Disclaimer: I don't own them... What a surprise...but I am already working on it :)))))

Author's Note: My mother tongue is not English and gramme sucks even after an eternity of English learning... So you might find a few mistakes :)

Thanks to Kati and Zoé for helping

Spoilers and quotes from NFA

Please, please review!!!!!!!!

"Buffy! You haven't checked the mail. Again!" Dawn shouted as she saw the envelops on the kitchen table while looking for the milk in the fridge.

"Sorry! Had no time" Buffy called back.

"Yes, because you had sooo many things to do." Dawn said under her breath.

"Dawn, please could you help me with these earrings?" Buffy finally came out from the bathroom in an elegant blue dress with matching high-heeld shoes holding an earring in her hand.

"You know, I can kill demons, vampires, save the world, yada, yada, yada, but a small jewelery defeats me." she murmured angrily.

"Than give it to me." leaving her cereals Dawn put them into Buffy's ears with two easy moves.

"So, date with the Immortal?"

"Can't you just call him Thomas?" Dawn rolled her eyes at Buffy's question.

"So where are you going? You look posh." Dawn told her sister.

"Thomas is taking me to a very expensive restaurant to have a nice dinner." The blond said matter of factly while checking her purse.

"Okay. Good for you..." Dawn murmured with a full mouth thinking about delicious foods.

"Will you be all right home alone? Because I can phone Andrew.." Buffy asked her little sister.

" Goddess Buffy! I'm 17! I survived at least three apocalypse, I CAN stay home alone for a few hours!" Dawn snapped at her angrily.

"If there is a problem..."

" I should call you, Willow, Giles or Andrew. The weapons are under your bed. And there is an axe in the kitchen. I know. I know. And I will watch TV. Happy?" Dawn interrupted Buffy with annoyance in her voice.

"Okay, okay... But you still have ten minutes. So you can check the mail" Dawn changed the subject before her sister could say anything and handed her letters and left the kitchen.

Buffy looked through the mail: bill, letter from the council, bill, some geek magazine to Andrew and a letter from...Angel. She recognized his handwriting immediately.Opening the envelop she found a tape in it.

Buffy got angry as she looked at the tape in her hands. What on Earth is he thinking of himself, what does he want with it? If they were a year before she would have watched it right away, but now... After a few seconds she just tossed it on the kitchen table. She didn't know him anymore and he had no right to send her tapes or anything, like he still cared, like he was not the COA of an evil law firm.

Once Buffy had trusted him, loved him more than anything,had given him her heart. But Angel has broken her heart and left her. Now he was playing on the dark side, not caring about fighting the good fight. She had nothing to do with him, he was just another vampire while she was a slayer. And now he sent a tape like he cared, making her care. But no. Those times were over. She left the tape on the table and went into the living room to join Dawn.

"Anything important?" she asked looking up from the TV.

"No, nothing important."

Buffy was sleeping in her bed, being very exhausted, she had a wonderful evening with Thomas. A perfect evening with a nice guy in a beautiful restaurant. What else should she want? But something was bothering her during the evening, something was wrong. Like she should be somewhere else but she couldn't remember where or why. First she thought it was just her annoyance because of Angel's tape but than she realized it was far more serious than that. She just couldn't put her finger on it. And now she was sleeping in her room, or at least was trying to sleep, because the phone was ringing.

"I get it, I get it." come Dawn's sleepish voice than the ringings stopped. "Oh. Hello Willow. Don't you know what time is it... Slow down,slow down... Okay... no... I don't think... Okay, bye. And thanks." and she put down the phone.

"Buffy! Weak up! Willow said... Oh my god!" Dawn's voice came from the living room. It was fearful.

Buffy got out from the bed immediately and run to the living room, where her sister was watching the breaking news on TV. "What is it?" she asked but she has already knew it.

"Los Angeles." The TV showed chaos in the city, people were running on the streets, houses were burning, vandalism and huge, dark clouds on the sky, making the night even darker.

"Willow said it started half an hour ago. Said something about apocalypse and W&H." Dawn looked at her sister.

"Experts say the increasing chaos is the reaction of people to a rare gas that got in to the atmosphere during the earthquake." said the reporter.

"Do we know what happened exactly?" Buffy asked as she sank into the sofa, but Dawn just shook her head. The scene changed on the TV. Now they were shooting from a helicopter above the city.

"Eye-witnesses say that the mayhem started in this alley about 40 minutes ago. They found nobody here just the corps of a young afro-american man. In the background we can see the collapsed building of W&H, the great law firm..." Buffy got up from her seat in a daze, went into the kitchen, grabbed the tape she got from Angel and put it into the video recorder.

"What is it?" protested Dawn, but Buffy didn't bother to tell her just started the TV.

The scene showed a dirty and dark room, perhaps a lobby. Angel was sitting in a chair, smiling while the camera was probably on a table in front of him. He looked tired and sad, but had a determined face.

"Hello Buffy. How are you?" Angel on the tape asked as he smiled, but his eyes remained sad. "Andrew said you are in Rome and with the Immortal. I am happy for you." There was a long pause here and Angel looked away from the camera.

"I am sending you this tape, so you would know why I am doing what I am doing. So you would know I am still the man you once loved. I understand you don't trust me anymore. It's not a problem, no one does. All the things I have done in the last 2 month were necessary, leading to this point. To make me able to show the Senior Partners they don't own us. To make my friend's death count. Doyle's, Cordy's, Fred's. To show there is hope." he smiled weakly.

"You know Spike helps me too. He become a champion. And a friend." Angel said the last words like he himself couldn't believe that he was saying this; than laughed at himself.

"Sorry, this is too much for me too." he was silent for a long time. As he looked into the camera once again his eyes showed everything: pain, hurt, emptiness, being lost and not finding the way out. And a lot more. "I guess it is time for me to finally say goodbye."

" Goodbye."

Angel smiled into the camera, stood up and switched it off. Now the screen changed and it showed a bright, modern office. It was probably taken by a security camera.

It showed Angel as he entered his office and was immediately punched to the floor by Spike-all undead, and in one piece. Wesley, a green demon and a black guy were standing there to, ready to attack him. The black man said something about Drogyn and Fred; Angel killing them. Angel told them if they didn't like it they could leave before he killed them all. They started fighting until finally Angel gained the upper hand and held up a crystal which throw a blinding light around the room. The light faded, but nothing seemed to chang.

Angel told them they have 6 minutes before the glamor wears off, because from outside they are still at each others throats. Angel told them that everything they thought they knew was a lie, he needed something called Blackthorn to believe he was on the bad side, they needed to believe his own people didn't trust him anymore. Angel told them it started 2 months ago when Cordelia kissed him and passed him a vision to put him on the path to the real powers but he couldn't see who they were so when Fred died he decided to use it, to make her death matter. He told his friends that he is in and he knew who the powers in the apocalypse were. He said that the Big Bad may be eternal but they could make its existence painful by stopping their vessel, making the machine halt even if just for a moment.

"This isn't a keep-fightin'-the-good-fight kind of deal. Let's be clear. I'm talking about killing every...single...member of the Black Thorn. We don't walk away from that." Angel told the people in the room.

"Do we crawl away, at least?" the green demon asked him

"We do this, the Senior Partners will rain their whole wrath. They'll make an example of us. I'm talking full-on hell, not the basic fire-and-brimstone kind we're used to." he said darkly.

"We know the drill"

"No, you don't. 10-to-1, we're gone when the smoke clears. They will do everything in their power to destroy us. So...I need you to be sure. Power endures. We can't bring down the Senior Partners, but for one bright, shining moment, we can show them that they don't own us. You need to decide for yourselves if that's worth dying for. I can't order you to do this. I can't do it without you."

The people on the scene stared into space then Spike shaked his head and raised his hand, followed by Angel's other friends.

The scene fades away leaving blackness on the TV screen, but Buffy still stared at it.

"Buffy are you okay?" Dawn asked her in a small voice from far away, but she didn't answer. She just couldn't.