Chapter 40- Goodbyes

-Buffy-

The hotel has become apocalypse center. Willow, Wesley, Giles, Tara and Fred have stopped being polite to the books. They are stacked everywhere on the floor. Willow is generally lying on the lobby floor flipping through no less the three books. Giles and Wes are trading books over the curved desk. Fred is pounding on the computer and reading simultaneously. I actually feel like a slacker. Angel is obsessively sharpening every weapon he owns. Xander and Fred make sure that the hotel is filled with some sort of food every minute of every day because no one here really sleeps. They gravitate to a room just before they drop and sleep for a couple of hours before returning to the books.

I think a lot about what happens if we don't stop this thing. What happens to LA, and then Sunnydale? I've got to make decisions and they are hard ones. I hate the hard decisions. I watch everyone from my corner in the lobby. Fred and Xander are next to the pizza box. Xander's got pieces of pepperoni over his eyes and he's making weird noises. Fred thinks it's hysterical from the way she's laughing. Willow is nearly asleep on her book. Tara, Giles and Wesley are involved in a deep discussion about something they found. Angel and Gunn are doing the weapons thing again. I bite my lip and taste blood. I hate to break up this happy party, sarcastic on the happy, but it's about to get less happy.

I walk up to Xander and touch him on the shoulder. He jumps a couple of feet in the air.

"Holy Batman Buff! Can you make a little more noise with the walking next time?"

I smile at him. "Sorry, Xan, I need to talk to you."

He hears the serious tone in my voice and immediately becomes serious himself. We go down to the training room. I lean against the wall. Xander leans next to me. I rest my head on his arm.

"Xan, you know I love you, right?" I say.

"Hold on, Buff, this sounds a little too much like goodbye and we're not to that point yet." He says.

"Yes, Xander, we are. I need a favor." I smile weakly at him.

He nods, not trusting his voice to say anything. His eyes glisten with tears.

"I'm worried. I don't know if we can win this battle. I mean I've faced odds before, hello hell god, but this girl, if she doesn't like the way the battle is going she can just fold time and take it back. I don't know how to beat that. I don't know if I can win this one. Everyone I know and love is here and they will all be going into battle, except Dawn." I look up at Xander. I know he's already thinking what I'm thinking.

"Xander, I want you to raise her."

The silence hangs over the training room like a blanket. Finally Xander speaks and it comes out a croak. He clears his voice and chuckles a little. "Buff, I'm not even a real grown up, now you want me to make sure she gets to be one?"

I sigh. "Ok, listen, this is the deal. Everyone else out there does magic or has a super hero power, except Gunn and I don't trust him to give my little sister to-"

"And I don't." Xander sounds bitter.

"No, but you have the most important job of all, Xander. The only thing more important to me then saving the world is saving Dawn. That's why I jumped into that portal, that's why I died. Not to save the world, to save Dawn. I can't be there to do what I'm asking you to do, because I have to be here. I have to save the world, again. I want you to save Dawn, for me. And if we all die, get her as far away from LA as possible. Pick a nice little town on the east coast that doesn't have any history of anything bad, but not Maine because they have Stephen King and it's yet to be confirmed but I think he's a demon, of some kind."

Xander laughs. It's a dry harsh sound that doesn't sound anything like the Xander laugh I heard up stairs with the pepperoni eyes. I can tell he's trying to keep from crying. "Are you sure, Buffy?"

"There's no one else in the world I'd rather have raise her, except Mom and we know that can't be." I say.

He nods. "What do I tell her?"

"Nothing, unless you don't hear from us. I'll write a letter for her for you to give her, just in case. If I call and say hey bring the Dawnster up its dinner and a movie night, then you burn the letter, don't ever let her know I was afraid we wouldn't make it."

I hug him and he holds on tightly for a long time. I smile a little, remembering a time he refused to touch me because my skin was cool. It was a long road, but Xander and I got back to where we belong. I only hope I'm around to enjoy it after Vampy Time Fold Immortalness.

We trudge back up the steps to the lobby. Angel looks at me and nods slightly. I nod back. We discussed this the night before in our bedroom. It was the one worry I had going into battle. Now that it's taking care of I can concentrate on saving the world, again.

*

-Angel-

I've been through so many apocalypses, and even caused a few, that there isn't much preparing, personally, that I need to do. I check to make sure my will is in order. Everything I own is left to Buffy, in event that Buffy and I both die, everything goes to Dawn. I consider Buffy my wife, I have since I first gave her that claddagh ring on her seventeenth birthday. Dawn is Buffy's sister and therefore the closest thing I have to family.

Buffy walks in and interrupts my brooding. She smiles softly at me and sits down in my lap. That simple action makes me feel utterly complete and content. It's like half of me has been gone and just returned. I bury my face in her shoulder and sit in silence, holding her.
I don't have any goodbyes to say. Everyone I care about or love will be going into battle with me. If I fall, there's a good chance they will too. There are a few things I need Buffy to know before we go into battle. I whisper softly into her neck, knowing she can hear me.

"I've walked this earth two hundred and seventy seven years, both as a man and a monster. I've seen everything and done many things I wish I hadn't. I have a lot of regrets, but none of them are about things I didn't do. The one thing on this earth I will miss is you. I will miss the way you smell, like vanilla and sunshine, I don't know if I've ever told you that. I will miss the way you move, so graceful. I will miss your laugh and everything that makes you Buffy. Most of all I will miss your smile. I don't miss the sunlight anymore, because when you smile at me, I forget I haven't seen the sun in over two hundred years. It lights up your whole face. I will miss the way you look at me when I first walk into a room, like I'm a dream that just walked into reality. You are the only thing on this earth I will miss Buffy, and if I should fall and you continue to live, live for me. Be my legacy, remind this world, my friends that there was once a vampire with a soul named Angel and that he did some good, I hope, and that he made a difference." My tears drip onto her collarbone and I can tell that she's crying too. She doesn't say a word. She stands up and takes my hand. She leads me to our bed and slowly undresses. Sometimes there just aren't words for this much love.