CHAPTER ONE

Disclaimer:  I decided to fix the disclaimer thing, I'm sure that it was annoying a whole lot of people.  Well, for my Fanfiction creation entitled "Buffy: The Love Goddess," pretty much all of the characters are based on the television series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," produced by Joss Whedon and associates, as well as owned and distributed by Warner Brother's television network.  The concept of Anton, the character of Joshua the Archangel, are of my own visage, but any to all relation between them and the Buffy characters is entirely fiction devised for the sole purpose of people's enjoyment of Fanfiction.

Chapter One

          It really wasn't that tough of a decision.  No, it really wasn't.  The demon witch doctor, who had been a very loyal Glory supporter, had climbed the tower, while Buffy and the others were distracting the insane demon goddess and her scarred and obnoxiously humble henchmen, he had climbed the tower where Dawn, the Key to all Realms, realities, and dimensions, stood, tied and ready to be bled.  He was the one who cut her.  Spike, brave and loyal Spike, had done his best to get to her and stop the insane demon, but he despite his bravery and loyalty to the beautiful blonde Slayer, he was not strong enough.  And the blood flowed.

          Buffy arrived, in the nick of time as they say, only to let five drops, five drops, of Dawn's blood drop to the very spot where Glory intended to return to her home Realm, the Demon Dimension that she ruled with an insane manicured fist.  Glory was dead.  The only way for the goddess to die was for her mortal form, which she was trapped within, to die.  Giles killed Ben.

          Buffy saved her sister, her blood and charge given form, only for the world, the Earth, and all of reality as a whole to still be in danger of being destroyed.  Dawn had figured it out.  The rift would remain open for as long as she lived, for as long as her blood still flowed through her veins.  Buffy had figured it out too.  Dawn came from her.  Buffy was the only original child of Joyce and Hank Summers, and thus the only template for the monk spell casters to use in sending Dawn to her.  Her blood was Dawn's blood, Dawn's blood was her blood.  Dawn might have been the Key to opening the dimensional rift, but Buffy's was the key to closing it.

          Death was her gift.  No, death was not Buffy's gift.  Death was the Slayer's gift.  The destiny of fighting in the eternal struggle of Light and Dark, of Good and Evil, of always killing the things that went bump in the night, of never letting anyone get close, for fear of them getting hurt.  These can weigh on the human soul more than any of guilts and sins of Hell and the world.  Death was the release from it.  Death was the Slayer's gift.  She could now rest.  And rest in peace for the world was safe, and saved by her.  Buffy could not rest.

          Yes, she had saved the world, closed the rift, saved her sister, and made the greatest impact on the world that anyone since Martin Luther King Junior.  Buffy could not rest.  Because, death was not Buffy's gift.  Buffy's gift was to go home.  But she could not go home alone.  No, she would not, could not go home alone.  So Buffy came back.

          Everyone was gathered at the base of the awkwardly constructed tower that Glory's henchmen and her insane victims had helped to build.  The sun was coming up and Spike was trying desperately to hide in the shade of a crate.  Giles, Spike, Xander and Anya, Willow and Tara, and Dawn, coming closer from the stairs, they were all staring at the still and quiet form of one who used to be so full of life and love.

          Willow remembered Buffy telling her about the experience the Slayer had had in the desert with her "guide".  Buffy had been worried that she was losing contact with reality, with the people she cared about, she was afraid that she had lost her ability to love.  The guide had told her that she was full of love.  Willow knew it was true.  She had felt Buffy's love for her as easily, if not more, as she felt her own love for both her lover, Tara, and her best friend…Buffy.  Willow wept.

          Tara hadn't known Buffy as well as Willow had, but she knew the woman behind and inside the destined Slayer.  Buffy was always so full of love, so caring and loving.  Tara smiled at some of the conversations that she remembered having with Buffy.  It was almost like they were sisters, or related somehow, but their only relation was through Willow.  Still, Tara had known the now dead Slayer, and she had loved her, and had felt love in abundant return.

          Xander was crying his eyes out.  Anya was on the verge of tears, but mostly because of the state Xander was in.  Anya, once Anyanka the Demon of Vengeance, the Woman's scorn, the bearer of the power of the Wish, now normal human Anya, fiancée to one Xander Harris, held by the man she loved, as he cried yet again over the loss of another Summers woman.  Anya knew Buffy, but like Tara, mostly through Xander and the fact that he admired and respected her.  Anya would miss, terribly miss the blond Slayer.  She felt the ache even worse than what she felt when Joyce, Buffy's mother died.  Slowly, the tears fell.

          Spike was the worst.  Out of all of them, he had the least reason to be there, the least reason to be crying over a human, the Vampire Slayer at that, and the least reason for still being alive.  He had only one reason for all of that and so much more.  He had loved.  Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer.  He met her when she was 16 years old, and already she could kick his ass.  And he was 218 years old.  Every time they fought, or danced as he had called it, he felt something more.  To the demon that was his human body now, it was foreign and strange.  To what was left of his humanity, it was a long forgotten and buried dream.  When he could no longer even throw a punch without more pain than even he could stand, the Slayer, the bloody Vampire Slayer, took pity on him and showed him a side of her life that as an enemy, he had never seen.  The life with her friends.  How she cared, respected and loved for them touched that part of him that was still even capable of love, of loving and set a spark to it.  It went up brighter than a Roman candle, but lasted far longer.  He fell in love with her.  It was slow at first, and it didn't take a genius to see it, since it was Dawn, the youngest, who had figured it out first.  Buffy was both repulsed and overtly repulsed by the concept, simply because of the man he once was and what remained of the vulgar insensitive vampire.  But she respected him, as a person, as a man, and as somebody that loved her.  He told her as much.  She only smiled in response.

          Xander.  Alexander Harris.  Alexander Leville Harris.  It's a stupid name.  It's a stupid world that named him.  Xander was crying.  He didn't think he'd ever be able to stop.  'Why?  Why?  Why!!!' he screamed at the universe.  It's not fair!  It just isn't fair.  This isn't right.  Buffy's the hero, she's not supposed to die.  She already died at the hands of the Master, and he and Angel had been able to bring her back.  It wasn't fair that he couldn't do the same again.  Xander cried.  Then, he stopped.  Something inside him demanded justice.  But justice from what?  The rift had been opened, and Buffy had jumped in herself, to stop Dawn from being the one who died.  So who to seek justice from.  Wait, was it justice, or vengeance?  No, it was justice, and from what Dawn and Spike had said so far, Xander knew exactly where to get it.

          Giles looked up as Xander broke away from Anya and ran into the tower complex, obviously looking for some thing or some one.  Giles didn't care.  Everyone was right about him, he was a killer, and he knew it.  Giles had loved Buffy as he did a daughter, and he felt as if he had just lost that daughter, and spat on her grave.  He had killed Ben when Buffy had spared him.  He had killed to protect her and the world.  No, he had killed because the 'Ripper' in him wanted to lash out at the beast that had tormented Buffy and the double faced friend who had stabbed them all in the back, just to save his own hide.  Giles was the only one not crying.  He would never cry, at least not in the light of day, nor in the shadows of night.  If he would cry, he would cry alone.

          One other looked on and cried fresh tears at the sight of the bruised and broken body of the blond Slayer.  She had known Buffy the longest out of all of them, but again, she had been with her the least.  Dawn, the Key, Buffy's sister, all alone in the world, sank to her knees by Giles, the surrogate father figure in both girls' lives, and wept the longest and hardest of them all.  She was alone, as Buffy had been.  But as Buffy found out, she still had the others.  She told Giles and the others Buffy's final message, and told them all that had happened to her, and how Buffy had looked as she saved Dawn's life, taking the leap for her, and from her.  Dawn loved her sister.

          Buffy loved her sister.  More than enough to give her life for her.  More than enough to give everything up for her.  More than enough to be her sister.  So now that Buffy had done all that, why did she still feel like she could give even more because of the love of her sister.  Come to think of it, how could she feel anything at all, or think anything at all.  She was dead.  She had jumped into the rift, the surges of power had knocked her senseless, unconscious, and supposedly killed her.  After that, the five-story drop to the ground should have finished the job.  So why was Buffy feeling like she was still alive?

          The answer came very shortly to her, as she materialized in a flash of red, pink and gold at the foot of her grave.  The dirt couldn't have been a week old, and the ground was undisturbed.  It was morning, as far as she could tell.  The marker read;

Buffy Anne Summers

1981-2001

Beloved sister

devoted friend

She saved the World

A Lot

          Buffy smiled at the ending personalized statement.  She figured Xander must have come up with it.  Willow wouldn't have minded, and might've even given a laugh over it.  But Buffy knew what this meant.  What she didn't understand was why she was here, seeing it.

          There were fresh flowers around and in front of the headstone.  Some violets, some peach flowers and pink roses, and one black rose, directly over the grass covered grave itself.  Right below that was a ring.  She immediately recognized it.  It was Angel's ring, the ring that he had given to her, the ring that she had given up and that had brought him back from hell, because it represented her love for him.

          Suddenly, Buffy sensed something.  She turned and saw four people walking towards her, towards the grave.  Her heart wept as she saw Dawn, Willow, Tara, and Xander walking side by side.  Despite the fact that she desperately wanted to console them, she did not want them to see her, or hear her.  She only wanted to watch them, as the ghost she was.

          Willow looked up, thinking she had seen someone standing in front of Buffy's grave.  For a second, as she had done many, many times in the past two weeks she thought she had seen Buffy.  There was a brief flash of pink and red, and then there was nothing.  Just the willow tree that Giles had insisted she be buried by, and the lonely grave marker, written with Xander and Dawn's memorial message.  She still felt a warmth of a laugh every time she thought about the message, "She saved the world a lot."

          She smiled briefly, yet it was only briefly, and Tara held her hand a little tighter.  Willow squeezed back, maybe harder than she should have, since she was holding Tara's previously injured hand, getting the cast off only three days ago.

          Xander had his arm draped over Dawn's shoulder, both were walking soberly, as they always did when they came to visit Buffy.  Dawn sometimes came in the night, to talk with Spike, who rarely ever left the site except for the daytime.  Xander came with Anya, and also spoke with Spike.  The two, since the tower, had developed something of a repertoire.  They no longer hated and despised each other.  Rather they resented the other and felt a growing kinship, which expressed itself through often dangerously involved barbs and jibs.

          As they came to the gravesite, They each laid one rose, all next to the others at the headstone.  Xander, yellow, Dawn, white, Tara, pink, and Willow, blue.  The only non-natural rose color.  Willow always left an enchanted flower of some kind.  Never an ordinary one.  The group, sometimes with more, today with only these, came every week, and might've continued doing so, if not for the following events.