Author Note: You can read this as a stand-alone fic or consider it the final part of my post-series series 'After the End.'

The Last Time

For all the fighting, and for how many times they'd faced the end of the world, when the end – the real end – came, it wasn't something loud, and bright, and violent. It was huge, no doubt, but it was silent. It was still.

"Buffy-" Spike's voice was a whisper.

"Don't," she answered him, just as softly. "Save your voice."

He shook his head, making himself almost dizzy with the movement. "N-no. It-" he paused, his breath ragged and his eyelids heavy but never going all the way closed. Never breaking eye contact, though they got a little foggy once or twice. "It's important. Buffy-"

"Hush," she insisted, her own voice thick. "I know." Quieter she added, "I've always known."

Spike's lips curled halfway up into a smile, not having the spare energy to do the rest. "Daft chit," he chided, "Still won't let me finish, even-" he had to pause again, but he wasn't giving up. Buffy should have known better than to think she could convince him otherwise.

Breath finally back, at least temporarily, Spike began again. "How many times do you think you've stopped me from sayin' it?"

"Too many," Buffy allowed, a tear running down her cheek. She didn't try and brush it away, but he did. Spike caught it up in his fingers and brought it to his lips, but that only made her cry more.

God, it was so horrible! To watch him like this, when he'd always been so vivid before. For so long he was more full of life than even she was, and he'd been undead then. What kind of sense did that make?

"Buffy-" Spike tried a final time. She couldn't bear to interrupt now. "I love you. I love you so much."

"I love you," she said back, the words choking her. She knew then why she'd stopped him before. It wasn't for his sake, but for hers. How was she supposed to carry on if he loved her and left her? Him. The one who always stayed. Who always came back, even from the dead. The one who never gave up. Maybe he'd come back this time, too. Maybe…

"I love you!" she all but yelled at him – so loud the thoughts inside her head might be drowned out. Hope, Buffy knew now, could be just as intoxicating as grief. It caught up your insides and didn't let go until either it died or came true, but what then? Everything always ended the same way. Everything always ended. Period.

Spike's eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and Buffy could tell he was fighting it. Well, she was gonna fight it too, damn it.

Gripping his hand so tightly she thought it might hurt, she anchored him with her, knowing pain could ground you just as well as anything else.

He had liver spots on his hands, and they were wrinkled all over, but still soft in places, and callused in others. Still with long, elegant fingers, like they'd always been.

Buffy Summers was ninety years old. That made him, what? Well over three hundred. It didn't matter. Time didn't matter, so long as it wasn't over.

"Don't go," she pleaded with him, hating herself for it. "Stay with me. Won't you stay with me?"

Spike opened his eyes once more. They were soft at the corners, brimming with love.

"'Till the end of the world," he recited, his flame finally blinking out of existence.

Buffy sat in stasis, not having the first clue what to do. Where to begin trying to live without him. Luckily for her, though, she had Willow, and Willow knew what to do – just like she'd always done.

The Witch came in a moment later, carrying a candle with a blue flame.

Buffy gazed up at her, already more than halfway to hoping. "Can you do it? Did it work?"

Willow grinned. "Did you ever doubt me?"

The Slayer scrambled to her feet, not letting go of Spike's hand even as she did so. She was squeezing it even harder now, no longer to anchor him, but herself.

Setting the candle down on the nightstand, Willow prayed a small incantation, and a vision sprung up from the light reflected on the wall. It didn't show anything particularly substantial – just shapes, moving and blurred, but there was no doubt what it represented. Where it was headed.

Buffy dropped Spike's hand finally, catching Willow up in her arms and spinning her, making their entwined long grey hair fan out in a circle around them like a halo.

This, she thought. This is what it was all for. The more time she spent with Spike, the more she realized the soul didn't matter. It took him to have it for her to realize he didn't need it, but none of that mattered now. She was so glad he had it now.

She would see him again.

Of course she would.