A/N ~flashbacks~ are going to be displayed like this ~…….~.
ok I hope you can all follow that if not let me know and I will do my best to fix it. Now on to the story.
Chapter One
Slowly the cloaked figure made her way to the centre of the wastelands. Why had she come back here, after all these years, after all the effort she had put into forgetting everything about her past. Stopping just before the gaping hole of the now-sealed hell mouth, she shook her head. The images were getting stronger, more of them were flashing before her eyes making her remember all she had forgotten.
~ The small red head looked up with tears in her eyes, as she met the hard piercing stare of green eyes. Smiling sadly she took in everything she possible could about her best friend.
"Buffy! If it hadn't been for you I wouldn't have lived through high school. I Love you and I am proud to call you my friend. Tell the others that I love them, and tell Angel……… Tell Angel that I am so sorry for the things that I said, and for being to blind to see what was right in front of me all these years. Buffy you have sacrificed everything for this world, and you always try to do it alone, but you aren't, you have us. I can seal the hell mouth, but to do it I have to make a sacrifice too. So please don't blame yourself and don't think you failed me because you didn't, this is something I am willing to do for the world. Good luck! I'll always be with you"
Willow whispered to her friend.
Watching the fury that was the slayer, try to make her way towards them, made willow fly into action. The red head knew that her whispered words had reached the slayer's ears, and she also knew that she would try to stop them. Turning to Giles she nodded and started to chant.
"Gods of the Heavens I beseech thee, let us close this door forever. Let us take back what is ours, and let the slayer live so that what has been done may be undone. Hear my voice, and answer, take my life so that the world may live to fight another day."
Willow shouted to the heavens before jumping into the very pits of hell. ~
The cloaked figure screamed out in anguish as her hands reached out before her, she had to save willow. Slowly the hazy fog within her mind began to clear, blinking the wetness from her eyes she looked at the spot that her friend had jumped from.
"Willow, I remember, I had tried so hard to forget, and I had. But it's all coming back to me now, and I wish it wasn't."
She whispered to the roaring wind.
~ A sea of blue looked towards her with intensity, making her shiver.
"Spike, what are you looking at? I don't have time for this, get back to kicking some demon ass now!"
Buffy spat at Spike.
"Cor slayer don't go getting your knickers in a bunch. I just wanted to tell you that I…."
"DON'T! DON'T you dare tell me you love me Spike, not now and not ever!"
Buffy screamed, as she slashed her sword across the chest of a very big and very ugly demon.
"But I do Buffy! I always have! Don't you see that? I am trying to show you the man that I can be."
Spike whispered.
" Man? Man? YOU aren't a man, spike. You're a vampire! A demon! You can never be a man again. I don't love you like that, I never did. When I came back from heaven everything was so cold and dead, so I slept with you, it didn't mean anything. You were just convenient and dead, it helped to make me feel more alive. God Spike don't look at me like that, I am stressed right now you know, with the world about to end and all my friends dying, so please just leave it alone."
The slayer huffed as a hand connected with her head throwing her off balance. Spike moved like lightning dispatching the vampire with one punch to the chest, removing its dead heart.
"After all this time, after everything he's put you through, and you've put him through you still love him. What's so great about the great poufter anyways, he's dead as well luv or hadn't you noticed. He could never make you happy Buffy, I thought you had already figured that out."
Spike spoke softly to the slayer standing before him.
"Spike what I do or don't feel for Angel is, don't, don't, God I love him ok I do. I know it my friends know it even if they wont admit to it, and Christ Spike even you know it so why say anything at all. Angel is the only one I have ever loved, and he's the only one I will ever love that way, so please understand that, and just leave this alone."
Buffy said.
"Fine pet I'll leave you to it then, and maybe I'll see you on the other side."
Spike whispered as he turned away to start the good fight once more.
"William"
Buffy whispered. Spike turned towards her.
"What? Pet"
he whispered just as softly trying to hide the tears and emotions threatening to break forth.
"I do love you William just not the way you want me to love you. You've fought beside us for years now, and in my books that does make you a man, a good man William. I am sorry for the things I just said it wasn't right, cause your not that thing anymore, not with a soul at least."
Buffy whispered as a small smile began to lift the corners of her mouth.
"Cor slayer, I always new you cared, now stop turning me in to a ninny."
Spike laughed as he went to make his way to the front lines again with the slayer in tow.
Stepping out into the fray once more the slayer and vampire began to swing and swipe at any demons that came within a 3-foot radius of them. Dancing is what they had both done best. Buffy turned towards Spike as she gutted a small quick demon, looking up just in time to see the thing that had just thrust a piece of wood into Spikes heart.
"Spike"
Buffy screamed, as Spike mouthed her name,
"Buffy"
and crumpled into dust. Tears glowed in her bright green eyes as she watched his ashes be carried away on the raging wind. She never saw the creature coming up behind her and raising its hand and bringing it down hard on the side of her head. Blessed darkness took her as she fell to the ground. ~
The small lone figure who was now known as Elizabeth, sank to her knees, as a never-ending pit of emptiness began to fill her chest. For a feeling of emptiness the pain was excruciating, filling her up and making it almost impossible to breath. Gone, they were all gone now. Willow, Spike, Xander. Xander she never saw or heard his last words, she had been lying in a pool of blood, wishing that it had been her own. Cordy, had been the one to tell her of Xander's demise and the only four words he had uttered before jumping into the hell mouth.
"I am sorry for everything"
he had yelled to the world. Which had been enough for the rest of us that were left. He had been sorry for all the wrongs he had done to his friends through out the years, and it left us with a way to forgive him for those wrongs.
Giles had been the next one to jump, sealing the hell mouth forever, those who knew him, knew that he did it for the world he fought for but most of all he did it for the slayer he had grown to love like a daughter. If it had meant his life for Buffy's he would have always given it freely, and he had finally gotten his chance to save the world and the girl who would always be the daughter of his heart. Rupert Giles last words to his charge before he jumped had been heartfelt, but from a distance because he knew that she would never willingly let him sacrifice his life for the world, when she always felt that it was part of her calling and not his.
~ Buffy listened to Cordelia relay Xander's message once she had pushed herself up from the bloodied ground.
"No not Xander too"
came the choked sob from Buffy. While Cordelia let the floodgates open, and her tears streaked down her face.
"I am sorry Buffy, he was a good man, and that was one of the bravest things I have ever seen. He changed a lot over the years. I am just sorry I only knew the boy he once was and not the man he grew into."
Cordy cried.
"I can see you've changed too, Cordy, for the better. I can understand now why he loves you. I have to get to Giles, I'll see you."
Buffy whispered as she fought to keep the heartache of Angel and Cordy buried deep inside. She moved quickly never looking back at the once Queen C of Sunnydale.
Angel stepped up beside Cordy as she watched Buffy make her way towards Giles.
"Why didn't you tell her, we're not together like that anymore."
Angel asked while never taking his eyes from the small blonde that fought her way to the side of the hell mouth.
"I don't know, I think it has something to do with the fact that its Buffy, and I always had to beat her no matter what the truth actually was. Angel you have to understand when she came into my life, she literally turned it upside down, she was everything I wanted to be and I hated her for it. I think I still do."
Cordy whispered to one of the three men she ever loved. Two of those men where gone now, one years ago, and the other one only about twenty minutes ago. She just hoped that she wouldn't live to see the last of her loves leave this world as well. The man beside her didn't say anything, there wasn't really anything he could say, and this was a pain that she would have to work out on her own.
Buffy stood in front of Giles, the only thing separating them was the hell mouth.
"Giles please don't do this! I need you!"
Buffy whispered with exhaustion etched on her face. The man that was her mentor and the father she always wished for stared at her. The look was filled with desperation and pleading, as the world was falling down around them.
"Buffy its… it's the only way I fear"
Giles said to his slayer.
"Giles NO! We'll find another way "
she yelled.
"Buffy please! We have a responsibility to the world. it is the only way. You have to keep fighting, I know you can stop this"
the watcher whispered. Her mind was going into over drive, as she looked around at all the carnage and destruction, trying to find a way to change it without Giles doing the most incredibly stupidest and noblest thing.
"When did everything change Giles? When did we start losing more then we were actually winning?"
"I don't know Buffy, I just don't know"
he whispered, while taking his glasses off to wipe them.
"That's so like Giles to go and do the Giles'y thing, even in the heat of a battle"
Buffy thought, as a small smile crossed her lips, during the gesture that was his trademark.
"Giles if you're not here to help me, how am I going to find Dawn? You do remember Dawn don't you? She's about yea high, long brown hair, they came and took her before all this shit started, and we still don't know why?"
Buffy spat sarcastically.
Giles looked at his slayer with compassion filled eyes. She had already been through so much, losing people she loved, losing the girl she had been before becoming the slayer, and fighting evil every night for a world that would never know how often she put her life on the line for all of humanity. Right now the world was having a nasty wake up call, but no matter the outcome the world would still not know what this young woman in front of him had given up for them. No one but the remote few would ever know just what Buffy Summers had done for their world.
"I love you! You are the daughter of my heart. always remember that Buffy and it will be enough to get you through the obstacles to come."
He informed his charge.
"Giles, I don't understand, what obstacles, this is the end of days if you hadn't noticed, its not going to get anymore challenging then this"
"No Buffy, all this is just the beginning, there were a few scrolls that I had been looking into, and the worst is yet to come. But I know you can get through it because that's what you do, you fight and that makes you strong. Remember that. I promise we will meet again."
Giles said. He slowly smiled at his charge and looked at the war raging around him before he started his incantation to seal the Hellmouth.
Buffy watched on in shock as the man she had grown to love gave up his own life for hers. She would fight, because that's what he would want, but after, well after she would do what she wanted to do so long ago, she would quit, whatever the outcome may be she would not be the slayer anymore. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she met his eyes one last time, he didn't speak but his eyes spoke volumes to her own. Somehow he knew what she had just decided but moments ago, and the sadness in that look tore at her heart as he jumped to his death. ~
She found herself laying on the hard ground as she came out of the memory. He had known she would come back, known that she would try to forget, but he had also known that the past would catch up to his slayer, and deep down inside she had known it as well. The future can never be reached with out remembering your past, for it's the past that reflects the paths that the future will hold.
A/N Well that's the end of chapter one, I hope you like it, if not let me know cause I can always fix it and then edit the chapter. Who know I might do that myself cause I am always improving my writing, for some strange reason I love to revise. Well whether you love it or hate it, I just want to let you know that this story is my baby and I have great plans for it, so I hope you read it cause this is just the beginning.