

Early history and Drusilla
"They call him "William the Bloody" because of his bloody awful poetry."

- unidentified woman (1880)



William Pratt was born circa 1850 to 1853 in London, England to Anne and an unidentified husband. In 1880, when William was about 27 to 30 years old, he was an ineffectual gentleman who lived with his mother and wrote poetry, enjoying a certain level of economic comfort. Struggling to make a place for himself in London's high society, he was nicknamed "William 'the Bloody'" behind his back because his poetry was so "bloody awful". This nickname, with more deadly connotations, would follow him in his future as a vampire. While he moved within high society circles, William found little in common with his contemporaries, who treated him more like a buffoon than a peer. He showed a strong capacity for loyalty and devoted love, which followed him after his siring. After his romantic overtures were rejected by the aristocratic Cecily Addams, a despondent William, while wandering the streets, bumped into the vampire Drusilla, who wanted a playmate for herself. She followed him into an alley, where she found William crying, seduced him and transformed him into a vampire.



After Drusilla sired William she buried him and he crawled his way out of his grave. The pair partied for several days, both draining humans and drinking alcohol. They decided to go back to William's original residence where a live-in servant invited them in.



William's devotion for his mother remained with him after he rose from the grave. Anne suffered from tuberculosis, and, not wanting to see his mother die while he lived forever, William sired her so she would join him and Drusilla.

Unfortunately, his mother, as a vampire, taunted William, claiming that she had despised him all along, and insinuating that William had always had a sexual fascination with her. He ended up staking her because he could not bear to see his mother in such a twisted form. The entire experience was a terrible trauma for William; he would later write a poem about the experience entitled "The Wanton Folly of Me Mum". This experience would comes to haunt him a century later when The First Evil used it to brainwash Spike.

After staking his mother, William began a new life with Drusilla. Euphoric with his newfound vampiric abilities he abandoned the genteel hypocrisy of Victorian life. He became a rebel, adopting a working class North London accent and embracing impulsiveness and violence. He adopted the nom de guerre "Spike" due to his habit of torturing people with railroad spikes, inspired by a detractor from his human days who had exclaimed that he would rather "have a railroad spike driven through [his] head" than listen to William's poetry. It is even indicated somewhat in "The Weight of the World" that he may have been involved in criminal activities, as Spike remarks that he spent "the better part of a century" in delinquency. In the company of Drusilla, her sire Angelus and Angelus' sire Darla, Spike terrorized Europe and Asia for almost two decades. Utterly devoted to Drusilla, he had a strained relationship with Angelus, whose relationship with Spike is portrayed in turns as both that of father and rebellious son, and as vindictive and spiteful former lovers. Although Angelus did enjoy the company of another male vampire in their travels, he found Spike's eagerness for battle to be an unnecessary risk. Angelus regarded killing as an art, not a sport, and killed for the sheer act of evil; Spike did it for amusement and the rush. Angelus avoided fights that might result in his demise; Spike found they added to the thrill. Tensions also arose surrounding Angelus's sexual relationship with Drusilla, which continued despite Spike's strong disapproval. Spike at one point referred to Angel as both his "sire" and his "Yoda", using both terms as "mentor." Spike later notes that Drusilla made him a vampire, but Angelus truly made him a monster.



1890: Spike, Drusilla, Angelus and Darla attend the ballet Giselle, in St Petersburg, Russia.

1894: The four vampire's were Rome, Italy and encountered the Immortal. He lockeds up Angelus and Spike whilst he has a threesome with Darla and Drusilla. This sparked a rivalry with the Immortal that made him the enemy of both Spike and Angel.

October 1898: Spike & Dru were in Borsa, Romania with Angelus and Darla. Spike, however was oblivious that Angelus had regained his soul due to being cursed by gypsies. But he joined in the massacre of the Clan.

November 1898: In a London book store, Spike marveled at a copy of Dracula He observed that the book contained detailed information on how to kill vampires. Drusilla remarked that it's convenient; Spike argued that it's very inconvenient for them. The shop owner demanded eleven pounds for the book, as it was signed by the author. Spike thought this price was ridiculous, but Drusilla asked for the book, so Spike paid.



November 28th, 1898: Spike tried to convince Drusilla to forget about Angelus; since the incident with the gypsies, he believed, they should consider him gone. Elsewhere, Darla was approached by Dracula. Dracula offered to remove Darla's pain if she'd come with him, and Darla, under Dracula's hypnotic thrall, agreed. Meanwhile Spike and Drusilla attended another performance of Giselle, which they saw 8 years previously in Russia. Darla took Dracula back to her townhouse. Dracula tried to convince Darla to be his bride, at which point Spike and Dru arrived. Spike confronted Dracula, who was amused by Spike's name. He announced his own name, and Spike produced the novel he had purchased, saying he had a bone to pick. Dracula called the novel "fabricated rubbish," and threw it into the fireplace. Darla interjected, telling Spike that accepting Dracula as their new leader was a good way to move on after the loss of Angelus. Spike resented the implication that he'd be an inadequate leader, and demanded his eleven pounds from Dracula. Dracula began to take Dru under his thrall, and Spike angrily attacked. Dracula effortlessly grabbed Spike by the throat and threw him into the fire. In flames, Spike leapt from the townhouse window and into the nearby Thames.

November 30th, 1898: Drusilla and Darla departed in a carriage bound for Whitby, Yorkshire, with Dracula, to be his brides, unaware that Spike was hiding beneath the coach. Dracula summoned his brides to him. When they arrived, Drusilla began to speak of a "party" and said that many people were coming with unpleasant gifts. Dracula presented the girls with gifts of his own: two wooden stakes. Using his hypnotic powers, he ordered them to pick them up, saying that it was the only way to end the pain of losing Angelus. Just as Dracula was ordering the girls to kill each other, a flaming arrow crashed through the window. A mob was raiding Dracula's mansion, and the girls were able to escape. Dracula found a letter from Spike left in their place, saying that he had attacked the village and led the angry mob to the mansion. He concluded the letter with, "P.S.: You still owe me eleven pounds."



June 18th, 1900: in Beijing, China, Spike killed a Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion. She gave him the scar on his left eyebrow, which remained a century later. Shortly afterward, he and Drusilla lost touch with Darla and Angelus, and the couple wandered the world seeking amusement and mayhem, occasionally separating to pursue separate interests but always reuniting.



1933: Spike and Drusilla were in Chicago, Illinois and attended the World's Fair, but the brothers of Chinese slayer Xin Rong attacked them seeking vengeance.

October 1934: Spike and Drusilla were in New York. They then headed to Los Angeles and watched Bela Lugosi perform as Dracula on stage. They soon encountered the real Dracula once again. Spike fought Dracula on a bi-plane that crashed into the Hollywoodland sign, destroying the last four letters. Spike presumed his rival was killed in the explosion.

World War II (sometime between 1939-1945): Spike and Drusilla accepted a commission from the ice demon Skrymir, and were tasked with the elimination of all potential Slayers, as well as the Slayer herself, in exchange for Freyja's Strand, a task at which they ultimately failed.



September 1943: Spike's feud with Dracula continued. Dracula made a deal with Hitler to hand over Spike, Nostroyev and the Prince of Lies to Nazi agents in exchange for the release of gypsies. Dracula invited them to a virgin blood bath in Madrid which was where they were captured by Nazi forces for experimentation, and taken aboard a submarine which in turn was seized by Americans. However, Spike and the two other imprisoned vampires, Nostroyev and the Prince of Lies, broke free and killed most of the crew. The trio was stopped from killing everybody by Angel, who arrived with instructions to deliver the submarine and the records of the Nazi experimentation with vampires to the United States military. While the submarine was delivered thanks to the help of the newly sired Sam Lawson, Spike, who had burned up the notes from the experiments, was forced by Angel to leave the submarine and swim back to land.



In 1947 Spike was in Los Angeles working as a bodyguard, where he encountered Número Cinco and was framed for the Black Dahlia murder.

June, 1959: Spike had reunited with Drusilla and the pair spent some time in Rome, Italy. Their reunion was short lived as Comte De Saint - Germain kidnapped Drusilla as he required her company for his 200th birthday. Spike rescued Drusilla and as they left he noticed a statue of Dracula. As retribution, he knocked over the statue, not knowing that Comte De Saint - Germain turned Dracula to stone in 1947 and kept it as a victorious trophy. The imprisoned Dracula was released and he killed the Comte. At some point later, Spike spent time in prison for tax evasion because of the Immortal.

1963: Spike and Drusilla were caught in the middle of slaughtering an orphanage. Spike killed two members of the Watcher's Council before Roger Wyndam-Pryce escaped with his life.

At some point in a century or so of being his own boss, Spike employed a pair of Fyarl Demons as muscle, which is unusual because vampires and demons rarely get along; he continued this diversity in friendships and relationships throughout his un-life.

1969: Spike attended Woodstock, where he drank blood from a flower child and spent the next several hours "watching his hand move", a side effect from the psychoactive drugs in their bloodstream.



July 13, 1977: He fought and killed Nikki Wood, a Slayer in New York City aboard a subway train, and stole her black leather duster, which he continued to wear even decades later.

1997: Spike and Dru traveled to Prague, where the pair was attacked by an angry mob. Drusilla was also kidnapped and severely tortured as a warning sign for other vampires to stay away from the city. On their way to Sunnydale, Spike and Drusilla stopped off at St. Louis to try some riverboat gambling. The detour ended up less relaxing than they might have hoped.

Sunnydale
"Once he starts something he doesn't stop, until everything in his path is dead. Stay away."

- Angel on Spike



Spike first appeared in Sunnydale accompanied by his longtime love Drusilla, who had been seriously weakened by an angry mob in Prague. He was a devoted caretaker to Drusilla in her weakened condition, and initially hoped that the Hellmouth's energy could help restore her strength. The presence of a Slayer to fight made the town even more attractive to Spike. Upon discovering that Angelus was also in Sunnydale, he initially greeted the older vampire as a friend (not realizing that Angel now has a soul); however, Angel's loyalty to Buffy soon ended their camaraderie. Soon afterward, when Spike's impatience to fight Buffy ruined their plans for the Night of Saint Vigeous, he killed the Anointed One and took control of the now-defunct Order of Aurelius, planning to make things "a little less ritual and a little more fun". When Spike later learned that Drusilla could only be cured by the blood of the vampire who had sired her (Angel), he was more than willing to kill Angel in order to restore Dru; while Angel survived thanks to Buffy, the ritual still succeeded, and Drusilla was restored to health.

Spike and Drusilla were major enemies of Buffy. He was severely injured in a fight with Buffy and Kendra when a church organ collapsed on him and he spent several months unable to walk, using a wheelchair instead. (Joss Whedon had originally intended to kill Spike, but the character had grown popular with fans and it was decided to injure him instead.)



When Angel reverted to Angelus after making love with Buffy, he joined Spike and Drusilla, and eventually plotted with Dru to destroy all of humanity. Spike initially celebrated their reunion with Angelus and demonstrated affection, but their longtime rivalry was renewed when Angelus taunted the (temporarily) helpless Spike by pursuing Dru as a lover. Spike continued to use his wheelchair after he had recovered, feigning weakness to avoid suspicion while he plotted against Angelus. Having no wish to see the world end, Spike decided to ally himself with Buffy in his efforts; he explained to Buffy that, in addition to wanting Drusilla back, he also wanted to "save the world".

"We like to talk big, vampires do. 'I'm going to destroy the world.' That's just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You've got – the dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people: billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision, with a real passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester bloody Square."

- Spike joins forces with Buffy to stop Angelus

After much persuasion, Buffy accepted Spike's aid, and he promised to leave Sunnydale and never return when the fight was over. When Buffy made her attack, Spike knocked out Drusilla, removing her from the fight. True to his word, Spike took Drusilla and traveled to Brazil, leaving Buffy to face Angelus alone.

In Brazil, Drusilla was horrified by his alliance with the Slayer and sensed that Spike would develop feelings for Buffy; she rejected him and cheated on him, which sent him into an extended drunken depression. Spike returned to Sunnydale and attempted to force Willow Rosenberg to cast a love spell on Drusilla. He visited Joyce Summers, who listened sympathetically to his heartache, and recruited Buffy and Angel to help him gather spell ingredients. After reveling in the rush of an intense fight, Spike cheerfully abandoned the love spell idea, resolving to win Drusilla back by torturing her until she liked him again. He also told Buffy and Angel that no matter what happened, they would never be friends because of their love for one another. Buffy remarked to Angel that "I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself – or Spike, for some reason," foreshadowing Spike's role as the "truth-seer" of the group.

Chip
"Hate to break it to you, O Impotent One, but you're not the "Big Bad" anymore. You're not even the "Kinda Naughty"! You're nothing but a waste of space. My space! And as much as I always got a big laugh watching Buffy kick your shiny, white bum, and as much as I know I can give you a little bum-kicking myself right now, I'm here to tell you something... you're not even worth it."

- Xander

Spike returned to Sunnydale alone to search for the Gem of Amarra, a talisman that rendered a vampire completely immune to all of the conventional vampire weaknesses; he later followed Oz to Los Angeles to retrieve it, fighting and torturing Angel and hiring a vampire who claimed he wasn't interested in the gem who specialized in torture. After arranging a trade with Cordelia Chase and Doyle, he was double crossed by the vampire and driven out of the city without the ring. He became involved with Harmony Kendall, a shallow young vampire who used to be Cordelia's best friend before being turned at graduation. Despite her beauty and affection, Spike treated her as little more than a nuisance and sexual plaything.





His un-life takes a pivotal turn when The Initiative, a secret government demon-fighting army, captures him and implants a microchip in his head, which causes crippling pain whenever he harms or attempts to harm a human being. Unable to hunt for blood anymore, Spike turns to the Scooby Gang for protection, bartering his knowledge of the The Initiative; he quickly becomes their reluctant captive in Xander's basement, though they soon allow him some freedom, as he ultimately goes to stay in a crypt. He helps Giles out of a tight spot in exchange for money. Spike and Buffy briefly become engaged through an accidental enchantment by Willow; although the spell only commands them to get married, each mentions being in love, foreshadowing their later bond. His inability to bite is likened to impotence, much to his constant humiliation. By the time of "Doomed", Spike, reduced to little more than a prisoner of the Scoobies, and unable to attack humans, sank into a suicidal depression, nearly staking himself in Xander's basement and even becoming ecstatic when Xander warned him of an incoming apocalypse because he wanted the world to end. However, he nonetheless managed to cheer himself up by viciously tearing down Willow and Xander, remarking that they are useless to Buffy and she would be a much better Slayer if she didn't have to constantly watch out for them; both Willow and Xander are visibly taken aback by his words despite their open denials.

"Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let’s annihilate them. For justice - and for - the safety of puppies – and Christmas, right? Let’s fight that evil! Let’s kill something! Oh, come on!"

- Spike discovers that he can hurt demons

Spike discovers that the chip does not prevent him from fighting demons after helping the Scooby Gang; and since he thrives on violence, he aids the Scoobies on occasion in order to get some action. From this point on, the Scoobies occasionally turn to Spike for help, often paying him in exchange for information or combat assistance. At this point, Spike is still looking out for himself first and foremost though, and does not shy away from letting the Scoobies know it. For example, upon learning that Faith is on the loose after coming out of her coma, he proclaims that he will find her and tell her exactly where the Scoobies are, and watch while she tears them all apart. Despite his continued evil, Spike's assistance to Buffy quickly makes him unpopular with Sunnydale's demon population; at one point, he is brutally beaten by a gang of demons at Willy the Snitch's demon bar, who criticize him for breaking a "code" forbidding demons from killing each other and threaten to kill him should he appear at Willy's Place again.

Later, Spike allies with Adam, a cybernetically-augmented human-demon hybrid created by the Initiative, and helps the creature in its quest to destroy the Initiative and the Scoobies once and for all. Spike's price is simple: he wants the Initiative's chip out of his head for good in order to be his bad self again. He manages to turn the Scoobies against each other by manipulating existing tensions within the group ("The Yoko Factor"), but Buffy figures out the scheme and reconciles with the gang when Spike lets too much information slip during a subsequent encounter in Adam's former lair. Adam subsequently double-crosses him, but Spike escapes. When the Scoobies are subsequently attacked by a demon just as the enjoining spell wears off, Spike immediately appears and saves them from the demon, though, by his own admission, he only did so in the hopes that they wouldn't stake him (which is successful). He subsequently helps the Scoobies save the remaining Initiative soldiers.

Obsession with Buffy
"Oh God, no. Please, no."

- Spike realizes his feelings for Buffy.



Spike began to offer more independent assistance, telling Riley about his old rivalry with Dracula and punching Tara to determine whether her father's tales about her being a demon were true (The chip causing him pain when he struck her and thus confirming that Tara wasn't a demon). Despite this, after a failed attempt to force a former Initiative doctor to remove his chip, Spike becomes justifiably sick and tired with Buffy's constant presence in his life; however, an erotic dream sequence that initially depicts him attempting to force Buffy to kill him because he doesn't want to see her face anymore (going so far as to tear his own shirt off in order to give her a clear shot) leads Spike to realize (much to his horror) that he has fallen in love with Buffy. Unsure how to proceed, he keeps a nightly vigil outside her home, occasionally even breaking in sometimes to collect items for his shrine to her. Spike also becomes a more active participant in the Scooby Gang, jumping into several of Buffy's fights to provide assistance whether she wants it or not. At Buffy's request, he reveals to her how he killed the two Slayers he had fought, offering survival advice, and later comforts her after she finds out that her mother has to go into the hospital; though surprised, Buffy doesn't rebuff his attempts.

Before Riley's departure, Riley suspected that Spike has fallen in love with Buffy and catches him sniffing Buffy's clothes in her room. Also Spike took great pleasure in telling Riley about Joyce's illness and that Buffy told him first. Then Spike took Buffy to where Riley went and exposed his activities with vampires. Riley confronts Spike soon afterward and Spike taunts Riley on the fact that he thinks he's trying to steal his girl away. They start drinking together over their situations with Buffy. Riley asks Spike if he thinks that he has a chance with her and Spike tells him that he doesn't but that he still has to try. Spike believes that he has the better deal because Riley is so close to Buffy but doesn't really have her. After this, Riley leaves.

Later, when Dawn sneaks out of the house on Buffy's birthday in order to go to the Magic Box, Spike, during one of his nightly vigils, decides to go along as a bodyguard in order to protect her from any creatures roaming around. Helping her break in, it ends up partially Spike's fault that Dawn discovers her identity as the Key. Upon discovering Spike's involvement, Buffy first reaction is confronting him in his crypt and physically attacking him. Spike, however, turns the tables on Buffy, harshly informing her that he merely came along to keep Dawn safe, also stating that they should have just told her the truth to begin with and she would have found out sooner or later, all of which takes Buffy aback. Later, when Dawn runs away from home during her identity crisis, Spike assists the Scoobies in tracking her down, during which Buffy tearfully admits that Spike was right. Spike awkwardly tries to comfort her, stating that Dawn, being a "fourteen-year-old hormone bomb", would eventually sneak off at night, and assuring Buffy that they would find her.

Dawn, who has a crush on Spike, perceives his feelings for Buffy, and casually mentions it to Buffy. When Buffy rejects his advances, Spike attempts to prove his love by kidnapping her to witness him killing Drusilla for her, to little avail; a furious and disgusted Buffy destroys his shrine, has Willow revoke Spike's invitation to her house (something she had not bothered to do in the almost three years since their alliance against Angelus), and alienates him from the group.

Later on, after the death of Joyce Summers, Spike attempts to pay his respects by leaving flowers at the Summers residence, as she was the only member of Buffy's group that ever treated him decently. Xander thinks that he's merely attempting to take advantage of the situation to score points with Buffy, and can't be convinced otherwise until Willow discovers that he didn't even leave a card with the flowers. When Dawn attempts to resurrect Joyce, Spike helps her out, but assures her he doesn't want any credit for it, as Buffy would "drive a redwood through his chest" and swears that he would kill Dawn himself if she ever told Buffy about his involvement. He ends up getting badly injured by a Ghora demon when they attempt to steal one of its eggs in order to perform the spell correctly. However, their efforts eventually amount to nothing when Dawn raises Joyce as a zombie and ultimately breaks the spell.

Not wanting to give up his obsession, Spike has Warren Mears make a sex-bot made in Buffy's likeness that is programmed to love and obey him, though it ends up getting him captured by Glory's minions, who mistake him for the Key. Though disgusted, Buffy loses most of her disdain for Spike after she learns that he refused to reveal the identity of the Key to Glory under intense torture, nearly laying down his life to protect Dawn. Buffy is moved by his unexpected sacrifice and kisses him, telling him that she would never forget what he has done.

A definite sign of Buffy's growing trust of Spike is when she leaves Dawn in his care after Glory "brain-sucks" Tara; Dawn tearfully blames herself for Glory's attacks on people (including Spike's torture at the hands of Glory) and believes herself to be a lightning rod for pain. Spike comforts her, telling her that she is not evil; as a vampire, he knows a thing or two about evil.

When Glory discovers that Dawn is the Key, Buffy allows Spike to accompany the Scoobies out of Sunnydale (much to the chagrin of Giles and Xander) as he was the only one besides Buffy himself that stood any chance of protecting Dawn if Glory caught up to them. In the days and hours leading up to the final showdown with Glory, Spike fights by Buffy's side, earning her trust (as well as a re-invite to her home). Spike ultimately accepts that Buffy will never love him, but chooses to settle for the fact that she treats him, a monster, like a human being.

After Buffy dies in the showdown with Glory, Spike honors her memory by remaining loyal to the Scoobies, fighting at their side and serving the role of baby-sitter/father figure/protector to Dawn, and helping Willow and Tara to raise her in Buffy's absence. Blaming himself for Buffy's death, he keeps track of the number of days since she died until she is resurrected.

Spike and Buffy became lovers soon after her resurrection by her friends. Unable to confide in her friends, Buffy is increasingly drawn to Spike for comfort. Their physical relationship starts after a demon's spell makes them share their emotions and Buffy expresses that she "want[s] the fire back," but it is not consummated until Spike finds out that his chip no longer stops him from hurting the resurrected Buffy. Buffy most often initiates both the violence and the sex between them, and threatens to kill Spike if he ever tells anyone about their relationship. During their first sexual encounter, they fought and the house around them shook and fell, foreshadowing the volatile nature of their relationship. Both are unsatisfied with the relationship; Buffy is ashamed of her dark desires, while Spike obsessively craves the love, trust, and affection that she is unwilling to give to him.

Shortly after Buffy's ex-boyfriend, Riley Finn returns to town searching for a Suvolte Demon egg smuggler, Spike gladly tells him that he has Buffy and Riley pretends not to care even though he clearly does. Riley accuses Spike of being "The Doctor" and confirms it when he finds the eggs. After Riley leaves Sunnydale for good, Buffy ends her relationship with Spike, admitting that she was just using him and it was killing her. Later, Spike tries to make Buffy jealous by bringing a date to Xander and Anya's wedding. Later, after Xander leaves Anya at the altar, Spike and Anya get drunk together and seek solace in each others arms after seeing how their loved ones abandoned them all alone. Xander tries to kill Spike in a jealous rage but Buffy stops him in time and reveals her secret relationship with Spike as a result. After seeing Buffy's clearly jealous reaction to his liaison with Anya, he believes he still has a chance to win her back.



After a lecture from Dawn, Spike, his obsession out of control now, corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom, making aggressive sexual advances. When Buffy refuses him again, he grows desperate and tries to rape her; although their sexual history is highly violent, Buffy clearly says no to this encounter. When Buffy fights him off and dares him to ask her why she could never love him, Spike returns to his crypt, both horrified by his own actions and furious that he backed off, something he never would have done without his chip. Soon after, Spike leaves Sunnydale for a remote location in Africa, where we are led to believe that he intends to get his chip removed and become his old evil self. Spike undergoes the Demon Trials, a series of brutal physical tests, to prove his worthiness to the demon shaman. He finally succeeds, and we find out his true intentions aren't to remove his chip: he wanted to earn his soul back in order to prove his worth to Buffy, and the demon shaman who put him through the trials grants his wish. (cf. "Grave").

Soul
"I want to see how it ends"

- Spike, before his demise in the Hellmouth

With the returning of his soul comes a conscience filled with guilt. Spike resides in the basement of the recently reconstructed Sunnydale High School, close to the Hellmouth's opening. Tormented by The First Evil as well as his new found conscience, he appears to be going insane (he notes at one point that he is "bug-shagging crazy"). During a moment of clarity, he helped Buffy to track down a Sluggoth Demon created by Anya, during which Buffy discovered what had happened to him. When Buffy asks him why he had fought for his soul, Spike explains: "For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev-...To be a kind of man." After Buffy learns that Spike is in the basement, she enlists his assistance in several situations, although it is not until well after she learns that he is ensouled that she decides to bring him out of the basement.

Spike becomes reluctant roommates with Xander, because he has nowhere else to go and Buffy insisted to both of them. Though Spike's mental condition rapidly improved, this arrangement backfires as Spike, under influence of the First Evil's hypnotic trigger, unknowingly kills innocent people even with his chip intact. Spike initially has no memory of his actions; after he discovers what he has done, he begs Buffy to stake him. Buffy refuses to do so and takes him into her house, telling him she has seen him change. He suffers severe withdrawals after his extended feeding on human blood under The First Evil's influence, and is still vulnerable to the (as yet unidentified) hypnotic trigger, so he is willingly confined with ropes or chains. Buffy guards and cares for Spike throughout his recovery, telling Spike that she believes in him, a statement which later sustains him throughout his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the First Evil.



Spike assists Buffy in her efforts to train the Potentials that are gathering in Sunnydale. In the meantime, his chip begins to malfunction, causing him intense pain and threatening to end his unlife if not treated. To the dismay of Giles and her friends, Buffy trusts Spike enough now to order Initiative operatives to remove the chip from his head for good, saying that his soul will stop him from hurting people. She also takes Spike's side when Robin Wood attempts to kill him in retribution for the murder of his mother, Nikki Wood, the Slayer Spike killed in 1977. Ironically, by attempting to kill Spike when he is under the First's influence, Wood frees Spike from his hypnotic trigger: a song called "Early One Morning" that Spike's mother often sang to him before he became a vampire. The song evokes Spike's traumatic memories of his mother's abusive behavior toward him after she turned; after Spike is able to address these issues, he realizes that his mother had always loved him, knowledge which frees him from the First's control good. Afterward, he bites and brutally pulverizes Wood; though Spike lets Wood live this time out of respect for his mother, he assures Buffy that this is Wood's last chance, and he (Spike) will kill Robin without hesitation if Robin so much as looked at him the wrong way again.



Later, Spike and Buffy achieve an emotional closeness; he, alone, remains selflessly loyal to her when the other Scoobies, Giles, and the Potentials abandon her, criticizing them for treating Buffy with so little respect after all she had done with them, and even coming to fisticuffs with Faith before leaving. After Spike tracks Buffy to an abandoned house alone, they spend three nights together; after the first night, Spike tells Buffy that it was the best night of his life, just holding her. Through Spike's love and encouragement, a depressed Buffy, on the verge of losing hope, found the strength to continue fighting, and successfully won back the leadership position when Faith blundered and led the Potentials into a near-fatal trap.

It is unclear whether they resume their sexual intimacy the second night; creator Joss Whedon said on the DVD commentary for "Chosen" that he intentionally left it to the viewers to decide how they felt the relationship progressed, though Whedon had earlier stated on the commentary that he personally felt having them resume a sexual relationship would send the wrong message, although Spike does say that Buffy came back to him for some "cold comfort", which is the name he gave to their sexual encounters.

When Angel returns to help against the battle with the First Evil, Buffy gives him a welcome kiss for saving her from Caleb, but Spike was watching from a distance with The First Evil posing as Buffy. Later, he is seen punching a punching bag with a cruddy picture of Angel on it in anger. Spike tells Buffy that he saw Angel and her kissing and wants to wear the amulet since someone more than human and must be en-souled has to wear it. Buffy tells him that it is meant for a champion only and then she hands it over to him since she truly believes in him now. They sleep in each other's arms that night and unknown to him, Buffy has a talk with The First Evil and gets the idea to abolish the entire slayer line for good thus creating an army of slayers.



In the final battle inside the Hellmouth against the First Evil, Spike, wearing the mystical amulet, fights alongside Buffy, Faith and the newly awakened Slayers against the First Evil's army of Turok-Han. The amulet suddenly activates and mystically channels sunlight through Spike in the middle of the fight that turns the all of the Turok-Han to dust and collapses the cavern containing the Hellmouth, sealing it and creating a crater which swallows up the entire town of Sunnydale. Despite Buffy's pleas for him to come along and that he has done enough, Spike willingly sacrifices himself to destroy the Turok-Han and close the Hellmouth in order to see it through. Spike is slowly incinerated in the process, but not before Buffy finally tells him "I love you." (This is what the prophetic Cassie Newton was referring when, earlier she says to Spike, "She'll tell you".) Spike replies "No you don't. But thanks for saying it" in disbelief. Even as he burns and crumbles to dust, Spike chuckles and revels in the destruction before him, glad to be able to see the fight to its end. He finally dies in the Hellmouth and saves the world in the process, becoming a Champion and a true hero.

Los Angeles


Despite his apparent death, Spike returns. The amulet he wore at the Hellmouth mysteriously returns to Wolfram & Hart by mail; Spike materializes from a whirlwind after Angel opens the envelope. Spike initially intends to leave Wolfram & Hart and find Buffy, who is now in Europe; however, he discovers that he is mystically bound to Los Angeles and unable to leave the city limits

Spike is an incorporeal being akin to a ghost with a connection to the human world that is unstable, causing him to disappear at random (but increasingly frequent) intervals. As his disappearances become more frequent and intense, Spike, terrified, confides only to Fred that every time he disappears, he is being transported to Hell. He asks her to help save him, and she promises to find a way to make him corporeal again. Later, it is discovered that Spike's disappearances are being caused by another ghost, Matthias Pavayne aka The Reaper, who toys with the many souls trapped at Wolfram & Hart in order to delay his own sentence to Hell. Fred successfully creates a machine to recorporealize Spike, but when Pavayne threatens Fred's life, Spike chooses to use the machine to save her, throwing away his opportunity to become corporeal but successfully stopping Pavayne; Spike's heroic actions reinforce Fred's belief that he is "worth saving." Spike finds himself able to affect the world around him if he wants to badly enough, so he is able to assist in fighting before he is actually recorporealized.



Later, Spike receives a mysterious package in the mail; when he opens it, he sees a flash of light and discovers that he has become corporeal again. Chaos concurrently erupts in Wolfram & Hart, and Eve arrives with information that the existence of two corporeal ensouled vampire champions is complicating the Shanshu Prophecy and destroying the fabric of reality (although it was later implied that Angel's old foe Lindsey McDonald made the situation worse than it would have been). She tells them that a new translation of the Prophecy reveals that, in order to restore the balance, Spike and Angel must compete to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment, which will bestow upon the winner great responsibilities and pain before ultimately washing his past clean and allowing him to live as human again. In their extended physical and verbal battle, each tries to assert himself as the better man. Although Angel tells Spike that Spike is a monster just like him, Spike denies any similarities: "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Their battle culminates with Angel unable to touch a giant cross, which Spike, contemptuously ignoring the pain, holds and wields with ease. During the fight, he also reveals his hate and resentment towards Angel for making him into the monster he became. Spike defeats Angel for the first time in their long history (Although it should be noted that, during the fight, Spike was perfectly willing to beat up Angel from the beginning while Angel was more focused on getting the Cup, with Angel actually managing to cause some damage when he began to fight back properly despite being more heavily injured than Spike). Despite Angel's last-minute efforts, Spike drinks from the Cup, but the prophecy turns out to be a sham (the liquid in the Cup was merely Mountain Dew).

Even though he is now corporeal (and therefore no longer bound to Los Angeles), Spike decides not to go to Europe in search of Buffy; he wants her to remember him as the hero who died to save the world, and later mentions to Andrew Wells, who is, as far as any Buffy fans know, the only member of the Scooby Gang who knows that Spike is still "alive", that it would be pretty stupid to go to Europe after that, mockingly simulating a phone call between the two by stating "Hello, Buffy, it's Spike. I didn't burn up like you thought I did. How are things?" Lindsey McDonald, using the name of the late half-demon Doyle with a connection to The Powers That Be, persuades Spike that he is destined to "help the helpless," in much the same way as the real Doyle persuaded Angel of the same thing. Alienated by Angel's corporate, bureaucratic approach to fighting evil, Spike steps into his role as hero. He takes on Dana, a psychotic Slayer who had, until recently, been locked in a mental institution, but, misjudging the threat she poses- initially assuming that she is the victim of possession and then assuming that her madness makes her relatively ineffective-, Dana captures him, drugs him, and cuts off his hands. This experience causes Spike to more deeply examine the nature of the evil inside him, and he tells Angel that Dana thought that he had killed her whole family, and says: "And I'm supposed to, what, complain, because hers wasn't one of the hundreds of families I did kill?" Spike believes that Dana has become a monster like them, but Angel responds that the girl is an innocent victim, and Spike points out that he and Angel were innocent victims at one point. Spike's hands are reattached at Wolfram & Hart, and he is instructed to play video games for physical therapy, including Donkey Kong and Crash Bandicoot.

Eventually, Spike learns that "Doyle" is actually Lindsey, who has been manipulating him the whole time. His relationship with Angel becomes increasingly acrimonious, and they contemplate the possibility of Spike leaving L.A. after a particularly bitter argument over whether cavemen or astronauts would win in a fight (cf. "A Hole in the World"). When Fred becomes infected with the essence of the Old One known as Illyria, Spike works alongside Angel and the rest of the crew to find a cure, and mourns for Fred when they fail. He abandons the idea of leaving L.A. after Fred's death, deciding to stay because that is what Fred would have wanted, and officially joins Team Angel in her honor. Spike is put in charge of "testing" the newly-awakened Illyria's abilities, which generally involves fighting with her and recording details on his clipboard, and the two develop a bond. Spike is a trusted member of the group. Although Spike and Angel make it clear that they still do not like each other, they are a lethally effective fighting team thanks to their decades or so of experience with each other, and get along far better than they did earlier by the time Spike officially joins Angel's crew.



Spike is the first to vote for Angel's plan to wound the Senior Partners by taking out the Circle of the Black Thorn and go out in a blaze of glory, despite his grim assessment of the plan as being a strategem to "burn the house down while we're still in it". Before Angel's team enters what may be their final battle, Angel gives them the day off, to spend as though it was going to be their last day. Spike, returning to his mortal roots as a frustrated poet, triumphantly knocks them dead (figuratively) in an open mic poetry slam at a bar after having some drinks to gather "Dutch courage," reciting his completed version of a poem he had begun over a century earlier before being sired by Drusilla (cf. "Not Fade Away").The poem reads as follows:

My soul is wrapped in harsh repose

Midnight decends in raven coloured clothes

But soft, behold! A sunlight beam

Cutting a swath of glimmering gleam

My heart expands, 'tis grown a bulge in it,

Inspired by your beauty effulgent.

After single-handedly rescuing an infant and destroying the Fell Brethren, Spike joins Angel, Illyria, and a badly-wounded Charles Gunn in the alley behind the Hyperion, preparing to incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners, as a way of going out in a blaze of glory.

Spike would, however, survive the battle.

Becoming Lord of Beverly Hills


Spinning out of Spike's Angel: After the Fall "First Night" story, the first issue of Spike: After the Fall shows Spike and Illyria watching over a group of citizens. One such civilian, Jeremy Johns, becomes Spike's right hand man.. Illyria keeps turning back into Fred, and Spike is forced to keep turning her back into Illyria to protect her. Spike questions whether he may have feelings for Fred, and the group of women that Spike is with during Angel: After the Fall make their first chronological appearance.

The issue opens with Spike meeting the dragon: while Spike considers ways of killing it, the dragon communicates that Spike should mount it. Once together, the dragon takes Spike to Wolfram & Hart, where a figure whom Spike does not recognize is suspended inside an energy field, writhing in pain. Meanwhile, the civilians are at the mercy of the group of women. Spike encounters one, commandeers her truck, and finds the hostages, then tries to run down their leader of the group of female demons. She throws Fred in front of the truck, and Fred reverts to Illyria on impact. Illyria and Spike begin to melee the demon women, but their leader uses life-draining magic to turn the hostages into zombies and knock out Spike and Illyria. Spike awakens chained in a dark room filled with his zombified wards, and the demon leader tells him she is keeping him alive for his connections.

Non; the head of the female demons, attempts to bargain with Gunn to return Spike to him. Her power is revealed to be control of humans. Gunn beats her down and lets her go leading her to decide to kill Spike and all the humans with him. Non attempts to behead Illyria, but the axe shatters on contact. Illyria breaks free and starts killing all the female demons. Non prepares to kill the last human hostage before Connor appears and stops her.

Connor, Spike, and Illyria continue their battle with Non. In the midst of the battle, Non attempts to feed on Connor, whom she realizes is not human, and on whom she cannot feed. After discovering that Non's Sadecki demon controls her flock of females, Spike tells Illyria to finish it off. During her confrontation with the demon, she again starts reverting between Fred and Illyria, but finally is able to gather herself and kill the demon. Realizing his plan worked, Spike goes mano y mano with Non. After taking a beating from Spike, Non begins to use Jeremy to gain some energy back. Illyria realizes this and horrifies Spike by killing Jeremy without hesitation, though Spike nonetheless takes advantage of this to take Non down. Spike then becomes Lord of Beverly Hills, and tells the other lords to keep out, subsequently burying Jeremy's body. Later, Spike and Connor meet up and begin their crusade of saving the remaining humans in Los Angeles.

Reunting with Angel
In Angel: After the Fall, Spike has adjusted to Los Angeles' new status as a literal hell on Earth; he and Illyria both serve together as the Demon Lords of Beverly Hills, living in a lavish mansion- while it appears that both of them have once again become evil, it is revealed during Angel's fight with Illyria that their position is a facade; Spike and Illyria are secretly rescuing humans and benevolent demons and evacuating them into the care of Connor, Nina Ash, and Gwen Raiden. He then is given the opportunity to return to the side of evil, but as usual remains loyal to the good fight as he's helping Angel to bring the Lords down. He is assembled, along with the other members of Team Angel, by Lorne in order to help Angel fight the other Demon Lords' champions. Spike rallies with the rest of the gang against the machinations of Gunn, who is now a vampire unknowingly working under visions from the Senior Partners, and struggles to control Illyria's unstable powers in her new environment. Illyria periodically reverts to the form and personality of Fred, in which times Spike tries to protect his friend from harm. During Gunn's attack on the Hyperion, Spike fights three of Gunn's enslaved Slayers, but cannot defeat all three of them at once and is staked. However, he returns due to Illyria's manipulation of time. After Gunn manages to unleash Illyria's true form by killing the remnants of the Fred personality, a gravely-wounded, now-human Angel, Connor and Spike are the only surviving members of the team. After Illyria is defeated and Connor is killed by Gunn, Angel begins killing everything. Spike prevents them from interfering, letting Angel get it out of his system. As Angel realizes what needs to be done to return them to Earth, Spike is asked by Wesley to watch over Illyria, as she will still have essences of Fred.

Back to Earth
With Los Angeles now restored to Earth, Spike maintains a loosely-affiliated relationship with the newly-reopened Angel Investigations company, often collaborating with Angel and his associates while maintaining some degree of independence. While attending the premiere of Last Angel in Hell&mdash;a film about Los Angeles' time in Hell&mdash;he expressed some amusement at the fact that his film counterpart was a woman&mdash;reflecting that at least she was hot&mdash;later being temporarily transformed into a version of Angel at a comic book convention as a result of a spell, attempting to implement a plan to coordinate the "good" costumes against the "bad" but lacking Angel's tactical mentality. After Angel's disappearance&mdash;during which Connor took charge of Angel Investigations&mdash;Spike loses his leg while fighting alongside Gunn in an alley (Although they are able to restore his leg with various healing spells and a supply of blood), his thoughts revealing that he doesn't trust Gunn due to his actions as a vampire. Having learned that an organization is claiming that Angel has begun to aid them in providing immortality to their clients, the first subject being an actress who goes on to attack a talk show host. Spike suggests that he seduce the actress to learn where Angel is. Following James's betrayal of the group, Spike attempts to contact movie writers to write a film about him in order to increase his image in comparison to Angel's current fame. However, his image suffers drastic upheaval when Liss&mdash;a soul-eating demon James had summoned to eliminate Spike and Angel&mdash;attacks Angel Investigations, only to angrily proclaim that Spike does not have a soul.

After Spike and Illyria managed to subdue Liss, he discussed the possibility that he may indeed be soulless again with Angel. Though Spike admitted to having been feeling "off his game" as of late, he was still adamant that he was on A.I.'s side. Though Angel expressed a belief that Spike may be going insane again as he had when he was first ensouled, he nonetheless agreed to allow Spike to stay. While Angel and Illyria searched for the recently-abducted Connor, Laura, a former watched an member of the new Angel Investigations, attempted to deduce what had happened to Spike, eventually concluding that he had been infected by a rare spiritual parasite during his "ghost" phase that was now "feeding" on his soul&mdash;possibly explaining some of his recently morally ambiguous actions such as sleeping with vampires. As such, Liss may not have registered his soul's presence as the parasite was "corrupting'" it; Laura subsequently removed the parasite. Despite being cured of the "soul flu", Spike nevertheless decided to take a leave of absence to figure out who he really was without trying to beat Angel, realizing that, even without the "soul flu", he had been trying to make up prophecies about himself simply to escape Angel's shadow, with Angel's complete understanding of his situation.

Las Vegas
Relocating to Las Vegas with Betta George and Beck, a pyrokinetic he rescued in the past, Spike learned about Wolfram & Hart's presence in the city, but his attempts to keep "Team Spike" small were hampered when a confrontation with Jeremy&mdash;now the liaison to the Senior Partners for this branch&mdash;and a vampire called John&mdash;who is involved with Drusilla, while apparently convinced that Spike "stole" his soul&mdash;resulted in Spike being thrown out of a high office window, requiring Groosalug and his dragon to rescue him. When John took Beck hostage, he attempted to extract Spike's soul with a ritual, but Spike revealed that he was still good even without the soul due to the changes he had undergone in his time with the Scoobies. Although a visiting Willow offered to restore his soul to him, Spike&mdash;reasoning that John would kill Beck whether he or Spike got the soul&mdash;had Willow send the soul into Drusilla instead, although he took it back after Drusilla killed John because he recognised that she couldn't cope with it. He later met with Lilah Morgan&mdash;who had returned to Earth to evaluate the Las Vegas branch of Wolfram & Hart, subsequently executing them for their failure to recruit or eliminate Spike&mdash;who revealed that reality was about to experience an elaborate upheaval that the Senior Partners were preparing to try and escape. Spike then takes one of Wolfram & Hart's evacuation contrapments, a pod-like ship piloted by a crew of bug-like beings and decides to follow the Senior Partners through different dimensions in order to figure out why they skipped out on this one.

Twilight
Spike returns from a different dimension with his ship and crew after discovering why the Senior Partners fled this dimension. After having been out of action for a long time, Spike is in a coffee shop in London when he gets up to speed on the new anti-Slayer, pro-vampire world due to Harmony Kendall. Spike is quick to get up to speed with rumors of "Twilight", the leader of an anti-Slayer cabal, and is quick to ascertain that Twilight is, in fact, Angel. During this time, he chases leads and pulls together a cogent theory of the prophecy which Buffy and Angel both pertain to, and later seeks out Buffy and her friends, arriving at the conclusion of the "Twilight" arc, appearing to the former Scooby Gang as they and Angel fight off a mass of extra-dimensional demons, claiming that he alone can stop the current crisis as reality's "evolution" is thwarted by Buffy and Angel rejecting their roles.

Reunited, Buffy thanks Spike for killing the ubervamps in "Chosen", and also reveals that she had known he was still alive all along, but merely could not find the time to get in contact with him. Subsequently, he explains the nature of the prophecy she is party to, and informs her that the Seed of Wonder (the source of magic in this world and the entire universe) currently resides in Sunnydale and has the power to end all of the chaos of Twilight. Though Buffy still has sexual feelings for Spike, she does not let these on to him. Together, they delve into the heart of the Hellmouth where they find the Seed and its protector, who is the Master. When Angel returns, possessed now by the Twilight entity, he attempts to kill Spike, forcing Spike to retreat to his ship and recover from the sunlight. From there, he watches as Willow&mdash;in full connection to the Earth, through the seed&mdash;leads a charge against the military and new dimension demons, in the Hellmouth, and then as magic suddenly disappears from the world as a result of Buffy destroying the Seed. Spike witnesses demons disappear into the sky, and immediately gives chase to one that escaped.

San Francisco
Four months after the battle, Spike met up with Buffy on the fire escape in Xander and Dawn's apartment in San Francisco. In direct contrast to Willow, Spike emphatically supported Buffy's decision to destroy the Seed, and also gave her a pep talk about always making the hard decisions before flying off in his ship.

Eventually, Spike settled down in San Francisco along with the rest of the remaining Scoobies. After attending Buffy's apartment warming party, Spike joined Buffy and Willow on patrol, trying to warn Buffy that something was coming after her.

Later, when Buffy was mistakenly held responsible for a string of murders in which the victims had no apparent cause of death by the San Francisco Police Department, Spike met with her on the top of a skyscraper. Spike told her that he was still investigating the demon(s) that was pursuing Buffy, and the two departed after Buffy wondered how she would be able to evade the law while trying to solve the case.

Subsequently, Spike was called together along with the other Scoobies to discuss one of the consequences of destroying the Seed: all new vampires that have been sired since then have risen mindless and feral. Buffy also introduced an apparent new ally: Severin.

Spike finally tracked down the demon who had been tracking Buffy at Alcatraz. After a brief skirmish, the demon, Eldre Koh, explained that he was freed from a mystical prison when Buffy destroyed the Seed and, by the laws of his people, he was now bound to serve Buffy. Spike didn't buy it and attacked Koh with rumors he has heard about someone or something trying to assassinate Buffy. Koh explained that the rumors were actually about the prophesized "Siphon", a being with the power to drain mystical energy from anyone he touches, who may very well be targeting Buffy.

Spike and Koh quickly tracked Buffy and Severin to an abandoned warehouse, where they discovered the area surrounded by cops, along with SFPD detective Robert Dowling. Entering the warehouse, they caught Severin, revealed to be the Siphon, in the midst of draining Buffy's powers. Severin effortlessly knocked out Koh and seized the opportunity to drain Spike's powers as well, but the two were saved when Detective Dowling entered the warehouse and shot Severin in the chest. With Severin exposed as the real murderer, Buffy was then cleared of all charges. Though Koh insisted that Buffy would want to talk to Spike for risking his life for her, Spike chose to keep his distance.

Slayers
"You know what I find works real good with Slayers? Killing them."

- Spike

Spike is perhaps unique among vampires in having killed two Slayers. He is quite proud of this feat, and admitted to Buffy it was possible because he perceived their desire to be free from their burden, and used that weakness to his own advantage. Unlike most other vampires, Spike does not fear the Slayers, but hunts them and wants to defeat them. Before joining Buffy and her friends, he tried many times to make Buffy his third victim.

In "Fool for Love", Spike tells Buffy of how he first learns about the Slayer and sets out with the goal of killing her. He tracks down his first Slayer, Xin Rong, in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Spike kills her during the battle, but not before she cuts him above the eye, giving him his trademark scar. He feeds off of the Slayer, whose blood is like an aphrodisiac to vampires.

Later, in the 1970s, he tracks down another Slayer, Nikki Wood, in New York. They fight on the subway, with Spike eventually snapping her neck. He then takes her leather coat which he is often seen wearing.

He later discovers (to his horror) that he has fallen in love with the current slayer, Buffy Summers.

Personality
Spike is seen as something of a paradox amongst vampires, and frequently challenges vampire conventions and limitations. He embraces certain elements of humanity, such as love and loyalty, that would be considered too human (and therefore offensive or impure) by other vampires. With or without a soul, Spike often displays a strong sense of honor and loyalty: leaving anonymous flowers to show respect for Joyce Summers' death ("Forever"), enduring torture at the hands of Glory rather than reveal Dawn's identity as the Key ("Intervention"), continuing to aid the Scooby Gang after Buffy's death while assisting Willow and Tara in taking care of Dawn ("Bargaining"), keeping his promise to leave Sunnydale after helping Buffy stop Angelus ("Becoming"), and choosing to remain in Los Angeles with Angel's crew after Fred's death because "it's what she would've wanted" ("Shells"). Many of Spike's actions, good or evil, are motivated by love for either Drusilla or Buffy. His loyalties lie in the same place as his passions, and unlike Angel or Angelus he is not much for philosophizing about good and evil. Spike honestly likes Joyce and Dawn and has never seriously threatened either one, even before he got his chip. He also has great respect for Willow and Tara and had a friendly relationship with both. However, he seems to have a constant hatred of Xander, once calling him "a glorified bricklayer", and even slapped him in the back of the head once, stating that his chip-induced headache was "worth it". Despite all of this, he is able to put differences aside for a greater good.

One of Spike's most notable personality traits is his lust for violence and his love of brawling, making him somewhat of a thrill-seeker and adrenaline junkie. He has noted that he finds the very act of violence therapeutic: he responds to a lackey's incompetence by snapping the neck of a hostage that he considers to be "too old to eat" and notes that he feels better afterward. Similarly, during his drunken pining for Drusilla, he notes that getting pent-up aggression out of his system by staking and driving off several vampires "put(s) things in perspective' for him". After a prolonged period of being unable to bite or hurt humans, Spike is delighted to discover that he is able to fight demons and gladly accompanies the Scooby Gang on patrol, proving that it does not much matter to him what he is fighting for so long as he can fight. Even when Spike is a protector and pseudo-big-brother for Dawn, they look outside to see demons destroying the town and Spike smiles, remarking that it "just looked like fun." Despite his love of violence and mindless destruction, Spike is highly intelligent. He has displayed excellent skills of insight and analysis, particularly on relationships. However, despite this, he was often delusional about his relationship with Drusilla and refused to acknowledge her acts of infidelity. Additionally, despite his love of violence, Spike claims that he does not enjoy pain, whereas Angelus does ("Damage").

In contrast to the brooding Angel, Spike has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. A polar opposite to his callow and simpering human nature, Spike, as a vampire, possesses a swaggering posture and enjoys living by nobody's rules save his own. He has a habit of making pithy remarks and glib insults, even toward the few he does not view as antagonists. Among his favorite targets are Angel, Xander, Giles, and (to a lesser extent) Buffy. Whenever he is sickened, injured, frightened, angered, or overall disgusted, Spike typically shouts the phrase, "Bloody hell," which is more of less his catchphrase.

After Buffy's resurrection, Spike is now, for the most part, good and a full-fledged member of the Scooby Gang, but still prone to murderous impulses and performing unethical activities due to his lack of a soul. For example, in "Smashed", when he believes his chip has stopped working, he tries to attack an innocent woman with only a slight hesitation and a pep talk to himself to overcome performance anxiety, and in "As You Were", he tried to earn money by selling Suvolte Demon eggs on the black market, even with the knowledge that such eggs could wipe out Sunnydale. In the case of the former, however, it could simply be out of frustration over Buffy: in "Crush", he hesitates before feeding off of the fresh corpse of a young girl that Drusilla killed.

Spike often nicknames people, both as insults and as terms of endearment. Referring to Dawn, for instance, as "Little Bit", "Nibblet", and "Platelet"; to Drusilla and Buffy as "Pet"; he also calls Willow "Red"; has nicknamed Angel "Poof", "Peaches", and "Captain Forehead"; Gunn "Charlie Boy"; and Illyria "Little Shiva", "Smurf", and "Blue Meanie". He also once called Buffy "Slutty the Vampire Slayer". He has given himself the nickname "Big Bad", a reference to the nickname for major Buffy Villains. He speaks with a strong lower class English accent and slang; while suffering from amnesia in "Tabula Rasa", he labels Giles as a "nancy boy" for being English, before realizing "Bloody hell! Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, bollocks, oh God! I'm English!" However, Spike also retains something of his literary intellect from his human side, routinely referencing poetry, songs, and literature; he on occasion even waxes poetic on the nature of love and life (and unlife) as being driven by blood, reasoning that blood is more powerful than any supernatural force because it is what separates the living from the dead.

Spike often treats his vulnerability to the sun as simply an annoying inconvenience, rather than a limitation; he drives in broad daylight in vehicles with blacked-out windows, and he regularly travels outside during the day, using a blanket for cover. Indeed, he has a remarkably stronger resistance to sunlight than all other vampires except Angel (who usually catch on fire just by the slightest solar ray). Both Spike and Angel have demonstrated an ability to resist the pain of sunlight on extremities; in fact, when Spike was first sired, he and Angel originally bonded over enduring the direct rays of the sun. But on occasion both have caught fire from sunlight. He also has a taste for human food and drink, such as beer, whiskey, cookies, hot chocolate (even asking Joyce Summers if she has any of "those little marshmallows"), chocolates, Buffalo wings, and onion blossoms, constituting the most varied diet of any vampire on the show. Sometimes he adds extra ingredients into his blood, such as Weetabix (for texture), and spices and burba weed (for flavor). He also smokes cigarettes (as do many vampires); preferring the fictional brand Morley, which he lights with a trademark silver Zippo lighter.

Spike appears to be a fan of pop culture; when held captive by the Scooby Gang, his biggest concern is missing his favorite soap opera, Passions. He makes references to movies and shows such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Dawson's Creek, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Ghostbusters, Knight Rider, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. After his hands are cut off by Dana and subsequently reattached at Wolfram & Hart, he is instructed to play video games for physical therapy, including Donkey Kong and Crash Bandicoot, and can be seen playing a Game Boy Advance in "The Girl in Question."

Spike also appears to have somewhat of a dislike for Halloween, much like most vampires and demons, who largely avoid hunting on Halloween because they believe it to be an idiotic cliché, to the extent that he took personal offense when a teenage group of self-proclaimed vampire rebels hunted on Halloween ("All the Way") and constantly criticized Wolfram & Hart's Halloween Bash ("Life of the Party").

In contrast to Angel, whose alter ego Angelus is starkly different in character, Spike's personality remains relatively the same whether he has a soul or not, the difference being that Spike is now a (jaded) good guy at heart rather than an evildoer trying to do good for Buffy's sake. Additionally, Spike also has complete respect for human life to the extent that he was unwilling to sacrifice thousands of innocent people just to save Fred ("A Hole in the World") and was horrified when Illyria killed Jeremy Johns to help him defeat Non ("Spike: After the Fall").

Appearance
Spike has a punk look which strongly resembles that of English rock musician Billy Idol. His hair is platinum blonde and combed back, although previously it was a natural medium brown (unstyled) as well as dyed black. Spike received a scar on his eyebrow from the sword of the first Slayer he killed in 1900. Angel once sarcastically asked him, "What color is your hair? Radioactive?". He has been called "Captain Peroxide" by both Xander and Angel. His nails are also painted black.

Spike usually wears long black leather coats, including one that he took from a Nazi officer and another that he took as a trophy from Nikki Wood, the second Slayer he killed. He wore the Slayer's black duster for over twenty-five years. When the coat was destroyed by a bomb from the Immortal in Italy, Spike heartbrokenly declared it to be irreplaceable. However, the Italy branch of Wolfram & Hart quickly supplied him with a whole wardrobe of new, nearly identical ones which he happily began wearing. His trademark look includes the leather duster, a black t-shirt or v-neck shirt and black denim pants, usually with heavy boots. He also wore a red long-sleeved shirt fairly often. Spike has also occasionally worn black or blue button-up shirts, black wifebeaters, and a black long-sleeved shirt which was torn apart during the demon trials that won Spike his soul.

On rare occasions, Spike deviates from his trademark look, wearing a stolen tweed suit while on the run from a demonic loan shark ("Tabula Rasa"), a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts belonging to Xander after he accidentally shrunk his normal clothes in the wash ("Doomed"), and a blue sweatshirt that he described as a "costume" ("Beneath You").

Powers and abilities
In addition to the the standard powers and vulnerabilities of a vampire (albeit substantially enhanced due to his age), Spike is perhaps the only vampire to have killed two Slayers. Spike is a highly skilled, and versatile fighter in both armed and unarmed combat. For example, he is able to briefly overcome Illyria during a testing of her abilities when she is at the height of her powers, however he had been training with her for months and had adapted to her abilities so others could have achieved this as well if given the time Spike had. Illyria criticizes his (and others') ability to adapt, calling it "compromise." He is able to withstand excessive amounts of pain for extended periods of time, particularly when properly motivated, however Angel has shown this same trait. While not as skilled or as sadistic as Angelus, Spike also proves himself to be effective at torture, noting that he had gained "screams, various fluids, and a name" from Doctor Sparrow in "Shells". Much like Angel, he is proficient in various forms of martial arts, and his typical fighting style blends karate, kung fu, and others.

Spike often displays insight and skills in perception and observation, especially with regard to relationships and personalities, so long as the relationship in question doesn't concern him personally. This ability allows him to wield powerful psychological weapons as easily and effectively as physical ones. For example, when he wants to create disharmony among the Scoobies, Spike divides-and-conquers with "the Yoko Factor," exploiting tensions that exist under the surface to turn Buffy and her friends against each other. He explains to Buffy that he was able to defeat two Slayers because he sensed and exploited their secret desires to be free of their burden. Spike's skills of analysis allowed him to be the first to see through Tara's abusive and controlling family, forced Buffy and Angel to admit that they were more than "just friends", and identify when and why some relationships, such as that between Buffy and Riley, are not meant to last, masterfully feeding Riley's insecurities in an effort to sabotage his relationship with Buffy, so that Spike can pursue her. His analytical skills also help him in battle from time to time; for example, in "Time Bomb", he identifies Illyria's fighting style as a Tae Kwon Do/Brazilian Ninjitsu hybrid.

Although capable of developing sound battle strategies, Spike (particularly in the days before receiving his chip and being ensouled) often loses patience with anything more complicated than outright attack:

He is also impatient to fight the Slayer upon his initial arrival in Sunnydale; the attack is supposed to coincide with the Night of Saint Vigeous, but he "couldn't wait" to go after the Slayer and attacks the night before, which results in the deaths of many Aurelian vampires. However, Spike did exercise patience when he was confined to a wheelchair after a brutal battle with the Scoobies left him paraplegic for several months. Feigning weakness, he endured tortuous weeks watching Angelus sexually pursue Dru as he waited for the right time to strike against his enemy.

Much like Angel, Spike, presumably due to his long lifetime, often displays in-depth knowledge of different demon species and other supernatural beings, being aware of Rack and surprised at Willow's trips to his place ("Wrecked") and also knowing that Wolfram & Hart represents "the worst evil in the universe" ("Just Rewards"). Spike has also proven to be far more intelligent than others give him credit for; for example, he quickly realizes that Angel and Twilight are one and the same.

Spike's "vampire constitution" provides him with an extremely high tolerance for alcohol (which he regularly consumes in copious quantities). Due to his experience in criminal activities, he is skilled at picking locks, hotwiring cars, and pick-pocketing. He is also capable of easily operating various vehicles, such as various cars, a Harley Davidson motorcycle ("Bargaining", "Seeing Red", and "Touched"), and a Winnebago ("Spiral"). He has also been shown using video game systems and a computer, treating injuries, and playing poker and pool. Spike is also seen speaking Latin, Luganda (a language of Uganda, where he meets the demon shaman), and the language of Fyarl Demons. Spike has shown to be significantly more competent and comfortable with modern technology than Angel; his knowledge allowed him to turn an old crypt in a Sunnydale cemetery into a comfortable home with electricity and cable television.

When Spike was transformed into a ghost-like intangible state following the destruction of Sunnydale and the Hellmouth and his subsequent materialization at Wolfram & Hart, he was capable of walking through solid objects. He was initially unable to make contact with objects around him until he learned how to focus his abilities through desire, allowing him to make brief contact with people and things if he concentrated enough. However, this ability was relatively useless in a fight, as he was unable to pick up a wooden bar to hit the demon Tezcatcatl in "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco", and required a few moments to properly punch a cyborg that was strangling Gunn in "Lineage". Naturally, he lost these capabilities after being recorporealized, as seen when he attempted to phase through Angel's office door and comically bounced right off.

Romantic



 * Drusilla- Drusilla is Spike's main love interest. His main motivation is to help her recover from an illness that leaves her bedridden. However, Drusilla begins to cheat on him with Angelus while he is stuck in a wheelchair, prompting him to betray Angelus and escape Sunnydale with Drusilla against her will. Drusilla cheats on him with a chaos demon, prompting Spike to return to Sunnydale to create a love potion. He later changes his mind and decides that torturing her will win her back, though this too fails. After Spike gets the chip in his head, Drusilla returns to Sunnydale in hopes of reforming their "family". However, finding that Spike is obsessed with Buffy, she gives up on him and leaves. They are briefly reunited when Drusilla works with demon hunter John in his warped belief that Spike has his soul, Spike briefly transferring his soul to Drusilla to protect it before he takes it back as he recognises that her mental state cannot cope with the guilt that his soul is causing her.


 * Cecily- A woman that William was in love with during his life as a human. However, she was completely insensitive to his feelings, considering him "beneath [her]."




 * Harmony Kendall- After becoming a vampire, Harmony begins a relationship with Spike. However, he sees her more as a sexual plaything and a nuisance than a true girlfriend. He is willing to stab her with a wooden stake to test the Gem of Amarra. They break up when Spike is captured by the Initiative and begin an on-and-off-again relationship which finally ends when Harmony is scared off by Spike's obsession with Buffy. The two are reunited at Wolfram and Hart where they have a brief but disastrous fling and again break up. Later on, they are able to have a civil, humorously heart-to-heart conversation in which Spike alleviates some of Harmony's insecurities (Harm's Way) though their sexual relationship is never rekindled.




 * Buffy Summers- Spike's interest in Buffy begins as a one-sided, stalker-like obsession, and Buffy cuts him out of her life and alienates him from the Scoobies when she discovers his feelings. However, Buffy is moved when he endures torture at the hands of Glory to protect Dawn's identity of the Key, and accepts him back into the fold. Their relationship evolves after Buffy is ripped out of Heaven and begins a reluctant sexual relationship with him. Ashamed, Buffy makes several failed attempts to end their relationship before finally revealing it to her friends. When she finally manages to say no to Spike, he makes an aborted attempt to rape her. Ashamed, he leaves Sunnydale and undergoes several dangerous trials to restore his soul, earning Buffy's trust. As Spike prepares to sacrifice himself to close the Hellmouth, Buffy says that he loves him, but he says she doesn't and thanks her for saying it. He subsequently declined to tell her about his survival and return to life in Los Angeles as he felt that it would cheapen his sacrifice (Although she found out on her own anyway), and has since apparently moved past the more intense feelings aroused by her presence, though he still appears to take a liking toward her.


 * Dawn Summers- Dawn initially has a crush on Spike, though it fades when she realizes he is in love with Buffy. Their relationship soon evolves into that of a big brother and little sister. Their relationship is briefly strained when Spike attempts to rape Buffy, leading Dawn to threaten to set Spike on fire should he hurt Buffy in any way, though they began to repair their relationship when they discovered Spike's ensoulment, with Dawn being quick to defend Spike when Andrew asked why Buffy was so desperate to save him.


 * Anya Jenkins- While both are grieving for their failed relationships, Spike and Anya drown their sorrows in alcohol and have sex in the Magic Box. This becomes complicated due to the cameras The Trio inserted in the Magic Box, and their liaison is found out by the entire Scooby Gang. They never interact romantically again. Nonetheless, they shared a certain bond due to their then-states of powerlessness, namely Spike's anti-human aggression chip and Anya's human status.


 * Winifred Burkle- Spike initially flirts with Fred after he materializes at Wolfram & Hart, and his feelings later evolve into affection and esteem. Fred is the first person in Los Angeles to believe that he is "worth saving" and she works tirelessly to recorporealize him (while denying being taken in by his charm, saying that she simply wants to use Wolfram & Hart's resources for the good that Angel promised). When fighting the demented ghost Matthias Pavayne, Spike sacrifices a chance at becoming corporeal to save Fred's life, and ultimately chooses to stay in Los Angeles with the Angel Investigations team in honor of her memory when she is killed by Illyria usurping her body, later remarking to Illyria in a nonchalant, matter-of-fact manner that he did indeed love Fred. In After the Fall Spike questions himself, debating over the idea that he had romantic feelings towards Fred. Spike's memories of Fred are used, along with Wesley's, to make a monstrous Illyria hesitate, Betta George telepathically sending their impressions of Fred into Illyria to make her realise what Fred would do in a situation. Spike later admits to Illyria that he loved Fred, but not the same way that Wesley did.


 * Illyria- After her resurrection, Illyria shares an emerging bond with Spike. Each is on a path from demon to hero, and they share a love of violence. Their sparring sessions are mutually satisfactory; Spike hones his fighting techniques and Illyria is able to regularly inflict pain and dominate Spike in combat. She, at one point, expresses a desire to keep Spike as a pet. After Illyria's powers are diminished, Spike helps her regain confidence and venture into the world again. They develop mutual respect for one another. In After the Fall, Illyria apparently considers Spike a pet and comes to his defense when Angel attacks him. Spike becomes very protective of Illyria once she starts randomly transforming into 'Fred'. Illyria possibly felt romantic feelings for Spike, as she forcefully kissed him out of jealousy after hearing of his physical relationship with Spider. Spike is asked by Wesley to continue to look over Illyria, as he cannot do so himself. Spike keeps this promise, and assists Illyria during her existential crisis (Although she also comes to see Angel as a more direct 'mentor').


 * Laura Kay Weathermill- Spike and Laura have sex together, while undergoing the side effects of Illyria being in 'heat'. Once Illyria's influences wear off, Spike and Laura agree that they have no physical attraction to one another at all.

Antagonistic



 * Angel- Though often allies, Spike and Angel always have a tense relationship and rivalry whether they are both on the side of good or evil. Often this is because their romantic attentions are focused on the same woman, either Drusilla or Buffy. Of course their antagonistic relationship only strengthens when Angel and Spike realize that they both are in love with Buffy, causing more animosity directed towards each other. Many people say that they are alike, being ensouled vampires, but both Angel and Spike deny it, always saying that they are nothing alike. Though both fight together on the side of good, their personalities clash with Spike taking their missions far less seriously, although the two make an effective team against such foes as the guardians of the Deeper Well or their later fight against Illyria. Despite their constant antagonism, there does seem to be some affection between them, as Spike appears genuinely happy to see Angel and even hugs him in "School Hard", and Angelus greets Spike with a kiss on the forehead in "Innocence". Spike has implied in "Power Play" and "Last Gleaming" that he and Angel have some sexual history.
 * Robin Wood- The son of Nikki Wood, a Slayer killed by Spike. Robin spent his life searching for the vampire that killed his mother in hopes of vengeance. With the help of Rupert Giles, he manages to trap the ensouled Spike in a room filled with crosses. Playing a song that the First Evil used as a trigger, Robin turned Spike from his rational self to an murderous beast. Though Spike eventually turned the tables on him, he spared him out of respect for Nikki, but vowed to kill him should Robin attempt to try something again.
 * Xander Harris- One of Spike's most volatile relationships is with Xander. On two occasions, Xander was forced to accept Spike into his home, which he did with extreme reluctance and open disgust. Even when Spike was ensouled, Xander remained distrustful of him, certain for some time that he would attempt to rape Buffy again at the first opportunity. Despite this, they are capable of working together when the situation calls for it, most notably in "Him".
 * Rupert Giles- Aside from watching episodes of Passions together, Spike and Giles have somewhat of a bad relationship. When his feelings for Buffy become known to the Scoobies at large, Giles' reaction is the most volatile; when Spike appears at the Magic Box, the other Scoobies limited themselves to verbally attacking him, but Giles shoved him back into a wall before informing him that the Scoobies are neither his friends nor his way to Buffy, and ordering him to get over his feelings for her. Nonetheless, Giles eventually softens his attitude towards him when he sees Spike's commitment to the good fight. Giles conspires with Robin Wood to kill Spike, believing him to be a distraction for Buffy. After Robin fails, their relationship remains strained.
 * The Master-Although they are only only once gathered (in season eight), it is partially established that they had already met before. However, of in their ego, the sectarianism of The Master which can not keep pace with the Spike's anarchistic attitude, they are always hate.It is subtly demonstrated when Spike kills The Anointed One (some time after the first death of The Master) wishing to instil the party rather than the cult; what proves that Spike has never had consideration for The Master. Much more late when The First Evil takes the appearance of The Master to drive crazy Spike (which has a soul), it seems to base itself on Spike's memories.

Parental

 * Anne Pratt- Spike's biological mother. Some time in his adulthood, William's mother became ill and he took care of her, often reading her his poetry. His focus on her detracts from his social life and, despite his mother's urgings, he has no interest in finding a romantic partner. After being sired by Drusilla, he sires his mother with the intention of saving her life and bringing her with him. However, becoming a vampire brings out the darker aspects of her personality. She tells him that she had hoped a girlfriend would remove his smothering presence from her life and that she resented being a captive audience to his terrible poetry. Grieved by this change, William dusts her.
 * Joyce Summers- After his breakup with Drusilla, Joyce gives Spike hot chocolate and advice. The two also share a love of the soap opera Passions. Spike was greatly saddened by her death because he felt she was the only one who treated him decently.

Other



 * Faith Lehane - While temporarily inhabiting Buffy's body, Faith mercilessly flirted with and rejected Spike. When she later returned to Sunnydale to help the Scoobies fight against the First Evil, they revisited that conversation, with Spike remembering every word ("It's not the kind of thing a man forgets") and converse easily, relating to each other on a personal level. They discussed how they have both been "dangerous" in the past, and acknowledged each other's efforts toward redemption. This connection did not go unnoticed by Buffy, who was visibly jealous of the pair's chemistry and fledgling friendship. Faith's complicity in the mutiny against Buffy led her and Spike to fight before he left the Summers' home, although they ultimately became allies once more in the final battle against the First.


 * Willow Rosenberg - Spike has great affection and respect for Willow, who was one of the few members of the Scooby Gang who was genuinely friendly to him throughout his time in the group. In "Lovers Walk," when Spike kidnaps her in an attempt to force her to do a love spell, he confides with her his sorrows, and she awkwardly comforts him. Later, Spike offers to sire her when he attacks her; though Willow responds by smashing a lamp over his head, she nonetheless seems flattered by his offer. Willow treated the "neutered" Spike with sympathy and kindness when Buffy and Xander (Buffy in particular) were completely unsympathetic and even delighted in tormenting him. Though she joins in the Scoobies in ostracizing him after his feelings for Buffy become known, she, like Buffy, softens toward him when he endures torture at Glory's hands to protect Buffy and Dawn. Spike is also respectful of her relationship with Tara, and even defends her decision to attack Glory to a point in "Tough Love", and Willow personally apologizes to him when Tara's childish behavior gets him injured in "Spiral". Following Buffy's death, Spike helped Willow and Tara to raise Dawn, later showing concern over Willow's magic addiction and intervening on her behalf when Anya attempted to peer-pressure Willow into using a spell during her recovery. When the two met while Spike was investigating the Wolfram & Hart Las Vegas branch a long while after his resurrection, Willow helped him in a situation involving his soul, the two later reflecting that they would keep this team-up between themselves so as to leave Buffy out of the loop for obvious reasons. Spike occasionally calls Willow "Red" in an affectionate manner. During Willow's time in Vegas with Spike, he often referred to her by her nickname, "Will."




 * Tara Maclay- Much like Willow, Spike had great affection and respect for Tara. When Tara's family attempted to take her home with them, Spike, realizing that their tale about Tara's "demonic heritage" was a lie, proved it by punching Tara in the nose, which caused his chip to go off ("Family"). When his feelings for Buffy became known, Tara was the only one of the Scoobies to speak civilly to him in a subsequent encounter at the Magic Box, simply calmly telling him to leave as apposed to the others, who openly criticized and insulted him ("I Was Made to Love You"). When Tara was brain-sucked by Glory, Spike defended Willow's decision to attack Glory to a point ("Tough Love"), and later attempted to comfort an insane Tara when she accidentally exposed him to sunlight and was reduced to tears when Willow snapped at her ("Spiral"). After Buffy's death, Spike helped Willow and Tara raise Dawn, and this, along with his remaining loyal to the Scoobies in the months before Buffy's resurrection, caused Tara to respect him. Tara was one of the few members of the Scooby Gang who was genuinely friendly towards Spike, to the extent that she was the only Scooby who believed that his feelings for Buffy were genuine and not just a twisted obsession. Their relationship becomes somewhat strained during Buffy's birthday party ("Older and Far Away"), when Buffy confides to Tara about her and Spike's sexual relationship. Spike's reaction to her death is never revealed.


 * Charles Gunn- When Spike first materialized in Wolfram & Hart, Gunn, having apparently heard tales of the infamous William the Bloody, initially viewed him as an enemy, but relented upon discovering his past time with the Scooby Gang. When Spike was recorporealized, he presented Gunn with a hug while reveling in his restored physical body, and later offered him a drink. The two eventually became good friends, with Spike being one of the few members of Team Angel to refer to him by his given name. However, after the Fall was reversed and Gunn rejoined Angel Investigations, Spike held a degree of distrust for him and regarded him as a traitor due to his actions in Hell, even though Gunn was a vampire and thus not in control of himself at the time.
 * Connor - During their time in hell, Spike worked with Angel's son in saving people, and they built what Connor describes as a relationship between a boy and a weird uncle. Spike often spoke to Connor about his battles, seemingly having had trained him, as well as became someone who Connor went to about relationship advice. When Connor was killed by a vampiric Gunn, Spike held his body and grieved.

Behind the Scenes

 * James Marsters was added to the main cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel for the same reason: to replace Cordelia. Joss Whedon felt that the main characters during the fourth season of Buffy were without a source of conflict (usually present in Cordelia), and Seth Green's departure from the show clinched his decision to bring in Marsters. After Charisma Carpenter left the cast of Angel, Spike was brought in to provide comic relief.


 * While Drusilla has been shown as Spike's sire, in "School Hard", Spike's first appearance on the show, he says that Angel was his sire. The apparent contradiction was solved by Joss Whedon in an interview in which he states that the term sire refers to anyone prior to them in their "line".)


 * Spike was originally intended to die in "What's My Line, Part Two", at which time Drusilla would become the main villain along with Angelus. However, due to the immense popularity of the character and Marsters' performance, the character was given a reprieve and placed temporarily into a wheelchair instead.


 * It was after Marsters' guest appearance in one episode of Season 3, and Marsters' immediate chemistry with the cast, when Joss Whedon decided that he wanted Spike to return as part of the permanent cast and devised the chip storyline.


 * Joss Whedon credits this antipathy as what convinced him in the episode "Lovers Walk" to bring Spike back as a cast regular. As James Marsters put it, "I was supposed to be the one who stood at the side and said, 'Buffy, you're stupid, and we're all gonna die'."


 * James Marsters auditioned for the role with both a Cajun accent and the eventually-chosen Cockney accent.


 * Spike's present-day resemblance to British punk rocker Billy Idol was mentioned in "Sleeper". The bouncer refers to Spike as "a Billy Idol wannabe" and Buffy starts to say that Billy Idol actually stole his look from Spike. In fact, Spike's resemblance to Billy Idol was previously shown (though not said) during his flashback fight with Nikki Wood, at which time Spike's attire and hair mimicked Idol almost perfectly while still taking place several years before Idol's fame.


 * Though it is frequently made clear that soulless vampires are incapable of being benign, Spike has apparently proven that theory wrong, having managed to become a faithful ally, and later full-fledged member, of the Scooby Gang after being experimented on by the Initiative.


 * Marsters' V/Y-shaped scar on his left eyebrow, which he received during a mugging, was worked into the show; make-up artist Todd McIntosh decided to shave out his eyebrow in order to make it more prominent. He also included the scar on Spike's "vamp face" prosthetic, albeit slightly altered as though the skin has stretched. In Spike's first appearance in the series, the wound still looks fresh, but it gradually blends in over the course of the series, eventually to the point where it is barely visible.


 * K. Todd Freeman was in the running for the role of Spike.


 * A running gag is Spike knocking over the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign at the city's limits. He first does this deliberately with his car in School Hard and again while drunk in Lovers Walk, both times saying "Home sweet home." He knocks the sign over one final time by closing the Hellmouth in Chosen.


 * Spike is one of three characters to be a main character on both Buffy and Angel, the other two being Angel and Cordelia (Wesley and Harmony were only ever guest stars in Buffy). He was also the only character with this distinction that was not a main character for the first season of one of the shows.


 * Along with Angel, he is one of only two characters to appear in the series finales of both Buffy and Angel: "Chosen" and "Not Fade Away".


 * He is the only character to appear in the 100th episodes of both Buffy and Angel: "The Gift" and "You're Welcome".


 * Spike appeared in a total of 120 episodes of the Buffyverse. The only characters to appear in more episodes are Angel (167), Willow (147), Buffy (146), Xander (143), Cordelia (140) and Giles (121).


 * Spike is the only Buffyverse regular character to have met all of the others on screen at least once.

Trivia

 * Spike had met los Hermanos Número when he was in L.A. in 1947.


 * Spike is a fan of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones.


 * The name "William" is the English counterpart of the Irish "Liam", giving him, ironically, the same human name as Angel.


 * Spike was the third member of Whirlwind to be ensouled. Angel was first, Darla second, and just recently, Drusilla was ensouled with Spike's soul for a little while before it was given back to him.
 * He is one of the last characters to die on Buffy.

Appearances
Spike has appeared in 120 episodes: 96 on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 24 on Angel. {{Scroll box
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 * content=

Buffy Season 2

 * "School Hard"
 * "Halloween"
 * "Lie to Me"
 * "What's My Line, Part One"
 * "What's My Line, Part Two"
 * "Surprise"
 * "Innocence"
 * "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"
 * "Passion"
 * "I Only Have Eyes for You"
 * "Becoming, Part One"
 * "Becoming, Part Two"

Buffy Season 3

 * "Lovers Walk"

Buffy Season 4/Angel Season 1

 * "The Harsh Light of Day"
 * "In the Dark"
 * "Wild at Heart"
 * "The Initiative"
 * "Pangs"
 * "Something Blue"
 * "Hush"
 * "Doomed"
 * "A New Man"
 * "The I in Team"
 * "Goodbye Iowa"
 * "This Year's Girl"
 * "Who Are You"
 * "Superstar"
 * "Where the Wild Things Are"
 * "New Moon Rising"
 * "The Yoko Factor"
 * "Primeval"
 * "Restless" (In dreams)

Buffy Season 5/Angel Season 2

 * "Buffy vs. Dracula"
 * "Real Me"
 * "The Replacement"
 * "Out of My Mind"
 * "No Place Like Home"
 * "Family"
 * "Fool for Love"
 * "Darla"
 * "Shadow"
 * "Listening to Fear"
 * "Into the Woods"
 * "Triangle"
 * "Checkpoint"
 * "Blood Ties"
 * "Crush"
 * "I Was Made to Love You"
 * "Forever"
 * "Intervention"
 * "Tough Love"
 * "Spiral"
 * "The Weight of the World"
 * "The Gift"

Buffy Season 6

 * "Bargaining, Part One"
 * "Bargaining, Part Two"
 * "After Life"
 * "Flooded"
 * "Life Serial"
 * "All the Way"
 * "Once More, with Feeling"
 * "Tabula Rasa"
 * "Smashed"
 * "Wrecked"
 * "Gone"
 * "Doublemeat Palace"
 * "Dead Things"
 * "Older and Far Away"
 * "As You Were"
 * "Hell's Bells"
 * "Normal Again"
 * "Entropy"
 * "Seeing Red"
 * "Villains"
 * "Two to Go"
 * "Grave"

Buffy Season 7

 * "Lessons"
 * "Beneath You"
 * "Same Time, Same Place"
 * "Help"
 * "Selfless"
 * "Him"
 * "Conversations with Dead People"
 * "Sleeper"
 * "Never Leave Me"
 * "Bring on the Night"
 * "Showtime"
 * "Potential"
 * "The Killer in Me"
 * "First Date"
 * "Get It Done"
 * "Storyteller"
 * "Lies My Parents Told Me"
 * "Dirty Girls"
 * "Empty Places"
 * "Touched"
 * "End of Days"
 * "Chosen" (Killed)

Angel Season 5

 * "Conviction" (Resurrected)
 * "Just Rewards"
 * "Unleashed"
 * "Hell Bound"
 * "Life of the Party"
 * "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco"
 * "Lineage"
 * "Destiny"
 * "Harm's Way"
 * "Soul Purpose"
 * "Damage"
 * "You're Welcome"
 * "Why We Fight"
 * "Smile Time"
 * "A Hole in the World"
 * "Shells"
 * "Underneath"
 * "Origin"
 * "Time Bomb"
 * "The Girl in Question"
 * "Power Play"
 * "Not Fade Away"

Angel: After the Fall

 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall #6: First Night Part I
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 
 * After the Fall 

Spike: After the Fall

 * Spike: After the Fall #1
 * Spike: After the Fall #2
 * Spike: After the Fall #3
 * Spike: After the Fall #4

Spike: The Devil You Know

 * Spike: The Devil You Know 
 * Spike: The Devil You Know 
 * Spike: The Devil You Know 
 * Spike: The Devil You Know 

Spike: Ongoing Series

 * Spike (series) 
 * Spike (series) 

Buffy Season 8
}}
 * Twilight
 * Last Gleaming