Disclaimer: I own nothing, am making no money from this and am doing it purely for enjoyment.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The bed was large and piled high with thick down blankets. Silken sheets caressed her skin and cloud-like pillows were plumped under her head. But all those things paled in comparison to the feel of the man wrapped around her. His warm breath on the back of her neck, his arms around her, his body pressed against hers, fitting together like a piece that's been missing.

"Dean..."

"Go back to sleep, Buf," came the sleep roughened reply as he snuggled in closer behind her.

She smiled in contentment, feeling his fingers intertwine with her own and tried to do just that. But… there was something bothering her... What had woken her in the first place? She opened her eyes again, hand tightening on Dean's. Something was… wrong. Slowly and reluctantly, she extracted herself from Dean's grip. The air outside of their little down cocoon was cold and goose bumps broke out across her skin as soon as her bare feet hit the floor. The room was all white - white bed, white tiled floor, white walls, white door, and white curtains over the window. While the bed had felt warm and comforting, the room felt empty and sterile. Her feet made muted slapping sounds as she walked over to the window, the room seemingly colder with each step. Grabbing the curtains, she tugged them to the sides, revealing a surprisingly small and grimy window. Taking her hand and wiping away some of the film, she peered through the smeared clear space at the view beyond.

It was a city. Smoking, half collapsed buildings dotted the landscape and dark, ominous clouds churned overhead. She thought she recognized the Sears Tower, crumpled and leaning, but familiar nonetheless. Was that Chicago? Looking down, burned out cars decorated the street below. She could see the bodies from here.

She spun around, Dean's name on her lips, but the bed was empty. Tears littered the once pristine sheets, like something had clawed it.

Or someone, when they got dragged away, she thought darkly, her heart picking up speed.

She ran to the door, bursting out of it without a second thought - only to stop almost immediately in confusion. She'd probably been on the fifth or sixth floor, but suddenly she was on the street. Her previous wardrobe of boy shorts and a cami had been switched out for jeans and an old t-shirt of Dawn's that read "Fight the Power" in big gold letters. What the hell? She turned around, but the door, along with the entire building was gone.

She turned again and spotted someone, a man, standing in the middle of the street. He was tall and thin, wearing a black suit and surveying the damage with a disinterested eye. She was about to ask him what had happened when the familiarity hit her. She knew him… from where, she couldn't recall.

"Who are you?" She asked, stopping some distance from him as instinct warned her against getting too close.

The stranger turned to her, his bland facial features turning to one of mild surprise - a look she had a feeling was rare for him.

"Buffy Summers. We meet again," he said, his voice, the cadence of his speech, was oddly soothing. And so familiar...

"We... know each other..."

"Of course, we've met on several other occasions. A rarity for a mortal," he said, with a slight head nod of respect.

A feeling of remembered dread pulled its way free of the fog.

"Can't remember, hmm? Not a surprise, really, given the circumstances of our previous meetings," he said, eyeing her blankly. "I'm Death."

"Death..." But even as she said the word, skepticism thick in her voice, she was remembering.

Brief glimpses, no more than flashes really, filled with panic and confusion and him. His face, like this but… not like this. The darkest of dark and the brightest of light. Fear and acceptance.

"You remember, then?" He asked, watching her somewhat curiously.

"Yes… no… a little," she answered in a small voice. "Are… are you here for me?"

"No, not yet. You hovered close, just out of my reach, for a little while, almost close enough to touch. But not now."

"Then, where am I? What is this?"

"This is what's to be."

"We're… in the future?"

"You? No. You're not really here, just seeing what's to be. I'm both here and not here. I'm everywhere, Buffy. And I will continue to be here and not here until something changes to make it otherwise."

"Great," Buffy said with an eye roll, feeling irritation creeping in on her. "For us that are all wacky and linear, that means…"

"It means, that for you, a mortal stuck in one place at one time, this is but a distant future of how things are set to end up now. Nothing more than a dream for you at this moment. But for me, this is a reality. A reality that will disappear should something change its course."

"All these people in this city… they're dead?"

"They are."

"Shouldn't you be happy then? Isn't this what you exist for?"

"I exist for death, Buffy. It is inevitable. A certainty. Never ending. There will always be death, therefore I will always be. All these people would die regardless. The manner in which it happens, the speed, the time, the place - they mean nothing to me."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"While these people mean nothing to me, I'll admit that the manner in which this was brought about is not to my liking."

"You want me to stop this…"

"Do or don't. I'm simply telling you the possibility is there. For now, it looks like you have other places to be," he said, nodding at something behind her. As she turned to look, his parting words met her ears with a chill. "We'll be seeing each other again, Buffy."

Looking down at what had once been the other end of the street in Chicago, Buffy blinked at finding herself instead in an old building of some kind. Bodies were crumbled on the floor and Sam sat among them, blood splatter, but seemingly unhurt.

"Sam, what-"

She stopped when his eyes met hers. That wasn't Sam. The smile that curled up the corners of his mouth made her heart pound and her feet stumble backward. Whatever was in Sam was old and it was powerful and it terrified her. The Slayer part of her went still and silent, watching the new prey warily instead of clamoring for action and blood.

Movement caught her eye to the side and she glanced over at the NotSam's reflection in a mirror. The real Sam pounded on the glass, staring at Buffy with desperation and fear.

"Don't worry about him," the NotSam said, regaining her attention. "He's perfectly fine in here. Just having a little cold feet."

"Who are you?"

"I'm known by many names. None of which are your concern. You meddle and poke and prod, but you can't stop this. Right now I'm the one trapped - rattling the bars to be let out," he said, looking to Sam who was still yelling without sound. "But this future, the one we're both dreaming of, it's been set and nothing can stop it. Not Sam, not Dean, not John, and not you."

"Here's the thing about me," Buffy said, narrowing her eyes at the thing in front of her. Seeing Sam, his eyes haunted, lost and trapped, really pissed her off. "I'm not so good at limits. And the more someone tells me I can't do something - the more I'm going to try anyway. So you can just kiss my-"

Suddenly he was right in front of her. Sam's considerable height towering above her and the sheer force of the presence in his body making him seem even larger. His hand flashed forward, grabbing the front of her shirt and lifting her off the floor by it so they were eye to eye. For the first time she saw something more than calm amusement in its gaze. A barely restrained rage lurked in its depths.

"You think you can compare me to what you've faced before, Slayer? You're insignificant, nothing more than a gnat compared to my existence. A gnat stronger than the other gnats, but a gnat just the same," he said with a sneer. He leaned in close and a sudden burning started deep inside Buffy. She gasped and struggled weakly as it grew hotter and hotter, like she was being set on fire from the inside out. "And you think because neither of us is physically here that you're safe from me? You're-"

Another hand curled in the back of her shirt, yanking her backwards out of the NotSam's grip with a tearing of fabric. She hit the ground and blinked up at the sky. Wait… The sky? Gritty asphalt shifted under her hands as she pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around. It was an alley. Getting to her feet, she looked around warily, half expecting the NotSam to have followed her. Loose newspaper pages rustled around her feet in the breeze as she took in her new surroundings. A dumpster, litter, an abandoned car - nothing that couldn't be seen in any big city alley. What struck her was the silence. No distant sound of cars or people, no pigeons or rats. It made the sudden burst of gunfire all the louder. She jumped, looking around wildly for a second before realizing it had come from the main street. Cautiously, she made her way to the mouth of the alley, noting the huge spray painted "Croatoan" on the storefront opposite the exit. More gunfire sounded from the street, she plastered herself to the alley wall and carefully peeked around the corner.

She needn't have been so careful, no one was looking her way. Two groups of people were facing off - one with guns, the other without. But it didn't seem to deter the weaponless party any, they just kept advancing. Watching in confusion, Buffy noted that only head shots were taking them down. Zombies? The mindless, almost animalistic looks on their faces would explain that. Then she saw the black eyes. Demons.

A little girl darted out of a shadowed alcove at the gunmen. She couldn't have been any more than six or seven. Little pink dress stained and tattered and her brown hair stringy and knotted. The man closest to her spun toward her and Buffy's breath caught. Dean. He was older, his face wearing new lines that attested that things hadn't been easy for him - they told of stress and pain. He didn't even blink as he put a bullet in the child's head, turning away before the body even hit the ground and going back to picking off the demon mob.

Buffy was breathless with shock. Maybe it had been necessary, but for Dean to do that without even a flicker of hesitation or remorse? What had led to this?

"What happened?" She wondered aloud in a whisper.

"It's what's to come," an achingly familiar voice said from behind her. "Unless you can stop it."

"So, are you the ghost of Christmas past then?" She asked turning to face Angel with a small smile.

Angel returned her smile and stepped closer, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

"Something like that," he said, his smile melting. "I wanted you to see. It's important you know."

"So, what? You're the new Whistler? You've got the cryptic down to an art form. But you'll need a new, uglier, wardrobe."

"I'm not a messenger for The Powers," he said with a head shake. "I'm not a messenger for anyone. This was more of a favor. I'm just here for this one thing."

"A favor?" Buffy asked, raising her eyebrows. "Showing me all this was a favor?"

"I owe you. I owe you so much…" He said, brushing a hand over her cheek. "The path things are set on… I want you to be happy, but that's not going to happen if things continue the way they are. You've already started to change things, Buffy, but it's not enough. You need to do more."

"Sam and Dean…"

"Destiny has big plans for them. Heavy plans. Carrying that weight… it'll slowly break them down."

Buffy's heart clenched remembering the empty look on Dean's face as he killed the possessed child. She looked away from Angel and noticed for the first time they weren't in the alley anymore. They seemed to be in an old graveyard surrounded by woods. The sudden change in scenery reminded her-

"When the NotSam grabbed me-"

"NotSam?" Angel interrupted with a small smirk.

"You pulled me away," she went on, ignoring his teasing.

His face grew serious, "I'm sorry about that. I honestly wasn't sure of everything you'd see, your Slayer side kind of takes control when it comes to prophetic dreams. All I could do was kind of… aim you."

"So he could have actually hurt me?" Buffy said, rubbing her chest and remembering the soul deep burning. "Even though this is just a dream?"

"It is a dream and it isn't," Angel said slowly. "For things like Death and Lucifer, time and levels of consciousness are relative."

Buffy's mind had stuttered to a halt at one thing, "Lucifer?"

Angel nodded. "Azazel's end plan - free Lucifer from his cage. He's already taken the necessary steps, but here," he looked around the cemetery. "In this place, this is where it really begins."

"And if he does get free, if I can't stop this?" Buffy said, worry gnawing at her stomach at the task in front of her and the possible consequences of her failure.

"You've seen what will happen," he said, watching her sadly. "Maybe small things will change, but… You can't beat him, Buffy. You have to stop him from getting free at all."

Buffy turned away from him, rubbing her temples tiredly as she wandered between the headstones. The familiarity of being in a cemetery was comforting and the fact that a place of death relaxed her made her angry and sick. It seemed like she always ended up in the same place, no matter what she did. Cemeteries, death, the fate of the world on her shoulders and the lives of the people she loved in her hands - nothing ever really changed.

"I'm sorry, Buffy," Angel said, much closer than she'd thought him to be. Turning she looked up at him, feeling her anger drift away as he stared at her with sad brown eyes. "The last thing I wanted to do was… this. Add to the weight you carry. But…"

"I know, I know. Someone has to do it."

"That's not it. You… you love him, don't you?" He asked, his eyes ticking away from hers.

She stared at him blankly for a moment before nodding once.

"I'm glad. I mean… I'm not glad, I hate it," he said shaking his head. "But I want you to be happy. Really happy. And I can see he does that for you. I want you to have a chance at that. What I could never offer you. Real happiness, real intimacy, a real relationship. But if things keep going the way they are…"

Buffy nodded again, her throat closing up slightly. Both because there was yet another huge obstacle between her and happiness, that if she failed she wasn't going to be the only one to lose, and because of Angel. How could he want her to be happy after what she'd done?

"Don't," he said, apparently reading her mind and pulling her to him in a tight hug. "Don't do that. No blaming yourself or feeling guilty. You saved my soul, Buffy. I've seen it, they showed me, what I would have become if you hadn't done what you did."

A shudder went through him and he hugged her tighter. He was warm. She always wondered what it would be like to hug a warm Angel. It was nice. But it wasn't Dean.

"Good luck, Buffy. I love you."

And then he was gone.

Buffy stood in the old cemetery, wondering what she was going to do, if she was good enough, strong enough to save them all, feeling bereft and alone. But a hand on her shoulder told her otherwise, she spun around and blinked in surprise.

No, she wasn't alone.

"Time to wake up, B."