lunabee34

“Told me I was a hero, same as Angel. Better than Angel, even.” Spike glanced up at Xander briefly before looking down again. “Can’t tell myself that lie anymore.”

Poor Spike!

The thing that bothered me most about Lindsey's deception in canon was that he set up for Spike basically the same situation Angel had at the start of S1 (here you are new and alone in the city, here comes this guy who claims to have a link with TPTB and visions of people in danger), and Spike reacted about the same way as Angel had (in fact I think he started helping people with even less reluctance than Angel), but somehow this makes Angel a hero and Spike a dupe. Argh.

So what I'm saying is, I'm so glad that in your version of reality there's Xander to see what's really going on and help Spike through it.