If Spike wore a T-shirt with a defining phrase on it we all know what it would be. Two words: Love’s Bitch. The need to love and be loved is a guiding force in both his human life and his undead existence. Alive, William, is a ‘good man’ but an ineffectual romantic, lousy poet and, inevitably, a spurned suitor. His siring by Drucilla frees him from most of his human restraints, but remarkably, not his ability to love. As a vampire William finally finds the being that will release all his frustrated need to love and be loved in Drucilla. He willingly becomes her childe, her devoted lover, her caretaker and her cure. It’s just this capacity to retain emotion and commitment that causes the Judge to observe that he and Drucilla ‘stink of humanity’.

Capable of love or not, Spike is also evil. He has gleefully traded his weak and passive William persona for the freedom of the impulsive big-bad-Spike. But unlike Liam’s instant transition to Angelus, William’s transformation to Spike is deliberate and self-crafted. When Liam becomes Angelus, the demon is fully and viciously in charge from the very moment he awakes. There is no ‘choice’, no shades of gray. When William awakes from being turned, his inherent Williamness is still there. His ability to love and make choices has survived. What he’s been given in being sired is the ability to be strong, to operate without restraints, to transcend the consequences that come with being weak, human, and subject to the rules of society. It’s exhilarating, and guilt free. But as bad as he wants to be, Spike can’t give up the need for love. It’s as much his curse as his ability.

Although Drucilla has been the center of Spike’s universe, when he is disabled she is ultimately incapable of returning the favor. Returned to her full strength, she no longer needs him to protect her, and in fact in his weakened state he can’t. He has both saved her and failed her, so she rejects him and allows him to be repeatedly taunted about his inadequacy by Angelus. This is not only a repeat of his treatment at the hands of his human ‘friends’, but reminiscent of the scenario we will later see as a flashback showing William being rejected by his mother once he has lovingly turned her into a vampire to both cure her, and keep her with him. The vampire mother cites William’s weaknesses and inadequacies as the reason she can’t wait to leave him.

Spike’s love has been called obsessive, masochistic, perverse, immature, dependent, and abusive. We see with Harmony that Spike is capable of meaningless, exploitive relationships with women he considers ‘beneath’ him. He’s a man who always needs a woman in his life, but he has to be attracted by both their power and their vulnerability before devoting himself to be their champion. But, once he has made the commitment he is theirs, and will suffer if not gladly, at least willingly and even at their own hands, for love.

Love both defines Spike, and continuously betrays him. Like Buffy, who has been told with significant ambiguity, that ‘death’ is her ‘gift, ’Spike is continuously attracted to the ability that both makes him unique, and is the tool of his own destruction. Love is Spike’s ‘gift’. And just like death has been the journey for Buffy, Love has been the journey for Spike. Each gift is both what each of them give, and what each of them need, what they have always longed for in their not-so-secret hearts.

However, Spike has actually passed the Slayer on the path to resolution. Even more than Buffy, Spike knows what he is, and what he’s been. Further, he knows that there’s no fixing the past. He’s sorry, OK? But he’s through wallowing, something that Angel, Buffy and Wood have trouble giving up. Spike gets it. Trying to fix the past solves nothing. He finally understands that what matters is the now. Who you are, and what you can do in the present, no begging, no whining, no sackcloth and ashes. And more important, at this point there is no wishing, no manipulation that will create the future he wants. Only what will be. He still loves Buffy, but she’s not his trigger anymore, just as his mother is no longer his trigger. He’s finally free to be his own…man. Love is no longer his jailer or his obsession. It’s his gift.