A/N: Warning - Extreme Angst in this chapter!!!


The sidewalk was cold beneath her feet, cooler than it had been only minutes before. Grit and dirt was getting caught between her toes, sticking to her skin. She wished she could say everything became a blur to her then. But it didn’t. If anything, it all seemed that much more vivid. She had stopped running a while ago and now she walked down the street slowly and carefully, the colours of the night looked too sharp, as if she could actually reach out and touch the black night sky. The pavement beneath her feet was a shade of grey that looked stark against her bare white feet. Even that; even her own skin was suddenly too white. She had flashbacks of tanning on the beach, the smell of sea and sun cream, memories of bikinis and ice creams, Xander and Willow firing water pistols at her.

The memories all seemed much more vivid now, too, as if to remind her of what she had once been and would never be again.

The dress she wore flapped around her legs moved by the same cool breeze that caused her hair to billow softly out behind her. Buffy felt the flesh on her arms and legs grow colder and rise up in goose bumps but she didn’t wrap her arms around herself, they remained by her sides.

She was hearing much clearer now also; a car alarm shrieked in the distance, a dog barked, canned laughter from inside the houses she walked by. She was hearing and seeing things much more clearly and Buffy guessed there was more than a little significance in that.

Her hand still stung. It was still red from where she had slapped him and that was unusual. She was normally stronger than that.

Buffy bypassed a pile of dog shit and continued down the street back to her house. With every step she took things became more and more real. Things got a little colder, a little sharper, a little more despairing. It was like she had been wrapped in cotton wool and had finally broken free. She wished she hadn’t.

It was harder going back to seeing the world like this when she had been living in relatively happy denial for some time now. She knew that’s what it had been – self denial. Buffy wasn’t a complete idiot, she wasn’t some naïve child. In the back of her mind she had always suspected, maybe even outright known, that Spike was killing. After all, that’s what a killer did. Being a killer herself, she knew that very well.

She would sometimes lie awake at night and wonder if given the chance she could give up the kill. Buffy had always protested she wanted a normal life, didn’t want to be the Slayer, but she had felt the bones in a neck crack beneath her fingers, had gouged eyes out with her thumbs, had kicked hard enough to splinter ribs. What if she missed it? What if she started to crave it? They were thoughts she tried to pretend to herself she didn’t have but were always there in the back of her mind, clawing at her consciousness.

She had been made a killer by her destiny and it couldn’t be undone. She would never be normal again.

Normal people didn’t seize up others on the street analysing their weaknesses and deciding how they would end their lives, if they had been demons, with a roundhouse kick aimed precisely at the point in which their skull joined their neck.

And Spike wasn’t normal either. He had become a killer by circumstances of death and violence and he could never take that back. She had been fooling herself when she had asked him to give it up. Wanting to play at being normal because when she was in his arms that’s how she had felt.

But he was a vampire and she was the Slayer, and it was never meant to be like that for them.
Buffy made it to her house and found the front door open. She stepped inside and nearly collided with her mother. Joyce was putting her coat on and let out a yelp of surprise when she came face to face with her daughter. The surprise was almost instantly replaced with a neutral facial expression and Buffy knew she was trying not to be angry with her, not to look disappointed.

“Oh, Buffy,” she almost sighed. “There’s been a break in at the gallery and I have to go down there and turn the alarms off. Talk to the police. I shouldn’t be gone long.”

She watched her mother hurriedly explain then move around her to go for the door. It was clear she wanted out of the house, to put some distance between her and that night’s revelations. Buffy didn’t blame her and was actually grateful for it. Things would be easier.

“Mom,” Buffy said softly, catching Joyce’s attention. “…be careful.”

It was all she could think of. It certainly wasn’t dramatic or powerful but it was sincere.

Joyce looked at her a moment. “I will be. And Buffy? I’m…I’m sorry about before. I should have thought things through better but it was just a shock and…forgive me?”

Buffy nearly smiled, nodded. “You better go.”

“Right. We’ll sort this all out when I get back.”

And then she was gone. Buffy closed the door with a loud click. The house settled noisily, floorboards creaking and pipes groaning behind the walls. There really is no such thing as silence Buffy thought as she ascended the stairs carefully.

She went to the bathroom first and sat on the edge of the bath to wash her feet. She used her mother’s soap and made the water mostly warm. As she worked on getting all the dirt off her soles she thought about Xander. He was so angry with her and she was only about to make him angrier. Willow was upset and would probably stay that way. She couldn’t anticipate Giles’ reaction. He might be disappointed, she decided after a while.

When finally sure that her feet were clean she dried them off with a towel and used a small pair of scissors to trim her toenails. Then she walked into her room to brush her windswept hair. Buffy avoided looking in the mirror and went back to the bathroom to wash her face. She was aware her movements might be considered erratic but there was no one but her, so it didn’t matter. Lastly she brushed her teeth, flossing too, and then she picked up the scissors and flicked them across her wrists.

It hurt a lot more than she expected. A lot more than they made it seem in films and books. She may have actually screamed, the sound echoing on the tiled bathroom walls.

Taking a moment to calm herself Buffy sat down on the edge of the bath again, so as not to spill any blood on the floor. It tended to stain and she didn’t like to think of her mother having to clean it up on her hands and knees.

Buffy hadn’t really thought about how much time it would take, just that she would do it and that would be that. Now she was left with a sharp stinging pain worming its way up her arms, and staring at the white tiled walls with an immeasurable amount of time to think.

The scars on her back felt hot and she didn’t know why. Perhaps it was just her psyche’s way of reminding her what had brought her to this point in her life. Not that she could entirely blame the tangle of zigs and zags that made up the flesh of her back. She couldn’t blame Spike either, though she desperately wanted to.

It was all her.

She had made shitty choices in life and this was the fitting conclusion. A lot of ‘what if’ scenarios ran through her head. What if she had heard the demon behind her and jumped out of the way? What if she had made more of an effort not to push her friends away? What if she had killed Spike in that first year they had met? What if, what if. It was all useless anyway. It wasn’t fate that had brought her here, it was just Buffy.

Her vision blurred and she squinted to focus it. She could hear dripping and worried for a moment that she had left a tap on, but it wasn’t a tap she realised. To take her mind off of things she started to count the tiles on the bathroom wall. It was a mundane thing to do, but it seemed to her the longer she did it the harder it became to remember what number she was on.

A loud sound from downstairs made her jump and blink, nearly toppling her into the bath. Buffy stood up, annoyed, and padded out of the bathroom onto the landing. She saw spots before her eyes for a moment and fell against the wall when she tripped herself up. After she righted herself she walked to the top of the stairs. Her footfalls seemed very loud to her own ears and she had to really concentrate not to overbalance.

Not long now.

Then things got really confusing. Spike was standing at the door, eyes wide as he gazed up at her. For a moment she thought she was hallucinating until he flung himself forward and then seemed to hit something invisible in mid-air, falling to the step on his ass. Then she just laughed. It seemed like the funniest thing ever for about ten seconds; then she just felt like being sick.

He was shouting at her but her ears were only catching bits and pieces of it, so it came out as a garbled string of curses.

Buffy decided since she’d already ruined her mother’s carpet now she might as well sit down. She descended the stairs rather wobbly, Spike cussing like a sailor the whole time. Once or twice her head swum and she thought she might fall down and break her neck. Instead she made it to about the fifth or sixth step from the bottom and plunked down on it unceremoniously. Buffy sighed and leant the side of her head against the railings. There was something wet on her cheek but she didn’t have the effort to look.

“Buffy!” Spike was shouting, slamming the palms of his hands against the threshold. “Let me in!”

Guess Willow came back Buffy thought, her eyes switching between focusing and going blurry.

“Buffy!” he screamed.

She turned her eyes to look at him. He looked worried and sad. She thought he looked beautiful when he was sad. Buffy’s mind conjured up an image she must have seen in one of Giles’ books, of a valiant knight sobbing over the body of his beloved. She thought Spike might make bereavement look good. It was a strange thing to think, but she didn’t have control over it.

He was punching his fists against the barrier now, kicking it violently, and clawing at his hair. “Invite me in, now!”

Buffy watched him with interest. It was at least more interesting than the bathroom tiles. She hadn’t thought for a moment he would follow her home and taking into account the time he had spent to get there he had obviously considered not coming. Had probably thought about leaving town instead. ‘Sodding off’ as he might say. He had some weird sayings. She visibly frowned just thinking about it. Spike must have thought it a sign of pain as he began to scream into the night sky for ambulances.

“The cavalry aren’t coming,” Buffy said, surprisingly clearly.

He turned back to her then, fear in his eyes. “Buffy, let me in. Please, let me in. I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head, confused. “For what?”

“For everything,” his was still pushing against nothingness, desperation in his voice. “For lying, for killing, for coming back here in the first place.”

Buffy shook her head slowly, her eyes opening and closing. “No. That’s….just you. I know it is and I know you. This is how it is, Spike.”

He shook his head, not understanding and really she couldn’t blame him. It was hard to piece the sentences together when her brain kept telling her to just close her eyes and let go. And she would once he understood.

“Buffy, you don’t need to do this. I’ll tell them it was all me, okay?” He pleaded.

“What?” She crumpled against the railing again. “Who?”

“Your mates. I’ll tell them I took advantage, I did anyway. I’ll tell them. Just let me in,” Spike said in a rush of words before turning back to look out into the night and scream for an ambulance again.

Buffy laughed but it was sluggish and sounded odd even to her. “Not true. I knew it. I…knew what I was doing. Just like I know…no...now.”

“No, Buffy,” Spike shook his head. “You don’t need to do this. There’s an ambulance coming, just stay awake, all right?”

She pointed at him, finger shaking. “You want to save me.”

“Yes!” he screeched.

“Silly Spike,” she yawned, eyes half-closed. “Don’t need saving. This is me saving…me.”

Spike slid to the floor, slumped over the step, his forehead leaning against the invisible barrier. “Buffy, this is not the way. Let me in.”

“Why?”

“So I can help you.”

“How? You must smell it, is that why you’re here?”

Spike frowned. “What?”

“The blood,” she whispered conspiratorially “My blood. You want it, don’t you?”

“No!”

Buffy chuckled. “Liar. You wanted it before.”

She lifted up the hem of her dress to show him the bite mark upon her thigh. He looked strangely ashamed, and she didn’t think she had ever seen that expression on his face before. Having proved her point she smoothed her dress down and sighed, seeing the blackness at the edge of her vision.

Spike seemed to perk up with an idea. “I’ll turn you.”

“You would,” Buffy said accusingly. “You want to make me live like this for forever. Scarred and ugly. How could you do that?”

Spike smashed his fist into the doorframe, splintering it, as he yelled. “You’re not ugly! You’re not!”

“Do you think there’s a heaven, Spike?” She asked, suddenly afraid.

He sobbed then and she was glad for it. It was nice to know he cared enough to be afraid for her and when he placed his hand on the barrier Buffy felt the urge to place hers on the other side of it but couldn’t move, so only imagined that she did.

Her feet and legs felt cold and her dress was stuck to her now, stained and ruined. She felt her head loll back and then she must have passed out for a moment because Spike woke her up screaming her name and her head fell forward with a jerk, disorientating her.

“Buffy,” he said looking her right in the eyes and she could hear sirens in the distance. “I’m sorry.”

Buffy smiled for him. “Don’t be.”

She closed her eyes.

+ + +

Spike put his hand to his face, feeling the scar tissue beneath his fingertips.


Come back to heal me when my feckless course is run,
Peace, that I sought in life; crown me among the dead;
Stoop to me like a lover when the fight is done;
Fold me in sleep; and let the stars be overhead.


The End.


I know some people are probably going to hate or be disappointed by this ending, that it's not a happy one but...I think it kind of is. And this is where I've been going with the story the whole time and I had to stay true to that. Sorry about not warning over the character death thing but I didn't want to give it away.

Regardless, thank you for reading.