A/N: See, it's up today, like I promised! Hope you like it!

********** Buffy was woken up early the next morning when the phone rang. Groaning, she crawled out of bed to answer it. She hadn't gone to sleep until very late the night before, and she wasn't very grateful about being woken up at 4 in the morning.

"What?"

She was shocked to hear Xander's frantic voice at the other end of the line.

"Buffy, they've got her."

"What? Who's got who?"

"Anya. You know those Mohra demons you supposedly killed a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they're back in full force. About 5 of them broke into here a minute ago. They took Anya."

Buffy paused for a moment, taking a deep breath and leaning back against the wall. She'd almost forgotten about those things. She'd thought they were gone, and with all the other bits of excitement she'd had since she'd almost completely forgotten about them.

She could hear Xander's heavy breathing at the other end of the line, and realised he was still waiting for a response. After another moment, she said, "I'll be right over."

*******

10 minutes later, Buffy and Willow were in Xander's living room, trying to make sense of what had happened.

"And they didn't try to come after you at all?"

Xander shook his head. "No. They came in and grabbed her, and when I tried to intervene they just threw me aside."

"They? How many's they?"

"At least 5. Possibly more. And I doubt all of them came."

Buffy turned to Willow, who was standing by the window, looking out at the street below. "Did you see anything when you were researching these things that would point towards them taking Anya?"

"What?" Willow, jumped and tried to understand what Buffy had said. "Um, no. At least, I don't think so. I'm. . . not sure."

Buffy was about to say something about how she should get sure, but then noticed Willow's red eyes, and decided to drop it. "Okay. It doesn't matter." Instead she said to Xander, "Have you told anyone else that she's missing? The police?"

"And say what? That a pack of demons kidnapped her?"

"No, I just mean that Anya's not particularly special, from a demon's point of view. They might have taken others as well. Which means the police will probably have had a lot of unexplained disappearances recently."

Xander nodded, then quickly went to turn on the TV, and, after a few minutes, the article they had been wanting to hear came on.

"Soon after the Californian Police have stated they have made unbelievable progress with Missing Persons claims, there was been a record number of disappearances last night. Several people, all from the Sunnydale area, disappeared from their own homes. These people, including convicts Warren Meers and Jonathon Levinson, Doublemeat Palace manager Manny Hudson, and students Katrina Silber and Tara Maclay, have no connections or reasons why they would have all disappeared on the same night, but all their places of residence showed signs of a disturbance."

"Tara?" Willow said in a weak voice. "They got Tara too." She sunk into a chair next to Xander, her face white. "We have to do something about this. Now."

"But we don't even know why they took these people."

Willow frowned, deep in thought. "There was something about a sacred death needed to start this End of Days thing. Maybe that's why they need them."

"But that doesn't make sense," Xander said. "There's nothing sacred about these people. They're completely random. Like the newsreader said, there's no connection."

"Wait a minute," Buffy said slowly, things starting to come together in her head. "These names are familiar. Katrina Silbur. She's the girl Warren killed." When everyone looked at her, she added, "Not really. On the video. But I caught him before he got the chance. And Manny Hudson. . . he was killed by Wig Lady, but I killed her before she got the chance as well. And Tara. . . Tara was shot by Warren, but I put him in jail, so the events that led up to her death never happened either. These are all people I've saved."

"No Buffy," Willow said, as though she was understanding for the first time. "These are all people who should've died. That's what the connection is, and that's why they're special. They've basically cheated death."

"But Anya," Xander said, very pale. "She didn't die in the video. And neither did Warren or Jonathon, so why would they be taken?"

"I don't know," Buffy said, thinking hard. "I haven't seen any episodes where they should've died, and if I haven't seen it , it wouldn't affect it, right?" After thinking hard for a moment, she said, "I've got an idea."

*******

"I don't know about this Buffy," Willow warned. "You don't wanna end up messing things up more."

"But it could help us solve this thing." Buffy quickly clicked the link on the screen in front of her, and grinned as the Buffy Database loaded in front of her eyes. "I knew one of these must exist somewhere on here. There's everything else, so why not?"

She typed "Warren Meers" into the search box, and waited for it to load. "Here we go. Warren Meers." She scrolled down the page to the bottom, where she wasn't surprised to see it said how he died. "Killed in Villains by Dark Willow."

Willow went pale. "I killed someone?"

"But you didn't," Buffy said quickly. "That's why he counts." She thought for a moment, then said, "Warren never shot Tara, so you never went all dark magicky, right? And if you killed him as Dark Willow in Villains, which is the episode after the one we watched, then that means he's not going to die that way now."

"But what about Anya?"

"Lemme look." Buffy typed Anya Jenkins into the search bar, and a moment later, the results loaded. Buffy scrolled to the bottom. "Killed by a bringer in Chosen while saving Andrew's life. Oh God, I'm sorry Xander!"

"No, it doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head, and avoiding her eyes. "'cause you obviously saved her somehow, or she wouldn't have been taken. Which episode's Chosen? And who's Andrew?"

"I don't know. I've never seen that title before. Oh! But I know who Andrew is. He's one of the Trio. I put him in jail with the other two."

"So I'm guessing that for whatever reason that'll mean that he won't be there for Anya to save when the time comes," Xander said slowly, staring intently at the screen. "That means it's snowballing."

"What do you mean?"

"You only directly saved a couple of people, right?" Buffy nodded, wondering what he was getting at. "Well, because you've saved those people, you've indirectly saved other people. And because you've saved those people, other people don't die either. It just keeps on going."

"But. . . that's a good thing, right?"

"Well, obviously not Buffy," Willow said, "or these demons wouldn't be after them."

Xander turned on Buffy then, staring down at her, his face flushed with anger. "I'm telling you now, if Anya dies because of this I'll never forgive you."

"She would've died anyway!" Buffy yelled before she could stop herself. "At least this way she has a fighting chance!"

"But at what cost? Did you even think of that before you started having your little video fest with your rapist boyfriend?"

"Oh, don't you start on Spike again! It's not as if you haven't done some less than wholesome things on the tapes."

"Guys. . ." Willow said tentatively, her arms trying to come up between the two of them.

"Like what, Buff? What have I done that's as bad as what Spike did?"

"You left Anya at the alter! And don't forget that you yourself tried to rape me once!"

"Guys!" Willow tried again, but nobody was listening to her.

"Don't bring that back up! That was 5 years ago, and I was possessed. It wasn't like I could help it."

"Guys, stop!"

They both jumped, as if they had forgotten Willow was there, then turned to look at her, looking sheepish.

"Guys, I know you're both upset, but fighting isn't helping. Xander, I know Anya's been taken, but Tara has too. You've got to calm down. And Buffy, Xander's just angry about what he saw Spike do. You can't blame him for being concerned about you." She took a deep breath, looking at each of them in turn. "But we don't have time for that right now. Tara and Anya are in danger, and we don't even know where."

"I do," Buffy said, pushing aside all her anger to take her role as leader. "You said this end of days thing was gonna end the world, right?" Willow nodded, and she continued. "Well, there's only one place an apocalypse can go down."

Willow's eyes widened in recognition. "The Hellmouth."

"Right. So I figure I go to the high school ruins, look around, see what's going on down there and how much time we have left."

"You can't do that Buffy," Xander said.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, the high school ruins aren't even there any more. I told you ages ago, Buff. They've started work building a new one on the site. I've applied for a job, remember?"

"Oh, right. Well, then I'll go down to the site, and see if I can still find the spot. It's a Sunday, so there won't be anyone there, right?"

"Right." Willow nodded, and then said, "Do you want me to see if I can find out anything else about this end of days? I know we researched it to death before, but maybe we missed something."

"Yeah. Don't just stick with the end of days though. Look up anything to do with the Hellmouth, or changed time-lines, or interdimensional passages or things involving people who cheated death. There's sure to be something. Get Dawn to help. Just don't tell her they've got Tara and Anya. I need her focused if she's going to be any use."

Buffy turned and started to walk towards the door, only to be stopped by Xander. "You're not planning on going there by yourself, are you? You don't know how many of these things there are."

"That's why I'm not going alone. I'm gonna swing by Spike's crypt on the way."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"And yet I'm not."

"You can't trust him."

"But I do. I doesn't matter what the hell is going on at the moment. . . he'll watch my back." And without giving him time to argue it further, she turned and walked out the door, leaving Xander to stare blankly at the spot where she'd been standing. After a moment, Willow shoved a pile of books into his hands.

"Don't just stand there. Help me research."

Still shaking his head, he made his way to the table and opened the first book. It looked to be about 1000 pages thick, the writing was tiny and as far as he could see, there were no illustrations. *It's gonna be a long day,* he thought bitterly as he started to read.

*******

Buffy stood outside Spike's crypt, taking some deep, supposedly calming breaths. In a minute she was going to go in there and tell him what was happening. He throw a few insults at her, and she'd say he was a pig, then they'd go to the Hellmouth and see what was going on down there. No biggie. But if it was no biggie, how come her hands were shaking so much? And how come she was still standing there, instead of going inside?

She shook her head mentally. She was being stupid. It was just Spike. He'd probably just got himself plastered last night and had already forgotten all about it. Trying to steady her hands, she slowly pushed the door open.

"Spike?" There was no reply. She looked tentatively around, hoping he was just lurking in a corner. But she couldn't see him anywhere. She stepped forward so she was properly inside the crypt, then closed the door behind her.

"Spike?" she said again, this time a little more desperately. She started walking towards the ladder which led down to the underground part, thinking he was just hiding down there. She noticed there were loads of cigarette ends underfoot, meaning he'd done a lot of chain-smoking last night, but there was a noticeable lack of empty bottles, which worried her. If he was as stressed as he had appeared last time she saw him, the Spike she knew would have drunk himself silly so that he could stop thinking about it. And if he hadn't. . . what did that mean?

She climbed down the ladder, and started to look around underground. She wandered over to the bed, and wasn't too surprised to find it was unslept in. She reached forward and gently smoothed down the edge of the covers.

She heard movement behind her and spun round. "Spike!" But it was just a now very surprised rat, scurrying about in search of dinner.

She got more frantic then, searching around for any sign that he was around. His duster lying on a chair, a half drunken bottle of bourbon, his boots tossed carelessly at the foot of the bed. She saw none of this however. There were signs that he had been back, the endless cigarette ends being one, but he obviously hadn't stayed.

She climbed back up into the entrance, and as she looked around one last time, she saw the fridge door was open. She went across to it, and saw all the bags of blood were missing from inside. This confirmed her fear. He had left. She didn't know how long for, but she knew he had gone.

She walked towards the door, and her hand brushed against something on the table as she went. She glanced down and saw an envelope, with the word 'Buffy' written on it in cursive writing. She picked it up, and felt at once that it wasn't just a letter inside. It was far too bulky for that. Curiosity almost got the better of her, but after a violent but brief inner struggle, she put it in her pocket. She didn't have time to look at it now. Her friends were depending on her.

She set of walking again, but stopped at the door and looked back, half expecting Spike to jump out of the shadows and say, "Got ya, Slayer!". But he didn't. Taking one last deep breath, she slowly turned and left.

*******

"I don't know why we've got to go through all these books," Dawn said grumpily, pulling yet another book from the pile towards her. "You've already found loads of stuff about this End of Days thing."

"But we still don't know how to stop it, Dawnie," Willow said, her nose buried deep in another dusty volume, quickly scanning the page as she spoke. "Sure, we finally know details about what's going on, but we don't actually know how to stop it going down."

"Why doesn't Buffy just kill the things? Won't that stop it?"

"Well, I guess, temporarily, but I don't think that'll cut it. There'll be some kind of ritual. Just keep looking."

But instead, Dawn slammed the book closed. "I don't know why I'm even helping. You won't tell me what's going on. You and Xander just keep whispering about fragmented timelines and other stuff I don't understand like I can't hear you or something. And why isn't Anya helping anyway? Why should I do all the work?"

Xander struggled to keep his face calm as he thought of an answer. "Dawn, we already told you, she's working."

Dawn looked around, exasperated. "Working? It's a Sunday! The Magic Box is shut."

"She's doing some accounting," Xander replied, thinking quickly. "You know how she is with her money. Won't trust anyone else with the job."

"Fine," Dawn said, reopening her book with a bang. "But it's still not fair."

*******

Buffy lay flat on her stomach, looking down into the pit below her. The building work was still in its very early stages, and all that she could see that was done was as big gaping hole which she assumed would be the foundations. That or the basement. She wasn't too good at this building thing. If they survived she'd have to remind Xander to explain it to her again. One thing was for sure anyway, and that was the fact that the people of Sunnydale always do a crummy job at everything. Even though the foundations were being put in, there were still piles of rubble and small remnants of walls left standing all around the place. This was good for Buffy, as it gave her cover, but it was bad for the reputation of the building company.

Buffy wasn't really thinking about the building work right then, though. She was concentrating on the mass of demons walking around below her. They all seemed to be Mohra demons, as far as she could tell, and there were hundreds of them. There was no way she could fight them. Not when there were only 4 Scoobies left in Sunnydale, and only two of which had powers. It would be like 1 on 500 combat, which weren't exactly her favourite odds to play.

So now she was lying there, hoping to find some way to stop them that wouldn't get her killed. Rescuing the people had seemed the best bet, but she had already spotted the cage where they were being kept, and it was guarded by at least 20 demons. She could probably deal with them, if Willow pitched in with some spells, but by that time the others would have joined in the fight.

The only other thing she could see that was out of the ordinary about the place was a thin crack somewhere to the left of her, near the cage, where she assumed the Hellmouth was. Nothing seemed to be happening to it though.

She waited several more minutes, and was about to give up and leave, when suddenly one of the demons grabbed someone from the cage and pull them towards the crack. After squinting at him for a moment, Buffy realised it was Manny, the man who should have been killed by Wig Lady. She stared in horror as a demon walked towards where he was held, just above the crack, and slowly and carefully slit his throat. Manny screamed and struggled, but that just made the demons laugh more. Then the demon who held him cut his own hand, and pressed it to Manny's throat, causing their blood to mingle. It didn't cause the wound to heal, like Buffy had expected it to, just made the blood that steadily dripped into the crack shine with a luminous quality. Buffy waited with baited breath, terrified as she wondered what would happen.

She didn't need to wait for long. A moment later an earthquake ripped through the ground, causing the piles of rubble around her to start to topple to the ground. Buffy took this as her signal to go. The information she had just gained wouldn't be much use if she ended up squished under a pile of rubble.

*******

Buffy arrived back at the house an hour later, armed with info about what these demons were up to. It had taken her so long because she had decided to swing by Spike's crypt on the way back, as though he would have magically reappeared since last time she had been there just a few hours before.

She walked quietly into the dining room, to find all three of the other remaining Scoobies sat there, frantically researching. They were searching so hard none of them even noticed her presence.

"Hi guys," Buffy said wearily, sinking into the chair nearest the door.

"Hi Buffy," Willow said, looking up from her book. The lack of a welcoming smile told Buffy that whatever they had discovered since she had left, it wasn't good. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah. We were right about them being at the Hellmouth. I went there and there were hundreds of the things walking around. And by hundreds I mean hundreds. Hundreds of hundreds. Like, army sized hundreds."

"Well, that's not really a surprise, Buff, after what we found out," Xander said, then waved an arm towards Willow as a way of telling her to explain.

"Yeah," she said, nodding as she pushed a few of the books back into a pile. "We found out what they're planning on doing. I found reference to a ritual involving the mixing of the blood of 'those who live eternal' and 'those who live no more' over the fires of hell. It was a spell where vampires mixed their blood with that of their dead victims to make them stronger."

"I saw something like that when I was watching. They killed someone and the demons mixed their blood together and poured it into the Hellmouth. It triggered of this major, localised earthquake. But I don't see what vampire rituals have to do with Mohra demons."

"Well, it got me thinking, and after what you just said you saw, I was thinking right. What if the ritual was modified somehow? So I searched for blood-mixing rituals and found out some stuff about a prophecy. Where the blood of the 'immortal regenerators', the Mohra demons, and the 'ones who live without right', the people Buffy saved, mixes to bring about the end of the world."

"How, exactly?"

"Umm. . ." Willow pulled a book from the pile, opened it at a bookmarked page and began to read. "'And the blood will mix and fall into the caverns of hell every 3rd hour, for three is a magical number, and all the hells will rumble as the blood feeds the beast. Every drop spilled will make the immortal regenerators stronger, as the stolen life is drained. On the 18th hour the caverns of hell themselves will open and spill the vampires of old onto the Earth. Darkness will spill from the cavern smothering all in eternal black as the armies of the Old Ones march out to reclaim their Earth.'"

Buffy frowned, confused. She wasn't any good at understanding this cryptic stuff, even if it was very basic. "So. . . what does that mean?"

"Basically, every 3 hours, the demons bleed somebody, mix the blood and pour it into the Hellmouth, which makes the demons stronger. After 18 hours the Hellmouth opens, the world becomes dark and the ancient vampires come out and make the Earth theirs again, like it used to be.

"The ancient vampires?" Dawn asked, confused.

"Yeah. The vampires that were around before they mixed their blood with humans. They're like. . . UberVamps. The vampires that vampires were made from."

Dawn nodded her head, her mouth making a little 'oh' shape as she tried to image a vampire that wasn't part human. She furrowed her brow as she imagined what they must be like. *Woah,* she thought. *And I thought Angel was ugly.*

"So, how do we stop it?" Buffy asked. On seeing their guilty faces, she added, "You have worked that one out, right?"

"Not exactly. It says everywhere I've looked that once the ritual is started it's unstoppable. I have one idea though, but it's risky."

"Okay, spill."

"No, give me some time to research it a bit more. I don't like it, but if it's the only way. . ."

"Right," Buffy said. She put her hands in her pockets, and was surprised to feel the envelope she'd found at Spike's there. She'd forgotten about that. Standing up, she said, "I'm just gonna go upstairs, catch a few Zs. If I need to fight these guys, I'm gonna need to keep my strength up."

*******

Buffy flopped down on her bed, then carefully opened the envelope. A single piece of paper fluttered out. Buffy looked at it, hoping to find some explanation about where he'd gone, but all it said was:

Gone on a mission, Will hopefully have a surprise if I return.

I'm sorry for what happened, and hope you can forgive me.

See you soon,

Spike.

Annoyed that it hadn't explained anything apart from the fact he was planning on coming back, Buffy looked in the envelope, hoping to find more. All she found, however, was a tape. She pulled it out, and looked at it. The words on the side that would have told her the title of the song were so scratched she could only see a few letters, so she apprehensively went and put in her cassette player and pressed play. As it was one of Spike's tapes, she was expecting it to be heavy rock music or something equally stupid, and was surprised when she heard the sounds of a piano playing as the song started. She didn't recognise the singers, *Probably some weird British group,* she decided, but went back and sat on her bed to listen anyway.

#What have I got to do to make you love me? What have I got to do to make you care? What do I do when lightning strikes me, And I wake to find that you're not there?#

*Oh great,* Buffy thought. *Just what I need right now, to get even more depressed.* #What have I got to do to make you want me? What have I got to do to be heard? What do I say when it's all over? Sorry seems to be the hardest word.# #It's sad, so sad, It's a sad, sad situation. And it's getting more and more absurd. It's sad, so sad, Why can't we talk it over? It always seems to me, Sorry seems to be the hardest word.#

Buffy started to cry then. The song's tone was so sad, and all she could see in her mind's eye was Spike on the video before *it* happened, trying to tell her he was sorry. And what had she done? Told him to get lost. No wonder he had gone, if she was such a bitch to him. #What have I got to do to make you want me? What have I got to do to be heard? What do I say when it's all over? Sorry seems to be the hardest word.# Another voice came in then, and she thought it was Elton John's. In fact, now she thought about it, she vaguely recalled hearing a different version of this song long ago, with just him singing it. But that made her remember her Mom playing it in the car the night that Spike had attacked the school during Parent-Teacher night, and that just made her cry harder.

#It's sad, so sad, It's a sad, sad situation. And it's getting more and more absurd. It's sad, so sad, Why can't we talk it over? It always seems to me, Sorry seems to be the hardest word.# Buffy was curled up in a ball now, crying harder than she could remember doing since Angel had told her he was leaving. She had felt so lost then. And now she was lost once more, another man leaving her, *literally*, for her own good. So yeah, Buffy was upset. And yeah, Buffy cried. Because crying's what makes you human, and at that moment, Buffy didn't feel that at all.

#What have I got to do to make you love me? What have I got to do to be heard? What do I say when it's all over? What have I got to do? What have I got to do? When sorry seems to be the hardest word.#

********** The song was Sorry Sees To Be The Hardest Word, written by Elton John, and the gorgeous version I was thinking of while writing this was the version performed by Blue and featuring Elton John. Okay, the next and final chapter's up tomorrow, and then there'll just be the epilogue. And I'm a fluffy Spuffy writer, so THIS WILL HAE A HAPPY ENDING! Have a nice day everyone, and please review!