"What do you mean gone?" Piper asked shocked.

"There gone, as in I no longer have them." Buffy groaned leaning against the wall for support. "Damn you hit hard." She said turning to Cole.

"But how?" Paige asked.

"Someone drugged me, last night. It all started to make sense, my arm hurting, the demons seeming stronger. It was just like last time." Buffy explained pausing at their confused looks.

"This happened to you before?" Chris asked confused.

"Well you see there's this drug, if you inject the slayer with it she becomes powerless. The council, they use it to test the slayer when, I mean if she makes it to eighteen. Basically they take away your powers without telling you what's going on and then lock you up with a crazy drugged up Vampire. If you live, you pass." Buffy explained.

"And if you fail?" Paige asked nervously.

"You die and they have a new slayer." Buffy shrugged.

"How can they do that?" Piper asked furiously.

"I wasn't thrilled myself." Buffy replied. "But it does give us some information."

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked.

"Well, the drug only lasts about a day or two." Buffy began. "And the way I see it Gideon wants to do to me, what I did to him."

"So, we should expect an attack any minute." Leo said nodding.

"What the hell is going on?" Chris demanded.

"So it looks like I get to be the one to die again, yeah me." Buffy said ignoring his question. "You three should get everything you'll need to vanquish the source, just in case."

"Were not going to let you sacrifice yourself." Leo began.

"Because, it's your mess to clean up." he replied.

"My mess, what's that supposed to mean?" She asked.

"You broke the rules kid, now it's back to bite you in the ass." He replied.

"Your gonna have to be a little more specific, I broke a lot of rules." She shot back.

"Don't I know it." He laughed. "And I was rooting for you each time. But, this one was big, maybe bigger than even you can handle. But, win this one and maybe you'll finally find what you've been looking for."

"And what's that?" She asked.

"Forgiveness." He replied sinking back into the shadows.

"We might not have a choice." Buffy said frustrated. "I'm not going to stand by and let innocent people get hurt or killed because of me."

"It's not your fault." Leo replied.

"I made my choices Leo, now I have to live with them." Buffy replied insistently.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Leo began.

"You saved my life." Wyatt added.

"It doesn't matter, I had no right." Buffy began.

"It doesn't matter that he was an Elder, he was evil, you stopped him from causing the future to become evil. You saved all our lives." Piper interrupted.

"You never told them." Buffy said softly turning to Leo.

"I just..." he trailed off.

"What's going on?" Wyatt asked confused.

"What do you remember about that day, when Gideon took you, when I killed him?" Buffy asked.

"I remember the attic, and Chris...getting stabbed." Wyatt began uneasily at the memory. "I can remember being in the underworld and scared and then, I remember dad coming and you and I wasn't scared anymore. You fought Gideon and killed him."

"You didn't do anything wrong." Leo repeated adamantly.

"Yes, I did." Buffy replied sadly. "I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyways. I was so angry, I shouldn't have. And all the good I've done, none of it will ever make it ok."

"What is she talking about?" Phoebe asked.

"An act of great evil." Buffy began.

"To restore the balance to the world." Paige said recalling the conversation they had all those years ago in the attic.

"Yes, going after Gideon, killing him, an elder, it wouldn't have been enough." Buffy began staring blankly at the wall. "We had just watched Chris die, you were so angry." She said turning to Leo.

"And taking it out on the attic." Paige said softly. "But, you, you seemed so calm."

"Because, I knew what I had to do. It was all to much, I took all my anger, all the rage I'd built up over the years, at the council, the powers that be, for making me the slayer, for ruining my life, for having to kill Angel, for losing Chris and, I unleashed it all, committing the greatest evil a slayer can." Buffy said emotionlessly.

"You killed a human." Cole replied realizing "but how."

"The dagger, from witch wars." Buffy explained. "Leo stabbed him, taking away his powers, making him mortal, human."

"And you stopped him from hurting anyone else." Chris finished for her.

"No,." Buffy replied. "I didn't do it for the greater good, or anything else that I could think of to justify it, that wouldn't have worked. I brutally murdered him in revenge, for killing you. I didn't even realize it at the time, I had rationalize it in my mind but I know now what it truly was, revenge. You see, I couldn't do it again. The hell god, Glory, she had a human half, part of her curse when she was exiled from her world. His name was Ben, and other than the fact that he was attached to a hell god he was a good guy. But, I could have stopped her by killing him. I couldn't do it. Sometimes I wonder if she'd killed Dawn, or one of my friends, if I would have...if I would have gone to that place again, where I could but, she didn't and I couldn't."

"And now, Gideon wants you to be powerless, to kill you the way you killed him." Wyatt said.

"That's te thing about revenge, it rarely solves anything and usually creates a never ending cycle, unless we end it." Buffy replied.

"How do we stop it?" Chris asked nervously.

"By ending this, one way or another, Gideon and the first are not going to win." Buffy replied determinedly. "Which is why need to be prepared for all outcomes. So you need to be ready to destroy the source if it comes to that."

"I'm not going to let you die." Chris said determinedly.

"Chris." Buffy began but, her reply was cut off by a sudden attack.