A/N: Sorry this one is so short. The next and final chapter will be longer.
Another week later, the four spellcasters got the call they'd waited for. Bess asked them to meet her at Buffy's grave. Each brought the items Bess requested: ceremonial knives, goblets and healing herbs. They walked quietly through the woods toward the site they all knew so well. As they entered the clearing, they were surprised to see Spike kneeling on the grave, his head resting on the gravestone.
"Slayer, you can't leave me forever," he said quietly. "I've saved you every night since you died - and there's no one here to save me. I'm dead...but I have no reason to go on with this life, such..." He choked off the last word as he jumped up, having heard the others enter the clearing. "So what are you blokes up to?" he asked, resuming his customary swagger.
"Something you can't be a part of," Giles said crisply.
Spike walked around the group. "Knives...goblets...herbs...the urn of Osir...THE URN OF OSIRIS? ... all that's missing is blood and you could do a res..." Spike's voice trailed off. "Bloody hell. You're going to do it, aren't you?"
Bess stepped from behind the Scoobies and gave Spike a long, evaluating stare. He returned it, slightly confrontational.
"What?" he said. "You can just sod off if you think I'm leaving."
"You love her, don't you?" Bess asked. Willow leaped to deny it, followed closely by Giles.
"I did. But she's not here," Spike said flatly.
"We could use a fifth person for the spell," Bess said to the others.
She turned back to Spike and asked, "And if I'm not mistaken, you're a vampire, no?"
Spike vamped briefly to answer her question.
"A demon would have a good connection to the spirits," Bess said thoughtfully. "And we need those who care about her - or care about those who care about Buffy."
"Well, what do I have to do?" Spike said.
He turned and glared at Giles, who was glaring at him after his admission of love for Buffy.
"What, you let the poof be with her, and look how THAT turned out!" he retorted. "I'm not leaving if there's anything I can do."
"I've been thinking about it, though," Spike said to Bess and the others. "What if she's happy where she is? What if her soul's in heaven, not in torment? After all she's done, surely the powers would let her have her reward."
Willow tapped her head. "She's not anywhere, Spike, but here, remember?" she asked. "I have her essence in me. Her body has only been in the grave - everything else has been with me. This isn't resurrection - it's reanimation."
"I'm in," Spike said. "What do we do?"
Bess instructed them to dig down to the grave and open the casket.
"Been awhile since I've seen one of these from this angle," Spike said, tossing out another shovelful of dirt. They finally hit the white casket. Willow gulped hard as she stood next to Spike in the hole.
"I can't, Spike," she said. "What if she's...decayed?"
"Happens," Spike said He reached down, taking a deep not-needed breath himself, and carefully undid the lid and opened it. He dropped to his knees at the sight. Buffy hadn't changed a bit. Perhaps some benevolent force had been at work, but no decay had touched her body in the months underground.
"She...she looks the same," Willow said softly, looking up at the others standing above the grave.
"Come up, you two," Bess said. Marking a pentacle around the casket with salt and Buffy's grave at its center, she instructed the others to take up positions at each point. Giles stood directly across from Bess; Spike took up the position between Giles and Bess with Willow and Tara across from him.