OK, I seem to have spent forever fiddling with this, and I should probably post it before I go completely off-track!

First a disclaimer of sorts. I came to fandom late (post S7, didn’t even get an LJ until post-NFA) and as such never realised how much of a bother certain scenes caused. I quite simply watched and enjoyed the show - I never knew I was supposed to hate Buffy for the alley-beating or despise Spike for the way he talked to Buffy in The Bronze balcony scene. So I was always more of a neutral party, meaning that once I got sucked into fandom and the show began to eat my brain in earnest, I was more interested in working out motivations than allocating blame. And recently, I’ve been wondering about Buffy’s mindset when she beat up Spike in ‘Dead Things’ (6.13). I know a lot of this stuff has been said before, but I wanted to get everything together in one place. And I think I came up with a few new things.

I should probably point out that I love both Buffy and Spike to little pieces, including (and because of) all their faults. I apologise for stating opinions as facts, and all the bolded quotes are from ‘Dead Things’ (6.13).

Essay: The Alley-scene

“You came back wrong.”

That one little sentence had far-reaching consequences. It underpins everything that happened between the end of ‘Smashed’ (6.09) and the end of ‘Dead Things’ (6.13). It was what freed Buffy to pursue her attraction to Spike, and it was what in many ways dragged her further down.

I’m going to try to work out why Buffy behaved the way she did in that alley - and in trying to do so, I began to realise that a lot of old issues were brought to the fore.

But, I must start a little before the alley and go back to the reason she was there in the first place:

BUFFY: She's dead.
Shot of Katrina's lifeless body.
BUFFY: I killed her.

Buffy has twice before witnessed an accidental killing, and what happened then influences her greatly:

Joyce takes Ted's arm to feel for a pulse. When she doesn't find one she drops his arm and looks up at Buffy.
Joyce: You killed him!
Buffy stares down at Ted's unmoving body, not believing what just happened.
‘Ted’ (2.11)

Faith: (shocked) I didn't... I didn't know. I didn't know.
Buffy: (to Faith behind her) We need to call 911, NOW!
[...]
Allan’s body relaxes against the dumpster, finally dead. His eyes remain wide open, staring up into nothing. Buffy stares back at him in open-mouthed horror.
‘Bad Girls’ (3.14)

In ‘Ted’ (2.11) she straight away confesses to the police, but the shock of what she did goes very deep, making her wonder what she is:

Buffy: (eyes down) He was a person, and I killed him.
Willow: Don't say that!
Buffy: (looks up at Willow) Why not? Everyone else is. And it's the truth.
Xander: It was an accident.
Buffy: I'm the Slayer. I had no right to hit him like that.

In Season 3, Faith deals very differently. In ‘Bad Girls’ (3.14):

Faith: (looks at Buffy) There's nothing to talk about. I was doing my job.
Buffy: Being a Slayer is not the same as being a killer.

And from ‘Consequences’ (3.15):

Faith: [...] You're still not seeing the big picture, B. Something made us different. We're warriors. We're built to kill.
Buffy: To kill demons! But it does *not* mean that we get to pass judgement on people like we're better than everybody else!
Faith: We *are* better!

Is a Slayer just a killer? It is a question Buffy struggles with for the entire series. It is spelled out particularly strongly in ‘Buffy vs. Dracula’ (5.01) of course:

DRACULA: Why else would I come here? For the sun? I came to meet the renowned ... killer.
BUFFY: Yeah, I prefer the term slayer. You know, killer just sounds so...
DRACULA: Naked?
BUFFY: Like I ... paint clowns or something. I'm the good guy, remember?
DRACULA: Perhaps, but your power is rooted in darkness. You must feel it.

It is possibly Buffy’s greatest fear - to become that which she fights.
(frenchani has a very interesting essay about Buffy returning as a metaphorical vampire in S6.) But on the other hand she can see the freedom which comes with it. The freedom that Faith so readily embraced (from ‘Bad Girls’ 3.14):

“Life for a Slayer is very simple: want... take... have.”

In Season S6 this is exactly what Buffy does with Spike, and something that he fully understands. Angelus in ‘Destiny’ (AtS 5.08):

“There's no belonging or deserving anymore. You can take what you want, have what you want... but nothing is yours.”

In Season 3 she enjoyed her ‘sisterhood’ with Faith very much - going along with her very happily until the accidental killing of Allan (the Deputy Mayor). But seeing how Faith responded to that incident, and what she became afterwards, I’m sure Buffy was secretly scared that it was not because of Faith’s personal issues, but because of her Slayerness. As she confesses to Giles in ‘Intervention’ (5.18):

BUFFY: Training. Slaying. All of it. It's just ... I mean ... I can beat up the demons until the cows come home. And then I can beat up the cows ... but I'm not sure I like what it's doing to me.
GILES: But you've mastered so much. I mean, your strength and resilience alone-
BUFFY: Yeah. Strength, resilience ... those are all words for hardness. (pause) I'm starting to feel like ... being the Slayer is turning me into stone.
[...]
BUFFY: I don't know. To slay, to kill ... i-it means being hard on the inside. Maybe being the perfect Slayer means being too hard to love at all. I already feel like I can hardly say the words.

In S6 this comes back to haunt her - she feel numb and disconnected, even to those she formerly cared about. Is she destined to end up like Faith, accepting that a Slayer is a killer?

We’ll come back to this. For now, let’s return to the episode. Because everything from Katrina’s death onwards is almost like watching the Buffy/Faith interactions in S3/S4 in fast forward, especially the Season 3 episodes ‘Bad Girls’ and ‘Consequences’, dealing with the events surrounding the killing of Allan:

SPIKE: We have to go.
BUFFY: What happened?
SPIKE: There's nothing you can do now. We have to go before someone sees you.
BUFFY: (whispering in horror) What did I do?
SPIKE: We have to go, now!

Already this nearly exactly what happened 3 years previously:

Faith: We gotta go!
She grabs Buffy and pulls her up.
Faith: Come on, we gotta go!
‘Bad Girls’ (3.14)


Finally we get to the alley scene itself. I’m pretty much just going to go through the whole script for the scene, as well as a few things from the ones following.

Thinking about the start of the scene, one thing struck me - why is Spike there? Was he watching Buffy’s house? Was he following her? Did he want to keep an eye on proceedings at the Police Station or did he just know that Buffy would eventually decide to turn herself in?
Of course his motives are also mixed: He wants to keep Buffy out of trouble, but a great part of the reason is so that he can keep being near her. He lived without her the entire summer and I think he’d do pretty much anything not to lose her again.

Pan across the building to an alley beside it. Buffy appears in the alley mouth, walking slowly.

SPIKE: (O.S.) What do you think you're doing?
BUFFY: (keeps walking) The right thing. For once.

Here she is of course acting just as she was in ‘Ted’ (2.11). But also very deliberately *not* acting like Faith. From ‘Consequences’ (3.15):

Giles: The Slayer is on the front line of a nightly war. Now, it's, it's tragic, but accidents have happened.
Buffy: W-what do you do?
Giles: Well, the Council investigates, um, metes out punishment if punishment is due. But I... I have no plans to involve them. I mean, it's the last thing Faith needs at the moment. She's unstable, Buffy. I mean, she's utterly unable to accept responsibility.

And Buffy knows far too well that she is herself unstable now. She is in many ways behaving just like Faith was, only she’s better at covering up her tracks. So she clings onto what she knows is right - she accepts responsibility. She might be losing it, but she can at least do this one thing.
Of course, it’s not that simple. In taking on the responsibility for Katrina’s death, she is shirking all her other duties - caring for Dawn, protecting Sunnydale. Dawn was right to call her on it.

Spike hurries up behind her, grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her back into the alley. Buffy struggles. He spins her around and throws her to the ground.

SPIKE: Sorry, luv. (Buffy getting up) Can't let you do that.
BUFFY: I have to tell them what happened.
SPIKE: Nothing happened.
BUFFY: (surprised) I killed that girl.
SPIKE: Demons in the woods? Time going wonky? They won't believe you.
BUFFY: I'll show them.
SPIKE: (coolly) Show them what?

Buffy's expression turns to anger as she realises what he's saying.

And here the parallels really begin to show up. From ‘Bad Girls’ (3.14):

Buffy: Yeah? Who's wrong now? Faith, you can shut off all the emotions that you want. But eventually, they're gonna find a body.
Faith: (faces Buffy) Okay, this is the last time we're gonna have this conversation, and we're not even having it now, you understand me? There *is* no body. I took it, weighted it, and dumped it. The body doesn't exist. (turns away)
Buffy: (shocked) Getting rid of the evidence doesn't make the problem go away.
Faith: (faces Buffy) It does for me.

BUFFY: What did you do?
SPIKE: I took care of it.
BUFFY: (very angry) What ... did you do?!
SPIKE: (firmly) What I had to. I went back and I took care of it. It doesn't matter now. No one will ever find her.
COP #1: (O.S.) Where'd they find her?

Cut back to front of the police station. Two cops emerge and rush toward a car.

COP #2: The river. She washed up half a mile from the cemetery.

Cut back to the alley. Spike and Buffy have heard this. Spike rolls his eyes in disgust.

SPIKE: Oh ... balls.

You can try to bury your sins, but they always come back. From ‘Consequences’ (3.15):

Field Reporter: Fishermen discovered the body today, the victim of a brutal stabbing.

The police car zooms past the alley mouth, lights flashing, siren wailing.

Both Buffy and Spike speak with urgency.

SPIKE: There still isn't anything to connect this to you.
BUFFY: It doesn't matter.
SPIKE: It wasn't your fault!
BUFFY: I killed her!
SPIKE: It was an accident. It just happened.
BUFFY: Nothing just happens.

And yet again, Spike has spoken Faith’s words:

Faith: (steps closer) Buffy, I'm not gonna *see* anything. I missed the mark last night and I'm sorry about the guy. I really am! But it happens!
‘Consequences’ (3.15)

Buffy starts to walk toward the alley mouth. Spike grabs her arm.

SPIKE: You're not going in there.
BUFFY: I have to do this. Just let me go.
SPIKE: I can't. I love you.
BUFFY: (upset) No, you don't.

I cannot say how much I love the fact that this scene, the lowest in their relationship apart from the AR, is a mirror for the flaming hands scene in ‘Chosen’ (7.22). I will not go into any details, only say that in both scenes denial does not mean disbelief. Of course Spike loves her in DT and of course Buffy loves him in ‘Chosen’ (IMHO anyway).

SPIKE: (harshly) You think I haven't tried not to?

Buffy hauls off and punches him in the face. Spike goes flying back into a couple of garbage cans, against the wall of the next building.

BUFFY: Try harder.

And he does, later. From ‘Seeing Red’ (6.19):

BUFFY: (outraged) You were going to use a spell on me?
SPIKE: (sighs, exasperated) It wasn't for you! I wanted something . (puts hand on his chest) Anything to make these feelings stop. (angrier) I just wanted it to stop!

She starts to leave again but Spike is suddenly behind her, in vamp-face. He grabs her and again throws her to the ground farther up the alley.

SPIKE: You are not throwing your life away over this.
BUFFY: It's not your choice.

Buffy: I *am* trying to protect you. Look, if-if we don't do the right thing, it's only gonna make things worse for you.
Faith: Worse than jail for the rest of my young life? No way!
‘Consequences’ (3.15)

Of course, in the end Faith *did* turn herself in. And Buffy saw how spectacular the meltdown beforehand was. But still, here she’s very much making a choice, so she can stop choosing.

SPIKE: Why are you doing this to yourself?
BUFFY: (tearful) A girl is dead because of me.
SPIKE: And how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn't tip the scale.
BUFFY: That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body!
SPIKE: (sighing) Buffy-

And the parallels just keep coming. Buffy has had this conversation before.

Faith: ...Anyway, how many people do you think we've saved by now, thousands? And didn't you stop the world from ending? Because in my book, that puts you and me in the plus column.
Buffy: We help people! It doesn't mean we can do whatever we want.
‘Consequences’ (3.15)

She attacks him. He blocks a couple of punches but then she gets in and hits him in the stomach.

BUFFY: You can't understand why this is killing me, can you?
SPIKE: Why don't you explain it?

Now I cannot count the posts that have wished for Buffy to do exactly that. Why doesn’t she? Partly I guess she just doesn’t think he’d understand, and he probably wouldn’t. But when it was Faith, she *did* explain:

Buffy: It's just, look at you, Faith. Less than twenty-four hours ago, you killed a man. A-and now it's all zip-a-dee-doo-dah? It's not *your* real face, and I know it. Look, I know what you're feeling because I'm feeling it, too.
Faith: (insolently) Do you? So fill me in 'cause I'd like to hear this.
Buffy: Dirty. Like something sick creeped inside you and you can't get it out. And you keep hoping that it was just some nightmare, but it wasn't. [...] And that's it? You just live with it? You see the dead guy in your head every day for the rest of your life?
‘Consequences’ (3.15)

She hits him a few more times. He takes it, not fighting back.

SPIKE: Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me. (She kicks him) That's my girl.
BUFFY: (yelling) I am not your girl!

She hits him hard. He falls back onto his butt.

Now here Spike said *exactly* the wrong words. Being ‘Spike’s girl’ is precisely what she *doesn’t* want to be, whatever the reality is. We actually have a mirror for this at the end of Enemies’ (3.17):

Angel: You still my girl?
Buffy: Always.

Buffy is Angel’s girl - heroic, noble, loving Angel, weighed down with guilt and remorse, tender and (mostly) chaste. Not soulless, adoring Spike’s, who spent a century loving the mad Drusilla, before falling for Buffy. Spike, who is the only one she feels comfortable with (“...the only person I can even stand to be around is a ... neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker.” ‘Life Serial’ 6.05), who she can beat up and throw around and who *still* comes back every time, still loving her, which he shouldn't. Spike who (like Dracula) sees her as a kindred spirit:

SPIKE: You see ... you try to be with them... but you always end up in the dark ... (whispering in her ear) ...with me.
[...]
SPIKE: What would they think of you ... if they found out ... all the things you've done? ... If they knew ... who you really were? ... That's not your world. You belong in the shadows... with me.
‘Dead Things’

Is a Slayer just a killer? Is she like Spike? I’m sure she feels like it, which is why she tries to deny it so badly. And ironically, with every punch becomes more like him.

Buffy gets on top of him and begins hitting him over and over.

BUFFY: You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl!

This is of course almost a direct copy of Faith beating up Buffy-in-Faith’s-body. And I think that when Buffy looks at Spike, she sees herself.
But from ‘Who Are You’ (4.16):

Faith: (enraged, with tears in her eyes) SHUT UP! Do you think I'm afraid of you!?
She grabs Buffy by the shoulders and throws her down on the floor hard. She quickly sits across her waist and starts slamming her fist into her face.
Faith: (screaming at herself) You're nothing! Disgusting! Murderous bitch! (grabs her head and pounds it against the floor) You're nothing! (starts punching her again) You're disgusting!

She continues hitting him throughout this. Now Spike goes back to human face. He's looking very bruised and bloody, but he doesn't fight back, just takes it. Buffy hits him again and again, looking angry and desperate.

Looking back at the old episodes, there is an interesting scene in ‘Bad Girls’, where Buffy and Faith are trying to get Balthazar’s amulet. Buffy nearly gets drowned (again!), but then she and Faith fight together in the most spectacular way, killing the demons. Here is Buffy the next day, trying to explain it to Willow and Xander:

Buffy: It was intense. It was like I just... let go and became this force. I just didn't care anymore.
Willow: Yeah, I know what that's like.
Buffy: I don't think you can! It's kind of a Slayer thing. I don't even think I'm explaining it well.
‘Bad Girls’ (3.14)

Of course, in S7 we learn specifically what this ‘Slayer thing’ is. Here is an abbreviated version of what the Shadowmen said:

“The source of your strength. The well of The Slayer's power. Herein lies your truest strength. The energy of the demon. Its spirit. Its heart. It must become one with you.”
‘Get It Done’ (7.15)

What is she? What has she become? What do her actions say about her?

Finally she stops and looks at him in horror.

She suddenly realises what she has done. Stops seeing him as a mirror of herself; sees what she is capable of. And this time it wasn’t an accident.

SPIKE: (slurred) You always hurt ... the one you love, pet.

I will get back to this sentence and all its implications!

Buffy gets up, stares at him, looking dismayed.

SPIKE: Buffy?

She looks around, then her expression turns to determination. She starts to walk toward the mouth of the alley.

Close on Spike lying on the ground as Buffy's legs move past him. He tries to reach for her but can't.

SPIKE: Buffy...

It seems as if all is lost, but because this is a TV-show, Spike’s delaying tactics were not in vain. It bought enough time for the report on the identification of Katrina’s body to come through, leading Buffy to draw her conclusions.

What happened after she left the station? What happened to Spike? Personally I don’t think he was so injured that he was unable to walk, as many a fanfic makes out (usually because inserting a helper at this point is a good way to start off a story). Having re-watched the scene very carefully, the beating is very brutal and unpleasant, but most of the hits are to the face. And although he looks terrible, I’m sure he’d be able to get up (as he did after Glory’s torture, and after his and Angel’s mutual fight in ‘Destiny’. He was even able to limp out of the cave with Buffy’s support in ‘Showtime’, after having been savagely tortured for more than a week). Spike’s tough.

But back to what happened on-screen:

BUFFY: It wasn't the demons. It was Warren. He knew Katrina. He had something to do with it, I know it.
WILLOW: How can you be sure?
BUFFY: You always hurt the one you love.

Now what is Buffy saying? Does she love Spike? I don’t think that’s it, but I’ll come back to this. Because there is one more scene we need to look at. Buffy’s ‘confession’ to Tara. Re-watching, I noticed something I’d never noticed before. Very quietly, you can hear the same instrumental theme that is played during the balcony scene.

BUFFY: I didn't come back wrong?
TARA: No, you're the same Buffy.
[...]
TARA: (concerned) Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you.
BUFFY: There has to be! This just can't be me, it isn't me. (starting to cry) Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?

Now this sounds suspiciously like she’s putting the blame on Spike. But the key, I think, is the word ‘let’: She is the one in control. From earlier in the episode:

SPIKE: Do you even like me?
Beat. Buffy stares at Spike. He just waits.
BUFFY: (softly) Sometimes. (looks away)
SPIKE: But you like what I do to you.
Buffy still doesn't look at him.
After a moment Spike turns and reaches for something behind him. Jingling noise. Buffy looks up, and her eyes widen. Spike holds up a pair of handcuffs.
SPIKE: Do you trust me?
BUFFY: Never.

She allows him to do goodness knows what. She doesn’t trust him with her heart, but with everything else...

[...]
BUFFY: He's everything I hate. He's everything that ... I'm supposed to be against. But the only time that I ever feel anything is when ...

From ‘Wrecked’ (6.10):

Spike: [..] You felt something last night.
BUFFY: Not love.

But she doesn’t deny that she felt something!

[...]
BUFFY: (whispers) Why can't I stop? Why do I keep letting him in?
TARA: (concerned) Do you love him?
Buffy just stares at her tearfully.
TARA: I-It's okay if you do. He's done a lot of good, and, and he does love you. A-and Buffy, it's okay if you don't. You're going through a really hard time, and you're...
BUFFY: (still tearful) What? Using him? What's okay about that?

Even with Tara giving her a way out, she refuses to take it. Although not able to act on it yet, she sees clearly where she’s wrong.

TARA: It's not that simple.
BUFFY: It is! It's wrong. I'm wrong. Tell me that I'm wrong, please...
Buffy starts to cry for real now.
BUFFY: Please don't forgive me, please... (sobbing) Please don't...

And it was just her all along. All of a sudden she has no excuse for the way she’s been acting, no reason for doing the things she has indulged in. She has been using Spike, and she is obviously appalled with herself. But what do her actions say about her? That the only one she can relate to, the only one who can make her feel, is Spike? Is a Slayer only a killer after all (like a vampire)? She has thought so before:

BUFFY: The spirit guide told me ... that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all.
‘The Gift’ (5.22)

But before I try to work out Buffy’s feelings, let’s look at that intriguing sentence that I kept skipping, and ponder what it might mean.

“You always hurt the one you love.”

This always sounded like a quote to me, and when I looked it up, I discovered that not only was it a quote, it was a song:

You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall
So If I broke your heart last night
It's because I love you most of all
words & music by Alan Roberts and Doris Fisher 1944

(Free download here.)

Did the writers use the quote deliberately? Nothing’s ever certain of course, but the song was used in the Angel ep. ‘Rm w/a vu’ - it played on the radio as Dennis’ mother walled him in.

So, Spike *might* have been referencing the song. I doubt that he really saw himself as ‘the sweetest rose’, and I don’t think that he saw the beating as a sign of love.

He was trying to get Buffy to take out her frustration on him, maybe hoping to stop her long enough for her to change her mind.

“Put it all on me.”

And she does. (Often reminding me of the way she kept beating the dead snake in ‘Shadow’ 5.08.) She has been ‘putting it on him’ ever since her confession in ‘Afterlife’, and although he most certainly didn’t enjoy being her punch ball, as a vampire I think he has a different view of the violence. As Buffy puts it in ‘Conversations With Dead People’ (7.07):

“See this is what I hate about you vampires. Sex and death and love and pain? It’s all the same damn thing to you.”

Love and violence are not mutually exclusive (as is evident throughout different cultures), especially not in the vampire family Spike was brought up in:

Darla: That's good. You're hurting me. (smiles) That's good, too.
‘Angel’ (1.07)

And it was obviously an integral part of his relationship with Drusilla:

Spike: I'm gonna do what I shoulda done in the first place: I'll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, torture her until she likes me again.
‘Lover’s Walk’ (3.08)

So, when he turns up at Buffy’s birthday party in ‘Older And Far Away’ (6.14) , he acts as though nothing much has happened. (For more discussion on this, read molly_may's excellent episode review.) And to his way of thinking, maybe nothing really changed. Looking back, in ‘Crush’ (5.14) he chained Buffy up and said that he’d feed her to Dru if she didn’t admit to some sort of feeling. When Buffy leaves, furious, these are his words:

SPIKE: So we had a fight. It's not our first, love, and it doesn't change anything.

Their relationship has always been violent and emotion-laden, whether hate or love. From ‘Crush’ (5.14):

BUFFY: No! No, no, feelings do not develop. No feelings.
SPIKE: You can't deny it. There's something between us.
BUFFY: Loathing. Disgust.
SPIKE: Heat. Desire.

And if there’s something Spike understands, then it’s feelings and violence, and how they’re intertwined. It is a vampiric understanding, but he applies it to Buffy, which works remarkable well. Going back to our key sentence, ‘You always hurt the one you love’, it is not so much about love as about strength of feeling. The reason he was so devastated when Dru left, was because she stopped caring (from ‘Lover’s Walk’ 3.08):

Spike: She wouldn't even kill me. [...] She just left. She didn't even care enough to cut off my head or set me on fire. (sniffs) I mean, is that too much to ask? You know? Some little sign that she cared?

But Buffy cares. Like Anya (in ‘First Date’ 7.14) her feelings are ‘changeable, but intense’. Spike sees this, and that is what he clings on to. He matters to her, and they both know it.


But what are Buffy’s feelings? Despite the fact that she repeats Spike’s words, I don’t think she loves him. As she says in ‘Seeing Red’ (6.19):

“I have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to be love.”

Now one reason I adore the Spike-and-Buffy story, is that in some ways it echoes another wonderful love story - the one between Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane (in the Peter Wimsey detective novels by Dorothy L.Sayers). Peter falls for Harriet pretty much the first time he sees her, but it takes years before she reciprocates his feelings. And when she does develop feelings for him, she is very cautious. From ‘Gaudy Night’:

"I have been facing one fact for some time," said Harriet, staring out with unseeing eyes into the quad, "and that is, that if once I gave way to Peter, I should go up like a straw."

And Buffy is exactly the same. But how can she ever love someone like Spike? Yes he loves her, and yes he’s done a lot of good, but when it comes down to it he is a killer, not able to feel or understand guilt and remorse. If she loves him, does that not condone his actions?

If she came back wrong - if she really is less human than before - then she can allow herself to indulge in the relationship, even without reciprocating his feelings. She can beat him up, and pretend that it’s not a terrible thing, because she’s *wrong*.

But... she’s just Buffy. And she is much closer to being Faith than is comfortable, using Spike for her personal gratification.

Were Faith and Kendra right? Although very different, her two fellow Slayers both saw themselvs as apart from, or above, ordinary society. Slayers were a breed apart, working with different rules.

Kendra: De tings you do and have, I was taught, distract from my calling. Friends, school... even family.
‘What’s My Line, part 2’

Faith: (laughs) You can't fool me. The look in your eyes right after a kill? You just get hungry for more. [...] Hey, slaying's what we were built for. If you're not enjoying it, you're doing something wrong.
‘Bad Girls’

What is a Slayer supposed to be? All the things she tries to cling onto are what a Slayer isn’t supposed to have. And both of the others are echoing what the First Slayer told her. From ‘Restless’ (4.22):

The First Slayer: I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone. [...] No ... friends! Just the kill. [...] The Slayer does not walk in this world.

And now she has Spike whispering in her ear (Dead Things. (6.13):

Spike: That's not your world. You belong in the shadows... with me.

She has always refused to ‘just be The Slayer’, refused to go by the rules and be nothing more than a tool. Although often revelling in her powers, she was always wary of them, worrying about what the killing was turning her into. And as she talks to Spike in that alley, she begins to see what she fears the most - that she really is like him. She has killed someone and the person she is closest to (or more precisely the person who is closest to her), the person who loves her and that she has been leaning on, the person who as the only one has understood her since she was pulled out of heaven, cannot grasp why it is wrong.

Whether she’s his girl is a moot point. He is hers; her lover, her accomplice. She invited him into her life, and now he won’t leave. Like a living example of all that’s wrong with her.


Now trying to work out how to end this thing, I think I’ll quote two people who have written about Spike/Buffy far better than I. The first quote explains the B/S relationship conundrum perfectly:

“...in Season 6 Buffy sees herself as the monster, particularly when she's told she "came back wrong". But she doesn't know whether she needs Spike to be the monster she can find release in, or the man who can save her from the monster in her.”
the_royal_anna: Season 6 Buffy and Spike. The most thorough, in-depth analysis of them that I’ve ever read.

The second quote is the best explanation for Buffy’s actions in the alley that I’ve ever read (and make this essay rather pointless, really):

Buffy’s dream - merging sex with killing; perverting intimacy and trust with betrayal and murder- was very like psychosis. When she dressed and told Dawn she was going to turn herself in, her mien was unnaturally calm. This was not 52-card deck Buffy. I think she was still in a fragmented state.

This is important for appreciating the alley scene. Beating Spike was also very like psychosis. “Put it on me,” Spike tells her. And she does. But not just her grief and her rage and her horror.

In that alley, Spike has become her psychomachic* surrogate. She was beating herself. She wanted to kill herself. (It was only seeing him as Other that finally stopped her. She might kill herself. She couldn’t kill him.)
jonesiexxx: Thoughts on As You Were. Very, very interesting post on why Buffy breaks up with Spike, including an assesment of the relationship beforehand.

To finish I want to restate that it is a very difficult scene. Everything is hard, and bright, and violent. Buffy and Spike are both so lost and desperate, and such desperation leads to ugly things. I am impressed that the show dared to go there, and ultimately found a way to bring both of them back.