ENDING ONE
"I wish . . ." He paused for a moment, considering his next words carefully. "I wish the chip was out of my head."
"Done."
* * *
Waiting for Buffy to walk into the graveyard took forever but now he had patience. Melina had been able to give him the one thing that no one else had been able to over a hundred and twenty years. Peace. And now he was going to give her peace. Eternally. She was about to dance her last dance. Screw saving the world because you like it. Screw Glory or the sodding Key, she was going to pay. Three is a nice number, and she was the perfect kill to restore his good name. Well vampiric good name. Everyone would think that he was a genius, getting close enough to the slayer to stab her in the back. Everyone but him. He would know the truth. Maybe he'd kill the other slayer in prison, what's her name . . . Faith. Oh and Angel. He definitely had to kill Angel and the scoobies. Wait. No! Leave the scoobies, let them blame themselves for her death. I wonder who the new slayer bint will be. Hope she's cute. Hope that she's in Europe. I feel like going to Spain for a bit. Maybe I'll see my old pals there, get the bragging rights for baggin' this slayer.
* * *
She had been watching him sitting on the tombstone thinking. Thinking deeply. Until his back straightened as he sensed her.
"What are still doing here? I thought I told you to leave town Spike."
"Slayer you don't own me. I can do what I want, when I want. Your not my mum, or girlfriend or even friend for that matter. You made that pretty clear.."
Spike jumped off the tombstone and was inches from Buffy's face. She didn't flinch a muscle. She wasn't even scared. Spike laughed to himself as he watched her.
"What are going to do Spike? . . . Huh . . . Feed me to Dru or Harmony. Oh please! Even they don't want your sorry ass. How pathetic." Buffy scoffed at him.
"Well . . . I just might do this!" Spike backhanded Buffy. She sailed threw the air landing on the ground a few feet away hard. Spike held his head in pain and yelled a bunch of obscenities.
"Spike I'm going to enjoy kicking your ass and then staking your ass." Buffy yelled over his cursing, picking up herself off the ground and advancing quickly on Spike.
A pin could have dropped in that cemetery. As soon as the sentence left Buffy's mouth, his cry and curses of pain stopped. She slowly drew her eyes up to him. She looked at him and he smiled wickedly at her. They were inches apart in distance.
"Look mum no chip." Spike hit Buffy in the breadbasket which doubled her over. As her head swung down, he raised his knee and smashed it into her face. Her head flung back and he dealt her two hard rights to her ribs . Buffy fought off the dizziness and kicked Spike in the groin, he backed away in pain for a moment.
"But how?" Buffy gasped.
"Easy really. It only took your rejection of me and my anger for you to let the Powers That Be, the evil sect, to want me back among their kind. Actually my kind." Spike tried to punch Buffy in the face she blocked his punch and countered with a punch to his nose. Spike staggered back as the words seeped into his mind.
"So now you're going to try and kill me? That's it?" Buffy asked angrily.
"Lesson the second: Ask the right questions. You wanted to know how I beat them." Spike laughed as his foot lashed out, giving Buffy a roundhouse kick which she blocked weakly with her left arm.
She threw punch to Spike's face, but it didn't wipe the grin away. Buffy holding the vampire steady, reached into her coat and pulls out a deadly thin stake. Spike broke her grip and the fight steamed up. Buffy and Spike began throwing punches at each other furiously.
"The question isn't how did I win, it's why did they lose. Should have asked how would I kill the third. But you never thought that far ahead did you? So safe. So secure. You never asked the right questions. But now you are ready to know. You're ready to feel."
Buffy kicked Spike in the stomach. Spike recovered from the blow as Buffy doubled up her fists and hit him with all her strength. He staggered but didn't fall.
"Death is your art. You make it with your hands. That final gasp, that look of peace. I am going to give you that peace, Slayer. Because part of you is desperate to know. What's it like? Where does it lead you? That's also a warrior's question. A warrior's curiosity. I fulfil that curiosity. That is my art. That is my calling. The inevitable has come. So it looks like I'm gonna have myself a real...good...day."
Buffy seething with anger was about to let it erupt. She ignored the pain in her ribs and unleashed an all out assault on Spike, throwing everything at him. She connected a roundhouse kick to his face and his head snapped back as his demon came forward. She continued with a left hook to his jaw and he buckled to the ground. Two more blows to the face and he rolled out of the way of the third punch. He grabbed her swinging arm and twisted it around putting himself at her side. He kicked her midsection and landed two blows to her face. Buffy buckled beside him. He wrenched her arm up and yanked it down quickly. Buffy could feel her the joint in her shoulder dislocate. She cried out in pain.
"It's on you heels baby. And today's the day it's caught you."
"What?" She gasped.
"Death." Spike replied simply. Still having a firm grip on her arm swung her around and her knees crashed into a headstone. Buffy fell to the ground in a massive heap. She lay stunned on her stomach for a second before Spike kicked her in the ribs. She turned onto her back from the force of the blow. Buffy could feel the blood poor into her mouth. Her breathing began to become more of an effort as the blood filled her throat. She swallowed cringing slightly.
"Lesson the third: Death can be bliss. At least yours will be blissful to me."
Buffy looked into his storm blue eyes. The moon finally appeared from behind the night's clouds. Spike watched her face. God she is beautiful. Her hair, her skin. His hand brushed her cheek, gently.
Buffy for a second saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He might not be able to go through with it.
"Oh Buffy, things could have been so different." His demon face slipped on and Buffy panicked. She tried to struggle but it only hurt her more as her ribs ached, as her cartilage tore in her shoulder.
"You won't do this Spike." Buffy told him uncertainly as she tried to read his eyes.
"You know I will." He gripped her chin and turned to view the left side her neck. Spike examined the many bite marks that marred her neck. Three to be exact. The Master, Angel and Dracula. He turned her head to the right and watched her smooth unmarked skin strain ever so slightly. The veins in her neck were pumping blood furiously. Her heartbeat, fast, pounding, deafening.
"Goodbye Buffy." Were the last word that she would ever hear.
THE END