Disclaimer: Not my characters. Really.
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Setting: After season 7, now officially alternate universe.
Champions
He finished pushing closed the door of the crypt and picked up the bottle of whiskey again, taking a long draw. It burned all the way down. Didn't do any damned good, though. He could still feel. Almost made him wish he didn't have a soul again. Almost.
The others were drifting away. Red and Xander were in each others arms, grief leading them to the conclusion that nothing else had. They held each other, and that was enough, for now.
Giles, once her Watcher and now leader of a once again hunted Council, closed his eyes and silently said a prayer. Fool. Nothing's listening.
A few of the surviving Slayers milled about quietly, waiting for Giles to finish. They'd just seen what their end likely was. They'd no idea how to deal with that revelation.
And Andrew, now one of the senior surviving members of the Council. Tells you how many of them had died. He started over, but thought better of it and went to stand with the mini-Slayers. It'd been three years since they'd closed the Hellmouth, since all of these potentials had become potentials-no-more. But there was only one Slayer. And she was dead now.
He drank some more, then looked at the bottle. After the final battle against the legions of Hell, he'd lost his way. Tried to be a hero, but Evil was on the wane. Cleveland Hellmouth even closed itself, out of boredom he suspected. He'd kicked around Europe, for a spell, looking for goodness to uphold and all that, but eventually gave up. They'd won. The Slayerettes were all over, slaying away and generally making life safer everywhere. Joy.
He started fighting less and drinking more. He tried to keep track of Buffy, make sure she was ok, but it kept getting harder . After he heard that she'd hooked up with Angel again, he stopped caring much about things. Not a lot of need for him anymore. And there was all of that drinking to do.
He kept hearing rumors about Slayers turning up dead, and another army of darkness gathering, but he was sure that the Council had it handled. That's what they were there for. But as they grew more and more scarce, and he found himself drinking less and fighting more, he learned the name of the leader of the gathering darkness' name, and knew that something was badly wrong.
Angelus was back. He didn't know why, and frankly, didn't care much.
By the time he reached the states, it was too late. Angelus had struck the main Council building, killing most of them for the second time in five years. You'd think they'd've learned by now.
Her friends and a small army of Slayers had tried to rescue Buffy, but they were too late. Red had magicked her way in and brought her ashes out. No one would say who'd finally dusted her, but he suspected that it was Giles.
Dusted her. Buffy. The Slayer. Angelus must've thought that was the ultimate joke, making her a vampire. He wondered what she was like after she was vamped. He decided that he didn't want to know. He wanted to remember her as she was.
He had failed her. He wasn't a Champion. He was nothing.
Which was more than Angelus would be, when he found him.
He felt the weight of the amulet around his neck like a millstone. It had marked him as a Champion, once. She had given it to him. It was the only thing left in the world that meant anything to him.
Spike set the bottle down and walked away. He may not be a Champion, but he was still a hell of a scrapper. It was time to do what he should've done years ago.
And then, maybe he'd feel the sun on his face for the first time in years.