Summary: Buffy and the gang: life after the final battle. Buffy's world is upside down when a chance comes for her to make it right side up. Will she make the right choice? Or will she make the wrong one? And as always, another apocalypse… will be spuffy! (by the way, this isn't a songfic)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for this story. If I did, Spike wouldn't have died!

Author's note: This is my first story ever so I will really appreciate reviews whether they are good or bad! Hope you enjoy! Oh yeah, I'd also like to thank geliana for helping me with this story.

Chapter 1 - Confessions

Despair.

Longing.

Guilt.

Pain.

Why are these feelings always so familiar to me? Buffy thought. I've always been left by so much people I love, it's like I should be feeling used to all this leaving-ness. And I know what I did wrong to all of them, so why can't I fix myself to stop them from leaving? It's like I always find a way to screw things up in different ways.

Darkness.

Regret.

Emptiness.

And then came Spike. He used to be useless to me, but before he died, he believed in me when no one else did. He gave me strength to fight back. I didn't admit it but…he meant so much to me that it hurts to think that he'd be here right now if I just brought him with me instead of leaving him there to "clean up" the hellmouth…I loved him – and now he's gone forever… but I have to move on…for him.

Buffy sighed and rested her head on her hands. Tears escaped her eyes and rolled down her cheeks falling to her palms. She shut her eyes to stop the tears and soon fell asleep.

/ "Go on, then." Urged Spike.

"No. No, you've done enough. You could still -" Buffy said, concern in her voice.

"No, you've beat them back. It's for me to do the cleanup." He stated.

The place crumbled around them.

"Buffy, come on!" Faith called down to Buffy as she left.

"Gotta move, lamb. I think it's fair to say school's out for bloody summer" joked Spike.

"Spike!" Buffy said worried.

"I mean it! I gotta do this." Spike said as he put held out his hand to stop Buffy.

Buffy laced her fingers through Spike's, and they burst into flame together.

"I love you…" Buffy said as she looked softly into his clear blue eyes.

"No, you don't. You never can and never will. And I am a fool for ever loving you. Now go!" he said, anger rising in his voice. /

Buffy woke up with a start.

"We are now nearing Los Angeles and are estimated to arrive there in 15 minutes" said the captain, his voice echoing throughout the plane. Buffy and Dawn were on a plane to L.A. to visit their dad for the summer. They lived in Rome with Xander, Willow, Kennedy, Andrew, Robin, and Faith.

"Dawnie" Buffy said as she tried to shake away her dream and her thoughts about Spike.

Dawn's head was resting on her shoulder. Buffy gently shook her sister awake. "Time to wake up. We're near L.A."

"Huh?" asked Dawn then she yawned. "Oh, yeah" She yawned and stretched. Then she turned to her side and stared out of the window. The sky was dark and hardly any clouds could be seen. Seeing as there wasn't any good view anyway, she turned back to face her sister.

"Buffy?" asked Dawn.

"Yeah?" Buffy answered as she flipped through a magazine. Dawn had a hard time thinking of what to say next since she knew it was a subject that Buffy really didn't like talking about.

"You dreamt about him." Buffy froze. "Earlier when you were asleep?" Buffy sighed and closed the magazine. She looked down and stared at her hands.

"Yeah" Buffy replied. "How did you know?" she asked quietly. "Well, the dead giveaway was you whispering his name"

"Oh" said Buffy. "But I thought you were asleep"

"I would've been if it weren't for my nightmare of Andrew taking over the world and making us worship him and Star Wars"

"Freaky" Buffy said as they laughed.

"Totally" Dawn agreed as they quieted down and sat in silence for a while.

"I dunno what happened between him and you before he…" Dawn paused for she knew it would be too painful for Buffy and even her to say and hear what Dawn almost said. Buffy just nodded in understanding. "I know that you're in pain even if you try not to show it and I know that you might never tell me or talk about it… and I respect that. But if it helps at all… just so you know, I miss him a lot too" said Dawn.

Tears were now forming slowly in Buffy's eyes. "When he came back, with his soul," Dawn continued, "I threatened to kill him if he ever hurt you again, and since then I never got to patch things up with him. I wanted to tell him I forgave him and that I was sorry, but I never got the chance to" said Dawn as she started tearing up too. "And now he'll never know" Dawn said as she started crying.

Buffy held her tears in because she knew she had to be strong in front of Dawn and everyone else. She let Dawn sob on her shoulder. "Shhh. It's okay. Just try to be strong okay? And I'm sure that Spike wouldn't want us to grieve for him forever" she said and at the same time tried to convince herself the same thing. After Dawn's sobbing quieted, Buffy said quietly, "I never told anyone this before but, you're my sister and I wanna tell you." Dawn smiled.

"I loved him" said Buffy.

"You did?" asked Dawn as Buffy nodded.

"I told him that and he didn't believe me. He said "No you don't but thanks for saying it". I meant it and he didn't believe me" Buffy confessed.

"Oh my god. That must be so hard for you" Dawn said, her heart breaking for her sister.

"It gets better sometimes. I try not to think about it and I move on. I'm sure that's what he would want for me, right?"

"I guess so, but would it help to say that it was stupid of him to not believe you?" Dawn asked, trying to lighten everything up for the both of them.

"Maybe. But I think it was partly my fault. I kept treating him like dirt and denying to myself, that maybe he already thought long ago that I could never love him" Buffy said as she sighed.

Dawn didn't say anything. She couldn't and she wouldn't. So the Summers sisters just sat there both deep in thought as they waited for their arrival at Los Angeles.

Back in Rome…

Willow was making a snack in the kitchen and at the same time looking for her phone. "Where the hell is it?" she asked herself. She woke up for a midnight snack and planned to call Buffy in L.A. to see how she was doing. But she didn't memorize Buffy's number, which was saved in her cell phone. So no phone equals no call. Everyone else was asleep except for Andrew who said that he would be coming home late that night. "I could've sworn I left it on the table" she thought out loud, she shrugged it off for a while and went to make hot chocolate.

After making her drink, she decided to make one last sweep around the place when she saw Andrew's room wide open and on it she saw her phone. "Bad Andrew" she said as she shook her head. She took her phone and was about to leave when she say something caught her eye. It was Andrew's Watcher's diary. Which was already open so Willow felt that there was nothing wrong with taking a peak. Ok so peak here means read as much as you can till he gets back. She thought to herself. She was flipping through the pages when she saw something interesting.

I was called to go to the City of Los Angeles to help capture a slayer of the vampyrs. I was trained and skilled with all those fighting techniques and have a much better instinct now.

Willow had to laugh at that. For just before Andrew left for his errand that day, he tripped on the carpet and fell to the ground and knocked himself out for a few minutes. She giggled one last time before continuing reading the diary. She scanned down the entry for it seemed boring to her. Wow, he writes even more boring that Giles did. And here I thought I'd never hear myself say that. She thought. Then she came to something more interesting.

It was while I was filling Wesley and the others about what I knew, I turned my chair around to face Angel as he came in. And lo and behold, in all his leather and bleach-ness glory, came in Spike.

As she finished reading that last sentence, her mouth fell open and she almost dropped her mug. Just then, Andrew chose to interrupt at that exact moment. "Hey, what are you doing in my room?" asked Andrew.

"You've got tome explaining to do, missy" he said.

"So do you" Willow said turning around to face him, his diary in her hands to the page about Spike.

"Oh" Andrew said guiltily.

Reviews please! Will update soon!