"Buffy wait-Buffy!" Sam chased her about the house as she threw clothes into a pack carelessly and started for the stairs.

"You don't understand what this gate will do when opened." She continued to ignore him.

He flew down the stairs after her. "Buffy please." He pleaded. "I've seen what those doors open into, you won't just be letting Dawn out, everything you ever imagined was never real will come out of there and you won't be able to stop it!"

Nothing.

She swung the door back on its hinges narrowly missing his face as he dodged its path back towards him. He chased her to his car and caught her arm as she reached the passenger side door. She allowed his grasp.

"Buffy," He seethed, trying to keep his voice under control. "You are not listening to me. Devil's Gates don't open without consequences. You can't understand what you will be allowing to walk this Earth. Things that were never meant to be let out. Soul's so corrupt they were banished to an eternity of misery as punishment. Demons that have been blood thirsty for a thousand centuries. People will die, hundreds will die."

Buffy's hardened gaze showed no signs of relenting. She swung her pack into the back seat and slammed the door facing him once more.

"I am going to open that door Sam, and I will get my sister back. And after that I will kill anything that dares try and escape. You can help me, or you can get out of my way, but so help me God if you try and stop me, I will kill you." Her tone was calculating and cold and her eyes drilled into him breaking away any hope he had of reaching a reasonable side of her.

He nodded once and tried to wipe the disappointment from his face. She was irate, determined to get them all killed and many more in the pursuit of something she would never even reach before being torn to shreds. But what could he do now? All he had were his words and she was beyond listening to them. She would kill them all and if he couldn't stop her there was nowhere he'd rather be than by her side as the doors swallowed them whole, fighting till their last breaths left them.

Willow paced the cemetery in Stull, Kansas. Preparing herself mentally for what needed to be done. She was already half lost to her magic and she knew it but she hid it well. Buffy needed her, Dawn needed her. She didn't care if darkness itself rose up to drown her, she'd never stop fighting to reach Dawn.

Tara sat against a crooked headstone watching her with sad eyes. Her whispery voice urged Willow to rest. "Please hunnie, come sit, you need to save your strength."

"What if I can't do this Tara?" Willow choked out. "What if-I let Buffy down?" She crossed the space between them and enfolded herself in Tara's arms, resting her head in her lap. Tara gently brushed the deep red locks away from Willow's pale skin. Her heart was in this woman's hand, always had been and now she had to trust her to come back to her after this. Willow had been abusing magic lately and the rift it created between them was unbearable. Yet she stood by Willow, knew a part of her always would. Even Willow knew now the pressure she was under to not lose herself to this darkness calling for her. Too much was at stake. Dawn's soul was at stake, her very existence.

"You are stronger than anyone I have ever known Willow. I believe in you, and we will get through this together, no matter what."

Tara's words washed over Willow's heart and buried it in a sweet grief only she could procure. In Tara's arms anything was possible. She let the tears in her eyes slide down her cheeks and burrowed deeper into Tara's warm lap, hoping to get lost there. Hoping that above all else she would be able to find herself again on the other side of all it would take to open the door's to Dawn.

Sam listened intently as Buffy phoned all of the leftover Scoobies one by one, telling them to high tail it to Kansas for the show down of a lifetime. He noticed she left out the most important part when talking to her mentor and watcher as she called him, Giles. They would be going straight into the mouth of Hell.

Buffy fidgeted in her seat after hanging up. He sensed uneasiness about her but tried to keep his words to himself for now. If she was having second thoughts maybe it was better to let her have them.

"I shouldn't have said that." She blurted out, sliding a gaze over to him in the driver's seat.

He nodded. "I know why you did."

"I didn't mean it. I mean-I did-I just…" She paused a bit frustrated at how it was sounding to him. "Just not all of it. Not the killing you part."

He tried not to smile at her flustered stammering. "Thank-you. It's nice to know you wouldn't kill me if I tried to save your life."

Buffy let out a small laugh that slowly drifted into a stunned silence. "I just need to have her back Sam. She so much a part of me. She is me. Did I ever tell you how she came into my life?"

Sam frowned. "I am guessing the normal way, but now you have me rethinking that one."

Buffy allowed herself a small smile. "She was sent to me. So I could protect her. Before she was Dawn, she wasn't human at all. She was something ageless and important, a key that unlocked worlds. She was made from me, entrusted to me. The connection we have, it's more than love, more than blood. I can't live with the fact that she isn't safe."

Sam sighed, letting her words wash over him. "I understand. Every day Dean is gone is another I can't get back. Whatever is happening to them down there..." His voice drifted off.

Silence stretched on beside them as the miles rolled away. When the car finally pulled into the dry hot graveyard night was barely setting on the second day since they'd left Sunnydale behind. Willow and Tara were there, looking frazzled and nervous. Buffy embraced Willow completely, allowing the moment to soak in. This may be the last day she saw her best friend alive.

"Xander?" Willow asked pulling back from Buffy's all encompassing arms.

"On his way. Giles and Anya are with him. We do this tonight Will, you ready?"

"Are you ever ready to rip open the gates of Hell and go inside for a stroll?" Her question was rhetorical but Buffy smiled in answer.

Willow gave Sam a weak smile that he returned as he joined them near the crypt at the back of the graveyard. The door looked almost identical to the one he had seen a year ago. A pentagram was encircled in the center of the two doors with a round slot in the center for the colt. He fingered the gun through the material of his jacket, praying he wouldn't have to tell them he had a key to the one thing they were hell bent on breaking open.

He glanced at Buffy and his pulse raced at the thought of losing her too. Her blonde hair lay lose about her shoulders, delicately curling about her face. He wanted to touch it, one last time. But time for them was up, this was it, and he'd just have to make due following her into Hell and trying his damndest to keep her safe. His insides screamed at the thought of failing. Keep her safe Sam, his mind called to him. His fingers itched to reach out to her. But this version of Buffy wasn't the one who so willing trusted him inside her, or melted under his touch. This was the Buffy that would step over his corpse to get to her sister.

He needed to be careful.

By the time Giles, Xander and his fiancée Anya, a strange mouthed blonde he had only met briefly, arrived it was nearing midnight. The moon cast eerie shadows down over the cemetery and Sam thought back to the first time he had seen Buffy under these lights. She was just as beautiful now as she was then, but everything about now was different. Sweat started to heat his palms, as he prepared for what was about to happen.

Once last glance at Buffy showed him he was in a league of his own tonight. She held a stern look about her, ready for anything. As Willow and the rest of the gang prepared their circle Buffy reached out to touch the door that stood between her and her sister.

"You are really going to go through with this aren't you?" He asked.

Buffy's gaze softened for a split second and he saw past the mask she wore into battle. It broke his heart. Inside she must be feeling everything he was, the fear they would fail. How she had the strength to never show it he could never understand. Death loomed before them all, yet she faced it head on as if it were nothing but a skipping stone to where Dawn lay.

Her next words tore at his gut and sealed his fate alongside hers. "I never even had a choice." She whispered, leaving him behind to stare at the door.

He refused to watch her go. The more he held onto her now the harder it would be to stay in this fight with a level head. He knew now that he loved the impossible version of her just as much as the one that brought a light to his life. They lived a life in the shadows, forever overlooked and without thanks for everything they did. They would lose so much by the time this night was over. Yet to him, it was all worth the journey. She had raced into his life at a moment when he thought he'd never feel anything ever again but empty and filled every other moment without Dean with a new sense of future.

He turned into the door colt in hand. He knew now what he would have to do and he only hoped she wouldn't hate him for it. As he slid the colt into place and turned it with a soft click, he risked a glance over his shoulder. The last thing he saw before the door lock released was Buffy's wide gaze fixed on his as realization of what he intended to do came over her.