Ooh, thanks. This must have taken forever.

I see what you're saying about Buffy's emotions about Willow not really coming through. I'm trying to remember how I explained that to myself when I first read it - I think I decided that she was angry, understandably so, and her Slayer sense was triggering so badly that she wasn't feeling what she would have normally been feeling. But I think agree that a little more emotion from her would have been realistic.

I also wondered - and you didn't say anything about this in the commentary, so I guess not - if the thing possessing Willow had done something to make Xander stay home while everyone else went to England. Because his excuses are really sort of weak, and I can't imagine that after everything that just happened he would put very much ahead of seeing Willow back to normal, or as close as possible. I'd thought, when I first read it (and it was never addressed, but I thought it was implied somehow), that the spirit possessing Willow recognized that Xander was its weakness - that he somehow allowed real-Willow to gain the upperhand - and had done something to make him stay home.

In any case, I find this story much more satisfying on many levels as a conclusion to "Grave" (which is my favorite season finale, actually; we seem to hold polar opposite opinions about S6 and S7) than the beginning of S7, which I suppose just picked up too long after the end of S6. Three months and poof! Everything fine again. I just didn't buy it all that well (though it helped that all the characters had a hard time buying it too). And I love both the Giles arc and the Giles/Buffy arc.

I think another sentence or two about Xander would have been enough explanation-- having possessed-Willow manipulate that situation would have been perfect, yes!

I think when I read this for you in one of it's early stages I expressed how much I loved your Willow storyline. After re-watching that scene the second go around I was utterly convinced that it was not her finishing that spell. I think you did an admirable job of handling that.

Yeah, poor Xander, getting sidelined for no discernable reason. Maybe he was cleaning up the remnants of the Magic Box?

And I'd totally forgotten I was owed fic until you mentioned it. But I know it will be worth the wait. Right?

I wonder if I should offer DVD commentary for any of my fics? *ponders*

It'll be worth it. Xander + demon fight + a little smuttishness :)

I think you should pick your favorite story and do it. It was a great experience, trying to remember why I wrote various things.

i am already on record as preferring 'breathing' to the last 2 years of hell on btvs. if the comics go to a nice place that i hope it might i'll switch allegiences faithlessly :D but this story has a hold on me.
i'd write a commentary on reading it, but that would be all heh heh snort heh whoa ooo. not too helpful.

I am finding myself tempted by the "Scoobies Clean Up London" sequel idea. Heh.