Hey guys, apologises for the delay, I've had a few technical problems, but now I'm back with a new chapter to my story.

Thank you to all those who reviewed and again added me to their alerts, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last.

How to Save a Life

Chapter 10: The Truth

Sam could just stare at the woman that stood in front of him. Instantly his guards went up wondering if she was possessed by a demon, as Dean had said, she was dead.

Dean watched the woman, watched her moves, looking for any sign that she was possessed, or that she was some sort of hallucination. The latter had to be wrong, since he realised his brother had seen her too. Also, she had fought the demon…

Now he started to wonder if he was dead, himself, had the demon shot him during the fight? Was all this part of his Hell?

"Wait a minute, am I dead?" Dean asked, looking at the woman, looking straight into her soft blue eyes, "Because you're definitely dead."

"What?" The woman questioned, "Dean…"

"He's right, Buffy," Sam nodded his head at the blonde, "We read what happened in Sunnydale, nobody survived."

A look of sadness washed in the Slayer's eyes, emotion, there was no way that she could be a demon.

"I know," she nodded her head, the sadness in her voice, almost breaking, "It was bad, not how we thought it would turn out. But most of us made it out alive."

"But what about the town?" Sam questioned.

"Can I explain it somewhere else?" Buffy questioned, "I don't like the idea of being in a cemetery while it's dark. I can't do with a vampire right now."

--

They stood in the motel room, the two Winchesters and the Summers girl. Bobby and Ellen had decided to give the three some privacy, obviously they needed to go over some things.

Dean stayed as close to the door as he could, he was still not sure what he was looking at. Was it Buffy or was it just Buffy's shell?

Sam seemed to hear what he was thinking, as he picked up a hit-flask of holy water and poured some into a cup, handing it to her.

"Drink this."

"What is it?" Buffy questioned, taking the cup and then looking into it, "Is that holy water? Guys, I'm not…"

"Just drink it, Buffy, please." Dean pleaded with her, with his green eyes. Subconsciously, he held his breath as she drank the holy water that his brother had given her. There was no steam coming from her mouth, no shrieking at the feeling of holy water like it was when demons came in contact with it, she was real.

Letting out his breath, Dean made his way over to her and hugged her tightly.

"Dean…" she tried to get out, although she did return the hug, after all he did think that she was dead, "Dean, can't breathe."

"Sorry," he stepped away from her, looking into her beautiful blue eyes, eyes that he never thought he would see again, "It's just…I…"

"I know," Buffy nodded her head, "I understand."

"So the others," Sam questioned her, sitting on the foot of his bed, while the other two stayed stood, "Who made it?"

"Willow, Xander and Giles," Buffy nodded her head with a sigh, "Faith and most of the potentials. We lost Anya and Spike."

"Spike?" Dean frowned as he questioned her with the vampire's name, "Angel called me, he said Spike gave him my number."

"What?" Buffy looked at the hunter, shock and disbelief in her crystal blue eyes and Dean could have sworn he saw tears in there too, "But that's…that's impossible."

"Buffy," Dean now narrow his eyes and walked towards the Slayer, taking her hand gently, "What actually happened?"

--Flashback--

"You almost had me," Ruby sighed, crouching down at Buffy's level, "What more do you want?"

"I want you…" Buffy started, through gritted teeth as she sat up, glaring at the blonde demon, "To get out of my face."

The Slayer stood up, and looked towards the Slayer with the scythe, who threw it at her.

Ignoring the look of shock in Ruby's eyes, Buffy swung the weapon with a mighty force, knocking three vampires, that were coming at her, of the cliff onto the floor of the Hellmouth at once.

She could see out of the corner of her eye that Faith had found a renewed strength, kicking the group of Ubervamps off of her and taking out a few.

Other of the new Slayers began to find the strength to battle all the vampires that were surrounding them.

While she had chance, the blonde haired Slayer focused on Ruby.

"Now, you're letting Dean out of his deal," she warned her, "Otherwise I'll kill you. I'm sure that will break it."

"You can't kill me if you don't know where I am."

With that, the blonde haired demon escaped – just disappeared – ran away to fight another day, which left Buffy angry. She had come down here to fight against the demon from hell – literally – and to get Dean out of his deal, and now it was not going to happen, she was going to have to find her all over again.

She looked over where Kennedy had managed to disarm one of her opponents and then killed another. An ubervamp was coming after the Slayer though and it was unsure whether she had sensed the presence.

Just in time, Buffy turned to look at the vampire and stabbed it in the chest with the pointed end of the scythe.

Meanwhile, Spike stumbled back from the burning sensation that the amulet was giving him. All of a sudden the burning became worse, causing his to gasp and clutch his chest. As his hand laid on the silver amulet, it burnt.

"Oh, bollocks," Spike groaned, looking down at his hand, to see a burn mark in the shape of the amulet. Before he could do anything else, a bright blue light shot out from the amulet, upwards, knocking a large hole in the ceiling, "Buffy!" The ensouled vampire called out just as the light turned a warm orange colour.

"Spike!" Buffy called out to the man and tried to run to his side, however before she could the amulet refracted the orange light outwards, into the Hellmouth, almost like rays of sunshine. Not only did it look like sunlight, it acted like it too, turning all the vampires there into dust.

The ground around them began to shake and the walls began to crumble.

"Everybody out, now!" Faith shouted to the girls, causing everybody to rush to the stairs and out of the seal. The blonde haired Slayer stayed behind and ran to Spike's side.

"I can feel it, Buffy," Spike spoke to her, breathlessly, painfully. Whatever was coming out of the amulet was effecting him too, but at a slower rate than the other vampires, "My soul. It's really there. Kind of stings."

By now, the whole building was starting to collapse, but Buffy still wanted to stay with the vampire, she had to get him out of there.

"You've done enough, Spike," she told him, "You could still…" More walls crumbled around them.

"Come on, Buffy!" Faith called down to the Slayer from the top of the seal.

"Gotta move, lamb," Spike shook his head at the Slayer, "I think its fair to say school's out for bloody summer."

"Spike!" Buffy called out the vampire's name, worriedly.

"I mean it!" Spike told her, "I gotta do this. Go! I wanna see how it ends."

The Slayer nodded her head and ran past the vampire, up the stairs of the Hellmouth and back into the school basement. She ran up all the stairs she needed to, to get to the hallway that she had just walked down earlier. As she ran down, avoiding the falling debris and the fallen debris on the ground, she found her way was blocked and the only way was up, onto the school roof.

Buffy ran along the roof of the school and jumped across onto the rooftop of another building, she could see a school bus driving down the road next to it and took a wild guess that it was her team – after all it was a Saturday, no other reason for a school bus.

She leapt across to another building and then glanced behind her to see the whole city starting to crumble away, getting closer and closer to her. Carrying on running and jumping, she made it to the street and took one long jump onto the top of the school bus, holding on until they stopped outside of the city. The crumbling would have to stop then, once they were out of shot from the Hellmouth.

Suddenly, she felt the bus coming to a halt, and held on so that she did not fly off. Jumping of the roof, she looked around at what had once been Sunnydale, it was now just one large crater.

Joined by her friends, her sister was the first to great her, with one big, warm hug.

"I don't understand," Giles took off his glasses, wiping them as he looked at what had once been a town full of people, "Who did this?"

"Spike."

The group began to talk about what they would do now, thinking that that was the end of their big fight, however Buffy knew different. She knew the demon they were facing had escaped, but how did she tell them that?

"What are we going to do, Buffy?" Dawn asked her big sister, as the core of the group congregated around the outside of the crater, "You're not the one and only anymore."

"There's still work to do," Buffy sighed, "We didn't get everything." Well, that was how she was going to explain it at the moment.

"What do you mean?" Willow questioned, looking at her blonde haired friend, "I thought that the vampires…"

"Ruby got away," Buffy sighed, "She holds Dean's contract so I need to get her."

"Buffy…" Giles started.

"No, it's ok, this is my fight now," Buffy turned to look at her group, "I'll find Dean and tell him. We'll both get her together."

She turned back to look at where her home once stood. The 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign still stood on the edge of the canyon but teetered slightly before falling backwards into the pit that used to be its city. That was the last sign that told them Sunnydale used to be there.

--End of Flashback--

Dean and Sam looked at Buffy as they heard her story, however she had actually missed out about the fact that Ruby was still alive. She had decided on purpose not to tell them, knowing that she would not get through the story if Dean knew that she was still alive.

"So, Ruby didn't do it?"

"No, Spike did," Buffy shook her head, glancing at Dean, "Which means he can't be alive."

"I'm just telling you what Angel told me." The older Winchester sighed at the Slayer.

"So, that's it," Sam now questioned, "Dean's free?"

Buffy looked between the two boys, seeing the hope in their matching green eyes. She did not want to do this to them, but it had to be done.

"Not quite," she sighed, "There is still a problem."

"What?" Dean questioned, wanting to get straight to this problem.

"Ruby," the blonde woman sighed, "She's still out there, she got away."

"Anything else?" Dean questioned, making sure that he knew all the information before they went into anything. This was not going to be a fight that he wanted to go into half-cocked.

"One thing," Buffy told him, "She definitely holds your contract."

--

Ok, so I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave me a review to tell me what you thought, how did you find the way I changed the battle slightly?