"I still expect it to be there sometimes."

Angel nodded in solidarity. He understood far too well what it was like to be human one moment and immortal the next. "You never stop. It's always surprising and that's why this is just as much a curse as anything."

Xander smirked as his fingers continued to grip the sink. He mourned for his own reflection, absent from the basin of water. "An eternity of this. Who says the Powers don't have a sense of humor?"

"The Powers play God, but they aren't him." Angel moved to fill the space behind Xander.

"I wouldn't have picked you for retaining a sense of religion."

Angel shook his head. "Liam's religion lie in the bottom of a foamy mug and Angelus lived his religion through his torture and vices. I'd like to think that I've grown a bit since then."

"Yeah, without me." Xander's voice fell. He couldn't be strong anymore. He had watched his own marbles slip right down through his fingers and into the drain.

"You could have come."

Xander shook his head and whispered, as if it were a secret. "No. There was too much still to be done. And now it looks like...."

Angel grabbed Xander's shoulder lightly and spun his hurting childe around. "Hey. Look at me. You can't just dwell on what you're losing. You're so much stronger than that."

Xander snorted. "If I were stronger, I could have fixed everything."

"I'm not so sure you were ever supposed to, no matter how much you wanted."

Xander wrenched himself from Angel's grip, feeling his ankle hit the side of the tub. "What I wanted? How do you know what I wanted?"

Angel sighed. "I thought we'd already been through this in Africa."

"I don't wanna talk about what we've been through, Angel." Xander pointed to the ground to emphasize his point.

"This is about the prophecy, isn't it?"

"The prophecy is pretty damn clear." Xander stated this with a cold fury.

Angel shook his head, he knew so much and so little. "Prophecies can be changed sometimes."

"Not this one. How could you have lied to me like that? You knew this Hellmouth was my destiny."

Angel responded as softly to Xander's anger as he could. "No. I only know what's real."

Xander flung his hands in the air. "I call bullshit. What's real to me is that my two best friends and the man better to me than my father are researching my very death at the Magick Box this moment."

Angel pointed to the gem in Xander's eye socket. "Are you so sure that it'll be death?"

Xander shrugged. "Maybe it'll be life. I'm dead already."

"Oh, Xander. You're more alive than you know."

Angel's hand slid over Xander's own palm, which was shaking with rage and sadness. He felt so melancholy as his sire, his former lover, and his object of lust pulled him into his center. Angel had always been cool, like a marble column, and even the lowering of Xander's own body temperature couldn't change that feeling. It was a permanent imprint on Xander's mind, like the taste of a smore or the sound of Willow crying over a broken Barbie.

They kissed, or rather Angel bruised Xander's lips. Xander was so empty inside, he wasn't sure if he even could respond. But Angel waited, holding him deeply, covering his body and mantle he bore with a simple move of the shoulder. Xander found himself crying. Well, not crying exactly. But it was clear that he wasn't happy at all. He was trouble, desolate, and alone. Even with his sire in the same room.

"A long time ago, I summoned Sweet to see if Anya and I could make it but even when I had to make the decision, I came to you as a coward." Xander searched Angel's eyes as they broke away.

"But you still came."

"I loved you."

"Past tense?"

Xander shook his head, letting the silence pass between them. Angel held him for a long time. Spike, Jonathan, and Anya were downstairs, but they wouldn't bother them. Faith had gone with Buffy to do Slayer duties and to round up info at the local demon haunts. Willow had gone alone to research. She didn't want help or people. She just wanted to be alone. Xander couldn't feel that way with Angel near, but he knew he would again. The thought killed him a little.

"I want you to take Jonathan and Dawn away from here. The rest of us are cursed, but Jonathan can be taught and Dawn is strong enough. Just take them and go."

Angel furrowed his brow. "You're serious about this. You don't think you're gonna survive this."

Xander began to babble. "And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that pessimistic attitude guy will never survive this, but that's not it. It was all about what Grandma said once in a lullaby and I was thinking about her while you were here, well, but, not in that way. Cause I'm not sure grandma would have approved or disapproved of you as a vampire or a person. I know that you could fake it...."

Angel knew enough that the taste of his thumb would silence his childe. "You still believe you can't beat what's hanging over your head."

Xander gave a weak attempt at a smile. "I'm only strong for those I love."

Angel whispered. "But what about you?"

"I don't matter in the grand scheme. Not like you or Buffy or even Jonathan. I can drywall into the next century, but I can't always fight-even as an immortal. It's been too much, Angel."

And there it was. Angel saw it in his eyes, everything from Jesse to leaving Anya at the altar to what he had seen in Africa. He had no history or pride, no sense of family or self. Xander saw himself as the blank entity he had been written as. Angel had nowhere to step back as he now understood the sense of destiny he felt.

"Will you do as I ask, Angel?"

"I don't like this."

Xander sighed, then chuckled. "If anyone had told me six years ago I would be in the bathroom of a vampire slayer debating my destiny with my almost 3 century old sire, I would have killed them. But now it seems fitting, somehow, to tell you last how much you've...."

"Shhhh....talking like that doesn't help anyone."

Xander grinned widely, reminding Angel of that first time they had been together so long ago. "Don't get squeamish now, Dead-boy."

Buffy barged in the front door and yelled throughout the house. "We're home with information!"

Giles laid three large, dusty texts on the table and Dawn arranged herself next to Jonathan, who, for all intensive purposes, hadn't moved from his chair in awhile. "Xander, you and Spike may not like what we've found about the gems."

Xander leaned it. "Continue anyways, G-man."

Giles smiled in fond remembrance of the annoying nickname. "Yes, well, the two gems translate in half a of a Celtic text leading to the permanent destruction of the house of evil in the valley of the sun."

"It's all very esoteric." Willow shrugged.

Dawn chipped in. "At least most of the prophecy was still intact."

Xander sat back in his chair. "Yeah. The part we're missing will just be the last minute necessary spell activation of some kind."

Faith nodded. "I called Wesley, he's checking on the rest of it."

Giles nodded, wiping his glasses for effect. "It seems that the two gems are counterbalances of the quaint terms of good and evil. The evil one represents unrestrained passion and was evidenced correct as found on the end of Gabriel's horn at the church."

Buffy spoke in an almost rote. "And yours Xander, represents loyalty. You are pretty much the moon in this equation of celestial prophetiese and you pull the tide with your strength. It's clear that the activation of the pair of gems under the symbol of the evil valley will destroy the Hellmouth for good."

Anya tried not to sound scared of the process of getting there and back. "Well, that's good to know right?"

"Symbol of the evil valley?"

Willow spoke again, opening a page of the text. "It's pretty clear from a previous incarnation of Stonehenge that the pentagram beneath the high school is the symbol in reference. The druids broke the symbol on their island to stop themselves from going down with Atlantis nearly a millennium ago."

Xander turned to Angel. "Get them out of here before we do this."

"Who?" Buffy interjected.

Angel inhaled. "Xander wants me to get Dawn and Jonathan to safety."

"No way! I'm not leaving!" Dawn glared at Xander.

Xander barked. "Listen, all of you! I've tried protecting, conniving, and a multitude of things to keep the evil from this Hellmouth getting lose. Destroying this place might destroy the whole town. Spike and I are already dead and I don't think Buffy has the energy to start over without him. We've been poisoned by the Hellmouth once too many times. I went it to end here, tonight, before the sun rises again."

Willow stood. "And you think it's okay to cast us off just because you believe it's your destiny?"

"I thought you hated me."

"Well, I mean, you'll certainly be baking cookies from here until the end of time for all the lying, mister." Willow's edges softened. "But you have a good heart and you just were doing your best to protect us. I guess I just needed some space to see it. Plus, you owe me a broken Barbie. I'm not going anywhere until I get payment, buster."

Xander smiled in response.

Buffy stood and shrugged. "And it's not like it's a big deal. I die thrice, maybe I get my pick of heavenly dimensions."

"Plus," Faith chimed in, "I always wanted to go down in a blaze of glory. If the family goes, I go to."

Xander looked around the room at the adamant faces, backing his decision to close the Hellmouth for good with their own sacrifice. He licked his lips. "So, what do we know about the activation?"

Jonathan spoke from his chair. "You'll need my blood to get under the pentagram and my power so Willow can conduit a spell that sets up a perimeter."

Xander turned to the body in the chair. "Jonathan, no thing's keeping you here. You'll have a chance to start over."

"No, I won't." Jonathan was standing over the pentagram and Spike was holding out a knife to him. "I have to be the sacrifice, so I need someone to wait with me until Willow's ready with the perimeter."

Dawn spoke softly. "I'll wait with you."

Jonathan grimaced into a smile, just as Xander had winced as he had literally shoved Angel into his car and forced him to leave, determined that someone should survive this last crazy Scooby gang escapade.

Dawn spoke after a moment's silence. "How will you know when she's completed the spell?"

Jonathan's face looked over the pentagram. "I'll fall over and black out. I won't feel any pain when you cut my wrist."

Spike spoke up. "Just make sure to do it length wise so we get enough blood to open the seal, little bit."

Dawn made a face. "Gross."

Buffy shrugged. "Well, you didn't take Angel's offer."

"Still...gross though."

Anya decided to stay with Willow to protect her, if necessary. She had given space to Xander and Willow. Giles was headed toward the pentagram to protect Dawn and the rest would fight under the symbol.

"How are you feeling, brown-eyed girl?"

Willow sighed. "Not with the much good, but I think this will be okay with Tara. Maybe it'll sort of make up for the last six months."

"She's proud of you." The pair of last remaining best friends to not be torn apart by the Hellmouth embraced each other deeply. They smelled nearly the same, of sandalwood and baking chocolate. Willow rested her head against his shoulder.

"I'm glad you're still Xander. Your demon would have never done this."

"He's still there, Will."

She smiled. "Demon or not, Xander Harris, you'll always be the most special man in my life."

Xander tried making a joke which got him cuffed across the head. "And you'll always be my special lady who's for the ladies."

"Go save the world."

"Hey, you're not doing a bucket full of nothing either."

Anya stuttered as he left the office where Willow had taken up residence, trying to find the right words to say to Xander. "I think we never talked."

"You know, I always loved you Anya. You're strong, and brave with lots of truth and attitude."

"And you're a remarkable man, Xander. You put all the men I've ever tortured to more shame than they'll ever know."

Xander didn't expect Anya to reciprocate his kiss, but was gladly cooperative as her hands went across his neck and pulled him in. After a moment, they pulled away.

"Your breath is not more minty since you've died."

Xander began to walk back down the hallway, turning back to talk as Anya walked into the office with Willow, who had begun chanting already. "Love you too, An."

Jonathan was already passed out from the psyche spell that Willow had begun to transfer the borrowed pure magick from the novice mage. His potential was floating through the air, with Dawn leaning down and shouldering his weight so he didn't fall too hard on the ground. Spike cut his wrist and they all watched with morbid fascination as the red outline wound its way through the dark symbol.

A hole with steps made of rock cut down into the earth and the stale stench of morbid lust and wrenching pain filled and seared each lung. One by one, they trudged down into the depths as an army. They were on a very long cliff and the sound of all manner of demon could be heard. Xander and Spike stood beneath the opposite end of the pentagram that had slid away to reveal the opening.

Spike took the initial stab. "Well, what now?"

"Ummm...the prophecy I was born under said that it would happen at the right time."

"You mean you don't know?" Spike stated, a little more than alarmed.

Buffy called from the edge of the cliff. "You'd better think of something quick then."

It was a veritable wall of demons with claws, horns, and various unnatural skin tones. They were angry and snarling, but still no match for the twin slayers.

Faith exclaimed after a kick, "This is what I'm talking about. No better way to go!"

Buffy was caught off-guard and Xander reacted by rushing to her aid just in time to feel the shaft of the wooden spear slice through the absent space where his heart would have been. He retained just enough foresight before he went to dust to look at Buffy and wave goodbye.

The violet gem fell to the ground and broke open, a harsh light searing Buffy's eyes and tossing everyone in the vicinity back. Demons scattered away, but down the cliff. Faith laughed, looking back just once as she dived into the crowd and over the cliff.

Spike was surprised to feel the heat from the orange gem. "Bloody hell, I feel almost human."

But he wasn't burning or evaporating. Buffy struggled over to where he was, her right ankle broken in several areas. She brought Xander's gem with her and wrapped her hands around Spike so that the two gems met. He watched with interest, his eyes flicking from hands to lips to eyes and back again.

Buffy and Spike kissed as the two gems broke each other as perfect counterbalances, creating a rift that shined through different dimensions like a beacon of good and hope. The pentagram and the opening to hell began to shake, but neither Slayer nor vampire noticed as the world around them turned into a dormant crater. The Scoobies finally won and the Hellmouth closed.