I'm so glad you enjoyed the story! I love S4 so very much, but if you think about it Spike would not have be especially likely to go to Giles, IMO. Joyce makes much more sense, from his perspective.

I do think of Buffy's future as a sort of "life sentence". She will very literally have to live with the choice she made. (It's like poetic justice, or is that just plain old justice? Heh.)

Thanks for commenting, m'dear!