No copyright infringement intended. Please do not sue I have no money and it is only for my own entertainment.

Normal = present

Italics = past

The room was clean but obviously worn down. The carpet hard and fraying slightly in the corners. The comforter had long since lost its padding and was now as thin as the sheets; the furniture held rub spots where countless people had tried to polish it back to a gleaming shine and failed. It could have been worse, considering the motel was off a road that wasn't well traveled anymore and looked like it could have been a real dump.

Buffy noticed these details but her thoughts were lost in a fog that she knew she didn't want to escape from. A gentle prodding in her back made her take that first step into the room and set her bag that held all the precious things that she elected to take with her down on the floor. She stared vacantly at the wall trying to not wince as her mother's voice rang through her head.

"If you walk out of this house, don't even think about coming back."

Buffy closed her eyes as the pain of walking away from her mother, her house, and the normal life that she had spent so much time protecting cascaded over her.

The little voice in her head snidely reminded her that she couldn't even follow her mother's last demand of not coming back, as she did go back, to pack the bag that she now had with her.

"We had better get cleaned up. We are both a bloody mess," a hoarse voice croaked out from behind her as the door swung closed.

Buffy half turned toward the voice, opened her eyes and lifted her uninjured hand to brush off her face. When seeing the scarred eyebrow cocked upward at the useless motion, as it just smeared the blood and grime around her face more, she let her arm drop down listlessly. She met the blue eyes of Spike briefly as he gestured toward the only other door which they both assumed had the bathroom behind it.

Buffy supposed that she should say something or ask if he left the motel clerk alive but instead she just nodded stiffly before woodenly walking to the bathroom as she let the memories of the deal she made with the Master vampire invade her mind.

"All right, talk. What's the deal?"

"Simple. You let me and Dru skip town, I help you kill Angel."

Buffy hadn't liked the deal but she didn't have any other options as she knew that she couldn't take on Angelus, Drusilla and their minions all by herself. She reasoned at the time that not having to worry about Drusilla and Spike in the future would be ok by her as the pair had definitely stirred up enough trouble. If only that simple plan had actually worked out.

The little voice in the back of her head asked her in the same snide tone as before why she thought a plan of Spike's, that included her, would ever go as planned. His track record for plans working was less than stellar.

Buffy didn't react as Spike followed her into the bathroom and helped her out of her blood saturated clothing before removing his own. She knew she should have reacted somehow, to the oddity of their situation, but she desperately clung to the numbness that cloyed her senses. He turned on the shower and without even checking the temperature she stepped in.

Freezing cold water hit her and immediately she could feel the pain of the cuts and bruises, which were all over her body, come to life.

"Bloody hell, it's cold," Spike yelped as he got in behind her. He maneuvered around her to reach the temperature control and quickly adjusted it to a warmer temperature.

The old Buffy would surely make a mocking jest at his inability to handle the cold water, but she just didn't have the energy. The thought that she had even lost the ability to joke around, depressed her further. She watch dispassionately as Spike grabbed the soap, the wash cloth and began to create a lather. She hissed slightly at the sting as Spike began cleaning her body and her wounds.

Buffy let the memories of the events that led up to this moment wash over her.

Holding the sword, Buffy walked determinedly toward the mansion, her mission being the only thing that she let herself worry about. She would deal with what happened with her mother later. A noise caught her attention and she glanced around, surprised to see Xander emerge from the bushes.

"Cavalry's here. Cavalry's a frightened guy with a rock, but it's here," Xander nervously said as he shuffled closer to her.

"Here," Buffy responded, holding out a stake, "this might be a little bit more effective."

"What's the plan?" Xander asked as he fell in step with her.

"You get Giles out, I kill Angel," Buffy answered, unconsciously mimicking how Spike described his plan.

"Ooh, is that all?"Xander said trying for levity and failing.

"Yep, that's it," Buffy said feeling a tiny bit better having her friend at her back. Even though she knew that she would have to keep an eye out to make sure he didn't get himself killed in the upcoming battle.

The two of them approached the mansion that Buffy's enemies inhabited and immediately Buffy sensed something was terribly wrong.

She slowed her pace and then stopped completely in front of the building.

"What's wrong?" Xander asked as he stopped with her.

"I don't know but something isn't right," Buffy replied, scanning the area for clues as to why her senses told her not to proceed. After a few moments with nothing moving and no clues as to why she suddenly felt this dread she started moving toward the mansion again.

"Stay behind me and if I tell you to run, you run and don't look back," Buffy said decisively.

Buffy abandoned her original plan of just blasting the door open and attacking and instead scouted around the outside till she found an unlatched window to crawl through. She cautiously made her way to the formal hall where Acathla was resting. Her eyes widened with shock as she realized that the demon statue was no longer there. Drag marks on the floor showing that the demon statue had been moved in a hurry.

In fact, now that she was in the mansion she realized that there weren't any vampire signatures buzzing around her head, at least not in the building. That was why her senses were going crazy. She had anticipated feeling the presence of the multiple vampires and yet here she was and she didn't feel anything.

No, that wasn't true, she did feel something but it wasn't strong.

"Where is everyone? Isn't the party supposed to be here?" Xander whispered as he took a look around at the abandoned mansion.

"I don't know. They obviously left in a hurry. Stay alert and check the other rooms for Giles. Call out if you find him," Buffy said, her brow crinkling with trying to figure out where her adversaries went.

She cautiously approached the sunlit courtyard where she felt the weak signal of a vampire. When she entered the courtyard she immediately noticed a blanket covering a smoldering vampire and since she could only imagine one vampire that the duo left out in the sunlight, she went over and dragged the burning corpse toward a shadowy nook in a corner. Once in the corner she proceeded to open the blanket to reveal the burnt, broken body of Spike, his eyes opening in a panic as he felt the blanket being lifted from him before relaxing as he realized who had uncovered him. She had barely opened her mouth to ask what had happened when he spoke.

"Dru saw that I had made a deal with you. Angel took exception to my apparent betrayal, would have killed me, left me here to die. Told me to beg for forgiveness if I ever recover enough to crawl to them," Spike rasped out in one breath.

"Don't go looking for your Watcher…they were saying that his body would make a good trap for you," Spike scraped out in his second breath before his head started to loll from weakness.

"What do you mean his body is a trap?" Buffy asked alarmed as she had sent Xander to find Giles.

"I don't know…kind of was being beat to a bloody pulp at the moment," Spike snarled at her as she shook him awake.

Buffy twirled immediately and made to run to where she had sent Xander when an explosion knocked her off her feet. Woozily, she stared at the rubble, which used to be the main room of the mansion and felt a wave of horror wash over her. She had just gotten one of her best friends killed. Add in the fact that Willow was in the hospital still unconscious from Angelus's past attack, and Buffy could clearly see why Slayers weren't supposed to have friends.

A part of Buffy broke at sight of the broken mansion and what must lay underneath. The knowledge that it was her fault that all her friends were dead or seriously wounded battered her soul. If she hadn't been so determined to have friends and live a normal life they wouldn't have been killed by Angelus. If she hadn't allowed her hormones to overrule her common sense, Angelus would have never been released. Even her second Watcher had been killed by her lack of judgement.

The other part of her suppressed the pain and was already making plans of her next move. That part of her knew that she didn't have the power to take on Angelus and Drusilla on her own and that still her best chance at defeating the duo was the severely hurt vampire behind her.

Buffy knew blood would help him but she doubted that even draining herself, with her potent Slayer blood, would bring Spike to peak fighting condition. Luckily, she had done research on vampires and vampire relationships when she realized she was in love with one. She had done even more thorough research when Spike had drained Angel of his energy, saving Drusilla, so that she would be better prepared in the future. She knew of a way to bring Spike to near peak condition but it depended on Spike cooperation, and as he was capricious it was difficult to depend on him.

Buffy slowly stood back up, checking her balance making sure didn't have a concussion before shooting Spike a baleful look and speaking rapidly.

"I still need your help destroying Angelus but our deal is off. I won't let Drusilla walk after all of this. Will you help me kill them or are you as useless to me as you appear?" Buffy asked without emotion.

Spike swam to consciousness at Buffy's question and managed to narrow his eyes at her obvious control of the situation. He thought about telling her to jump off a bridge, but he was a practical creature and knew that his time with Drusilla was at an end. After all, she had betrayed him by sleeping with her sire and then left him to smolder in the sun instead of just killing him.

"Hey, I am not useless. Just need a little blood and I will be back to tip top condition before you can say 'don't kill me'," Spike said, trying and failing to speak with his normal bravado.

At Buffy's raised eyebrow he backtracked, "Okay, okay, you got me. I am going to need a couple of months to be able to take them but still I ain't useless. I can tell you everything that they planned and where they went."

"Can you walk if I help you?" Buffy asked still emotionless.

"Umm, yes, I think so," Spike said with hesitation.

Without saying another word, Buffy lifted Spike easily up to his feet before positioning herself underneath an arm, helping him balance. She helped him hop to his old car which was still in the driveway, grabbed the keys out of his pants and proceeded to drive them very slowly to Giles's apartment as Spike mumbled out what he knew of their enemies' plan.

Buffy finally felt clean after Spike had finished roving the washcloth over her. He was about to put the cloth down when Buffy grabbed the cloth and re-lathered it. He watched her with fascination as she started to clean his wounds and the dirt off him making her wish that she had the emotional strength to blush. His growls as she cleaned off the dirt from his wounds kept her attention on the present and she was glad for the reprieve, for the memories were too painful.

When she had finished getting the dirt and blood off of Spike's body, Buffy noticed that Spike was drawn and pale even for a vampire and realized that he was still suffering from the wounds he endured earlier in the day. The ritual brought enough of his strength back for what they had to do but the battle was intense and exhausting.

Buffy quickly categorized her injuries and found one on her face that was still bleeding sluggishly. Without a word, she tilted her face towards Spike, offering her blood for him to devour. His face morphed to surprise as his understood her offering. Spike opened his mouth to speak but then closed it and didn't say a word as he accepted it. Buffy knew it was a foreign thing for Spike to be offered comfort when he wasn't feeling good as he was more prone to taking care of his counterpart companion. The ritual let them share their histories innately so they had a basic understanding of the life of the other.

The feeling of Spike's rough tongue on Buffy's cheek, savoring her blood, should have disgusted her but all she felt was the shivers that his tongue produced; her body helpless to resist his ministrations. She felt her body respond further as he took her offering of the blood on her cheek as permission to lick other wounds for stray droplets of blood.

He carefully licked the wounds on her arms, stomach, and legs, careful not to reopen them before moving to her neck. There he softly lavished attention with his tongue, kissing, licking and lightly biting her pulse points, as if he was asking permission to bite her. Buffy couldn't resist the moan that escaped her lips as her body responded to his attentions, even as her mind wandered back into her memories and to the ritual that bound them.

Breaking into her Watcher's home was one thing that Buffy never had contemplated before. Sure it was easy with her strength to bust the lock and actually enter the apartment, but the emotional toll of having to do so almost brought her to her knees. She couldn't believe that Giles was gone even though her logic told her that it was impossible for him to be alive. She didn't even let the possibility of him being alive enter her head even as she invited Spike into Giles's apartment.

Buffy quickly got Spike onto Giles's couch and went to his bookcase, looking for the correct book that she remembered she had read about vampire relationships and rituals.

"I thought I told you that Angelus and Dru were at the Library. They thought it was ironically appropriate to have Acathla swallow the world into Hell on top of a Hellmouth. Why are we not there already? Where are we?" Spike asked slightly delirious due to his injuries.

Buffy ignored his questions as he had been muttering nonstop after she had gotten him into his car as she perused Giles's books of the occult. She almost gave up as she couldn't see the book she had read before when her eyes lit upon it. Giddily, she picked the book up and flipped to the chapter about bonds and Master Vampires.

She quickly read the ingredients that were needed to complete the ritual and realized that luckily Giles had all of them within his magic chest. The ritual seemed pretty easy considering it consisted of mixing five common magical herbs together before adding the blood of the participating vampires. Buffy hoped that her not being a Master vampire wouldn't affect the ritual too much, but her being a Slayer had similar qualities. The fact that her powers and that of a Master vampire were so similar was something she had noticed in her years of slaying them but never wanted to acknowledge.

Buffy gathered the ingredients, careful to mix them in the correct order as per instructions, as Spike languished on Giles's couch muttering under his breath every time he regained consciousness, wondering where he was and complaining that she wasn't listening to him.

Finally the only ingredient left was Spike's and her blood. The text said that the next steps in the ritual were to drink the finished magic mixture as the recited words poured from their mouths. The damn book didn't say what the words were however. Buffy would have normally freaked but something inside her told her that after she mixed their blood with the other ingredients the words would come naturally. Or so she hoped.

Buffy carefully sliced Spike's wrist with one of Giles kitchen knives and caught the blood that dripped from it in the bowl before contemplating her own skin. She finally decided to cut her wrist in the same position as Spike's, thinking that the mirror images would help the ritual along. As soon as the first three drops of her blood hit the mixture she was transported to a wide clear desert.

"Slayer, the first. Slayer, the last. Protect the world, earn thy rest. Mate with best, live forever to protect and find happiness at last," spoke a woman to Buffy's left.

The woman clearly lived long ago and the Slayer side of Buffy instantly recognized her as the First Slayer: the girl who bound herself with a mortally wounded demon to hunt the creatures of darkness that had killed her family and to always protect other families from the same sad fate.

Buffy tried not to know how she knew this about the girl to her left but after a moment of useless struggle, she accepted the fact that she knew this because she was the current Slayer and it was that side of her supplying the information. Embarrassingly, her response to what the First Slayer said was less than elegant.

"What?" Buffy stammered.

The First Slayer smiled at Buffy's obvious incomprehension and replied more straightforwardly, "I never would have guessed when I made the pact that the responsibility of protecting the world would cause such heartbreak for the girls following me, heartbreak that could have been prevented. The Watchers have been stealing or sealing our power, afraid of us taking over. For centuries they have been doing this without difficulty, but you are different, they couldn't predict or control you. Thus you are the last true Slayer to be born. You have an opportunity to truly bond with the power passed down from girl to girl, as my original pact dictated. Furthermore, if you mate with a true equal, your life will become glorious as you will have broken out of my tragic line and started your own line, of not Slayers but Protectors of the Innocent."

Buffy just stared at the wild looking girl speaking such deep words to her, knowing inherently that she was correct. Buffy always had understood that she had a power that Kendra had not, even though they were both Slayers. She understood that choosing a mate that was her equal and binding them together would obviously make her even more powerful, but the part of Buffy who wanted to be nothing but a high-school junior rebelled at any notion that she was exceptional, even as a Slayer.

The First Slayer smiled a wickedly knowledgeable smile before gesturing to a glowing circle in the sand in back of her. "You can accept who you are and accept your chosen mate by stepping into the circle and completing the ritual you started or you can refuse. If you don't accept these facts, step back and return to what you know."

Buffy's breath caught in her throat as she assessed the glowing circle in front of her. She knew that stepping back would mean that the ritual failed and she would have to face Angelus on her own. Something that she knew would mean her death and perhaps the death of everyone on the planet. But stepping back would also mean that she could still hope that she could be a normal girl once again. She felt her skin split and two different people emerge around her. Buffy knew immediately that it was the girl and the Slayer.

Buffy watched with surprise, as the Slayer part of her, strained with all her might to step forward into the circle, even knowing that it was a Master vampire, her enemy, that they would accept as a mate when they breached that circle. Buffy realized that the Slayer was straining to walk into the circle because walking into that circle meant that she would have more power and might live longer. Buffy asked the Slayer part of her if having that power was worth giving up the life outside of the duty of the Slayer. Was the Slayer part of her so desperate to live a little longer that she was prepared to give up her friends and family?

Buffy watched with sympathy, as the normal girl in her, strained with equal might to step back and not accept that her fate was to be forever tied up in the mystical duty. The girl wanted nothing more than to go home, apologize to her mother, and find another way to reclaim her lover from the monster that lived within him. The girl was not sure if her lover truly loved her but was dead sure that she loved him. Buffy asked, the girl part of her, if knowing that she truly loved the man was worth the world being destroyed. Was the girl ready to let other people suffer hell when she had the power to prevent it?

The two sides of herself stopped straining to move and listened to her questions. Buffy contemplated the two people by her side and realized that they weren't two different people at all. They were her and she was them. She knew the answers to the questions that she had asked and now she had to accept them and their consequences.

Buffy knew in that instance that she couldn't step back, as part of her desperately wanted to, because to step back she would be dooming the world and everyone in it. Buffy truly loved the world and the people in it so she couldn't walk away. She also knew she would always want more from her life than that of a solitary Slayer. She wanted friends and family to surround her but she couldn't have that if she didn't save it first. After she saved the world, she could figure out a way to have a life outside of her duty.

In order to step forward and cross that line, Buffy knew she would have to give up the notion that the world was black and white and the lines that the Council and other adults drew for her. She would have to draw the lines between the evil and the innocent for herself and hold to them as she knew that mating with a Master Vampire who had killed innocents would test those lines. She took comfort in the fact that making these decisions was what she would have had to do if she grew up into adulthood anyways.

Buffy innately understood that this way of thinking was what the Council was afraid of; that a Slayer would see the shades of grey after many years of fighting the demons, the vampires, and the powers of darkness. The good Watchers would be afraid that the hesitation to kill would get their Slayers killed but the bad just didn't want their tool to make decisions that would change the world.

Buffy was only starting to see that not all demons, vampires, or darkness equaled evil and if they didn't prey on innocents or try to destroy the world maybe they should be allowed to live peacefully with humans. She knew that stepping into that circle and mating with a Master Vampire would certainly change her perspective on the demon population.

Buffy closed her eyes and pulled the two pieces of herself back together, merging them once again, as she accepted that she would have to embrace that grown-up attitude and take responsibility for her actions. She stepped forward into the circle of light with a strong decisive stride, determined to save the world and create a life for herself within it.

Opening her eyes, she was surprised to see Spike, still on the outside of the circle, arguing with himself. She couldn't hear the conversation but she could see the vampire demon part of Spike, the wimpy human side, and the Spike she knew, all in what looked to be a heated debate. Buffy almost laughed as the demon part of Spike seemed to be accepting the idea of bonding with a Slayer more than his human side just as her slayer side liked it more than her human side.

Buffy waited patiently and was starting to get worried that Spike would not agree to the bond when abruptly Spike grabbed his two sides, merged with them, and crossed into the circle with an impatient gait.

"Let's hurry this up and kill the bastard already," Spike snarled at her when he fully got into the circle and saw her. Buffy raised her eyebrows at his tone but before she could say anything she felt her mouth moving on its own accord.

"I bind you to me, William Pratt, William the Bloody, Spike the Master vampire, for all our days forward let our enemies beware that your strength is mine and mine is yours. I drink our blood to show my commitment to this pact from today till we die," said a voice that Buffy recognized as her own but couldn't control.

She felt her hands reach for the bowl and bring it up to her lips. At her lips she felt her body give her the choice to back out again but with determination she swallowed the blood mixture down. It tasted horrible but something sparked deep inside of her waiting to burst forth.

"I bind you to me, Buffy Anne Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Last, for all our nights forward let our enemies heed the warnings of our combined determination. As your determination is mine and mine is yours for all our existence. I drink our blood to show my commitment to this pact from today till we die," Spike said in an equally remote voice.

Buffy watched as his hands covered her own and brought their combined hands with the bowl to his lips. She observed in fascination as he paused as she had, realizing that suddenly he had a choice. She was nervous but he satisfied the ritual a moment later by drinking the rest of the bowl, even licking it out eagerly to her disgust.

Spike, in his annoying usual way, raised his eyebrows at Buffy's obvious disgust of his licking out the bowl and would have undoubtedly started an argument when the spark that the ritual created exploded, creating an inferno pulsating through their veins.

At Buffy's moan, Spike took a step back and looked Buffy in the eyes. She wasn't sure what he saw in her eyes but it had him running a hand in frustration through his now curly wet hair and reaching around her to turn off the shower. Buffy might have felt rejected if she didn't notice the impressive hard-on Spike was now sporting. She watched with little enthusiasm as he opened the shower curtain and reached for the towels. At this point, Buffy wasn't surprised that he gently toweled her off and wrapped her in the towel before seeing to himself. When they were both wrapped in towels, Buffy walked out of the bathroom and into the main room.

Buffy glanced at Spike as they both paused and looked at the bed that dominated the small room. She sighed as neither of them made a move.

"We could finish the ritual, if you wanted to. I know flames and vampires don't mix very well. It must be painful," Buffy said slowly.

The ritual that they had performed demanded that the mating was consummated within a certain amount of time or else the burning power flowing through their veins would literally boil their blood, resulting in their mutual death.

"It can wait till morning, tonight is a night for mourning our losses," Spike replied shortly.

Buffy felt a grateful smile inch onto her face at his words and his understanding that she didn't want to be The Slayer tonight, that all she wanted was to be the girl who just lost everything.

Buffy dropped the towel and slid into one side of the bed, slowly feeling the fog receding within her mind to reveal the despair that she had been trying to deny. She felt the bed dip with Spike's weight as he got in the bed on the other side of her and put his arms awkwardly around her. Instinctively, she scooted closer to him and melded against him, laying her head against his chest, both of their bodies stiff and uncomfortable, not sure how to hold one another. Tears started to form in her eyes as she let the memories of earlier that night take a hold of her mind.

"Bloody hell! I'm burning! I never pegged you as one but you are a sadistic bitch! Just bleeding kill me already," Spike shouted in alarm.

Gritting her teeth in pain, Buffy pushed herself off of the ground and spat out, "You are not burning up, you idiot. The ritual is binding us together." Before adding quietly, "I hope."

"What do you mean, you hope? Don't you know what this ritual you used is going to do to us? Did you research it at all or just decide that I would make a good lab rat?" Spike yelled as he jumped up off the couch and slammed his fist through a wall.

They both froze at the huge hole that Spike had created with his fist. "Well, it looks like you are feeling better," Buffy said wryly.

Spike did a few air punches, stretched out his limbs and twisted his torso both ways before cracking his neck and saying, "Not completely 100% but good enough to take on the Poofer."

"Good. Let's get this over with and then we can finish the damn ritual," Buffy said while picking out and trying out different weapons from Giles's weapon chest before once again settling on the sword that Kendra had given to her.

"What? What more do we have to do to complete this ritual of yours?" Spike asked annoyed at the time she was taking at picking a weapon.

Buffy blushed bright red, turned away from him before mumbling out the answer, "We have to have sex within three days."

Spike gave a choked laugh before noticing Buffy's reaction. He picked up a tome of Giles and let it drop loudly, getting her to turn around.

"I'm hurt, Slayer, you make it sound that you don't want me. Of course I know you do, I know you are burning for me to take you," Spike said seductively with his tongue curled behind his teeth while running his hand slowly down his chest before hitching his fingers in the loops of his pants, framing his crotch.

"You're a pig, Spike," Buffy replied while keeping her face averted due to the blush and throwing him an axe. After she schooled her face sufficiently she faced him and retorted, "but you're delusional if you think that you could give me any pleasure in the little time we have. I obviously overestimated your ability in the sack so I suppose we could finish the ritual as it apparently takes you so little time."

Spike growled in anger at her flippancy, dropped the axe and stalked over to her. He quickly spun her around and pulled her tight against him, pinning her arms to her sides.

"Trust me, Slayer, when we complete this ritual you will be seeing stars and begging for more before I am done with you," Spike snarled.

"Such promises you make me, too bad I know you are all talk, considering how many times you have told me you are going to kill me and failed," Buffy said with a growl of her own, pushing him away.

Spike grabbed her hair and harshly yanked her once again against him, before lowering his head and kissing her hard.

The kiss instantly doused their anger as the strangeness of kissing a one-time enemy sunk into their brains. Abruptly they both pulled away from each other and a few seconds later they realized that the kiss had also dulled the flames in their blood but hadn't erased it. They eyed each other warily, as they both truly understood emotionally that they were mated for life and they were going to have to be intimate with each other.

"We don't have time for this. We need to go," Buffy said brusquely.

"Yeah, let's go kill our exes," Spike replied hefting the axe up.

They left the apartment, very carefully not looking at each other, and got back into Spike's car. Neither of them spoke as Spike drove like a maniac to the school.

When they got to the school, Spike broke the silence with, "Your show pet, I'll follow your lead."

Buffy nodded, got out of the car and headed to the showdown with Angelus with Spike at her back. The minions around the outside of the school were almost too easy to take out with Spike's help. She was surprised that they fought together easily, instinctively knowing each other's next move and adjusting for it. Due to how many times they had fought against each other, their bodies knew the fighting technique of the other, weak points, and moves they favored in a given situation.

Buffy burst into the library just as Angelus pulled the blessed sword out from Acathla.

"Lover, you are just in time to see the world get pulled into Hell!" Angelus crowed jubilantly.

"Save me a seat," Buffy retorted right before she engaged swords with him.

"Tsk tsk, lover, you won't need a seat as I am going to kill you the moment my boy Acathla wakes up here," Angelus bragged as he gestured for Drusilla and the minions to circle around her to take shots at her if she got to close to them.

"I am going to just love your face as your final thoughts will be how you failed at even keeping the world from being sucked into hell. As you have already failed at keeping your friends alive and now you are all alone. I will kill you the moment you realize that you have nothing left and beg me for it," Angelus boasted as he landed a hit on her shoulder after Drusilla distracted her for one precious second.

Buffy was on the floor, her sword laying somewhere behind Angelus. He had an evil sardonic smile but as he went in for the kill, she caught the blade between her hands before thrusting it back, hitting him in the head with his own sword handle.

"Something tells me, Peaches, that my Slayer ain't the beggin' type," Spike drawled out before coming out of the ashes of one of the minions before dusting another one. The distraction of Spike's arrival and her hit on Angelus, gave Buffy the time she needed to regroup and grab her own sword.

"No! My dark knight has gone and swallowed the light!" cried out Drusilla as she jumped onto Spike's back as he dusted another minion.

"Spike?" Angelus asked incredulous before continuing, "I left you for dead, you should be whimpering under that crappy sheet till we decided to have pity on you. How did you heal so fast?"

"See it's like this, you left me for dead but didn't off me as you should have," Spike bantered, as he continuously avoided Dru's assaults, he continued, "And you seem to have forgotten how resourceful this Slayer can get when the world is at stake."

Angelus roared in anger lunging at his former compatriot, forcing Spike into a corner as he and Drusilla closed in.

"Spike, save some for me," Buffy called out with a grim grin, before readjusting her grip on the sword and launching her own attack, reminding the Master vampires that she was still deadly.

"Sorry, lover, but I'm gonna have to pass on the whole trip to hell. Have fun though, don't forget to not send me a postcard," Buffy quipped at Angelus as their fight began in earnest.

Buffy didn't worry about Drusilla or other minions now that Spike had joined the fray. She knew that Spike could beat his sire in a fight and so she left her for him to take care of. All her attention could now be on killing the Master vampire before her and her concentration showed as now she was easily dominating the fight.

Buffy had Angelus on the floor in the corner, completely at her mercy with her sword raised to take off his head when a great burst of pure white light hit Angelus and settled into his body. His eyes were lit with the power of the magic and almost immediately Buffy could see that Angelus's soul had been returned to him and he was her Angel once again.

"Buffy? What is going on? Where are we? You're hurt, what is happening? Everything is so muddled, I feel like I haven't seen you in ages," Angel murmured rapidly in confusion as he slowly got to his feet.

Buffy felt frozen at the sight of her love having been returned to her, as it was too late. Her heart broke further as she could see Acathla's mouth starting to open up, signaling that she was out of time. She didn't have the time to explain to him what was going on or why she had to kill him. She didn't even have time to explain why she was now irrevocably bound forever to Spike.

Buffy maneuvered them so that Angel was right in front of Acathla, facing the door. She wanted to make sure that his last thing he would see of this plane was only her and the love she held for him, not the destruction that he wrought.

"I love you," Buffy softly murmured, heart breaking as Angel repeated the sentiment before kissing him with all the love she had for him.

The kiss seemed to last a lifetime and yet barely a second. Buffy slowly broke the kiss before quickly stepping back from Angel and driving her sword through his heart.

Acathla seemed to scream as Angel's eyes opened in shock, gasping for unneeded air. Buffy felt Spike come up beside her as she watched the stone demon start to slowly swallow her love. She couldn't move, couldn't tear her eyes away, couldn't feel anything as Angel pleaded and reached out to her for help. After a long few minutes Angel was gone and Acathla was dissolving into ash, closing hell. Another apocalypse averted.

"Drusilla is gone," Spike said into the silence after a moment, the breaking of which nearly brought Buffy to her knees.

"We need to get out of here," Spike prompted as Buffy didn't react.

Buffy nodded before replying woodenly, "I need to pick up a few things from my house."

The duo turned as one and left the library, neither of them looked back.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but you are the strongest person I have ever met," Spike said into Buffy's hair.

Buffy, glad for the distraction from the memories, shrugged before replying, "I'm the Slayer, strength comes with the territory."

"I'm not talking about the physical strength that all Slayers have. I am talking about you and the strength you have inside. I have fought and killed Slayers before but I would have never been able to best you. Your desire to live and your ability to love are incredible," Spike said as he wiggled around so that he could look her in her eyes.

Buffy searched Spike's eyes looking for the lie, for the slight gleam that would tell her that he was mocking her and saw only that he was telling what he believed to be the truth.

"I couldn't have done what you did today. I couldn't even kill Dru, I knocked her out and sent her away with the last minion with instructions to never come near me again," Spike slightly babbled as Buffy continued to look into his eyes.

"Thank you," Buffy finally responded.

Spike started to sputter about how he hadn't done anything to earn her gratitude, to which Buffy stopped him with a firm kiss. When she pulled away, he searched her eyes before nodding and saying, "Your welcome."

Buffy once again settled into Spike's arms, both of them curling around each other into a comfortable position, neither one feeling the awkwardness of moments before. Buffy let the darkness and silence of the room wash over her and tried to let her mind drift but she couldn't fall asleep. Spike started to run his hands slowly up and down her back and Buffy realized that he was crying quietly into her hair. Realizing that Spike was crying eased something inside of her and before she knew it, she was sobbing openly into his chest.

To Spike's credit, he didn't whisper platitudes of how everything was going to be alright and how righteous she was for killing her love to prevent the apocalypse. He just held her close, let her cry and let her mourn for the loss of everything that she had held so dear, as he did the same. After what felt like an eternity, their sobs slowly ebbed to small sniffles.

In an unsure, small voice Buffy spoke, "We will survive, won't we?"

"Yeah, that is what we do, survive," Spike responded in low tones, "I'd wager we will even adapt to this, don't you agree?"

"Yeah, that is what we do," Buffy agreed with a nod of her head.

They lay there, on the bed, in a worn down motel room both thinking about the past and what the future held for them.

"At least we won't be alone," Spike mused, sleepily.

"No, neither of us will ever be alone again," Buffy murmured in response. She felt a small smile cross her face at the thought of having him always by her side, as she let sleep claim her.