As the group of humans made their way home like a herd heading back to their pen the vampire stood, a brown lump on the flat street lined by suburban homes, watching them go. Finally, realizing something was awry, they stopped.

"Spike?" Buffy asked.

"Hey, don't worry about him, you know Vampire's, aint no telling what thought isn't running through their heads." Xander said.

Buffy walked towards him, concerned, "Is everything alright?"

"I'm a bit pissed you're actually going to show up for the gunfight."

"It's all a part of the schedule." She joked, but looking into her eyes Spike saw something dark and familiar.

"It doesn't have to be."

"Huh?"

"This demon, this cow jerkoff that gets his wet dreams from riding horses and wearing giant hats, he isn't dangerous."

"I have a few bruises and know a vampire rag doll that would disagree."

The sun's rays had begun to reach out and brush the area where Spike was standing, very small streams of smoke began to snake off of the cover.

"Spike..." She said, concerned, "Let's go inside."

"No."

"Spike, this isn't the time. I'm tired, I'm bruised, and I don't have time to sort out your problems, we'll do this later."

"When you're dead? He's going to kill you. I can feel it in my heart I -"

"What heart?"

Spike grabs Buffy's shoulders, his brown coat beginning to sizzle as a piece of bacon sizzles when being cooked in the morning. Xander makes a move to intercept but Giles holds out an arm and shakes his head.

"Oh no, screw that. Spike's way out of line, this isn't the time for one of his hissy fits."

Spike, with hearing range, becomes enraged, his face turning into the bumpy fury of the Vampire, "You shut up boy! I get it, you have issues with power because you have none. Now back the hell off. I fought with you, all of you, even when Buffy was dead. I understand I'm a vampire but if you don't give me the benefit of the doubt here you're not even human."

"Spike, we have to get you out of the sun."

"If I burned would you? Would it take my ashes to finally wake you up from your eternal slumber? If you go like you are you're going to die. If you watched my pale skin catch fire like slips of paper thrown in on the barbecue, would you care? Do you want to find out?"

Spike threw off the coat, the climbing sun catching passionate flames on his skin. Buffy shrieks.

"How long do you think I have before the sun rises? I wonder if it's enough time to say what I have to. Buffy, this cowbloke only wants you. If you leave he's not going to go after sunny dale, or innocents, or whatever the hell it is you go on about. He isn't the darkness, but, I see it inside your heart. I told you once that every slayer has a death wish and your genie is getting ready for the third go around and you're not coming back from this one."

The fire exploded into existence on the back of Spike's hand as the sun's rays hit it in its path of ascension; Spike cried in pain for only a moment before he swallowed it; the fire in his hand became a little mole hill instead of the flaming mountain, "Let's go Buffy, let's just go."

"Spike," Buffy said, stifling her own kind of pain, "Please, don't do this. You're killing yourself."

"No Buffy, you're killing me. If I see you die again whatever bit of humanity left in me will die. It will burn me up inside like this- GAH!- like this goddamn sun is burning me up now. Come with me," He reached out his burning hand, "Come with me and be alive."

Like how the sun burns hydrogen internally to fuel itself so too did fires combust out of Spike's insides. With a piercing desperate scream Buffy rushed at Spike, grabbed him, and ran with him through the door of the Suburban home they were standing in front of. She began to frantically pat out the flames and then, to what her heart was a desperate eternity, they flickered and died.

"Oh God, you're ok." She grasped him as if actual life itself was housed in his chest, "You almost killed me."

"Well now that's a curious statement, hey, is my hair alright? I've seen some Vampires survive a burning and all their hair, poof, burned right off. Aint nothing uglier than a bald and bumpy."

"You're a jerk."

"So they tell me. And, did I get through?"

"I can't go with you Spike. I can't explain it but I have to see this through. And what's up with you, I thought you were all about the fight you can't win?"

"If I die it's just a body, died before; but if you die, then...not even the sun would be able to light a spark in me. I understand Buffy but...and- I would die for you, I know you know that, but I can't go along with this."

Buffy stands up and brushes the wood and dirt off of her, "I get it. And your hair, still gorgeous."

"Oh yeah, whose bad."