AN: All characters, stories, themes belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. End of Season 7. My take on the last night of the world (last night of Sunnydale).

She had come. This apocalypse, for the first time, she would be selfish. She had never allowed herself to indulge in 'lasts' the night or day before doomsday. She'd always kept her head in the game, kept her eye on the prize, whatever the Hell that meant. Tonight was different, she knew it, he knew it, Hell they all knew it. Not everyone would make it tomorrow. Someone would be lost. And even after two years out of the grave she still mostly wished it would be her. This whole year she had been fighting running into Spike's arms, fighting screaming her love for him at the top of her lungs, fighting truly falling. Because this was a war, and most likely, it would be her last. Or his last. He had already buried her once, he deserved better than a poorly spoken love confession just days before he would bury her again.

He deserved a whole heart given to him, not the fragments of hers that had been stitched together too many times to count. She had always said that he was beneath her, but deep down she had known better. Even after everything he had suffered, he loved her blindly, without reserve. And she, she that was Slayer Comma The, couldn't find the courage to love him back, not like that anyway.

And still, she had come. Here she was, being selfish again, standing before him, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest because this was the end, and it was the beginning. If she came down here tonight it would mean, it meant…everything would change. She wanted to laugh at herself, she never worked better than when under pressure and the clock here was truly ticking and thus she finally had the courage to return to him.

"Spike," she said.

He continued to watch her. He wasn't going to make a move. This had to be all her and they both knew it. His cards had been on the table far too long, and he had made his amends long ago. Even though in her mind, there had never even been anything to forgive.

"I need you," she whispered.

He cocked his head to the side in a gesture that was pure Spike and it broke her heart to see it.

"We are probably going to die tomorrow," she continued.

"And that's why you're saying it?" Spike asked irritably.

She shook her head, tears coming to her eyes, "No. We are probably going to die tomorrow. And I want my apocalypse."

Spike nodded.

"You think I chose you to die over Angel. And maybe I did. But I need you. And I don't think I'm coming out of this either. And ever since…" her voice broke and she took a deep breath. She had to get this out, she had to make him understand if it was the last thing she ever did, "Ever since I came back…ever since you came back…I've wanted it to be with you."

He took a hesitant step towards her.

"I want…you to hold me when it comes."

He began to smile and took another step towards her, confidently this time.

"I want you to whisper to me that everything is going to be all right."

He nodded and took another slow step.

"I want you to be with me till the end," her voice broke again as he now took his final step towards her and was just an arm's reach away.

"Because this time there's no coming back for me and I want…I want-

And she fell into his arms, her tears falling in earnest now, and she clung to him, as tightly as she could.

"Please tell me you understand," she begged, pressing her forehead into the bare skin of his neck. The familiarity of the gesture moved him more than her words ever could and he wrapped his arms around her and it was like it had always been, only now the words had been said, the best words he could ever honestly expect from this girl. And it was perfectly enough, suddenly. That weird dying girl had been right: she had told him. And typical in Buffy fashion, never in the way he would have expected.

She gripped him tightly, her hands fisting into his shirt, pulling him as close as she could. She looked up and found herself swimming in the blue depths of his eyes.

"I want to be with you, in the way you always wanted, in the way you always promised it could be."

He nodded solemnly and pressed his lips to hers. She tasted their mingled tears and the warm liquid of Spike's mouth which was always seeking, always finding hers. It had taken her so long, but he couldn't grudge her that. Angel had fucked her up more than Spike had ever realized. And she would never be able to give herself to him as fully as she had given herself to Angel because of it. But here she was, and she was going to try. He felt like the luckiest man on Earth to have this gift. Death was her gift, and with her death she had given him so much. With his death he would give her so much.

He broke away for a second when he realized where their hands had gone and the familiar desperate tangle their bodies had found.

"Buffy, what if I lose my soul?"

She shrugged, brushing a piece of hair out of her face, "I've known and loved you without a soul before. I think I can deal."

He shook his head, that was far too flippant, even though his stomach had done flips at the word 'love', "I mean it, love, what if I lose my soul?"

She felt her throat tightening again and she swallowed hard, "I don't care," she finally admitted with a resigned shrug. "I don't care."