Dsiclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of the characters or concepts.

Chapter 1

I had to get to her.

I was struggling up the metal of the rickety tower that threatened to fall at a moments notice. I had to find Dawnie, my little baby sister, the one that had been screaming my name from above when I came. Now all I heard was the screaming. I had to keep going. Just because Glory was trashed (thanks to my handiwork) didn't mean she didn't have people working for her. She was a god, after all.

When I reached the top of the uneven metal staircase up the tower, I saw Dawn tied up at the end of the walkway like that guy in X-Men. I never liked that movie, and now I disliked it even more. That was my Dawnie, not some random person. Some weird old man was cutting into her stomach with a knife, making her bleed and cry. He was going to pay, and I was going to make sure Dawnie was safe no matter what it cost.

She looked up and saw me. "Buffy!" she screamed, tugging against the ropes.

"Dawn!" I raced towards her.

"This should be interesting," the old man said, and five seconds later, I passed him, and he was hurtling to his deserved death.

"Here." I reached out and started untying the roped that bound here to two metal poles. My fingers fumbled numbly, but I managed.

She gulped. "Buffy, it hurts." Blood was streaming from multiple cuts in her stomach, and blood dripped off her toes into the air. It hurt me so badly I couldn't breathe.

Pulling the last of the ropes away, I said, "I got it, come here." I wrapped my arms around her bony frame and held her close, hobbling to the end of the walkway. "You're gonna be okay-"

Whoosh.

Oh, crap.

Below us an immense orb of crackling energy had expanded from nowhere, and lightning crackled from it in every direction. "Go!" I ordered Dawn, pushing her ahead of me. She froze.

"Buffy, it's started."

Some tall and official building got hit and suddenly looked like it was a huge alien house. Demons poured from every direction below. Another flash and I could make out cars crashing and swerving to avoid the sudden fissure in the street. I thought I heard someone below scream, "Anya!"

I looked into my sister's eyes. She shivered.

"I'm sorry," she said.

I didn't want her to be sorry; I wanted things to be okay, and I wanted her to be okay. "It doesn't matter."

She stared back at me, then tried to dodge past and run for it. Thank goodness for Slayer reflexes. "What are you doing?" I demanded, pulling her back by her arm.

"I have to jump. The energy-"

"It'll kill you!" Horror rose in my chest as I realized what she was saying.

"I know. Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it," she said. She looked ready to run the other way, but she pulled her arm away and steeled her face like she was about to try running to her death again.

"No." Never! Dawnie, I'm not going to lose you again! I can't lose you again, was what I wanted to say, but I just couldn't. I grabbed onto her as the tower bucked from the portal's wind.

She cried, "I have to! Look at what's happening!"

The portal, quiet for the past minute, crackled and shot out some sort of dragon into the air. It roared in triumph, stretching bat wings and catching the updraft. A dragon. That was going to be hard to kill. Luckily, it wasn't interested in us and circled the tower twice before flying towards the bigger city.

"Buffy, you have to let me go. The blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop. You know you have to let me," Dawn said, gulping. "It has to have the blood."

That sounded like something I'd heard before. I stared hopelessly at Dawnie's tear-streaked face.

"It's always got to be blood," Spike had said at the meeting earlier. Blood was what fed him and kept him alive, and it was what made us do thing we couldn't understand, he said.

Dawnie crouched on the floor, terrified, her arm and hand covered in blood were she had cut herself with a kitchen knife. I reached up and touched the place above my heart where Glory had stabbed me, bringing my hand back down and joining it with Dawn's. "It's Summers' blood. It's just like mine."

Back in the meeting, only I was talking. "She's me. The monks made her out of me." I thought to how I could hate her and love her, and how holding her made me safe. I couldn't hurt her. I couldn't let her die.

In the desert, the first Slayer grinning at me eerily, her face painted beyond recognition and her body hunched over with old age. "Death is your gift."

"Death…?" I asked. All I could offer others was death?

"…is your gift," she finished, nodding.

But now it made sense.

But now it made sense.

I turned around and looked out into the sky for the last time. The sun was just starting to rise above the clouds, lightening the sky. It made what I had to do less hard. I turned slowly and tried to say something to Dawn.

"Buffy…no." she said firmly, realizing what I was going to do.

I just couldn't argue with her, not now. "Dawnie, I have to."

"No!" she started to cry again, heaving and sobbing, tears tracing little paths through the grime on her face.

"Listen to me, please, there's not enough time," I begged, holding onto her shoulders. "Listen!"

She was still crying, but she looked up. I took a deep breath. How do you tell your sister not to be upset when you're going to die? What do you tell her to make it better?

"Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. This is the work that I have to do," I began, holding back my own tears as she cried harder and looked away for a fraction of a second. Come on, Dawnie, you're strong. You can do this. "Tell Giles... tell Giles that I figured it out, and... I'm okay." Giles. More than anything I wish I could've said goodbye to him. He tried so hard to be everything for me. He loved me and kept me safe. He gave up his job and everything else he had to protect me.

"Give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong." My friends. Willow, Xander, Anya, Tara, and, yes, even Spike. I could remember the first day I met them, when I ran into Xander and dropped all my stuff, when I asked Willow for help because she seemed nice though Cordelia hated her, when Anya came and, according to her, granted Cordelia's wish of a Buffy-free Sunnydale (was that a fun story. I can't believe that some alternate universe version of me was like a runaway or something), then reversed it and became human. When Spike ran over the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign and terrorized and mesmerized me at the same time. Angel. I couldn't think about Angel, not with what he'd have to go through. At least Mom wouldn't have to suffer from me dying. I was going to see her at last.

"Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it," I continued, shaken from my momentary, second-long reverie. "Be brave. Live."

What else was there to say?

"For me."

I leaned forward and gently kissed her cheek. When I pulled away she was shaking with sobs and silently begging me not to, but I knew that she would be okay. I turned and ran the length of the makeshift metal walkway and took a swan dive into oblivion.

The surface of the portal was like an ocean of live, crackling electricity. My body was on fire. I twisted and opened my mouth in a silent scream, mind going blank. I could hear the scream of demons and other horrible creatures from whatever dimension they lived in. Every nightmare was open to my mind, every demon able to crawl into my world and kill it.

Slowly things became darker, and my body numbed. I felt it stop with startling suddenness, and sank into an endless pool of white and calm and safety and love.

They were safe. Dawnie would be okay, and so would the others.

And I was free.

A/N: So, what do you think of my very first fanfic?