(5/19/2017) Did anyone else watch the season 12 finale and say: "What the fuck." And for anyone who hasn't seen it, it totally ends with cupcakes and rainbows. Promise.

And now: the big finale! I decided to make it super long rather than two short chapters because I wanted to. Shut up.

Thank you RHatch89, JAKEkenstein, philly cheese dude, thedarkpokemaster, and Sage of Wind Dragons for the reviews! And all you favoriters and followers get manicures!


Spike reluctantly provided the address to the mansion that Angel and his crew had been squatting at for the past several months; up in the hills where the homes were either spread far from each other or were isolated by long driveways. The layout provided the perfect alcove for a nefarious crew of monsters to conduct their business.

As Buffy called her friends and told them the latest developments, an awkward, tense silence pervaded her living room. Sam, his injured leg resting up on the coffee table, sat alongside Joyce on the couch while Spike nestled uncomfortably in an armchair. Anger, alarm, and confusion warred for prominence on Joyce's face as she poured herself a glass of wine and got to drinking. Pointedly, she offered neither Spike nor Sam any.

After a few minutes, Joyce put down her glass and shook her head at Spike. "Have we met?"

"You hit me with an ax once," he replied, a statement that earned him a suspicious glance from Buffy's brother.

"Sam," Joyce said, her voice becoming stern, "where's Dean?"

"Dean?" Sam quietly laughed to himself. "Dean's gone."

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

Before Sam could answer, Buffy walked back in. Impatient with the familial drama, Spike jumped to his feet. "Talk," demanded Buffy. "What's the deal?"

"Simple. You let me and Dru skip town, I help you kill Angel."

"Angel?" Joyce queried, baffled. "Your boyfriend?"

"I'll take her out of the country; you'll never hear from us again, I bloody well hope."

Sam did his best to lurch to his feet. He limped over and loomed over the vampire, arms crossed. "And how do we know you're not going to go back on your word?"

"Trust this, then," scoffed Spike. "I hate Angelus far more than I hate either of you."

"Sam," Buffy sighed. "We don't have a choice."

"Fine," her brother conceded. "You fuck us over, I'll kill you. Slowly."

Spike spared each of the siblings a glower before heading for the door. Buffy called his name and he paused. "If Giles dies," she warned, "you all die." The vampire grimaced and left.

"Have you tried not being the Slayer?" Joyce wondered.

"Mom!" Buffy exclaimed.

"She didn't have a choice," Sam explained quietly.

"So this was just an accident," Joyce said, relieved. "Well, then all we have to do is find some way to reverse it!"

"I don't think it works that way."

Buffy sighed, exasperated. "I'm the Slayer, mom. Accept it."

"Buffy…" Sam cautioned.

"We should call the police." Buffy's mother pulled out her phone. "If someone's been kidnapped…"

"No!" Buffy grabbed the device and tossed it onto the couch. "You get them involved, you'll get them killed. Cops can't fight these things. I can."

"And what about you?" Joyce demanded as she turned to Sam. "Are you a Slayer?"

"Uh, no, ma'am," he stammered. "I'm just a hunter."

"A hunter. And how do you become a hunter?"

Sam lowered his eyes. "Dad taught us."

"'Dad'? John? Are you telling me John knew all about these things the whole time?" Her pseudo-stepson slowly nodded. Joyce then turned back towards her daughter. "When were you going to tell me? Or would you ever have told me?"

"Probably not," Buffy said brusquely. "It's not like you would have ever noticed."

Furious, Joyce plunked her wineglass onto the mantelpiece. "Don't you talk to me that way, young lady! First you say that you've been hiding this thing all along and now I find out your father and brothers hunt monsters too?"

"Mom…"

"All these years! Decades! 'Traveling mechanics' my ass."

"Mom, please…"

"Joyce—" Sam desperately added.

"I'm used to you keeping secrets," Joyce cut through scathingly. "I mean God knows how many years you were living with us and didn't even say why. I shouldn't be surprised about Dean. No wonder he used to get into so many fights! Where is he? Tell me right now or I swear—"

Her daughter interrupted the mounting tirade, harshly. "Dean's dead."

At Buffy's stark proclamation, Joyce blanched and sat heavily down on the recliner. "Dead? How? When?"

"Does it matter?" Buffy's temper rose. "It was bloody and horrible and that's the way me and Sam are likely to go because fate decided to shit on our lives!"

The teenager's outcry was met with silence as her mother digested the night's revelations. After a minute, Joyce finally said, "Well, this all stops now."

"No, it doesn't stop!" Buffy shouted. "It never stops! I didn't ask for this, but I can't make it go away. Don't you realize how awful it's been? How lonely? How dangerous? Don't you realize how I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or… God, even studying! But I have to save the world… again." She turned towards her brother. "Let's go, Sam."

Sam headed for the front door, but before Buffy could join him her mother stood in front of her. "No, this is insane. You are going to sit down and explain this so it makes sense!"

"I don't have time," Buffy said flatly. "I need you to get out of my way."

"I am your mother and you will make time!"

Buffy surged forward, hoping to merely brush her mother aside, and found her upper arms grasped. She utilized a move she knew well and dove her arms in before swinging them out. The strength behind the movement was normally keyed towards the supernaturally enhanced; as a human woman, the force knocked Joyce backwards and nearly over onto the couch.

When Buffy reached the door, sidling past her flabbergasted brother, her mother declared, angrily, "You walk out of this house don't even think about coming back."

Buffy gave her mother one last, regretful look before heading for the Impala. In an attempt to placate Joyce, Sam tried to apologize. "Hey, look—"

"Sam," Joyce snapped, her fury unabated. "I'm sorry about Dean. But you need to leave. Now."

Her refusal to hear Sam out cut him deeper than he thought it would. After all, it was Joyce, not Mary Winchester, who had been the figure of motherhood for Sam's childhood. It was possible that her reaction stemmed from the quick consumption of alcohol, but it was certain that much of it was the poor way Buffy had handled her mother's discovery of her secret.

There was nothing Sam could do other than aggravate Joyce further. He walked quietly out of the door, closed it as normally as possible, and joined his sister in the Impala. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes." Ready to leave. Ready to accept her mother's rejection. Ready to kill the love of her life.

Grief could wait.

Sam nodded and turned the key. The familiar roar of the car's engine hurt both of Dean's siblings, but it still wasn't time to mourn.

They had to save the world. Again.


Spike slunk back into the mansion the same way he got out; climbing a tree in the expansive courtyard. Drusilla was the only one who ventured so far out on the grounds, but she'd barely left Acathla's side since it had taken residence. He dropped softly down onto the stones and sat down in his wheelchair.

That's when the vampire noticed the demon staring straight at him.

For a long moment the two merely looked at one another. Spike prepared to fight; after all, one of the demons had smoked out back at Buffy's home. The vampire's jig could already be up and all of the negotiating he'd done with the Slayer and her overgrown brother might have now been a big, fat waste of time.

A muffled howl from the Watcher floated through the garden. The demon smirked, his meatsuit's eyes shifting to black, and tapped lightly on the side of its nose. It then headed back towards the house.

Bemused, Spike slowly wheeled after him. There was no telling what this meant. The vampire only hoped that whatever clemency he'd been given wasn't temporary. Wary, he rolled into the back door to find Lilith and Angelus squaring off while the Watcher, bruised and bleeding, slouched on a chair between them.

Lilith was clutching one of Drusilla's dolls. She repeatedly jabbed Angel in the belly with its curly head while she pouted. "You're not allowed to kill the ugly old man because I said so!"

Apoplectic with suppressed rage, Angelus folded his arms and growled back, "He's not going to give us what we want! Better to dismember the fucker and leave his torso sitting on the Slayer's front porch. Then this night won't have been a complete waste of time."

Lilith stomped a foot and waved a hand. Giles and the chair he was bound to slid swiftly into an adjoining room. "No! He has a secret and he's going to tell!"

"Now, now," Spike placated, "don't let's lose our temper."

Both Angel and Lilith snapped their heads towards him. The former snarled at his one-time prodigy, "Keep out of it, sit 'n' spin!"

"Little bit there is right. You cut him up you'll never get your answers."

"When did you become so level-headed?"

"Right about the time you became so pig-headed." The tow-headed vampire wheeled himself towards the Watcher. "You have your way with him, you'll never get to destroy the world. And I don't fancy spending the next month trying to get librarian out of the carpet. There are other ways."

Lilith bounced on her toes. "Is it going to be oodles and oodles of fun?"

"More than you can handle, love. Drusilla, sweetheart?" Spike called into the hallway. His dark goddess swayed out from the darkness and put a hand on his shoulder. They smiled at one another as he asked, "Would you like to play a game?"


Giles had held on for hours. They'd cut him, burned him, struck him, broken bones; and all they'd gotten from him were screams and contempt. Even when the demons had started in he'd given them nothing.

But the macabre giggles coming from the vampire running her fingers through his hair made his resolve finally begin to crack.

There were stories of the powers within Drusilla's purview. Tales of her precognitive abilities and various levels of telepathy were scattered throughout the Watcher's diaries. One gibberish entry from the turn of the century even gave a firsthand account of what it was like to have been influenced by her madness.

Suddenly the vampire gasped, gleeful at her discovery. She knelt in front of the Watcher, her large, brown eyes drawing him in. "Look at me," she instructed softly. He turned away as best he could.

With wiggling fingers Drusilla drew him back. She gave him a horrible smile. "Be in me," she said before covering his eyes. "Look with your heart."

When she took her hand away, Jenny Calendar was before him.

A moment of doubt struck Giles. Everything about this was wrong, wrong, wrong. The instrument of Jenny's demise was standing not twenty feet away, but logic was clouded by the pure euphoria he felt at seeing her again. "I thought I lost you!" he whispered hoarsely, tears pricking his eyes.

"Shh," she whispered, so near that his nose was filled by the jasmine perfume she used to wear. "I'll never leave you."

Panicked, Giles tried to stand. "We have to get out of here. The demons, the vampires—"

"No no no no no." Jenny brushed a gentle hand down his cheek. "Slowly."

He tried desperately to shake the illusion. "It can't be you."

"Did you tell Angel about the ritual?"

His strength was sapped; infinite minutes under torture had whittled his defenses to nearly nothing. "We have to get him away from Acathla," the Watcher gasped.

"Why? Is he close to figuring it out?"

"No, it's Angel… he… he's…."

"It's all right," Jenny said, softly and seductively, her lips distractingly close. "We'll be together… finally. We'll have everything we never got to have. Never got to feel…" Her voice dropped to a hushed murmur. "Just tell me what to do."

"The monks… they never thought someone like him…"

"Angel himself? He's the key?"

"His blood… it mustn't touch…"

"Shh." Jenny leaned in and kissed him. Passion upset any lingering uncertainty as Giles finally gave in to desire.


"My blood?" Angel wondered, baffled. "What for?"

"Who knows, who cares," Spike offered nonchalantly.

"Are we going to play with Acathla now?" Lilith asked eagerly.

"Oh, yes," a fervent Angel answered. The three monsters then stared, nonplussed, at the still lip-locked vampire and Watcher.

"Uh, Drusilla," Spike called. "We are finished here, ducks."

The madwoman drew away. She turned and looked over, sheepish. "Sorry." Her grin widened maliciously. "I was in the moment."


The illusion fell away. Blood and roses pervaded the air.

The horror of what he had done dawned upon him.

And with tears spilling quietly down his cheeks, Giles finally let pain and despair overwhelm him.


"What're you doin', girl?" Bobby asked Willow. After having soothed the authorities and ensured none of them thought that they'd had anything to do with the conflagration, the elder hunter had joined her and her boyfriend in the library.

The teenaged girl had various ingredients spread across the center table. "I'm trying again."

"Trying what?" Oz wondered quietly.

"The spell."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," Willow stated definitely. "I just need another Orb of Thesulah."

"I got one out in my truck," Bobby offered. "Been using it as a paperweight."

The redhead nodded and, with Oz's help, began once again preparing the curse to cleanse Angel's soul.


"Whistler?" Buffy called as she charged into her Watcher's apartment. A clank from the kitchen answered her. When she looked over, she found the immortal whatever-it-was pulling a bottle from the refrigerator.

"You know, raiding an Englishman's fridge is like dating a nun," he said as he popped the cap and rounded the counter. "You're never gonna get the good stuff."

As Sam hobbled through the doorway, the Slayer marched over to Whistler and poked him in the chest. "You have to know more. You have to know how to stop it."

"I can't."

"You 'can't'?" Sam asked disbelievingly. "That means you know and you're just not saying."

Whistler appeared to wrestle with some inner dilemma, his face contorting between swigs of beer. Impatient with his vacillating, Buffy snatched the bottle and threw it against the wall. "Jeez!" Whistler cursed as the glass shattered.

"I'm done with playing nice," Buffy snarled. "Remember earlier when I talked about my new headgear? I'm about to make it a reality."

"Okay, okay!" Whistler cried, his hands thrown up defensively. "Look, if Angel's blood touches Acathla it's game over. Portal opens and we're all screwed. But the monks wrote in a safety clause."

"Which is?"

"He's also the lock. If he goes through it, then it'll close again."

"Fine. I'm down to the last few things to lose as it is." The Slayer whirled on her heel and stomped out.

As Sam began to follow, Whistler called out, "Hey, big guy." The hunter turned, eyebrows lifted.

"She's gonna need you," the thing said quietly. "Don't do anything stupid, now or in the future. It ain't worth it."

Sam, confused, gave Whistler a questioning look before closing Giles' door.


Whistler smiled slightly as the Impala's engine roared away. He then hunched his shoulders as a loud, high pitched whine filled the air. Words were couched in the sound in a language no human could comprehend. He understood them readily enough.

Whistler gave a deep, resigned sigh. "Yeah, I know. I told. Get it over with."

White brilliance briefly filled the room. When it was gone, the celestial being that had for centuries called itself Whistler, that had first been known as Sariel, was gone.


Half an hour later, Sam brought the Impala to a slow stop at the base of the long, hilled driveway at the bottom of Angel's mansion. He looked up at the sun cresting over the horizon. "If we're lucky, they'll be waiting until tonight to do anything."

Buffy gave her brother a withering look. "Have we ever been lucky?"

"Uh, nope."

"Let's go."

Sam popped the trunk and armed himself with a few bottles of holy water and a shotgun full of salt rounds. Buffy withdrew Ruby's knife from her jacket and grabbed a machete. A stake, as always, was already tucked into an inside pocket.


"We ready?" asked Willow from her corner of their triad on the floor. The spell's ingredients and the Orb of Thesulah were in the middle.

"Stinky herbs are a go," Oz replied. "Did I mention I never took Latin?"

"Don't need to understand it," said Bobby. "Just need to say it right."

"If you say so."


The vampires and demons were gathered together in the living room to witness the opening of Acathla. Lilith bounced up and down on her toes while holding the hand of her precious Aunt Drusilla. Spike, for all appearances bored, sat as close as possible to the grotesque carving without being an interference.

Angelus approached Acathla, a nondescript knife in one hand. His breath quickened in anticipation as he placed the blade in his palm…

…And stopped when a shotgun blast erupted behind him. A demon, back shredded, slid across the floor.

His eyes snapped away from the yelling hellspawn to the source of the noise. The blonde bitch and her remaining brother stood triumphantly in the open backyard doorway. "Hello, lover," she uttered.

Irritated, Angelus snapped, "I don't have time for you."

"You don't have a lot of time left."

The vampire smirked. "Coming on kind of strong, don't you think? You're playing some deep odds here. Do you really think just you two can take us all on?"

"No, I don't."

Something hard struck Angelus in the back of the head. Through the stars he could make out, barely, a familiar, traitorous, bleach blonde head preparing to whack him again with the rusty andiron in his hand.


Buffy dusted vamps left and right while Sam took care of the demons. What worried the hunter was Lilith; the little girl was standing calmly on one side, her face bright with interest, just observing the proceedings as if it was a particularly lively cartoon. The minute that she decided to enter the fray Sam knew that the odds would shift considerably in the monsters' favor.

Spike, meanwhile, lay blow after blow on Angelus. His grandsire had retreated to a fetal position with his hands protectively over his head. "Painful isn't it?" Spike asked triumphantly right before Drusilla tackled him from the side.

The lovers squared off. "I don't want to hurt you, baby," Spike warned.

His lover responded by grabbing his throat and shoving him against the wall. Their strength was evenly matched, psychic powers aside, which could have made the ensuing struggle a challenge. Drusilla, however, severely underestimated how much her lover had healed. Spike, sneering, broke from her grip and punched her unconscious. "Doesn't mean I won't," he said down to her.


Willow began the chant and cast the bones in her hand towards the brazier. "Quod perditum est, invenietur…"

Wary, both Oz and Bobby kept their eyes on the girl. So far so good. Nothing untoward was occurring, but nothing magical had shown itself either. The two men glanced at one another, doubt writ large on their expressions.


Angel shook his bruised head and stumbled to his feet. He snatched up his blade and turned towards Acathla, intent on completing the ritual, only to find Lilith standing right in front of the statue.

"Move," snarled the vampire.

"No," she replied cheerfully.

"Excuse me?"

"Silly goose," giggled the demon. "I haven't gotten everything ready!"

"For what?"

"The Apocalypse."

"What are you—" Comprehension dawned. Enraged, Angel advanced on Lilith, fists clenched. "You've been playing me this entire time!"

The girl's face darkened. "As soon as I heard you had found Acathla, I knew you'd be a big meanie and mess up all my plans. That's why I let the Slayer and your stupid Spike interrupt you. And now," she hissed, her eyes rolling far, far back to show only a pearlescent white, "you all die."


Finally, the last of the vampires were dust and the demons down or fled, leaving only Angelus and Lilith to defeat (Spike having scooped up Drusilla and vanished). Except, to Buffy and Sam's astonishment, they were apparently about to kill each other.

The sight of her one-time love about to be destroyed by the demon had Buffy's heart wrenched in two. In the end, she let instinct drive her. One moment the two monsters were prepared to rip each other apart, the next saw the Slayer throwing herself at Angelus and driving the two of them outdoors.

Pouting, Lilith looked around, her eyes back to normal. When she caught sight of Sam, her face lit up. "Oh, goodie! I can at least get rid of you."

The demon's hand shot out. A painful white light filled the air. Sam shouted reflexively in shock and threw his arms up protectively, certain that he was about to be obliterated.

Except he wasn't.

The light faded and a flabbergasted Lilith dropped the porcelain doll in her hands. Sam recovered quickly and took a step in her direction. "Back!" she shrieked. He continued on.

Seeing her advantage lost, Lilith took the easiest escape route. The little girl's mouth opened and black smoke poured out. It swirled for a moment on the ceiling before escaping through the chimney. Lilith's vessel collapsed onto the floor.

The little girl was merely unconscious, much to Sam's relief. He lifted her in his arms just as two disheveled adults inched their way out from the hallway. With a cry, the woman rushed forward to take the girl from the hunter's arms.

Sam spared a glance for the violent hand to hand bout between Buffy and Angel before telling the family, "Get out. Hurry." They spared a second to express their gratitude before pelting to the front door.

The hunter began to move to help his sister and stopped. In an adjoining room sat Giles, beaten and ignored, tied hand and foot to a dining room chair. Sam hurriedly limped over to free him.

"Sam?" the Watcher groaned.

"Yeah, Giles, it's me. Hold on a sec."

As Sam sawed through his bonds, Giles despondently moaned, "You're not real."

"Come again?"

"It's a trick. They get into my mind, make me see things I want."

The last of the ropes fell away. Sam hauled the older man to his feet and asked, confused, "Then why would they make you see me?"

Giles blinked. "You're right. Let's go."


Oz worriedly watched Willow falter, her voice stuttering over the lines. "Hey, maybe we should stop," he urged as she swayed. Her chin dropped down to her chest.

"This might be too much," Bobby added. "Don't want you gettin' hurt." He put a hand on the girl's bicep and shook the limb gently.

Suddenly, Willow's head snapped up and then jerked back into place, her eyes wild and her face now framed in shadow from her straight red locks. "Te implor, Doamne," she uttered harshly, "nu ignora aceasta rugaminte…"

"Is this a good thing?" Oz asked Bobby. The elder hunter opened his mouth, wordless, and shrugged.

"Hell if I know."


They'd been exchanging blows for who knew how long; minutes, hours, days. Buffy was approaching the limit of her strength, sapped down to her reserves by the horrors and losses of the past two days. Her big brother was gone. Her mother had rejected her. The love of her life wanted to destroy the world.

With a great, desperate heave, the Slayer grabbed her opponent's lapels and threw him through the glass doors. They shattered around him, shards flying every which way. Buffy noticed too late what would be wrought by her move.

Angelus grabbed a large shard of glass and sliced his palm. As Buffy rushed inside to stop him, he gleefully headed to Acathla and slammed his bloodied hand onto the statue's face.

The floor shook and rumbled. From the center of the figure a small, swirling black and red vortex appeared. It swiftly grew in size.

Angelus turned to the Slayer and his smirk cut her to the bone. She should have let Lilith kill him. She should have killed him after they'd defeated he Judge. She should have killed him the first time she discovered he wasn't human.

Now it was time to rectify those mistakes.


The floor quivered underneath them. Oz and Bobby looked about worriedly. "Uh," the boy started to say.

"Son," Bobby said, "maybe you should leave."

"I'm not leaving her. Or you."

The elder hunter nodded approvingly before the two resumed their watch over the magically possessed Willow.


A stake was in her hand and Angel was finally on the defensive. She kicked him hard in the face and again grabbed him, ready to toss him into Acathla's rapidly growing maw.


"Acum!" Willow shouted as the Orb of Thesulah began to glow brightly. "Acum!"

The mystical sphere vanished. Willow glanced blearily from Oz to Bobby before falling over in a faint.


A bright gleam shone behind Angelus' eyes, there and gone again before Buffy could blink. All of a sudden he stopped struggling, his body limp in her hands. As the vampire tried to stand on his own, his eyes incongruently filled with tears. "Buffy?" he whispered.

She let him go, her eyes wide. Immediately Angel wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on the shoulder, on the neck, on her cheek between sobs. "I feel like I haven't seen you in months! Everything's so muddled…"

"Angel…?" she wondered softly. No. It couldn't be.

He leaned back only to gasp in shock. "You're hurt," he said, gently touching a bruise on her face that his own fist had inflicted not five minutes before.

Buffy closed her eyes and sighed deeply. After everything, after losing so much, here was something that had come back. She would never let him go, no matter what. As long as they had each other, it would all be okay. They clutched one another desperately, tearfully…

Except the Slayer could see quite clearly the swirling portal of death that had been opened to swallow the world.

The illusion of serenity, of gain, broke into a million fragments. Buffy leaned back from the love of her life to look him in the eyes one last time. "What's happening?" Angel asked, the pull from Acathla tugging at his coat.

She put her finger gently on his lips. "Shh. Don't worry about it."

They kissed.

"I love you," she murmured.

"I love you," he answered.

"Close your eyes."

Angel complied.

And she shoved him into the vortex.

Before he vanished, she could see quite clearly the shock, the confusion, the heartbreak on his face. Then Acathla's opening disappeared and took with it her heart.


Her friends and Watcher would get one final text message of farewell and a warning not to come looking for her. Her mother would find a note, her phone, and an emptied room.

Sam took Dean's seat in the Impala. Buffy took Sam's.

Then, certain they would never be back, the two siblings drove away from Sunnydale.


Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode "Becoming, Part II" (BtVS 2.22).

Author's note : Sariel is the name of an angelic watcher. I just picked it because, you know, Whistler being all observer like and the name hasn't (yet) been used in Supernatural. And I totally proved philly cheese dude's theory.