Authors Note: This is my first Buffy fanfic although I have written plenty of Harry Potter fanfiction before. Also I haven't written in 3rd person for a while now so please bare with me, I'm far more used to 1st person narrative at the moment. I know this beginning may seem pretty cliched, but I promise it's all just plot development to get me where I want to be, never fear a major plot twist is right around the corner :)

Disclaimer: Three simple ways to tell if I own anything:

a) Is Angel still alive or at least not evil which is the only time he was ever any fun (OK so maybe he died at the end of NFA but we don't know that)
b) Did Spike go back to Buffy?

c) Am I writing fanfiction (the clue is in the name)

XD

Enjoy, reviewers and constructive critics always welcome and much appreciated.

Chapter 1:
One Last Goodbye?:

Rome-Italy:

Buffy Summers was sleeping. The restless, dream filled sleep that had plagued her nights without relent for the past month. The dream was always the same. A dark alley way, shrouded in smog, filled with menacing shadows. The overwhelming sense of fear, not for herself but for another. And then, a burst of flame and the sound of her own desperate screams of terror and loss resounding in her ears. This scene would play itself out in her mind again and again, over and over, each time her screams would be louder, more intense would the emotions behind them become. Until, eventually, she would awake, shivering, her hair, damp with sweat, plastered to her forehead, her body wretched with unshed tears. The regularity of this night terror made her feel sure that it must be a Slayer dream. However, when she had asked Faith and Kennedy, as well as some of the trainees under her care, although they had all admitted that they had been experiencing the growing sensation that something was looming of late every one of them refuted the idea that they had been visited by any such nightly apparition.
Awaking from another such visitation, Buffy stood and began pacing the room, determined to at last find some meaning in the dream. Nothing would come however, she sighed, what had she expected, some miraculous epiphany to suddenly present itself and the message to be laid bare before her. If Giles and the rest of his newly reformed Watcher's Council had been unable to wrest and coherence from it after an entire month it seemed unlikely that she would happen upon the answer at midnight by pure chance. But now she was awake, she could not return to slumber, and so she turned her mind to its other omnipresent occupant thought. Spike. She turned her hand over to gaze at the scared and burnt palm. Willow had offered to fix it, and Buffy knew that she could have made it good as new, as clean and smooth as it had once been. But she had refused. It was the only thing she had left of him, strange as it may have sounded. Besides, even her Slayer healing had not touched the burn, which made her feel that it was a mark she was supposed to bare, just like the scar left by Angel on her neck. A constant reminder of what he had been to her, what he had done, for her, for the world. Absently she traced her fingers over the rough surface, closing her eyes and conjuring his image into her subconscious. "I love you"

L.A.-California:

'No you don't but thanks for saying it.'

Spike replayed his final words to her over in his mind. He'd been doing that a lot since Italy, trying to convince himself that they were true, that she hadn't loved him. But then he would remember that blazing look in her eyes as she had held his hand and uttered those simple yet so indefinably precious words, and his resolve would crumble, a seed of doubt sown.

"I want you all to do something for me, for yourselves. Take the day off." Angel's voice cut harshly through his memories, jolting him back into the here and now, the reality where Buffy was far away with the Immortal and he was here in L.A., with Angel of all people, about to die for the good of the world once again.

"What?" he asked taken aback.

"Angel, if we're planning to assassinate the power elite of the apocalypse tonight, shouldn't we be cowboying up?" Gunn said incredulously
"We'll be ready, but today, I want you guys to go out. Live. Do whatever you want."
And suddenly Spike knew what he had to do. No what two things. He had to say goodbye.

He returned from the poetry slam a grin on his face, finally some appreciation for his talents. Over a hundred and twenty years of poetry had been divulged, spanning his three great loves, the shining light of Cecily when he himself had still been able to bathe in the light of day, his black beauty Dru and finally his greatest love of all, his purpose, his saving grace. Buffy. The grin slowly left his features as he set them. And now to finally lay that love to rest. He snuck into Angel's office, rummaged in the draws (funny he was sure Angel usually kept them locked, perhaps he had almost been expecting this of him) found what he was looking for, picked up the phone and began to dial.

Rome:

At some point she had once again fallen into uneasy slumber. The dream had come to her once more-the most intense manifestation yet-this time she swore she saw a figure at the end of the alley way-silhouetted against the moonlight. Then came that burst of flame once more and as the light from it illuminated the passage the figure turned and she saw him-bleach blond hair, pale as milk and his lips moved, they called out one word, a name, her name, "Buffy".
She shot awake. Distantly she made out the bleeping of her answer machine beside her bed. Absently, almost of its own volition, as if it knew something important was about to occur, her hand moved to hit the play-back. For a short while there was nothing but silence, in which she sat quivering with nervous excitement and fear at what she had seen. Then the still was broken by the sound of someone clearing their throat and that single word again. "Buffy." Her heart almost stopped at that, it was him, she'd know his deep reassuring voice anywhere, but there was more, she wrenched her attention back to the words and not just the joy of the intonation and characteristic rise and fall of his voice.
"Hey luv, umm, its me. I know I went out in Sunnydale and well, I'd really love to tell you the wheres, wherefores and whys not to mention the all important hows of what I'm doing back in this world, but 'sides there really being no time I don't actually have a bloody clue myself. Anyway none of that matters anymore-this whole back-to-life thing, turns out its pretty short lived, but I just had to say...before...well anyway I just had to tell you one last time. I love you. And I know I've said it a thousand times before but, hey I've just realized that last time you stole my bit and well, there, maybe just once more for luck, hey you never know, maybe I'll find my way out, maybe. Oh God I love you and the lil bit so much and I just wish, I wish I'd come and found you instead of letting me dammed pride get in the way yet again. But you know I told you before, I follow my blood. But now, I've come to the end of the line, the final curtain and all that, and hey I'm doing a you and rambling cause I'm so bloody scared Buffy at least last time I had you there, to look at and let me know it was all worth while. Oh Angel says hi too, I'm sure he'd be here doing this himself and probably a hell of a lot more coherently at that, but he had some stuff of his own to sort out first. So anyway, I just had to say one last goodbye."

Buffy jumped to her feet, tears streaming down her face, terrified that she was already too late, but determined. "Dawn", she yelled, "pack some stuff. We're going to L.A."