Harbour A.U.: Spike and Hedy

Some of you may be familiar with the aforementioned Harbour concept, but a brief recap to those you are hearing about it for the first time is that the Harbour is a side-project/alternate universe spawned off of the Spike universe sheerly for fan service and out of character (more or less) non-canon (as far as you know anyhow >u> sorry xD that was mean.. but time will tell I guess? ;) ), where anything can happen and it is all for our own amusement or just a way of passing time and filling Patreon with -some- Spike content while waiting for the real deal and/or in between the other actual canon stuff.

In short; The Harbour is the pure fan service alternate universe version of SPIKE, purely for "shits and giggles" as they say. I think. Do they say that? I'm pretty sure I've heard that somewhere...
Anyhow..

Harbour content will be marked as such, or it will be pointed out in text or titles that it is.

And since the Harbour is pure fan service based, I am definitely up for suggestions from you guys or ideas on what you would like to see O3O

Also it is called "The Harbour" because of the countless of ships that sparked it all, if you know what I'm sayin' >u>
But it doesn't HAVE to involve any shipping of any characters, it can be funny stuff or "what ifs" and idk basically anything :) But preferrably with my characters only due to potential copyright issues if we were to include the official work of others (say if it was suggested that I drew Charles VS the Marvel universe, or Spike and Sam in Disney World, because I think I could actually be sued for that..? Since putting a drawing of a character owned by a company or conglomerator on a page I'm getting money from could potentially be seen as me making profit off of something they have legal ownership of (hence why you shouldn't sell fan art or commissions of copyrighted characters etc.. bit of a word of advice there :-) ) ...Ok I lost my train of thought XD but you get the idea, right?
Anything goes as long as it is within the SPIKE character universe ;)

Aaanyhow.. 

This time I will be showing you a Harbour-related comic based on a request from a friend of mine who wanted to see Spike and Hedy as a couple, or at least together in some way.
And while I didn't really make them a couple here, I liked the person's idea of having Spike and Hedy meet again when they are older. Like, 18+ type of older.

And personally I find shippings to be more entertaining to both make and read if it feels like something that could plausibly happen, something that doesn't seem too far fetched. So I try to keep them somewhat in character, even if their actions doesn't always seem in character, but after all the ships and alternate storylines that have popped up in the Harbour it has sort of become a full storyline, albeit alternate and non-canon, so it all has a sort of connection and follow the "cause and effect" rules, and just... sort of fits with the other Harbour stuff.

So in this comic, hypothetically what has happened prior is that Spike and Sam are friends again after years of separation. Spike has had a character development (that is kind of out of character to the real story but which fits well with this alternate version of the story due to past non-canon events) turning him into a more calm and confident person ( which in a way is how he probably would have been in the actual story if he'd never experienced any of the abuse, so even though these Harbour related things are non-canon and somewhat out of character, I am still learning a LOT about my characters from doing hypothetical storylines like these :) so it is a both fun AND beneficial side project ;) )

Sorry, rambling again..

Hedy is a girl from Sam and Spike's school whom they've known for almost as long as Spike and Sam have known each other (which is canon). Hedy is deeply in love with Spike and has been since one day when they were kids and Spike stood up from her and protected her from a group of girls who were bullying her, inspiring her to believe in herself more and not let other people's negative opinions define her (also canon). Hedy is, however, very shy and clumsy, and all of her nervous attempts of trying to talk with Spike and maybe hint to him that she fancies him and trying to find out if he fancies her back, has more often than not lead to her nervously stumbling, dropping things, knocking things over, dragging Spike into her various accidents, like dropping her books on his feet, stumbling and falling onto Spike making him stumble and/or fall as well, slamming locker doors in his face, knocking him in the head with brooms, kicking trash bins at his shins, nervously ending up with doing all the things she hoped would never happen >u<  Which of course pisses Spike of, and had it been Sam he would never have let him get away with it, but Hedy is ironically someone Spike always felt he could trust, regardless of how annoying she occasionally was. He could always tell that she never meant to harm him on purpose, and could see that it was just freak accidents, but due to this would also avoid her on a daily basis purely to avoid any more of her accidents - which were rarely as painful as they sounded, just excruciatingly embarrassing...
And the more distant he got the more nervous Hedy got, and the more awkward and potentially painful her rare attempts to talk to him got :-p (all of this is also canon XD Just not really focused much on, at least not in the first part of the book)

The non canon Harbour version plays on this, but also pulls it a bit further.
Here Hedy has been aware of Spike's absence, but her feelings for him never faded. She has however become very good friends with Sam, and this has in fact only strengthened her love for Spike after how much Sam has told her about him.
When Spike returns, Hedy eventually meets him again. She asks about how he has been, what he's been up to and where he has been. She hears Spike talk a lot about Lillith, and without Hedy expressing it right then it breaks her heart to hear the love of her life talk so fondly about another woman. Especially after understanding that Lillith is very athletic and thin. Hedy has always been overweight. This was something she was bullied for as a kid, but it was also the thing Spike stood up for her about, boosting her confidence and made her feel that it wasn't such a big deal that she was overweight, because at least the person she loved had once called her 'beautiful'.
But hearing about Lillith, who is thin and who Spike talks so warmly about, shatters Hedy, and she feels like all her confidence is just torn apart by Spike's words. The same person whose words had up until that moment been something she found strength and support in.

It nags at her for a long time. She wants to ask him out about it, but asking him would also mean revealing to Spike that she is in love with him. And this is especially terrifying for her after learning from Sam how Spike reacted when Sam told him that he was in love with him.
So speaking with Spike now makes her feel terrified and vulnerable..

...but she just -has- to find out.

*  "Does he know?" Hedy is referring to Sam here.. >3O